The other debate at Saddleback

We haven’t heard yet from Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Terrorist cum Professor Bill Ayers, but just about everyone else thinks Sen. McCain won Saddleback.

So with that settled, National Review’s Jonah Goldberg looks at another face-off last Saturday at Saddleback.

This one pitted “the intellectual-theologian Obama” against “the political Obama.”

Excerpts from Goldberg - - -

… “Does evil exist?” [Pastor] Warren asked [Senator] Obama. “And if it does, do we ignore it, do we negotiate with it, do we contain it, or do we defeat it?”

Obama the would-be moral philosopher replied, accurately, that evil is everywhere, in Darfur, in our streets, in our own hearts. We cannot “erase evil from the world. That is God’s task. But we can be soldiers in that process, and we can confront (evil) when we see it.” (Imagine if President Bush called himself a soldier of God in the battle against evil.)

When asked what America’s greatest moral failing was, theological Obama said it was our collective failure to “abide by that basic precept in (the Book of) Matthew that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.”

For Obama the politician, such scriptural quotations often serve as an all-inclusive writ to impose his religious views on others when it comes to fighting poverty, global warming, racism, etc.

But when the question turns to abortion, political Obama insists on a policy of moral agnosticism and political laissez-faire. Asked directly when life begins as a legal matter, he punted, saying the answer was “above my pay grade.” (emphasis added)

Obama, commendably, told Warren that he wants to reduce the number of abortions. After all, he observed gravely, “we’ve had a president who is opposed to abortions over the last eight years, and abortions have not gone down.”

Unfortunately, Obama wasn’t telling the truth. The abortion rate is the lowest it’s been since 1974, partly because of pro-life policies under Bush, but also thanks to those implemented at the state level since the 1990s.

At Saddleback, Obama offered the ritualistic support for Roe v. Wade expected of all Democratic politicians, “not because I’m pro-abortion,” but because women “wrestle with these things in profound ways.”

This is surely true in many instances. But political Obama won’t explain why “wrestling” with a serious moral question is an adequate substitute for deciding it correctly. People wrestle with all sorts of moral quandaries in “profound ways.” Many slave owners wrestled with whether they should free their slaves, but that did not obviate the need for the Emancipation Proclamation.

Alas, when it comes to abortion, it’s probably silly to expect anything but rote fealty to ideological pieties from a Democrat, just as it’s naive to expect anything but the appropriate pro-life talking points from a Republican.

But for a self-styled champion of nuance, political Obama’s rigidity is spectacular to behold.

In 2003, as chairman of the Illinois Senate Health and Human Services Committee, Obama received a statement from Jill Stanek, a registered nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill. She testified that at her Chicago-area hospital, she’d seen a baby accidentally delivered alive during an abortion and then “taken to the soiled-utility room and left alone to die.”

I’m no expert on the Christian Gospel, but something tells me that Matthew might consider these wailing creatures the least of our brothers.

Alas, the abandonment of babies to suffer and die on the modern equivalent of a Spartan cliff did not require confronting evil when Obama saw it. Indeed, Obama turned a blind eye, leading the battle to defeat Illinois’ version of the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which would have treated babies living, albeit briefly, outside the womb as, well, babies.

He opposed the bill in 2003 (as he had a similar one in 2001), saying it would undermine Roe v. Wade. But even after Roe-neutral language was included — wording good enough that it won support for the federal version of the bill from abortion-rights stalwart Sen. Barbara Boxer — Obama remained unmoved. …

The rest of Goldberg’s column’s here.

Hat tip: BN

So it’s come to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee opposing the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act which even Sen. Boxer supports.

The next time “the intellectual-theologian Obama” sermonizes I hope he takes as his text from the Book of Mark: “Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God"

A French news org reports Obama's charges

Agence France- Presse reported yesterday:

Barack Obama savaged his Republican rival John McCain Wednesday for running a dishonorable campaign that aides to the Democrat said smacked of "reckless" desperation.

In some of the most vehement attacks yet heaped on the Arizona senator by the Obama camp during this White House campaign, the Illinois senator said he honored McCain's public service but not the manner of his electioneering.

Coinciding with a new poll suggesting McCain has overhauled Obama among voters nationally, Obama's senior foreign policy adviser Susan Rice portrayed the Republican as a hot-head who could not be trusted to stay cool under fire.

McCain's "tendency is to shoot first and to ask questions later," she said on a conference call alongside former White House anti-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke, who called the Republican "trigger-happy" and "reckless." …

Is what we've just read the “new politics” from the “Yes, we can” candidate who says he's “post-racial?”

Hmm!

IMO Sen. Obama sounds just like what his old friend and mentor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, called "a typical politician."

AFP's story ends:

Obama argues McCain wants to keep US troops bogged down indefinitely in Iraq, and has vowed to begin troop withdrawals with the goal of getting most US combat soldiers out of the country within 16 months.

On Tuesday, Obama complained at what he views as slanders on his patriotism, after McCain said the day before that the Democrat had put his personal political ambition before US national interests on Iraq policy.

"Let me be clear: I will let no one question my love of this country," Obama said in North Carolina.

Whose questioning Obama’s patriotism? If he mentioned anyone by name and specific comment, I missed it.

What about you? The entire story's here.

Is Obama once again engaging in another of his "they're injecting" claims without anything specific or substantial to back his vicious charges?

Is there anyone reading this who doesn't know it's Obama's judgment and lack of experience people are questioning?

You know: all 57 states. That's "above my pay grade." And grandma is a "typical white person."

A few closing thoughts: here in North Carolina a lot of people don’t buy the line that he and Michelle Obama never heard any of the vile racism and anti-Americanism that's spewed forth from Rev. Jeremiah Wright for decades.

We wonder why they attended his church for almost 20 years.

We wonder why they brought their children to Wright’s church for religious instruction.

And most of us don’t like being called racists for wondering about those things.

We hope the Obamas will answer those questions.

The Churchill Series – Aug. 20, 2008

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

Yesterday’s post concerned Winston’s wooing Clementine to Blenheim Palace where on Aug. 10, 1908 he proposed and she accepted.

Here’s the Blenheim Palace link which includes the following:

…The Arboretum is reached from the Sheep Walk, a southward drive that starts at the lower Water Terrace and winds on past the Temple of Diana, built for the 4th Duke by Sir William Chambers. This unpretentious temple stands on a high point, commanding a view over the lake. It was here, during the summer of 1908, that Mr Winston Churchill, as he was then, proposed to Miss Clementine Hozier, who was to become Baroness Churchill.

In 1975, the present Duke of Marlborough restored the temple, adding two plaques. Lady Churchill officially opened the restored temple on 11th April, the same year – she remembered,

"There was a bench here then… and as I sat there with Winston I watched a beetle slowly moving across the floor. 'If that beetle reaches that crack,' I said to myself, 'and Winston hasn’t proposed, then he isn’t going to.' But he did propose!"

Four Incense Cedars, each over 50 feet (15 metres) high, tower above yew and prunus. The Arboretum also contains other interesting and rare trees and shrubs, and is particularly attractive in spring, when the blossom is out and the grassy banks are covered in daffodils and bluebells….

Blenheim is a wonderful place to visit. I hope you’ll “take a look around the place” using the scroll down menus.

There are pictures, descriptions of the rooms, buildings, gardens, and lawns. There’s information, too, about visiting hours, admissions, special tours, and even four places to eat in the palace or on the grounds.

I’ll say more tomorrow about visiting the palace, the town of Woodstock, just outside the gates to Blenheim, and Oxford, eight miles down the road.

Williams on Campaign '08 today

According to Zogby, McCain has now taken a five point lead over Obama. As the Gateway Pundit notes, that’s a 15 point swing. Instapundit comments: “The good news for Obama: It's a Zogby poll….” ( That made me laugh. - - JinC)

Over at RealClearPolitics, McCain also has an Electoral College lead. (Rasmussen, however, says the numbers still favor Obama.)

Meanwhile, Obama’s credibility problems continue to pile up. His misstatements about infanticide are out in the MSM, his past relations with Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers are about to rise up and bite him, and McCain is even starting to outpoll him on the economy.

Plus there’s this:

…Obama calls those who have pointed out his false explanations regarding his Born-Alive vote liars. Obama has a penchant for pejoratives unique among modern presidential candidates. Last week he called Republicans "ignorant." Several times during the campaign he's implied that his opponents are racist. Earlier he derided rural, blue collar Americans as bitter, bible-clinging, gun-toting racist xenophobes. Meanwhile, he yelps at imaginary slights directed at him: yesterday, he once again complained about Republicans questioning his patriotism.

At this rate, if Obama's inaugurated on January 20 his administration officially will be declared insufferable by January 21.

Is buyer’s remorse setting in on the eve of the Democratic National Convention? Are Obama’s Invesco tickets (they feature upside down American flags) a subliminal message of distress? And why is Obama suddenly selling these tickets when he’s been telling people all along that they’re free?

With Pennsylvania now in play, Obama has also reversed course on handing out walking around money in Philadelphia, so perhaps his flip-flop on public financing isn’t turning out all that well. Or maybe Mark Shields of PBS was really onto something when he said Obama couldn’t pass a lie detector test….

….

Oil, natural gas & America’s well-being

Here’s today National Review Online editorial. I hope you read it all.

Congress suffers from a crude sense of timing when it comes to oil. When it was time to act, it did nothing for decades. Now it’s desperate to be seen doing something at the precise moment when the time has come to do nothing.

On October 1, the congressional ban on extracting oil from the 1.76 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf will expire. The ban has been renewed annually for decades. If Congress simply does nothing, the ban will expire, uncorking significant new supplies of oil and gas, and sending a message to world energy markets that the game has changed.

Unhappily, a bipartisan group of senators calling itself the Gang of Ten is pressing for a different approach, one which will do little or nothing to expand the supply of oil, reduce prices, ameliorate environmental problems, or diminish America’s consumption of oil extracted from beneath the boots of despots.

The Gang of Ten has christened its approach the New Energy Reform Act, or New ERA (get it?). But the content of the proposal is decidedly Old Era: billions of dollars in new corporate welfare for automakers and other politically influential industries, new restrictions on oil trading and financial markets, and a gigantic tax increase on oil and natural-gas producers — most of which will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices for gasoline and household utilities.

What’s missing from the Gang of Ten plan is anything that will put more oil on the market.(emphasis added)

The plan calls for a permanent ban on drilling in most of the OCS in exchange for allowing four states — Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas — the option of approving new oil leases off their shores. Way off, in fact: No drilling would be allowed within 50 miles of the coast.

Which is to say, even if the legislatures in those four states approved drilling — and who knows if or when that would happen — most of the OCS would remain off-limits. A little new acreage would be opened in the Gulf of Mexico by reducing Florida’s current 125-mile buffer zone to 50 miles — but even that comes at too high a price: a ban on new production in the Pacific. Beyond these crumbs, it’s more of the old familiar: biofuel subsidies and ethanol giveaways (leaving us with pork-fed corn instead of corn-fed pork).

How much oil are we talking about here? Conservative estimates put the yield of the OCS at 19 billion barrels of oil — as much oil as we’d import from Saudi Arabia in 35 years at our current rate. Also 84 trillion — that’s with a “T” — cubic feet of natural gas, or enough to meet the energy needs of 80 million households for 15 years.

Putting a bunch of new oil on the market is a lot more likely to lower prices than is throwing billions of dollars at phantom technologies, as the New ERA plan calls for doing, or slapping oil producers with punitive new taxes. Lifting the drilling ban is a realistic and responsible alternative.

McCain Opens 5-point lead. What’s it mean?

Reuters reports:

In a sharp turnaround, Republican John McCain has opened a 5-point lead on Democrat Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential race and is seen as a stronger manager of the economy, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

McCain leads Obama among likely U.S. voters by 46 percent to 41 percent, wiping out Obama's solid 7-point advantage in July and taking his first lead in the monthly Reuters/Zogby poll.

The reversal follows a month of attacks by McCain, who has questioned Obama's experience, criticized his opposition to most new offshore oil drilling and mocked his overseas trip.

The poll was taken Thursday through Saturday as Obama wrapped up a weeklong vacation in Hawaii that ceded the political spotlight to McCain, who seized on Russia's invasion of Georgia to emphasize his foreign policy views.

Since polling occurred Thursday through Sunday, that means the poll didn’t catch much, if any, of the “Saddleback effect.”

Since its generally agreed Sen. McCain came across as far more informed and looking like a leader, you can wonder what the results would have been with a “Saddleback effect."

Reuters continues:

"There is no doubt the campaign to discredit Obama is paying off for McCain right now," pollster John Zogby said. "This is a significant ebb for Obama."

McCain now has a 9-point edge, 49 percent to 40 percent, over Obama on the critical question of who would be the best manager of the economy -- an issue nearly half of voters said was their top concern in the November 4 presidential election.

That margin reversed Obama's 4-point edge last month on the economy over McCain, an Arizona senator and former Vietnam prisoner of war who has admitted a lack of economic expertise and shows far greater interest in foreign and military policy.

McCain has been on the offensive against Obama during the last month over energy concerns, with polls showing strong majorities supporting his call for an expansion of offshore oil drilling as gasoline prices hover near $4 a gallon.

Obama had opposed new offshore drilling, but said recently he would support a limited expansion as part of a comprehensive energy program.

That was one of several recent policy shifts for Obama, as he positions himself for the general election battle. But Zogby said the changes could be taking a toll on Obama's support, particularly among Democrats and self-described liberals.

"That hairline difference between nuance and what appears to be flip-flopping is hurting him with liberal voters," Zogby said.

Obama's support among Democrats fell 9 percentage points this month to 74 percent, while McCain has the backing of 81 percent of Republicans. Support for Obama, an Illinois senator, fell 12 percentage points among liberals, with 10 percent of liberals still undecided compared to 9 percent of conservatives.

Sen. Obama having more trouble with his base than McCain with his goes against the meta-narrative most MSM shill. Usually we’re told its McCain who hasn’t solidified his base, especially among “conservatives” and “evangelicals.”

Here are two easy predictions:

1) Between now and November, Team Obama is going to give McCain a huge amount of help solidifying his “conservative base.” McCain can't take conservatives for granted, but with Obama still refusing to admit he knew all those years what Wright was saying; attacking Justice Thomas and Chief Justice Roberts; and promising more government give-aways, conservatives will know what to do on Election Day.

2) If McCain win’s in November, people will look back to Saddleback and say, “That’s when the evangelical tide started running in McCain’s favor. Whatever was Obama thinking when he said, 'that's above my pay grade?'"

I hope you read the rest of the Reuters story here. There’s quite a bit in it that may surprise you.

I’d love to hear what you think.


http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUKN1948672420080820?sp=true

The Churchill Series - Aug. 19, 2008

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

I’m preparing a brief series within the series to coincide with Winston and Clementine’s 100th wedding anniversary Sept. 8, 2008.

While researching for the anniversary posts, I’m reading portions of Marian Fowler’s Blenheim: Biography of a Palace (Viking, 1982).

Many of you are no doubt familiar with Churchill’s remark: “It was at Blenheim that I made the two most important decisions of my life: to be born and to marry.”

With that in mind, I thought you'd enjoy reading the following brief excerpts from Fowler’s book:

Blenheim was the chosen stage for the next crucial event in Winston’s life. Four year s before, he had met briefly at a London bal a tall young lady with lustrous ash-blond hair and green eyes flecked with brown, who seemed quite unaware of her beauty. She was Clementine Hozier, granddaughter of the 10th Earl of Airlie. …

“Let us all go to Blenheim for Monday and Tuesday,” Winston wrote to Clemmie on Aug. 7, 1908. “I want so much to show you that beautiful place, and in its gardens we shall find lots of place s to talk in, and lots of things to talk about.”

Clemmie hung back. Blenheim would be far too grand and she was visiting at Cowes and down to her last clean cotton frock.

Winston wrote again next day: “I think you will be amused at Blenheim. It has many glories in the fullness of summer. Pools of water, gardens of roses, a noble lake shrouded by giant trees; tapestries, pictures and monuments within”

Winston wooed her through Blenheim, and of course Winston won here round.

Monday, Aug. 10 found Clemmie on a Train Blenheim-bound, dashing off a note to her mother: “I shall get to Oxford at 5:20 where I shall be met by motor. I feel dreadfully shy and rather tired.”

Next afternoon, Winston and Clemmie went for a walk. It began to rain and they took shelter in the Temple of Diana which William Chambers has built for the 4th Duke. Clemmie and Winston sat side by side on its stone bench, looking out at the serene, dimpled lake caught between thrusting, solid pillars.

“If that beetle reaches that crack,” Clemmie said to herself, “and Winston hasn’t proposed, then he isn’t going to.” But the miracle happened. Winston proposed and she accepted.

When they emerged to clearing skies and diamante grass, Clemmie swore Winston to secrecy until they could tell her mother, but Winston, seeing a little knot of people on the lawn, including Sunny [, his cousin and the current Duke,] raced ahead, arms waving wildly, and blurted out his glorious news. (pgs. 213-214)

More tomorrow.

Is Caroline Kennedy Obama’s VP pick?

It’s being talked about in the Hamptons and at the Cape.

And at Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds passes on the thoughts of:

READER KEVIN GREEN [who] thinks he knows who Obama wants for VP: "Obama has chosen Caroline Kennedy to be his running mate in a bid to include a woman who is not Hillary Clinton. Kennedy is the only woman Democrats would accept who is not Hillary." Hmm.

Obama’s selection of Caroline Kennedy as his running mate would be more exciting to Obama’s media and core Democrats (“I love Harry Reid for saying the war was lost.”) than was John Kerry’s pick of John Edwards was in ’04. (Remember most MSM hyping the Kerry-Edwards “instant compatibility” and “perfect balance?” Little did we all know.).

They'd certainly be a huge MSM generated "gush-rush" when Caroline Kennedy was nominated.

Who knows how far up his leg Chris Matthews will say "the feeling" went this time?

But once most Americans learn Caroline Kennedy doesn’t read a teleprompter nearly as well as Obama does and, what's worse, without one is even more gaffe prone than he is, enthusiasm will cool just about everywhere except at the DNC, NBC, NPR, NYT, LAT and other such places.

And what do you think will happen when Greens find out she doesn’t like wind energy.

Well, at least not if it means anything that comes within 50 miles of her family’s coastal properties on Cape Cod and her own and her family’s coastal properties in the Hamptons.

Obama's going to have enough problems with “KKK – America” and “God damn America” without adding to them: “And God damn wind farms off the coast of properties Caroline Kennedy, Uncle Ted, and the rest of the family own.”

George S. Patton & the 1912 Stockholm Olympics

The title gives this post's "who" away, but John Jacob R's Jeff Pyatt introduction is so outstanding I'm starting with it:

Less remembered in those same [1912 Stockholm] Games is the story of a young US Army lieutenant competing in the first Olympic modern pentathlon, an event designed to determine the perfect warrior.

The lieutenant finished fifth but may have won the gold if not for a controversial ruling during his best skill. In the pistol shooting competition, he packed the bullet holes so tightly to the target’s center that, when two of ten bullets went unaccounted for, it was impossible to determine whether he completely missed the
target or if the bullets passed through existing holes.

The judges ruled the former despite his and many of his fellow competitors’ insistence on the latter, and, as a result, he was denied a chance to stand on the Olympic podium.

As history would have it, the event and the lieutenant would have vastly diverging fortunes.

After 1912, the modern pentathlon - a quirky sport similar to the triathlon except with guns, swords and horses for bikes — would become one of the most overlooked events of the Olympics.

Meanwhile, the American who finished a disappointing but respectable fifth, Lt. George S. Patton, would go on to stake his claim as the perfect warrior on the real battlefield, becoming one of the greatest — if not the greatest — field generals in history.

Patton's brilliance on the battlefields of North Africa and Europe saved the lives tens of thousands of of Allied troops; and led to the liberation of millions held in the grip of Nazi Germany, many of whom would have starved, been shot or died in other ways except for the liberation Patton helped lead.

We can never say enough in tribute to him and all who served the Allied cause then and are now serving in our latest war against enemies every bit as evil as the Nazi's and their cohorts.

But this post is meant to recall and appreciate Patton's achievements at the 1912 Olympics.

So let's look now at what Patton's Wikipedia entry says about him at the 1912 Olympics. Pay particular attention to what the entry says regarding the pistol scoring controversy and how Patton responded to it:

Patton participated in the Fifth Olympiad (Stockholm, 1912), representing the United States in the first-ever modern pentathlon. Patton performed well in each event:

Pistol shooting

Patton scored 10, 10, 10, 9, 8; 10, 10, 10, 0, 0; 10, 10, 9, 9, 8; and 10, 10, 10, 9, 7. He placed 21st out of 42 contestants.

Even though his bullet holes were clustered together in the center of the target, the Judges decided one bullet had missed the target altogether. Patton maintained that two of his bullets must have gone through the same hole.

300 meter freestyle swimming

Patton placed sixth out of 37 contestants in [this] event.

Fencing

Patton placed third out of 29 contestants, and gave the Frenchman who eventually won the Gold medal his only defeat of the Pentathlon.

The weapon employed was the European dueling sword, which weighed 1.25 to 1.5 pounds, was 2 inches (51 mm) in circumference at the hilt and tapered to the point, and had a bell guard 5 inches (130 mm) in diameter.

Equestrian cross-country steeplechase

Patton and two Swedes turned in perfect performances, but he placed third in timing, so he finished in third place. Riders were started singly at five minute intervals over the course, which included cross-country terrain, 25 designated jumps, and 50 minor unmarked obstacles.

Four kilometer cross-country foot race

Patton competed against three Swedes, three Britons, three Russians, two Frenchmen, two Danes, and one Austrian. Runners were started at one minute intervals; they then left the stadium and proceeded over cross-country terrain in a loop that brought them back to the stadium. They started and finished in front of the Swedish royal boxes.

Patton "hit the wall" 50 yards (46 m) from the finish line, then fainted after crossing the line at a walk. He finished third out of 15 contestants.

Scoring controversy

[Patton] finished the modern Pentathlon in fifth place. He used a .38 caliber. It was claimed that the holes in the paper from early shots were so large that some of his later bullets passed through them, but the judges said he missed the target completely (Modern competitions on this level frequently now employ a moving background to specifically track multiple shots through the same hole).[4].[5] There was much controversy about Patton’s finish in the pistol shooting, but the judges’ ruling prevailed. If Patton had prevailed, it is highly likely that he would have won the Gold medal instead of fifth place.

As it was, Patton neither complained, nor made excuses.

Patton's only comment was:

"...the high spirit of sportsmanship and generosity manifested throughout speaks volumes for the character of the officers of the present day."

"There was not a single incident of a protest or any unsportsmanlike quibbling or fighting for points which I regret to say marred some of the other civilian competitions at the Olympic Games."

" Each man did his best and took what fortune sent like a true soldier, and at the end we all felt more like good friends and comrades than rivals in a severe competition, yet this spirit of friendship in no manner detracted from the zeal with which all strove for success."

George S. Patton: U. S. Army officer, Olympian, and Liberator.

Why is it always Obama who "returns fire?"

At the New York-based Anything for Obama Times we see the headline - "Obama Returns Fire on McCain in VFW Speech" – and reporter John Broder’s story which begins:

Addressing both his opponent’s charges of weakness and vacillation, and public doubts about his credibility on military matters, Senator Barack Obama on Tuesday told the Veterans of Foreign Wars that he offered not just tough talk but smart answers to national security questions.

Mr. Obama appeared before the V.F.W. a day after his presumed Republican opponent, Senator John McCain, criticized him for advocating a policy of defeat in Iraq and suggested Mr. Obama put personal ambition before the interests of the country.

Mr. Obama struck back with tough language, although his delivery was largely without passion. ….

The rest of Broder’s story’s here.

Why does it seem it's always Sen. Obama who “returns fire” and is “responding to attacks?”

Why don't we find in the Times reporting such as:

“A day after presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama injected race into the campaign during a speech in Jacksonville, presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain responded by noting Obama had promised not to do that.”

or

“Speaking before a group of white Pennsylvania voters still upset by Sen. Obama’s attack on them as “bitter” people who cling to “guns and religion,” Sen. Mc Cain assured them they were “worthwhile citizens.’”

or

“Urged on by campaign advisers, Sen. McCain today finally asked Sen. Obama to explain what he meant when he said his grandmother was ‘a typical white person.”

N&O's bogus claim re: Enquirer's Edwards story

Raleigh News & Observer executive editor John Drescher's two most recent columns (here and here) have offered excuses for what journalists and many N&O readers know was the N&O bungled coverage of the Edwards scandal, a major political story much of which played out on the N&O's doorstep.

As late as Aug. 3 the N&O's public editor Ted Vaden praised what he termed the N&O's "restraint" and "refusal" to chase "salacious details" such as Rielle Hunter's child's birth certificate. He quoted Drescher: "I don't view the National Enquirer as a credible source of news."

Then came Aug. 8, the day Edwards admitted on ABC's Nightline to an affair with Rielle Hunter and, as the National Enquirer reported July 22, their Beverly Hilton tryst the night of July 21.

Edwards' disclosures were soon followed by Drescher's disclosures the N&O's coverage had actually been "aggressive" but made difficult by Edwards' refusal to help the N&O.

Well, sure.

Now let's look at what the N&O was reporting the morning of Aug. 8.

In a page one story, “Tabloid photo offers no clarity,” which carried N&O reporter Lorenzo Perez’s byline, readers were told:

… Two weeks after it ran an anonymously sourced story asserting that its reporters caught Edwards visiting a former campaign worker and the baby he fathered with her, the Enquirer posted the photo on its Web site to bolster its reporting of the story. … (emphasis added)

The N&O was just plain wrong when it said the Enquirer's July 22 story was "anonymously sourced."

Two Enquirer reporters – Alan Butterfield and Alexander Hitchen – were named in the Enquirer story which included detailed accounts of what they saw and did at the Beverly Hilton the night of July 21/22. Afterward, the reporters swore out criminal complaints alleging hotel security had roughed them up.

By Aug. 8 Butterfield and Hitchen had been interviewed many times by news organizations. They stood by everything they’d said in their July 22 report.

Up to the time of the N&O's Aug. 8 "anonymously sourced" claim not John Edwards, Rielle Hunter, Bob McGovern, who the NE reported drove Hunter to the Beverly Hilton nor any hotel staff member had disputed anything Butterfield and Hitchen reported, unless you count Edwards’ “tabloid trash” remark July 23 in Houston.

The N&O claims to fact-check everything that appears in its news columns under its reporters' bylines.

If that's the case, how did the N&O blunder by declaring the Enquirer's story was “anonymously sourced ” more than two weeks after it was published and just hours before Edwards’ Nightline appearance?

Perez was supposed to get his story right in the first place.

The editor who assigned him to the story was supposed to fact-check it.

At the N&O copy, layout, and headline editors are responsible for fact-checking stories they work on.

When a story's being considered for the front page, the N&O's front page editor, Stever Merelman, or his designee editor gets involved.

Also, one or more of the N&O three senior editors and Drescher himself are almost always involved with selecting and fact-checking front page stories.

It's hard to understand how a reporter and a group of editors could report on Aug. 8 on the N&O's front page that the Enquirer's story was "anonymously sourced."

Wasn't anyone minding the newsroom?

The Churchill Series – Aug. 18, 2008

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

Something out of the ordinary today.

On the eve of the first anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, Churchill sent Roosevelt a message.

What follows are links to two documents housed in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library at Hyde Park, N. Y.

The first link is to a memorandum on official stationary prepared for Secretary of State Cordull Hull’s approval and initials. It’s addressed to FDR and suggests he consider the proposed accompanying draft response to Churchill’s message.

The second link is to the draft response on plain paper which FDR’s signature “Roosevelt” indicates he approved without change.

I thought you might find a look at the two documents interesting with their penciled routing notes interesting.

Tomorrow let’s go to Blenheim Palace. We’ll visit the very morning Winston proposes to Clementine.

Team Obama concedes Saddleback defeat

It wasn’t gracious, but unless you sing in the Obama’s Come to Save Us Choir you know it was a concession of defeat.

From USA Today:

"Absolutely a lie, absolutely a lie."

So says Rev. Rick Warren about any suggestion that there was a TV or other monitoring equipment in the "green room" where Republican presidential candidate John McCain was waiting Saturday evening for his turn to go on stage for the pastor's "Civil Forum on the Presidency."

Warren talked to Beliefnet.com's God-o-Meter blog.

As we noted earlier, the McCain campaign strongly protested after NBC News' Andrea Mitchell said on the air yesterday that some aides to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama thought that McCain might have been able to listen as Obama and Warren were talking during the first half of the forum. McCain was supposed to be -- as Warren said when he opened the program Saturday -- in a "cone of silence."

Later, it became known that McCain hadn't yet arrived at Saddleback Church when the Obama-Warren part of the forum began. The GOP senator was in a motorcade on his way there. His aides have said he did not listen to start of the session while en route.

The entire USA Today post is here.

Hat tip: Danvers

Williams today on Campaign ‘08

Mike’s letter today is outstanding.

He begins - - -

You’ll probably know by now that McCain and Obama participated in a sort-of debate in California at Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church this past weekend, ostensibly wooing evangelicals. John in Carolina channels one pundit’s take here.

The starboard side bloggers appear generally very happy with McCain’s performance, while the port siders seem a little panicked by Obama’s. So do some of Obama’s MSM enablers.

At least we look to be getting at the ground truth on Obama’s misstatements about infanticide and born-alive abortions.

Also, we can continue to be confident that Obama – whenever he senses rocks and shoals on the issues – will still navigate towards racism and elitism, albeit with more subtlety than he’s displayed in the past. Oops, maybe not.

In other news, Musharraf has resigned as President of Pakistan. Rick Moran at American Thinker:

In retrospect - which always allows for 20-20 vision - we probably should have insisted on a return to civilian rule years earlier. But there were concerns that the Pakistani secular parties would want no part of our war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

In the end, this became a self fulfilling prophecy as the new government has sought accommodation with the Taliban rather than war - with mixed results. It remains to be seen whether we will be forced by circumstances to go into Pakistan ourselves and clear out the Taliban infestation.

Such a move would be disastrous for our relations with the Pakistani government but may become necessary if they cannot control their own borders.

Our complex, frustrating, and ultimately failed relationship with Musharraf is the kind of thing that happens in war. No good solutions to nearly insoluble problems doomed it from the start.

Speaking of 20-20 hindsight, let’s end it for today with this interesting Jeff Jacoby column. It starts off:

IT WASN'T so long ago that erstwhile supporters of the war in Iraq were invoking hindsight to justify their newfound opposition to it. "Obviously if we knew then what we know now," Senator Hillary Clinton said in December 2006, when asked whether she regretted her 2002 vote authorizing military action, "I certainly wouldn't have voted that way."

Many of Clinton's colleagues said the same thing. An ABC News survey of senators in January 2007 found that "an overwhelming number" of Democrats who had voted in favor of going to war - including Joe Biden of Delaware, Chris Dodd of Connecticut, John Breaux of Louisiana, and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia - had had a change of heart.

Liberals and Democrats weren't the only ones going wobbly. "If I had known then what I know now about the weapons of mass destruction," Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican, told the Houston Chronicle, "I would not vote to go into Iraq."

The conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg pronounced the Iraq war "a mistake by the most obvious criteria: If we had known then what we know now, we would never have gone to war with Iraq." Others singing from the same hymnal have included Jonathan Rauch, National Journal's respected semi-libertarian essayist, and (somewhat earlier) Michael Howard, the former leader of the British Conservative Party.

The prevailing wisdom 18 months or so ago was that invading Iraq had been, in retrospect, a disastrous blunder. It had led to appalling sectarian fratricide and an ever-climbing body count. Iraqi democracy was deemed a naive pipe dream.

Worst of all, it was said, the fighting in Iraq wasn't advancing the global struggle against Islamist terrorism; by rallying a new generation of jihadists, it was actually impeding it.

Opponents of the war clamored loudly for pulling the plug - even if that meant, as The New York Times acknowledged in a bring-the-troops-home-now editorial last July, "that Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave."

But what if we had known then what we know now? ….

Saddleback : a smart pundit’s take

Janet Daley writes for the Daily Telegraph, often on the American political scene. She’s smart, lucid, and independent.

About a year ago, when Sen. Clinton appeared the inevitable Dem nominee and everyone was wondering whether Sen. McCain could keep his campaign going for another month or two, Daley analyzed our presidential nomination process and the two parties’ candidates.

Her conclusions: She assured her readers the nominees would be Sens. McCain and Obama.

Her column today offers her take on Saddleback. IMO it’s accurate, insightful, and the best analysis I’ve read of what happened at Saddleback and why.

Excerpts for Daley's column - - -

Last Saturday night, the two contenders appeared on a platform together for the first time - not to engage in a formal presidential debate which would have been improper since neither has been formally nominated as yet, but to participate in a novel format staged by the Saddleback Church, one of the largest evangelical congregations in America.

Saddleback is a moderate outfit and its pastor, Reverend Rick Warren, is a famously benign and tolerant figure. He called his event a "civil forum" and stated specifically that his intention in chairing it was to restore civility to political discourse. He was scrupulously fair and courteous to both presumptive candidates, to whom he put the identical questions in separate interviews (out of each other's hearing).

It was, as the commentator Charles Krauthammer said afterwards, a brilliant "controlled experiment" in which both men were subjected to identical examinations in identical conditions. I stayed up to watch the whole two hours of it between 1am and 3am. It was as illuminating as any political event I have ever witnessed.

Mr Obama came first. He was, as we have come to expect, articulate, engaging and very relaxed ("comfortable in his skin", as is often said). He responded with charm if some ambiguousness to the tricky questions that arose on the evangelical heartland issues, most notably abortion, on which he is pro-choice.

But the most interesting aspects of his performance (especially in retrospect when we had heard McCain) lay in what he did not say.

Asked whether he thought that evil existed and, if so, what should be done about it, he replied that it did and that we had to confront it "on our streets". The only international reference that he made in this answer was to Darfur. There was no mention of al-Qaeda, Russia or Georgia.

In another answer, he described the most significant moral failing of the United States as not getting to grips with domestic poverty, racism and sexism.

Asked to define the "rich" whom he has said should pay more tax so that government can improve society, he offered a figure of $250,000 a year. His performance was attractive and fluent in its own terms.

But within moments of McCain appearing to face the same queries, the Obama poise looked positively laconic and the Obama answers insubstantial. Where he had glided through the session with glib personableness, McCain electrified the hall. His answers were direct, detailed and full of the personal anecdote that his life experience has to offer.

Asked the question about evil, he cited al-Qaeda and Islamic extremism. (He would, he said, pursue Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell if necessary.)

America had a moral obligation to defeat genocide wherever it occurred, and he was "very saddened by Russia's re-emergence as an empire". Georgia had achieved democracy and deserved our support.

On the definition of "rich", he said that he did not want to raise taxes for anyone in tough economic times. He made it clear, too, that he supported education vouchers to allow poor children greater opportunity.

Both men answered the question, "What is worth risking lives for?", with the word "freedom", but it was McCain whose memories gave it force.

Ironically, the man whose age is thought to be a liability seemed more energetic and robust than his rival, whose cool sophistication looked somehow inappropriate for the times.

Daley’s entire column’s here.

America's God-given Obama

At Politico:

A confident Barack Obama raised an extraordinary $7.8 million Sunday at three California fundraisers, most if it in large checks to a Democratic Party committee.

“I will win. Don’t worry about that,” he said to the crowd of about 1,300 at his third event of the evening, according to the pool report.

He was warmly received by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called him "a leader that God has blessed us with at this time."

The entire Politico post's here.

Pelosi's statement explains a lot.

No wonder Sen. Obama comes across as arrogant.

How can you be humble when you're God's choice for President? It's not easy.

All those mega-millions rolling in to his campaign coffers? They're jumping at the chance to back God's candidate.

Still, I can't help thinking that had a top Republican said Sen. McCain was "a leader that God has blessed us with at this time," we'd be hearing loud cries about bringing religion into the campaign and breaking down a wall that should separate church and state.

The old double standard

Europeans and the Olympics: a few thoughts

Victor Davis Hanson at Pajamas Media today with my comments below the star line.

Davis begins - - -

Obama, like Socrates, announced in Berlin that he was a citizen of the world. We see many such citizens at the Olympics, but I am not sure I would wish to be counted among them.

There were the Chinese hosts, staging a Triumph of Will-like opening ceremony with Red Army soldiers, and computer-enhanced, Cecil B. DeMille backdrops. Tiny girls, some apparently with their baby teeth, were passed off as 15-year olds in the gymnastic competitions. A Newsweek or Time was not about to do an expose such a gargantuan Olympian fraud—not when journalists were muzzled or deported.

The utopian Europeans were, well, Europeans, eager to point out the pimple on the American nose, blind to the wart on their own. So the Spanish posed in group portraits with fingers pulling at their eyes, mimicking the Asian look of their Chinese hosts—just the sort of racism that they usually allege boorish Americans engage in.

Fast forward to beach volleyball. The Swiss duo, defeated by the Americans, were classic poor sports—Jan Schnider alternately whining, pouting, and bragging in the worst sort of showmanship. The French swimmers boasted, in empty fashion, of the defeat to come of the Phelps and the Americans. And so on. If we sometimes imagine that collective European utopianism and sermonizing are psychological recompense for rather self-indulgent, self-absorbed private lives, no better window exists on that than at the Olympics.

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

Comments:

I’m going to focus on what Hanson says about Europeans because I know them much better than I do the Chinese.

I’ll start with what many of you are already thinking: Hanson’s over-generalizing about Europeans.

They’re a very diverse lot just as Americans are: the mature, the gracious, the brave, the silly, the selfish – you’ll find them on both sides of the pond.

Yes, some European athletes have behaved in boorish and petulant ways, but most have conducted themselves as they should.

I wouldn’t paint the French or Swiss teams with a broad brush that ought to strip only a few of their members.

What about the Spanish basketball team’s posing for a group photo pulling at their eye folds to create a slant-eyed look?

Crude! They deserve public ridicule.

But based on a few calls I’ve made to journalists at European papers and searching some Europe-based English and French language blogs, that’s not happening.

You know there’d be uproar in Europe if an American team did that. What’s more, they’d be an uproar here, too.

Final thought: I’m delighted to see the Brits doing so well.

Wash. Post’s Colbert King’s question: my response

Here are excerpts from the Washington Post’s Colbert King’s column today followed by my response below the star line

King begins - - -

Say you find yourself seated on the train behind two white supremacists who are beside themselves over the possibility that Barack Obama could become America's first black president.

They are so fired up, they fail to notice you.

The men are discussing the urgent need to derail Obama's candidacy.

The obvious strategist of the two says that Obama's defeat can be brought about by hitting him hard, where it hurts the most.

We've got to launch an attack, he declares, on Obama's "lack of American roots." Paint him as a guy with an exotic background who's present in mainstream society but isn't really a part of it. ...

The other white supremacist, getting the point, chimes in: Yeah, and because Obama's black, let's put up a candidate against him to "contest the black vote at every opportunity. Keep him pinned down there."

We must, the men agree, keep charging that Obama is not steeped in "basic American values."

That, dear reader, is the way virulent hate purveyors will seek to bring down Barack Obama: by portraying him as un-American and, oh yes, "unelectable."

To be fair, these anti-Obama sentiments cannot be attributed to two white supremacists riding on a train.

The words quoted above belong to Mark Penn, the top Democratic strategist and pollster for most of Hillary Clinton's run for the White House. They appear in a strategic campaign review memo, unearthed recently by the Atlantic magazine, that Penn sent to Clinton on March 19, 2007. …

Let us note that Hillary Clinton did not take Penn's advice, though she continues her association with him.

He's a longtime Clinton insider, the chief executive of the public relations giant Burson-Marsteller and an adviser to Fortune 500 chieftains. He's accorded respectability, access to the powerful and a fat bank account.

We have, thanks to Penn's own hand, a glimpse into his ethics and values. We can see how he would exploit heritage, background and class and use misleading and offensive characterizations in his work. We understand how he would go about challenging and demeaning Obama's American identity by suggesting that the Hawaii-born, Columbia- and Harvard-educated U.S. senator from Illinois is not American enough.

Cynically, he would make Obama out to be a threat to American values and culture. ...

It's fair to ask about his roots in basic American values. Why do business with him?

King’s entire column's here.

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

I've sent King the following electronic letter.

Dear Mr. King:

Why do business with Mark Penn?

I’ll bet it’s for the same reasons salons of Washington, the boardrooms of corporate America, foreign governments, our mainstream media and at least the Democratic Party have all done business for years with Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

I’ll bet it’s for the same reasons Sen. and Mrs. Obama did business with unsavory people in Chicago, befriended and sought the support of known terrorists such as Bill Ayes, and attended a church for 20 years knowing the pastor was a virulent racist who regularly delivered vile anti-American screeds from the pulpit.

Remember “God damn America” and “KKK – America?” And much worse?

Yet the Obama’s brought their children to Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church for religious instruction.

Now I want to ask you a few questions.

How can millions of Americans who want to know why the Obama’s attended Wright’s church for 20 years and generously supported him with financial offerings get answers to those questions without being called racist?

Is just asking the Obamas to answer those questions itself a form of racism?

And did you publish anything when leading Democrats and Obama supporters such as Sens. Harkin and Rockefeller and Gen. Clark claimed Sen. McCain’s military service to our country made him less fit to be President?

I’ll publish your response in full at my blog.

Thank you for your attention to this letter.

Sincerely,

John in Carolina

Char. Observer's Hunter's baby's birth certificate reporting

The Raleigh N&O didn't lead on the locating and publication of the birth certificate of the baby born to Rielle Hunter's and a father so far unnamed on the birth certificate. The Charlotte Observer did that.

Yesterday I posted Raleigh N&O and Charlotte Observer Edwards coverage in which I said that and linked to a number of sources where that could all be confirmed.

Never the less, I'm hearing from people insisting N&O reporter Lorenzo Perez is responsible for locating the birth certificate; and that the N&O lead in publishing it.

Here's an example:

[Raleigh N&O reporter] Lorenzo Perez has a byline on the birth certificate story. He works for the N&O. You keep saying the charlotte o wrote that story. Clearly you have an error. I look forward to seeing your correction and apology on this blog.

My response:

At Charlotte Observer.com with a date of 7/31 Commenter and others will find:

"Birth certificate for Rielle Hunter's child lists no father
Former aide to John Edwards had claimed paternity in December"

By Lisa Zagaroli
McClatchy Newspapers
Posted: Thursday, Jul. 31, 2008

The birth certificate of a child who a tabloid newspaper claims is linked to former Sen. John Edwards doesn't identify a father.

The certificate, obtained by The Charlotte Observer today, shows Frances Quinn Hunter was born Feb. 27, more than two months after an Edwards aide claimed to be the father. Andrew Young, a former Edwards campaign finance director, claimed paternity in a statement from his lawyer posted at the political blog mydd.com. (emphasis added) …

The rest of Zagaroli's Observer story’s here. It's accompanied by a photocopy of the birth certificate.


The Columbia Journalism Review’s Clint Hendler credits the Observer’s Zagaroli with reporting on the birth certificate. He doesn’t even mention Perez.

And Drescher himself, in his Aug. 13 column touting what he called the N&O’s “aggressive” Edwards scandal coverage, doesn’t claim Perez had anything to do with locating and reporting on the birth certificate.

Drescher knew the McClatchy wire had carried a story headed, bylined, dated and beginning, all as follows:

No dad listed for child in tab reports

News & Observer, The (Raleigh, NC)
News B4
Lisa Zagaroli
Lorenzo Perez Mcclatchy Newspapers

Published: August 1, 2008

The birth certificate of a child whom a tabloid newspaper has linked to former Sen. John Edwards doesn't identify a father.

The certificate, obtained by The Charlotte Observer on Thursday, shows that Frances Quinn Hunter was born Feb. 27, more than two months after an Edwards aide claimed to be the father. Andrew Young, a former Edwards campaign finance director, claimed paternity in a statement from his lawyer posted at the political blog mydd.com. (emphasis added)

The girl was born at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, Calif., to Rielle Jaya James Druck, also known as Rielle Hunter. Hunter, 44, was a videographer on Edwards' presidential campaign last year. …

The rest of the story from the McClatchy wire is here.

Bylines are extremely important in journalism. Reporters fight to have their names bylined because it indicates the story reflects their work. Individual newspapers and wire services add their names to bylines to let each other and readers know they are responsible for a story’s content and publication.

In the Observer story, Zagaroli got an individual byline because she and the Observer had located and published the birth certificate.

In the McClatchy wire service story, Zagaroli is listed ahead of Perez. The wire story leads with text straight from Zagaroli’s story and clearly states the Observer located and published the birth certificate.

Perez is bylined second on the McClatchy wire story but no claim is made he or the N&O had anything to do with locating it or first publishing the birth certificate.

If you remove from the wire service story the text that appeared in Zagaroli’s Observer story concerning the birth certificate, what's left is what journalists sometimes call background filler.

I don’t doubt the N&O’s Perez contributed to the filler.

Well there you are, folks.

I’m confident the documentation and discussion I’ve provided here will assure the fair-mined among you that I work to document the facts I present.

I do sometimes make factual mistakes but I'm quick to acknowledge and correct them as Regulars saw when ABC News’ Martha Raddatz called my MCain-54 mistake to my attention.

The commenter, likely a troll, who prompted this post can have the last word here, although I’ll use the comment again later today in another post:

[Raleigh N&O reporter] Lorenzo Perez has a byline on the birth certificate story. He works for the N&O. You keep saying the charlotte o wrote that story. Clearly you have an error. I look forward to seeing your correction and apology on this blog.

Georgia, & Campaign '08 including Obama's response to Corsi

Here’s Mike Williams letter today. The whole thing is first-rate right down to the “teensy little detail” Mike mentions at the end.

Mike begins - - -

Ed Morrissey has the dope on the latest truce agreement between Russia and Georgia (which Secretary of State Rice sponsored) here. It replaces what Ed calls “the Sarkozy cease-fire, which turned out to be little more than a surrender foisted on [Georgia President] Saakashvili.”

Over at American Thinker, Patrick Casey believes the backlash against Russia has already begun:

As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said yesterday in his press conference (video can be found here, transcript can be found here), Russia's actions in Georgia will result in our allies, especially those in the Russian power sphere that Putin is trying to re-establish, quickly moving towards closer relations with us on all levels, including militarily.

The first manifestation of that occurred last night. USA Today reported that Poland has finally agreed to a missile defense compact with the United States, something that Putin furiously opposed….

Victor Davis Hanson elaborates:

We are a little more than a week into the crisis, and already Russia has already gotten itself more than just fights with Georgia—but also issued creepy threats to Poland over missiles, and to the Ukraine over naval bases. Putin has galvanized into panic most of Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, prompted a radical change of policy in the United States, and embarrassed its once sure support from the appeasement bloc of the European Union. What will next week bring? A Georgian insurgency, replete with stingers, anti-tank guns, and ieds? Increased arms sales to the former republics? Tougher talk from Obama….

You can read about the “creepy threats to Poland” here. As Hanson says, patience. Getting inside Putin’s gambit, maneuvering him into “unforced” errors, and then putting the hammer down on things like Russia’s membership in the G-8 will pay dividends in the long run.

In Campaign 2008 news, Jerome Corsi has a new book out -- The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality. You may remember Corsi as co-author of Unfit for Command, which was also a NYT best-seller. Professor Ann Althouse discusses The Obama Nation here.

Meanwhile, Obama’s local MSM enabler, The N&O, is decidedly worried:

It makes sense for Sen. Barack Obama to slug it out with Jerome Corsi, whose new book paints the presumptive Democratic nominee as a dangerous radical, analysts said Friday.

But Obama's strategy also carries some risks.

"The old saying is that when you get in the gutter, everybody gets dirty," said Kevin Wagner, an assistant professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University, particularly with information flying across the Internet….

What The N&O neglects to tell its readers is that some charges in Unfit for Command were demonstrably true (e.g., Christmas in Cambodia), and that John Kerry never did the one thing completely within his power to lay to rest the less clear-cut allegations – release all his military records to the public as he promised he would.

So Obama’s got real problems here. His long associations with Jeremiah Wright and unrepentant Weather Undergrounders Bernadine Dhorn and William Ayers, plus his wife Michelle’s well-documented America-bashing, demand a solidly factual rebuttal that – just like John Kerry before him – he probably can’t or won’t deliver.

Let’s give Jeff Emanuel at RedState the last word for today:

As my friend and colleague Streiff detailed Friday morning, the Obama campaign was apparently so spooked by the case Jerome Corsi makes against The One in his book "Obama Nation" that they released a 40 page rebuttal to the work.

Streiff wrote:

Even if everything in Corsi's book is correct, it certainly isn't something that a politician who sees himself as less than a deity, if not The Deity, should concern himself with. His 40-page rebuttal provides a good reminder of the immensely flawed character of Obama, himself, rather than addressing any substantive issue.

That a major newspaper would take up the cudgel on Obama's behalf, especially given its shameful cooperation with various smear books directed against President Bush, indicates that Corsi has found a chink in Obama's carefully crafted persona and if they don't silence Corsi, Obama is finished.

In fact, the Obama Nation was in such a hurry to issue their rebuttal to Corsi's book that they appear to have employed their characteristic bypassing of any detail-or-fact-checking in the process (or, perhaps equally likely, they simply thought reality would shift to match whatever they published in their shoolyard retort-level response to the book).

As Jake Tapper points out:

[T]he Obama campaign got a little greedy in their refutations.

First of all, on the front of the response, is a labeled stamped “Brought to you by Bush/Cheney Attack Machine.”

Corsi has actually called for the impeachment of President Bush. Corsi’s a 9/11 Truther who thinks the Bush administration is covering up what “really” happened at the World Trade Center. It’s not fair to blame this nasty screed on the President.

Never mind that teensy little detail, though. After all, it interferes with the Obamans' Reality™ -- and we all know how desperately they want to believe they control that.

Reader rebukes Saunders, N&O

Raleigh News & Observer news columnist Barry Saunders' Aug. 5 column asked: “ Hey, Chief. Was it something I said?”

Saunders began - - -

For the past several months, Durham Police Chief Jose Lopez has treated me as countless exes have -- refusing to acknowledge my calls and in general treating me as though I'd tracked something nasty in on his new carpet.

What gives, yo?

Oh yeah: Chief Lopez apparently took issue with a nickname I tagged him with in January when he refused to talk to The N&O's reporters or give information about crimes in a timely manner.

In retrospect, the nickname was a low blow -- but funny. But being the man that I am, I called, invited him to a tete-a-tete and left numerous apologetic messages at his office and his home. (At a decent hour I left messages, mind you, since the chief famously scolded one of our reporters for calling him at home at 8 p.m. after police had shot and killed a fleeing home-invader downtown.)

Crime, I informed him then, is not a 9-to-5 vocation, and criminals aren't likely to time their activities to his convenience. …

There’s more before Saunders closes with:

Chief Lopez and his public no-information officer need to understand one thing: When we call or try to contact them, it's not because of their scintillating wit or charm. We're calling for information to share with citizens, their employers.

Me? I'd rather drink muddy water and sleep in a hollow log -- or listen to Kenny G at my dentist's office while receiving a root canal without anesthesia -- than chase after them for comment. It's part of our job to ask, though, and part of their job to inform the public about which dangerous dudes are lurking about.

If y'all would turn the page now, I'd like to say a few words in private to the chief, since this is apparently the closest I'll get to a private chat with him (unless I can accidentally run into him on purpose tonight during the annual National Night Out against crime):

Chief, let's put this little misunderstanding behind us and act professionally. Your petulance is unbecoming. It dishonors the fine officers in your department, and it doesn't help Bull City residents.

Call a brother; let's chat. I promise I won't call you anything but Chief.

Saunders' entire column's here.

Saunders' self-excusing and invocation of the “I speak for the people” trope drew the following letter published in the Aug. 15 N&O:

Regarding Barry Saunders' Aug. 5 column "Chief, call me; let's talk":
I could not help writing to comment on Saunders' snarky column about his problems obtaining information from the Durham Police Department. As a former law enforcement officer and government public affairs representative, my considered opinion is that Saunders' problems are self-inflicted.

How could anyone with the serious responsibility of protecting the public take seriously Saunders' query about how the clothing adolescents are wearing affects police officers? It's a waste of the valuable taxpayer-funded time of a public employee to respond to that kind of silliness.

Saunders needs to come down off his ego-inflated cloud. A good reporter would know how to get information without attempting to bully people in print, as Saunders has attempted.

A good reporter would not ask silly questions that would waste the time of people who have serious public business to carry out, or in this case, try to create news where there is none. A good editor would tell him that.

Robert Porreca

A big hat tip to Robert Porreca.

I left the following comment on the thread of Saunders’ column:

Barry,

You were a cheerleader for the Duke hoax and DPD's libeling of the lacrosse players.

You supported Dep. Chief Hodge, who supervised the "investigation" for the Chief's job.

You threatened to go to city hall and slap people if the city settled with the students who were the targets of the frame-up attempt.

Do you think, Barry, the Chief might think his time is better spent with serious journalists?

John in Carolina