EVENING UPDATE,  MARCH 16,  2008

TRUTH TELLIN'

I get the sense that the MSM can't wait to get rid of the Obama/radical pastor story. It so disrupts the comfortable narrative that dominates the media. Why, dearies, must we bother covering this troublesome priest when our sixties dream is so close?

But a site called NewsBusters, run by Warner Todd Huston, has other ideas.  In a superb piece of reporting, NewsBusters details the closeness of Barack Obama's relationship with his anti-American minister.  The piece includes the introduction Obama gave the man at a large assembly:

As the speech kicked off (at 1:07 into the video), Obama introduced the Rev. Wright to the audience with these glowing and highly personal words:

"And then I've got to give a special shout out to my Pastor. The guy who puts up with me, counsels me, listens to my wife complain about me. He's a friend and a great leader not just in Chicago but all across the country, so please everybody give an extraordinary welcome to my pastor Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., Trinity United Church of Christ.

"Where's he at? There he is. That's him, that's him right there.

"You wearing a suit today, right?"

This reveals a very intimate portrait of Obama and Wright's relationship. Notice the last bit where Obama jokes about Wright's penchant for wearing an Afrocentric style of dress and that his wearing of a suit at that event was uncommon. These are the remarks of a close friend to another loved intimate, not the words of a man making perfunctory comments.

Later in his comments Obama mentioned Wright again. (At 13:43 in the video)

"You know, I've been on a journey trying to get at the truth that question for a long time. I mention Rev. Wright... I first met Rev. Wright when I moved to Chicago after college.

"And that's where I met Rev. Wright and started going to Trinity United Church of Christ and he helped me on another journey and introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ. And I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things that I was too weak to accomplish myself, maybe he could accomplish them for me if I placed my trust in him. And I learned that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things when they believe in him and they come together and are guided by him."

So, we see that Obama obviously had a close, long-term relationship with Wright, not a casual one where Obama might have missed the Reverend’s long-standing agenda.

Read the whole thing, and then decide whether it's credible that Barack Obama never knew his minister's political views.

Why didn't the mainstream media do this kind of reporting?  And why won't it?

THE UNCIVIL WAR

The Democrats seem to be tearing themselves apart.  It isn't the first time.  Please recall that in 1948 the Southern wing walked out of the Democratic national convention, protesting calls for the party to embrace what Hubert H. Humphrey called "the bright sunshine of civil rights."  It would coalesce around then-Democrat Strom Thurmond, who would run for president as a Dixiecrat.  That same year the left wing of the party departed to support former Vice President Henry A.Wallace, who ran for president against Harry S. Truman, as a progressive.  The party was a mess, but Truman won anyway.

This time the ugliness is different.  It isn't ideological, it's personal, and wrapped up in the Democratic Party's obsession with identity politics.  Newsweek has a fine piece on how friends are becoming enemies, and what the rancor is doing to the relationships within a party where identity chickens - of both sexes, and even gay chickens - are coming home to roost:

For the past five years, a group of friends, mostly military wives or retired government workers, have been meeting for lunch at an Italian restaurant called Amici's in a strip mall in Stafford, Va. All Democrats, they don't come just for the wood-fired pizza or $8.99 lunch buffet. They come to talk about their beloved party. But lately, the air has chilled in the Tuscan-themed room.

At the lunch after Clinton's loss in Virginia, Alicia Knight, 49, a Hillary supporter, came in late. The only spare chair was between two Obama supporters, both old friends of Knight's. "I was so angry, I didn't want to sit between them, so I sat by myself at another table," she says. "It's become like the cold war: in order to maintain the relationship, you don't talk to each other." Recently, the Clinton and Obama groups began lunching separately. "We couldn't take the bashing, the smirkiness of the Obama fans," says Linda Berkoff, 63.

It's unclear exactly when the primaries stopped being a joyous occasion for the Democrats. But as the weeks have ground on, the intensity between Democrats who disagree has calcified, the vitriol grown fiercer. According to exit polling in the Texas primary, 91 percent of Clinton supporters said they would be dissatisfied with Obama as the nominee; 87 percent of Obama fans said they would be dissatisfied with Clinton. Nationally, a quarter of those who back Clinton say they'd vote for John McCain if Obama won the nomination (while just 10 percent of Obama supporters would do the same if he lost).

For many Democrats, what started out as a glowing opportunity for a historic presidency has become a depressing display of division and anger trumping reason. Because the policy differences between Clinton and Obama are minor, the debate is not about substance; it's been mainly about character and identity in a contest between a black man and a white woman. Historians insist that intraparty bitterness is nothing new. But growing anger about perceived racism and sexism is souring what was once excitement among Democrats about an embarrassment of riches. Now many are embarrassed that the party which prides itself on diversity is battling its own prejudices. Unaffiliated Democratic strategist Donna Brazile believes it has become "a brewing internal civil war."

I disagree with one part of that report.  I don't think the policy differences between Clinton and Obama are minor.  They may sound minor as each tries to appeal to the Democratic base, but Clinton has given many signals that she is far more centrist than is Obama.  We have to read between the lines, and look at their records.  Clinton serves on the Armed Services Committee and has taken her work seriously.  Yes, we can wonder whether her attitude is cynical, an attempt to appeal to the broad majority of voters.  But at least she's walked the walk.  I see no similar stroll on the part of Senator Obama.  Obviously, I could be wrong.  He could win election and govern from the center left.  But I'd like some reassurance.

BRITS FOR McCAIN

Urgent Agenda readers know that I've long held that foreign reporters are doing a better job covering our campaign than is our own MSM.  Here, beyond reporting, is an endorsement of John McCain by Matthew d'Ancona, editor of the British publication, The Spectator, writing in London's Telegraph:

It is a fool's game to make predictions about this presidential race, which has been an object lesson in the perils of political prophecy, but McCain's numbers are looking good. On all national security issues, he trumps Clinton and Obama. (On Hillary's own question - "whom would you trust to take the 3am call in the White House?" - he is 18 points ahead of Clinton and 27 ahead of Obama.)

In straight voting intention polls, he is neck-and-neck with both Democrats, who shrink in stature daily as they tear chunks out of each other. It is entirely conceivable that the 71-year-old Senator for Arizona could be the next President of the United States.

This might upset some on the right, but I cannot deny its truth:

The whole point of this nominee is that he is not Bush, and in some eyes, barely a Republican. While Karl Rove built Bush's presidential campaigns on the so-called conservative "base", McCain's approach is precisely the opposite. He starts from the outside, reaching out to those who do not traditionally vote Republican, and - having established his credentials as a potential winner - appeals to the "base" to back him. This grueling, courageous strategy has prevailed and delivered him a united party and a clear run at fund-raising many months before America goes to the polls in November.

I'm not sure the party is united, but I think it will ultimately back him, especially when Republican conservatives look at the Democratic alternative.  Finally...

The world has been understandably transfixed by the Obama phenomenon: thrilling, glamorous, inspirational. But McCain's story is inspirational, too. As he writes in his memoir, Faith of My Fathers: "In prison I fell in love with my country… Freedom is America's honour, and all honour comes with obligations." Just as Obama personifies escape from America's culture wars and racial divisions, McCain embodies the final reprieve from the torments of Vietnam: the opportunity for his nation to feel good about its role in the world, less loathed, more responsible.

I think he would make an outstanding President. Who knows whether he will get the chance? But it is time to start taking the possibility very seriously indeed. "Listen," he said on Thursday, "I'm willing to talk with anybody who wants to talk with me." In Westminster this week, there will be a long queue of politicians longing to take this remarkable man up on the offer.

I suspect this point of view will grow.

INDIANA

With so much attention focused on the April 22nd Pennsylvania primary, more than a month away, we forget that Indiana, not a small state, votes on May 6th.  Senators Clinton and Obama are now starting to pay attention, realizing that Pennsylvania may not settle the race:

PLAINFIELD, Ind. — The Pennsylvania primary may be the next stop along the turbulent road to the Democratic presidential nomination, but the epic battle between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama will almost certainly not be settled there.

Voters of Indiana do not weigh in until May 6, but Mr. Obama arrived here Saturday for his first visit to the state this year, making it clear the campaign hinges on more than the outcome of the Pennsylvania contest on April 22. As he sees it, each of the eight remaining states on the calendar holds significance in the protracted fight for delegates.

“We are going to be campaigning actively in Indiana,” Mr. Obama said to about 3,000 people in a high school gymnasium in this Indianapolis suburb. “This is your campaign. This is your chance to make your mark on history.”

So even as Mrs. Clinton spent Saturday in Pennsylvania, attending St. Patrick’s Day parades in Pittsburgh and Scranton, her campaign was looking ahead to its first trip to Indiana on Thursday. While hoping to rely upon a strong showing in Pennsylvania, her coming visit here underscored the notion that winning a share of the 72 delegates in Indiana could be just as fruitful as claiming a slice of the 148 delegates in Pennsylvania.

For most states, the presidential contest had usually been well settled by this stage of the race. In Indiana, for example, the challenge between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama offers the first viable choice in a Democratic primary since Michael S. Dukakis and the Rev. Jesse Jackson competed here in 1988.

And John McCain is abroad, looking presidential.  The Democratic race, unless there is a break, may go all the way to the August convention in Denver.  By that time they'll all hate each other.  Maybe Al Gore and Jimmy Carter can come in and settle things, or run together.  Gore could be financed by the wind industry, Carter by Saudi Arabia.

CHINA MYSTERY

Finally, we tend to ignore the Chinese military buildup.  We do so at our peril.  Now there is a mystery involving a new Chinese military aircraft. 

China's H-8 stealth bomber may be more advanced than the American B-2A and capable of delivering a 350-kiloton nuclear warhead to the continental U.S., or it could be a mock-up of the A-12 "Flying Dorito."

Those are just two of the rumors accompanying a video trumpeting some recent triumphs of Chinese aviation. Although it's "top secret," Chinese quasi-official Web sites brag that the Xian H-8 is a carbon-fiber, "special nanotechnology"-coated, stealth, strategic, heavy bomber all rolled into one.

Read the piece. Urgent Agenda has military experts among its readers.  Anyone have any solutions to this?  What do the Chinese really have?

And, hoping to receive answers, I'll be back tomorrow.

Posted on March 16, 2008.