Power Linefunction OpenComments (c) { window.open(c, 'comments', 'width=480,height=480,scrollbars=yes,status=yes');}function OpenTrackback (c) { window.open(c, 'trackback', 'width=480,height=480,scrollbars=yes,status=yes');}function showMore(varA1, varB1){var123 = ('varXYZ' + (varA1));varABC = ('varP' + (varA1));if( document.getElementById ) {if( document.getElementById(var123).style.display ) {if( varB1 != 0 ) {document.getElementById(var123).style.display = "block";document.getElementById(varABC).style.display = "none";} else { document.getElementById(var123).style.display = "none"; document.getElementById(varABC).style.display = "block"; }} else { location.href = varB1;return true; }} else { location.href = varB1;return true; }}  July 8, 2008The Sorcerer's Apprentices, a clarification Dafydd ab Hugh responds to my "Sorcerer's Apprentices" post with several valuable observations. In doing so, he takes issue with my claim that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are "entirely self-made men." Dafydd points out that both "hooked up, early in his career, with a mentor, guru, kingmaker who propelled him to the upper echelon of political society before he was seasoned." In Clinton's case, Dafydd is referring to Senator William Fulbright; in Obama's case, Jeremiah Wright.In calling Clinton and Obama "entirely self-made" I didn't mean to imply that they did not get help (though I can see that by using the word "entirely" I might well have conveyed that notion). My point is that they had to secure whatever help they received from others through their own intellect, guile and charm. The connections were not there waiting for them; rather they had to manufacture them.This is particularly striking in Obama's case. He targeted a city in which he had no connections, targeted those in that city who could assist him, and then won them over. To me this is the essence of self-making in the political context. To comment on this post go here. Posted by Paul at 10:39 PM | Permalink |  |  How Voters See McCain and Obama You may have seen headlines yesterday about a poll done by the Associated Press and Yahoo, in which respondents were asked to describe Barack Obama and John McCain in a single word. The word most chosen for McCain was "old" (19%), while the word most used for Obama was "change" (20%). In all of the accounts I saw, that result was spun in Obama's favor, as evidence of the deep PR hole that McCain needs to climb out of to be elected.If you read the rest of the story, however, the implications are quite different. Other words used to describe McCain were "military service" (9%), "record, qualifications" (8%), "strength" (7%), "Iraq, terrorism" (6%), "honest" (5%), "moral/good" (4%). Obama, on the other hand, was described by respondents as "lack of experience" (13%), "dishonest" (9%), "liberal" (6%), "young" (6%), "not likable" (5%), "Muslim" (3%). If you aggregate positive and negative characterizations, McCain comes out 39%/42%; Obama scores exactly the same. This assumes that "race" is a positive for Obama, while "Republican" is a negative for McCain.If you look at the actual poll results, the results are more interesting still. President Bush has a 34% approval rating; that's a familiar number. But Nancy Pelosi scores 24%. Among Presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton scores 47% positive/49% negative, Barack Obama 49%/44%, and John McCain 50/40. Bill Clinton is conventionally described as a popular ex-President, but his numbers are 49%/48%. The Presidential race polls as a dead heat.The tie-breaker is the price of gasoline. Of all issues, it is rated highest by respondents, with 66% saying it is "extremely important." If John McCain quits paying lip service to the global warming myth and runs as the candidate who wants to expand our access to energy, he will win rather easily in November.To comment on this post go here. Posted by John at 9:53 PM | Permalink | | Congress's Approval Rating Hits Single Digits Rasmussen Reports finds that Congress has the lowest approval rating yet recorded: 9%. 52% of respondents say that Congress is doing a "poor" job. A great deal of attention has been paid over the last two years to President Bush's relatively low approval rating, which is mired around 30%. But, while it took President Bush around six years to drive his approval rating into the ditch, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have achieved a far worse result in a mere year and a half. That's remarkable.To comment on this post go here. Posted by John at 9:44 PM | Permalink | | Move to the center now; move the center later Peter Wehner argues that Barack Obama's tack to the center is probably a wise move and, as such, underscores that "America remains a center-right, basically conservative leaning nation." According to Peter, "the fact that Obama understands this and is doing everything he can do inoculate himself against the charge of liberalism ought to be welcomed news to conservatives."This view strikes me as too sanguine. Obama isn't tacking to the center-right, but rather to the center. Moreover, Obama isn't even tacking significantly away from the left on most key domestic issues, e.g., health care, energy policy, and taxes. Overall, Obama's moves show only that America remains a centrist nation.This, though, is essentially a truism -- the center, by definition, represents essentially the midpoint in public opinion at a given time. But public opinion sometimes shifts dramatically, causing the center to move.Obama is a man of the left, as Peter agrees. Thus, if elected, we can expect that he will tack back to the left and attempt to move the center with him. Even Bill Clinton (the embodiment of the calculating politician-president) tried to do this to some extent, though he gave up rather easily. Obama's effort to change the political dynamic will focus on his liberal domestic agenda. Unlike Clinton, Obama will likely have the numbers in Congress necessary to enact much of it. If Obama gets lucky -- e.g. a good economy, no terrorist attacks, no unexpected serious crises -- he will be a popular president. In that event, his domestic programs, unless immediately catastrophic, will likely be popular for at least a while. The center will then move. To comment on this post go here. Posted by Paul at 2:18 PM | Permalink | | This day in baseball history The 1958 Major League All Star game was played on July 8 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. The American Leage came from behind to win 4-3.The hero was 24 year-old lefthander Billy O'Dell of the Orioles. O'Dell pitched three perfect innings of relief to close out the game and get the save. Early Wynn pitched a perfect 6th inning and got the win. In the 1957 All Star game, starting pitcher Jim Bunning had retired all nine National Leaguers he faced. In those days, managers didn't sub so much in the late innings of All Star games, so O'Dell faced some very good hitters. The nine he retired in order -- Johnny Logan, Willie Mays, Lee Walls, Stan Musial, Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Frank Thomas, Bill Mazeroski, and Del Crandall -- included five future Hall of Famers.A few footnotes on the game. The previous year, Cincinnati fans had stuffed the ballot and elected seven of the eight starters (there was no voting for pitcher). The one Redleg regular not elected was first baseman George Crowe, who would go on to lead the team in home runs. In 1958, Crowe was the only Cincinnati non-pitcher to make the All Star team. However, he did not play.Journeyman infielder Rocky Bridges, who had been with Cincinnati briefly in 1957, was the lone representative of the Washington Senators (then as now every team got at least one) on the 1958 American League All Star team. Bridges hit .263 with five home runs in 116 games that year. He did not play in the All Star game. Roy Sievers, who hit 39 home runs (19 of them before the All Star break) and drove in 108 with a .296 average, didn't make the team. Sievers was not injured.Casey Stengel preferred to carry two of his semi-regulars Elston Howard and Yogi Berra, neither of whom was anywhere near as productive as Sievers in 1958. This gave Stengel four cathers (Gus Triandos, the starter, and Sherm Lollar were the other two), though Howard and Berra also played some in the outfield. Sievers played first base in addition to the outfield. Stengel named Mickey Vernon, whose production was also quite inferior to that of Sievers, as his backup at first base. The outfielders named by Stengel, in addition to Howard/Berra, were Al Kaline and Ted Williams, about whose inclusion there can be no complaint. Five years later, Ralph Houk, Stengel's successor as Yankee manager, would name catcher Don Leppert as Washington's All Star representative. Leppert was a borderline major leaguer. Houk used him to warm up his pitchers. But that year the Senators didn't have a star like Sievers that Houk could have picked. To comment on this post go here. Posted by Paul at 12:30 PM | Permalink | | McCain Goes After the Hispanic Vote John McCain is giving a speech on the economy (mostly) to the League of United Latin American Citizens Convention in Washington. It's a good speech; here are McCain's comments on corporate income taxes and free trade:Our current business tax rate, the second highest in the world, will postpone our recovery from this downturn and make us increasingly less competitive in the world economy. When a corporation plans to expand and hire more workers, they face a choice between building a new plant here at home or building it in a country where they will pay a third or a half the tax rate they pay in America. Employers can hire more people, or they can pay more taxes. They can rarely do both. We can no longer afford the luxury of nostalgia for past times when American business faced little serious competition in the world. I propose to reduce the business tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent.The global economy is here to stay. We cannot build walls to foreign competition, and we shouldn't want to. When have Americans ever been afraid of competition? America is the biggest exporter, importer, producer, manufacturer, and innovator in the world. That's why I reject the false virtues of economic isolationism. Any confident, competent country and its government should embrace competition - it makes us stronger - not hide from our competitors and cheat our consumers and workers. We can compete and win, as we always have, or we can be left behind. Lowering barriers to trade creates more and better jobs, and higher wages. It keeps inflation under control. It makes goods more affordable for low and middle income consumers. Ninety-five percent of the world's consumers live outside the U.S. Our future prosperity depends on opening more of these markets, not closing them.McCain badly needs to do well with Hispanic voters. I think he has a pretty good chance to do so; the conclusion of today's speech shows one way in which McCain will be able to connect with many Hispanics:When I was in prison in Vietnam, I like other of my fellow POWs, was offered early release by my captors. Most of us refused because we were bound to our code of conduct, which said those who had been captured the earliest had to be released the soonest. My friend, Everett Alvarez, a brave American of Mexican descent, had been shot down years before I was, and had suffered for his country much more and much longer than I had. To leave him behind would have shamed us. When you take the solemn stroll along that wall of black granite on the national Mall, it is hard not to notice the many names such as Rodriguez, Hernandez, and Lopez that so sadly adorn it. When you visit Iraq and Afghanistan you will meet some of the thousands of Hispanic-Americans who serve there, and many of those who risk their lives to protect the rest of us do not yet possess the rights and privileges of full citizenship in the country they love so well. To love your country, as I discovered in Vietnam, is to love your countrymen. Those men and women are my brothers and sisters, my fellow Americans, an association that means more to me than any other. As a private citizen or as your President, I will never, never do anything to dishonor our obligations to them and their families or to forget what they and their ancestors have done to make this country the beautiful, bountiful, blessed place we love.Obama can match McCain on immigration, but he can't match that appeal to the strong military tradition that many Hispanic voters share.To comment on this post go here. Posted by John at 11:09 AM | Permalink | | "Change That Works For Him" The RNC has a new ad highlighting Barack Obama's flip-flops on Iraq. It's pretty effective:To comment on this post go here. Posted by John at 11:01 AM | Permalink | | The trouble with restraint The Israeli government has stood by and allowed the Gaza Strip to become an armed fortress. The government understandably hesitates to undertake the hazardous operation that is necessary to subdue Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But the day of reckoning is inevitable -- it will come either at a time of Israel's choosing, or Iran's. Delay only increases the costs to Israel, as Jonathan Spyer forcefully argues in "Analysis: Fortress Gaza."To comment on this post go here. Posted by Scott at 7:38 AM | Permalink | | Time for Tim? Last week NRO editor Kathryn Jean Lopez asked me whether Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty might help Senator McCain carry Minnesota if he were asked to join him on the Republican ticket. The answer is no, but I don't think that is the end of the discussion, as I argue briefly in the NRO column "Time for Tim." (I would add a question mark to that heading!) Governor Pawlenty is a dark horse in the race to be tapped by Senator McCain, but he is worthy of the serious consideration the McCain team is devoting to him.To comment on this post go here. Posted by Scott at 7:13 AM | Permalink | | Louis Jordan at 100 Today is the centennial anniversary of the birth of Louis Jordan. Jordan is the link from the birth of jazz and the big band swing era to rock 'n' roll, from Louis Armstrong (with whom he recorded some duets) to Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Having touched everyone from Ray Charles to Prince, Jordan deserves a hearing in his own right. Between 1942 and 1951 he recorded an astounding 57 rhythm and blues chart hits on Decca. Bill Dahl's Allmusic profile of Jordan summarizes his career nicely.Bing Crosby takes a couple of elegant turns with Jordan on "My Baby Said Yes" and "Your Socks Don't Match" on the wonderful, inexpensive five-disc Louis Jordan and his Tympani Five compilation of Jordan's work on Decca that came out on JSP Records in 2001. Suffice it to say that Crosby never sounded cooler -- although he sounded as cool on several occasions. Among the many highlights of the Decca recordings are the war-era "Ration Blues," the post-war "Reconversion Blues," "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying," and several duets with Ella Fitzgerald, with whom he crossed paths in Chick Webb's band. You may have heard at least a few of Jordan's numerous hit songs -- "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie," "Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens," "Caldonia," "Let the Good Times Roll." Perhaps most striking is the sheer joyousness of Jordan's music. It is a quality that comes through clearly in the video clip above of Jordan singing "I Got Those Roamin' Blues." A blues song with a happy ending, it comes from Jordan's 1947 film "Look-Out Sister." According to the IMDb plot summary of the film, a famous bandleader, suffering from overwork and exhaustion, goes to a sanitarium for a rest. While there he dreams of being out west at a dude ranch, where he finds himself involved in the beautiful owner's struggle to keep her ranch from falling into the hands of the villain, who wants either her or her ranch (or, preferably, both). Tagline: "When he's not singin', he's shootin'. When he's not shootin', he's lovin!'"To comment on this post go here. Posted by Scott at 6:41 AM | Permalink | | July 7, 2008The sorcerer's apprentices Barack Obama’s campaign grows more “refined” by the day. On issue after high profile issue – Iraq, abortion, gun control, Reverend Wright, FISA, the funding of his campaign – Obama changes positions the way most people change clothes. It’s gotten so bad that even E.J. Dionne has noticed. (Dionne’s column about Obama’s flip-flopping on Iraq is called “The Stand That Obama Can’t Fudge.” Dionne thus simultaneously recognizes and excuses Obama’s fudging on everything else). The more Obama fudges, the more he confirms his status as the true heir to Bill Clinton. As I wrote back in April:Hillary is the nominal Clinton in this year's presidential race, but it's Obama who increasingly bears the resemblance to Bill. . . .Recently it’s become clear that, like the former president, Obama is fundamentally unserious about vital issues, including even those pertaining to war and peace. For both men, issues are not at root substantive problems to be addressed on their merits, but formal matters to be navigated and, to the extent possible, manipulated. . . . How else to explain [Clinton’s] statement about how he would have voted on the first Gulf War: “I would have voted for [the war resolution] if [the vote] was close, but the Democrats had the better arguments”?At one level, this approach to issues is post-modern -- a variation of the academic school that sees texts as infinitely malleable instruments with no fixed meaning, just waiting to be put to whatever use we find amusing. Substitute “issues” for “texts” and “expedient” for “amusing,” and you have described the essence of the Clinton-Obama political school.At another level, though, Clinton and Obama are doing what politicians have always wanted to do and often did in the pre-modern era, when communications hadn’t developed to the point that such chicanery would likely be exposed. Perhaps the real question, then, is: what has convinced Clinton and Obama that they can get away with the "self-triangulation" they practice so shamelessly? After all, politics isn’t literature; the electorate isn’t a doctoral thesis panel; and the communications system of today is capable of exposing deceit faster than ever before.I think three factors are at work here. The first is modern legal education. Law students are trained to make and to contest distinctions. This means explaining how things that appear to be substantially the same are actually significantly different, and how things that appear to be significantly different are actually substantially the same. This is the sort of thing Obama has been doing a good deal of lately. This ability to transform things so fundamentally (like into unlike; unlike into like) resembles magic, and to a certain kind of personality, it can be intoxicating. Among these types, one imagines, is the future politician. The risk of such intoxication is heightened by the fact that the post-modernism I described above has seeped into legal education, which means that too many law professors behave less like the retrained “sorcerer” and more like the sorcerer’s apprentice. Clinton and Obama both were law professors when they were young. The second factor is the boundless (and largely justified) self-confidence Clinton and Obama possess. Both are entirely self-made. Both came from the periphery of society and, seemingly without much effort, grabbed its most glittering prizes. For both, glibness was a key to the success itself and to the appearance of its ease. No wonder both believe they can magically talk their way out of contradictions. To appreciate Clinton and Obama, it is instructive to consider their precursor, Richard Nixon. He too benefited from a top-notch legal education and he too was a self-made man who possessed self-confidence. But Nixon was educated in a different, less facile era. Moreover, Nixon wasn’t glib, and therefore didn’t make it look easy. As Jackie Mason put it, “Nixon lied, but at least he had the decency to sweat when he did it.” Thus, while Nixon was known with justification as Tricky Dick, he was far more constant than Clinton and Obama on a given issue. Nixon tended to triangulate by putting new issues on the table. He lacked the deep self-confidence to triangulate regularly through out-and-out self-contradiction.Nixon was also substantially encumbered by a hostile press, and this brings me to the third factor that I think explains the audacity of Clinton and Obama – they believe the press will cover for them. Nor is this confidence entirely misplaced. For while new media outlets such as blogs increase the likelihood that campaign contradictions will become known, the liberal sympathies of the still dominant outlets provide hope that they will not become widely known. Even so, Clinton ran, and Obama is running, a substantial risk. Whatever may be true in academia, the general public still doesn’t like slick talkers and it certainly doesn’t like slick talkers who sound like lawyers. The MSM may be able, up to a point, to obscure the specifics of this or that flip-flop, but it can't obscure the fact that a presidential candidate is slick. This helps explain why, pre-Lewinsky, Clinton failed twice to capture a majority when running for president. If Obama fails in 2008, a year tailor made for a Democratic victory, it will likely be because of the same kind of slickness born of the same kind of outsider’s self-confidence. Posted by Paul at 11:05 PM | Permalink | | DOJ sued by alleged victim of politicized hiring As noted here, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice has found that political and ideological affiliation played in role in determining which applicants would be admitted to the Department's honors program in two years during the Bush administration. Now one of the rejected applicants, Sean Gerlich, has filed a lawsuit against DOJ.Basing hiring decisions for the positions at issue on politics and/or ideology is improper and illegal. Thus, there is certainly nothing objectionable about filing a lawsuit, provided the plaintiff has a basis for believing, in good faith, that he was victimized by this practice. Here, according to the Washington Post, the plaintiff says he "suspects" that he "may have been rejected" because he had worked as a volunteer for Amnesty International and for a Democrat running in a state congressional race.Proving causation and damages may not be easy. As I understand it, the discrimination occurred in the striking of applicants, due to budgetary constraints, from a list of highly qualified candidates who had been passed along by various branches at DOJ. If so, the plaintiff will have to show not just that he was well qualified but that he was so well qualified that, absent political considerations, he would have remained on the hire list at the expense of some other very well qualified but less liberal candidate. And as to damages, I would imagine that an applicant well qualified enough to prove his case could have found (and probably did find) a position that paid at least as well as DOJ. Any damages stemming from not having the DOJ gig on the resume are highly speculative.On the other hand, this is probably a case that DOJ will be anxious to settle. This will be true regardless of how the election turns out. For example, as much as an Obama Justice Department might want to see the Bush Justice Department embarrassed in litigation, I have difficulty imagining it trying to defend discrimination against Democrats. The more attractive course would probably be to pay off whichever of the new Attorney General's ideological allies bring suit.Gerlich maintains, however, that he's "not actually especially liberal, particularly as regards antitrust law, the area in which I applied." This may well the case, though experience has taught me to grab my wallet, so to speak, when I hear someone say he's "not especially liberal." To comment on this post, go here. Posted by Paul at 7:08 PM | Permalink | | FARC You, Hostages Say The three American hostages who were freed in Colombia last week had a party/press conference today in Texas. They were happy to be home, but also had harsh words for their captors, who held them prisoner in the jungle for more than five years. Marc Gonsalves spoke:"I want to send a message to the FARC," Gonsalves said. "FARC, you guys are terrorists. You deny that you are, you say with words that you're not terrorists, but your words don't have any value." He said a hostage with a chain around his neck would be forced to march while carrying a heavy backpack and a guerrilla armed with an automatic weapon held the other end of the chain "like a dog." "They say that they want equality, they say that they just want to make Colombia a better place," Gonsalves said. "But it's all a lie."He's right, of course. But some Americans seem remarkably oblivious to the evil that FARC, Hugo Chavez and other Latin American leftists represent. In today's Wall Street Journal, Mary O'Grady writes about the fact that some "human rights" organizations are in fact allies of, and fronts for, terrorist groups. That's a fair point, but I want to focus on the latter part of her column, in which she describes efforts by Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez to turn the hostages into "a public-relations coup that would give him and the FARC 'continental and world renown.'"O'Grady's account is based on documents that were captured from a FARC laptop in a raid by the Colombian military that we wrote about here. Based on those documents, it appears that Chavez had a couple of schemes to set up prisoner exchanges involving the FARC hostages. This is the most interesting one:That plan flopped, but Mr. Chavez had other cards up his sleeve. One involved Ms. Cordoba, who is currently under investigation by the Colombian attorney general for ties to the FARC. She figures prominently in the captured rebel documents, and is notoriously close to Mr. Chávez.She met at the Venezuelan presidential palace with FARC leaders last fall. From that meeting the rebels reported that "Piedad [Cordoba] says that Chávez has Uribe going crazy. He doesn't know what to do. That Nancy Pelosi helps and is ready to help in the swap [hostages in exchange for captured guerrillas]. That she has designated [U.S. Congressman Jim] McGovern for this."If the speaker of the House was working with Ms. Cordoba in this scheme, her judgment was more than a little misguided. The rebels write that on a trip to Argentina Ms. Cordoba told them, "It doesn't matter to me the proposal that Sarkozy has made to free Ingrid. Above all, do not liberate Ingrid."If this report is correct, Nancy Pelosi was carrying on her own foreign policy in opposition to that of the United States, trying to work with the socialist Hugo Chavez and the Communist FARC terrorists to undermine America's ally, Colombia. In normal times, this would be unthinkable. Given the crazed state of today's Democratic party, I'm not so sure.Further, the statement that Pelosi designated the outrageously left-wing Jim McGovern to head up her mission to the terrorists is also interesting. It may tie in with this document, which, as reported by the Associated Press, apparently records an attempt by Democrats to encourage FARC to hold on until Barack Obama becomes President:In a Dec. 11 message to the secretariat, Marquez [FARC's contact with Chavez, who lives in Venezuela] writes: "If you are in agreement, I can receive Jim and Tucker to hear the proposal of the gringos."Writing two days before his death, Reyes [FARC's "foreign minister"] tells his comrades that "the gringos," working through Ecuador's government, are interested "in talking to us on various issues.""They say the new president of their country will be (Barack) Obama," he writes, saying Obama rejects both the Bush administration's free trade agreement with Colombia and the current military aid program.Was "Jim" Jim McGovern? And, if so, was he really the emissary of Nancy Pelosi to a gang of South American terrorists, urging them to hold on until Barack Obama can sell out America's ally and the terrorists' nemesis, Uribe, by withdrawing from the Colombia free trade agreement and cutting off aid to Colombia's government?I don't know the answers to these questions, but one would think that at least one reporter would be willing to ask Pelosi why her name pops up in the communications of South American terrorists. As their ally.UPDATE: A State Department officer writes:Excellent post on Pelosi, Colombia, Cordoba, et al. It's an amazing story most noteworthy for the fact that our press seems not to care. Senator Cordoba is, to say the least, a disreputable person. She's spent as much time at Chavez's side lately as she has in her own country - she was (boisterously) in Caracas when Chavez was moving tanks to the Colombian border - and it is rumored that he pays for her lavish vacations in the Dominican Republic. Her clear goal is the toppling of the Uribe government, one of our most steadfast allies in South America. Another interesting factoid: just last week she was stopped by immigration at JFK and questioned for several hours because her name popped on the terrorism watch list (for good reason). In Colombia she is typically referred to as Mata Hari or Jane Fonda. If indeed Nancy Pelosi and her leftist friends are cavorting with Sen Cordoba, it is truly scandalous. Perhaps the Logan Act deserves updating to include collusion with transnational terrorist groups.To comment on this post, go here. Posted by John at 7:05 PM | Permalink | | It Won't Be Webb Congressional Quarterly reports that earlier today, Senator Jim Webb's office released a statement to the effect that he will not be Barack Obama's running mate:Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for vice president. Last week I communicated to Senator Obama and his presidential campaign my firm intention to remain in the United States Senate, where I believe I am best equipped to serve the people of Virginia and this country.Webb would have given Obama heartburn at times, but he would have given us Republicans heartburn as well. Over the weekend, I saw some pundits debating Obama's vice-presidential options; Joe Biden was a popular choice. That's just the ticket, I think: Joe Biden.To comment on this post go here. Posted by John at 3:42 PM | Permalink | | Reverend Who, Part Two Yesterday, I noted how the Washington Post, in its discussion of Barack Obama's "spiritual journey," air-brushed the candidate's long-time spiritual adviser out of the pilgrimage. But the Post's pro-Obama spin was nothing compared to that performed by George Stephanopoulos and his left-of-center panel on ABC. That performance, which I heard after I had written my original post, deserves separate mention.Stephanopoulos' roundtable described Obama's outreach to evangelicals. The consensus seemed to be that (with the proviso discussed below) Obama has a real shot at making inroads here, given the less than warm feelings many evangelicals have towards John McCain. No mention was made of Obama's pro-abortion stance, including his statement that if his daughters make a "mistake" he does not want to see them "punished with a baby." Moreover, there was no mention of Reverend Wright, or of Obama's twenty year association with a church many of whose doctrines every evangelical (and nearly every non-evangelical) would surely find reprehensible. Instead, there was hand-wringing over how Obama's efforts to reach evangelicals may be thwarted by false information about Obama's religion.The reference here was to the rumor that Obama is a Muslim. The panelists seemed convinced that if every evangelical only knew and accepted the "truth" about Obama's religion, they would discover how much they have in common with Obama. Then, Obama's support with this group might well reach the 30 percent level, or so, that Bill Clinton attained. The rest would be history. But the core, indisputable truth about Obama and religion is that he spent roughly two decades as a member of Rev. Wright's church and as Wright's spiritual mentee (prior to which time he was a non-believer). Would those evangelicals (if any) who believe that Obama is a Muslim be more inclined to vote for Obama if they knew he was the spiritual disciple of an anti-white, anti-American hate monger whose black liberation theology teaches that blacks have a superior relationship to God? Or would they conclude, as I do, that this close association is considerably more problematic than membership in a mainstream American Muslim congregation would be? Stephanopoulos' panelists weren't saying. They weren't even asking. To comment on this post go here. Posted by Paul at 12:39 PM | Permalink | | Change You Can Believe In This new ad by Vets For Freedom is titled "Finish the Job." It is VFF's first national ad; as I understand it, it will air on cable TV networks nationally, and on broadcast TV in Virginia, Ohio, Michigan and Colorado:The Vets, of course, have never wavered on Iraq. That distinguishes them from Barack Obama, who holds up a finger in the wind before he says anything about the issue. This morning on MSNBC, Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, was asked about the success of the surge. He said: "We added 30,000 brave American troops, and violence is down, as everyone suspected it would be." Everyone, perhaps, except Barack Obama, who specifically denied that the surge would have its intended effect: "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”To comment on this post go here. Posted by John at 12:19 PM | Permalink | | Who is Bud Day? Michelle Malkin's lead story today takes a look at CNN's story on Col. Bud Day. CNN associate political editor Rebecca Sinderbrand somehow overlooked Col. Day's receipt of the Medal of Honor for his heroics as a captive of the North Vietnamese and his status as America's most highly decorated officer since Douglas MacArthur. In serving the Obama campaign, CNN can't be troubled to do justice to Col. Day. Michelle notes that CNN has closed its comments section on Sinderbrand's highly uninformative CNN story on Col. Day.To comment on this post go here. Posted by Scott at 7:50 AM | Permalink | | The big re-up The three videos below show most of the multiservice ceremony in Baghdad in which 1,200 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines serving in Iraq reenlisted. The videos include the speeches by MNF-I's Command Sergeant Major (Hill) and Commander (Petraeus) intact. General Petraeus speaks in the second video below. By my count via a Google News search, there is a grand total of three or four newspaper stories covering the largest reenlistment ceremony in the history of the American military. Thanks to Mudville Gazette and Greyhawk for forwarding the videos.To comment on this post go here. Posted by Scott at 6:47 AM | Permalink | | July 6, 2008. . .Ask what your government can make you do for your country Barack Obama wants to put the nation's youth to work in the service of their communities. Recently, he made the case for using federal power to this end:Just as we teach math and writing, arts and athletics, we need to teach young Americans to take citizenship seriously.Yes, we should teach "citizenship" just as we teach match, writing, arts, and athletics -- in the school during school hours. In the case of citizenship, strong history and civics classes (as we used to call them) are the ticket. Those who want to learn more outside the classroom should have that opportunity, but it should be their choice.Study after study shows that students who serve do better in school, are more likely to go to college, and more likely to maintain that service as adults.But the issue here is causation, or lack thereof. Elite colleges place a high value on community service. Thus, students who want to gain admission to elite colleges tend to perform lots of community service. These are the same kids who do well in school and who, of course, are likely to go to college. Then there are the kids who perform community service because they like to. As adults, naturally, they are more likely than their peers to "maintain that service." So when I'm President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you'll have done 17 weeks of service.For a smart guy, Obama says some stupid things. Here he says he's setting this goal to accrue for the nation's youth the advantages associated with "service" -- strong performance in school, attendance at college, and service in later life. But, as noted above, the performance of service probably isn't the cause of these benefits. So forcing kids who aren't interested in performing service (because they don't want to go to a fancy college and don't think these activities are worth their time) isn't going to make them into scholars or humanitarians.We'll reach this goal in several ways. At the middle and high school level, we'll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to offer new service opportunities. At the community level, we'll develop public-private partnerships so students can serve more outside the classroom.Here Obama is characteristically slippery. What does he mean by "developing service programs." Would it be sufficient, say, for the school system to provide students with a list of community service organizations they can contact if they want to serve, along with advisers to help match students with organizations? If so, then Obama's proposal is empty. Students can already find community service opportunities without a formal program established by the school system.More likely, Obama means that school districts will be required to institute a community service program that mirrors Obama's "goal" -- schools won't receive federal money unless they require their students to "serve" at least 50 hours a year throughout middle school and high school. How else can Obama meet this goal? Thus, the federal government will coerce local school systems into coercing students into devoting substantial amounts of time to serving the community.Many school districts already impose this sort of requirement. My daughters' district did. In practice, the regime seemed pretty foolish. Students who were motivated by altruism or ambition or a combination of the two did some good works, though less than one might imagine. The rest obtained their credit through activities whose value to the community was unclear. For example, the local high school gave community service credit for working in the school store. The school got free labor; the students got large amounts of the credit they needed (plus free candy); the community got nothing. really. It's bad enough that any governmental unit would extend the mission of the public schools to conscripting students into community service. But if this to occur, the decision should be made at the local government without the heavy hand of the federal government. In the unlikely event that such programs are as valuable as Obama asserts, federal coercion should not be necessary to bring localities into the fold.Modern-day liberals are expert in finding small ways to extend the power of the government and to diminish individual freedom. And they specialize in using deficiencies they have helped create as their pretext. Under the influence of liberal administrators and teachers whose approval of this country is less than wholehearted, our schools probably aren't doing as good a job at "teaching young Americans to take citizenship seriously" as they used to. Americans sense the change. The liberal solution -- meddle in the lives of students outside the classroom. Obama hasn't been in this racket long, but he's a quick learner.To comment on this post go here. Posted by Paul at 9:43 PM | Permalink | | A word from Robert Coram Robert Coram is the author of American Patriot: The Life and Wars of Colonel Bud Day. He has forwarded a message related to our post "Setting the record straight on Bud Day, and CNN." Mr. Coram writes: The CNN description of Col. Bud Day was simply wrong. Col. Day was never a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.The Swifties criticized John Kerry’s Vietnam service, his medals, and the details of his discharge. After Kerry’s salute and his "reporting for duty" comment at the convention, another group sprang up around documentary producer Carlton Sherwood whose goal was to make Kerry accountable for the 1971 testimony before Fulbright’s committee, testimony in which he talked of war crimes, atrocities, etc. Col. Day was part of the second group and not the Swifites. In fact, he disagreed with the central thrust of the Swifties, that of questioning Kerry’s medals.There was not just a philosophical but a legal difference in the Swifties and in the group which coalesced around Carlton Sherwood. The Swifties were organized as a Section 527 and thus "political," while Sherwood’s group was a for-profit S corporation organized in Pennsylvania and, at least in theory, "non-political."This whole issue becomes more complex when in September of that year the Swifties had lost all momentum and were dead in the water but were sitting on millions of dollars while Sherwood’s group had no traction and was broke.About the time Sinclair announced it was running "Stolen Honor" and the resulting flap and publicity, the Swifties decided they need to regain their momentum. They asked the POWs who had appeared in Sherwood’s documentary to join them in taping a series of television ads. The ads had enormous impact, the most powerful of which was one of Col. Day, Medal of Honor around his neck, staring into the camera and asking of John Kerry, “How can you expect our sons and daughters to follow you when you condemned their fathers and grandfathers?” Taping the series of ads was the only place where the two groups came together. That does not make Bud Day a Swifty. CNN was wrong. The description of Col. Day as a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is widespread on the Internet. I have no independent knowledge of the subjects raised in Mr. Coram's message, but his knowledge of Col. Day is authoritative and consistent with the account of Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler in To Set the Record Straight: How Swift Boat Veterans, POWs and the New Media Defeated John Kerry. UPDATE: Scott Swett writes to comment: The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth formally joined forces with the group of POWs associated with the documentary “Stolen Honor” on September 29, 2004, at which time the combined group was renamed “Swift Vets and POWs for Truth.” See page 283 of To Set the Record Straight. Swett adds: "There is also no indication that Col. Day disagreed in 2004 with anything the Swift Vets had to say about John Kerry." Col. Day makes no appearance in To Set the Record Straight until the discussion of the Sherwood documentary in chapter 16 of the book. So far as I can tell, he had no involvement in the original iteration of the Swift Boat Veterans. In a message that I have edited to focus on the point at issue, Mr. Coram responds: Mr. Swett’s message indicates that he believes in something which was not true in 2004 and is not true today – that Col. Bud Day was a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. I called Col. Day this morning and he confirmed that he was not a Swifty and further, that he disagreed with their agenda of questioning John Kerry’s medals and his Vietnam service.The Swifties approached Carlton Sherwood, who produced the documentary "Stolen Honor," and asked if they could join up with the POWs who had appeared in the documentary to shoot a series of television ads opposing Kerry’s candidacy. Now we come to a point where Mr. Swett is correct, the Swifties and Carlton Sherwood/POWs did join forces to shoot the ads. The Swifty/POW group was about shooting television ads and not about the Swifties’ original agenda. Thus, to contend that because Col. Day appeared in the television ads financed by the Swifties, he was a Swift Boat Veteran for Truth is flat wrong. Col. Day was not a Swifty and, as of about noon Monday, he still disagrees with their original goals. To comment on this post go here. 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