MONDAY,  FEBRUARY 18,  2008

Where in the world is Zbig Brzezinski?

•   I think we're one of the few outlets covering this, but there's a mystery involving the Obama campaign that should be solved.  It was reported a few weeks ago that Zbig Brzezinski, one of Obama's chief foreign-policy advisers, had gone off to Syria as part of a Rand Corporation group.  Presumably, this was neither a vacation nor an attempt to burn up frequent-flyer miles before they expire.  When asked, an Obama spokesman said the campaign wasn't aware of the trip.  Eyebrows were raised.  Syria is an enemy country, and Obama, not Brzezinski, is the boss.

We were then told not to worry, that Zbig was also visiting Israel, and that this was no big deal.  Well, okay, maybe.

Very maybe.  It turns out that Bzezinski, mysteriously, never showed up in Israel.  The U.S. correspondent for the Israel paper Ha'aretz writes:

Actually Brzezinski didn't show up. He was "recalled to the U.S." The U.S. ambassador put together a group of Israelis to meet with the Rand board, and everyone was there, but Brzezinski.

Recalled?  Who recalled him?  The man doesn't work for a government - yet.  I regard this as an important story.  It goes to the way Obama runs his operation, and the people he's selected to advise him.  Brzezinski was the failed national-security adviser to the pathetic Jimmy Carter.  What's he even doing working for a presidential candidate?  Why did he go to an enemy country without informing that candidate?  Did the campaign bring him back before he made a fool of himself?

Answers?  Questions?  Something?

On Wisconsin!  Well, yes and no.

•   Wisconsin votes tomorrow, but there's a real absence of last-minute campaign news from the state, and, at this hour, no final polls. (It's 5:13 a.m., EST. I just want to show you how I suffer for my readers.)

The Wisconsin Democratic primary is made for spinning.  On the one hand, If Obama wins, as seems likely, he can say that he's won in a northern industrial state which should be Clinton territory.  If Clinton even comes close, she can say that she's stopping Obama's momentum.  Both are correct.  It's also correct that this is another case where Clinton's poorly run campaign has hurt her.  Taking Wisconsin should have been a priority.  She's throwing all her energy into Ohio and Texas, and the latest polls show her solidly ahead in both states, which vote in two weeks.  Look, she could be a political genius, for all I know.  If she takes those states, the dynamic changes. 

In my view, the way Clinton pulls this out is to picture herself as the long-distance runner, the candidate who can go the distance with John McCain.  Now, here's where a curious aspect of sexual politics comes into play.  McCain's main argument is that he's Mr. National Security.  He's tough.  He'll stand up to the Islamofascists.  You'd think that the Democrats would be wise to put another man against him to counter the picture.  The problem is, Obama's image is soft, left-wing, a bring-us-together type.  Hillary doesn't have the need to prove she's a "tough guy."  She's tough by reputation.  I recall someone's description of Golda Meir, the late prime minister of Israel, as the best man in the Israeli government.  That's Hillary's argument - that she can be as tough as McCain on security, yet caring about domestic concerns. 

That, however, is a general-election argument, and won't do a thing for Clinton with the leftist primitives who run the Democratic Party.  She's got to project that image of toughness, of the logical candidate to beat McCain, while not turning off the crazies.  Tough road ahead.

He's back, and the world gets cooler. 

•   It is reported by a British newspaper that Al Gore is emerging as a possible power broker in the race for the Democratic nomination.  Hence, our long night begins, but, we hope, it will be moderate in temperature.  The basics:

Al Gore, who lost to George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election, is becoming a key potential power broker in the increasingly bitter battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to win the Democrat nomination.

Gore emerged yesterday as a possible mediator who could negotiate a resolution if the primary campaign ends in a stalemate and has to be decided by the party convention, where divisions are likely to run deep.

The former vice-president, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental campaign, is among a number of party 'elders' who plan to remain neutral in order to keep such an option open, the New York Times reported yesterday.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  They give you a Nobel Prize and suddenly you're an elder.  The aforementioned Jimmy Carter is an elder too, but no one wants to go anywhere near him.  So Gore will show up at the convention and challenge each candidate to present the best plan for windmills.  He will then announce his choice to a waiting world.

It's bad enough being up at this hour.  But there are some stories that just make us want to sleep more.

Europe chooses; we care a great deal.

•   They're taking polls about European choices in our presidential campaign.  I guess we're still important.  After all, I haven't seen any polls taken here about our choices in Norway's campaign. (I prefer the blond-haired guy.)  The continent leans toward Obama, Britain toward Clinton.  The GOP troops don't do as well, understandable in countries where the flag called "entitlement" flies above the national flags.  The Financial Times reports:

The French, Italians, Spanish and Germans would “vote” for Barack Obama in the US presidential elections – although the British would prefer Hillary Clinton.

An FT/Harris poll of more than 5,000 Europeans found that the two Democratic candidates were by far the most popular, with Mr Obama winning between 35 per cent of the “vote” in Spain and 45 per cent in Italy.

More reason to support McCain, unless you're into the wit and wisdom of Spanish socialists.

Opening on the right for McCain

•  One GOP base group that's gotten very little attention recently is the pro-life camp.  The Washington Times reports that they're siding strongly with McCain.  It's hardly a secret that McCain has problems with the right.  This could be his link with the slow-to-love-him party conservatives.  The story:

Pro-lifers are the first part of the conservative base to rally around Sen. John McCain, overcoming past fights to embrace him as strong on their core issue and a clear choice over the two Democrats he could face.

"He is pro-life in his heart of hearts, in my opinion," said Rep. Christopher H. Smith, New Jersey Republican and a pro-life movement leader, who said Mr. McCain's commitment stretches back across decades of votes in the House and Senate.

Though the Arizona senator and all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee doesn't detail his voting record on the campaign trail, an examination reveals a striking opposition to abortion in most of the major fights such as partial-birth abortion down to the smallest of skirmishes, even when he was in a distinct minority.

McCain's strength is his ability to put together a center-right coalition that can counter the center-left bloc the Democrats will try to build.  I suspect there are more voters on the center-right, if they're recruited properly.

Kristol, Kipling, and Orwell - not a law firm.

•   Bill Kristol has, as usual, a stimulating piece in today's New York Times, recalling the sometimes wisdom of Rudyard Kipling and the usual wisdom of George Orwell.  On President's Day, it's a good thing to contemplate the nature of leadership.  Key quote:

Having controlled the executive branch for 28 of the last 40 years, Republicans tend to think of themselves as the governing party — with some of the arrogance and narrowness that implies, but also with a sense of real-world responsibility. Many Democrats, on the other hand, no longer even try to imagine what action and responsibility are like. They do, however, enjoy the support of many refined people who snigger at the sometimes inept and ungraceful ways of the Republicans. (And, if I may say so, the quality of thought of the Democrats’ academic and media supporters — a permanent and, as it were, pensioned opposition — seems to me to have deteriorated as Orwell would have predicted.)

Well worth reading.  The serious piece of the day.

Protect me, O Lord, from those who would protect me.

•  Finally, I am outraged, and I feel betrayed - betrayed by teachers, by journalists, by the law.  I thought, wrongly, that we don't permit cruel and unusual punishment in the United States. Yet, it's apparent that we do.  It now turns out - stunningly reported in The New York Times - that The Nation magazine has cruises where you can go to sea, be trapped on a boat, and listen to...the editors of The Nation magazine, and the people they pick as friends.

Where is Amnesty International?  Where is Human Rights watch?

Read, and suffer with them:

When 460 of the more ardent readers of a 142-year-old leftist weekly get together on a cruise ship, things can be a little topsy-turvy. “It’s like an S.D.S. reunion on the Love Boat,” said a guest speaker, Mary Mapes, the former CBS news producer who helped break the Abu Ghraib story among others, before being fired over her involvement in a “60 Minutes” piece on George W. Bush’s military record.

Yeah, just a "piece," where, as my friends at Power Line pointed out at the time, they used fake documents.  But why mention that and ruin the romance?

Oh, but there's more:

That night after dinner, Charlotte and I joined two other Nationites who were talking with Richard Dreyfuss, the actor-activist, in the Crow’s Nest. His elevated, oratorical style at the seminars had drawn some mixed reviews from the passengers (“He seems like a very needy man,” one told me), but here, after hours, he was all boyish charm. He told us how, the night Marlon Brando died, he himself had been performing in the Broadway theater in which Brando had performed “A Streetcar Named Desire”; Mr. Dreyfuss had the whole audience break out in a rousing chorus of “Stella!” At evening’s end, sometime around midnight, he bid the four of us good night by bowing at the waist; we all instinctively applauded.

Aren't there international treaties that can keep that boat docked?  Doesn't the Navy have need for live torpedo practice?

I'm going to Disney World.

But I'll be back later.

Posted on February 18, 2008.