JustOneMinute

Why Would He Think That?

Obama gets annoyed by the oddest things.  This is from his "Wright is Wrong (Finally!)" press conference:

"And what I think particularly angered me was [Wright's] suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing."

And why ever would Wright have thought that?  Here is the Pastor of Disaster telling Jodi Kantor of the Times about the circumstances behind Wright's disinvitation to the Obama campaign kick-off.  Her reporting included this:

Mr. Wright said that in the phone conversation in which Mr. Obama disinvited him from a role in the announcement, Mr. Obama cited an article in Rolling Stone, “The Radical Roots of Barack Obama.”

According to the pastor, Mr. Obama then told him, “You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.”

In his follow-up, Wright unloaded:

I do not remember reading in your article that Barack had apologized for listening to that bad information and bad advice. Did I miss it? Or did your editor cut it out?

Ms. Kantor also printed the thoughts of the campaign spokesman:

Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said the campaign disinvited Mr. Wright because it did not want the church to face negative attention. Mr. Wright did however, attend the announcement and prayed with Mr. Obama beforehand.

“Senator Obama is proud of his pastor and his church, but because of the type of attention it was receiving on blogs and conservative talk shows, he decided to avoid having statements and beliefs being used out of context and forcing the entire church to defend itself,” Mr. Burton said.

The statement itself sounds like posturing; if the explanation offered by Wright is accurate, he had every reason to believe it was.  The Obama people had seen this Rolling Stone article which presented an edited version of Wright's Ten Facts About America.  The full list, transcribed by Sweetness (or Light)  includes the AIDS conspiracy.

Tom Bevan has lots more about the circumstances under which Obama couldn't quite bring himself to say good-bye to Wright in early 2007.

Now, for everyone other than Wright, there are a number of questions raised by this, none of which have good answers for Obama.  First, was Obama's March speech just posturing?  Second, how could it have taken Obama six weeks (not to mention twenty years) to figure out that the Wright the rest of America saw in those news clips shouting "God DAMN America" was the real Wright?  Where is the judgment?  How can Obama have this nation's confidence in negotiating with foreign leaders or making senior level Administration appointments when he was so wrong about Wright for so long?

Re The "Bill Ayers Never Killed Anyone" Defense

Sorry for the current no-links, but one often sees unrepentant Weatherman Bill Ayers defended with the notion that they planned their bombings to avoid casualties - sort of a "the medium was the message, not the casualties" idea [see UPDATE].  This defense does devalue the Weathermen who blew themselves up while making bombs, and the four people who died in a Weather-related NY bank robbery.

And now the NY Post provides this:

I was only 9 then, the year Ayers' Weathermen tried to murder me.

In February 1970, my father, a New York State Supreme Court justice, was presiding over the trial of the so-called "Panther 21," members of the Black Panther Party indicted in a plot to bomb New York landmarks and department stores. Early on the morning of Feb. 21, as my family slept, three gasoline-filled firebombs exploded at our home on the northern tip of Manhattan, two at the front door and the third tucked neatly under the gas tank of the family car.

I still recall, as though it were a dream, thinking that someone was lifting and dropping my bed as the explosions jolted me awake, and I remember my mother pulling me from the tangle of sheets and running to the kitchen where my father stood. Through the large windows overlooking the yard, all we could see was the bright glow of flames below. We didn't leave our burning house for fear of who might be waiting outside. The same night, bombs were thrown at a police car in Manhattan and two military recruiting stations in Brooklyn. Sunlight, the next morning, revealed three sentences of blood-red graffiti on our sidewalk: Free the Panther 21; The Viet Cong have won; Kill the pigs.

For the next 18 months, I went to school in an unmarked police car. My mother, a schoolteacher, had plainclothes detectives waiting in the faculty lounge all day. My brother saved a few bucks because he didn't have to rent a limo for the senior prom: The NYPD did the driving.

In many ways, the enormity of the attempt to kill my entire family didn't fully hit me until years later, when, a father myself, I was tucking my own 9-year-old John Murtagh into bed.

Though no one was ever caught or tried for the attempt on my family's life, there was never any doubt who was behind it.Only a few weeks after the attack, the New York contingent of the Weathermen blew themselves up making more bombs in a Greenwich Village townhouse.

Weather involvement is not proven, but this ought to be researched (but not by me, right now; sorry [but see UPDATE II]).

My message - the Ayers-Obama connection is much deeper than most people realize - both worked together on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an attempt to reform Chicago's public schools, from 1995 to 2001 (or thereabouts).

Obama did not volunteer this link when asked about Ayers in the Philadelphia debate or at his website, although he seemed to allude to it in his Fox News interview by mentioning an education related board on which Obama served with Bill Ayers' father and brother.  But the Chicago Annenberg Challenge is quite different from the Woods Fund of Chicago, where Obama and Ayers overlapped as board members.  Ayers led the founding the the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and Obama was the first chairman, so they had to be working together.  And a bonus angle - public school reform is obviously a hot topic, and Obama's foray into it led nowhere.  Sort of like Hilary with health care, except that mid-90's failure is well known.

Summary here; lots of details and links here.

UPDATE:  As one example of the "never killed anyone" defense, here is The Politico:

But — unlike some other fringe figures of the era — they’re also flatly unrepentant about the bombings they committed in the name of ending the war, defending them on the grounds that they killed no one, except, accidentally, their own members.

Here is the Times profile on Ayers; he is quoted as saying ''I didn't kill innocent people''.

UPDATE II:  Page 98 of "The Way The Wind Blew:A History of the Weather Underground" By Ron Jacobs informs us that the weathermen tried to bomb the Murtagh family.  It also tells us that at that time the Weatherman cells of 3-5 people were dispersed across the country and in only sporadic, irregular contact; Ayers was not in the NYC cell that bombed the Murtaghs and then blew themselves up a few weeks later.  That said, we are also told that each cell was committed to armed action.

 

By odd coincidence, the chapter in which this information appears opens with a discussion of the feminist rift with the Weather Undergound initiated by Robin Morgan, who happens to have been in the news the last few weeks with a new book and a controversial essay reprising the 1970 essay mentioned in the Weatherman book.

You Don't Know Me, But...

Time was when Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama were pretty tight, what with Barack accepting a call to Jesus after a Wright sermon and packing tapes of Wright's sermons to provide edification while at Harvard.  But now Barack tell us that Wright was "never my, quote-unquote, "spiritual adviser."  He was never my "spiritual mentor" and in fact, Obama couldn't pick Wright out of a line-up if the only other person in it was Bill Ayers.

Jim Geraghty and Jim Lindgren remember happier days.

When Life Hands You Lemons...

When life hands you lemons, get drunk on vodka tonics - that, I infer is the principle guiding Andrew Sullivan, who lauds Obama's press conference:

We also know that this clear repudiation of Wright's toxic, indeed "ridiculous" views on AIDS, 9/11 and permanent immiseration of people of color could not have happened unless Wright had made it necessary.

Now, wait - I certainly and emphatically do NOT "know" that this "clear repudiation" of Wright's views on AIDS "could not have happened unless Wright had made it necessary".  What prevented Obama from specifically noting and denouncing Wright's absurdities in his March Wright speech?  A denunciation of the AIDS conspiracy theory would have fit the rhetorical flow just fine.  [And let's add that, per this 2005 RAND study, belief in the AIDS conspiracy leads to decreased condom use, increased risk of HIV infection, and, we presume, increased loss of life.  This conspiracy belief ought to be denounced at every reasonable opportunity, since silence equals death.  So where was Barack's leadership in his March 2008 speech, when he was well aware of Wright's position?]

Instead, Obama contented himself with denouncing statements that were vaguely described as "not only wrong but divisive".  And he recycled his classic formulation, assuring us that "I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy" without risking the public's ire by detailing just what the controversies were.

But now, in slightly more dire political circumstances, Wright has finally made it possible for Obama to speak the truth about the US government and AIDS.  What a relief.  And what leadership from Obama.

Andrew goes on:

Skeptics may wonder whether Wright actually deliberately did Obama a favor. I doubt it. But a favor it unintentionally is.

This introduces the concept of the "Pyrrhic Favor".

ERRATA:  Noo, my high hope that "Pyrrhic favor" was an original coinage has gone up in smoke.

CAUGHT ON FILM:  Cool photo of Andrew's World.

Now They Tell Us (So THAT Was The Controversy!)

The "All The News" team finally deigns to tell their readers just why Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former pastor, is so controversial.  Here is the second paragraph from their coverage of the Obama press conference:

At a news conference here, Mr. Obama denounced remarks Mr. Wright made in a series of televised appearances over the last several days. In the appearances, Mr. Wright has suggested that the United States was attacked because it engaged in terrorism on other people and that the government was capable of having used the AIDS virus to commit genocide against minorities. His remarks also cast Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, in a positive light.

By way of comparison to this starburst of illumination, this story by Alessandra Stanley represented yesterday's front-page coverage of Wright's National Press Club appearance and Moyers interview.

Any mention of Louis Farrakhan?  No.

Any mention of Wright's suggestion that the United States was attacked because it had engaged in terrorism?  Yes! 

[Bill Moyers] also gave Mr. Wright a chance to deconstruct the fiery sermon that seemed to blame America for the Sept. 11 attacks and clarify that he was quoting a former ambassador and intended to condemn the American government, not the nation itself.

Hmm, that is a pretty sympathetic depiction, but at least the issue is noted - baby steps!

Finally, any mention of Wright's promotion of the theory that the US government is responsible for the HIV virus?  Of course not.

Anyone foolish enough to rely exclusively on the Times for their news must have been mystified to learn that Wright's bland presentations actually provoked an Obama press conference and represented a new crisis for the Obama campaign.  But today in TimesWorld a bit more of the truth is out there.

However, even today the Times can't quite bring themselves fully to describe the Obama-Wright entanglement.  They offer this:

Mr. Obama tried to cut all his ties to — and to discredit — Mr. Wright, the man who presided at Mr. Obama’s wedding and baptized his two daughters.

Well, the ties run much deeper then that; there is not much doubt that the "spiritual mentor" label fits accurately.  To be fair, today's story makes additional points in paragraph three hundred (approx.):

Mr. Obama became a Christian after hearing a 1988 sermon of Mr. Wright’s called “The Audacity to Hope.”

...Mr. Obama toted recordings of Mr. Wright’s sermons to law school.  Mr. Obama titled his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention “The Audacity of Hope,” and gave his next book the same name.

What, not enough ink to include any of that at the top?  And nothing about the Obama's generous donations to the church.  Whatever.  The real story is not the ongoing phoniness at the Times, but rather the ongoing phoniness of the Obama campaign.  Let's mock this, from Obama's press conference (transcript):

“I’m outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday,” Mr. Obama said. He added: “I find these comments appalling. It contradicts everything that I’m about and who I am.”

Or this:

[Wright's remarks] certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Reverend Wright thinks that that's political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn't know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought, either.

Yet no one who saw and embraced the "caricature" of Wright created by the endless "God DAMN America... her chickens are coming home to roost" newsloops saw anything surprising or new in Wright's Press Club spectacle.  Obama should have been appalled six weeks ago, or a year ago when he launched his campaign sans Wright, or ten years ago when he might have quietly left Wright's church.

Instead, despite this ongoing failure of judgment and inability to read Wright's character he wants us to trust his judgment in negotiations with America's enemies and with myriad appointments to the top posts of government.  Right.

Here is some more wishful thinking from Obama:

SEN. OBAMA: There's been great damage [to his relationship with Wright]. You know, I -- it may have been unintentional on his part, but, you know, I do not see that relationship being the same after this. Now, to some degree, you know -- I know that one thing that he said was true, was that he wasn't -- you know, he was never my, quote-unquote, "spiritual adviser."

He was never my "spiritual mentor." He was -- he was my pastor. And so to some extent, how, you know, the -- the press characterized in the past that relationship, I think, wasn't accurate.

But he was somebody who was my pastor, and married Michelle and I, and baptized my children, and prayed with us at -- when we announced this race. And so, you know -- so I'm disappointed.

For reasons mentioned above, the proposition that Wright was never his spiritual mentor is absurd.

As they surely say in Obama's exclusive Hyde park neighborhood, Obama is croutons.

And we still haven't fully plumbed his Ayers' deceptions and misdirections.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY:  It was April 30, 2007 that the Times ran a profile on Wright and I wondered (with Mickey) why no one seemed to be paying attention.

Does Wright have their attention now?

Let's award a special Eerily Prescient Prize to Mickey for this from one year ago:

I suspect Rev. Wright is going to be a bigger problem for Obama's campaign than has been conventionally perceived. When Obama declared "we worship an awesome God in the blue states," were voters expecting this?

That trumps my bold speculation:

How will Barack distance himself from his minister of twenty years? What should we expect, a Minister Souljah moment?  Mr. Wright, you're wrong?

Looks like "Mr. Wright, you're wrong" paid off.

MISTRUST BUT VERIFY:  I love this Obamadulation almost from Steve Benen:

The subtext [of the Obama press conference] was less than subtle: “If Wright thinks he’s going to sabotage my vanity, narcissism, and desire to grandstand for his own vanity, narcissism, and desire to grandstand, he’s crazy.”

Hard to believe I copied that correctly.

 

Obama's Big Prayer Meeting

Apparently Obama assembled his top campaign supporters and double-dog denounced Jeremiah Wright.

Your thoughts and intriguing links welcome.

My stray thought - if Obama is denied the nomination because of his relationship with a black minister, however angry/kooky, there will be Hades to pay in the Dem Party.  Far better that Obama blow up because of his relationship with the unrepentant and very pale terrorist Bill Ayers. 

UHH... : "Blow up" is a common expression indicating sudden and dramatic failure, not a literal explosion; with Ayers involved, a clarification seems appropriate.

AllahPundit

Andrew Sullivan

Marc Ambinder

Obama Prayer Meeting Transcript

If Wright Should Be Mercifully Silent...

If Jeremiah Wright falls silent and folks start feeling withdrawal pangs, I think we had a good story brewing with Obama's other friend, unrepentant Weatherman Bill Ayers.

The gist - Bill Ayers was instrumental in setting up the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Fund in 1995, a foundation committed to public school reform.  Ayers then set up and co-chaired a companion group, the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, which worked closely with the Challenge Fund.  And did I mention the chairman of the Challenge Fund?  Barack Obama himself.

So, Barack's first foray into the very important problem of public education reform.  Did he bring people together and deliver real change?  Not exactly - the project was widely viewed as not successful, and the final report said it had "little impact".

Well, did he work closely with Bill Ayers on this vital topic for several years, only to go blank and remember Ayers only as " guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago" when he was asked about Ayers in a nationally televised debate?  His website is also a cipher on this relationship.  Seems odd - since education reform is always a hot topic, why isn't Barack touting his experience in the field?

Well, maybe this wasn't really a major foray by Barack into the public policy arena; maybe he was just a figurehead whose lack of executive or political experience led to his being pushed to one side and left him with no notable memories.  Hmm, hard to see Barack admitting during his Presidential run that he lost interest in education reform years ago, but it has been an odd campaign. 

I am not quite sure how Barack would hope to spin this, but it would be nice if he could start by describing his relationship with Ayers and his time on the Challenge Fund honestly.  Lots of links at the long version here.

"Fat And Fit" Out

Get moving, ladies:

Exercise-heart study casts doubt on 'fit but fat' theory

By  LINDSEY TANNER  –  19 hours ago

CHICAGO (AP) — New research challenges the notion that you can be fat and fit, finding that being active can lower but not eliminate heart risks faced by heavy women. "It doesn't take away the risk entirely. Weight still matters," said Dr. Martha Gulati, a heart specialist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Previous research has gone back and forth on whether exercise or weight has a greater influence on heart disease risks.

...

The study by Harvard-affiliated researchers appears in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine.

...

Women were considered active if they followed government-recommended guidelines and got at least 30 minutes of moderate activity most days of the week, including brisk walking or jogging. Women who got less exercise than that were considered inactive.

Weight was evaluated by body mass index: A BMI between 25 and 29 is considered overweight, while obese is 30 and higher.

Compared with normal-weight active women, the risk for developing heart disease was 54 percent higher in overweight active women and 87 percent higher in obese active women. By contrast, it was 88 percent higher in overweight inactive women; and 2 1/2 times greater in obese inactive women.

About two in five U.S. women at age 50 will eventually develop heart attacks or other cardiovascular problems. Excess weight can raise those odds in many ways, including by increasing blood pressure and risks for diabetes, and by worsening cholesterol. Exercise counteracts all three.

"It is reassuring to see that physical activity really does make an impact," said lead author Dr. Amy Weinstein of Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. However, she added, "If you're overweight or obese, you can't really get back to that lower risk entirely with just physical activity alone."

No news for the lads, but we can guess.

Who Is Ambassador Peck And What Did He Say To Inspire Jeremiah Wright?

In his infamous "Chickens coming home to roost" sermon on Sept 16, 2001, Jeremiah Wright claimed to be quoting, or at least echoing, Edward Peck, a retired Carter-era Ambassador to Iraq, in an appearance on Fox News:

I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday, did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the Fox News commentators to no end. He pointed out, did you see him John, a white man, and he pointed out, an ambassador, that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammed was in fact true, America’s chickens are coming home to roost....

We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South  Africans and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now  brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to  roost.

Alan Colmes of Fox News discounted this:

COLMES: Over the course of the past few months it's been alleged that the sound bite played on television is unfair because it doesn't include Wright's disclaimer right afterwards that he was quoting of Ed Peck in an interview from September 15th, 2001 right here on the FOX News channel.

But "Hannity & Colmes" can report exclusively tonight that after reviewing the Peck interview Peck never used the phrase "chickens coming home to roost" and that Wright went further in criticizing U.S. policy than Peck did in his interview on FOX.

So if Peck didn't say what Wright insinuates, are the ideas expressed in the sermon really Wright's or were they therefore taken out of context?

But if Mr. Colmes told us what Ambassador Peck actually did say, I can't find it.

And apparently, although the Hounds of Lexis have been loosed, no one can find the Sept 15 discussion in question.

However, Wright seems to be at least partly right here - the NewsHounds have found two cites confirming a peck appearance on Fox similar to what Wright described.  First, a Paul Krassner, writing on Sept 15:

On the Fox News Network, Edward Peck, former ambassador to Iraq, was an unusually outspoken guest. He said the terrorists acted as they did not because America is a freedom loving country, but because they feel the U.S. has been treating them the same way throughout the years--bombing Iraq for the last ten years whenever they felt like it--and adding to the list (Take Panama, take Haiti, take Cambodia) before he was cut off and dismissed.

Secondly, the always-reliable, gold-plated, take to the bank anonymous Yahoo poster:

Did anyone else catch this on Sat.? Peck has served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq, I don't recall when. Channel 5 made the mistake of bringing him on as a talking head.  He said the U.S. never slammed a plane into thousands of innocent civilians because the U.S. didn't have to.  He said the U.S. in its war against terror had better start respecting others' rights.  He said the no-fly zone in Iraq was not in the UN agreement that ended Desert Storm; it was simply imposed by the U.S. and "the former Great Britain."  He said the U.S. lawlesly imposed its will on Panama, Granada and Haiti.  The Ch. 5 guy got on his high horse and said people like Chamberlain in WW II had followed the letter of the law and let the madman Hitler go on, but Peck stuck to his guns.  He must figure he's old now and will risk his life to speak the truth -- a sentiment I well understand.

Leaving us where?  Fox really ought to release a transcript of Peck's Sept 15 appearance (and what kind of a Right Wing Noise Machine are we if we can't even get a little cooperation from Fox?).  My bet is that Peck mentioned neither Malcolm X nor roosting chickens, but did express the notion that we brought this upon ourselves.  And the two sources above cite Panama, Haiti, Cambodia, and Granada but omit the Sioux, the Apache, the slave trade, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Libya, the Sudan, Palestinians, and Black South Africans; if the Ambassador omitted most of that list I will concur with Mr. Colmes that Wright extrapolated freely (and let's note that Peck is a Carter guy, so support for the Palestinians may well have been included).  As to the Lexis failure, well, it's baffling.

And what is up with Wright's emphasis that Peck was a white guy?  Is there a world in which almost all whites are warmongers, and all blacks are anti-war?  A real world, I mean, not WrightWorld.

Feelin' Bad For Obama's Grandma

Oh, my - with all this Jeremiah Wright flapping, it looks like Obama will have to disown his grandmother any day now.

WLS produces a howler tracking the progression of Andrew Sullivan's thoughts as Wright Day unfolded.

And Sully delivers a brilliant punchline:

We need a speech or statement from Obama in which he utterly repudiates this poison, however personally difficult that may be, however damaging the impact will be. The statement today will not do it. This is no longer about cynics trying to associate one man's politics with another. It is  now about Wright attempting to associate himself and some of his noxious, stupid, rancid views with the likely Democratic nominee. Wright has given Obama no choice - and he has also given him another opportunity. He needs to seize it.

Here's your newsflash - Obama has already given a speech on Wright.  Now he's supposed to give another one?  Saying what - "Gee, when I didn't disown Wright in March for saying "God DAMN America", it was because I didn't realize then that he meant it"?  What has changed?  Andrew seems to think that this is a different Jeremiah Wright from the man made famous by his soundbites in March, the man about whom Obama said "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.  I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother".

Or is Obama going to try and pretend that, unlike everyone in the world except Andrew Sullivan, he had no idea until late April that Wright was hateful?

Some Wright coverage:

Wright transcript, National Press Club

Dana Milbank, Wright's Voice Could Spell Doom For Obama

The NY Times John Holusha tosses flowers and shields their readers from any unpleasantness.  His lead:

Attacks on him are really attacks on the black church, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. said in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington on Monday, in which he mounted a spirited defense of views and sermons that have become an issue in the presidential campaign because Senator Barack Obama attended his church for many years.

People who rely on the Paper of Record will wonder what the fuss was about; here, for example, is their Farrakhan coverage:

He rejected suggestions that his willingness to associate with Louis Farrakhan, the head of the Nation of Islam, meant that he was anti-Semitic. He said Mr. Farrakhan was “not my enemy” and was too important a black leader to be ignored. When Mr. Farrakhan speaks, he said, “all black America listens — whether they agree with him or not, they listen.”

Times readers avert your eyes; here is the transcript (my emphasis):

MODERATOR: What is your relationship with Louis Farrakhan? Do you agree with and respect his views, including his most racially divisive views?

REVEREND WRIGHT: As I said on the Bill Moyers' show, one of our news channels keeps playing a news clip from 20 years ago when Louis said 20 years ago that Zionism, not Judaism, was a gutter religion.

And he was talking about the same thing United Nations resolutions say, the same thing now that President Carter is being vilified for, and Bishop Tutu is being vilified for. And everybody wants to paint me as if I'm anti-Semitic because of what Louis Farrakhan said 20 years ago.

I believe that people of all faiths have to work together in this country if we're going to build a future for our children, whether those people are -- just as Michelle and Barack don't agree on everything, Raymond (ph) and I don't agree on everything, Louis and I don't agree on everything, most of you all don't agree -- you get two people in the same room, you've got three opinions.

So what I think about him, as I've said on Bill Moyers and it got edited out, how many other African-Americans or European-Americans do you know that can get one million people together on the mall? He is one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century. That's what I think about him.

I've said, as I said on Bill Moyers, when Louis Farrakhan speaks, it's like E.F. Hutton speaks, all black America listens. Whether they agree with him or not, they listen.

Now, I am not going to put down Louis Farrakhan anymore than Mandela would put down Fidel Castro. Do you remember that Ted Koppel show, where Ted wanted Mandela to put down Castro because Castro was our enemy? And he said, "You don't tell me who my enemies are. You don't tell me who my friends are."

Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains. He did not put me in slavery. And he didn't make me this color.

That bit about Mandela putting down Castro must have baffled lefties - isn't Castro a hero?

By way of comparison, the WaPo conveys a sense of controversy; their lead:

Sen. Barack Obama again sought to distance himself from the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. yesterday after his former pastor capped a weekend media offensive with an appearance in Washington in which he revisited many of his most controversial comments.

Here is the WaPo on Farrakhan:

Wright also restated the idea that HIV was invented as a weapon against minority communities, had kind words for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and railed against American imperialism.

This next bit is either funny or pathetic - let's compare the Times and WaPo in their treatment of the initial Wright controversies.  The Times, third paragraph, reveals nothing:

Snippets from his sermons have been used in Republican commercials seeking to depict Senator Obama as unpatriotic, and the Democratic presidential candidate has given a carefully calibrated speech seeking to distance himself from Mr. Wright’s more inflammatory statements.

And the WaPo, fourth paragraph:

Wright, the former pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago who officiated at Obama's wedding and baptized his two daughters, became the center of controversy after clips from some of his most inflammatory sermons hit the airwaves earlier this year. In one sermon, delivered the Sunday after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Wright said that "America's chickens are coming home to roost" for its own acts of "terrorism." In another, he said blacks should sing "God damn America" instead of "God Bless America" to protest centuries of mistreatment.

Finally, the WaPo includes the news that Wright dissed Obama's distancing:

"He had to distance himself, because he's a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was anti-American. He said I didn't offer any words of hope. How would he know? He never heard the rest of the sermon. You never heard it," Wright said.

The NY Times had nothing on that.  Actually, I am curious to see the Dead Tree edition of the Tuesday Times - this story is so weak, I bet it will be rewritten.  And this Alessandra Stanley piece describes the theatrics but not the controversies.

LATE NOTE:  The Times front-paged the Stanley Gossip Girls piece which also failed to provide any background on the Wright controversies.

Wright Is Wrong On Sudan

I can't imagine having the time or inclination to fact-check every assertion and accusation made by Jeremiah Wright, but this, from the newly-released ABC News transcripts of his ghastly sermons, struck me:

We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hardworking people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they would never get back home.

Clinton's bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan was a debacle, but were there "hundreds" of civilian casualties?  The Times reported that

There were no known deaths at the plant, which was hit at night, when it was closed, but local reports said 10 people were hospitalized, 4 of them in critical condition.

...A hospital spokesman said today that 10 people wounded from the strike were admitted to the wards. Four of them were in critical condition, he said. The plant does not operate at night, and there were apparently few workers around during the attack.

Or, from the London Observer:

Sudan has said 10 people were injured, five seriously.

I didn't save the link, but the argument has been offered that since the factory in Sudan made medicine, the US bombing reduced available medicine in Sudan; therefore, we killed civilians.  But clearly Wright is talking about people who were killed that day.

Different But Equal

Jake Tapper tells us about Jeremiah Wright's speech to the NAACP:

The bulk of his remarks addressed, however, different groups seeing each other as deficient. He acted out the differences between marching bands at predominantly black and predominantly white colleges. "Africans have a different meter, and Africans have a different tonality," he said. Europeans have seven tones, Africans have five. White people clap differently than black people. "Africans and African-Americans are right-brained, subject-oriented in their learning style," he said. "They have a different way of learning." And so on.

Hmm - I would have guessed that clapping on the downbeat was a social construct, but I am not as well educated as Jeremiah Wright.  That said, I am trying to imagine the reaction if a white figure announced that black brains were different.

UPDATE:  Hilzoy disputes the interpretation which understood Wright to be making (or Tapper reporting) a neurological distinction between brains based on race:

Likewise, Wright claimed that black and white children tend to have different learning styles. I have no idea whether this is true or not, as a generalization, but suppose, for the sake of argument, that it is: it would not begin to imply any differences in brain structure. By the time kids arrive at school (and Wright was talking about school kids), they have, obviously, absorbed a lot from the people around them. In particular, they have gotten used to learning from the people around them in different ways, to paying attention to different sorts of cues, and to different kinds of activities. These are the sorts of things that go into a "learning style": are you a kid who learns best by silently reading? by talking things through with other people? by trial and error? by putting things in your mouth, taking them apart, turning them over so you can see what you can do with them?

There is no earthly reason to think either (a) that kids from different cultures might not have very different learning styles, or (b) that if they did, this would reflect some sort of neurological difference. None at all. In a culture in which children are taught that they should be seen but not heard, they are probably less likely to learn by talking things through, at least with adults. In a culture in which children are expected to be very quiet and not cause trouble, they are less likely to learn by seeing what they can do with things. This is obvious. And it's what Rev. Wright was talking about.

I suppose that what sent Ed Morrissey off on this tangent was this: “Africans and African-Americans are right-brained, subject-oriented in their learning style,” he said. “They have a different way of learning.” If you just focus on the adjective "right-brained", and leave out what that phrase is supposed to modify ("learning style"), I suppose it can sound neurological. But a right-brained learning style doesn't have to involve any neurological difference; it's just a learning style that tends to draw more on right-brain capacities than on left-brain ones. There's no reason that I can see to assume that the reason someone ends up with a given learning style has to be the structure of that person's brain, as opposed to the ways in which the people around them act.

Well.  Some of these things are not so obvious to me.  If an entire culture was oriented to a particular learning style, I would be reluctant to assume that this was simply arbitrary, and that another learning style would be just as effective.  It strikes me as plausible that a culture would have hit upon a teaching style that matches up well (on average, obviously) with their chidren's learning style; if a different culture has a wildly different style, it would suggest that differences in the kids should be considered.  (I am certain people have pondered the elaborate Asian lettering/drawing schemes and its impact on learning styles).

And to say a "right brained style" versus a "left brained style" does not automatically have to imply a neurological difference is true enough, but it is equally true that it does not have to imply a neurological sameness.  The unanswered question is whether the style choice is arbitrary or reflects some cultural adaption to the innate ability of that culture's children.  At which point I suppose a proper lib will complete the circle by insisting there are no differences, so the style choice must have been arbitrary.

Or to step away from race for a second to illustrate my point - what of the popular notion that boys prefer to play with trucks and girls with dolls?  Biology, or social construct?  My strong impression is that lots of research documents fundamental sex-based differences in brains, and suggests  a differentiation of sex-based learning styles.

There are two issues in play here - what is the "truth" (good luck with that) and what did Wright actually say?  From the transcript:

Obama, This Could Really Be The End

Noo, not the newly enhanced Ayers scandal - the newly enhanced and remastered Dylan basement tapes.

 

Just Fact-Checking

Barack Obama has a new entanglement with unrepentant Weatherman Bill Ayers which I detail below.  The gist is this - back in the mid-90's Bill Ayers was instrumental in the creation and early operation of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an effort committed to the reform of Chicago's public schools.  Barack Obama was Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which suggests he worked closely with Ayers for several years.

Yet in his recent nationally televised appearances and at his website, Obama fails to mention this Ayers entanglement.  Why so coy?  It's hard to believe he actually forgot his executive role in this important foray into public policy; that said, the Chicago Challenge foundered on the hard rocks of Chicago politics and was widely viewed as ineffective, so perhaps he would prefer not to highlight his failure to bring people together and produce real change.

Or maybe Obama was a do-nothing figurehead who honestly forgot that Bill Ayers was running the show.  Awkward spin, that.  In any case, there is also a question of shared values.  Ayers brings a highly progressive approach to education - dare we ask whether Obama shares his values?

Details and plenty of background links after the break.

Obama And Ayers Worked Together Once? (Johnson and Maguire Are Now?)

Politics makes strange bedfellows, and I do not refer exclusively to the odd pairing of Barack Obama and unrepentant Weatherman Bill Ayers.  Larry Johnson, with whom I have had the occasional disagreement in the past, has a fascinating piece on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge which leads us to believe that Obama has been repeatedly misrepresenting and misunderestimating the extent of his relationship with Ayers.

In 1995, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was created to raise funds to help reform the Chicago public schools. One of the architects of the Challenge was none other than Professor Bill Ayers. Ayers co-wrote the initial grant proposal and proudly lists himself on his own website as the co-founder of the Challenge.

And who was the Chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Fund in its early years and involved with until 2003?  That would be Barack Obama.  That is a cozier relationship between these two than we have formerly been led to believe [See, for example the Fox News transcript, in the UPDATE.].

Let me toss into the mix some additional research for my new main man Larry.

Here is a 60 page history of the first three years of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (and an overview here).  Bill Ayers is mentioned repeatedly, but Barack Obama is only mentioned in a late supporting note, and it is far from clear what his role was [Jeralyn Merritt says, not much; Hot Air links to other "Not Muchers"]. 

And here is a bonus link (indirectly) between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers; both Obama and Ayers' father, Thomas Ayers, served on  the “Leadership Council” of the Chicago Public Schools Education Fund.

Interesting - Ayers made himself an authority on public education, and has advised Chicago's current mayor, so he and Barack may well have crossed paths many times.  Why public education?  To advance the revolution, or so I infer from the Ayers website:

This is my fourth visit to Venezuela, each time at the invitation of my comrade and friend Luis Bonilla, a brilliant educator and inspiring fighter for justice. Luis has taught me a great deal about the Bolivarian Revolution and about the profound educational reforms underway here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution, and I’ve come to appreciate Luis as a major asset in both the Venezuelan and the international struggle—I look forward to seeing how he and all of you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane.

Dare we ask whether Obama shared these values?

Stray Thought - wasn't Michelle Obama hired to work for Daley in some capacity [Yes, and thanks.]?  Did she and Ayers also intersect?  One wonders, since Mr. Johnson notes a possible overlap of Michelle Obama and William Ayers' wife, Bernardine Dohrn, at Sidley Austin.  In fact, this post about Thomas Ayers and Obama is thought-provoking, especially since Obama seems to be conflating the father and son in his Fox News interview (see UPDATE below).

UPDATE:  Here is how Obama described his relationship to Ayers on Fox News:

Now, Mr. Ayres [Ayers] is a 60 plus year old individual who lives in my neighborhood, who did something that I deplore 40 years ago when I was six or seven years old. By the time I met him, he was a professor of education at the University of Illinois.

We served on a board together that had Republicans, bankers, lawyers, focused on education, who worked for Mayor Daley. Mayor Daley, the same Mayor Daley probably who when he was a state attorney prosecuted Mr. Ayres’s wife for those activities, I (INAUDIBLE) the point is that to somehow suggest that in any way I endorse his deplorable acts 40 years ago, because I serve on a board with him.

The board to which he refers is a bit of a mystery.  Obama and Ayers both served on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, but that was not "focused on education" and working for Mayor Daley.  And I don't think it would be fair to say the Annenberg Challenge Fund worked for Daley. 

On the other hand, the Leadership Council of the Chicago Public Schools Education Fund, noted above, seems to fit the description, but it was Ayers pere who was on the board.

The plot thickens.  My take is that in this answer Obama is alluding to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Fund, but inaccurately, while overlooking the well-known Woods Fund of Chicago link.  However, if there is yet another board connection between Ayers and Obama, bring it on.

In any case, the circumstances of the Ayers 1995 fund-raiser for Barack become much more intriguing.  Since Obama and Ayers worked together in 1995 as founder and Chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Fund, the idea that Ayers was just some guy from the neighborhood who happened to host a 1995 fundraiser for Barack is hard to sustain.

Obama also described his link to Ayers in the recent Philadelphia debate.  First, let's note how little Stephanopoulos knew:

An early organizing meeting for your state senate campaign was held at his house, and your campaign has said you are friendly.  Can you explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?

And from Obama:

SEN. OBAMA:  George, but this is an example of what I'm talking about [i.e., a distraction].                             

This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from.  He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.            

And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn't make much sense, George.

The Hillary oppo research had done a better job than Stephanopoulos, but still missed the Annenberg education link:

SEN. CLINTON:  Well, I think that is a fair general statement, but I also believe that Senator Obama served on a board with Mr. Ayers for a period of time, the Woods Foundation, which was a paid directorship position.  And if I'm not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York, and I would hope to every American, because they were published on 9/11 and he said that he was just sorry they hadn't done more.

Times reporters also missed the Annenberg connection in their post-debate follow up, as did Fox News, and per News.Google I see that only Hot Air has a story on "Annenberg Obama Ayers", and that is 40 minute old.   

OK, let's have a cheering thought - McCain has been pushing Ayers but not Wright as his Obama scandal of choice.  One bit of speculation I saw (sorry for the no-link right now) is that McCain prefers to thump Obama on the white terrorist rather than the racially charged charged angry black minister.  But suppose McCain's people (or the RNC) have done their homework and figure there is more to Ayers than has met the eye?

We already have Obama being very parsimonious with the truth during a nationally televised debate and in a Fox interview.  What else may develop?

FISHING AT THE AYERS BLOG:  I am just paging through Ayers' posts on education, and this caught my eye:

If an historian speaks about Palestinian rights at Columbia University today, for example, the call goes up for “balance.” If an Israeli diplomat defends Israeli policies at the same place, there is no comparable hue and cry.

Ayers is quite an admirer of Edmund Said (Surprised?) and has an extended discussion of some Palestinian issues.

Military recruiting in the high schools is discussed here (Ayers is opposed.)

Time does not permit, but these are education-related values and positions held by Bill Ayers, a one-time colleague of Barack Obama.  Dare one ask, why did Obama choose to work with this guy?

 

Obama On Fox

Here is the transcript of Obama's appearance on Fox News with Chris Wallace.

Where's Bill?

Why has Bill Clinton lost it?  The NY Daily News offers lots of speculation, including this:

Many think he's just older, and perhaps his heart bypass surgery in 2004 took more of a toll than people realize.

"It is possible that Bill Clinton's recent gaffes are a result of his bypass operation," said Dr. Marc Siegel, an NYU associate professor who has interviewed Clinton's heart surgeon.

Siegel was referring to a personality-change phenomenon sometimes seen in bypass patients.

The eerily prescient Man Without Qualities wrote about this in 2004:

The Man Without Qualities has sometimes suggested that the recent woes of the Walt Disney Company may be attributable to Michael Eisner's becoming a "pump head" following his emergency cardiac bypass surgery.  Now Bill Clinton has joined Mr. Eisner as a quadruple  emergency bypass patient  - and prospective pump head.

While there is no guaranty that Mr. Clinton will be afflicted, the chances appear to be high that he may become what cardiologists call "a pump head." A Duke University study appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine in February, 2001, found that a substantial proportion of patients after coronary artery bypass surgery experience measurable impairment in their mental capabilities. Surgeons privately know this effect as "pump head." In the study, patients were tested for their cognitive capacity (i.e. mental ability) before surgery, six weeks, six months, and five years after bypass surgery. Patients were deemed to have significant impairment if they had a 20% decrease in test scores. This study had three major findings:

(1) Cognitive impairment occurs after bypass surgery;
(2) 42% of patients became impaired;
(3) The impairment was not temporary.

Also, the decline in mental capacity in those who had bypass surgery was 2 -3 times higher over five years than in patients who did not have surgery.

I feel bad for Bill if this is the cause.

Schizophrenia On Race At The Times

Times columnist Bob Herbert is utterly race-conscious and attuned to any and every hint of racism.  Here he is on the Obama's debacle with Jeremiah Wright:

Senator Obama has been thrown completely off his game by a combination of political attacks (some fair, some foul), a toxic eruption (the volcanic Jeremiah Wright was a gift from the gods to the Clintons and the G.O.P.), and some pretty serious self-inflicted wounds.

...

However one views the behavior of Bill and Hillary Clinton — and however large the race issue looms in this election, and it looms large — there can be no denying that an awful lot of Mr. Obama’s troubles have come from his side of the table. The Rev. Wright fiasco undermined the fundamental rationale of the entire Obama campaign — that it would be about healing, about putting partisanship aside, about reaching across ethnic and party divisions to bring people together in a new era of cooperation.

It’s hard to continue making that case when the candidate’s spiritual adviser is on television castigating America and scaring the hell out of at least some white people. Senator Obama did his best with his speech on race in Philadelphia, but the Wright story has extremely muscular legs. It has hurt the campaign far more than Mr. Obama’s comments about guns and religion in San Francisco.

As an aside, is it true that Wright's message that the US government created the AIDS virus to kill blacks only scares white people?  I would think would-be leaders such as Bob Herbert or Barack Obama would denounce this nonsense and promote the truth; per this 2006 RAND study, the AIDS conspiracy theory costs black lives.

Bit I digress; it seems fair to conclude from Mr. Herbert's discussion that Wright is a legitimate and important part of the Obama national conversation.  [And Obama himself apparently told Fox News the same thing.]

Yet here are the Times editors, on the same day, hacking away at the North Carolina ad linking Wright, Obama, and two candidates for the North Carolina governorship:

Manipulative. Shameful. Race-baiting. Those are the only words to describe a new television ad from the Republican Party running in North Carolina that attacks Senator Barack Obama as “too extreme” for the state.

...The ad is built around the well-known video clip of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. — Mr. Obama’s former pastor — declaring “God damn America.” We have said before that we find Rev. Wright’s oratory racist. And we have criticized Senator Obama for waiting too long to denounce it. His relationship with the Rev. Wright is undeniably a liability for his campaign.

But that’s not what this ad is about. The assertion that Mr. Obama is “just too extreme for North Carolina” is a clear bid to stir bigotry in a Southern state. The ad’s claim that its target is actually two Democratic gubernatorial candidates who endorsed Mr. Obama is ludicrous.

Hmm, that "well-known video clip" of Wright declaring "God damn America" has never been reported in the news section of the paper of record.  It has appeared, if I can rely on the Times own search engine, in columns by Maureen Dowd and Bill Kristol, and in the current editorial.  "Lots Of The News That's Fit To Print (All The News That Fits The Narrative)".

Leaving us where - Wright is an important part of the Obama story, but we can't actually quote him directly without engaging in race-baiting?  That's ridiculous, and is the political version of the soft bigotry of low expectations - Wright is an educated and articulate man but we can't hold him accountable for his views because, well, it's a black thing.

Or maybe "Too extreme for North Carolina" is code for "Too black for North Carolina".  Says who?  Why couldn't it just as well be code for "Obama wants to take away your guns!"?  That is at least as plausible.

Ann Althouse and Allahpundit have more, including a link to the ad itself; Ed Morrissey has context for "God DAMN America" (and it sounds better for Wright as just a soundbite).

Now The Times Wants Straight Talk On Trade

My goodness - the  Times is trying to re-focus on the issues, and that is not helping the Democrats:

Americans are angry about trade, and a lot of politicians — especially the two Democratic presidential candidates — are eager to capitalize on it. The country would be far better served by a serious, dare we say fact-based, discussion of what is causing the dislocations in American workers’ lives, how much trade is to blame and what government can do to help.

A Big Skip to their conclusion:

Blaming Nafta and other trade agreements for American workers’ pain may play well on the campaign stump. But it will not solve the country’s economic problems. It will only make them worse.

Well, talking about the fiscal "reality" behind his many promises won't help Barack; telling the truth about NAFTA won't help Barack; maybe he should take Gail Collins recent advice and focus on distractions like Hillary's trip to Bosnia.

The Numbers Don't Add Up

The NY Times carries on the high-minded policy discussion of the fiscal unreality behind the three candidates' proposals.  I have never felt so powerful.

Hmm, Looks Like There ARE Atheists In Foxholes

Ok, there are atheists in foxholes - who knew?

Obviously, some of the incidents of discrimination against atheists described in the Times story are troubling.  I look to President Obama to reform the military on a "Less Prayer, More Gays" platform, forcing religious observance underground and allowing gays to serve openly.  Why not - he should have a pretty good feel for the military culture, yes?

Edging Closer To Her TIME Cover

The Politico features Chelsea as her mom's secret weapon. I stand by my prediction of a TIME cover in Chelsea's near future.

The Times Goes After McCain, Whitewashes Reid

The Times editors talk up their earlier story on John McCain's relationship with a real estate developer, but whitewash Harry Reid.  Two excerpts:

In the mid-1990s, Mr. McCain’s staff helped Mr. Diamond snap up some prime California coast that he turned for a $20 million profit.

"Snapped up"?  This was tied in to an Army base closing which had Presidential attention, Senate legislation, and Congressional, Californian, and Defense Dept. oversight.  This was a slow and visible process.

And here is a Reid laugher:

Many members of Congress who represent the West have supported such exchanges [land swaps], and, compared with Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate majority leader from Nevada, Mr. McCain is something of a piker in this area. Mr. Reid is not the least bit embarrassed by bills that he sponsored that have given developers in growth-hungry Las Vegas access to vast acreage that was once off-limits to building.

Hmm, if the Times wanted to tell their readers what actual corruption looks like when a Senator teams up with a real estate developer, Harry Reid would have been a great object lesson.  From the Ed Morrissey, in the NY Post:

AP notes that Brown is a lobbyist, with reported links to organized crime. And he figures prominently in a federal criminal case - which concerns the bribery of members of the Clark County (Nev.) Zoning Commission by developers seeking changes to permit retail development on land they owned, vastly increasing its value.

As it happens, in 2001, the Clark County (Nev.) Zoning Commission approved a zoning change that allowed commercial/retail development on the land that Reid owned with Brown.

Then, the next year, Reid introduced and pushed into law the Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002. The senator heralded this as vital in protecting the environment near Las Vegas. In fact, however, the law forced the Department of the Interior to sell off 18,000 acres of land around Las Vegas, spurring development and boosting the value of real-estate investments in the region. (Not what anyone normally associates with "protecting the environment.")

Normally, the government would have to sell this land at auction, as land swaps had lost the federal government millions in southern Nevada. But Reid insisted on suspending that rule in his Clark County act. The developers that hired his sons as lobbyists prospered with the lower-cost acquisitions of prime real estate through the uneven swaps. Also in the money were those - like Harry Reid himself - who'd already invested money in Clark County real estate.

The L.A. Times revealed the Reid family's extensive connections with Clark County developers in June 2003, as well as Reid's extensive legislative interest in the land, but the Brown-Reid investment had not yet come to light - thanks to Reid's failure to disclose.

Had the investment been known, voters could have made the connection. The Senate Ethics Committee might have taken an interest as well - except that Harry Reid himself sat as the top Democrat on that panel.

Disclosures now are pointless. The ethics panel needs to order a full investigation not just into the $700,000 profit, but all of Reid's business partners and any legislation or intervention with federal regulators Reid pushed on their behalf.

Relatives hired, deals concealed, bills passed for personal gain, and big profits for the Senator - all missing in the McCain story, all present with Reid.

Obama For Chief Justice!

Jeralyn Merritt pulls at the spaghetti of Obama's positions on gun control; I especially love his answer on the constitutionality of the DC gun ban:

"I don't like taking a stand on pending cases."

Maybe Obama has been listening to too many Senate confirmation hearings and thinks he is running for the Supreme Court.  Well - the Department of Justice is part of the Executive Branch and still reports the President.  That being the case, if Obama becomes President he will, either directly or through his underlings, be commenting on pending cases every day through such mechanisms as press conferences, indictments, and amicus briefs.

Of course, if he is really, really uncomfortable with that, maybe it would be better if he not run for President, and just held out for a judicial appointment.  I'm sure President McCain could find a spot for him.

Let The High Minded Debate On Obama's Fiscal Insanity Begin

The WaPo editors point out that none of the three candidates have tax and spending plans that add up.  My call for a walk on the fiscal high road get results!  (Later, I predict a sunrise...)

So, some questions for Krugman's fans - how often did he tell us that rather than focus on whether Gore or Bush would be more enjoyable company over a brewski, he analyzed Bush's proposals, realized the numbers were phony, and warned us that Bush was the sort of lying liar who would lie us into a war with Iraq.  Or something like that.  Quite a few times, I'll warrant.

So when do we see a comparable Obama-basher?  Should be right down his alley.

Didja Hear The One About The "News" Man?

Here is a variation on "A priest, a lawyer, and a doctor walked into a bar..."
- Wouldn't it be great if Keith Olbermann walked into a room and no one came out.  OK, good point - no one with a functioning brain could come out.

Rachel Sklar at the HuffPo has more; Joan Walsh airs the Olby non-apology and explains why it is all about Joan Walsh (I'm not kidding, nor, I think, is she.)

Now, even years later we can find lefties citing Megan McArdle's mention of a two-by-four in a  physical context as a valid reason to loathe her forever, so we just know that lefties will be similarly tough on Olbermann, in light of real world misogyny, violence against women, and so on.  We just know it.

MORE:  Fine, we don't know it.  Check this classic comment thread at ThinkProgress, where one Olbermann apologist after another assures us that it was "just a metaphor" and Olby didn't really mean it.  Whew, Hillary's Secret Service detail can stand down! 

As to whether a metaphorical suggestion of violently suppressing Hilary's dissent is inappropriate, well, the commenters don't seem to be operating at that level of abstraction.

I continue to be astonished that Brian Williams and Tim Russert allow themselves to be associated with this assclown.

AND SPEAKING OF FOOLS WHO ARE DIMINISHING THE WILLIAMS AND RUSSERT BRANDS:  Chris Matthews identifies non-racism in America:

You know, a lot of white people root for black athletes because they‘re winning for the home team.  People are quite willing to pick up black heroes, if they‘ll win for their side.

I'm not a huge golf fan, so could someone please remind me - what team does Tiger Woods play for?

All Politics Is Local

I may be cogent to the point of cryptic on this interesting question raised by Jason Zengerle of TNR, who wonders why the North Carolina Republican Party wants to run an Obama-basher:

What they didn't mention at all is that the North Carolina GOP ad is intended to help Hillary in the May 6 primary. I mean, if the NC GOP really wanted the ad to help McCain, wouldn't they be running this ad in October or November? This is clearly an attempt to play the race and the Wright card against Obama in the hopes of hurting him in the Democratic Primary. Which suggests that there are at least some Republicans out there who still think Obama is the more formidable general election candidate.

Well, yes and no... let's posit that the North Carolina Republicans have an obvious rooting interest in the Presidential race but will really live or die by the outcome of the Gubernatorial race in North Carolina.  What their strategists ought to do is assess the relative abilities of Obama and Hillary to enlist and energize Democrats in North Carolina, and try to influence the primary toward the Democrats less likely to hurt Republican prospects in their Governor's race this fall.  Not surprisingly, they seem to have concluded that Obama will hurt them more in November - the obvious explanation would be his ability to fire up the college towns and black communities of the state.

However!  That does not mean that these North Carolinians have placed any weight on Obama's national prospects or even have an informed opinion about it.  As many have noted, Obama and Hillary appeal to very different groups, and bring a different list of states into play in the general election. 

Doesn't Seem Fair

Rev. Wright claims his inflammatory excerpts were presented out of context.  Ed Morrissey, via ABC News, provides the context.

I'll say this - you can read about Wright a hundred times and get a hundred different impressions, but that quick clip of "No, no, no, not God bless America, God DAMN America" is a dentist drill into the brain.  Context can't help, and it doesn't help.

Here's What The Media Jumping Ship Will Look Like

Thomas Edsall ruins the weekend of his Huffington Post readers with the news that the media has turned on Obama "In a blink of an eye".  He then cites John Judis' "The Next McGovern", Joe Klein's "The Incredibly Shrinking Democrats", and Chris Cilizza's "How Clinton Can Win It", among others.  Left unmentioned - the ABC News decision to air the Wright Stuff, and the Attack of the Moderators during the ABC debate.

All very gloomy for Obamacons, but the articles cited by Edsall are all process stories.  As I noted in thumping Joe Klein, the real media rout will begin when the press realizes it can move away from insidery, horse race, process stores and focus on "the issues" while simultaneously treating Obama like a living, breathing candidate instead of a water-walker.

How?  Easy - just start asking Obama and Hillary how they propose to pay for their programs, then report on their answers.  Both promised in the recent debate not to raise taxes except on very high earners; Obama actually promised to cut taxes for people earning less than $200,000 to $250,000.

The numbers will never add up, as Times editors noted.  And the ensuing coverage may make up for a long, long period of Obamadulation by the press.

Zing!

I love this lead from the Krugman column, so I am going to stop reading while I am ahead:

After Barack Obama’s defeat in Pennsylvania, David Axelrod, his campaign manager, brushed it off: “Nothing has changed tonight in the basic physics of this race.”

He may well be right — but what a comedown. A few months ago the Obama campaign was talking about transcendence. Now it’s talking about math. “Yes we can” has become “No she can’t.”

That actually connects to the non-Bush bashing part of the Noonan column (below) - she mentioned that Barack sorely needs an Act II to move beyond "Hope and Change".

If You've Lost Lubbock...

Peggy Noonan has been down on Bush for a while, but now she declares that all Republicans and conservatives are down on him:

Here's some comfort for him, for all Democrats. In Lubbock, Texas – Lubbock Comma Texas, the heart of Texas conservatism – they dislike President Bush. He has lost them. I was there and saw it. Confusion has been followed by frustration has turned into resentment, and this is huge. Everyone knows the president's poll numbers are at historic lows, but if he is over in Lubbock, there is no place in this country that likes him. I made a speech and moved around and I was tough on him and no one – not one – defended or disagreed. I did the same in North Carolina recently, and again no defenders. I did the same in Fresno, Calif., and no defenders, not one.

He has left on-the-ground conservatives – the local right-winger, the town intellectual reading Burke and Kirk, the old Reagan committeewoman – feeling undefended, unrepresented and alone.

This will have impact down the road.

I finally understand the party nostalgia for Reagan. Everyone speaks of him now, but it wasn't that way in 2000, or 1992, or 1996, or even '04.

I think it is a manifestation of dislike for and disappointment in Mr. Bush. It is a turning away that is a turning back. It is a looking back to conservatism when conservatism was clear, knew what it was, was grounded in the facts of the world.

The reasons for the quiet break with Mr. Bush: spending, they say first, growth in the power and size of government, Iraq. I imagine some of this: a fine and bitter conservative sense that he has never had to stand in his stockinged feet at the airport holding the bin, being harassed. He has never had to live in the world he helped make, the one where grandma's hip replacement is setting off the beeper here and the child is crying there. And of course as a former president, with the entourage and the private jets, he never will. I bet conservatives don't like it. I'm certain Gate 14 doesn't.

I assume people can find defenders of Bush here in the wide, wild and glorious web.  But if you coming looking here, it will have to be among the commenters, bless them.  For myself, I would put disappointment in his handling of Iraq at number one - the failure to develop a well-thought through post-liberation administration plan for Iraq is inexplicable; the fact that major decisions, such as disbanding the Iraq army, were made seemingly on the fly is inexcusable.

Well, Bush is not on the ticket in 2008.  My suggested punishment of Bush - deny him access to Harry Truman biographies; I just know "W" is sustaining himself with the notion that Harry was booed out of office after the debacle in Korea but eventually staged a huge comeback in popular and historical opinion.

If that happens with Bush, well, bully for him - it would be great for America if the Bush-instigated surge has created an opportunity for something like a non-defeat in Iraq, and if Bush gets some credit for grit and resolution down the road, well, fine.  But he has squandered America's good will around the world, divided our nation, and strained our military to the breaking point fighting a war which never should have been this difficult (or, if it was always going to be this difficult, should never have been fought).

I'm moving to Lubbock.

When Is A Maverick Not A Maverick?

When is a maverick not a maverick?  When an Attack Dem is fantasizing out loud about how to defeat McCain:

McCain is hardly the most devious politician on the national stage. But there's plenty of evidence that his MO is to get outsized credit for a very small number of mavericky stands while spending about 98% of his political life doing all the usual things that career politicians do. He hangs with lobbyists, he does favors for big contributors, he waffles on positions that might hurt him, he panders to constituencies whose votes he needs, and he very rarely takes a politically risky stand on anything. In other words, he's just a normal pol with a really good PR shop.

Let's see - just recently and offhand, immigration reform nearly scuttled his Presidential run and the Gang of 14 bipartisan team-up to prevent a filibuster of judges annoyed partisans on both sides.  Going back a bit, McCain-Feingold got one Republican vote in the Senate (IIRC [OK, not really]) and is still loathed by his party; McCain proposed a greenhouse gas cap and trade plan in 2003, and promoted the creation of the 9/11 Commission, both to howls from Republicans. 

Lots more Maverick coverage in this multi-part home state profile.

I would be delighted to see a similar list of Obama's efforts to reach across the aisle and deliver on a new kind of politics.

DAWN BREAKS OVER MARBLEHEAD:  I see through Kevin drum's sinister scheme!  Every time someone presents McCain's list of bipartisan "achievements", two moderates become interested in his candidacy and three Republicans have aneurysms.  We can't afford much more progress on this topic.

Bitterly Clinging To Her Bible Quotation

Due, perhaps, to ongoing political hardship and the cynical response from Washington, House Speaker And Story Teller Nancy Pelosi is clinging bitterly to a Bible quotation no one else can find.

Well - it is not as if any of her constituents would ever have a Bible with which to fact-check her...

I'm betting she got the Bible quote from the same source as noted Shakespearean and fellow Californian Barbra Streisand.

Meanwhile, Back In Waziristan

I believe it is peace in our time.

Health Care - The Cupboard Is Bare

Jay Rockefeller continues to rock his own candidate; now he is telling us the truth about health care reform:

“We all know there is not enough money to do all this stuff,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a Finance Committee member and an Obama supporter, referring to the presidential candidates’ healthcare plans. “What they are doing is … laying out their ambitions.”

Uhh, who is the "we" that is so knowledgeable about fiscal reality?  I daresay it is not the multitude of Hope and Changers eagerly awaiting their new health care plan, a centerpiece of the Obama campaign.

Oh, well - as Gail Collins noted wryly and the NY Times editors noted despairingly, Obama has foresworn the type of tax hikes needed to pay for his grandiose visions.  Perhaps he has moved on to "Hope, and Count Your Change".

Let's snip from the Times editorial:

Empty Talk on Taxes

One of the toughest questions that will face the next president is what to do about taxes. There can be no real progress on health care, rebuilding the military or any other major issue without dealing with rising budget deficits and mounting debt from nearly eight years of profligate spending and tax breaks for the wealthy.

And that is why it has been so distressing to see all three of the presidential hopefuls pretend they can make good on their promises without broadly raising taxes.

A McCain bashing interlude is then followed by this:

Sadly, blundering and blustering on taxes is a nonpartisan affliction. In their debate before the Pennsylvania primary, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama both took the bait when George Stephanopoulos, one of the ABC News moderators, asked them about a “read-my-lips,” no-new-taxes pledge.

Mrs. Clinton promised to not raise taxes on “middle-class Americans, people making less than $250,000 a year.” Mr. Obama pledged to cut taxes starting at incomes less than “$200,000 and $250,000.”

Apart from their rather odd definition of middle class, neither candidate’s numbers add up. In the United States today, anyone making anywhere near a quarter-million dollars a year is in the top 3 percent or so of taxpayers. (The median income is about $50,000.) Even in the states with the largest percentage of taxpayers making above $200,000 — Connecticut and New Jersey — only 6 percent of the population makes that much.

In effect, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama are saying that they can pay for their promises mainly by raising taxes on the top 3 percent of taxpayers. That’s neither politically nor economically plausible.

Perhaps the candidates are afraid the American people can’t handle the truth about what it would take to meet the nation’s economic challenges. Or perhaps they are underestimating those challenges.

In either case, it’s hardly confidence-inspiring at a time of war and economic crisis.

No worries - Bill Clinton promised a middle-class tax cut in 1992, but that was gone, if not forgotten, in 1993.  And can we deliver a great class-warfare quote?  Yes we can!  Here is an enduring classic discussing the travails of 1993:

"Voters never believed in the middle-class tax cut, because they have never seen anyone get a tax cut," said Mr. Clinton's chief poll taker, Stanley Greenberg. "They always believed their taxes would go up whether Bill Clinton became President or George Bush was President.

"They voted for Bill Clinton because they believed he was going to submit a program to change the direction of the country, to improve the economy and to create jobs. They will be mad as hell if their taxes go up and there's no genuine commitment to change. But if there is, they will be willing to contribute."

"It is critical," Mr. Greenberg said, that the rich be seen as punished most by Mr. Clinton's tax increases.

Substitute "Barack Obama" for "Bill Clinton", and we have coverage from 2009 today.  Don't tell Andrew, but the new politics is going to play out just like the 1993 adventure with a new kind of politics.

COOL, KINDA:  Matt Yglesias admits that he has known all along that the Dems are delivering BS:

John Edwards clearly marked himself out as someone who was willing to put deficit concerns aside for his programs, but neither Clinton nor Obama have followed him down that path. But in context, a promise to reduce the deficit amounts to both candidates having their fingers crossed behind their backs when they talk about substantial new spending on health care, education, or anything else.

"[F]ingers crossed behind their backs".  Hmm, when Republicans do it, it's called lying.  Or was the actual chant, "Bush crossed his fingers, people didn't linger (in this world)"?

Well, since pundits want a substantive debate, why can't we have reporters ask the candidates how they propose to pay for their programs?  Or would that be more rude, 'gotcha' politics of the past distracting voters from a discussion of the real issue of hope and change?

And keeping hope alive, The New Republic sees the Rockefeller pronouncement as just the first salvo.

 

Rove On Obama

A reader shares his thoughts in the WSJ:

Is Obama Ready For Prime Time?

Ed Morrisey answers that rhetorical question, suggesting a later time slot would be more suitable for Obama:

In a way, Obama is the Jon Stewart candidate. He sits on the edge of politics, making “wry and sardonic” comments about what other people do without doing anything himself. No wonder younger voters love him; he gets to be ironic while taking no responsibility for anything. And when people press him for action, he’d prefer to eat his waffle in peace until he can find a way to act as a commentator rather than as a real agent for change.

OK, back to Karl Rove:

The Democratic Party has two weakened candidates [one named Hillary]...

And what of the reborn Adlai Stevenson? Mr. Obama is befuddled and angry about the national reaction to what are clearly accepted, even commonplace truths in San Francisco and Hyde Park. How could anyone take offense at the observation that people in small-town and rural American are "bitter" and therefore "cling" to their guns and their faith, as well as their xenophobia? Why would anyone raise questions about a public figure who, for only 20 years, attended a church and developed a close personal relationship with its preacher who says AIDS was created by our government as a genocidal tool to be used against people of color, who declared America's chickens came home to roost on 9/11, and wants God to damn America? Mr. Obama has a weakness among blue-collar working class voters for a reason.

His inspiring rhetoric is a potent tool for energizing college students and previously uninvolved African-American voters. But his appeals are based on two aspirational pledges he is increasingly less credible in making.

Mr. Obama's call for postpartisanship looks unconvincing, when he is unable to point to a single important instance in his Senate career when he demonstrated bipartisanship. And his repeated calls to remember Dr. Martin Luther King's "fierce urgency of now" in tackling big issues falls flat as voters discover that he has not provided leadership on any major legislative battle.

Mr. Obama has not been a leader on big causes in Congress. He has been manifestly unwilling to expend his political capital on urgent issues. He has been only an observer, watching the action from a distance, thinking wry and sardonic and cynical thoughts to himself about his colleagues, mildly amused at their to-ing and fro-ing. He has held his energy and talent in reserve for the more important task of advancing his own political career, which means running for president.

Karl Rove, echoing David Brooks, had previously been more specific about instances in which Obama ducked opportunities to join a bipartisan Senate deal.  Here is Mr. Rove from late February:

Mr. McCain can now question Mr. Obama's promise to change Washington by working across party lines. Mr. Obama hasn't worked across party lines since coming to town. Was he a member of the "Gang of 14" that tried to find common ground between the parties on judicial nominations? Was Mr. Obama part of the bipartisan leadership that tackled other thorny issues like energy, immigration or terrorist surveillance legislation? No. Mr. Obama has been one of the most dependably partisan votes in the Senate.

As Jeralyn Merritt noted, Barack Obama is very cautious about husbanding his political capital.  With Barack Obama, political capitalist, it is always change tomorrow and never change today.

ERRATA:  Re: "A reader shares his thoughts..." - let's move the Insufferability Threat Level to Yellow.

A New Kind Of Semaphore

I completely disagree with this point in Joe Klein's discussion of the Obama campaign:

...there is an immutable pedestrian reality to American politics: you have to get the social body language right if you want voters to consider the nobler reaches of your message. In his 1991 book, The Reasoning Voter, political scientist Samuel Popkin argued that most people make their choice on the basis of "low-information signaling" — that is, stupid things like whether you know how to roll a bowling ball or wear an American-flag pin. In the era of Republican dominance, the low-information signals were really low — how Michael Dukakis looked in a tanker's helmet, whether John Kerry's favorite sports were too precious (like wind-surfing), whether Al Gore's debate sighs over his opponent's simple obfuscations were patronizing. Bill Clinton was the lone Democratic master of low-information signaling — a love of McDonald's and other assorted big-gulp appetites gave him credibility that even trumped his evasion of military service.

The audacity of the Obama campaign was the belief that in a time of trouble — as opposed to the peace and prosperity of the late 20th century — the low-information politics of the past could be tossed aside in favor of a high-minded, if deliberately vague, appeal to the nation's need to finally address some huge problems.

The vagueness ought to be a clue - why not argue that Obama simply developed a new method of "low-information signaling" designed to energize previously untargeted groups such as the cultural elite and the young (OK, and the media)?  "Hope and change" and not much else; "We are the ones we've been waiting for" - please.  This is a serious discussion of our nation's problems and the way to solve them?  No, this is an attempt to galvanize the NPR crowd and make them believe they are making history.

Check the entry screen on his website with this glorious exhortation:

"I'M ASKING YOU TO BELIEVE. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington...I'm asking you to believe in yours."

Keep on believing.

If Obama has crashed back to earth it is in large part because folks are realizing that there is nothing behind the curtain except an utterly conventional far-left liberal with no experience, no history of bipartisanship, and no track record of success in Washington.

Joe Klein closes with the implicit hope that we will get back to the issues:

...But part of the problem with editorial writers — and, truth to tell, columnists like me — is a narrow definition of the qualifications necessary to be President. It helps to be a warrior, for one thing. It helps to be able to take a punch and deliver one — even, sometimes, a sucker punch. A certain familiarity with life as it is lived by normal Americans is useful; a distance from the élite precincts of academia, where unrepentant terrorists can sip wine in good company, is essential. Hillary Clinton has learned these lessons the hard way; Barack Obama thinks they are "the wrong lessons." The nomination is, obviously, his to lose. But the presidency will not be won if he doesn't learn that the only way to reach the high-minded conversation he wants, and the country badly needs, is to figure out how to maneuver his way through the gutter.

I am convinced that Obama wants to talk about his desire to talk seriously about the issues; I am far less convinced that he really does want to explain the  hard choices and high taxes implicit in his many programs.  Gail Collins was amusing on this point:

If you want to worry about something, worry about the way both of them have been pandering themselves over the edge. There was the dreaded read-my-lips, no-new-middle-class-taxes pledge during the Pennsylvania debate. Then Hillary tried to demonstrate her toughness by announcing she would “obliterate” Iran if it messed with Israel. And when it comes to political piñatas, we’ll always have Nafta. They both went into the tank on agricultural issues back in Iowa, so heaven knows what they’re saving for Indiana. Mandatory use of corn in highway paving materials?

Please, no more issues talk until we figure out who’s going to run against John McCain. Let’s concentrate on who’s meaner and who’s more snobbish and who had a neighbor who once belonged to one of the world’s most inept terrorist groups.

If, having convinced a hardened skeptic like Joe Klein, Obama can convince voters that it is only his uncouth opponents that are keeping him mute on the great issues of the day, that will be a big win for him.  Currently Obama is publicly committed to withdrawing from Iraq regardless of what his generals tell him, and despite private mutterings of greater flexibility and reality-orientation from his advisers; a similar public-private divergence is playing out on NAFTA; now Obama is publicly ruling out the tax hikes needed to pay for his promises.  Does he really need to keep talking, or should he just bash Hillary?

MORE:  Re Obama's "I'm asking you to believe in yours" - geez, here he is, already ducking responsibility for his failed Administration.  What, now it's our fault for not believing enough?  He's Peter Pan, Tinker Bell is dying, and we didn't clap hard enough?

PILING ON:  Karl at Team Protein is fascinating.

Not Nearly As Tedious As Might Be Expected

A self-admitted "complete party rules bore" is not that boring on delegate allocation rules for Republicans and Democrats, explaining why McCain won the nomination, the case for Hillary, and why superdelegates ought to do their job.

I look forward to his piece on estate-planning and life insurance trusts.

Every Picture Tells A Story (And Answers Questions)

Domenico Montanaro of MSNBC et al have First Thoughts about Hillary's victory in Pennsylvania:

From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro
*** The secret to Hillary’s success: So how did Clinton win so decisively last night? The answer is women, specifically white women. They continue to be as important to her success in these primaries as new voters and African-Americans have been to Obama. Per the exit polls, 47% of the Pennsylvania Democratic electorate last night was made up of white women, higher than any other race/gender subgroup. Clinton ended up winning them by more than 30 points, 66%-34%; in Ohio, she won this group, 67%-31%. The question that everyone seems to be asking now is: Why can’t Obama put Clinton away? The AP’s Ron Fournier takes a stab at answering this, and he points to five reasons (race, working-class voters, friends in trouble, inexperience, and mettle). But to us, women seem to be the bigger reason. They continue to rally to her side; nothing has shaken their confidence in her. If Clinton continues to beat Obama by 30-plus points among white women, how can he knock her out?

This picture of Hillary and Chelsea has many of their answers:

There is a real mother-daughter thing going on in that pic.   Campaigns are grueling, endless slogs, but they are also high energy, high adrenaline, back-against the wall brawls which double as an incredible bonding experience.  Hillary is doing this one with her adult daughter (for the first time), and loving it.  And as Professor Dumbledore explained to Harry, a mother's love can deliver some powerful mojo.

Chelsea is also the answer to the oft-asked question, "Why did she stay with Bill?".  Looks loke a good answer right now; something sure did work.

Finally, although I don't think Chelsea can singlehandedly rock the youth vote, any parent who looks at her is going to think better of her mother.

I say this with the benefit of hindsight, stealing from Mark Steyn.

Relatedly, my granny-on-the-ground in PA read "Dreams From My Father", and wondered where the mother, or grandmother, was, and why Barack gave them such short shrift.  Tossing his grandmother under the bus during the Jeremiah Wright speech didn't exactly help reconcile her to Obama.  She will never vote for Barack, she says, and she is a closet socialist.

So, some Bold Predictions:  Chelsea has a TIME cover in her near future.  And a sympathetic reporter asking Hillary about what Chelsea's has meant to the campaign could probably provoke a genuine, grab your hanky moment.  Incredibly, I don't mean that as a cynical  prediction, either - it could be a great and humanizing video clip for Hillary.  Watch out, Obamacons!

IMAGINING THE IMAGINABLE AND CONCEIVING THE INCONCEIVABLE:   Will the Nutroots be daft enough to start trashing Chelsea?  Geez, every other stupid and improbable thing has happened, and this is the Nutroots we are talking about...

Macho, Macho Man

Maureen Dowd is competing again for the quadrennial Lorena Bobbit Trophy, awarded to the columnist who most relentlessly feminizes and emasculates whichever hapless Dems are on offer.  Today she has the knife out for Barack:

[Hillary's] been running ads about it, suggesting [Barack] doesn’t have “what it takes” to run the country. Her message is unapologetically emasculating: If he does not have the gumption to put me in my place, when superdelegates are deserting me, money is drying up, he’s outspending me 2-to-1 on TV ads, my husband’s going crackers and party leaders are sick of me, how can he be trusted to totally obliterate Iran and stop Osama?

...

The Democrats are eager to move on to an Obama-McCain race. But they can’t because no one seems to be able to show Hillary the door. Despite all his incandescent gifts, Obama has missed several opportunities to smash the ball over the net and end the game. Again and again, he has seemed stuck at deuce. He complains about the politics of scoring points, but to win, you’ve got to score points.

He knew he tanked in the Philadelphia debate, but he was so irritated by the moderators — and by having to stand next to Hillary again — that he couldn’t summon a single merry dart.

Is he skittish around her because he knows that she detests him and he’s used to charming everyone? Or does he feel guilty that he cut in line ahead of her? As the husband of Michelle, does he know better than to defy the will of a strong woman? Or is he simply scared of Hillary because she’s scary?

We do this every four years.  I am going to help Megan with her question when I return; don't let the suspense shatter you.

Check The Math

The hyper-literate Matt Yglesias swings into action:

I'm not sure I understand the emphasis -- from both the pundits and from the Clinton campaign itself -- on money at this point. Didn't we just learn that the Clintons have a fortune of over $100 million?

Whoa, wake me up - did I sleep through a tax repeal or something?  No wonder libs are so irked with Bush's tax cuts for the rich.

Check your next paystub, Matt, and see if there is a difference between "gross" and "net".  Or if tedium is your thing, check the Clinton's returns and see whether they actually paid any tax on that famous $109 million of earnings.  The first key number in the Clinton press release is "taxes paid", followed by "charitable contributions", so this is should not remain an utter mystery.  In fact, the press release tells us that their after tax earnings were $57 million off of a gross income of $109 million.  Not too shabby, but still.

Now, depending on how their investments have performed it is entirely possible that they do in fact have a fortune in excess of $100 million, but no, we did not just learn that to be the case.

As to the substance of Matt's question - why doesn't Hillary put her money where her mouth is and write a big check to her own campaign - who knows?  As I recall she was very funny about money in the Whitewater investment; something about Chelsea's college fund, which is obviously no longer an issue.  In any case, I would guess that a loan to her own campaign would make more financial sense, since subsequent fund-raising even years later could let her recoup the loan.

GROAN:  Mickey too?  he had it right on April 5th:

Clintons' Tax Returns: The press is focused on where all that money ($109 million) came from. Fair enough. But where did it all go? This seems like a genuine mystery. It's not as if the Clinton's live especially lavishly, or own huge estates. It's not like Bill has to pay for all his hotels and travel. The Clintons only gave about $44 million to the IRS and to charities (including their own). Where's the rest of it?

Blog Titles We Await

With all the follow-up and hand-wringing about Obama's "bitterly clinging to their guns and religion" comment, where is the process story titled "What's The Meta With Kansas?"

I look to Matt Yglesias.

Lexis Mavens Wanted

George McGovern ought to be shot down for this:

If I'd be allowed just one little dig at Senator McCain, since he gave me. I would say, 'John, you were shot down early in the war and spent most of the time in prison. I flew 35 combat missions with a 10-man crew and brought them home safely every time.'

Right.  John Sidney McCain saved a fellow pilot's life in the Forrestal accident, recovered from his own wounds, and was eventually shot down on his 23rd mission in 1967.

What a clown.

Anyway, Lexis-Nexis mavens ought to try and track this down, from McGovern:

Some years ago, I was on one of the networks with former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, one of the chief architects of the war in Vietnam. But the reason I was on television that night is he had just come out with a new book saying that the war was not only it was a mistake, in his words it was a tragic mistake. Well, in the course of that three-way discussion, which included in addition to Secretary McNamara and myself, Sen. John McCain. And in McCain's first opening remarks, he said, well we all know that George McGovern knows little about national defense. 

I wonder what McCain actually said.  I will guess that McGovern is referring to McNamara's 1999 book, so we are not talking about the mists of antiquity here.  But now I'll guess again - this 1995 discussion included McNamara, McCain, McGovern, and a new book, "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam".

The truth is out there.

Coming Soon - The Future

The Mystery Pollster looks at Pennsylvania polls and assures us that "The future will be here in about 12 hours".  Well, 83% said so, anyway, but that was hours ago.  Polls close at 8PM, so this can be an open thread.  Hillary, but by how much?  I say, by enough to prolong the agony, but how would I know?

A Nano-Second On Bob Herbert

Bob Herbert rants about our failing educational system and the deplorable tendency of the media to focus on minutia.  Michelle Cottle of TNR tackles the meda side, so let me excerpt this from Herbert, take two quick shots, and leave.

Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900.

Right.  And if someone proposed an educational reform that actually emphasized basic skills and basic knowledge (sort of a "No Child Left Behind" type thing), Bob Herbert would swoon about the perils of "teaching to the test" and undermining the creativity of our children and teachers.

Well, the Federal role in education is small relative to the state and local contribution.  However, I'll give you two reasons it is not a major campaign issue.  First, neither Democratic candidate is ever going to say "boo" to the NEA, which ends a lot of conversations.  Second, given the plight of inner-city schools, an honest Democratic Federal program of "no reforms, but more money" would amount to Barack or Hillary announcing that they were going to raise taxes on the suburban middle class to fix low-income inner-city schools.  I bet that polls well.

I'm sure the candidates are exhaustive on the topic at their websites.  Here are Obama, Hillary, and McCain.

John McCain's Real Estate Pal

The NY Times takes another shot at John McCain, this time conclusively establishing that (a) real estate development can be a politically arduous process involving politicians, and (b)
John McCain is a politician.  The Times also spends time on some corollaries - politicians need money, and real estate developers often have it.

What the Times does not bring forward is any evidence of anything like corruption.  Relatives on the payroll?  secret investments in land being swapped?  Nahh, that sort of thing is for the Senate Majority Leader to do, and the Times to ignore.

But that's OK!  McCain's critics want to pretend that McCain's standard is "If you write me a check I will never talk to you again".  My (unreasonably sympathetic) understanding of his position is that he won't do for a donor what he wouldn't otherwise do for an ordinary constituent.  (Whether ordinary constituents get their phone calls returned promptly and their problems dealt with crisply, I cannot say.)

The Times tries to hang McCain with some land swaps, and with the redevelopment of Fort Ord.  The funnier bit is in the land swap, so here we go:

The first two swaps involving Mr. Diamond that Mr. McCain helped sponsor were initially supported by local governments and conservationists, and Mr. Diamond argues the land would be worth far more today. But many Arizona conservationists later protested that the federal deals gave away too much.

That dastard McCain - supporting deals being pushed by conservationists!  The humanity.

And later, when they discover the private side of the public-private partnership made money, they go into a tizzy.  Oh, boy.  If only private developers would consistently and reliably lose money, like those nice sub-prime lenders.  No, they're bad guys too... baffling.

The more puzzling piece revolves around two deals tied up in the closing of the military base at Fort Ord.  The first deal:

In the mid-1990s, Mr. Diamond set his sights on Monterey County, Calif., where the Army was closing Fort Ord. It was a dream property — hundreds of undeveloped acres and two golf courses in the ocean-misted hills overlooking Monterey Bay, one of California’s great tourist destinations.

Tipped off by a fellow Tucson developer, Mr. Diamond had snapped up a housing complex there that had been built on land leased from the Army, giving him the inside track to buying the land when the base shut down.

After the Army did so in 1994, Mr. Diamond asked Mr. McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, for an introduction with an Army official who could work out a sale. Mr. McCain’s legislative aide, Ann Sauer, arranged a meeting with Paul W. Johnson, a deputy assistant secretary, a Diamond executive involved in the deal said.

When the talks stalled over price and water supply, Ms. Sauer interceded with the Army, according to Mr. Diamond’s deposition and others involved. “She showed up and got the thing resolved,” Mr. Diamond said.

Mr. McCain’s campaign aides said in a statement they did not believe Ms. Sauer’s involvement went beyond setting up the Pentagon meeting. Ms. Sauer, who no longer works for Mr. McCain, said she could not recall details of her role. A spokesman for the Army declined to comment.

Mr. Diamond finally bought the land for $250,000 in 1999. He obtained an unusual guarantee from the Army that provided a generous water allowance outside the standard allocation process — a bonus that continues to rankle municipal officials on the dry Monterey Peninsula.

“Those guys got a sweetheart deal,” said Michael Keenan, whose family bought the housing complex from Mr. Diamond for nearly $30 million two years later. Mr. Diamond acknowledged turning a profit of $20 million.

First, as to this being a "dream property" take a breath.  Here is one consultant's view:

Progress toward production of new workforce housing has been slow. Barriers to housing development such as complex regulatory procedures and approvals, antiquated infrastructure on the former Fort Ord, and environmental contamination and costly building removal have made the reuse of Fort Ord a particularly difficult challenge for any kind of development, including workforce housing.

Secondly, it is absurd to think that McCain and his developer buddy pulled a fast one - the closing and redevelopment of Fort Ord got Presidential attention, was subject to Senate legislation, and had a member of the California Congressional delegation overseeing it.  In addition, the Fort Ord Reuse Authority won a planning award in 1998, so they weren't utterly stupid and corrupt, at least that year.

Third, the redevelopment has been a political quagmire caught up in a tussle over affordable housing.  On that point, if the Times would tell us the name of the leased housing complex purchased by Diamond we would be a step closer to pinning down some details.  The Fort Ord Reuse Authority, under "Housing", shows pictures of Preston Park and Schoonover Park.  Schoonover Park is now college housing; Preston Park was leased to "Mid-Peninsula Housing, ... a non-profit organization that develops high-quality affordable housing communities".  Which one was the developer's dream - the college housing, or the affordable housing?  Or was there a third choice of properties?  I am running out of time and Google, unfortunately, but if anyone can help me out here, that would be lovely [Progressing...  See HERE WE GO, below].

More background on the golf course deal is here, and it sounds less savory.  Of course, McCain's involvement was to write a letter of introduction, but still.

MORE:  Did I include this link to the Fort Ord Reuse Authority, FORA?  Sorry, no link to FAUNA.

HERE WE GO:  The Times gives this clue:

“Those guys got a sweetheart deal,” said Michael Keenan, whose family bought the housing complex from Mr. Diamond for nearly $30 million two years later [i.e., 2001].

Michael Keenan is, we assert, the son (mentioned here) of the late Robert Keenan, founder of a winery and the Buena Vista Land Company.  And this article from 2001 says that the Buena Vista Land Company bought

...a 300-unit resort property called SunBay on Fort Ord for $28 million and converting the luxury hotel suites there to apartments and closing escrow last Thursday. Something like that.

$28 million, $30 million, what's a couple of million among friends.  SunBay has to be the deal.  So let's summarize - a wealthy Arizona developer buys the land for $250,000, puts $10 million of purchase and improvements into the leased properties, and then flips them to a wealthy California developer for a nice profit, presumably after various environmental, regulatory, and legal clouds cleared.  Scandalous!

For The Children

OK, this is for just one of my children... Megan McArdle talks up veganism.

If You Read One Long Article

This New York Magazine article by John Heilemann about the Obama/Clinton/McCain race was very well done and had something quotable every third paragraph.  I am going to quite after two.  First, a McCain basher:

[McCain's] awkward positioning issues-wise was captured brilliantly by Pat Buchanan: “The jobs are never coming back, the illegals are never going home, but we’re going to have a lot more wars.”

And a puzzle for Obama:

“McCain has that reformist, maverick history that people identify him with,” says Bush’s former media guru Mark McKinnon, who now plays the same role for McCain. “They know he’s not a typical Republican and has had his issues with the president over time, so they don’t see him as in bed with the president or the Republican Party that they believe has in recent years come to represent the status quo.”

The evidence buttressing McKinnon’s assertion isn’t hard to locate. Among independent voters, according to Gallup, McCain leads Obama by a spread of 42-29 and Clinton by 48-23. And an even more striking sign of his crossover appeal was cited by Karl Rove in a speech he gave last month in Washington. “About twice as many Democrats support McCain as Republicans support Obama, and about three times as many Democrats support McCain as Republicans support Clinton,” Rove said. “The media is all wired up about these ‘Obamacans’ … but the real story of this election is the ‘McCainocrats.’ ”

The article asks whether McCain is the next Bob Dole or the next Dwight Eisenhower, and whether Obama is the next John Kennedy or the next Mike Dukakis.  it went to press too soon to pick up the Ayers story and "Bittergate", but is otherwise excellent.

SPOILER:  Heillemann picks Obama to win it all, based on money (lors versus less of the same), McCain's age (polls indicate more people think McCain is unacceptably old than think Obama is unacceptably black), and the poll-backed belief that the public favors Obama's positions on the war and economy.  In McCain's favor - he is John McCain, genuine American hero, and Obama is Obama.

MORE:  Novak talking sense:

Bob Novak, the highly distinguished veteran columnist and author, told the American Spectator New York dinner group last night that John McCain will defeat Barack Obama in November’s election, although the Democrats will enhance their majorities in both the Senate and the House. Novak, who has covered elections for fifty years, speculated that McCain will pick former Ohio congressman Rob Portman (who also was President Bush’s special trade representative and OMB director) as his running mate, while Obama could choose former Sen. Sam Nunn as his.

Nunn has been rattling around the back of my mind (Nunn, or nothing?  OK...) as a VP pick, although not strongly enough to research it.  Cosmetically, it looks like Dukakis-Bentsen, and I wonder if it is too painfully phoney - Nunn is older, paler, and stronger on national security, which might exaggerate rather than relieve Obama's alternative endowments.

Personally, I completely agree that plenty of Dems will vote for McCain and Democrats downticket, so we will have a semi-divided government.  As my wife said, the Republicans aren't going to win this year, which is why they were smart to nominate McCain.

No County For Old Women

I applaud this advance in women's equality.  Kidding - this is obviously bad news:

Life Expectancy Drops for Some U.S. Women
Historic Reversal, Found in 1,000 Counties, May Be Result of Smoking and Obesity

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 22, 2008; A01

For the first time since the Spanish influenza of 1918, life expectancy is falling for a significant number of American women.

In nearly 1,000 counties that together are home to about 12 percent of the nation's women, life expectancy is now shorter than it was in the early 1980s, according to a study published today.

The downward trend is evident in places in the Deep South, Appalachia, the lower Midwest and in one county in Maine. It is not limited to one race or ethnicity but it is more common in rural and low-income areas. The most dramatic change occurred in two areas in southwestern Virginia (Radford City and Pulaski County), where women's life expectancy has decreased by more than five years since 1983.

Before you blame Bush (Hope it's not too late! [Ooops - it is, see UPDATE), this study is based on public health statistics from 1983 to 1999.

One Day More

Let me suggest a song for Howard Dean and Les Miserables at the Democratic National Committee:

One day more
Another day, another Hillary
This never-ever ever ever ever ever ending road to Calvary!
We had to meet Obama's pastor
Couldn't we vote a little faster
One day more...

I have not checked the weather reports or the hockey and basketball schedules; I have no way of guessing the turnout of the embittered working class whites who will never back Barack but may consider Hillary to be an imperfect vessel for their gun waving, bible thumping sentiments (but not McCain...).  However, the Democratic Party has not caught a break all year, so why figure they will get lucky tonight with Obama doing well enough to end this?

My prediction?  My prediction is pain.