Nightly Ramble: Crucifixion,Zimbabwe,our Place in the World,New Low for BDS, And More

• So Jeremiah Wright is now saying he’s been subject to a public crucifixion. I suppose it’s no shock that we all create God in our own image, but it’s one of the few tines I’ve ever heard of Christ being favorably compared to a racist loudmouthed loser like Wright. I’d like to suggest that Wright is an idiot, except that this nonsense is too clearly calculated.
• The recounts in Zimbabwe have reconfirmed the opposition victory. Mugabe is bye bye, assuming he actually accepts the verdict of the people.
• So much for the myth of our standing in the world being damaged by Iraq. Not true, says Mike Green via a report found by McQ.
• Ah, yes… protesting the war by beating the living crap out of someone in a wheelchair. There’s s special place in hell for such people.
• So, Amy Winehouse is still looking very much like a train wreck. Big shock, this.
• Hmmm. Perhaps all that screaming at McCain about growing a spine that we bloggers did is starting to have some effect.
  
• I wonder if this Mexican official will maintain his diplomatic immunity? Personally, I’d not bet you either way. Question, though; What else was this guy pawing through in the White House?
• No kidding, Martin; I admit having not spoken to any of her writings of late, a situation in the next six months or so I have no doubt I’ll remedy. I’ve always figured that someone who made blood shoot out of the eyes of liberals had value at the word ‘go’. Ann’s just such a creature. And she certainly has Carville nailed. As to Dohrn, I get the impression that’s a question that doesn’t get asked, for fear of really, really disliking the rest of us knowing the answer to it.
• In answer to two bits of mail, no I’ve not stopped running Centom news releases. They’re covered in their own area of the Newsroom, now. Follow the Newsroom button at the top of this screen. You’ll see them in there. Which reminds me; that newsroom thing has gotten large the last month or so. Check it out when you get the chance.
• I’ve officially given up on Dan Drezner. I’ve disconnected his feeds from my system. He’s all done. His blog was a favorite of mine, back in the day, but he’s becoming increasingly unreadable the last couple years. The capper came Friday when he puked up this one.  Dan, will you please explain to us how having American political scientists, particularly, being highly regarded gives you such problems? Is it that the American system of politics itself may be similarly highly regarded?  Apparently, that Tenure business has your conversion to a whining one worlder complete. Have a nice life.
• Well, Jonah, certainly Spitzer’s self-regulation failed. But then again, the law didn’t help contain him, either, so I’m unclear on how much his downfall can be used to argue for greater governmental control. Even in the abstract, it seems a textbook case of the law not doing a damn thing toward the stated goal. He of anyone knew the law, having prosecuted people under it for years and years. And look, Corner gang.. This moron’s complaints about Prostitution being a victimless crime to get out of doing the time associated with the crime, to the side, for the moment…. I submit to you that Spitzer was involved with it to the degree he was specifically because it was illegal. He bet his marriage, his power, his reputation, millions upon millions of dollars, and more, all on the illusion that he knew the law and law enforcement and how to use his position, well enough not to get caught. He lost. A spectacularly quick meltdown, to be sure, but one of his own doing.
• Rain for most of this week, and middle 50’s. Big mass of rain going through here this morning, though as of 1600 it’s pretty much by us. Art at Conservative Reader tells me he had upper 20’s this morning, and a little white stuff. I see some whate in the radar up north of Toronto, out in cottage country. About 90 miles from here as the crow flies. I dunno; I’m just as glad I didn’t defrost the trailer, yet, I guess.
• Oh, speaking of snow… Did anyone outside Alaska note the record snowfalls that have been happening there? They must not have heard of global warming, up there.\\

Addendum:  (David L)

So Jeremiah Wright is now saying he’s been subject to a public crucifixion. I suppose it’s no shock that we all create God in our own image, but it’s one of the few tines I’ve ever heard of Christ being favorably compared to a racist loudmouthed loser like Wright. I’d like to suggest that Wright is an idiot, except that this nonsense is too clearly calculated

It is fair to say that theology is just not my long suit, and closer to a null suit.    Having said that, I can’t pass on the Wright’s comments.    Jesus is about salvation.   Wright is about damnation.   Jesus is about forgiveness.  Wright is about vengeance.   Egads when Wright’s theology flunks even my version of the smell test, you know it is pretty rank.

A tip of the hat today to the Reverend Jerimiah Wright, in one speech he both propped up Charles Murray and kicked the legs out from under Earl Warren.  Not bad.

Michelle offers offers her engine starter for the day, Wright talking about inate racial differences.  

Note, Wright seemed to have slept through the class on nuance.  However I do suspect soeebody who lives in Frederick County, Maryland is smiling.  The Wright does hold a Phd. Me must know something about something.   

Ok, the black socioeconomic diaparity is a fact. There are three potential causes, or combination of causes. To wit, one genetic(nature), two culture (murture) and discrimination (white antiblack discrimination). Cite either of the first two theories, and you get denounced as racist. Try to explain the socioeconomic dispartiy as mere white antiblack discrimination, and you simply run out of pausible answers.

Wright violated the PC taboo and attributed racial difference to something other than white antiblack discrimination. The danger is is one were to agree with Wright, he is apt to called a racist.

Not only has Wright propped legs under The Bell Curve, he has questioned the premise of Brown v. Board of Eduction, that black children can’t learned unless mixed with whites.

The fact is that equal is a mathamatical concept and not a biological one. Different demographic groups simply can not be assumed be equal.

Other commentary, Rachel Lucas.

Hat tip photo:  In These Times.

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Seen on the back of a really neat 77 Jeep Cherokee:

Don’t make America an Obamanation.

Hemry Lamb in World Net Daily over the weekend:

With gas prices now yon-side of $3.50 per gallon, wouldn’t it be great to have an extra million barrels of domestic oil flowing daily into the American pipeline? Blame William Jefferson Clinton, who vetoed a bill in 1995 that would have opened the Alaska reserves that could have been producing much-needed domestic energy today.

Blame the green environmental extremists who block every effort to expand domestic energy supply, whether in offshore oil reserves, expansion of clean coal production, or the construction of new nuclear energy facilities. It’s just plain dumb to allow the shortage of readily available energy to drive prices so high that the entire economy and food supply are in jeopardy.
…
Environmental extremists prefer to mandate the expanded use of ethanol, rather than using abundant oil supplies. This alternative produces less energy per gallon of fuel than gasoline, while driving the price of food upward, causing riots and forcing the cultivation of more land where wildlife can no longer flourish.

Environmental extremists wring their hands and cry crocodile tears at the thought of “ruining” the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge by using only 2,000 of the 18 million acres for oil production. But they seem to have no problems with the idea of covering millions of acres in the southwest with solar panels.

Environmental extremists celebrate their victory in banning DDT to save birds. But they have no problem with miles and miles of wind turbines that slaughter millions of birds every year. Nor do they seem to have any sympathy for the millions of people who have died from malaria as a direct result of the ban on DDT.
…
Big oil is not to blame for the high price of gasoline; the blame must fall squarely in the lap of the environmental extremists who use propaganda and fear-mongering to block the increases in the production of readily available fossil fuels. There are sufficient reserves of coal to last about 200 years. Despite Jimmy Carter’s 1970s declaration that the world would be out of oil by 2000, and considering the anticipated increase in demand, there are enough known oil reserves to last at least 60 years. This energy should be available now.

Of course, research should continue to find abundant, affordable energy supplies for the future. But forcing technology to advance by arbitrarily and unnecessarily prohibiting the use of currently available energy supplies makes no sense.
 

Exactly. It does make no sense, even under the highly questionable guise of environmentalism (I say ‘questionable”, because had Kyoto, for example, been signed and actually followed by all signatories, it would have resulted in no measurable difference in either air quality or in world-wide temperature. None. ) Yet they continue to doggedly pursue these seemingly misguided policies. Why?

Well, let’s look at ANWR, as an example.

Remember back in ’95 when Clinton vetoed ANWR? What was the stated reason? It wouldn’t help for 10 years, so why try?  It’s now a few years past hat ten years. Think having 20% more oil in the market would have kept us from paying 4$/gal now? Think about what the Democrats have done to us when you fil up. Think about how much extra yo’re paying because of their nonsense. The stated reason for ethanol production subsidies was that we wanted to break the dependency on foreign oil. Yet despite having the oil right under our noses, we instead launch off on ethanol, causing world wide food shortages, and economic crisis.

Well, let’s imagine you’re Bill Clinton. You’re not only concerned about your legacy, you want to ensure a freindly political climate for Democrats in future election cycles… 2008 for example. You know that if you sign the ANWR dilling deal, you’ll be injecting a huge amount of oil into the market in ten years, You know that oil equals economic growth, and a lot of that will happen even before the pumping comes on line, as oil prices will be going down in advance of ANWR being a serious player in the actual delivery of the crude it contains.  By 08, that oil will ahve been online for two years. Do you sign it, making the next two term president look good, or do you not sign it, collapsing the economy with the option of blaming that Republican president for the problem?

More than granted, that this is speculation, but it does fit rather nicely with what we know of the Clintons, and it also fits with the fact that they knew in eight years they’d need Republicans to look bad, because Hillary Clinton would be running. Does anyone not understand that the Clintons would easily be motivated to such an end?

That’s just one aspect of motivation. There are others. As ane example of these, let’s look at this from the standpoint of the whacko-left, who thinks the word “profit’ a dirty one, particularly where oil is concerned.  I submit to you we are now seeing the results of their left-leaning.

Let’s do it this way:

1. Had Bill Clinton not vetoed ANWR drilling back in 1995, our supply of available crude would be  at least 20% higher than it is today. think that would have kept us from paying $4/gal today?
2. That is one of several examples of our being prevented from dilling where the oil is. There are countless offshore examples, off California, and Florida.
3. We have more crude oil available to us here in these not-so United States than is in the whole of the Middle East.  However environmentalists make it their business to prevent us from getting to it. Mostly, this is political reasons.
4. As a direct result of our environmentalist wing, we now have food shortages (Ethenol production) and an economy that is threatening to dive into the tank.
5. If the world-wide left had wanted to ruin our economy, they could hardly have picked a better way to do it, than to limit our energy supply. The only way to limit our use of our own energy is ‘environmental;’ concerns.

Are you getting the picture, yet?

The solution list to these issues are rather simple.

 1: Tell the greenies to sit down, and shut up, and then give them all the attention they deserve: Ignore them totally. 

2: Drill, pump refine, and repeat.

And if I’m John McCain, I’m proposing ending all enthenol subsidies, ending the moritorium on domestic drilling, and saying that if president, the first thing I’d be doing is ordering ANWR opened up along with all offshore sites, eliminating the environmentalist red tape. (An apt name, “red tape”, given the politics..) and ordering the EPA back into it’s corner.

Mind you, I don’t think he’ll do it, beacuse simply put, he hasnt the stones. A real leader would, though. A national and world crisis has been caused by the enviro-whacko left.  It’s time we responded as such.

Mark Steyn provides interesting reading this morning:

The Australian columnist Pamela Bone died of cancer this weekend. She was a feminist, an atheist and most of the other -ists you might expect from a western woman of her general disposition (she was a recipient, among many other awards, of something called the “UN media peace prize”). But in her final years she came to see that the Islamization of the west represented a profound challenge to everything she believed in. It began fairly tentatively. She seems almost to be thinking aloud in this piece for the Melbourne Age on the British subjects born and bred who self-detonated on the London Tube:

In Melbourne the day after September 11, Muslim students at a state high school danced on the desks with glee. What are these young people being taught by their decent and law-abiding parents? Literature being sold at a store attached to a Brunswick mosque tells Muslims they should “hate and take as enemies” Jews, Christians, atheists and secularists, and that they should “learn to hate in order to properly love Allah”. How many Muslims complain when they see this kind of hate literature? Did the large Sydney audience complain when Sheikh Feiz Muhammad charged recently that because of the way they dressed, women had only themselves to blame if they were raped? No, they applauded him.

The column ends as follows:

Perhaps it is time to say, it’s been wonderful, but a few things need to be made clear. Perhaps it is time to say, you are welcome, but this is the way it is here.

There’s more at the link of course. Not much, at least in terms of words but the idea per word ratio is unusually high, even for Steyn, a master at such, usually. There’s an awful lot of density, in terms of the message being sent in a very small post.  In the end, Ms Bone apparently came to understand the argument I’ve been making at this blog for all of it’s nearly eight years. That alone rates her passing a mention in these spaces, but when Steyn launches off of it, it’s doubly worthy.

The victim of a big Mac attack today is Al Sharpton, lover of criminals, and terrorist.

How Sharpton loves criminals, Heather Mac Donald, City Journal:

“Stop the killing!” Since 1993, 11,353 people have been murdered in New York City. The large majority of victims and perpetrators have been black. Not a single one of those black-on-black killings has prompted protest or demonstrations from the city’s black advocates. Sharpton, Barron, et al. are happy to let thousands of black victims get mowed down by thugs without so much as a whispered call for “peace” or “justice”; it’s only when a police officer, trying to protect the public, makes a good faith mistake in a moment of intense pressure that they rise as vindicators of black life. (As for caring about slain police officers, forget about it. Sixteen cops—including several black policemen—have been killed since 1999, not one of whom elicited a public demonstration of condolence from the race hustlers.)

New York City under Mayor David Dinkins was a poorly governed city.  Under the last two mayors, NYC has become a much better governed city and a much safer city.  Sharpton has fought the improvement in public safety every step of the way.  When black civilians murder other blacks or police offerers, Shartpon stands mute.  When a black is killed by a police officer, Shapton becomes violent.  Murder by civilian is far greater problem in New York City than a death at the hands of a police officer.  Yet Sharpton remains indifferent to murder.

While Sharpton is a criminal at heart, his methods are that of a terrorist, Mac Ranger :

Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Pub. L. No. 107-52) defines that a person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act “”dangerous to human life”” that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to: (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.

Sharpton:

“We strategically know how to stop the city so people stand still and realize that you do not have the right to shoot down unarmed, innocent civilians,” Sharpton told an overflow crowd of several hundred people at his National Action Network office in the historically black Manhattan neighborhood. “This city is going to deal with the blood of Sean Bell.”

Michelle offerd up a pretty fair discription of Sharpton:

[L]ying, poisonous, police-hating, crime-coddling, race-hustling agenda.

Sharpton os the darling the media.  Yet he does not belong in the green room but rather in prison.

Hat tip photo: Messenger and Advocate.

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Yes, I noticed the interview, though admittedly I didn’t watch it. Rather, I read the transcript.

Suffice to say, I’m not impressed. He came over to Fox, making a lot of noises he must ahve figured would be popular among the right wing knuckle-draggers he thinks watch the place, regularly, but even there, it was couched in left-wing mantra:

WALLACE: Over the years, John McCain has broken with his party and risked his career on a number of issues, campaign finance, immigration reform, banning torture. As a president, can you name a hot button issue where you would be willing to cross (ph) Democratic party line and say you know what, Republicans have a better idea here.WALLACE: And we are back now with Senator Barack Obama. Senator, one of the central themes of your campaign is that you are a uniter, who will reach across the aisle and create a new kind of politics. Some of your detractors say that you are a paint by the numbers liberal and I’d like to explore this with you.

Over the years, John McCain has broken with his party and risked his career on a number of issues, campaign finance, immigration reform, banning torture. As a president, can you name a hot button issue where you would be willing to cross (ph) Democratic party line and say you know what, Republicans have a better idea here.

OBAMA: Well, I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea.

WALLACE: Such as.

OBAMA: Well, on issues of regulation, I think that back in the ’60s and ’70s, a lot of the way we regulated industry was top down command and control. We’re going to tell businesses exactly how to do things.

And I think that the Republican party and people who thought about the margins (ph) came with the notion that you know what, if you simply set some guidelines, some rules and incentives for businesses, let them figure out how they’re going to for example reduce pollution. And a cap and trade system, for example, is a smarter way of doing it, controlling pollution, than dictating every single rule that a company has to abide by, which creates a lot of bureaucracy and red tape and oftentimes is less efficient.

I think that on issues of education, I have been very clear about the fact, and sometimes I have gotten in trouble with the teachers union on this, that we should be experimenting with charter schools. We should be experimenting with different ways of compensating teachers. That –

WALLACE: You mean merit pay?

OBAMA: Well, merit pay, the way it has been designed I think that is based on just single standardized I think is a big mistake, because the way we measure performance may be skewed by whether or not the kids are coming in the school already three years or four years behind.

But I think that having assessment tools and then saying, you know what, teachers who are on career paths to become better teachers, developing themselves professionally, that we should pay excellence more. I think that’s a good idea.

Is there anyone reading this line of crud that does not understand he’s making only a nodding gesture at the right, while making sure everyone knows he’s not leaving the ‘Gaia First” stuff behind?  Does anyone not understand that even as he speaks of ‘charter schools’, he trying to keep education firmly in the hands of the government?

For all the noises he’s making about ‘reaching out’ his voting record, sparse as it is, does nothing to back up with cold hard votes, the ‘reaching out’ he’s doing here.

HIs voting history is directly in line with his call for higher taxes… 28%.

HIs non-stop calls to cut and run in Iraq, his higher taxes, his open assocation with anti-American types,  all of this and so much more disqualify the man from even being considered for the White House.

And this Fox interview did nothing to change that.

In watching the developments in the Middle East, these last few months I have to tell you that Iran is likely to be our next stop militarily. I do not believe this to be a choice of ours, but rather a choice of theirs.

A couple of days ago I became embroiled in a conversation with Alex Knapp over at Outside the Beltway, as regards Hamas and its anti-Israel activities.  I suggested at the time that they were being supplied by Iran. I pointed to several news articles at the time, which in fact, this contention. Even worse, I was able to point to evidence which suggested that Iran is still hip deep in supporting terrorist organizations in the Gaza.

Makes sense, too, if you think on it. As I said at the time, when Israel is tied up dealing with Hamas, or Fatah,(whichever is in power at the given moment) they’re not dealing directly with Iran, are they? If Iran has designs on Israel, and I think it clear they do, then what better way to deal with Israel than using Hamas or Fatah as a sheild? It would be in their interests to keep them minimally supplied.

So this morning, I start catching up on my mail, and I find a note from Chuck Simmins over at the North Shore Journal. He points to reports that Iran is up to it’s pits there, too, in supporting Terrorists… in this case, Sadr.

AP reported on March 26 “Mahdi Army commanders have told the AP that the militia has recently taken delivery of new weapons supplied by backers in Iran. The arsenal, they said, included roadside bombs, anti-aircraft guns and Soviet-designed Grad rockets.

They also said an infusion of cash, also from Iran, helped the militia set up new command centers equipped with Internet-linked computers, fax machines and satellite mobile phones. They have also received global positioning system devices, they said.

The United States has long accused Iran of providing Shiite militias in Iraq with arms and training. Iran denies it.

Of course they deny it. But it’s kind of hard to come to any other conclusion, given the markings on the munitions before found, and being fired at Iraqi and American forces.

And of course we now see Sadr swearing fealty to Iran in this Washington Post article… (From 2006!).

So much for the myth that we’re embroiled in an Iraqi civil war. Such a civil war, after all, would exclude Iranian support, and Iranian fighters such as have been found killed following fighting With Sadr’s people.  And given the back and forth that Sadr himself has been doing, between Iran and Iraq… mostly after he’s lost battles and large numbers of troops, why would it be so hard to fathom, that he’s going to Iran to report to his betters, and to pick up more men and supples to continue his fight against the legitimate government of Iraq? Even what ‘cease fires’ have occurred, appear to have occurred at Iran’s bidding.

Even within the last hour, now, stories have surfaced which solidify this link.

It seems clear that Iran is the central supporter of terrorist activities and unrest in the region. It doesn’t take a great deal of thought to determine our next course of action. 20 years gone, now, such evidence as I’ve posted here alone would have resulted, rightly, in a military response against Tehran which would make ‘shock and awe’ look like a tea party. We delay such response now, at our own peril, I think. The centrifuges, after all, continue to spin in the underground facility in Iran.

By contrast,James at OTB suggests we might do well to employ a MAD philosophy.

We learned to play the nuclear game during the Cold War and developed our theory of strategic deterrence around the idea of mutually assured destruction. We threatened to wipe the other guys off the face of the map if they launched a nuclear strike against us and left the option on the table to strike them first. This brinksmanship came dangerously close to being tested, most notably with the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it otherwise worked.

Only one problem with that idea. The Soviets, for all their stupidity, did not suffer from a suicide-bomber mentality, that they were all going to be rewarded in heaven for killing infidels. Consider that Iran is working toward Nuclear weapons capability, despite having no rockets that can get such a weapon far enough downwind to prevent radiation problems for it’s own territory. Surely, a suicidal attitude, and one vastly different from anything we faced during the cold war.

The kind of war we have fought so far in Iraq and Afghanistan should, if nothing else, be solid enough indication that strategies we’ve used in the past will simply not work, or worse, will work to our the advantage of our enemy.

James Joyner reads the New York Times, apparently, so that you don’t have to. This morning, he notes:

Elizabeth Edwards, who despite no public policy credentials other than having been married to a one-term senator and yet oddly seems to get op-ed space in the major papers whenever she requests it, has a rather strange editorial in today’s NYT whining about how the mainstream media is failing in its duty to inform the public.

The first several paragraphs make the silly argument that the press covers only the drama of the race and ignores the issues, with the effect that “voters who take their responsibility to be informed seriously enough to search out information about the candidates are finding it harder and harder to do so, particularly if they do not have access to the Internet.” This, frankly, is nonsense. There’s so much information out there that it’s virtually impossible for those who can’t devote full time to immersing themselves in it to read it all. And who are these people who are simultaneously starving for information about Joe Biden’s health care proposals and yet lack Internet access? Presumably, there are people who are poor and don’t work in a connected office who are interested in public policy. But there’s always the public library.

Interspersed in this is a more interesting, if not particularly novel, complaint: That the press decides who the legitimate candidates are.

Look, let’s be honest enough to note that her biggest (mostly unspoken) implication was that were the press to have done it’s job, of, in her view, “focusing on the substance”, “I feel pretty” would still be in the hunt for the White House. (I suppose it arguable that it would have been an improvement over who the Democrats ended up with)

What she (And her husband) fail to recognize is the rather obvious conclusion… that the substance Edwards and her Husband offer, simply put, isn’t gathering the interest of the electorate, and that if it wasn’t for what she considers divergences from the ‘real issues’, the voters wouldn’t have had any interest in her husband’s candidacy at all.

The Strib:

Al Franken’s career as an entertainer made him famous and rich and positioned him to run for the U.S. Senate.

But now, just as he appears on the verge of securing the DFL endorsement to take on Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, Franken could be tripped up by missteps in the way his show business enterprise was run.

Republicans, who for more than a year have eagerly unearthed controversial tidbits from Franken’s comedy routines and books, have in recent weeks discovered several slip-ups in the celebrity’s business life. On Thursday, they claimed to have found another possible irregularity, a charge that has yet to be resolved.

On Friday, Franken’s campaign manager, Andy Barr, declined to say whether Franken had paid taxes on earnings in California between 2003 and 2007.

He said Franken’s accountant is working with California officials to sort things out.

Yeah, I can just imagine the conversation on THAT little gem. I’m willing to bet the smirk was gone.

But it’s gotten even better… he’s not been paying his workman’s comp, either.

The latest Republican charge that Franken’s taxes there have gone unpaid comes in the wake of earlier disclosures that Franken failed to pay workers’ compensation and disability premiums in New York and botched the dissolution of his California corporation.

Since then, Franken has paid more than $25,000 in fines to New York and still owes more than $4,700 in corporate taxes and fines to California.

Well, as I see it, he has two choices; He can either get out of politics… or he can start making like he’s a libertarian. The drawback there is I don’t think the Libertarians will have the slime.

You made your bed, Al, in two ways… How did you think all those giveaways you’ve been insisting on, all those government programs, were paid for, except by your taxes, buddy?  And of course you thought yourself better than the rest of us.

All I can say is, enjoy it, Al. You deserve it.

The protracted and increasingly acrimonious fight for the Democratic presidential nomination is unnerving core constituencies — African Americans and wealthy liberals — who are becoming convinced that the party could suffer irreversible harm if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton maintains her sharp line of attack against Sen. Barack Obama.

Clinton’s solid win in the Pennsylvania primary exposed a quandary for the party. Her backers may be convinced that only she can win the white, working-class voters that the Democratic nominee will need in the general election, but many African American leaders say a Clinton nomination — handed to her by superdelegates — would result in a disastrous breach with black voters.

“If this party is perceived by people as having gone into a back room somewhere and brokered a nominee, that would not be good for our party,” House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (S.C.), the highest ranking African American in Congress, warned yesterday. “I’m telling you, if this continues on its current course, [the damage] is going to be irreparable.”

That from Jonathan Weisman and Matthew Mosk of the Washngton Post.

The fears, of course, are justified, but I’ve already mentioned why.

Democrats have up until now invariably argued the politice of racism and sexism. Put simply, you need a woman to represent Women, you need a black to represent blacks and so on. The racial and sexual divide that the Democrats fear will tear them apart is a monster of their own making.

As such I have no sympathy whatever for them.

The mainstream media makes the case for John McCain, kind of, sort of.  The case against Barack Obama(BO),  Bob Hebert, New York Times:

[T]here can be no denying that an awful lot of Mr. Obama’s troubles have come from his side of the table. The Rev. Wright fiasco undermined the fundamental rationale of the entire Obama campaign — that it would be about healing, about putting partisanship aside, about reaching across ethnic and party divisions to bring people together in a new era of cooperation.

It’s hard to continue making that case when the candidate’s spiritual adviser is on television castigating America and scaring the hell out of at least some white people

The case against Mrs. Clinton, Eleanor Clift,Newsweek

Not that anyone will be sleeping with the fishes with Hillary[sic] in the White House, but with the Clintons it’s business and it’s personal. Just think of all the scores to settle, the grievances to indulge. Bill Clinton provided a preview this week, blaming the Obama campaign for playing the race card against him. Tricky maneuver, but perhaps the only way the former president can come to grips with his loss of standing in the African-American community, once his strongest constituency. (South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, an undeclared superdelegate who is African-American, told the New York Times this week that the black community had supported Clinton during his impeachment and that “I think black folks feel strongly that this is a strange way [for him] to show his appreciation.”)
 

I note, but disbelive, Ms Clift’s assertion that the second Clinton administration would somehow be less bloody than the first.  Of course leaving the Butcher of Waco in Florida would help.

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HMM: “I think it is obvious that the superdelegates will pick Obama. They have their own self-interest to consider, not to mention the long-term interest of the party. The choice for Obama is clear â?? and it would be clear even if they knew Clinton would win and Obama will lose.”

So notes InstaGlenn.

This is probably correct, but I cannot engine that either way, the super delegates vote is going to be ending up as a net positive for the Democrat party.

Think about this with me; If the superdelegates end up voting against Obama, I will guarantee you that we will end up with race riots before the end of the 24 hour period in which the vote is taken.  The resulting resentment from within the party and from outside of it, will most likely keep the Democrats out of the White House for the next few cycles it least.

If on the other hand, they decided to nominate him, instead of rejecting him in favor of Clinton, the resulting for years will be pretty much the same way.  The policies that Obama has proposed, if enacted, would make Jimmy Carter look like a cakewalk by comparison, and would result in a Reaganesque landslide at the far end of it for the Republicans, and for the next several cycles beyond.

And either way they go, we’re going to see a real whacko festival in Denver, which will be broadcast for all to see. Trust me that this will not exactly be a good image for the Democrats to put forward to the American people while seeking their vote, but I suppose they can hardly help who they are.

I have described this on several occasions as the Democrats worst possible nightmare.  The only nightmare that could possibly be worse is if either one of them manages to get themselves elected.

Bruce has a great story, today:

When you read of this young man’s heroics, remember when this happened he was a Lance Corporal and a driver. The fact that he assessed the situation, realized he had to take charge and did so is a testament to both his courage and Marine Corps training. His successful defense of his position and the rescue and evacuation of his comrades is a remarkable feat, deserving of the Navy Cross.

Go and read.

Project Hero, is a worthy attempt on McQ’s part to remind us that we have heroes among us. Further, that these need to be honored as such. We at BitsBlog are proud to lend our voice to such a project.

Billy makes a great point this morning:

I don’t know why people keep referring to what’s going on with energy as a “market” while it’s stepped on by government every mile of the way from the field to your tank, and from the generator to your AC outlets, ad infinitum. And it’s supposed to be evidence of markets working because people are being priced out of what’s being called a “market”… almost as if it’s a good thing or something.

If The New York Times had run a Walter Duranty headline in 1931 that went, “Reports are that peasants appear to be consuming less wheat as a result of eating less,” what might have Americans thought of it, or of an economy manifest so? What might have been the right thing to think of it?

He’s nailed it, folks, on several levels. First to my mind is the amount of damage that we’ve done to ourselves by allowing government to intrude in this process to the degree that we have. I’m telling you right now; the problems we have with supply and price at the moment are all…and I mean all, government created. All of it.

My god, the lapse of ethics and politics in economics is just rotten. All over the place you’ll see people equating the applications and results of force with voluntary exchanges of values, up and down long production chains from raw materials to finished products, with arbitrary coercive interventions everywhere along the way. I don’t know why people don’t or can’t keep track of the crucial political difference between force and trade, but they just don’t. I suppose it’s because something useful to consumers is eventually squeezed out the ass-end of the thing after every government shark along the way has had its bite.

Well, there is that, coupled with the idea that for several generations, that’s all they’ve known.  They don’t know how much problem the government is causing because i has never BEEN any other way in their eyes. Of course, the educational system has never taught them anything else either… and it’s mostly government run too, of course.  It’s to the point now where this monstrosity of ethanol subsidy gets tossed into the mix with not even a smidge of discussion. The results are clearly not good, and yet we see no move away from the monster. And that’s just an example of supposed ‘energy policy’, and it’s consequences.

And let’s remember that all of this was to lower the amount of pollution i the air. THe whole thing of using corn in the tank instead of oil was because of the government fed… and to a large degree government mandated myth of ‘global warming’, which has since been disproved. And of course we now know that ethanol is a larger polluter than oil. Yep Whole thing sounds like a government operation to ME.

Of course, Energy policy isn’t the only place these governmentally enforced screwups interfere with our lives, our livelihoods and the well-being of the country and the world.  They just happen to be the most visible, at the moment.

Can you say ‘healthcare’? Can you say ‘welfare’? Can you say ‘Social Security’?  Can you say ‘Education’? There can be no more argument; everything government touches ends up in the same sewer. And yet we keep looking to government for solutions.

Make sense to you?