ConfirmThem

The problem with our Government is not Democrats or Republicans, per se, but with the collective need to do whatever it takes to get and keep power. This never-ending opportunistic positioning on issues, with little regard for any who might suffer from the effects, fails all of "we the People" and the Government should be ashamed of itself...though we have a better chance of finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow than ever seeing sincere humility and embarrassment come from any of our Political Heroes in Washington.

The political football that is Iraq is being as poorly handled as any issue in my memory, and our Warfighters and Veterans (those we should most concern ourselves with) are being failed on almost every level. I blame the President. I blame the Department of Defense. I blame Veterans Affairs. Most of all, I blame Congress. While most of these issues with Soldiers and Veterans lie squarely in the lap of the DoD and the VA, Congress owns the lion's share of blame for not fixing this mess because they hold the checkbook and they aren't doing what needs doing: writing the damn checks.

Let's start with the New York Times piece, The Suffering of Soldiers:

Several years into a pair of wars, the Department of Veterans Affairs is struggling to cope with a task for which it was tragically unready: the care of soldiers who left Afghanistan and Iraq with an extra burden of brain injury and psychic anguish. The last thing they need is the toxic blend of secrecy, arrogance and heedlessness that helped to send many of them into harm’s way.

Quick cheap shot at the President aside, the NYT's Editorial board is on to something. But, before we look at the rest of this "opinion" piece, let's pile on a few more things for emphasis.

More below the fold...

First, consider the now-very-forgotten story of Walter Reed and Building 18 and the suffering of Soldiers there. Recall that President Bush promised a commission to review Military Health Care in the wake of that story, and a report from the so-called Dole-Shalala commission was issued. Anything implemented from that one yet? Not that I can find.

Consider as well the Ft. Bragg barracks disaster and the standard issue gasps of shock and outrage from the guy who OWNS it to begin with: SecDef Gates himself.

A cursory run through the news yesterday brings a story of Soldiers being cremated at a facility used for pets. It's no wonder people are screaming...a freaking pet crematorium being used for our fallen Heroes, and the Military isn't sure if this place is doing these cremations appropriately? What the bloody hell is wrong with this bureaucracy?

The President asked for the Iraq supplemental funding well over a year ago. The Democrats have finally come up with a disaster in response, and in an op-ed this morning Alabama Rep. Jo Bonner details the bloat lying in wait within it. The bill is a joke and the Democrats are well aware the President will have no choice but to veto this trash and the Warfighters and Veterans will continue to wait.

Congress was told by Adm. Mullen that the Army is almost out of money. Of course, Harry Reid could give a flip, given that he's already said it's no big deal [subscription], but if the Army runs out of money how can anyone expect the Soldiers and Veterans to get the care they need? They're about to lose their paychecks...how are they going to get treatment for the suffering the original Times piece above suggests they so desperately need?

Consider the last passage in the NYT piece:

Fortunately, the solutions are clear: more money for mental health services, closer tracking of suicides and more aggressive preventive efforts, more efficiency at managing veterans’ treatment and more help for their families. If this country gave back to wounded troops even a fraction of the commitment and service that it has received from them, they will be well cared for.

Why is this so hard for Congress to comprehend?

In the piece titled "The Costs of War" from the WaPo, dollars and cents make up the whole discussion about Iraq. With all of Schumer and Reid's ranting and raving...and calling President Bush "King George"...nowhere is there a mention of what MORE the Army can do about the problems it's Warfighters and Veterans face were these clowns to draft a bill the President can actually sign. They are clearly more concerned with the constituencies they can buy off...and with shoring up majorities and expanding them. They are there to do the people's business, not muck up our lives and CERTAINLY not to destroy the lives of our Soldiers and their families, yet that is exactly what they continue to do.

They fail us all.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Preface:

On FNS, Obama campaign boss David Axelrod told host Chris Wallace that he was "encouraged" by the McCain campaign's proposal to hold joint town hall meetings this summer. Next up, Clinton mouthpiece Howard Wolfson argued that the race for the Dem nomination would not be over until someone garnered the support of 2209 delegates, the number required to nominate if both the Florida and the Michigan delegations are counted.

On TW, Harry Reid told host George Stephanopoulos that Americans have outgrown the 2nd Amendment as an issue in Presidential campaigns and that John McCain was a "flawed" candidate because of his temper. Asked for evidence of this temper, Reid said that "everybody knows" about it. Carly Fiorina, McCain advisor, was up next, and she made a point about "incentivizing" private companies to develop green technologies to combat the global warming threat. (She didn't use the term "global warming threat"; rather, I get a kick out of it.)

On MTP, Obama supporter Chris Dodd said that he was not upset that Hillary was still in the race; rather, he didn't want her trashing Barry. Hillary's campaign manager, Terence McAuliffe, threatened that if the Democrats nominate Obama, they'll lose both the Presidential election and the House of Representatives.

On FTN, host Bob Schieffer talked to John Edwards who said that he might eventually endorse. He added with a twinkle in his eye that John McCain seemed to be open about his proposal to create a cabinet-level Poverty Czar. (I hope not.) Next up, Terence McAuliffe answered questions about Hillary being the candidate of white people.

On LE, host Wolf Blitzer first talked to Obama, who opined that the American people want change and that he wanted to appoint Supreme Court justices who saw the court as a "refuge for justice." With two shrubberies so you get the two-level effect with a little path running down the middle. He next spoke to Roy Blunt and Chris Van Hollen, with Van Hollen spouting memorized notes he clearly did not understand.

The complete, show-by-show review is beneath the fold. …

DAVID AXELROD ON FNS. This morning, host Chris Wallace opened FOX News Sunday by speaking to Obama's boss strategist, David Axelrod, who let flow the expected bit about Hillary Clinton caring about the party and the country, and about how this circus-process has been great for the Democrats, registering 3.5-million new ones and just being this wonderful "strengthening process."

About Hillary's comments about white Americans loving her and hating Obama, Axelrod offered that she did not mean to say it like that and it is not a true statement regardless. White love Obama, he said. He allowed that she did not mean that only whites work hard. He thinks that the Democrats could, "for once," win white, working class voters, who now hate George Bush, he said.

Wallace asked Axelrod about Barry's comment that John McCain was "losing his bearings." Axelrod maintained that it was not about McCain's age and that the McCain campaign was "oversensitive."

Axelrod is "encouraged" by the McCain campaign's proposal of joint town hall-style meetings across the country before the conventions and is considering it "very seriously." Axelrod spoke highly of a "free-flowing conversation."

HOWARD WOLFSON ON FNS. Next up, Wallace spoke to the Clinton campaign's mouthpiece, Howard Wolfson. He humored Wolfson by allowing him to pretend that Hillary could in fact be the Dem nominee. Wolfson argued that there will be a nominee only when someone had gained the support of 2209 delegates, the number required if party counted the delegations from Florida and Michigan.

If Obama is the nominee, Wolfson said, Hillary will support him; he expects the same in reverse of Obama. He added, though, that more superdelegates would line up behind Barry next week.

On Hillary's racist remark about hard working whites support her and not Barry, Wolfson said that Hillary was using an AP analysis. (She did not label it at the time.) He remarked that the voters are going to decide the outcome of this nominating process, not "pundits" like Rahm Emanuel. (Wallace had Wolfson back down from the assertion that Rahm was a "pundit.")

Of Tuesday's West Virginia primary, Wolfson stated that the voters of West Virginia can end this nominating process on Tuesday, presumably by handing Barry a win. He did not later that Obama was not contesting WV, which he called an "important swing State."

Asked about Teddy Kennedy's bit about Hillary being unfit to be Obama's veep candidate because she does not appeal to the "nobler aspirations of the American people," Wolfson kindly dismissed Kennedy's opinion. But he did not call the Massachusetts Senator a drunk. Wolfson said that any veep talk was "premature."

In how much debt is Hillary's campaign? Wolfson said that they were $10-milllion in the red, but this does not include the $10-million Hillary lent her own campaign. That is "separate," Wolfson argued and Wallace allowed. (NOTE: The actual figure, the amount Hillary has loaned her campaign, is over $11.4-million.)

DINGY HARRY ON TW. Harry Reid was George Stephanopoulos's first guest on this weeks' This Week, over on ABC. On his party's nominating process, Reid argued: "I think we have to let this play out." After June 3rd, Reid held, Hillary and Obama can make their final cases to the superdelegates. "These two people are great candidates," Reid unenthusiastically enthused. (I maintain that this is existentially possible.)

Reid said that Obama "will do fine with rural Americans just like he did with rural Nevadans," drawing a fictional distinction between those who live in Nevada and U.S. citizens.

Reid said that Republicans cannot win by running on the 2nd Amendment, because "we're past that." Americans, it seems to Reid, have outgrown their guns.

Reid called John McCain a flawed candidate, citing his temper: "Everybody knows that he has an unusual temper." Steph added, "He just can't get along with people."

Reid admitted that he once tried to recruit John McCain to the Democrat bloc, but he argued that John McCain is not the man he once was. McCain has become, in Reid's view, "a clone of George Bush"; on the other hand, Obama "is a bipartisan guy."

CARLY FIORINA ON TW. Carly Fiorina, the McCain advisor and former CEO of HP, was next up for Steph. She talked of McCain's battle to fight global warming. McCain, she said, wants to do this by incentivizing the private sector to create innovation through green technology. He also favors the use of nuclear energy.

Steph talked about the "cap and trade" incentives, and Fiorina again said that this would "encourage people to go after these new technologies."

She talked about jobs leaving the United States because our business taxes were too high, and she spoke of the example of Ireland, where countries are wont to do business and manufacture because the Irish government has cut their corporate taxes.

Fiorina also spoke of educating workers who are left without jobs to do new jobs, not just leaving them there, collecting benefits.

DODD ON MTP. On NBC's Meet the Press, host Tim Russert spoke with former DNC bosses Chris Dodd, an Obama supporter. Russert displayed that Barry led in the pledged delegates count, but that Hillary led the superdelegate count, 276.5 to 274 (according to NBC). Russert is probably using figures gathered by that idiot MSNBC sportscaster, because FNC has Obama in the lead, as did the Associated Press.) Obama leads in contests won and in the popular vote. Dodd said that it was "very clear" that Obama would be the nominee and he has "every bit of confidence" that the party will unite behind Obama "very, very quickly."

Russert pointed out that Dodd was ticked that Hillary would have the people of West Virginia vote for her then turn around and have them support Obama a few weeks later. Dodd clarified that he was not angry that Hillary was still in the race, only in the way that she's been trashing Obama. He said he's confident that Hillary knows to cut it out.

Russert argued that Hillary had a "broader coalition" to win in November. He quoted McCain campaign manager Rick Davis as saying that non-negligible percentages of Hillary's supporters claim that they'll vote for McCain over Obama. Dodd laughed the statistics off as "coming from the McCain campaign."

He allowed that Hillary loves the country and the party, and she would not allow four more years of George Bush.

Dodd argued that he was "probably" over-the-top when, as a candidate for the Dem nomination, he said that Obama did not have the background to be President. He said, basically, that all candidates lie.

Dodd doesn't think that there will be an Obama/Hillary ticket.

TERENCE ON MTP.Next on MTP, Russert spoke to Hillary's campaign chairman, Terence McAuliffe. Russert cited Rahm Emanuel as saying on Friday that Obama was "the presumptive nominee." Terence argued that "no one is the nominee." Terence counted the popular votes from Florida and Michigan, saying that "they voted."

He argued that Hillary was up 43 points in West Virginia and 40 points in Kentucky. "What does it say about the candidate whom you say has won the nomination that he can't win two States that Bill Clinton carried in 1992 and 1996?" He argued that "this is about winning the election on November 4th," and only Hillary can beat John McCain. She'll also win the "down-ballot races which are key" to the Dems' retaining control of the House of Representatives. So, he's saying, if the Dems nominate Barry, they lose both the Presidential election and the House of Representatives.

He argued that "likely nominee" was not the actual nominee, and that seven-million Dems had yet to exercise their franchise. He asked Russert if he thought it was possible that Hillary could conceivably win the nomination. An uncomfortable Russert stammered, "Well… Let's… I want to stay with the questions."

McAuliffe argues that after West Virginia and Kentucky, Hillary will have won the popular vote and that they would talk to the superdelegates.

Russert played the audio clip of Hillary's racist comment about how hard-working, white Americans hate Obama. McAuliffe said that she was "quoting" an AP story. (The story did not specify that white Americans were the "hard-working" Americans.)

McAuliffe said he could put up 40 superdelegates who would "talk about what the Clintons have done on the race issue."

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

JOHN EDWARDS ON FTN. First up on CBS' Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer spoke to John Edwards (taped Saturday). Edwards thinks Hillary "has become a stronger and stronger candidate," but it is "mathematically" almost impossible for her to wrest the nomination from Barry.

Edwards said, magnanimously, that he withdrew from the race when he did because it became clear to him that he would not win and he thought that by his withdrawing, it would be easier for the party to coalesce behind on person. WRONG.

Schieffer played Clinton's "whites hate Barry" clip, arguing that she should have made that comment before North Carolina. Edwards excused her, saying that it is very hard to campaign, she was tired, etc. Edwards said that it's important that Hillary not damage the party.

Edwards said he might eventually endorse someone, but he does not think it’s a big deal. He said that endorsements have "not particularly helped with the [Dem] divide."

John Edwards is going to "launch a plan to cut poverty in half" this week, Schieffer noted, and both Hillary and Barry have promised to make poverty an important issue in their campaigns. Edwards said that John McCain gave him a positive response about fighting poverty and might even be open to a cabinet-level anti-poverty position (Poverty Czar?). Edwards talked about "strengthening the middle class."

TERENCE MCAULIFFE ON FTN. Schieffer next spoke to Clinton's campaign czar, former Clinton (Bill) fundraiser Terence McAuliffe. He was "in the studio." Schieffer asked how far Hillary plans to take this, now that she says that she's the "candidate of hard-working, white people." Schieffer asked McAuliffe if Hillary were, in fact, the "candidate of white people."

Schieffer brought up that Terence, when he ran the DNC, wouldn't let Michigan move their primary earlier, Terence spat back that he would have taken away 50% of Michigan's delegates. He argued that Hillary fares better against John McCain than does Barry.

Hillary asked McAuliffe if Hillary meant to say that she was the candidate of white people, and McAuliffe argued that Hillary was "paraphrasing an AP article." He added that white people were part of her coalition. Schieffer said that the AP did not use the descriptive "hard-working," so did Hillary mean to imply that blacks do not work hard? Terence talked about unity and "talking about the issues."

OBAMA ON LE. Wolf Blitzer opened his show with an interview with presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama. He talked about the people wanting change in Washington, DC, and how he looks forward to going after John McCain. Obama said that he looks forward to taking on McCain, "if I win" the nomination. "I don't want to get ahead of myself."

Wolf played a clip of Mitt saying that Barry hadn't accomplished anything in his life. Barry cracked that the argument hadn't worked for Mitt in the past when he used it against John McCain. He added that the American people wanted judgment in their foreign policy.

Domestically, Obama said he'll be "running against the failed policies of the Bush Administration, which John McCain wants to see continued." He said that the Bush economy had failed but that we hadn't shared the prosperity. Barry said that he'd cut middle class taxes and raise them on CEOs. He said that the country "grows from the bottom up," so tax the rich. We need a "sense of shared sacrifice."

Obama wants capable and competent people on the Supreme Court who can interpret the law. He said that he doesn't like judicial law making. He likes Breyer, Ginsburg, and Souter. He wants a judge who is "sympathetic enough to those on the outside." He wants his court to be a "refuge for justice." With two shrubberies so you get the two-level effect with a little path running down the middle.

BLUNT AND VAN HOLLEN ON LE. Wolf next spoke with House GOP whip Roy Blunt of Missouri and Congressional Dem campaign committee boss Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. Van Hollen argued that, though Obama was the frontrunner, the race was not over until Hillary decided to get out. He said that Hillary and Barry had to go forward with a "positive tone."

Blunt said that it will be McCain vs. Obama, but he's glad that Hillary is still in the race, "continuing the discussion." He said that McCain is the only candidate from inside Washington who could bring change to Washington, and that no one believes that McCain would bring a third Bush term.

Van Hollen said that the Bush economic policies "have driven this country into a ditch." He said that McCain would continue them, and continue Bush's war policies. Blunt countered that McCain would change "business as usual."

Blitzer argued to Blunt that on the economy and the war, McCain would be four more years of Bush. Blunt responded that the American people do not want to lose in Iraq.

Van Hollen snarled that the Republicans were the party of "no" and "veto," spending money on a war while refusing to help disabled vets. Blitzer went to a commercial promising Congressman Blunt a chance to respond, but he did not offer it. Instead, when they returned from the commercial, he asked what Congress could do the help the faltering economy.

Blunt talked of ceasing to fill the reserve, a gas tax holiday funded with money which otherwise would have gone to earmarks, and stopping the slide of the dollar. Van Hollen said that the Dems had a "common sense plan." They want to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. They want to jawbone OPEC about price manipulation. Wolf said that the gas tax holiday was a John McCain idea. Van Hollen argued that it was "too short termey."

Blunt argued that we needed both short term relief and a long term plan, while the Dems argue that proposed plans are too this or that. Van Hollen argued that the Dems made the earmarks process "transparent," and he called for increasing taxes on the oil companies.

=====

Okay. Have at it.

In yet another New York Times advocacy "article" for Obama, this one trying to explain away the fact that the terrorist group Hamas prefers Obama for president, Susan E. Rice, an Obama foreign policy adviser tells a whopper.

Incredibly, Rice had the audacity to claim that Obama isn't "willing to meet with “unconditionally” with Mr. Ahmadinejad:
Mr. McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly stated that Mr. Obama would be willing to meet “unconditionally” with Mr. Ahmadinejad. But Dr. Rice said that this was not the case for Iran or any other so-called “rogue” state.

This is simply a bald face lie.

At the CNN/YouTube Democrat debate last July, Obama was asked if he would be willing to meet, without precondition, during the first year of his administration with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea. Obama's answer was simple and direct, "I would." That's much different from the fabrication put forth by Rice.

Read on.

So no one claims I am taking what Obama actually said out of context the transcript of the debate is available here and following video is the entire question and answer:

How long will the admittedly Obamamania infected mainstream media Obama and his campaign get away with these continuing attempts to rewrite history by lying about what Obama has said as well as distorting the truth about what Senator McCain says?

There cannot be a serious and meaningful debate about the important issues facing the nation as long as Obama refuses to be honest about what he and Senator McCain actually say on the issues.

McCain has called for a civil and respectful campaign. It's too bad Obama chooses to continue to campaign with his deceive-and-distort politics.

I love and adore my home city, but let us face it: Clean politics has never quite been a Chicago forte. That's why it is valuable to have John Kass ask how precisely it came to be that Barack Obama was seen as a cleaner, fresher product of Chicago politics when, in fact, he has done nothing to challenge the traditional nature of politics in my beloved hometown. The following passage is a key one:

As a candidate, Obama will do what he has to do to win. My argument is not with him--but with the national political media pack that refuses to look closely at what Chicago is. They're fixated on what it was, and they think it's clean now.

And they've spent years crafting, then cleaving to their eager and trembling Obama narrative, a tale of great yearning, almost mythic and ardently adolescent, a tale in which Obama is portrayed as a reformer, a dynamic change agent about to do away with the old thuggish politics.

Read on.

It's as if Axelrod channeled it, wearing a peaked Merlin hat. Obama is a South Sider and does not hail from Camelot or Mt. Olympus or the lush forests of mythical Narnia.

I've joked that reporters feel compelled to hug him, in their copy, as if he were the cuddly faun, the Mr. Tumnus of American politics. But I was only kidding. The real Mr. Tumnus never had Billy Daley or Ted Kennedy carving up Cabinet appointments.

So why the disconnect? Why is Obama allowed to campaign as a reformer, virtually unchallenged by the media, though he's a product of Chicago politics and has never condemned the wholesale political corruption in his home town the way he condemns those darn Washington lobbyists.

For an answer as to when pundits will ever put Illinois corruption in context, I called on Tom Bevan, executive director of the popular political Web site Real Clear Politics (which directs readers to my column on occasion) and a Chicagoan.

"To a large degree, the media has accepted much of the Obama narrative thus far," Bevan told me. "He's risen so quickly, but his history hasn't been bogged down with an association of Chicago politics and I can't tell you why exactly, except perhaps that some may have bought into the established narrative and can't separate themselves from it."

"And I don't know if the country understands just how corrupt the system is in Illinois. People don't see it. They're flying over us, cruising at 30,000 feet," Bevan said.

Treating any part of America as flyover country constitutes a lack of respect to that part of America. Treating Chicago--a significant metropolitan center--like a political flyover zone is especially bizarre, so I invite pundits and observers to stop cruising at 30,000 feet and touch down to examine Chicago in careful and exacting fashion.

They'll find that you come and stay in my hometown for a whole host of perfectly wonderful reasons, but while the political system is interesting and amusing from an anthropological perspective, it's not exactly something to admire.

And Barack Obama has done nothing--nothing whatsoever--to change that. I think that's an important issue to cover in this Presidential election. Don't you?

(Thanks to Mark Hemingway for the link.)

Refusing to go gently into that good night, Clinton supporter Jerome Armstrong stubbornly sticks to the message that Hillary Clinton can win the Democratic Presidential nomination. He points to West Virginia as a state that serves as a good indicator of what Armstrong believes to be Barack Obama's general election problems. Sensitive to charges that fretting about Obama's general election appeal in West Virginia could be tantamount to giving credence to the views of racists, Armstrong spends a goodly amount of time denouncing anyone who would dismiss as racists anti-Obama voters in West Virginia.

This isn't particularly interesting save for two observations:

1. The Clinton folks actually believe that their candidate might yet pull off some sort of miracle and capture the nomination.
   
2. Despite all of the talk that Obama's nomination is now inevitable and that with said inevitability will come newfound party unity, seething anger and resentment continues to define the mood of Clinton supporters. This is, perhaps, somewhat understandable; at the beginning of the nomination contest, I don't imagine that people like Armstrong really ever thought that Obama would be able to wrest the nomination away from Clinton when they consulted the stars. Nevertheless, one would have thought that the various pro-Clinton factions in the netroots would have begun to reconcile themselves to an Obama nomination and then line up to support him against John McCain and the Republicans.

Well, perhaps eventually, they will. But for now, there remains seething anger and resentment and since it is almost the middle of May already, one could easily see the resentment continuing through the summer--especially if Hillary Clinton decides to push through the rest of the primary schedule and goes to the Democratic National Convention without having fallen on her sword. Ted Kennedy kept on fighting up to and during the convention in New York in 1980 even though he had significantly less support then than Clinton does and will have during this electoral contest. I am sure that this information will not be lost on the Clintons, I would not be surprised if they continued to play every trick in the book--and some that may not be in the book--to try to win the nomination at the last moment during a knife fight in Denver and while I have not recently checked the stock prices for popcorn companies, I don't imagine that they have gone down all that much.

Headshot of Prof. Alan Abramowitz, the most assuredly not racist professor of PoliSci at Emory University. Click the image above to send Prof. Abramowitz an email about his column in which he called "working class whites" who don't admit that blacks' problems are due solely to racism, racists.

Tomorrow's Washington Post (h/t Adam C) will feature an op-ed by Emory University PoliSci professor Alan Abramowitz ("In These Primary Numbers, Warnings for the Fall") that seeks to turn logic and rationality on its head for the purposes of calling White America racist.

"Voting patterns in Indiana and North Carolina show that resistance to a black candidate among some white Democrats remains a serious threat to his chances in November," Abramowitz writes. "Obama continues to have particular difficulty with one segment of the Democratic electorate: white working-class voters."

His explanation of this is long on unsubstantiated, not-rationally-supportable conjecture, and his conclusions lack anything remotely resembling evidence or facts. I suppose that's the price one pays for (or the benefit of) being a political "scientist": rather than having an academic specialty that prepares one to conduct research (and draw conclusions from that research) and analysis, all a political "scientist" like Abramowitz seems to feel the need to do is obtain numbers. His analysis and conclusions drawn from those numbers are all assumption, with no explanation added as to how those conclusions were reached, or why they should be accepted as correct.

The backdoor assault on working-class whites begins with Abramowitz's declaration that, despite a dearth of "overtly racist beliefs" (which he concedes "are much less prevalent among white Americans of all classes today"), "a more subtle form of prejudice, which social scientists sometimes call symbolic racism, is still out there -- especially among working-class whites."

"Symbolic racism," he explains, "means believing that African American poverty and other problems are largely the result of lack of ambition and effort, rather than white racism and discrimination."

Read on.


So Abramowitz has set his premise: "African American poverty and other problems" are the result of "white racism and discrimination." If you don't agree, you're a racist. Further, if you don't agree with that, then there is no point in your continuing to read Abramowitz's assault-on-logic of a column, because the information he provides in the remainder of the piece for the purpose of fomenting guilt or outrage quite simply won't make sense to you -- and certainly won't provoke that intended reaction.

You see, Abramowitz doesn't bother to expand on that premise by explaining just how it is that the African American community's problems are all being caused by racist whites; he just assumes -- and wants you to assume -- that it's true, and to operate from that point of view as you read the rest of what he has to say.

The rest of the column is dedicated to showing how widespread the attitude that the African American community's problems aren't to be solely chalked up to bigoted white crackers is; you are expected to agree with him that that attitude and opinion is not only incorrect, but abhorrent. Some examples:
Almost 60 percent of white voters agreed with the statement that "blacks should try harder to succeed." A startling 43 percent of white college graduates nodded at this one, along with 71 percent of whites with no college education.

"Startling" indeed. Was that supposed to be a hard-hitting statistic?
Fully 49 percent of white voters disagreed with the statement that "history makes it more difficult for blacks to succeed." Forty percent of white college graduates disagreed with it, along with 58 percent of whites with no college education.

Wow; that's just unbelievable. "Fully 49 percent of white voters" clearly must weigh the same as a duck and be made of wood -- or whatever the racist version of that equation (which is as scientific as Abramowitz's argument) is.

Anyway, on top of those two hard-hitting statistics (and the absent logic and analysis explaining why holding those "startling" attitudes not only make one racist, but are incorrect in the first place) is...nothing. The good "science" professor from Emory University has apparently blown his wad on just those two underwhelming polling results.

What -- were you expecting more? Hey, I warned you: if you didn't buy into the initial premise -- that the belief that "African American poverty and other problems" are not the result of "white racism and discrimination" makes you a "symbolic racist" -- then there was little or no point in reading the rest of the column, as it would make little sense, and utterly fail to provoke the outrage at, and shame of, those racist working-class whites that Abramowitz was do desperately hoping to achieve.

Oh, yes, the end of the piece. Abramowitz concludes:
Of course, these results don't mean that Obama won't win over white working-class voters. ... Democrats must hope that disapproval of Bush could lead working-class voters to begrudgingly approve of a black presidential candidate.

Hm. I would argue that "Democrats must hope" that they have people in their arsenal of writers and academics who are more capable of making, and backing up, an actual argument than poor Professor Abramowitz. Then again, most high school essays are better constructed and better argued, so I don't worry that there's someone out there, from the age of fifteen up, who can serve as a sharper mind, and present a clearer and more coherent argument, than Abramowitz.

I have to say, it's definitely a good thing that this wasn't submitted to, rather then by, the good Professor, as I feel confident saying that such assumption, and such utter failure to back up both premise and argument, would surely have earned the erstwhile student who produced such poor work a less-than-stellar grade.

First Hamas praised Barack Obama. Then Barack Obama's campaign said how flattered it was. Then Obama had to toss an advisor once it became public that the guy was working with Hamas.

In light of all the undesirables Obama is associated with and the undesirables who support Obama, I've added this one to the RedState Store.

Hey, it's truth in advertising. Deal with it.

[UPDATE:] By popular demand, you can get this one now too.

AttachmentSize obamahamassm.jpg34.2 KB

While RedState has endorsed Tom Rooney in FL-16, we do recognize there are other good candidates there. One of them is Hal Valeche, who asked if we'd allow him to put up a note from him. We're happy to do so. -- Erick

Dear Red State,

I am running for Congress in Florida's 16th District, and I would like to take this effort to tell you why I feel I am the best candidate to defeat liberal Tim Mahoney.

Upon graduation from Yale in 1969, despite a knee injury that kept me out of the draft, I volunteered for the military and was accepted into the Navy Flight training program where I finished first in my class. I flew 85 combat missions over North Vietnam in the early 1970's, and was awarded 6 air medals for my service.

After my military career, I went to the Wharton School where I received an MBA in finance, and then worked as a successful investment banker in New York City. I met my wife Stephanie in New York, and we have been happily married for 18 years and have been blessed with one daughter, Claire, who is 9. Stephanie and I moved to south Florida in the early 1990's, where I continued my business career as a merger specialist for a public company, and then as an entrepreneur.

Read on . . .

The need for conservative leadership on the local level drew me to run for public office. I saw runaway spending, poor fiscal management, and lots of talk but no action.  I wanted to turn things around and bring about conservative change.  In 2002, I entered public life when I was elected to the Board of Supervisors of the Northern Palm Beach County Improvement District, where I served as Vice-President in 2003 and 2004. I successfully ran for an open seat on the Palm Beach Gardens City Council in 2004 and was re-elected without opposition in March 2005. While on the council, I have been a consistent advocate of lower taxes and limited government.

I am 100% pro-life, I am a proud card-carrying member of the NRA, I oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants, I have signed the ATR pledge to not raise taxes, and I have signed the Citizens Against Government Waste pledge to reform the earmark process. Also, while in Vietnam, I saw firsthand how the leaders in Washington affect decisions on the front lines. I know that to win the war on terror, we must fight the terrorists on their turf so they don’t attack us here at home.

I believe I am the true conservative in this race, and I have a solid track record to back it up. This is a very competitive race and I want to honor Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment, because I have respect for my opponents. I will, however, compare my record and my experiences with my opponents. I am the only combat veteran in the race. I am the only candidate in the race with high-level business experience and an expertise on economic issues. And most importantly, I am the only candidate in the race with a proven conservative track record.

I am proud to say that I have been endorsed by Citizens United Political Victory Fund and by Admiral Jay Johnson, a former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Finally, as of the April FEC filing, our campaign is $147,000 ahead of Tom Rooney, and $334,000 ahead of Gayle Harrell.

The current fundraising quarter is off to a great start, but I could truly use your help. If you would like to get involved in our campaign, or contribute financially, please visit http://www.halvaleche.com/action/.

Sincerely,

Hal Valeche

While in the process of reading this National Interest attempt to link American foreign policy positions to The Godfather (and this rather well done beatdown of said attempt, via Ace), I was reminded of the clip below (via Hot Air), which I should have mentioned at the time:

[Or, try this YouTube, which actually works.]

Do you know why we don't trust the Democrats on foreign policy? It's because too many of them applaud when national security ignoramuses make ignorant statements like that. Or, as see-dubya put it, very succinctly:

Yeah, Truman negotiated with his enemies; his emissaries were Fat Man and Little Boy.

Please, Democrats, nominate this man: I'm learning to enjoy watching people stop by three times a week to earnestly, and somewhat desperately, explain the latest damfool thing that came out of his mouth.

For Sunday, May 11, 2008

FOX News Sunday (FNS): Host Chris Wallace talks to top Obama strategist David Axelrod and Hillary's mouthpiece, Howard Wolfson, about what will be left of the Dem Party.

This Week (ABC): Host George Stephanopoulos has Nevada Senator Harry Reid on the show to hawk his new book and he sits down with Carly Fiorina to discuss the McCain campaign.

Meet the Press (NBC): Host Tim Russert talks to two former DNC bosses: Chris Dodd for Obama and Terence McAuliffe for Hillary, about what will be left of the Dem Party.

Face the Nation (CBS): Host Bob Schieffer talks to John Edwards and to McAuliffe.

Late Edition (CNN): Host Wolf Blitzer interviews Obama and then hosts House GOP whip Roy Blunt and DCC chair Chris Van Hollen to discuss the outlook for Congressional elections. Then he speaks to his usual cast of thousands.

=====

The consensus seems to be that the Dem race is over, and the hosts want to know if Hillary's ongoing battle will let the aging, weary John McCain abscond with the General Election this November; they'll talk to Democrats who will reassure them that everything will be alright.

Harry Reid is doing his book tour; he'll probably do Russert next week.

Kudos to Blitzer for paying some attention to what is happening with Congressional races; he has an opening now that the luster has been stolen from his Obama vs. Clinton star.

The only reason for the FTN producers to cast John Edwards this week would be if he promised to endorse Barry, but I am nonplussed about that possibility. At this point, who cares?

I'll cover these things and have my notes in this space tomorrow afternoon.

Shall we engage in some gently mockery?

Yes, we shall:

And to paraphrase Vader, my high school civics teacher has failed me for the last time. Fifty states? I scoff! We have far more than fifty:

Of course, if John McCain said this, we would have heard about how old he is he has "lost his bearings."

Back to the bad old days, at least as far as theatrics go. I suppose that it is nice and reassuring that Vladimir Putin Dmitri Medvedev told his audience that "war is bad, mmmkay?" and that we ought to be careful not to start any, but the message is . . . shall we say . . . undercut by a military parade that might have brought smiles to the faces of Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko.

To be sure, we shouldn't read too much into all of this. As this article makes clear at the end, Russia's military possesses more bark than bite. But there is no question that President Putin Medvedev wants to remedy this. And even independent of this issue, Russia's actions towards former Soviet states (distressingly, no one on the Presidential campaign trail is talking about Abkhazia and/or South Ossetia) and the internal repression that has returned to Russia is quite enough to cause observers to wonder and worry about Russia's intentions and ambitions.

Andrew Biggs reveals that when it comes to tax policy, Barack Obama has got some 'splainin' to do:

As the presidential campaign heats up, a key issue is whether to extend the 2001 and 2003 income tax cuts, which expire in 2011. John McCain wants to make the tax cuts permanent. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to let the rates rise.

Opponents of the tax cuts point to spending programs that could be financed by the extra revenues. Chief among these is Social Security. Sen. Obama's Web site, for example, argues that "extending the Bush tax cuts will cost three times as much as what is needed to fix Social Security's solvency over the next 75 years."

Such statements imply that if we return to the seemingly modest tax rates of the 1990s, we could fund the $4.3 trillion Social Security deficit, and so much more. As Mr. Obama recently told Fox News, "I would roll back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans back to the level they were under Bill Clinton, when I don't remember rich people feeling oppressed."

This argument seems compelling, but it is misguided. In reality, repealing the tax cuts would raise taxes far above Clinton-era levels. Due to quirks in the tax code, average taxes would be almost 25% higher than during the 1990s.

Read on . . .

The culprit is "bracket creep." Income tax brackets have not adjusted for the growth in earnings, which means that if the Bush tax cuts are indeed rolled back,

. . . income-tax revenues by 2018 will rise to 10.8% of the total economy from 8.7% today - an increase of 24%. Compared to the average over the last 50 years, allowing the rates to rise would increase tax revenues by 32%.

The economy is not recessionary yet. Perhaps we can get by on weak growth for a while before the economy finally picks up and avoid actual contractions. But if taxes are raised so dramatically, the economic pinch we have sought to avoid will finally arrive.

I should emphasize another portion of Biggs's editorial: Even if the current tax cuts remain in place, bracket creep will cause taxes to rise. Anti-tax cutters like to deride small-government/free market advocates for championing tax cuts at what the anti-tax cutters believe is a Pavlovian level. If they actually understood anything about bracket creep, however, they'd quit with the derision.

Do you need a nap? Have you gotten to the point yet where you need to be reminded what day it is, what state it is, and what the word "breakfast" means? Are you beginning to think that Charlie Stross was right when he claimed that all hotels are really the same hotel, linked somehow in a nefarious, yet inexplicably pointless, global conspiracy?

Because it sounds like you went a little out there recently.

(Via Hot Air; see also Marc Ambinder, who is infinitely nicer about this than I plan to be. Bad idea to try to go after your opponent's fundamental mental state, Barry. Bad idea.)

But see: this is the sort of thing that you can make work to your advantage. Just announce that this was actually part of your new plan regarding foreign policy! Heck, I'll even give you the new States to annex.

Read on. But have a soothing drink first.

OK, we need seven new States to keep your acolytes from facing the distressing reality of your human status. The first two are no-brainers: Puerto Rico and American Samoa. We'll have to include the US Virgin Islands in the former, and both Guam and the US Marshall Islands in the latter. Granted, Greater American Samoa's population is still going to be pretty small, but let's face it: nobody's going to let you make DC into a State. Take what you can get.

But that's two. OK, for the next three let's look north. Quebec? Nope, too French. Ontario, Manitoba? Too Canadian. Saskatchewan? Forget it, we have enough trouble trying to remember how to spell Connecticut*. All those little whatever-they-are (I'm kidding, I know that they're provinces) east of Quebec? Ehh. Alberta? ... Yeah, that'll do. Some very nice industrial infrastructure in Alberta. British Columbia next: very pretty, from what I hear. And oh, well, we could grab the Yukon: something about there being a metric buttload of oil up there. We'll skip the Northwest Territory: frankly, it has too many islands associated with it.

OK, that's five. Two more, two more... got it! Baja California North, and Baja California South. No, wait, hear this one out. You announce six months early that we're going to take it over: then, on the day, you fence the eastern border with what used to be Mexico. That's, what, one third the length of California's border? Yeah, that'll save some money... especially since you fence up the rest of the border first, thus making points with the border-security people while still giving existing illegals a handy excuse. "Hey, I'm from Baja anyway. Funny how that goes, hombre?" Win-win all around - and there you have it! You were right all along. Look upon your vision, and glory in it:

http://www.redstate.com/files/ObamaUSA.JPG

Of course, this strategy would put you at war with two of our largest trading partners, annoy the living daylights out of various island-dwellers who don't particularly want to be fully integrated into our tax structure, and generally frighten the rest of the planet - but then, it's hardly less alarming than some of the stuff that you've said when you've had enough sleep lately, Barry.

Moe Lane

PS: As for the Alaska/Hawaii thing... tough one. Amalgamate the two states, and hope that your youth voters keep on subconsciously assuming that the two states are roughly the same size and next to each other, because that's the way they're usually shown on the maps? That's the best that I can do on short notice, sorry.

PPS: Oh, wait, you meant that there's a total of 58, right?

(pause)

Fine. Have DC as a State, then. Although finding the right two-letter postal designation is going to be a pain.

PPPS: 'Zounds! We've all counted wrong: as Ann Althouse notes, it's 59! (Via Glenn, who has a nice roundup of links). Ach, well: time for the emergency annexation.

Sorry, Iceland. It's nothing personal, but it's either you or Saskatchewan. And I don't want to have to learn how to spell Saskatchewan.

PPPPS: But I don't want Saskatchewan!

*Amusingly, I got it wrong on the first try.

AttachmentSize ObamaUSA.JPG57.51 KB

And I can almost hear the teeth grinding of Ms. Fadel as she had to write this particular article (via Instapundit):

In big concession, militia agrees to let Iraqi troops into Sadr City
By Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD — Followers of rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr agreed late Friday to allow Iraqi security forces to enter all of Baghdad's Sadr City and to arrest anyone found with heavy weapons in a surprising capitulation that seemed likely to be hailed as a major victory for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki.

In return, Sadr's Mahdi Army supporters won the Iraqi government's agreement not to arrest Mahdi Army members without warrants, unless they were in possession of "medium and heavy weaponry."

The agreement would end six weeks of fighting in the vast Shiite Muslim area that's home to more than 2 million residents and would mark the first time that the area would be under government control since Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003. On Friday, 15 people were killed and 112 were injured in fighting, officials at the neighborhoods two major hospitals said.

There's something pleasant about watching a site like McClatchy being forced to deal with objective reality. But enough about them! I have a question each for both of the Democratic candidates for President:

For Barry: Given that, if we had listened to you when you called for our cutting and running from Iraq, this scenario would not only not have happened, but the entire country would have probably collapsed into an inchoate mess - when are you going to actually revise and extend your position on the war so that it reflects conditions in this universe?

No, you may not ask a friend. Frankly, I don't know why you even have advisers, given that they seem to have a half-life of seaborgium. At this rate, I expect that you will soon have them all fitted with explosive collars that will go off whenever the policy positions they espouse go under 50% 60%* in the polls.

For Hill: Given that you are rapidly acquiring a rogues' gallery of left-wing pundits, bloggers, activists, anarchists, Marxists, and just plain insane nutballs that any self-respecting neo-conservative would envy... have you thought about just taking the damn plunge already and rejoining the side of the angels wrt the GWOT? All of those people above are prepared to climb over broken glass rather than vote for you anyway.

Come on. You know that you want to.

*Dammit, Addison. Having an actual sense of humor is fighting dirty.

Note by Jeff: Code Pink's web site actually had this posted on it:
“Friday, May 9th: Witches, Crones, Sirens: perform rituals of leaving, cast a spell of peace and love over the station, rendering nil the recruiting of our youth to become fodder for this occupation of Iraq.”

...and here is an actual photograph. Sexy, no?
****

In Berkeley, California this Friday, the ongoing saga of the Marine Corps recruiting station took a redundant turn, as members of Code Pink dressed in pointy hats and cast spells as part of their latest protest.

Fox News reports that Zanne Sam Joi of Bay Area Code Pink announced, "women are coming to cast spells and do rituals and impart wisdom to figure out how we're going to end war."

Armed with cauldrons, flowers, and other typical Code Pink paraphernalia, the witches spent the day hexing the Marines and attempting to overcome a salt barrier poured by counter protesters.

Move America Forward adds that "One of Code Pink’s mamas is Miriam Simos, a bisexual feminist witch living in Berkeley who goes by the name 'Starhawk.'" This is the latest in a series of increasingly absurd attacks on the Marine Corps by Code Pink and their Berkeley City Council familiars.

So just to recap, Code Pink were a bunch of witches today. In other news, some bears crapped in the woods.

Earlier this week, I wrote about a proposal by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-22) to make it easier for active duty military to vote absentee by accelerating the mail delivery process.

It turns out, surprise, surprise, that the unions are opposed. Why? Because it uses the private sector. Seriously. They are opposing making it easier for our deployed active duty soldiers on the grounds that it expands the private sector. From the letter that they sent to the House Subcommittee on Elections (full text at the end of the post):
NAPUS is deeply concerned about HR 5673, particularly the provision that sanctions private contractor conveyance of overseas and military ballots.

Note that this was the first thing that they said.

Furthermore, the Rep. Bob Brady (D-PA), the Chairman of the House Administration Committee, refused to hold a mark-up on this bill this week after the unions demanded that he pull it from the schedule.

Let's get this straight. Democrats cave to unions who oppose increased military voting if it means using the private sector.

Read on.

The union makes a half-valid point:

We believe, as is borne out in the testimony submitted to the Committee, that the overwhelming majority of the problem rests with State Election authorities who are not able to prepare the necessary election materials and locate eligible overseas and military voters in timely manner. While the elections timeline may be appropriate for state-based absentee voting, it may have the effect of disenfranchising overseas and military voters.

NAPUS correctly identifies that a large part of the problem is that local election bodies have deadlines that make it very difficult. And sometimes, political leaders intervene to make it worse, such as when Pennsylvania's Governor, Ed Rendell, didn't send out the ballots until it was too late.

But is clear that there is a genuine problem. The Army Times write up of the legislation cited an Election Assistance Commission report on the subject:
The report found that only 47.6 percent of absentee ballots requested by members of the military ended up being counted, and that some of the problem appeared to stem from mail delays. Ten percent of ballots arrived too late to be counted under deadlines applied by states, which usually are a combination of the date the ballot is postmarked and the absolute last day for ballots to be counted before election results are certified.

In other words, if they solve the problem, another 1 in 10 military voters get their votes counted.

But not for the unions. Damn those evil private sector jobs.

To be fair to them, the problem about the states (or even counties) being more cooperative is real. But ... that is well out of the scope of the federal government. So let's just help our heroes share in the franchise.

The full text of the letter is below:

The National Association of Postmasters of the U.S. (NAPUS) represents approximately 41,000 active and retired Postmasters from every city, town and hamlet in the country. Many of our members have served in the US military.

NAPUS is deeply concerned about HR 5673, particularly the provision that sanctions private contractor conveyance of overseas and military ballots. We believe, as is borne out in the testimony submitted to the Committee, that the overwhelming majority of the problem rests with State Election authorities who are not able to prepare the necessary election materials and locate eligible overseas and military voters in timely manner. While the elections timeline may be appropriate for state-based absentee voting, it may have the effect of disenfranchising overseas and military voters. If the state boards of election do not have good destinations addresses for overseas and military voters, providing an alternative to the Postal Service for ballot returns will not correct the underlying deficiency. Consequently, the linchpin to alleviate the problem is not creating a parallel "inbound" privatized ballot conveyance mechanism, which could complicate ballot collection; rather, State Boards of Election should enhance communications with the military and State Department to locate and keep track of non-resident voters, so eligible voters may receive their ballots in a timely fashion.

Thanks you for consideration of the views.

Robert M. Levi

Director of Government Relations

National Association of Postmasters of the U.S.

And a man ready to name his price:

DNC Superdelegate Puts His Vote Up For Sale
Steven Ybarra Wants $20 Million For His Vote

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CBS13) ― In this tight battle for the Democratic nomination we've heard a lot about the candidates courting superdelegates.

But, one superdelegate is courting the candidates. He says he'll sell his vote for a price. A very high price: $20 million.

Steven Ybarra of Sacramento says that eight-figure price is peanuts for the presidency.

This is not going to be an attack on Mr. Ybarra, by the way: he's just an example. The real problem for the Democrats are the super-delegates who are being quiet about their special needs.

Read on.

First off, let's establish something: what Mr. Ybarra wants is not precisely a bribe. He's looking to use that 20 million to register Mexican-American Democrats in the Southwest, which is a project that the DNC should be getting involved in. They can't, because Howard Dean spent his Party's cash reserves making Democrats in Montana feel better about being surrounded by all those Republicans, but that's only Ybarra's problem in the abstract. Naturally, he's not really a disinterested party in this: Ybarra wants to be the guy who can hand out the dozen or so jobs that a project like that entails, which will benefit him indirectly, and on a more local level, and in the long run. Put another way: Ybarra is looking to parlay this suddenly-important status of his into increased influence in the California Democratic Party; and he's probably smart enough to do that while being scrupulously remaining within the letter of the law. As he said, it's done all the time.

That's the issue, really.

The Washington Times put out a story today - "Superdelegates hold back" - which is ostensibly about the problems that Hillary Clinton is having getting SDs from districts that she's won to endorse her. Good news for Obama... except that they aren't endorsing him, either. There was a good deal of talk around the blogosphere about how the super-delegates were going to flood over to the junior Senator from Illinois after Tuesday's results, but it's still at the usual trickle. And here's an interesting factoid from the Times:

Of the more than 200 undeclared superdelegates, just 23 are from places that have yet to vote: West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Montana.

The Obama campaign is, of course, planning to act as if 50% of pledged delegates will ensure him the nomination (instead of the 62% that the rules actually require*, and which he will not get): it's the best hand that they have to play, particularly now that their run of the demographic tables have not quite put them over the edge. That's for public consumption. What's going to happen in private is that both he and Clinton are going to be carefully, very carefully: finding out the reason why each one of the remaining delegates won't get off the fence; finding out what the price is for getting off the fence; seeing what they can do to get that price; and of course making certain that the people that they've already got off the fence aren't getting restless.

And this will happen all the way to the convention. Bottom line: if the remaining races break 50/50, and even assuming that the Democrats will actually be stupid enough to keep Michigan and Florida from counting, Obama will walk into that convention with about 1,700 guaranteed votes and Clinton with about 1,550. The best of a set of bad choices for the Democratic candidates right now is to lock in as best they can the super-delegates that both need to win this on the first ballot (because nobody - and I mean nobody - knows what will happen if this goes to more than one). It only remains to be seen how many of those super-delegates are like Mr. Ybarra: ready to deal, and already having a hand out.

And how many of them are ready to renegotiate, now that Mr. Ybarra has put the idea in their heads.

Moe Lane

*OK, let's walk through this. You need 2,025 [(4,049/2) + 1] delegates to win, right? There are 3,253 pledged delegates total. The Obama campaign plans to declare victory once they get half of that, or 1,627 pledged delegates. They should get that, no problem. Unfortunately for them, the system has been set up - whether deliberately, accidentally, or some oddball combination of both - to make it the responsibility of the super-delegates to decide if no candidate gets 62% (2,025/3,253) of the pledged delegates.

One thing is for certain: no matter who wins in August, the Democrats are going to drastically overhaul their primary system. It has catastrophically failed in its first real test in forty years; worse, it has embarrassed a good number of people who do not like to be embarrassed in public. Also: this is almost certainly the zenith of Howard Dean's career, and his fall from grace will be surprisingly swift when it comes. Rightly or wrongly, he's the one who will be blamed for this mess.

Here is Senator Obama describing what he will look for in a judge if elected president:

[W]hat I do want is a judge who is sympathetic enough to those who are on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless, those who can't have access to political power and as a consequence can't protect themselves from being being dealt with sometimes unfairly, that the courts become a refuge for justice. That's been its historic role. That was its role in Brown v Board of Education.

Except for unborn babies, of course.

Those, you can kill with impunity (even after they're born).

UPDATE (Dan McLaughlin): San Diego Union-Tribune cartoonist Steve Breen made this same point with a cartoon worth a thousand words during the Alito hearings:

Cartoon below the fold...

AttachmentSize stevebreen11006.JPG53.79 KB

[image via AZ Resistance ]

It's been a hectic few days for Harry the Dolt™, but his priorities have become abundantly clear: Soldiers are no big deal...there's no rush to help them...what matters is taxing big oil and lining the pockets of rich farmers.

As I mentioned here, our Warfighters are being held hostage over Reid and Pelosi's power struggle with the President. I also mentioned here that these clowns are willing to let Soldiers go unpaid unless and until they got all their own little shiny objects thrown in to the supplemental...which, by the way is an emergency supplemental spending bill that hasn't gotten done for over 440 days (and counting).

More below the fold...

Piling on now, 'ol Harry boy stiffs the rest of us via his bonny-new Energy bill and tells us it's good for us (slapping the President around a little to make us feel better about getting the shaft from Congress...again):

“Democrats are committed to protecting consumers, increasing our energy independence, strengthening our economy and reducing global warming emissions. After the immigration debate, I will move forward with an energy bill that protects consumers against high gas prices, punishes price-gougers and increases our supply of American-made biofuels. For too long, this Administration has made it a priority to give tax breaks to oil and gas companies even as prices have doubled and profits have soared. We believe it is past time to move our national security, economic and environmental priorities ahead of oil industry profits.”

[thumb in mouth, assuming rocking fetal position, looking for my happy place]

Let's see if we have this right...increase taxes (which will drive up prices for consumers), demand more biofuels [including ethanol] that will drive UP the demand for corn and other farm products (which will drive up prices for consumers), and demand reductions in "global warming" emissions [that will in many cases require high-dollar factory retrofits] (which will drive up prices for consumers)...oh, and "George Bush sucks"...

Did I mention he's going to give farmers 300 BILLION dollars to make stuff like corn at lower cost to themselves so that they can charge us MORE for it?

Attaboy, Harry-who are you going after next?