Surprised TPM doesn't have an open thread for this speech. Leave thoughts on the speech and rec so others can as well.

Interesting article on ABCNews.com

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/08/strangely-timed.html

Criticizing Barack Obama for responding to the Bill Ayers smear during the Convention (Don't ask)... the writer asserts:

The spot is incorrect in insinuating that John McCain himself has brought up Ayers -- it is in fact McCain's campaign that has sought to use the Ayers association against Obama, and McCain spokesman Brian Rogers did so again upon learning about the ad.

Came across an interesting article on Thinkprogress:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/25/petraeus-mccain-victory/

Petraeus is careful not to credit all the progress to the surge of U.S. troops in 2007. The sea change came last year from a series of movements now known as the Awakening. […] So would the Sunni Awakening have succeeded without the surge? Possibly, he concedes.

Wonder if McCain still considers Petraeus his Numero Uno Wisest person in the world, or if the good General meets undercarriage of bus.

Was doing some oppo-reading at The Weekly Standard and came across an article that I suspect the Repub campaign will release closer to the election to show BHO as a crazy lefty liberal black terrorist, intent on raising "good folks" taxes and redistributing "your" income to these welfare moms. Article's called "Barack Obama's lost years".

It focuses on Obamas life between 1996 and 2004.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/386abhgm.asp?pg=1

On Obama's cognitive dissonance:

"What they portray is a Barack Obama sharply at variance with the image of the post-racial, post-ideological, bipartisan, culture-war-shunning politician familiar from current media coverage and purveyed by the Obama campaign. As details of Obama's early political career emerge into the light, his associations with such radical figures as Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Father Michael Pfleger, Reverend James Meeks, Bill Ayers, and Bernardine Dohrn look less like peculiar instances of personal misjudgment and more like intentional political partnerships. At his core, in other words, the politician chronicled here is profoundly race-conscious, exceedingly liberal, free-spending even in the face of looming state budget deficits, and partisan. Elected president, this man would presumably shift the country sharply to the left on all the key issues of the day-culture-war issues included. It's no wonder Obama has passed over his Springfield years in relative silence"

On Obama as a post racial candidate:

"Obama has recently made efforts to preemptively blunt discussion of the race issue, warning that his critics will highlight the fact that he is African American. Yet the question of race plays so large a role in Obama's own thought and action that it is all but impossible to discuss his political trajectory without acknowledging the extent to which it engrosses him"

"On race-related issues Obama has stood shoulder to shoulder with Chicago's African-American politicians for years."

On Obama's post partsanship:

"In 2002, Obama himself could speak hopefully of plans "to move a progressive agenda" through the state legislature, and local observers commonly identified Obama as a "progressive." When it endorsed him for the U.S. Senate in 2004, the Chicago Defender proclaimed Obama "represents renewal of the liberal, humanitarian cause." The Defender went on to assure readers that Obama would support "progressive action" in Washington."

On Obama crime fighting:

"Also in 1998, according to the Hill, a Washington newspaper, Obama was one of only three Illinois state senators to vote against a proposal making it a criminal offense for convicts on probation or on bail to have contact with a street gang. A year later, on a vote mandating adult prosecution for aggravated discharge of a firearm in or near a school, Obama voted "present," and reiterated his opposition to adult trials for even serious juvenile offenders. In short, when it comes to the issue of crime, Obama is on the far left of the political spectrum and very much in synch with his active political allies Ayers and Dohrn."

On Obama and poverty:

"Obama's fondest hope is to lead America into another war on poverty. Everything in his state-legislative career points in this direction, and Obama calls for a renewal of expensive national anti-poverty programs in his book The Audacity of Hope"

Their conclusion:

"he [Obama] is a big-government redistributionist who wants above all to aid the poor, particularly the African-American poor. Obama is eager to do so both through race-specific programs and through broad-based social-welfare legislation. "Living wage" legislation may be economically counterproductive, and Obama-backed housing experiments may have ended disastrously, yet Obama is committed to large-scale government solutions to the problem of poverty."

I have been concerned as I had not heard anything really damning that the Repubs had thrown @ Obama. Methinks this is being saved for later in October to try to paint Obama as a typical liberal.

This could sting as a meme depending on whether being considered a liberal is still a dirty word, thoughts?