Internet Scofflaw

Michael Ramirez nails it:

(Via Power Line.)

Press release here.  (Via everbody.)

A new AP-Ipsos poll puts McCain and Obama tied at 45%. Clinton actually does better, leading McCain 48% to 45%. (Via Instapundit.) Polls at this point don’t matter much, but this does underline the folly of trying to make calculations based on electability. I’m supporting Hillary, not because I think she’s easier to beat, but because Obama is really scary.

A new Rasmussen poll shows that Americans are realistic about national health insurance; surprisingly so, given the impression promoted by the media. (Via Instapundit.)

• 39% oppose it, while 29% support it. 31% are not sure.
• 46% say the quality of health care would decrease, while only 16% say it would improve. 20% say it would stay about the same.
• 42% say the cost of health care would increase, while 25% say it would decrease.

So a strong plurality believes that national health insurance would make care more expensive but worse. The partisan breakdown is more bad news for supporters:

• Democrats support it by only a 35% to 26% margin.
• Independents support it at the same rate as Republicans (just 25%), but are slightly more likely to be unsure (39%) than oppose it (35%).

An older poll says that while only 31% rate American health care as good or excellent, most (72%) of those with insurance are happy with their own coverage. (83% of those surveyed had insurance.)

Another older poll said that half of Americans support providing coverage to everyone, but that number drops to 31% if people would be required to give up their insurance for a government plan.

This is a body blow to nationalized health insurance. It also perhaps gives some explanation for Hillary Clinton’s difficulties. Her top issue turns out to be a loser.

It strikes me that for the nationalizers to have any shot, they need to convince people that they can keep their own insurance. It wouldn’t be true (how many employers would keep offering insurance when they could leave it to the government?), but with the media’s help, maybe they could pull it off. However, this poll shows that the media’s support has not been especially influential.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune blows the whistle on a taxpayer-funded Islamic school.  (Via LGF.)

Occasionally you see a story that is so bizarre, so unfair, you can scarcely believe it: More South Korean army cadets view America as their main enemy than North Korea. (Via the Tank.)

We protect their country from the north for half a century, asking nothing in return, and this is the thanks we get? We could use those troops elsewhere in the world; maybe we should. (Yes, I realize that it doesn’t serve our interests to allow Kim Jong-il to conquer the south and get a new lease on life, but it can’t hurt to talk about it. Maybe it could shock them to their senses.)

Terry Pell, for the National Association of Scholars, reports that the lawsuit (now dismissed) over the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative has brought out some very interesting pre-trial discovery. (Via the Corner.) Michigan’s claims in court that affirmative action admits were doing fine appear to have been false:

Last fall, [UCLA Law Professor Richard] Sander had submitted his preliminary findings to the court, including the revelation that minority students at the UM Law School failed the bar at more than eight times the rate of white students during the years 2004, 2005 and 2006.

According to Sander, this data contradicted sworn testimony by UM experts during the trial in Grutter v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court case challenging the use of race-based admissions at the UM law school. . . UM Professor Richard Lempert testified that, “not to put too fine a point on it, Michigan graduates pass the bar. . . I think there might of have been a statistically significant difference favoring whites, but it was substantively sort of completely trivial.”

Sanders was also able to analyze the performance of minorities before and after the MCRI:

Undergraduate blacks at the UM who were admitted without a preference had a graduation rate of 93% — higher than the rate for comparable white students, and far higher than the graduation rate of the school as a whole. In stark contrast, UM undergraduate blacks who received a preference had a graduation rate of 47%.

When faced with the data that Sanders was uncovering, Michigan stopped cooperating. No wonder, Sanders’s evidence could have undermined their partial victory at the Supreme Court, and possibly could have even exposed Michigan’s witnesses to perjury charges.

Canadian free-speech martyr Ezra Levant summarizes.  (Via the Corner.)

Too bad free speech is a uniquely “American concept.” Canada could use some.

When faced with a conflict between African-Americans and illegal immigrants, what’s a poor liberal to do?

The testimony was riveting this morning before the Los Angeles City Council when a group of black residents pleaded with the 15 elected council members to rescind Special Order 40, the longtime local rule protecting illegal immigrants from arrest by the LAPD.

(Via Instapundit.)

How to resolve this sort of issue? If your party is based on a political philosophy, you can have a debate on the merits. But if your party is just a collection of tribes, it comes down to one voice against another.

(Previous post.)

UPDATE: The Corner has some background.

Hamas accuses al Qaeda of being too closely tied to Iran:

We found Iranian [currency], toman, at an Al-Qaeda headquarters that we uncovered. We have also captured Iranian weapons, not to mention audio and video recordings containing announcements by Al-Qaeda fighters that they had received training in Iranian military camps and that Al-Qaeda wounded were being transported to Iran for medical treatment. . .

The U.S. is our main enemy, but a more dangerous enemy is Iran. The U.S. wants [our] oil, and possibly it wants to establish military bases [on our soil], or to remain [in Iraq] for many years to come – while Iran wants to rule, [and] to eradicate and change [our] beliefs and ideas, [and] aspires to alter the demography of the Sunni regions, particularly Baghdad.

(Via Instapundit.)

Hamas needs to read the western media; then he’d know that al Qaeda can’t possibly have anything to do with Iran.

This is Zimbabwe reports.  (Via Instapundit.)  Looks like they’re serious about that other 75%.

Fox News has the story.  I’m telling you, in the zombie war, this guy will be trying to negotiate with Zack.

KDKA has the story.  Let’s hope that Uno’s Pizza is more enlightened about self-defense than Pizza Hut.

Cyril Wecht escapes jail again, this time with a hung jury in his fraud and corruption trial.  (Come on, who doesn’t use public employees to run personal errands?)  After two corruption trials, a road-rage incident in which he intentionally hit a pedestrian (a neighbor, in fact), and a reckless driving case in which he ran a woman off the road, his total legal consequences have been a $98 fine and a $200k civil judgement.

The Tartan, CMU’s own fish-wrapper, lands a minor scoop at Michelle Obama’s rally at the UC:

Some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama’s event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama. The Tartan’s correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, “Get me more white people, we need more white people.” To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, “We’re moving you, sorry. It’s going to look so pretty, though.”

“I didn’t know they would say, ‘We need a white person here,’ ” said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. “I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn’t know it would be so outright.”

This story got picked up throughout the conservative/libertarian blogosphere (LGF, the Weekly Standard, Instapundit, Gateway Pundit).  Honestly, though, I can’t see why anyone would be surprised by this.  Political rallies are always stage managed, and given the nature of Obama’s campaign — particularly in the wake of the Wright revelations — it’s no surprise that race is a big part of that management.  What I do find surprising is that the Tartan actually went off message here, if only briefly.

The Wall Street Journal has a shocking article about the state of the justice system in Italy.  In America, some commentators remark on the “contradiction” of falling crime rates “despite” more criminals being in prison.  In Italy, they tried the opposite strategy, and obtained the opposite result:

Less than two years ago, Italy’s prison system faced a crisis: Built to hold 43,000 inmates, it was straining to contain more than 60,000.

So the government crafted an emergency plan. It swung open the prison doors and let more than a third of the inmates go free.

Within months, bank robberies jumped by 20%. Kidnappings and fraud also rose, as did computer crime, arson and purse-snatchings. The prison population, however, fell so much that for awhile Italy had more prison guards than prisoners to guard.

Many crimes are essentially unenforced:

Italy’s 2006 prisoner pardon — which so far has allowed 27,000 inmates to go free — worked something like a discount coupon. It lopped three years off every prison sentence, except ones for terrorism, Mafia-related crimes and a few others. A previous law already allowed anyone serving less than three years to perform community service instead of going to jail. So now, just about anyone sentenced to six years in jail doesn’t have to serve a day. . .  “Someone who commits bribery, insider trading, tax evasion, false bookkeeping, what have you, is pretty much guaranteed to go free,” says Bruno Tinti, a prosecutor in Turin.

One reason this state of affairs can endure is it is fully exploited by the ruling class:

[Prime Minister] Berlusconi, who is also one of Italy’s richest men, was convicted in two of the cases brought against him, but the charges were all eventually overturned on appeal or tossed out because the statute of limitations had expired. . .

The system has been a boon for other politicians here as well. More than 20 of the 945 elected members of Parliament have been convicted of crimes including associating with organized crime and committing acts of terrorism.

Former Sicily governor Salvatore Cuffaro, for example, was recently convicted of aiding and abetting a known Mafioso. Mr. Cuffaro, whose case is on appeal, is expected to be elected to the Senate this month.

Plus: terrorists released on furlough, mafiosos too fat for prison, and a strategy for killing your wife.

Robert Mugabe is complaining of voting irregularities.

UPDATE: NPR has the audio up now.  Seek to 1:20.

Fox News has noticed the D.C. gun crackdown story that the blogosphere noticed two weeks ago. They do advance the story slightly with this gem, though:

[Police Chief] Lanier is optimistic that the program will achieve its most basic goal: ferreting out illegal guns while making the most of a limited police budget. “It is not costing us anything,” she said. “I think this is a great use of resources.”

What? Unless the police are doing this after-hours and off-the-clock, which they obviously are not, this is certainly costing something. (Never mind the flyers, legal fees, etc.) So Lanier evidently believes one of two things: (1) everyone is awfully stupid, or (2) her police have nothing else that they might be doing.

A few days ago I blogged the AP analysis showing a bleak outlook for Moqtada al-Sadr (and accordingly, a positive one for us).  Now, at the Corner, there’s another analysis that agrees with it.  Here’s hoping.

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

Two primary schools have withdrawn storybooks about same-sex relationships after objections from Muslim parents. . .

Bristol City Council said the two schools had been using the books to ensure they complied with gay rights laws which came into force last April. They were intended to help prevent homophobic bullying, it said.

A big problem among 5-year-olds, I understand. Had Christians complained (England still has some, I hear), they would probably have been brushed off, but when Muslims complain, there’s action:

But the council has since removed the books from Easton Primary School and Bannerman Road Community School, both in Bristol.

A book and DVD titled That’s a Family!, which teaches children about different family set-ups including gay or lesbian parents, has also been withdrawn.

I’ll bet the gays are pissed. You know, a consistent philosophy is good thing to have. Even the liberals are starting to notice that. Well, some of them.

UPDATE: Link fixed.

It’s well-known that the police typically refuse to enforce traffic and parking laws against their own.  They call it “professional courtesy,” rather than the more appropriate “dereliction of duty.”  They also extend that “courtesy” to spouses and other family members.

In California, public employees with the barest resemblance to law enforcement (museum guards, for example) in California wanted in on the action, and not by the expensive and unreliable expedient of giving to police charities in exchange for a sticker.  According to the Orange County Register, they got what they were looking for through a special license plate program.  (Via Instapundit.)

Power corrupts.  I guess we should be happy that they’re not out shaking people down.  Still, the government doesn’t need to wink at this.  A good start would be to make it illegal for mark a private car as belonging to a police officer.  I’m sure they would find a way around it, but at least we would be sending a message.

The Stranger (an extreme leftist alternative paper in Seattle) reports from a conference of Washington’s 43rd district Democrats:

There was some time to kill as multiple tallies of the delegates and alternates were done, and when the time-killer of taking audience questions had run its course and the idea of teling [sic] jokes had been nixed, someone suggested doing the Pledge of Allegiance to pass the time. (Are you listening, right-wing bloggers? This is going to get good.)

Yep.

At the mere mention of doing the pledge there were groans and boos. Then, when the district chair put the idea of doing the Pledge of Allegiance up to a vote, it was overwhelmingly voted down. One might more accurately say the idea of pledging allegiance to the flag (of which there was only one in the room, by the way, on some delegate’s hat) was shouted down.

(All emphasis original.)  (Via Instapundit.)

Nice.  I grew up in Seattle, just five blocks outside the 43rd district.  (The 46th is not too different.)  It’s sad to see how things have changed.  When I was growing up, the area was reliably liberal, but still patriotic.  We sent Scoop Jackson to the Senate for thirty years.  Now the area is best represented by Baghdad Jim McDermott.

Stephen Green’s title was so apt that I had to steal it. He notes the NYT’s latest effort to discredit Gen. Petraeus in advance of his testimony is to point out that he is “politically astute.” (Via Instapundit.) Green observes that one doesn’t become a general without being politically astute, which is certainly true. (Being good at leading a war effort is optional.)

But I think it goes further than that. To lead a war effort effectively now requires politics, and it has at least since the Tet Offensive. North Vietnam discovered that the way to defeat America is not to win on the ground — which cannot be done — but to target the media and useful idiots in Congress.  To win a war today (at least one lasting longer than the initial patriotic surge) requires political management, not just military management. Indeed, I suspect it has always been so, but the government used to hold a greater control over information that it does today.

Today’s Islamists have been playing by the very same playbook as North Vietnam, and the media are delighted to play their part.  For a general today, political astuteness is not a negative (as the NYT implies), nor merely inevitable (as Green suggests), but an absolutely essential quality if we are to win.  I suppose that’s why the NYT sees it as a negative.

Having insufficiently rigged the first round of voting, Mugabe is determined not to make the same mistake again:

Zimbabwe was bracing itself yesterday for the possibility that President Robert Mugabe, forced into an expected election runoff against his opposition challenger Morgan Tsvangirai, could mobilise an army of thugs to beat, intimidate and terrify voters, while taking emergency powers to vary the electoral regulations so as to make ballot-stuffing easier.

Both Britain and the United States are exercising strong diplomatic pressure on Mugabe not to follow this route. But some diplomatic observers believe that it may be the ageing despot’s only way of keeping his vow to die in State House.

Mugabe’s deputy information minister, Bright Matonga, who claimed last week that the president’s Zanu-PF party had let him down in the first round of voting, predicted a resounding victory in the second, saying: “We only applied 25% of our energy in the first round. That [the runoff] is when we are going to unleash the other 75%.”

(Via Instapundit.)

Oh dear, the first round was only 25% rigged?

Also, an explanation of why the official results matter; not because of the tally, but because the runoff can’t be scheduled until they’re released:

The official tally has yet to be declared and when MDC lawyers went to the High Court yesterday in an attempt to force an announcement, their way into the building was blocked by police from Mugabe’s office over the road. One of the lawyers, Alec Muchadehama, said the police had threatened to shoot them. The case was eventually postponed until today.

The longer the delay in announcing the presidential election result, opposition activists say, the more time Mugabe will have to mobilise his forces.

Reports yesterday suggested that attempts to intimidate the opposition could already be under way. According to one African news agency, Zimbabwean soldiers beat supporters of the MDC in some parts of the country to punish them for “premature” election victory celebrations. At least 17 people were said to have been beaten so badly that they had to be taken to hospital.

I noted last week’s controversy over an advertisement by Absolut vodka that seemed to advocate reversing Texan Independence and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, but didn’t blog it because I didn’t have anything to add.

Now Absolut has issued their apology, including this jaw-dropper:

Absolut said the ad was designed for a Mexican audience and intended to recall “a time which the population of Mexico might feel was more ideal.”

“A time which the population of Mexico might feel was more ideal”? What about that period might today’s population of Mexico prefer, the universal poverty or the political chaos? The Mexican presidency changed hands four times in 1846 alone, most notably when the army deposed President de Herrera for the crime of trying to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the border conflict with the United States.

I can understand Absolut trying to appeal to Mexican ultra-nationalists (the very thing they are trying to deny), but appealing to the halcyon days of 1846 Mexico simply makes no sense.

UPDATE: SKYY® Vodka, Made in the USA, Proudly Supports Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. (Via Instapundit.)  Ain’t the market grand?

Since the flareup in Basra ended, observers have been trying to discern the consequences of the Iraqi Army’s brief campaign. Al-Sadr agreed to the government’s demand for his militia to lay down their weapons, but a concerted propaganda effort has tried to paint him as the victor. Now, from the Associated Press (of all places) comes convincing evidence that PM al-Maliki’s hand has been strengthened:

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s faltering crackdown on Shiite militants has won the backing of Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties that fear both the powerful sectarian militias and the effects of failure on Iraq’s fragile government. . .

The head of the Kurdish self-ruled region, Massoud Barzani, has offered Kurdish troops to help fight anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.

More significantly, Sunni Arab Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi signed off on a statement by President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and the Shiite vice president, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, expressing support for the crackdown in the oil-rich southern city of Basra.

Al-Hashemi is one of al-Maliki’s most bitter critics and the two have been locked in an acrimonious public quarrel for a year. . . On Thursday, however, al-Maliki paid al-Hashemi a rare visit. A statement by al-Hashemi’s office said the vice president told al-Maliki that “we can bite the bullet and put aside our political differences.”

It goes on:

“I think the government is now enjoying the support of most political groups because it has adopted a correct approach to the militia problem,” said Hussein al-Falluji, a lawmaker from parliament’s largest Sunni Arab bloc, the three-party Iraqi Accordance Front. Al-Hashemi heads one of the three, the Iraqi Islamic Party.

The Accordance Front pulled out of al-Maliki’s Cabinet in August to protest his policies. The newfound support over militias could help al-Maliki persuade the five Sunni ministers who quit their posts to return.

If he succeeds, that would constitute a big step toward national reconciliation, something the U.S. has long demanded.

I’m still concerned that Maliki didn’t follow through with the crackdown in Baghdad, but this is a promising sign.

UPDATE: Thoughts from Ed Morrissey and Dean Esmay. (Via Instapundit.)  Maybe the Democrats won’t make this the center of their argument questions at Petraeus’s next testimony after all.

News.com.au has the story:

Australian terror experts are investigating a series of recent laser-pointer attacks on airplanes after several reportedly linked incidents to determine whether they were carried out by an organized group, reports showed. . .

Government officials also are considering a ban on the lasers after pilots of six planes made emergency complaints of the distracting light being shone into the cockpits and had to alter their flight paths into Sydney when they were targeted in a “cluster attack” last Friday.

The planes changed their flight paths into Kingsford Smith airport after pilots were targeted by four green lasers around 10:30 p.m. local time.  Authorities said it was a co-ordinated attack lasting 15 minutes.  The laser beams appeared to have originated from the Bexley area in southwestern Sydney.

Some sort of countermeasure seems appropriate, but a ban on laser pointers just doesn’t seem workable to me.

When “human rights” are at stake, you just can’t afford to let little things like presumption of innocence get in your way. (Via the Corner.)

UPDATE: Fixed the link.

After years of bizarre, activist rulings from the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Wisconsin voters had had enough, and turned an extreme liberal justice out of office.  (Via Instapundit.)

Naturally, it didn’t sit well with some liberals that voters might actually use their power:

In the wake of Justice Butler’s defeat, some liberals have declared that elections for the state’s supreme court should end, and its members be appointed by the governor. Tom Basting, president of the Wisconsin Bar, claims that “judges are different from other elected officials” and “that means some of the standards voters typically use when evaluating candidates don’t apply to judges.”

On the contrary, the Wisconsin Supreme Court had set itself up as an openly political body, a second legislature of sorts:

In Ferdon v. Wisconsin Patients, [it] declared unconstitutional the state’s cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases. It argued that the caps bore “no rational relationship to a legitimate government interest.” That conclusion was bizarre, since the legislature had specifically passed the caps to make malpractice insurance “available and affordable,” and the caps worked. In 2004, the American Medical Association judged Wisconsin to be one of only six states not in a medical malpractice crisis. Marquette University law professor Rick Esenberg concluded that under the court’s reasoning in that case, “almost any law is subject to being struck down.”

If the liberals are going to make courts into policy-making bodies, they shouldn’t be surprised when the voters want a say.

The Gulf Times of Doha, Qatar reports:

A YOUGOV poll commissioned by the Doha Debates has concluded that nearly one-third of all Arabs believe that Saudi Arabia is at greater risk from religious extremism than any other country in the world. . . Asked under what conditions violence is permissible, more than 60% cited Western interference in a Muslim country, while 55% said offensive words or behaviour was a trigger.

(Via LGF.) (Warning: I don’t know if the Gulf Times is at all respectable (their website certainly isn’t very professional), so take this with a grain of salt.)

Let me parse this result. In this poll, only 5% more said that Western interference justifies violence than said that offensive speech justifies violence. Given that we in the West deeply believe in free speech, I think this gives us a useful benchmark for how seriously to take complaints about “Western interference.” That is, we can debate whether we should be in Iraq on its own terms, but leaving to placate Arabs is sheer foolishness, since our presence in Iraq is only barely more offensive to them than our free speech.

ABC News has the bombshell, the story that could bring down Obama’s entire campaign:

Last August, I ran into Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, outside the Senate chamber in the Capitol. . . As any close friend or family member can attest, I have an unusually keen sense of smell and immediately I smelled cigarette smoke on Obama. Frankly, he reeked of cigarettes.

Obama ran off before I could ask him if he’d just snuck a smoke, so I called his campaign. They denied it. He’d quit months before, in February, they insisted. . . Except. . . last night on MSNBC’s Hardball, Obama admitted that his attempt to wean himself from the vile tobacco weed had not been entirely successful. . . Now I wonder about last August.

(Via Hot Air.)

I’m joking, of course, but given today’s vilification of smokers, I suspect this story could do some real damage. More damage than his choice to associate with various crazy people have done him.

Some are saying that that he has every right to lie about a matter so irrelevant as whether he is still smoking. I don’t agree. Unless you are a spy or something, you should tell the truth, or decline to answer. Of course politicians lie, but I don’t have to approve.

Besides, as Tom Maguire has pointed out, Obama has made this political:

Money is tight under the current Administration, but Obama needs donations to run his campaign. Since Obama has quit smoking, we can follow Obama’s lead to donate to his campaign. Quitting smoking and donating the savings to his campaign–that makes sense and cents.

No, I think a better defense is simply that he could be telling the truth. Cigarette smoke sticks to clothing, and it wouldn’t be surprising if one of the smoke-filled back rooms that Obama is spending so much time in right now isn’t merely figurative.

According to the New York Sun:

A key adviser to Senator Obama’s campaign is recommending in a confidential paper that America keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010, a plan at odds with the public pledge of the Illinois senator to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.

(Via Instapundit.)

I can’t decide between two theories:

• This is deliberate misinformation, intended to moderate opposition to Obama from left-leaners who nevertheless want to win the war.
• This recommendation is for real, from an adviser that has gone off the reservation.

In the latter case, the adviser will probably be fired in short order. (Maybe in the former, too.)

The New York legislature has unanimously passed the Libel Tourism Projection Act.  I’m not sure how much this will actually do to address the problem, but it definitely sends the right message.

(Via LGF.)

No longer content with using the UN Human Rights Council to protect themselves from criticism, Arab and Muslim countries now seek to use it to curtail free speech elsewhere:

Arab and Muslim countries defended Tuesday a resolution they pushed through at the United Nations to have the body’s expert on free speech police individuals and news media for negative comments on Islam. . .

Pakistan’s ambassador, Masood Khan, speaking on behalf of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, denied the resolution would limit free speech. It only tries to make freedom of expression responsible, he said.

“Responsible” speech, of course, is speech that we don’t disapprove of.  Well, surely this was controversial, right?  They only won narrowly, right?

The statement proposed by Egypt and Pakistan . . . passed 32-0 last week at the council.

Oh.

(Via LGF.)

Mugabe makes clear he has no intention of leaving power:

Zimbabwe’s government staged separate police raids on Thursday against the main opposition party, foreign journalists and at least one democracy advocate, raising the specter of a broad crackdown aimed at keeping the country’s imperiled leaders in power.

With the government facing election results that threaten its 28-year reign, security officers raided the Miekles Hotel in central Harare on Thursday afternoon, searching rooms that the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, had rented for election operations. . .

About the same time, a second group of riot officers sealed off the York Lodge, a small hotel in suburban Harare that is frequented by foreign journalists. A lodge worker . . . said six people were detained, including Barry Bearak, a correspondent for The New York Times who was later located in a Harare jail.

Raids on the opposition party, arrests of foreign journalists, and no official election results yet.  Yep, I’m sure this runoff is going to be fair.

Tom Elia makes a striking observation:

Of Sen. Obama’s 711,000 popular-vote lead, 650,000 — or more than 90% of the total margin— comes from Sen. Obama’s home state of Illinois, with 429,000 of that lead coming from his home base of Cook County.

That margin in Cook County represents almost 60%of Obama’s total lead nationwide.

Interestingly, Sen. Obama’s 429,000-vote margin in Cook County alone is larger than the winning margin of either candidate in any state.

(Via Instapundit.)

I’ll come out and say what neither Elia or Reynolds wants to say, but everyone is thinking.  This is Chicago; is there any good reason to believe those votes are real?  Does Obama even have a significant lead at all?

This underscores another aspect of the wisdom of our Founding Fathers in establishing the Electoral College.  With the College in place, a single corrupt city can steal only one state.  Without it, one or two cities like Chicago or Seattle could steal the entire election.

It’s hard to keep up with the pace of events in Zimbabwe, but it seems to fluctuate between three states:

1. Mugabe will steal the election outright.
2. Mugabe will rig the results enough for a runoff, which he will try to steal.
3. Mugabe will leave office voluntarily.

State three always seemed far-fetched, but there was enough talk of it from supposedly informed sources that I began to hope.  Now things appear to have settled into state two.  This isn’t good news; Mugabe now knows how many votes he’s going to have to steal to win.  Expect to see him “win” the runoff by a narrow margin.

Wow.  It’s hard to know what to say about this.  (Warning: vulgarity.)  Jonah Goldberg thinks it’s hilarious, but I actually find it a bit disturbing.  How does one get to the point of seeing the world through that kind of lens?

(For the record:  All four of my regular readers know about Firefly already, but in case you haven’t, it is simply the best show ever to grace the small screen.)

This AP story seems potentially important.  It’s frustratingly short of information on the substance of the Chinese briefing, though.

Allahpundit is puzzled by all the differing accounts.  He guesses:

My hunch, as I’ve said before, is that this will end up like Israel’s war with Hezbollah insofar as (a) the media pronounced it an unmitigated disaster, (b) the damage to the bad guys was much greater than reported, and (c) even so, the mission ultimately failed to cripple a lethal Iranian proxy, leaving it to regroup and fight another day after it’s been extravagantly resupplied.

I worry that he might be right about (c), which is why I find Roggio’s report somewhat reassuring.

UPDATE and BUMP: Instapundit has more.

Dan Calabrese has a blockbuster column on Hillary Clinton’s unethical behavior while serving on the legal staff of the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate hearings.  (Via Hot Air.)  There’s a lot of material here, but here’s the juiciest thread:

Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. . . When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career. . .

She was one of several individuals – including [Burke] Marshall, special counsel John Doar and senior associate special counsel (and future Clinton White House Counsel) Bernard Nussbaum – who engaged in a seemingly implausible scheme to deny Richard Nixon the right to counsel during the investigation.

The actions of Hillary and her cohorts went directly against the judgment of top Democrats . . . that Nixon clearly had the right to counsel. Zeifman says that Hillary, along with Marshall, Nussbaum and Doar, was determined to gain enough votes on the Judiciary Committee to change House rules and deny counsel to Nixon. And in order to pull this off, Zeifman says Hillary wrote a fraudulent legal brief, and confiscated public documents to hide her deception.

The brief involved precedent for representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding. When Hillary endeavored to write a legal brief arguing there is no right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding, Zeifman says, he told Hillary about the case of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who faced an impeachment attempt in 1970. . .

The Judiciary Committee allowed Douglas to keep counsel, thus establishing the precedent. Zeifman says he told Hillary that all the documents establishing this fact were in the Judiciary Committee’s public files. So what did Hillary do?

“Hillary then removed all the Douglas files to the offices where she was located, which at that time was secured and inaccessible to the public,” Zeifman said. Hillary then proceeded to write a legal brief arguing there was no precedent for the right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding – as if the Douglas case had never occurred.

The brief was so fraudulent and ridiculous, Zeifman believes Hillary would have been disbarred if she had submitted it to a judge.

(Emphasis mine.)  The credibility of Zeifman’s charges are bolstered (if Clinton’s subsequent behavior weren’t enough) by his contemporaneous notes of the affair:

Zeifman says he was urged by top committee members to keep a diary of everything that was happening. He did so, and still has the diary if anyone wants to check the veracity of his story. Certainly, he could not have known in 1974 that diary entries about a young lawyer named Hillary Rodham would be of interest to anyone 34 years later. But they show that the pattern of lies, deceit, fabrications and unethical behavior was established long ago.

This revelation won’t change the coveted Internet Scofflaw endorsement.  Here at Internet Scofflaw we aren’t under any illusions regarding Hillary Clinton’s character, but we still see her as the lesser of two evils.

The Pizza Hut driver who last week shot an armed robber is still not back at work, according to the Des Moines Register:

Spiers, who has a valid handgun permit, said he’s been “pretty much in the dark” about his job since the incident. . .  “I just know that, given what happened, it’s not likely I’ll have a job anyway,” Spiers said. “Right now, I’m just taking some time off, trying to cool things down.”

(Via Instapundit.)

People aren’t happy about this:

A state senator said he would stop buying Pizza Hut products if the pizza chain fires a Des Moines delivery man who shot a teen who tried to rob him at gunpoint. . .  “What I want everybody to know … is that there is people out there supporting this man and his right to defend himself,” Zaun said.

As I see it, Pizza Hut’s defenseless-driver policy is part a consensual business arrangement between them and their drivers, so they would be within their rights if they fire him (as reprehensible as it would be to do so).  On the other hand, any purchases that we might make at Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, or Taco Bell in the future are consensual business arrangements as well.

Factcheck.org takes Obama to task on his latest ad:

Technically, that’s true, since a law that has been on the books for more than a century prohibits corporations from giving money directly to any federal candidate. But that doesn’t distinguish Obama from his rivals in the race. . .

• Obama has accepted more than $213,000 from individuals who work for companies in the oil and gas industry and their spouses.
• Two of Obama’s bundlers are top executives at oil companies and are listed on his Web site as raising between $50,000 and $100,000 for the presidential hopeful.

(Via Instapundit.)

Earlier today the talk was of a runoff election between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.  This would give Mugabe another shot at rigging the election, which apparently he didn’t do well enough the first time.

Now that talk seems to have fallen by the wayside.  Official sources are now saying that Mugabe is prepared to step down, and the sticking point is getting agreement from the army chief of staff.  Gateway Pundit has a roundup.  (Via Instapundit.)

I’m still skeptical about this.  I find it hard to believe that Mugabe would ever leave office voluntarily, but I hope I’m wrong.

Stop blocking the internet, Olympics committee tells China.  The IOC wants journalists to have uncensored access to the Internet during the games.  “More backbone than I’d expected,” remarks Glenn Reynolds.  I guess I agree, but only because I expected none at all.  China’s likely response is “or what?”, to which the IOC can have no response.  They lost whatever leverage they had long ago.

On the other hand, Bhaichung Bhutia has some backbone.  A national sports hero of India, he has refused to carry the Olympic torch because of the China’s crackdown in Tibet.  Plus there’s this gem:

China was infuriated last month when Tibetan protesters broke into the Chinese Embassy compound in Delhi.

Yep, it’s bad when your embassy is violated.

Finally, no April Fool: I agree with Nancy Pelosi about something.

Zimbabwe on a knife edge as fears deepen that result is being rigged.  (Via Instapundit.)

Politico has the story:

During his first run for elected office, Barack Obama played a greater role than his aides now acknowledge in crafting liberal stands on gun control, the death penalty and abortion — positions that appear at odds with the more moderate image he has projected during his presidential campaign.

The evidence comes from an amended version of an Illinois voter group’s detailed questionnaire, filed under his name during his 1996 bid for a state Senate seat.

Obama gave his usual “it wasn’t me—I never saw it—I wasn’t there” response:

Late last year, in response to a Politico story about Obama’s answers to the original questionnaire, his aides said he “never saw or approved” the questionnaire.

They asserted the responses were filled out by a campaign aide who “unintentionally mischaracterize[d] his position.”

Politico, however, did the legwork, discovering:

But a Politico examination determined that Obama was actually interviewed about the issues on the questionnaire by the liberal Chicago nonprofit group that issued it. And it found that Obama — the day after sitting for the interview — filed an amended version of the questionnaire, which appears to contain Obama’s own handwritten notes added to one answer. . .

Through an aide, Obama . . . did not dispute that the handwriting was his. But he contended it doesn’t prove he completed, approved — or even read — the latter questionnaire.

An interview and his own handwriting. I’m not sure even Obama can get away with disavowing his own words and handwriting.

Oh, and what are those opinions that he says never held? Ed Morrissey summarizes:

Opposed to parental notification on abortions. He amended this to say that he might possibly support it for 12- or 13-year-olds, but no older.

Flatly opposed the death penalty, a position he denied ever having.

Supported bans on the sale, possession, and manufacture of guns, again a position he denied ever taking.

(Via Hot Air.)

Obama is looking more and more unprepared for national politics, where people sometimes follow up on what you say.

A diary at Daily Kos reports on the race for the Democratic credentials committee.  (Via TalkLeft, via Instapundit.)  He concludes that it is possible for Clinton to gain a majority of the credentials committee, and thereby seat the Michigan and Florida delegations.  I don’t know if any of this is accurate or not (he does list Texas for Obama — does the caucus trump the primary?), but it’s hugely entertaining.

The plan, announced by Secretary of State Rice, includes several Israeli concessions:

• removing 50 travel barriers in and around Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqiliya and Ramallah,
• dismantling of one permanent roadblock,
• deploying 700 Jordanian-trained Palestinian police in Jenin and allowing them to take delivery of armored vehicles,
• raising the the number of Palestinian businessmen allowed into Israel to 1,500 from 1,000,
• increasing the number of work permits for Palestinian laborers by 5,000 from its current number of 18,500,
• building new housing for Palestinians in 25 villages,
• connecting Palestinian villages to the Israeli power grid, and
• Israeli support for large-scale economic development programs and encouragement of foreign investment.

In return, the Palestinians promised an immediate cessation of rocket attacks and suicide bombings.

Okay, I made that last one up.

He’s not going to mend any fences with the far left with this interview.

A Des Moines pizza deliveryman did his part to make the world a better place:

A pizza deliveryman told Des Moines police that he shot a man who robbed him at gunpoint when he delivered a pie late Thursday to a south-side address.

The alleged assailant, Kenneth Jimmerson, 19, was taken to Mercy Medical Center in serious condition. He was charged this morning with first-degree robbery and will be taken to Polk County Jail when released from the hospital, police said. 

Melanie Stout, 18, the woman who placed the order for the pizzas, was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery.

(Via Instapundit.) 

The story is not entirely cheery though.  In keeping with the “no good deed goes unpunished” principle:

Restaurant officials have suspended the Pizza Hut driver, James William Spiers, while the case is under investigation. . .  Vonnie Walbert, vice president of human resources at Pizza Hut, said:

“We have policy against carrying weapons. We prohibit employees from carrying guns because we believe that that is the safest for everybody.”

It’s exactly that sort of thinking that made this deliveryman look like an attractive target.

I have to blog this right away, since it won’t last long.  Sky News reports that the opposition is claiming victory based on unofficial results.  Then the rub:

The electoral body said it would start announcing early partial returns at some point today.

The official returns will probably be a bit different.  (Is Jimmy Carter there to give Mugabe cover?)

UPDATE: The NYT reminds us of the last Zimbabwean vote:

In 2002, reported results had challenger Morgan Tsvangirai piling up a big lead. Then, suddenly, the announcements stopped. When they resumed, hours later, Mr. Mugabe was well ahead.

(Via Instapundit.)

UPDATE and BUMP: The Telegraph reports: Robert Mugabe’s defeat cannot be covered up.  Here’s hoping.

The Guardian’s report is less promising:

Robert Mugabe was desperately trying to cling to power last night, despite his clear defeat in Zimbabwe’s presidential election, by blocking the electoral commission from releasing official results and threatening to treat an opposition claim of victory as a coup. . .

Tsvangirai [the apparent winner] made no public appearances, apparently out of concern for his safety.  Mugabe’s spokesman, George Charamba, warned Tsvangirai not to declare himself president because that “is called a coup d’etat and we all know how coups are handled”.

Yes, I suppose we do.

(Via Instapundit.)

UPDATE: The election rigging proceeds in slow motion.  (Yet again via Instapundit.)

I’m not referring to Kwame Kilpatrick.  The entire U.S. Attorney’s office is entangled somehow with Saddam’s intelligence agency: 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit confirmed Thursday the entire Detroit office has been recused from the Al-Hanooti case, but officials would not say why. The case is instead being handled by government lawyers from Washington, D.C.

(Via Instapundit.)

Edwards Praises Both Clinton, Obama.

You have to click through, just for the photo.

We’ve become sadly used to the passing of the word “terrorist” to describe actual terrorists (remember, those people who intentionally kill civilians as a means of political coercion), and also to its occasional misuse to describe anyone the speaker doesn’t like (typically Bush, Cheney, Blair, etc.).  Still, one might have hoped for better from our own government.

Michael Totten posts about the dismaying story of an actual freedom fighter who was denied a green card by the INS because of his history as a “terrorist”:

Saman Kareem Ahmad is an Iraqi Kurd who worked as a translator with the Marines in Iraq’s Anbar Province. He was one of the few selected translators who was granted asylum in the U.S. because he and his family were singled out for destruction by insurgents for “collaboration.” He wants to return to Iraq as an American citizen and a Marine, and has already been awarded the Navy-Marine Corps Achievement Medal and the War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal. Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter and General David Petraeus wrote notes for his file and recommended he be given a Green Card, but the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) declined his application and called him a “terrorist.” . . .

The Kurds in Iraq–unlike the Kurds in Turkey and the ever-popular Palestinians– did not use terrorism as a tactic in their struggle for liberation. They fought honorably against Saddam’s soldiers, not against Arab civilians in south and central Iraq.

(Via Instapundit.)

For the record, a terrorist is someone who intentionally attacks civilians in order to create terror as a means of coercion.  A soldier who attacks legitimate military targets is not a terrorist, even when the speaker disapproves of his cause.  Conversely, someone whose vocation is setting off car bombs in crowded marketplaces is a terrorist, and he doesn’t stop being so simply because he is currently fighting for his life against the US Marines or the IDF.

Ban Ki-moon cannot limit himself to a negative review:

I condemn, in the strongest terms, the airing of Geert Wilders’ offensively anti-Islamic film.  There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence.  The right of free expression is not at stake here.  I acknowledge the efforts of the Government of the Netherlands to stop the broadcast of this film, and appeal for calm to those understandably offended by it.  Freedom must always be accompanied by social responsibility.

(Via LGF.) 

Oh, the right of free expression is not at stake here?  Never mind then.

The Washington Times publishes excerpts of an interview with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  (Via Power Line.)  The article is headlined by her comments on race, and on that topic what she says sounds about right.  (ASIDE: One is struck by the fact that Rice, who (unlike Obama) actually grew up in the segregated South, managed to avoid forming ties with any racist nutcase ministers.)

However, I was troubled by this bit at the end:

Miss Rice cited resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ending North Korea’s nuclear programs, and securing Iraq and Afghanistan as the Bush administration’s main foreign-policy priorities for the rest of its term.

What about Iran?  Continuing the quixotic Israeli-Palestinian “peace process” is a higher priority than keeping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons?

The Clinton campaign turns up the heat on Obama:

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s most prominent African-American supporter in Pennsylvania [Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter] says that had he been a member of Sen. Barack Obama’s church, he would have left because of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s fiery and controversial sermons. . .

Nutter said, “I think there is a big difference between expressing the pain and anger that many African Americans and other people of color may feel versus language that I think now crosses the line and goes into hate.” . . .

“Somehow, someway, for some people there’s an automatic assumption that a mayor who is African-American or some other elected official has to support another African-American,” Nutter said.

“I thought that when Dr. King said that he wanted people to be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, I thought that’s what he was talking about,” Nutter added.

(Via Instapundit.)

Speaking in Greensburg, Pennsylvania (45 minutes from Pittsburgh), Obama said he would return America to the “traditional” foreign policy of Reagan and Bush 41.

The truth is that my foreign policy is actually a return to the traditional bipartisan realistic policy of George Bush’s father, of John F. Kennedy, of, in some ways, Ronald Reagan.

(Emphasis mine.)  Got that?  The foreign policy of Reagan and Bush Sr. was “bipartisan.”  Obama must be working from a different dictionary than I, because I distinctly recall the Democrats vehemently opposing Bush and especially Reagan.  (I remember it very clearly because, sad to say, I was part of that Democratic consensus opposing Reagan.  But give me a break; when Reagan left office, I was 17 and still in the clutches of the Seattle Public Schools.)

I remember the Democratic opposition to Reagan’s military buildup, to SDI, to the liberation of Grenada.  I remember apoplectic reaction to Reagan’s evil empire speech, and the Boland Amendment cutting off the Nicaraguan Contras.  I remember the 1991 Gulf War resolution that Senate Democrats voted against 10-45 (and two of the ten are no longer Democrats) and House Democrats voted against 86-179.  Bipartisan indeed.

No matter how often the Democrats are wrong — against Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan, Bush 41 — they’ve always joined the consensus in retrospect, and they’re always right today.

John McCain releases his first campaign ad since clinching the Republican nomination:

This looks like a front-runner’s ad: entirely positive and mostly non-specific.   (There’s perhaps a very subtle dig at Obama by asking “what must a President believe about us?”)  I hope he’s not buying the polls that show him as the front-runner; once the Democrats settle on a nominee, the media will do everything in their power to close that gap.

Zimbabwe (“get behind the fist”) and Zambia have thrown away thousands of tons of much needed corn, leaving people to starve rather than allow them to eat genetically modified foodstuffs.  (Via Instapundit.)

Robert Paarlberg explains:

The overregulation of this technology in Europe and the anxieties felt about it in the United States are not so much a reflection of risks, because there aren’t any documented risks from any GM crops on the market. I explain that reaction through the absence of direct benefit. The technology is directly beneficial to only a tiny number of citizens in rich countries—soybean farmers, corn farmers, a few seed companies, patent holders. Consumers don’t get a direct benefit at all, so it doesn’t cost them anything to drive it off the market with regulations. The problem comes when the regulatory systems created in rich countries are then exported to regions like Africa, where two thirds of the people are farmers, and where they would be the direct beneficiaries.

Duke University has asked a court to shut down a website critical of its handling of the lacrosse rape hoax case.

Robert Mugabe’s re-election slogan.  (No joke!)  (Via the Corner.)

Polls show that Zimbabwe is poised overwhelmingly to reject Mugabe, if given the chance, which seems unlikely to me.  Personally, I suspect he’ll be leaving office the way Nicolae Ceausescu did, and no sooner.

UPDATE: No surprise here; things look bad.

The battle over superdelegates continues.  Oddly enough, everyone argues — on high moral grounds — for the position that favors his preferred candidate.  I’m reminded of Michael Barone’s first rule of life: “All process arguments are insincere, including this one.”

Tom Maguire spots an interesting statement: Under continued fire for his membership in Rev. Wright’s congregation, Obama now says that he would have left the church, but didn’t need he needed to because Wright apologized.  (Via Instapundit.)  Maguire observes that Wright’s purported apology was not exactly well publicized, and has some thoughts on the value of a second-hand apology.

But why rely on our own recollection; let’s ask Google.  (I’m telling you, this Internet is going to catch on!)  As of 9:47am Eastern, there are no hits regarding a Jeremiah Wright apology on the first three pages.  However, there are plenty of hits regarding how Wright is owedan apology.  Geez.

This was making the rounds a few months ago.  I was reminded of it today by the state of rhetoric in the current campaign (great oratory really can have content!), but upon listening to it again, I was struck by how germane it is to today’s war.  Shall we defeat our enemies, or shall we try to accommodate them, and in so doing sentence countless human beings to slavery?

Stephen Spruiell notes an Obama ad blaming NAFTA for the downfall of a then-non-existent company bankrupted by domestic competition:

Obama’s presidential campaign aired a TV ad that featured a man named Steven Schuyler standing in front of a Delphi Packard Electric plant in Warren, Ohio. In the ad, Schuyler says he worked for Delphi, an automotive supplier, for 13 years until NAFTA enabled the company to ship his job to Mexico. “Barack Obama was against NAFTA,” Schuyler says, adding, “We need a president that will bring work into this country.”

The Delphi ad might qualify as the most deceptive of the 2008 race. First, Delphi did not exist as an independent company when Congress passed NAFTA in 1993. It was part of General Motors until it was spun off as an independent supplier in 1999. Second, foreign competition did not drive the company to eliminate American jobs. It declared bankruptcy in 2005 because the legacy labor costs it inherited from GM made it impossible to compete against other U.S.-based suppliers. Third, workers at the Warren, Ohio plant were offered generous buyouts and early-retirement packages. Its employees were not just kicked to the street.

There’s more.

UPDATE: Rephrased.

Apparently, McCain has declined Secret Service protection.  (Via Instapundit.)  I don’t approve.  I doubt that many people are impressed, and there’s more than his own life riding on his survival.

Gallup (via Instapundit):

A solid majority of the U.S. public, 73%, believes the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the rights of Americans to own guns.

I’m tired of the defeat-in-Iraq crowd pretending that they have the moral high ground.  Of course we can and should make pragmatic arguments for finishing the job based on our own security, but there’s a moral argument we should make as well.  The pro-defeat crowd wants to abandon an entire people to the worst kind of tyranny in existence today, and all the while they’re patting themselves on the back.

I would like to see John McCain run an ad like this:

(Video shows a teenaged Iraqi girl.)  This is Amira.  She lives in Iraq.  She has had a difficult childhood: she saw her father and uncle carried away for speaking critically of Saddam Hussein.  [Adjust details as appropriate.]  But now Amira is free, and she has dreams for her life.  She wants to travel, to study and become an artist, or a doctor.

(Video shifts to Al Qaeda thugs.)  But there are some who don’t want Amira to realize her aspirations.   Men who subscribe to a perverted form of Islam and wish to impose it on her country, and indeed the world.  (Brief collage of Taliban and Iranian atrocities.)  These men come into her country and set off bombs, hoping to terrorize her people into obedience.  (Aftermath of a car bomb.)

(Screen splits, with Amira on one side and the U.S. Capitol on the other.)  Will America continue to stand with Amira, or will we abandon her to her enemies?  This November, you will help make that decision.

I’m John McCain, and I approved this message.

Baghdad Jim McDermott and his colleagues’ trip to Iraq in 2002 was paid for by Saddam.  (Via Instapundit.) 

To be fair, it is not alleged that they knew it.  I’m reminded of the Humbert Wolfe quote:

You cannot hope to bribe or twist (thank God!) the British journalist. But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there’s no occasion to.

Jim Lindgren, going through the Obamas’ tax returns, finds that Obama seems to have violated the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act by accepting honoraria.

Obama’s effort to sidestep his church’s bizarre teachings becomes more threadbare by the day.  It is now revealed that his church’s worship bulletin contained a racist rant (pdf) alleging, among other things, that Israel worked on “an ethnic bomb that kills Blacks and Arabs.”

In the worship bulletin.  And Obama can no more disown this guy than his own grandmother.

I can see why he thinks his best chance is convince people that it’s out-of-bounds even to mention this stuff.

Gallup reports that many Democratic voters will switch to McCain if their candidate doesn’t win:

Among people who identified themselves as Hillary Clinton supporters, 28 percent said they would vote for McCain if Obama is his opponent, the March 7-22 Gallup Poll Daily election tracking survey found.  The same poll found that 19 percent of Obama supporters would switch sides and cast ballots for McCain if Clinton is the Democratic candidate.

I’m not sure I buy it, but here’s hoping.  Also:

A recent Gallup survey found that 11 percent of Republican voters said they would vote for a different party or not at all if McCain doesn’t pick a running mate who is more conservative than he is.

That, er, shouldn’t be hard, should it?

Pittsburgh’s mayor and city council are fighting over the budget:

Cost-cutting ideas are coming quickly in Pittsburgh City Council, but some members are claiming that they’re being targeted for political revenge by Mayor Luke Ravenstahl in the latest proposal.

Over objections from the Ravenstahl administration, Council voted to cut half the number of taxpayer-funded take-home cars for city officials.

On the heels of that vote comes a call from an ally of the mayor to put the knife to City Council’s payroll for its staff. . .  [Councilman Ricky] Burgess led in making the charge that revenge by Ravenstahl is behind Councilman Jim Motznik’s bill to slash money for council’s staff.  Burgess said it’s payback for City Council voting on Tuesday to cut the number of take-home cars for city employees from 59 to 29.

As long as they’re squabbling by cutting the budget, let’s sit back and enjoy the show.

Obama military advisor and campaign co-chair Tony McPeak blames U.S. Jews for the lack of peace in the Middle East.  (Via Instapundit.)  Enough to get him fired?  It’s hard to say.  Stephanie Power (formerly Obama’s chief foreign policy advisor) lost her job not for advocating invading Israel, but for calling Hillary Clinton a monster.  On the other hand, people are paying more attention to this stuff now.

Why aren’t Tibetans entitled to at least as much sympathy as Palestinians?

Clinton attacks on Wright, Obama fires back on Bosnia:

Breaking her silence on the controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s long-time pastor, Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that she would have left the congregation if her pastor behaved like Obama’s. . . “You know, we don’t have a choice when it comes to our relatives. We have a choice when it comes to our pastors and the churches we attend,” she said. . .

The Obama campaign blasted back that Clinton only made the statement to distract from scrutiny about her own recollection of a March 1996 trip to Bosnia.  “After originally refusing to play politics with this issue, it’s disappointing to see Hillary Clinton’s campaign sink to this low in a transparent effort to distract attention away from the story she made up about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia,” Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said.

They’re both right. 

On Obama’s race speech, Christopher Hitchens has a way with words:

You often hear it said, of some political or other opportunist, that he would sell his own grandmother if it would suit his interests. But you seldom, if ever, see this notorious transaction actually being performed, which is why I am slightly surprised that Obama got away with it so easily. (Yet why do I say I am surprised? He still gets away with absolutely everything.)

(Via Instapundit.)

The Supreme Court issued an important opinion today.  The case involved a convicted murderer who is a Mexican national.  The police failed to notify him of his right to consult with the Mexican consulate, and his lawyer failed to raise the issue at trial.  The issue was raised on appeal, and after a convoluted path through state and federal courts, the conviction was upheld.

In the meantime, however, the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a ruling that required the United States:

to provide, by means of its own choosing, review and reconsideration of the convictions and sentences of the [affected] Mexican nationals.

In response, President Bush issued a memorandum ordering the Texas courts to review the case in line with the ICJ’s ruling.  The Texas courts declined to do so, and the Supreme Court took up the case.

At issue were two questions: (1) does the ICJ’s decision constitute enforceable domestic law, and (2) does the President have the power to issue orders to state courts in accordance with that decision?  The Supreme Court answered no to both.

For anyone concerned about our nation’s sovereignty, this was the preferred decision.  (Last October, Ramesh Ponnuru made a strong case for today’s outcome.)  However, legally it seems to have been a close call, hinging on whether the precise wording of the ICJ treaty made it “self-executing.”  There’s a limit, then, to how much solace we can take from this decision.  We need to stay vigilant.

UPDATE: The key bit seems to be on pages 8 and 9 of the decision.  There is a distinction dating back to the Marshall court between treaties that are self-executing, and ones that are merely commitments to act:

In sum, while treaties “may comprise international commitments . . . they are not domestic law unless Congress has either enacted implementing statutes or the treaty itself conveys an intention that it be ‘self-executing’ and is ratified on these terms.”

Lawyers probably knew all this already, but it was new to me.  (ASIDE: The decision cites The Federalist #33, which is very interesting in light of our government’s consideration of treaties that infringe our individual liberties.) 

The decision then goes on to consider whether or not the relevant treaties are self-executing.  It begins thus: “The interpretation of a treaty, like the interpretation of a statute, begins with its text.”  (I think I’m going to like the Roberts court.)  It continues:

The [Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention] provides: “Disputes arising out of the interpretation or application of the [Vienna] Convention shall lie within the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice.” . . .  Of course, submitting to jurisdiction and agreeing to be bound are two different things.

They go on to find that the text of the Protocol is more naturally read as “a bare grant of jurisdiction.”

With NAFTA and the International Court of Justice in the news, I’ve been reflecting on so-called globalization.  (ASIDE: Regarding the latter story, there are so many different issues muddling the case that I’ll need to read the decision to decide what I think.)  It strikes me that there’s really two different forms of globalization going on under one name.

One form seeks to make people more free, and is exemplified by free-trade agreements such as NAFTA, the WTO, and the failed Doha Round.  When two people who happen to reside in separate countries wish to make a consensual exchange of goods, very often their governments interfere, either by demanding a cut (as with tariffs), or by prohibiting the exchange altogether (as with quotas).  Free trade agreements make people more free by lessening governmental interference in their individual choices.

As implemented, these agreements sometimes work in peculiar and unfortunate ways.  For example, when the WTO tries to convince a recalcitrant government to lift a tariff, its tool of coercion is to license another government to impose new tariffs.  Thus, the WTO withdraws freedom from one set of people to try to gain it for another set.  But, when the mechanism works, both sets end up free.  On balance, the WTO seems to extend freedom much more than it curtails freedom.

In sharp contrast is the other form of globalization, which seeks to limit individual freedom by placing people under the authority of international organizations such as the UN or the EU.  In the United States, we can already recognize that our governments usually are not especially concerned with individual freedoms, but at least there are mechanisms by which we can hold them to account.  International organizations are much less accountable (or — as with the UN — not at all).  Moreover, such organizations have already established a reputation for bizarre and capricious behavior (or worse).

This is something to keep in mind when we read about people who support and oppose “globalization.”

James Robbins (at the Corner) observes that many detainees in US custody prefer not to be released, at least not until they finish their classes (!).

D.C. police are cracking down on guns:

Police are asking residents to submit to voluntary searches in exchange for amnesty under the District’s gun ban. The program is starting in the Washington Highlands neighborhood of southeast Washington on Monday and will later expand to other neighborhoods.  Officers will go door to door asking residents for permission to search their homes.

Obviously D.C. is responding to an expected loss in the Heller case, but what I want to know is, are people really giving the police permission to search their homes?!

UPDATE: Well, that’s a relief: The program has yet to start, and residents are upset about it.  (Via Instapundit.)

But there’s something odd in this article:

A police spokeswoman said that if evidence of other crimes is found during voluntary searches, amnesty will be granted for that crime as well.

“Chief Lanier has been clear,” Traci Hughes said. “Amnesty means amnesty.”

This can’t possibly be true.  If they find a dead body in your house, they’re going to give you amnesty?  In any case, I doubt the police chief’s proclamation is binding on the district attorney.

A well-known handicap of senators running for president is a lack of concrete accomplishments, and the problem is exacerbated for Obama and Clinton, who are both among the least-experienced members of the Senate.  The obvious response, to take credit for things you didn’t do, is starting to gall their Democratic colleagues.  (Via the Corner.)

There’s nothing here on McCain, and one feels safe in assuming that they would have included something on him if they could.  Of course, McCain’s problem is more the stuff he’s done, than the stuff he hasn’t.

Amazingly, she gets results.  (Via Instapundit.)  Positive spin: power to the people!  Negative spin: if one person can fix this in a matter of hours, what is the State Department doing with its time?

For my readers (ha!) looking for any difference in substance between Clinton and Obama to explain all the heat on the left, I recommend an insightful article by Ramesh Ponnuru from the March 10 issue of National Review.  (NR subscribers can find it online here.)  Ponnuru cites journalist Ron Brownstein’s observation of two factions within the Democratic party:

Brownstein wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times last spring on the tensions within the Democratic party: “Since the 1960s,” he said, “Democratic nominating contests regularly have come down to a struggle between a candidate who draws support primarily from upscale, economically comfortable voters liberal on social and foreign policy issues, and a rival who relies mostly on downscale, financially strained voters drawn to populist economics and somewhat more conservative views on cultural and national security issues.”

Democratic strategists, Brownstein noted, alluded to this division by referring to “wine track” and “beer track” candidates. One class of Democratic voters looks for a candidate who will be a “warrior” for their interests. Another class looks for a candidate who will serve as a kind of secular “priest” affirming their values.

Clinton, he says, is the “beer track” warrior, and Obama the “wine track” priest.  In the past, the priests (Gary Hart, Bill Bradley) have tended to lose the Democratic primary, but things look different in 2008, in part due to Obama’s unique abilities and in part due to improved economic circumstances:

We now have a mass upper class. Its material concerns largely met, it can vote for reasons that previous generations would have dismissed as hopelessly ethereal, such as the need to create a new style of politics that brings the country together. Its members have the luxury, that is, of voting for “hope.”

Interesting.  The analogy of Obama as priest is also somewhat more poignant given the strange videos being circulated by Obama supporters (for example).

My new voter registration card arrived in the mail yesterday.  I’m now a registered Democrat.  Pennsylvania is abuzz about the Presidential primary, which, against all expectation, has turned out to matter.  I’m part of the surge of Republicans that are changing their party registration to Democrat.  (Aside: the Pennsylvania Department of State says that Republican-to-Democrat switchers outnumber the other direction by a 3-to-1 margin.  Only 3-to-1?  Who’s going the other way?)

I will be voting for Clinton.  This is not because I think she’ll be the easier opponent to McCain to beat.  I think it’s a fools errand to try to predict now who will be the stronger opponent in November.  (Remember, the Democrats ended up with Kerry in 2004 because they thought he was the strongest candidate.  Oops.)   Neither is it because I want to see three more months of Democratic internecine warfare,  although I certainly don’t mind.

I will be voting for Clinton simply because she scares me less than Obama.  There’s no question her foreign policy would be a disaster, but she and her people don’t have the same predilection for jaw-droppingly bizarre foreign policy pronouncements.

Of course, this is all a matter of degree.  Both have pledged to abandon Iraq, and neither has any plan to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.  (It’s not clear that President Bush has a plan either, but at least he recognizes the danger.)  Nevertheless, on balance, Clinton seems to be less dangerous.