Typically, we know that Barry speaks in generalities, skirts the issues, provides little of substantive policy. Good thing Michelle Obama is there to tell us what he really thinks and wants to do, eh?

Hispanics should not have to live in fear of raids by immigration agents, Michelle Obama told a Hispanic caucus to the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday.

Her husband, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, wants to reform immigration policies and provide illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, she said.

“We would have an immigration policy that brings 12 million people out of the shadows,” she told cheering caucus members who shouted “Yes we can” in Spanish.

Now we know. Rather then apply The Law, a President Obama would offer up to people who started their time in America by breaking federal criminal law a free pass to being citizens. You came illegally? You are stealing American jobs and illegally stealing American identities, harming peoples credit and their lives? Here’s a free pass. Vote Democrat.

Polls on the subject are rarely taken, but, most find that a majority of Americans are concerned about people coming here illegally, that they do not want them getting free government services, and that they should NOT be given a free pass to citizenship. I won’t say that Barack is completely wrong on some of his minor draft of an immigration policy points, but, we only have to listen to his wife to know that he prefers total amnesty.

Perhaps if the illegals made the attempt to learn English and did not seclude themselves off, not to mention the violence against Americans, people would feel different.

And, yes, Reagan did allow something similar, but for much fewer people, which was a mistake.

McCain says he has learned his lesson. He needs to prove it, though. His plan is more detailed, includes enforcement first, nails companies that hire illegals, then gets a little wishy washy on a path to citizenship. He does seem to want illegals to leave and then apply for citizenship like everyone else has to, though.

This is what’s called bring a Barrett .50 to a pillow fight. Apparently, we aren’t allowed to question Obama’s character, despite that being 80% of his campaign thru the primary, and even in to the general election. I guess discussing a presidential candidate cavorting with unrepentant terrorists is an “effort to distract us from the issues that affect our lives.”

Via Michelle and Jay, who say to spread this far and wide. Michelle writes

Mr. Hope and Change is applying Chicago-style mafia tactics to intimidate those who want to alert the nation to Obama’s troubling ties to, and longtime relationship with, the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist.

Except, I would change that to Chicago-style Machine tactics. This is exactly the type of stuff one would expect from someone who is really part of Chicago machine politics. Consider that his first foray into politics, he got most of his opponents thrown off the ballot through petty rules.

This one is 2 days old. Hadn’t seen it before, but, just caught it on TV here in Raleigh

I wonder if Firedoglake will call for the writer of this story, Steve Holland, to be fired?

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama faces a challenge this week to try to heal a party rift, draw a sharp contrast between himself and Republican rival John McCain and back up his soaring oratory with specifics of what he would do if he wins the White House.

As Obama, 47, enters the Democratic party convention that will formally nominate him, he has yet to answer doubts among many Americans about where he would take the country if elected in November.

Uh, Steve? Those of us on the Right have been saying that for most of the year, yet, the Credentialed Media has pretty much refused to do their homework to find out who Barry is. And, I will bet you, Steve, that the CM will not call Obama on what he says during the convention, nor check up on his stories.

Obama’s spokesman, Bill Burton, laid out two goals for the convention.

“We want to make sure people know exactly who Sen. Obama is and where he wants to take the country, and two, that voters know their choice in this election, between Barack Obama, who wants to fundamentally change the way business is done in Washington, and John McCain, who is just more of the same of what we have had over the course of the last eight years,” he said.

Barack is just as much a political insider as John McCain, just with less time. He knows how things are done, and works the system. If Barack wants to change the way Washington works, why did he vote for the Bridge To Nowhere multiple times, one of those votes being an attempt to shift the money from the bridge to a Katrina ravaged New Orleans?

If Barry is so great, why won’t he talk in specifics? And, wouldn’t the attempt to link McCain to Bush be more of the old style politics, or, as Barry himself has said, “to distract people from talking about the real issues”?

Right now, you might be saying “Teach, are you drunk? Have you drunk the liberal kool aid? Or, are you just a bit fetched in the head?” Maybe a bit of 1 and 3, but, let’s think about what the pick of Biden brings.

There is not much point in going over what so many pundits and columnists wrote Saturday. The basics that most, both left and right came to, was “he really ads nothing to the ticket. He won’t bring in many votes, he won’t help with the South, he makes Obama look like the foreign policy neophyte he really is, heck, he makes Barry look like a neophyte in most things. Joe is much more qualified to be president then Barry. He has those massive ties to lobbyists that Barry whines about. He is a massive Washington insider. This has really pissed of Hillary’s supporters. Etc, and so on.”

And, sure, there were many on the left and right who wrote that this was a massively bad pick. Some on the Left tried to spin it positively, but, you know they were popping out a post quickly so they could get back to cleaning the bathroom.

And women have not been entirely enthused with the pick.

But, this was a great pick. No, still not drunk.

The reason is simple: Biden carries a massive amount of baggage, as so many have pointed out. The gaffes, the racism, the runaway mouth, the lobbyist ties, the Washington insider mentality. And, how much and how often will the right side of the Internet, along with the miniscule Conservative leaning media, folks like Rush, Hannity, Levin, et all, bring Joe’s negatives up? And when he does or says something dumb? Even the liberal media might come out from their doggie houses and notice.

From my point of view, the pick of Joe 7-11 is one designed to deflect away from Barry and his character issues, his lack of advertised substance and policy (we know what he really stands for, but, that will not make it into the mainstream media), gaffes Barry makes, and his inexperience. Joe can get out there and attack, attack, attack, while Barry sits back and plays Mr. Lovable Hope and Change without getting his hands dirty.

Even the AP climbed out of their liberal tree house made of Arugula to notice that Biden fills the attack role. This way, Barry can remain articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.

Anything that keeps the eyes focused off Barry’s negatives is a positive for Barry. That anything is Joe Biden.

So, the best thing to do is mostly ignore Biden. When he goes on the attack, do not address the responses to Joe, but back to Barry. Consider McCain’s latest attack, which attempts to get to Hillary supporters over the pick of Biden. Go after Barry, not Joe. Joe is Barry’s shield. Treat Joe as a sideshow, much like John Edwards was treated during the 2004 cycle.

Anyone think they will have been scrubbed at this point?

As the Democratic Party prepares to unleash its presidential nominating convention here, the University of Illinois at Chicago said today that it will release records of Sen. Barack Obama’s service to a nonprofit organization linked to William Ayers, a Chicago education professor who was a radical protestor in the 1960s.

Sen. John McCain’s allies have been trying to exploit the tie between Obama and Ayers, with a McCain fundraiser donating nearly $2.9 million for an independent TV ad focusing on Ayers, whose Weatherman group took credit for bombings that included nonfatal blasts at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol four decades ago.

The records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge,which Obama chaired and which Ayers co-founded, will be made available to the public on Tuesday, UIC said in a statement.

We’ll see on Tuesday, I guess. Set the reminder to “11:58pm.”

Obligatory Biden’s Barry’s Bitch Vice Presidential pick. Even the New York Times couldn’t get excited, particularly at 3am, several hours after all the Obama supporters were informed by the TV news, and could finally walk away from their phones and take a shower and get something to eat

Senator Barack Obama has chosen Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware to be his running mate, turning to a leading authority on foreign policy and a longtime Washington hand to fill out the Democratic ticket, Mr. Obama announced in text and e-mail messages early Saturday.

Mr. Obama’s selection ended a two-month search that was conducted almost entirely in secret. It reflected a critical strategic choice by Mr. Obama: To go with a running mate who could reassure voters about gaps in his résumé, rather than to pick someone who could deliver a state or reinforce Mr. Obama’s message of change.

Right

Real change with a guy who has been in the Senate for well over 30 years. Change. Hope. A guy who has repeatedly stated that Obama is not qualified to be president

Today, McCain spokesman Ben Porritt issued the following statement on Barack Obama’s selection of Joe Biden as his running mate:

“There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama’s lack of experience than Joe Biden. Biden has denounced Barack Obama’s poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing — that Barack Obama is not ready to be President.”

Let’s go to the video tape

Ouch.

Let’s check a few of the DUmmies, shall we?

• Actually it’s a horrible choice. But I’ll still vote for that ticket. Biden will hurt us, not help us.
• Blame secret service to blow it not the campaign. (no, seriously, this DUmmy just blamed the USSS)
• Indeed. Valerie Plame said the Bush Admin can’t keep a secret!! (managed to drag BDS in)
• I checked. It’s really too bad. I thought he’d pick someone better. Oh well. They still get my vote because the alternative is a guaranteed World War III.
• now that the internet creators of the obama product have all those email addresses how soon do you think they’ll be sending campaign donation solicitation messages? All hose addresses will go into Democratic party lists……I wonder if they’ll be available to marketers? If they’re part of a political campaign are they public property now? (aha! someone gets the point of the phone list)
• f*ck I’m drunk. maybe I will wake up tomorrow and the Biden part will be gone.
• I’M MAD If Biden is the VP then i would have wanted Obama to send me a text earlier today before the crazed media got hold of this information. I can see it now, me holding up a newspaper tomorrow morning saying “BIDEN FOR VP!” while I get my text message at 10am saying the same thing. This would make me mad at Obama b/e it makes this text out the VP seen like a scam just to get my number. (then again, when is a DUmmy not mad?)
• Obama chooses Mr. Screw the People for VP, Corporate Lackey Joe Biden stands in the wings, Hillary in pants. I might be wrong and what America really needs is someone knows how to kneel and tongue banker booty.

And these were not even the bad ones. Mostly, they are pissed off about not getting their texts ahead of the announcement. Quite a few of them feel taken, denied by the Messiah. But, no worries, as I am sure the Neophyte/Long Time Washington Insider ticket will be sending plenty of text messages asking for money.

One more?

DainBramaged - Unite under Obama/Biden or get on the mothership and leave.

No more bitching and moaning, he IS our VP Candidate.

THAT is all.

Progressive version of free speech.

Anyhow, see a ton more at Memeorandum.

My 1.4 cents: the pick of Biden will, at best, have no impact for Barry. Sure, he provides some experience in government, something Barry is sorely lacking in, but, he didn’t do that well in the Primaries. And, with all due respect to Delaware, there isn’t a whole lot in Delaware. It won’t help Barry with the South.

This pick can hurt Obama. If he is lucky, just a little bit. Biden loves to put his foot in his mouth, though. And there are many, many comments by Joe dismissing Obama, both generally and specifically, as unqualified to be president which Camp McCain can take advantage of.

Poor Joe Klein at Time. He is watching his candidate implode. Reminds me of Don Imus beating his head against a wall after a John Kerry interview while saying “this is my guy, and I don’t know what he is talking about”

A few days before Barack Obama was to announce his choice for Vice President, he was asked at a North Carolina town meeting what qualities he wanted in a running mate. He wandered through a derisive, if desultory, critique of Dick Cheney, then switched gears. “I want somebody … who shares with me a passion to make the lives of the American people better than they are right now,” he said. “I want somebody who is mad right now that people are losing their jobs.” And I immediately thought, Uh-oh.

Memories of John Kerry in 2004 came flooding back, of how he tended to describe his feelings rather than experience them, of how he suddenly —and unconvincingly — started to say he was “angry” about this or that when his consultants told him that Howard Dean’s anger about the war in Iraq was hitting home with voters. And then, in the general election, Kerry kept repeating the word strength rather than demonstrating it. Clearly, Obama’s consultants have given him similar advice, that he was on the short end of a passion gap — that it was time for emo. A day earlier, he had said wage disparities between genders made his “blood boil.”

Or, Joe, it could just be that Obama is a neophyte when it comes to tough elections, since he has never had to fight hard in them. For his first Illinois election, he had most of his competitors disqualified. For his 2004 Senate run, the GOP opponents were first Jack Ryan, who left because of the sex charges in his divorce papers, then Alan Keyes. It was a walk over. Now, he has a tough one on his hands against a seasoned veteran, one who has specific policies. Obama has very few policies that he would want to share. Abortion on demand, hell, terminating babies who are still alive after an abortion, are not issues that will excite the average American. Perhaps the far end progressives, but not average Americans.

Joe thinks Barry should concentrate on the economy. Great! Can’t wait to hear that debate and the substance, considering Barry has really done nothing in during his short pants time in office, versus McCain, who has been there, done that.

But, Joe, see, it is not the passion, the feelings, the empathy. It is the lack of substance, and his poor character. And, as Peggy Noonan points out, people are starting to really pay attention to the race. The people who are the swing voters. And they want to know who the hell they are voting for, and what his policies will be. Not the patronizing ones. The real ones. And what the character of the Democrat nominee is, after 7+ years of Democrats complaining about Bush.

Say, whatever happened to Barry’s healthcare plans? We don’t hear much about that anymore.

He said he was against lobbyists, and against PACs. Remember his ad, where he said “I’m Barack Obama, and I don’t take money from oil companies or lobbyists, and I won’t let them block change any more”? And this

In a statement today, Obama spokesman Bill Burton, reiterated that Obama doesn’t take PAC money or money from federal registered lobbyists, and “that includes oil companies and oil lobbyists.”

Interesting, eh? Pretty much everyone refuted those statements. But, did you know that Barry has his own PAC, Hopefund? It is not exactly a secret, but it is not something I have seen covered much, and the links about it I find are stories that are typically buried.

Question: is it proper for a Congressman to spread around money to other sitting Congresspeople? What kind of propriety does that show? Is that part of Hope and Change and Change and Hope, or simply the politics as normal that Obama learned from the Chicago Machine?

Is it proper for a sitting US Senator, and presidential wannabe, to spread money around to reelection campaigns for other congresspeople and state reelection groups, in effect using his PAC to skirt the donation rules? Is this the politics of Hope and Change?

And, is this year old report from The Hill part of the “new politics” of Barry?

Two weeks after Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) won the first endorsement of a lawmaker from Iowa or New Hampshire, a new fundraising report shows that he has spent the past two months using money from his leadership political action committee (PAC) to court them.

Obama showered lawmakers from Iowa and New Hampshire with contributions while other presidential hopefuls turned their focus to raising money for their presidential campaign accounts, records show.

Just more Hope and Change, Chicago Machine style. Especially the $202,807 he has taken from MoveOn. He won’t take money (so he says) from oil companies, which provide a product to help us get to work and keep our economy going, but, Barry will take money from unhinged extreme leftists.

A press release from Camp McCain via The Corner

Please see comment from me on Barack Obama’s new ad supposedly running in Georgia:

Barack Obama’s ad is ridiculous. Because of John McCain, corruption was exposed and people like Jack Abramoff went to jail.

“However, if Barack Obama wants to have a discussion about truly questionable associations, let’s start with his relationship with the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers, at whose home Obama’s political career was reportedly launched. Mr. Ayers was a leader of the Weather Underground, a terrorist group responsible for countless bombings against targets including the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon and numerous police stations, courthouses and banks. In recent years, Mr. Ayers has stated, ‘I don’t regret setting bombs … I feel we didn’t do enough.’

“The question now is, will Barack Obama immediately call on the University of Illinois to release all of the records they are currently withholding to shed further light on Senator Obama’s relationship with this unrepentant terrorist?” —McCain spokesman Brian Rogers. Question: how soon will Camp Barry jump in the waaaaah!-mbulance and start calling Mccain mean and of running a mean an un-civil campaign? Barry won’t respond to the allegations, of course, nor will the Credentialed Media follow up.

Via Stop The ACLU, which also links to Doug Ross, who tears apart the Barry’s camps insinuations about Abramoff, and shows Barry’s links to Perp Jack.

Sister Toldjah: Unfortunately for the Obama campaign, they clearly haven’t learned that if you’re going to engage in a battle of wits, it’s best you come armed with more than just a lofty speech.