Squaring the Culture

The McCain campaign, in the latest of a series of conference calls to bloggers, unveiled its ideas for reforming health care in the US. Matt Lewis’ blog at Townhall identified the callers as Senior policy advisor Doug Holtz-Eakin and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. This is an impressive pair, and an indication of the sorts of advisors we can expect a President McCain to draw.

The proposals focused on free-market solutions to existing problems in health care delivery, leaving as many choices as possible in the hands of consumers. Proposals include a tax credit for privately-purchased health insurance, removal of state barriers for insurance carriers, and paying Medicare providers for results rather than procedures.

I was pleased to note that the proposals included tort reform, a long-overdue treatment for the damage done by the cancer of out-of-control medical litigation. I was displeased to note their inclusion of re-importation of drugs from Canada, which McCain stupidly considers a free-market initiative. I’m trying to figure out why he doesn’t realize that it’s an oppressive government, not the market, that sets the prices of Canadian drugs, and that allowing their importation effectively allows the Canadian government to set US pharmaceutical prices. If we go down this road, in five years we’ll be wondering why new drug development slowed so badly. The only good thing I can say about this part of the program is, it’s no worse than what the Democrats will do.

What we’re looking at here is political necessity. An American populace conditioned to accept government solutions is being sold on national health care as a basic right; the Democrats will eat McCain’s lunch if he doesn’t counter with a plausible, free-market health care reform package. The gullibility of the nation regarding national health care, which would be an unallayed disaster for America, underlines how important it is to wrest education from the hands of cultural progressives, who have robbed all notion of self-reliance from the minds of America’s children.

The advisors spoke of wellness initiatives, creating incentives for weight control, exercise, and quitting smoking. A number of bloggers note their discomfort with what they consider intrusions into private choices. While possibly intrusive, the proposal constitutes a glance in the right direction. Health is a much broader topic than merely who your doctor is and who pays his bill. I’m hoping the culture at large begins to notice the impact of diet and food quality on overall health, an area where far too little attention is paid. However, exercise, smoking, and diet are arenas where a liberty-friendly government can only play a roles as preacher and cheerleader, and must never become Mom.

Ed Morrisey and The American Mind have more detailed reviews.

The US Supreme Court decided yesterday that Indiana’s Voter Identification law requiring citizens to show a picture ID in order to vote does not violate the Constitution. The majority opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stephens, argues that requiring Indiana voters to dig up a birth certificate and stand in line at the Dept of Motor Vehicles to obtain a photographic voter ID card does not unduly burden the voter or threaten to curtail voting by the poor and elderly. The Indiana voter ID is free, and Indiana allows provisional voting without the ID.

The case was decided 6-3, with Justices Stephens, Kennedy, and Roberts arguing that the petitioners (Democrats) did not manage to quantify what burden the law placed on poor voters, and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito arguing that the law was not discriminatory since all voters were treated alike. Justices Souter and Ginzberg dissented, saying that the law would probably deter tens of thousands from voting (this is nonsense, in my humble opinion) and that the state did not justify the burden on voters. Justice Breyer dissented because he felt the law unevenly burdened voters who lack a driver’s license. You can read the opinions here.

I’m pleased. The Court did the right thing.

The case will severely restrict the Democratic party’s attempts to flood the polls with illegal aliens voting Democratic, and should also limit schemes to pay voters to vote more than once. The law should go a long way toward restoring public confidence in the voting process.

I have never, for a single moment, believed that Democrats were actually concerned that the poor and elderly would be unduly burdened by the requirement to show photo ID. It’s simply not intellectually plausible. Poor people are required to hold a photo ID to receive welfare benefits in some states, and the system works. Indiana’s law contains appropriate accommodations for those who have difficulty traveling, or who can’t find the documents they need in order to obtain a photo ID. In fact, as Allahpundit points out, the burden of obtaining a voter ID is not much different from the burden of voting itself; the voter has to leave home, travel, and stand in line. If that’s an undue burden, then voting itself is an undue burden.

Nor did I believe that Democrats were serious when they said that voter impersonation was rare. Perhaps it was in the past, but there are millions of illegals in the country today that can easily come up with a bill listing their name and address, but cannot qualify for a photo ID. I don’t know personally any Democrats stupid enough not to see how the law might affect the ability of illegals to vote.

In short, I believe Democrats opposed the law simply and completely because they know their ability to cheat during elections will be curtailed by photo IDs… and I sincerely hope they are correct.

The partisan divide on this issue was striking. The law was passed in the Indiana state legislature with Republicans voting unanimously for the measure, and Democrats voting unanimously against. The petitioners even attempted to use this as an argument for striking down the law, but the Court correctly observed that while the vote was partisan, the reasons given for the law were neutral. See p. 20 of Justice Stephens’ opinion.

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Update: Oh, I forgot: Michelle Malkin points out that the plaintiff in this case, who was refused the right to vote in Indiana in 2006, was illegally registered to vote in two states — and taking a homestead exemption to her taxes in both states, as well.

Disturbing questions persist about the state of Texas’ raid on the FLDS compound in San Angelo, TX earlier this month. State Child Protective Services employees and judges have to balance the rights of the parents against the needs of the children, and claim they only remove children from homes where abuse is likely. However, the equation presupposes that children are safe in state custody. There’s disturbing evidence that they’re not.

Consider this cry for help from the Comptroller of the State of Texas, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, back in 2006. Ms. Strayhorn’s initial 2004 report, Forgotten Children, documented instances of overmedication, poisoning, rape and other abuse within the Texas foster care system. By 2006, no substantive action had been taken by the state of Texas, and Strayhorn released press announcements calling attention to the lack of action on the problem she’d uncovered. I have no information indicating that the situation has been resolved.

Consider, also, the 2006 video report from NBC News appearing below, concerning the extreme overuse of psychotropic medications on small children in foster care in Texas. Since foster care always involves separation trauma to the children (simply because they’re removed from their homes), and in many cases involves other traumas in the homes of origin, foster children present behavior problems. In far too many cases, these problems are addressed using medications that are inappropriate for children. The numbers are staggering: 60% of the children in the Texas system were prescribed some sort of psychotropic drug, including antidepressants and antipsychotics.

(Two notes: first, I have trouble believing the drug rep at the end saying the pharmaceutical companies “prescribe” these drugs because they want to make money. Pharmaceutical companies do not prescribe drugs. Most likely, the drugs are prescribed by doctors as a surrogate babysitter — it’s a simple and insurer-paid way to tame a behavior problem, only it doesn’t really address the problem, it just masks it. And second, I have some family experience with antipsychotics; they turn people into zombies. Kids on drugs like these probably have no life. Prescribing them for kids who are not psychotic is inexcusable, and ought to be criminal.)

Finally, scan this report explaining the unsurprising inability of the rural foster care system in San Angelo, TX to handle more than 400 new clients. The kids in this case are going to be scattered all over the country, reminiscent of what happened to Katrina victims, only in this case the kids are going without their parents. They will be uncomprehending, terrified, and traumatized.

So, we know that the foster care system is a bad thing for the kids. What do we know about the LDS families?

We know that girls are ushered into wedlock early. That seems pretty certain; the current reports from Texas CPS workers suggest that 31 of 53 girls under 17 in the sect are either pregnant now or have children already, although attorneys for the women dispute the numbers. Without considering whether this is healthy or not — in pre-industrial cultures, child-bearing during these years is normal — Texas law simply does not permit it; a pregnant girl 16 or younger indicates a violation of state law. Furthermore, let’s keep in mind that the fathers of these girls are mostly men in their 40s or 50s, which may indicate something pretty ugly.

Still, while there’s some indication that young women face early marriage to older men, there’s no indication that children are mistreated in any way, other than that they’re taught the group’s doctrines. Furthermore, there’s no indication that I’ve seen so far that the young women object to the system.

So my question is, what’s the basis for removing all the children from the group? Why did the state not select out the young women in immanent danger of marriage to a gnarly old pervert, if that’s their concern, and leave the rest of the children with their parents?

I don’t see any way to justify this unless the state has passed judgment on the belief system; and the state simply has no Constitutionally valid role in judging belief systems. The precedent being set against a bizarre sect can easily be used against a more common but unpopular religion, like Judaism or conservative Evangelical Christianity. This is precisely what the First Amendment was written to prevent.

This is a civil liberties disaster, but it’s more than that; it’s a disaster for the children. Most have been removed from homes in which they faced no danger, and are being ushered into a system where real abuse is likely.

We should begin to consider writing laws that recognize the inherent superiority of leaving children in their home, and that permit removal of children from their parents only in the most dire of circumstances. We should also consider writing laws that strengthen the Constitutional protection against the state judging our beliefs.

Finally, we should openly discuss the question, and examine our prejudices to the contrary: is it truly so egregious and damaging for a teenage girl to marry a 40-year-old man, that the state is justified in tearing families apart and causing trauma to prevent it from happening? I have the same cultural distaste for it that everyone else reading this has, but objectively, I’m not convinced. If the girls are happy and their children are thriving, what is the law protecting them from?

If you attack Reverend Wright, it means you hate the Black Church. And don’t you forget it.

Michelle Malkin did a live-blog on the Reverend Wright’s speech before the National Press Club this morning. You’ve got to read this to believe it. Wright is worse than anything we could have imagined. “If God is not for black people and against white people, then God is a murderer and we’d better kill him.” That’s a quote from James Cone, leading proponent of Black Liberation Theology, and Wright says “I do not in any way disagree with James Cone. Jim is a personal friend of mine.”

Read the whole thing here.

Racial hatred has nothing in common with Christianity. Jesus died for everyone, regardless of race, because the Christian God loves every man, woman, and child more deeply than we’re capable of grasping, and forgives sins more heinous than we’re capable of understanding, for anybody who has the audacity to ask Him. The god who hates whites is not the Christian God, nor any god that I care to encounter.

What’s truly alarming about this is the number of times the press applauded this vile heretic, and even gave him standing ovations.

By the way — an attack on Wright has nothing to do with the black church. I’ve been to plenty of black churches. They’re not usually fountains of the sort of hate this man spews.

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Update: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air and Robert McCain at The Other McCain both have great analyses of Wright’s NAACP speech from yesterday. Get the full story there.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the preaching of leftist dogma at D-Y High in Yarmouth, MA, where I’ve served a few weeks as a substitute teacher. One of the comments following that article exhorted me to “DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.”

Circumstances have conspired to give me an unexpected and interesting opportunity to do just that. Providential, even.

Two weeks ago, I was asked to sub for an entire week at the local technical school, where I’m listed as a substitute. A senior English teacher apparently crossed several behavioral lines this year and got herself fired, with only about a month left in the year. When I walked in, the curriculum director handed me 25 copies of Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom, and a list of questions to ask the kids. I was warned that the kids would tell me they’d already read the book, but to run with it anyway.

Picture my predicament: It’s spring. These kids have one month left in their public school careers. Their teacher, who apparently has wasted the year with them, just got fired. I’m trying to teach about a book the kids have already studied — three times, according to some of them. We’re talking complete attitudinal dysfunction, here. And I’m winging it.

By Wednesday, I had picked up on a a series of questions Morrie asked Mitch early in the book (which I was reading for the first time, myself): “Do you have somebody you can share your life with? Are you giving to the community? Are you at peace with yourself? Are you trying to be as human as you can be?” It occured to me — Morrie had principles, and made choices according to them. I started talking to the kids about what it means to live a principled life, a life lived according to clearly defined standards that can be applied to specific circumstances to allow sensible priority choices. This leads to a purposeful life, I said, perhaps even a meaningful life, and ultimately, without really trying to achieve it, a happy life.

I made a unit out of it, talking to them about how postmodernism, multiculturalism, and nihilism prevent us from establishing sensible principles, and how they result in a meaningless life.

And then, the school called me at the end of the week and asked, “Can you cover the same class after the Spring Break?” That’s this week.

I’m told I’ve got to get these kids to produce something that can be graded, so the school can represent to the parents that they’re actually doing something with their kids. So, this week I’m going to get the kids to write principles that they intend to live by. I expect to cover the cardinal virtues, and to discuss other lists of virtues certain organizations have produced, like the law and oath of the Boy Scouts.

Most of these kids have never heard anything remotely like what I’m telling them. This is practically unheard of in a public school, and may even be skirting the law — but I’m not teaching religion, just a Western view of purpose. And they’re listening.

I’m not sure where else I can go with this, but I’m not going to waste this opportunity. The topic is a unit on A Principled Life. Today I’m asking my reading audience: any ideas? Think about which organizations have oaths that articulate principles of living, and about individuals who have lived principled lives. Post your comments, please. And thanks in advance.

Barack Obama’s appearance on Fox News Sunday has touched off a fascinating debate in the leftward blogs that gives us a window into how Progressives think, and about how Obama thinks. It’s intriguing, and a little scary.

First, the setting: sometime in 2006, Barack Obama agreed to let Fox interview him on their network, but for some reason never followed through. On March 16, 2008, Fox News began displaying “Obama Watch,” a ticking digital clock displaying the days, hours, minutes and seconds since Obama agreed to appear. When it first appeared, it had been 730 days since Obama agreed to be on. It took just 35 more days before Obama’s interview with Chris Wallace aired on Fox News Sunday. Apparently, the Obama campaign did not like this sort of publicity and agreed to the interview to quell it. Well played, Fox News.

When ads appeared last week announcing the weekend interview, leftie blogs complained loudly. After all, they’d worked pretty hard to prevent Democratic candidates from debating on Fox, hoping to reduce Fox’s legitimacy as a news network. Obama’s campaign countered that Obama was going to “take Fox on,” recognizing that Fox has been “the tip of the spear … repeatedly broadcasting some of the most specious of rumors about Obama.”

The last was what the Progressives really wanted to hear, because they find Fox’s treatment of Obama scandalous. It’s mostly a reference to two stories — two — that reported other people raising questions about Obama’s education in a Muslim school as a child (the first was the Clinton campaign, the second, the front page of the New York Post). If I ever have to face a hostile attack, I sincerely hope that the tip of the spear launched against me is that mild. Please take my word for it when I tell you that Progressives seriously believe this constitutes wholehearted yellow journalism. Two stories. About what the Clinton campaign and the New York Post said.

The interview happened, and the left was horribly disappointed. It was a cordial interview. Wallace asked questions about the flag pin, Reverend Wright, and the substance behind Obama’s claim to be a uniter. Obama performed well, sounding polished and conciliatory. The left is horrified because he did not leave Wallace’s blood on the floor.

Greg Sargent from TPM first:

“He is going on their Sunday show to take Fox on…”

Keep in mind that this adviser said this specifically to mollify critics who worried that Obama’s decision to appear on Fox would help legitimize the network and hence hurt Dems overall. There’s no ambiguity here to speak of: The adviser was telling these critics not to worry, that the reason Obama was going on was to “take Fox on.”

And this just didn’t happen in any meaningful sense. When Wallace brought up Wright and the flag-pin, for instance, Obama didn’t point out that these bogus stories have been pushed relentlessly by Fox or that the network has pushed the Obama-is-a-Muslim lies.

And Matt Stoller from Open Left drives home the sword thrust:

When we accept lies from our leaders and openly dismissive knocks from them, it destroys our core argument that Democrats need to have integrity and to stand up for themselves. No they don’t. We don’t stand up for ourselves and we let them lie to us without consequence.

The lie Stoller is talking about is Obama’s claim that he intended to “take Fox on.” This is what upsets Sargent, as well. Neither has any apparent problem with Obama claiming he’d never heard his pastor of 20 years make outlandish statements about race and America, and then later admitting that he had. They have no objection to Obama attempting to minimize his connections with Tony Rezko, only to have personal sweetheart land deals exposed. They’re not dismayed by Obama telling an Ohio audience he plans to fight NAFTA while he’s telling a Canadian official not to pay attention to his campaign rhetoric. No. They feel their integrity is compromised by allowing Obama to get away with saying he’s going to “take Fox on,” and then hold a cordial interview rather than attack Fox for it’s alleged biased reporting.

I’m kinda curious about Progressives’ definition of “integrity.” It’s not the same as mine.

Diarist Eugene from the Daily Kos offered his grudging defense of Obama’s willingness to let Fox interview him, noting that Obama has always voiced willingness to talk to the enemy. (That’s right; Fox is “the enemy.” Not Hugo Chavez. Not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Chris Wallace from Fox is the enemy. I’m really sorry, I’m trying to restrain my incredulity, but oh, my God…)

At the core of Obama’s political philosophy is the belief that real divisions should not stand in the way of conversation. He has always believed that it is right and necessary for us to speak to folks on the other side of the aisle, to speak with our enemies. That to do so is a sign of strength, of problem-solving, and that it can be done without having to compromise any of our own values in the process.

I don’t agree with this strategy. At all. But I respect it. I understand it. And I made my peace with it long ago when I came around to openly supporting Obama’s candidacy at the beginning of the year…

I’ll acknowledge here that for a Progressive, Obama’s willingness to even talk with moderates, let alone conservatives, is refreshing. Most of them are like Eugene, here — they can’t even imagine holding a conversation with somebody like me. We’re “the enemy.” Eugene is being generous by allowing that a politician might actually want to do it for a good reason, but he’d never stoop to such distasteful labors, himself.

An anecdote from Obama’s book illustrates what Obama means by “talking to the enemy.” From Eugene’s Kos diary again:

In one of his autobiographies Obama recounts an episode in 1987, when he was a community organizer in Chicago, that crystallized this thinking for him. He had led a group of tenants to confront their landlord about whether he had tested their building for asbestos. Obama felt sympathetic to both the landlord and the tenants, understanding that the landlord was himself strapped for cash and struggling to make his own ends meet. Obama tried to talk with the landlord, tried to understand where he was coming from, instead of getting in his face with confrontation. And eventually a satisfactory resolution was produced.

That has been Obama’s way ever since. He believes that there are issues on which we can achieve positive, even progressive outcomes by going over and talking to the people we assume are our enemies. To Obama there is no downside to this action – if they turn us down, well, we’re no worse off than before. If they decide to work with us, wonderful. In some cases it can even wrongfoot the opposition by making them look like the uncooperative side, and makes us look like the better folks.

So Obama’s version of conciliation amounts to accepting from his “enemies” whatever of the Progressive’s goals they’re willing to concede peacefully. If they’re not willing to concede enough, he might still resort to confrontational tactics to achieve those goals — and use his previous willingness to talk as a weapon against his “enemies.” And do take note: landlords are enemies, in this vignette.

This may make him a friendlier Progressive; it might also make him a more dangerous one. The point is that he’s still a Progressive, and the question is whether he ever concedes any of his goals for a bipartisan solution, or whether he merely achieves whatever parts of them he can by talking first. We’ve never really seen him do the former. Note how Paul Mirengoff from Power Line analyzes Obama’s version of conciliation from the Fox interview:

I agree that Obama handled the questioning well, as he did throughout his appearance on Fox. However, it’s significant that the best Obama could come up with to recommend himself as a “uniter” was (1) to distance himself generally from (his characterization of) the Democratic position on regulation during the “the 60s and 70s,” (2) to note that he defended the right of Democrats to vote in favor of the John Roberts nomination, which he himself voted against, and (3) to blame the legislation before the Senate for his failure ever to deviate from the Democratic position when it comes actually to voting.

Obama either has a skewed sense of what it means to be post-partisan or an audacious sense of his ability to snow the American public. I’m guessing he has both.

For those who are genuinely concerned about partisanship in modern politics, John McCain is the real candidate, and Barack Obama is the deceptive knock-off. This further solidifies our assessment of Obama as an unapologetic hard leftist, beneath a soft-sounding exterior shell.

I must say, though, that there’s a perverse logic to at least this position from the Progressives, noted by Daily Kos diarist “Hunter” in his objection to Obama’s interview:

…there’s no upside in appearing on a network specifically devoted to the election of Republicans….

Nor, we should note, is there any upside to Republicans appearing on networks specifically devoted to the election of Democrats. I wonder when a Republican candidate will take note of this, and what the Progressives will say when one does.

Barack Obama’s contacts get seedier by the day.

See if you can follow this thread: Obama’s campaign web site contained a dedicated page for a fundraiser named Hatem El-Hady. El-Hady used to head a US charitable organization called KindHearts. KindHearts had its assets frozen by the US Dept of Treasury in 2006 for sending its funds to Hamas (see also FrontPageMag’s connecting tissue here). Apparently, KindHearts was the organization Hamas and al Qaeda set up jointly after the government shut down their first wave of front charities, Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (Hamas) and Global Relief Foundation (al Qaeda).

Ok, so a major, covert, Islamic radical fundraiser prefers Obama; that’s hardly news, Hamas has openly endorsed Obama, right?

Here’s the rub: El-Hady’s profile on Obama’s site listed Michelle Obama as a friend. Listed it, that is, until first Digital Journal, then Little Green Footballs, noticed the connection and reported on it. Then Michelle Obama’s name quietly disappeared from the profile page. And then, the profile page itself quietly disappeared. Click on the Little Green Footballs link, above, for screen shots showing the connection vanishing mysteriously into the mist.

Charles Johnson at LGF is the guy who broke the Rathergate story about CBS’ National Guard memo being a forgery; he’s a pretty thorough fellow. Today, he’s doing his due diligence about what “friend” means in the context of Obama’s web page, and has verified that in order for Michelle Obama’s name to appear as a friend on a profile, the individual whose profile it is has to send an email to that person, who then has to reply specifically from inside the email to approve being listed as a friend. If you’ll think through why this individual, with only two friends listed on his profile, would send a friend request to Michelle Obama (why not to Barack?), and then why Michelle would approve the request, it becomes apparent that Michelle Obama and Hatem El-Hady probably know each other. Can you imagine how many emails Michelle Obama receives every day? Why would she even open a friend request from a stranger?

Next question: what sort of important people have fundraisers for international terrorists among their personal set of acquaintences?

Barack Obama got his start as a radical organizer. He’s maintained associations with individuals who clearly represent the farthest-left activists one can find in America. We’re not talking about famous liberals like Ted Kennedy or Joe Biden, we’re talking about neo-Marxist radicals like Bernadette Dohrn and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Now we’re seeing connections to top-level activists for Hamas. This is not about judgment, though that’s how most commentators will play it; it’s about who Barack Obama really is. It will only take so many of these associations before we can state categorically that Barack Obama is not a centrist of any kind, but a full-blown neo-Marxist in sheep’s clothing. America, beware.

Let me say a few words about guilt by association. This is not a court, and we are not jurors. There is no crime under consideration; it is not illegal for Barack or Michelle Obama to make friends among radicals. We are, however, voters, and we’re aware that the polished policy sound bites that appear on a candidate’s web site are not the best measure of who the candidate is. We believe that the core beliefs of the candidate mean more, in the long run, than their intentions promised on the campaign trail. And when a candidate like Barack Obama runs a campaign that’s designed to obscure rather than illuminate his true beliefs, we have to rely on past associations and actions to determine what the candidate really stands for. This is why we’re spending so much time examining Obama’s connections, and why those connections mean so much to us. We’re not determining guilt; we’re determining core beliefs. And so far, it appears that Barack Obama’s core beliefs are politically radical.

Today the noise about Michelle Obama’s friendship with El-Haty exists only among the rightward blogs (Michelle Malkin has also picked it up.) If the press runs with it, it will add to the already-too-weighty pile of unsavory associations Obama needs to explain. If this keeps happening, you may see Democratic Superdelegates diverting their support to Hillary Clinton before the convention in Denver, If that doesn’t happen, expect to hear lots of chatter about it in the fall.

Retiring Senator Pete Dimenici (R, NM) received a “qualified admonition” yesterday from the Senate Ethics Committee for making a phone call to US Attorney David Iglesias regarding a corruption case involving Democrats during the run-up to the 2006 election, according to Politico. Basically, the Ethics Committee scolded Sen Domenici “You shouldn’t have made the phone call,” but the administrative wrist-slap demonstrates that the committee has nothing resembling evidence that Domenici committed an obstruction of justice.

From the Washington Post’s report:

“You should have known that a federal prosecutor receiving such a telephone call, coupled with an approaching election which may have turned on or been influenced by the prosecutor’s actions in the corruption matter, created an appearance of impropriety that reflected unfavorably on the Senate,” the committee wrote in a three-page letter signed by the three Democrats and three Republicans on the panel.

Democrats have been creating political theater over the firing of 8 US Attorneys in the middle of President Bush’s 2nd term, an act that is in no way illegal and unusual only in that it usually happens at the beginning of a president’s term. The call from Domenici to Iglesias was the only part of the matter that had even the appearance of impropriety. Naturally, the Bush-Deranged ranted interminably about the absence of the rule of law under Bush (something they apparently learned about between 2000 and 2007, as they seemed remarkably unconcerned about the rule of law before 2000). They’re awfully quiet today; Memeorandum shows no responses from the blogs concerning this story. They got their political payoff last year, making a false accusation in public in such a manner as it will stick in the minds of voters. Next year they’ll be recalling the Bush administration’s “war on the rule of law,” and conveniently failing to mention that the most egregious violation came from a Senator, not from the White House, and turned out to be nothing but a badly timed phone call.

The dispute between Senator DiMenici and US Attorney Iglesias involved the Senator’s perception that Iglesias was not sufficiently aggressive in investigating voter fraud involving Democrats prior to the 2006 election. DiMenici and fellow Senator Heather Wilson (R, NM) apparently both made phone calls to Iglesias asking about the status of the investigations. The investigation of Sen. Wilson continues.

John McCain received some deserved attention for his famously bad temper this week, and I’m sure we’ll hear more about it in the fall, but we also got a little reminder of where the real anger issue rests during this election season, from Brad Warthen’s Blog, quoting the New York Times:

Wagging his finger once again, former President Bill Clinton chided a reporter on Tuesday for what he deemed a misinterpretation of his remarks during a radio interview in which he said the Obama campaign “played the race card on me.”

How many times have we seen Bill Clinton’s temper by now? Five? Six? This guy’s a walking volcano; accuse him of anything, and watch the lava hurdle skyward.

This is not to mention Mrs. Clinton’s famed temper, which produced the following list of wise aphorisms, borrowed from Wake Up America. Note that every one of these comes from a published source. Please accept my apologies for the crude language reproduced here:

“Where is the G-dam f***ing flag? I want the G-dam f***ing flag up every f***ing morning at f***ing sunrise.”
–From the book “Inside The White House” by Ronald Kessler, p. 244 – (Hillary to the staff at the Arkansas Governor’s mansion on Labor Day, 1991)

“You sold out, you m***er-f***er! You sold out!”
-From the book “Inside” by Joseph Califano, p. 213 – (Hillary yelling at a Democrat lawyer.)

“F*** off! It’s enough that I have to see you sh**-kickers every day, I’m not going to talk to you too!! Just do your G*dam job and keep your mouth shut.”
-From the book “American Evita” by Christopher Anderson, p. 90 – (Hillary to her State Trooper body-guards after one of them greeted her with “Good Morning.”)

“You f** *ing idiot”
-From the book “Crossfire” p. 84 – (Hillary to a State Trooper who was driving her to an event.)

“If you want to remain on this detail, get your f***ing ass over here and grab those bags!”
–From the book “The First Partner” p. 259 – (Hillary to a Secret Service Agent who was reluctant to carry her luggage because he wanted to keep his hands free in case of an incident.)

“Get f***ed! Get the f*** out of my way!!! Get out of my face!!!”
–From the book “Hillary’s Scheme” p. 89 – (Hillary’s various comments t o her Secret Service detail agents.)

“Stay the f*** back, stay the f*** away from me! Don’t come within ten yards of me, or else! Just f***ing do as I say, Okay!!!?”
-From the book “Unlimited Access”, by Clinton FBI Agent in Charge, Gary Aldrige, p. 139 –

(Hillary screaming at her Secret Service detail)”Where’s the miserable c**k sucker?”
-From the book “The Truth About Hillary” by Edward Klein, p. 5 -
(H illary shouting at a Secret Service officer)

“Put this on the ground! I left my sunglasses in the limo. I need those sunglasses.
We need to go back!”
-From the book “Dereliction of Duty” p. 71-72 – (Hillary to Marine One helicopter pilot to turn back while enroute to Air Force One.)

“Son of a bitch.”
-From the book “American Evita” by Christopher Anderson, p. 259 -
(Hillary’s opinion of President George W. Bush when she found out he secretly visited Iraq just days before her highly publicized trip to Iraq )

“What are you doing inviting these people into my home? These people are our enemies! They are trying to destroy us!”
-From the book “The Survivor” by John Harris, p. 99 – (Hillary screaming to an aide, when she found out that some Republicans had been invited to the Clinton White House)

“Come on Bill, put your d**k up! You can’t f*** her here!!”
-From the book “Inside the White House” by Ronald Kessler, p. 2 43 -
(Hillary to Gov. Clinton when she spots him talking with an attractive female at an Arkansas political rally.)

“You know, I’m going to start thanking the woman who cleans the restroom in the building I work in. I’m going to start thinking of her as a human being”
Hillary Clinton -From the book “The Case against Hillary Clinton” by Peggy Noonan, p. 55

I’m on record observing that John McCain would not make a good president, and his temperament gets mentioned in my reasoning. McCain whines, plays hardball on some issues, keeps grudges against his opponents, and occasionally sounds off with his face red. These are not good traits. However, if this is a strike against McCain, it’s five consecutive strike-outs against both Clintons.

I’m keeping this list on hand against the small possibility that McCain runs against Mrs. Clinton in the fall. If we’re going to talk about bad tempers, we’re going to talk about all of them.

Photo: President Bill Clinton speaks to a crowd gathered at Bellmont Middle School in Decatur, Ind., Monday, April 14, 2008, during a campaign stop on behalf of his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. (AP Photo/The Journal Gazette, Clint Keller).

See-Dubya at michellemalkin.com produced this handy guide to Democratic candidates and their favorite terrorists:

I watched Sean Hannity’s incessant repetition of “I wouldn’t even shake hands with that man,” (speaking of former Weatherman Bill Ayers) and had to turn him off. Hannity doesn’t think deeply, and only sort of intuitively understands the reason Obama’s association with former Weathermen has any significance. It’s not that he’s been on panels with the guy; that doesn’t mean all that much. It’s that Obama has spent his life immersed in politics like those Ayers voices, so Ayers’ politics don’t strike him as anything remarkable. “He uses violence to achieve political ends? Why, yes, my mother and several of my mentors told me that might work sometimes, but I prefer an insider approach. What of it?” Ed Morrissey observes what would happen to a Republican with similar ties. (He doesn’t go far enough; note what’s happening to McCain just because he let an Evangelical pastor endorse him. Pathetic.)

Meanwhile, thanks to a press corps recently rescued from Clinton Catatonia by their new obsession with Rock Star Obama, Madame Clinton faces tough questions from Newsday about her own support for pardons to known, dangerous terrorists, lest she get away with pointing out this latest in an endless parade of chinks in Obama’s Messianic Armor. Read Newsday’s story with this in mind: where was this sort of analysis back when the Clintons occupied the White House? Recall the Clintons laughably claiming “bureaucratic snafu” to avoid inquiry into dozens of scandals, and invoking vast, right-wing conspiracies to destroy the President. Recall the press dutifully chanting their excuses like glazed-eyed cultists. If the press had been doing its job during the 1990s, we wouldn’t be threatened by another possible Clinton presidency now, and the Clintons might be in jail where they belong. Michelle Malkin snorts appropriately about Hillary’s characteristic attempt to lie her way out of a clear contridiction: “I didn’t know anything…” Sure you didn’t, Hillary. Of course you didn’t.

There are still Democrats in America, but the core of the party whose primaries we’re watching these days is actually more Marxist-Socialist than it is Democratic. Their apparent comfort with the violence of radical activists illustrates the point. It’s worth understanding in the current political climate. The liberals of an earlier era would never have accepted these candidates. (For that matter, the liberals of an earlier era are all called “conservatives” today. There are very few old-fashioned conservatives left — I don’t think we should pay them much attention — and the core of the left is now occupied by socialists and neo-Marxists.)

Malkin also has a pretty good collection of discussions regarding Obama’s Weather Underground connection, if you want some more detail.

This is not a non-issue, and it will not go away, nor should it.