EARLY EVENING POSTINGS:  APRIL 27, 2008

Posted at 7:33 p.m. ET

BRANDING OBAMA

Ed Lasky, of American Thinker, sent over some links to Barack Obama's ads.  Frankly, I find them a bit chilling, too much the cult of personality. I also think they reflect a complete surrender to identity politics, the idea that we are our group, not our nation.  But you decide for yourself.  Here's one.

By the way, I'm a bit suspicious when a kid who must be, oh, seven years old, goes on camera and says he believes in mandatory health care for all children.  I've never met a seven-year-old who knows what "mandatory" means. 

National Review Online has another selection of Obama ads here.  Pretty much the same stuff. 

April 27, 2008.       Permalink              

CARTER AND CASH

The New York Daily News is considered a tabloid, but it does now, as it's always done, some fine reporting.  Today, after Jimmah Carter's Mideast trip has flopped, The News gives us the juicy details of Carter's up-to-his-neck financial relationship with the Arab world.  This is the kind of thing the "elite" media should have been doing for decades, and has not done.  There's got to be a reason why the Mideast jihad crowd considers Carter such a good investment:

Carter's trip was doomed to failure; Hamas remains committed to the destruction of the state of Israel. So does this trip merely reflect a tremendous lack of judgment on Carter's part?

Perhaps the answer is more complicated. You see, the Carter Center, the ex-President's not-for-profit research and activist organization, has prospered over the years as a direct result of Arab largesse. Many of these "charitable" interests support Islamic fundamentalism and are vehemently anti-Israel.

The full extent of these connections is unknown because the amount and source of the Carter Center's funding is not public. But from various news reports and press releases, one can begin to sketch a very troubling picture.

For example, Saudi Arabia, the source of 15 of the 19 plane hijackers on 9/11 and whose royal family has funded terrorism outside the kingdom, has channeled tens of millions of dollars into the Carter Center over the years. In 1993 alone, the late King Fahd gifted $7.6 million, while more recently, the king's nephew, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, donated at least $5 million to the Carter Center. The Carter Center has a $36 million annual budget; these amounts are hardly insignificant to its ongoing operations.

Another million-dollar-plus backer is Sultan Qaboos sin Said, monarch of Oman. Considerable financial support comes from the United Arab Emirates as well.
There's more. In 2001, Carter received the $500,000 Zayed International Prize for the Environment and, the following year, praised the efforts of the Abu Dhabi-based Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow Up.

The Zayed Center has repeatedly hosted anti-Semitic Holocaust deniers, supported terrorism and asserted that there is an international conspiracy of Jews and Zionists for world domination, and that a Jewish-American conspiracy perpetrated the atrocities of 9/11.

And...

Carter should finally come clean and disclose the amounts and sources of all foreign funding for his center.

Just as the American public has a right to know whether a scientist researching the root causes of global warming is being funded by major oil companies, we should know who is supporting Carter's lobbying efforts to bring "peace" to the Middle East.

It is indeed a sad day in American history when a former President lowers himself to becoming a propaganda tool for terrorists bent on harming our country and the democratic principles by which we live - and we cannot even discover who is paying his bills.

Well said.  And our curiosity should extend to former ambassadors and State Department personnel.  But it's Carter's acceptance of substantial funds from dictators and bigots over the years that stands out as particularly disgraceful.  It also gives the lie to Jimmah's commitment to "human rights," a commitment that has always been remarkably selective.

The Nobel Peace Prize, which Carter received, has become a joke, and he has helped make it so.

April 27, 2008.       Permalink               

AFTERNOON POSTING:  APRIL 27,  2008

Posted at 4:53 p.m. ET

TRACKERS

There are no new state polls to report.  The most fascinating result continues to be in the race for the Democratic nomination.  Rasmussen has Obama up six over Clinton, but Gallup has a dead heat.  This is not good for Senator Obama.  This, along with the state polls, will be the trackers to watch in the next week.  The question is whether Obama's national position among Democrats continues to erode. 

With all the attention on the Democrats, it's tough for Senator McCain to get the kind of coverage he needs.  He's at a deficit in that regard, but still holds up well in the national trackers.  For the first time in my memory, Rasmussen and Gallup both have him tied with Obama.

Rasmussen has McCain up two over Hillary Clinton, but Gallup has Clinton up three over McCain.  Once again, Clinton's resilience in the national polls continues to impress.  Her battling style is helping her.

April 27, 2008.        Permalink          

SUNDAY:  APRIL 27,  2008

Posted at 4:55 a.m. ET

SHUT IT DOWN!

Watch this story carefully.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, once a presidential candidate, is vowing to shut down New York City after a verdict in a police-shooting case didn't go his way.  Three police officers, two of them black, were acquitted of all charges in the shooting death of a man named Sean Bell.  Bell was killed in a hail of police bullets the night before his wedding when he went out on the town with a group of friends, and things went wrong. 

The case is a tragedy.  There may be issues of police training and procedure involved, but the respected judge in the case - there was no jury - ruled that there was no evidence of criminality on the part of the officers.

Sharpton, though, is displeased.  What makes this a national story is that, judging by past behavior and his lust for the camera, Sharpton may try to drag in the presidential candidates.  There has always been competition for leadership of the African-American community, with Sharpton regularly challenging Jesse Jackson.  Now, though, Barack Obama is on the scene.  It would be logical for Sharpton to try to embarrass Obama, or demand that Obama prove his "solidarity" with "the community."  We should also point out that Hillary Clinton is a senator from New York, and thus has a direct interest in the case.  There are calls for a federal investigation, which she could facilitate. 

I stress that this is speculation, but it's reasonable speculation.  It all depends on what Sharpton chooses to do, and whose names he calls out. 

April 26, 2008.      Permalink          

OBAMA LOSING HIS COOL?

Barack Obama is widely seen, especially by the young, as the "cool" candidate.  But, increasingly, the cool is fading away, and it's not greenhouse gases that are doing it.

British papers have done some of the best reporting on our campaign.  Here, London's Telegraph reports on a newly aggressive Barack Obama, and the dangers to the candidate in his new style:

He seems tired, brittle and more aggressive, and some of his appealing hope and charisma have been dispensed with.

Five days after losing to Hillary Clinton in the Pennsylvania primary, Barack Obama has taken off the gloves in his battle to win the American presidency - and in so doing has left critics wondering whether he is not just another conventional politician grubbing for votes.

Rather blunt.  And true.  It goes on:

Defeat to Mrs Clinton by 10 points in Pennsylvania on Tuesday provided proof that recent ill-chosen words about working-class Americans who "cling" to God and guns because they are "bitter" about their economic hardship have hurt his candidacy. So, too, has his association with Jeremiah Wright, the incendiary pastor of his Chicago church.

Where once Mr Obama emphasised what he could do for voters, at a town hall meeting in Kokomo, north of Indianapolis, he stressed instead what they could do for him. "I need you to fight for me, right here, right now," he pleaded.

And...

In the sweltering heat of a school sports hall, Mr Obama is still slick, at times uplifting, but the edges are flintier, the irritation at the same old questions about claims that he disrespects the American flag, more pronounced. "It's a lie," he finally blurts about the claim, after giving a laboured history of his patriotism.

And...

Campaign insiders say the senator will do more to stress his humble roots as the scholarship schoolboy son of a single mother. In Indianapolis last week he pledged to "remind people of where I come from. I was raised with far fewer advantages than either of my two remaining opponents."

Say what?  Is Obama really comparing his early life to that of John McCain, who spent more than five years being tortured by the enemy in Vietnam?  That is the kind of remark that can get him into more trouble, like the "bitter" comment in San Francisco.  I'd be interested to see whether the McCain campaign, or, better still, talk radio, picks up on that quote.  Someone should.   

Obama is showing, more and more, that he is thin-skinned and unprepared for the toughness of a presidential campaign.  Say what you want about Hillary Clinton - and I have plenty of negative to say - but she has proved the better candidate, and I suspect some voters and superdelegates are starting to notice. 

April 27, 2008.       Permalink          

SMART MOVE

Obama has been mediocre in debates, Clinton has been better.  So, this is a smart move on her part:

(AP) Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton turned up the rhetoric Saturday in their increasingly heated presidential primary battle as she issued a new debate challenge and he complained of a race that has largely been reduced to trivia while working families feel economic pain.

Clinton took the debate dispute to a new level, challenging Obama to face off with her in a debate without a moderator.

"Just the two of us, going for 90 minutes, asking and answering questions, we'll set whatever rules seem fair," Clinton said while campaigning in South Bend.

Her campaign made the offer formal with a letter to the Obama campaign. Obama aides said they were studying the letter.

Clinton has a chance to nail Obama.  If he turns her down, or tries to run out the clock without debating, Clinton can portray him as lacking guts.  If he agrees, she might well outperform him.  At the very least, she gets a lot of air time that she can't otherwise afford.  Indiana votes a week from Tuesday, as does North Carolina.

April 27, 2008.      Permalink          

ANOTHER ASIAN SUCCESS

Finally, this is not for every student, nor should it be, but the New York Times story helps explain why Asians are so successful, and why they make progress so quickly:

SEOUL, South Korea — It is 10:30 p.m. and students at the elite Daewon prep school here are cramming in a study hall that ends a 15-hour school day. A window is propped open so the evening chill can keep them awake. One teenager studies standing upright at his desk to keep from dozing.

Kim Hyun-kyung, who has accumulated nearly perfect scores on her SATs, is multitasking to prepare for physics, chemistry and history exams.

“I can’t let myself waste even a second,” said Ms. Kim, who dreams of attending Harvard, Yale or another brand-name American college. And she has a good shot. This spring, as in previous years, all but a few of the 133 graduates from Daewon Foreign Language High School who applied to selective American universities won admission.

And get this:

She rises at 6 a.m. and heads for her school bus at 6:50. Arriving at Daewon, she grabs a broom to help classmates clean her classroom. Between 8 and noon, she hears Korean instructors teach supply and demand in economics, Korean soils in geography and classical poets in Korean literature.

Clean her classroom?  Ask some American kids to do that.  The ACLU would claim cruel and unusual punishment.

As I said, it's certainly not for everyone.  But a salute to those kids...and their parents.

Be back later.

April 27, 2008.      Permalink