Around the World Wide Web 79

I understand it is against military policy for our troops to call the enemy insensitive names such as camel jockey.

Imagine a Marine fighting in intense, hand to hand combat. He screams, "Die, you raghead son of a bitch!" Is this Marine now subject to military discipline because in the process of killing the enemy he called him a bad name?

And I ask again, is this any way seriously to fight a war?

1. Bernard Chapin has an excellent look at Obama's smear tactics.

Barack Obama’s tactics are totalitarian and un-American. They illustrate that, while we should reject him for a thousand reasons this November, none is more convincing than the palpable contempt he has shown for free speech.

Indeed, free speech is our most valuable right, if rights can be more valuable than one another. Spreading reason is our only chance of changing this culture, which is marching in ignorance toward the abyss of socialism. We desperately need to maintain free speech or all is lost. This is one area in which, so far, the left is clearly worse than the right.

2. The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights has set up a web page regarding the economic crisis.

3. Obama's plans to destroy freedom in America.

4. McCain is said to be grumpy about having to attack a Democrat.

After his first debate with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), both spectators in the hall and commentators on TV noted that McCain had deliberately avoided looking at his rival.

A close McCain friend said the reason is clear: McCain is miserable about having to run a campaign that’s antithetical to his persona.

“He is basically having to be somebody that he isn’t,” said the friend, who remains strongly supportive. “He is just not a guy that goes on the attack in public. For him to be on the attack constantly, attacking Obama’s character … McCain is uncomfortable with that, and it’s made him grumpy.”

How sad that Senator McCain is inconvenienced in this election, and must attack his ideological soulmate, a Democrat.

We should not be surprised by this. McCain achieved prominence by attacking Republicans and allying with Democrats. This is how he became the MSM's favorite Republican.

If McCain goes on to lose, it will be because, in a contest between a Democrat and a me too Republican, voters went with the more consistent Democrat.

5. Bolivia is on the brink of crisis.

Bolivia is synonymous with political and social strife. Long known for its deep social inequities and political turmoil, this country of 9 million people has increasingly been divided geographically, economically, and even culturally. Two groups now fight for control of the state: those in the lowlands, mostly capitalist mestizos (people of mixed European ancestry) who support globalization and benefit from Brazil's booming economy, versus the indigenous groups in the Andes, the anti-American Aymara and Quechua, who prefer state control of the economy.

This reminds me that if Obama is elected, every anti-American force in the world will think, "Now is the time to test America's strength."

6. Who is Obama? I have struggled with this question on this blog. I find it astonishing that on October 8, 2008, we still do not know. The man is a cipher. The big question: is he hiding radical leftist, anti-American plans?

A.M. Siriano asks the question the MSM are afraid to ask: What if Obama doesn't have America's best interest at heart?

We don't know the answer to that question. This is not hysteria or fear-mongering, but a rational question raised from what little we do know about Obama. He said he admired his father; the man turns out have been a hardline communist. He spends 20 years listening to a radical, anti-American preacher, then lies about it. He forges an alliance with an anti-American terrorist, then lies about it. When speaking to his fellow leftists in San Francisco he reveals a condescending, materialist view of Americans turning to God and guns because of economic hardship.

Who is Obama?