Your Daily Obama Gaffe: Hate Crimes Against Hispanics Have Doubled?

From Mickey Kaus:

Where does Obama get that "hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year"--an alleged increase he blamed on "people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up"? The latest FBI statistics I can find are from 2006, not last year. They show about a 14% increase from 2005, by my calculation. Even the Southern Poverty Law Center only claims

According to hate crime statistics published annually by the FBI, anti-Latino hate crimes rose by almost 35% between 2003 and 2006, the latest year for which statistics are available.

A 35% increase over four years is not "doubled last year."

In the taxonomy of Obama gaffes this is not a 'misspoke' gaffe (uncle liberating Auschwitz) or a dumb idea gaffe (no preconditions for meeting with Iran), but a 'just making sh*t up that sounds good' gaffe.

Don't say he isn't thorough.

Moonbat Journalist (Redundant?) Fails To Arrest John Bolton

Sanity prevails:

The Telegraph newspaper reported that Guardian columnist George Monbiot, a critic of the Iraq war, tried to arrest the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations as he was exiting the stage at the Hay Literary Festival. The Telegraph earlier reported that Monbiot would try to arrest Bolton for war crimes.

According to the article, Monbiot was blocked by two security guards, and Bolton was ushered away even as Monbiot attempted to dart after him once he was released. Monbiot reportedly said he was "disappointed" he was unable to make the arrest.

World's Fastest Shooter

I was showing a friend the famous Magpul flashlight gun video, and he turned me on to this nearly unbelieveable video:

Every movie gunfight will look like molasses from now on.

Your Daily Obama Gaffe: Obama Makes Iran An Offer They've Already Refused

From Barack Obama's campaign website:

Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. Now is the time to pressure Iran directly to change their troubling behavior. Obama would offer the Iranian regime a choice. If Iran abandons its nuclear program and support for terrorism, we will offer incentives like membership in the World Trade Organization.

From Amir Taheri:

Mr. Ahmadinejad is talking about changing the destiny of mankind, while Mr. Obama and his foreign policy experts offer spare parts for Boeings or membership in the World Trade Organization. Perhaps Mr. Obama is unaware that one of Mr. Ahmadinejad's first acts was to freeze Tehran's efforts for securing WTO membership because he regards the outfit as "a nest of conspiracies by Zionists and Americans."

No, Obama is definitely unaware of that.

(h/t Gateway Pundit)

Obama Claims His Uncle Helped Liberate Auschwitz

Obama is in mass-production mode with his gaffes now. This one is a real howler:

Obama also spoke about his uncle, who was part of the American brigade that helped to liberate Auschwitz.

Now, is Obama so ignorant of history that he doesn't know that the Soviets, not the Americans, liberated Auschwitz (located in Poland), or is Obama now simply flaunting the fact that the press will cover for him, no matter what he says?

(h/t Purple Avenger)

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder And 'Medal Inflation'

Thomas Lipscomb at RealClearPolitics questions the motives of some groups seeking veterans' benefits in his article Purple Hearts for PTSD?

PTSD sure seems to be a real enough affliction. But, Shakespeare's St. Crispin's Day soliloquoy from Henry V comes to mind:

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'

Barack Obama, Gaffe Factory

If Dan Quayle were dead he'd be rolling in his grave. The left made a laughingstock out of him for misspelling 'potato' with an 'e' (once an acceptable spelling of that word) and implied that Quayle was a moron, a dummy, and unfit for office.

Well what does that make Barack Obama then?

Here is a guy who thinks there are 58 states in the union. He thinks Arkansas is closer to Illinois than Kentucky. He can't tell the difference between Sioux Falls and Sioux City. He can't tell the difference between Sunshine and Sunrise.

Here is a guy who, when he visited Hanford, Washington, said

Here’s something that you will rarely hear from a politician, and that is that I’m not familiar with the Hanford, uuuuhh, site, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on there. (Applause.) Now, having said that, I promise you I’ll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport.

Wow. And the crowd applauded him! Here's the kicker, Obama voted on funding for the Hanford facility.

His latest slew of gaffes are truly frightening, however, because they show just how dangerous and conflicted his misunderstanding of foreign policy is.

Jake Tapper:

On Thursday Obama told the Orlando Sentinel that he would meet with Chavez and "one of the obvious high priorities in my talks with President Hugo Chavez would be the fermentation of anti-American sentiment in Latin America, his support of FARC in Colombia and other issues he would want to talk about."

OK, so a strong declaration that Chavez is supporting FARC, which Obama intends to push him on.

But then on Friday he said any government supporting FARC should be isolated.

"We will shine a light on any support for the FARC that comes from neighboring governments," he said in a speech in Miami. "This behavior must be exposed to international condemnation, regional isolation, and - if need be - strong sanctions. It must not stand."

So he will meet with the leader of a country he simultaneously says should be isolated? Huh?

This on the heels of Obama being torn between figuring out whether Iran is a tiny country posing no threat to the U.S., or a grave threat (perhaps this merely depends upon which audience he is pandering to at any given moment. But if he can't figure out that these contradictions will invariably emerge, that doesn't say much about his intelligence or ability to learn from experience either).

These are gaffes that would embarass a fifth-grader. It is just shocking that anyone would want to entrust our foreign policy to this lighter-than-air diletant. We can afford on-the-job training in foreign policy with a guy like Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush because they came equipped with solid principles to guide them and a policy that always puts America first. Barack Obama, on the other hand, has been contaminated by the Marxist nonsense of Black Liberation Theology, is steeped in blame-America-first leftism, and sees nothing wrong with befriending a terrorist like Bill Ayers.

Is it any wonder he has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to foreign policy? The guy doesn't have enough sense to pick the right friends, and apparently is too dense to identify our enemies.

Update: A foreign policy gaffe? Why, that's not a bug, it's a feature:

Before the Democratic debate of July 23, Barack Obama had never expounded upon the wisdom of meeting, without precondition, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Hugo Chávez, Kim Jong Il or the Castro brothers. But in that debate, he was asked about doing exactly that. Unprepared, he said sure -- then got fancy, declaring the Bush administration's refusal to do so not just "ridiculous" but "a disgrace."

After that, there was no going back. So he doubled down. What started as a gaffe became policy. By now, it has become doctrine. Yet it remains today what it was on the day he blurted it out: an absurdity.

Mahdi Army Scores Another 'Victory'

At least that is how the MSM will probably spin the fact that the Iraqi Army dismantles Mahdi Army caches in Sadr City.

A few more victories like this, and Moqtada al-Sadr is finished. If he isn't already.

This is particularly interesting:

The Iraqi Army raided numerous Mahdi Army weapons caches in Sadr City May 22-23, Multinational Forces Iraq reported. The Mahdi Army has stockpiled weapons throughout the district. Eight of the armor-piercing, Iranian-made explosively formed projectiles have been found along with chlorine poison, eight roadside bombs, and large quantities of explosives, weapons, ammunition, and materials used to make bombs.

Someone please explain why we are supposed to talk to Iran when they are providing EFP's and weapons of mass destruction for the express purpose of killing our troops.

(Via Glenn Reynolds)

Headline Of The Day

Rev. Al Sharpton urges Hillary Clinton: Watch what you say

Wow. You have to be in pretty damn deep to have Al Sharpton warn you about your comments.

This RFK assassination thing must be far worse for Hillary than I thought.

Keith Olbermann, National Treasure

In this Super Extra Very Special Comment, Keith Olbermann presumes to speak for all Americans, engages in risible hyperbole, locks and loads his ego, and assumes his place as rightful heir of Edward R. Murrow.

In other words, it is just like that episode of Gilligan's Island where they almost escape the island, except Gilligan screws it up at the last moment.

He goes after Hillary and her RFK assassination comment, but it doesn't even have the novelty of being his his first attack on a Democrat. I think the Big Coif is losing his touch.

McCain Gets A Clean Bill Of Health

From USAToday:

Republican Sen. John McCain, who would be the oldest first-term president ever sworn in if he wins his White House bid this year, is in "excellent physical and mental health," the leader of his medical team said Friday.

"We can find nothing in his medical history that would preclude him from serving as president of the United States with vigor," Dr. John Eckstein, who serves as McCain's primary care physician at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz., told reporters.

Eckstein and other Mayo physicians involved in McCain's care spoke with reporters after the Arizona lawmaker released 1,173 pages of medical records. Campaign spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said the extent of McCain's disclosure is "unprecedented in the history of presidential campaigns."

Newflash: Democrats Lied About Ending The War

Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) comes up with today's dog-bites-man story, in which he admits that Democrats 'sort of stretched the facts' when it came to their ability to end the war. Here is the full quote:

"I'll tell you my impression. We really in this last election, when I say we...the Democrats, I think pushed it as far as we can to the end of the fleet, didn't say it, but we implied it. That if we won the Congressional elections, we could stop the war. Now anybody was a good student of Government would know that wasn't true. But you know, the temptation to want to win back the Congress, we sort of stretched the facts...and people ate it up."

Not true actually, as far as all Democrats go. You might remember this YouTube classic in which David Obey (D-MI) tells an anti-war activist, in very blunt terms, that ending the war right away is completely impossible.

As honest as Obey was here, can you really blame the hopelessly uniformed anti-war activist here for actually thinking the war would end right away as soon as the Dems took over Congress? Gee, I wonder where she got THAT idea from.

Assassination? Why, You *Must* Be Talking About Obama

Hillary Clinton said this in regard to the drawn-out nature of the Democratic primaries:

My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it"

So of course Miss Cleo, working for the Obama campaign, used her questionable psychic powers to interpret this as some kind of attack on Obama. Because he is black I suppose, never mind that RFK wasn't African-American - Hillary must have really been talking in code about Barack Obama. So let's see . . . all historical references to Neville Chamberlain are off the table, because they are really crypto references to Barack Obama, and presumably any future mention of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. too will invariably be unfair somehow because, no doubt, they are really talking about Obama.

Obama seems to be taking a page now from the Clinton play book - it's all about Barack! Could this guy be any more thin-skinned?

Time To Break Out The Ticker Tape?

Great news: the Coalition Forces in Iraq are on pace to report the lowest monthly casualties since the Iraq War began. This is testament to the success of the surge, and the political and military progress made by the Maliki government. Is this an 'acceptable' level of casualties? There is no such thing. It is unacceptable that the enemy continues to have the ability to inflict injury and death, and we have to work smarter to make sure the bloodshed ends. However, the war, as such is over.

Last December, I said "let's see if the trend actually holds. Six more months of this (just one more Friedman Unit), and I am convinced that the war is over in all but name." Well, that Friedman Unit has come and gone, Basra has been pacified, Mookie al-Sadr is cowering, and tremendous political progress and reconciliation in Iraq has been achieved. Things have gone so well that not even Nancy Pelosi can suspend disbelief any longer.

The Iraq War is over, and we have won a crushing victory. There will continue to be casualties, but the conflict is no longer a 'war' but a terror campaign. To call it a 'war' implies that our enemies are 'warriors', an appellation they do not deserve.

This Is JUST SO WRONG

Hello Kitty was bad enough when it was merely a way to decorate an asian schoolgirl's pencil box. Now it has become a threat to western civilization itself.

Exhibit A:

Exhibits B and C:

I always knew the Japanese would finally get their revenge and find a way to completely subvert our way of life. If the Air Force adopts Hello Kitty as a fighter paint scheme, which seems inevitable now, I swear I will have to go seek asylum in Cuba.

Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

"Aggressively inarticulate."

Too true.

(h/t Ed Driscoll)

They Doth Protest Too Much

The response of the Obama campaign and his supporters to Bush's Knesset speech should have been something like "we know he wasn't talking about us. We abhor appeasement and reject it as a method of fighting the War on Terror." Considering that Bush did not accuse anyone person in particular of being guilty of appeasement, Instapundit's comment that "when somebody condemns appeasement, it doesn't help things to jump up and yell "Hey, he's talking about me!"' pointedly demonstrates how thin-skinned and unimaginative Obama can be. Obama displayed a similar lack of imagination when it was pointed out, incontrovertibly, that he enjoyed the support of Hamas. Rather than categorically rejecting Hamas' endorsement, he instead attacked John McCain for having the audacity to point out that terrorists prefer Obama. He should study the art of political judo a little more closely, he obviously has yet to master its nuances.

Obama walked into this like a drunk into an open manhole, drawing all kinds of attention to the fact that Obama does in fact favor appeasing America's enemies. Giving rogue terrorist states the honor and legitimacy of meeting with America's leader with no conditions and nothing more than a wistful hope that something positive will come of it is indeed appeasement, even if it is not on the scale of handing the entitre Sudetenland over to Hitler. Obama flip-flopped on his statement that he would meet with the leaders of Iran and North Korea without any preconditions and now claims he does not favor that policy, but it is too late. We now know what his instincts tell him to do, and it is to capitulate whenever possible. Presumably because America is at fault in the first place, which is of course what his good friend, mentor and spiritual advisor Jeremiah Wright counsels.

Your Daily Triviality

What is the dismal science, and the sweet science?

Happy Birthday, Israel

Today is the 60th birthday of Israel, the day in 1948 that David Ben-Gurion proclaimed its independence with the approval of the United Nations.

Against all odds, in a sea of enemies, Israel has managed to survive and thrive. May it continue to exist as the great ally and democracy that it is.

Obama: We Need More Arabic Speakers In . . . Afghanistan?

Obama actually catches himself here as he is about to say something monumentally stupid, and give him kudos I guess for knowing that Pashto, for example, is one of the main languages in the areas of Afghanistan where the insurgency is active, and not Arabic.

But, this little quip shows the absurd extreme to which Obama is willing to take the 'Iraq is a distraction' meme.

Everything is a distraction with this guy.

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit

The Thing That Just Won't Die

Slate Magazine has had the Hillary Deathwatch for what seems like forever, but maybe it is new for some of you folks out there.

It seems that with Hillary's West Virginia victory it will linger on as the entertaining triviality it is, much like Hillary's campaign itself.

Hillary Goes 'Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk'

Not even kidding here.

Hillary goes on the Keith Larson Show (WBT 1110AM, Charlotte NC) and does an imitation of Curly, late of the Three Stooges.

Hat tip to Hugh Hewitt, who said this is Hillary's Dukakis tank riding moment. Eh, she seems so over by now, I am not sure this bizarre performance will get much notice.

She also throws out some of that irritating cackling in the interview too. You have been warned.

Update: I suppose this was inevitable:

Sums it all up pretty nicely.