WASHINGTON -- For veterans of John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, the past week of debate over the fairness of making political attacks out of national security issues has brought about a bit of nostalgia and, in many cases, the chance to sit back and smirk.

The Massachusetts senator was famously submarined by attacks over his own personal service and his capacity to handle modern terrorist threats. At the time, aides to Kerry cried foul, arguing that former President George W. Bush's re-election campaign and allied groups were playing on people's fears for electoral gains. With the shoe now firmly on the other foot -- and Republicans griping over an Obama campaign web ad suggesting that Mitt Romney wouldn't have approved the raid that killed Osama bin Laden -- the collective response from the Kerry crowd is something akin to: "tough [filtered word]."

"That was then, this is now," said Steve Elmendorf, Kerry's 2004 deputy campaign manager. "This is what people do with challengers. One of the advantages of incumbency is you get to do the job and make the tough decisions and you get to make suggestions about whether the challenger is up to the job."

There is a lengthy history of presidential campaigns using the threat of terrorism, war or even nuclear annihilation to raise questions about their opponent. The most infamous remains the Daisy Ad, run just once by President Lyndon Johnson against Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964, but forever memorialized as the dawn of airwave campaigns.

Bush's re-election team brought the practice to a heightened level. The president's advisers produced the infamous Wolves ad, warning voters about the nebulous threats on the horizon. His campaign attacked Kerry as un-appreciative of the troops and unwilling to make tough wartime decisions. Allied groups openly wondered if Kerry could have shown the leadership needed to respond to 9/11. The genre turned into outright character assassination when the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth began raising doubts about the senator's record from Vietnam.

It is that latter attack that serves as a line of demarcation for the Obama campaign, which has argued that it's not engaging in the same tactics that Democrats once decried.

"The difference here is that we won't be swift boating Mitt Romney," Stephanie Cutter, Obama's campaign manager said in an email. "We are sticking to actual facts, not dishonest attacks and distortions. Romney said he wouldn't go into Pakistan to get Bin Laden, and then hit one of his opponents Mike Huckabee when he said that he would. That's important information to voters, because it shows a lack of judgment and a lack of strength, particularly if Romney is now saying that he would have given the same order the President did to get Bin Laden. He had a chance to get it right, without the enormous pressure of being the Commander in Chief, and he got it wrong."

Romney, on Tuesday, stressed that his opposition had never been to going after bin Laden in Pakistan but with announcing that policy publicly. "We always reserve the right to go anywhere to get bin Laden," he said, echoing the clarification he had offered back in 2007 when he first said he wouldn't move "heaven and earth" to find the al Qaeda chief.

As communications director for Kerry's '04 campaign, Cutter was a direct witness to the damage done when questions about a candidate's commander-in-chief bonafides go unanswered. The episode was scarring. And for her and other veterans of that election, as well as the Democratic Party at large, the result was an implicit pledge to never get out-macho-ed again. In 2008, that meant pledging renewed attention and resources to tracking al Qaeda as well as campaigning on a beefed-up military presence in Afghanistan. Four years later, it means contrasting successes against the opponent's blank foreign policy slate.

"This year's discussion," said David Wade, a member of the Kerry campaign press shop and now the senator's chief of staff, "is firmly rooted in Romney's record and his own words on an issue that's fundamental to being Commander in Chief. This is a debate about judgment not a false attack on the most personal and fundamental elements of a nominee's character ... No one should mistake 2004's low road for the substantive questions being asked of Mitt Romney eight years later."

Kerry himself was out of the country and unable to comment for this article.

The complaints with Obama's web ad, however, are not strictly that he's over-bragging about the political braveness in ordering the raid but, as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) noted at an event with Romney, that he's using it "as a source of negative campaigning."

Those concerns, of course, didn't surface eight years ago when the roles were reversed. Wade, for one, noted that Vice President Dick Cheney suggested a Kerry win would result in a terrorist attack, while former Georgia governor and Sen. Zell Miller (D) said the troops would have only spitballs to use as defense with Kerry as Commander in Chief.

"Romney didn't say a peep," Wade added.

But Democrats certainly did, calling Cheney and Miller's comment beneath acceptable political rhetoric. For some Kerry veterans, it's impossible to deny the irony in the fault lines developing around the current web ad uproar. They just don't care. It's nice, after all, to be the aggressor.

"The hypocrisy goes both ways," acknowledged Matthew Butler, a deputy campaign manager for Kerry and now a top official at Media Matters. "They will politicize the hell out of foreign policy and then complain when we do it. And we will complain about them doing it and then do it ourselves. But I don't think foreign policy should be out of bounds when it comes to electing a president. How can you not question the fitness of a candidate to lead the country in foreign policy crisis?

"Obama would have been killed if something had gone wrong with that mission," he said. "The fact is it is perfectly fair game to tout its success."

The 1800 election between incumbent John Adams and Thomas Jefferson was a vicious affair in which Federalist attacks on Jefferson's character reached such a fevered pitch that the mudslinging of modern presidential campaigns looks positively genteel in comparison. Not only, Federalists charged, had Jefferson cheated British creditors, obtained property by fraud, and robbed a widow of 10,000 pounds but, if elected: "Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will all be openly taught and practiced," as the staunchly federalist Connecticut Courant put it. You'd think the attacks could not get much shriller than that. Nevertheless, during the campaign of 1804, an election that pitted Jefferson as the incumbent against the South Carolinian Charles Pinckney, they did. What proceeded made 1804 one of the dirtiest campaigns on record.

"Federalists framed Jefferson as a slummer, the kind of person with his head in the sky from reading too much French philosophy, who didn't seem to understand there ought to be a certain hierarchy between the classes," says Jeff Pasley, a historian at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Federalist operatives went after Jefferson's deistic religious leanings and lack of military brawn during the Revolution. And they helped spread rumors about Jefferson fathering children with Sally Hemings, one of his slaves.

Poison poet. One of the most intriguing attacks came from a surprising source: Clement C. Moore, a wealthy patrician known for his poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (commonly known as 'Twas the Night Before Christmas). Moore, a devout Episcopalian, published an anonymous screed attacking Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia in 1804. The 25-year-old's main grievance was that Jefferson's views on creation and Earth's geological history made him an infidel. Yet Moore also complained that Jefferson took a dehumanizing attitude toward blacks while raising the ape "above its proper sphere."

Politically, however, neither Moore's attacks nor those of his fellow Federalists caused any mortal wounds. Jefferson, well versed in the workings of the Federalist attack machine from the 1800 onslaught, largely ignored them. Ultimately, he won the election in a landslide, capturing all but two states and 92 percent of the electoral vote.

May, uh, this was discussed yesterday, and you are repeating it today?

Is Republicans learning?

The first person to mention the Massachusetts furlough program in the 1988 presidential campaign was Al Gore. During a debate at the Felt Forum sponsored by the New York Daily News, Gore took issue with the furlough program. However, he did not specifically mention the Horton incident or even his name, instead asking a general question about the Massachusetts furlough program.[6]

Republicans picked up the Horton issue after Dukakis clinched the nomination. In June 1988, Republican candidate George H.W. Bush seized on the Horton case, bringing it up repeatedly in campaign speeches.[6] Bush's campaign manager, Lee Atwater, predicted that "by the time this election is over, Willie Horton will be a household name."[6][7] In April 1988, Lee Atwater asked aide Jim Pinkerton for negative research to defeat Dukakis.[citation needed] Pinkerton returned with reams of material that Atwater told him to reduce to a 3×5 index card, telling him, "I'm giving you one thing. You can use both sides of the 3×5 card." Pinkerton discovered the furlough issue by watching the Felt Forum debate. On May 25, 1988, Republican consultants met in Paramus, New Jersey, holding a focus group of Democrats who had voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984. After giving the focus group the material Pinkerton provided on the index card, most of the voters switched from favoring Dukakis to favoring Bush.[citation needed] These focus groups convinced Atwater and the other Republican consultants that they should 'go negative' against Dukakis. Further information regarding the furlough came from aide Andrew Card, a Massachusetts native whom President George W. Bush later named as his Chief of Staff.[8]

Obama would have been criticized if something had gone wrong...

Attack ads continued to become the norm in political advertising. Ronald Reagan used them against Jimmy Carter in 1980, and it was also the first time that a family member was also used to attack the opposing candidate. One particular advertisement showed Reagan’s wife Nancy accusing Carter of a weak foreign policy.

Yep, even Abraham Lincoln was dealt his share of crap. But he was pretty good at dealing it too. Although it’s normal – and expected – for candidates to stump across the country in any little small town that will have them, but in 1860 it was considered a little tacky. Stephen Douglas chose this tactic anyway, but claimed that he was really just taking a leisurely train ride from D.C. to New York to visit his mom. Lincoln and his supporters took note of the fact that it took him over a month to get there and even put out a “Lost Child” handbill that said he “Left Washington, D.C. some time in July, to go home to his mother… who is very anxious about him. Seen in Philadelphia, New York City, Hartford, Conn., and at a clambake in Rhode Island. Answers to the name Little Giant. Talks a great deal, very loud, always about himself.” ‘Little Giant’ was a potshot at Douglas’ height – he was only 5’4″. He was also said to be “about five feet nothing in height and about the same in diameter the other way.”

Douglas took aim at Lincoln, too, saying he was a “horrid-looking wretch, sooty and scoundrelly in aspect, a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse-swapper and the nightman.” Another good one? “Lincoln is the leanest, lankest, most ungainly mass of legs and arms and hatchet face ever strung on a single frame.”

May, how about the 8 to 10 speeches, including the initial one Obama made giving credit to the military?

Here are some excerpts from Obama's original announcement on May 1st:

".....Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we've made great strides in that effort. We've disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot....."

"...Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body..."

"...Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who've worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work, nor know their names. But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice.

We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country. And they are part of a generation that has borne the heaviest share of the burden since that September day...." http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/osama-bin-laden-dead-president-obama-full-remarks/story?id=13506069&page=3#.T6Iea1LLOSo

Another day of hate from you May. This is a carryover from yesterday that didn't play well.

Are you running out of things to blog about that don't mention Romney?

dorotik, that is a great series of posts.

It exposes the revisionist history mode that May and the ex-cons try to flaunt.

May, at lest in this blog, you removed war from the equation.

Are there no Women of Character? Ah, again we see the attack of the Right on women continues....good job!

Thank you for exposing your sexist views.......DUH!

That's not me saying it, that's a direct quote from someone who worked in the Kerry campaign so I couldn't change it- all of those are direct quotes from articles. It's pointless for me to make any commentary on Dr. May anymore, because everything he writes can be summed up in one sentence:

"I don't like President Obama."

So, I figured, might as well throw articles out there that illustrate the history of negative campaigning. As far as his nonsense about the President taking credit, well, that's America- he's the Commander-in-Chief and he has every right to say, "I led the mission that...", "I gave the order to..."- we coach all our executive-level clients that, like it or not, you get blame for the bad things and take credit for the good things, regardless of your level of involvement. Republicans are more than willing to assign blame to Obama for everything, but they are certainly not willing to give credit- and that's why their hypocrisy falls on deaf ears of most Americans. I'm sure Democrats did this against Bush, but like Repubs are fond of saying, we're not talking about Bush, he's not the President. History will treat them like the flyspecks on the map that they are right now.

As I said before, us liberals/moderate have basically already won. We're either getting a mostly moderate President who slants slight left or a mostly moderate President who slants slight right. I will vote for Obama while being slightly upset if Romney wins. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

dorotik, that is what I get for skim reading. I missed the context...LOL

As to May and is fellow numbnutz and one nonutz, I enjoy the challenge of taking them on daily.

Wow, I was wrong about the OWS SF protest. My Google must be broken. JMarie helped me realize that.

duplicate

Please enter as many representative speeches as you like. The readers and I would be pleased to see examples of speeches you like and dislike.

Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAw25BNfzlE

And then there is: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/osama-bin-laden-dead-obama-seals-team-13549297

And: "Osama bin Laden dead: Barack Obama thanks intelligence workers at CIA " http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/8527405/Osama-bin-Laden-dead-Barack-Obama-thanks-intelligence-workers-at-CIA.html

And: "Obama to personally thank team that killed bin Laden " http://www.stripes.com/blogs/stripes-central/stripes-central-1.8040/obama-to-personally-thank-team-that-killed-bin-laden-1.142810

And: "Obama thanks troops in Afghanistan, says Osama bin Laden got justice 1 year ago" http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/obama-thanks-troops-in-afghanistan-says-osama-bin-laden-got-justice-1-year-ago/2012/05/01/gIQApZosuT_story.html

How many more would you like to see May?

Perhaps, May, if you weren't so filled with hate for Obama, you wouldn't make ignorant statements like you do. N'est pas?

Did the two of you take too many vitamins after midnight or what? Such inspiration at such a dead hour!

The blog probably brought this issue up again because Obama had since doubled down by going to Afghanistan for a political speech and a photo op.

Keeping John Kerry out of the White House was one of the best things that ever happened to this country. “Unfit For Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry” was a great book. Funny thing is that the book itself is what really got “swift-boated”. Despite the spin of the Left, little was proven not to be true. There are dozens of links that lie about “Unfit For Command”.

The sad thing is that we got John Kerry anyway, a cloned version of him called Barack Obama. Both are egotistical left wing liberals who despise the military, yet what to run for president on the backs of our military. The peak of hypocrisy.

Obama’s pretend girlfriend

“Obama: 'New York girlfriend' was composite” http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/05/obama-ny-girlfriend-was-composite-character-122272.html

Makes one wonder what else about Barack Obama is pretend and make-believe?

It is a well known fact that elections are a very heated and emotional time. My concern isnt quite so much the mudslinging (I detest it dont get me wrong) as it is the ever growing trend toward *buying* elections. With both nominees in this election seemingly prepared to throw massive quantities of cash around in their quest for the office, it really disgusts me to see the office become the object of a defacto *pay to play*.

Interesting that Obama is jumping on the bandwagon with this after his speech in 2006 criticizing this very thing. Even though the link is to a conservative site, the actual video of him giving this speech is linked.

On Sept. 17, 2006, Obama spoke at Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin’s annual steak fry in Indianola, Iowa.

“And let me tell you something else I’ve had enough of: I’ve had enough of using terrorism as a wedge issue in our politics,” Obama told the crowd. “I’ve had enough of that. I’ve had enough of that. You know, I – I don’t know about you, but I think the war against terrorism isn’t supposed to crop up between September and November of even numbered years, and yet that seems to be the pattern. There is a sudden burst of activity, a sudden urgency about this whole thing three months before an election every other year.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-2006-i-ve-had-enough-using-terrorism-wedge-issue-our-politics

Funny you would say that. Here is some information for you.

http://rt.com/programs/crosstalk/super-pacs-money-campaigns/

Never mind that there is a video at your link, Obviousman will not believe it because of your source, CNSnews.

I tried to find it through a different source but seems to have been scrubbed.

Obama has yet another composite character, “Julia.” At least she isn't in his autobiography, yet...

‘The cradle-to-grave, government-supported existence of “Julia”’

“Julia represents the arc of a life under the beneficent care of Barack Obama’s policies. Interestingly, at every stage of Julia’s life, a government program exists to shield her from life’s woes. And just as interestingly, Julia never gets the bill for all of this government hand-holding.”

“Let’s present a more realistic view of Julia’s life:

3 years old – Julia gets a new-and-improved Head Start, which a new HHS study shows won’t do anything for her anyway. 17 years old – Race to the Top improves Julia’s SAT scores. Is there any evidence at all to support that argument? Even so, she’s down the list from all of the home-schooled children and the charter- and private-school students who actually got an education rather than an NEA indoctrination. However, thanks to the NEA indoctrination, Julia is now better prepared for a life on the government dole. 18 years old – Julia’s family qualifies for a $10,000 tuition tax credit spread out over four years, while Obama’s student-loan subsidies drive tuition costs up even faster. 22 years old – Julia undergoes surgery, which has to be funded by her parents’ employers despite Julia being an adult, and which will be most likely delayed as providers decline in number thanks to the economics of ObamaCare. 23 years old — Thanks to the Lily Ledbetter Act, trial attorneys get rich by filing lawsuits against employers that otherwise wouldn’t have been brought, leaving fewer resources to hire Julia. No college job for our intrepid Julia! 25 years old – Julia finally gets her 4-year degree in seven years, thanks to the inability to handle the tuition bubble and the lack of work. However, the good news is that the $200,000 in student loans will only hang over her head for 20 years, while taxpayers like Julia end up paying for the costs of default. 27 years old – Julia wants to have sex for the first time in her life, apparently, and is looking for contraception. Her employer would provide it for free thanks to the ObamaCare HHS mandate … if she could only find a job. 31 years old – Julia gets pregnant, which tells you all you need to know about free contraception. Oddly, Julia hasn’t gotten married first, probably because the economy is so poor by this time with the huge entitlement debt crisis breaking that no one can conceive of putting a home together. Fortunately, ObamaCare makes pregnancy possible, because until Obama took office, no one ever got pregnant, since government support and approval for it didn’t exist. 37 years old – Julia’s son Zachary, named after his sperm donor, starts school. Head Start has long since disappeared, apparently, but Race to the Top still exists. Must be a marathon. 42 years old – Julia starts a business with an SBA loan, which also apparently never existed before Obama took office. Her student loans are just three years away from defaulting onto the backs to taxpayers, so that’s good news. 65 years old – My, how time flies! (Do women do nothing of value between 42 and 65?) Julia enrolls in Medicare, which ceased to exist decades earlier, thanks to the fact that Obama and Tim Geithner didn’t have a plan to address the debt crisis — all they knew was they didn’t like anyone else’s plan. You can get the cards at Spencer’s as a gag gift. 67 years old – Julia retires, since the entitlement collapse wiped out her business and the rest of the American economy. The timeline stops here, which suggests that the IPAB probably denied her care, as she was nothing but a drain on society by this time, and the few resources they have left had to be used to pay for face lifts for members of Congress.”

“There you have it — a timeline filled with government interventions in a fantasy lifetime, with absolutely no sense of the cost it would take to provide Government Nanny to Julia and the rest of the country. At least they picked the right name for their fantasy woman trapped in an all-encompassing government; Julia was the name of the lead female character in George Orwell’s 1984, after all. One point jumps out at me from Obama’s “Julia.” Not once in this timeline does Team Obama mention anything about a second Obama term. There isn’t one new policy or proposal in it. For a campaign with the slogan “Forward,” that seems a little odd. Just when does Obama plan on discussing his vision of a second term … December?

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/03/the-cradle-to-grave-government-supported-existence-of-julia/

Campaigning. That's what irked me about the Citizens for United ruling. Let's face it: when they say things like "money rules the world," "money talks," etc., they are not kidding. Money buys influence, money creates the means for a better life, money can change the course of history, etc. But let's focus on what Mr. May is saying- look, it's obvious the slant of this blog. My point throughout many of my responses is that there is a distinct effort to paint the picture that it is only Obama who is guilty of these "transgressions" when there is ample evidence to suggest otherwise. Doesn't absolve Obama from his failings, but when Dr. May makes statements like "Obama is alone among all modern Presidents in that..."- first, you have to wince, then SYH (shake your head), then respond with the truth. I can already predict that if the standard unemployment rate goes down from 8.2% to 8.0% or under 8 tomorrow, there will be a blog entry from Dr. May explaining that unemployment is REALLY.... He does it every time, like clockwork, like a child who can't admit to himself that he's NOT getting that toy he wanted for Christmas because it's too expensive, or because he hasn't been good enough.

So, I'll preface that likely entry by saying this- unemployment has been rising since 2007, and it reached a peak in 10/2009 (if someone's going to try to make the case that Obama's policies had an effect in the first 8 months that caused a 2+% jump in employment, good luck with that). Since then, it has declined noticeably, from 10% to 8.2%. That's improvement. The Republicans can spin it how they want, but in the Careers industry, for example, we've seen an increase in clients as the economy has gotten better- and that always happens when the economy improves (in bad economic times, many don't have the money to spend on career services- that definitely becomes one of the expenses cut out of the budget). It's been improving- slower than we'd like, but improving.

Real unemployment, the number that Dr. May loves to cite, has also declined from 10/2009 to 3/2012. That is not opinion, that is fact. Spin it how you want, doc, but that's fact. So, we will wait for the next entry on this topic to note how Dr. May alternates between providing well-written, insightful entries and being stubborn in his willful ignorance, the latter particularly when it comes to U.E.

that's what much of that writer's commentary is- hot air. What an awfully-written article designed to illustrate only the key Republican talking points. Just awful writing- he ought to be embarrassed.

First, it is a compressed view- 17 points over a 67+-year lifespan is hardly government controlling every aspect of one's life. Second, I am going to pull out my credentials here, because the myth keeps getting repeated over and over by certain individuals that there is no pay disparity problem between men and women working the same job. That one is real easy: YES, THERE IS. Do I need to pull out 100s of examples from former clients?? This is not some made-up, make-believe scenario- it's been happening for many years and it still exists today. You can argue all you want about Head Start, tuitions, etc.- I don't know enough about the details to provide a qualified opinion. But on the pay discrimination? Absolutely- I have enough evidence of this that if I were asked to testify before Congress, I could certainly make a wholly convincing case with 100s of case studies that men are on average paid more for the exact same position, with the exact same responsibilities, than women.

Oh, I can comment on one other item- the NEA indoctrination crap. I've got a message from the teachers of America to this writer: "F*** you."

"I can already predict that if the standard unemployment rate goes down from 8.2% to 8.0% or under 8 tomorrow, .... "

AP is predicting, through economists, that it will only get down to 7.9% in November 2012, errr... not tomorrow. Of course being the MSM, AP thinks that small drop will help Obama's re-election. Sad, but true. The first sentence in the story is: "Hiring through the rest of 2012 will lag the brisk pace set early this year." That right there tells you this is a re-election story for Obama. Brisk? Really? Sad, but true.

Luckily, the majority of Americans see how weak Obama is on the economy.

The AP re-elect Obama article:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Hiring through the rest of 2012 will lag the brisk pace set early this year. But it will be strong enough to push the unemployment rate below 8 percent by Election Day. That's the view that emerges from an Associated Press survey of 32 leading economists who foresee a gradually brighter jobs picture. Despite higher gas prices, Europe's debt crisis and a weak housing market, they think the economy has entered a "virtuous cycle" in which hiring boosts consumer spending, which fuels more hiring and spending. The survey results come before a report Friday on hiring during April. The April report is eagerly awaited because employers added surprisingly few jobs in March. That result contributed to fears that the economy might struggle to sustain its recovery. But the economists think the recovery will manage to reduce unemployment to 7.9 percent by Election Day from 8.2 percent in March. Falling unemployment would boost President Barack Obama's prospects in November. Going back to 1956, no president has lost re-election when the unemployment rate dropped in the two years before the election. And none has won when the rate rose over that time. Unemployment was 9.8 in November 2010. If the surveyed economists prove correct, the rate will be nearly 2 percentage points lower when Americans vote on Nov. 6. Yet the AP economists think it will be at least three more years before unemployment falls below 6 percent, which would be a sign of a healthy economy. They predict the economy will grow 2.5 percent this year, up from 1.7 percent in 2011. In a healthy economy, 2.5 percent annual growth is usually adequate. Not so when 12.7 million people are unemployed. The economy would have to grow about 4 percent for a year to lower unemployment another percentage point. The economists expect job growth to average 177,000 a month from April through June and 189,000 in the second half of the year. That would be down from an average 212,000 jobs added monthly from January through March. Last year, job growth averaged 158,000 a month. "The job market is improving enough that consumer spending can grow at a moderate pace as opposed to an anemic pace," says Phillip Swagel, a University of Maryland economist. "Businesses are finally confident enough to hire and invest." The AP survey collected the views late last month of private, corporate and academic economists on a range of indicators. They expect Europe to avoid a severe downturn this year even though it's struggling with a debt crisis and is likely in a recession. And most don't think any European nation will default on its debt this year. But they worry that the lingering effects of the housing bust are slowing the U.S. economy's expansion. The AP economists say growth can't accelerate until national home prices - which dropped for a sixth straight month in February - finally bottom. Falling house prices can slow numerous sectors of the economy. They demoralize consumers by eroding their chief source of wealth. A 30 percent drop in housing prices has vaporized $7 trillion in home equity since 2006. Some of the economists fear that the financial crisis and recession left lasting consequences. Among their concerns: Growth will remain slow as consumers pare debts. The long-term unemployed will struggle to regain jobs. People will no longer see housing as a source of wealth. And many will lose faith in the idea that Americans can achieve rising living standards. One sign of the still-tough job market is long-term unemployment: Forty-three percent of the unemployed - 5.3 million Americans - have been out of work six months or more. Most of the economists blame weak customer demand. Only about a third think the main reason is a mismatch between the skills workers have and the skills employers need. The unemployed might not get much relief from manufacturers, despite a report this week that U.S. factory activity grew last month at the fastest pace in nearly a year. The economists think manufacturers, a key source of hiring during the recovery, will fill jobs more slowly the rest of the year. If so, that could slow overall job growth. Another factor in the economists' cautious view of hiring: political bickering and doubts about government policies in an election year. "There's still a ton of uncertainty about the future of tax and regulatory policy," says Swagel, a Treasury Department official under President George W. Bush. "Business that might be tempted to expand say, 'I don't know what my taxes will be in three years.'"

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120503/D9UH39VO0.html

Conservative Ed Morrissey is one of the most respected, fair and accurate bloggers out there. Even Democrats respect him, they may not like what he says but they respect him. Unlike liberal bloggers he is not prone to lies.

Apparently, it is okay for the Obama campaign to tell us all of these things that Obama can do for us, but to counter it with things that can happen or have happened is "awful".

Apparently, this fake "Julia" must be important to Obama's election for you to go ballistic and use the F-word.

If only Obama had a real issue to run on...

In a July 16 Hot Air post, Ed Morrissey described Minnesota Majority's widely criticized voter fraud report as being "meticulous" and "very solid." Morrissey repeatedly suggested that felons voting illegally were what caused Sen. Al Franken's victory. In fact, local officials have reportedly said that the group's data "is not good" and that the report makes claims that are "not accurate" and "likely inflated."

Morrissey: "Breitbart hits NAACP with promised video of racism." On July 19, Hot Air's Ed Morrissey published a blog post titled ""Breitbart hits NAACP with promised video of racism." In the post, Morrissey claimed that the "NAACP is about to learn one of the most basic of all lessons in life," thanks to Breitbart who "announced that he would publish at least one video of the NAACP itself cheering racism."

Morrissey announced that "Breitbart delivers on that promise today at Big Government," by posting a video of USDA official Shirley Sherrod at an event for the NAACP. Morrissey also emphasized that the audience supposedly "murmurs approvingly of using race to determine outcomes for government programs, which is of course the point that Andrew wanted to make."

Right-wing media run with out of context video to claim Hare "doesn't believe that the national debt is real" HotAir: "Hare calls deficit, debt a 'myth'." In an October 6 post on HotAir, blogger Ed Morrissey posted the video and wrote that Hare "wants to let us know that the national debt is nothing but a 'myth.' In what will almost certainly become a sound bite in House races across the nation, Hare not only disputes the existence of debt and deficits, he insists that Democrats have to keep spending money we don't have ... for the children."

Blogger Ed Morrissey Apologizes For Pushing Debunked Obama “Applause” Story

Conservative Media: "CBO Admits Health Care Law Will Kill" 800,000 Jobs

Hot Air: "ObamaCare Will Crush 800,000 Jobs Into Nonexistence". In an article titled, "Video: CBO admits ObamaCare will kill 800,000 jobs", Hot Air's Ed Morrissey stated: Oh, sorry; that headline isn't really a New Tone entry. What shall we say, then? ObamaCare will crush 800,000 jobs into nonexistence? It will give 800,000 jobs a hug that, er, chokes the life out of them. Let's take a cue from Mom and Dad after the dog disappeared -- ObamaCare will send 800,000 to a nice farm where they can run free all day long and chase rabbits. [Hot Air, 2/10/11]

Who is the better liar, that is all that matters....... that and who can steal the most stuff from other people.

Frankly, that type of mentality is not surprizing coming from a drunken layabout wife beater as Karl Marx.

That sober people blindly follow in their unexamined lives is the amazing part.

Without God in government, there are no fundamental rights precisely because the rights deemed fundamental come from the Creator, not Karl Marx or any other man who in a drunken churning rage might revoke or modify those rights.