February 2008 Archives

Friendly Fire readers will surely have noticed in recent days that the postings have been light. There's a very good reason for this. Or, rather, a very bad one. The staff of the Daily News was reduced about 20 percent over the last two days due to the every-crapifying state of corporate print journalism in the United States. We've all been dealing with the loss of good friends and talented journalists, all while wondering if we were the next to be called into the editor's office for the last talk.

This blog was lucky enough only to suffer one casualty. Mike Tetreault, the acerbic and saucy letters editor who had been practicing particularly fine journalism at the Daily News for nearly 25 years. He and 21 other people found their Daily News careers over yesterday and today. Needless to say, those of us remaining have been in shock or scrambling to figure out how to deal with the absences -- both emotionally and workload wise.

It's a dark time for American journalism that appears to be darkening ever still. The Daily News wasn't the only newsroom to get bad news this week; across California the many MediaNews papers have let people got and will continue to do so through next week. And papers across the country such as NYT, the Boston Globe and Newsday are cutting staffs. The LA Times is conducting buyouts through this week and will then move to layoffs.

Where we will be in a a few months no one can say. But please bare with us as we absorb this shock.

Who’s sane in American politics? Instead of sticking to issues and things that make a difference to how we live, we are bombarded by the use and misuse of names as symbols of the ethnic and religious diversity that should make us proud as Americans. Perversely, names are being used as thinly coded slurs referencing Barack Obama’s ethnicity and his father’s religion.

As many brave Danes were said to have worn Jewish Stars during the Nazi occupation to show support for their Jewish Community, I suggest showing solidarity with Barack Hussein Obama and taking the sting out of his middle name.

You do not have to support Sen. Obama to know that using names as ethnic weapons is wrong and dishonorable. In our history we have sniggered Jewish names, Russian names, Italian and Irish names—implying by exaggerated emphasis on their foreignness that they, and therefore those who carried them, were not “real Americans.” Now is the time to end this reprehensible tradition.

The Right wing of the Republican Party has been repeating all three of Barack Obama’s names. They snidely insert, at the top of their voices and with dripping innuendo, his middle name HUSSEIN! Of course this is done by his opponents to remind the world, frightened white folks, devout Christians and nervous Jews that Sen. Obama is not a WASP. In fact his first name and middle names are Arabic—and as John Stewart pointed out during the Oscars, his first name is one letter away from Osama and his middle name is the name of our old enemy Saddam Hussein.

When the anti-Obama people do this, the pro-Obama folks act all hurt and question how dare they smear him with his own name. The anti-folks respond with feigned innocence that they can’t imagine why Obama would not be proud of his names and his heritage. Their mock naiveté on this is not becoming.

His names are Barack Hussein Obama—and there is not a thing wrong with Semitic names. Instead of being hurt every time someone uses the Hussein reference and having to re-argue its propriety, why not just embrace it? Change the intended epithet into something to be proud of. Don’t either apologize for it or act as if the speaker owes you an apology.

Let’s face it, Obama cannot change his middle name to Fred or Bill. Politicians do change their ideas for the sake of electability but not Obama. Some politicians even change religions for God’s sake. Well, not actually for God’s sake but for the sake of their own boundless ambition. Henri IV of France was born a Protestant but famously remarked “Paris was worth a Mass,” and so converted to Roman Catholicism in order to rule all of France. This would not be Barack’s style. Besides changing his name would be creepy, inauthentic and counter both to his message and his substance. Changing his name to Barack X Obama might also send the wrong signal.

This “What’s in a name?” issue will be played out for the entire presidential campaign (assuming that Sen. Obama is the nominee). Let’s get it out of the shadows and change it from a thing unspeakable and wear it proudly as a badge.

I am proposing that good and decent people of all genders, political persuasions and faith traditions change our own middle names to Hussein. This is exactly what I will do for the duration of this election. The fact that Hussein means “Handsome One” in Arabic states a fact about Obama and a little audacity of hope for me. I will put my Hebrew middle name Kasrael—Crown of Israel—on the shelf and proudly become Jonathan Hussein Dobrer.

To paraphrase the immortal words of the late, and therefore clearly mortal, Hunter S. Thompson, “I was somewhere around Encino on the edge of an urban jungle of strip malls when the drugs began to take hold.” I was on my way to conduct a class with a learned rabbi on Religion and Spirituality as my spirit and body seemed to want to part ways. Was I just getting in the mood or was there something non-spiritual afoot?

I was struck by a small epiphany, (so it didn’t hurt too much) and I realized that I was stoned—but not in a pleasant way. This was no flash back to the 60s when I may or may not have “experimented” with drugs. I love that euphemism experimented as if it were a lab section for a science class. The truth is I tried grass a few times and didn’t much like it. As someone who has struggled with weight issues (as well as weighty issues) all my life, if there is one thing I don’t need it is anything that encourages the munchies, or as my people say, noshing.

I was zipping along at 55 mph and feeling spacey, light-headed and sensed a slight tremor in my right hand. I asked myself if I felt safe to continue to drive another 45 miles to my speaking engagement. As one time sailor, I remembered my old safety rule: If I showed up at the dock and asked if the wind was blowing too hard for a recreational sail, it was. The question implied the answer. I pulled off the freeway and headed home.

At the time I did not know that it was the drugs. I thought that the head cold I was fighting had just weakened me, and I hadn’t put together what should have been obvious, and would have been obvious were I not stoned. The over the counter meds that the pharmacist had recommended for my head cold and sore throat had rendered me incapable of operating heavy machinery—which my little Honda CRV qualified as.

I returned home and not realizing it was the cough syrup (non-alcohol) and the anti-histamine, immediately took more meds before crawling into bed. Unsurprisingly I didn’t feel any better that night and after re-medicating in the morning nearly aborted a lecture in the first thirty minutes. I soldiered on to the end, returned home and did a web search of my two benign over the counter meds. I found that they could each make me light-headed, dizzy, drowsy and incapable of operating heavy machinery—such as my mouth. In combination they had, what is today called, a synergistic effect and rendered me non-compus mentis.

This is serious stuff, and I was totally unprepared to be, well, so totally impaired by non-prescription medication. During a long lifetime of allergies and three back injuries that led to surgeries, I have had a fair number of prescription medications and have never been so knocked out. I am deeply grateful (I suppose to myself) for my uncommon common sense in turning around and coming home.

My internal dialogue about how it was really nothing and I could still do it and how I mustn’t disappoint my audience seemed quite compelling at the time. Somehow I talked myself out of talking myself into continuing. Okay, that last sentence may indicate that I’m still suffering from some diminished capacity…but you do know what I mean.

The lesson, in case it isn’t clear, is that prescription drugs are not the only drugs that we should consider when assessing our ability to function. The over the counter market offers some pretty powerful drugs and they can and do alter thinking, reflexes and judgment—and these are the big three when operating a computer, a mouth or most importantly a car.

The winning parties in last week's Pakistani elections are beginning to push Pervez Musharraf around.

Pick your governance cliche: The more things change... Meet the new boss, same as the old boss... L'etat, c'est moi or some other idiote...

Actually, Musharraf brought this on himself. He launched a bloodless coup against the bungling and corrupt Nawaz Sharif in 1999, who had replaced the bungling and corrupt Bhutto dynasty. After promising for 8+ years to make Pakistan safe for democracy while clinging stubbornly to power, he now watches as voters bring back Sharif and the Bhutto dynasty. That's not much of a legacy, and it disappoints me, who once believed he could accomplish great things.

You can't imagine that the power has been worth the humiliation he's earned (especially in a society that it is, like East Asia, very shame/honor-based).

And so many people think local government is dull! Not in L.A. I'm here at Los Angeles City Hall this morning for my weekly immersion into the zany antics of the City Council and its groupies. And none of the groupies are as loud, as obnoxious and as over-the-top as Council gadflies and now bloggers Matt Dowd and Zuma Dogg, he of the ear-splitting rap poetry and weird musical stylings. * I take it back: Zuma Dogg isn't here today. Just Dowd, who invoked his name. But he's carrying the weight for both.

In truth, these two would be insufferable were it not for relentless and creatively silly attacks on the free speech limits the council has had to adopt -- because of them. Today, both are driving the council members nuts with their repeated reference to their support for and concern about the abuse to "Mike Hunt" during Brown act-required public comment. If you don't get it, say the name out loud a few times until you do. It's seriously juvenile, but highly amusing.

These dudes are odd and clearly not part of the regular working world. But they've found a mission in life: to annoy local government officials. It's quite possible they are doing the people of Los Angels a great service. Or maybe it's just an elaborate piece of performance art.

You can watch yourself once the meeting is over (it's in closed session at the moment). Find today's council meeting online at the city page.

My one-time boss, my mentor, and my dear friend William F. Buckley Jr. has passed away. According to the reports, Bill died in his study -- at work. For those who knew him, this will not come as a shock. Whether sick or on vacation, Bill was always diligent about keeping up with his writing. But then, he was always diligent about keeping up with his recreation -- and his friends -- too. His was an ordered life, to say the least, and a life lived to the fullest.

To say "he will be missed" is not only to resort to the sort of cliche which Buckley despised, it's also to be guilty of understatement. I can't think of anyone with more friends to leave behind. The world knew WFB as a great intellect and writer, which he certainly was, but he was also as decent, gentle, kind and loving a man as those of us blessed to make his acquaintance would ever know.

It will take some time for me to formulate my thoughts and write something more about this extraordinary life, but till then I offer this excerpt from a profile I wrote about Buckley for Salon nearly nine years ago:

One almost forgets, when WFB refers to lunch with Henry, a stroll with Ronald or a trip with Milton, that he is speaking of a former secretary of state, a former president or a Nobel Prize-winning economist. But if Bill Buckley walks with kings, he has not lost the common touch. At a recent celebration commemorating Ronald Reagan's 88th birthday, Buckley, the keynote speaker, was seated at the head table with Nancy Reagan, two former cabinet secretaries and the ex-governor of California. The moment the dinner ended, he ditched the dignitaries, dodged hundreds of autograph seekers and sneaked out to the parking lot to meet old friends for a nightcap.

Many conservatives say that government is unimportant, but behave as though every legislative or electoral defeat is a personal disaster. Buckley is different. He loves politics, he's intrigued by its sport and he enjoys wrestling with big ideas. But he has other passions -- sailing, skiing, playing the harpsichord, studying the English language and, of course, being with his friends, who are legion and just as likely to include a former research assistant as a former president of the United States.

Before all of them, however, comes Pat, his wife of 49 years, a Vassar-educated one-time Miss Vancouver. Whenever she admonishes Bill to fix his tie, or sends a dinner party into a fit of laughter with a well-timed wisecrack, he gazes at her with relentless affection. They are unembarrassed to call each other by pet names, no matter who else is present. Their son, Christopher, is the father of two and a successful humorist -- facts that Pat and Bill proudly advertise.

But the work that helps to explain Buckley's character more than any other is his 1997 book "Nearer My God: An Autobiography of Faith." "It seems to me," he once said of his faith, that "a balanced life begins by acknowledging the insufficiency of purely materialistic considerations, and therefore one instinctively looks out for the other dimension that religion supplies you with." His is a quiet devotion, which he'd previously made little effort to discuss publicly. But his generosity, his patience, his compassion are all indicative of a grace that strives not only to believe the faith but to live it -- even if humility bars him from saying as much.

Requiescat in pace, Bill, and say hi to Pat for me.

Here's what a spokesperson for Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama said when he got wind of former Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s virtual endorsement of Obama’s White House bid, “Senator Obama has been clear in his objections to Minister Farrakhan's past pronouncements and has not solicited the minister's support." Farrakhan made the glowing tout of Obama at the NOI’s annual Savior's Day confab in Chicago. Obama’s denunciation of Farrakhan was blunt and pointed. But he did not reject Farrakhan’s implied endorsement.

Even after Hillary Clinton publicly demanded that he forcefully reject Farrakhan’s endorsement, Obama waffled. He weakly said after more Clinton cajoling that he rejected the endorsement. He still did not mention Farrakhan by name. A candidate shouldn't need to be prodded by his opponent to emphatically reject the endorsement of a controversial, and in the case of Farrakhan, much vilified figure. Obama, of course, does not endorse Farrakhan's views, politics, or his organization, and he has made that clear on more than one occasion.

Yet his failure to flatly say he does not want his endorsement is no surprise. Farrakhan may be a controversial and much vilified figure but he is not a fringe figure within black communities. He is still cheered and admired by thousands of blacks. They are also voters too and most have embraced Obama with almost messianic zeal. This zeal has been a driving force in powering Obama's surge past Clinton. Many blacks are exhilarated by the prospect that a black man will sit in the Oval office. In other words, Obama is a racial fantasy come true for many blacks.

Few blacks publicly demand that he assume the role of a black leader. They have made no demand that he tell what he’ll do to boost civil rights protections, fight the HIV/AIDS plague, or take strong positions on the other pressing social issues. It’s just as well they haven’t since his image is that of the new generation African-American elected official who thinks and speaks as a unifier and consensus builder, not a racial crusader.

However, many blacks quietly expect or at least hope that if he’s elected it will be more than a historic first for blacks. They hope that he will be a vigorous proponent of civil rights and social programs. As long as that hope is there their impassioned zeal be for him will be there too. If Obama denounces Farrakhan too strongly that would raise the eyebrows of the thousands of blacks who admire Farrakhan and his organization.

But, if Obama doesn’t blast Farrakhan as an anti-white hate monger that could raise questioning eyebrows with many white voters. He can’t afford that. He’s far exceeded the predictions of many who questioned whether whites would vote for an African-American for president. They have and he has even done what was thought to be even more implausible and that’s net considerable backing from white males. They have been rock solid backers of GOP presidents going back to Ronald Reagan. Obama got their support with his open-ended message of change and unity. Farrakhan, then, is the absolute last thing that Obama needs now that he’s on a roll with so many diverse voters.

Obama isn’t the first politician to face the Farrakhan dilemma. It got Jesse Jackson into momentary hot water during his presidential bid in 1984. Jackson rashly agreed to let the NOI briefly handle some of his security. That drew howls that Jackson was in bed with the Farrakhan. Jackson backpedaled fast and dropped the NOI as part of his security. That didn’t stop the loud grumbles that Jackson as a presidential candidate was too cozy with Farrakhan. But Jackson did not denounce Farrakhan. He stayed mute in part out of his stubborn insistence that no one should tell him who could support him, and in bigger part with an eye on the black vote.

Obama is closing in on a place in history. If he wins the March 4 Texas and Ohio primaries, his fierce nomination battle with Clinton will be virtually over. The movement will be irresistible among Democrats to nominate him and that will evaporate the Democrat’s worst fear, namely a fractured convention, split between the two warring Obama and Clinton factions. A divided party would be a lethal blow to the Democrat’s chances to take back the White House.

But Obama also knows that he doesn’t just need black votes. Any Democratic presidential contender will get the majority of black votes. That was the case with Democratic presidential contenders Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. Both still lost. He needs blacks to turn his drive to the White House into a crusade. They must make a spirited and massive rush to the polls. Farrakhan can help insure that some of that spirit and some of those numbers are there. Obama can’t publicly applaud him for doing that. But he can’t totally reject him either. That’s Obama’s Farrakhan dilemma.

OK, so they don't have temblors very often. And they have a bunch of stuff made of brick. And "retrofit" likely isn't the first thing on their minds. But there was no serious damage reported and one injury from the U.K. quake that was reportedly felt for 300 miles.

But The Sun tabloid is all over the hot story:

"Stunned Mark Young said he looked out of his window and saw an EIGHT FOOT crack in his neighbour’s garden at LEICESTER.

He said: 'There was a big crack through the ground and there was smoke and flames coming out. It was spitting things out.

'It is eight foot long and two foot wide.'

John Burton feared his house, in WAKEFIELD, West Yorkshire, was going to fall down as he watched television.

He said: 'It shook the whole house.'

Metal worker Simon Smith, 38, from CHATTERIS, Cambs, said: 'It felt like a juggernaut was going down my road.

'I turned to my wife Heather and shouted, "S***, it’s an earthquake."'"

Wimps.

And yes, that's the worst damage picture to be found.

They look so happy to be going off to fight the Marxist weenie terrorist PKK, huh? (And pretty er, cute, but that's beside the point.) That is, until they see what that cross-border incursion entails...

Damn! I guess that's why you don't invade Kurdistan in the winter. They look like a party out hunting the Yeti. Heck, with the snow camo they look like the Yeti. That's some determined Turks...

Tonight’s Democratic debate could be interesting. More interesting and intense than the heavyweight unification boxing match was on Saturday night. To escape the doldrums of jabbing and weaving, dancing and clutching, a la Klitchko and Ibragimov, here is what each candidate must do:

Hillary has to ask Obama to take a position on Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s endorsement of him. Will Obama denounce Farrakhan and risk the Black vote or will he waffle and risk the white vote in general and the Jewish vote in particular? Nasty wedge issue.

Obama must counter Hillary’s tactics of being the nice Hillary in one debate and the aggressor in the next. He must ask which is the real Hillary the one who is “proud” to be up there with him or the one who calls for him to be deeply ashamed of his use of the Karl Rove playbook? He must point out that Hillary cannot be both the good cop and the bad cop. With all her experience, she should be able to pick one “authentic” position.

Tonight may test Obama’s chin. We’ll see if he can take a punch and remain unruffled. In this case the test is fair, and style is substance, or at least partly, in politics. Hillary has little to lose. It is too late be worry about seeming warm and likable to those not already in her camp. This is the stark question: Will she risk losing without grace for the chance of winning the prize? Will Obama parry her charge of plagiarism by asking her if she wrote that terrible line about him being "about change you can Xerox"? Meanwhile, I expect lawyers from Xerox to serve papers for misappropriating their trademarked brand as a generic.

If this is the best weapon the Clinton campaign's got to fight the rising tide of Obamania, they are in worse shape than I thought. In recent days the Democratic campaign has become a tad nasty -- really a tad. This photo of Obama in native Somali dress on a past tour of the continent was reportedly circulated by a Clinton staff. The photo made it to The Druge Report today. And this is supposed to make him look bad how? If I were more paranoid, I'd think this "attack" was so lame it was orchestrated by someone trying to make the Clinton campaign look bad, which it does.

Frankly, the media's characterizations of harsh words seems a bit overblown. Maybe I've just been in too many editorial board meetings.

Here's an example from the Reuters story linked above:

Clinton mocked Obama's speeches in which he emphasizes hope and promises change, telling supporters the problems facing the next president would not be easily solved.

"I could just stand up here and say 'Let's just get everybody together, let's get unified.' The sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect," she said at a rally in Providence, Rhode Island.

Obama fired back in Lorain, Ohio, criticizing the New York senator for changing her position on the North American Free Trade Agreement pushed through by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

"She has essentially presented herself as co-president during the Clinton years," he said. "So the notion that you can selectively pick what you take credit for and then run away from what isn't politically convenient, that doesn't make sense."

Or, here's my translation:

Clinton: "Oh hope-schmope, blah, blah, blah."
Obama: "I know you are, but what am I?"

If this is the dems' idea of nasty exchange, they are going to be killed by the GOP in November. They know how to play dirty.

In a recent address at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton blasted arch rival Barack Obama for his inexperience. This should not be dismissed as another frantic, grasp at straws by Clinton to slow the momentum of his campaign or a badly overrated quality that few first time presidents need bring to the Oval Office anyway. The tout of Obama as the second coming of John F. Kennedy is supposed proof that a Senator with ideals and vision, ala JFK, can work wonders for the country even if short on experience.

The Obama-JFK comparison is a bad stretch and the dismissal of experience as a president-to-be attribute is an even worse stretch. JFK majored in foreign policy at Harvard and was a decorated naval war hero. His father, Papa Joe, was a multi-millionaire diplomat, confidant of presidents, and consummate political deal maker. This enabled JFK to meet a slew of European leaders. He wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning book, served fourteen years in the Senate and Congress, and came close to getting the vice presidential nomination in 1956.
Despite JFK’s years of public policy experience and political acumen, that Obama can’t match, he was still woefully ill equipped to deal with the two biggest crises that confronted his administration; the Cuban Missile crisis and the civil rights crisis. The mythmakers have spun a picture of a cool, calm, and collected JFK facing down Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1962. He allegedly forced him to get Russian missiles out of Cuba and that saved the world from nuclear destruction.
The truth is far different. In his memoirs Khrushchev gloated that the Soviet Union never had any intention of going to war over Cuba, and that the missiles were a bargaining chip to get the U.S. to remove American missiles from Turkey aimed at the Soviet Union. The other aim was to get the U.S. to guarantee the security of Castro’s regime.

Even if Khrushchev’s boast is sloughed off as a face saving historical falsity to burnish up his badly tarnished image; the fact is that American missiles were removed from Turkey. And in the nearly half century after the missile show-down, there has been no US military effort to oust Castro. He stepped down voluntarily and will likely die of old age.

The U.S. –Soviet stand down was brokered through back channel talks initiated by Robert Kennedy with the Soviet ambassador to the U.S. After they hammered out the bare details of the agreement it took urging by RFK and other Kennedy senior advisors to get Kennedy to finally approve the deal. JFK’s inexperience in a crisis moment cost valuable time, delays, and raised tensions. It had another tragic by-product. It earned JFK the undying enmity of the thousands of Cuban-Americans.
Then there’s the issue of civil rights. The Obama camp twisted and mangled an innocent comment Clinton made in which she praised President Lyndon Baines Johnson for driving the 1964 civil rights bill through Congress. Supposedly Clinton defamed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by minimizing his role in getting a civil rights law. Clinton, of course, got it right. It took every bit of Johnson’s relentless political arm twisting, cajoling, and deal making skills to get wavering Republicans and hostile Southern Senators who controlled key committees to back the bill or soften their vehement opposition to it.

The bill though was not Johnson’s. It was introduced by Kennedy. Despite his efforts, Kennedy could not budge Congress to take action. JFK simply did not have the political muscle to budge the bill’s opponents. Johnson did have the experience and the muscle to ultimately force passage.

The rap against Obama that he lacks the requisite experience to get the job done effectively in the White House is not a cheap and meaningless campaign shot at him. The American presidency should not be an OJT position. Voters shouldn’t be asked to make a leap of faith that an untested candidate can smoothly and effortlessly handle crisis situations that inevitably arise. Inexperienced presidents are poor crisis managers. They get us into costly and unpopular wars and brush fire conflicts. They alienate foreign friends and allies. They bungle the economy. And their administrations more times than not are riddled with corruption and cronyism. The disastrous proof is the administration of the man that Obama seeks to replace.
Even without fingering Bush’s foreign and domestic policy bumbles and ineptitude, the presidents that have been most successful in recent decades have been FDR, Bill Clinton and Dwight Eisenhower. They had two things in common. They had extensive executive and administrative experience either as governors, or in the case of Eisenhower, in the armed forces before they became president.
The lack of administrative and crisis management experience shouldn’t disqualify a prospective presidential candidate, or mean that he or she will crumble under fire. At the same time, their inexperience raises a giant question mark about the candidate. That can’t be cavalierly dismissed.

Well, technically I'm an Inglewood girl, but I am a fan of "No Country for Old Men," so I'm not disappointed at Sunday night's Oscar results. It was an edge-of-your-seat film, Javier Bardem was amazing, and all in all the film was truly great.

But hopefully soon, soon, soon it will be native Valley son Paul Thomas Anderson's chance up on that Oscar stage. I was really hoping that "There Will Be Blood," which is no less than a work of art, would get more Oscars than for Daniel Day-Lewis and cinematography. Goodness, the mining and drilling scenes should have garnered the sound statue as well, but I thought the direction on "Blood" topped "Country." Then again, I'm a PTA fan since "Boogie Nights" (aka the Valley's biopic), so I might be a tad biased...

That's Michael Moore and his junior prom date... er, wife going into the Governors Ball on Sunday night. That's also officially the worst Oscar dress of the evening. The pink taffeta frock I had to wear in my best friend's quinceanera was more fashion-forward. Somebody get a dress doctor, stat!

I was really rooting for Kazakhstan (sniff!) to win the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film. I hear that "The Counterfeiters" from Austria is a fantastic work, but who could really vote against a biopic of Genghis Khan? A friend at the Academy tells me that the Kazakh nominee, "Mongol," is a "beautiful" film. I was looking for the adjective "badass." And not only did I want "Mongol" to win, but I wanted Sascha Baron Cohen to present the Oscar to Kazakhstan.

Young Genghis is set to do battle with Indiana Jones when it arrives in limited release on June 6. Mongols rock.

"Dissent is the mother of ascent. And in that context I've decided to run for president."

More on the Return of Ralphie!!

Why, she's lobbying for members of the Muslim Brotherhood who face trial in Egypt. Why?

"I decided I wanted to do human rights work on behalf of people around the world who have been harmed by US imperialism.

Part of why I am here, also, is to draw attention to the parallels between the military courts here and the same kinds of courts that are being used to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay by the US.

...If we [America] really want to promote democracy in this region then we cannot silence the voices of the Muslim Brotherhood because they're the moderate voice here and they are the ones who are actually working for democracy."

Al-Jazeera also asked Sheehan, who waxed even more about her commitment to telling Egypt what to do, how a recent visit to the National Council of Women in Cairo went. Her response was absolutely classic:

"I didn't really understand a lot of what was going on. There was a lot of yelling in Arabic."

Bwahaahahaa!!!

But for Cindy's reference, the Muslim Brotherhood is not a moderate democratization savior. Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Mahdi Akef has called the Holocaust a "myth," the Brotherhood has advocated taxing Christians extra, is linked to violent acts and nefarious terrorists over the decades, promotes strict Islamic dress code for women and segregated schools (as well as separate female curriculum), promotes the Caliphate, allows democracy only up to what is deemed allowed by Islam, and lives by the motto: "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

Heck, maybe she knows all that and loves 'em anyway...

The disputed island has elected a proud Marxist as its next president, making Communist Party leader Demetris Christofias the only (confessed) communist leader in the EU. The Communist party on Cyprus, the AKEL, features a bust of Lenin in its HQ, and Christofias loves him some classic Che T-shirts. It would probably be difficult enough to tell his rabid supporters that in their Che worship they're bowing to a murderer, but even check out the sleeve on the guy pictured: it says "CCCP." What heroes they have!! Hand over your computer and get in line for toilet paper now!!

That's George with President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in Liberia, just one step away from a full striptease...

Faithful readers will know that I am a proud liberal and am unlikely to vote for Sen. John McCain under any circumstances that I can foresee. However, the hints and attacks by the New York Times are beyond troubling.

There is certainly a scandal, but I do not know if John McCain is involved. What is clear is that there is a scandal in journalism. When the New York Times runs a story like the one on McCain, they better have more than they printed.

On the surface it seems that the issue is McCain being reckless in his confidence in his moral compass. However, when the Times puts the sexual innuendoes in the third paragraph, that becomes the story. And what is their standard for raising the possibility that he had an “improper relationship” with a lobbyist? Some of his staffers were concerned and thought that it might have become a romantic relationship. So concern begets speculation that begets a not so thinly veiled allegation? This is outrageous.

Given this standard, or rather lack of a standard, should a paper be able to print anything about which they might have an idea, inkling or suspicion? Can they protect themselves by saying, “Friends of Dobrer’s are worried that he might be (Fill in the blank)_____. Pick one or more: Sick, Perverted, Fascist, Communist.”

If it is true that some friends of mine are worried, talking or speculating, is that good enough for the “paper of record” to go with? It could be true that there is speculation but that doesn’t imply a fact.

I have no idea if McCain did anything wrong. I am very clear that the New York Times did something very wrong. If they have more, show it. If they don’t, then be ashamed, very ashamed! Meanwhile journalists the world over are speculating if the New York Times reporters and editors have lost their moral compass and their minds.

Some Los Angeles city officials are proposing the largest transfer of public land to private homeowners in the history of the city. But there's a catch, as outlined by the story in the LA Times today. See, the city wants to give homeowners the sidewalks (with an easement, of course) that border their property.
That way, they are no longer responsible for paying to fix them. I suspect the liability for trip-and-fall claims then reverts over the homeowner's insurance. Double bonus for the city! Sneaky, sneaky, huh?

Faced with more than 4,000 miles of broken sidewalks and scarce money to make repairs, Los Angeles officials are weighing a proposal to put responsibility for making the fixes squarely on homeowners.

Under the proposal, homeowners would be forced to replace the damaged pavement -- or pay the city a fee -- when they sell their property, before the close of escrow.

The City Council's Public Works Committee got its first look Wednesday at the "point of sale" plan, which could cost the average homeowner as much as $15 for each square foot of sidewalk, and dramatically shift the burden for such repairs from city government to the private sector.

If the city give me the sidewalk in front of my house, the first thing I'm going to is put up tollbooths. If LAUSD can charge the public to use public facilities to fund their upkeep, why can't I? I intend to charge $5 for walking through the lovely strip between my fence and the greenery between it and the curb (what do you call that strip, anyhow?), which I'm not sure if I own, but is my responsibility to keep up.

Today, I received one of those annoying spams pushing sex-enhancing drugs, it was blocked by my spam filter and sent to the junk file (which I check periodically for misdirected legit emails). But here's the kicker -- it was from my very own email account! I spammed myself!

Pharmacy mall: everything for your sex! ‏From: msmarielgarza@______.com High riskThis message may be dangerous. Learn more Sent: Thu 2/21/08 9:07 AM To: msmarielgarza@_______.com

Well, not me, exactly. Spammers steal real people's email addresses to spam people, that's why so many people open them. And now my email is the perp. So if anyone out there is getting spams from me, I'm sorry. It's not my fault. And while it looks like me, it really isn't

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama coyly hinted at something that has been virtually taboo during the fierce hunt for the White House in 2008. That’s likely GOP presidential candidate John McCain’s age. In a speech at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Virginia in early February, Obama hailed McCain for his half-century of service to the country.

This borderline ageist damn with faint praise of McCain was of course tame stuff compared to the dumb crack from B karate movie action guy Chuck Norris before the Florida primary last January that McCain was just too old to be president. Norris subsequently apologized but he still got a swift and deserved disappearance as a prominent mouthpiece for McCain’s GOP presidential rival Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. It probably ramped up in the number of votes McCain got from the loads of AARP seniors that retired in the state. That sweetened McCain’s victory there and rocketed his once seemingly DOA campaign forward faster.

Norris aside, age is and will be a factor in the possible showdown between McCain and Obama. Some Democrats undoubtedly bank that Obama’s boyish looks and fresh faced vigor will stand in stark contrast to the weary, and slow pace gait of McCain. But age won’t be an Obama trump card against McCain.
It just doesn’t titillate and get the tongues furiously wagging as race does with Obama and gender with Hillary Clinton. It shouldn’t. Age is no legitimate measure of McCain’s mindset, physical health, or even his possible longevity in the office. JFK, Nixon, and Clinton were all in their forties when they took office. Each had serious health problems, and each one faced serious political and personal crises during their terms, but their health didn’t lay them low. McCain released hundreds of pages of his health records before his presidential run in 2000 and last year to head off talk that he’s medically and emotionally incompetent (that pertains to his torture as a Vietnam POW) to be president. Even if he hadn’t, and even if there were health issues with him, his age still holds minefield peril for Obama.

Reagan is the best example of that. Other than sniggers, and wisecracks about his memory lapses and occasional gaffes, there was no evidence Reagan lost a single vote because anyone thought he was too old. The early signs of Alzheimer’s came much later in his term and by then the Reagan myth and legacy had been well ensured. The eyes of many in their audiences misted over the countless times McCain and the other one time GOP presidential candidates evoked Reagan’s name during their debates and on the campaign trail.

Reagan for his part did much to defuse the age issue when he turned to his Democratic opponent Walter Mondale in their presidential debate in 1984 and challenged, "I want you to know that I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." The aim was not to score a quick debate point or to cut Mondale low, it was to make the point that age is not a liability but a desired quality in a head of state; that age equates with experience, level headedness, and maturity.

Then there are the voter demographics and age related issues. The vast array of programs from social security to education and housing subsidies for seniors soaks up more than a quarter of the federal budget. Legions of senior citizen advocacy groups keep a hawk like watch on funding, spending, and possible cuts in those services. The slightest hint of any attack on social security either real or manufactured politically is the political kiss of death for a candidate. Seniors have the political muscle to make sure of that. Those aged 60 and older make up almost a quarter of those who turn out on Election Day.

There is no such thing as an old age voting bloc. Seniors vote based on their needs, personal tastes, interests, and political preferences, just like other voting groups. But seniors have been far more likely to vote for Republicans than Democrats. In 2004, those over aged 60 gave Bush a wider vote margin over John Kerry than any other age group.

McCain deftly snatched a page from Reagan’s political playbook, dampened the age issue, and will try to turn the age table on Obama. He’ll pound on the point that a school boy looking, relative political newcomer on the national scene simply can’t be trusted too make the mature, sober, and vital decisions that presidents have to make especially in times of war, terrorist peril and domestic crisis. The irony is that age may just turn out to be McCain’s trump card instead of the Democrat’s even if Obama tries to help him out of his chair when they debate.

On Saturday I went to a luncheon at the Pakistani consul general's house in Beverly Hills held in honor of the visiting Mirwaiz Omar Farooq. The mirwaiz (meer-wise) is the hereditary spiritual leader of the Kashmir Valley's 5.3 million or so Muslims; he took the post in 1990 at age 17, after his father was assassinated. In a snappy suit jacket, no tie, closely trimmed beard and no hat, he was barely recognizable at the backyard buffet. (Translation: He looked very L.A.!) He was also very eloquent, speaking at length about the need for the region to have a voice in his nonviolent quest for a solution to the Kashmir problem. Read what the mirwaiz said here at the Daily News, or at NYT clients such as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

A sample:

"'Whatever is happening in Pakistan has a direct reflection on Kashmir and we believe that this peace process needs to be strengthened,' he replied. '...So it's very important that we have a government in Pakistan who is committed to the peace process with India, but at the same time who are ready to think out of the box, not just concentrate on whatever the policy has been in the past. They need to be more flexible in their approach.'

The mirwaiz said he believes the peace process 'will gain some momentum once there's a stable government in Pakistan.'

...'People don't want violence, they want peace,' Farooq stressed. 'But peace with honor, peace with dignity. We don't want peace at the graveyard. And you cannot have peace in a vacuum.'"

The mirwaiz is constantly under threat from extremists for advocating dialogue; when his All Parties Hurriyat Conference began talks with India in 2006, Farooq's uncle was killed and Farooq's house was attacked. At this sunny Bev Hills event, I confess I kept thinking how pragmatic men like him need to stick around in this world, and it's worth saying a novena for the guy's safety.

And not to nosedive into trivial talk, but the Pakistani food was awesome at the lunch -- particularly flour patties with yogurt sauce, spinach and feta with naan (soft flatbread), korma, chicken tikka, and a shredded beef that was super-spicy. Today I found a Pakistani restaurant, Shahnawaz Halal Restaurant, and the shredded beef was included on the tandoori mix plate (but it was mintier than the buffet variety), plus the garlic naan was divine. Now where are the damn Rolaids??

A great idea, and one that will put many democracies on the hot seat (where as well they should be): If you don't have the guts to take a stand for human rights and boycott the Summer Games, do you at least have the balls to skip the party beforehand?

From Al-Jazeera:

"...Joel Voordewind, a member of the Christian Union that is a junior member of the ruling Dutch coalition government, said he wants governments around the world to support the boycott and lean on sponsors to use their financial clout with Beijing on the human rights issue.

'It is possible to take part in the games but skip the party before hand,' he said.

'Such a ceremony is only intended to glorify the host, China.'

Voordewind also suggested setting up a venue in Beijing during the games where visitors can discuss human rights."

Er, good luck with that one. That'd quickly meet with a Red Army tank.

"He expected opposition from organisers, but said, 'If the Chinese are against the plan, that means they are against human rights.'''

Yeah, no kidding.

"Voordewind has only just begun enlisting world support. Neither the Dutch government nor the Olympic Committee have backed him.

Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said the government regularly brings up human rights issues at meetings with Chinese officials and has no plans to support a boycott of the games or the opening ceremony."

That's because nobody intends to grow a pair before Beijing's gross spectacle.

Sam Zell taking on the DWP breast-feeding issue?

The tipping point has been reached and Hillary Clinton is faced with the political version of Sophie’s Choice. She must decide between the fate of her party and her political ambition.

Last night, the results were clear. Obama won every category except white women over 60—the first modern generation of feminists who rightly feel both pride and loyalty in Hillary. Obama carried the black vote overwhelmingly, including black women. He carried the male vote by a significant proportion. He carried Democrats somewhat more narrowly, and he attracted a disproportionate number of independents. To be fair, some independents voted for him because the Republican contest was over and they could exercise their animus against Hillary.

To have won by such a percentage in a state not very different from Ohio, bodes ill for the Clinton campaign. Inevitability is gone, and desperation is in its stead. So fast has Obamamania grown that only three things can stop it. A really major gaff, a “Macaca moment” when he flies off the handle or seems mean or demeaning. (His wife Michele saying something as tone deaf and offensive as admitting that “this is the first time she’s been proud of America” was a Macaca moment, but as a spouse she may get one error…but that’s it! Candor is a not positive survival strategy in national elections.) Second, God forbid, a terrorist attack on our soil would move even the Democrats to the more experienced candidate who is tied (at least figuratively) to the former president, Bill.

The third way to stop Obama is the most likely and that is to go strongly and blatantly negative. She cannot catch him in a race, so someone has to trip him, mug him and beat him beyond recognition. They have to drag him through the mud with any and all charges. I have every confidence they will try this. They have to. They must realize however that mugging Obama might get the nomination but lead to a Chicago 68 style convention with the youthful enthusiasts disenchanted, sullen and angry.

This is a terrible calculation to have to make, but now is the moment. Do the Clintons go on an all out attack in order to bring Obama down or do they fade away and accept that she has a career in the Senate, and he can be an international statesman? Their history is to fight but she must know that she cannot win by catching up. The public has met her and prefers him. Charisma is not fair—ask Bob Dole or Gerald Ford or Al Gore. Her winning through the politics of personal destruction is not impossible by any means. But her use of any and all means will leave the party in a shambles. The hardest part of this political calculus is that if she wounds him and he wins, she will be marginalized. So she must either back off or go for the political kill. Not a great choice.

Boy, mention breasts and suddenly everyone's up in arms.

The DWP's $37,000 lactation program for new mother employees has been called into question by DWP commission chairman Nick Patsaouras. (We opined on the topic here)He got slammed as "anti-woman" yesterday in a Board of Water and Power Commissioners meeting. I don't know if Patsaouras is anti-woman, but I don't think being skeptical of such a curious perk is evidence either way.

In fact, it's really his job as a citizen commissioner to scrutinize the utility and its operations. In tough financial times when they keep raising rates ( I know my bill was HUGE last month) every non-essential expense ought to be considered. Lactation classes that most can get through health benefits or low-cost classes or find free information from La Leche League are fair game.

But, that said, I can understand (not condone or side with, mind you) the reactionism on the other side. Historically, American workplaces have not be exactly family friendly, especially to new mothers. It's not as bad as in Mexico, where employers can demand you take a pregnancy test before hiring you. But the working mothers (or fathers for that matter) have never had it easy and have had to fight for every benefit. It's too bad, because parents are often the hardest and loyalest workers. So, I think it's great for the DWP to have a room where breast-feeding mothers can pump. I know many a working mother who's had to sneak off to the bathroom to pump in secret, or their cars in the lot. But paying for lactation consultants and pump rentals? That might take the accommodating one step too far. Kinda of like having taxpayers pay to babysit the City Attorney's kids.

Anyway, since DWP Chief David Nahai promised not to cut the program, and he has that authority, it's a moot point anyhow.

Tim Rutten at the LA Times has a fun column today smacking Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's pandering to cops during SWAT Officer Randal Simmons's funeral -- and denigrating the media in the process. I agree with his assessment, but have to point out that Los Angeles pols have a history of pandering to the police and, in particular, the police union.

Just one recent example: The mini-controversy over the unpopular financial disclosure requirement for gang and drug cops as one of the final pieces of compliance with the consent decree. (That was the court order that the city signed back in the 1990s after the Rampart scandal, agreeing to do certain things in order to avoid having the department taken over by the feds.) Chief Bratton, the Police Commission and most city officials realized this was a non-negotiable requirement. Not ideal, but that was the nature of the consent decree, right?

Still, the Los Angeles Police Protective League started agitating against the disclosure rule, threatening that cops would quit or leave people who count on cop support in their campaign . As the union for the cops, it's the PPL's role to fight against policies they perceive are bad for members. Wouldn't be much of a union if they weren't fighting for the betterment of cophood. But why would LA Councilman Jack Weiss carry their water? Or Sheriff Baca? DA Steve Cooley?

And they did. Weiss initiated an attempt to have the City Council overturn the Police Commission's approval of the disclosure rules. Cooley and Baca supported the effort. Ultimately it couldn't get support from the council members, in which sanity rules. Surely they figured this was about Weiss looking to improve his standing with the PPL as he launches a run for City Attorney. And Cooley and Baca always need strong support of police for their future elections.

Don't doubt the power of a police endorsement. Just this week, Mark Ridley-Thomas has been crowing about his PPL endorsement for the county supervisor race over former LAPD Chief and current Councilman Bernard Parks, who was ousted from his post at LAPD in large part due to the PPL.

So, yeah, the mayor's pandering the other day may have been a low point of his mayoralty, but he's hardly the first or the last one to embarrass himself that way.

...I lost a little more respect for the Clinton campaign, what with their complaint about Obama appropriating words and phrases of a friend.

Obama's camp says Hillary appropriates his own language. Whether or not that's true, I'm quite sure that Hillary uses speechwriters, which gives her communications director zero or even sub-zero ability to complain, especially considering how he is probably her head speechwriter. As a longtime speechwriter myself, I'm irritated that someone who uses (or someone who offers) writing assistance would pounce on someone else for word-borrowing. It's really a reach, a desperate one at that.

Lotteries make a lot of hay by promising the easily fooled the world in return for next to nothing. And so, it turns out, does Arnold Schwarzenegger.

For months, the governor has proposed "privatizing" (which would certainly mean massively expanding) the state lottery to pay for health care, balancing the budget, etc. He frequently claims the state could make $37 billion off of this gambit -- an astonishing figure, given that not even the 17,000 new slot machines voters approved under Props. 94-7 are expected to generate that much revenue for the state over 20 years.

In other words, free money -- California makes a bundle by doing nothing. Kind of like playing the lottery. But like the lottery, the promised payout here is wildly inflated, and there are far more losers than winners.

The AP took a look at Wall Street's estimates of the state lottery's worth, and found that Arnold was using the most optimistic -- and unrealistic -- numbers, while ignoring the other estimates:

The governor is employing the rosiest of projections from Lehman Brothers, which pegged the value of California's lottery between $16.1 billion and $37 billion over 40 years.

Other Wall Street investment banks — Bear Stearns, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley — were more conservative. Most estimated the value of a long-term lease at between $7 billion and $29 billion with smaller upfront payments, usually less than $9 billion.

What's more, to make that money, Californians would have to be willing to get their government -- or its contractor proxy -- much deeper into the gambling business:

The Wall Street analysts say the state would have to give a private lottery operator freedom to sell tickets over cell phones and PDAs, in malls, on college campuses, at bus stations and through ATM machines. Ticket sales would have to more than double, to $234 per person.

There's the rub: You want the big bucks, you've got to let Sacramento hire charlattans who will try to fleece every gambling addict, fool, poor person, and college student into parting with his money. And even then, the bucks won't be anywhere near as big as Arnold says they will.

That's a far cry from something for nothing.

What ethnic group has seen its number of illegal immigrants surge some 125 percent since 2000? (Hint, it's not Mexicans.)

Fidel Castro just wrote a five-part, lengthy series of drivel on why John McCain sucks...

As Fidel Castro steps down to let his turd brother take the permanent reins in Cuba, there are bound to be a number of apologists for the tyrant coming out of the woodwork. Just refer them to Cuba Archive, an ongoing project that is compiling documentation online of the victims of Castro's 49 iron-fisted years:

"To date, over 9,000 records have been entered into the electronic system, which grows as additional cases are entered and research and outreach efforts expand. ...The state led by Fidel and Raúl Castro emerges responsible for thousands of firing squad executions and extrajudicial killings. The archive reports over one thousand deaths in prisons, police stations, or State Security offices, as well as dozens of civilians murdered while trying to escape by sea or seeking asylum in foreign embassies and at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo. Pregnant women assassinated in political prisons and religious leaders and minors executed by firing squad are part of the tragic record. Nine extrajudicial killings and five deaths of prisoners for lack of medical attention are recorded for 2007."

Today I got an email from DirecTV about monthly fees going up, as they periodically do, a few bucks. I was probably one of the very few who clicked on the link to check out the "new prices." (Notice how they avoid the words "rate" and "hike" and "gouge"?) Anyhow, this got me thinking that maybe it was time for a change. I've been a dish user for about five years now. So I thought I'd check around for other cable or dish packages. But I was quickly In every case, I checked the fine print and real costs and figured that there was just no way around it: I was bound to get soaked, no matter what I do.

Then Chris told me a story of how he got some Visa gift cards for Christmas which were defective and couldn't be used. After much wrangling with the company, they told him they would send him a check for the balance of the cards - for a $10 fee.

There is a point to all this, as it got me fuming about the nickel- and dime-ing that American consumers are subjected to by the various service companies -- phone, TV, internet providers, banks, credit card companies, etc. A "replacement" fee for this. A "transfer fee" here. A "service charge" there. And don't even get me started on all the fees in mortgage contracts.

Millions of dollars are collected every year from tiny increments, according to Bob Sullivan, the "Red Tape Chronicles" columnist and author of "Gotcha Capitalism" It's a book I'm reading in short doses as every few pages whip me up into an anti-corporate, John Edwards-like foam and I have to stop and have a cookie or a valium or backrub to fee normal.

The result is I'm starting to be a pro-active anti-fee agent. And you can help by telling me your worst fee story.

For passing along this, the URL for Stuff White People Like -- which is a wonderfully subversive, amusing read. By "white people" the site doesn't really mean all persons of pallor, just the urban, upwardly mobile ones. And so we get gems like this:

It should be understood that in white culture, dogs are considered training for having children. That is to say that any white couple must get a dog before they have kids. This will prepare them for responsibility by having another creature to feed, supervise it’s bathroom activities, and to love. Because of this, white people generally assume that their dog is their favorite child unless otherwise stated.

When actual children are born, the dog is not displaced but rather remains as the most important member of the household. This is because of the fact that white children will eventually hate their parents, but dogs will love anyone who feeds them.

White people generally believe that dogs have human emotions and that they are capable of loving certain TV shows, films, and music. “Buster just loves watching Six Feet Under!” Even though most dogs would enjoy watching Hitler if he were getting attention every time it came on the TV.

Ironically, Earl has asked me to "check the history" -- this coming in a post in which he flatly denies that the Hillary Clinton campaign has engaged in any of the mud-slinging that he anticipates Republicans will inflict on Barack Obama come the general election.

OK, Earl, let's check the history. Let's look at the specific examples of the "personal dirty stuff" you say the GOP will get into, and see just how clean the Hillary Campaign is. The following list of items comes, verbatim, from Earl's original post:

"(Republicans will) hammer (Obama) for his dealings with an indicted Chicago financier ..."

Just like Clinton did. Allow me to quote Hillary from the January 23 Democratic debate in Myrtle Beach:

"I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Resco, in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago."

"for possible conflict of interests in other financial dealings"

"Senator Obama has some questions to answer about his dealings with one of his largest contributors, Exelon, a big nuclear power company. Apparently he cut some deals behind closed doors to protect them from full disclosure in the nuclear industry."

--Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton, ABC-Politico Forum, Feb. 11

"and legislative votes ..."

Quoth Hillary, again from the Myrtle Beach Debate:

"This is kind of like the 'present' vote thing, because the Chicago Tribune, his hometown paper, said that all of those 'present' votes was taking a pass. It was for political reasons."

"and his fuzzy oftentimes contradictory statements and actions on the Iraq war and terrorism."

Here's Hillary on "Meet the Press" yesterday:

"And in Senator Obama's recent book, he clearly says he thought that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons, and that he still coveted nuclear weapons. His judgment was that, at the time in 2002, we didn't need to make any efforts. My belief was we did need to pin Saddam down, put inspectors in."

(Source: Clinton Smears Obama on Iraq — Again, Mother Jones, Feb. 18)

"Then there’s the ultimate ploy, the race card. The GOP hit squads will dig, sift and comb through every inch of his personal life and poke through his voting record to find any hint of personal or political muck."

Hmm, remember when the New York Times unearthed this e-mail from a Clinton campaign staffer to an old Obama associate in Chicago?

From: Bob Nash
To:
Sent: Sun Dec 09
Subject: BARACK

HOW ARE YOU ?? I AM FIGHTING HARD >
SECOND ARE YOU PEERSONALLYAWARE OF TH EWORK BARACK DID ON THE SOUTH
SIDE WITH COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION S , ETC ./. BOB
WHAT DI DHE DO AFORE HOW LONG AND WITH WHO ??
PLS TELL BOB HELLO BOB

Or what about this mysterious Web site, widely believed to be part of the Clinton dirt-digging apparatus?

I stand by my original post: The Clinton campaign has done all the supposedly dreadful things that Earl worries Republicans will do to Obama.

And, again, I've never heard him complain about it.

Here's my column from today's paper. Feel free to send praise my way or angry denunciations Chris' way.

I'm tentatively scheduled to talk Monday again on the Fox Business Network about issues relating to this theme.

In the words to that old 60s song, “Something’s happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear.” Still it is undeniable that the Barack Obama phenomenon is, well, a phenomenon. After writing the case for Obama, I got a lot of mail—some fan letters. Some reasoned criticism and some vile hate mail.

People have lots of thoughts, feelings and passion, and for the most part that’s good. I believe in involvement, and I like to see people caring and asking questions. We should indeed not be swept away by some charismatic chemical madness. Politics is about more than feelings. It is about policy, plans and character.

Most of the questions that I get concerning Obama center on three issues.
His religion
His experience
His lack of specificity

As to his religion—and the sub-question of how that might effect Mid East policy and support of Israel: We do not have to simply take him at his word that he is not a Muslim. We can look at his attendance and membership in his church for over 20 years. That the minister of his church, The Rev Wright, is very Afro-centric in his preaching and, as a Chicago religious leader has played nicely, too nicely, for many (myself included) with Farrakhan raises legitimate questions. But how far do we go in separating ourselves from people who have different views from ours?

How many layers of separation must there be for me not to have to denounce the views or social contacts of my friends, clergy or co-religionists? These are real questions without easy bumper sticker answers. I have to assume that when I write, speak or socialize that my friends and co-religionists are not required to pass on my every word. I write and speak for myself and not in the name of any institution that I serve. Will my Obama distrusting friends have to give me up or denounce me because I am not denouncing Obama who didn’t denounce Wright, who didn’t denounce Farrakhan who is worthy of being denounced?
Personally I have consorted and socialized with quite a few people who are unlikely to achieve sainthood any time soon. From being in a professional fraternity with future Watergate convicted felons to dinner with OJ (before the murders) there are parts of my social circle that I would neither condemn nor defend. Okay, OJ, I would condemn.

As far as experience is concerned, I did point out that Obama has served far longer in elected office than Hillary. But experience in playing the current game of politics is exactly what he is running against. No one knows enough to be president and micromanage all the moving pieces. A smart president will have advisors and experts, will listen to opposing points of view and not try to replay his or her old experiences. As Obama said, “Hillary claims she’ll be ready on day one. It is more important to be right on day one.” Experience in repeating old mistakes and patterns is not such a virtue. As we look at our policies and the assumptions of conventional wisdom, we see abject failure all around.

Conventional Wisdom is an oxymoron because value, as my good Republican friends tell me, is related to scarcity, and wisdom is precious for its rareness. It is never common. It was Obama who urged, while not yet a Senator, a no vote on giving the president the ability to go to war. It was Hillary who voted yes. Still unable to admit that she made a mistake, she went ahead and gave Bush another positive vote in declaring portions of the Iranian military a terrorist organization. That they are truly bad guys is not the issue. That she trusted the president a second time with a rationale for war is truly appalling.

Now, I know why she did it—even if she can’t admit it. One, as a woman, she has to act tough and prove to the electorate that she will be a strong leader. As Mort Sahl said, “The new woman is a lot like the old man.” The other reason she voted yes was to safeguard her own prerogatives, because at the time she was sure that she would become the president. Every president has fought the War Powers Act and has held it to be an infringement of presidential powers. It is an infringement and was damn well meant to be.

To the charge that Obama is being too inspirational and not specific enough: He says that in the beginning of his run, he was very specific and was criticized for being boring and professorial. (Personally, I don’t think that being boring and professorial are synonyms). Now, he says that people complain that he is too inspirational and needs to be more substantive. There is just no winning. The truth is he has put forward his detailed plans on his website and tries not to bore the people in the large halls and arenas who do not come for economics lectures or what we call in the religion biz “The Central City Sewer Sermons.”

Obama is finding a receptive and enthusiastic audience with people over 60 and under 35. The young are energized with youthful hope and idealism. This is good. If not when you are young, when? My generation, the generation that knew and lost JFK and RFK, well, we remember. After JFK’s assassination Daniel Patrick Moynihan remarked, “We will laugh again, but we’ll never be young again.” True enough, but there are people who are young and I feel energized again, hopeful again and young again.

Hey Chris, there's a reason Earl didn't complain when as you said Hillary did it (alleged smut dumping on him) to Obama. It didn't happen. From day one Hillary tried mightily to stick to the issues and keep the heat on Bush policies. But that didn't fly with Obama. The issue and the campaign quickly degenrated into finger pointing, bashing, and Hillary blame. When Hillary hit back the media spin was that oh gosh, there she and the dirty Clintons go. Meanwhile, Obama steps back with the fake media adoration/coronation he's gotten (again only because of Hillary hate) and the momentary teflon coat they've wrapped him in (only because of the obsession to nail Hillary who still is the only Democrat that has a prayer of beating McCain-Huckabee, that's right remember who told you that that will be the ticket). But I say again Obama will discover the hard, brutal and naked fact about American real politik GOP style that if he gets the nomination the teflon, adoration, and coronation and starry eyed Obama worship that he's gotten will go poof faster than a Houndini disappearing act and it will be GOP open season on him. Don't believe it Chris, and think it's GOP bashing Earl style, check the history all the way back to a man named Nixon.

Sung to the tune of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit:

It was so drab, this dull campaign

Rudy, Clinton, John McCain.

But now I've got reason to vote,

a fresh sweet smell that gives me hope:

B.O. ... B.O. ... B.O. ... B.O.
B.O. ... B.O. ... B.O. ... B.O.
B.O. ... B.O. ... B.O. ... B.O.
B.O. ... B.O. ... B.O. ... B.O.

He won Utah -- and Nevada!
Got more might than
the Spanish Armada!
Raise up a nice, cold Coffee Coolata!
And let's toast to
Barack Obama!

A politico
A hero
What a guy-a
My messiah!
Yea

He's not just great, he's the best.
And for this gift we're truly blessed.
He always has, always been,
And always will be till the end.

B.O. ... B.O. ... B.O. ... B.O. (x 4)

Got the wisdom of Deepak Chopra!

Not only that, he

hangs with Oprah!

Makes me shout out, Yes We Can-a

find inner peace through

Barack Obama!

A politico
A hero
What a guy-a
My messiah!
Yea

He helps me to believe.
He's the best thing on TV.
He's the one we've waited for --
not Hillary, not even Gore.

B.O. ... B.O. ... B.O. ... B.O. (x 4)

Oh my goodness, goodness gracious!
He's got hope that's
just audacious!
He's better than marijuana!
Light one up for
Barack Obama!

Hallelujah
And hosanna
What a guy-a
My messiah!
Yea

I've got nothing but respect and admiration for Earl Ofari Hutchinson as a writer and a person, but his tendency to create GOP bogeymen out of the ordinary stuff of politics is so over the top it begs response.

In his latest post, Earl bemoans that without the "Hillary firewall" -- ie, without Clinton catching the bulk of the GOP and media's flak -- Obama could become the target for all sorts of campaign wickedness. Then Earl trots out what are supposed to be chilling examples of such foul campaigning: Gun-rights groups have criticized Obama''s position on guns! Anti-tax groups won't like his affinity for tax hikes! Pro-life groups will cry foul over his support of denying basic, life-saving medical care to babies who somehow manage to be born alive during failed late-term abortions!

Oh the inhumanity! Do those Republican "swift-boaters" have no shame? They'll go after Obama on the issues!

But the coup de grace comes when Earl forecasts all the "personal dirty stuff" we can expect from the GOP mud-slingers:

They’ll hammer him for his dealings with an indicted Chicago financier, for possible conflict of interests in other financial dealings and legislative votes, and his fuzzy oftentimes contradictory statements and actions on the Iraq war and terrorism. Then there’s the ultimate ploy, the race card. The GOP hit squads will dig, sift and comb through every inch of his personal life and poke through his voting record to find any hint of personal or political muck.

In other words, they will do to Obama exactly what Hillary Clinton has been doing to him these last several months.

The funny thing is, when the Clinton machine was doing it, I never heard Earl complain.

The British newspaper the Daily Squib’s tongue-in-cheek fake news report that Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Ron Edwards endorsed Democrat Presidential contender Barack Obama drew chuckles, sneers, and cracks. There was, of course, no such endorsement. But the reason it drew some press attention and momentary belief made perfectly good sense. The dummied up endorsement had nothing to do with any sudden love for Obama but hatred for Hillary Clinton. The fake article trumpeted the hate Hillary crowd’s favorite rallying cry--- anybody but Hillary.

The biggest beneficiary of the Hillary loathe has been Obama. But her campaign has been sufficiently subverted and sabotaged by the legions of Hillary haters to the point that it’s listing. If her campaign goes down, so will Obama’s Hillary firewall. The gloves will be off and it won’t be pretty

There was an early hint of the dirty stuff that will come his way. The instant that Obama announced his campaign last February National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre wasted no words when asked about Obama's strong support for a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons, and severe limits on handgun purchases during his tenure in the Illinois senate.

He called Obama's pro-gun control stance "bad politics.” LaPierre's admonition was an ominous warning that the powerful gun-lobbying group would oppose Obama and so would millions of other passionate gun owners that take their cue from the NRA.

That’s just the start. His votes and views during his days in the Illinois senate on taxes, abortion, civil liberties, civil rights, law enforcement and capital punishment have so far drawn little public attention, because of the media and a big chunk of the public’s obsession with nailing Hillary. But in a head to head match up with the likely GOP presidential nominee John McCain, Republicans and conservative interest groups will surgically dissect his state senate votes and they will find much there to pound him on.

The National Taxpayers Union will pound him for voting to impose hundreds of new taxes and fees on businesses in his last year in the state senate. Though the tax hikes were deemed necessary to help close Illinois's crushing budget deficit, business and taxpayer interest groups screamed foul.

Obama's vote to raise taxes and his consistent pro-labor votes marked him as another tax and spend Democrat with them. This has been the dread label that Republicans have tagged Democratic contenders with in elections past. This always strikes an angry chord with millions of voters that equate higher taxes with government waste, inefficiency and pork barrel favoritism. And even more insidiously, equate high taxes with special interest giveaways to minorities and the poor.

Obama got a perfect rating from the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council. In 2001, he backed legislation that restricted medical support in certain types of abortions where the fetus survives. Pro-life groups interpreted that as a vote to strengthen abortion rights.

His vote and views on choice will make him a prime target for pro-life groups. He got a zero rating from the National Right to Life Committee for voting for stem cell research, for funding abortions abroad, and against parental notification in the U.S. Senate.

Obama's pro-civil liberties votes on capital punishment and police power and the 100 percent rating he got from the ACLU won't help him dodge the soft on crime label on the issue of crime and punishment.

McCain and the GOP hit squads will go for the political jugular and lambaste him as an anti-police, anti-business, pro abortion, pro labor, pro-gun control, tax and spend liberal Democrat. Conservative interest groups will tar him as a liberal Democrat who will bend way over to pander to labor, minorities, and women. Obama's record on civil liberties, civil rights, abortion, and spending issues will endear him to millions of voters, but not in the South and the heartland states.

Then there’s the personal dirty stuff. They’ll hammer him for his dealings with an indicted Chicago financier, for possible conflict of interests in other financial dealings and legislative votes, and his fuzzy oftentimes contradictory statements and actions on the Iraq war and terrorism. Then there’s the ultimate ploy, the race card. The GOP hit squads will dig, sift and comb through every inch of his personal life and poke through his voting record to find any hint of personal or political muck.

As long as Hillary was seen as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Obama’s Teflon coat remained relatively unmarred. That will change, and change fast, if Hillary can’t right the ship and quickly get back in the hunt for the nomination.

Obama knows what’s in store for him without the Hillary firewall. A month ago he loudly declared that he will not be swift boated by the GOP. He will be. The fake Klan endorsement notwithstanding, he can still thank Hillary that he hasn’t been already.

I give up. I have to confess to my conservative friends that they were right; I was wrong, and I have seen the light. Government is not the answer. It is the problem and capable of such remarkable stupidity that were I to pitch the following true scenario to Comedy Central, they’d laugh me out of the writers’ room.

We will all agree, left and right, liberal and conservative, that we have a health care problem. All of us local folks know that King Drew Hospital was a disaster with people stacked up in the hallways, lying on the floors and dying in the parking lot. Part of the reason was almost certainly the culture of the hospital, but some of the pain, suffering and death was caused by the amount of traffic. There were just too many people to be served efficiently or even decently.

Many poor people, often without private health care providers or insurance, used the hospital and its ER for everyday health care. This made the problem of triage, of serving the most critical folks in order of need, especially challenging. The hospital was failing.

So what was our local government’s answer to overcrowding and having people waiting for five hours to see a doctor? Well, you know the answer. It was to close the ER. A brilliant strategy. To paraphrase the famous mantra from Field of Dreams, “If you close it, they won’t come.” It follows logically as day the night that if they don’t come, then no lines. Therefore, if no lines, then no one dies in a closed waiting room.

This has been so successful with King Drew that their mortality rate has fallen to, well, zero. Buoyed by their success, the Feds are back into it again. They have just served notice to UCLA Harbor that their wait times are also unacceptably long and are threatening (Yes, you guessed right. Believe it or not!) to pull their accreditation and close them up, just like King Drew.

The logic is impeccable. The answer to overcrowding and long wait times is to close the hospitals. This also cuts down on mal practice and medical error. After all, if you don’t give them any treatment, they won’t get any mal treatment. If you don’t see them, they won’t be misdiagnosed. If they are not mistreated or misdiagnosed they won’t sue. We are saving lives and money all at the same time. We could end our medical care crisis in a minute if we just eliminated doctors and hospitals and didn’t see sick people.

Who comes up with this cruel, stupidly conceived and ill-considered absurdity? The answer, I fear, is government both local and federal. Not willing to leave bad enough alone, yesterday our local geniuses issued a plan to close our public health clinics. They hope that by closing publically run clinics they can get the non-profit private medical providers to step in. They believe the private sector will be happy to do it cheaper. They can hope. The private sector is already not thrilled with how Medicare, Medical and other government agencies pay. I’m sure they’ll be eager to assume a larger part.

However, what is certain is that by closing the clinics they will drive more poor and underserved to the ERs for ordinary health care. This will increase the wait times to see doctors, increase the financial losses of the ERs, drive more of the private providers out and increase the number of poor who die in waiting rooms, on floors and in parking lots. It’s brilliant. It is our government at work.

My problem in swearing off government being the answer is that if public agencies can’t help and the private sector won’t, I guess the poor will just have to go somewhere out of sight and die.

You can tell a fundamental shift has occurred in the presidential primary race when the chorus of critical punditry has gone from trash talking Hillary's looks to fretting about Obama's so-called "cult of personality," which is what the NY Times' Paul Krugman sees promoting Obama in this column. And L.A. Times Oped columinst Joel Stein calls the who pro-Obama thing creepy.

Gosh, talk about cynicism. For the first time in my lifetime, the Dems have a candidate that touches people emotionally. But show it and you're a mindless cultist? How far we have fallen if it's OK to idolize movie stars, but not show some of that excitement about the people we elect to lead us into the dangerous and uncertain future?

And can it really be a cult if there's no secret doctrine involving ascension to outer space or heavenly hovercrafts?

Valentines cards I'd like to see:

From Bill to Hillary:
Roses are red
Violets are blue,
Obama is not
as hot as me -- I mean you

From Hillary to Obama
Fickle ol' Cupid may be on your side
setting up the ultimate battle of the sexes,
And Maryland and DC may have been a slide
But just wait until Ohio and Texas

From Obama to Hillary
You've been my inspiration,
breaking the political glass ceiling.
But for the sake of America
I've got this very strong feeling,

That you're not the one
for whom we've been waiting,
So admit I'm the man,
and stop the race baiting

From Mitt to McCain
My Valentine to you was my retreat
But here's another special surprise:
It's 280 delegates to help you defeat
The other guy with those freaky eyes

From Huck to McCain
Tea for two, and two for tea
Me for you, as your VP (??!!)

What parent has not prayed to change places with a sick, or even a dying, child? What child has not wept at the pain of an aging parent? As my wife, the Fair Helenekela, rehabs from her knee replacement and I put her through her painful paces, I would change places in a heartbeat. It is far easier for me to hurt than to cause her tears.

In the military, a soldier will throw himself (and now herself) on a grenade without conscious thought and certainly adverse to personal interest. A mother bird or human mother will lure danger away from the nest and interpose her body between the threat and her off spring. Deep in the genetic code is the drive to protect the future and care for our offspring.

Since the beginning of recorded time we have danced, sung, painted, pleaded, fought, lied and died for love. It is fundamental to what makes us human beings.

I’m obviously not simply talking about sex and mating—all the other life forms higher than amoebas mate. Indeed, “birds do it; bees do it; even educated fleas do it.” But love is more, much more, than the male drive to inseminate and the female drive to select good genes for babies and a good provider for the family unit.

Human love is far more than lust, recreation or even re-creation. It is empathy, sympathy, sacrifice and generosity.

The Greeks had three words for love so that we wouldn’t confuse affection, lust and devotion: Eros, Phil and Agape. Eros is romantic love. Phil is attraction and devotion (Philosophy being love/devotion to wisdom). Agape is usually understood as the acceptance of the other—flaws, faults, warts and all. The classic example is God’s love for flawed humanity. These three words are connected by, well, connection. They all connect us to the world and to others. They connect our hearts to a special kind of generosity.

Parents, animal and human, will take enormous risks for love—sometimes from instinct and sometimes despite some seemingly strong instincts. Human beings have the possibility of choosing against instinct. We can, if we put our minds to it, come to believe our children are not the most precious and important things in the world. We can try to maximize our own pleasure and not understand the selfless generosity that is built in to our genetic code.

Love, as Agape and not simply Eros, is based on the instinct in animals and insight in humans that we are not the single most important entities in all the universe. This is a liberating epiphany.

As babies, we are only our needs and demands—feed me, hold me, change me, love me. As adolescents, we begin to have a compassionate sense of others and how two are so much more than one plus one. As mature adults and parents or grandparents, we begin to get—consciously or unconsciously—that the needs, desires, happiness and survival of others may be even more important than our own. While other animals may act on this by instinct alone, we are free to choose or ignore these better angels of our genetic inheritance.

Someone once defined civilization as the stifling of our basic animal drives for the sake of civil society. This is in my view 100% half true. The other half is that civilization sometimes stifles the genes of generosity by celebrating our individuality as if it were an unambiguous virtue.

Where romantic love meets devotional love is in the bonding that makes us sense our best selves. I think we often love the people who help us feel about ourselves the way we want to feel, the people who can show us, reveal to us, goodness and generosity that surprises and fulfills us, who can open up our hearts beyond the lonely skin-sack of self and connect us to each other, the world and the future beyond ourselves.

When we squirrel away for the future care of the family, instead of the immediate gratification of that giant flat screen TV (which I still lust for, but don’t need), when we give to our children, the children of the world, a religious group, political party, or scholarship fund—we feel good. We remind ourselves that our short time here in the sunlight has meaning, power and effects beyond its visible manifestation.

We love in order to know that we are not alone and to be connected, physically and spiritually, with each other and the future. Love liberates us from selfishness and opens our hearts to frightening vulnerability as well as to exciting and courageous growth. It sets our hearts dancing.

This is an election with some strange things happening. One of the strangest is the penchant for so many white males to join with African-American voters in a few primaries to back Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama. It’s strange not because of anything Obama has said or done to get so many white males behind him. It’s strange because of the possible motive many of the men that are voting for him. Let’s put it this way. Are they voting for him because they truly buy his flowery pitch of hope, change and unity. Or, is there something darker, and more insidious at work here. The something is the deep, persistent, and widespread notion among many men that a woman is not fit to hold the highest office especially if that woman is named Hillary.

Males make up slightly more than forty percent of the American electorate, and of that percent, white males make up thirty six percent, or one in three American voters. They have been the staunchest Republican backers since Ronald Reagan’s trounce of Democrat Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Without their solid support in 2000, Democratic Presidential contender Al Gore would have easily won the White House, and the Florida vote debacle would have been a meaningless sideshow. In 2004, Bush swept Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in every one of the states of the Old Confederacy and three out of four of the Border States. He grabbed more than 60 percent of the white male vote nationally. In the South, he got more than 70 percent of their vote. That insured another Bush White House.

Male voters gave not just Bush but Republican Presidents Bush Sr., Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon the decisive margin of victory over their Democrat opponents in their presidential races. The majority of them that voted for the GOP presidents were middle-to upper-income, college educated, and lived in a suburban neighborhood. This closely parallels the demographic of the men that are voting for Obama. But at the same time, fewer than one in five white males labeled themselves as liberal.

The reasons for the intense and unshakeable loyalty of working and middle-class men to the GOP are not hard to find. The gap was first identified and labeled in the 1980 contest between Reagan and Carter. That year Reagan got more than a 20 percent bulge in the margin of male votes he got over Clinton. Women voters by contrast split almost evenly down the middle in backing both Reagan and Carter. Most men made no secret about why they liked Reagan and what they perceived that he stood for. The tough talk, his apparent firmness and refusal to compromise on issues of war and peace fit neatly into the stereotypical, male qualities of professed courage, determination, and toughness.

Then there’s the thing that’s even less politically and gender correct to admit and that’s that the bias of many men toward women in high positions is so deep seated that they refuse to believe that they are even biased. Psychologists have testified in countless gender bias law suits that the “unconscious bias” of male managers against women, especially against women attaining power positions. The refusal of men to promote women has been the biggest factor fueling gender discrimination in corporate hiring and promotions. Male managers in charge of promotion and pay decisions unwittingly engage in "spontaneous" and "automatic" stereotyping and "in-group favoritism" that results in the most desirable jobs at the company being filled by white males.

Even if unconscious gender bias affects only a relatively small percent of men in a close contest between a male and female candidate in which the two are rated fairly evenly in competence, qualifications and experience, the refusal of many men to vote for her could harm her candidacy. Female candidates offset the male bias by getting solid support from women voters.

First Hamas TV had Farfour, the Mickey Mouse knockoff who was beaten to death by an Israeli agent. Then there was Nahoul, the bumblebee who beat cats and now has apparently died from illness because of the Gaza blockade. Now comes Bugs Bunny knockoff Assud, who has claimed that he will "eat" Jews ("I, Assud, will get rid of the Jews, Allah willing, and I will eat them up"). The twisted kids' show, "Pioneers of Tomorrow" -- "pioneer" in this case not meaning someone who makes scientific advances or a contribution to society, but someone who blows him or herself up -- is still hosted by psychopathic little Saraa, who calmly decries "filth of Zionists" while giving approval to Assud's plans for a Jew buffet.

Watch the video, and see what this world's come to. I predict in the next episode that Saraa and Assud will show kids how to put Jews in their Playskool ovens.

One of the more insidious tactics of the Clinton presidential campaign has been to get surrogates to say outrageous things about Barack Obama -- that way, the noxious ideas can make it into circulation, but Hillary bears no direct responsibility for them. Remember when Jean Shaheen brought up the specter of Obama's past drug use, or any of Bill Clinton's nasty-grams from a few weeks ago?

Now comes the latest cheap shot by way of Pennsylvania's Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, a longtime and prominent Clinton backer. His comment: Obama can't win because he's black.

Oh, Rendell has the good sense not to word things quite that bluntly. According to the governor, the problem isn't that Obama's black, but that, well, so many Americans are white. Closet racists, most every one of them. "You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African American candidate," Rendell told the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

See, most white folks, especially the "conservative" ones, aren't enlightened like Rendell; they'd never elect a black man. Which is why, if you follow the logic, Democrats need to elect Hillary -- because a black Democratic candidate would produce a Republican president.

Nice, huh? We get to discredit Obama on the basis of his race, while impugning white voters at the same time.

Rendell's not the first to come up with this theory. I've had multiple white Democratic friends tell me the same thing. They like Obama -- really, they do -- but they can't vote for him because so many other white people are racists.

And who knows, they could be right. But so far, the only people I've met who say they wouldn't vote for Obama on the account of his race are white liberals who claim that they could vote for a black man, but won't, because so many other whites can't.

I don't for a moment think these white liberals are racist, but unwittingly, they're perpetuating racism if -- even for what may seem like noble reasons -- they vote against Obama because of his race.

And for all their concerns about rampant American bigotry, they may be creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Obama loses because white liberals who thought he couldn't win refuse to vote for him, they will later on, no doubt, point to his defeat as proof that the country is too racist to elect a black man. When in reality, the only whites who weren't ready to elect a black man were the very liberals who claim to be the most racially tolerant.

Rendell is, predictably, already backpedaling from his comments, and if the usual pattern holds up, the Clinton campaign will never even acknowledge them. But that's OK, they've served their purpose: Putting the thought into the heads of many a Democratic voter that casting a ballot for a black man would be a huge mistake.

Here's a crazy idea: What if people just voted for the candidate they liked the most, regardless of race or political calculation? After all, from the looks of things, that's what most people are already doing -- Hillary Clinton be damned.

I voted for George Bush in 2000, mainly because I disliked Al Gore. After 9/11, I was initially inspired by Bush, then bothered, then dismayed, then infuriated. His bravado seemed a charade, a mask for his sense that he was in over his head.

I strongly disliked George while large swaths of the American public were adoring him as God's man for this moment. Now that they've shrugged off his presidency and pondered what to do in a post-Romney world, I feel pity for the president.

How will history remember him? Detractors say, "as America's worst president." Supporters, few as they are, say, "as another Truman."

The latter view may seem far-fetched and self-serving right now, but I find it plausible. Posterity's view of us will have less to do with our accomplishments and more to do with what they need to believe. They may find a valuable narrative in the Bush saga, by dressing up his accomplishments and his character, and by overlooking other things.

Remember that Lincoln was hardly universally admired in his own day. John Wilkes Booth sincerely believed he'd be a hero for his dastardly deed.

And remember that this nation seemed quite exhausted by Reagan after 8 years, which is why Mike Dukakis was 17 points ahead of the man who took the Reagan mantle (right before Dukakis got Willie-Hortoned to smithereens). We remember Reagan for winning the Cold War and for restoring American confidence, as we overlook the role that people like Charlie Wilson played, the way Reagan created the modern culture of massive federal debt, Iran-contra, the scandals of that era, and so on.

Similarly, Clinton's legacy is not yet established. It will evolve, based on what inspirations or cautions we later believe we need to draw from his tenure.

Ick!! This video from a TV station in Houston shows excited Obama volunteers opening offices in Houston the day after Super Tuesday. After word began to spread on blogs about the large Cuban flag with Che seen in the video (watch it here), the station added a disclaimer under the video: "The office featured in this video is funded by volunteers of the Barack Obama Campaign and is not an official headquarters for his campaign." However, it says in the video that paid Obama staff would be working the offices "by the end of the week."

It will be interesting to see if Obama would disassociate his campaign from a vicious murderer. There is nothing cool or revolutionary about Che (just ask some of those in Cuba's prisons today simply for exercising free speech or the principles of a free press), and if that's the kind of "change" these Obama volunteers seek for the United States, that's just scary.

Dick Sparrer, the editor or MediaNews-owned (like the Daily News) Los Gatos Weekly-Times, wrote in an oped piece today in the San Jose Mercury News (also a MediaNews paper) that he likes McCain because "I look just like him."

OK, so maybe I don't look exactly like him. But since he's become a national figure, I've had dozens of people tell me I do.

Oh, I don't really think so. And if you take a look at that mug shot a few inches away, you might not think so either (of course, I was having a bad hair day when that picture was taken, and I think I might have even been retaining a little water).

Who's the real McCain and whose a small-two newspaper editor? You decide.

So week before last, I was invited to a screening of "Golda's Balcony" -- the new film version of the stage play -- at the Writers Guild Theatre, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee and Stand With Us in celebration of Israel's 60th birthday. Afterward, I sat and chatted at length with star Valerie Harper -- yes, Rhoda plays Golda wonderfully -- about women leaders, identity politics, and Golda Meir, who was prime minister of Israel when America was still struggling with issues of equality.

I wrote about my talk with Valerie (an awesome person -- she and her hubby, the film's producer, insisted on walking me to my car after the theater closed) as well as my thoughts on women leaders at Pajamas Media today (where I have new pieces weekly):

As I watched the life of the former prime minister unfold onscreen, I chuckled at the thought of how our 2008 obsession with identity politics seems to forget the great leaders — who just happened to be women — who have long had the attention of the rest of the world. After all, Oprah is not the most powerful woman in the world; that woman is, as ranked by Forbes, German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

But Merkel is a conservative. Meir fought for Israel’s survival in the Yom Kippur War. Even Condoleezza Rice’s term as secretary of state has not been hailed as a great advance for women and/or African-Americans. So is a leader who happens to be a women only hailed as advancement if she pursues a feminist agenda outlined by NOW or the Code Pink sisters?

It raises serious questions when Ms. magazine last month refused to run an American Jewish Congress ad hailing Israel’s powerful women leaders: Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, with the words “This is Israel.”

Ms. told the Jerusalem Post that the ad was rejected for being too political, as two of the three women were from the Kadima party (which happens to also be the ruling party, hence making the magazine’s argument that the ad was unacceptable partisanship all the more ridiculous).

I later ask Valerie how Meir wasn't compartmentalized in the stereotype of women leaders:

“Golda was an amazing person, I think, male or female, in that she was both a visionary and an activist,” Harper said. “A lot of activists have sort of a vision, but they’re so in the doing that they don’t get the big picture, and some of the visionaries are very bad when it comes to the practical application and the doing. She was both. She held the vision just so clean and clear and her whole raison d’etre was ‘I want a world that’s safe for Jews.’"

Read the whole thing!

Today in my column I write about the constitutional change pushed through Turkey's parliament by the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party, the party to which the president and prime minister also belong, to allow Islamic head scarves in universities. It seems like a cut-and-dry religious freedom issue, but it's not so simple for the secular Muslim republic established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Do proponents of keeping the head-scarf ban relish the thought of limiting religious expression? No. They're operating out of a real fear of the snowball effect in which Islamic movements have pressured those perceived to be less pious to follow their interpretation of Islam.

In other words, they fear those who will see it as their religious duty to ensure that women cover up.

"The heads of many girls are shaved by their brothers to force them to wear head scarves," Turkish opposition lawmaker Nesrin Baytok said.

And we see what's happened in places like Iran, where top cleric Hojatolislam Gholam Reza Hassani said in December, "Women who do not respect the hijab and their husbands deserve to die."

In Iraq, women who don't wear the head scarf face outrageous threats. "Next time, I want to see you wearing a hijab or I swear to God the three of you will be killed immediately," the Times of London reports a Shiite militia member telling a group of Christian girls at the entrance to a university in Basra. Iraqi journalists report of women being shot or even killed for not wearing the hijab.

This is what Turks, like the tens of thousands who marched against the constitutional change over the weekend, fear. In a secular society, they fear extremists using a personal expression of modesty as a weapon to subjugate women.

There's also an interesting column from Saturday by Turkish Daily News writer Gila Benmayor that responds to Deputy Prime Minister and State Minister Cemil Çiçek's assertion that proponents of keeping the headscarf ban were "spreading terror and radioactive fear like the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant." Benmayor notes how the number of women working in public institutions has dropped during the rule of Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and notes other signs of increasing conservatism: "As of April 1 an alcoholic beverage ban will be enforced in sports clubs, social facilities, bars and restaurants. The Supreme Board of Radio and Television (RTÜK) also bans scenes with alcoholic drinks in television series and films. To utter the word 'drinks' in dialogues is part of this ban."

Benmayor cites research that pokes holes in Islamists' contention that the head scarf ban was keeping women out of universities:

"Failure in the university entrance exam is the main reason for girls not attending university. Among the reasons for them not having university education are marriage and work requirement but the one listed at the bottom is the headscarf issue.

Only 1 percent of female students do not enroll in universities due to headscarf concerns."

I'd sure weep salty tears for the guy who sawed off Daniel Pearl's head, by his own admission. He's up for the death penalty now, along with five other Gitmo inmates, for murder and war crimes in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks (remember those?). I hope after waiting this long that the cases are ironclad, but there's already going to fuss about the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded. (He's lucky he didn't get his back hairs plucked out one by one.) I also hope that Americans will hear as many of the ugly details as possible regarding how these men orchestrated nearly 3,000 deaths in New York, D.C. and Pa. -- and remember what KSM said about Encino native Pearl: "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan."

Accompanying a story in The Sun about British spy planes picking up Taliban talking in Brummie and Yorkshire accents -- yes, British Muslims are going over there to fight for the Burqa Enforcement Brigade -- was this great photo. These Taliban have everything they need -- guns, ammo, and apparently a potluck green-bean casserole cradled by the second guy from the right.

When you're in a cave, where do you plug in the crock pot?

Mariel writes that Barack Obama is "the man who was meant to be the next president" -- the Chosen One, if you will. Jonathan adds, "There is an ineffable spiritual dimension" to his candidacy. And now we have a new blog to answer the question that seems to burn in the heart of many a Barackophile:

Is Barack Obama the Messiah?

Jeepers peepers!

Apologies to Chris, but his two fave pols -- Huck and Tom, aka California Sen. Tom McClintock and presidential hopeful Gov. Mike Huckabee -- both got a serious case of crazy eyes.

A coincidence, or is it indicative of ultra-right idealism to have a set of intense gleaming peepers?

Since my blog entry last week, and a version of it in today's paper on my conversion to Obamanism I've talked to many other people who've been on that proverbial fence as well and found themselves, almost against their will, falling for Barack Obama. At least I'm not the only one...

I’VE had a change of heart.

Just hours after I confidently cast my ballot in the auditorium of Logan Elementary School for Hillary Clinton, the misgivings began. I blame CNN and DirectTV and all the Gods of Television because without them, Sen. Barack Obama would not have been able to cast his spell on me.

His 20-minute-long “Our Time Has Come” speech wasn’t among the best I’ve heard, nor even his personal best. But it was incomparable to those from the three other presidential front-runners that night. I shivered with presentiment, and a bit of regret, as it seemed at that particular point in time that Hillary was the big winner. “What have I done?” I thought. What had all of us done?

This was the man who was meant to be the next president, and it seemed our fears and prejudices and just plain political cynicism had gotten in the way.

I admit it: In my early driving days, I was a slave to Jiffy Lube. The little stickers the oil-changers gave me told me to change the oil every 3,000 miles, and obediently, I complied. I blame my parents. As a kid, I remember the time the engine of a family car ceased because no one had ever bothered to change the oil. I was never going to make that mistake, I vowed.

So I went to the other extreme, and continued for years. Especially here in SoCal, with a long commute, it felt like nary a month or two passed without another trip to EZ, Jiffy, or one of them Lubes.

But then one day I got a crazy idea: I read my car's owner's manual. Turns out my Honda Accord only needs an oil change every 10,000 miles. And my wife's Ford Explorer only every 5,000.

I had been an oil-changin' sucker.

I wasn't alone. The California Integrated Waste Management Board reports that 73 percent of Californians change their oil more frequently than necessary -- often every 3,000 miles, just like the lubers suggest. So the CIWMB is launching "The 3,000-Mile Myth" campaign to get motorists to stop changing oil so much -- for the good of their pocketbooks and the good of the environment.

So do yourself and the world a favor -- and don't change your oil. Well, at least not more than necessary, anyway. If you're unsure how often you should change it, go to 3000milemyth.org, punch in your make/model/year, and you'll get the info the folks at Jiffy Lube don't want you to know about.

The above quote comes by way of Deal Hudson, in a thought-provoking essay about how movement conservatives are doing to the conservative brand what movement liberals did to liberalism some three decades ago.

The Coulter-Rush-Hannity-Dobson crowd ought to pause for a moment to reflect: They did all they could to get out the message that John McCain "is not conservative," and what happened? The voters in the Republican primaries chose John McCain anyway. This suggests that the movement's influence isn't what it once was, that the word "conservative" has lost much of its cachet, or both.

Hudson suspects this is, in part, because the c-word has been used as a cudgel, and this is no doubt part of problem. He also cites the immigration battles of the last few years, when a noisy, hateful minority became the image of "conservatism" -- a minority, by the way, that was soundly defeated in the Republican primaries. Mark Shea says that, for him, the word "conservative" became tainted when it became associated with supporting torture -- although here, too, the McCain victory suggests that the pro-torture crowd is less powerful politically than it may seem in the right-wing media.

What's also worth noting is that -- contrary to what the mainstream media have been telling us for years -- "moderate" Republicanism does not equal pro-abortion. There was one pro-abortion candidate in this race, and he got his head handed to him on a platter. The four Republicans who out-performed Rudy Giuliani -- John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul -- are all opposed to abortion. And if you look back at the Congressional sweep of 2006, many of those wins came in the form of pro-life Democrats. Elections have proven, time and again and regardless of what the media think, that the pro-life cause is not the GOP's albatross.

Yet interestingly, the pro-life cause is the one "conservative" issue that movement conservatives were willing to jettison in this primary, telling pro-lifers for months that they had to accept Giuliani because he was the only Republican "who can win." (That statement alone ought to discredit the movement analysis.)

American culture naturally, and rightly, has a preference for the underdog, the little guy. A conservatism that embraces this truism of our society and stands uniformly for human dignity -- whether it's the unborn, the terminally ill, immigrants, terror suspects, or the middle class -- is one that will have far more resonance with the American public than some tainted "conservatism" that's true to one principle alone: Might makes Right. (Pun fully intended.)

David Brooks has a great column today on why college-educated, young urban professionals are all weak in the knees for Barack Obama:

... the essential competition in many consumer sectors is between commodity providers and experience providers, the companies that just deliver product and the companies that deliver a sensation, too. There’s Safeway, and then there is Whole Foods. There’s the PC, and then there’s the Mac. There are Holiday Inns, and there are W Hotels. There’s Walgreens, and there’s The Body Shop.

Hillary Clinton is a classic commodity provider. She caters to the less-educated, less-pretentious consumer. As Ron Brownstein of The National Journal pointed out on Wednesday, she won the non-college-educated voters by 22 points in California, 32 points in Massachusetts and 54 points in Arkansas. She offers voters no frills, just commodities: tax credits, federal subsidies and scholarships. She’s got good programs at good prices.

Barack Obama is an experience provider. He attracts the educated consumer. In the last Pew Research national survey, he led among people with college degrees by 22 points. Educated people get all emotional when they shop and vote. They want an uplifting experience so they can persuade themselves that they’re not engaging in a grubby self-interested transaction. They fall for all that zero-carbon footprint, locally grown, community-enhancing Third Place hype. They want cultural signifiers that enrich their lives with meaning....

Did you hear the message of Clinton’s speech Tuesday night? It’s a rotten world out there. Regular folks are getting the shaft. They need someone who’ll fight tougher, work harder and put loyalty over independence.

Then did you see the Hopemeister’s speech? His schtick makes sense if you’ve got a basic level of security in your life, if you’re looking up, not down.

Good stuff. I remember one pundit, I can't remember which, remarking after the New Hampshire primary, that while Obama won among the Starbucks crowd, Hillary sweeped the Dunkin' Donuts voters. Maybe you have to be from the East Coast to get it, but it was the perfect analogy.

Anyway, be sure not to miss this, the money quote in Brooks' masterpiece:

Obama offers to defeat cynicism with hope. Apparently he’s going to turn politics into a form of sharing. Have you noticed that he’s actually carried into his rallies by a flock of cherubs while the heavens open up with the Hallelujah Chorus? I wonder how he does that.

He he he. Although I don't much care for his politics, there's no denying that Obama is an awesome political presence. I think the Democrats would be fools not to pick him. But, that said -- and as James Taranto outlines in this column -- there is a creepy, pseudo-religious fervor that's breaking out among some of Obama's more ardent supporters, a real cult of personality in the making.

There's nothing wrong with getting inspired by politicians -- it would be nice if it happened more often in our cynical times. But those who seek meaning and personal fulfillment in politics are destined to be disappointed -- and they usually get snookered, too.

Just hours after I confidently cast my ballot in the auditorium of Logan Elementary School for Hillary Clinton, the misgivings began. I blame CNN and DirectTV and all the Gods of Television because, without them I wouldn't have caught the full impact of Barack Obama's Super Tuesday speech.

In my adulthood, the most inspirational president I've known is President Clinton. And that's not saying much. He wasn't a bad president, but not particularly notable -- and while Hillary would surely be a fine president, it's very unlikely that she will be a great one. But Obama could.

I shivered a few times of during Obama's "Our Time Has Come" speech in Chicago Tuesday night. Not from the startling SoCal cold, but with presentiment: This was it. He is it. Obama's is the next president, and anyone who hadn't voted for him that day was just slow to catch on. Oh my. Oh my. What I had I done. What had all of us done.

I suddenly remembered a point some 3 1/2 years when I was watching the Democratic Convention where Kerry was nominated. A young man running for U.S. Senate who was about to win his race, a young man I had never heard, took the podium for one of the endless speeches that goes along with these periodic events. It was Obama, and the room I was in suddenly fell preternaturally quiet as the handsome, as-yet-unknown man enthralled us with his melodious voice, his passion, his presence. He was there like no one else that night. "He's going to be president one day," someone said. I nodded: of course it was true.

That initial impression was lost in the crushing cynicism of the ensuing months. I think I forgot I could be inspired by a politician, since my experience has been so limited. Bill Clinton, who's the only president I've voted for in the two decades I've been eligible to do so, was a fine president, but will not be remembered as great. Indeed, his one memorable quote associated with his eight years of presidency, and it's surely the one he's least proud of: "I did not have sex with that woman." (To give you an idea of how much staying power an infamous quote has, even my 19-year-old students knowingly titter when I use that as an example of a quotable quote.) It only gets worse with the Bush Boys "Read my lips" and "Heck of a job, Brownie." As Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland, there's not much there there.

There's a reason that people keep comparing Obama to JFK, and why even the remaining political Kennedys are drawn to him; he has that very same je ne sais quois that made people remember JFK fondly, even though, as far as I can tell, he didn't actually do much. But he sure could stir the masses; Obama can -- does -- too.

I still think Hillary Clinton is fabulous, and that she's suffered from the deep well of sexism still entrenched in this country. But I think I was wrong when I picked Hillary. If Obama can spark inspiration in an old cynic like me to, imagine what he's going to go to America.

"We are the one's we've been waiting for" Obama said that night. And he's the one we've been waiting for to take us there.

If you think my theory about Edwards not quitting but only “suspending” his campaign in order to remain viable as a dark horse or a white hope was conspiratorial, get a load of this! When Republican candidates drop out, their pledged delegates go to the state party; they are not controlled, even in theory, by the former candidate. Thus, all of Romney’s people now belong to the Republican Party.

If you are looking for a conspiracy (and I know Chris always is) this is why Huckabee stays in. He certainly knows that he is not going to win the nomination. He is all but mathematically eliminated. But if he drops out, his delegates also go to the party. This total would put the Party apparatus within striking distance of stopping McCain.

So Huckabee stays past his accomplished mission of stopping Romney, but also to frustrate the Republican establishment. As McCain fares, so Huckabee prospers and remains viable as VP—a position where he could actually be useful in delivering the South and the Bible Belt.

it looks like Tuesday's election will have the highest-ever turnout. And who said Californian's were politically apathetic (other than us)? Here's an excerpt from an Associated Press bit that just moved:

So far, election officials have counted 7.2 million ballots. The head of the county clerks association, Steve Weir, said about 2 million ballots remain to be counted. The record for number of votes in a California presidential primary is 7.8 million, which was set in 2000. The highest turnout percentage for a California presidential primary was set in 1976, when 72.6 percent voted. California has 15.7 million registered voters. A projected turnout of 9.2 million would mean that 58.5 percent of registered voters cast ballots.

The first time I set eyes on Los Angeles Police Department Officer Randy Simmons, he was lifting a 200-pound man off the ground. In an enthusiastic bear hug.

Simmons, a large, gregarious rock of a man was warmly embracing a long-time friend, and fellow LAPD SWAT officer, who had graciously invited me to take a peek inside their fraternity, at the annual SWAT Dinner.

That was barely 10 days ago. No one in that room at the Police Academy, no matter how tactically cynical, could anticipate that less than two weeks later, Simmons would be the first man from the Metropolitan Division’s “D Platoon,” as SWAT is officially known, to die in a gun fight.

Simmons, with more than 20 years on the team, was hardly the picture of a SWAT cop the media would have you believe. You certainly would not think him to be one of the Neanderthal brutes that LAPD brass considers them. While he looked every part the former pro-football player he was – a rock-solid athletic physique that, though nearly two-decades my senior, put mine to shame – he was warm, tender even, to those around him.

As he and my host spoke, I looked around the room and noticed 20-feet away a graying man of Asian descent at a table of mostly Hispanic officers. “Wow,” I thought to myself. “I wish I could have brought the LA Times Editorial Board down here. Let them see the brutal, racist, lily-white LAPD that they so often blast. Let them see a black cop hugging a white cop like long lost brothers.”

That Asian cop, Jim Veenstra, now lies in the same hospital where Randy Simmons succumbed, a bullet having felled him in the same fusillade.

Well, I've never been much of a fan of Mitt Romney's, but I must admit that today's graceful end (er, suspension) to his presidential campaign was a class act. His followers would do well to ponder these words:

"If this were only about me, I'd go on. But it's never been only about me. I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, in this time of war I feel I have to now stand aside for our party and for our country."

Additionally, Romney said that staying in the race would "forestall the launch of a national campaign and be making it easier for Sen. Clinton or Obama to win." That, of course, and why continue to waste millions of his own money on what amounts to a futile effort?

Romney certainly had his differences with John McCain, but unlike certain right-wing blowhards, he is not so foolish as to let what amount to small differences put Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the White House.

Now we can only hope that the fanatical anti-McCainiacs who have supported him will follow his lead.

Consider taking a deep breath of air, post-Super Tuesday, and check out Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound, by Robert Whitcomb and Wendy Williams.

I've had the pleasure of working with Mr. Whitcomb, a top editor at the Providence Journal and former editor at the International Herald Tribune and Wall Street Journal. He's a supple thinker and outstanding writer who can expose inconsistencies and hypocrisies in our public policies. In Cape Wind, he and Ms. Williams (a writer for Scientific American, Providence Journal and other publications) take a withering look at how a sensible Cape Cod alternative energy project got tied up in knots by some of America's most notable icons. It's a cautionary tale about how society's best and brightest can serve as speed-bumps or even as outright car-jackers on the road to progress. Neither a Romney nor a Kennedy comes off smelling particularly clean here. Great election-year reading.

Edwards lives! In the words of the immortal Monty Python sketch, John Edwards is “not dead yet.” Careful parsing (today a necessity) reveals that he did not quit his presidential effort. Nor did he withdraw. He “suspended” it. Big potential difference.

If you are wondering why he didn’t endorse Hillary or Obama, it may be because he thinks that he is still alive and in a deadlocked and brokered convention, they just might turn to him as, uh sorry to be writing this, the Great White Hope.

Stranger things have happened—just not recently. In 1952 the Eisenhower delegates challenged the credentials of several states that supported Robert (Mr. Republican) Taft, the son of President William (Mr. Conservative) Taft and axed out Californian Earl Warren. Meeting in secret, the bosses liked Ike.

By staying in suspended animation, Edwards may believe that the Democrats will get buyer’s remorse as Hillary and Obama bloody each other and he’ll be there for them. For us. For America! Hey he can dream can’t he?

Stumbled upon this useful quote at PoliticalWire.com, in which McCain adviser Charlie Black explains why the GOP nomination is a done deal. The bottom line is delegates: McCain has 775, Romney has 284, and Huckabee has 205. As Black explains:

"It takes 1,191 to clinch the nomination. There are 963 left to be chosen, so Romney or Huckabee would have to have all of them -- all of them -- to get to 1,191. Now you can't do that because a majority of those 963 are chosen in proportional primaries, which means you'd have to get 100% if the vote to get them all."

Which is probably why, as PoliticalWire's Taegan Goddard notes, Romney is glomming on to the far-fetched strategy of trying to pry away other candidates' delegates. At this point, though, if Romney and Huckabee have any chance at all, it's going to depend on a brokered convention.

Winner: Steve Poizner, the Republican insurance commissioner who spent $2.5 million of his own dough successfully fighting Proposition 93, the dishonest term-limits initiative designed to keep Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Senate President Don Perata in office for a few more years.

By leading the fight against 93, Poizner has made himself the (gazillionaire) David who slew the Goliath of special interests aligned to support the measure. It wasn't easy. Early polls, aided by deceptive ballot language (thanks a bunch, Jerry Brown) had Prop. 93 way ahead. In October, 49 percent of those asked said they would Prop. 93, while just 31 percent said they were opposed.

Poizner had everything going against him: All the special interests, the governor and top legislative leaders, and a misleading ballot. Yet he still managed to defeat Prop. 93 -- and give a strong boost to his own political future at the same time.

And that takes us to the biggest loser of the day -- Nunez, the architect and principal beneficiary of the measure. Nunez used every tool at his disposal, even shaking down his own underlings in the Assembly for contributions. But neither all that money nor a slew of sleazy ads could do the trick for him.

Now, termed out of the office he worked so hard to keep, Nunez has no choice but to -- shudder! -- go find gainful employment.

"I have just the feeling that, with conservatives, this moment is one in which pique cancels out reason -- a time for slamming doors and kicking the cat across the room -- just because here at the end of the Bush presidency, dreams of a conservative era flicker low."

There was absolutely no surprise at the results of Super Tuesday. This writer flatly said days before the first vote was cast that Super Tuesday would be anything but super for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, and that neither would or could deliver the knockout punch.

There are two colossal reasons that virtually preordained the muddled, confused and frustrating outcome for the two Democratic presidential contenders. The first is the Democrat’s winner-not-take-all proportional system and the system of super delegates that they have dumped onto the primaries. Super delegates are at large delegates and can pretty much vote for whomever they want, and under the proportional system delegates can be divvied up according to the vote total that the respective candidate gets in Congressional districts. The idea behind that is to bring democracy with a small d to the vote process and snatch the decision about who gets the big prize out of deal making party bosses at the national convention.

But the first reason for the Democrat’s Super Tuesday muddle pales when stacked up against the second reason. And that’s the fast emerging and much alarming polarization among Democratic voters, or put another way, the hard lines between those backing Obama and those backing Clinton and the reasons why they’re backing them. Exit polls showed two clear things. The overwhelming majority of African-Americans in the South back Obama. The overwhelming majority of Latinos in the Western states back Clinton. The other is that white men in increasingly bigger numbers are backing Obama. And Democratic voters are supporting their picks with passion and zeal.

Latinos and blacks are the two big, strategically placed, and dependable voting blocs for the Democrats. In every election back to Lyndon Baines Johnson’s smash victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964, blacks have been the loyalist of loyal foot soldiers for the Democrats. With the surge in Latino voting numbers in the past two decades, Latinos have just as important to the Democrats and have been nearly as loyal to them as blacks.

The tormenting question for Clinton then is if she eventually gets the grand Democratic prize will African-American voters who have virtually turned their tout of Obama into a messianic crusade back her with the same fervor and more importantly numbers? A lackluster and lukewarm turnout by blacks for her would spell big trouble for her and the Democrats in November.

The equally tormenting question for Obama is if he eventually gets the Democratic grand prize will Latino voters back him with the same fervor and numbers as they did Clinton? The same rule applies to him as Clinton. A lackluster and indifferent turnout by Latinos would spell big trouble for him and the Democrats in November.

Then there’s the question of white male voters. They make up nearly forty percent of the American electorate. In every election dating back to Ronald Reagan’s big wins over the Democrats in the 1980s and since, they have powered GOP victories in national elections and more importantly have been the sure ticket of GOP presidents to the White House. Bush got a whopping sixty four percent of the white male vote, and he did even better among white males in the South. Their sudden like of Obama then is suspect. The perplexing question is are they voting for Obama because they are truly sold on his message of hope and change, or is there a darker reason? And that is that they hate the thought of a woman bagging the highest office, especially if that woman is named Hillary.

A dirty secret little of the campaign just may be that in this age of supposed gender enlightenment when men profess profusely that they have no problem backing a woman for president many secretly do. This is not idle speculation. Polls have consistently shown that while whites are virtually unanimous in saying that they have no problem voting for an African-American for president, far fewer say the same about a woman.

When the dust finally settles in the fall, the eventual GOP presidential nominee will do his internal fence mending in the party, and will placate the warring other presidential opponents and competing factions. He will have the usual king’s ransom campaign chest, the spin of Fox and other major cable TV news outlets and conservative talk radio jocks, the solid backing of millions of conservatives and Christian evangelicals, the sure electoral votes of most of the South and the heartland states, the X factor of race and gender working in his favor against Hillary and Obama, and the hunger to maintain Republican dominance.

The last thing that the Democrats need is a fractured Democratic Party that’s hopelessly split into two feuding, finger pointing and irreconcilable factions. That could pose an even greater peril to their bid to take back the White house than the GOP. That possibility is looming bigger and bigger.

Last night as I lay in bed, I thought about what I might write this morning about Mike "I'm not dead yet" Huckabee's big southern wins in Super Tuesday. And what stuck in my mind was this robocall I received from Mitt Romney on Monday, the one in which he claimed that the GOP campaign is now "a two-man race."

Mitt's right, I thought, it is a two-man race -- and he's not one of them!

Well, as luck what have it, when I read the news this morning, I saw that Huck had already come up with more or less the same line: “Lots of people are saying it’s a two-man race. Well, it is, and we’re in it." What can I say? Great minds thinking alike.

As for what the Huckabee Hurrah means to the greater race, this thought comes to mind: Conventional wisdom tells us that Huckabee is undercutting Romney among "conservatives," and that any vote for Huck is, effectively, a vote for John McCain. Conventional wisdom, I suspect, is dead wrong.

Let's not forget that it was only a few weeks ago, in the wake of Iowa, when the GOP/conservative establishment was just as unhinged about Huckabee as it has been about McCain lately. Rush Limbaugh then warned that Huck would mark the death of the GOP, or some other such nonsense, all because the former Arkansas governor doesn't hate illegal immigrants, or thinks maybe we should take global warming seriously.

My point is that Huckabee has never been an establishment-right pick. So the thought that he takes away voters that would otherwise go to Romney seems dubious. Voters who go for Huckabee are voters who are willing to tolerate some GOP heterodoxy on taxes, the environment, and immigration -- ie, natural McCain supporters.

And that leads me to a bigger conclusion: If you recognize that votes for McCain and Huckabee are both anti-GOP establishment votes -- that is, Huck and Mac are dividing the part of the electorate that doesn't march in lockstep with the old guard -- you realize how fragile that old guard is. The majority of GOP primary voters has overwhelmingly lined up against it. No wonder the movement's ranking members have gone bonkers. They see the writing on the wall.

Mitt Romney is toast. And John McCain will most likely be the Republican nominee. Huckabee is a dark horse, but I wouldn't write him off (for a third time). Recent history shows he's more resilient (and his appeal runs deeper) than pundits realize. He is the anti-Giuliani -- the candidate who focuses his efforts on a few states, but actually wins them.

Bridget says that "Huckabee’s luck stops with the South" -- and she may be right. But then, last I checked, Texas -- the biggest prize still on the table -- is pretty far south. The Huck doesn't stop here.

Meanwhile, McCain was characteristically gracious in his Super Tuesday remarks about Huckabee, saying, "Not for the first time, he surprised the rest of us." McCain is not always so gracious in his remarks about others, leading me, once again, to suspect that there's something going on between these two. (The shenanigans in West Virginia only add to my suspicion.)

When the primaries are all said and done, don't be surprised if we see a Mac-Huck ticket. That would truly unite the party -- the north and south, the secular and the devout, those most concerned with the war and those most concerned with domestic policy, those looking for experience and those looking for inspiration -- even if it would drive the old guard to despair.

Why did Romney get whupped so badly? It was the KFC! Well, perhaps at least in part, if you look back at Mike Huckabee’s uncanny prediction from around the time of the Florida primary. You may remember that Mitt decided to be like real people and eat at a KFC even though his handlers wanted him to stop at Chili’s; after ordering a combo, Romney peeled off the skin and secret-recipe breading, then daintily ate the fried chicken with a plastic knife and fork. A Huck supporter caught video of the former Arkansas governor responding to the KFC faux pas, and Huck compared it to Gerald Ford’s tamale-construction ignorance. But Huckabee also joked that because of Mitt’s KFC faux pas, Huck would win “Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma.” As we all know now, he won four of the five.

Huckabee’s luck stops with the South, which is just as well: Colonel Sanders would probably demand a Cabinet appointment now.

So everything that I voted for (I don't live in L.A., so no Measure S) went my way last night: John McCain for the GOP nominee, no on propositions 91, 92, and 93, and yes on propositions 94-97.

With this kind of luck, I should probably be off to the Morongo slots...

And that was the headline I couldn't use in the paper tonight...

Some last thought for the evening:
The biggest surprise, that shouldn’t have been a surprise, is Huckabee. I have touted his charm and humor and how important the beer test of likability is in America (Not that as a Baptist preacher he’d drink the beer). He didn’t simply siphon votes away from Romney; he won votes in his own right (or should it be “rite”?)

He is now in a position to make demands of McCain (who may be stoppable after all). He might even be a plausible conservative alternative to McCain—except for the fact that true-blue party-line conservatives find him to be too liberal.

The really important data from Super Tuesday is that McCain won in states the Republicans have little chance of carrying in a general election; while Huckabee won in states they can and must carry. This is a very powerful position to be in for Huckabee. Republicans who want to win, well, in the words from Death of a Salesman, “Attention must be paid.”

As of 8:10 pm Pacific Standard Time the results are certainly interesting. For Democrats race and religion still play a part in the voter’s minds. Gender is an issue. But the real story for Democrats is the new demographic of age. Younger Democrats are skewing heavily towards Obama. While not yet “color blind,” race is no longer an over arching factor for the young. Win or lose, Obama has changed the playing field of American politics for Democrats. We have seen the future and it is hopeful.

For Republicans, perhaps just accidentally because of the candidates, religion is playing an enormous role. Huckabee is attracting Evangelicals and some Christians who just don’t believe that Mormons are true Christians. The great religious controversy, as all FF writers have alluded to in one way or another, is the question of Conservative Orthodoxy.

The problem clearly is that there is no one true Church of Conservatism. The Rush Limbaugh denomination wants purity and discipline along the social and economic party line. Then there are the kind of pragmatic conservatives who would prefer to have a president rather than purity. There are social conservatives who care first and last about abortion, and there are economic conservatives who want to lower taxes (but deficits are negotiable when the government is Republican).

I understand some of the animus against McCain, but as a liberal survivor of the 60s, with memories nearly green of post Chicago Democrats sitting on our hands with a disdain for Humphrey, and how we facilitated Nixon, I wonder: WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?

Not that I want you to win, but this election is about two things: War and Supreme Court Justices.

No, I haven't been sitting this one out: Actually, I wrote a column on this yesterday, which can be read here on our Web site, and in NYT News Service papers such as the Austin American-Statesman. And trust me, I've been getting it with both barrels from readers and from hosts/listeners on the radio shows I've done in the past couple of weeks. An excerpt from the DN column:

"...On Friday, Ann Coulter made a Hillary Clinton Campaign Tour stop on Fox's 'Your World With Neil Cavuto,' saying that McCain 'has no honor' and adding that 'I would vote for the devil over John McCain; thus, my claim that I would vote for Hillary over John McCain.'

Coulter isn't the only conservative pundit acting as though GOP McCain supporters - of which there are more than they'd hoped, obviously - are no less than traitors.

Some view the mobilization against McCain as a winnable effort in the vein of the defeat of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, a White House counsel who had little backing other than her boss, Bush. Manipulating the White House, though, is one thing. Manipulating an entire electorate is a little more difficult.

On Saturday, Hugh Hewitt blogged at Townhall, 'When Rush declared on Thursday that a "vote for Huckabee is a vote for McCain," the focus became very, very clear for conservative voters - who heard it. That message has been repeated a few times by others from Laura Ingraham to Mark Levin and most of us in between, as well as by folks like Rick Santorum and Denny Hastert. Messages take a while to get delivered, but they eventually get there.'

What's scary is that lifelong Republicans are, perhaps more than ever in recent memory, seeing very little tolerance for moderate or 'big tent' points of view in the scramble for the 2008 nomination. In doing a couple of radio shows around the debate, I could practically hear the pins going into the Bridget voodoo doll on the other end as the hosts lambasted me for not tarring and feathering McCain.

'Educate yourself with some Mark Levin on how much of a disaster this man is,' a reader commented on my pre-Florida column making the case for McCain. '...The man is damm (sic) lib you moron!'

I would hope that Pundit Worship hasn't reached such a ridiculous point that voters depend on their sage (or whack) advice to make such important decisions as voting. I would hope that voters stick to educating themselves on the issues and candidates' records, and save the quivering at the fire and brimstone for Sunday services.

Conservatives' hold over talk radio has been seen as a power stronghold, even sparking some Democrats' effort to reinstate the 'fairness doctrine,' which McCain has incidentally opposed. 'And the fact that leading talkers have never acknowledged the senator's integrity and leadership on this issue also reveals something significant about the character of his critics,' Michael Medved wrote last week..."

And wouldn't you know, some sage reader offered an excuse for Medved's "left turn" (aka not joining the McCain bashers): He's a Jew, therefore is supposedly a) secretly left wing, and b) in Israel's pocket.

Color me puzzled as it relates to the conservative outcry about the emergence of John McCain.

Early exit polls show that, while 75-80% of Huckabee's and Romney's Super Tuesday voters describe themselves as conservative, only 50% of McCain voters describe themselves accordingly. Conservative radio hosts and bloggers will show this as more proof that McCain is unfit to govern.

Funny thing: I thought we were electing a president of the United States, not of a subgroup of the Republican party. (And please, let's not even begin to pretend that self-described conservatives can even agree on what constitutes conservatism these days.)

Four years ago I wrote a column about how the Democratic party is virtually dead as a national entity. Now it seems as though the sickly GOP may need to go through a cleansing and reviving phoenix process, in order to find its wings for a new century.

As the lone conservative in the room (where are ye, Bridget and Robert?) let me try to shed some light on the right-wing civil war that's so delighting Mariel and Jonathan.

Like my liberal friends on this blog, I, am aghast at the unfathomable hatred that the GOP/conservative establishment harbors for John McCain. Yes, the Arizona senator has his problems: McCain-Feingold was an abomination, and Mac has an irritating way of posturing as the most honorable man on the stage, when he can be nasty and dirty, too. He carries on with this "straight talk" charade, when he is a talented spinner in his own right (see immigration or Samuel Alito). He has defied right-wing orthodoxy on immigration (a plus in my book) and torture (a big plus, IMO), and sometimes works with (horrors!) Democrats. But his biggest liability, as far as I'm concerned, is his past (and possibly current -- he sends mixed messages on this one) support of grossly unethical and medically unnecessary embryonic stem-cell research.

But does any of this really make him worse than Obama and Hillary, who both pledge disastrous early withdrawals from Iraq, and who try to outdo each other in their unfettered zeal for abortion?

And forget the Democrats, does any of this even make McCain worse than Romney? Romney might be parroting the conservative line for the moment, but he has shown time and again that he will shed whatever principles he claims to hold dear as soon as it's politically advantageous to do so. Do conservatives really think he'll be different this time? Do they really believe he would gamble his political capital to support solid Supreme Court justices when he doesn't really care one way or the other?

So what explains the anti-McCain hysteria? There are numerous factors, I think. Among them:

• Inebriation. Many prominent right-wingers are caught up in the excitement of the moment. They're drunk with the fight. When they wake up in the morning with hangovers, they will regret what they said the night before.
• Bad blood. Too many conservatives have stood on opposing sides of McCain in political battles before, during which he has often made unkind and unseemly insinuations. The result is a personal animosity that trumps political calculations. ("Mitt may be a weasel, but he's never said my mom wears combat boots!")
• Torture. This issue has -- to my great distress -- become something of a litmus test on the old-guard right. Never mind that it is a gross affront to human dignity and an obvious violation of basic pro-life principles. And never mind that McCain, who would know better than anyone, has repeatedly and eloquently made the case that torture is not only wicked, but unnecessary. But just as the Democratic Party sold its soul on abortion, the GOP establishment is following its lead on torture -- showing that calling evil good in the name of ideology and self-interest is a wholly bipartisan venture.
• Immigration. While I wouldn't go so far as Mariel and suggest that opposition to immigration is intrinsically racist, there can be no denying that illegal immigration has become a convenient whipping boy for much (though not all) of the Right. Few issues rile up the faithful so effectively. This is a powerful (if short-sided) wedge issue for Republicans, and a money-maker for conservative media. And so breaking with the ideologues on this subject is more unforgivable to them than, oh, Rudy Giuliani's affinity for abortion.
• Protecting the coalition: The right-wing old guard is scared to death of fracturing the strange-bedfellow coalition of cultural/social/economic conservatives that has fueled GOP victories for the last few decades. Movement conservatives worry that McCain -- or for that matter, Mike Huckabee -- might alienate some faction of that alliance, never mind that both could attract far more new voters to the fold. So they prefer the paint-by-numbers Republican candidate, Romney, even though his platform is a phony, and it's plainly not 1980 any more.

Moreover, the GOP race is turning out well. Republican voters are breaking with the old guard and updating their positions and coalitions for the times. The GOP that comes out of this campaign promises to be far more viable and appealing than the one that preceded it. The party is growing, and with that comes growing pains. But that's far better than not to grow at all.

As General Patton said of war, I say of elections, “G-d help me, I love it!” The West Virginia Caucus that Huckabee won and Romney cried foul over was, indeed, a little less straightforward than it at first appeared. Romney dissed McCain for throwing support to Huckabee in order to deny Romney his rightful win. Of course, no one has a right to a vote or a win. We still use actual voters (or, I guess, caucusers?!). However, it now seems that McCain’s folk influenced Huckabee’s folk into getting the support of Ron Paul’s folk in return for letting three Ron Paul fans be delegates. In essence, they traded votes to another team for future draft choices. Wow! This is somewhere between Machiavellian and elegant.

I’m with Mariel in having a certain semi-detached bemusement about the Republicans (Belicheck like (sorry Chris) ) stealing the Democrats signals and forming the traditional circular firing squad. Listening to Rush diss McCain as a liberal is pretty funny. Having him smear in a truly homophobic slur Sen. Lindsey Graham is even more ridiculous.

Now great sport that he is, Romney is qvetching that McCain played a dirty trick by throwing his support to Huckabee in the West Virginia caucus. No hardball for Romney—might muss his hair.

McCain will probably carry the day based on character. I do understand why movement conservatives find him flawed; he is not a great team player and doesn’t follow party line. He does have an independent streak. It’s called integrity, and it can indeed be annoying.

On the other hand, it is really hard for me to fathom why the conservatives trust in Romney. His political philosophy is such a moving target that it is hard to hold him in ones sights long enough either to approve or disapprove. He has governed as liberal, run for Senate as a super liberal, moved to the right of Rudy as a born again conservative and now seems to be moderating.

He might make a wonderful president. It’s really hard to know. He doe not make a credible candidate. So, how smart are the hard line conservatives for believing in him and trusting him to be more constant than McCain? In my view, not very.

How difficult can it be to register people to vote and design ballots that don’t confuse people of normal intelligence? Harder, apparently, than one would think.

There are at least two pressing problems facing many voters today in California (not counting any perceived deficiencies among the candidates themselves). It seems that voters who thought that by registering as Independents they would in fact be considered as independents were wrong. Many actually ended up in the American Independent Party—a small but airly far right party invented to promote the candidacy of the late segregationist Governor George Wallace. Many folks are finding out today that they are not independent at all but affiliated with a party that does not represent their views at all—or represents them even more imperfectly than either the Republicans or Democrats.

As Rumsfeld remarked “democracy is messy.” This is how I had Buchanon voting relatives in Florida in 2000. Many of these people who actually needed to check the box, Decline to State in order to be considered as Independents. So they ended up not being able to get a Democratic ballot and therefore could not vote for either Clinton or Obama.

But, as they say on TV, that’s not all. Even those who managed to check Decline to State when they registered and got the proper mauve ballot had to then check an extra box in order for their presidential vote to count. If they failed to select Democrat, their vote will be annulled. Why, they might have wondered, if I’m an independent do I have to check Democrat? Good question. It has now been reported that many of these Decline to State people were given actual Democratic ballots by mistake. Their votes will be counted. Go know.

Of course, all of this will be litigated and will, by the time it is resolved, be moot. What a mess.

... and no, I don't mean John McCain. But the former Massachusetts governor has dissed Bob Dole for the crime of ... defending McCain. Having tried, unsuccessfully, to get Dole's support for himself, Romney had a sour-grapes moment this morning, in which he said the former Kansas senator was “probably the last person I would have wanted to have write a letter for me.”

Um, sure, Mitt. Is that why you once called Dole "an American hero"?

Add another flip-flop to Romney's list: He was for Bob Dole before he was against him.

The best part, though, was McCain's response: "This is no way to end up this campaign, by attacking a genuine American war hero."

Catch that? End this campaign? Mac not only manages to whack Mitt for fat-mouthing an old man, but then also sneaks in the suggestion that Mitt's candidate days are coming to an end.

And on that score, Mac seems to be right ...

As a liberal, I've always had some views about the mental health of the extreme republicans. But I never thought I see the day when the lot of them would complete f***ing nuts at the same time. Though I must admit to enjoying the vehemence of the noisy hard core right side of party over the ascendancy of moderate John McCain as the presumptive GOP nominee on this Super Tuesday. Hee hee! Silly meanies!

But I'm surprised about how he hating of McCain has reached a level of nastiness even Wonkette wouldn't stoop too. Just check out the comments on this blog that portray the man as the son of Satan, practically. Conservative blowhard Rush Limbaugh bashes McCain on his radio show every day and says that the a McCain win would destroy the GOP, which, of course, makes absolutely no sense since clearly it means that a majority of the GOP voters feel his kinda moderation is the right way to go. By "destroy" he must mean take it back from the freaky extremists who have hijacked the GOP's sanity or the past decade. 'Bout time.

Even the conservative hatemonger Ann Coulter says would support that known liberal Hillary Clinton over McCain. Jeez, you'd think the guy suggested giving tax cuts to married gay illegal immigrant flag burners or stopping corporate welfare.

From my POV, McCain's pretty conservative, supporting the war in Iraq and all. So I have this theory that this anti-McCainism is really just sublimated racism. Clearly, he's going to give amnesty those evil, soul-sucking, country wrecking brown people from down south. No matter that they mostly support the same values the GOP ostensibly supports: family values and such.

The support of McCain is a positive thing to me. It means that fianlly the nastiness has gone too far. That Americans don't respond so well to the fearmongering of the "other" that has won elections in the past. That maybe the sane moderate section of the GOP is coming to its senses. Either way, though, I think it's too late. I think the GOP is going down this year as it ought to. Meanwhile, the party would be wise to excise the anti-brown rhetoric in the party. Let them start their own party, the KMO (the Kick the Mexicans Out Party), and be marginalized as is fitting for a group that doesn't reflect the majority of decent, caring, kind, industrious and optimistic Americans.

Ahem to that.

The headline shouts that in a "shocking poll" Obama has caught, passed and now leads Hillary in California by 13%. This is bad journalism and crazy bad analysis. It is also what we will be seeing and hearing all day and into the night from every news organization.

The number will not hold up because however much Obama may be surging, the early voters missed the trendlines and tides. According to some other questionable numbers, over 60% of expected Republican voters have already voted. Over 40% of Dems have already voted. If you believe this (which I don't completely) the current polls are nonsense.

Set your crap detectors on high and look at all reports in light of what the media are trying to do, not manipulate the outcome, but grab eyes and attention.

Well, the robocalls have been coming in fast and furious, four for McCain versus two for Romney. And they are telling.

First, we have McCain trying to pander -- however implausibly -- to the anti-immigration crowd with this message from former Gov. Pete Wilson, the man who singlehandedly made the GOP toxic to California Latinos.

Next, McCain tries to pander to social conservatives with this "alert," the nastiest robo in the bunch. Money line: "Sorry Mitt, we know you aren't trustworthy ... and you aren't a conservative."

Finally, on the nice side, we have these two, the first from wife Cindy, the second from former California gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon. Both tell us what a good conservative the Mac Daddy really is.

The Romney robos aren't anywhere near as exciting. This first one is the more negative of the two, in which Mitt says we're tired of the "liberal policies of the Washington, D.C. crowd" (gee, whom could he mean?). He also tries to peel away Huckabee supporters like myself, calling Super Tuesday a "two-man race." Then there's this one, which consists mostly of generic fluff, but does have one cool effect -- RoboMitt says my name!

The odds are that Democratic presidential arch rivals Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton will know no more about which of the two will be the party’s standard bearer the day after Super Tuesday than they did when the day started. The early talk about the “inevitability” of Hillary’s march to the Democratic nomination has long since ceased. And any talk about Obama’s inevitability, despite his rock star size crowds, poll surge and high profile endorsements, is just as nonsensical and wishful thinking. Obama will win some of the 15 Democratic state primaries and seven caucuses and one in American Samoa and Clinton will win some others. In the biggest and most crucial delegate rich state of California, the delegates are parceled out proportionally, so both Clinton and Obama will get their share.

But even with no Clinton or Obama knockout punch on Super Tuesday, the day will still answer some questions while raising a couple of large questions for which ever one grabs the top Democratic prize. The first question for Obama is will white voters en masse back an African-American candidate. Nearly every white voter in every poll profusely swears that they are color blind, and many back pat Obama, and say they will vote solely on the basis of competence, qualification and vision. They’ve said the same thing in head to head contests between black and white candidates in past elections and then once in the privacy of the voting booth done just the reverse. The result: the black candidate has gone down to flaming defeat.

But Obama’s race neutral change pitch has had earth rattling political reverb and he will likely get a significant number of white votes, particularly from younger voters. That will in part bury the Bradley effect and that’s the penchant for many white voters to dupe pollsters and interviewers about their feelings on race. At least that is, bury it in the primaries where his opponent is a woman with towering negatives with many voters. The questions for Clinton on the gender side is will male voters in big numbers back her. In some polls more than half of male voters say they wouldn’t vote for her, and are even less charitable toward the notion of a woman president than a black president.

A question and a worry for Obama is can he win a big number of Hispanic voters over. That’s only an issue in part because of the tensions and conflicts that have marred relations between blacks and Hispanics in some places, and in greater part because of the long standing ties, heartfelt affection, and political court by the Clintons of Latinos. His success at chipping away some of Clinton’s Latino firewall in California and the Western states where Hispanic voters make up ten to twenty percent of the vote could be a deal maker or breaker in his drive to the nomination and beyond.

The question for both is: Do Americans really want the change that they say they want. Obama is betting the political bank they do and even Hillary has done everything she can to counter the charge that she’s old guard politics and that she is just a much as a change maker as Obama. Another question for both is how big the issue of the Iraq war still is to voters. Obama has pushed hard to sell himself as the only top tier candidate that opposed the war from the start, and that Hillary at least initially backed it. But polls now show that the war with the appearance of stabilization and the military surge in Iraq is not the top campaign issue it once was.

The last daunting question for the Democrats is how to keep the momentum going after Super Tuesday for the months up to the convention in August and make sure the muddled outcome of Super Tuesday doesn’t split the Democrats into two warring and irreconcilable factions. That would spell doom for the party in the fall.

The Republicans don’t have to answer that question. Ten of the Republican primaries are winner take all affairs. If one candidate, and from the big time endorsements that he’s gotten and the poll numbers, that candidate is likely to be John McCain. He almost certainly will emerge with a commanding lead over Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee in the number of delegates needed for the GOP nomination. He will have six months to do internal fence mending, unite the warring and wavering GOP core factions, pile up key endorsements, massage, streamline, and sharpen the party’s message, further bulge his campaign war chest, and further distance himself from Bush’s unpopularity. That guarantees the most important thing of all: a united Republican Party without the albatross of the Bush legacy.

Super Tuesday will answer questions for the Republicans. And raise more questions for the Democrats. That makes Super Tuesday much less super than Obama or Clinton would like.

While Bridget complains of robocalls from robo-Mitt, the Weinkopf home has been besieged as of late by solicitations from the McCain camp. My wife reports that three pro-McCain calls came in today, one from Mrs. MacDaddy herself. The other two came from generic-sounding announcers, the first telling us how wonderfully Reaganeasque McCain is, the second warning about about the evil and wickedness of the Mittster.

Finally, for good measure, we also got a push poll, which asked a series of questions along the lines of: "Would you vote for Romney even if it were revealed that he strangles kittens in his basement, then eats them?"

Apparently the McCain camp has decided to turn the volume up to 11. For once, I'm glad my candidate is too poor to afford robo-calls!

Jonathan is right -- with all this mud slinging back and forth, I need a shower, too.

I may be pulling for Hillary Clinton, but I can't help but be moved by this quintet of powerful women supporting Obama. This is a picture of an Obama rally today at UCLA with Maria Shriver, who came out for Obama today like the rest of her Kennedy brethren, Oprah, Michelle Obama, Caroline Kennedy and, squeezed into the right side of the picture, L.A.s' own Maria Elenea Durzaon, head of the L.A. County Federation of Labor. They didn't even need the candidate to be fabulous.

Forget Obama and Clinton, let's elect these women for a co-presidency!

More reason why the writers and the studios need to come to an agreement...fast.

Gov. Arnold is up and down the state today supporting his candidates (John McCain) and initiatives (Prop. 93 and the Indian gaming quartet). This morning he was in the Valley at VICA HQ's pushing the gaming props when he and Jack O'Connell launched into this impromptu comedy routine.

GOVERNOR: Thank you very much. And now I would like to hand the mike over to Superintendent Jack O'Connell to say a few words. Please.

SUPERINTENDENT O'CONNELL: Thanks, Governor. I just have to begin by noticing it was just 24 hours ago I noticed that you were with Senator McCain and Mayor Giuliani, and you continue to move up in stature today with all of us here today. (Laughter) I worked on that all night.

GOVERNOR: Jay Leno wrote it, huh? (Inaudible) writer's strike.

SUPERINTENDENT O'CONNELL: It was the best I could do. My writers are on strike too.

GOVERNOR: That's good.

SUPERINTENDENT O'CONNELL: I normally work alone, Governor. I don't know, whose press conference is this? (Laughter)

And here is he later crossing partisan lines to shill for Prop. 93. Politican whoring is a bi-partisan game in California.

I could put up with his lack of policy depth, and his pandering, but this is just too much:

CHATTANOOGA, TENN. -- In his first rally following the Super Bowl, Mike Huckabee compared his underdog status to that of the New York Giants before their upset victory over the New England Patriots.

In a nasal tone of superiority, Huckabee imitated the naysayers who said the Pats were already the Super Bowl champs. But then, Huckabee said, "the New York Giants showed up and decided the game wasn't over until they decided it was over."

A reporter asked him which candidate he thinks is comparable to the Patriots.

"Well, I'm going to let you do the interpretation on that," Huckabee said with a smile.

Oh, Mike! Can't you cut a Patriot-loving supporter a little slack? Did you really have to go there?

And when's the Daily News gonna take that dang picture of the front page of the website, anyhow?

Sigh. I can't wait till everyone starts talking about Super Tuesday ... and forgets about Super Sunday.

Really, I think you only need two -- Fabian Nunez and Don Perata. But the good folks over at the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights actually came up with a full list of 93. Some highlights:

3. Termed out politicians created an extra third election in 2008, wasting $80-$90 million, so they can run for office again ...
7. Perata is under investigation by the FBI...
28. Speaker spent $2,562 in campaign funds at Louis Vuitton, in Paris
29. And used campaign money to buy $5,149 worth of French wine
30. Then "sold" wine to Democratic Party to cover it up ...
32. Speaker Núñez has given total direct donations of $1.09 million to Yes on 93 campaign

Sorry this is so late. Chris and I were both busy Friday morning taping election-related radio shows. He was on the conservative Dennis Miller show which aired later that day. It was all about presidential elections.

I was a guest on leftie KPFK's Deadline LA., along with cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz, LA Times editorial writer Rob Greene and hosts Howard Blume and Erin Aubry Kaplan -- both of whom also write for the LA Times. It was nice they let a DN person join in the discussion. The show aired Saturday afternoon and we talked about presidential elections, state props and even local props.

While the original broadcasts are long past, there's always podcasting. If you got an hour to kill, take a listen to me. Unfortunately, Dennis Miller charges for his podcasts so you can only listen to a podcast of Chris's appearance if you are already a member, or decide to become one.

I need a shower. The attack slime is thick in the air, and I’m sick of it. The official hit pieces and robocalls are bad enough but the viral stuff is truly horrible.

So far I have “learned” that Obama is a secret Muslim mole who goes to a Black Muslim influenced anti-Semitic Christian church. I’m already confused. Hillary is a member of a vast left-wing conspiracy that will subjugate us, take away our freedom and put people who don’t buy her healthcare plan into debtors prison, but when she isn’t on the left, she is really a right wing neocon war-loving hawk.

Meanwhile, McCain is an unstable, liberal, angry adulterer wife-beater. My guess is that he beat her at scrabble. Romney is a secret liberal, public conservative, progressive changeling and shape-shifter, who axed more jobs than he created in this country.

All NOT very edifying, and—except for the Romney part—not true. How much of this is ignorance and how much planned slime, I do not know. It is ugly and will only get worse in the general.

The only thing that takes any power away from the phony rumors, misleading slate mailers and dirty tricks is early voting. Those who voted early may have missed the last minute shifts of momentum and opinion, but they also evaded the influence of slime.

The early voting makes nonsense out of most of the polling data we are seeing today. The stories about momentum are interesting for tomorrow's vote but the part that early voting plays will not be covered by the horse race media till after the polls close tomorrow. They know and understand, but they don't want to ruin a good story with facts.

The other day I received an e-mail from Government for the People, aka state Assembly hopeful Michael A. Jackson from Long Beach. The mailing recommended "no" votes on every proposition except 91, "no" on L.A.'s Measure S, and endorsed Mitt Romney as the choice to derail John McCain. "We trust that he will work for what he is saying and he is not owned by any special interest group due to being able to finance his own campaign with money generated from his successful businesses," it said. Sooo... rich people make better presidents?

Anyway, there were a couple of low blows in the mailing. First:

"McCain hooked up with a blond twenty-five year-old former cheerleader almost young enough to be his daughter and then divorced his wife, leaving their three children. Where are the news reports on this, they went after the other Republican candidates with weaknesses in family values."

Maybe it's not a focus because, to the McCain family, it's long been water under the bridge. Ex-wife Carol is supportive of McCain, the children have forgiven their father, and Cindy and John McCain have enjoyed a marriage since 1980 that produced three children and saw the McCains adopt a fourth from Bangladesh. (Cindy, by the way, is 17 years younger than McCain, which doesn't exactly make her Anna Nicole Smith.) Regardless, I really hate this judgment passed on personal life/past mistakes, but especially with the circumstances in McCain's case: McCain married his first wife and had children before leaving for Vietnam. As we all know, he spent five and a half years as a POW, subject to torture that would break a lot of people. He was released in 1973. It's hard for us to imagine the process of coming back to his family, trying to reacclimate to that life; it's very hard to judge what someone would do under the same circumstances.

And then there was also this:

"McCain is pro-abortion (?). In 1999 McCain stated that overturning Roe v. Wade would be dangerous for women and he would not support it, even in 'the long term.'"

Um, one might not want to make that spin if supporting Mitt Romney, who ran for governor in 2002 on a pro-abortion rights platform. In fact, Romney said in 1994: "I had a dear, close family relative that was very close to me who passed away from an illegal abortion ... [W]e will not force our beliefs on others on [abortion]. And you will not see me wavering on that." NPR on Saturday actually slammed McCain for being too consistently anti-abortion. So if the question mark in Government for the People's text there indicates some sort of doubt about calling McCain pro-abortion, they should have erred on the side of caution.

You know what they say: Voters in glass houses...

That means six more weeks of phone calls from Mitt Romney...

Will liberals still hate her?

Man, the Anyone But McCain hysteria is bizarre. And it's amazing, as Jonah Goldberg notes, to see people who once said we had to back Rudy Giuliani -- because national security is all that matters -- turning against arguably the strongest national-security candidate due to old party hatreds.

And then there's Ann Coulter, blasting McCain because he's not pro-torture -- Ann likes that Hillary is (as usual) more equivocal on the issue. Geez, Ann, maybe if you spent 5 years in a Vietnamese POW camp you might understand.

Wow, as someone who's identified as a conservative my entire adult life, I've never been more disgusted by some of the folks in my camp.

Well, if the Hillary campaign is willing to accept Ann Coulter, they can have her. All the more reason to vote for McCain in the general election ...

Who ever thought of Mississippi as being in the vanguard of liberal thinking and the poster state for the, uh, nanny state? But now here it is making up for all that lost time. Three Mississippi legislators are proposing that it be illegal for licensed restaurants (are there other kinds?) to serve food to obese people. Patrons at or above a specified body mass index would be refused service. First cities started banning trans-fats. Now they're moving on to banning the fat.

Believing, I suppose, that food-aholics are indeed like alcoholics, this would be like cutting off a drunk who had consumed too much. A great idea. Humane, kind and thoughtful. It would create healthier and more attractive people—which is ultimately the job of government. I guess being fat in a public place would also be a crime. Maybe a the aesthetic fat police could just issue tickets for first offenders.

I wonder, would going into a restaurant and buying a hungry obese person a cheeseburger be a crime? If so, what? Pandering? Contributing to the illness and death of another? Could a person, sorry, I mean, such an enabler be guilty of negligent homicide or manslaughter were the eater to die? There are already cases where child custody has been lost because the child was too heavy by the standards of the state. Boy for a left-leaning liberal, I’m starting to sound pretty right. Right?

Let’s face it, as usual California is way ahead of Mississippi. Our very own council member, Jan Perry, proposed a fast food moratorium in South Central to protect the people from themselves. We are doing such a good job of protecting people from gangs, poverty, exploitation; we are succeeding so well at educating our kids to read, write and calculate; we are instilling in all our population so much respect for each other, the environment and our civil society that government is finally free to be the ultimate arbiter elagantum and make our menu selections, pick our optimal weights and get us to get the BMI of their dreams.

The problem with this thinking, this nonsensical paradigm, is that while an alcoholic can survive without booze, people can’t survive without food. Oh, whoops, why didn’t they think of that?

Jonathan positively nails it when he writes, "Willing suspension of disbelief seems to be necessary in politics." It sure does. Yet what's amazing is how much we -- meaning all of us voters -- are willing to suspend our disbelief. We all back our candidates, well aware of the shallowness of their platforms and their naked pandering, but accept it. OUR guy or girl, we reason, is different from the rest. Really.

This morning I exchanged e-mails with a friend who is a longtime, passionate John McCain backer. As much she hated to admit it, she couldn't help but concede that McCain has blatantly and repeatedly distorted Mitt Romney's position on Iraq. This was hard for her to accept, because it didn't square with the image of McCain she had embraced -- Mr. Straight-talker, the super-honorable patriot who plays fair and by the rules. McCain, in her book, was always the victim of dirty tricks, never the perpetrator.

Except there he was, lying about Romney's position on Iraq. And also claiming -- absurdly -- that if president, he wouldn't sign into law the very immigration bill he authored just a few months earlier. So much for straight talk.

But I don't mean to single out McCain. I've written about my own disappointment with my own candidate, Mike Huckabee, when I realized that, yes, he was a politician, too. We've seen countless Democrats and liberals in recent days (including Jonathan and Rob) say they were shocked to see the Clintons play mean-spirited hardball with Barack Obama. (Trust me, conservatives and Republicans weren't the least bit surprised.) Likewise, plenty of conservatives have been astonished to see the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity viciously beating up on their preferred candidates -- liberals would tell you they could have seen it coming for miles.

You see, we drink the Kool-Aid not just about politicians, but about pundits, institutions, causes -- anything that we deem to be on "our side" and thus incapable of malfeasance or shallowness.

But there's no cause so good as not to attract bad people to it. Politicians are human, and flawed, just like the rest of us. And sadly, in our hyper-competitive political system, no one seems to make it to the upper echelons of presidential campaigning without making some serious concessions along the way. We have to spit out the Kool-Aid, own up to all the candidates' deficiencies, and then decide whose we can most live with.

There is no perfect candidate. And beware of the pundit who tells you there is.

Why does anyone ever believe any politician? This is not a rhetorical question at all. After listening to Hillary and Obama compare their phantom healthcare plans, I felt like I was in Alice Through the Looking Glass. What they were both basically saying was, “My imaginary plan that will never be implemented as proposed is better than your imaginary plan. My dreams are bigger than your dreams, and I am better able to avoid political reality in my gifting of empty promises than you.” A hell of a platform.

Of course it isn’t just Hillary and Obama who campaign on hallucinations. The Republicans will protect the nation, cut taxes and balance the budget by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. Has worked great so far. Romney ran so far to the right and away from his own governing record that it is hard to believe that right-thinking (pun intended) conservatives could possibly believe his convenient epiphanies. Willing suspension of disbelief seems to be necessary in politics as well as theater. I understand that movement conservatives don’t like McCain and rightly (no pun intended this time) believe he is not a team player. I just don’t get how they could trust Romney who is the Calder mobile of politics blowing around in the currents of change unanchored by any discernable principles.

Then there is the currently sainted John Edwards who pledged and promised to take it all the way to the convention. This was not simply the accepted lie of all losing candidates, “I feel the tide turning. My crowds have been growing, and something good is in the air.” This is the normal liturgy preceding disaster.

Edwards’ betrayal of trust was more important. From the start, and as late as the end of the Florida election, Edwards promised to run at least through February 5th and Super Tsunami Tuesday. By withdrawing the next day he effectively disenfranchised all the early voters who cast their ballots for him. This is one of the problems with early voting—the voters can miss the tide and the social meme. These early birds were given the bird by Edwards and are now munching on worms.

Yes, I sound cynical and discouraged. Well, I am a bit discouraged by it all. However, I know my enthusiasm will re-emerge shortly, and I’ll once again gladly drink the KoolAid of Hope

If you want to burst the enthusiasm of soldiers in Iraq, few words can do it like these two: Commo Blackout.

It means two very significant things, and, in the death-as-commodity environment of Baghdad that I knew in 2005, it was hard to judge which was worse. On the one hand, it meant all instant communication with the outside world was cut off. No Internet, no phones. Mail was delivered, but it took days any way.

The other thing it meant was that somebody was dead, or pretty close to it. Commo Blackout is the Army's way of keeping parents and spouses from being informed of a soldier's death by a passing comment in a grocery store, or via a reporter arriving at a door step ahead of the Notification Team.

There's a lot just about any Joe can complain about with regard to the Green Machine, but the dedication to supporting families is not really one of them. They honestly do the best they can, and inconveniencing troops for a couple of days so the most solemn ceremonies can be conducted as best possible is not even a question.

Of course, as soldiers, when you've survived another day, it's hard not to curse at prety much all involved when you walk to the phone trailer and find a scribbled note on the door, one that effectively says: "you're wife's just gonna have to wonder if you're alive, 'cause somebody else's is about to find out that her husband ain't."

I bring this up because an interesting trend has recently developed on my personal blog, Reasons to Believe. I've been posting a lot there lately, because over in the other Valley, my little town of Monrovia has been having a gang war in recent days. Certainly nothing akin to Baghdad, but enough to give me strange tickles, and make sure the personal protective systems for my family are in full working order, just like I would before a patrol in combat.

Anyway, while the traffic for my blog has spiked significantly, I've been getting a lot of referrals from Google, many of which are searches for those same two words. They all lead to this post: Things That Go Boom, Things That Do Not.

Now, two years seperated from the war zone, my heart sinks at that thought. Somewhere, somebody is getting the worst news possible. Somewhere not far away, someone else thinks she might. At some Army post in the south, or maybe Texas, a new bride who goes to bed worried each night hasn't heard from the love of her life for a week. Her nervous query has been met with a polite, stilted re-assurance from the head of the Family Readiness Group, "ah, don't worry, they're probably on a Commo Blackout." Knowing she already asks enough silly questions about the strange system in which she finds herself, she decides to figure that one out on her own.

My post, I assure you, supplies no solace.

I wonder if her silent world will awaken with a ring of the phone. Or, a knock at her door.

My heart wants to believe that Obama could be a unifying candidate for Americans. But my head tells me he'll be Willie-Hortoned and Swift-Boated to death by a very shrewd Republican attack crew.

Seeing a comment on a conservative blog yesterday, by a man who "strongly suspects that Obama is a closet muzzie" (Muslim, for the PC crowd), it reminded me of the inevitable insinuations that will arise about how Obama is a second-generation terrorist - in spite of his active Christian faith. GOP officials will "officially" condemn the insinuations and the ad campaigns and claim that they are the work of the fringe, but the damage will be done. Bubba may vote for a black man, but not for a Black Muslim.

During my own phase as an evangelical, I was named president of a young adult group at Hollywood Presbyterian. My predecessor came up to me, chuckled, and said, "I can tell you this now, but when you first stared coming to this group, someone told me, 'Keep an eye on Rob -- he might be one of those Muslim infiltrators.' I chuckled, then began to speculate which hard-right-wing member of the group had said that.

On the other hand, if the Clintons manage to co-win the nomination and go up against that ruthless Republican attack machine, they'd lose, but they'd at least give better than they got. Those kinds of hijinks alone would make it a fun summer.

So SpongeBob Squarepants is backing Hillary -- is anyone surprised?

Here are some other cartoon endorsements to expect in the near future:

• Montgomery Burns -- Mitt Romney (though he's still smarting over Giuliani's withdrawal)


• Beetle Bailey -- John McCain


• Dora -- Hillary Clinton


• Ned Flanders -- Mike Huckabee


• Cathy -- Barack Obama (the Oprah endorsement won her over)

... and, yes, it appeared in today's Daily News. It's an AP round-up of how much it would cost for a football fan to attend Sunday's Super Bowl, and comes up with the eye-popping price of $5,000.

Five grand! Whoa! But how do we arrive at this figure? Well, some of the expenses are reasonable enough -- airfare, a rental car, hotel. And others are just silly padding, clearly inserted so as to generate a more astonishing price tag, lest this article be not only inane, but boring, too. Some examples:

• $700 for food -- for one person for four days, we must assume that our fan either eats caviar for every meal, is Shamu the whale, or -- most likely -- both.


• $225 for golf, plus another $100 to participate in some golf tournament (which only costs $25, but sells souvenirs -- can't pass those up). Who knew Shamu had such passion for the links?


• $617 for "other entertainment," that is, activities beside the big game itself. That includes $400 "for a ticket to Snoop Dogg's Friday-night Super Bowl party at Axis" -- which is to say, the AP assumes not only that you're an obese golfer, but that you have dreadful taste in music and nightlife, too.

Every year, as the media get more desperate to fill the two-week gap between the conference championships and the Super Bowl, the stories get more ridiculous. But alas, it's a small price to pay.

Are you ready for some football? I sure am. (Go Pats!)

The questions tossed at Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have by now become so scripted and predictable that we can practically give the candidate’s answers to them in our sleep. The CNN pre-Super Tuesday debate was a near textbook example of that. In fact so textbook that the viewers in the room that watched the debate with me squirmed restlessly after the third or fourth go round on Iraq. They tired of hearing the by now familiar, stock responses from both that it’s a wasteful, lethal, terrible Bush war that we need to get out of, and stay out of within sixty days (Obama?) or a year (Hillary?). As for health care, we should make it affordable for all, and on immigration, we back a comprehensive immigration reform law.

OK, but there are five other questions that millions of Americans are thirsting for Obama and Clinton to answer. If they were on the panel they would ask them. The questions are thorny, tormenting, and have deeply divided and inflamed millions of Americans. In past elections they have been defining moments and even make or break questions for presidential candidates.

So here goes. The first is abortion. The GOP presidential contenders have an easier time with this than the Democrats. They’re against it, and have flatly said it whenever asked. The slightest waiver on this question would be the political kiss of death for them with the Christian evangelicals. With Obama and Clinton things are touchier. Both have lightly courted the Christian evangelicals, professing they too are a man and woman of profound faith. This doesn’t mean that they will scrap their avowedly pro choice, pro abortion advocacy. Yet we still need to know how far their pro choice advocacy will go when pressed about full public funding for abortions, stem cell research, and parental consent laws. These abortion related issues don’t just energize Republicans they also trouble many Democrats. The Question to both: Do you fully support abortion?

The same can be said about gay marriage. It helped put Bush back in the White House in 2004 when a significant number of black and Latino evangelicals broke ranks with the Democrats and voted for Bush in the crucial showdown states of Ohio and Florida. Obama and Clinton certainly publicly back the right to civil unions and oppose discrimination against gays in receiving benefits, but what about actual legalizing gay marriage? Obama backpedaled slightly when he took heat for his appearance with one time gay bashing gospel singer Donnie McClurkin in South Carolina late last year. He assured that he supported gay rights. Meanwhile, Hillary has mostly been silent on that question. The question: Do you fully support gay marriage?

In 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis fumbled and bumbled when blindsided during a nationally televised debate with an emotionally laden question about the death penalty. George Bush, Sr. seized on that fumble and it hurt Dukakis. The death penalty is still very much a soul searching and gut tearing problem for many. It has pitted victim’s rights groups, prosecutors and conservatives on one side against civil libertarians, black and Latino elected officials, and death penalty opposition groups on the other side. The question: Do you oppose the death penalty?

Two weeks before the CNN debate, anti-affirmative action crusader Ward Connerly announced that he plans to plop measures outlawing affirmative action on the ballot in a dozen or more states in the fall. This has all the makings of yet another tongue wagging wedge issue, and thus a potential minefield for Obama and Clinton. Being Democrats, a woman and an African-American, the assumption is that both will be staunch champions of affirmative action without any reservation. But would they be? That was also the assumption about Bill Clinton. But he did as much as some Republicans to whittle down the scope of affirmative action. The question: Do you fully support affirmative action?

There will likely be one, maybe more vacancies, on the Supreme Court during the White House tenure of the next president. In the past two decades Supreme Court picks have been among the closely watched, speculated about, and fought over of any of a president’s appointees. And rightly so, they make law and public policy that impacts on the lives of millions for generations to come, and it’s a lifetime job.

Past and present Republican presidents have been notorious for their anti-abortion, pro police power, states rights, and strict constructionist litmus tests for their court nominees. Democratic presidents have placed no such test on their nominees at least publicly. The question: What is your standard for picking a Supreme Court judge?

These questions dangle loosely in the political air and the public’s mind. How Obama or Clinton answers the questions are not necessarily presidential deal breakers for both. But answer they must, and that can’t happen unless the questions are asked. They should be at the next CNN Democratic debate at the end of February.

Interesting news from my native Massachusetts, where not even the Republicans, it seems, like Mitt Romney. The latest GOP Mass-hole (sorry to be crude, but that's the only moniker for Bay State residents that's ever stuck) to stab Mitt in the back is none other than Joe Malone, the former state treasurer. (Full, disclosure, when I was in college I worked a paid internship for Malone one summer, mostly ghostwriting op-ed pieces.) Anyway, Malone had backed Rudy Giuliani, but with Rudy now out of the race, Malone is throwing his support behind John McCain. And he's not alone. The Boston Globe reports:

Another Bay State Republican, Paul Cellucci, a former governor who had endorsed Giulani ... is not expected to endorse Romney, according to those who have talked with him since the Florida primary this week. His and Malone's rejection of Romney's candidacy reflect the division within the Massachusetts Republican leadership that is hurting Romney as he works to carry the state in Tuesday's primary election. Jane Swift, another Republican and former acting governor, endorsed McCain early in the campaign.

Kinda sad when a guy can't even find a friend in his home state ...