Of course, it’s the press that has manufactured a great deal of drama which wasn’t really there, in Iowa and New Hampshire. Lady Macbeth has again found her voice (1:01 video) and is back on step toward her virtually inevitable coronation in Denver.

Huffington Post:

Hillary Clinton has eked out a crucial win in New Hampshire, a state her aides have long staked out as the “firewall” in her quest for the Democratic nomination. At roughly three points, the margin of victory is far smaller than her lead in state polls over the past 11 months, which often topped 20 points. But Clinton’s success will surely help stabilize her presidential campaign, which was rocked by infighting since her loss in Iowa. Rumors of a major staff shakeup had percolated for days: Campaign Co-Chair Terry McAuliffe already annouced that the campaign would “bring in more people to help,” while James Carville and Paul Begala spent the primary day denying rumors they were taking over. On Tuesday afternoon, a Democratic source told The Nation that Team Hillary was still debating whether to hand the reins over to Steve Richetti, who served as President Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff – the strategic post that Karl Rove made famous.

Yet Clinton cleared away the doubts and struck an inspiring note in her victory speech, telling New Hampshire voters, “I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice. I felt like we all spoke from our hearts and I am so gratified that you responded!” She was met with roaring applause. Clinton likened the narrow victory to her husband’s famous “comeback” in 1992, when he battled back to a surprising second place finish in New Hampshire. Then she offered a much more important parallel, vowing to give America the “kind of comeback” that New Hampshire just gave her.

McCain’s victory, of course, is just an artifact of the New Hampshire open primary. He is the non-Republican’s preferred Republican candidate.

Media Bistro:

NBC’s Brian Williams took to MSNBC today at noon (1/8) and had this to say:

WILLIAMS: I interviewed Lee Cowan, our reporter who covers Obama, while we were out yesterday and posted the interview on the web. Lee says it’s hard to stay objective covering this guy. Courageous for Lee to say, to be honest.

James Lewis:

What adult would vote for a totally untested presidential candidate by falling in love? Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, Senator Joe Biden, and a million other Democrats — that’s who. The New York Times stable of Leftie pundits is reliving the Decade of Love. The Washington press corps has the teenie bopper hots over Barack Obama — such a romantic name. A real African! Almost.

What does he believe? What has he actually done? Uhmmmm… Well…

It’s Son of Camelot! And he’s got the youth vote! Children just know these things!

This is straight out of Dumb and Dumber. If you despaired about the media’s endless love affair with Bill Clinton, the Master of Slick, because he Cares About You, you’ll get to revisit those feelings now. For we have a new national idol!

Children often have fantasies about a Good Parent — one who loves you and takes care of you forever and ever, who forgives your transgressions whatever they may be, who demands nothing, and never, ever hurts your feelings. Obama is now the Good Parent of the childish Left — a good majority of the Dems, it would seem.

In a child’s mind the Good Parent is often played against a complementary fantasy, the Bad Parent — call them Republicans in this case. The Bad Parent stands for the sterner aspects of reality. Since Leftism is basically an infantile protest against adulthood, Republicans represent what Sigmund Freud called the Reality Principle.

Alex Massie debates whether Hillary is more like Honoria Glossop or more like Florence Cray.

Dipping into The Inimitable Jeeves last night, it struck me that, for a certain kind of chap, Hillary is the Honoria Glossop of the presidential campaign. It’s not just that Hillary’s now infamous “cackle” is dangerously reminiscent of Miss Glossop’s laugh “that sounded like a squadron of cavalry charging across a tin bridge.”

No, it’s more that Hillary too often gives the impression of sharing Honoria’s horrifying determination to mould a fellow. To wit, one can easily imagine Hillary addressing a chap, thus:

“I think” she said “I shall be able to make something of you, Bertie. It is true yours has been a wasted life up to the present, but you are still young, and there is a lot of good in you…It simply wants bringing out.”

But what if you don’t want bringing out? Opting out ain’t an option with this sort of girl. And it gets worse. When Hillary isn’t being Honoria Glossop she’s reminding one of Florence Craye. Now it’s true that Bertie was briefly infatuated with Miss Craye. But that was until he engaged Jeeves and was persuaded that Miss Craye was a thoroughly unsuitable match (See Carry On, Jeeves for the details). As Bertie realised:

“The root of the trouble was that she was one of those intellectual girls, steeped to the gills in serious purpose, who are unable to see a male soul without wanting to get behind it and shove.”

Some of us might prefer to remain un-shoved. Worse still, whenever a girl of Florence’s type engages one to stick one’s neck out for her – by, for instance, stealing a manuscript – she tries to persuade you that it’s really for your own advantage. She risks nothing, of course, whereas your allowance is endangered. But no, she will say:

“I wonder you can’t appreciate the compliment I am paying you – trusting you like this”

Alas, I can just hear Hillary putting it like that. Can’t you?

Hat tip to Professor Bainbridge.

Christopher Hitchens correctly observes that “There’s something pathetic and embarrassing about our obsession with Barack Obama’s race.”

To put it squarely and bluntly, is it because he is or is it because he isn’t? To phrase it another way, is it because of what he says or what he doesn’t say? Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is the current beneficiary of a tsunami of drool. He sometimes claims credit on behalf of all Americans regardless of race, color, creed, blah blah blah, though his recent speeches appear also to claim a victory for blackness while his supporters—most especially the white ones—sob happily that at last we can have an African-American chief executive. Off to the side, snarling with barely concealed rage, are the Clinton machine-minders, who, having failed to ignite the same kind of identity excitement with an aging and resentful female, are perhaps wishing that they had made more of her errant husband having already been “our first black president.”

Or perhaps not. Isn’t there something pathetic and embarrassing about this emphasis on shade? And why is a man with a white mother considered to be “black,” anyway? Is it for this that we fought so hard to get over Plessy v. Ferguson? Would we accept, if Obama’s mother had also been Jewish, that he would therefore be the first Jewish president? The more that people claim Obama’s mere identity to be a “breakthrough,” the more they demonstrate that they have failed to emancipate themselves from the original categories of identity that acted as a fetter upon clear thought.

Dennis Praeger debunks the nonsensical claims echoing through the leftwing media that Obama can magically unifiy the country.

We are repeatedly told by the news media that there is a deep, almost palpable, yearning among Americans for unity. And Sen. Barack Obama’s repeated and eloquent claims to being able to unite Americans are a major reason for his present, and very possibly eventual, success in his quest for his party’s nomination for president of the United States.

I do not doubt Mr. Obama’s sincerity. The wish that all people be united is an elemental human desire. But there are two major problems with it. First, it is not truly honest. Second, it is childish.

First is its dishonesty. Virtually all calls for unity — whether national, international or religious (as in calls for Christian unity) — do not tell the whole truth.

If those who call for unity told the whole truth, this is what they would say: “I want everyone to unite — behind my values. I want everyone who disagrees with me to change the way they think so that we can all be united. I myself have no plans to change my positions on any important issues in order to achieve this unity. So in order to achieve it, I assume that all of you who differ with me will change your views and values and embrace mine.”

Take any important issue that divides Americans and explain exactly how unity can be achieved without one of the two sides giving up its values and embracing the other side’s values. …

Given what Sen. Obama’s calls for unity really mean — let’s all go left — it is no wonder he and his calls for unity are enthusiastically embraced by the liberal media.

For nearly eight years the media and Democrats have labeled President Bush’s policies “divisive” simply because they don’t agree with them. They are not one whit more divisive than Sen. Obama’s positions. A question for Democrats, the media and other Obama supporters: How exactly are Mr. Obama’s left-wing political positions any less “divisive” than President Bush’s right-wing positions?

Second, the craving for unity is frequently childish. As we mature we understand that decent people will differ politically and theologically. The mature yearn for unity only on a handful of fundamental values, such as: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Beyond such basics, we yearn for civil discourse and tolerance, not unity.

The next time Sen. Obama speaks with his usual passion and eloquence about his desire to unite Americans, someone must ask him two questions: Why are your left-wing positions any less divisive than President Bush’s right-wing positions? And if you are so committed to uniting Americans, why did you vote against declaring English our national, i.e., our unifying, language? Without compelling answers, Sen. Obama’s calls for American unity are no more than calls to unite around his politics and him.

Large portions of the Blogosphere have launched themselves late this morning into a lemming-like pursuit of a mischievous meme proposed by that rascal Matt Drudge:

Hillary is losing in New Hampshire. How soon will she withdraw?

TALK OF HILLARY EXIT ENGULFS CAMPAIGNS
Mon Jan 07 2008 09:46:28 ET

Facing a double-digit defeat in New Hampshire, a sudden collapse in national polls and an expected fund-raising drought, Senator Hillary Clinton is preparing for a tough decision: Does she get out of the race? And when?!

“She can’t take multiple double-digit losses in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada,” laments one top campaign insider to the DRUDGE REPORT. “If she gets too badly embarrassed, it will really harm her. She doesn’t want the Clinton brand to be damaged with back-to-back-to-back defeats.”

Meanwhile, Democrat hopeful John Edwards has confided to senior staff that he is staying in the race because Hillary “could soon be out.”

“Her money is going to dry up,” Edwards confided, a top source said Monday morning.

MORE

Key players in Clinton’s inner circle are said to be split. James Carville is urging her to fight it out through at least February and Super Tuesday, where she has a shot at thwarting Barack Obama in a big state.

“She did not work this hard to get out after one state! All this talk is nonsense,” said one top adviser.

But others close to the former first lady now see no possible road to victory, sources claim.

Developing…

[The dramatic reversal of fortunes has left the media establishment stunned and racing to keep up with fast-moving changes.

In its final poll before Iowa, CNN showed Clinton with a two-point lead over Obama. Editorial decisions were being made based on an understanding the Democratic primary race would be close, explained a network executive.]

Drudge is a scamp, isn’t he?

———————————-

Rightwing News, in picking the 20 Most Annoying Liberals, puts Hillary’s rival into a more accurate perspective, awarding him only number 20:

Barack Obama: It’s almost tempting to leave Bambi off the list since he’s not a race-baiting parasite like Al Sharpton and more importantly, because Hillary Clinton probably dreams of gouging his eyes out with an ice cream scoop every night.

On the other hand, anybody who got into the Senate by beating Alan Keyes and who hasn’t yet served a full term, isn’t by any objective standard even qualified to be President. Still, America’s most vapid politician, a guy who should have had his presidential campaign sponsored by Hallmark greeting cards — because in a whole year’s time, I’m not sure he said anything deeper than something you’ve read on the back of one of those cards — is now the favorite to be the Democratic nominee.

Daniel Pipes responds to efforts by the Chicago Tribune and Media Matters for America to dispute his observations that Barack Hussein Obama was a practicing Muslim as a child in Indonesia and consequently would be regarded by the Muslim world as murtadd, an apostate who must be required to return to Islam or be killed.

· “Interviews with dozens of former classmates, teachers, neighbors and friends show that Obama was not a regular practicing Muslim when he was in Indonesia” – implying he was an irregularly practicing Muslim.

· “Obama occasionally followed his stepfather to the mosque for Friday prayers, a few neighbors said” – confirming that he did pray in the mosque.

· “Obama’s 3rd-grade teacher at the Catholic school, who lived near the family [said that] ‘Rarely, Barry went to the mosque with Lolo’” – confirming that Obama attended mosque services.

All this matters, for if Obama once was a Muslim, he is now what Islamic law calls a murtadd (apostate), an ex-Muslim converted to another religion who must be executed. Were he elected president of the United States, this status, clearly, would have large potential implications for his relationship with the Muslim world.

Pipes original December 24, 2007 article.

Debbie Schlussel arrived at similar conclusions slightly earlier.

Of course, he could avoid being killed simply by reconverting…

The ever-witty Mark Steyn comments on the Republican Winter of our Discontent.

Confronted by Preacher Huckabee standing astride the Iowa caucuses, smirking, “Are you feelin’ Hucky, punk?”, many of my conservative pals are inclined to respond, “Shoot me now.”

But, if that seems a little dramatic, let’s try and rustle up an alternative.

In response to the evangelical tide from the west, New Hampshire primary voters have figured, “Any old crusty, cranky, craggy coot in a storm,” and re-embraced John McCain. After all, Granite State conservatism is not known for its religious fervor: it prefers small government, low taxes, minimal regulation, the freedom to be left alone by the state. So they’re voting for a guy who opposed the Bush tax cuts, and imposed on the nation the most explicit restriction in political speech in years. Better yet, after a freezing first week of January and the snowiest December in a century, New Hampshire conservatives are goo-goo for a fellow who also believes the scariest of global-warming scenarios and all the big-government solutions necessary to avert them.

Well, OK, maybe we can rustle up an alternative to the alternative.

Rudy Giuliani’s team is betting that, after a Huck/McCain seesaw through the early states, Florida voters by Jan. 29 will be ready to unite their party behind a less-divisive figure, if by “less divisive figure” you mean a pro-abortion gun-grabbing cross-dresser. …

Where I part company with Huck’s supporters is in believing he’s any kind of solution. He’s friendlier to the teachers’ unions than any other so-called “cultural conservative” – which is why in New Hampshire he’s the first Republican to be endorsed by the NEA. His health care pitch is Attack Of The Fifty Foot Nanny, beginning with his nationwide smoking ban. This is, as Jonah Goldberg put it, compassionate conservatism on steroids – big paternalistic government that can only enervate even further “our culture.”

So, Iowa chose to reward, on the Democrat side, a proponent of the conventional secular left, and, on the Republican side, a proponent of a new Christian left. If that’s the choice, this is going to be a long election year.

My leftwing classmates are chortling with joy over Obama’s victory in Iowa. Poor Hillary! How readily the left turns upon its own.

It’s too soon to tell, of course. But, I was wondering: what if those liberal classmates are right?

It is a lot like 1976, the last time Iowa determined the eventual victor. The Republican Party is out of favor with the electorate and in disarray. There is a chaotic field of candidates, again. Perhaps all this does spell disaster looming for the country. Obama would be another Carter. Like Carter, he’s an outsider and an adherent of impractical, dysfunctional leftism in all its forms. He, too, could produce US humiliation abroad accompanied by economic disaster at home, resulting in a one-term presidency followed by two 8-year Republican presidencies in a row. Could happen.

Maybe this country needs to learn its lesson the hard way every so many years.

Iowa, in my view, is the ultimate dreadful flat Midwestern fly-over state with a name beginning with a vowel. Beyond producing lots of corn, Iowa’s only apparent raison d’etre seems to me to consist of making crossing Indiana seem not so bad.

The MSM is agog over Huckabee and Obama’s triumph. Some serious chin-stroking is underway this morning as the punditocracy unlimbers its powers of divination and starts explaining what it all means.

But Michael Judge was probably right yesterday, when he suggested in the Wall Street Journal that we all just Ignore Iowa.

in 2004 just 6% of the state’s eligible voters attended a caucus, according to a study by Prof. Michael McDonald of George Mason University. Many Iowans say that number is deceptively low, because President Bush ran unopposed and most Republicans stayed home. With a big turnout year as 2008 is expected to be, caucus organizers still will be lucky to get one in five voters to make the effort. …

You’ll have to forgive us Iowans; we’ve been bombarded by innumerable pamphlets, polls, phone calls, television ads, text messages, etc. And our borders have been compromised by a press corps that’s pounced on every story, however mundane, as if it were a talking pig. (Go to CNN.com to see streaming video of the elderly Iowa woman who carved a bust of Obama from 23 pounds of butter.)

Is all this hoopla really justified? In 1988, then New Hampshire governor John Sununu famously said, “The people of Iowa pick corn, the people of New Hampshire pick presidents.” He was right, at least about Iowans not picking presidents. The winner of the Iowa Caucus, incumbents excluded, has never — well, almost never — won the presidency (Jimmy Carter being the exception to the rule).

Quinn Hilyer looks at John McCain, who has been garnering endorsements in new Hampshire recently, and shudders.

As truly horrific as it would be for the liberal and unethical Mike Huckabee to win the Republican presidential nomination, many Republicans still believe it would be almost as difficult to stomach the nomination of John McCain.

Huckabee, of course, would utterly destroy the old Reagan coalition, as even his campaign chief Ed Rollins has acknowledged. Huckabee’s bizarre propensity for letting criminals return early to freedom, combined with his utter cluelessness about foreign policy, also means that he would get absolutely crushed by the Democrats in a general election contest.

But McCain’s problems are almost as great, which is why reports of a comeback by the Arizona senator have so many conservatives scratching their heads.

McCain is, and looks, more than two years older than Ronald Reagan was when Reagan was elected president, and a poll last year showed that 42 percent of respondents said they would not vote for somebody who is 72 years old. That is a far higher percentage than that of people who would not vote for a Mormon (24 percent), a woman (11 percent), or a black person (5 percent).

McCain is not a tax cutter in a party that has made tax cuts one of its most basic tenets for nearly 30 years. Not only did he vote against President George W. Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 — cuts that clearly are responsible for the booming economy of the past four-plus years — but just last week he told National Review’s Rich Lowry that he was correct not to vote for those tax cuts.

Neal Boortz has some choice words for the left.

Sorry, I’m not in the mood for all of this Happy New Year nonsense. This is getting to be about as phony as the 4th of July. (Freedom … right. Like the people of this country are still in love with the idea of liberty.) This is 2008. This is an election year. We’re choosing a new House of Representatives, about one-third of the Senate and a president. This is not the type of New Year you launch with the traditional expressions of optimism. We’re in trouble. An election is coming in 11 months and millions of parasites, led by single females, are getting ready to accelerate the destruction of the concepts of individuality, private property rights, self-reliance, and this very country by putting a hideous, power-hungry, big-government socialist into the White House.

I think I’ve made a bit of a mistake over the past few months. Trying to be a bit to nice to the people I think are destroying this country. I’ve been trying to cut them some slack .. be a little understanding. You know, the compassion thing. Well, something must have clicked during the last two weeks off. No more free passes. Identify the leeches. Call them out. They’re destroying the greatest system of governance this world has ever known, and they should not be allowed to go unchallenged.

If you squandered every opportunity for an education to end up an unemployable semi-literate loser, that’s your problem, not mine. If you’ve destroyed your health with cigarettes and fast food … then by what right do you demand that people who lived their lives more responsibly than you cover the cost of your medical care. You cry about your “right” to health care. You dare to claim a right to the services of another human being to correct problems you created for yourself? Further, if it is more important for you to spend your money on a cell phone, flat-screen televisions, the best new car, meals at expensive restaurants and fancy vacations than it is to spend your money on a health insurance policy .. then you should be on your own. Don’t beg the government to steal from someone else so that you don’t have to change your lifestyle.