Maryland Conservatarian

Quick hit: I have no problem with this pick as Governor Palin seems a credible conservative. In fact, sexism is the only excuse I can think of for not voting for her.

Yesterday, in Golden Colorado, some bikers protested the presence of Al-Jazeera at a local bar. Also, yesterday, the Obama campaign orchestrated a protest against the presence of Stanley Kurtz on Chicago-based WGN Radio. Neither touches on the 1st Amendment because neither has the government doing the infringing but which do you think got A Section treatment from the Washington Post?

Not sure? Well, if the Post had reported on Stanley Kurtz, they probably would have been forced to report on the underlying issue – an ongoing investigation into the relationship between domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama.

Yeah, I knew you’d get it eventually:

Dana Milbank - Live, From Golden, Colo., It's Al-Jazeera - washingtonpost.com

Stanley Kurtz's Fairness Doctrine Preview

Update: Oops – Daled Amos over at Soccer Dad is all over this too.

Side Notes I:

“Al-Jazeera, like Fox News, bills itself as a straight-news outlet, but others, including the Bush administration, accuse it of an anti-American bias; it also seems to have first dibs on all of Osama bin Laden's videotapes when al-Qaeda chooses to release them.”

It is certainly no slam on Fox News that Dana Milbank is still clueless as to biased, American-based networks that would better serve as an excellent example of a ridiculous “straight-news” outlet claim; after all, he recently had a not-too-friendly departure from Exhibit A of such a network (only to end up at Exhibit B).

Side Notes II: In the talking points sent out by the Obama campaign, they quote this line from an earlier Kurtz article in the National Review:

“As they say, sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

I’m guessing, judging by the reaction of the campaign to this as well as the Born Alive vote issue, the Obama people don’t agree.

35 years ago, it was a badge of honor among the “in” crowd to be included on President Nixon’s enemies list. Nowadays I’m sure it would burnish a progressive’s resume just to be able to claim that he/she was “canned” by George W. Bush.

“It was too much to hope for that he might be an Obama delegate. In fact, he lives in Denver and was a representative to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, he says, until George W. Bush canned him. But he actually is a Democrat and a highly enthusiastic Obama supporter.” Michael Kinsley: John Foster Dulles Supports Barack Obama

I have no idea what Mr. Kinsley means by “a representative to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights”. The Commission has eight Commissioners (4 appointed by the President and 4 by Congress) so had the President “canned” the grandson of the former Secretary of State (and for whom Dulles Airport is named), I have to believe I would have heard about it.

A little research later and, sure enough, he never was a Commissioner but instead was the Regional Director of the Commission’s Rocky Mountain Office (and how that translates into Representative, I don't know - must be a Harvard Law thing). And he worked as such at least until 2006.

That position is now held by Malee Craft, who apparently used to work for Mr. Dulles before she ascended to the top regional spot. I could find no evidence that he was “canned” – much less by President Bush. In fact, I’d be surprised to learn that the President had ever heard of him – much less cared enough about him to single him out for canning. If anyone else knows otherwise, I would be genuinely interested in learning about it.

This is simply breathtaking:

“SENATOR OBAMA: So — and again, I’m — I’m not going to prolong this, but I just want to be clear because I think this was the source of the objections of the Medical Society. As I understand it, this puts the burden on the attending physician who has determined, since they were performing this procedure, that, in fact, this is a nonviable fetus; that if that fetus, or child — however way you want to describe it — is now outside the mother’s womb and the doctor continues to think that it’s nonviable but there’s, let’s say, movement or some indication that, in fact, they’re not just coming out limp and dead, that, in fact, they would then have to call a second physician to monitor and check off and make sure that this is not a live child that could be saved. Is that correct?” http://www.ilga.gov/senate/transcripts (Page 32)(April 4, 2002)

Senator Obama famously passed on opining as to the beginning of life such that a (using the words of the Master Orator) “fetus, or child — however way you want to describe it” merits protection of the law. Maybe he really has no idea.

(H/T Andy McCarthy at NRO)

This is pretty funny: Baseball Crank: POLITICS: Did We Mention That Eric Cantor Is Jewish?

Our own Soccer Dad has one of the comments within as well a Daled Amos post on the same.

You don’t need Bob Herbert for this one.

A little more than a year ago, Rush Limbaugh had a caller who discussed Barack Obama’s votes to allow what most of the less-nuanced among us would call infanticide:

“CALLER: Thank you. I am so excited about talking to you, and I'm so nervous. I wanted to talk about a different aspect of Obama's candidacy. No one has touched on his very far left stance on social issues such as abortion, and there was an incident here in Illinois about seven years ago, at Christ Hospital -- a suburban hospital to Chicago -- where babies who were born alive after a botched abortion, were left to die in linen closets and a nurse exposed it, and she was of course fired, and there were demonstrations, and it led the Illinois legislature to formulate the Infants Born Alive Act, which stated that infants who were born alive as the result of a botched abortion, could not be left to die, and Barack Obama voted against it.”

Rush then predicted that this stuff would eventually come out but only after Senator Obama had become the nominee (or VP nominee).

So here we are. It’s out…and in a big way as an ever-growing dustup over some votes he cast as a state Senator (Unfortunately for him not all of them were “Present”). Apparently exasperated that all haven’t seen the light, the Senator has gone on the attack on this matter:

“Obama: Well and because they have not been telling the truth. And I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying” Political Punch

But even nuance can’t seem to help him here as the facts seem fairly incontrovertible:

“But in 2003, in the health committee which he chaired, Obama voted against a version of the bill that contained the specific “neutrality” language — redundant language affirming that the bill only applied to infants already born and granted no rights to the unborn. You can visit the Illinois legislature’s website here to see the language of the “Senate Amendment 1,” which was added in a unanimous 10-0 vote in the committee before Obama helped kill it. This is the so-called “neutrality clause” on Roe that everyone is talking about.”

Barack Obama’s campaign website has a section entitled Fight the Smears where predictably unnamed and/or unsourced right-wing operatives are attacked for the so-called smears. Well, if the candidate accuses people of lying about his record, that would seem to be a pretty big “smear”…but I guess not an easy one to fight back on now.

Side Note I: One of the so-called smears: "SMEAR: Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim"

The Obama campaign thinks being called a Muslim is a smear??

Side Note II: Jerome Corsi’s “Obama Nation” is highlighted as a book they have to fight against. The more favorably reviewed David Freddoso’s The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate is not. Both are Top 20 sellers (as of 5:11 AM EST today) on Amazon.

[Bill] Richardson: "My view is that the United States -- if we had a stronger relationship with Russia, we could exercise strong diplomacy to stop this effort against Georgia. We should immediately go to the United Nations Security Council, condemn Russia's action, and then get the Security Council to pass a strong resolution getting the Russians to show some restraint, and possibly at the same time generate some U.N. peacekeeping troops. The problem, though, is that we don't have the kind of influence and strength in our relationship with Russia to persuade them. This has been one of the failures of the Bush administration, failing to build a strong relationship, a mutually beneficial relationship with Russia, so we'd have the kind of influence to persuade them to stop some of these very, very dangerous efforts within their territory" ("This Week," ABC, 8/10). Hotline On Call: Sunday Snapshot -- Georgia On My Mind

(H/T: NRO)

Bill Richardson ran for the Democratic nomination this cycle but of course now is fully in the Obama camp. No doubt, the strong relationships that he or Senator Obama would have forged would have already been used to convince Russia to allow a Security Council resolution to request these same Russians to show restraint.…I guess by not using their Veto Power.

Full Disclosure: At one time I considered Bill Richardson one of the best of a poor lot of Democratic candidates. I’m embarrassed for that…but still not convinced he wasn’t one of the best of a poor lot.

Instinctively don’t most of us think Russia is probably the aggressor here: Georgian, Russian Troops Clash in South Ossetia

Here’s the part that had me baffled:

“Russia, which has peacekeeping troops in the area…”

That no doubt is how the Russian PR people refer to them but I have no idea why the Washington Post adapts the same terminology. Doesn’t it just scream ‘oxymoron’?

Side Note: Just for fun, do a search on the Washington Post site using variations of the word “peacekeepers”. See often they associate it with U.S. troops.

A Harvard Law Review note generated some publicity a few months ago and I finally took the time to read up on it. I only wish I had been more timely with bringing it to your attention: NEVER AGAIN SHOULD A PEOPLE STARVE IN A WORLD OF PLENTY

Here’s part of the intro:

“In contrast to the undeniably prestigious institution that literally surrounds Cambridge Common, in the middle of this park is a statue reminding Harvard students that not everyone can be so fortunate. The statue is composed of two figures. On the left is a wealthy man, dressed in the clothes of a nineteenth-century aristocrat. He is standing upright, holding in his left arm a child resting peacefully on his shoulder. With his right arm, the man is reaching out — grasping in the direction of the figure on the other side of the statue.

“Across from the man, on the right side of the statue, a woman sits in poverty. She is dressed in torn rags, hunched over on the edge of a rock. The woman has a child of her own, but she is too weak to stand and lacks even the strength to hold her child close to her. The mother
and her child are both starving, in search of food or money to get them through the next day, the next hour, or, with any luck, the next meal. The woman’s right arm, like the man’s, is stretched outward. From above, he reaches down toward her. From below, she reaches up toward
him. But their hands fail to grasp — she is inches too far away and the statue has frozen them in that pose forever.

“The statue is an intergenerational depiction of inequality. As the poverty of the woman is cast in stark contrast to the wealth of the man, the children of each are chilling prophesies of the unequal future that is certain to come. At the base of the statue is an inscription that forms the title of this Note: NEVER AGAIN SHOULD A PEOPLE STARVE IN A WORLD OF PLENTY.”

Beautiful, huh? The note then goes on to explain how the author is going throw away his three years of law school and become a farmer to the world’s poor.

Hah! Of course not! The note instead goes onto to lecture the poor reader about how the author wants the rest of us in law to live our lives - including a call to apparently give all the reader’s wealth to UNICEF (without mentioning that the UN itself considers spending nearly $2 billion on a building renovation apparently a better investment than UNICEF).

Now you have to appreciate that law reviews are positively anal about citations and fact-checking everything within and, well, read this:

“First and foremost, I wish to make clear that I did not realize that this statue paid homage to the victims of the Irish potato famine, or "Great Hunger." The side of the statue which I quoted in my Note made no reference to that event. I never noticed writing on the other side. I honestly believed the point of the statue was to make a statement about intergenerational equality, hence my reference to that theme in my Note. I honestly thought that the man depicted in the statue was an older, rich man, placed to contrast with a younger, poor woman and her child.

“Had I seen the other side of the statue, obviously I would have investigated further, and would have uncovered the website which a commentator linked to at 1:47 p.m., indicating that the statue depicts an old poor woman and her young child and their farewell to her oldest son, and his child, who are leaving the country as a result of the famine.

“I regret that neither I nor anyone, during our arduous editing process, who was checking the accuracy of what I wrote in my Note caught this error -- which is doubly embarrassing because as I write this, I can see the statue outside the window of the Law Review, across Mass. Ave. on the edge of the Cambridge Common.” Above the Law - Harvard Law Avenger's Profile

That's Classic! But fair warning: the law review note is an incredibly tedious read and one that is so poorly written that you have to wonder just how low the bar is for a Harvard Law Review member to get published…

…and what does that say about a once and future President who apparently could not even hurdle that low-lying speed bump and get something - anything - published. (And you were worried I wouldn’t get my gratuitous cheap shot in at The One).

Sometimes, I get a little self-centered and singularly bemoan my misfortune to have to refer to Martin O’Malley as my governor. I should be more mindful that others have similar misfortunes…such as my neighbors to the south. I was shaken out of my reverie when I read about an interview Va. Governor Kaine had today with Wolf Blitzer on CNN. In particular there was this:

“Kaine also touched on offshore oil drilling Wednesday, saying that while he's "open to exploration" of gas reserves off the country's coast, there needs to be a "new assessment of the costs and benefits … In order to do that you need to look at the consequences."

Huh? Why would anyone want to spend the not-inconsiderable sum required to explore unless they were reasonably certain that they could drill if they so desired? And what’s with the meaning-nothing "new assessment of the costs and benefits … In order to do that you need to look at the consequences”?

I guarantee you that Tim Kaine has NO idea what he means by that – it just has the advantage of sounding thoughtful and responsive, without the danger of being either. The costs and benefits are fairly well known and documented. And the only consequences Tim Kaine cares about are the effects such drilling would have on his political ambitions.

Further, he makes the mistake of parroting noted geologist, Barack Obama:

“Like Obama, Kaine believes that the government needs to first drill in the nearly 70 million acres of land that is already leased to oil companies for drilling.

"They have acreage leased already that could do significant good," Kaine said.”

Really? Where? What bit of acreage is currently leased to an oil company, is a verified cauldron of "bubblin' crude" but yet is shamefully ignored by the wannabe-coastline defiling oil companies? You lease, you explore – only if it’s promising do you produce. What’s distressing is that this moronic argument was already vetted back in June:

“Oil geologists say the Democratic legislation ignores the long-term realities of oil leasing, which takes years of studies to find and drill for reserves.

When federal land or waters are leased to oil companies in parcels of about 1,000 to 3,000 acres, usually for 10 years, there is typically just “a very general sense of the value of the land,” said Larry Nation, a spokesman for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

Only some portions of leased land may hold accessible oil, while other portions do not, Nation said, but companies must continue to lease the entire parcel.

“There’s the misconception that every lease has oil,” added David Curtiss, director of the association’s Washington office. “A lease is a line on a map. It has nothing to do with the geology of where oil is.” CQ.com


Side Note: Here’s another little tidbit from the CNN article:

"Virginia hasn't voted for a Democrat since President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964…"


Of course, Virginia was a mainstay of the Confederacy and my question to you, then, is do you think this 40-year trend of Virginia voting Republican coincided with an increasing or decreasing attitude of racial tolerance? I’m just saying…

It’s been awhile since I’ve commented on a piece by my good friend E. J. Dionne but his latest highlights a new but predictable talking point of the left: If Obama loses, blame racism.

“There is no doubt that two keys to this election are: How many white and Latino votes will Obama lose because of his race that a white Democrat would have won? And how much will African American turnout grow, given the opportunity to elect our nation's first black president.” E. J. Dionne Jr. - The Unavoidable Issue - washingtonpost.com

Identity politics is a distinctly Democratic party tactic…as we saw so amusingly during the primaries as liberals had to decide which sin they were more guilt-ridden over: Racism or Sexism.

“Let's dispose of the canard that there is something wrong with black people voting in overwhelming numbers for a black candidate. Minorities in the United States always turn out in a big way for the candidate who is breaking barriers on their behalf.”

We should all resist the liberal siren song of trusting them to know what’s best for us: Currying racially-based favors is either right or wrong…not just right when well-meaning liberals or aggrieved minorities employ the tactic or wrong when it’s not a Democrat. If some voters infer that other voters (all of which happen to share a common characteristic) are voting as a block for some perceived advantages, it is certainly not a bigoted response to then vote their own self-interest – esp. if those perceived advantages involve zero-sum games such as preferred school admissions or contract set-asides.

For Senator Obama to lose votes on account of racism, presumably he otherwise would have been able to count on those votes. And remember that no matter the skin color of the Democratic nominee, he or she was not going to do well among Republicans. So to suggest that racism will be a factor come November is to suggest that the problem lies with fellow-Democrats. I am not so suggesting but I’ll not waste a lot of time arguing with those liberal Democrats who do.


Side Note: As an acceptable example of a minority voting as a block, Mr. Dionne goes back 48 years to when Catholics overwhelmingly voted for John Kennedy. He follows up with this remarkably irrelevant comment:

“Proportionately, Kennedy's gain among Catholics [30%] was far greater than Obama's likely pickup over John Kerry's 2004 vote among African Americans, judging by the current polls.”

Irrelevant because it would be statistically impossible for any Democrat to increase his party’s share of the black vote by 30% since John Kerry received approximately 88% in 2004.

July 28, 2008: McCain: Offshore Drilling is ‘Something We Have to Do’

August 2, 2008: Obama would consider off-shore drilling as part of comprehensive energy plan

August 3, 2008: The International Herald Tribune (a NY Times paper) spin on this: McCain joins Obama on offshore drilling