"When I go to Iraq..."

We are shocked, shocked to find that there is politics going on in Obama's campaign. If you can image such a thing, it seems that the junior senator from Chicago is now mouthing words indicating that he is toying with the idea of thinking about the suggestion that perhaps he might consider the possibility of reformulating his hitherto firm and unalterable stand regarding certain elements of his general policy with regard to a position that could have some bearing on such issues as the alacrity or its lack of implementing and enforcing and executing in a felicitous manner a timeline for the removal and redeployment of that particular contingent of the armed forces currently committed to maintaining a visible projection of US force and prestige in that geopolitical region of the globe commonly designated as the Middle East, with specific reference to the nation state of Iraq. His former, unnuanced position was that all combat troops would be out within sixteen months of his taking office.

Obama won the leftist Democifist race by toting the defeatist barge, laden as it is with only cotton candy, pace Churchill. Out in sixteen months, hell or highwater. As Politico reports, the "original Obama plan, still on his website, promises: 'Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.'" In his written plan for Iraq, Obama assures us that "The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to begin immediately to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year — now."

Very clear. Such integrity. And poor Hillary, undone by her own steadfast integrity in this singularity. She wouldn't flip. And because he was catering to the left, Obama didn't have to -- the young man had no voting record to defend. Now that he has effectively secured the nomination, he needs to waltz himself back toward the center of the dance floor, and seem, you know, sort of middle-of-the-road. That's all the overture. Here's the oratorio.

According to Politico, "a top Obama adviser had said that the senator is not 'wedded' to a specific timeline." Not wedded to it; it only sounded that way. A good thing, too, since he is already wedded to Michelle, and for all that he's gung ho for gay marriage, this bigamy thing is just too much for him. He does after all have experience with bigamy, seeing as how that's the very reason he was the son of a single mother. A low blow, you think? Only if he has ever made a pretense of upholding the institution of marriage. Judge that matter for yourself.

"Obama told reporters in Fargo, N.D., that he is 'going to do a thorough assessment.'" Yes. An "assessment" -- a word with such a very different nuance than that unwieldy cudgel of a word he avoided using, re-assessment -- no matter that it might actually have been more descriptively accurate. "When I go to Iraq," says Obama, "and I have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I'm sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies."

When his spin doctors became enervated ... no, wait ... when they became energized by the radioactive blogger response, Obama raced to the nearest microphone and assured us -- or would it be re-assured? -- that his "position has not changed. I have not equivocated on that position. I am not searching for maneuvering room with respect to that position. ...I will always listen to the advice of commanders on the ground, but that ultimately, I'm the person who is making the strategic decisions."

Because, you see, we needed to be assured that he would always listen to the advice of commanders on the ground. We were afraid that he wouldn't do that. We were afraid that he would stick like a stubborn groom by the side of his bride. Now we are assured that such is not the case. I think that's what we are assured. But maybe it's that he will not stick to his timeline bride. But in any event, we know that he will be the one making the strategic decisions. That in itself is a relief, if we were afraid that someone else would be making the strategic decisions during his administration. So I'm glad that's all cleared up.

As for his nuanced pivoting on Iraq, it leads us to confront that hoary old bugaboo from the long-ago '04 election season, namely, the term flip-flop. It was used recently for McCain's changed opinion on off-shore drilling. So? Let's do it again, that very basic tactic, of defining our terms. A flip-flop is not just some change of opinion. Flip-flops are bad, unless it's about gymnastics. A change of position could be good or bad. The deciding factor is in the outcome. Was someone wrong before, and now is right? Such a change is a good thing. Change to a correct position is a very good thing. It means many things to many people. We want more of that. See? When circumstances change dramatically, old positions may need to be updated. Gas prices have doubled in a few months. Big change. Time for some new thinking. Easy.

A flip-flop isn't a mere reversal of position. It's a reversal of a substantive position, for purely political, cynical, personal advantage. It has nothing to do with nuance. It has to do with forsaking a semblance of integrity for shallow and painfully obvious expedience. And the rubes won't even notice. It is not to be confused for that honest reassessment required by the appearance of new and radical changes in real-world circumstances.

Even firm promises should be abandoned, when fulfilling them would betray the purpose they were meant to assure. Our own integrity should take the blows, rather than the welfare of those we must protect. We'll look like fools? -- like weaklings? -- like hacks, liars, hypocrites? Better that appearance, than its reality, if we put our own egos first, over the higher good that politicians are supposed to guard.

Wisdom agrees with reality. Wisdom is about finding the right course of action. Wisdom is careful in the promises it makes, and it is honest about admitting its errors. Wisdom starts to look a lot like humility, after a while. So let's round ourselves up to the beginning again. Either Obama is willing to change his promise for premature withdrawal -- and what horror might be conceived from such an illegitimate contraceptive -- or he will be true to his troth of unending fidelity to the defeatist left. Who knows? All we can know is that his oratory continues to proclaim our defeat, in flagrant contradiction to the actual changed reality on the ground. It's all so confusing, then, these motifs of flops and changes and integrity and wisdom and nuance and marriage. I've lost track.

What I can keep my eye on, though, is that simple single truth, that the job of a leader isn't to look and sound good, but to bring about the best, the wisest outcome for the nation. It's not about speeches and spin and positions and postures. I'm so sick of what other people think integrity is. They should maybe think about defining the term. Like they should define assessment, and defeat, and marriage, and that host of other indefinite and mutable concepts that we bandy about when we argue with idiots. But any consequent new understanding might require a change of position. And that would be baaaaaaad.

"When I go to Iraq..." There was something about that phrase that just resonated. A Broadway musical? If ever I should leave you...? No, that's not it. It must be this (and isn't it oddly how my mind works): "when you were young, you would gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go." I don't know why I see a connection. How odd.


J

Colons, Semi

So, to summarize, Obama:

• flipped on public financing of campaigns;
• flopped on NAFTA;
• flapped on telecom immunity for post-Sept. 11 wiretaps;
• flepped on disowning his pastor along with his own white grandmother and/or black community;
• flupped on the Constitutionality or its absence of gun-ownership bans;
• flouped on the bitterness of Fly-Over religionists;
• flaiped on the substitutional patriotism of flagpin wearing;
• floyaped on welfare reform;
• flieped on total opposition to the death penalty;
• floweped on unconditional talks with Iranian holyman the Ayatollah Ahmadinejad;
• flueped on being wedded to his unrefined reassessment of his Iraq retreat; and
• floiped on the Jews and their divided Jewrusalem.

We are disturbed or pleased to note, however, that he has as yet neither flighped on his firm stance regarding Gay Marriage, nor fleauped on his dearly held convictions about Abortion. Perhaps we have located his core. Time, and tide, will tell.


J

A Commonplace Book

I don't suppose I have anything terribly interesting to say about The Brethren's recent pronouncement as to whether or not Americans have the right to bear arms. Turns out that they're gonna let us, at least for a while longer. Whew. Funny sort of how it's DC that instigated this latest crisis. The seat of governance, with its crack addict mayor and its zero tolerance for self defense. Bizarroland.

But there's one idea that struck me. The Bill of Rights. Isn't it supposed to, well, not grant rights, but spell out the explicit fact that we have them, certain unalienable rights? How is it then that the Second Amendment could possibly, could conceivably be used to limit our rights? Doesn't that sound absolutely insane? The Second Amendment is somehow interpreted by some of the Just-Us-es to mean that individuals do not have the right to bear arms? That right, of self-protection, derives from some permission of the state? It is a corporate right, depending on the existence of a well regulated militia? Because the Founding Fathers were syndicalists? who had a profound distrust of independence and self-sufficiency?

They sometimes come right out and say it. They don't believe in original intent. The Constitution is a living breathing penumbric thing, like a giant gasbag or hotair balloon or phagocytic amoeba, that expands and contracts according to the momentary digestive state of the ex-lawyer who happens to be squatting over the bench. It doesn't mean anything, it's just a guide book, like where to find a good meal, if you happen to crave, say, some Chicken Kiev.

Is that what the Constitution is? -- a recipe book that lets you whip up anything your palate fancies? Today abortion, tomorrow no guns? Funny. I took it for something more. Not just a scrapbook of carelessly gathered suggestions, a sort of Hints from Heloise that you might line the birdcage with, or frame, or whatever, just depending on the mood of the day. That's what living and breathing must be, they assure us; it means everything, they assure us and reassure us, all the while of course nodding sententiously and affirming that the Constitution is a Very Good Thing -- which it is, but it means Many Things to Many People, as has been proven decisively in these pages. But here, allow me to excerpt the salient passage of Justice Kennedy's opinion:

The Constitution means many things to many people. It is a very good thing. To some, it seems bad. To others it seems good. It means many things. Many people have different ideas about it. Some think it is good. Others think it is bad. It means many things. People like it, while other people do not. The different ideas that many people have about it mean many things to them. There are many opinions. Many people have opinions about this. It is a very good thing.

This is echoed by Souter, who wrote in eerily similar prose:

Gun control means many things to many people. It is a very good thing. To some, it seems bad. To others it seems good. It means many things. Many people have different ideas about it. Some think it is good. Others think it is bad. It means many things. People like it, while other people do not. The different ideas that many people have about it mean many things to them. There are many opinions. Many people have opinions about this. It is a very good thing.

So it's a good thing that the Constitution includes provisions whereby gun ownership is so clearly forbidden: unless there's a militia, which there isn't, there can be no guns. After all, isn't that what a Bill of Rights is for? To limit freedom? I don't know what's wrong with that tiny conservative majority on the court. Don't they get it? It's like that First Amendment, which is all about limiting the power of religious people, and excluding them from any influence in government. Separation of Church and State, dude -- it's spelled out right there, in those very Constitutional words. Can't your read? And the free press -- don't you see? The press is a group! The Constitution is all about groups, not individuals. Don't you get it? Just go down the list. You will find that the Constitution abhors the individual and exalts the village. Duh.

I can't wait till Obama makes those court appointments. It's time we moved back to a simpler way of doing things, a tribal way, with communal firepits that burn low-greenhouse-gas-emitting animal and human waste products, and where we can burn off all those carbs by hauling water in leather bags and clay pots. What's old is new again. My vision is almost perfect in its harmony. How can you tell? Cuz guns just don't fit into that idyllic tableau, now, do they.

We won't even need writing. Constitution? What's that? We'll just make it up as we go.


J

Frogs

Golly, sometimes I just can't get over myself. "O-blame-ah". That's so rich. I'm hilarious. How come people keep misunderstanding me? Idiots. Of course nobody else could be expected to be as witty as me. What a ridiculous idea. But still, they could try, couldn't they? Like Charles Krauthammer. He tries ... well, he's not so much about witty as smart. Like me, cuz I'm so smart, too, like I'm witty. Well, fact is -- and don't tell anyone about this -- I steal most of my ideas from Krauthammer.

So there's me, and Krauthammer ... who reminds us of Oblameah's continuing resolve to abandon yet one more commitment, like a bigamist father who goes back to his original family on another continent. Rather than "continue a policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave men and women in uniform and nothing of Iraqi politicians [... says Obama, it's] time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their future."

We'll pass over in silence his gratuitous and cynical use of the boilerplate 'brave'. We know all about the unspoken qualifiers that must inevitably accompany such a word out of the mouth of a liberal. But Krauthammer takes exception with the entire premise of the the statement. "We know Obama hasn't been to Iraq in more than two years, but does he not read the papers? Does he not know anything about developments on the ground?" Then Krauthammer outlines the situation:

• PM Nouri al-Maliki used the Iraqi army to take back the port city of Basra, squelch the Mahdi Army and oust the Iranian-backed militias.
• The Iraqi army then subdued the entire south, from Basra to Baghdad, prevailing in Najaf, Karbala, Hilla, Kut, Nasiriyah and Diwaniyah.
• Then the Iraqi army took and occupied the mad Mahdi's Sadr City.
• Then the PM flew to Mosul, where he directed the joint forces that drove out al-Qaeda from its last stronghold.
• Politically, the Iraqi parliament passed a de-Baathification law, demonstrating significant movement toward political reconciliation.
• It also enacted other meaningful benchmarks -- "a pension law, an amnesty law, and a provincial elections and powers law. Oil revenues are being distributed to the provinces through the annual budget."
• The Sunni faction, given clear evidence of Maliki's political will, began meaningful "negotiations to join the Shiite-led government."

But what are facts, when there are speeches to be made? A mellifluous baritone makes everything true. Hushabye, little babies.

"Obama promises that upon his inauguration, he will order the Joint Chiefs to bring him a plan for withdrawal from Iraq within 16 months. McCain says that upon his inauguration, he'll ask the Joint Chiefs for a plan for continued and ultimate success." The Dhem surge toward defeat is too obvious to wade through. Who can wade through a quagmire anyway. The path to victory, as Krauthammer sees it, is clear. There are three fronts, against Sunni al-Queda, Shiite militias, and Iran.

Al-Qaeda "chose to turn [Iraq] into the central front in its war against America. That choice turned into an al-Qaeda fiasco: al-Qaeda in Iraq is now on the run and in the midst of stunning and humiliating defeat. As for the Shiite extremists, the Mahdi Army is isolated and at its weakest point in years." And as for the hand in the puppet, Iran "has suffered major setbacks, not just in Basra, but in Iraqi public opinion..."

Krauthammer is almost completely correct. He just neglects that other, fourth, home front, which is somehow a fifth column. The Left. The small-A big-L american Left. The Frogressives, pace Aristophanes. That fractious faction that insists once again on slurping the blowfly of defeat off the lily pad of victory. Working out their father-issues, no doubt. But as every communist knows, you don't beat America on the battlefield. It's the homefront where the Left strikes hardest. Something to do with self-loathing, no doubt. But frogs are after all pretty loathsome. And they just love quagmire.

Wouldn't it be nice if Oblameah's resolve in the matter of cut-and-run were the same as it was to not throw his Grandmama Uncle Mufti from the train and under the bus and into the madhouse and off his committees and out of NAFTA and public campaign financing and divided Jerusalem and talking with terrorists and oh I don't quite remember whatall? Wouldn't it be nice if the Change he keeps intoning about was just about the way he changes his mind? Change We Can Believe In. Yes We Can. Hope, because, because, y'see y'see y'see. Uh.


J

B-Iraq O-blame-ah

Yeah, it's labored. Too cute by half. But so is Obama. Not the "labor" part -- he does not seem to have done his homework. But he's so dreamy.

Two weeks ago BHO sent a little note to the Sec of Def. Thomas Sowell takes issue with how the note ended: "I look forward to your swift response." Says Sowell, "With wars going on in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a Secretary of Defense might have some other things to look after, before making a 'swift response' to a political candidate." True, but Senators are supposed to be important too. And it is a very grown-up sounding way to end a letter, don't you think? Very lawyerly and community organizerly. It need not indicate an overblown sense of self-importance. To find that quality, we need only look at Sen Obama and his campaign. We can do that, yes we can.

The gist of the note? Well, suicide rates are high among American troops, so, Mr or Ms Sec of Def:

• What changes will you make to provide our soldiers in theater with real access to mental health care?
• What training has the Pentagon provided our medical professionals in theater to recognize who might be at risk of committing suicide?
• What assistance are you providing families here at home to recognize the risk factors for suicide, so that they may help our service members get the assistance they need?
• What programs has the Pentagon implemented to help reduce the stigma attached to mental health concerns so that service members are more likely to seek appropriate care?

It is a shame that troop suicides are up. It must have something to do with added stress. But it seems somehow relevant to observe that this rate is still significantly lower than that of demographically comparable civilians. It's healthier, still, to be in the military. We got the same signal distortion a while back with regard to homicides committed by returned vets -- my goodness, look at how MANY there are! Alas for the left, the rate is still much lower than that of civilians. Hm. Well, never mind. The military is bad. Terrorists don't kill people, branches of government kill people. Uh, not the good branches though like food stamps and free needles.

It is certainly a bias on my part, that expects hardly any member of the left to pay more than mere lip service to concern over the welfare of the troops, abroad or returned. I see it as just posturing -- Look at me caring about these babykillers I mean idiots oops, uh, dropouts er uh y'see y'see y'see, what I mean to say is that they're gonna start talkin bout race ... sup widat? There's a possibility that my bias is wrong. But just as I personally really do not care at all about Global Warming, although I will tsk tsk over the thought of sinking islands, and polar bears that are newly endangered yet have a rising population, and frozen NY harbors, and trees that put you to sleep and then get you to kill yourself, these are not really issues that I care about. Thus, when Obama speaks about the troops, I will insist on hearing the not-unspoken demographic he puts them in, of bitter gunslinging religion-clingers.

I don't really care if or that Obama is cocky and arrogant. I'm arrogant, although not cocky. It's nobody else's business, provided I, we, get the job done expeditiously. I care more about his shallowness, his glibness. I used to be that way too, but I have generally outgrown it, and even if I haven't, my influence is minimal, and proportionate to my vices. Were I to put myself forward for a place of standing in the world, I'd have to spend some weeks or months in concerted prayer and fasting. Too much bother. I'll stay unimportant.

Obama doesn't have that excuse. He thinks being lanky and having a modulated baritone is all the job requirement there is. His innate personal attributes are all the qualifications he needs. He hasn't picked up yet on the fact that he isn't running for class president. There's a war on. One that will continue most especially if and when he forsakes the field of battle. This is no time for glibness.

Sowell asks a few questions of his own:

• Does Senator Obama know how the rate of suicides or homicides among military veterans compares to the rate of suicides or homicides among their civilian counterparts?
• Do the facts matter to him, as compared to an opportunity to score political points?
• ...do the media even care whether Senator Obama knows what he is talking about?
• ...is the symbolism of 'the first black President' paramount, even if that means a President with cocky ignorance at a time of national danger?

I'm sure a swift response would be looked forward to.


J

BOndage

Sen Obama claims that "more young black men languish in prison than attend colleges and universities." Bad news, eh? But George Will corrects the error: "Actually, more than twice as many black men 18-24 are in college as there are in jail." Oh. A factual error, then, from the Obama camp. Obama claims, "We have a system that locks away too many young, first-time, nonviolent offenders for the better part of their lives." Actually, says Will, "from 1999 to 2004, violent offenders accounted for all of the increase in the prison population."

Is it racism, all racism, as post-racial hopeful Obama implies? -- "We have certain sentences that are based less on the kind of crime you commit than on what you look like and where you come from." If that's true, it's really bad. And how could it not be true, since in 2006 blacks made up 37.5% of the prison population, while comprising less than 13% of the general population? Picture's looking grim for America, eh?

Here's how it isn't true: The "reason more blacks are disproportionately in prison, and for longer terms, is not racism but racial differences in patterns of criminal offenses..." Will cites statistics to the effect that the black homicide rate is more than seven times higher than that of the rest of the entire population. "From 1976 to 2005, blacks committed over 52 percent of all murders. ...The race of criminals reported by crime victims matches arrest data."

Is it all crack? -- crack equals black and therefore greater penalties? "It's going to take a lot more than 5,000 or so (federal) crack defendants a year to account for the 562,000 black prisoners in state and federal facilities at the end of 2006 -- or the 858,000 black prisoners in custody overall, if one includes the population of county and city jails." Yes, crack is a scourge, another scourge across black backs. Who wields the whip, though. Some, closely associated with Obama, would say the CIA. We are in the process of testing their credibility.

Will quotes James Q. Wilson, whom he styles America's premier social scientist: after a decade's worth of carefully conducted studies, it is evident that "states that sent a higher fraction of convicts to prison had lower rates of crime, even after controlling for all of the other ways -- poverty, urbanization, and the proportion of young men in the population -- that the states differed. A high risk of punishment reduces crime. Deterrence works." Thus, higher incarceration rates equates with lower crime. Not a counterintuitive conclusion, is it, for all that liberals complain about it.

My point? First, where does Obama get his information -- or rather his opinions? From what wellspring has he been drinking, so deeply that his convictions slosh? We know the answer. He sat in a church absorbing it for several decades. He presents his philosophy in a much more plausibly modulated voice than that of his pastoral pals. But whether the tone is dulcet or clangorous, the cadence is the same. Obama may or not be a Black Liberation Theologist. It hardly makes a difference, what his religion is. But his opinions, his precepts, his worldview, they are radical.

Then there's this:


Oh my. And no flag pin, either. That guy behind him might have a pin on -- is it Richardson? -- and he's certainly got his hand where you'd think it belongs. But wait. It isn't, as is commonly reported, the Pledge of Allegiance -- during which time it is customary to place your right hand over your heart, ready, begin. This is during the National Anthem. Sorry. I don't put my hand over my heart during the National Anthem. No disrespect meant. I stand, because it was what I was taught. I stand if it's in public. If not, not. Others will have been taught better than I, or Obama -- or learned it on their own. And something else, in this photo. Obama is frontman. He doesn't see the rest of them. He didn't get the visual cue that the others did. They might as well be holding up bunny ears behind him. So there he is, unflattered by his unmindfulness, but we must be fair, here, and not, not hold it against him.

There are real issues to hold against him. Like his careless disregard for fact. Again, in itself this sometimes happen. It's really the bias behind such carelessness that should set the alarums to pealing. There's a very real chance that Obama will be elected. For a bright guy, he's almost a moron, to hear him wing it. Uhhh, y'see, y'see, y'see... And when not strangely Bushlike, he's just glib, shallow and glib, all about the surface, like a waterwalker -- not the Messiah kind ... more arthropoidal ... light weight. Now, glib is attractive, in the coffee shop, in line maybe, hitting on the chicks ... but ...

Is he going to just charm the Arabs then? Yeah, that'll work. I hope. The fact that Bedouins still hold slaves shall cause me no unease. Cuz, cuz Black Liberation Theology will free Obama from subservience to the Arab, as it does from whitey.


J

BHO

FDR. JFK. LBJ. BHO.

It's what the DEMs do. Make it simple for us. Take intractable problems and pare them down to a few initials. That way a big Deal is made New, and oh so governable. What else after all is humanity itself but a hank of DNA just waiting to be manipulated?

We might however remain slightly skeptical when the tide of Sen Obama's rotund oration flows over us, carrying with it the warm, salty and slightly musky conviction that none have ever loved as we ourselves love now. What else are we to make of his troth?

"Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.”

Jeffrey Lord lays it out for us, how it's all been done before. Forget about the New Deal. LBJ's Great Society saved us in the Sixties from all the trials of humanity. That's why there is no poverty or pollution. You remain unconvinced. Huff. All right then. A partial list.

• College Facilities
• Clean Air
• Vocational Training
• Indian Vocational Training
• Manpower Training
• Federal Airport Aid
• Farm Program
• Pesticide Controls
• International Development Association
• Urban Mass Transit
• Water Resources Research
• Federal Highway
• Civil Service Pay Raise
• War on Poverty
• Truth-in-Securities
• Medicine Bow National Forest
• Ozark Scenic Riverway
• Administrative Conference
• Food Stamps
• Housing Act
• Nurse Training
• Revenues for Recreation
• Library Services
• Federal Employee Health Benefits
• Wilderness Areas

That's a partial list, for around winter of '63/'64. What's that you say? Not enough? You want more and yet even more government programs that will cast away forever the very shadow of human unhappiness? Why, that is so easy! Consider the host of plagues and woes that were banished in 1965 through the gentle ministrations of the following infallible palliatives:

• Medicare
• Aid to Education
• Higher Education
• Four Year Farm Program
• Department of Housing and Urban Development
• Housing Act
• Social Security Increase
• Fair Immigration Law
• Older Americans
• Heart, Cancer, Stroke Program
• Drug Controls
• Mental Health Facilities
• Health Professions
• Medical Libraries
• Vocational Rehabilitation
• Anti-Poverty Program
• Arts and Humanities Foundation
• Aid to Appalachia
• Water Pollution Control
• High Speed Transit
• Community Health services
• Water Resources Council
• Water Desalting
• Juvenile Delinquency Control
• Retirement for Public Servants

LBJ's later years may have been slightly cluttered with international concerns, but the home front was not entirely neglected:

• Child Nutrition
• Rent Supplements
• Clean Rivers
• Child Safety
• Narcotics Rehabilitation
• Water Research
• Water for Peace
• Air Pollution Control
• Education Act
• Deaf-Blind Center
• Safe Streets
• Wholesome Poultry
• School Breakfasts
• Aircraft Noise Abatement
• Better Housing
• Oil Revenues for Recreation
• Juvenile Delinquency Protection
• Guaranteed Student Loans
• Gun Controls
• Aid-to-Handicapped Children
• Hazardous Radiation Protection
• Dangerous Drugs Control

I'm amazed that we even need government anymore, what with how perfect the world was made, 40 years ago. What's left to do? I don't see anything in these lists about AIDS or entirely cost- and consequence-free abortion services -- but it was a darker time then.

So that's it then. All we need to do is get our heads out of the sand and understand that the Dawning of the New Age is at hand, and do the only sensible thing possible.

This fall, we must all vote for the Messiah.



This morning as I lay abed, as yet unsleeping, a thought came to me. Obama gives bad speeches. Aside from his hypnotic intonations themselves, he uses one and only one of the tools available to the writer and orator. He uses a sort of structural repetition. He has no great images, no stirring metaphors. His prose is lackluster. His selection of vocabulary is obvious. Yet the virtue of simplicity is lost amid the verbiage. There is no dramatic build, no mounting up of image and emotion -- he just cracks open the rhetorical thesaurus and says the same thing again with a few different words. And this is supposed to be eloquence.

He's like the adolescent who learned to use sarcasm three months before everyone else. Man, he seemed so smart and funny. But it hardly seems enough to hang a presidency on. Isn't there some other messiah we could vote for?


J

UCH

So now it's time to be serious about Obama. Potentialities are spent. Now it's reality. Which means verbiage like Unity and Change and Hope must be banished for the moment from political discourse like a squirt of tobacco juice, even if only temporarily into a cheek pouch. Hillary's mad eyes for the prize have blinked, and the tall dark steely man from Illinois takes it.

It's been a few days. The numbers, I'm informed, bear it out. I wouldn't know. But I must have faith that they wouldn't lie to me. The first thing I thought was, Hillary will be on the ticket -- this, despite some previous speculations to the contrary that may have appeared in these pages. And that gave me pause. A slight dread. Cuz I do think that ticket could win. For some reason Hillary's supporters, the hardcore ones, value her even over a Dem win, and the story is that they will vote for McCain. Even with a soft right, most of the independents along with the disaffected Dems would still give it to McCain.

Our hope, then, lies in their egos. Hillary would take the deal. And what a deal. It ain't the White House, but Blair House will do. Think of her VP efforts as the Blair Bitch Project. Tee hee. Git it? Bush is stupid, and Hillary is a bitch. See? And would Obama go for it? Today it seemed to me that, no, he wouldn't. This messiah would want a more devout apostle. Cuz what we know, for a certainty, is that Hillary is not about harmony, not about unity, not about the good of any simple abstract. Hillary is all about, well ... you know. Same as Obama.

Ego. Ego will save us.

Unity? Only when it doesn't require compromise. Change? Yeah, to my way of thinking. Hope? Well, I'm winning, right? We will spend spend spend like drunken sailors -- a safe group to disrespect -- and tax to do it, and that won't harm the economy, and health care will banish illness, and an even more centrally-controlled public education will make even the bitter gun-slinging religionists sensible, and gay marriage is in the Constitution. Why, don't you see the point? U-Topia no longer means No-Place. It means 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and its sephorahtic penumbra emanating from number 1 First St. NE, The City of God.

Never mind that the greater part of Obama's actual national experience comes solely from his presidential campaign experience. Ahem. Did you get that? The moribund bulk of his actual experience on the national scene -- everything he will know from first-hand experience -- derives exclusively from delivering set speeches to adoring throngs, and from glad-handing Audi-drivers at upscale mall boutique photo ops. His experience in actual governance will extend no further than balancing his household check book. If he does that. Given his financial dependence on Rezco, it's a doubtful proposition.

Never mind that his life experience has been as a privileged prep-school only-child groomed for unquestioned self-esteem if not for any actual quality of honorable character. Perhaps that was thrown into the mix as well. We would hope so. From this pampered origin he matriculated from several most-elite Universities, into the Career of His Choosing. Something the media elects to style "community organizer." Fast-forward, and he's a "civil rights attorney." Well, it's not a shameful thing, in itself. Sometimes civil rights need an attorney. There was some talk that I can't be bothered to remember about his major and almost-only client being some insider bigwig who ended up funding Obama's political career. So what; all that means, probably, is that he inspires loyalty. That's a good thing. Altogether, a favored if not really inspiring curriculum vitae.

It isn't a matter of qualification. A natural-born citizen aged 35-plus is qualified. Qualified cannot then be the word that embodies our concern. But where is this man's actual talent? In unifying? He just broke from his church of two decades. In making changes? See above. In inspiring hope? Well, yes, but what is hope? If it remains only hope, we might call it an Apple of Sodom -- pleasant to look at, filled with ashes.

His talent is in speech making.

What is it that the left loathes about Bush? His smirking cockiness? His unquestioning self-assurance? His certainty in the rightness of his cause? Um. Surely you see it? How is this not Obama? Bush is incurious where Obama's intelligence is scintillating and far-questing? And the evidence for this is? -- Obama's firm grasp of historical detail? Alas, his bizarre ignorance was blasted into radioactive outline like silhouettes on a Nagasaki wall by his illiterate instant-history about Kennedy meeting with Khrushchev. Not a template for success. A complete disaster, in Kennedy's own estimation, that emboldened Khrushchev to ship nukes to Cuba. And how, Kennedy then wondered, could he show he really was a tough guy? How about boldly facing down International Communism by sending in advisors to Indochine? What could possibly go wrong?

Self-confidence is requisite in a leader. There should be something behind it, that supports it. Neither Bush nor Obama may have been qualified by actual life-experience to assume that office most high. Bush was touched rather more by it, given his job as enforcer for his presidential father, but we'll dismiss that. What separates these two is, simply, ideology. Not all readers here will be conservative. That's fine. Bush isn't all that conservative.

But the distinction between conservative and liberal, between right and left, must be found here: in practicality, or in impracticality. What works? What proves theory, or not? What adapts to reality, rather than requiring that reality conform to opinion, however grand? If mankind were basically good, perfectible, then social engineering would have produced results other than those revealed throughout the previous century. Alas, observation has not supported such a conclusion.

We do the good that we can, without expecting human nature to change. Only circumstances change, by formula. We must deal with humanity as if it were a closed system. We can redistribute resources, but we create nothing new. That requires something from outside the system, the natural system -- it requires the, uh, supernatural. Yes, that is possible too. Not by formula.

Conservatives understand this. We are not sufficient. We all start out idealists. As babies -- the perfect egoists. Then we must learn, less than half of us, that we are not sufficient. I hope you're not confused -- I'm not talking about rugged individualism and self-reliance and indomitable will and all of those marvelous character attributes. I'm talking about knowing that we are limited by our nature. We are our character, and nothing more, that counts.

Obama? What's all this got to do with Obama? The left does not learn from reality. Obama is the most left politician who has ever come within reach of the presidency.

Normally I would say, take heart. America is too sensible. But it isn't, anymore. Gay marriage? It is the perfect symbol of our times. More savory even than abortion. There has always been abortion. But now every wall is shattered, or may be. Because of this, why not? -- why not do what has never before been done? Elect a far left President?

I don't know why not. All I have to go by is the past, and maybe things will turn out differently this time, from all those other ideological revolutions like the French and the Russian and the Chinese and the Cambodian. You know -- change. It could happen, because we believe in hope, which means that things can be different than the past suggests. Somehow, somehow I insist on seeing this as a good thing. And I defy anyone to prove me wrong.


J

Term Paper

Christopher Hitchens says two things here worth repeating. The first is his observation that even if Obama "pulls off a mathematical nomination victory, he has completely lost the first, fine, careless rapture of a post-racial and post-resentment political movement..." Yes. April has been the cruelest month for Obama. The entire justification, rationale, for his candidacy has withered before the searing gaseous eruptions and pyroclastic verborrhea of the Reverend Wright. But this ground has been amply covered, and we need not retrace our steps tonight.

The other point he makes deals with Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama: "I direct your attention to Mrs. Obama's 1985 thesis at Princeton University. Its title (rather limited in scope, given the author and the campus) is 'Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community.' To describe it as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be 'read' at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn't written in any known language."

Well that's just funny. So snide. It's unfair to critique the undergraduate efforts of blooming intellectuals by the standard of actual mature adults. Well, I did try to read it. Gawd. What a slog. It's grueling. A Bataan Death March for the intellect. I perished early along the way, alas -- not so hardy as the indomitable sociology profs of that Golden Age of the Eighties. They just don't make s/he-men like that anymore.

Before I lapsed into the coma from which I only recently emerged -- they'd given me up for dead -- I do seem to recall one telling passage generated by the primitive word-processing program of young Ms. Robinson. And it goes a little something like this ... oh, wait. Wait. What? What's this!?! Great Scot! -- I can't cut and paste! Noooooo!

[an interval ensues, during which we hear inhuman screeches and the sound of breaking wood, sporadically interrupted by long periods of violent sobbing]

Ahem. Well. Yes. Ms. Robinson wrote the following, reproduced here perfectly in person by me manually for your edification.

"As a future Black alumnus, this study is particularly interesting because often times I take my own attitudes about such issues for granted;. never pausing to reflect upon how my experiences at Princeton may somehow have caused my attitudes to change. ...

"Earlier in my college career, there was no doubt in my mind that as a member of the Black community I was somehow obligated to this community and would utilize all of my present and future resources to benefit this community first and foremost. My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before. I have found that no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances underwhich I interact with Whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be Black first and a student second.

"These experiences have made it apparent to me that the path I have chosen to follow by attending Princeton will likely lead to my further integration and/or assimilation into a White cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant. This realization has presently, made my goals to actively utilize my resources to benefit the Black community more desirable."

First, I get it. Alienation. The outsider. Easy. But as a conservative, I find something there that's also really very ugly. She's bought into the leftist class jargon, of course. She is after all a sociology major. And she's chosen to study her own most narrowly defined group -- that is, there's something in it so inordinately and transparently narcissistic. At least I craftily try to hide my self-obsession behind a mask of universal compassion. But young people may be excused for their narcissism and yet imperfect separation from The Group. They are young.

Mrs. Obama, however, is not young. And her Us/Them rhetoric is frankly disturbing. Bizarre even. What's ugly is that, clearly, her earlier adherence to what she was pleased to term the "Black community" has become encoded in generalities, but it is all the more intense for that. She is no longer seeking. She has found her answers, and they are racist. You didn't notice it, the verbal subterfuge. Whenever she uses the word "community", she means the word "race".

I believe her when she says it. This us/them talk. I believe the sincerity of that young woman who wrote that she would actively utilize her resources to benefit the Black community, "first and foremost". I believe that the adult she became believes the same thing, and that the resources that she strives for are those available to the Chief Executive of the United States. I believe that her convictions have hardened, and that she feels no loyalty at all to the United States, and all devotion to the Black community. I believe these things based on hearing long excerpts of her current speeches, brought into focus by the naive honesty of her early writing. The child is father to the man.

We have had racists in the White House before. We've had liberals there as well. We never have had yet a leftist bigot as these terms would currently be understood. What a nightmare. Hillary's fetish is benign by comparison. She's just a big government lefty feminist. There's something that just seems less toxic in being a racist against your own race, as the lefties are, as opposed to being a racist for your race. How primitive. How shameful.

Aren't we past that yet?

How could we put someone like that in the White House?

Remember back when blacks used to smile and say "sir" all the time? Why can't it be like that anymore?


J

Whether Report

It's obvious by now. Obama will certainly be the Dem nominee. The clinton backroom dealings and bullyings and blackmailings and extortions and threats and backroom dealings and threats just won't be enough. The electability argument won't do it either -- their only honorable tactic, which has the disadvantage of having some honesty behind it. The slimy pol superdeligates, upon whom the clintons base all their dynastic dreams, will look at the clinton threats, and then at their own, local, real constituents, and they will not alienate their, er, base. When faced with the carrot or the stick, they know on what side their bread is buttered. Civil war among the Dems, if they go with Hillary. So Obama, of course. It's not about winning. It's about surviving.

What do I think? How gracious of you to ask. If they go with Obama, well, this Obama ascendancy is not a bad thing. Cuz Obama is unelectable.

Charm just won't do it. Fantastic oratory style won't do it either. The gloss has worn off, you see. His confidence has shown through, on occasion, as arrogance. No biggie in itself, but not what we want in our messiahs. His poise sometimes turns to petulance. And he has mannerisms when speaking off-the-cuff that simply will not do. At all. The repetition of a conjunction while he's organizing his thoughts. He should fill that time with silence, or uhs and ums. I won't say why. Maybe you'll see it yourself. ... I know. Don't blame me. And something I noticed months and months ago. He is the village explainer. Because because because because because, because of the wonderful things he does. He says because a lot. And what follows the because isn't really an explanation at all. It's rhetoric. Watch for it.

Now you may not think any such things matter. But he was so beautiful. And now he's just a hackish pol. That he wheeled his grandmother to the sidewalk where he kicked her to the curb while waiting for a bus to throw her under, and when it didn't come, dragged her by the hair to the train depot so he could throw her off one, well, that was a clue. That he sat in a Black Liberation Theology church for several decades and somehow managed to leave that sanctuary claiming to be a uniter ... that's just kind of amusing. But the thing that we will be hearing time and again, come the general election, is that he said, in his Philadelphia Speech for the Ages -- which was as big a load of nothing as I've ever heard -- that he could no more (ahem) disown his Reverend Wright than he could disown the black community. Given the events of the past few weeks, culminating in his carefully couched but very clear disowning of the Reverend Wright, well, how obvious does it have to be?

It's as much a question of judgment, as character was the issue with clinton.

And, honestly, honestly, can you imagine hearing that wife of his, for the next four years? Michelle? My clamorous bell? She goes on and on about the moving bar, that THEY are always moving. So you get your MAs and MBAs and PhDs and, uh, other fancy degrees, so that you can do your dream job, but then your student loans are so high that you can't take that teaching job you wanted in the first place.

Ahem.

My dear child. One can be a teacher -- or a community organizer, or a, uh, abortion councelor (yes, have an abortion, have several, they're free), or a drug councelor (here's how you tie off a vein properly, honey, for all them heroin shots you'll be needing), or just a bleeding hearted lefty social engineer of whatever ilk you might require -- without accruing several hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. That's what community colleges are for. Community organizer college. When we make the sacrifices we do make, to take our dream jobs, we can't blame that choice on THEM. Did you not know, dear one, that you'd have to repay your student loan? If you knew it, how was the bar moved?

She's supposed to be bright. She got a job out of college in a major bigtime lie office. Lefty, I seem to recall. If she'd stayed there for a couple more years, she'd have paid off her debt lickety split. Where, pray, is there room for complaint here? And the 10000 dollars she shells out on music lessons for her kids, well, that ain't hay. But damn THEM anyways. Cuz she wants a pony too.

Yes, it's very possible for bright people to be unspeakably stupid. That would be the best judgment I could make. The other, and sadly more likely one, is that she's just manipulating. Grievance-mongering. Uh, uniting. Uniting us against THEM.

You think Hillary was bad? Is bad? Or maybe you think she's terrif? In any case there's another one waiting in the wings. Suddenly I feel cold. So very cold.

But it's the Obamas in '08. Thankfully, McCain will win, whether you like it or not. I say thankfully, because he'll be much less horrible than the others. As for 2012, well, that's the year the Mayan calendar informs us the world as we know it will end. Finally. I don't think it's talking about Jesus, though. More likely the giant motherships awaiting us per Obama's Wright's Farrakhan. Well, not us, per se, since that would have to include me, and nobody wants me. So you don't have to worry about 2012. You grasshoppers can fiddle the days away, McCain calling the tune, Global Warming coming under control, mild winters forecast in the meantime, and in a brief handful of years it will all be over.


J

Vermin

I hardly feel like trudging through this muck again -- it all seems so superfluous. But let's go through the motions. Obama and his comment over the weekend. Someone asked him about his feelings on abortion. Well, we know about that already. He has a 100% rating from the abortionist lobby ... you know, Planned Parenthood -- organized by Margaret Sanger to exterminate the black and other inferior races. You think I'm kidding? This stellar organization has since expanded its portfolio to be against all races ... well, no, not the animal races, just the human race. But I digress. PP is so very much in favor of Obama, since he is so in favor of them. They're the sugar in each other's coffee. We should write a song about it.

Anyways, Hugh Hewitt was going on about this sound byte. Some dude queried Obama on the matter, and he said, "Look, I got two daughters -- 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first about values and morals. But -- if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at age 16. So it doesn't make sense to not give them information."

Well, of course the thing to latch on to there is the idea of punishment. Mothers are punished with babies. You know, the way teenagers who have sex in slasher movies are punished ... only it's the babies who get slashed. Did you know that babies are a punishment? Obama's two daughters must be punishments. Could I be wrong? Unwanted babies are punishments, and wanted fetuses are babies. Or something. Anyway, the fetus has no intrinsic value. It's entirely optional. Like the humanity of, oh, say, Africans in the slave market. If they're on the block, not quite human. If holding the whip, human. Get it? Perfectly logical, if you accept the premise, of: humanity is debatable.

Babies are not punishments. Neither are they blessings. These are such arbitrary labels, after all. What babies are, universally, in the animal kingdom, are duties.

Obama is a bright guy, and he realized even as the words slipped from his lips what would be made of them. So he immediately clouded the issue with a non sequitur, conflating abortion with sex ed. The question wasn't about 'giving them information.' And, obviously, the link between abortion and STDs --  properly, VD -- the link is not as solid as glib consideration would make it seem. Both may result from intercourse, but it is as much as to say that air causes cancer -- living things need air, and may get cancer. Um, well, no? I could labor through the logic of it, but why bother. Upshot is, pregnancy is not a punishment. Put more poignantly, life is not a disease.

And then there's this idea of morals and values. Just what precisely, I wonder, is Obama going to teach his little girls about moralsandvalues? It's a tricky issue for me to talk about, because I don't want to go laying any heavy head trips on y'all. We will, all of us, fail to live up to our moralsandvalues, where ever we may have learned them. But what Obama must intend on teaching his little girls is that when they might slip and fall and make some mistake, one of their moralvalues is that the pregnancy may be terminated. That's his value, after all. And if that choice is included in his values, then teen pregnancy can't really be immoral. So why bring morality into the discussion of abortion? There is a public debate, but there wouldn't be a debate going on in Obama's own mind, or in his moral instructions to his children.

If that reasoning seems muddy, it's because Obama's thinking is muddy. Abortionists have muddy thinking on the matter. If you disagree, please, please tell me where I'm wrong. I'll be sarcastic with you only if you're sarcastic with me.

Ah well. I told you I didn't want to jump through these tiresome hoops. It's always the same old circus. Words are useless, and thinking is hard. But how else will anyone come to an understanding of the magnitude of this issue? We kill babies in America. Legally. I'm all for legal killing. Wars. Executions. You know, enemies. But babies? I don't think much about it. It would make me heartsick.

It must be a bit creepy, for Obama's daughters, though, when they finally realize that they were a choice, to which the answer could have been a bloody NO. How grateful these children should be, to have been allowed to be born. How generous the parents must be, to assume the pain of their existence. So noble.

My son was never a choice. He was always a person.


J

Wind Tunnel

Just an observation about Obama. He talks so much about hope and unity. That's his whole appeal. His campaign is built on it. Then he's got this racist separatist of a preacher.

The problem isn't that Obama has a racist for a mentor. The problem is that, in 20 years, he was unable or unwilling to make a meaningful difference in that relationship. The preacher certainly was not influenced. Was Obama? Again, not really important. I don't care if Obama is a racist, in his heart. Only what he does matters. Or doesn't do. What he hasn't done is anything effective.

If he cannot bring about any sort of transformation in those with whom he has the most intimate contact, what rationale could we possible employ to suppose he could influence American society? Based on the small record of which we know, Obama has disqualified himself as the agent of the change he pretends to urge. It's all just pretty speeches. Did he make pretty speeches to Wright? Or just listen? In any case, his words had no effect. On what other basis can he claim authority?

Another blow hole politician. No thanks. At least McCain has done something in his life.


J

Throwing Grandma Under the Bus

Some pretend to suppose that only whites can be racist. Typical victimic grievance-mongering identity rhetoric. I'm sure they've bothered to cobble some sort of working definition of the term, racist. It would have to be a very specialized, very narrowly focused definition. Like something out of Bierce's Devil's Dictionary. A tautology, where the conclusion contains the premise rather than working out from it. Racism is what whites do, because all whites are racist. Something like that.

Yep, race sure is in the news a lot lately. I should have thought we were past all that. But someone keeps bringing it up. The sagacious mavens in our fairly balanced media? The poisonous bigots in the Republican Party? I just can't quite put my finger on it. Oh. Yes, now I recall. The Rev. J. Wright, of Trinity Church, Chicago. He just keeps going on and on about it. Race race race. So much racing, you'd think he'd have arrived by now. Instead, he's way back there in the Sixties. Maybe he's not talking loud enough?

I know a few black men, not many, but I don't know many of anybody. I notice the "brother" talk, but it's not my business, and anyway there's nothing wrong with being in a club. We all need our myths. Mine is the greatness of America. What I don't notice is a great deal of difference in the quality of character, in one group over another. As individuals, that is. As individuals, we're all pretty decent. As groups, we do seem to merge into our stereotypes. That's fine. Individuals aren't stereotypes, but groups are. Regression to the mean. The point? Wright, and his encouragement to racism. How outre. It would be pathetic, except it's part of a real thing. There is a lot of racism -- the sort that favors one person over another, solely because of race. Ugly. From whom does this ugliness emanate? The Rev. Wright, of course, specifically, and his vast flock, in general.

My definition of racism, you see, isn't the leftist one that college professors profess to believe. I don't hold that only the people with the power can be racist. They certainly can be racist. But I don't see the world in terms of class and other Marxist conceits. I try to see it in terms of individual conduct. Racism, to me, is "being unfair" because of some genetic or culturally neutral difference. We don't have to be overly precise. This isn't an argument. Thus, under my definition, it is clear that anyone can be a racist. Some are more powerful than others. That's too bad.

Aside from the Rev. Wright's own racist and incendiary words, let us concider the circumstantial evidence of voting trends. Specifically, consider South Carolina. Two weeks before the primary, Obama led Hillary among blacks 53% to 30%. Four days prior to the election, Obama led 59 to 25. On Election Day, he won nearly 80% of the black vote. A trend, isn't it.

What factor changed or clarified in those two weeks? Some vital policy position? Some new fact or scandal coming to light about Hillary? Obama's becoming even more eloquent and hopeful that before? Or was it race. How ever shall we decide that question? Easy. By looking at Mississippi, where Obama got 92% of the black vote. He got only 26% of the white vote. So clearly 74% of those whites are racists, right? Well, let's be fair-minded, and call it 24% -- half of the whites may very well prefer Hillary because of her vast experience, or because she's a woman, or some other highly relevant factor. Cutting that same slack for blacks, 42% of those voters would have voted purely on racial lines -- racist lines.

Is my reasoning flawed? Probably -- so many assumptions and imponderables. What isn't off is the observation that NINETY-TWO percent of blacks voted for Obama. If his opponent had been a Republican, we'd just expect it. Blacks can't think for themselves on this issue; it's group think, to be authentic. But Hillary isn't Republican. See? Get it? I don't think you do, but I can't imagine anything more to say on the matter to make it easier. I just have to repeat it. Ninety-two percent. That's an A.

On the other hand, a Gallup poll compares Hillary and Obama:



That's a measurement based on general population, not just some ethnic group. Big difference between these two, eh? Doesn't look like the general population of America has a problem with Obama, the man. We like him. I like him, generally. Maybe he's a little slick, a bit smug. But I wish I was slick and smug. I'm abrasive and insecure. What we don't like about Obama is his positions. Most of us have grown up. We don't vote because of skin color. Can you think of some group that would vote on that basis? The Hispanics? True, they favor Hillary two to one, in California, and Florida, and Texas -- in the big states. But that's only 66%. And Hispanics have all sorts of colors.

Ninety-two percent.

As for the nation as a whole, as of the Ides of March it was a dead heat between the two Dems. The RCP poll-average had it Obama, 45.8 to 45.0. No statistically meaningful difference. Likewise with McCain, who had 45.8% against both his opponents, Obama at 45.0%, and Hillary at 46.0%. Close close close, with both McCain and Hillary ganging up on Obama, as the main threat. McCain hasn't really started swinging yet. He's facing opposition from the right only, and none from the left, yet. Well, from the leftist mainstream media, of course, but that's just assumed. Their golden boy is Obama. How it must chap their inner thighs to have to report the emerging negatives about him. Well, under report them. But they have to pretend to be fair.

Problem is, these videos keep coming up. Obama's nose-diving in the polls. Better now, though, while he has time to regroup. It's the company he keeps. We do not like racists. Not at all. It's not okay to be a black racist. As long as it's safe, the lefty media ignores or actually feeds it. But this is just too savory for them to ignore.

How will it end, between Hillary and Obama? I've said that Hillary will win at a brokered convention. I only say that because the clintons play so very dirty, and pols are cowards, who care more about the comfort of the moment than about the next election cycle, where their sellout of Obama will come back to bite them. How specifically could Hillary win, behind those many closed doors? DNC rules.

The fatcats didn't like the peril that came to Jimmy Carter from that heroic insurgent Ted Kennedy in 1980, so two years later the DNC changed the rules -- delegates were no longer pledged, come what may. The current rule states that delegates "shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them."

The sentiments of those who elected them are that they want a Democrat to win. All Hillary has to do is point to the polls. See, boys? He's not as popular as he was. I can win the general election, and he can't. C'mon, fellas, you know how it is. The racist rubes that we all hate would never vote for a colored, and y'all know what Ah'm talkin' 'bout. And, uh, frankly, boys, doesn't it seem like Obama is just a lot blacker than we thought he was?

You think it can't happen? It will happen. It may not work.

As I say, Obama is the wrong black man. He sold his grandmother down the river yesterday. Did you hear that? His racist grandmother? For shame. While he defends this indefensible racist. For shame.


J

Blessings and Cursings

I don't really know that many songs. I was, so the story goes, a child performer. Mid-Sixties. Folk songs. But I haven't stayed current. Same old songs for the past forty-plus years. I'm not apologizing. Back when I listened to music, it was Classical, exclusively. Those tunes don't even have names -- just labels. So be it. Some songs, though, have seeped even through my muffled perceptions. And so I return once more to God Bless America. Mark Stein addresses the topic of Rev. Wright and his cursing from the pulpit. "God damn America." Tee hee.

Stein reminds us of the history of that song, the blessing song. I won't rehash it. But let's look at the song again. I kid you not, the words bring tears to my eyes.

God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America,
My home sweet home.

Did you notice? "Stand beside her" -- be loyal, she's not as strong as she looks. "Guide her" -- be committed, she needs wisdom. "My home" -- because all history is past, and tomorrow is not promised, but we do, anyone who reads these words, have a home, and it's a pretty good one, and we should be thankful for it. Good lord. What manner of man would blaspheme that prayer?

Yes. Didn't you know? It's a prayer. It's a short song, but there is a little more to it. Goes like this:

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.

Written in 1938, you see, when that little Nazi thing was brewing. Not relevant to our modern era. There are no more Nazis. Just white racists and sexists and other identity criminals. But I digress. We are not perfectly free. But we are free. Our land is not entirely unblemished, but it is fair. The Reverend Wright took these manifest facts and made them a cheap ploy. It is not just a beautiful prayer, but a solemn one. He has polluted it.

Why would he do such a thing? He is a racist, is my theory. Maybe I'm wrong. But I think I'm right. Is it important that he's a racist? Well, it's not a good thing to be. And people in positions of influence, especially spiritual influence, should be extra careful, for they will surely be judged by a more stringent standard. The good apostle Paul tells us so. Wright must, must know it. And there's that little thing about there being in Christ no slave nor free, no male nor female, no countryman or barbarian -- no black nor white. I paraphrase. Does Wright not understand this most primal of Christian teachings?

No, it's not really, truly important. Neither is the fact that he is the much vaunted mentor of Sen. Obama. Obama is allowed to have fools for friends. He's allowed to be foolish himself, in some ways. We make our decisions using whatever criteria we will, and live with the consequences.

I take no pleasure in the distress of other -- not of other basically good people. Some people need to be tortured to death, forever. But hardly anyone. What is refreshing, though, is to see the hounds turn on their master. Every Republican gets close close close scrutiny, and is held accountable by the MSM for things outside his portfolio. The perfection police have now settled their slimy and belated malice upon Obama. The radiance fades. He's down five points in his favorability, and up six points in his unfavorability ratings. Fickle populi. But it's what happens when the secret places are opened up.

Obama's mistake was supposing he was what he seemed to be. He forgot, if I may be cheap, that he's half black and half white. Like all of us. We have our dark side. I know, I'm obvious. But if he uses himself as a living symbol of unity, he'd better understand just what exactly it is that needs to be unified. Not the races. There's only one. What needs to be unified is the disconnect in how human nature is projected. Not simple. Complex. None of us are good. Most of us just obey laws, and maybe try to act, act in a civil manner.

Most edifying is the admission of imperfections and the striving to overcome their influence. I know of only one perfect man. Obama was presented as a sort of messiah, and is enjoying a minor crucifixion now, not for his excellence but his human frailty. He was careless in the friends, mentors, he kept, and ineffective in explaining his loyalty and attraction to such teachings. Ah well. You're the same, and so am I. It's just that we must surely know this about ourselves, and be frank about it.

There's entirely too much damning. Let's not damn America, or any race, or people with whom we have mere disagreements. Let's be kind in our own lives, and not suppose that bureaucrats could possibly do a better job of it than we could. That would be a change. That would be real hope. We make our own blessings.


J

Video

What did I tell you? Somehow, from somewhere, these videos are coming out. Such a mystery. You know, about Obama. His pastor, that is. In whose congregation Obama has sat for 18 years, listening in rapt attention. Devotion, even. Obama consulted with Wright about whether he should run for Senate. And for the presidency. Wright officiated at Obama's wedding. Wright baptized Obama's children. This is a man who is important to Obama.

I heard a talk tonight about how some black families don't quite celebrate the Fourth of July. Independence Day. They're not wrong. Nobody has to observe my holidays. I don't. I just acknowledge that they're important. Ceremony is important. I should think the idea of independence is important to black families. The Fourth just isn't the day that it came to them. Emancipation Day. I don't even remember what day that is. I'm not unamerican for that ignorance, any more than a black man is unamerican for remembering slavery. It should be remembered. Inscribed in one's heart. Not with bitterness, if one is strong enough. With firm resolve, never again to allow such a thing to happen, to one's own family, kindred, race, or countrymen -- never to any human, insofar as it's in our power. To love freedom, and hate its absence, and stand up that it may spread, and remember the injustice of its theft -- this is what America is.

So that Obama does not, if it's true, celebrate the Fourth of July -- this is his right. I don't even know if that's just a rumor or not. Don't care. Likewise with the Rev. Wright. He does not have to follow the particulars of my expectations. Just the law, and the common code of civilized human conduct. So that he should hold America close to the stink of its former injustices? This is fitting. To speak from the pulpit, reminding his congregants of past and current wrongs -- this is the very function of a prophet. But to say "God damn America"?

A childish riff, it was, on the song, God Bless America. The sort of thing an adolescent might think is clever. Certainly nothing that a mature or thoughtful or honorable man would proclaim from the pulpit. Why? Because it is a curse, upon America, and America should not be cursed. It should be blessed. If Wright had said, 'God damns America', it would merely be a debatable proposition. Because of its iniquity, America is damned, forsaken, by God. Could be. That's not what Wright said. He said "God damn America". It comes from his heart, just as the words of the song come from the heart. It is a wish. To say otherwise is to play with words, and it would be disingenuous. Let's not do that.

How is this important? Because Obama sits in that sanctuary, being edified by those words. He claims he was not in attendance for that particular sermon. Perhaps his schedule bears him out, or perhaps it's just a political lie. I don't really care. I strongly expect that the Rev. Wright has said many such things, in Obama's presence. Things that, no matter how truly felt, are easily used, as this "God damn America" is used. Things that give deep offense to those sensitive to such issues. And I am utterly certain, although I could be wrong, that Obama has never, in word or in deed, through letter or email, ever corrected, upbraided or distanced himself from such statements, prior to their coming to light in this current political season.

Further, I fully expect video of Sen. Obama, sitting or standing, smiling and clapping, at the words of the Reverend. If such video exists, showing Obama present at a time when the preacher is making any of his racist or provocative statements, things will get very, very interesting.

There's a segment of the population that will never have a problem with damning America. Most of the Left. The Right would never vote for Obama, any more than they'd vote for any leftist. As for the center, well, Obama's claim to be a uniter will be shattered. He really should lose the nomination. How could he claim to be a patriot, as the term is generally understood? How could he stand up to foreign criticism, defend America, if he failed to defend it in his own church? Will he rebuke enemies if he will not correct friends? Would he stand by silently or with approval while somebody God damned his own wife?

You see the dilemma. And if he does lose the nomination, imagine the rage from blacks, and the youth, and the far left. We don't want to win because of cynicism. It should be on rational issues. No. None of this is a good thing.

Wright is an oaf. A demagogue. Not stupid, just coming out of an undisciplined style of thought and speech. We temper our words. We don't get people all riled up, all whooped up. We should strive to inspire to noble actions, not to low emotions. I suppose the stereotypical black and Southern swaying and handwaving church experience has its place. It's not my way, but that's fine. I went to a pentecostal church once, and was absolutely appalled. But they can do what they want. When all the hollering is done, though, and it comes time to preaching the words of the Bible, there should be more than verses about faith and judgments against enemies. I'm sure Wright understands that simple truth. He does not seem to understand about tempering his words.

Obama is the wrong black man to run for president. He is a magnificent speaker. It's just that he's an inexperienced lefty. If he loses, it will create great bitterness. If he wins, it will create even more. His leftist policies will be devastating to America and the world, and who will be blamed for that? A black president. Then we'll get all kinds of emotional excuses, and claims that he was undermined, sabotaged, that the Establishment -- the White Establishment, mind you -- wanted him to fail, planned it. He never had a chance. Etc.

It's a disaster. Hope? Of course there's hope. We just have to find it. I don't mean the verbal hope of campaign banners. Real hope. Based on something substantial. Let's look for it. I'll let you know if I find it. You do the same. Deal?


J

Crunch

Hillary picked up 193 delegates on March 4th, and with 5 from Wyoming, has a pledged total of 1234; she seems to have 242 SuperDelegates!, making her SuperDooper total 1476 (coincidentally, the year she was born). Obama picked up 178 delegates on the 4th, and with Wyoming's 7 now has 1377 popular delegates; with his 210 SuperDelegates! he has about 1587. I say about because there is some conflict in the reporting, and also because one of my staff might possibly have made an adding mistake. To clinch the nomination, somebody needs 2025.

The Dems still have events in Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Guam, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota and Puerto Rico. These total up to 612 delegates. Let's round. Obama needs about 440 more. Hillary needs about 550. If current trends hold, no one wins. (But we knew that.) You realize what that means.

A brokered convention.

Here's why Hillary wins. The clintons know where the bodies are buried. They didn't spend 8 years in Washington for nothing. And everyone knows they have the hardest hardballs around. Even those SuperDelegates! who are already pledged for Obama can switch over. What bribe, what threat, what seduction would the clintons not use to achieve their ends? They are the very definition of backroom operatives. Suddenly John Edwards with his delegates seems important.

Add that fact to the clinton's genius for dirty tricks -- which hasn't been working so far because the MSM was Obama's waterboy -- and we can expect a Change indeed. Hillary knew about the Rezko connection long ago, and brought it up ineptly. Now it's gaining traction. Who could possibly be so naive as to think that in the vast sewer of Illinois politics, Obama hasn't gotten some stink on his shoes? No, it's not really fair, and it's not even really substantive. Perhaps. But we've seen how stupid and petty this process is.

Obama's minister, Jeremiah Wright, is just a howling black racist preacherman, from what I can tell, who loves Farrakhan and hates America. So what. Obama has the right to listen to whomever he wants and go to whatever place of worship he chooses. Private lawful and ethical behavior is private. It's matters of public policy that count from a politician.

That's the sort of thing I mean. Purity tests. We are after all talking about politics. Compromise and purity don't really go together. And to imagine that Obama is pure in the first place is just silly. No one is pure. No one famous. The trick about growing up is to learn this sort of fact, without letting it ruin us. That's what hope is.


J

Burning Bridges

Obama gave a speech in Selma Alabama to commemorate the 42nd anniversary of that seminal civil rights march. He spoke movingly about how his mother and father dared to come together because of the march. The crowd in the church where he was speaking in Selma were inspired to enthusiastic applause. Obama said that he would not be there in Selma, he would not exist at all, save for the courage of those brave men and women who stood up and marched against the tyranny of Jim Crow and institutional racism, that some form of equality might eventually be achieved.

A black man from Africa and a white woman who's ancestors had owned slaves were swept up in the tide of hope that crossed the land and came together in love. "There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge," says the Senator. And his parents "got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Alabama. I’m here because somebody marched. I’m here because y'all sacrificed for me. I stand on the shoulders of giants."

How beautiful. How beautiful.

The march in Selma occurred in the third month of 1965. Obama was born in August of 1961.

Oh.

Well, perhaps he just got the dates wrong? Maybe there was some other Selma march over a bridge? No. Perhaps he meant a march over some other bridge, and just got the city name wrong? No.

"Liar" is such a harsh word. To stir up people's emotions with heroic images cannot be wrong, even if we stir them up with fiction. We are after all moved by fiction. That's what literature and movies are for. Am I wrong? So what's so bad if he makes us think something that never happened is real?

And we will ignore the fact that this is the very definition of a lie. His motives must justify that mere technicality.

He says something else, as well. "So the Kennedy’s decided we're going to do an air lift. We're going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is. This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country." Interesting. Interesting. A Kennedy program made it all possible.

A problem, though. Kennedy was sworn into office in January of 1961. Obama was born in August of '61. Generally that would mean that he would have been conceived in November of 1960 -- say, Election Day. Before Kennedy was president, so before he could have instituted any such African outreach. Time travel? Something Kennedy did from the Senate? But Obama says it happened from the White House. Is he talking about Eisenhower and Nixon? I think not. What, then?

Facts matter. Someone who gets fundamentals wrong on a consistent basis cannot be taken seriously. Is this Obama? I am insufficiently informed on the details of all his many speeches. But in these particular matters, which play such a very important part in Obama's own personal narrative, we must suppose that he should be familiar with the actual facts.

He is not. Or he is lying. Both are pretty serious charges. Either he himself is ignorant of things that I know, who have no specific reason to know. Or he is assuming an ignorance on the part of his listeners, which seems arrogant and actually contemptuous. Seems that way to me. That's how I frame it when someone lies to me. You're thinking I'm so stupid that I'll just believe any idiot story you make up. That's what I used to say to teenagers.

There's something so adolescent about lying. There's something so immature about not getting easily discovered facts straight.

But you have to form you own opinion. Maybe it's not important. But how is this Change? What is Hope to be founded on? False Hope?


J

Naftaquiddick

It seems that Hillary is still in the race. Somehow, weirdly, I like that. Let the cannibals eat themselves. Texas Republicans crossed over to vote for Hillary over Obama, in a sneaky Democrat tactic. It's the first time there's been such a movement from the right. Maybe it made the difference. Ah well, the rules allow it. There was a lot of talk that even if Hillary didn't win anything, she'd stay in. Well, she was only a hundred and something delegates behind Obama, so it's not like she was out of it. But the good of the party, don't you know. Wouldn't it be absolutely cool if it goes to a brokered convention? In the Internet Age? What a spectacle. Worth the price of admission. Even I will pay attention. Hillary will win that.

I don't give these opinings of mine much thought. It's easy to predict the future when there's no cost for being wrong. If I lost a finger each time my opinion was wrong, I'd be more careful. But Nobody knows how to make promises and twist arms like the clintons. And the shine -- I mean the gloss is coming off Obama. The Canadian Memo -- Memogate? -- Naftaquiddick? -- where Obama is said to have assured the North that all his protectionist verbiage is just slop for the pigs, and he doesn't mean it, really. This, after he said there was no such memo, no such communication. Interesting. And some weird real estate deal out of Chicago, where some Mafioso bought up some land next to the house Obama was buying -- I didn't quite follow why that was necessary -- point is that there's really likely to be some nasty old corruption involved. Hmm. So much for CHANGE!!!. So much for HOPE!!!. Not every messiah can resurrect himself.

Tonight I got a little political in my conversation. Someone else was talking about Republicans. I didn't bother to eavesdrop. But somehow I invited myself into the dialog when it turned to abortion, and I engaged in a not terribly eloquent disquisition on the matter. With a gentle and likable young liberal. He managed, in three sentences, to conflate economic policy, civil rights, and Affirmative Action. So many passions. So many reasons why Republicans are wrong. I managed to point out that they were separate issues, but I'm sure the point wasn't quite grasped. Such is the nature of casual conversation -- it requires no intellectual discipline.

I did manage to enunciate the idea that I'd rather be greedy than envious. You know, the Republican cliche rather than the Democrat cliche. Greed is just low and ugly. Envy is about wanting harm to someone else. The politics of envy. The rich must be taxed, disproportionately. How that is equal protection under the law evades my understanding. If we are equal, then we should be treated equally. Ah well, I won't rehash the matter. It's just that his ideas about Republicans seem to have been formed in the 1950s. Odd, since he was born in the mid-1980s. Did he see me in my checked pants? I usually only wear them at my exclusive country club. I'll have to talk to my house boy about this.

Well, that's all. Just thought I'd write a note to keep in touch. Why don't I ever hear from you? Too busy to drop a line to your good old buddy Jack? You'd better love me while you may. Tomorrow I may fly away.


J

Black House

This is how Obama wins: Bill Richardson as his running mate. Governor of ... New Mexico? Moderate reputation. Hispanic. Get it? There is a large segment of the population that votes not according to principle or policy, but according to group identity. Historically Hispanics do not vote for blacks. They will vote for Obama if a Hispanic is on the ticket. It will make the difference, since McCain is not going to bring out the conservatives. Obama will modify his leftist rhetoric during the general election campaign, which will lull moderates into voting for him. He already has a reasonably large and very devoted following. Richardson is the humpmaker.

McCain’s only chance is a very conservative, ethnic running mate. It would be a cynical move, but so what. It’s all manipulation. When we play the game by the rules, the point is not the rules, but the game. McCain can attract independents and moderates, but he does not inspire the enthusiasm of Obama.

Hillary? It’s so very tempting to write her off. But she is a clinton. They leave talon marks on the flagstones when it’s time to leave the public square. Even if she loses Texas and Ohio, the Pennsylvania Democrat machine is in her pocket, or bill’s pants, or something. It will be a spectacle to behold if/when she loses. Like Satan falling from the Heavenlies. What orgy of spite will she unloose upon her former idolaters? It's hard to think she'll be done. When has a perpetual motion machine ever broken down?

Isn't it a shame, the stupidity of politics? It really is some sort of sociological proof of the power of averages and epidemiology. Individuals cease to matter. It's all about crowds and herd mentality. That one smells right! Let's mount it! -- or -- Obama's black? Let's vote for him, or let's not vote for him. Let me check a mirror. What we know is that free money gets wasted. It keeps people at a subsistence level. The only meaningful generosity is that which we create ourselves. Can't we pick someone who's politics are based on an understanding of human nature rather than animal needs?

Tuesday will pretty much decide the general election candidates. I expect Obama. It's a good thing, in a sense. But it will be incredibly divisive. I don't know the future. But I do expect things to get ugly. Let's hold our breath.


J

Another Enword

There is, famously, a love that dare not speak its name. That phrase, uttered by Oscar Wilde upon the stand after he foolishly brought a liable charge against the Marquise of Queensberry -- who addressed his calling card to a delighted Wilde with the phrase "posing as a somdomite". The Marquise was in a state of mental distress when he scribbled the note, due to the incorrigible fact that his son was being somdomized by Wilde, or visa versa.

When charged with "homosexual acts not amounting to buggery", Wilde defended himself with a well-crafted hortatory toward Victorian tolerance: there is "that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. ... It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an older and a younger man, when the older man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it, and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it." After this, the gallery burst into applause.

Speaking as a middle-aged man, all I can say is, that is so hot.

There are many things that dare not speak themselves. A belief in Intelligent Design on college campuses. A suggestion that Affirmative Action is racist. The enword. And Barack H. Obama's middle name. Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. There, I said it. But isn't it odd that such a fuss should have been made over some radio guy who introduced McCain at some rally, stirring up a controversy because he used Obama's H-name? Jack is my middle name. Jack. So many dirty, dirty bad things start with jack. I'm a dirty boy, so unashamed of speaking that name. Is Obama ashamed? I should think not. His appendages and instruments, then? No. It's a tactic of course, this rush to presume and pretend offense.

Shall we succumb to it?

Implication is not the same as obscenity, any more than satire is copyright infringement. Hussein, meaning "beautiful", is as common a name in the Middle East as John is in the West. But it is off limits. How demeaning to every American with such a name. For shame. It's like the ignorant racist puppets in NY who were offended by a bureaucrat's use of the word "niggardly", and demanded and got a resignation. (Pardon my insensitive use of the word "resignation", which has an "n", an "i", and a "g" in it. I, a Niger snot! Ignore stain! Ignite arson! Neat origins! Sane rioting! Reasoning it! Nosier giant! Noiser gnat! Orient gains! Soaring nite! Atoning sire! A rising tone! Raining toes! Ironing seat!) It's like the little schoolyard boys who tease some child for being named Osama. We do not cure intolerance by hiding it in the closet. Hasn't the Gay Pride movement taught us anything? When we are supposed to teach five year olds about condoms in public schools, might we also be allowed to utter a prominent politician's middle name?

So what if the radio guy was being sarcastic. Such sarcasm is not, after all, very tearing. If that was his point, it speaks to his character. If not, then what's the issue? In either case, no apology was due. Why then did McCain hasten to offer one? Was all his courage used up on some long ago occasion? It remains a mystery.

There are, it seems, fatwas against words. Apartheid against ideas is a leftist orthodoxy. How shall we confront such anti-First Amendment tactics? Well, not by ignoring them.

Precisely this same ploy was used in the 2006 Senate race, where James Henry Webb erected himself and his manliness by habitually referring to his rival as George Felix Allen. Allen lost, because he was a girliman who remained silent about his faggy name Felix. Haw haw.

A Fantasy Political Scenario

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen of the press. Some of you have been reporting on my opponent's emphasis of my middle name, Felix. It's a name given to me in honor of a respected family friend, and the fact that I have never used it in no way reflects shame, as my Democrat opponent James Webb seeks to imply through his tone. Why he should call me by a name I do not call myself is no profound mystery. He is employing an underhanded and rather cowardly tactic. He is implying that because of my middle name I am unmanly. I will face his implications directly. Perhaps Mr. Webb is better at ball sports than I am. I cannot speak to his interest in balls. But I hereby challenge Mr. Webb to a fight. His choice of rules. If he declines this offer, I will select a name for Mr. Webb, a new middle name. Say, Charlotte. I will be phoning Mr. Webb with this offer. Thank you for your interest in these important matters.

The End

Obama's campaign thanked John McCain for his apology. Both men were diminished by the affair. We should have expected more from them. Could it be that Barack "Pretty Boy" Osama and John "Never Back Down" McCain are just silly politicians, quibbling over words? This, when there is a so much greater issue before a world so filled with enemies whose names we dare not speak?

Ah well. Same old same old. If only there were a candidate of change.


J