Arkansas Democratic chairman shot

LATEST (3 a.m.): Information about gunman Timothy Johnson continues to be scarce and sketchy, but KARK reports: "We heard from multiple sources that Johnson was employed at the Gwatney-family owned Chevrolet dealership in Jacksonville." The station also reports:

Johnson was fired from his job in Conway before the shooting Wednesday.
Conway police were called to the Target just before 8 a.m. Wednesday, because of some anti-target graffiti he had written on the wall. Employees there say he was irate, but he left the scene before officers arrived.

So he got fired from Target, but several sources say that he used to work for the Gwatney family's auto dealership.

LATEST (8 p.m.): The gunman's death was apparently not self-inflicted, as had been speculated earlier:

After the suspect avoided spike strips and a roadblock along U.S. 167 near Sheridan, police rammed his car, spinning it, said Grant County Sheriff Lance Huey. He got out of his truck and began shooting, and state police and sheriff's deputies fired back, striking him several times, he said.
Hastings said investigators found at least two handguns in the suspect's truck.

The police spokesman seems to discount the disgrunted ex-employee angle:

At a late afternoon news conference, Little Rock Police Lt. Terry Hastings said Gwatney was shot multiple times in his upper body. Hastings said there is no known connection between Gwatney and the gunman and police have not commented on a possible motive.

ID on the suspect:

He has now been identified as Timothy Dale Johnson, 50, of Searcy. A sister who lives in Sheridan identified him, police said.
Johnson had no prior police record, according to the Little Rock police and a motive was still unknown. "This is one of those where we may never know," said Police Lt. Terry Hastings.

UPDATED & BUMPED (AGAIN): Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman Bill Gwatney has died after being shot by a man who was apparently a disgruntled former employee of Gwatney's auto dealership. The gunman was 51 and died of a gunshot wound, which may have been self-inflicted.

UPDATE II: When in doubt, blame Michelle Malkin.

UPDATE III: Bitterly clinging to guns and religion:

Moments before the Democratic headquarters shooting, a man with a gun threatened the building manager of the Arkansas State Baptist Convention headquarters seven blocks east. It wasn't known if the incidents were related.
Dan Jordan, the denomination's business manager, said the building manager asked the man what was wrong and that he said "I lost my job."

UPDATE IV: The party chairman was shot three times; details of the police pursuit of the gunman:

According to police, officers chased the gunman down Interstate 530 toward Pine Bluff, until he was forced off at the Sheridan exit. They caught up with him in Sheridan and a gun battle ensued in which the gunman was captured after he was shot by police. He was taken by MedFlight air ambulance to Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock. Lt. Terry Hastings of the Little Rock police reported on Wednesday afternoon that the gunman had died.

UPDATE V: Disgruntled former employee of the party chairman's auto dealership?

Sources say they are working to confirm tentative information that the suspect was a former employee of a Gwatney car dealership. News reports are identifying him as Tim Johnson, 50, of Searcy. He reportedly was a body shop worker at a Gwatney dealership in Sherwood.

Allah suggests this might be another "garden variety wacko," rather than politically-motivated terrorism.

Very disturbing news:

A gunman entered the Arkansas Democratic Party headquarters Wednesday and shot the party chairman, who was hospitalized in critical condition, authorities said. The gunman asked to speak to the party chairman, Bill Gwatney, and fired three shots at the office near the state Capitol. . . .
The suspect was chased into Grant County, south of Little Rock, and apprehended after being shot, the police spokesman said. The suspect's condition and motive were not known.
Sarah Lee, a sales clerk at a flower shop across street from the party headquarters, said that around noon Gwatney's secretary ran into the shop and asked someone to call 911.
Lee said the secretary told her the man had come into the party's office and asked to speak with Gwatney.
When the secretary said she wouldn't allow him to meet with Gwatney, the man went into his office and shot him, Lee said.
She said the secretary described the man as in his 40s and white and drove off in a blue truck.

Will update as further details become available.

China's gold medal tweens

Allah has a long thread about suspicions that China's gold-medal gymnatic team includes girls under the IOC-mandated minimum age of 16. He includes this video in which NBC panelists discuss the situation:



All the panelists speak of the advantage of younger girls in gymnastics in terms of psychology, but the actual advantage is physiological. As girls mature, their pelves (sorry, but that's the plural of "pelvis") become wider and heavier, giving them a lower center of gravity. This makes it more difficult to perform the rapid flips, handstands, etc.

As Allah notes, the average Chinese Olympic gymnast was 3 inches shorter and 30 pounds lighter than the average member of the U.S. team, and that difference is mostly a function of age and maturation level. Of course, since the Chinese girls are under a totalitarian regime, their diet and exercise regimens might be more tightly orchestrated to control their weight.

Frankly, I think it's idiotic to put a minimum age limit on Olympic athletes. If the Olympics is supposed to be about competition among the best athletes in the world, who cares if the world's greatest gymnasts happen to be 14-year-old girls?

Communist Party endorses Obama

Hope, comrades!

A broad multiclass, multiracial movement is converging around Obama's "Hope, change and unity" campaign because they see in it the thrilling opportunity to end 30 years of ultra-right rule and move our nation forward with a broadly progressive agenda. . . .
The struggle to defeat the ultra-right and turn our country on a positive path will not end with Obama's election. But that step will shift the ground for successful struggles going forward.

(Hat tip: JWF, LGF.) A "broadly progressive agenda" isn't exactly "death to the bourgeois oppressors," but it's close enough for CPUSA.

UPDATE: Dr. Melissa suggests the MSM is covering up Obama's real-life CPUSA connection.

'The Pelosi Premium'

The day Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House, the average price of gas was $2.33 a gallon. That price has since increased 74% to $4.04 a gallon. (Hat tip: Bohemian Conservative.)

Congratulations, Nancy, on your 19% approval rating.

Obama blows poll lead

Margin-of-error territory:

With less than two weeks to go before the start of the presidential nominating conventions, Barack Obama's lead over John McCain has disappeared. Pew's latest survey finds 46% of registered voters saying they favor or lean to the putative Democratic candidate, while 43% back his likely Republican rival. In late June, Obama held a comfortable 48%-to-40% margin over McCain, which narrowed in mid-July to 47% to 42%.

Perhaps they forgot to poll in Berlin. Obama's very popular there, I'm told.

UPDATE: According to this poll, 28% of those who supported Hillary in the Democratic primaries aren't supporting Obama. So 28% of 18 million is about 5 million. And 18% of Hillary's primary voters (about 3.25 million voters) say they'll vote for John McCain in November.

All together now: Raaaaa-cism!

UPDATE II: Ed Morrissey:

With two weeks before the convention, Obama needs a momentum reversal, and he needs it quickly.

Ed ignores the raaaaa-cism, but let me suggest something else that's being ignored: Many Hillary primary supporters have (falsely) assumed that she would be Obama's running mate, and haven't paid attention since. When Obama announces his (white male) running mate, he will lose support among women.

UPDATE III: I explained this last month:

These voters quite naturally assume that, after such a close-fought contest, Hillary has earned the right to be on the ticket. They haven't noticed Obama's comments and furious vetting efforts that show he's seeking an ABC ("Anyone But Clinton") running mate, with most speculation centering on Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. And when it is finally announced that Hillary won't be on the ticket, it's going to be a huge jolt, one that many will perceive as a purposeful insult to the former First Lady.

Like Cagney and the grapefruit:

Ruh-roh

Undocumented immigrant. Dead. In Denver. With "a container of what authorities initially suspect to be the deadly poison cyanide."

His name is Saleman Abdirahman Dirie. No doubt a white supremacist encouraged to this act of hate by those "celebrity" ads.

Unmitigated idiocy

Joseph Palermo is a professor of history at Cal State-Sacramento, and is also an idiot. Palermo makes reference to objectionable material on the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) Web site, and says:

This kind of racism aimed at Barack Obama's candidacy for president should not be tolerated as we approach the most intense phase of the election cycle.
This kind of white supremacy, interconnected with the Republican Party . . . should require clear and repeated denunciations from John McCain.

The CCC is not "interconnected with the Republican Party," and does not take its marching orders from the GOP or from John McCain. (I'm sure CCC chairman Gordon Lee Baum would laugh at the very suggestion.)

Thus, Palermo is asking McCain to repudiate attacks that he never authorized or endorsed, by an organization in which he is not involved. It's like asking Obama to repudiate every offensive remark posted in the comment fields of Democratic Underground or Daily Kos.

Peter Beinart, political hack

Having complained of the Republican hackery of National Review's Rich Lowry, I now note the Democratic hackery of the New Republic's Peter Beinart.

Beinart at least had the decency to become a "senior fellow" at a think tank before offering himself as a freelance campaign consultant for Barack Obama, but exactly what affirmative action has to do with "foreign relations" -- Beinart's area of presumed expertise -- is beyond me.

Young journalists, take note: If you want to be a journalist, be a journalist. If you want to be a campaign consultant, be a campaign consultant. If you want to be a policy specialist, be a policy specialist. Beware the hubris that makes you think you can be all of the above. You'll only make yourself look ridiculous.

Edwards: His lips are still moving

Lies, lies, lies:

And now The ENQUIRER has uncovered that Edwards' political operatives are still paying his mistress Rielle Hunter -- and she was whisked away on a private jet two days before he confessed their extramarital affair on national TV!
The ENQUIRER has also confirmed that Edwards secretly visited Rielle and their love child three separate times at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles this year -- a fact that proves he is still lying to America and his wife.

Private jets, mistresses, secret trysts at the Beverly Hilton -- in which one of the two Americas does this stuff happen? Like I said, once they figure out you're never gonna sue for libel, the tabloids can print anything.

New Orleans corruption: Name that party!

Corruption in program to rehabilitate flood-damaged housing in New Orleans -- the New York Times publishes 1,067 words about it. "Democrat" is not one of those words.

Maryland: State of idiocy

Jimmie has the whole story.

All-American Maverick

Reporting for the American Spectator:

YORK, Pa. -- Grand Funk Railroad's "American Band" blared from the speakers as Sen. John McCain shook hands with supporters following his town hall meeting here yesterday.
The song's lyrics -- celebrating a rock band's hedonistic depredations with groupies like "Sweet Connie" -- don't quite match the staid image of the GOP, but like the '70s rockers, the presidential candidate was here to help Pennsylvania Republicans "party down."
"I think we're going to be up late on election night, and I'm the underdog," McCain told a crowd of more than 3,000 at the Toyota Arena, and made a prediction: "I think you're going to hear the commentators say, 'Well, we're waiting for Pennsylvania.'"
That the result on Nov. 4 could hinge on Pennsylvania's 21 electoral votes is an optimistic forecast for a candidate who continues to trail his Democratic rival inrecent national polls. No Republican presidential candidate has carried Pennsylvania since 1988, and recent statewide polls show Sen. Barack Obama leading by more than 7 points. . . .

Read the whole thing.

Video: 'Remote, obscure places'

I was on the scene in York, Pa., today when John McCain declared American solidarity with Georgia:



Allahpundit says Obama has been "caught napping" by allowing John McCain to beat him to the popular pro-democracy stance, as polls show:

Men prefer McCain to Obama in such a situation 56% to 30%, but 40% of women think Obama could handle it best. More women (46%), however, still think McCain is the man for the job. . .
More than one-out-of-five Democrats (22%) think the Republican presidential candidate would handle it better than the prospective candidate of their own party. . . . Among unaffiliated voters, 56% prefer McCain while 28% like Obama better.

And look at the reaction when Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili quotes McCain's "we are all Georgians" at a rally in Tbilisi:



As John Hinderaker says, "John McCain has seemed almost more the leader of the free world than the President."

John Edwards: Deny, deny, deny

My latest article at Pajamas Media:

What little doubt remained that John Edwards is the father of Rielle Hunter’s baby evaporated Saturday when a lawyer for the former senator’s paramour issued a statement declaring that there would be no DNA test to determine paternity.
Little doubt remained because of a dog that has stubbornly refused to bark since the National Enquirer first reported in December that Edwards had impregnated the divorcee he hired as his campaign videographer.
That silent dog is libel law. Edwards is a famously successful trial lawyer. If the Enquirer’s accusation had been false, the former Democratic presidential candidate would have sued, and a paternity test disproving the charge would have been Exhibit A in his case.

Read the whole thing.

Maverick in York, Pa.

YORK, Pa. -- Sen. John McCain will have a town hall meeting here today at 11:45 a.m. A crowd of about 5,000 is expected at the Toyota Arena at the York Expo Center. I'm covering the event for the American Spectator.

11:45 a.m. -- Arlen Specter just spoke in support of McCain. The national press corps just arrived, meaning that the candidate should be here soon.

Will update further . . .

Liberal word of the day: Xenophobia

Greg Sargent, Talking Points Memo:

The memos show even more clearly than before that chief Hillary strategist Mark Penn advocated a brutally negative and xenophobic campaign against Obama. . . .

Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo:

In a sense the revelations of Mark Penn's 'xenophobia' memos is old news, a post-mortem on a campaign that was all-consuming three months ago and now part of history. . .

What they are referring to is Penn's suggestion that Hillary portray Obama's experience as less than all-American. Well, hello? Obama grew up in Indonesia, for crying out loud. Did I mention his mother named him Barack Hussein Obama?

He's exotic and cosmopolitan, and as much as the progressives at TPM may think that exotic and cosmopolitan are good things, the guy driving the forklift on the loading dock may not see it the same way. Since when was the Democratic Party averse to appealing to the ordinary sensibilities of the guy on the forklift?

Liberal intellectuals will be the death of the Democratic Party. Maybe not this year, but eventually. You can't win elections by campaigning against the electorate.

Rielle Hunter in action

Garance Franke-Ruta has the story and blogger Robert Scoble has the photos of Rielle Hunter on John Edwards' 2006 presidential announcement tour. I'm looking at these photos and thinking, "Hey, girlfriend, for $114,000, couldn't you have afforded a tripod?"

You know, if you're working as a professional videographer, at least go to Wal-Mart and get a tripod for $69 of something. And maybe a remote microphone, too.

Remember that Edwards has said his affair with Hunter lasted only a short time in 2006 and had ended by 2007, yet these photos show their continued association in late December 2006.

On the road again

John McCain will hold a town hall Tuesday morning in York, Pa., and I'll be there to cover it. It's about an hour-and-a-half drive time, and I'll leave early. I'll try to live blog as much of the event as possible, here and at AmSpecBlog, but other than that, blogging activity will be light Tuesday.

Ace explains everything

Trust him, he's an Ewok:

Liberal politicians have not managed to get over 50% of the vote since... well, who, Carter? Why is it such a surprise that Obama is more or less where Kerry and Gore were always stuck, somewhere between 42 and 49% of the vote?

Ace also has some cogent things to say about the bogus accusations of racism -- those "dog whistles" that only liberals can hear.

UPDATE: Peter Kirsanow (who is not an Ewok) punches through the media spin of an all-encompassing Obamalanche.

Weigel funnin' with morons

That there's funny, I don't care who you are.

I can't help but be reminded of those people who spent much of 1993 and '94 conjuring theories of Vince Foster's murder, retelling Mena Airport stories, and murmuring about a lesbian affair between Janet Reno and Hillary Clinton.

It's very similar to the Kucinich-led "impeach Bush" moonbat crowd. This kind of stuff is based on the erroneous belief that political conflict can be won by dramatic gestures or spectacular revelations, rather than by the steady (but undramatic) business of issue-oriented campaigning.

Dem strategist: Obama 'unelectable'

As early as March 2007, Hillary Clinton strategist Mark Penn argued that Barack Obama was "unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun."

That's from the cache of internal Clinton campaign documents accompanying Joshua Green's Atlantic Monthly article about how Hillary lost it.

UPDATE: If you want to know how not to curry favor with the press, check out this letter from the Washington Post's managing editor, complaining that Clinton spokesman Phil Singer was badmouthing one of the Post's reporters to a colleague.

UPDATE II: OK, continuing to read through the Green article, and now we see the fatal turn:

On May 21, the deputy campaign director, Mike Henry, wrote a prescient memo noting the cost and difficulty of running there and proposing that Clinton skip the caucus. The memo was leaked to The New York Times. Henry had estimated (conservatively, as it turned out) that Iowa would require more than $15 million and 75 days of the candidate's presence, and would not provide any financial or organizational edge. "This effort may bankrupt the campaign and provide little if any political advantage," he warned. When the story appeared, Clinton felt compelled to
publicly recommit, thereby upping Iowa's significance even further.

By the time Iowa was over, Hillary had raised $100 million -- but had spent $106 million. Too much of this money went to Mark Penn, the pollster/consultant, who was very good at "big picture" image stuff but knew zilch about the grassroots mechanics of campaign organization.

Obama and Edwards had gotten a big head start in Iowa because Hillary was up for re-election to the Senate in 2006 and couldn't afford to make it appear she was looking ahead to '08. One could think of ways to get around that -- putting together a "shadow" operation in Iowa at relatively low cost that could be funded trhough her leadership PAC or other sources -- but the big brains in Team Clinton were apparently so focused on the "big picture" stuff that they neglected that kind of nuts-and-bolts thinking.

UPDATE III: In the absence of leadership:

On February 11 . . . Phil Singer, Wolfson's deputy and a man notorious for his tirades at reporters, blew up in Wolfson's office and screamed obscenities at his boss before throwing open the door to direct his ire at the campaign's policy director, Neera Tanden, an ally of [fired former campaign director Patti] Solis Doyle. "Fuck you and the whole fucking cabal!" he shouted, according to several Clinton staffers. In the end, he climbed onto a chair and screamed at the entire staff before storming out.

It is very important in any large organization that everybody knows who's boss. There must be hierarchy and clear lines of authority, and the boss has to be able to evaluate the competence of deputies. Patti Solis Doyle didn't know what she was doing, and Penn was paid way too much for what he was doing. It's impossible to evaluate Harold Ickes performance, since nobody seems to know exactly what he was supposed to be doing. And, as media strategist, Wolfson managed to alienate everyone in the media.

"Personnel is policy," the old saying goes, and Hillary's campaign had assembled a cadre of second-raters in top positions. But this is entirely the candidate's fault. The candidate is always ultimately in charge of his own campaign, and if Hillary put the wrong people in charge, she has no one to blame but herself.

UPDATE IV: In three successive e-mails (2/25, 3/5, 3/10) a group of advisers urged Hillary to challenge the DNC on the disallowed Florida and Michigan primaries, but she refused to act on their advice until May, when it was too late. Again, this is her fault.

Poll Watch update

UPDATED & BUMPED: Matthew Yglesias holds his hands over his ears and shouts "Lalalalala! I can't hear you!" He tries to convince himself that recent movement in the Gallup tracking poll was just "statistical noise," although the chart he references makes the trend clear:

• For five days -- July 24-28, corresponding with the media gush over his foreign trip -- Obama enjoyed an average Gallup lead of 7.2 points.
• In a subsequent five-day period -- July 30-Aug. 3 -- Obama's Gallup lead dwindled to an average of exactly 1 point.

Why would Yglesias wish to ignore such a clear shift? Because it indicates that McCain's attack strategy was effective. He does not want to admit that Obama is vulnerable to such attacks.

PREVIOUSLY:
Gallup: Obama 47%, McCain 42%
Rassmussen: Obama 48%, McCain 46%

In Virginia, Survey USA shows McCain barely leading -- encouraging news for the Republican, considering Obama led every Virginia poll in June. McCain maintains his lead in Missouri, and two polls show him still ahead in Florida.

In recent polls of several other potential swing states, Obama still leads, but is under 50% and McCain remains within striking distance -- Michigan (Obama 49%, McCain 45%), Oregon (Obama 48%, McCain 45%), Ohio (Obama 46%, McCain 44%), and Pennsylvania (Obama 49%, McCain 42%). The fact that McCain is spending two days campaigning in Pennsylvania this week shows Team Maverick still hasn't written off a state that no Republican presidential candidate has won since 1988.

Obama's "map-changer" strategy hasn't worked out, either: McCain leads the Rocky Mountain states of Colorado and Idaho, as well as in North Carolina, where Team Obama thought their Democratic primary win was such a harbinger of Change.

Democrats are starting to worry about the failure of Obama to establish a strong lead over McCain. Despite the rosy Electoral College projections of Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight (which I examined last week at the American Spectator), Team Obama's hopes of getting big "bounce" after eliminating Hillary in June were frustrated, and St. Hopey's much-hyped foreign trip was, at best, a non-factor poll-wise, while reinforcing the Democrat's image as arrogant.

Politico reports on the poll-driven concerns:

[Obama's] supporters are now suffering a pre-Denver panic attack, watching as John McCain draws incrementally closer in state and national polls – with Rasmussen's most recent daily national tracker showing a statistical dead heat.

Meanwhile, John Heileman speaks the unspeakable:

[I]n a year like this, why is the race so close? Why isn't Obama creaming his rival? Why is he, at best, just a few points ahead, and stubbornly stalled below 50 percent in every national poll? . . .
Call me crazy, but isn't it possible, just possible, that Obama's lead is being inhibited by the fact that he is, you know, black?

Well, Hillary tried to warn them, and her diehard supporters insist it's still not to late for super-delegates to change their minds. But that's not stopping Obama from enjoying his tropical vacation.

New McCain ad

Megan in bureaucratic hell

Wherein the World's Tallest Female Blogger discovers that the penalties for underage drinking still apply when you're 35.

Generally speaking, I consider bureaucratic incompetence a blessing, rather than a curse. I mean, imagine what an all-powerful government would do if it were actually run by semi-intelligent people who knew what they were doing, as opposed to being run by the kind of lazy dimwits you find behind the counter at the DMV.

Oh, for crying out loud

Responding to Howard Wolfson's assertion that the early revelation of the Edwards-Hunter affair might have boosted Hillary to victory in Iowa, Nate Silver writes:

It was also the case that Barack Obama appeared to get the lion's share of Edwards supporters once Edwards dropped from the race.

Talk about not getting it. Edwards dropped out after Obama won Iowa; it was Obama's Iowa victory that established him as a credible alternative to Hillary. What Wolfson was arguing was that, if the MSM had followed up on the Edwards scandal immediately after the Enquirer revealed it in October, this would have knocked Edwards out at a time when (a) the most recent polls showed Hillary well ahead, and (b) Obama still hadn't established his credibility.

What happened after Iowa was to a great degree a media-generated snowball rolling downhill for Obama. But if he hadn't won Iowa -- and if Edwards had been knocked out in fall 2007, a Hillary win would have been more feasible -- that snowball never would have started rolling. Democratic primary voters were looking for a winner, and the MSM hyped Obama's Iowa win as evidence that he was on his way to an inevitable November victory.

Obama: Arrogant and partisan

(Via Hot Air.) "He hasn't done a huge amount of anything very much, frankly."

John McCain caught with younger woman!

Dan Riehl has the exclusive.

FEC can't regulate satire

Iowahawk makes an in-kind contribution.

Newspaper death watch, pt. MCXXVII

See-Dubya notes Debra Sauders' caution against conservative glee over the death of newspapers. I've written about this many times before:

• 4/9: The death of newspapers
• 4/16: 'Extremely gloomy'? That's me!
• 5/16: Still 'extremely gloomy'
• 5/28: The decline of newspapers, cont'd

I spent 22 years in the newspaper business, and walked away. While I would dearly love to work for a newspaper again, the industry is in a death spiral now. It's like a game of musical chairs where every time the music stops, there's another round of buyouts and layoffs.

The Washington Times paid out millions to hire a consulting firm (always a bad sign), brought in a new editor, spent another huge chunk of change on redesigning its Web site, and guess what? They're no better off, and many readers complain that the paper's gotten worse.

New book on Allen West

A new book by Richard Berry, A Missing Link in Leadership: The Trial of LTC Allen West, examines the experience of Lt. Col. West in Iraq -- when he was charged with assault for the gunpoint interrogation of a terrorism suspect -- in the context of leadership theory.

CQ rates West's campaign for Congress in Florida's 22nd District as a long shot, because of first-term Democratic Rep. Ron Klein's huge financial advantage. However, West's campaign is now attracting national attention -- including recent coverage from Human Events, the New York Daily News and the New York Sun -- which should help generate fundraising for a candidate who's everything conservative Republicans say they want in Congress. As his campaign manager told me last week, their only concern is that the support might come too late to help.

(Cross-posted at AmSpecBlog.)

Moonbats shouldn't do foreign policy

Really, HuffPo, did you have to publish this?

In classic "Wag The Dog" scenario there is a neat little war brewing between American and Russian proxies, and real Russian troops, in the Caucacus Mountains on the Russian border.
It couldn't come at a better time for the Republicans.
McCain gets to act and talk tough against the Russians, while Obama is on vacation in Hawaii, issuing "can't we all get along statements."
It perfectly augments Republican campaign points: Obama is not ready. He is not tough, experienced enough to deal with a dangerous world.

The Russian invasion of Georgia was an unjustified and unilateral aggression by Putin's neo-Stalinist regime. Thousands ae dead, and thousands will die yet. Georgians are begging the West for assistance, and view our failure to intervene as a betrayal. A world crisis looms, of tremendous geopolitical significance.

To interpret all this through the narrow prism of domestic election politics -- and especially to invoke paranoid fear of a bogus "Wag the Dog" scenario -- is so far beneath the contempt of serious people that I hesitated even to notice it.

What is wrong with you people?

Bias and disinformation

Jennifer Rubin on the "see-no-evil" media:

There is a reason why the news media’s trustworthiness is rated so low. MSM news reporting by and large has not improved or become more rigorous with the advent of so many alternative news outlets. (To the contrary, the 24-hour landscape of cable news has sent them scurrying for their niche audience, wary of any mildly opposing views that might offend their target audience.)
However, because of this and other similar episodes, the public now fully appreciates just how deficient most of the MSM outlets are.

The MSM refuse to examine the implications of the narratives that liberals spoonfeed them, including "the insinuations [that Rielle Hunter is] a political groupie humping anyone with a DNC Guest Pass."

How is it that our enlightened liberal friends, supposedly so sensitive to feminism and all that, can't see that Edwards' cover-up defense amounts to, "She's a lying slut." What's amazing to me is how the Edwards' camp has gotten Hunter to play along with their little game for so long.

The price of blog success

Ron Coleman got an Instalanche, which brought his work to the attention of the New York Times, attention that in turn earned him a nasty attack by Media Matters.

This is how it works. The more a conservative succeeds, the more he's targeted for smears, the geneal object being to intimidate the Right into silence, or at least to discourage the major media from treating conservatism as a legitimate viewpoint.

There's no point complaining, since the same intellectual thuggery has been unleashed against every conservative spokesman since Bill Buckley published God and Man at Yale in 1951. Defamation is liberalism's habitual response to its antagonists. What was good enough for Buckley -- and Joe McCarthy and Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich, and Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin -- ought to be good enough for us, and we should take pride in being vilified by the acolytes of error.

Brilliant!

Via AOSHQ:

Obama symbol redesigned

By Dan Riehl:

Obama marketing savvy

For someone so profoundly hostile to free enterprise, Barack Obama sure knows how to exploit capitalist data-mining techniques:

Dear Friend --
Barack Obama is about to make one of the most important
decisions of this campaign -- choosing a running mate. You have helped build this movement from the bottom up, and Barack wants you to be the first to know his choice. Sign up today to be the first to know:
http://my.barackobama.com/vp
You will receive an email the moment Barack makes his decision, or you can text VP to 62262 to receive a text message on your mobile phone. Once you've signed up, please forward this email to your friends, family, and coworkers to let them know about this special opportunity. No other campaign has done this before.
You can be part of this important moment.
Be the first to know who Barack selects as his running mate.
Thanks,
David
David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

This is all about creating a database of contact info for targeting fundraising pitches, etc., and the marketing psychology of creating the sense of connection between the campaign and its supporters. Also, by ensuring that his supporters get their first notice from the campaign itself, Obama cuts the network spinners out of the loop.

Hillary: 'Talking to myself'

Leaking details of the much-anticipated Atlantic Monthly story about Hillary's campaign:

Atlantic Senior Editor Joshua Green writes that major decisions during her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination would be put off for weeks until suddenly Clinton "would erupt, driving her staff to panic and misfire."
Green reports that on a staff conference call in January where Clinton received "little response" or "silence" to several of her suggestions for how to recover from the Iowa loss and do better in New Hampshire, "Clinton began to grow angry, according to a participant's notes," Green recounts. "'This has been a very instructive call, talking to myself,' she snapped, and hung up."

A lesson in organizational dynamics and leadership there. If the boss is a demanding hothead, surrounded by second-raters and sycophants, internal communication becomes dysfunctional. Are you listening, Crazy Cousin John?

War in the Caucasus

Gabriel Malor at AOSHQ provides a map and some useful background on the conflict. Recent news (via Memeorandum):

• Russian Troops Tighten Hold on Georgia
• The Pipeline War
• Obama's 'Meaningless Statements'
• The Oil Angle
• McCain Warned of Russia
• Return to Stalin?

Will continue following developments.

Caption contest winner

Forget the jokes. Stranger-than-fiction news:

Bush knuckled off a couple of lobs, but defending gold medalists Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh gave the chief executive some pointers. Then after a good play, in the tradition of female volleyballers, May-Treanor turned, bent over slightly and offered her bikinied rear-end for the 43rd president to slap.
"Mr. President," she said, "want to?"
Want to has nothing to do with it in public life.

Holy kamoley! I'd seen the photo and thought there must be some explanation, but didn't realize the girl was actually offering her Olympian butt for a presidential slap!

President Bush deserves a gold medal for restraint. If she'd have posed like that for any other man and said, "Want to?" . . . I mean, never mind what I might have done, can you imagine what Bill Clinton would have done? You'd have needed a crowbar to pry him off that poor girl.

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers. Hmmm. Perhaps a forensic psychologist might speculate on how the president could have refused such an offer.

My white trash cousin

Well, that's what she says, anyway:

I lost my good humor when Hubby came back from the store with plastic sheeting and duct tape. All the bad-mouthing and tssk-ing I’ve done about people with plastic-covered car windows has come back to haunt me. He did it neatly, and everyone says you can hardly tell, but I know what folks are really thinking. I’m finally outed as one of “those” people.
So if you drive by my house and see a washing machine on the lawn or an old hound dog lolling in a tattered easy chair on the front porch, we haven’t moved. I’ve just given in to the inevitable. At least until the glass repairmen get here.

My cousin Pepper, the Georgia newspaper columnist, is the daughter of my beloved Aunt Barbara, who passed away earlier this year. Don't call us white trash. "Shabby gentility" sounds so much more dignified, doesn't it?

Fading stickers, fading hope

Howie Carr in the Boston Herald:

Now will you moonbats finally peel the Kerry-Edwards bumper stickers off your rusting Volvos and Saabs?
I’ve been telling you people for almost four years now how foolish you look, refusing to scrape off the reminders of yet another doomed Democrat ticket. . . .
But after Friday, how can even a Prozac-swallowing moonbat’s moonbat continue to endure the snickers that a Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker produces everywhere, including on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge?

Thanks to Marilyn Cummings for pointing this out. Carr's reminder of the role that bitter disappointment plays in moonbat dementia calls to mind something I wrote last month:

After their bitter disappointment over the 2000 Gore-Bush showdown in Florida, and their rage over the "Swiftboating" of Kerry in 2004, Democrats would descend into a state of political apoplexy if the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy snookered them a third time.
You think "Bush Derangement Syndrome" is bad? John McCain might become the first president to face impeachment on Inauguration Day. (Dennis Kucinich could easily whip up a 47-point indictment between Nov. 4 and Jan. 20.)
Granted, there's no civic virtue in electing a Republican president purely for the pleasure of crushing the hopes of liberals. But wouldn't it be fun?

The triumph of Spite over Hope -- just the sort of mean-spirited fun that makes our conspiracy so vast.

UPDATE: Speaking of moonbats . . .

(Hat tip: Laura.) Just random thinking here: Whatever happened to that "war for oil" we were supposed to be fighting?

Will Ann Coulter apologize?

Now that John Edwards (D-Miss Clairol) has admitted having sex with a woman, an inquiring blogger wonders how soon Ann Coulter will retract her previous assertion that Edwards is a "faggot."

I'm beginning to suspect Ann was on Fred Baron's payroll, her joke part of the humanitarian Texas lawyer's elaborate cover-up scheme to conceal Edwards' stunning betrayal of the closet-homosexual community.

Obama plagiarizes Maverick

The previously diplomatic Barack Obama has belatedly decided to emulate John McCain's bluntness in declaring that Russia has invaded Georgia.

Another gaffe by The One, for which he shall be mercilessly derided in coming days.

Jeff Goldstein, genius

That Jeff Goldstein is a genius is as irrefutable a fact as that James Wolcott is a fraud.

Somehow, Goldstein's adventures in blogging have attracted the attention of Wolcott -- perhaps a homoerotic fascination with Goldstein's legendary buffness, perhaps a thick-skulled inability to grasp Goldstein's multilayered self-referential satire.

I met Goldstein in November at the Young America's Foundation West Coast student conference in Santa Barbara (where Little Miss Atilla stunned the online world by revealing that "bloggers like the drinkey"). Goldstein was hilarious, once you understood he was joking. He does an Andy Kaufmanesque performance-art type of comedy in which he purposely pushes a practical joke beyond the point where any sane person would stop and say, "Wait, man, I was just kidding."

I make that observation not merely as a shameless name-dropper flaunting my brief acquaintance with the famed Jeff G., but also to add perspective to the back-and-forth at Protein Wisdom that inspired Wolcott's lame post at Vanity Fair. (Seriously, do they pay him by the word for that crap?) Whatever serious disagreement might have bubbled up between Karl and Thor and Dan and Jeff, I don't for a minute think that Jeff's "dramatic leave-takings" are part of a "psychodrama," as Wolcott would have it.

Unlike being paid preposterously large sums by Graydon Carter for overlong columns that involve no reporting, independent current-events blogging is not a sufficiently lucrative career to support a family.

Jeff has other employment that pays his bills, and a family that requires his attention, and these other commitments have prevented him from blogging regularly in recent months. He turned Protein Wisdom over to guest-bloggers, a dispute ultimately ensued, and Jeff settled the dispute by ending the guest-blogger situation.

No psychodrama; a business decision. Wolcott's characterization of this as an example of Goldstein's "attention-sucking antics," is further proof -- as if it were needed -- of Wolcott's fundamental fraudulence as a journalist.

What Fred Baron paid for

Edwards denial can't be denied:

"Rielle will not participate in DNA testing or any other invasion of her or her daughter's privacy now or in the future."

Drew at AOSHQ:

I'm sure Silky is broken up over his inability to clear his name.

Silence is golden, and if you've got enough gold . . .

Random acts of Austrianism

During the YAF national conference this past week, I spoke to a young man who'd read Hayek's The Road to Serfdom but who hadn't read Mises' Socialism, and so I recommended that he amend the omission.

When I came home from the conference, I discovered that (surprise!) my wife had rearranged my office, and it happened that, in the process, my copy of Socialism was placed atop my desk. Any book worth reading is worth re-reading, so even though I've read through Socialism at least three times, today I began to browsing it at leisure, and just now happened on this timely passage:

The theory of increasing poverty among the masses stands at the centre of Marxist thought as well as of older socialist doctrines. The accumulation of poverty parallels the accumulation of capital. . . .
The fact is, that the doctrine of increasing relative social poverty is nothing more than an attempt to give an economic justification to policies based on the resentment of the masses. Growing social poverty means merely growing envy.

Beautiful.

Dr. Helen and 'nice guys'

Dr. Helen Smith on "Dating Advice for Men," in which she makes reference to the "nice guys finish last" complaint.

Nice guys, pay attention: The lady doesn't owe you anything. Get it? Your mere "niceness" does not impose on her a reciprocal obligation. You are using your niceness as a Trojan Horse to get yourself inside the walled city, and when she spots this scheme and foils it, you cry foul. You'd be better off to make your play straight-up, accept the rejection and move on, rather than using the ambiguity of "niceness" to avert an immediate rejection.

The complaint that girls mistreat "nice guys" is actually a defense mechanism, a sort of sour-grapes method of projecting responsibility for your own shortcomings onto those who have spurned you: It's not that I'm sexually insecure, socially awkward, and a lousy dancer. No, my problem is that I'm nice -- and they're all cold-hearted, selfish bitches.

Guys, study the Damone 5-Point Plan:

'Truckstop Jim' McGreevey updated

Being gay means not having to pay alimony to the gullible woman who served as your closet door. Let this be a warning to any other woman tempted to assist a Democratic phony trying to pose as an advocate of family values: Democrats' "compassion" toward women is never personal, only political. Don't expect your "services rendered" to proponents of this cause to be reciprocated; the advancement of the cause (i.e., the guy's political career) is the only reward you'll get.

Bush in Beijing: USA! USA!

It's good to be the POTUS.

Via Hot Air, where Ed Morrisey has a caption contest, and urges commenters to "keep it clean." Eh, I'll wait for the AOSHQ caption contest. Rules? We don't need no stinkin' rules!

UPDATE: OK, the caption contest is now underway at "the most wretched hive of scum and villainy in the blogosphere."

Republican media strategery

Treat reporters like scum. Yeah, that will work.

Contra Douthatism

Just reading the latest print issue of Doublethink, which features Donald Yoest's profile of Grand New Party authors Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, and can't help thinking: My God, we're back to 1959 and the "Modern Republicanism" that Buckley denounced in Up From Liberalism.

The essence of Modern Republicanism was making peace with the New Deal; now Douthat and Salam want us to make peace with the Great Society. Peace, peace -- there is no peace.

In case anyone doubted that Douthatism is the bastard offspring of David Brooks' "National Greatness," Yoest traces the DNA sample:

Douthat and Salam admit the influence, at least partly, of New York Times columnist David Brooks on their work. Salama worked for Brooks as a research assistant and calls him "kind of a godfather of reformist conservatism" and points to "national greatness conservatism" --- a phrase coined by Brooks and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol -- as a forerunner of the new reformism. . . . Reform conservatives, like the national greatness conservatives before them, dissent from the anti-government enthusiasms of many on the Right."

While I have already written some about what's so wrongheaded with Douthatism -- and will undoubtedly write more -- the main point is that Douthat, Salam, Brooks & Co. are not interested in advancing a conservative policy agenda, they are interested in electing Republicans. On the question of limited government, they offer an echo, not a choice. They don't differ at all from Democrats in their endorsement of a big, expensive, meddlesome federal government; they differ only only in what sort of meddling the government should do, and in wishing to see Republicans in charge of such an all-powerful centralized state.

This is not the conservatism I signed up for, nor is it a philosophically coherent alternative to Democratic "progressivism." The Douthatist scheme -- wage subsidies for "working families"? -- is nothing but Rockefellerism and Scrantonism in postmodern drag.

I call to the reader's attention this trend: These GOP apologists' appetite for big government has only increased as their party has, in the past dozen years, steadlily abandoned the limited-government ideals espoused by Ronad Reagan and by the 1994 "Republican Revolution." Big-government apologists like Douthat blame every GOP setback on the "anti-government enthusiasms" of conservatives, even though the setbacks only multiply and become more severe as Republicans increasingly sign onto the "national greatness" agenda.

A pox on this destructive apostasy and its misguided advocates, whose influence within the Republican Party is the best possible argument to vote for Bob Barr.

John Edwards: Ruh-roh

Hell hath no fury like a love child denied:

The family of John Edwards' former mistress, Rielle Hunter, is challenging the former senator to take a DNA paternity test after his claim that he did not father Hunter's six-month old child.
In the first reaction from Hunter's family, her younger sister Melissa told ABC News that Edwards should immediately follow through on his pledge to take a paternity test.
"I would challenge him to do so," the sister said. "Somebody must stand up and defend my sister," she said. "I wish that those involved would refrain from bad-mouthing my sister."

Ed Morrisey comments:

Edwards’ attempt to salvage some shred of his personal reputation at the expense of Rielle Hunter has caused this blowback. Let’s consider Melissa’s wrath for a moment. It springs from the notion that Edwards and Hunter didn’t have anything more than a physical affair and that Rielle slept with his campaign manager at nearly the same time -- which certainly paints Hunter as something less than a virtuous woman.

In other words, from the standpoint of Hunter's family, Edwards' claim boils down to, "Rielle, you nasty slut." I wonder what Edwards-worshipping Amanda Marcotte will say about this? Will she accuse Rielle of internalizing the patriarchal condemnation of female promiscuity?

Obama vs. McCain on the Caucasus crisis

Ben Smith of the Politico notes a characteristic difference in the way Barack Obama and John McCain address the Russian invasion of Georgia. Note the diplomatic neutrality of Obama's statement:

"I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict. Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war. Georgia's territorial integrity must be respected. All sides should enter into direct talks on behalf of stability in Georgia, and the United States, the United Nations Security Council, and the international community should fully support a peaceful resolution to this crisis."

Obama refers to "the outbreak of violence," calls on "both sides" to seek peace, and invokes "the international community." Meanwhile, McCain bluntly speaks of the Russian invasion and makes prominent mention of the NATO military alliance:

Today, news reports indicate that Russian military forces crossed an internationally-recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia. Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory
We should immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia's security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this very dangerous situation.

So, if getting tough with the Russkies is what you want, Maverick's your man.

(Cross-posted at AmSpecBlog.)

Video: Beijing Olympics opening fireworks

Almost as good as my 4th of July show . . .

Edwards' staged wedding-vow renewal

Michelle Malkin recalls the "major gushing" over the People magazine photos of John and Elizabeth Edwards' 2007 renewal of their wedding vows, by Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America":

[W]e have the very first pictures of a very personal backyard ceremony for John Edwards and his wife.
Elizabeth Edwards is talking in a new chapter for her memoirs 'Saving Graces' about her life right now and the renewal of their vows. And we'll show you those pictures, walking down the aisle again."

Here's Elizabeth Edwards at the July 2007 "BlogHer" conference, talking about "values" and religion and renewing her wedding vows:

Hey, Amanda Marcotte, why don't you tell us again why this really isn't a scandal, because Edwards can't be accused of hypocrisy? I mean, here was Edwards, six months before the Iowa caucuses, getting People magazine coverage of his wedding-vow renewal ceremony and ABC News pitching his wife's book -- but none of this is hypocritical, is it?

UPDATE: Lee Stranahan, the kind of liberal true believer who doesn't disillusion easily, puts it bluntly:

I am left with a very uncomfortable truth -- both John and Elizabeth Edwards cynically used their marriage as a means to help John Edwards win an election. . . .
[I]f you gave John and Elizabeth Edwards time, money, support, or goodwill, they played you.
They made a conscious decision to make their relationship a focus throughout the campaign.

A sucker is born every minute.

UPDATE II: Roger Simon is willing to cut Elizabeth Edwards some slack:

Of course, if she knows it’s all BS and she’s still covering up for her husband, well, we’re all entitled to our personal Stockholm Syndromes.

But ... the personal is political!

Fred Baron, humanitarian

I share Ace of Spades' profound skepticism about the role of John Edwards' campaign finance director Fred Baron in the Rielle Hunter affair. Baron says he paid to move Edwards' mistress and the alleged supposed make-believe father of her child to California (a) for purely charitable reasons and (b) without Edwards' knowledge:

He said she and another campaign aide, Andrew Young, who claimed paternity of Ms. Hunter's child, were being dogged by tabloid reporters who believed she had an affair with Mr. Edwards and fathered the child. . . .
He said Mr. Edwards did not know about the arrangement.
"The money was purely and simply to get them out of North Carolina and to get them into a stable place," he said. "They were unable to afford a second home. It was to give them the ability to live somewhere where they wouldn't be harassed."

Why am I thinking of words like "consigliere" and "hush money" here? And why am I reminded of Vernon Jordan arranging for Monica Lewinsky to get a job in New York?

Beyond that, if Edwards wasn't the baby's father, and if he and Hunter had called it quits in March 2007, why was Edwards visiting Hunter and her baby at the Beverly Hilton in July 2008? Just a courtesy visit? "Hey, Rielle, sorry I didn't make it to the baby shower . . ."

'Beer goggles' -- scientific proof!

The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Center now has online "Sense and Sexuality," a new pamphlet by Dr. Miriam Grossman that will be distributed this fall at colleges and universities. The pamphlet is aimed at helping girls avoid the "hookup" culture on campus. Here's something interesting from the pamphlet:

Science has confirmed the existence of "beer goggles" . . .
In a British study, 80 college students rated photos of unfamiliar faces of men and women their age; alcohol consumption significantly raised the scores given to photos of the opposite sex. Drinking affects the nucleus accumbens, the area of the brain used to determine facial attractiveness. It’s probably one of several reasons that casual, high risk sex is often preceded by alcohol consumption. In the morning, you both look different.

Just in case you were wondering, I married a beautiful teetotaller. A near-sighted teetotaller, but a teetotaller.

White racists for Obama

The media has got every angle covered:

They're not exactly rooting for Barack Obama, but prominent white supremacists anticipate a boost to their cause if he becomes the first black president. His election, they say, would trigger a backlash - whites rising up, a revolution of sorts - that they think is long overdue. He'd be a "visual aid," says former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, in trying to bring others around to their view that whites have lost control of America.

So there you have it, whitey: If you oppose Obama, you're a racist. And if you support Obama, you're probably also a racist. However the story ends -- whether Obama wins or loses -- the moral of the story is, white people are racist. Just like Rev. Wright said.

The sacrifices of motherhood

British TV news anchor Ulrika Jonsson speaks bluntly about the physical toll of motherhood:

I really haven't had the world's most extravagant breast augmentation operation. It's just what happens to a woman's body when she has her fourth child. . . .
My body has done something miraculous by giving birth to a fourth baby - and I am proud to show off the after-effects of that, even if it is the kind of body I never thought I would inhabit. . . .
I have spent a small fortune purchasing unfeasibly large brassieres on the internet in an attempt to contain these two overgrown barrage balloons that now pass for my breasts. . . .
I feel I have generously donated my body, including my boobs, over a period of 14 years to the creation of my extraordinary brood.

When you think about it, it's really bizarre that Jonsson should feel the need to explain herself this way. A sane society would not expect a 40-year-old mother of four to retain the figure of her 20-something pre-maternal self, or derogate her for looking like a 40-year-old mother of four.

Yet we do not live in a sane society, so Jonsson and other women are subjected to irrational judgment. And therefore you will not be surprised to learn that, despite her expression of "pride" in her maternal figure, Jonsson plans to seek breast reduction surgery.

Edwards warning to ... whom?

"In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic."
-- John Edwards

Edwards 'fesses up, kinda

Never believe a word a Democrat says -- as if you needed to be told.

UPDATE: A lesbian affair, har har.

UPDATE II: "When you have some very credible people working for John Edwards . . ." Eh? If they were "credible," why were they working for that transparent phony?



(Hat tip: Hot Air) There are two Americas, one of which doesn't bust out laughing at the mere thought of a sentence including both "John Edwards" and "very credible."

UPDATE III: Ace catches Amanda Marcotte making excuses for her ex-boss:

My official stance is that unless it’s a matter of hypocrisy, it's none of your damn business. . . . Edwards, as far as I know, has never been a "sanctity of marriage" wanker, and so this is officially None Of Our Business, and anyone who dogged him on this story should be fired on the principle that they don’t know journalism from rooting around in the trash. Hypocrisy is a story; human weakness is not.

Idiot. Am I the only one who remembers how the John-and-His-Heroic-Cancer-Survivor-Wife story was sold to the public as symbolic of Edwards' incredible sensitivity and caring? That Edwards was engaged in a game of make-believe -- attempting to benefit politically from a reputation as a loyal husband while simultaneously shagging Rielle Hunter -- ought to be hypocrisy enough for anyone, regardless of his political positions.

Amanda Marcotte's feminist "principles" are exposed as self-deception and self-degradation. Here's some advice, sweetheart: When you offer to be a doormat, don't complain about the footprints on your back.

UPDATE IV: Now Edwards shoves his wife out into the 'sphere to help spin the story:

Our family has been through a lot. Some caused by nature, some caused by human weakness, and some – most recently – caused by the desire for sensationalism and profit without any regard for the human consequences. . . .
[A] recent string of hurtful and absurd lies in a tabloid publication, because of a picture falsely suggesting that John was spending time with a child it wrongly alleged he had fathered outside our marriage, our private matter could no longer be wholly private.

This is utter crap. Just how "absurd" were those tabloid "lies"? Edwards now denies paternity, but he previously denied the affair he now admits. And exactly why was he meeting with Rielle Hunter in L.A., if this is all old news and he is not the father of her child?

Mrs. Edwards, your husband is a liar. Had he not run for president, his lies would be a "private matter," as you say, but being untrustworthy is problematic for someone who aspires to be leader of the free world, eh?

But please don't blame a "tabloid publication" for your husband's exposure, Mrs. Edwards, since it's pretty doggone obvious that the Enquirer originally got its tip from the campaign of one of your husband's erstwhile rivals for the Democratic nomination.

UPDATE V: Stephen Spruiell nails it:

Overheard in the office: "Why would Edwards admit the affair but deny fathering the child?"
I'll tell you why: Elizabeth Edwards was diagnosed with incurable cancer in late March of 2007. Rielle Hunter's baby was born in late February of 2008. That means that if Edwards is the father, he was definitely still carrying on the affair with Hunter after he knew his wife's cancer was back.

Remember that thing about doormats and footprints, Mrs. Edwards?

UPDATE VI: Worst Husband of the Year.

GOP vs. Maverick on immigration

Interesting news from Ohio:

The day began with [Cincinnati] Enquirer readers in Butler County picking up copies of the paper's Hometown section and finding an ad paid for by the campaign committee of Butler County Sheriff Rick Jones, a Republican, challenging McCain to speak out on immigration - an issue that has come up infrequently on the campaign trail.
Jones has made a national reputation as a hard-liner on illegal immigrants and is opposed to plans such as the one supported by McCain and the Bush administration giving illegal aliens a path to citizenship.
"Are you avoiding this American issue?" the sheriff asked McCain in his newspaper ad. "We are all ears."
By early afternoon, the McCain campaign put out a statement in response to Jones raising an issue that they had not planned to put on the McCain agenda Thursday.
"John McCain will secure the borders first as president," campaign spokesman Paul Lindsay said. "But he also believes we need a comprehensive solution to the issue of illegal immigration."

(Via TNR.)

Can the GOP get the 'youth vote?

YAF's Jason Mattera:

Thousands of adoring supporters in the under-30 set turned out to hear him speak. Drawn by his infectious optimism and electrified by the message of hope and change, the youthful crowd interrupted his speeches with bursts of uncontrollable cheers and tremendous applause. The man in the spotlight wasn't Barack Obama. It was Ronald Reagan.
If this comes as a surprise, it shouldn't. Long before Mr. Obama began appealing to the elusive youth vote, "The Gipper" attracted thousands of young people to his cause. . . .

Read the whole thing. Jason has some suggestions on how Republicans can recapture the youth vote.

'Painful' attack on Obama

Wow, this hits hard:



(Via Conservative Grapevine.)

A week's vacation for Obama?

Obama's taking a week's vacation in Hawaii? At a time when he's neck-and-neck in the polls? With the PUMA crisis unresolved?

Democrats must be torn between panic and outrage by this move. While McCain keeps stumping through swing states, Obama idles amid palm trees and ocean breezes? The contrast will be damaging. (The RNC's already taking advantage.)

Obviously, Team Obama figures that no one will notice this due to the Olympics, but it's just like Obama vacationing in the Virgin Islands while Hillary kept campaigning in Pennsylvania -- or like his European sojourn, for that matter. It signals overconfidence, as if he could coast downhill to victory.

UPDATE: The New Republic's Michael Crowley compares the tropical vacation to John Kerry's ill-advised windsurfing.

Hillary trouble for Obama

"Unity" in Denver may be more difficult to achieve that some realize:

Brenda Krause is tired of fearmongering among the Democrats.
The 55-year-old delegate to the Democratic National Convention doesn't think the party -- or its unity -- is in any way compromised by her voting for Hillary Rodham Clinton at the roll call. . . .
Though the majority of the Democratic Party backs Sen. Barack Obama, an undercurrent of staunch and loyal Clinton supporters say they'll fight all the way to the national convention, which begins Aug. 25 in Denver, to put her name on the ballot.

While Team Obama was busy jetting The One around Europe, they were failing to quench the PUMA rebellion on the home front:

With the clock running out on preparations for the Democratic convention, advisers to Sen. Barack Obama are scrambling to reach a compromise with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to appease her supporters and find roles for her and her husband.

That they're still "scrambling" two months after Obama clinched the nomination -- and barely two weeks before the convention -- suggests an alarming inattention to the problem. And the fact that Obama still hasn't announced his running mate should also worry Democrats