BARACK'S FAVORS FOR CORRUPT CRONY

By DAVID FREDDOSO
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com
August 21, 2008

Barack Obama has ad mitted it was "boneheaded" to get involved in a land deal with Tony Rezko, his friend and fund-raiser. But the media's focus on that deal has distracted from the bigger question: Why would Obama become involved in any deal with a man like Rezko, who made his living sponging off taxpayers and corrupting public officials? Because, by the time of the deal, the two already had a long relationship of mutual benefit.

The deal's details are well-known: On June 15, 2005, Obama bought a gorgeous house in Hyde Park for $1.65 million - $300,000 below the list price. Rezko bought the empty but attractive lot next door from the same seller at the same time; Obama would later buy part of Rezko's lot, overpaying him.

The transaction was shady, but not obviously corrupt. The overall Obama-Rezko relationship looks worse.

After Rezko's 2006 indictment on unrelated federal corruption charges, Obama denied unequivocally that he'd ever helped the man: "I've never done any favors for him."



Rezko: Obama backing brought big bucks.

That's simply false. Rezko was a genius of corporate welfare who enriched himself at taxpayers' expense, both legally and illegally, via his multiple political connections. Yes, he went to others for the illegal deals that landed him in prison. But Rezko depended on Obama when he wanted legal access to the state treasury. The arrangement was a far cry from Obama's image of "change and hope."

It's impossible to know Obama's motives. But several of his official acts benefited Rezko, who in turn raised some $250,000 for Obama's campaigns.

In October 1998, Obama wrote city and state officials, urging them to give Rezko $14 million to build an apartment complex outside of Obama's state Senate district. The Chicago Sun-Times noted last year that Obama's request included $855,000 in "development fees" for Rezko and for another developer, Allison Davis, who happened to be Obama's old law-firm boss. Obama's spokesman said it was just a coincidence that the state senator wrote letters to obtain millions of dollars for his two longtime friends.

In fact, Obama was a dependable ally of subsidized developers in the Legislature, giving Rezko and others broader help as well. In "The Case Against Barack Obama," I identify and parse six housing bills with which Obama was closely involved. A few examples:

* In 2001, Obama cosponsored a bill allowing developers to sell state tax credits to others and pocket half of the proceeds.

* In 2002 and 2004, he was chief cosponsor of a bill to authorize a rent-subsidy fund giving "grants . . . directly to developers" of low-income housing. Seventy percent of the money was earmarked for the Chicago area.

* Obama cosponsored the Illinois Housing Initiative Act of 2003, which required the governor to develop a plan for more low-income housing and "provide[d] for funding for housing construction and rehabilitation and supportive services."

* In 2003, Obama voted for the Affordable Housing Planning and Appeal Act, which required Illinois municipalities to make 10 percent of their housing units "affordable" (by definition, this included subsidized housing). This forced 46 communities just outside of Chicago to create more than 7,000 new "affordable" units - a huge boost in demand for area developers. The bill also provided loopholes for developers to circumvent local ordinances and regulations.

After voting for this measure (it passed narrowly), Obama then cosponsored a new bill that moved up its implementation by more than a year.

These and the other Obama-backed bills helped make millionaires of Rezko and other slum developers at taxpayers' expense. The developers - including his former law boss and an adviser to his current campaign - reciprocated, together giving and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Obama's campaigns.

To sum up: Obama got them subsidies to build. He secured them a steady income of government rent subsidies. He arranged special tax credits and abatements for them. He backed measures that increased demand for their services, and helped them legally circumvent local laws.

Perhaps Obama acted with only the poor in mind. Yet some of his developer friends weren't so conscientious - especially Rezko.

Notably, Rezko's company claimed that it lacked the funds to heat one of its 11 buildings in Obama's state Senate district from December 1996 to February 1997. But Rezko still managed to write a $1,000 check to Obama's campaign fund on Jan. 14. That month, his tenants shivered as 19 inches of snow fell on northern Illinois.

With his early and large investments in Obama, Rezko helped the Democratic nominee get to where he is today. Obama, meanwhile, helped Rezko with his legislative work and his letter-writing. Given this close working relationship, the Obama-Rezko land deal is far less surprising.

- David Freddoso, a political reporter for National Review, is the author of "The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate."

CONSTITUTIONAL SCHOLAR OBAMA QUESTIONS LEGALITY OF SLAVERY BAN

By Ann Coulter
http://www.anncoulter.com/
August 20, 2008

This week, Barack Obama's challenge is to select a running mate who's young, hip, and whose accomplishments in life don't overshadow Obama's. Allow me to suggest Kevin Federline.

The only thing we can be sure of is that Obama will choose someone who is the polar opposite of all his advisers until now. In other words, it will be a very, very white male who was probably proud of his country even before being chosen as Obama's running mate.

Obama's got a lot of ground to make up following that performance last weekend at the Saddleback presidential forum with pastor Rick Warren.

After seeing Obama defend infanticide with the glib excuse that the question of when life begins is above his "pay-grade," Rev. Jeremiah Wright announced that although he's known Obama for 30 years, he only recently became aware of how extreme the senator's viewpoints were. Wright, after all, has his reputation to consider.

Network heads responded by dashing off an urgent memo: During the main presidential debates this fall, ask NO questions about abortion, ethics or evil! Morality isn't the Democrats' forte.

Obama's defenders spin his abominable performance in the Saddleback forum by saying he's just too smart to give a straight answer. As Rick Warren charitably described Obama's debate performance: "He likes to nuance things ... He's a constitutional attorney." The constitutional lawyer "does nuance," as Bill Maher said on "Larry King Live," "and you saw how well that goes over with the Rick Warren people."

If that's Obama's excuse, he ought to know a few basics about the Constitution.

Did the big constitutional lawyer whose "nuance" is too sophisticated for Rick Warren's audience see the letter his wife sent out on his behalf in 2004? Michelle Obama denounced a federal law banning partial-birth abortion, writing that "this ban on a legitimate medical procedure is clearly unconstitutional." Clearly!

The Supreme Court later found the law not "unconstitutional," but "constitutional" -- which I believe may have been the precise moment when Michelle Obama realized just how ashamed she had always been of her country.

But most stunningly, when Warren asked Obama if he supported a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, Obama said he did not "because historically -- because historically, we have not defined marriage in our Constitution."

I don't care if you support a marriage amendment or not. That answer is literally the stupidest thing I've ever heard anyone say. If marriage were already defined in the Constitution, we wouldn't need an amendment, no?

Say, you know what else was "historically" not defined in the Constitution? Slavery. The words "slavery" and "slave" do not appear once in the original Constitution. The framers correctly thought it would sully the freedom-enshrining document to acknowledge the repellent practice. (Much like abortion!)

But in 1865, the 13th Amendment banned slavery throughout the land, in the first constitutional phrase ever to mention "slavery": "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

On Obama's "historical" argument, they shouldn't have passed the 13th Amendment because the Constitution "historically" had not mentioned slavery.

Do we know for a fact Barack Obama has read the Constitution? Obama's Facebook profile: "I'm pro-infanticide, I love sunsets, and I don't get the 13th Amendment!"

This is the guy who thinks he can condescend to Clarence Thomas? Asked at the Saddleback forum which Supreme Court justice Obama would not have nominated, Obama said ... the black one!

In Obama's defense, he said he thought Thomas wasn't experienced enough "at the time." So I guess Obama thinks Thomas should have to "wait his turn."

By contrast, Obama has experience pouring out of those big ears of his. Asked last year by Robin Roberts on ABC's "Good Morning America" about his lack of experience in foreign policy, Obama took umbrage.

Swelling up his puny little chest, Obama said: "Well, actually, my experience in foreign policy is probably more diverse than most others in the field. I'm somebody who has actually lived overseas, somebody who has studied overseas. I majored in international relations."

He actually cited his undergraduate major as a qualification to be president.

But on Saturday night, Obama said he didn't think Clarence Thomas was a "strong enough jurist or legal thinker" to be put on the Supreme Court.

I bet Thomas has heard of the 13th Amendment!

Obama Played by Chicago Rules

By DAVID FREDDOSO
The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/public/us
August 20, 2008; Page A19

Democrats don't like it when you say that Barack Obama won his first election in 1996 by throwing all of his opponents off the ballot on technicalities.

By clearing out the incumbent and the others in his first Democratic primary for state Senate, Mr. Obama did something that was neither illegal nor even uncommon. But Mr. Obama claims to represent something different from old-style politics -- especially old-style Chicago politics. And the senator is embarrassed enough by what he did that he misrepresents it in the prologue of his political memoir, "The Audacity of Hope."


AP
Barack Obama talks with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, June 6.

In that book, Mr. Obama paints a portrait of himself as a genuine reformer and change agent, just as he has in this presidential campaign. He attributes his 1996 victory to his message of hope, and his exhortations that Chicagoans drop their justifiable cynicism about politics.

When voters complained of all the broken promises politicians had made in the past, Mr. Obama writes that he "would usually smile and nod, and say that I understood the skepticism, but that there was -- and always had been -- another tradition to politics, a tradition based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another, and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and that if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done."

Mr. Obama writes that even if the voters were not impressed by this speech, "enough of them appreciated my earnestness and youthful swagger that I made it to the Illinois legislature."

In real life, it did not matter what Mr. Obama said on the stump or whether South Side voters were impressed. What mattered was that, beginning on Jan. 2, 1996, his campaigners began challenging thousands of petition signatures the other candidates in the race had submitted in order to appear on the ballot. Thus would Mr. Obama win his state Senate seat, months before a single vote was cast.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Obama's petition challengers reported to him nightly on their progress as they disqualified his opponents' signatures on various technical grounds -- all legitimate from the perspective of law. One local newspaper, Chicago Weekend, reported that "[s]ome of the problems include printing registered voters name [sic] instead of writing, a female voter got married after she registered to vote and signed her maiden name, registered voters signed the petitions but don't live in the 13th district."

One of the candidates would speculate that his signature-gatherers, working at a per-signature pay rate, may have cheated him by signing many of the petitions themselves, making them easy to disqualify.

In the end, Mr. Obama disqualified all four opponents -- including the incumbent state senator, Alice Palmer, and three minor candidates. Ms. Palmer, a former ally of Mr. Obama, had gathered 1,580 signatures, more than twice the 757 required to appear on the ballot. A minor, perennial candidate had gathered 1,899 signatures, suggesting the Obama team invested much time working even against him.

The act of throwing an incumbent off the ballot in such a fashion does not fit neatly into the narrative of a public-spirited reformer who seeks to make people less cynical about politics.

But Mr. Obama's offenses against the idea of a "new politics" are many, and go well beyond hardball election tactics. It is telling that, when asked at the Saddleback Forum last weekend to name an instance in which he had worked against his own party or his own political interests, he didn't have a good answer. He claimed to have worked with his current opponent, John McCain, on ethics reform. In fact, no such thing happened. The two men had agreed to work together, for all of one day, in February 2006, and then promptly had a well-documented falling-out. They even exchanged angry letters over this incident.

The most dramatic examples of Mr. Obama's commitment to old-style politics are his repeated endorsements of Chicago's machine politicians, which came in opposition to what people of all ideological stripes viewed as the common good.

In the 2006 election, reformers from both parties attempted to end the corruption in Chicago's Cook County government. They probably would have succeeded, too, had Mr. Obama taken their side. Liberals and conservatives came together and nearly ousted Cook County Board President John Stroger, the machine boss whom court papers credibly accuse of illegally using the county payroll to maintain his own standing army of political cronies, contributors and campaigners.

The since-deceased Stroger's self-serving mismanagement of county government is still the subject of federal investigations and arbitration claims. Stroger was known for trying repeatedly to raise taxes to fund his political machine, even as basic government services were neglected in favor of high-paying county jobs for his political soldiers.

When liberals and conservatives worked together to clean up Cook County's government, they were displaying precisely the postpartisan interest in the common good that Mr. Obama extols today. And Mr. Obama, by working against them, helped keep Chicago politics dirty. He refused to endorse the progressive reformer, Forrest Claypool, who came within seven points of defeating Stroger in the primary.

After the primary, when Stroger's son Todd replaced him on the ballot under controversial circumstances, a good-government Republican named Tony Peraica attracted the same kind of bipartisan support from reformers in the November election. But Mr. Obama endorsed the young heir to the machine, calling him -- to the absolute horror of Chicago liberals -- a "good, progressive Democrat."

Mayor Richard M. Daley -- who would receive Mr. Obama's endorsement in 2007 shortly after several of his top aides and appointees had received prison sentences for their corrupt operation of Chicago's city government -- was invested in the Stroger machine's survival. So was every alderman and county commissioner who uses the county payroll to support political hangers-on. So was Mr. Obama's friend and donor, Tony Rezko, who is now in federal prison awaiting sentencing after being convicted in June of 16 felony corruption charges. Rezko had served as John Stroger's finance chairman and raised $150,000 for him (Stroger put Rezko's wife on the county payroll).

Mr. Obama has never stood up against Chicago's corruption problem because his donors and allies are Chicago's corruption problem.

Mr. Obama is not the reformer he now claims to be. The real man is the one they know in Chicago -- the one who won his first election by depriving voters of a choice.

Mr. Freddoso is the author of the just-published "The Case Against Barack Obama" (Regnery).

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.

Today's Tune: Steve Forbert - I Blinked Once (Live)

(Click on title to play video)

Refusing to do harm

By David Warren
The Ottawa Citizen
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/index.html
Wednesday, August 20, 2008

In the time since I last wrote on the topic, Canada's various "human rights" kangaroo courts have publicly retreated on several fronts. Several ludicrous cases brought against Mark Steyn's writings in Maclean's magazine, Ezra Levant's editorial judgments in the (now defunct in print) Western Standard, and Fr. Alphonse de Valk's in the magazine Catholic Insight -- have been dismissed by the tribunals. This, after more publicity had been given to the cases than the human rights bureaucracies felt comfortable with.

It should be mentioned that none of the defendants got off easily. Each was compelled to spend large amounts of money and time in the extremely aggravating process of dealing with large, faceless bureaucracies, staffed with their political enemies, functioning free of traditional legal restraints. By dismissing each case, after long drawn-out proceedings, the kangaroo courts were able to run up their chosen victims' costs, while finally denying them the possibility of an appeal against judgment to a legitimate court of law, in which they might conceivably have recovered their expenses. "The process is the punishment."

Canada's taxpayer-supported "human rights" apparatchiks have decided that it is not yet time to directly challenge freedom of the press. They will bide their time, and return to the routine business of staging quasi-legal proceedings against defenceless victims, with no resources for lawyers, and no access to media publicity, until they have acquired more power.


Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty addresses a party faithful breakfast meeting in Ottawa, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007. McGuinty became the first Liberal leader since Mitch Hepburn in 1937 to win back-to-back Liberal majorities.(AP Photo by FRED CHARTRAND)

That power is on the way. For instance, Dalton McGuinty's government has recently committed many millions to a huge expansion of the Ontario kangaroo-court system, opening new star chamber facilities across the province, and providing a fresh supply of publicly funded lawyers and activists to assist the enemies of freedom in making their prosecutions. The argument behind all such "public investments" is the same: that complainants need a "resolution process" that is less "formal" than the one in our legitimate court system. In other words, they need kangaroo courts in which their victims are stripped of due process.

But a much more significant advance has now been proposed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, to bring the tyranny of "political correction" to bear on its own membership. As usual, the process was being advanced in the dark, away from the possibility of public discussion, and was only pried open in the course of the last week when a large number of physicians, surgeons, and even politicians found out about it.

As I've written before, the "human rights" revolution that has been sweeping through Canada's law schools and legal establishment depends on an Orwellian inversion of the term, "human rights." For human rights were traditionally conceived as the individual's legal and moral resort against the arbitrary power of unaccountable organizations. In the new definition, "human rights" become a device by which unaccountable organizations may crush that individual. "Human rights" have been ideologized, and collectivized. They now belong to groups, exclusively, and include principally the right not to be "offended" by the existence of an individual with a mind of his own.

In the case of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the targets are doctors who refuse to perform abortions on healthy women, prescribe morning-after pills, help same-sex couples conceive children, and so forth. The idea is to strip a doctor of his licence, should he or she allow moral conscience to stand in the way of delivering any state-sanctioned "medical services."

The measure would also complete the inversion of the Hippocratic Oath, from the original "first do no harm," to the position we previously associated with such doctors as Josef Mengele and Jack Kevorkian. Indeed, it would compel the physician to breach the Hippocratic Oath as a condition of practising.

The measure was -- no surprise here, either -- being advanced as a "pro-active" response to Premier McGuinty's recent "human rights" "reforms." As ever, each evil done creates scope for more evil.

The College's measure promises to turn every conscientious doctor in this province into a Mark Steyn or Ezra Levant. Practically speaking, it would tend to drain the province's already strained socialist "health care" system of its best doctors, leaving faithful Christians, Jews, Muslims, and all others of like mind, facing actual medical emergencies, exclusively in the hands of doctors they know to be either opposed to the sanctity of human life, or self-serving hypocrites.

The scandal here is not that doctors have the right in conscience to refuse "medical services" they find morally abhorrent. The scandal is rather that nurses, and all other health-care workers, were deprived of this right a long time ago. (Maurice Vellacott, MP for Saskatoon-Wanuskewin, has long been promoting a private-member's bill that would rectify this enormity.)
Vigilance is the price of our freedom. We must all become much better informed, and more "pro-active" ourselves, at a time when evil is making extraordinary strides under the cover of bureaucratic darkness.

David Warren's column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

Reagan in the Sky

Streetcar Line

By Quin Hillyer
The American Spectator
http://www.spectator.org/
Published 8/20/2008 12:08:28 AM

In this week leading into unprecedented back-to-back national conventions, there is almost no good excuse for not writing about current politics. Almost. But a visit to the Reagan Ranch provides a rare exception.

Last Wednesday the Ranch, saved for future generations (and especially for student enlightenment) by the Young America's Foundation, celebrated the anniversary of President Ronald Reagan's signing of his famous tax-cut bill in 1981 with a wonderful barbeque and a speech by Wall Street Journal economics writer Stephen Moore. It was a worthy occasion on a shining day, at a beautiful place that ought to be hallowed ground for patriotic Americans for years to come.


(Click photo to enlarge)

By necessity, the Rancho del Cielo (Ranch in the Sky) is available for student groups but not open to the general public (as will be explained shortly), but the public may visit the Foundation's Reagan Center in downtown Santa Barbara -- a town on the Pacific, framed by mountains, that seems to approximate Eden itself in its sunny loveliness. The Center, graced with an impressive piece of the Berlin Wall, is full of wonderful pictures of the memorably photogenic Gipper, and promises to boast a fascinating little museum when all the exhibits are ready this fall.

Only by means of small tour buses, though, can the Ranch itself be accessed after a 45-minute ride. Fifteen minutes of a ride along the beach highway (U.S. 101) is easy enough, but then the climb up the mountains begins. And what a climb it is! Gentle enough only at first, Refugio Road narrows into what amounts to a single lane of asphalt, sometimes only moderately well maintained, as it turns into a steep and stunning drive that quite obviously could not bear much public traffic.

The road snakes, swerves, and switchbacks (if "switchbacks" can be a verb!) at often breathtaking angles, sometimes with amazingly steep drop-offs, overlooking sunlit mountain vistas alternated with vegetation surprisingly more lush than that of some of the lower hills seen from above during the climb. Occasionally the sightlines are good enough to provide a view of the Pacific, now a good eight miles away. A solid half-hour of this ascent makes one understand the reference to "sky" in the Ranch's name.


THEN, THROUGH AN UNASSUMING GATE (combination required to get through the lock), the road suddenly leaves the steep mountainside and enters a broad plateau, 2,200 feet above see level, that a visitor would never imagine could exist after such a sharp and craggy climb. The Ranch, 688 acres full of a plethora of the soul-enriching hiking- and riding-trails that Reagan and wife Nancy so famously enjoyed, is remarkably tranquil -- and the ranch house itself is a modest 1,500 square-foot bungalow overlooking a bucolic pond called "Lake Lucky." From the outside, the little house is so plain as to seem almost devoid of all character. (Mikhail Gorbachev reportedly said it was not a habitation fit for a president.) But one step inside the door, and Reagan's personality infuses the place so thoroughly as to be quite palpable.

The books that line the shelves show Reagan's quintessentially inquisitive mind and myriad interests. Classics on political theory, quite obviously well read and re-read, are interspersed with books on local flora and fauna and history, Louis L'Amour westerns, and a great big book on football authored by former Ram and Redskin Coach George Allen (father of the former Virginia governor and senator). Wall hangings and decorative art celebrate local native American heritage, while much of the functional furniture betrays a 1970s sensibility (not the gaudy disco-influenced variety but the middle-American, inexpensive sturdiness of the decade that is too often forgotten). Diverse collectibles suggest the Reagan's private lifestyle at the ranch, and often show signs of Reagan's personal attachments and friendships. It is a house utterly devoid of artifice. It lacks pretense, too -- except for occasional evidence that the man was indeed president, such as an artful presidential seal made by a neighbor out of 1600 nails mounted on a wooden placard, and the shower head in the shape of the Liberty Bell.

One small room had been an outdoor porch until Reagan himself enclosed it, installing the linoleum floor with his own hands. The kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom are amazingly small, and closet space is almost nonexistent. But the homey comfort-level of the place, its relaxation quotient, is high. It's almost impossible to visit without feeling, in one's bones, that this president was an immensely likable man.


Ronald Reagan rides his horse "El Alamein" at his California Ranch, Rancho del Cielo.

Outside the bungalow, a delicious tri-tip beef and chicken barbeque preceded Stephen Moore's speech. Worthy of a column in itself, Moore's remarks reminded those assembled just how bad the economy was before Reagan signed his tax-cut law, just how dramatic the cut was, and just how successful it was at revitalizing the entire American (and eventually the free world's) economy. Particularly classic was Moore's story of a White House senior staff meeting he attended late in 1987 as Treasury Secretary James Baker reported back on budget negotiations in which congressional Democrats, feeling their oats, thought they had Reagan on the hook for a tax hike. Baker himself recommended accepting the deal. A great silence descended on the room as Reagan spent quite a bit of time cogitating on Baker's report. Then, in a mock-James Cagney voice, Reagan smiled and asked who was going to tell those "dirty rats" that there would be no deal. Even in the wake of a (temporary) 25 percent drop in the stock market in one day, Reagan would not surrender essential principle.

In truth, it was again and again the case that the Gipper won another one for us.

OF MANY OTHER FOND IMPRESSIONS from the ranch visit, one does seem now to have particularly current relevance. Outside the house's front door, an endless-loop video showed all of the network newscasts from 1981 that described the tax-cut signing ceremony held right there at the ranch. The event had turned into an unscripted mini-press conference, and the subjects ran afield from economics. Reagan was asked to defend himself against strong Russian criticism of his then-decision to go ahead with development of the "neutron bomb." Time magazine reported at the time that "TASS, the government news agency, said that the decision illustrated Ronald Reagan's 'cannibalistic instincts,' and was 'an extremely dangerous step toward the further spiraling of the arms race and enhancing the threat of nuclear war.'" But Reagan was unperturbed.

"They are squealing like they're sitting on a sharp nail," he said, "simply because we now are showing the will that we are not going to let them get to the point of dominance where they can someday issue to the free world an ultimatum of 'Surrender or die.'"

As the Russians' aggressiveness suddenly seems to have returned this month, one could be forgiven for wishing that Reagan were still around to handle the situation. Surely he could take care of it, with aplomb, from his ranch, on vacation.


Quin Hillyer is an associate editor at the Washington Examiner and a senior editor of The American Spectator. He can be reached at qhillyer@gmail.com.

The Dems’ Hidden Soros Slush Fund

Leftist activist groups would be first in line for Obama’s “social investment” seed money.

By Michelle Malkin
National Review Online
http://www.nationalreview.com/
August 20, 2008, 0:00 a.m.

The Democratic Party platform is like a bag of pork rinds. You never know what high-fat liberal government morsel you’re gonna get.

Buried in the 94-page document is a noble-sounding proposal to create a “Social Investment Fund Network.” The program would provide federal money to “social entrepreneurs and leading nonprofit organizations [that] are assisting schools, lifting families out of poverty, filling health care gaps, and inspiring others to lead change in their own communities.” The Democratic Party promises to “support these results-oriented innovators” by creating an office to “coordinate government and nonprofit efforts” and then showering “a series of grants” on the chosen groups “to replicate these programs nationwide.”

In practice, this Barack Obama brainchild would serve as a permanent, taxpayer-backed pipeline to Democratic partisan outfits masquerading as public-interest do-gooders. This George Soros Slush Fund would be political payback in spades. Obama owes much of his Chicago political success to financial support from radical, left-wing billionaire and leading “social entrepreneur” Soros. In June 2004, Soros threw a big fundraiser at his New York home for Obama’s Illinois Senate campaign. Soros and family personally chipped in $60,000. In April 2007, Obama was back in New York for a deep-pocketed Manhattan fundraising soiree, with Soros lurking in his shadow.

No doubt with Soros’s approbation (if not advice from the hands-on “progressive” activist or his advisers), Obama fleshed out his Social Investment Fund Network plan last December. In concert with his mandatory volunteerism pitch and $6 billion anti-poverty plan, Obama called for the creation of a “Social Entrepreneurship Agency” to dispense the funds in unspecified amounts. The agency would be a government-supported nonprofit corporation “similar to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” which runs public television. (And we’ve all seen how fair and balanced that lib-dominated, Bill Moyers–boosting private-public enterprise turned out.)

Obama cites the Harlem Children’s Zone, which provides after-school activities and mentors to children in New York, as an example of a program that should be funded. (HCZ’s former senior leader Shawn Dove is now an official at Soros’s Open Society Institute.) The problem with such initiatives, as Mitchell Moss pointed out in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal several years ago, is that these private-public partnerships formed under the guise of economic renewal often become nothing more than fronts that coordinate “an enormous safety net for social services.” Private donations give the illusion of self-help and philanthropic independence, but in reality, the “clients” are never weaned from the teat of the welfare state. They simply learn how to milk it more efficiently.

Obama at fund-raiser at Steven and Judy Gluckstern's home, April 9, 2007. George Soros is seated to the right of the stairs.
(Photo: Michael Edwards)

Even more troubling is how the Democratic Party/Obama plan would siphon untold millions or billions of public tax dollars into the Soros empire without taxpayer recourse. Obama promises “accountability” measures to ensure the money is spent wisely. But who would assess effectiveness of the spending? Why, experts in the social entrepreneurship community, of course. Fox, meet henhouse.

Soros has donated some $5 billion of his fortune to left-wing nonprofit groups through the Open Society Institute — an institution committed to Soros’ militant ideology of toppling the “fascist” tyranny of the United States, which he says must undergo “de-Nazification” in favor of “justice.” The mob at Obama-endorsing MoveOn, purveyors of the “General Betray Us” smear against Commanding General, MNF-I, David Petraeus, is the most notorious Soros-backed political arm. But scores of other activist nonprofits have received Soros funding under the guise of doing nonpartisan “community” or “social justice” work — and it is exactly such leftist activist groups that would be first in line for the Democratic Party/Obama’s “social investment” seed money.

Point in case: ACORN. As I’ve reported before, Obama’s old friends at the Chicago-based nonprofit now take in 40 percent of their revenues from American taxpayers. They raked in tens of millions in federal antipoverty grants while some of their operatives presided over massive voter fraud, and others were implicated in corporate shakedowns and mortgage scams across the country. Soros has donated at least $150,000 to the group, according to Investor’s Business Daily, and “heads a secretive rich-man’s club called ‘Democracy Alliance’ that has doled out $20 million to activist groups like ACORN.” Once the spigot is turned on, there’s no turning back.

Where are fiscal conservatives on this far-left boondoggle? Well, if you’re wondering why the McCain campaign doesn’t raise hell over this proposed left-wing nonprofit/government pipeline, it’s because McCain himself is a Soros beneficiary. His “Reform Institute,” a tax-exempt, supposedly independent 501(c)(3) group focused on campaign-finance reform, was funded by the Soros-funded Open Society Institute and Tides Foundation.

Birds of a Big Government feather flock together — and look out for each other. Watch your wallet.

— Michelle Malkin is author of Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild.

Satan loves the Olympics

By Janet Albrechtsen
The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/
August 17, 2008
Janet Albrechtsen Blog
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NOTHING makes Satan happier than the Beijing “bikini” Olympics says Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid. In an interview aired on Al-Majd TV on August 10 and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, the unhappy cleric slammed the Olympic Games - past and present - for its debauched display of women’s bodies. “The world’s worst display of women’s clothing is the women’s Olympics,” he said. “No exposure of women’s private parts on a global scale could make Satan happier than Olympic games that include women’s sports.”

“What women wear in the Olympic games are among the worst clothes possible. The inventions of Satan, with regard to the exposure of the body in gymnastics, in swimming, in whatever, in tennis… Women have never got naked for sports like they do in the Olympics. It is aired to billions of people worldwide. The problem is not just with the spectators who are present. The whole thing is aired on TV...”

As the Wall Street Journal’s Olympics blog pointed out, with record numbers of women competing in Beijing, Satan must be one very happy man. Forty two per cent of the 11,000 athletes competing in Beijing are women, a nice scorecard for equality given that only 26% of competitors in 1988 were women.

The cleric is entitled to his views – and to express them.

It’s a pity then that Sherry Jones was not given the same chance to express hers. Her first novel, The Jewel of Medina, due to be published in early August was pulled by Random House after concerns were raised that the book would offend Muslims and become a new “Satanic Verses.” The publishing house described the book as "a fascinating portrait of Aisha, child bride of the prophet Mohammed, who overcame great obstacles to reach her full potential as a woman and a leader’’.

Then it spiked the book. Not after receiving threats from radical Muslims, mind you. Just “cautionary advice” said Random House deputy publisher Thomas Perry, from “credible and unrelated sources” that “publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community… [and]…incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.” Notice how we no longer wait for actual death threats or violence to erupt, as was the case with Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses and the Danish cartoons, before we chisel back the right to freedom of expression? Now our western sensitivities lead us to anticipatory surrender - just in case.

History professor and Islam scholar Denise Spellberg, who was asked to review Jewel of Medina described it as “a very ugly, stupid piece of work” which made fun of Muslims and their history. She said “there is a long history of anti-Islamic polemic that uses sex and violence to attack the Prophet and his faith” and claimed the novel “follows in that oft-trodden path, one first pioneered in medieval Christian writings.” So The Jewel of Medina was quickly canned in the name of political correctness, the principle of free speech once again sacrificed at the modern altar of hurt feelings.

Christianity and its believers are robust enough to endure vigorous criticism – be it serious or salacious. Think Nietzsche’s The Antichrist. Or Freud’s Future of an Illusion. Or Bertrand Russell’s essay “Why I am a not a Christian”. Or the endless scribbling about Christian fascism. Or the enchanting work of Andres Serrano who stuck a plastic crucifix in a glass of his urine to create Piss Christ. The journal, Arts & Opinion, described the ensuing controversy as “a clash between the interests of artists in freedom of expression on the one hand, and the hurt such works may cause to a section of the community on the other.”

It’s a shame that each time a clash of interests involves Muslim hurt, the West raises the white flag with increasing alacrity. When does Western surrender end? Fencing off Islam from critique and curtailing the West’s long-cherished right to freedom of expression won’t help anyone. If aspects of Islam need to confront modernity, it won’t happen by tiptoeing around Muslim sensibilities, treating them like children too vulnerable to deal with the tough questions. That treatment will only encourage victimhood and more censorship. And it will undermine the core reason for the West’s success: its commitment to testing ideas – and religion is just that, after all - by holding them up to challenge.

One blogger had this to say: “Listen, Christianity is central to my life, but if you want to write a novel attacking it or dump a crucifix in urine and call it art, my feeling is: knock yourself out, you brave thing, you. I’ll argue with you here, and again at the gates of heaven, in perfect faith that the truth will win out in a free market of ideas.”

Let cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid talk about Satan smiling about skimpy bikinis at Beijing all he wants. And, please, let Ms Jones write about Muhammad’s child bride. If not for the sake of Islam, then for the sake of the West.

'Finally, Farewell To Pakistan'

By Steve Schippert
http://www.frontpagemag.com/
Tuesday, August 19, 2008

“Finally, farewell to Pakistan.” So were the final words of Pervez Musharraf in his address to the Pakistani people as he ultimately chose to resign rather than face impeachment before an unfriendly Pakistani parliament. They may also be America’s final words, with its most trusted Pakistani conduit now gone and the future status of the Pakistani-American relationship up in the air.


Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf salutes as he leaves the presidential house after his resignation in Islamabad August 18, 2008.(Mian Khursheed/Reuters)

There has been much criticism of Musharraf’s actions – and at times inaction – as the leader of an unlikely but crucial American ally since 9/11. The criticism has generally been warranted: he selectively confronted Islamic radicalism in his own country, rounding up hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists, but often failing to keep them in custody. In fact, with growing al Qaeda and Taliban control in tribal areas of Pakistan, especially the Northwest Frontier Province, Musharraf has increasingly sought to negotiate with terror, rather than to eliminate it. Now, significant areas of Pakistan have become safe-havens from which terrorists can launch their jihad at either Afghanistan or the regional and federal governments of Pakistan itself.

Yet there is simply no clear alternative to Musharraf – either from a US policy standpoint or from the standpoint of proven, trustworthy stewardship of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Pakistan itself is also likely to suffer growing instability in the coming months. While Pakistanis joyously celebrated Musharraf's departure in the streets, lawyers had already given the Pakistani coalition government a 72 hour ultimatum to reinstate the judges sacked by Musharraf as he tried in vain to retain power. If their ultimatum is not met, this newly elected government will surely meet with the same mass protests of displeasure. And if that happens, a ‘coalition’ government with deeper differences than unifying positions could fracture even more. Their greatest unifying factor – the removal of Musharraf – is now expended.

So now what? No one, least of all Pakistanis, really knows for certain. For all his faults, Musharraf was neither saint nor sinner as an American ally. Time will likely prove him to have been the best possible option, both then and now. For all his attributes, he could never truly win over the Pakistani people, who live in a constitutional democracy, despite its coups and rampant corruption.

In the coming post-Musharraf era, either former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (PML-N), the object of Musharraf’s 1999 bloodless coup, or Asif Zardari (PPP), husband of assassinated Benazir Bhutto, could be the successor to the Pakistani presidency. However, it is unlikely that the Pakistani military will permit a Nawaz Sharif presidency. And the public likely will not stomach an Ali Zardawi presidency, since he is seen as the embodiment of corruption among a population exhausted by generations of corruption.

The current Pakistani government may well be now settling in for its most bitter power struggle yet, with one unifying factor removed in Musharraf and the open seat of an empty presidency before them to open new political bloodsport. If they cannot resolve the struggle ahead, and Pakistan begins to sink under the weight of a ‘coalition’ government incapacitated by infighting, the military may well step in again, nearly ten years after the last time – under Musharraf.

While he does not appear inclined to pursue such a path immediately in order to fulfill any of his own ambitions for power and control, General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani may feel compelled to take power. It’s essentially up to the ‘coalition’ government.

And if they exist in extended disarray, it may have us meeting a President Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, an American-trained chain smoker who rose to Chief of Army Staff (COAS) in steep trajectory under Musharraf. Perhaps you should get to know him; he may come to hold the keys to power in the Muslim world’s only nuclear state.

- Steve Schipper is co-founder of the Center for Threat Awareness and managing editor for ThreatsWatch.org.

McCain's Saddleback Grand Slam

By Jed Babbin
http://www.humanevents.com/
08/18/2008

US Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain (R-AZ) (L) and US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) (R) wave, as moderator Pastor Rick Warren watches, at the Civil Forum on the Presidency at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, August 16, 2008.(Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

Barack Obama bumped into something hard on Saturday night. The nuanced naif of Illinois preceded -- in Paris Hilton’s wonderful snark -- the “wrinkly white-haired dude” in Pastor Rick Warren’s civility summit and came up very short.

You can judge how well McCain did by the minimalist coverage in the media. The highlights reported here were virtually ignored in the Sunday papers.

McCain has never been better. His self deprecation, his humor, and his life story turned the back-to-back interviews into a conclusive demonstration that he is ready for the presidency and Obama isn’t.

McCain was energized, comfortable and quietly eloquent in explaining why his life proves the most important of qualities in a president: character and core beliefs. Obama -- consistently charming and shallow -- demonstrated neither of those qualities.

John McCain was a prisoner of the North Vietnamese for more than five years. Researching an article four years ago on John Kerry’s antiwar activities during many of those same years, I interviewed more than a half-dozen of McCain’s fellow POWs. Each of them, in much the same words, said “I wouldn’t be alive today but for the personal courage of John McCain.”

That courage was explained, calmly, by McCain when Warren asked him to describe the most difficult “gut-wrenching” decision in his life.

McCain answered, “It was long ago and far away in a prison camp in North Vietnam. My father was a high ranking admiral. The Vietnamese came and said that I could leave prison early. And we had a code of conduct that said you only leave by order of capture. I also had a dear and beloved friend who was from California by the name of Ed Alvarez who had been shot down and captured a couple years before me. But I wasn't in good physical shape. In fact I was in rather bad physical shape.”

“So I said no. Now, in interest of full disclosure, I'm very happy I didn't know the war was going to last for another three years or so. But I said no. And I'll never forget. The high-ranking officer who offered it slammed the door and the interrogator said go back to your cell, it's going to be very tough on you now. And it was. But [it was] not only the toughest decision I ever made but I'm most happy about that decision than any decision I've ever made in my life. It took a lot of prayer. It took a lot of prayer.”

In answer to the same question, the best Obama could do was to claim his decision to oppose the war in Iraq was his toughest. How that was a gut-wrenching decision he didn’t explain. Given the fact that his campaign for the Democratic nomination succeeded because that “decision” gave Obama a huge advantage among the anti-war liberals who control the Democratic Party, Obama’s answer revealed political calculation, not moral courage.

McCain was presidential; Obama was a policy wonk. Warren, in the context of taxation, asked each candidate to define who is rich. Obama wandered around to conclude that a family whose income is $150,000 or less is “middle class.” McCain defined “rich” not in terms of dollar income, but in security, opportunity and freedom to choose the future of the family’s children. McCain sounded Reaganesque: “I think that rich is -- should be defined -- by a home, a good job and education and the ability to hand to our children a more prosperous and safer world than the one that we inherited.”

McCain took a full swing on question after question. Obama bunted. Answering Warren’s question of when a baby is entitled to human rights, Obama said, “Well, I think that whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.”

Obama said he was pro-choice. When pressed to say whether he’d ever voted to limit abortions, Obama slipped and slid around the question, claiming he was in favor of limits on late-term abortions, but cited no example of ever voting for legislation to create such limits. McCain said plainly that he believed that life beings at conception and that, “I will be a pro-life president and this presidency will have pro life policies. That's my commitment, that's my commitment to you.”

Obama defined marriage as between a man and a woman but then launched into an academic disquisition on why he wouldn’t support a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. He said, “I think my faith is strong enough and my marriage is strong enough that I can afford those civil rights to others even if I have a different perspectiveor a different view.” Obama apparently believes gay marriage is a “civil right.” McCain doesn’t.

McCain -- an attack pilot, not a lawyer -- apparently has a deeper understanding of Constitutional law than the former chief of the Harvard Law Review. He said he’d support a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, “…If a Federal court decided that my state of Arizona had to observe what the state of Massachusetts decided, then I would favor a Constitutional amendment.” The Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution compels that result. Without an amendment, any gay marriage from any state must be given legitimacy by every other state.

Saturday night, Obama’s charm failed to mask his humorlessness. McCain’s comparative charm deficit (“You know, by a strange coincidence I was not elected ‘Miss Congeniality’ in the United States Senate this year. I don't know why”) didn’t mask his sense of humor.

Asked to name a changed position, McCain gently mocked California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by saying his new-found support for offshore drilling wouldn’t be popular with many people “here in Caleefornia.” Talking about how America needs to build more nuclear power plants, McCain said that America likes to imitate the French. Most endearingly to those of us who cannot resist poking fun at the genetically disagreeable French, McCain said, “…and by the way if you hadn't noticed we now have a pro-American president of France which proves if you live long enough anything can happen in America.”

McCain scored a lot of points with conservatives in the Saturday night forum. His performance was so strong, and if he chooses to capitalize on it, this could be a tipping point for McCain.

His next opportunity to take a big step along that path will be the choice of his running mate. Choosing a strong conservative (Fred Thompson? Mike Pence?) to run with him, McCain could energize and unite Republicans for the remainder of this campaign. 2008 need not be a disaster for Republicans. The decisions that could prove the doomsayers wrong are not above John McCain’s pay grade.

Mr. Babbin is the editor of Human Events. He served as a deputy undersecretary of defense in President George H.W. Bush's administration. He is the author of "In the Words of our Enemies"(Regnery,2007) and (with Edward Timperlake) of "Showdown: Why China Wants War with the United States" (Regnery, 2006) and "Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe are Worse than You Think" (Regnery, 2004). E-mail him at mailto:jbabbin@humanevents.com.

McCain's New Hope

The Candidate Shines at Saddleback Forum

By Michael Gerson
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Monday, August 18, 2008, Page A11

US Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain (R-AZ) smiles during the Civil Forum on the Presidency at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, August 16, 2008. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni (UNITED STATES) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008
(USA)

WASHINGTON -- It is now clear why Barack Obama has refused John McCain's offer of joint town hall appearances during the fall campaign. McCain is obviously better at them.

Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency -- two hours on Saturday night evenly divided between the relaxed, tieless candidates -- was expected to be a sideshow. McCain and Obama would make their specialized appeals to evangelicals as if they were an interest group such as organized labor or the National Rifle Association. Evangelicals would demonstrate, in turn, that they are not rubes and know-nothings. And Americans would turn en masse to watch the Olympics.

What took place instead under Warren's precise and revealing questioning was the most important event so far of the 2008 campaign -- a performance every voter should seek out on the Internet and watch.

First, the forum previewed the stylistic battle lines of the contest ahead, and it should give Democrats pause. Obama was fluent, cool and cerebral -- the qualities that made Adlai Stevenson interesting but did not make him president. Obama took care to point out that he had once been a professor at the University of Chicago, but that bit of biography was unnecessary. His whole manner smacks of chalkboards and campus ivy. Issues from stem cell research to the nature of evil are weighed, analyzed and explained instead of confronted.

This approach has a genuine appeal to some voters, especially of a more liberal bent, who believe there is a nuance shortage in American life. But on Saturday night it did not compare well with McCain, who was decisive, passionate and surprisingly personal. The candidate who once seemed incapable of the confessional style of politics talked at length of Vietnam experiences and his adopted daughter from Bangladesh. Asked by Warren about his greatest moral failure, McCain's response -- "the failure of my first marriage" -- had an abrupt and disarming authenticity. The account of his hardest decision -- refusing release from captivity ahead of others who had been imprisoned longer -- remains shocking in its valor. And McCain's habit of understatement -- he described the excruciating rope torture he experienced in Vietnam as "very uncomfortable" -- makes his stories even more effective.

Second, the Warren forum demonstrated how difficult it will be for Obama to appeal to religious and conservative voters as the campaign proceeds. His outreach to evangelical voters is obviously sincere, but he doesn't actually agree with them on much. In the course of the forum, he endorsed federal funding for embryonic stem cell research in spite of the existence of humane and promising alternatives. He proposed controversial government regulations on faith-based charities that accept federal funds. He attacked Justice Clarence Thomas as unqualified and defended his vote against the confirmation of the widely admired Chief Justice John Roberts. Obama deserves points for honesty on all these issues, but it is possible to be honestly off-putting.

Obama's response on abortion -- the issue that remains his largest obstacle to evangelical support -- bordered on a gaffe. Asked by Warren at what point in its development a baby gains "human rights," Obama said that such determinations were "above my pay grade" -- a silly answer to a sophisticated question. If Obama is genuinely unsure about this matter, he (and the law) should err in favor of protecting innocent life. If Obama believes that a baby in the womb lacks human rights, he should say so -- pro-choice men and women must affirm (as many sincerely do) that developing life has a lesser status. Here the professor failed the test of logic.

For many evangelicals, the theoretical Obama -- the Obama of hope and unity -- is intriguing, even appealing. But this opinion is not likely to improve upon closer inspection of his policy views. Obama is one of those rare political figures who seems to grow smaller the closer we approach him. "I want people to know me well," said Obama at the forum. Among religious conservatives, that may not be an advantage.

Finally, McCain's performance at the Warren forum helps change the political psychology going into the conventions. Republicans have spent the last few weeks pleasantly surprised at the closeness of the presidential race. But they have generally chalked this up to Obama's weakness, not McCain's strength. After Saturday night, even Republicans most skeptical of McCain must conclude: "Perhaps we aren't doomed after all."

Of such small hopes are large upsets made.

michaelgerson@cfr.org

Obama on Clarence Thomas

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

The Editors
The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com
August 18, 2008

Barack Obama likes to portray himself as a centrist politician who wants to unite the country, but occasionally his postpartisan mask slips. That was the case at Saturday night's Saddleback Church forum, when Mr. Obama chose to demean Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Pastor Rick Warren asked each Presidential candidate which Justices he would not have nominated. Mr. McCain said, "with all due respect" the four most liberal sitting Justices because of his different judicial philosophy.

Mr. Obama took a lower road, replying first that "that's a good one," and then adding that "I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas. I don't think that he, I don't think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation. Setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of a lot of the Constitution." The Democrat added that he also wouldn't have appointed Antonin Scalia, and perhaps not John Roberts, though he assured the audience that at least they were smart enough for the job.

So let's see. By the time he was nominated, Clarence Thomas had worked in the Missouri Attorney General's office, served as an Assistant Secretary of Education, run the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and sat for a year on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation's second most prominent court. Since his "elevation" to the High Court in 1991, he has also shown himself to be a principled and scholarly jurist.

Meanwhile, as he bids to be America's Commander in Chief, Mr. Obama isn't yet four years out of the Illinois state Senate, has never held a hearing of note of his U.S. Senate subcommittee, and had an unremarkable record as both a "community organizer" and law school lecturer. Justice Thomas's judicial credentials compare favorably to Mr. Obama's Presidential résumé by any measure. And when it comes to rising from difficult circumstances, Justice Thomas's rural Georgian upbringing makes Mr. Obama's story look like easy street.

Even more troubling is what the Illinois Democrat's answer betrays about his political habits of mind. Asked a question he didn't expect at a rare unscripted event, the rookie candidate didn't merely say he disagreed with Justice Thomas. Instead, he instinctively reverted to the leftwing cliché that the Court's black conservative isn't up to the job while his white conservative colleagues are.

So much for civility in politics and bringing people together. And no wonder Mr. Obama's advisers have refused invitations for more such open forums, preferring to keep him in front of a teleprompter, where he won't let slip what he really believes.

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.

William Ayers, Model Citizen?

The Obama campaign’s lame defense.

By David Freddoso
National Review Online
http://www.nationalreview.com
August 18, 2008, 4:00 a.m.

The Obama campaign’s response to Jerome Corsi’s book about Senator Barack Obama makes clear that they are determined to delegitimize even legitimate criticisms of the senator by mixing them up with smears.
Even mainstream journalists have noted that their rebuttal document at times employs risible arguments and overreaches in attempting to defend certain aspects of Senator Obama’s career.

One example is the defense of Obama’s relationship to William Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn — two unrepentant former members of the domestic left-wing terror movement known as the Weathermen.

Amazingly, instead of disowning Ayers — which would make a lot more sense — Obama’s rebuttal document defends the man who implicated himself in terror bombings in his own 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days. The document calls it a “lie” that Ayers is an “unrepentant domestic terrorist” and that “the impression of Ayers’s good citizenship is incorrect.” It attempts, with endorsements from Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and two university professors, to make the case that Ayers is really a model citizen.

A model citizen — at least if you overlook the sworn congressional testimony that ties Ayers to a murder. Ayers and Dohrn were credibly accused, in classified testimony before a Senate subcommittee in 1974, of involvement in the murder of a police officer in San Francisco, as well as an attempted (and unsuccessful) anti-personnel bombing in Detroit. It is an aspect of Ayers’ story that the mainstream media has completely ignored and even covered up.

Ayers and Dohrn were never prosecuted for their alleged involvement in Weatherman terrorism because of government misconduct in gathering evidence against them. But Ayers has freely admitted to involvement in Weatherman bomb plots, and he has said he does not regret planting bombs. Ayers has defended his actions, arguing, “The reason we weren’t terrorists is that we did not commit random acts of terror against people.”

But Larry Grathwohl, an FBI mole within the Weathermen, connected Ayers to the planning — and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, to the execution— of a police station bombing in San Francisco in February 1970 that killed one officer and injured two others.

Grathwohl testified that Ayers had discussed the deadly incident after the fact. The revelation came as Ayers was talking about the organizational difficulties in running a terrorist cell:

[H]e cited as one of the real problems that someone like Bernardine Dohrn had to plan, develop, and carry out the bombing of the police station in San Francisco, and he specifically named her as the person that committed that act. . . . He said that the bomb was placed on the window ledge and he described the kind of bomb that was used to the extent of saying what kind of shrapnel was used in it. . . . [I]f he wasn’t there to see it, somebody who was there told him about it, because he stated it very emphatically.

Grathwohl also testified about an unsuccessful Weatherman bombing in Detroit, which he said Ayers had planned to be executed when the maximum number of people would be present:

The only time that I was ever instructed or we were ever instructed to place a bomb in a building at a time when there would be people in it was during the planning of the bombing at the Detroit Police Officers’ Association building and the 13th precinct in Detroit, Mich., at which time Bill said that we should plan our bombing to coincide with the time when there would be the most people in those buildings.

Grathwohl tipped off police to this latter plot, and they cleared the area. When they finally found the Detroit bomb, it was unexploded. It contained 13 sticks of dynamite with an M-80 firecracker to detonate them, along with a burnt-out cigarette.

“The only thing Bill didn’t take into consideration in making his bomb,” Grathwohl testified, “was the fact that these wicks, those fuses on those firecrackers are waterproof with heavy paraffin, and a cigarette burning by itself does not always have enough heat to melt that paraffin and light the powder. And I didn’t volunteer any information to the contrary.” Grathwohl did not know who had actually planted the bomb.

The wide-ranging testimony — first brought to my attention by Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media, which I subsequently found on file in the Library of Congress — appears to be very credible. In covering the controversy over Bill Ayers, the mainstream media has so far pretended it does not exist.

It would be irresponsible and wrong to assert that Sen. Obama is somehow “guilty by association” of anything Ayers or Dohrn have done, or that he has any sympathy toward terrorism. He does not. Obama was only a child when these events occurred.

But the senator’s choice to associate with domestic terrorists evinces an appalling lack of personal judgment that is part of a broad pattern in his adult life.

This argument is extremely easy to make, given Obama’s many, many choices to build relationships that are most charitably described as “problematic.” By what criteria does a man choose his friends and associates and end up with the likes of Tony Rezko, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and Bill Ayers? Given that he had a choice of political allies, why would he align himself with and endorse in elections the worst perpetrators of Chicago’s crooked machine politics? Why would he choose as campaign and outreach advisors two men (Robert Malley and Mazen Asbahi) who have since had to resign over alleged ties to Hamas, as well as others who advocate reparations for slavery (Charles Ogletree) and praise Hugo Chavez as a champion of democracy in Venezuela (Cornel West)?

Given his lack of judgment, what sort of nominations can we expect a President Obama to make? What kind of diplomacy will he conduct when he meets “without precondition” with leaders of terror-sponsoring states? Diplomacy consists largely in making personal judgments about other people and their character and intentions — precisely the sort of judgments Obama has shown he is incapable of making.

These are legitimate questions, and the Obama research team’s shoddy arguments do not answer them.

— David Freddoso is a staff reporter for National Review Online. This essay is adapted from his newly released book, The Case Against Barack Obama.

Measure would protect pimps, not prostitutes

By Debra J. Saunders
San Fransisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/
Sunday, August 17, 2008

A quick reading of the measure that will go before San Francisco voters in November to decriminalize prostitution easily could leave you with the misimpression that the measure is an exercise in fairness that demands that prosecutors go after men who abuse prostitutes and implement policies "to reduce institutional violence and discrimination against prostitutes." A careful reading of the initiative, "Enforcement of Laws Related to Prostitution and Sex Workers," however, shows a measure that shields child prostitution and traffickers of human beings.

"If I had just heard from the proponents, I would probably vote for it myself," said the Rev. Glenda Hope, whose San Francisco Network Ministries helped found the Tenderloin AIDS Resource, in the mistaken belief the measure is meant "to protect women." But as the executive director of SafeHouse, a residential center that helps women get off the streets, Hope knows too much.

Hope knows that the average age of entry into prostitution is 12 to 14. The office of San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, who opposes the initiative, has encountered prostituted children as young as 9 years old.

Yet the San Francisco ballot measure completely ignores the prostitution of children. The measure simply states, "Law enforcement agencies shall not allocate any resources for the investigation and prosecution of prostitutes for prostitution." Astonishingly, there's no exemption that encourages police to enforce the law for minors.

If the measure passes, the city is likely to become an international haven for pimps who peddle girls and boys, and perverts seeking sex with minors.

And where does that leave Bay Area youth? "They want new and young," Jasmine, a former teen prostitute from Oakland who now volunteers for the nonprofit SAGE Project, which fights sexual exploitation, explained to me.

The life, which she entered at age 14, was "like a drug." She felt wanted. She brought in $4,000 to $5,000 a week. Sure, she knew girls who were selling themselves against their will. But she could buy things. "I was supposedly involved in a relationship" -- one that ended when police prosecuted her pimp.

The other big problem: The measure prohibits city law enforcement from applying for grants to prosecute human traffickers. That's right, this measure gives a free pass to the human sex-slave trade -- in a city that is a central stop for international sex-trade rings.

A proponent of the measure told Fox News that she believes that it will pass with 75 percent of the vote because the city is "sex-positive."

The SAGE Project's Allen Wilson fears that the measure may prevail because the city has no shortage of rootless residents who "will vote for this because they think it's cool." For them, San Francisco is "one big sandbox."

Let me be clear. I don't want city cops wasting their time prosecuting workers at the discreet bordello that hires healthy adult prostitutes who get regular medical checkups. I would rather see law enforcement focus on serious crimes.

But there is nothing broad-minded about looking the other way when 14-year-old girls and boys sell themselves on the street and massage parlors are staffed by women who are being held against their will. These are not consenting adults.

The measure takes a tone that suggests it will protect women by demanding that San Francisco law enforcement prosecute "coercion, extortion, battery, rape and violent crimes, regardless of the victim's status as a sex worker."

Of course, state law already requires that. More to the point, battery, rape, assault and even murder are crimes that befall prostitutes because they work in an inherently dangerous field bankrolled largely by men who like to demean women and girls.

Violence and pain are the inevitable outcome for those steeped in this dehumanizing way of life. Young women wooed into the life quickly age to the point where they cannot net the high-incomes their pimps demand. They become addicted to drugs. They learn to commit new crimes. Until the day they find they are disposable.

Or as Wilson noted, "We treat animals better."

So do not tell Jasmine that if San Francisco decriminalizes prostitution, it will do so because the city cares about prostitutes. This measure really is a gift, not so much to so-called sex workers, as to pimps, pedophiles and human traffickers. As Jasmine sees it, if the ballot initiative passes, "That's basically saying the city does not care."

E-mail Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page G - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle

A Fitting End to an Emotional Triumph

By Sally Jenkins
The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Sunday, August 17, 2008; D01

The men's 4x100-meter medley relay team celebrates its victory as a team and Michael Phelps' record eigth gold medal in Beijing. (By Jonathan Newton -- The Washington Post)


BEIJING- It was done. He was done. The sense of completion was total as Michael Phelps drove an arm in the air, amid a roar that sounded like a giant exhalation from the crowd Sunday at the Water Cube. His unprecedented eighth gold medal, which came on a lashing collective effort from the U.S. men's 4x100-meter medley relay team, was the greatest individual triumph in Olympic history, and there was simply nothing more to win. "Everything was accomplished," he said. "What else could I do?"

Brendan Hansen's breaststroke lap had left the Americans in third place and the gold in doubt when Phelps plunged into the water at the midway point for his butterfly leg. But with one last turn, massive dolphin kick and torso-heaving effort, Phelps glided into first place, and freestyler Jason Lezak brought home the victory and yet another world record, 3 minutes 29.34 seconds, edging Australia and Japan. The four men joined in a water-slick embrace, and then Phelps stood alone and unfolded those extraordinarily long arms toward the thundering rafters. He had gone one better than Mark Spitz, whose record of seven gold medals in one Olympics had stood since 1972, and he had done so with every brand of victory conceivable, swimming his personal best in every single race. "It's been such an unbelievable roller coaster," he said. "It's been such an unbelievable ride."

For the last time at this meet, his 17th race in nine days, Phelps had ambled on to the white-tiled pool deck in that knee-length overcoat, something a gunfighter would wear. He once more went through his pre-swim routine, wiping the starting block with his towel, shucking the coat to reveal the leggings that looked so oddly Victorian, and shaking out those jointless limbs. If he was conscious of the crowd, rising in steppes from both sides of the deck, he didn't show it. He simply stared ahead at the glittering aquamarine water. Phelps had swum with such dogmatic concentration throughout the meet, that it was odd, when it was finally ended, to hear him call his feat an act of "imagination." Still, that's what it was.


This underwater photograph shows US swimmer Michael Phelps competing during the men's 4 x 100m medley relay swimming final at the National Aquatics Center during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in Beijing on August 17, 2008. Michael Phelps became the first man to win eight gold medals at the same Olympics when the US won the men's 4x100m medley relay final in a new world record time. AFP PHOTO / FRANCOIS-XAVIER MARIT (Photo credit should read FRANCOIS-XAVIER MARIT/AFP/Getty Images)

Phelps did not seem ambitious in any ordinary sense. He never seemed interested in becoming the all-time Olympic champion to revel in the celebrity of it. He competed less against others, than against some faint abstract outline of the possible. In fact, he seemed acutely isolated, a man with a distant stare and a heart made like a timepiece, executing perfectly aligned strokes with invariable precision, and a seemingly tactile sense of the ticking seconds.

But the greater his success in controlling himself and events, the more he seemed to prize the unexpected, and the unintentional. The races in which he was most domineering seemed to leave him almost flat, as if he had merely done what he was supposed to. His most demonstrative moments -- and emotionally satisfying -- came when he was most anxious and jeopardized. In the 100-meter butterfly Saturday, he turned the challenging words of Milorad Cavic, who said he would like to be the guy to ruin Phelps's Olympics, into a dull, submerged fury. After he out-touched Cavic by a hundredth of a second, he beat the water into great geysers of triumph. He then swiveled his head momentarily to stare at the Serb. "Nice swim," he said curtly, and turned his back.

Ultimate verification of the breadth of Phelps's performance was the fact that his victory over Cavic was just one of at least three moments that will endure as among the greatest in swimming history. There was his world record in the muscle-searing 400 individual medley to open the meet.
There was his scream, a cry of the soul, as the Americans came from behind to win the 4x100 freestyle relay, thanks to Lezak's gutty closing leg. There was his dash to victory in the 200 butterfly with a world record despite goggles full of water. "I went from hitting my head on the wall by one hundredth of a second yesterday, to doing my best time in every event," he said, with that crooked-jawed crease of a smile. "It's been nothing but an upwards roller coaster. It's been nothing but fun."


This combination of photos shows United States' Michael Phelps holding each of his eight gold medals after the 400m individual medley, 4 x 100m freestyle relay, 200m freestyle, 200m butterfly, 4 x 200m freestyle relay, 200m individual medley, 100m butterfly and the 4x100-meter medley relay at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing. (AP Photo)

What will Phelps imagine next? London looms. In four years, Phelps will be just 27, still very much in his prime. With 14 gold medals already, 20 is conceivable.

You'd think Phelps would want to actually savor an Olympics, rather than experiencing them through the myopia of a record chase. "At some point you want to have a couple of days to just enjoy the event," said his coach, Bob Bowman. But Phelps made it clear that he's far from content with the haul of gold around his neck. "The goal that I have and am working towards is in progress," he said.

What kind of champion will Phelps evolve into? Eight years ago in Sydney, he was a thin-chested 15-year-old, the youngest American athlete to compete in 68 years, finishing fifth in the 200 butterfly. "Who's this Mark Spitz and why does everybody keep asking me about him?" he said to Bowman. Four years ago, he was a 19-year-old squid boy, as he won six golds, padding back and forth across the pool deck swilling cans of replenishers before plunging back into the water.

In his place here was a fully mature and peaking champion, both physically elastic and mentally unassailable, whose stated goal was expanding the possible in a swimming pool. Facing 17 races over nine days, he actually remarked before the meet began that he wished it lasted even longer. "I'm going to swim my heart out," he said.

He hasn't found the bottom of it yet.

O say can you see ... what nation I am?

BY MITCH ALBOM
DETROIT FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=sports
August 17, 2008


Photo: Alexander Danilyushin, Moscow Times

Becky Hammon, point guard, CSKA


BEIJING -- If it isn't about representing your country, why do they play the national anthem when you win? It is time, once and for all, to end the hypocrisy over who competes for whom in the Olympics. Athletes who switch countries as if ripping off one sweaty T-shirt and pulling on another have made a sham of the whole process.

There have been many examples of this in Beijing, from basketball players to sailors, but none worse than the other day at the women's beach volleyball competition. Russia was pitted against Georgia, which, of course, also is happening on a far more serious stage, one of war.

Journalists sensing a "see the world through the prism of sport" angle, raced to an event they usually would ignore to chronicle the battle.

And in dramatic fashion, the Georgian pair rallied to defeat the Russians, making the news media salivate with metaphors. But in the post-match news conference, when asked about the issue, the Russian team smirked.

"We were not actually playing against the Georgian team," Natalia Uryadova told the media. "We were playing against our Brazilian friends here."

And she was right. For all their sudden declarations of patriotism, the "Georgian" team consisted of two Brazilians who were offered citizenship only because of their talent. The two women, according to reports, have visited Georgia only twice in their lives.

Going for international hoops

Basketball fans are familiar with the stories of Chris Kaman and Becky Hammon, two Middle Americans who are competing, respectively, for Germany, a country we battled in World War II, and Russia, a sworn enemy for much of the 20th Century. Neither was born there. Neither can sing the national anthem. Both were offered quick citizenship because their talents could help those countries' chances.

And both jumped at it.

"Some people," Hammon said in an interview, "get caught up with the patriotism aspect of it."

Yeah. Some people. Like the ones who invented the games. But today, apparently, the Olympics exist to provide nations for athletes to compete for, not the other way around. Use a grandfather's lineage. Use a pro contract to leverage a passport. Whatever gets you in. Last week, Togo won its first Olympic medal, thanks to a French kayaker who apparently has been to Togo once -- as a child.

And how about 18-year-old Haley Nemra, who recently worked at a pizza parlor in Washington State, but is competing for the Marshall Islands in the 800-meter run. The Marshall Islands?

"I'm so excited they even wanted me," she told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "especially since I've never lived there."

Athletes like Nemra use loopholes -- in her case, a father who was born in the Marshall Islands -- to get into the games. All you need are the proper papers. And nations, especially small ones, are often quick to provide them for a chance at seeing their colors displayed on the international stage.

Especially if it's on the medal stand.

Everybody seems to do it

But that's exactly where this hypocrisy becomes so ... hypocritical. I asked Bernard Legat, a gold-medal hopeful for the United States in the 1,500 meters, how people in Kenya would feel if he stood on the victory stand this week. After all, he had won medals for that nation, his homeland, in the two previous Olympics before taking American citizenship.

"They might have lot of mixed feelings back in my country seeing the American flag being raised instead of the Kenyan flag," he said. "... For me personally, I don't feel any shame. ... My loyalty is for my country that I'm representing right now."

Which pretty much says it all. Look. Either the Olympics are a unique event in which you have to have been born and raised in a country to compete, or they should just let anyone compete for anyone, like a pro sports league. Right now the lines are so blurred it's as if a painter's palette got soaked and all the colors bled into each other.

There was a photo last week of Hammon, born in South Dakota, holding her hand over her heart amid her new Russian basketball teammates. She was wearing the red Russian uniform, but they were playing "The Star-Spangled Banner."

If that doesn't make you want to shut this whole thing down, nothing will.

Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581. Catch "The Mitch Albom Show" 5-7 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760).