Dan Maffei “As long as we bring a new direction, even if we don’t accomplish everything at once” the change-hungry masses will be satisfied.

He didn’t specify what direction he and his fellow Democrats plan to take us, but he’s previously mentioned a need to get back to Keynesian economics. That’s not exactly reassuring. This change in direction may well lead to the road to serfdom.

Caroline Kennedy avoided the media for years, and with good reason. Listen to this interview where she says “You know” 30 times in under 2 1/2 minutes. To say she’s underwhelming would be an understatement.

H/T Hot Air

Too bad Good Morning America didn’t think to interview, or talk about, Obama’s buddy Bill Ayers before the election. Cuomo asks a few tough questions, but I wish he were a little tougher. He didn’t bring up the fact that Bill Ayers has called himself a communist. He didn’t bring up the fact that the Weather Underground’s plan was to take over our country and send Americans to re-education camps and eliminate those Americans who refused to be re-educated. Ayers defended his past acts because (in his view) the US was killing innocents and he didn’t do enough to stop it. Too bad Cuomo didn’t follow up with this question “Why weren’t you protesting communists, who were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of innocents?”

Check out this podcast interview of Rahm Emanuel’s plan for mandatory civil service. The idea is to require yound adults between the age of 18 and 23 to complete 3 to 4 months of “universal civil defense training.” He described this obligatory service as “a common experience” that will “give people a sense of what it’s like to be American.” Emanuel scoffed at the interviewer’s concerns about barracks and uniforms. There was no mention of any exceptions for people who have to work for a living.

The “national civilian security force” Obama’s talked about sounds a lot like Emanuel’s plan.

H/T Hot Air

After the Obama campaign’s charges of “the all too common alliace of Fox News, the Drudge Report and John McCain”, Megyn Kelly invited Obama spokesman Bill Burton on her show to talk about those charges. She’s the best. I have no doubt that we won’t be seeing Obama or Biden on her show anytime soon. Newsbusters has the video.

Here they go again. This time it was a Philadelphia news station asking Biden tough questions. Poor Joe thought they were going to ask about the last presidential debate and the Phillies. Now they are denied access to the candidates.

What’s going to happen in an Obama administration when tough questions need to be asked? Will only friendly reporters be granted access to Obama and his advisors?

This video contains excerpts of a 1995 interview of Barack Obama about his book “Dreams from my Father” and race relations in the United States. Click here for full transcript.

He said that white people don’t want to pay taxes to help city children. He said that for people to have good jobs we have to make sure they have child care and housing, and that’s the responsibility of society. We have to make sacrifices now for a new day and a new age. The solutions will require an investment of time, energy and money.

Obama compares Bosnia to Los Angeles and blames the problems on “ONE GROUP” trying to suppress another group. He said that his fate remains tied up with the fate of the African American community and his own salvation won’t come about without a “collective salvation for the country.”

I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m perfectly happy seeing to my own salvation.

H/T to Maggie’s Notebook

Here’s Joe the Plumber’s news conference. The media tries to trip him up because of his party affiliation.

Then Joe the Plumber goes on to say what so many Americans believe. “I have two parents, I don’t need two more parents - the government.” This is great!

Update: Joe did a few more interviews. You can read about them here and here.

Joe Wurzelbacher, the plumber who asked Barack Obama why he would raise his taxes, was interviewed earlier today by Neil Cavuto. Needless to say, Obama was not able to change the mind of the plumber who worked hard and saved his money in order to live his American dream.

In case you haven’t heard, Obama replied that he needs to share the wealth. In twenty eight seconds we learned more about Barack Obama than the media’s told us in eighteen months.

Why does it take a plumber from Ohio to expose the true Barack Obama? Someone should give Mr. Wurzelbacher a medal.

Hugh Hewitt interviewed Sarah Palin last night on his radio show. She sounded like an articulate, decent, down to earth person with good judgment. But then again, Hugh Hewitt probably didn’t edit Palin’s answers to make her sound bad. Read the transcript.

Palin talks about her faith, her family, and her take on why the elites have been so rough on her.

Heaven forbid middle class Americans could actually have an advocate in the White House. Heaven forbid we elect a vice president who faces (not in some long, long ago fairy tale of a life story) the same trials and tribulations as the rest of us.

Look at where all of these Washington insiders have gotten us thus far. Frankly, I’m quite sick of politi-speak.

Before Katie Couric interviewed Sarah Palin, she told the staff at CBS News to drop the title “Governor” from all references to Sarah Palin. And people wonder why Governor Palin wasn’t at her best? I only saw bits and peices of the interview, but there’s been quite a bit of criticism of Palin’s performance from both Democrats and Republicans. Read the rest of this entry »

Isn’t it amazing how much better Sarah Palin came across in her interview with Sean Hannity? He asked her tough questions, but in a much more humble manner than Charlie Gibson. Hannity didn’t need to glare down his nose at her, like a stern school-marm.

Her answers were aired in full (at least it seemed that way) without editing. She did well and came off much more relaxed, as she was allowed to articulate her ideas and qualifications.  Hannity brought up what her critics are saying and allowed her to answer without rude interruptions.

Last night she talked about a “government on behalf of the people.” If that weren’t good enough, tonight she mentioned American exceptionalism. How often do we hear that from politicians anymore? Aren’t we all just citizens of the world? 

I have been feeling pretty miserable lately, with all of the bad news coming out of Wall Street and everyone pointing fingers (myself included). It was absolutely refreshing to hear those two words annunciated so naturally “American exceptionalism.” I believe Sarah Palin is a perfect example of that ideal.

I came across a post from the blog Journal of Feminist Insight that details the differences between Charlie Gibson’s interview of Barack Obama and his interview of Sarah Palin. As I write this, our local news station is covering the celebrities at the Palace Theater for the premier of the Ernie Davis movie (which is a great story). They aren’t airing Gibson’s interview with Palin until 7:30 eastern time. But I digress.

The writer found the transcript of Charlie Gibson’s interview of Barack Obama. The questions included the following hard-hitting “gotchas”:

How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
How does it feel to win?
How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling?
Who will be your VP?
Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
Will you accept public finance?
What issues is your campaign about?
Will you visit Iraq?
Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech?

There’s much more in the original post, as well as a link to Gibson’s interview of Obama.

Anyone who saw Part I of Gibson’s interview of Sarah Palin knows she didn’t get such soft ball questions.  I doubt Part II will be any better. But no, really, there’s no media bias.

As soon as Charlie Gibson asked his first question of Governor Palin it brought me back to my first job interview with a condescending old man. Knowing I wanted the job and that I would do it well, all I had to do was answer his patronizing questions.  Sarah Palin did better with Gibson than I did on that interview.

I have to wonder, did Gibson ask John Edwards if he was ready to, perhaps, become President if his running mate John Kerry dropped dead? Did he ask how his experience chasing ambulances could possibly prepare him to negotiate with foreign leaders?  Since when is there an assumption that male one term senators are somehow more qualified than female one term governors?

Gibson didn’t like her answer about energy independence. She’s the only candidate who’s actually done something about the issue. When ABC announced that no topic was off-limits they should have offered clarification. Gibson can ask whatever he wants, but Palin has to give only answers he wants to hear.

Sarah Palin did well and she held her own. The left must be very upset that she didn’t stammer her way through the interview. No doubt they are finding ways to twist her words to make her sound like a bible thumping lunatic war monger. The questions were set up in such a way as to make that possible.

Memo to the media: Sarah Palin isn’t afraid of you. For days the MSM and the Obama campaign have complained that Sarah Palin needs to do the talk show tour. She needs to be properly vetted. No doubt they’re hoping she’ll say something really, really stupid like “That’s above my pay grade.” Joe Biden’s campaign manager took a jab at Governor Palin.

Reporters covering Biden gave the candidate a cardboard cutout of McCain, and Biden spokesman David Wade promptly used the gag to take a poke at Palin.

“You realize you could’ve made history if you’d found a cardboard cut-out of Governor Palin,” Wade said. “That’s the closest she would’ve been to taking tough questions from the national media since she was selected.” “Then again, I guess the Republicans are continuing their recent history of keeping their vice-presidential picks in secure, undisclosed locations,” he added, in reference to Vice President Dick Cheney’s use of an “undisclosed location” after the Sept. 11 attacks. “Yet another way that McCain-Palin is more of the same.”

In fact, Sarah Palin has appeared several times with Larry Kudlow, but I don’t see the press showing any of those interviews. Perhaps because there are no major gaffes to highlight. The only thing they point out is that she once said she didn’t think she would like being vice president, or something like that.

Well, MSM, you don’t have to wait much longer to see an interview with the Governor. ABC News has confirmed that Sarah Palin will sit for an interveiw with Charles Gibson. This will be her first since the announcement that she will be John McCain’s running mate.

Something tells me she isn’t afraid.