The International House of Bacon

Since I never get around to finishing my blogroll, and since people have asked, here are some of my favorite daily political reads. This by no means encompasses everything I read, but certainly acts as the MUST READ blogs and sites of my time. It’ll give folks a good idea as to where I get my information and stay on top of things. In no particular order.

Politics:

* FiveThirtyEight: An electoral projection site. Obama-leaning, former/current Kos contributor, which means that the election analysis is awfully slanted, but the poll analysis is incredibly good. A much better daily indicator via the weighting mechanism he uses than the Real Clear Politics average, in my opinion. If you can get past the occasional Obama cheerleading, it’s worth adding to your RSS feed.

* Jake Tapper’s Political Punch: I’m not sure what he plans to do with this following the election, but, for the moment, Tapper is providing the fairest coverage I’ve seen this election cycle - he’s not afraid to call Obama out, nor is he at all deferential toward the McCain campaign. I have no clue where he stands politically, and that’s how it should be.

* Christianity Today’s Election Coverage: The media seems incapable of dealing with issues of faith properly, and, even though I’m an atheist, it matters. At the very least, this is worth your time to get an angle on the 2008 election that you won’t get from the mainstream.

* EconLog: An economics blog, written in part by Bryan Caplan who wrote The Myth of the Rational Voter. Provides some fascinating insights into general issues thrown out there.

* FactCheck.org: They’ve been shaky lately, but still a great resource.

* GetReligion: A blog based on the premise that the major media doesn’t “get” religion. Hand-in-hand with the Christianity Today election blog, it’s an interesting critique as to how the media handles (or, in some cases, doesn’t handle) religious angles in important stories.

* National Review’s Corner: I’d add in all of their blogs linked on their top bar on this - probably the most respected (and deserving of respect) conservative opinion group available, and their blog listings are good, both for quick-hit discussions as well as larger-scale observations.

* Marginal Revolution: I could have thrown this in a few areas, but this is where it seems to fit best. Libertarian leaning for sure, but still has interesting links and unique thoughts with some current events.

* Mott’s Blog: The blog of Randy Mott, someone I used to play a Senate simulation with. He updates infrequently, but his updates are epic in terms of information. His posts on depleted uranium in particular from a few years back have been indispensable to me.

* Power Line: Honestly, it’s slipped in the last few years, but its take on legal issues and the conservative movement in general are still worth the time to read. There are many blogs that surpass it in terms of up-to-the-minute analysis, but there’s still a good deal of thought that goes here.

* Q and O: Good, libertarian-leaning blog with flashes of great analysis.

* Reason’s Hit and Run: Quite simply, if you’re not reading this blog, you’re making a mistake. Yes, they’re libertarian, but they still have important things to say and are quite spot-on with much of their analysis. This is one of the first true “blogs” I ever read, and I’m glad it’s around.

* The Skeptical Optimist: He single-handedly made me rethink how I look at government debt, and that alone is worth your time. Hopefully he picks up blogging regularly again soon, because his notes on the economic situations in this country have been great.

* The Volokh Conspiracy: Best legal blog on the internet, in my opinion.

* WILLisms: A basic blog, but often lays out general stuff in a great way that makes you remember it later.

…and I’m still really not comfortable with this race. I’m not sure anyone is, even if they’ve found the horse they’re committed to riding into November. The last week or so have been a little mentally challenging for me, and the disaster that the Barr entry devolved into certainly didn’t help matters.

Here’s the basic point for me - this is my third election as an of-voting-age human being. Bush v. Gore, I could have cared less on a whole as they weren’t all that different for me and I’m not convinced I was wrong about that. 2004 brought Kerry, who was worse than Bush and was all I needed to see. 2008, we get an option to move on a bit, and they give us two crappy candidates. Again. Thanks, folks, really.

The difference for me this year, however, is that not only do we have two candidates who are extremely, clearly different from each other in many ways, but we have a situation where neither is significantly promoting causes that will improve our lot, and one of which who is actually promoting a series of policies that have been tried and failed before, all under the auspices of a “change” candidacy that is anything but. To say that Obama is really the worst viable candidate I’ve seen in my admittedly short lifetime is something I can say with firm confidence, because of who he most emulates - your Roosevelts, your Johnsons, your Carters. Just like Bush emulates failures like Wilson and Truman, Obama’s plans too closely mirror the domestic policy missteps of the 1930s and 1960s, and a foriegn policy of the 1960s and 1970s that could very well leave us in the type of shape many Bush opponents consider us in now.

It will never cease surprising me that many of the same people who were tired of Bush’s style of governace, who got sick of the “cowboy mentality”, the “my way or the highway” leadership alleged throughout the last 8 years, are actively latching onto an Obama candidacy that has a similar, if not close to identical, to a lot of the same ideals - the closed inner circle, the “Obama will require you to work” mentality espoused by his wife, etc. Is that the change people have been waiting for, or is it simply because you think Obama falls in with your ideals?

I was fired up a bit about a section of a blog post I read late last week - it was in the wake of the half-amusing/half-dumb McCain ad showcasing Obama as the “next big celebrity.” Immediately, Obama goes into his standard race lines (I say “standard” because the “I don’t look like everyone else” line has been played since June), and now, since it’s a black guy with a couple white celebrities, it must be race-baiting. Never mind McCain’s record on the matter (see the ABC link), never mind Obama playing this card for 6 weeks now - gotta hold up the old canard. But one line in this post jumped out at me:

Obama does not want to dialogue with you, since to do so would imply that you may actually have a rationally defensible position that has a point. He wants to shepherd you through the transition out of your benighted red state moronic worldview. In Obama’s universe, it’s okay to talk down to people who are in fact beneath you. You are beneath him.

This really resonates with me, and not only because it’s an unrelated confirmation of my feelings about Obama. There’s a personal subtext i think people can recognize, and that’s probably what makes me angry - no, no one likes to be condescended to, and I try to keep my tone in check with that in mind. That Obama flaunts it as much as he does is more than a little annoying, and just a little dangerous to boot.

How does all of this relate together? Obama set everyone up with the shiny, and now he’s presented himself as an honest broker (he’s not) for the positions he holds, obscenely talking down those who disagree while pretending it’s some sort of given that a) he’s right, and b) you’ll see it soon enough. Remember, the light will shine down, etc.

It would bother me plenty if he were right, but the fact that he’s wrong, and desperately so, is the real clincher for me. It’s never okay for a person who wants to be your leader to have a holier-than-thou attitude toward things, it’s another to mask it as something it isn’t and actively deceive those you’ve taken on board. I AM NOT SAYING EVERYONE WHO IS SUPPORTING OBAMA FALLS INTO THIS TRAP. I am saying that Obama’s continuing this campaign of deception even as he moves from a touchy feely “Hi, I’m Barack” campaign to a more specific one. And even now, knowing that I’m writing this and people are gonna be fed up, rattles me a bit - why should I feel rattled about expressing an opinion that’s unpopular with my friends and peers? Is that Barack Obama’s America?

I’m going to be trying to make a few changes with the blog moving forward with all this in mind:

1) Fewer link posts. I’m not saying that they tend to get me in trouble more, but I don’t think they’re doing what I want them to, and I spend an inordinate amount of time with them for very little benefit. There are always going to be underreported or interesting things I’ll want to highlight, so I’ll probably a) do one every 10 links compiled or so, and b) mix in more cultural and wide-interest stuff as opposed to the political.

2) More mixes of types of posts. More things that aren’t politically related, but also, more detailed political issue posts. A discussion with Marian kind of brought this to the forefront, where the omnibus posts don’t really do enough to really push why these issues and problems are important to me and why I want things to change. If I believe the problem is a lack of information, what good is that belief if I’m not providing the information to hopefully change that?

3) A singular Obama post per day, based on a singular issue surrounding the campaign. I’m not interested in gaffe of the day politics, honestly - if Obama decides there are 58 states again next week, I’m not going to touch it. The issue is that it’s one thing for me to note that Obama’s policies are among the worst of the already-failed ones of the past, it’s another to actually show it. And yes, even provide alternatives, even with voting.

I’m still leaning 98% Barr. This isn’t going to become a Barr evangelism zone, just like it wasn’t a Ron Paul one. I have no real dog in the general fight, except that I still think Obama’s actively dangerous to be near the Presidency. I don’t think we, as a country, can afford him or afford trying to fix what he’s planning to break. If you’re not okay with your guy being criticized, stop reading now. If you’re going to have a thin skin about that criticism, stop reading now. Nothing that goes on between now and then is an attack on Obama’s supporters - it’s about him. Period.

I’ve appreciated a lot of the discussion that has come of this, and I hope it continues, both with those who have been bringing things up as we go along and those who have lapsed or avoided comment. I’m making an effort to change things for a better atmosphere here, so I’m hoping you’ll all come with me on this.