Palin FTW

Three weeks ago, I was sitting at a bar talking to a couple of friends about why Sarah Palin was a great, outside-the-box choice for McCain's running mate, but acknowledging that it would never happen. Imagine my surprise to find myself, a few days ago, explaining to another group of friends why Sarah Palin had been the best choice, from a strictly strategic point of view, that McCain could've possibly made. At this point, I'm pretty sure it's all been said all over the blogosphere already, but I'll lay it out anyway.

Put aside your partisan feelings for a second. Put aside that she's a moral authority on the most heated issue of this election cycle (oil production), put aside the question of whether women will come out in droves to vote for her (if just one in one hundred do, that's still a huge score; and many studies show women as more pro-life than men).

Instead, consider this:

1) The effective lines of attack available to the Democrats require them to burn down their own house in order to get to Palin. Accusing her of being too inexperienced to be Vice-President reminds the world that Barack Obama, someone who is, at the most generous, equally inexperienced, wants to be President. Mocking her for hunting and her teenage daughter for having a teenage boyfriend who, as rural teenage boys do, describes himself as a "redneck" only reminds the hundred million plus Americans who don't really see anything wrong with that they have nothing in common with national Democrats. One brilliant criticism even suggests that with a pregnant daughter and a child suffering from Down's Syndrome, Palin is too "distracted" to be Vice-President. To make that argument, you have to trash decades of feminist support for the idea that women can choose to blend a home life with a high-profile careers (which is already generating feminist backlash), assume that the wife is automatically the primary childcare provider, and quietly accuse single mothers and the disabled, both theoretically Democratic demographics, of being harmful burdens on their loved ones.

2) The Democrats, having anointed themselves the party of women, cannot allow the first woman in the White House to be a conservative, pro-life Republican. They must do anything and everything they can to stop it. Failure to do so would upset the decades-old balance that the Democrats depend on to remain a viable party.

Democrats should be trying to play this cool, but they can't control themselves. They have a rabid fear of Palin becoming President in 2016 and forever undermining the Democratic Party's reputation as the champion of women. They're forced to go nuclear, and every insane rumor imaginable has been vomited forth in just a few short days. Thousands of canned letters to the editor and blog comments spreading this transparent, goofy nonsense are popping up everywhere. The net result is that Sarah Palin is now more popular than Barack Obama, Joe Biden, or John McCain. A majority of Americans, though slight, believe the media is conspiring against her. There's palpable desperation, becase the ideological left, lacking shared moral premises with mainstream America, can't understand why their attacks aren't just failing, but are blowing up in their face.

That's to be expected, because these are the same people who thought that accusing John McCain of being wealthy was an effective attack, unaware that Americans, as a rule, like seeing people get rich, and don't begrudge it to war heroes.

McCain held this for the ideal moment, waiting for Obama to pick a boring, formulaic running mate and to almost completely run out of steam, unable to generate significant results from either his ridiculous "European Tour" or the convention. Obama had said everything he had to say, repeatedly, and Americans were already tired of hearing it. It's then that McCain decided to do something unusual, to throw Obama's little checkerboard onto the ground and start setting up a chess set. It seems to be working.

Now, there's still room for it to all go horribly wrong, for something truly bizarre to come out of the sky about Palin, for Obama's campaign to get their head together, but at least based on what's known, I think it's now entirely McCain's race to lose.

Update: Oh, and this stupid thing?


First, we all know how that ended. Second, Jesus had a real job: he was a carpenter. Third, apparently, some leftists still don't see that trying to compare Obama to Jesus makes Obama less popular, and makes his supporters seem like dangerous lunatics.

It's an Old Joke

Comparing Barack Obama to a vacuous celebrity bimbo, it turns out, is insulting to vacuous celebrity bimbos.

Sure, the reference in the ad is corny and awkward, but if you watch, it doesn't actually imply that there's anything wrong with Paris Hilton.

It doesn't need to.

You're Invited

Bruno Behrend, the man behind Extreme Wisdom, will be the speaker at a Chicago conference to discuss the probable upcoming Illinois Constitutional Convention.

The Constitutional Convention issue creates exciting opportunities for the citizens of Illinois to dramatically improve our state. Attendees will hear about all of the new developments that have taken place regarding the convention in the last few months. The presentation will focus on how the current political climate, along with the convention mechanics, will allow citizens to re-organize around sound policies instead of the status quo where strong, ethical leadership is sorely lacking. The presentation will be short, so as to allow the audience to get in the maximum number of questions.

Speaker: Bruno Behrend - is host of the Extreme Wisdom Radio Show on WKRS 1220 AM broadcasting out of Waukegan, Illinois and co-author of "Illinois Deserves Better - the Ironclad Case for an Illinois Constitutional Convention" with John Bambenek. www.extremewisdom.com and www.illinoiscitizenscoalition.com

Time: 6:30 pm cocktails and/or dinner & networking
7:15 pm announcements
7:30 pm presentations start

The Lincoln Restaurant requires a minimum order from each person of $5.00 to secure our private room. A suggested donation of $3.00 would also be greatly appreciated. All donations cover the costs of holding each meeting such as handouts, nametags, door prizes, PR, small gifts of appreciation for the speakers, etc.

RSVP PLEASE (with head count / names) – this is very helpful for everyone!!! by sending an email to: TownhallChicago@aol.com or call 312.420.3115

Please arrive before 7:30 PM, so we can start and respect those who are on time.

Lincoln Restaurant
4008 N. Lincoln Ave. & Irving Park Rd. & Damen Ave. (4000 N, 2000 West)
Chicago, IL 60618 Tel: 773.248.1820

Spread the word. I remain a bit of a Constitutional Convention skeptic, being of the mind that the electorate that gave Blagojevich a second run isn't the electorate that should be sending delegates to a convention, and worried about what ultra-progressive claptrap might come out the other side of such a project. However, Bruno Behrend's tireless efforts on this matter have done a lot to convince me that this monumental task is being steered by people who don't believe failure is an option.

I just got off the phone with Behrend, and he lays out a compelling case, arguing that while it's plausible an even more destructive document would come out of the convention, what everybody should agree on is that what's in place now is unacceptable. He describes it as having "opened Pandora's box 40 years ago", and this being the chance to close it. "The bad guys control every office, they control every party. This is our last chance to change something for the better," he says. He also cited Rich Miller's stance, that everyone knows the foxes are in charge of the hen house, but that the "no"-vote crowd is contending that the only viable option is to continue buying more chickens.

Bruno Behrend and John Bambenek have a book out, Illinois Deserves Better.

Interestingly, a poll, conducted by Ask Illinois, found that a majority of voters believe former Governor George Ryan would be a better governor than Rod Blagojevich.

George Ryan is in federal prison.

Kneel Before Obama

I wish I'd been the first to catch this.

Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen - a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world. This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom. And you know that the only reason we stand here tonight is because men and women from both of our nations came together to work, and struggle, and sacrifice for that better life. In this new world, such dangerous currents have swept along faster than our efforts to contain them. That is why we cannot afford to be divided. No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone. None of us can deny these threats, or escape responsibility in meeting them. This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands.

I am General Zod. Listen to me, people of the Earth! Today I bring a New Order to your planet! Each of you... each man, each woman, each child - all will march proudly together in this New Order! There is no longer a need for separate nations in this world, no need for petty squabbles between one group and another. All of you will work together, strive, produce, and sacrifice together - and all for a common goal! It is useless for you to resist as it is for me to annihilate you. You will only bring death and destruction upon yourselves, while I will lose the potential products of your labor. There is now one law, one order, one ruler who alone will determine your collective destiny! One force before which all of you shall kneel forever! In return for this submission you will have my generous protection! In other words - you will be allowed to live.

What He Hath Wrought

Dan Curry notes that the New Yorker has brought forth the most terrifying revelation of our age:

That year, [Obama] gained his first high-level experience in a statewide campaign when he advised the victorious gubernatorial candidate Rod Blagojevich, another politician with a funny name and a message of reform. Rahm Emanuel, a congressman from Chicago and a friend of Obama's, told me that he, Obama, David Wilhelm, who was Blagojevich's campaign co-chair, and another Blagojevich aide were the top strategists of Blagojevich's victory. He and Obama "participated in a small group that met weekly when Rod was running for governor," Emanuel said. "We basically laid out the general election, Barack and I and these two." A spokesman for Blagojevich confirmed Emanuel's account, although David Wilhelm, who now works for Obama, said that Emanuel had overstated Obama's role. "There was an advisory council that was inclusive of Rahm and Barack but not limited to them," Wilhelm said, and he disputed the notion that Obama was “an architect or one of the principal strategists."

In fairness to Obama, everything Blagojevich says is a lie, so it's entirely possible that, in fact, Obama merely once ate at the same restaurant where these meetings were being held. On the other hand, it's possible that the thousands of pages of evidence I've sorted through indicating that Illinois is governed by one of the most perfectly feckless career criminals in gubernatorial history, in fact, contain the clues that answer the riddle underlying every Obama controversy: "Is he really that bad, or is he just so incredibly dopey and naive that he had no idea what happened?"

That defense didn't last long with Blagojevich, but recent video evidence of what happens when Obama's teleprompter goes on the fritz really does seem to point to the latter:

David Axelrod, the preeminent strategist in the state, declined to work for Blagojevich. "He had been my client and I had a very good relationship with him, but I didn't sign on to the governor's race," Axelrod said. "Obviously he won, but I had concerns about it. . . . I was concerned about whether he was ready for that. Not so much for the race but for governing. I was concerned about some of the folks - I was concerned about how the race was being approached." Axelrod's unease was warranted. Blagojevich and people close to him have been tied to a seemingly endless series of scandals. The trial of Tony Rezko revealed that Rezko used his influence in the Blagojevich administration to profit from companies seeking business with the state. There is speculation that Blagojevich will be the next governor to be indicted, and the Democratic Speaker of the Illinois House, Michael Madigan, has raised the issue of impeachment.

In fact, Blagojevich is such a disaster that his reign of terror has culminated both in a widespread demand for the addition of a recall provision to the state constitution and a call for the entire document to be scrapped and rewritten. He is the destroyer of worlds, a mini-Mugabe notable among modern history's failed leaders not just for the sheer scope of his incompetence and mismanagement but for the unanimous disrespect it has earned him.

Obama - He helped bring Illinois change you can believe in!

Obama's World Tour

It's entirely possible that there's a perfectly good explanation for this, but it looks bad:

1:42 p.m.: SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that Obama has cancelled a planned short visit to the Rammstein and Landstuhl US military bases in the southwest German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The visits were planned for Friday. "Barack Obama will not be coming to us," a spokesperson for the US military hospital in Landstuhl announced. "I don't know why." Shortly before the same spokeswoman had announced a planned visit by Obama.

4:49 p.m.: Obama enters the luxury Ritz Carlton hotel wearing a T-shirt, black sweatpants and white trainers -- apparantly to work out in the hotel's gym. He kept up the campaigning on the way there, smiling and waving at tourists and other onlookers.

If you're running for President of the United States, and already making yourself look just a tiny bit presumptuous...

"It is not going to be a political speech," said a senior foreign policy adviser, who spoke to reporters on background. "When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally."

"But he is not president of the United States," a reporter reminded the adviser.

...you might want to avoid the appearance of skipping out on meeting wounded American soldiers to hit the treadmill.

Meanwhile, local foreign-person Bob Bennekers respectfully disagrees with Barack Obama's insistence that we should all learn foreign languages:

In Holland (where I come from) it was mandatory to learn three languages (English, French and German) at high school. This makes sense for Holland as a small country. It does not make sense for Americans, since English is a world language and Americans already speak it.

Because some Americans may visit Europe, should all Americans learn French? What about German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, etc.? French does not get you very far in Germany. It seems Obama wants Americans to learn a foreign language just to be "sophisticated."

Not so much that we'd be "sophisticated", but because he actually thinks it's "embarrassing" that most Americans learned languages that are not useful within thousands of miles of their homes and will probably never play a significant role in any part of their lives. That is to say, not that it would be an admirable goal, but that it would correct what he views as a fault.

Obama acts like Europeans learn English because they want to impress Americans, or because learning a foreign language is cool in Europe. That's ridiculous. Internationally, whether you're talking about Europe or India, learning multiple languages isn't some frivolous exercise to give you that "edge" on a resume, to make you feel better about yourself, or to impress foreigners. It's a practical part of life. That's why they aren't studying Swahili, they're studying English, the common language of science and commerce, and the languages of their neighbors, people they meet regularly. In America, our neighbors already speak English. There are no particular languages we can teach in schools that will ever have the kind of relevance English, German, and French have in the Netherlands - even Spanish meets that criteria in only a few parts of the country.

Now, that's not to say people shouldn't learn another language, if they want to or have a use for it, or that schools should not offer the courses. However, pushing widespread bilingualism through our public schools is a ridiculous and wasteful notion, because no teenager can reasonably be expected to decide which languages his future goals will require. Spending two years learning to find the bathroom in everyone's favorite dying language is a huge mistake when so many students can barely write a coherent paragraph in English. Teaching basic economics, programming languages, or some other practical skill would do a great deal more to improve a student's quality of life after graduation than studying beginner's German.

In my own life, I've learned enough French to read the general news, but when I set out to do that, I did it purely for sport and because I had the time to invest, not because I thought I simply "should" know a second language for the sake of being bilingual. I'll spend my time doing what's valuable to me, rather than something that's valuable to Barack Obama, but ultimately useless to the people who depend on me and irrelevant to my own happiness. When I have children in school, I'd also prefer it if the school system respected my son or daughter enough not to waste their time imposing language studies on them that won't actually help them accomplish their goals. There's nothing to be ashamed of in not knowing a second language, and that Obama thinks it's "embarrassing" that he himself does not know one speaks chiefly to the deluded egoists he apparently hangs out with, not the state of the nation.

Update: Ow.

Obama noted that in a break from his whirlwind schedule "we've got some down time tonight. What are you guys gonna do in Berlin? Huh? Huh? You guys got any big plans? ... I've never been to Berlin, so ... I would love to tour around a little bit."

Maybe he could've checked out the nightlife at Rammstein.

The People's Temple

I see Hillary Clinton has finally given a concession speech, in which she never actually conceded. In fact, she said she'll be "making no decisions tonight", as if it's really up to her.

Besides, frankly, it's a little creepy that she chose to do this in an underground chamber with no cellphone service. Given her awkward references to assassinations and her increasing obsession, when they gave her que and nobody came out, I half expected the doors to seal shut and for Clinton to appear on the wall laughing maniacally, then fill the room with a cloud of nerve gas.

"If I'm going down, you're all coming with me!"

If Anything Qualifies As A Disaster, It's This Democratic Primary

Newsmax:

As of the end of April, the DNC had brought in $22.8 million this year but had only $4.4 million left to spend. The Republican National Committee, on the other hand, has collected $57.6 million this year and finished April with $40.6 million in its coffers.

DNC supporters say the drawn-out race between Obama and Clinton has diverted funds that would otherwise go to the party committee, according to the Washington Post.

Financial records disclose that the DNC has spent $638,000 against presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain this year, almost all of it - $600,000 - on two TV ads that ran on national cable networks.

Neither ad is currently airing, due to budgetary restraints.

DNC spokeswoman Stacie Paxton expressed confidence that donations to the DNC will pick up once the Democrats have settled on their nominee.

Hey, maybe not, if this is any indicator.

As bodies pile up in disaster after global disaster, even the most sympathetic souls can turn away.

"Hearing about too many disasters makes some people not give at all, when they would have if it had been just one disaster," says Michal Ann Strahilevitz, who teaches marketing at Golden Gate University and specializes in the factors at play in charitable giving.

"For the vast number of Americans, if they just gave to some disaster far away and then another disaster happens, in their mind that's clumped as `faraway disaster,'" Strahilevitz says. "So they will feel, 'I just gave to a faraway disaster.'"

"It's too much pain, too much tragedy for someone to process, and so we tend to pull ourselves away from it and either close off from it out of psychological defense, or it overwhelms us," says Cynthia Edwards, a professor of psychology at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C.

The similarities are striking.

Death Camp Veterans For Truth

I have to say, jumping on the Auschwitz-Buchenwald thing is pretty silly. The RNC needs to leave that kind of bickering to Hillary.

On the other hand, they need to prepare a montage of moments like this:

"On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today..."

So either he doesn't know what a fallen hero is or he has the sixth sense. If you believe the latter, why in the world would the military dead be attending an Obama rally? That's like a wookie living on Endor.

Put it in a "President of Canada" file for the first time they really try to imply McCain is senile. Heh.

The Art of the Possible

The laptop died earlier this week, and while it's in the HP shop I've been moving to a new, temporary workstation while trying to honor all my commitments that fell a few days behind as a result. Fortunately, I'm all caught up now, and watching the Libertarian Party convention on C-SPAN.

It's the fourth ballot now, as I expected, Bob Barr has been the strongest contender throughout, but with the field narrowing, Ruwart has closed the gap and is now tied at 186 votes for each.

What I find alarming is that both Christine Smith (a rather angry, ranty young woman who was dropped on the first ballot) and Dr. Ruwart (her website here) seem to be most offended that Barr doesn't share their zeal for legalizing drugs. In fact, Ruwart, explaining why she refuses to stand as Barr's running mate, specifically quoted Barr's refusal to support the removal of federal restrictions on crack and meth.

I understand where that's coming from ideologically, but voters don't really care (anymore than they'd respect her distinction between possessing and making child pornography), and certainly aren't going to draw the distinction between whether it's banned at the state or federal level. (I'm not sure Ruwart does, either.) Even most people who think marijuana should be legalized draw a pretty thick black line between that and crack cocaine and methamphetamines, and there's a compelling argument for that, as it doesn't take much for the person hooked on it to lose their ability to make rational choices regarding their use of the drug. If this, a non-issue to 95% of America, is what Ruwart has latched on to as the sinister truth behind Bob Barr, perhaps Ruwart's supporters should consider the possibility that Barr is by far the strongest candidate they could ask for.

In any case, the fourth ballot is in, Barr and Ruwart are both tied at 202. The votes freed by Phillies's departure distributed evenly, and Mike Gravel, a strange name to have pop up in this race at all, has been voted off the island. I expect Gravel's votes will end up pulling Ruwart ahead, then Root's ~150 votes will break hard for Barr. He's almost certainly the nominee.

Update: Going into the sixth and final ballot, Ruwart is ahead by six, I think, and Root has just endorsed Bob Barr, and promoted himself as a hopeful for Barr's VP slot. Oddly, he suggested he'd then run for President in 2012. Is there some reason Barr wouldn't, in theory, be standing for reelection, or is Root just assuming defeat and talking only about campaigning?

Updated: It's Barr, 324-276.

This Was Probably A Huge Mistake

I'm utterly swamped, but this is the last week of it. Meanwhile, if you haven't seen it, a few weeks ago Clinton, Obama, and McCain all appeared on the WWE's Monday Night RAW!.


The only thing that mitigated the humiliation is that they all humiliated themselves together. They should have put Ron Paul in there just to give it that certain something.

No Holds Barr-ed

You can visit former Congressman Bob Barr's Presidential Exploratory Committee website. Barr left the GOP a few years ago over his differences on wiretapping, and he's now the front-runner for the Libertarian nomination. As much as I've spent my adult life actively not voting Libertarian, with John McCain pushing this foolish gas tax holiday and planning to deliver the keynote speech at La Raza's annual conference, it's tempting to give it serious consideration.

I can stomach my disagreements with him on foreign policy a little better than I could Paul, and I think he's a lot more practical on domestic issues. He certainly has a lot more experience than, say, Barack Obama or, frankly, most other Libertarian Presidential candidates to date, and was the keynote speaker at last year's D.C. conference honoring the 50th anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged, which I consider a virtue. You can read his blog for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Barr Code.

An Omen For Her Career

Politico.com blogger Ben Smith gets an email:

Don't know if you watched the Derby, but the horse Hillary wanted came in second, collapsed and was killed on the spot.

Perhaps her efforts to paint herself as "down to Earth" would be more believable if her latest mailer claiming to support gun rights didn't simultaneously depict a $2,000 German rifle and have the image backwards. How much do you want to bet there was a conversation when this mailer went to press about finding a gun that didn't "look scary", and this is what came out?

Meanwhile, populism gone wild:

"Why don't we hold these Wall Street money-grubbers responsible for their role in this recession?" Clinton asked at an Indiana Democratic Party dinner in Indianapolis tonight.

OK. What was that role? Specifically.

She wouldn't know, because she doesn't trust the people who are familiar with how this sort of thing actually works:

"I'm not going to put my lot in with economists," Clinton said when asked to name an economist who backed her [gas tax] proposal.

"We've got to get out of this mind-set where somehow elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans," said Clinton, a former first lady who would be the first woman president.

She wouldn't want to get mixed up with the people who actually "know stuff".

You don't need to be an economist to recognize how broken the underlying economics of Clinton's (and, sadly, McCain's) gas tax "holiday" idea actually are. Gasoline taxes don't work like cigarette taxes. If we had the excess refinery capacity to meet excess demand, this might work, but then prices wouldn't be jumping so high in the first place. No, there's a limited, finite supply of gasoline. The pump price won't go down, because it's already priced at exactly the level that is required for stations to sell it all without running out. Instead, this would just translate into the tax being left as profits.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that isn't what Clinton, or, for that matter, McCain, claim it's going to do, and surely they know better. Even with the "record profits" of "the oil companies" (earned off prices that are beyond their control), the actual profit to be had on a gallon of gasoline is a rather slim piece of the total price. This is one reason it's difficult to find companies willing to make the capital investment in building new refineries, and reducing the portion of that price that is consumed by government would help attract new players into the market.

"I am unabashed. I am unapologietic. I am going to fight for the middle class, and I am going to take on the oil companies and everybody else who has had it their way too long," she said in Fort Wayne.

The only people who really stand to gain from this proposal are the oil companies.

Update: The Wall Street Journal:

This is one strange debate the candidates are having on energy policy. With gas prices close to $4 a gallon, Hillary Clinton and John McCain say they'll bring relief with a moratorium on the 18.4-cent federal gas tax. Barack Obama opposes that but prefers a 1970s-style windfall profits tax (as does Mrs. Clinton).

Mr. Obama is right to oppose the gas-tax gimmick, but his idea is even worse. Neither proposal addresses the problem of energy supply, especially the lack of domestic oil and gas thanks to decades of Congressional restrictions on U.S. production. Mr. Obama supports most of those "no drilling" rules, but that hasn't stopped him from denouncing high gas prices on the campaign trail. He is running TV ads in North Carolina that show him walking through a gas station and declaring that he'll slap a tax on the $40 billion in "excess profits" of Exxon Mobil....You may also be wondering how a higher tax on energy will lower gas prices...

This tiff over gas and oil taxes only highlights the intellectual policy confusion – or perhaps we should say cynicism – of our politicians. They want lower prices but don't want more production to increase supply. They want oil "independence" but they've declared off limits most of the big sources of domestic oil that could replace foreign imports. They want Americans to use less oil to reduce greenhouse gases but they protest higher oil prices that reduce demand. They want more oil company investment but they want to confiscate the profits from that investment. And these folks want to be President?

Read the whole thing.

What Can This Strange Device Be, What Can This Thing Be That She's Found

Comedy gold, as Hillary Clinton encounters what appears to be the first coffee machine she's ever seen in her life:

Ego Over Country

I've missed a host of Obama stories over the last couple weeks, but the man's talent for painting himself into corners seems to have overpowered his gift for charming his way out of them this time:

Barack Obama, March 18th:

As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother...

Barack Obama, April 29th:

The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church. They certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs... I want to use this press conference to make people absolutely clear that obviously whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this.

So what was the heinous crime that finally led Obama to renounce his former pastor? It wasn't Wright's claim that the United States created AIDS to kill black people. That was already out of the bag when Obama played Wright as a "crazy uncle", seemingly displaying limitless fraternal love for a man most politically moderate Americans would've long since banned from their family dinner tables. The ideas Obama is condemning now are all old news.

Instead, the factor that made this the final straw was personal:

And what I think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing...more importantly, I don't think he showed much concern for what we are trying to do in this campaign and what we're trying to do for the American people and with the American people...That's -- that's a show of disrespect to me.

When Wright declared that the Bible says God damns America for passing the three-strikes law, that the September 11th attacks were somehow a result of Apartheid and of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that wasn't enough to change Obama's relationship with the Reverend. No, what disgusted Obama enough to dump this "member of his family" was not Wright's enthusiastic loathing for the society which Obama aspires to lead, but rather that Wright "angered" and "disrespected" Obama, didn't "show concern" for what he's trying to do.

So is Wright correct, then, that Obama's comments have been empty (and ill-considered) political posturing, or is it that these are Obama's real priorities? Why do each of Obama's mistakes always come down to the question of whether he's naive or secretly reprehensible, and if it's always the former, just how dopey of a Presidential candidate do the Democrats think they can get away with nominating?

Update: Hilarity at IMAO.

So apparently another issue that McCain and Obama disagree on is whether Jeremiah Wright is a legitimate issue. McCain says it isn't, Obama says it is. Will McCain now denounce Obama as voraciously as the North Carolina Republicans?

Do you think Jeremiah Wright hates America? Before you answer too quickly, think about it. Now, what he says makes it sound like he hates America, but what about his actions? The way he's going around right now spouting crazy stuff makes it seem like he's dead set on sinking the Obama candidacy, and is there a better way than that to show your love of America?

Also, read this.

"I was unaware that Jeremiah Wright was a crazy man," he told them. "This is something I've just become aware of... and not something I ignored previously for political expediency. I totally just found out about it now."

"But didn't you quote Wright ranting about 'white greed' in your book Dreams from My Father?" another reporter asked.

"I've never read that book," Obama answered.

Heh.

The Campaign Lives

Hillary's Pennsylvania victory over Comrade Campaign Error makes this approach seem almost viable:

She Is Not, However, Being "Pimped Out"

Chelsea Clinton, on the campaign trail.

Chelsea Clinton stopped traffic Friday night as she wandered the streets of Philadelphia on a gay bar crawl, winning rave reviews for both her politics and her appearance.

Led around the neighborhood by Gov. Ed Rendell, Chelsea was mobbed by local gays and lesbians, as she walked from one club to the next. They ran up to hug her, posed for pictures and certainly invaded her personal space.

"I grabbed her ass," one young woman exclaimed to her friends after snapping a picture with her arm around the former first daughter.

"Are you going inside?" one woman asked.

"I don't know," Chelsea replied. "I'm mostly just following directions."

More scenes from this spectacle here, culminating in one man's assertion that Hillary has "the ass of life", whatever that means.

Andrea Myers, 26, said she was undecided between Clinton and Barack Obama in Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary until she heard Chelsea was going to be at the bar.

"Once I heard I was a lot more excited," she said as her sister and girlfriend danced and kissed behind her.

"These are important voters, they're smart, they're sophisticated and they turn out in large numbers and always have," Rendell said.

Smart and sophisticated: choosing your candidate for President of the United States based on who shows up at your favorite nightclub.

Would it have a blimp station?

Frank J. asks the pressing question of our time:

How come when someone says a gated community of Ron Paul supporters, the thing that pops into mind is Arkham Asylum?

I'd go with the Island of Misfit Libertarian Conservatives, or maybe the Island of Dr. Paul.

I kid, I kid.

He's Back

Silvio Berlusconi has returned to once again server as Italy's Prime Minister.

Berlusconi defeated Walter Veltroni's "Democratic Party" by a full 9 points in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies....The big news is that the Communists are gone, for the first time since the end of the Second World War. Really gone. They didn't win a single seat in either chamber. A lot of famous faces will vanish from Parliament, and it is even possible, although unlikely, that some of the comrades will be forced to join the working class. The Greens are also gone. In fact, there are only six parties in the new Parliament, suggesting that Italy's well on the road to a two-party political system instead of the dreadful proportional electoral model that has destroyed virtually every country where it's been applied. If that happens, a lot of the credit goes to Veltroni, who created a real center-left party and refused to admit the old Left.

Tomorrow's papers will pretend that this didn't happen, and warn that Berlusconi's allies in the Northern League are mercurial and dangerous, and that his majority isn't as stable as it looks. But it is. And there's an even more annoying feature to these elections, as seen by the chattering classes: Berlusconi is an outspoken, even passionate admirer of George W. Bush and the United States of America. Reminds one of the elections that brought Sarkozy to the Elysee, doesn't it? Best to keep that quiet, or somebody might notice that hatred of America doesn't seem to affect the voters in Italy, France or Germany....At least Italy won't have to suffer with the likes of Massimo D'Alema any more. He's the former prime minister and recent foreign minister who proudly announced that major part of his time was devoted to protecting Iran from American pressure. He'll now spend more time on his proletarian yacht, usually based in Croatia.

Berlusconi, who started his public life as a singer on cruise ships, is so stereotypically Italian that he even commissioned two albums of love songs which he had written. This week, he's spurred outrage by referring to his country's illegal immigrants as "an army of evil", but has also reportedly promised to entertain proposals to divide Italy in autonomous federal jurisdictions, hopefully soothing traditional regional divides.

He's really a rather surreal figure.

Run For Your Life

Barack Obama reportedly wants to cut spending on new military technology, jack up the capital gains tax and put Al Gore in a top cabinet position.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is already improving our image abroad.

The Bosnian girl who famously read a poem to Hillary Rodham Clinton during her 1996 visit to the war-torn country is shocked - and her countrymen infuriated - that the former first lady claimed to have dodged sniper fire that day.

Emina Bicakcic, now 20 and studying to become a doctor, told The Post she stood on the tarmac at the air base in Tuzla, greeted Clinton and even had time to share the lines of verse she'd written - all without fear of attack from an unseen enemy.

Sema Markovic, 22, a student, said she has long respected Hillary as a strong leader but was angered by her remarks.

"It is an ugly thing for a politician to tell lies,' she said. "We had problems for years, and I don't like when someone lies about them. It makes us look bad."

Now, Bill says she tried to join the Army after law school. Who are they kidding with this?

Only the superdelegates have the wisdom to choose between these two mighty titans of the "progressive" movement.