Cam Edwards writes, "Well, if it makes you feel any better Senator… this whole episode has been tough for me too":

You see, two of my five kids are actually my stepkids. We don’t make a big deal out of it. In fact, they’ve always called me “Dad”. Just like your father, who wasn’t around when you were growing up, my two oldest kids haven’t seen their biological father in years. And like you, they’re the offspring of a white mother and a black father. Our other three kids are as pale as milk, so we’ve gotten our share of odd comments over the years. I’m sure you remember similar comments when you were a kid and were out with your grandparents.

But as a parent, you try to deal with it the best you can. You tell your kids that most people are just ignorant, and that skin color doesn’t make you any different. You thank God that the civil rights movement has been as successful as it has, and that the comments you do get are few and far between. You teach your children that people should be judged on the contents of their character, not the color of their skin.

Then Jeremiah Wright becomes the story of the day and now you’re trying to figure out what to tell your 7-year old when he asks if it’s true that he’s different than his older brother and sister, and if we love him more or less than we love them. You wonder if your 17-year old son and your 21-year old daughter have bought into what Rev. Wright is peddling, and if the bond of family is stronger than race-based rhetoric. And yes, you wonder why it took Senator Barack Obama twenty years to figure out Jeremiah Wright when most of the rest of us figured it out in about five minutes.

Sorry Senator, but I’m starting to wonder if your comments distancing yourself from Reverend Wright are really sincere. I’m also wondering if you were really that close with him to begin with. I’m wondering a lot of things about you, but it boils down to one concern: are you lying to us now, or were you lying to us all along about Reverend Wright? Either way, it would make you the worst kind of politician. You know the stereotype: slimy, oozing with contempt for the voters, willing to say anything to get elected. The exact opposite of how you present yourself, basically.

In other words, a typical Cook County hack, as Orrin Judd has noted.

Jim Geraghty quotes from "A Story About McCain That Makes You Say, 'Wow!'":

[Ret. Col. Bud] Day relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear. It involves what happened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war. When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, "I told you I would make you a cripple."

The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day's will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at "a goofy angle," as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.

But it didn't heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day's splint in place.

Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complemented the treatment he'd gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.

That's just jaw-dropping.

Read the rest, over at Libertas.

Jonathan Pierce of England's Samizdata reads Andrew Sullivan, so you don't have to, spotting this classic Sullivan moment:

It's extremely depressing that the first major national black politician who takes on the victimology of Sharpton and Jackson is greeted by the right with the kind of cynicism you see at Malkin or the Corner or Reynolds. It reveals, I think, the deeper truth: the Republican right only wants a black Republican to do this.

As Jonathan writes, "Republicans want to vote for Republicans: who knew?"

Go figure!

I guess their chief concern is finding "the right man — and the conservative choice — for a difficult and perilous time."

James Pethokoukis notes that the economy grew 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2008, even with the drag of the Pelosi Premium around its neck:

Now that's not a robust number by any means, but it's not so bad given all the worry out there that the economy is headed off a cliff. Before you declare a recession, as many economic pundits have, shouldn't the economy, well, actually recess a bit—if only for a quarter?

But what about those rice shortages, eh?

With the reemergence of Rev Wright back into the limelight he so dearly craves, the name Bill Ayers has been pushed back into the underground a bit. But this story is a reminder of why his relationship to Obama matters as well:

During the April 16 debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, moderator George Stephanopoulos brought up "a gentleman named William Ayers," who "was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol and other buildings. He's never apologized for that." Stephanopoulos then asked Obama to explain his relationship with Ayers. Obama's answer: "The notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn't make much sense, George." Obama was indeed only 8 in early 1970. I was only 9 then, the year Ayers' Weathermen tried to murder me.

Much more here, from Ed Morrissey.

I'm not at all sure which Chicago paper carries his column, but Iowahawk has excerpts from "Dear Barry: Relationship Advice From Illinois Senator Barack Obama". A sample:

Dear Barry:

I've been married to the same wonderful man -- Let's call him "Jeremiah" -- for 20 years. He's a great provider and we live in a beautiful home. He dotes on me and treats me like a queen; even after twenty years he still brings me little gifts and opens doors for me. Best yet, our sex life is fantastic! Jeremiah enjoys spicing things up with role-play, such as "Adolf and Eva," and we host weekly swinger get-togethers for like-minded couples. I know it probably must sound kind of kinky, but trust me - it keeps things interesting in "the boudoir."

That's where the trouble comes in. Lately it's been hard for Jeremiah to step out of his bedroom character, even when we have company over. For example, the other night I was hosting bunco night for the neighborhood girls and Jeremiah came goose-stepping into the rec room in his black leather swastika thong and riding crop, screaming "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer!!"

Frankly, it was somewhat embarrassing. I've asked Jeremiah to "tone it down" and save the Nurenberg speeches for the privacy of swinger's night, but he refuses. Also, I think he may be clinically insane. I'm worried that if word gets out it may hurt our chances of getting membership in the country club. What should I do?

Confused in Hyde Park

RTWT, as Dear Abby would say if she used four-letter acronyms.

Standard & Poor's cuts the bond ratings of the New York Times:

Credit-ratings agency Standard & Poor's Ratings Services on Tuesday cut its long-term rating on newspaper publisher The New York Times Co., as its advertising revenue continues to fall.

S&P cut its corporate credit rating and senior unsecured debt rating to "BBB-" from "BBB."

"BBB-" is one notch above "junk bond" status. The ratings were removed from CreditWatch, but the outlook is negative, meaning another downgrade could occur.

"The rating downgrade reflects a worsening pace of decline in advertising revenue at the company's newspaper publications," said S&P credit analyst Emile Courtney in a statement.

Despite weakening ad revenue, The New York Times has a diversified and quickly growing online revenue base. S&P expects online revenue will begin to offset print revenue declines over the next few years.

Shares fell 35 cents to $19.96 during midday trading.

In 2002, NYT stock was worth over $50 a share.

And I as mentioned in a recent video, just wait until 2014...

Ann Althouse parses Obama's press conference today, and notes that while he denounced Wright's speeches, he backs off on actually denouncing Wright himself. And indeed, Obama seems more perturbed by their timing than anything else.

Which dovetails into this curious exchange between Obama and Chris Wallace, which Paul Mirengoff highlights:

WALLACE: Did you talk to reverend Wright recently about his decision to make a series of public appearances at this particular point?

OBAMA: You know, I didn't talk to him about that. I had talked to him after all this had happened, partly because I regretted — I always regret people who are civilians, essentially, being dragged into these political fights.

And I expressed to him — I said, "Look, we have very strong differences. I do not agree with the comments that you made. On the other hand, I regret that you have drawn so much attention."

How is Wright a civilian? When your ideology makes "the personal the political", and in an effort to create a holistic worldview, has politicized everything from religion to light bulbs to national defense, how can there be any "civilians" in politics?

You could make a good case that the Swift Vets or those victims of Bill Clinton who spoke out against him were "civilians" in politics--they knew that they would no longer be private citizens, and that by pointing out inconvenient truths about media favorites, they would be publicly trashed, and that their lives could potentially never be the same.

In contrast, Wright, gave politicized sermon after politicized sermon to his large clergy, and saw one of his sermons become the title of Obama's book, and others were quoted by Obama in his autobiographies. Over the last week, beginning with his appearance on Bill Moyer's show, Wright seems clearly intent in making the most of his 15 minutes. That doesn't sound like a political "civilian" to me.

Related: Heather Mac Donald explores "Poisonous 'Authenticity'".

Ezra Levant explores the strange case of Montreal's "Bar Le Stud":

Pete Vere sends me this interesting case study of the wild animal biting madly. A Montreal gay bar, Bar Le Stud, told a woman named Audrey Vachon that she wasn't allowed in -- it was a men-only establishment, and had been happily operating that way for eleven years. Then the human rights commissions got involved, and Bar Le Stud has copped a plea bargain. We don't know the details of how much money Vachon got paid or -- and you know this was part of the deal, it usually is -- the kind of "sensitivity training" that Bar Le Stud's staff have to undergo.

A gay bar -- like a straight bar, like a Christian church -- has age-old rights that long pre-date our fads of "human rights". Bar Le Stud has property rights, which include the right to exclude people. They have freedom of association. They have contractual rights. Strangers have no "right not to be offended" by them. They have no "right" to come onto their property, to change the purpose of Bar Le Stud, and to interfere with its peaceful practices. But now they do.

Misguided gay rights activists -- like Darren Lund, and even Richard Warman -- have used the bludgeon of human rights commissions to batter down the real rights of others. But they have laid down precedents that, in this case at least, are being used against gays.

It doesn't happen often, because conservatives, and straights, and Christians, aren't as active as their opponents in the grievance culture that Canada's HRCs foment. And, of course, even if they were, the grievance-activist bias of HRC staff would probably dismiss those complaints.

But that can only last so long. As Mark Steyn pointed out in his last Maclean's column, Adolf Hitler didn't invent Germany's censorship laws, nor did he write the emergency powers provisions that the Nazis abused. They were all written by the liberal Weimar Republic.

Leftist and ethnic-identity activists have loved the HRCs because they have usually picked on those groups' enemies. But the dangerous precedents have been set, and everyone's rights are at risk, as Bar Le Stud has found out.

What we accept as the current definition of the culture war may look like a blissfully calm warm-up phase a decade or so from now. Consider the implications of a news story such as this, particularly if, as seems likely, such stories become more and more commonplace.

Update: Ezra concurs with my take, and notes: "Even if they don't believe in free speech or property rights for their opponents, liberals should protect the concepts for themselves." Read the whole thing, as they say.

Mark Steyn:

Jonah, mortarboarding at Gitmo is when detainees are made to put on a cap and gown and listen to back-to-back commencement addresses by alternating Clinton cabinet secretaries and PBS hosts. Most of them crack during Janet Reno.

I'd say that by far, this is the definitive example of mortarboarding--with this a close second. But the competition is fierce, with numerous new potential contestants participating each spring.

In his latest presser, as Allahpundit notes, Obama is shocked--shocked!--that there's racism being uttered by Rev. Wright, the pastor whose sermons he attended for 20 years, except for the really bad ones, which he never heard, except for those he quoted in his book.

Congratulations, senator--you've just entered the same maze of pretzel logic your colleague explored in 2004.

See-Dubya writes:

Who to root against? One is an anti-semitic, state-subsidized, bloated, corrupt friend of despots and thugs and enemy of the West, and the other…

Is exactly the same; both float prominently through the poisoned alphabet soup division of Blair's Law, as the UN is P.O.ed at the BBC.

The Bard of Jasperwood looks back on the events of the past few days with Lileksian understatement:

Interesting how we thought that Romney’s candidacy would lead to a discussion of religion and politics, eh? Turns out that was just the warm-up act.

The performance of the main attraction this weekend also places an interesting perspective on this recent quote regarding the citizens of the more remote exurbs of the Keystone State, eh?

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

Nora Ephron could not be reached for comment.

Update: "What The Clintons Did For Feminism, Could Obama do for race relations?"

I'm not sure how much I buy Jim Geraghty's theory that Rev. Wright's antics are setting the stage "For the All-Time Sister Souljah Moment", but the timing is interesting, of course:

And now, for a really far-out theory... Wright goes out, makes even more outrageous remarks, and it gives Obama the opportunity to finally sever the ties. A statement like, "I loved this man, but I cannot abide what he is saying now... I am leaving that church and must disavow Jeremiah Wright."

Issue resolved. Obama is given credit for being a healer, for a courageous move, for standing up against divisiveness at great personal emotional expense, etc. ...

Wouldn't it be seen as remarkably transparent? After all, Jesse Jackson's baggage wasn't as obvious a hold on Bill Clinton when he invented the Sister Souljah moment. And Obama already has quite a collection of connect the dot moments, between Wright, Rezko, the New Black Panthers, Ayers, etc. Is it too many to overcome in the general, even with the media's transparently obvious support?

And speaking of the media, considering that Bill Moyers and CNN recently gushed over Wright, by throwing the good reverend under the bus (where Obama's grandmother was also last seen) won't he calling into question their judgment too? Of course, given how much they've been played, would they even notice?

As Libertas notes, "Yeah, this will make money":

[Filmmaker] NICK Broomfield … is under fire for his latest, “Battle for Haditha,” a probe into the 2005 Marine massacre of 24 men, women and kids in Haditha, Iraq, allegedly in retaliation for the bombing death of one jarhead. The flick, opening May 7 at Film Forum, features former enlisted Marines portraying the killers in explicit reenactments of what some call “Bush’s My Lai ,” and is being slammed as a smear job. One group, Defend Our Marines, states … Broomfield claimed he’d show the world the “unflinching truth” about Haditha, but instead had actors improvise phony, obscenity-filled dialogue as they shot innocent civilians. One scene in which an Iraqi is gunned down as he flees through a field is said to be completely fictional. Charges against five of eight Marines involved have been dropped so far.

Cue the refrains of "fake but accurate", and "emotional truth" that are sure to come.

Most of Broomfield's previous documentaries were feminist-themed movies. As an interviewer asked him, "You seem to focus a lot on strange women in your films":

PM: You know, Courtney, Aileen Wuornos, Heidi Fleiss and, uh, Margaret Thatcher. Is that more than coincidence?

NB: I think I am more interested in women than in men. But I have made twenty three films, and under slightly half of those have to do with men. For example, I did a movie about the head of the neo-nazi party in South Africa. But the more high profile films that have been shown in this country have to do with women.

However, I do find women more interesting. You know, women have been through a lot more interesting changes than men over the last twenty years. They went through the whole feminist movement, and I think the position of women has really changed in society in terms of what's expected of them and from them. And the women I choose are all moderately powerful.

Hmmm--I guess there was a dearth of "moderately powerful" women in the Middle East for Broomfield to film. Can't imagine why that is, (though maybe Ms. magazine knows) but I suppose covering that story would be a documentary too far, lest he join Theo van Gogh in the great editing bay in the sky. Best make nice, safe, perfectly reactionary boilerplate about the big bad U.S. instead.

Colby Cosh writes that Bill Clinton is suffering from an enormous case of what Alvin Toffler once dubbed Future Shock:

Readers will recall that Clinton's presidential campaigns took place in 1993 and 1997--the age of steam-engines and chaste courtship, when the public obtained the news of the realm by means of telegraph, tintype, and whispered rumours passed along by drunken stagecoach drivers. In that vanished time, no one ever dreamed that a candidate would have to account for fleeting images and haunting "sound bites" blown up beyond all reasonable significance by as-yet-unimagined mediums like "tele-vision". Indeed, little is known about the electoral methods of the period, but it is thought that chief magistrates were chosen by assemblies of eminent citizens who scrawled names on pieces of broken pottery that were then cast into giant ceremonial urns.

At the preternaturally advanced age of 61, Mr. Clinton is clearly no longer capable of participating in the new, unrecognizable democratic cyberprocess. He is obviously better suited to be exhibited publicly, in humane fashion, as a geriatric wonder who, by God's grace, is still capable of gumming soft foods and forming the occasional coherent sentence.

Fortunately, there's a new museum that's perfect for both Bill, and the sclerotic medium of his all-too-fleeting glory days.

(Via 5'F)

You gotta start someplace, and here's how Americans in the 1930s were instructed to use a then cutting-edge piece of technology....their new rotary phones:

(Via Execupundit; phone-blogging from a more recent past here.)

Related: Check out the moderne table and chair that Ann Althouse photographed in the Brooklyn Museum of Art--that's one of the swankier tables those 1930s phones would have rested on.

Along with Michelle Malkin's "Vents", Bob Parks' "Outside The Wire" videos were a definite inspiration last year as I began assembling the elements that would go into my "Silicon Graffiti" video series. And his latest video is a doozy--two guesses as to the subject of Bob's lead story:

(Via Eyeblast.TV)

Found via Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant writes:

Nelly Hechme is the innocent bystander whose Internet connection was hacked by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, so their investigators could cover their tracks when they went online under their secret codenames to surf white supremacist websites.

(I know. That entire sentence is insane. But it's true.)

Read the whole thing; more here.

For our video look at Ezra's run-in with Alberta's local "Human Rights Commission" from back in January, click here.

Ann Althouse has a great take on the New York Times' recent attempts to run interference for Barack Obama:

Come on. There is a serious question here about whether Obama is too left wing. We damned well get to talk about it. If you're going to push us back and call us racists for trying to address an overwhelmingly important political problem with a black candidate for President, then what you are essentially saying is that America is not ready for a black President. And that would be racist. Either we can talk about him vigorously or we can't. And if we can't, he shouldn't be President.

Fortunately, Obama himself says that the criticism of Wright is fair game, particularly if longer than 30-second snippets of his fire-and-brimstone sermons are used to place his overtly political remarks into context. So I'd say Obama's approval outweighs the Times' tut-tutting, particularly given the previous established moralistic food chain created by the deciders at the Gray Lady regarding "absolute moral authority".

(Of course, 2004's Democratic candidate was even more hand-picked and coddled by the Times. Which may have accounted for, say, just to pick a number at random, 15 percent of his popularity back then.)

Update: More from Jim Geraghty, who reminds us that Rev. Wright will be playing extremely slow pitch softball at the National Press Club tomorrow.

Given how easy it now is to find previous Final Countdowns, just once, I'd love to see the next Final Countdown met with some skepticism from the press: Mr. Gore/Erlich/Danson/DiCaprio, etc., why should we believe you, when there have been so many earlier doomsday predictions that have never come to pass?

(H/T: TB)

Related: Via Small Dead Animals, Canada's Lorrie Goldstein opens up an even more recent memory hole:

Dear Globe and Mail and Toronto Star:

For 15 months, I've been saving your respective front pages from the glorious weekend of January 27-28, 2007, when you simultaneously declared your mutual jihads against man-made global warming.

I knew they'd come in handy some day and now, they have.

Indeed, it seems like only yesterday I awoke to my Saturday, January 27, 2007 Globe to be greeted by the hysterical, front-page headline "Welcome to the new climate," under a politically correct green masthead, declaring at the bottom: "We want action. We're ready for sacrifices."

Not to be outdone, the Star a day later had its own World War III, front-page headline, "State of denial: Do the skeptics of global warming have a hidden agenda?" -- in the finest traditions of "do you deny beating your wife?" journalism.

And now, here we are, just 15 months later and isn't it great you both have exactly what you wanted -- skyrocketing gasoline prices and about-to-skyrocket food prices -- since as we both know, hitting energy-hogging Canadians in their pocketbooks is the only way to make them reduce their evil greenhouse gas emissions hard and fast.

Or as it's been dubbed in States, the Pelosi Premium.

Howard Kurtz interviews military analyst and retired Army colonel, Ken Allard:

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Last year, you quit NBC and MSNBC...

COL. KEN ALLARD: That's correct.

KURTZ: ...after a ten-year relationship. You indicated you thought they were moving to the left.

ALLARD: I thought they really had moved very slowly to the left, and I also thought that when they had the chance to clarify to the fact that they were not moving to the left, they didn't do so.

Allard left the networks in early 2007. Particularly in the case of MSNBC (and tacitly, with stunts such as this at NBC), the two affiliates of GE aren't exactly hiding their position on the ideological spectrum these days.

Curiously though, as I've written previously, for such a savvy media critic, Howard never seems to notice these things.

Charles Johnson spots "Lefties Seething Over Obama on Fox":

The irony here is completely off the scale. These are people who advocate speaking with our real mortal enemies, enemies who chant “Death to America” and kill American soldiers and civilians, but they’re unyielding when it comes to ... Fox News?

Freud called it displacement.

With Al Sharpton threatening to "close this city down", Michelle Malkin asks, why is Al "still welcome in polite society?"

As I wrote just this past week, linking to my article on the topic from a few years ago in The New Partisan:

From politicians such as Al Sharpton, Robert Byrd and John Kerry to artists such as Michael Moore and Philip Johnson, it's amazing what you can get away with in your salad days as long as you emerge with the right politics afterwards.

Michelle writes, "Some readers wonder why I continue to write about the Sharpton-MSM lovefest. Why? Because the enablers deserve to be held responsible and shamed publicly until they stop."

Since the modern MSM has not a molecule of shame in their collective nervous system, I'm not sure if that's possible. Besides, as Mark Steyn notes, it suffers from an enormous moral inversion:

In a scrupulously politically correct age, it's not offensive to organize a "Kill the police!" demo or to preach that the government invented Aids in order to perpetrate an African-American genocide. You can pull that stuff and still be part of respectable society, hanging out with presidential candidates and whatnot. What's grotesquely offensive is the chap who's insensitive enough to point out such statements and associations.

Which is never more obvious in an election year, just as we saw in 2004, when it was the Swift Vets who were demonized by the media for pointing out John Kerry's 1970s-era anti-American demagoguery, not the man actually made those remarks.

The MSM once had a monopoly on the past. Today, with that control broken, they get quite cross with whomever points out a leftist's otherwise grandfathered radical chic past.

Update: Which may be why, as people abandon the MSM's top down control of information, we've entered "The 'Golden Age' of Web news".

Burt Prelutsky explores the political correctness which has so alienated newspapers (particularly Burt's local paper, the L.A. Times) from their readers, and notes:

In the old days, Hollywood was run by a bunch of tough cookies who kept one eye on the starlets and one eye on the bottom line. These days, it appears as if the movies are in the hands of bozos who think there’s something tacky about making movies that actually turn a profit.

Still, there’s another group that makes these guys look like hard-headed businessmen. I refer to those people who own newspapers. The way they carry on, you’d think their names were Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Gummo.

Does that make Rupert Murdoch Irving Thalberg?

More from the Time Warp files, as NRO's Greg Pollowitz links to a Huffington Post blogger none-too-keen on Keith Olbermann's typically hyperbolic language (and gee, welcome to the club!):

Olbermann was discussing the election with Newsweek's Howard Fineman, a frequent guest. They topic was, how can a winner finally be determined in this never-ending Democratic race for the nomination? Of course, the assumption was that it was Clinton that should be shown the door (despite clearly still earning her spot in the race thanks to, um, voters). Fineman said that, all the delegate math aside, ultimately it was going to take "some adults somewhere in the Democratic party to step in and stop this thing, like a referee in a fight that could go on for thirty rounds. Those are the super, super, super delegates who are going to have to decide this."

Said Olbermann: "Right. Somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out."

Which sounds sort of like a rewrite of the Economist's infamous line earlier this month, which I quoted in my recent video:

The Democrats are all too aware that their civil war could spell disaster. A cavalcade of senior Democrats, including senators Patrick Leahy and Chris Dodd, have advised Mrs Clinton to retire to her room with a glass of whisky and a loaded revolver.

Are these the examples of the nuance that the left is so known for?

The wheels of progress grind exceedingly slowly at Newsweek, but eventually, the magazine grudgingly catches up with conservative thought: First this week, Eleanor Clift nods in tacit agreement with everything Republicans said about the Clintons in the 1990s.

Shortly thereafter, Michael Hirsh runs an article there titled, "How the South Won (This) Civil War". That was a theme that Michael Graham, a southerner currently transplanted to New England, described six(!) years ago, in a book with much less bitter tone (actually, it's quite a funny read) called Redneck Nation. Its subhead also notes..."How the South Really Won the War".

Let's do the time warp again!

Update: Speaking of time warps, Glenn Reynolds flashes back to November of 2004 and notes, "Jeez, they used to at least wait until after they lost the election to start this talk."

Reuters reports that "A Saudi blogger detained without charge for more than four months after expressing pro-reform opinions has been released, a colleague said on Saturday":

Fouad Farhan was detained in early December after running an online campaign over 10 men arrested since February 2007 on suspicion of financing militant groups, but whose supporters say they are being punished for pro-democracy activity.

"I spoke to him and he's in good spirits. He said he was treated really well," said Ahmed al-Omran, who published the news on his website (https://www.saudijeans.org).

"It was surprising. After blocking his website, I thought his detention would go on longer. It's good news."

Saudi authorities blocked Farhan's website (https://www.alfarhan.org) earlier this month.

Of course, for Reuters, one man's extended jail sentence is merely another man's visit to the Breakfast Club.

During the 1990s, conservatives believed that the Clintons were something out of The Godfather, with endless dark deals and bodies buried (Vince Foster, and even Ron Brown, depending upon how deep down the conspiratorial rabbit hole of the VRWC one went) to stay in power.

That was all tut-tutted by the left during the 1990s, but as I recently said, that was then and this is now. In the very liberal Newsweek, the even more liberal Eleanor Clift essentially says that they were right:

I'm beginning to think Hillary Clinton might pull this off and wrestle the nomination away from Barack Obama. If she does, a lot of folks—including a huge chunk of the media—will join Bill Richardson (a.k.a. Judas) in the Deep Freeze. If the Clintons get back into the White House, it will be retribution time, like the Corleone family consolidating power in "The Godfather," where the watchword is, "It's business, not personal."

Not that anyone will be sleeping with the fishes with Hillary 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.

So if Obama runs, he'll be the second coming of Leonard Bernstein's salon, with radical chic terrorists and racist thugs such as William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and Reverend Wright. If Hillary wins, it will be the second coming of Don Corleone, according to Eleanor.

Sounds like an exceptional reason to ride the Straight Talk Express, to me.

As I noted as soon as I saw it, that recent Time magazine global-warming as Iwo Jima cover is straight out of the "moral equivalent of war" playbook that as been a staple of the left since World War I that Jonah Goldberg described in Liberal Fascism. So it's not surprising that Jonah writes about that cover in his latest syndicated column:

Even if Walsh and his bosses at Time were merely trying to be descriptive of American attitudes, they’d still be flat-out wrong. If Americans saw environmentalism as the purest expression of patriotic sentiment — like, say, buying Liberty Bonds during WWI — Time’s declaration might be defensible. But Americans don’t think any such thing.

The latest Gallup environmental survey shows that only 37 percent of Americans worry about global warming “a great deal,” a drop from 41 percent last year. Indeed, the share of Americans greatly concerned with climate change is about the same as it was a decade ago, which still sounds a bit high since the globe pretty much stopped getting warmer in 1998. Even among environmental concerns, climate change isn’t priority No. 1 for most Americans.

The editors of Time surely know this, which explains their real motive: They want to persuade Americans otherwise. And they are honest about it. Richard Stengel, Time’s managing editor, who recently admitted that he doesn’t much care about “objective” journalism, insists that “there needs to be an effort along the lines of preparing for World War II to combat global warming and climate change.”

Just as "the moral equivalent of war" traces its roots to WWI, so too does the desire for an "objective" media, as Steve Boriss recently noted.

As I've written before, journalism, but big and small, has definitely entered into its post-objective phase. Which is both long overdue and much more akin to a return to its pre-20th century roots than some sort of breakthrough development.

David Freddoso writes, "Republicans are jumping on Nancy Pelosi for getting the price of gasoline wrong by nearly a dollar in an interview":

I argue today that this is less significant than the fact that her promise to bring down gas prices was already a lie the moment she first uttered it. Pelosi isn't failing to do something about gasoline for lack of leadership or a plan, but because lower gas prices undercut a hugely important plank in the Democratic platform.

Higher gas prices are an essential part of creating economic disincentives against carbon pollution — that's the entire point of cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, and other proposed Global Warming fixes. In fact, today's high prices are already leading to greater conservation. Democratic complaints about gas prices are for election years — that's all they ever were.

Unlike Mrs. Pelosi, the more honest San Francisco Democrats will actually admit to that.

"Strap in. You’re in for a predictable 90-minutes."

And that's the problem with virtually every Hollywood film these days, isn't it? (Except that most films are nearly twice as long. At least, to paraphrase Alvy Singer, with H&K's new flick the food here is terrible, and mercifully, such small portions, too.)

Update: Writing for Pajamas Media, Kyle Smith of the New York Post notes that "there's only one decent political joke in the entire movie"--the direction of which, unintended or not, won't surprise many on the starboard side of the Blogosphere.

Couldn't he have have simply let it keep growing naturally to demonstrate the importance of sustained old growth forestry?

I once dubbed Pink Floyd's Roger Waters the Pat Buchanan of British rock: both, in retrospect, would have been quite OK with appeasing Nazi Germany; both are anti-Israel. But Julia Gorin has an excellent suggestion (and yes I'm very late to this) for Waters' next destination on his bringing "The Wall To The Wall" tours.

Of course, I could see why Rogers wouldn't want to Meddle there, not when his prospective audience would likely shout "One Of These Days, I'm Going To Cut You Into Little Pieces!" The Final Cut would then be followed by the Great Gig In The Sky, unless Waters plans to Run Like Hell after the gig.

OK, I'll stop now, before Brain Damage occurs...

With conservatives grudgingly in his camp (barring Bob Barr parachuting in at the last minute) and the far left having decided that, unlike 2004, a Vietnam vet as president just isn't their cup of chai, Jim Geraghty believes that John McCain is triangulating towards the great undecided middle, even as the Democratic primaries (onward to Guam!) continue.

On the surface, it may appear that Maverick is once again throwing conservatives under the bus, but as Geraghty writes asks in an earlier post, "Does no one else see what's going on here?"

How many other North Carolina Republican Party ads have you heard about this year? Last year? The year before that?

By criticizing the ad, McCain turned it into a national story, which means the ad is likely to be replayed on the cable networks and linked on YouTube and discussed on the talk shows and talk radio and written about in newspapers and magazines. This ad has 76,000 views on YouTube already, and it was posted online Tuesday.

And McCain gets to take the high road, saying he doesn't want to see negative campaigning done on his behalf.

Meanwhile, Hillary is doing some triangulating of her own.

"After 30 years of railing for separation of church and state, Bill Moyers comes to the aid of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright."

Glad to see that there's one man of the cloth that Moyers is willing to support! Meanwhile, several names and Webpages mysteriously have begun to go missing on Obama's Website.

Perhaps the rapture has arrived there.

Related: "In adversity, bitter pundits cling to their Obamessiah."

Jim Geraghty explores Barack Obama's radical ties with former Weatherman (and I don't mean in the Willard Scott sense) Bill Ayers who, like the fellow that Wretchard linked to on Wednesday, hasn't changed his worldview a jot since 1968, other than no longer literally putting his Semtex where his mouth is.

Geraghty writes:

The problem for Obama isn't that his ties to Ayers are so close (that we know of so far). Ayers hosted a party that was, effectively, the first fundraiser for Obama. They served on the Woods Foundation board together, and he spoke on some panels. That's not as close a relationship as with, say, his mentor Jeremiah Wright, but it's a lot closer than most Americans will ever come to a person who set bombs in public buildings.

But what is really revealing about this mess for Obama is that when asked about it, the candidate reacted with a mix of surprise and indignation that we haven't quite seen since, "I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not.. have... sexual... relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." Recall, Clinton's finger-wagging tone wasn't striking just for the audacity of the lie, but for the barely-suppressed outrage; Bill seemed genuinely offended that anyone could accuse him of such a thing.

In the case of Obama, he clearly felt that George Stephanolopous asking about this was completely out of bounds. That no one in their right mind could possibly be concerned, disgruntled, or disapproving of associating with someone like William Ayers. As Obama insisted, this is just a professor who lives in his neighborhood.

But the average professor who lives in the neighborhood didn't set bombs, even a long time ago.

Obama could have easily said, "I met Ayers and worked with him briefly, but I don't like him. I don't have any use for those who set bombs, or those who enthusiastically praise the acts of Charles Manson" (as Bernadine Dohrn did). But he didn't. In this whole set of circumstances, Obama felt that Stephanopolous was the one out of line.

Meanwhile, Tom Hayden, last seen bemoaning the growth of capitalism in Vietnam, notes that Hillary has plenty of radical chic baggage of her own.

Newsday's "TV Zone" believes that Katie Couric may land on her feet after bailing from CBS, and replace Larry King when King finally goes off into the sunset after hosting his talk show since about 30 seconds after Philo T. Farnsworth invented the medium in 1927. Replacing King would actually be a good move for Katie, I think, since cheerfully chatting it up with guests suits her talents and perky demeanor much more than hosting the evening news and the institutional gravitas that the latter gig (and its ever-shrinking elderly audience) demands.

And speaking of which, Troy Patterson, Slate's in-house TV critic, suggests that euthanasia is the Ra^ther logical conclusion to the CBS news division, post-Katie:

I propose that it is time for CBS News to be put down, in the Old Yeller sense of the phrase. It's time to turn out the lights and just start airing Hollywood gossip at 6:30 p.m. The network could follow Schieffer's lead and simply dissolve the thing after the inauguration, maybe keeping 60 Minutes around, either as a commercial-free public service program (because what exec doesn't love a prestige-hogging loss leader?) or under the auspices of CBS' entertainment division (because why keep pretending?). The farewell would be handled with dignified pomp—tributes to Murrow and Severeid and so forth. And if Walter Cronkite is in good health, he could do the honors with a final sign off. I'm serious. That's how bad things are, and that's the way it is.

And like Lenin's tomb, the mausoleum has already been built for the curious to view the remains.

"Wretchard" of the Bellmont Club looks at Paul Auster, whom the New York Times notes, presumably without the intended irony, "is the author of the forthcoming 'Man in the Dark'":

Paul Auster's "Vietnam me act crazy" article in the New York Times is that worst of confessions: that kind that is accidentally funny. Explaining his strange behavior on a certain day in the 1960s, Auster says,

Being crazy struck me as a perfectly sane response to the hand I had been dealt — the hand that all young men had been dealt in 1968. The instant I graduated from college, I would be drafted to fight in a war I despised to the depths of my being, and because I had already made up my mind to refuse to fight in that war, I knew that my future held only two options: prison or exile.

Maddened by these alternatives, Auster went off and raised comparative hell.

After the outburst in the park, campus buildings were stormed, occupied and held for a week. ... Along with more than 700 other people, I was arrested — pulled by my hair to the police van by one officer as another officer stomped on my hand with his boot. But no regrets. I was proud to have done my bit for the cause. Both crazy and proud.

I hesitate to draw any comparisons with the present — and therefore will not end this memory-piece with the word “Iraq.” I am 61 now, but my thinking has not changed much since that year of fire and blood, and as I sit alone in this room with a pen in my hand, I realize that I am still crazy, perhaps crazier than ever.

"I am 61 now, but my thinking has not changed much" since 1968--which is as good a definition of hardened-in-concrete modern "progressivism" as you'll find.

John Hawkins writes:

Isn't it funny how the whole "chickenhawk argument" was such a oft-discussed, "crucial" point back in 2004, but today, now that the shoe's on the other foot, not a liberal soul who was making that argument seems to think it has the least bi