SATURDAY,  FEBRUARY 2,  2008

•   Three days from Super Tuesday.  I have the gut feeling that the Republican race will be decided Tuesday, but only if McCain wins decisively across the country.  I have the same gut feeling that the Democratic race will go on, no matter what happens.  It's inconceivable that mere votes will discourage that grudge match.  In fact, right after their reasonably civilized debate on Thursday night, Obama and Clinton went back at it.  As reported here, the charges have started flying again.  It's real fun.  The key zingers:

Mr. Obama sent a mailer charging that Mrs. Clinton's health care plan "forces" families to have insurance, drawing criticism from Clinton supporters who said the image in the mailer of a couple at a kitchen table smacks of the lobbyist-funded "Harry and Louise" ads that helped derail the Clinton health care agenda in the 1990s.

"Democrats are looking for Harry Truman, and Obama serves up Harry and Louise," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, Mrs. Clinton's health care adviser.

Obama was endorsed by the Los Angeles Times, hardly surprising given that paper's warm feelings about the left.  The editorial writers guaranteed themselves good party invitations for a year. 

Victor Davis Hanson, one of our finest historians, has some cautionary words for Republicans today.  He notes that the intense Democratic battle was unexpected - Hillary's coronation at Westminster has been postponed because of poor ticket sales - and that it gives the GOP a superb opening for November.  But Hanson fears that the Republicans will, following their glorious history, blow the whole thing.  His main concern is the string of attacks on John McCain, the probable nominee.  Key quote:

The Democratic cat-fighters are doing their best to give away a once-sure general election, but the Republicans seem to be doing even more to ensure that they forfeit the unexpected gift they've been given.

If Hillary Clinton does end up winning her party's nomination, November's vote may hinge on whether moderates and liberals are nauseated enough by the Clintons' brawling and character assassination to cross over and vote for a decorated Republican war hero — that is, if his own flag-waving party doesn't destroy him first.

Wisdom.  Wisdom.

•  The opening lines say it all:

Two mentally disabled women strapped with remote-control explosives - and possibly used as unwitting suicide bombers - brought carnage to two pet bazaars, killing at least 99 people in the deadliest day since Washington flooded the capital with extra troops last spring.

The coordinated blasts - coming 20 minutes apart in different parts of the city on Friday - appeared to reinforce US claims al-Qaida in Iraq may be increasingly desperate and running short of able-bodied men willing or available for such missions.

That is simply revolting.  Yet, we hear no denunciations from women's groups, and the Democratic candidates are too busy to notice.  Mr. Obama keeps repeating how proud he is that he was "right" on Iraq from the start.  Of course, he only tells us what he's against.  He doesn't tell us what he would have done in the spring of 2003.  Speeches, maybe?  Or a shot on Oprah, singing "The Impossible Dream."

•   In a Washington Post column of breathtaking dullness, Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of Ike, endorses Barack Obama, despite the fact that she's a lifelong Republican.  What's remarkable about this is her indifference to foreign policy and to the threats facing this nation.  I must tell you that I cannot completely follow her logic, which seems rambling.  The basic argument is that young people adore Obama, and they're the future, and so on and so on.  Here's a quote:

I am convinced that Barack Obama is the one presidential candidate today who can encourage ordinary Americans to stand straight again; he is a man who can salve our national wounds and both inspire and pursue genuine bipartisan cooperation. Just as important, Obama can assure the world and Americans that this great nation's impulses are still free, open, fair and broad-minded. 

Is this a serious person?  But there's more:

Given Obama's support among young people, I believe that he will be most invested in defending the interests of these rising generations and, therefore, the long-term interests of this nation as a whole. Without his leadership, our children and grandchildren are at risk of growing older in a marginalized country that is left to its anger and divisions. Such an outcome would be an unacceptable legacy for any great nation. 

Well, it's pretty obvious that, in this case, the apple fell pretty far from the tree.  Dwight Eisenhower she is not.  I still cannot believe that people see the most liberal senator in the Senate as the man to unite the country. 

You would think, reading this endorsement, that the nation was never attacked, that our efforts in the war on terror are trivial or unnecessary, and that, if we just hold hands, all will be fine. I find it contemptible that this granddaughter of a great general would proclaim Obama, who never served, "the one presidential candidate today who can encourage ordinary Americans to stand straight again."  There's a man named McCain.  Whether we agree with him on all points or not, he stands head and shoulders above Obama in character and courage, and those are the things that make a nation stand tall.

Between Susan Eisenhower and Caroline Kennedy we see the beginning of proof that Darwin may have been wrong.

•   Returning to the grown-up world, the Washington Post has a well-reported story on the debate inside the defense establishment on force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It reminds us that adults are doing serious things in serious places, and bearing the brunt. 

Running through the story is the reality that the war in Afghanistan isn't going that well, and that American forces are stretched thin.  The Administration's policies have become muddled, and the president is not properly informing the American people of the challenges ahead.  That's one of the reasons that the silly season in politics is sillier than it normally is.

•   "He must know somethin' but don't say nothin,'" is the line from "Ol' Man River," in Show Boat.  It may apply to New York City's police commissioner, Ray Kelly.  It's hard to interpret this AP story, but the facts are chilling:  Police armed with submachine guns and bomb-sniffing dogs will soon start patrolling parts of the New York subway system. 

Is anything up?  Anything new?  Nobody is saying.  The key quote:

Kelly said Friday that the New York subway system "is the safest it's been in memory," but he noted that it has been the target of several terrorist plots.

The police department's transit division already conducts random bag checks and inspects subway tunnels and ventilation systems in search of explosive devices. Hidden cameras register any suspicious action.

But how important can that be compared to the deep political instincts of "youth"?  I mean, come on.  Priorities, people.  Priorities.  Let us stand straight again.

•   We used to say in the United States that what happens in California will happen in the rest of the country in 20 years.  That doesn't seem as true as it once seemed.  Today, we worry, and appropriately so, that what happens in Europe may happen in the States in 20 years.  London's Telegraph has an excellent story reporting the learned opinion of some of Britain's educators that patriotism isn't worth teaching.  You will have here in one place some of the great psycho-babble of our time.  Britain is losing its identity to this kind of almost-thinking and we must ask, given what's going on in our schools and colleges, if we're next.  The author of the piece fights back:

We have not produced a Hitler, a Stalin, a Mussolini, a Franco or a Salazar. There are reasons for that, which a proper study of history would reveal. It has something to do with constitutional government and the rule of law, which represent the foundation of a nation that so many people from around the world wish to join.

In our history there is no figure comparable with Napoleon, say, or Frederick the Great, the Prussian emperor described by AJP Taylor as "a barbarian of genius". Napoleon was a genius too, of sorts, but it took the British to bring him to book, for which Europe was duly thankful.

These are things that schoolchildren should perhaps learn. The British concern for liberty, as opposed to "rights", is also embedded in this subject, which is why the island race is not temperamentally suited to the kind of European integration so dear to all hearts in Brussels.

While it is necessary to share a common humanity, and sometimes pursue common aims, it is also important to know what separates us from our neighbours. We are not necessarily "better" than them, or worse, but we are different, and any teaching of our history should examine that difference.

Well said.  With all the yapping about "diversity" from the fashion plates of political correctness, certain groups, individuals and ideas are left out of the diversity stew.  They're usually the people who built this country.

Posted on February 2, 2008.