The International House of Bacon

* Patterico comments on the endorsement of Hillary Clinton by Wesley Clark and former Joint Chief of Staff vice-chair William Owens. His statement is worth repeating: “Hillary, by virtue of 8 years as first lady and 8 years in the Senate, with her 80 trips abroad, is more qualified to be Commander in Chief that McCain, who graduated from the Naval Academy, had a real military career, and has spent 24 years in the Senate, serving a significant period of time as Armed Services Committee Chairman.”

* Did you know that Barack Obama once proposed a federal ban on gun shops within five miles of a school or park? And yet we’re supposed to believe that he’s in favor of Constitutionally-protected gun rights.

* Mark Perry notes pre- and post-NAFTA numbers on manufacturing and employment. More here.

* Meet McCain’s schizophrenia on taxes. I pulled this from Reason’s Hit and Run, but they’re much kinder to him than I’m going to be - it’s one thing to do the right thing and note that the corporate tax rate is too high and that it would be helpful to economic interests if people and businesses knew that their taxes weren’t going to go up. It’s another entirely to only drop the corporate tax rate 10 points (which won’t make a difference in most states) and not make a very simple vow that taxes won’t go up on your watch. Want to prove you get it economically? You’re missing a really good chance right here.

* Byron York at National Review notes that Clinton might have similar NAFTA problems to Obama. This is kind of reminding me of the “John Kerry has talked to other world leaders who endorse him” thing, except that this story isn’t really going away.

* Dear Netroots Left: Republican doesn’t equal conservative. The idea that Obama would fill his cabinet posts with some Republicans is laughable at best - one commenter said it best that it’s just a “you can’t trust your own party with X” waiting to happen - but to act as if Hagel and Lugar are somehow strong conservatives is a disconnect that I’m surprised still exists. Yeah, so Hagel votes with the Bush position - if you guys could move past the knee-jerk reactions to even seeing Bush’s name, you’d know that he’s not a conservative, either.

* The Jerusalem Post puts together a very fascinating piece about Obama and the youth vote. The piece really is great, here’s my favorite part:

His evident charisma aside, a clue to the source of Obama-mania may be found in the demographics of his support: he is far and away the favorite of younger voters and college students, routinely winning over 75% of the votes of Democrats under 30. Obama has tapped into is the first generation educated in schools focused on “self-esteem.” Now, the products of self-esteem education have come of political age in substantial numbers, perhaps with profound implications for this and future elections.

Being an Obama supporter, in a way, is like getting a participant ribbon on field day. It completely makes sense to me.

* Howard Kurtz on the media treatment of Clinton v. Obama:

Would Clinton have skated as easily if she were found to have visited radicals tied to violence? Or bought land from an indicted businessman, as in the Rezko case? Or if the pastor of her church had talked about “this racist United States of America,” as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who heads Obama’s church, has?

I’m not all that into the “association” games that a lot of people like to play - it’s normally a distraction and is usually false or misleading anyway. With that said, however, considering how often these things get talked about, why isn’t there more examination with Obama’s associations?

* WizBang (in two parts) shows how conservatives and percieved conservatives can’t win on certain issues, no matter what. A hint - voting against a certain budget doesn’t mean you hate children.

* A note on the “costs” of drinking.

* I talked a bit about Obama’s rhetorical strategy, and forgot to link you to this example from the John Locke Foundation. “Sure, the free market is great, but…”

* Obama’s idea to have pre-filled out tax forms is pretty much the worst idea in the history of ideas for the IRS. I mean, apart from having an IRS…

Whew!

Back on schedule, I think.

* Charles Krauthammer wrote an excellent piece on lobbying Friday. The idea that any candidate or politician would go against the right to petition the government is really pathetic.

* You know a tax bill is completely moronic when it raises taxes on domestic companies, but inadvertently provides a break to Venuzuela. Great job, Congressional Democrats. Way to live up to that approval rating.

* A fun little memoriam: The Collected Controversies of William F. Buckley.

* From Volokh: Barack Obama, Sept. 26, 2002, where he said that the Iraq war was “a cover-up for a failing economy.” “Right from the beginning,” right folks? This would be one of the most ignorant things I’ve heard from the candidates yet if it weren’t for…

* …McCain buying into the thimerosal/autism allegations. For me, this is one of those issues that bothers me more than the creationism/evolution thing. This is my creationism. Remember how I’ve been trying to talk myself into McCain? This essentially put me back to square one. Pathetically dumb.

* Victor Davis Hansen at National Review put up a great article about what the next President faces “After Dubya.” Puts a lot of things in context.

* I’m not sure what to make of this yet, but 60 Minutes may have been duped again. Whether it happened or not is still being looked into, but the fact that we can’t even rule it out without a second look is more damning about the sad state of affairs in the mainstream national media than anything else.

* Cool link of the day: the incredible expanding Dubai. Yet we still haven’t rebuilt the World Trade Center.

* That the United States incarceration rate is as high as it is is quite shameful. Reason puts it into perspective a bit, though.

* A link I keep forgetting to post: Stuff White People Like, a blog dedicated to stuff that white people like. Pretty funny.

* This is why I avoid Talking Points Memo. Josh Marshall essentially decides, with no evidence of a link but plenty of evidence of ignorance from sectors that weren’t even behind McCain until he was the only choice left, that McCain will run a bigoted campaign against Obama. That’s the hard-hitting analysis we’ve been looking for, right?

That’s all for now.