Martin Eisenstadt’s Blog

Remember when John McCain goaded Barack into visiting Europe and the Middle East, and the chattering class saw it as another sign of McCain’s approaching senility.  They especially pointed to the 200,000 strong crowd that cheered Barack in Berlin as proof of McCain’s bad judgment.   And then McCain released that precious ad branding Barack as a celebrity no different than Paris or Britney.  Within a few days, Mccain was surging in the polls and Barack had been stuck with a reputation for arrogance, show boating and ego mania.

Once again, the chattering class is trying to convince us that McCain’s call to suspend the campaign and debates until the present economic crisis is solved is a sign of desperation and recklessness which will surely backfire.  And once again, we see Barack willy nilly accepting the bait to run off somewhere, in this case Washington, and “act” presidential.

Barack’s already met with Bush, he’s talking to Paulson, he’s conferring with Congress, he’s sitting at that long table with all the big shots, and guess what?  Without anyone noticing, Barack just became part of the problem, one of those Washington insiders trying to screw the taxpayer, bail out the rich and socialize our economy.  At which point, a colleague high up in the campaign tells me, McCain, the reformer, the maverick, the navy pilot, will emerge stage right to denounce the deal, protect the people and scream “No!” to power.

This my friends is a brilliant strategy, a chess move that anticipates, that is devious and patient, that thinks ahead.   All the more reason to choose John McCain, a master schemer,  as our next President.  With John at the helm, Ahmadinejad and Putin and all others who plot against us will be in for one heck of a surprise.  It’s about time.

In the last year, there has been no significant change in any fact on the ground, i.e. supply and demand, that would affect the price of oil. Yet, oil has been surging, and always with a handy excuse. Sure. China and India are burning more but we’re burning less and new sources are being found and developed every day at sped up rates all over the world. And that popycock about disappearing oil supplies, that’s fifty to a hundred years away, and the information isn’t new. So why now, in our time, in this last year, have we seen such extreme and sudden rises in the price of oil?

Because Wall Street is out of hand, run by crooks and profiteers. The housing crisis, like the oil crisis, did not explode onto the scene because of something wrong with the fundamentals but because of wild bets and manipulations initiated by glorified gamblers using our nation’s economy as their roulette table. Wall Street was once a serious place, operated by serious families like the Kennedys and Bushes. In the last couple of decades it’s become a free for all, a den of gamblers and speculators, loyal to no one except their wallets.

The time has come, finally and begrudgingly, to declare a War on Wall Street, in the same manner that we’ve had wars on drugs, terror, childhood obesity and diabetes. And this is exactly what the Senator plans to unveil at the upcoming Presidential debate in Mississippi, a friend high up in the campaign and close to Steve Schmidt tells me. The line of argument will go something like this: Wall Street needs to be liberated, like Baghdad, from the thieves and usurpers, so that it can be returned to its rightful, hugely important role in a thriving free market economy.

Barack Obama, who so often boasts that he chose community activism over working on Wall Street, as if those were the only two career options available to a man just out of Columbia and Harvard, is clearly not up to this task. With his disdain for everything military, Barack Hussein Obama cannot be trusted to properly invade, occupy and police Wall Street in this monumental upcoming battle. Obama, as President, would be too constrained and overwhelmed by forgotten deals and palace intrigues to take on his fat cat benefactors and Ivy League buddies. Where does Democratic money come from if not Wall Street, lawyers and entertainment. Shut Wall Street down and you’ve just shut down the Democratic Party.

John McCain, on the other hand, knows Washington and knows how to wage war. And because he’s been around so long, John no longer has to worry about the corrupt influences that new politicians, like Barack, are still beholden to.

In addition, John is a proven reformer with a coterie of hard-learned experiences under his belt. The Keating Scandal taught him the dangers of greed, and he’s learned the lesson well. Look what John did to Jack Abramoff with whom he had a personal grudge. He put him away for half a decade. John McCain is a soldier, a reformer, a maverick, just the qualities we need in the new Sheriff on Wall Street.

And I can attest, from first hand knowledge, that John genuinely enjoys punishing the wicked, that he thrives in war-like environments. John McCain knows how to win wars. Does Barack?

Update:  I noticed in this morning’s New York Times that David Brooks raised points strangely similar to the ones I raised in this article yesterday.  Not the first time that’s happened.  I don’t know if I should be flattered or offended.  Regardless, here’s the link:

Stop worrying about Saturday Night Live: Lorne Michaels is a close friend and contributor to John McCain.

A lot of my colleagues in the McCain campaign have been wringing their hands over Saturday Night Live’s portrayal of Gov. Sarah Palin. They fear that Tina Fey’s portrayal will deflate the media superstar we’ve created with John’s inspired choice for running mate. Pointing to how previous SNL depictions have tanked other candidates over the years (think Al “Lock Box” Gore or Michael “How am I losing to this guy?” Dukakis), there is some concern.

But I keep trying to reassure them not to worry. SNL producer Lorne Michaels has a “special relationship” with John McCain and he’s not going to let Tina Fey put Gov. Palin’s reputation through the shredder. Why do you think Fey’s Palin appeared side by side with Amy Poehler’s Hillary Clinton? From what I hear, Fey and her old writing colleagues wanted to do a spoof of the Charles Gibson interview first - ridiculing Palin front and center - until Michaels demanded the joint appearance spoof to deflect the hit on Palin. Whether John made that call to Michaels directly, or whether Michaels did it on his own volition, it doesn’t really matter.

People forget that Sen. McCain’s appeared on the show at least twice - even hosting once in 2002. (And from what I hear, the normally coke-fueled afterparty was toned down a notch that night, but John still had a great time regaling war stories at the wet bar with Jimmy Fallon.)

Lorne Michaels has actually contributed $2000 to John’s campaign. And he hasn’t given a dime to Barack Obama. For a member of the liberal New York elite, Michaels is really quite a mensch. More importantly, he contributed early in the primary season when John could count his true friends on one hand. Michaels was there for him. And if there’s one lesson John McCain learned from his time in North Vietnam, it’s when you’re down and out, you never forget the friends who helped you get through the tough times. Speaking of friends, it’s worth noting that NBC CEO Jeffrey Immelt gave John McCain $2300 in February, and again, nothing to Obama.

Speaking of Obama, don’t you remember hearing news accounts last week that he was supposed to appear on the premiere episode of SNL? At the last minute, he backed out, saying it was because of Hurricane Ike. That’s a nice gloss to put on it, but that’s not the version I heard. Like I said, Lorne Michaels is a mensch, and he’s been looking out for John. Sure the Fey version of Sarah Palin was a bit below the belt, but guess what? It kept Sarah Palin in the news for another cable news cycle, and Obama out of it. Sounds like the convention strategy all over again, and it’s working great!

I love the way everyone’s already forgotten about His Holiness’ sermon on the mount in Denver, and now all anyone wants to talk about is moose and hockey. Sometimes the Democrats forget that the power of Hollywood is not just found in pantiless celebrities, vulgar hip hop videos and crass, incoherent pot movies. It is also and better found in the classics, the musicals, the small town stories.

Spent some time quality time in Los Angeles around the time of the Democratic Convention.  Even had a BBC camera crew follow me around.  Never did make it to Denver though.  I had some pressing business to attend to that took me out of country.

We Americans better take heed because technology is reaching the rest of the world even quicker than it’s reaching us.  And while we sit on our hands refusing to drill domestically, the rest of the world is reeling in the cash, drilling and mining under every rock and sea shell.   Now is not the time to take a risk on a smooth talking neophyte.

Russia is gaining strength and building alliances, while all that’s preventing Iran from achieving total regional hegemony is our troop presence in Iraq.  Mark my words.  The day after President Obama withdraws troops from Iraq, Iraq and even Jordan become Iranian satellites.  Maliki can’t be trusted.  He is most clearly an Iranian agent.

This is why it is so critical that we stop Pretty Boy Obama from taking over the White House.  Can someone just come out and say it already?  Barak is naive, so obsessed with his own greatness that he doesn’t notice the plotters and saboteurs all around us.   Well, my plane is landing.  I have arrived in Minneapolis/St. Paul for a celebration of a truly great man, a noble man.

Interested to hear Ms.  Palin speak as well.  I met her a year ago or so at a hunting lodge in Alaska back when I was representing Shell.  From what I remember,  she was quite the looker.  Sharp too.  She definitely gets the oil business.  She was very amenable to my client’s needs and concerns.   A popular sort of gal.  She’ll do great.