“I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant,” said the Japanese captain, referring to America after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Of course, I can feel pretty comfortable quoting this unnamed (unnamed because I don’t feel like doing a search on his real name) Japanese captain verbatim for a few reasons:

1. He may not be real.
2. If he is real, he is dead, and therefore, I presume there to be no backlash whatsoever.
3. If he is, however, real and yet not dead, I will make the risky assumption that he is not subscribed to my rss feed either, and thus, is probably not up to speed with the latest happening here at Blogging for Meatballs…leaving me safe in my words.
4. Finally, whether or not he is real, or dead, or really dead, it doesn’t matter, because that was his exact quote…from Pearl Harbor, the movie, that is, and I personally refuse to believe that Hollywood would feel haughty enough to take liberties with the characters and dialogue of such a real American tragedy. So, I feel confident that the quote is accurate. Whew….

Now, given that this is actually a post about the 2008 Presidential Election (seriously, did you think we’d talk about anything else?), I think a fair question at this point would be: what does this have to do with anything? Well, in terms of Pearl Harbor specifically, both movie and real event…nothing. It was just a fancy way of bringing up the quote, “I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant.” It’s that quote that is the crux of this post, though, and if you hang with me long enough, I promise I’ll get to it.

The Obama camp, having nothing much else to go on, has made their primary objective this campaign season to convince the American people that electing McCain would be nothing more than another four years of George Bush. This is actually not a bad strategy on their part. I mean, it’s either that or they openly advertise to the still center-right American public a radically liberal, inexperienced, empty suit whose former associations range from terrorists to racists to those simply anti-American. Of course, the reason I say that painting McCain as Bush #2 (or #3 even) is a political winner is obvious; George W. Bush is currently very unpopular. He has had approval ratings under 30% now for quite some time (still 20 percentage points higher than the current Democratic Congress, but that’s another topic). So, it’s simple politics.

More complicated, though, is why Bush is so out of favor with most Americans. It seems to me many people despise the man without having the slightest ability to articulate why. Perhaps it’s just the popular thing to do as it is with all 2nd term (lame duck) Presidents? In addition, there are also undoubtedly those who don’t and never will agree with his policies. Although, that has and will always be the case with all Presidents, and citing two examples, I would say that Reagan (a conservative) and Clinton (a liberal) both addressed many of the same fundamental issues as Bush, yet both remained much more popular than him during their terms. Therefore, in attempting to understand Bush’s less than stellar rapport, let me suggest to you an even more probable reason. The inability of the Bush administration to properly explain what they are doing and when, and more specifically, their refusal to fight back against the constant smears, lies, and badgering of the left (which includes the vast majority of the media).

Allow me an example: in 2003, George Bush had a high approval rating with the American people. That same year, after Saddam was given a gazillion chances to come clean on his weapons developments, he authorized, with the overwhelming support of congress (Democrats and Republicans alike), a strike on Iraq. Now, five years later, a genocidal dictator has been removed, and Iraq is on the verge of becoming a fully functioning, stabile, sovereign, democratic nation, and more importantly our ally in the heart of the Middle East…arguably the most oppressive, backwards, and anti-American place on earth (not including Barack’s “former” church, of course). That’s a huge accomplishment, and one in which President Bush receives virtually no credit. In fact, even with the recent success in Iraq as so obvious that the mainstream media has stopped reporting on it altogether, and polls indicating that once again the majority of Americans are optimistic about it, the war in Iraq is still widely considered to be the major reason that Bush’s approval ratings remain in the toilet.

We’ve all seen the bumper sticker, “Bush lied people died.” It’s almost universally accepted in far too many circles these days that President Bush conned America into supporting him just enough so that he could charge carelessly into Iraq to satisfy his thirst for oil…or to some liberals, his thirst for blood. So let me get this straight. The same George W. Bush who has been slammed mercilessly by the left for being such a bumbling idiot that he can’t even pronounce “nuclear” correctly, successfully pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes and quietly in the night sent 100,000+ troops half way around the world to conquer a foreign country because he just felt like it? Seems kind of silly when you really break it down, right? Why then can Democrats like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry (who looked at the very same intelligence that Bush did in 2003, and thus, voted the same way he did…to remove Saddam from power) literally campaign on ending “George Bush’s war?” It’s purely because the Bush administration, as mentioned above, hasn’t taken the time over the years to constantly reinforce to the public why we went to Iraq in the first place and why it is important for us to stay and win. Even more importantly, though, they refused to defend themselves against the never ending onslaught of lies, trickery, and liberal bias from the left-wing media designed to discredit them. Over and over again, day after day after day, though often worded more eloquently, the left beat the drum of “Bush lied people died.” And guess what? Without counter from the Bush administration to straighten out the sheer, baseless absurdity of that claim, many folks believed it. Hence, George can now bask in his sub 30% approval ratings for the remainder of his term, and double hence, Obama can now use those sub 30% ratings to avoid addressing his own glaring deficiencies and instead get you to believe that a vote for McCain is synonymous to another vote for (gasp) George W. Bush.

As a side note, I do find it ironic that we conservatives have settled on voting for McCain simply because he’s not Obama, and yet Obama’s main strategy hinges on convincing America to vote for him because he’s not Bush (who, if you’re scoring at home, is not even allowed to run this time). I can see the conversation now…

Conservative: “I’m voting for McCain, because I’d vote for anyone but Obama.”

Liberal: “Oh yeah, well I’m voting for Obama because I’d vote for anyone but Bush.”

Good times. Ok, back to the program.

So, Bush is unpopular because he hasn’t countered the media’s negative perception of him and Obama is exploiting it. Blah, blah, blah, the question is, where does this all leave McCain? Well, up until this election, Mr. Maverick was a media darling. Johnny Mac was always willing to publicly stand up against his own party, and how refreshing that was for the talking heads. He was such a Maverick. Of course, now that he is running against the Chosen One, he’s nothing but a stale old turd who is simply reading word for word from the George Bush playbook of evilness and suckitude.

This media 180 that was pulled on McCain knocked him for a loop at first, I gather, and he’s addressed the media’s over-the-top love affair with the Golden Boy somewhat, but he’s never full-out said, “holy crap, enough of this nonsense!” Then something changed…

Enter Sarah Palin.

I’m not sure if there was moment in time where the media got together and voted unanimously to throw to the wind any semblance of journalistic integrity, or if the left-wing bias has merely piled up so high over the years that we are just lucky enough to be the ones to witness it at it’s apex, but the recent “scrutiny” of Sarah Palin has been absolutely OUT OF CONTROL!!!

After personal vetting her themselves, and digging up all the dirt, the consensus amongst the left has been that having a unwed, pregnant daughter and a husband who got a DUI 22 years ago should automatically disqualify one from being a VP, let alone the fact that she is nothing more than (snicker, snicker) the Governor of a state no one cares about. Not bad for a few days of reporting.

Of course, after Obama leapt on the scene in 2004 following his speech at the DNC, it’s been like twisting arms to get the media to even say a word about his cozy relationships with an unrepentant terrorist, a Chicago organized crime felon, or his openly racist and anti-American spiritual mentor of 20 years, and God forbid the media take 2 seconds in 4 years to examine whether or not this man who has zero executive experience, and hasn’t even finished one full year as a Senator (in which he’s spent 2/3′s of the time campaigning) is qualified enough to be…hang on…not just the VP…but the Commander-in-Chief, the leader of the free world, the most powerful man on earth, the President of the United States of America!

The bias, my friends, is staggering, and there are rumblings that the McCain folks are fed up with it.

Rumblings.

It’s about time.

Because, the reality still is this. In spite of the media in this country being overwhelming dominated by left wing nuts, as afore mentioned, America is still predominately a center-right nation. John McCain just happens to be a center-right politician, and if the American people really knew, without all the spin, who Barack Obama was and what he really believes in, he would lose in a landslide. The platform of the Republican party is nearly always in lock step with the majority of American public opinion. The problem is that the American public doesn’t usually know enough to sift through the bias of the mainstream media to find this out for themselves. Even today, with the political winds blowing leftward, the Republicans have put on their ticket an accomplished woman Governor, and a war hero, senior Senator, whose political views line up with most Americans. The Democrats have put on their ticket a horribly under qualified man with extremely shady associations, who was rated #1 most liberal Senator, and they have teamed him up with the quintessential Washington insider who was rated the #3 most liberal Senator.

Now, tell me again, why are the political winds blowing leftward? The Republicans have better candidates, better ideas, are more in tune with the American people, and have controlled the White House for 20 out of the last 28 years. They should be the favorites, the assumed winners, the big dogs. They’re the ones with the real power, the “giants” if you will.

The only thing the right doesn’t have and hasn’t had is the media, and for the last 8 years, they have been too asleep to even fight the media’s partiality. However, there are rumblings…rumblings that the giants are awakening. Ready to start fighting again. Look out left.

Team America taught us that Pearl Harbor (the movie) wasn’t that great, but hopefully, Pearl Harbor, with but a simple quote laid out in this blog today, will have taught us enough to once again elect a President that will keep America great…and for that, we can thank Rafe, Danny, Evelyn, and whatever that Japanese guy’s name was.

Lessons from Pearl Harbor indeed. Pearl Harbor, the movie, that is…obviously.