JustOneMinute

Focus On Obama - A SOFT Focus

The enterprising team at All The News That Fits The Narrative work hard to report on Obama's political history without actually disturbing his supporters.

Their coverage of his relationship with Bill Ayers is too incurious to be an accident:

Mr. Obama also fit in at Hyde Park’s fringes, among university faculty members like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, unrepentant members of the radical Weather Underground that bombed the United States Capitol and the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War. Mr. Obama was introduced to the couple in 1995 at a meet-and-greet they held for him at their home, aides said.

Now, along with Mr. Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Mr. Ayers has become a prime exhibit in the effort by Mr. Obama’s presidential rivals to highlight what could be politically radioactive associations. In 2001, Mr. Ayers said he did not regret the Weatherman bombings. Even so, in Hyde Park, he and his wife were viewed favorably for their work in addressing city problems. Mr. Ayers was just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” Mr. Obama said recently.

The two men were involved in efforts to reform the city’s education system. They appeared together on academic panels, including one organized by Michelle Obama to discuss the juvenile justice system, an area of mutual concern. Mr. Ayers’s book on the subject won a rave review in The Chicago Tribune by Mr. Obama, who called it “a searing and timely account.”

"The two men were involved in efforts to reform the city’s education system"?  Bill Ayers was instrumental in writing the grant proposal that led to the formation of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and worked closely with the group for several years after its inception; the first chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was Barack Obama.  That seems to merit a lot more exposition than the Times delivers.  The Times might have started by asking the Obama team whether they would care to expand on their "Fact Check" on the Ayers-Obama relationship, which somehow overlooked their mutual interest in education.

Now, is it possible the Times was utterly unaware of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge connection, yet was broadly aware of their mutual interest in education reform?  Who can tell?  However, right now a Google on "Obama Ayers Chicago school reform" offers  links to four different posts on the first page (1, 2, 3, 4)that mention the relationship, including a Hot Air post helpfully titled "Did Obama Work For Bill Ayers?".  Yet somehow the Times either missed this or buried it.

Much later the Times covers the  current scuffle between McCain and Obama over Hamas - this is  pure cover-up:

But for all of Mr. Obama’s attentiveness to Jewish concerns about Israel, Republican Party officials have made it clear that they think this is an area of vulnerability. Though Mr. Obama has condemned Hamas, a militant Palestinian group, as a terrorist organization, just last week Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, suggested that the group wanted to see Mr. Obama in the White House. Mr. Obama denounced that suggestion as a “smear.”

Missing from the Times reporting is that McCain was not merely offering his opinion as to Hamas' likely view, but was simply passing along the assessment of Obama offered by a Hamas spokesperson on WABC radio.  And since Mr. Axelrod of the Obama campaign had reacted to the Hamas "endorsement", it is fair to assert that the Obama campaign is well aware that McCain is not simply offering his opinion - is McCain's statement a smear if it the truth?  [I now see that I missed this Saturday whitewash from the Times, eviscerated by Dean Barnett.  See "DOES NOT ADVOCATE", below]

FERTILE GROUND:  In a recent article with extended excerpts from Michelle Obama's stump speech she explained how Obama heroically turned down the millions of dollars available to him on a conventional corporate law career path in order to join a small law firm focusing on civil rights (1, 2).  The Times describes that as a carefully calculated political decision intended to jump start his career, which is flourishing, what with the best-sellers and the Presidential prospects.  Whatever.

Here we go:

This is a man who walked away from a career on Wall Street more than two decades ago to become a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, setting up after-school programs, and bringing jobs to the jobless. Who turned down a lucrative career as a corporate lawyer to organize 150,000 new voters, mostly black, in one of Chicago’s biggest voter registration drives – and who, by the way, has been fighting for our voting rights ever since.

THOSE DARN STAFFERS:  On two different occasions reported by the Times Obama explains a seeming flip-flip by blaming staffers for misrepresenting his views.  Ooops!  A critic might note it is the boss's job to hire and organize the staff, but again, whatever.  [Jake Tapper extends and amplifies this point.]

DOES NOT ADVOCATE:  The Saturday Times "examined" the McCain-Obama-Hamas scuffle and included this howler (emphasis added):

But important nuances appear to have been lost in the partisan salvos, particularly on Mr. McCain’s side. An examination of Mr. Obama’s numerous public statements on the subjects indicates that he has consistently condemned Hamas as a “terrorist organization,” has not sought the group’s support and does not advocate immediate, direct or unconditional negotiations with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president.

Hmm, so why does that unscrupulous John McCain think he does?  Maybe it was this story from last summer in the Times describing the You-Tube debate:

Perhaps the sharpest point of difference came when the candidates were asked if, during their first year as president, they would be willing to meet without preconditions with the presidents and dictators of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.

''I would,'' said Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. ''And the reason is this: that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them, which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration, is ridiculous.''

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who has also criticized the Bush administration for ''not talking to our enemies,'' took a different tack, pledging robust diplomacy but refusing to make that promise of leader-to-leader talks.

Or maybe McCain was relying on this follow-up coverage:

For days, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton have been exchanging retorts over the wisdom of sitting down for diplomatic meetings with hostile dictators. In case voters had not been following along, Mr. Obama sought to inform them, weaving his side of the dispute into the overarching message of his campaign.

“Some of you noticed that this week I got in a debate with one of my colleagues who is also running for the presidency,” Mr. Obama said Friday night, opening a two-day trip to Iowa. “The debate was about whether we talk to world leaders even if you don’t like them. My theory is that you do.”

The quarrel emerged from this week’s debate in South Carolina, when Mrs. Clinton said she would not meet with foreign leaders, including those of Iran and North Korea, without preconditions. She later criticized Mr. Obama’s response as “irresponsible and, frankly, naïve.”

Those four words touched off the most direct confrontation yet in the fight for the Democratic nomination. And Mr. Obama worked to keep the distinction alive during a weekend trip to Iowa, turning the disagreement into an example of how he would lead the country differently.

“Our standing in the world has diminished so much because people think that the United States wants to dictate across the world instead of cooperate across the world,” Mr. Obama said Saturday. “When we start sending a signal that we are ready to engage in serious diplomacy, then we’ve got the opportunity to stand before the world and say: We’re back. America is back.”

Or maybe McCain was relying on Obama's web site:

Renewing American Diplomacy

• ...
• Talk to our Foes and Friends: Obama is willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe. He will do the careful preparation necessary, but will signal that America is ready to come to the table, and that he is willing to lead. And if America is willing to come to the table, the world will be more willing to rally behind American leadership to deal with challenges like terrorism, and Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs.

 

Don't Know Much About History... (Reprise)

Think about this - the probable next President of the United States does not know even the broad outlines of the history of American foreign policy from WWII forward and does not know the history of Democratic icons Roosevelt or Truman.  We had kvetched about this earlier.  The fateful quote from Barack's Tuesday victory speech is this:

"I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did."

Hope and change!

MORE: STALIN IT IS!  Here is Obama at a March 27 2008 fundraiser:

"I think people understand the notion of talking to our enemies," Obama said. "If FDR can meet with Stalin and Nixon can meet with Mao and Kennedy can meet with Khrushchev and Reagan can meet with Gorbechav, then the notion that we can't meet with some half-baked dictator is ridiculous."

Well, Stalin was a fully-baked dictator, but he was also our ally against Nazi Germany when he met with Roosevelt.  For a good example of "half-baked" we need look no further than Barack's proposed meeting with Ahmadinejad.

SOME BACKGROUND: Here is an account of the debate where this came up:

In the debate, Obama was asked if he would be willing to meet — without precondition — in the first year of his presidency with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.

"I would," he responded.

Clinton said she would not.

"I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes," she said. Her campaign quickly posted video of her answer online, trying to show she has a different understanding of foreign policy than her chief rival.

RETURN TO SENDER:  No, letters don't count (and I already had pointed out the Roosevelt-Hitler letter) - letters do not provide the sort of propaganda photo-op being criticized.  Besides, Bush has sent a letter to Kim Jong Il, but where is the photo of the two of them shaking hands?

BRINGING IT TOGETHER:  McCain wants to bash Obama on Hamas, and has criticized Obama's intention to confer legitimacy on the Iranian regime by meeting without preconditions.  Well, if Obama is justifying that meeting by reference to historical parallels that exist only in the imaginations of himself and his speechwriters, that is troubling.

And having an Obama adviser caught chatting with Hamas is not helpful for Obama's cred, either.

EXPANDING THE ELECTORAL MAP:  Set aside his evident deficiencies in American post-war history (Nooo, not the Vietnam war) and think about this - Obama is still hazy on how many states there are in the Union, not to mention the normally uncontroversial status of Alaska and Hawaii.  Marc Ambinder has the video of Obama claiming that he has visited 57 states (Hmm, maybe he was sampling Heinz ketchups...).  Obama made a similar whoopsie when chatting with the AP a few weeks ago - back then, he was talking about forty-eight states, plus Alaska and Hawaii.

I would tell him to check the flag in his lapel, but of course he won't be wearing one.  [OK, maybe he did check his lapel pin...]

DOCTOR, DOCTOR, GIMME THE NEWS:  MRI, stat:

This faux pas is beyond weird; I know the guy is tired, but “How many states are there in America?” is the kind of question they ask you at the hospital after you've had a seizure to see if your brain is still working.

He Who Controls The Past Controls The Future

Some Duke academics are trying to re-write the history of the Duke lacrosse debacle; KC Johnson won't let them.

He's outnumbered but they are outgunned.  Sorry, scary metaphor which might alarm the Duke profs; please substitute "they are out-classed".  And Prof. Johnson's alliance with the truth won't hurt his chances either.

My guess is that this tussle will go on for years as the Duke profs continue their revisionism in various sympathetic outlets.

POLITICAL BONUS:  Per Prof. Johnson, Obama was the only Presidential candidate to call for a DoJ investigation of Nifong.

Losing My Bearings

John McCain, in his appearance on Jon Stewart, reprised his observation that Hamas favored Obama.

Barack Obama, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer, engaged in a bit of agesim by deploring this "smear" and asserting that John McCain had "lost his bearing".

McCain aide Mark Salter fires back.  His gist - a Hamas spokesperson did say exactly that, and has a perfectly good reason to say so - Iran trains and funds Hamas and would welcome the publicity coup of the unconditional meeting with an American President promised by Barack.

Andy McCarthy points out that the Obama campaign wasn't so incensed a few weeks ago:

When asked about the endorsement, Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, was flattered that Hamas compared his candidate to JFK: "We all agree that John Kennedy was a great president, and it's flattering when anybody says that Barack Obama would follow in his footsteps."

Mr. McCarthy also notes Barack's own invocation of his middle name as providing an opportunity to heal America's standing in the world.  Fair enough, and let's toss in Obama's face, by way of Mr. Sullivan:

What does he offer? First and foremost: his face. Think of it as the most effective potential re-branding of the United States since Reagan...

Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.

So let me project Sully's view onto the current dust-up - we should vote for the black guy becasue of his cosmetic appeal to brown-skinned third worlders, but we should be appalled at the suggestion that third-world jihadists will consider him likely to be more sympathetic.  Is everybody clear?

I am not.

PILING ON:  Jimmy Carter, famous Democrat, former President and lifetime clown, met with Hamas; if Hamas were asked to guess which party is more likely to be sympathetic to them, can we think of a reason they would answer "the Democrats"?

MEETING WITH THE ENEMY:  I enjoyed this, from a frustrated Democratic adult:

As you probably know, Barack Obama appeared on Fox News Sunday on April 27, 2008 (to the apparent dismay of many liberal bloggers who support negotiating with our nation’s enemies, but are boycotting Fox in order to “delegitimize” it. Please, kids, grow up with all your litmus tests.)

Cool Story For Poll Geeks

The "Poblano" story is very interesting for poll jockeys and number crunchers.  Basically, he broke down the Hillary and Obama vote differentials based on demographic characteristics and then applied earlier primary results to the changing demographic mix in upcoming states, with pretty good results.  The Big Finish from the National Journal:

All of which brings us to the underlying story of the Democratic presidential primaries. Since Super Tuesday, it has mostly been the story of what hasn't happened. Over the last three months or so, for better or worse, the underlying coalitions of support for Obama and Clinton have remained largely constant.

So therein lies the bad news and the worse news for the Obama and Clinton campaigns, respectively. The bad news for the Obama campaign is that evidence of an expansion of his coalition is weak.

The far worse news for the Clinton campaign is that evidence that she made "important progress" among white voters in Indiana and North Carolina is weaker still. After weeks of pummeling over the controversies involving the Wright's remarks and Obama's comments about the "bitterness" of rural voters, Obama's coalition remains intact and on track to produce a majority of pledged delegates. The "game-changer" that the Clinton campaign counted on to alter the thinking of unpledged superdelegates did not materialize.

I Think We Got it

ABC News covers McCain's appearance with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show:

For his part, McCain joked that he had picked his running mate. With fanfare he pulled out a piece of paper upon which the name of Dwight Schrute, the power-hungry but bumbling character from the NBC sitcom "The Office," was written. Stewart’s audience seemed to approve.

"That is pandering," Stewart joked when McCain received applause.

McCain’s press secretary Brooke Buchanan explained that McCain is a fan of "The Office" and was trying to make a joke.

Thank heaven they checked with the press secretary. 

More coverage (with video link) at USA Today; the WaPo Trail is long and sympathetic.

So let me segue to a point articulated by Michael Scherer of TIME back when the Republicans still had a contest:

Here's one thing you need to know about John McCain. He's always been the coolest kid in school. He was the brat who racked up demerits at the Naval Academy. He was the hot dog pilot who went back to the skies weeks after almost dying in a fire on the U.S.S. Forrestal. His first wife was a model. His second wife was a rich girl, 17 years his junior. He kept himself together during years of North Vietnamese torture and solitary confinement. When he sits in the back of his campaign bus, we reporters gather like kids in the cafeteria huddling around the star quarterback. We ask him tough questions, and we try to make him slip up, but almost inevitably we come around to admiring him. He wants the challenge. He likes the give and take. He is, to put it simply, cooler than us.

Mr. Scherer goes on to contrast McCain with Romney, but a contrast with Barack Obama is also in play.  Barry/Barack was just not the cool kid in school.  He went along, he got along, he wanted to fit in, and I presume he was liked and respected (except as a kid in Indonesia where he was bullied regularly), but he was never one of the cool kids.  And even now he is afraid to go back and talk to the press.

Whatever - Barack has aged gracefully, and, as he might say himself, he is certainly cool enough.  But is is not natural with him, and he knows his secret, as do I (it is a Brotherhood of Nerds thing...).

Now, McCain is 113 years old, so it is not immediately apparent that he will have youth appeal.  However, he will do better on that front than people expect (as Reagan did).  My secret high school spy met McCain at a barbecue in New Hampshire with about forty people in attendance, and came away very impressed; I think she went with the idea that it would be like going to meet grandpa and listening politely while he rambles on about whatever, and she was surprised by how engaging McCain was.

We'll see.  Expect the unexpected.

MORE:  I don't want to cast Barack as Commodus.  But Russell Crowe as John McCain as the Gladiator is a lay-up:

Commodus: The general who became a slave. The slave who became a gladiator. The gladiator who defied an emperor. Striking story! But now, the people want to know how the story ends. Only a famous death will do. And what could be more glorious than to challenge the Emperor himself in the great arena?
Maximus: You would fight me?
Commodus: Why not? Do you think I am afraid?
Maximus: I think you've been afraid all your life.

The scene continued:

Maximus: I knew a man once who said, "Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back."
Commodus: I wonder, did your friend smile at his own death?
Maximus: You must know. He was your father.
Commodus: You loved my father, I know. But so did I. That makes us brothers, doesn't it? Smile for me now, brother.
[stabs him]

Hmm, Hillary could be Commodus... This is tricky - she has the endless ambition, but I don't think she has a fearful inner core, which Obama, the life-long conciliator, might.  Developing...

COURAGE!  Here are two articles contrasting John Kerry's apparent physical courage in Vietnam with his utter lack of political courage thereafter.  We won't be seeing similar articles about McCain, but what will people say of Barack Obama?  What bold stand has he ever taken? 

To be fair, he crossed the aisle with a number of Democrats in favor of tort reform early in his Senate career, and seems to have been reined back in since then.  In any case, this analysis of the tort reform effort does not depict Obama's vote as meriting a Profile in Courage.

And please don't mention his Oct 2002 anti-war speech; 90% of the Congressional Black Caucus opposed the war, so Barack was taking the utterly conventional position for his district.  He also hoped to enter the 2004 Senate race if Carol Mosely Braun declined to run, and she was staunchly anti-war, again, unsurprisingly.  His decision to oppose the war earns him a Profile in Obviousness.

That Was Easy!

Navy releases McCain's military record

No surprises, apparently.  Meanwhile, we are still waiting for a public release of John Kerry's military records.  When last we checked he had signed a limited Form 180 so that a few friendly newspapers could assure the rest of us that it was all good.

With that in mind, I do query this from the AP story about McCain:

The Navy recently released McCain's military record - most of it citations for medals during his Navy career - after a Freedom of Information Act request by The Associated Press.

I see three possibilities: Either McCain signed a Form 180 and agreed to the release, in which case he ought to get some acknowledgment for forthrightness, or the rules have changed quite a bit since 2004 (doubtful); or the AP is a bit confused and these aren't McCain's complete records (the AP, confused?).

A hint is in the excerpt - "most of it citations for medals during his Navy career".  As I recall the Kerry records that we did see included endless performance evaluations about nothing.  I am thinking this is the record of McCain's citations, which might very well be available under an FOIA request but which do not represent the complete file.

Obama The Answer Man

A devoted Obama staffer explains to the WaPo that Obama is all wise and all knowing; also, all-talking:

Two days after his damaging defeat in Pennsylvania last month, Barack Obama gathered his wife and senior campaign staff around the dining room table of his Chicago home.

For two hours after dinner, Barack and Michelle Obama, campaign manager David Plouffe, message man David Axelrod, deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand, communications chiefs Robert Gibbs and Dan Pfeiffer, family friend and Chicago business heavyweight Valerie Jarrett, and scheduling chief Alyssa Mastromonaco hashed over the presidential campaign's history, looked at the upcoming primaries and decided how the candidate would approach the coming two weeks. Obama wanted to get away from the sniping, including his own, and get back to the approachable, hopeful campaign of last winter's long sojourn in Iowa.

"It wasn't like 'Let's have a discussion.' It was 'One, two, three, four, here's what we're going to do,' " a staffer said. "When things don't go well, he doesn't yell and scream. He's very prescriptive. Everybody understands this isn't about having a discussion. He's got 99 percent of the voting shares. There's no point in taking a vote."

What?  Sure, there is no point in taking a vote, but that hardly means that there is no point in having a discussion - presumably these strategists and advisers are intelligent adults with possibly-useful perspectives and an effective leader would draw them out and explore alternatives.

As to the idea that Barack doesn't yell and scream, he simply tells people what to do - well, that would be fabulous if he were running for fire marshall in an office building, but the President of the United States can't possibly be expected to know the answer to every question that will arise during his Administration.  Despite whatever this staffer may have experienced professionally or personally, there are plenty of effective leaders who can handle adversity without yelling or screaming while also promoting creative discussion of alternative strategies.

I assume this staffer meant to be providing fawning praise of the Messiah, but as an example of Obama's leadership style it is not encouraging.

Don't Know Much About History...

Obama wins North Carolina, concedes Indiana, calls for unity. 

Here is a transcript of his speech: this detail struck me:

I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.

Obama's supporters are too young to know any of this, but Roosevelt led the United States in the war against Hitler; the Allied policy was unconditional surrender, so there was very little for Roosevelt and Hitler to discuss, and in fact, the two did not meet at all (but they did exchange correspondence before the war).

So my guess is that Obama is thinking of the Yalta Conference with Churchill and Stalin as talking to "our enemies", although of course we were still allied with the Soviet Union against Germany and Japan at that point.  Beyond that, is the Yalta Conference something Obama and his advisers view as a success worthy of emulation?  Puzzling.

HE'S KIDDING?   Maybe Obama's team is finally realizing they have a Michelle problem;from Obama's speech:

I believe in our ability to perfect this nation, because it's the only reason I'm standing here today. I know the promise of America, because I've lived it. Michelle has lived it; you have lived it.

It is the light of opportunity that led my father across an ocean. It's the founding ideals that the flag draped over my father's coffin stand for. It is life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It's the simple truth I learned all those years ago when I worked in the shadow of all those shuttered steel mills on the south side of the Chicago, that, in this country, justice can be won against the greatest odds, hope can find its way back from the darkest of corners.

And when we are told that we cannot bring about the change that we seek, we answer with one voice: Yes, we can.

"Michelle has lived it"?  Any reasonable person would say that Michelle has lived the American dream, but I am not talking about a reasonable person - I am talking about the woman who whines about loneliness and crushing college loans every time she speaks.  Well, maybe they will gently ask her to go to re-write and try to find something to smile about.

ERRATA: "It's the founding ideals that the flag draped over my father's coffin stand for" - shouldn't that be "grandfather"?  Presumably granddad was entitled to a military funeral; dad was off in Kenya IIRC, probably not with an American flag.

Paddling Into The Mainstream

We detect early ripples as the Obama-Ayers connection by way of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge makes its way a bit closer to the man stream media.

John Murtagh, firebombed by the Weather Underground when he was a kid, appeared on Fox News with Greta Van Susteren, and included this:

MURTAGH: Greta, I do not hold Senator Obama responsible for what happened to my family four decades ago. But he has a relationship with Bill Ayers and with Bill Ayers wife and family that goes back 20 years or more.

Bernadine Dorn, Bill Ayer's wife, who took credit for the bombings in New York, was a coworker with Michelle Obama at the Chicago law firm where Barack Obama and Michelle Obama met.

Barack Obama, as you've pointed out, served on the board of the Wood Foundation for a number of years with Bill Ayers. He was the director of an organization called the Annenberg Challenge in Chicago, which if you look at Bill Ayers Resume on his web site he takes credit as one of the founders of that organization.

In addition, there is an organization called The Educational Leadership Organization in Chicago. Senator Obama served on that board with Bill Ayers brother and father.

I think what is trouble is that the Senator tries to dismiss this as though he were a neighbor down the block that did something 40 years ago. It is a working relationship and apparently has been a working relationship for close to two decades.

That's what I've been saying - good job by Mr. Murtagh, who clearly has done his homework.

SPEAKING OF HOMEWORK:  Currently, a simple Google search on "Obama Ayers" does not turn up the Chicago Annenberg Challenge link until the second page, where this Hot Air story has pride of place.

The March of Feminism

Megan McArdle describing her contemporary lifestyle:

I carry mine with me everywhere, so I can whip it out whenever I have down time.

... I feel like it could be slightly bigger.

Aren't there any "Guy Things" left out there?

OK, THAT WAS DEPLORABLE... Folks who want to advise me on the merits of the Kindle are welcome to bail me out here.  I have one friend who raves about it, but that is all I know.

Not Exaggeration But Aspiration - The Times Defends Hillary!

Yesterday Mickey Kaus had Hillary on the couch, metaphorically speaking.  And Mickey gets results!  Tucked away in today's Science Times is a fascinating summary of a recent psychological study on lying and exaggerating which leads, as the Times acknowledges in their closing paragraphs, to a defense of Hillary's in and with Bosnia:

Some tales are so tall that they trip over their own improbable feats, narrative cracks and melodrama. That one-on-one playground victory over Kobe Bryant back in the day; the 34 hours in labor without painkillers; the former girlfriend or boyfriend who spoke eight languages and was a secret agent besides.

...in milder doses, self-serving exaggeration can be nearly impossible to detect, experts say, and there are several explanations.

The Sister Grim

Yet another vicious attack columnist savages Michelle Obama by quoting her.  I especially like her perspective on the perils of the ongoing economic hardship experienced by almost all Americans almost all the time:

"What happens in that nation is that people do become isolated, they do live in a level of division, because see when you’re that busy struggling all the time, which most people that you know and I know are, see you don’t have time to get to know your neighbors, you don’t have time to reach out and have conversations to share stories, in fact you feel very alone in your struggle because you feel somehow it must be your fault that you’re struggling that hard, everybody else must be doing ok, I must be doing something wrong, so you hide…What happens in that kind of nation is that people are afraid. Because when your world’s not right no matter how hard you work, then you become afraid of everyone and everything, because you don’t know whose fault it is, why you can’t get a handle on life, why you can’t secure a better future for your kids."

...“Our fear,” Mrs. Obama says, “is helping us to raise a nation of young doubters, young people who are insular and they’re timid, and they don’t try because they already heard us tell them why they can’t succeed.”

Gosh, and I thought it was the manipulation of the terror alerts by Evil BushCo that had created a fearful nation of bedwetters (with a few heroic hold-outs!).  Now I see this has been happening for generations as the Dem's leading choice for First Lady takes to the stumps with the message that we have nothing to fear but life itself.  Inspirational.

MORE:  Christopher Hitchens thumped Michelle and suspects she is the reason Barack stayed with Wright.  Maybe that's why he stayed, but Barack found Wright before he met Michelle.

FINDING THE SILVER LINING WITH LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE:  The PowerGuys note a silver lining - however despondent her current tone, at least Ms. Obama has dropped her earlier threat to have Barack harangue and harass me if I show apathy or switch the channel over to the Yankees.

Could Richard Cohen Be More Absurdly Clueless?

The WaPo's Richard Cohen pens a paean to Obama's courageous and independent fashion sense:

Sometimes I think the best thing about Barack Obama is that little empty space on his lapel. It is where other politicians wear the American flag pin, a kitschy piece of empty symbolism that tells you nothing about that particular person except that he or she thinks like everyone else. Obama's flag, invisible to the naked eye, is the Jolly Roger of a politician thinking for himself.

Cohen dutifully notes that Evil men have hidden behind a flag pin:

I suspect more to the point -- and much more important than votes on veterans' issues -- was Obama's sense that the flag pin, rather than representing patriotism, was an emblem of conformity and hypocrisy. Richard Nixon, for instance, sported one while undermining the Constitution and, in private, cursing all sorts of minority groups. And history does not record whether his vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, took his off on the solemn occasions when he received bribes in the White House. Somehow, the flag pin did not improve the character of either man.

The glow goes on - a bit more, and you will more than have the flavor:

Many people will read a lot of meaning into Obama's refusal to wear the pin. Some will see it as a lack of patriotism, an emotional distance from the country that has served him so well. Others, such as I, will see it as an expression of cool, the statement of a candidate who wants to be president but not at the cost of his intellectual integrity. And still others (me again) will see it as Obama's push-back, his reluctance to do something simply because it is demanded of him.

An allergy to cant can be an admirable quality in a politician, although not necessarily a politically smart one.

In brief - Obama doesn't wear a flag pin - isn't he the coolest?

And the punchline - actually, he is at best tied for coolest, since John Sidney McCain does not wear a pin regularly either.

I am trying to imagine Cohen delivering this column with "McCain" substituted for "Obama" throughout.  E.g., the conclusion:

Still, it is bracing to see a presidential candidate recoil, for the most part, from the orthodoxies of pandering. In this regard, the lack of a flag pin has become an important sign of [McCain's] desire to think for himself. For all it says about [McCain], I salute it.

Send in the clowns.

MORE:  Stupidity spotters across the pond take note of Cohen:

I credit Cohen's good intention in defending Obama, but frankly, not his laziness in making a reflexive and utterly false assumption and assertion. The idea that everybody wears these pins is classic Stephen Colbertian "truthiness" at work. There was a time when it was true. But that time ended a few years ago.