Articles of Interest 3-20-2008

230 Days until Election Day

MORNING UPDATE:

House Republicans and Attorney General Mike Cox today called on House Democrats to pass Republican spending reforms which would put all state spending online for public review, including the $1.5 billion in new taxes passed last year.  More below.

Senator Hillary Clinton visits Michigan on her “Desperation Tour” as she tries to save her failing campaign for President.  She comes to Michigan NOW that she needs our vote?

http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2008/03/clinton-despera.html

Vblog:

http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2008/03/vblog-clinton-d.html

As Senator Clinton and Barack Obama continue to play games with Michigan voters…a possible “do-over”…ignoring us for over a year and NOW they want us back?

Senator John McCain knows Michigan, has been in Michigan and understands Michigan.  When he’s President of the United States, he’ll know who we are and what we are all about.

The folks at Right Michigan put in perspective “how committed” the Clinton/Obama campaigns are to Michigan:

http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2008/3/19/10912/3493

Remember who asked for your vote when it mattered and who is “gaming” the system.

Why would Ronald Reagan be smiling today…my, how things have changed:

http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2008/03/sweet-home-alab.html

THE REST OF THE STORY:

House Republican and Attorney General Mike Cox’s Press Release on “Transparency”:

As national leaders promote government transparency and accountability during this year's "Sunshine Week," House Republicans today called on Democratic leadership to pass reforms to put state government spending on a publicly accessible Web site. 

"If this were in place last year, we would have known the state had a $350 million surplus at the same time Democrats forced a tax increase on Michigan families and job providers," said House Republican Leader Craig DeRoche, R-Novi.  "This cannot happen again."

DeRoche explained that posting detailed information online regarding departmental spending is not difficult, noting that Attorney General Mike Cox has already posted his department's spending on their Web Site.

"Michigan citizens are now able to go online to my department's Web site and look at the name of the vendor, the type of service being provided, the term of contract, the amount of the contract, how much has been spent and how much is still outstanding on each and every contract," said Cox.  "This is the ultimate in consumer protection."

The Government Funding, Accountability and Transparency Act, or FAT Act, is fashioned after bipartisan federal legislation that became law in 2006 to require the federal government to post itemized spending reports online.  House Republicans introduced similar legislation for state government in August 2007, but Democratic leadership has refused to act.

"By exposing spending decisions to the light of day, these reforms would put an end to mismanagement and overspending, eliminating any need for tax increases," said state Rep. Jack Hoogendyk, R-Texas Township.  "State government cannot afford to make the same mistakes they made last year, and neither can the taxpayers."

The Republican reform package also requires public school districts to post their own spending online.  The package eliminates the loophole in the Intermediate School District reporting requirements that exempts them from disclosing lobbying and other activities by ISD employees.

"School districts consistently ask for more tax dollars each year, but where is all that money going?" asked state Rep. Fran Amos, R-Waterford.  "Taxpayers have a right to know what public schools and universities are spending money on, and ISD's they deserve to know if that money is being spent wisely."

House Republicans point out that available technology such as that used by search engines like Google would make a searchable spending database easily accessible to the public. 

"The more transparent government is, the more cautious they will be in spending taxpayer dollars," said state Rep. Kim Meltzer, R-Clinton Township.  "This is the kind of common-sense reform needed to keep government from demanding tax increases as they continue to spend recklessly."

Saul Anuzis

STATE STORIES

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080320/NEWS06/803200386/1008

Last chance for redo of the primary

Clinton

, Levin push for another vote

BY

DAWSON

BELL

, KATHLEEN GRAY and TODD SPANGLER • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS • March 20, 2008

LANSING -- Backers of the do-over Democratic presidential primary will be back at it one last time today, following up unsuccessful efforts Wednesday from Sen. Hillary Clinton, Gov. Jennifer Granholm and assorted party luminaries to schedule a second primary June 3.  Today is viewed as the final chance for the do-over primary because state House lawmakers, who would have to approve the primary legislation, are set to leave for a two-week spring recess, and it would be too late to organize the election by the time they return.  Hopes for the second primary -- intended to resolve an impasse over the status of

Michigan

's delegation to the national convention -- flickered Wednesday as top backers of the idea, including U.S. Sen. Carl Levin and UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, lobbied Democratic legislators in separate conference calls with Senate and House members.  Meanwhile,

Clinton

appeared at a

Detroit

union hall Wednesday morning to challenge rival Sen. Barack Obama to support the primary and give

Michigan

voters a voice in the selection of a nominee.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/19/AR2008031903258.html?hpid=topnews

Clinton

Presses Obama on Efforts For Revotes in

Florida

and

Michigan

By Anne E. Kornblut and Dan Balz

Washington

Post Staff Writers

Thursday, March 20, 2008; Page A04

DETROIT, March 19 -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) shifted her schedule to make a last-minute visit here Wednesday, demanding that the state's Democratic Party hold another primary vote or count the results of the earlier disqualified balloting, and she challenged Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to live up to his claim that he cares about making sure people's votes count.   "This is a crucial test: Does he mean what he says or not?"

Clinton

said.   Her decision to plant the flag in

Michigan

came amid ongoing wrangling between the

Clinton

campaign and state parties there and in

Florida

, another state with a disputed primary. The

Michigan

legislature has not yet voted on a bill that would establish a state-run primary in early June, replacing the unsanctioned voting that took place in January.

Florida

and Michigan Democrats were stripped of their convention delegates after scheduling their primaries earlier than national party rules permitted.   The Democratic National Committee said it would accept a proposal for a new round of balloting in

Michigan

, but the bill has been bottled up in part because Obama's campaign has raised objections to it.   Among those objections is that the legislation says that if an individual voted in the Jan. 15 Republican primary, he or she would be disqualified from voting in the do-over primary in June. Robert F. Bauer, an attorney for the

Illinois

senator's campaign, raised other potential problems with the latest

Michigan

proposal for a revote, saying it would be "unprecedented in conception and proposed structure," as no other state has ever "re-run an election in circumstances like these." While all sides had hoped they could avoid the controversy, the nomination standoff has made the results in

Michigan

and

Florida

potentially scale-tipping.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080319/NEWS02/80319018

Worthy: Announcement on possible charges to come next week

BY BEN SCHMITT • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • March 19, 2008

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said Wednesday she will reveal her decision next week about whether to charge Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in the text message scandal.  “There will be no further delays it will be next week for sure” Worthy said at an unrelated press conference. “You will be receiving an announcement shortly.”

Worthy's probe stems from a Free Press report in January that revealed that text messages between Kilpatrick and then-chief of staff Christine Beatty showed the pair lied at a police whistle-blower trial last summer when they testified they were not romantically involved. The trial, and subsequent settlement of two police lawsuits, cost taxpayers more than $9 million.  A Free Press report recently revealed that other text messages raised questions about whether a friend of Kilpatrick and Beatty received favoritism in the awarding of city contracts.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080320/POLITICS01/803200382

Clinton

turns up heat for do-over

But new primary looks unlikely with Obama camp balking and time short.

Gordon Trowbridge and Gary Heinlein / The

Detroit

News

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Despite a quick visit from Hillary Clinton to make the case and pressure from other top Democrats, supporters of Barack Obama appeared no closer Wednesday to accepting plans for a do-over Democratic primary.   Supporters of the June 3 revote -- including a four-member committee of top Michigan Democrats that hatched the plan -- held out hope that the state Legislature would act on a bill to hold the new primary. But with time running short, the Obama campaign, which has little to gain and much potential for loss in a new vote, piled on the legal objections, and it remained unclear Wednesday night whether the proposal would even get an up-or-down vote in the Legislature.

Ken Brock, chief of staff for Senate Democratic Leader Mark Schauer of Battle Creek, said it's up to Obama and Clinton to reach a deal.   Without action today, it's likely the idea would die, as lawmakers will head home for a two-week recess. Passing the bill after spring break wouldn't allow enough time for state and local elections officials to prepare for a June 3 vote, they say.   Without a new vote,

Michigan

remains unsure of its place in the Democratic nomination race. Democratic leaders could pursue a purely party-run contest -- a vote-by-mail primary or party caucuses -- if the state-run primary fails. But it remains unclear whether the campaigns would agree, and significant logistical challenges would remain. The national party stripped

Michigan

of its convention delegates because it held its January primary earlier than its rules allowed.

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/03/debate_continues_over_michigan.html

Debate continues over

Michigan

health insurance proposals

by The Associated Press

Wednesday March 19, 2008, 7:25 PM

The debate about changing

Michigan

's rules guiding health insurance for individuals who aren't covered by employer or government plans may not end anytime soon.  During the next few weeks, Senate Republicans will debate at least two separate proposals affecting the market. The competing proposals come on top of a plan that already has been passed by the House.  All of the proposals are different, according to details released Wednesday in the Senate Health Policy Committee.  The House-approved bills are favored by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan but opposed by some of the company's rivals.

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/michigan/index.ssf?/base/news-52/1206009548245080.xml&storylist=newsmichigan

Report details cost of

Detroit

mayor's legal defense

3/20/2008, 6:34 a.m. EDT

The Associated Press   

DETROIT (AP) — A newspaper reports Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's legal defense in whistle-blowers' lawsuits has cost the city at least $845,282 in outside attorneys.  The Detroit News says more than 200 pages of records and invoices obtained through the Freedom of Information Act were heavily redacted. It says the figure doesn't include Detroit Law Department attorneys.  Kilpatrick spokeswoman Denise Tolliver says: "the resources devoted to defending the city in this case were commensurate with the scope of the case."  Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy is investigating claims that Kilpatrick and one-time chief of staff Christine Beatty lied under oath at trial.  Kilpatrick approved a confidential settlement that cost city taxpayers $8.4 million.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080319/NEWS01/80319012

Clinton

asks Obama to support do-over

BY KATHLEEN GRAY • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • March 19, 2008

Sen. Hillary Clinton challenged her Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama to support a primary election that will allow

Michigan

voters to have a voice in the selection of the next president.  “The people in

Michigan

and particularly Democrats in

Michigan

know that

Michigan

matters in both the primary and general election,” she told a crowd of more than 300 people at the AFSCME Local 25 union hall in

Detroit

. “If the Democrats send a message that we don’t care about your votes, I’m sure that John McCain and the Republicans will be happy to have them.”  Another Democratic primary, however, was looking less likely today as supporters of Obama in Michigan and his campaign cast doubt on whether they will support a do-over.  State Sen. Buzz Thomas, a Detroit Democrat and cochair of Obama’s campaign in

Michigan

, said he wouldn’t support legislation for another election because the proposed bill “is so riddled with problems that they overwhelm any possible positive outcome for the people of

Michigan

.”

Clinton

, however, was not willing to give up on the idea of another primary, calling the right to vote one of the bedrocks of democracy.  “Sen. Obama speaks passionately on the campaign trial. Today I’m urging him to match those words with actions,” she said. “I have accepted a plan for a new vote in

Michigan

. It’s been approved by the Democratic National Committee. I call on Sen. Obama to do the same. Does he mean what he says or does he not?"

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080319/POLITICS01/803190445

Clinton

calls out Obama on

Michigan

primary

Gordon Trowbridge /

Detroit

News

Washington

Bureau

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

DETROIT

-- Hillary Clinton traveled to

Detroit

today, hoping to pressure Barack Obama and state lawmakers in

Lansing

to approve a new

Michigan

primary.

"I believe the families of

Michigan

are just as important as the families of any of any other state,"

Clinton

said in a hastily arranged campaign appearance downtown.

Putting aside her standard campaign speech, Clinton made a stark appeal to Obama, saying his failure to allow new votes in Michigan and Florida -- both states have been stripped of their national convention delegates because they held January primaries -- will help Republicans carry those states in November and violates "a bedrock American principle" that every vote should count. Senator Obama speaks passionately on the campaign trail about empowering the American people," she said. "I'm here today to encourage him to match those words with actions."

Clinton

spoke before a friendly crowd of about 300 at the local headquarters of the AFSCME government employees union, a group made up largely of supporters from the AFSCME and other unions.

A committee of four

Michigan

Democratic leaders, all neutral in the presidential nomination fight, proposed the re-vote last week, and draft legislation was circulated at the state Capitol Monday. But Democratic legislative leaders -- largely Obama supporters -- have raised objections. The Obama campaign, though it has not flatly opposed a new primary, has cited a number of potential legal obstacles. Lawmakers in

Lansing

have said they will not move forward with a new primary unless both campaigns agree.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080320/NEWS06/803200309/1008

Proposal 2 opponents to fight on

Group taking affirmative action case to

U.S.

appeals court

BY PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER • March 20, 2008

Opponents of Proposal 2 said Wednesday they are far from giving up their legal challenge, despite a federal judge's rejection of their appeal.  The group, By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), plans to appeal U.S. District Judge David Lawson's Tuesday ruling to the

U.S.

6th Circuit Court of Appeals in

Cincinnati

.  Proposal 2 -- which bans the use of race and gender in deciding public university admissions and government and public school hiring and contracting -- was approved by voters in 2006.  "We are, first of all, fighting to appeal the case. We've got to get Proposal 2 knocked out," said George Washington, a

Detroit

lawyer and one of the leaders of the movement.  The group also hopes to convince the

University

of

Michigan

, which has been most affected by the affirmative action ban, to rely less on standardized test scores in admissions,

Washington

said. "Those are generally disastrous for blacks and Latinos," he said  U-M spokeswoman Kelly Cunningham said: "We do have a holistic review process right now. It's not just grades and test scores -- it's everything."  Cunningham said some 60 points are considered with each application, and each application gets three reviews. "Our admissions officers review each application carefully and thoroughly," she said.

http://battlecreekenquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080320/NEWS01/803200328

Signing legislation for second chances

Elizabeth Huff

The Enquirer

Gov. Jennifer Granholm has signed state legislation that will make it easier to donate human organs. The six bills reform

Michigan

's Uniform Anatomical Gift Law, bringing it in line with 21 other states effective May 1. The changes will hopefully shrink the state's organ recipient waiting list, which grows almost every year, Gift of Life Michigan Chief Operating Officer Richard Pietroski said. Gift of Life

Michigan

is a nonprofit organization that assists hospitals in the recovery and transplantation of organs and tissues. "Nearly 200 people (in

Michigan

) die each year waiting for an organ transplant," he said. "There are currently about 3,000 people waiting for an organ." Ralph Moody, 74, of

Convis

Township

waited two months for a heart transplant 12 years ago. Some wait much longer and some die waiting, he said. He and his wife, Virginia, were excited to hear of the revised legislation. "A lot of people are waiting for transplants," Virginia Moody said. "There's going to be a lot of people who will benefit from this."

Currently, organ donor laws in

Michigan

are based on a hodgepodge of state and federal regulations and outdated practices, said Chris Mitchell, Michigan Health and Hospital Association manager of government relations.

Michigan

's revised laws would make it easier for families to decide to donate a deceased relative's organs after death, even if the person had not made such a decision while alive. Currently, if a spouse cannot be located or does not exist, the decision goes to the person's adult children. They would need to unanimously agree to donate the parent's organs, Pietroski said.

NATIONAL STORIES

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/03/19/its_still_a_question_of_wright_and_wrong/?p1=email_to_a_friend

It's still a question of Wright and wrong

By Jeff Jacoby

Globe Columnist / March 19, 2008

I HAVE known my rabbi for more than 20 years. The synagogue he serves as spiritual leader is one I have attended for a quarter-century. He officiated at my wedding and was present for the circumcision of each of my sons. Over the years, I have sought his advice on matters private and public, religious and secular. I have heard him speak from the pulpit more times than I can remember.  My relationship with my rabbi, in other words, is similar in many respects to Barack Obama's relationship with his longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright. But if my rabbi began delivering sermons as toxic, hate-filled, and anti-American as the diatribes Wright has preached at

Chicago

's Trinity United Church of Christ, I wouldn't hesitate to demand that he be dismissed.  Were my rabbi to gloat that America got its just desserts on 9/11, or to claim that the US government invented AIDS as an instrument of genocide, or to urge his congregants to sing "God Damn America" instead of "God Bless America," I would know about it straightaway, even if I hadn't actually been in the sanctuary when he spoke. The news would spread rapidly through the congregation, and in short order one of two things would happen: Either the rabbi would be gone, or I and scores of others would walk out, unwilling to remain in a house of worship that tolerated such poisonous teachings. I have no doubt that the same would be true for millions of worshipers in countless houses of worship nationwide.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25611

It's Not Compassion -- It's Wright-Wing Racism

by Michael Reagan

Posted: 03/20/2008

Most of the media and their fellow liberals were positively giddy over Barack Obama's speech Tuesday, all but comparing it to the Sermon on the Mount.  I won't deny it was a masterful piece of oratory -- the man can be spellbinding -- but when you stop to consider what Sen. Obama was really doing up there on the podium, invoking the specter of slavery and Jim Crow and the era of "whites only," it becomes clear that it was a con job designed to make the voters as giddy as he knew his worshippers in the submissive media would be.  The speech was meant to be an explanation and expiation of his guilt for his years of remaining mute in the face o f the outrageous anti-Americanism spewed by his pastor and bosom buddy, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.  Until Tuesday, Barack Obama (you can't use his middle name, which has now become the "H-word," allegedly a code word for anti-Muslim rhetoric) had steadfastly denied he ever heard his friend and pastor make his hateful remarks. In the speech, however, he just kind of mentioned that well, yes he guesses he was aware of the Reverend Wright's offensive rhetoric after all. Mea Minima Culpa.  He then launched into a defense of his friendship with the man he credited for bringing him to Christianity, and helping to form his social and political philosophy and set him on the path to a life of public service. Admirably, while denouncing Wright's extremism, he refused to denounce the man himself.

Nobody expected him to declare Wright anathema and cast him into the outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and the gnashing of teeth -- one simply doesn't do to that sort of thing to a longtime friend, benefactor and mentor even if he has been shown to have slipped the rails time after time.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/obamas_pastor_and_populism_fos.html

Obama's Pastor -- and Populism -- Foster Disunity

By Mort Kondracke

March 20, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is absolutely right, as he said in his

Philadelphia

speech on Tuesday, that Americans are "hungry" for his "message of unity."  But his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- and not only that, but his whole liberal-populist agenda -- raises profound questions whether he is capable of delivering on it.  By choosing -- and sticking with -- the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as his spiritual adviser, Obama has damaged his ability to heal the nation's racial wounds. And his agenda offers nothing that will attract Republicans and end political polarization.   In the 1960s, black Americans had a choice whether to side with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X -- the healer who sought to fulfill

America

's highest ideals through nonviolent struggle, or the raging polarizer who tried to mobilize blacks out of resentment of whites.  Jeremiah Wright -- not just back then, but to this day -- took the Malcolm X route. And Barrack Obama chose the Rev. Wright as his pastor.  And Obama stuck with him. Whether Obama was in church the day that Wright declared "Goddamn America" for systematically infecting blacks with drugs and HIV, or when he said that America's "chickens were coming home to roost" on Sept. 11, 2001, surely Obama had to have heard about it.  Surely, he heard about Wright's pilgrimage to

Libya

's Muammar Gaddafi and his "lifetime achievement award" for Louis Farrakhan.  Now, Obama says, he rejects and abhors what Wright said and did. No doubt, he does. But, he could cite no instance when he ever intervened with Wright to protest his hateful nonsense. Reportedly, Oprah Winfrey quietly left Wright's church. Obama did not.  Obama aspires to be

America

's "post-racial" unifier, the political equivalent of Oprah Winfrey or Tiger Woods. In the political realm, former

Secretary

of State Colin Powell, a retired general and a Republican, could perform that function. Maybe

Secretary

of State Condi Rice could.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VGPQ0O0&show_article=1&catnum=3

Obama: Trust Me to End the War

Mar 19 07:05 PM

US

/Eastern

By MATT APUZZO

Associated Press Writer

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) - Barack Obama suggested Wednesday that Hillary Rodham Clinton could not be trusted to end the Iraq war because she only started opposing it when she began her bid for president. In a speech not far from

North Carolina

's

Fort

Bragg

military base, the Democratic presidential hopeful told military families and local officials that the war has emboldened al-Qaida, the Taliban,

Iran

and

North Korea

.   "Ask yourself," Obama told the crowd, "Who do you trust to end a war: someone who opposed the war from the beginning, or someone who started opposing it when they started preparing a run for president?"   Obama used the five-year anniversary of the

Iraq

invasion to again cast himself as the only true anti-war candidate, one who openly opposed the invasion as a state lawmaker. He renewed criticism of

Clinton

for voting to authorize the use of force against

Iraq

.  

Clinton

campaign spokesman Phil Singer responded: "The reality is that Senator Obama took practically no action to end the war until he started his White House run while Senator Clinton has been a consistent critic of

Iraq

for many years." Obama also teased likely Republican nominee John McCain for a foreign policy gaffe Tuesday in which McCain, touring the Middle East, said several times that

Iran

was training al-Qaida in

Iraq

.

Iran

is a predominantly Shiite Muslim country and has been at pains to close its borders to al-Qaida fighters of the rival Sunni sect. After another senator on the trip, Joe Lieberman, an independent from

Connecticut

, whispered in his ear, McCain corrected himself to say

Iran

was training Shiite militants. "Maybe that is why he voted to go to war with a country that had no al-Qaida ties," Obama said to laughter and applause. "Maybe that is why he completely fails to understand that the war in

Iraq

has done more to embolden

America

's enemies than any strategic choice that we have made in decades."

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VGPDBO0&show_article=1&catnum=3

Dems Urged to Hold Superdelegate Primary

By ERIK SCHELZIG

Associated Press Writer

Mar 19 06:39 PM

US

/Eastern

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Why doesn't the Democratic Party hold a presidential primary among its superdelegates to reach a quick decision between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton? Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen proposed the idea Wednesday, saying Democrats will suffer in November if the nominee isn't decided until the party's August convention. But that is about as far as the idea will go. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, does not endorse the idea of a superdelegate primary, said spokeswoman Stacie Paxton. Bredesen himself is a superdelegate and undecided in the race. The national convention will have nearly 800 of them—elected and party officials—whose votes for a presidential nominee are not bound by the results of any primary or caucus. Although it would help avoid a delegate fight at the convention, some argue the convention is a superdelegate primary, and the rules say they don't have to make a decision until then.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25606

Why Liberals Cannot Defend

America

by Jack Wheeler

Posted: 03/20/2008

A good place to start understanding why liberals cannot defend

America

is the Amazon jungle.  There is a tribe in the Amazon called the Yanomamo.  When a Yanomamo woman gives birth, she tearfully proclaims her child to be ugly. In a loud mortified lament that the entire tribe can hear, she asks why the gods have cursed her with such a pathetically repulsive infant. She does this in order to ward off the envious black magic of the Evil Eye, the Mal Ojo, that would be directed at her by her fellow tribespeople if they thought she was happy and her baby was beautiful. So she is afraid to be happy, because of the fear of being envied by her fellow villagers.  From now on, whenever you think of a Liberal Democrat, I want you to think of that Yanomamo woman in the Amazon.  For it is that primitive jungle fear that makes a liberal.

This is most easily seen in the children of wealthy parents. Successful businessmen who have made it on their own normally have a respect for the effort and the economic system that makes success possible. Their children, with their unearned inheritance, are easier targets for guilt-mongering by the envious.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/mccains_missed_iraq_opportunit.html

McCain's Missed

Iraq

Opportunity

By David Broder

March 20, 2008

WASHINGTON

-- These are salad days for John McCain, touring world capitals with his buddies Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, meeting foreign leaders and returning to

Washington

with his nomination secure and polls confirming that he is well positioned to challenge either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. But I have a hunch that the senator from

Arizona

may look back on his stopover in

Baghdad

on Sunday and Monday as a missed opportunity.  It is obvious that the Democrats are planning to run against McCain by linking him as tightly as possible with President Bush, the instigator of the Iraq War and the captain of a seriously shaky economy.  As a member of the minority party in a largely dysfunctional Senate, there is little McCain can do to rescue the economy.   But the

Baghdad

visit offered him a chance to deal with the other big barrier to his election -- his close identification with the Bush policies in a war now into its sixth wearying year.  In the public mind, McCain is closely bound to Bush's most consequential gamble, because he has been a vocal and consistent supporter of the decision to invade Iraq, and because he has been perhaps the most outspoken defender of the troop surge that has, thank goodness, reduced U.S. casualties and brought stability to some parts of the country.  But as much as McCain is linked to Bush on

Iraq

, he is even more closely tied to Gen. David Petraeus, the commander who devised and executed the counterinsurgency strategy that McCain was calling for long before Bush endorsed it.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080319215906.oud42xo8&show_article=1&catnum=3

Bush OKs supplying arms to Kosovo

Mar 19 05:59 PM

US

/Eastern

President George W. Bush authorized Wednesday supplying Kosovo with weapons, signaling the establishment of government-to-government relations after recognizing its independence, the White House said.   In a memo to the State Department made public by the White House, Bush said: "I hereby find that the furnishing of defense articles and defense services to Kosovo will strengthen the security of the

United States

and promote world peace." A senior official said the authorization followed

US

recognition of Kosovo's independence and was part of the normal process of establishing relations with a new government. In a comment apparently meant to allay concerns from

Serbia

and its ally

Russia

, the official stressed the military restrictions imposed on Kosovo under a plan by former UN special envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari. Under the Ahtisaari plan, which is the basis for Kosovo's supervised independence, Kosovo is allowed a lightly armed 2,500-person security force under NATO oversight and training.

Kosovo, an Albanian-dominated Serbian province under UN administration since 1999, unilaterally declared its independence on February 17. The

United States

recognized it on March 18, despite strong opposition from

Serbia

and

Russia

.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/us/politics/20memo.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1206008102-SWpykArXz72Z+/11uCGCmA

Clinton

Facing Narrower Path to Nomination

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Published: March 20, 2008

WASHINGTON

— Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton needs three breaks to wrest the Democratic presidential nomination from Senator Barack Obama in the view of her advisers. She has to defeat Mr. Obama soundly in

Pennsylvania

next month to buttress her argument that she holds an advantage in big general election states. She needs to lead in the total popular vote after the primaries end in June. And Mrs. Clinton is looking for some development to shake confidence in Mr. Obama so that superdelegates, Democratic Party leaders and elected officials who are free to decide which candidate to support overturn his lead among the pledged delegates from primaries and caucuses.

For Mrs. Clinton, all this has seemed something of a long shot since her defeats in February. But that shot seems to have grown a little longer.  Despite Mrs. Clinton’s last-minute trip to

Michigan

on Wednesday, Democrats there signaled that they are unlikely to hold a new primary. That apparently dashed Mrs. Clinton’s hopes of a new showdown in a state she feels she could win, and it left the state’s delegates in limbo.

The inaction in

Michigan

followed a similar collapse of her effort to seek another matchup with Mr. Obama in

Florida

, where, as in

Michigan

, she won an earlier primary held in violation of party rules. Without new votes in

Florida

and

Michigan

, it will be that much more difficult for Mrs. Clinton to achieve a majority in the total popular vote in the primary season, narrow Mr. Obama’s lead among pledged delegates or build a new wave of momentum.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VGOB3O0&show_article=1&catnum=3

Lewinsky and the First Lady

Mar 19 05:25 PM

US

/Eastern

By The Associated Press

Hillary Rodham Clinton was in the White House on a half dozen days when her husband had sexual encounters with Monica Lewinsky, according to the first lady's calendars released Wednesday. A look at her schedule on days when Lewinsky said she had sexual encounters with Bill Clinton:

_Nov. 15, 1995: The first lady was in a mid-afternoon "meet & greet" photo opportunity at the White House with various Nobel Laureates and their families. That night, Lewinsky had what she later said was her first sexual encounter with the president in the private study off the Oval office.

_Nov. 17, 1995: Mrs. Clinton had no public schedule and was at the White House. That night, Lewinsky said she had a sexual encounter with the president while he was on the phone in the White House with a member of Congress.

_Dec. 31, 1995: Mrs. Clinton had no public schedule and her calendar does not show her location. That afternoon, Lewinsky said she and the president had a sexual encounter in a study in the White House.

_Jan. 7, 1996: On a Sunday afternoon, Lewinsky and the president spent most of the afternoon in the Oval Office. The first lady and the president had a small dinner with 20 people at "the Old Family Dining Room" at the White House.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/124271

An Uncluttered Calendar

Clinton

's schedules reveal curious deletions

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball | Newsweek Web Exclusive

Mar 19, 2008 | Updated: 4:05  p.m. ET Mar 19, 2008

The early days of 1996 were tense times inside the Clinton White House. On Jan. 4, the First Couple's top personal aide reported that she had stumbled upon Hillary Clinton's long-lost Rose Law Firm billing records—documents that had been requested by Whitewater prosecutors two years earlier. Ken Starr quickly subpoenaed the First Lady to testify before a federal grand jury, leading to her historic four-hour appearance at the U.S. District Courthouse in

Washington

on Jan. 26 of that year. But anybody looking through Hillary Clinton's newly released White House records for clues as to how she handled this personal crisis will find … absolutely nothing. The more than 10,000 pages, released by the National Archives in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, purport to be the

New York

senator's daily schedules for her entire eight-year tenure as First Lady—the first major "document dump" from the Clinton Library in

Little Rock

.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/19/AR2008031901317.html

In Hillary Clinton's Datebook, A Shift

Events Less Lofty After Health-Care Debacle

By Peter Baker and Karen DeYoung

Washington

Post Staff Writers

Thursday, March 20, 2008; Page A01

Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in the White House with a schedule befitting a president, packed with policy sessions, meetings with senators and trips to promote an ambitious political agenda. But after the collapse of her health-care plan in 1994, she largely retreated to a more traditional first lady's calendar of school visits, hospital tours, photo ops and speeches on a narrower set of issues. The release of 11,000 pages of

Clinton

's daily schedules as first lady yesterday opened a window into the shifting patterns of her eight years in the White House and provided fresh fodder for the debate over the scope of her experience. And yet they give little sense of her role in some of the most consequential moments of her husband's presidency, from the use of military force to the scandal that almost cost him his job. The schedules chronicle a whirlwind life often removed from Bill Clinton's, at various points intense, comic, surreal and heartbreaking. She traveled the globe, and at home read "If You Give a Moose a Muffin" to children. She met her close friend Vincent Foster, the deputy White House counsel, for official reasons just three times in the six months before he killed himself in 1993. She was busy with "drop-by" meetings in the White House on the day Bill Clinton had a sexual encounter with Monica S. Lewinsky in the Oval Office suite in 1997. She hosted a holiday dinner on the day he was impeached in 1998.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25610

Throw Grandma Under the Bus

by Ann Coulter

Posted: 03/19/2008

Obama gave a nice speech, except for everything he said about race. He apparently believes we're not talking enough about race. This is like hearing Britney Spears say we're not talking enough about pop-tarts with substance-abuse problems.  By now, the country has spent more time talking about race than John Kerry has talked about Vietnam, John McCain has talked about being a POW, John Edwards has talked about his dead son, and Al Franken has talked about his USO tours.  But the "post-racial candidate" thinks we need to talk yet more about race. How much more? I had had my fill by around 1974. How long must we all marinate in the angry resentment of black people? As an authentic post-racial American, I will not patronize blacks by pretending Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is anything other than a raving racist loon. If a white pastor had said what Rev. Wright said -- not about black people, but literally, the exact same things -- I think we'd notice that he's crazier than Ward Churchill and David Duke's love child. (Indeed, both Churchill and the Rev. Wright referred to the attacks of 9/11 as the chickens coming "home to roost.")

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmEyNjU5NmEzYTM1YzNhMTE0ODVhNmJlOWI3Nzc1ODk=

Obama’s Evasions

By the Editors

March 19, 2008 11:17 AM

Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday in

Philadelphia

was eloquently written, and at times moving. It is getting rave press reviews and may put away the Rev. Wright controversy for the duration of the Democratic primaries. But it should be noted that Obama deployed his formidable talents to try to minimize and excuse Rev. Wright’s rants.  At least the

Illinois

senator was more candid than he had previously been about what he heard from Rev. Wright in the pews: He mentioned that he had heard “remarks that could be considered controversial” and that he “strongly disagree[d] with many of his political views.” As soon as these words were uttered, though, the minimization began: “I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.”  Perhaps. But not many of us have heard our religious leaders ask the congregation to pray for God to “damn

America

.” So Obama then tried to draw a distinction between Wright’s videotaped rants and his typical preaching (which could merely “be considered controversial”). Those rants, he said, “expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country — a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23679299/

Can

Clinton

win over superdelegates?

Former foes and current bias affect her run for the White House

By Chuck Todd

Political Director

NBC News

updated 7:41 a.m. ET, Tues., March. 18, 2008

WASHINGTON

- Forget the pledged delegate issue that Sen. Hillary Clinton is facing; her real problem may be on the superdelegate front.  As many folks following this Democratic fight now realize,

Clinton

’s only shot at the nomination is to somehow make a case to the majority of the superdelegates that she’ll be the better nominee for the party.  But ask yourself, why does

Clinton

have less than half of superdelegates publicly behind her right now? Why isn’t her number higher?  At last count,

Clinton

had 253 superdelegates in her corner, not counting another dozen or so from

Michigan

and

Florida

.  But even including those folks,

Clinton

has fewer than 40 percent of superdelegates supporting her, and that's after more than a year of campaigning.  This is the wife of the former president, after all. Shouldn’t there be at least 400 party leaders who owe something to the

Clintons

on board? This has been a campaign riddle that many of us have overlooked.

Clinton

problems

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/894ztiry.asp

Obama the Ditherer

Answering the question no one asked.

by Dean Barnett

03/19/2008 12:00:00 AM

A LITTLE OVER a year ago, I read and reviewed Barack Obama's memoir, Dreams From My Father. It was an odd Obama who leapt from those pages. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that Obama slouched from the pages of his own book.  In his autobiography, Obama came across as an extremely passive figure. By Obama's own telling, things just happened to him. Obama's study of his own life didn't bother tracing how he transformed himself from a self-described Hawaiian "pothead" to Harvard Law School student to managing editor of Harvard's Law Review. Obama didn't see fit to give himself any action scenes in his own book.  I found this a little disconcerting. Memoir writing typically isn't a game for the shy or the modest. This holds doubly so when the memoirist is barely out of his 20's as Obama was when he wrote Dreams from My Father. Since Obama wasn't yet a politician when he published the book, I figured the apparent passivity said something about Obama's nature.   After watching Obama's generally maladroit handling of the Jeremiah Wright matter, it's safe to conclude that he is indeed a lot more passive than the typical politician. The clock began ticking on this scandal thirteen months ago when Rolling Stone published an article on the Meshuganeh Minister. Obama resolutely did nothing. He didn't leave the church, nor did he make a statement that would put the matter to bed long before the voting began.

http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/MichaelMedved/2008/03/19/three_big_problems_with_baracks_speech

Three Big Problems With Barack's Speech

By Michael Medved

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

The reactions to Barack Obama’s widely celebrated

Philadelphia

speech have generally fallen into two categories.   First, and most obviously, we’ve been deluged with rapturous and emotional responses, as sometimes tearful commentators described the address as a life-changing, history-making, barrier-busting, altogether unforgettable experience. To TV producer Norman Lear, “Obama reached for the stars. And he found them.” On MSNBC, Sally Quinn hailed the speech as one of the greatest in all human history, then later retreated to proclaim it merely “the greatest in 45 years.” Andrew Sullivan expressed similar enthusiasm, and delivered the verdict that “this searing, nuanced, gut-wrenching, loyal and deeply, deeply Christian speech is the most honest speech on race in

America

in my adult lifetime. It is a speech we have all been waiting for for a generation.”   More analytical comments from political insiders evaluated the speech in a practical perspective, admiring Obama’s deft effort to minimize the damage to his candidacy from the widely-condemned, outrageously anti-American comments by his long-time “spiritual mentor,” Pastor Jeremiah Wright. In this regard, the Senator clearly attempted to end the argument by changing the subject – deflecting questions about his twenty-year involvement in a radical Afro-centric church by broadening the discussion to cover four hundred years of race-relations in

America

. While even the most cynical observers acknowledged the talk’s soaring ambition and lucid prose, they divided on whether it would achieve its principal purpose by closing the book on the Wright controversy and restoring momentum to the Obama campaign.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9129.html

Obama, Clinton, McCain spar on

Iraq

By DAVID PAUL KUHN

3/19/08 6:23 PM EST 

On the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of

Iraq

, the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates sparred over the rationale for the war and a time frame for its end, foreshadowing the national security debate likely to take center stage in the November general election. Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain traveled to

Iraq

this week and restated his pledge Wednesday to support the troop surge until the nation is secure. He has, in part, staked his presidential bid on the issue, holding steadfast to a position that closely mirrors the Bush administration approach. Both Democrats, meanwhile, used the anniversary to link McCain to President Bush and frame him as a candidate who promises to prolong a war seemingly with no end. Barack Obama’s campaign continued to argue that the war was a fundamental mistake in judgment and used the day’s events as an opportunity to challenge the value of McCain’s experience as well as to jab at Hillary Rodham Clinton for her initial support of the war.

Obama, who expressed his opposition to the war in a speech at the outset, said Wednesday that his original stance is a benchmark to judge his candidacy.

“Who do you trust to end a war? Someone who opposed the war from the beginning or someone who started opposing it when they started preparing a run for president?” Obama said at the 82nd Airborne Division’s home base of

Ft. Bragg

,

N.C.

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1930419220080320?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Obama and McCain in crossfire over

Iraq

Thu Mar 20, 2008 3:13am EDT

By Caren Bohan

FAYETTEVILLE, North Carolina (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama criticized Republican John McCain on Wednesday for misidentifying Iraqi extremists, saying he fails to understand the war has emboldened U.S. enemies.  On the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the war took center stage on the U.S. campaign trail.Obama attacked both McCain and his Democratic opponent, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, as representing conventional thinking in Washington that needs to be changed in the November election. McCain and Clinton backed a 2002 resolution supporting

U.S.

military action against

Iraq

. 

Clinton

's campaign spokesman Phil Singer accused Obama of taking "practically no action to end the war until he started his White House run while Senator Clinton has been a consistent critic of

Iraq

for many years."  As a senator from

Illinois

, Obama has voted for imposing timetables for withdrawing

U.S.

troops from

Iraq

, a position

Clinton

also has been supporting.  And McCain's campaign said Obama was backing a risky strategy of pulling

U.S.

troops from

Iraq

that would leave the country vulnerable to civil war and genocide.  McCain, the 71-year-old

Arizona

senator who touts his national security experience as a main reason why he should be elected, gave Democrats a line of attack to use against him on Tuesday.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25603

Leadership Vacuum-Head

by Jennifer Rubin

Posted: 03/20/2008

You know things are getting dicey for Democrats when the New York Times, taking a break from concocting stories about John McCain to fret about the state of the Democratic primary race, tells us  :“Interviews with dozens of undecided superdelegates -- the elected officials and party leaders who could hold the balance of power for the nomination -- found them uncertain about who, if anyone, would step in to fill a leadership vacuum and help guide the contest to a conclusion that would not weaken the Democratic ticket in the general election.”  Well, in situations like this the party chairman usually would be the person to step in and provide direction, but the Democrats have Howard Dean. Hence, the Times has good reason to worry about a “leadership vacuum.” Dean is proving to be as shaky a party chairman as he was a presidential candidate. He has shown no inclination or ability to resolve the two major issues which bedevil Democrats and threaten to turn what was supposed to be a banner year into disastrous one.

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1935221920080320?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Boeing-Northrop tanker war rages in media and Congress

Thu Mar 20, 2008 5:43am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Northrop Grumman Corp and Boeing Co escalated their war of words on Wednesday over a $35 billion contract for 179 U.S. Air Force refueling aircraft that Boeing argues it should have won -- not Northrop and

Europe

's EADS.  The two sides have been fighting for the contract for years, but last month's decision by the Air Force to award the deal to Northrop and EADS, the parent of

Europe

's Airbus, did anything but end the debate. Airbus is Boeing's chief rival in the commercial sector.  Instead, it has sparked a whole new battle that is being waged in the hallways of Congress and the media.  Northrop issued a press release on Wednesday accusing Mark McGraw, head of tanker programs for Boeing, of making "a number of false assertions" in a letter to the editor of the New York Times and said it wanted to set the record straight.  It said the Air Force preferred the size and capability of the A330-based tanker it offered and stressed that its plane had been built, flown and tested. In contrast, Northrop said, the 767 variant offered by Boeing involved parts of various other 767 models and has not yet been built.  McGraw's letter accused the Air Force of changing the terms of the process in midstream to favor Northrop and its Airbus A330-based tanker, and not informing Boeing.  A day earlier, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial citing what it called "misguided calls on Capitol Hill for 'patriotism' in defense procurement."