Q. The name of your new book is To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine. Are things really that dire?

Yes. America is not merely a genetic or geographic identity. Our country was founded upon a set of principles clearly expressed in the Declaration of Independence and ensconced in the Constitution. These include: God given rights; the importance of the work ethic; elected representation; local control limited government. All these uniquely American values are under assault from the modern Left, what I describe in To Save America as “Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine.” The President’s ideology is clearly more European than historic American and his policies are clearly going to centralize power in Washington. His economics are going to keep American unemployed while his total lack of reality in foreign policy makes America vulnerable. Collectively, this assault on our core identity and the danger to our economy and safety makes our situation pretty dire.

Q. If so, why did John McCain and the Republicans take so many issues off the table in the 2008 election, especially any meaningful discussion of Obama’s radical background and associates?

It was a mistake. Too many Republican politicians and consultants are anti-intellectual, don’t do their homework, and aren’t prepared to engage in a lengthy, intellectual debate with the editor of the Harvard Law review who taught at the University of Chicago. In order to convince the American people we should govern, we have to be willing to stand on the same stage as our opponents and debate. To quote Margaret Thatcher, “First you win the argument then you win the vote.” If you are not prepared to do your homework and learn the argument, you are not going to win it.

Q. In the introduction to your book, you refer to the legislative program of Obama and the Democrats as “alien ideology,” and quote your daughter as saying that “we were told to vote for change we could believe in and found we had elected people who wanted to change what we believe.” Why did this come as a shock to so many people? Did the media not do its job? (more…)

Apple has announced its new iPad tablet computer, marking the dawn of a new kind of device that bridges the gap between phone and laptop. Last November I wrote about the possibilities of this device for the print world over at Big Hollywood. In short, the potential is there to revolutionize the way we read print, from newspapers, books, magazines and comics?

The cost of paper, shipping and distribution are a problem for publishers. So is making their products easily available to consumers. Stores only have limited space and money to carry books. The internet has been a great boon in that regard in terms of sales, but reading on a computer screen can be an unappealing prospect to most people. The iPad is designed to change all that: a hand-held, touch-screen device that is high resolution and extremely light (about a pound and 1/2). It’s not only lighter than a book, you can carry hundreds of books and magazines in it and read them anywhere you’d take a book.

The print business is salivating over this device, seeing it as a platform that will do for print that iTunes did for music. Except iTunes has sold a lot of songs, but it has also impacted the music business in ways few could have foreseen. Industry insiders think it destroyed the album as people started buying songs separately.  Moving their content to digital it could have similar effects on publishers and the press, but the fact is, times are changing and print has gotten very expensive. (more…)