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John LeBoutillier, a NewsMax.com pundit, is a former U.S. Congressman and a nationally recognized political commentator. Mr. LeBoutillier rose to national prominence in 1974 when, as a college student at Harvard, he raised over a quarter million dollars for a former Republican challenger against South Dakota Senator George McGovern.Mr. LeBoutillier's efforts caught the notice of President Ford's re-election campaign and in 1976 he was appointed regional coordinator, responsible for all field activities in New Jersey. After graduating Magna Cum Laude from Harvard College, Mr. LeBoutillier completed a master's degree at Harvard Business School. Mr. LeBoutillier has been a prolific writer, beginning with his best-selling book Harvard Hates America (October 1978). Later he authored Vietnam Now (September 1989) and co-authored Primary, a novel (September 1979). He has contributed to many major newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, among others. In 1980, Mr. LeBoutillier was elected to represent New York's 6th District. He defeated a 16-year Democrat incumbent and became the youngest member of the 97th Congress. In the House, Congressman LeBoutillier served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and as a member of Special House POW/MIA Task Force. After leaving Congress, Mr. LeBoutillier continued to be active in POW/MIA affairs. He currently runs "Sky Hook II Project," dedicated to recovering living American POWs in Southeast Asia. He also has been a frequent commentator and host of several media programs. He is a frequent guest on radio and television shows. In 1981 he conducted an exclusive interview with Alexander Solzhenitsyn for NBC's Tomorrow show. He has hosted radio talk show programs on WMCA radio and WABC radio. In 1984, Mr. LeBoutillier interviewed Richard M. Nixon for the ABC Network radio in his first live network radio appearance since leaving the White House. He has been a frequent guest on many national talk show programs, including the Today show, ABC's 20/20, Nightline and CNN's Crossfire. You can e-mail John at johnlebout@johnlebout.com |
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Thursday, May 22, 2008 MCCAIN: WHAT DOES HE STAND FOR? Three months after (somehow) winning the GOP nomination for President, Senator John McCain has so far failed to put any flesh on his almost-bare political bones. In other words, McCain is an empty shell - or, as Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, "There is no there there." With McCain, there is no "there there." Here is a good test: take any successful politician and you can sum up their message or legacy in one easy sentence. For example: Ronald Reagan: won the Cold War and limited the growth of government; Abraham Lincoln: ended slavery and saved the nation; FDR: kept the country hopeful through the Great Depression and fought Hitler and Tojo; Or among current politicians: Ted Kennedy: Big Government liberalism is the solution to everything; Ron Paul: Libertarian conservatism is the only philosophy that works over the long haul; Now, take John McCain and try to come up with his one-sentence message. Is it: John McCain: political reformer, fiscal conservative who took on run-away, out-of-control Big Spending GOP and who challenged the dominance of the Christian Conservatives; Or is it: John McCain: railed against the inherent corruption in DC but is, at the same time, surrounded by inside-the-beltway lobbyists, used clout to help Arizona political contributors; Or is it: John McCain: voted against Bush tax cuts, then voted to make them permanent; attacked concept of a withdrawal date from Iraq and then proposed his own 2013 withdrawal date; created Gang of 14 and then said he’d nominate ‘constructionist judges.’ Or is it: John McCain: passionate advocate of amnesty for illegal aliens who then swore he would oppose amnesty for illegal aliens; The contradiction of the above is one of McCain’s many problems: there is no consistent, constant John McCain. He has tried to be all things to all people. The result is he is nothing to anyone. And thus he inspires no positive emotion. If he is to win in the fall, it will be because his campaign demonizes the Democratic nominee and scares the voters into voting against that nominee. (No wonder the GOP wants to run against Obama. There is a vast, unmined trove of material to use to paint Obama so far out of the mainstream as to make his election almost impossible.) But how many people will be voting for McCain? And if he should win, how can a man who basically stands for nothing - and who heads a party with which he disagrees on almost everything from taxes to amnesty to global warming - run the Federal Government with an overwhelming Democrat House and Senate? All of this makes McCain such a strange anomaly. No one knows him. What would he do? What does he really believe? My guesses: McCain is not a bright man. He knows very little about anything. He cannot expound on any topic for more than 20 seconds. His knowledge of business and economics is zip. His knowledge of foreign policy and history are equally weak. He has devoted most of his life to hard-partying. He is not a serious man; he was a lifelong, playboy play-around. While that may be great for a daring, dashing jet jockey, it is not good for a President. He has terrible candidate skills. His speaking ability earns a D-minus; he cannot rouse an audience; he is terrible reading the TelePrompter and is not good on TV, either. He looks 171 years old - not the 71 he is. His attempts to make light of his age are backfiring. Unlike Reagan who defused the age issue, McCain actually seems to be aging right in front of our eyes. His cosmetic attempts to change reality will not work. I.E., his recent removal of lobbyists from his campaign does not and cannot alter the fact that he hired them in the first place. He chose these people - and now that he sees it may hurt him he is canning them; Same with Reverent Hagee’s endorsement brouhaha. McCain accepted the endorsement months ago and refused to budge until the heat grew to an unbearable degree. So now he has ‘rejected’ Hagee’s endorsement - and that will suffice? How can that be - any more than Obama trying to separate himself from Reverend Wright will not work either. Conclusion: McCain is an empty suit - albeit wrapped in a POW’s prison uniform - who actually stands for nothing. But he is running against an equally empty suit - Obama - with all sorts of political problems. November is a long, long way off. I will guarantee you of one thing: there will be a Big, Big Surprise before too long which will upset this race for the White House. 5:16 PM Monday, May 12, 2008 DISTRESS IN THE SYSTEM Here is a question you hear all the time these days: "McCain...Obama...what a choice! How can this country survive four more years with either of these two as President?" Ask most voters - Republican, Democrat or Independent - and they are unhappy about the state of the 2008 Presidential campaign today - with the exception of the legions of Obama supporters who adore him and see him as their Messianic Savior. Hillary voters are aghast at the thought of their Democrat Party being taken over by Obama. Republicans and Conservatives, too, are extremely lukewarm - at best - toward McCain; at worst at least 25% of Republican primary voters continue to traipse to the polls in Indiana, Pennsylvania and North Carolina to vote against McCain. And now we read that the Ron Paul forces plan to disrupt the GOP Convention in September as a protest against McCain. Independent voters - by their nature - are not happy either with the two parties. That is why they have opted out of the two-party system. So as we enter the final six months of this endless and seemingly aimless Presidential race, where are we? Let us take a look: The GOP Situation: McCain is incredibly weak in his own party. There is no enthusiasm for him at all. And there is genuine dislike for him among hard-core conservatives; their dislike has increased as this year has gone on; As the economy sours, McCain’s numbers decline, too. In fact, his numbers are actually declining; in some recent head-to-head polls (meaningless as a predictor of the winner six months ahead but good to judge his strengths and weaknesses) he is under 40% now. McCain the Candidate does not speak with passion or knowledge about the economy, job-creation, health care or any other domestic issue; his confidence is highest when he discusses military matters; Do you ever find anyone who adores McCain? Who would die for McCain the way voters would die for a Nixon or a Reagan? No! A McCain voter generally is someone who dislikes McCain less than he or she dislikes the alternative; Technically, McCain looks old, is stiff on the stump, can’t read a TelePrompter, is not inspirational and has created a Gigantic Problem for himself on his Right; But he still might win! How? Because Obama is almost unelectable. Let us examine: The Democrats: A careful state-by-state analysis of the Battleground States shows that Hillary would run much better against McCain than Obama would. I.E. Florida: Hillary leads Mccain by 11; Obama loses by ten. I.E. Hillary runs much better in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arkansas than Obama does. Michigan is a huge problem for the Democrats because of their indicted Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. His status has so divided Michigan that it is doubtful Obama could carry it in the fall; No one has a clue what Hillary plans to do - or when. Is she still "in it to win it"? Or is she now looking to damage Obama so she can come back in 1012 in a "I told you so" campaign. The Democrats are truly amazing. In a year they almost cannot lose, they may pick the one candidate - Obama - who cannot win. Obama’s naivite and lack of international knowledge is a problem for us all. When the sycophant media praises him they only reinforce a false premise: Obama is actually as badly prepared for the Presidency as was G.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter; There is still a feeling that there are other ‘skeletons’ or other ‘Reverend Wrights’ yet to be uncovered on Obama; the Clintons ain’t giving up yet; Hillary knows this - and she also feels Obama would lose in November. So she will soldier on - hoping lightning strikes before Denver; The Democratic infrastructure - from whence come the Super Delegates - is sick and tired of Hillary and Bill Clinton. "Payback is a bitch" - and the Clintons are getting their payback from costing their party the House, Senate (1994) and the (Gore) Presidency (2000) and for the embarrassment of the Lewinsky impeachment saga. Obama is the Mirror Opposite of the Bushes and the Clintons - and he was against the war in Iraq. This is why he has almost won the nomination. Conclusion: you get the feeling that ‘something’ is going to happen and shake up this race - perhaps on both sides. 5:23 PM Saturday, May 10, 2008 PLEASE VOTE FOR GRANT AND FARBER By John LeBoutillier The Radio Hall of Fame is conducting an election for its new class of inductees. Two of Talk Radio's pioneers are on the ballot - Bob Grant and Barry Farber - and they should both be elected with 100% of the vote! Why? These two radio greats have given us what we today take for granted (no pun intended): conservative thought translated into entertaining radio all across our nation - 24/7. It wasn't always this way. Fifty years ago another radio legend - Barry Gray - took the first on-air phone call during his New York City show conducted from a mid-town restaurant. That began the "listener call-in" that has evolved into the genius of the genre: we the people are the stars of Talk Radio. Bob Grant - with his passionate monologues about the declining morality of our national culture - and Barry Farber - with his encyclopedic knowledge of history and language - were leading the way long before Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham were born. And as wonderful as Rush Limbaugh is, his way was paved by Barry Farber and Bob Grant. Luckily for all of us, these two all-time greats are still broadcasting - and we can vote for them to be inducted in the Radio Hall of Fame this coming November. Just go to www.radiohof.org and cast your votes for Farber and Grant! 8:11 PM Tuesday, April 29, 2008 DEMOCRATIC STUPID-DELEGATES Political insiders continue to say that "Democratic super-delegates are going to stay with Obama all the way. They hate Hillary and don’t trust her. Plus, these super-delegates - politicians in their own right - are afraid of angering their own African American constituents in their states or districts." If that sentiment is indeed accurate, then these so-called Super-Delegates are in fact Stupid-Delegates for they will be picking a terminal candidate: Barack Obama. In fact, the GOP is now licking its chops over what it can do not only to Obama in the fall but the entire Democratic Party by invoking the specter of Reverend Wright. And do not be fooled by Obama’s latest attempt to distance himself from Reverend Wright; those two are tied together forever. Period. And Wright is so angry at Obama now and so nasty that he is likely to trash Obama in a damaging way in the next few days. Wright is surrounded by haters - that DC press conference on Monday was packed with his followers and sycophants - and they are looking for targets to attack. Obama may soon be in their sights. Reverend Wright clearly is a egomaniac or maybe even a megalomaniac. Whatever he is, he is poison to Obama’s quest to be elected President. It isn’t going to happen. He, Obama - through his choices of Wright and Michele Obama and his ‘cling’ statement - has shown himself to be out of the mainstream of American political thought. He is so out of it, in fact, that Obama actually makes Hillary look acceptable to a lot of people - and that ain’t easy! (She is going on Bill O’Reilly on Wednesday night!) Obama will lose in Indiana next week - and is in trouble now in North Carolina. Hillary and Team Clinton are going for the jugular in the Tar Heel state - knowing that they are playing with house money there; no one has expected her to even be competitive there and now the gap is rapidly closing. The Democratic Governor has now endorsed her. Obama has lost seven points prior to the latest Wright outburst; we can expect that gap to narrow even more in the next few days. Obama is faltering. He has not won a primary since February 22. How can these Super-Delegates not see what is so plain to us all: Obama cannot win a national election. He is easy pickings for the GOP - even when the Republican candidate seems out-of-it half the time and engenders no conservative enthusiasm at all - and even in a year that is tailor-made for the Democratic Party. It is obvious that these career politicians know Hillary and can’t stand her. OK, fine. Then they ought to do what this space suggested last week: nominate Al Gore and make Obama the Veep candidate. That ticket - Gore/Obama - would win this November. They would screw the Clintons - something they both want to do - and they would keep the Democratic base together and happy. But no matter what they do, these Super-Delegates will live in infamy if they pick Obama for President because he will lead that party right over the cliff. Can they be that stupid? Well, they are Liberals and Democrats.... 4:47 PM Friday, April 25, 2008 THE POLITICAL WORLD RE-ASSESSES OBAMA Pennsylvania was the beginning of the end for Barak Obama. His startlingly bad results among key groups - Catholics, white women, Jews and elderly voters - has shaken the Democratic world to its core. And now the re-emergence of the infamous Reverend Jeremiah Wright will be the coup de grace for the already-hurting Obama. Just when Obama has been trounced in the Keystone State the last thing he needs is Reverend Wright popping off on Bill Moyers on PBS, followed by a speech in DC at the National Press Club. Clearly Bill Moyers - the Dean of the Left Wing Media - is trying to rehabilitate Reverend Wright in order to rescue Obama’s faltering candidacy. What a mistake by these bone-headed liberals! Wright is way, way beyond political rehabilitation! He is radioactive - and the poisonous radiation is now spreading step-by-step down into the Democratic Party. State GOP organizations in North Carolina and Washington State are now airing TV ads using the explosive Wright excerpts against Democratic gubernatorial candidates there. John McCain - in a typical McCain move - decries the use of the Wright sermons and asked these state organizations not to air the commercials. To their credit they have defied McCain - perhaps a sign of how little anyone inside the Republican Party believes in or cares about McCain; they are more interested in their home state prospects. But the real story today is the almost sudden realization among the political cognicenti that Obama is un-electable in November and that Hillary is actually a stronger general election candidate. The Pennsylvania results are what has brought this sea-change. For example, Obama lost Catholic voters 72-28%. This is a devastating result politically. The oft-mentioned ‘Reagan Democrats’ - who are in fact swing voters - are predominantly white Catholics (Irish, Itialian, Polish and other Eastern European heritage). When Obama gets blown out by Hillary, of all people, 72-28, that sent a shock wave through the political world. The result? Obama rooters in the media like Joe Klein of Time Magazine, Howard Fineman of Newsweek and MSNBC’s Chris Mathews all did a massive 180 Degree Reversal on Thursday; they now realize that Obama is a mortally wounded candidate. You can bet that the Democratic Super Delegates - the very people who will determine the Democratic ticket in Denver - are also re-assessing Obama’s deteriorating candidacy. They, too, must now see that Obama is not their strongest general election candidate. In fact, he is their weakest. He is now being called - in the liberal New Republic, of all places - “another George McGovern.” (McGovern lost 49 states to Richard Nixon in 1972.) Bit by bit this realization is spreading through a stubborn and conflicted Democratic leadership. As they swallow the fact that Obama cannot win in November - and that McCain would thus win and continue the war in Iraq, which all Democrats want to stop - they look at Hillary. And they don’t trust her, don’t want her to be their nominee, don’t want any more mutterings, scandals and potential sexcapades from Bill, and don’t want the whole Clinton Machine to be back in power. But they also now know she is tougher than Obama and more of a fighter and would actually run a better race in the fall against the GOP nominee. Believe this: the Al Gore Scenario - mentioned in this space earlier - will gain traction in the next weeks. It is a way out of this mess without alienating the Democratic Base - and a way to win in November. But in the meantime the Reverend Wright’s re-emergence will remind everyone of Obama’s weaknesses in a potential general election. The Reverend’s appearances will again stoke the fires. Cable TV will have a field day replaying new excerpts of this angry, disturbed man. Television loves a freak show! It couldn’t come at a worse time for Obama. 6:46 AM Monday, April 21, 2008 DO THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO GO OVER THE CLIFF? If ever an election was teed up for a victory it is this November for the Democrats. G.W. Bush is perhaps the most unpopular president in the last seventy years; Republican is a bad word to a majority of people; the Iraq War is the war-that-never-ends; and the perception is that our economy is slipping into recession. So - amazing as this sounds - the Democrats can and should win the November election for President. Period. They are going to increase their margins in both the House and Senate. But the Presidency is a personality/character/feel kind of vote. Voters need to ‘feel’ something for the candidate for President they vote for. The more the nation gets to know Barack Obama, the less they like or trust him. And they already know they don’t trust or like Hillary one bit. Her negatives are higher than any other presidential candidate - ever! And they also know that the only time they have won the Presidency since the mid-1960's the winning candidates have been - or perceived to be - moderate, white, southern men: LBJ in 1964; Carter in 1976; Clinton in 1992, 1996 and Gore in 2000 (winner of the popular vote). When they run a goofy northern liberal i.e. McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry, they lose. Period. So they need to wake up and realize something: Obama and Hillary are so weakened and so damaged and so out-of-the-mainstream that neither of them can win in November. They are damaged goods. Even a poor candidate like McCain, running with all the Bush Baggage draped over his shoulders, would defeat either one of these two. So here is what the Democrats ought to do - but they probably won’t: A) Realize Obama or Hillary are not the answer; B) Give the nomination - and the tremendous fund-raising machine the Democrats have developed this year - at the August 27th Democratic Convention - to Al Gore. Unite behind him. Perhaps give Obama the Veep slot to harness the youth and energy he has injected into the system this year. C) Gore would hardly even have to campaign! He is so well-known and so acceptable to Democrats and Independents - and so vindicated by Bush’s failures, by his opposition to the Iraq war, by his Nobel Peace Prize - and, most of all, by his not running for President that he is now seen as above petty politics. D) Gore would win in November in a walk. Period. Now, could this scenario happen? Yes, it could. How? The Democratic candidates have to keep ripping each other to shreds, thus making them un-electable in November. Only then could such a scenario take place. But in this strangest of all years, anything can and may still happen. 6:10 PM Monday, April 14, 2008 OBAMA’S MACACA MOMENT Senator Barak Obama’s “bitter” comments have severely wounded his campaign. While he might very well survive this episode and still go on to nab the Democratic presidential nomination, this flap gives the GOP huge new ammo for the fall campaign. What these San Francisco comments about rural people do is to - again - paint a picture of a candidate who is an Ivy League snob, a left-wing elitist who thinks he is better than rural people. And this is an image that has bedeviled liberal Democrats for decades. Mike Dukakis, Walter Mondale and John Kerry come to mind. Doubts about Obama are already out there. Some people - 13% in a new national poll - suspect he is a Muslim. His middle name - Hussein - is also a negative among some voters. But a slew of other recent events paint a picture of a guy definitely out of the mainstream: • Reverend Wright’s disgusting, white-hating, America-hating comments will be huge fodder in the fall election; • Obama’s refusal to disavow Wright’s racist rants have hurt him badly among the very voters - rural whites - he is now labeling as “bitter” and “clinging to guns...and religion.” • Michele Obama’s chip-on-her-shoulder “I have never been proud of my country” statements also hurt his campaign and paint a disturbing picture of Team Obama; • When a man’s wife and pastor - perhaps the two closest adults in his life - both attack the United States of America, that is telling about that man. If they had attacked the government and its policies that is OK. But both Reverend Wright and Mrs. Obama actually attacked our country itself; • Paying repeated tribute in Chicago during his rise up the political ladder to one-time Weather Underground Leader and domestic bomber William Ayres, a convicted felon and home-grown left-wing terrorist, is another example of Obama’s left-wing ideology, which he has so-far hidden with vague, ambiguous “Yes we can!” rhetoric; • Refusing to wear an American flag label pin; • Refusing to salute the American flag during the Pledge of Allegiance; • Bowling a pathetic 37 - clearly showing that he hadn’t ever even been to a bowling alley; symbolic? Yes, but telling, too. • Giving drivers licenses to illegal immigrants; • Obama’s three attempts to apologize/clarify his San Francisco comments don’t solve the underlying problem: he truly believes he is superior than “rural” people. He - like all liberals - has disdain for non-Ivy League educated people. • What a shame that so many people - including some of these very “rural” people - have been snowed and fooled by Obama’s CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN campaign. It is a campaign built on platitudes and generalities all meant to hide his extreme liberalism (twice he has had the most liberal voting record in the US Senate; even more liberal that Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, who is the only Socialist in the Senate!) Strictly from an analytical perspective, there is so much material here to paint Obama as someone not to be trusted as President and Commander-in-Chief. John McCain cannot win by defending Bush’s pathetic record. It is indefensible. The war, the economy? No way! And his own pro-Iraq War record won’t help him. So the only way he - or any GOP nominee can win - is to paint Obama as too big a risk to take for the most crucial job in the world: the Presidency. Look for a totally negative campaign to be run - not by McCain’s campaign itself - but by the GOP and its associated entities who are in desperate shape and looking for something to turn things around. They see Obama as an inviting target and will exploit all of these items. McCain will try to stay above the fray. This is not to say that he doesn’t have his own huge baggage; he does. And his temper could blow at any moment - and if it ever blew in public as some of us have seen in private then he would be viewed as un-electable. (Look for more on this troubling aspect of McCain’s personality within the next week.) Two years ago, Senator George Allen, a smiley and cocky Senator seemingly headed for the White House, demeaned a young Virginian by calling him “macaca.” That effectively ended Allen’s political career. Now we have another smiley and cocky Senator, Barack Obama, demeaning rural white folks in a manner more revealing about Obama himself. He has now entered Hate America territory. He will rue the day he uttered those elitist comments. 10:28 AM |
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