Tom made his BBC debut today, as mentioned below, regarding how the media influence elections.  We now have the audio from the program.  As this is quite an international radio program, Tom only got a couple of chances to speak (the first at 3:40 into the audio file, and one more about 10 minutes later).  There were quite a number of guests and callers from all over the world, so the whole program is a good discussion.

Click on one of these links to download the file.  You may need to right-click and select "Save As" or "Save Link As".  Mac users may need to hold Ctrl and click, and then select "Download Linked File".

High-quality audio file (24 meg)

Low-quality audio file (8 meg)

Congratulations, Tom!

It’s just a debate moderator, the lefty blogosphere tells us.  She’s just asking questions.  What’s the big deal about her book?  Well, just a few questions.

1. So then, the next Presidential debate can be moderated by John Stossel and the Democrats would be fine with that?
2. If all the moderator does is ask questions, why wouldn’t Democrats even debate themselves on Fox News?

Either blatant partisanship, real or perceived, is to be avoided at a debate, or it isn’t.  Either moderators with their own biases, plain or hidden, can be fair questioners, or they can’t.  Just pick an answer and stick with it, or don’t be surprised when Republicans ask for the same deal the Democrats ask for.

Mr. Instapundit noted yesterday:

A READER AT A MAJOR NEWSROOM EMAILS: “Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working.” I asked permission to reprint without attribution and it was granted.

UPDATE: The Anchoress hears similar things.

Water must be warm in the tank.

In the first Presidential debate, Barack Obama used the line more than once that this credit crisis we’re in stems from policies that “shredded” regulations, and that assumed that regulation is “always bad”.  But that characterization is simply not true, and in the cases of Freddie and Fannie, which are government sponsored enterprises (GSE), government oversight is especially required.

First of all, GSEs are a non-free-market concept, contrary to Rep. Barney Frank’s assertion that this credit crunch is a failure of the free market.  It is a government program to target certain sectors with cheap loans.  Overall, it has been fairly successful, but it is not a free market issue.  This is government stepping in to deal with a situation it wants to see changed.

The second issue is that when Democrats pushed Freddie and Fannie to create what became known as the subprime mortgage market.  That was the subject of the previous video I posted on this subject.  It became the late-20th-century version of “a chicken in every pot” promise.  Everyone gets a home!  Well, not really.  Everyone gets a mortgage, including some who couldn’t afford it.  But Freddie and Fannie took this mandate and went wild.  It was essentially a big-government solution being administered by a big-government program; again, not a failure of the free market. 

During this time, Republicans realized that more regulation of these types of loans and the securities backed by them was required, but Democrats did not believe there was a problem.  Those were their words; not a problem.

Roll the tape, and listen to their words.

So Obama’s sweeping contention that Republican consider regulation “always bad” is demonstrably false.  Less regulation is a hallmark of conservatism, true, but where it’s required, especially in a government program, it should be done.  But Democrats, when faced with tightening the purse strings on a constituency that they claim for themselves, will see no evil.  Being for the little guy does not mean setting them up for failure.  It’s partisan politics, pure and simple.

And by the way, where’s the MSM on this?  Quiet as a mouse.  FactCheck.org’s checking of debate facts is silent on this issue.  The objectivity on this issue is pointing out some glaring blind spots.

Update: Roger Kimball gives the roots of this crisis a closer look, with suitable linkage.  Short and sweet, but informative.

From Glenn Reynolds, a link to a story about Obama threatening the licenses of TV stations that run an NRA ad.

Change… we can believe in.

Here’s the ad:

This is a 10-minute video that sets the Way-Back Machine to 1995 and documents, with quotes, news articles, charts & graphs, how we really got into this mess.  It also notes who contributed to it and who tried to stop it before it happened. 

Keep your mouse on the Pause button.  It packs a lot of information into those 10 minutes.

…or “on empty”, depending on how you look at it.  Last Tuesday this came out about Obama’s latest ad.

Democrat Barack Obama’s campaign hit Republican John McCain today over his family’s ownership of foreign cars, saying it would air a TV ad in Michigan highlighting McCain’s statements on buying American.

But the ad, which accuses McCain of misleading Michigan voters by saying he’s bought American vehicles “literally all my life,” doesn’t say that of the 13 vehicles owned by the McCain family, only one is registered to McCain himself – a 2004 Cadillac CTS built in Lansing.

The 12 other vehicles include a 2005 Volkswagen convertible, a 2001 Honda sedan, a 2007 Ford half-ton pickup and three Gem neighborhood electric vehicles – essentially road-worthy golf carts built by a Chrysler subsidiary.

Cindy McCain is the legal owner of 11 vehicles. The Lexus she drives is registered to Hensley & Co., the Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship she inherited from her late father.

He’s unfit for office because … he owns cars, of all things!  And he married into 11 of them!  Oh, the humanity.

If the Obama campaign is trying to say that being rich means you’re elitist, then it’s just the same old class warfare that Democrats have used for decades.  So much for “change”.  “Elitism” is an attitude, not the result of a balance sheet.  I would say that racism is elitist, thinking your race is better than others, but anyone from Joe Sixpack to Donald Trump could have that attitude.  You can be in an elite group of people, such as the super-rich, but not necessarily have an elitist attitude.

I would say that suggesting that Pennsylvanians cling to guns and religion during bad times (like that’s a bad thing) is elitist.  And especially after you’d just returned from Pennsylvania praising those same people. 

But my main point is that this sort of ad — calling attention to what he owns instead of what he thinks — smacks of desperation.

Counterterrorism Blog: Where We’ve Come since 9/11,

Does the fact there has been no successful attack on the U.S., since 9/11, mean that we haven’t been attacked? Read No Aattack in the US since 9-11?, also at Counterterrorism Blog.

Obama continues to play politics as usual run a campaign of change by attempting to convince the Iraqis to postpone drawing up troop withdrawal agreements until after he’s elected.

China has perfected time travel (HT: Ron’s Bloviating).

Add this to the Chinese successfully time transporting child gymnasts into the future.

Congressman Alcee Hastings (D-Oz), speaking to the National Jewish Democratic Council, used this fine bit of prose to attack Sarah Palin.

Florida Democratic Congressman Alcee Hastings pointed to Sarah Palin on Wednesday to rally Jews to Obama.

“If Sarah Palin isn’t enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention,” said Hastings. “Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through.”

Hastings, who is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, made his comments in Washington, D.C., while participating in a panel discussion sponsored by the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Well, there’s a leap I don’t think I’ve ever heard made.  “Don’t vote for Palin; she clings to her guns and mooses.”  And the connection to caring about Jews and blacks is obvious, right?  Right?

Charlie Martin has gone as far as getting the URL http://www.palinrumors.com/ to point to his ever-updated list of rumors about Sarah Palin.  Since last I visited there, there have been new ones added.  Here are a few (and details are on the site):

#72: No, she didn’t try to charge rape victims personally for rape kits.

#76: No she didn’t institute a “windfall profits” tax on oil companies.

#79: No, Palin didn’t eliminate or “void” the Alaskan WIC program as Newsweek claimed.

#83: No, she did not cut the Special Olympics funding in a recent budget, except in the Washington sense of “didn’t increase it as much as someone wanted.”

#84 Yes, she did bill the Alaska State Government for per diem on days when she was “home.”  But that’s the way the law is written, and even doing what other governors did, she still had expenses one-third to one-fifth of the previous governor’s.

Bookmark that page.

The Washington Post claimed that a recent McCain ad, tying Barack Obama to Franklin Raines, former CEO of Fannie May, was based on “flimsy” evidence.  Problem is, the source for the information was the Washington Post itself. 

Rusty Shackleford’s Jawa Report blog is reporting that the first link in his suspected chain of command in the Palin smear viral video has admitted to producing the video.  However, it appears that Ethan Winner is falling on his sword, claiming full and sole responsibility for the production of the video.  Shackleford isn’t convinced, and he spells out why.

Developing…