With his own “cocky ignorance and the media behind” him, whom need Cocky Locky fear?

He has written the Sec. of Defense, Thomas Sowell writes, “in a tone as if he is already President, addressing one of his subordinates,” calling for a “swift response,” about battlefield suicides and back-home homicides by U.S. troops.

He reacts with political acuteness to “the widely publicized statistic that suicide rates among American troops have gone up,” ignoring what has “not been widely publicized . . . that this higher suicide rate is still not as high as the suicide rate among demographically comparable civilians.”

He also buys the easily discredited NY Times story about homicides by veterans although “the homicide rate among returning veterans [has been shown to be ] a fraction of the homicide rate among demographically comparable civilians.”

So as candidate he badgers the guy running two wars, telling him to hop to it with whys and wherefores and what’s he gonna do about it?

Has he no shame?

Instapundit lifts this from Mickey Kaus:

“Barack Obama’s choice of Jim Johnson to vet his VP prospects is already embarrassing his campaign . . . Johnson was an atrocious, tin-eared choice on many other grounds. He’s symbol of old Democratic elites–the Mondale Restoration!–and of Beltway business as usual. He’s gotten obscenely rich off of public service while pursuing a failed liberal antipoverty theory (community develpment) and taking credit for spreading around other peoples money. . . .

Why would Obama, in his first big personnel decision, choose a paleoliberal greedhead with a track record of failure? You tell me. He’s described Johnson as “a friend.” It looks as if he was at best highly susceptible to amicable overtures from someone he should have had some critical perspective on.”

In other words, the Big O. has more to learn than his hopesters dreamed or they have more to learn about cynicism from him than they dreamed.

Forget Eric Holder for now . . .

(Hopester, sighing: Well at least there’s still Caroline to help pick a veep.)

Here’s a typical Big O. supporter, as I judge from flipping through names at the very sophisticated Obama site.  This one goes by “Swimmer.”  He [there’s a photo, but I’m not sure] has 3,535 “friends,” is a member of the OPRFHS (Oak Park & River Forest High School) Alumni Group, has raised $537 from 10 givers, and has a #8 ranking — among thousands, I’d guess, who are registered on the site:

Location: Rock Island, IL

Why I support Barack Obama: Barack Obama is the ONLY candidate who can unite the country and bring us the international respect that we have lost in the Bush years. Barack will bring hope to our children and the future of America. I have been involved with this campaign since Barack announced he was running! I am SO going to be at the inaugural.

Birth Date: May 16th

Issues: equality / civil rights; civil liberties / privacy; peace & social justice; foreign policy / security; economic fairness / security; environment / conservation; smart energy policy; public infrastructure / transportation; good government / ethics; electoral reform; affordable health care; education
Registered to Vote: Yes

Attack problems, not people!

Note the “can unite the country” and “international respect” references, which are almost universal among supporters who have signed on to the site.  And the list of issues, which is rather long.

And react as you wish to the enthusiasm and slogans.

Did the Big O. at first approve this message, as run on the Obama ‘08 website from 9:13 Saturday to at least 1:45 Sunday afternoon but was later removed?

All Jewish lobbies and organizations are interconnected and there are hundreds upon hundreds of them. The leaders of the numerous Jewish Lobby Groups go to the same synagogues, country clubs, and share the same Jewish investment bankers. And this inter-connectedness extends to the Jews who run the Federal Reserve Bank, US Homeland Security, and the US State Department.

In other words, “Jews stick together.” Americans must know how extremely powerful the Jewish Lobby is and how it operates to undermine America’s interests both at home and abroad. At home – by corrupting America’s political system, and abroad – by dictating American Foreign Policy against America’s best interests.

It’s from “How the Jewish Lobby Works,” on the site’s Socialists for Obama blog, which

is for those interested in learning how can we change this country from the current capitalist unfair system, into a real socialist, democratic system for all. This capitalist system of Bush and his cronies only benefit the upper classes. USA needs a 21st Century Socialist, Democratic and Participative system for the workers and people of this country, without fascism, without wars, but with peace, equality, socialism and love.

This peace, equality, [S-word], and love is certainly change we can believe in.

Not enough oil.  We can fix that.  Environmentalists say no.  We don’t.

Last month, the U.S. Senate’s Appropriations Committee voted 15-14 to kill a bill that would have ended a one-year moratorium on enacting rules for oil shale development on federal lands (which is where the best oil shale is located). Most maddening of all – at least to someone like myself not steeped in the wacky ways of Washington – the swing vote on the appropriations committee, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., voted with the majority even though she actually opposes the moratorium.

“Sen. Salazar asked me to vote no. I did so at his request,” Landrieu told The Rocky Mountain News. . . . Salazar says he’s simply trying to slow things down in order to ensure environmental considerations don’t get trampled in the rush to turn western Colorado into a new Prudhoe Bay. But, ironically, his bid to extend the moratorium comes at a time when his fellow Senate Democrats have been blasting Big Oil for not reinvesting enough of their profits into developing new sources of energy.

Ironically?  How about the going word for everything bad, “tragically”  No?  Just this one time?  “Catastrophically”?

Big O. has himself a major-league fixer as a v.p.-candidate selector:

Eric Holder, recently appointed by Barack Obama to his vice presidential search committee, played a leading role in one of the most infamous events of a presidency filled with infamy: the pardon of billionaire fugitive Marc Rich.

So what if he’s got an important role for Obama?  Well, because

the mind reels as to why this person, who participated in a notorious Clinton scandal and himself seemed so oblivious to his own conflict of interest, would be selected to find and vet a VP for Obama. Is this the new politics? Or is it a throwback to the Clinton years, the very years Obama is attempting to turn the page on, to put behind us all?

And now a bit of context for other stuff that’s been hitting the fan in recent months:

Certainly “judgment” is a key consideration for voters in selecting their president. When one looks to the people Obama in turn has selected as mentors (e.g., Reverend Wright, Father Michael Pfleger), friends (e.g., Tony Rezko), and now key advisors (e.g., Eric Holder), voters may begin to question whether Obama possesses the judgment necessary to run an effective and scandal-free administration. If Holder is emblematic of Obama’s personnel decisions and an example of what is to come, the answer is “no.”

Unfortunately.