MONDAY,  FEBRUARY 11,  2008

•   In a devastating analysis, Geoff Elliott, writing for The Australian, paints an alarming picture of the Obama crusade.  This is one of the best-reported pieces that I've read on the subject.  Elliott begins:

IT was early 1994 when Nelson Mandela gave a speech in a slum outside Cape Town and spoke in grand terms of a new beginning and how when he was elected president every household would have a washing machine.

People took him literally. A few months later he became South Africa's first black president. That's when clerks in department stores in Cape Town had to turn people away demanding their free washer and dryer.

Having spent some time as a reporter in South Africa watching the Mandela presidency I was reminded of that story this week when I travelled with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on the campaign trail.

How does a cult figure, in the eyes of some something akin to a messiah, make the transition to a political frontrunner - president even - where disappointment will soon crush what seemed to be a journey to a promised land?

That sure says it.  Elliott notes:

The atmosphere at his events is such that one wonders if Obama is about to walk out with a basket with some loaves and fishes to feed the thousands.

And therein lays the danger for Obama. The Obama shuttle has made it into orbit but at some point he's going to have to land this thing back on Earth.

And this:

Now Obama is not an insurgent. I'd venture to call him a favourite in this race now. The next nine statewide contests through February are, given the demographics, likely to go Obama's way. He may well build an unstoppable momentum. And then the giddiness might evaporate and be replaced with something else. In marketing they call it post-purchase disappointment. If he gets the Democratic Party's nomination another test begins anew: how to turn the narrative which is all about striving for what is possible, to one where people are suddenly asking how are you actually going to do it?

That assumes people will ask.  But who will do the asking?  Hillary has tried, and has been ineffective.  A few journalists have raised questions, and their questions are ignored.  There are, sadly, some racial players out there who will portray any serious question as an "insult" or a "put-down." 

This is not good in a democracy.  Not good at all.

By the way, I'm starting to see some sharp reporting on Obama by foreign journalists.  Don't automatically assume that foreigners are gaga over Barack.  With all their lecturing of Americans, and their posture of superiority, they do want a strong and wise American president.  They may not find it in a man who often sounds more like a city preacher than a presidential candidate.  The Europeans, in particular, although they will give us the required verses about multiculturalism, may not want to trust their safety to the most left-wing member of the United States Senate.

•   Obama went to Maine, where the believers met him, and they knelt.  We have waited for thee:

After working the crowd, he went into a back room and talked about economic issues with four Maine residents selected by the campaign staff.

One of them, Tammy Lockhart of Dexter, said her meeting with Obama would now make her "cool" in the eyes of her 20-year-old daughter, who is attending college in Boston.

"You can't believe what it is like to see him in person," she said. "He's like a rock star."

Another convert who came forward to make the decision for Obama:

Dan Fernald, a retired lobsterman from Mount Desert, said he is drawn to Obama's positive and inclusive approach to politics. "He has a way of tapping into our greater selves," he said.

Oh, moan.  These are, no doubt, the same people who ridiculed President Bush when he spoke of bringing democracy to the oppressed.  Apparently their greater selves weren't great enough for that.

Other testimony:

Annaliese Jakimides, 59, of Bangor, said people are drawn to Obama because of his humble roots and down-to-earth personality.

"People are hungry for something different," she said.

Might be a good idea, ma'am, to get the specifics on that.

And this gem:

Betty Grant, 72, of Bangor, stood in line for two hours to get into the auditorium, even though she is a registered Republican.

She said Bush's two terms in office have turned her against the Republican Party, and she plans to vote for the Democratic candidate in November. She said she doesn't know who she likes better, Hillary Clinton or Obama.

Reminder to Ms. Grant:  If you are a registered Republican, please know that Clinton and Obama are against everything you've presumably been for.

•   One of the great myths of this campaign, spread by the Kennedy family itself, is that Barack Obama somehow is the reincarnation of JFK.  He is not.  And his campaign is not a remembrance of 1960.  Yes, Kennedy had the "jumpers," the young girls who screamed as he went by.  But they weren't old enough to vote.  The people screaming in ecstasy over The Obama are actual voters, some of them older than he is.  It's often remarked that Americans prolong adolescence.  Okay, fair enough.  But it shouldn't be prolonged into one's fifties.  And that is what we are seeing, and it's chilling. 

My, how good our grandparents look.

•   John Fund, in The Wall Street Journal, brings things down to Earth with a cool analysis of the November election, and he finds John McCain's chances not bad at all: 

John McCain will now begin to assemble his fall election team with surprisingly good poll results. The average of all the recent national polls summarized by RealClearPolitics.com show the Arizona senator leading Hillary Clinton by 47% to 45% and trailing Barack Obama by only 44% to 47%. Both results are within the statistical margin of error for national polls, so it's fair to say Mr. McCain starts out with an even chance of winning.

How could that be? The answer is that the same maverick streak and occasional departures from conservative orthodoxy that make conservatives queasy have the opposite effect on independents and even some Democrats. Mr. McCain's favorable numbers with independents exceed those of Barack Obama, who has emphasized his desire to work across party lines.

And Fund cautions:

When you hear that the demise of the Republicans is a foregone conclusion, remember that when the campaign is joined this fall and voters will have to make real choices about the direction of the country, the result is likely to be close. Recall that pundits were ready to crown Michael Dukakis the winner of the 1988 election after he opened up a 17-point edge over George H.W. Bush. In 2000, they declared the race over around Labor Day after Al Gore opened up a clear lead over George W. Bush.

Given that polls show Mr. McCain is currently in a dead heat against either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton, it would be wise for the pundits to show a little humility this year. The Democratic strategists I talk to believe the race will be hard-fought and close, regardless of the direction the economy or the war in Iraq takes.

Take heart.  It can be won.

•   I just discovered this.  Shove the hot coffee away before you read it and fly into a rage.  It's by Steve Emerson, one of our leading experts on terror.  Seems that the defenders of the nation, the FBI and CIA, need recruits.  But they're looking for them in the strangest places:

In a frightening and bizarre turn, the two chief agencies tapped with safeguarding America's national security have started advertising in a publication that can only be described as objectively pro-terrorism.

The online edition of the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), a publication linked to former Congressman Paul Findley, who once described himself as "Yasir Arafat's best friend in Congress," features recruiting advertisements seeking new agents for both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency.

WRMEA's history of support for Hamas, other terrorist groups and individual terrorists is well known. Currently on the front page of its website, right in the center, is an homage, constituting of a collection of articles and hagiographies, to convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian.

Emerson asserts:

It is the same lack of judgment that led the Department of Justice to set up a recruitment booth and serve as a co-host for the annual Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) convention in September. Four months earlier, the same Justice Department designated ISNA as an unindicted co-conspirator in Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) case as part of the Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy in the United States. U.S. Reps. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., and Sue Myrick, R-NC, protested the Justice Department's recruitment effort with ISNA in a letter to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asserting that ISNA is a Jihadi organization.

Nice, huh?  And this is a Republican administration.  At least I thought so.  Imagine what the other guys would do.  I can just picture CIA recruiting booths in the Afghan mountains. 

•   We always seem to return to the question, "Will there always be an England?"  As readers know, I vary in my view from day to day.  Today the meter drifts into the negative zone.  In their wisdom, the clean-living folks who run the British Olympic program are seeking to avoid a bit of bother with China, which will host the 2008 summer games:

British Olympic chiefs are to force athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China's appalling human rights record – or face being banned from travelling to Beijing.

The move – which raises the spectre of the order given to the England football team to give a Nazi salute in Berlin in 1938 – immediately provoked a storm of protest.

Well, actually it was the 1936 Berlin games, but the key problem stands.  There are other voices.  Just how powerful they become will determine if the meter starts drifting back:

Lord Alton said: “It is extraordinary to bar athletes from expressing an opinion about China's human-rights record. About the only justification for participating in the Beijing Games is that it offers an opportunity to encourage more awareness about human rights.

“Imposing compulsory vows of silence is an affront to our athletes, and in China it will be viewed as acquiescence.

“Each year 8,000 executions take place in China, political and religious opinion is repressed, journalists are jailed and the internet and overseas broadcasts are heavily censored.

“For our athletes to be told that they may not make any comment makes a mockery of our own country's belief in free speech.”

Well said.

And I'll be back later.

Posted on February 11, 2008.