Hillary: I Run Because...

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Hillary Clinton had a piece in Monday's NY Daily News in which she claims she wants to accomplish two main goals: explain her recent (massively criticized by the Left) comments about June being the month Bobby Kennedy was assassinated (the more perceptive folks in the liberal media seeing through her clever ruse of using some sort of trigger code to her murderous minions to take out Barack Obama) and to explain to one and all why she is still running despite the odds and the clamour for her to get out of the race.

On the first point she doesn't fare very well. In the way of an explanation she tells us she said:

I made clear that I was - and that I thought the urgency to end the 2008 primary process was unprecedented. I pointed out, as I have before, that both my husband's primary campaign, and Sen. Robert Kennedy's, had continued into June.

She then apologizes...well, kinda. The only problem here is she doesn't mention the part of her statement that really caused the furor; that little assassination thing. It usually helps to identify the sincerity of your apology if you honestly state what you did that was perceived as being offensive. Lacking that honesty confessions tend to look a bit self-serving. (Actually honesty probably would have worked better as her comment about Kennedy being assassinated really isn't anywhere near the opprobrium that the Left has made it out to be. Normal people would see that she was apologizing for a pretty minor offense. )

On her second point - why she's staying in the race - she isn't completely truthful, either. She says that one of her major motivations is that:

I am running because I still believe I can win on the merits. Because, with our economy in crisis, our nation at war, the stakes have never been higher - and the need for real leadership has never been greater - and I believe I can provide that leadership.

Ok. Here she's probably being up-front. She thinks she can win on the intrinsic rightness of her getting the nomination due to all her sterling qualities. Well, I guess all Presidents have to have an ego big enough to believe that and God knows that Hillary lacks for nothing in the ego department.

She then goes on to tell a whopper:

I am running because I believe staying in this race will help unite the Democratic Party. I believe that if Sen. Obama and I both make our case - and all Democrats have the chance to make their voices heard - in the end, everyone will be more likely to rally around the nominee.

Yeeeessss, I think everyone can see how "unifying" this race has been; Bill playing the infamous (boo hiss) race card, Hillary attacking the probable nominee's experience. No, no hard feeling in this race. I'm sure all Obama's supporters would be climbing all over each other to line up and vote for Hillary if she were to nab the nomination from him. And alternatively, all her voters are over the moon about Obama, too. Yeah, unity. That's what its all about.

I believe I won a 40-point victory two weeks ago in West Virginia and a 35-point victory in Kentucky this past week - despite voters being repeatedly told this race is over - because I'm standing up for them. I'm standing up for the deepest principles of our party and for an America that values the middle class and rewards hard work.

Finally, I am running because I believe I'm the strongest candidate to stand toe-to-toe with Sen. McCain. Delegate math might be complicated - but electoral math is not. Our campaign is winning the popular vote - and we've been winning the swing states we need to get 270 electoral votes and take back the White House: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arkansas, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Michigan, Florida and West Virginia.

Reminding folks what a weak candidate Obama is is another great unifying point, isn't it?

Somehow, in this beautiful statement of principles Hillary forgets one other small reason that she's running: She is the most ambitious woman in the history of the planet. She stuck around with that philandering jerk, liar of a husband and withstood all the indignities and trivialities of being First Lady (sexist, moronic term, that!) because it would get her closer to the Presidency. She's been a faithful Lefty for decades and YOU DAMN PEOPLE DAMN WELL BETTER GET THAT SOB OBAMA OUT OF MY WAY, VOTE FOR ME AND GET MY ASS INTO OFFICE OR ELSE!

And that is the real reason Hillary continues to run.

Another Split Decision - Means Obama Wins

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Oh yeah, she's gone, finished, done. As I write this at 8ish PM EST on Tuesday Obama has taken North Carolina by what looks like it will be an impressive margin and Indiana is still too close to call but is leaning towards Clinton who will probably take it by a much smaller margin. Hillary, being a Clinton will not give up while there is any chance of prevailing, even if that chance is so small that it requires an electron microscope to spot. But for all practical purposes, she can't win. According to the NY Times if she continues to win delegates in the remaining primaries by the same margins that she has so far she will need to win better than 77% of the super-delegates to win the nomination. It ain't gonna happen.

Obama has had a miserable couple of weeks, with former mentor Wright whacking away at him and stories about Bill Ayers and the stupid, anti-American comments of his wife and his poor, amateurish handling of, well, everything he's down but not nearly down enough. On the other hand Hillary's had a terrific couple of weeks. She batted eyelashes at Bill O'Reilly and came out of her interview with him none the worse for wear. She's practically lived on the Fox News set and been treated fine (RIP vast right-wing conspiracy) and even been coquettish with Rush Limbaugh by proxy. She's been funny. She's been smart. But she's still history.

The media will continue to act like there is a race to cover. They like the ratings. Hey, everybody's still having fun. Everybody but Hillary. She's over.

The oleaginous and insufferable Dick Morris has been saying this for a long time now; the numbers just aren't there for Clinton any more. Those members of the leadership of the Democratic Party who are not so blinded by deranged ideology and chants of "Change" (I think there are about 3 of them left) can't be happy. Obama is a weak, a very weak candidate. According to the Real Clear Politics' average Hillary would be a stronger candidate in the general election than Obama. But she's finished.




















Did I say that already?

AllahPundit at Hot Air is also playing taps for Hill.
Doug Mataconis at Below the Beltway shares in the mourning.

Too Good For #2

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Bobby Jindal just may be the future of the Republican Party. Thirty-seven years old, the son of Indian (legal!)immigrants, he is a wunderkind with a resume that would make the average over-achiever feel like a slacker. Graduating high school at 16 he went on to get his undergraduate degree at Brown, then on to a Rhodes Scholarship. He's was a 2 term Congressman, youngest-ever president of the University of Louisiana System and was appointed by President Bush in 2001 to be Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation. And in January of this year he was sworn in as Governor of Louisiana.


And now, 4 months later his name is being thrown around as a possible running mate for the not-37-year-old John McCain. Bill Kristol today says that there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm in the McCain camp over the idea as they believe that Jindal supplies McCain with enough of an image of change to compete with Obama or Clinton's regular mantra.

Yuval Levin, over at NRO is a fan of the idea as well, answering those who are not are sure, countering most of their objections with the the argument that if Jindal helps McCain defeat the Dems who are getting ready to bail on Iraq, any other argument against his running immediately becomes moot.


But this argument would only hold if Jindal looks to be the only way McCain can win and there is no real evidence to indicate this might be the case. As we've so frequently been told, the VP doesn't pull the votes in, the top of the ticket either does or he doesn't. The VP is either a pleasant irrelevancy or a possible drag.


I'm more convinced by those who are skeptical. Kathryn Jean Lopez at NRO feels that Jindal needs time as Governor so that he can implement real conservative policies and show the Libs what leadership is all about.


Ed Morrissey at Hot Air feels that, although Jindal is a whiz-kid, he's inexperienced on the national stage and feels that Obama's stumbles show what happens when the unprepared jump into the pool with the big boys.


I think both Morrissey and Lopez are probably on the mark. I also think that Jindal would be wasted in the Vice Presidency. The Vice Presidency is the next worst thing to being sentenced to a SuperMax prison. Instead of Jindal accomplishing things his way he would just become part of the McCain team and let's face it, a McCain presidency is bound to leave conservatives gnashing their teeth and rending their garments daily. And Bobby Jindal would have to be just another loyal soldier supporting crappy, statist policies. I'd rather see him out there showing the way than have him straight jacketed and pimping McCain-ism.

Let Jindal be Jindal. No Vice President Jindal. Please.

Doug Mataconis of Below the Beltway finds himself on the side of the skeptics, as well.

That Didn't Take Long

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Almost as soon as the Great One suspended Operation Chaos he has lifted the "operational pause":

RUSH: A TV station in Indianapolis thinks they caused the operational pause in Operation Chaos. WISH-TV, the anchor Eric Halvorson and his report last night on Operation Chaos.

HALVORSON: Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh called for a pause in what he calls Operation Chaos. It's a call to conservatives to vote in Democratic primaries to extend the nomination battle. Yesterday, 24 Hour News 8 Jim Shella reported on official reactions to Operation Chaos here, a story Limbaugh referenced on the air today.

RUSH: So they're implying, ladies and gentlemen, that Operation Chaos, the operational pause was due to their report. I can understand. I can understand a local television station wanting to think they're a factor in a major nationwide operation, and they're doing a hard-hitting investigation out there, that's what local TV news is known for. I don't want to deflate them. I don't want to ruin their day out there in the newsroom at WISH-TV, but the operational pause in Operation Chaos was due strictly to the Obama press conference yesterday while we awaited what I knew was going to happen, media reaction, because we had to determine what course of action we would order next given the media reaction to Obama yesterday. And I can just tell you, the operational pause is now lifted. Operation Chaos is back at full speed, and we have no change in direction, orders from headquarters remain exactly what they are: You are to go out and sustain the Democrat primary season by virtue of voting for Hillary Clinton. Nothing has changed, ladies and gentlemen, nothing whatsoever.

Rush-haters everywhere can now begin their expected mantra about "mind-numbed robots" and the Democratic powers-that-be can recommence taking their antacids, knowing that Operation Chaos is back out there, working.

Oh The Horror - Dems As They Really Are

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The Democratic primaries have become, as they were destined to do, become a lanced boil in which all the America-hating, race-baiting, class-envying hypocritical ooze has come spilling out for all the world to see. The Dems are forever pretending to get the vapors over the "divisiveness" they impute to the Republicans. But no election season in recent memory has been as suffused with all that is ugly and wrong with America as has this one.

The Reverand Jeremiah Wright is the man of the moment, thundering around from sycophantic interviewers (hello, Bill Moyers) to friendly churches to whoever else may sit in rapt attention at his race-centric rants. In one moment he's deriding America:

The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no. Not God bless America; God damn America! That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizen as less than human. God damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!

In the next moment he is "instructing us on his race-centered and peculiar theories of "black learning" and "white learning":

African and African-American children have a different way of learning.

They are right brained, subject oriented in their learning style. Right brain that means creative and intuitive. Subject oriented means they learn from a subject, not an object. They learn from a person. Some of you are old enough, I see your hair color, to remember when the NAACP won that tremendous desegregation case back in 1954 and when the schools were desegregated. They were never integrated. When they were desegregated in Philadelphia, several of the white teachers in my school freaked out. Why? Because black kids wouldn't stay in their place. Over there behind the desk, black kids climbed up all on them.

Race race race race. He doesn't see an American history that we all share and that has created the America we live in. He sees the oppressor majority history and then the African-American-victim history, the abuser history and the history of the abused. He thrives on resentment and separation. His thinking is the natural result of Democratic identity politics which itself thrives on the very same resentments as it is their strategy to achieve elective power.

But he's not the only example of the ugliness of this Democratic campaign. There's the undercurrent of America-hate that pours out of Barack Obama's wealthy wife who has said,

“For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is making a comeback.”

and,

That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.

But we don't have to stick to the Obama side of the campaign to see how unpleasant politicians
can make politics. While Obama is constantly reminding us of the Audacity of Hope, Hillary Clinton just reminds us of audacity:


But as we already know, audacity is a Clinton-family trait:


The Democratic freak show rolls on and on, appearing nightly on your TV screens and computer monitors and newspapers: Bill Ayers, wishing he'd only done a better job of blowing America up; Obama and Clinton rushing to say who would abandon Iraq faster even if the military command said that it would lead to an Iraqi government collapse; Barack wanting to raise the capital gains tax even while admitting cutting it raises revenues, for the sole reason of sticking it to the rich and successful.

For those with open minds the Democrats are proving day after day the emptiness of their high-minded rhetoric. And for the first time I actually believe that, because they now have revealed their true nature, the Democrats are going to lose the general election. The Republican party may be seem like the stupid party a good deal of the time but in 2008 it looks like they may just wind up being the lucky party, too.

Operation Chaos Scores Again - John McCain, Not So Much

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North Carolina Republican Party- Obama Ad



McCain Condemns Obama, Rev. Wright Ad



The North Carolina Republican Ad which points out Barack Obama's friendship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has gotten scads of attention over the last few days, most of it missing the point. Chief among the point-miss-ers is, as usual, John McCain who, sight unseen denounced it. McCain, of course never misses an opportunity to remind Republicans, who periodically try to forget, how much contempt he has for them. His criticism of the ad is empty and baseless. Listen to him becoming increasingly agitated in the clip, above and you'll notice that while he's railing against "the kind of ad that was put up by the North Carolina Republican party" he never actually says why he finds it to be so objectionable. Probably because there is nothing objectionable about it. It is a mere restatement of the fact that Obama has had a longstanding relationship with the racist Rev.

In fact the ad is ostensibly aimed at two Democratic gubernatorial candidates but if they were its real targets the ad would have to be considered a failure. Their connection to Obama and his relationship with Wright is too remote to have any effect on any rational voter. It is kind of like saying that you won't vote for Congressman X because his third cousin is a pedophile. There have to be better arguments against these guys.

Rush Limbaugh sees the ad as another beachhead in Operation Chaos' master plan, reminding voters why Obama is untrustworthy leading them into Hillary Clinton's camp. On these grounds Rush is probably right. The North Carolina Primary is May 6 and the timing of the ad is coincidental enough that it is likely no coincidence at all. McCain probably figures that coming out against the ad and slugging the Republicans will help him with Dems and Independents. He can't be blamed for doing something that will benefit him but somehow he always manages to do it at the expense of the rest of the Republican Party. This screw-you attitude may fit his personality and it may gain him some non-Republican votes but you have to wonder how much of this Republicans are willing to take. It is only April. Another seven months of the same and McCain may just find that he's picked up a few new friends and lost a lot more old.

Sister Toldjah also has her say on the matter.

Operation Chaos Triumphs!

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The results of the Pennsylvania primary are in and the winner is...Rush Limbaugh! Rush is the architect of what is probably the smartest election strategy of the year: the notorious Operation Chaos. Chaos is a response to the Democratic habit of crossing party lines in primaries to vote for Republicans, frequently more to disrupt the Republican field than due to their support of any Republican candidate. It is his contention (supported by more than a little evidence) that John McCain wouldn't be the current presumptive Republican nominee but for Independent and Democratic votes.

Seeing the Dems were in the most contentious primary fight in a long time Rush started encouraging his listeners to cross party lines and vote for whomever was the underdog in order to protract the very contentious Democratic campaign. With joy in his heart and a laugh in his voice Rush came up with the very Bondian name, Operation Chaos for his plan and thus was another Left-wing headache born.

The efficacy of Rush's strategy can be witnessed in the sheer irritation towards it that the Left has shown. At one point, in Ohio the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, at the behest of a Democratic Board member looked into prosecuting any voters involved in Chaos. Sadly for the Democrats, it went nowhere.

The other way to see how well Operation Chaos is working is by looking at the numbers. According to the Boston Globe:

About 100,000 GOP loyalists voted for her in Ohio, 119,000 in Texas, and about 38,000in Mississippi, exit polls show.

The numbers for the effect of Chaos aren't in yet for yesterday's result but it is almost a certainty that part of what looks like a large margin of victory for Hillary Clinton in Pennsylyvania is due to Rush's "foot soldiers".

And it looks like, just as Limbaugh had planned the Democratic race will continue with the candidates continuing to tear each other apart and weakening their party, which can be nothing but good news for Republicans come November.

Below is a transcript of a call from Rush's show yesterday which shows the inner workings of this most public of conspiracies.

RUSH: We have an Operation Chaos volunteer on the phone from Exton, Pennsylvania, by the name of Bill. Bill, you're doing the Lord's work out there. Thanks for the call. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. Yeah, we went to vote for Hillary. I was a gun-toting evangelical clinging to those guns and clinging to my God. I went out and voted. They asked me on the way out, the pollsters asked me, "Oh, were you one of the people who switched parties?" I said, "Yeah, I switched parties." "So why did you do that?" I said, "Because of Operation Chaosssss."

RUSH: All right!

CALLER: And then they went and they said, "Okay, what are the issues? Were they Iraq, global warming?" "No," I said. "No, it's because of Operation Chaos, led by the commander-in-chief, Rush," and she just laughed. She laughed her head off. Then I went over to the Hillary table and I was there with my Republican committeeman, which he's on board with Operation Chaos as well, and I said, "I voted for Hillary," and she said, "Oh, thank you very much. Thank you very much." "But," I said, "Tomorrow, I'll be reregistering Republican," and she just laughed. It was just a classic moment.

RUSH: That's all they care about is the now anyway. You know, they'll deal with the general later. They just care about the now. They're so happy you did it. I know the Clinton campaign's grateful as they can be for Operation Chaos. They can't ever say so, but they're grateful as hell.

CALLER: It was awesome.

RUSH: So you had an exit pollster, it was an exit pollster, and they asked you if you're a switcher --

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: -- and which issues mattered, and when you said Operation Chaos, Rush Limbaugh, commander-in-chief?

CALLER: She just laughed and laughed. I said, "We want to keep this going through the convention," and she just laughed. They were young kids. They didn't really know until that day that it was in effect, but this Republican Chester County. There were quite a few there.

RUSH: Couple more questions. You say they were young. How old were these exit pollsters?

CALLER: 18, 20.

RUSH: Don't be so convinced that they don't know about Operation Chaos.

CALLER: Oh, no. They knew about it because they'd heard about it that day, I'm pretty sure. They didn't say that.

RUSH: Okay, so they laughed about it. So they must be hearing this a lot.

CALLER: Oh, yes. I'm saying, there was before -- I got there around 11 o'clock, and there was about 150 people already voted. But that's a lot because we're in a Republican county, and they were just laughing. Especially when I said, "Well, we're there to make sure the Dems keep fighting it out 'til they go to the convention."

RUSH: Way to go. Well, there you have it. There's Bill from Exton, Pennsylvania, one of the hundreds of thousands of volunteers in Operation Chaos scattered across remaining primary states. He was happy to be in Pennsylvania today voting as an Operation Chaos operative, following, by the way, to the T orders from headquarters.


BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: York, Pennsylvania. Tim, I'm glad you called. An Operation Chaos volunteer on the phone. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Mega bitter Pennsylvanian dittos.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I have two reports, actually. One report from Saturday. I waited nearly all day for the live campaign representative to call me from the Hillary campaign, and finally the call came in.

RUSH: Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. Why did you know that a call was coming? Why were you waiting for a phone call?

CALLER: Oh, I have never received so many phone calls. I thought I was on the Do Not Call list, but I'm not sure now.

RUSH: Wait a minute. I want to set the stage here so people understand. You're a Republican, Operation Chaos volunteer, and you registered Democrat to vote for Hillary?

CALLER: Yes. And finally that registration went through. Unfortunately, it didn't for my wife. She remained Republican, although she had tried. She did a mail-in and it didn't work.

RUSH: Yeah, there was a deadline. There was a deadline.

CALLER: Yep. But I did. I succeeded in becoming an operative, and I succeeded in getting the live phone call on Saturday, and the gentleman, very politely asked me, you know, if I was going to show my support for Hillary, go out and vote. I said, "Oh, absolutely. I wouldn't miss it," and he started thanking me, and I said, "Sure, I'm an operative for Operation Chaos." He was laughing so hard, he could barely say, "Thank you for your support," and hang up.

RUSH: They know. You know damn well he know. Despite the Drive-Bys trying to make it look like it's insignificant, ineffective, it isn't happening, they know. The exit pollsters today are laughing when Operation Chaos volunteers tell 'em they're operating with Operation Chaos orders.

CALLER: Well, the second report is from the polling station. I haven't been able to go over yet. I'm just chomping at the bit, but my wife was by earlier, and like I said, she voted Republican today for a couple of local things, and she reported that in-line campaign representatives were going down through with a notebook and just taking notes, asking people if they were part of Operation Chaos.

RUSH: (laughs) No kidding.

CALLER: They weren't throwing their bodies down in front of people telling them they couldn't vote, but they were taking notes. Not taking names, but seemed to be taking notes of what the responses were. I don't know what they're preparing for, but --

RUSH: Now, let me ask you specifically: Were these campaign workers or were these pollsters?

CALLER: Well, they were probably -- no, no. They would have been pollsters, you know, outside the campaign building.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: Outside the whole building.

RUSH: Before you'd gotten in there where where's no electioneering involved, before you got in there, before your wife got in there and got in line to vote. This is outside --

CALLER: Outside.

RUSH: -- before she's gone up and signed up, signed in -- and operatives, campaign operatives, pollsters want to know how many people are with Operation Chaos?

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: (laughter)

CALLER: There were several of my neighbors there that I know are Republican that were just kind of smiling, you know, giving the thumbs up to my wife. (laughing) You know, to believe that it's not a force to be reckoned with, I can't wait 'til tomorrow when I switch back. I really can't, because I've been getting these cravings for tofu. I stopped by and looked at the new Priuses. It's making me sick.

RUSH: Yeah, you can't hang onto this too long because --

CALLER: No.

RUSH: -- of the addictive forces that can overcome you.

CALLER: It's mentally straining, I tell you. (laughs)

RUSH: Well, they're actually asking people in line -- both Republicans and Democrats, by the way?

CALLER: Oh, yeah, yeah.

RUSH: If you're a part of Operation Chaos?

CALLER: Just going down through the line.

RUSH: "Are you Operation Chaos?" All right, that's great news. Well, you're going to go reregister tomorrow, and probably a lot others are too. A lot of others will too but that story will never be written, about the shrinking Democrat voter registration.

CALLER: I know, I know.

RUSH: (laughter.)

CALLER: I just want to get it over with as quickly as possible and am trying to make an impact.

RUSH: How come you haven't voted yet?

CALLER: I work. I'm a Republican. I'm busy working.

RUSH: Right. Well, don't --

CALLER: I'm hoping I can get through at the end of the day.

RUSH: No, no. There's no hoping in Operation Chaos.

CALLER: (laughs)

RUSH: Our mission relies not at all on hope. You've got to get in there and vote. Those are your orders!

CALLER: I will get in there and vote.

RUSH: All right. That's the only reason to switch party registration.

CALLER: Oh, believe me; I wouldn't miss it for the world.

RUSH: Tim, thanks for the call.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush.

RUSH: We really appreciate it.

Yes. Yes we do.

The Anchoress has something to say about Operation Chaos.

Just Call Him Lucky

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Word is that John McCain is one superstitious guy, in which case this year he must have spent more time looking for his "lucky pen", checking his "lucky compass" and tenderly massaging his "lucky feather" than campaigning. Nobody is luckier than McCain these days. Just a short time ago he was persona non grata on the Right, Mr. Illegal Immigration and "that Maverick", a term said with glee by the msm but with venom by the Republican base.

Today he's the presumptive Republican nominee and with the Democratic nominees ripping each other to shreds in a mad dash to see who can go the furthest to the Left the fastest, he's starting to look like he might even win in November.

The Politico reports on how McCain is proving to be the recipient of all the bad luck that has befallen all of his rivals. At this point in the race McCain doesn't have to do much of anything to nail down his base and bring Independents to his side. With each effective whacking Hillary gives Obama and Obama gives back the voters are becoming more and more disenchanted with each of them. Conservatives aren't really paying him much attention as the sheer awfulness of Obama/Clinton makes any Republican look good. And John McCain is certainly any Republican. Through nothing but sheer luck he's managed to go from nobodies first choice to the only choice.

But before conservatives start breathing a sigh of relief that their guy isn't either of the Democrats they should remember all the things about McCain that, should he win, will leave them let down frequently and profoundly. From immigration to the environment to campaign finance reform to the peculiar joy he seems to take in sticking it to his own supporters John McCain is sure to go his own way and that way is often not our way.

So before we let take too much joy in the latest Democratic scuffle we should not forget that while John McCain may be nothing but lucky this year the same can't be said for conservatives. No matter what happens this November, over the next four years conservatives are going to have to make their own luck. Anybody have any lucky feathers?

Bruce, Michelle, Jeremiah And Their Discontents

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I like Bruce Springsteen's music; always have. Born to Run, Thunder Road, Pink Cadillac and all the rest are great songs with interesting lyrics, catchy hooks and a way of sticking in your head. And Bruce is a helluva performer, putting on shows of legendary length and power. But I really don't give a damn who Bruce thinks should be President.

On Wednesday he announced in a letter that he was supporting Barack Obama for President saying that,

"He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next president," the letter said. "He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where '...nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.' "

Well. What is he talking about? Where exactly in Obama's shallow mantra of "hope" and "change" does Springsteen see "reflectiveness"? Barack Obama is the most liberal Senator in the Senate, with policies that were old when Ted Kennedy was thin. Where does Bruce see nuance?

In all the time I've followed his career I can't remember a single instance where Springsteen ever encountered a conservative. Everything he says of his political philosophy is couched in words that could have been said by Woody Guthrie. His songs, while filled with force and yearning are also filled with images of an America stuck in a romanticized depression-era angst. His lyrics are throw-back lyrics where the union-man slaves along gettin' no break, and goes home to his wife whose hopes are gone and whose kids 'er hungry an' hurtin'. While there is certainly hardship in the US this is a country where the average poor person has cable and air conditioning. Bruce doesn't seem like he he knows he's living in an America with the Internet, and Medicaid and welfare and social programs on social programs let along 401k's and IPods.

And that is the problem with other Obama friends and family, too. Michelle Obama the other day appeared on The Colbert's Report.Here she was, a Princeton and Harvard graduate, a lawyer, a wealthy woman and the wife of the man who may well (God help us) be the next President of the US. And she was angry, dropping into ungrammatical language to whine about her upbringing which while not John Kerry wealthy was still orders of magnitude ahead of the average income level of much of the rest of the world. But then Michelle Obama always seems to be angry. Instead of seeing the miracle of a nation like the US where the descendant of slaves could accomplish all that she has, she acts like she is still suffering the indignities of the Jim Crowe days. In her head she lives in another era and can't see that America has made good and wonderful changes.

And not only is Barack Obama's wife lost in the past so is his pastor. Jeremiah Wright's ranting at an America that no longer exists (and in some cases never existed) has been documented extensively enough that there is no need to show it again. But he too can't seem to recognize that we are not living in some fictionalized America-of-the-past where FDR was the George W. Bush of the 1940s, supposedly knowing about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in advance.

Barack's chants of hope and change start to ring hollow when it becomes obvious that so many of those closest to him and those who are attracted to him don't seem able to see that things have changed already. How can Obama bring "change" (and we won't even get into the question of what kind of change he wants to bring) when his world seems so full of those he don't know what it looks like when it is staring them in the face?

Bruce may have been Born To Run but maybe its time he stopped running and looked around him. He might be surprised to see what year he's in.

The Naked Democrat

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"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising, then, that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."


Barack Obama is touted as being the most articulate of the candidates running for President this year and these comments, which have caused such a firestorm over the past few days prove that sometimes such powers of articulation can be dangerous. Obama's words articulated how the Left really sees the American people. His mistake here was that he actually said what the Democratic party believes to be the truth.

Democrats believe in the primacy of the elites in government whose job it is to order the world for the rest of us. Statists like Obama and his devotees on the Left believe that people need government to safely organize their daily lives. Dem's believe that people cannot be trusted to choose their own health care, they cannot be trusted to buckle the seat belts in their cars and should be forced to do so for their own good by government. People need government to tell them what food to eat, how to be sensitive, how to raise their children. Obama's comments are completely in keeping with that line of thought as they highlight what happens when government isn't leading properly and people are left to their own devices; they "...cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." In other words without a Barack Obama leading them and seeing to it that they all have jobs people will devolve into a superstitious, hate-filled mob.


Almost more remarkable than Obama's loose tongue has to be Hillary Clinton's extreme cynicism in attacking him for it.

"Sen. Obama's remarks are elitist and out of touch," she said. "they are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans, certainly not the Americans I know, not the Americans I grew up with, not the Americans I lived with in Arkansas or represent in New York."

Her comments are, of course true but Clinton's entire career, her writings and her policies show her to be every bit the out of touch elitist she accuses Obama of being. The thesis of It Takes a Village, her bestselling book is that people are incapable of ordering their lives as individuals; they need the community (read: government) to help them. Part of Hillary's longstanding devotion to children's issues is her desire to view children as independent of their parents, once decrying the idea that "families are private, non-political units whose interests subsume those of children." Her attack on Obama, which she is trying to portray as principled outrage is, in fact nothing more that the most hypocritical of political calculations.


But in this episode lies the seed of good news for Republicans if they can recognize it and are smart enough to use it to their advantage. The kind of elitism and disdain that Obama's comments reveal is a subtext of all of liberal ideology. Although it is too early to gauge the political impact of his comments it is likely that they will damage Obama in the Pennsylvania primary on April 22. People don't like to be looked down on. John McCain and the Republican party need to hold the Democrats' feet to the fire by exposing the condescension that is at the heart of the whole liberal agenda. Not only would it be smart political strategy, it has the nice benefit of being true. Now that is the kind of "straight talk" that might really give people hope for change.

What Goes Around...

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Former Congresswoman and first-ever female Vice Presidential Candidate Geraldine Ferraro resigned from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign today after committing the equivalent of a mortal sin in the Democratic Party: she told the truth.

Ferraro caused this furor du jour when she said these immortal words, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." Barack Obama being a smart politician saw the opening and made the most of it saying that Ferraro's comments were " ... ridiculous. ... I think they were wrong-headed. I think they are not borne out by our history or by the facts."..."The notion that it is a great advantage to me, an African-American named Barack Obama, in pursuit of the presidency I think is not a view that has been commonly shared by the general public ... Divisions of race, gender, of region are precisely what has inhibited us from moving effectively forward to solve big problems like health care, energy, the war on terror."

There it was. Ferraro had obviously played the race card, thereby cutting off all further discussion. She lost. Obama won. And the game that liberals have been playing for years to trap conservatives was now being used to collect other liberal scalps instead. They have begun to eat their own. Conservatives, usually the object of this dishonest nonsense can't be blamed for looking on in bemusement.

The Democratic Party and identity politics, the politics of appealing to self-identified aggrieved groups, have been synonymous since the early sixties. Numerous groups, Blacks, Gays, Women, etc. point to a variety of areas in which they have been oppressed and Democratic politicians agree, flatter them, and then attempt to legislate or adjudicate, or regulate the inequities away. This partnership has, in many ways, been highly successful for both the Party and the groups. Democrats have had a ready made campaign weapon and tool and a rationale for expanding government power, "I'm here to fix the unfairness to which you have been subjected. Vote for me against the powerful forces putting you down. I'll give you money and programs." And the groups have received policies, laws, programs etc. that address their "special needs". Affirmative Action and quotas, various monetary set-asides, the edifice of multiculturalism: sensitivity trainings, bilingualism, various speech codes, etc. are all the result of the partnership. The effectiveness of all this largess in improving people's lives frequently seems besides the point.

The incipient problem lurking within the union of the Democratic Party and its constituent groups has always been that in breaking people into such distinct factions, all with their own unique power centers, the day would come when the interests of some would diverge significantly enough from the others or the Party that war would break out. Geraldine Ferraro seems, much to her chagrin no doubt, to have gotten caught in the crossfire.

This election doesn't just pit the first woman with a real chance of getting the nomination against the first African American, it pits the entrenched power structure of the Party, as represented by Hillary Clinton against against a newcomer, Senator Obama. The Party, which has become so certain of Black loyalty that it frequently gives Blacks little more than lip service is now at a crossroads. African-Americans are saying to the party that has promised them so much and to which they have been utterly loyal, "We have toed the line for decades. We now have a great candidate with a great message and a real chance to win. Our time has come." In response the Clinton campaign has done its level best to remind the country that Barack Obama is, you know ... a NEGRO. Bill Clinton, who had once been touted as the first Black President, did his level best before the South Carolina primary to link Obama's campaign to the earlier very ethno-centric Jesse Jackson presidential run. There isn't much talk about him being the first Black President any more.

The problem with identity politics isn't that it precludes obvious, noxious winks to racism like Clinton's but that it removes honest discussion about race, sexuality, gender issues, as well. Everybody becomes scared to death to touch the issue for fear of being called a racist or a sexist or a homophobe. Without identity politics Geraldine Ferraro would have been able to make her comment about Obama. Others could have quite rightly pointed out that while true, her assertion was too narrow. Obama wouldn't be where he is if he weren't Black. But he also wouldn't be there if he were bright, a good campaigner, a good debater etc. But in the current atmosphere, created and fostered by the Democratic Party as well as the "aggrieved" groups, Ferraro's comment was enough to result in her leaving Hillary's campaign.

This Democratic Party war, between its regnant structure and one of its most important constituent groups is unlikely to end anytime before the Democratic convention in August. In fact it is very likely to last well beyond that. Wounds have been opened. Minds are changing. Perhaps the end result of this whole battle will be the end of identity politics. If the Democratic Party finds it no longer works for it, this type of politics may finally die a well deserved death.

Having played this game for a long time it looks like the Democratic Party is finally learning the truth of that old saying: what goes around comes around. It couldn't happen to a more deserving party.