Shocka: McCain is already betraying conservatives
He hasn’t even been formally nominated, much less elected, and already McCain is giving you the shiv. The man is not to be trusted.
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March 30, 2008
March 29, 2008
"I have no intention of stopping until we finish what we started"
I told you. Mama’s goal isn’t to win. It’s to hobble Obama:
In her most definitive comments to date on the subject, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton sought Saturday to put to rest any notion that she will drop out of the presidential race, pledging in an interview to not only compete in all the remaining primaries but also continue until there is a resolution of the disqualified results in Florida and Michigan.
A day after Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean urged the candidates to end the race by July 1, Clinton defied that call by declaring that she will take her campaign all the way to the Aug. 25-28 convention if necessary, potentially setting up the prolonged and divisive contest that party leaders are increasingly anxious to avoid.
And you know what? Mama doesn’t have to quit. As long as a candidate can raise money, she can fight on. And Mama’s raising millions. So stand by while she gets Obama ready for her drinking buddy:
Moral of the story: Not without paying the price do you take something from Mama.
"I think that if McCain loses to Obama after they sit it out, they'll be unable to live with themselves"
And I think that if you vote for McCain and he wins, you’ll spend four years either angrily regretting your vote or carrying that backstabber’s water.
I’ll live with myself just fine, Eric. You miss the point: For conservatives, this election is already lost, there being no viable conservative candidate still on the national ballot.
Is McCain less objectionable than Obama? Yes. But from this it does not follow that McCain is acceptable. He isn’t.
Sometimes you lose elections. It happens. For conservatives, this is the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 5, and we lost.
It’s not that we’re sitting this one out. It’s that we played and lost. You don’t keep urging people to vote after the votes have been tallied, there no longer being anything, or anyone, to vote for.
Conservatives will regroup and try again in 2012. But for now, for us, it’s over.
Added. Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, writing in 2004:
When offered a choice between two politically intolerable alternatives, it is important to choose neither. And when that choice is presented in rival arguments and debates that exclude from public consideration any other set of possibilities, it becomes a duty to withdraw from those arguments and debates, so as to resist the imposition of this false choice by those who have arrogated to themselves the power of framing the alternatives.
John McCain's first ad of the general election
You don’t have to support him to acknowledge it’s a good ad:
Relatedly, Tammy Bruce notes that DNC chairman Howard Dean has endorsed McCain.
The film they don't want you to see
Added: From the UN News Service. Note the unintended irony:
Secretary-General today led a chorus of United Nations condemnation of the Internet broadcast of a video made by the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, describing it as “offensively anti-Islamic,” while he also called on those upset by the film to remain calm.
Remain calm? What is that a reference to, eh? When Christians are criticized — as they have been by Christopher Hitchens, for example — no one calls upon them to remain calm.
The UN has just made Wilders’ point for him.
The Secretary-General stressed that the UN stands at the centre of global efforts to advance mutual respect, understanding and dialogue between different cultures, religions and groups.
I, for one, do not respect, and do not wish to dialogue with, those who would behead me. What about you?
Elsewhere:
So, let’s see: Fitna says that a propensity to violence is inherent in Islam, a deeply controversial proposition. The film can’t be shown anywhere because people are afraid of…something. So instead, the film is posted online, where millions of people view it. But after 24 hours or so, the film is taken down because threats of violence are made by…someone. I dunno, it’s really puzzling. The one thing that everyone agrees on is that it’s ridiculous to think that Muslims can be violent. So the headchopping threats must be coming from…someone else.
Here’s part two of Fitna:
I’ve downloaded the video and converted it to QuickTime format, in case YouTube succumbs to the same threats of violence that LiveLeak faced. In that event, I will repost the video. Gay men with no children and a sidearm are harder to intimidate.
March 28, 2008
Yes, that is what Hillary will say
March 27, 2008
Are you gay for Obama?
Me, not so much …
Ken Lee! I can't live without you
This went viral, so you may have seen it already. But if not — I hadn’t seen it until yesterday — watch it now. It’s one of the funniest videos ever posted to YouTube.
March 26, 2008
Attention blogosphere: Sen. John Cornyn respects your authoritah
One of my senators, John Cornyn, R-TX, is up for re-election in November, and this I must tell you: His campaign’s outreach to center-right bloggers in Texas has been impressive.
Tomorrow morning, the senator holds his first conference call with Texas bloggers; his staff has contacted me three times to make sure that I’ll be on the call. How many times have they contacted the big bloggers, I wonder.
Though Texas is likely to remain a red state, this is a tough year for Republicans, and Cornyn’s people are ignoring no element of the GOP constituency. What’s more, they clearly understand the ability of the blogosphere to inform public perception.
March 25, 2008
Can the president compel U.S. state courts to follow the orders of the World Court?
A man, a foreign national and a gang member, rapes and murders two girls. He’s arrested and Mirandized. He provides a written confession. But local police fail to notify the man’s home country of his detention, as required by the Vienna Convention, a treaty to which the United States was then a signatory.† The man is nevertheless convicted and sentenced to death in state court.
On appeal, the man raises a claim under the Vienna Convention. The state appeals court, viewing the claim as procedurally flawed, affirms the conviction and sentence of death. The man then seeks habeas relief from the federal courts. The federal courts waive him off.
Meanwhile, in a case brought against the United States by the man’s home country, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) holds that the man’s rights under the Vienna Convention have been violated, and orders a review of his conviction and sentence.
President Bush thereupon intervenes. In a memorandum, he directs the state appeals court to do as the ICJ has ordered. The state appeals court tells the president to stick that memorandum in his ear. “Where is the executioner?!,” the state appeals court cries. “Draw him nigh.”
Noting the commotion, the U.S. Supreme Court inquires, “What’s all the fuss?” After hearing from both sides, the Court issues judgment: “Actually, Mr. President, that memorandum does go in your ear.”
Or, as the Washington Post explains it:
The Supreme Court yesterday issued a broad ruling limiting presidential power and the reach of international treaties, saying neither President Bush nor the World Court has the authority to order a Texas court to reopen a death penalty case involving a foreign national.
The justices held 6 to 3 that judgments of the International Court of Justice, as the court is formally known, are not binding on U.S. courts and that Bush’s 2005 executive order that courts in Texas comply anyway does not change that.
† The United States has since withdrawn.
March 24, 2008
"I just wish I knew who they were"
A drug warrior is dead. And a homeowner, having defended himself against a no-knock raid, is charged with murder. The drug war is not victimless.
HT: Amy
March 23, 2008
How the drug war promotes anti-Americanism
As drugs are to the addict, the drug war is to us; consequently, no matter how destructive our behavior becomes, we persist in it:
The sad thing is, our scorched earth drug policy in Latin America is a big reason why the entire continent hates us, and has turned to electing hostile political leaders like Chavez and Morales. Who can blame them? We send armed agents down there to march through their backyards, poison their fields with industrial-strength herbicides, and foment dangerous black markets and fund organized crime syndicates, all because our government can’t bear the thought [of] its own citizens getting high. And of course, anyone who wants to can get high, anyway.
Hillary will not be the Democratic nominee
Here’s why:
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Beaten. |
Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic superdelegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party’s most reliable constituency.
Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote — which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle — and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.
People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet.
The controversy over his pastor’s hate speech may wound Obama in the general election. But it isn’t going to stop him from getting the Democratic nomination. As Politico observes, Hillary “cannot win unless Obama is hit by a political meteor. Something that merely undermines him won’t be enough. It would have to be some development that essentially disqualifies him.” (Italics added.)
Added: Douglas Kmiec is a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University, and a former head of the Office of Legal Counsel for Presidents Reagan and Bush I. Today he endorsed Barack Obama:
No doubt some of my friends will see this as a matter of party or intellectual treachery. I regret that and I respect their disagreement. But they will readily agree that as Republicans, we are first Americans. As Americans, we must voice our concerns for the well-being of our nation without partisanship when decisions that have been made endanger the body politic.
March 22, 2008
Quotable: "He's just killed the Republican brand"
— Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, R-VA, on President Bush’s likely affect on the 2008 congressional elections.
But Tammy Bruce says congressional Republicans have no one to blame but themselves.
Huh: McCain-loathing conservatives may be irrelevant
So what if we don’t vote for him. He doesn’t need us:
In a sign of just how divisive and ugly the Democratic fight has gotten, only 53% of Clinton voters say they’ll vote for Obama should he become the nominee. Nineteen percent say they’ll go for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and 13% say they won’t vote.
Sixty percent of Obama voters say they’ll go for Clinton should she win the nomination, with 20% opting for McCain, and three percent saying they won’t vote.
That from a poll of Pennsylvania Democrats.
Those numbers won’t hold up, of course. But they do suggest that, if only for reasons beyond his own control, McCain might be a stronger candidate than many have thought.
March 21, 2008
Are you a typical white person?
Ironically Obama is right, although not for the reason that he seems to suggest, or that others might assume. Depending on the circumstances, the “typical white person” does indeed become alarmed at the sight of black men. But that reaction, “bred into our experiences,” as Obama says, isn’t the product of racism; it’s the product of crime statistics. To deny this is to deny reality.
The objection here isn’t to the accuracy of Obama’s remarks. The objection is this: If Hillary Clinton or John McCain made reference in any context to the “typical black person,” their political careers would be over. Here, again, Obama skates on a double standard.
March 20, 2008
Obama is right: words matter
By embedding this mash-up, I’m not endorsing it, not all of it anyway. Parts of it are unfair, even inflammatory. But other parts are not unfair. It isn’t unfair to show Obama and his wife speaking for themselves. It isn’t unfair to show Obama declining to place his hand across his heart during the national anthem.
For distributing a link to this video did John McCain today suspend Soren Dayton, a campaign aide. McCain was right to suspend him. McCain’s campaign needs to leave this alone. The blogosphere will post all links.
March 19, 2008
Supreme Court set to announce major victory for gun rights
If you listen to the audio† of the oral argument, you’ll know why this is right:
A majority of the Supreme Court indicated a readiness yesterday to settle decades of constitutional debate over the meaning of the Second Amendment by declaring that it provides an individual right to own a gun for self-defense.
Such a finding could doom the District of Columbia’s ban on private handgun possession, the country’s toughest gun-control law, and significantly change the tone and direction of the nation’s political battles over gun control.
†Audio link requires RealPlayer.
March 18, 2008
Obama's speech: the center-right reacts
The speech:
For center-right reaction, see Charles Murray (favorable), Don Surber (mixed) and Jules Crittenden (critical).
Whatever the merits, or lack thereof, of his speech, the controversy over his pastor’s incendiary rhetoric has damaged Obama permanently. Whether it has also damaged him seriously is too early to say. But it’s never good when 36% of independents have had their impression of you altered for the worse.
March 17, 2008
Do you take financial advice from this man?
If so, you’re really hurting right about now, aren’t you?
Apparently it was an old-fashioned “run on the bank” that did it:
Pushed to the brink of collapse by the mortgage crisis, Bear Stearns Cos. agreed — after prodding by the federal government — to be sold to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. for the fire-sale price of $2 a share in stock, or about $236 million.
Bear Stearns had a stock-market value of about $3.5 billion as of Friday — and was worth $20 billion in January 2007. But the crisis of confidence that swept the firm and fueled a customer exodus in recent days left Bear Stearns with a horrible choice: sell the firm — at any price — to a big bank willing to assume its trading obligations or file for bankruptcy.
So what does J.P. Morgan get out of this? Bear Stearns’ new office tower in midtown Manhattan.
Confirmed: We're still losing the drug war
The drug war will end, because it must. By 2017, only nine years from now, federal entitlement spending alone will necessitate a tax increase equal to 25% or more of payroll. Faced with confiscatory tax rates, we will have to slash public spending and find new sources of revenue. An end to the drug war offers both savings and revenue. But for now, we will do again what we have done before, and get the same results while expecting different ones:
More than 20,000 Mexican troops and federal police are engaged in a multi-front war with the private armies of rival drug lords, a conflict that is being waged most fiercely along the 2,000-mile length of the U.S.-Mexico border. The proximity of the violence has drawn in the Bush administration, which has proposed a $500 million annual aid package to help President Felipe Calderon combat what a Government Accountability Office report estimates is Mexico’s $23 billion a year drug trade.
A total of more than 4,800 Mexicans were slain in 2006 and 2007, making the murder rate in each of those years twice that of 2005. Law enforcement officials and journalists, politicians and peasants have been gunned down in the wave of violence, which includes mass executions, such as the killings of five people whose bodies were found on a ranch outside Tijuana this month.
Like the increasing number of Mexicans heading over the border in fear, the violence itself is spilling into the United States, where a Border Patrol agent was recently killed while trying to stop suspected traffickers.
Reportedly, the Mexican government is not in control of large sections of its territory. In other areas, it maintains control only by having troops garrisoned there:
Soldiers crowd the slender canal bridges that crisscross Reynosa, stopping drivers at random and staring across the cityscape with their fingers on the triggers of heavy weapons. The tense atmosphere has led to mistakes.
On Feb. 16, soldiers fatally shot Sergio Meza Varela, a 28-year-old with no apparent ties to the drug trade, when the car he was riding in didn’t stop at a checkpoint. “You’re scared to leave your house,” Alejandra Salinas, Meza’s cousin, said in an interview outside the family tire shop. “We’re just in the way.”
Questions presented: Our government can hold out for the next nine years. Can the same be said of Mexico’s? And if not, what are the implications for the United States?
March 16, 2008
eBay CEO Meg Whitman named co-chair of McCain's campaign
She will reportedly play a “lead role” in both fundraising and policy development: “Since Whitman joined eBay in 1998, the 30-employee start-up has been transformed into a Fortune 500 company with nearly $8 billion in revenue.”
Presumably McCain is hoping that Whitman can transform him.
March 15, 2008
Ten things not to do during a job interview
Three of the ten:
• “Candidate answered cell phone and asked the interviewer to leave her own office because it was a ‘private’ conversation.”
• “Candidate told the interviewer he wouldn’t be able to stay with the job long because he thought he might get an inheritance if his uncle died — and his uncle wasn’t ‘looking too good.’”
• “Candidate flushed the toilet while talking to interviewer during phone interview.”
The other seven …
"Everything about the case called District of Columbia v. Heller screams history in the making"
The Supreme Court hears oral argument Tuesday in the biggest gun rights case ever:
An extraordinary 66 friend-of-the-court briefs have been filed, citing everyone from King James II to Western author Louis L’Amour. Justices have extended the customary hour-long oral argument by 15 minutes. Upward of 80 reporters have signed up to attend the arguments, exceeding any other case this term.
Informed observers expect a victory for gun rights:
One experienced court-watcher, former Duke University School of Law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, all but assumed in a legal brief that Chief Justice John G. Roberts and a conservative court majority will uphold the individual-rights interpretation.
“It’s the most likely outcome,” agreed Carl Bogus, a gun-control advocate and law professor at Roger Williams University Law School in Rhode Island.
Vice President Dick Cheney joined 305 members of Congress in filing a friend-of-the-court brief that urges the invalidation of D.C.’s handgun ban.
Women will be boys
“At the nation’s elite women’s colleges, there is a new kind of gender trouble: students who enter as one sex and become another.”
The TSA: Keeping you safe from snow globes
You couldn’t make this stuff up if you had to. But you don’t have to.
Obama's pastor: Did I say god damn America? I meant, God damn America!; Obama reacts; Multiple updates added; Obama crashing?
In a sign of how damaging this story has become, Obama appeared yesterday on Fox News — for the first time ever, yes? — to respond.
Update: Team Obama throws Rev. Wright under the bus.
Update: Still more pushback from Obama himself. But Obama asserts that Rev. Wright “has never been my political advisor.” That’s false:
Though Wright and Obama do not often talk one-on-one often, the senator does check with his pastor before making any bold political moves.
Last fall, Obama approached Wright to broach the possibility of running for president. Wright cautioned Obama not to let politics change him, but he also encouraged Obama, win or lose.
And Obama’s claim that the statements at issue here “were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity” is Clinton-caliber parsing:
How plausible it is that Obama wouldn’t have known about Wright’s, er, greatest hits. Obama strongly implies he didn’t know his pastor had a habit of giving nutty sermons up until the outset of his presidential campaign. Is that believable?
No, it is not. What’s more, lying and misdirection hardly constitute a politics of “change.” Obama will survive this.† But the polish is off the apple.
†Unless, of course, someone produces video of Obama in the pews at Trinity during one of Wright’s hateful rants. Do you think a close inspection of Trinity’s DVDs is at this hour underway?
Update: Instapunk says this controversy will be Obama’s undoing — and maybe Clinton’s as well:
However they surfaced … the video excerpts from the sermons of Jeremiah Wright are the only significant revelation that occurred this week. … They are also fatal to Obama’s chances of winning the presidency. They are probably equally fatal to Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency. It’s up to the Democrat Party to figure out how to deal with the catastrophe, but catastrophe it is, and there are multiple reasons why.
Update: In fairness to Obama, here’s a little sample of the love and light that issue from McCain-supporting clergy:
Update: Hmm. Maybe Instapunk is right. Obama is nosediving:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton essentially even in the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. It’s Obama 46% Clinton 45% … This reflects an unusually sharp change from yesterday’s results when Obama led by eight points …
March 14, 2008
"I am coming to believe that Barack Obama is one of the greatest con artists we've seen"
Mona Charen doesn’t question Barack Obama’s patriotism. She says flat-out that he has none:
One can have sympathy for his psychological predicament. But that sympathy certainly does not extend to electing him president of a country that I sincerely believe he does not love.
Meanwhile, this from Tom Maguire:
His wife is angry, his minister is angry — why can’t Mr. Unity bring a little hope and reconciliation into their lives?
Now we know why Hillary stays in the race, the math against her notwithstanding. She thinks Obama might implode.
March 13, 2008
Obama's pastor: God damn America
As angry religious rants go, this one isn’t especially remarkable. Every Sunday in America, in churches black and white, well-compensated Protestant clergy take to the stage to preach loathing for somebody — sometimes for Catholics, sometimes for Jews, always for gays and lesbians. Only rarely do we on the secular right even notice, and even more rarely do we comment. For us, it has become background noise.
Jeremiah Wright’s loathing for America is notable only because he’s pastor to Barack Obama, a man who aspires to govern America. If it’s fair to tar Hillary Clinton with Geraldine Ferraro’s soft-focus remarks, it’s surely fair to tar Barack Obama with his pastor’s acrimonious ones.
March 12, 2008
Houston Democrats: We have not yet begun to count!
“The outcome of the March 4 Democratic caucuses remains unknown in Harris County,” according to the Houston Chronicle. Indeed, “[t]he count has not even begun.” The delay is attributable in part to the more than 70 precincts that have yet to report. The primary was eight days ago.
I was an election judge here in Harris County for the election of 1984, and at 11:30 p.m. that night I was in the office of then-County Clerk Anita Rodeheaver. She was on the phone with the judge of a box that had yet to report. It having been a long day with heavy turnout, the judge had decided to go home, take a meal, and get a good night’s rest. He figured he’d report his box in the morning.
I and others listened with amusement as Rodeheaver told the man that he had but two choices: He could either come downtown of his own volition — now, right now — or wait in the bed for a sheriff’s deputy to arrest him. What was it going to be? Okay, we’ll see you shortly. Rodeheaver was an old-school Democrat.
Now for tidbits from this year:
• 1,473 provisional ballots were cast; of those, two-thirds have been disqualified as ineligible.
• 884 voters reportedly voted twice — first during early voting, and then again on election day. Under state law, voting twice is a felony.
• 1,091 voters reportedly voted in both the Democratic and Republican primaries. This too is a no-no.
A defiant Geraldine Ferraro steps aside: "The truth is the truth is the truth"
Going? Yes. Apologizing? No:
Geraldine Ferraro has relinquished her position on the Clinton campaign after causing a firestorm with her remarks that Sen. Barack Obama is only where he is politically because he is a black man.
[…]
After making her remarks in an interview with the local paper in Torrance, Calif., Ferraro further defended them on television, saying she had been celebrating the outpouring of support Obama received from black voters. Even though Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has distanced herself from the remarks, Ferraro did not back away from them. She wrote a letter to Clinton announcing her decision to move on.
“I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign,” Ferraro wrote. “The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you. I won’t let that happen.”
Spitzer quits
As Mr. Spitzer might have said when he was attorney general, violations of the criminal law are not “private failings.” And “remorse” is not a penalty recognized by statute.
For his conduct, Eliot Spitzer has now suffered the political consequences; here’s hoping that he’s made to suffer the legal ones, too — and that the government shows him the same mercy he has shown others.
Mama on Spitzer: Isn't he a superdelegate for me? Can you people add? Alright, then: Get out of my face
And when Mama says “over the next days,” she means the days until August.
March 11, 2008
Florida House Democrats: There will be no do-overs
“Baby, we can’t a punch hole through paper using a sharp metal object, and you want us to do a mail-in ballot?! Talk to the hand.”
NYT to Spitzer: Get out! (Maybe)
As late as Tuesday morning, she had stopped short of calling for his resignation. But with him holed up in that Fifth Avenue apartment, ignoring her demands for an explanation of the pootie tang, the Gray Lady has (just about) had it:
To put it bluntly, Mr. Spitzer must either resign immediately or explain why he deserves to continue in office. It is almost impossible for us to imagine how he can survive this scandal and provide the credible leadership that his state needs.
Romney: Do you think I would settle for No. 2? Damn right, I would
But here’s the hitch: They say McCain doesn’t like him.
March 10, 2008
The obligatory Eliot Spitzer post; Multiple updates below
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BUSTED: Client 9 |
The tapping of a high-rent sugar tree — Spitzer was a client, not a provider — should occasion no disturbance. Ask ten men, “If you knew you could get away with it, would you?” Nine of the ten will say yes. (The one who says no should not be allowed to handle cash.)
But of course Spitzer could not get away it. He has a wife and three teenage daughters. He’s the governor of our third largest state. And he made a name for himself righteously prosecuting others, including the promoters of prostitution. The odds of Spitzer keeping his secret were never good.
‘Twas the money trail that led the feds to him:
The federal investigation of a New York prostitution ring was triggered by Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s suspicious money transfers, initially leading agents to believe Spitzer was hiding bribes, according to federal officials.
It was only months later that the IRS and the FBI determined that Spitzer wasn’t hiding bribes but payments to a company called QAT, what prosecutors say is a prostitution operation operating under the name of the Emperors Club.
So what else is to be said, except that Spitzer must go?
“He has to step down. No one will stand with him,” said Rep. Peter King, a Republican congressman from Long Island. “I never try to take advantage or gloat over a personal tragedy. However, this is different. This is a guy who is so self-righteous, and so unforgiving.”
Democratic Assemblyman John McEneny said: “I don’t think anyone remembers anything like this. The fact that the governor has a reputation as a reformer and there is a certain assumption as attorney general that you’re Caesar’s wife. It’s a different element than if you were an accountant.”
Update: Although it stops short of calling for Spitzer’s resignation, the New York Times lays bare his hypocrisy:
As state attorney general, he prosecuted prostitution rings with enthusiasm — pointing out that they are often involved in human trafficking, drug trafficking and money laundering. In 2004 on Staten Island, Mr. Spitzer was vehement in his outrage over 16 people arrested in a high-end prostitution ring.
How many lives did Eliot Spitzer destroy with his self-righteous moralizing? As Professor Bainbridge notes, “One can only hope Spitzer encounters a prosecutor who brings to the task the same zeal as Spitzer brought to his own crusades.”
Update: According to the New York Post, Spitzer has been visiting hookers for six years, maybe longer.
Update: For the sake of his family and his party, Spitzer should resign, promptly. The longer he hangs on, the longer the media muck about: “‘I’m sure he wanted anal sex without condoms’ Fleiss says, speculating but strangely confident.”
How long until Greta Van Susteren interviews one of the hookers, and tries to determine the angle of the legs?
Update: Reportedly, he will indeed quit, perhaps as early as tomorrow. His lawyers are haggling for a deal:
Gov. Eliot Spitzer is set to resign Wednesday, sources tell CBS 2 HD political reporter Marcia Kramer, but insiders say he’s going to use the resignation as a bargaining chip to cut a deal with federal prosecutors and he won’t step down until that happens.
Update: “Never talk when you can nod, and never nod when you can wink, and never write an e-mail because it’s death,” the then-New York attorney general said. “You’re giving prosecutors all the evidence we need.”
That from a man who “transferred $10,000 by breaking it into smaller amounts” and “then called the bank asking that his name be removed from the transactions.” Troubled by both the transactions and the request, the bank filed a Suspicious Activity Report with the Internal Revenue Service.
As a former prosecutor well-versed in crimes of finance, Spitzer had to have known that the bank was likely to report him. Questions presented: Did he want to get to caught? Did he need to get caught? Take it away, Greta …
Why John McCain is unlikely to win
Bill Kristol, columnist for the New York Times and editor of the Weekly Standard, has no useful advice for John McCain. (Pluck Clarence Thomas from a safe and critical seat on the Supreme Court? To take a crapshoot on the vice presidency, a job John Garner described as not worth “a pitcher of warm piss”? Mary, please.) But for everyone else, Kristol does have a useful offering: He describes well the obstacles to a McCain victory.
After noting that Democrats have just picked up a traditionally Republican House seat in Illinois, Kristol writes:
This isn’t encouraging for G.O.P. prospects in 2008. Nor is this: It’s rare for a party to win a third consecutive term in the White House. The only time it’s been done since World War II was in 1988. Then the incumbent, Ronald Reagan, had a job approval rating on Election Day in the high 50s. George Bush looks likely to remain stuck in the 30s. Factor in the prospect of a recession (the bad housing and job market reports at the end of last week were politically chilling) and the fact that a large majority already thinks the country’s going in the wrong direction. Add to the mix a huge turnout so far in the Democratic presidential primaries, far above that for the Republican contests, even when both parties still had competitive races.
And to all of that (and more), add this: A small but not insignificant number of conservatives isn’t going to vote for John McCain.
If you’re a Republican who wants to make a difference in 2008, find a viable House or Senate candidate whom you support and write him or her a check.
March 9, 2008
"In the end, the audience is laughing with Hillary as they laugh at Obama. That's powerful indeed."
On the surface, it’s a swipe at Hillary. But the subtext is clear: Barack Obama is a callow idiot. Or, as NewsBusters put it: “… for the third week in a row, ‘SNL’ began with a skit highly favorable to Clinton, and this time made Obama look like an incompetent, inexperienced fool.”
Republican House seat falls to Democrats
Omen?
In a stunning upset Saturday that could be a sign of trouble for Republicans this fall, a little-known Democratic physicist won the special election for a far west suburban congressional seat long held by former GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
Rookie candidate Bill Foster scored a comfortable victory over Republican dairyman Jim Oberweis, who lost his fourth high-profile contest in six years, after an expensive and highly negative contest.
Foster had 53 percent to Oberweis’ 47 percent with all of the unofficial vote counted.
[…]
The 14th District historically has been very Republican, re-electing Hastert with 60 percent of the vote in 2006 and giving President Bush 55 percent of the vote in 2004.
March 8, 2008
Obama advisers: Actually, no, we can't
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OBAMA: Advised by the reality-based. |
First, there was Austan Goolsbee, economic adviser to Obama, who assured the Canadians that Obama’s NAFTA-bashing was merely posturing for the rubes; then there was Susan Rice, foreign policy adviser to Obama, who said her candidate was indeed not ready for 3 a.m. calls; next, there was Samantha Power, another foreign policy adviser to Obama, who, among other things, told the British that Obama’s promise to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq was to be jettisoned after the yahoos vote; and now there’s John Brennan, intelligence adviser to Obama, who has broken with his candidate over retroactive legal immunity for surveillance-friendly telecoms:
“I do believe strongly that [telecoms] should be granted that immunity,” former CIA official John Brennan told National Journal reporter Shane Harris in the interview. “They were told to [cooperate] by the appropriate authorities that were operating in a legal context.”
[…]
That wasn’t just a personal opinion, Brennan made clear to Harris. “My advice, to whoever is coming in [to the White House], is they need to spend some time learning, understanding what’s out there, identifying those key issues,” including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, he said — the law at the heart of the immunity debate.
“They need to make sure they do their homework, and it’s not just going to be knee-jerk responses,” Brennan said of the presidential hopefuls.
Michael Goldfarb makes the appropriate observations:
The funny thing is that these advisers are all right. Obama’s in lala land making promises he can’t possibly keep and his advisers are just stating the obvious. Their guy has no experience (not an automatic disqualification for office), he isn’t going to pull troops out of Iraq (because that would be crazy), he isn’t going to withdraw from NAFTA (also crazy), and he isn’t going to let telecom companies go bankrupt because they did their patriotic duty.
If anything, he’s surrounded himself with smart people. That’s something.
March 7, 2008
Temper, temper: McCain gets pissy with NYT reporter
May 15, 2004:
 |
VOLCANIC BY DAY: And when awaken by a 3 a.m. phone call? |
If Mr. McCain is offered the vice-presidential spot, people close to Mr. Kerry say, the request will come from the candidate himself and not through the campaign’s vice-presidential vetting process.
Asked if Senator Kerry had made such an offer, Mr. McCain said no without hesitation. But asked if the two men had ever discussed it, even casually, he paused for a moment.
“No,” he said finally. “We really haven’t.”
March 7, 2008:
McCain today testily evaded answering questions about the nature of his veep conversations with Kerry in ‘04.
He admitted, though, that the discussion was had — saying that all of the political world knows that.
Elisabeth Bumiller, the NYT reporter asking about the matter after it was raised at a town hall meeting, noted, however, that in May of 2004 McCain had denied talking about the number two slot with Kerry.
Understandably, McCain finds these questions irritating. It is not … helpful … to have the GOP’s already-apathetic base reminded that one of the most liberal presidential candidates in our country’s history looked upon John McCain as a suitable running mate. But that doesn’t make the questions unfair or unreasonable.
Ed Morrissey thinks otherwise, and has mounted a risible assault on the Times. Elisabeth Bumiller is not, we are assured, “looking out for [McCain’s] best interests,” and her questions are “deliberately provocative.” (Tsk, tsk.) Morrissey also says that the Times failed to get McCain’s goat.† Well, here’s the video. Decide for yourself. My vote is for goat gotten.
†More importantly, this display by McCain is an invitation to the press corps to try again:
Dialing for votes: The focus groups get a wrong number
Mickey Kaus argues, convincingly, that dial-using focus groups are nearly useless:
… Hillary’s “3 AM” ad appears to have worked. Intriguingly, the ad also worked despite performing poorly in the MediaCurves.com sample of 554 Democrats hooked up to reaction meters (on which they registered their agreement or disagreement).
[…]
… the meters are good at measuring effective pandering, not at measuring effective persuasion. And sometimes candidates do persuade!
You know who can rake in the cash? The Messiah, that's who
His haul for February was an astonishing $55 million.
But it takes more than cash to win a presidential election:
Late Tuesday night I wrote that the upshot of the March 4th contests was that Clinton had beaten Obama up a bit and he hadn’t responded. She’d not only bloodied up his poll numbers a bit by throwing all sorts of stuff at him. She also showed that it wasn’t at all clear that Obama was enough of a fighter to stand up to this stuff or get back in her face. More than the delegate numbers, that was the challenge March 4th had left him with.
But since then she’s just been slapping this guy around like crazy. She’s on the offense every day, dictating the terms of the discussion and getting results.
Results indeed: Clinton is surging in Pennsylvania.
March 6, 2008
Hillary: If I don't make it, go with McCain
Moral of the story: People stick with their drinking buddies.
ADDED —
“It’s as if Hillary decided to start campaigning for John McCain.”
California Supreme Court hears gay marriage cases
“The divisive issue of same-sex marriage appeared to split the California Supreme Court down the middle Tuesday as the justices agonized over questions of tradition, discrimination and democratic government during a 3 1/2-hour hearing,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported:
In challenging the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage, San Francisco’s lawyer, Chief Deputy City Attorney Therese Stewart, argued that the difference between domestic partnership and marriage is more than nomenclature.
Although domestic partners have the same rights as spouses to property, financial support and child custody under California law, Stewart said, they lack the societal status of marriage, which “conveys loyalty and intimacy and commitment.”
“Where in the California Constitution do we find support for the definition of marriage which you are now urging?”
Ms. Stewart also said this: “The court has to look at the standards of equality that exist in contemporary society, and how contemporary society views marriage.”
Fine. But somebody on the court should have asked her: Where do we find an expression of those “standards” and “views,” if not in the marriage statutes?
To one of the litigants’ other lawyers, Justice Carol Corrigan put this question: “Where in the California Constitution do we find support for the definition of marriage which you are now urging?” Words did come from counsel’s mouth, but they were not in answer to the question.
I’m sympathetic to the policy views advanced by Ms. Stewart and her colleagues. But I thought their legal arguments were balderdash.
Law professor Dale Carpenter says the gay marriage litigants are likely to lose. Decide for yourself. Video of the hearing is available on the court’s Web site.
It's March, and it's snowing -- heavily -- in Dallas
I blame global warming …
March 5, 2008
"I will defend the decision to destroy Saddam Hussein's regime"
Ladies and gentlemen, the Republican nominee for president of the United States:
March 4, 2008
Live blogging at 9 p.m. CT
March 3, 2008
Pulling it out of the fire: Are Texas Republicans breaking for Hillary?
Standby …
ADDED —
• For her friend and drinking buddy John McCain, Mama has a (parting?) gift:
I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. Sen. John McCain has a lifetime of experience that he’d bring to the White House. And Sen. Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.
• Also, Mama has a message for Texas Republicans: You boys ain’t got jack to do, so sit down and eat your vegetables.
ADDED II —
• Oh, and by the way: Whatever else he is, that man is not a Muslim … as far as Mama knows:
Obama, Obama, Obama: Hymn to the Dear Leader
Viewed charitably, it’s kids asking their daddy for a pony. Viewed uncharitably, it’s mindless messianic worship. And in that event, the mind wanders …
March 2, 2008
Obama campaign to Clinton: We said get out!
But the evil genius Karl Rove is right: If you rub Mama’s face all up in it, she will buck. Give the woman some air (and a barf bag).
Meanwhile, DNC chairman Howard Dean proves himself as obtuse as ever:
A wild-card factor arose over the weekend … when Governor Charlie Crist of Florida said he would support a repeat of the Democratic presidential primary so the state’s delegates — excluded from the official total because the state advanced its primary date without national authorization — could be counted.
Dean said he was open to the possibility. “We’re very willing to listen to the people of Florida,” he said.
Now, pray tell: Why would a Republican governor — key word: Republican — call for a do-over during an increasingly bitter Democratic nominating contest?
Anybody?
If you said, “To prolong their misery, and to deepen their divisions,” please meet me at the Starbucks on Hawthorne in Houston. I should like to examine a head that has something in it.
California Supreme Court to hear gay marriage case
“The California Supreme Court convenes Tuesday for an extraordinary, three-hour session on the most contentious issue the high court has confronted in years: whether same-sex couples should be allowed to legally marry,” the San Diego Union-Tribune reported:
The court’s final ruling, expected in June, will not only affect the state’s 90,000 same-sex couples but also possibly reverberate across the nation.
Possibly?! No matter how the court rules, its decision will reverberate across the nation.
| In support of California, respondent | In support of same-sex couples, petitioners |
| African-American pastors | City of Los Angeles, et al. |
| Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, et al. | Howard University School of Law, Civil Rights Clinic |
| Judicial Watch | Professors of constitutional law |
| Douglas Kmiec, et al., professors of law | National Gay and Lesbian Task Force |
"No man bakes cookies for his dog"
Charlotte Allen has a decidedly unfeminist understanding of women:
I can’t help it, but reading about such episodes of screaming, gushing and swooning makes me wonder whether women — I should say, “we women,” of course — aren’t the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial.
Whom will McCain pick as his running mate?
Let the rampant speculation begin!
[Presidential historian Douglas] Brinkley said the most reassuring person McCain could pick in the Republican Party would be retired Gen. Colin Powell, a former secretary of state and defense.
Powell, 70, has said he does not want the job but Brinkley said Republican Party elders might be able to persuade him.
Other putative possibilities:
• Florida Gov. Charlie Crist
• Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty
• Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison†
• South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham‡
• Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour
• Texas Gov. Rick Perry
• former White House budget director Rob Portman
† Doubtful. Kay, who’s mulling a run for governor in 2010, says she does. not. want.
‡ Not a chance. Sen. Graham, 52 and never married, has long been dogged by rumors that he’s a homo. While the country is undoubtedly ready to be governed by a black man, it is also undoubtedly not ready to be governed by a queen.
Live from New York: Clinton on SNL
Ah, bless her heart. Naturally funny, she is not; still, she manages to deliver a line or two well enough:
Here’s the SNL skit she’s referring to. If you saw the actual debate, you know this isn’t far from the truth. Indeed the standard to which the media have put Sen. Clinton is higher than the one to which they’ve put Sen. Obama.
(HT: Prof. Althouse)
ADDED —
RCP has Obama up in Texas by 1.2 and Clinton up in Ohio by 5.9.
ADDED II —
Actually, the [RCP] averages make things look better for Hillary Clinton than they actually are, because they include polls from a couple of weeks ago, i.e., before Wisconsin. The most recent polling numbers show the same sort of slide towards Obama that we’ve seen time and time again over the last ten primaries.
The two most recent polls for Ohio, which ended on 2/28/08, show Clinton with a 2-point lead, i.e. within the margin of error. Rasmussen has Clinton ahead of Obama 47-45, and Reuters/C-Span/Zogby has her ahead 44-42. A 20-point Clinton lead in Ohio has dropped to just 2 points within the last three weeks.
Her 16-point lead in Texas two weeks ago has turned into a 6-point deficit according to Reuters/C-Span/Zogby, with Obama ahead 48-42. Rasmussen has Obama ahead by 4 points at 48-44.
Quotable
“I would encourage you on March 5 to call Sen. Clinton at 3 a.m. and ask that question.”
— Former Navy secretary and Obama adviser Richard Danzig, when asked by a reporter whether Clinton should withdraw from the presidential race after the March 4 primaries in Ohio and Texas.
If you don’t get the reference, watch:
(HT: Todd Goddard)
"A Palestinian representative warned that Israel's attacks threaten to 'derail the peace process'"
The “peace process” would have to be railed before it could be derailed, no?
It was the fifth consecutive day in which Israeli forces launched air and ground operations against militants in northern Gaza, aimed at stopping what Israel says is a steady barrage of rocket fire into its towns.