Circumscribing The Debate

The NYT has one heck of a hand-wringer this a.m., searching its navel and the navel of other MSM news purveyors for any speck of sexism in their coverage of Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Leading the charge is Katie Couric. Here's the clip:


And what the NYT had to say about it, ignoring her statement that if similar "iron my shirt" issues were tossed Obama's way, it would have been front-page news:

Taking aim from the inside, though, was Ms. Couric, who herself has faced harsh criticism as the first woman to be the solo anchor of an evening news broadcast. Ms. Couric posted a video on the CBS Web site on Wednesday about the coverage of Mrs. Clinton.

“Like her or not, one of the great lessons of that campaign is the continued — and accepted — role of sexism in American life, particularly in the media,” Ms. Couric said.

She went on to lament the silence of those who did not speak up against it.

Odd that the NYT didn't characterize the Couric clip a bit more accurately and dig into it some -- like her reference to a free market entrepreneur's creation of a Hillary nutcracker as somehow being indicative of sexist bias in MSM coverage. Instead, they dredged up these examples of horrific sexism directed at Mrs. Clinton:

• Chris Matthews called her a she-devil.
  
  
• MSNBC panelist Mike Barnicle said Clinton was “looking like everyone’s first wife standing outside a probate court.”
  
  
• Also on MSNBC, Carson Tucker said, "When she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs.”
  
  
• The NYT was guilty of writing about Hil's "cackle."
  
  
• Ken Rudin of NPR apologized after the fact for comparing Hil to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction: “She’s going to keep coming back, and they’re not going to stop her."

Awful, awful stuff. Note that all of it came from decidedly left-tilting outlets. Let's take them one by one.

• Perhaps if Matthews had just called her a devil, he would have escaped criticism. You know, like "actresses" are just "actors" today.
  
  
• Barnicle's comment is hardly original; there's polling data that shows Hillary reminds many men of their first wife. Polling data are there to be reported. Ignoring them because it dealt with a candidate's sex would be just as sexist, would it not?
  
  
• Tucker's comment about crossing legs is in accord with Hil's campaign strategy of not running as a woman ... which leaves the alternative of running as a man. And any woman that behaves like a man understandably makes men nervous.
  
  
• And there's been plenty of coverage of Obama's ears and McCain's age, so please, no harpie screeches about Hil's cackle. Oops.
  
  
• Rudin, it turns out, was right. She still has not conceded defeat or left the race.
  

Now, all this bitching and endless nagging about sexism (heh) is all set-up, of course. The real game is not whether Hillary was treated with sexist disregard, but rather, it is a game of using allegations of sexism against Hillary to prime the media to be very, very careful in any criticism of Obama. After all, if sexism is a sin in America, racism is a mortal sin.

You can see Howard Dean hard at work priming this message in his comments about the coverage of Hillary:

“The media took a very sexist approach to Senator Clinton’s campaign,” Mr. Dean said in a recent interview.

“It’s pretty appalling,” he said, adding that the issue resonates because Mrs. Clinton “got treated the way a lot of women got treated their whole lives.”

Mr. Dean and others are now calling for a “national discussion” of sexism.

Obama, in dealing with the Wright blow-up, called for a "national discussion" of racism; Dean did not borrow the term by accident. And if the media's treatment of Hillary is appalling and resonates because it reflects how a lot of women are treated, then any criticism at all of Obama will remind all blacks -- men and women -- of negative ways they've been treated and be even more appalling.

In other words, it's now officially hands off Obama time. This won't make much difference to the average American, as the media has kept its hands pretty well off Obama all along. It will make a profound difference to GOP candidates, speechwriters and campaign chiefs, and to reporters, editorial cartoonists and editorial writers. The former know they are being watched and offenses will be dealt with very, very harshly by the latter.

Missing from this discussion is the Dems' recent sump-diving into ageism with McCain. To twist beyond recognition his comments about the strategic benefits of having an ongoing military presence in Iraq into an attack on McCain's capabilities because he is old must remind many American men and women in their 70s and older of the ways they are discriminated against and belittled ... but where are the calls for a national dialog on that?

Sunday Scan

Triple Crown

Jockey Kent Desormeaux summed up yesterday's Belmont Stakes pretty well, saying of Triple Crown contender Big Brown, "I had no horse." Big Brown finished a distant, distant last, and another year goes by without a Triple Crown winner.

I didn't even watch the race because I've soured on all forms of gambling, but it reminded me of 1977 and Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew, who I saw very up-close at the Kentucky Derby.

The not so incredible ex-wife was a photographer at the Louisville Courier Journal and I was her Derby photo assistant. She buried an auto-drive Nikon so the lens was at dirt level under the rail about 10 yards past the finish line. She focused it on the finish line, and handed me a cable remote.

"Push it when they reach the last pole before the finish and hold it down until the last horse is past you," she said. And that's what I did.

As the pack tore past me, I heard the jockeys yelling and the leather creaking and the whips slapping, I felt a hot rush of air, and was spattered with horse sweat. It was one of the most intense experiences of my life. After they blew past, I let the shutter button go and remembered to start breathing again.

In the process, I took an image of Seattle Slew crossing the finish line, all four feet in the air. It became somewhat famous; in fact, when a commemorative plate company selected one image of Seattle Slew for a series of plates on Triple Crown winners, they selected my Derby picture. Here it is:

I can't claim it as mine; it's credited to my ex-wife. But it's a heck of a lot better than the crummy one of the Belmont at the top of the post, isn't it?

Those Racist Clintons

"Sometimes your opponent just runs a good campaign," lamented Hillary's campaign chief Mark Penn in an NYT op/ed today.

I thought you paid geniuses like Penn millions of dollars, as Hillary did, so that your candidate would run a better campaign.

Penn raises many excuses for Hillary's failure, boiling it down mostly to money -- another responsibility of the campaign chief -- but the most interesting paragraph in the piece is this one:

The Clintons have spent their lives fighting as much as any leaders in their generation for greater equality across racial and gender lines. I believe nothing they said was ever intended to divide the country by race. Any suggestion to the contrary was perhaps the greatest injustice done to them in this campaign.

All in all, I have to agree with him, even though I can't stand it, and even with the famous Bill-ism about the only reason why Obama is running a fairy-tale campaign is because he's black, and the famously misinterpreted Hil-ism about Bobby Kennedy's assassination.

Back in February, I wrote a post titled In A PC Nation, How Will The GOP Run? that raised the issue of hyper-sensitivity on race issues:

Even if there were a line fine enough to appease the keepers of political correctness in the black, feminist and media communities, and there's not, the GOP will be charged with crossing it. There is no way the GOP can get to November without being called every "ist" in the book.

Still true, more true, today. As it turns out, even the Clintons couldn't pass this test in the face of the Obamaniacs who are found in high positions in the media and the DNC. The challenge for that old white guy with his blond cutie-pie of a wife has not gotten any easier.

China, The Nation That Keeps On Giving

Toys with lead paint, tainted dog food, and of course who can forget bird flu? China is such a generous nation! So giving! And since bird flu was such a hit last time around, it's now time for bird flu redux:

HONG KONG (WSJ) -- Hong Kong authorities slaughtered 2,700 birds and banned live poultry imports from mainland China for up to 21 days, after a routine inspection Saturday found chickens in one of the city's poultry markets infected with the dangerous H5N1 bird-flu virus.

While there's little immediate threat to humans from the infected birds, the discovery revives fears that the disease could still be a problem with poultry flocks in southern China -- although it isn't yet clear whether the infected birds came from local or mainland Chinese farms."

And what does the generous, giving People's Republic have to say about all this? Ever the humble gift-giver, they deferred:

An official with the General Administration of Quality, Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said the agency needed to consider questions about the matter before responding.

Can you say "chicken?"

Those Pesky Thermometers

Yesterday I wrote about NASA cooking the books on its US temperature data, a story Warmie cultists would no doubt reject as tales of denial by Warmie heretics. Well, if they had pipes and if they burned those little bowls of carbon-based plant material, I'd tell them to put this in their pipes and smoke it:

A perfect illustration is found when comparing the USHCN (U.S. Historical Climatology Network) temperature records from Central Park in New York City to those taken a mere 55 miles away at West Point. Readings in Central Park have been regularly measured since 1835 when the city's population had just surpassed 200,000. Today, surrounded by a metropolis of eight million people filled with some of the world's tallest buildings, a massive underground subway system, an extensive sewer system, power generation facilities, and millions of cars, buses, and taxis, the Central Park temperatures have been greatly altered by urbanization. And, as one might expect, the Central Park historical temperature plot illustrates an incredible warming increase of nearly 4øF.

The West Point readings have also been meticulously maintained since 1835, but the environment surrounding the thermometer shelter has experienced significantly less manmade interference then the one in Central Park. The West Point readings illustrate a significantly lower warming increase of only about 0.6øF over the same 170-year period. This is remarkable given that the year 1835 is considered to be the last gasp of the Little Ice Age -- a significant period of global cooling that stretched back several hundred years.

Cries of out of control global warming become more dubious when one looks at the hottest decade in modern history, the 1930s. The summer of 1930 marked the beginning of the longest drought of the 20th Century. From June 1 to August 3, Washington, D.C. experienced twenty-one days of high temperatures of at least 100ø. During that record-shattering heat wave, there were maximum temperatures set on nine different days that remain unbroken more than three-quarters-of-a-century later. (emphasis added; source)

How long can the global warming myth stand up to the temperature facts? It's an unanswerable question because global warming is the science of hysterics and hypnotism, and is therefore outside the realm of rational deduction.

hat-tip: Greenie Watch

Forever Reuters

No one can slip subjectivity into journalistic objectivity like Reuters. Here they are again, reporting on the meeting of G8 energy chiefs in Japan:

Japan, the United States, China, India and South Korea -- who together guzzle nearly half the world's oil -- said that they had agreed on the need for greater transparency in energy markets and more investment by consumers and producers both, while stopping short of calling on OPEC to pump more crude today. (source)

"Guzzle" is defined as "to drink especially liquor greedily, continually, or habitually." The U.S. and Japan should not be included with the guzzlers; we are more and more merely consumers. Greed simply isn't a part of our oil consumption; efficient output is. We consume ever more efficiently, investing billions in ways to make our automotive fleet, our homes and our industrial operations more efficient.

An objective Reuters (oxymoron) would have used the word consume. If it wants to look for oil-guzzling whipping boys, it should have stopped the list at China and Inda, which have put economic growth far ahead of environmental protection, and have put the acquisition of oil ahead of the efficient consumption of oil. In fact, both countries still subsidize the price of fuel to their populations, and refused reasoned calls to stop the practice in the name of greater fuel conservation.

Excitable Electrons

Confession time: I never understood this Mohamed ElBardei guy, and could no see the top UN nuke monitoring guy as a Nobel Prize winner than ... say ... Al Gore.

His mini-interview in Spiegel (the full interview publishes on Tuesday) gives me no further insights.

On Iran:

"The readiness on Iran's side to cooperate leaves a lot to be desired," he said. "We have pressing questions." Iran's leadership, he said, is sending "a message to the entire world: We can build a bomb in relatively short time."

On Syria:

But the general director of the International Atomic Energy Agency also said he expected "absolute transparency" from Syria.

On stopping proliferation by military action:

"With unilateral military actions, countries are undermining international agreements, and we are at a historic turning point."

What's difference between Iran and Syria might explain why ElBardei expects complete transparency from Syria, but not Iran? The only thing that comes to my mind is that there's been military action against Syria's nukes but not Iran's.

Hyper-Hysteria

Fear is rising with a bullet on the list of global motivators. Plastic baby bottles, genetically engineered food, cell phones ... all feed the hysteria machine, ultimately producing stories like this:

South Korean politics are on the brink of meltdown after spiralling public hysteria over “mad cow” disease in American beef unleashed a weekend of mass protests and pitched battles between demonstrators and riot police.

Police vehicles were today attacked by angry mobs armed with sticks and police lines were reportedly charged after the 40,000-strong crowd of peaceful protesters thinned-out to leave a smaller group of activists.

With the violence threatening to continue for another week, and the calls for his resignation being screamed by students on the streets of Seoul, President Lee Myung Bak now faces a series of potentially crippling departures from his immediate circle of allies. (Times of London)

How many recent cases of BSE have there been in the US? One.

How many recent cases of BSE in the US were discovered before the cow was slaughtered for beef? One.

How many humans have been infected from BSE in US beef? None.

Frankly, being in that crowd of angry Koreans looks far more dangerous to one's health than eating U.S. beef.

Hillary Hints

Concession? Forget about it. The text of Hillary Clinton's speech last night was anything but a concession speech. Just look:

What she said:

Even when the pundits and the naysayers proclaimed week after week that this race was over, you kept on voting. You're the nurse on the second shift, the worker on the line, the waitress on her feet, the small business owner, the farmer, the teacher, the miner, the trucker, the soldier, the veteran, the student, the hardworking men and women who don't always make the headlines, but have always written America's story.

What she meant: I can get the white vote. Remember, whites are "hardworking" in Hillary-lingo.

What she said:

You have voted because you wanted to take back the White House. And because of you we won, together, the swing states necessary to get to 270 electoral votes.

What she meant: Obviously, Obama's a loser.

What she said:

And I am committed to uniting our party so we move forward stronger and more ready than ever to take back the White House this November.

What she meant: Give me something good, Obama.

What she said:

None of you, none of you is invisible to me. You never have been.

What she meant: Unlike the half-delegates of Michigan and Florida, who she will continue to cry over, even though she was instrumental in creating their half-invisibility.

What she said:

What does Hillary want? What does she want?

What she meant: I want to be president! I don't want Obama to be! Go on to my web site, give me more money, sign my petition, help me deny reality.

What she said:

I want to turn this economy around. I want health care for every American. I want every child to live up to his or her God-given potential. And I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard and no longer to be invisible.

What she meant: Spend, spend, spend. It is government's responsibility, not the individual's, to ensure individual success. And I'm going to keep harping about Michigan and Florida, even though I was a big part of the problem.

What she said:

I've been working on this issue not just for the past 16 months, but for 16 years.

What she meant: You nominated a know-nothing punk, you idiots!

What she said:

So many people said this race was over five months ago in Iowa, but we had faith in each other. And you brought me back in New Hampshire, and on Super Tuesday, and in Ohio, and in Pennsylvania, and Texas, and Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Puerto Rico, and South Dakota.

What she meant: YAAAAAAGH! Translation: I guess we lost it back in Iowa.

What she said:

So, to the 18 million people who voted for me, and to our many other supporters out there of all ages, I want to hear from you. I hope you'll go to my Web site at HillaryClinton.com and share your thoughts with me and help in any way that you can.

And in the coming days, I'll be consulting with supporters and party leaders to determine how to move forward with the best interests of our party and our country guiding my way.

What she meant: I'm prepared to count people who didn't vote for me as supporters. Anything it takes. I'm not satisfied with mere second place. I deserve more. I'm entitled to more, and one way or another, I'm going to get more.

Refusing To Concede

AP reported earlier today that Hillary Clinton would concede the race tonight.

But not so fast, Bubba:

Officials in Hillary Clinton's campaign said the New York senator won't concede the Democratic nomination tonight. The Associated Press had reported that Sen. Clinton would acknowledge that rival Barack Obama has the delegates for the nomination.

The campaign released a two-sentence statement this morning in response to the AP's report: "The AP story is incorrect. Senator Clinton will not concede the nomination this evening." (WSJ)

Ever the wheeler-dealers, the Clintons figure she'll be in better negotiating position if she keeps her campaign alive -- a thin thread on which to negotiate, for sure. And maybe, just maybe, that Clinton charm (with a heavy sledge hammer just visible behind the back) will get just enough superdelegates .... So party unity be damned, it's every Clinton for his/herself!

Ah, that's the Hillary Clinton we remember -- not this softer, more vulnerable thing that's been seen under all the Hillary 2008 banners!

Mother's Day Sunday Scan

Hi, Mom!

Inside the Beltway, my mom's going about her mother's day, no doubt anticipating a call from us later today. Despite our differences on politics and religion, which are enough to shatter any normal relationship, we are very close and I would not be who I am today without her -- and I mean that in the best way possible.

She took mothering seriously. She wasn't just raising kids (although she made sure there was a big dose of that in the program -- people who know my mom might have trouble visualizing her as a Cub Scout mom, for example), she was raising two grown-up men. She wanted to make sure that when my older brother and I grew up, we would have a solid foundation in the old liberal arts tradition.

So thanks! And thanks also for the deep friendship you've made with the mother of my children. Having the two moms in my life so close is one of my great joys!

To my readers: Thanks for indulging me. In return, please feel free to pirate the tacky Mother's Day greeting image above.

Muslims Cop Killers?

My brother-in-law, a Special Forces vet and police officer, is on the board of a group that watches out for the widows and orphans of police officers who are killed in the line of duty. He forwarded me this alert:

Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski
Philadelphia Police Department
Pennsylvania

End of Watch: Saturday, May 3, 2008

Biographical Info
Age: 40
Tour of Duty: 12 years
Badge Number: 486

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Saturday, May 3, 2008
Weapon Used: Rifle; AK-47
Suspect Info: Shot and killed

Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski was shot and killed while responding to a bank robbery call at approximately 11:30 am.

Two men dressed in female Muslim garb had robbed a Bank of America on Aramingo Avenue. Sergeant Liczbinski encountered the suspects on East Schiller Street and stopped their car. As he exited his patrol car, a suspect opened fire with an AK-47, striking Sergeant Liczbinski several times. Several citizens who witnessed the incident rushed to assist Sergeant Liczbinski, wrapping his wounds in an effort to stop the bleeding. Sergeant Liczbinski told them "Tell my wife I love her", before he fell into unconsciousness. Another officer and a citizen carried Sergeant Liczbinski into a patrol car and he was transported to a local hospital, where he died from his wounds.

The suspects continued to flee, but crashed their vehicle. One suspect fled and the second suspect stole another vehicle, but was shot and killed by responding K-9 officers. A second suspect was arrested the following day and an arrest warrant was issued for a third suspect.

Sergeant Liczbinski had served with the Philadelphia Police Department for 12 years. He is survived by his wife and three children.

There is no evidence the perps -- Howard Cain, 33, who was shot and killed by police, Levon Warner, 38, who was arrested, and Eric DeShawn Floyd, 33, who is subject to a massive manhunt -- are Muslims. The local news coverage is lauding a lot of praise on Liczbinski, but is drawing no conclusions about Islam and the crime.

At this point, there's really just one point to be made from the story: It is perfectly sensible and valid for us to put restrictions on Muslim dress in the US for security reasons. It's not racial profiling to poke, prod and scan every single Muslim man and woman in traditional clothing.

Time For A New Perfume?

I have no explanation whatsoever for this:

A woman required 20 stitches to her face after a pelican crashed into her in the sea off Florida, apparently diving for fish.

The bird, which died in Thursday's collision, ripped a gash in Debbie Shoemaker's face as she bathed near the city of St Petersburg.

The city fire chief said he had never heard of a diving pelican hit a person.

Pelicans grow to up to 30lb (13kg) and can dive from heights of 60 to 70 feet (18 to 21 metres).

Ms Shoemaker, 50, returned home on Friday, the Associated Press reports.

Being Harry

Harry Reid has said a lot of truly stupid things in his day, but this is toppers, what he said about Hillary Clinton's recent racial analysis of her prospects vs. Howdy Obama's, i.e., that she can be counted on for the scruffy but hard-working white vote while Obama can be assured of the snotty white vote and the lazy black vote.

Here's Harry:

“I am confident that she meant nothing."

Well done, Harry! I see why they made you Speaker, since you speak just so darn well.

Leaves Of The Other Guy's Grass

In the scheme of Global Things, this is perhaps the most troubling squib I've read lately:

This week, Saudi Arabia announced plans to invest in overseas fisheries, livestock and food production, and is reportedly trying to partner with Thai rice farms to lock in future supplies. Libya is in talks with Ukraine about growing wheat there, and as China tries to feed its expanding middle class, it's looking to buy up farmland in Africa and South America. Commodities analyst Richard Feltes, with MF Global, says for decades these countries relied on cheap and abundant world surpluses to meet their food needs. (source)

Let's follow the line on this one. No, not the line where everything turns out all right. What fun is that?

Instead let's follow the line where global food supplies run short and Chinese Army troops are needed to keep hungry locals away from the fields they bought with the interest they earned from US Treasuries. Then the People's Army escorts the crops past the really hungry people to the docks, where underfed stevedores stare at the Chinese with their Type 56 AK-47 knockoffs, thinking, "If I pocket a handful of this wheat, will they shoot me?"

Yeah, that line. Anyone selling their country's land to the Saudis or the Chinese should see that this is the endgame that's in play, the endgame that everyone's anticipating. Yet they sell.

One very, very strange and troubling world.

As Polls Blow It (Again), O Has Mo

You'd think with 42 races behind them, the pollsters would have the Dem primaries nailed, but again yesterday they proved their utter worthlessness as prognosticators.

Yesterday, as the polls in North Carolina and Indiana opened, the RCP average of the big-time polls showed Obama up by 8 in North Carolina and Clinton up by 5 in Indiana. Oops, again, as Obama doubled that in NC, trouncing Clinton by 16%, and pulled within two points of her in a last-minute surge in Indiana, as the northwestern counties with their big black populations came in.

Obama's performance yesterday is tantalizingly close to a closer -- except that when it comes to calling it "it," the Clintons have a different definition of "it" than most of us. She was looking for Hoosier double digits to balance out what was certain to be a drubbing in NC, but she got just two digits, which isn't the same as double digits by a long shot.

And speaking of long shots, Obama's 200,000+ margin in voters yesterday now puts him back on top of the popular vote, which Clinton previously could lay claim to by counting Michigan and Florida's screwed-up primaries. So the only cloak left for Hillary to wrap her hopes in is that she can win in the big states, especially the ones with a lot of old-line Dems who aren't exactly in the front lines of the tolerance movement. Not much to cling to.

So it looks like the primaries turned out pretty darn well for the GOP. Hillary played her part in bruising the party and playing up Obama's many weaknesses, and we ended up with the one candidate most likely to appeal to Dems who are mature enough to fear an Obama presidency.

But GOP campaign chief Tom Cole says the party is facing a disastrous election in November. Is he just fundraising -- gotta have a big problem to raise big funds! -- or is he right?

Calling It: Super-Delegates Will Go To Obama

Fellow blogger Thomas talked with Hugh Hewitt today and predicted Hillary would sway the superdelegates because they will ultimately prove themselves afraid of a mid-summer Obama meltdown.

I disagree, and it's not a spur of the moment position I'm holding. I've gone back and forth and have certainly found a lot of merit in Thomas' argument. Would that the Dems would nominate Obama and the meltdown would follow.

But in the end, it comes down to this: When you get 92 percent of Indiana black voters voting for Obama, you can bet on 99 percent of black superdelegates going with him, too. That's a healthy block.

And what of the whites? Of course some are tied to Clinton for reasons good, bad and nefarious, and some have genuinely bought into the curious idea that an under-qualified, over-rated junior senator is a good pick for president. Neither faction is enough to lock the election for either candidate.

That leaves what we in public affairs call "the mass in the middle." We know two things about them that are above question: They're white and they're Dems. Now ask yourself, what is the most insulting thing you can call a white Democrat? No, not "conservative." Not even "Bush-lover." It's:

Intolerant!

Fear of being called intolerant will make every other weight on their scales feel like feathers. With their Obama vote, they will forever be able to say they were one of the brave ones who broke the color barrier, they are up there with Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. We all know that a vote for Hillary offers no such tolerance coups, even if she is the first woman candidate. We all like chicks ... but do we all like blacks?

And what the heck, anyone who's still undecided at this point is certainly not a hard-core liberal since the "very liberal" category is going almost two-to-one for Obama. Consequently, it would be worth the risk of losing to a middle of the road Republican like McCain just to get the tolerance cred.

Ultimately, fear of being called intolerant will carry the day for Obama -- and they say America has race problems!

Sunday Scan

Reporting Grammar-Free

One of AP's crack political reporters, Liz Sidoti, wrote this lead today:

Barack Obama scolded Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday for saying that the United States would "totally obliterate" Iran if it attacks Israel, and likened her to President Bush. Clinton stood by her comment.

Of course, Hillary said no such thing. Here's the Clinton quote:

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

She said, "would be able," not "would totally obliterate." Words are important and reporters -- especially reporters covering a national election -- are expected to get them right.

Done With Him

Last week, I lined up three options for Obama to consider in dealing with the Wright meltdown, from continuing what he was doing (doom!) up to a hard and complete severance. He's been following my third option, except for one thing I required for a believable clean break: "... and I assure the American people that anyone who holds beliefs like his will not be welcome in my administration."

In the same Russert/Meet the Press interview quoted above, Obama comes close:

MR. RUSSERT: You're done with him? If you're elected president, you won't seek his counsel?

SEN. OBAMA: Absolutely not.

But he follows that with babble:

Now, I think it's important to keep in mind, Tim, that I never sought his counsel when it came to politics.

Stop with the "buts" if you want to leave this behind, Obama! The statement shows you still don't get it. We never thought you were sitting down with Wright to talk health care policy options; we thought you might believe some or all of what he believed about America.

Obama will never recover all the votes he's lost because of Wright, and statements like that, following a very good statement, are part of the reason why.

The Latest Import From China?

China, which previously brought us avian flu fear, is at it again:

A province in eastern China recorded 622 new cases of the intestinal virus known as enterovirus 71 on Saturday alone, the official Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.

The figure brought to 5,151 the number of people infected by the virus in Anhui province, Xinhua quoted the provincial health administration as saying. Anhui's worst hit city was Fuyang with 362 cases.

EV71 can cause hand, foot, and mouth disease, which is characterised by fever, sores in the mouth and a rash with blisters -- a common illness among infants and children but which is usually not fatal, according to the U.S. National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

There is no vaccine or antiviral agent available to treat or prevent EV71. Enteroviruses spread mostly through contact with infected blisters or faeces and can cause high fever, paralysis and swelling of the brain. (source)

But remember, they've got a state-sponsored universal health care system in China, so you know we've got nothing to worry about!

Superdelegate Watch

Here's the latest update on Dem superdelegates, courtesy of Urgent Agenda:

Ray Nagin, the monumentally incompetent mayor of New Orleans, who botched almost everything during Hurricane Katrina, has been elected a superdelegate to the Democratic national convention. This proves America is a land of second chances, and Louisiana a land of second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth.

The "democratic" Democratic party puts unusual power in the hands of hacks and incompetents. Does America really need to have the likes of Ray Nagin having extraordinary power in selecting who might be our next prez?

The World In The Hands Of Babies

There's a very interesting survey up on Stats that polls US climatologists and geophysicists on global warming. Among the findings, was this most interesting tidbit:

Overall, only 5% describe the study of global climate change as a “fully mature” science, but 51% describe it as “fairly mature,” while 40% see it as still an “emerging” science.

So let me see if I have this right. The Greenie movement, and all its calls for fundamental and costly transformations of our way of life and economy, is all based on a baby scicence that doesn't even know if what it's doing is right or not.

And the Goriac's famous rant about the debate being over? Well the practitioner sof this baby science have this to say:

However, over two out of three (69%) believe there is at least a 50-50 chance that the debate over the role of human activity in global warming will be settled in the next 10 to 20 years.

Two out of three say it's a 50/50 chance. Is that what we call a debate that's over?

Political Fundraising

This guy is so entrepreneurial that there's no reason he should be a bum:

What Does Clinton's Vote Lead Mean?

I heard it the other day, checked it out, but only posted it in a comment. Let's make a bit more hay of this and use Mr. Political Almanac, Michael Barone, to carry the message, via Real Clear Politics:

One thing many people haven't noticed about Hillary Clinton's 55 percent to 45 percent victory over Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania primary is that it put her ahead of Obama in the popular vote. Her 214,000-vote margin in the Keystone State means that she has won the votes, in primaries and caucuses, of 15,112,000 Americans, compared to 14,993,000 for Obama.

If you add in the votes, as estimated by the folks at realclearpolitics.com, in the Iowa, Nevada, Washington and Maine caucuses, where state Democratic parties did not count the number of caucus-attenders, Clinton still has a lead of 12,000 votes.

With four primaries to go, Obama can count on big numbers in North Carolina. RCP's polling averages have Obama ahead by a tad in Indiana, but I think Hillary might pull out a squeaker, based on Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania and the downspin Obama's currently in.

I can't find any current Kentucky polling data, but I'm calling it close because the black and redneck populations pretty much balance themselves out and other populations will split between the two. Puerto Rico? Obama has fared poorly with Hispanic voters and who in Puerto Rico isn't Hispanic?

However the ultimate tally tilts, its obvious that the Dems are horrifically split and have no clear front-runner. In the end, Barone thinks it will be Obama who walks away with the nomination. But you have to ask, who would want this stinkin' nomination. As Bob Herbert puts it:

The share of Clinton voters who have been telling exit pollsters that they will not vote for Senator Obama if he wins the nomination is inching toward the red zone. At the same time, there is growing resentment of the Clintons’ tactics among Obama partisans, especially the young and African-Americans.

I've felt since early in the campaign that Hillary would be the easier candidate to beat, but now I'm not so sure. Obama isn't projecting the strength that's needed to be president (and Hillary is showing bulldog tenaciousness, if not strength), and given that Rev. Wright has utterly trashed the cause d'etre of the Obama campaign -- newness, reconciliation -- what possible reason would anyone have to vote for him?

The only thing about the Dem race that isn't too close to call is that whoever emerges when the dust settles will be damaged goods. Thank you, Mike Huckabee, for effectively splitting the GOP vote so we didn't have to suffer a similar fate!

Hillary composit: Danz Family

Polls Off In PA: Biased? Incapable? Inept?

Three point four. It doesn't sound like much, but at this stage of the game, the polls should not have missed the Pennsylvania call by this much -- the high end of the margin of error.

The pollsters had all but eight states behind them going into PA , with a mountain of data on the candidates and the electorate, yet on average (the RCP average) had her at a 6 percent lead while the voters carried her across the line 9.4 points ahead of Barack Obama.

And it's not like there were a lot of surprises in the vote; it went pretty much as expected, as RCP's Horse Race Blog points out:

What we see, then, is what we have seen again and again in this contest. Clinton continues to do well with "downscale" whites. Obama does well with "upscale" whites and African Americans. What is intriguing about this result is not just that it is similar to Ohio - but also that it is similar after seven weeks and millions of dollars in campaign expenditures. Clearly, these voting groups are entrenched.

Check this out and see just how predictable PA was:

Obama carried the black-and-lib urban county and the elite-and-lib university town, and Hillary won everything else.

Granted, the RCP average was skewed by a horrific PPD poll that showed Obama up by 3 (can we say "push poll?"), but Rasmussen had Clinton by only 5 and Survey USA only by 6.

Are the pollsters biased toward Obama? Incapable? Inept?

All of the above?

Pennsylvania Poll Predictions

As Keystone Dems (and "Operation Chaos" GOP voters) cast their votes today, predictions of their actions are all over the board -- from Obama winning by 3 to Hillary winning by 10.

The Real Clear Politics polling average has her as a six-point winner. As the campaign has settled down, the pollsters have improved their performance, and with all eyes on PA, this is a most important test of their capabilities. We'll check back tonight.

For what it's worth, the gamblers are picking Hillary. Intrade Live Quotes have Hillary to win at 92.7% and Obama to win at 10.6%.

Another Endorsement Obama Can Do Without

First, it was Hamas endorsing Obama. Now it's Michael Moore (who, by the way, brings up Hamas in his endorsement!) adding his name to the list of high profile supporters who aren't helping Obama.

And as you'd expect from Moore, it's a rock-solid, both-feet-on-the-ground endorsement:

There are those who say Obama isn't ready, or he's voted wrong on this or that. But that's looking at the trees and not the forest. What we are witnessing is not just a candidate but a profound, massive public movement for change. My endorsement is more for Obama The Movement than it is for Obama the candidate.

As I recall, Hillary voted wrong in the Dem's eyes on this or that -- oh, the Iraq war for example -- and she's not forgiven for that because she's just some chick, not a massive public movement.

That is not to take anything away from this exceptional man. But what's going on is bigger than him at this point, and that's a good thing for the country. Because, when he wins in November, that Obama Movement is going to have to stay alert and active.

As I read that, a song popped into my head:

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
The age of Aquarius
Aquarius!
Aquarius!

Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revalation
And the mind's true liberation
Aquarius!
Aquarius!

We all know how well that went. But being a Dem is never having to say you're a fan of history.

High on hamburger, Moore thinks the Obama movement, representing at best one-third of America, will sweep their man into office and on their one-third power alone, the grip of corporate America on DC will disappear in a wisp of sulfurous smoke to be replaced by a Chavez-esque people's paradise.

The only thing that stands in the way, of course, is Obama's inexperience, incompetence and hard-left tilt racism.

But the question I keep hearing is... 'can he win? Can he win in November?' In the distance we hear the siren of the death train called the Straight Talk Express. We know it's possible to hear the words "President McCain" on January 20th. We know there are still many Americans who will never vote for a black man. Hillary knows it, too. She's counting on it.

Sure, there are some Americans who will never vote for a black man. I don't know any personally, but I've heard they're out there. I do know lots of Americans who won't vote for a man who's ego is bigger than his experience, who is a Socialist in moderate clothing, and who doesn't have the good sense to leave a church where the pulpit is occupied by a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity.

I stole that last phrase from Moore, who applied it to Hillary for even bringing up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Moore's endorsement is as much a condemnation of Hillary for the sin of talking about race as it is a hero-worship of the man who, post-Wright, decided he wanted to open a dialog on race.

So, tomorrow voters in Pennsylvania will go to the polls knowing one of the craziest Dems of all thinks Obama is the right choice and Hillary should be damned to Dem Hell for verbalizing what a lot of people think about the Obama-Wright relationship. Moore's brand of corporation hatred may play well in some blue collar strongholds, but in the process he's managed to remind these same voters of Wright, Farrakahn and Hamas, three names that won't play in PA.

So thanks, Michael. Job well done.

hat-tip: Jim

Clintons Send Chelsea Off To The Gay Bars

Here's something most candidates don't normally hear from the crowd on the campaign trail:

"We love your highlights!"

"You're gorgeous, baby!"

That, according to WaPo poli-blog, The Trail, is what greeted Chelsea Clinton as she hit the late night gay bar scene in Philadelphia (can you say "brotherly love?") last night.

What's Chelsea doing hanging out in gay bars? Lest rumors fly:

Hillary Clinton's big supporter in the state, Gov. Ed Rendell, always heads to four or five of the most popular of them before elections, and he invited the former first daughter along for the trip.

Sounds like pandering to special interest voters to me.

It's handy having a daughter in her 20s so that Bill and Hil don't have to take campaign assignments like this themselves:

A crowd of more than two dozen followed Clinton from Tavern to Woodies, a couple of blocks down the street. After being introduced by Rendell, Clinton gave a brief speech to the mostly male crowd, which briefly stopped dancing and checking out the dancers standing on tables (and wearing only briefs) to listen to her.

Her response to beefy men in briefs?

"I'm so excited to be here!"

Gays are an audience like any other. Heck, the other day, the director of the Desert Chapter of our Building Industry Association (hardly a liberal bunch) was flaunting his new ad, showing two men cuddling and talking about buying a new house.

"We can't ignore the gay market," he said. "A lot of our electeds are gay and we really can't ignore them."

But I do take issue at the choice of Chelsea's venue. There are plenty of places to pander to the gay vote besides gay bars on a Friday night: universities, churches, gay political clubs. In sending their daughter out to the gay bars, the Clintons were manipulative, exploitative ... and Clintonian, as in:

“I grabbed her ass,” one young woman exclaimed to her friends after snapping a picture with her arm around the former first daughter. (MSNBC)

I mean, really! Haven't they just turned their daughter into a campaign slut? (Albiet an effective one, as this morning Google cranks out 22,800 hits for "Chelsea gay bar crawl.")

As I click "Publish Post," make that 22,801.

hat-tip: memeorandum

Obama: He's Just Had It Too Easy

Who was that lady in the last debate who asked Obama about why he doesn't wear a flag lapel pin? To hear the howling banshees of the Left tell it, she was some sort of vicious plant, asking irrelevant questions.

But this is not someone who should be easily dismissed. Margaret Talev of McClatchy tracked her down -- her name is Nash McCabe, and it turns out that her reaction to Obama is both nuanced and visceral, even though she would probably not use those words to explain it.

First, her background: 52, from Latrobe PA, out of work after being the sole bread-winner for her family (she and her husband) nearly all her working life, since he was injured in a coal mining accident early on and has been in horrible health ever since. She's anti-war, anti-McCain (too much like Bush), and as Talev puts it, "On paper, her stances make her as likely to support Obama as Clinton."

So why does she dismiss Obama and support Hillary?

[McCabe's life is] no Hawaiian prep school and Ivy League story, unlike Obama's. It's a slice of working-class Pennsylvania, the core of Hillary Clinton's support there.

In Clinton, she sees someone who has struggled for years, just like her, and has earned the right to be president. In Obama, she sees someone who rose like a rocket, always has a smooth explanation for everything — whether it's about his former preacher or the flag pin — and who makes it all look too easy.

"That's what upsets me about Barack Obama," she says. "He takes everything so nonchalantly."

She may not be likely to vote for McCain now, but her selection criteria puts him a lot closer to her preferred candidate than Obama. It's evident the Dems have to worry that come November, the Nash McCabes of the world are likely to cross party lines or stay home if Obama is the candidate.

Obamaniacs were quick to dismiss the ABC debate as a carnival of trivialities, but that's just more elitism. Intelligent people aren't swayed by flag pins. Intelligent people thing you'd better look at Rev. Wright instead of just dismissing him.

Well, I get the sense that Nash McCabe has more smarts that a Volvo wagon-full of Obama elitists. That's why Obama is a highly divisive force in the Dem party (not Clinton, it turns out!), forcing a split between the snotty-nosed Dems and the salt of the earth Dems, a split that will be difficult to heal before November.

Defending Charlie And George

Memeorandum is a daily read for me, and today is no different ... well, that's not right. It's very different.

I have never seen 25 stories posted on the same topic before today, but there they are: 25 stories, all of them critical of ABC's handling of last night's debate. Here are some representative headlines:

• The Debate: A Shameful Night for US Media
• An open letter to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanapoulos
• THESE QUESTIONS ARE A DISGRACE
• The ABC News “Freak Show”

Here's the criticism in a nutshell, from E&P:

In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the health care and mortgage crises, the overall state of the economy and dozens of other pressing issues had to wait for their few moments in the sun as Obama was pressed to explain his recent "bitter" gaffe and relationship with Rev. Wright (seemingly a dead issue) and not wearing a flag pin while Clinton had to answer again for her Bosnia trip exaggerations.

Well, shoot, what are Charlie and George to do? Here they are employed by a dinosaur media that's trying desperately to survive, getting ready to run a debate between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

Ask a question on health care and what do you get? No sparks, no recognizable difference between the two. Ditto for the mortgage meltdown, the war, the economy -- just two Libs with Lib ideas that are separated by fly specks and hairs' breadth.

So Charlie and George went on the Internet, maybe asking for a little help to get them started, and they found where the emotion and the meat is. Hillary making up stories, Obama being an elitist snob. And they ran with it.

As they should have.

The fact that the left is howling in unison this morning is evidence they did the right thing. Americans elect presidents for two reasons: Policy and heart. With Obama and Hillary, though, it's all heart since they're policy clones, so Charlie and George gave voters -- not leftist pundits and campaign czars -- what they needed to decide how to cast their primary vote.

We'll get to the meaty stuff after the conventions, when the two remaining candidates for the job will have very, very different answers to questions about the economy, the war and the state of our nation.

Sunday Scan

Chinese Faking Protests?

What, you might ask, are Chinese soldiers doing holding fake Tibetan Buddhist monk robes?

Could they be preparing to stage violent protests by "monks" in order to justify more violent attacks in response by the Chinese military?

That's an easy conclusion to reach if you read Big Lizard's Forget It, It's Chinatown post, which uses Japanese-language blog postings from anti-Communist Chinese nationals living in Japan to hint at what really might be going on with Chinese military action in Tibet ... and, incredibly, anti-Chinese Olympic torch demonstrations.

Japanese-language blog postings from anti-Communist Chinese nationals living in Japan? Isn't the blogosphere amazing?

Clinton Schizophrenia

In public, the public Clinton makes her case that President Bush should boycott the Olympics grand opening in protest to Chinese suppression of pro-religious freedom demonstrations in Tibet.

In private, the somewhat less public Clinton stuffs cash into the couples' bank accounts, cash "earned" from his position as an advisor to China's main internet provider, Alibaba, which is helping the Chinese government totalitarians track down and prosecute Tibetan protesters.

Reports the LA Times in a front-page expose today:

Alibaba, which took over Yahoo's China operation in 2005 as part of a billion-dollar deal with the U.S.-based search engine, arranged for the former president to speak to a conference of Internet executives in Hangzhou in September 2005. Instead of taking his standard speaking fees, which have ranged from $100,000 to $400,000, Clinton accepted an unspecified private donation from Alibaba to his international charity, the William J. Clinton Foundation.

This is the same charity the Clinton's do not list on Hillary's Senate financial disclosure forms, despite the fact that it has raised some $500 million, with much of it coming from the Saudi royal family and the sheiks of the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar. The Capital Research Center says of the foundation:

Bill Clinton is masterminding his charitable foundation’s fundraising campaign at the same time that he advises his wife’s presidential campaign. Might that create some conflicts of interest? At the very least, linking nonprofit fundraising to political proximity is sure to generate lots of philanthropic clout—but to what end? Bill Clinton promises to disclose the names of donors to the William J. Clinton Foundation when his wife becomes president. How reassuring.

The wrap-up of the LAT story was pretty amazing:

Human rights activists said clear evidence of Alibaba's collaboration with China's state security apparatus surfaced last month with the appearance of a "most wanted" posting for Tibetan rioters on the firm's Yahoo China homepage.

The postings, which appeared March 15 on both Yahoo China and Microsoft's MSN China homepage, carried photos of suspected rioters and a phone number for informants to call. The postings vanished later the same day after news accounts highlighted them.

Yahoo officials said they had no advance warning from Alibaba that the postings would run. "We made our concerns known that the displays were inappropriate," one Yahoo official said, but were told by Alibaba officials "that it was a standard news feed."

The Clinton foundation spokeswoman would not address Alibaba's role in aiding the crackdown in Tibet. Instead, she emphasized the former president's efforts to push AIDS relief in China. "He has both pushed and helped the government of China to acknowledge and tackle the growing HIV-AIDs crisis facing their country," she said.

I'm struggling here to figure out why funding AIDs relief answers questions about Clinton failing to support human rights in China because he's taken money from the Commie oppressors. And I'm failing to see how Hillary Clinton can be president without Bill Clinton influencing her every move.

And I'm sure the Obama camp is happy it has the LAT working so hard for him.

Politics, Italian Style

That's the derrier of Italian porn star whore Millie D'Abbraccio, and it's gracing not a movie poster, but her campaign poster for a seat on Rome's City Council.

She's running as a Socialist. Surprise!

And here's her the big idea of her campaign:

If elected, D'Abbraccio wants to create a red light area with strip clubs, erotic discos and sex shops called "Love City" just kilometers away from the Vatican.

"It would be something cute, clean -- nothing to do with prostitution," said the actress whose films include "The Kiss of the Cobra" and "Paolina Borghese, Imperial Nymphomaniac." (source)

Cute and clean. Uh-huh. As screwed up as DC is, and as far out as our leftists are, things here are better, far better, than they are in Europe.

Which is why leftists love Europe so much.

BBC Warming Wilt Chronicled

In last week's Sunday Scan, I ran a piece documenting how BBC had edited a news item on lower global temperatures to basically take out any reference to lower global temperatures.

Now The [UK] Register has run the series of emails between Warmie fundamentalist Jo Abbess and Beeb editor Roger Harrabin that resulted in BBC cowering in fear of being branded a "global warming skeptic."

The exchange started hot and got hotter, with Abbess finally threatening Harabin:

"It would be better if you did not quote the sceptics. Their voice is heard everywhere, on every channel. They are deliberately obstructing the emergence of the truth. I would ask : please reserve the main BBC Online channel for emerging truth." [Our emphasis]

Abbess was worried about the consequences of Harrabin's report. People might think The Wrong Thoughts. She spelled it out:

"A lot of people will read the first few paragraphs of what you say, and not read the rest, and (a) Dismiss your writing as it seems you have been manipulated by the sceptics or (b) Jump on it with glee and email their mates and say "See! Global Warming has stopped !"

And she signed off with a threat:

"I am about to send your comments to others for their contribution, unless you request I do not. They are likely to want to post your comments on forums/fora, so please indicate if you do not want this to happen. You may appear in an unfavourable light because it could be said that you have had your head turned by the sceptics."

Harrabin meekly responded:

"Have a look in 10 minutes and tell me you are happier. We have changed headline and more."

So the initial copy ...

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory. But experts say we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend - and they forecast a new record high temperature within five years.

... became:

But this year's temperature would still be way above the average - and we would soon exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases.

If the debate on global warming is over, how come Abbess had to debate BBC into changing its story?

And if the media is to be believed, why did BBC fold?

BTW, a Google search on Jo Abbess now turns up a relatively strong 110,000 hits. I dug three pages into it and every link had to do with this scandal. God bless the blogosphere.

hat-tip: Icecap

Green Vs. Green Combat

And while we're on the subject of strange happenings in the Greenie/Warmie world, I must pass along this story from the NYT as the story that gave me the most giggles in the last week:

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Call it an eco-parable: one Prius-driving couple takes pride in their eight redwoods, the first of them planted over a decade ago. Their electric-car-driving neighbors take pride in their rooftop solar panels, installed five years after the first trees were planted.

Trees — redwoods, live oaks or blossoming fruit trees — are usually considered sturdy citizens of the sun-swept peninsula south of San Francisco, not criminal elements. But under a 1978 state law protecting homeowners’ investment in rooftop solar panels, trees that impede solar panels’ access to the sun can be deemed a nuisance and their owners fined up to $1,000 a day. The Solar Shade Act was a curiosity until late last year, when a dispute over the eight redwoods (a k a Tree No. 1, Tree No. 2, Tree No. 3, etc.) ended up in Santa Clara County criminal court.

The couple who planted the trees, Carolynn Bissett and Richard Treanor, were convicted of violating the law, based on the complaint of their neighbor, Mark Vargas, and were ordered to make sure that no more than 10 percent of the solar panels are shaded.

A few weeks after The San Jose Mercury News wrote about the situation, the first act ended with the couple pruning 10 feet to 15 feet of Tree No. 6’s upper branches. The event drew more cameras than an episode of “Extreme Home Makeover.”

The Bissett-Treanor team responded as liberals will -- they turned to Big Brother, specifically in the form of Joe Simitian, a Dem (natch) state senator from nearby Palo Alto, who now will busy the state legislature with a new bill that will grandfather the owners of trees that pre-existed the installation of neighboring solar panels from prosecution under The Solar Shade Act.

The story concludes:

The state, Mr. Simitian pointed out, has a law to encourage the construction of one million solar roofs. “I’m trying to avoid a million neighborhood arguments,” he said.

Yes, that would be a lot of hot air.

Maoist Moron

In case you thought nothing much happened in San Francisco this week because the Chinese conspired with the Newsome administration to re-route the Olympic torch parade, you'd do well to visit this lengthy and impressive photo album at Pajamas media.

It was, in fact, quite a show with multiple anti-Chinese causes present and plenty of hostility flaring between pro- and anti-Chinese factions. Included is this photo of some anti-Chinese street theater:

Note the long-haired imbecile on the left in the Mao t-shirt. Who wears a Mao t-shirt on any day, and who is idiotic enough to wear one to an anti-China demonstration?

Beware when the left embraces your cause, because lame-brains will be coming to your side.

hat-tip: Jim

Five Years In Iraq

The invaluable MEMRI marked the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq with excerpts from articles written by liberal Muslim commentators, all of which are worth reading.

I particularly liked this excerpt from an interview by Iraqi Journalist 'Abd Al-Jabbar Al-'Atabihad of a news vendor in Baghdad. He asked the vendor how he felt on the anniversary of the invasion and was told:

"At the start of my journey I stopped by the newspaper seller to ask how he was after five years of change. He said: I will sum up what you ask in a few words. Despite everything that happened and is happening, I feel pride in the fact that the years of dictatorship are gone. There were no worse years than those, when we were afraid of our own shadows and our own children. I won't claim that the situation now is ideal, but compared to the past, it is much better, without any comparison…

Despite the sorrows I find in our present situation, I feel relieved. In the days [of the dictatorship] I didn't feel optimistic. Now, I am optimistic about what is to come. What is happening now is passing; while it has gone on long, it will end - it could end in the twinkle of an eye.

How do liberals, who are supposed to be the strongest champions of freedom, oppose the war in Iraq when it is so obvious that the work we are doing there is the good, hard work of defending freedom, and freeing the oppressed?

Also in the MEMRI post is an "Apology to the Valiant American Soldier" by Iraqi liberal (truly liberal, as opposed to the shameful disgraces that constitute liberalism in the US today) Khudayr Taher. Its beauty surpasses mere words; it is much deserved blessing for our troops:

"We forsook you and betrayed you - we, whose history is an expression of massacres, conflagrations, and ruin. We killed you, and we killed our dream and aspiration of reaching the sun, the moon, and the stars - [we killed our dream] of availing ourselves of the opportunity to live as true humans, thanks to your presence.

"My dear, brave American soldier, you noble individual who traversed land and sea in order to write the story of Iraqi freedom for the first time in its modern history - you believed, in accordance with logic, self-evident truths, and rational thought, that a people who had been subjected to repression, starvation, and killing would dance for joy, and would thank Allah who sent you to them as a liberating angel. [You believed that] they would strew flowers and break out in songs of joy that would smash the chains of slavery, ignominy, and humiliation.

"Not even a writer of surrealistic [literature] or [theater of] the absurd would have imagined that the Iraqi people would revolt against their liberator and would rush ardently back to a new bondage of a different kind - that of the religious cleric, the tribal sheikh, and the gang leader. It was unthinkable that the people would go against logic, rational thought, and self-evident truths, in a mad rush towards the abyss and total ruin.

"My beloved, brave American soldier, we apologize to you, and we are saddened at our wretched and miserable selves. Since we are a people that slaughters itself, and kills one another, cutting off heads, what can you expect from us other than ingratitude, perfidy, and stabbing you in the back for the benefit of Iranian and Syrian intelligence and Al-Qaeda?..."

Pass that one along, will you?

Combat On The Hill

Good generals know how to prepare for attacks, so I imagine David Petraeus enters the Capitol Hill combat zone today well armed in anticipation of some serious grandstanding by two junior senators with very senior ambitions.

Basra and Iran are sure to come up, so thank you Mah- I'm in the moud to goose-step Ahmadinejad (rhymes with "Mohammed makes me loony-mad!") for giving us this little news item this morning:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran has begun installing 6,000 new centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, state television quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying Tuesday.

Iran already has about 3,000 centrifuges operating in Natanz, and the new announcement is seen as a show of defiance of international demands to halt a nuclear program the United States and its allies say is aimed at building nuclear weapons.

Nice of AP to concede that the US still has allies .... 9,000 centrifuges -- seems like an awfully big investment in electrical generation for a country that literally has oil to burn. Whatever can they be up to?

As Clinton and Obama do their best to ignore realities like this and appease the hard Left by bashing a perfectly fine general, it's interesting to muse about their direct involvement in the recent surge of violence in Iraq. Reuters almost gets it, but characteristically doesn't see the forest for the trees:

In testimony over two days, Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker will assess the uneven progress made in a year-long "surge" of force meant to create the calm for Iraqi politicians to advance legislation and factions to reconcile.

The upturn in violence has thrust Iraq back to the forefront of campaigns for the November presidential election.

Put another way, the upturn in violence is part of a concerted effort by al Qaeda in Iraq, Shi'ite militia, Iran and others to ensure the election of a Democrat in November, because they know that will make their dreams of chaos and conquest much more realizable if John McCain is not in the White House.

Update: Here's what he said this morning in his opening statement to Congress:

Gen. Petraeus also said the recent flare-up of violence in Basra, in Baghdad and elsewhere points up the importance of the cease-fire declared last year by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and highlighted the role Iran allegedly plays in funding and training Shiite militias through cells the U.S. military calls "special groups."

"Unchecked, the special groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq," Gen. Petraeus said. (WSJ)

(end of update)

So our enemy, monitoring proceedings over CNN and al-Jaz, will grin with every insulting probe from Clinton, Obama and the other Dems today, and listen very attentively to everything said by McCain.

Like I said, Petraeus is entering an important combat zone today, and I for one am hoping he emerges victorious, leaving a couple junior senators with senior headaches.

Dem Primaries Sinking Anti-McCain Efforts

Besides bruising the reputations of the Dem contenders, the long, bitter primary season has George Soros steaming with frustration. What could be better?

As the Dems remain focused on the primaries, they are keeping their contributions directed at their candidate, not the GOP candidate, so Soros' McCain-bashing Campaign to Swiftboat Defend America and its ally in smears the Fund for America are both hurting for dough, says Politico.

Democratic talk of an early, hard-hitting campaign to "define" and tar Arizona Sen. John McCain appears to have fizzled for lack of money, leading to a quiet round of finger-pointing among Democratic operatives and donors as McCain assembles a campaign and a public image relatively unmolested.

Despite the millions of dollars pooling around Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, anti-McCain funds have fallen far short of the hopes set in November, when a key organizer, Tom Matzzie, reportedly told The Washington Post that the "Fund for America" would raise more than $100 million to support the activities of a range of allied groups.

Matzie, who helped run MoveOn.org, was involved in the formation of both groups, and Clinton chief-of-staff [read: bag man or hit man] John Podesta now runs the Campaign to Defend America. The Podesta-Clinton connection is part of the fundraising problem:

The operative noted that the group that attacked President Bush in independent television advertisements in 2004 was run by Harold Ickes, now an aide to Hillary Clinton.

"A lot of the big Media Fund people were Hillary people, and [California billionaire Steve] ["Bing Laden"] Bing's just not going to write a check unless she's the nominee," the operative said.

Interesting. Let's make sure we all understand this Dem-think: McCain is a huge threat to all that's decent in America -- but only if he's running against Clinton. Gee, doesn't that seem to challenge the veracity of the underfunded campaigns? As if such campaigns run on veracity, anyway.

The Campaign to Defend America is covering its butt through a spokeswoman who'd deterring questions on fundraising with this disingenuous statement:

"We're not focused on the 2008 election."

It's true the Campaign began its existence with anti-war campaigning, but really, what's the difference between that and anti-McCain campaigning? Besides, check out this write-up of the group from the Center for Investigative Reporting:

A political organization financed by film producer Steve Bing has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to a liberal group running attack ads against Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

American Family Voices Voters’ Alliance gave $300,000 to the Campaign to Defend America last November, according to government filings. The Campaign to Defend America aired ads last month calling McCain the “McSame” as President Bush.

As previously reported by CIR and NPR, the Campaign to Defend America ads were financed with $1 million from the Fund for America, a group led and funded by top Democrat donors and operatives. (emphasis added)

These groups will get their funding, eventually. But it will be late, and probably not enough to fund the initial, hopeful budgets, especially if the Bing-ilk grumble through this election with an "America deserves McCain, the idiots" attitude. Given their immaturity, that's a possibility that shouldn't be summarily dismissed.

An Ohio Bosnia For Hillary

A poor uninsured pregnant woman denied and killed by the country's heinous health care system. First, Hillary tells us, the woman's baby dies. Then, just because she didn't the required $100 fee, the heartless greed-monsters that represent US healthcare let the woman die, too.

Hillary has told the tale time and again to highlight the need for her solution, but:

The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.

“We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story,” said Rick Castrop, chief executive officer of the O’Bleness Health System.

Linda M. Weiss, a spokeswoman for the not-for-profit hospital, said the Clinton campaign had never contacted the hospital to check the accuracy of the story ....

That's the story as told by a paper with some influence in the Dem world, a little rag called the New York Times, hometown paper of the state Hillary now represents in Congress. Unlike the story about the Clinton's $10+ million a year income, this one didn't make the front page, but it will make its rounds.

If the health care problem can't be illustrated without lies, how is it that we need so costly and risk a solution?

This is not another Tuzla story, since Hillary wasn't at the hospital like she was at the Bosnian airport dodging sniper bullets in her mind. But if the Clintons are as savvy as we're told they are, they should understand that the American public doesn't exactly rush to defend their credibility, so they should commit to fact-checking every element of every speech she gives.

That they don't have rigorous fact-checking isn't so much a function of running a bad organization -- we're told, after all, that they are the best political organizers going -- it is, rather, evidence that they just don't care much about the truth. The ends justify every means, so if they trash a hospital's reputation and turn a dead woman and baby into something they're not, it simply doesn't matter.

Meanwhile, check out this picture and remember it well, because if Laura Bush ever runs for president, this is the sort of experience she will tout as her foreign policy bona fides.

Yeah, but Laura Bush is a normal person, so I don't think that's going to happen.

hat-tip: memeorandum