Redstate Sports

All day today the MSM and left blogs have been on the warpath about Hamas. The Golden Child feels he was slighted by the hated Bush and the enemy McCain, and the media acolytes will have none of it.

Jamie Rubin took point on their attack. In an article for the Washington Post titled "Hypocrisy on Hamas" and cutely subtitled "McCain Was for Talking Before He Was Against It," Rubin contended that Senator McCain has flip-flopped his position. News outlets and bloggers have been playing his edited clip from an old interview with similar degrees of delight.

As Soren Dayton noted earlier the story is a lot of hogwash, which the editors of the Washington Post let squeak right onto the page, either with no oversight, or worse, with oversight. Obviously Senator McCain's position remains now as it was then, no unconditional meetings with Hamas.

Well now the full video is available and Rubin's creative editing exposed. Watch the whole thing, you know, now that you can.

The editors have failed in their job. They've allowed this deliberate, lying hack job onto the page and demeaned the paper. Write to them now, and demand a retraction. Public, and with lots of mea culpa goodness.

FRED HIATT | hiattf@washpost.com

Patrick Hynes invited Hiatt on his radio show tomorrow. The secretary hung up on him. Nice.

Considering the reach this lie had, the backlash ought to reach as far. The Post Ombudsman should explain how something so completely, transparently opposite from the truth made it through their process. Maybe you ought to suggest that to her:

Deborah Howell | ombudsman@washpost.com

While you're at it, you might point out they are still promoting the article all over the site.

Just $5.00. That's what's needed.

RedState endorsed Sean Parnell in his bid to unseat Don Young.

But it's going to take money to do it. Don Young has been milking gobs of money from every dirty person he can.

Sean Parnell needs our help.

$5.00, people. $5.00 to beat Don Young.

Give up that trip to Starbuck. Give the cost of your double carmel latte to Sean Parnell. Give up that trip to McDonalds. Give the cost of your quarter pounder value meal to Sean Parnell.

You people bitch about the party losing its way all the freaking time. I do too.

It's time to put up or shut up. If we're not willing to give to people like Sean Parnell, well then we get what we deserve -- the party of Don Young instead of the party of Ronald Reagan.

$5.00 to clean house. If you can't give $5.00, stop complaining about the state of the party.

By the way, I gave $100.00. You can give more than $5.00 if you want to.

Not to be catatonically sanguine about the fate of the GOP, but however much I agree with the general tenor of this piece by Peggy Noonan, there is something unsettling about its "we're all gonna die!" tone. If I had a nickel for every time a political party had been pronounced as having shuffled off its mortal coil . . . well . . . let's just say that I might finally be in a position to turn my beloved Bears into serious Super Bowl contenders. In the meantime, let's remember that political tides shift and change rather rapidly and today's near-extinct party has an interesting tendency to become tomorrow's sociopolitical dynamo.

Again, this is not to say that the GOP does not have very real problems. It does. The brand needs serious reworking, morale on the Hill and throughout the party in general needs a boost of major proportions and the leadership needs to be changed. But even at their weakest, major political parties have vast amounts of reserve strength and energy that allows them to wait out the bad times. Sure, there are parties that go the way of the dinosaur, but these are rather rare events. More often than not, remarkable comebacks are the story of the day.

And yes, Republicans will actually have to work for that comeback. The good news for the GOP, however, is that contra what might be gleaned from some pundits, that work--if done right and diligently--will likely not be in vain.

Join a bunch of Redstate readers and writers at Bullfeathers in Washington, DC at 6:30. Bullfeathers is a bar 1 block south of the Capitol South metro.

The special occasion is the graduating from college of California Yankee's son and a number of Redstaters in Washington this summer.

I wrote earlier this week about the new Obamacan ad being run by MoveOn.org. Today TMRB.tv has a new vid mocking the ad (click here to reveal it below:)

Words words words. We have them in abundance. But what of reasons?

So here is today's top ten list.


Hint: click on the linked text to reveal even more sound reasoning!!!

Number 9: CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! whew, breath .. short ... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Number 8: Waffles!

Number 7: Bowling!

Number 6: Bowling for Waffles!
Pay attention Fox Network, I smell a celebrity edition featuring John Kerry and Flavor Flav!)

Oh, it only gets "better" ....

Number 5: Hope for Change!

Number 4: Yes We Can!

Number 3: He's the messiah! (offsite link)

Number 2: He's the anti-christ! (offsite link)

Number 1: And the number one reason to vote for Obama:
DUH

Now, post YOUR top ten list. Or whatever. Open thread.

You may think that’s an odd title for a blog post about comedian and Senate candidate Al Franken, but those are his words. In his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Franken attempts to paint anyone who disagrees with him as a liar or worse. Ironically enough, this book has put the failed radio host on a path of lies and deceit, due to his failure to pay for workers’ compensation while the book was being written and researched.

Franken’s defense…ignorance. While this may apply to Franken in most cases, it is a hard sell in this instance. In order to believe Franken’s claims of ignorance on his corporate governance problems you must believe totally disregarding reality:

•     Franken claims he never knew about his New York problems because he moved to Minnesota in April of 2005. To believe this you must also believe these additional Franken claims:

1.       Franken never received, or knew about, any of the dozen notices sent to him by the state of New York regarding his failure to pay worker’s compensation insurance

2.       Franken never received any notices or heard from the collection agency hired by the state of New York to collect the workers’ compensation insurance premiums Franken failed to pay

•    To believe Franken’s claims of ignorance you must ignore the following facts:

Read on . . .

1. Franken listed his New York City apartment as the mailing address for Rep. Tammy Baldwin’s campaign to send a refund check to in November of 2005

2. Franken still owns his New York City apartment

3. Franken voted twice in New York City elections in September and November of 2005

4. Franken’s New York address was listed on campaign donations to the DSCC in October of 2005

5. Franken lists his New York City address in the 2008 Harvard Alumni Review

6. Franken neither paid nor, according to him, should have paid taxes to Minnesota in 2005 (the year he claims to have moved to the state)

Additionally, it has been revealed that Jason Gauthier, who Franken and his campaign have refused to divulge, is most probably the doorman and signer of a certified letter sent to Franken’s home alerting him to his failure to pay worker’s compensation insurance. Franken could have, at any time since March of 2008, confirmed who it was that had signed for and delivered his mail. Of course, once caught in his lie, Franken has been insistent in sticking by his lie.

It will be interesting if Franken intends to blame the doorman for his problems – and, if he has already communicated to the doorman to stay quiet.

Warning to the doorman: Franken has already thrown his CPA under the bus by blaming him for failing to pay taxes in 17 states over the past five years. That CPA’s reputation is being destroyed by a client who will take no responsibility for his own actions.

And, now after all the silence, lies and leaps of faith Franken is asking of the public and press, he has the audacity to raise money for what he calls “The Truth Fund.” Unfortunately, this fund will not go towards uncovering the truth about Franken’s many misdeeds, but instead with be used in an attempt to distract from the problems that have sent his campaign into a nose dive.

Al Franken is quickly learning the meaning of the old saying “What a tangled web we weave when others we try to deceive.” His campaign’s foundation of lies and deceit is crumbling below him and soon Franken will be able to add failed Senate candidate to his lackluster resume.

And that’s the truth.

Having blasted the House GOP this week, let me praise them today.

They got fed up with the Democrats playing games with the lives of our troops. The Democrats, in pushing their war supplemental, highlighted their real priorities. In order, they were tax increases on the entrepreneurial class, spending on liberal social programs, tying the hands of the Commander-in-Chief, and screwing the war criminals in Iraq troops.

The GOP did the only thing left they could do -- they refused to participate in the game. Instead of even voting no, they voted present. It had a lot of people scratching their heads, but these people paid attention and asked why.

And, again, the answer is simple: the Democrats are playing games with the lives of our soldiers in harm's way. They do not want to fund the troops, but they know they have to. So they are trying to fund everything else first and daring the President to veto the funding.

He will. He should. And the GOP continues to be the party that stands up for the troops. Here's Roy Blunt on the matter:
the bottom line on this week's bill was it was never designed to fund the troops. The Democrats knew that this would not be a bill signed into law. It was designed to be a package that used the troops to do other spending that they know they can't get done without the troops.

Republican members voted present on that section of the bill. We then demonstrated we had the veto-sustaining strength that everybody knew we had on the other two sections of the bill.

Everything you do, everything you say, everywhere you go, there's somebody with a tricorder taking it all in. And then it goes onto Youtube. And then people write about it, often with mean-spirited titles like "Obama's sniper tale? When he stood up to Detroit's 'cold' shoulder." And then it goes on the Internet. Not always in that order, but it goes out.

You are never off the record. You are never safely among friends. You are never able to just assume that something will just slide on by. And nothing that you do or say will ever go away.

Ever.

Have a nice day!

Moe Lane

I spent a little time last night reading the California Supreme Court's opinion (.pdf) in the gay marriage case. To be honest, I didn't make it all the way through (it's quite lengthy - 172 pages, in fact), primarily because I found the money shot relatively early on. You see, one of the arguments raised by the State was, "Look, Supreme Court, the way the law is set up here in California, gay couples already get all the civil benefits of marriage. Literally the only thing they are denied is the right to use the word 'married.' Therefore, there's absolutely no potential harm that comes to gay people based on the way the law is set up." This argument elicited the following response from the court:

Second, retaining the traditional definition of marriage and affording same-sex couples only a separate and differently named family relationship will, as a realistic matter, impose appreciable harm on same-sex couples and their children, because denying such couples access to the familiar and highly favored designation of marriage is likely to cast doubt on whether the official family relationship of same-sex couples enjoys dignity equal to that of opposite-sex couples. Third, because of the widespread disparagement that gay individuals historically have faced, it is all the more probable that excluding same-sex couples from the legal institution of marriage is likely to be viewed as reflecting an official view that their committed relationships are of lesser stature than the comparable relationships of opposite-sex couples.

More below...

And now at last we see the argument laid bare. For all the high-minded talk about constitutional rights, what informs the Court's decision is a value judgment that all sexual choices are equal. This is, of course, what motivates all activists on this issue, since it is logically and legally nonsensical to insist upon "equal rights" when the defining thing that separates one class of persons from another is not some innate visual characteristic but rather a behavior. All people are equal under the law. This is the meaning of the phrase "equal rights." No serious person argues that all actions are equal under the law - and even if they did, this would not be called "equal rights." It would be called instead "anarchy."

It is often argued (although never proven) that there is a biological basis for homosexuality. For a moment, I will concede the point. Those who argue along this line generally also accept that there are biological bases for alcoholism, drug addiction, and a whole host of other behavioral tendencies. This does not lead to the conclusion under the rubric of "equal rights" that the alcoholic and drug addict may not be held accountable for the fruits of their biologically-based addiction. This illustrates with clarity that "equal rights" is not the driving force behind the gay marriage movement; it is instead a desire to impose the value judgment that homosexual sexual activity is a value-neutral choice, akin to the choice between Pepsi and Coke (all sane people will of course choose Coke, but that is beside the point).

Of course, the decision as to whether this is a value-neutral choice is inherently a value judgment, not a legal one. In other words, it is for the voters to decide this question, not the courts. Inevitably, some earnest person will respond, "Yes, but Leon, what if the voters of your state outlawed Coke? Shouldn't the Court step in?" Of course, the very laughability of the question illustrates the breathtaking arrogance of the California Supreme Court. One simply couldn't imagine any realistic scenario in which the majority of voters in a given state outlawed Coca-Cola; it is positively outside the bounds of plausibility. And yet, voters across the country (and indeed in the State of California, whose laws the California Supreme Court claims to follow) have, by overwhelming margins, gone to polls and made value judgments that homosexual relationships are not, in fact, entitled to the same stature as the institution of marriage, which has stood for millenia of human history as an institution involving man and woman.

Four Justices of the California Supreme Court disagree with this value judgment, and because they are allegedly brilliant lawyers, the value judgments of millions of Californian voters are swept aside with the carelessness of a pen stroke. California no longer lives under the rule of law - it lives under the rule of lawyers. And the California Supreme Court understands what it is doing - it is attempting to force the hoi polloi of California to adopt their enlightened standards concerning the value of homosexual sex, despite the fact that less than five years ago, those "enlightened standards" were rejected by large margins. It is at least refreshing that they had the stones to flat-out declare that the judgments of the voters must be rejected as unenlightened because it has forced us as a citizenry once again to increase our resolve that we will use whatever means are necessary to prevent men and women who possess this level of arrogance and disrespect for the law from taking the bench - especially in our nation's Supreme Court.

Thanks for the reminder, California Supreme Court. We needed it.

"McCain adviser ousted in conflict uproar," reads the Politico headline. That may make for a great headline, but neither it nor the sensationalism in the story are accurate.

Craig Shirley, a friend who helps RedState with PR work (hey, they should have mentioned us too), has done work with Stop Her Now, that our own Kevin Holtsberry is involved in. The Obama campaign no doubt pushed this story on the Politico, which as an organization seems more susceptible than any other media organization save the New York Times for candidate generated stories, and the Politico gladly went with the sensationalism.

Actually, Craig was asked by the McCain campaign if he wanted to continue working with the campaign or with Stop-Him-Now. Craig chose, not the campaign.

Likewise, Stop-Him-Now is not one of those shadowy 527 organizations, but an internet website that FEC regulations do not apply to. Stop Her Now was a 527, but certainly not shadowy. It only existed on the net and largely went unnoticed by the press until the guns turned on Jesus Obama.

Add this to the Politico file.

Oh, and pay attention little lefties:

RedState -------------> Craig Shirley-------------> Stop-Him-Now------------->Kevin Holtsberry ---------------> RedState

What a web we weave.

The Washington Post should either fire their editors or send them to remedial education. They should be ashamed that they let this garbage get printed.

Despite his reputation in the media as a charming maverick, McCain has shown that he is also happy to use Nixon-style dirty campaign tactics. By charging recently that Hamas is rooting for an Obama victory,

McCain isn't "charging". A senior Hamas leader said that "actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election [...] and he has a vision to change America." Why isn't that the story, rather than a distortion of McCain's statement?

This clown James Rubin continues:
I asked: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"

McCain answered: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

"Deal with" is not the same as "unconditional" talks at the level of heads of state. The President of Iran says that Israel should be destroyed and their weapons are being used to kill American soldiers. Indeed, yesterday on the blogger call McCain pointed out that Ryan Crocker regularly interacts with Iranians in Baghdad.

How could the Washington Post's editors let this garbage get printed in their paper? Are they illiterate or just biased beyond belief?

As if any more evidence was needed to show that Hugo Chavez means to destabilize the region:

High-ranking officials in Venezuela offered to help Colombian guerrillas obtain surface-to-air missiles meant to change the balance of power in their war with the Colombian government, according to internal rebel documents.

Venezuelan officials served as middlemen with Australian arms dealers and agreed to help the rebel commanders travel to the Middle East to receive missile training, according to files on computer hard drives seized by Colombian authorities and shown to The Washington Post. In interviews, Colombian officials said they have no evidence that the guerrillas obtained the antiaircraft missiles but added that Venezuelan authorities appear to have provided light arms, thousands of rounds of ammunition and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

The disclosures have already started to reverberate in the Bush administration and among Latin America policymakers on Capitol Hill, where a small group of Republicans has proposed classifying Venezuela, a major oil exporter to the United States, as a state sponsor of terrorism. The United States and Europe long ago blacklisted the rebel organization, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as a terrorist group.

You know the guy who's likely to win the Democratic Presidential Nomination? He's planning some action on immigration if he wins the election. You know what he's planning to do? If you guessed "build a really big wall and deport lots of people," you're so, so very close to being correct:

Barack Obama is easily winning the African American vote, but to woo Latinos, where he is running 3-to-1 behind rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he is taking a giant risk: spotlighting his support for the red-hot issue of granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

It's a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It's also a huge issue for the general electorate, which most vehemently does not. Obama's stand could come back to haunt him not only in a general election, but with other voters in states such as California, where driver's licenses for illegal immigrants helped undo former Gov. Gray Davis.

* * *

"Barack Obama has not backed down" on driver's licenses for undocumented people, said Federico Peña, a former Clinton administration Cabinet member and Denver mayor now supporting Obama. "I think when the Latino community hears Barack's position on such an important and controversial issue, they'll understand that his heart and his intellect is with Latino community."

You know, I understand that McCain is not acceptable to you on this issue. I get that. But the decision to not vote does not occur in a vacuum - if McCain does not win, someone else will. And he's got plans you're probably not going to like.

Note: Leon originally linked to this article but it appears to have been lifted from the one we have substituted. I take responsibility for the error, having pointed Leon to the link - Dan McLaughlin.

It looks like the Democrats and amnesty-loving Republicans slipped the AG Jobs bill into the Senate emergency supplemental appropriations bill during committee markup today. This bill relates to giving amnesty to illegal aliens who work as migrant workers.

Early intelligence reports that it probably has provisions similar to the last AG Jobs bill that was considered – including amnesty provisions. It was supposedly a Feinstein/ Craig amendment and was accepted with a vote of 17 – 12.

If Harry Reid offers this version of the supplemental as a substitute to the House version, he will block out all other senators from any opportunity to strip this Ag Jobs provision, which will ultimately keep potential amnesty provisions in the war funding bill.

Your Senator's number is (202) 224-3121.

[UPDATE:] A source tells me that the GOP leadership is scrambling to stop this and that this was not done with the GOP leadership's blessing. The House GOP leadership is preparing to fight too.

John Boehner, Roy Blunt, and the House GOP leadership, having failed to deal decisively and boldly to purge the cancer that is Don Young from the House GOP Caucus, got to witness him vote to raise taxes today. He joined 31 other Republicans who have no real leaders to show them the way.

The tax increase is a .5% increase on individuals who make more than $500,000.00 a year. The Democrats, naturally, called it a "Patriot Tax." They should have called it what it is: the "Rape the Entrepreneurial Class Tax Law" or RECTAL.

You know, I think we, all of us here at RedState, should commit to a project: every work day from now until he is crushed in the primary, write some bad about Don Young. Highlight his arrogance, highlight his scandals, highlight his votes, highlight his corruption, highlight his general jackassery -- highlight all the stuff to make sure when people are Googling him, they find out everyone hates Don Young except Don Young and a bunch of people in the federal pen.

By the way, the Club for Growth PAC put out a press release on this. Yes, they *do* get involved in primaries, Don Young.

ThinkProgress notes a passage from John McCain's speech today in which McCain warns of the dangers of appeasement:
Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain. I believe that it’s not an accident that our hostages came home from Iran when President Reagan was president of the United States. He didn’t sit down in a negotiation with the religious extremists in Iran, he made it very clear that those hostages were coming home.

Think Progress proceeds to fail history 101:

McCain’s praise of Ronald Reagan is wholly misplaced. To recap, during the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, hostages were not released because of Iran’s fear of Reagan, as McCain suggested. In reality, Iran released them after Reagan administration officials infamously sold arms to the country, which were transfered to Ayatollah Khomeini. As a result, 11 Reagan officials were convicted of crimes.

They are so laughably, ignorantly wrong. The hostages were released on Reagan's inauguration day. Recall that these guys recently accused McCain of plagiarism when someone had actually stolen the lines from him.

Hacks and clowns

The Democrat strategy of sneaking a bill to the floor they had over 450 days to get through Committee and Amendment and debate has succeeded. Obey and the Democrats have given Pelosi her trophy.

Using three votes on H R 2642 (Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act) this is how things turned out.

On funding 162 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan:

Yeas 141, Nays 149, "Present" 132, Not Voting 12

On troop withdrawal in 30 days:

Yeas 227, Nays 196, Not Voting 11

On spending 21 billion on levees in New Orleans, extending Unemployment Insurance, and Taxing small business:

Yeas 256, Nays 166, Not Voting 12

Decorum...and site posting rules preclude my adding any personal commentary on this news...the title speaks it more cleanly than I can muster within this post.

Senator McCain just finished a conference call with bloggers. Most of the call was dominated by discussion of Iraq and Iran, specifically Senator Obama's reaction to President Bush's remarks in Israel, Senator McCain's thoughts on negotiating with Iran and Senator McCain's thoughts on his announced goal to win the war in Iraq by 2013. Here are the highlights:

Senator McCain set out his definition of victory in Iraq, including control of the country by the Maliki government, the Iraqi military taking over responsibility and U.S. troops out of harms way and reducing U.S. troop presence, but he stressed that this does not mean we leave Iraq, or that there is not still "sporadic fighting." He again analogized a long-term presence in Iraq to those in Kuwait and Korea.

Senator McCain specifically stated that he looks forward to having with Sen. Obama or Clinton a "debate as to whether we are winning or not" in Iraq. He stressed repeatedly the importance of the "facts on the ground."

He emphasized that he is not announcing a date for withdrawal by setting a 2013 goal. When a questioner characterized his speech as a withdrawal date he was quite firm in telling her that "you either didn't read or didn't understand my speech" and said it "should be fairly apparent" that he picked 2013 because that would be the end of his first term and he's saying what he intends to accomplish.

Turning to Iran, Sen. McCain said he took Pres. Bush at his word that in his remarks on the dangers of appeasement he was not referring to Sen. Obama, but he did note "such a vociferous reaction" by Sen. Obama and characterized as the "highest degree of naivete and inexperience" to negotiate with Iran when the Iranian leadership refers to Israel as "a stinking corpse" and threatens to wipe Israel off the map and supports terrorism and the insurgency in Iraq, emphasizing that such talks would only lend prestige to the Iranian regime.

As Sen. McCain described Sen. Obama's proposal for such talks: "what is it that he wants to talk about?"

Sen. McCain then laid out his conditions for talking with Iran: renounce threats against Israel, renounce nuclear ambitions, stop supplying "lethal explosive devices" to insurgents in Iraq. He noted that he'd be willing to offer incentives to Iran but they would have to make those steps first. He also noted that U.S. Ambassador Crocker, in Iraq, has tried talking with the Iranian Ambassador there (despite the lack of formal diplomatic relations) but has met with nothing but intransigence.

A few more random points:

In response to Jim Geraghty's question about Obama trying to lie about having proposed talks with Iran, Sen. McCain noted that Sen. Obama has told different audiences different things about NAFTA (being against it in Ohio and pro-free-trade in NC), and also noted that the Canadians responded to Sen. Obama's threat to unilaterally renegotiate NAFTA by saying they'd have to sell oil to China instead.

He also promised to try to do regular blogger calls even in the White House.

In response to a question about the influence of Newt Gingrich on his thinking, Sen. McCain said of Newt: "he has some of the best ideas in this country" and he has read some of Newt's books.

Sen. McCain reiterated his strong support for nuclear power and blamed President Carter for ceasing the reprocessing of spent fuel.

Answering a question about veterans' healthcare, Sen. McCain noted his support from veterans groups and promised to match his record of the same against anyone. He noted that he wants to work with Sen. Webb and that he supports letting veterans go to local non-VA health providers for routine care. He stressed that a key goal is "encouraging people to stay in the military" but that it's also important to support the mission, not just care for the wounded.

Finally, in response to questions about appointing Democrats to his Administration, Sen. McCain stated that he would intend to do so but won't specify to what jobs and that he has to "get a running mate first" before he thinks of that.

Speaking at ceremonies to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the birth of the State of Israel, President Bush made the following statement regarding the fight against terrorism:

. . . "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is--the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

This relatively banal statement--banal because it has been repeated in some form or another by Western leaders ever since it became indubitably clear that Neville Chamberlain did not quite have things right at Munich--has caused people to lose their ever-loving minds. Barack Obama is generally even-keeled, but . . . well . . . read the following overreaction:

"It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack," Obama said in the statement his aides distributed. "George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

Read on . . .

You know, it takes a lot to make the White House political office seem competent these days, but the Obama campaign did it:

The White House said Bush's comment wasn't a reference to Obama.

"It is not," press secretary Dana Perino told reporters in Israel. "I would think that all of you who cover these issues and have for a long time have known that there are many who have suggested these types of negotiations with people that the president, President Bush, thinks that we should not talk to. I understand when you're running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you. That is not always true. And it is not true in this case."

Indeed, there is nothing whatsoever in the statement that even remotely refers to Obama, who should have just let the statement go. But evidently, it is more important to fire up the masses with furious protestations that Team Obama Must Not Be Offended. The masses respond dutifully. Joe Biden swears. Nancy Pelosi stammers. I expect that this evening, Keith Olbermann will burst a blood vessel.

I'm gobsmacked at the idea that an issue should have even been made of this speech. The only thing this furious nonsense has done is to make clear to the McCain people that Team Obama can be easily rattled and made to--dare I write it?--lose its bearings.

Oh, and if you are excessively touchy about a particular comment--even when the comment does not refer to you in any way--you make others think that there must be some reason for the comment to apply. For all of its protestations, Team Obama has likely only served to make itself more vulnerable.