Internet Scofflaw

Amy Holmes predicted the latest Wright-Obama developments back on March 18.

Now that Wright is politically radioactive, Obama has decided that Wright never was his spiritual mentor:

Now, to some degree, you know — I know that one thing that he said was true, was that he wasn’t — you know, he was never my, quote-unquote, “spiritual adviser.”

He was never my “spiritual mentor.” He was — he was my pastor. And so to some extent, how, you know, the — the press characterized in the past that relationship, I think, wasn’t accurate.

Jim Lindgren does a LEXIS search, and finds a dozen stories describing Wright that way, many with direct quotes.  (Via Instapundit.)

I don’t doubt it will again be the media’s fault for quoting him accurately.

A new DNC ad attacking McCain prominently features the 100-years calumny yet again. Then it goes on to show two soldiers apparently being blown up by an IED.

This is the same party that thought it was unacceptable for President Bush to “politicize” 9/11 by using its images in his re-election campaign.

ASIDE: Confederate Yankee tracks down the clip and finds that both soldiers survived the blast. Also, the clip comes from Fahrenheit 911, Michael Moore’s notorious propaganda piece.

Dean tries to defend the 100-years aspect:

On Meet the Press Sunday, DNC chair Howard Dean defended the ad, saying, “we’re not arguing that he’s going to be at war for a hundred years. We don’t think we ought to be in Iraq for a hundred years under any circumstances.”

That won’t wash. They use images of war and quote casualties. They are clearly implying 100 years of war.

(Via Instapundit.)

Here’s the AP story. No word at this hour on Obama’s grandmother.

UPDATE: I wasn’t the only one this occurred to.

UPDATE:

“I have been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ since 1992, and have known Reverend Wright for 20 years,” Obama said. “The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago.”

Oh, come on! You expect us to believe that Wright had a big change in character, and it just so happened to occur exactly when people started paying attention to him? Sheesh.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE:

“And what I think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing. Anybody who knows me and anybody who knows what I’m about knows that I am about trying to bridge gaps and I see the commonality in all people,” [Obama said.]

In all the stuff Wright said (e.g., the United States created HIV to commit genocide against minorities), the thing that particularly angered Obama was that Wright called him a politician. (Via the Corner.)

STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: Wright agrees with me.  (There’s a sentence I never I thought I’d use!)  (Via the Corner.)

He sounds bitter.  Maybe that explains his antipathy toward people who aren’t like him.

CIA Director Hayden:

“In the course of a year after they got full up they would have produced enough plutonium for one or two weapons,” Hayden told reporters after a speech at Georgetown University. . .

U.S. intelligence and administration officials publicly disclosed last week their assessment that Syria was building a covert nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance. . . The Syrian site, they said, was within weeks or months of being operational.

As Glenn Reynolds says, good thing it was destroyed then. But, Mohamed ElBaradei doesn’t see it that way:

The head of the UN nuclear monitoring agency on Friday criticized the US for not giving his organization intelligence information sooner on what Washington says was a nuclear reactor in Syria being built secretly by North Korea.

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei also chastised Israel for bombing the site seven months ago, in a statement whose strong language reflected his anger at being kept out of the picture for so long. . .

“The director general views the unilateral use of force by Israel as undermining the due process of verification that is at the heart of the nonproliferation regime,” it said.

In full knowledge that the reactor would have produced two bombs in a year, ElBaradei is still against the Israeli operation. I think we can safely say that the IAEA is fundamentally unserious. To them, “nonproliferation” isn’t about preventing proliferation, it’s about verifying proliferation. Hmm, I wonder why we and Israel weren’t hurrying to give them our classified intelligence.

The AP reports on the high number of deaths of Saudi women commuting to teaching jobs. Here’s how the problem arises:

1. “Job opportunities are scarce for women in Saudi Arabia, mainly limited to teaching and health care.” (I doubt we’re talking about radiology, either.)
2. “The Saudi Education Ministry appoints thousands of male and female teachers to fill vacancies every year at government-run schools in remote areas.”
3. “Female teachers find it difficult to move because they need permission from a male guardian to live alone and have to find a landlord willing to rent them an apartment.”
4. As a result, many women live in the city and commute to remote rural areas.
5. “Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, so the teachers must hire drivers — sometimes sharing rides in minivans, leaving home as early as 3 a.m.
6. The Saudi roads on which female teachers spend countless hours are among the most dangerous in the world:
   

   Nearly 6,000 people died in traffic accidents in 2007 in this country of 27.6 million, according to the Saudi Traffic Department. That is a rate of around 21 deaths per 100,000 people — one of the highest in the world. By comparison, around 14 per 100,000 people were killed in road accidents in the United States in 2006, according to the most recent statistics from the Transportation Department.

7. As a result, female teachers are dying in car accidents at an alarming rate:
   

   A study released in October by the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology found that female teachers commuting to their jobs have about a 50 percent greater chance of getting into car accidents than average Saudi citizens. Its findings were based on figures from the late 1990s.

The worst thing about this is how little I’m shocked.

AP reports.

Somehow I missed this when I happened, so I’m grateful to Power Line for pointing it out again. In a speech at UCLA earlier this year, Michelle Obama described her husband’s messianic qualities:

We have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I am here. Because Barack Obama is the only person in this race who understands that. That before we can work on the problems we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.

If we can’t see ourselves in one another we will never make those sacrifices. So I am here right now because I am married to the only person in this race who has a chance of healing this nation. . .

Barack, as Oprah said, is one of the most brilliant men you will meet in our lifetime. Barack is more than ready. He’ll be ready today. He’ll be ready on day one. He’ll be ready in a year from now. Five years from now. He is ready. That is not the question.

Okay, I’m frightened now. Obama is not Jesus. Does Obama really see himself as the one to fix my broken soul?

It gets scarier, because it isn’t just about Obama. No, it’s also about what Obama will require of us:

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your division. That you come out of your isolation. That you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual; uninvolved, uninformed.

Got that? Obama will require our complete psychological reconfiguration so we can carry out his agenda.

In context, it’s fairly clear that Mrs. Obama is not talking about a Soviet-style campaign of re-education and psychological adjustment. She is talking about what we must all do as Obama’s disciples. She truly sees him as a christ for America.

Does he? God help us if he does.

Pennsylvania Republicans wonder about Governor Rendell’s efforts on behalf of the Clinton campaign:

For most of the primary campaign, Gov. Ed Rendell acted as a “super staffer” for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, raising serious questions about his use of state resources for political purposes, a state House GOP spokesman says. . .

“The vast majority of the governor’s campaign activity was either very early in the morning, in the evening or on weekends and did not interfere with his full time job,” said Rendell’s spokesman Chuck Ardo. “He merely added hours to a routinely hectic schedule by getting less sleep.

“Additionally, he flew to campaign events on commercial airlines and paid his own way, and he reimbursed the commonwealth for the use of his office phone to a far greater extent than the charges incurred,” Ardo said. “No one got short-changed by this governor’s work ethic, and no one needs to be concerned about the misuse of state resources.”

This doesn’t seem like a profitable tack to me.  Rendell has had his ethical problems, but absent any evidence to the contrary, I’d be surprised if he’d be so sloppy as to spend state resources on the Clinton campaign.  As far as his own time goes, the less time Rendell dedicates to state business the better.

The world’s stupidest Obama controversy is given new legs . . . by Obama. At a town hall in Kokomo, Indiana, Obama takes up the topic yet again:

“Then I was asked about this in Iowa,” Obama said. “And somebody said ‘Why don’t you wear a flag pin?’ I said, well, sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. I said, although I will say that sometimes I notice that they’re people who wear flag pins but they don’t always act patriotic. And I was specifically referring to politicians, not individuals who wear flag pins, but politicians who you see wearing flag pins and then vote against funding for veterans, saying we can’t afford it.”

(What Obama said last October was: “You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest. Instead, I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”)

Obama continued, saying “so I make this comment. suddenly a bunch of these, you know, TV commentators and bloggers (say) ‘Obama is disrespecting people who wear flag pins.’ Well, that’s just not true. Also, another way of saying it is, it’s a lie.”

(Interjection in original.) One thing I’ve noticed about Obama is a bizarre inability to take anything back, be it his statements about Jeremiah Wright (e.g., “I don’t think my church is actually particularly controversial”), his claim that rural Americans are religious because of bitterness about the economy, or his bizarre foreign policy pronouncements (e.g., we should invade Pakistan).

No, when Obama wishes his remarks would go away, he doesn’t retract them: either he retroactively rewords them, or he makes it someone else’s fault for bringing them up, or (most often) both. This is a perfect example. First, he rewords his remarks. (For our convenience, ABC juxtaposes his revised comment with the original.) Then, he counter-attacks against those who quoted him, calling them liars.

To my mind, there is no one more a scoundrel than the man who lies in accusing another man of lying. Here, it’s the journalists and bloggers who accurately quoted Obama’s remark that get the treatment.

PS: Lest I commit the same offense, let me concede that Obama left himself some wiggle room here. He doesn’t name anyone in particular, and no one actually makes the statement that Obama cites. (At least, Google gets no hits on the phrase, other than this very story.) So, even if nearly everyone quoted his remarks accurately, he could probably find someone who lied, and say that’s who he meant.

(Via LGF.)

(Previous post.)

Robert “Get behind the fist” Mugabe’s latest atrocity in his reign of terror hits a new low:

Scores of children and babies have been locked up in filthy prison cells in Harare as Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president, sinks to new depths in his campaign to force the opposition into exile before an expected run-off in presidential elections.

Twenty-four babies and 40 children under the age of six were among the 250 people rounded up in a raid on Friday, according to Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Yesterday they were crammed into cells in Southerton police station in central Harare. . .

The families were rounded up from MDC headquarters, where they had sought refuge from violence in the countryside.

The abduction of children is just one element in a systematic campaign of murder and intimidation:

Thought to be directed by top military officers, Operation Where Did You Put Your Cross? has prompted thousands to flee. They are trying to escape the so-called war veterans, who are attacking people and burning down hundreds of houses for voting “incorrectly” in last month’s elections. . .

The regime’s strategy is to ensure that by the time of the run-off, Mugabe would have a clean sweep in rural areas, where 70% of Zimbabweans live. A police officer admitted yesterday that he had been instructed not to interfere with war veterans as they carry out their campaign of terror.

(Via the Corner.)

Fox News reports:

The chief of Hamas said Saturday that the Palestinian militant group would accept an Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel but it would be a “tactic” in the group’s struggle with the Jewish state. . .

“It is a tactic in conducting the struggle. … It is normal for any resistance … to sometimes escalate, other times retreat a bit. … Hamas is known for that. In 2003, there was a cease-fire and then the operations were resumed.”

Frederick Kagan asks how we’ll know when we’ve won in Iraq, and has an answer.

Jeralyn Merritt at TalkLeft notes that Obama is all over the map on gun control. (Via Instapundit.) Nothing surprising here, except this jaw-dropper:

There has not been any evidence that allowing people to carry a concealed weapon is going to make anybody safer.

What?!  Nobody is safer for carrying a gun?  Seriously?  Nobody at all?  Hell, I can name two recent cases just involving pizza deliverymen.

Jerry Pournelle has a very interesting, and frightening, insight:

The Democrats seem to be drifting toward the concept of prosecution of former office holders by criminalizing policy differences. That’s a certain formula for civil war; perhaps not immediate, but inevitable. The absolute minimum requirement for democratic government is that the loser be willing to lose the election: that losing an election is not the loss of everything that matters. As soon as that assurance is gone, playing by the rules makes no sense at all. (Pinochet learned that lesson. Fortunately for Chile, he was old and was allowed to die in peace; the inevitable — liberals can always find a good reason not to keep their word — persecutions after he turned over power on the assurance that he would be allowed to retire in peace were not so severe that his adherents didn’t take to their weapons.)

Via Instapundit, who adds an interesting email about the Roman civil war.  I’m not so sure Caesar was a republican to the core, but the point doesn’t seem to rely on that.

David Freddoso has a post about Nancy Pelosi’s ignorance and deceit on gas prices.  Apropos to that, here’s a graph of gasoline prices at the pump since 1979, real and nominal.  I was interested to see that real gas prices are indeed high now, flirting with their peak in the early 1980s.  They spiked in mid-2005, started fluctuating wildly and settled into the higher price in mid-2007.  (If we’re in a recession now, that has to be a significant cause.)  On the other hand, the recent spike in the nominal price is all due to inflation.  Real prices haven’t changed much since mid-2007.

Heh:

A week ago, I noted that the Sunnis that had left Nouri al-Maliki’s government last year in a huff had decided to return. A week later, the New York Times has reported on it, making it true.

When bacon is outlawed, only outlaws will sell bacon.  (Via the Corner.)

This is what passes for good news in Zimbabwe these days:

Earlier on Thursday, a Chinese ship carrying armaments made by a Chinese state-owned company and bound for Zimbabwe headed back to China without unloading its cargo of bullets and mortar bombs, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry confirmed at a briefing Thursday.

“The Chinese company has already decided to send the military goods back to China in the same vessel, the An Yue Jiang,” the spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, said. . .

China’s decision to turn the ship around was welcomed by the dock workers, trade unionists, religious leaders, Western diplomats and human rights workers who have been campaigning since last week to block delivery of the weapons to Zimbabwe.

They had said the weaponry could be used to carry out an even more violent crackdown on Zimbabwe’s political opposition, which is allied with the country’s unionized workers.

“This is a great victory for the trade union movement in particular and civil society in general in putting its foot down and saying we will not allow weapons that could be used to kill and maim our fellow workers and Zimbabweans to be transported across South Africa,” said Patrick Craven, spokesman for the Congress of South African Trade Unions, which represents 1.9 million South African workers. China’s strategic retreat in delivering the weapons also allows it to avoid Zimbabwe-related protests over its human rights record before it hosts the Olympic Games this summer.

Also, the State Department has decided to acknowledge what everyone knows:

Turning up the pressure on President Robert Mugabe, the top United States envoy to Africa declared Zimbabwe’s opposition leader the “clear victor” in the nation’s disputed presidential election. . .

“This is a government rejecting the will of the people,” she said, referring to the government’s refusal to announce who won the presidential election last month, despite independent projections that placed the opposition ahead. “If they had voted for Mugabe the results would already have been announced. Everyone knows what time it is.”

Nancy Pelosi quotes some “scripture” on Earth Day:

The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, ‘To minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.’

Huh? Where exactly in the Old Testament would that be? Biblical scholars are equally puzzled:

John J. Collins, the Holmes professor of Old Testament criticism and interpretation at Yale Divinity School, said he is totally unfamiliar with Pelosi’s quotation.

“(It’s) not one that I recognize,” Collins told Cybercast News Service. “I assume that she means this is a paraphrase. But it wouldn’t be a close paraphrase to anything I know of.”

Claude Mariottini, a professor of Old Testament at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, told Cybercast News Service the passage not only doesn’t exist – it’s “fictional.”

“It is not in the Bible,” Mariottini said. “There is nothing that even approximates that.”

In fact, one hardly has to be a Bible scholar to recognize Pelosi’s quote as unlikely. Although the Bible definitely suggests that we should be good stewards of creation, to call doing so “an act of worship” sounds awfully close to idolatry.

Mark Goodwin, an associate professor of theology at the University of Dallas, said Pelosi’s quote only reflects a partial Scriptural truth, at best.

“‘To minister to the needs of creation is an act of worship’ doesn’t sound right to my ears,” Goodwin said. “To minister to the needs of creation’- yes, but not as an act of worship. I’m not sure what she meant by that, and if I were there, I would have raised my hand and asked her to clarify that.”

Mariottini doesn’t mince words:

“People try to use the Bible to give authority to what they are trying to say,” he said. “(This) is one of those texts that you fabricate in order to support what you want to say.”

(Via Instapundit.)

Fox News reports:

Sources with knowledge of the incident said the official, Rafael Quintero Curiel, served as the lead press advance person for the Mexican Delegation. . . He took six or seven of the handheld devices from a table outside a special room in the hotel where the Mexican delegation was meeting with President Bush earlier this week. . .

It didn’t take long before Secret Service officials reviewed videotape taken by a surveillance camera and found footage showing Quintero Curiel absconding with the BlackBerries.

Sources said Quintero Curiel made it all the way to the airport before Secret Service officers caught up with him. He initially denied taking the devices, but after agents showed him the DVD, Quintero Curiel said it was purely accidental, gave them back, claimed diplomatic immunity and left New Orleans with the Mexican delegation.

If Mexican officials don’t punish this guy, they will be making themselves complicit in his espionage.

UPDATE: The linked article has been updated:

Mexican Embassy spokesman Ricardo Alday said Thursday he was asked to tender his resignation once he arrived back in Mexico City.

“Mr. Quintero will be responsible for explaining his actions to the American authorities conducting an investigation. The Mexican Government deeply regrets this incident,” he said.

Getting fired seems a little minor to me, but it’s a start.

John McCain received permanent injuries at the hands of the North Vietnamese during his time as a POW, injuries that earn him a disability pension.  The LA Times insinuates that this should disqualify him from being President.

This is the stupidest thing I’ve heard since the Amazing Race 7, when Kelly accused Ron of not following through on his army obligations.  Ron “escaped” his obligations by becoming a POW during the Gulf War.

Pizza Hut has fired the driver who defended himself against a robber.  (Via Say Uncle, via Instapundit.)

(Previous Post.)

The nation’s most hypocritical editorial page issues another gem, entitled “The Low Road to Victory”. It calls for an old-fashioned Fisking:

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

According to the New York Times, negative campaigning is the job of the New York Times. They’ll take care of the mean, vacuous hatchet jobs so the Democrats don’t have to.

Also, 10 points is inconclusive? Reagan defeated Carter by 10 points and won 44 states.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

Getting tired of it? Actually, we Pennsylvanians had to wait a long time for the candidates to pay attention to us. When we did, we didn’t like what we saw in Obama. And by the way, on what planet does negative campaigning not work?

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

The “political operatives” say that, do they? Those operatives wouldn’t happen to be the NYT editorial board, would they?

On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11. A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” the narrator intoned.

Islamic terrorism is the most dangerous threat facing our country today. For many people, such as me, it’s the only issue of consequence. But according to the NYT, it’s out-of-bounds even to mention it. We can’t even mention it in the context of crises from throughout the last century.

If that was supposed to bolster Mrs. Clinton’s argument that she is the better prepared to be president in a dangerous world, she sent the opposite message on Tuesday morning by declaring in an interview on ABC News that if Iran attacked Israel while she were president: “We would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Anyone who recognizes the value of deterrence is not prepared to be President, I guess.

By staying on the attack and not engaging Mr. Obama on the substance of issues like terrorism, the economy and how to organize an orderly exit from Iraq, Mrs. Clinton does more than just turn off voters who don’t like negative campaigning. She undercuts the rationale for her candidacy that led this page and others to support her: that she is more qualified, right now, to be president than Mr. Obama.

As Lisa Schiffren asks, what on earth has changed about Hillary Clinton since the NYT endorsed her? It used to be she used her super-powers for good (ie, against Republicans), but now she’s using them against a Democrat.

Mr. Obama is not blameless when it comes to the negative and vapid nature of this campaign. He is increasingly rising to Mrs. Clinton’s bait, undercutting his own claims that he is offering a higher more inclusive form of politics. When she criticized his comments about “bitter” voters, Mr. Obama mocked her as an Annie Oakley wannabe. All that does is remind Americans who are on the fence about his relative youth and inexperience.

When Clinton is negative, she’s bad. When Obama is negative, he’s rising to her bait. I get it.

No matter what the high-priced political operatives (from both camps) may think, it is not a disadvantage that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton share many of the same essential values and sensible policy prescriptions. It is their strength, and they are doing their best to make voters forget it. And if they think that only Democrats are paying attention to this spectacle, they’re wrong.

I have no idea what they’re trying to say here.

After seven years of George W. Bush’s failed with-us-or-against-us presidency, all American voters deserve to hear a nuanced debate — right now and through the general campaign — about how each candidate will combat terrorism, protect civil liberties, address the housing crisis and end the war in Iraq.

We should have a nuanced debate about fighting terrorism without mentioning it? How’s that going to work?

It is getting to be time for the superdelegates to do what the Democrats had in mind when they created superdelegates: settle a bloody race that cannot be won at the ballot box. Mrs. Clinton once had a big lead among the party elders, but has been steadily losing it, in large part because of her negative campaign. If she is ever to have a hope of persuading these most loyal of Democrats to come back to her side, let alone win over the larger body of voters, she has to call off the dogs.

This makes no sense. This race could have been won at the ballot box, if the Democrats operated under the same rules as the GOP and the United States. If not for the superdelegates, the race would be over. The purpose of the superdelegates was to give the party elites the chance to overturn the voters’ choice. Now the Democrats are reaping the dividend of their bizarre rules. Bravo.

AP reports:

An outburst of gunfire rattled the city during the weekend, with at least nine people killed in 36 separate acts of violence.

“There are just too many weapons here,” [Police Superintendent Jody] Weis said Sunday. “Too many guns, too many gangs.”

I’m confused. Doesn’t Illinois have the most severe gun control outside of D.C.? From Wikipedia:

Some municipalities, most notably Chicago, require that all firearms be registered with the local police department. Chicago does not allow the registration of handguns, which has the effect of outlawing their possession, unless they were grandfathered in by being registered before April 16, 1982. . .

Illinois is one of two remaining states that have no provision for the concealed carry of firearms by citizens. Open carry is also illegal, except when hunting. When a firearm is being transported, it must be unloaded and enclosed in a case.

If gun control works, there shouldn’t be any guns in Chicago, right?

P.J. O’Rourke visits the USS Theodore Roosevelt.  (Via Instapundit.)

A large shipment of weapons from China to Robert “get behind the fist” Mugabe (I won’t call him “President” any more) has been unable to reach him, as African ports have refused to unload the cargo.  (Via Instapundit.)  I’ve resisted getting too pleased by this, figuring China would find somewhere else to unload their guns, but this story has the first indication that they might give up:

China has defended the shipment as “perfectly normal trade” but Beijing has hinted it may recall the ship as it was unable to offload its cargo.

Voted for Clinton. Also mailed in my change of party affiliation back to Republican.

Pennsylvania Lt. Governor Catherine Baker Knoll makes a scene at a rally for Hillary Clinton:

Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato was introducing [Bill] Clinton to a crowd of about 6,000 people in Market Square, where they had gathered to hear a campaign speech by Clinton’s wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton.

When Onorato tried to hand over the microphone, Knoll grabbed it and let loose with some talk targeted at Onorato and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.

“They never recognize the lieutenant governor. These two men can’t stand women,” she said, before leaving the stage while talking to Onorato.

It gets weirder:

After the campaign event ended, Knoll spoke briefly with WTAE Channel 4 Action News reporter Paul Van Osdol.

“You really think that Mr. Onorato and Mr. Ravenstahl don’t like women?” Van Osdol asked.

“No, it’s a guy in the back who doesn’t know who Cathy Baker Knoll is,” Knoll said.

“Why did you say that about Luke and Dan?” Van Osdol asked.

“Because they’re afraid of the guys who call the shots,” Knoll said. “You know what? I’m not afraid of anybody.”

(There’s video.)  How often do you see a politician simultaneously make powerful enemies and show the world that they’re barking mad?  I think Knoll just committed political suicide.

Ron Brownstein’s wine-track/beer-track theory makes an appearance in Inside Higher Ed:

“Some will be surprised that Penn, an Ivy League school, would reject Obama’s appeal to creative class ‘wine trackers.’ But the university is known as being heavily pre-professional, a favorite choice of New Yorkers, and in general, much less of an activist campus than brethren such as Brown, or even Yale and Harvard. So all in all, the endorsement is not a huge shock,” wrote Dana Goldstein at TAPPED.

(Emphasis mine.) (Via Instapundit.)

The article (and the linked TAPPED article) doesn’t give any context, though, so I’m not sure how many of their readers will know what Goldstein meant.

As he suggested last week he might, Obama has decided to cancel the upcoming North Carolina debate.  Were he to be brutalized again, it might affect his standing with the superdelegates.  I expect this is the last time for a while that we’ll see him anywhere he can’t control the agenda.

Running out the clock makes good sense for Obama, if he can, but there is a downside.  This pulls the rug out from underneath his spin that the last debate was a travesty for not focusing on the important issues.  Apparently Obama doesn’t think there’s much more to be debated on those issues after all.

Just one call today, from Obama.  My wife didn’t pick up because she recognized the number.