What the rest of the world calls a LIE.

Over the last five weeks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has featured in her campaign stump speeches the story of a health care horror: an uninsured pregnant woman who lost her baby and died herself after being denied care by an Ohio hospital because she could not come up with a $100 fee.

The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at OÂ’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.

“We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story,” said Rick Castrop, chief executive officer of the O’Bleness Health System.

Interestingly enough, the Clinton campaign freely admits that it didn't even bother to find out if the story in question was true -- that they simply began including it in speeches and Hillary Clinton began using it.

A Clinton spokesman, Mo Elleithee, said candidates would frequently retell stories relayed to them, vetting them when possible. “In this case, we did try but were not able to fully vet it,” Mr. Elleithee said. “If the hospital claims it did not happen that way, we respect that.”

If they "were not able to fully vet it", I'd like to know what parts they did check out in regard t the story? My guess -- that Trina Bachtel and her baby both died last summer. All the rest were irrelevant details to them, once they had a putative victim (since the baby was unborn, Clinton would not consider it a person or a victim -- Roe v. Wade, don't you know).

After all, they didn't need to check out the insurance question -- after all, that would have ruined the story. Ditto the refusal to treat question -- especially since federal law would probably have required treatment of a pregnant woman in distress at any emergency room regardless of insurance or ability to pay, and there are usually signs posted in the lobby of every hospital to that effect.

No, the story was just too good to check out closely -- and so they didn't.

Time for the Hillary Campaign Theme Song again!

UPDATE: Over at Hot Air, AllahPundit supplies us with the video of Hillary lying to the American people again.

AP also reminds us of other problems the junior Senator from new York has had with those pesky facts.

I particularly like the comment from a nurse that backs up my statement above.

As a nurse who worked in hospitals and with Insurance companies (and Medicare), IÂ’m so sick of people saying that theyÂ’re refused care because they donÂ’t have insurance. Those morons clearly donÂ’t know about the anti-dumping laws that have been in place for years now to insure that people get care regardless of their insurance. If they are refused care based on their lack of insurance, one word: Lawyer. Other words - Hospitals can get shut down for that crap.

What is it with the Clintons and the truth?

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When I first heard that the couple had an income of $109 million since leaving the White House, I wasn't shocked. Even though book deals are illicit when entered into by Republicans, the Clintons made a bunch of book royalties. Ditto speaking fees -- the first president Bush was lambasted for giving expensive speeches, but it is clear that the draft-dodging Bill Clinton has shown WWII hero Bush to be a piker in that regard.

But at least, I thought, the couple gave nearly 10% to charity.

Well, sort of.

Hillary ClintonÂ’s presidential campaign released their tax forms from 2000-2007 Thursday, which showed the Clintons earned more than $100 million in that time period and donated $10 million of that to their own charity.

The Clinton campaign reports donating $10,256,741 to the CFF between 2000 and 2006. During that time, CFF dispersed $2,530,100 in money to other charities and causes.

The names of other persons who donated to the CFF are not required to be disclosed.

Over the years, the CFF gave $80,000 to the Clinton Birthplace Foundation Inc., $20,000 to the Shakespeare Theatre, $40,000 to the School of the American Ballet, $5,000 to the YMCA of MarthaÂ’s Vineyard, $10,000 to Amnesty International.

The CFF also donated money to the Immanuel Baptist Church in Shackelford, Arkansas, Georgetown and Yale each year.

CFF lost a significant amount of money in the last two tax reporting years. CFF claimed $4.3 million assets on their 2005 IRS 990 forms. CFF reported much less, $255,890, on their most recent 2006 tax forms. It is not immediately clear from reading the forms where the money went or why assets were lost.

Now for those who are wondering, the CFF is the Clinton Family Foundation -- and the New York Times notes this regarding that "charity".

During that time, the Clintons paid $33.8 million in federal taxes and claimed deductions for $10.2 million in charitable contributions. The contributions went to a family foundation run by the Clintons that has given away only about half of the money they put into it, and most of that was last year, after Mrs. Clinton declared her candidacy.

Only given away half the money? Where did the organization get the where withal to do that if they had depleted their assets so low that in 2006 they had only $250K in assets? And why wait until after Hillary Clinton started campaigning to give it away? I think there is clearly something there that needs to be looked at -- is the Clinton Family Foundation actually a tax-free slush-fund for Hillary's campaign?

And am I alone in being disturbed that the charitable giving -- which, in the end, only amounts to, at most, half of the amount of their claimed contributions -- was to a fund that the Clintons controlled?

UPDATE: A Commenter on the Amanda Carpenter piece makes the following comments. Anyone with an accounting or tax background want to comment upon the issue?

Greg writes: Saturday, April, 05, 2008 9:16 AM

Carpenter (and Tinsldr2) are WRONG

We have a new "urban legend" here! Carpenter's facts are wrong. The 2006 Form 990-PF for the Clinton Family Foundation shows $4.3 million in assets at the end of the year. There is NO payment to Gloria Clinton -- or anyone else. And Tinslder2 is wrong on his facts, too. The CFF, as a private foundation, is only required to distribute 5% of its assets each year. There are lots of things to criticize the Clintons about, but this foundation is entirely legit.

**********

Greg writes: Saturday, April, 05, 2008 9:24 AM

here's the link for the 2006 return:

copy-and-paste the following link into your browser, then click the "2006" link near the bottom of the page, under "990-PF" --

http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org/990s/990search/ffindershow. cgi?id=CLIN040

I'd rather be factually right here -- though the timing issue is STILL rather interesting, even if my source on the assets issue is wrong.

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And if he wonÂ’t, it is time for all Republicans to throw money at his Democrat challenger in the fall.

The California congressman who called the Sept. 11 attacks "simply" a plane crash ran for cover Wednesday under a barrage of ridicule from fellow Republicans, first responders and victims' families.

San Diego GOP Rep. Darrell Issa was under siege for suggesting the federal government had already done enough to help New York cope with "a fire" that "simply was an aircraft" hitting the World Trade Center.

"That is a pretty distorted view of things," said Frank Fraone, a Menlo Park, Calif., fire chief who led a 67-man crew at Ground Zero. "Whether they're a couple of planes or a couple of missiles, they still did the same damage."

"New York was attacked by Al Qaeda. It doesn't have to be attacked by Congress," added Long Island Rep. Pete King, a Republican.

"I'm really surprised by Darrell Issa," King added. "It showed such a cavalier dismissal of what happened to New York. It's wrong and inexcusable."

Now I might give Issa a pass for having simply having made his point in an inelegant fashion were it not for his past statements on behalf of Hezbollah and assorted Arab dictators and supporters of terrorism. He is a disgrace to the GOP and the nation, and needs to be urged to get out of Congress by every Republican in a position of political prominence. As Debbie Schlussel points out on her site today, we disassociated our party from racist scumbags like David Duke (interesting, isn’t it, that the Democrats still keep reelecting a mummified Kluxer like Robert Byrd) – it is now time to do the same with a terrorist shill like Issa.

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Edwards preemptively declines vice presidency.

Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said on Thursday he would not accept the nomination for U.S. vice president as he did four years ago.

Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, dropped out of the 2008 race that is still being contested by the two remaining Democrats, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, to see who represents the party in the November 4 general election.

Edwards was picked as running mate with Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry in 2004 but the two were defeated when President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were re-elected.

After his keynote speech at CTIA, the annual U.S. wireless industry showcase, Edwards was asked in a question-and-answer session if he would accept the nomination for vice president.

"No," said Edwards, who also declined to say whether he would endorse Clinton or Obama.

John Edwards, a whacked-out, pretty-boy ambulance chaser with only a single term in the US Senate, was among the least qualified candidates to make a national ticket in my lifetime – even more than Jimmy Carter. Heck, he makes Barack Obama look qualified for the presidency, which is a neat trick given his thin resume. To know that he will not be on the Democrat ticket this year is therefore comforting to me.

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Including, in many cases, defense related stocks.

And some observers want to raise conflict-of-interest issues regarding that.

Members of Congress have as much as $196 million collectively invested in companies doing business with the Defense Department, earning millions since the onset of the Iraq war, according to a study by a nonpartisan research group.

Not all the companies in which lawmakers invested are typical defense contractors. Corporations such as PepsiCo, IBM, Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson have at one point received defense-related contracts, notes the report by the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics.

The center's review of lawmakers' 2006 financial disclosure statements suggests that members' holdings could pose a conflict of interest as they decide the fate of Iraq war spending. Several members earning money from these contractors have plum committee or leadership assignments, including Democratic Sen. John Kerry, independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman and House Republican Whip Roy Blunt.

The study found that more Republicans than Democrats hold stock in defense companies, but that the Democrats who are invested had significantly more money at stake. In 2006, for example, Democrats held at least $3.7 million in military-related investments, compared to Republican investments of $577,500.

Overall, 151 members hold investments worth $78.7 million to $195.5 million in companies that receive defense contracts that are worth at least $5 million. These investments earned them anywhere between $15.8 million and $62 million between 2004 and 2006, the center concludes.

Frankly, I'm less troubled by this than the authors of this study want me to be. In 2008, how do you avoid investing in Microsoft if you have a large portfolio? Good grief -- it is one of the most reliable stocks for someone to put their money in -- and there is no question that Microsoft does business with the government. Ditto PepsiCo -- heck, I would imagine that the procurement folks at the Pentagon buy quite a bit of bottled water and soft drinks for troops. And as is later noted regarding Hillary Clinton, Honeywell, Boeing and Raytheon are all stocks often found in a diversified portfolio -- though the questions she raised about the recent Airbus contract could be spun by a cynic into a sinister attempt to safeguard her investment.

In other words, nothing to see here -- despite efforts to create a story.

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For using insulting language towards an elected official.

Air America host Randi Rhodes called both Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton "whores" in a recent appearance, seen below. Rhodes, who hosts a weekday radio show on Air America, said to the cheering crowd, "What a whore Geraldine Ferraro is! She's such a fucking whore!" She then proceeded to say, "Hillary is a big fucking whore, too" to a mixed audience reaction. "You know why she's a big fucking whore? Because her deal is always, 'Read the fine print, asshole!'"

The networkÂ’s reasoning?

Air America has suspended on-air host Randi Rhodes for making inappropriate statements about prominent figures, including Senator Hillary Clinton, at a recent public appearance on behalf of Air America in San Francisco which was sponsored by an Air America affiliate station.

"Air America encourages strong opinions about public affairs but does not condone such abusive, ad hominem language by our Hosts," said chair Charlie Kireker.

UhhhhhhhhhÂ…Â…

Yeah.

Right.

Sure.

Especially when one considers history.

Randi Rhodes, the leftist talk-radio host who found herself in hot water yesterday for airing a skit that warned President Bush with gunfire, has joked about assassinating the commander in chief before.

Last May, Rhodes, who hosts a show on the struggling Air America network, imitated the sound of gunfire while saying somebody ought to take the president fishing and then shoot him.

On May 12, New York Daily News columnist Michael Goodwin wrote a piece criticizing Air America, saying he had listened to the liberal radio network one day for 10 hours.

"The queen of venom, Randi Rhodes, followed [Al] Franken in the host slot," Goodwin wrote. "Her imitation of a cracker military type telling a soldier to 'insert this fluorescent light bulb into that man's buttocks' was revolting. She compared U.S. prisons in Iraq to the 'Nazi gulag' and said, 'The day I say thank you to Rumsfeld is the same day I'll say thank you to the 12 people who raped me.'
Goodwin then notes Rhodes compared Bush and his family to the Corleones in the "Godfather" saga.

A review of the show's recording reveals Rhodes said the following in a discussion with a caller:

"The Fredo of the family is the president of the United States, so why doesn't his father or his brother … take him out for a little fishing, and let him say some Hail Marys – he loves God so much. … You know, Hail Mary, full of grace, God is with thee – pow [gunshot sound] – works for me."

Now let’s see here. You can revile the troops and compare them to soldiers of Adolf Hitler, one of the three most murderous left-wing dictators of the twentieth century. You can suggest the murder of the President of the United States REPEATEDLY on your show. None of this will get you suspended, or even disciplined – even if you do them on the air.

On the other hand, direct a couple of curse words towards a liberal politician off-air event and you will be suspended. But then again, maybe Air Hypocrisy executives are a little bit touchy about whores at the moment

So much for the notion that Air Hypocrisy has a consistently applied policy on ad hominem insulting language – and as such, this (well-deserved) suspension of Rhodes is an act of gross hypocrisy on the part of the failing radio network. Indeed, the only way for Air Hypocrisy to redeem itself in this instance is to immediately reinstate Randi Rhodes with an abject apology to her – or else fire her for her cumulative record of repeat violations of the policy for which she has been suspended, and put the rest of the network’s on-air “talent” on notice that they will face sanctions for similar offenses in the future.

But we won’t see either happen – after all, Air Hypocrisy is in the tank for the Democrats.

H/T Hot Air, The Caucus

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Hillary or Obama?

According to one email making th rounds, Obama.

According to FactCheck.org, Hillary by a hair.

A misleading e-mail has been making the rounds, alleging that Clinton has fewer legislative accomplishments than Obama, and that they are less substantive. We've had questions about it from a number of readers, and blogs have jumped into the fray. So what's the real story on the Senate careers of the Democratic presidential candidates?

We find that the e-mail is false in almost every particular:

It sets up a face-off between apples and, well, broccoli, comparing only the Clinton-sponsored bills that became law with all bills sponsored or cosponsored by Obama, whether they were signed into law or not.

It includes legislation Obama sponsored in the Illinois state Senate, a very different legislative body.

It tells us that Obama has sponsored more legislation than Clinton, when in fact he has sponsored less.

It implies that Obama has passed more bills into law than Clinton, when the opposite is true.

Contrary to the e-mail's assertions, Clinton's and Obama's contributions are not qualitatively different, and quantitatively, Clinton has the edge.

What would be really interesting, though, would be to add John McCain to the mix. The results would be a heavy advantage to the GOP nominee. After all, he has made more substantive contributions legislatively than both of the Pants Suit and the Empty Suit combined.

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Kay Bailey Hutchison is almost certainly to be a candidate for Governor in 2010.

More reports that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is running for governor. It's not like the senior senator has tried to tamp down speculation or anything. On an airplane with John McCain this month traveling between Houston and Austin, Hutchison came back to chat.

I greeted her with, "Governor, good to see you."

"I like the sound of that," she said, smiling broadly.

There was speculation she would run in 2006 – and I urged against it. I’ve come to regret that position, given the particular lousy performance of Rick Perry as governor over the last 18 months. If he were my available choice, I’d be inclined to vote for Kinky Friedman, just for the entertainment value – after all, the singer/author/funnyman actually intends to make a fool out of himself much of the time – Perry does so unintentionally.

Which leads us to other possible candidates. Other than the possibility of Perry himself running, we could see Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst seek the office after biding his time for the last decade. I canÂ’t see him sparking much more enthusiasm than Perry, though, among the GOP base, most of whom at least like Hutchison even when we disagree with her. On the other hand, there are frequent rumors about a hard-right bid from State Senator (and radio personality) Dan Patrick, given his available media footprint that covers close to half of the stateÂ’s population.

And if Hutchison runs and resigns from the Senate (not a requirement, but a strong possibility), who would replace her?

Mentioned as the top front-runners are Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (who also has indicated that he plans to run for governor), former Secretary of State Roger Williams, Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Michael Williams and, if he so chooses, Perry himself.

Now Perry states he isn’t interested in a national position – but if his option is having his head handed to him by Hutchison in the primary, I could see naming himself as a real possibility. I sort of like the Michael Williams possibility myself.

Am I ready to slap a KBH bumper sticker on my car? Not yet – but at this point, I don’t see anyone on the gubernatorial horizon who I believe is better situated to win on 2010.

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She was known as Hillary Rodham back then, a young lawyer hired at behest of a Kennedy crony to help investigate the Watergate affair and move towards possible impeachment of Richard Nixon.

That is a matter of public record, and a well known part of Senator Hillary Rodham ClintonÂ’s biography.

What is not known is that she was fired from her position on the staff for behavior that constituted a grave breach of legal ethics (not to mention fundamental fairness and decency) and denied a recommendation by the general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee – a lifelong Democrat.

Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy’s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation – one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman’s 17-year career.

Why?

“Because she was a liar,” Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality.”

Unethical. Dishonest. Contemptuous of the rules and the Constitution. Those are the same type of charges that others have made against Hillary for years.

But these go back to the very beginning of her career, when she was a nobody on the committee staff. These are not the charges of political partisans out to destroy her and her husband – and are documented by a diary that dates back to the time of her offenses.

How could a 27-year-old House staff member do all that? She couldn’t do it by herself, but Zeifman said she was one of several individuals – including Marshall, special counsel John Doar and senior associate special counsel (and future Clinton White House Counsel) Bernard Nussbaum – who engaged in a seemingly implausible scheme to deny Richard Nixon the right to counsel during the investigation.

Why would they want to do that? Because, according to Zeifman, they feared putting Watergate break-in mastermind E. Howard Hunt on the stand to be cross-examined by counsel to the president. Hunt, Zeifman said, had the goods on nefarious activities in the Kennedy Administration that would have made Watergate look like a day at the beach – including Kennedy’s purported complicity in the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro.

The actions of Hillary and her cohorts went directly against the judgment of top Democrats, up to and including then-House Majority Leader Tip OÂ’Neill, that Nixon clearly had the right to counsel. Zeifman says that Hillary, along with Marshall, Nussbaum and Doar, was determined to gain enough votes on the Judiciary Committee to change House rules and deny counsel to Nixon. And in order to pull this off, Zeifman says Hillary wrote a fraudulent legal brief, and confiscated public documents to hide her deception.

The brief involved precedent for representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding. When Hillary endeavored to write a legal brief arguing there is no right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding, Zeifman says, he told Hillary about the case of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who faced an impeachment attempt in 1970.

* * *

“Hillary then removed all the Douglas files to the offices where she was located, which at that time was secured and inaccessible to the public,” Zeifman said. Hillary then proceeded to write a legal brief arguing there was no precedent for the right to representation by counsel during an impeachment proceeding – as if the Douglas case had never occurred.

The brief was so fraudulent and ridiculous, Zeifman believes Hillary would have been disbarred if she had submitted it to a judge.

Zeifman still has the diary, and is willing to make it available to those who are interested in what it contains. It reveals a lot about the character of the woman who would be president – or maybe that should be her lack of character.

UPDATE -- 4/1/08, 7:30 PM: Ed Morrissey over at HotAir catches up with this story, and offers some intriguing insights. STACLU has picked up on it, too.

Patterico links to this older piece by Zeifman himself. This Freeper archive dates the story back to 1999, and there is apparently a 1996 book that raised the story. I'm curious -- why no significant press coverage in all this time -- especially given Zeifman's claim of a contemporaneous record? Certainly there must be some intrepid journalist who would be willing to shell out the cash to authenticate the diary or debunk the claim.

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I've written relatively little about the congressional race here in CD22 this year -- an oversight due in large part do to a string of family situations that have kept me from being nearly as involved as I would have wished. That said, today's article in the Houston Chronicle about the race deserves to be noted.

And I think the first line of the story is critical.

Since moving to Sugar Land last summer, Pete Olson has restricted his job search to a seat in the U.S. House.

Yeah, that's right. Pete Olson doesn't have a job. He has a wife, kids, and two houses (the family kept the one in the DC suburbs when Pete carpetbagged back to CD22). Heck, I suppose he may even have two mortgages, which I'm sure is tough to manage if you don't have job other than campaigning for Congress in a district where you have not been physically present for nearly two decades.

And this is why so many of us are opposed to Pete Olson. We already have a Democrat carpetbagger congressman who we want to get rid of in 2008 -- we don't want to replace him with a Republican carpetbagger, even if Olson is much closer to our political views.

Olson, a former staffer for two Republican U.S. senators from Texas, has had a two-fold answer. One, he grew up in the Clear Lake part of the district and attended Rice University and the University of Texas law school, so this is his home. Two, no one should begrudge his nine years as a Navy pilot and Pentagon worker and another nine years on the U.S. Senate staffs of Phil Gramm and John Cornyn.

And Pete Olson is quite disingenuous in his argument. No one I know "begrudges" him his military service. Indeed, all of us honor and respect it. But many of us who support Shelley Sekula Gibbs do have a problem with the fact that for the decade after that military service Olson has been a resident of the Virginia suburbs, owned his only home there, been a licensed driver there, and a registered voter there. Yes, he has been a top aide to two fine Texas senators, but we have concerns about the strength of his connection and commitment to our district.

And I always find it interesting that folks trot out this argument -- that Dr. Sekula Gibbs has not always been a conservative.

Sekula Gibbs acknowledges that she has reversed her position on abortion; she now says it should be illegal. She voted on the council to fund pavilions for day laborers, then opposed funding them because, she said, she learned that they made neighborhoods no safer and were used mostly by illegal immigrants.

In 2005, she did not strongly advocate for Houston police officers to question criminal suspects about immigration status. She did in 2006, as she ran for Congress and immediately after a policeman was killed by an illegal immigrant he had detained. Conservative and liberal council members, saying Sekula Gibbs was exploiting an officer's death for political gain, left their public meeting in protest when she spoke about changing the city's law enforcement policies on immigrants.

I'll be the first to recognize that there are elements of her past record that are less than conservative. But I also recognize that her increased conservatism over time, and her decades of service to our community here in CD22 for the last 20 years.

Besides, Ronald Reagan was at one time wrong on abortion. I think he did just fine.

And then there is this question that I like to ask -- after a loss in the runoff, what would these two candidates most likely do.

If she were to lose the election, I know for a fact that Shelley Sekula Gibbs will stay in our community, and continue to serve the people here as a respected medical professional.

Pete Olson? I have every reason to suspect that he will put the house in Sugar Land back on the market and head back inside the Beltway -- most likely as an employee of one of the lobbyists or politicians who contributed the seed money to start Olson's campaign in the first place. In other words, he'll go home again.

That dichotomy makes my choice in the runoff on April 8 really clear.

In the end, though, following the runoff I will support either of these candidates over Nick Lampson, because either of them is more representative of my views on the critical issues facing America than the incumbent is. I encourage my fellow voters to do the same.

UPDATE Welcome to readers of Ben DumbAss from RedState. As you've seen, my post takes exactly the opposite tack of what he claims. Let's hope he is more honest in his other posts -- and less touchy when others call him on a blatant lie.

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Good grief! Will the new governor of New York serve less time in office than William Henry Harrison did as president? Now we have even more ethical questions surrounding him -- and these not involving sex or campaign funds.

When Gov. David A. Paterson was the State Senate minority leader, he got in touch with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a fellow Democrat, with what seemed like a routine request: Would he meet with a representative of a small Harlem hospital that was in need of financial assistance?

As it turned out, the hospitalÂ’s representative was Mr. PatersonÂ’s wife, Michelle Paige Paterson, who was responsible for lobbying the State Legislature for aid. Mr. Silver agreed to meet, but warned that it would be improper for the senator to be present. As a result, Mr. Paterson did not attend the session, held on April 7, 2003; he would later say that arranging the meeting was a mistake.

But that meeting was not the only thing Mr. Paterson did for his wife’s employer. He also directed state grants of at least $150,000 — with a pledge for as much as $500,000 more — to the hospital over the next two years, a period that overlapped substantially with his wife’s employment there from 2002 to 2005.

The fuller picture of Mr. PatersonÂ’s efforts on behalf of the hospital, North General, emerged from a review of documents, which revealed a previously unreported $50,000 state grant he made in 2003, and interviews with lawmakers and their aides, who said Mr. Paterson spoke with some of them about the need to avoid ethical conflicts that could arise because of his wifeÂ’s job.

Let's see -- his wife was working as a lobbyist, and he was arranging meetings for her? He was directing funding to the hospital that employed her at a rate that exceeded his prior efforts on its behalf -- and also in excess of what he directed there after her employment ended? The appearance of corruption is stunning!

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Those of you who are not subscribers to the National Review might not be familiar with the works of Rob Long, which is among the best satirical work you are likely to see in print today.

He takes on the current "pastor problem" involving Barack Obama's minister at Trinity United Church of Christ in a piece entitled Excerpts from: The Collected Sermons of Jeremiah Wrighte, Parson of the Angry Lord Church of Somerstowne, Massachusetts 1775–1798, Informal Spiritual Adviser to Presidents and Governors. (SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED)

My personal favorite? This bit about the American Revolution itself.

WeÂ’ll get to Christmasse in a moment. Firste, IÂ’d like to talk a bit about the so-called War of Independence, currently being fought without oure Consent! How longe will this War last? So far, itÂ’s been a Faylure, a Quagmire! And for whom?

For the Power Structure, thatÂ’s for whom! ItÂ’s about Lyberty? Oh, really? I mean, Come onne! Lyberty? How do you figure that one?

When yr Little Ones are sick, do they get free Healthe Care? Doth the Docktor say, upon delivering the tonick, bleedynge, or cure, “Oh, this one’s on the House?” No he doth not! He demands Monnaies! So how can we be free? What’s wronge with our Countree?

My dear wife, liberal to the core, laughed out loud at Long's work -- and, as a graduate of a UCC affiliated seminary and former pastor of a UCC congregation, thinks that Long really did his homework on the denomination and picked up the flavor of much of the UCC in this section of his work.

May 30, 1784:

My friends, we have muche to be thankful for. And as Sinners all, much to atone for. But first, some Announcements.

The Dyversity Committee shalle assemble in the Parishe Hall directly followynge this service. Such topicks as it shall address during this Assemblee shall include the continuing Care and Outreache to our Gaye, Lesbianne, and Transgendred &c. members, all of whom we cherishe and respeckt. We will also be tayking up the Issue of our Friends in Morrocco, who have been Provocked by our owne Arrogance into boarding and pirating an American quote unquote sailing vessel.

Oh, weÂ’re Americans now? So what does that make our neighbors in Canada? Or to the Southe?

We brought thisse upon our Selves! Friends, pray not for the Americans, but insteade for the brown-skinne of the Marock, who merely wish to challenge the Hegemonie of the American War Contraption!

Please also remember to sign uppe for Choir Practice! Let us praye . . .

Now let me say this rather explicitly -- I don't take issue with Barack Obama, a liberal, being a member of the most liberal mainline Protestant denomination in America. I'm not interested in starting a theological inquisition. Obama's denominational affiliation is no more relevant than Romney's Mormonism. What I have and do question is his willingness to associate himself with the more outrageous POLITICAL statements -- and outright lies, such as the claim that the US government started AIDS to kill blacks and the US government supplied crack to the ghetto so as to lock up blacks -- that are preached from the pulpit there. The folks of Trinity UCC -- and Wright and Obama in particular -- are entitled to their own theology and their own faith, but not their own facts.

And you are entitled to the great satire of Rob Long -- and so you ought to subscribe to National Review!

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Posted by: Greg at 02:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Indeed, tase 'em early and often.

Former White House advisor Karl Rove gave a speech at George Washington University on Friday that was disturbed by protestors from the anti-war group Code Pink.

As the "insurgents" were being removed from the Harry Harding Auditorium by security guards, students in attendance could be heard comically shouting "Tase 'em!"

Interesting, isn't it, that these anti-American left-wingers seem to believe that the Constitution does not protect the right of anyone except themselves to speak. Try to say a word they oppose, and they will do everything in their power to prevent you from speaking at all.

And it doesn't matter if it involves interrupting a political figure giving a speech or threatening to mount a campaign to get a teacher (me) fired for running a conservative political blog. Freedom is, for them, only a one-way street.

Posted by: Greg at 02:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Too bad.

A federal judge on Friday ordered former Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal to pay $18,900 in sanctions after finding him in contempt of court for deleting more than 2,500 e-mails that had been subpoenaed for a federal civil rights lawsuit.

Additionally, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt determined Scott Durfee, general counsel for the district attorney's office, was jointly responsible for paying $5,000 of that, finding Durfee failed to appropriately advise Rosenthal on how to comply with the subpoena.

Both Rosenthal and Durfee have until April 30 to pay their respective fines, according to the judge's order released late Friday afternoon.

Neither Rosenthal nor Durfee could be reached for comment.

Whether the county pays those sanctions with taxpayers' money is a question to be decided by Commissioners Court. The court must determine whether paying the sanctions would serve a public purpose, said County Attorney Mike Stafford.

I don't know that I agree with the fine against Durfee -- as an attorney, Rosenthal should have been well-aware of the requirements of an order to preserve all emails.

And I'll be honest -- I believe a little jail time should have been meted out here against Rosenthal for his misdeeds.

Let's hope he is quickly and permanently disbarred.

Oh, and by the way -- any member of the Commissioner's Court who votes to use taxpayer funds to pay these fines needs to be voted out of office immediately. And if that puts the government of Harris County in the hands of the Democrats, so be it.

Posted by: Greg at 12:06 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This time it is the Kentucky edition.

Thousands of Kentuckians who have switched political affiliations over the past three months in hopes of voting in May's Democratic presidential primary will instead be barred from casting ballots.

Secretary of State Trey Grayson alerted Kentuckians on Wednesday to a little-known state law that forbids people who change their party registration after December 31 to vote in the May 20 primary.

"We're getting a lot of reports of folks who are either independents or Republicans who are trying to become Democrats in order to vote in the primary," Grayson said. "In the presidential primary, they will not be eligible to vote."

Some 9,000 people have switched parties since Jan. 1. Grayson said voter registration drives by supporters of Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton could inadvertently cause the number of ineligible voters to grow.

Grayson said Obama's campaign requested 5,000 Kentucky voter registration cards earlier this week.

"They're obviously going to do a big push over the next three week to register voters," Grayson said. "I'm sure the Clinton campaign will do the same thing."

In other words, Democrat ignorance of Kentucky law has resulted in thousands of Kentuckians losing their right to vote – and these same Democrats are working hard to disenfranchise even more voters.

Funny, isn’t it, that these are the same Democrats who have been complaining about crossover voters in other states now trying to create them in Kentucky – but instead creating disenfranchised Americans.

Posted by: Greg at 09:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I’m curious – hasn’t the latest call of the Obama folks been that superdelegates ought to support the will of their given constituencies? If so, does this mean a switch to Hillary at the convention by Senator Bob Casey?

Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey plans to endorse Sen. Barack Obama for president today in Pittsburgh, sending a message both to the state's primary voters and to undecided superdelegates who might decide the close race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Dan Pfeiffer, deputy communications director for the Obama campaign, confirmed that Casey would announce his support during a rally at the Soldiers and Sailors Military Museum and Memorial and that he would then set out with the Illinois senator on part of a six-day bus trip across the state.

The endorsement comes as something of a surprise. Casey, a deliberative and cautious politician, had been adamant about remaining neutral until after the April 22 primary. He had said he wanted to help unify the party after the intensifying fight between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"There are few stronger advocates for working families in Pennsylvania than Sen. Casey," Pfeiffer said.

By coming out for Obama, Casey puts himself at odds with many top state Democrats - including Gov. Rendell, Rep. John P. Murtha and Mayor Nutter - who are campaigning for Clinton.

Now polling data shows that Obama is going to take a real drubbing in Pennsylvania. Doesn’t that mean that the Obama campaign should have rejected Casey’s help – you know, in the interest of guaranteeing that the Pennsylvania senator doesn’t go against the will of Pennsylvania voters?

Or are their protestations about respecting the vote of the people simply more lip service to principle while hypocritically doing anything to win?

Posted by: Greg at 09:27 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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That's what I see in this statement, which amounts to "I would have left Trinity UCC if Wright were still there when the press got clips of his racist, anti-American comments."

White House hopeful Barack Obama suggests he would have left his Chicago church had his longtime pastor, whose fiery anti-American comments about U.S. foreign policy and race relations threatened Obama's campaign, not stepped down.

"Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church," Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, "The View." The interview will be broadcast Friday.

Now this is the THIRD different story Obama has tried to tell the American public.

I watched the weekend before "the speech", when Obama tried to sell the American people a bill of goods by claiming he had never known about Wright's incredibly offensive and factually incorrect statements.

There was then the celebrated speech, when he argued that he knew about the outrageous material, but would not abandon his close friend and spiritual mentor or the church -- but was willing to insult and denounce the white woman who raised him.

And now he is arguing that he would have separated himself from Wright and Trinity if not for the pastor's recent retirement -- even though the new pastor spent this past Sunday defending Wright and condemning those who take issue with his hate speech from the pulpit for "lynching" the retired pastor.

Barack Obama wants to have his cake and eat it too. I wonder what his position will be next week.

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Posted by: Greg at 10:01 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Those folks who have expressed a belief that Republicans are going to desert John McCain en masse while the Democrats unite behind their candidate may want to consider this poll.

A new analysis of March polling data suggests that John McCain's cross-party support surpasses that of either Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton.

According to data provided by the Gallup Organization at PoliticoÂ’s request, in a hypothetical contest between McCain and Obama, McCain wins 17 percent of Democrats and those leaning Democratic, while Obama wins 10 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaners.

In a potential contest with Clinton, McCain wins 14 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaners while Clinton wins 8 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaners.

By way of comparison, exit polls in 2004 reported that George W. Bush won 11 percent of Democrats and John F. Kerry won 6 percent of Republicans.

The new analysis, calculated from a compilation of Gallup’s daily polls between March 7 and 22, seems to indicate that there are more “McCain Democrats” than the much-ballyhooed “Obama Republicans” — or “Obamacans,” as they are sometimes referred to.

Yes, John McCain has his problems among some vocal segments of the GOP -- I'll concede disappointment with the selection of the man as the nominee, but I consider him infinitely better than anyone the Dems will give us. And I know that there is a vocal minority of Republicans who are irreconcilably against McCain, but their numbers seem to be surpassed by those Dems who cannot reconcile themselves to one or the other of their party's potential nominees. So in the end, the percentages break in favor of McCain and the GOP.

And just imagine what it will be like after a couple of more months of Hillary and barack wrestling in the mud!

Posted by: Greg at 09:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Why else leave it out of this story?

A law enforcement official says Puerto Rico's governor has been charged in a long-running public corruption probe in the U.S. island territory.
A law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Thursday that Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila is among several people named in a sealed indictment.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the indictment is still sealed.

An FBI spokesman in San Juan declined to comment, saying there would be a news conference later to discuss the first arrests in the probe.

A government official in San Juan also said Acevedo would be charged in the indictment and that the governor's attorneys were expected to appear in court later Thursday.

Now I DiDnÂ’t have any iDea what AceveDoÂ’s party affiliation was before I read the story from the AssociateD Press about the inDictment. I DiD a check of WikipeDia and founD that the AceveDo is a Democrat. I wonder why that Detail was excluded from this breaking news story?

Posted by: Greg at 10:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And they wonder why we question their patriotism.

The Justice Department said Wednesday that Saddam HusseinÂ’s principal foreign intelligence agency and an Iraqi-American man had organized and paid for a 2002 visit to Iraq by three House Democrats whose trip was harshly criticized by colleagues at the time.

The arrangements for the trip were described in the indictment of an Iraq-born former employee of a Detroit-area charity group who was charged Wednesday with accepting millions of dollarsÂ’ worth of Iraqi oil contracts in exchange for assisting the Iraqi spy agency in projects in the United States.

The indictment did not claim any wrongdoing by the three lawmakers, whose five-day trip to Iraq occurred in October 2002, five months before the American invasion.

Two continue to serve in the House: Jim McDermott of Washington State and Mike Thompson of California. The other, David E. Bonior of Michigan, has since retired from Congress.

“None of the Congressional representatives are accused of any wrongdoing, and we have no information whatsoever that any of them were aware of the involvement of the Iraqi Intelligence Service,” said Dean Boyd, a Justice spokesman.

Maybe there is no direct evidence, but it is rather interesting that at the exact time that tensions are rising between the US and iraq, three of the most strongly pro-Saddam Democrats just happen to get t trip illegally financed by the dictator. I'm curious -- now that they know the trip was illegally funded, will the threesome be expected to repay all expenses involved in the trip? Will they face ethics charges for not digging deeper.

In other words, will they face the same treatment that Democrats demanded when Tom DeLay took a couple of trips that later turned out to have been illegally funded without his knowledge? Or do such requirements only cut one way?

Oh, and interestingly enough, the indicted Saddamite is another former official with CAIR. How many terrorists and traitors need to spring from the leadership of that organization before the US government takes action against it?

Posted by: Greg at 10:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It must suck to have a race for the nomination so polarized that at least 1 out of every 5 voters for one candidate or the other will bolt to the GOP in November if the other candidate gets the nomination – meaning a 10% loss of voters committed enough to vote in the primary.

"A sizable proportion of Democrats would vote for John McCain next November if he is matched against the candidate they do not support for the Democratic nomination," the pollsters at Gallup report this morning. "This is particularly true for Hillary Clinton supporters," they add, "more than a quarter of whom currently say they would vote for McCain if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee."

Gallup surveyed "6,657 national Democratic voters, aged 18 and older," from March 7-22. Of that group:

• 28% of those who support Sen. Clinton said they would vote for Republican Sen. McCain in the general election if Sen. Obama ends up being the Democratic presidential nominee.

• 19% of those who support Obama said they would vote for McCain in the general election if Clinton ends up being the Democratic nominee.

And notice that the hit is bigger if Barack Obama gets the nomination than if Hillary does.

WeÂ’ve seen a number of recent polls showing John McCain inching into the lead over both Democrats. That seems indicative of precisely the level of attrition caused by this very divisive primary fight.

And then there is this interesting tidbit from Rasmussen – 22% of Democrats want Hillary to quit the race immediately, while an identical percentage wants Obama to quit now. And 6% want both of the leading Democrats to quit the race. This sure isn’t good for them and bodes problems with “party unity”.

Posted by: Greg at 09:42 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez believes that Hillary and Obama will be easier to get his way with work with than the Arizona Senator and war hero.

Chavez said he hopes the United States and Venezuela can work better together when his ideological foe, U.S. President George W. Bush, leaves the White House next year, but he said McCain seemed "warlike."

"Sometimes one says, 'worse than Bush is impossible,' but we don't know," Chavez told foreign correspondents. "McCain also seems to be a man of war."

* * *

He said on Tuesday that he had better communication with the administration of former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

"Independently of who wins the elections, we are hopeful and it is within our plans to enter an era of better relations with the U.S. government," he said. "At the least one would hope for the level of relations we had with ex-President Clinton."

He did not mention Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Both are cautious about Chavez, although Obama has said he could meet him.

So it is clear who one of America’s enemies does not want in the White House, and his name is John McCain. Given Obama’s willingness to lend Chavez legitimacy by meeting with him and the explicitly praise of the policies of Senator Clinton’s husband, I think we can see who would be better for America – and who would be better for the dictator.

Posted by: Greg at 09:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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HereÂ’s my favorite.

The government runs everything from the White House to the schoolhouse, from the Capitol to the Klan, white supremacy is clearly in chargeÂ…

The government runs the Klan? Really? Do you have any EVIDENCE for this contention? After all, you are making what you claim to be a statement of fact. Lay out your case, sir. Ditto your white supremacy claim.

Or is proving your contentions contrary to the tenets of Black Liberation Theology?

Otherwise, Rev. Wright, publicly concede that you are a liar and a racist. And seek out some psychiatric help.

And by the way, Jeremiah, if the government is so bad and so evil, you should want less of it – not a massive increase of the sort that your parishioner Barack Obama wishes to impose on America.

Posted by: Greg at 09:39 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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These numbers concern me. And if these are actual cases of voters violating the law, I want to see them prosecuted.

But at the same time, I want to make sure that folks who did this are not prosecuted.

Robert Duran Jr. said he walked into the wrong room to vote in the March 4 primary. But he said he should not be indicted for it.

"It was an innocent mistake," said Duran, who works for an oil services company. "I just failed to read the sign."

Duran's name appeared on a list of "questionable voting cases" released Tuesday by Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman. The 1,148 individuals may have voted illegally, Kaufman said. She turned the list over to the district attorney's office for investigation and possible indictment.

Duran said he rushed to the polls after work, meaning to vote as a Republican. Duran was voting in his first primary, and he unthinkingly went to the same room he always does for general elections. But after Duran signed in the poll book and went to the booth, he saw the ballot had the names of the Democratic candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

"I clicked on it and said, 'Whoa, this is not what I meant to do,' " Duran said.

We had about half-a-dozen folks at my precint do this. Despite signs saying REPUBLICAN PRIMARY" and the fact that the Democrats were voting over a mile away (there were signs directing them there) and questions about whether it was their intent to vote int eh Republican or Democrat primary, some folks still signed our poll book and then complained that Hillary and Obama were not on their ballot. We duly canceled out their ballots (it is a simple procedure), if done before the press cast ballot) -- and in such a case you are supposed to cross the voter's name out of the poll book. Did some election judges or poll workers overlook that step?

Sounds to me like some election judges failed to do their job correctly, if Duran's story is correct. That is a matter of concern for me. The same is true if someone managed to early vote and then vote on election day -- we have a list of all early/absentee voters and are supposed to mark them in the poll book before election day. Did some election judges not do that -- or did some poll worker ignore the information marked in the book?

But I also suspect that some voters committed real fraud. In such a case, they need to go directly to jail.

Posted by: Greg at 10:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It's a good thing that Andrew Sullivan does not hold himself out to be a real journalist, given this post.

"What does it take to be the most liberal member of the United States Senate – farther left than Ted Kennedy, John Kerry or even Hillary Clinton? For the answer, take a look at a man who could be the next president of the United States: Barack Obama.

Sen. Obama was recently named the most liberal U.S. Senator, based on the annual voting analysis by the non-partisan and highly respected National Journal. If he emerges as the Democratic nominee, one of the critical jobs of Focus Action will be to uncover the real Barack Obama—not the feel-good orator who speaks of “change” and “hope,” but the man who would be the most left-wing president in our nation’s history.

Throughout our history, great Americans have stood up to grave challenges of all sorts. As this latest wave of secular liberalism threatens us, I look forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with you in prayer and action – in defense of the family," - James Dobson, in his latest email.

The problem is that Sullivan's source reports the email this way.

Dr. Dobson's Focus on the Family begins an e-mail sent out today with:

What does it take to be the most liberal member of the United States Senate – farther left than Ted Kennedy, John Kerry or even Hillary Clinton? For the answer, take a look at a man who could be the next president of the United States: Barack Obama.

Sen. Obama was recently named the most liberal U.S. Senator, based on the annual voting analysis by the non-partisan and highly respected National Journal. If he emerges as the Democratic nominee, one of the critical jobs of Focus Action will be to uncover the real Barack Obama—not the feel-good orator who speaks of “change” and “hope,” but the man who would be the most left-wing president in our nation’s history.

The e-mail ends with this:

Throughout our history, great Americans have stood up to grave challenges of all sorts. As this latest wave of secular liberalism threatens us, I look forward to standing shoulder to shoulder with you in prayer and action – in defense of the family.

Now Sullivan commits a cardinal sin here -- he takes two disconnected quotes and runs them together. Say what you want about the Sullivan's source and the conclusions made at the end of the post, but it is implied that there is a gap between those first two paragraphs and the last -- perhaps filled with some substantive discussion of issues. You know, discussion that might make that the conclusions found in that last paragraph somewhat more understandable (whether or not you accept all of Dobson's premises -- something I don't always do).

Pretty sloppy stuff, based upon the evidence we have here.

Anyone got the full text of the actual email -- since neither blogger provides the full context of the quotes in question?

Posted by: Greg at 10:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Not that it is particularly significant, but you do find some interesting family connections.

This could make for one odd family reunion: Barack Obama is a distant cousin of actor Brad Pitt, and Hillary Rodham Clinton is related to Pitt's girlfriend, Angelina Jolie.

Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential candidates — Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican John McCain.

Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother's side, is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins. McCain is a sixth cousin of first lady Laura Bush.

Now there really are some interesting connections turned up here, but they really are not that significant, especially when you see them in the historical context of those relationships. You find family connections between the candidates going back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which at first blush could lead one to ask questions about the importance of certain families and why those families consistently rise to the top.

But then you find bits of historical trivia like one I encountered last night while reading McCullough's excellent biography of John Adams (I don't get HBO, so I have to read the book instead of watching the miniseries). Some families, especially early American families, have been quite prolific. For example, John Adams' great-grandfather had no fewer than 89 grandchildren (including the second President's father). If one presumes that only 2/3 of those grandchildren had only 5 children each pretty small number for that era), the next generation would have been some 300 great-grandchildren -- and the generation after that would have been 1000 great-great-grandchildren. You can continue the exponential growth for the next couple of generations, at which point you will discover that within a couple more generations we are into the tens of thousands of descendants. And as one works one's way back the family tree from today, remember that by the time you drill back to the Civil War era, most living Americans are looking at 64 (or even 12 ancestors of that generation. Frankly, it would be shocking not to find a connection, however collateral, to the Adams family (or the prolific Lees of Virginia). In other words, the family connections signify nothing.

Posted by: Greg at 09:53 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Let no one say that John McCain doesn't merit the support of Reagan conservatives.

The keeper of the flame has endorsed the Arizona Senator.

Former first lady Nancy Reagan planned to endorse John McCain for president on Tuesday, as the Arizona senator continued to collect the backing of leading Republicans who might help him win over critical conservative voters.

Now certain to win the GOP nomination, McCain is on the West coast this week to raise money. He was to stop by the Southern California home of former President Ronald Reagan's widow to accept her endorsement.

In a statement before the event, Reagan said she typically waits until after the GOP convention to announce her support but she decided to do so now because it is clear the Republican Party has chosen its nominee.

"John McCain has been a good friend for over thirty years," Reagan said. "My husband and I first came to know him as a returning Vietnam War POW, and were impressed by the courage he had shown through his terrible ordeal. I believe John's record and experience have prepared him well to be our next president."

Nobody has more of a right than Nancy Reagan to speak for the fitness of John McCain to stand in the shoes of Ronald Reagan. Were John McCain unfit, she would doubtlessly have remained silent. So the time has come for the Reagan Conservatives to accept the wisdom of the one closest to Ronald Reagan and lend their support for John McCain -- or renounce their claim to the Reagan name and legacy.

H/T Hot Air

Posted by: Greg at 01:11 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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Yeah, she is acting as a surrogate for Mom, and yeah, Mom is running for President, but Chelsea just doesn't think that the American people have the right to know about Mom's credibility in light of Dad's escapades.

Chelsea Clinton had a quick retort Tuesday when asked whether her mother's credibility had been hurt during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

"Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question in the, I don't know maybe, 70 college campuses I've now been to, and I do not think that is any of your business," Clinton said during a campaign visit for her mother, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

If Obama is called on the carpet about his relationship with his pastor, it certainly seems reasonable to ask questions about Hillary's relationship with Bill -- and the damage he did to both her credibility and the nation as a whole.

And if Chelsea can't handle the heat, maybe she needs to retreat back to that cushy bond trading job Mom and Dad got her.

UPDATE: Bill gets irritated about having to answer a substantive question.

More At Michelle Malkin, Hot Air

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Excuse me, "misspoke" means that you substituted the name of one city or country for another, or some other relatively minor gaffe. When you make up a story about dodging and weaving to avoid gunfire during an assault on an airport, it is called "lying".

Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said she "misspoke" last week when saying she had landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia as first lady in March 1996.

The Obama campaign suggested it was a deliberate exaggeration by Clinton, who often cites the goodwill trip with her daughter and several celebrities as an example of her foreign policy experience.

During a speech last Monday on Iraq, she said of the Bosnia trip: "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

According to an Associated Press story at the time, Clinton was placed under no extraordinary risks on that trip. And one of her companions, comedian Sinbad, told The Washington Post he has no recollection either of the threat or reality of gunfire.

When asked Monday about the New York senator's remarks about the trip, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson pointed to Clinton's written account of it in her book, "Living History," in which she described a shortened welcoming ceremony at Tuzla Air Base, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

"Due to reports of snipers in the hills around the airstrip, we were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac with local children, though we did have time to meet them and their teachers and to learn how hard they had worked during the war to continue classes in any safe spot they could find," Clinton wrote.

"That is what she wrote in her book," Wolfson said. "That is what she has said many, many times and on one occasion she misspoke."

And just like Obama found out last week, Mrs. Clinton is discovering the YouTube can allow inconvenient facts to obscure undermine the immage one seeks to project.

Damn that contemporaneous video coverage of the event! No ducking and weaving and dodging -- and a VIP greeting for the then-First Lady.

Maybe Hillary Clinton needs a new campaign theme song.

More At Michelle Malkin, HotAir, Stop the ACLU

Posted by: Greg at 09:55 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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And my question is “Why?”

In a stunning and historic day, Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office Monday, the latest blow to the Detroit mayor embroiled in a text message scandal.

Kilpatrick could go to prison if convicted of any of the eight felonies filed against him by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. His former chief of staff, Christine Beatty, faces seven felonies.

"Our investigation has clearly shown that public dollars were used, people's lives were ruined, the justice system was severely mocked and the public trust trampled on," said a visibly angry Worthy. "This is as far from being a private matter as one can get."

Excuse me, but these charges are about nothing but sex. After all, doesnÂ’t everyone lie about sex? Yeah, it was under oath as but it was still about sex. And the misuse of oneÂ’s office to conduct a sexual affair with a subordinate, to reward that subordinate and to try to cover up the affair? Still, in the end, nothing but sex.

At least that was the argument that we heard about 10 years ago when another prominent Democrat politician lied under oath, engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct justice, and moved heaven and earth to feather the nest of his sugar baby. Indeed, Republicans were excoriated for attempting to hold Bill Clinton to precisely the standards that these charges are based upon. Why does Kwame Kilpatrick face jail time while Bill Clinton got to serve out his term, play elder statesman, and potentially become the first man to serve as First Lady?

Is it race?

Or is it just that the Clintons are above the rules that apply to mere mortals?

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Set aside the question of whether we should elect a president by popular or electoral votes. The reality is that we do so using the electoral vote system.

That's why the Clinton campaign is now adopting an electoral vote strategy in wooing superdelegates.

Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, who backs Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, proposed another gauge Sunday by which superdelegates might judge whether to support Mrs. Clinton or Senator Barack Obama.

He suggested that they consider the electoral votes of the states that each of them has won.

“So who carried the states with the most Electoral College votes is an important factor to consider because ultimately, that’s how we choose the president of the United States,” Mr. Bayh said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

In a primary, of course, electoral votes are not relevant, but the Clinton campaign is trying to use them as an unofficial measure of strength.

So far, Mrs. Clinton has won states with a total of 219 Electoral College votes, not counting Florida and Michigan, while Mr. Obama has won states with a total of 202 electoral votes.

It is a fascinating issue, don't you think? Should the will of the majority count more in the nominating contest, or the measure of strength in terms of the measure that actually counts in November? Of course, given the denunciation of the Electoral College system by Democrats -- including Mrs. Clinton -- to consider the weight of states based upon electoral votes seems a bit hypocritical.

But then again, when have the Clintons ever averse to a little hypocrisy in the service of political opportunism?

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Posted by: Greg at 11:39 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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We've seen the following changes in America.

Here are some of the outcomes of them being in control.

Up:

* Gasoline up from $2.19 to $3.35 or 53%
* Unemployment up from 4.5% to 5% or 11.1%
* National dept per ca pita was $27,677 then and now $31,551 or 14% higher.
* Congressional pay increase.

Down:

* Consumer confidence at multiple year lows.
* Equity value of mutual funds down $2.3 trillion.
* Home equity values down $1.2 trillion
* Congress's approval rating at all time low.

Remember, 2006 was all about change, according to the Democrats. And since the 2006 election, we've gotten plenty of change in the economy -- none of it good.

Indeed, it is likely that a Democrat victory in 2008 will result in Americans having nothing but change in their pockets and bank accounts by the time the next presidential election comes around.

Can America really afford any more of the "change" that the Democrats have given us?

Posted by: Greg at 09:29 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Let no one say that the Clintons and their surrogates are keeping things polite.

“An act of betrayal,” said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton.

“Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,” Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.

Now once can (and should) question whether endorsing Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton really qualifies as the moral equivalent of betraying the Son of God to the Temple authorities. But one would have hoped that the Obama campaign would have considered the timing of the endorsement before choosing Good Friday as the day to make it public.

But then again, given the rhetoric of Obama's pastor comparing him to Jesus Christ in his 2007 Christmas sermon, perhaps the timing wasn't a coincidence.

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Posted by: Greg at 05:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Here's hoping that folks in Wilmer, Texas, have the common sense and common decency to vote against this guy.

A registered sex offender is running for mayor of a Dallas-area town.

James Brian Sliter wants to be mayor of Wilmer. The election is May 10.

Records show that Sliter was arrested four years ago for arranging sex with someone he thought was a 15-year-old girl on the Internet. When Sliter got to the meeting place, he was greeted by police instead of a teenager.

Sliter, who is now 42, said he needs to prove that he can be an asset to his community. He says that he's truly sorry and hopes voters realize that people make mistakes.

Sliter was charged with attempting to sexually assault a child and placed on 10 years probation, according to state records. He's eligible to run because he received deferred adjudication and not a conviction.

First, attempting to arrange to have sex with a child is not "a mistake".

Second, I hope the Texas Legislature takes the time to fix state law so as to make any registered sex offender ineligible to run for office.

Posted by: Greg at 05:14 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I wrote this the other day regarding New York's new governor, David Paterson.

Oh, one last comment -- good luck to the people of New York and their new governor. Here's hoping that this story dies the death that it deserves -- because as I said above, an extramarital affair alone should not be fodder for the press or grounds for disqualification from office.

Man, I really hoped that my observation would be the last about his extramarital affairs, and those of his wife. After all, it appeared that they truly belonged in that personal zone of privacy that we ought to, but rarely do, afford politicians.

Unfortunately, there appears to be a little something more to this story that may mean it won't go away.

Concern is growing in Albany over the prospect that, even as Governor Paterson races to get on top of the budget crisis, the disclosures of his private sexual affairs have damaged — perhaps irreparably — his capacity to execute the state's highest office.

Dogged by suspicions that his campaign expenditures and his extramarital relationships were improperly entangled, Mr. Paterson heads into his second week on the job no longer the fresh face who symbolized a return to civility, but a weakened politician.

"Paterson's persona has been really damaged," a politics professor at Baruch College, Doug Muzzio, said. "On Monday, he was sitting on top of the world. It was, 'I am David Paterson and I am governor of New York.' It now becomes, 'I am David Paterson and I am this philandering, pay-for-it-with-other-people's-money type of guy,'"

For the third consecutive day, Mr. Paterson struggled to account for a 2002 payment, billed to the credit card of his campaign committee, for an Upper West Side hotel room where Mr. Paterson had a sexual liaison.

The governor, who served as lieutenant governor under Eliot Spitzer, has also been unable to explain the circumstances behind a $500 campaign payment to a woman with whom he was romantically involved.

Meanwhile, Paterson officials sought to provide details about more than $11,000 in payments that his campaign committee made between 2002 and 2007 to a 45-year-old woman, April Robbins-Bobyn, whose connection to Mr. Paterson is not clear.

Please tell me that he didn't expense the hotel room and sugar-daddy payments to his hot little honey. Please tell me that he didn't use funds that are regulated by ethics laws to pay for his affair.

But if he did, it looks like he has a major problem on his hands.

Tell me -- who is next in line of succession for the office of Governor of New York?

UPDATE: I just found the answer to the question.

One consequence of Mr. Paterson's elevation is that the next in line to be governor is the temporary president of the state Senate, Joseph Bruno, who has held that position since 1995, when newly-elected Governor Pataki and Senator D'Amato secured it for him.

Senator Bruno has repeatedly been described in the press as facing indictment for a variety of allegedly corrupt transactions, but so far he has escaped prosecution, and it is possible that he will never be charged.

If, however, Mr. Bruno became governor, and were subsequently forced to leave the office, whether for legal entanglements or for reasons of health — he was born in April 1929 — the next in line to be New York State's chief executive is Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has held that position since 1994 with increasing authority. In 2000, Mr. Silver crushed a revolt, punished the plotters, and solidified his power.

The denouement of this series of untimely events could be the accession of Shelly Silver as the 57th governor of New York State. A strong governor might control a dysfunctional legislature.

A Silver regime may cure the paralysis which has affected state government through decades of split responsibility and partisan conflict. However, it raises the issue of whether the taxpayers and voters of the state of New York would be better off with a divided, enfeebled legislature and governor than with officials who could really injure the people by their devotion to the special interests, labor, and business, and their persistent lobbyists, who in fact constitute the permanent government of the Empire State.

Posted by: Greg at 07:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Setting up a situation that I have long expected -- a high probability of a Barack Obama-Bill Richardson ticket this fall.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the nation's only Hispanic governor, is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president, calling him a "once-in-a- lifetime leader" who can unite the nation and restore America's international leadership.

Richardson, who dropped out of the Democratic race in January, is to appear with Obama on Friday at a campaign event in Portland, Ore., The Associated Press has learned.

On one level, this endorsement and the increased likelihood of an Obama-Richardson ticket is somewhat comforting -- it means that one member of an Obama Administration would actually have some foreign policy experience. But on the other hand, I don't know if the ticket would really do Obama much good among Hispanic voters -- as I've noted in the past, the general response I've heard from Hispanic students (both on the high school and college levels) regarding Bill Richardson is that they consider him to be a privileged white guy with a white name. Can that perception be overcome? And what about the betrayal of the Clinton's by this long-time Clintonoid?

Posted by: Greg at 03:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, now we understand why Barack Obama has stayed with Trinity UCC and racist Reverend Jeremiah Wright -- he holds to the views expressed by Wright from the pulpit that white people are inherently racist.

610 WIP (Philadelphia) host Angelo Cataldi asked Obama about his Tuesday morning speech on race at the National Constitution Center in which he referenced his own white grandmother and her prejudice. Obama told Cataldi that "The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know (pause) there's a reaction in her that doesn't go away and it comes out in the wrong way."

Excuse me -- "a typical white person"????????

Sounds like more of the same racial and ethnic insults that come from Rev. Wright -- the guy who rants about "white greed" and "the US of KKK-A". Could you imagine if Hillary or McCain commented on "typical black people"? There would be a shit-storm so big that it would make Hurricane Katrina look like a gentle spring rain shower.

And this from a guy who demanded that Imus be fired for his "nappy-headed ho" comment. This comment therefore seems like an offense sufficient enough to require that he withdraw from the presidential race -- except, of course, that as a black man no liberal Democrat would have the guts to call him on his racism and hold him to the same standards a white candidate would be held to. Proof again that Geraldine Ferraro got it exactly right, and that Barack Obama is nothing but an affirmative action candidate who is held to a lower standard than a similarly situated white candidate would be.

H/T Campaign Spot, Holy Coast, Hot Air, Michelle Malkin

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Posted by: Greg at 07:44 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The Washington Post unintentionally gives one more reason to vote Republican -- the cut-and-run plans of the Democrats will not only result in the abandonment of all the progress that has been made in Iraq, but will also directly lead to the civil war that they claim to want to avoid.

BOTH Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton propose withdrawing U.S. troops at the most rapid pace the Pentagon says is possible -- one brigade a month. In the 16 months or so it would take to remove those forces, they envision the near-miraculous accomplishment of every political goal the Bush administration has aimed at for five years, from the establishment of a stable government to agreement by Iraq's neighbors to support it. They suppose that the knowledge that American forces were leaving would inspire these accords. In fact, it more likely would cause all sides to discount U.S. influence and prepare to violently seize the space left by the departing Americans.

With equal implausibility, the Democratic candidates say they would leave limited U.S. forces behind to prevent al-Qaeda from establishing bases. They assume that an Iraqi government that had just been abandoned by the United States would consent to the continued presence of American forces on its territory. In all, Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama speak as if they have no understanding of Iraqi leaders, whom they propose to treat as willing puppets.

If there was a glimmer of sense in Mr. Obama's speech, it lay in his acknowledgment that "we will have to make tactical adjustments, listening to our commanders on the ground, to ensure that our interests in a stable Iraq are met and to make sure our troops are secure." Ms. Clinton conceded that "the critical question is how we can end this war responsibly" and added "it won't be easy." In fact it will be terribly hard -- and it can't be done responsibly in the way or on the timeline the two Democrats are proposing. We can only hope that, behind their wildly unrealistic campaign rhetoric, the candidates understand that reality.

So let's see -- a liberal bastion like the Washington Post has labeled the plans of the two remaining Democrat contenders as "unrealistic", "irresponsible", "implausible", and "dangerous". Indeed, the title of the editorial makes it clear that the proposals are so far from reality as to enter the realm of fantasy. What the editorial does not say -- perhaps because those responsible for this piece are wedded to the notion that the Democrats must win in November -- is that the proper solution to Iraq lies in voting for the one candidate who actually has a realistic plan for dealing with Iraq. That would be the Republican, John McCain.

Posted by: Greg at 07:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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No doubt sipping on tea on some porch somewhere at the behest of his wife Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson has spoken from on high about who has the necessary foreign policy credentials to serve as President. And the icon of the anti-Iraq War crowd says it ain't Obama.

Claims of superior intuitive judgment by his campaign and by him are self-evidently disingenuous, especially in light of disclosures about his long associations with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko. But his assertions of advanced judgment are also ludicrous when the question of what Obama has accomplished in his four years in the Senate is considered.

As the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee subcommittee on Europe, he has not chaired a single substantive oversight hearing, even though the breakdown in our relations with Europe and NATO is harming our operations in Afghanistan. Nor did he take a single official trip to Europe as chairman. This is the sum total of his actions in the most important responsibility he has had in the Senate. What are his actual experiences that reassure us that when the phone rings at 3 a.m. he will know what to do, which levers of power to pull, or which world leaders he can count on?

Obama has stated that he will rely upon his advisers. But how will he know which ones to depend upon and how will he be able to evaluate what they say? Already, one of his chief foreign policy advisers, Samantha Power, has been compelled to resign for, among other indiscretions, honestly revealing on a British television program that Obama's public position on withdrawal from Iraq is not really his true position, nor does it reflect what he would do. Her gaffe exposed a vein of cynicism on national security. How confident can we be in his judgment? In fact, the hard truth is that he has no such experience.

Obama has tried to have it both ways on the issue of national security. On the one hand, he claims his intuition somehow would make him best equipped to handle the difficult challenges that face the next president. On the other hand, he tries to ridicule and dismiss as relatively insignificant the idea that actual experience with and intimate knowledge of foreign affairs and leaders, the U.S. military, the intelligence community, and the intricacies of diplomacy matter. He has even suggested that talking about the problems of national security amounts to exploitation of "fear." One of Obama's fervent supporters, a Harvard professor named Orlando Patterson, who has no expertise in foreign policy, wrote absurdly in a New York Times op-ed that the 3 a.m. ad wasn't about national security at all, but really a subliminal racist attack. Delusions aside, sometimes a discussion about national security is about national security.

Well, all you Bush-hating leftoids -- this is the man you label to be a hero and a supremely trustworthy voice on foreign policy (despite a bipartisan Senate finding that he lied about his mission to Niger). He says Obama is unqualified and that electing the man would constitute a danger to the United States. If you trusted his judgment then, why won't you trust it now?

Posted by: Greg at 06:45 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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Watch and listen to the Christmas sermon of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Jeremiah Wright is clearly engaging in political speech on behalf of Barack Obama and against Hillary Clinton BY NAME from the pulpit in his sermon. Doesn't this violate IRS regulations? Or is there a special exemption for black churches? If so, doesn't that violate the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the First Amendment?

Oddly enough, the liberal anti-Christian group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has not made any public statement about the status of Trinity UCC in light of the comments of its pastor. Why not? Could it be that Barry Lynn, the head of that organization, is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ? Or is it that Barry Lynn is too busy going after conservative pastors who act within IRS regulations.

By the way -- does anyone catch the false historical assertion that Jesus was black. I guess that Rev. Wright has never seen a Jew.

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Posted by: Greg at 06:15 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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