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Saturday, May 3, 2008
Win, Place...and Die
Posted by on 5.3.08 @ 9:11PM
NBC had a tough time ignoring the fact that the Place horse in Saturday's Kentucky Derby fell lame after the finish line -- "both forelegs fractured," the track vet explained, adding that she was euthanized right there where she fell.
But the net managed to ignore the two horse ambulances summoned to the scene and went on with the huzzahs for the winner...the governor of Kentucky ignoring the tragedy in his hyperbolic pronouncements. Bob Costas could not suppress his journalistic instincts long enough to avoid a mention of "triumph and tragedy" in his intro to the winner's ceremony, but the net was careful to cut out all video showing the horse going down in the several replays of the race.
They say you can't beat a dead horse, but NBC came close.
Libertarian rumbles
Posted by on 5.3.08 @ 5:20PM
Shane Cory has resigned as exectuive director of the Libertarian Party, which issued a press release with three top LP officials praising Cory's service to the party.
Cory's exit comes in wake of an internal party uproar surrounding longtime Libertarian activist Mary Ruwart, who is seeking the LP presidential nomination, after it was reported that a passage in a book she wrote in 1999 appeared to defend child pornography. This prompted Cory, who had been the Libertarian executive director since 2005, to issue an official LP press release clarifying that the party opposes child pornography. Ruwart's supporters and others in the party's "left-libertarian" wing responded by accusing Cory of attempting to sabotage her presidential campaign and being a "lackey for Bob Barr," who is considered Ruwart's chief rival for the LP nomination.
One LP activist familiar with the dispute said the departure of Cory -- viewed as an ally of party pragmatists who aim to widen the Libertarian electoral base -- sets up the LP national convention May 22-26 in Denver as a major showdown over the future direction of the party.
Many of the party's pragmatists are backing the "exploratory" presidential bid by Barr, the former Georgia Republican congressman who joined the Libertarians in 2006. The Philadelphia Inquirer recently called Barr "John McCain's worst nightmare." But as I explained in an American Spectator article last month, before Barr can disturb any Republican dreams in November, he's first got to overcome resistance from Ruwart and other stalwarts of the LP's more radical wing.
Ping pong rally needed
Posted by on 5.3.08 @ 4:02PM
As D.C. libertarians rally around the Jefferson 1 -- you can donate here -- consider another local put upon by the small tyrants of the D.C. establishment. His story comes via The Dupont Current, an off-line only freebie.
Jessica Gould reports:
On Monday, James Alefantis, co-owner of Comet Ping Pong,
presented a public-space application to the North Cleveland Park,
Forest Hills and Tenleytown advisory neighborhood
commission.
Why has this good citizen petitioned his representatives?
A lovely American story, isn't it? Who doesn't like to see a small businessman succeed? Who could object to such a man creating a nicer setting for customers, stimulating the economy and contributing more to local coffers?
Yes, it is absurd that one needs a permit for a ping pong table. I'd be on Mr. Alefantis' side even if he never sought one. But here is what actually happened:
Okay, so this poor guy did due diligence, consulting some obscure municipal office about a simple ping pong table. You're all set, his government told him.
As it happens, I have seen the ping pong table. I have also considered securing duel citizenship in some small third world nation whose national ping pong team is poor enough that I might sneak my way into the Olympics. In less ambitious moments, I've told my friend Chris Beam that we should play ping pong sometime. So for me the table most certainly served as an advertisement.
How foolish, I now realize -- Chris, let me apologize for my recklessness. Why?
Commissioner
Daniel Klibanhoff said ping pong players might be tempted to
follow errant balls into the street.
There was one commissioner who ignored these grave pragmatic concerns.
Furthermore, she said, she objected to the fence with the
freestanding posts and would prefer to see planters mark the bounds
of the sidewalk cafe.
Before I note what happened, consider that all this nonsense is a pretty major disincentive for a business owner thinking about modest expansion. Going before the city basically gets you a bunch of scrutiny as to whether you've ever violated a bunch of petty rules. So what did happen?
Alefantis, apparently broken and resigned to the necessary groveling expected by small tyrants:
"I think they are all good suggestions... also I want to apologize to anyone who was offended by the outdoor ping pong table."
And after all that, a couple of commissioners still voted against allowing this businessman to improve his business!!
I'm sure these commissioners are perfectly nice people, but their attitudes toward the proper role of government -- petty, bullying, imposing lots of unnecessary rules, substituting their personal preferences for the carefully thought out aesthetic preferences of a businessman expanding his livelihood -- are gravely flawed. If you agree why not contact them -- politely and using reasoned arguments -- and tell them so.
Meanwhile, so much for outdoor ping pong on these lovely spring days.
Friday, May 2, 2008
RE: The Tories Live
Posted by on 5.2.08 @ 10:18PM
The Conservative Party won the British local elections, with Boris Johnson beating Red Ken in the London mayoral race.
Fathers against having their kids seized
Posted by on 5.2.08 @ 5:39PM
Perhaps you've seen this story about Michigan authorities seizing a 7-year-old boy from his father -- he took the kid to a baseball game, bought him a Mike's Hard Lemonade without realizing it contained alcohol and watched in horror as every authority figure around him demonstrated an appalling lack of common sense:
Thoughts:
1) Were Leo a comic book character this youthful trauma would surely result in his maturation into a masked avenger of Americans wronged by an overreaching bureaucracy.
2) I fear for Gretchen Roberts, who admits in print to deliberately allowing her 5-year-old to sip wine. Anyone want to bet her kids grow up to be healthier drinkers than their peers?
3) Social norms sure do change! It used to be that the state gave kids alcohol and people got angry if it was taken away:
Letting the Market Work--Energy Edition
Posted by on 5.2.08 @ 3:35PM
I'm all for alternative energy. I would love for there to be a cleaner source of fuel, and would relish the oppourtunity for the U.S. to give the oppressive, terror-sponsoring governments of oil-rich countries the proverbial middle finger. But I also hate subisdies and mandates. The government shouldn't choose winners and losers in the devopement of new forms energy, fund pork barrel projects, or take actions that distort the market.
The only way that we are ever going to reduce our dependency on foreign oil is for the price to stay high enough, long enough, to create incentives for Americans to change their consumption habits. So it is heartening for me to read in the NY Times that the market is starting to work, with Americans purchasing smaller cars to save money on gas.
"It's easily the most dramatic segment shift I have witnessed in the market in my 31 years here," said George Pipas, chief sales analyst for the Ford Motor Company.
The trend toward smaller and lighter vehicles with better mileage is a blow to Detroit automakers, which offer fewer such models than Asian carmakers like Toyota and Honda. Moreover, the decline of S.U.V.'s and pickups has curtailed the biggest source of profits for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.
Once considered an unattractive and cheap alternative to large cars and S.U.V.'s, compacts have become the new star of the showroom at a time when overall industry sales are falling.
Sales of Toyota's subcompact Yaris increased 46 percent, and Honda's tiny Fit had a record month. Ford's compact Focus model jumped 32 percent in April from a year earlier. All those models are rated at more than 30 miles per gallon for highway driving...
Automakers ignore the move to smaller vehicles at their own peril. G.M., for example, is playing catch-up by introducing a dozen new cars and crossovers in the next few model years.
If You Can't Get Enough of The Two-Headed Monster
Posted by on 5.2.08 @ 2:38PM
Occasional Spectator contributor Julia Gorin has a new humor book out, having done the yeoman's (yeowoman's?) job of sorting through some of the rather fanciful utterances of America's most obnoxious couple. You can read more, and purchase a copy of Clintonisms: The Amusing, Confusing, and Even Suspect Musing, of Billary, here.
As far as this campaign season goes, given my ties to the casino industry, my favorite comment by Hillary still has to be: "The deck is stacked against the middle class, and under President Bush, that deck has gotten even bigger!"
It's A Matter of Trust
Posted by on 5.2.08 @ 2:20PM
This Rasmussen poll showing that by a 58 percent to 30 percent margin Americans believe Obama denounced Jeremiah Wright for political convienience, may be the most troubling poll I've yet seen for the Illinois senator. To win, Obama has to be able to convince people that he will be able to change Washington and transform its politics. Since he has a very thin public record, and no serious accomplishments he can point to in order to demonstrate he is capable of fulfilling this promise, he is asking voters to trust his words. If -- to borrow a favorite word of Obama's -- voters have become too cynical, and now are beginning to view him as any other politician, on what basis can he make an appeal to voters? You expect people to take a leap of faith, if they don't have faith in you.
Is There A Doctor In The Room?
Posted by on 5.2.08 @ 2:05PM
Ben Smith reports that a widely circulated clip of Clinton advisor Mickey Kantor having some choice words for the people of Indiana, may have been altered. At least that's according to D.A. Pennebaker, who directed the film War Room, from which the clip of Kantor in 1992 originated. If we're getting to the point where the widespread access to video editing equipment will mean the proliferation of amateur videos fabricating quotes, it's pretty troubling. For what it's worth, the editor of the video said he didn't dub over any new audio, but that he just "enhanced" what was already there.
Liberals: Talk to Dictators, But Not To Fox
Posted by on 5.2.08 @ 1:57PM
Over at his other home, Peter Suderman wonders why liberals don't want Democratic politicians to appear on FoxNews. But the real question is, why are liberals so eager to negotiate with foreign dicators, yet so appalled by the idea of their presidential candidates appearing on a cable network they don't like? Meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- a Holocaust denier who fancies a world without America and vows to wipe Israel off the map -- is good policy, but sitting down for a softball interview with Bill O'Reilly, is an abomination. Giving a propaganda victory to Kim Jong-il while he proliferates weapons, maintains gulags, and builds nukes, is worthwhile, but legitimizing Chris Wallace is beyond the pale.
What's so silly about the left is not that they hate conservatives, but that their hatred is so out of proportion that they are more likely to cut slack to our nation's real enemies than fellow Americans who they disagree with. As obnoxious as I may find Keith Olbermann, he's no Pol Pot.
McCain, Did You Order The Code Red?
Posted by on 5.2.08 @ 1:04PM
Hotair has the details and video of a HuffPo contributor and former Joe Biden campaign worker asking McCain at a townhall meeting if he ever called his wife a "c***."
There are a lot of liberals out there who seem to think that they are going the get McCain to just snap, like Tom Cruise interrogating Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men.
Seems like they ought to get a different strategy.
You Choose, You, erm… Win!
Posted by on 5.2.08 @ 12:10PM
Over at The American
Prospect, Dana Goldstein takes
on school voucher programs, writing:
Voucher programs stack the deck against families who prefer
a secular education for their children. In Milwaukee, the site of the largest
private-voucher experiment to date, 102 of 120 participating schools are
religious-affiliated.
I'm not really sure how this follows. Vouchers wouldn't actually prohibit anyone from attending a secular school, and, in fact, would actually expand the number of secular schools available for many students. Without vouchers in place, students and their parents are typically required to attend a single, particular public school. Depending on how the system works, they may have a few options, but even that's somewhat rare. Vouchers, of course, give students and families more choices. Even in a program dominated by religious schools like Milwaukee, participating students would still be able to go to the secular public school they would've otherwise attended, plus would have 18 additional secular schools from which to choose from. How, exactly, this is "stacking the deck" beats me.
It's The Ethanol, Stupid
Posted by on 5.2.08 @ 11:16AM
President Bush has proposed an additional $770 million in aid to poor countries to address the global food shortage, but as Deroy Murdock, and Ronald Bailey have reported, one of the causes of this food shortage is the fact that land that could be used to produce food for starving people is being diverted to produce biofuels because of subsidies and federal mandates.
Writing of these laws in both the U.S. and Europe, Bailey notes:
Thanks a lot, President Bush.
The Tories Live
Posted by on 5.2.08 @ 11:15AM
Gordon Brown is an immense political talent. He has managed to do what no prime minister has done since Margaret Thatcher: Make the Conservative Party relevant.
Memo to Doug Kmiec
Posted by on 5.2.08 @ 11:13AM
Deliberately contrarian takes on current events -- like making the case for Barack Obama to embrace Jeremiah wright -- should either be funny or at least superficially plausible. This is neither.
Fun for the Poses... or Something Like That
Posted by on 5.2.08 @ 11:13AM
One of our most devout readers, and a terrific correspondent, is Jay Swiatek of Massachusetts. He's also a great aficionado of horse-racing -- and, of course, the most famous race of all is tomorrow. More on the great Swiatek in a little while. Now I'm here to tell you right now that the New Orleans-based horse, Recapturetheglory, is the horse to bet on. Why? Forget all the scientific stuff about how fast he is, and forget that he recently won the Illinois Derby in very impressive fashion. That's logic talking. But this is horse-racing, and for people like me who know nothing about horse-racing but who win our Derby bets almost every year, the key thing to consider is gut instinct, which is usually based on the horse's name. And really, in this year when we conservatives are in funk, don't we all want to Recapturetheglory of the Reagan years?
But there's more. This horse is owned by Louis Roussell III and New Orleans car dealer/personality extraordinaire Ronnie Lamarque, famous for his old commercials about where he says his cars are "Bridging the Gap," whatever the heck that means, but it made him a media star -- and this is the same ownership team that brought Risen Star to prominence in 1988, when the horse won both the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes while donating 10 percent of his winnings to the Little Sisters of the Poor in Roussel's gratitude for their prayers as he successfully recovered from Throat Cancer.
But there's more: New Orleans sports-related figures are on a roll. As a New Orleanian myself, I am convinced that the gods of sports are smiling on New Orleanians as a way to make up for the terrible losses the city suffered in Katrina. The Saints, of all teams, reached the NFC title game. That's as big a miracle as has happened in, like centuries or something. Then New Orleanian Peyton Manning and his Colts won the Super Bowl. Then brother Eli and his Giants won the Super Bowl. (Peyton and Eli were famous for, on their own, chartering a plane to deliver relief supplies after the storm, and helping to load it and unload it themselves.) Also, nearby LSU won the NCAA football title. New Orleans-area QB Brett Favre (grew up just 50 miles away) played like a 26-year-old in leading the Packers to the NFC title game. The New Orleans Hornets basketball team had the NBA's third-best record this year and has won its first playoff series en route to what is sure to be a conference title appearance (at least).
I'm telling you, this New Orleans success thing is written in the stars -- the Risen Stars.
Wait, there's more: Recapturetheglory has a great pedigree. One great-great grandsire is Secretariat. A great-great-great grandsire is the great Northern Dancer, winner of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness and the most successful sire of the 20th Century. Not only that, but even more importantly, lots of other horses in Recapturetheglory's lineage have really cool names.
Meanwhile, Swiatek points out that conservatives have another horse to root for, Gayego. Why? Its owners have a great story of escaping Castro's persecution in Cuba.
Nevertheless, Swiatek informs me that his choices, in order, are Big Brown, Colonel John, Smooth Air, Z Fortune. But who are you gonna believe: somebody like Swiatek who knows horses, or somebody like me who believes in hunches, fate, romantic stories, and cool names?
Finally, Swiatek is known for his humorous, partly
tongue-in-cheek Swiatek Sheet, in which he rates every Derby
entrant. If I can figure the technology of how to post the whole
thing here via attachment, I will do so in a little while.
Meanwhile, a taste of the Swiatek wit and wisdom: Colonel John: He has what many of us presumably do not wish to
have: sufficient bottom. But here that’s
a good thingâ€"a firm foundation of racing has left him
battle-tested and ready to zoom when it counts. Having a
bottom is one thing, but having early zip, so as not to get
funneled back to the bottom of the field around the first turn, is
another. (In that case he’d bottom
out.)Â So how will he break, and what trip will he
get? We like the Colonel’s name, the
Colonel’s stamina, the
Colonel’s pedigree (by longtime
fav’ and two-time Classic winner Tiznow), the
Colonel’s white silks… and
we like the Colonel: second, by a thin neck.
And: Smooth
Air: A real sleeper. That’s literally
true: Smooth Air has equine narcolepsy. In the Florida
Derby, he dozed off in the starting gate, hit the snooze button
when the bell sounded, then was roused to alacrity by the whip of
jockey Manoel Cruz. Yawned down the backstretch, stretched down the
home stretch, and finished an awakening second behind freaky Big
Brown. Back in the shedrow he described vivid dreams
involving the filly Eight Belles and a tub of oats. If he
breaks alertly and has a dream trip May 3, he’ll
toss and turn for the top five.  Â
Okay, that's enough for now. Follow Swiatek and bet on Big Brown. Or follow my incredible insights and bet on Recapturetheglory. But either way, watch: it'll be a helluva ride.
Does Obama Agree With Wright?
Posted by on 5.2.08 @ 11:00AM
That seems to be a hot topic on talk radio these days, and in my view, the answer is no. At least, there is nothing in his words or deeds to suggest that Obama shares Jeremiah Wright's extreme views. I still, however, think the story is a completely legitimate campaign issue.
For me, there are several possible conclusions to be drawn from the Rev. Wright fiasco, and none reflect well on Obama. If you take Obama at his word that he was unaware of Wright's hateful views, it really raises questions about his judgement -- how could he know this man and attend his sermons for nearly 20 years without being able to size him up? Another possibility is that he did know that Wright held inflamatory views, but simply looked the other way, which (combined with his relationship with Bill Ayers, the anti-Israel views of his advisors, his sluggishness in criticizing Jimmy Carter's meeting with Hamas, his eagerness to meet with foreign dictators, etc.) suggest he is overly tolerant of abhorrent behavior. A moral relativist of the worst sort. That is a scary thought for a man who could lead America in the war on terrorism. The other option is that Obama was just doing whatever was politically expedient. He used his membership in the Church to help integrate himself with the black community in the South Side of Chicago, which helped launch his political career, but now that his relationship has damaged him at the national level, he's decided to distance himself from Rev. Wright. That undercuts the central message of his campaign that he isn't a typical politician.
There are Obama defenders out there who keep insisting that Wright is not on the ballot, so he shouldn't be an issue. But once again we get to the heart of the problem with Obama's candidacy. Because he has such a thin public record that he could point to as evidence of how he might govern, Americans are struggling to take the measure of a man who remains very much a mystery. That's why controversial personal relationships take on a magnified importance.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
I feel so ... used
Posted by on 5.1.08 @ 6:28PM
According to Huffington Post, Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal is e-mailing out to his media friends "hit pieces" on Sen. Barack Obama by "virulent and sometimes extreme right-wing websites, bloggers, and publications." Hint, hint.
Ron Paul Wins
Posted by on 5.1.08 @ 3:42PM
In the publishing game, anyway. His The Revolution: A Manifesto is #1 at Amazon and will apparently make the New York Times bestseller list this weekend.
More 'electability'
Posted by on 5.1.08 @ 3:08PM
Hillary's favorite meme keeps rolling. The New York Times:
[S]ome party leaders and superdelegates said the Wright controversy has given them pause, raising questions about Mr. Obama's electability in the general election next fall."From what I am seeing out there, it is creating a backlash," said Bill George, the head of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. in Pennsylvania, who announced his endorsement of Mrs. Clinton on Wednesday. "It's unfortunate. If more of that happens going into the fall, it could create a problem."
Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics:
In a new memo addressed to "automatic delegates," Clinton guru/strategist/consigliere Harold Ickes presses the electability argument for Hillary using a barrage of stats from recent public polls. . . .The clearest sign that Hillary's "electability" argument may be making headway? Rush Limbaugh has to reassure his "Operation Chaos" troops, who are beginning to worry that she may actually come back to win the nomination:"A spate of new public polls out this week confirms what we have been arguing for some time: Hillary Clinton is the strongest candidate to beat John McCain in November."
CALLER: But, Rush, don't you think . . . I understood yesterday . . . I'm not sure which cable news I was watching, that Clinton's getting awful close and that she can overtake Obama?It's a lose-lose proposition for Democrats, and Rush is loving it.
RUSH: She can't, neither of them can win. See, this is our insurance, safety, or whatever. Neither of them can win via pledged delegates. Neither of them can win via the primary process.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: This is ideal. It is going to take the superdelegates committing political murder against one of them.
Meme for May: 'Electability'
Posted by on 5.1.08 @ 1:56PM
Those who doubt the ability of Team Hillary to manipulate the MSM should check out her success in getting the media to raise the question of Obama's "electability." (2,094 Google News hits as of 1 p.m. Thursday.)
[T]he poll holds some troubling signs for Obama's campaign. Clinton does better against McCain in the general election matchup, giving her more ammunition for the electability argument. White women are deserting him in the poll and his unfavorable ratings have risen. He remains in a strong position to win the nomination but his support has eroded in the wake of his Pennsylvania loss and the "bitter" and Wright controversies.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson at HuffPo:
Message to Hillary. Win Indiana and you're in the money. Clinton will make an irresistible case for the nomination; a case that the three hundred fence sitting super delegates if they really care about electability ignore at their peril.
[A] new poll found the Wright affair has hurt the front-runner's standing with Democratic voters -- particularly white voters -- handing her a new argument about his electability.
Watch for more of this "electability" meme after Tuesday's primaries.
Methodists and Madness
Posted by on 5.1.08 @ 11:29AM
Mark Hemingway has a nice write-up of the United Methodist Church's General Conference so far and similar wrangling going on in other mainline Protestant denominations.
In Case You Were Wondering...
Posted by on 5.1.08 @ 11:18AM
No, Joe Bruno has not forgotten Eliot Spitzer.
No Chin Zone
Posted by on 5.1.08 @ 11:12AM
James Poulos channels his considerable descriptive and deductive powers, ultimately for the collective good, in this DoubleThink Online piece, but the opening salvo really does read like a treatment for one of those slasher flicks he so dislikes (Although, full disclosure, I enjoyed Funny Games, aside from a few annoying meta-moments, more than any political event or debate this election season):
Picturing wattled old Hill and Bill (O'Reilly) side by side, getting foundationed, patted, and powdered before launching into whatever unholy schtick they've planned makes for about as nightmarish a vision as I can conjure before the sun goes down.
As always with Poulos, read the whole thing and visit his frequently updated personal site daily.
A Proud Pansy
Posted by on 5.1.08 @ 10:47AM
Not everyone was inspired by North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley's endorsement of Sen. Clinton for president.
Flashback:Obama Pandered on Ethanol, McCain Didn't
Posted by on 5.1.08 @ 10:41AM
Over the past several days, in a number of posts, Andrew Sullivan has touted Barack Obama's opposition to suspending the gas tax as a profile in political courage, and chastized McCain together with Clinton for supporting the proposal. While I agree with Sullivan that the proposal is shameless pandering that doesn't make economic sense, he should also be reminded that when it came to the mother of all shameless pandering -- ethanol subsidies -- Obama wasn't quite as sensible. As an Investor's Business Daily story from last week recounted, with the Iowa caucuses approaching, Obama opted for the pander, while McCain took a position almost unheard of for a presidential candidate -- opposing the subsidies vigorously:
"I oppose subsidies," McCain said. "Not just ethanol subsidies.
Subsidies. And not just in Iowa either. I oppose them in my own
state of Arizona. I am proud of the conservative tradition that the
government can sometimes best serve the interests of the American
people by knowing when to stay out of their way."
Say what you want about McCain -- the quirkiness and unpredictability of his policy stances can be maddening -- but on ethanol and a host of other issues, he has taken positions that were against his immediate political interests. In Iowa, Obama had the opportunity to demonstrate political courage when his presidential ambitions were on the line, but instead he endorsed a policy that any analyst worth a dime knows is total crap. By praising Obama endlessly for his gas tax stance, while lumping McCain together with Clinton, Sullivan is being selective, shortsighted, and unfair.
As for Clinton, though, I'm with Sullivan, and all of the recent conservative love for her is nauseating. She remains a vile, contemptible, figure who will say anything that suits her political needs at any given instant.
The Incredible Shrinking Obama
Posted by on 5.1.08 @ 9:23AM
Jenifer Rubin notes a number of polls showing Barack Obama doing worse than Hillary Clinton in head-to-head macthups against John McCain and revealing a sharp decline in those who think Obama is more electable, or most likely to win the nomination. But what Rubin leaves unmentioned is a far more disturbing number for Obama, a new Insider Advantage poll showing him trailing in North Carolina based on a decline in support among whites older thn 45. While he's only down by 2 points, in the same poll two weeks earlier, Obama was up 15. This is part of a larger trend of Clinton narrowing the gap in the state. North Carolina was supposed to be a firewall state for Obama--the place where he blows out Clinton, regains his mojo, puts the popular vote further out of reach, restores some or all of the delegate margin he lost in Pennsylvania, and shifts the narrative back to Clinton being virtually mathmatically eliminated. But if he were to lose Indiana and win North Carolina just narrowly, it would really cement doubts about his canidacy. And if somehow he manages to lose in both states, he could actually see ths nomination slip away.
UPDATE: John Hood notes, "I wouldn't get carried away with that two-point Clinton edge in the SPR [Insider Advantage] poll, because a look at the crosstabs reveals only a 64-20 percent preference for Obama among black voters. Not credible. Still, the race has clearly tightened considerably in the past few days."
O'Reilly Bombs With Hillary
Posted by on 5.1.08 @ 8:57AM
A lot of the reaction to Bill O'Reilly's interview with Hillary Clinton centered around how she did -- and she was generally her phony self, giggling like a school girl, rattling off one big government program after another, and in John Edwards mode repeatedly saying "I'm a fighter." But for me, what was really obnoxious in the interview was how absurd O'Reilly was, throwing out one softball after another, chumming it up with her, and seeming to cede points on taxing the wealthy and universal healthcare. O'Reilly said he's glad to pay more, and that he hopes she's right about healthcare. At one point, speaking on her U.S. Senate career, he said, "you've done good in New York." O'Rielly revealed himself last night as somebody who isn't much of a conservative, and who doesn't know anything about policy. Not that this surprises me -- I always viewed him more as an entertainer -- but it was an embarassing spectacle to watch.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Candidate Vows To Slay Jewish Porn Dragon
Posted by on 4.30.08 @ 3:36PM
I haven't bothered to post yet on the spectacle of Tony Zirkle, a congressional candidate from Indiana, speaking to a Nazi group in front of a portriat of Hilter, but that was before I came accross his campaign website, and now I can't resist. Some highlights, and the video of his speech, below:
Last week, MSNBC's Keith Olberman on his Countdown show called me the world's 2nd worst person after Bill O'Reilly and ahead of John McCain. What cracks me up is that he showed the picture of me presenting the Gospel book, "The Desire of Ages" to the National Socialists. You know that America and its liberal dominated media have become morally bankrupt when you are called the second worst person in the world for trying to present Jesus to a group the media claims is filled with hate. So, let me get this straight. The liberal media believes that evangelizing Nazis is more evil than suicide bombers, child rapists, drug dealers, murders, torturers and yes even porn-pimps. Maybe those national socialists have a point that WWII was really about liberalism and communism dominating the world and that it was an assault on Christian civilization. Was the bipolar Churchhill possibly deceived? Was America? Didn't General Patton say that we should have been fighting the Russian communists instead? How many people died after WWII because of the new communist threat that Patton said we should not have tolerated. On the other hand, communism gave us Russian brides and capitalism gave us porn stars...
I've been getting a flood of e-mails and phone calls, some of which include death threats, about my attempt to raise awareness of how the great porn dragon inspires Jews into pornography and prostitution and then, like the snake he is, turns the public against the Jews. Some have questioned whether there is any link to Jews and porn-prostitution. I guess I'll have to start showing the evidence:
...
[A list of links follows]
Unfortunately, those Web sites are just a small fraction of evidence you can find on a Google search of combinations of "Jews" "pornography" "sex slavery" "Israel" and "prostitution." Let's save our Jewish brothers and sisters from this tyrant king porn dragon before we get to another world-wide pogrom after a war with Iran or some other conflict and after the Jews get blamed again. Did I hear it right that Hamas, in their Constitution or in another statment, had the gall to blame the Jews for inciting the revolutions in France and Russia and WWI and WWII?
Jimmy's Mama Endorses Barack From Beyond the Grave
Posted by on 4.30.08 @ 3:05PM
So Carter
tells the Telegraph:
His mother, whom he adored, would "be delighted I think at the
prospect of a black man being elected president". In an aside that
will give scant comfort to Mrs Clinton, he added: "And she would be
pleased - I wouldn't say delighted - at the prospect of a woman
being president."
Hey, what's Miss Lillian got against the ladies? I mean, I'm delighted she'd be pleased, but what gives gender traitor? In other news, no word on whether she would be "delighted" or simply "pleased" at the prospect of her son carrying water for Hamas leader Khalid Mashal. Then again, one channeling session per interview is probably enough.
And so Carter continues to tell anyone who will listen that everyone--his family, town, those dearly departed in the Great Beyond--around him has endorsed Barack Obama, but asks us to believe he himself is 100 percent neutral. Lord, be a man already and come out with it.
Be Afraid...Of Free Ice Cream
Posted by on 4.30.08 @ 2:42PM
Back along, Tabin noted Commentary may have been setting the bar a bit low regarding its hope for its very fine Contentions blog. I was reminded of this as I giggled through the following exchange in the comments section of a Jennifer Rubin post:
franglo Says:
What A Long, Strange Trip
Posted by on 4.30.08 @ 2:25PM
Albert Hofmann, the father of LSD, dropped out at the age of 102. Though he emphasized he was "just an ordinary Swiss" who counseled against the recreational use of the drug he called his "problem child," a lot of the coverage has focused on the importance of acid to the 1960s counterculture. If most of the old hippies live as long as Hofmann, we're in for a long, strange trip indeed. Make of this what you will, I also understand that Hofmann was a Ron Paul fan.
Wright to Remain Silent?
Posted by on 4.30.08 @ 2:13PM
Don't bet on it. However much there is to this New York Post story, this is exactly why Barack Obama didn't disavow Jeremiah Wright the first time: Wright will not go quietly, he knows that Obama was familiar with his views long before they became campaign issues, and he is capable of making quite a bit of trouble all the way through November. That is, if Wright doesn't deliver the nomination to Hillary Clinton in the meantime.
I'm sympathetic to those who find it outrageous that a black community leader would make himself an obstacle to the election of the first black president. But let's keep in mind something I'm sure Wright remembers well: Obama benefited politically from his affiliation with Trinity United Church of Christ. It gave him crediblity and clout as a community organizer. It helped him in his quest for racial authenticity. Those benefits do not come cost-free. And as George Neumayr points out on the main site, identity politics is a double-edged sword.
Alaska Tea
Posted by on 4.30.08 @ 2:06PM
You have to love the title of Robert Samuelson's column today on how to address the oil crisis: "Start Drilling."
Hanging Tough
Posted by on 4.30.08 @ 12:42PM
The economy isn't growing by much, but it's still growing.
Bobby J on Leno
Posted by on 4.30.08 @ 11:46AM
Gov. Bobby Jindal sat down with Jay Leno last night and did quite well. While not explicitly ruling out the idea of becoming John McCain's runningmate, he said, "I've got the job I want" and stressed the historic oppourtunity to reform Lousiana. The Republican Party could really use a modern real life example of successful conservative governance, so it would certianly be best for him to spend the next eight years getting Louisiana in shape before running for higher office.
Hawk vs. Hawk
Posted by on 4.30.08 @ 11:25AM
According to Jacob Heilbrunn, former Reagan National Security Adviser Robert MacFarlane said John McCain's foreign-policy team will be "neocon redux" for the first year, after which he thinks realists like himself will be called in to clean up the mess. Meanwhile, Andy McCarthy is sparring with Laurie Mylroie over her review of McCarthy's book. It is interesting to see some foreign-policy debate, however severely limited, breaking out on the right.
Should Obama Fight For FL and MI To Be Seated?
Posted by on 4.30.08 @ 10:48AM
Up until now, the Obama campaign has understandably resisted efforts to seat Florida and Michigan, but looking at the rough delegate count, I'm starting to wonder if that's a mistake. For months, there has been a logjam in the Democratic race because Clinton cannot realistically catch Obama among pledged delegates, but Obama still needs superdelegates to put him over the top. This reality has allowed Clinton to stay in the race in the hope that she can convince the superdelegates that Obama is unelectable. But seating Florida and Michigan, while eating into Obama's delegate lead, would change these dynamics, and put Obama in the driver's seat to clinch the nomination without having to worry about the quirky superdelegates.
(To be clear, all of the following tabulations are sort of back of the envelope meant to test this theory, and shouldn't be taken precisely.)
If you look at the the RealClearPolitics count, Obama is about 300 delegates away from winning the nomination. If he and Clinton roughly split the delegates in the remaining primaries (this is being charitable to Clinton), he'll end the primary season about 100 delegates short of victory, thus requiring superdelegates.
But Florida would have had 210 delegates were it not penalized. Let's say for the sake of discussion, those were allocated based on the popular vote. Clinton, who won 50 percent of the vote, would get 110 delegates, and Obama, with his 33 percent, would gain 70. (Give Edwards the remaining delegates.)
If you proceed to Michigan, the most favorable settlement for Clinton, Marc Ambinder notes, would be "the 73-to-55 delegate split that the Clinton campaign would obtain from the results of the primary, with almost all of the uncommitted delegates being pledged to Obama."
While both of these actions would cut into Obama's delegate lead, he'd still have a cushion of about 70 delegates over Clinton going into the remaining primaries. But more importantly, he would gain around 120 delegates, putting himself in the position to win the nomination without having to worry about superdelegates (by my rough calculations he can do so by winning around 43 percent of the delegates in the remaining contests).
Not only would taking such action allow Obama to get a clean win, it would enable the Florida and Michigan delegations to be seated, allow him to take the high road, and take away a major argument from Clinton. Of course, once she realizes this, Clinton may do a total about face, and suddenly protest counting Florida and Michigan, but then that would just be great theater.
UPDATE: Quin notes that if the Florida and Michigan were seated, by expanding the overall universe of delegates, it would raise the threshhold Obama would have to meet to gain the nomination, thus changing the calculations above.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Beware of Assumptions
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 10:23PM
When I went to cover Hillary Clinton in March, Beltway pundits were already writing her political obituary. "It's over...she can't win," they said, pointing to delegate counts and Barack Obama's fundraising advantage as proof. Certainly, the pundits said, super-delegates wouldn't dare risk alienating black voters by depriving Obama of the nomination.
Assuming that the pundits knew what they were talking about, many Republicans started gearing up for a fall general election campaign against Obama. But now that Hillary's won Pennsylvania -- and now that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's turned into an Eagleton-style PR nightmare for Obama -- those assumptions are starting to look a little less certain.
The latest polls show Hillary leading solidly in Indiana, and narrowing the gap in North Carolina. If she adds Indiana to a string of wins that already includes Ohio and Pennsylvania, Team Clinton's persistent questioning about Obama's "electability" in swing states might start to register with super-delegates. The Wright controversy won't help Obama in the May 13 primary in West Virginia, another swing state that Democrats must win in November. And Team Clinton continues to make noise about the DNC "disenfranchising" Michigan and Florida -- two other key swing states claimed by Hillary.
How serious is the threat of a Hillary comeback? Rush Limbaugh today called a temporary pause in "Operation Chaos," his effort to push Republicans to vote for Hillary in the Democratic primaries. Limbaugh says Obama may be so damaged by the Wright fallout that it's no longer certain that Hillary would be the weaker Democratic candidate in the general election. If Rush sees it that way, might the super-delegates start seeing it, too?
Hillary Shows McCain the Way
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 6:40PM
This Weekly Standard piece by Reihan Salam does a nice job laying out the difficult road ahead for both Barack Obama and John McCain. Assuming that Hillary Clinton does not blow the race back open by beating Obama in Indiana and North Carolina next Tuesday, she has given McCain the blueprint -- and some of the talking points -- for victory over Obama. Although Salam discusses minority outreach possibilities, the key question is whether the working-class white voters Obama has consistently lost to Clinton can be won by McCain.
Despite Obama's losses in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, we don't really know the answer. These voters are feeling worse about the economy than they did in 2004 and, as Salam documents, the Republican brand is tarnished. (Upcoming special elections in Mississippi and Louisiana may indicated how tarnished.) Pace Thomas Frank, social conservatism tends to trump bread and butter issues when these voters feel most economically secure. Obama has serious electability problems -- and so does McCain.
Cardinal Egan Slams Giuliani
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 5:48PM
The day after Bob Novak's column about pro-choice Catholic politicians receiving communion during the pope's visit, Cardinal Egan publicly criticizes Rudy Giuliani for doing so.
Hillary Gains In North Carolina
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 5:46PM
A SurveyUSA poll released today shows Obama's lead in North Carolina shrinking to 5 points. The same poll had him up by 9 a week earlier. This comes on the heels of a PPP poll that showed Obama's lead cut in half to 12 percent, down from the 25 point lead he had the weekend before the Pennsylvania primary. Neither of these polls reflect any damage that may have come from Jeremiah Wright's media tour, or boost that Hillary Clinton may have gotten from Gov. Easley's endorsement. A longshot win for Clinton in North Carolina, which remains a remote possibility, would seriously damage Obama's prospects. But even if she is able to cut his victory margin into the single digits in North Carolina, while pulling off a win in Indiana, it will help her claim a legitimate momentum shift in the race.
Photo ID
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 4:55PM
At the Examiner, we rejoice in yesterday's good decision on the voter-photo-ID case. I've been writing about this case for quite some time. The only thing that is disappointing is that the main opinion by Stevens (with Kennedy and Roberts) took the typical Stevens/Kennedy tack of applying a "balancing test" to adjudge whether or not a photo ID requirement might, under other circumstances, be too burdensome; i.e., as always, Kennedy wants the court to always assert its power to make minute and solomonic judgements, for it to be the all-wise arbiter based on intuitive knowledge too lofty for us mere mortals to adjudge for ourselves or for us to write hard-and-fast rules about. Oh, Lord, the mischief that was caused when Reagan settled for Kennedy after Bork was Borked, rather than again trying for a home run such as Silberman or Starr. Scalia (with Thomas and Alito) had a better, more straightforward concurrence. Oh, well. Be thankful for good results, if not perfect reasoning.
The Libertarian Barr-Age
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 4:24PM
Now that the Constitution Party convention is over, Dave Weigel supplies a good roundup of the Libertarian Party's presidential race.
Obama Is Finally 'Outraged' About Wright
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 3:51PM
Barack Obama just held a press conference in which he finally strongly condemned Jeremiah Wright. At various points in his opening remarks, he described himself as "saddened," "outraged," and "offended" by Wright's performance yesterday. He said that Wright's "divisive and destructive" comments contradict everything his campaign stands for, in fact, everything he has stood for his entire adult life. He also got specific, saying Wright's statements praising Farrakhan, equating U.S. military actions with terrorism, and linking the government to AIDS, were "ridiculous."
Obama previously gave Wright the benefit of the doubt, he said, but now there are "no excuses" for him. He insisted that the Jeremiah Wright who spoke yesterday was not the same as the man he met 20 years ago, and that in hindsight, perhaps he didn't know Wright as well as he thought he did.
This is exactly the way Obama should have addressed the issue to begin with instead of letting it linger. This is about as good as he could have done under the circumstances, but I still think Obama has major credibility problems on how he could have been so blind for so long about Wright.
Video here.
That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 3:07PM
Peter Swire of the Center for American Progress is urging Congress to enact technical measures that enable users to opt out of online cookies-typically invisible and unobtrusive digital trackers which send information about a user's behavior back to their hosts. This isn't a new thing for Swire; previously, he's complained that current technologies used to block tracking cookies are too difficult. But what's worth noting here is the Center for American Progress's own policy on cookies:
The Center for American Progress Action Fund may use session cookies to enhance the experience of users. A session cookie expires when a user closes the browser in which the Center for American Progress Action Fund's website was viewed. As with all cookies, users can personalize their browser settings to reject session cookies.
In other words, CAP uses cookies to track user behavior and provides no way to opt out other than what a user's browser currently allows. Nor does CAP go out of its way to warn users of its cookies policy; the text above is located on the privacy policy page, the link to which is in small print stuffed at the bottom of their page design.
Now, it's true that CAP is not using these cookies to deliver advertising, the main focus of Swire's concern, but the fact that CAP employs cookies to "enhance the experience of users" at all-and without much in the way of notice-suggests that cookies can and do provide users with real value, and that most web surfers would probably be just fine without noisy, invasive warnings about their presence. Meanwhile, it seems a largely frivolous thing for the federal government to concern itself with: Users who're particularly concerned about their online privacy will either take security precautions on their own or simply avoid the net altogether.
Re: No Wright Answers
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 2:02PM
The reason why yesterday's fiasco at the National Press Club is so problematic for Obama is that it completely blows a hole in his insistence that he somehow wasn't aware of Jeremiah Wright's most incendiary statements until he saw the snippets on YouTube last month. If Wright, given the opportunity to explain himself to hundreds of reporters and a national television audience, could be so hateful and utterly bizarre, can we really believe that in the 20 years worth of sermons Obama sat in on, Wright didn't go off the rails even once? The problem for Obama is now one of credibility.
Doctor McCain
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 1:41PM
John McCain is talking health care today. He launched a new ad, and delivered a speech on the subject earlier this morning. I intend to have more later, but it strikes me as the typical mixed bag for conservatives. Reforming the tax code to extend tax benefits to individuals who purchase insurance on their own rather than merely through there employers and allowing for the purchase of healthcare across state lines are all positive developments. But I thought the speech lacked a clear unifying theme, and came off at times as a laundry list of proposals. I'd like to learn more about his plans to combat chronic disease through improved health and fitness, because such ventures can easily devolve into creeping nanny-statism. It was also very frustrating to sit through a conference call following the speech in which McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin tried to make a free market case for the re-importation of Canadian price controls on prescription drugs. McCain simply doesn't seem to understand that by effectively putting price controls on drugs in the U.S. market, it will stifle innovation. The big picture question is whether McCain plans to engage Democrats on health care throughout the campaign, or whether it will it be like last fall, when he gave a big speech on health care, then stopped talking about it.
Payback Time
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 12:52PM
ESPN.com reports that the Philadelphia Eagles, my sterling example of how not to handle a disgruntled player who wants out, are now suing Dallas Cowboys wide receiver (and former Eagle) Terrell Owens for $770, 000 for bonus monies he has yet to repay the team.
The NFL is a $6 billion business, and one of the more popular and successful franchises is suing a player that they released for less than a million dollars. That Owens owes the money isn't in question. Whether it should be worth Philly's time and organizational focus is another matter.
Perhaps the Eagles figured that since they didn't get any value for Owens they should at least get some of their money back.
No Wright Answers
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 12:31PM
On to bigger controversies involving politics and race. Rich Lowry wonders if Barack Obama failed to disavow Jeremiah Wright because he knew that Wright, rather than shutting up and going away, might go into full opposition mode. Ross Douthat says Wright is sabotaging Obama to become "what? The next Al Sharpton? The next Willie Horton? How vile and pathetic." Even Andrew Sullivan now thinks Obama needs a stronger response.
While the need to throw Wright under the bus has grown, I just don't see how Obama does it convincingly at this point. Wright hasn't really said anything new. He has just decided to take the national platform that the Obama campaign has, perhaps inadvertently, given him. Anything Obama does now is going to look like a political calculation that won't satsify voters angry about the Wright connection. In fact, it would be more likely to offend voters who think Obama took a brave stand by not disavowing Wright, particularly within the black community. I see the problem for the Obama campaign, but I don't see any easy solution.
The Keyesters Play the Race Card
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 12:17PM
A few of Alan Keyes's online supporters have started suggesting their man lost this weekend because the Constitution Party is racist. As I've written before, the CP definitely contains some very extreme and kooky elements but the Keyesters' evidence for their specific claim is awfully thin. It seems that a Chuck Baldwin column was once excerpted on David Duke's website. Yet the column in question, which actually appeared on another site, is about remembering the men who died at the Alamo. It's a fairly unfocused rant but it has absolutely nothing to do with race.There is also an article on Baldwin's website by another writer defending the Confederate Battle Flag.
Keyes's largest bloc of votes at the convention came from the California delegation. The CP's California affiliate is the American Independent Party, which nominated George Wallace for president in 1968. Paul Venable and Ricardo Davis, two of the most prominent African Americans in the party, were leading Keyes opponents. The further right you travel, it's never surprising to encounter a certain amount of wackiness and ugliness, but there is no real evidence that race played a role in Keyes's inability to secure the Constitution Party nomination.
UPDATE: Several Keyesters have weighed in to discourage the anti-Baldwin dirt-digging.
NC Gov. Endorses Hillary
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 10:45AM
The Hillary Clinton campaign just announced that North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, a superdelegate, has endorsed Hillay Clinton. More here. This is an interesting development on several levels. Having the governor on board could help Clinton eat into some of Obama's lead in North Carolina. While she's still unlikely to win in the state a week from today, if she could cut Obama's margin into the single digits, while edging him out in Indiana, it would bolster her argument that the tide is turning in the race. Also, the fact that a superdelegate is moving into the Clinton camp at this late date -- even in a state that Obama is expected to win handily -- shows that Clinton has been able to effectively raise doubts about Obama. With that said, keep in mind that to capture the nomination, Clinton will have to win over super delegates at a roughly two to one margin over Obama.
Iraq and the General Election
Posted by on 4.29.08 @ 10:17AM
When I was in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago covering the primary there, I spoke to a man who could be described as a classic swing voter. While he was leaning toward Hillary Clinton in the primary, he said he'd reevaluate his choices in a general election. When I asked him what the most important issues were to him, he mentioned bringing troops home from Iraq, which you'd think would put him firmly in the Democratic camp. But he said he'd be perfectly willing to vote for John McCain in November. He described how, no matter what the candidates say, they aren't going to be able to just pull out right away, it may take a long time. And he noted that McCain was quoted out of context with his "100 years" comment, and said perhaps McCain's right that we'll have troops there for decades like in Korea.
A lot of pundits look at the polls showing a significant majority of Americans think the war was a mistake and want to bring the troops home, and assume that McCain's strong support for the Iraq War will be a drag on his candidacy. Obviously this is just one voter, but what struck me at the time, was that things are a lot more complicated than that. In any poll on Iraq, this man would have been recorded as supporting pulling out of Iraq and thus seen as more sympathetic to Democrats, yet at the same time, he appreciates the complexity of the situation and is perfectly open to voting for McCain. I wondered, how many others like him are out there?
Rasmussen is out with a report showing McCain outperforming the generic Republican label on and beating Obama and Clinton on a number of issues.
I found this particularly interesting:
Via Dave Freddoso.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Advice for Obama
Posted by on 4.28.08 @ 10:55PM
Jeremy Lott thinks Barack Obama needs more Bob Casey and less Jeremiah Wright. Who can argue with that? No word on whether Obama needs more or less cowbell.
Corrected By the Keyesters
Posted by on 4.28.08 @ 9:13PM
In a discussion thread on Alan Keyes's website where the unbiased Keyes supporters are debunking my "yellow journalism" and "spineless hypocrisy," Eternal Vigilance -- apparently Keyes political director Tom Hoefling's handle -- corrects me on an important point. In my column, I repeated his quote to the Kansas City Star and described him as having "sulked." He replies, "Gosh, I hate liars." He's right. On rereading, "whined" would have been more accurate. I regret the error.
Eternally vigilant readers may recall that I've been sympathetic to Keyes in the past. I remain sympathetic to the pro-lifers and other conservatives who are giving money to his increasingly erratic and unserious campaigns. But sometimes, you just gotta call 'em as you see 'em.
UPDATE: Dave Weigel brings up the Ron Paul angle of the story: Party founder Howard Phillips argued that Chuck Baldwin, as an antiwar conservative who endorsed Paul's GOP presidential run, could win Paul supporters' votes and donations while Keyes couldn't. For their part, Keyes backers complained that the CP was really "a Ron Paul party," which is in some limited sense true, though there is a strange Christian Reconstructionist element too. I don't know how far Baldwin falls into this camp, his Falwellesque 9/11 comments notwithstanding. I tend to doubt that Baldwin has as much electoral potential as whoever the eventual Libertarian nominee will be. I'm also not sure how much impact Phillips's speech actually had on the outcome. But if Paul had wanted the nomination, he would have beaten Keyes too.
UPDATE II: The whining continues in the comments, where Hoefling treats me with dignity and respect. He also raises a bear-in-the-woods philosophical question about whether a person can sulk or whine if you are not physically present to hear it.
Texan Television
Posted by on 4.28.08 @ 5:49PM
Mexican soap operas may not be at the top of the list of threats to the U.S., but it seems they're at least on the list. How do I know? Because of a bill introduced by Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. The law, which just passed the Senate Commerce Committee by voice vote, lets analog broadcasters near the country's southern border continue broadcasting in analog for an additional five years beyond next year's mandatory switch to all-digital over-the-air broadcasts.
Why? Well, from Congress Daily, here's the Senator's explanation:
Given the slow pace of the DTV education efforts and the cost of upgrading, many households along the border may opt to rely on free analog television originating from Mexico, which is not part of the transition, Hutchison said.
First of all, this seems a remarkably silly thing for legislators to be fretting about. But I wonder what Hutchison means when she refers to "the cost of upgrading." For those few homes affected by the transition, upgrading is fairly inexpensive, and the government has already put more than a billion dollars toward further easing those costs.
A lot of people think the transition will require the purchase of a fancy new TV, but that's just not the case. U.S. homes which receive TV signals any way other than over-the-air broadcast (an antenna)-like, say, subscribing to cable or satellite-won't be affected by the transition at all. So it's really only a small portion of the country (usually between 10 and 15 percent, depending on who's counting) who are set to be affected.
And those who will be needn't shell out megabucks for a new TV. Converter boxes which allow your old antenna to pick up the new digital signals only cost about $50, and what's more, the government will pay for $40 of that cost through a (rather wasteful) $1.5 billion transition program. In other words, converting an old TV set is cheap, and the cost has already been heavily subsidized. Yet folks like Hutchison seem to think the minimal remaining cost is worrisome enough to deserve legislative attention.
But I suppose it just proves what they say is true: You don't mess with Texas, and you especially don't mess with Texas's television broadcasts.
Siccing the Lawyers
Posted by on 4.28.08 @ 4:23PM
The DNC has a highly misleading new ad built around McCain's 100-years-in-Iraq comment. McCain, of course, said he'd be fine with a 100-year troop presence in Iraq "as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed." The editing and the visuals deliberately convey the impression that McCain favors a 100-year hot war.
Naturally, the RNC is unhappy with this. But they're going beyond pushing back rhetorically and bringing out the lawyers, claiming that the ad is "illegal" as they ask the networks not to run it. I was on a conference call this afternoon with RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, RNC Communications Director Danny Diaz, and RNC Chief Counsel Sean Cairncross. They claimed that the DNC has violated campaign finance regulations by coordinating with the Obama and Clinton campaigns, but that was pretty much an afterthought; their main contention was that the content of the ad is defamatory. This is a huge stretch; the ad doesn't actually misquote McCain, it just takes him out of context. I asked if they had any legal precedents in mind to justify such a legal claim; Cairncross replied that
At this stage what we're doing is we're calling on the stations themselves to excercise their own judgement. Each campaign cycle has brought this issue about, and most times, the stations, when such a misleading -- deliberately misleading ad has been sent to them, they've chosen to excercise that judgement, and it's never gotten to such a stage of litigation. So that is not where we are right now, we're talking about the stations excercising their judgement.Marc Ambinder followed up by asking if they'd go forward with litigation to "preserve the credibility of the RNC" if the networks don't pull the ad. Cairncross was non-committal, saying they'd "have to assess that when we get there -- if and when we get there."
This is incredibly lame. Do we really want to turn our politics into a legal bidding war over which side can more effectively silence the other? I'm not sure if it makes it better or worse that they're obviously bluffing.
The Cynical States of America
Posted by on 4.28.08 @ 3:15PM
The Clinton campaign will no doubt be touting a new AP-Ipsos poll showing her with a 9-point lead over John McCain, especially because the same poll has McCain within two points of Barack Obama. Electability remains the primary argument that Clinton has against Obama to the superdelegates, and most polls have the general election essentially a wash, with all the candidates within a few points against one another.
But one thing I found interesting about the poll once I moved beyond the horserace numbers was how reluctant Americans were about all of the candidates. On key issues of Iraq and the economy, a majority of Americans weren't particularly trustful of Obama, Clinton, or McCain.
On Iraq, 60 percent said they were "only a little" or "not at all" trustful of Obama to handle the situation, 59 percent felt that way about Clinton and McCain, On the economy, the numbers were a 53 percent for Obama, 50 percent for Clinton, and 59 percent for McCain.
This poll isn't particularly positive for McCain, but I think it's worrisome for Obama as well. One of the promises of Obama's campaign is that he'll get people to replace their cynicsm with hope and make changes by working together and finding common ground. In one of his many explanations for his "bitter" comments, Obama said that what he meant was people in certain communities have seen the government do nothing for them for so long, that they simply don't believe it when a politician like him comes along promising change, so that's why he's having trouble with working class voters. And I must say, interviewing Democrats in primary states going back to Iowa, a recurring theme among non-Obama voters I've spoken to is precisely that, on some basic level, they just aren't buying the notion that Obama can become president and simply change everything. They just don't believe it's possible. These numbers kind of bear out the fact that a good chunk of the electorate is going to react to any speech by a politician by thinking, "Yeah, right!" That general sentiment would seem particularly troubling for Obama, whose entire candidacy is based on promises and words, without having any tangible accomplishments to back it up with.
Perot-Bloomberg '08
Posted by on 4.28.08 @ 1:15PM
I'm normally skeptical of things like the Michael Bloomberg-for-president boomlet. But I've got to say, if you were a billionaire with the money to burn and some desire to be president, wouldn't you look at the McCain and Obama campaigns and ask: Why the hell not? You'd have to be a sane Ross Perot or a Bloomberg who wasn't a boring liberal who once made some vaguely positive noises about the Iraq war, and maybe such a person doesn't exist. But the opening sure does. If I were 35 and had a few hundred million dollars to throw around, I'd probably do it myself.
Wright Speaks
Posted by on 4.28.08 @ 12:37PM
I just watched Jeremiah Wright's appearence carefully on C-SPAN's website, and I don't think the context improves much of anything. Wright is not only filled with hatred for the U.S. government (if not its people), but he could barely contain his contempt for the woman who was charged with reading questions from the audience, mocking her, taunting her, calling her ignorant. And for all of his talk about how nobody who is criticizing him understands the black church, it's pretty clear that he has no understanding of why people are criticizing him.
For instance, when asked to explain his comments after 9/11 that the chickens are coming home to roost, he said it was the same thing as saying you reap what you sow, or that you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you. "You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back to you," Wright said. "Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic, divisive, principles." Of course those who were offended by the comments aren't offended by the general concept that commiting acts of terrorism triggers a response, people were offended by the suggestion that America was "doing terrorism" in the first place. The fact that Wright sees the controversial part of his statement as the origin of the "golden rule" rather than his characterization of American actions, says all you need to know about Wright.
His defense of his "God Damn America" statement was similar-- he just drew a distinction, saying God was damning the policies of the American government, not the American people.
Wright stood by Louis Farrakhan, saying he was "one of the most important voices of the 20th or 21st century." He also suggested Farrakhan was taken out of context when he reportedly said Judaism was a "gutter religion"-- said he meant zionism, and said that Farrakhan's views were the same as the UN and Jimmy Carter. (That latter part is perhaps about the only thing Wright and I may agree on).
Wright also refused to back off from his statement that the U.S. created AIDS, suggesting the questioner read Leonard Horowitz's book on the subject. "I believe our government is capable of doing anything," Wright said. Talk about cynical.
Also quite telling, was Wright's repeated assertion that, "We both know that if Sen. Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected. Politicians say what they say based on electability, based on soundbites, based on polls."
I've always felt that Wright would not be a make or break issue for Obama, but it will be part of a growing narrative about Obama that will continue to harm his image as a transformational leader and haunt his candidacy. Obama's defenders will continue to say it doesn't matter what Wright said, Obama doesn't agree with his comments. But the problem is that since Obama has such a thin public record, since there are few tangible accomplishments his campaign can point to as evidence of his ability to make positive changes by bringing people together through shared hope, all the American people have to go on are his speeches. But it's hard to take a leap of faith with somebody who you don't know very well. Therefore, when trying to determine who Obama is, this guy who within five years has risen from the obscurity of the state senate to within arm's reach of the most powerful job in the world, his close relationships take on an added importance.
Raucous Ron Paul Supporters
Posted by on 4.28.08 @ 12:36PM
Now if only McCain actually had supporters who were sufficiently passionate or organized to beat Ron Paul at a state convention, he might actually get somewhere. But the Paulites have other plans.
McCain Moves to the Wright
Posted by on 4.28.08 @ 12:32PM
John McCain seems to be slowly shifting course on Rev. Wright. It's not the North Carolina GOP ad, but it isn't silence either.
It's A Free Country, Wright?
Posted by on 4.28.08 @ 11:37AM
I've noticed that whenever the Obama campaign is called upon to criticize someone's decision to say something controversial, whether it is Rev. Wright or Jimmy Carter, they say something like this: This is a free country and we cannot control Person X or prevent them from speaking. Do they really think when they are being asked to comment on these things that people expect the Obama campaign to send thugs to stop controversial people from speaking? More likely it's the free country dodge.
Scalia On '60 Minutes'
Posted by on 4.28.08 @ 10:25AM
If you missed it, I'd strongly urge everybody to check out Justice Scalia's interview on "60 Minutes" here, which captures his charm and sense of humor, and his love for intellectual combat. One of my favorite parts came when he was asked how he could be such close friends with Justice Ginsburg, even though he disagrees with her so vehemently.
He said:
I wish a lot more people could understand this distinction.
Reverend Megalomaniac
Posted by on 4.28.08 @ 9:22AM
Jeremiah Wright, speaking now to the National Press Club, says that criticism of him "is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright, it is an attack on the black church." Oh boy.
UPDATE: I'm not going to blog everything Wright says -- I'm sure the transcript will be available soon -- but suffice it to say I'm guessing that they're in full panic mode at Obama Headquarters.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Not only in America
Posted by on 4.27.08 @ 5:21PM
In the course of arguing for legalized prostitution, Will Wilkinson approvingly cites a long passage from a Martha Nussbaum op-ed that includes this:
Without engaging the larger debate on legalized prostitution, note how absurd it is to suggest that prohibitions on "the oldest profession" are uniquely American. The "unmistakable fruit" of American thought? It's as though prostitution has been legal across times and cultures except ours...
McCain: Man from the Missing Decade
Posted by on 4.27.08 @ 4:46PM
I remember reading articles like this Sam Tanenhaus piece early in the 1996 election cycle, talking about how Richard Lugar was giving people born in the 1930s a chance to elect a president from their own decade. Alas, it was not meant to be, either for Lugar or for the '30s, although Pat Buchanan finished second in the Republican primaries that year and was born in 1938 (though I don't remember him ever being the subject of these articles).
John McCain would probably prefer that people didn't spend a lot of time talking about how he was born in the 1930s and came of age in the 1950s. But if people are going to talk about it, he could do worse than the points Tanenhaus makes about people of McCain's generation. Especially if people see McCain as James Dean rather than Organization Man, although the Arizona senator probably is a little bit of both.
Hey Jennifer, do you ever get tired of your role as a two-bit shill for the GOP? Why don't you just donate $20 to the McCain campaign and try to find a productive way to spend your time?
Dude. If you don't like the stuff here, go find your free ice cream elsewhere, or better yet, make some yourself. No need to be a dick.