It’s not hard to figure out the connection, is it?

Note: Reines and the Obama campaign claim he is not a part of the Obama campaign.

Don’t forget Obama’s running mate Joe Biden is on the influential banking committee (chairman) and until he was picked as the VP running mate his son was a lobbyist for the banking industry. Cozy.

Consider this when you vote.

This week the Obama campaign has taken a new tack in the presidential sweepstakes. He has taken to calling Sen. John McCain “dishonorable” in speeches and advertisements.

We might be able to call John McCain a lot of things, but “dishonorable” is not one of them.

While in the Hanoi Hilton for five and a half years his body was broken in so many places it’s a wonder he is able to even move now. By his own admission they finally broke him mentally when he signed a letter saying he was an air pirate. He gave up no useful information to the Viet Cong. None, zero, nada, but was ashamed because he finally “broke” under so much physical abuse.

When asked the names of his squadron members he gave the names of the offensive line of the Green Bay Packers.

When he came home, at the right time (even though he was given a chance at an early out because his father was an admiral in charge of the fleet in Viet Nam he declined because the Code of Conduct says first in, first out) he went to work to rehabilitate his knee, which had been crushed and was extended. He endured excruciating pain to get to where he could walk. He still endures excruciating pain today and is unable to move his arms above his shoulders due to the pain. He can barely comb his own hair. This will only get worse with time as the arthritis gets worse, but do we hear him complaining?

Every time someone says something about Obama he comes out whining they are lying. There must be a lot of liars in this world, according to him.

The fact of the matter is Obama has never been tested and a time of war and economic uncertainty is not the time for the new kid on the block who has a steep learning curve and has to pray he has the right advisors.

I’ve seen John McCain in action during this campaign and I cannot say he has done anything dishonorable. He may selectively quote Obama in his ads, just as Obama does, or even worse, Obama makes it up out of whole cloth, but McCain has remained civil.

People complain McCain has a notoriously bad temper. Well, it wasn’t McCain who told his supporters to get in the faces of those who oppose him. Getting in my face is a sure way to make me stand my ground. I don’t take to intimidation lightly and I will deliberately side in with the underdog if I am being intimidated to stay away from him or her. This has been my history all my life.

It didn’t make me the most popular person in school or at work, but I knew when I went to bed at night I could sleep well because I didn’t join in with those who were acting like pack animals and picking on someone who was “different”.

You see, I had family members who stood up for the underdog and didn’t care if it hurt their reputations in the community. How many times I remember my Aunt Polly or Aunt Pauline or grandmother standing up for the unpopular because they knew it was right.

This is honor and John McCain has more honor in his fingernail clippings than Barack Obama has in his entire body and campaign staff.

Call McCain anything, just don’t call him dishonorable.

All emphasis in the following passages are mine but they signify exactly what is wrong with our system today.

Congress under the leadership of the Democrats is far more concerned with upcoming elections than they are the electorate as a whole.

It is a disgrace that once again they choose to abandon their duties in hopes of putting a few more votes in the (D) box.

They may be pulling the wool over the eyes of some, but there are many who will once again see that until we return to some form of bipartisan strong leadership which understands their duties to this country (and it is not perpetual campaigning,) we are doomed to fail on many levels.

“We feel good about our position in the race. You look at the poll numbers, we remain in a very close contest. Since the convention the map has expanded in our direction and retracted for Senator Obama. Of course much of the country’s attention now is focused on the financial crisis that we’re in the middle of, that the entire country’s in the middle of. Senator McCain is going to address this today in remarks. One of the developments over the last week you know as you’ve noticed is that the Obama campaign has become highly negative, highly personal, directed its attacks at Senator McCain. Senator, you know, Senator Reid and the Democrats in Congress today announced that they’ll be leaving Congress and this is a matter that can be dealt with after the election.

The Obama campaign is out there talking about the fact that the financial crisis benefits them politically and then you look at the actions of the leadership in the Democratic Congress, you know we’ll make the case that it’s more of the me-first, country-second politics that at the end of the day there’s a real crisis. American people are threatened by it financially. Congress should stay in there and do its job and not look to calculate and score points politically. So Senator McCain today and in the days ahead is going to talk to the American people about this crisis. He’s going to explain to them what happened, what went wrong, how we fix it, and we will have a dialogue on this very important issue with the American people going forward.”

Much more of this interview here.

State Senator Kirk Watson (D) of Texas doesn’t have an answer to the question. This coming from Chris Matthews who has said he gets a tingle up his leg when Obama speaks.

One has to wonder how long the media can ignore the connection between Bill Ayers and Barack Obama.

Some things simply are not forgivable to a large segment of the population and that would certainly include persons responsible for domestic terrorism.

Why would a presidential candidate choose to associate on any level with such a person?

All I can say is that if the Senator had an (R) after his name it would be a safe bet he would have been driven out of this race or pounded daily as to his “friends and mentors.”

Remember during the 1980 election between Ronald Reagan and then-President Jimmy Carter, when the hostages in Iran were not released until after Reagan was officially sworn in as a slap to Jimmy Carter?

Well, if this story is true, and I have no reason to believe it isn’t, what is Obama trying to pull?

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

“He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington,” Zebari said in an interview.

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops - and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its “state of weakness and political confusion.”

“However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open.” Zebari says.

Though Obama claims the US presence is “illegal,” he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the “weakened Bush administration,” Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.

While in Iraq, Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a “realistic withdrawal date.” They declined.

Obama has made many contradictory statements with regard to Iraq. His latest position is that US combat troops should be out by 2010. Yet his effort to delay an agreement would make that withdrawal deadline impossible to meet.

Here is a man whose most famous act of politics is boasting he was against the Iraq war and wants to bring the troops home in 16 months after he is sworn in, and he’s trying to make an under the table agreement with the Iraqis to let our troops stay longer so he can get the credit for returning them if and when he is sworn in as president.

And remember all the talk about us not following UN guidlines to go to war? All of a sudden he wants us to “seek an extension of the UN mandate.”

Is he willing to play with the lives of our military in order to satisfy his huge ego? We have already done the biggest part of turning over the provinces of Iraq to Iraqi control. Thirteen of the eighteen Iraqi provinces are now in control of the Iraqi government.

How much longer does he want to keep the troops there so they don’t have to come home under the orders of a “weakened Bush administration”?

He’d better hope his buddies in the large mainstream press keep this under their hats because if a lot of the electorate reads it he’s toast. Not to mention despicable.

After reading this article and then this article I have decided we have finally come down to buying a president.

With all the people in the world going without enough food and shelter, not enough medical care etc. we have two candidates who are spending between them one billion dollars to get to the Oval Office in the White House.

It has become a campaign of greed by two people who claim to be reformers but are going about getting elected in more expensive ways than anyone prior to them.

It should be mandatory that all candidates after this election take public funding from the federal government matching funds program.

We hear one side or the other accusing each other of special interests and I can’t help but wonder what special interests would invest so much money to get one man elected to a job that pays just a few hundred thousand dollars a year.

We’ve all heard people complain this year that we really have no decent choice in the election for president, but how hard would it be for an ordinary citizen to be a candidate in today’s climate? How many primary opponents dropped out for lack of funds?

A cap should be put on primary spending and on the general election spending, including what the national committees and 527 organizations can spend.

It’s time to take the White House off the auction block and get down to the basics of being able to elect anyone president, regardless of his or her fund-raising ability. Only then will we be able to clean up the mess we have in Washington.

This should go for the candidates for Congress too. I am ashamed that we put all this money into electing someone when the money could be better spent on our own citizens in need and on those across the world who need it more than two rich men need it.

Read what the Boston Globe had to say about McCain’s non-ability to do certain things, among them use a keyboard:

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain’s encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He’s an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can’t raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

After Vietnam, McCain had Ann Lawrence, a physical therapist, help him regain flexibility in his leg, which had been frozen in an extended position by a shattered knee. It was the only way he could hope to resume his career as a Navy flier, but Lawrence said the treatment, taken twice a week for six months, was excruciatingly painful.

”He endured it, he wouldn’t settle for less,” said Lawrence, who rejoiced with McCain when he passed the Navy physical. ”I have never seen such toughness and resolve.”

He still manages to communicate.

While John McCain was explaining on “The View” he wants justices on the SCOTUS who interpret the Constitution and not make law from the bench, Whoopi Goldberg asked if she should be worried about being a slave.

C’mon! Every amendment to the Constitution is still a part of the Constitution and this was a stupid question, in my opinion. Others may differ with me and think it was not a stupid question.

After reading this report I’m not so sure it isn’t under discussion.

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports: Sen. Barack Obama’s, D-Ill., vice presidential nominee, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., Wednesday said that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., might have been a better pick for the position than him.

At a rally in Nashua, N.H., a man in the audience told Biden how glad he was that Obama picked him over Hillary, “not because she’s a woman, but because, look at the things she did in the past.”

“Make no mistake about this,” Biden responded. “Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight. She’s a truly close personal friend, she is qualified to be president of the United States of America, she’s easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America, and quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me. But she’s first rate, I mean that sincerely, she’s first rate, so let’s get that straight.”

I’m telling you, the polls must look bad for Obama. He seems desperate and this is a gentle way to ease Biden out for Clinton. But won’t it look transparent?

It seems to me the people in attendance in Virginia understood exactly what Senator Obama meant.

Plying the same theme with respect to McCain-Palin campaign rhetoric in Lebanon, Virginia, Barack Obama asserted: “You can put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.” Given the tittering, shouts and raucous applause from Obama’s audience, even AP reporter Nedra Pickler found Obama’s audience drawing the connection between Obama’s comment and Sarah Palin’s convention joke.

Vandehei and Allen, by contrast, cover for Obama. They assert that “he was clearly talking about the McCain-Palin reform rhetoric.” Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental? Maybe, but the evidence of Carnahan’s remarks referring to Palin strongly suggests otherwise. And if Obama didn’t understand the ugly reference to Palin, he appears to be the only guy in Lebanon who didn’t. [Emphasis-mine]

The video of Obama’s remarks is available here. My bet is you don’t need that link as by today you will have seen it somewhere.

Interested in reading more reaction? There is plenty of it here, here, and here.

The Obama campaign defense (as some may call it) as well as tons of other information may be found at Hot Air.

It sound like another re-run of that oh boy I blew it so let’s turn this around and blame someone else defense we have seen all too often in our elections. Nice response Allahpundit:

Here’s a story of McCain using it last year. Hillary, of course, hadn’t made any lipstick references to herself before then so there was no context for McCain to play off of.[emphasis-mine]

Panic on the part of the Obama campaign? They seem to be a tad frightened of governor Palin what with all the rumors which have been touted and debunked. Now this?

No matter what conclusion the listener or reader might draw from the video, it seems that a presidential candidate would have the sense to know how many who are following the race closely would interpret these remarks.

Somewhere, George Allen is shaking his head.

*Update: I mistakenly left out this link to thoughts from Hillary supporters. Thanks to AJ Strata for the heads up.

Joe Biden has never been known for being the most diplomatic of speakers and today he had a lulu:

This is the first woman with a real chance to become Vice President of the United States and he thinks that would be a backward step. By the way, I think the link between McCain and Bush is weak and has lost its power.

I think this McCain/Palin ad shows who will really bring change in the way government is run in Washington.

Feel free to discuss and agree or disagree.

Who was it that instructed Barack Obama to begin his campaign 19 months ago? Was it the electorate? His constituents? The DNC? Self imposed?

“I hope you guys are up for a fight. I hope you guys are game because I haven’t been putting up with 19 months of airplanes and hotel food and missing my babies and my wife – I didn’t put up for that stuff just to come in second,” he said…

[emphasis-mine]

Campaign rhetoric? A bit of self pity? What exactly did the Senator “put up with” other than doing what he felt was necessary to be elected President of the United States? That’s at least four years of 24/7-365 with many inconveniences thrown into the mix.

Oh well, thank goodness any of us only have to “put up with” another few months of highly charged politics. Then we can resume our normal lives also!

John McCain before his acceptance speech.

If you were looking for a speech that stands out in your memory years later, such as some given by great orators in our country’s history; George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, JFK, Reagan or even Barack Obama, you would have been disappointed in Sen. John McCain’s acceptance speech for the nomination of the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.

Everyone knows his delivery leaves a lot to be desired and he is more comfortable talking one on one in town hall-type situations. Last night he addressed America, and had the unenviable chore of speaking the night after the electrifying speech of his running mate.

He threw in a little red meat, but not a lot. He spoke of his personal history and told why his experience as a POW changed him and made him fall in love with his country because he was in another. He said it wasn’t the comforts of home he missed so much as the culture of kindness and stick-to-it-ivness Americans show. (Paraphrasing)

Now that he has explained why that awful time in his life was a milestone for him, it’s time for his surrogates to drop the POW subject and for him to be less specific and answer the questions of how that experience changed his life to make him want to serve the American people the rest of his life.

He talked of our education system, workers who have lost jobs, medical insurance and about the fact he has not always agreed with the Republican party, giving him the nickname of Maverick.

He said the greatest civil rights issue today is education. He told us when a person loses his/her job the government should make sure they are made whole (a union term meaning pay would be the same; my words and not his) until they can get trained and back up in the pay range they were in when they lost their jobs.

He talked about people losing their homes and struggling to pay for gas for their cars and oil for their homes. He is an “all of the above” person when it comes to energy policy. Drill for new oil, use clean coal, natural gas, wind power, nuclear power (more plants), electric cars and any other technology we as Americans can come up with.

In short, he recognized the economy is not as good as it could or should be and shows he has a grasp of the kitchen table issues every American has to deal with daily.

He spoke against the last Republican Congress while adressing a Republican convention. He said the Republicans had lost the House and Senate because they got full of themselves, got corrupt and spent too foolishly. Hard medicine for any person serving during those years, but medicine that has to be taken in order to get better again.

He spoke against earmarks and said if he is elected and a bill with a lot of earmark spending comes to him he will veto the bill and make famous the name(s) of the people inserting the pork. Of course he addressed the national security issues and his beliefs on that topic.

He said he will fight for the Amercian people and not for his party when he disagrees with the party. This struck me as the theme of the night as I listened. I kept thinking “here is a man who says he wants to work across the aisle and with Democrats as well as Independents and Republicans to do what is right for our country. Sen. Obama, on the other hand, delivered a red meat speech and has a record that shows he will not deviate from the party message.”

I also thought of President Bush promising and trying to do the same thing, but he found out the politics in Washington are not like the politics locally, and while someone is smiling at your face he or she is stabbing you in the back and twisting the knife.

Washington politicians don’t want to co-operate; they just want to bloviate and get all the credit for whatever. McCain said they could all take the credit, but urged all Americans to come together for the betterment of our country.

He was not specific in what he has accomplished in a bi-partisan way, but perhaps he thought everyone knew what he had done to earn the nick-name of Maverick.

His closing was very strong and he delivered his lines in spite of the crowd standing and cheering through the last one or two paragraphs. These were the people who had worked in the trenches to make sure he got the nomination and they were not going to be denied their right to gloat last night.

I came away remembering Sen. Obama’s speech a week before and remembering the theme of Sen. McCain’s speech last night thinking that if we elect McCain/Palin we have a chance to put the adults in charge and forget about party politics, or we can elect Obama/Biden and watch at least four more years of political grandstanding and the accomplishment of nothing. No deviation from the party.

I have chosen to stick with the adults even if the head of the ticket is not as dynamic a speaker as his running mate or his opponent. In the end it is actions that count and for those actions we have only to examine the records of the two Presidential candidates first, and then the records of the Vice Presidential candidates. I think McCain/Palin stand head and shoulders above Obama/Biden. Feel free to disagree in the comments section. You can also feel free to agree in the comments section.

Following is Sen. McCain’s speech for you to see if you missed it or want to see it again. Our thanks to Hot Air for the video link. I wanted to include the biography of Cindy McCain but so far I have been unable to locate anything but her introductory speech of her husband. You can imagine what she said and you’ll be right.

It is expected that Gov. Palin will not bring up the attacks on her since last week in tonight’s speech. That’s a shame, because I’d like to see her let loose to attack those who attack hers, but the decision has been made by the McCain campaign and Palin will be a good trooper.

Perhaps ignoring the attacks is the best way to stop them.

Here’s McCain’s latest ad showing why she is qualified to be president if necessary.

Joe Lieberman on why McCain and Palin are the best choices for our country.