"'Release Baby Release' is the new 'Drill Baby Drill.'"

And candidate Obama told us in '08 it was going to be his "policy to use the strategic petroleum reserves as a market cushion."

"What I said was the same thing that the audience here today heard me say, which is, if Pakistan is unable or unwilling to hunt down bin Laden and take him out, then we should."

"Now, that I think has to be our policy, because they are threatening to kill more Americans," said Barack Obama at the Town Hall Debate, on October 7, 2008.



Meade woke up this morning wanting to look that up. Speaking of things clarified during sleep, I woke up on the morning of October 8, 2008 and "decided to concentrate my mind on the question which man won the debate.... It was Barack Obama...." That was the post where I abandoned my vow of "cruel neutrality" as an observer of the 2008 campaign, and said my vote for Obama was "almost inevitable." After the election, when I analyzed my path of decisionmaking — in the post called "How McCain Lost Me" — I said: "So this was the crucial tipping point. Dear readers, it was right there, the morning after the Town Hall debate."

And now, 2 1/2 years after he voted for McCain, here's Meade, drawn back to that same debate. He IM's me the link to that clip about Pakistan. We talk at some length, and he tells me I made the right decision. So you wish you'd voted for him? Yes.

Larry King asked: "If you were president and knew that bin Laden was in Pakistan, you know where, would you have U.S. forces go in after him?"

It was 2008, and John McCain answered: "Larry, I'm not going to go there and here's why: because Pakistan is a sovereign nation."

(I voted for Obama, because John McCain lost me.)

Things said about Dick Cheney lead me to reaffirm my decision to vote for Obama.

Instapundit picked up on the Cheney-hate wisecrack I blogged yesterday:

CIVILITY CAMPAIGN NOT CATCHING ON: “Cheney’s heart transplant. Wouldn’t that be the worst day ever? Not only are you dead but they’ve given your heart to THAT prick!”

Plus, from the comments: “Obama ends up adopting half these policies in his continuance of his war on terror. And yet, whereas these policies made Cheney Darth Vader and the Emperor rolled into one, under Obama these policies are not even worth mentioning.” That Obama adopted them too only makes Cheney more evil — for undermining the fierce moral urgency of change. And then mocking The One for going along.

That last link goes to Tom Maguire, who notes Glenn Greenwald's moaning over Cheney's solemn observation that Obama, as President, has recognized the importance of the Bush administration's policies and made them his own:

“I think he’s been through the fires of becoming president and having to make decisions and live with the consequences,” Cheney said. “I think he’s learned that what we did was far more appropriate than he ever gave us credit for while he was a candidate ... I think he’s learned from experience.”

And I just want to say that this is part of why I voted for Obama. I explained my vote on November 9, 2008, just after the election and made a prediction that I think you should now see was right. Here's the key part, where I quote what I blogged on October 30:

October 30: I come to terms with the problem of 1-party government:

Usually, I prefer divided government, but that doesn't mean I need to support McCain. I've seen McCain put way too much effort into pleasing Democrats and flouting his own party, and I can picture Obama standing up to the Democratic Congress and being his own man. What, really, will he owe them? McCain, by contrast, will need them. And we've seen that he wants to be loved by them.

Sometimes, I think that letting the Democrats control everything for 2 years would work out just fine. Let one party take responsibility for everything. When they can't whine and finger-point, what will they actually step up and do? It will be interesting to know. And it will do the Republicans good to retool and define themselves, with an eye toward the 2010 election. I'd like to see this clarification after so many years of obfuscation.

This goes along with my problem that McCain had abandoned the effort to define himself as conservative. I could see myself voting for a conservative. I would like some good conservatism. But I did not see it in McCain. Certainly, just bringing in Palin was no substitute for having his own clear principles.

Also in that November 9th post I quote something I wrote on November 3:

One thing I don't like about John McCain is that he never showed respect for Bush. He was all about distancing himself from Bush, but if it's distance you want from Bush, there's Obama. And Obama had no reason to defend the other party's President, but for all his criticism of Bush's policies, I don't remember Obama taking ugly potshots at Bush. McCain treated Bush like an outcast. Was there even a word of defense for the man who protected us from terrorist attacks for 7 years?

Before you bitch about Obama, do a clear, honest visualization of where we'd be right now if McCain were President. Take account of the benefit we have received as the Obama administration has had to embrace many of Bush's policies, and these things have become the norm. And look at what the Republicans have done with their period of exile. Now, seriously picture what the political discourse would be if the Republicans had held onto power.

I know some of you are ready to list the terrible things the Democrats did in their 2 years of dominance. I'm not saying there wasn't a down side. The Democrats did a lot more damage than I thought possible. But McCain would have gone along with a lot of things, and there would be continuing partisan criticism about the wars. Everything having to do with national security would be pinned on McCain and presented in the worst possible light, for the aggrandizement of the Democratic Party.

If McCain had won, we would not have experienced the revitalization of the conservative movement that had such a tremendous effect on the 2010 elections and is shaping the next presidential election. Finally, think about all the angst there would be right now over the lost opportunity to experience the brilliant hope that was Barack Obama. Instead of the wistful imaginings of the glories of Obama administration that could have been, we have the reality. We get to see it, criticize it, and sharpen our conservative politics on it.

Bush: "I had to endorse [McCain]. But I’d have endorsed Obama if they’d asked me."

I get it.

I totally get it.

Peter Berkowitz collects quotes from 2008 saying conservatism in America is over forever.

And:

The credit for galvanizing ordinary people and placing individual freedom and limited government back on the national agenda principally belongs to President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Their heedless pursuit of progressive transformation reinvigorated a moribund conservative spirit, just as in 1993 and 1994 the Clintons' overreaching on health care sparked a popular uprising resulting in a Republican takeover of Congress.

So it wasn't that conservative principles caught hold of America. It was that the progressives scared the hell out of us.

Was Hillary jetlagged? That's a hell of an excuse for the lady who purveyed the 3 a.m. ad!

The "Today Show" dialogue:

MEREDITH VIERA: This was definitely an uncharacteristic response by the Secretary of State, leading some to suggest that either she is jetlagged or jealous of her husband and the huge shadow that he casts, most notably last week in North Korea, where he negotiated the release of those two American journalists. What are insiders saying about this this morning?

ANDREA MITCHELL: Insiders would tell you probably a little of both. A lot of jetlag, clearly. By then she was at the half point in a twelve-day trip, seven countries. Very difficult travel. She had done twenty-two speeches and five interviews and she was exhausted—and and clearly, some would say, having a bad hair day. So not an easy day for Hillary Clinton.

Here's the old 3 a.m. ad, which was supposed to make us think Barack Obama would screw up when he was sleepy or something:



Obama seems tired/testy at times, but there's no video of him acting anywhere near as out of it as Hillary when she snapped in the Congo:



ADDED: Looking at the "Hillary snaps" clip one more time, I'm thinking if only she had smiled when she said that, it would have been if not just fine, kind of all right. She's teaching a feminist lesson — actually, an important one — and those things require a decent amount of lubrication.

"Could Hillary Clinton have grabbed Edwards' loyalists and won early, stage-setting contests in Iowa..."

"... where Barack Obama emerged as a contender with a stunning win, or later, in the South Carolina primary?"

Live-blogging the election returns!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

I think I remember every single thing on this long column...

... and I'm not even ashamed that I do. Actually, I love this graphic presentation of the whole campaign season, and it doesn't make me want to curse (like the URL). In fact, it has me smiling about America. I agree with Ambrosia Voyeur:

I'm in the "What? What? What's so horrible?" group.

This is an awesome time.

Political stories I'd blog if I felt more like it.

1. Obama wants to bankrupt to bankrupt the coal industry (and the SF Chronicle sat on the audiotape).

2. Josh Marshall slurs Joe the Plumber as "Joe the Skinhead."

3. Jonah Goldberg pretend-looks back on the Obama presidency -- his "precipitous fall from would-be messiah, to near pariah."

4. "We’ve got to have a civilian national security force..."

5. Sarah Palin receives a (Canadian) prank call.

6. Old radical rag referred to community organizing and had a circular logo.

7. Fred Thompson speaks for John McCain, and John Kerry speaks for Barack Obama. Both do a nice job.

8. Another Senatorial candidate files a defamation lawsuit. The matter in dispute: godlessness.

9. Instapundit had more traffic in September than in October. Me too. Political fever peaks in September. By October, we're just trying to make it to the end.

10. And now, it's November, and this list hits the round number 10. The feeling is: Let it end!

"I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago."

That's #112 on Jac's list of 120 "moments" from the 2008 campaign. (He's been putting these up over a number of weeks, and #100-120 just went up today.)

There hasn't been a single Obama-McCain debate yet, but many people -- in key states -- are already voting.

Something like a third of the electorate will vote early this time, and the voting starts today in some places.

Democrazy.

A typo I just made while trying to IM the line "this shows we don't really have a democracy." The topic was how impossible it is for almost anyone to understand the current financial crisis, how disembodied it is from the presidential candidates we've been so focused on, and how we are forced by the complexity of the system to rely on experts whose reliability we cannot judge.

"Even if you never met him, you know this guy."

"He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

#78 in a collection of "moments" from the 2008 campaign.

Did the Boumediene case make the Supreme Court a big campaign issue overnight?

Linda Greenhouse notes that some people think so:

[T]he prospect of using the decision as a rallying point seemed to occur to many conservatives simultaneously. The ruling has “teed up the Supreme Court issue nicely for the G.O.P.,” Curt Levey of the Committee for Justice, a group that advocates for Republican judicial nominees, wrote on his blog. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page quoted Justice Robert H. Jackson’s famous observation that the Constitution is not a suicide pact and added, with reference to the author of Thursday’s majority opinion, “About Anthony Kennedy’s Constitution, we’re not so sure.”

On the other end of the spectrum, liberals warned that the vision of civil liberties embraced by the court’s narrow majority — security requires “fidelity to freedom’s first principles,” Justice Kennedy wrote — was hanging by a thread. “One more Bush justice on the court and the decision would likely have gone the other way,” said Kathryn Kolbert, president of People for the American Way. Senator Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic nominee, praised the decision as “an important step toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law.”

"It'll be dispirited. It'll be spirited. Because there are stark differences. I'm a proud, conservative, liberal Republican. Conservative Republican."

It's pretty easy to remember who said that, but isn't it fun — or frightening — to relive that moment? Jac has collected 77 choice moments from the '08 presidential race, mostly with video links, and presented in a way that tests you to remember or guess who said what. It's great fun going through this list of 33 items (and the original list of 44 items). My favorites on the new list:

53. "I can't make her younger.... There's lots of things I can't do."

63. "Thanks for the question, you little jerk."

65. "WHAT DI DHE DO AFORE HOW LONG AND WITH WHO ?? PLS TELL BOB HELLO BOB"

Don't pick a President based on economics.

Says economics prof Tyler Cowen.

"8 Questions the Potomac Primary Could Answer."

Dan Balz poses the questions:

1) Will a Sweep by Obama Make Him the Front-Runner?...

2) Will the Clinton-Obama Race Split the Party?...

What gives Democrats heart -- and clearly worries Republicans -- is that the Obama-Clinton contest does not reflect a deep, ideological split within the party....

The endgame will be critical if Democrats hope to avoid the kind of rupture that happened after the Carter-Kennedy battle of 1980. If the losing candidate goes out in a blaze of attacks, the bitterness will linger. If superdelegates appear to run counter to the popular vote, that will put the losing side in a deep funk...

3) Will Edwards Endorse Someone Soon?...

4) Will Obama Catch Clinton Among Superdelegates?

Yes -- if he keeps winning....

... "It'll be a combination of true enthusiasm [for Obama] and the old pol's rule of 'Be for what is going to happen,' " [wrote Republican consultant Mike Murphy].

5) Does a Long Democratic Contest Help McCain?...

Of course.... But the Democratic race has captured the country's attention, and McCain will find it hard to get much attention as long as that battle continues. If it ends in a civil way, the Democratic base will be energized and enthusiastic....

6) Will McCain Prove He Can Win Over Conservatives?...

7) How Long Will Huckabee Keep Going?...

[8)] Which Local Politicians Will Be on the VP Short List?

WaPo left the number "8" off the 8th question. I guess we're not ready to get excited about the VP question yet. Or the "local" (Potomac) politicians aren't too exciting.

Anyway, nice format and analysis from Dan Balz, even if WaPo's editors slacked off on the makeweight questions.

Maybe 7 is a better number. Let me suggest a compression — and reformulation — of 7 and 8:

Is Huckabee running for VP?

My answer is: No. I think Huckabee keeps going because he represents people who are normally taken for granted and who want to remain visible as a distinct bloc. Also, he's like Obama: an upstart political genius. Obama is there for the Democrats saying: Turn the page. Huckabee, too, in his own way, is saying turn the page on the past. You don't have to do what they are telling you to do.

"The Republican presidential candidates explain their judicial philosophies."

That is, they try to tip us off on who'd they'd put on the Supreme Court.

I'll analyze the language later this evening, but I thought you'd enjoy chewing over it.

ADDED: As I expected, these statements are pretty much the same, but there are some subtle differences. McCain goes first, so I'll list the 4 basic things he does, and then we can see how the others deviate from the McCain model:

1. Assert a strong belief that judges should only interpret the law as written and not usurp the role of the legislature by declaring that the law is what they want it to be.

2. Imply that you nevertheless expect them to reach outcomes that you like by pointing to the outcomes you expect the judge to reach.

3. Refer to separation of powers and federalism.

4. Invoke the name "John Roberts" and one other Justice who represent the judicial ideal.

Romney omits #2 (the most dubious point), but lest conservatives think he's not going to give them what they want, on #4, he invokes John Roberts and adds not just Samuel Alito (McCain's other Justice) but also Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Huckabee omits #2 and 3, and, like Romney, he names all 4 conservative Justices.

(I'm ignoring Ron Paul, who seems as though he might want to repeal the 14th Amendment.)