More from Laura

Laura Ingram (October 23, 2008):

AUDACITY WATCH: Forget measuring the Oval Office drapes, Sen. Obama is way beyond that. After meeting with his team of "national-security advisers," Obama yesterday gave a press conference where he played make-believe president. With a phalanx of Washington foreign-policy insiders behind him, Obama discussed plans for the post-election transition period. In Chicago, construction on a massive stage at Grant Park is underway for an Obama election night victory speech. This would be the first election-night speech from a candidate since Bubba's in '96. Speaker Pelosi, for her part, said it's "100 percent [certain] Obama is going to win," while Senator Schumer says Obama's electoral tally will top 300. Even God is doing his part. Obama told a northern Virginia crowd yesterday that he felt a "righteous wind at our backs." (When can we expect the left's attacks on Obama for harboring the same messianic complex they accuse President Bush of having?)

But Obama's cockiness comes at its own peril. Americans don't take well to being discounted, and that's exactly what an overconfident Democratic Party is doing.

PUNISHING PALIN: You know she must be doing something right. Since Sen. McCain asked her to be his VP -- thus surprising every confident "expert" prediction in Washington -- Gov. Palin has received every criticism the media talking heads' little brains can muster. Dan Henninger's piece today (which takes sly digs at the elitism of his WSJ colleague, Peggy Noonan) offers a sampling of the invective: "Republican blow-up doll," "idiot," "Christian Stepford wife," "Jesus freak," "Caribou Barbie," "a dope," "a fatal cancer to the Republican Party," "liar," "a national disgrace," and "her pretense that she is a woman." And let's not forget the latest "scandal" -- some new clothes!

Pennsylvania is case-in-point. Despite assuring voters Palin is a lying idiot anti-woman baby-moose killer, GOP enthusiasm is soaring. And this comes from no less a source than Democratic Governor Ed Rendell, who fired off two warnings to the Obama camp that the state was in danger of slipping away. According to the far-left Daily Kos website, Obama internal Keystone State polling shows just a two-point differential. Seems the less Palin cares about media attacks against her, the better she does, and the angrier the media becomes. Process, repeat.

OBAMA'S MINISTRY OF TRUTH: Should Obama win in November, thanks and credit will be in order to his 1984-inspired alteration of the historical record. In only the last few months, we've seen the following: When it was revealed in the "Fight the Smears" section of his website that he was lying about his involvement with ACORN (minimizing an actually long-established partnership), his site quietly scrubbed the falsehoods; when a blogger noticed that Michael Klonsky, an unashamed communist education "reformer" happened to be blogging on Obama's site, any hint of his existence was expunged; after Rev. Wright became a household name for his desire to send America to Hell, Obama's site suddenly stopped boasting of his involvement in the campaign; when a video of young California kids appeared singing Obama's glories in a style reminiscent of North Korea, that too was wiped from the e-book of history.

With such a cavalier approach to information control, what exactly we know about Obama -- really and truly -- is harder to discern every day.

RIDDLE OF THE DAY: What do the following names have in common: Bernadine Dohrn, Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, Saul Alinsky, Michael Klonsky, Rashid Khalidi and Franklin Marshall Davis?

Give up?

Barack Obama!

[Hat tip to C. Binder-Scapone]