Internet Scofflaw

If the facts don’t support your thesis, make up some better ones!  (Via Instapundit.)

The Telegraph has a short piece on how America is a vital force for good in the world, and yet is disliked by most European nations. Its concluding thought:

Regardless of who wins [the Presidential race], there will be a need to project a more positive light of the United States in Europe, but without ditching America’s vital global role.

But what if, as seems likely, we are disliked precisely because of our vital global role?  Then it’s one or the other.  (And we have one candidate for each option.)

Glenn Reynolds adds:

Europeans have been anti-American pretty consistently since America began, except for brief intervals where they needed us enough to (mostly) pretend otherwise.

There’s two stories out today on the UN’s continuing depravity. First, we have another case of child abuse by UN “peacekeepers”:

Children as young as six are being sexually abused by peacekeepers and aid workers, says a leading UK charity. Children in post-conflict areas are being abused by the very people drafted into such zones to help look after them, says Save the Children. . .

Save the Children says the most shocking aspect of child sex abuse is that most of it goes unreported and unpunished, with children too scared to speak out.

A 13-year-old girl, “Elizabeth” described to the BBC how 10 UN peacekeepers gang-raped her in a field near her Ivory Coast home. . . No action has been taken against the soldiers.

(Via LGF.)

Tragically, we’ve come to expect this from UN peacekeepers. Second, Fox News has obtained the report of the UN’s own auditors on the UN Development Program:

The multibillion-dollar procurement business of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the U.N.’s flagship anti-poverty agency, is a gigantic shambles, according to UNDP’s own investigators.

Moreover, UNDP’s management has privately acknowledged that fact and is scrambling to fix the mess — even as it loudly denied concerns of a procurement scandal that have been raised by FOX News, among others.

Just a few of the cited failures were:

• the failure “to provide plans to support its buying activities, which the report says causes many purchases of goods and services to be carried out on an ‘ad hoc basis’ (in fact, more than $595 million worth of non-existent purchases were recorded, although the audit notes that they were not paid for),”
• staff that are “drastically unqualified: Fully half of the organization’s procurement staff around the world were not certified for the basic requirements of their jobs, while the auditors also found the six-hour course for those who were certified to be ‘inadequate.’ Additionally, the auditors noted, ‘there are entire offices without a single certified buyer’,”
• an “‘apparent’ conflict of interest at the top, where the people charged with vetting the procurement process for flaws are also members of the procurement office staff,” and
• the lack of a “sure way of knowing whether it is doing business with organizations that the U.N. itself has condemned for terrorist ties.”

The last item is not merely a hypothetical worry. The article reminds us of this gem:

UNDP practices in its client countries have been controversial since January 2007, when then-U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Mark Wallace raised questions about the agency’s use of cash payments to North Koreans who were employees of the Kim Jong-Il regime and who also occupied sensitive UNDP local posts. Subsequent investigation revealed that the Kim regime had also used UNDP bank accounts to funnel money to its nuclear weapons program.

UNDP subsequently fired a member of its staff who blew the whistle on the North Korean practices and declared it was not bound by U.N. rules when the U.N.’s newly appointed ethics officer declared he had found “prima facie evidence” of retaliation against the whistleblower.

In short, the UN funded the North Korean nuclear weapons program, then fired the whistleblower who made that fact public. Why do we continue to fund this organization? We would do better giving that money to the mob.

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is in hot water again, this time over his road trip to Detroit for games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup finals.

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl traveled to Detroit to watch [the] Penguins play Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup final with his friends and a bodyguard.

Before he left, Ravenstahl said, “I won’t use any city dollars whatsoever to make any trips to Detroit, but I want to make a determination of what’s appropriate and what’s not before I make a decision or not on whether to go.”

Ravenstahl paid for his own ticket, meals and lodging in Detroit, but was driven in a city vehicle by his police bodyguard.

The bodyguard got into the game free, but the city picked up the tab for gas, for the bodyguard’s food and lodging and for his overtime, WTAE Channel 4’s Jon Greiner reported.

Ravenstahl has invited scrutiny because of his previous ethical problems involving the Penguins and because of his promise not to spend “any city dollars whatsoever” on a trip to Detroit.

The usual ethical practice, as I understand it, is to reimburse the cost that would have been incurred by a private citizen.  (For example, when the President goes on a personal trip, he reimburses first-class airfare, not the full cost of Air Force One.)  That would mean that Ravenstahl should reimburse the city for the cost of the car, but not the bodyguard.

Beyond the ethical minimum, there’s the question of judgement.  When the city is bankrupt, does it send the right signal for the mayor to spend the city’s money to go to a hockey game in Detroit?

Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but it’s part of a larger problem.  Ravenstahl won’t grow up for the sake of the office; rather, he behaves like a kid with a really awesome job.  He like to hang out with his buddies and gets into a lot of trouble, like public drunkenness, absenteeism, flagrant lies, conflicts of interest, and misappropriation of funds.

Ohio governor Ted Strickland (a Democrat) selected Nancy Rodgers, dean of the Ohio State law school, to replace him. But I thought this was curious:

Strickland says Nancy Rogers will lead the office for about six months but has no plans to run in the November election. Strickland’s announcement means he must still select a candidate to run for the remaining two years left in the term of former Democratic Attorney General Marc Dann.

(Via Instapundit.)

Is that how it works in the “Democratic” party now? The governor chooses the candidate? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, given the Democratic affinity for superdelegates and the disenfranchisement of entire states.

That’s according to the website for Planet Slayer, an environmentalist show for kids out of Australia.  No joke, no paraphrase.  It says: “find out when you should die.”  Then, lest you miss the point, the next page says: “When you’re done, click on [skull and crossbones] to find out what age you should die at so you don’t use more than your share of Earth’s resources!”  I took the questionnaire, just to find out what it would say.  According to Planet Slayer, I should have died as a toddler.

This childrens’ show is promoting sentiments that Pol Pot would have found extreme.  Yes, it’s taxpayer funded, of course.

(Via Lileks.)

This almost never happens, so it’s worth noting when it does. After bloggers pointed out that Obama’s story of his uncle liberating the Auschwitz death camp was impossible, insofar as Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying that he meant to say Buchenwald.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg points out that Obama has been talking about Americans liberating Auschwitz (and Treblinka) for years, which tends to undermine the “he misspoke” defense. (Via LGF.)

ANOTHER UPDATE: Riehl World View and Rand Simberg question whether the revised story is true either. (Via Instapundit.) It appears that Obama’s great-uncle may not have been in the 89th Infantry at all, and in fact may have served in the Navy. Still, I wouldn’t be too surprised if the (revised) story ends up being true. If so, Obama can help his case by telling us his great-uncle’s full name.

LATER UPDATE: The (revised) story does indeed seem to be true, despite some confusion about the great-uncle’s name.

It’s been hard to know what to think about the Texas polygamy cult case. It seems likely that some abuse may have taken place (perhaps even a lot), but it also seems likely that there was a massive abuse of authority by CPS and the Texas courts.

Then, along comes a story that emphasizes that it’s not only us; Texas CPS hasn’t a clue what went on there either:

Ten “girls” taken into custody by Texas Child Protective Services have convinced the agency they are really adults and more are expected to be similarly reclassified this week, weakening the agency’s claim that dozens of underage girls were forced by a polygamist sect to have sex with older men.

On Tuesday, six more “girls” were deemed adults, including 27-year-old Leona Allred, whose lawyer insisted CPS knew from the beginning that her client was an adult.

“My client showed them the same documents they showed them from the beginning: a valid Arizona driver’s license and a birth certificate,” said Andrea Sloan.

Two others, Merilyn Jeffs Keate and Sarah Cathleen Jessop Nielsen, were reclassified as adults Monday as five judges began sifting through the cases of all the children taken from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in West Texas. . .

On April 28, CPS officials said the agency believed that 31 of the 53 girls were between ages 14 and 17 and were pregnant, had children or both. But that 31 figure has been tied precariously to the fact that 26 “disputed minors” were among them.

This doesn’t let the cult off the hook, but it does rob Texas CPS of any credibility.  The ability to tell 27-years old from children and to read official documents is a minimum level of competency for child protective services.

(Via Media Blog.)

I predicted this, about a month ago.  For now it’s just in the fevered minds of Keith Olbermann and Think Progress, but give it time.

Addresses the living dead:

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

Later in the day, the campaign airbrushed the gaffe from his remarks, which is as close as Obama gets to admitting a mistake, I suppose.  (Via Instapundit.)

Amusing, but on a more serious note, the AP reports:

Obama spokesman Bill Burton declined to respond directly to [McCain’s invitation to visit Iraq], saying only: “Senator Obama thinks Memorial Day is a day to honor our nation’s veterans, not a day for political posturing.”

In Obama’s political-posturing-free campaign event in New Mexico (the one attended by fallen heroes), managed:

• To criticize the quality of treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in female veterans,
• To attack the President for his promised veto of the “GI Bill for a 21st century,”
• To hint at a prosecution of security contractor Blackwater, and
• To assert that the funding for the war in Iraq must be cut off in order to pay for roads, bridges, broadband, jobs programs, and (ha!) middle-class tax cuts.

I doubt they even see the irony. After all, Obama is The Only Man Who Can Heal Our Souls. When he does it, it’s not posturing, it’s gospel.

Barack Obama:

Since the Bush Administration launched a misguided war in Iraq, its policy in the Americas has been negligent toward our friends, ineffective with our adversaries, disinterested in the challenges that matter in peoples’ lives, and incapable of advancing our interests in the region.

No wonder, then, that demagogues like Hugo Chavez have stepped into this vacuum. His predictable yet perilous mix of anti-American rhetoric, authoritarian government, and checkbook diplomacy offers the same false promise as the tried and failed ideologies of the past.

(Emphasis mine.)  (Via LGF.)

So, Hugo Chavez stepped into the vacuum created by the war in Iraq, did he?  Neat trick, since Chavez was elected in December 1998 and the war in Iraq began in March 2003.

POSTSCRIPT: I’m sure the Obama spin will be that Chavez didn’t fully step into the vacuum until later (when the vacuum existed), so let’s look at a few more dates:  Chavez took office in February 1999.  He amended the constitution in December 1999.  He was re-elected in July 2000.  Shortly thereafter, he was given the power to rule by decree.  Surely even the spin doctors will admit Chavez was fully in power by the time he became a dictator.

POST-POSTSCRIPT: Speaking of neglect toward our friends in the Americas, how about the Democrats killing the free-trade pact with Colombia for no reason whatsoever?

Barack Obama, on May 22:

I would be willing to initiate such talks with leaders of countries adversarial to the United States. There would be a lot of preparation. The first steps would not be to pre-judge all the items on the list. . .

One of the obvious high priorities in my talks with President Hugo Chavez would be the fermentation of anti-American sentiment in Latin America, his support of FARC in Colombia and other issues he would want to talk about. It is important to understand that ignoring these countries has not led to improved behavior on their part and it has not served our national security interests.

May 23:

[Obama] promised to punish any South American government that gives support to the Colombian rebel group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, an indirect reference to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

“We will shine a light on any support for the FARC that comes from neighboring governments,” he said. “This behavior must be exposed to international condemnation, regional isolation, and — if need be — strong sanctions. It must not stand.”

(Emphasis mine.)  (Via Political Punch, via Instapundit.)

So Obama will simultaneously isolate Chavez, and also meet with him on topics of his choosing.  Neat trick.

Politico reports that many (anonymous) GOP strategists are very optimistic about McCain’s chances in November, due to favorable circumstances in the Electoral College. I’m not remotely ready to buy into it, but it’s an pleasurable read. Here’s hoping.  (Via Power Line.)

One of the biggest disappointments of Bush’s second term has been the performance of Condoleezza Rice since moving to Foggy Bottom.  The State Department is in desperate need of reform, and I had hoped that Rice would be the one to do it.  Alas, it seemed instead that she went native.

In the cover story for the next Weekly Standard, Stephen Hayes writes that we don’t know the half of it.  Hayes reports that Rice was central to the fall of the Bush doctrine, and also that she opposed the surge, which is easily the most important success of Bush’s second term.  The article is unsummarizable, so I’ll leave you to read it.  (Via Power Line.)

This is bizarre:

Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama.

“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it,” she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

Usually when liberals talk, I at least have some idea what they’re trying to say.  Not this time.

Obama’s campaign fired back, which illustrates their inexperience, I think.  When your opponent says something this bizarre, you just want to stand back and watch.

(Via the Corner.)

Fox News has a piece on tall tales told by Barack Obama (third in a series that started with Clinton and McCain). Most of them I’ve heard before (e.g., it’s not true that Obama doesn’t take money from lobbyists), but I thought this one was interesting:

5. Nuclear Legislation, Dec. 30, 2007
During a campaign event in Newton, Iowa, Obama touted his sponsorship of a bill in the Senate that required nuclear power plant owners to notify authorities immediately of all radioactive leaks, no matter how small.

Non-truth: That was “the only nuclear legislation that I’ve passed” he told the crowd.

Truth: Obama had rewritten the bill to ease its passage and removed the language requiring the reporting of leaks. The bill died when it reached the full Senate, and did not pass as he claimed.

Why lie about a matter of public record?  Doesn’t that seem kinda stupid?

Charles Krauthammer writes about how Obama’s foreign-policy gaffe at the YouTube debate has transformed itself into doctrine, due to Obama’s inability ever to admit a mistake:

Before the Democratic debate of July 23, Barack Obama had never expounded upon the wisdom of meeting, without precondition, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong Il or the Castro brothers. But in that debate, he was asked about doing exactly that. Unprepared, he said sure — then got fancy, declaring the Bush administration’s refusal to do so not just “ridiculous” but “a disgrace.”

After that, there was no going back. So he doubled down. What started as a gaffe became policy. By now, it has become doctrine. Yet it remains today what it was on the day he blurted it out: an absurdity.

(Via Power Line.)

Meanwhile, Power Line posts what a thoughtful answer to the question might have sounded like, courtesy of Nixon and JFK.

Last April, Harry Reid promised to move three judges before Memorial Day.  He didn’t.  Republicans are angry, but I hope they’re not surprised.

In a feat of chutzpah, Reid blames Republicans for stalling.  The substance of the stalling allegation is the treatment of Helene White.  White was nominated at the request of Democratic senators, and her hearing was held almost immediately (while other well-qualified and thoroughly vetted nominees languished), even before the ABA’s report was in.  Pat Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the committee, has a rule that no vote can be held until the ABA report is received.  Yet Reid nevertheless moved her nomination early and blames the GOP when she wasn’t prematurely confirmed.

(Via the Corner.)

David Ranson, head of research at Wainwright Economics, has an amazing op-ed piece in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal. Most of us have heard of the Laffer Curve, which is based on the unarguable proposition that the government will collect no revenue when tax rates are 0% or 100%, and that revenue peaks somewhere in the middle. When tax rates are to the right of the peak, tax cuts make money and tax hikes lose money.

The question has always been, where on the Laffer Curve are we? Clearly there is no sense in tax rates that are past the revenue peak. Moreover, (lest it be forgotten) the government’s purpose is not to maximize tax revenue. If taxes are discouraging economic activity so much that we are even close to the peak, taxes are much too high. The problem is that the Laffer Curve is not really a fixed function that we can plot; it’s very difficult to determine what the result of a change in tax rates will be.

Enter Kurt Hauser, who made a remarkable discovery in 1993 that, even more remarkably, has not been well publicized. As Ranson explains in his op-ed, over the last half century, revenues have remained roughly constant at 19.5% of GDP despite wildly varying tax rates. He calls this Hauser’s Law, and shows that it has continued to operate in the years since Hauser discovered it.

Hauser’s Law is more compelling than the Laffer Curve it part because it is empirical (the Laffer Curve posits a theoretical relationship, but does not spell out the actual shape of the curve), and in part because it is so shockingly simple (a horizontal line). And it’s lesson is clear:

Forget about generating more revenue through tax hikes; it won’t work. Clinton’s big tax increase isn’t even visible on the revenue graph, and neither are Kennedy’s and Reagan’s massive tax cuts. If you want more government revenue, the only way to do it is to grow the economy, which is what supply-siders have been saying all along.

UPDATE (3/24/2010): Hauser’s report is on-line here.

Okay, I suppose we knew that already, but he’s outdone himself now. In a recent column, Buchanan lays the fault for World War 2 at the feet of . . . Poland. (Via LGF.)

Why did the tanks roll? Because Poland refused to negotiate over Danzig, a Baltic port of 350,000 that was 95 percent German and had been taken from Germany at the Paris peace conference of 1919, in violation of Wilson’s 14 Points and his principle of self-determination.

Hitler had not wanted war with Poland. He had wanted an alliance with Poland in his anti-Comintern pact against Joseph Stalin.

But the Poles refused to negotiate. Why? Because they were a proud, defiant, heroic people and because Neville Chamberlain had insanely given an unsolicited war guarantee to Poland. If Hitler invaded, Chamberlain told the Poles, Britain would declare war on Germany.

From March to August 1939, Hitler tried to negotiate Danzig. But the Poles, confident in their British war guarantee, refused. So, Hitler cut his deal with Stalin, and the two invaded and divided Poland.

The cost of the war that came of a refusal to negotiate Danzig was millions of Polish dead, the Katyn massacre, Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz, the annihilation of the Home Army in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, and 50 years of Nazi and Stalinist occupation, barbarism and terror.

Buchanan seems to be saying that there would have been no Second World War, if only the Poles had negotiated away Danzig. (The Poles actually did negotiate over Danzig, but I guess not early enough or earnestly enough to suit Adolf Hitler or Pat Buchanan.) Danzig would have been Hitler’s last conquest — we are to believe — and with it achieved he would have set aside his lifelong dreams of lebensraum. But poor, poor Hitler; those unreasonable Poles refused to hand it over.

It truly takes a special sort of person to argue that appeasement would have worked with Hitler, if only we had done a little bit more of it. Bravo, Pat Buchanan.

(POSTSCRIPT: If the President’s speech achieved nothing else, it sure has turned out the idiots.)

Is there any length to which Barack Obama will not go to avoid admitting a mistake? ABC News writes about his shifting position on negotiations with Iran:

“I have to say I completely disagree that people have been walking back from anything,” Obama said. “They may be correcting the characterizations or distortions of John McCain or others of what I said. What I said was I would meet with our adversaries, including Iran, including Venezuela, including Cuba, including North Korea, without preconditions, but that does not mean without preparation.”

On CNN, Tuesday, Obama echoed [advisor Susan] Rice, saying he may not meet with Ahmadinejad.

“I think this obsession with Ahmadinejad is an example of us losing track of what’s important,” he said. “I would be willing to meet with Iranian leaders if we had done sufficient preparations for that meeting.

(Emphasis mine.) (Via LGF.) So, there would have to be preparations before a meeting could occur. That is precisely what a precondition is:

pre·con·di·tion

n. A condition that must exist or be established before something can occur or be considered; a prerequisite.

How does Obama explain the difference between a precondition and something that merely has to happen before an event can occur?

Last week, in South Dakota, Obama sought to explain what he meant at last July’s debate when he agreed to meetings “without preconditions.”

“Preconditions, as it applies to a country like Iran, for example, was a term of art because this administration has been very clear that it will not have direct negotiations with Iran until Iran has met preconditions that are, essentially, what Iran views and many other observers would view as the subject of the negotiations,” Obama told reporters.

I see. At the YouTube debate, Obama wasn’t using the word for its usual English meeting; it was a “term of art” that conveniently means something far less embarrassing now. (This is risible already, but lets not forget that Obama didn’t even use the word himself. The word was used in a question asked by a citizen in a YouTube video. How Obama can project his “term of art” into another person’s question is quite beyond me.)

An ordinary person might admit that he was overly hasty in answering the question, but not Obama.

At 2:30 Eastern, Charles Johnson posts that Obama’s opening act, the Decemberists, is known for opening their concerts with the Soviet National anthem. He links Wikipedia as his source.

You may not see that information there, because it was deleted at 3:22 Eastern. The cited justification for the anonymous edit is “Removing uncited statement.”

So, is it true?  It took me 10 seconds of googling to find this YouTube video, which has been up for over a year.

Forget water, food, and medicine, what the cyclone victims really need is condoms.  (Via the Corner.)

DC police officers will now be armed with AR-15 rifles.  Mind you, not SWAT units, which have had assault rifles for years, but routine patrols.  The AR-15 is essentially the same weapon as the M-16, the Army’s main rifle, the only significant difference being that the AR-15 will not fire burst/auto.

In other words, the District of Columbia is going to start using soldiers to patrol the streets.  Actually, that’s not quite fair, since DC police haven’t the training or professionalism of real American soldiers.

(Via Reason, via Instapundit.)

Iowahawk tracks the GOP from 1994 to 2008.  (Via Transterrestrial Musings.)

The most darkly funny headline of the day: U.N. Coming Cleaner? Ban Ki-Moon Presses Top Officials on Corruption Probes, Wants Less Public Disclosure.

Beset by scandals surrounding the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has decided to tighten the reins on anti-corruption and ethics investigations across his sprawling organization — even while trying to keep those investigation results from the general public.

The decision by Ban marks a major reversal of course from less than a year ago, when he announced that the U.N. Secretariat “does not enjoy the jurisdiction” over protection of whistle-blowers who expose wrongdoing at UNDP, the U.N.’s development arm, or other agencies in the labyrinthine U.N. system. . .

In the midst of all the controversy, Ban told a meeting of top-level U.N. officials in Switzerland three weeks ago that he has suddenly seen the wisdom of a single set of standards in those sensitive areas, at least when it comes to the U.N. investigating itself. . .

Even while Ban is asking the U.N. to toe the line on investigating itself, he wants fewer outsiders to know the outcome. Among other things, he said, he wanted copies of U.N. system-wide audits to be available to nations that asked for them — but only if governments would keep them confidential. The U.S. mission to the U.N., for one, has in the past put Secretariat audits on its local Web site for public review.

The article paints this as two developments at odds with each other. Would it be too cynical to wonder if there’s another interpretation; that perhaps one of the investigations is getting close to the Secretary-General’s office?

In an interview with Wolf Blitzer, Obama advisor Susan Rice tries to defend Obama’s shifting position on unconditional negotiation with Iran:

BLITZER: How does Senator Obama defend that decision to meet without preconditions with a leader like Ahmadinejad?

RICE: Well, first of all, he said he would meet with the appropriate Iranian leaders. He hasn’t named who that leader will be. It may in fact be that, by the middle next of year, Ahmadinejad is long gone. There will be elections in Iran.

And again:

BLITZER: So, let’s be precise, because what they criticize Barack Obama, not only John McCain, but others, for suggesting that he would meet without preconditions with Ahmadinejad, who only last week on Israel’s 60th anniversary called Israel a stinking corpse. The question that they ask is, what is Barack Obama going to talk with him about?

(CROSSTALK)

RICE: Well, first of all, as I said, it will be the appropriate Iranian leadership at the appropriate time, not necessarily Ahmadinejad.

(Via Power Line and the Weekly Standard.)

It’s interesting that Rice realizes how radioactive (so to speak) Ahmedinejad is, so she wants to back off the promise to meet with him in particular. This doesn’t really help though. Ahmedinejad is in power at least until August 2009, so there is no way that he will be “long gone” by the middle of 2009. Moreover, Ahmedinejad is basically selected by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who controls the candidate list. So if Ahmedinejad isn’t “re-elected,” it’s only because Khamenei has found someone else he likes better.

Question: is Susan Rice really the sort of person who would make this her first line of argument without even finding out when Ahmedinejad’s term ends? Or is she simply lying?

Later, Rice accuses McCain of “distortion” for quoting Obama accurately:

BLITZER: And just to clear up, there’s no hard and fast commitment he would in fact if he were president meet in that first year with any of these leaders [Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, or Syria]?

RICE: He said he’s willing to meet with these leaders, obviously, after preparation and at the appropriate time and when and as it serves our interests.

These are distortions, Wolf, that John McCain has found convenient because he knows that, if the American people are allowed to focus on his failed policies and that of George Bush, they won’t have a chance in this election. It’s all politics. And they continue to distort Barack Obama’s words and his intentions.

It’s a “distortion” to say that Obama would meet with those leaders in his first year, is it?

QUESTION: Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries? . . .

OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous.

(Emphasis mine.)

Obama can “clarify” if he likes, but he is not being distorted. And as regards Susan Rice: no man (or woman) is more a scoundrel than the one who lies when calling another man a liar.

John Bolton has an insightful op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on the limitations of negotiation, and the foolishness of Barack Obama:

At first glance, the idea of sitting down with adversaries seems hard to quarrel with. In our daily lives, we meet with competitors, opponents and unpleasant people all the time. Mr. Obama hopes to characterize the debate about international negotiations as one between his reasonableness and the hard-line attitude of a group of unilateralist GOP cowboys.

The real debate is radically different. On one side are those who believe that negotiations should be used to resolve international disputes 99% of the time. That is where I am, and where I think Mr. McCain is. On the other side are those like Mr. Obama, who apparently want to use negotiations 100% of the time. It is the 100%-ers who suffer from an obsession that is naïve and dangerous.

Negotiation is not a policy. It is a technique. Saying that one favors negotiation with, say, Iran, has no more intellectual content than saying one favors using a spoon. For what? Under what circumstances? With what objectives? On these specifics, Mr. Obama has been consistently sketchy.

Like all human activity, negotiation has costs and benefits. If only benefits were involved, then it would be hard to quarrel with the “what can we lose?” mantra one hears so often. In fact, the costs and potential downsides are real, and not to be ignored.

Bolton goes on to discuss the potential costs of negotiation.  Read the whole thing.

Fried food will be banned at the Democratic convention.  Also banned: bottled water and all non-organic food, unless it’s locally grown.  (Via the Corner.)

The announcement came around the same time as Barack Obama raised eyebrows by implying support for controls on Americans’ diets.

The LA Times finds that in Los Angeles most red-light camera tickets are for rolling right turns, which carry minimal safety risk:

In Los Angeles, officials estimate that 80% of red light camera tickets go not to those running through intersections but to drivers making rolling right turns, a Times review has found. . .  One of the most powerful selling points for photo enforcement systems . . . has been the promise of reducing collisions caused by drivers barreling through red lights.

But it is the right-turn infraction — a frequently misunderstood and less pressing safety concern — that drives tickets and revenue in the nation’s second-biggest city and at least half a dozen others across the county.

Some researchers and traffic engineers question the enforcement strategy.

“I’ve never . . . seen any studies that suggest red light cameras would be a good safety intervention to reduce right-turning accidents,” said Mark Burkey, a researcher at North Carolina A&T State University who has studied photo enforcement collision patterns. . .

“We’re kind of very leery about right turns. . . . They’re not really unsafe per se,” said Pasadena’s senior traffic engineer, Norman Baculinao. Only one of that city’s seven camera-equipped intersection approaches is set up to monitor right-turn violations, he said.

“This is intended to be a traffic safety program. People who make right turns generally are going at a low speed,” and resulting accidents tend to be a “sideswipe at most,” he said.

Emphasizing those violations, Baculinao said, would be “more for revenue generation” than safety.

(Via Instapundit.)  (Previous post.)

At least, that seems to be what he’s saying:

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.

(Via Instapundit.)

Perhaps it would be simplest if Obama would give us a list of the parts of our lives where we would keep individual autonomy, rather than the ones where he would take it away.

But whatever you do, don’t call him a socialist!

Obama adds another rule, saying it is “unacceptable” to criticize his wife for her incredible statements. And there’s so much to criticize, not just her infamous for-the-first-time-I’m-proud-of-America remark.

Obama will probably get away with this, because he always does, but it’s incredible to me. Michelle Obama is not a political wife in the model of Laura Bush, Kitty Dukakis, Nancy Reagan, etc. She is a campaign surrogate, like Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Dole. Her political remarks cannot be off-limits. Obama’s real problem is that, unlike most of his surrogates, she cannot be disavowed.

UPDATE: Rachel Lucas puts it in her own inimitable way.

According to the AP.  Wow.  It’s hard to know what to say.

Time also reports that Nancy Pelosi’s position on Iraq is even more extreme than that of Moqtada al-Sadr:

Pelosi is something of a nonentity to average Iraqis. If they know who she is at all, she is generally seen as an antiwar caricature figure, someone whose views on U.S. troop withdrawals are widely considered unrealistic. Pelosi has said she wants to see most U.S. troops withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the 2008, a time frame virtually no Iraqi political leader sees as feasible. Not even Mahdi Army militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, the fiercest advocate of a U.S. withdrawal on the scene, has called for such a rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces. Rather, Sadr contends that the Americans should simply announce a reasonable timetable for the departure of U.S. forces.

(Emphasis mine.)  (Via Gateway Pundit.)  (Of course, I’m stipulating here that Time knows what they are talking about, which is generally a dubious proposition.)

Next, Time tries to bash the administration, but it doesn’t quite come off:

But for all of Pelosi’s unpopularity, in many ways she got a nicer arrival treatment than the last senior female American official to appear in Baghdad, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rice slipped into Iraq in January much the same way Pelosi did today — stealthily, with a terse confirmation by the U.S. embassy offering few details of the agenda. But within hours of Rice’s arrival, TV news was crackling with word of it, and soon thereafter a volley of mortars fell on the Green Zone in an obvious message from Rice’s detractors. No rockets or mortars were heard heading into the Green Zone today as word of Pelosi’s presence hit the Iraqi airwaves in what amounted to a daytime news blip.

So the enemy wants to kill Rice, but not Pelosi.  Since Rice wants to destroy them whereas Pelosi wants to give them what they want, this isn’t the least bit surprising.

UPI reports:

A Dutch cartoonist has been arrested following a lengthy investigation into allegations his work was discriminatory to other races, authorities say.

Radio Netherlands said Friday that the artist, who works under the pseudonym Gregorius Nekschot, was arrested and had a number of his materials seized as part of the ongoing investigation.

The investigation into Nekschot, who has kept his identity hidden since 2005, was initially brought about after an imam complained about the artist’s works.

Today’s Europe: Disparage Islam and go to jail.

(Via LGF.)

What a difference four years and a different candidate makes. In 2004, military service was the sine qua non of a Presidential candidate. In 2008, when McCain has it and the Dems don’t, it’s a minus, of course. The only question is how to make that case with a straight face.

The New York Times takes a stab at it, aided by the fact that in print no one can see your face. Basically, the NYT’s argument is that the value of McCain’s service is negated by his time as a POW, because he missed the real Vietnam experience. Seriously. This is possibly even stupider that the LA Times’s argument that McCain shouldn’t be President because he’s receiving a disability pension (for injuries received as a POW).

Meanwhile, fake war hero Tom Harkin argues that while it’s okay for a President to have some military experience, he really oughn’t have too much. Better none at all than too much.

Mark Steyn gives both efforts their due mockery. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Fake war hero Tom Harkin says there was no bloodbath after the US abandoned Vietnam.  (Via Instapundit.)

April 11:

Obama declines to criticize Carter on Hamas

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Friday it was not his place to criticize former President Jimmy Carter if he were to meet with Hamas, although Obama said he would not meet with the militant Palestinian group. . .

“I’m not going to comment on former President Carter. He’s a private citizen. It’s not my place to discuss who he shouldn’t meet with,” Obama told reporters while campaigning in Indianapolis.

April 16:

Obama criticizes ex-President Carter’s Hamas meeting

Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama on Wednesday disagreed with former President Jimmy Carter’s overtures toward Hamas, saying he would not talk to the Islamist group until it recognized Israel and renounced terrorism. . .

“That’s why I have a fundamental difference with President Carter and disagree with his decision to meet with Hamas,” Obama said.

I’d love to hear the spin for this one.

(Via LGF.)

Glenn Reynolds notes an article reporting on Tennessee state troopers caught speeding by automatic traffic cameras. The cameras fail to extend “professional courtesy” the way most any human cop would.

Sounds like a story of poetic justice, right? But then there’s the last line of the article:

State Safety Department spokesman Mike Browning said Thursday the Patrol will pay the speeding fines.

So when the troopers break the law, the state pays their fines.  Yeah, that’ll show them.

Interpol reports on its authentication of the captured FARC files implicating Chavez. Chavez responds by calling the Interpol chief names:

Chavez has denied providing the FARC material support, but did not address the issue directly on Thursday. Instead, he called Interpol’s secretary general, Ronald Noble, “a tremendous actor,” “Mr. Ignoble” and an “immoral police officer who applauds killers.”

Andrew Malcolm at the LA Times catches Obama embellishing his tale about standing up to the Detroit auto makers.  (Via Instapundit.)  I’m not sure this is as embarrassing as Malcolm thinks, but it is another example of dishonest politics-as-usual from the man who his followers say will heal our souls.

The farm bill, which passed the House today, gives $257 million to one particular company. I thought the Democrats were supposed to be against “corporate welfare.”  For that matter, I thought the Republicans (who voted 100-91 for the bill) were supposed to be against pork.

Sigh.

Washington’s ballot initiative I-985 is sheer genius. Supporters of red-light cameras (which we do not have in my state, thank heavens), claim that they are about safety. They are lying. Red-light cameras exist to generate revenue, and that’s all. We can see this from all the red-light cameras that are shut down for losing money. Also, they usually hurt safety, since municipalities can’t resist shortening yellow lights to generate more revenue.

That’s why I-985 is sheer genius. I-985 would allow red-light cameras, but would assign any revenue they generate to the state, thereby removing any financial incentive for them. If they were really about safety, this wouldn’t discourage municipalities from using them. So what’s happening?

[Wenatchee] Mayor Dennis Johnson says Tim Eyman’s red-light camera initiative could delay the cameras’ arrival in Wenatchee. . .

“Quite frankly I have no problem with the money being used locally for traffic-congestion projects,” Johnson said Tuesday night. “But there is no way the city of Wenatchee will become a tax collector for the state of Washington. It certainly is not acceptable from my point of view.” . . .

Johnson said if the council were to approve the cameras and I-985 passed, the city might stop using them because the money would not go completely toward local projects. He also said it is possible the council would wait to see what happens with Eyman’s initiative before it makes a decision. . .

In February officials in Aberdeen cited I-985 as the reason for dropping discussion on red-light cameras there.

(Via No Silence Here, via Instapundit.)

More woes for the Martin Luther King memorial:

A federal investigation is under way into the organization raising funds for a memorial to the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in the nation’s capital, according to two people interviewed as part of the inquiry. . .

The scope of the inquiry is not clear, but it seems to focus on whether the foundation was obliged to follow federal procurement rules, including competitive bidding and so-called “Buy American” policies favoring domestic sources. The foundation is largely supported by private donations, but it received almost $10 million from the federal government in 2006.

(Via Instapundit.)

Plus, there’s continuing complaints about whether the design and manner of construction of the memorial are worthy of the slain civil rights icon.  Lei Yixin, the sculptor selected for the project who is best known for his official statues of Mao Zedong, probably didn’t help his case by defending Mao:

“He isn’t as bad as some people think,” the artist told [Cox Newspapers], while acknowledging that the man who led China from 1949 to 1976 “had made some mistakes.”

About 40 million of them.

(Previous post.)

At a town meeting in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Obama claims that the Iraq war is hurting our efforts in Afghanistan, because it’s tying up all our Arabic translators. (Via Gateway Pundit, via Instapundit.) Observers found his argument a bit weak, since they don’t speak Arabic in Afghanistan. (The Arab-speaking world runs from Morocco to Iraq.)

Halfway through his statement, Obama realizes his mistake, but true to form, he cannot admit it:

Obviously, they may not speak Arabic, but the various dialects that they speak in Afghanistan — often times people will speak Urdu or Pashtun or whatever the languages are — they’re going to be needed in those areas and a lot of them have ended up being placed elsewhere.

(Transcript mine.) Unless he thinks that Urdu and Pashtun are dialects of Arabic, this makes no sense at all. In fact, Urdu is mostly closely related to Hindi, and there is absolutely no shortage of people who could translate between English and Hindi.

The pushback on this is fascinating. A commenter at Gateway Pundit claims that this wasn’t a gaffe; Obama was right because the foreign fighters in Afghanistan mostly speak Arabic. That’s an interesting point (although I think that many of the foreign fighters are Pakistani), but rather a silly one since we have very little to say to those people. Translators are for dealing with the native population, not the people we are trying to kill.

One wants to dismiss this as just a foolish blog commenter, but it turns out that he was simply parroting the talking points of the Obama campaign. Sheesh. They would do better just to admit the mistake and move on. It’s obvious from the video that he recognized his mistake and tried to cover, so why do they try after the fact to claim that he was right? Why are they so committed to Obama’s inerrancy over there?

POSTSCRIPT: Another Gateway Pundit commenter suggests that all Muslims speak Arabic since they’re taught to read the Koran. I’m no expert, but this seems very doubtful to me. First of all, I think it’s much more common to memorize the Koran than to learn to read it (literacy in Afghanistan is only 51% even among males). But even among those who do learn Arabic for the Koran, I’d be surprised if it gave them a working ability to communicate in modern Arabic on topics of interest to our troops, in such numbers that it would be worth sending translators.

The crack reporting staff of CNN has reeled in a major scoop: Superdelegates could determine race between Clinton, Obama.

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

A St. Cloud State University student in a teacher-training program at Technical High School left the school in late April because he says he feared for the safety of his service dog. . .

Hurd said a student threatened to kill his service dog named Emmitt. The black lab is trained to protect Hurd when he has seizures. The seizures, which can occur weekly, are from a childhood injury. The dog has a pouch on his side that assists those who stop to help Hurd. . .

The threat came from a Somali student who is Muslim, according to Hurd, St. Cloud State and school district officials. The Muslim faith, which is the dominant faith of Somali immigrants, forbids the touching of dogs.

Hurd trained at Talahi Community School and Tech. He said his experience at Talahi was good. The Somali students there warmed to the dog and eventually petted him using paper to keep their hands off his fur, Hurd said. Things didn’t go as well at Tech, Hurd said. Students there taunted his dog, and he finally felt he had to leave after he was told a student made a threat. . .

Steffens said it is important to respect different cultures and the rights of disabled students. “I think this is part of the growth process when we become more diverse,” Steffens said.

(Via the Corner.)

What do we do when those “different cultures” and the rights of the disabled are in direct conflict? I’ll give you a hint: they didn’t expel the student who made the threat. (The school district decided that the incident was a “misunderstanding.”) Instead, they waived Hurd’s remaining 10 hours of training.

(Previous post.)

Rich Lowry explains the rules of this election:

Here are the Obama rules in detail: He can’t be called a “liberal” (“the same names and labels they pin on everyone,” as Obama puts it); his toughness on the war on terror can’t be questioned (“attempts to play on our fears”); his extreme positions on social issues can’t be exposed (“the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives” and “turn us against each other”); and his Chicago background too is off-limits (“pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy”). Besides that, it should be a freewheeling and spirited campaign.

Glenn Reynolds quips, “They kind of remind me of Calvinball. Perhaps the election will end ‘Q to 12.'” You know, I think I’ve seen that result in a few Zogby polls. . .

Seriously though, Reynolds is on to something. It does seem like playing a game with a preschooler. Invariably, the preschooler will layer on additional rules (“you can’t move your feet” or “you can only use one hand”) until he can’t lose. The preschooler often gets away with it, too.

At long last, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is due today to be called to account for his part in the falsified House floor vote of August 2, 2007. (Via Instapundit.) The Washington Post thinks this is no big deal:

The events of that day have been long forgotten by all but the most partisan of Republicans or the wonkiest of C-SPAN watchers.

Right, because no one else cares about the integrity of floor votes in the US House of Representatives.

(Previous post.)

Jake Tapper has an amusing post about Obama’s propensity to disavow his staff.  (Via the Corner.)

The New York Times has a strange op-ed by Edward Luttwak musing on the geopolitical implications of Barack Obama as a Muslim apostate:

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian. . . His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive). With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress.

Luttwak goes on to muse that Obama’s status as an apostate would complicate American foreign policy, were he to be elected President, in part due to security considerations.

I don’t buy it. Any US President would be marked for death by the Islamic fundamentalists; there’s no difference there for Obama. The factor that will govern the success or failure of our foreign policy is whether or not we are viewed as strong and credible. That question (not his childhood biography) is what would complicate our foreign policy under an Obama administration.

ASIDE: Charles Johnson (via whom I found this piece) thinks he’s caught the Obama campaign in a lie here:

The Obama campaign, by the way, blatantly lied about Obama’s Muslim origins in a statement on January 23, 2007: . . .

To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago.

I think Johnson is being unfair. Muslim law may say that Obama was born a Muslim, but we don’t operate under Muslim law. (Indeed, this point is very important to Johnson!) In America, we choose our own faith. Absent any evidence that Obama was a practicing Muslim, I think it’s entirely fair for Obama to judge whether he ever accepted Islam’s precepts.

Stanley Kurtz has a devastating piece on Jeremiah Wright’s magazine, Trumpet. (Via LGF.) Here’s the open:

To the question of the moment–What did Barack Obama know and when did he know it?–I answer, Obama knew everything, and he’s known it for ages. Far from succumbing to surprise and shock after Jeremiah Wright’s disastrous performance at the National Press Club, Barack Obama must have long been aware of his pastor’s political radicalism. A careful reading of nearly a year’s worth of Trumpet Newsmagazine, Wright’s glossy national “lifestyle magazine for the socially conscious,” makes it next to impossible to conclude otherwise.

Wright founded Trumpet Newsmagazine in 1982 as a “church newspaper”–primarily for his own congregation, one gathers–to “preach a message of social justice to those who might not hear it in worship service.” So Obama’s presence at sermons is not the only measure of his knowledge of Wright’s views. Glance through even a single issue of Trumpet, and Wright’s radical politics are everywhere–in the pictures, the headlines, the highlighted quotations, and above all in the articles themselves. It seems inconceivable that, in 20 years, Obama would never have picked up a copy of Trumpet. In fact, Obama himself graced the cover at least once (although efforts to obtain that issue from the publisher or Obama’s interview with the magazine from his campaign were unsuccessful).

The New York Times reports that Obama has reversed his position on meeting with Iran without conditions. In typical form, however, the Obama campaign will not admit that his position has changed:

Susan E. Rice . . . a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic candidate, said that “for political purposes, Senator Obama’s opponents on the right have distorted and reframed” his views. Mr. McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly stated that Mr. Obama would be willing to meet “unconditionally” with Mr. Ahmadinejad.

But Dr. Rice said that this was not the case for Iran or any other so-called “rogue” state. Mr. Obama believes “that engagement at the presidential level, at the appropriate time and with the appropriate preparation, can be used to leverage the change we need,” Dr. Rice said. “But nobody said he would initiate contacts at the presidential level; that requires due preparation and advance work.”

(Emphasis mine.) Rice’s statement is completely clear: Obama never said it and McCain is lying. Charles Johnson ran down the facts, which turned out to be really easy. Obama made the statement unambiguously in a public debate (video at LGF):

QUESTION: In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since.

In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?

COOPER: I should also point out that Stephen is in the crowd tonight.

Senator Obama?

OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous.

(APPLAUSE)

(Emphasis mine.)  Unless Rice is trying to draw a distinction between “unconditionally” and “without precondition,” she’s the one being dishonest.  (ASIDE: It’s ridiculous to suggest that the idea that the above is a principle of the administration at all, much less its “guiding principle.”)

There’s also Obama’s own web site: “Diplomacy: Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions.”

The only question now is whether Rice gets disavowed.  I hope not; this flip-flop is actually good from a policy standpoint.

New York City’s lawsuit against a Georgia gun shop has become even more bizarre.  Mayor Bloomberg is asking the judge to issue a gag order barring any references to the Second Amendment.  (Via Instapundit.)

Exhibit A:

I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.

Exhibit B:

One of Barack Obama’s Middle East policy advisers disclosed yesterday that he had held meetings with the militant Palestinian group Hamas – prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him.

(Via the Corner.)

POSTSCRIPT: As many have pointed out, Obama is confused about WW2. Roosevelt and Truman did not meet with our enemies. With a policy of unconditional surrender, there wasn’t much to talk about.

Matthew Yglesias complains about Victor Davis Hanson referring to Obama’s “socialist view of government.” (Strangely, though, he chooses to direct his attack at Glenn Reynolds.) Yglesias’s point is that Obama doesn’t advocate governmental ownership of the means of production, so it’s not fair to call him a socialist.

I can appreciate his point, in light of the regrettable tendency of our political culture to rob words of their meaning (e.g., “liberal”). Nevertheless, I think that Obama — and today’s left in general — does advocate a socialist view of government. Oh sure, he’s willing to let people continue to hold the title to their land, capital, and labor (after all, how else can we tax them for it?), but the government will tell them how to use it. The government doesn’t need to own the means of production, as long as they can control it.

Moreover, let’s not forget how much of the means of production (and distribution) the government does already own. Most of the highways, airports and mass transit, all of the airwaves, most of the schools, most sanitation services, the Postal Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and an enormous amount of land. I think it’s safe to say that Obama would privatize very little of that.

Obama not a socialist? Technically, perhaps, but it’s a distinction without much of a difference.

The Washington Post reports that the US Commission of Fine Arts is unhappy with changes that have been made to the design of a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. intended for the national mall. (Via the Corner.) I’m not conversant with the artistic jargon in their complaint, but looking at the picture, I can understand this complaint:

Its general design was approved by the seven-member federal commission [in 2006], based on drawings of the Stone of Hope that showed a more subtle image of King, from the waist up, as if he were emerging organically out of the rock, the commission said. . . Commission members said the sculpture “now features a stiffly frontal image, static in pose, confrontational in character,” Luebke wrote.

However, what truly resonates with me is an older complaint also mentioned in the article.  This statue of the premiere civil-rights leader of 20th-century America is being fashioned in . . . China.  Not only that, but the sculptor’s most famous previous work is a monument to Mao Zedong, the infamous Chinese dictator who murdered tens of millions.

Ellen at Armchair Commentary discusses her five favorite teachers in the movies. (Via Instapundit.) I agree with her winner, Mark Thackeray (Sidney Poitier) in To Sir, with Love. My second favorite, which she ranks third, is Jaime Escalante (Edward James Olmos) in Stand and Deliver. Stand and Deliver is particularly compelling, because it is based on a true story. (90% truth and 10% drama, Escalante says.) What I didn’t know, until I read the comments, was the sad postlude to the story.

The events of Stand and Deliver took place in 1982. In 1987, the year before the movie came out, Escalante’s math enrichment program reached its peak.  After that year, the program started to face difficulties, at the hands of the teachers’ union, jealous colleagues, and a new principal.  (The old principal, Henry Gradillas, had spearheaded efforts to improve academic standards at Garfield High School.  In 1987 he took a sabbatical to finish his doctorate, hoping afterward to return to Garfield.  Instead he was picked to supervise asbestos removal.)  Escalante left Garfield in 1991, and his handpicked successor, Angelo Villavicencio, left the following year.

Within a few years, the percentage of students passing the AP exam dropped into single digits.  In absolute terms, 11 students passed the exam in 1996, down from a peak of 85 in 1987.  That year, Villavicencio offered to return to Garfield to rebuild its once-proud program.  His offer was declined.

In the end, Stand and Deliver isn’t just the story of how inner-city education can succeed; it’s also the story of why it so often doesn’t.