The undeserved 'Maverick' reputation

So much has been written recently about how undeserved is Sen. McCain's reputation as an anti-partisan Maverick that it almost seems like beating a dead dog at this point. Indeed he is not conservative enough for the talk-radio circuit (although one wonders if anybody short of G. Gordon Liddy could be).

Here, though, is Factcheck (via Congressional Quarterly) with the actual numbers on 'Maverick-ism' or the lack thereof: McCain voted with the president's position 95 percent of the time in 2007, and in no year has voted with the president's position less than 77 percent of the time, as in 2005.

Sen. Obama voted with the president's position 40 percent of the time last year, and Sen. Reid of Nevada did so 39 percent of the time. Obama voted with the Democrats 97 percent of the time in 2007.

Hilarious

From the woman who also believes that the New Deal was a bad idea and that Joe McCarthy was a great American hero:

"I generally don't write columns about the manifestly obvious, but, yes, the man responsible [For the record: Ms. Coulter is talking about President Bush] for keeping Americans safe from another terrorist attack on American soil for nearly seven years now will go down in history as one of America's greatest presidents."

Here is a survey of hundreds of professional historians (as opposed to professional bloviators, like Ms. Coulter) who disagree:

"Asked to rank the presidency of George W. Bush in comparison to those of the other 41 American presidents, more than 61 percent of the historians concluded that the current presidency is the worst in the nation’s history. Another 35 percent of the historians surveyed rated the Bush presidency in the 31st to 41st category, while only four of the 109 respondents ranked the current presidency as even among the top two-thirds of American administrations."

This just in...

Sen. McCain has crazy supporters (via Americablog, through Instaputz). So does Sen. Obama (via Powerline).

Does any of this have any bearing on anything? Are Powerline, Little Green Footballs and Instapundit* trying to score cheap political points with their already skittish readership?**

No. And yes.

* Instaputz is of course not scoring cheap political points, since TS mentions the insanity of both candidates' supporters, via a link to Instapundit.

**They must be counting on their readers to spread the word, since nobody who had any intention whatsoever of voting for Sen. Obama would ever read any of those blogs for information.

In the immortal words of Hobbes the Tiger...

...Adjectives fail me.

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Thousands of Americans are pledging to fire up their charcoal barbecue grills, bask in the infinite glow of numerous incandescent light bulbs, shun recycling of any kind and take spontaneous road trips in gas-guzzling vehicles to increase their personal carbon output – all in protest of the Senate debate over a bill calling for a "cap-and-trade" system.

Grassfire, one of the nation's fastest-growing grassroots organizations, has declared June 12 Carbon Belch Day and is enlisting citizens to expel more than 100 million pounds of CO2 to combat climate alarmist propaganda and to take a stand against a "$1.2 trillion carbon tax."

"We wanted to point out the absurdity of the climate alarmism of Al Gore and others who want to make us feel bad for just about everything we do and rally people for the battle over the carbon tax which is now under way in the Senate," Grassfire president Steve Elliott told WND. "We really plan to engage lots of citizens who have been under carbon-footprint guilt for far too long and give citizens an opportunity to make a statement that we reject climate alarmism. We're not going to stand for this carbon tax."

People are reading this stuff.

And, what's more, they are taking it seriously --

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"WHISTLEBLOWER MAGAZINE Finally revealed: The secret life of Barack Obama
Is he America's political messiah – or a Manchurian candidate?

In a few short months, the young and relatively unknown politician Barack Hussein Obama may very well be elevated to the presidency of the United States and command the mightiest military in world history.

Would the eloquent and charismatic Obama unite, inspire and renew a troubled nation, as tens of millions of voters passionately believe? Or is it possible he's a Manchurian candidate – harboring an ominous secret agenda few understand, a man destined to wreak havoc on America should he become president?

That's the question that is explored definitively in the April issue of WND's acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, titled "THE SECRET LIFE OF BARACK OBAMA."

[snip]

Examination of his U.S. Senate voting record reveals him to be a hard leftist. A little-reported letter from the candidate to the "LGBT community" declares Obama's enthusiastic solidarity with the radical homosexual-rights agenda. His long-time spiritual mentor and pastor turns out to be a rabid, racist, America-hater who claims the U.S. invented AIDS to wipe out black people. Bloggers are even piecing together an intriguing case that Obama, a Muslim in his youth, may still be a closet Muslim.

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We will all look back in a few years and feel very, very ashamed.

It'd be one thing if this were the tin-foil hat crowd frothing in the corner, but reasonably mainstream 'journalists' on Fox and the radio quote or at least praise World Net Daily somewhat regularly.

This just in: Conservative media believes that liberals suck.

Listening to a Christian radio station on the way home from school got me to wondering. The host was attacking Sen. Obama for being 'pro-abortion;' he rolled out the usual quotes and attacks for the benefit of his listeners, Obama thinks babies are punishments, blah blah blah.

I have a feeling that the listeners and watchers of Conservative Christian radio stations, Limbaugh, Hannity, Ingraham, Fox et al. are people who would never have voted for Obama in the first place. Christianity's a big tent, and it's a safe bet that Christian Democrats/non-Republicans aren't listening to this station's political hour. So one has to wonder exactly what they believe repeating 'Obama sucks' for the next six months is going to accomplish.

"The 'New Media' at work," or "you just can't make this stuff up"

Sean Hannity just cited gossip websites 'The Drudge Report' and 'TMZ.com' in the space of five minutes, while reporting on one of his favorite topics (perhaps his alltime favorite), the private life of Bill Clinton.