EVENING UPDATE,  APRIL 1,  2008

Posted at 7:43 p.m.  ET

SAY WHAT?

I had to read this one twice.  According to The New York Times, the Democratic Party (you know, the one that had Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, etc., etc.) is now getting past 9-11.  Frankly, I thought some of the more "progressive" Dems got past 9-11 on 9-12. 

The argument, it seems, is that concern with 9-11 is "fear mongering": 

Dozens of Orange Alerts later, not to mention a lost election or two, many Democratic voters seem to have moved on beyond their 9/11 fears. Few of Barack Obama’s applause lines that draw more vigorous cheers than his insistence on reclaiming 9/11.

“I want to end the fever of fear,” he said in Greensburg, Pa., last weekend, a line he has repeated a dozen times since. “I want to end the way 9/11 is used to scare people and stop them from coming together around our common problems.”

What is that?  When did 9-11 ever stop us from "coming together around our common problems"? 

All right, class, your assignment for tomorrow:  Write an essay showing - and use two sources - how fear of another 9-11 has prevented us from 1) creating better schools, 2) finding new sources of energy, 3) sealing our southern border, 4) repairing bridges and roads, 5) and cutting government spending on failing programs.  You can write longhand if you wish.

You know, that whole Obama line is really a crock.  The article continues:

But his suggestion that a paranoid style has ruled American politics clearly resonates. “Why do we clap?” Aidan McNulty repeats the question in Scranton. “Because I’m sick to death of the fear mongering.”

There are other applause lines, too, that suggest a changing Democratic politics, not least on education. But no line resonates louder and is more suggestive of a striking shift this political season.

Until the next attack. 

You're fear mongering if you're making up a threat, or exaggerating it.  Given the Iranian nuclear program, and the number of terror attacks we've seen around the world since 9-11, I hardly think Senator McCain or others in his camp are fear mongering.  They're acting like adults, concerned about their country.

Adults.  Remember what they sound like?

April 1, 2008.     Permalink          

DOES OBAMA GET IT?

Bret Stephens, in The Wall Street Journal, has a provocative take on why Obama argues for some of the policies that he does.  Obama, Stephens points out, has never tasted real defeat, and so doesn't understand it:

Yet what distinguishes Mr. McCain's foreign policy from Mr. Obama's is not about the nature of America's commitments in the Middle East. It is about their understanding of the consequences of defeat. Mr. McCain seems to have some. It's not clear whether Mr. Obama does.

And...

With the exception of a failed congressional bid in 2000, defeat has not formed a significant part of Mr. Obama's upwardly mobile life experience. Or perhaps it is a function of philosophy. Not everyone share's Mr. McCain's view that the defeat in Vietnam was a "disgrace," or that the result of a war carried out "Not In My Name" nonetheless has bearing on the worth of one's country.

I recall that, when John F. Kennedy ran for president, some wondered whether a son of privilege could understand the lives of ordinary people.  But John F. Kennedy had been to war.  He'd been wounded.  His brother had been killed.  A sister had died in a plane crash.  Despite his good fortune in some areas, he had tasted tragedy. 

I look at Mr. Obama and I feel that there's a whole part of a man missing.  Yes, he's had some tumult in his private life.  Many people have.  But he's never had a real fall on a great stage.  He speaks as if everything will be so easy.  Maybe it's just political talk.  Or maybe he believes it because he's never been in a real fight.  Stephens:

In his speech, Mr. Obama noted that there was no point trying to best Mr. McCain in matters of experience, that what counted was good judgment. Very true. How one can have the latter without the former is a question for the rest of us to consider.

Let's hope more practitioners in the press consider it also. 

April 1, 2008.      Permalink          

THE NEXT MUST-HAVE

Finally, the Japanese are developing a new robot that presumably will make easy things even easier. I know you'll want to put your name on the waiting list:

Fed up with increasingly hard-to-use remote controls? Researchers at Japan's Toshiba have developed a small, talking robot that can learn how to do it for you.
Instead of trying to remember which button to press on a remote control, users could simply ask the table-top robot to turn on the television or other appliances using its own infrared signal, Toshiba said.

The 21-centimetre (8.4-inch) tall ApriPoco robot -- which is in the development stage -- is equipped with sensors that can detect infrared rays from remote controls.

"What did you do now?" the robot, with big eyes and a round torso, would ask when the user clicks on a television programme.

The robot would then remember the link between the user's answer and what was done with the remote control.

It is already possible to give verbal commands to car-navigation systems and other machines, but the user must remember certain commands to do so, whereas the ApriPoco can learn a range of instructions.

While users might get upset if a conventional machine makes a mistake, the researchers hope that the robot's child-like appeal will make people more patient and willing to help it learn.

Just read that last sentence again.  Just read it.

Now go hug a real kid, the kind who has real feelings.

I'm about to have a heart-to-chip talk with my computer, which has been rude recently.  But I'll be back in the morning, earlier if need be.

April 1, 2008.     Permalink           

LATE AFTERNOON POSTING,  APRIL 1,  2008

Posted at 6:11 p.m.  ET

YES THEY CAN!

Go nine innings, that is.  We're talking about the Democrats.  Froma Harrop of the Providence Journal, a writer I've found to be insightful and sane, argues that the panicking in the Democratic Party over the intramural game is misplaced:

Polls say most ordinary Democrats want more primaries. But Democratic leaders -- not coincidentally, Barack Obama's backers -- say Hillary Clinton must drop out for the good of party. She has no chance of winning the nomination.

Wrong and wrong. Obama's support among independents seems to be weakening -- largely because of the Rev. Wright controversy. That Obama tolerated his pastor's highly offensive remarks for two decades is a problem that will not go away, whatever the polls say.

Republican John McCain would be a formidable foe for either Democrat. But his appeal to the sort of moderates who would otherwise support Clinton adds to Hillary's argument that she'd be the stronger Democrat in November. Some 28 percent of her backers say they'd vote for McCain if she loses.

Well said.  And...

Long ago, Clinton's campaign made much the same pitch. It wasn't attractive then, and it's not attractive now. Inevitability talk is designed to demoralize challengers but comes off as dismissive.

The Obama camp knows that and so employs a two-faced strategy. It sends out high-profile supporters to chant that Clinton can't win and is selfish for hanging in. Then Obama sails in with his smooth "Clinton can stay in the race as long as she wants" and a patronizing "I think that she should be able to compete and her supporters should be able to support her for as long as they are willing or able."

News flash: No one asked him.

I quoted columnist Marie Cocco earlier in the day, and noted how tough she sounded.  Now here's Froma Harrop, and you can sense the edge.  Do these writers represent a growing anger among some women, who see a female candidate pushed and shoved?  Maybe.  They can have an impact, but only if Hillary brings out the votes in the primaries.  That is a question mark, as the last story posted suggests.

More coming later.

April 1, 2008.      Permalink          

AFTERNOON POSTINGS,  APRIL 1,  2008

Posted at 3:32 p.m. ET

HILLARY SINKING?

New polls just out show Hillary Clinton weakening in Pennsylvania, which votes three weeks from today.  Pennsylvania is the key to Clinton's continuing.  She's been well ahead in the polls in that state.  She must win it, and win it convincingly, to make a logical argument to continue.

But Rasmussen's tracking poll now shows her up only five points over Obama in Pennsylvania.  A new Survey USA poll shows her up a more respectable twelve. 

Clinton, though, was up sixteen in a Franklin & Marshall College poll taken two to three weeks ago.  If today's polls are accurate, her position is significantly eroding.   The expectations game is at work here.  Pennsylvania is "Clinton country" according to the pundits on the campaign trail.  She must do well there, among "her people."

In the general, Rasmussen has McCain up six over Obama.  Gallup has McCain up two.

Rasmussen has McCain up seven over Clinton.  Gallup has McCain up two.

Those results are fascinating.   In the general, Clinton is running essentially as well as Obama.  It's in the Democratic Party that she's facing flak.  As noted here yesterday, this simply may be more evidence of a leftward drift within the party, something now solidifying.  However, since I've made it clear that I don't like "may" stories, I label that last sentence as pure speculation.

I still feel that McCain will have a very hard time in the general because the press will not only be in the tank for Obama, but major, well-paid correspondents will be carrying the tank and keeping it warm. 

Major fight coming up.

April 1, 2008.      Permalink             

TUESDAY,  APRIL 1,  2008

Posted at 6:58 a.m. ET

HELL HATH NO FURY

There are any number of Democrats calling on Hillary Clinton to jump off the cliff for the good of the party.  Senator Obama publicly takes the high road, proclaiming that Clinton should remain in as long as she wishes.  Nice of him.  We wonder how many phone calls go back and forth between the Obama bunker and those Dems urging Clinton to walk before the public appeal to Clinton is made.

One of the risks of putting pressure on Clinton is that some women, especially older women who grew up during the age of agitation for women's rights, might take considerable offense.  The best expression of this that I've seen is a column by Marie Cocco intriguingly titled, "Trying to Shove Hillary Out."  You know what's coming, and, I have to say, Cocco makes some very good points:

WASHINGTON -- Have you noticed something similar about those Barack Obama campaign surrogates and the media soothsayers who have started a drum-beat to force Hillary Clinton out of the Democratic presidential contest? Hint: They tend to share a certain anatomical attribute.

Take cover, gentlemen. 

Since we're talking boy-talk here, we might as well get right into their rhetorical comfort zone: Obama now is ahead by a field goal in the third quarter. But the fourth quarter has yet to be played and who knows what the score will be at the end of regulation? So here's their plan, hatched in the locker room: Push Clinton off the field now so that Obama can take his early victory lap.

Obama denies that he is personally behind this strategy. But let's face it. The pronouncements by Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn., both big-name Obama supporters and superdelegates, that Clinton needs to limp away with her head held low looked terribly orchestrated.

Leahy was particularly odious when, after declaring Clinton had "no way" to win the nomination, he offered her a very warm seat. It happens to be one she already holds and it is, of course, comfortably below the glass ceiling. "Frankly, I feel that she would have a tremendous career in the Senate," Leahy declared.

Odious.  The esteemed senator from Vermont was odious.  And you know, he was.

If it weren't so galling, it would be amusing to watch the Democratic men shuffling nervously in their television studio chairs, trying to conceal the audacity of their arrogance. For they have something in common besides their anatomy: It's Hillary Clinton. For nearly two decades, she's raised more money for more Democrats than anyone except, perhaps, Bill Clinton. She's certainly done more obligatory "Women-for-(Your Candidate's Name Here)" events than, say, the Obama girl on YouTube.

Now Clinton's methodical, dogged history of work for the Democratic Party is treated just like the methodical, dogged histories of so many women in the workplace: Having come this far she must not go too far. She must step aside to take the smaller office, with the lesser title and the lower pay to make room for the younger guy with the thinner resume. And please, would she just go quietly like a good girl?

I have to say it:  This is a cutting column.  I suspect it represents a level of anger out there that many may underestimate.

Somehow the Obama campaign has come to believe that insulting Clinton is the same as beating her. It isn't. And insulting her supporters -- especially women and, in particular, working-class women, who have clung to her candidacy all these months -- isn't much of a general-election victory strategy. Women were 54 percent of the electorate in the presidential election of 2004. Without their support, Al Gore would not have won the popular vote in 2000 and John Kerry wouldn't have come so close in 2004. Women voters put Democrats in control of Congress in 2006.

So, the Obama campaign can continue trying to get its allies in the media and various party pooh-bahs to push Clinton aside early. Or Obama can welcome the fight -- and win it like a man.

Well, uh, okay. 

I was watching a TV pundit make a similar point last night.  He asked what the reaction would be if the situations were reversed, and Clinton had a slight lead in delegates, and asked Obama, an African-American, to step aside.  The explosion would have been nuclear. 

Look for Hillary to play this card in the weeks ahead.  I have no idea how well it would work - Obama has support among women as well - but a lot of forces will be grinding together, and the party may not be whole at the end.

April 1, 2008.  Permalink                    

ANOTHER WOMAN SPEAKS

Alice Walker is a gifted writer and a tedious, silly human being.  She may have some routine interest in women's rights - it's required in her crowd - but at heart she's a good leftist, willing to follow the line right off the plank.  On the left, race trumps gender every time, and both are trumped by anti-Americanism.  Have you noticed the silence of "feminist" organizations at the oppression of Muslim women?  If they spoke out, they fear, they'd be helping Bush, and the party line won't permit it. 

Now Walker weighs in on our presidential contest - naturally in Britain's leftist crown jewel, the Guardian.  It's the opposite of Marie Cocco.  It's Walker at her hypocritical worst:

I am a supporter of Barack Obama because I believe he is the right person to lead the United States at this time. He offers a rare opportunity for the country and the world to do better. It is a deep sadness to me that many of my feminist white women friends cannot see him, cannot hear the fresh choices toward movement he offers. That they can believe that millions of Americans choose Obama over Clinton only because he is a man, and black, feels tragic to me.

When I have supported white people, it was because I thought them the best to do the job. If Obama were in any sense mediocre, he would be forgotten by now. He is, in fact, a remarkable human being, not perfect but humanly stunning, like King was and like Mandela is. He is the change America has been trying desperately and for centuries to hide, ignore, kill. The change it must have if we are to convince the rest of the world that we care about people other than our (white) selves.

Oh, please.  Is that patronizing, or what?  The United States has done more for people beyond our (white) selves than all the countries of the world combined.  When President Bush visited Africa recently, he was greeted as a hero, in part because of his AIDS program on that continent.  Didn't Alice Walker notice?  Does she notice anything?

Of course, being a leftoid, Walker assures us (actually her comrades) that she doesn't agree with everything Obama stands for.  We must show that we know the line, dearies.  She hauls off:

I want a grown-up attitude to Cuba, for instance, a country and people I love. I want an end to the war immediately, and I want the soldiers to be encouraged to destroy their weapons and drive themselves out of Iraq. I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behaviour to the Palestinians, and I want the people of the US to cease acting as if they don't understand what is going on. But most of all I want someone with the confidence to talk to anyone, "enemy" or "friend", and this Obama has shown he can do.

It's almost too much.  Soldiers, drive yourselves out of Iraq!  (Does she think they have chauffeurs?)  Let's grow up about Cuba and ignore those political prisoners!  Viva Che!  Let's put the Israelis in the dock.  Let's stop acting as if we don't understand!  And let's put words like "enemy" in quotes to show that we really don't believe it.

Read the rest if you care to.  I'm glad she doesn't work in the Defense Department.  She's just a "celebrated" writer.  Go celebrate - in Cuba.  Pay no attention to the screaming from the jails.

April 1, 2008.  Permalink                   

EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION

Since Alice Walker mentioned "the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people," or whatever the phrase is this week, you might be interested to know how some Palestinians are enhancing the lives of their children.  It's educational TV, of course, and how vivid and imaginative it is. From the Jerusalem Post:

A children's puppet show aired on Hamas TV Monday featured a child stabbing President Bush to death and turning the White House into a mosque.

The script of the controversial sketch was translated into English by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), an independent non-profit organization which analyzes and translates Middle Eastern media.

In the sketch, "President Bush" is caught off-guard by a Muslim child who breaks into the White House.

"Get out," Bush orders the intruder, "bring your father.....or mother so I can talk to them... somebody older and smarter."

"You killed daddy in the Iraq war," the boy responds. "As for my mom - you and the criminal Zionists killed her in Lebanon. You and the criminal Zionists also killed my younger and older brothers in the Gaza holocaust."

Alice Walker would be so proud.  The writing.  The drama. Will our (white) selves understand?

Yuch.

April 1, 2008.  Permalink                   

FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT

A fine, dedicated American resigned his post yesterday.  Decency requires that we celebrate what he tried to do.  The Wall Street Journal explains:

More than one American has tried to make the United Nations live up to its original ideals -- Pat Moynihan, Jeane Kirkpatrick, John Bolton. We'd add to that distinguished list the name of Mark Wallace, an ambassador to the U.S. mission at Turtle Bay who resigned yesterday having tried for two years to make the U.N. a more transparent place.

Mr. Wallace's biggest contribution was exposing the fraud and corruption in U.N. Development Program operations in North Korea. In the wake of his investigation, the then-new Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, was shocked enough to order an external audit of all U.N. programs. It didn't take long for Mr. Ban to backtrack on the extent of his original order, but his subsequent probe of the UNDP in North Korea confirmed Mr. Wallace's findings, as did a Congressional investigation.

Along the way, Mr. Wallace faced hostility from bureaucrats who don't think the country that provides nearly a quarter of the U.N. budget should demand more accountability. The UNDP's shoddy oversight of its North Korea operations is rightly seen as a wake-up call for better governance throughout the U.N. system. Mr. Wallace has lobbied for making internal audits, now secret, available to all member states. He also wants the U.N. to make more information, especially on budgets, available to the general public. And he has pushed for a more effective Ethics Office and protection of whistleblowers.

His record is also a lesson to those American officials who think their obligation is merely to get along at these international institutions. Mr. Wallace was unpopular with certain high State Department officials, who didn't want to risk their engagement with Pyongyang over corruption. He's the one who had it right.

Good on him.  It seems to me that most of those who've tried to reform the U.N. have been Americans.  We haven't been praised for it.  We've been resented.  It says something about us.  It says more about the resenters.

Be back later. 

April 1, 2008.  Permalink