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Tomorrow, Obama has stated that he will address race and his two decades of close association with Rev. Jerimiah Wright during a speech in Philly. I have seen several commentors on other blogs say they expect this to be Obama’s Kennedy – Catholic speech moment. It cannot possibly be.
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Tomorrow, Obama supporters are hoping that their candidate - already compared to JFK by many in the press - will assuage the national consciousness about racism in the same way JFK did on the issue of his Catholic faith. But JFK's issue with Catholicism and Obama's issues with racism are fundamentally different.
John F. Kennedy was baptized a Catholic at his birth. Unlike Obama, who made a conscious decision to join Rev. Jerimiah Wright and Trinity United Church as an adult, JFK’s religion was simply a part of his inheritance. Obama's adult choices reflect upon his judgment and character in a way JFK's Catholicism never reflected on JFK.
At issue with JFK in 1960 was the question of whether his Catholicism would dictate how he would lead America on social issues and the issue of religious freedom. JFK had to give assurances that as President, he would make decisions based on what he felt was best for America, not on the basis of Catholic dogma. There was no inherent dissonance between his religion and his duties as President. As he put it in his 1960 speech, "I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic."
The situation with Obama is quite different. The central promise of his candidacy lies in his promise to be a post racial candidate who can heal the black white divide and, indeed, all other divides. It is a utopian promise indeed – and it is in direct contradiction to the fact that he has spent twenty years in a close relationship with a man who is an ardent, anti-American and divisive racist. It is in direct contradiction to the facts that he described Rev. Wright as a mentor on spiritual and secular matters, and that one of Obama's central themes - the audacity of hope - is based on a racist sermon given by Rev. Wright.
There is inherent dissonance between those facts and Obama's carefully crafted persona. I simply do not see how this can be "contained" with anything approaching intellectual honesty. What Obama cannot say is "I am the post racial candidate for President who happens also to have a decades long relationship with a man I chose as my pastor and whose raison d’etre is racism and claims of victimization by whites and jews."
As I said, I will wait for the speech. But all I expect from Obama is pure dissimulation. More and more, I am convinced that he is nothing more than an incredible con man.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Obama Is Not JFK
Interesting Posts From Around The Web - 17 March 2008
Art: The Muses Clio, Euterpe and Thalia, Eustach Le Sueur, 1655
Spc. Monica Lin Brown, 19 years old from Lake Jackson, Texas, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cav, has done something only a very few female soldiers in American history have ever done. She’s been awarded the Silver Star.
Of winter soldiers and real soldiers, two valuable posts from This Ain’t Hell.
From Consul at Arms quoting VDH on the suicidal canard of multiculturalism: "So ingrained is the notion among our elite that there are no absolute standards of ethics and morality, that we have lost the ability to apply abstract moral judgment without exception." And to see multiculturalism’s conjoined twin in all of its destructiveness, one need only turn to the surreal world of modern Britain.
Of course, things can get pretty damn surreal over here amongst our holier than thou lefties – like librarians refusing to notify authorities about visitors downloading kiddie porn over concern for their First Amendment rights.
Hillary’s imaginary achievements.
An Alpocricy commercial.
The question now is, what did Obama know and when did he know it? Remember Obama saying two days ago he had never heard Rev. Wright light into his racist vitriol at any time during his 20 years of attending Trinity United? Documentary evidence to the contrary is starting to roll in. And the video of Obama heaping praise on Rev. Wright has been scrubbed from YouTube, but not from the Jawa Report.
Barking Moonbats has a video that will tell you all you need to know about Obama. And now Obama’s church is trying to claim that Rev. Wright is the victim of character assassination. If you put the words "suicide by" in that description, I might buy it. And have you seen the Trinity United’s proposed revisions to the National Anthem?
The top 9 Obama campaign slogans suggested by Rev. Jerimah Wright. Heh. My favorite: Defeat racism; kill a cracker. And Rev. Wright will soon be bringing his social gospel into children’s programming. His initial work will be to tell the biblical story of "institutional racism in housing policy, when there was ‘no room at the inn.’"
Fact checking – it is not Reuters’ strongsuit. Far easier just to repeat the anti-gun accusations.
Free trade and Economics 101.
The Paris Book Fair this year is honoring several Israeli writers. Muslim authors have called for a boycott, and wholly unsurprisingly, there has been a bomb threat. For a psychological perspective on suicide bombers, go here. Meanwhile, some very bad things are happening to those who have filed official complaints against a radical Salafi Imam in Canada.
Time to break out the ham sandwiches and run the bath, we have a new guest at the Caribbean retreat. Heh. Meanwhile, what should we do with those guests guilty of plotting 9-11? Off with their heads? Nah, only the Saudis do that, such as for the crime of writing that other religions should not be considered "unbelievers." Apostacy.
So what exactly is the intersection of Islamic lawfare, Tibet’s riots and a Caribbean crimewave?
Whither the chainmail bikini?" And it’s the Medieval Tech Help Desk. Heh.
Happy Saint Patrick's Day
Patrick was born around 385 in Scotland, probably Kilpatrick. His parents were Calpurnius and Conchessa, who were Romans living in Britian in charge of the colonies. Read the entire post.
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The story of St. Patrick from Catholic On-line:
As a boy of fourteen or so, he was captured during a raiding party and taken to Ireland as a slave to herd and tend sheep. Ireland at this time was a land of Druids and pagans. He learned the language and practices of the people who held him.
During his captivity, he turned to God in prayer. He wrote
"The love of God and his fear grew in me more and more, as did the faith, and my soul was rosed, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers and in the night, nearly the same." "I prayed in the woods and on the mountain, even before dawn. I felt no hurt from the snow or ice or rain."
Patrick's captivity lasted until he was twenty, when he escaped after having a dream from God in which he was told to leave Ireland by going to the coast. There he found some sailors who took him back to Britian, where he reunited with his family.
He had another dream in which the people of Ireland were calling out to him "We beg you, holy youth, to come and walk among us once more."
He began his studies for the priesthood. He was ordained by St. Germanus, the Bishop of Auxerre, whom he had studied under for years.
Later, Patrick was ordained a bishop, and was sent to take the Gospel to Ireland. He arrived in Ireland March 25, 433, at Slane. One legend says that he met a chieftain of one of the tribes, who tried to kill Patrick. Patrick converted Dichu (the chieftain) after he was unable to move his arm until he became friendly to Patrick.
Patrick began preaching the Gospel throughout Ireland, converting many. He and his disciples preached and converted thousands and began building churches all over the country. Kings, their families, and entire kingdoms converted to Christianity when hearing Patrick's message.
Patrick by now had many disciples, among them Beningnus, Auxilius, Iserninus, and Fiaac, (all later canonized as well).
Patrick preached and converted all of Ireland for 40 years. He worked many miracles and wrote of his love for God in Confessions. After years of living in poverty, traveling and enduring much suffering he died March 17, 461.
He died at Saul, where he had built the first church.
Why a shamrock?
Patrick used the shamrock to explain the Trinity, and has been associated with him and the Irish since that time.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Vicar Attacked By Muslims
The attack took place in the early evening after Canon Ainsworth politely asked three Asian youths [note that when a British paper says "Asian," they mean Middle Eastern, ususally Pakistani or Bangladeshi] who had gathered in the churchyard to quieten down. Read the entire article. Clearly the problem must be something other than what these kids are being taught in their mosques. Nothing to see here. Move along.
St. Georges-In-The-East Church is one of the more historic chruches in Britain, built in 1729 by a student of Christopher Wren. Situated in Wrapping, East London, the church has been repeatedly vandalized by Middle Eastern youths. And now its vicar has been hospitalized after being brutalized in his churchyard by two Middle Eastern youths. Canon Michael Ainsworth, 57, was kicked and punched in the head as one of the attackers screamed "fucking priest".
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This from the Daily Mail:
Another group of youths intervened to protect him and they helped him into the rectory as the attackers fled.
The incident happened outside St George-in-the-East Church in Wapping, East London.
It has regularly had windows smashed by youths - who on one occasion shouted: "This should not be a church, this should be a mosque."
Canon Ainsworth, a father of four, was taken to hospital and discharged after treatment, but was readmitted after a relapse.
The church is situated in the heart of Tower Hamlets where the majority of the population - some 57 per cent - belong to black and ethnic minority groups.
A third are of a Bangladeshi background.
In another attack on the church, families were showered with glass when a brick was thrown through a window during a service.
Mr Allan Ramanoop, a member of the Parochial Church Council, said often parishioners were too scared to challenge the gangs.
The Asian church member, who lives nearby, said: "I've been physically threatened and verbally abused on the steps of the church.
"On one occasion, youths shouted: 'This should not be a church, this should be a mosque, you should not be here'.
"I just walked away from it - you are too frightened to challenge them. We have church windows smashed two to three times a month.
"The youths are anti-Christian. It's terrible what they have done to Canon Ainsworth. . .
The Reverend Alan Green, Area Dean for Tower Hamlets, said it was the latest in a series of "faith hate" crimes in the borough.
He said: "It was a nasty cowardly attack. There were several groups in the churchyard and two from one group attacked him and the other group came and helped him back to the house.
"He was kicked and punched in the head as he lay on the ground, I believe that what was shouted was "you fucking priest" before they attacked him.
"He's still in hospital because he lost a lot of blood following the attack.
"There are one or two incidents of faith hate every month across the borough and across all faiths.
"St George's had several problems a year ago, when the windows were regularly smashed by vandals. . . .
But some youth leaders and councillors in the community played down the faith hate attacks and said drink and drug problems in the area were often to blame.
Kamil Ahmed, leader at the Ensign Youth Club, based on a council estate close to the church, said: "There are a lot of 14 to 16-year-old Asians, drunk and high on cocaine, wandering round the estate. . . .
Local Respect Party councillor Abjol Miah said: "There are isolated faith-hate attacks in the ward and borough, but generally relations are good between different religions. There are always individuals who will cause trouble." . . .
Real Prostitution
I posted here on the intersection between the relatively benign solicitation of prostitution by "Client #9," Eliot Spitzer and the much more malignant variety practiced by Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats involving FISA:
Spitzer got in bed with a prostitute and paid with his money. Our House Democratic leadership are far worse. They are in bed with trial lawyers and they are paying them with our money - and degrading our national security in the process.
This cartoon identifies Client #10.
Real prostitution . . . it is not a victimless crime.
(H/T Powerline)
Hypocrisy and Obaminations (Update 3)
The controversial, race-based comments of former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro and of retired South Side pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. are of genuine importance to the selection of a Democratic presidential nominee. . . . Read the entire editorial. Any equation of Clinton/Ferraro to Obama/Rev. Wright cannot even be rightly described as comparing apples to oranges, because those two are at least both fruit. It really is more like comparing apples to deadly nightshade in the degree of difference between the two. No one claims that Clinton had a twenty year relationship with Ferraro, or that she regularly consulted Ferraro on matters both spiritual and otherwise. Ms. Clinton has not crafted a book and a campaign message on the philosophy of Ms. Ferraro. In short, it would take an axe to chop through the disingenuousness and hypocrisy in the Chicago Times editorial.
In the wake of the revelations about Obama's church of twenty years and his close relationship with a vitriolic, racist and anti-American preacher, we are treated in the MSM to near silence and, in several instances, outright dissimulation. Indeed, the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune tell us that "no one with more than a springer spaniel's political awareness" need be concerned with what Rev. Wright has said.
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Barak Obama is asking for us to vote him into our Presidency. Does he evince sufficient character, judgment and veracity to warrant it?
We evaluate a person based on their deeds, their associations and their words. All three tell us much, as does any dissonance among the three. Do the words match the deeds? Are the associations consonant with both? Of these three, probably the most difficult and fraught with potential for unfairness lies with assessing associations.
That said, one of the oldest sayings that we have in the English language is that a man shall be known by the company he keeps. Indeed, the saying itself has ancient roots, deriving from Book of Proverbs 13:20. Taken past its reasonable moorings, this can lead to an unfair assessment of guilt by simple association. But to dismiss the importance of associations on that possibility alone would be a rejection of the wisdom of the ages. And the longer and deeper the associations, the more important they are in assessing the judgment and character of an individual.
In the case of Barack Obama, we now know that he has had a two decades long and extensive association with the Reverend Jerimiah Wright and Trinity United Church. You can find the details and the videos about the deeply racist and anti-American Rev. Wright here. Here is one of the videos:
The relevant facts for this post are that Obama chose this Church. Obama has attended the church for twenty years, and he has spoken often about how important Rev. Wright has been to his life, how he regularly consulted the Reverend on matters both spiritual and secular, and indeed, how he used one of the Reverend's racist sermons to form the basis of his book, "The Audacity of Hope."
Obama's defenses now that the video above and others have surfaced of Rev. Wright's sermons are simply unbelievable:
1. He has tried to deflect the questions about his Church by simply asserting he did not see the Church as "particularly controversial."
2. He attended the Church for twenty years, but claims that he never heard Rev. Wright express this racist, anti-American vitriol that lies at the heart of Rev. Wright's "social gospel."
3. He downgraded the pastor of the Church yesterday to the status of a mere parishioner whose relationship to Obama was that of an acquintance and with whom he had a limited scope of dealings: "I knew him as somebody in my church who talked to me about Jesus and family and friendships."
To put this in perspective, if we were to find that John McCain, for the past twenty years, had embraced as his spiritual advisor a racist who preached vitriol and hatred against his country, who doubts that it would be front page news for months to come. If McCain had not only chosen this man as his pastor, but written about his theories and closely associated with him in his decision making, there would be a great national debate - or at least an unending series of editorials and news analyses - on the pages of the NYT and Washington Post. Left wing pundits would be red-faced and sputtering with righteous moral outrage.
They would be right to do so. And conservatives, I would like to think, would be equally vociferous and, indeed, leading the charge.
Yet, now that it has become clear, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that Obama is embroiled in just such a scenario, there is only the hypocrisy of silence in the MSM for the most part, the brazen hypocrisy of attempting to pretend it does not matter from others.
In the Washington Post, it has only merited a posting to a blog.
In the NYT, we were treated to a blog post discussing only Obama's defenses and a short article on the topic, noting that Obama is "distancing" himself from his preacher.
But by far the most disingenuous is the Chicago Tribune who, in an editorial, have equated Clinton's relationship with Geraldine Ferarro to Obama's relationsip with Rev. Jerimiah Wright and dismissed both:
. . . No one with more than a springer spaniel's political awareness thinks that Ferraro speaks for Clinton, or that Wright speaks for Obama. Demands from one candidate's supporters that the other repudiate what was said on his or her behalf ring disingenuous. . . .
All of this creates a tremendous level of dissonance as we attempt to evaluate Obama's character, integrity, and whether he has the judgment to lead America. Obama's appeal to this point has been in his words. He portrays himself as being post-racial, able to unite America as one. And yet one of his closest associations over the past twenty years has been with his choice of a spiritual guide and mentor whose vile racism and divisivness has no part in America today. That is a level of dissonance that cannot be swept under the carpert except by utter fools on one hand and those who happen to agree with the racist and anti-American screed of Rev. Wright on the other.
It may well be, as many have speculated, that Obama merely joined the Church and associated so closely with Rev. Wright over the past twenty years purely for political gain. If that is the truth, than we need to know it and judge Obama accordingly. It will tell us about Obama's charachter, his lack of principle, his opportunism, his lack of veracity, and his incredibly cynical embrace of political expediency.
The alternative, and certainly what was suggested several weeks ago by the remarks of Michelle Obama regarding her being proud of America for the "first time," is that Obama and his wife have been quite amenable to Rev. Wright's racist and anti-American screed. If that is the truth, than it will be equally informative of Obama's character and veracity. In either event, Obama's dissimulation and the attempt by his supporters to assert this does not matter while offering vacuous comparisons will not - and cannot be allowed - to work.
Update: Obama continues his dissimulation, now scrubbing mention of his pastor of twenty years from his website.
(H/T Before and After screenshots from LGF and Powerline)
Update2: In four days, there has been a 5 point change in the poll numbers. Obama is dropping. Clinton now leads in the national polls 47 to 45.
Obama now plans to address the race issue at a speech in Philladelphia on March 18. This from the Atlantic:
Barack Obama plans a major speech tomorrow in Philadelphia on race, Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the future.
An adviser said that Obama wants to contain the Wright story. He worries that the 1960s-to-1980s prism of race is what everyone has read into it, and Obama wants to move the discussion forward.
He is expected to recount, in detail, how he came to know Rev. Wright, how he came to admire Rev. Wright, the history and meaning of the Trinity church, and address the controversial remarks attributed to Wright. . . .
Read the article here. Given the dissimulation by Obama himself to this point, I expect nothing less from his speech tomorrow.
Update 3: I have listened to Obama's speech. I will do a seperate post on the speech, though several things struck me. He has now changed his story and admitted that he was well aware of Rev. Wright's racism and bombast, though he did nothing to explain why he would willingly sit through such racist and anti-American screed for twenty plus years. He is trying to create an acceptable grey area out of clear racism and anti-Americanism that should enjoy no support in this land.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
About Time
. . . I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. . . . Read the article. And he appeared on Fox News last night to briefly answer questions about the scandal: As shown in the video, Obama's defence is that, while he often attended church, Rev. Wright did not make these vitriolic and racist types of statements while he was in attendance. Obama states that he did know about one or two statements that Wright had made when he named Wright to the committee but did not feel them that important. Obama claims that had he heard these repeated he would have quit the Church. . . . In the book, Obama makes it clear that Wright when he first got to know him was pretty much the same Wright we're getting to know now (the one that Obama is at pains to say is on the verge of retirement). Wright was striking some of the same notes, saying racially venomous things and attacking the bombing of Hiroshima. Note this passage about the first sermon Obama heard from Wright, the source ultimately of the title of Obama's second book and one of the central themes of his presidential campaign: The title of Reverend Wright’s sermon that morning was “The Audacity of Hope.” He began with a passage from the Book of Samuel—the story of Hannah, who, barren and taunted by her rivals, had wept and shaken in prayer before her God. The story reminded him, he said, of a sermon a fellow pastor had preached at a conference some years before, in which the pastor described going to a museum and being confronted by a painting title Hope. Read the entire post. Indeed, it would seem that when Obama first heard Rev. Wright's racist screed, he didn't recoil, rather he signed on the dotted line. And we clearly see the Reverend's mindset in the words of Obama's wife. It was only a few weeks ago that she told the world that, for the "first time," she was "proud of America." Character is what we have to depend on when we entrust power over ourselves, our children and our society to government officials. Read the entire article. Finally, Rick Moran asks: How many lies must Obama tell before he falls off his perch as an “Agent of Change” and comes back down to earth and is recognized as a gifted but flawed politician, no better and no worse than McCain or Hillary Clinton for that matter? I think it is now beginning to happen. According to Rasmussen, Obama dropped seven points in the polls overnight, making him almost even with Hillary in the Democratic primaries and several points behind McCain in the national polls. It's about time. . . . [N]ot even the Times will be able to ignore this now, ancient footage and interviews with Wright will surface, and Obama will be pretending that he never heard any of it. Get Claude Rains to close the church!. Wright takes the pulpit here one Sunday and solemnly, sonorously declares that he will recite ten essential facts about the United States. "Fact number one: We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he intones. "Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!" There is thumping applause; Wright has a cadence and power that make Obama sound like John Kerry. Now the reverend begins to preach. "We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional KILLERS. . . . We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. . . . We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. . . . We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means!" The crowd whoops and amens as Wright builds to his climax: "And. And. And! GAWD! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS SHIT!" . . . Let's cut to the Times for more on Obama's choice of minister: It was a 1988 sermon called “The Audacity to Hope” that turned Mr. Obama, in his late 20s, from spiritual outsider to enthusiastic churchgoer. Mr. Wright in the sermon jumped from 19th-century art to his own youthful brushes with crime and Islam to illustrate faith’s power to inspire underdogs. Mr. Obama was seeing the same thing in public housing projects where poor residents sustained themselves through sheer belief. Whoa. It is hardly as if this is the church Obama's parents selected and he inherited. He sought out Wright, was moved by Wright, and is now pretending he had no idea Wright said these things. . . . Read the whole post. There is much more. An interesting summary from an Obama supporter. Here's the link if you wanna sound-off. Very interesting:
The fulcrums of Obama's campaign have been his character as supposedly transcending race - indeed, he implies that his very identity will somehow end identity politcs in America - and equally his claims to superior judgment. Yet all are clearly called into question by the company he has chosen to keep. The blogosphere has been pointing for months to Obama's twenty year relationship with the racist and vitriolic Rev. Jerimiah Wright and Obama's membership in Wright's afrocentric Trinity United Church. Now it is finally making its way into the cable news, though not yet into the MSM.
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Here is the Hannity and Colmes video documenting a few of the incredibly inflamatory, anti-American, anti-semetic and racist remarks of Obama's friend and pastor of twenty years, Rev. Jerimiah Wright.
And here is a Sean Hannity interview of Rev. Wright:
Obama has previously attempted to squelch talk about Rev. Wright and their association by claiming that Wright was simply an "uncle figure" and that Obama "didn't agree" with all of the things Wright may have said. Despite Obama's disingenuous characterization of Trinity United - "I don’t think my church is actually particularly controversial" - the cat is out of the bag now, and Obama is into damage control.
As reported in the Kaus Files, Obama tried to put a damper on this issue with a preemptive, global denial in the Huffington Post yesterday:
Watching the video, one is struck with the fact that Bill Clinton may finally have met his match in the ability to lie convincingly. But as Rick Moran lays out the facts, he notes that Obama's contrary assertions are "frankly unbelievable." Indeed, Obama seems to have has his own DNA stained dress problems. In Obama's case, it is a paper trail that belies his assertions in the Fox interview. It is Obama's memoirs and, indeed, the origins of his "audacity of hope" theme. As Rich Lowrey posts at NRO:
“The painting depicts a harpist,” Reverend Wright explained, “a woman who at first glance appears to be sitting atop a great mountain. Until you take a closer look and see that the woman is bruised and bloodied, dressed in tattered rags, the harp reduced to a single frayed string. Your eye is then drawn down to the scene below, down to the valley below, where everywhere are the ravages of famine, the drumbeat of war, a world groaning under strife and deprivation.
“It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That’s the world! On which hope sits!”
And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded, though, the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate. The reverend spoke of the hardship that the congregation would face tomorrow, the pain of those far from the mountaintop, worrying about paying the light bill . . .
The far left Obama supporters in the MSM are circling the wagons, some in an incredible display of hypocrisy. Others ponder whether this is really meaningful.
Update 2: Juan Williams just appeared on the Beltway Boys and raised an interesting point. The Jerimiah Wright issue has still not gotten a lot of traction in the MSM, but he doesn't think that simply ignoring it is doing Obama any favors. To paraphrase, he states that, while the MSM may be ignoring this, a lot of white people aren't.
As Bookworm Room argues in one of her usual thoughtful posts, yes, Obama's association with Rev. Wright does matter. I certainly believe so on several accounts. One, Obama's attempt to minimize his twenty year association with Rev. Wright and the screed he has preached show a distinct lack of veracity. Two, I personally do not tolerate racism, and with two children of mixed race, I firmly believe that racism of any sort has no place in our politics. I would not tolerate the racism of a David Duke, I would not tolerate a supporter of Duke and the racist attitudes that implies, nor will I tolerate the racism of Rev. Wright. The fact that Obama has tolerated it for twenty years speaks volumes about this man's character.
As Thomas Sowell recently wrote:
We cannot risk all that for the sake of the fashionable affectation of being more non-judgmental than thou.
Currently, various facts are belatedly beginning to leak out that give us clues to the character of Barack Obama. But to report these facts is being characterized as a "personal" attack.
Barack Obama's personal and financial association with a man under criminal indictment in Illinois is not just a "personal" matter. Nor is his 20 years of going to a church whose pastor has praised Louis Farrakhan and condemned the United States in both sweeping terms and with obscene language.
The Obama camp likens mentioning such things to criticizing him because of what members of his family might have said or done. But it was said, long ago, that you can pick your friends but not your relatives.
Obama chose to be part of that church for 20 years. He was not born into it. His "personal" character matters, just as Eliot Spitzer's "personal" character matters — and just as Hillary Clinton's character would matter if she had any.
Update: Tom MacGuire at Just One Minute has an exceptional post on all of this:
This Rolling Stone article from Feb 2007 titled "The Radical Roots of Barack Obama" looks like a gold mine. Lots of material on Wright . . . This next passage gives a flavor of what Obama is pretending he did not hear in church . . . :
This is as openly radical a background as any significant American political figure has ever emerged from, as much Malcolm X as Martin Luther King Jr. Wright is not an incidental figure in Obama's life, or his politics. The senator "affirmed" his Christian faith in this church; he uses Wright as a "sounding board" to "make sure I'm not losing myself in the hype and hoopla." Both the title of Obama's second book, The Audacity of Hope, and the theme for his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 come from Wright's sermons. "If you want to understand where Barack gets his feeling and rhetoric from," says the Rev. Jim Wallis, a leader of the religious left, "just look at Jeremiah Wright."
Obama wasn't born into Wright's world. His parents were atheists, an African bureaucrat and a white grad student, Jerry Falwell's nightmare vision of secular liberals come to life. Obama could have picked any church — the spare, spiritual places in Hyde Park, the awesome pomp and procession of the cathedrals downtown. He could have picked a mosque, for that matter, or even a synagogue. Obama chose Trinity United. He picked Jeremiah Wright. Obama writes in his autobiography that on the day he chose this church, he felt the spirit of black memory and history moving through Wright, and "felt for the first time how that spirit carried within it, nascent, incomplete, the possibility of moving beyond our narrow dreams."
. . . In “Dreams From My Father,” Mr. Obama described his teary-eyed reaction to the minister’s words. “Inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones,” Mr. Obama wrote. “Those stories — of survival, and freedom, and hope — became our story, my story.”
Mr. Obama was baptized that year, and joining Trinity helped him “embrace the African-American community in a way that was whole and profound,” said Ms. Soetoro, his half sister.
Updated 3: Much of the above information is now appearing in the Washington Post - but only on Mary Ann Akers The Sleuth blog. Its not quite made the main pages yet. Regardless, the comments of one individual who identifies herself as an Obama supporter are noteworthy:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/obamas-judgment-wright-or-wron.php
By now everyone has seen some of the exceedingly provocative clips from
Mr. Wright's (Obama's pastor) sermons. As an Obama supporter I am
assailed by the following questions/confusions regarding the fallout of
this episode. I have tried my hardest (believe me it's been excruciatingly hard)
to objectively confront the implications of our candidate's
relationship with his pastor. I persuaded myself to face these
questions by telling myself that one is nothing if one is not
intellectually honest:
1. There is an undeniable close knit 20 year relationship between the
pastor and Obama. I gather, the Pastor married Barrack and Michelle,
baptized his children, dedicated Obama's house, has been his "sounding
board" for all that time. The title of Obama's book "Audacity of Hope"
is from the Pastor's sermon. From WSJ I gather, the Pastor was one of
the first people Obama thanked after his election to the Senate in
2004. That, Obama consulted him before deciding to run for president
and prayed privately with him before announcing his candidacy last
year. How can one distance oneself from this deep and this long a
relationship? That would be akin to trying to distance yourself from
half your life. Won't it?
2. The Pastor called US the number one killer, held US responsible for
AIDS/9-11/Mandela's imprisonment and apartheid/Palestinian
plight/killing of innocents to bring down Castro & Libya - I mean,
it goes on and on over, not one or two, but several sermons. How do you
explain how you presumably sat through such incendiary sermons with
your family? Or, at a minimum, continued having a spiritual
relationship despite such rhetoric?
3. Then I read that these clips directly contradict some of the things
Obama has been saying about the pastor. It seems Obama said clearly
that he does not regard his church to be "controversial". While
addressing the Jewish Leaders he apparently explained his pastor's
anti-Zionist statements as being rooted in Israel's support for South
Africa when it seems those statements were never qualified as that. I
don't know if anyone has more insights on this.
4. Our candidate's primary counterpoint to Hillary's Experience has been his Judgment. If people question his judgment for keeping close kinship with someone who was asking God to damn America, how will he respond? What will he say?
5. Obama's candidacy is significantly based on his crossover appeal.
That is, his appeal to Republicans and Independents. He may yet get the
nomination but is his appeal not fatally compromised? How can he hold
on to the mantle of being the less divisive candidate while having an
unapologetic 20 year spiritual relationship with such a radical
preacher? I feel so hopeless about this point. I mean, how would we
feel if McCain was taking his family most Sundays to Jerry Falwell's
discourses?
6. Obama's appeal to the young and the "latte liberals" has been his
fresh-faced sincerity and honesty. To me, I know, that has been his
primary appeal. Now, how do I reconcile this with what his detractors
will call: the hypocrisy of calling, say, Ferraro as divisive? I mean,
folks, what is more divisive than the things the Pastor said about
"white folks", even clearly lambasting Europeans.
7. Of all the incendiary things one can say about race and society and
country where is an Obama supporter or surrogate who now has the moral
high ground to accuse the opponent's surrogates for being divisive.
What is disheartening here is that Obama has forever ceded that high
ground to Clinton/McCain.
I may be wrong - do persuade me that I am. It is very hard for me to
vote for Hillary but now I am thinking about the general election and
finding it really hard to figure out how Obama can keep his
constituencies, his image of being a uniter. How can he? I am seeing
those Republican ads running day and night showing a montage of all the
different ways this Pastor has denounced America and Europeans and
Israel, punctuated by Obama in his own words "I don't think actually
that my church is particularly controversial". I mean, Judgment,
Moderation, Sincerity - can they be Obama's defining pillars anymore?
This is so disheartening. Where do we go from here?
Posted by: Umbria | March 14, 2008 05:38 PM
An Ominous Bear
Yesterday's combined J.P. Morgan-Federal Reserve rescue of Bear Stearns is one of those judgment calls that are easier to second guess than they are to make in the heat of a financial panic. Regulators have to balance the risks to the larger financial system of letting a big investment bank fail against the discipline of seeing bad risk management punished by the marketplace. Read the entire article. Dinah Lord, blogger and former trader, reflects on a similar situation she lived through during her days on Wall St., as well as including links discussing the fall of Bear Stearns. The market took a hit today. It was a body blow. And, whether you know it or not—although, if you're reading this, you'll know now—the economy took a body blow, too. The only thing we don't know is how much damage was caused. But there was damage, and it will become apparent before too much longer. Read the entire post. Now I am concerned.
Until recently, I was confident that our economy would weather the current storm without undue difficulty. With the fall of Bear Stearns, I am far less sanguine. The long-term policy of record low interest rates may have dug us into a hole that proves the worst recession since WWII.
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Bear Stearns, one of the big five investment banks, has gone belly up and the federal reserve has stepped in. This from the WSJ:
These columns prefer the discipline of the market, but then we don't know all of the facts that regulators confronted as they looked at Bear's troubles. Specifically, we don't know if letting Bear collapse might have had a domino effect on others in the debt and derivative markets.
The Fed and J.P. Morgan are acting in concert to give Bear short-term access to the Fed's discount lending window that Bear couldn't access on its own. A big plunger in the debt markets but not a standard commercial bank, Bear's private sources of funds had dried up. The overriding public interest at the current moment is to maintain a functioning financial system, and regulators clearly felt this was at risk from a Bear failure. Just once we'd like to see what would happen if a big bank did fail, but the current general market panic arguably isn't the best time to have that experiment. Presumably Bear will now be shopped to private buyers. . . .
Dale Franks sees the Bear Stearns situation as dire news indeed. He writes in the QandO blog:
It's all about liquidity, you see. For the last several days, there's been concern about whether Bear Stearns, one of the Big Five investment banks, was going to be able to meet its financial obligations to client and creditors because of it's exposure to bad mortgage loans. Company executives have been saying, "Yes, we will," right up to this morning, when they said, "No, we can't."
Essentially, JPMorgan Chase will step in to provide financing for 28 days, and those loans, while coming from JPMorgan's coffers, will be underwritten by the federal Reserve.
If you're a Bear Stearns stockholder, by the way, you're screwed. What will probably happen is that, to prevent the firm from going under completely, JPMorgan will acquire Bear Stearns for pennies on the dollar. At the least, the chances of Bear Stearns continuing to exist as an independent entity are probably over for good. Bear Stearns' CEO admits as much, saying the firm is seeking a "more permanent solution".
And if Bear Stearns can't make it, you have to wonder what the actual position of Merrill Lynch, which is also exposed to the Carlyle fund problems, or Thornburg Mortgage, which failed to meet some margin calls earlier this week. Countrywide Home Loans is already involved in a bailout from Bank of America, and has had foreclosure rates double.
At the heart of the problem is an ongoing liquidity crunch. As exposure to bad loans causes foreclosures to increase, huge sums of money are just being written off—basically disappearing from the economy.
The primary effects of this disappearance—the failure of the banking institutions, is bad enough.
Beyond those effects, however, there are effects on the economy as a whole, because these large write-offs not only remove money from the economy in terms of the amount of the disappearing loan assets at the institutions themselves, individuals who do business with these institutions lose the ability to borrow money. Their credit lines disappear. the institution's borrowers lose their money as well.
This money supply shrinkage usually causes people to hoard cash, because they worry that they won't have enough cash to meet their future needs. They stop investing, for example, because they lose faith in the institutions. The dearth of available loan money causes people in the building trades to lose jobs, because new housing starts decline, so they have to begin saving up their own cash, and cutting purchases. And the effect ripples outward through the economy.
We generally call this widespread hoarding of cash a "recession".
That's certainly what the National Bureau of Economic Research calls it. Is calling it, in fact. And they say it may be the worst recession since World War II.
The worst recession in my lifetime was the back-to-back recessions in 1982, when unemployment rose to almost 12%. If we're in for a worse ride than that—well, I don't even want to think about that.
But, apparently, we have to. . . .
. . . Creating a lot of liquidity does not resolve an issue of solvency, which is now the driver of credit contraction. All the Fed will achieve is a dollar that will be further debased and inflation that will be higher. It cannot stop the process of deleveraging and asset price decline...
Prime brokers and banks are reining in credit to leveraged investors. This is a direct consequence of the damage done to banks' credit capacity by the writedowns of loans in other areas, such as structured finance and mortgages. This reduces their risk-free capital (value-at-risk ratios have doubled in the last year in the U.S.). In order to maintain adequate reserves as a proportion of risk assets, lending must be cut...
Credit contraction translates through the financial system into a reduction in available credit for the non-financial corporate sector, and thus into reduced investment and growth in the real economy. The size of that contraction can be estimated from the leverage ratios of the financial sector and their impact on real GDP growth.
We estimate that nonfinancial corporate debt ultimately will have to shrink by 11%-12%. This will generate a decline of five percentage points of real U.S. GDP growth and push the U.S. into recession. Europe's real GDP growth will contract by two percentage points.
Globally, total credit losses of $1.4 trillion will cause a contraction in world GDP of 2.5 percentage points, or half the current rate of global growth. So the global economy will become a gray, dull world of semi-recession and sticky inflation that will last a long time.
What has happened is that the liquidity crunch from mortgage credit problems—too many subprime loans, too many second mortgages, plus declines in housing values—have been amplified from bank lending up through securitized debt, then again amplified in the derivatives markets.
This decline in available credit—i.e. money—is not going to be fixed by a 3% drop in short-term interest rates. And it certainly isn't going to be fixed—or even noticeably ameliorated—by a one-time rebate of $600 per taxpayer.
I'm afraid we're in for an awfully bumpy ride. The problem with Bear Stearns today is not the problem. It is the most visible symptom, though, of the real problem with the economy and one that we'll be facing soon.
Pork In The Night
For Congressional Appropriators, Thursday night's vote cashiering the earmark moratorium was an embarrassment of riches, with some 71 Senators endorsing Capitol Hill's spending culture. For everyone else, it was merely embarrassing. Read the entire article. And there is more on the vote at Hot Air, including a list of the Senators who voted against the bill. I suspect the votes of Clinton, Obama and McConnell were little more than an attempt to innoculate themselves from criticism. All three are committed porkers. 1. Earmarks are not a significant fiscal problem - certainly not when compared to entitlements or other programs. I would add a fourth paragraph to that, and that is that the earmark process itself is corrupt. This from an article on earmarks in the Daily Standard. President Bush seems to grasp the issue. A year ago he publicly complained that "over 90 percent of earmarks never make it to the floor of the House and Senate. They are dropped into committee reports that are not even part of the bill that arrives on my desk. You didn't vote them into law. I didn't sign them into law. Yet, they're treated as if they have the force of law." Earmarks are corrupting and, unfortunately, a wholly bipartisan addiction. In an era where our long term fiscal health is very much at issue and out of control spending threatens the long-term viability of our nation, earmarks are not simply a minor problem, but an obscene emblam of corruption and an existential jettisoning of fiscal discipline. For conservatives, watching our Republican legislators dine at the trough is the equivalent of watching Nero fiddle while Rome burns.
It is not the title of the latest pornographic flick, merely the latest senatorial obscenity.
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Senators John McCain and Jim DeMint sponsored a bill that would have placed a moratorium on earmarks for a year. The odious Harry Reid, the man who recently attempted to defend the earmark process as part of constitutional system at its inception, scheduled a vote on the bill late in the eve when reporting on it would be at a minimum. This from the WSJ:
The amendment, sponsored by Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), would have imposed a one-year earmark freeze, and it seemed to be gaining momentum earlier in the week, even cheered on by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But the Appropriations empire struck back, twisting every arm to preserve its spending privileges. The measure was voted down after being ruled "non-germane" to the budget. That's as good a measure as any of the Congressional mentality: Apparently earmarks, which totaled $18.3 billion for 2008, aren't relevant to overall spending.
Just three Republican Appropriators voted for the amendment, including surprise support from longtime skeptic Mitch McConnell. No such shockers from the Democrats, with all Appropriators going against and only six Senators bucking the party line, especially Missouri's Claire McCaskill, one of the more courageous antipork champions.
Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton no doubt backed the moratorium to insulate themselves against one of John McCain's signature themes. But they're also bending to the broader political winds. In an election year, voters understand the waste and corruption that pork enables, leading even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to say, "I'm losing patience with earmarks."
That Mr. McCain's Republican colleagues fail, or refuse, to recognize the political potency is not a good sign. More GOP Senators voted against the moratorium than voted for it, proving that they are just as complacent about pork as most Democrats. And this vote comes on the heels of offenses like appointing ranking GOP Appropriator Thad Cochran ($837 million in pork last year) to the earmark-reform "working committee." The Republicans appear to be settling in comfortably with their minority status.
Q&O, in defining the problems with pork, had this to say:
2. However, earmarks are the primary fulcrum for outside interests to corrupt the legislative process. Earmarks are the source of much of the undue power of individual Congressmen.
3. Earmarks aren't just corruption bait, though. They are also an Incumbent Slush Fund, allowing politicians to spread the pelf around their State/District to secure votes and favor. Perhaps we should start counting them as de facto campaign contributions. That's exactly how they are used.
George Will, in a column a month ago, gave the sordid blow by blow description of how earmarks, if not outright corruption, certainly dance on the knife's edge of corruption. Certainly the worst excesses of this corrupt system are also often a complete waste of taxpayer funds.
Most recently, we learn from the Obama camp that he secured a million dollar earmark for the University of Chicago Hospitals, where his wife is employed as VP of Community Affairs. Once Obama was elected Senator, the University nearly tripled her salary to $316,962. Is this corruption? I am sure it is not in the criminal sense, but it certainly has the stench of corruption and quid pro quo about it.
The first step to getting a handle on out of control government spending will be an end to the modern practice of earmarks. And the only chance of that happening is if McCain is elected and crams it down the throats of our corrupt Republican Senators.
A Missing Moral Compass
Dutch council officials will permit gay sex in public areas but fine dog owners who let their pets off the leash in Amsterdam's Vondelpark. Read the entire article. Note for what it is worth that my objection to this is that they are allowig any sex in public parks, gay or otherwise. The fabric of Western Civilization is almost gone in many places in the West, it appears, and the only question is what will eventually fill the void? I suspect that it will be Islam and Sharia law, sooner rather than later. At which point, dropping one's trousers in the park for a gay tryst will be less a capital idea and more likely a capital offense.
Secular socialism is not remaking society, it is destroying it. This is most evident in Europe, with the latest bit of insanity coming out of the Netherlands, where they have voted to legalize gay sex in public parks.
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This from the Telegraph:
Paul van Grieken, an Alderman in the Oud-Zuid district of the city, has startled many Amsterdammers, despite their famously liberal attitudes, with plans to allow public sex as part of this summer's new rules of conduct for the country's best-known park.
"Why should we try to impose something that is actually impossible to impose, which also causes little bother for others and for a certain group actually means much pleasure?", he said.
Amsterdam's beautiful Vondelpark in the centre of city draws hordes of summer visitors, families, skaters and joggers.
But the park's rose garden has become famous as a trysting spot for gay men looking for uncomplicated sexual encounters.
Mr van Grieken stresses that tolerance to "cruising" gays, aimed at protecting homosexuals from violence, will have "strict rules attached".
"Thus, condoms must always be cleared away, it must never take place in the neighbourhood of children's playgrounds and the sex must be restricted to the evening and night-time," he said.
The new park rules have the blessing of the Dutch police, who have urged all Dutch parks to follow Amsterdam's lead.
But Amsterdam's dog owners are less impressed. The new park code of conduct will set out stiff fines for dogs that are allowed to run around the Vondelpark off the leash.
"Research showed that many people find this disturbing," said Mr van Grieken.
One dog owner protested: "As long as the park has existed, we've been allowed to let our dogs run freely. It's outrageous that we will be punished from now on but public sex won't. If they can drop their trousers, why can't I let my dog loose?"
Momma Said . . .
A friend in the UK directed me to this video. If you are in need of a bit of humor, do play it.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Friday's Verse
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Robert Frost, 1916
Art: Landscape with a Ruined Castle and a Village Church, Ruisdael, 1672
Obama, War and Political Expediency
[C]haracter matters in war, more so than in any other endeavor. By character I mean attempting to do what one perceives as right based on principles, even if doing so comes at great personal cost. It is the polar opposite of making decisions on the basis of expediency. In that post, I go on to demonstrate why the character of a commander is so critical, and that a person willing to subordinate their principles on the scales of political expediency is not acceptable as a wartime commander in chief. They will be less likely to prosecute the war to successful conclusion and their decisions will be more likely to endanger our soldiers. Read the entire post. . . . If Barack Obama eventually wins the Democratic nomination, his extraordinary rise may be traced to a speech on Oct. 2, 2002, at an antiwar rally in downtown Chicago. That day, Obama, then an obscure state senator, said: "I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences." Read the entire article.
Michael Gerson documents how Obama has placed political expediency over principle on the issue of the Iraq War. This transcends the mere question of whether Obama is being less than honest with the American public and goes to the heart of whether we would want such an individual as Commander in Chief.
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I am inclined to take candidates at their word. But that said, even if Obama has no intention of withdrawing our soldiers from Iraq were he to be elected president, would we not want such an individual as commander in chief of our soldiers during time of war? As I have written before:
Within that rubric, Obama clearly falls on the side of a person who has demonstrated that he places political expediency over principles. Michael Gerson, in an excellent article in today's Washington Post, examines Obama's changing positions on the Iraq war and compares them to McCain's steadfast adherence to his principles.
For many Democrats, this prescience has given Obama the aura of a prophet. And this early opposition lends credibility to his current promise: to swiftly end the U.S. combat role in Iraq.
Recently, this pledge was called into question by Obama's now-former adviser, Samantha Power, who said: "He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. senator. He will rely upon a plan -- an operational plan -- that he pulls together in consultation with people who are on the ground."
. . . In a new article on Commentary magazine's Web site, Peter Wehner undertakes a thorough examination of Obama's record on Iraq. It is, shall we say, complex.
More than a year after the initial success of the invasion, Obama explained, "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." And he was correct. In July 2004, he argued that America had an "absolute obligation" to stay in Iraq until the country stabilized. "The failure of the Iraqi state would be a disaster," he said. "It would dishonor the 900-plus men and women who have already died."
Two months later, Obama criticized Bush's conduct of the war but repeated that simply pulling out would further destabilize Iraq, making it an "extraordinary hotbed of terrorist activity." And he signaled his openness to the deployment of additional troops if this would make an eventual withdrawal more likely.
In June 2006, Obama still opposed "a date certain for the total withdrawal of U.S. troops." "I don't think it's appropriate for Congress," he said, "to make those decisions about what happens in the field."
By late 2006, as public support for the Iraq war disintegrated and his own political ambitions quickened, Obama called for a "phased withdrawal." When Bush announced the surge, Obama saw nothing in the plan that would "make a significant dent in the sectarian violence that's taking place there" -- a lapse in his prophetic powers.
When Obama announced his presidential candidacy on Feb. 10, 2007, he stated, "I have a plan that will bring our combat troops home by March of 2008." Then in May and again in November, he voted against funding American forces in Iraq.
Wehner concludes that Obama is guilty of "problematically ad-hoc judgments at best, calculatingly cynical judgments at worst." And he notes that while McCain has been consistently right about Iraq in the years since the invasion -- highly critical of the early strategy and supportive of a successful surge -- Obama has been consistently wrong in supporting the early, failed strategy and opposing the surge, even as its success became evident.
. . . [T]here is little doubt that Obama has gained in political support among Democrats as his positions on Iraq have become progressively antiwar. His March 2008 withdrawal deadline -- which is up now -- would have undone the Anbar Awakening, massively strengthened al-Qaeda and increased civilian carnage. . . .
The Iraq war determined the paths for McCain and Obama. But there is a large difference between them. McCain eventually won his nomination because he showed political courage in the face of overwhelming pressure. Obama may eventually win his nomination because he surrendered to that pressure.
The Entertainment Value of Identity Politics
The pillars of American liberalism -- the Democratic Party, the universities and the mass media -- are obsessed with biological markers, most particularly race and gender. They have insisted, moreover, that pedagogy and culture and politics be just as seized with the primacy of these distinctions and with the resulting "privileging" that allegedly haunts every aspect of our social relations. Read the entire article.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it seem the person most enjoying the Democratic political contest for the presidential nomination is Charles Krauthammer
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Of all the pundits taking glee in the fact that identity politics is coming home to roost with a vengance on the Democratic side of the house, seemingly the one most appreciative of the spectacle is Charles Krauthammer. This is not surprising, really, since Mr. Krauthammer has been regularly bludgeoned by the left over identity politics issues. To define "identity politics," it is a Marxian construct whereby the identity of an individual as part of a "victimized" group is more important than the substance of their discrete acts. That means that any criticism of an act is treated as an attack on identity, as in "race card" or "gender card."
It is a very toxic and distorting brand of politics. And we are being treated to the spectacle of the race and gender cards being tossed about inside the Democratic tent as the race for the Democratic nomination becomes ever more cut-throat.
As Mr. Krauthammer notes in his piece in today's Washington Post, there are three possible grounds for discriminating between political candidates - issues, personality or identity. Within the current Democratic race, there is little difference on the issues between Hillary and Obama. Obama is hard left, and Hillary has joined him on that perch ever since her more centrist views came effectively under attack earlier in the campaign. And in a contest of personality, that playing field is so tilted in favor of the likable Obama over the screeching Hillary, she stands no chance in that type of a race. Thus, the Clintons have embraced their last hope, identity politics - an area that Obama is also using very much to his advantage, even as he claims to transcend such identity politics. This from Mr. Krauthammer:
They have gotten their wish. This primary campaign represents the full flowering of identity politics. It's not a pretty picture. Geraldine Ferraro says Obama is where he is only because he's black. Professor Orlando Patterson says the 3 a.m. phone call ad is not about a foreign policy crisis but a subliminal Klan-like appeal to the fear of "black men lurking in the bushes around white society."
Good grief. The optimist will say that when this is over, we will look back on the Clinton-Obama contest, and its looming ugly endgame, as the low point of identity politics and the beginning of a turning away. The pessimist will just vote Republican.
The Watcher's Council Has Spoken - 14 March 2008
The results have been tallied by the Watcher and the winners this week are:
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This weeks winner by a nose was my post, Change & The Cessation of British History. Britain has been a laboratory for socialism over the past half century. It has ended with a dispirited country ashamed of its history and quietly allowing its democratic traditions and values to be cast aside as the socialist Labour government votes to transfer the country's sovereignty to the EU without any vote of the people.
Coming in second was Big Lizards with an excellent post, Californichusetts, a look by the Lizard at the effort to have California courts declare a constitutional right to same sex marriage under the state's equal protection clause. But the concept of marriage between "breeders" is, as BL notes, a pillar of society and, as BL advocates, it is time to "stand athwart history and yell 'STOP.'"
This was a rare week that my choice for first place did not come in either first or second place. My choice for top spot went to The Glittering Eye for The Cook County Fiscal Mess. Its tough to make a post on an economics issue brief, clear and interesting. GE did all three with his post and for his efforts took my top choice this week.
On the Non-Council posts, lapping the pack in first place was Michael Yon's fascinating Guitar Heroes. The race for second place was a tie among An Empty Revolution by Foreign Affairs, The Tragedy of the Democratic Party at American Thinker, and The High School Massacre at Townhall.com.
Do visit the Watcher of Weasels for the entire results of the week's voting.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Interesting Posts From Around The Web - 13 March 2008
Interesting posts from around the web, all below the fold:
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Art: Sisyphus, Vecellio Tiziano, 1549
A Rose By Any Other Name: A fallen hero.
Dinah Lord: Kidnapped Iraqi Archbishop found dead.
The Transatlantic Conservative: John McCain and the Pledge of Allegiance. Its quite a moving story.
Classical Values: "Wright is raw. Obama is smooth. Different sales pitch. Same product." Watch the video.
Ironic Surrealism: Much more on Obama’s racist Reverend Wright.
Q&O: Hillary gets fact checked with predictable results.
The New Editor: Per Instapundit, Hillary plays the Dork Card.
Winds of Change: Evaluating Geraldine Ferarro’s comments on Obama.
Redstate: Quid pro crook - Obama, earmarks, and his wife’s salary.
This Ain’t Hell: Code Pink suffers mission failure . . . and yes, that dress makes you look fat.
Red Alerts: The good and bad news about the economy from an interview with legendary economist Anna Schwartz, who co-authored the revolutionary "Monetary History of the United States" with Milton Friedman.
A Western Heart: Our economic woes are wholly self-inflicted. This is not the normal business cycle.
Vast Rightwing Conspiracy: Obama pulls a Kerry on the issue of mail in voting.
The Irish Elk: "Ho No," it’s a good Spitzer round-up.
An Englishman’s Castle: The UK has granted an asylum to a rouge’s gallery of people who have no business in the West whatsoever. Now, in the case of a young gay man from Iran who faces execution for his homosexuality, where there should be no question that asylum is appropriate, the UK is inexplicably dragging its feet.
Fulham Reactionary: Indeed, as to illegal immigrants, it seems but for the odd Iranian homosexual, the police aren’t even really trying anymore.
Seraphic Secret: Israel releases its annual intel report and Iran puts a bounty on Irsraeli leaders.
Shrinkwrapped: Has Israel lost the will to live?
The Shield of Achilles: I thought this was answered several millenia ago. Should incestuous marriages be declared illegal?
Liberty Corner: Taking on the arguments against teaching intelligent design.
Sigmund, Carl & Alfred: PC Manspeak. Heh.
The Dhiveistan Report: "[T]he penis of the Elected never softens, the erection is eternal. The sensation that you feel each time you make love is utterly delicious . . ." Surprisingly, this is not out of Eliot Spitzer’s journal. It is more insidious than that.
Spitzer, FISA And Our National Priorities
Spitzer got in bed with a prostitute and paid with his money. Our House Democratic leadership are far worse. They are in bed with trial lawyers and they are paying them with our money - and degrading our national security in the process.
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The telecommunications industry cooperated with the requests of our intelligence agencies in the wake of 9-11. For their trouble, they received no money. Instead, they have been served with class action lawsuits asking for $40 billion in damages. What makes this matter worse is that our intelligence agencies must, in any case, work closely with our telecommunications industry in order to effectively pursue intelligence. It goes without saying that such cooperation will not come willingly if the industry must pay out $40 billion. And our national intelligence leadership are adamant that such cooperation is necessary.
And let's be realistic about this. The costs of litigation are not simply eaten by a corporation. They are a business cost and, ultimately, they get paid by every one of us that uses those services. Meanwhile, in class action law suits, the only people that get any substantive money are the lawyers.
So what do you think of elected representatives who would screw our intelligence collection capabilities and screw we, the consumers, in order to pay one of their discrete special interests. Give me Spitzer any day. At least he only screwed a prostitute and paid for it with his own money. What adds insult to injury is that there is sufficient bipartisan support in both the Senate and the House to pass the FISA reform bill to return our intelligence collection capabilities to what they should be and to grant immunity to the telecom entities that cooperated with our intelligence agencies.
Read the whole sordid story here. Then if you want to read something more family oriented and wholesome, you can go back to reading about Spitzer.
Costs, Benefits & The New Anti-Iraq War Meme
Of the military cost I would simply want to make the same point in a different way: that the most important factors are unquantifiable, or at least unquantifiable by this sort of actuarial shorthand. A few years ago, we had armed forces that were quite able to remove a ramshackle yet horrific government in Kabul or Baghdad but were quite unprepared to tackle the much more agonizing and tenacious enemies -- a Baathist/Al Quaeda alliance, or a Pakistani Pushtun/Bin Laden coalition -- that had partly emerged under those ex-governments' shadows. Now, after infinite labor, we have armed forces who have learned in practice how to smash Islamist terrorism on the battlefield, and also how to isolate and discredit it in the slums and the villages. This is what we needed in the first place and still need, as it happens, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and will also need in the future. It's not that Bilmes and Stiglitz don't present an alternative accounting process here: it's more that they seem entirely unaware of the whole calculation. Read the article here.
Having failed to legislate defeat in Iraq despite near heculean perfidy, Democrats are now rolling out their next in a line of ever-changing arguments for an immediate withdraw from Iraq. In a new book by two economists and former Clinton staffers, they claim that the cost of the Iraq war will be $3 trillion. The book, which comes out now a week before General Petraeus will be briefing Congress on the progress of the war in Iraq, is sounding the new democratic meme – that the war is costly and that money can be used to fund great new adventures in socialism. Not surprisingly, besides creative accounting, the highly partisan authors studiously ignore the costs of leaving Iraq.
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The latest book out piping the new anti-Iraq war meme is by two former Clinton staffers, economists Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz. I have not bought there new book, but the pair have been kind enough to provide what amounts to a synopsis in the Washington Post. They make no attempt to hide their partisanship, stating in the first paragraph, "You can't spend $3 trillion -- yes, $3 trillion -- on a failed war abroad and not feel the pain at home."
The figures seem a trifle large – indeed, if accurate, we should have gone bankrupt as a nation a few years ago. As to the specifics of their creative accounting and assessments, which appears to involve everything from including every possible opportunity cost to the full costs of the rise in the price of oil, and including military costs that we would incur whether at peace or in war, I will wait for other economists to have their shot at that one. My puny mathematical mind goes into lock down when I consider anything beyond addition and subtraction.
Having said that, the two economists do give a litany of all the wonderful socialist projects that could be funded if we took all the money spent on the Iraq war and started using it to fund entitlement programs. The first one they name is, not surprisingly, "new health care plans." To call these two shills partisan would seem an understatement. Read their entire article here.
It is a measure of their distinct lack of seriousness that they do not count the costs of not engaging in the Iraq war in the first place, as Christopher Hitchens argues here, nor the potential costs and long term ramifications of leaving Iraq. Any assessment of that would have to consider such things as:
What are the costs to the U.S. and the free world if we leave Iraq immediately and allow it to be divided up between al Qaeda and Iran,
What will be the costs of highly re-energized Islamic radicalism and an Iranian theocracy that believes it has no reason to fear us?
What will be the costs of renewed terrorism from organizations that believe that the U.S. simply does not have the will to outlast them? That was the mindset that gave rise to 9-11.
What will be the costs if we suffer nuclear terrorism in a port city?
What will be the costs if we suffer a dirty bomb in our economic centers?
What will be the long term effect on our ability to conduct foreign policy if no country believes that we will make a steadfast ally?
What Middle Eastern country will choose to ally with us for protection against Iran or al Qaeda?
Those are just a few of the considerations any realistic debate about the costs-benefits of the war would have to address. Our two partisan economists studiously ignore all of these in their fixation on funding a vast expansion of the socialist welfare state. I will leave the final thoughts to Christopher Hitchens in his essay responding to our two partisan economists:
Innocent as they are on the above points, they become positively childlike as they go on. Think how many candy-canes and vacations I could have if it were not for the space program, or the cost of carrier-groups or special forces or -- I don't know -- Black Hawk helicopters. (If you think I am being unkind or frivolous, see if you can detect the thread of reasoning that connects Iraq expenditures with the crisis in the mortgage system.) There are days when I think that the money raised by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama might have been better spent on the alleviation of poverty, but I can still tell an apple from an orange and am not hopelessly stuck on the zero-sum fixation. Once again, the economic "experts" turn out to know the price of some things but not the value of anything.
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