Universal Health Care 101

Here's a good rule of thumb: Before handing over the management of something important --your life and death, for example -- to someone else, you probably ought to look at their management history.

So before we fold before the Hillarycare or Obamacare juggernauts, we ought to look at the sort of work their home office -- the U.S. Senate -- is doing.

Year after year, decade upon decade, the U.S. Senate's network of restaurants has lost staggering amounts of money -- more than $18 million since 1993, according to one report, and an estimated $2 million this year alone, according to another.

The financial condition of the world's most exclusive dining hall and its affiliated Capitol Hill restaurants, cafeterias and coffee shops has become so dire that, without a $250,000 subsidy from taxpayers, the Senate won't make payroll next month.

The embarrassment of the Senate food service struggling like some neighborhood pizza joint has quietly sparked change previously unthinkable for Democrats. Last week, in a late-night voice vote, the Senate agreed to privatize the operation of its food service, a decision that would, for the first time, put it under the control of a contractor and all but guarantee lower wages and benefits for the outfit's new hires. (WaPo)

When the healthcare debate fires up, let's be sure to remind DiFi of her comments on this affair:

Candidly, I don't think the taxpayers should be subsidizing something that doesn't need to be. There are parts of government that can be run like a business and should be run like businesses.

Sounds like the house special at the restaurants, day in and day out, is Bull**** in Bull**** Sauce.

hat-tip: Jim

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!

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

Boris, Ken, Barack And Hillary

There's another election going on that we in America aren't too aware of: Boris Johnson (right) is running against one of the great men we love to hate ("great" addresses "love to hate," not "men"), London mayor Ken Livingstone (left).

You'd think this would be a race about issues. After all, Livingstone has made himself into a symbol for post-modern, hard-left thinking, as Anne Appelbaum points out today in Slate:

His need to attract attention manifests itself in other ways: the expensive celebration he had planned to commemorate 50 years of Fidel Castro's dictatorial rule, for example, or his public embrace of a Muslim cleric who defends suicide bombing and advocates the death penalty for homosexuals. ... He called the U.S. ambassador to Britain a "chiseling little crook" and told a Jewish journalist he was behaving "like a concentration camp guard."

Eech. Less familiar to most of us is Johnson, but he's every bit as much a character:

Though he's been more staid than usual during the mayoral campaign, Boris is a man who can't stop telling jokes, whether at the expense of the aforementioned mistress or the people of Portsmouth (a city of "drugs, obesity, underachievement and Labour MPs").

Adjectives like mop-haired, blustering, and old Etonian appear in just about every profile of him ever written. So does his most famous quotation—"Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3"—though that line is misleading since his sense of humor is usually far more self-deprecating. "Beneath the carefully constructed veneer of a blithering buffoon," he once remarked, "there lurks a blithering buffoon."

Of course we'll track this election (election day is May 1) because it could spell the end of Livingstone's horrific reign, but Applebaum says it's more than a clash of two very different belief systems:

But it's nevertheless worth watching because this campaign could well be a blueprint for the elections of the future since it is postmodern and post-ideological in the deepest sense: In a world in which "issues" are not the issue and ... there's nothing left to talk about except who said what to whom and whose tongue was sharper while doing so.

Sound like our Dem primary? More than a bit. But this is, in effect, a general election, not a primary.

Let's hope this is another way America keeps itself cut off from its European roots.

hat-tip: RCP

Sunday Scan

Lessons In New Politics From Barack

Barack Obama is leaving the old politics behind, supplanting it with a new, cleaner style that leaves the smarminess behind. Here, courtesy of The LA Times (which provides a darn good compendium of Obama-smashing news, in its usual blatant favoritism for Hillary objective style), is a tutorial in how Obama approaches politics the new, clean way:

1. Need money after your first unsuccessful campaign for Congress? Then get a sweet job from a big campaign supporter to supplement your state senate income. (Obama got a $112,000 job from Robert Blackwell Jr., about double his state senate salary of $58,000.)
   
   
2. In return for the favor, urge the state legislature to grant a Blackwell company, table tennis promoter Killerspin, a $50,000 tourism grant. (Pingpong tourism is such an important tourist market, and so deserving of state subsidies!) ((Shall we make, or avoid, the devilishly clever connection between the name "Killerspin" and the Obama PR machine?))
   
   
3. Then, to show that a cash-stuffed paper bag the system really does work, land $320,000 in state subsidies for Killerspin tournaments.
   
   
4. Finally, get new political contributions from Blackwell as soon as the grants go through.

There are business people who feel it is their responsibility to run a profitable company, and there are business people who feel it is the people's responsibility to make their company profitable. There are politicians who believe in the former, and politicians like Obama who, despite all their fine talk about new ways of doing things, definitely believe in the latter.

Islamist Horror Stories

Bubba, of What Bubba Knows, has put together a list of stories for Sabine, a gal who apparently doesn't get the threat posed by Islamist thought and action. Here's his intro:

For Sabine's education, today's stories of atrocities by Muslims.

May you come to realize who and what is the real threat to peace, may you learn to recognize the face of the real enemies of your peaceful, tranquil world.

And here are the story links:

¤ Please Let Me Marry Her and Then Kill Me
¤ The criminality against children in the koran
¤ German Charity Helps Turkish Women Escape Forced Marriages
¤ Europe or Eurabia?
¤ Home-grown 'champion of Islam'
¤ Saudi women 'kept in childhood'
¤ Not Child's Play: The Teddy-Bear Intifada

The first link one tells of a particularly heartless murder carried out by an al-Qaeda in Iraq thug, who is now in prison, awaiting his death sentence. Another prisoner wanted to identify the thug's victim:

So, he asked the killer to give him the name of the victim.

The killer replied he didn’t know, he asked from what tribe? The killer didn’t know, he asked from what sect? The killer didn’t know, he asked him from what province? The killer didn’t know.

Then he asked him, then why you killed him? The killer said he cannot remember, whether it was the victim's haircut or the way he was dressed or the music pouring from his car.

This is the enemy we're fighting, and this is why we're fighting this enemy. Islamist terrorists are the vilest villains we have ever fought, a fact the Left is quick to forget, despite unforgettable stories like this one.

Lessons In Environmental Hypocrisy

If you like the splendor and quiet, hot solitude of the desert, Anza Borrego is your state park. It's the state's largest park, stretching across most of eastern San Diego County almost all the way to the Mexican border, with 500 miles of dirt roads, 12 separate wilderness areas and untold miles of hiking trails.

Somewhere in that vastness, a long line of wooden power poles stretches from horizon to horizon, lost in the vastness, hardly noticed by most park visitors. Call the power lines the Maginot Line of the war between the Greenies and the rest of us.

San Diego Gas & Electric, in order to meet a state mandate that 20% of its power come from alternative sources by 2010 (that's less than two years away!), proposes to convert the current power corridor to a new Sunrise Powerlink, which would carry renewable power from the sun, wind and geothermal facilities to be built in the Imperial Valley.

The environmentalists, who demand that we stop using oil and go with renewable resources, are furious, of course. Here's Elizabeth Goldstein, prez of the California Parks Foundation, quoted in the LA Times:

"The idea that we're going to sacrifice critical pieces of our environment to protect other pieces of our environment seems a little ironic. That's an irony I cannot accept. We have to find a way to do both."

I think she means "protect both," not "sacrifice both," but the sentence's structure is a little hazy. The Sierra Club makes it more clear, talking about a "powerline juggernaut:"

Fare thee well, big skies and open vistas. To feed the energy demands of the West's inland megalopolises and crowded coasts, public lands in 11 Western states may soon be crisscrossed by a web of power lines and pipelines. These "energy easements," up to three-quarters of a mile wide, are slated for every sort of public property: national forests, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) holdings, state parks, even national parks. Since they'll be "preapproved," the easements will be ready to go at the energy companies' convenience.

Note that they don't say a word about these easements being required to comply with the alternative energy mandates they themselves demanded. So like a Kennedy attacking windmills, they attack the infrastructure required to make their alternative energy dream come true.

But you see, having 20% alternative energy isn't their dream, not if it means conventional power solutions. They wanted growth to stop, grids to be ripped out, and Americans to change the way they live. Nothing less will do.

So they will fight this power line, even though there really isn't a good alternative route. They would rather condemn private land than use public land for a public use. And the public, I hope, will see the Greenies for what they are: Demanding and totally inflexible, demanding the world without giving up a square inch, and self-righteous but thoroughly hypocritical.

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

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.

Bitter In LA

Andrew Malcolm of the LATimes' Top of the Ticket blog asked his LA-centric crowd if they're bitter, keying off the infamous Obama belittling of small town America.

Here's how his readers, who live in the eternal bliss of California sunshine, enjoying high employment at well-paid jobs, responded:

65.7 %

Yes. I'll show you bitter when I vote.

5.6 %

Yes, but it isn't any politician's fault.

28.7 %

No. Actually, I feel pretty good.

It's easy to joke whiny attitude of the LA Times reader, and some of the commenters to the post sound just like that:

well i for one am very bitter. been that way since about 2003. anyone who knows what our government and Big business is up to that is not reported by the corporate owned news networks would be very bitter too. most Americans don't know the crap that is pulled in their name and under their Flag.

What would he have instead? Little government, mom and pop shops and media without agendas? Find another universe, bub.

Others remind us that for many, it's all just Bush hatred and a rant against a war they refuse to try to understand:

I'm bitter about how the country as I know and love it has been taken away by the Bush administration. It's been replaced by a pre-emptive war we should never have been in with a non-questioning congress. It's immoral to do this to other people, and I'm disgusted and saddened by it! Shame on our country for allowing this to happen. All the deaths, wounded, suffering caused by our country! The economic cost has.been terrible too. You bet I'm bitter!

I'm not exactly sure why it's immoral to free people from a repressive dictator, but that aside, this bitterness is way off topic; it's not what Obama was talking about and justifying his slam of America by ranting on the war is just whitewash (can we still say that word in PC America?) for his gaffe.

A lot of the "bitterness" is anti-globalization, as seen in this sarcastic comment:

Who could be bitter that the Clinton presidency, as well as the second Bush presidency, has sold our jobs to foreign slave labor markets? Bitter? Who? Me? Nahhh. I couldn't even be bitter about all the illegal immigrants from south of the border, let alone China's huge slave labor pool.

Or this:

I would rate my bitterness 15 on a scale of 1 to 10. The US Government has sold out it's citizens to the highest bidder.

It's interesting in its choice of "sold" as the active verb. Who exactly buys and who exactly sells to cause globalization? Did the writer forgo all purchases of Chinese products, opting for more expensive US products instead, in order to not sell the content of his wallet to China?

What president can stop globalization? What president would force a massive inflationary, pain-causing price increase on all Americans by placing tariffs or barriers on imported goods? What president would force his constituents to buy a Chevy when they know they can get a better car from Toyota?

Most of the comments, as expected, come from Obama supporters, like this one:

Yes, Barrack said it right, just not very eloquently. I am VERY bitter over the status quo government and want a change. I am sick and tired of the Clinton era, their lies, the Bush era, their lies, and I'm MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT TAKING IT ANYMORE! AND MY VOTE WILL SHOW IT!

Having drunk deeply of the Kool Aid, these folks don't think for one minute that the man from Rezko, the nearly 100% liberal who never helped bridge a gap in his life but now is the great bridger, the man who ear-marked his wife's employer and got her a 100% raise for his efforts, the man who will move us beyond racism despite sitting in Rev. Wright's church for 20 years isn't going to turn out to be just another liar.

Reading the comments, I've come to understand this about American politics: There are lies, there are damned lies, and there are lies that make you feel comfortable and therefore win your vote.

The thread of trusting Obama is just as prevalent in the comments as that of hating Bush and/or Clinton. Having stood up to all Obama has asked us to endure, this trust of theirs is seeming less like trust and more like this comment, which doesn't appear in the Top of the Ticket blog but was made up by me on the spot:

Blind? You bet I'm blind! My eyes are tired of looking at an America that is trying to bring better lives to oppressed people. They're sick of seeing lower prices on the products I buy, and I'm having an utter black-out over the fact that politicians are handling my Messiah Obama as if he were just a politician. Don't open my eyes. Just put my finger on the right button on the voting machine.

Obama The Elitist Faces New Threats

"Is Obama's campaign over? It might be." That's John Hinderaker at Power Line commenting on the snotty, prejudiced, uninformed, demeaning Obama disparagement of many -- most? -- Americans:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Ann Althouse disagrees with my characterization ("snotty, prejudiced ..."), saying that while it may be correct, it misses the point of who Obama really is, and why he said it:

But I must say that the original statement sounded like a typical law-school-liberal remark. I think it was quite sincere, and I'm rather sure he believed he was being admirably intellectual and raising politics to a new, higher level. Within a liberal law school environment, that statement would be heard as a thoughtful, compassionate insight.

Dem analyst Kirstin Powers, quoted by Rick Moran, underscores the same, with the words coming out of a liberal mouth:

“It comes off very badly,” Democratic strategist Kirsten Powers said of the small-town America remarks. “They are things that I think in a liberal world sound totally normal, and outside of that world I don’t know that he appreciates how it sounds. And it just sounds very elitist, and it sounds like he’s looking down on people.”

(Moran's post, BTW, is a good read, reminding us that elitism goes back to the founding fathers.)

Yes, it is only the liberal left that is foolish enough to tilt at campaigns to bring us all together in humble awe under their superior powers and insight. The rest of us realize that while Americans can work together for our common self interests, we don't really want to be brought together is some sort of phony and ultimately failed group hug all that much.

Not only does Obama assume the worst of a bunch of people I like a lot (the real, non-urban, non-elite folks), in his Indiana damage control statement he assumes that government is their only solution, their only ticket. And he knows he's caught, so he's spinning:

"People don't vote on economic issues because they don't expect anybody is going to help them," Obama told a crowd at a Terre Haute, Ind., high school Friday evening. "So people end up voting on issues like guns and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. They take refuge in their faith and their community, and their family, and the things they can count on. But they don't believe they can count on Washington."

To which the McCain campaign replied:

"Instead of apologizing to small town Americans for dismissing their values, Barack Obama arrogantly tried to spin his way out of his outrageous San Francisco remarks. Only an elitist who attributes religious faith and gun ownership to bitterness would think that tax cuts for the rich include families who make $75,000 per year. Only an elitist would say that people vote their values only out of frustration. Barack Obama thinks he knows your hopes and fears better than you do. You can't be more out of touch than that."

Spinning like a drill bit, digging himself deeper and deeper, as he now shows us that he doesn't even understand why we vote and how we feel -- yet he's supposed to be the one to bring us together? As Reason puts it:

While Obama is indeed engaging in spin, there is a far more disturbing aspect to his interpretation. He misses the essential nature of modern culture. People don't end up focusing on issues like the right to bear arms, gay marriage, faith-based and family-based issues, and the like, because of bitterness against Washington or a sense that they can't effect change there. People focus on these issues because modern American political culture is, effectively, about subcultures, variety, pursuing parochial aims, and shaping one's identity and personal agendas independently of the state.

So getting back to Hinderaker, is Obama's campaign over? I've seen him worm his way out of many gaffes before, including the mega-gaffe of Rev. Wright. It's like the tides around a rock in the ocean -- they rush up to embrace, then Obama does something truly hateful or stupid and they fall back in shock, then, finding nowhere else to go, they rush back in for an embrace.

Many are so committed to "change" and to electing a black president, and so repulsed by Hillary and the Bush legacy that they would vote for Obama even if horns sprang out of his forehead and a tail from his butt. But he can't win on those voters alone; he desperately needs cross-over voters to beat Hillary, and then beat McCain.

In small towns across America today, people are reading the news, watching the news and perusing the Internet. Yes, Barack, they do -- that behavior isn't limited to big town America. And last straws are being placed on the backs of many Obama supporters.

But there is something supernatural about this man and I for one am not going to count him out until the last ballot is counted. And then some.

Hat-tip: memeorandum

O To O: Thanks For Nothing!

Oprah and Obama, the yum-yum couple of the early campaign season! Oprah herself said her unprecedented engagement in politics would be worth millions to Obama, and it may have helped him get a strong campaign start in Iowa and South Carolina, without which he may well have been a well-spoken also-ran. (Sigh.)

But what was the cost to Oprah?

The Top of the Ticket blog at the LATimes has the score, with help from Politico:

In one 1999 survey of the most admired and respected 20th-century women, Oprah (26%) came in only second to Mother Teresa (33%), who didn't have her own TV show. And in 2003 a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll found that 60% thought Oprah was a more powerful woman than someone named Hillary Clinton, a former first lady and senator, who drew only 28%.

Fourteen months ago, a Gallup/USA Today poll found 74% of
Americans had a favorable view of the television personality.

And now, after first campaigning with Obama, and then having the Rev. Wright fiasco illumination? Ten days after the Wright story broke, Oprah's favorables were down to 55% and her unfavorables were about 33%. And:

A December ABC/Washington Post poll of Democrats found 8% were persuaded by her Obama endorsement, 82% said it wouldn't matter either way and 10% said her recommendation had turned them off Obama.

Now, [Costas] Panagopoulos has discovered an AOL TV popularity survey of 1.35 million Americans that found 46% said the daytime TV host who "made their day" was Ellen DeGeneres while only 19% chose Winfrey. Forty-seven percent said they'd like to have dinner with Ellen, while only 14% chose Oprah.

There's more to Oprah than Obama. We have to ask how her show's doing -- are her guests good, are the topics mainstream and comfy? Clearly, having a pregnant "man" on the show hurt her -- but too late for these numbers. However, if she's covering that sort of sensationalistic tripe routinely, she should expect her numbers to drop.

But more interesting: If Obama dragged down the popularity of an icon like Oprah -- and it appears he was very much a factor in doing just that -- what would he, as president, do to the popularity of the presidency and the nation?

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.

Most Bizarre Political Story Of The Season

In a bizarre political season, this may be the most bizarre story of them all, from the Guardian via the Wrongicle:

Hip-hop star Snoop Dogg has launched a scathing attack on U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama, accusing him of gleaning support from the Ku Klux Klan. ...

He tells the Guardian, "The KKK gave Obama money. They was (sic) one of his biggest supporters ... Why wouldn't they be? The media won't tell you that. They don't want you to know that. They just want you to know that this [bleep] befriended this other [bleep] who be (sic) threatening your values.

"But we all know all presidents lie to get into [bleep] office. That's they (sic) job."

But Snoop insists Obama will still emerge victorious in the upcoming presidential elections. He adds, "In America's eyes, that mutha[bleep]'s gonna be president 'cos (John) McCain can't [bleep] with him. Hillary (Clinton) can't [bleep] with him. He's winning over white people, white ladies."

We are told that Snoop Dog is quite influential. God have mercy on us all.

hat-tip: memeorandum

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

Fools Who Trust Big Government

In this week's Watcher's Council readings, there's a bright post, Have a Clear Identity, from Hillbilly White Trash on Dems and the GOP that includes this:

With all that division within their ranks why are Democrats so good at keeping their little fleet of ships all sailing in the same direction? It is precisely because the Democrat party is so fractured and fractious that it is so good at keeping order within its own ranks. It is a matter of survival. If they couldn't keep everyone more or less in line the party would fly apart and they would never win an election.

What unites Democrats is a desire for continued increase in the size, scope and power of government at the expense of the individual.

That's a good working definition, although I might simplify it to "faith in government's superiority." As a Christian, I'm used to challenges to prove my faith, and I can dish as well as receive, so what is the Dems' justification of their faith in government in light of stories like this:

SACRAMENTO (Sac Bee) -- California prison administrators and clerks reviewed the file of Sara Jane Olson multiple times since December, failing to catch the miscalculation that led to the premature release of the former 1970s radical, officials confirmed Thursday.

Olson, 61, was paroled March 17, a year before her sentence was to end. She was re-arrested five days later after the error was caught.

We've often heard people jibe the Dems, saying, "Would you trust your health care to the Department of Motor Vehicles?" Let's add to that, "Would you trust your security to the Department of Corrections?"

Obama's Race Speech And The Racial Divide

Let's see if I'm tracking this Wright right.

Obama goes to church for 20 years with a guy who says America got what it deserved on 9/11, forces drugs on blacks and should be damned by God.

Eyebrows go up and support for Mr. Change softens.

Obama gives a big speech, for once surrounded by flags he has shunned to date, sort of as if Rev. Wright had resigned as his policy chief on stage sets.

Pres. Clinton says, in light of all this, "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country."

And for even raising the question that a guy who won't wear a flag, sometimes doesn't put his hand over his heart, and refuses to leave an unpatriotic church may be something less than the American patriotic ideal, Clinton gets called a McCarthyite by a retired general who serves on Obama's staff.

If it weren't the Dem party, I wouldn't think it could be true, but true it is -- as true as the story that Fox News anchor Brian Killmeade walked of the set, complaining of too much Obama-bashing. That's Fox, the whipping boy of the Left.

(As for that last point, Fox News has been on in the background for hours a day here at our in-laws home, and I am Wright-wrung; I don't care to see another clip of him, ever. I haven't seen what's on the other networks, but I told Incredible Wife last night that Fox is driving people back to Obama by overplaying this story.)

So it's a wild story, one that can get out of focus quickly. As a public service, C-SM provides this refocusing moment: The story is about how race relations might influence the 2008 election.

The story has provided a finely tuned measure of the depth of the racial divide that remains in America four decades after the Civil Rights movement's victory. Just look at these stats, courtesy of Rassmussen:

• 84% of those polled said they had heard at least part of the speech. Whoa. Do you think race is an important topic in America? Do you doubt that Obama has generated high levels of interest in politics?
• Of those, 51% ranked the speech good or excellent, 26% said it was fair, and 21% said it stunk.
• Yes, there was the traditional party split in the results: 67% of the Dems who heard it liked it, along with 53% of the Independents and 31% of the Republicans.
• And here's the kicker: Rassmussen found that 86% of the black voters thought it was good or excellent, but only 45% of the white voters. That's nearly two-to-one.

The black/white split is the biggest of all, saying that a racial divide still exists in America, and that a "patriotic" black is different from a "patriotic white." Just listen to the scathing condescention in Rev. Wright's voice -- and the boisterous affirmations from the congregation -- when he mentions Condeleeza Rice, Colin Powell or Clarence Thomas. Success in the white world is no success for Rev. Wright's audience; it is fighting the other man's fight, sleeping with the enemy.

If you revile Rice, Powell and Thomas for their success, then you must view Obama's success as a success of a different stripe: A success in beating the white man's world. And you are not electing Obama as a person of unity, but a person who will accentuate the difference and refuse to be the sort of bridge at least Rice and Powell have been, and Thomas should have been.

It's as if there were two primaries going on in the Democratic party -- one of whites choosing between two options in the politics of identity, and one of blacks, voting overwhelmingly for a man who resonates for them this message: We are not a part of you, white America, and we don't really want to be.

If you say that's not exactly patriotism, then you're condemned (poor, poor Bill!), and you shake your head, whether it happens to be dark-skinned or fair, and realize that you're a part of a party that's not yet ready for racial harmony.

And you might think, maybe the GOP, which isn't so much about identity politics, might be the better place for me.

hat-tip: memeorandum

Sorry, Peggy, You So Missed The Point

Peggy Noonan wrote some beautiful speeches for Ronald Reagan, so while I've downgraded her punditry considerably over the last few years, I've still respected her as a critic of what makes a speech great or less than great.

No more.

In today's WSJ, she declares of Obama's race in America speech:

I thought Barack Obama's speech was strong, thoughtful and important. Rather beautifully, it was a speech to think to, not clap to. It was clear that's what he wanted, and this is rare.

It seemed to me as honest a speech as one in his position could give within the limits imposed by politics.

Honest? Obama lost any claim to honesty when he -- he who refuses to wear a flag lapel pin -- suddenly appeared flanked by not one, not two, but eight flags. Symbols matter too, and anyone who can't see the phony symbolism of Obama's stage setting is forever forbidden from criticizing the "Mission Accomplished" banner that has plagued Bush for years now.

Noonan zeroed in on what she thinks is the crux of the speech:

Most significantly, Mr. Obama asserted that race in America has become a generational story. The original sin of slavery is a fact, but the progress we have lived through the past 50 years means each generation experiences race differently. Older blacks, like Mr. Wright, remember Jim Crow and were left misshapen by it. Some rose anyway, some did not; of the latter, a "legacy of defeat" went on to misshape another generation.

Does she not see that by allying and aligning himself with a pastor who wishes to spread the "legacy of defeat" to another generation, he is willingly, happily thrusting his two daughters into that world of suspicion and resentment, instead of the new world he professes to seek? Isn't what one teaches one's children the truest test of one's beliefs? By teaching his children that Rev. Jeremiah Wright's teachings are the teachings he wants to listen to on Sunday, he is saying it's his choice to keep the shackles of resentment and unforgiveness firmly in place for future generations.

Noonan suffered a sytlistic swoon during the speech:

Here I point out an aspect of the speech that may have a beneficial impact on current rhetoric. It is assumed now that a candidate must say a silly, boring line -- "And families in Michigan matter!" or "What I stand for is affordable quality health care!" -- and the audience will clap. The line and the applause make, together, the eight-second soundbite that will be used tonight on the news, and seen by the people. This has been standard politico-journalistic procedure for 20 years.

Mr. Obama subverted this [soundbite speaking style] in his speech. He didn't have applause lines. He didn't give you eight seconds of a line followed by clapping. He spoke in full and longish paragraphs that didn't summon applause. This left TV producers having to use longer-than-usual soundbites in order to capture his meaning. And so the cuts of the speech you heard on the news were more substantial and interesting than usual, which made the coverage of the speech better. People who didn't hear it but only saw parts on the news got a real sense of what he'd said.

This from Reagan's speechwriter -- Reagan who mastered applause lines. Tear down the wall of your miconceptions, Noonan. The speech may move writers who yearn for more complex sentences and political policy wonks who yearn for substance over soundbite, but if the speech is dishonest at its core, if it shows the candidate to be a hypocrite who can't explain his way out of his corner but tries, nonetheless, by attempting to drag everyone into the cesspool, then what care we about how long a soundbite producers have to air?

The speech was about saving his campaign, not altering the speaking style of politicians. So the ulitimate measure of the speech is whether or not it save his campaign. In that regard I'll give Noonan one. She said at the outset of the piece, "We'll see if it's a success." There is certainly no evidence to date that it was.

Seething

In between all the talk and helping Joyce clean out the coffee pot, I've been reading Obama's speech (text here; video here), and by the time I was at the end of it, I was seething.

Before I get to that, I have to say the Obama team has some outstanding speech-writers and a client who is particularly gifted in delivering their work. Given the hurdle Obama had to jump with this speech ... well, it's a good thing that black guys can jump, and jump he did, making a valient attempt at damage control.

But in the end, the speech was nothing more than a clumsy effort to tie black racism to white racism, saying that we're all as bad as Rev. Jeremiah Wright, so why don't we all just get together and be racist together for the greater good? And it was the end of the speech that just made my skin crawl: The story of Ashley, the white Obama volunteer who came to work for him because of the "injustice" of having her mom lose her health insurance and suffer through cancer and financial hardship.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along
the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare
and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally.
But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Is that how he thinks whites think? That we would blame blacks or Mexicans for this particular set of circumstances? That it's "injustice" to have to be self-reliant? Holy cow! I thought Obama was supposed to be a guy who transcended the old stupidity, but here he is wallowing in it.

We are told that Ashley's problem isn't racism but corporate greed, and therefore that the answer to Ashley's problem is ubiquitous government. And this socialist message is supposed to reassure us that Obama hasn't drunk deeply of Rev. Wright's Kool-Aid?

Barone On 2008

I got a chance to hear Michael Barone, US News political reporter and Fox analyst, this morning at Chapman University's "The Road to the Presidency" series and thought I'd pass on the notes I typed into my Blackberry, since I had neither a computer or a pad of paper handy.

He started with a laugher about being used to starting his speeches after invocations, but it was actually kind of nice not having "G*d damn America!" as your lead-up phrase.

As he covers this campaign, he feels for the first time that all the old rules broken have been broken and that it's a new period of politics he refers to as "open field politics," which replaced the trench warfare politics that reigned from Gingrich through the bombing of the Al Askariya shrine in Samarra in 2006.

"There hasn't been open field politics in DC since the 1880s, and now that Strom Thurmond is no longer there, there's no one that remembers them."

The man's ability to remember political stats is nothing short of God-given; there's nothing naturally human about it. Joel Kotkin, who introduced him, said that driving across the country with Barone is an amazing experience because he knows every Congressional district you're driving through -- and he knows more about your hometown district than you do.

I could see that as he rolled through primary results -- not just from this election cycle, but earlier ones -- as if he were recalling the months of the year.

During the period of trench politics, the religious demographic was the most important, with a clear divide between the GOP and Dems on the issue creating what he called "a 49 percent nation." That left with the 2006 election, when the electorate decided to give to give the Dems some power, knowing that they weren't giving them control.

The new period, he said, is a period of change in which many different results are possible, so the tide has turned from turn-out, which drove trench politics, to framing issues and selling ideas. Hurrah!

Looking at the GOP race, a couple good one liners.

Every GOP candidate's strategy failed. McCain was lucky because his failed first.

Huckabee staying in was good for McCain, because it allowed him to give a victory speech every primary night.

For the Dems, 2008 is shaping up as a perfect storm -- do we reject the first black candidate with a good shot at the presidency, or the first woman? -- that is focused on their 796 super super delegates ... "well 795 now that Spitzer's gone."

There's now "a battle of the tribes" in which age seems to matter more than ever, with 75 percent of the old going for Hillary and 75 percent of the young for Obama, whose young supporters feel "we are the change we want."

Obama's success is easy to explain -- he's attractive, speaks to getting beyond polarization after the long years of trench warfare. Plus, he's run the best campaign by far, a true 21st Century that makes McCain's look 19th Century, especially on fundraising.

He doesn't see a brokered Democratic convention. The last one occurred in 1952 as a function of the communications of the time -- people didn't speak to each other much until they saw each other on the floor, leading to numerous favorite sons holding back delegates. Interestingly, the last brokered convention coincided with the introduction of direct distance dialing in 1950, when the operator was eliminated and people could just pick up the phone and dial anyone, anywhere. Lyndon Johnson was the "first phone president," Barone said, and brokered conventions are now much less likely to occur.

Barone made a lot of comments about Rev. Wright, but sees it as no laughing matter. When combined with the earmark and Rezko stories, it's caused a lot of people to rethink, and Obama is weakening in polls

The major policy issue of this election for the GOP is that probably half the voters don't know that free markets work and government intervention doesn't. They never have had to wait in gas lines, so they have a bedrock of false assumptions, leading them to accept the idea that the government really can run health care at a lower cost than the private sector.

He closed with a discussion on American exceptionalism, saying that 2/3 of all voters approve of some concept that our country is better and does things better. Virtually 100% of the GOP believes that way, and a slight majority of Dems do. Obama was an exceptionalist, which made him appealing, until Wright, William Ayres and his only lately proud wife Michelle all sabotaged that perception of him. The recalibration of perception may drive Dems to Hillary and Independents to McCain.

It's nice to know that there are still experts who don't just babble. Now when I see him commenting or read his pieces, it will be with a greater appreciation of a mind that was wired for political reporting.

Separating Wright From Right

Unfortunately I was too busy yesterday to write about the most fascinating story of the campaign season thus far: Rev. Jeremiah Wright. We're taking a quick vacation next week, so there was enough work to make a preacher say "G*damn!"

Know any preachers that would say that word from the pulpit? About America?

No matter; the United Church of Christ -- Rev. Wright's church -- is standing by their man:

In the wake of misleading attacks on its mission and ministry, Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ is being lauded by United Church of Christ leaders across the nation for the integrity of its worship, the breadth of its community involvement and the depth of its commitment to social justice.

Misleading? Attacks? Words are words, and Wright's words can't be explained away by "context." There is no context to salvage a statement like "America's chickens are coming home to roost," which stands on its own, indefensible.

I can understand United Church of Christ's president, John Thomas, and others in the church being upset that only one aspect of the Trinity is being exposed to the harsh light of media attention. Certainly, there is a lot of good the church has done, bringing people to Christ, helping the poor, turning around lives. But there's a right way and a wrong way to deal with that. Here's the wrong way:

"These attacks, many of them motivated by their own partisan agenda, cannot go unchallenged," Thomas emphasizes. "It's time for all of us to say 'No' to these attacks and to declare that we will not allow anyone to undermine or destroy the ministries of any of our congregations in order to serve their own narrow political or ideological ends."

While there is a partisan aspect to the attacks, they genuinely offend all whites and patriotic Americans, transcending partisanship and justifying the scrutiny on Wright's teachings. I looked through the entire United Church of Christ statement for anything approaching not just recognition of the legitimacy of the outrage against Wright's statement, but also an apology.

There is neither, which was troubling, as was this:

Trinity UCC has been involved in planting more than 15 new congregations, according to the UCC's Evangelism Ministry in Cleveland.

Normally, as a Christian I would be elated and impressed, because I'm all for spreading the gospel and bringing Christ to those who need Him. But a thought enters my mind in this case that wouldn't have been there before hearing Wright's sermons: The thought of Saudi-funded Wahhabi mosques spreading across America.

Extreme? Both teach hatred for the American establishment, both teach their followers to not fit in, to not assimilate, to remain separate, apart and superior. From all indications, Wright doesn't teach violence against America, but up to that point, the similarities are chilling. I don't have the exact Wright quote, but the relevant one here is the one in which he says Jesus was "a black man" (wrong) in a country under the thumb of the white man (right).

If you seek lessons from Christ's experience, it is to focus on God, your relationship with others and your own character, not on Caesar. Christ never railed against the Romans -- and we whites of America are not Romans.

I was pointed to the United Church of Christ statement by Rev. Dennis Sanders' Notes from a Black Pastor post at The Moderate Voice (via memeorandum). Sanders "has standing" in the United Church of Christ, and has previously seen Wright's work as "lifting up the race," and therefore meritorious. No more:

Most African American preachers will inject social concerns into their sermons. Because of our experience with slavery and later segregation, we tend to see Christianity in a more prophetic role, where God is on the side of the downtrodden. While I mostly preach in predominately white churches (and I tend to have a more subdued style than most black preachers) I do tend to talk about care for the poor and about the fact that God loves and accepts all regardless of color or sexual orientation. I believe that as Christians we are called to strive for justice and I do try to make that point in my sermons.

That said, the sermons by Rev. Wright go waaaay over the top. He paints an America that I don’t recognize and throws in falsehoods and a tinge of anti-Semitism that I believe shames all African American preachers.

There is no way you can explain away Wright’s belief that 9/11 was basically “just desserts” on America, especially a few days after the event. Then there is his giving into dark conspiracy theories such as the one where the government gives black people the drugs. Or, his talk of Zionism as white racism.

There is just something wrong about what Rev. Wright is doing. It’s not that he isn’t patriotic enough as some on the right are yelping: it’s that this man seems an inverse of the late Jerry Falwell: a mean-spirited preacher that uses the Bible to further his agenda.

Who is the "typical" black preacher, Wright or Sanders? I think it's Sanders, I hope it's Sanders, but with the United Church of Christ's failure to denounce Wright's anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism and racism, I worry.

WSJ found another speech Wright gave at Howard University (could you imagine an all-white university in America today?) which was worse than anything he said at Trinity.

Comfortable in front of his all blalck audience, Wright laid it on thick, saying America "started the AIDS virus," that we "are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty," and that in white America we "believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God."

He then inspired all the women at Howard to greatness with this:

"No black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body."

This is the man Obama goes to for spirtual guidance and has for 20 years?

Perhaps prophetically, given the damage he's done to Obama's campaign, he said to the crowd at Howard that "no black man will ever be considered for president" in America. His prophesy is wrong on "considered;" Obama's being considered -- but Wright may well have ended that consideration.

Yesterday, I was listening on the radio to the Wright comments and listener reactions to them on my way to a meeting with my company's account managers, including the Token Dem, who's an Obama precinct captain.

I was seething with anger and had not had a chance to begin getting it under control when I saw him.

"Still for Obama?" I barked in the nastiness of tones, then ripped into him about his candidate's pastor.

Our political relationship is always just joshing and fun; this was new to him. He countered with Hagge and I shot back that Hagge is not McCain's spiritual mentor, and that Wright's way off the deep end, even when compared to the shameful anti-Catholic rants of Hagge.

I apologized for my anger after the meeting, and the Token Dem remains an Obama man ... at least for now.

His reasoning for supporting Obama is that as a young progressive, he feels change is a good thing and will be good for America. Will he see that Obama can no longer claim the change mantle, now that Wright, earmarks and Rezko are out in the public eye?

Even if Token Dem doesn't see it, thousands will, and if America is still a country of strong people who know a con man when they see one, then Obama's days are numbered. Is that a big if?