Hopefully this comment will burst the bubble of the folks who support Mike Huckabee.

GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Sunday he wonÂ’t run from his statement 15 years ago that AIDS patients should have been isolated.

Huckabee acknowledged the prevailing scientific view then, and since, that the virus that causes AIDS is not spread through casual contact, but said that was not certain. He cited revelations in 1991 that a dentist had infected a patient in an extraordinary case that highlighted the risk of infection through contact with blood or bodily fluids.

“I still believe this today,” he said in a broadcast interview, that “we were acting more out of political correctness” in responding to the AIDS crisis. “I don’t run from it, I don’t recant it,” he said of his position in 1992. Yet he said he would state his view differently in retrospect.

Huckabee, as a Senate candidate that year, told The Associated Press that “we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague” if the federal government was going to deal with the spread of the disease effectively. “It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents,” he said then.

And here's my problem with that statement -- it flies in the face of what we know today. One could still -- barely -- take the silly position taken by Huckabee at the time. Now we know, unambiguously so, that his position is wrong. We don't need to intern AIDS patients in some sort of concentration camp. And while isolation might be advisable for some few individuals in this country who willfully spread their disease, we are pretty clear on the concept that such individuals are few and far between.

I'd almost been willing to see Mike Huckabee on the GOP ticket, despite my misgivings about another tax-raising governor from Hope, Arkansas being permitted in the same zip code as the White House. Not now -- not at all.

H/T The Liberty Papers

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Posted by: Greg at 02:50 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Wouldn't an answer consistent with Scripture and his denomination be a bit less than surprising?

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, surging in Iowa polls in the Republican presidential race, wrote on a questionnaire while running for U.S. Senate in 1992 that homosexuality is "aberrant" and "sinful."

"I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk," Huckabee wrote in the questionnaire for The Associated Press, which reported the answer on Saturday.

I guess I'm surprised that anybody is surprised. Believing homosexual activity to be sinful is pretty mainstream thinking among Christians -- at least among those who still grant some level of authority to the Bible -- and so why woulndn't he hold such a view. As for "aberrant" and "unnatural", when one considers that the primary purpose of sexual conduct is reproduction, one can certainly make a case for both of those terms as fitting homosexuality. They may be a bit strong to have put on that questionnaire, but that doesn't make the beliefs particularly shocking to me. it is really pretty mainstream Baptist teaching, and to expect Huckabee to hold anything different is indicative of lazy thinking.

Then there is this.

In another answer that could damage his standing in the presidential race, Huckabee wrote on the questionnaire that AIDS research was receiving an unfair amount of federal money. Instead, he said celebrities should pay for the research themselves.

"In light of the extraordinary funds already being given for AIDS research, it does not seem that additional federal spending can be justified," Huckabee wrote, according to the AP.

"An alternative would be to request that multimillionaire celebrities, such as Elizabeth Taylor, Madonna and others who are pushing for more AIDS funding be encouraged to give out of their own personal treasuries increased amounts for AIDS research."

Frankly, I find this answer to be even less troubling than the first. I've always been struck by the hypocrisy of super-rich celebrities insisting that the government tax the common man more to pay for their pet causes while giving little more than pocket change for these same causes. And such celebrities and their pressure does warp our spending priorities -- given the number of men afflicted with prostate cancer and the number of women who suffer from breast cancer, is the research funding roughly equivalent on a per-patient basis? No, because one of those diseases has celebrity spokespeople pushing for greater spending on research, while the other does not. The same argument could be made regarding AIDS, and I believe that is the one Huckabee is making in that statement.

More troubling is this one.

"If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague.... It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents."

That one does sound much more harsh -- though he is making a point that many folks did in 1992, when this was written. We've historically quarantined folks with such deadly communicable illnesses -- typhoid, tuberculosis, and other deadly diseases. The difference, of course, is that AIDS is less communicable and transmission can be avoided through simple precautions. A dear friend has been HIV-positive for over two decades and continues to be in great health -- and not one of us straight men and women who are his friends have contracted the virus because he and we are all conscious of what to do to avoid transmission.

This survey may be a difficult one for Huckabee to overcome, though I can't help but wonder if his views have shifted at all over time. It would be really interesting to hear his answers to the second two questions again, as i expect some evolution may have happened after a decade as governor.

Posted by: Greg at 08:16 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Senior members of the House lack "big sticks" for following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's failed leadership.

Pelosi proves she can't play with the big dogs by her response.

And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proves that he has no balls with his response.

“To tell you the truth, I’ve been really busy the last 24 hours,” Pelosi said. “How can I say this with the dignity of the office that I hold, and especially the dignity of the office that the vice president holds? It’s so beneath the dignity of his office — and mine — that I don’t even want to address it.”

Of course, the repeated slams she and her colleagues have made at the President and Vice President are somehow fully within the dignity of their offices, under this theory. Right!

And Harry Reid's response is just pathetic.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) did not comment on the remark but said in a Politico interview that “someone I was with said that” the comment sounded sexist.

I guess those testicles must be in a blind trust -- he certainly isn't using them if he refuses to take a position himself or acknowledge he agrees with the comment he just quoted. What a loser!

Posted by: Greg at 04:43 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Andrew Sullivan highlights an Iowa newspaper commentary that deals with a provocative question.

National reporters have been calling and the most common question is 'What is wrong with the Clinton campaign?'

The answer, which Sullivan quotes at length, is pretty obvious. The problem is Hillary Clinton. She doesn't believe in anything. She doesn't stand for anything.

Let me correct that -- she does believe in and stand for one thing. The election of Hillary Clinton, who she believes deserves to be president by some notion of divine right of first ladies. After all, if she were Hillary Rodham Smith, would she even be a blip on the political radar screen?

Posted by: Greg at 04:32 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Once again, the probability of an American in victory results in Democrats deciding to cut and run.

This time, though, their decision to choose a policy of retreat and surrender is a good thing.

it means our troops will have what they need to win the war.

House Democratic leaders could complete work as soon as Monday on a half-trillion-dollar spending package that will include billions of dollars for the war effort in Iraq without the timelines for the withdrawal of combat forces that President Bush has refused to accept, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said yesterday.

In a complicated deal over the war funds, Democrats will include about $11 billion more in domestic spending than Bush has requested, emergency drought relief for the Southeast and legislation to address the subprime mortgage crisis, Hoyer told a meeting of the Washington Post editorial board.

If the bargain were to become law, it would be the third time since Democrats took control of Congress that they would have failed to force Bush to change course in Iraq and continued to fund a war that they have repeatedly vowed to end. But it would also be the clearest instance yet of the president bowing to a Democratic demand for more money for domestic priorities, an increase that he had promised to reject.

Of course, I can't help but notice that the Democrats insist upon more pork as a condition of allowing American national security to be served. Who is exercising fiscal restraint in Washington? Not the Democrats -- and their constituencies who prefer defeat to victory.

Posted by: Greg at 04:18 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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See Sheila.

See Sheila spin.

Spin, Sheila, spin.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee told a House committee Thursday that her proposal to slash prison time for older, nonviolent federal inmates was not intended to benefit child pornographers or white-collar criminals.

"This is not a bill to give comfort to the Jack Abramoffs of the world," the Houston Democrat said Thursday at a hearing before a House Judiciary subcommittee. Abramoff, a former Washington lobbyist, pleaded guilty in January of 2006 to charges of conspiring to bribe members of Congress.

Jackson Lee criticized the Houston Chronicle for its "interpretation" of her bill in an article on Thursday.

The Chronicle reported that the measure, as originally written, could result in the early release of white-collar felons such as Abramoff, Houston oilman Oscar Wyatt and former Enron executives Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fastow.

"This is not an effort to focus on certain heinous crimes," Jackson Lee said. "It is an effort to address the question of recidivism, bring crime down and make our communities safer."

Notice, of course, that she doesn't deny that the reduction of the sentences in question will happen under her legislation. She simply doesn't "intend" for these perpetrators of "heinous" crimes to benefit.

She neglects to consider, however, that every crime is "heinous" to the victims of that crime.

Spin Sheila!

Spin Sheila!

Spin Sheila!

Posted by: Greg at 11:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A bit over a month ago, I described the problem faced by the congregation of the Third Church of Christ, Scientist in Washington, DC this way.

The church is an ugly, non-functional building only three decades old. The religious group that worships there wants to demolish it and replace it with a structure that actually serves the needs of the congregation. The city wants to stop them, declaring the non-functional eyesore to be "historic" -- because it is a non-functional eyesore.

Now it should be clear to anyone that any such action by the city would be not merely unreasonable, but also impose a substantial burden upon the ability of these believers to use their property for worship. It should be obvious that so drastic an action by the city would constitute a "taking" of the property by any definition of the word. But that doesn't matter to the city's Historic Preservation Review Board. They awarded the building "historic" status despite the vocal objections of the congregation.

But the arrogance of the board is particularly shocking.

Tersh Boasberg, the board's chairman, said during the hearing that the board would not address First Amendment issues in its consideration of the church's architecture. Instead, he said, the board would base its ruling on the significance of the design.

Translation: We won't let little things like the Constitution get in the way of a decision that we have already made. We are just going to go through the motions of engaging in a little bit of brutalism ourselves, and the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights will be no obstacle.

Of course, I have no problem with designating a structure historical. but when sucha designation carries with it restrictions on use of the property that does not impact other property owners on an equal basis, you have a taking in a very real sense -- and that should be compensated. And when, like in this case, the designation renders the property unusable by the owners, the proper solution is for the government to buy the property from the owner AT THE PRICE SET BY THE OWNER.

After all, if the building is so significant, so priceless, there is no legitimate argument that the people as a whole, whose interest is supposedly benefited by preserving this building as-is, should jointly bear the burden of maintaining the building in that state. And if the preservation of the building is not a fit expenditure of the public treasury, imposing exactly that burden on a single individual or entity is unjustifiable.

Posted by: Greg at 11:14 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Upon the completion of Governor Mitt Romney's speech in College Station, my dear wife sent me an email that set the tone for our discussion tonight.

His speech is/was extremely boring, like listening to you lecture

Indeed, I suspect that the reason I liked the speech so much is that it so clearly reflected my thoughts and so wonderfully incorporated history, political science, and theology into one wonderful mosaic. It is what i would have liked to say were i given the opportunity. I join with Hugh Hewitt in saying that I view it as "magnificent".

Of course, I'm going to begin by agreeing with one point made in Christopher Hutchins' generally wrong-headed column -- the choice of a venue with the Presidential Seal on the podium and a background of flags was quite clever.

But more generally, I think the choice of the Sam Adams anecdote was a good one -- my view on religion and political candidates is that I want a man (or woman) why has good character and some form of piety that keeps him grounded in something larger than himself. I don't have to agree with the theological particulars of that religious faith, and indeed do not particularly find it necessary to inquire too deeply into such things. But I do look for the works that have grown from that faith -- and I see them in the life and career of Mitt Romney, which is why I endorsed him early and have not transferred that allegiance.

I could turn this post into a collection of excerpts, in effect fisking the speech, but I won't. I will, however, point to one weakness of the speech and one problem that it could never solve.

In terms of the weakness, I believe it was the profession of faith in Jesus Christ. And while he acknowledged the difference in theological stances taken by the LDS Church and the bulk of Christianity, I think that can almost be seen as a bit disingenuous due to the wide gulf between Mormon teachings and mainstream Christological positions of th Catholics, Orthodox, and protestant traditions. As was noted by David Frum at National Review today, if it is legitimate for Romney to answer that Jesus Question, what other Jesus Questions would it be legitimate to put to him?

Now I think this speech may have raised the comfort level of one group of folks who objected to Romney's candidacy on religious grounds. That would be those who held to the belief that a member of a hierarchical religion might find themselves the religious leaders. That was the JFK question in 1960, and is the Romney question today.

But there are others, objecting on a different basis, who were not and could not have been comforted by today's speech. For such folks, the issue is one of the degree to which they find the religious beliefs reasonable, even if they reject them. Examining the whole spectrum of religious belief, the question becomes one of how reasonable you find the beliefs of the candidate. The question regarding Mitt Romney then becomes "Is Mormonism more like Catholicism, or more like Scientology, in terms of how reasonable I find their beliefs?" For those people, there really is no changing their mind short of convincing them that Mormonism is reasonable -- and for the very reasons that Governor Romney pointed out, doing so would be inappropriate in the context of a presidential campaign.

No candidate can be all things to all people. However, I believe that Romney was very much what he needed to be today.

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Posted by: Greg at 02:13 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Given this plan to freeze mortgage interest rates on borrowers in the sub-prime market with adjustable rate mortgages, I have to ask what the government will do for me about my mortgage.

President Bush will announce this afternoon an agreement with major mortgage firms to freeze interest rates for five years for financially troubled homeowners -- a plan advocates say will help forestall a major foreclosure crisis but some conservatives say amounts to a bailout of people who made bad financial decisions.

The plan would apply to homeowners who got adjustable-rate subprime mortgages between Jan. 1, 2005, and July 31 of this year and are facing a sharp jump in their rates before July 31, 2010. It would also offer to put them on a fast track to refinance their mortgages through lenders or through state and local housing authorities, according to several people briefed on the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal has not been officially announced.

yeah, but what about the rest of us. You know, the folks referred to in this paragraph.

On Capitol Hill yesterday, some Republican lawmakers and their aides expressed concern that the plan would anger homeowners and others who stayed out of the subprime mortgage mess.

I bought my house in 2001, choosing a higher interest rate for a fixed-rate lone rather than one of the gimmick loans with adjustable rates or interest-only payments. In other words, i was a responsible consumer, a responsible borrower. Why should my mortgage rate stay fixed where it has been for the last six years when a bunch of folks who got absurdly low rates for bigger loans than they could afford reap the benefit of a government bail-out by being allowed to keep that same absurdly low rate.

And make no mistake, this is a government bail-out, because the cost to the lenders in lost profits will be a tax write-off for those lenders. in other words, my taxes will go to subsidize the "generosity" of irresponsible and predatory lenders in showing mercy to the irresponsible borrowers who will see their interest rates frozen at their absurdly low teaser rates.

But I'll tell you what -- I'll support this plan under a couple of conditions.

First, make the loss to the lenders non-deductible on their taxes.

Second, count the savings to the irresponsible borrowers as income to be taxed by the government.

And if you are not willing to do either of those, roll back the mortgage interest rates of all of us responsible folks by a couple of points. After all, don't responsible borrowers deserve a little mortgage relief, too?

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Posted by: Greg at 10:53 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Do you find a certain irony in this? Even Slate's Mickey Kaus notes it.

Hillaryland Hates Obama: Is It Just Arrogance? Hillary's people "despise Obama," reports David Corn in a fine piece of schmoozalism. They "don't need any prompting in private conversations to decry Obama as a dishonest poser." Hillary has (not uncleverly) asked, """How did running for president become a qualification for being president?" ... Is this just because Obama's presumptuous enough to deny her rightful nomination? Or is there another root-cause complaint that the citizens of Hillaryland can't voice because even though it's true it wouldn't help them: that Obama's an 'affirmative action baby' who's been promoted faster than his merits would ordinarily permit? If he weren't black he'd be Dick Durbin! (Or a more appealing but less experienced version of Dick Durbin) ... That Hillary's cadres can't voice or even permit themselves to think about thinking this thought, of course, might tend to make them even madder. ... P.S: Of course, Hillary is not an affirmative action baby. She got her position the old fashioned way--by marrying it.

Let's be real honest here -- what qualifications does Hillary Clinton REALLY have to be president of the United States? Heck, what qualifications did she have in 2000 to be elected Senator? While a law career makes for nice resume material, name one substantive accomplishment in her life that makes her the best candidate for the highest elected office in America -- other than the fact that she has bedded down with Bill Clinton for the last few decades. If she were Hillary Smith, married to Bob Smith of Anytown, USA, would she ever have won that Senate Seat -- and would she be seen as a serious presidential candidate?

Heck, if we were to look at the Democrats and consider qualifications, Joe Biden and Bill Richardson would be running neck-and-neck for the Democrat nomination.

Posted by: Greg at 10:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I wish it were not necessary for a candidate to have to give a speech saying "I'm not a tool of my religious leaders". Indeed, I thought we had dispensed with such things nearly a half-century ago. But the reality of Mitt Romney's Mormon faith, especially in light of the increase in evangelical influence on the right, secularist political correctness on the left, and media coverage of fundamentalist Mormon cults practicing polygamy seems to require it, and so he will give The Speech later this week.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, striving to be the country's first Mormon president, will give a speech this week explaining his relatively unknown faith to voters, his campaign said Sunday.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, striving to be the country's first Mormon president, will give a speech this week explaining his relatively unknown faith to voters, his campaign said Sunday.

From where I sit, here is what Romney needs to do.

1) Romney needs to avoid spending much time on explicating the overall teachings of the LDS Church. They are irrelevant to the presidential race. In addition, this would serve to turn off many voters who would find some of the faith's distinctive teachings to be rather strange.

2) Romney does need to present the teachings of the LDS Church on religious liberty and political participation. They are, by any measure, distinctively American and supportive of the right of all members of that faith to participate in politics free of Church control. Pointing to individuals as different as Harry Reid and Orrin Hatch as examples would do a great job of showing that there is no coercion of Mormon elected officials.

3) Romney does need to show how the general ethos of his faith has influenced his personal and professional conduct. He must show that his being a man of faith has provided him with a moral and ethical compass that will serve him well as the leader of this country.

Mitt Romney is not responsible for 175 years of Mormon history. He is not responsible for former practices now repudiated by the LDS Church. What he is responsible for is showing that he is a man worthy of the trust of the American people to serve in our nation's highest elected office.

Posted by: Greg at 11:13 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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How the editorial board at the New York Times can miss the fact that two of their editorials are so contradictory in nature is simply mind-blowing to me.

They defend, quite properly, freedom of speech for foreigners, from their own repressive governments and insist that internet companies be forced to support American values. Indeed, they chastise the companies for opposing efforts to protect free speech in repressive foreign countries.

What they are resisting are efforts in Congress that could help them stand against repressive governments.

Last January, Representative Christopher Smith of New Jersey reintroduced the Global Online Freedom Act in the House. It would fine American companies that hand over information about their customers to foreign governments that suppress online dissent. The bill would at least give American companies a solid reason to decline requests for data, but the big Internet companies do not support it. That shows how much they care about the power of information to liberate the world.

But then, the same newspaper demands that the American government limit and punish political speech here in the United States by implementing another public financing scheme, complete with contribution limits and speech bans. Indeed, they argue that those who engage in too much political speech because of their deep pockets are subverting democracy! Their editorial calls for more government money to campaigns, with more restrictions on the ability of Americans to spend their own money to engage in political speech – and enhanced penalties against those who do dare to speak too much (media organizations like the New York times would, of course, be exempt).

So make no mistake here – what the Times wants is free speech abroad and speech suppression at home. Rather than make China more like the US, though, the result will be to make the US more like China. So if Yahoo has betrayed free speech by its opposition to the Global Online Freedom Act, how much more does the New York Times betray it with support for campaign speech suppression?

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Posted by: Greg at 04:25 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'm really hoping that the legislature responds with a law that denies the state's electoral votes to any party that denies it full voting rights at the national convention.

Democratic leaders voted Saturday to strip Michigan of all its delegates to the national convention next year as punishment for scheduling an early presidential primary in violation of party rules.

Michigan, with 156 delegates, has scheduled a Jan. 15 primary. Democratic Party rules prohibit states other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina from holding nominating contests before Feb. 5.

Florida was hit with a similar penalty in August for scheduling a Jan. 29 primary.

So let's be really clear about this. The Democrats have now denied the people of two states the right to be involved in the nomination of their party's presidential candidate. Remember, this is the party that has claimed for the last seven years to be all about preventing "disenfranchisement " (something that didn't happen in either of the last two elections, despite bogus claims to the contrary) telling certain states that they don't have a right to vote according to the dictates of state law. As ashamed as I am of the GOP move to diminish the voting strength of certain states, and as strongly as i condemn that move, this is much more destructive of American values and the rights of the people and the states.

Posted by: Greg at 03:18 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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After denying any connection between the use of his PAC money and his campaign, Obama and his campaign have a lot of explaining to do.

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign helped recommend several of the donations his political action committee made in recent months to politicians in key primary states as the campaign was working to secure endorsements, campaign officials said yesterday.

The acknowledgment alters the campaign's original account of how donations were directed and raised questions among some legal experts about whether the presidential committee was using Obama's leadership PAC to benefit his campaign. The Obama campaign said it is confident it complied with the law.

Obama's Hopefund Inc. distributed more than $180,000 in donations to political groups and candidates in the early presidential voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and more than $150,000 to federal candidates in other states with primary dates through mid-February. The donations accounted for nearly three-quarters of the money the PAC has given out since this summer.

An Obama campaign spokesman last week said that "there is no connection" between the PAC donations and the presidential campaign.

But Bob Bauer, the private counsel for both Obama's campaign and Hopefund, said yesterday that campaign workers were involved over the summer in identifying and recommending possible recipients when Hopefund was deciding how to spend its remaining money. In particular, Bauer said, senior campaign strategist Steve Hildebrand was consulted "multiple times" on potential donations.

The guy who made the recommendations is now a deputy campaign chairman, moving seamlessly from one job to the other. Certainly has an appearance of impropriety, don't you think? I thought you liberals kept saying that Obama was different from all the rest.

And before you liberals protest raising the question, consider this -- what would you say if there had been such cross-pollination between Ton DeLay's PAC and reelection campaign? Don't bother answering -- it will only show your hypocrisy.

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Posted by: Greg at 05:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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First, let me say that I'm glad that no one was injured in this standoff at a Clinton campaign office.

A distraught man wearing what appeared to be a bomb walked into a Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign office Friday and demanded to speak to the candidate during a hostage drama that dragged on for nearly six hours before he peacefully surrendered.

Shortly after releasing the last of at least four hostages, Leeland Eisenberg walked out of the storefront office, put down a homemade bomb-like package and was immediately surrounded by SWAT team with guns drawn.

The suspect — clad in gray slacks, white dress shirt and a red tie — was put on the ground, handcuffed and taken two blocks to the police office in the back of a tactical response vehicle.

The man walked into the office shortly before 1 p.m. and took several hostages, police and witnesses said. He let a woman with an infant go immediately and at least one other woman got out about two hours later.

Seconds before he surrendered, shortly after 6 p.m., the last hostage walked from the office. The hostage then ran down the street toward the police roadblocks surrounding Clinton's office.

I'd like to point out that this situation does not, in and of itself, reflect at all upon the character or qualifications of the candidate. After all, she was nowhere near where it took place, and had absolutely no role in resolving it. The one thing that she does appear to have done, contacting the families of the hostage, strikes me as the minimum that could be expected under the circumstances. Common decency demanded it, and for all that I oppose Hillary Clinton's election to any office i do believe that she does have, at the very core of her being, some level of human decency.

But the use of this incident by her campaign spokesman is positively absurd, as noted by Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters.

Somehow, later that evening, the Clinton campaign decided this makes Hillary look presidential, at least to Larry Sabato and the AP:

And as soon as it ended, Clinton took full advantage of the opportunity she had unexpectedly been handed.

In her New Hampshire press conference, she stood before a column of police in green and tan uniforms. She talked of meeting with hostages. She mentioned that she spoke to the stateÂ’s governor about eight minutes after the incident began.

The scene was one of a woman in charge.

“It looked and sounded presidential,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “This was an instance of the White House experience of this campaign. They knew how to handle this.”

That the crisis was outside Clinton's control gave it a rare quality in this era of hyper-controlled politicking, Sabato added.

“What’s most important about it is that it’s not contrived. It’s a real event and that distinguishes it from 99 percent of what happens in the campaign season.”

Er, what? Sabato, who usually gives intelligent political analysis, must have inhaled a little deeply. Clinton was nowhere near New Hampshire during the entirety of the crisis. What was presidential about having the Rochester PD talk a hostage-taker out of a building? What "leadership" did Hillary show in Virginia during this crisis? She canceled a speech!

I'd have to argue that such spin by Sabato is a sign of just how shameless the Clinton campaign can be at moments. After all, the only thing the Senator did was let the process work itself out -- and avoid the bad press of giving a campaign speech during the crisis.

Or did she? Morrissey also notes that AP's Glenn Johnson was reporting on Hillary's repeated calls to various law enforcement officials to get minute-by-minute updates on the situation. In other words, the various law enforcement folks involved hat to spend their time holding the hand of a frantic candidate rather than devoting attention to the key issue at hand -- how to resolve the crisis. In other words, she was in the way. What does that say for her crisis management skills as President? Nothing good, that's for sure.

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