Chicago Daily Observer

House Republicans refused to support the Henry Paulson/Chris Dodd compromise bailout plan yesterday afternoon, even after the New York Times reported that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson got down on one knee to beg Nancy Pelosi to compromise. One of the sticking points, as Senator Lindsey Graham explained later, wasn’t a lack of begging but a poison pill that would push 20% of all profits from the bailout into the Housing Trust Fund — a boondoggle that Democrats in Congress has used to fund political-action groups like ACORN and the National Council of La Raza.

From Lindsey Graham

And this deal that’s on the table now is not a very good deal. Twenty percent of the money that should go to retire debt that will be created to solve this problem winds up in a housing organization called ACORN that is an absolute ill-run enterprise, and I can’t believe ... Read More...

I’ll credit Rick Warren with asking both John McCain and Barack Obama about abortion. I skipped the Saddleback Church non-debate, but Jim at Gateway Pundit captured what has to be the quote of the election. When asked the point when a human embryo achieves personhood, Obama said that the question is “above my pay grade”:

First, the entire issue of abortion involves determining when a baby becomes a person. If Obama thinks this is above his pay grade, then he probably shouldn’t be running for political office.

“America is …, uh, is no longer, uh … what it could be, what it once was. And I say to myself, I don’t want that future for my children.” Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)

Obama noted that in a break from his whirlwind schedule, “we’ve got some down time tonight. What are you guys gonna do in Berlin? Huh? Huh? You guys got any big. plans? …I’ve never been to Berlin, so…I would love to tour around a little bit.”

Obama canceled a previously-planned stop to visit thousands of American service personnel, including troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan being treated at Landstuhl, so he could hold a political rally for Germans and go shopping in Berlin. Now that’s a nice set of priorities for a man who wants to become Commander in Chief.

It’s not quite clear what Obama meant by this. If he meant that the military had taken over too many functions that normally should be handled by the State Department, then that echoes what Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this week. It seems to reference the costs associated with reopening consulates and doubling the Peace Corps, but that wouldn’t come close to matching what we spend at the Pentagon. The phrasing of it — a “civilian national security force” — sounds much more like a quasi-military organization operating within the US under the control of the federal government.

The media needs to ask Obama about it ... Read More...