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May 14, 2008

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Presidential Watch

'68: Radical Idiocy - Nihilism and the 'New Left'

Rich Lowry, NY Post.com

"Why don't we just vote to strike tonight - and we'll decide tomorrow what we're striking for?"

Those were the words of a student protester thoughtfully deliberating at Yale University, as recounted by Roger Kimball in his book on the left, "The Long March." It was a question that captured much of the heedless spirit of the student demonstrations of the 1960s, for which "May 1968" is shorthand.

Before we had our long national nightmare (Watergate), we had our long national temper tantrum. In America, student protests were an indulgence of the privileged, a wail by baby boomer kids raised in unprecedented affluence against their parents' authority.

To accuse of "fascism" a generation that bled in the mud of Normandy fighting the Axis took a massive historical ignorance and overweening self-regard. The New Left had both.

Now, we honor the baby boomers' parents as "the Greatest Generation," but we haven't given up the romance of their kids. We remember the '60s protesters as beatific flower children, aching idealists opposed to the Vietnam War. Airbrushed from the popular imagination is the nihilism, the thrill of the wrecking ball, that animated the vanguard of the New Left. Read article.

The company Obama has kept

Rod Dreher, Dallas News.com

Forty years ago this month, Paris exploded in left-wing student riots that led to a nationwide general strike. The revolutionary fervor of France's soixante-huitards ('68ers) spread widely, including to American campuses. If you're wondering when the Good '60s of peace, love and civil rights gave way to the Bad '60s of anarchy and violence, May 1968 is as good a historical pivot point as any.John McCain was in the Hanoi Hilton at the time.

Barack Obama was 6 years old. Yet the restless spirit of '68 haunts this year's presidential campaign, especially the White House bid of Mr. Obama, who, having pretty much missed the '60s - "Civil rights, sexual revolution, Vietnam War. Those all sort of passed me by," he told The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan last year - was supposed to take us beyond those divisive traumas.

It's not working out that way. His former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is an unreconstructed '60s radical, a fire-breathing disciple of James Cone's period-piece black liberation theology. Mr. Obama wrote in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, about his attraction to the leftist pastor's church as a vehicle for social change. If black nationalism would uplift the race, he wrote, "then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence."

That's a remarkable admission of a racialized "ends justify the means" morality. It helps explain why Mr. Obama was willing to stick with a crackpot like Dr. Wright. It also might explain why an up-and-coming Barack Obama found nothing particularly wrong with rubbing political elbows with Bill Ayers, the Chicago university professor and onetime fugitive member of the revolutionary, communist Weather Underground.

It's not "guilt by association" to inquire to what extent Mr. Obama - whose moral and political conscience was shaped by his education at elite universities, his street activism and his tutelage at Dr. Wright's knee - shares the views and assumptions of the soixante-huitards . In terms of style, he's plainly not one of them. But his deeply liberal voting record marks him as at least a fellow traveler. Besides, as Rolling Stone magazine put it last year in a sympathetic profile, Mr. Obama's is "as openly radical a background as any significant American political figure has ever emerged from."

This may be of no matter to the left, but Mr. Obama is not running for mayor of Berkeley, president of Harvard or prime minister of The New York Times.

Read article.

Membrana Obama

James Taranto, Online WSJ.com

For all the hype about Barack Obama being some new kind of politician, in one respect he is very similar to recent Democratic presidential nominees: He takes criticism very badly, responding to it by getting both defensive and nasty. It is a most unattractive quality.

CNN reports on a case in point:

"This is offensive, and I think it's disappointing," Obama told [Wolf] Blitzer, when asked his thoughts about McCain's comments that the terrorist organization Hamas wants Obama to be president. "Because John McCain always says 'I am not going to run that kind of politics,' and to engage in that kind of smear is unfortunate, particularly because my policy toward Hamas has been no different than his.

"I've said it's a terrorist organization and we should not negotiate with them unless they recognize Israel, renounce violence, and unless they are willing to abide by previous accords between the Palestinians and the Israelis. So for him to toss out comments like that I think is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination. We don't need name calling in this debate."

Commentary's Abe Greenwald has the background on the so-called smear:

Jennifer [Rubin, a Commentary blogress] is too modest to mention it, but she played a considerable role in the "smear" to which Obama [yesterday] referred. It was during a blogger conference call on April 25 that she, in fact, asked John McCain to comment on Hamas's preference for Obama above the other presidential candidates. As it happens, I was on that call as well. And it's worth noting the nature of McCain's response to Jennifer. He began his reply by saying, "All I can tell you, Jennifer, is that I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next President of the United States."

Considering the situation, this is about the most delicately phrased response that one could have expected. It was not in the least a smear. Jennifer introduced Hamas's very real preference into the conversation. John McCain essentially chose to let the facts speak for themselves.

As we noted last month3, Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef did in fact endorse Obama, in an interview with WABC-AM's John Batchelor. McCain's statement that "it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president" is far less of a smear than Obama's characterization of McCain as having "lost his bearings," plainly an attempt to stereotype the septuagenarian McCain as suffering from dementia. No wonder Hillary Clinton does so well among superannuated primary voters. Read article.

Broken eggheads make no omelets

Wesley Pruden, Washington Times.com

The Democrats invented race-baiting, making it a staple of campaigning for nearly a century. (The Republicans gave us a civil war.) Now race politics is back, and this time everyone gets to play.

With Hillary dead and gone without even a decent wake, most of the punditry is busy with the fatwa, decreeing beheading with a dull knife for anyone who says irreverent things about Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton, who suddenly couldn't push a crippled child's wheelchair across a busy street without taking severe criticism for how she did it, learned yesterday that she broke the brass rule of American politics, that "race," except for meaningless and insincere platitudes, is the great unmentionable. Read article.

Limbaugh: 'My impact will increase'

Jonathan Martin, Politico.com

Conservatives are despondent, liberals are as enthused about a presidential candidate as they've been in 40 years, and the candidate he has long loathed won the Republican nomination.

But never mind the pervasive sense of GOP malaise: Entering his 20th year on the national airwaves, Rush Limbaugh is having a dandy 2008 cycle.

Regardless of how many votes Limbaugh actually pushed into Hillary Rodham Clinton's column with his mischief-making "Operation Chaos" plan to encourage his listeners to keep the Democratic primary going, the endeavor was a success in another important way. It reminded the mainstream media and others outside the conservative orbit of the following he commands.

And that the "drive-by media" he so delights in tweaking would recognize his influence enough to put his stunt on the front page, as The Washington Post did last week, underscored another essential fact about the right-wing talk show host: Limbaugh is one heck of a showman.

Even as the Internet supersedes radio, Limbaugh's skills as a political provocateur, as much P.T. Barnum as conservative ideologue, are such that he can fuel buzz in the political-media world like few others. Read article.

Obama campaign lies

Thomas Lifson, American Thinker.com

The Obama campisgn is lying, and the New York Times is helping advance the lie. Despite having earlier published documentation proving the lie.

Barack Obama said something very stupid in a presidential debate last July: that he would meet with the leader of Iran without preconditions. Later on, he betrayed a profound ignorance of history (or maybe a willful misreading?) by claiming that Roosevelt, Kennedy and Truman had all done so. This would be laughable were the consequences of such a profound failure to learn the lessons of history so frightening.

But even worse, the campaign is now throwing his actual statement down the Memory Hole, and the New York Times is aiding and abetting this lie. Read article.

This race could be a wild one

David Yepsen, DeMoinesRegister.com

Obama started wrapping up the Democratic contest last week by racking up a big win in North Carolina and holding Hillary Clinton to only a narrow victory in Indiana. There is almost no way for her to amass the number of delegates she needs to win the nomination, her campaign is broke and it was top-heavy and poorly run. The momentum is with him and against her.

The best evidence of that came from the party's 1972 nominee, George McGovern, who had endorsed Clinton in Iowa City during the Iowa caucus campaign but switched to Obama last week and urged her to quit the race. Her negative ratings are among the highest of any presidential candidate in recent memory. Two-thirds of Iowa Democrats could sense that unelectability, which is why they voted for someone else in those caucuses.

By nominating Obama and McCain, each party is offering voters the most electable candidate in their field. Yes, each has a little trouble with the base of his party, McCain with the social conservatives, Obama with blue-collar folks. Read article.

Barack Obama faces an untested set of hurdles

Doyle Mcmanus and Peter Wallsten, LA Times.com

Obama has "handicaps and potential problems, race being one of them, [but] it's not the only one," Pew Center President Andrew Kohut said. "He is perceived as a liberal. He is perceived by many voters as not well grounded on foreign policy and not tough enough . . . and he has a potential problem, distinct from race, of being seen as an elitist, an intellectual."

Taken together, that's a formidable catalog of vulnerabilities. In an ordinary election year, and with a more traditional candidate, it might make a Democratic victory hard to envision. But 2008 is not an ordinary political year: Republicans are weighted down by an unpopular incumbent, a presumed nominee who supports an unpopular war, and economic troubles that threaten voters in their homes, their jobs and their pocketbooks.

Moreover, Obama is not an ordinary candidate. An African American with an unusual life story, a liberal record and relatively little national experience, he has put together a campaign machine that has out-organized, outmaneuvered and outlasted some of the toughest, most experienced politicians in his party. And Obama has shown an exceptional ability to win over independents and draw thousands of new voters to his banner. Read article.

Vote for Justice

Kathryn Jean Lopez, Townhall.com

Anyone who follows political and cultural news knows elections matter. John McCain drove this point home earlier this month in a speech about the judiciary. See speech HERE.

Speaking at Wake Forest University, the Arizona Republican senator chided judges for blurring the lines between the branches of government; for disrupting the balance our founders wisely drew up in their constitutional blueprint for our republic.

"In the shorthand of constitutional discourse, these abuses by the courts fall under the heading of 'judicial activism,'" McCain said. But, he continued, "real activists seek to make their case democratically -- to win hearts, minds and majorities to their cause. Such people throughout our history have often shown great idealism and done great good.

"By contrast, activist lawyers and activist judges follow a different method. They want to be spared the inconvenience of campaigns, elections, legislative votes and all of that. They don't seek to win debates on the merits of their argument; they seek to shut down debates by order of the court."

And, as a campaign booster, McCain couldn't have better enemies in this battle against judicial usurpation of American democracy. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has railed against McCain's "radical right-wing judicial philosophy." This should be music to the McCain campaign's ears. Read article.

The Reformers Who Ruined Politics

Review & Outlook, Online WSJ.com

Nearly halfway to choosing the next President, voters are witnessing an amazing spectacle in addition to the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton scrum. All three of the contenders are avowed believers in ever more restrictive and convoluted campaign finance laws. They are also proving, with their every decision, why those laws have become a national farce.

With his fund raising headed for the stratosphere, Mr. Obama has transformed himself from earnest reformer to Senator Moneybags willing to renege on his pledge to accept public financing. Mrs. Clinton flirted initially with another donor scandal, and now her big givers are maxed out so even she has to scramble for cash for the later primaries. And John McCain, the caped crusader of reform for more than a decade, has taken to bending rules so he can remain competitive: His campaign pledged his eligibility for federal matching funds as collateral for a bank loan, then declined public funding and its spending limits for the primary season.

Send your complaints as well to the good-government types who pledge allegiance to the idea that money is the root of political evil. They have had their way since the Watergate era, passing reform after reform. Yet in 2008 the role of money is more important than ever, only by means less accountable and transparent. Read article.

May I recommend the "where gasoline comes from" tour?

Jim Geraghty, NRO.com

Gas prices get even higher, ensuring that oil and energy will be dominant issues in the campaign this summer. GatewayPundit has some great maps showing areas that are off-limits to offshore drilling.

He writes, "Which party blocked drilling in ANWR?- Democrat", which is accurate, but we ought to note that (sigh) McCain opposes drilling in ANWR as well.

McCain also describes himself as a "federalist" on offshore drilling (even though one poll suggested 75 percent of Alaskans support ANWR drilling) and a "let the locals decide" policy sounds like a formula to reinforce the Not In My Back Yard attitudes.

Since clinching the nomination, McCain's campaign has been a series of tours - the foreign tour, the bio tour, the forgotten parts of America tour, the health care tour, the "see, I like conservatives" tour. May I recommend the "where gasoline comes from" tour? Read article.

Who Cares Who Wins?

Rose Pedenko, NMJ.us

Sorting the good candidates from the bad is hard work few citizens are willing to undertake. Most prefer to remain blissfully ignorant hoping to remain unscathed while the country falls apart around them. These are the same people that expect you to share your emergency supplies after a natural disaster because they couldn't be bothered to prepare themselves.

"All politicians are alike!"..."What difference does it make if we vote or not?"..."Nothing ever changes anyway."

These are the frequently heard responses when you ask friends or acquaintances if they plan to vote. They do not follow politics closely, and sadly, this represents the majority of potential voters. There are those that say "I'm glad everyone doesn't vote because it keeps stupid voters away from the polls." That may no longer be a consolation to even the most cynical among us, as we witness both parties paint themselves into a corner that once again has us choosing between the proverbial lesser of two evils, or worse, not choosing at all.

How then do we educate ourselves to make wise leadership choices and exercise our most precious right to vote in a democracy? Read article.

Democrats need more than working-class whites

Roland S. Martin, CNN.com

Excuse me if a look of bewilderment crosses my face when a surrogate of Sen. Hillary Clinton's starts off on the "we need hard-working white workers to win in November" mantra.

The candidate herself has now made that notion the primary -- and latest argument -- to superdelegates to convince them she's the best person to beat Sen. John McCain in November.

"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she told USA Today.

The newspaper quoted her as saying that an Associated Press article showed how Sen. Barack Obama's support among "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

Now, I know I'm not one of those voters she's talking about, but the reality is that hard-working white Americans alone will not put Clinton or Obama in the White House.

Read article.

Massive Poverty and Ignorance

Dick McDonald, Dick McDonald.Blogspot.com

What the world needs today are solutions to its biggest problems - massive poverty and ignorance. Those solutions should be crafted by Americans because America (1) is the richest country on Earth (2) suffers less poverty and ignorance than other large nations (3) has the communicative skills and resources to disseminate solution and its implementation and (4) America has the intelligence and ingenuity to solve these problems.

The questions the world faces today are how does it build wealth and at the same time educate and inform billions of people on how to avoid conflict and march into the future with dignity and purpose. Inasmuch as the USA itself suffers to a large degree from the same maladies - poverty (endemic) and ignorance - it would be prudent to first eradicate them here before telling the world how they should solve theirs.

When one solves a problem they first must look to the extremes to judge its severity. Last year the richest American, Warren Buffet, made over $27.4 million a day whereas an American living at the poverty line made about $55. The gap widens more dramatically when we throw in the fact that millions in the world live on less than $1 a day.

Now we know the severity of the problem the question becomes how do we close the gap. The time-honored religious and political solution has been to take from the rich - either by force, charity or taxation - and give to the poor. Were that an effective solution we wouldn't have the world wide endemic poverty we have today. No, the solution lies not in taking from the rich but by arranging our financial structures and policies to make the poor rich. Read article.

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