National polls get big play in the media, but really don't matter.

After all, the Constitution doesn't count the national totals for anything. It is the Electoral College totals that determine the outcome of the election -- and polls show something very interesting there, according to the analysis by this blogger.

Click the map to get the supporting data that this is based upon the latest polling data. McCain leads Obama in a whole lot of states -- mirroring the red state/blue state dichotomy we have seen over the two elections. Even where there is not enough polling data, we can infer which way certain states are trending -- some for McCain, some for Obama.

The result of these projections rather strikingly place McCain ahead 249-237 electoral votes, with the states of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and New Mexico being toss-ups. Victories in any two of the Midwestern states would give John McCain the electoral victory, while Obama would have to win do one of the following:

• win Michigan, and Ohio.
  
• win Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Mexico.

That's it. Nothing else does it if the other states remain static, which is unlikely to happen over the next 25 ½ weeks.

Questions that need to be asked at this point are as follows:

• Will Obama pick Bill Richardson as VP in order to secure those five electoral votes in New Mexico -- and if he doesn't will the perceived slight swing the state towards the Republican nominee from Arizona, since he is regarded as friendly by the large Hispanic voting bloc there.
  
• Does Obama hurt himself by picking a running mate from one of the three Midwestern states, given that his home state is Illinois? Can McCain help himself by doing so -- especially an Ohioan?

There is a lot of calculus that needs to go on between now and the conventions -- and the conventions and election day. My guess is that it will likely swirl around how to win in Ohio -- the critical prize this fall.

There also remains one other possibility. All other things remaining equal, we could end up with an electoral vote tie if McCain wins Ohio and Obama wins the other three states. Quite frankly, I don't dare predict what would happen in that case without knowing the exact composition of the House of Representatives at the start of the new Congress in January -- and the political implications of the election going to the House of Representatives so soon after the craziness of the 2000 election absolutely boggles the mind.

I know I'm going to check back at Brian's Electoral Projection website regularly to see how the numbers crunch. I suggest that you do, too, since this election will probably be a squeaker!

UPDATE: Allahpundit discusses the same topic at Hot Air, looking at Marc Ambinder's projections at The Atlantic. They've got it pegged at 245-221, with 72 electoral votes in play. And they do raise the 269-269 scenario.

Posted by: Greg at 11:28 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I am not, on the most basic level, anti-union. I believe that any worker who wants to join a union has that right under the First Amendment. WhatÂ’s more, IÂ’m even tolerant of the notion that a majority vote by secret ballot can make a union the sole bargaining agent for employees in a particular business.

That said, IÂ’m opposed to any law that will take away that secret ballot.

What’s the Employee Free Choice Act? If you aren’t a lobbyist in Washington, a union worker, or an employer nervously trying to prevent your staff from organizing, you might not have followed the twisty history of the latest attempt to increase private-sector unionization. “Card check,” as it is usually known, would allow employees at a company to bypass secret-ballot elections and declare their intent to unionize by simply signing cards. If adopted, it could portend the most revolutionary change to labor law since the 1940s.

Unfortunately, as anyone who has followed the union movement for any length of time knows, the card check is subject to serious abuse. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence of union thugs (I won’t dignify them with the title of “organizers”) harassing employees until they give up their resistance – sometimes using implicit (or explicit) threats against the employees and their families. Only the secret ballot has enabled such workers to truly vote their conscience free from fear – and now Democrats in Congress are prepared to take that protection away in order to curry favor with union bosses who direct large sums of money to aid Democrats seeking election and reelection to office.

But as bad as that is, there is the possibility that certain public sector employees will have even less freedom when Congress gets done.

Unions keep losing membership as a share of the national workforce, which explains why organized labor's main political focus is changing the rules to force more workers into unions. Witness a bill that Senate Democrats are pushing this week to require that hundreds of thousands of local police and firemen submit to collective bargaining.

Under current law, every state has the ability to set policies that govern its public workforce. In some states, police, firefighters and paramedics belong to unions that collectively bargain for their contracts. In others, unions representing public-security workers can bargain over pay, but not over benefits or work rules. And in some others, these workers can choose not to belong to a union.

Democrats want to change this for the entire country. A bill that passed the House last year would make the top officials at local unions the exclusive bargaining agents for public safety officers in every town or city with more than 5,000 people. They would also have the authority to bargain for everything -- pay, benefits and work rules. The goal is to give labor the whip hand with local governments, and further coerce nonunion members to join the dues-paying ranks.

Set aside the fact that 16 states have voted down such legislation in the last 12 years. Set aside the fact that the legislation would effectively strip these public safety employees – those doing the most dangerous jobs outside the military – of the protection of right-to-work laws on the books in many states. This legislation would deny them the right to reject such representation as not in their best interest, giving them fewer rights than private sector employees. While many raise the 10th Amendment question of Congress exceeding its authority by trampling the rights of the state, I want to raise the First Amendment question that exists in forcing public employees into association with these corrupt organizations!

There is, of course, only one legitimate position for Americans to take on unions, especially those that purport to represent the interests of public employees. That position is that they must be voluntary – not only in terms of membership, but also in terms of paying union “bargaining fees” for services that employees do not want. After all, unions are private organizations, and government has no more legitimate interest in forcing employees into the union fold than it does in requiring all public school students to join the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts.

But then again, does government have any legitimate interest in making it easier for unions to coerce the membership of any employee – public or private sector?

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Does it seem to you that Bill and Hillary are the gift that keeps on giving?

Hillary Rodham Clinton's Rose Law Firm billing records, found in the White House residence in January 1996 two years after they had been subpoenaed by government regulators, disappeared shortly after the first lady was warned that the firm's billing problems were "very serious" and the then-ongoing Whitewater investigation could result in criminal charges, newly obtained records show.

More than 1,100 pages of grand jury testimony, investigative reports, memos, charging documents, chronologies, narratives and draft indictments, previously undisclosed but now being "processed" at the Library of Congress, say Mrs. Clinton knew considerably more about the firm's billing problems and their potential ramifications than she publicly acknowledged at the time.

According to the documents, given to the Library of Congress by the estate of Sam Dash, former ethics adviser to Whitewater Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr, Mrs. Clinton also knew that her former Rose partner Webster L. Hubbell was both the focus of the firm's billing concerns and a federal conflict-of-interest investigation, in which he was suspected of lying in a sworn statement to regulators about the firm's representation of a failed Arkansas savings and loan.

While Mrs. Clinton told the public at the time that Mr. Hubbell's March 14, 1994, resignation as associate attorney general involved an "internal billing dispute" with his Rose partners that "likely would be resolved," three months earlier she had been advised by another Rose partner, Allen Bird, that the "billing problems were very serious," according to the newly disclosed records.

A Clinton spokescritter calls it “a baseless accusation which was looked into over a decade ago in an investigation that took $71.5 million and eight years to determine there was no case” – but do the contemporaneous documents of what went on within the Special Prosecutor’s office lie? Could it be that the deal that kept Bill Clinton from facing criminal charges also shielded Hillary from charges – and set up this year’s bruising nomination fight?

Posted by: Greg at 09:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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If I were to tweak this quote by the Democrat governor of Kentucky, Steve Beshear and use it in some other post?

"When I mention that Democrats are problem solvers, I can think of only one Republican who can be a problem solver -- that is Vice President Dick Cheney if he would just take George on a hunting trip," Beshear said. Cheney accidentally shot fellow quail hunter Harry Whittington in Texas in 2006.

Mind you, this is one of the much-vaunted Democrat superdelegates, so he has a big influence on the outcome of the nomination battle.

But suppose I had written something similar in some other context – you know, like this:

I can think of one Republican who can be a problem solver -- that is Vice President Dick Cheney if he would just take Barack on a hunting trip.

Or this:

I can think of one Republican who can be a problem solver -- that is Vice President Dick Cheney if he would just take Hillary on a hunting trip.

The local Democrats would rev up into high gear and restart their effort to get my school district to fire me for being a Republican. They’d demand that I be dumped or resign from my position as a precinct chair, and insist that the Harris County GOP censure me at their next available opportunity. They would also likely be insisting that I should be arrested – or at least brought in for questioning by the Secret Service.

But then again, I guess the quote and the relative lack of outrage would be par for the course – after all, it is just another liberal fantasizing about the killing of a Republican president.

H/T Malkin

Posted by: Greg at 09:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Bravo to the guys over at GayPatriot.

And I’d like to remind you folks that if he wins, I immediately become unquestionably more patriotic than you at 12:01 PM EST on January 20, 2009 – because I will be dissenting constantly.

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Granted, over half of that is to herself -- but that is a staggering sum, nearly double what most Americans realized.

With her campaign falling ever deeper into debt, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton spent a rainy Mother's Day seeking votes ahead of Tuesday's primary here, turning a deaf ear to calls for her to leave a Democratic presidential contest she has little hope of winning.

Clinton aides continued to insist that she will remain in the race even while confirming that she is $20 million in debt. "The voters are going to decide this," senior adviser Howard Wolfson said on "Fox News Sunday," acknowledging the $20 million figure. "There is no reason for her not to continue this process." Wolfson said he has seen "no evidence of her interest" in pursuing the second-place spot on the Democratic ticket, contrary to rumors that she is staying in the race to leverage a bid for the vice presidential nomination.

That much debt does raise some serious issues for her -- and does almost require her to stay in until the end, hoping to get the vice presidential nod. After all, that might make it easier to pay off the other creditors, and see some of the money she loaned the campaign make its way back into her bank account.

Posted by: Greg at 10:43 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Well over a year ago, I condemned those who insisted that Barack Obama was a Muslim and that should disqualify him for office. I stated then, and I state now, that by the words of his own mouth he is a Christian, and that absent some indication to the contrary we must take him at his word. Even if the theology of Obama's church is dubious, I stand by that position.

However, I also pointed out that there is reason to wonder about the Illinois Senator's upbringing and whether or not he was, in his childhood and youth, at least nominally a Muslim -- and the impact upon US relations with Muslim countries. After all, given his father's faith and that upbringing, he might well be seen as a apostate Muslim.

Today, the New York Times offers up a column that raises that issue -- including some implications that I didn't consider when I wrote those earlier posts.

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his motherÂ’s Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).

With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings. (Some may point to cases in which lesser punishments were ordered — as with some Egyptian intellectuals who have been punished for writings that were construed as apostasy — but those were really instances of supposed heresy, not explicitly declared apostasy as in Senator Obama’s case.)

* * *

Because no government is likely to allow the prosecution of a President Obama — not even those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, the only two countries where Islamic religious courts dominate over secular law — another provision of Muslim law is perhaps more relevant: it prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing.

At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.

Thus, we have an entirely different question from that of whether Barack Obama is a crypto-Muslim who will betray America to his supposed co-religionists. Rather, as i have said before, we are facing serious questions of whether Obama's religious conversion will have a deleterious impact on our relations with the Muslim world. And while I agree with Luttwack that it should not be the end-all and be-all of the campaign, I think it is a factor worth considering.

More At Hot Air, Because I'm Right, OTB, Gina Cobb

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Posted by: Greg at 10:40 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Somehow, despite the close personal financial dealings between Barack Obama and Tony Rezko, the presidential candidate has avoided any significant political damage from the connection.

Not so another Democrat rising star.

As the corruption trial of the political fund-raiser Antoin Rezko winds to a close here, testimony about power-brokering at the highest levels of state government has battered the career of an Illinois politician who once had his sights set on the White House.

When the trial began two months ago, national attention focused on how Senator Barack Obama of Illinois might suffer because of his connection to Mr. Rezko, a former patron who made a fortune on fast food and real estate.

But it is Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, an ambitious chief executive who has not been charged and denies any wrongdoing, who is left flailing in the wake of weeks of testimony. His name and administration have surfaced repeatedly, described as a participant in the kickback schemes of which Mr. Rezko is accused.

While Mr. ObamaÂ’s campaign for the presidency has been dogged by questions about Mr. Rezko, the fallout for him has so far been slight. Mr. Obama, who has not been accused of any crime, donated money that was raised for him by Mr. Rezko to charity and said he regretted what he called his bad judgment on a property sale between their families.

Granted, the accusations against Blagojevich are pretty damning, and ought to damage any politician. But when you consider that when Barack Obama goes home he does so to a place that he owns because of a sweetheart deal with a corrupt insider, I remain amazed at the lack of damage that has been done to him by the financial connections between the two. Maybe Geraldine Ferraro was on to something a couple of months back.

But there is another question Americans should be asking -- given the throughly corrupt nature of Illinois politics over the last decade (and Chicago politics over the last century), does the election of an Illinois Senator from Chicago make any sense?

Posted by: Greg at 10:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Yeah, that Texas Two-Step process that was so incompetently implemented by the Democrats (who proved that since they can't run their own party they surely aren't competent to run the state), has been deemed by Hispanic groups to be so fatally flawed as to illegally and unconstitutionally deny proper representation to Hispanic voters.

The Texas Democratic Party was sued Friday by Latino advocacy groups that say the primary and caucus system used in the state's March 4 presidential contest unfairly diluted Latino votes.

The League of United Latin American Citizens of Texas and the Mexican-American Bar Association of Houston sued in federal court, arguing that the party failed to seek clearance required by the U.S. Justice Department for the process, the so-called Texas Two Step. The groups also say the system effectively discriminates against Latino voters by giving them fewer delegates.

Texas Democrats distribute the state's 193 delegates using both a primary and a caucus, but the distribution favors state Senate districts that had high voter turnout in the most recent presidential and gubernatorial elections. That meant that on March 4, predominantly Hispanic districts, in which turnout was low in 2004 and 2006, got fewer delegates than others, particularly urban, predominantly black districts. Latino districts generally favored Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton; black districts favored her rival, Barack Obama.

"The manner used to allocate the delegates ... undervalues Latino Democratic voters and does not provide Latino voters with an equal opportunity to participate in the nominating process and to elect candidates of their choice," the lawsuit says.

My question is why anyone is surprised by this outcome. After all, Democrats in Texas undervalued Hispanic voters from the day Texas was admitted to the United States back in the 1840s right up until it found that the only way to hold on to power was to throw Hispanics a bone -- but only one that the meat had been gnawed off of first.

On the other hand, the GOP has always been open to Hispanic voters, and remains so right into the present day. And for all the efforts of liberal partisan hacks to portray opposition to illegal immigration as anti-Hispanic racism, anyone with a lick of sense knows better -- including a great many immigrants to this country who played by the rules to get here legally. After all, the GOP has never has a "Whites Only" sign at its primary polling places -- that was the Democrats for most of their history.

Maybe the time has come for Hispanic voters to say "hasta la vista, baby" to the Democrats.

Posted by: Greg at 02:39 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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National polls get big play in the media, but really don't matter.

After all, the Constitution doesn't count the national totals for anything. It is the Electoral College totals that determine the outcome of the election -- and polls show something very interesting there, according to the analysis by this blogger.

Click the map to get the supporting data that this is based upon the latest polling data. McCain leads Obama in a whole lot of states -- mirroring the red state/blue state dichotomy we have seen over the two elections. Even where there is not enough polling data, we can infer which way certain states are trending -- some for McCain, some for Obama.

The result of these projections rather strikingly place McCain ahead 249-237 electoral votes, with the states of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and New Mexico being toss-ups. Victories in any two of the Midwestern states would give John McCain the electoral victory, while Obama would have to win do one of the following:

• win Michigan, and Ohio.
  
• win Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Mexico.

That's it. Nothing else does it if the other states remain static, which is unlikely to happen over the next 25 ½ weeks.

Questions that need to be asked at this point are as follows:

• Will Obama pick Bill Richardson as VP in order to secure those five electoral votes in New Mexico -- and if he doesn't will the perceived slight swing the state towards the Republican nominee from Arizona, since he is regarded as friendly by the large Hispanic voting bloc there.
  
• Does Obama hurt himself by picking a running mate from one of the three Midwestern states, given that his home state is Illinois? Can McCain help himself by doing so -- especially an Ohioan?

There is a lot of calculus that needs to go on between now and the conventions -- and the conventions and election day. My guess is that it will likely swirl around how to win in Ohio -- the critical prize this fall.

There also remains one other possibility. All other things remaining equal, we could end up with an electoral vote tie if McCain wins Ohio and Obama wins the other three states. Quite frankly, I don't dare predict what would happen in that case without knowing the exact composition of the House of Representatives at the start of the new Congress in January -- and the political implications of the election going to the House of Representatives so soon after the craziness of the 2000 election absolutely boggles the mind.

I know I'm going to check back at Brian's Electoral Projection website regularly to see how the numbers crunch. I suggest that you do, too, since this election will probably be a squeaker!

UPDATE: Allahpundit discusses the same topic at Hot Air, looking at Marc Ambinder's projections at The Atlantic. They've got it pegged at 245-221, with 72 electoral votes in play. And they do raise the 269-269 scenario.

Posted by: Greg at 11:28 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Well, at least for one wealthy individual -- himself.

Big corporations give him money. Presidential candidates seek his endorsement. He has influential friends in Congress and the governor's mansion. The Rev. Al Sharpton has emerged over the past decade as perhaps the nation's most prominent civil rights leader, a status that was demonstrated again this week when he led protests against police brutality that briefly shut down six of Manhattan's major bridges and tunnels.

But he still carries baggage from his early days as a fire-breathing agitator: Government records obtained by The Associated Press indicate that Sharpton and his business entities owe nearly $1.5 million in overdue taxes and associated penalties.

Now the U.S. attorney is investigating his nonprofit group, a probe that an undeterred Sharpton brushes off as the kind of annoyance that civil rights figures have come to expect from the government.

"Whatever retaliation they do on me, we never stop," he told the AP. "I think that that is why they try to intimidate us."

Gee -- it is somehow "retaliation" to try to enforce the laws of the United States against a tax cheat who owes $1.5 million dollars? If any of us ordinary folks -- especially those of us who are white, vote Republican, and don't make our livings off of race-based hustling and lying -- were to owe that much money to the government, we wouldn't have a pot to piss in and would probably be in jail. Why is Sharpton still walking the streets? And will a Democrat president simply issue him a pardon to make this little tax problem all go away?

Posted by: Greg at 02:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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What is it with Hillary Clinton donors and the law?

Federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into a Washington-area donor to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, investigating whether he illegally reimbursed other contributors.

The case is similar to one brought last year against Norman Hsu, a New York businessman who was indicted in November on charges of paying associates for donations to the New York senator. The Clinton campaign ultimately returned more than $800,000 raised by Mr. Hsu, who was also accused of cheating investors out of millions of dollars.

The new investigation centers around contributions last year by William Danielczyk, chairman of Galen Capital Corp., a northern Virginia private-equity firm, and by the executive's family, employees and investors, according to lawyers and others close to the case.

Investigators are seeking to determine whether the contributions Mr. Danielczyk solicited for Sen. Clinton were then repaid by his company. It is a federal crime to reimburse political contributions, punishable by fines and sometimes imprisonment.

And here I thought that it was the GOP that was the party of big-money financiers who are out to buy elections. Interesting, isn't it, that such folks keep turning up in the campaigns of Democrats -- at least those of Democrats named Clinton, and have for the last 15 years or so.

After all, honesty is such a lonely word.

Cue the music!

Posted by: Greg at 02:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Candidate A loans her campaign $11 million. Candidate B offers to pay off that debt to herself if she drops out of the race and gives him a clear shot at their party's presidential nomination. That is the latest rumor.

The latest rumor making the rounds is that maybe Barack Obama will pay off Hillary's $11 million loan to her campaign if she quits the race. I suppose that makes some kind of sense — and it would be a gracious and unifying gesture from Obama — but I'm not sure why Hillary would really be moved by this. She and Bill have earned over $100 million in the past few years and Bill obviously has tremendous earning capacity in the future. $11 million just isn't a big deal to them.

Now I know that failed candidates work to pay off their campaign debts, and that other candidates are allowed to help them. But what if that debt is all to the candidate herself, and there is a quid pro quo deal on that. Doesn't it have the appearance of impropriety, even if it is perfectly legal and above board?

Warren over at Coyote Blog certainly thinks it does -- and wonders how the Democrats would have reacted to newt Gingrich offering such a pile of cash to buy off challengers for Speaker of the House.

Posted by: Greg at 12:15 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Andrew Sullivan, referencing TNR's The Plank, raises a good question on his blog.

The trouble is: the Clintons will create mischief wherever they are. If Obama becomes president without them they will do all they can to undermine, destroy, and polarize him. The question is how one deals with sociopaths like them. It's not easy.

I disagree.

There is a very simple way of avoiding the entire problem.

It involves casting a ballot for John McCain and your GOP candidates for House and Senate, and urging every other person who loves America to do likewise.

OTB comments on Sullivan's "sociopath" label.

Posted by: Greg at 11:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Good grief -- even my worst student knows how many states there are!

He's visited 57 states? What has he been smoking/snorting? Or maybe he's added the state of denial, the state of ineptitude, the state of delerium, the state of inexperience, the state of intoxication....

Let's be honest, too -- if John McCain had said this we would be duly informed by the acolytes of Obama that John McCain is too old and mentally unfit to serve as President of the United States.

H/T Marc Ambinder, Hot Air

Posted by: Greg at 12:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Beth over at MVRWC points readers at the GOP’s new “Can We Ask” website, where interested citizens can post questions that they would like Barack Obama to answer. I dropped by a short time ago and posed this one for the candidate – one which I suspect the news media will avoid asking him at all costs.

You support education policies that mean that most children in Washington will remain trapped in failing public schools. Will you commit to sending your daughters to those same schools rather than hypocritically sending them to private schools that your education policies place beyond the reach of every other child living in government housing in Washington?

I’m sure we all know the answer to that one. He’ll most likely emulate Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al and Tipper Gore, rather than Jimmy Carter – or George Bush, for that matter, whose daughters attended public school in Austin, Texas while he was governor.

But it would be interesting to know how he can support sentencing the children of Washington, DC to some of the worst schools in the nation – especially if they aren’t good enough for his own children.

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Posted by: Greg at 11:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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One of the obligations of the courts in the United States is to guarantee that the US Constitution is followed. If New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has his way, though, one court will ban any mention of portions of the framework of American government during the trial of a lawsuit seeking to enforce New York City gun laws against gun shop owners in other states – even though their procedures conform to federal law and the laws of their respective states.

Lawyers for Mayor Bloomberg are asking a judge to ban any reference to the Second Amendment during the upcoming trial of a gun shop owner who was sued by the city. While trials are often tightly choreographed, with lawyers routinely instructed to not tell certain facts to a jury, a gag order on a section of the Constitution would be an oddity.

* * *

City lawyers, in a motion filed Tuesday, asked the judge, Jack Weinstein of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, to preclude the store’s lawyers from arguing that the suit infringed on any Second Amendment rights belonging to the gun store or its customers. In the motion, the lawyer for the city, Eric Proshansky, is also seeking a ban on “any references” to the amendment.

“Any references by counsel to the Second Amendment or analogous state constitutional provisions are likewise irrelevant,” the brief states.

In other words, the city is taking the position that a federal court should not allow a little thing like the Constitution to interfere with efforts to infringe upon legal activities that are protected by the Constitution – and that similar state constitutional provisions should not be allowed to interfere with the city’s attempt to interfere with legal activities in other states.

Frankly, the court ought to slap this frivolous motion down with extreme prejudice – and fine Mayor Bloomberg and the lawyers involved in filing it with penalties to be paid from their own pockets. After all, every last period, comma, and semicolon of the US Constitution is always a legitimate matter for lawyers to bring up in a courtroom.

Posted by: Greg at 11:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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More questions have been raised about the judgment of Barack Obama and his decision to remain associated with Trinity UCC. After all, how can we trust the judgment of any man who would stay a part of an organization propagating these ideas?

en. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) recently said his relationship with his long-time pastor and friend Rev. Jeremiah Wright "changed" after what Obama called the clergyman's "divisive and destructive" remarks at the National Press Club. Later, however, Obama stressed his loyalty to the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where he has been a member for many years.

Articles published in the Trinity United Church of Christ bulletin in 2007 carried controversial comments written by people other than Jeremiah Wright. Those comments included the claim that Israel worked with South Africa to build an "ethnic bomb" that would kill blacks and Arabs, that the Pentagon was training Latin Americans to be terrorists, and that the TV networks are run by right-wing racists.

On Sunday, May 4, Obama told NBC's Tim Russert, on "Meet the Press," that he was still a member of Trinity United Church of Christ and said of the Wright controversy, "I think that the American people understand that when I joined Trinity United Church of Christ, I was committing not to Pastor Wright. I was committing to a church and I was committing to Christ. And it is a wonderful church."

Yeah, this wonderful church – at which leaders spew forth racist venom from the pulpit and bigoted bile in the church bulletin.

Examples include the publication of the following:

• Rev. Reginald Williams, the associate pastor for social justice at Trinity United, published a piece in the bulletin stating that the words of Don Imus were indicative of the fact that "the major networks are run by right-winged conservatives who still see black people as subhuman and portray black people as such."
  
• Williams, in another piece, argued that the training of Latin American soldiers by the United States constituted the training of terrorists.
  
• Published apiece by an advisor to leaders of the anti-white, anti-Semitic Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan, which accused Israel of working on an “ethnic bomb” that would kill only blacks and Arabs.

So, in light of these published statements of hate-filled racism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism, does the claim that Wright’s outrageous statements constituted something new and unusual really ring true? Does the claim that his statements were unrepresentative of Trinity UCC as a whole seem plausible any more? And does the argument that he was “committing to a church” and “committing to Christ” really hold up to scrutiny when his “wonderful church” consistently supported the most outrageous of ideologies from the pulpit and in official publications?

At a minimum, these latest revelations ought to raise questions about Barack ObamaÂ’s truthfulness and his judgment, as well as the sort of beliefs he would carry with him into the White House. Can America really afford to take a chance on such a man?

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When is telling the truth not OK?

When Barack Obama says its not, thatÂ’s when.

At the root of the dispute is McCain's decision to call attention to a Hamas adviser's apparent affinity for Obama. The adviser, Ahmed Yousef, said in a recent interview: "We like Obama and hope that he will win the election."

McCain used those comments in a fundraising appeal and has cited them in interviews.

Asked about the matter Wednesday during a taping of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," McCain said: "It's indicative of how some of our enemies view America. And I guarantee you, they're not going to endorse me."

In an interview Thursday with CNN, Obama accused McCain of trying to smear him by repeating the comments.

"This is offensive, and I think it's disappointing, because John McCain always says, 'Well, I'm not going to run that kind of politics,'" Obama said. "And then to engage in that kind of smear, I think, is unfortunate, particularly since my policy toward Hamas has been no different than his."

Now excuse me for one moment – I think it is highly relevant that one of America’s terrorist enemies has come out and declared that it wants to see a particular candidate elected. It leads one to wonder why that would be the case – and leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the preferred candidate is viewed as relatively weak and the opponent is viewed as stronger by our nation’s enemies.

Strangely enough, Democrats like to tout how foreign governments and opinion polls prefer a break from the policies of the Bush years. Why shouldn’t it be fair game to note that Hamas and other terrorist organizations do as well? After all, it is just as relevant – even if it is an inconvenient truth for Barack Obama..

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Her stance here is a principled one, especially since releasing the returns would disclose a great deal of financial information about not only her finances, but those of her adult and minor children.

Cindy McCain says she will never make her tax returns public even if her husband wins the White House and she becomes the first lady.

"You know, my husband and I have been married 28 years and we have filed separate tax returns for 28 years. This is a privacy issue. My husband is the candidate," Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain, said in an interview aired on NBC's "Today" on Thursday.

Asked if she would release her tax returns if she was first lady, Cindy McCain said: "No."

The Arizona senator released his tax return last month, reporting he had a total income of $405,409 in 2007 and paid $84,460 in federal income taxes. He files his return separately from his wife, an heiress to a Phoenix-based beer distributing company whose fortune is in the $100 million range.

Sen. McCain is routinely is ranked among the richest lawmakers in Congress, but he and his wife have kept their finances separate throughout their marriage. A prenuptial agreement left much of the family's assets in Cindy McCain's name.

In other words, for nearly three decades it has been the practice of the couple to keep their finances separate -- and demands that these assets be treated as joint property is simply wrong.

Howard Dean is, of course screaming about this decision.

Of course, there is a historical precedent for the much wealthier wife of a presidential nominee refusing to release her complete tax returns for precisely these reasons -- and I believe Cindy McCain should follow that practice precisely.

Teresa Heinz Kerry reported income of just over $5 million last year, slightly more than half of it from investments in tax-exempt municipal and state bonds, her 2003 income tax return shows, confirming her status as the wealthiest spouse of any major party nominee in United States history.

Ms. Heinz Kerry on Friday released a small part of her 2003 income tax return, unlike her husband, Senator John Kerry, and President Bush and his wife, Laura, who have made their full tax returns available for public inspection. The Kerrys file separate tax returns, a common arrangement when one spouse is wealthy.

The two-page document, posted at johnkerry.com, showed total income of $5,073,554 last year. Her primary source of income was the tax-exempt bonds, investments that generally produce a lower interest rate, but those in the highest tax brackets can often pocket more cash if they choose municipals.

* * *

Nothing about the trusts that benefit Ms. Heinz Kerry herself and her three sons was disclosed. These trusts, set up after the 1991 death in an airplane crash of her first husband, Senator John Heinz, the heir to the H. J. Heinz Company fortune, are believed to be worth about a billion dollars.

* * *

Tax documents that would indicate if Ms. Heinz Kerry has offshore accounts were withheld, as were the schedules detailing her charitable deductions, interest expenses and the nature of the $14,412 in capital gains she reported. But Paul Bschorr, a lawyer for Ms. Heinz Kerry, said Friday that none of her personal investment accounts or accounts controlled by her family trust are deposited outside the United States, a step some wealthy American use to defer or escape taxes.

No information was provided about how much income was earned by trusts of which she is the beneficiary. If the trusts are as large as reported - and the Kerry campaign has not challenged the billion dollar estimate - then even a modest 5 percent return would have generated $50 million of income, 10 times what was on the two pages released by Ms. Heinz Kerry. A statement released by the Kerry campaign noted that income taxes are paid directly by the Heinz family trust, in addition to taxes that Ms. Heinz Kerry pays.

Howard Dean certainly didn't raise a fuss about this practice in 2004 -- it should satisfy him in 2008, unless he wants to engage in a little bit of Michelle Obama-style bar raising. After all, if it was good enough for a seditious gigolo like John Kerry and his wife, it should be good enough for a true American hero like John McCain and his wife.

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That is when one candidate for the Democrat nomination plans to declare himself the winner. On the other hand, the other candidate plans on staying in all the way to the convention, seeking to convince the party she is more electable.

Not long after the polls close in the May 20 Kentucky and Oregon primaries, Barack Obama plans to declare victory in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

And, until at least May 31 and perhaps longer, Hillary ClintonÂ’s campaign plans to dispute it.

ItÂ’s a train wreck waiting to happen, with one candidate claiming to be the nominee while the other vigorously denies it, all predicated on an argument over what exactly constitutes the finish line of the primary race.

The Obama campaign agrees with the Democratic National Committee, which pegs a winning majority at 2,025 pledged delegates and superdelegates—a figure that excludes the penalized Florida and Michigan delegations. The Clinton campaign, on the other hand, insists the winner will need 2,209 to cinch the nomination—a tally that includes Florida and Michigan.

“We don’t accept 2,025. It is not the real number because that does not include Florida and Michigan,” said Howard Wolfson, one of Clinton’s two chief strategists. “It’s a phony number.”

Wolfson said they intend to contest the DNC’s 2,025 number “every day,” as well as any declaration of victory made by Obama based upon that number, because it does not include Florida and Michigan.

Pass the popcorn, please. This one will be quite entertaining.

Personally, I urge Hillary to contest the race all the way until the convention, just like this guy did in 1980 even though he was much further behind.

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And in doing so, the Arizona Senator and GOP presidential nominee has beaten the time taken by John Kerry to release his full records by over four years!

From his five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp to his tenure as the NavyÂ’s liaison to the Senate, John McCainÂ’s Navy record boils down to a series of unadorned paragraphs that bestow upon him some of the nationÂ’s top military honors.

The Navy recently released McCain’s military record — most of it citations for medals during his Navy career — after a Freedom of Information Act request by The Associated Press.

McCain was awarded a Silver Star Medal for resisting “extreme mental and physical cruelties” inflicted upon him by his captors from late October to early December 1967, the early months of his captivity, according to the citation. The North Vietnamese, according to the Navy, ignored international agreements and tortured McCain “in an attempt to obtain military information and false confessions for propaganda purposes.”

McCain, now the Republican PartyÂ’s likely presidential nominee, was taken prisoner in October 1967 after he was shot down while on a mission over Hanoi. He wasnÂ’t freed until March 1973, after the United States signed peace agreements with the North Vietnamese. His captors tortured him and held him in solitary confinement. Still, he declined an offer of early release until those who had been at the prison longer than him were let go.

That decision earned McCain a Navy Commendation Medal. Although McCain was “crippled from serious and ill-treated injuries,” he steadfastly refused offers of freedom from those holding him prisoner. “His selfless action served as an example to others and his forthright refusal, by giving emphasis to the insidious nature of such releases, may have prevented a possibly chaotic deterioration in prisoner discipline,” the citation says.

McCain attended the U.S. Naval Academy from 1954 to 1958, and was commissioned as an ensign in June of that year. He retired in April 1981 with the rank of captain. In that time he received 17 awards and decorations. Besides the Silver Star Medal, McCain also received the Legion of Merit with a combat “V” and one gold star, a Distinguished Flying Cross and a Bronze Art Medal with a combat “V” and two gold stars.

WhatÂ’s more, his record is not tainted by seditious activities upon his return from Vietnam, but is instead marked by an exemplary effort to return to duty despite the severe injuries he suffered at the hands of the captors to whom John Kerry and his fellow anti-war activists gave aid and comfort while our nation was at war.

Compare this record to the records of John McCainÂ’s Democrat opponents. One has left a slime-trail of lies, deceit, and borderline criminal activity behind her. The other has taken a preacher of anti-American racial hatred as his spiritual leader, an corrupt businessman as his real estate partner, and an unrepentant terrorist as a political associate. Which one of these three has consistently displayed the judgment and integrity necessary for greatness in office? Only John McCain.

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Here’s an interesting little tidbit for you – the cash Hillary has loaned/donated to her campaign comes out of the community property assets shared by both her and Bill Clinton – and includes money earned by Bill Clinton from foreign companies and governments.

ClintonÂ’s campaign says the New York senator has lent more than $11 million to her presidential campaign to date, far more than the $10 million she reportedly earned from previous books sales.

On a conference call with reporters Wednesday morning Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson said there was no distinction between Mrs. ClintonÂ’s money and Mr. ClintonÂ’s money in the account.

“I dispute the notion that there is a difference between her share of her joint assets and her own money," Wolfson said. "There is no distinction between her share of their joint assets and her money. Her money is their share of her joint assets."

Wolfson noted “legally she is entitled to use up to 50 percent of their joint assets if she chooses.”

Since leaving the White House former President Clinton has earned millions in speaking fees, mostly from foreign countries like the United Arab Emirates and the PeopleÂ’s Republic of China.

Campaign finance laws forbid foreign money from entering U.S. elections, but no laws forbid foreign monies being stored in a joint checking account by a candidateÂ’s spouse and later being accessed by the candidate.

Apparently it doesn’t just take a village to keep your campaign afloat – it takes a foreign village to do so.

Of course, it seems pretty clear to me that there isn’t a legal question about the money being used. After all, this is money that Bill Clinton earned (if you can call it that) through speaking fees and honoraria. So while the sources of cash are foreign governments, this is not a case of foreign governments directly donating to the campaign. But it does raise issues of Bill Clinton being paid by and financially beholden to foreign governments for his livelihood while his wife serves in the Senate – or maybe even the executive branch.

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For reasons that seem almost unfathomable, because she needs to run the tables in the remaining primaries to even have a hope of winning the nomination -- and that ain't gonna happen.

Hillary Rodham Clinton says she will remain in the presidential race "until there's a nominee." The former first lady declined to say whether that meant through the roll call of the states at the Democratic National Convention this summer.

Now that is a truly ambiguous phrase. Does that mean until the Denver convention? Or until Obama gets enough superdelegate support? Or something else? After all, it won't be until the convention that there actually is a nominee -- even if there is a mass swing of superdelegates for Obama.

And she seems to be interested in staying in the race longer -- and is dipping into personal funds to do it.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton lent her presidential campaign $6.4 million over the past month, her campaign said Wednesday, underscoring the financial advantage held by her rival, Barack Obama.

The money more than doubled Clinton's personal investment in her bid for the Democratic nomination. She gave her campaign $5 million earlier this year.

A campaign aide said Clinton gave her campaign another $5 million on April 11, more than a week before the Pennsylvania primary. She then again dipped into her personal wealth for $1 million last week and $425,000 on Monday, one day before the North Carolina and Indiana primaries.

Seems to me like she is throwing good money after bad. After all, she ought to know it takes a village to fund a presidential campaign -- and all the Democrat Party's village idiots are lined up to give money to the Obama campaign. I can't imagine her overcoming the fundraising deficit.

And more supporters keep abandoning the Hillary Clinton campaign -- the latest being George McGovern.

Former Sen. George McGovern, an early supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton, urged her to drop out of the Democratic presidential race and endorsed her rival, Barack Obama.

After watching the returns from the North Carolina and Indiana primaries Tuesday night, McGovern said Wednesday it's virtually impossible for Clinton to win the nomination. The 1972 Democratic presidential nominee said he had a call in to former President Clinton to tell him of the decision, adding that he remains close friends with the Clintons.

"I will hold them in affection and admiration all of my days," he said of the Clintons.

This is a big deal -- not because McGovern has a vote at the convention (he doesn't), but because the former South Dakota Senator and Dem. presidential nominee was scheduled to campaign with her this week in SOuth Dakota. It doesn't look good for him to switch, does it?

And the superdelegates, who will ultimately decide this race, are ready to make their move as well.

Is it time to stick a fork in the former First lady? Or does she yet have another trick up her sleeve? I don't see how she could, but she intends to fight another day -- and since the commentators have been wrong about this race at every turn, I suppose anything is possible.

Posted by: Greg at 10:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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We keep hearing from the pathetic partisan hacks on the Left how bad the economy is, and how it is all the fault of the Republicans I wonder if they are planning on ignoring two articles from todayÂ’s Houston Chronicle.

After all, one tells us that the “slumping housing market” down here is really booming – and that new home sales are outstripping the number of new homes being built.

Houston-area builders are selling more homes than they're building, leading to a shrinking supply of new homes on the market.
That's according to the latest survey by Metrostudy, a national consulting company that tracks housing.

Housing starts dropped year-over-year 28 percent to around 34,500 during the 12 months ending in March. But builders closed on 39,880 homes during the same period.

In the first quarter, the area's new housing supply fell to 2.7 months, meaning it would take that long to sell all the finished homes on the market based on prior sales activity. That's an amount experts consider stable, according to Metrostudy.

Brian Binash, president of the Greater Houston Builders Association and Wilshire Homes, said builders have scaled back so much that he's anticipating a shortage of homes as early as this summer.

The shrinking inventory, combined with low interest rates and continued job growth, could lead to higher prices if demand spikes.

"If you're thinking of waiting until this summer or later, I wouldn't," Binash said.
Prices already rose in the first quarter.

The median price of a new home was $202,287, up 15 percent over last year.

Yes, there are fewer homes being built – but I suspect that has something to do with the predictions made over the last few months that we were entering a weak housing market. I’d have to say those predictions were wrong.

And then there is this other story, about the reality that the Texas economy is booming and setting records in tax receipts.

The nation may be on the verge of a recession, but the Texas economy is doing well enough for Comptroller Susan Combs to predict Tuesday that the Legislature will have a $10.7 billion surplus when it convenes in January.

Much of the extra money can be attributed to record oil prices. While motorists are being socked with ever-increasing gasoline costs, oil and gas employment in Texas has been booming, the comptroller's office reported.

If Combs' early forecast holds up, Gov. Rick Perry would like to return part of the money to the taxpayers in the form of tax cuts or rebate checks, spokesman Robert Black said. But those steps would need legislative action.

Oil and gas employment in Texas grew by 7.5 percent between March 2007 and March 2008, leading an overall increase of 214,000 Texas jobs, comptroller's spokesman R.J. DeSilva said.

Consequently, sales tax revenue, a major source of state government income, also continues to grow.

And, DeSilva added, Texas has been insulated more than other states from the sub-prime mortgage lending crisis. Texas, he said, avoided the housing price bubbles that hurt states like California and Florida.

Now I would disagree with the notion of returning all of that money in the form of tax cuts – there are a number of infrastructure projects that could be helped along, and a substantive improvement in teacher salaries and/or health insurance is also in order, since Texas lags behind other states in these areas. But the fact that we have a surplus of $10.7 billion should be seen as one more indication of robust economic health – and make it difficult for the Democrats to poor-mouth their way to victory in this fall’s elections.

Just remember, folks – Democrat leaders say this economic news is all the fault of Republicans, and that Democrats have nothing to do with it. Seems to me that one would therefore have to be a real jackass to vote for the Democrats this fall, given that we are in a GOP sponsored boom economy!

Posted by: Greg at 09:31 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I amy not agree with everything John McCain says, but yesterday he addressed one of the two issues nearest and dearest to my heart -- the courts.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Tuesday he would appoint judges in the mold of conservatives John Roberts, Samuel Alito and former Chief Justice William Rehnquist if he were elected in November.

In a speech in Winston-Salem, the Arizona senator said he would "look for accomplished men and women with a proven record of excellence in the law, and a proven commitment to judicial restraint."

"I will look for people in the cast of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, and my friend the late William Rehnquist -- jurists of the highest caliber who know their own minds, and know the law, and know the difference," McCain told an audience at Wake Forest University.

Roberts, the current chief justice, and Alito were both named to the U.S. Supreme Court by Republican President George W. Bush. Legal experts say they have helped shift it to the right. The court has the final word on questions of U.S. law and its rulings affect the rights of all Americans.

What the article doesn't note is that William Rehnquist was also one of the great scholars of the Supreme Court in the last generation -- and that legal scholars of all stripes have noted that Roberts and Alito are superbly qualified jurists whose work on the court has been impeccable from a legal standpoint. One would think those would be good things -- especially since Americans overwhelmingly view the Supreme Court as properly balanced or too liberal.

Not that this matters to the NY Times.

On a day when Mr. Obama won a decisive victory in North Carolina and Mrs. Clinton eked out a win in Indiana, Mr. McCain spoke about his judicial philosophy. He is determined to move a far too conservative and far too activist Supreme Court and federal judiciary even further and more actively to the right.

Mr. McCain predictably criticized liberal judges, vowed strict adherence to the FoundersÂ’ views and promised to appoint more judges in the mold of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. That is just what the country does not need.

The Times editorial then goes on to complain that the Court has failed to uphold racial discrimination in school assignments, citizens' rights to participate fully in politics, and mischaracterized a decision upholding Roe v. Wade as undercutting the right to abortion and falsely claimed a retrenchment on voting rights -- despite the fact that the decision was written by reliably liberal Justice John Paul Stevens!

Whose views are out of step with those of America and the requirements of the Constitution? Not John McCain's -- it is those of the New York Times, and the Democrat candidates for president. For them, only an unbalanced, left-wing court that ignores the dictates of the Constitution as written will do.

That alone is reason enough to support John McCain.

Posted by: Greg at 10:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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You can always count on John over at Bay Area Houston to show class and dignity when commenting on political issues -- not.

Over at his site, incontinence jokes about John McCain are considered deep thought. And a Photoshopped picture of the career navy officer and former POW mocking his military service is considered to be incisive commentary on the issues that matter to America by this local Dem mover and shaker.

This is, of course, the guy who organized the protest at John O'Neill's house four years ago -- over failure to give due deference to the military service of John Kerry, even though those questioning his record were his own fellow Swift Boat captains. McCain's heroism is much better documented, fully supported by his fellow POWS, and not tainted by seditious activities when he returned to the United States. But in the eyes of some liberal Democrats, including this one, McCain's undeniably heroic service is fair game.

But then again, I believe that he has plenty of free time to come up with hateful, anti-veteran images.

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I'm going to say it -- I was wrong yesterday when I stated that a split in Indiana and North Carolina would likely favor Hillary Clinton -- because i could never have foreseen the margins being what they were.

Yes, i expected one state to be a blowout, and the other to be tight -- but Hillary was supposed to run away with Indiana and the winner in North Carolina was going to barely pull it out.

Instead we got the exact opposite.

Senator Barack Obama won a commanding victory in the North Carolina primary on Tuesday and lost narrowly to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana, an outcome that injected a boost of momentum to Mr. ObamaÂ’s candidacy as the Democratic nominating contest entered its final month.

The results from the two primaries, the largest remaining Democratic ones, assured that Mr. Obama would widen his lead in pledged delegates over Mrs. Clinton, providing him with new ammunition as he seeks to persuade Democratic leaders to coalesce around his campaign. He also increased his lead in the popular vote in winning North Carolina by more than 200,000 votes.

Frankly, I don't see how Hillary Clinton can make a case that she deserves the nomination after yesterday's vote totals are considered. Having been decisively thrashed in a state where she was gaining only a few days ago is troubling -- and barely winning in a state she was supposed to win handily should serve as an indication that Democrats have made up their mind. I don't even believe an infusion of cash into the campaign from supporters can help (Obama will still have an advantage there) -- and superdelegates should begin flocking to Obama's banner in the next few days. I simply do not see any way for her to take it away from him.

Andrew Sullivan has a great roundup of opinion from bloggers and commentators.

MORE AT Malkin, MVRWC, GayPatriot, STACLU, Hot Air

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That would be Rosie O'Donnell, echoing Jeremiah Wright.

Rosie O'Donnell defended Rev. Jeremiah Wright on the "Today" show on Monday, saying Barack Obama's former pastor "made sense to me."

The comedian also compared herself to Wright, saying "some people confuse passion for rage." She also came to Wright's defense on his views on the origins of AIDS.

Yeah, it is true that some people confuse passion with rage. But some folks also confuse celebrity with intelligence, which is why you are even asked your opinion on serious political topics.

And that Wright made sense to you is no surprise, Rosie. We all heard you on The View, where you stomped off because rational comments by one of your fellow panelists didn't make sense and therefore enraged you. You have no more contact with reality than Wright does.

And then there is this gem -- proving that O'Donnell doesn't know squat.

O'DONNELL: But Kathie Lee, you know what it's like for someone to pull one quote out of context for you.

He was comparing it to when the government did give syphilis to black Americans for 40 years. What he was saying is in his history, in his genetic memory, he knows what it's like for the government to infect his own people because he lived through those Tuskegee experiments. And that's what he was talking about.

The problem? The government did not give these men the clap, no matter how often the lie is repeated. What did happen was that a group of black men with advanced syphilis were not given treatment for it, even as they were told they were being treated. A recent column by National Review's Jonah Goldberg recounts what actually happened.

So what did happen? In 1932, public health researchers set out to study syphilis, particularly among African Americans, who had higher infection rates than whites. They recruited 399 black men who already had syphilis. The doctors infected no one. In fact, the patients were selected in the first place because they were tertiary-stage syphilitics who were no longer contagious.

The researchers studied the progress of the disease, without treating it, for 40 years.

Prior to the availability of penicillin in the 1940s and 1950s, the researchers couldnÂ’t have treated the men even if they wanted to. Even after standardized penicillin treatments were available, it wasnÂ’t clear that the patients could have been helped. Some of the doctors believed that treating the decades-long infections would kill the men.

Among scholars who’ve studied Tuskegee, there’s a lot of debate about how much — if any — racism was involved in the experiment. But no one disputes that Tuskegee had nothing whatsoever to do with genocide or even a desire to spread the disease among the black population.

Were the actions of those researchers reprehensible? Certainly.

Were they racist? Possibly.

Were they genocidal? No.

Were they what Wright, O'Donnell, and any number of other folks claim claim, often out of simple ignorance and the acceptance of folk tales that have grown up around this indefensible abuse of nearly 400 seriously ill souls? Absolutely not!

Goldberg offers this analysis as well -- one based less upon his own ideology than upon the research of a respected academic who has studied the Tuskegee Experiment at length.

Indeed, it’s worth noting that the Tuskegee study, launched during the pre-dawn of the New Deal-era, was symptomatic of arrogant liberal government. The study “emerged out of a liberal progressive public health movement concerned about the health and well-being of the African-American population,” writes University of Chicago professor Richard Schweder. He adds: “The study was done with the full knowledge, endorsement and participation of African-American medical professionals, hospitals and research institutes.”

In other words, there were a lot of dirty hands in this disgusting program -- and a good number of them were leading members of the black academic and medical communities of the period.

But let us return to the inanity of Rosie and the insanity of Jeremiah Wright (who, incidently, raves with all the delusional paranoia of the victims of Tuskegee in the final stages of their illness).

So let's come back to it -- there was no infection of African-Americans with AIDS by the government, just as there was no infection of black men with syphilis at Tuskegee DURING THE ROOSEVELT AND TRUMAN ADMINISTRATIONS when the bulk of the Tuskegee Experiment was carried out. And we don't need the vile untruths spread by voices of ignorance like Rosie and Jeremiah.

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North Carolina and Indiana vote today -- and the results of the two races will be quite telling. Either Hillary Clinton's campaign ends tonight, or she fights Barack Obama to the bitter end -- whether that be the last primary in four weeks, or the floor of the convention.

ItÂ’s almost over.

Well, not quite. But the Democratic presidential primaries taking place on Tuesday in North Carolina and Indiana have more delegates up for grabs than any of the remaining contests. For political, demographic and mathematical reasons, those states have the potential to reshape the competition between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

Simple scenarios.

1) Obama wins both races. Hillary Clinton's campaign is dead.

2) Hillary Clinton wins in Indiana, but loses big in North Carolina. She fights on through June, but no one takes her campaign seriously.

3) Hillary Clinton wins in Indiana, and comes within 4 points in North Carolina. Clinton fights through June, and likely concedes after the final votes are in June 3.

4) Hillary Clinton wins both Indiana and North Carolina. The race for superdelegates is on, and we are likely to see a flor fight at the convention that will dwarf anything in recent memory.

I'd like option #4 personally -- and not just because of the damage it would do to the Democrats. We haven't really had a convention where the events inside the hall mean anything in my lifetime -- it would be nice to see a return to the days when conventions matter, even if it is the exception to the rule.

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For a columnist in the New York Times to make the argument that a presidential candidate does not support the troops is a rather daring thing, given the utter lack of support for military personnel shown by that pathetic liberal rag over the lat four decades.

But when the claim is that a seditious weasel like Bob Herbert to challenge the credentials of John McCain on that score in a mendacious column straight from the DNC talking points is outrageous!

At the top of the list of no-brainers in Washington should be Senator Jim WebbÂ’s proposed expansion of education benefits for the men and women who have served in the armed forces since Sept. 11, 2001.

Oh, really? Why Webb's bill? Why not some other proposal? Because Webb is a Democrat? Or because it is the most costly, most complicated proposal designed to encourage short-term enlistments rather than military careers?

ItÂ’s awfully hard to make the case that these young people who have sacrificed so much donÂ’t deserve a shot at a better future once their wartime service has ended.

And no one -- outside of the same left-wingers who don't support the troops -- is making that argument.

Senator Webb, a Virginia Democrat, has been the guiding force behind this legislation, which has been dubbed the new G.I. bill. The measure is decidedly bipartisan. Mr. WebbÂ’s principal co-sponsors include Republican Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and John Warner of Virginia, and Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey.

(All four senators are veterans of wartime service — Senators Webb and Hagel in Vietnam, Warner in World War II and Korea and Lautenberg in World War II.)

Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are on board, as are Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, and Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House.

So what?

Who wouldnÂ’t support an effort to pay for college for G.I.Â’s who have willingly suited up and put their lives on the line, who in many cases have served multiple tours in combat zones and in some cases have been wounded?

We did it for those who served in World War II. Why not now?

Actually, nobody argues against or fails to support an effort to pay for college for such folks. For Herbert to imply that anyone does not is to set up a strawman. But even if one were to oppose it, you could distinguish between an all-volunteer force like we have today and the draftee armed forces of WWII. But as I have said, no on disagrees with college benefits.

Well, you might be surprised at who is not supporting this effort. The Bush administration opposes it, and so does Senator John McCain.

Bullshit, Bob. Tall, steaming piles of partisan liberal bullshit. What they oppose is Webb's proposal, not paying for college for servicemen and women.

Reinvigorating the G.I. bill is one of the best things this nation could do. The original G.I. Bill of Rights, signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1944, paid the full load of a returning veteranÂ’s education at a college or technical school and provided a monthly stipend. It was an investment that paid astounding dividends. Millions of veterans benefited, and they helped transform the nation. College would no longer be the exclusive preserve of the wealthy and those who crowned themselves the intellectual elite.

As The New York Times wrote on the 50th anniversary of the G.I. bill: “Few laws have done so much for so many.”

“These veterans were able to get a first-class future,” Senator Webb told me in an interview. “But not only that. For every dollar that was spent on the World War II G.I. bill, seven dollars came back in the form of tax remunerations from those who received benefits.”

Well, no one can disagree here -- though Democrats insisted upon watering down that benefit decades ago. Today it is a matching funds program, not a grant program. Webb's bill will not change that I guess he doesn't care about the troops so much after all, does he?

Senator Lautenberg went to Columbia on the G.I. bill, and Senator Warner to Washington and Lee University and then to law school.

The benefits have not kept pace over the decades with the real costs of attending college. Moreover, service members have to make an out-of-pocket contribution — something over $100 a month during their first year of service — to qualify for the watered-down benefits.

This is not exactly first-class treatment of the nationÂ’s warriors.

But then again, Webb's bill does not significantly change that, according to any source I have seen.

The Bush administration opposes the new G.I. bill primarily on the grounds that it is too generous, would be difficult to administer and would adversely affect retention.

Sort of -- the Bush Administration opposes the bill because it sets up a complicated scheme that makes benefit levels vary from state to state and institution to institution, and creates a larger bureaucracy to do so -- and also provides incentives to leave the military rather than continue to serve. That is just bad policy.

This is bogus. The estimated $2.5 billion to $4 billion annual cost of the Webb proposal is dwarfed by the hundreds of billions being spent on the wars weÂ’re asking service members to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. WhatÂ’s important to keep in mind is that the money that goes to bolstering the education of returning veterans is an investment, in both the lives of the veterans themselves and the future of the nation.

Notice, Herbert can't refute the claims of the administration -- so he dismisses them as irrelevant. Always a sign of a dishonest argument.

The notion that expanding educational benefits will have a negative effect on retention seems silly. The Webb bill would cover tuition at a rate comparable to the highest tuition at a state school in the state in which the veteran would be enrolled. That kind of solid benefit would draw talented individuals into the military in large numbers.

Not necessarily. And the problem remains that the legislation would still encourage folks to leave the service immediately, not stay and make a career of it.

Senator Webb, a former secretary of the Navy who specialized in manpower issues, said he has seen no evidence that G.I.Â’s would opt out of the service in significantly higher numbers because of such benefits.

So what he wants to see is an actual exodus of personnel before he will acknowledge he is wrong -- followed by endless whining about "taking away benefits from the troops" if his plan proves to be a disaster for our military.

Senator McCainÂ’s office said on Monday that it was following the PentagonÂ’s lead on this matter, getting guidance from Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Under pressure because of his unwillingness to support Senator WebbÂ’s effort, Senator McCain introduced legislation with substantially fewer co-sponsors last week that expands some educational benefits for G.I.Â’s, but far less robustly than Senator WebbÂ’s bill.

“It’s not even close to the Webb bill,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, an advocacy group.

So, does the number of co-sponsors indicate the merits of a bill? Also, why doesn't herbert mention that hte expanded benefits -- which are still significantly more generous than the current configuration of the GI Bill -- includes more generous benefits for career military personnel, as well as provisions for allowing career enlisted personnel who don't use their benefits themselves to assign them to a son or daughter. Notice that Bob Herbert doesn't bother to tell you what McCain actually proposes -- after all, the facts might get in the way of your drawing the right Left conclusion. Just a quote from someone from one of the small veteran's organizations. What's wrong -- couldn't he get someone from the American legion of VFW to speak out against McCain's proposal?

Politicians tend to talk very, very big about supporting our men and women in uniform. But time and again — whether it’s about providing armor for their safety or an education for their future — we find that talk to be very, very cheap.

And the talk of newspaper columnists smearing a true American military hero is even cheaper, Bob -- and slimy even for a seditious rag like the New York Times.

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I've made no secret of my admiration for Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, a man who already has more relevant and credible experience to qualify him for the White House than does Barack Obama, a man a decade his senior. But I don't know that I like the talk of him being John McCain's choice for VP.

Another McCain staffer called my attention to this finding in the latest Fox News poll: McCain led Obama in the straight match-up, 46 to 43. Voters were then asked to choose between two tickets, McCain-Romney vs. Obama-Clinton. Obama-Clinton won 47 to 41.

That reversal of a three-point McCain lead to a six-point deficit for the McCain ticket suggests what might happen (a) when the Democrats unite, and (b) if McCain were to choose a conventional running mate, who, as it were, reinforced the Republican brand for the ticket. As the McCain aide put it, this is what will happen if we run a traditional campaign; our numbers will gradually regress toward the (losing) generic Republican number.

Maybe thatÂ’s why, in separate conversations last week, no fewer than four McCain staffers and advisers mentioned as a possible vice-presidential pick the 36-year-old Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal. TheyÂ’re tempted by the idea of picking someone so young, with real accomplishments and a strong reformist streak.

It might also be a way to confront the issue of McCain’s age (71), which private polls and focus groups suggest could be a real problem. A Jindal pick would implicitly acknowledge the questions and raise the ante. The message would be: “You want generational change? You can get it with McCain-Jindal — without risking a liberal and inexperienced Obama as commander in chief.” I would add that it was after McCain spent considerable time with Jindal in New Orleans recently, and reportedly found him, as he has before, personally engaging and intellectually impressive, that the campaign’s informal name-dropping of Jindal began.

Everything said about Gov. Jindal in this piece is accurate. However, I'd rather wait four years to see him on the national ticket, after he has successfully cleaned up the problems and corruption that piled up during decades of Democrat misrule in Louisiana. That state needs help -- and Bobby Jindal has made a great start towards fixing it. But with less than a year as governor to his credit, it seems like a place on the national ticket is coming a bit too early -- but I'd be fired up and ready to support him in the event of his selection.

But Jindal may be signaling his reluctance to sign on to the national ticket in today's Washington Times.

Posted by: Greg at 10:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I wonder -- how many pastors would survive the sort of improprieties that appear to have gone on here?

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's loose cannon of a spiritual adviser, stole the wife of a parishioner - after the man sought Wright's help in saving his troubled marriage, the former husband told friends.

Delmer Reed, 59, confided to pals that he believed the minister moved in on his wife while Wright was counseling the couple at his Chicago church in the early 1980s, The Post has learned.

"That's exactly how he said it," Reed's divorce lawyer, Roosevelt Thomas, told The Post.

"It looks like Delmer might have been right," he said, because after Delmer and Ramah Reed were divorced, she got remarried - to Wright. "Either that or this was the biggest coincidence in the world."

Asked about the relationship between Wright and his ex-wife, Reed told The Post, "Oh, the things I could tell you."

Initially, he didn't believe the rumors.

"People were telling me that my extremely attractive wife was seen with the pastor," Reed said. "But I didn't believe it. I thought, 'So what?' "

Was he wrong in the end?

"Well, yeah," he said.

Reed won't however, take the next step and outright accuse Wright of behaving improperly -- but not because he doesn't believe that case. Instead, he is abiding by a commitment to his children not to say anything damaging to their stepfather.

Unlike the horrendous statements from teh pulpit made by Jeremiah Wright, I don't see where this story really has anything to do with Barack Obama. But the exposure of this story now is simply one more case of chickens coming home to roost for the racist reverend.

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Several fine bloggers who I respect posted on this topic on Friday, and I'd like to take a shot at it.

Q: Suppose you were elected Temporary Supreme Dictator of America.

What ten laws would you pass/repeal or government programs would you create/tear down (Assume that you would be in office for however long it would take to do these things and that any changes you make will remain in place after you leave office).

A: Were I to assume this august and dread office, I would make the following changes.

1. ANNEX MEXICO. To paraphrase an old saying about a false prophet and a mountain, why bring all these Mexicans to the United States when we can bring the United States to the Mexicans? In one fell swoop, we could eliminate most of our illegal immigration problem by making our newly acquired Mexican territories are subject to all the laws that apply in the US that make it attractive to the illegal aliens in the first place. We would solve the citizenship and anchor baby questions because all of the Mexicans on either side of the old border would now be US citizens. What infrastructure and social improvements that are needed will be taken care of by using the PEMEX oil revenues. Eventually, I'd anticipate the old Mexican states to be admitted to the Union. An additional advantage is that the border wall we will need to build to keep out Central American illegal aliens will be much shorter -- and therefore much easier to build and maintain.

2) REPEAL THE SEVENTEENTH AMENDMENT. By taking the election of US Senators out of the hands of the people and returning it to the state legislatures where it was placed by the Framers of the Constitution, we will move a long way towards restoring the states to their proper role in setting national policy for our FEDERAL union.

3) SETTLE THE DC REPRESETATION QUESTION. The District of Columbia was created out of Maryland territory, and its people should vote for members of the House of Representatives as citizens of the state of Maryland. Some method of representing them in the Maryland Legislature for purposes of selecting US Senators (See Point 2) will need to be devised.

4) REVISE THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965. I've said it before -- the repeated renewal of the emergency provisions of the VRA has resulted in a continual focus on the problems of the 1964 Presidential election while ignoring contemporary voting rights issues. Replace the current preclearance regulations, which are based upon data nearly as old as I am, with new regulations that subject any jurisdiction with less than 50% representation in either of the two most recent presidential elections to the special supervision of the Justice Department. That way we will always be dealing with obstacles to voter participation that exist in the present, not those that have been more-or-less effectively remedied in the past.

5) EXECUTIVE ORDER OVERTURNING A NUMBER OF INAPPROPRIATELY DECIDED COURT DECISIONS. These would include Roe v. Wade, Lawrence v. Texas, Bob Jones University v. United States, Coker v. Georgia, Roper v. Simmons, and Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health, among others -- all cases in which a court exceeded its proper boundaries by taking matters that properly belong in the hands of legislative bodies and inaccurately ascribing the status of Constitutional right or prohibition to one side or another. Even where I agree with the result (the law struck down in Lawrence was idiotic and ought to have been repealed), the problem is that the judges stripped the elected legislators of their ability to legislate in areas that no legally and historically plausible reading of the federal (or in the Goodridge case, state) constitution could legitimately justify.

6) TRIPLE THE SALARIES OF MILITARY PERSONNEL, POLICE, FIREFIGHTERS, AND TEACHERS. Everyone always says they view these jobs as extremely important and says we don't pay them enough. Let's do it. This can be partially funded by placing a windfall profits tax on the entertainment industry, and a special 100% tax surcharge on the salaries and benefits of entertainment industry executives, actors, recording artists, professional athletes, and their agents for all income over 10 times the poverty level for a family of four.

7) REAL EDUCATION REFORM. As long as we have a consensus in this country that government should be paying for education, then it should pay for the education of all students through grade 12, regardless of whether they attend a public, private, or religious school. Any student in a non-public school will receive a voucher equal to 2/3 the average per-pupil expenditure in public schools in their state, provided their school offers a core curriculum of English, math, science, and social studies that meets established standards. Students may voluntarily choose to drop out after Grade 8 -- and may be permanently expelled for disciplinary or academic reasons after that point as well. Students who drop out or are expelled are done with their free education. Tracking of students based upon ability is to be encouraged so that no student is held back in an effort to make sure that no child is left behind. In addition, high school students are to be encouraged to choose a course of studies, either college prep or vocational, based upon their interests and aptitudes.

9) ABOLISH ALL LAWS RESTRICTING POLITICAL PARTICIPATION BY AMERICAN CITIZENS. Bye-bye, McCain-Feingold and other campaign finance laws that restrict the contributions of American citizens to political campaigns, or limit their ability to form organizations to engage in political speech. The only rules will be that contributions to candidates must be reported within 24 hours, and no corporate or union funds may be contributed to or expended on behalf of a candidate. Money is not speech -- but it is an essential to being able to speak in today's media-driven environment, and donations of money are certainly a form of free association.

10) THE OMNIBUS CORRECTION AMENDMENT. Once amendment can be used to fix problems and misinterpretations that have sprung up regarding the Constitution over the last two centuries. These would include:
* Banning all discrimination for or against individuals based upon race, religion, or sex.
* Clarifying that religious speech cannot be disfavored by government entities -- meaning that religious groups have equal access to public facilities as non-religious groups.
* Modifying the Second Amendment to read "An armed populace being necessary to the preservation of liberty, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed and its exercise is commended and encouraged. No law shall be valid that limits the right of any adult citizen not convicted of a violent felony or adjudicated mentally incompetent to go about armed in any public place, excluding prisons and mental health facilities.
* Affirming that the death penalty is constitutional, and may be applied for crimes other than murder.
* Stating that the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause are not catch-all provisions allowing Congress to do anything they please, and that all statutes enacted under them must provide a clear and direct rationale for the use of those clauses to justify them.

Having completed my term of service to the nation, I would then return to my classroom, just as Cincinnatus returned to his farm in Roman times.

Now, why don't you folks all give this meme a try -- I'm tagging no one, but encouraging everyone to play!

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Posted by: Greg at 02:20 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And who says that they don't editorialize in news stories?

In an article about the glut of executions likely to take place following the recent approval of lethal injection by the Supreme Court, the NY Times says this.

Experts say the resumption of executions is likely to throw a strong new spotlight on the divisive national — and international — issue of capital punishment.

Did you catch the lie in that sentence?

While capital punishment may be opposed by many countries outside the US, it is hardly a divisive practice in the United States. Polling data consistently shows that between 2/3 and 3/4 of Americans support the use of capital punishment.

But then again, what maybe what they meant by divisive was "the American people support it even though we editorialize against it."

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It doesn't matter how clearly something is explained to them, they keep coming back to the same point of mystification and lack of understanding.

Take Ronald Brownstein of National Journal and MSNBC.

First, if McCain doesn't envision a 100-year American front-line combat presence in Iraq, how long is he willing to keep U.S. forces in that role? So far, all he has said is that the United States should withdraw only if it concludes that the Iraq mission is unachievable or when it has achieved success, which he defines as the establishment of "a peaceful, stable, prosperous, democratic state."

McCain hasn't said how long he would keep fighting to reach that demanding goal. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of McCain's closest Senate allies, recently said he thinks that McCain would maintain current U.S. troop levels in Iraq through his entire four-year presidential term if military commanders recommended that course to maintain stability there.

Yeah, McCain hasn't given Brownstein the cutoff date that he and other liberals want. Why not? because as conservatives (and liberals who actually understand such things) have repeatedly noted for the last year or two, setting a date for withdrawal (and that is what "how long" is really asking) simply tells your enemy "how long" they need to bide their time until the US surrenders. The correct answer -- one that Brownstein seems unwilling to accept -- is "as long as it is militarily appropriate for us to continue the mission."

Brownstein then tries to distinguish the US presence in South Korea (which remains a source of great political division among South Koreans) as well as in Japan and Germany (in which we were initially an occupying power which forced our presence upon those nations at the point of a gun) from an ongoing presence in Iraq, which he argues would be both divisive among Iraqis and lead us to be viewed as an occupying power by the Iraqi people! I guess that Brownstein really isn't familiar with the history of the places he cites.

Which leads us to the third point -- the views of those who have doubts about the current Iraq strategy.

As Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean asked this week, "Does anyone think ... if you keep our troops in Iraq for a hundred years, people won't be ... setting off suicide bombs?"

In an interview, retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, the former commander of U.S. forces in the Mideast, echoed that concern. Zinni said that McCain is right that America needs the capacity to respond to regional threats. But Zinni believes that it should do so with a light and flexible force stationed outside Iraq, probably in Kuwait. "Keeping a large formation of combat troops [in Iraq] is a mistake," he says, "because you are going to be seen as an occupier, and a colonial power, and you are going to attract people that will want to attack those forces."

Which begs the question -- having achieved success and victory in Iraq, what makes Dean, Zinni, and others believe that the same tactics will not be adopted by al-Qaeda against American forces in Kuwait? After all, their success will merely embolden them in their efforts to drive the Crusaders" of the "Great Satan" out of Dar al-Islam (the House of Islam). Will Dean and Zinni (and their ideological successors) tell us a decade from now that we must withdraw from Kuwait because the cost in American casualties is too high? After all, the logic of Iraq will be just as applicable in Kuwait if even a small segment of Kuwaitis becomes radicalized.

Posted by: Greg at 01:53 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Now I've maintained a certain position on extramarital affairs by politicians -- I don't really care about them unless they involve serious criminality or official misconduct. That was my standard for opposing Bill Clinton during the Lewinski thing, and my standard for not caring about the extramarital affairs of most politicians.

That said, Ohio's Democrat Attorney General needs to resign from office immediately.

Ohio's attorney general admitted an extramarital affair with an employee Friday, soon after three of his aides were fired or forced out after an investigation found evidence of sexual harassment and other misconduct.

Leader of both parties were critical of Attorney General Marc Dann, one of several Democrats swept into office in 2006 after a scandal over state investments sullied Republicans. He apologized to his wife and supporters but promised not to step down.

"I'm embarrassed. I have taken responsibility for what I've done," he told reporters.

Dann had lived with two of the aides at an apartment during much of his first year in office and some of the alleged harassment by one of the aides occurred there.

"I did not create an atmosphere in my public and personal life that is consistent with the important mission of the Office of Attorney General ...," Dann said. "I am heartbroken by my failure to recognize the problems being created and by my failure to stop them."

In other words, Dann's sexual misconduct was a part of a pattern of such behavior in the Office of the Attorney General which he did nothing to stop and which his own conduct helped to foster. As such, any clean-up of the office is going to require his exit, based upon the same standards applied to the other employees in the office.

H/T Malkin

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They can't keep their candidates off of FoxNews.

The nationÂ’s top Democrats are suddenly rushing to appear on the Fox News Channel, which they once had shunned as enemy territory as the nemesis of liberal bloggers.

The detente with Fox has provoked a backlash from progressive bloggers, who contend the party’s leaders are turning their backs on the base — and lending credibility and legitimacy to the network liberals love to hate — in a quest for a few swing votes.

In a span of eight days, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY.) and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean are all taking their seats with the network that calls itself “fair and balanced” but is widely viewed as skewing conservative.

With the partyÂ’s presidential contest reduced to hand-to-hand combat, Democrats are turning to the ratings leader among cable news channels in a clear rebuff to the liberal activists known as the Netroots.

Markos Moulitsas, founder of the leading liberal site Daily Kos, told Politico’s Michael Calderone: "Democrats are being idiotic by going on that network.”

Ari Melber, the Net movement correspondent for The Nation, told Politico by phone that progressive activists and the Netroots are “not happy about it.”

“I don’t think that it is tenable to completely neglect or ignore what your base wants,” Melber said.

Of course, it is absurd for Democrats to stay after the highest rated cable news channel. After all, that is where the viewers -- including a lot of the independents that they claim to be reaching out to. Why cede those voters to the GOP by making Fox a Democrat-free zone?

Besides -- who are the KOSsacks and DUmmies going to vote for this fall in a fit of disapproval of the Fox interviews -- John McCain?

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