Al Franken, God Spoke

I subjected myself to the Al Franken movie "God Spoke". One really big question would be "what was the point"? I assume that Al thinks it puts him in some sort of a good light. Al knows that all his "facts" are true, but everyone else is lying. Right now he is saying that "Bush is going down, and we are going to elect President John Kerry" ... however, every prediction about the war in Iraq that turned out not to be correct is a "lie".

One nice thing about Al is that he uses the "F word" constantly, and I suppose in his mind "well". He showed some 2004 election day gloating based on the exit polls ... how one of the stories of the election was "Air America", how he would abuse Bush the next day with "You blew it just like your Daddy", or makeing fun of Karl Rove being a "genius", when of course Al thought that the election would be won by Kerry.

Then we get to see the disbelief when Bush wins. He's close to tears when Kerry concedes and he stares in shocked disbelief as Bush accepts the victory. Then he starts talking about running against Norm Coleman.

I suppose what a lot of lefties would like about this is that he "gets his digs in" on Coulter, Limbaugh, O'Reily, Bush, Cheney, Hannity, etc, but it would seem to me that it puts just a wee bit of a dent in their supposed "less partisan view". It also seems that the neither Coulter, Limbaugh, or Hannity ran for Senator in a state with an excellent chance of stealing the election.

So much for MN nice!

Tolerance, Cooper Firearms

Politics prompted her assault, Augsburg student says

Cooper Ousts CEO for Obama Support

One of the members of the Board Of Directors of Cooper Firearms happened to be at the same Deer Camp that I was at this past weekend, so I learned of the Cooper situation. I shared the fact that a Cooper Board Member happened to be at camp and immediately heard of the "horror" of the "infringement on free speech" that the Cooper story entails from a Democrat.

To make a slightly longer story simple, the Founder and President of Cooper Firearms decided to donate $3K+ to BO and did an interview indicating that he was going to vote for him. Cooper employees, customers and stores that carry their products started to indicate their displeasure, up to and including canceling orders and not wanting to do business with Cooper. The Board of Directors asked for and received the Presidents resignation. Democrats and Media types were immediately apocolyptic about "McCarthyism" and "infringement on free speech". Here is an example from the USA Today Article, they make sure to "tell us how to think" about the Cooper incident -- nobody is quoted as explaining why one may want to remove a gun company executive that is poking his customers in the eye.

"It's a really McCarthyism at its worst," said Bob Ricker, executive
director of the American Hunters and Shooters Association, which has
endorsed Obama. "That's really why our organization was formed, was to
deal with this craziness. If you're a gun owner, but you have a
contrary view to some of these wackos, they will go out and try to
destroy you."

Now, in the top article, a young woman at Augsburg is assaulted by 4 other women, receives a concussion, and we get relatively straight up reporting until close to the end we get:

"She was surprised by how politically active the campus was," Annie's mother said. "She got a lesson right off the bat." 

In October, a 20-year-old McCain campaign volunteer in Pennsylvania
made up a story of being robbed and having the backwards letter "B"
scratched on her face in a politically inspired attack. 

Police and Augsburg University say they have no reason to suspect Grossmann was not assaulted.

Seems VERY important to point out that a month ago a McCain campaign volunteer made up an attack, right? I mean, Tawana Brawly famously made up a rape charge, so I'm sure that every article about a young black woman claiming rape properly includes a reference to that famous hoax. Right?

Not a lot of concern about the young woman beat up for wearing a McCain button, but lots of crocodile tears for a CEO whose constituency disagrees with his politics. Let's take a look at this a bit closer.

First of all, remember the important quote from Ronald Reagan; "A Liberal will defend your right to agree with them to their dying breath"! The "liberal" idea of "free speech" is that people can say anything that they want that is agreement with the standard liberal position, and NOBODY ought be able to respond in any negative way.

Conversely, if anyone is making speech that is out of step with the liberal opinion, their speech ought to be muzzled (EG "Fairness doctrine") or with either actual or implied violence (Union Card Check). Liberals are unconcerned with someone being beat up for showing support for McCain. It is something that they can at least "understand"--how could a "decent person" be a supporter of McCain?

Think about Joe Lieberman. How much do Democrats enjoy HIS "right to free speech"? Not so very much I think. How well do Democrats tolerate Clarence Thomas as a black man not holding the views that "blacks ought to have"? Is their animosity for him even stronger than say a Scalia or a Roberts? I think it is pretty clear. How do you think Democrats and abortion supporters would react to an official of Planned Parenthood sending money to and saying they were going to vote for a Pro-Life Republican??? I think we don't need to think very long on that one.

"Free Speech" means that EVERYONE is free to respond LEGALLY to your speech!!! If a gun CEO decides to support Obama and enough of his "constituency" wants him removed, then that is a LEGAL result of his "speech decision". We don't have freedom at all if those hearing your speech aren't allowed to respond LEGALLY to your speech. But note the difference -- there is little concern, and even the suggestion of "untruth" to a young woman being beaten for her rather paltry wearing of a button as speech. Democrats LOVE to boo down Republican speakers (they were doing it at the convention), for some reason Republicans rarely boo or protest even though those actions can be legal. They are often "tacky" and in many cases downright boorish.

Republicans tend to do things like write letters to the board or company, indicate that they would rather not do business with someone that they see as likely aiding and abbedding the destruction of their constitutional rights. This however is seen by the MSM and the left as "McCarthyism". We seem to be entering a new phase of Democrat dominance where their natural tendency to suppress the speech of those they disagree with as "hate speech", "racist", "religious" (to get it removed from the public square) or simply "biased" (as in "fairness doctrine"). Bias is of course a view that isn't "liberal".

Where Do Republicans go from Here?

RealClearPolitics - Articles - The GOP Looking Glass

No real answers in this column, but a decent job of laying out the problems. Bush never was a "Reagan Conservative" and in many ways, neither was Reagan--the legend took on conservative luster over time. Reagan had his share of tax increases (FICA in '82, Income in '86), he certainly didn't have a balanced budget and Sandra Day O'Conner certainly wasn't a very conservative Judge. All that said, Reagan is my favorite conservative figure--he just happened to be human.

Bush did "No Child" with Teddy Kennedy (getting the feds in education), perscription drug, signed campaign finance, Sarbanes/Oxley and worked on immigration reform that was awful close to amnesty. Throw in the stimulus packages and a few other things and Bush did an awful lot of "triangulation" just like Slick Willie. The difference is that the MSM and the Democrats aren't going to give a Republican any "points" just because he does what one would think they would like -- Democrats HATE Republicans and it IS personal! "Policy" is great, but Democrats are driven by POWER, a policy that kills people or destroys their lives is FINE if it gets Democrats in POWER!!

Apparently, such was not so with at least some Texas Democrats, and Bush got the false impression that he could work reasonably with Democrats. VERY bad idea in Washington! I don't know if Bush learned that lesson, but the rest of us sure ought to have! It appears however that such is not the case:

In one corner, there are a large number of bright, mostly younger, self-styled reformers with a diverse -- and often contradictory -- set of proposals to win back middle-class voters and restore the GOP's status as "the party of ideas" (as the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan put it).

In another corner are self-proclaimed traditional conservatives and Reaganites, led most notably by Rush Limbaugh, who believe that the party desperately needs to get back to the basics: limited government,low taxes and strong defense.

What is fascinating is that both camps seem implicitly to agree that the real challenge lurks in how to account for the Bush years. For the young Turks and their older allies -- my National Review colleagues Ramesh Ponnuru, Yuval Levin and David Frum, the Atlantic's Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, New York Times columnist David Brooks et al -- the problem is that Bush botched the GOP's shot at real reform. For the Limbaugh crowd, the issue seems to be that we've already tried this reform stuff -- from both Bush and McCain -- and look where it's gotten us.

So how would one "reform" and deal with Democrats when all they want is you out of Washington, and don't really care what it costs them, their consituency or the world in general in blood and treasure as long as they end up in power? What part of what has happened to Bush and McCain is it that the "reformers" still haven't understood? They want to give the Democrats guns rather than knives and THEN see if they make nice with Republicans?

Unfortunately, someone still needs to come up with a set of ideas that some CURRENT leader and CURRENT set of voters will rally around. Demanding that we get Reagan and Reagan's ideas back has at least one very clear hole (unless we are going to clone him or something), and likely two, since without the USSR/Cold War and likely more than a few other problems (like Reagan's deficits in todays dollars would make even the biggest pro-deficit Republicans blanch), that strategy is all about "wishful thinking". Yup, the "old days" of Reagan may have been grand, but today is today, not 1980!

Ready To Rule on Day 1!

Hey, this might be "chilling" if BO were a Republican, but since he is a "D", I guess "rule he will"!!!

My how perspectives change for the MSM and the liberals.

Uninteresting Election Fraud

FOXNews.com - Minnesota Ripe for Election Fraud - Opinion

I've been noticing that all the "new votes" in the MN election seem to be for Al Franken. Nothing unusual, dead and imaginary voters are something like 97% Democrat. What is just a bit unusual is that the local press here seems to have no interest in what is happening "somehow" the Coleman spread just seems to keep shrinking and the recount hasn't even started.

I'm predicting a Coleman loss  by at least a thousand votes. There tends to be very little limit on either the dead or fictional voter, and given the preponderance of Democrats in the camp, they seem guaranteed to prevail. Can you imagine there being much curiosity in the press about a Franken victory? Some sort of an investigation by the BO justice department? How about a call for an investigation by the MSM?

Me neither -- little fairness doctrine to get Fox on the run and even this kind of "nuisance reporting" ought to be history. "Unity" -- the kind of America where everyone can vote -- but only the "good people win!

BO Like Lincoln and FDR?

Like Lincoln and FDR, Obama faces nation in crisis - Yahoo! News

One doesn't have to do much as a Democrat President to start the comparisons with Lincoln and FDR. This comparison is on the basis of "challenges" -- oh, let's see, I think the "divisions" in the country are REALLY close to those before the civil war. Don't you?? The MSM figures we are in a DEPRESSION after all--so, that would be the comparison with FDR. Do you suppose that we can have "WWIII" to "help" the BO comparison there? Seems like a really good idea!

I guess it is unsurprising, most of the MSM would figure BO compares favorably with Jesus, a comparison with a couple of Presidents that the media sees as "decent" would seem like a letdown. I wonder if they remember that Lincoln was a REPUBLICAN. What's up with that? Interesting to note that the Democrats had declared the Civil War as "unwinnable" by the end of his first term, and it was widely thought he would fail to be re-elected.

Have Democrats ever met any other kind of war than an "unwinnable one"?

Worry, But Be Happy

www.dcexaminer.com >> Opinion

I found this to be an excellent column, and I agree with it strongly. I'd add that "being a conservative means that there are more important things than politics". I believe that is the fundamental reason that the left is always so angry that they have any political opposition at all. They feel strongly that all their positions are "intelligent, just, progressive and well reasoned" -- they have a hard time understanding why there would be any legitimate opposition, other than out of "evil". To a lefty, there is "no higher power" -- or ideas, so the ones they have are by definition "ultimate".

It is important for conservatives to do as this article says. While we may worry about the worst happening, we need to always hope and pray for the best. We need to accept our human weakness and practice what we preach. We may have heard and said in church 1K times to "not store up treasure where moth and rust corrupt", but when some of the "treasure" that we have stored up on what we ought know is the illusion of security is lost or corrupted, the fact of our faith is often less real than the stating of it.

I'm happy I've not seen any conservatives talking about "leaving the country", or crying in their beer over "how stupid Americans are" as we saw endlessly from the left in '04. We ought also take note on where the Democrats were wrong again:

1. They asserted that "if this country didn't vote for Obama, it would be racist". So, since it DID vote for Obama, it ISN'T racist, nor would it have been had it NOT voted for him. It is the same country stupid!
2. During the Bush adminstration there was A LOT of pointless whining about how "dissent was being tamped down", and supposedly all the elections that had been won had been won due to "diebold and dirty tricks". Either Diebold just goes to the higher bidder and BO had more money, or this charge was malarky all along.
   

The Decency of George W Bush

Michael Gerson - The Decency of George W. Bush - washingtonpost.com

I know of nothing that Bush has done to warrant the hatred that has been heaped upon him from the left, the right, and the MSM. One would hope that a president can have some individual control over a decision to have oral sex with an intern in the oval office. It seems less understandable how one would control all the intelligence of the whole world on WMDs turning out to be wrong and the plans and results for initial action in Iraq turned out to be ineffective. Every leader has suffered because those relied upon to do their job failed to do so. Having never led, Obama awaits the learning of this most basic lesson of leadership.

Certainly a left that cares little as to the cost of gaining power is to be expected to react with glee at any situation that can be turned against a Republican. At one time, parts of the MSM would have had the honor to show some sort of even handedness in order to maintain some semblance of being "unbiased", but a major event of the last 8 years is that the days of the MSM having any connection with the truth are likely gone forever.

The right is a little harder to understand, but I believe that when the going got tough (as it inevitably does when one is doing something real), the right wing decided "we would rather have Reagan". The realization that the loonies of the right could in their own way be every bit as looney as those on the left was one of my "major life lessons" of the last 8 years. Unsurprisingly, neither Reagan or his ghost returned, and now we have Obama. May the right wing be ever happy, the "lesson" is being taught!

Here are a couple good quotes from here, it is all worth reading. I find that I am ever the iconoclast--the more Bush is reviled, the greater my respect for him. My highlight below is perhaps one of the finest testaments to his deep Christian faith. My guess is that "deeper decency" is something we will see very little of the next four years.

For years, critics of the Iraq war asked the mocking question: "What
would victory look like?" If progress continues, it might look
something like what we've seen.


But that humanity is precisely what I will remember. I have seen
President Bush show more loyalty than he has been given, more
generosity than he has received. I have seen his buoyancy under the
weight of malice and his forgiveness of faithless friends. Again and
again, I have seen the natural tug of his pride swiftly overcome by a
deeper decency -- a decency that is privately engaging and publicly
consequential.

Before the Group of Eight summit in 2005, the White House
senior staff overwhelmingly opposed a new initiative to fight malaria
in Africa for reasons of cost and ideology -- a measure designed to
save hundreds of thousands of lives, mainly of children under 5. In the
crucial policy meeting, one person supported it: the president of the
United States, shutting off debate with a moral certitude that others
have criticized. I saw how this moral framework led him to an immediate
identification with the dying African child, the Chinese dissident, the
Sudanese former slave, the Burmese women's advocate. It is one reason I
will never be cynical about government -- or about President Bush.
For some, this image of Bush is so detached from their own
conception that it must be rejected. That is, perhaps, understandable.
But it means little to me. Because I have seen the decency of George W.
Bush.

The Emerging Republican Minority

Harold Meyerson - A Real Realignment - washingtonpost.com

The MSM tends to hide "the real story", but sometimes they let the truth leak. I suspect that 90%+ of the lower income wards of the lefty sheep pen would think that "Doctors, Lawyers and other evil professionals" are all "a bunch of nasty Republicans". Yes, during the 50's, that was the truth. No longer -- I've seen the numbers, while not as Democrat as blacks (93%), the numbers for proffessionals are in the mid 70's% Democrat. Here is a truthful quote from this fine article:

Six years ago, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira argued in their book "The Emerging Democratic Majority" that the political transformation of professionals -- among the most Republican of voting blocs during the Eisenhower era, and today among the most Democratic -- was a decisive factor in pushing the nation toward the Democratic Party, as was the steady Democratic drift of female voters.

As Meyerson crows here, the little people are on the run--and soon to be confined to America's "rural backwaters". Ah yes, a confident Democrat telling the truth of what they believe, a lot like BO and his "bitterly clinging" comments. The sheep rarely get exposed to such things though, and it seems that these days they are so lost that they don't even know their enemies from their friends.

Indeed, eight years after Karl Rove stormed into Washington proclaiming that he would create a 21st-century version of the Republican realignment that emerged from William McKinley's victory over William Jennings Bryan in 1896, today's emerging Republican minority looks confined to Bryan's base in America's rural backwaters. The future in American politics belongs to the party that can win a more racially diverse, better
educated, more metropolitan electorate. It belongs to Barack Obama's Democrats.

See, the Democrats actually ARE a party of elites looking at those "rural backwater voters" that are "bitterly clinging to guns and religion". That is what they REALLY think ... but of course since that might not get them elected, the MSM does all it can to minimize their real views.

Already, New Friends for BO

The Associated Press: Iran leader offers Obama landmark congratulations

Hey, "I'm A Dinner Jacket" (Ahmadinejad) has offered congrats to BO! First time since '79 that one of our new Presidents has received such an honor from the great state of Iran! Change!

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday
congratulated Barack Obama on his election win — the first time an
Iranian leader has offered such wishes to a U.S. president-elect since
the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

"Liberal" Attached to a Democrat is a Sham and a Shame

Lieberman may have day of reckoning with Democrats - CNN.com

How many times have you heard Democrats and the MSM decry "partisanship" and "ideology" in Republicans? Basically all the time. Is John McCain my favorite Republican? Certainly not -- I absolutely decry his supposed "bi-partisan" campaign finance reform, and it actually serves him right to have Obama be the first candidate since Watergate to opt out of public election financing in the general election and thus have completely unrestrained money raised and spent. McCain was outspent 5 to 1 or worse, and NOBODY knows where all the BO money came from or went -- nor will they ever. There isn't such a thing as a "principled Democrat" -- if there were, they would be a Republican. No principled person that talked about "excess money in politics" or "the need for campaign finance support" could stand by while BO made a mockery of every attempt to control excesses of campaign money from all sources that has been made in the last 30 years!! If anyone ever needed any more proof that "principled Democrat" was an oxymoron, this election provided it.

The picture of Lieberman and McCain embracing tells a story however. There are no more moderate Democrats (only LEFT Democrats) and very few actual Conservative Republicans. Bush Sr and Jr were both moderate Republicans, and McCain is even more moderate. Lieberman WAS a moderate Democrat before they drummed him out of their party.

Here is a telling quote from the supposedly "new kind of cross the isle politician" BO camp:

During the speech in St. Paul, Minnesota, Lieberman
said, "Sen. Barack Obama is a gifted and eloquent young man who I think
can do great things for our country in the years ahead, but, my
friends, eloquence is no substitute for a record, not in these tough
times for America."

After his speech, Obama adviser Robert Gibbs
said that "Joe Lieberman ought to be ashamed of himself for some of the
things he said tonight, not as a Democrat but as an American."

Let me get this straight. Democrats who have uttered any slur that comes to their mind about a Republican President or Vice President during war are OUTRAGED if anyone questions them in any way, but the Democrat nominee for VP in 2000 should be ashamed AS AN AMERICAN for claiming that a candidate for President ought to have some leadership experience? 

"Liberal" used to mean someone with the intellectual capacity to at least hold a couple opposing ideas in their head at the same time and still function without exploding. The left in this country is the farthest thing there is from intellectually "liberal". They can't stomach someone that believes that the highest job in the land might require some leadership experience. The other meaning of "liberal" is allowing INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM ... of thought, finance, speech, association and property. The current Democrat party wants to regulate political speech with the "Fairness Doctrine" and remove the indidual right to a secret ballot with union "card check". Those bills are FASCIST, and the farthest thing in the world from "liberal".

RhamBO

Power Line - No more Mr. Nice Guy?


So BO picks Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, a man "affectionately" referred to as "RahmBo". Extremely partisan, extremely profane. I love the description by Paul Begala (a Slick Willie hatchet man) of his style as "a cross between a hemorrhoid and a toothache".

Much like the Powerline guys, this isn't a surprise since I never bought the "new kind of politician" rhetoric anyway. BO plays old fashioned politics--"Just Win Baby"!!! The MSM of course is just very happy when his kind of politics wins, so it seems fine to them.

Happy Days, Hail BO!

It is fun to watch the media enjoy the Obama victory. I couldn't help but wonder if Colin Powell had ever run as a Republican and won, what kind of attitude would the MSM have had? I suspect it would have been a long way from the unadultrated joy they were able to feel today. They would have found it "ironic" that the first black elected was a Republican, although Lincoln and the Republican party risked it all to fight the Civil War and the Democrats presided over Jim Crow and all the lynching for 100 years. A KKK recruiter (Robert Byrd) still sits in the Senate today, however, to the MSM, it would be "ironic" if a black Republican had been the first elected!

The reality of a 400+ point Dow sell-off the day after the election was little reported. Perhaps investors didn't get the memo of how good BO is going to be for the economy?

I was glad to not hear of any conservatives thinking they would leave the country because he was elected, nor really very little in the way of ill will at all. A far cry from the attitude of a Paul Wellstone that refused to shake VP Dan Quayle's hand at a Washington function. I hope all conservatives are civil, and I expect them to generally be.

In the unlikely event that my little blog ever got famous, I'd give up the BO schtick over the President. The main reason I do it is a lot like Rush Limbaugh poking fun at how the MSM treats Republicans every day. "Dubya", "Ronnie Raygun", "Shrub", "F*** Bush", etc. BO would not want to be "BHO" since it is considered an "affront" to use his middle name. I wonder if Chief Justice Roberts will be able to say "Hussein" when he swears him in? Potentially he will have to change back to his real name "Barry Sottero" which he had for most of his childhood. Then he would be "BS", which may end up being more appropriate.

Why do conservatives tend to wish the new president well even though we suspect he will declare war on all that makes America exceptional? Simply because we are usually Christians first, Family people 2nd and Americans 3rd ... with a close 4th being some sort of profession or career that serves both our country and provides the finances so we can be responsible for ourselves and contributing members of society. Our fervent hope is that Obama and the Democrats will be successful in getting the economy growing again, even though every piece of evidence we see says that they will not be.

It is fun to watch the media. They are positively giddy. I remember so well '92 when they were beside themselves with the pure joy of a Clinton election and a Democrat majority in both houses of congress, but this is even better. I suspect it harkens back to '64 when LBJ whacked Goldwater.

How different from when I turned on NPR the morning after the '94 election and they were playing Johnny Cash ... I didn't really need to hear the results to know what happened! They were on the verge of tears -- and there was positive fear that the evil Newt Gingrich was to be Speaker of the House!

Gee, I wonder if the "sanctity of the fillibuster" might kind of change now? Remember how HORRIBLE it was that Republicans were talking about "the nuclear option" for appointments? I 'm sure the "unbiased" MSM will be 100% supportive of a Republican fillibuster now! Kind of like how big an issue campaign finance was this year. NOT!

Oh well, being in the opposition is kind of fun. Now Saint BO will need to actually deliver on some of his brilliance--that is often a bit harder than reading a teleprompter smoothly!

View From the Top

Took my Max up to the top of the big hill behind the house that lets me look over the whole city and thought a bit about 30 years ago on election day. My recollection is that I didn't vote, nor did I watch anything on TV. I'd voted for Carter in '76, but by 1978 it was already pretty obvious that he wasn't a good president and that the future of the US wasn't looking very bright under his policies. I still didn't care much about politics though, but I probably had picked up my first National Review and started to consider that maybe there were "other views" than the MSM, standard man in the street outlook.

So, 30 years later on a nice warm evening with a stiff breeze from the south I sat and looked back at city lights of which a large majority would not have existed in '78. The two years that followed '78 proved that Carter was a REALLY bad choice. Reagan was elected in '80, the direction of the country changed and we went through the longest and largest piece of growth in American history. It was a great time to have a career, get married and raise a family. I'm very thankful to Ronald Reagan.

In '33 the Dems took over big, the market tanked shortly and it never got back to it's '29 highs until '53. They similarly took over in '65, the last market peak in '66 was not exceeded until '83. So does anybody expect the Democrats to do better this time around? My guess is that most of the voters either don't know the history or don't care. I think a lot of folks have simply bought the MSM view that "Bush has been a disaster and we need change"--they weren't in any mood to look any deeper than that. I also suspect that a significant number of folks at least think that they are now "anti-business" or "anti-market". They apparently believe that America can somehow have "prosperity without productivity", or that we can somehow have productivity wihtout business, markets and profits. I believe they are horribly wrong, but we will get a chance to see if I learn something .

10 Reasons to Vote For McCain

David Frum: 10 reasons to vote for John McCain - Full Comment

Nice article, I suspect that in two years we will wish we had another shot at this vote. I loved his #1 reason, but the whole list is well thought.

1) John McCain is white, the son and grandson of admirals, married
to a wealthy heiress – and yet he has experienced degrees of suffering,
despair, and defeat that not one in a million of us can imagine. Barack
Obama wears a black skin and carries an exotic name. In the United
States, people of darker color have faced oppression and discrimination
for centuries. But in Barack Obama's own life, he has known nothing but
an easy and welcoming path to success since he was 18 years old.
Privileged John McCain has known more absolute degradation than any man
ever to contest the presidency. Obama was born in adversity, but he has
smoothly risen to a place where he is most comfortable with those for
whom things are most easy.