Mark Steyn extends congratulations.

Just to be clear: I’m not indulging in the same somewhat moist-eyed congratulations as some of our colleagues. I extend my congratulations mainly in the same sense that elderly British veterans of my acquaintance like to express their admiration of the marvelously innovative ways their Japanese captors found to torture them. The President-elect ran rings round our side, and found many novel ways to torture us.

Ross Douthat contemplates the debacle of the 2008 election, and is depressed while being glad that it’s at least over.

I had a succession of meals last week with smart conservative friends, and I found them all relatively sanguine. ... Each of them, in different ways, express a mix of enthusiasm for the “whither conservatism” battles ahead and relief at the prospect of finally closing the books on the Bush years. This has been an exhausting Presidency for conservatives as well as liberals, and for many people on the Right the prospect of being out of power has obvious upsides: No longer will every foul-up and blunder in Washington be treated as an indictment of Conservatism with a capital C; no longer will right-wingers feel obliged to carry water, whether in small or large amounts, for a government that’s widely perceived as a failure; and no longer will the Right have the dead weight of an unpopular president dragging it down and down and down. Defeat will be depressing, of course – none of my friends were Obamacons by any stretch – but it could be liberating as well.

This was how I expected to feel about a McCain defeat, too, and I’ve been trying to figure out why I don’t – why I feel instead so grouchy and embittered (clinging to my guns and my religion, and all that), and more dispirited than liberated…

I think the deeper reason for my political gloom has to do with something that Jonah Goldberg raised in our bloggingheads chat about conservatism – namely, the sense that the era now passing represented a great opportunity to put into practice the sort of center-right politics that I’d like to see from the Republican Party, and that by failing the way it did the Bush Administration may have cut the ground out from under my own ideas before I’d even figured out exactly what they were. ..

I’m not counseling despair here: There were people in 1976 who thought Richard Nixon had irrevocably squandered the chance to build a new right-of-center majority, and looked how that turned out.

from Mark Tapscott:

Today, as another generation of Americans go to the polls possibly to elect a true man of the Left as our 44th president, the liberal Leviathan – ever demanding that we think and act as it decrees – looms constantly larger in American life,

So it is no wonder that the excitement on this day is palpable among my liberal friends. They believe they stand at this moment on the threshold of being handed power they’ve not possessed for many decades. They rejoice at the opportunity for them to remake America in their own image.

They believe that those of us who, against all reason hold our reactionary notions about individual liberty as precious as ever, will, finally and for good, have no other choice but to submit, to be as Leviathan says we must be. To them, I have but one word:

Never.

The traditionally earliest place to vote in America, Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, has been gleefully reported by the MSM to have delivered a resounding 15 to 6 victory for Obama.

But wait a minute, as Mark Steyn observes, Dixville Notch has 19 registered voters…

As goes Dixville Notch, so goes the nation? Thanks a lot, ACORN.

This Obama supporter won’t have to work anymore. Obama is going to help her.

0:26 video
—————————————
From Drudge.

No presidential candidate in US history has been able to take whichever position was convenient at the moment without being held to account for his inconsistent and contradictory statements in the way Obama has.

3:39 video

Shannon Love asks why isn’t Detroit and the Great Lakes region along with the former Industrial Northeast today the economic powerhouse it was in 1950?

One really has to ask the obvious question: If Obama’s economic policies work so well, why isn’t Detroit a paradise?

In 1950, America produced 51% of the GNP for the entire world. Of that production, roughly 70% took place in the eight states surrounding the Great Lakes: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.

The productive capability of this small area of earth staggers the imagination. Virtually everything that rebuilt the industrial bases of Europe and Japan came from those eight states. Cars, planes, electronics, machine tools, consumer goods, generators, concrete – any conceivable item manufactured by industrial humanity poured out this tiny region and enriched the world. The region shone with widespread prosperity. People migrated from the South and West to work in these Herculean engines of industry.

The wealth, power and economic dominance of the region at the time cannot be overstated. Nothing like it has existed in human history.

Yet, a mere 30 years later, by 1980, we called that area the “rustbelt” and it became synonymous with joblessness, collapsing cities, high crime, failing schools and general hopelessness.

What the hell happened?

Obama happened.

Of course, not Obama personally but rather the same ideas that Obama espouses. What those ideas did to the Great Lakes states, they can do to the entire country.

John McCain, accompanied by his wife Cindy and Tina Fey (as Sarah Palin), displays real talent as a comedian on SNL.

5:59 video

1:48 video

Hat tip to John Hinderaker.

Jay Nordlinger, at the Corner, finds the traditional stereotype view of the Republican Party as the party of the rich and the democrat party as the party of the workingman deserving of assignment to the category of persistent, but out-dated, myths.

I’ve just come back from a weekend in Vermont — and here’s how I understand it: Modestly off people — “real Vermonters,” as some people say — are voting for McCain and Palin. Comfortably off people, such as those who own ski chalets, are voting for Obama and Biden. And the following has been frequently noted about the city of my residence, New York: The rich are voting Democratic. And those who work for them — driving cars, cleaning rooms, and so on — are voting Republican.

Yet, when I was growing up, the Republican party was always called the party of the rich, and it still suffers from that label. Over and over, that which I was taught is contradicted by the evidence of my lived experience.

Mark Steyn finds that democrats have been revising those figures of just who is “rich” and therefore eligible for Obama’s tax increases.

Just wait until after the inauguration.

The Obama middle-class limbo dance descends further. First, it was $250,000. Then $200,000. Just a couple of days ago, Joe Biden reduced it to $150,000. And now...

For the second time in a week, a prominent Democrat has downgraded Barack Obama’s definition of the middle class — leading Republicans to question whether he’ll stick to his promise not to raise taxes on anyone making under $250,000.

The latest hiccup in the campaign message came Friday morning on KOA-AM, when New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson pegged the middle class as those making $120,000 and under.

“What Obama wants to do is he is basically looking at $120,000 and under among those that are in the middle class, and there is a tax cut for those,” Richardson said in the interview…

$120,000? I’m confident Senator Biden can cut that in half by Tuesday morning. Bottom line: If you make over 30 grand, you might want to restructure yourself as an offshore corporation in the Turks & Caicos.

The state of Hawaii has verified Obama’s native birth.

The state’s Department of Health director on Friday released a statement verifying the legitimacy of Sen. Barack Obama birth certificate.

That seems to settle questions on the subject of Obama’s place of birth. Except… The mystery remains of why, if he has a perfectly valid Hawaiian birth certificate, the Obama Campaign has been so vigorously fighting lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and six other states, when all he needs to do is to hand over a certified copy of his birth certificate. Why does he have a problem about doing that?

Thomas Sowell observes that it’s easy to be confident if you’ve never really been in charge of anything other than a law review committee.

Barack Obama has the kind of cocksure confidence that can only be achieved by not achieving anything else.

Anyone who has actually had to take responsibility for consequences by running any kind of enterprise—whether economic or academic, or even just managing a sports team—is likely at some point to be chastened by either the setbacks brought on by his own mistakes or by seeing his successes followed by negative consequences that he never anticipated.

The kind of self-righteous self-confidence that has become Obama’s trademark is usually found in sophomores in Ivy League colleges—very bright and articulate students, utterly untempered by experience in real world.

The signs of Barack Obama’s self-centered immaturity are painfully obvious, though ignored by true believers who have poured their hopes into him, and by the media who just want the symbolism and the ideology that Obama represents.

The triumphal tour of world capitals and photo-op meetings with world leaders by someone who, after all, was still merely a candidate, is just one sign of this self-centered immaturity.

“This is our time!” he proclaimed. And “I will change the world.” But ultimately this election is not about him, but about the fate of this nation, at a time of both domestic and international peril, with a major financial crisis still unresolved and a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon.

For someone who has actually accomplished nothing to blithely talk about taking away what has been earned by those who have accomplished something, and give it to whomever he chooses in the name of “spreading the wealth,” is the kind of casual arrogance that has led to many economic catastrophes in many countries.

The Obama Campaign has several times punished or tried to intimidate critics in the press and even ordinary citizens like Joe the Plumber. Tapscott predicts that you’ll see a lot more of this, and worse, if Obama is elected.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama gave us another preview this week of how he will deal with critics if he is elected to the White House when he kicked three newspapers that endorsed John McCain off of his press plane. Merely terminating access, however,is likely to look tame compared to what Obama has in store for his critics after he takes the oath of office.

PREDICTION: Within six months of moving into the Oval Office, Obama’s multiple moves to silence critics in the media and elsewhere will lead to Washington, D.C. becoming the Caracas on the Potomac. ...

Once he is sworn in, expect Obama to move on multiple fronts to intimidate or silence critics.

When Obama promises “Change,” it’s perfectly obvious that he is using change as a leftist code word for socialism. No one can predict with certainty how far in the direction of authoritarianism Obama’s “change” is intended to go.

Read the whole thing.

Zogby’s latest:

Is McCain making a move? The three-day average holds steady, but McCain outpolled Obama today, 48% to 47%. He is beginning to cut into Obama’s lead among independents, is now leading among blue collar voters, has strengthened his lead among investors and among men, and is walloping Obama among NASCAR voters. Joe the Plumber may get his license after all. “Obama’s lead among women declined, and it looks like it is occurring because McCain is solidifying the support of conservative women, which is something we saw last time McCain picked up in the polls. If McCain has a good day tomorrow, we will eliminate Obama’s good day three days ago, and we could really see some tightening in this rolling average. But for now, hold on.”

Dirty Harry celebrates McCain’s 48-47 Friday poll lead:

Come gather ’round liberals
Wherever you roam
And admit Obama’s sitter’s
Named Bernadine Dohrn
And accept it that soon
You’ll have to find solace in online porn
For ole’ Mac is back
And so’s Palin
And you better stop hatin’
Or you’ll die all alone
Yes, the polls they are a-closin’.

Come reporters and startlets
Who prophesize like old hens
Who keep your minds closed
And spew lies from your pens
And you spoke too soon
With your unholy spin
And there’s no turning back
Your reputation’s flamin’.
That ole’ war hero now
Might pull out a win
For the polls they are a-closin’.

Read the whole thing.

Dan Cooper

USA Today, on October 27th, gleefully added Dan Cooper, founder and president of Cooper Firearms of Montana, manufacturers of high end hunting rifles to the roll of defectors to the Obamaswami.

Dan Cooper, a proud member of the National Rifle Association, has backed Republicans for most of his life. He’s the chief executive of Cooper Arms, a small Montana company that makes hunting rifles.

Cooper said he voted for George W. Bush in 2000, having voted in past elections for every Republican presidential nominee back to Richard Nixon. In October 1992, he presented a specially made rifle to the first President. Bush during a Billings campaign event.

This year, Cooper has given $3,300 to the campaign of Democrat Barack Obama. That’s on top of the $1,000 check he wrote to Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign in 2004, after he was dazzled by Obama’s speech at that year’s Democratic National Convention.

Cooper changed sides, he said, “probably because of the war. And also because the Republican Party has moved so far right in recent years.”

He also likes Obama’s message about “the retooling of America, which involves the building of middle-class jobs and helping American small business be competitive with those overseas.”

Mr. Cooper is entitled to his own political opinions, of course. But believing that Barack Obama is anything other that a firm enemy of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and a reliable ally of opponents of the field sports both in the form of environmental extremists and lunatic fringe advocates of Animal Rights is pathetically naive. And lending his name to this particular politician’s campaign was bound to be less than well received by Mr. Cooper’s fellow shooters and sportsmen.

So USA Today, three days later, was obliged to report

Montana gunsmith Dan Cooper has been ousted as chief executive of the rifle company that bears his name after pressure from gun owners who are angry that he is supporting Democrat Barack Obama. ...

The USA TODAY article sparked outrage from some gun owners and bloggers, including an open letter on a blog called Firearms and Freedom, urging people to boycott the company’s products. Many gun enthusiasts believe Obama will try to restrict their right to bear arms, although he has said he respects the Second Amendment.

In a portion of the interview that was not included in Tuesday’s story, Cooper said, “I don’t believe that what’s being said about Obama and his policies about guns are accurate. I have had a conversation with the senator … he is a stanch supporter of the right to hunt and the right to bear arms.”

The company posted a statement Wednesday night on its website that said:

“The employees, shareholders and board of directors of Cooper Firearms of Montana do not share the personal political views of Dan Cooper. Although we all believe everyone has a right to vote and donate as they see fit, it has become apparent that the fallout may affect more than just Mr. Cooper. It may also affect the employees and the shareholders of Cooper Firearms. The board of directors has asked Mr. Cooper to resign as President.”

This is sad and unfortunate, but I think the employees, stockholders, and the board of Cooper Firearms were right. Gun ownership and the right to hunt are seriously threatened by the democrat party and its radical supporters. Sportsmen and shooters are a minority attacked and under siege. If we do not stand together to defend our rights, if we do not vigorously oppose leftwing candidates like Barack Obama, we will find ourselves in the position of citizens of Great Britain very shortly.
——————————————
Hat tip to Xavier.

The second batch (David Lynch and M. Night Shyamalan) is much better than the first.

I think of myself as a cinemaphile, but I had no idea who Diablo Cody, Jason Reitman, Kevin Smith, and Wes Anderson were. Once I looked them up, I had at least heard of their films.

Second batch: Diablo Cody/Jason Reitman David Lynch, M. Night Shyamalan 4:11 video

First batch: John Woo, Kevin Smith, Wes Anderson 3:18 video

Why not Quentin Tarrantino and the Coen Brothers?

Via LabRat.

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

Iowahawk posts the Apologia Pro Proditio Sua of T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII, Columnist, The National Topsider.

Trust me, I haven’t taken this tack lightly. No Van Voorhees has supported an avowed socialist since great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandpapa Cragmont Van Voorhees lent Peter Minuet $24 and a sack of wampum to swing a subprime mortgage on Manhattan Island. Old dad himself often recounted how, as a lad, he would command the family chauffeur Carleton to drive the Duesenberg down to the Times Square Trans-Lux so he could hiss Roosevelt. But I’ve taken a good measure of this Obama fellow, and I must say I like the cut of the man’s jib.

How can I say this, you ask? One look at this Obama chap is all the answer you need. Suave, tanned, unflappable, Harvard connections; it’s obvious that here is a man to the conservative manor born. One imagines him at the helm of the Ship of State, basked in the sunlight diffusing through the seaspray over the bow, like some beautiful rugged Othello from a rapturous Ralph Lauren catalog, calmly issuing instructions to the deck crew in that magnificent mellifluous baritone of his. It’s that easy-going, almost effortless grace that has all the A-list conservatives like David Frum and Kathleen Parker whispering Reaganesque in hushed tones. Even Peggy Noonan—the Grand Dame of Gipperism—has succumbed to Obama’s undeniable conservative charms. Just last month I listened to her wax poetic about the Adonis of Chicago between chukkers at the Newport Club polo tournament final. “Why Peggy, you old dowager,” I quipped, “I believe you just had an orgasm.”

Certainly, my endorsement has raised more than a few eyebrows around the National Topsider water cooler, particularly among the alumni of jejune cow colleges like Michigan or Dartmouth. They sometimes point to Mr. Obama’s radical Rolodex and his hooey about “weath redistribution” and “dictatorship of the proletariat.” But, as I patiently explain, this is precisely the point – it is hooey, over-the-top rhetorical flourishes obviously designed by Mr. Obama to win over benighted inner city hoi polloi (a feat, I might add, that even the Great Communicator himself was unable to accomplish). As for his so-called radical ties, who among us hasn’t sent dinner party invitations to Gore Vidal and a leftwing terrorists or two to enliven the postprandial conversation? Leonard Bernstein loved hosting all manner of Weathermen and Black Panthers and Symbionese Liberation Army celebrities at his Park Avenue pied a terre, but it didn’t mean the Maestro wasn’t in favor of low taxes. On the contrary; I know for a fact he itemized every cent of the catering bills for his famous terrorist cocktail parties.

Just so, I have every confidence that Obama’s true conservative butterfly will emerge once in office, coaxed from its Maoist cocoon by conservatives like myself and Frum and Parker and Noonan—all of whom I am pleased to report are already under consideration for the Obama Administration State Dinner shortlist. Certainly there may be a tax increase or two, but isn’t that what estate attorneys and Cayman Island banks are for? Under a worst case scenario some of us may have to set up a lease-back depreciation arrangement on one or two of our vacation compounds, as Dad was forced to in in the dark years of Carter.

Read the whole thing.

Jules Crittenden says (publicly at least) that he’s planning to drink the Kool-Aid.

So I was thinking, maybe it’s time to do what all the other guys are doing. Colin Powell, Ken Adelman, Douglas Kmiec, Christopher Hitchens … OK, he’s just going back where he came from … Charles Fried, Francis Fukuyama, Chuck Hagel, Bruce Bartlett kind of, Bill Weld, Lincoln Chafee, Scott McClellan, Christopher Buckley … damn, there’s a lot of them. Looking at that very long list of august names, considering where we stand at this important portal in history, I think the question anyone at all progressively minded should be asking is … hey Condi, why don’t you grow a set?

You know what Mom always said, if everyone else was jumping off a cliff …. But maybe it is time, right now, in 2008, to do what everyone else is doing. Shrug, say what the heck, get on the Bush-bashing wagon … you have to admit, that does look like fun … and finally acknowledge what the deep booming voice from that opening in the clouds with all the blinding rays of light has been telling us. Obama is the Anointed One.

The candidate was in mid-drone, sandwiched between sob stories, when it finally hit me. I mean really hit me, personally. The time has come. I’ve been ignoring infomercials, channel-surfing away in hardhearted self-centered annoyance for decades. But at longlast, the time has come when we have to let those little nagging voices speak to us. It’s time we all reached down deep, some maybe deeper than than others, to Save the Children. It’s Obama as the Sally Struthers of our national conscience. It’s more than that. He’s the guy on our big national speedboat with lots of babes in bikinis. What are you waiting for? He’s got the secret to attaining universal health care and wealth equity, you just have to buy his tape. America can have killer abs, without all that sweating and going to the gym and kicking down third-world mudhut doors. It is that easy. Return it in four years, no obligation, if not fully satisfied.

And that’s why I’ve decided to announce that I’m voting for Obama.

That’s what I’ll be telling pollsters, the national media and everyone I know, anyway. What I do in the polling booth is my own damn business. Look, the leadership of the free world and all that is really important, but the last thing I want is anyone to think I’m a racist. Or even worse, not cool.

Mark Steyn marveled late last night at McCain last minute comeback in the polls.

This is an amazing race. The incumbent president has approval ratings somewhere between Robert Mugabe and the ebola virus. The economy is supposedly on the brink of global Armageddon. McCain has only $80 million to spend, while Obama’s burning through $600 mil as fast as he can, and he doesn’t really need to spend a dime given the wall-to-wall media adoration. And tonight Chris Matthews’ doctors announced that his leg tingle has metastasized leaving his entire body like a vibrating cellphone whose ringtone is locked on “I’m In Love, I’m In Love, I’m In Love, I’m In Love, I’m In Love With A Wonderful Guy.”

And yet an old cranky broke loser is within two or three points of the King of the World. Strange.

4:22 video

and

0:31 video

Britt Hume, at Fox News, tells us that the 2003 video of Obama partying with Palestinians is breaking through into the news, despite the LA Times’ blockade.

The McCain camp has now joined those demanding The Los Angeles Times release a 2003 video that shows Barack Obama celebrating with a group of Palestinians hostile to Israel.

Peter Wallsten wrote in April about Obama’s association with former Palestinian operative Rashid Khalidi. The celebration was a farewell for Khalidi as he left Chicago for a job in New York. Wallsten called Khalidi a, “critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights.”

He says, “A special tribute came from Khalidi’s friend and frequent dinner companion, the young State Senator Barack Obama… Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi’s wife… and conversations that had challenged his thinking.”

Wallsten writes that a young Palestinian read a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism. Another speaker likened Israeli settlers on the West Bank to Usama bin Laden.

Wallsten confirmed he has the tape, but told the political blog Gateway Pundit he does not plan on releasing it.

From the People’s Cube.

Patrick Edaburn, at the Moderate Voice, tries assuring Republicans that America will remain a free country after Obama’s victory.

As we sit a week or so out from Election Day I have been having some interesting discussions with some of my conservative friends. They are paranoid about the prospect of a big Democratic victory next week and that it will result in all kinds of horrible things happening to them. They act like it is only a matter of time before they are all sent to internment camps for re-education.

Much as I did with my liberal friends 4 and 8 years ago I have done my best to convince them that while they might not care for the new agenda they are not going to see such harsh events. Whether it was the left paranoid that Bush was going to cancel the 2008 vote or the right convinced Obama will become President for Life, I always tried to remind them that we live in a free society and that is not going to change. ...

This year I also understand why people on the right have fears. One visit to web sites like Daily Kos, Left Coaster, Huffington Post or Democratic Underground will open your eyes to some of the rhetoric is out of bounds. Many on these sites are not simply looking for success in November but to ‘purge the conservative movement’. These sites have hosted discussions of abolishing the Republican party and prohibiting anyone who voted Republican from having any rights in the future.

Of course these proposals are hardly likely to be acted upon, but the fact that these people sincerely hate anyone who disagrees with them is quite disturbing to say the least. Obviously the same kind of rhetoric has and does exist on the right but this year it seems a little stronger on the left, probably because they foresee victory and thus the ability to act on the ideas.

Except there is one proposal from the radical left, which obviously is under very serious consideration.

While many on the left were right to condemn those aspects of the Patriot Act that went too far in chilling free speech, some are now proposing a measure that would be equally restrictive.

The proposal is the so called Fairness Doctrine. While Obama has an least semi officially said he is not going to push the idea, many Democrats in Congress are firmly behind the idea. For those who don’t know the doctrine requires that media outlets give equal time to opposing views when they issue editorials.

On the surface it sounds somewhat reasonable, but when you look deeper you find that it is far from balanced.

For one thing it does not apply to any form of printed media. I think most of us would agree that the print media of newspapers and magazines is dominated by liberal views. This is not to say that there are not conservative publications out there, but most of them are liberal. Under the fairness doctrine none of these places would have to change anything or offer any space for opposing views.

Turning to television, I again think its fair to say that the liberal side is in the majority, though with Fox News there is a stronger conservative presence. The fairness doctrine would apply to television but only as far as opinions are being expressed. So NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, etc would be free to continue with their liberal slant in news while Fox would be free to continue with the conservative slant, at least in terms of straight news broadcasts.

Opinion shows would be forced to balance out, but again we would see most of the news broadcasts unchanged.

The real impact would be in the area of talk radio, where the conservatives are clearly in charge. THey would either have to offer equal time or shut down. So for every hour or Rush or Hannity you would need an hour of liberal views.

Thus looking at the 3 major segments of media (print, TV and radio) the fairness doctrine would do little to the first two but would dramatically impact the third, which just happens to be the major forum for center right viewpoints.

I am not a fan of the Limbaughs but I can certainly see why some on the right would look to this as an effort to basically suppress any opposing viewpoints. I don’t really expect Obama to do this any more than Bush did, but it doesn’t exactly look good to some on the right.

Be sure to vote next Tuesday.

This time it was CBS Channel 3 in Philadelphia. Ask a hardball question of Joe Biden, and you’re out.

2:23 video

Via US Neverdock.

The Obama Campaign responded to the release of the WBEZ 2001 Obama “redistribution” radio broadcast by issuing a statement blaming “the all too common alliance of Fox News, the Drudge Report and John McCain.”

Fox News’ Megyn Kelly responded by inviting Barack Obama’s National Press Secretary Bill Burton onto Fox News’ America’s Election Headquarters.

Fun to Watch!

7:01 video

Via Newbusters.

And Rush, as usual, is right.

I wish to reach around and pat myself on the back. Way back during the Republican primaries—when the battle was between Huckabee and Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and McCain—we were told by the Republican Party hierarchy that the only chance the Republican Party had (by the way, we were told this also by some of the intellectualoids in our own conservative media) to win was to attract Democrats and moderates; and that the era of Reagan was over, and we had to somehow find a way to become stewards of a Big Government but smarter that gives money away to the Wal-Mart middle class so that they, too, will feel comfortable with us and like us and vote for us.

In that sense, it was said the only opportunity this party has to regain power is John McCain. Only John McCain can get moderates and independents and Democrats to join the Republican Party, “and we can’t win,” these intellectualoids said, “if that didn’t happen.” Well, the latest moderate Republican to abandon his party is William Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts who today endorsed the Most Merciful Lord Barack Obama. He joins moderate Republican Colin Powell. He joins former Bush press spokesman Scott McClellan. He joins a number of Republicans like Chuck Hagel, Senator from Nebraska. I don’t know if there’s been an initial endorsement from Hagel, but Obama is out there talking about how Hagel might be secretary of state or have some position in his cabinet.

Now, I wish to ask all of you influential pseudointellectual conservative media types who have also abandoned McCain and want to go vote for Obama (and you know who you are without my having to mention your name) what happened to your precious theory? What the hell happened to your theory that only John McCain could enlarge this party, that we had to get moderates and independents? How the hell is it that moderate Republicans are fleeing their own party and we are not attracting other moderates and independents? How in the hell did you people figure this to happen? So the Republican Party’s own strategy here not only has it backfired, it’s embarrassing. I don’t have any brief for William Weld, don’t misunderstand, but he’s a moderate Republican.

“The Republican Party, we gotta be a big tent,” and that’s code words for, “We gotta have some pro-choicers in our party to get rid of the influence of these hayseed hicks in the South who are pro-life.” Well, they have gone, and I, for one, say, “Damn well good riddance!” Weld, why don’t you stay a Democrat? McClellan, stay a Democrat. All you intellectual conservative media types, go ahead and stay a Democrat once you move over. By the way, we know what this is about. This is about being invited to state dinners in a Barack Obama administration. This is about the social structure of Washington. This is about style. It has nothing to do with the fact that these people love Obama’s policies. They couldn’t if they’re paying attention. Not if they say they’re Republicans. They couldn’t possibly.

But they figure Obama’s running the show, and they don’t want to be shut out the next four years when it comes time to party. Charles Krauthammer writes about this very eloquently today and very elegantly in his column endorsing McCain. I have it in the Stack. I’ll share it with you. There are probably other names I am leaving out here of Republican moderates who have fled and joined the Democrats and Obama, for whatever reasons. I say, good riddance. And this is why I said to you earlier in the week, “I don’t care who wins this election. The task at hand is going to be rebuilding the conservative movement and making sure that the Republican Party is its home,” because the Republican Party hierarchy, bigwigs, people running McCain’s campaign?

They have proven they haven’t a clue how to win an election. They have proven that they have not a clue that they understand the American electorate. They have proven they have not a clue what it is that inspires people to support their party and go to the poll and support them. When I saw the Weld thing today I smiled and I fired off a note to all my buddies and I said, “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! How can this be? How can this be? This is the kind of guy that our candidate was supposed to be attracting, and we were supposed to be getting all these moderates from the Democrat Party,” and we will, by the way. We’re going to get some rank and file, average American Democrats that are going to vote for McCain. But these hoity-toity bourgeoisie… Well, they’re not the bourgeoisie, but… Well, they are in a sense. They’re following their own self-interests, so I say fine.

They have just admitted that Republican Party “big tent” philosophy didn’t work. It was their philosophy; it was their idea. These are the people, once they steered the party to where it is, they are the ones that abandoned it. ...

We’re going to rebuild it even if McCain wins. We’re going to have to. These people, these moderates who wanted the big tent, they have taken the party exactly where they said they wanted it to be—and when it got there, these little cowards jumped the ship! I have lost all respect for these people. And, folks, when I said at the beginning of this that I wanted to turn around and pat myself on the back, it’s because I (and so many like me) knew this exact thing was going to happen and tried to warn people about it during the primaries and so forth. I am not happy it’s happened except for one reason. We flushed ‘em out. We found out they’re not really Republicans and they’re by no means conservatives, and now they’re gone. Now the trick is to keep ‘em out.

Obama thought it was a darned shame that the Warren Court didn’t address redistribution of wealth to African Americans. “It wasn’t that radical. It never broke free from the essential constraints that were placed in the Constitution by the founding fathers.”

4:17 video

Via Drudge.

Obama never much liked the current national anthem anyway, and he’s already produced his own presidential seal and his own salute, so clearly a new Obama anthem must be in the works.

Glenn Beck imagines what it might be like.

1:27 video

Via Jawa Report and Newsbusters

Very funny.

7:02 video

One prominent New York-Washington Corridor Republican and conservative pundit after another has recently found some vital reason for climbing over the wall and surrendering to the democrats.

Mark Steyn isn’t planning to join them, but he recognizes the pressures.

Across the electric wires, the hum is ceaseless: Give it up, loser. Don’t go down with the ship when it’s swept away by the Obama tsunami. According to newspaper reports, polls show that most people believe newspaper reports claiming that most people believe polls showing that most people have read newspaper reports agreeing that polls show he’s going to win.

In the words of Publishers’ Clearing House, he may already have won! The battleground states have all turned blue, the reddest of red states are rapidly purpling. Don’t you know, little fool? You never can win. Use your mentality, wake up to reality. Why be the last right-wing pundit to sign up with Small-Government Conservatives For The Liberal Supermajority? We still need pages for the coronation, and there’s a pair of velvet knickerbockers with your name on it.

Yes, technically, this is still a two-party state, but one of the parties is like Elton John’s post-Oscar bash and the other is a church social in Wasilla.

Read the whole thing.

Obama is so confident of victory that he’s already selected the color of the new drapes and upholstery in the Oval Office, and his chief retainers are busy fighting over the best offices in the West Wing. As the New York Times reports: “(Leon) Podesta (head of Obama’s transition team)... has already written a draft Inaugural Address for Mr. Obama.”

Washington Wire describes McCain’s response:

John McCain slammed Barack Obama Saturday for being overconfident about his lead in the polls and predicted election night would feature a Dewey-Truman scenario.

“What America needs now is someone who will finish the race before starting the victory lap,” McCain said to the crowd of several thousand at a rally here. “Someone who will fight to the end, not for himself but for his country.”

In remarks dripping with sarcasm and disdain, the Republican presidential candidate said brought up a story from the New York Times that said former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta has already penned a copy of Obama’s inaugural address.

“I’m not making it up,” McCain said. “An awful lot of voters are still undecided but he’s decided for them that well, why wait, it’s time to move forward with his first inaugural address.”

Obama spokesman Bill Burton quickly refuted the attack. “While this charge is completely false and there is no draft of an inaugural address for Senator Obama, the last thing we need is a candidate like John McCain who just plans on re-reading George Bush’s,” he said.

But McCain had more zingers, fresh off the presses—with his own kind of startling confidence: “When I pull this thing off, I have a request for my opponent, I want him to save that manuscript of his inaugural address and donate it to the Smithsonian so they can put it right next to the Chicago paper that says ‘ Dewey defeats Truman’!”

The reference was to the 1948 presidential race, where Thomas Dewey ran against Harry Truman. The Chicago Daily Tribune–now known as the Chicago Tribune–ran a banner headline proclaiming Dewey’s victory. Several hundred copies were printed before the mistake was realized.

But McCain didn’t stop there. “There’s 10 days left in this election, maybe Barack Obama will even have his first state of the union address ready before you head to the polls,” McCain quipped. “You know, but I guess I’m a little old fashioned about these things. I’d prefer to let the voters weigh in before presuming the outcome.”

Republican candidates like John McCain and Sarah Palin encounter hostile, adversarial questions based specifically on opposition talking points all the time. Joe Biden, of course, is not used to facing anything like that kind of questioning, so when he ran into tough questions from Barbara West of Central Florida’s WFTV-Channel 9, he was understandably thrown off-stride.

5:05 video

Faced with West’s first question on ACORN’s pattern of voter registration fraud, Biden could only lie and deny the existence of a relationship between the Obama Campaign and ACORN.

West: “Aren’t you embarassed by the blatant attempts to register phony voters by ACORN, an organization that Barack Obama has been tied to in the past?”

Biden: “We are not tied to it (ACORN). We’ve not paid them one single penny to register a single solitary voter.”

Pittsburgh Tribune Review (Aug 22):

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for services the Democrat’s campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports.

An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc.—a subsidiary of ACORN —worked in “get-out-the-vote” projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary.

Biden: “Are you joking?... Is this a joke?... Is that a real question?” (false laughter)
————————————————
As Fox News reports the Obama Campaign soon retaliated by canceling an interview with Mrs. Biden, and cutting off the station from further access to the democrat candidates.

Later in the interview West questioned Biden about his comments that if Obama wins the election next month, he would be tested early on as president and wanted to know if Biden was implying America was no longer the world’s leading power.

“I don’t know who’s writing your questions,” Biden asked her.

The Obama camp then killed a WFTV interview with Biden’s wife Jill, according to an Orlando Sentinel blog.

“This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election,” wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign, according to the Sentinel.

Hal Boedecker of the Orlando-Sentinel quotes the Obama Campaign as complaining that Barbara West was “unprofessional and combative.”

The poor little democrats.

Mark R. Levin, at the Corner, warns Americans against a charismatic demagogue who is also a hardened ideologue.

Even the media are drawn to the allure that is Obama. Yes, the media are liberal. Even so, it is obvious that this election is different. The media are open and brazen in their attempts to influence the outcome of this election. I’ve never seen anything like it. Virtually all evidence of Obama’s past influences and radicalism — from Jeremiah Wright to William Ayers — have been raised by non-traditional news sources. The media’s role has been to ignore it as long as possible, then mention it if they must, and finally dismiss it and those who raise it in the first place. It’s as if the media use the Obama campaign’s talking points — its preposterous assertions that Obama didn’t hear Wright from the pulpit railing about black liberation, whites, Jews, etc., that Obama had no idea Ayers was a domestic terrorist despite their close political, social, and working relationship, etc. — to protect Obama from legitimate and routine scrutiny. And because journalists have also become commentators, it is hard to miss their almost uniform admiration for Obama and excitement about an Obama presidency. So in the tank are the media for Obama that for months we’ve read news stories and opinion pieces insisting that if Obama is not elected president it will be due to white racism. And, of course, while experience is crucial in assessing Sarah Palin’s qualifications for vice president, no such standard is applied to Obama’s qualifications for president. (No longer is it acceptable to minimize the work of a community organizer.) Charles Gibson and Katie Couric sought to humiliate Palin. They would never and have never tried such an approach with Obama.

But beyond the elites and the media, my greatest concern is whether this election will show a majority of the voters susceptible to the appeal of a charismatic demagogue. This may seem a harsh term to some, and no doubt will to Obama supporters, but it is a perfectly appropriate characterization. Obama’s entire campaign is built on class warfare and human envy. The “change” he peddles is not new. We’ve seen it before. It is change that diminishes individual liberty for the soft authoritarianism of socialism. It is a populist appeal that disguises government mandated wealth redistribution as tax cuts for the middle class, falsely blames capitalism for the social policies and government corruption (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that led to the current turmoil in our financial markets, fuels contempt for commerce and trade by stigmatizing those who run successful small and large businesses, and exploits human imperfection as a justification for a massive expansion of centralized government. Obama’s appeal to the middle class is an appeal to the “the proletariat,” as an infamous philosopher once described it, about which a mythology has been created. Rather than pursue the American Dream, he insists that the American Dream has arbitrary limits, limits Obama would set for the rest of us — today it’s $250,000 for businesses and even less for individuals. If the individual dares to succeed beyond the limits set by Obama, he is punished for he’s now officially “rich.” The value of his physical and intellectual labor must be confiscated in greater amounts for the good of the proletariat (the middle class). And so it is that the middle class, the birth-child of capitalism, is both celebrated and enslaved — for its own good and the greater good. The “hope” Obama represents, therefore, is not hope at all. It is the misery of his utopianism imposed on the individual.

Just like General Arnold, who, after he went over to the British, proved particularly eager to undertake raids on American towns, Kathleen Parker is today trying to bash John McCain for selecting Sarah Palin one more time.

My husband called it first. Then, a brilliant 75-year-old scholar and raconteur confessed to me over wine: “I’m sexually attracted to her. I don’t care that she knows nothing.”

Finally, writer Robert Draper closed the file on the Sarah Palin mystery with a devastating article in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine: “The Making (and Remaking) of McCain.” ...

As Draper tells it, McCain took Palin to his favorite coffee-drinking spot down by a creek and a sycamore tree. They talked for more than an hour, and, as Napoleon whispered to Josephine, “Voilà.”

Meow.

La Parker could say the same thing about the entire democrat party, the liberal establishment, the mainstream media, and, yes! the GOP turncoats like herself, all visibly besotted by the svelte and stylish liberal candidate with the voice like a warm sweet Machiatto and the glow of a winner. He may be a socialist whose friends all hate America, but he’s so cool.

You can’t blame McCain for picking an attractive female Republican. Female Republicans, it is commonly recognized, are very frequently attractive, notoriously more attractive than democrats. Remember the well-known poster?

Hat tip to Larry Johnson.

Obama Campaign Manager David Axelrod in foreground

Somehedgehog imagines this year’s presidential campaign as a game of D&D:

GM: OK, the bugbear attacks you. What do you do?

OBAMA: I send one of my 672 henchmen after it.

MCCAIN: OK, seriously. Why does he have so many henchmen? I’m a level 72 ranger and he’s only a level 8 paladin.

OBAMA: Well, if you’d bought the Grassroots Organizing and Oratory/Colgate Smile proficiencies you could min max it so that you…

MCCAIN: Why is he even IN this campaign? I thought this was supposed to be a high level party.

OBAMA: Well, maybe some people got tired of the grim and squinty “Matterhorn, son of Marathon” shtick you keep doing. Dude, could you be any less original?

MCCAIN: Oh my god, I did not leave my left nut in a tiger cage in the Tomb of Horrors to spend my Friday nights mopping up after the new kid.

OBAMA: “My friends, I am a totally unoriginal grizzled character class stereotype. I should lead the party because I have more testicular damage than that one.”

MCCAIN: Yeah, well, you pal around with dark elves.

Via Cory Doctorow.

Back in the days of Dwight Eisenhower, we had Me-Too Republicans who were simply too timid to challenge a conventional liberal orthodoxy for fear of being labeled radical. Tony Blankley finds today a new form of Me-Too Republican motivated by snobbery and misplaced loyalty to the community of fashion.

A commenter who signs himself “Waynes World” at Political Punch explains his reasons.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending MY MONEY than I would. I think when you spread the wealth around it is good for everybody! It’s Patriotic!

I’m voting Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. All profits are evil and should be confiscated for Government Redistribution.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe that MORE Government regulations and higher taxes on Business will stop Business from exporting their jobs to Countries with LESS Government regulations and lower taxes.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe terrorists should be allowed to have trials in American courts. And be able to subpoena top secret documents, soldiers, government officials, etc. to cross examine for their defense. They should have ACLU lawyers who can help intimidate Americans who serve on the juries!

I’m voting Democrat because I believe Gay Marriage should be the law of the land and will probably produce better children.

Read the whole thing.

Two female conservative columnists today discuss the media’s indulgent treatment of gaffemaster Biden.

CORRECTION: Should be: Two female columnists, one a Fox News commentator of democrat party background, and our own Michelle Malkin today discuss the media’s indulgent treatment of gaffemaster Biden.

(Thanks to Bohemian Conservative for enlightening me on the political background of Kirsten Powers.)
—————————————————-

Kirsten Powers, in the New York Post:

Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as his running mate prompted a small wave of warnings about Biden’s propensity for gaffes. But no one imagined even in a worse-case scenario such a spectacular bomb as telling donors Sunday to “gird your loins” because a young president Obama will be tested by an international crisis just like young President John Kennedy was.

Scary? You betcha! But somehow, not front-page news.

Again the media showed their incredible bias by giving scattered coverage of Biden’s statements.

So what gives?

The stock answer is: “It’s just Biden being Biden.” We all know how smart he is about foreign policy, so it’s not the same as when Sarah Palin says something that seems off.

Yet, when Biden asserted incorrectly in the vice-presidential debate that the United States “drove Hezbollah out of Lebanon,” nobody in the US media shrieked. (It was, however, covered with derision in the Middle East.) Or when he confused his history by claiming FDR calmed the nation during the Depression by going on TV, the press didn’t take it as evidence that he’s clueless.

And Biden is the foreign-policy gravitas on the Democratic ticket, so his comments are actually even more disconcerting. ...

Part of the problem is their “Obama love,” but we’re also seeing the media elite’s belief – prejudice – that anyone with an R behind their name is dumb. So, if they say something dumb, they must be dumb. A Democrat, like Biden, can make wildly inaccurate or outrageous comments and they are ignored because the TV and press insiders feel they “know who he really is.”

On the stump recently, Sen. Biden declared he had “three words” for what the nation needs: “J-O-B-S.”

Lucky for him, his name isn’t Dan Quayle, or that would have followed him for the rest of his career.

Michelle Malkin:

Hysterical Sarah Palin-bashers on the unhinged left and elitist right have dominated campaign press coverage and pop culture. They’ve ridiculed her family, her appearance and her speech patterns. They’ve derided her character, her parenting skills, her readiness and her intellect.

Meanwhile, the increasingly erratic, super-gaffetastic Joe Biden gets a pass. What does the guy have to do to earn the relentless scrutiny and merciless mockery he deserves? Answer: wear high heels, shoot caribou and change the “D” next to his name to an “R.” ...

Dan Quayle will have “POTATOE” etched on his gravestone. But how many times have late-night comedians and cable shows replayed the video of senior statesman and six-term Sen. Biden’s own spelling mishap last week while attacking McCain’s economic plan?

“Look, John’s last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the No. 1 job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S.”

No, Joe. “D’-O-H” is a three-letter word.

Nightly news shows still haven’t tired of replaying Palin’s infamous interview with Katie Couric. But how many times have they replayed Biden’s botched interview with Couric last month—in which he cluelessly claimed: “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’”

Er, here’s what really happened: Roosevelt wasn’t president when the market crashed in 1929. As for appearing on TV, it was still in its infant stages and wasn’t available to the general public until at least 10 years later.

During the lone VP debate earlier this month, the increasingly erratic, super-gaffetastic Biden demonstrated more historical ignorance that Palin would never be allowed to get away with: “Vice President Cheney’s been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history,” he said. “He has the idea he doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the executive—he works in the executive branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.”

Article 1 of the Constitution defines the role of the legislative branch, not the executive branch. You would think someone who has served 36 years in government—the same someone who is quick to remind others of his high IQ and longtime Senate Judiciary Committee chairmanship—would know better.

Biden’s erratic and gaffetastic behavior is the least of America’s worries. He’s worse than a blunderbuss. He’s an incurable narcissist with chronic diarrhea of the mouth. He’s a phony and a pretender who fashions himself a foreign policy expert, constitutional scholar and worldly wise man. He’s a man who can’t control his impulses.

And he could be a heartbeat away.

Sci Fi author Orson Scott Card pleads with the MSM to tell the truth.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That’s where you are right now.

It’s not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation’s prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama’s door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion. ...

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.

You’re just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it’s time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.

Not gonna happen.

Read the whole thing.

Via Mark Hemingway at the Corner at National Review:

Here’s humorist David Sedaris in that bastion of sophistication, The New Yorker, on undecided voters:

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of s—t with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?

I expect Sedaris and I don’t agree on which item of the menu is which, but we certainly agree on the clarity of the choice.

Peggy Noonan and Chris Buckley ought to like her a lot better after listening to this one.

3:39 video

Roger Kimball agrees.

I agree with Gen. Powell that Obama would be a “transformational figure.” But what sort of transformation are we talking about? The United States is the richest, freest, most powerful nation in history. What would it look like after Obama, abetted by a Pelosi-Reid Congress, got done with their transformation?

Yes, that’s right, Virginia, it would be poorer, markedly less free, and less powerful.

Read the whole thing.

“I’m Spartacus.”

Transterrestial Musings finds :

71 BC*

ROME (Routers) Diligent investigative reporters were shocked to learn today that many, indeed most of the captured slaves in yesterday’s battle in Lucania who proclaimed “I am Spartacus” were actually misleading military authorities, and not the famous rebel leader at all.

One of the investigators, Probius Ani, lead chiseler at the Tempus Romae, shared the details. “We looked into their backgrounds, and while they were all slaves at one time or another, few of them had formal gladiator training, nor did they universally use the Thracian style of combat for which he was well known.”

After the defeat, when authorities demanded to know which of the defeated was the leader, at first one of them jumped up and declared himself Spartacus**. But the situation quickly grew confused as another, and then another, and then dozens and hundreds of the defeated curs shouted out the same claim. Legitimate demands of proof of identity, gladiators’ licenses, and tax and divorce records from them were met with a sullen resistance, making it impossible to tell which to properly punish.

“These slaves have no credibility,” noted a proconsul on the scene. “Why should we grant any respect to a campaign based on false pretenses? Why should we not just spread their wealth around, and crucify them all?”

Joe the Plumber speaks.

3:08 video

Chicago developer Tony Rezko provided the bridge that made it possible for Barack Obama to buy his $1.65 million dream house by arranging for the price to be lowered by splitting the acreage and having his wife pay full price ($625,000) for a 9090 sq. ft. portion of the side yard accessible only through the main property now designated a “development lot.” Obama got $300,000 off the asking price for the rest.

Original story

Well, what do you know? It seems the side yard parcel purchased by Mrs. Rezko wouldn’t appraise, and the bank appraiser who rejected a $625,000 valuation was fired and a new reappraisal mysteriously substituted for his estimate of no more than $500,000.

They call that bank fraud.

The Washington Times has the story.

Sam Schulman, in the Weekly Standard, contemplates the crucial role of class solidarity in this year’s election, concluding that Sarah Palin (the Admirable Crichton of 2008), not Bill Ayers, is the real revolutionary.

A must read.

Mainstream Chicago regards Ayers as rehabilitated—but why? He hasn’t, like Chuck Colson, repented, or paid his debt to society by serving a prison term. He doesn’t even enjoy the prestige of a Clinton presidential pardon. Susan Rosenberg, a fellow Weatherman for whom Mrs. Ayers did go to jail rather than implicate in the execution murders of several cops, enjoys that distinction. What makes the Ayerses respectable is purely a matter of upper-middle-class solidarity. You can see the ranks close around them in the texture of Richard Stern’s elegant prose. Stern, a novelist and a long-serving University of Chicago English professor, reassures us:

I’ve been to three or four small dinner parties with Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, once hailed as the Weather-men’s Dolores Ibárruri (“La Pasionaria”), a fiery, beautiful muse. .  .  . Dohrn is still attractive, while Ayers maintains an adolescent fizzle in his sexagenarian bones.

Carefully, Stern engages with the glamorous couple on equal terms, before judging them:

At dinner, thirty-eight years later, Ayers and Dohrn did not seem to hold [my criticism of the 1970 University of Chicago student uprising] against me, and I didn’t hold their fiery and criminally violent behavior against them. As in Chekhov’s wonderful story “Old Age,” time had planed down the sharp edges and brought one-time antagonists into each others’ arms.

As the Ayerses’ social equal, Stern can estimate them fairly.

As far as I know, Ayers and Dohrn are loyal to the selves which led both of them to jail (though not for long), but they were busy doing other things, useful things, Ayers as educator, Dohrn as a legal counselor. They’d raised the child of a Weatherman who’d been jailed, they were taking care of Bernardine’s ill mother, they were doing many things educated community activists were doing.

What the Ayerses now teach, think, and do hardly matters as long as they observe good form, the form of “educated community activists.” Stern wants us to hear a mellow Chekhovian tone in their lives (and his prose). Perhaps, but in his moral reasoning I hear Oscar Wilde’s Cecily Cardew, in The Importance of Being Earnest, observing that the Ayerses “have been eating muffins. That looks like repentance.”

Read the whole thing.

For at least three years, Verum Serum reports. Michael Klonsky was there, too.

The mainstream media treated Joe the Plumber having a tax lien as a matter of national interest. But, as Jim Lindgren points out at Volokh Conspiracy, obvious ethics violations by a certain former Illinois state legislator are considered unworthy of attention.

The Illinois Governmental Ethics Act (apparently last changed in 1995) provides:

(5 ILCS 420/2-110)

Sec. 2-110. Honoraria.

(a) No member of the General Assembly shall accept any honorarium.

(b) As used in this Section:

“Honorarium” means a payment of money to a member of the General Assembly for an appearance or speech.

and

But State Senator Obama reported accepting honoraria on his 2000 and 2002 tax returns:

2000: On his 2000 Schedule C-EZ, Barack reported that he received $16,500 as a “Foundation director/Educational speaker.”

2002: On his 2002 Schedule C, Barack reported $34,491 for “LEGAL SERVCES / SPEAKING FEES.”