Sunday Scan

Thanks, Mates!

As expected, Australian PM Kevin Rudd, who won his seat following promises to bring Aussie troops home from Iraq, has ended combat operations so withdrawal can begin. The Aussies were stationed in the south, particularly around Nasiriyah, which has seen its share of violence.

Troops held a ceremony Sunday that included lowering the Australian flag from its position and raising the American flag instead over Camp Terendak in the southern Iraq city of Nasiriyah.

"We have to praise the role of the Australian troops in stabilizing the security situation in the province through their checkpoints on the outskirts of the city," said Aziz Kadim Alway, the governor of the Dhi Qar province. (AP)

Like the dependable ally they are, the Aussies aren't just pulling up and running home. Several hundred other troops will remain in Iraq in security and liaison roles, and Australia will leave behind two maritime surveillance aircraft and a warship to help patrol oil platforms in the Gulf.

There were no Digger fatalities during their five-year deployment. Six were injured, one seriously.

One Man, One-Half Vote

Dumb Democrats. The party that railed so vociferously about citizens deprived of votes in 2000 and 2004 has decided voters in Michigan and Florida, who had nothing to do with when their primaries were held, are only half-human. And many Dems are PO'd, as this clip demonstrates:



The agreement, termed "politically astute" by Walter Shapiro in Salon, is anything but. It won't end the acrimony, as the Clinton camp is talking lawsuits and supporters are threatening to sit out the election. Worse, it avoided the simpler, more politically astute solution: Seating all the delegates and punishing the state party leadership. All the delegates should have been seated (delegates of departed candidates could have been redistributed mathematically), and the to states' parties' leaders could have been dinged any number of ways: monetary fines, stripping of leadership roles, whatever.

The Dems punished the wrong people: The People. The Hacks should have been punished. But the Hacks are for Obama this year, so the party of the people threw the people overboard. The DNC and Obama deserve all the rancor and defections the agreement generates.

George Will Calls For Carbon Tax

I normally would rail against a conservative calling for a tax -- especially a tax to stop global warming, which we know at the outset will fail to accomplish its goal. But in this case, Will's got a point that's worth making: Given a choice between a black hole into which money will be poured for no purpose (the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill, which will be debated in the Senate this week) and a clear, visible and straightforward tax on carbon fuels, the latter is more preferable by far.

Could we have neither, please? Maybe, but given the great excuse global warming provides government to increase its power and tax its citizens, I thought I'd present the crux of Will's argument:

With cap-and-trade, government would create a right for itself -- an extraordinarily lucrative right to ration Americans' exercise of their traditional rights.

Businesses with unused emission allowances could sell their surpluses to businesses that exceed their allowances. The more expensive and constraining the allowances, the more money government would gain.

If carbon emissions are the planetary menace that the political class suddenly says they are, why not a straightforward tax on fossil fuels based on each fuel's carbon content? This would have none of the enormous administrative costs of the baroque cap-and-trade regime. And a carbon tax would avoid the uncertainties inseparable from cap-and-trade's government allocation of emission permits sector by sector, industry by industry. So a carbon tax would be a clear and candid incentive to adopt energy-saving and carbon-minimizing technologies. That is the problem.

A carbon tax would be too clear and candid for political comfort. It would clearly be what cap-and-trade deviously is, a tax, but one with a known cost. Therefore, taxpayers would demand a commensurate reduction of other taxes. Cap-and-trade -- government auctioning permits for businesses to continue to do business -- is a huge tax hidden in a bureaucratic labyrinth of opaque permit transactions.

Cap and trade is often presented as a free market solution. It is anything but. Citizens concerned about the fragile economy and the failure of government to reduce spending should regale their Senators with letters and calls opposing the bill. For me and other Californians, our useless Barbara Boxer has already come out in strong support of the bill. Natch.

Could The Iranians By Lying?

Lying Iranians?! Say it isn't so! Those who oppose harsh action against Iran's nuclear program stand ready to believe that Iran is pursuing nukes for purely peaceful energy-producing reasons. Then why this?

Iran Building 7 Refineries to Hike Capacity

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran is constructing seven refineries in an effort to boost its crude and gas refining capacity by more than 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd), a senior oil official said Saturday.

"The construction of seven refineries has started with the investment of 15 billion euros ($23.22 billion)," MNA quoted Aminollah Eskandari, a director of the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) as saying.

"About 1.56 million barrels will be added to the country's capacity to refine crude oil and gas derivatives," he added.

Investing $23 billion of an economically depressed nation's revenues in power plants it wouldn't need if it had a nuclear power grid seems even madder than what we've come to expect from the Tehraniacs.

Too Little, Too Late

Barack Obama has left Trinity United -- one month after Rev. Wright accused the prez wannabe of distancing himself from his true beliefs for political reasons and a week after Michael Pflegar exhibited some of the most flagrant racism in recent time from the Trinity pulpit. Here's his typically over-long and elegant statement:



In it, Obama blames the media for what's happened:

But it's clear that now that I'm a candidate for president, every times something is said in the church by anyone associated with Trinity, including guest pastors, the remarks will be imputed to me, even if they totally conflict with my long-held views, statements and principles.

He accuses news organizations of harassing members, which is warranted because pack journalism is an ugly thing. It took them a long time to wake up to Rev. Wright, but now that they're awake, there's no moderating them.

Obama said he's leaving the church in part to protect the parishioners from the media onslaught -- "That's just not how people should have to operate in their church." -- but he never says anything about protecting the American people from the crazy, racist, hate that is the stuff of sermons at Trinity.

He has "separated" himself from those teachings, but he has never sufficiently condemned Wright and his teachings for what they are: racist hatemongers.

Water, Water, Not All Around

The other CSM writes (via Environmental News) about water as the next oil, and they've got it half-right. We can survive without oil, but not without water -- so a massive water shortage will bring suffering, war and death.

Cyprus will ferry water from Greece this summer. Australian cities are buying water from that nation’s farmers and building desalination plants. Thirsty China plans to divert Himalayan water. And 18 million southern Californians are bracing for their first water-rationing in years.

Water, Dow Chemical Chairman Andrew Liveris told the World Economic Forum in February, “is the oil of this century.” Developed nations have taken cheap, abundant fresh water largely for granted. Now global population growth, pollution, and climate change are shaping a new view of water as “blue gold.”

Socialists are taking note:

“We’re at a transition point where fundamental decisions need to be made by societies about how this basic human need — water — is going to be provided,” says Christopher Kilian, clean-water program director for the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation. “The profit motive and basic human need [for water] are just inherently in conflict.”

Some readers might be surprised that I agree with the socialists on this one. In 1995 we helped preserve a local, public water district fight off a take-over attempt by a private water company. Our research on that case showed that private water companies charged more than public agencies and didn't invest as much in infrastructure.

Plus, public agencies are better suited to fight off challenges from whacked-out environmentalists, who continue to attack new water infrastructure projects despite mounting evidence of the need to address global water shortages.

More "Wright-isms" Trumpeted

Hugh Hewitt has more Wright-isms this morning, gleaned from past copies of Trinity United's rather hard to find past issues of Trumpet magazine, including this one that has Obama's smiling face on the cover, along with those of Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam co-founder Elijah Muhammad and serious leftist, racist fruitbasket Dick Gregory.

There are about a dozen excerpts of Wright-isms at Hugh's post, all with the same awful familiarity, like this:

Conservative fanatics line up on the side of al-Qaeda or they line up behind George Bush. Both are terrorists! Both believe that war is the answer. Both believe in murdering innocent people. George Bush lied to the public.

Of course, it doesn't matter how many more of these we dig up. Those who believe in Obama, like the otherwise wholly sane Token Dem in my office, have found a way to forgive him these trespasses, choosing the less obvious "those aren't his beliefs" or more onerous "well Wright's not all wrong" answers over the more probable "he's covering up a part of his true self" answer. And those who are already appalled by the Wright-Obama connection don't need to be more appalled; it's already quite sufficient.

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!

The Black American Church And Jeremiah Wright

The most troubling thing about the Wright fiasco for me isn't that we might be electing a de facto Wright as our next president, no, not by far. What's troubled me is not knowing what's going on in black churches.

I've always thought it's pretty much what goes on in white churches, only with better rhythm, but Wright cast serious doubts on that, leaving me nervous. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, the news that Wright's Trinity Church had spawned a half dozen daughter churches struck me like news that a radical Islamist mosque had open a half dozen branches.

Now, thankfully, there's a comprehensive analysis that paints a much better picture of Wright as a loud-mouthed minority in a black church that doesn't much resemble Trinity at all. Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom, writing in RCP today, tell us:

Some of these [black] churches are led by figures like Rev. Wright, an adherent of what is called black liberation theology, which rejects racial integration and stresses the experience of black bondage. But not many. C. Eric Lincoln's mid-1980s survey of the leaders of 2,150 black churches found that two-thirds of them said they had not been influenced by "any of the authors and thinkers of black liberation theology." Indeed, 63 percent did not believe that the black church had "a different mission from the white church." A third did not even think it was "important have black figures in [their] Sunday school literature."

Unfortunately, that data is from a survey that's 20 years old. Surely there must be more current data!

The authors do tell us that Wright's Trinity is actually not "a part of the African-American religious tradition," as Wright so forcefully told us, but a minority black population within the overwhelmingly white (96%) United Church of Christ.

The real black churches, not surprisingly, are the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) or the National Baptist Convention, which is 98% black. On race, AME says that its basic beliefs do not "differ from what all Methodists believe." The church split from the larger, predominately white Methodist church because its members weren't welcome in a racially divided America, but it didn't warp into a pseudo-religious hate machine in the process.

I wouldn't want churches serving predominantly black audiences to be clones of white churches because they wouldn't be manifesting Christ in the best way for the audience, just as most whites would have a difficult time finding Jesus in the black church, since its style is foreign to us. There is clearly room for many styles of preaching, but there is no room on the pulpit of the Christian church for philosophies that, at their core, are just as hateful and wrong as Nazism.

The Thernstrom's RCP post doesn't go far enough or deep enough, and certainly isn't current enough, but it's a much-needed start. In all the writing about Wright, there's precious little about the true nature of the black church -- use the search engine or compiler of your choice and you'll see what I mean, as I wanted to back up the Thernstroms with additional info, but found nothing useful.

If anyone has seen more on this topic, please give me a link.

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?

The "Progressives" Love Wright

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

So he went at least part of the way towards the third option I laid out to him this morning:

Third, he can utterly repudiate Wright, going beyond today's statement, leaving "offend" and "does not speak for me" language behind to say, "I've seen Wright for what he really is and I regret the time I spent in his church, I repudiate him, I so not stand for Liberation Theology, which has served its purpose but is past its time, and I assure the American people that anyone who holds beliefs like his will not be welcome in my administration."

The statement isn't necessary for most Obama supporters, who have already worked out how they'll stay with him despite Wright, but it will likely keep some waverers on Obama's battered ship.

What it won't do is bring back a single soul who has left Obama because of the insights the Wright debacle has given into Obama's character and his ability to pick his mentors. And it certainly won't appease the hard left, who aren't at all happy with how Obama's handled this whole thing ... people like Ruth Conniff of The Progressive, who wrote today, adding more fuel to the fire by praising Wright.

As Obama flails to distance himself from Wright, the left is racing to embrace him and all he believes in:

Much of what Wright said was absolutely true--yet too hot for white America, for the National Press Club, and for a mainstream U.S. Presidential campaign.

What's funny about Conniff's column is that it starts like this ...

Instead, Wright came out swinging, mocking the media for knowing nothing about the black church, for taking soundbites from his sermons out of context, and, basically, for being lazy and ignorant.

... then she proves they were neither lazy nor ignorant by gleefully reveling in all the awful Wright comments that show he was not taken out of context at all.

It was striking to hear the themes of Wright's speech: the criticism of U.S. militarism and imperialism, racial and economic injustice, the references to progressive figures from Cornel West to Jim Wallis, and watch the audience and the press corps react.

Forget the generalizations; let's get into this:

To be sure, Wright's refusal to denounce Louis Farrakhan, his angry-sounding declaration that Farrakhan didn't put him in chains or "make me this color," his assertion that "yes, I believe our country is capable of doing anything" in answer to a question about whether he thinks the United States deliberately infected black people with AIDS will be held against him.

Yeah, but not everyone will hold it against him:

But the audience of his friends and supporters [like Conniff] ate up his strikes back against what has surely been a racist and unfair campaign against him.

Why? Do they think the presidential candidate's long-time pastor is really anti-American ... that all those soundbites really were correct? You bet:

Wright doesn't hesitate to puncture the national myth of America's essential goodness.

Note from Obama camp: Thanks a great big bunch, Conniff.

hat-tip: RCP; art: Ian Davis

Obama's Exxon Valdez

Welcome, NY Times readers!

Like Obama's Jeremiah Wright fiasco, the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill was the worst kind of communications crisis because it just kept the bad news flowing until it seemed like it would never end.

More and more dying birds. Miles and miles of spoiled seashores. And Joseph Hazelwood, drunk at the helm, then going through a protracted trial. The first goal of any crisis communications program is to make the story stop, but this nightmare story just kept oozing, like the 10.8 million gallons of crude escaping from the ship's hull.

Enter Barack Obama, skipper of the Hussein Valdez, with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright leaking endlessly from the damaged hull.

Obama had managed Wright as best he could, not so much because of what he (Obama) said and did, but what Wright said and did, basically not registering because he was gone from the public view. But those days have ended, and Wright's back with a vengeance, taking advantage of the media spotlight to espouse his philosophy for his purposes.

Here's what Obama offered up yesterday to counter the endless Wright sound bites of the last couple days, interviews that offered America a prolonged look at a man they didn't like attacking in the most vile terms a country they love:

“People will understand that I am not perfect and there are going to be folks in my past – like Reverend Wright – that may cause them concern. But, ultimately, my 20 years of service and the values that I’ve written about, spoken about and promoted are their values and what they are concerned about. That’s what this campaign has been about. And will continue to be about.

“Some of the comments that Reverend Wright has made offended me and I understand why they offend the American people. He does not speak for me. He does not speak for the campaign.” (NYT)

Will this be enough? That depends in part on whether Wright shuts up or not. Oddly, Wright's recent comments may bring some people back to Obama, because the more he talks the more some people will think Obama simply had no idea how crazy he was during his pulpit years.

But for most impacted by Wright, this is just more of the same, raising the same questions about the true beliefs of the candidate. Most who rejected Obama because of Wright did so forcefully, with repulsion, and more Wright just repulses more.

So Obama has three choices:

First, he can hope it will go away, thinking he can spin his way out of it, keeping up the sort of patter he pattered yesterday. This is a common response and it always fails if the story has momentum.

Second, he can admit that he wasn't really much of a church-goer (if that's true). He can say he was pretty much a lilies and poinsettias Christian, missing far more Sundays than he attended. This will make him look like a hypocrite and cost him votes, but he will be sharing a common American hypocrisy.

Third, he can utterly repudiate Wright, going beyond today's statement, leaving "offend" and "does not speak for me" language behind to say, "I've seen Wright for what he really is and I regret the time I spent in his church, I repudiate him, I so not stand for Liberation Theology, which has served its purpose but is past its time, and I assure the American people that anyone who holds beliefs like his will not be welcome in my administration." That also would cost him a ton of votes.

Three lousy choices. My bet: He'll go with the first and hope he can avoid utter disaster and meltdown in the final primaries.

The Divisive Rev. Wright

How savvy of the NCCP to invite Rev. Wright to give the keynote address at its 53rd annual "Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner." No speaker, not even Barack Obama -- or as Wright referred to him, "Barack HUSSEIN Obama, Barack HUSSEIN Obama, Barack HUSSEIN Obama" -- could have garnered more attention.

And fundraising is always about getting attention.

You can see Rev. Wright's speech here; I've only had a chance to view about a third of it, so I'm going to focus on just one passage, in which he was rebuking an Oakland official who called him divisive:

"I am not one of the most 'divisive.' Tell him the word is 'descriptive.' I describe the conditions in this country -- conditions divide, not my description."

This is the sort of wordplay most pastors like. Give them an alliteration and they can build an entire sermon series around it. Most, fortunately, do a better job at it than Wright.

Does Wright spend any time accurately describing conditions in America? Forget the sound bites we all know -- AIDS, chickens coming home to roost -- and think of the stuff of his week in, week out sermons as they've been described to us by his church itself:

We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.

This is a church that describes itself as not being of America. It describes America as having a long night of racism without hinting that dawn came a long time ago. (In fact, he says in the speech he believes "a change is going to come.") It describes an America of continuous injustice, not one continuous opportunity. It describes a church with no desire to join the rest of America, but to maintain itself apart, divisively.

That's Wright's description of America: A country in which every black is oppressed and every white is an oppressor, a country in which blacks who do succeed are derided with derogatory name-plays (with the exception of Obama).

These are not accurate descriptions of America. Opportunity abounds, and even if black racism remains robust, white America is more than willing to accept and promote ambitious, hard working blacks, just as we are with the ambitious and hard working of any race. All you have to do is look around; count the numbers, track the income, check the admissions, name the senior executives and partners.

Nor are Wright's descriptions of America helpful. They seek to continue the divide, to promote victimization, to make differentness a divide. Black liberation theology can only continue if the need to liberate continues, so the advances in civil rights, not white racism, are the greatest threat the church faces. Wright does not want it put out of business, so his is not a language of description; it is a language of division.

Descriptions are not necessarily divisive, if they are accurate. No one ever went to war over agreements. But Wright doesn't describe America correctly, and it is those descriptions themselves that are so divisive. America is moving far beyond the America Wright describes, and his continued description of where we were instead of where we are going is, in a word, divisive.

Was Rev. Wright Wronged?

This evening, Rev. Jeremiah Wright breaks his silence before a sympathetic interviewer, PBS' Bill Moyers. Bobby Seale and Louis Farrahkan apparently were unavailable to interview him.

Wright's big point is that he was wronged. Here's his exposition:

Wright defended his sermons, telling Moyers, "the persons who have heard the entire sermon understand the communication perfectly ... those who are doing that are communicating exactly what they want to do, which is to paint me as some sort of fanatic."

Actually, I didn't need Wright's help to come to this point; I've thought about it quite a bit because I've seen my fair share of out of context quotes, so fairness mandates that I consider the "out of context" question here. As an example, let's look at this infamous Wright quote:

" ... and then [America] wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

I would actually like to hear a pastor say this, if the context around the quote is that God is within his rights to withdraw his favor from America because of the millions of his little ones we have suctioned and cut into oblivion in America's abortion mills.

But that wasn't the context behind the quote. We have the context, and it is this:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law ..."

And that's why God should damn America. Any black leader who says the (white) government (deliberately) gives black drugs and passes three strikes laws as a racist tool to imprison people who should still be on the streets even though they're three-strike criminals should expect media coverage, whether they're Obama's pastor or not.

In other words, we don't have to listen to the entire sermon, or the entire 20 years of sermons when Obama (theoretically) attended the church. Rev. Wright gave us the context. And if Al Campanis can get the boot for saying blacks "may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or perhaps a general manager," then Wright can certainly feel some heat for saying this.

Back to the interview:

He said his critics' motives are clear: to undermine Obama. "I think they wanted to communicate that I am unpatriotic, that I am un-American, that I am filled with hate speech, that I have a cult at Trinity United Church of Christ. And by the way, guess who goes to his church, hint, hint, hint?"

Of course Wright has been used by some to undermine Obama and the story is bigger because he is Obama's pastor. That doesn't make the statements any less outrageous and any less newsworthy however, and a great deal of the newsworthiness of this story was the shock most of America felt upon hearing Wright for the first time. News is by definition "new," and this language from a pulpit was new to most of us.

Besides, before he accuses others of exploiting him because of Obama, Wright would do well to ask himself if he did not, in fact, benefit more from Obama than he suffered from him. How many times did Wright use his famous parishioner to aggrandize his church? How many favors did he ask Obama to do? This cuts both ways, Reverend.

Finally:

But he added, "They know nothing about the church. They know nothing about our prison ministry. They know nothing about our food ministry. They know nothing about our senior citizens home. They know nothing about all we try to do as a church and have tried to do." Focusing only on the snippets, he said, "was unfair. I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt for those who were doing that, were doing it for some very devious reasons."

The same can be said of Hezbollah. They have "ministries" that feed and heal and educate. But they also fire rockets from Muslim civilian neighborhoods into Jewish civilian neighborhoods and send martyrs duped idiots into crowds of Jews with explosives strapped around them.

And Mussolini got the trains to run on time.

Hezbollah is not remembered for its schools; Mussolini is not remembered for his train schedules. And Wright won't be remembered by most of Americans for his outreach because it's nothing more than expected that a church the size of his would have numerous outreaches. Having them, then, does not exonerate him from his wrongs.

So you see, what's unfair is not the media focusing on the "snippets;" rather, it is unfair that Wright calls them "snippets." They are his rockets and explosive vests, so of course the media and the people will focus on them, and running crying and sniffling to broadcast's ubber-Lib will not change that one bit.

Two Black Americas, Two White Americas

For one heck of a heart-stopping look at America today, look no further than today's op/ed page of WaPo and the columns by Charles Krauthammer and Eugene Robinson.

Krauthammer's piece, The Fabulist vs. The Saint, shows us a white America paralyzed by fear of black America. No, not fear that we'll be mugged or our wimmin will be violated, but fear that we may say something that displeases our black co-citizens. After showing the media's glee to jump on Hillary's well deserved fate ("her Waterloo at Tuzla"), Krauthammer turns to the flag-bedecked Obama race speech:

This invitation to move on, as it were, has been widely accepted. After the speech it became an article of faith that even referring to Wright's comments was somehow illegitimate, the new "Swift-boating."

It is not just that Obama surrogate Rep. George Miller denounced the Clinton campaign for bringing up Wright when talking to superdelegates as trying to "work the low road." You expect that from a campaign. Or that Andrew Sullivan called Hillary's commenting on Wright "a new low." You expect that from Andrew Sullivan.

But from the mainstream media? As National Review's Byron York has pointed out, when Clinton supporter Lanny Davis said on CNN that it is "legitimate" for her to have remarked "that she personally would not put up with somebody who says that 9/11 are chickens who come home to roost" or the kind of "generic comments [Wright] made about white America," Anderson Cooper, the show's host and alleged moderator, interjected that since "we all know what the [Wright] comments were," he found it "amazing" and "funny" that Davis should "feel the need to repeat them over and over again."

Davis protested, "It's appropriate." Time magazine's Joe Klein promptly smacked Davis down with "Lanny, Lanny, you're spreading the -- you're spreading the poison right now," and then suggested that an "honorable person" would "stay away from this stuff."

Honorable people don't criticize hate-spewing black pastors and black presidential candidates who sat their families in front of the spew for 20 years. Why? Because honorable whites don't diss anything about blacks, apparently. In public anyway.

Of course, Hillary's campaign has every right to bring the matter up because it goes to the question of Obama's ability to reason, act and live in a manner we have come to expect of the men who have put on George Washington's mantle. But the discussion is off limits not just because Obama is black, but more so because the white liberal elite think Rev. Wright is right.

But he's wrong. Robinson doesn't say as much in his op/ed, Two Black Americas, but the black America that he paints says it loud and clear. While he talks about successful blacks and blacks in poverty today, that's not the two black Americas he's talking about. Rather, it is the black America of Martin Luther King and the black America of today.

Forty years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, we sometimes talk about race in America as if nothing has changed. The truth is that everything has changed -- mostly for the better -- and that if we're ever going to see King's dream fulfilled, first we have to acknowledge that this is not an America he would have recognized.

On April 4, 1968, it was possible to make the generalization that being black in this country meant being poor; fully 40 percent of black Americans lived below the poverty line, according to census data, with another 20 percent barely keeping their heads above water. African Americans were heavily concentrated in the inner cities and the rural South. We were far less likely than whites to go to college, and our presence in the corporate world was minimal.

Robinson acknowledges that 25% of blacks today are mired in poverty, and because the better-off blacks don't have generations of money and success behind them, they're a bit more nervous about their success, but:

• African Americans control $800 billion in purchasing power, which, if translated into gross domestic product, would make a sovereign "Black America" the 15th- or 16th-richest nation on earth.
  
  
• Not even 2% of black households 40 years ago earned the equivalent of $100,000 a year in today's dollars. Now, about 10% of black households do.
  
  
• In many cities, more African Americans now live in the suburbs than within the city limits.
  
  
• The grandson of a slave was chairman of Merrill-Lynch until he resigned in the wake of the mortgage meltdown, "and floated back to earth with the help of one of the loveliest golden parachutes Wall Street has seen."

These probably aren't the people who make up most of Rev. Wright's congregation, which I've heard it referred to as an "inner city black" congregation. If that is indeed the case, it may be like this group described by Robinson:

For those who haven't made it into the middle class, however, things are different. Inner-city communities were hollowed out -- a process accelerated by the riots that followed King's death -- and left fallow for decades. Middle-class professionals fled, businesses closed, schools disintegrated, family structures fell apart. Drugs and crime were symptoms of the general rot ...

Such people could well respond positively to Wright's hate speech about white America, but they would be better served by a pastor who encourages them to join the middle class. Wright, however, preaches that the middle class is a cop out and counter to black liberation.

Obama stuck with a church that, as near as we can tell from Wright's sermons, demonized the 75% of blacks who were successful. As a man who wanted to be the president of America, he should have been doing all he could to see other blacks achieve the financial security he and Michelle enjoyed. That's what we expect as Americans.

Obama's judgment went haywire, or the whole sitting in the pew thing was just a sham that didn't require much thought -- yet the media wants to be done with the whole affair, leading me to the conclusion that there are two white Americas: The one that is comfortable with race, and the one that is so uncomfortable with it, they would rather not talk about it -- proving my long-held theory that Obama is benefiting from racial Teflon, to the detriment of every candidate he faces.

Easter Sunday Scan

All We Ask For Easter

The pretty little photo above greeted me on Ask.com this morning, as a pleasant reminder that it is possible for high tech companies to acknowledge, albeit in a secular manner, religious holidays.

Over at Google, as usual, a blank screen. All we ask is that the nerds, geeks and billionaires there should acknowledge that the nation that nurtured them is a Christian nation.

Joyous Easter

Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don't know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20: 10-18

Despite all the times Mary heard Jesus say that he would go away and come back, that he would rise, she didn't believe it literally, so that when she saw the empty tomb, she lost faith.

All it took was one word ... "Mary" ... and she believed fully. The Lord spoke a word to me 12 years ago ... "Laer" ... (he didn't even have to ask where that weird name came from!) and I believed.

Easter is a beautiful day here today, with the hills bright green and the sky a deep blue. But even if it were cold and sleeting, it would be just as beautiful a day. The miracle of the resurrection creates its own beauty, for all of us.

Easter At Trinity United

As Jeremiah Wright spends Easter on Sabbatical -- "Rehab for Reverands,"' if you will -- Obama's new pastor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, led the Easter morning sunrise service at Trinity United.

He used it as an opportunity to raise money for "The Resurrection Fund," a fund-raising effort he wouldn't describe due to live video feeds, purchased DVDs of the sermon and Fox News reporters in the church, but concluded his pitch saying,

In order to crucify him you’ve got to lift him up … he had more visibility on the cross than he did during his entire ministry.

A deft analogy ... but is America ready for Rev. Jeremiah Wright's persecution for being a hateful racist to the Passion of our Lord?

Are we ready for a teacher who says America should be damned for made-up crimes against blacks while also condemning America for not being pro-choice and for trying to stop the abortion madness -- a real crime America could very well be damned for -- are we ready for such a man to be likened to Christ this Easter morning?

The congregates at Obama's church are. The "In order to crucify him ..." line above was one that drew loud affirmation, according to Fox.

(hat-tip: Gateway Pundit)

Speaking of Trinity United ...

I thought it might be fun to see if the Bush-haters at Trinity United were OK with taking Bush's money, and sure enough, they are. From a 2001 Health and Human Services report on early Faith-Based Initiative programs:

The grant program has also provided funds to the South Side HIV/AIDS Coalition in Chicago, a multi-agency group including Trinity United Church of Christ, Provident Hospital of Cook County and the Alliance for Community Empowerment, to provide culturally sensitive and responsive HIV/AIDS education and services to African-Americans.

Should God damn Trinity United for taking this evil money?

Among The Baptised

Pope Benedict baptised six new Christians at his Easter morning Mass today, among them a promient (but non-practicing) Muslim:

Italy's most prominent Muslim commentator, a journalist with iconoclastic views such as support for Israel, converted to Roman Catholicism Saturday when the pope baptized him at an Easter service.

As a choir sang, Pope Benedict XVI poured holy water over Magdi Allam's head and said a brief prayer in Latin.

"We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another," Benedict said in a homily reflecting on the meaning of baptism. "Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world: distances between people are overcome, in the Lord we have become close."

Vatican television zoomed in on Allam, who sat in the front row of the basilica along with six other candidates for baptism.

An Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Allam often writes on Muslim and Arab affairs and has infuriated some Muslims with his criticism of extremism and support for the Jewish state. (Fox)

A brave man. Allam has already been sentenced to death by the Islamic fanatics of Hamas for his radical belief that a people should be allowed to live in peace.

In addition to being brave, he is educated and urbane ... a far cry from the everyday suicide bomber recruit.

Hat-tip: Jawa Report

Res-Erection!?

It wouldn't be Easter without an attack on Christian sensibilities during Holy Week, would it? This year I had to dig a little deeper, but sure they're up to their same old Christian-slamming.

On Good Friday the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel began running this ad, for the "Res-Erection Tour" of the play Puppetry of the Penis, which Badger Blogger describes thusly:

Wikipedia describes this as: “The theatrical contortion of the male genitalia (penis, scrotum, and testicles) into various positions along with comedic narration”. So basically what it is, is two guys get on stage and play with themselves in front of an audience.

He reports that a call to the vice president of advertising at the paper expressing outrage at allowing this defiling of the Resurrection during this Easter season resulted in no straight answers. He was expecting straight answers?

The play doesn't start for three weeks, so placing the ad on Good Friday was much more an anti-Christian political statement than a marketing statement.

Wimpy Anti-Christians

The U. of Virginia student newspaper, the appropriately named Cavalier Daily, since it does take a cavalier view of American society, has gotten Christians riled up before for its anti-Christian cartoons, like the one above, which ran last August.

They got slapped around for their last venture into Christian-bashing, so what did the do in 2008? They ran two cartoons:

In Thursday’s issue of the Cavalier Daily, the comic strip “TCB” featured a crucified Jesus performing stand-up comedy.

“And what’s the deal with these crosses? Was there a sale on t’s at the letter store,” Christ asks in the strip. “This whole situation makes me cross! Oh yeah, am I right? Am I right?”

The unseen crowd heckles the Christian savior, who is grinning and speaking into a microphone. “Boo,” they say. “Go back to Bethlehem.”

The comic strip drew angry responses from campus Christians, who called it offensive - particularly with Easter right around the corner. ...

Friday’s “TCB” strip ... depicts God and the Virgin Mary in a post-coital quarrel. In it, a shirtless God, smoking a cigarette and wearing sunglasses, utters a profanity, though three letters have been replaced with asterisks. (Daily Progress)

How bold! How cutting edge! How pathetically typical and to be expected on today's Secularist university campuses!

Confronted (again!) with accusations of hate-cartooning and pointed questions about why they are so willing to attack Christians on their most holy day but never to attack other faiths, the editors boldly replied:

The Cavalier Daily sincerely regrets any offense readers may have taken to two recent comics in the strip TCB published March 13 and 14. The content of the Comics page reflects neither the views of the Managing Board nor of The Cavalier Daily as an institution. When the comics were considered for publication, they were deemed to have met The Cavalier Daily's censorship criteria, which can be found at this address. It is never the intention of The Cavalier Daily to offend, and we regret having done so.

The cited censoring criteria allude to "viewpoint discrimination" as something the editors shouldn't foster. In other words, it's all right to allow someone to express a viewpoint that is deeply offensive to others, thereby discriminating against thousands or millions, but it is not all right to discriminate against the expresser of the hateful viewpoint.

So of course the editors sincerely intended to offend. They looked for viewpoint discrimination, found it, and let it go with the knowledge from previous experience that doing so would discriminate against others.

As for the cartoonists, they bravely issued this statement:

The comic artists responsible for the March 13 and 14 TCB comic strips decline to comment on their work at this time.

They couldn't even show the decency to toss out one of those lame "if we offended, then we apologize" non-apologies.