Alternate titles: “More of the same from President Change.” Or, how about, “Obama quickly shoots self in foot, alienates conservatives.” Or, “cheap shot joke, out of line, what a jerk.”

Obama has since apologized to Nancy Reagan. I was thinking that just as liberals might overplay their renewed position so too might conservatives become too hypersensitive. It was a dumb cheap joke in front of a partisan audience (the press). But I’ll save my energy for attacking this guy when he makes his inevitable lurch leftward, perhaps by April.

Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House – a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, “We are not enemies, but friends…though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.” And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

– Barack Obama in his victory speech on Election night.

Pardon me, but isn’t this essentially what President Bush said in his two election victory speeches, and wasn’t it outright rejected by Democrats not minutes (“Selected, not elected!”) after the offers? The damage to the Bush presidency was done from weeks of negative coverage before he was even sworn in. That study after study after study found that Bush would have won under any circumstance was of no concern to the Democrats.

From No Child Left Behind (with Ted Kennedy!), to a massive expansion of Medicare entitlements (Kennedy again!) and big government, to new steel tariffs, to — as requested — wasting time wooing the United Nations prior to the war in Iraq, to agreeing to sunset his taxcuts, to immigration amnesty, to refusing to veto any spending bill (a major concession to Democrats), Bush went so far out of his way to “reach across the aisle” that he ended up alienating his own base in the process.

Concessions to the “other side” or to moderation is, of course, the ultimate trap for a politician, as political aficionados know. Why? Because when things get tough and they need their base, they turn around to find their base is disillusioned, demoralized and diminished.

But it is funny how partisanship is just fine and dandy for Democrats when they lose, but a “poison” to be “resisted” once they retake power.

Bill Bennett asked me on the air the other day why voters were so hot for this hope’n’change mush, and I suggested that it’s the dominant vernacular of the age. Go into almost any American grade-school and stroll the corridors: you’ll find the walls lined with Sharpie-bright supersized touchy-feely abstractions: “RESPECT,” “DREAM,” “TOGETHER,” “DIVERSITY.” By contrast, Mister Maverick talked of “reaching across the aisle” and ending “earmarks,” which may sound heroic in Washington but ring shriveled and reductive to anyone who’s not obsessed with legislative process. This dead language embodied the narrow sliver of turf on which he was fighting, while Obama was bestriding the broader cultural space. Republicans need to start their own long march back through all the institutions they ceded. Otherwise, the default mode of this society will be liberal, and what’s left of the Republican party will be reduced (as in other parts of the west) to begging the electorate for the occasional opportunity to prove it can run the liberal state just as well as liberals can.

– Mark Steyn

If we live in such a racist country, as the friends and fellow travelers of Barack Obama argued vehemently throughout this campaign season, how did AmeriKKKa end up electing The One?

– Michelle Malkin tosses the Rev. Wright’s words back at him.

Read the rest. I love a quote by this mil-blogger, mainly because he says what I said, and you know, I’m into that:

“But, now that there’s going to be a Democrat in the White House, patriotism will be in again – so maybe the movies will be a little less dreadful, though they’ll be no less preachy.

Does the election of a black man to the Presidency of the United States mean we can finally give Europe the finger? Seeing as how those hosers have never elected anything but a pasty-white European to high elective office?

Does anyone think a day like yesterday is even *remotely* possible over there?”

Well, at least the longest and most expensive election in American history is over.

One must congratulate Barack Obama. Should not he at least be given the chance to prove he is not the most liberal president, backed by the most liberal Congress, to ever take office?

Or, rather, should Republicans and conservatives use the playbook — perfected by Democrats just days after the 2000 election — where Bush’s disgraceful treatment became what John Kerry’s own lawyer, Jeff Shapiro, this week termed, “a shameful display of arrogance and weakness” by Democrats.

The peaceful transition of power envisioned by our founders continues. We started it, and no other country does it quite as well. Meanwhile, I get a kick out of the rest of the world hailing us for overcoming our supposed racial bias — you’ll let me know when a black man rules France, or a Jewish person rules Iran, or a Korean rules Japan, or when a Pakistani rules the U.K., won’t you?

Good news: It is possible, but not likely, that Barack Obama will not be a economic socialist, or ineptly naive on foreign policy. He may govern more in the center, perhaps emulating Bill Clinton. It would also appear that the Democrats will not gain the omnipotent 60th seat in the Senate, but they came damn close.

Good news: Race-baiters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are officially irrelevant to American politics.

Bad news: If you thought the mainstream media was an Obama lapdog during the election, just wait until Obama is president. Any obsticle for the Obama presidency will instantly be spun into an advantage or at least a non-issue. Revisionist history will reach unprecedented heights.

Bad news: For the next eight years, anyone who dares disagree with any Obama position risks being labeled a bigot or racist. As Charles Krauthammer said recently, if they can make Bill Clinton into a racist they can make anyone into a racist.

Here’s the Wall Street Journal on the historical revisionism you can expect to see from the peddlers of conventional wisdom in the months ahead:

According to the six-year narrative of the press and political class, the Bush Administration’s counterterrorism policies fall somewhere between the Spanish Inquisition and the Ministry of Love in “1984.” So it was something of a shock to read a remarkable front-page story in the New York Times yesterday, the abridged version being: Never mind.

In their 1,600-word dispatch “Next President Will Face Test on Detainees,” reporters William Glaberson and Margot Williams discover that, gee whiz, many of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay really are dangerous terrorists. The Times reviewed “thousands of pages” of evidence that the government has so far made public and concludes that perhaps the reality is more complicated than the critics claim.

Lo and behold, detainees are implicated in such terror attacks as the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. Those with “serious terrorism credentials” include al Qaeda operatives Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and the so-called “Dirty 30,” Osama bin Laden’s cadre of bodyguards. The Times didn’t mention Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of 9/11, though he’s awaiting a war-crimes tribunal at Gitmo too.

Both Barack Obama and John McCain have pledged to put Guantanamo out of business, but, as the Times explains, “the review of the government’s public files underscores the challenges of fulfilling that promise. The next president will have to contend with sobering intelligence claims against many of the remaining detainees.” Now they tell us.

For example, at least 60 detainees have been cleared for release or transfer but no other countries will accept them. If Gitmo is no longer a prison, some U.S. facility would have to house the remaining men while they await habeas hearings and trials. Yet no politician has offered up his state or district as an alternative — and none will. Further: If military commissions are cashiered altogether, how will prosecutors protect classified information and intelligence sources and methods in open civilian criminal court?

We guess it’s easier for Mr. Bush’s many opponents to admit all of this now that he’s about to leave office. Perhaps the painstaking work of the Administration and Congress to establish a legal architecture for handling enemy combatants and to balance competing wartime priorities will look better when the political temperature is lower. After a few harrowing threat briefings, maybe the new Commander in Chief won’t rush to undo Mr. Bush’s programs.

But give the Times credit for leading the revisionist pack. More such media revelations on the Road to Damascus — or Baghdad, Tehran and Khartoum — are no doubt on the way, especially if Mr. Obama is elected today. This might even be healthy. Democrats would have to pivot from making easy cracks about Dick Cheney’s “shadow” Constitution to accepting political responsibility for U.S. security.

Perhaps contentious antiterror tools would even acquire legitimacy in an Obama Administration, just as Eisenhower endorsed Truman’s Cold War framework. Mr. Obama has already climbed down on warrantless wiretapping, first claiming that surveillance of terrorist communications routed through the U.S. violated civil liberties but then voting for Mr. Bush’s policy in June. A safe bet is that the Swift and other Treasury programs to monitor and freeze terror finances, which the Times pointlessly disclosed in 2006, are also due for reconsideration.

As we learned under FDR (internment camps), LBJ (spying on political enemies) and Bill Clinton (rendition to Arab regimes), liberals aren’t as punctilious about civil liberties when liberals run the government. Who knows, maybe Guantanamo’s false reputation as a gulag will be rehabilitated too.

Democrats regularly make it clear that they have little respect for middle Americans. One extraordinary example would be Pennsylvania, whom of its citizens Barack Obama said in April, “So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Maybe it was the perfect strategy by Obama, who basically said… ‘prove you’re not racist by voting for me, you ignorant gun-toting, bible-pounding rednecks.’

I guess Pennsylvanians don’t mind condescending politicians, as they voted for Obama tonight.

Found via The Weekly Standard the video doesn’t just underscore Obama’s lack of experience or free passes from the media on gaffes that would have sent him to Quaylesque levels (had he been a Republican candidate). Unlike community organizers and Capital Hill folks, presidents have to actually make decisions, which are often unpopular, especially considering the polarized electorates. Obama hasn’t demonstrated he’ll have the stomach to stick to his guns during the eventual difficult times he will face, if elected on Tuesday night.

Here’s Ralph Reiland of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

I interviewed two plumbing company owners over the weekend about Barack Obama’s economic proposals for small business.

One has 15 employees and 12 trucks. The other has 52 employees and 34 trucks. They’re Joe the Plumber, writ large.

Both owners had the same reaction to Obama’s proposed new taxes and mandates. To not have their bottom lines reduced by government fiat, both said they’d be forced to lay off employees.

Specifically, here’s what the owner of the larger firm said regarding six of Obama’s key proposals for the small-business sector: The average wage at his company, figuring the 52 paychecks of his office staff, installers and service workers, is $31,200, $15 an hour.

First, “Barack Obama and Joe Biden will require that employers provide seven paid sick days per year,” states the Obama campaign’s Web site. “I give three paid sick days,” explained the business owner. His extra cost for this one new regulation would be $24,960 (4 extra days, 52 employees, at an average of $120 per day). “That’s one of the women in the office,” he said. “I can make up that cost by letting one of the office people go.”

Second, Obama states that employers will be required to pay 100 percent of the cost of health insurance premiums for 100 percent of their employees or face a tax penalty. “I pay 75 percent of their coverage,” explained the owner. “The family policy is about $11,000. For single guys, it’s about $5,000.” At an average annual cost of $7,000 per policy, his additional cost for 52 employees to cover the 25 percent of the premiums that he currently doesn’t pay is $91,000. “That’s the price of three installers,” he said. “Just to stay even with where I am, I’d have to fire three more people or raise some prices and fire two.”

The result is more unemployment or more inflation, or both.

Third, with the estate tax, Obama is calling for a top tax rate of 45 percent on estates valued above $3.5 million, producing an estimated “death tax” of $675,000 on an estate of $5 million. “You’re kidding,” he said. “They took half my income on the way up and now they want another half when I die?” He estimated that his business is already valued at more than $3 million, in addition to the value of his home and investments. “Why,” he asked, “would I want to grow to 100 employees? What’ll stop them from changing it to 75 percent?”

The cost in jobs that will never be created in the U.S. economy because of this single disincentive to growth? Incalculable.

Fourth, Obama’s economic plan calls for a hike in the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour within three years. The business owner’s reaction? “That’s bad for two reasons. I don’t have anyone at minimum, but raise the bottom by $3 and a guy making $15 wants $18. Plus it’s bad for productivity when people think their pay raises are coming from government instead of from their own individual effort.”

Fifth, saying he’ll “play offense for organized labor,” Obama is proposing that workers should be denied the right to a private ballot at work in deciding whether to unionize. “That’ll never be,” said the plumbing entrepreneur. “I’m in business because I’m independent, not to take orders from a grievance chairman. I’d shut down.”

Sixth, the increase in taxes on this small business owner from Obama’s proposed hike in the income tax rate from 36% to 39.8% on incomes above $200,000 and the proposed increase in Social Security taxes comes to $32,000 per year. “That’s another employee,” he said, referring to the termination of another installer in order to just stay even.

“Bankrupt the coal industry”?

• That the U.S. gets close to 50% of its electricity from coal plants matter not to Barack Obama.
• That the U.S. gets only 20% of its electricity from nuclear power, and that his fellow environmentally extreme Democrats nonetheless block nuclear development, matters not to Obama.
• That another 20% of U.S. electricity comes from natural gas, which one must drill for, which his party likewise opposes, matters not to Obama.
• That the Democrat’s pie-in-the-sky “renewable” energies of geothermal, solar, and wind account for just 2.5% of all U.S. electricity certainly matters not to Obama.
• That these “renewable” alternatives either (1) won’t work, (2) will get tied up in lawsuits by his fellow liberals, and (3) aren’t cost-effective in any way, shape or form matters not to Obama.
• That the evidence of man-made climate change gets thinner every day matters not to Obama.

Bullying and bankrupting his political opposition is how Mr. “Unity candidate” Obama will “solve” America’s woes. The “cap-and-trade” schemes, which Obama references in the audio above, are simply a global tax designed to redistribute wealth from prosperous nations to the “developing nations.” That these developing nations might be corrupt and non-transparant, using the funds for anything but the development of their own people, matters not to Obama and like minded individuals in the global community who make no secret what they plan to do.