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Obama & The Art of Revision

To paraphrase Mark Twain, the benefit of political candor is that it doesn't require a precise memory.  Telling the truth in a forthright way that avoids the art of nuance wins votes.  In contrast, people instantly recognize when candidates tap dance around previous pronouncements to recast ill-considered opinions in a more favorable light.

Today is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel and President Bush delivered remarks to Knesset, which included the following:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared:  ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

You will recall that Senator Obama pledged to unconditionally enter talks with the world's dictators, including Cuba's Castro and Iran's Ahmadinejad.  Yet, he has the temerity to deny his own assertions, responding to the president with the following desperate revision:

Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power — including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy — to pressure countries like Iran and Syria.  George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.

Well, Obama has, indeed, stated that he would "engage" with terrorists, because that is precisely what the Iranian regime constitutes.  Notice the glaring distinction between liberals who are always running from their records on national security and conservatives, who are pleased to tell you that Iran must be confronted--militarily, if necessary--to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power.

There are countless stories during World War II of diplomats who yearned to negotiate with Hitler, convinced as they were that their unique powers of persuasion would create a sea change.  As John Bolton cogently argues in his book about the State Department, Surrender Is Not An Option, there's a pathology among career diplomats which begins with the predicate that the opposing nation is superior and that the goal for the diplomat is to aggressively inhibit America's influence and power projection.

Although Obama's vaunted intelligence and adroit oratorical skills are admirable, they carry the usual liability, a foible that naively encourages him to rush in where angels fear to tread.  He wouldn't be the first to think that good faith and a willingness to reach consensus can carry the day.  That's a richly obtuse pedigree which has its modern roots in Neville Chamberlain, and whose modern example is Jimmy Carter, who bungled his way along the foreign policy trail with North Korea and ended his disastrous presidency with the Iranian hostage crisis.

With assistance from Republicans, American voters will be reminded of Obama's pledge to schedule coffee klatches with the world's despots, because a candidate's words do matter, regardless of how deftly they rework them to suit circumstances.

Conservatism: Swimming Upstream

In every political cycle, special elections are the electoral canary in the cage, and in the case of the congressional seat in Mississippi, it doesn't bode well for Republicans.  The seat was as safe as Fort Knox gold, with voters in the last presidential election supporting President Bush by twenty-five percentage points.  But yesterday, voters went for a conservative Democrat over a standard Republican by a disturbing 54%-46% margin.  And this came on the heels of two similar Republican losses in races in Illinois and Louisiana.

What's going on here?  If you listen to Rush Limbaugh, a man for whom we have the utmost respect, it's because the Republican Party has lost its conservative bearings and is effectively ignoring its base.  That's certainly true, but there's another variable, one that's more discomfiting because it's something over which we have so little control.

To wit, the 2006 mid-term elections began a trend, one unthinkable just half a dozen years ago, and that is an incremental moderating of America's historically conservative instincts.  Indeed, polls show that those calling themselves conservative has changed from 37 percent just four years ago to 31 percent, and the downward trend continues apace.

Concurrently, the nonjudgmental, mushy middle is increasing, due, in part to the anemic voices of real conservatives, which have been muted in the past few years.  That may be due to their wholly misguided attempts to act like liberals on key domestic legislative initiatives--i.e., the prescription drug benefit, environmental issues, and a smattering of social and judicial concerns--but there is also the less detectable phenomenon of elected officials falling sheep-like into line with electoral expectations.

As we've argued, in our culture, which is effectively unmoored from traditional values and where, thanks to our liberal elite establishment, judging others is proscribed, making the case for conservatism is a decidedly uphill climb.  Indeed, the civic trend seems to be one in which government has the solutions, and where redistribution of wealth is justified by artfully crafted entreaties to class warfare disguised as 'fairness.' 

For those who cherish the freedoms that naturally accrue from lower government intrusion--read low taxes and regulations--it's a daunting time to be alive.  Making the argument that the vast majority of our nation's history stands in stark contrast to the massive federal bureaucracy which metastasizes with every passing year, and which is stifling our freedoms and shifting wealth to government, is made more challenging by our public school system, academia, the media, and entertainment, which constantly barrages us with messages that we're helpless without a robust government.

That, of course, leads to an emasculated citizenry, one conditioned to expect relief from every real or perceived ill, and where a solid income is a kind of birthright, not the result of hard work, talent, sacrifice, and risk.

As disquieting as it is, the truth is that the nation is moving towards the blurry middle, and although conservatives can and must continue to make the case for the virtues of smaller government, low taxes and regulation, they must also realize they're swimming upstream in a culture at odds with much, perhaps most of its agenda.

Straw Victims

For reasons best left to future cultural anthropologists, many on the left are reticent to use the word 'victory.'  Whether it's achieving a victory in the form of energy independence or in Iraq, it just seems insurmountable to liberals.  Writing in today's Los Angeles Times, Jonah Goldberg links the tandem terrors of Gitmo with Yucca Mountain, arguing that nuclear energy and keeping terrorists secured are in America's best interest.

Let's set aside that the much vaunted French currently use nuclear energy for eighty percent of their nation's energy needs.  And, of course, history is replete with examples of enemy combatants being detained until the cessation of hostilities.  The fact that these are stateless foes without uniforms makes the argument even more compelling, save for those who instinctively characterize criminals as victims.

And, therein might be the solution to this conundrum, although it would be apparent to all but Democrats.  We can stipulate that justice for all is a healthy motto, but we would also add the codicil that it's reserved for U.S. citizens, something the left's anti-nationalism positively fears.  But against the backdrop of our engagement with radical Islam, retaining those enemy combatants seems like a low intellectual hurtle.  Yet the left, and a growing number of moderate Republicans, have concluded that Gitmo is evil incarnate.

Whether it's due a short-term memory problem or the absence of historical precedent, many Americans seem to have a stunted sense of justice, one that holds the U.S. to a disparate set of standards.  That takes us back to the propensity of liberals to have sympathy for criminals, which they seem to hold as dearly as any virtue.  In part, that's because the left habitually forgives pathologies such as patterned criminals.  Why?  Well, you see, it's not really their fault--they were children of alcoholic parents, abused themselves, living in a nation with systemic racism--the list is as tiresome as it is endless.

It's the palaver you can be assured is being piped into our children's brains at every turn in our public school system, along with condom etiquette and the virtues of recycling.  Never mind about the Federalist Papers, or Adam Smith, or Edmund Burke, not to mention enough mathematics so they can balance a check book.

So, the world's criminals, whether the common variety or totalitarian despots such as Saddam Hussein, are given a pass, as the left only grudgingly admits the world is better off without Iraq's dictator.  It's as though their determined to make the world safe for despots while hobbling our nation with an ineffective energy policy, one which forces bio-fuels and wind on the masses, when nuclear power is clean, safe, and effective.

This chapter in our nation's history will be a joy to write, because it's rare that an entire party is so unmistakeably guilty of ignorance, intellectual myopia, and moral indifference.  Living in this age, we have some slight idea of what Churchill must have suffered as he watched Hitler walk all over Europe.

Obama & The Truth About Elitism

A hallmark of bias in all its unsavory forms is the irony that attends its authors:  They often don't recognize they have it.  Add to the list of extant prejudices that of the elitist, and for the analysis we turn to Stanley Crouch, who blindly confuses education as a method of economic advancement and the academic, intellectual elites that often issue from the likes of Harvard--that is, Senator Obama and his wife, Michelle.

Crouch writes:

It has become commonplace for the predictable millionaire puppets of Fox News and their conservative talk radio counterparts to present themselves as the voices of the working class in combat with an educated elite from places like Harvard.

But beneath those cliches fester ideas that are deeply anti-democratic.

They are anti-democratic because they scoff at this basic truth:  Education is the key to social mobility in our country.

We can stipulate that education, be it at a community college for a technical skill or a university to study business, is the most reliable guarantor of economic success.  No one, certainly not the "millionaire puppets of Fox News and their conservative talk radio counterparts," would argue otherwise.  But there's a glaring distinction between education for advancement and the arch elitism and condescension so manifest in Mr. Obama.

It's not just his profound misjudgment about the working class folks in Pennsylvania, it's the collateral condemnation of their values that his criticism reflects.  Indeed, for elitists such as Obama, religion and guns--his twin targets in his remarks to a moneyed crowd in San Francisco--are mysterious anachronisms.  For them, the former can only be parsed as a political cudgel, something to be exploited a la Reverend Wright, and the latter is a key factor in their jaundiced view of gun owners who are in the grip of a Neanderthal complex, which the left loves to vilify.

That stated, there are poor, uneducated elitists just as there are Harvard graduate elitists, the key ingredient is the craven, willful propensity see others as beneath yourself due to differences in values, paramount among them is religion, because it so thoroughly inform all others.

Honest political differences create the civic tension that keeps our Republic healthy and vibrant.  However, when the debate is infused with moral and cultural animosities based on a disdain of others, we've lost that vital thread of commonality that makes America great.  Obama might still be able to convince voters he's not an elitist, but given his recent behavior, it will be an uphill challenge.

Senator Clinton: The Beginning of the End

For those familiar with Shakespeare's Macbeth, the line uttered by Malcolm in Act I, Scene 4, is an apt commentary on Senator Clinton's candidacy:

...nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it; he died
As one that had been studied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd
As 'twere a careless trifle.

Change the subject pronoun and you have the perfect exegesis on an exquisitely flawed campaign, one that began as a presumed coronation and ended with the grim reality of abject failure.  Yet, many commentators, even conservatives such as Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard, have observed that as her candidacy headed for the rocks, a rare form of sincerity obtained. 

Indeed, she actually began enjoying herself and it showed, albeit inconsistently.  A hallmark of successful candidates is not only comfort in their own skin, but a sense of unbridled optimism, the sunny disposition of Ronald Reagan, the irrepressible confidence of Bill Clinton.  Yet for most of her campaign that easy manner and warm, personal charm seemed to elude Mrs. Clinton, until the very end, and by then it was far too late.

She seemed perennially preoccupied with demonstrating that she was a policy wonk, someone to be taken seriously, as though over-compensating for her womanhood.  In doing so she seemed more like the stern school principal than someone who might issue eloquent oratories from the Oval Office.  The lesson for her--alas, one learned in the wrong act of this drama--is that Americans easily suffer personality flaws and quirks, but they can't abide a scorn and they don't like candidates who seem overly concerned with attacking their opponents.

That's what led to her having an even 'favorable'-'unfavorable' ratio:  For every person who liked her there was one who truly disliked her, and whether it's a city council election or the race for the White House, you can't win on those numbers.  So Mrs. Clinton will have to pack up her bitterness and head back to the senate. 

Although it's clear that we're now witnessing the beginning of the end, at least she finally morphed from those cardboard characters she created throughout the campaign into a real person.  It may not be the profile of someone most Americans would want as president, but candor has its own virtues, even when it emerges just as the candidate's fate appears doomed.

Dems: New Battle, Same Ideas

With strong political cross currents working against Republican presidential candidate John McCain, and with Senator Obama cast as the 'transformational candidate,' the Illinois senator should be coasting to an easy victory.  The problem is that the headwinds of the Iraq war, the economy, and the housing and financial 'crises,' are issues that have been whipped into an emotional froth by the media, and forced to remain on stage far longer than productive for Democrats.

Americans have always been ambivalent about war because of the huge costs in blood and treasure.  But once we've engaged the enemy, with the notable exception of Vietnam, we've fought to victory.  That's largely a matter of political momentum, abetted by national pride, both of which are playing against Senator McCain.  That stated, by the same margin, Americans who say they want us out of Iraq, understand we must stay if leaving means a regional implosion.

Although President Bush is a lame duck, he's vowed to veto the politically motivated legislation that Congress will vote on today, to 'rescue' the housing markets.  For all his ill-advised tinkering with markets, Mr. Bush apparently understands that the housing market has already begun a broad correction, and the same goes for the economy and our financial markets, all well before the 'stimulus' checks were delivered.

Add to this mix the fact that Obama has obliged both Clinton and McCain by repeatedly proving he's a political novice, not to mention the glimpses we're getting of his wife, Michelle's remarkably divisive rants, and you have a formula for yet another Republican victory in November.

What's lacking in both Obama and Clinton is the kind of 'new Democrat' platform that President Clinton ran on.  Both these candidates have pledged higher corporate taxes, with Clinton vowing to "take" the profits from the oil companies, and oil company executives have responded by saying they'll have to dramatically reduce research and development:  Do Obama and Clinton think that will reduce our price at the pump?

In the arena of health care, they've pledged some version of a government sponsored program, which is a slow march towards European style socialist models, which can only drive up costs and inhibit access.  On social issues, both candidates are avowed supporters of partial birth abortion, which former Democratic intellectual heavy weight, Senator Patrick Moynihan correctly described as "infanticide."  Moreover, both have an elitist's understanding of the 2nd Amendment, which doesn't advance the ball beyond Senator Kerry's laughable duck hunting photo-op.

The list is endless, but it highlights the central facts in this election:  The left has two candidates who are mired in the old-style Democratic policies of race and gender, which oppose free markets that, as Jack Kennedy said, "raise all boats," are skittish about a robust military, and are convinced that interminable diplomacy is the best antidote for the likes of Iran's Ahmadinejad.

These are battles Republicans will be glad to join.

The Nature of Patriotism & Peace

On a trip last week to Santa Fe New Mexico, we saw a bumper sticker that read, "Peace is Patriotic."  Beyond the fact that it's a transparent case of defensive politics, it tells you nothing about the nature of peace and how it is achieved.  Moreover, we're left to conclude that peace is a naturally occurring phenomenon in the world, and that all we must do is purchase it the way we would any other commodity.

Let's begin with the argument that patriotism itself has been caught in a civic and cultural crossfire.  The fact that its definition is more politically malleable than anyone might have suspected is disturbing.  For the left, love of country begins with holding it accountable in ways they would never consider for the world's dictatorships.  Indeed, they bring a level of moral scrutiny to America that is conveniently withheld for Castro's Cuba or Chavez' Venezuela.

But, beyond that, anyone who has the temerity to suggest that winning a war is patriotic and withdrawing prematurely isn't, is excoriated as bastardizing the term.  However, when a word is tortured into service and forced to take on the contextual coloration of the author's political motivation, it ceases to have the universal meaning it once had.  That's not to say one can't be patriotic and be critical of U.S. policy, only that a reflexive desire to join the chorus of criticisms against America, as many on the left have, seems at odds with the tenets of patriotism.  The latter admits our nations foibles but correctly asserts that, without qualification, America has been a force for good in the world.

That's why you rarely see liberal bumper stickers that include an American flag, because not unlike the lapel pin flag, the left is just not comfortable about flaunting their patriotism.  That's because they want to reserve the right to condemn America, which they seem to gleefully do at every opportunity.  Michelle Obama's recent comments are a case in point--no, not just the fact that she said this was the first time she was proud of her country, but her wholly inaccurate characterization of America as a nation that remains fundamentally flawed--paraphrased, but that's the core message.

That takes us to the 'peace' part of the bumper sticker.  That's another word that has different meanings for different people.  For the left, it's something that exists as surely as oxygen, and it's just as important.  For the right, it's something that's purchased at a price, often a very high price, and it's only guaranteed by those willing to make perpetual sacrifices.

That recalls another bumper sticker:  A B-52, which creates a kind of 'peace sign,' which reads:  "Peace Through Superior Firepower."  You see, for the right, belligerents are a timeless and noxious lot, whose amorality is imposed by fiat on those around them, whether it's a Stalin, a Kim Jong Il, or a Saddam Hussein.  The only thing stopping them is a superior power with a threat that is real.

Therefore, although 'peace' is something we should all strive for, it must be within a context that includes a candid reading of reality:  Whether it was Hitler moving his army into the Rhineland or Napoleon taking the Spanish peninsula, if there's no one there to stop them, they'll do it.

So, the left can expound on the virtues of peace, because it's a right purchased by the blood of our military over the decades.  But, when it comes to the practical matter of safeguarding the peace, it's best left to people who understand that it's a fragile thing that is only maintained by military might.

Do you think that's something Senator Obama truly understands?

Dems: Another Fine Mess

As we're all aware, people's mastery of life's learning curves varies dramatically.  In politics, the variability is even greater, not just because they're unpredictable, but because with politics, the common sense we typically bring to routine challenges is often checked at the door.

That seems to be the case with the Democratic Party's approach to the Clinton-Obama conundrum.  Recall that the apparent reason for the super-delegates was to ensure a fully democratic outcome.  The real reason, of course, is to prevent a George McGovern from making it all the way to the nomination--read, gallows--and, in that regard, the super-delegates are a paradoxically un-Democratic phenomenon, especially for the party that lectured the nation in 2000 about fair elections.

On the cusp of two critical primaries--Indiana and North Carolina--the party is riven with indecision and anxiety, as well it should be.  The fraying of the Obama image and the emergence of unsightly contradictions and unconvincing explanations, juxtaposed with the notion of another dual-Clinton presidency and the reanimation of Whitewater, the Rose law firm billing records, Travelgate, Filegate, and a myriad other problems, has party leaders wringing their hands.

The current received wisdom is that if Obama maintains his lead--and, perhaps, even if he doesn't--he'll get the nod.  If he doesn't, the party will implode and the black vote will be a political meltdown with lasting implications.  Concurrently, many Democratic analysts are convinced Obama can't win against McCain, that recent revelations--including his remarkably clumsy responses--will haunt him like a bad performance in a major motion picture.

All of this seems corroborated by Obama's appearance on Sunday's Meet the Press, which was an extended interview that his campaign hoped would put all doubts to rest.  Instead, and despite the fact that Russert failed to address most of the problematic revelations of the past few weeks, Obama's performance was lackluster and his explanations unpersuasive.  The lengthier his explanation, the more eager he seems to acquit himself, and that comes off as politically unsophisticated, as though he doesn't quite understand the value of complete candor--the way McCain does.

He can explain why he sat for two plus decades listening to Reverend Wright's vicious diatribes, and he can put a fine gloss on his relationships with Tony Rezko and the unrepentant terrorist, William Ayres, but it just doesn't add up. 

The reason Obama will lose in November is that he and his party have completely misappraised the American electorate.  Simply stated, the average American is slightly right of center, and the ones who are in play fit neatly into that category.  They may want change, but it's incremental change they want, not the fundamental change Obama, and, to a lesser degree, Clinton, are offering.  Indeed, polls indicating people are unhappy with the direction of the country aside, by large margins Americans say they're pleased with their individual lot in life.

It will be yet another example of the ingeniously naive way in which the left in America has misread the nation, and, with the appointment of three Supreme Court justices in the balance, the timing couldn't be better.

A Nation of Infants

We're all aware that, for a price, the mafia afforded protection to those apparently unable to obtain it through normal means.  Today's Democratic Party uses much the same mechanism to purchase votes, providing an ever expanding system of protections to citizens.  However, in the process, the nation has moved from cultural adulthood into adolescence, and is now 'progressing' rather blindly toward infancy.

Promising the nation's helpless protection from 'aggressive credit card practices,' U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), is competing with her colleagues to provide a robust--read, intrusive--panoply of new regulations for the financial services industry, to save us from ourselves.  Someone reading this from a distant decade--say, 40 years ago--might be justifiably have concluded that the freedom to act in an informed manner, in one's best interest, has been abrogated.  Otherwise, why would the government need to step in to preclude companies from offering consumers products they can simply decline?

Mark Furletti, a Philadelphia attorney who represents lenders, noted that inhibiting lenders from providing a flexible array of services will likely limit their ability to provide services to those with higher risk profiles.  But, not unlike marginal tax rates, if the left can punish the 'rich' in the process of enacting confiscatory tax increases, whacking the credit card industry is good political theater, even if it produces policies counter to one of their presumptive constituencies--those with lower incomes, which is to say, higher risk accounts.

The reason for this march into infantilization is obvious, but bears noting nonetheless.  If people are informed and make decisions on their own--and reap the benefits or suffer the consequences--the liberals have written themselves out of the political equation.  Whether it's saving the country from the scourge of guns, or keeping it 'safe' for unfettered abortions, or proscribing choice in education, every policy decision is meticulously calibrated to created a predictable electoral outcome.

It's at once shameful and cynical, but in our culture where the government has become synonymous with 'helping' us, it's more politically palatable than merely reducing taxes and regulations, which makes unpleasant demands upon individuals, demands which we all took for granted as recently as 45 years ago.

Having the government protect us from every ill, real or perceived, may feel comforting to some, but it's creating a nation of culturally disabled people who are rapidly becoming disconnected from the consequences of their behavior.  That, of course, is what they left wants, because then it's a short stop to the land of socialism, where every decision, from garbage collection to burial plot selection is made on our behalf.

Obama: The Image, The Man

Political gifts are rare, and when they appear on the horizon, one always cynically thinks of the Trojan Horse scenario.  But when Reverend Wright began to strut and fret his hour upon the stage, it became clear that this was a gift of lasting value.  The reverend's stellar performance at the National Press Club in Washington yesterday, which confirmed that pastors aren't immune from the base allure of narcissism, reasserted, for the few who might have missed his prior performances, that America is racist, and it effectively invited 9/11.

He also posited the noxious notion that blacks have "different" learning styles than others, that their brains are wired differently, which conjures the arch racism of the late 19th century.  If you saw any of his speech you might have wondered how Senator Obama, his wife, and two young daughters, could have sat through his sermons Sunday after Sunday.

That, of course, is the crux of this bizarre development.  Most of us attend Sunday Mass or church services to deepen our faith, to better understand our obligations to God, and to better serve Him and our fellow man.  We can't help but ask how Obama felt his faith was deepened by these kind of rantings, even if they only happened infrequently.  Indeed, what kind of world view, what brand of morality, would comfortably mesh with Wright's caustic, distorted rantings?

A picture of Obama is emerging, but it's not the one he has so carefully crafted.  On Sunday's Meet the Press, Richard Wolffe of Newsweek, blithely asserted that Mr. Obama can't be an elitist because he was the product of a single parent household, was raised in a foreign country, and just finished paying off his school loans.  The entire panel, including the redoubtable Russert, let that pass without so much as a shrug.

It's stunning that they don't know that the kind of smug elitism that Obama is charged with has nothing to do with such superficialities, but everything to do with values, which is the prism through which we judge others.  For Obama, the small town white man is an intellectually and culturally insular individual, with numbingly parochial concerns and aspirations.  That universe, for the sophisticated urban elite, the black tie chattering classes, is so utterly remote as to be dismissed a priori. 

As evidence, we need only consider the life of William F. Buckley.  With his blue-blood background and intellectual rigor, he had all the trappings of an intellectual smug, yet he was the exact opposite.  Obama seems to have succumbed to the trappings of the elite, perhaps because he's a cultural parvenu, while wanting to reserve the first right of denial, which is arguably the worst of both worlds.

With the slow drip of revelations that's transpiring, the contours of Obama's personality, his values, and principles, is emerging.  Voters, even those in the throes of his charm, might start asking themselves whether this is the man we want in the White House for the next four years?

The Democratic Party: Stealing Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

You might recall the charge of 'stove-pipe thinking' against our intelligence community in the wake of the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.  Although it was a legitimate charge, it's often the case that the same level of harsh scrutiny fails to obtain in other political arenas.  Indeed, a combination of subtle political blind spots and disincentives to venture beyond the scope of their comfort zones, effectively ensures that they won't be confronted with the charges of intellectual group-speak they routinely lodge against political enemies.

On Meet the Press, viewers were treated to just such a display.  The discussion turned to Reverend Wight, and Gwen Eiffel, a PBS political analyst and daughter of preacher, was asked about the political dimensions of the debacle.  She began by noting that racism remains a problem in America, that people probably do make voting decisions based on race.  What was stunning is that at no time in her discussion did she mention that it was Reverend Wright who was racist, and none of the other panel members or moderator Tim Russert grasped the egregiousness of her oversight.

Russert played a snippet of Reverend Wright's response to Bill Moyers concerning Obama's criticisms of some of Wright's historical comments.  Wright said that Obama is a politician, and that he's a pastor.  Well, that's all it took for Eiffel to continue her 'stove-pipe' thinking by asserting, in an obtuse justification for Obama's two-decade association with him, that, yes, he is, indeed a politician.

But, what about Wright's assertions that he argued were taken out of context?  Indeed, what kind of context could justify Wright's statement that the American white deliberately introduced the AIDS virus into the black community?  That, of course, the likes of Russert and his cabal of tunnel-vision analysts, never thought about asking.

This is a serious problem for the Obama campaign--and, to a degree, for Clinton as well.  But it's only compounded when it doesn't register with the cream of the Washington editorial crop.  Moreover, it dovetails perfectly with Obama's gaff in San Francisco about rural white Pennsylvania voters "clinging" to "guns and religion" out of "bitterness."

Combined with Howard Dean's comment on the same show that 70 percent of Americans want us to leave Iraq--which is true only if you exclude the second part of the question:  What if it causes genocide in Iraq and a power vacuum in the region which Iran would fill?--then the percent drops to below 50 percent.

All of this is favorably positioning Senator McCain in ways no one thought possible just a few months ago.  His candor on the stump, command of the issues, and three decades of experience at the national level, may well carry the day.  Either way, the Democratic Party has some serious work ahead of itself if it doesn't want to, once again, steel defeat from the jaws of victory.

Obama: Out of The Mainstream

The war between image and substance in American politics has a long, if somewhat checkered history, and the image that surrounded many presidents stood in stark contrast to the truth.  Writing in Newsweek, Howard Fineman argues that Senator Obama's central electoral challenge is his image, which he predictably interchanges with 'brand.'

Politicians are already notorious for being innately disingenuous, by using 'brand' as a proxy for improving image Fineman perpetuates the odious notion that a marketing makeover is all that Obama really needs.

But looking beneath those superficial observations, he bastardizes the idea of 'mainstream' by arguing that Ronald Reagan's assertion that our urban, academic elites aren't in the mainstream, was a political tactic the left must counter:

But the whole point of America is that there are many mainstreams, and it is un-American to say otherwise.

It has the ring of a credible Madison Avenue marketing campaign, but is it true?  The idea of a mainstream is thoroughly self-defining, which is to say there are a set of precpts, values, and principles that are so fundamental to the issue at hand--in this case America--that if you don't have them, you aren't in it. 

Those include a love of country, support for a strong military presence in the world, economic freedoms, bi-laterally fair trade agreements, and the rule of law.  How do the urban elitists fare against that metric?  Regarding love of country, there were many academic elites after 9/11 that reflexively looked at American foreign policy to justify the attacks, and you'd sooner find an investment banker in rural Kentucky than a flag pin on their lapel.  With respect to our military, it's been a long, if unsavory tradition among our urban liberals that our military is over-funded and an embarrassing intrusion into the affairs of the nations which house them; moreover, the projection of American military power makes them queasy.

Concerning trade, you must have noticed the reanimation of the protectionist instinct the left favored in the past in the presidential debates, not to mention the Democratically controlled Congress, which nixed the agreement with Venezuela, our staunchest ally in South America.

The rule of law covers a vast civic and judicial territory, and suffice it to say that many of urbanites are far more likely to consider perpetrators victims than the real victims.  That's why they decry our incarceration rates, playing the race card at every turn.  As we've argued, there are clear steps we can take to mitigate that rate, but it begins at the spigot:  Pass strong legislation at the federal and local level that disincents single parenthood and that provides strong criminal justice consequences for those who break the law.  Stop stigmatizing guns and go after the criminals. Again, that has the ring of common sense which means it's dismissed as prejudicial.

Indeed, what Fineman is actually arguing for in his 'multi-mainstream' model is recognition of what are really cultural splinter groups.  His goal, along with that of the left generally, is to, if you will, 'mainstream' them through a kind of cultural bracket creep, and, frankly, it's working.  Imagine the shock of those in the mid-50s if they knew we would be arguing about whether a 15 year old should be allowed to have an abortion without notifying her parents.  And, what would they say about the fact that our school teachers and administrators have no authority whatsoever to discipline problem students?

To immunize himself against a counter-argument, he instructs us that it's "un-American" to suggest there is, in fact, a single 'mainstream.'  That's called making up the rules as you go.

The list is as endless as it is counter to the traditions that made our Republic great.  If image--or 'brand'--were all that's necessary for Obama to remake himself, there would be more people on the eligibility list for high office, not to mention at the highest levels of corporate business.

But, American voters expect more and they can smell a phony a football field away, and that's Obama's real problem.  The old saw about 'You never get a second chance to make a first impression' is doubly true for presidential candidates, and he's had his chance.  If he's the nominee, you can be sure the McCain campaign will run commercials across America, and they will simply tell the truth about this man, a man who is completely out of the mainstream.

Of Guns, Morality, & Culture

One of the sacred myths of liberals is that guns are responsible for our murder rate.  Pass confiscatory gun control laws and you'll solve the problem.  If that doesn't work, be even more draconian, because that must be the problem, it can't have anything to do with culture or values.

Using Chicago as his example, Steve Chapman, writing in today's Chicago Tribune, cogently argues that stringent gun laws have no meaningful impact on murder rates.  We can cite statistics from John Lott ("More Guns, Less Crime") and Gary Kleck, whom Chapman mentions, but unlike questionable second hand smoke studies which the left lionize, it has no impact on their thinking.

We can also make the observation that the per capita rate of gun ownership hasn't materially changed in America, that guns have always been a part of our nation's civic fabric, but that too makes no difference whatsoever.  If you're looking for an explanation, look no further than the left's twin sins--the incapacity to judge and its love of victimhood.

You see, by stigmatizing guns themselves, or their alleged prevalence or 'easy access,' liberals can shut down the engine of inquiry and so keep the 'values' argument off the table.  But, if we can agree that the prevalence of guns has remained essentially unchanged--and that's a fact--what did change in the past 45 years?

Well, like so many modern banes, from abortion to welfare, it can be traced to the post-modern, iconoclastic 60s, which began our nation's ignoble march into moral relativism.  That's when a new generation made the case that marriage is merely a quaint--read dispensable--social convention, that recreational sex among kids is harmless, and that authority is meant to be challenged.

The result is much in evidence.  Since 1965 the percent of single parents has exploded--70 percent of all minority, inner-city births--high school graduation rates have plummeted, although crime has fluctuated, the frequency of gun violence in cities like Chicago and Washington, D.C., increased significantly, much of which is gang related. 

The most glaring solution is the one that liberals such as those who run the city of Chicago, willfully overlook:  To wit, draft policies and laws that stigmatize single parenthood, that encourage intact, two-parent families, that are painfully tough on crime across the spectrum, and that encourage work.  But, it's those policies they seem disinclined to support, because, as noted, that requires making judgments and eliminating the excuse that those people are merely victims of 'the system.'

It would be a sign that the wave of cultural and moral ignorance has passed if cities like Chicago would adopt policies that worked.  But, based on their current thinking, it appears that more people must die before they realize the real cause of gun violence.

The Left's 'Art of Nuance'

For those who hadn't yet noticed, the race in Pennsylvania illustrated the absurdity of the Democrats' method of tallying delegate votes, which makes our tax code look positively simple by comparison.  It effectively guarantees that, with the exception of a landslide, any two candidates will be jockying for position right up to the convention, which is giving the superdelegates electoral heartburn.

And, it should, but not for the reasons they think.  There is nothing 'super' about them, unless you mean their unenviable position of being charged with arbitrating this debacle.  But given last night's results, it's unclear exactly where they might land.  That's what the editorial voice of the New York Times meant in its uniquely cryptic assertion that the Pennsylvania contest "produced yet another inconclusive result."  It's difficult to see how Clinton's decisive victory over Obama could be seen as anything other than the proverbial waxing, but the Times is thinking of something else.

Given the delegate math, Clinton would have had to win by 20 points or more, and that's their argument:  She was leading by those margins not long ago, but due to her acerbic campaign tack, that lead was winnowed--at least that's what the editorial wizards at the Times think.  Anyone who confuses being 'negative' with 'contrasting views' is both naive and ignorant.  That is a time-honored way to tweak voters' attention, to get them to notice differences where none appear, and that's how you recast candidate market-share.

But in our culture, where anything approaching a criticism is instantly translated into a slanderous, viscious attack, telling voters that an opponent is less well qualified is the equivalent of accusing him of moral turpitude--you just can't do it with impunity.

Of course an editorial from the elitist Times wouldn't be complete without embracing the left's love of nuance:

After seven years of George W. Bush’s failed with-us-or-against-us presidency, all American voters deserve to hear a nuanced debate — right now and through the general campaign — about how each candidate will combat terrorism, protect civil liberties, address the housing crisis and end the war in Iraq.

We'll overlook the fact that the six-party talks with North Korea or the recent multilateral effort to site missiles near the Russian border, not to mention the United Nations-approved action against Saddam Hussein, more accurately reflect the Bush Administration's foreign policy than the 'unilaterism' spewed almost daily on the pages of the mainstream media. 

The more intriguing line in the quote is how "all American voters deserve to hear a nuanced debate...about how each candidate will combat terrorism, protect civil liberties, address the housing crisis and end the war in Iraq" [emphasis added].  It's incontestible that liberalism has cornered the intellectual market on 'nuance,' in large measure because the universe it inhabits is characterized by infinite gradations of meaning.  Of course, only the liberal sensibility is capable of adroitly weaving them together into an exquisite tapestry of policy perfection.

We've seen this movie before, in former president Bill Clinton's deft handling of the North Koreans, and his deliberate overstepping of the sacrosanct authority of the United Nations in Bosnia, or, playing the tape back some more, of Carter's masterful work with the Iranians.

We'll have to wait until after the final primary in early June to see how the party will resolve this Gordian knot, but voters should be wary of assertions by our mainstream media that 'nuance' is the best antidote for everything from our housing 'crisis' to 'ending' the war in Iraq (not 'winning').

What kind of air do these people breathe?

Redefining Good and Evil

An obvious by-product of modern liberalism is that good and evil are in the eye of the beholder.  Indeed, for the left, moral absolutes have been supplanted by the tyranny of relativism, the kind of absolute that makes no moral demands, only political.

Radio host Dennis Prager makes this case in a well argued piece that criticizes Time magazine's cover story on the environment, which could be more accurately described as an article in slavish service to the political left.  It's all about cultural fashion, which is to say, the ephemera that has the least moral or civic potency in our lives but which provides a numbing perpetuation of cosseting myths that sells magazines.

But, although Mr. Prager raises the issue of the left's avoidance of good and evil, and the deft way in which it has down-graded the threat of radical Islam, the deeper issue is why liberals are so thoroughly convinced of the premise of their argument?  His argument that battling the war against 'global warming' is easier to deal with than the war against evil is certainly plausible, but is it because they don't believe Islamic extremism exists, or, that if it does, it's not the threat others fear it is?

Threat assessment is predicated on a metric of values which assigns potential adverse incidents a place on the continuum, and for the layman the quality and character of information received makes rendering decisions nearly impossible.  Therefore, the politics of assessing threats replaces the more substantive process, which means the left is inclined to reduce the threat, and the right to increase it.

Handicapping for those propensities, it's still mysterious that radical Islam, which has a three decade history of terrorism against the West generally and America specifically, doesn't make the cover of Time.  At the core of this is liberalism's agnosticism on good and evil, its powerful, inbred disinclination to judge, and, when adversity strikes, its proclivity to blame America first.  Which means they argue the threat out of the picture, reserve judgment about the radical Islamists, and, when we're attacked again, will blame American foreign policy, in particular if a Republican is in the White House.

This is hardly an adult-like approach to the problem of good and evil in the world.  Yet it carves out a comfortable moral vacuum, which is where most liberals prefer to live, in effective denial of the heinous forces that would destroy America if only allowed the chance.

Although the economy remains a serious problem, with unemployment at about 5 percent--it was an average of 5.2 percent during the vaunted Clinton years--and the markets slowly regaining their historical stability, national security may well emerge as the issue paramount in the minds of voters.  With arch liberals Clinton and Obama as his opponents, Senator McCain can easily make the case that America will be safer with him at the helm.

You might recall the bumper stickers during the 2004 presidential election:  "10 out of 10 terrorists prefer Kerry."  Just replace Kerry with Clinton or Obama and they'll sell like hot cakes.