Internet Scofflaw

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Literally.  (Via Jules Crittenden, via Instapundit.)

A new kind of politics.

Obama in the most recent debate:

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

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

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

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

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

But Obama didn’t say that.

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

“You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin,” Obama said. “Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.”

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

(Via Hot Air.)

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

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

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

David Kopel writes in the Wall Street Journal:

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

(Via Instapundit.)

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

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

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

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

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

This is an outrage:

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

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

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

(Via Instapundit.)

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

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

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

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

Just kidding.  (Via Instapundit.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Previous post.)

. . . writes:

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

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

(Via Instapundit.)

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

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

Oooo-kay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Via Instapundit.) Read the whole thing.

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

Jerry Pournelle has an insightful observation about how bureaucracies function:

Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

Joe Lieberman:

One of my greatest missions this year is to convince Rush [Limbaugh] to support the Republican candidate for President!

Blunder wizards electrify nation.  (Via Tim Blair.)

Dave S., a commenter at Tim Blair’s blog, nails it:

Well, I do go a-churchin’ every Sunday with a bunch of bitter folks who complain about how the government is evil and screws them over, and we yell an’ whoop it up when the preacher rails against them Italians and Jews, an’ then we …

Oops, wait a minute, that’s not me, that’s Barack Obama.

(Via Instapundit.)

According to the Rasmussen poll, 56% of Americans disagree with Barack Obama’s amateur psychoanalysis of rural Americans. (Via Instapundit.) That number actually sounded a little low to me, so I looked closer. Conservatives disagree 74%-12%, and moderates disagree 51%-27%. On the other hand, liberals tend to agree by a margin of 46%-33%. That’s nearly 60% of those with an opinion, and the numbers among Obama supporters are even higher. (The story doesn’t say by how much.)

So when Obama was explaining the bizarre, retrograde views of rural Americans to a crowd of San Francisco liberals, about two-thirds of his audience agreed. Please spare me the “he misspoke” spin. He was speaking clearly, telling his audience exactly what they wanted to hear. Either he was speaking from the heart or he was pandering; take your pick.

Come to think of it, this is no surprise. Liberals have been trying to psychoanalyze conservatives for years, since there has to be some explanation for their incomprehensible individualism and religion. As the Harley ads say, if you have to ask . . .

According to the ARG poll, the Pennsylvania race has gone from a tie to a 20-point Clinton lead in the last week. (Via Instapundit.) Hmm, I wonder what happened?

Now that I’m a registered Democrat, I’m getting all kinds of interesting calls.  Yesterday I got a call from John Brenner, the mayor of York, Pennsylvania.  (Now, in case you don’t know me, Mayor Brenner and I don’t speak all that often.)  This was part of Obama’s ongoing damage-control, and I guess that Brenner was the best Obama-supporter he could find in rural Pennsylvania.

Anyway, Mayor Brenner told me that Obama was right, that we are bitter “frustrated” about the economy.  (That stuff about our religion, guns, and xenophobia didn’t come up.)  I was amazed.  They think it’s a good idea to call people up and tell them about their own bitterness?!  Even here in Pennsylvania, most people don’t need Barack Obama to explain their own feelings to them.  Brilliant, guys.

The AP reports:

Iraq’s Cabinet ratcheted up the pressure on anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr by approving draft legislation barring political parties with militias from participating in upcoming provincial elections.

Al-Sadr, who heads the country’s biggest militia, the Mahdi Army, has been under intense pressure from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, also a Shiite, to disband the Mahdi Army or face political isolation. . .

And in a new move to stem the flow of money to armed groups, the government ordered a crackdown on militiamen controlling state-run and private gas stations, refineries and oil distribution centers.

Rachel Lucas is doing her taxes. She’s not happy. (Via Instapundit.) No quotes to pull on a family-friendly blog, I’m afraid.

I shudder to think of what she’s going to say next year after the Democrats reverse the Bush tax cuts. On the bright side: English probably could use a few new swear words.

. . . or, as Obama likes to call it, Clinging-day, the day we congregate to share our bitterness over our poor job prospects.

UPDATE: David Freddoso has the same idea:

I’m headed to evening Mass in a bit. I might even get there early and pray for a few minutes beforehand, because I’m feeling especially bitter about the economy this week.

Did the Chinese use an agent provocateur to attack a wheelchair-bound torch carrier in the name of Tibet? Chinese bloggers say yes, and the evidence is compelling.  (Via Instapundit.)

SFGate has the story.  (Via Instapundit.)

In the battle for Iraq, one key factor working against the Islamists is the behavior of the Islamists:

Many young people in Iraq, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach. . . While religious extremists are admired by a number of young people in other parts of the Arab world, Iraq offers a test case of what could happen when extremist theories are applied. Fingers caught in the act of smoking were broken. Long hair was cut and force-fed to its wearer. In that laboratory, disillusionment with Islamic leaders took hold. . .

A shift seems to be registering, at least anecdotally, in the choices some young Iraqis are making.

Professors reported difficulty in recruiting graduate students for religion classes. Attendance at weekly prayers appears to be down, even in areas where the violence has largely subsided, according to worshipers and imams in Baghdad and Falluja. In two visits to the weekly prayer session in Baghdad of the followers of the militant Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr this fall, vastly smaller crowds attended than had in 2004 or 2005.

Such patterns, if lasting, could lead to a weakening of the political power of religious leaders in Iraq. In a nod to those changing tastes, political parties are dropping overt references to religion. . .

Violent struggle against the United States was easy to romanticize at a distance.

“I used to love Osama bin Laden,” proclaimed a 24-year-old Iraqi college student. She was referring to how she felt before the war took hold in her native Baghdad. The Sept. 11, 2001, strike at American supremacy was satisfying, and the deaths abstract.

Now, the student recites the familiar complaints: Her college has segregated the security checks; guards told her to stop wearing a revealing skirt; she covers her head for safety.

“Now I hate Islam,” she said, sitting in her family’s unadorned living room in central Baghdad. “Al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army are spreading hatred. People are being killed for nothing.”

(Via LGF.)

As they say, read the whole thing. It puts in a nutshell what the whole war is about.

Via LGF:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has turned down a request from former American president Jimmy Carter for a meeting during his visit to Israel next week. The Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni both said that their schedules will not allow a meeting, but an anonymous Israeli official told the Washington Times, “You draw your own conclusions.” Other officials have expressed anger at Carter’s proposed meeting with Syrian-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

They might also be remembering Carter’s book.

Now that the Duke lacrosse players have been exonerated, Duke thinks that it would a good time for people to hold their tongue on the case. What’s changed? Duke is the one on trial now.

(Via Instapundit.)

An op-ed in the Boston Globe makes an amazing observation about the Colombia free-trade pact. US markets are already open to Colombia; this effect of the agreement (which the Democrats oppose) is to open Colombia’s markets to us:

The agreement, which President Bush sent this week to Congress for an up or down vote, essentially makes permanent the trade preferences that Colombia has had for 17 years. What is new is that the treaty opens the Colombian market to US exports. . .

The Colombian government is making the bigger sacrifice because a permanent agreement removes uncertainty for investors. Trade, combined with US support for Colombia’s military and justice system, have helped Colombia beat back a leftist insurgency, largely demobilize right-wing paramilitaries, and spark a boom that has reduced poverty, unemployment, and the economic weight of drug mafias.

(Via Instapundit.)

So the Democrats (including both Obama and Clinton) are opposing this agreement for no reason whatsoever other than demagoguery.

UPDATE: Even the New York Times sees it.

Pat Nixon, not Hillary Clinton.  (Via Tom Maguire, via Instapundit.)

The blogosphere is going crazy about Obama’s remarks insulting central Pennsylvania (and the Midwest) at a fundraiser in San Francisco:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

(Emphasis in linked article.)

Ace of Spades has the title I wanted to use: “Obama To Rural Pennsylvanians: Vote For Me, You Corncob-Smokin’, Banjo-Strokin’ Chicken-Chokin’ Cousin-Pokin’ Inbred Hillbilly Racist Morons,” but he said it first. . .

Tom Maguire has a roundup. (Via Instapundit.) The best line, from his comments:

HALP US BROK O’BOMBA– WE R STUCK HEAR N ALTOONA.

Mickey Kaus makes a prediction:

Because Obama’s comments are clearly a Category II Kinsley Gaffe–in which the candidate accidentally says what he really thinks–it will be hard for Obama to explain away.

So far, Kaus appears to be right: “Obama standing by comments, fights back.”

I think what really could hurt him here isn’t just the insult itself, but the fact that he told it at a gathering of rich, San Francisco liberals at the exact same time as he was wooing the insultees in Pennsylvania.

UPDATE: Life imitates the Onion.  (Via Instapundit.)

Some tough questions are fair — many of them in fact.  You can’t laugh off every awkward question.  (Via Instapundit.)

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.)