SUNDAY,  FEBRUARY 3,  2008

•   La Opinión, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the country, has endorsed Barack Obama for President.  Obama has been havding trouble attracting Hispanics, who have a history of friction with blacks.  Blacks have felt, rightly or wrongly, that Hispanic immigrants take jobs.  Will the endorsement matter?  I have no way of knowing.  The key quote:

Senator Barack Obama has the qualities to change the bitter tone that dominates in Washington and to take the actions that are needed for our country at this time. No one doubts the skill and experience of Senator Hillary Clinton, but these are not sufficient to revitalize our nation. With his multicultural sensibilities and humble origins, Obama demonstrates deep conviction as he has done in the area of immigration. He is the best option for truly visionary change.

Once again I will ask how the most liberal senator in the Senate can change the tone in Washington.  Once again I will ask what "change" really means.  Now it's "visionary change."  Would someone provide some details.

Of course, the key phrase in the endorsement is "multicultural sensibilities."  When I read that, I run in the other direction.  Freely translated, it means government programs that may or may not work, and an indifference to our open borders.  George W. Bush has shown remarkable multicultural sensibilities, but has gotten no credit for it because he doesn't understand the code.

•   Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Dan Gerstein, a Democratic strategist who has worked for Joe Lieberman, asserts that the angry left is in decline in the Democratic Party.  He points to the failure of John Edwards, who made leftist zealotry a hallmark of his campaign, although I often had the feeling that it was an act.  Using the term Kossacks to refer to the Daily Kos kind of Democrats, filled with poison and venom, he says: 

The Kossacks and their activist allies -- who skew toward the Boomers -- believe that Republicans are venal bordering on evil, and that the way Democrats will win elections and hold power is to one-up Karl Rove's divisive, bare-knuckled tactics. Their opponents within the party -- who skew younger and freer of culture war wounds -- believe that the way to win is offer voters a break from this poisonous tribal warfare and a compelling, inclusive vision for where we want to take the country.

I'm not sure I'm convinced.  MoveOn.org, on of the most doctrinaire groups in the country, has endorsed Obama.  And I fail to see how Obama's almost complete rejection of American foreign policy will "offer voters a break" from today's divisions. 

We've had this "bring us together" stuff before, and I"ve never yet seen it work.  Nixon tried it, awkardly, as he did everything else.  Most presidents talk about it. 

We have an illusion that "national unity" existed at some time.  There are brief periods of great unity, often following a tragedy, but they tend not to last.  By definition, a democracy is contentious.  We think that World War II brought immense unity.  It did, to the war effort, but even that unity started to weaken toward the end of the war.  Franklin D. Roosevelt's opponent received almost 47 percent of the vote in the 1944 election.  The war would end in less than a year. 

Real unity means uniting on basic issues like the need to keep defenses strong and to confront foreign threats.  We used to say that politics stopped at the water's edge, and we did have decades of bi-partisan understanding in foreign policy.  That understanding has broken down, and no one has done more to destroy it than Barack Obama.  Mr. Unity?  Show me.

•   I normally don't publicize Maureen Dowd, not the most responsible columnist in the land, but her column today, "There Will Be Blood," on the chilly relationship between the Clintons and Obama, is a good piece of gossipy reporting.  I can't attest to its accuracy, but, as a well-known historian once said about a story he couldn't confirm, it's too good to leave out.  The key quote:

Suddenly, everyone was in the mood for love. Would the scream team turn into the dream team?

After Thursday’s Democratic debate, CNN’s Carol Costello said there were “heart palpitations” and “ripples of joy” in the glittery Kodak Theater audience at the idea of a Hillary-Obama or Obama-Hillary ticket, after he was gallant with her and she laughed gaily with him.

How could Hollywood not fall in love with Hollywood’s favorite plot? After lots of sparking and sparring, the couple falls into each other’s arms in the last scene.

The would-be matchmakers didn’t seem to know that in Hollywood, couples who have chemistry on screen often don’t like each other off screen, and ones who are involved off screen often don’t have any chemistry on screen.

And so it is with Barack and Hillary. Thursday night was not the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Just a beautiful, dare we say, fairy tale.

Ah, the prospect of real combat ahead.  Intrigue.  Knives in the back.  Lies.  Scandals.  It's all okay, as long as they bring us together.

•   The Washington Post reports on a new national poll showing Obama rapidly closing the gap with Clinton, with only four points separating them nationally.  By contrast, McCain leads Romney, 48 to 24 percent.  The key quote:

McCain's big lead in this new national poll matches a wave of increasing support seen in state polls, which, coupled with the GOP's winner-take-all rules, gives him the opportunity to effectively wrap up the nomination with a strong showing Tuesday.

The Democratic contest is likely to keep going.

McCain, whether one agrees with him on a host of issues or not, has shown a remarkable ability to be the long-distance runner.  For, say, Obama to beat him in the fall, Obama would have to move to the center, attracting the moderates and independents McCain is picking up handily.  But if he moves toward the center, Obama can lose the true believers, who really do love to punish those who stray from the hymnal.  I never thought I'd say it about 2008, but right now I'd rather be the GOP candidate.

 
•   More and more, we have opportunities to praise France.  Apparently, the Iranians are deeply upset with the new Sarkozy government:

Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned the French ambassador Sunday to protest the European country's policy toward Teheran's nuclear program, state media reported.

France has been a vocal supporter of a new round of sanctions against Iran for the country's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for a nuclear reactor or fissile material for a bomb.

Good for France.  It's now showing more spine than the Bush administration, which has put sanity on hold while the Bush 41 crowd tries to resurrect its mentor's failed policies.

•   Finally, I urge you to read Canadian writer David Warren's piece at Real Clear Politics, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Tet offensive in Vietnam, an enormous defeat for the Communists, reported to Americans as a great victory for those same Communists.  Warren briefly discusses the disgrace of Walter Cronkite, who misled the country.  And there is this passage:

My friend, Uwe Siemon-Netto, a German Lutheran pastor and also life-long journalist, was there as a reporter. Entering Hué as the smoke was clearing: “I made my way to university apartments to obtain news about friends of mine, German professors at the medical school. I learned that their names had been on lists containing some 1,800 Hué residents singled out for liquidation.

“Six weeks later the bodies of doctors Alois Altekoester, Raimund Discher, Horst-Guenther Krainick, and Krainick's wife, Elisabeth, were found in shallow graves they had been made to dig for themselves.

“Then, enormous mass graves of women and children were found. Most had been clubbed to death, some buried alive; you could tell from the beautifully manicured hands of women who had tried to claw out of their burial place.

“As we stood at one such site, Washington Post correspondent Peter Braestrup asked an American TV cameraman, 'Why don't you film this?' He answered, 'I am not here to spread anti-communist propaganda'.”

Peter Braestrup later wrote a superb history of the reporting of Tet, exposing the dry rot of the American press.  That history has been completely ignored. 

Think about it.  Think about what we're getting today.  The generation of young reporters who botched the coverage of Vietnam is now the generation of editors and news directors who "inform" us about the war on terror and who will control coverage of the upcoming presidential campaign.

It will be up to we the people.  Don't depend on "media."

I understand there'll be a sports event later today, but we'll be back

Posted on February 3, 2008.