EVENING UPDATE:  APRIL 15,  2008

Posted at 7:44 p.m. ET

THE IMAGE

Consider the first paragraph of this story by Bill Bradley at Real Clear Politics on how the Obama gaffe story was broken on Huffington Post:

It's one of the great ironies of the campaign. The resolutely pro-Obama Huffington Post, the site Barack Obama chose last month to put out his statement on Rev. Jeremiah Wright's outrageous comments, this month is the source of one of his biggest campaign crises. Its namesake co-owner, the conservative-turned-liberal commentator profiled recently in the New York Times as "Citizen Huff," Arianna Huffington, was on David Geffen's yacht in Tahiti when the deal went down.

The image of elitism in that paragraph simply overwhelms.  On David Geffen's yacht in Tahiti.

These are the people trying to direct the American destiny.  These are the people who understand, who are our betters, who sail to Tahiti.  And they're thoroughly in the tank for Obama.

A friend of mine remarked today that Franklin D. Roosevelt, an aristocrat, had a remarkable understanding of the common man, despite his status.  But, of course, Roosevelt came from a family that prized real public service, he'd been shattered by polio as an adult, and had a wife who, despite any other faults, took an active interest in the people she claimed to care about.  The Roosevelt sons served in the military in World War II.  One was even a Marine Raider.

Roosevelt was Ronald Reagan's political role model.

Those people on the yacht in Tahiti - why don't I think they're in the same league?

April 15, 2008.      Permalink          

WILL

George Will examines that same theme in his column today.  I haven't quoted Will very much.  I've been a bit disappointed in him in recent years, especially on foreign policy. But here he is, back in great form, examining the mentality behind the Obama debacle, and comparing Obama to others in his party's past:  

Obama may be the fulfillment of modern liberalism. Explaining why many working-class voters are "bitter," he said they "cling" to guns, religion and "antipathy to people who aren't like them" because of "frustrations." His implication was that their primitivism, superstition and bigotry are balm for resentments they feel because of America's grinding injustice.

By so speaking, Obama does fulfill liberalism's transformation since Franklin Roosevelt. What had been under FDR a celebration of America and the values of its working people has become a doctrine of condescension toward those people and the supposedly coarse and vulgar country that pleases them.

When a supporter told Adlai Stevenson, the losing Democratic presidential nominee in 1952 and 1956, that thinking people supported him, Stevenson said, "Yes, but I need to win a majority." When another supporter told Stevenson, "You educated the people through your campaign," Stevenson replied, "But a lot of people flunked the course." Michael Barone, in "Our Country: The Shaping of America From Roosevelt to Reagan," wrote: "It is unthinkable that Roosevelt would ever have said those things or that such thoughts ever would have crossed his mind." Barone added: "Stevenson was the first leading Democratic politician to become a critic rather than a celebrator of middle-class American culture -- the prototype of the liberal Democrat who would judge ordinary Americans by an abstract standard and find them wanting."

And...

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

And...

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

Wonderfully stated.  The question is whether we can take four years of this in the White House.  We used to say that Americans can stand four years of a bad domestic policy, but four years of a bad foreign policy could be fatal.  In his San Francisco remarks, Obama pronounced as to how he knew more than John McCain or Hillary Clinton did about the world, and about foreign policy.  The arrogance of the remark, particularly as it concerned the experienced McCain, was breathtaking.  Yet this is the man who will be in charge of national survival, in a nuclear age, if he's elected.  The mainstream media, many of whose members think we are the greatest threat to the universe, doesn't mind.  The average American may mind very much, for it is he or she, or their soldier son, who will pay the price.

April 15, 2008.      Permalink          

COOK

Charlie Cook is an astute political analyst.  Writing in the National Journal, he says it will take more than this latest Obama flap to derail the Obama campaign, and I'm afraid he's right:

Alone, this incident is hardly enough to derail Obama's nomination. It would take much more than that. While Obama's delegate lead over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is not large, it is very difficult to overcome given how few states are left to vote, how hard it is to close a gap under the Democrats' proportional representation system and that the remaining undecided superdelegates hardly seem ready to march lock step into the Clinton column.

The key is the Democratic Party's system of proportional representation.  It was introduced at the insistence of Jesse Jackson and his allies in the 1980s, specifically to give some groups a virtual veto over the nomination.  It is a terrible system, leading to factions and division.  It's been pointed out that, if the Democrats used the Republican winner-take-all system, Clinton would have probably won the nomination. 

But Cook sees trouble ahead for Obama in the general election, partly because of his San Francisco comments:

It doesn't mean this isn't costly and doesn't hurt Obama in a general election. Even a cursory look at the national and state-by-state polling shows that voters are predisposed to vote Democratic and vote for change this year. But swing voters have to be comfortable with the change they are asked to make.

For undecided voters being asked to support a 46-year-old black man with a relatively thin résumé on the national or statewide level, this kind of story does not make them comfortable.

And...

For many downscale, white voters, casting a ballot for Obama might be a bit of a challenge, but not necessarily an insurmountable one. More incidents like Bittergate, however, will make it a very, very uphill climb.

But on the question of Hillary and the nomination, Cook is clear:

She can't win the remaining contests by sufficiently large-enough margins to appreciably close the gap, and superdelegates appear to be breaking more toward Obama. So again, short of a Rev. Jeremiah Wright-level embarrassment visiting Obama each week for four or five more consecutive weeks, this thing is over.

Isn't it remarkable that "the forgotten man," once a Democratic Party ic44, truly is forgotten in his own party.  The remembered man today is likely to be an affluent professional with a co-op apartment in Manhattan, or an elite college professor on an Ivy League campus.

This isn't the party I remember.

Back tomorrow or later tonight, if events warrant.

April 15, 2008.      Permalink          

AFTERNOON POSTINGS:  APRIL 15, 2008

Posted at 4:01 p.m. ET

THE POLLS

Pennsylvania votes a week from today. New polls in the state's Democratic primary show strangely varied results.  Yesterday I reported that ARG had Clinton up by 20, but that I was skeptical.  Today Quinnipiac has her up by six.  I'm skeptical of that, too.  Both polls seem wide in different ways.  Rasmussen has Clinton up nine.  Survey USA has her up 14.  Both Ras and Survey polled through yesterday, Quinnipiac through Sunday.  With the vote so close at hand, we'll be getting tracking polls every day.

Some pundits theorize that the Obama flap may not cost Obama as much as originally thought because the Democrats likely to be offended already were for Clinton.  We'll know the answer a week from tonight.

There'll be a debate between Obama and Clinton in Pennsylvania tomorrow evening.  Clinton pushed for debates as a means of catching up with Obama.  This one she didn't need.  She has some momentum in Pennsylvania right now, and a debate can disrupt it.  I suspect that Obama will be on the attack, and Clinton must be ready.  If he does attack, does become another Chicago politician, she must tag him that way.  "This isn't the Barack Obama we were promised.  This is a different package."  Or, she can say, "You know, Barack, as soon as you're attacked, you fall apart and get angry.  You can't do that as president."  Clinton must reduce Obama to the level of an ordinary candidate, pull the plug on his halo, and invite the voters to take a new look.

The problem, of course, is that Hillary herself is such a flawed candidate.  I hope she can get through tomorrow's debate without claiming that she commanded Marines at Iwo Jima. 

Nationally, things have moved little in the polls since the Obama flap.  I suspect that's because the blunder is, for now, a Pennsylvania story.  You can be sure the GOP will remind the entire nation in the fall.

Rasmussen has McCain up four over Obama nationally.  Gallup has Obama up two.

Rasmussen has McCain up seven over Clinton.  Gallup has Clinton up two.

A late Survey USA poll shows Clinton up 16 in Indiana, which votes May 6th.  North Carolina votes the same day, and is expected to go easily to Obama.

April 15, 2008.      Permalink          

THE EMBARRASSMENT

Jimmah Carter hugged a Hamas official today and paid tribute to Yasser Arafat:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Former President Jimmy Carter embraced a leading Hamas figure Tuesday, according to participants in a meeting that infuriated Israeli officials already upset by Carter's freelance Mideast peace mission.

Carter also laid a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat, whom the Bush administration and many Israelis blame for the breakdown of peace talks seven years ago and the violence that followed.

At a reception in the West Bank town of Ramallah organized by Carter's office, the former president hugged Nasser Shaer, a senior Hamas politician, meeting participants said. Embraces between men are a common custom in Arab culture.

"He gave me a hug. We hugged each other, and it was a warm reception," Shaer told The Associated Press. "Carter asked what he can do to achieve peace between the Palestinians and Israel ... and I told him the possibility for peace is high."

Carter's office refused to comment, saying he does not discuss closed meetings.

Airsickness pills are available at your local pharmacy.  Prices are reasonable.

April 15, 2008.      Permalink          

TUESDAY:  APRIL 15,  2008

Posted at 5:12 a.m. ET

LET THE COMBAT BEGIN!

Hillary Clinton airs her first attack ad exploiting Barack Obama's recent remarks in San Francisco about the little people and their quaint ways.  Now look, this is about as genuine and heartfelt as everything else Ms. Hillary does, but it's effective:

Here’s the script of Clinton’s new ad:

Clinton: “I'm Hillary Clinton and I approve this message.”

Announcer: “Barack Obama said that people in small towns ‘cling to guns or religion … as a way to explain their frustrations.’”

Woman 1: “I was very insulted by Barack Obama.”

Man 1: “It just shows how out of touch Barack Obama is.”

Woman 2: “I'm not clinging to my faith out of frustration and bitterness. I find that my faith is very uplifting.”

Man 2: “The good people of Pennsylvania deserve a lot better than what Barack Obama said.”

Woman 1: “Hillary does understand the citizens of Pennsylvania better.”

Woman 3: “Hillary Clinton has been fighting for people like us her whole life.”

Okay, don't laugh, don't laugh, and don't bring up the $109-million the Clintons made.  It's politics, and it will probably work.

Pennsylvania votes a week from today. 

If Clinton's campaign catches fire as a result of Obama's blunder, that San Francisco comment will become one of the most famous quotes in American history.

April 15, 2008.      Permalink          

SAY IT WITH SOWELL

Thomas Sowell, the distinguished African-American public intellectual, has some problems with Barack Obama, and lays them all out in a column gently titled, "A Living Lie":

An e-mail from a reader said that, while Hillary Clinton tells lies, Barack Obama is himself a lie. That is becoming painfully apparent with each new revelation of how drastically his carefully crafted image this election year contrasts with what he has actually been saying and doing for many years.

Senator Obama's election year image is that of a man who can bring the country together, overcoming differences of party or race, as well as solving our international problems by talking with Iran and other countries with which we are at odds, and performing other miscellaneous miracles as needed.

There is, of course, not a speck of evidence that Obama has ever transcended party differences in the United States Senate. Voting records analyzed by the National Journal show him to be the farthest left of anyone in the Senate. Nor has he sponsored any significant bipartisan legislation -- nor any other significant legislation, for that matter.

Senator Obama is all talk -- glib talk, exciting talk, confident talk, but still just talk.

Splat.  He goes on:

Like so many others on the left, Obama rejects "stereotypes" when they are stereotypes he doesn't like but blithely throws around his own stereotypes about "a typical white person" or "bitter" gun-toting, religious and racist working class people.

And...

However inconsistent Obama's words, his behavior has been remarkably consistent over the years. He has sought out and joined with the radical, anti-Western left, whether Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers of the terrorist Weatherman underground or pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli Rashid Khalidi.

Obama is also part of a long tradition on the left of being for the working class in the abstract, or as people potentially useful for the purposes of the left, but having disdain or contempt for them as human beings.

Sowell concludes:

It is understandable that young people are so strongly attracted to Obama. Youth is another name for inexperience -- and experience is what is most needed when dealing with skillful and charismatic demagogues.

Those of us old enough to have seen the type again and again over the years can no longer find them exciting. Instead, they are as tedious as they are dangerous.

You think maybe he doesn't like him?

Okay, Barack, do your thing.  Say you'll negotiate with Tom Sowell.  Have a talk.  It'll settle everything.  Maybe ten, maybe fifteen minutes.  Then you're ready for the North Koreans.

April 15, 2008.      Permalink          

HAVEN'T WE READ THIS SCRIPT?

As we reported here yesterday, Italy just threw out its government and brought back conservative, pro-American Silvio Berlusconi.  Okay, that's the news.  But read the story in The New York Times.  Look, maybe I'm being paranoid, but don't you agree that the tone is chillingly similar to that of Barack Obama's San Francisco remarks?  These frustrated peasants went to the polls and did such dumb things!  What's wrong with these hicks?  Consider: 

Rejecting the sober responsibility of the departing prime minister, Romano Prodi, Italians chose in a moment of national self-doubt a man whose dramas — the clowning and corruption scandals, his rocky relations with his wife and political partners, his growing hairline and ever browner hair — play out very much in public.

And...

Mr. Berlusconi, he said, ran a campaign that emphasized a natural glee that Italians still find attractive. “This time he just made jokes,” Mr. Ottone said. “He had no political message, but he still made headlines.”

Why do we let those people vote?  Don't they understand the wonders of the left?   Soon they'll want guns and religion.

We can get rid of them.  Yes we can!

April 15, 2008.      Permalink           

HOOPS AND SCARVES

Well, now this is culturally interesting.  It seems there's a female basketball team in Saudi Arabia. No, they don't wear uniforms like ours. But they do want to, so to speak, break out:

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- The Jeddah United women's basketball team trickled onto the court, each player wrapped in a black abaya and head scarf. Within minutes, the women had shed their cloaks and were in uniform -- white pants and jerseys with their names in red -- practicing layups, passes and foul shots until they were wet with sweat.

The team, made up mostly of Saudi students and housewives, is preparing for a local tournament this month. But what the women would really love to do, many said, is compete internationally and represent their country abroad, something Saudi Arabia does not permit.

The religious bigs have their own opinions.  Some have issued a religious decree banning women's sports centers:

"Opening these centers is one of the main reasons and the biggest doors leading to the spread of decadence," the decree states. "And it is known that the only women who will frequent these centers are those with little or no manners."

It concludes: "Banning the opening of these sports centers is not a ban on sports. A woman can practice sports at home, and there are many ways to do that, or she can race her husband in a deserted area, like the prophet Muhammad -- peace be upon him -- who raced with his wife Aisha twice."

That must have been quite a scene.  I wonder if Aisha had cheerleaders. 

I think they should allow these women to go for it.  The only problem is, it's Saudi Arabia.  What happens to the women if they lose? 

That may give the term "final four" an entirely new meaning.

April 15, 2008.      Permalink          

CAREFUL, PLEASE

Finally, when I was a student at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, we paid quite a bit of attention to misleading headlines.  The most sinful examples are headlines that are not supported by the facts of the story.  But there are also the headlines that can be read different ways - usually the result of daydreaming in the newsroom.

Consider this headline, run yesterday by the AP:

US Issues New Mexico Travel Alert

Now, wait a minute.  Isn't New Mexico in the United States?  Isn't that guy Richardson the governor?

Here's the story:

The State Department on Monday issued a new travel alert warning of rising violence in northern Mexico, but stopped short of suggesting that Americans avoid traveling in the border region.

The alert detailed an uptick in drug-related homicides, shootouts, kidnappings and car thefts near the border, particularly in the cities of Tijuana, Chihuahua and Ciudad Juarez.
About 200 people have been killed so far this year in Ciudad Juarez, a city of 1.3 million across from El Paso, Texas.

The headline should obviously have read:

US Issues New Travel Alert for Mexico

Details, people.  Details.

Be back later.

April 15, 2008.       Permalink