Saturday, May 10, 3:53pm (or so)—Obama Passes Clinton in Superdelegates

FoxNews just reported that the Obama campaign has picked up three superdelegates and now has more superdelegates than the Clinton campaign. The latest tally from Fox: Obama 275, Clinton 272.

ABC News estimated late yesterday that Obama had claimed the superdelegate lead. Some liberal blogs are reporting the same and will be joined by a flurry of similar reporting as various media outlets come to the same conclusion as ABC and Fox.

The fat lady is singing. Does Hillary Clinton have her fingers in her ears?

Newsprism

Hillary’s Last Gasp Dismisses Blacks, Disses Working-Class Whites

What was the intent when Hillary Clinton said this to USA Today on Wednesday:

I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on…Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and whites in both states who (have) not completed college (are) supporting me…There’s a pattern emerging here.

Pundits left and right inferred the obvious: Clinton was questioning the ability of a black candidate to win the White House without the white working-class vote. She presumes much. While most of the growing criticism of Clinton’s comments focuses on her dismissive attitude towards black voters, her presumptuous attitude towards working-class whites is equally damning. Both the dismissing and the dissing come from a deep-seated belief in racial and class-based stereotypes and a longstanding reliance on inherently divisive identity politics.

Peggy Noonan reports what Democratic insiders are saying off the record about Hillary Clinton:

She has unleashed the gates of hell. She’s saying, ‘He’s not one of us.’

And,

It’s not math anymore, it’s psychodrama. If she can’t have it, no one can have it. If she has to tear the party apart, she will.

Joe Conason wears kid gloves and pulls his punches writing for Salon today, but his jab still lands squarely on Clinton’s jaw:

She violated the rhetorical rules, no doubt by mistake. It was her offhand reference to ‘working, hard-working Americans, white Americans’ that raises the specter of old Dixie demagogues like Wallace and Lester Maddox. Was she dog-whistling to the voters of Kentucky and West Virginia?

In The Washington Post today, Eugene Robinson tells the unvarnished truth:

Here’s what she’s really saying to party leaders: There’s no way that white people are going to vote for the black guy. Come November, you’ll be sorry.

And the upshot, according to Robinson:

Assuming that Obama is the eventual nominee, he will have some work to do in reuniting the party. But there’s no reason to think he won’t succeed — unless Clinton drives a wedge between important elements of the party’s historical coalition.

The bottom line is that Hillary Clinton has finally found a formula that can defeat Barack Obama, namely, exploiting deep psychological divisions between races and classes. The problem for Clinton is that, as Charles Krauthammer lucidly explains, she found the formula too late.

Why, then, does she persist in pursuing a strategy that can only divide her party and weaken its nominee?

Isn’t that Rush Limbaugh’s job?

Newsprism

Immediate Election Results Direct from Indiana and North Carolina

Below are the results of the primaries in Indiana and North Carolina as reported by their Secretaries of State.

Indiana usually announces results quickly; North Carolina allows you to follow results county-by-county.

Indiana Presidential Primary Results

North Carolina Presidential Primary Results

Newsprism

Darkened Roots—The Real Meaning of Reverend Wright for Barack Obama

Forget Jeremiah Wright, the man. What does Jeremiah Wright, the icon or persona created in the media based on that man, really, really mean?

The reason the Wright story, or rather, the persona, resonated so loudly in the media is that it taps into two deeply emotional divisions simultaneously, one racial, the other political.

Wright isn’t just black, he identifies himself as black and, more to the point, fundamentally separates himself from the dominant white culture. He’s a black nationalist, a Christian version of Farrakhan who rejects America in favor of a radical racial vision of “nation.”

His nation is not ours—that’s at the root of black nationalism, and it strikes the American people as something utterly alien and antagonistic and irreconcilable, like communism or anarchism, or the Marxist liberation theology that underpins Reverend Wright’s philosophy. It’s a threat to the very center, the very core, of American society, a threat to its moral authority.

But the threat is also a racial one, which is why having the radical, black, and radically black persona of Jeremiah Wright associated with Obama has damaged his candidacy so badly. Wright, the black Marxist, was once described as Obama’s spiritual mentor; people are left to wonder if one’s spirituality can be so glibly divorced from one’s political philosophy, and, once again, why Obama doesn’t wear a neon flag pin.

What’s more interesting than this darkening of Obama’s roots is the fact that it was not orchestrated by Clinton or McCain so much as imposed on the nation by a two-week obsession with Wright in the mainstream media, especially the content-starved cable news networks. Nor was it the conservative FoxNews that ran this story into the ground so much as the liberal MSNBC and, to a lesser degree, the liberal CNN.

It was as if the liberal media that anointed Obama were having second thoughts. If even they can have second thoughts about Obama, who can guess the depth of suspicion he evokes among the “less enlightened” white working class voter?

Newsprism

Summer Gas Tax Holiday is a Holiday from Reason

On the issue of suspending federal gas taxes over the summer, Barack Obama is the only “conservative” in the presidential race.

John McCain first proposed the tax holiday but didn’t specify how he’d pay for it. That was some pretty transparent pandering (let’s call it translucent) coming from an alleged fiscal conservative.

Hillary Clinton then began advocating the same tax holiday and added that she’d pay for it by taxing the windfall profits of the oil companies. Vintage Clinton; she panders transparently while acting fiscally conservative.

Barack Obama says the tax holiday isn’t necessary or even useful. Considering the fiscal pickle we’re in, his position is wise. If nothing else, Obama knows how to create the appearance of a new politics.

Based on average driving, most Americans would receive a benefit of about $30 over the summer, and that’s assuming that every penny of the tax will wind up in consumers’ pockets. It won’t.

How many Americans would sell their vote to a pandering politician  less than $30? Clinton and McCain intend to find out.

Newsprism

New Twist on an Old Joke: What Do You Call a Liberal Who’s Been Mugged?

The old joke goes like this: What do you call a liberal who’s been mugged?

A conservative.

After seven years of big-spending government and eroding civil liberties under allegedly conservative Republicans, the joke needs an update: What do you call a conservative who’s been mugged by government?

A libertarian.

Independent voters tend to decide national elections, and the largest bloc of independents are libertarian in outlook: fiscally conservative and socially liberal, in effect straddling the two major parties—which leaves them vulnerable to getting kicked in the crotch no matter whom they vote for.

This country was founded on libertarian principles—limited government, property rights, civil liberties, individual responsibility—that have been significantly eroded under both Democratic and Republican administrations. The designers of our democracy wouldn’t recognize what’s become of their experiment today; somehow a design intended to limit government has been twisted into a government with no intention of limiting its designs.

Up until the turn of the millenium, it was Democrats who considered the Constitution a “quaint document.” Now the Republican Party has betrayed its most fundamental animating principle. It is no longer a conservative party.

PJ O’Rourke puts it like this: “It’s going to be hard to do a worse job running America than the Republicans have, but if anybody can do it, it’s the Democrats.”

With a socialist Hillary Clinton or a very liberal Barack Obama set to face off against a big government Republican like John McCain, McCain would seem to be the lesser of two evils. Maybe the late great Molly Ivans had it right: for the third presidential election in a row, we’re faced with “the evil of two lessers.” The only genuine libertarian in the race is Ron Paul, and he’s way too principled, too shrill, too rough around the edges, and too ugly to win the American Idol contest we call a presidential election.

At the end of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of nation had been created. His answer: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Newsprism

Hillary Clinton and Monty Python’s Black Knight

In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Black Knight fights King Arthur to prevent him from crossing a small bridge. After having an arm cut off by the King, the Knight insists, “‘Tis but a scratch” and refuses to concede. After the other arm is cut off, the Black Knight still refuses to concede, insisting it’s “just a flesh wound.” The unarmed knight then loses both legs, at which point he finally agrees to “call it a draw.”

With virtually no chance of catching Barack Obama in either delegates or the popular vote, Hillary Clinton continues to insist on dragging the Democratic Party through a bloody and needless fight to the convention in August. She needs to win around 80% of the remaining popular vote, for example, but is down by 8% in the latest Gallup tracking poll.

Disarmed and without a leg to stand on, Clinton is now asking the question, “Why can’t (Obama) close the deal?“

The answer is simple: because a black knight with no chance of victory is blocking his way.

Newsprism

Bill Clinton Denies Saying What He Said…On Tape

Asked about his comments during the South Carolina primary comparing Barack Obama’s performance there with Jesse Jackson’s—a comment many took as injecting race into the contest between Obama and Hillary Clinton—Bill Clinton told WHYY 91FM’s Susan Phillips (audio),

I think that (the Obama campaign) played the race card on me. We now know, from memos from the campaign that they planned to do it along.

Asked about the comment today, a snippy and defensive Clinton denied saying what he said (video.) The former president also dodged a question about the alleged memos he denied referring to. (Here’s the whole story from ABC News.)

Later in the WHYY interview, Clinton said his South Carolina comments were “used out of context and twisted for political purposes by the Obama campaign.” Then, off mic, using his genuine voice and vocabulary, he adds, “I don’t think I should take any shit from anybody on that, do you?”

This is vintage Bill Clinton—cynically spinning and twisting beneath that slick, golly-gee persona of his, then lying and denying about it.

Is Bill Clinton a serial liar? It depends on where your definition of “lies” lies.

Newsprism

Those Arkansaw Bumkins, or, A Gremlin In His Goober (satire)

 

Presidential Candidates Appear on Professional Wrestling Program

It’s basically theatre disguised as a contest. It highlights confrontation and image at the expense of competition and substance.

Flashy graphics and longwinded speeches are prevalent. Spontaneity is scripted and authenticity is packaged. Nothing is quite what it appears to be.

Few take it seriously, but most follow it to one degree or another. Many get hurt, and a few get rich.

That’s right—it’s presidential politics.

Tonight, all three presidential candidates will appear on the World Wrestling Entertainment’s Raw program beginning at 8pm EST. Watch previews of their taped segments here, and watch an animated Hillary and Barack get ready to rumble here.

Newsprism’s question: is professional wrestling demeaning to the presidential campaign, or vice-versa

Update: All three candidates looked completely out of their element on Raw tonight, competing to see how many lame wrestling puns and catch phrases they could fit into their minute-long segments. It was transparent, condescending, and canned pandering to an audience they don’t understand or respect. Newsprism wonders if any of the three knows that Abraham Lincoln was a professional wrestler and a genuine man of the people, or that they were the butts of the joke tonight?

Newsprism

 

Hillary Clinton Uses Wrong ‘Kitchen’ Metaphor

At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania today, Hillary Clinton responded to Barack Obama’s criticism of the ABC News debate Wednesday night, saying, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen (video).” She added, “I’m very comfortable in the kitchen.”

This seems an odd metaphor for a woman who once belittled housewives for “bak(ing) cookies and hav(ing) teas (transcript).“

The apt metaphor for the lingering Mrs. Clinton: too many cooks spoil the broth.

More to the point, Obama’s crticism wasn’t about the “heat” of the questions  the moderators, Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous, asked him—it was about their shallowness, a criticism Newsprism agrees with 100%.

Newsprism

Obama Attacked for Using the “B” Word

Senator Barack Obama has been condemned by both Hillary Clinton and John McCain for his use of the adjective “bitter” in the following quote from a private fundraiser last Sunday in San Francisco:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations

While grammatically correct, the statement appears to condescend to the decisive working class voter in the upcoming Indiana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia primaries.

Clinton responsed in a campaign appearance yesterday at Drexel University in Philadelphia:

It’s being reported that my opponent said that the people of Pennsylvania who faced hard times are bitter; well, that’s not my experience. Pennsylvanians don’t need a president who looks down on them; they need a president who stands up for them, who fights for them, who works hard for your futures, your jobs, your families

McCain responded through campaign operatives. McCain advisor Steve Schmidt said:

It shows an elitism and condescension toward hard-working Americans that is nothing short of breathtaking. It is hard to imagine someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans.

McCain advisor Tucker Bounds said:

Instead of apologizing to small town Americans for dismissing their values, Barack Obama arrogantly tried to spin his way out of his outrageous San Francisco remarks. You can’t be more out of touch than that.

The repetition of “more out of touch” in both statements demonstrates the level of coordination within the McCain camp as it seeks to maximize the damage to Obama.

Newsprism wonders about the repetition of “instead of apologizing (to) small town America” in both the McCain camp’s statement above and this one from Clinton spokesman Phil Singer:

Instead of apologizing for offending small town America, Senator Obama chose to repeat and embrace the comments he made earlier this week … Americans are tired of a President who looks down on them, they want a President who will stand up for them for a change.

The timing of the publication of the audio at Hollywood leftist news and gossip site The Huffington Post is also intriguing. Why was the audio held so long before being released Friday morning?

Who would stand to gain the most from damaging Obama in working-class towns and neighborhoods by painting him as an elitist? The incident is playing out against a backdrop in which Obama has consolidated an eight to ten point lead over Clinton and has inched three points ahead of McCain in the latest Gallup polls.

The audio also highlights the degree to which American elections increasingly take place in the production and manipulation of audio and video recordings, which can be rapidly spread across the country online and on cable news.

Thoughtful reflection on the policies and philosophies of the candidates can best be discerned by reading their words and listening to entire speeches, not by cherrypicking their most exploitable moments caught on tape.

Parsing adjectives has no place in a presidential election, and we need a real democracy based in ideas, not a virtual one based in the most shallow media.

Newsprism

Delegate Math Doesn’t Add Up for Clinton

Barack Obama has opened a nine-point national lead over Hillary Clinton in Gallup’s daily tracking poll, 52-43%. Rasmussen has Obama ahead by 11, 51-40%.

In March, Obama raised $40 million to Clinton’s $20 million.

Meanwhile, the Gallup poll shows Obama leads by two over John McCain, who is tied with Clinton. McCain raised $15 million in March.

In North Carolina, Obama leads Clinton by 23 points; in Pennsylvania, some polls show Obama gaining on Clinton—others show a dead heat; in Oregon, Obama leads Clinton by 10 points; In Indiana, Clinton leads Obama by nine.

Considering that Clinton needs to virtually sweep the remaining primaries to defeat Obama, the likelihood of her winning the Democratic nomination has shrunk from slim to none.

Clinton’s only chance now appears to be a broad movement of superdelegates in her direction, but even that seems less and less likely as superdelegates have been swinging to Obama and backpeddling on their endorsements of Clinton.

Math doesn’t lie; Clinton’s insistence on staying in the race just doesn’t add up.

Newsprism

Hillary’s Penn Leaves Black Mark on Campaign

Hillary Clinton’s chief campaign strategist Mark Penn has been forced to resign after meeting with Colombian officials to discuss a bilateral trade agreement opposed by Mrs. Clinton.

Trade agreements that could hurt American workers are a touchy subject in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, where a declining industrial base is damaging local economies. Pennsylvania holds its primary on April 22.

Penn, sometimes referred to as Clinton’s “Karl Rove,” had clashed with numerous campaign staffers and was blamed by many for the failed electoral strategy that allowed Barack Obama to establish an imposing lead in pledged delegates shortly after Super Tuesday primaries in February.

Particularly problematic was Penn’s dual role as chief campaign strategist and president of PR firm Bursten-Marsteller, which brought up questions of propriety and conflicts of interest. Colombian officials have suggested that they weren’t sure whether their meeting with Penn involved just one or both of his roles.

Penn’s resignation is just the latest in a string of black marks on a campaign that a year ago was seen as virtually unstoppable.

Newsprism

Air America Talker Randi Rhodes Suspended After Calling Hillary Clinton “a Big Fu<k!ng Whore”

Air America has just announced the suspension of talk host Randi Rhodes, who last week launched a series of personal attacks on Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro, whom Rhodes called “whores.”

Rhodes also called Hillary Clinton a “bitch” and elaborated on the “whore” comment by specifying that she believes Clinton is “a big, fucking whore.”

The obscenity-laced comedy routine (video) occurred at a private event sponsored by Green 960AM, the local San Francisco Air America affiliate. The audience, which had paid to attend the event at the Broadway Studios, reacted mostly with cheers and laughter, though some objected loudly. (Rhodes’ listeners are currently weighing in on the incident and the suspension at her web site’s discussion board.)

Questions have been rasied as to why Rhodes would be suspended over a week after making the comments at a private event. Based on her past behavior, it may be that Air America suspended her for a pattern of behavior and not for this single incident.

Newsprism

Oink, Oink! Congress Pigs Out on Pork Barrel Spending

The latest annual Pig Book, which tallies up the total amount of pork-barrel spending by Congress, came out today. The results: Congress added 11,600 special projects called “earmarks” to bills last year, costing the taxpayers $17,200,000,000.

Among the programs documented by the Pig Book’s publishers, Citizens Against Government Waste:

$211,509 for olive fruit fly research to be performed not in the USA, but in Paris, France.

$1,950,000 for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service … sponsored by none other than Charles B. Rangel.

$98,000 for a walking tour of Boydton, Virginia … a town of 474 covering less than one square mile that can all be seen from one spot.

$148,950 for a Sheep Institute in Montana and $188,000 for a Lobster Institute in Maine. What? No Pig Institute in Washington, DC?

$196,000 to renovate the historic post office in Las Vegas … because what better way is there to spend your time in dull, boring Vegas than marvelling at the Post Office?

The pork continues to flow from Congress despite ethics reforms and earmark reforms instituted by the new Democratic majority. Last year was the second porkiest since 1991, when CAGW first published the Pig Book. The total cost of special projects in those 18 years exceeds $271,000,000.

The top three porkers in Congress are three Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee: Thad Cochran, Ted Stevens, and Richard Shelby.

As for the three remaining candidates in the race for the White House, there are no surprises. Hillary Clinton leads the way with 281 earmarks costing $296,200,000. Barack Obama finds himself in the middle with 53 earmarks costing $97,400,000.

And John McCain? Zero earmarks costing $0.00.

Mr. and Ms. American taxpayer, here’s the message from your representatives in Congress: turn around, bend over, and squeal like a pig.

Who says you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s earmark?

Newsprism

Hillary’s Not Merely Dead, She’s Really Most Sincerely Dead

To turn Mark Twain’s line on its head, reports of the life of the Hillary Clinton campaign have been greatly exaggerated.

Slate.com has created a Hillary Deathwatch page that calls her campaign “as good as dead” while gauging her chances of winning the Democratic nomination at 12%. Politico.com pegs Clinton’s odds at “virtually no chance of winning” while quoting a Clinton official as saying her chances are 1 in 10.

David Brooks offers the more realistic figure of 5% and asks the salient question: ”Why does she go on like this?” His answer:

Clinton’s long rear-guard action is the logical extension of her relentlessly political life. For nearly 20 years, she has been encased in the apparatus of political celebrity… No wonder the Clinton campaign feels impersonal. It’s like a machine for the production of politics. It plows ahead from event to event following its own iron logic. The only question is whether Clinton herself can step outside the apparatus long enough to turn it off and withdraw voluntarily or whether she will force the rest of her party to intervene and jam the gears. If she does the former, she would surprise everybody with a display of self-sacrifice. Her campaign would cruise along at a lower register until North Carolina, then use that as an occasion to withdraw. If she does not, she would soldier on doggedly, taking down as many allies as necessary.

A look at the most recent Democratic primary Gallup polls shows Obama pulling away from Clinton nationally with a lead of eight percent. Meanwhile, in Gallup’s general election polling, Clinton’s two point lead over McCain has been reversed since the Jeremiah Wright tapes surfaced just over two weeks ago. McCain now leads Clinton by two. More to the point, Obama’s two point lead over McCain has also been reversed, due at least in part to Clinton. McCain now leads Obama by one.

Pressure on Clinton to withdraw from the race is growing and is coming from higher and higher up in the Democratic Party hierarchy.

Newsprism first predicted an Obama victory on February 13 and has been assuming a Clinton defeat since February 25.

With apologies to the Coroner of Munchkinland for stealing his lines, and to the Wicked Witch of the West for the comparison, Mrs. Clinton “isn’t only merely dead, she’s really most sincerely dead.”

Newsprism

Those Arkansaw Bumkins or, A Gremlin In His Goober

100 Years Is a) The Length of the Campaign, b) McCain’s Age, or c) A Moral Obligation

It sure feels like this presidential campaign has been going on for a century, and according to the late night comedians, John McCain was 100 when he gave his first speech in front of the Tower of Babel. 

But the answer, despite what Democrats want to make of a single sound bite, is c., a moral obligation. We have a moral obligation to insure that Iraq returns to its pre-invasion stability and stays there. If that means maintaining an American military presence there for 100 years, as McCain insists (video,) so be it.

When we invaded, we threw Iraq into chaos. If we leave prematurely, as both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have promised to do, Iraq could descend into a Cambodian-style bloodbath, and some of that blood would be on our hands.

A bill sponsored by Obama early last year would have had all US combat brigades out of Iraq by this coming Monday, March 31. In a speech this week, Hillary Clinton mischaracterized McCain’s “100 year” quip four times and said, “my plan is … to remove one to two brigades a month (text.)”

Neither Obama nor Clinton seems to understand the realities on the ground in Iraq; neither seems willing to defy the anti-war sentiments that predominate in the Democratic Party.

To leave Iraq in its current condition, or in any condition we can realistically expect to see in the foreseeable future, would not only be profoundly immoral, but would put us a greater risk of terrorist attack. And at greater risk of skyrocketing oil prices. And at greater risk of a Middle East meltdown. And at greater risk of metastasizing global jihad.

You can oppose the launching and execution of a war and still acknowledge the moral obligations that that war entials.

Newsprism

Dueling Victims—Identity Politics Taken to Its (Il)logical Conclusion

In America today, is it worse to be black, or female? That’s the absurd question many in the Democratic Party and in the mainstream media are pondering.

The victim mentality that has sustained so much of liberal ideology over the last four decades has been starkly displayed of late after pack journalists swarmed around two ill-conceived and incendiary statements by Geraldine Ferraro and George McGovern, both of whom are Hillary Clinton supporters.

According to Ferraro,

If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.

And according to McGovern,

I have a feeling that in this country where we’re at today in our thinking, it’s going to be harder to elect a woman than to elect a black man.

To (white) Clinton supporters, it’s better to be black than female. This is a question without an answer, of course, though we know two things for sure: 1.) discrimination of any kind is damaging to the health of both individual bodies and the body politic, and 2.) the roots of racism and sexism, while both run deep, are comparable at only the most shallow levels.

If only the media weren’t, like the academy and liberalism in general, still dominated by people with a stake in keeping racism and sexism alive in the national psyche, maybe more healing could be taking place. For Hillary Clinton and her operatives to be trotting out the ugly side of identity politics is shameful and damaging to their party and our nation. The only beneficiaries of this infighting are John McCain and the Republicans.

No matter how hard he tries, Barack Obama can’t rise above the issue of his blackness, which his blue-state Democratic rival has turned into red meat for yellow journalists.

Newsprism

Judas, Jesus, the Devil and a Blue Dress

Clinton operative James Carville reacted to former Clinton cabinet member Bill Richardson’s endorsement of Barack Obama with this Easter-season attack: on Good Friday, Carville called Richardson a “Judas.”

The comparison strikes many as both impolitic and sacriligious … but Carville not only refuses to back down, he’s reiterating the attack to every journalist he can find.

If Richardson is Judas, that would make the Clintons Jesus Christ. It would also mean that no Democrat can endorse Barack Obama without being profoundly disloyal and immoral. It would also mean that the race for the Democratic nomination—a race that Obama had locked up weeks ago—has descended well past the gutter and into a much lower, more fiery realm.

Is it coincidence that Carville looks so demonic? Or that the Clintons make up their morals to fit their ambitions?

And wasn’t there a song (here’s the Springsteen version) about the devil and a blue dress?

Newsprism

Hillary Clinton Ducks (the Truth)

Hillary Clinton has been hyping her foreign policy experience lately, for instance, by claiming to have landed Bosnia in March, 1996, under sniper fire from the enemy.

Mrs. Clinton has recently said that her flight into Bosnia came “under sniper fire” that required her and her party to “run to our cars,” and that due to the danger, there was “no greeting ceremony.”

The Washington Post checked the facts of the 1996 Bosnia visit and had this to say:

Clinton’s tale of landing at the Tuzla airport “under sniper fire” and then running for cover is simply not credible. Photographs and video of the arrival ceremony, combined with contemporaneous news reports, tell a very different story. Four Pinocchios.

“Four Pinnochios” is the Post’s way of judging the truthfulness of a statement, which ranges from “The Gepetto Check Mark,” which means a statement is entirely valid, to a scale from one (”some shading of the facts”) to four (”a whopper”) Pinnochios.

In two telling video clips, CBS News contrasts a recent speech in which Mrs. Clinton mentions her harrowing trip with a March 1996 video clip in which Clinton and daughter Chelsea are seen smiling as they leave a military aircraft, where they’re greeted by Bosnia’s acting president and an eight-year-old Muslim girl.

Sharyl Atkisson, a reporter who accompanied Hillary and Chelsea Clinton on the Bosnia trip, writes,

… the mood upon first landing at the Tuzla airport was light. Children were there on the tarmac to greet the first lady, Chelsea was by her side, Bosnian dignitaries had gathered: It felt safe.

Even the comedian Sinbad, who also accompanied the Clintons, has weighed in on the matter. The prescient Sinbad notes, “I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place?’”

Mrs. Clinton has been quoted as saying, “We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small, or too poor, send the First Lady.” What could Bill have been thinking? (Oh, yeah.)

Senator Clinton may not have been ducking incoming fire in Bosnia in March of 1996; she sure is ducking the truth, and the flak that comes from lying, in March of 2008.

Newsprism

Obama Emerges from Briar Patch Wearing Crown of Thorns

When the inflammatory sermons of Reverend Jeremiah Wright first exploded onto the political landscape, probably due to machinations by the Clinton campaign, Barack Obama was leading Hillary Clinton in the national polls. Within 24 hours, however, Clinton had regained the lead in some polls and had temporarily gained ground in others.

After yesterday’s speech on race in America (video, text,) Obama is now being compared to Martin Luther King, Jr., and his speech to King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. That’s high praise indeed; experts in the field of rhetoric consistently judge “I Have a Dream” as the greatest speech in American history.

While Obama has clearly been damaged among many Republicans and conservatives—both Pat Buchanan and Thomas Sowell consider his association with Reverend Wright to disqualify him for the presidency—the real question is, has this controversy hurt him among independents and Reagan Democrats?

It’s too early to tell, of course, but the media seem to have reached a consensus: Obama just raised his profile considerably and may now go down in history as an icon of racial reconciliation (see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) If he wins the Democratic nomination, his acceptance speech will be made on August 28, 2009—the 45th anniversary of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Whoever is responsible for the Jeremiah Wright tapes bubbling to the surface intended to cut him to the quick with the dagger of race. Instead, they seem to have handed him the mantle of Martin Luther King.

His enemies just threw Brer Rabbit into the briar patch, and he emerged wearing a crown of thorns.

Newsprism

Attack Ad Depicts Obama Singing “Zippity Doo Dah”

No, no one has stooped that low. Yet.

But “someone” is heading in that direction. Bill Clinton’s invoking of Jesse Jackson after Obama won the South Carolina primary was a brazen and blatant attempt to drag race into the Democratic nomination process. The release of a photo of Senator Obama wearing African garb, which Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams failed to deny involvement in, was transparent. Unsubstantiated allegations that photos of Obama have been “darkened” in order to “highlight” his race mirror the infamous Time cover in which the same was done with a photo of OJ Simpson.

Now, video clips of Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor at Obama’s place of worship, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, have surfaced on YouTube. Reverand Wright married Barack and Michelle Obama, baptized their children, and is a confidante to the Senator and an advisor to the Obama campaign.

Before Wright retired from the Church in February, he gave a lifetime achievement award to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, blamed the US government for the AIDS virus, and said the US “deserved” the 9/11 attacks based on a history of racism, colonialism, and oppression.

The Obama campaign has distanced itself somewhat from Wright and his statements. In an interview this morning, the Senator said, “This is a pastor who is on the brink of retirement who in the past has made some controversial statements. I profoundly disagree with some of these statements.“

Demands are increasing for an explanation of the close ties between the Senator and the Reverand; many are also demanding an outright denunciation, putting Obama in the untenable situation of choosing between political expediency and loyalty to a long-time friend.

Setting such demands aside—and it seems clear that the demands are justified by the extreme nature of Wright’s statements—the question remains, exactly who is responsible for the sudden ”surfacing” of these tapes? The fact that every news organization in the country is discussing them now isn’t coincidence.

The two primary suspects, of course, are Obama rivals Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Muddying the waters considerably is the possibility that either Democratic or Republican operatives may have released the tapes with or without the knowledge or permission of the Clinton and McCain campaigns.

A simple calculation might settle the issue. Bringing the tapes into the spotlight at this time favors Senator Clinton; to help Senator McCain, the tapes would have been held for many months. In addition, the Clintons are well known for such tactics, have no compunction about using them, and are increasingly desperate. McCain, on the other hand, isn’t closely associated with dirty politics; in fact, he suffered from similar tactics in 2000, when Bush operatives started a smear campaign claiming that the Arizona Senator had a mixed-race child, and he refused to respond in kind.

Whoever is responsible for these tapes, the news industry is awash in a tacit understanding: don’t allow journalistic standards to interfere with the exploitation of any story. That’s the mentality that gave us Jon Benet and Nathalee, and Paris and Anna; Swaggart and Spitzer, and Haggard and Craig; Power and Ferraro, Bill and Michelle; Reverend Hagee and Reverend Wright.

It’s certainly possible, and I think quite likely, that two things are in play here: first, the Clinton campaign is circulating stories intended to undermine Obama’s candidacy, and second, the media is acting as a willing accomplice, not out of loyalty to Clinton but rather out of the desire to maximize ratings and circulation.

This election should be about policies and the philosophies they reflect, about character and judgment, not about the minutae and innuendo that transfix our easily manipulated media.

Each time a race-baiting photo or tape or rumor or leak surfaces, somebody is operating under cover of darkness to exploit Barack Obama’s skin color, and somebody else is cynically exploiting the subterfuge. I’ll leave it to you to decide who those somebodies are.

Newsprism

Update: Here’s Obama’s response to this controversy at Huffington Post. And now, Rev. Wright is no longer associated with the Obama campaign, though it hasn’t been made clear whether he resigned or was forced out. It should also be noted that while Disney’s “Song of the South” (which featured Uncle Remus singing “Zippity Doo Dah”) has been roundly criticized as racist, many see it as a valuable piece of Southern folklore.

Obama Wins Mississippi, Texas (That’s Right—Texas)

The mainstream media’s “horse race” angle on the Democratic race has gotten a bit ridiculous. For example, Hillary Clinton’s widely touted comeback on March 4 turns out to have been more or less a draw.

Why? After Texas tallied up the results if its caucuses—Texas uses a combination of a primary and caucuses to allocate its delegates—Barack Obama actually won that not-so-small state. Outside a few web sites, his victory has barely been covered. (How many of you political junkies who read my drivel were aware of it?)

It’s more than a little disingenuous to continue playing up a comeback that never was. And now that Obama’s also won Wyoming and Mississippi, Clinton’s victories in Ohio and Rhode Island seem pretty insignificant.

Take, for example, this headline at ABCNews.com—“Time on Her Side: Obama Maintains Lead, but Clinton Might Have the Edge.” Never let it be said that the mainstream media let facts get in their way.

The delegate math makes it nearly impossible for Clinton to win. Regardless of whose data you use (CBS News and CNN are reporting slightly different figures,) Obama needs to win about 45% of the remaining delegates to prevail, and Clinton, about 60%.

The superdelegates are breaking Obama’s way already, and the math favors a continuation, and probably a deepening, of that trend.

I wrote four weeks ago today that the media were pretending the race was neck and neck, when in fact, Obama was pulling away in the home turn. Now, Obama’s still pulling away, and the race is well into the home stretch—yet the mainstream media continue their charade.

The reason is simple: a tight race attracts viewers and readers.

It’s a matter of maximizing ratings and circulation, nothing more, nothing less. They want a photo finish, and if reality doesn’t give them one, they’ll make one up.

As always, follow the money.

Newsprism

How King Solomon Might Solve the Democrats’ Dilemma

The Democratic Party leadership faces three major obstacles to resolving the problem of seating delegates from Florida and Michigan:

1. Both states broke rules they themselves had agreed to, leading to the current squabble;

2. To “re-do” the primaries in both states would cost tens of millions of dollars; and

3. Hillary Clinton has said she won’t accept a caucus in either state.

King Solomon (who was not a democrat) might settle the problem like this:

Allow the results of the Florida primary, in which both Clinton and Obama were on the ballot, to stand as is; allow Michigan, in which only Clinton was on the ballot, to hold caucuses as soon as possible; and tell both states’ party leaders that either they both accept this compromise, or neither states’ delegates will be seated at the Democratic National Convention in August.

This way, both Obama, who leads in Michigan and has won 13 of 16 states that held caucuses, and Clinton, who already won the Florida primary, would likely win the majority of delegates in just one state, ultimately splitting the delegates more or less evenly. Plus, the cost of a do-over in Florida would be avoided, while the cost of holding a primary in Michigan would be cut significantly by using caucuses, which are far less expensive.

Both states’ leaders would have to accept the compromise or risk screwing the other state, and the Party, and the people.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean should set a deadline for Florida and Michigan to accept this compromise—or watch their delegations die.

Newsprism

Here’s the current delegate count after the Wyoming and Texas caucuses.

McCain—Second Coming of the Comeback Kid

One Clinton was “The Comeback Kid” sixteen years ago, the other hopes to be the same in 2008.

While Hillary Clinton won three out of four primaries and the popular vote last night, she still trails Obama in both delegates and votes. Today, Obama has picked up several delegates in the consequential-yet-ignored Texas caucuses, which choose about a third of the state’s delegates.

The caucus votes are still being counted, but it looks like Hillary picked up just 7-9 delegates last night.

The real Comeback Kid of 2008 is John McCain. Still, all of the major broadcast and cable networks except FoxNews tilted their coverage towards the Democratic race.

Six weeks ago in the Resmussen survey, McCain was at 31%. Obama was also at 31%. Clinton was at 47%.

Coming out of the primaries and caucus, Rasmusson now has McCain at 62%. Obama is at 44%. Clinton is at 48%.

McCain gained 31%, Obama 13%, and Clinton 1%.

While the intrigues between Hillary and Barack fit perfectly into the television news template, the real story last night was a resurgent Republican Party led by a triumphant John McCain. The real story was the contrast between a gracious Mike Huckabee bowing out, and an Algore-like Hillary Clinton staying in.

If there’s a media bias these days, it still favors the Democrats.

Newsprism