Barack was only 8 & John who was only 9 says Don't Be Flippant about it

Part One


Part Two


ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos asked, "Can you explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?"

Obama replied that Ayers "is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis. And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn't make much sense, George. The fact is, is that I'm also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who during his campaign once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions."

Greta van Susteren interview John Murtagh who was angered by Obama's flippant remark about only being 8-years-old when his long-time terrorist buddies, William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn's Weather Underground attempted to murder his family by fire bombing his family's house!! Mr. Murtagh was 9-years old at the time of the bombing.

Hello! I'm a Mac...and I'm a Pc

Which one of us do you want to be your next Commander-in-Chief?

This visual provided for the word challenged folks who need a visual aid for understanding.

Also consider this a Wednesday night open thread.

We don't want nobody that nobody sent

Associate Justice John Paul Stevens spoke at an ABA Thurgood Marshall Awards Dinner honoring Abner Mikva. Part of his speech included this anecdote about how politics works in Chicago.

One evening in 1948 Abner Mikva walked into the office of the Democratic Ward Committeeman and told him that he wanted to do volunteer work for Adlai Stevenson and Paul Douglas. The Committeeman took the cigar out of his mouth, glared at Abner and asked: "Who sent you?" When Ab said, "Nobody sent me", he put the cigar back in his mouth and said: "We don't want nobody that nobody sent."

That attitude exists today as much as it did in 1948, and as much as it did in 1994 when Barack made the key move in his early career. He was named Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a $50 million grant program to funnel money into reform efforts at Chicago schools. It turns out that the architect of the Annenberg Challenge was Bill Ayers, who designed the grant proposal and sheparded it to success.

A blogger, Steve Diamond, has written an excellent detailed blog about how Barack made this key career move for himself. Steve concludes

Thus, we have one possible answer to the question: Who "sent" Obama? It was the Ayers family, including Tom, John, Bill and Bernardine Dohrn.

It is highly unlikely that a 30-something second year lawyer would have been plucked from relative obscurity out of a left wing law firm to head up something as visible and important in Chicago as the Annenberg Challenge by Bill Ayers if Ayers had not already known Obama very well. One possibility is that Obama proved himself to the Ayers's in the battle for local school control when he was at the DCP in the 80s.

Barack's South Side community organizing group, the Developing Communities Project is what the acronym DCP stands for. The battle for local school control refers to groups made up by a majority of parents who have the power to hire and fire principals thus creating a new power center in the school system against what both reform groups viewed as the bureaucratic and expensive school board, on the one hand, and, on the other, the teachers union.

I am especially intrigued with the Marxist perspective that Steve Diamond provides with respect to this school reform movement. One cannot confuse this with Pres. Bush's NCLB proposal. Steve write

In my view these types of councils are reminiscent of the manipulative "community" bodies set up in regimes like those of Hugo Chavez and the Sandinistas - used to control genuine democratic movements such as trade unions.

Ayers, of course, had long held what the left once knew, broadly, as “maoist” politics – a view of the world that was opposed to Russian style bureaucratic communism from above, instead advocates of this approach supported sending revolutionary cadre to “swim among the masses like fish in the sea” or attempting to establish guerilla foco as romantically theorized by Regis Debray and carried out with disastrous results by Che Guevara.

Today one of the approaches used by these types is the "long march" through the (presumably "bourgeois") institutions. Of course, the "long march" referred to is that taken by Mao and the Red Army in 1934.

Bill Ayers appears to be attempting to lead a similar "long march" in the education world. Ayers is a vigorous advocate of local control along with a related concept called “small schools,” most likely because he believes it gives him the potential to build a political base from which to operate.

Certainly Ayers' politics remain unapologetically authoritarian. He recently traveled to Venezuela - only the most recent of several such trips - and delivered a speech in front of Hugo Chavez in which he spoke of education as the "motor force of revolution" and his interest in "overcom[ing] the failings of capitalist education" and said he thought Chavez was creating "something truly new and deeply humane." He closed his speech by mouthing typical slogans of the authoritarian left: "Viva Mission Sucre! Viva Presidente Chavez! Viva La Revolucion Bolivariana! Hasta La Victoria Siempre!"

Another 'who sent you' event that happened earlier in Barack's life is in the summer of 1989 to work as a summer associate at the prestigious Chicago law firm of Sidley & Austin. Very few top tier law students work for big law firms during their first summer. The big law firms discourage it because if you work for them in the first summer you are likely to work for a second firm the following year and then the firms have to compete to get you.

Sidley & Austin had been long time outside counsel to Commonwealth Edison. The senior Sidley partner who was Comm Ed's key outside counsel, Howard Trienens, was a member of the board of trustees of Northwestern alongside Tom Ayers (and Sidley partner Newton Minow, too). It turns out, Bernardine Dohrn worked at Sidley also. She was hired there in the late 80s, because of the intervention of her father-in-law Tom Ayers, even though she was (and is) not a member of any state bar.

Dohrn was not admitted in either NY or Illinois because of her past jail time for refusing to testify about the murderous 1981 Brinks robbery in which her former Weather Underground (now recast as the "Revolutionary Armed Task Force") "comrades," including Kathy Boudin (biological mother of Chesa Boudin, who was raised by Ayers and Dohrn) participated. She was finally paroled after serving 22 years of a plea bargained single 20-to-life sentence for her role in the robbery where a guard was shot and killed and two police officers were killed. The father of Chesa Boudin, David Gilbert, was sentenced to 75-to-life, with no chance of parole, after a trial in which he refused to participate. Chesa is the co-author of a recent apologia for the regime of Venezuelan "left" strong man, Hugo Chavez.

Trienens recently explained his unusual decision to hire Dohrn, who had never practice law and had graduated from law school (before going on her bombing spree) 17 years before in 1967) to The Chicago Tribune saying, "We sometimes hire friends."

I give a tip of the hat to TownHall columnist Mary Grabar for providing me with the link to Steve Diamond's blog.


I hope Kowalski will read and comment on this diary as I think he probably has additional anecdotal knowledge about professors and trustees at Northwest University. The supporters of Barack will try to paint me and others who bring up the established relationships between Barack and radical Marxist terrorists as being racist and bigoted. I reject the premise of their portrayal that I'm a bigot and racist for calling these relationships to folks attention. This vote coming up in November to elect the next POTUS is extremely important. When you go into the booth to cast your vote you need to be armed with an answer to the question... Who sent me this candidate on this ballot?

2008 & 1938 Eerily Similar Pics

House Is Spanking the Monkey as Gas Prices Rise

I just caught this little gem from Club for Growth about a vote that was taken June 18, 2008 on a bill to spend $5 million dollars to prevent the interstate sale of monkeys. The bill passed 302-96. One of the 'Nay' votes came from Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT-02) who had this to say

Maybe we should actually spend more time with human primate energy issues, rather than the non-human primate non-issue.

I could not agree with you more Rob.

2 Freshman House Ds From Fla. Ripe For Defeat

U.S. Reps. Ron Klein (left) and Tim Mahoney (right) join Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill. for 'Let's go Communist' bill to be introduced by Rahm Emanuel, Maurice Hinchey, Ed Markey, and Nick Rahall as co-sponsors. This is what Maurice Hinchley said on the House floor June 19, 2008:

We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market.

On Ron Klein's website he writes:

I am working to pass legislation
that gives the oil companies an ultimatum: “Drill It or Lose It.”

On Tim Mahoney's website he writes the following:

The Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act of 2008 employs a "use it or lose it" tactic that will compel oil and gas companies to either produce or give up the federal onshore and offshore leases they are stockpiling by barring the companies from obtaining any more leases unless they can demonstrate that they are producing oil and gas, or are diligently developing the leases they already hold.

Rep. Cong. John E. Peterson has an excellent smackdown on this insane legislation in a New York Post op-ed piece

Since 1982, Congress has passed laws banning the production of oil and natural gas on our Outer Continental Shelf; the last three presidents went along. But the US Minerals Management Service estimates (conservatively) that the OCS holds 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas - the equivalent of 35 years of imported oil from OPEC and an 18-year supply of natural gas.

The United States is the only country in the world that prohibits exploitation of such offshore resources.
Make no mistake, this mess is the result of Washington's foolish policy of restricting domestic energy production and discouraging investment in it.

All too often, Washington's energy debate revolves around the notion that support for increased domestic production of oil and natural gas means opposing renewable energy, conservation and sound environmental policy.

In fact, these shouldn't be competing priorities, but complimentary ones: America must produce more, conserve more and invest more in renewables.

For this country to remain a world leader in the global economy, Congress must develop a national energy policy that considers all means - including increased domestic production of oil and natural gas, on and offshore.

America depends on fossil fuels for 86 percent of our energy needs; wind, solar and geothermal power cover less than 1 percent. Renewable energy won't be available in sufficient quantity and at affordable prices for decades - so we have no other choice than to produce more of our own oil and natural gas - or further increase our dependence upon foreign sources.
And producing our own energy will create tens of thousands of jobs - and bring in hundreds of billions of dollars in royalties.

Look. I don't live in Florida, and I especially don't live in CD-16 or CD-22, but I know that folks that do live in these districts are paying over $4 per gallon to put gas in their vehicle. They really don't like it, and they don't believe the US Congress has ANY credible record of getting knee-deep into owning, obtaining, and distributing US oil so they won't pay so much money to put fuel in their vehicle. I spotted this news item on a Florida newspaper website PalmBeachPost,com Blog
One interesting comment from a Floridian who I don't believe is a member of RedState was this:

You know, these guys are embarrasing me. Mahoney’s worthless, not really a Dem and Klein should know better. Emanuel, needs to go away. We need better Dems, not more. Don’t these guys have research persons on staff

Anybody who lives in Florida, especially if you live in CD-16 or CD-22, please let me know if I'm mistaken in believing that these 2 freshmen CongressCritters™ are really ripe for defeat.

Obama’s ‘Dreams from His Father’ = My Worst Nightmares

Let me start by saying ‘Happy Father’s Day’ before I go right into main points of the title of this blog. Some of us have been blessed with being born into a family with a good father and mother together raising us. I was so blessed. My mother passed away in 1979 when I was 27, and my father passed away 10 years later when I was 38. I miss them both dearly today. Some are not so lucky, ie Sen. Obama and SC Justice Thomas. A big difference is that a 35 year old Obama writes proudly in a memoir book about the father who was never there for him as a child while an older Clarence writes proudly in his memoir book about a grandfather who was there for him as a child. On a 60 Minutes interview, I don’t recall his exact words, Clarence had nothing good to say about his father.

A brief family history of Barack H. Obama Sr. from this article by UK Guardian reporter Xan Rice. (In brackets my comments)
They had two daughters and a son, Barack Obama Sr. But Hussein's harsh, even abusive, manner - his grandchildren would later refer to him only half jokingly as "the Terror" - and his constant demands for a spotless house, drove Akumu to leave. Mama Sarah, Hussein's third wife and decades his junior, raised Akumu's children alongside her own. By then, Barack Obama Sr was nine, and already showing the same stubborn, independent streak.

"He refused to go to the local school, where the teacher was a woman," said Mama Sarah. "When the pupils were naughty, they would get spanked. He told me 'I'm not going to be spanked by a woman.'"

[Hillary supporters, does this sound familiar to you?]

Instead, Obama Sr enrolled at a primary school six miles away. He was soon expelled for bad behaviour.

Obama Sr moved to Nairobi, where he took a correspondence course to complete his schooling, studying at night while working as an office clerk by day. He wrote to dozens of US universities. The University of Hawaii replied, offering him a scholarship. Leaving behind his infant son, Roy, and his young wife, Kezia, who was pregnant with their daughter, Auma, he flew to America.

He married a white student from Kansas, Stanley Ann Dunham, and they had a son, who he gave his full name: Barack Hussein Obama. Obama Sr continued his studies at Harvard, but his marriage to Stanley Ann Dunham soon faltered. When he returned to Nairobi a few years later it was with a different white American woman, Ruth. Together, they had two children. But Obama Sr was still seeing his first wife, Kezia, on the side, and she bore him two more sons. Later as he increasingly turned to drink, he had an eighth child by another Kenyan woman.

Barack H Obama Sr. went from a career in the Kenyan governing class to "a small job at the Water Department," and then to unemployment and drink and eventually death driving while drunk in 1982 in Kenya.

Sen. Obama’s book does not go into the details of why his daddy’s career took such a tumble in Kenya, and when you include that information with the kind words that he does include in his book it’s a nightmare combination.

First, Barack’s kind words for his dad in his book include these excerpts:

All of my life, I carried a single image of my father, one that I .. tried to take as my own.

(p. 220)

It was into my father's image .. that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself."  And also that, "I did feel that there was something to prove .. to my father" in his efforts at political organizing.

(p. 230)

Second, Barack’s half-sister, Auma, describes political events and their consequences for Barack H Obama Sr in the book:

The Old Man [Obama], he left the American company to work in the government, for the Ministry of Tourism.  He may have had political ambitions, and at first he was doing well in the government.  But by 1966 or 1967, the divisions in Kenya had become more serious.  President Kenyatta was from the largest tribe, the Kikuyus .. The vice-president, Odinga, was a Luo [as was Obama], and he said the government was becoming corrupt.  That, instead of serving those who had fought for independence, Kenyan politicians had take the place of white colonials, buying businesses and land that should be redistributed to the people.  Odinga tried to start his own party, but was placed under house arrest as a Communist.  Another popular Luo minister, Tom M'boya, was killed by a Kikuyu gunman.  Luos began to protest in the streets, and the government police cracked down ..
Most of the Old Man's friends just kept quiet and learned to live with the situation.  But the Old Man began to speak up.  He would tell people that tribalism was going to ruin the country and that unqualified men were taking the best jobs.  His friends tried to warn him about saying such things in public, but he didn't care.  He always thought he know what was best, you see.[that has a familiar ring to it]  When he was passed up for a promotion, he complained loudly.  'How can you be my senior,' he would say to one of the ministers, 'and yet I am teaching you how to do your job properly?'  Word got back to Kenyatta that the Old Man was a troublemaker, and he was called in to see the president .. Kenyatta said to the Old Man that, because he could not keep his mouth shut, he would not work again until he had no shoes on his feet.[note the barefoot part]
I don't know how much of these details are true.  But I know that with the president as an enemy things became very bad for the Old Man.  He was banished from the government -- blacklisted.  None of the ministries would give him work.  When he went to foreign companies to look for a post, the companies were warned not to hire him .. Finally, he had to accept a small job with the Water Department.

But what is not described in this book is what Barack H Obama Sr. being a troublemaker really means. Blogger Greg Ransom helps fill in the blanks here. Obama was challenging the policies of Kenyatta's government from the left in the most prestigious forum possible, the East Africa Journal, at exactly the same moment when Vice President Odinga was challenging the Kenyatta government from the left.  What is more, Obama did so in openly arrogant and condescending fashion, almost as if saying to Kenyatta and his government, 'How can you be in charge of the economy, when I am teaching you how to do your job properly?"[sound familiar.]

Now some might say that Barack H. Obama Sr. wrote a criticizing cutting attack on Kenyatta government official Tom Mboya's historically important policy paper "African Socialism and Its Applicability to Planning in Kenya." But here is the problem, Barack Obama's father, a Harvard trained economist, attacked the economic proposals of pro-Western 'third way" leader Tom Mboya from the socialist left, siding with communist-allied leader Oginga Odinga. The debates [over economic policy] pitted .. Mboya against .. Oginga Odinga and radical economists Dharam Ghai and Barrack Obama, who critiqued the document for being neither African nor socialist enough.

I encouraging reading the entire article from the East African Journal, and here are 7 key points from it that make blood spurt from my eyes.

1.   Obama advocated the communal ownership of land and the forced confiscation of privately controlled land, as part of a forced "development plan", an important element of his attack on the government's advocacy of private ownership, land titles, and property registration. (p. 29)


2.  Obama advocated the nationalization of "European" and "Asian" owned enterprises, including hotels, with the control of these operations handed over to the "indigenous" black population. (pp. 32 -33)

3.  Obama advocated dramatically increasing taxation on "the rich" even up to the 100% level, arguing that, "there is no limit to taxation if the benefits derived from public services by society measure up to the cost in taxation which they have to pay" (p. 30) and that, "Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed." (p. 31)

4.  Obama contrasts the ill-defined and weak-tea notion of "African Socialism" negatively with the well-defined ideology of "scientific socialism", i.e. communism.  Obama views "African Socialism" pioneers like Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Toure as having diverted only "a little" from the capitalist system. (p. 26)

5.  Obama advocates an "active" rather than a "passive" program to achieve a classless society through the removal of economic disparities between black Africans and Asian and Europeans. (p. 28)  "While we welcome the idea of a prevention [of class problems], we should try to cure what has slipped in .. we .. need to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive accumulation so that not only a few individuals shall control a vast magnitude of resources as is the case now .. so long as we maintain free enterprise one cannot deny that some will accumulate more than others .. "  (pp. 29-30)

6.  Obama advocates price controls on hotels and the tourist industry, so that the middle class and not only the rich can afford to come to Kenya as tourists.  (p. 33)

7.  Obama advocates government owned and operated "model farms" as a means of teaching modern farming techniques to farmers.  (p. 33)

The last lines of Obama's EAJ paper capture the tone of the whole,

Despite my remarks, it is laudable that the government came out with the paper.  But this is not to deny that fact that it could have been a better paper if the government were to look into priorities and see them clearly within their context so that their implementation could have had a basis on which to rely.  Maybe it is better to have something perfunctorily done than none at all!

That last sentence is the ONLY thing Sen. Obama believes is the attitude adjustment problem of his daddy.

Also I direct your attention to an article in a June 11, 1965 TIME magazine of a speech given at the time in public by Kenya’s Pres. Jomo Kenyatta. (my editorial comments in brackets.)

Like many other leaders of new African nations, President Jomo Kenyatta has not found it easy to steer a middle course between East and West. His job has not been made easier by the activities of his own Vice President, Oginga Odinga, who admits that "Communism is like food to me" and has been traveling through the countryside heaping Red-tinged scorn on Kenyatta's ties with the West.

Let me say it quite plainly today that Kenya shall not exchange one master for a new master," Kenyatta declared. "We welcome cooperation and assistance, but we shall not be bought or blackmailed. We may be underdeveloped and our people may walk barefoot,[remember what he privately told Obama Sr. earlier] but we are a proud people, proud of our heritage, our traditions and ancestry.
"Some people deliberately try to exploit the colonial hangover for their own selfish purposes, or in order to serve some external force. We must reject such people publicly. It is naive to think that there is no danger of imperialism from the East. In world power politics, the East has as many designs on us as the West. This is why we reject Communism. To us, Communism is as bad as imperialism. What we want is Kenya nationalism. There is no place for leaders who hope to build a nation of slogans.

So the fathers Barack H. Obama Sr. and Oginga Odinga have passed on, but their sons Barack H Obama Jr. and Railla Odinga are still here. They so much want to continue to fight to accomplish what their daddys could not. The Kenyans said NO to Railla for Pres. in 2007, and I hope We the People of the United States of America say NO to Barack for Pres. in 2008.

John McCain Needs Bobby Jindal's Report On What the Big Easy Really Exposes

So last night I am listening to a speech by Sen. John McCain in Kenner, La, and I get bummed out when I hear him say this in his speech.

Senator Obama has impressed many Americans with his eloquence and his spirited campaign. Senator Clinton has earned great respect for her tenacity and courage. The media often overlooked how compassionately she spoke to the concerns and dreams of millions of Americans, and she deserves a lot more appreciation than she sometimes received.
When Americans confront a catastrophe they have a right to expect basic competence from their government. Firemen and policemen should be able to communicate with each other in an emergency. We should be able to deliver bottled water to dehydrated babies and rescue the infirm from a hospital with no electricity. Our disgraceful failure to do so here in New Orleans exposed the incompetence of government at all levels to meet even its most basic responsibilities.

Now some might ask why am I bummed? Isn’t this exactly what has been said by the MSM and the Ds for over 2 years now about New Orleans? Yes, it is, and I do expect the presumptive Republican nominee for President this time to compliment the Ds a little less, and to criticize the sitting GOP Pres. not so much.

I am voting for McCain in Nov., but I just wish he would reconsider his campaign strategy of complimenting Hillary and Barack in his speeches and criticizing Pres. Bush. Sen. McCain is not going to win Ds over with this approach. If he is so nice to compliment his D challenger, then Ds will only feel that more comfortable voting D in Nov.
Tonight Glenn Beck had Bobby Jindall as a guest on his program. Here is the transcript of the segment. I put in boldface the parts that pleased me the most.

Bobby Jindal is the Republican governor of the great state of Louisiana.

Bobby, how does this guy actually govern? He is as far to the left as you can get.

GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R), LOUISIANA: Well, that`s exactly right, Glenn.

And first off, you did a fantastic job in Kentucky. Talk about a speech with substance. And I couldn`t agree with what you said more about comparing this to icing. It`s kind of like we`re going into the phase of the campaign where the voters are going to ask, "Where`s the beef?"

I mean, let`s give Senator Obama his due. He`s probably the most gifted political speaker I`ve heard in a very, very long time. I think you`re right, since Ronald Reagan, even. But now, it`s time -- he talks about change. We need to elect a president that can actually produce and deliver change.

Listen to what Senator Obama says. He talks about change. He`s talking about changing things like raising taxes. He`s talking about things like eroding our Second Amendment rights. He`s for gun control. He`s talking about, I would think, weakening the way we defend our national interests.

When you compare his record to Senator McCain about fighting the war against terrorism, I mean, there`s a clear contrast. When you look at what he wants to change, when he talks about health care, he`s talking about more government involvement, more government control in our health care.

So yes, he`s talking about change. But that doesn`t mean it`s positive change.

BECK: Let me -- let me play this from his speech last night, because I was really struck by this. Again, a great speech. But think about what he`s saying? Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge -- I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: OK, that is great. That is fantastic. But you know what? He doesn`t have faith in the American people, because the American people always have to be protected from themselves or someone else, because the American people are just too stupid or whatever. The government always needs to step in.

He doesn`t have faith that people can recover from failure in this country. He doesn`t even have enough faith in Americans to own their own guns.

JINDAL: That`s exactly right. This is where the paternalism, I think, when you get to the extreme left and you get to liberalism. They think government can spend your money better than you can. Government can make health-care decisions better than you can. Government needs to protect you from the consequences of your own decisions. There has to be personal responsibility. There has to be personal freedoms. That`s part of what makes this such a great country.

Senator McCain had a great line when he was speaking in New Orleans in Kenner last night. In his remarks, one of the things he said -- it was a very pointed contrast. He said, "Look, I`m not running" -- I`ll paraphrase. He goes, "I`m not running because I believe I`m the chosen one at this time." He said, "I`m offering myself out of humility." Because he`s got a lifetime of service to the country: in the military, in the Congress.

We may not always agree with all of his positions. When you contrast the two, I think he`s a candidate -- he`s not going to raise our taxes. He`s not going to take away our Second Amendment rights. He`s not going to get government more involved in controlling our health care.

So these are two candidates representing change. The question we as voters should ask is what kind of change?

BECK: OK. Well, I mean, first of all, Governor, you know, I respect you an awful lot. But I mean, he is going to raise our taxes. Because he`s got -- he`s all into the cap and trade thing. And that is -- that`s a hidden tax.

But I want to -- I want to ask you this. He said in his speech in New Orleans, or in Louisiana, he talked about this is a failure -- you know, Katrina was a failure of the government. Well, what does he mean by that?

It was a failure of -- and you should know better than anybody else -- of the local government. The local government had the money, every step of the way, to reinforce their levies. And every time through corruption and everything else, everybody -- local and state government -- failed the people.

JINDAL: Well, a couple of things. First of all, in terms of -- and we can come back to energy environment. You`re exactly right. We need to have a more rational national energy policy that encourages domestic production, encourages nuclear power, clean coal, certainly, conservation and renewable fuels.

But we better be careful. As we`ll continue to export manufacturing jobs out of this country and drive the price of gasoline and other fuels to even more -- more expensive heights.

When it comes to the failures after the storms, look, let`s -- you know, people are trying to say it was this one`s fault or that one`s fault. The reality was there was plenty of blame to go around, with FEMA, with the local government. The Corps certainly didn`t design the levies properly.

But here`s the great untold part of that story. Look at where the successes have been. It`s been the faith-based community, the private corporations. It`s been volunteers. And that`s the great untold story.

And one of the things that`s happening in New Orleans now, we have nearly 40 chartered schools. We had, before the storms, one of the worst urban school systems, certainly, in our state. It was ranking among the bottom in the country. Now, you got more innovation, more entrepreneurialism.

BECK: You know and I know, Governor, that if -- if the private sector does it, that`s why the train bridge was built before the highway bridge was.

One last question, are you going to be the vice president? Would you be the vice president?

JINDAL: Look, no, I don`t think he`s going to ask me. He`s got many other people he can ask. I enjoy being governor. We`ve got a lot more work to do. We`ve cut five taxes. We`re doing our sixth tax cut now, our largest income tax in our state`s history. We`ve reformed ethics. We`re creating jobs. We`ve got a lot more work to do in Louisiana.

BECK: Governor, I have to tell you that I thought of you this morning as I was walking to work, and I thought of you. And I thought, you know, this really is a big day for African-Americans. But it`s bigger than the media even understand it. And I thought of you. And I thought you could be the next vice president of the United States

And you know what? Nobody even talks about that. It`s -- your ethnicity is no big deal. It`s bigger than the media is saying it is, because most Americans don`t care what color somebody is.

JINDAL: That`s exactly right. Look, when you`re electing the president of the United States, you want the most qualified person that`s going to do the best job. So many people make a big deal about identity politics.

You know, it`s -- we live in a great country, a great thing that it doesn`t matter what your last name is or who you are. You can do whatever you want in this country with hard work and education. Because you don`t vote for a president based on identity politics. You vote for a president based on who`s going to do the best job. It`s too important of a job. It`s the No. 1 job is to keep our country safe.

BECK: Governor, thanks a lot.

So I really do appreciate Bobby Jindall’s report about what the Big Easy really represents, and I only wish that John McCain would just listen more closely to him than to some of his senior advisors.

The optimistic one wins the contest. Barack has a lot of pie in the sky optimism about saving the planet, and We the People ought to know better. John McCain needs to convey the reasonable rational optimism that Bobby Jindall possesses. John McCain does not need to criticize Pres. Bush to win against this marxist he has for an opponent.