Readin', Writin' and 'splodin'--what are they teaching the kids these days at Yasser Arafat Junior High?

There's an interesting dichotomy at work here: Note the extremely positive style in which the local TV news station in Blue State generally "anti-War" Bobos In Paradise Santa Rosa, California reported the story of an elderly Army vet who defended himself against a robbery attempt. Then compare it how one now infamous ex-reporter in the generally more conservative area of Dallas reported the story of another elderly Army vet who defended himself against multiple robbery attempts.

The contrasting styles indicate, among other things, the folly of the remaining pockets of the media who claim to be "objective", unbiased, and generally above the fray. The above videos also illustrate that tone, language and context are all key parts of crafting the news, whether it's for print, TV or radio, as well consideration of how the news will be received by the local audience. (Hence the additional outrage over former Dallas-area journalist Rebecca Aguilar's badgering tone.) And all of those elements are based on the skill and life experiences of the producer, editor and/or reporter, who brings together the writing, interviewing, and soundbites, whether they're printed quotes or A/V clips.

"Karl Rove had the audacity to hope Democrats would nominate a hard-left Cook County hack...and they did!"

Cuffy Meigs writes that it's Panic In Detroit (sorry, makes for a better Bowie song) Denver this summer:

Yeah, we bloggers/blog readers have been hearing this for the past month, but this AP piece is hitting the wires and will be in every print newspaper this weekend (sad to say, even I still take the local Sunday paper). Lots of unplugged people are about to get up to speed.

"Nightmarish...Wreck...Wrenching...Infuriating...Excruciating..." Delicious:

For all their delight in soaring voter registration and strong poll numbers, some Democrats fear the contest between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton might have a nightmarish end, which could wreck a promising election year.

The chief worry is that Clinton may carry her recent winning streak into Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina and other states, leaving her with unquestioned momentum but fewer pledged delegates than Obama. Party leaders then would face a wrenching choice: Steer the nomination to a fading Obama, even as signs suggested Clinton could be the stronger candidate in November; or go with the surging Clinton and risk infuriating Obama's supporters, especially blacks, the Democratic Party's most loyal base.

Some anxious Democrats want party elders to step in now to generate more "superdelegate" support for Obama, effectively choking off Clinton's hopes before she can bolster them further. But many say that is unlikely, and they pray the final 10 contests will make the ultimate choice fairly obvious, not excruciating.

Even as the "Recreate '68" voices huddle in the corner (geez when did it ever go away?) a savior emerges from the shadows!

(On the other hand, a powerful voice from the Dark Side of the Force whispers, "You know you got a problem if the answer is Al Gore".)

Kathryn Jean Lopez has "Breaking News from Here":

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world, the Vatican said on Sunday.

Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiled the Vatican's newly-released 2008 yearbook of statistics, said Muslims made up 19.2 percent of the world's population and Catholics 17.4 percent.

"For the first time in history we are no longer at the top: the Muslims have overtaken us," Formenti told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in an interview, saying the data referred to 2006.

Paging Mark Steyn....Mark Steyn to the ER, stat!

In other news from the demographic wars, Kathy Shaidle is paging Der Stingle: "Hey, Sting! The Russians don't love their children after all". And Nathan Bradfield spots Barack Obama describing babies as "punishment".

Just another cold day in the Demographic Winter, I guess.

All you need to know about the state of Google these days is summed up by comparing two concurrent weekends of splash pages: the transnational search engine couldn't be bothered to create a customized page last week for the traditional Christian holiday of Easter, but could create one for the gnostic "Earth Hour" festival to pay homage to Gaia. (In a blackout design which ironically uses more power than their usual white page!) And speaking of "Earth Hour", Tim Blair writes:

The University of Sydney isn't taking any chances. "Campus Infrastructure Services will be switching off as many non-essential lights as possible, while ensuring that safety and security on our campuses is maintained," said an administration email sent last week. "There will be some street and path closures to allow as many lights as possible to be switched off."

So they're closing streets to protect students from dangerous unlit areas. Sounds like the university needs to work on its definition of "non-essential."

That's one thing about light; it makes dangerous places safe. Light is emblematic of civilisation. Nobody would visit Paris if it were known as the City of Dark. Likewise, we rarely invoke the Dark Ages to describe a pleasant situation. Bruce Springsteen possibly wasn't in the happiest frame of mind when he wrote "Darkness On The Edge of Town."

Supporters of Earth Hour like to talk about the important symbolism of the event in terms of climate change and suchlike. The deeper symbolism is of a rejection of progress - of the centuries of research and innovation that culminates in us being able to bring light by flicking a few grams of plastic.

That's an excellent point. During the 1996 election Bill Clinton promised that his administration would build a bridge to the 21st century. But followers of his vice president seem to want to build a bridge back into the 11th century, particularly when you add their rejection of mechanical and engineering progress with a rejection of centuries of hygienic advancements as well. The hippies of the 1960s wanted to Start From Zero; their successors are determined to return there, dragging the rest of us back to Year Zero with them whether we want to reprimitivize or not.

(Incidentally, I wonder how they'd react if a hospital told them a loved one suffering a heart attack couldn't have electrical defibrillation because the juice in the emergency room was off for Earth Hour?)

Update: Found via Mark Steyn, Darrell Epp suggests, "Forget ‘Global Warming’ and Start Worrying About ‘Demographic Winter’."

As I wrote at the start of the month after noting Gloria Steinem's Olympic-quality backflip regarding the successive former Navy men to run for the White House in 2004 and 2008:

56 years ago, Lillian Hellman rather disingenuously told HCUAA, "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions." But as we're seeing, those who played the "Chickenhawk" and Starship Trooper-esque "Absolute Moral Authority" cards earlier in the decade have absolutely no problem hitting the CNTRL-ALT-DEL buttons on their consciences when the need suits them.

Much more recently, Howard Dean claimed, "I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy."

Physician, heal thyself:

"The real issue is this," Dean said in March 2004, when endorsing formal rival Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., "Who would you rather have in charge of the defense of the United States of America, a group of people who never served a day overseas in their life, or a guy who served his country honorably and has three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star on the battlefields of Vietnam?"

McCain, by the way, has been awarded the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, two Bronze Star Medals, a Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

(Via Hot Air, who dubs hypocritical Howard the quote of the day, and with good reason.)

For those who missed it on XM yesterday, the newest PJM Political is now online, with extra monkeyfishing for your added podcasting pleasure:

It's Tuzla-Palooza this week, as host Bill Bradley analyzes the CBS clip that showed a distinct lack of sniper fire 12 years ago when the former First Lady dropped in on Bosnia. Plus:

• Frank Martin of Varifrank tells A Tale Of Two Tankers--with both a John McCain connection, and even a synchronistic Sinbadian Tuzla tie-in!
• James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web Today" column would rather be monkeyfishing--and who wouldn't?
• Cartoonist/graphic designer Chris Muir explains how he lives life Day By Day.
• And PBS producer/financial author Jim Schlagheck gives his economic prescription to the next occupant of the White House to Glenn Reynolds and Dr. Helen Smith.
• Produced by Ed Driscoll.

I had some fun earlier today with Michael Bloomberg being floated as a potential veep for Obama, but Roger Simon has a much more serious take at why the Nanny State Mayor is being used as temporary window dressing:

It wasn't long ago (yesterday) that Michael Bloomberg was being hyped as the answer to Obama's Jewish problem, but I think the problem goes a lot deeper than floating the self-promoting NY Mayor for a running mate. It now seems Obama's church has been sending out the most old-fashioned anti-Semitic canards in their newsletter, including the nonsense we have been hearing for years about Israel being an "apartheid state" (shades of the Durban conference). And this was published by the church in June 2007, doubtlessly arriving Chez Obama in the midst of his campaign. (Do his children read the newsletter?) Barack didn't say anything about it until now. Of course you could just call this all "free speech," but if such racist bilge came out of any organization I was a member of, I'd be resigning post haste... and this man is running for POTUS.

Just one more point: one of the anti-Semitic screeds in question - with quotations around the 'state' of Israel - was published over six years after the Taba Conference when a Palestinian state was offered to Arafat by the Israelis and, as we all know, the deceased caudillo walked out for fear he might actually have to govern a country. He launched Intifada II instead. If I were Obama I'd be mighty embarrassed by the rubbish his church is publishing. And now with the current minister accusing Wright's critics of a "lynching" for expressing their natural indignation toward the retired pastor's appalling statements, I would be wondering whether my church was indeed "liberal" in any definable sense of the word or simply reactionary.

Meanwhile, when it's time for decisive action, Obama slices like a hammer, as Paul Anka would say. Don Surber wryly notes, "When it came time to leave the church, Obama voted present."

Byron York spots this amusing exchange on CNN:

On Laura Ingraham's program March 14, the day after the Rev. Jeremiah Wright story broke, I said that Obama supporters "are going to try to suggest to TV producers that playing [video of Wright's statements] over and over is a racially inflammatory act."

Cut to yesterday, when Hillary Clinton was asked about Wright and said "He would not have been my pastor." You would have thought she had used a racial epithet. Andrew Sullivan quickly labeled Clinton's statement "a new low." And later, on CNN, when Clinton defender Lanny Davis called Clinton's remarks "legitimate" and described the statements by Rev. Wright that are the basis of the whole controversy, he was quickly called to task by host Anderson Cooper and fellow guest Joe Klein:

DAVIS: I think it's a legitimate way that she said it, which is that she personally would not put up with somebody who says that 9/11 are chickens who come home to roost, that Israel is a state-sponsored organization — nation, and that there are generic comments made about America…

KLEIN: Lanny, you're doing it right now.

COOPER: Lanny, it is amazing. Lanny, it is amazing. I'm not taking sides here, but we all know what the comments were. It's funny that you feel the need to repeat them over and over again.

DAVIS: It's appropriate.

KLEIN: You know, Lanny, Lanny, you're spreading the — you're spreading the poison right now.

As far as I can tell, Davis had not described Wright's comments on the program, so I'm not sure why Cooper said "over and over again." But it appears that in some quarters it is not only inappropriate to play the video of Wright's "God damn America," "chickens coming home to roost" and "U.S. of KKK A" comments, it is inappropriate to describe them as well. I think we'll be seeing a lot more of that in the future.

Contrast this attempt at a media blockcade of Rev. Wright's poison (as Joe Klein tacitly put it) with the approximately 100 times that the Washington Post repeated then Sen. George Allen's one-off "Macaca" gaffe in the fall of mid-term election year 2006, and the New York Times' literally daily front page coverage of Abu Ghraib during the middle of the previous year.

Related: "Obama: It's All a Distraction"!

Update: Along with a link to this post (thanks!) Allahpundit has video of Klein's CNN appearance at Hot Air.

"Sen. Ted Kennedy: 'And when the Reagan administration was selling arms to Iran, WHERE WAS GEORGE?' Answer: Dry, sober, and at home with his wife."

--One of many quotes from the great P.J. O'Rourke, found here.

A new and chilling video from The National Center for Public Policy Research asks, can we really trust a consummate Washington insider with the support of Al Gore, who lives in an exclusive northern whites-only community?

Ann Althouse contemplates Mitt Romney as McCain's VP. Meanwhile, in the Hotline's latest video, Holly Noe and John Mercurio contemplate an even odder potential pairing on the left.

Just call it Nanny Audacity.

Anne Jacobson drops by "Harvard’s Segregated Gym". It's yet another step on academia's weird, growing obsession with Separate But Equal education, and another milestone towards, as Stanley Kurtz writes, the "Mother of All Cultural Battles."

Glenn Reynolds links to a new study on academia's monoculture: "OLD LINE: Left-leaning faculty are a right-wing myth. New line: Faculty Are Liberal — Who Cares?"

Isn't this pretty much the exact tone that many in Big Media have been taking since key media events during the first half of the decade beginning with 9/11, quickly followed by the rise of the Blogosphere, the publishing of former CBS insider Bernard Goldberg's books on bias, and the 2004 election? Or as I wrote last year:

Back in February of 2004, I wrote:

After decades of trying to claim impartiality, there have been several admissions lately by the media that they are indeed, biased.

A theme I followed up shortly thereafter in a couple of interviews with Bernard Goldberg at Tech Central Station, and an article a few months ago for the New Individualist titled Atlas Mugged, which explored the push-pull interaction between old media and new. The trend away from an 80-year old definition of objectivity was also also spotted last year by James Taranto, who wrote:

Something odd is afoot in America's elite media--increasingly, journalists are unabashed about admitting their liberal bias.

Much like the New York Times coming clean in 2004, it has something of a "Gosh, who knew!" quality to it, but add this announcement to the list as well. And as Stephen Spruiell asks, how long before their parent network makes official what is otherwise remarkably obvious.

I think it's a healthier trend for both institutions to at least admit their biases--since everyone, and every institution has them--than the former see-no-evil approach which dominated academia and the media for much of the 20th century.

Linking to an item found by The Deacon's Bench blog, the Anchoress writes, "This actually sounds like a church Obama could love: WE ARE THE GOD-LINGS WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!":

That triumphal barnburner of an Easter hymn, "Jesus Christ Has Risen Today – Hallelujah," this morning will rock the walls of Toronto's West Hill United Church as it will in most Christian churches across the country.

But at West Hill on the faith's holiest day, it will be done with a huge difference. The words “Jesus Christ” will be excised from what the congregation sings and replaced with “Glorious hope.”

Thus, it will be hope that is declared to be resurrected – an expression of renewal of optimism and the human spirit – but not Jesus, contrary to Christianity's central tenet about the return to life on Easter morning of the crucified divine son of God.

Generally speaking, no divine anybody makes an appearance in West Hill's Sunday service liturgy.

There is no authoritative Big-Godism, as Rev. Gretta Vosper, West Hill's minister for the past 10 years, puts it. No petitionary prayers (“Dear God, step into the world and do good things about global warming and the poor”). No miracles-performing magic Jesus given birth by a virgin and coming back to life. No references to salvation, Christianity's teaching of the final victory over death through belief in Jesus's death as an atonement for sin and the omnipotent love of God. For that matter, no omnipotent God, or god.

Ms. Vosper has written a book, published this week – With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is More Important than What We Believe – in which she argues that the Christian church, in the form in which it exists today, has outlived its viability and either it sheds its no-longer credible myths, doctrines and dogmas, or it's toast.

Post-Christian religion? What could go wrong?

Ten days on the road, and I'm gonna make it home tonight, to slightly paraphrase Dave Dudley, not to mention the Flying Burrito Brothers at a far worse road gig than I just returned from.

Watch for regular blogging to resume Friday. And the podcast version of this week's edition of PJM Political on XM Satellite Radio's POTUS '08 channel, featuring James Taranto, Chris Muir, Frank Martin (sans Sigourney, unfortunately), and host Bill Bradley, to go live on the newly revised Pajamas site tomorrow as well.

As Tim Blair writes, "The Mercedes-Benz of peace has been up on blocks for a while, but now it’s back on the road".

In other news from the intersection of "progressivism" and horsepower, Massachusetts' Coupe Deval is continuing to hit pothole after pothole badly enough to actually be noticed by his supporters at the New York Times.

This just in from the Economist (via the Judd Brothers): "Why conservatives are happier than liberals: a review of Gross National Happiness by Arthur Brooks":

In 2004 Americans who called themselves “conservative” or “very conservative” were nearly twice as likely to tell pollsters they were “very happy” as those who considered themselves “liberal” or “very liberal” (44% versus 25%). One might think this was because liberals were made wretched by George Bush. But the data show that American conservatives have been consistently happier than liberals for at least 35 years.

This is not because they are richer; they are not. Mr Brooks thinks three factors are important. Conservatives are twice as likely as liberals to be married and twice as likely to attend church every week. Married, religious people are more likely than secular singles to be happy. They are also more likely to have children, which makes Mr Brooks confident that the next generation will be at least as happy as the current one.

When religious and political differences are combined, the results are striking. Secular liberals are as likely to say they are “not too happy” as to say they are very happy (22% to 22%). Religious conservatives are ten times more likely to report being very happy than not too happy (50% to 5%). Religious liberals are about as happy as secular conservatives.

Why should this be so? Mr Brooks proposes that whatever their respective merits, the conservative world view is more conducive to happiness than the liberal one (in the American sense of both words). American conservatives tend to believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can succeed. This makes them more optimistic than liberals, more likely to feel in control of their lives and therefore happier. American liberals, at their most pessimistic, stress the injustice of the economic system, the crushing impersonal forces that keep the little guy down and what David Mamet, a playwright, recently summed up as the belief that “everything is always wrong”.

Say it with me now, all together: I need a study to tell me this?

Time for Law & Order to rip a story from the headlines pipe another one in from their skulls:

On Wednesday, Law & Order served up another of those famed episodes ripped from the headlines – except the violence-preaching madrassa is Christian, not Muslim, the evil cleric brainwashing children quotes the Bible, not the Koran, and American Christians haven’t executed anybody by stoning since the Salem witch trials.

The plot for this episode is so ludicrous it hardly merits retelling, but for clarity’s sake, here’s a quick summary. The police find the body of a woman art gallery owner killed by stoning, and immediately suspect the killer had “strong religious views.” Suspicion falls first on a Muslim artist.

Time for a cheap shot at the Bush administration: the National Security Agency is wiretapping the gallery owner by mistake, revealing that she was having an affair with the artist. Suspicion shifts to her irreligious husband, who apparently didn’t mind being cuckolded. For reasons not explained, the police decide to arrest their son, Jason, a college student.

Jason turns out to be a Christian mystic who hears from God several times a day. The son is under the influence of a Bible-spouting pastor who runs the Angelgrove Camp, where he is preparing Christian children to fight a religious war.

Don't they tell this story every year?

For a look back at the show's awesome first three seasons before the rot sat in, click here.

"Duck, Mrs. Clin— Uh, Mrs. Nixon":

Gosh, it would be fun to be an eyewitness sitting in the Clinton War Room today, hearing the Official Explainers duck and dodge the latest round on Mrs. Clinton’s “misspeak” of her dangerous arrival in Bosnia ducking and dodging sniper fire. Her story was fine until CBS released their video of her arrival, showing greeters not snipers, little girls presenting flowers, and the First Lady on a walk-about among welcoming dignitaries.

Well, today turned up another eye witness to correct the record, this one being the White House helicopter pilot who flew President and Mrs. Nixon during their unannounced secret trip in July of 1969 to Vietnam, one of the most dangerous war zones ever.

“For Mrs. Clinton to say she was the first First Lady taken into a war zone since Eleanor Roosevelt is absolutely untrue,” says Colonel Gene Boyer, who flew Mrs. Nixon in Vietnam as she visited the palace, an orphanage, a military evacuation hospital, and combat troops.

“We flew more than 1,500 feet above the ground in case of enemy fire,” Boyer says, “with fighter jets above and scores of helos flying under and around us for maximum protection. We even put down bullet proof mats on the helo floor.

“The Secret Service was against the trip,” Boyer says, “because the entire country was a war zone.”

In Julie Nixon Eisenhower’s 1986 biography of her mother, Pat Nixon: The Untold Story, she wrote that her mother’s trip to Vietnam was “the first time that a First Lady had been in a combat zone, although another First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, had also visited troops on her numerous travels to England and throughout the South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand during World War II.”

The fight to the bitter end strategies of Bill Clinton when impeached, and Al Gore after a closely-fought but ultimately failed election attempt have both done much to retroactively restore a bit of luster to their fellow liberal's tarnished reputation. With Tuzla-palooza, Hillary has just inadvertently shined a fresh light on Pat's legacy, as well.

Let's be remarkably charitable, and assume that the Gray Lady feared that its hypersensitive, equally gray readership will get a collective case of the vapors if they printed an obscenity, no matter how newsworthy...

By the way, I think it's important to point out that the news pages of the New York Times have yet to report that Rev. Wright said "God damn America." According to a search of the Nexis database, Wright's words have appeared in the paper twice, first in Bill Kristol's column on March 17, and then in Maureen Dowd's column last Sunday, but never in the news pages. If the Times's news sections were your only source of news, you would never know that Rev. Wright had ever said those words.

...But it's far from the first time during a presidential year that opinion journalists were describing news details that the news department just never got around to.

It was only a matter of time:

But he was the LIFE of the party! As NBC/NJ’s Carrie Dann writes, One-time Democratic candidate Mike Gravel is leaving the Democratic Party, accusing it of "work[ing] in tandem with the corporate interests that control what we read and hear in the media." Greener pastures await, he says, with his joining today of the Libertarian Party, where he hopes to continue his presidential bid.

Because, let's face it: somebody who makes videos this utterly, completely, existentially cutting-edge cool doesn't belong with those L-7 reactionary Democrat squares.

But is there a case of the blues ahead in his Libertarian Party future?

Jonah Goldberg on the missing conversation:

Thank God for Barack Obama. Until his “More Perfect Union” speech last Tuesday, it seems it never occurred to anyone that America needed to talk about race.

“Maybe this’ll be the beginning of a conversation,” Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan proclaimed on Meet the Press. The Chicago Tribune reported that “many voters, black and white, say they were moved by Obama’s speech ... which they see as a long-awaited invitation to begin an honest, calm national dialogue about race.” Newspaper editorial boards agree. In the words of the San Diego Union-Tribune: “Prodding Americans to confront their racial differences is, by itself, an accomplishment of historical proportions.”

Because so many agree on this brilliant new strategy to heal our national wounds, I can only assume that I’m the one missing something. But when one luminary after another smacks his forehead like someone who forgot to have a V8 in epiphanic awe over the genius of Obama’s call for a national conversation on race, all I can do is wonder: “What on Earth are you people talking about?”

“Universities were moving to incorporate the issues Mr. Obama raised into classroom discussions and course work,” the New York Times reported within 48 hours of the speech.

Oh, thank goodness Obama fired the starter’s pistol in the race to discuss race. Here I’d been under the impression that every major university in the country already had boatloads of courses dedicated to race in America. I’d even read somewhere that professors had incorporated racial themes into classes on everything from Shakespeare to the mating habits of snail darters. I also had some vague memory that these universities recruited black students and other racial minorities, on the grounds that interracial conversations on campus are as important as talking about math, science, and literature. A ghost of an image in my mind’s eye seemed to reveal African-American studies centers, banners for Black History Month, and copies of books like Race Matters and The Future of the Race lining shelves at college bookstores.

Were all the corporate diversity consultants and racial sensitivity seminars mere apparitions in a dream? Also disappearing down the memory hole, apparently, were the debates that followed Hurricane Katrina, Trent Lott’s remarks about Strom Thurmond, the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, the publication of The Bell Curve, and O.J. Simpson’s murder trial. Not to mention the ongoing national chatter about affirmative action, racial disparities in prison sentences and racial profiling by law enforcement.

And the thousands of hours of newscasts, television dramas, and movies — remember films such as 2004’s Oscar-winning Crash? — dedicated to racial issues? It’s as if they never existed.

"Because sometimes it’s easier to hold on to your own stereotypes and misconceptions"...

As James Taranto writes, "Let's Hope No One Calls Her at 3 A.M.":

"I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke."--Hillary Clinton, quoted in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, March 25

Because it's always 3:00 a.m. somewhere...

Over at the newly renovated Pajamas Media, Hollywood writer-director Lionel Chetwynd weites an open letter to Sen. Barack Obama, describing the speech that Obama should have given:

You say you are devoted to Reverend Wright because he brought you to Christ. I can only imagine how powerful a relationship that forges. But, my imperfect understanding of the Christian Faith tells me you can do him an equally magnificent service: You can help bring him back to Christ. Show him redemption and salvation lie not in the satisfaction of doing little dances in a pulpit while you slander good and decent people. Teach him that great leadership and Christian love abjures the very filth – and I pick that word deliberately – that he spews on an apparently regular basis. After all, Senator, you know our government did not invent the HIV virus to kill African-Americans. You know, Senator, this is not the United States of KKK America. You know the truth of 9/11. At least you should. Both you and Michelle have benefited mightily from the new spirit that has come to America in the last two generations. I thought you were part of that. I thought you were post-racial.

But in your silence, in your justifications, in your facile instruction to contextualize, you seem just a more presentable version of those dreary self-promoters, Sharpton, Jackson, Bakewell and the rest. Surely this is not you. Please, Senator, be brave. Lead. From a position of honesty where context is our daily reality, not drawn from bitter memories, no matter how justified they once might have been. Deny Jeremiah Wright your comfort of “context”. Be Presidential. To all Americans.

That would have been a speech for the ages, and possibly all that a majority of Americans would have needed to be convinced that Obama was made of presidential timber. Instead, as Bill Bradley writes, also at Pajamas HQ, "Obama still has serious questions to answer":

He has to explain to America — and in particular, to key voting groups such as the Scot-Irish who make up much of the working class and patriotically-oriented in the country — the anger that produced such irrational notions as the US government inventing AIDS to destroy the black people, or the idea that the US may have deserved 9/11. And why men such as Wright, whose generation grew up with a frequently rugged racism directed toward them and developed within them, have a chip on their shoulder today.

This task certainly not what Obama wanted to take on when he launched his candidacy on a wave of high-flown, impressively-delivered rhetoric, floating over the historic divisions of America on a cloud of post-racialism.

But it is what he must do now. He didn’t intend to run as “the black candidate” but as a candidate who happened to be black. But being black, or at least, “black enough,” as it turns out, was at least in part a choice for Obama. And as a result of that choice, he rose in Chicago enough to become a United States senator. And as a result of being a senator, he has enough stature to wage this campaign.

As a result, this conversation about race will continue throughout the campaign, together with a conversation about patriotism. “God damn America” is not a concept that goes down well with most voters.

This may be even more of an imperative for Obama than the racial issue, though the two are joined.

What is his idea of America? How is he an American patriot in a time of war?

What can he do to convince the Scots-Irish American voter that he is enough of a patriot to take on the uber-patriot, John McCain, a man who does not have to wave the flag because his very presence waves the flag?

In many respects, Obama represents an emerging America: multi-racial, with an internationalist perspective. But he will not represent any America, at least as president, until he demonstrates that he represents the enduring America.

Read the whole thing--and tune into Bill Bradley (and myself) on Pajamas' PJM Political show each Thursday at 6:00 PM Eastern/3:00 PM Pacific.

"The 8 Stages Of Liberal/Progressive Discussion When They Are Busted":

1. Ignore the story - pretend it is not happening, or deflect like crazy.

2. Find some sort of moral equivalence or a story from 30 years ago saying a Conservative did something sort of similar.

3. Come up with some conspiracy theories. This is usually the most amusing part, reading and hearing all the strange stuff they come up with in their reality based chat rooms.

For some thoughts on the Mother Of All Leftwing Conspiracies, click here.

Update: And speaking of leftwing conspiracy theories!

Indeed we could, but this latest round of "pushers" aren't exactly the best material to write the backstory for Superfly: The Next Generation. Up on the Drudge Report is this headline:

School candy ban spurs underground 'sugar pushers'...

Who, other than the nanny staters, didn't see this one coming from a mile away?

While New York DJ "Murray The K" may have claimed the title of "The Fifth Beatle" at the height of Beatlemania in a shameless act of self-promotion, in reality, if any man could claim the title, it was Neil Aspinall, who died recently at age 66, according to the Telegraph:

One of his last tasks as their eminence grise had been to remaster the group's back catalogue for legal downloading on the internet. Aspinall's involvement with the Beatles dated from 1960 when the group's original drummer, Pete Best, asked him to become their driver.

Although he protested when Best (his best friend) was replaced by Ringo Starr, he remained with the band, and when a brawny Cavern Club bouncer called Mal Evans was taken on in 1963 to hump their instruments in and out of their battered Commer van, Aspinall found himself in the role of personal assistant.
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As such, he became the Beatles' gatekeeper, guardian of their privacy, security, secrets, and eventually the group's fortunes, over which, as managing director of Apple from January 1968, he exercised a shrewd stewardship. A quietly-spoken but tough negotiator, he was credited with having - single-handedly - turned the Beatles into the world's highest-earning band and, by extension, one of its biggest brands.

In the mid-1960s, at the height of Beatlemania, Aspinall's responsibilities as the group's road manager extended far beyond checking their equipment, stage costumes, meals, venues and accommodation: with Mal Evans, he judiciously vetted the groupies, and saw to the day-to-day needs of the Beatles themselves as they were shuttled from plane to limousine to hotel. "It was an unattractive life," he admitted, "and it went on for years. But at least I could go out. They were trapped." He even stood in for George Harrison, when the guitarist was ill, at a camera rehearsal for the band's first appearance on American television.

Aspinall's role changed dramatically with the death of the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, in August 1967, and he effectively took the group over, although he apparently turned down a formal offer of the job from John Lennon. According to one account, the Beatles' musical guru George Martin was unhappy at the idea of Aspinall replacing the public-school-educated Epstein because he lacked the social qualifications needed to speak to the executives at their recording company EMI.

As the group disintegrated, and the members eventually went their separate ways, Aspinall remained a trusted father figure to the famous foursome. Even when they were not speaking to each other he - as the honest broker - remained on good terms with all four.

His role post-Beatles became increasingly entrepreneurial: in 1995 he persuaded Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr to collaborate on three Anthology albums and the accompanying television documentary, which took him five years to compile. It was Aspinall's concept that led to the release in 2000 of the Beatles' greatest hits album, Beatles 1, which has since sold 30 million copies.

There's a direct line from Beatlemania to the most pretentious and overwrought aspects of the 1960s, but there's also hours and hours of brilliant music as well, and short of George Martin, who was recording and actively shaping the Beatles' output, Aspinall had the best seat in the house to watch its production.

John Derbyshire writes:

Hey Stanley [Kurtz]:

At the core of Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign is a promise that he can transcend the starkly red-and-blue politics of the last 15 years, end the partisan and ideological wars …

Ha! So now we know what young Paddy O'Bama is up to! He wants to immanentize the eschaton!

Hey, some of us spotted Barry O's transcendental meditations last year...

Steven Malanga writes, "Barack Obama’s much-discussed speech in Philadelphia earlier this week was not only about race":

It was also about economics and, specifically, about poverty. Measures of group wealth, or the lack of it, are often used to support claims that our society is racist. Obama’s speech revealed that though he may be, to many people, a refreshingly new kind of post-racial politician and a healer, when it comes to notions of poverty and economic advancement, his ideas are right out of the 1960s and 1970s.

At one point in his speech, for instance, Obama suggested that some black poverty today can be attributed to the “legalized discrimination” that existed in America prior to the civil rights laws of the 1960s, which, in his telling, prevented black families from accumulating “wealth to bequeath to future generations.” Obama seemed to suggest that families in America escape poverty by patiently accumulating wealth and passing it on to future generations—when in fact millions of Americans of all races leap out of poverty within a single lifetime through their own initiative, not their inheritances. We are long past the time when the legacy of Jim Crow laws and other forms of official discrimination can explain black poverty rates.

* * *

Researchers estimate that the entire rise in poverty in America since the late 1970s can be attributed to “changes in family formation,” a euphemism for the decline of families headed by two married parents. The latest Census data illustrate the problem. Only one out of ten American kids living in two-married-parent families is in poverty—and about one-third of these families are recent immigrants whose poverty is temporary. By contrast, 37 percent of children living with single mothers are impoverished.

Marriage seems to be the defining characteristic of economically successful families. With out-of-wedlock birth rates in America soaring, so that many traditional families aren’t so much breaking up as never getting started, the percentage of children living with cohabiting parents is growing. Yet these kids are three times more likely to be in poverty than the children of married parents. The data actually demonstrate that poverty rates for families headed by two unmarried parents more closely resemble the poverty rates of single-parent families than those of two-married-parent ones.

Part of this shocking difference owes to what City Journal contributing editor Kay S. Hymowitz has called the “marriage gap” in America (“Marriage and Caste,” Winter 2006). Hymowitz describes how better-educated, higher-income men and women are now more likely to delay having children until they’re married, while lower-income, less-educated men and women are more likely to cohabit and have children out of wedlock.

But even these demographic facts don’t completely explain the widely varying poverty rate between married and cohabiting parents. Studies that adjust for parents’ educational levels still find that a family headed by two unmarried parents is twice as likely to wind up in poverty as one that married parents head. Something about the marriage certificate—a sense of long-term commitment, family stability, perhaps—makes an economic difference. Research shows that married workers exhibit more job stability and make greater wage gains than cohabiting parents, a sort of “marriage wage premium,” as some economists dub it.

Such factors also help to illuminate economic disparities along racial lines in America. As the latest Census statistics illustrate, family formation differs widely by race. Nearly nine in ten Asian children, for instance, live with two parents, as do 78 percent of white kids. By contrast, 68 percent of Hispanic children and only 38 percent of black children in America reside in two-parent families. A black child living with a single mother is nearly three times more likely to live in poverty than a black child living with two parents, the Census data show, yet 50 percent more black children are living with single mothers than in two-parent married families.

Given that a significant body of research now shows that children raised in two-parent, married families do better in school, are less likely to wind up in jail, and are less likely to end up on welfare, the startling racial divide in marriage tells us that a new generation of children, especially blacks, are growing up destined to struggle academically, in the job market, and in forming their own families. And policy prescriptions like a higher minimum wage or tax credits are unlikely to help many of these kids. What they mostly need is another parent—usually a father.

In contrast, as Mark Steyn noted, if you believe, as Rev. Wright clearly does, that all of life's negative forces are part of a massive conspiracy invented by The Man to keep blacks down, what incentive is there--to coin a phrase--to do the right thing?

Talk about a blown opportunity for Obama, as Mickey Kaus wrote early last week before The Speech itself:

There are plenty of potential Souljahs still around: Race preferences. Out-of-wedlock births. Three strike laws! But most of all the victim mentality that tells African Americans (in the fashion of Rev. Wright's most infamous sermons) that the important forces shaping their lives are the evil actions of others, of other races.

But then, the reason we remember the original Sister Souljah moment is because of the astounding infrequency of reoccurrence since.

Back in the mid-'70s, Tom Wolfe (I think) quoted a sports figure who said that heavyweight boxing would die as a professional sport as soon as Muhammad Ali retired. And he was just about right, although for a time, Mike Tyson was thought by many to be his successor. At least until he met Buster Douglas on February 11, 1990, as Paul Beston of City Journal writes, reviewing The Last Great Fight by Joe Layden:

Joe Layden’s The Last Great Fight tells the story of Tyson and Douglas and that memorable evening in Tokyo when the impossible—but now, in retrospect, the inevitable—happened. If his title is a bit of hyperbole—there have been great fights since, even if few of us have seen them—he’s certainly right in his larger point: Tyson’s defeat that night was really the beginning of the end of boxing’s last period of glamour. Without a heavyweight champion who captures public imagination, boxing is the sporting equivalent of a political third party: you’re always a bit surprised when someone you know is involved with such weirdness. Peopled with gamblers and ruthless, amoral promoters like Don King, the sport’s action involves two grown men apparently trying to do nothing more elevated than beat one another into submission. But Layden understands what boxing commentators like Larry Merchant and Jim Lampley, who were ringside in Tokyo, know from years of calling fights, and what innumerable boxing writers and fans, too, have learned through their own devotion to the sport: that its dangerous, primitive theater is rich in character and pathos, drama and lore, in a way that no other athletic competition can match. When boxing reaches its rare pinnacles, as it did in Tyson-Douglas, it can seem to a fan like the only thing worth paying attention to.

For my look at two earlier boxers, click here.

Tim Blair spots this amusing exchange:

Porter Berry, Fox News: Ms. Huffington, how are you? I’m Porter Berry from “The O’Reilly Factor.” I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the Web site. Some of the stuff you have on the Web site, some hate speech. One person commented talking about Tony Snow. They said quote, “His cancer will return and he will die a very painful death ..."

Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post: You know what? I think you need to learn something about the Internet. The comments that appear there are taken down immediately.

Porter Berry: This was posted on the middle of February and was up yesterday.

Whoops.

"That’s something I like about John McCain. I feel very strongly that all politicians should be hung by their thumbs. John McCain already has been. Figuratively and literally."

Ever four years, there's at least one article mentioning that the left hates to be called liberal; here's Rich Lowry's take from 2004 (which actually namechecks Obama, then a newly minted senator). And in the International Herald-Tribune (a Pinch of a spinoff from the NYT), here's this year's model: in addition to never mentioning his middle name, one must never use the L-word to describe Barry O in polite company:

Simon Rosenberg, who leads the New Democrat Network and is currently unaligned in the Democratic contest, argues, "My basic belief is the generation-long era of political domination, the ascendancy of conservative politics, is at an end, and Obama has captured more than anyone else the opportunity of this era." He added: "It's very hard to put labels on him. He's building his own sandbox." [Is he old enough to play in it unsupervised?--Ed]

Obama, in fact, had the support of 64 percent of independents in the last New York Times/CBS News Poll. But can that transpartisan appeal be sustained? He has only begun to take some hard political hits - from the Clinton campaign, from conservative commentators and radio hosts, and from Senator John McCain's campaign. The recent flare-up about his pastor's racial views was one example. And Republicans are just starting up their attacks.

"Nobody's yet taken him on as a liberal," said Andrew Kohut, who leads the Pew Research Center. "But McCain will."

So far, Republicans give every indication of planning to portray Obama as a big-government liberal out of touch with American values and unprepared to be commander in chief.

"When you're rated by National Journal as to the left of Ted Kennedy and Bernie Sanders, that's going to be difficult to explain," said Danny Diaz , a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.

Coupled with Michelle Obama's punitive liberalism, Rev. Wright's radical chic-era boilerplate conspiratorial racism, Tony Rezko's questionable financial dealings, and Obama's own minimalistic voting record, that's quite a load of baggage for someone with a featherweight history as a national politician to tote on the road to the White House.

Related: Well, related conceptually, at least: "Kinder, gentler euphemisms for failure."

New York Post film critic Kyle Smith comes clean:

I worshiped at the Church of Manilow for many years. He is a part of me. I can no more disown him than I can unload my LPs of ABBA’s “Super Trouper” or “The Best of Andy Gibb.” However, I respectfully request that you please not hold any facts against me and start talking about something else.

No word yet on what Obama's grandmother thought of him.

As Tom Maguire notes with brilliant understatement, blogger with reported case of multiple personality disorder syndrome has problems identifying group blog.

We hate it when this happens to us.

Visit "The Tomb of King Peepankhamun", the winner of the Washington Post's "Peeps Show II, The second annual Sunday Source Peeps Diorama Contest".

No fireworks are involved, but a semifinalist did lock and load a diorama of Stanley Peepbrick's "Full Sugar Coating". No word yet on what Peep Ermey thinks of its technical accuracy, though.

"Obama adviser likens Bill Clinton's comments to McCarthy's", the Boston Globe reports.

Meanwhile, Jake Tapper notes that "Carville Equates Richardson With Judas":

In the New York Times today, Clintonista James Carville calls Bill Richardson's endorsement of Obama "an act of betrayal."

“Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,” Carville said.

So in Mr. Carville's view on this Easter weeend, Richardson is Judas Iscariot, Obama is Caiaphas, and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, is .....?

Heh. Now that brings an entirely new meaning to the phrase, "The King James Bible".