Another Iowahawk classic

WASHINGTON DC - Ending weeks of speculation and rumors, President-Elect Barack Obama today named Bill Clinton to join his incoming administration as President of the United States, where he will head the federal government’s executive branch

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/11/obama-names-bill-clinton-to-president-post.html

CNO at NAVSEA

The CNO was at NAVSEA today, giving awards to several NAVSEA employees who helped with the repair and refurbishment of the USS George Washington after it sustained $70 million in damage due to a fire.

Of course, if someone had not been smoking in an area where there was 115 gallons of flammable refrigerant compressor oil, the fire may not have happened. So don't smoke, kids!

In other news, it looks like President-elect Obama will be keeping Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. Good move. Maybe Obama's eyes have been opened to see a dangerous world and it helps to have good, experienced people to help you.

David French on Anti-intellectualism

From National Review online:

I've been following the ongoing debate over conservatives, populism, and our supposed anti-intellectualism with some interest. David Brooks has been banging this drum for some time, and so have many others. Yet I think they're missing something important: It's not that conservatives disdain "education" or "intellectuals," it's more that we now know — after more than 30 years of confronting the modern university — that the intellectual emperor has no clothes.

In other words, it is not the idea of education that repels heartland conservatives, it is the type of education that we know our elites receive. How "elite" is a social class that all too often embraces the postmodernism and intolerance of the modern academy? How "elite" is a cultural class that catches the vapors at a Larry Summers speech, embraces academic departments that promulgate grotesquely historically flawed "deconstructions" of the American story, and drips with contempt for traditional values — not because those values have been tried and found wanting but because those values are seen as the primary obstacle to progressive cultural change.

It is no doubt a problem that professionals are rejecting Republicans by lopsided margins. But we must ask, is it because conservatives reject education? Or is it because professionals are educated to reject conservatives?

To be sure, some subset of the conservative movement does seem to find policy arguments much more alluring when made with a regional accent, and there is no doubt that elite-bashing can be simple-minded and extreme, but the idea that conservative movement as a whole is turning its back on "book-learnin'" is just silly. We revere Churchill and Lincoln just as much as we ever did. The academy — and, consequently, our educated "elite" — do not.

The problem is largely cultural, not political. The university system as a whole is culturally dominated by a system of thought that not only rejects conservatism (especially social conservatism), it considers it not even worth discussion. Conservatives can nominate attractive and urbane candidates all they want, but unless their ideas change, they will see increasing problems winning over an "educated" class that has spent year after year hearing only half the story.

Weekend at the cabin

We are currently up at the cabin with our friends the E's. We went to see the new James Bond movie and also went to Swallow Falls State Park. The Bond movie had good action, but the plot was a mess, involving a corporate tycoon taking over the Bolivian water supply. Why don't more movies show real global enemies, namely Islamic terrorists? Maybe more movies like "The Kingdom?" There was an interesting story last week involving a hostage rescue in Afghanistan by NAVY seals. The SEALS helicoptered in and rescued an American businessman, taking the hostage-takers by surprise. That would be a good movie.

Another movie that I'd like to see is "Slumdog Millionaire"--it involves a poor Indian man who wins a lot of money on a TV game show. It's a subject that I am obviously interested in. :)

Opera Saturday

Celebrated D.'s birthday by going to see a simulcast of "Doctor Atomic" on Saturday. Truly a remarkable opera--it has history, poetry, suspense, drama, and of course great music.

I was very impressed with Sasha Cooke as Kitty Oppeneimer. Outstanding singer, and if I may say so, sexy.

Check out Iowahawk

Check out iowahawk.typepad.com. You'll be glad you did.

Steven den Beste's analysis

Good morning-after anaylsis from Steven den Beste:

Not the end of the world
It's easy to let yourself go in despair and start thinking things like "We are well-and-truly fucked" or "This is the worst of all possible outcomes". But it isn't true.

I think this election is going to be a "coming of age" moment for a lot of people. They say, "Be careful what you wish for" and a lot of people got their wish yesterday.

And now they're bound to be disappointed. Not even Jesus could satisfy all the expectations of Obama's most vocal supporters, or fulfill all the promises Obama has made.

I think Obama is going to turn out to be the worst president since Carter, and for the same reason: good intentions do not guarantee good results. Idealists often stub their toes on the wayward rocks of reality, and fall on their faces. And the world doesn't respond to benign behavior benignly.

But there's another reason why: Obama has been hiding his light under a basket. A lot of people bought a pig in a poke today, and now they're going to find out what they bought. Obama isn't what most of them think he is. The intoxication of the cult will wear off, leaving a monumental hangover.

And four years from now they'll be older and much wiser.

A lot of bad things are going to happen during this term. But I don't think that this is an irreversible catastrophe for the union. I've lived long enough to absorb this basic truth: the US is too large and too strong to destroy in just 4 years. Or even in 8. We survived 6 years of Nixon. We survived 4 years of Carter. We even survived 8 years of Clinton, God alone knows how.

The President of the United States is the most powerful political figure in the world, but as national executives go his powers are actually quite restricted. Obama will become President, but he won't be dictator or king, let alone deity. He still has to work with the House and the Senate, and he still has to live within Constitutional restrictions, and with a judiciary that he mostly didn't appoint.

The main reason this will be a "coming of age" moment is that now Obama and the Democrats have to put up or shut up. Obama got elected by making himself a blank slate, with vapid promises about "hope" and "change" -- but now he actually has to do something. Now he has to reveal his true agenda. And with the Democrats also having a majority in both chambers of Congress, now the Democrats really have to lead. And they're not going to do a very good job of it. It's going to be amusing to watch.

And the people who fell for the demagoguery will learn an invaluable lesson.

Oh, the Democrats try to blame failure on Republican filibusters, of which there will be many. But that's always been a factor in our system, and many people believe it's an important check on government excess. The tradition in the Senate is that it is supposed to be a buffer against transient political fads, and the filibuster is a major part of that.

If the Democrats go all in, and change the filibuster rule, then they'll have truly seized the nettle with both hands and won't have any excuses any longer. That's why they won't do it. It's their last fig-leaf. But even with the filibuster rule in place, they'll be stuck trying to deliver now on all the promises implied, or inferred, during this election. The Republicans can only filibuster on bills the Democrats have already proposed.

And it ain't possible for the Democrats to deliver what's been promised. Gonna be a hell of a lot of disillusioned lefties out there. A lot of people who felt they were deceived. A lot of people who will eventually realize that the Obama campaign was something of a cult.

Disillusionment will turn to a feeling of betrayal. And that will, in turn, convert to anger.

In the mean time, Obama and Congressional Democrats will do things that cause harm, but very little of it will be irreversible.

I would have enjoyed watching lefty heads explode if McCain had won. But we're going to see lefty heads exploding anyway; it's just going to take longer.

In the mean time, those of us who didn't want Obama to be president have to accept that he is. And let's not give in to the kind of paranoid fever dreams that have consumed the left for the last 8 years. Let us collectively take a vow tonight: no "Obama derangement syndrome". Obama is a politician. He isn't the devil incarnate.

So what are the good sides of what just happened?

1. It is no longer possible for anyone to deny that the MSM is heavily biased. The MSM have been biased for decades but managed an illusion of fairness. That is no longer possible; the MSM have squandered their credibility during this campaign. They'll never get that credibility back again.

2. Since the Democrats got nearly everything they hoped for in this campaign, they'll have no excuses and will have to produce. They'll have to reveal their true agenda -- or else make clear that they don't really have any beyond gaining power.

3. Every few decades the American people have to be reminded that peace only comes with strength. The next four years will be this generation's lesson.

Now, a few predictions for the next four years:

1. Obama's "hold out your hand to everyone" foreign policy is going to be a catastrophe. They'll love it in Europe. They're probably laughing their heads off about it in the middle east already.

2. The US hasn't suffered a terrorist attack by al Qaeda since 9/11, but we'll get at least one during Obama's term.

3. We're going to lose in Afghanistan.

4. Iran will get nuclear weapons. There will be nuclear war between Iran and Israel. (This is the only irreversibly terrible thing I see upcoming, and it's very bad indeed.)

5. There will eventually be a press backlash against Obama which will make their treatment of Bush look mild. Partly that's going to be because Obama is going to disappoint them just as much as all his other supporters. Partly it will be the MSM desperately trying to regain its own credibility, by trying to show that they're not in his tank any longer. And because of that they are eventually going to do the reporting they should have done during this campaign, about Obama's less-than-savory friends, and about voter fraud, and about illegal fund-raising, and about a lot of other things.

and 6. Obama will not be re-elected in 2012. He may even end up doing an LBJ and not even running again.

One last thing: I'm not saying I'm happy with this outcome. I would much rather have had McCain win. But this is not the end of the world, or the end of this nation. We've survived much worse.

And now we need to show the lefties how to lose. Our mission for the next four years is to be in opposition without becoming deranged.

UPDATE: One other good thing: no one will be spinning grand conspiracy theories about this administration's Vice President being an evil, conniving genius who is the true power behind the throne.

Congratulations to Senator Obama

on his historic election. Let's hope he governs as a moderate and not as a far-left liberal.

I think President Obama will quickly discover that our enemies are still out there, and his gauzy talk about talking with Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela will quickly become inoperative. He will quickly discover that withdrawing 10,000 troops a month from Iraq may not be prudent or wise. He will discover that you just can't close Guantanamo and let our enemies go free. He will, as Joe Biden predicted, face an international crisis within his first six months. I hope he keeps Secretary of Defense Gates on.

And of course, Senate Republicans should support him when they can, and filibuster like H*ll when Obama and congressional liberals try to pass some of the more hare-brained items on their agenda.

Quin Hilyer nails it

Quin Hilyer of the American Spectator nails it:

There is something special about this country. The United States is exceptional. We are blessed by the good Lord, and in turn we have done more, far more, than any other people to spread freedom across the globe, and prosperity across the globe, and human rights across this great good Earth. We are a particularly good people -- and John McCain understands all this and believes it with every fiber of his being, down to his very marrow, in a way that is deeply spiritual in nature. There is nothing fake about McCain's belief in American Exceptionalism. His belief in this is as genuine, and as deeply felt, as is a son's love for his father. He will defend this country, fight for this country, with every last breath in his body.

And McCain has a record of making the right calls, again and again, when it comes to securing the American national interest around the world. He was right to back Ronald Reagan to the hilt in the greatest foreign challenge of the past 60 years, namely the victorious effort to win the Cold War despite the strenuous and at times vicious opposition of the American Left. But he was right to oppose Reagan when Reagan, with all good intentions, decided to station Marines in Lebanon. McCain broke with his entire party, and warned that the Marines would be sitting ducks, and voted against the deployment. Tragically, McCain was right: More than 200 Americans died in Lebanon in a suicide truck bombing about a month after McCain's warning.

McCain was right to support -- and Joe Biden was wrong to oppose -- the first Gulf War against Saddam Hussein in 1991. McCain was right to support intervention in Kosovo later that decade: It worked. He was right to support a stronger military and greater numbers of personnel when Bill Clinton was cutting it. He was right to fight against wasteful weapons systems, and against corruption in military contracting. He was right to fight a specific boondoggle involving an Air Force tanker; he brought corruption to light (the perpetrators both in the Air Force and at the contractor went to jail) and saved the public $6 billion.

McCain was right to say that Saddam Hussein could be overthrown fairly quickly, with little loss of American life. He was right to say that Hussein was a terrible threat. But he was right, very early on, well before anybody else in the Senate, to say that it would take more troops and a different strategy to secure the peace after we had won the war. He broke with President Bush to say so, way back in 2003, and he was right.

John McCain has suffered for his country in a way only a tiny slice of the population ever has. The story is well known -- not just that he suffered in Vietcong captivity, but that he turned down early release in a profound expression of solidarity with his fellow prisoners. Yet McCain had the grace, when the time was right, to hold out an olive branch to the Vietnamese a couple of decades later when they showed a movement toward greater economic freedom.

John McCain is committed to reaching beyond party labels. Whether always right or wrong to do so, he really cares about doing what he thinks is right no matter whose political ox is gored. Barack Obama may talk a bipartisan game, but he never has actually played on that field. The reality, meanwhile, is that sometimes it helps conservative ends to work with people from the other party. Ronald Reagan knew this. Ronald Reagan knew how to bring Democratic congressmen his way -- for tax cuts and for defense improvements and for spending discipline. McCain, because of his long record of bipartisanship, can do likewise -- especially when it comes to spending. McCain has promised to veto any bill, any bill at all, that contains purely local-interest earmarks -- and with a veto, he can make it stick, even against a Democratic Congress. Eventually, once he makes it stick a few times, he can start bringing Democratic "Blue Dogs" his way on spending. Just watch it happen: Yes, it will.

This bears repeating: No candidate for president since Barry Goldwater has been as committed to spending discipline across the board as John McCain is. His entire record for 25 years gives evidence of that reality. Reagan came close to the Goldwater/McCain level of commitment, but McCain has kept up that fight, a lonely fight, for a quarter century. For limited-government conservatives -- actually, that's a redundancy -- this McCainite stubbornness should be cause for far deeper appreciation than it has received.

McCain also has the right instincts on the key issue of the judiciary. It may not be at the top of his list of importance, but he does, unambiguously, favor the appointment of judges who carefully construe the actual text of the Constitution and laws and are willing to be bound by those texts no matter what their own policy preferences. McCain's judicial nominees would be far more likely, by light years, than would be Obama's nominees, to maintain the Constitution's balance between national and state governments, and its restrictions on Congress's powers. His judges would be less likely to make decisions based on their preferred policy results -- but, because the Constitution is written as it is, a close adherence to the text would result in less hostility to religion, less hostility to honest police action, less hostility to private property, and less hostility to local community standards than would the radically liberal judges of the sort Obama favors.

Also, John McCain is an individualist. He believes in private action. He believes that individuals can live their lives responsibly without government acting as nanny and overseer and ultimate decision-maker on virtually every aspect of daily life. McCain trusts people with their own hard-earned money. McCain has never voted for a tax hike. McCain has supported almost every important tax-cut proposal for 25 years. Even on the two cuts he opposed, he stringently has supported keeping the lower level once it was set: It is a point of honor to him that American taxpayers should be able to count on lower tax rates once they are established and once they have begun to make plans based on those rates. McCain particularly understands that investors -- pensioners, 401(k) holders, homeowners -- are the engine of the economy, and that American investors right now are at a huge disadvantage to the entire rest of the developed world because our investment taxes are higher. McCain will cut investment taxes, and that's a very good thing for everybody.

Finally, there can be no doubt, none whatsoever, that John McCain will brook no corruption in his administration. Woe be to the appointee who would risk sullying McCain's vaunted honor by crooked deals and self-serving actions. It is likely that no administration in history will be so concerned with maintaining high ethical standards as a McCain administration would. And it will be blessed relief to have an administration where not even a hint of scandal will be even whispered by honest observers.

So there you have it: John McCain as a patriot firmly rooted in the American traditions of free enterprise, limited government, strong defense, personal accountability, and a decent respect for the cultural standards of the broad middle of the American public. Those are the constituent elements of American exceptionalism -- and to his great credit, John McCain is an American exceptionalist, and an exceptional American.

Krauthammer nails it

From the incomparable Charles Krauthammer:

Contrarian that I am, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over. I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years.

I stand athwart the rush of conservative ship-jumpers of every stripe -- neo (Ken Adelman), moderate (Colin Powell), genetic/ironic (Christopher Buckley) and socialist/atheist (Christopher Hitchens) -- yelling "Stop!" I shall have no part of this motley crew. I will go down with the McCain ship. I'd rather lose an election than lose my bearings.

First, I'll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory. The "erratic" temperament issue, for example. As if McCain's risky and unsuccessful but in no way irrational attempt to tactically maneuver his way through the economic tsunami that came crashing down a month ago renders unfit for office a man who demonstrated the most admirable equanimity and courage in the face of unimaginable pressures as a prisoner of war, and who later steadily navigated innumerable challenges and setbacks, not the least of which was the collapse of his campaign just a year ago.

McCain the "erratic" is a cheap Obama talking point. The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.

Nor will I countenance the "dirty campaign" pretense. The double standard here is stunning. Obama ran a scurrilous Spanish-language ad falsely associating McCain with anti-Hispanic slurs. Another ad falsely claimed that McCain supports "cutting Social Security benefits in half." And for months Democrats insisted that McCain sought 100 years of war in Iraq.

McCain's critics are offended that he raised the issue of William Ayers. What's astonishing is that Obama was himself not offended by William Ayers.

Moreover, the most remarkable of all tactical choices of this election season is the attack that never was. Out of extreme (and unnecessary) conscientiousness, McCain refused to raise the legitimate issue of Obama's most egregious association -- with the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Dirty campaigning, indeed.

The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.

Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who's been cramming on these issues for the past year, who's never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of "a world that stands as one"), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as "the tragedy of 9/11," a term more appropriate for a bus accident?

Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory?

There's just no comparison. Obama's own running mate warned this week that Obama's youth and inexperience will invite a crisis -- indeed a crisis "generated" precisely to test him. Can you be serious about national security and vote on Nov. 4 to invite that test?

And how will he pass it? Well, how has he fared on the only two significant foreign policy tests he has faced since he's been in the Senate? The first was the surge. Obama failed spectacularly. He not only opposed it. He tried to denigrate it, stop it and, finally, deny its success.

The second test was Georgia, to which Obama responded instinctively with evenhanded moral equivalence, urging restraint on both sides. McCain did not have to consult his advisers to instantly identify the aggressor.

Today's economic crisis, like every other in our history, will in time pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet? I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb.

I am Spartacus, I am Joe the Plumber, I am Joe the Lawyer

Jennifer Rubin, writing in Commentary, writes that Obama's scary views of redistribution in the economic area also applies in the judicial area:

Barack Obama gave a revealing and perfectly awful answer regarding the role of the Supreme Court in Wednesday’s debate:

I will look for those judges who have an outstanding judicial record, who have the intellect, and who hopefully have a sense of what real-world folks are going through. I’ll just give you one quick example. Senator McCain and I disagreed recently when the Supreme Court made it more difficult for a woman named Lilly Ledbetter to press her claim for pay discrimination. For years, she had been getting paid less than a man had been paid for doing the exact same job. And when she brought a suit, saying equal pay for equal work, the judges said, well, you know, it’s taken you too long to bring this lawsuit, even though she didn’t know about it until fairly recently. We tried to overturn it in the Senate. I supported that effort to provide better guidance to the courts; John McCain opposed it. I think that it’s important for judges to understand that if a woman is out there trying to raise a family, trying to support her family, and is being treated unfairly, then the court has to stand up, if nobody else will. And that’s the kind of judge that I want.

Let’s count up the things that are wrong with this. First, judges aren’t supposed to consider the economic, social or political status of litigants. In fact, they take an oath not to. (”I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me . . . ) It is irrelevant whether the plaintiff was a working stiff, a struggling mom, or an heiress. This was a case of statutory interpretation under the Equal Pay Act. Extending special consideration based on her personal life story would be entirely inappropriate.

Second, the system of separation of powers and the restricted role of the judiciary worked precisely as it should have here. The Court interpreted a statute and found that Congress hadn’t intended for an open-ended statute of limitations to allow equal pay claims to remain open indefinitely. Once the Court ruled, Congress had the ability to come back and amend the statute to explicitly put out the welcome mat for the plaintiff’s bar. They haven’t. And that is now an issue in the presidential election, where once again voters can decide as a policy matter whether they agree with Barack Obama or John McCain. What’s wrong with this?

Finally, if you want to talk “fair,” there are lots of claims for fairness at issue here — small businesses, payroll clerks, employees, shareholders, etc. The Supreme Court is not in the fairness business, with the responsibility to select this or that applicant who comes before it with the most compelling sob story. The Court is in the legislative and Constitutional interpretation business. Invoking “fairness” is an intellectual dodge. What Obama really means, I suspect, is “override the elected branches to give money to the person five of nine lifetime appointees decide is most deserving.” But that sounds downright undemocratic and quite presumptuous. “Fairness” sounds so much better.

In short, this should remove any doubt you might have as to whether Obama views the Court as another cauldron for social engineering and re-distribution of wealth. That’s what “fair” is, right? (Give the money from the company which can’t dig out 20 year-old pay records to the single mom.) Perhaps McCain should start talking more about judges. There has to be a Joe the Lawyer out there to help him.

Good job, Jennifer. I am Spartacus. I am Joe the Plumber. I am Joe the lawyer.

"Spread the Wealth Around"

That's what Obama wants to do--he told Joe the Plumber so last week. And this country does not seem to care. Just tax the wealthy and give it to the poor. Doesn't anyone see what's wrong with this? Why not just take the property of the wealthy and give it to the poor (sarcasm). Why not just force people who have homes to take in the homeless (sarcasm).

Seriously, I do not mind progressive taxation--but taxation should be used to raise revenue for the government, not redistribution for social purposes. The problem with collecting more taxes is that it kills jobs and makes government more corrupt because it allows government to dispense money to favored constituencies. It is time to call Obama's plan what it is--socialism or communism.

Supreme Court Noir

Interesting disssent today from Chief Justice Roberts in a Supreme Court case, Pennsylvania v. Dunlap:

North Philly, May 4, 2001. Officer Sean Devlin, Narcotics Strike Force, was working the morning shift. Under­ cover surveillance. The neighborhood? Tough as a three­ dollar steak. Devlin knew. Five years on the beat, nine months with the Strike Force. He’d made fifteen, twenty drug busts in the neighborhood. Devlin spotted him: a lone man on the corner. Another approached. Quick exchange of words. Cash handed over; small objects handed back. Each man then quickly on his own way. Devlin knew the guy wasn’t buying bus tokens. He radioed a description and Officer Stein picked up the buyer. Sure enough: three bags of crack in the guy’s pocket. Head downtown and book him. Just another day at the office.
* * *
That was not good enough for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which held in a divided decision that the police lacked probable cause to arrest the defendant. The Court concluded that a “single, isolated transaction” in a high-crime area was insufficient to justify the arrest, given that the officer did not actually see the drugs, there was no tip from an informant, and the defendant did not at­ tempt to flee. 941 A. 2d 671, 679 (2007). I disagree with that conclusion, and dissent from the denial of certiorari.

Peter Wehner on Obama

Peter Wehner wrote the following on the Commentary blog, which I re-post here:

A Question of Character
Peter Wehner - 10.14.2008 - 4:51 PM
At a time when many people are saying Barack Obama’s past associations with radical figures doesn’t matter — and even that it shouldn’t matter - it’s worth considering the opposite argument.

From the ancient Greeks to the founding fathers, many of our best political minds believed character in our leaders matters. It doesn’t matter more than anything else, and character is itself a complicated thing. People can have strong character in some respects and weak character in others. People can demonstrate battlefield valor, for example, yet show cruelty to those over whom they have power. They can speak unpleasant truths when there is a high cost to doing so and betray their spouses. Individuals can demonstrate admirable loyalty to their friends and still lie to the public, or work for peace and yet violate the laws of our land.

Still, in our wiser moments, we have always understood that character, broadly defined, is important to possess for those in high public office, in part because it tells us whether our leaders warrant our trust, whether their word is dependable, and whether they are responsible. And one of the best indicators of character is the people with whom you associate. This is basic, elementary-school level common sense. The odds are your parents wanted you to hang around with the “right” crowd instead of the wrong crowd because if you hung around with the latter it meant its members would be a bad influence on you, it would reflect poorly on you, and you’d probably end up getting into trouble.

What applies to 10-year-olds also applies to presidential candidates.

Over the years, Barack Obama hung around with some pretty disturbing characters, and what we’re talking about aren’t isolated incidents. It has happened with a slew of people on a range of issues. He has connected himself with domestic terrorists (William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn), with an anti-American and racist minister (Jeremiah Wright), and with corrupt people (Antoin “Tony” Rezko) and organizations (ACORN). What we see, then, is a pattern.

Will it be something that will manifest itself if Obama is elected President? It’s impossible to know for sure, and we can hope it wouldn’t be the case. But it might.

The concern is not that Obama will invite domestic terrorists to the White House for signing ceremonies or private lunches; rather, it is that we know enough about Obama to say that his enormous personal ambition has clouded his judgment over the years. He looks to be a man who will do disquieting things in order to climb the ladder of political success; when he was in Hyde Park, the rungs on that ladder included Mr. Ayers and the Reverend Wright. This kind of trait — soaring ambition trumping sound judgment — can manifest itself in very problematic ways, especially when you occupy the most powerful office in the world.

For those who say that these associations don’t matter, that they’re “distractions” from the more urgent problems of our time and an example of “Swift-boating,” consider this: if John McCain had sat in the pew of a pastor who was a white supremacist and launched his political career at the home of, and developed a working relationship with, a man who bombed abortion clinics or black churches and, for good measure, was unrepentant about it, McCain’s political career would be (rightly) over, and he would be (rightly) ostracized.

A political reference point may be helpful here. Senator Trent Lott was hounded out of his post as Majority Leader because of a few inappropriate comments — made in bad taste but in jest — at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party. Much of the media and the political class were outraged. Yet we have a case in which Obama has had close, intimate relations with some really unsavory folks, and we’re told it doesn’t matter one bit.

It’s true enough that the McCain campaign has never explained in a sustained, adequate way why these radical associations matter; that McCain, for reasons that are hard to fathom, has declared the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is off limits; and that the MSM is so deeply wed to Obama’s victory that they have done all they can to turn the issue of Obama’s radical associations into a problem for John McCain rather than Barack Obama. And so it’s quite possible that raising Obama’s radical associations in the last 20 days won’t be politically effective and may even be politically counterproductive, given the economic crisis we’re facing and the ham-handed way it’s been handled so far. Many Americans certainly seems to be of the mind that Obama’s associations with Ayers and Wright and all the rest don’t matter.

I get all that. But some of us believe there is a responsibility to make this case in a calm, responsible, factual way. We believe it’s important to explain why Obama’s radical associations bear on the question of his character, and why Obama’s character bears on the question of electing our next President. This issue shouldn’t, by itself, be dispositive. Nor should it be the only, or even the most important, issue in the campaign. Nor is it fair to say that Obama’s character can be understood only through the prism of his associations. But to evoke eye-rolling, dismissive reactions in response to simply raising the issue is an effort to sideline a legitimate topic.

The time-honored truth is that character matters in leaders. Sometimes people forget that lesson - and when they do, it’s appropriate to remind them. And whether the country understands it or not, and whether voters think it’s a big deal or not, integrity and associations matter.

If Barack Obama is elected President, sooner or later people will realize this applies to him as well. It’s only right to ask the relevant questions in advance of this election — and despite the ridicule being dished out by the acolytes and cheerleaders of Senator Obama, it’s not too much to ask Obama to explain his relationship over the years with people who have a disturbing history of violence, hatred for America, and corruption

David Gelertner on Obama

David Gelertner is someone I greatly respect. Some people do not know that he had his hands blown off by the Unabomber some years ago. Here are his ten points of advice to McCain:

1. Mr. Obama is the most liberal senator in Washington.

2. Like other liberal presidents, he'd load the Supreme Court with the most liberal judges he could find.

3. Like other liberal presidents, he'd spend tax dollars like they were going out of style--when the economy must have a steady, experienced, pork-hating hand at the wheel.

4. Like other liberal senators, Mr. Obama was prepared to surrender to terrorists in Iraq.

5. Like other liberal senators, he is the wrong man to protect your children against Russia, Iran, North Korea and al Qaeda in dangerous times.

6. I fought for responsible regulation of the mortgage merchants when the Democrats were against it. I don't just talk, I act.

7. My closest Senate colleague is a Democrat, Joe Lieberman. I don't just talk bipartisanship, I act.

8. I picked Sarah Palin because our country needs young leaders who don't just talk; who act.

9. I'll do what I know is right, no matter what China or Germany or the U.N. thinks. You can't protect this nation by talking. You have to act.

10. Don't judge me as a politician or speech-maker.

Sarah Palin, a great choice

Although my friend Tim Pawlenty did not get selected, I can enthusiastically back Sarah Palin for Vice President.

First, as governor of Alaska, she has more executive experience than Obama and Biden combined. She has shown herself to be good on ethics, even taking on the incumbent governor and defeating him. She favors domestic oil drilling, which would help on energy independence. She is rock solid on life issue (and lives it, choosing not to abort a child with Down syndrome). She is an avid hunter and fisherman, and supports the Second Amendment. She supports the military (and lives it--her son is in the Army and will soon be going to Iraq). Like McCain, she walks the walk, and does not just talk the talk.

Politically, she will attract women (particularly Hillary supporters), suburban hockey moms, union households, hunters, fisherman, and young people. Her western point of view should help in Colorado and New Mexico. Her reformist persona and her hockey mom image should help in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin New Hampshire, and Michigan. Truly a home run for McCain.

Tim Pawlenty, a great choice

I was a classmate of Tim Pawlenty and Mary Anderson Pawlenty at the University of Minnesota Law School. Tim was one of the first people I met, very gregarious but very down to earth. We studied law in the friendly boot-camp atmosphere at the U of M, and then headed over to Bullwinkle's or Sargeant Preston's saloon for beers. Tim was smart, and I was pleased to call him a friend.

We went our separate ways after law school, him to legal practice in Minnesota, later politics and the governorship, I went to Washington, DC. Like my other classmates, I have followed his career with interest.

Tim will be a GREAT candidate and a great vice president. He can appeal to blue-collar folk, evangelicals, young people, and Midwesterners. He is smart, ethical, witty, and tough. Take it from me, Tim is a great choice.

Hamdan sentence

The military tribunal has sentenced Mr. Hamdan to 5 1/2 years for material support of terrorism. The sentence seems light to me, particularly when the time he has already served will be subtracted from his sentence. The good news is that he will not be released upon completion of his sentence, because he can be detained as an enemy combatant until cessation of hostilities.

Of course, if Obama becomes President, he will probably let detainees go. He has said that he wants to close Guantanamo, but has not said where he wants to let the detainees go to. Release them into the United States? Put them in Leavenworth federal prison? Let them go back to Afghanistan, Yemen, etc. to plan further attacks? Let's hope not.

Obama and gas prices

One of the biggest factors driving the rise in gas prices is increasing demand from developing countries like China and India.

The only way to put a dent in prices is to either reduce demand or increase supply. Demand will not increase, so the only way to increase supply is to drill more in the United States.

Obama, however, opposes new oil drilling.

This and That

I love the new McCain YouTube ads -- "Celebrity" and "The One." They really show Obama to be an empty suit with an overly Messianic concept of himself. People like David Gergen don't get it--you need to define your opponent before the convention, and McCain is finally getting it.

I see that China is relenting to allow Olympic journalists more Internet access, but they are still blocking searches on subjects like "falun gong" or "dalai lama."

I think I am going to boycott watching or writing about the Olympics--the International Olympic Committee is a corrupt organization, and China is even more so.

Well-captured

Satire from the London Times

A brilliant bit of satire on Obama from the London Times here.

Collection of Obama gaffes

I am posting this collection of Obama gaffes, in case I need to remember them later.

The many inexcusable gaffes of the very young and inexperience Barack Hussein Obummer:

Last May, he claimed that tornadoes in Kansas killed a whopping 10,000 people: “In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed.” The actual death toll: 12.

In Oregon, Obummer redrew the map of the United States: “Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go.”

In front of a roaring Sioux Falls, S.D., audience, Obama exulted: “Thank you, Sioux City.”

Explaining why he was trailing Hillary Clinton in Kentucky, Obama again botched basic geography: “Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it’s not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle.” On what map is Arkansas closer to Kentucky than Illinois? In fact, Illinois shares a border with Kentucky, not Arkansas. Moron.

Obummer has as much trouble with numbers as he has with maps. Last March, on the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Ala., he claimed his parents united as a direct result of the civil rights movement: “There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Ala., because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born.” (Actually, this is more like a Clintonian lie to burnish his image than a gaffe.) Obama was born in 1961. The Selma march took place in 1965. His spokesman, Bill Burton, later explained that Obama was “speaking metaphorically about the civil-rights movement as a whole.” (buwahahahaha, just like a Donk to compound a lie with another lie.)

In Oregon, Obama pleaded ignorance of the decades-old, multibillion-dollar massive Hanford nuclear-waste cleanup: “Here’s something that you will rarely hear from a politician, and that is that I’m not familiar with the Hanford, uuuuhh, site, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on there. (Applause.) Now, having said that, I promise you I’ll learn about it by the time I leave here on the ride back to the airport.” Ditz. Truth is Obummer voted on at least one defense-authorization bill that addressed the “costs, schedules, and technical issues” dealing with the nation’s most contaminated nuclear-waste site, but I guess this incompetent U.S. Senator doesn’t read what he’s voting on!

Last March, the Chicago Tribune reported this fake autobiographical detail in Obama’s Dreams from My Father: “Then, there’s the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. In fact, the Life article and the photographs don’t exist, say the magazine’s own historians.”

And in perhaps the most seriously troubling set of gaffes of them all, Obama told a Portland crowd over the weekend that Iran doesn’t “pose a serious threat to us” — cluelessly arguing that “tiny countries” with small defense budgets can’t do us harm — and then promptly flip-flopped the next day, claiming, “I’ve made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave.”

The only “change” Obummer is really for is the ability to change his mind on any number of issues just to squeeze out every last vote from the most mind-numbed morons in America who think this guy really is “different” or “smart”. Obummer is nothing more than a calculating empty suit Chicago politician who will stop at nothing to plunk his incompetent backside in that Oval Office.

Personally, I think it very ironic how Obummer (and to a lesser degree, Bill Clinton) is able to invoke such messianic fervor among the liberal seculars in this country.

Obama's Eurotour: The view from Cleveland

Peter Kirsanow, writing in the National review:

Judging from the local drive time radio shows, we bitter, religious pistol-packers here in flyover country remembered only two things from Obama's Berlin visit: the phrase "citizen of the world" and Obama's failure to visit wounded troops at Landstuhl and Ramstein.

This morning the radio fairly crackled with callers incensed at what they perceive as Obama's snub of American warriors while ingratiating himself with people who refuse to send any combat troops to Afghanistan. This was not conservative radio but your typical morning traffic and weather blowtorch. And it was in the bluest part of the state (although callers come from much of northern Ohio).

Last evening on a different station, people were put off by Obama proclaiming himself to be a citizen of the world when — according to several callers — he regularly gives indications he's not particularly enthused about being a citizen of the United States. The litany was recited: Obama's making a show of not wearing the American flag lapel pin; his wife's claim that America is a "downright mean" country; Obama's association with Bill Ayers, photographed stomping on the American flag; Rev. Wright damning America; Obama's embarrassment that Americans can't speak German and French; his wife's being proud of America for the first time only because of her husband's candidacy; his condescension toward the purportedly bitter folks clinging to religion; Obama's delegation to the U.N. of the right to tell Americans how much we can eat and how far we can drive, etc — all the greatest hits.

Obviously, a series of anecdotes isn't data. Surely, folks in other parts of the country were charmed by the sight of thousands of foreigners cheering Obama. Just an observation that here in Kucinichland not everyone swooned at Obama's performance, fwiw.

Obamessiah in Germany

So Obama is giving a speech in Germany, but can't seem to find the time to visit the U.S. Air Base where injured soldiers are treated. Excuse me, but he's running for president of the United States, not Germany.

McCain's VP this week?

Robert Novak is reporting that McCain may name his running mate this week. There has been lots of speculation about Mitt Romney.

Please not Romney. Although he is a millionaire, he proved himself to be an ineffective candidate in the primaries, his only success being in caucus states, Massachusetts and Michigan (where he grew up). He had a notable lack of success in the south, and that might put the south in play.

If it is not going to be my friend Tim Pawlenty, please let it be Alaska governor Sarah Palin. It would knock the political world on its ear to have an attractive Alasksan who likes hunting, fishing, and oil drilling. Better yet, make the announcement in front of a group of cheering Alaskan oil workers.

C'mon McCain. Palin for VP. Look to Alaska.

"Mad Men" on AMC

One of my new favorite shows is coming back soon--"Mad Men" on AMC. It is about an ad agency in 1960 and it is very accurate historically. Today there is a Season 1 Marathon...that's what I'll be doing today.

10 reasons to vote for McCain

Courtesy of Lou Aguilar at National Review online:


1. Barack Obama spent 20 years sitting in church while his preacher and others bad-mouthed the United States of America. Navy pilot John McCain spent five years being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton, and refused a chance to walk out ahead of fellow POWs with more seniority.

2. Obama wants to cut and run from Iraq regardless of conditions on the ground or future consequences. McCain took on the president and secretary of defense in demanding more troops for Iraq, a policy that is inarguably winning the war. He also has two sons who fought in Iraq.

3. McCain supports nuclear power. Obama backs wind energy.

4. Obama wants restrictive gun control because only economically depressed middle-Americans “cling to God and guns.” McCain unwaveringly supports the Second Amendment.

5. McCain has deviated from his party’s conservative base on several occasions (McCain-Feingold Bill, Gang of 14, McCain-Kennedy Bill, opposition to torture). Obama has voted the left-wing line every single time, and been designated the most liberal Senator in Congress.

6. Obama is willing to meet with hostile state leaders like Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez without preconditions. McCain will set conditions first, talk later — maybe.

7. Obama is married to a bitter, angry lawyer who became “proud” of her country for the first time this year. McCain’s wife is a beer heiress who founded an organization to provide MASH-style units to disaster-torn world regions. Did I mention that she’s a beer heiress?

8. Obama supports higher taxes for a government-run nanny state that will coddle all Americans like babies. McCain trusts people to spend their less-taxed money however they wish.

9. The name John McCain sounds like “John McClain,” the action hero played by Bruce Willis in the manly Die Hard series. “Barack Obama” sounds like the kind of elitist villain John McClain has to outwit and defeat.
10. McCain is endorsed by Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Obama gets support from Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, and every weenie in Hollywood. Plus, Susan Sarandon has vowed to leave the country if McCain gets elected. Case closed.

McCain on Obama's trip to Iraq

Obama is finally going to Iraq. Unfortunately, he continues to push his withdraw (i.e. surrender) in 16 months that military professionals say is logistically impossible. Reminiscent of "1984" Obama scrubbed his web site, no longer calling the Iraq conflict a civil war. It's too bad he can't say "McCain was right and I was wrong--the surge worked."

McCain continued to hammer Obama today, saying "In my experience, fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around: first you assess the facts on the ground, then you present a new strategy."

Victor Davis Hanson on BHO

Victor Davis Hansen is a writer and military historian. Today he writes:

I think McCain will incrementally continue to close the lead for four reasons:

The hope and change rock-start moments are waning, and replaced by a new Obama composite:

1) Obama flips in furious fashion; the only controversy is over when the mutations will stop, and how well he can convince his base that they are only cosmetic adjustments of limited duration necessary for election and the implementation of their shared European-like agenda.

2) Obama is proving messianic; all the lectures about fainting, the Brandenburg Gate, his new seal, open-air address in Denver, oceans receding, etc. are cementing a portrait of a megalomaniac. Almost everyone has by now "disappointed", or "disrespected" Obama, or is not the fellow prophet that Obama "knew," "remembers", or "recalls". His sermons on our SUVs, lack of language fluency, diet etc. are as hypocritical as they are sophomoric, and confirm Michelle's summation of the rest of us as "unaware, uninformed."

3) Obama is ruthless — the numbers of those thrown under the bus — Wright, his grandmother, Ms. Power, former aides — are now resembling speed bumps. This is not unusual in politics, but contradicts the Sermon on the Mount imagery, and confirms the past narrative of his take-no-prisoners political ambitions.

4) Obama has a poor grasp of history, geography, American culture, and common sense — whether the number or location of states in the Union, basic facts about WWII or where Arabic is spoken, or his sociological take on Pennsylvania, etc. His advisors realize this, and are playing 4th-quarter defense by keeping him out of ex tempore, non tele-prompted hope and change venues, where his shallowness can manifest itself in astonishing ways.

The result of these trends is to sow doubt in the American electorate about an otherwise charismatic and electrifying candidate in a year tailor-made for Democrats. In itself, the fissures in the Obama porcelain are not enough for McCain to win: he must focus his message on four or five issues — winning the war on terror, the radical change in Iraq that promises victory, cutting spending and reducing American debt, developing traditional energies in a can-do fashion, as we transition to electric, solar, wind, hydrogen, flex, green etc. power, and closing the border now-discussing the contentious issues later — as he contrasts these with the amorphous always changing opportunism of Obama. He can't do that via dueling set-speeches; he doesn't do as well on the teleprompter and the media will always amplify that in their selection of clips. But in town-halls, the debates, and in interviews, he can draw the distinctions. The longer the campaign, the more it benefits the older candidate rather than the vigorous, but green youngster.

Iran missile photoshop

It looks like Iran photoshopped their latest missile launch. Great pictures of other photoshops at wired.com.

Obama tidbits

Interesting post by Kevin McCullough, who says that there are two types of households: (1) people who fly the flag on the 4th of July, and (2) people who put Obama signs outside of their houses. There is hardly any overlap!

Obama showed his ignorance about national security matters again today, saying that he would direct the Joint Chiefs of Staff to withdraw US troops from Iraq. Surely he should know that the Goldwater-Nichols act made the Joint Chiefs an advisory body, and that troops are directed through "combatant commands" up to the Secretary of Defense. It would be truly shocking to have such a neophyte as commander in chief. Dean Barnett has more details at the Weekly Standard's blog.

Noticed a good post on National Review online, saying that McCain really has to work hard to get Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, and probably needs Ohio to win. Michael Novak suggests John Kasich as VP, and Kasich would be a good choice.

Now the Dems are criticizing McCain's war record?

Wesley Clark said that McCain's experience "riding in an airplane" did not qualify him to be President? Is flying 23 missions over Vietnam and then being shot down count as "riding?" This line of attack will completely backfire--it only serves to highlight Obama's lack of experience in military matters.

This n That

Big things happening with my job situation. More details later, but let me just say it looks like an interesting opportunity may be coming my way.

Hot as heck here in NoVa, but typical for this time of year.

K. returned from a week at the beach with her friends.

Hideki Matsui's knee put him on the Yankees disabled list, so I essentially blew uup my fantasy baseball team. I could not afford to hold onto Matsui indefinitely, so I picked up David Murphy from the Rangers. Benched Lester, activated Harang, dropped Reynolds, Glaus, picked up Cantu, Gordon. Currently tied for sixth in a ten-team league.

Denver or St. Paul?

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Democratic National Convention issued the following mandates:


No fried food. And, on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white." (Garnishes don't count.) At least 70% of ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel burned during transportation.


The DNC has also ordered baseball caps made of organic cotton by unionized labor and will use "biofuel made from beer waste to power the convention's fleet of flex-fuel vehicles," according to the Journal.

Denver's mayor John Hickenlooper says that the Democrats' green convention is a display of "the new patriotism".

One wonders what Mayor Hickenlooper must think about the patriotism of Republicans gathering in Minnesota. The St. Paul city council has voted in favor permitting bars to close at 4 a.m. during the Republican National Convention, and the RNC spokemsan says Republicans will be "drinking our beer, not burning it."

And what will the Democratic food police think of all the Republicans heading to Minnesota State Fair, where gluttons will be chowing down a few deep fried Twinkies, or, for those preferring lighter fare, deep fried cheese curds and a pork chop on a stick?

I, for one, would rather be in St. Paul.

More Obama flip-flops

Now Obama has flip-flopped on guns, saying that he supports the Supreme Court decision, after previously saying that he supported the D.C. gun ban. You can add that to previous flip-flops on campaign finance, NAFTA, and the death penalty. You can't trust anything the guy says. Instead, watch what he has DONE, like voting against the well-qualified judge Roberts and Alito for the Supreme Court. If Roberts and Alito are not qualified, what types of judges ARE qualified?

Bill Bennett on Obama

Bill Bennett has 10 concerns about Obama at nationalreview.com. Here is an excerpt:

1. Barack Obama’s foreign policy is dangerous, naïve, and betrays a profound misreading of history. For at least the past five years, Democrats and liberals have said our standing in the international community has suffered from a “cowboy” or “go-it-alone” foreign policy. While politicians with favorable views of our president have been elected in Germany, Italy, France, and elsewhere, Barack Obama is giving cause to make our allies even more nervous. This past Sunday’s Washington Post reported, “European officials are increasingly concerned that Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to begin direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program without preconditions could potentially rupture U.S. relations with key European allies early in a potential Obama administration.”

Barack Obama’s stance toward Iran is as troubling as it is dangerous. By stating and maintaining that he would negotiate with Iran, “without preconditions,” and within his first year of office, he will give credibility to, and reward for his intransigence, the head of state of the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism. Such a meeting will also undermine and send the exact wrong signal to Iranian dissidents. And, he will lower the prestige of the office of the president: In his own words he stated, “If we think that meeting with the president is a privilege that has to be earned, I think that reinforces the sense that we stand above the rest of the world at this point in time.” Not only has his stance toward Iran caused concern among our allies in Europe, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton called it, “Irresponsible and frankly naïve.”

McCain's town halls

Time magazine has a good article this week on how McCain does well at "town hall" meetings, at which he takes questions from audience members. Obama has refused to appear at this type of forum, except at one on July 4, at which no one will be watching. Obama does better at scripted events--showing that he does nothing more that give a scripted speech.

I read some VP speculation today that suggests that my friend and old classmate Tim Pawlenty is a front-runner for the Republican VP nomination. I can personally vouch that Tim would be an excellent VP choice for McCain.

Fred Thompson on Obama and enemy detainees

Earlier this week, Senator Fred Thompson held a press conference on the Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision and the reaction to it from Barack Obama. Afterwards, the Obama campaign dug up a quote from Senator Thompson in which he said that Osama bin Laden should get “due process” as a defense for Obama’s support of Boumediene — which shows that Obama doesn’t understand the decision or due process. Senator Thompson responds publicly and exclusively at Hot Air:
Our Democratic friends are once again scrambling to defend Senator Obama’s latest national security gaffe.
Obama supports the recent Supreme Court majority opinion in the Boumediene decision, which extended for the first time habeas corpus rights to foreign enemy combatants held abroad. The Senator went even further than the Court and said that accused terrorists should be tried in American courts as was Omar Abdel Rahman, “the blind sheik”, who masterminded the first World Trade Center bombing.
Last week, in a call with reporters and bloggers, I pointed out Obama’s folly. The Rahman case demonstrates some of the main reasons why we should not treat enemy combatants as ordinary criminal defendants. Such proceedings potentially compromise results, sources and methods of intelligence gathering. In the course of prosecuting Rahman, the government was compelled to turn over a list of un-indicted co-conspirators to the defendant. That list included the name of Osama bin Laden. We later learned that within ten days a copy of that list reached bin Laden in Khartoum, letting him know that his connection to that case had been discovered.
My comments apparently caused the DNC to send out an A.P.B. for anything that might help their candidate out of this problem. Their “Googling” efforts revealed the fact that last year I pointed out that bin Laden would have to be given due process when he is apprehended.
Given that our Democrat friends apparently don’t understand what “due process” means for enemy combatants. They thought they had found a silver bullet for their candidate. For them, my statement supports Obama’s argument for terrorist trials in United States courts.
Of course, it doesn’t. Under several centuries of British and U.S. law, enemy combatants, especially those who are foreign combatants, do not have the same rights as American citizens. This does not mean that they cannot be given certain rights. In 2005, under the Detainee Treatment Act, Congress provided enemy combatants arrested and held abroad with certain procedural rights, such as the right to detention hearings where they may call and cross examine witnesses, etc. It was the due process to which all such prisoners were entitled at the time of my statement last year.
This is a far cry from a trial in a United States court, which Senator Obama would grant them.
The military tribunal process which the Supreme Court threw out last week provided more “due process” to enemy unlawful combatants than any which preceded it — and certainly more than Obama’s oft-cited Nuremberg trials, which provided neither habeas corpus nor any appeals whatsoever. Barack Obama may want to study Nuremberg before using it as an example, because all it proves is how wrong he is.

Afghan Prison Break

From today's Wall Street Journal:

The Supreme Court ruled last Thursday that the writ of habeas corpus should apply to non-American terrorist detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. The Taliban delivered its own commentary on the ruling the very next day, when it busted into a prison in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and freed 1,150 prisoners, of whom 400 are Taliban members and the other 750 easy potential conscripts. Call it habeas corpus, Taliban-style.

The connection between these events is not merely their timing. The point of keeping enemy combatants at a remote location like Guantanamo is that it offers some assurance that they will not return to the battlefield to kill more Americans – something many have done when given the chance. Yet last week's Boumediene decision makes it all but certain that Gitmo will soon be shutting (or should we say opening) its doors.

The High Court's 5-4 decision will also likely bear on the "rights" that captured enemy combatants will now try to claim when detained by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan and other theaters in the war on terror. As a result, the U.S. military is likely to transfer an increasing number of captured terrorists to local prison authorities, if only to avoid the endless judicial landmines it can expect trying to win convictions in U.S. court.

Fantasies about "torture" at Guantanamo notwithstanding, we have yet to meet the person who thinks the rights of the detainees are better assured in their native lands, whether that's Afghanistan, Egypt, China or even France (recently listed by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the five worst places in the world to be a terrorist). As for security, the Kandahar prison break is not the Taliban's first, and it won't be its last. To the extent that the Supreme Court has made secure detentions more difficult, it has made the task of our troops more dangerous.

Happy Father's Day

to all the fathers out there. Did you know that John McCain's father and grandfather were Navy admirals, and that McCain's son attends the Naval Academy, the fourth generation John S. McCain to do so?

"One Minute to Midnight"

I'm reading "One Minute to Midnight," a new book on the Cuban Missile Crisis by Michael Dobbs. It is a great book, and has a lot of previously undisclosed photos and information. Highly recommended.

McCain: Guantanamo decision "one of the worst in history"

John McCain today slammed the US Supreme Court ruling that terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay have a constitutional right to challenge their detention in civilian courts.
At a town hall meeting in Pemberton, N.J., McCain called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”
While McCain reminded voters that he has worked to prevent the torture of terrorism suspects, he also argued against giving those rights to enemy combatants who are not US citizens. ….
“There are some bad people down there,” he said, adding that the first obligation of the government is to ensure the nation’s safety. “This decision will harm our ability to do that.”
McCain also warned that the courts will be “flooded” with habeas corpus petitions, delaying the adjudication of the cases.

He's right, especially the last sentence.

Samuelson on Obama

Robert Samuelson had a good column this week. He wrote that he is for McCain for the simple reason that with the Democrats likely to hold both houses of Congress, it is important to have a Republican in the White House to check the excesses of a Democratic Congress. I agree with that.

The Supreme Court came out with their Guantanamo decision today, saying that persons detained at Guantanamo have a right to petition federal courts for a writ of habeas corpus. This is a disturbing decision, for the first time holding that combatants detained on foreign soil have a right to petition federal courts for their release. Justice Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts dissented, with Scalia bluntly stating that this decision will cause the death of Americans. Justice Roberts also wrote that this will prolong the proceedings, because it adds a level of review (the district court) between the Combatant Status Review and the federal appeals court. This will harm any persons wrongfully detained (because things will take longer), and harm the country as to persons properly detained, because many dollars and hours will need to be expended to keep them detained.

Dan McLaughlin writes that this will lead the administration to transfer detainees to other countries, and he may be right.

Bill Bennett on Obama

"The Democratic party is about to nominate a far left candidate in the tradition of George McGovern, albeit without McGovern’s military and political record. The Democratic party is about to nominate a far-left candidate in the tradition of Michael Dukakis, albeit without Dukakis’s executive experience as governor. The Democratic party is about to nominate a far left candidate in the tradition of John Kerry, albeit without Kerry’s record of years of service in the Senate. The Democratic party is about to nominate an unvetted candidate in the tradition of Jimmy Carter, albeit without Jimmy Carter’s religious integrity as he spoke about it in 1976. Questions about all these attributes (from foreign policy expertise to executive experience to senatorial experience to judgment about foreign leaders to the instructors he has had in his cultural values) surround Barack Obama. And the Democratic party has chosen him."

Obama is afraid of what he might see in Iraq

Obama has only been to Iraq once, briefly, in 2006. McCain has been there many times. McCain has offered to travel to Iraq with Obama to see developments on the ground. Obama has rejected the offer. What is Obama afraid of? He is afraid that the signs of progress will be undeniable, and this does not fit into his world view.

Dan McLaughlin summarized this well, in a post entitled "Barack Obama is afraid of what he might see in Iraq."

Obama, the flag, and Bill Ayers

We may now understand why Barack does not wear a flag lapel pin. He's afraid that Bill Ayers will stomp on him.

--quoting Larry Johnson.

McCain v. Obama on judges

I agree with Jennifer Rubin, who wrote the following today on the "Contentions" blog:

In the back and forth between John McCain and the Democrats over today’s speech on judges, Barack Obama’s campaign chief uttered this unintentionally incriminating comment:

Barack Obama has always believed that our courts should stand up for social and economic justice, and what’s truly elitist is to appoint judges who will protect the powerful and leave ordinary Americans to fend for themselves.
Actually, judges aren’t supposed to stand up for some poorly defined notion of social–let alone economic–justice. The job of federal court judges is to interpret the Constitution and statutes. As for letting people “fend for themselves,” there are two other branches of government out there (you’ve heard of them, maybe?) which spend quite a bit of time attempting to achieve social fairness and practicing economic redistribution.

So, if McCain’s staffers were smart, they’d respond to David Axelrod’s confession that his boss believes in judicial imperialism with: “See, told you so.”

The Burma Cyclone

Burma was hit by a cyclone. I call it Burma because the military dictatorship renamed it Myanmar.

The first question is, why was it so devastating? In part, because the military dictatorship does not allow people to move or live where they want. It also because the government did not give them any warning.

The next question is, how can aid effectively be given? Worldvision and Save the Children are good organizations, but they are dependent on the Burmese government for visas and they must work through the United Nations. As we have seen in the past, it often requires the U.S. Navy to provide effective aid.

Stuff White People Like

I found a hilarious new web site: stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com.

McCain Veepstakes

Dan McLaughlin of Baseball Crank and Redstate wrote a good column on McCain vice presidential picks. Because it is so good, and because I agree with it, I hope he does not mind if I reproduce it:

The hottest topic in Republican circles, ever since John McCain iced the nomination, is who he should pick as his running mate. There are many interesting names floated, and McCain will have good reason to make a show of talking to a bunch of candidates for the job, as a way of courting different groups and party leaders and feeling out people who might end up with other jobs in his Administration.

But realistically, there are a number of constraints on what kind of candidate McCain can or should pick. The Vice Presidency isn't like other appointments, since he or she is independently elected and can't be fired. And McCain's choice will be of particular significance for a few reasons. First, because of his age, voters will want more assurance than usual that his running mate is ready to step into the job at a moment's notice. Second, also because of McCain's age, he's seen as less likely to serve two terms; his running mate, win or lose in 2008, will have a leg up to be the heir apparent in 2012. And third, many conservatives are unhappy with McCain as the party leader, and want to see that the moderates have not taken permanent control of the party.

Let's start with the Don'ts, which will be especially important in this process. I'm not saying that McCain will necessarily follow these rules, but he should and I suspect he will. And I'm not saying that it's impossible that he will take someone who breaks them, but it will be a very heavy burden to overcome, and probably fatal for anyone who violates more than one of them. (This list is not necessarily presented in any particular order of importance).

1. No Senators: In every presidential election year, many Senators don the red shirt
and run for the White House, but only two sitting Senators have been elected President, Harding and Kennedy, for a variety of reasons - Senators aren't executives, they vote too much and govern too little, and they tend to speak their own arcane language ("I voted for it before I voted against it"). With approval ratings for Congress at or near all-time lows (Congress, with a 13% approval rating, is less popular even than President Bush, at 34%), putting a Senator on the national ticket would be a bad idea. It's too late, of course, to avoid the fact that both parties will nonetheless be nominating sitting Senators in 2008, but at least McCain can take someone who isn't yet another Senator to balance out the ticket. Also, with the Senate's partisan balance so delicate, taking an incumbent out of the Senate - even one who can be replaced by an appointed Republican - will force the GOP to work still harder to maintain its foothold in the upper chamber.

Could McCain choose someone from the House? Possibly, but it still means the downsides of a Senator's association with the current Beltway conditions, and without the gravitas and name recognition the Senate enjoys.

2. No Bushies: After 8 years of any president, the public wants a new team in place; with Bush's approval ratings in the dumps, and particularly given that those low approval ratings are driven so heavily by unhappiness with Bush's executive management during his second term, especially Hurricane Katrina, the management of the Iraq War and lower-level screwups such as former Attorney General Gonzales' mishandling of what should have been a routine decision to remove a number of U.S. Attorneys, McCain needs a clean break from anyone seen as being part of Bush's management team. That means no Condi Rice, whatever her other virtues as a candidate - McCain's been arguing for five years against parts of the Administration's approach in Iraq, and regardless of the merits of those arguments he couldn't well turn around and pick Bush's single closest foreign policy advisor. It also means no Chris Cox, even if he'd be a fine pick for many of the reasons Quin Hillyer identified in early March; with the collapse of Bear Stearns, Cox has also had a recent education in why being the SEC Chairman is a better way to become a scapegoat than to advance to higher office. And it probably means no Rob Portman, either; while the former six-term Congressman's popularity back home in Ohio will earn him a serious consideration, and while his tenure as Bush's Trade Representative and then Budget Director hasn't made him a high-profile Administration figure, and while most of the grievances with Bush's spending policies predate Portman's tenure at OMB, the simple fact of haling from the Bush White House probably counsels against taking Portman.

3. No Old Retired Guys: McCain's age is a double-edged sword, as it does help him connect with older voters, while alienating young voters who are more interested in "cool" and "change" than understanding the actual requirements of the job. Either way, it would be folly to exacerbate the old-graybeard image by adding a candidate who is old, bald and recently pulled out of mothballs like Fred Thompson or Phil Gramm. An active governor like 66-year-old Don Carcieri might not have the same problem, but I'd still bet on someone with some non-white hair left.

4. No Rookies: On the other end of the spectrum, a large part of McCain's argument, especially against Obama, will be that McCain is experienced, battle-tested, and ready to take the now-proverbial 3 a.m. phone call. But as I noted above, given his age, he'll be undercutting that argument if his running mate doesn't also clearly pass that 3 a.m. test - and that means no first-term Governors or Senators, no Lieutenant Governors or state legislators, no business people without government experience. It has to be someone who has more experience and credibility than the Democrats' presidential nominee.

5. No Novice Politicians: This is a similar but related issue, and trips up people like Rice and Colin Powell who might pass the test for foreign policy credibility: the Obama campaign of late has been yet another illustration of why and how inexperienced politicians get in trouble trying to run national campaigns - there's too much new stuff to come out, they don't do damage control well, they react badly when people throw rotten fruit and the kitchen sink at them. McCain will need someone who knows how to stand in and take it in the closing months of a tense campaign.

6. No Pro-Choicers: McCain, unlike Rudy Giuliani, has been able to pass all the minimal-acceptability thresholds for social conservatives, particularly pro-lifers. But social conservatives remain uneasy with him, and he can't afford significant defections from his base if he is going into a difficult fight in the fall. The one thing that's certain to set off a huge and ugly battle within the party is taking someone who supports legal abortion.

Rudy, had he won the nomination, would have needed an especially vigorous pro-lifer as his running mate; McCain doesn't have to go that far, but he does need a running mate who is at least meets the same minimal standards of trust with pro-lifers. That rules out open pro-choicers; it also rules out people whose views on this crucial issue are simply unknown or not fully formed.

7. No Iraq War Opponents: McCain's signature issue in this campaign has been his steadfast support for the Iraq War. McCain can and possibly should take someone who has criticized aspects of the war-fighting strategy and tactics employed over the past 5 years, as he has; but it would create an impossible muddling of McCain's message to have a running mate who opposed or came to oppose the war.

8. No Democrats: I like Joe Lieberman as much as the next guy, and would trust him to be the next Commander-in-Chief...but the presidency isn't only about foreign policy. McCain still needs Republican votes to win, and - again with the age factor - while many Republicans would be happy to see a Democrat like Lieberman in the right job in a McCain Administration (i.e., in a job whose responsibilities are limited to his areas of agreement with McCain), the Vice Presidency has to go to someone Republicans could get behind as a president.

9. No Closeted Gays: There's not a real good way to say this, but...well, if you look at the publicly floated lists of potential running mates on both the Republican and Democratic sides you see some people who have long been rumored to be gay. I have no inside insight or information about any such people; I can only know the rumors, but I assume the people vetting the candidates are better suited to get at the truth. I do know this: whether or not you believe America is ready for an openly gay candidate on the national ticket, it would be a complete political catastrophe for either party (albeit for different reasons) to pick a closeted candidate who then gets forcibly 'outed' during the stretch run of a national campaign - and you'd be a fool to bet against that happening (I discussed a similar issue here). For the GOP in particular, after the Larry Craig and Mark Foley fiascoes, this would be the equivalent of sticking your face on a land mine and hoping nothing bad happens.

10. No Lobbyists: As a general rule, "lobbyists" is one of those words that when you hear a politician use it, you can be sure that the entire sentence containing the word is utter baloney. That said, this campaign season has seen more than the usual blather about lobbyists, and McCain and his more likely opponent, Obama, both like to posture about separating themselves from the whole DC lobbying scene ... I just can't see McCain choosing a running mate who has actually worked as a lobbyist at any point, like Fred Thompson or Haley Barbour.

11. No 2006 Losers: You sometimes see people throw around names of various Republicans who got voted out of office in 2006. To be blunt: give it up. When you start trying to figure out how to turn around the GOP's setbacks in the last election and how potential running mates could help McCain, you're not going to choose anybody who lost their last election, especially not just two years ago.

12. No Perennial Short-Listers: This might be called the Jack Kemp category - there are certain people in Republican politics (mainly former House members like Cox, John Kasich, and JC Watts) who have been mentioned continually for years and years for higher posts: Senate, Governor, Vice President, federal judge, high Cabinet posts - and somehow never end up in the race. There's usually a reason for that. Sometimes, it means the guy has skeletons in the closet, sometimes it means he lacks the "fire in the belly," ... whatever the reason, discount rumors about people who have been passed over many times before.

13. No New Mothers: OK, this is a one-candidate category, but Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gave birth less than a month ago, and her fifth child has Down's Syndrome - even leaving aside her relatively short resume in office, no way you take a new mother, let alone one with that family situation, and put her on the national campaign trail a thousand miles from home. She'll have to wait for the next cycle.

14. No Dynasties: No Jeb Bush, no Liddy Dole. The American people are just ready to move on, at least for now; McCain needs a second different name on his ticket, after the GOP running a Bush or Dole on the national ticket in every election since 1976.

15. No Affirmative Action Candidates: With Obama or possibly Hillary as the opponent, there will be a lot of sentiment for McCain picking a female or minority-group running mate. All things being equal, that would be a great idea, and indeed the GOP has a number of candidates who at first blush would seem to meet one or another of the job requirements - but when you start ticking off the list above, most of the possible candidates fall by the wayside, at least for this election cycle until the next generation of candidates is ready.

If voters vote on identity politics instead of qualifications, McCain loses. His argument has to be that you don't vote for groups, you vote for people who can do the job. I'd love to see him with a non-white-male running mate, but if it's someone who doesn't seem to be qualified for the job, he'll just look like he's desperate to mimic the other side. And that's always a losing strategy.

Now, the Do's - none of these are as litmus-test critical as the Don'ts, but they are also important considerations:

1. Executive Experience: Successful presidential candidates almost always have it - but McCain doesn't. It will help greatly if he has a running mate who can demonstrate the ability to run something larger than a Senate Committee.

2. Outside the Beltway: Like #1, this points to a Governor: Washington's unpopular right now, moreso even than usual; bringing in someone untainted by the current mess in DC will help, even if it's someone like Mark Sanford who was once a Congressman years ago.

3. Swing Stater: Historically, it's hard to measure the impact of a VP choice, but it's generally thought that a candidate who is popular in his or her home state can help deliver that state, and in a closely divided election, swinging a single mid-size state can be a big plus. That argues in favor of Portman (Ohio) or Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, and against Sanford or against candidates from deep blue states like California or Rhode Island. On the other hand, while I'm in the camp that thinks the GOP has had trouble with the perception outside the South that the party has become too Southern, I think McCain is sufficiently non-Southern himself that he doesn't need to avoid a Southerner (and might even benefit from one).

4. Yes, It's The Economy: Historically, McCain hasn't been at his best addressing economic issues; it would help a lot to have a running mate who can talk about bread-and-butter issues with credibility and persuasiveness, rather than taking another national security professional.

One odder consideration that has focused attention on Mitt Romney in particular is the issue of money, of which McCain has far less than Obama. But as Brad Smith has explained, with public financing McCain should actually be in good shape for the general election campaign after the conventions, so the money issue is more time-sensitive - he needs cash now.

I'll get back another day to who this leaves as alternatives, but if you are guessing that I think Sanford and Pawlenty remain the logical frontrunners, the only two guys who really sweep through all the check boxes unscathed, you are right - but while I wasn't ready to back Romney as a presidential candidate, he also should not be ruled out of the veepstakes, as there's no one consideration that really knocks him out, either.

Taranto on Obama

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal writes:

So, was Obama sincere? Did he spent 20 years as an intimate of Wright and a parishioner of his church without ever having an inkling that the guy is a wacko hatemonger?

If so, can you think of anything more terrifying than sending such a naïf to the White House while there's a war on?

More on Obama/Wright

After 20 years of friendship, if Obama didn’t know Wright held these beliefs he’s a moron and if he did know he’s a fraud.

The Wright Speech and "Carrier" on PBS

Obama's pastor, Rev. Wright, gave a speech today at the National Press club. Not only did he not disavow his incendiary statements ("God Damn America, 9/11 were chickens coming home to roost, the U.S. government caused AIDS, friendliness with Farrakhan"), he reaffirmed them. It is becoming quite clear to people that we cannot have Obama as President if he spent 20 years in this congregation without disavowing this hate-filled rhetoric. Far from bringing this country together, Obama is showing himself to be one more person who believes that race trumps everything.

Compare this to the Navy sailors on the PBS series "Carrier" this week. They have shown that they can get along and get important work done no matter their race, color, or creed. We need more Americans like the sailors on the USS Nimitz and fewer like Rev. Wright.

Fantasy baseball update

The bad news: Injuries to Rollins, Victorino, Willis, and Kendrick.

The good news: Picking up Pedroia, getting Saunders in a trade for a San Fran closer, and in my best trade, getting Damon for Andruw Jones before his value dropped to zero. I'm currently in fifth out of ten.

Obama and Ayres

Andy McCarthy, as usual, nails it:

Here in 2008, the point is not that we should hold Obama accountable for “detestable acts” Ayers committed decades ago.

It’s that the vision which drove Ayers to savagery back then — a revolutionary vision “progressives” have vaporously relabeled “social justice” — is the same vision to which he still clings: the vision of a racist, imperious, exploitative America in need of upheaval. A vision we have every reason to think Obama, the Agent of Change, shares.

In the alternative, you could, I suppose, just tell yourself that Obama — a star at Harvard Law School who has risen like a meteor to a seat in the United States Senate and the verge of his party’s presidential nomination — somehow managed the feat despite being utterly clueless. Perhaps he looks at Ayers and really does see an English teacher, looks at Wright and sees only your average Christian pastor.

The question then becomes, are you comfortable with a president who looks at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and thinks, “Oh yeah, he’s that engineering student who was mayor of Tehran”?

Time fights carbon emissions; military fights evil

The cover on the current issue of Time magazine offends me. To use an image from the Battle of Iwo Jima and compare it to the fight against global warming is deeply offensive.

Dennis Prager wrote a good column today: He called the Time cover cheap heroism. It is a liberal attempt to depict as equally heroic those who fight carbon emissions and those who fight fascists and Nazis. What is sad is that we are currently fighting a totalitarian enemy--Islamic totalitarianism--and the liberals have gone AWOL from this fight.

Finally, the real Obama

Obama recently remarked at a San Francisco fund-raiser that small-town Pennsylvania voters, bitter over their economic circumstances, “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustrations.

Talk about elitist and out-of-touch. Pennsylvanians don't "cling to guns" out of bitterness--hunting is a way of life there. They don't "cling to religion"--they worship God. They don't have "antipathy to people who aren't like them"--they just want the immigration laws enforced.

The real Obama has come out. He is an elitist snob, more comfortable in the academies of Chicago and Harvard than Altoona, Pennsylvania. He associates himself with radicals like the racist Reverend Wright, '60s radicals, and woolly-headed San Francisco liberals. He combines the worst qualities of Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry, and Adlai Stevenson. Such a man cannot be commander-in-chief.

Oh, and the economy in Pennsylvania is not that bad--its unemployment rate is at or below the national average. I suppose it only looks that way when your wife has a $300,000 job with the University of Chicago (the raise coming after a Obama sent a grant Chicago's way) and she has "never been proud of America".

A Beautiful Mind

Via blogger Anchoress, I came across this amazing video.

Nationals game

Jim C. invited David and I to a game at the new Nationals Park. Here are some pictures.

Capitals to playoffs?

The will be if they win or lose in overtime tonight (they get two points for a win, and one point for an overtime loss). They will be out if they lose.

Currently they are ahead 1-0 after the first period. The acquisition of Christobal Huet has really been a boon for the Capitals--he has been in goal for the Caps six-game winning streak, and in goal for wins in 8 of the last nine games.

This 'n' That

Didn't get the promotion I was seeking. They decided (again) to pick a candidate from outside the agency. I'm a little disappointed, but that's the way it goes. I am still a candidate for the Deputy General Counsel position.

Michael Barone wrote the best column of the day in U.S. News, explaining how Obama has done better where there are lots of academics and government employees, and Clinton has done better in "Jacksonian" areas where there tends to be a lot of support for the military. "Jacksonian" voters, frequently Scots-Irish and concentrated in states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, tend to want government to stay off their backs, but want to fight fiercely if family or country is attacked. That is whay Rev. Wright's "God Damn America" carries so much resonance--academics hear it every day on college campuses, but Jacksonian voters see it as an assault on everything they hold dear. Patriotism may yet be Obama's Achilles heel--he refuses to wear a flag lapel, allegedly did not salute the flag, his wife has never been proud of America until this year, and there is a real question if Obama will FIGHT for America against our enemies. Barone goes on to say that McCain carries a real appeal for these "Jacksonian" Democrats.

The Capitals continue their playoff push tonight. They have won five in a row and nine of their last ten, but still need a win tonight and Saturday to stay in the playoff hunt.

I am in last place in my fantasy league, primarily due to a poor team batting average, but I am confident that this will get better in time.

Pitching staff

I shored up my pitching staff by adding Bronson Arroyo of the Reds and Gil Meche of the Royals. Arroyo was filthy good against the Twins yesterday. Meche is a little more questionable because he pitches for Kansas City, but he does pitch twice next week. Jon Lester is available, but I am concerned about his uneven performance, particularly his performance in the Japan game.

Fantasy baseball

I drafted my fantasy baseball team last night. It is the fourth year for the league I am in. Here are my players:

B Molina
R Hernandez
J Morneau
H Kendrick
G Atkins
J Rollins
H Matsui
G Sizemore
A Jones
S Victorino
M Ordonez
M Kemp
A Gordon
T Percival
P Hughes
A Harang
R Oswalt
F Cordero
B Wagner
D McGowan
D Willis
B Webb


It is a ten team league with 10-1 points awarded for each of ten categories: batting average, runs, home runs, rbis, stolen bases, wins, saves, strikeouts, whip, and era. As I see it, my team is pretty good, but could use another strikeout pitcher. More to come on that.

Also tonight, the Capitals won in overtime, keeping pace with Boston for the last playoff spot.

Sorry I haven't posted

Went to Italy for a week. It was fun! Went to Rome, Florence, Siena, Venice, Naples, and Pompeii.

Now watching the Capitals as they push for a playoff spot.