SUNDAY,  JANUARY 27,  2008

•   Barack Obama has won the South Carolina Democratic primary.  I suspect that, within a few days, this will be a big yawn.  The vote was so lopsidedly racial that it loses all meaning.  The racial divide is an embarrassment to us, but notice how the usual chorus of those who worry about our "image abroad" don't seem to care.  Suddenly, this is democracy at work.

What's pathetic is the attempt by some journalists, belied by all statistics, to prove that Obama showed electoral strength among different groups.   He got 24 percent of the white vote.  He got 80 percent of the black vote.  Simply to show a numerical comparison, Jesse Jackson got 75 percent of the black vote overall in the 1984 primaries, according to The New York Times.  It's possible that, in future contests, Mr. Obama will show wider appeal.  But he didn't show it in South Carolina, and no spin can prove otherwise.

What's also pathetic is the lack of any attempt to get Mr. Obama to provide details about the "change" he wishes to bring.  No tough questions.  No probing of the strange assembly of failures and leftists who serve on his foreign-policy team.  One of his slogans, "Change we can believe in," reminds me of the campaign motto of former Senator Bill Brock of Tennessee:  "Brill Brock believes."  That was it.  Look, in our busy day, who needs more details?  The man is promising change.  Change is good.  Or is it?

Senator Obama delivered a victory speech.  For the most part, it was passable.  It was the standard from-the-pulpit sermon dressed up as political rhetoric.  But Obama also showed the chilling insensitivity he's showed often, and which has been ignored by the mainstream media. Get this quote about the coalition he claims he's built:

They are young and old; rich and poor. They are black and white; Latino and Asian. They are Democrats from Des Moines and Independents from Concord; Republicans from rural Nevada and young people across this country who’ve never had a reason to participate until now. 

Say what?  Young people have never had a reason to participate in politics until Barack Obama came along?  Really?  What about 9/11?  I'd say that was a reason, wouldn't you?  And you know, many young people in fact are participating, but I guess no one mentioned those absentee ballots from Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the end Obama fired forth another of his slogans:  "Yes.  We.  Can."  Yes we can what?  Oh, never mind.

•   And there is more dramatic news to report.  Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President John F. Kennedy, has endorsed Obama for president.  I know this will change your life, and you'll probably want to rename your children.  Oh, you just want to go back to sleep?  That's okay, too.  It's Sunday.

The endorsement is a surprise.  Caroline has generally conducted herself with intelligence and dignity over the years, but her endorsement has a strangeness about it.  Maybe she was concerned that the Kennedy family was becoming irrelevant, which is true, and that something had to be done to switch the spotlights back on.  Reading this endorsement, maybe someone should dim those lights.

The endorsement is called, "A President Like My Father."  Oh really?  The only thing JFK and Obama have in common is that they both knew crooks in Chicago.  I was in the 1960 campaign, on the staff of a U.S. senator, and we were with Kennedy often.  The contrasts between Kennedy and Obama are stark.  Kennedy, for example, was obsessed with national defense, even running to the right of Richard Nixon that year on military readiness.  Obama?  Defense?  Maybe defense lawyers, but not defense.  I doubt very much if you'll hear Mr. Obama pledging to bear any burden or pay any price in defense of freedom.

Caroline says:

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

Let me gently remind Caroline Kennedy that the Reagan Revolution wasn't named after a washing machine, and that Reagan Democrats didn't become Reagan Democrats because they found the man boring.  There's been plenty of inspiration, if you look beyond the Democratic National Committee to find it.

•   Maybe they just want a green card.  Some Tory members of the British parliament have come over here to do volunteer work for Hillary Clinton.  One of them is Simon Burns.  The story says:

Mr Burns turned up unannounced at the Clinton campaign headquarters in Manchester, New Hampshire, offering to work for free. He said: "I walked in and I said 'I want to see Hillary Clinton as president and I'm prepared to work in any way you want to try to help'.

"I said, 'Look, I'm British so the accent might not be helpful and I happen to be a Tory MP'. For those who understood what a Tory MP was politically, they were very good about it. They immediately put me to work. I did a considerable amount of telephone canvassing and helped with 'visibilities'."

Forget the Mexican border.  Maybe they ought to build that fence along the Atlantic wall.

•   Speaking of the mother country, the UK press is having a field day with our election campaign, usually at the expense of one former president.  Consider this headline:

Killer Bill: Ex-president fights dirty on his wife's behalf

That's from the Independent, known for its affection for Lenin.  Then there's this:

Hillary unleashes pit bull Bill

That's from The Times of London, a usually staid paper.

Now, those headline writers we can use here.  Leave a secret hole in the fence.  I'll give them a map.  

•   For some, anguish never ends.  The price of birth control on college campuses is rising, creating a new national crisis.  Here's the heartbreaking truth:

WASHINGTON — Jen Mayekawa temporarily stopped using birth control last spring when she discovered that the cost had more than quadrupled, from $11 to $49 per month.

"There really was no choice," said Mayekawa, 21, a senior majoring in Spanish and pre-nursing at Kansas State University. "I wasn't about to spend $150 just to get me through the summer."

Look, Jen, Bill Clinton can help, although it won't be change you can believe in.

•   This site takes an interest in the glorious sport of figure skating.  The US Nationals are under way in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Our new national ladies' champion, decided last night, is 14-year-old (yes, you read that right) Mirai Nagasu, a Californian.  I was impressed by the depth and quality that I saw in all the events.  We have great skaters coming up, and the young age of some of the medalists was simply remarkable.  Two of the three women - or girls, really - who won medals are actually too young to go to the world championships in March, but it's clear that we'll be sending a powerful skating team to the Olympics in 2010.

Back later.       

Posted on January 27, 2008.