“Senator Barack Obama rejects the ‘politics of the past’ while borrowing from its phoniest chapters. His promised caravan toward a new Camelot, with Teddy Kennedy bringing up the rear, may generate feelings in Chris Matthews’ leg and cause women to swoon, but over time it is likely to pall and bore. Obama’s speeches are like cotton candy, sweet but substanceless and dangerous to one’s health if turned into a steady diet. Is he saying nothing? Unfortunately not. Glimpsed through the haze of his sophistical rhetoric is something, and it is tiresomely false, namely, the dogmatic assertion that ‘hope’ and liberalism are synonymous. His reliance on sentiment and rhetoric rather than reasoning to advance that assertion will not inspire a new politics of bipartisan unity but revive old and bitter resentments. Liberalism, after all, has no monopoly on hope, and the chapters of history to which Obama makes implicit reference—the New Frontier and Great Society—concluded in despair. While the Democrats won’t stop squealing over him for some time, the larger culture has already begun to mock Obama as a platitudinous lightweight.” —George Neumayr

What happens when the world’s largest publicly traded oil company takes on one of the world’s most notorious dictators? Exxon Mobil decided to find out. After Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez seized Exxon’s stake in two ventures in the country, including one 42.5-percent stake worth at least $4 billion, Exxon took Chavez to international court, targeting the assets of the country’s state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, SA, in U.S., British and Dutch courts. Last week, a British court sided with Exxon, issuing an injunction to freeze $12 billion in assets. A U.S. court also backed the company, freezing $315 million in Venezuelan cash.

In response, Chavez and his political puppets screamed “judicial terrorism” and stopped oil sales to Exxon. Despite Chavez’s intimidation attempts, however, experts say his actions will have little real impact on oil production. While Venezuela supplies approximately 11 percent of U.S. oil, the South American dictatorship is far more dependent on oil revenue than the U.S. is on Venezuelan oil. Exxon will easily be able to buy oil from other sources. Venezuela, however, has nowhere else to go for U.S. money. So, who’s holding the trump card now, Hugo?

United States Air Force Tech. Sgt. John Chapman, from Fayetteville, North Carolina, was involved in a reconnaissance mission in northern Afghanistan on 4 March 2002 when the team’s twin-engine Chinook helicopter came under heavy fire. It was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade and crash-landed. Chapman called in air support to cover the team, which was now exposed to enemy fire. He also directed a helicopter rescue of his team and aircrew members and led the search for a Navy SEAL who had fallen from the helicopter. Chapman killed two jihadis during the search, but came upon a machine-gun nest. Though the enemy fired on the rescue team on three sides, Chapman fired back. Soon, however, multiple wounds claimed his life, though he is credited with saving the lives of the others in the rescue team. For his actions, Chapman was posthumously awarded the Air Force Cross, and a U.S. Navy cargo ship was named in his honor.

The city of Berkeley, California, had resolved that the United States Marine Corps was not welcome to continue recruiting there. If they continued, it would be as “uninvited and unwelcome intruders.” It seems that news raised the ire of many a patriotic American, forcing the city council to reconsider—now they will not send their hateful letter to the USMC. Not only that, but they issued a statement saying they “deeply respect and support” the men and women who serve in the U.S. Armed Forces. Something makes us doubt their sincerity. Maybe it’s the fact that the angry anti-war group Code Pink still has a special parking space reserved outside the recruiting office.

Barack Obama has some ‘splainin’ to do. Fox News cameras captured a disturbing image in a campaign office in Houston: that of a Cuban flag with Communist mass murderer Che Guevara’s face printed on it. Naturally, Obama’s “explanation” was that the volunteer office is independently run, so he has no control over what goes on there. And that’s supposed to make voters want him elected president? Che Guevara may be fashionable among the nation’s leftist college students, but we remind readers that it was Guevara who was “supreme prosecutor” during the show trials after Fidel Castro seized power, overseeing the execution of countless people. Cuba is also still under a U.S. embargo and, last time we checked, is still a Communist dictatorship. Seems the Obama campaign is trying to communicate an idea, even if the candidate himself appears bereft of them.