EVENING UPDATE,  MARCH 18,  2008

SPEECH AFTERMATH

To readers just joining us:  I posted a report on Barack Obama's speech this afternoon.  You can find it below under the title, OBAMA SPEECH UPDATE.

Reactions to the speech are coming in.  Frankly, they're rather predictable.  Those on the left feel uplifted.  They always seem to feel uplifted.  Those on the right are complimentary toward Obama's eloquence, but remain skeptical about his motives and content.  I thought this paragraph from John Dickerson at Slate summed up some reasonable feelings nicely:

Can Obama's speech of so many words blot out the YouTube videos of his former pastor Jeremiah Wright saying "God damn America"? It probably can't as a blunt political matter. Obama didn't answer Wright's rebuke with an equally hot riposte. The speech failed to address head-on Wright's damning of America or any of his other remarks about 9/11 or AIDS. Obama asked for points for political courage for not abandoning Wright, and he should get them. Abandonment would have been more expedient. White blue-collar men in Pennsylvania would have applauded shoving Wright over, and his rock-solid black supporters probably would have understood. But Obama's courage didn't extend to directly taking on the words that have caused such controversy.

There are, of course, the looney-tune comments, like this one by John Nichols at, natch, The Nation:

The Illinois senator recognized that the media-driven dialogue about sermons delivered by Wright had little to do with the content of the pastor's words and everything to do with the color of the pastor's -- and the candidate's -- skin.

That's really nuts.  Is Mr. Nichols telling us that a white pastor, allied with a white candidate for president, would have gotten away with Wright's wild comments?  Oh, come on. He would have been out the door in a minute.  Nichols just proves how race-obsessed the left really is.

I thought Stanley Kurtz, at The Corner, had one of the most cogent responses, and one of the most critical:

Obama’s speech was thoughtful, powerful, and to many will be persuasive. But on behalf of what exactly has this persuasive power been deployed? We’re being asked to adopt an attitude of relative complacency toward a man who takes just about the most radical and profoundly troubling stance toward his own country that an American can take.

One false equivalence after another is being drawn between, say, Geraldine Ferraro’s comments or opponents of affirmative action, on the one hand, and Jeremiah Wright’s remarks, on the other. Wright’s view of America is rejected as mistaken, and insufficiently hopeful about the country’s potential to change. Yet in the end Wright is embraced, accepted, and even to a degree justified. Wright has some basis for what he says, yet also makes mistakes, we’re told, and are then reminded that the same can be said for opponents of affirmative action or proponents of welfare reform. Well, at some broad level, everyone has good points and also makes mistakes, but there is such a thing as a false equivalence, as we learned, say, during the Cold War, when apologists for communism argued that the two big powers were roughly equal forces for good and evil in the world.

Obama is persuasive because he’s sincere. You wonder how he could have sat for twenty years in Wright’s congregation listening to his minister’s shocking radicalism without leaving. Obama explains it here. He sees some exaggeration and excessive pessimism in Wright’s stance, yet he also sees the authentic voice of African-American pain. And this led Obama to tolerate, excuse, and dismiss for decades what ought not to have been tolerated, excused, or dismissed. This, unfortunately, is exactly how elite liberals come to countenance the sort of anti-American radicalism they ought to stand up and fight instead.

And this...

Far from pulling a Hubert Humphrey or a Tony Blair and casting the radical left out of the party, Obama seems to see his job as getting the rest of the country to adopt a stance of relative complacency toward the most egregious sorts of anti-Americanism–all under the guise of achieving national unity. The real precedent here is Jimmy Carter sitting next to Michael Moore at the Democratic National Convention. Does Carter endorse everything Michael Moore says? I doubt it. If pressed, would Carter in fact condemn some of what Moore has said? Most likely. But in the end, Carter stood with Moore and put an acceptable face on what should in fact be considered unacceptable. Of course, even that doesn’t begin to compare to Obama’s decades-long association with Wright, and his decision, for years, to place Wright at the core of his political identity.

We'll leave it at that.

March 18, 2008.  Permalink

THE WRONG OF WRIGHT

The seriousness of the Rev. Wright issue is reflected in a poll showing just how much it can hurt Barack Obama.

More than half of Democrats and nearly two-thirds of Republicans would be less likely to support Sen. Barack Obama for president after viewing video clips of his longtime friend and pastor espousing a radical "black power" worldview, a poll showed yesterday.

After viewing sermons in which the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. called the U.S. government racist and directed racially charged attacks at Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton, 52 percent of self-described Democrats said they would be less likely to support Mr. Obama, according to the survey by HCD Research.

The nationwide poll of 798 voters showed 71 percent of Republicans and 54 percent of independents also would be less likely to support Mr. Obama after viewing the clips.

Before viewing the video, a majority of voters — Democrats, Republicans and independents — said Mr. Obama's ties to Mr. Wright would hurt his campaign efforts. However, after viewing the video, more than two-thirds of voters from each political affiliation said the sermons would hurt Mr. Obama's presidential bid.

Among Democrats, 64 percent said they hurt Mr. Obama before viewing the video and 77 percent felt that way after seeing the video. Republicans went from 71 percent to 84 percent, and independents from 65 percent to 78 percent, the poll showed.

Translated into political English, this means the GOP will do everything it can to keep the issue alive.  I don't think that will be too difficult.

March 18, 2008.  Permalink

McCAIN IN ISRAEL

While the Democrats fight and explain, John McCain is in Israel, where he received a terrific reception:

US presidential hopeful John McCain received a celebrity welcome in Jerusalem Tuesday, with American tourists scrambling to shake his hand and get a souvenir snapshot.

US Senators Lindsey Graham, left, John McCain, center, and Joseph I. Lieberman, walk past the Eternal Flame, left, as they lay a wreath at the Hall of Remembrance during a visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, Tuesday.

McCain began a two-day visit with a stop at Israel's national Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem. As his motorcade pulled up, dozens of tourists greeted him and chanted "Mac is back," while he shook their hands and posed for photographs.

McCain is on a weeklong trip to Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Britain and France. He has said the tour is a fact-finding, mission, not a campaign photo opportunity.

During his 90-minute visit at the memorial and museum, McCain was visibly moved, his eyes welling with tears as he viewed photographs from Nazi death camps.

You read a story like that, and then think of Rev. Wright's venom.  Quite a difference, ay?  It explains why Obama is in trouble, and will remain so until the mainstream media bails him out.

March 18, 2008.  Permalink

LANDMARK CASE

That's not said too often about Supreme Court cases, but the one argued before the Court today qualifies.  At issue is whether the District of Columbia has the right to ban the ownership of handguns by citizens.  The larger issue, though, is whether the Court will rule that gun ownership is an individual right, or a right that only belongs to an organized militia.  The former seems to be winning the day:

A majority of the Supreme Court today seemed to clearly indicate that the Second Amendment provides an individual right to possess a firearm and several justices appeared skeptical about whether the District of Columbia's handgun ban could be considered a reasonable restriction on that right.

Two justices cleanly framed the issue confronting them after about 90 minutes of intense arguments that took a trip back to the English Bill of Rights and the founding of a new nation on this continent.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer noted the number of people killed by handguns and asked if it was unreasonable for a "city with a very high crime rate to say 'no handguns here.' "

From the other side, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked: "What's reasonable about a total ban on possession?''

No matter what side of the gun issue you're on, the decision in this case will be dramatic, and will have a lasting impact.

March 18, 2008.  Permalink

MORE WISDOM FROM EDUCATORS

Finally, James Taranto, at Best of the Web Today, leads us to a California story that won't do a thing to raise your opinion of educators.   Behold the brilliance:

SEASIDE, Calif. — A 15-year-old girl who stopped an out-of-control school bus she was riding on was handed a Saturday detention instead because she was skipping school.

Marina High School student Amanda Rouse was on a bus with 40 elementary school students Wednesday morning when the driver fell out of her seat after a turn and hit her head.

Rouse jumped up and applied the brakes, bringing the bus to a halt after striking two parked cars. No one was injured.

But Rouse said she was punished because she wasn't supposed to be on the bus.

Rouse said she fell ill on the way to school, but instead of calling in sick, she asked the bus driver for a lift back to the bus yard before the accident happened. She must attend Saturday school as punishment for failing to call in sick that day.

"She is in trouble with school because she made the wrong decision," said Rouse's grandmother, Sally Correll. "But I can't help but believe that she was where God wanted her to be."

Doesn't this grandmother know you're not supposed to mention God and school in the same statement?  How pushy.  How lower-class.  No wonder Amanda saved lives rather than calling in.  What kind of priorities do they have in that family?

Does anyone recall the word "heroine"?  Maybe someone at Amanda's school should look it up.

And I'll be back tomorrow.

March 18, 2008.  Permalink