When James Madison and friends put together the Constitution, one of the key things they endeavoured to do was ensure that the Chief Administrator (President) did not have the power of a king. After all, we had just fought our tails off for the right to not have to be subjugated by King George, and as such provide sovereignty to the people and not the President.

I say this in preparation for something that Valerie Jarrett, co-chair of Obama’s transition team, said on Meet The Press yesterday:

“Given the daunting challenges that we face, it is important that President-elect Obama’s prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one.”

DavidL at BitsBlog takes this at face value, which is not in the least unfair. He characterizes this [...]

You’re going to hear quite a bit from the left over ‘the death of conservatism’ over the next few weeks. But they’ve got it wrong. I say, what we’ve got is the death of compromised conservatism as espoused by George W Bush, his father, GHW Bush, and by more recently, John McCain.

This morning, we see a post from Helen Valois at Renew America, who calls this ‘conservative conservatism’. I can quibble with the name she chooses, but not her meaning…

What is conservative conservatism? It is a commitment to playing a good defense (or rather — except for the one, brief, shining moment of Governor Palin’s acceptance speech — a pretty flawed defense) when your opponents have gone decisively on the offensive. It is that which John McCain quintessentially represents — the recalcitrant[...]

The biggest fraud in this election appears to be the use of polling numbers to disorient and discourage (mostly) Republican voters.

How many times have you heard three or four different sets of polling results in for the same state in the same time period? Keep an eye on the organizations providing the information. I doubt that any partisan organization is going to avoid showing numbers favorable to their candidate, but the largely liberal media is clearly having a heyday pushing numbers that just don’t add up. Even this week here in Iowa, polling supposedly puts Obama 12 to 13 points ahead of McCain.

So why was Obama planning to come to Iowa this week? (that[...]

The Supreme Court today backed the petition of the Ohio Secretary of State’s position that they did not need to verify the records of about 200,000 new voters this years whose ID information did not match government records. That’s more than 25% of the new voter registrations in Ohio.

Although it’s a fairly partisan confrontation, it highlights something that is becoming more endemic across our fruited plane: in our attempts to ensure that people are able to exercise their right to vote, we are becoming more and more at risk of exposing a larger segment of ballots to fraud.

The problem extends beyond just the sublime attempts to[...]

Here’s a transcript of last night’s debate.

If I get time, there’s a number of points I’d like to break out of it. But for now, a quick overview of who won and who lost.

If there’s one thing that the blogging Democrats and their pre-written declarations of an Obama victory in the debate last night proves, it is that BS is a renewable resource. Last night, the left side of the spin floor similarly had nothing but the same tired nonsense we’ve seen this entire cycle.

On Sunday I shared some initial thoughts about the Fed take-over of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If you read it, you know I’m not exactly happy about the outcome.  My friend Bithead shared some great thoughts Monday, and I don’t disagree that something needed to be done.   He and I both agree [...]

(Cross-posted from Bitsblog)
Fox News:

John McCain’s campaign prepared to accuse Democrats on Saturday of leaving behind 12,000 miniature American flags after Barack Obama’s nomination acceptance speech last Thursday in Denver.
Boy Scouts have arrived with 84 trash bags full of bundles of flags at the site of a McCain rally scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. local [...]

Tonight’s speech by Sarah Palin was a smashing hit!
It was truly inspiring and gave me, and clearly the convention delegates, an even stronger sense of confidence that we will win in November.
Palin hit hard against the liberal media and Democrats who have been attacking her since Friday.
She provided an excellent case for the McCain/Palin ticket.
And [...]

I finally got time to watch a recording of Saturday night’s Saddleback Church event with Obama and McCain.  DJ made some excellent observations earlier in the week, which I thought I might supplement a bit.  If you have not seen it yet, I strongly suggest that you view this event as I think it provides [...]

About BitHead

BitHead runs BitsBlog and is an occasional guest writer for
The Conservative Reader.
You can email BitHead at feedback@florack.us.
This special Swamp Stomper Article
is cross-posted from BitsBlog.

From the Business and Media institute:
There’s a huge concern among conservative talk radio hosts that reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine would all-but destroy the industry due to equal time constraints. But [...]