EVENING UPDATE,  MARCH 17,  2008

ECONOMICS

The sun is going down and the American economy hasn't collapsed.   There is no rioting in the streets, no one is jumping from buildings.  The Dow is essentially flat. 

Put away the bottled water and crawl out of the shelter.  The nation is still here, ever if Bear Stearns isn't.  There will be a Tuesday.

YIKES, HE'S GOING TO DO IT

Barack Obama will give a major speech tomorrow on the subject of race.  He will include a discussion of his radioactive pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Oh, dear.  You know, I'm not so sure this a good move, either for Obama or for the country.  This is a man who says he's gotten beyond the 1960s, who says he wants to unify the nation, and now he wants to talk about race.  Since this is apparently a very recent decision, any speech will have to be written quickly - not a good idea when dealing with a sensitive subject.

Now, of course, many in the media will love it.  And the colleges will adore it.  This is their sixties dream come true, embodied in their candidate.  But note what Obama said today:

"I am going to be talking about not just Reverend Wright, but the larger issue of race in this campaign," he said.

He added that he would "talk about how some of these issues are perceived from within the black church issue for example," he said.

No, Barack, no.  That stuff is 40 years out of date.  And this:

He also briefly defended Wright from the image that has come through in a handful of repeatedly televised clips from recent Wright sermons.

"The caricature that’s being painted of him is not accurate," he said.

Caricature?  Caricature?  Did you hear those clips?  They oozed hate for America, for whites, for Western civilization.  What part of that isn't accurate?  Was he misquoted?  Can you take hatred out of context?

What if a white clergyman, a minister to a white presidential candidate, said, "I hate black people.  Send 'em all back"?  Then, what if the candidate said, "Well, I disagree, but it's only one line in a long career"?

Right, and the Holocaust was only one of Hitler's acts.  He also built roads, schools, had a swell social security system.  I mean, why let one little thing spoil it?

Maybe Obama can pull it off tomorrow.  But tomorrow night, the more alert cable guys will be replaying those clips, and Obama may look increasingly ridiculous, or just irrelevant, to millions of people.  The sad fact is, though, that he won't look ridiculous to much of the elite, and to his young cadres, miseducated in schools that have taught them that the Rev. Wright is simply giving them "an alternative narrative."

Right.  Or Wright.

THIS, TOO?

Another headache for the divine Illinois senator.  Apparently - although I'm sure there's a wise, decent explanation for it - he's been borrowing some phrases.

None dare call it plagiarism.  But why not?

"We are the ones we've been waiting for."  Remember that one?  Why, that must be an Obama original.  It is, isn't it?  Well, not so fast.  Consider Exhibit A:

Certainly Obama fans won't admit how obscure the sentence is--though several have claimed that it's lifted from a prophecy of the Tribal Elders of the Hopi Indians. Hopi prophecies are famously obscure.

But this is just wishful thinking. The origins of the phrase aren't nearly so glamorous or exotic. Two years ago, before Obama even said he wanted to be president, the left-wing-radical-feminist-lesbian novelist Alice Walker published a book of essays and called it We are the Ones We've Been Waiting For. Believe me: If the line had come from the Tribal Elders of the Hopi nation, Alice Walker would have been more than happy to say so. Instead she said it came from a poem published in 1980 by the left-wing-radical-feminist-bisexual poet June Jordan. Neither Walker nor Jordan has said what the sentence means. But Walker did offer this hint in the introduction to her book of essays: "We are the ones we've been waiting for because we are able to see what is happening with a much greater awareness than our parents or grandparents, our ancestors, could see."

Hmm.  Little problem of attribution here, don't you think?  When Joe Biden borrowed some lines from a British politician for his initial run for the presidency, in 1988, he was forced out of the race.  What will happen to Obama? 

The writer of the piece, Andrew Ferguson, goes on:

When Obama's supporters say "We are the ones we've been waiting for," what they mean is that in the long roll call of history, from Aristotle and Heraclitus down through Augustine and Maimonides and Immanuel Kant and the fellows who wrote the Federalist Papers, we're number one! We're the smartest yet! Everybody--Mom, Dad, Gramps and Grandma, Great Grandpa and Great Grandma, maybe even the Tribal Elders--they've all been waiting for people as clued-in as us!

Is this what Obama means too? No one who's wandered through an Obama rally and heard the war whoops and seen the cheerful, vacant gazes would come away thinking, "These are the smartest people ever." I'm sorry, they just aren't.

Dead on.  Those are the words we've been waiting for.

ARROGANT?

Not to pile on (though it's fun), but veteran political writer Ron Fournier, of the Associated Press, writes a rather tough column on Obama, using the a-word, which has been whispered, but rarely spoken:

WASHINGTON - Arrogance is a common vice in presidential politics. A person must be more than a little self-important to wake up one day and say, "I belong in the Oval Office."

But there's a line smart politicians don't cross — somewhere between "I'm qualified to be president" and "I'm born to be president." Wherever it lies, Barack Obama better watch his step.

He's bordering on arrogance.

The dictionary defines the word as an "offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride." Obama may not be offensive or overbearing, but he can be a bit too cocky for his own good.

The freshman senator told reporters in July that he would overcome Hillary Rodham Clinton's lead in the polls because "to know me is to love me."

A few months later, he said, "Every place is Barack Obama country once Barack Obama's been there."

True, there's a certain amount of tongue-in-cheekiness to such remarks — almost as if Obama doesn't want to take his adoring crowds and political ascent too seriously. He was surely kidding when he told supporters in January that by the time he was done speaking "a light will shine down from somewhere."

"It will light upon you," he continued. "You will experience an epiphany. And you will say to yourself, I have to vote for Barack. I have to do it."

But both Obama and his wife, Michelle, ooze a sense of entitlement.

No anesthetic there.  It's all pain.  Read the whole thing.

SHE ALSO SPEAKS

Let's give Hillary some space here.  She also made a speech today.  The problem is, she blew it.

I'm so heartbroken and disappointed.

It was billed as a major speech on Iraq.  Now, I've noticed that when Hillary sounds thoughtful and statesmanlike, she gains.  When she sounds shrill, and tosses snacks to the radical fringe of her party, she sinks.  Today, she was tossin' out those doggie crackers.  It could have been a transforming moment for her - the candidate as real leader, speaking carefully as her Democratic opponent foundered.  But the lines were stale, shopworn, with an appeal to those who probably won't support her anyway:

She delivered a speech in Washington dedicated completely to the war in Iraq, saying she would begin withdrawing troops from Iraq within 60 days of taking office, should she win. And she attacked both Mr. Obama and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the likely Republican nominee.

In attacking Mr. McCain, Mrs. Clinton noted that he had at one point said he would be comfortable with the United States having a presence in Iraq for 100 years. With Mr. Obama, she noted that Samantha Power, a former senior foreign policy adviser, had been quoted as telling a British newspaper that Mr. Obama’s schedule for withdrawal outlined on the campaign trail would not be what he would necessarily follow in the White House.

“One choice in this election is Senator McCain, who is willing to keep this war going for 100 years,” Mrs. Clinton said. “You can count on him to do that. Another choice is Senator Obama, who has promised to bring combat troops out in 16 months. But according to his foreign policy adviser, you can’t count on him to do that.”

Mrs. Clinton used her speech, delivered at George Washington University, to argue that the so-called surge in Iraq had not worked, pointing to the fact that the same number of troops will be on the ground in Iraq once it ends as was there before the troop increase. And she signaled way she might use the issue against Mr. McCain – who was in Baghdad this weekend – should she win the nomination, linking Mr. McCain to Mr. Bush and the conflict that both men championed.

No good.  Just raw meat with nothing behind it.  Had she come up with a novel plan for Iraq, she might have made some headway. 

Maybe she was trying to appeal to those few superdelegates who are part of the nutbag fringe.  When will she learn that these people will never forgive her for voting to authorize war in Iraq, and that she should move behind them to the more moderate, and more numerous Democrats?

A few more lost opportunities like this, and we'll be calling her Senator Clinton for a long time.

Senator McCain, of course, has just been in Iraq, becoming a president.  Good. 

McCAIN ROMPS

In fact, while the Dems quibble, Senator McCain continues to advance in the polls.  Americans show far more trust in him as commander-in-chief than in either of his potential opponents:

The recent Hillary Clinton campaign advertisement asking who Americans want answering the phone in the White House when a crisis erupts at 3 a.m. has sparked a national debate about which candidate would best handle such a phone call. But while the ad was designed to boost the Clinton candidacy, likely voters nationwide say they would feel more secure having Republican John McCain answering the call of a crisis, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows.

Given the choice between Clinton and McCain, 55% preferred McCain while 37% would want Clinton to answer the phone, while 9% said they were unsure.

And the other guy?

Between McCain and Obama, 56% favored McCain while 35% preferred Obama, with 10% saying they couldn't make up their mind on the question.

Obviously, the Democrats have to change the subject.

CHANGING TIMES

Finally, another kind of financial story, one involving America's "newspaper of record."

The New York Times has been ailing financially. Many people feel it's also been ailing editorially.  The old gray lady, as it's called, sometimes feels as if it's ready for the final resting place.

But now the management is under serious challenge:

The New York Times Company has struck a deal with a pair of hedge funds that want to shake up the company, giving the funds two seats on the board in order to avoid a proxy fight, the two sides announced Monday.

The agreement with Harbinger Capital Partners and Firebrand Partners marks the first time since the Times Company went public in 1967 that it has accepted directors nominated by outsiders, Times Company executives said.

It also settles, for now, the most serious bid the company has faced to loosen the control of the chairman, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and his family. The funds have amassed 19 percent of the company’s common stock, which may be the largest stake any non-family shareholder has held in those four decades.

The new arrangement could make for some uncomfortable internal politics, but it is not clear that it will have any effect on the company’s direction. A two-class stock structure gives the Sulzberger family undisputed control of a majority of the board, and the Harbinger-Firebrand group has said that it has no plan to challenge that control.

In a statement released by the company, Mr. Sulzberger said, “Both the board and management welcome the perspectives and insights of our proposed new directors.”

I'll bet they do.  The way Hillary welcomed Obama to the presidential race. 

We'll see.  The Times needs a shaking up.  Maybe the shaking has begun.

And I'll be back tomorrow.

Posted on March 17, 2008.