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

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

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

 

The Worst of the Wild, Wild Web—from the Right, WorldNetDaily

Far-right fundamentalist news and shopping site WorldNetDaily combines sensationalistic reactionary stories with a glut of self-promotional product pitches and questionable advertisements masked as headlines and text links to produce a formula that attracts a substantial readership within the right-wing echo chamber.

Unfortunately, the twisted news judgment of WorldNetDaily makes TheHuffingtonPost look alomost like a legitimate news source, and the predominance of commercial content makes WND one of the most cynical and mercenery sites on the web.

No other news site does so much to embed ads into the news. As of 4:00pm, six of the first ten “headlines” at today’s WND aren’t news stories; they’re actually ads promoting products and services. These include:

An anti-global warming theory DVD for $29.95—just in case all the other free anti-global warming hocus pocus at WND didn’t satisfy your thirst for irrational propaganda. Publisher Joseph Farah insists that global warming can’t possibly be real because God promised Noah He’d never flood the earth again; why, then, do you need to pay thirty bucks to hear some hack say the same thing?

A full years’ worth of Advanced Artery Solution for just $239.40. This medical “breakthrough” (it’s actually just ethylenediamine tetra-acetic acid, a common chemical used in thousands of products) promises that you’ll feel the difference as your arteries are cleansed of plaque (as if anyone can “feel” their arteries) and toxins leave your body (that you can feel—it’s called urinating.)

An anti-Darwin “documentary” that “proves” that Darwinism “has probably been responsible for more bloodshed than anything else in the history of humanity” (including the Holocaust) for just $4.95. ‘Nuff said.

A year’s subscription toWND’s own Whistleblower magazine for only $49.95. The next edition is devoted to “The secret life” of Barack “Hussein” Obama, “a Manchurian candidate – harboring an ominous secret agenda” who “reflexively, instinctively, will side with what’s wrong and harmful for America, and will oppose what’s right and good and wholesome for America. It’s uncanny.”

Other phony “headlines” include these ridiculous get rich quick schemes:

Turn $200 into $1.2 million with these hidden stocks! Get the 4 stocks you need to own in 2008.

$187,296 in 24 hours! Spare me just 7 minutes to show you how to copy my plan.

As if this shameless schilling isn’t bad enough, WorldNetDaily embeds literally hundreds of text links that look like normal hyperlinks in its news stories. In fact, these links are part of a third-party network called Kontera that promises ads “relevant” to the content. The ads, however, are only relevant insofar as any word in the English language that’s relevant to any Kontera ad can be hyperlinked. For example, when the word “doctor” appears in one WND story, Kontera embeds a link to an ad for health insurance. When the words “medical care” appear in the same story, an ad for Geico car insurance pops up.

Now on to the news.

The lead story this afternoon is tabloid-style sensationalism headlined, “Children’s hospital launches sex change for kids program.” It begins,

A doctor at the renowned Children’s Hospital Boston has launched a new program to drug children to delay puberty so they can decide whether they want a male or a female body … “We don’t think that demonic is too strong a word to describe this,” said a statement from the pro-family Mass Resistance organization. “It brings us thoughts of the Nazi doctors who thought they were doing good things.”

In reality, the “new program”—the Gender Management Service Clinic at Boston Children’s Hospital—is intended primarily to help children born with Disorders of Sexual Differentiation, which are pathologies that make it difficult to tell whether the children are male or female. Delaying puberty in such cases allows doctors to better handle the difficult decisions involved in assigning a gender to such children. (Note: the link above on the word “puberty” takes you to www.DealTime.com, where you can ”Shop Deals from 1000s of Merchants. Find, compare & buy.” How’s that for relevant?)

Another WND story proclaims that “Clinton’s family home reflects Democrat divide” and begins,

A new front has opened in the battle for the deeply divided soul of America’s Democrats - the front porch of the long-time family home of Hillary Clinton’s father and grandparents (where) a “Hillary For President” poster is tied to one half of the fence while an “Obama For President” adorns the other half.

The implication is that the Clinton family is divided over whom to vote for. In reality, though, the Clinton’s don’t own the home and haven’t for many years; a mother and daughter live there now, one of whom supports Clinton and the other Obama.

If all of this sensationalism, sex, spin and snake oil salesmanship isn’t enough for you, some of the nation’s best political minds offer their commentary at WND, including Chuck Norris and Pat Boone. Then there’s this laughable series of smears on Barack ”Hussein” Obama that Newsprism documented earlier this year.

Newsprism “follow(s) news and politics with a big shovel.”

In the case of the massive pile of bull called WorldNetDaily, we needed a steamshovel.

Newsprism

The Perfect Vice President for Either Party: Sam Nunn of Georgia

Former Senator and conservative Democrat Sam Nunn today endorsed Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, eliciting speculation that he could be on Obama’s short list of potential runningmates.

Newsprism has long considered Nunn, a four-term Senator and former Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and an expert on weapons of mass destruction, among the most credible candidates for the presidency—an office he’s shown little if any interest in.

As Obama’s runningmate, Nunn would shore up the Democrats’ foreign policy credentials substantially and move the ticket towards the center, possibly even putting some states in the otherwise solidly red South in play.

Mr. Nunn would make an equally strong runningmate for John McCain. McCain’s main weakness is the perception that he would continue the utterly failed foreign policy of George Bush, a foreign policy Nunn has challenged with great depth and perspective. Nunn would also pull the Republican ticket towards the center, putting any number of blue states in play.

Nunn  hopes for a sea change in US foreign policy and for political reconciliation domestically. Accepting a spot on either ticket would go a long way towards accomplishing both objectives.

Update: Nunn just told MSNBC that he’s happy in the private sector and not considering a return to public office.

Update: Along with Nunn, former Senator David Boren and former Clinton cabinet member Robert Reich have also endorsed Barack Obama today.

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

Why Some Democrats and Republicans Should Be Barred from Voting

Have you ever wondered why some people seem impossible to reason with when conversations turn to politics?

A study conducted at Atlanta’s Emory University used sophisticated brain scans to analyze the political reasoning—or lack thereof—of voters strongly attached to one political party or the other.

The results: when faced with information that threatens their pre-existing beliefs, both staunch Democrats and Republicans turn off the rational centers in the brain and turn on the emotional ones.

According to LiveScience.com,

The study points to a total lack of reason in political decision-making … Both Republicans and Democrats consistently denied obvious contradictions for their own candidate but detected contradictions in the opposing candidate.

Emory University’s Director of Clinical Psychology, Drew Weston, put it this way:

The result (of the study) is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data.

The study might go far in explaining the popularity of conservative talk radio and the liberal blogosphere, where reason and evidence are as rare as an honest politician.

The old admonition may hold true that some people—the party faithful, as it turns out—just shouldn’t discuss politics.

Maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to vote, either.

Newsprism

The Worst of the Wild, Wild Web—From the Left, HuffingtonPost

Hollywood leftist news and gossip site The Huffington Post combines a buffet of cheesy far-left commentary from notable writers, politicians, activists, actors, scholars, more actors, and relatives of actors with a daily dish of celebrity gossip. Add in a lively and very functional reader comment section and you have a highly succesful formula.

Unfortunately, the news judgment of HuffPo can best be described as amateurish, and the editorial stance leans so far left it’s staggering.

A quick glimpse at today’s headlines proves the point:

Cindy McCain, The Recipe Thief, Says The Intern Did It—omigosh! Cindy McCain’s intern may have stolen recipes from The Food Network! Hold the presses, hold the presses!

Jenna Bush Tries Not To Flash the Pope—holy Marilyn Monroe moment, a gust of wind almost (almost!) blew Jenna Bush’s skirt up as she shook the hand of Pope Benedict XVI!!!!!

“Dancing With The Stars” Eliminates The Oldest Contestant—that’s right, Priscilla Presley, the “62-year-old actress” (she acts???) was eliminated because her “rumba was dull and technically imprecise…”

Thought Process Flowchart: Dr. Phil—Drs. Freud and Jung take note: here’s a peek inside the mind of Dr. Phil McGraw!!!!

Obama Offers Hanna Montana Treasury Secretary Job—just in case you’re a ten-year-old girl, or have the mentality of one, here’s a serious story about a skit from the Country Music Awards!!!!

Jon Stewart Mocks Obama “Bitter” Controversy—real news about fake news about real news … and the fake news was better than the real!!!!!

In terms of commentary, HuffPo gives our finest political thinkers (Alec Baldwin, Margaret Cho, Norman Lear’s little granddaughter) a platform from which to enlighten us. This sampling should get you up to speed:

Pope Should Start “Spiritual Renewal” With Bisexual God—those sexist Catholics are sooooo paternalistic, they should get God two lovers, one male and one female, or better yet, give God both male and female sex organs, to make up for all those centuries of patriarchy. (Here’s the definition of bisexual, HuffPo.)

The Alabama of Pennsylvania Mirrors New Hampshire—a media elitist slurs working-class Pennsylvania by comparing it to (and slurring) Alabama. To paraphrase Lynyrd Skynyrd, we Southerners don’t need you Hollywood and NYC fly-over types around anyhow.

How Many “Gaffes” Equal Incompetence? and One Candidate Has Failed the Commander-In-Chief Test—Twice—that no-good John McCain accidentally confused Shia for Sunni (and who hasn’t done that?) Then McCain “seemed to say that General Petraeus is the top military commander of our Armed Forces, telling the Associated Press that he wouldn’t shift the focus of the military from Iraq to Afghanistan ‘unless Gen. [David] Petraeus said that he felt that the situation called for that.’” SEEMED to say? And it took two HuffPo bloggers to make that SEEM like a gaffe.

Then there’s the running gag called “Dickipedia,” described as “a wiki of dicks,” and its latest Dickipedia entry on John McCain. The entry calls McCain “cowardly” and an “asshole” and describes his wife as “freakish-looking over-plastic-surgery’d wife Cindy.” Then there’s this gem: “Though he once called religious bigots like Jerry Falwell ‘agents of intolerance,’ he now eagerly gets on his knees to fellate them to completion ask for their support.”

To top it all off, HuffPo asks the question, Is the Pope Even Relevant? At least as relevant as, say, Priscilla Presley, Hannah Montana, Dr. Phil, David Hasselhoff, Rob Lowe, comedian Keith Olbermann, and a topless Ann Coulter.

So that’s one day in the life of The HuffingtonPost—a big hit on the wild wild web, and a signal moment in the resurgence of yellow journalism.

Newsprism

McCain Proposes Tax Cuts, Curbs on Spending

In a speech timed to coincide with the deadline for filing federal income tax returns and to reach the media covering the Democratic primary, John McCain outlined his economic policies in Pittsburgh today.

McCain’s plan rejects the upper-class orientation of George Bush, embracing instead the populism and pro-growth policies of Ronald Reagan.

The Arizona senator’s tax plan calls for doubling the exemption for dependents from $3500 to $7000, establishing a simplified two-tier tax schedule, eliminating the alternative minimum tax, and suspending gasoline taxes over the summer. In addition, McCain would extend Bush’s tax cuts, reduce corporate taxes significantly, and give tax benefits to businesses for research and purchases of equipment.

In addition to these tax policies, McCain wooed working- and middle-class voters with the promise of readily available student loan funds, government-guaranteed mortgages for homeowners at risk of foreclosure, and a continuation of unemployment insurance for displaced workers.

In terms of government spending, McCain would freeze nonmilitary discretionary spending at current levels for one year while reviewing government programs for waste and fraud, increase Medicare premiums for wealthy retirees, veto any bill that includes earmarks.

McCain’s plan combines tax cuts with curbs on federal spending, a breath of fresh air compared to the irrationally expensive proposals of the two Democratic presidential hopefuls and the equally irrational Bush policy of cutting taxes while dramatically raising spending.

Newsprism finds McCain’s proposals substantive, centrist, and sensible, and therefore likely to be quickly overshadowed by the next irrelevant gaffe or contrived Bittergate.

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

Bush Announces Exit Strategy, Timetable for Withdrawal

In a speech today at the White House (transcript), a relatively sombre and downcast President Bush (video) announced his exit strategy and timetable for withdrawal from Washington, DC: on January 20, 2009, at precisely noon, Mr. Bush will leave office barring unforeseen circumstances.

At that time, a new president—if the Petraeus/Crocker hearings were any indication, Barack Obama—will inherit the war in Iraq, which Mr. Bush said is “not endless.”

“Not endless” is about as optimistic as the president could be. His hopes for a positive conclusion to the war were sketched out using “if” and ”would” rather than “when” and ”will,” an indication that he isn’t able to realistically predict, or even define, victory:

if we succeed in Iraq, after all that al-Qaida and Iran have invested there, it’d be a historic blow to the global terrorist movement and a severe setback for Iran. It would demonstrate to a watching world that mainstream Arabs reject the ideology of al-Qaida and mainstream Shia reject the ideology of Iran’s radical regime. It would give America a new partner with a growing economy and a democratic political system in which Sunnis and Shia and Kurds all work together for the good of their country.

The fact that after all the US has invested in Iraq the situation there is increasingly untenable is already being touted as a victory for the insurgents and jihadists who continue to tie up our armed forces. A “watching world” has seen terrorist attacks increasing across the globe, due in part to outrage over the arrogance of launching an unnecessary, unjustified pre-emptive war against an already desperate and isolated Iraq. As for transforming Iraq into a prosperous, democratic, and unified ally, one wonders if the happy Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds will all be riding unicorns across rainbows to fields of cotton candy.

On the other hand, the president admitted that failure in Iraq would bring about dire consequences:

If we fail there, al-Qaida would claim a propaganda victory of colossal proportions and they could gain safe havens in Iraq from which to attack the United States, our friends and our allies. Iran would work to fill the vacuum in Iraq…. This would diminish our nation’s standing in the world and lead to massive humanitarian casualties and increase the threat of another terrorist attack on our homeland.

The “propaganda victory” Mr. Bush refers to has already been accomplised by al Qaeda and the Sunni and Shiite insurgents, who’ve fought the world’s only remaining superpower to a draw using geurrilla tactics and improvised weapons and strategies. Iran has already been made the dominant force in the region, and our standing in the world, both economic and moral, declines daily. As for “massive humanitarian casualties,” one wonders what the president considers the nearly 100,000 dead, the two to four million displaced, the ethnic cleansing, and the decimation of Iraq’s already fragile economy—not to mention the cost in American dead and wounded—to be.

The sole silver lining in Bush’s remarks was directed at soldiers deployed to Iraq after August 1, who will serve the traditional 12-month stint rather than the current 15-month stint that has strained our military to the breaking point. This change in policy, however, hints at the damage the Iraq quagmire has done to the military, which the army openly acknowledges and which has left us increasingly vulnerable.

President Bush essentially slathered lipstick on the proverbial pig this morning. Even the centrist Christian Science Monitor characterized the speech as a defeatest hand-off to the next president, who will have to re-define “victory” and come up with a plan for a responsible withdrawal.

The president seems almost delusional in his stubborn refusal to admit what an astronomical miscalculation he made in launching an invasion of Iraq.

All that was missing today in the White House’s Cross Hall was another banner reading, “Mission Accomplished.”

Newsprism

Follow General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker (Virtually) Live

Bloggers and news organizations are following the Petraeus/Crocker hearings today in (almost) real time (see here, here, and here; live video here.)

The Congressional hearings feature all three remaining presidential candidates questioning four-star General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker’s testimony on the situation in Iraq.

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

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

A Simple Question

In endorsing Barack Obama today, Bill Richardson offered this assessment of the Illinois Senator: “Your candidacy is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our country, and you are a once-in-a-lifetime leader.”

The question isn’t whether Obama is ready for the presidency; the question is, is the presidency—is the nation—ready for Barack Obama?

In temperament, intelligence, judgment, and integrity, Obama stands head and shoulders above his competition. It’s  McCain’s experience, resolve, and independence, along with a certain aspect or cast of his, that make this a race.

Newsprism

The Best and Worst of Fox News

It’s rare that the shallow political posturing of Fox News’ morning personalities warrants a mention; morning happy-talk just isn’t taken that seriously. But this morning, Fox and Friends hosts Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson, and Brian Kilmeade were bluntly shamed and scolded on air after repeatedly criticizing Barack Obama for saying this:

The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know (pause) there’s a reaction in her that doesn’t go away and it comes out in the wrong way.

The upshot of the Friends’ commentary was an oft-repeated canard that calling his own grandmother “a typical white person” was racist. Obama made the admittedly impolitic statement while defending himself against prior charges that another statement concerning his grandmother was racist:

I can no more disown (Reverand Jeremiah Wright) than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

Even Jesse Jackson once acknowledged that he felt fearful enough of being followed down the street by young black males that realizing he was being followed by whites instead was a relief. And who among us has never let slip a racial slur?

The sad fact is that many conservatives, including Pat Buchanan and some at National Review Online, are trying to dirty Obama through the mud of their own racism. No one should be deluded into thinking that America has transcended her racial divide, nor that that racial divide can be laid at the feet of a unifying figure like Obama.

The problem with Fox News isn’t its conservative bias. Diverse perspectives in American media should be welcomed, especially after many decades during which the liberal bias of the vast majority of news organizations put conservatism at a distinct disadvantage.

The problem with Fox News is its predominating superficiality, its reliance on beautiful women wearing heavy make-up and revealing clothing, or its reliance on contrived infotainment personas like Bill O’Reilly’s and Sean Hannity’s. No other network exploits the sex appeal of its female personalities quite like Fox News; it’s telling, for example, that Gretchen Carlson is a former Miss America. (To be fair, Carlson is a classical musician and scholar who attended Oxford and Stanford Universities. Fox and Friends is beneath her.)

But the most important angle on this story has nothing to do with sexploitation or disingenuous charges of racism. What was astounding about the comeuppance dealt out so forcefully to Doocy, Carlson and Kilmeade was that it came not from some liberal academic or condescending media critic, but from Fox News’ Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace.

This was a brave gesture by one of the best broadcast journalists working today to curb the adolescent vapidity of 24-hour news.

Kudos to Chris Wallace and to Fox News Sunday, two class acts.

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-