Berlin Backlash Builds

Barack Obama's grandiose gesture -- "a manifesto for the planet," as Mike Allen calls it -- at the Siegessaule in Berlin prompts an inevitable reaction, and it's not good news for the apostles of Hope. As yesterday's Quote of the Day hinted, it is a political liability to be seen as a "citizen of the world" who seems "more popular in Germany than in rural Pennsylvania." And as Instapundit says, "This headline won't help":

Obama Scraps Visit
to Wounded Troops

Especially when, as Ed Morrissey points out, the visit was apparently cancelled because the military wouldn't allow Obama to bring along his media entourage for a photo-op.

Further reaction is likely -- El Rushbo is already ripping Obama over his "arrogant" speech-- and I'll try to update as the backlash builds today.

UPDATE: Susan Estrich explains why Obama could be hurt by his status as a media darling:

[B]eing the favorite of the press doesn't necessarily win you votes. Most people don't actually like the press. The friend of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. Being liked by the boys and girls on the bus doesn't necessarily earn you the respect of the people back home.

Ding, ding, ding! Another hubris alert from Nicole Allan at The New Republic:

During his Berlin speech today, at which he was welcomed with seeming rapture, he spoke to the "people of the world" as if he were already president of the United States of America and all she represents. The McCain camp was quick to read some irony into this.

Republicans doing irony? How dare they!

UPDATE II: Meanwhile, continuing the trend noted in my Pajamas Media article Wednesday, John McCain keeps up the attack in the "heartland":

"My opponent, of course, is traveling in Europe, and tomorrow his tour takes him to France," Mr. McCain said with [Tour de France champion Lance] Armstrong at the Columbus event, according to his prepared remarks. "In a scene Lance would recognize, a throng of adoring fans awaits Senator Obama in Paris -- and that’s just the American press."

Remember that the latest Rasmussen poll shows McCain 10 points ahead in Ohio.

UPDATE III: Mocked by the Times of London.

UPDATE IV: Howard Kurtz reports:

Not everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid. Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass wrote of the coverage: "McCain is now cast as the crabby uncle who visits and shrieks there's no gin in your house," while Obama is "busy fighting off throngs of reporters, a cast of thousands as urgent and impassioned as in those old Hollywood biblical epics."
Ralph Begleiter, a former CNN correspondent who is now journalist in residence at the University of Delaware, says the notion that Obama was making real news -- as opposed to exploiting pretty backdrops -- is "a sham argument. Of course it's a photo op. If he wanted to go to Afghanistan as a senator, he could have done it."

There can be no doubt that, if Obama loses Nov. 4, the media will go into mourning.

UPDATE V: Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) on MSNBC:

Barack Obama has always had a great charismatic style, but the substance has never been there and his inexperience is one of the things that troubles a lot of people. . . . He went [to Europe] . . . to try to give himself some kind of kind of patina of credibility.

Watch out for the shark, Fonzie!

UPDATE VI: Congratulations to Michelle Malkin, who celebrated her 15th wedding anniversary yesterday, and returns today to observe of the media's honeymoon with Obama: "Ever so slowly, the glow is dimming."

None of the above

Which candidate opposes the housing bailout?
A. Republican Sen. John McCain
B. Democratic Sen. Barack Obama
C. None of the above:

"Both the House and President George W. Bush have surrendered in the battle to protect America’s taxpayers from yet another expensive and unnecessary bailout. The $300 billion measure yesterday approved by the House and endorsed by the White House won't just pay off improvident borrowers and lenders. It will create yet another piggy-bank for activist groups at public expense. . . .
"The sub-prime lending crisis is largely a crisis of government. Congress and both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush pressed banks to lend more money in poor neighborhoods to less credit-worthy borrowers. The Federal Reserve pushed down interest rates to encourage more lending. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development subsidized home ownership. Now we are all paying the price for a boom gone bust."

So says Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr, who just released a video about The Time for Liberty, an idea endorsed by Ron Paul -- and Ayn Rand, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan . . .

Murderers for Obama

This key constituency shrank by one:

Before he died Wednesday evening, death row inmate Dale Leo Bishop apologized to his victim's family, thanked America and urged people to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
"For those who oppose the death penalty and want to see it end, our best bet is to vote for Barack Obama because his supporters have been working behind the scenes to end this practice," Bishop said.
Bishop, 34, was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 6:14 p.m. . . .

Bishop was convicted for his role in the beating death of Marcus Gentry.

Quote of the Day

"It's unquestionably true that most Americans want the rest of the world to think better of them. On the other hand, it's also true that, if asked whether they'd vote for a man whose father was Kenyan, who lived in Indonesia as a child, and who seems more popular in Germany than in rural Pennsylvania, a majority would probably say no."
-- Noam Scheiber

Obama in Berlin

As Ed Morrisey notes, this video of the speech was sent out by the Obama campaign as part of a fundraising email:



Other reaction from around the 'Net:

• James Poulos calls the "citizen of the world" line a mistake.
• Daniel Larison calls the line a "blunder" and says: "Obama misjudges the public mood here in the U.S. quite badly if he thinks that 'this is the moment' when Americans are interested in tearing down walls and embracing globalisation."
• The German press is predictably enthusiastic.
• Dean Barnett: "Perhaps Obama's ego has grown so large that he figures one country, even the world's lone superpower, is no longer worthy of his leadership. A quick prediction -- 'the citizen of the world' mess-up will be one of the issues that frames the rest of the election."
• Kevin Holtsberry: "What it really came down to . . . was Obama the messiah giving the world a giant pep talk."
• Obama didn't have time to visit U.S. troops in Germany, but Karen Tumulty of Time notes that he and his staff had time for "celebratory martinis" after the speech.

My reaction to the speech? Just click the video:

Ich bin ein "Kumbayah"!

Hype: The Obama Effect

The new Citizens United documentary about Barack Obama will debut next month in Denver on the eve of the Democratic National Convention.



Lisa De Pasquale writes that the DVD will be available Sept. 1 and a limited theatrical release is planned beginning Sept. 8.

Citizens United does excellent work with documentaries. After they premiered Hillary: The Movie in January, one woman who saw the film told me, "I can't imagine how anyone could ever vote for her after seeing that." That quote came from Kathleen Willey.

UPDATE: Just got off the phone with a spokesman for Citizens United, who informs me that production is still underway -- meaning the final product will include Obama's European tour and the reaction to it. The spokesman also confirmed that the Obama documentary is being produced by the same team that did Hillary: The Movie, with Alan Peterson as director and Matthew Taylor as director of photography. So this should be a very powerful film.

Completely irresponsible speculation

Allah takes notice of a New Republic article about the Obama campaign's media relations that quotes one reporter on the Obama beat:

"They're terrified of people poking around Obama's life. . . . The whole Obama narrative is built around this narrative that Obama and David Axelrod built, and, like all stories, it's not entirely true."

Hmmm. Operating on the where-there's-smoke principle, what common foible of Democratic politicians do you suspect Obama's campaign is trying to conceal? I don't know. Maybe we should ask John Edwards. Or Gary Hart. Or Bill Clinton.

Of course, there could be no actual proof of such a thing, because if there was, Team Clinton would have dug it up and dished it out during the primaries. But this defensiveness certainly arouses suspicion, doesn't it?

My genius nephew

A two-year old with his own blog? All right, I'll link him. But until he starts typing it himself, I'm not adding him to the blogroll. Nepotism will only get you so far, kid.

'Hear No Evil' progressivism

Much continues to be made of the power of the vaunted Netroots, but it must be acknowledged that a lot of their power consists of intimidation -- the fervor with which they shout down any meme they don't want to acknowledge.

Case in point: Jamie Kirchick of the New Republic posted a little note acknowledging an incident on Obama's overseas tour during which Obama's spokesperson had to be reminded that the Democrat is not yet the president.

The comment field lit up like one of those Vietnam war-movie scenes where Charlie's storming the perimeter of a U.S. firebase. Kirchick was denounced as an Enemy Of The People.

I can't say I've ever seen anything quite like that in the comment field of any conservative blog. Yes, furious arguments sometimes erupt in comment fields, but Michelle Malkin and other bloggers on the Right routinely slam John McCain and mock his campaign's ineptitude without any of their conservative commenters accusing them of bad faith. Merely passing along a negative news item about the Republican is not seen as treason to The Cause, as seems to be the case with the reaction to Kirchick's post.

Which is to say that the strength of the Left online is also a weakness, insofar as it constitutes an intolerance of negative feedback. Ironically enough, an intolerance of negative feedback was a major factor in the blunders of the Bush administration, about which the Left has so often reminded us. Sitting around in an echo chamber, surrounded by yes-men, believing your own press releases -- doesn't this sound vaguely familiar?

Progressive, heal thyself!

She should have stuck with her homework

The Amazing Miss Rittlemeyer allows herself a digression into gender theory. I would advise you, Miss Rittelmeyer, that it is a waste of time to read anything that contains a sentence like this:

Embracing individuality and agency can include both pursuing personal interests and social, cultural, and environmental projects that incorporate political and social justice orientations.

The reification of abstraction is bad enough -- I challenge anyone to explain how this pretentious word-salad applies in any way to that quaint thing called "the real world" -- but the phrase "social justice" is the real deal-breaker for me. Social justice is a mirage, as Hayek observed.

Hubris Watch update

UPDATED & BUMPED: Obama doesn't have time to visit troops at U.S. bases in Germany. No wonder Joe Klein's getting nervous.

And, oh yeah, Obama's lead in today's Gallup daily tracking poll is 4 points less than what it was 3 days ago. And as Allah notes, Team McCain has slammed Team Obama for dancing in the end zone before they've gotten past midfield.

FLASHBACK: Has Team Obama lost it? -- the June 28 post in which I first expressed my shock that Hopey was planning this European excursion:

Pennsylvania? Ohio? Florida? No, forget about the stupid morons in those silly swing states -- let's campaign in foreign countries where there aren't even any eligible voters!

If this trip proves to be a mistake -- the fatal turning point at which everything starts going south for Obama -- I stand ready to stake my claim as first in line to say, "I told you so."

PREVIOUSLY: Team Obama is already measuring the drapes in the Oval Office, and picking out their dresses for the inaugural ball. Meanwhile a trio of liberal pundits explains why history proves that it's safe to ignore the fact that His Hopefulnness still hasn't gotten a poll bounce:

It is no exaggeration to say that the political environment this year is one of the worst for a party in the White House in the past sixty years. You have to go all the way back to 1952 to find an election involving the combination of an unpopular president, an unpopular war, and an economy teetering on the brink of recession.
Barack Obama is not a national hero like Dwight Eisenhower, and George Bush is no Harry Truman. But if history is any guide, and absent a dramatic change in election fundamentals or an utter collapse of the Obama candidacy, John McCain is likely to suffer the same fate as Adlai Stevenson.

Hmmm. I wonder if these liberal pundits have talked to any Obama organizers in Pennsylvania lately. (I have. To say that they've encountered some "unease with Obama" might be an understatement.) This liberal trio is guilty of trend-mongering: The assumption that general political trends render actual campaigns and actual candidates irrelevant to election outcomes.

In 1995, it was widely assumed that Bill Clinton had no hope of re-election. Conservatives told themselve, "Any Republican could beat Clinton!" But "any Republican" wasn't on the ballot in November 1996; Bob Dole was.

But please, Obamaphiles, don't let me rain on your (inaugural) parade.

McCain campaign conference call

I'm currently on hold waiting for the start of the McCain campaign's conference call "with Doug Holtz-Eakin, senior policy adviser, and Nancy Pfotenhauer, senior policy adviser and spokeswoman, to discuss energy relief and Barack Obama's no, we can't' policy."

11:55 a.m.: Pfotenhauer: "The failure of Senator Obama to understand the need to increase domestic [oil] production is just stunning."

On oil exploration, "It’s hard to name another developed country that has tied its hand the way the United States has," Pfotenhauer said.

Noon -- The call just ended. I was kind of stunned that there was no follow-up on a point that Holtz-Eakin mentioned: Obama opposes the creation of any new coal-fired electric power plants. That's got to be political poison in Pennsylvania, and yet I never heard anything about this previously. I remember in 2000, Al Gore's anti-coal stance hurt him badly in West Virginia and Kentucky.

Expect further updates ....

Everybody's a pundit

Jonathan Martin of the Politico makes a point that I've long complained of:

Republicans have no lack of would-be George F. Wills. But what they really need are some more Robert D. Novaks. . . .
While conservatives are devoting much of their Internet energy to analysis, their counterparts on the left are taking advantage of the rise of new media to create new institutions devoted to unearthing stories, putting new information into circulation and generally crowding the space traditionally taken by traditional media. And it almost always comes at the expense of GOP politicians.
While online Republicans chase the allure of punditry and commentary, Democrats and progressives are pursuing old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting.

When I worked at The Washington Times, I was often contacted by people asking "how do I get a column on the op-ed page?" To which I would habitually reply, "Hey, if I knew the answer to that question, I'd be on the op-ed page."

My job at the newspaper was on the news side of the operation, and as much as I might have wished to "chase the allure of punditry and commentary," The Washington Times always had more op-ed contributions than it could handle. Every conservative think-tank wonk and advocacy-group activist in town wants his column on that page and -- since they have full-time jobs at their 501(c) operations that pay them to push their viewpoints -- they're willing to offer their opinions for nothing, or next-to-nothing.

Meanwhile, there is also what I call the Former Deputy Undersecretary Syndrome -- it sometimes seems that anyone who ever worked in the Reagan administration now spends his spare time shopping op-eds. So good luck with those over-the-transom column submissions, people.

What my bosses at The Washington Times always had the hardest time finding was experienced reporters who "got it" in terms of the kind of news that a conservative readership is hungry for. Even without any reference to political leanings, really good reporters are hard to find, but trying to find a good reporter who also had some understanding of, or sympathy for, the conservative viewpoint -- well, you can ask my former bosses about how tough that was.

Why is it so hard to find conservatives who have any interest in doing basic "5Ws and an H" type of reporting? Two words: Low wages.

The newspaper business is one of the lowest-paying professions in America. Most years, my brother who's a semi-truck driver in Georgia made more money than I did as an assistant national editor at The Washington Times.

Liberals dominate the newspaper business for the same reason they dominate the fields of education and social work. Liberals are much more willing to do low-wage work that they think "makes a difference." Conservatives want to make a buck. (I was a Democrat when I started out, which explains how I ended up in the newsprint ghetto.)

If you're a liberal with good writing skills, you become a journalist. If you're a conservative with good writing skills, you go to law school.

There is a surfeit of would-be conservative pundits because people see the example of a few big-name successes -- Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, etc. -- and want to emulate that. And conservatives seem to misconceive the market for punditry. Call this the Fox News Syndrome.

Most of the people you see doing talking-head guest appearances on Fox News are not paid to be on those shows. They're consultants or think-tankers or authors pushing their latest books. They derive their income (which is not usually lucrative) from other full-time employment. But people tend to have the idea, ipso facto, that everyone who appears on TV is rich. And so you will find no shortage of College Republican types whose chief ambition in life is to someday do a 10-minute segment on O'Reilly or Cavuto.

The situation that Jonathan Martin has observed is deeply rooted in the infrastructure of the conservative movement, going back to the 1970s, when getting the think-tanker who could get a 700-word policy piece published on a newspaper op-ed page had scored a big coup.

McCain attacks keep surging

Having launched an offensive, the McCain campaign continues its steady drumbeat of attacks against Obama for his opposition to the surge in Iraq. A press release from the campaign this morning notes that Obama will be interviewed tonight on NBC News and points out:

[W]hile Barack Obama was trying to score political points in the Democratic primaries by calling the surge a failure, NBC News was reporting the progress being made in Iraq because of the surge.

The McCain press office provides three video clips of Obama criticizing the surge on NBC. Jan. 10, 2007, Obama says the surge will make things worse in Iraq:



July 18, 2007, Obama says the surge hasn't worked:



Nov. 11, 2007, Obama says the surge is "potentially worsening" the situation in Iraq:



Obama may be able to defend, but he clearly cannot deny, his opposition to the surge.

Meghan McCain hates Howlin' Wolf?

You know what Crazy Cousin John doesn't get enough credit for? Having a hot blonde blogger daughter. Meghan McCain recently shared her list of favorite blues tunes, topped by B.B. King's "The Thrill Is Gone." A lot of classics there: Elmore James, Robert Johnson, Son House, T-Bone Walker. But as I'm looking at this list, a question looms large in my mind.

Why no Howlin' Wolf? Is the would-be First Daughter prejudiced against the blues legend who gave us "Ain't Superstitious," "Little Red Rooster" and the immortal "Wang Dang Doodle"?

The conspicuous absence of Chester Arthur "Howlin' Wolf" Burnett from her playlist raises the possibility that Meghan is the kind of low-down, no-good, two-timing evil-hearted woman that makes a bluesman want to pick up his dobro and walk out that door. Just say good-bye, and she won't see him no more.

Why have the major media ignored the incipient Bluesgate scandal?

Big news: Markets work

I was kind of surprised yesterday when John McCain's statement about oil prices -- that President Bush's lifting of the offshore drilling ban had resulted in a $10-a-barrel wholesale decrease -- became the lede of the Associated Press story from Wilkes-Barre. Rush Limbaugh has been saying this for several days, so it didn't strike me as big news.

When I stopped for gas en route to Wilkes-Barre yesterday, the price was $3.89 a gallon -- below the $4-a-gallon price we saw for several weeks -- and so, contrary to Nancy Pelosi, we didn't have to wait years and years for the impact. The mere expectation that the U.S. might allow more drilling was enough to cause speculators to go short.

Actually, Crazy Cousin John understated the impact. As Ed Morrisey notes, oil has now dropped $20 a barrel since Bush lifted the offshore ban. The White House modestly declined to take full credit:

Presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said the price drop also could reflect diminished demand.
"I don't know if we fully deserve the credit," Perino said.
"We don't predict what happens in the market," she said. "We can't really tell. Certainly, taking that action would send a signal that at least the executive branch is serious about moving forward and increasing the supply we have in America."

What amazes me is how many people -- from Nancy Pelosi to Associated Press reporters -- seem so shocked about the fact that markets work. Don't these people know anything about economics?

McCain, Obama and Iraq

Rather than talk to reporters during a press conference yesterday -- he cancelled the "availability" that I drove three hours to attend -- John McCain made some comments during an "unscheduled" stop in Bethlehem, Pa., after leaving Wilkes-Barre. Associated Press:

Republican John McCain pushed back on Wednesday against Democratic criticism that he misstated when the troop buildup ordered by President Bush began, saying elements were put in place before Bush announced the strategy in early 2007.
He told reporters during an unscheduled stop in a super market that, what the Bush administration calls "the surge" was actually "made up of a number of components," some of which began before the president's order for more troops.
It's all a matter of semantics, he suggested.
McCain said Army Col. Sean MacFarland started carrying out elements of a new counterinsurgency strategy as early as December 2006.

All this is by way of McCain trying to explain his previous statement to CBS about the "surge" being the cause of Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar turning against al-Qaeda. (Ambinder has more.)

This one little "senior moment" on the Republican's part has gotten vast amounts of media scrutiny, while Obama's House of Flip-Flops goes unexamined by lovestruck reporters (who give money so generously and objectively to Democrats). They've spent so much time "splashing about in the tank for Obama" (as Tom Maguire says of Joe Klein) they've got swimmer's ear.

UPDATE: Quote of the day:

You know what's really scurrilous? Joe Klein gets paid for blogging. What a great scam.

Bigger scam: He's probably paid too much.

John McCain in PUMA territory

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. -- I'm at the F.M. Kirby Center for today's "Straight Talk Town Hall" event with John McCain. Will try to live blog as much as possible. Expect updates.

11:30 p.m.: Back home now, after a three-hour drive home, including a half-hour stop in a McDonald's parking lot to call in and talk to The Radio Patriot, Andrea Shea King. Audio of the program is now online.

6 p.m. -- My report for Pajamas Media now online:

Sen. John McCain today continued his stepped-up criticism of his Democratic rival's position on the war in Iraq, saying Sen. Barack Obama would "rather lose a war in order to win a campaign." . . .
Similar remarks by McCain during a Tuesday appearance in Rochester, N.H., were denounced by many critics, including Time magazine columnist Joe Klein, who called it a "scurrilous statement" that "smacks of desperation."
The repeated attack on Obama — who is currently in the midst of a weeklong foreign trip — appears part of a newly aggressive approach for the McCain campaign, which recently reshuffled staff and brought in former Bush political operative Steve Schmidt as a senior advisor.
The visit to Wilkes-Barre represents a key opportunity for McCain to flip a Democratic blue state to Republican red. In the April 22 Democratic primary, surrounding Luzerne County voted 3-to-1 for Clinton over Obama, and clearly the McCain campaign hopes to win over Clinton Democrats in a potential swing state that Bush narrowly lost to John Kerry in 2004. . . .

Please read the whole thing. Despite the mysteriously canceled "media availability," it's been a nice visit to Wilkes-Barre where (as a historical marker outside informs me) I'm blogging from the site of the original Woolworth's store, founded by F.M. Kirby in 1884. The local Obama organizers (seated at the next table) are still using the coffee shop here for their operation, but it's time for me to make the 3-hour ride back home. Goodnight!

PREVIOUSLY:
1:30 p.m. -- Ambinder talks about the cancelled press "availability," which remains (officially) unexplained.

1:20 p.m. -- Researching what I was told earlier by a Scranton reporter, indeed this is Clinton territory -- she beat Obama 3-to-1 in Luzerne County. While I'm working on my story for tomorrow, here's the latest national poll data: Gallup daily tracking has Obama by 4, Rasmussen has Obama by 2. So the worldwide bounce quest continues ....

12:55 p.m. -- Sorry that live-blogging was interrupted, but there was a WiFi failure. I'm now set up in the coffee shop at the Barnes & Noble store across the street. I'm sitting right next to a team of Obama organizers (no kidding) who are using the coffee shop as headquarters for a voter-registration operation.

I think the Obama people may have been trying to sign up volunteers among any random anti-McCain protesters who showed up. There were a few protesters here, but nothing very organized. I spotted one across the street from the event with a hand-lettered poster: "Bush-McCain Kill Our Soldiers for Lies! Shame."

The Associated Press is headlining its report of the town hall with McCain crediting Bush's lifting of the offshore ban for the recent $10 drop in the wholesale price of a barrel of oil. Marc Ambinder (I didn't even know he was here) leads with McCain calling Obama's Iraq policy reckless:

If McCain is president and his strategy prevails, "We will come home. We will come home with victory and honor, but we will never have to go back," he said.
"So, when Senator Obama says well if we don't succeed, we may have to go back in, we might."

Personally, the big story for me is that the McCain campaign cancelled its previously announced press conference here. There was no explanation from the local press coordinator. A reporter for a major national news organization told me that the rumor is that the campaign was upset that none of the networks sent correspondents to Wilkes-Barr. I'll have more of an update later.

10:40 a.m. -- McCain repeats the accusation that Obama "would rather lose a war and win a campaign." Joe Klein has called this statement "scurrilous," but McCain has apparently nailed his colors to the mast on this one.
10:32 a.m. -- Discussing Obama's opposition to drilling for oil, McCain references the Latin "Yes We Can" ("Vero Possumus") slogan on Obama's fake presidential seal, and says, "I think he should change that to 'No, We Won't.'"
10:25 a.m. -- McCain talks gas tax holiday.
10:20 a.m. -- Boris Krawczeniuk of the Scranton (Pa.) Times-Tribune told me earlier that this area was "3-to-1 for Hillary." Listening to local radio on my way into town, they were interviewing a local PUMA leader. This county was 51-48 for Kerry in 2004, so if this state is going to swing GOP, it will be because of Clinton Democrats in areas like this.
10:17 a.m. -- McCain just took the stage to a standing ovation.
10:13 a.m. -- The sound system is now playing Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode." About 900 people in attendance. The stage has a giant American flag backdrop and an "Energy Solutions" banner.

McCain's new press pass

Some Maverick humor:

John McCain’s campaign had a little fun at Barack Obama’s expense tonight, issuing a fake press pass to the McCain traveling press on the bus as we landed at the airport here. The front of the pass identifies the McCain press corps as the “JV Squad” and has the caption “Left Behind to Report in America.” The reverse side features a Frenchman pouring a glass of wine with the same caption en francaise (“Laisse en arriere pour faire un rapport en Amerique”). The fake press pass satirizes the preferential treatment that the McCain campaign suggests the media has given Barack Obama.

That story, BTW, is datelined from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., where John McCain will speak today at a town hall event. I'll be there. It's a three-hour drive. Blogging will be light today.

UPDATE: I'm now live-blogging the event in Wilkes-Barre.

Obama's 'much-ballyhooed' trip

Generally speaking, when a reporter says something is "much-ballyhooed," he means it as a putdown -- the "much-ballyhooed" prize fight that ends with a first-round KO, the "much-ballyooed" film sequel that fails to meet expectations, and so forth.

So when the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza began by writing of Barack Obama's "much-ballyhooed trip abroad this week," I was expecting a hit job. Instead, it was a gooey discussion of Obama's "gravitas" at a press conference in Amman, Jordan. After eight paragraphs of suitably reverent worship of St. Obama, however, Cillizza felt compelled to admit:

The press conference wasn't all roses for Obama, however, as he provided Republicans more rhetorical ammunition by again refusing to say he should have supported the troop surge last year.
Obama said that "we don't know what would have happened" if the plan he put forward in early 2007 -- a plan that would have had all combat brigades out of the country by March 31 of this year -- had been implemented.
That is sure to be fodder for Republicans who were up in arms last night over the fact that Obama told ABC's Terry Moran that even in hindsight he did not support the troop surge.
Already McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds is out with a statement condemning Obama's attitude toward the surge.

In the third paragraph, Cillizza described the need for Obama to "convey . . . bipartisanship" and in the sixth paragraph credited the Democrat with taking "the high road," but Cillizza sees no possibility that anyone but a partisan Republican might criticize His Hopefulness.

After pointedly referencing the McCain campaign's complaints about "the allegedly fawning coverage of Obama's trip" (allegedly), Cilliza then went into full-court fawning mode, concluding that, in terms of demonstrating suitably presidential gravitas, Obama "cleared that hurdle with ease." An objective fact!

Good news for troops in Iraq

The celebrity hooters are coming!

Heidi Montag says her late stepbrother -- who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan -- has inspired her to visit the Middle East to perform for U.S. troops.
"My brother was an airborne ranger in Afghanistan and Iraq," the Hills star tells Extra in a new interview. "It's very important to me and important to Spencer to support the troops and go over there."
Montag's stepbrother, Eric O'Hara, 24, who was a veteran of combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, died in an accident in March at the Steamboat Springs, Colo., hotel where he worked.
While Montag and Pratt are eagerly planning their trip — they may be getting a little help with travel arrangements from friend Meghan McCain, the daughter of presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

I'm sure the troops will stand up and salute -- she'll get a reception that makes Obamamania seem lame.

'At Long Last, Love Has Arrived'

"It's infectious!"

Famous teenage mothers

Checking SiteMeter just now, I noticed that someone had reached my post, "In praise of teenage motherhood" via a Google search for the term "famous teenage mothers." Given this evidence of curiosity on the topic, let me cite my two all-time favorite teen mothers:

• Loretta Lynn -- Loretta Webb of Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, was only 13 when she married Doolittle "Mooney" Lynn. She was a mother of four before she turned 18. She cut her first record when she was 25, and subsequently recorded 16 No. 1 country hits, including classics like "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind)," her duets with Conway Twitty (among them "After the Fire Is Gone" and "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man"), and her autobiographical signature tune, "Coal Miner's Daughter."
• Margaret Beaufort -- Her grandfather, the Earl of Somerset, was a bastard son of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster, and Margaret's own father died when she was a year old. She was originally betrothed as a child to the 9-year-old Duke of Suffolk, but that union was annulled and, at age 12, Margaret became the bride of 24-year-old Edmund Tudor. Within a year, while putting down an insurrection in his native Wales, Edmund died, leaving behind a 13-year-old widow who was seven months pregnant with a son she would name Henry. Because the boy was of royal blood, he was forced to flee England during the subsequent War of the Roses over the succession to the crown of Henry VI. During the bloody reign of Richard III, Margaret conspired, with the aid of her third husband, Sir Thomas Stanley, to place her son on the throne and, after emerging the victor at the Battle of Bosworth Field, Henry Tudor was crowned King Henry VII.

By all accounts, Margaret was a pious Christian woman of tremendous learning -- praised for her fine penmanship in an era when literacy among women was rare -- and, during her son's reign, became a patron of education, including a generous gift to Oxford University. The student of Margaret's life will discover that, though records clearly establish her birth at Bledsoe Castle in 1443, some sources list her as being born in 1441, evidently the result of efforts by Victorian-era authors to obscure the fact that she was married at 12.

At any rate, these two ladies -- Loretta Lynn and Margaret Beaufort -- are a neat historical rebuke to those who insist that teen motherhood must inevitably lead to trailer-park trashdom. Margaret was the teenage mother who gave her country a king. Loretta, of course, became famous as the Queen of Country.

UPDATE 7/23: A reader writes to call my attention to an article by Frederica Mathews-Green:

A woman's fertility has already begun to decline at 25--one reason the population-control crowd promotes delayed childbearing. . . .
Humans are designed to reproduce in their teens, and they're potentially very good at it. That's why they want to so much.
Teen pregnancy is not the problem. Unwed teen pregnancy is the problem.
It's childbearing outside marriage that causes all the trouble. Restore an environment that supports younger marriage, and you won't have to fight biology for a decade or more.

The same reader all calls to my attention a liberal writer in Australia who shares a more positive attitude toward teen motherhood:

Our norms are also dominated by the ideology of materialism that is moving women further and further towards unnatural behaviour, pressuring them to have babies later rather than sooner.
This is society's real problem. Teenage pregnancy is trivial by comparison to suppressed pregnancy.
A healthier society would allow women to have children earlier than they do now. At 32, no matter what people want to believe, the reproductive system is far less robust than it was 10 years earlier.

The Australian liberal prescribes government subsidies for daycare as the solution, a statist approach that I reject. The problem is essentially one of culture, not government policy or economics -- but let's not spoil a bipartisan moment with an argument. And since we seem to be in the "recommended reading" part of the discussion, let me recommend Bethany Torode's "Confessions of a Teenage Mom."

Media, access and spin

Coverage of Barack Obama's Iraq trip has renewed discussion of media bias. Meanwhile, noting Team Obama's apparently punitive policy toward a hostile reporter, Megan McArdle writes:

One of the biggest challenges reporters--especially political reporters--face is the problem of access. Journalists are dependent on sources for information. Sources use that to get spin--they punish reporters who print things they don't like.

A hostile, defensive policy toward the press has been more typical of Republicans in recent years. The usual approach of GOP media handlers is to seclude candidates from the press except for carefully-controlled set-piece situations. Almost inevitably, this antagonistic approach to media -- the notion that, when it comes to press access, "less is best" -- results in the kind of disasters that afflicted George Allen in 2006.

This was one thing Tony Snow tried to fix at the White House. Unlike 99% of GOP media-relations operatives, Snow had actually worked at newspapers, and therefore realized that transparency is the best policy: "Here's what we're doing, and here's why we're doing it."

There was a time when Republicans weren't afraid to hire P.R. people with newsroom experience. Both Pat Buchanan and Lyn Nofziger were journalists before being hired by Nixon and Reagan, respectively. Nowadays, however, Republican P.R. people are exclusively political operatives trained at some GOP P.R. academy where Lesson One is, "Reporters are the enemy. Avoid them if at all possible possible. Otherwise, treat them like mushrooms: Keep them in the dark and feed them bulls---."

Why shouldn't the media be biased against Republicans, when Republican routinely treat media people like nuisances.

Obama: 'Don't ask me tough questions!'

AllahPundit catches Obama at his favorite game, trying to avoid giving a straight answer:

Q: If you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge?
A: No, because, keep in mind that…
Q: You wouldn't?
A: Keep in mind… These kinds of hypotheticals are very difficult. Hindsight is 20/20. But I think that, what I'm absolutely convinced of, is that at that time we had to change the political debate because the view of the Bush administration at that time was one that I just disagreed with.

Obama refuses to defend his earlier outspoken opposition to the surge. Rather, he wants to debate "the view of the Bush administration at that time." In other words, "Never mind that I was wrong, in a way that brings into question my judgment of military affairs. This election is about giving the people a chance to vote against a third Bush term."

The Harvard-educated Obama has the quality of intellectuals that most annoys ordinary Americans: A preference for abstraction over reality, for words over action. His desire to "change the political debate" is more important to him than the obvious truth that, despite his opposition, the surge stabilized the situation in Iraq.

And yet liberals bash Bush because he has been reluctant to admit his mistakes . . .

Illegals killed her family

Thanks to San Francisco's policy of "sanctuary" for illegal immigrants, Danielle Bologna's husband and two sons are dead.

(Via Hot Air.) Slaughtering entire families is apparently one of those "jobs Americans won't do." AllahPundit recommends Cinammon Stillwell's San Francisco Chronicle column as background. Michelle Malkin:

The City of San Francisco wanted to keep criminal illegal alien juveniles like Edwin Ramos in San Francisco–or, at least, somewhere inside the United States. They were willing to frustrate a federal law to do so. And a devastating, preventable triple murder occurred because of their policy.

The problem with tolerating lawbreakers (which is what illegal aliens are) is that it encourages an outlaw attitude that allows thugs like Ramos to flourish. Illegals know damn well that they're breaking the law, and the fact that they're getting away with it fosters a contempt for society. Who wouldn't have contempt for an America that looks the other way while its most basic laws are flouted?

The logic of war

In reading John McCain's op-ed column that was rejected by the New York Times, I was struck by this paragraph:

I am also dismayed that [Obama] never talks about winning the war -- only of ending it. But if we don't win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president.

That's the nub of it. It is one thing to oppose war before the shooting starts. Once the war begins, however, the only choices are victory or defeat -- glory or dishonor.

The possibility of defeat is among the reasons why war should be avoided if possible. I am reminded of Nicias, the Athenian general who argued against undertaking the fateful Sicilian expedition in the Pelopponesian War but who, once the decision was made to undertake the expedition, insisted that it be made with all available force. Athens could afford the expedition, but could not afford defeat.

John McCain has indicated his disdain of Bush's jocular "f--- Saddam, we're taking him out" attitude -- an attitude he says the president manifested a year before the invasion. But McCain has steadfastly insisted that, if we were going to fight in Iraq, we make the fight full-strength. Fight to win, or don't fight at all.

Obama considers defeat an acceptable outcome; McCain doesn't. This is the real difference.

NYT columnist: 'I'm a scumbag'

Hey, if it sells . . .

Your mandatory obligation to pay the salaries of government school bureaucrats

Once you accept the premise of a liberal argument, the conclusions are inescapable. Thus, Andrew Blechman in the Arizona Republic:

Today, more and more Americans are coming to embrace a lifestyle defined by one common trait - the exclusion of children and young families. But although segregation is a dubious tenet upon which to found a community, and despite the fact that this premise has remained essentially unexamined, so-called "active adult" developments are rapidly gaining acceptance in American society. . . .
After defeating 17 school-bond measures in 12 years, de-annexing from the local school system, and all the energy spent evicting "contraband children," [residents of the Sun City retirement community near Phoenix, Ariz.] can likely forget relying on the goodwill of their neighbors who often share a reciprocal bounty of distrust, anger and apathy.

What Blechman objects to is the right of people to live as they wish, and to exercise their political right to vote in their own interests, in this case, voting to avoid higher taxes -- taxes that would allow the government schools to hire more bureaucrats. By slapping the "segregation" label on these retirement communities, he expects to elicit an appropriate shudder of horror from the bien pensants.

Enter Dana Goldstein, to seize on Blechman's op-ed as an argument against basing school funding on local property taxes:

[S]ome people, who don't have kids in public schools and who aren't particularly civic-minded, will inevitably resent paying [local school taxes] and do everything they can to avoid doing so.

From what little information I can find online, it appears that Ms. Goldstein is about three years out of Brown University, unmarried and childless. Exactly why is she crusading on behalf of higher school taxes in Arizona? Beats me. I figure folks in Phoenix can fend for themselves without any guidance from me. Apparently, however, Ms. Goldstein simply can't suppress her busybody instinct:

Visiting Florida over the years and seeing gated community after gated community along wide highways, I always wondered why so many senior citizens wanted to isolate themselves from young families. I think this may be a lifestyle with far less appeal to younger generations less steeped in the post-World War II pro-suburban ideology. One can hope that by the time Gen X and Gen Y-ers are retiring, the trend toward leaving vibrant, diverse communities in one's old age in favor of homogeneous pseudo-towns will have run its course.

"Vibrant, diverse communities" like Washington, D.C.! High taxes, high cost of living, out-of-control crime, incompetent police -- hell, D.C.'s "vibrant, diverse" population has declined by about 300,000 in the past 50 years. The only people who live in D.C. are (a) rich yuppies who don't want to commute, and (b) poor people who can't afford to leave. I assume that Goldstein, an Ivy Leaguer, fits category (a).

Goldstein's assertion that the purpose of human life is to pay taxes to support government bureaucracy offends me most profoundly. This liberal fetish about governiment schools -- that support for more taxes to hire more school bureaucrats is self-evidently moral, and that opposition is thus immoral -- cannot be justified on the basis of evidence, and must therreforre be classified as a superstition.

'Slogan-festooned vomit bags'

Via e-mail, a friend informed me:

Obama is so detestable that I have resolved to get drunk and vote for McCain, along with Ann of course.

I didn't get the reference, because I was en route to Alabama to shoot my 4th of July fireworks show when Ann Coulter published this column:

The irony is, the only people McCain can count on to vote for him are the very Republicans he despises -- at least those of us who can get drunk enough on Election Day to pull the lever for him. In fact, we should organize parties around the country where Republicans can get drunk so they can vote for McCain. We can pass out clothespins with his name as a reminder and slogan-festooned vomit bags.

Turns out there's an entire Web site devoted to this idea. Unfortunately, due to federal ethanol subsidies, the price of liquor has skyrocketed and, due to the recession, not even Republicans can afford enough booze to get them that drunk.

Teen sex cult update

In a comment on an earlier thread about the April raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) in Texas, Angela asked:

Next, you could address the way CPS claimed they had 31 teen mothers by refusing to accept their legal documents proving their ages, so they could make it look like the FLDS community was as awful as the media was painting it? 31 turned out to be 5, and from what I understand (though I could be wrong, it's hard to keep the ages straight when there's so much misinformation) they'll all be 18 this year.

While I haven't been able to find any news reports confirming that only five of the mothers at the El Dorado ranch were minors, Jacob Sullum of Reason magazine notes:

CPS claimed 31 underage girls at the ranch were pregnant or mothers. It later conceded that at least 15 of them were in fact adults while a 14-year-old on the list was not pregnant and had no children. The Associated Press reported that “more mothers listed as underage are likely to be reclassified as adults."

So that reduces the number down to 15 or 16, but the claim of "31 teen mothers" is still out there all over the Internet, and none of the stories have corrections appended. At least one of the alleged "child brides" who turned out to be 18 gave birth while in state custody:

An 18-year-old who gave birth in state custody after she was incorrectly seized in a raid on a polygamist sect ranch says the state kept her in foster care in an effort to seize her baby.
Pamela Jessop said authorities knew how old she was when they raided her home on the Yearning for Zion Ranch, which is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"I gave 'em my name. I gave 'em my age," Jessop said. "I was honest. Showed 'em my birth certificate and they acknowledged it, that I was 18."

Furthermore, Sullum makes important points:

In any case, as the appeals court noted, "teenage pregnancy, by itself, is not a reason to remove children from their home and parents."
In Texas the minimum age for marriage with parental consent is 16 -- raised from 14 in 2005 with the FLDS in mind -- and "there was no evidence regarding the marital status of these girls when they became pregnant or the circumstances under which they became pregnant."

For months, I've been saying this: Texas leads the nation in teen births. If every pregnant 15-year-old in Texas is cause for a paramilitary raid, they're going to need to hire more SWAT officers.

And the business of Texas raising its marriage age just to thwart the FLDS bothers me. Fourteen-year-olds had been legally married in Texas since time immemorial, but then these religious kooks move to Texas, and suddenly the state legislature sees the need for "progress"?

(BTW: The "teen sex cult" title is a mocking allusion to the lurid tabloid-style coverage the Texas FLDS raid initially generated in the media.)

UPDATE: Harry Reid wants a federal criminal investigation of FLDS:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will take his quest for a federal investigation of a polygamous sect before the Judiciary Committee next week.
The Nevada Democrat requested and received the July 24 hearing before the committee, during which he will present evidence to support a federal crime investigation of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a spokesman said. . . .
Reid has pushed for several years to get the U.S. Attorney's Office to form a federal task force to look at polygamous sects and has renewed that effort because current Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey "seems more receptive to it," Summers said. . . .
Reid sent Mukasey a letter in April asking for his help in fighting "pervasive criminal activity" occurring in polygamous groups -- specifically, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. . . .
Reid contends that the FLDS are an organized crime syndicate that has engaged in bribery, extortion, fraud, embezzlement, witness tampering and labor violations. He wants the Justice Department to launch a federal racketeering investigation.

Extortion? Fraud? Bribery? These FLDS sound almost as bad as the corrupt union bosses who support Harry Reid's Democratic Party. "Almost," I said.

Obama: The $300 Million Man

Marc Ambinder notes that Barack Obama has raised $337 million to date -- already the biggest haul of campaign cash in history, and almost certain to top half a billion dollars by Election Day.

Whatever criticism one makes of the Obama campaign, their fundraising prowess is remarkable. And it's ironic that they've raised this astronomical sum in order to defeat John McCain, the man who pushed through the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act to "get the big money out of politics." If McCain loses, he will have been hoisted by his own petard.

Right-wing pointy-heads

Megan McArdle -- whom I once escorted home after she suffered an attack of vertigo -- has surrendered to contrarian folly, if this New York Times article is to be believed:

Meanwhile, Megan McArdle, a libertarian writer, thinks conservative organizations will actually have a tougher time influencing policy if Senator McCain is elected. . . .Indeed, to Ms. McArdle, the possibility of a Republican defeat holds a certain romantic appeal. "Younger people are kind of excited about being in the wilderness," she said, evoking the pre-Reagan years when Republican thinkers plotted their revolution at nonprofit organizations and in bars instead of in the Executive Office Building and congressional majority offices. The longer you're in power, the more you want to preserve it. "That's where the Republicans are right now, and it's demoralizing for think tankers."
Desperation has a way of focusing the mind. As Ms. McArdle said, "When they're out of power, they have to think in a clearer way."

I criticized this notion at AmSpecBlog:

Never having set foot in the Executive Office Building, I'm nevertheless dismayed by the "romantic appeal" of the wilderness for Ms. McArdle, who was in middle school the last time Democrats controlled both the White House and Congress. Should dissatisfaction with the status quo (almost universal on the Right) lead to the unconservative idea that change -- any change, even Change -- is progress?

The extreme youth of thinkers like McArdle, Douthat, et al., gives them a rather narrow experiential frame of reference. Having never been a think-tanker, nor a young conservative (I grew up a Democrat, an affiliation I didn't shed until I was about 35), I shudder to think what idiocy I might have wrought if I'd been catapulted into the midst of Washington policy disputes in my 20s. (Some would say I've wrought plenty of idiocy in my 40s.)

I worry about these brainiac prodigies who arrive in Washington fresh from the college campus and, without any seasoning in the "real world," are transformed overnight into savants.

When I was about Douthat's age, I was DJing in an Atlanta strip club, which was about as much responsibility as I could handle, and perhaps more than I could handle. Yet there is something to be said for the experience of living among The People, earning one's living outside the realm of intellectual endeavor, as a preparation for common-sense thinking about politics.

UPDATE: A liberal blogger chides the Right:

Adversity is the one thing that modern conservatives cannot stomach or stand. If they believed in it, they wouldn't have rolled over for George Bush and they certainly wouldn't have rolled over for John McCain. If adversity was something conservatives in this country as a whole could take, they would have nominated Senator Sam Brownback on principle and rejected the likes of McCain and Romney out of hand. Instead, they rolled over and took it.

She has kind of a point there. One of the things I've noticed about Beltway conservatives -- as opposed to rank-and-file conservatives out in the provinces -- is that they tend to be very power-oriented. There is a definite pecking order, and everybody's trying to move up the ladder.

On the other hand, it wasn't Beltway conservatives who rejected Sam Brownback (or Tom Tancredo or any of the other lesser Republican presidential hopefuls), it was GOP primary voters. But that is another issue entirely. And as to whether conservatives "rolled over" for either Bush or McCain -- well, look at the fall-off in the GOP vote since 2006. It's obvious that lots of rank-and-file grassroots conservatives are more or less engaged in a boycott of the Republican machine. They've stopped voting, they've stopped volunteering in campaigns, and they've especially stopped giving the kind of $50-$100 contributions that were once the lifeblood of the GOP.

UPDATE II: I think it's fair to number David Weigel among the youngsters excited about a Republican exile to the wilderness. The Bush administration's shunning of libertarians is not without a price.

Obama's European shark jump

From my latest American Spectator column:

Team Obama's difficulty in finding a suitable site for his Berlin speech is unlikely to get much attention from the TV news anchors traveling with the candidate this week. Yet it highlights the fundamental problem of Obama overseas excursion: It is a purely symbolic gesture from a campaign that increasingly seems more interested in symbols than substance.

Please read the whole thing. Meanwhile, Obama's already put his foot in his mouth once, telling CBS he expects to be president for "eight to 10 years":

Link: sevenload.com. (Via Hot Air.) ABC's Jake Tapper observes:

The notion that Obama will be dealing with world leaders for eight-to-ten years, possibly up through July 2018, suggests that either (a) he believes that not only will he be elected and re-elected, but the 22nd amendment will be repealed and he will be elected for a third term, OR (b) he was speaking casually and just meant two terms. . . .
This week Obama will have his words picked apart like never before, and it will be an international audience of not just opponents but actual enemies.

Watch out for that shark, Fonz!

UPDATE: A German correspondent notices that Team Obama is trying to keep European reporters away from the candidate, prompting the Big Johnson to muse:

[H]is staff is desperately worried that the candidate will make a gaffe, as soon as he ventures into uncharted territory. Foreign reporters tend to ask questions about ... you know ... foreign stuff.

Obama facing tough questions? Unthinkable.

The Killer: Jerry Lee Lewis

I was just watching CMT, where they're showing the 1989 film Great Balls of Fire, with Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis and Wynona Ryder as his cousin/child bride, Myrna. The movie trailer:



Just in case you think that's a Hollywood exaggeration of the outrageousness of Jerry Lee's original act, here's footage of his first appearance on the "Steve Allen Show" in 1957:



The boy was just flat crazy.

Bob Barr shocks the Left

A surprise appearance at Netroots Nation, where no one -- not even the normally savvy Garance Franke-Ruta or the clever Christina Bellantoni-- suspects Barr's secret plan to play the "spoiler" role by undermining Obama's claim to be the most credible anti-war candidate.

Barr graduated high school in Tehran and once worked for the CIA. If he could get into the fall debates, he'd expose Obama as a clueless lightweight. Liberals who've been promoting Barr as a spoiler who'll hurt only the GOP don't realize how dangerous Barr could be to the Democrats, once the anti-war crowd recognizes Obama as just another lying politician who will sell them out in a heartbeat.

And you thought YOU were having a bad day?

It could get worse:

A patient at George Washington University Hospital fell from a fifth-story ledge overlooking New Hampshire Avenue in Northwest Washington yesterday afternoon after threatening to jump for several hours, police said.
The man climbed onto the ledge about 12:15 p.m. and for four hours paced and peered at the ground. He fell just before 4:10 p.m. after trying to climb down. The man lost his footing as he tried to move down the building and briefly hung off the ledge by only his hands before falling feet first.
His body partially hit the concrete and a large inflatable air mattress police had set up while trying to coax him down, police said. . . .
The man, whose name was not immediately released by police, was still breathing at the scene, readmitted to the hospital and listed in critical condition. . . .
The man had been taken to the hospital yesterday after being involved in a car accident. (Emphasis added.)

(Via Hot Air Headlines.)

Obama's Eagleton opportunity

While the New York Times sees all sorts of troubles afflicting John McCain's problem of picking a running mate, apparently everything's sunshine and roses at Hope HQ:

For Mr. Obama, there is no shortage of what Democrats describe as do-no-harm people he can pick: be it Mr. Bayh; Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware; Mr. Nunn; or Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who introduced Mr. Obama at a huge rally in Northern Virginia two days after he effectively won the nomination, and whom many Democrats see as one of the more intriguing names on Mr. Obama's list.
Democrats said they thought it was less likely now than it was a month ago that Mr. Obama would choose Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York as his running mate, though they said she remained in consideration and that she was being vetted.
If he does not choose Mrs. Clinton, several Democrats said, it would be difficult for him to name any woman -- like Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, someone for whom he has had warm words. Both Clinton and Obama advisers said such a move could create a backlash among women who supported Mrs. Clinton. (Emphasis added.)

Ahem. Here's the problem: Hillary is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't VP choice for Obama. If Obama picks her, it will be seen as a sellout by the hard-core Hopers. If Obama doesn't pick her, the Denver PD will need tear-gas and riot batons to control the PUMAs.

A belated gift from "Operation Chaos," you see.

Obama's symbolic problem

Barack Obama's foreign trip is, as multiple press accounts affirm, "aimed at bolstering his foreign policy credentials" (CNN) and "an effort to look presidential on the world stage" (Chicago Tribune). In other words, a symbolic gesture -- and it might help Team Obama to choose their symbols wisely:

Barack Obama, when he arrives in Berlin on July 24, will hold his speech at the Siegessäule monument in the heart of the city. . . .
The Siegessäule -- or Victory Column -- was erected in memory of Prussia's victories over Denmark (1864), Austria (1866) and France (1870/71). The column originally stood in front of the Reichstag, Germany's parliament building, but was moved by Adolf Hitler to its current location in 1939 to make way for his planned transformation of Berlin into the Nazi capital "Germania."
"The Siegessäule in Berlin was moved to where it is now by Adolf Hitler. He saw it as a symbol of German superiority and of the victorious wars against Denmark, Austria and France," the deputy leader of the Free Democrats, Rainer Brüderle, told Bild am Sonntag. He raised the question as to "whether Barack Obama was advised correctly in his choice of the Siegessäule as the site to hold a speech on his vision for a more cooperative world."
Andreas Schockenhoff of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats said, "the Siegessäule in Berlin is dedicated to a victory over neighbors who are today our European friends and allies. It is a problematic symbol."

(Via Hot Air.) Congratulations on your tasteful gesture, Team Obama. Welcome to your Dukakis tank ride. Obama-Eagleton '08!

UPDATE: Discerning Texan at Astute Bloggers:

I cynically commented the other day that the only thing missing from Obama's German "rally" was Albert Speer; now I'm not so sure I wasn't actually on to something...

Directed by Leni Riefenstahl?

No comment necessary

Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union:

A 19-year-old man dressed as a penis was arrested for disturbing a high school graduation today at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
Calvin Morett of 337 Pyramid Pine Estates allegedly interrupted the Saratoga Springs High School graduation by marching across SPAC's stage in an inflatable 6-foot penis costume while diplomas were being given out, Saratoga Springs Police Sgt. Sean Briscoe said.

(Via Nice Deb.) "Allegedly"? Video of the crime:

(Via Ace of Spades HQ) Ben Franklin once said, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to dress up in an inflatable penis costume and remove all doubt."

New gas prices

(Via Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spade HQ.)

Joe Cocker, decoded

"I got some leather for my Fred!"



(Via Infinite Monkeys.) I'm reminded of the old joke:
Q. What did the Grateful Dead fan say after the drugs wore off?
A. Dude, this band sucks.

'Economy dips, morbidly obese hardest hit'

Poor, fat victims.

DNC to PUMAs: STFU

Former Democratic National Committee chairman Don Fowler sent an e-mail telling the PUMAs that "she lost. Barack Obama won. It's over." The nub of the counter-argument was summed up by one PUMA blogger:

How can you possibly say that Barack Obama won and Hillary Clinton lost when neither achieved the required amount of pledged delegates to receive the nomination. It’s still undecided and won’t be until the vote is taken in Denver.. . . [T]he DNC pushed the superdelegates to endorse him. He hasn’t won anything.

This goes back to the pledged delegate count, where Obama is still more than 300 votes short of a nominating majority in Denver. Hillary supporter Larry Johnson:

Here are the facts. Hillary won more delegates in elections than did Barack. Barack won more delegates in caucuses–events that are not Democratic because only a small fraction of eligible voters can participate in them. Neither Hillary nor Barack won enough delegates to secure the nomination. Both had to look to the Super Delegates to put them over the top. . . .
Our beef is that when it comes to a general election, Hillary, who actually won more votes in real elections than Barack, is a much better candidate and has a much better chance of beating McCain.

As I observed at AmSpecBlog:

The point about the delegate count . . . is the PUMAs' strongest argument for having Hillary's name in a first ballot roll-call vote in Denver.
Because of the super-delegates, Obama would win that vote, but the DNC and Obama HQ apparently feel that such a vote would highlight the division in the party. They want their guy nominated by unanimous acclamation, and seem to view opposition as disloyalty.

It is their obsession with public perception -- the same image-making stuff that went into Obama's current foreign excursion -- that causes Team Obama to oppose an open roll-call vote at Denver.

Celebrity update

Because politics gets boring, we read the tabloid gossip trash, so you don't have to:

• Mischa Barton topless. Another one of those, "Huh, who is she?" starlets I never heard of before. She first popped up in "The Sixth Sense," then starred in "The O.C.," a show that no adult ever watched.
• Also topless: Sienna Miller, partying at a Mediterranean resort with very married father of four Balthazar Getty. Just in case you don't know who she is either, she's a British actress who played Edie Sedgewick in Factory Girl and was once engaged to Jude Law (The Talented Mr. Ripley/Cold Mountain).
• "Mini-Me" Vern Troyer wins a lawsuit to prevent distribution of a sex tape. There is a God.
• Miley Cyrus wet T-shirt picture. Seems that 15-year-old Miley has a habit of sending sexy photos to her boyfriend, Nick Jonas (of the Jonas Brothers band, with whom she's currently on tour) and somebody's hacked her account.
• Speaking of the Jonas Brothers, brother Joe just graduated from high school.
• Miley bids fair to follow in the tabloid footsteps of another former Disney starlet, Lindsay Lohan, who partied with her lesbian girlfriend last night. (But, you know, come to think of it, I don't really remember Lindsay's name ever being romantically linked with any guy stars, so maybe she's been gay ever since The Parent Trap.)
• In other ex-Disney starlet news, Britney Spears has almost settled her custody dispute with K-Fed.
• You know the comedian Carrot Top? Here he is at a Hollywood restaurant. Notice the chick he's with. Yeah -- in Hollywood, even B-list celebrities like Carrot Top hang out with beautiful blondes.

As usual, we get all our celebrity trash from WeSmirch, the gossip aggregator.

'Save Our Starbucks'?

Amusing news for those with memories:

Now that Starbucks Corp. has disclosed the 600 locations it wants to shutter, a phenomenon is taking hold: the Save Our Starbucks campaign.
In towns as small as Bloomfield, N.M., and metropolises as large as New York, customers and city officials are starting to write letters, place phone calls, circulate petitions and otherwise plead with the coffee giant to change its mind.

Am I the only one who remembers when anarchists in Seattle targeted Starbucks? Or how about those ridiculous efforts to unionize barristas at Starbucks?

Oh, yeah, Starbucks was a soulless, greedy, corporate exploiter, profiteering off its customers and employees -- and then the profits stopped, and suddenly it's "Save Our Starbucks"! Next thing you know, they'll be protesting the closure of Wal-Mart stores.

I'm also old enough to remember the United Auto Workers going on strike against that greedy profiteering megacorporation General Motors -- something you don't hear so much, now that GM's on the verge of bankruptcy.