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“Well, uh, you know, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or, uh, a scientific perspective, uh, answering that question with specificity, uh, you know, is, is, uh, above my pay grade.” - Sen. Barack Obama, on “When does a baby get human rights?” In 1948, they had Harry Truman and “The buck stops here!” In 2008, they’ve got Barack Obama and it’s “above my pay grade.” This is definitely not your grandfather’s Democratic Party. Certainly not mine. My grandfather, Ray Futrell, was a lifelong FDR Democrat, the kind who would proudly rather vote for...

Is Sen. Barack Obama just too weird to be elected president? Since the day Obama claimed the Democratic nomination, pundits and political pros have been waiting for him to take a significant lead in the polls. Here we are in August, and not only has Obama failed to get the Democrat’s traditional summertime bump, he’s tied with John McCain in the latest Gallup and Rasmussen polls. In a lousy year for Republicans, against a GOP nominee who combines the youthful effervescence of Wilford Brimley with the soaring oratory of a life insurance seminar, Obama is actually losing ground. Why? Obama,...

Call it the “Extreme Rake-Over: Taxpayer Edition.” Three years ago, Patricia and Milton Harper were handed the keys to their brand-new, 4BR dream home on ABC-TV. When Ty Pennington handed them the keys, he also gave the Harpers $250,000 to cover taxes and maintenance for the next 25 years. Three years later, the home is in foreclosure and scheduled for auction - another “casualty” of the mortgage crisis. A free house, a sack of dough, and the Harpers still managed to get $450,000 in debt and lose their home? They are the poster couple for the $300 billion mortgage bailout...

There are people in this world who believe that America is a force for evil in the world. They are called Europeans. Then there are people who feel the same way, but who will help elect the next president of the United States. They’re called Obama supporters. Calm down, my Cambridge friends. I am not saying that Sen. Barack Obama hates America. But even his most ardent supporters must admit - when they aren’t fainting away at his campaign appearances - that there is a direct and disturbing correlation between hating America and loving Barack. In Europe, for example, they...

It is time for someone to drop the “N-bomb” on Jeremiah Wright: Nut. The guy is whacked out of his mind. Crazy. Unhinged. Certifiable. One step away from roaming Boston Common, pushing a shopping cart and muttering about the Mother Ship. A sane person, given three days of high-profile media opportunities, would spend them trying to convince voters that his pal, Sen. Barack Obama, is a good guy who can be trusted, in part because you’re not such a bad guy yourself. But the Rev. Wright, given that very opportunity, spent 72 hours reaffirming on national television that America is...

Assuming there is no shocking revelation or health issue, the GOP nomination is over. Conservatives need to start practicing the phrase "Nominee presumptive John McCa....." Sorry, I can't say it. Not yet. But it's true. When the campaign comes here to Massachusetts on February 5th, I'll proudly cast my vote for any option on the GOP ballot other than You-Know-Who. But it will be a futile gesture. Mr. "1/3rd Of The GOP Primary Vote" is going to be the nominee. He's going to win the big, left-leaning states on Tuesday. Huckabee will stay in and deny Romney a one-on-one contest...

Well, the media finally got the negative, slash-and-burn, “dirty politics” South Carolina primary they’ve been looking for. They just weren’t looking for it from the Democrats. Remember how the national media flocked to South Carolina looking for campaign fliers accusing John McCain of having a drug-addicted illegitimate daughter with ties to al-Qaeda? Who knew she would turn out to be Michelle Obama? The Clintons unloaded on Barack Obama down in South Carolina, running commercials so ridiculously untrue that even Bill Clinton couldn’t defend them. The Clintons were forced to pull their attack ads on Thursday. But by then, it didn’t...

“Front-runner.” “Winner.” “Inevitable.” Since Saturday’s South Carolina primary, this is how the mainstream media have been describing Sen. John McCain and his bid for the GOP nomination. And once again, the mainstream media is wrong. John McCain isn’t “inevitable.” He’s not even “likely” at this point in the race. To see why, just look at his vote totals from the primaries thus far. John McCain is the incredible shrinking candidate. In 2000, McCain was just another senator running as a maverick against the GOP establishment’s legacy candidate, George W. Bush. His huge 49 percent to 30 percent clobbering of Bush...

Good morning and - at the risk of shutting down school systems and sending city workers fleeing in panic onto the icy streets - Merry Christmas! This is the year that Santa Claus was officially declared a subversive agent by McCall Middle School in Winchester. This was the year that Andover forced the Salvation Army to deploy bell-less bell ringers outside old Town Hall. The year a goose-stepping government goon in Salem declared holiday bake sales at schools and churches verboten. Like the Burgermeister Meisterburger before her, she has ruled that Granny’s non-government-authorized Christmas cookies are simply too dangerous to...

Hillary Rodham Clinton may have achieved the politically impossible: She has managed to out-Kerry John Kerry himself. Sen. Flip-Flop, you recall, famously claimed that, on the issue of funding U.S. troops, he voted “for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” Clinton, on the other hand, managed to declare herself both for and against driver’s licenses for illegal aliens at the same time. When it comes to illegal immigration, Hillary is forgainst! Don’t believe me? Ask her yourself. Wait, Tim Russert already tried that. During Tuesday night’s Democratic debate he twice asked her the same yes-or-no question: Does she...

They’re watching you right now. They counted every beer you drank during last night’s Red Sox [team stats] game.They see you sneaking out to the garage for a smoke.They know if you’ve got a gun, and where you keep it.They’re your kids, and they’re the National Security Agency of the Nanny State.I found this out after my 13-year-old daughter’s annual checkup. Her pediatrician grilled her about alcohol and drug abuse.Not my daughter’s boozing. Mine.“The doctor wanted to know how much you and mom drink, and if I think it’s too much,” my daughter told us afterward, rolling her eyes in...

In America’s collective memory, 9/11 will forever be a fireball blackening the New York skyline, or a Virginia firefighter’s smoke-streaked face. But in fact, Boston played a central role in the plot of this horrible tale. Among those killed on 9/11 were 203 Massachusetts residents or people with strong ties to the state. More than half the hijackers boarded their flights in Boston - twice as many as Dulles or Newark. At least two of the terrorists spent pre-9/11 at a hotel in Newton. And when 9/11 mastermind Mohammad Atta assembled his terror team, it wasn’t in New York or...

Skeptics of the Al Gore School of “We’re All Gonna Die” Climate Panic often refer to global warming as a religion. Close, but not quite. It’s more like a cult - a suicide cult. It’s tempting (pardon the pun) to compare global warming alarmists to religious zealots because, like the devout, the beliefs of global panic kooks are impervious to reason. When NASA’s erroneous temperature readings were recently corrected, revealing no measurable change in temperature since 1998, global alarmists were, well, alarmed. (Aren’t they always?) And, like the religious, climate-change cultists can make any set of facts fit within their...

Skeptics of the Al Gore School of “We’re All Gonna Die” Climate Panic often refer to global warming as a religion. Close, but not quite. It’s more like a cult - a suicide cult. It’s tempting (pardon the pun) to compare global warming alarmists to religious zealots because, like the devout, the beliefs of global panic kooks are impervious to reason. When NASA’s erroneous temperature readings were recently corrected, revealing no measurable change in temperature since 1998, global alarmists were, well, alarmed. (Aren’t they always?) And, like the religious, climate-change cultists can make any set of facts fit within their...

<p>Fifteen years ago Michael Graham was banned from S.C. public radio for making fun of “boneheads in the state legislature” (his words) on the air. As a result, the conservative pundit started writing a column, “The Usual Suspects,” which now runs in newspapers across the Southeast, including Charleston City Paper.</p>

OK, I’ll admit it. From a theological standpoint, Mormonism is just plain weird. When I read the story of Joseph Smith, notorious New York con man, finding golden tablets he read using magic rocks while peering into a hat, I snicker too. The special “garment,” the polygamy problem, the Osmonds - it’s all more than a bit odd. That’s Mormonism’s problem. But could someone please tell me how it’s Mitt’s problem, too? Left-wingers at the New Republic suggest that Romney has secretly converted to Mormon fundamentalism and plots against the Constitution. Right-wing radio hosts insist that, as president, a real...

The first person I ever heard accuse Rupert Murdoch of undermining the media’s reputation for trustworthy, unbiased reporting was Ted Turner. He was being interviewed by Mike Wallace. On “60 Minutes.” No, seriously. Please stop laughing. OK, OK, it’s impossible not to laugh when liberal pundits complain that Murdoch might bring a “right-wing” political slant to the Wall Street Journal. What? Bias in the mainstream media? Somebody cue Captain Renault: It’s time to be shocked, shocked! America’s editorial writers insist that Murdoch’s purchase of Dow Jones threatens the nonpartisan purity of the press. Please. Even the most liberal news reader...

Maybe it was the YouTube factor: Normal people asking direct questions in plain language. Maybe it was the unexpectedly left-leaning crowd gathered in Charleston to watch the Democrats debate, enthusiastically cheering even the kookiest of Kucinichisms. Or perhaps it was the Citadel Effect. Could it be that the same reckless spirit that inspired a group of foolhardy Citadel students to fire on federal forces in 1860 fell upon the candidates Monday night, bolstering their bravado and casting caution to the wind? Whatever the cause, a minor political miracle took place at the You Tube/CNN debate. A group of politicians running...

Could it be that the problem with Cambridge is that liberals are just too darn smart? I know liberals are smart because they constantly tell me so. Unlike, say, conservative Christians - described by the Washington Post as “poor, uneducated and easy to command” - Massachusetts liberals are brilliant, intellectual and competent. Don’t believe it? Just ask them. When a 2005 study found that 72 percent of professors at U.S. universities consider themselves “liberals,” some suggested an anti-conservative bias on campus. Nonsense, replied liberals like Harvard professor Julie Reuben. She told the Harvard Crimson that it was simply natural for...

John Conyers, prominent Democratic congressman, says that President Bush's decision to commute Scooter Libby's prison sentence creates "the suspicion was that if Mr. Libby went to prison, he might further implicate other people in the White House." Patrick Leahy, prominent Democratic senator, suggests that Bush "bought [Libby's] silence" with the commutation but withheld a full pardon as "a blatant way of guaranteeing" Scooter wouldn't talk. Cindy Sheehan, prominent insane person, says that she will run against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi unless the speaker files articles of impeachment against President Bush, in part because the president kept Libby out...