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.

Carter announces the results of his meeting with Hamas:

Former President Carter said Monday that Hamas — the Islamic militant group that has called for the destruction of Israel — is prepared to accept the right of the Jewish state to “live as a neighbor next door in peace.”

But Carter warned that there would not be peace if Israel and the U.S. continue to shut out Hamas and its main backer, Syria. . .

“They (Hamas) said that they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, if approved by Palestinians and that they would accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbor next door in peace,” Carter said.

Somehow this is not very exciting, even if we assume Carter is accurately reporting his conversation. Firstly, over half of Palestinians approve of attacks on Israeli civilians. Secondly, if such a referendum were actually held, and did pass, Hamas would simply renege. In fact, they already have:

Carter said Hamas promised it wouldn’t undermine Abbas’ efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel, as long as the Palestinian people approved it in a referendum. In such a scenario, he said Hamas would not oppose a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Carter said Hamas officials, including Mashaal, agreed to this in a written statement.

But Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri in Gaza said Hamas’ readiness to put a peace deal to a referendum “does not mean that Hamas is going to accept the result of the referendum.”

(Via the Corner.)

While searching for the video of Palestinians celebrating the 9/11 attacks, I discovered an urban legend that seems to be popular in certain circles. It says that the video was not from 9/11 as CNN and other major new outlets claimed, but it was actually from 1991, celebrating Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. This YouTube comment is typical:

This footage was later proven to be from the 1990s so it had absolutely nothing to do with 911.

Snopes has the legend’s long version:

All around the world we are subjected to 3 or 4 huge news distributors, and one of them – as you well know – is CNN. Very well, I guess all of you have been seeing (just as I’ve been) images from this company. In particular, one set of images called my attencion: the Palestinians celebrating the bombing, out on the streets, eating some cake and making funny faces for the camera. Well, THOSE IMAGES WERE SHOT BACK IN 1991!!! Those are images of Palestinians celebrating the invasion of Kuwait! It’s simply unacceptable that a super-power of cumminications as CNN uses images which do not correspond to the reality in talking about so serious an issue. A teacher of mine, here in Brazil, has videotapes recorded in 1991, with the very same images; he’s been sending emails to CNN, Globo (the major TV network in Brazil) and newspapers, denouncing what I myself classify as a crime against the public opinion. If anyone of you has access to this kind of files, serch for it. In the meanwhile, I’ll try to ‘put my hands’ on a copy of this tape.

Snopes does a good job of debunking the legend, including statements from Reuters, CNN, and the Brazilian university where the legend originated, and also listing several other news outlets that carried the same story.

The debunking hasn’t stopped the Palestinians from promoting it. Here’s a video of Manuel Hassassian, the official Palestinian “Ambassador/General Delegate” to the United Kingdom, telling the story. (His version is a little bit different. Predictably, he blames Israel rather than CNN for the fraud.)

Given how incendiary the video is, it’s not surprising that the Palestinians would like to discredit it. Their first effort was to suppress such videos entirely, by threatening journalists if the media ran them. For instance:

Encouraging the Associated Press in Jerusalem not to air the footage [of a September 12th rally in Nablus], Ahmed Abdel Rahman, Arafat’s cabinet secretary, said that the Palestinian Authority “cannot guarantee the life” of the cameraman if his film was broadcast.

Unfortunately for us (but fortunately for the cameraman) the AP folded. That particular video was never broadcast.

UPDATE: I found the original JPost story at the Wayback Machine.  It’s a little different; it suggests that the AP producers, not the cameraman, were the ones being threatened.

According to a poll published in the Jerusalem Post, the number of Palestinians who support attacks on Israeli civilians now exceeds 50% for the first time, including nearly two-thirds of Gazans:

The number of Palestinians who support attacks against Israelis continues to rise and more than half of them favor suicide bombings, according to a poll published this weekend.

The survey also showed that Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh is still more popular than Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The percentage of Palestinians who support “resistance operations” against Israeli targets rose from 43.1 percent in September 2006 to 49.5% at present. Support for this option was highest in the Gaza Strip, at 58.1%, with 24.5% in the West Bank agreeing.

Palestinians who support bombing attacks against Israeli civilians rose from 44.8% in June 2006 to 48% in September 2006 and to 50.7% now.

Again, more Gazans support these operations (65.1%), compared with 42.3% of Palestinians in the West Bank.

The Palestinian public is divided on the rocket attacks on Israel: 39.3% said the firing of these rockets was “useful” to Palestinian national interests, while 35.7% said they were harmful.

(Via the Corner.)

Over half of Palestinians approve of murdering civilians.  They celebrated on 9/11.  They chose Hamas in a free election.  Why do we persist in thinking that these people will ever make peace?

ASIDE: It’s interesting that attacks on civilians (i.e., soft targets) gains the highest support, followed by “resistance operations”, and then rocket attacks (which often evoke an IDF response).

MoveOn.org claims they never opposed the campaign in Afghanistan.  Tom Maguire tracks down the facts.  (Via Instapundit.)  The Internet Wayback Machine is involved.

Received five for Obama, one for Clinton.  Clinton needs to pick it up!

At the debate, Charlie Gibson asked Obama about the handwriting on a questionnaire returned by his campaign on which someone wrote that Obama supports a total ban on handguns:

GIBSON: But do you still favor the registration of guns? Do you still favor the licensing of guns?

And in 1996, your campaign issued a questionnaire, and your writing was on the questionnaire that said you favored a ban on handguns.

OBAMA: No, my writing wasn’t on that particular questionnaire, Charlie. As I said, I have never favored an all-out ban on handguns.

No surprise; this was obviously coming.  Now, someone needs to ask Obama the obvious follow-up questions:

• Whose handwriting was it?
• The handwriting in question was revising the answers to the questionnaire, to include some additional endorsements.  Why did the staffer bother to revise the list of endorsements, but not correct all the inaccurate policy positions?

I suppose, though, that’s the sort of “gotcha” politics we’re not supposed to play.

At TalkLeft, Jeralyn Merritt reports a statement from Obama’s campaign that D.C.’s total ban on guns is constitutional:

But the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said that he “…believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.”

Bob Casey (D-PA), an Obama surrogate, goes further, saying that Obama approves of the ban:

Bob Casey: He would probably be a supporter, as he has been in the U.S. Senate and the Illinois legislature, for various restrictions on gun ownership. I happen to disagree with him on that, we have our disagreements.

(No link to either, so I’m trusting that Merritt transcribed them accurately.)  Prepare to be disavowed, Senator Casey!

There’s more. David Bernstein notes that Obama wants to require that all gun dealers operate from a storefront and also wants to ban such storefronts within 5 miles of a school or park. (5 miles is roughly the radius of Pittsburgh.) And, shockingly, when a stolen gun is used to hurt someone, he wants to make it a felony on the part of the rightful owner if he didn’t store it “securely.”

I think we can close the book on Obama and gun rights now.

(Via Instapundit and Tom Maguire.)

The London Times reports:

Zimbabwe’s opposition revealed 10 of its supporters have now been killed with 400 arrested and 500 injured in President Mugabe’s post-election clampdown.

As a further delay was announced in the recounting of votes cast over three weeks ago fears grew that an attempt is being made to overturn the results of the parliamentary election, which showed ZANU-PF losing its majority to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for the first time.

This makes sense for Mugabe, I suppose.  As long as he’s going to thwart the Presidential election and stay in office, there’s no reason to abide by the Parliamentary vote.

But don’t despair, the African Union is on the case:

An AU statement said: “The African Union wishes to express its concern over the delay observed in the announcement of Zimbabwe’s election results, which creates an atmosphere of tension.

“The African Union therefore urges competent authorities of the Republic of Zimbabwe to announce the results without any further delay, in transparency, thus contributing, inter alia, to reducing the prevailing tension.”

Okay, that ought to do it.

The Sunday Times reports:

A newspaper that defied the Kremlin by reporting that President Vladimir Putin was planning to marry an Olympic gold medal-winning rhythmic gymnast half his age was shut down yesterday. The closure of Moskovski Korrespondent, whose editor Grigori Nekhoroshev was forced to resign, was a sharp reminder of the perils of invoking Kremlin displeasure. . .

Its parent firm blamed “costs” and “conceptual disagreements with the newsroom” but insisted in a statement that “this has nothing to do with politics and is solely a business decision”. Few in Russia will believe that. The closure came a few hours after Putin had said during a visit to Sardinia that there was not a word of truth in the story.

And none at all outside of Russia.

It has previously been reported that Obama’s church has been known to print racist material in its worship bulletin. So it’s not as shocking as it should be to learn that in July 2007 Rev. Wright handed over his “Pastor’s Page” for a piece by Mousa Abu Marzook, a terrorist and front man for Hamas. In that column, Marzook justifies attacks on Israel, denies Israel’s right to exist, and bizarrely refers to a Fatah coup that partitioned the Palestinian Authority.

Investor’s Business Daily comments:

Even if Wright didn’t know Marzook was wanted by the government, Hamas has been designated a terrorist group since 1995, blacklisted by a Democrat administration.

Wright had to have known from headlines that Hamas targets innocent civilians in pizza parlors and buses for suicide bombings, eviscerating children and elderly with fireballs laced with nails and ball bearings. These are not warriors, but terrorists.

Obama, for his part, says he is shocked— shocked! — that his church would support Hamas.

“I certainly wasn’t in church when that outrageously wrong piece was reprinted in the bulletin,” he said in a carefully worded statement that denies only his attendance and not his prior knowledge of the bulletin.

(Via the Campaign Spot.)

The IBD editorial mentions something else I hadn’t known, that Wright’s ties to notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan go deeper than is generally known:

Obama also pleaded ignorance about Wright last year honoring anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan with a “lifetime achievement award,” even though the church featured Farrakhan on the cover of its magazine and held a gala in Chicago to celebrate his “greatness.”

This didn’t come out of the blue. Wright and Farrakhan go way back. In the 1980s, they traveled to Libya to pay homage to terrorist leader Muammar Qaddafi.

Politico lands another scoop, this time related to Obama’s service on the board of the Joyce Foundation:

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has worked to assure uneasy gun owners that he believes the Constitution protects their rights and that he doesn’t want to take away their guns.

But before he became a national political figure, he sat on the board of a Chicago-based foundation that doled out at least nine grants totaling nearly $2.7 million to groups that advocated the opposite positions. . .

Obama’s eight years on the board of the Joyce Foundation, which paid him more than $70,000 in directors fees, do not in any way conflict with his campaign-trail support for the rights of gun owners . . . a spokesman for Obama’s presidential campaign, asserted in a statement issued to Politico this week.

As with most foundations, Joyce did not record how individual board members voted on grants, but former Joyce officials told Politico that funding was typically approved unanimously.

(Via Hot Air.)

For example:

During Obama’s time on the Joyce board, though, the foundation gave seven grants totaling more than $2.5 million to a group that wants Congress to take much more proactive action: the Violence Policy Center.

The D.C.-based nonprofit, which calls itself “the most aggressive group in the gun control movement,” for years has argued for a national handgun ban.

In a 2000 study called “Unsafe in Any Hands: Why America Needs to Ban Handguns,” the group concluded that Congress could and should ban handguns nationwide “soon” and allocate $16.25 billion to buy back the 65 million handguns it estimated were then owned by civilians.

The study dismissed as “pure myth” the theory that the Second Amendment bars such strict gun control laws.

The study was funded partly by the Joyce Foundation, said Josh Sugarmann, the center’s executive director. “The Joyce Foundation gives us general support,” he said.

There’s more.  I don’t doubt that Obama will disavow this; if you can disavow your own handwriting, you’ll disavow anything.  Whether he’ll get away with it is another matter.

Gallup now gives Clinton the advantage over Obama among Democrats nationwide 46%-45%, with a very noticeable shift since the last debate.  (Via Hot Air.)  Both Democrats also tie McCain among registered voters.

The top story at the New York Times is a lengthy piece on the Pentagon’s information strategy. Although I haven’t had a chance to read the whole thing yet, it seems pretty interesting. The NYT’s slant, of course, is that there’s something sinister about the Pentagon even to have an information strategy. (If they’re bothered by Al Qaeda having an information strategy, I’ve never heard of it.) Most of the Pentagon strategies they allude to (and cast aspersions on) seem like just good sense to me: court the media’s military experts, and give them access to the facts. They also write that the Pentagon recognizes the importance of not letting enemy propaganda drive the media cycle. (You’re doing a bang-up job, then. Thanks guys!)

I’m most interested, though, in the New York Times’s own information strategy. (Let’s not pretend they’re not a combatant in the information war.) They’re not targeting their article at any particular military expert. It doesn’t gain them much to discredit a single person, and they don’t have the material to do it anyway. More interestingly, they aren’t really targeting the Pentagon or the White House, which is surprising since there are few things they enjoy more. Instead, they are targeting media military experts as a group.

Why? Here’s my theory. The good news out of Iraq is becoming increasingly unavoidable. Even the bad news isn’t staying bad for long enough. The usual anti-war sources can only get them so far. In order to maintain their narrative, they need a way to discount all the positive news out of Iraq. If they can convince people that all the experts are colluding with the Pentagon to deceive us, the good news simply goes away.

Of course, they won’t succeed to that extent — the experts aren’t going away — but they can instill a grain of suspicion into every positive analysis. Look for a new meme on the left: any expert that speaks of progress is a tool of the Pentagon. (Not just former generals, incidentally, but also embedded journalists.) What we need, they will say, are “independent” experts, ones with no active ties to the military. The “independent” experts will not know anything — they’ll have no sources, after all — but they will be reliably anti-war (not knowing anything will help), and they’ll serve as a counterbalance to any good news out of Iraq.

UPDATE: Commentary has two columns on the piece. (Via Instapundit.) Max Boot’s analysis agrees substantially with mine, except without the prediction. (Internet Scofflaw: tomorrow’s expert analysis from a non-expert today!) John Podhoretz thinks that the piece was an investigative report that failed to uncover any wrongdoing, but they couldn’t bear to kill. (Note to the NYT: sunk cost.)

It’s popular in certain circles to assert that US funding for the mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan war went to Osama Bin Laden.  This is convenient for that crowd, because it places the ultimate blame for all of his atrocities back where they want it, on the United States.  The problem is, it’s not true in the slightest.

There were two factions of Afghans who fought against the Soviets.  One was a domestic faction that eventually evolved into the Northern Alliance.  The other was the so-called “Afghan Arabs”, foreign Muslims (mostly Arabs) who came into Afghanistan to fight the jihad.  Osama Bin Laden, obviously, was a member of the latter faction.  The United States funded the former faction, but never gave a cent to the latter.  The latter was funded primarily by Saudi Arabia.  (The Taliban, incidentally, didn’t exist then at all.)

This is made clear by this article from the US Department of State.  Richard Miniter has a good column on the subject as well.  I found both articles with just a few minutes of Googling; it’s hardly a secret.

UPDATE (9/12/11): Freshened the stale links with links to the Internet Archive.

In response to the Obamaists’ apoplexy at their candidate being asked about his friendships with a racist and a terrorist, Peter Wehner proposes a hypothetical:

Assume that a conservative candidate for the GOP nomination spent two decades at a church whose senior pastor was a white supremacist who uttered ugly racial (as well as anti-American) epithets from the pulpit. Assume, too, that this minister wasn’t just the candidate’s pastor but also a close friend, the man who married the candidate and his wife, baptized his two daughters, and inspired the title of his best-selling book.

In addition, assume that this GOP candidate, in preparing for his entry into politics, attended an early organizing meeting at the home of a man who, years before, was involved in blowing up multiple abortion clinics and today was unrepentant, stating his wish that he had bombed even more clinics. And let’s say that the GOP candidate’s press spokesman described the relationship between the two men as “friendly.”

Do you think that if those moderating a debate asked the GOP candidate about these relationships for the first time, after 22 previous debates had been held, that other journalists would become apoplectic at the moderators for merely asking about the relationships? Not only would there be a near-universal consensus that those questions should be asked; there would be a moral urgency in pressing for answers. We would, I predict, be seeing an unprecedented media “feeding frenzy.”

The truth is that a close relationship with a white supremacist pastor and a friendly relationship with an abortion clinic bomber would, by themselves, torpedo a conservative candidate running for president. There is an enormous double standard at play here, one rooted in the fawning regard many journalists have for Barack Obama. They have a deep, even emotional, investment in his candidacy.

(Via Power Line.)

Yep. Of course, it’s merely a hypothetical; the GOP has never had such a candidate.

Clinton, Obama complain about complaining. (Via LGF.)

Seriously, the best thing about this Democratic primary is the spectacle of Democrats getting critical media attention. Unlike Republicans, they’re not used to it, and they don’t like it one bit. Too bad it won’t last.

UPDATE: Michael Barone weighs in.  (Via Instapundit.)

According to Harry Reid.  (Via the Corner.)  Can you image what he would have said if he actually had a defeat to work with?

Glenn Reynolds remarks, “He’s not used to being challenged on his statements. That will change.”

I’m not so sure. No one (outside the blogosphere) is calling him on it here, and they still have another candidate. Why would you think the media will be more likely to fact-check him after they’re stuck with him?

UPDATE: Dowdification refers to the selective editing of a quote in such a way as to change (or invert) its meaning, particularly by the addition of ellipses. In this case Obama extracts a relative clause, deletes its relativizer, and quotes it as a complete sentence.

ANOTHER UPDATE: David Freddoso asks, “Is the man a liar, or are his speechwriters and advisors just that willing to leave him vulnerable to attack?” Good question.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Reynolds may be right; some in the media are on to Obama: ABC News, CNN, and the Chicago Tribune. (Via Commentary, via Instapundit.)

Literally.  (Via Jules Crittenden, via Instapundit.)

A new kind of politics.

Obama in the most recent debate:

Obama was asked by a voter via video why he did not wear the American flag in his lapel.

“I have never said that I don’t wear flag pins or refuse to wear flag pins. This is the kind of manufactured issue that our politics has become obsessed with and, once again, distracts us,” he said.

This whole issue is pretty stupid, but, for the record:

“You don’t have the American flag pin on. Is that a fashion statement?” the reporter asked, at the end of a brief interview with Obama on Wednesday. “Those have been on politicians since Sept. 12, 2001.”

The standard political reply to that question might well have been, “My patriotism speaks for itself.”

But Obama didn’t say that.

Instead the Illinois senator answered the question at length, explaining that he no longer wears such a pin, at least in part, because of the Iraq War.

“You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin,” Obama said. “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.”

A manufactured issue? Yes, but Obama was the one who manufactured it.

(Via Hot Air.)

Last month it was reported that the Brown government had put an end to the “special relationship” between the U.S. and U.K.  Now it appears that the special relationship is back on:

“The world owes President George Bush a huge debt of gratitude for leading the world” in the fight against terrorism, Brown said. “No international partnership has served the world better than our special relationship … the bond between our two countries is stronger than ever.”

Let’s hope this is a real change in heart.

David Kopel writes in the Wall Street Journal:

Imagine an election race of Pat Robertson versus James Dobson, each of them appearing at organic grocery stores and Starbucks throughout Massachusetts, with each candidate insisting that he alone deserves the vote of gay-marriage advocates. An equally silly spectacle is taking place these days in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky, as Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama compete for the pro-gun vote.

(Via Instapundit.)

The Democrats are upset about a partisan political operative (Stephanopolous, they mean, not Russert or Matthews) masquerading as a journalist.  The mind boggles.

Fortunately for Stephanopolous, this will be short-lived.  Once the Democrats have their nominee and he’s a Democrat again rather than a Clintonite, all will be forgiven.

Barack Obama, for the first time in his entire career, is facing a seriously contested campaign. At the debate, he gets some questions he’d rather not answer. (Via Instapundit.) And, since this is a debate, not a press conference, he can’t just walk off. He actually accuses George Stephanopoulos of acting as a Republican operative. (As if!) Well, boo hoo.

I’m honestly surprised by how thin-skinned he is. On the right, we’re subjected to a constant drumbeat of negative press. Every other question at a debate, even a Republican debate, is along the lines of “who does the GOP more resemble, Hitler or Lucifer?” But Obama, someone asks him why he’s cozy with an unrepentant terrorist and by his reaction, you’d think that CBS was making up fake documents about him.

UPDATE: Suddenly Obama isn’t sure if we need any more debates.

This is an outrage:

The Senate moved yesterday toward asking the Justice Department for a criminal investigation of a $10 million legislative earmark whose provisions were mysteriously altered after Congress gave final approval to a huge 2005 highway funding bill. . .

Top Senate Democrats and Republicans have endorsed taking action in connection with the earmark that Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) . . . inserted into the legislation. “It’s very possible people ought to go to jail,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). . .

Young’s staff acknowledged yesterday that aides “corrected” the earmark just before it went to the White House for President Bush’s signature, specifying that the money would go to a proposed highway interchange project on Interstate 75 near Naples, Fla.

(Via Instapundit.)

This compromises the basic integrity of the legislative process. There also should have been a criminal investigation last August, when the House Democratic leadership falsified the result of a floor vote in the US House of Representatives:

Democrats appeared to have won the vote, but with the voting time apparently having expired, GOP leaders persuaded three Latino Republicans who had voted with the Democrats to change their votes. At the same time, Democrats say, five Democratic lawmakers who had voted with Republicans were scrambling to change their votes as well. With two of the GOP votes changed, Democrats gaveled the vote shut, 214 to 214, and declared that they had won. But the public tally showed that the Republicans had won, 215 to 213, just as the vote was declared for the Democrats. The official final tally was 216 to 212 in the Democrats’ favor.

But House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said there were no Democrats seeking to change their votes at the time. Moreover, he charged, [House Majority Leader Steny] Hoyer had told a protesting parliamentarian, “We control, not the parliamentarians.” And, he said, electronic records on the vote disappeared from the House’s voting system and on the House clerk’s Web site.

UPDATE: On futher reflection, didn’t Congress keep the earmarks out of the legislation this year, in order to circumvent the House’s new earmark rules? If Congress never voted on the earmark in question, that would seem to make its alteration a lot less serious.  (I’ve altered the title of this post accordingly.)

Just kidding.  (Via Instapundit.)

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was scheduled today to award the Palestinian Authority’s highest medal, the Al Kuds Mark of Honor, to the driver of the Jerusalem Sbarro suicide bomber.  15 people were killed, including 7 children, in the bombing.  Those plans were cancelled yesterday; I suppose Abbas realized that giving medals to terrorists might make it hard to pretend to oppose them.  (Remember, Abbas’s bunch are supposed to be the moderate ones.)

I recognize that we’ve abandoned the “sequentiality” of the Roadmap.  (That was the idea that the Palestinians would stop murdering people before we start giving them what they want.)  But can we at least require that they not give medals to terrorists?  No?  Just thought I’d ask.

This latest debate between Clinton and Obama is panned by left and right.  (Via Instapundit.)  Who can blame them, though, really?  After so many debates, what is left to talk about?  Other than how to win the war, that is . . .

Power Line reports.  Can the Carter endorsement be far behind?

Paid Federal, state, and local income taxes yesterday. Today we get a notice in the mail; the local school district is appealing our property assessment. (Hint: they don’t think it’s too high.)

On days like today, I am bitter. Bitter that I pay so much in taxes, and that people like Obama (and Clinton) think I’m not paying enough.

Come to think of it, the Revolutionary War patriots were bitter over taxes too, and they were into guns and religion. Think that’s what Obama meant?

Al Franken, the Democratic Senate candidate from Minnesota, failed to pay corporate income taxes from 2003 to 2007. (Via Instapundit.) I find it interesting that when it came out that he failed to pay his workman’s comp insurance from 2002 to 2005, he didn’t take that opportunity to pay his other back taxes.

The NYT writes that the Olympic torch relay was invented by Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda film “Olympia.” (Via the Corner.) Who thought Riefenstahl would be a good source of Olympic tradition? The same sort of people that thought it would be a good idea for China to host the games, I suppose.

I can’t do any better than Instapundit‘s synopsis:

A BOGUS GUN RIGHTS GROUP endorses Obama. Well, he’s all for bogus gun rights, so . . . .

SayUncle has the skinny on the AHSA, a bogus organization that gives anti-guns pols (like Obama) a “pro-gun” organization to belong to.

When faced with a conflict between animal rights and Muslims, what’s a poor liberal to do?

A Paris prosecutor yesterday called for French film legend Brigitte Bardot to receive a two-month suspended prison sentence and a £12,000 fine for inciting racial hatred in a letter.

In December 2006, Miss Bardot, 73, now an animal rights activist, wrote to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, then the interior minister, criticising the Muslim practice of slaughtering sheep without first stunning them.

Of course, this is not really a case of animal rights, so much as human rights (i.e., free speech and petitioning the government).  Perhaps the animals would have done better.

(Previous post.)

. . . writes:

Taxpayers: It’s almost April 15, and you know what that means. It means the Miami Dolphins already have been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.

But it’s also time to file your federal tax return. Yes, this is a pesky chore, but remember that paying taxes is not a ”one-way street.” When you send your money to the government, the government, in return, provides you with vital services, such as not putting you in prison. The government also uses your money to pay for programs that benefit all Americans, such as the Catfish Genome Project.

(Via Instapundit.)

The British Columbia Human Rights Commission has ruled against McDonalds in a wrongful termination case involving an employee with a skin condition that made her unable to wash her hands. (Via the Corner.) The commission ruled she should not have been dismissed, and awarded the non-hand-washing employee $55,000.

The commission found that “There was no evidence of the relationship between food contamination and hand-washing” or “the risk to the public if Ms. Datt’s hand-washing was limited.”

Oooo-kay.

I had planned a business trip to Victoria, B.C. this September, but I think I might get hungry.

George Will tracks the roots of liberal condescension from Adlai Stevenson to Barack Obama:

Barack Obama may be exactly what his supporters suppose him to be. Not, however, for reasons most Americans will celebrate. . . Obama does fulfill liberalism’s transformation since Franklin Roosevelt. What had been under FDR a celebration of America and the values of its working people has become a doctrine of condescension toward those people and the supposedly coarse and vulgar country that pleases them.

When a supporter told Adlai Stevenson, the losing Democratic presidential nominee in 1952 and 1956, that thinking people supported him, Stevenson said, “Yes, but I need to win a majority.” When another supporter told Stevenson, “You educated the people through your campaign,” Stevenson replied, “But a lot of people flunked the course.” . . . [Michael Barone wrote,] “Stevenson was the first leading Democratic politician to become a critic rather than a celebrator of middle-class American culture—the prototype of the liberal Democrat who would judge ordinary Americans by an abstract standard and find them wanting.”

Stevenson, like Obama, energized young, educated professionals for whom, Barone wrote, “what was attractive was not his platform but his attitude.” They sought from Stevenson “not so much changes in public policy as validation of their own cultural stance.” They especially rejected “American exceptionalism, the notion that the United States was specially good and decent,” rather than—in Michelle Obama’s words—“just downright mean.” . . .

The iconic public intellectual of liberal condescension was Columbia University historian Richard Hofstadter, who died in 1970 but whose spirit still permeated that school when Obama matriculated there in 1981. Hofstadter pioneered the rhetorical tactic that Obama has revived with his diagnosis of working-class Democrats as victims—the indispensable category in liberal theory. The tactic is to dismiss rather than refute those with whom you disagree.

Obama’s dismissal is: Americans, especially working-class conservatives, are unable, because of their false consciousness, to deconstruct their social context and embrace the liberal program. Today that program is to elect Obama, thereby making his wife at long last proud of America.

(Via Instapundit.) Read the whole thing.

In the Pennsylvania primary, on the heels of Clinton’s 20-point surge in the ARG poll, Rasmussen has seen a much smaller improvement for Clinton, to a 50%-41% advantage.  (Via Instapundit.)