Squaring the Culture

In Michigan last August, Republicans submitted a bill to move the primary up to January 15. The Michigan Senate, which has a majority of Republicans, passed the bill. The Michigan House, which has 58 Democrats and 38 Republicans, also passed the bill. The Governor of Michigan, who is a Democrat, signed the bill. The Rules Committee of the national Democratic Party reviewed the action, ruled that there was not a good-faith effort by the state’s Democrats to stop the measure, and disqualified Michigan’s delegates from sitting at the Democratic National Convention.

According to Wayne Barrett at Huffington Post, this translates into “The GOP Rigged Michigan.” He actually blames the Republicans for forcing the national Democratic Rules Committee to disqualify Michigan, the Republicans for passing a bill in the House that the Democrats could easily have defeated, and Republicans for the Democratic Governor’s failure to veto the bill.

Un. Freaking. Believable. Could he possibly say anything more infantile?

Let’s do Florida:

Unlike in Michigan, Republicans hold most of the cards in Florida, with majorities in the Senate and the House, and a Republican governor. Then again, all but one Democratic legislator voted in favor of moving their primary up to January 29. Two Democratic members of the Florida House co-sponsored the bill. Barrett notes:

When the DNC sanctioned Florida, it critiqued the efforts of the Democratic leaders in both houses, suggesting that they’d merely gone through the motions of feigned opposition.

That’s the Democratic National Committee ruling that the Democrats’ opposition to moving the date of the primary was feigned. And again, Barrett claims “The GOP Rigged Florida.”

Just listen to the whining in this (my emphasis):

Florida’s leading news outlets, just like Michigan’s, converted an early primary into a matter of state patriotism, and that point of view, coupled with the mathematical inability to even slow the Republican push, forced Democrats to roll over.

Oh, my God. They forced them to roll over. I mean, nobody would expect them to vote their consciences, would they? Nobody I know would dare to take a stand against Florida’s leading news outlets. Why, I’ll bet those dastardly Republicans even (gasp) called those poor legislators liberals! Oh, the shame they must have felt! How could anybody possibly cast a “No” vote in the face of that demonic onslaught?

Seriously… I try to restrain myself and keep an even tone on my blog, but this is just light years beyond the pale. What a loathsome, whiny INFANT this Barrett fellow much be! Trying to blame the decision of the Democratic Rules Committee and the votes of Democratic state legislators on Republicans.

If there are more like this Barrett, no wonder there’s so much whining and crying every time a Democrat loses. No wonder they’re screaming “You cheated!” like 6-year-olds every time there’s the slightest mishap in a voting process. And no wonder they want the government to pay for all their boo-boos when they’re hurt.

Grow the hell up. I swear, if there were an emotional maturity test for voters, the Democrats would never win another election.

Politico reports that Barack Obama’s handwriting appears on an Illinois voter group’s questionaire that he denied having filled out, showing him taking much more liberal positions than he currently espouses. This joins a growing list of questionable statements about his positions from the past, adding to the impression that what he says about himself cannot be trusted, and confirming once again that he leans farther left than he’s letting on.

Hot Air summarizes the current matter nicely, while Wake Up America recounts the running tab of misstatements from the Obama campaign, including several rounds of the Reverend Wright (he never heard Wright’s radicalism, then he did hear them, then he was about the leave the church, but really he wept when he first heard it…) And we can add yesteryday’s Washington Post story about the Kennedys’ role in bringing Obama’s father to the US to the list.

Morrissey, at Hot Air, reports that the questionaire demonstrates that Obama:

• Opposed parental notification for abortions. He amended this to say that he might possibly support it for 12- or 13-year-olds, but no older.
• Flatly opposed the death penalty, a position he denied ever having.
• Supported bans on the sale, possession, and manufacture of guns, again a position he denied ever taking.

These are positions that some Democrats will find difficult to swallow, and most Republicans would find unacceptable. More to the point, though, this highlights the fact that Obama is working very hard to hide a radical past. Consider the difference between Obama’s approach — denying that he ever held the more radical positions — and, say, Mitt Romney’s or Al Gore’s alleged reassessment of their political positions once they turned national. The latter raised suspicions that their conversions were too convenient to be sincere; they might have been misleading us. With Obama, though, there’s no question, he’s clearly misrepresenting his previous position, and ineptly at that.

The pattern does not just involve Obama, of course. Most of us here already know not to trust Hillary Clinton. We saw similar patterns from the John Kerry campaign, which was caught more than once taking opposite sides of a controversial issue in two different speeches delivered at different locations on the same day, to say nothing about his self-reported heroism in Vietnam. Al Gore earned himself a reputation for self-aggrandizing resume inflation, and Bill Clinton… do I need to say more? For at least the last 20 years, the norm for Democratic candidates for President has been that correlations between the candidate’s words and their actual positions have been no more than coincidence.

Yes, politicians, generally, are noteworthy for their inflated rhetoric. However, it’s one thing to inflate skills one actually offers; it’s quite another to simply invent them because they’re what the electorate wants to hear.

Regardless, Obama maintains the pretense that he’s a new breed of politician, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that not only is he the same, old breed of politician, but he’s hiding hard-left positions that his background suggests he might harbor.

Michael Ramirez provides his take on Obama forgetting his past:

According to the Telegraph of London, the Democrats are considering letting Obama and Clinton tie on the first ballot, and then substituting Al Gore as the nominee.

Plans for Al Gore to take the Democratic presidential nomination as the saviour of a bitterly divided party are being actively discussed by senior figures and aides to the former vice-president.

The bloody civil war between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has left many Democrats convinced that neither can deliver a knockout blow to the other and that both have been so damaged that they risk losing November’s election to the Republican nominee, John McCain.

Former Gore aides now believe he could emerge as a compromise candidate acceptable to both camps at the party’s convention in Denver during the last week of August.

Two former Gore campaign officials have told The Sunday Telegraph that a scenario first mapped out by members of Mr Gore’s inner circle last May now has a sporting chance of coming true.

Ok, tell me if this makes sense to you: Obama wins most of the smaller states and holds a slim majority among Democratic voters, especially blacks, who for the first time see one of their own with a reasonable chance to become President. If Clinton wins the nomination, they will feel they have been disenfranchised, and a large percentage (about 22%) claim they will not vote for Clinton. Meanwhile, Clinton remains only a few delegates behind Obama, having won all the states that Democrats need to win in order to win the general election, and the Democrats aren’t going to win the states Obama won. If Obama wins the nomination, a large percentage of Clinton’s voters say they will feel disenfranchised, and will not vote for Obama (another 22%).

Solution? Disenfranchise both groups.

Make sense?

Ed Morrisey, who quoted the maxim in my title, today earns my admiration as the best commentator on the Internet with his pithy analysis of this story. Conservative attorney Mark Levin notes the same irony I do, and hopes the Democrats do it. Jules Crittendon adds the further irony that Gore isn’t any more electable than either of the damaged articles he’d be replacing:

I think my favorite part … aside from the whole thing, that is … is the idea that replacing the Hero of Tuzla and the change-hoping bigot buddy with an exaggerating doomsayer somehow gets this train back on the rails.

Honestly, can you imagine how much fun it would be, listing all the outright lies and misinformation from An Inconvenient Truth all through September and October? Be still, my beating heart! I swear, Rush Limbaugh must be praying 150 Hail Marys a day hoping for this.

It all started from this Time Magazine article by Joe Klein last Wednesday. And now, we’re actually talking about the Party of the Downtrodden and Disenfranchised plotting in smoke-filled rooms to diss the Woman, subjugate the Black, and replace them both with a fat, old White Man.

This is desperation on a remarkable scale, and the entire mess arose from the inability of Democratic party leaders to trust the rank and file to select a candidate properly. The Democratic party is horribly misnamed, being led, as it is, by elitists who despise democracy. They created Superdelegates to prevent the grass roots from selecting the candidate, and now the Superdelegates might prevent a nomination on the first ballot, leading to a convention bloodbath and horse-trading in the back rooms. Justice is being served.

Quoth Karl Rove to the Young Americans Foundation, winning the Schadenfreudification of the Day Award:

You know you got a problem if the answer is Al Gore.

Dutch Muslims have reacted calmly to the Geert Wilder’s incendiary film Fitna. From Israeli newspaper Haaretz (emphasis mine):

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said he was “proud” of Dutch Muslims for their peaceful reaction to the film. Parliament is due to discuss Fitna on Tuesday.

The government feared religious riots if the footage was deemed offensive, but the umbrella group for Dutch Muslims said that the film does not insult their religion.

If the film does not insult Muslim religion, then the Dutch Muslims are saying that the film is accurate. If the Muslims had said, “We believe Wilder has a right to state his opinion,” I would have been relieved. That they don’t find the movie insulting, I don’t find comforting at all. I watched the film. It’s a montage of visual images (some of them pretty grisly) making four simple points: the Koran contains passages that call for violence, certain Muslim leaders preach violence, Muslims commit violence, it’s up to Muslims to remove the violent passages from the Quran. If that’s accurate enough to satisfy Muslims, then we have Muslim agreement that certain elements of Islam intend murder, while others intend domination.

Here’s the summary text from the film itself, that the Dutch Muslims find to be a reasonable representation of Islam:

The sound you heard was a page being torn from the phone book.

For it is not up to me, but up to Muslims themselves, to tear out the hateful verses from the Quran.

Muslims want you to make way for Islam, but Islam does not make way for you.

The Government insists you respect Islam, but Islam has no respect for you.

Islam wants to rule, submit, and seeks to destroy our western civilization.

In 1945, Nazism was defeated in Europe.

In 1989, Communism was defeated in Europe.

Now the Islamic ideology has to be defeated.

Stop Islamization. Defend our freedom.

I suspect the Dutch Muslims are thinking “Finally, a Westerner who sounds like a man.” A stark call to arms is a thing they understand. I’ve noticed what I would call a medieval attitude from the radical Muslims that goes something like this: “Yes, we intend to dominate you, and we understand if you object. Come, meet us on the field of battle, and we will see whose god is stronger.” Wilders’ film agrees: “We need to meet them on the field of battle.” The Muslims nod, and say “Good.”

Wilder’s film also contains several statements from Muslim leaders stating that they despise democracy and liberty, and propose Islam as the alternative. Not that we ever doubted it, but it’s good to hear it from their own mouths.

Meanwhile, yesterday Fitna was removed from the web by its British internet provider, following threats to the provider’s employees from Muslims. Apparently Muslims there are applying a different strategy.

“Fitna” is an Arabic word meaning “strife.”

If you’ve never seen Washington DC during cherry blossom season, you’ve missed a treat. The blossoms surround the tidal basins and reflect off the surface, making it look as though the tidal basin is on fire. It’s magnificent.

Also, the traffic around the tidal basins during the season will guarantee that you take it in nice and slow…

Photo from the Washington Times.

I’m weary of talking about Barack Obama’s association with the Reverend Wright, but it seems we have one more round to go. This one seems definitive, and I think it will be my last on the subject.

Mickey Kaus at Slate.com reports that Hugh Hewitt, on his radio program yesterday, played excerpts of Obama reading from his biography, Dreams of My Father, and one of them describes the first time Obama heard the Reverend Wright. The content of that sermon included some of the harsh, anti-white rhetoric that we’re all finding so controversial. It wasn’t a whole speech full of that sort of thing, it was a passing illustration (the offending line in this sermon is “white folks’ greed runs a world in need,”) but that’s the point. This sort of talk is not a serious but harsh thesis that gets advanced once in a while with evidence, it’s part of the backdrop of everyday notions that everybody in that setting takes for granted. Obama’s own testimony was that the sermon moved him to tears.

Paul Mirengoff from Power Line explains the complete picture neatly:

It’s pretty clear that no form of Christianity other than black liberation theology had any chance of attracting Obama. Wright’s sophomoric raging was a perfect fit for Obama. It made him feel authentically black (see Shelby Steele on this subject), it fit the anti-American narrative Obama had picked up in the Ivy League, and it was the best church around for advancing Obama’s career in Chicago politics. People have had religious experiences on considerably less than that.

The only amendment I’ll make to that succinct summary is that Obama picked up the anti-American narrative long before he reached the Ivy League, he was raised around it. Aside from that, I think Mirengoff nailed it.

What does this mean? In a word, it means that the casual “white greed runs a world in need” is something Obama takes for granted, too. He fits comfortably into the setting where everybody thinks that way, and now that we know it, we need to ask whether that’s what we want our President to think of us. I lived in Philadelphia with a mayor who thought like that (John Street), and I don’t recommend it; he ran city government with an “Us vs. Them” mentality.

I honestly think Barack Obama is an unusually talented man who can accomplish a lot in his lifetime if he wants to. However, he’s got hard-left roots, he thinks the government cures all ills, and despite his smooth, persuasive message of hope and unity, his record and preparation suggest he could only unify the nation under a socialist government. And now, it appears that his mode of being takes racism against whites for granted. This is not a man for whom I could ever cast a vote.

John McCain is running an ad that appears to address Obama’s new weakness. It asks,

What must a president believe about us? About America?
That she is worth protecting?
That liberty is priceless?
Our people, honorable?
Our future, prosperous, remarkable and free?
And, what must we believe about that president?
What does he think?
Where has he been?
Has he walked the walk?

Mirengoff has the goods on this report as well. It’s the right way to leverage the new information about Obama. Nobody ever said McCain was a fool…

Want to know what would happen to Iraq if a Democrat wins in November and fulfills their promise to remove US troops? Take a look at what’s happening in Basra, at the southern tip of Iraq.

British forces were responsible for the south of Iraq, where a great deal of the oil is located; Basra is the hub of the Iraqi oil industry. The British, who always regarded their role as passive peace-keeping rather than counter-insurgency, have been gradually drawing down their force size since September. However, they never completely controlled the city of Basra, which is being held by rival militias: the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) and Muqtada Sadr’s Mahdi army, both of which are Shia and supported by Iran (which is a mere 10 miles away), and the smaller Fadillah Party. Basra has been quiet because the Mahdi Army declared a cease-fire after fighting the ISCI in Karbala last August, but that appears to be collapsing as the rival militias struggle for control of Basra, and with it, the ability to take a cut of oil revenues.

Short version: pull the troops out, and Iraq becomes a clone of places like Somalia or Nigeria, ruled by warlords.

From the Times of London (my emphasis):

British forces, who can probably cobble together an armoured battle group of a few hundred soldiers, may well be asked to intervene should the Iraqi offensive fail. If that happens, any hope of the withdrawal promised by Gordon Brown last year of another 1,500 British troops this spring will have to be shelved until Basra can be stabilised.

It may even be necessary to reinforce the British contingent with more combat troops, something that the Ministry of Defence can ill afford as it prepares for the fighting season in Afghanistan.

The only other option would be for Britain to admit finally that it has lost the fight in southern Iraq. That would mean an ignominious withdrawal and handing over control of Basra to the Americans, who grudgingly would have to take over responsibility for the south. As American officers and officials have privately made clear, much of today’s problems in Basra can be traced back to Britain’s failure to commit the forces necessary to control Basra and southern Iraq in general.

Whereas President Bush’s “surge” tactic of sending 30,000 reinforcements to central Iraq has succeeded in bringing down the level of violence in Baghdad and Anbar province, the Americans believe that the gradual withdrawal of British troops from the south has had the opposite effect, a point that Mr al-Maliki and his soldiers are discovering to their cost on the streets of Basra today.

Sure enough, the Washington Post reports this morning that their reporters spotted four US armored vehicles in Basra, heard US weapons, and watched US helicopters and drones overfly the city.

Hot Air concurs that this illustrates the need for keeping troops in Iraq until the militias are under control. US military forces tore the Mahdi Army to shreds in Fallujah back in 2004, and may have to do it again if the British cannot bring the city under control. Fred Kaplan at Slate.com (whose Democratic Tourette’s Syndrome renders him unable to resist Opus 3,269,834,271 of “Bush, what an idiot,” despite the fact that Basra is a British failure) reports rumors that Iraqi President Maliki has ties to the ISCI and ordered the violence to prevent the Mahdi Army from winning upcoming provincial elections. Also, there’s a brief but informative discussion of the factions in Basra at the Christian Science Monitor, albeit from 2006.

Map of Iraq from Lonely Planet.

Since the press won’t tell us about positive progress in Iraq, it falls to us to report it.

President Bush delivered an address yesterday praising the progress of the Iraqi government and the success of the “surge,” from the Air Force National Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force base in Dayton, OH. About 1,100 Air Force and Army personnel, local leaders, and state officials cheered the President’s speech.

Most of the speech was devoted to reciting details of measures taken by the Iraqi government, and how the Iraqi economy, political life, and daily life are returning to normal in the vastly improved safety of post-surge Iraq. The text of the speech is here, and I recommend you read it.

Highlights of the progress Bush mentioned, in the President’s own words (selected and rearranged):

• In just over a year, Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, has seen its average number of attacks plummet from more than 18 per day to less than one per week…
• Over the past year, more than 100,000 Iraqis have joined their nation’s security forces. In other words, there was an Iraqi surge to match our own. The Iraqi forces are growing in capability. Recently, they planned and executed a highly effective operation to secure nearly nine million pilgrims celebrating the religious holiday of Arbaeen. And as we speak, Iraqi security forces are waging a tough battle against militia fighters and criminals in Basra… [PBB note: Mostly Shia army, fighting Shia militia; this is a remarkable achievement, though some defections have occurred.]
• In Ramadi, tribal sheiks who led the uprising against al Qaeda are now leading a revival of politics. With the support of our PRTs [PBB note: PRT = "Political Reconstruction Team?"], Ramadi now has a fully-staffed mayor’s office, and neighborhood councils have formed. Judges are presiding over courts and restoring the rule of law…
• As the news of the success in Anbar has spread, similar grassroots movements have sprung up all around the country. Today, some 90,000 Iraqis belong to local citizens group bearing the proud name “Sons of Iraq.” … these groups of citizens are determined to protect their communities, they are determined to fight extremism, and they increasingly participate in civic life…
• …civil society was destroyed during the time of the brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein. And yet, it’s now coming back to life…. Our PRT in Karbala, for example, helped local residents establish a women’s center that will provide education and promote equality. In Anbar, they just ran a 5-K race on what used to be the most dangerous streets in Iraq…
• General Odierno … flew over Baghdad 15 months ago and he couldn’t see a single soccer game. On his final flight last month, he counted more than 180… It is a sign normalcy is returning back to Iraq…
• … almost every key economic indicator has turned around. Since the surge began, business registrations have increased by more than 9 percent. Total inflation has fallen by more than 60 percentage points. Investment in the energy and telecom industries has increased. The agriculture sector is improving. Oil production is up, particularly north of Baghdad. The oil fields there have more than doubled production, and exports through Turkey have expanded significantly…
• In December, the government enacted a pension law that will allow tens of thousands of Sunnis to collect the retirement benefits they were promised… In January, leaders enacted a de-Baathification law that allows mid-level Baath Party members to re-enter political and civic life… In February, leaders enacted a budget that increases spending on security capital reconstruction projects and provincial governments. And on the same day, leaders enacted an amnesty law to resolve the status of many Iraqis held in Iraqi custody. Last week, leaders reached agreement on a provincial powers law that helps define Iraqi federalism, and sets the stage for provincial elections later this year.

Pay attention to the last item: the Iraqi government is beginning to function. President Bush spent some time on this point, because opponents in the US Congress have been criticizing the Iraqi commitment to political progress as part of their argument that we should abandon them:

You know, they got their budget passed, and sometimes it takes our Congress a while to get its budget passed. Nevertheless, some members of Congress decided the best way to encourage progress in Baghdad was to criticize and threaten Iraq’s leaders while they’re trying to work out their differences. But hectoring was not what the Iraqi leaders needed. What they needed was security. And that is what the surge has provided…

It’s … worth remembering the enormity of what the Iraqis are trying to do. They’re striving to build a modern democracy on the rubble of three decades of tyranny, in a region of the world that has been hostile to freedom. And they’re doing it while under assault from one of history’s most brutal terrorist networks. When it takes time for Iraqis to reach agreement, it is not “foot dragging,” as one senator described it during Congress’s two-week Easter recess. It is a revolutionary undertaking that requires great courage. You know, one Iraqi leader recently acknowledged that he’s faced four assassination attempts a year since liberation. Yet he proudly serves his nation, with strong determination, because he wants to live in a free society, and he understands what I understand — free societies yield the peace we want.

President Bush is expected within weeks to endorse the recommendation of General David Petraeus that we pause our reduction of forces to assess the impact and the ability of the Iraqi security forces to function. The US has removed five combat brigades from Iraq since December.

Opponents of the war who feel the need to attach a negative to every positive will emphasize America losses and costs, and argue that nothing of value has been accomplished. They are wrong. With our help, a brutal dictator that committed genocide against his own people, threatened and attacked his neighbor countries, funded and sponsored terrorists, and developed terrifying weapons that would have been used to further the aims of terrorists, was removed. He is being replaced by a stable, free republic that seeks the welfare of its own people and threatens no neighbors, and that models democracy and liberty to the rest of the Muslim world. In the process, a radical, terrorist initiative to establish a strict Muslim Caliphate has been defeated and discredited, and Muslim clerics around the middle east have begun cautioning their followers against violent jihad in foreign nations as a result.

Photo by Kiichiro Sato, AP, and retrieved from USA Today.

In what seems to be becoming a weekly event, another Democratic governor was indicted yesterday. Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá of Puerto Rico and a dozen others were indicted for an alleged scam to bypass campaign finance limits. The specific charges included conspiracy to violate federal campaign law, conspiracy to defraud the IRS, wire fraud, filing a false tax return, and using campaign funds for a personal vacation.

Vilá immediately started beating the drum of the Bush Justice Department and its scheme to assault Democrats (another weekly event), with the help of McClatchy newspaper reporters, who reliably repeat Democrats’ talking points. There have been so many high-profile Democrats indicted lately that I started questioning the investigation pattern myself, but, no, this is actually part of a legitimate investigation that began in Philadelphia, back when I was living there. In 2004, Federal investigators indicted attorney Ronald White, a close associate of Mayor John Street, along with City Treasurer Corey Kemp and a dozen others for their role in a pay-for-play scam that ran Philadelphia with an iron fist. The investigation uncovered ties to Puerto Rico, as political fund-raisers in Philadelphia had met with Governor Vilá and made large contributions to his campaign, according to this story from the Philly Inquirer. Four Philadelphians were indicted yesterday along with Vilá, including Democratic financier Robert Feldman, who raised money for Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and Senator Robert Casey as well.

One of the interesting side notes on this story is that Vilá is a Superdelegate to the Democratic convention. So is Kwame Kilpatrick, Mayor of Detroit who was indicted earlier this week for perjury and obstruction of justice. So is Eliot Spitzer, New York governor who resigned a few weeks ago after an investigation of money laundering turned up his predilection for prostitutes. Think they’ll set up a penalty box for delegates visiting from the slammer?

Hot Air associates the story with Norman Hsu as another Democratic campaign scam, and also notes that this story ties yet another corrupt financier to Barack Obama (though it does not accuse Obama of doing anything wrong).

How badly will that hurt the Democrats? For one thing, it brings up the whole Norman Hsu story all over again. Hillary Clinton’s big fundraiser turned out to be a fraud, and now the Democrats have another crook. This follows on the heels of Eliot Spitzer’s hooker obsession and the misuse of public funds by his successor David Paterson. In terms of optics, the footage of Acevedo’s frog-march into federal custody will remind voters of the culture of corruption — and have the Democrats struggling to convince voters that they cleaned up politics.

It will impact Obama the worst, however. He loses a superdelegate in Acevedo, but more problematic, he has once again been associated with election crimes and corruption. He had just gotten past his Tony Rezko problem, and now the proximity of another money-launderer will call into question just how naive or worse the unvetted Obama may be.

It almost seems as though the willingness to engage in corruption is part of the requirement for rising in the Democratic party.

Gallup polling in March reveals that almost 20% of Obama’s supporters say that if Clinton wins the nomination, they’re going to vote for McCain. And on Clinton’s side, almost 30% say the converse — if Obama wins, they’ll vote for McCain.

These are numbers that should alarm Democratic operatives, and should guide McCain’s campaign advertising choices come September. As expected, McCain’s candidacy may induce some cross-over voting; unexpectedly, Democrat infighting may help.

My take on it is, it’s too tasty to be true. Keep in mind how many Republicans were saying back in December that they would never vote for John McCain — and how many are saying it now. I think most of this “blowback” will disappear about 2 months after the Democratic convention, unless the convention fight gets unexpectedly bloody.

Allahpundit over at Hot Air thinks about 1/4 of those currently saying they’ll vote for McCain, actually will. That would be awfully nice, if true…