Articles of Interest 3-21-2008

229 Days until Election Day

MORNING UPDATE:

Democrat Speaker Andy Dillon pronounces that the “do over” Democrat primary is all but “dead”…Clinton forces are trying to maneuver a comeback/winback…if anyone can pull this off and snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat…it’s the Clinton team?!?

I’m reading Grover Norquist’s new book “Leave Us Alone” and he points out that California, Arizona and Nevada have all enacted constitutional amendments requiring a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature to raise taxes.  Umm, I like that idea!!!

The other proposal Newt Gingrich has been suggesting is the optional, one page flat federal tax.  See details here: http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2008/03/optional-flat-t.html

Here are a couple of great videos on global warming and the real inconvenient truth Al Gore missed:

http://migop.blogs.com/blog/2008/03/global-warmingt.html

BECOME A PRECINCT DELEGATE!!  Fill out and return the Affidavit of Identity to your county clerk or send it to the state party…we’ll handle the filings. Link to form

Many folks have asked…what does a precinct delegate do?  Here is some basic information about how we try and organize our precinct delegates to be part of our “political machine” to help elect Republicans.

We have had so many areas where more than one person wanted to serve…I am going to encourage our county & district parties to “open” up the participation and attempt to “maximize” the number of potential precinct delegates…not minimize them.  If you are willing to run, work and be part of the team…we want you on board!  Our party needs to grow!!!

TAX season is upon us.  Here are a few reforms we should consider:

1) Simplify, the one-page, optional flat tax or a consumption base “Fair Tax”.
2) Replace depreciation with expensing…common sense and a stimulus.
3) Expand IRAs/401(k)s and index them to inflation
4) Abolish the “Death Tax”…mom and dad earned it, let the family keep it.
5) Abolish the Capital Gains and Dividend Tax…taxing savings & investment?
6) Abolish the AMT Alternative Minimum Tax…outdated and punitive.
7) Establish “Tax Me More” accounts for those who feel under-taxed.
8) A federal Balance Budget Amendment…fund it or spend less!

As April 15th approaches and we start working on our tax returns and realize how backwards and punitive our tax system is, let us think about, discuss and push for some real changes/reforms.  Real change requires real change.

THE REST OF THE STORY:

No further commentary today.

Saul Anuzis

STATE STORIES

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080321/NEWS15/803210416/1008/NEWS06

June 3 redo vote dies; flawed options remain

BY

DAWSON

BELL

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

March 21, 2008

LANSING -- The huffing and puffing is over: Michigan Democrats dropped plans Thursday for a June 3 do-over presidential primary, conceding it had no chance of winning approval in the state Legislature.  The decision leaves unresolved for the foreseeable future the question of what role, if any,

Michigan

Democratic delegates will play in selecting the party's nominee.  The remaining options -- chief among them holding some form of party caucus election or challenging a national party decision to take away Michigan's delegates to the nominating convention -- have drawbacks of their own.

http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080321/NEWS04/803210342/1005/news04

Do-over primary plan dies as Senate adjourns

Democrats say they'll now focus on getting

Mich.

delegates seated

Associated Press

Published March 21, 2008

WASHINGTON

- The drive for a second

Michigan

presidential primary collapsed Thursday, and a fresh dispute broke out between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton over the fate of the state's 156 national convention delegates.  Obama's campaign said a fair resolution would be to split them evenly with

Clinton

. Aides to the former first lady instantly rejected the idea and said they would consider a mail-in primary - even though Obama has raised concerns about the security of a vote by mail organized so quickly.  Obama leads the overall competition for convention delegates, and

Clinton

has been leading the effort to hold a revote in

Michigan

, eager for a chance to close the gap on her rival. 

Michigan

Democratic leaders had proposed a do-over primary, to be conducted by the state on June 3 with funding by private donors. But lawmakers showed a lack of enthusiasm for a bill authorizing the vote, and the state Senate adjourned Thursday without taking it up.  Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who has endorsed

Clinton

, said in a statement that she was deeply disappointed the June 3 do-over was no longer a possibility.

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/michigan/index.ssf?/base/politics-1/1206032660293810.xml&storylist=newsmichigan

Obama and Clinton dispute fate of

Michigan

delegates

3/20/2008, 7:22 p.m. EDT

By NEDRA PICKLER

The Associated Press   

WASHINGTON (AP) — The drive for a second

Michigan

presidential primary collapsed Thursday, and a fresh dispute broke out between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton over the fate of the state's 156 national convention delegates.  Obama's campaign said a fair resolution would be to split them evenly with

Clinton

. Aides to the former first lady instantly rejected the idea and said they would consider a mail-in primary — even though Obama has raised concerns about the security of a vote by mail organized so quickly.  Obama leads the overall competition for convention delegates, and

Clinton

has been leading the effort to hold a revote in

Michigan

, eager for a chance to close the gap on her rival.  The state held a primary in January, so early in the year that it violated party rules. As a result, it was stripped of its delegates. Obama and several other Democratic candidates removed their name from the

Michigan

ballot and all Democratic candidates agreed not to campaign there. 

Michigan

Democratic leaders had proposed a do-over primary, to be conducted by the state on June 3 with funding by private donors. But lawmakers showed a lack of enthusiasm for a bill authorizing the vote, and state Senate adjourned Thursday without taking it up.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-03-19-revote-plans_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Dem camps duel over

Mich.

re-vote plan

By Todd Spangler,

Detroit

Free Press

WASHINGTON

— Barack Obama's chief lawyer raised serious questions Wednesday about the prospects of a do-over primary for

Michigan

, representing in the campaign's broadest statement yet that such a second nominating contest could leave itself open to legal challenges and confusion.  It was released as his chief rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, made a call for a re-do a major part of a speech in

Detroit

.   POLITICS BLOG: Read the dueling memos  "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," the

New York

senator said. "Ignoring

Michigan

and

Florida

would be a grave mistake." 

Michigan

was stripped of its 156 delegates to the national nominating convention for scheduling an early primary in violation of party rules, as was

Florida

with 211 delegates.

Clinton

won the

Michigan

and

Florida

primaries in January, but no delegates were awarded. Obama took his name off the

Michigan

ballot.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/20/AR2008032003526.html

Michigan

Ends Revote Bid

Collapse of Effort to Hold New Primary Is a Setback for

Clinton

By Jonathan Weisman

Washington

Post Staff Writer

Friday, March 21, 2008; Page A06

The effort to schedule a June revote for the Michigan Democratic primary collapsed yesterday, dealing a potentially serious blow to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's bid for the White House.  With Florida Democrats already all but giving up on a new contest, the Michigan state Senate's decision to adjourn yesterday without acting on a new primary left in limbo a Clinton strategy that relied on a string of victories in the remaining contests, to be capped by victories in the Michigan and Florida revotes, to help her gain ground in both the pledged-delegate and popular-vote totals against Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.). Clinton aides express the hope that a late surge in both categories will help convince the party insiders known as superdelegates that she has the best chance to beat Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican nominee, in November.  Without the

Michigan

and

Florida

delegates,

Clinton

's odds grow longer. Both states had defied the Democratic National Committee by moving their primary dates forward and were stripped of their delegates in January.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-03-19-michigan_N.htm

Revote donors tied to

Clinton

By

Fredreka Schouten

,

USA

TODAY

WASHINGTON

— Ten wealthy Democrats have offered to pay for a new presidential primary in

Michigan

— all with ties to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who showed up in the state Wednesday seeking a revote.  Five of the donors are listed on

Clinton

's campaign website as among her major fundraisers. All 10 have contributed to

Clinton

's presidential or Senate campaigns or the races run by former president Bill Clinton, according to federal data compiled by the non-profit Center for Responsive Politics.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VHF20O0&show_article=1&catnum=3

Michigan

Primary Re-Do Plan Collapses 

Mar 20 07:16 PM

US

/Eastern

By NEDRA PICKLER

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - campaign_minute The drive for a second

Michigan

presidential primary collapsed Thursday, and a fresh dispute broke out between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton over the fate of the state's 156 national convention delegates.   Obama's campaign said a fair resolution would be to split them evenly with

Clinton

. Aides to the former first lady instantly rejected the idea and said they would consider a mail-in primary—even though Obama has raised concerns about the security of a vote by mail organized so quickly.   Obama leads the overall competition for convention delegates, and

Clinton

has been leading the effort to hold a revote in

Michigan

, eager for a chance to close the gap on her rival. The state held a primary in January, so early in the year that it violated party rules. As a result, it was stripped of its delegates. Obama and several other Democratic candidates removed their name from the

Michigan

ballot and all Democratic candidates agreed not to campaign there.

http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008803190303

Nonprofit names Walberg Congress Member of the Year

U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Tipton, was named Congress Member of the Year by Dads and Moms of Michigan, a nonprofit organization aimed at ensuring equal rights for all parties affected by divorce, a family breakup or children born to unmarried parents. The group cited his "efforts in supporting family values and family preservation" as the reason he was chosen. Tom Vilsack, former governor of

Iowa

, also was chosen.

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/michigan/index.ssf?/base/news-52/1206062044253340.xml&storylist=newsmichigan

House approves worker retraining cash; takes break

3/20/2008, 9:05 p.m. EDT

The Associated Press   

LANSING

,

Mich.

(AP) — The state House has approved a plan that would add $40 million to

Michigan

's No Worker Left Behind retraining program.  The measure sought by Governor Jennifer Granholm was included in one of several budget bills passed Thursday by the Democrat-led House before it adjourned for a two-week break. The bills now go to the Republican-led Senate. 

Michigan

has the nation's highest unemployment rate. Supporters of the retraining program say it helps laid-off workers get skills for higher-demand jobs.  Some Republicans question the program's cost and would like to see how the relatively new program is working before doubling its overall budget.

The bill passed by a 59-48 vote.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080321/NEWS01/803210357/1003

Mayor would attack text messages' authenticity

Prosecutor's burden: Prove he, Beatty really typed them

BY JOE SWICKARD and ZACHARY GORCHOW • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS • March 21, 2008

If perjury charges are filed against Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick or his former aide Christine Beatty, defense lawyers are preparing to make prosecutors work hard to prove whose thumbs were on the keys when racy text messages zipped between the pair's paging devices.  "That's something the prosecution has to prove," said Mayer Morganroth, attorney for Beatty, the mayor's former chief of staff. "It's not a defense strategy or tactic. It's an absolute requirement for the prosecution that they prove every element -- each and every element."  Kilpatrick alluded to that this week as he awaited Monday's announcement by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy on whether she will file criminal charges. "There will be a lot of conversations about texts and the authenticity of all of it," he said Tuesday in a brief exchange with reporters. "So I'm looking forward to having that conversation at a later date."  Defense lawyers will deconstruct any charges and "take that case apart inch by inch," predicted

Mt.

Clemens

criminal defense lawyer Brian Legghio, a former federal prosecutor who is not involved in the investigation.  Worthy's investigation follows a Free Press report in January that revealed damaging text messages between the mayor and Beatty. The messages showed the pair lied at a police whistle-blower trial last summer when they denied having a sexual affair and sought to mislead jurors about whether one of the cops, Gary Brown, was fired.

NATIONAL STORIES

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120605677309552993.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Democrats Are Still Weak on Security

By KARL ROVE

March 21, 2008

One out of five is not a majority. Democrats should keep that simple fact of political life in mind as they pursue the White House.  For a party whose presidential candidates pledge they'll remove

U.S.

troops from

Iraq

immediately upon taking office -- without regard to conditions on the ground or the consequences to

America

's security -- a late February Gallup Poll was bad news. The Obama/Clinton vow to pull out of

Iraq

immediately appears to be the position of less than one-fifth of the voters. Only 18% of those surveyed by

Gallup

agreed

U.S.

troops should be withdrawn "on a timetable as soon as possible." And only 20% felt the surge was making things worse in

Iraq

. Twice as many respondents felt the surge was making conditions better.  It gets worse for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Nearly two out of every three Americans surveyed (65%) believe "the

United States

has an obligation to establish a reasonable level of stability and security in

Iraq

before withdrawing all of its troops." The reason is self-interest. Almost the same number of Americans (63%) believe al Qaeda "would be more likely to use

Iraq

as a base for its terrorist operations" if the

U.S.

withdraws.  Just a year ago it was almost universally accepted that

Iraq

would wreck the GOP chances in November. Now the issue may pose a threat to the Democratic efforts to gain power. For while the American people are acknowledging the positive impact of the surge, Democratic leaders are not.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25632

Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative: Looking Back a Quarter of a Century Later

by Caspar Weinberger Jr.

Posted: 03/21/2008

In 1983, the still "new" President Ronald Reagan announced an innovative change in our entire defense strategy, a program labeled the "Strategic Defense Initiative," and known simply as SDI. But that name would not stand alone for long.  Because what Reagan wanted to do was to develop a defensive shield against nuclear missiles. And, by God, that was just too threatening to the status quo, to the way things were usually being done to keep the peace concerning the obviously sensitive subject of nuclear bombs and the two great super powers, the

United States

and

Russia

, who had the lion's share of those devices.  Right up until Reagan's proposal for a missile shield, the tacit understanding of nuclear defense was all caught up in something called "MAD" -- "mutual assured destruction" -- which assumed that no one would launch a nuclear first strike because the other side would respond in kind, resulting in the utter destruction of both sides. No one was supposed to suggest any other way of keeping the peace.

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

The Crapshoot of Presidential Politics

By Larry Sabato

March 20, 2008

This week's detour into the murk of racial politics underlines that it's going to be a long, hard slog on the Democratic side. The next opportunity for Democrats to resolve their deadlock will come in June, once the primaries are over and every state (and territory) has had its say.  And that is actually good news in a way. For once,

Iowa

and

New Hampshire

didn't get to pick the nominees by themselves, though they certainly still had too much influence for small, unrepresentative states--and they winnowed out some outstanding candidates too quickly.  On the surface of it, and the surface view is often the best view, Barack Obama is still the Democratic favorite over Hillary Clinton. The strong likelihood is that he will emerge as both the pledged delegate frontrunner (leaving the superdelegates aside), and the popular vote winner, once all the tallies from Democratic primaries and caucuses are included. The superdelegates, reason the Obama forces, will not overturn the popular-vote and elected delegate choice, for to do so risks a party conflagration. This is a powerful argument, and the current odds are that it will prevail, given the 2000 Democratic mantra of "let every vote count". But it must also be said that the argument ignores several possible pitfalls:

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=southwest_passage

Southwest Passage

Is John McCain, with his home state advantage and record of leadership on immigration, a threat to the Democrats' plan to capture the Southwest? 

 

Thomas F. Schaller | March 20, 2008 | web only

If you go to John McCain's campaign Web site and roll your mouse over the "Issues" tab, you may need to look twice, as I did, to locate from the drop-down list of a dozen topical links the one that reveals the senator's position on immigration. That's because the tag that brings you to the page headlined "Border Security & Immigration Reform" uses the first two words, rather than the latter two, for its label -- a curious if apposite reflection of the election-year shift of emphasis in the Republican nominee's posture on his party's most divisive issue.   McCain represents

Arizona

, the fastest-growing state in the nation's fastest-growing and increasingly pivotal electoral region, the Southwest. Couple his home region advantage with his prominent leadership role on the immigration issue and the man whom anti-amnesty conservatives openly deride as "Juan McCain" is, in theory at least, the Republicans' best chance to keep the Hispanic-heavy Southwest in the GOP's column this November. "It completely screws [the Democrats' Southwest ambitions] up," McCain adviser Charles Black recently told The Washington Post. "We nominated the one person who will not suffer that backlash."   Can McCain thwart the Democrats from capturing the Southwest in 2008? Or will history remember him as the Republican who, home state aside, was responsible for finally letting the Southwest slip from red to blue?

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzIwNGI4ZTVjN2VkM2M5NjcxZWQ2NWMxMWNlYjdmZWM

Why Not Optimism?

And by the way: Who you calling Hoover?

By Larry Kudlow

What exactly is wrong with an optimistic president who has confidence in the long-run future of the American economy?  President Bush took this stance in a recent interview with me and at the Economic Club of New York. He told me, “Like any free market, there’s also downturns, and we’re in one. But I am confident in the long-term strength of our economy.”   Optimism, after all, is one of the few levers our chief executive can use every day. By remaining optimistic, Bush is borrowing a page from Ronald Reagan, and rejecting a whole book of malaise from Jimmy Carter.  Bush is dealing with the housing and mortgage credit virus. But he will avoid anything that will doom future economic growth. He wants to stop overzealous regulatory legislation that will turn the

U.S.

back thirty years. And he won’t bow to tax hikes and trade protectionism. While the rest of the world is embracing free-market American-style capitalism, he won’t lurch left with big-government programs.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VHHEV00&show_article=1&catnum=3

McCain Raises $11 Million in February 

Mar 20 10:00 PM

US

/Eastern

By JIM KUHNHENN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. John McCain raised $11 million in February and ended it with $8 million in the bank, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission.   Campaign aides also said the campaign this week paid back a $4 million loan that had become the focus of a stalemate between his campaign and the FEC.   The $11 million total marked a second month of solid fundraising for Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting, but it still lagged significantly behind the prodigious amounts raised by Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Both had not yet filed their February reports, but Obama has said he raised $55 million and

Clinton

has said she raised $35 million for the month. The reports were due at midnight Thursday. McCain has now spent $58.4 million in his primary bid, surpassing the $50 million limit he would have faced if he participated in the public financing system he had been certified to join. McCain has decided not to accept the public matching funds, but the FEC wants him to assure regulators that he did not use the promise of public money as collateral for the loan.

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0811%2Cwhy-i-am-no-longer-a-brain-dead-liberal%2C374064%2C1.html/1

David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'

An election-season essay

by David Mamet

March 11th, 2008 12:00 AM

John Maynard Keynes was twitted with changing his mind. He replied, "When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"My favorite example of a change of mind was Norman Mailer at The Village Voice. 

Norman

took on the role of drama critic, weighing in on the

New York

premiere of Waiting for Godot.  Twentieth century's greatest play. Without bothering to go, Mailer called it a piece of garbage.

When he did get around to seeing it, he realized his mistake. He was no longer a Voice columnist, however, so he bought a page in the paper and wrote a retraction, praising the play as the masterpiece it is.  Every playwright's dream.I once won one of Mary Ann Madden's "Competitions" in

New York

magazine. The task was to name or create a "10" of anything, and mine was the World's Perfect Theatrical Review. It went like this: "I never understood the theater until last night. Please forgive everything I've ever written. When you read this I'll be dead." That, of course, is the only review anybody in the theater ever wants to get.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25631

Accept the Obama Invitation

by Newt Gingrich

Posted: 03/20/2008

Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama gave one speech in

Philadelphia

this week, but he made two different presentations.  The first was an apology and attempted explanation for his 20-year relationship with a preacher, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who is viciously anti-American, racist and anti-Semitic and for his membership in a church which had honored Louis Farrakhan.  The second presentation was an eloquent but fundamentally inadequate speech about racism and poverty in

America

. It was an invitation to a national dialogue that conservatives and all Americans should accept.  A Failure of Judgment? Or a Failure of Honesty and Courage?  Sen. Obama's first presentation was very troubling. It offers two possibilities for judging his character, both of which are unsettling.  The first possibility is that Sen. Obama did not notice the racism, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism coming from the pulpit in 20 years of attending Pastor Wright's sermons. He failed to register as troubling Pastor Wright's trip to

Libya

with Louis Farrakhan to see Muammar Qaddafi or the church's giving Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award. But if this is true, it is a devastating insight into any possibility that Sen. Obama is ready to be President. How could we expect him to act with judgment and responsibility in

Iran

and

Iraq

, to pick a Supreme Court Justice or to undertake any other complex act under the pressing reality of being president when he could not notice reality in 20 years at his church.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/questions_for_obama_1.html

The Speech: A Brilliant Fraud

By Charles Krauthammer

March 21, 2008

WASHINGTON

-- The beauty of a speech is that you don't just give the answers, you provide your own questions. "Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes." So said Barack Obama, in his

Philadelphia

speech about his pastor, friend, mentor and spiritual adviser of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright.   An interesting, if belated, admission. But the more important question is: which "controversial" remarks?   Wright's assertion from the pulpit that the

U.S.

government invented the HIV virus "as a means of genocide against people of color"? Wright's claim that

America

was morally responsible for 9/11 -- "chickens coming home to roost" -- because of, among other crimes,

Hiroshima

and

Nagasaki

? (Obama says he missed church that day. Had he never heard about it?)   What about the charge that the

U.S.

government (of Franklin Roosevelt, mind you) knew about

Pearl Harbor

, but lied about it? Or that the government gives drugs to black people, presumably to enslave and imprison them?

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

Obama's Explanation Won't Fly in Long Run

By Rich Lowry

March 21, 2008

In his hour of political need, Barack Obama went to his base -- the media. He delivered a speech about the nation's racial divisions that couldn't possibly get anything but lavish praise from the press, burying for now the controversy over his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.  A gifted writer, Obama can plumb depths most politicians can't, and he spoke truths about the state of race relations in

America

in an unusually frank and subtle way. But Obama's speech, like his congregation at Trinity United Church of Christ that he described so lyrically, contains multitudes. Swaddled in all the high-mindedness was rhetorical sleight of hand about the Rev. Wright.  Ultimately, he sought to justify his relationship to a pastor who believes the

U.S.

government spread the AIDS virus and has called on God to "damn

America

." This makes comparisons, say, to

Lincoln

's "House Divided" address perverse.

Lincoln

delivered a tightly argued speech elevated to greatness by its moral discernment and purpose. For all its eloquence, Obama's speech didn't hang together logically and had at its core a moral relativism explaining away Rev. Wright's hatreds.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3591359.ece

Polls show Barack Obama damaged by link to Reverend Jeremiah Wright

March 21, 2008

Barack Obama has been significantly damaged by the controversy over his pastor’s inflammatory remarks and the issue has become a serious threat to his presidential ambitions, polls suggest.  The surveys released yesterday point to an erosion of Mr Obama’s support among independents, a bloc that has previously backed him in overwhelming numbers, and particular alienation among white, working-class voters who will be critical to the general election in November. They appear disturbed by the Illinois senator’s refusal to disown the Rev Jeremiah Wright in a keynote speech he delivered on Tuesday — an address that he was forced to give to try to defuse the outrage caused by the emergence of his former pastor’s videotaped, incendiary sermons. A new national

Gallup

tracking poll shows Hillary Clinton regaining her lead over Mr Obama for the first time in a month, now leading 49 per cent to 42, a 13-point shift to the former First Lady in less than a fortnight.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VHCVUO0&show_article=1&catnum=3

Obama's Minister's Remarks Won't Fade 

Mar 20 04:55 PM

US

/Eastern

By CHARLES BABINGTON

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Even if Hillary Rodham Clinton and her aides do not mention Barack Obama's fiery-tongued spiritual mentor, don't expect the

Illinois

senator's well-publicized speech Tuesday to make the controversy disappear, political strategists said this week.   Reporters, talk-show hosts and others will keep asking about Obama's close and long-standing relationship to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose most bombastic comments came to dominate the Democratic presidential contest recently, the strategists predicted in interviews. In video clips playing on Internet sites, Wright can be heard arguing that HIV-AIDS was a

U.S.

government plot to wipe out "people of color," and that God should "damn" the

United States

for its racist policies.   Should Obama become the Democratic nominee, conservative activists are virtually certain to remind voters of Obama's ties to Wright, perhaps by using the videos in TV ads, several strategists said.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/03/obamas_anger.html

Obama's Anger

By Ed Kaitz

March 20, 2008

"The anger is real. It is powerful, and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races."

- Barack Obama

Back in the late 1980s I was on a plane flying out of New Orleans and sitting next to me was a rather interesting and, according to Barack Obama, unusual black man. Friendly, gregarious, and wise beyond his years, we immediately hit it off.  I had been working on Vietnamese commercial fishing boats for a few years based in southern

Louisiana

.  The boats were owned by the recent wave of Vietnamese refugees who flooded into the familiar tropical environment after the war.  Floating in calm seas out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, I would hear tearful songs and tales from ex-paratroopers about losing brothers, sisters, parents, children, lovers, and beautiful

Vietnam

itself to the communists.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/080317/issues01.html?.v=1

Obama's 'I Didn't Inhale' Defense

Monday March 17, 6:54 pm ET

Investor's Business Daily

Election 2008: Barack Obama's story that he never once heard his preacher trash whites and

America

in hundreds of sermons sounds like Bill Clinton claiming he never inhaled while smoking dope.  The mushrooming church scandal has taken the shine off the golden boy of politics, a two-decade regular at "unashamedly black" Trinity United Church of Christ in

Chicago

.  With his phony defense, the Democrat front-runner has exposed himself as both a typical Beltway spinmeister and a hypocrite.  From the start of his presidential campaign, Obama has positioned himself as a straight shooter and a uniter -- the very antidote to the sinister Clintonian politics of the past.  "Voters don't believe what politicians say. They get cynical," he said during the

Nevada

primary in response to what he described as dishonest "tricks" by both

Clintons

. "We have to change that politics, and that's why I'm running for president."

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTU2N2ViMGFkN2VmMzdmMTk1YzVlMDc0NzUyODQyMmQ

The Wright Stand

Judgment, character and Barack Obama.

By Peter Wehner

Several years ago my wife and children attended a Presbyterian church in

Washington

,

D.C.

We liked and respected the senior pastor, we had close friends in the congregation, and we felt spiritually nourished by the congregants and the worship. Two of our children were baptized there.  Not long after the attacks of September 11, my wife and I heard two different visitors — one in remarks during a church service, the other while teaching an adult Sunday-school class — that were derogatory of and inflammatory toward Israel.  Upon hearing the words of these two people — which I found both shocking and disquieting — I immediately raised concerns with the senior pastor. He tried to reassure me and then put me in touch with an associate pastor who was in charge of a ministry to Palestinian Christians (one I had been previously unaware of). I engaged in conversations and written correspondence with the associate pastor and the head of the board of elders over this issue; in the process, I discovered that our church hosted an annual conference which featured only speakers who were highly critical of the state of

Israel

. For the first time it became clear to me that the church we attended was deeply biased against the Jewish state. When what we deemed to be adequate counter steps were not taken, we left the church, in good measure because of this matter and how it was handled.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25609

Obama’s Pastor and

Clintons

’ Tactics Make Race a Central Issue

by Robert Novak and Timothy P. Carney

Posted: 03/19/2008

Outlook

Race, studiously avoided by the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and subtly peddled by the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), has bloomed into a central issue in this presidential campaign thanks to the now-ubiquitous words of his mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. This is bad news for Obama, but he is managing the development nearly as well as he can.  National polls show a dead heat in the presidential election -- for both Sen. John McCain (

Ariz.

) v.

Clinton

and McCain v. Obama. But the cloud looming over the horizon is a financial crisis. The Federal Reserve's unprecedented intervention in financial markets to bail out Bear Stearns is intended to prevent the incipient panic on Wall Street from expanding into a depression. (See below)

Amid the financial crisis with vast political implications, Republican insiders complain that McCain was doing the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time -- in

Iraq

talking about the success of the surge. But simultaneously, Clinton and Obama were continuing their sterile debate on who was first in opposing

Iraq

policy. Politicians often attach themselves to the less relevant issues.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9132.html

Obama racial issues may extend to

Pa.

By CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN | 3/20/08 4:41 AM EST 

PHILADELPHIA

— Stephanie Gill, a bartender in a white working-class neighborhood, noticed the shift immediately. A week ago, her customers at Rauchut’s Tavern in Tacony didn’t have much to say about Barack Obama. But when she returned to work Wednesday, a day after the

Illinois

senator attempted to quell the furor over his pastor’s racially incendiary remarks, the reaction inside the corner bar was raw and unapologetic.  “People are not happy with Obama,” Gill said. “It’s the race stuff.” Obama has always been a tough sell in largely white

Northeast Philadelphia

and in the city's blue-collar river wards, a collection of white ethnic enclaves where customers at the local watering hole have often been born and raised in the neighborhood that supports it. And his speech Tuesday, although widely praised by the pundit caste and Obama supporters, has only seemed to widen the gulf with the Budweiser class here. More than a dozen interviews Wednesday found voters unmoved by Obama’s plea to move beyond racial divisions of the past. Despite baring himself with extraordinarily personal reflections on one of the most toxic issues of the day, a highly unusual move for a politician running for national office, the debate inside taverns and beauty shops here had barely moved beyond outrage aimed at the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Obama’s refusal to “disown” his longtime pastor.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/Jeremiah_Wright_was_White_House_guest.html

Jeremiah Wright was White House guest

March 20, 2008

The recent coverage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright has often cast him as a marginal, almost fringe figure, but

Trinity

Church

is a major

Chicago

institution, and Wright has long been a prominent pastor on the American scene. And an anonymous blog set up to defend his church offers some compelling photographic evidence of this: A photograph of Wright and President Clinton, which it says was taken on September 11, 1998 -- the date of a White House gathering for religious leaders.  [UPDATE: The blog seems to have taken that item down; here's the full image that was posted.]  Hillary Clinton, according to her recently-released schedule for the day, was present at the gathering. Al Gore also appears in the picture.  "In the course of his two terms in office, Bill Clinton met with, corresponded with and took pictures with literally tens of thousands of people,"

Clinton

spokesman Jay Carson told Politico.  That's where Clinton reportedly told the assembled clerics, at the depth of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, that he had "repented."

As CNN reported at the time:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/21/us/politics/21cnd-endorse.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Richardson Endorses Obama

By PATRICK HEALY

Published: March 21, 2008

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who sought to become the nation’s first Hispanic president this year, plans to endorse Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination on Friday at a campaign event in Oregon, according to an Obama adviser.

Mr. Richardson, a former congressman and energy secretary in the Clinton administration, dropped out of the Democratic race in January after finishing behind Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the first nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Since then, both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton have aggressively courted Mr. Richardson for his endorsement. Mrs. Clinton had also deployed her husband, and Mr. Richardson’s former boss, to seek the governor’s political support; former President Bill Clinton watched the Super Bowl in February with Mr. Richardson, and both Clintons had spent time on the phone trying to persuade him to back her candidacy. In a statement explaining his endorsement, which was provided by the Obama campaign early Friday morning, Mr. Richardson hailed Mr. Obama’s judgment and ability to be commander-in-chief — qualities that Mrs. Clinton has called into question in recent weeks on the campaign trail.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmEyZjliNjI3MmEyNDgyZDZmN2U3NmViYjlmYjlhYzA

Democratic Fantasy Foreign Policy

By the Editors

March 20, 2008 5:00 AM

On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the launch of the Iraq war, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are competing over who is best suited to lose it. Obama touts his judgment in opposing the war from the beginning. Clinton brags that she has “the knowledge and confidence to bring our troops home.” In speeches marking the fifth year of the war, both demonstrated just how determinedly out of touch the Democrats have become with Iraq war as it is, as opposed to how they wish it were.   Both promise to withdraw one or two U.S. combat brigades a month, with Obama specifying that at that pace “we can remove all of them in 16 months.” He stipulates that this will not be “a precipitous drawdown.” One trembles to think how he would define such a drawdown, since he is proposing removing the troops as quickly as believes would be logistically possible.   With our departure, Iraq would lose the most responsible and proficient security force in the country, the force that trains the Iraqi army by working with it closely in combat operations and that has put a lid on the civil war, making a return to a kind of normality possible in many parts of Iraq. It would be wonderful if Iraq were stable enough that it wouldn’t backslide with us gone, but no one in Iraq — not the U.S. command, not the Iraqi government — believes this to be the case.

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://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9147.html

Can Clinton win popular vote, superdelegates?

By BEN SMITH | 3/21/08 4:22 AM EST 

The apparent collapse of planned new votes in Florida and Michigan could push victory on a key symbolic measure — the primary season popular vote — beyond Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s grasp.  Clinton’s top supporters, including her husband, have suggested in recent days that amassing more votes than Sen. Barack Obama, while it has no formal meaning, could offer a key rationale for laying claim to the nomination. The theory: Winning the popular vote might give party leaders known as superdelegates a reason to take the nomination away from Obama, who is virtually sure to earn more pledged delegates.  "If Sen. Obama wins the popular vote then the choice will be easier. But if Hillary wins the popular vote but can't quite catch up with the delegate votes, then you have to just ask yourself, 'Which is more important, and who is more likely to win in November?'” former President Bill Clinton told ABC earlier this week.   Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a key Clinton ally, painted the same path to victory.

"Let's assume that Senator Clinton goes ahead in the popular vote count," he said in a March 13 conference call with reporters. He then asked, “Which is more Democratic”: the measure of delegates won or of votes received.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzQyNTU4Njg2NWE4ODA1ZTM2NDI5MjU3ZGEzNzI4NTE=

Surge of Optimism

A recent poll of Iraqis suggests a more favorable view of Americans, and more importantly, of the structures of democracy.

By Richard Nadler

Iraqis regard their safety, well-being, and prospects as substantially improved compared to last summer (when the surge was in progress), and last spring (when it was just beginning), according to a newly released poll of 2,228 Iraqis conducted by D3 Systems and KA Research, Ltd. on behalf of a consortium of new organizations, including ABC News and the BBC News.  Americans read Iraqi polls in terms of how much “they” like “us.” And in this context, it is pleasing to note that we are uniformly more liked, or less hated, by Iraqis of all regions and sects, according to the consortium’s post-surge survey. But the purpose of American polity in Iraq is not to poll the “Arab street,” but to structure that street so that its opinion matters. A more instructive approach, therefore, focuses on how Iraqis regard the structures of their new democracy.  Taken February 12-20, 2008, this was the first major post-surge survey of Iraqis. Its scope and methodology are comparable to polls that the ABC/BBC consortium commissioned in March and August of 2007.  Compared to last summer, the percentage of Iraqis who regard their own security as good has risen 19 points, from 43 percent to 62 percent. The percentage of persons who describe their own life as “going well” has risen 16 points, from 39 percent to 55 percent. Sixty-five percent of Iraqis now describe the availability of household necessities as good, compared to 39 percent last summer.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0320/p01s03-wosc.html

For Beijing, Tibet threat is 'life and death'

Officials say exiled leaders seek independence to break up China.

By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the March 20, 2008 edition

Beijing - Nothing has emerged so clearly from the recent violence in Lhasa as the gulf between Western and Chinese views of Tibet and of exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama. The saffron-clad monk, widely admired in the West as an icon of nonviolent struggle against the occupation of his homeland, was described Wednesday by a top Chinese official as "a wolf wrapped in monk's robes, a devil with a human face and a beast's heart." The violence of that language, used by Tibet Communist party leader Zhang Qingli, indicates just how gravely Beijing views the challenge Tibetan unrest has posed to the government's authority. "What other serious threat have Chinese governments faced ... that could be identified with a coherent movement and a single leader – and a charismatic one at that?" asks Robbie Barnett, a Tibet expert at Columbia University. "We are in the midst of a fierce struggle involving blood and fire, a life-and-death struggle with the Dalai clique," Mr. Zhang warned his colleagues. "Leaders of the whole country must deeply understand the arduousness, complexity, and long-term nature of the struggle." Chinese officials have offered just one explanation for the unrest in Lhasa: a plot by the Dalai Lama and his government in exile to further their alleged goal of breaking up China by winning Tibet's independence.   The Dalai Lama, who has repeatedly said that he seeks only autonomy under Chinese sovereignty, not independence, for his homeland, Tuesday condemned the violence in Lhasa and denied that he had played any role in it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/19/wgorbachev119.xml

Mikhail Gorbachev admits he is a Christian

By Malcolm Moore in Rome

Last Updated: 3:04am GMT 19/03/2008

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Communist leader of the Soviet Union, has acknowledged his Christian faith for the first time, paying a surprise visit to pray at the tomb of St Francis of Assisi.  Accompanied by his daughter Irina, Mr Gorbachev spent half an hour on his knees in silent prayer at the tomb.  His arrival in Assisi was described as "spiritual perestroika" by La Stampa, the Italian newspaper.  "St Francis is, for me, the alter Christus, the other Christ," said Mr Gorbachev. "His story fascinates me and has played a fundamental role in my life," he added.  Mr Gorbachev's surprise visit confirmed decades of rumours that, although he was forced to publicly pronounce himself an atheist, he was in fact a Christian, and casts a meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1989 in a new light.   Mr Gorbachev, 77, was baptised into the Russian Orthodox Church and his parents were Christians. In addition, the parents of his wife Raisa were deeply religious and were killed during the Second World War for having religious icons in their home.