POLITICAL UPDATES



1) Judge Roberts: he will sail through confirmation hearings and easily be seated in time for the first Monday in October.

Why?

Because he is very smart, very conservative - without angering the Left - and shies away from controversy.

Clearly today ‘controversy ‘ - saying non-PC things - is trouble. Yes, it is good for selling books, witness the tremendous success of Ed Klein’s THE TRUTH ABOUT HILLARY. But ‘controversy’ is bland DC raises hackles and gets the wolves to circle the prey.

If Hillary is voting for him, then you know he will have no trouble. Even Charles Schumer indicates he mnight vote for him.

Clearly the Left has collapsed on this fight.

Judge Roberts, who, it turns out, was in my Harvard class of 1976 (I did not know him), is a very hard-working and centered man. Yes, he is a bit ‘low-profile,’ but do we want judges who make news in order to get attention? Or do we want smart judges who make smart judgements?

2) John Bolton, on the other hand, is the anti-thesis of John Roberts. ‘Controversy’ is to John Bolton as white is to rice!

He was too pushy, too strong, too opinionated to get through the US Senate.

So, instead, on Friday evening - as soon as the Senate goes into its August recess - the President will make a recess appointment, which means Bolton will be our Ambassador the UN through 2006 (the expiration of this Congress).

This is a net loss for the Bush Administration. They couldn’t get their own man through a GOP-controlled Senate - after the President was handily re-elected.

And the Bolton troubles have much to do with the Roberts’ selection. Team Bush couldn’t afford another long, drawn-out failure in the Senate; these inside-the-beltway troubles distract from the Second Term Agenda.

And the Democrats have become em-Boltoned by their ability to filibuster the Bolton nomination to death.

But John Roberts hasn’t given them any ammo with which to ratchet up the passion level of the Left against him.

3) Social Security Reform has become a bust of a Second Term centerpiece. A total failure. Yes, the Social Security program down the line needs fixing. But not today; and not instead of dealing with the flood of illegals into our country, the exploding cost of health care premiums and gas at the pump.

No wonder the poll ratings for the President are way down. The Congress, too. The American people see DC as totally out of touch with their day-to-day concerns.

4) Iraq and Iran: as predicted in this space almost three years ago, the very alliance we dreaded from 1979 to 1990, is now becoming a reality.

Iran’s under-the-radar influence in the new Iraqi government was evidenced last week when the Iraqi Prime Minister - who spent ten years in exile in Tehran - journeyed to Ayatolla Khomeini’s grave site and places a wreath of flowers there.

This symbolism should worry us very much.

If these two nations join together in a loose Shi'ite Muslim extremist alliance controlling 40% of the world’s oil reserves and on the verge of manufacturing weapons grade plutonium, then we will have helped create a situation much worse than anything Saddam could have ever conjured up.

Also, early indications of the soon-to-be completed new Iraqi constitution are that women will again be forced to take a back seat in many ways. This is not what we were originally told would happen.

Should American troops and American money be helping to ‘create’ a Second Class situation for Iraqi women?


5) 2008: Hillary is the likely Democratic nominee. There will be one other Democrat around whom the anti-Hillaryites will rally. Who will that be? Governor Warner of Virginia. Senator Bayh of Indiana? Governor Vilsak of Iowa? Governor Richardson of New Mexico?

There are a number of ‘smart’ Democrats - especially on the West Coast - who don’t want Hillary and believe she will lose in November 2008. David Geffen, the billionaire, is outspoken about this belief.

Yes, Hillary is the odds-on favorite to win the nomination.

But front-runners often stumble.

TEAM HILLARY’S LATEST SALVO




The Hillary War Machine has run a coordinated attack campaign against Ed Klein and his book, THE TRUTH ABOUT HILLARY, beginning before the book was even published or available for advance readings.

Team Hillary’s major ally in this anti-Klein effort?

The so-called Mainstream Media (MSM) - comprised of mostly East Coast elitist media institutions, i.e. CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, NEWSWEEK and TIME MAGAZINE - are staffed with pro-Hillary zealots and acolytes who practice what is now known as ‘advocacy journalism.’ In other words, they use their media outposts to preach a leftist political agenda - in this case, defending their latest heroine, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

1) Beginning in April - two full months before the book’s June 21 publication date - the Hillary War Machine, using cut-outs, began faxing New York State radio shows anti-Klein diatribes. I know this because one such radio host, Kevin Doran up in Hornell, New York, interviewed me and told me, “I started receiving these faxes from some PR firm about a book I had never even heard of!”

2) Then, when the first excerpt of the book appeared on June 8 in VANITY FAIR, a pro-Hillary front group, ‘Media Matters,’ began rebutting and distorting things in the book.

3) As the book hit the book stores on June 21, Ed Klein suddenly found himself ‘canceled’ from a number of TV shows that has already booked him or indicated they were “strongly leaning’ toward booking him, including Good Morning America, Paula Zahn and Aaron Brown.

CNN and Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz reported that Team Hillary was telling these MSM TV shows and networks not to book Klein - or else face the consequences of unfriendly relations with Hillary from then on.

MSNBC’s head, Rick Kaplan, a Clinton pal who overnighted in the Lincoln Bedroom, has banned Klein from appearing on any MSNBC shows.

(Team Hillary is also rounding up people to submit negative book reviews to Amazon - even if they have not read the book.)

4) Now comes the latest salvo from the Hillary War Machine: a new spin that the book - which has now been in the top ten on the New York Times bestseller list for 3 straight weeks - is actually “not doing well.”

Friday afternoon, I was contacted by a NEWSWEEK writer who told me, “I am surprised how badly the book is doing. It has fallen off quickly.”

When I replied that Klein’s book was doing very well given that Klein had been blackballed off of network TV (except for Hannity & Colmes, Lou Dobbs and John Gibson), she replied, “Oh, he’s had plenty of publicity. And the book isn’t doing as well as UNFIT FOR COMMAND (the Swift Boat vets book of last year). It is sinking quickly.”

Again I countered, “Yeah, but that book had $100 million worth of TV ads supporting it!”

Not coincidentally - and almost at the same time - Ed Klein was contacted by the NEW YORK TIMES for a piece in Sunday’s Week in Review section. Within minutes of beginning this conversation, Klein knew the theme of the story: the book is not doing well.

The reporter, Edward Wyatt, repeated virtually everything the NEWSWEEK reporter had said to me: the book’s sales were poor and “falling quickly” and not as good as UNFIT FOR COMMAND.

When Ed Klein countered that the book was now on the NY TIMES list for 3 straight weeks, Wyatt blew that off and kept the focus on his Team Hillary-directed spin: the book is not doing that well. He used the exact same words as the NEWSWEEK reporter: “drop-off,” “sinking,” and “fallen.”

Clearly Team Hillary distributed a new set of Talking Points to their media lap dogs in the MSM.

The fact is THE TRUTH ABOUT HILLARY is a smash success. It has sold very well; Newsmax reports it to be the single best selling book ever offered through the Newsmax online store.

The biggest story of the saga surrounding THE TRUTH ABOUT HILLARY is that it has exposed the fault lines in the media: the so-called MSM has shed any semblance of impartiality. The NEW YORK TIMES has shown itself to be the house organ of the Hillary for President campaign. And others follow suit just to curry favor with their latest leftist icon: Queen Hillary.

POLITICAL NOTES


1) Well, it now turns out that we have recovered the body of the fourth and final Navy Seal who died on the secret mission two weeks ago in the mountains of Afghanistan - perhaps closing in on Osama Bin Laden.

This body was not decapitated; this brave soul died in combat - not at the hands of Taliban rebels who had boasted of capturing him alive and then decapitating him.

But - and here is the rub - why is there even a ‘Taliban spokesman’ remaining?

Almost four years after the fall of the Taliban in the wake of our retaliation after 9/11, how can there still be a ‘Taliban government’ to even quote?

Four years after the fall of Nazi Germany, there was no ‘Nazi spokesman’ speaking to the media. None!

Could it be we didn’t sufficiently finish the job in Afghanistan because we were diverted to the imminent invasion of Iraq?


2) The Valerie Plame/CIA leaking case indeed has legs and won’t go away. The GW Bush-appointed special counsel, Fitzgerald, has sunk his teeth into this case. Every federal judge who has been involved - even those who want to protect reporters’ right to protect sources - have sided with forcing the truth to come out because there is something in the case that over-rides all other considerations. And we do not know what that ‘something’ is - but there are 8 redacted pages in the latest court case that must raise eyebrows.

An awful lot of energy spent if it is just mere payback to Joe Wilson for disagreeing with the Bush Administration over the State of the Union speech.

This case has surprises left. Watch it carefully.

3) Queen Hillary swept into Singapore last week to try to win the 2012 Olympics for New York. Lots of hype for her Highness.

She had absolutely no impact - or perhaps negative impact - as New York was eliminated on the second round.

Can you imagine the preening and boasting if New York had won this bid? Hillary - having just come sweeping in at the last moment to piggyback on the years of hard work done by many others - would be positively claiming - through her ‘friends’ - that it was her last minute intervention that made the difference.

Hillary - through her pals in the so-called mainstream media - has become a 900 pound political gorilla who sucks the oxygen away from everyone around her.

She is going to be a major problem in 2008 - both for the Republicans and the Democrats.

4) Ed Klein’s book - THE TRUTH ABOUT HILLARY - has legs, too! Despite an almost total TV boycott by pro-Hillary TV executives and producers, the book will remain at the top of the bookseller lists. Yesterday the book was #2 on the New York Times bestseller list; next week it will be #4 - not bad for a book that is only getting exposure on the Internet and talk radio.

It is almost criminal what these TV execs have tried to do with this book - simply because they like Hillary and thus don’t want anything negative said about her. What phonies these people are! These libs talk about ‘diversity’ and ‘choice’ but then censor an opinion with which they disagree. What hypocrites!

But success is the best revenge and THE TRUTH ABOUT HILLARY is still selling - and a few new surprises await this week. Stay tuned!

5) Illegal immigration still remains the number one political issue in this country - and yet both parties are totally afraid of even talking about it.

It may be the key issue in 2008 - just the way the backlash over gay marriage was the sleeper issue in 2004.

6) The coming Supreme Court appointments/confirmations will be very ugly. The Democrats - as they always do - will overplay their hand and come out looking bad. But so, too, the GOP and President Bush may run the risk of a long, ugly stalemate. And then the problem becomes both parties and the entire Political Establishment looks even more out of touch with the concerns of the American people.

Immigration, rising gas prices, health care costs exploding and job losses all are what most voters care passionately about. If the Supreme Court fight goes down the path of a Clarence Thomas-type fight - or the invocation of the nuclear option - then there will be severe political consequences for both parties.

And this may help pave the way for a strong Third Party candidate - ala a Perot-type - who runs against both parties in 2008.

We have a wild summer ahead of us!