The Churchill Series - Mar. 24, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

It is 1896, the fifty-ninth year of Victoria’s reign. Twenty-one year old Lieutenant Churchill is serving with his regiment in Bangalore, India. His intellectual curiosity, mostly dormant during his student days, has suddenly become active and intense. He’s anxious to learn all he can about the people and ideas that form our Western heritage.

In My Early Life, an autobiography of his first twenty-seven years which Churchill wrote when in his fifties, he looks back to that time in Bangalore; and tells us about something the young lieutenant discovered as he opened his mind to inquiry and reflection:

Then someone had used the phrase “the Socratic method.”

What was that?

It was apparently a way of giving your friend his head in an argument and progging him into a pit by cunning questions.

Who was Socrates, anyhow?

A very argumentative Greek who had a nagging wife and was finally compelled to commit suicide because he was a nuisance!

Still, he was beyond doubt a considerable person. He counted for a lot in the minds of learned people.

I wanted “the Socrates story.” Why had his fame lasted through all the ages? What were the stresses which had led a government to put him to death merely because of the things he said?

Dire stresses they must have been: the life of the Athenian Executive or the life of this talkative professor! Such antagonisms do not spring from petty issues.

Evidently Socrates had called something into being long ago which was very explosive. Intellectual dynamite! A moral bomb!

But there was nothing about it in The Queen’s Regulations.

In February 1901 Churchill took his seat in the House of Commons for the first time. He remainded a member for all but a few years of the rest of his life.

In Commons, after a bill is introduced, members rise to ask and debate questions. We recognize such proceedings as the method of “this talkative professor” the young lieutenant met in Bangalore.
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Winston Churchill, My Early Life. (pgs. 107-111)

Regular disputes Brodhead rating; JinC reaches out

Today in Two very different university presidents ol' JinC said Duke's President Richard ( "the facts kept changing") Brodhead is at best a second-rate university president.

At the time, it seemed like a non-controversial rating.

I mean, not even Duke's trustees, having settled a number of suits and still finding themselves defendants in two major civil rights violations suits stemming from "Dick's leadership" during an obvious criminal attempt to frame Duke students, believe Brodhead is anything other than at best second-rate.

If there's a trustee who thinks otherwise, someone needs to remind that trustee it wasn't too long ago that President Terry Sanford led Duke University.

That said, I turn to a comment by JinC Regular Jack in Silver Spring. He's challenged my rating as too generous. Here's Jack's comment:

John - To call Brodhead "second rate" is to give those who are second rate a bad name. Brodhead is unworthy of any rating.

Jack in Silver Spring

I can't agree.

But I hate to fuss with Regulars; they're such fine people.

So I've looked for a way to reach out to Jack.

And I think I've found it.

Dear Jack,

You say President Brodhead "is unworthy of any rating."

Please take a look below the star line at a JinC post from June 2007.

I'm confident you'll agree Brodhead deserved the Sheldon Award committee's rating.

I look forward to your response and those of other readers.

Best,

JinC


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Brodhead Wins Sheldon Award

JinC News has just learned Duke University’s President, Richard (“Whatever they did was bad enough”) Brodhead, is this year's Sheldon Award winner. The Sheldon is awarded annually to the university or college president selected as America’s worst.

From The New York Sun:

“[t]he award is a statuette that looks something like the Oscar, except the Oscar features a man with no face looking straight ahead, whereas the Sheldon shows a man with no spine looking the other way.

Many other feckless, left-leaning and whinny higher ed presidents provided tough competition.

But according to Sheldon Award chair and sole selection committee member John Leo, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, the ultimate selection was an easy one: Brodhead was clearly the worst of this year’s nominees.

Leo explained in his NY Sun column:

[Here] is what Mr. Brodhead did: On hearing the first reports, he abruptly canceled the lacrosse season, suspended the two players named in the case, and fired the lacrosse coach of 16 years, giving him less than a day to get out.

This helped create the impression that the players were guilty.

His long letter to the campus on April 20 did the same thing. He didn't say the boys were guilty, but he talked passionately about the coercion and assault of women, the legacy of racism, and privilege and inequality — all of which fed the anger aimed at the lacrosse team.

Mr. Brodhead did nothing to deter the tsunami whipped up against the players by some students and the Group of 88, an alliance of mostly radical race and gender professors.

One of the looniest of the 88, Houston Baker, answered a polite and worried letter from one of the lacrosse moms by calling her "the mother of a farm animal."

Without any comment from Mr. Brodhead, the protesters issued death threats, carried banners that said "castrate," featured photos of lacrosse players on "Wanted" fliers, and banged pots outside the boys' residences in the early morning hours to disturb their sleep.

A word from the president about leaving the boys alone and guaranteeing them a fair trial would have been nice.

Like Mr. Brodhead, the Group of 88 did not quite call the players guilty, but praised the campus protestors for "shouting and whispering about what happened to this young woman."

No comment about that from Mr. Brodhead and no comment from him on Mr. Nifong for nine months.

An engineering professor at Duke said, "There never was a clear sense that the students were innocent until proven guilty."

Congratulations Richard Brodhead, Sheldon laureate 2007. And you should resign.

I’ll be saying more about Brodhead’s well-deserved Sheldon recognition but right now I want to get the news out to you because John Burness and his people at Duke News haven’t yet issued a statement concerning this latest recognition of the kind of leadership Brodhead’s providing Duke.

You can read John Leo’s NY Sun Sheldon column here. I think you’ll agree that while the other Sheldon nominees deserved consideration, Brodhead was clearly the worst of the lot.

N&O editor: “my color” disturbs readers

The other day at the Raleigh News & Observer’s Editors’ Blog, Senior Editor Linda Williams responded to readers critical of her and the N&O for, among other reasons, the N&O’s grossly biased, racially inflammatory and often false reporting of the Duke lacrosse frame-up attempt.

Here’s part of what Williams, the lead editor on the most notorious of the N&O’s Duke lacrosse framing stories, its Mar. 25, 2006 story it told readers was about a woman’s “ordeal” which ended finally in “sexual violence,” said to readers [on thread here on 3/14 @ 18:56]:

… Many people commenting here seem to be merely taking an opportunity to express their own considerable racial anxieties. It's obvious that some find the color of my skin disturbing and have concluded that my color is all the information they need to determine what I think and my motivations. It seems more important to them to address my color than my words. …

Williams ended her post with this:

Those of you who just want to continue the racial rant, have at it.

I’ve just left the following response further down the thread.

Dear Editor Williams:

Like most N&O readers I know and judging from their comments at the Editors’ Blog and other blogs, I don’t care about your skin color.

But, like so many other readers, I do care that in its Mar. 24, 2006 story - the first news story to report all 46 white members of the Duke Men’s lacrosse team were suspects in an investigation of a woman’s charges of gang rape and other crimes - the N&O seven times referred to the woman as “the victim” or with the possessive “victim’s,” never once using a qualifier such as “alleged.”

Why did the N&O decide to dispense with its practice in such cases of using a qualifier and instead repeatedly tell readers the woman was “a victim?”

You must have had a very strong reason for doing that.

And by reason I don’t mean something like: “We did that, John, because we wanted the public to believe the woman was the victim and that the players were her victimizers.”

Everyone knows that, Editor Williams.

What we want to know is why did the N&O decide to do that?

We know there wasn’t just one person who worked on that story. Two reporters – Anne Blythe and Samiha Khanna – were bylined on the story and a number of editors worked on it.

It was a front-page story. Former executive editor for news Melanie Sill explained in other EB posts that those stories are carefully reviewed and discussed by a group of senior editors as well as a special front-page editor.

Why did a group of journalists at the N&O decide to frame the Duke students as criminal victimizers and tell readers Crystal Mangum was the victim?

And were any of them ever reprimanded or discharged?

Why hasn’t the N&O attached a correction to the story you published two years ago today?

Finally this, Editor Williams: There are many N&O readers of every race who wish you’d stop using your skin color as an excuse for not answering fair, important and fact-based questions.

Sincerely,

John in Carolina

Two very different university presidents

First, extracts from a WSJ editorial praising recently retired University of Colorado President Hank Brown. Then, below the star line, my comments concerning Duke University’s support for its President Richard Brodhead.

From the WSJ - - -

The modern academy is notoriously immune from accountability, as Larry Summers so painfully learned at Harvard. So it is worth noting, and applauding, the achievements of Hank Brown, the best college president you've never heard of, who retired this month from the University of Colorado.

Mr. Brown took over as interim president in April 2005 when the school of 50,000 was in turmoil. This was a couple of months after CU professor Ward Churchill had become infamous, and a year after the school's athletic department was accused of offering alcohol and sex to recruit football players. A former U.S. Senator, Mr. Brown was reappointed in 2006 in a permanent capacity.

The public was outraged over Mr. Churchill's statements -- including that the 9/11 victims were not "innocent" but a "technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire" driving the "mighty engine of profit to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved." The public anger reminded politicians, and even a few academics, that public universities should be answerable to taxpayers.

Mr. Brown proceeded to oversee a complete examination of Mr. Churchill's work, and the ethnic studies professor was eventually fired because of fraudulent scholarship, not his politics.

Mr. Brown then initiated a complete review of CU's tenure policies, making it easier for his successors to get rid of deadwood. He also took on the equally sensitive subject of grade inflation, insisting that the university disclose student class rank on transcripts. If a B average puts a student at the bottom of his class, future employers will know it.

Frederick Hess, who researches higher education at the American Enterprise Institute, says there may be plenty of other people who know how to fix a university. But the reason there are so few Hank Browns goes back to Machiavelli. "When a leader tries to wrestle with these things," Mr. Hess notes, "there are influential constituencies that he upsets. It's much easier to manage the status quo than to enforce change."

Hank Brown may have upset some students and faculty, but he built support elsewhere, such as among the university's board of regents. He long ago saw the importance of active trustees to improving higher education.

In 1995, he and Senator Joe Lieberman wrote in Roll Call newspaper that "campus political pressures often make it difficult for those on campus to defend academic freedom." During his CU presidency, Mr. Brown got the regents to support his policies and even to adopt a statement encouraging greater intellectual diversity on campus. …

There’s much more to the editorial, including discussion of Brown’s management of the major scandal he inherited involving the CU Athletic Department. The entire editorial's here.

***********************************************************************

Comments:

The WSJ editorial left me admiring President Brown, but mostly thinking about President Brodhead and his supporters at Duke.

What I hear most often now from Brodhead’s supporters are statements like “No one could have done better in the circumstances” and “Brodhead’s right. It was a confusing time. He’s done his best and shouldn’t be held responsible.”

Brodhead works to give credence to those statements. The best known example of that is his Oct. 2006 60 Minutes interview with the late Ed Bradley.

With three former Duke students still under indictment in what was an obvious frame-up attempt, Brodhead spoke at length and with feeling about what a difficult ordeal he’d been through.

Do you recall Duke’s President telling a disbelieving Bradley how hard Spring 2006 had been for him because, among other things, “the facts kept changing?”

I can’t imagine Brown in similar circumstances whining for himself. Can you?

And I can’t imagine Brown standing by and saying nothing while many in the media trashed Colorado University sports teams the way Duke’s 2006 Men’s and Women’s lacrosse teams were trashed; or remaining silent while a corrupt DA, many Colorado faculty, certain Boulder Police officers and “community activists” inflamed public sentiment, thereby endangering Colorado students.

If such was the best Brown could do, would the Colorado Regents have given Brown a public standing ovation as Duke’s trustees gave Brodhead last September?

If we agree Brown was a first-rate university president, the best we can say for Brodhead is he’s second-rate.

Duke deserves better.

Kerry’s “Because he’s a black man:” where’s the reporting?

When Sen. John Kerry was asked by the New Bedford Standard what qualified Sen. Barack Obama to reach out to moderate Muslims, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee didn’t hasitate: “Because he’s an African-American. Because he’s a black man.” The video tape is here.

I’ve posted twice on the story here and here.

Kerry had a lot more to say in the interview. James Taranto at WSJ/ Best of the Web Today reports and comments, after which I comment below the star line.

Taranto says - - -

Remember John Kerry? He was the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, lauded by his supporters for his intellect and his nuance, as compared with the simpleminded George W. Bush.

Having lost the election, he decided to sit out the 2008 contest. He recently endorsed Barack Obama, and earlier this week he sat down with the editorial board of the Standard-Times (New Bedford, Mass.) to make the case for his candidate.
It's a real jaw-dropper. ABC News's Jake Tapper sums it up:

Kerry said that a President Obama would help the US, in relations with Muslim countries, "in some cases go around their dictator leaders to the people and inspire the people in ways that we can't otherwise."

"He has the ability to help us bridge the divide of religious extremism," Kerry said. "To maybe even give power to moderate Islam to be able to stand up against this radical misinterpretation of a legitimate religion."

Kerry was asked what gives Obama that credibility.

"Because he's African-American. Because he's a black man. Who has come from a place of oppression and repression through the years in our own country."

An African-American president would be "a symbol of empowerment" for those who have been disenfranchised around the world, Kerry said, "an important lesson for America to show Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, other places in the world where disenfranchised people don't get anything."

One obvious question: What do the events of this week, involving Obama's own church, tell us about his ability to "stand up against" a "radical misinterpretation of a legitimate religion"?

Nothing very encouraging in this columnist's view, but many observers view Obama much more charitably in this regard than we do.

What is really striking about Kerry's case for Obama, though, is that it rests on what may be the crudest stereotyping we have ever observed. Commentary's Abe Greenwald has a chuckle over Kerry's racial stereotyping of Obama:

Where is this "place of oppression and repression" in which Obama has suffered "through the years"? Hawaii? Harvard? The Senate? We should find out immediately and do something about this horrific crisis.

But Kerry isn't just stereotyping blacks. He is stereotyping Muslims too. And he is drawing an equivalence between American blacks, a racial minority in one country, and Middle Eastern Muslims, a religious majority in a whole region.

Never mind that, as Greenwald points out, "Arab Muslims [are] none too happy with their black countrymen in northern Africa." Never mind that in some African countries, notably Sudan and Mauritania, Arab Muslims still enslave blacks.

To Kerry, it seems, all "oppressed peoples" look alike. The man has all the intellectual subtlety of a third-rate ethnic studies professor.

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Comments:

A week after Kerry made remarks which can only be called extraordinary and extremely controversial, and with a video with excellent audio available to them, most major news organizations have decided not to report the story.

Their failure to report gives you an idea of the intensity of their partisanship.

News organizations such as the NY and LA Times, and the Washington Post are putting their allegiances to the liberal Obama and the Democratic Party ahead of what they tout as “our responsibility to our readers.”

Most of MSM’s news suppression of the Kerry story is one more example Americans can cite when pollsters ask them why they don’t trust MSM to report the news fairly and accurately.

I’ll keep following this story. A google search reveals its getting a little play in a few papers (this Boston Herald column, for example) and by some talk radio hosts (Rush Limbaugh here, for example).

Perhaps there’ll be enough “push” from those sources to force the MSM to give the story the reporting it deserves.

Fingers crossed.

InsiderAdvantage’s outstanding poll report

Yesterday, when I reported on InsiderAdvantage’s poll findings and report of reaction to Sen. Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia Tuesday ( Obama's speech: some interesting poll results ), I said I’d say some more about the quality of InsiderAdvantage's report.

Compared to most polling results reports, InsiderAdvantage’s report is outstanding for its explanation of how it gathered data and its thoughtful, dare I say nuanced, discussion of its results.

Here are portions of the report, followed by my comments below the star line.

… It’s easy to read too much into this poll. In the long-term, Obama’s speech about the racially insensitive political and social views of Rev. Wright may come to its final resting place in history books for being a signal moment in America’s tortured story of race relations. But in the short-attention-span theatre of a heated presidential race, it may amount to little more than a loud blip in an ever-fluxing news cycle.

Even so, the poll displays no numbers flattering to Obama. Most startling is that blacks by 56% to 31% said the speech made them less likely to vote for him.

That may be because Obama had some gutsy perspectives on blacks as well as on whites, and black observers of the speech may have been annoyed. But it’s hard to imagine that there’s going to be an appreciable retreat by blacks from the Obama column.

Democrats disapproved 48% to 28%, which looks sobering for Obama on first glance, but might portend otherwise. If blacks irritated by Obama’s remarks will return to the fold, than impressing whites is probably a more vital read on the numbers. And Democratic whites were more sympathetic with the speech’s message than black ones.

The disturbing numbers for Obama are the independent voters. By 56% to 13%, they said they’re less likely to vote for him because of the speech. …

“Doubtless many formed their opinions not on the speech itself, but on reports of it filtered through their favorite news media outlets. So intended or unintended biases of media may have trickled down to many poll respondents, [said Matt Towery, CEO of InsiderAdvantage.]

“It’s important to note, however, that we carefully crafted the poll’s questions,” [Towery noted]. “We never mentioned the words ‘race’ or ‘controversy,’ or explained what all the fuss was about. Our first question was simply, ‘Are you aware of the situation regarding Sen. Barack Obama’s church pastor and the past public remarks he has made?’"

“So there was a deliberate effort not to ‘push poll’ respondents, or to influence their answers in any way,” Towery said. “Also note that only one out of 50 poll respondents had no opinion.”

The results of the poll, while not reassuring to Obama, can be probably be overcome as other events unfold. Already the news cycle is turning to the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion. …

The full InsiderAdvantage report is here.

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Comments:

The quality of the InsiderAdvantage report is so outstanding any added “highlighting” by me would be bumptious.

So I’ll just use one part of the report as a “launch pad” for something important about a lot of the MSM coverage of reaction to Obama’s speech.

As noted, InsiderAdvantage found Independents by an overwhelming margin said they were less likely to vote for Obama as a result of the speech. Other polls have found the same thing.

But most MSM reports I've read and heard don’t mention Independents' reactions to the speech.

The latest example of that is the liberal/leftist Raleigh News & Observer’s front-page story today:

Is this speech a turning point?

Blunt talk on race may bring culture shift -- if we let it

The N&O's almost 1200-word story, under reporter Matt Ehlers’ byline, reports reaction to the speech only in terms of liberals vs. conservatives.

… Liberal commentators piled praise on the speech, with some comparing it to the eloquence of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Many conservatives panned it as a political maneuver by Obama to distance himself from the fiery sermons of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

A CBS poll taken two days after Tuesday's speech found that 69 percent of voters who had heard or read about Obama's speech say he did a good job addressing race relations, and 63 percent said they agree with Obama's views on race relations. But the poll also found that only 52 percent of registered voters now think Obama can unite the country, down from 67 percent last month. …

Nowhere in the story are independents even mentioned.

The N&O tells readers its reporting is fair and accurate and free of political bias.

Yes, and the Easter Bunny left the baskets under the beds this morning.

The entire N&O story is here.

What? No global warming catastrophe?

Christopher Pearson in The Australian, followed by my comments below the star line.

Pearson begins - - -

Catastrophic predictions of global warming usually conjure with the notion of a tipping point, a point of no return.

Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places - there was a tipping point of a different kind in the debate on climate change.

It was a remarkable interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.

Duffy asked Marohasy: "Is the Earth still warming?"

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

Duffy: "Is this a matter of any controversy?"

Marohasy: "Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ... This is not what you'd expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you'd expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up ... So (it's) very unexpected, not something that's being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it's very significant."

Duffy: It's not only that it's not discussed. We never hear it, do we? Whenever there's any sort of weather event that can be linked into the global warming orthodoxy, it's put on the front page. But a fact like that, which is that global warming stopped a decade ago, is virtually never reported, which is extraordinary.(emphasis added)

If Marohasy is anywhere near right about the impending collapse of the global warming paradigm, life will suddenly become a whole lot more interesting.
A great many founts of authority, from the Royal Society to the UN, most heads of government along with countless captains of industry, learned professors, commentators and journalists will be profoundly embarrassed. Let us hope it is a prolonged and chastening experience.

With catastrophe off the agenda, for most people the fog of millennial gloom will lift, at least until attention turns to the prospect of the next ice age. ….

The rest of Pearson's article is here.

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Comments:

How many times in the last few years have you been told the question of global warming caused by carbon emissions “has been settled.”

Scientists have reached “a consensus” on global warming, right?

Time is running out. The U. N. must step in immediately and manage the problem.

You recall the U. N. don’t you? Yes, that's right, the organization that managed the Oil for Food Program Gen. Tommy Franks correctly called Saddam Hussain’s Oil for Palaces Program.

A big thank you to Christopher Pearson and The Australian for providing an informative article containing critically important, but grossly underreported, scientific information and a very thoughtful discussion of same.

Passportgate: Bad News for Obama & NYT

Sen. Barack Obama’s paid campaign staff as well as his NY Times editorial board volunteers are demanding congressional investigations into who at the State Department made unauthorized looks at his passport information.

Indeed, we need to know and punish those who did that, as well as those who took unauthorized looks at Sens. Hillary Clinton's and John McCain's passport information.

We’re now beginning to learn some things about all of that.

And folks, it won’t make Team Obama happy.

First, the Washington Times reports:

The State Department investigation of improper computer access to passport records of three presidential candidates is focusing on one remaining employee — a contract worker with a company headed by an adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama …

Two of the three contract employees had been fired before The Washington Times first reported Thursday on security breaches involving Mr. Obama's passport records. The furor expanded yesterday to incidents involving the passport records of Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton.

The third employee, who has not been fired, worked for The Analysis Corporation (TAC), which is headed by John O. Brennan, a former CIA agent who is an adviser to Mr. Obama's presidential campaign on intelligence and foreign policy. …

Now CNN is reporting:

The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday.

John O. Brennan, president and CEO of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said.

Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign this month.

The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January. …

Could what the Wash. Times and CNN are reporting be true?

I think so, but I'm not sure. My main concern right now is to get the reports to you ASAP.

With that done, I suggest we all wait to hear what the Obama people at campaign headquarters and the NY Times tell us about these reports.

In the meantime, a commenter at Intsapundit emails:

"I heard they found out from McCain's passport file that as a young man, he spent several years in a Communist capitol. And with no entry stamp!"

Could that be true?

Will congressional inquisitors Reps. John Conyers and Henry Waxman investigate?

Stay tuned for more on this developing story.

The entire WT story's here: the CNN story's here.

Hat tips: JinC Regular AC and Instapundit

The Nifong “Holy crap” lie (Post 1)

CORRECTION: As first posted yesterday, this post reported there were for some hours on Mar. 15 police cruisers parked in front of the house where an attack was alleged to have occured. In fact, that happened on Mar. 16. I regret the error and thank the commenter whose query called it to my attention.

The post has now been corrected.

John
__________________________________________________________


On the morning of Mar. 20, 2006 Duke University’s student newspaper, The Chronicle, reported:

Off-East house site of reported rape

Durham Police Department is investigating an alleged rape of a young woman by three males at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. over Spring Break.

Duke recently purchased the rented residence from a local landlord.

The alleged assault was reported early in the morning of Tuesday, March 14.

The young woman arrived at the house for a party at around 11:30 p.m. Monday, March 13 and reportedly left after midnight, Sgt. M.D. Gottlieb of Durham Police District 2Investigations wrote in an e-mail to a community listserv.

He encouraged individuals in the area at the time to report to DPD if they "saw or heard anything unusual."

Duke’s President Dick Brodhead later said it was from that story he first learned of what became known as “the Duke lacrosse case.”

Duke University Police, including its director, and some senior Duke administrators knew of the reported attack on Mar. 14. Duke faculty and staff who lived close by the house where the reported attack, later proved to never have happened, and other faculty and staff knew of the alleged attack by Mar. 16 when Durham Police cruisers were parked outside the house for hours.

Duke’s Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and Community Relations John Burness knew of the alleged attack no later than Mar. 17, the day on which he’s said he read the email Sgt. Gottlieb sent out on the Trinity Park community listserv.

On Mar. 18 and 19, the Raleigh News & Observer published brief reports of the alleged incident.

But with all of that and much more circulating in the Duke and Durham communities, Brodhead says he didn’t learn about the alleged attack until he read The Chronicle story.

Hmm.

Then there’s Mike Nifong, now disbarred, but then Durham DA and locked in a tight primary race for the Democratic Party nomination which in heavily Democratic Durham is tantamount to election. (The Kerry-Edwards ticket received 67% of Durham County’s vote.)

When and how did Nifong first learn anything about the case?

According to N&O Investigative Reporter Joe Neff, Nifong didn’t learn anything about the alleged attack until late on the afternoon of Mar. 23. Concerning Neff’s report and links to it, see Nifong & The Copier: Be Careful (5/25/07) and Let’s flip “Nifong & The Copier (5/27/07).

Neff reports Nifong “discovered” a court order signed by his close friend and mentor, Judge Ron Stephens, sitting on his office copier. The order directed 46 white Duke lacrosse players to submit to Police DNA testing and face and torso photographing.

Nifong’s “discovery" of the court order, Neff says, was the DA’s first inkling that the Duke lacrosse case had been developing for ten days.

“Holy crap,” Neff reports Nifong exclaimed, “what is going on?”

In order to believe the “Holy crap/copier discovery” report, you must believe Nifong didn’t know anything about the case until three days after Brodhead and thousands at Duke and in Durham read about it in The Chronicle; until six days after the Raleigh N&O published its first story on the case; and until a week after Gottlieb sent his email out on the Trinity Park listserv and people in Trinity Park and people driving by the house saw at various times on Mar. 16 between five and seven police cars parked in front of it for hours.

All of that and more reverberated throughout the community. It was surely talked about by, besides the people I've already mentioned, Nifong campaign workers, reporters and people at the courthouse, including people who worked in Nifong's office.

But no one said anything to Nifong? Not even his friend and then Durham's Chief Assistant DA David Saacks (he's now the DA) who signed the request for the DNA testing and photographing?

And if his wife, Cy Gurney, a friend of many in Trinity Park and at Duke, and a familiar figure at the Durham Courthouse by virtue of her position as Regional Coordinator for the Guardian ad Litem program, knew anything about the case, we must believe she didn't say a word to her husband in order for the "Holy crap/copier discovery" story to be true.

Folks, the Nifong “copier discovery” story is an obvious lie.

Tomorrow I’ll post my thoughts about those whose interests are served by the lie.

Obama’s speech: some interesting poll results.

Most MSMers went “Wow” following Sen. Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia Tuesday in which he outed his white grandmother as a racist and condemned former Demicratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro for pointing out in some situations race and gender can advantage a person. But poll results suggest the public’s reaction was more “Ugh” than “Wow.”

Among the most interesting poll results are those gathered by InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion. Here’s the start of its report on them:

Barack Obama’s speech about race on Tuesday impressed many who witnessed it or read it. But most of America did neither, and many of them -- white and black -- were less persuaded of the speech’s capacity to heal racial wounds, or to put the issue of race behind Obama as he continues his quest for the White House.

That’s according to a new poll by InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion.

First, we screened poll respondents to find those who were aware that Obama’s pastor was in the news. A startling 82% knew about Obama’s speech, and about the controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Of those who knew about the controversy and the speech, we asked, “Taking all this into account, are you more or less likely to support Obama for president?”

Less likely (52%)
More likely (19%)
About the same (27%)
No opinion (2%)

The poll was conducted March 19 among 1,051 Americans. After filtering out those not aware of Rev. Wright and Obama’s speech about him, the sample is 807, for a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2%. The data have been weighted for age, race, gender and partisan affiliation.

It’s easy to read too much into this poll. In the long-term, Obama’s speech about the racially insensitive political and social views of Rev. Wright may come to its final resting place in history books for being a signal moment in America’s tortured story of race relations. But in the short-attention-span theatre of a heated presidential race, it may amount to little more than a loud blip in an ever-fluxing news cycle.

Even so, the poll displays no numbers flattering to Obama. Most startling is that blacks by 56% to 31% said the speech made them less likely to vote for him.

That may be because Obama had some gutsy perspectives on blacks as well as on whites, and black observers of the speech may have been annoyed. But it’s hard to imagine that there’s going to be an appreciable retreat by blacks from the Obama column. …

The rest of the report is here at Southern Political Report.

Did the poll findings concerning blacks' reactions to the speech surprise you?

Whatever the case, I urge you to read the entire report. It provides methodological explanations and a critical discussion of results of a high quality we don’t often find in poll result reporting.

I’ll comment further on the report later today. Right now I need to get other posts up and then spend some time with my family.

The Churchill Series - Mar. 21, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Some people have a sense of destiny. They’re certain they were put on earth for a particular purpose.

His letters and the recollections of friends and family confirm that as a youth George S. Patton believed he was destined to command great Armies.

De Gaulle reveals in his war memoirs that the lodestar of his life was his belief in a mystical union between France and himself. He said he knew a time would come when she would be, as he put it, “dishonored,” and he would be called to rescue and restore her.

Churchill also had a sense of destiny. His biographer Martin Gilbert tells us in Continue to Pester, Nag and Bite: Churchill’s War Leadership:

At the centre of Churchill’s mental energies as war leader was his belief in himself – in his abilities and in his destiny. While at school, he had gathered a group of boys around him and explained his confidence that one day, far in the future, when London was under attack from an invader, he would be in command of the capital’s defenses. (p. 36)

And we have Churchill's own words describing what he felt the night of May 10, 1940 after the King asked him to form a government and serve as his Prime Minister:

I felt I was walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.

Those words are so familiar, they need no citation. Many of us never read them without being moved.

I wish you all a blessed weekend.

John

Juan Williams on Fox re: Obama, Richardson et al

I want to comment on a few things NPR senior correspondent Juan Williams said tonight on Special Report with Brit Hume.

Asked whether the questions concerning Democratic presidential front-runner Sen. Barack Obama’s relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright would “go away,” Williams said: “No, largely because he hasn’t answered them.”

Williams nailed it.

Remarking on today’s endorsement of Obama by NM’s former Gov. Bill Richardson, Williams added that he thought former NC Sen. John Edwards would have said something about an endorsement by now, but “so far he hasn’t said a peep.”

I think that’s because while Edwards has already privately committed to Obama, the Obama people are holding off on a public announcement in order to “keep some ammo in reserve.”

Everyone who has been in combat knows you don’t want to fire all your rounds before the battle's over.

Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton are in “close combat” right now, hence, IMO, Edwards’ silence.

Caution to Obama’s people: North Carolinians know Edwards can go back on his word. He’s like Sen. John (“whichever way the wind blows”) Kerry. I bet you know that, but I thought I'd mention it just in case.

About Juan Williams: I often disagree with him, but I find him far more civil, open to facts and reasonable than most liberal MSMers.

You can read more about him here.





http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1930705

Kerry’s “Because he’s a black man” video

Yesterday I posted New trouble for Obama. During an interview with the New Bedford Standard Times Sen. John Kerry said Sen. Barack Obama has the potential to “bridge the divide in religious extremism” because he is black.

Such a claim from a prominent supporter is not what Obama needs right now. That no doubt explains why Kerry's remarks have received so little MSM attention.

But the blogosphere is starting to pick up on them.

Obama said he cringed when he heard his white grandmother make racist remarks. Wait until he hears some of what Kerry said.

You can watch the video here or find it at the Huffington Post here.

Krauthammer Calls Obama on Wright

Of all the punditry I’ve read about the anti-American racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his close friend Sen. Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia Tuesday, Charles Krauthammer’s column is the best. Here’s its full text, after which I make a few comments below the star line.

Krauthammer begins - - -

The beauty of a speech is that you don't just give the answers, you provide your own questions. "Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes." So said Barack Obama, in his Philadelphia speech about his pastor, friend, mentor and spiritual adviser of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright.

An interesting, if belated, admission. But the more important question is: which "controversial" remarks?

Wright's assertion from the pulpit that the U.S. government invented HIV "as a means of genocide against people of color"?

Wright's claim that America was morally responsible for Sept. 11 -- "chickens coming home to roost" -- because of, among other crimes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki? (Obama says he missed church that day. Had he never heard about it?)

What about the charge that the U.S. government (of Franklin Roosevelt, mind you) knew about Pearl Harbor, but lied about it? Or that the government gives drugs to black people, presumably to enslave and imprison them?

Obama condemns such statements as wrong and divisive, then frames the next question: "There will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?"

But that is not the question.

The question is why didn't he leave that church? Why didn't he leave -- why doesn't he leave even today -- a pastor who thundered not once but three times from the pulpit (on a DVD the church proudly sells) "God damn America"?

Obama's 5,000-word speech, fawned over as a great meditation on race, is little more than an elegantly crafted, brilliantly sophistic justification of that scandalous dereliction.

His defense rests on two central propositions: (a) moral equivalence and (b) white guilt.

(a) Moral equivalence. Sure, says Obama, there's Wright, but at the other "end of the spectrum" there's Geraldine Ferraro, opponents of affirmative action and his own white grandmother, "who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." But did she shout them in a crowded theater to incite, enrage and poison others?

"I can no more disown [Wright] than I can my white grandmother." What exactly was Grandma's offense? Jesse Jackson himself once admitted to the fear he feels from the footsteps of black men on the street. And Harry Truman was known to use epithets for blacks and Jews in private, yet is revered for desegregating the armed forces and recognizing the first Jewish state since Jesus's time. He never spread racial hatred. Nor did Grandma.

Yet Obama compares her to Wright. Does he not see the moral difference between the occasional private expression of the prejudices of one's time and the use of a public stage to spread racial lies and race hatred?

(b) White guilt. Obama's purpose in the speech was to put Wright's outrages in context. By context, Obama means history. And by history, he means the history of white racism. Obama says, "We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country," and then he proceeds to do precisely that. What lies at the end of his recital of the long train of white racial assaults from slavery to employment discrimination? Jeremiah Wright, of course.

This contextual analysis of Wright's venom, this extenuation of black hate speech as a product of white racism, is not new. It's the Jesse Jackson politics of racial grievance, expressed in Ivy League diction and Harvard Law nuance. That's why the speech made so many liberal commentators swoon: It bathed them in racial guilt while flattering their intellectual pretensions. An unbeatable combination.

But Obama was supposed to be new. He flatters himself as a man of the future transcending the anger of the past as represented by his beloved pastor. Obama then waxes rhapsodic about the hope brought by the new consciousness of the young people in his campaign. Then answer this, Senator: If Wright is a man of the past, why would you expose your children to his vitriolic divisiveness?

This is a man who curses America and who proclaimed moral satisfaction in the deaths of 3,000 innocents at a time when their bodies were still being sought at Ground Zero. It is not just the older congregants who stand and cheer and roar in wild approval of Wright's rants, but young people as well. Why did you give $22,500 just two years ago to a church run by a man of the past who infects the younger generation with precisely the racial attitudes and animus you say you have come unto us to transcend?

****************************************************************

Comments:

Krauthammer’s always informed. He can organize facts and identify the critical questions better than any pundit I know.

This column is just what America needs right now. It challenges Sen. Obama to do exactly what he must do if he wants the support of people other than MSM shills, the kind of Democrats who worry we may succeed in Iraq, and the academics and clergy who excuse, or worse, share Wright’s anti-Americanism and racism.

Hat tips to a number of you who had the care to call the column to my attention.

Nifong bankruptcy claim: the latest

The Raleigh N&O reports today on a bankruptcy administrator’s finding that the now disbarred Mike Nifong’s bankruptcy petition should not be “presumed to be an abuse.”

Let’s look at what I think are the most important parts of the story (in italics). I’ll comment in plain and you can follow-up on the thread. I’ll especially appreciate corrections if I get some things wrong. I’m not an attorney.

The N&O begins - - -

Mike Nifong, the former Durham district attorney who lost his job and law license for misconduct in the Duke lacrosse case, should not be kicked out of federal bankruptcy court for making too much money, a federal court administrator has concluded.

Michael D. West, a bankruptcy administrator, filed a statement in the case last week.

Nifong's case, West said in his statement, should not be "presumed to be an abuse" even though his annual income is $146,151, or $12,179 a month.

After West issued a statement in February that could have led to dismissal of Nifong's bankruptcy case, the former prosecutor and his attorney, Jim Craven, amended court documents to reclassify the potential debt as nonconsumer, thereby raising the allowable income level.

A statement is a recommendation, not a court ruling. … *****

Yes, it is a recommendation, not a court ruling. As attorneys have explained the matter to me, West’s finding will be taken into account by a bankruptcy judge who is not bound by it.

Also, while Nifong can’t be named as a defendant in a federal civil suit while he’s seeking bacnruptcy protection or subsequently if he’s granted it, he can be called as a witness in discovery proceedings related to civil suits in federal court both during the time he’s seeking protection and after such time as he may be granted bankruptcy protection.

The N&O article makes that clear.

IMO the most important sentence in the article is: Bankruptcy rules would not protect Nifong from financial claims if a judge finds that he acted willfully and maliciously in his prosecution of the players.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs have left no doubt that, if Nifong is denied bankruptcy protection, they’ll move swiftly to reinstate him in the suits. The court has said it's open to such reinstatement.

The entire N&O article is here.

Obama staff releases Clinton-Wright pic

At The Caucus, the NY Times’ political blog, there’s the following this morning. [excerpts]:

During one of the most difficult periods in the presidency of Bill Clinton, he addressed a group of clerics at an annual prayer breakfast in September 1998 just as the Starr report outlining his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky was about to be published.

Among those in attendance, was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., who is seen shaking hands with Mr. Clinton in a photograph provided today by the Obama campaign. ( You can view it here and return to this post when you’re ready and if your willing. JinC )

In providing the photograph to The New York Times, the Obama campaign appeared to be trying to divert some attention to the Clintons after a week in which Mr. Obama’s relationship with Mr. Wright has left him facing one of the biggest challenges of his campaign.

There is nothing in the picture or the note that addresses whether Mr. Clinton had met Mr. Wright prior to the White House meeting or whether he or Mrs. Clinton knew anything about Mr. Wright’s views. …

The Times goes on to quote a Clinton spokesperson who says President Clinton met each year with tens of thousands of people at thousands of events.

I don’t see much significance to Clinton’s White House prayer breakfast invite to Rev. Wright.

I only call the Times story to your attention because it reproduces part of the Times' story of the 1998 prayer breakfast. That's worth reading, especially by those of you who have dimming memories of just how masterfully Bill Clinton in his prime could play an audience. From the 1998 story by former Times reporter James Bennet:

With tears in his eyes, President Clinton told a roomful of clerics this morning that he had sinned, speaking just hours before the world was presented a painstaking account by prosecutors of when, where and how.

Addressing an annual prayer breakfast at the White House, Mr. Clinton drew on the New Testament, the Yom Kippur liturgy and Ernest Hemingway as he made his most abject confession yet of personal failure, while declaring that he would defend and redeem his Presidency.

‘’I don’t think there is a fancy way to say that I have sinned,'’ he admitted softly, saying that after resisting expressions of contrition he had reached ‘’the rock-bottom truth of where I am.'’

For the first time, Mr. Clinton also asked for forgiveness from Monica S. Lewinsky, on the day that the details of their intimate relationship — details that he had denied and struggled to suppress — poured out through the Internet, whose wonders as a tool of communication he has so often extolled. …

I wonder why he thought Monica needed forgiveness.

Did she forget to order extra cheese on the pizza she delivered to the Oval Office?

Here’s the Times’ article in full.

New trouble for Obama

The last thing Sen. Barack Obama needs right now is a prominent supporter claiming his skin color makes him uniquely qualified to be President.

But that apparently is just what 2004 Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Forbes Kerry has done.

From MSNBC’s FirstTalk [excerpt]:

Speaking of the race speech from Tuesday, Obama supporter John Kerry gave an interview with a local N.H. paper, reports NBC/NJ's Mike Memoli.

In it, Kerry said the color of Obama's skin makes him uniquely qualified for president and even reach out to the moderate Islam world.

During an interview with the New Bedford Standard Times, portions of which were posted on YouTube, John Kerry says bluntly that Barack Obama has the potential to “bridge the divide in religious extremism” because he is black.

“It would be such an affirmation of who we say we are as a people if we can elect an African American president, a young leader who is obviously a visionary and got an ability to inspire people,” Kerry said. “It will give us an ability to talk to those countries, to in some cases go around their dictator leaders to the people and inspire the people in ways that we can’t otherwise.”

But wait, folks, it gets much worse.

The Massachusetts senator said Obama has an ability to perhaps even empower moderate Islam “to be able to stand up against the racial misinterpretation of a legitimate religion.”

Asked by a reporter what gave Obama the credibility to do so, Kerry said, “Because he’s African American. Because he’s a black man, who has come from a place of oppression and repression through the years in our own country. We only broke the back of civil rights, Jim Crow, in the 1960s here. Everybody in the world knows this is a recent journey for America too. And everybody still knows that issues of skin and discrimination still exist.”

Let’s see how this story plays out.

If you spot something about it, please comment and let me know.

Meanwhile, can we agree Kerry should check himself into Massachusetts General for treatment of his latest outbreak of chronic cluelessness?

If he does, should Geraldine Ferraro come visit him or just send flowers?

MSNBC FirstTalk’s entire post is here.

The Churchill Series - Mar. 20, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

It was on June 26, 1897, a beautiful English summer day in Bath, that Winston Churchill, then a twenty-one year old Army subaltern, delivered his first public speech.

It took place in a tent set up amidst a holiday fair that was sponsored by a Conservative Partygroup, The Primrose League, which Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph, had helped found.

We’re told the speech was well received; and perhaps some day we can talk about what Churchill said.

But right now, let’s give Churchill a chance to tell us something about the setting and introduction he received.

Churchill was in his fifties when he recalled the events with gently mocking humor and a wink to us, who he knew understood that by age twenty-one, he was already familiar with the fluff and foam of politics and eager to swim in its waters:

(When) a bell began to ring, we repaired to our tent and mounted the platform (and) as soon as about a hundred persons had rather reluctantly (gathered) the Chairman rose and in a brief speech introduced me to the audience.

At Sandhurst and in the Army compliments are few and far between, and flattery of subalterns does not exist.

If you won the Victoria Cross or the Grand National Steeplechase or the Army Heavyweight Boxing Championship, you would only expect to receive from your friends warnings against having your head turned by your good luck

In politics it was apparently quite different. Here the butter was laid on with a trowel. …

As (regards) my adventures in Cuba, on the Indian frontier and up the Nile, I could only pray the regiment would never hear of what the Chairman said. When he descanted upon my “bravery with the sword and brilliancy with the pen” I feared that the audience would cry out “Oh, rats!” or something similar.

I was astonished and relieved to find that they lapped it all up as if it were gospel.

I bet we’re all smiling.

BTW - Descanted is new to me. My online dictionary says: 1) An ornamental melody or counterpoint sung or played above a theme. 2) A discussion or discourse on a theme.
___________________________________________________________________
Background from Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life. (pgs. 71-2,77)

Churchill's "recollection" is found on pg. 203 of My Early Life.

Will Obama answer these two questions?

At Huffington Post Lanny Davis, former Special Counsel to President Bill Clinton, says Sen. Barack Obama’s speech was, at times, “great, even brilliant.”

Davis also thinks Obama’s close friend and long-time pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s “sermons [are] filled with hate words and bigoted generalizations based on race (in this case, all Whites). One could even call them racist. His remarks post-9/11 were nothing short of reckless and unforgiveable.”

Davis believes that Obama doesn’t share what Davis correctly calls Wright’s “hateful” and “bigoted feelings.”

Still, after a careful study of Obama’s speech, Davis has two questions for Obama:

1. If a white minister preached sermons to his congregation and had used the "N" word and used rhetoric and words similar to members of the KKK, would you support a Democratic presidential candidate who decided to continue to be a member of that congregation?

2. Would you support that candidate if, after knowing of or hearing those sermons, he or she still appointed that minister to serve on his or her "Religious Advisory Committee" of his or her presidential campaign?

Those are excellent questions.

Are there any reports Obama plans to answer them?

Davis’ entire post is here.

Obama just another pol?

Last October an AP story included this:

"The truth is that right after 9/11 I had a pin," Obama said. "Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security.

"I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest," he said in the interview. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism."

Ok, I had no problem with that.

But did you notice all those flags surrounding him Tuesday when he gave his speech in Philadelphia in which he didn’t answer the questions he needed to answer about his relationship with the anti-American and racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright?

I count eight of them; four on each side of the podium and in “camera view.”

WSJ’s James Taranto at Best of the Web noticed them and commented:

We didn't write about this back in October, because the whole kerfuffle was, at its root, silly. There are many ways of expressing patriotism, and if wearing a flag pin is not Obama's idiom, who cares? …

But in light of his October comment, what are we to make of his extravagant use of the Stars and Stripes on Tuesday?

If a flag pin on a lapel is "a substitute for true patriotism," is that not also true of eight flags on a stage as a backdrop to a political speech? Obama proclaimed himself too good for cheap symbolism, but resorted to it the first time he faced a real crisis. Is he really any different from the run-of-the-mill politician?

When a national leader delivers a speech, I like to see an American flag displayed in the backdrop.

That said, I think flag display can be overdone by pols and others, as when at a national convention we see dozens in the backdrop as the nominee strides to the rostrum.

As for Obama’s use of eight flags Tuesday in Philadelphia, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on the question of whether he was engaging in cheap symbolism.

Now what about Taranto’s question: “Is he really any different from the run-of-the-mill politician?”

I’m not ready to give my answer to it.

But I know that as a result of the Wright's sermon tapes breaking through the MSM "filter," millions of Americans are now asking that question.

Obama and his staff knew if he emerged as the Democratic presidential nominee, it was inevitable people would take a closer look at him and ask whether he was just another pol.

But in their worst scenarios did they ever envision people asking that question in the context of the Wright tapes?

They must know tonight that for all the MSM spinning ( Did you hear Chris Matthews effuse about “the greatest” speech “ever given” on race? ), Obama’s speech didn’t get them into a “post-Wright” world.

Here are the AP story and Taranto’s post.

The N&O's Saunders: “an embarrassment.”

A few weeks ago, Raleigh News & Observer columnist Barry Saunders reacted to the filing of a civil rights violation suit by members of the Duke 2006 Men's lacrosse team.

Among other injustices, the players were targets of a Durham Police produced CrimesStoppers Wanted poster which told the public “horrific” crimes of rape and sodomy were committed at a party the players hosted. New Black Panther Party members came to Durham and threatened the players while Saunders said nothing.

Saunders, ignoring his support during the Duke/Durham frame-up attempt of the obviously wrong, even criminal, acts of disbarred Mike Nifong and others, "found his voice" when the suit complaint was filed [excerpts from his Feb. 26 column]:

… Oh, their wittle feelings have been hurt.

As a Durham resident, I should file suit against the lacrosse team because of the emotional distress various members of it have inflicted upon the city of Durham and, by extension, me.

A News & Observer story from 2006 reported that nearly one-third of the players on that year's team had been charged with various offenses such as underage drinking, public urination, and open container violations. ...

Y'all guys ought to be ashamed, because unless you wear your lacrosse jerseys to job interviews or on first dates, no one but family members and friends know who the heck you are. …

Today, Saunders writes about Rev. Jeremiah Wright, close friend of Sen. Barack Obama.

What does Nifong-enabler Saunders think of a pastor who shouts “God damn America,” justified the terrorists 9/11 attacks which killed thousands of Americans and citizens, and who’s repeatedly delivered racist screeds from the pulpit?

Saunders approves of Wright and what he said.[xcerpts from today's column]:

Man, y'all need to leave that man's preacher alone.

Judging by the backlash against Barack Obama for things his former pastor said, you'd think the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was the first person to rail against our government.

Saunders then says, correctly, that white preaches have said things as awful as what Wright's said.

But instead of condemning the preachers of both races for such statements, Saunders praises Wright's hateful and outrageous statements. Worse, he tells readers they should seek out pastors just like Wright.

Since Wright has tilled no new soil with his preachments, the question becomes, "Does a black preacher have the right to say the same things as a white preacher?"

No, he doesn't have that right. He has an obligation to say those things. And more.

Much of what Wright was quoted as saying was strident and, at the least, undiplomatic.

Who, though, wants a diplomatic preacher, one content to mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities from the pulpit? …

Balanced news sources have reported that Wright was just as scathing toward the shortcomings of blacks as he was toward those of whites or the government. He was well known for saying things that made both the government and his parishioners uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that Obama acknowledged confronting him after some sermons. ( Obama repeatedly denied until his Tuesday speech that he’d even heard Wright making the anti-American and racist remarks that are now at issue. I posted on that here. JinC)

That's good. Here's a tip:

If your pastor never says anything to make you feel uncomfortable, you probably need to find a new one.

Over the years, I’ve heard many blacks here in the Raleigh/Durham area describe Saunders as “an embarrassment.”

Who can’t understand their feeling that way?

Saunders' Feb. 26 column is here; today's is here.

N&O, H-S Duke Hoax & Obama editorials

In Mar. 2006 Durham Police sought a “fishing expedition” court order directing 46 white males to submit to police DNA testing in connection with a black woman’s charge she was gang-raped by three white man at a party the police knew some of the 46 men had not even attended.

Attorneys not connected with the case immediately questioned the order's constitutionality. Thoughtful citizens asked why police were seeking DNA from citizens they knew weren’t at the party and why, 10 days after the alleged crime, the only description of the alleged attackers the police could provide was “white male lacrosse team members.”

Notwithstanding any of that, the Raleigh News & Observer and the Durham Herald Sun reversed and tossed aside their traditional opposition to “fishing expedition” DNA orders and “racial profiling.” They applauded what the police were doing.

N&O editorial page editor Steve Ford and H-S editor Bob Ashley, who heads both the news and editorial sides of the paper, were then and remained for many months cheerleaders of what fair-minded people quickly recognized was an elaborate frame-up attempt led by a white DA seeking black votes in tight primary and election campaigns.

Today both papers abandon another position they frequently tout to readers: “keep race out of politics.”

The H-S, which just four days ago castigated Geraldine Ferraro for what is said wanting “to inject race into the campaign,” today tells readers [excerpt]:

In the most important speech of his historic presidential campaign, Sen. Barack Obama stared into television cameras on Tuesday and spoke from the heart about race. …

The son of an African man and white American woman, Obama talked candidly about this nation's past and present racial sins. There has never been a presidential candidate better equipped to discuss the complex racial dynamics of America.

Still, it was strange to hear such talk about race from a candidate whom veterans of the civil rights movement have criticized for dodging the issue.

Obama has tried to keep the focus off race and on issues he believes are of concern to all people. This week, he learned that just wasn't realistic.

Like the H-S, the N&O’s editorial gushes approval of Obama’s speech as the leads make obvious:

The race dialogue

Barack Obama’s response to inflammatory comments by his minister could open an unprecedented discussion on race

Folks, I’m all for having as open and as honest a discussion of race during this campaign and afterwards.

That’s one of the reason’s I’ve spoken up for Ferraro in a number of posts including Ferraro's truth & the H-S's race pandering.

But I sure don’t like the hypocrisy and race pandering of newspaper editors like the N&O’s Steve Ford and the H-S’s Bob Ashley who condemn those who, as Ashley put it, were injecting “race into the campaign,” but now praise Obama when he does it. And does it, by the way, in a speech in which he avoided the questions he needed to answer about himself.

The N&O editorial's here and the H-S editorial's here.

Your turn.

The Churchill Series - Mar. 19, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts about the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

In 1899, the twenty-four year old Winston Churchill, a war veteran, published author, and since boyhood a keen student of politics, visited Conservative Party headquarters in London.

If you’re telling yourself, “I’ll bet the meeting had something to do with Churchill wanting party support for a seat in Parliament,” you’re right.

At Churchill’s request, Fitz Roy Stewart, a distant relative and minor party functionary, had arranged for him to meet with party leaders.

Party Manager Middleton, nicknamed “The Skipper,” assured Churchill the party would find a suitable opportunity for him.

We know all this because in 1930 Churchill, then age fifty-five, tells us about it in My Early Life, his autobiography of his first twenty-seven years.

And we know something else about the visit because Churchill, with tongue-in-check and a wink to readers, tells us what happened as he was leaving party headquarters:

On the way out I had another talk with Fitz Roy Stewart. My eye lighted upon a large book on his table on the cover of which was a label bearing the inscription “SPEAKERS WANTED.”

I gazed upon this with wonder. Fancy that! Speakers were wanted and there was a bulky book of applications.

Now I had always wanted to make a speech; but I had never on any occasion great or small been invited or indeed allowed to do so. …

So I said to Fitz Roy Stewart, “Tell me about this. Do you mean to say there are a lot of meetings which want speakers?”

“Yes,” he replied; “the Skipper told me I was not to let you go without getting something out of you. Can’t I book you for one?”

I was deeply agitated. On the one hand I felt immense eagerness; on the other the keenest apprehension. However, in life’s steeplechase one must always jump the fences when they come.

Regaining such composure as I could and assuming an indifference contrary to my feelings, I replied that perhaps if all conditions were suitable and there was a real desire to hear me, I might be willing to accede to his request.

He opened the book.

One of the delights of reading My Early Life is coming upon passages in which Churchill poked fun at himself knowing his readers would smile along with him.
________________________________________________
Winston S. Churchill, My Early Years. Eland, 2002 (pgs. 199-201)

A “step forward for women?”

Agence France-Presse reports the following, after which I comment below the star line:

The Middle East's first women-only hotel was officially opened in the capital of the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, secretary general of the Supreme Commission for Tourism, attended the inauguration of the Luthan Hotel and Spa in Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia, which applies a rigorous doctrine of Islam known as Wahhabism, strictly enforces the separation of the sexes in public, and the 25-room hotel said it can offer its female-only guests 150 types of spa treatments as well as fine dining and conference facilities.

Princess Madawi Bint Mohammad Bin Abdullah, who chairs the board of partners that set up the hotel, said the project was an important step forward for women in the kingdom.

"One of the aims of the Luthan ... is to support the achievements of women in general and particularly those in Saudi Arabia," the statement quoted her as saying at a news conference during the hotel's official opening.

Women in Saudi Arabia face a host of constraints. They are banned from driving, forced to cover from head to toe in public, prohibited from mixing with men other than relatives and prevented from travelling without written permission from their male guardian.

*************************************************************

Comments:

Agence France_Presse is one of Europe’s most leftist news organizations.

It often reports on such steps “forward for woman” in Saudi Arabia.

But I can’t recall a single instance when AGF reported the reaction of one or a few feminist leaders in France or America to its stories reporting steps “forward for women” in Saudi Arabia.

However, I can recall many times when I’ve been in France and read or heard AGF reports in which feminists on both sides of the pond expressed their “outrage” at the Catholic Chruch’s refusal to ordain women as priests.

ABC: Obama “told a different story”

Most liberal/leftist news organizations, including the Raleigh News & Observer, are ignoring the fact that yesterday Sen. Barack Obama contradicted his previous denials concerning what he knew about his Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s virulent anti-Americanism and racism. But ABC News is reporting it. What follows is some of its latest story with my comments below the star line.

From ABC News [excerpt]:

Until yesterday,[Sen.] Obama said the only thing controversial he knew about Rev. Wright was his stand on issues relating to Africa, abortion and gay marriage.

"I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial," Obama said at a community meeting in Nelsonville, Ohio, earlier this month.

"He has said some things that are considered controversial because he's considered that part of his social gospel; so he was one of the leaders in calling for divestment from South Africa and some other issues like that," Obama said on March 2.

His initial reaction to the initial ABC News broadcast of Rev. Wright's sermons denouncing the U.S. was that he had never heard his pastor of 20 years make any comments that were anti-U.S. until the tape was played on air.

But yesterday, he told a different story.

"Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes," he said in his speech yesterday in Philadelphia.

Obama did not say what he heard that he considered "controversial," and the campaign has yet to answer repeated requests for dates on which the senator attended Rev. Wright's sermons over the last 20 years. …

The entire ABC report is here.
******************************************************************************
Comments:

It tells us something about the growing power of the Internet that MSM news organizations are being forced to report, albeit with much downplaying and withholding, on Wright’s anti-Americanism and racism; and on what Obama knew about Wright, when he knew it, and why he’s only now distancing himself from Wright.

Twenty years ago, most Americans wouldn’t be hearing about this most important story in any form.

Even with a few journalists and talk radio hosts such as Sean Hannity reporting the story for almost a year, it didn’t break through the MSM “filter” until Wright’s sermon video tapes started appearing at You Tube, after which Fox News and ABC News began reporting on them.

I would have expected Fox to report the story because of its commitment to fair and balanced news reporting.

I’m surprised and delighted ABC News is also out front on the story.
It’s reporter, Brian Ross, deserves a lot of praise for having the courage and tenacity to dig on this story when most of his MSM peers wanted to cover it up and are doing all they can now to minimize it.

Hat tip to Anon commenter who alerted me to this latest in a string of excellent stories by Ross who was assisted on this one by Avni Petal

AP: “Obama Grabs Race Issue”

Almost all major news organizations are resonating the Obama campaign’s meme he delivered yesterday “a major speech about race.”

I don’t entirely agree with that.

Obama was forced to make yesterday’s speech because of the outcry in response to circulation of sermon tapes of his friend and pastor of almost 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The tapes revealed Wright frequently delivered virulently anti-American and racist screeds for the pulpit.

The following excerpts from an AP report suggest how tough MSM is finding it to report what’s really at issue:

[In the past] seven weeks since, race has mattered more and more in[Sen. Barack Obama's] presidential struggle against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, threatening to dent his lead.

On Tuesday, Obama addressed it head-on in a speech that bluntly described a history of injustice to blacks, acknowledged the resentments of whites, and ended with the hope that his campaign can help heal racial divisions.

You wouldn’t know from that paragraph that Obama and his campaign wanted that speech to do two things: 1) distance the candidate from Wright; and 2) quiet public unrest about his association with the pastor. Surely a man as smart as Obama who plans to campaign in the fall in support of affirmative action and other forms of racial favoritism doesn’t really believe he can put race behind him except in the sense that most MSM will pretend its not there.

The AP continues.

Like any full-blown discussion of the sensitive topic, Obama's speech carries risks. Some whites may feel he did not do enough to distance himself from a fiery Chicago preacher who has depicted the United States as a racist society. The speech also could unleash wider discussions of race in the campaign rather than reduce its role as a "distraction" from more important issues, a term Obama used several times.

Wright’s anti-Americanism and racism are downplayed here as he’s described as “fiery.” Other news accounts use “controversial.”

I’ve yet to see one MSM news story that came right out and called them anti-American and racist.

Can you miss the contradiction between Obama saying he needed to deliver a major speech on race and not wanting it to become a “distraction” from more important issues?

In his speech he tried, I think at times very effectively, to point out how important and enduring are issues surrounding race. But to repeat somewhat: He will again and again in the fall support the continuation and expansion of racial preference programs.

Obama, his campaign people and his MSM flacks are talking out of both sides of their mouths.

There’s nothing unusual about that. Pols and their pals do it often. So do most of us.

I just don’t want to let myself be fooled.

How about you?

The AP’s story’s here.

The Churchill Series - Mar. 18, 2008

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

In historian John Keegan’s biography, Winston Churchill, Keegan quotes a passage from Churchill’s autobiography of his first 27 years, My Early Life.

Churchill tells us what happened when he got to the Latin portion of the Harrow entrance exam :

I wrote my name at the top of the page. I wrote down the number of the question, “1.” After much reflection I put a bracket around it, thus, “(1).”

But thereafter I could not think of anything connected with it that was either relevant or true.

Incidentally there arrived from nowhere in particular a blot and several smudges. I gazed for two whole hours at this sad spectacle; and then merciful ushers collected up my piece of foolscap and carried it up to the Headmaster’s table. (pgs. 25-26 in Keegan)

Churchill never learned much Latin at Harrow, into to which he was admitted most likely because he was Lord Randolph Churchill’s son.

But he said long afterwards that he'd learn there the structure and uses of the English sentence “which is a good thing indeed.” And as later used by Churchill, it became a powerful weapon in the cause of world freedom.

Why Obama outed his white grandmother

James Taranto at WSJ’s Best of the Web Today begins by giving the real reason for Obama’s “major speech on race.”

It was, of course, an attempt to rescue his campaign from the revelation that his so-called spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, espouses a virulently anti-American and anti-white worldview called "black liberation theology."

Amen to that.

I wish Obama and his MSM supporters would admit it.

Taranto goes on to quote the part of Obama’s speech that bothered him the most:

I can no more disown [Wright] than I can my white grandmother--a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

Taranto explains why that bothered him:

Our first thought was that it was pretty low of Obama to exploit his (still living) grandmother in this way. Is it really necessary for the whole world to know about her private expressions of prejudice? Doesn't simple decency dictate that a public figure treat embarrassing facts about loved ones with discretion?

Obama was trying to accomplish something very specific by dragging his "white grandmother" into this political mess. He was trying to diminish Wright's hateful theology by implying that it too is a private matter. Said Obama:

For the men and women of Rev. Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. …
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. …

Note how Obama elides the difference between a comment at the "kitchen table" and a sermon delivered to a congregation of thousands and recorded on DVD. ...

Taranto’s entire post is here.

Comments:

I agree with Taranto. Only he said it better than I could.

If Obama meant to tell us some whites, like some blacks, and some people of every other skin coloration are racists, fine. That’s true.

But why’d Obama have to bring up his grandma? There were plenty of other ways to make his point.

Why not mention one or more white hate groups or David Duke?

Most of you know the answer to that question.

Doing that would make it obvious Obama’s close friend and pastor was not “a beloved religious leader” who now and then put a few controversial “snippets" in his sermons.

Obama’s speech was no Houston

I though Senator Obama was sincere. As you’d expect, the speech was well delivered. It had moments of grace, candor and poignancy.

But the speech didn’t do what it needed to do: it wasn’t Obama’s Houston.

John Kennedy knew what he had to do in Houston was answer tough questions.

So he went before a not very friendly audience of mostly Protestant ministers, made a brief speech and then answered their questions about his Catholicism.

Obama had to answer tough and important questions today and he ducked them.

He arranged to deliverer a lengthy speech to a very friendly, invited audience and talked around the tough questions.

Nothing Obama said today really explains why he remained in a church whose pastor is so virulently anti-American. There are black churches that offer everything Trinity UCC offers, but without the anti-Americanism.

Obama never explained why he didn’t denounce until just recently his pastor’s Lifetime Achievement Award to the anti-Semite and anti-white Minister Louis Farrakhan.

His speech will no doubt draw praise from his supporters, but Americans whose votes he needs to win the presidency will continue to ask questions and wonder about his judgment, especially now as we learn today from ABC News of more outrageous and hateful statements by Rev. Wright.

That's my first take. I'll say more tonight.

What are your thoughts?

The full text of the speech is here.

Durham's Mayor can act now

Today’s Raleigh News & Observer reports:

Mayor Bill Bell on Monday night called for a formal investigation into whether a teenager accused of killing two college students should have been in jail when the crimes occurred.

He hopes the answers can help target the reform efforts being made in the wake of the shooting deaths of Eve Carson, president of the UNC-Chapel Hill student body, and Abhijit Mahato, a Duke University graduate student. …

I urge Mayor Bell to read Chronicle columnist Kristin Butler's column today.

Butler lays out in detail the judicial and criminal justice system ineptitude or worse which enabled the two young men accused in the Carson and Mahato murders to roam free when they should have been in jail.

The Mayor can do three other things today without waiting for a “formal investigation.”

One, ask NBC17.com to repost and do a follow-up to its July 6, 2006 story: “Gang-related shooting kills 1, wounds 3”

The story included this:

Local authorities tried early this year to broker a truce between rival gangs. But a rape investigation involving the Duke University lacrosse team has been the focus of the police department in recent months, and the truce fell apart.

The public needs to know more about all the time the DA’s office and DPD have spent on the frame-up attempt and its cover-up. Durham will be a less safe city for years because of what prosecutors and investigators did in response to Crystal Mangum’s lies.

Two, read a post, Duke lacrosse: Johnsville’s Questions , I published in Sept, 2006. It began:

Johnsville News has Nifong questions. JN starts off:

Durham has real problems - gang problems. How are Mike Nifong and the Durham Police Department able to justify in their minds expending the time and effort on prosecuting a hoax against three innocent lacrosse players, when gang violence is erupting in the Durham courthouse? ….

Nifong is spending his time filing ridiculous legal motions in the Duke case about telephone surveys that involve his wife. Last Friday he spends basically the entire day at courthouse on his hoax. This doesn't count Nifong's countless hours of case related preparation, time obsessing about the case, and time spent dealing with at least seven outstanding defense attorneys.

Three, Mayor Bell needs to tell us now: a) how much time he’s spent in activities related to the frame-up attempt and its cover-up; b) what those activities were and are; and c) whether he agrees Durham would be a safer city today if there’d never been a frame-up attempt.

The entire N&O story is here, Butler’s column’s here, there’s no link available for the NBC17.com story, and here’s Duke lacrosse: Johnsville’s Questions.

Hat tips: Walter Abbott and Baldo

Obama's challenge

By now even people who get their news through liberal/leftist news organizations' “filters” know Sen. Obama’s close friend and pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright said:

"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.”

Wright delivered that pulpit pronouncement just six days after the terrorists’ Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Obama insists he didn’t know anything about Wright’s awful justification for the terrorists’ slaughter of Americans and citizens from many other nations.

Obama says he wasn’t in church that Sunday.

He also wants us to believe his absence from church that Sunday explains why he didn’t know Wright shouted in the same sermon:

“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye."

Obama’s MSM supporters have done their best to ignore or radically downplay the many virulently anti-American and racist statements Wright’s made over the years.

Newsweek , for example, refers to them as “snippets.” And don’t call the NY Times unless you have dirt on Sen. McCain or a national security secret to disclose.

But the story hasn’t gone away, thanks to some fact-based reporting by, among others, ABC News, Fox News and many bloggers. And "snippets” are easily accessed at You Tube where everyone can see and hear for themselves Rev. Wright in all his froth and fury.

So today Obama will give a speech he never wanted to give.

I don’t doubt Obama’s speech will “satisfy” his MSM supporters, the Democratic base, and people who nodded approvingly when Wright gave a Lifetime Achievement Award to Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan.

But can he satisfy the rest of us?

Can he convince us he never knew?

Or, if he did know, can he convince us to trust him “to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States?”

I hope some way he can, but I doubt it.

What about you?