Ed Kaitz, at American Thinker, has some observations on the contradictions inherent in the rhetoric of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Recent polls are showing that by a good 60% margin, Barack Obama is seen as a candidate who can “unify” the nation. This may be the most brilliant example of what George Orwell called “doublethink” in the recent history of the Democratic Party. Think about it: for over thirty, maybe forty years the American public has been variously sermonized and threatened by crusaders in Obama’s same party into embracing not unity, but “diversity.” Call it what you will – brilliant or duplicitous – it is still a masterful political achievement.

For decades students in our schools have been told to “celebrate difference” and to see America as a “salad bowl” rather than the “melting pot” of old. Those who resisted the collective swoon for “diversity” and who descried the resulting balkanization of our educational institutions were forced into “diversity training seminars” and reeducated under the watchful eyes of “diversity officers.” For as Mao Tse Tung famously said, those who oppose progressive change “must go through a stage of compulsion before they can enter the stage of voluntary, conscious change.” But if these polls are correct, and Obama is indeed the great unifier, what will happen then to all of the “diversity officers” and “diversity training” seminars on our college campuses and in our corporations? Will the entire “diversity” superstructure in our society finally be dismantled? Will Democrats, for maybe the first time since JFK or MLK start talking about what unites us rather than what divides us? Will citizens be thought of as “Americans” first and not categorized and rewarded based on skin color? Is Obama, the great unifier, going to finally liberate us from this divisive ideology? Don’t hold your breath.

George Orwell claimed that there was something more calculated at work when politicians begin to claim for example that “Slavery is Freedom” or that “Hate is Love,” or in Mao Tse Tung’s words, that “Compulsion is Voluntary.” The new and improved Democratic Party version seems to be that “Diversity is Unity.” Orwell called this “doublethink” and he claimed that it was a condition endemic to the totalitarian mind. It meant the ability “to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory” and “to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies.” For example, a liberal socialist political platform usually involves “liberating” us from our attachments to property, families and nation in the name of “freedom.” When the State chooses for us, however, the result is slavery. Doublethink in Mr. Obama’s case (“Diversity is Unity!”) gives him the luxury of defending not only the divisive and intolerant Reverend Wright and his party’s divisive policies over the years, but it also allows him to be seen as the savior who will finally make America whole.

Since it is difficult to recall a time when national unity was high on the list of Democratic Party priorities, the coming months should be a rather curious time for many. …

When.. divisive affirmative action programs were challenged in courts across the country “diversity” was invented as a way of continuing the assault on what many considered “white privilege” or “white oppression.” In the final analysis however, diversity or multiculturalism were never more than a charade to cover the underlying Marxist theory of conflict. Minority students brought in on affirmative action were rarely encouraged to study other languages and cultures because the liberal gatekeepers understood something rather disturbing about this endeavor: a thorough and sensitive investigation of other cultures and religions reveals a rather conservative, not liberal, orientation in their respective beliefs and habits. …

The bottom line is that when the Left in this country embraced Marxism they committed themselves to conflict and division, not cooperation. Obama, unlike Hillary however is smart enough to understand that fostering division is a poor strategy for winning elections. In the words of Eric Hoffer:

Those who would transform a nation or the world cannot do so by breeding or captaining discontent. . . They must know how to kindle and fan an extravagant hope.

Obama’s relationship with Reverend Wright complicates this strategy, as does his receptivity to and defense of the anger in much of the black electorate. But if Obama’s message is “unity” then it means absolutely nothing unless he addresses several decades of divide and conquer liberal ideology. In other words, unless he does this, Obama’s message will amount to nothing other than the latest form of Orwellian doublethink: “Diversity is Unity!”

And used the same Winner Take All Primary System we do, what would the delegate count look like? Rassmussen Reports’ Wesley Little provides the answer.

The Republican Party is about to nominate a man whose past loyalty to the GOP, Conservatism, and the current Republican Administration obviously leaves a great deal to be desired.

Back in 2001, John McCain denied having any reasons for, or intentions of, leaving the Republican Party.” Last year, his spokesman told Power Line that there was no truth in stories that John McCain had considered leaving the GOP.

But former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal, currently out promoting a new book, has just leaked his own recollections of private democrat party negotiations with McCain.

According to Sidney Blumenthal, a senior adviser for former President Bill Clinton and current adviser to Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton, at one point McCain was going to leave the Republican Party and caucus with Senate Democrats.

“And although he doesn’t want to talk to reporters about it now, there was a time and I was privy to some of those who were involved, did conduct negotiations through third parties about whether or not he would leave the Republican Party and become an independent more or less aligned in the Senate with the Democrats,” said Blumenthal on April 1. Blumenthal did not say when those negotiations took place.

Of course, this revelation is not completely new

A story dated 3/28/07 from the Hill features a similar account.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was close to leaving the Republican Party in 2001, weeks before then-Sen. Jim Jeffords (Vt.) famously announced his decision to become an Independent, according to former Democratic lawmakers who say they were involved in the discussions.

In interviews with The Hill this month, former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and ex-Rep. Tom Downey (D-N.Y.) said there were nearly two months of talks with the maverick lawmaker following an approach by John Weaver, McCain’s chief political strategist.

Democrats had contacted Jeffords and then-Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) in the early months of 2001 about switching parties, but in McCain’s case, they said, it was McCain’s top strategist who came to them.

In Newsweek, Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s political strategist supreme, pitches in to help out the Clinton and Obama campaigns.

It will be a contested convention, Karl predicts.

After the last Democratic primary is held in early June, neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama will have enough votes from delegates elected in caucuses or primaries to be declared the nominee. Obama would have to win 76 percent and Clinton 98 percent of the 535 delegates that are at stake in the final eight contests. Neither will happen.

How do you win one of those?

Control the Convention Mechanism. If you set the rules, decide who votes, organize the event and control what is said, it’s almost impossible to lose. So while Democratic National Committee chief Howard Dean is ostensibly in charge, both candidates would be well advised to gain control of the levers of the convention.

Three committees are key. The Rules Committee is where trouble can begin. Someone will come up with a smooth-sounding rules change that will give one candidate the advantage or the appearance of having a majority of the delegates. There will be an early test vote: the key is to pick what it is and win it. It’s likely to be obscure—the election of a temporary chairman, say—or contrived. But it will establish who’s in charge.

Read the whole thing.

Jules Crittenden thanks the democrats for a lesson in political correctness.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the Democratic Party, its two remaining presidential candidates and their campaigns for the important lessons in sensitivity and political correctness they have offered in recent weeks.

Political correctness is not simply the denial and dispute of facts or subject matter, but more practically the denial of the right to speak them, due to their objectionable or politically inconvenient nature. It’s generally wielded as a weapon against opponents. But it is more fascinating to watch it swung as a cudgel against allies. And in a campaign in which the strongest points … hope, change, experience … have tended to be a little vague or tenuous at best, the most memorable moments turn out to be about what must not be said, when we’ve seen that cudgel come down.

Of course they have platforms. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have attempted to outbid each other with your money. There are subsidies for universal healthcare, giveaways to newborns, that kind of thing. It theoretically gets paid for by taking from the rich, but stopping the war. Though that of course depends on what your definition of rich is, and whether the war can stopped…

Read the whole thing.

(* punchline to a proposed “Why does a Republican cross the street” joke. The famous Ernest Hemingway version of the “Why Does the Chicken” joke, you see, ends with: “To die… alone… in the rain.”)

Peggy Noonan thinks the two parties these days are like two very different houses:

It’s a tale of two houses. One is dilapidated, old. Everyone in the neighborhood is used to it, and they turn away when they pass. A series of people lived in it and failed to take care of it. It’s run down, needs paint. The roof sags, squirrels run through the eaves. A haunted house! No, more boring. Just a house someone . . . let go.

But over here, a new house on a new plot. It’s rising from the mud before your eyes. It has interesting lines, a promising façade, and when people walk by they stop and look. So much bustle! Builders running in and out, the contractors fighting with each other—”You wouldn’t even have this job if it weren’t for the minority set-aside!” And everyone hates the architect, who put a port-o-potty on the lawn.

But: You can’t take your eyes off it. “Something being born, and not something dying.” Maybe it will improve the neighborhood. Maybe the owners will be nice.

Personally, I think the cops will soon be arriving in large numbers to suppress the donnybrook going on in that nice new house, and to take a significant portion of the tenants away in paddy wagons.

We Republicans?

The base is tired. Republicans feel their own kind of unease at Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton. Talk about wanting to stand athwart history yelling stop. They’re not in a mood to give money. Remember the phrase “broken glass Republicans?” The number of Republicans so offended, so wounded, actually, as citizens, by the Clinton years, that they’d crawl across broken glass to elect George Bush? They existed in 2004, too. Now a lot of them wouldn’t crawl across a plush weave carpet to vote for a Republican.

Not if he’s John McCain, we wouldn’t.

But Peggy has one crumb of good news about McCain. He likes Hemingway. A lot.

Who has he read besides Hemingway? (And he’s read him—he loves him to an almost scary degree.)

Maybe he’s not all bad, after all.

Pro-Clinton Kos Kid Alegre declared herself on strike from Daily Kos, frustrated at management’s refusal to enforce standards of civility or factuality with respect to postings attacking Hillary.

Gateway Pundit offers a screen capture of a portion of the flung feces representing the typical negative response the Kos community.

Kos himself was unsympathetic. He told ABC’s Jake Tapper:

First, these people should read up on the definition of ‘strike.’ What they’re doing is a ‘boycott.’ But whatever they call it, I think it’s great. It’s a big Internet, so I hope they find what they’re looking for.”

The conflict between Obama and Clinton supporters has already become bitter and ugly, and there is every reason to expect that things will only grow worse through the convention.

Texas Rainmaker wonders how America is enjoying the fruits of the 2006 election.

Clarice Feldman publishes a letter suggesting a solution.

Linda Hirschman found out the hard way that diversity of opinion is just not the democrat netroots way. If you want to retain your posting privileges, you have to follow the party line. There are no independent perspectives on the left.

Daniel Gross reports rejoicing on Wall Street at the downfall of a power-mad hypocrite and demagogue.

The stock market may be battered, the dollar may be plunging, and the economy may be tanking, but there’s a bull market in schadenfreude on Wall Street this afternoon. Even as the Dow was on its way to notching another triple-digit loss, whoops of joy erupted from the dispirited trading floors today on news of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s disgrace. Spitzer, who rose to prominence as a scourge of Wall Street, uprooting corrupt practices, coming down hard on bad actors, and establishing a new moral order, was laid low by reports that he had been involved in a prostitution ring.

Details are still emerging, and it’s uncertain how this will all shake out, but one thing is immediately clear: Spitzer has been hoisted by his own petard, brought down by the same kind of investigation he pioneered as a prosecutor.

The Wall Street Journal editorializes today:

One might call it Shakespearian if there were a shred of nobleness in the story of Eliot Spitzer’s fall. There is none. Governor Spitzer, who made his career by specializing in not just the prosecution, but the ruin, of other men, is himself almost certainly ruined. …

In our system, citizens agree to invest one of their own with the power of public prosecution. We call this a public trust. The ability to bring the full weight of state power against private individuals or entities has been recognized since the Magna Carta as a power with limits. At nearly every turn, Eliot Spitzer has refused to admit that he was subject to those limits. …

Mr. Spitzer’s recklessness with the state’s highest elected office, though, is of a piece with his consistent excesses as Attorney General from 1999 to 2006.

He routinely used the extraordinary threat of indicting entire firms, a financial death sentence, to force the dismissal of executives, such as AIG’s Maurice “Hank” Greenberg. He routinely leaked to the press emails obtained with subpoena power to build public animosity against companies and executives. In the case of Mr. Greenberg, he went on national television to accuse the AIG founder of “illegal” behavior. Within the confines of the law itself, though, he never indicted Mr. Greenberg. Nor did he apologize.

In perhaps the incident most suggestive of Mr. Spitzer’s lack of self-restraint, the then-Attorney General personally threatened John Whitehead after the former Goldman Sachs chief published an article on this page defending Mr. Greenberg. “I will be coming after you,” Mr. Spitzer said, according to Mr. Whitehead’s account. “You will pay the price. This is only the beginning, and you will pay dearly for what you have done.”

The New York Post supplies the juiciest details of the scandal:

Wall Street traders cheered the public fall of a man who had taken special delight in bringing down financial titans.

Wiretaps revealed Spitzer haggling over the price of a hookup that took place at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, on the eve of Valentine’s Day.

The hooker, identified in the complaint as a pretty, petite brunette named Kristen, said she didn’t find “Client-9” very “difficult” – the word a madam had used to describe him.

Spitzer is listed as “Client 9” in the Indictment. .

Excerpt:

LEWIS asked “Kristen” how she thought the appointment went, and “Kristen” said that she thought it went very well. LEWIS asked “Kristen” how much she collected, and ‘Kristen” said $4,300. “Kristen” said that she liked him, and that she did not think he was difficult. “Kristen” stated: ‘I don’t think he’s difficult. I mean it’s just kind of like . . .whatever. . . I’m here for a purpose. I know what my purpose is. I am not a . . . moron, you know what I mean. So maybe that’s why girls maybe think they’re difficult . . . . ” “Kristen” continued: “That’s what it is, because you’re here for a [purpose]. Let’s not get it twisted – I know what I do, you know.” LEWIS responded: “You look at it very uniquely, because . . . no one ever says it that way.” LEWIS continued that from what she had been told “he” (believed to be a reference to Client-9) “would ask you to do things that, like, you might not think were safe – you know – I mean that . . . very basic things. . . . “Kristen” responded: “I have a way of dealing with that .. . I’d be like listen dude, you really want the sex? . . . You know what I mean.”

Victor Davis Hanson explains the democrats’ fundamental disconnect with the ordinary American voter.

The forgotten American listens to Hillary and Barack and thinks all these promises are nice and well and good, but figures that they expect someone like herself to pay for all those programs for all those who chose to live life differently than she did—for whom in most cases there was as much or more chances than she had. She wants to pay taxes and help, but shrugs that those who receive think it’s never enough—resentment, not gratitude is their more appropriate response for government help. And she assumes that Hillary and Barak (sic), given what they make, don’t much care whether they pay a few thousand dollars more in their own taxes, and that they, like a John Edwards or John Kerry or Al Gore or Ted Kennedy, are rich enough to feel everyone else’s pain but her own.

Read the whole thing.