Michelle Obama - They Hope She's Changed

Barack Obama couldn't disown his wife the way he disowned his former minister, so he had her remade.  Here she is paraded before the Obama press office formerly known as the NY Times:

Michelle Obama’s eyes flicker tentatively even as she offers a trained smile. As her campaign plane arcs over the Flathead Range in Montana, she is asked to consider her complicated public image.

Conservative columnists accuse her of being unpatriotic and say she simmers with undigested racial anger. A blogger who supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton circulates unfounded claims that Mrs. Obama gave an accusatory speech in her church about the sins of “whitey.” Mrs. Obama shakes her head.

“You are amazed sometimes at how deep the lies can be,” she says in an interview. Referring to a character in a 1970s sitcom, she adds: “I mean, ‘whitey’? That’s something that George Jefferson would say. Anyone who says that doesn’t know me. They don’t know the life I’ve lived. They don’t know anything about me.”

Now her husband’s presidential campaign is giving her image a subtle makeover, with a new speech in the works to emphasize her humble roots and a tough new chief of staff. On Wednesday, Mrs. Obama will do a guest turn on “The View,” the daytime talk show on ABC, with an eye toward softening her reputation.

"View" coverage from Prof. Althouse and the NY Times Caucus.  Bonus pathos from Lynn Sweet.

Now, check this next bit, ludicrously presented as a sympathetic and positive story of her professional efforts:

In the mostly black neighborhoods around the hospital, Mrs. Obama became the voice of a historically white institution. Behind closed doors, she tried to assuage their frustrations about a place that could seem forbidding.

Like many urban hospitals, the medical center’s emergency room becomes clogged with people who need primary care. So Mrs. Obama trained counselors, mostly local blacks, to hand out referrals to health clinics lest black patients felt they were being shooed away.

She also altered the hospital’s research agenda. When the human papillomavirus vaccine, which can prevent cervical cancer, became available, researchers proposed approaching local school principals about enlisting black teenage girls as research subjects.

Mrs. Obama stopped that. The prospect of white doctors performing a trial with black teenage girls summoned the specter of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment of the mid-20th century, when white doctors let hundreds of black men go untreated to study the disease.

“She’ll talk about the elephant in the room,” said Susan Sher, her boss at the hospital, where Mrs. Obama is on leave from her more-than-$300,000-a-year job.

What elephant?  That at some point the black community needs to stop invoking Tuskegee as an excuse for ignoring the medical community?  Jeremiah Wright cited Tuskegee as his basis for believing that the US government might have been responsible for the AIDS virus - per RAND, that paranoid fantasy costs lives.

In a different and better world the community affairs director for a hospital would use her college education and neighborhood roots to educate and reassure the community that her hospital was not actually interested in recreating ghastly medical misadventures from the past.  In this world, it looks like the Sister Grim is less interested in resolving these grievances and more interested in nursing them.

Comments

[Rocco]

Mrs. Obama stopped that. The prospect of white doctors performing a trial with black teenage girls summoned the specter of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment of the mid-20th century, when white doctors let hundreds of black men go untreated to study the disease.

And now thanks to Michelle Obama, white doctors let hundreds of black women go untreated.

[Rick Ballard]

Has anyone asked her if the Obama kids have spent a day in Chicago public schools? If not, is it a lack of fresh fruit?

[Sue]

I had a toothache after reading that article this morning. Too much saccharine.

[bgates]

How terribly racist to deny poor black children access to medical-
wait, who did it?
Oh.

How principled of Michelle to stand up to her employer and protect her community from...uh...

Hey, how much do you think Susan Cher makes?

[Rocco]

Maybe we could call this one the pap smear?

[clarice]

Rick, their kids go to the private school run by the Univ of Chicago and I believe their tuition is paid at least in part by the hospital.

The reason given for dissuading the hospital from participating in the study is of course ridiculous and frankly racist, but the vaccine is not without problems IIRC. Still one expects that following medical ethics guidelines the hospital would properly inform participants of any shortcomings.

[Jane]

In a different and better world the community affairs director for a hospital would use her college education and neighborhood roots to educate and reassure the community that her hospital was not actually interested in recreating ghastly medical misadventures from the past. In this world, it looks like the Sister Grim is less interested in resolving these grievances and more interested in nursing them.

Makes you wonder what sort of "change" the Obamas are trying to foist on this country. Should we now all adopt the values of Reverend Wright.

The democrats are calling for nationalization of the oil industry today - I guess because they have been so successful in their other endeavors. So maybe it's Hugo Chavez change Obama is peddling. I await his proclamation that this is not the democrat party he once knew.

[ParseThis]

Well, that didn't take long. Opting out of clinical trials becomes left untreated. Not being a guinea pig in an experiment becomes being denied access to medical care.

Does this come naturally or do you have to work at it?

[kim]

Interfering in an approved clinical trial for political reasons stinks, if not being explicitly unethical. Were she not married to Obama, the academicians at that University would have objected.
=================================

[Beldar]

Parse: She denied her supposed constituency the opportunity to be educated and then to make an informed choice whether to participate. The result will almost certainly be unnecessary and avoidable STDs and cervical cancer. Cf. the position of Dr. Ken Alexander of the Pediatrics Dep't of the University of Chicago:

Dr. Alexander, a proponent of the HPV vaccine in young women, cautions lawmakers about proposed legislation that would require the HPV vaccine in the sixth grade. While stating that he does believe that teenaged girls should be immunized, he expresses his belief that this view is one that should not be forced upon the public but rather decided on the family level.

Pro-choice Michelle took away the choices of these girls and young women and their families.

[kim]

Heh, it's not every body who gets backed up by Beldar that fast.
=======================================

[kim]

The really interesting question is what happens to the control non-immunized patients. Presumably the trial could be abrogated when the benefits of the immunization became statistically significant.

But you see, since it works, the control patients developed HPV and will get cervical ca. at a higher rate. The reason the trial is ethical is that until it was done, no one knew if it worked. And, of course, it can't be marketed until safety and efficacy are demonstrated to statistical significance and the satisfaction of experimental ethics committees.
====================================

[kim]

But since she stopped it in the University of Chicago patient population, none of them got the benefit of earlier treatment than they would have otherwise, so it is almost a certainty that her actions caused some to develop HPV and someday, cervical cancer. If her stopping it at the University of Chicago delayed the whole study, then there are a lot of young women whose disease can be laid to her feet. It's a bit of a stretch to blame her, but the numbers are there.

That's my VIEW.
==========

[Rick Ballard]

"She denied her supposed constituency the opportunity to be educated and then to make an informed choice whether to participate."

Fer cryin' out loud, Beldar, we're talking IL-2 here. Bobby Rush and Barack Obama make the choices and if you have a problem with that, take it up with Jesse Jackson Jr. in IL-1, Richard Daley in city hall or Rod Blagojevich (as if) down in Springfield.

It's the Chicago Way - you get informed of your choice right after it's made for you.

[Jor]

Although not the best medical decision on the HPV vaccine -- I believe just a few months ago, groups on the Right were advocating the same thing, but for a completely different set of paranoid reasons.

Anyway, I'm sure TM reported just as breathlessly then on the Right's paranoid assault on the HPV vaccine as he is Mrs. Obama's.

She is the first lady -- not the president. IF we are going to get to this level of nit-picking, I eagerly await for you to smooth over Cindy McCain's drug addiction.

[bgates]

Racism In Health Care
"This denial of health care occurs not only as overt racism, but also as a result of institutional racism. The research from the United States clearly demonstrates that within a country, racial barriers to quality health care may manifest themselves in a number of ways including: disproportionate lack of economic access to health care, barriers to hospitals and health care institutions...lack of data and standardized collection methods, inadequate inclusion in health care research.... These factors contribute to "racially disadvantaged" groups having disparities in health status, unequal access to health care services, insufficient participation in health research...."
There's a leftist law prof, Speaking Truth to Power about the importance of including racial minorities in medical research. Parse that.

[kim]

This could and should be part of the discourse. Her actions speak to racism, medical care, and illegitimate influence.

If this is the new Michelle, maybe they better re-release the old.
===================================

[kim]

Fortunately, since they've been hot-housed in an echo chamber, neither Michelle nor Obama realize just how whack they are.
===========================

[Rick Ballard]

Kim,

I don't believe it's hothouse raising for a moment. She's sending signals with this, just like BHO was sending signals flipping off RW.

She's upholding the Right Racist Reverend Wright and letting TUCC know that she and BHO are still core members.

[PeterUK]

Hasn't being black been kind to Michelle,after all if she had been white, Obama would not have married her?

[kim]

Oh yeah, issues of academic freedom, too.

I don't know Rick. I've little doubt that she and Obama still believe all the carp that Wright ranted so wrongly about. However, their warped views have not been thought through, because they've not been challenged. I think she really still thinks that it was good to protect the little black children as she did. The problem is, she's just flat wrong.
=============================

[PeterUK]

"It's the Chicago Way - you get informed of your choice right after it's made for you."

My! How wonderfully European.

[Porchlight]

She is the first lady -- not the president.

She is neither. She is the wife of a man running for President, and any statements she makes while campaigning on her husband's behalf are legitimate targets of scrutiny. The same goes for Cindy McCain or any other surrogate of either candidate. If Obama doesn't like that scrutiny, he can take her off the campaign trail.

[Dr. Nick Riviera]

"Michelle Obama’s eyes flicker tentatively even as she offers a trained smile."

Based on my years as a doctor in a treatment center, the flickering eyes and trained smile, indicate recent crack usage.

[Jane]

She is neither.

Thank you. I know voter fraud is a mainstay of the left but I nearly choked when I read that.

And Michelle certainly did cause deaths. It only take one sexual encounter to spread that particular cervical cancer virus. A smart woman, would have done everything she could to have her community get the vaccine first.

[PeterUK]

"Michelle Obama’s eyes flicker tentatively even as she offers a trained smile."

"No thanks,I'm trying to give them up",I replied.

[TN]

Michelle Obama is a CIA agent. Just like those gansta rappers.

Down with whitey!

[R C Dean]

Like many urban hospitals, the medical center’s emergency room becomes clogged with people who need primary care. So Mrs. Obama trained counselors, mostly local blacks, to hand out referrals to health clinics lest black patients felt they were being shooed away.

This practice frequently results in violations of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, unless run very, very carefully.

Of the two examples they gave, one is of questionable legality, and the other of questionable morality.

Jeebus H, this is Michelle's good side?

[Rick Ballard]

Jane,

A smart woman would but a political woman in that particular milieu would recognize the opportunity to seize upon the issue precisely as Mrs. Obama did. I have no opinion concerning her intelligence but she is certainly sharp enough to have turned her seat upon the Hyde Park Historical into a mansion (with a dab of crooked help) and she's been at the Senator's side for every worm turn of his career.

Killing constituents is just one of those unfortunate exigencies along the progressive path. It's very common within the progressive fiefs and that is where I disagree with Kim about Mrs. Obama's stance not having been "thought through". If accretion of political power is the sole objective (and it is) then her stance has been thought through perfectly - for IL-2. The test is whether the random killing which is very acceptable within IL-2 can be transferred to the country as a whole.

[bgates]

Jeebus H, this is Michelle's good side?
In keeping with the JOM style guide, that should be "Jeebus 57".

[MayBee]

Does this mean she probably heard Rev Wright's Tuskegee sermon?

[PeterUK]

"Michelle, you're hell.
These aren't words that go together well,
My Michelle.

[Porchlight]

Coincidentally PUK, it's Paul McCartney's birthday today.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

She is the first lady....

In your dreams.

[avepa]

I agree with you porchlight. She is NOT a FIRST LADY. Hussein Obama HAS NOT BEEN ELECTED AS PRESIDENT. Michelle Obama believes she has the power to (because she thinks she has the position) command the hospital to change their research agenda re treatment or utilizing the drugs on black school girls. We are already in the 21st century as compared to that time when they did the Tuskegee Syphilis Research and medical professionals now are not as barbaric as some of them were. She thinks too high of herself to override decisions which are not in her field of studies. She thinks white doctors will ruin the lives of black girls? Who is the racist here now?

[windansea]

I've yet to have heard a rational explanation why Michele O recieved a 200% raise at the hospital after Barrack was elected Senator

Is this a distraction?

trolls are invited to chime in and explain the new politics of hope and change

[bad]

Is it legal to conduct medical trials on minors? IIRC trials are only conducted on adults. Anybody got a quick answer while I try to find out?

[windansea]

I just have to quote Captain Ed at Hotair, Obama supporters are welcome to explain

In an interview with Fortune to be featured in the magazine’s upcoming issue, the presumptive Democratic nominee backed off his harshest attacks on the free trade agreement and indicated he didn’t want to unilaterally reopen negotiations on NAFTA.
“Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified,” he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA “devastating” and “a big mistake,” despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.
Does that mean his rhetoric was overheated and amplified? “Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don’t exempt myself,” he answered.
Keeping track of Obama’s positions feels like being a spectator at a table tennis match. First he wants meetings with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (among others) without preconditions, then he only wants them if they agree to stop sponsoring terrorism and funding militias in Iraq, which sounds a lot like a “precondition” to everyone but Barack Obama. He wants to pull all the troops out of Iraq, but then tells the Iraqi foreign minister that he will be the second coming of John McCain. He tells AIPAC that he wants an undivided Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and then tells the Palestinians that he wants to divvy it up if that’s what they want.

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/06/18/nafta-dancer-now-says-he-used-overheated-rhetoric/

[kim]

bad, there must be a way to do so. What's really tough to do is clinical trials on pregnant women. I imagine with minors there must be redoubled parental education and consent, and no doubt that of the child, also.
============================

[kim]

windansea, this is the sort of stuff I mean when I say they have not thought things through. He is baritonic, can smile winningly, read a teleprompter like he believes what it says, but he is whack.
================================

[Rick Ballard]

What is the ethical difference between Roosevelt's Public Health Service denying the men involved in the Tuskegee Study the possibility of giving informed consent to be part of a study in 1932 and Michelle Obama's denial of the possibility for girls and their parents to give informed consent to be part of a clinical trial today?

I mean, aside from the fact that there was no actual cure for syphilis available in 1932 when Roosevelt allowed the Tuskegee Study to be publicly financed. I suppose there is some slight difference due to the fact that the HPV vaccine trials provide some degree of possibility, if not certainty, regarding a positive outcome.

[Topsecretk9]

More on the Democrats Culture of Greed and Corruption...Dollar Bill is running for re-election. Meanwhile ANOTHER of his siblings has plead guilty

The sister of indicted Democratic Rep. William Jefferson pleaded guilty to concealing a crime on Wednesday, the fourth relative of the Louisiana lawmaker to become entangled in the family's legal troubles.

Brenda Jefferson, 52, helped defraud several nonprofit organizations by concealing and failing to report the activities of two of her siblings, Betty Jefferson and Mose Jefferson, and her niece, Angela Coleman, according to court documents.

Federal prosecutors in New Orleans recently charged the three other relatives with conspiring to steal more than $600,000 from organizations they set up to help at-risk and disadvantaged youth.

[Ann]

If you read this puff piece carefully, Evil WHITE DOCTORS were going to ONLY test BLACK GIRLS. I don't believe the premise in the first place.

And to add to that, Superwoman Michelle Obama in her position as VP of Community Affairs saved the day all by herself because it summoned the specter of the Tuskegee experiment.

The Tuskegee experiment that Rev. Wright and Farrakhan use to blame America for every perceived black injustice.

[Sara]

So do I have this straight? Participation in the study for blacks is some kind of nefarious racial experimentation on them, but not for the white girls? She figures letting them be the guinea pigs is just "honky" dory? Is she also advocating the young black women not get the vaccine, thereby insuring that there will be a bigger drain on resources when the larger percentage of them develop the cervical cancer the vaccine is designed to prevent?

[Aaron]

I second windandsea's question:

How did she get the 300K salary?

[kim]

Hey, Aaron, anybody who can overrule the academicians in an approved clinical study is worth twice that. That is some powerful woman.
====================================

[kim]

Hey, University of Chicago School of Medicine, do you realize what a joke she has made you out to be?
=============================

[clarice]

Aaron--all I know is that the hospital got it's money worth--shortly after the raise O earmarked a million$ to it.

[Neo]

Democrats call for the Nationalization of oil companies.

This is gonna cost us. There hasn't been a new refinery built in 30 years so just to keep up they are going to have to build more. So all you environmentalists out there .. beware .. you won't have those "big oil" companies to take to court any more .. you will have the power of the US Congress undermining all your efforts from the get go.

Can you say "immunity" ? I knew that you could.

And here I expected them to call for the seizure of the records at the centers for ICE in Atlanta and Chicago (do I know somebody from there ? Hmmm).

Besides .. once that take control of the refineries, who are they going to blame ? Themselves ? Yeah sure .. it's a bluff.

[kim]

There are rumours, Neo, of big news coming out in the next couple of weeks about climate that will effect the energy markets. I don't know what it is, or if it is hype, but someone is claiming that the weather patterns in the Pacific have changed in the last month like they haven't changed for 70 years.

Developing.....................
=========================

[centralcal]

Okay, I have seen several clips of The View . . . pretty much everything that needs to be seen, more than likely.

This is the new Michelle. A little more make-up. Hair all shiny and fluffed. Nice dress. But, in the end it is still Michelle ma belle - bulldogging her way through charm and familiarity, or not.

Well, I vote, or NOT. A young gal I work with said and I agree - you just can't pretend to be what you are not. And, if you are opinionated - rightly or wrongly - it will come through.

Today, on The View, it came through.

There is no "new" Michelle, just a packaged for this program, Michelle.

[centralcal]

Kim - you have me on pins and needles. Global warming or global cooling?

[Sara]

Maybe Centracal it has something to do with this current Drudge headline:

BIG PRIZE: Western oil companies plan return to Iraq... Developing...

[Sara]

In 70 years? The Pacific weather patterns repeat on a pretty regular basis over several years, i.e. La Nina and others whose names I can't remember. Did they see it 140 years ago, 210 years ago, etc.?

[MeTooThen]

It is very complicate to perform a clinical trial involving minors, so much so, that it happens infrequently as compared to trials in adults.

As alluded to above, there are issues of informed consent which cannot be given by a minor, but only their parent or guardian.

One of the complaints leveled against the pharmaceutical companies, medical investigators, and university medical centers is that historically African-Americans in particular and women in general have been underrepresented in clinical trials.

And no, the "white doctors" who were allegedly going to approach black girls had nothing to do with Tuskegee.

The fact that no one at the University of Chicago could be found to dispute such an ugly and contemptible assertion suggests that the NY Times simply didn't look, or that the U of C has completely lost whatever dignity is once had.

Just sayin'.

[kim]

Good question, centralcal. The rumour is on the 'More on Hurricanes' thread at climateaudit.org comments 30-33. There is a link to an announcement of a press conference in NYC on June 26 with some heavy hitter meteorologists. The tease mentions a possibility of a new El Nino, which generally warm, but also mentions something about cooling. About 70 years ago there was a shift from a warming Pacific Decadal Oscillation to a cooling one.

I guess we'll see. As you know, I see global cooling ahead, for 30 years or more, depending upon how the sun acts.

So, we are cooling folks. As the saying goes, for how long, not even kim knows.
==================================

[kim]

The Drudge headline about earthquakes refers to what is probably a bogus study, but believe me it will be all over the news tomorrow. It claims an increase in earthquake intensity recently, which is true, but blames it on global warming. This is probably horse hockey.

Look back 100 years. Earthquake intensity was much stronger then, tapering until about 1950, then leveling off, and starting up again about 15 years ago. There is a new thread at climateaudit.org about that one too.

H/t Bill Drissel.
==========

[kim]

Oops. Earthquake study not at Drudge yet. Maybe tomorrow. Heh. Even kim doesn't know when he'll put it up.
========================================

[GnuCarSmell]

Li'l Miss Congeniality strikes a discordant note on my BS meter. This is not the same Michelle I thought I knew.

[Jim Miller]

"Is it legal to conduct medical trials on minors?"

If you get permission from parents or guardians. And some time ago I read -- I can't recall just where -- that it was easier to get those permissions than permissions from adults. Don't know whether that's true or not.

[Jim MIller]

On the Tuskegee experiment: If I recall correctly, they did the study because there were treatments for syphilis at the time -- but doctors really didn't know whether those treatments were better than leaving the disease untreated. (I think they used very nasty arsenic and mercury compounds.)

Where the really great ethical lapse came -- in my opinion -- is when they continued the study after the discovery of penicillin.

[Soylent Red]

Democrats call for the Nationalization of oil companies.

Actually it was nationalization of oil refineries.

Whatever the case, it's the same carp that goes on in socialist third world banana republics.

RNC needs to beat on this until November:

"Socialist Hugo Chavez nationalized the oil industry in Venezuela. Now Democrats want to do the same thing here. Do Democrats think Americans support socialism?"

[kim]

Yes, JM. Ethics committees today are very alert to when a treatment is judged safe and effective, because it becomes unethical not to offer that treatment. That point is not always very easy to determine. Generally it is easier to decide, the more effective the treatment is.
===========================

[Neo]

kim:

There are rumours, Neo, of big news coming out in the next couple of weeks about climate that will effect the energy markets.

Maybe this is it ..

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

[Rick Ballard]

Jim,

The Wiki on it is pretty good. It mentions the toxicity of the treatments but isn't quite clear enough (IMO) as to their ineffectiveness in preventing the spread of the disease. There wasn't any cure until penicillin was readily available after WWII.

[Chris]

windandsea,
"I've yet to have heard a rational explanation why Michele O recieved a 200% raise at the hospital after Barrack was elected Senator"

Damn, Clarice beat me to it. The politician of change earmarked a mil for the hospital right after becoming senator.

Is anyone around here detecting what I'm detecting regarding conventional wisdom and the election this year? The Dem's should/will sweep, right? But all of a sudden people are waking up to some unpleasant facts. I just paid $4.50/gallon to fill up, at the cheapest place in town.

McCain says drill/glow and Dem's say, "Hell no! We're gonna take over the means of production." Barack says the price is right, it just went up too fast. They may be exposed for what they truly are before November. This might not turn out to be the blowout the experts were predicting.

[kim]

Right, Neo, and temps have dropped even more since, but this rumour is about the 6/26 press conference in NYC. I don't know what to make of it.
============================

[larwyn]

Wretchard has another one up on Monzer at the Belmont Club

http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2008/06/prince-of-thieves.html

[kim]

larwyn, the post just below that one, Chumchumal, is even more interesting.
==============================

[Topsecretk9]

Novak on Russert:

...From the start, Russert also was an extraordinary source for me. The careful preparation that became his journalistic trademark was obvious in our conversations, when he always had something for my column -- most of it about Moynihan's adversaries. He was superb in "oppo" -- research about the opposition. That skill propelled him to the top ranks of television interviewers...

...I talked with Russert on the telephone two or three times a month. Tim and I disagreed on tax policy and other issues, but we never debated over the phone. Instead, we exchanged political information, and I usually was the recipient. He supplied for use in my column news tidbits he could not use. During my half-century of journalism, he was the only colleague who was a source.

Russert and I were both uncomfortable about being witnesses, for different reasons, in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case, but we never discussed it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/18/AR2008061802730.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[JM Hanes]

Let me see if I have this right: We've got a hospital in the heart of black Chicago whose emergency room fills up with locals in desperate need of care. We've got Michelle Obama telling folks in the emergency room to go somewhere else, and telling the folks upstairs they should exclude black girls from their clinical trials.

Referrals actually make some sense, if folks were already being turned away, although I'd be interested in knowing where she was sending them. Gainsaying clinical trials on the basis of unadulterated prejudice, however, shouldn't be winning any honor badges.

TSK9: Nice get!

[Topsecretk9]

TSK9: Nice get!

yeah JM

Especially when we refresh what Novak wrote. The only thing he reported and attributed that 2 administration officials told him were "Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report." , not so much she was a WMD operative or that Wilson never worked for the CIA.

That "Wilson never worked for the CIA" is interesting in hindsight though, did Wilson tell people he worked for the CIA and that was the cause of confusion?

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me that Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counterproliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.

but you know? The most interesting part of Novak's column is buried in the last graf that was long looked over

The story, actually, is whether the administration deliberately ignored Wilson's advice, and that requires scrutinizing the CIA's summary of what its envoy reported. The agency never before has declassified that kind of information, but the White House would like it to do just that now -- in its and the public's interest.

How did Novak know that Wilson didn't actually file a report, in July of 2003, that it was a summary report based on his oral debrief? "but the White House would like it to do just that now -- in its and the public's interest.", indicates there is apparently a lot more to the story.

Oh, and for some reason the Judiciary committee is suddenly not interested at all in Plame and Scott's Karl revelations afterall (or because little birds have been squawking in their ear? The Plame/Wilson's have been mighty quiet, uncharacteristicly quite, about Scott. This appearance has the potential to spotlight they are a product of fiction)

Link

Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan will likely face questions about the war in Iraq when he goes before the House Judiciary Committee on Friday.

That’s the word among aides helping members prepare for the high-profile, election-year hearing.

The hearing was set to focus on what McClellan knew - and didn’t know - about the roles of Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and other senior White House officials in the 2003 outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Once McClellan is sworn in, though, committee members are free to ask whatever they want.

“We’re hearing from (Democrats) that once McClellan sits down it’s not going to be about Plame, it’s going to be about Iraq,” said one Republican aide.

[BL]

Kim, re Chumchumal. I'd like to post this at Belmont, but I don't have a password there:

Bravo, Wretchard!

Matthew, there, summed it up beautifully:

"...the parallel timelines of [Rezko] bidding for reconstruction contracts and of [Obama] supporting an American troop presence are remarkable."

Makes me wonder if Obama contemplated investing campaign funds or money from wife's bank accounts in the power plant to buy his way to the presidency.

[PeterUK]

"Coincidentally PUK, it's Paul McCartney's birthday today."

Yes,he was always older than me.

[clarice]

I haven't read Scott's book, but I suspect the judiciairy will not be asking him about Plame because from what I've read of it, all he says is that Rove and Libby told him they weren't involved in the leak and they weren't.

[Jane]

Good Morning everyone!

Happy Birthday PUK (I'm assuming it was yesterday - )

The Celtics Victory tour starts at 11:00! Congrats Celtics!

[PeterUK]

Jane,
Thanks,but it isn't my birthday for a while yet,that is why I am younger than Pauly.

[Jane]

WEll then Happy Pre- birthday!

[kim]

The Drudge-Earthquake thing is kind of amusing. Apparently it was on Drudge for awhile, also the AP, CBS, and MSNBC picked it up and ran with it. The bottom line, this Tom Chalko character apparently has some, let us say innovative, physical theories.

The lesson is that the big news agencies picked it up uncritically because it feeds into the phony paradigm of the earth's exquisite sensitivity to carbon dioxide.
====================================

[kim]

BL, ain't Wretchard something? I should read more there.
====================================

[kim]

I do believe we've just seen the tip of the iceberg about Rezko and Obama's Muslim sympathies and associates. There are a lot of dots to connect there, and you know with dot to dot you don't need to connect them all to have a revelatory picture.
==================================

[Elliott]

(via Drudge) Politico reports Obama won’t accept public financing.

“The public financing of presidential elections, as it exists today, is broken, and we face opponents who have become masters at gaming this broken system,” Obama said, adding that his was an “easy decision” for him.

Here's the Common Cause questionnaire">http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7Bfb3c17e2-cdd1-4df6-92be-bd4429893665%7D/MDNNATIONALRELEASE.PDF">questionnaire from last November.

[MayBee]

On The Page today:
Obama strategist Axelrod tells morning TV that Cindy McCain’s original response to Michelle Obama was “unfortunate.”

Cindy McCain's original "response" to MO was simply to say that she (Cindy) has always been proud of her country. Why does Axelrod have to pile on the SPOUSE of a candidate because she said something about her own self?

They are going to push this new MO thing too far. Yesterday someone "happened" to email Politico that she owned the same dress MO wore on The View and it was only $99.
Right when the Obamas are trying not to look elitist, that email was a happy coincidence, I think.

[Elliott]

Mark Halperin has a quote of Obama, presumably from his video released today, that makes me wonder whether Politico goofed. Quoth Obama:

“It’s not an easy decision because I support a robust system of public financing of elections.”

Also at the Page, Axelrod puts the "unfortunate" label on Cindy McCain's "banal, noncommittal quote".

[Porchlight]

The Wretchard story is terrific - thanks again to Clarice and others who linked it. I wish there was some sort of obvious smoking gun that didn't require untangling spiderwebs. But who knows what may emerge.

[davod]

How does Scott's testimony affect executive privelege?

[Topsecretk9]

but I suspect the judiciairy will not be asking him about Plame because from what I've read of it, all he says is that Rove and Libby told him they weren't involved in the leak and they weren't.

Yes Clarice, because democrtas are as reasonable and thoughtful as you and are not prone to fishing expeditions, exaggeration and casting innuendo as guilt. ANd they always anticipate their idiocy and therefore backed off!

Anyways, I suspect you are wrong. They wouldn't back away from getting more traction on the Plame deal even if all Scott said was Karl gave him a dirty look once.

[clarice]

Well, I might be wrong, but I think they leapt on that so they could get him before the Judiciary Committee--because it was arguably about a legal matter. If the article you linked earlier is right and they really want to ask this clown questions about Iraq there might have been some jurisdictional fight on the hill as to which committee would get to spear piggy.

[Chris]

How can someone as inconsequential and out-of-the-loop as Scotty make millions on a book and testify before congress. What a country!

Scotty's 15 minutes should have been up already. I'm thinking he's having serious doubts about some of those claims right about now.

[narciso]

I'm sorry but this couple seems to be the advance party for Cthluthu; "Vote for the Greater Evil". She acted exactly like the
Tuskegee administrators vis a vis HPV; and
now hundreds, maybe even thousands maybe infected; who need not have been. This seems like the biggest public health breach of since San Francisco blocked the closing of the gay bath houses in the early 80s. And they're talking about dresses, and how
she has a right to feel America is "mean
place" Meanwhile her husband, hasn't apparently read a book or seen a TV program
about Israel in the last 40 years, his advisors think "Winnie the Pooh" is a phrase, that should come up in the context of any diplomatic or military operation; he wants us to relive the stupid 70s oil embargo hyperinflation bump. wants Central
Park to be safe for muggers again 'civil
liberties don't you know'. Osama should get an attorney and be 'presumed innocent' I gather. Yet he's not laughed at out of contention; like some runner up on "the Gong Show". High ups in the Democratic party are broaching nationalization of any part of the oil industry; and they are being mildly reproached . We're burning our
food for fuel, with more to come in the future. Yet McCain is either slightly behind
or tied with this idiot, numbskull. or villain. Man this is like "Network on Acid" or possibly the Omen Bring on "the Old Ones".

[RichatUF]

Chris-

How can someone as inconsequential and out-of-the-loop as Scotty make millions on a book and testify before congress. What a country!

McClellan got a 75k advance on his book and it will be in the dollar bin by Labor Day. So not only did he not make that much money for the size of the bridge he burned, he'll be tossed in the trash can by the left after his shindig in Congress tomorrow. His 15 minutes passed the weekend of his book launch.

[Jane]

If you guys want to see what is going on in Boston right now, click the link under my name.

It's downright amazing

[clarice]

Well, amazing for Boston..Smooches.(Are you volunteering to help Kerry's opponent, Jane?)

[Jane]

WEll I'm a little disgruntled Clarice. I sent Jim Ogonowski some money and offered to help him and then he screwed up his signatures. Jeff Beatty is the opponent but I know very little about him. Kerry also has a primary opponent who is running on the fact that Kerry voted for the war. A ship of fools I tell you - except those Celtics of course.

[Hoosierhoops]

Hooray For the Boston Celtics!!
Beating LA down was sweet!

[Sue]

Good Lord,

Kerry's voice is the first I heard when I clicked over. He probably doesn't even know how to dribble without a bib.

[Sue]

Good Lord, again. People are such idiots. The crap they are posting on the instant message board.

[Sue]

Jane,

I gave you a personal shout out over there, but it is going so fast, you probably missed it. Sure wish it was my Mavs! ::sigh::

[Jane]

Sue,

I'm sorry about Kerry, I should have warned you. He is such a moron. I've actually got it on the TV in my office, but thanks for the shout out!

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

...aside from the fact that there was no actual cure for syphilis available in 1932 when Roosevelt allowed the Tuskegee Study to be publicly financed.

Hoover was President in 1932.