So why did Obama demand that the Iraqis gundeck the Bush Administration’s (and General Petraeus’) Iraq withdrawal plan?

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

“He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington,” Zebari said in an interview.

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops – and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its “state of weakness and political confusion.”

“However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open.” Zebari says.

Though Obama claims the US presence is “illegal,” he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the “weakened Bush administration,” Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.

While in Iraq, Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a “realistic withdrawal date.” They declined.

So let’s get this straight; he’d rather hold off the withdrawal and claim the credit than bring the troops home?

Yow.

And anyone who calls “Obama Girl” a “skank” gets my vote just on principle, anyway.

…that the man leading the party that has ascribed an insignificant fluctuation in worldwide temperatures to mankind, packaged the phenomenon as a crisis, and crowned a failed Presidential candidate (don’t miss the link – it’s Al Gore – 100 lbs. ago!) and hypocrite as it’s King…

…would blame the failure of a private financial services company during what Alan Greenspan called yesterday a “once in a century” financial crisis brought on by a completely predictable (as to what, not when) collapse in the price of homes when the American congress is controlled by Democrats.

…and John McCain is the liar, huh?

Obama, the Democratic nominee, said President George W. Bush‘s policies have caused “the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.” He also called for “modernizing” regulations at a rally in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Obama’s economic literacy is limited to the balancing of a checkbook, and even that is an assumption on my part. Obama’s paycheck has never originated from anything other than a government entity. Anyone want to take a guess as to what Obama means by “modernizing” means in this context?

Here – let me give you a hint. Is it…

a. Augmenting

b. Expanding

c. Multiplying

d. Swelling

e. Widening

f. All of the Above

In all fairness, McCain was also quoted as saying more regulations are indicated, but at least he wasn’t obtuse enough to make a lame attempt to leverage the situation politically and blame it on President Bush.

Both candidates were trying to score points with voters looking for reassurance after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. became the latest casualty on Wall Street.

Guess what America? Our economy has cycles. Companies that have irrelevant or outdated business models are supposed to fail and all the better if it happens quickly. Sometimes the risk reward quotient yields the risk; the risks of doing business are realized. Our government can’t be expected to mitigate every risk of life and living in America.

…unless you are a pandering politician.

It’s not often that I find myself defending Saint Paul mayor Chris Coleman. Indeed, I die a little inside at the thought.

But they say you can learn a little about a guy by his enemies.

So here goes; good job, Mayor Coleman.

A group of stalkers followed Coleman to a fundraiser last week:

About 30 demonstrators showed up outside a fundraiser for St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman on Friday, objecting to what the group saw as an overreaction by police during last week’s protests outside the Republican National Convention.

Carrying signs that read “I Am Ashamed” and “I Survived 9/1,” the group strolled the sidewalk in front of a St. Anthony Park residence where the event was being held, briefly confronting Coleman when he arrived.

Look, I don’t support government overreach; police overreach against legitimate protest is no better than, say, siccing the FCC on conservative talk radio under the guise of the “Fairness” Doctrine.

But look at what Coleman’s administration – which is of a relatively small city, remember – was facing:

• A movement that pledged to “shut down” Saint Paul and the convention
• Groups that were threatening to stalk and kidnap delegates and other people.
• Credible threats of violence and mayhem from groups that have carried it out in the past (see Seattle, 1999).
• Groups that did, in fact, commit violence against delegates on the first day – sandbag attacks on buses, bleach squirted at delegates and so on.

With that background, caution was hardly misplaced.

So did officers possibly use “excessive caution” on protesters who didn’t obey lawful orders to disperse – macing people excessively and so on?  Possible.

Did the police break up any protests that were legally permitted, and where the protesters were operating within the conditions of the permit?  I’ve been asking counterculture types for the past week, and heard nothing.

The protesters, I suspect, are upset – legitimately at what may have been instances of cops overapplying mace, and illegitimately at the overall approach, which seems not to have had any affect on legal, permitted protests.

And they’re upset because their protests, outside the echo chamber of the perennially-angry far left, had zero affect on the convention, on national policy, on the GOP, and – most galling to them, I suspect – the national press coverage of the convention.  Pissed off kids and ageing hippies throwing things in the streets?  Dog bites dog.  Sarah Palin sweeping all before her?  Pitbull bites lightworker.

The protesters barely qualified as a sideshow.  Unless you were a cop.

Anyway – good job, Mayor Coleman.

Feel free to keep the good will flowing, by the way, by reconsidering your property tax hikes.

In January of 2004, when we had the fateful lunch with Hugh Hewitt out at the late, great Billy’s Lighthouse in Minnetonka that directly led to the NARN going on the air in the first place, Hugh asked us for our electoral vote predictions. I forget the exact numbers – but other than bobbling Minnesota and Iowa (I thought MN would flip to Bush and Iowa would vote for Kerry; I obviously had it inverted) I pretty much nailed it. I’m not even sure why; I just had a pretty secure sense of how states were going go roll.

I should point out that my only real guide for this sort of prediction is very-loosely-informed intuition. I’m no analyst. And yet that “gut feeling” often does the trick for me.

I don’t really have a sense of where this election is going. Not yet. The Obama phenomenon was obviously going to change things bigtime. The Palin phenomenon – and the larger strategy of which it’s a part, the use of the red/blue divide as an active wedge – is changing it again; while a few weeks ago the lefties were making hopeful noises about flipping parts of the Great Plains, I really just don’t see it happening; Obama’s closed up shop in South Dakota and Montana, and he’s withering in North Dakota. (Hah hah hah!)

And now – well, there’s big news from the polls today, according to Ed:

As if the Barack Obama needed any more bad news, the St. Petersburg Times and Zogby both deliver cause for pessimism at Team O. Florida polling shows that despite spending millions in advertising in the Sunshine State and a delay in advertising for McCain, Obama is in worse position that John Kerry at the same time in 2004. Zogby has new polling that shows Obama now trails in Pennsylvania, a must-hold state for the Democrats.

Zogby is, of course, about as reliable as a meth addict’s 1972 Vega. But let’s assume for a moment he’s not entirely off his nut, and that Ed’s continuing analysis is right on. Using Opinion Journal’s excellent Electoral College calculator, let’s work out a couple of scenarios.

First: Let’s take Zogby at his word: Obama flips Nevada, Iowa, Colorado and North Carolina, and holds Michigan. Mac/Palin flips Pennsylvania and holds Virginia.

Too close for comfort, but certainly liveable.

And if Mac can squeedge out a win in Michigan?

I did all of the above before we got the blockbuster news that Minnesota – which Rasmusson on Friday called “Likely Democrat” – is, according to traditionally-inaccurate but usually DFL-skewed Minnesota Poll – showing Mac and Obama tied in Minnesota.

The poll found that McCain has made gains across the board since a May Minnesota Poll that showed him trailing by 13 points. He has picked up considerable support among men and to a lesser degree among women. He also has boosted his standing with whites, young voters and all levels of household income and education.

Conducted a week after the Republican National Convention was held in St. Paul, the poll likely reflects — at least in part — the traditional bounce candidates enjoy after being in the spotlight.

Part of the rise in McCain’s fortunes nationally has been attributed to his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, a move that has energized his party’s conservative base.

So hypothetically – and this is extremely hypothetical – let’s just say Mac manages to flip Minnesota, and that flip takes one of the neighboring states with it. If Minnesota goes red, I’d suspect one of the neighboring states, Iowa or Wisconsin would, but let’s leave them out for the moment. Taking Minnesota and holding North Carolina would hold onto a McCain victory even if Obama took both Pennsylvania and Michigan.

I’m going to err on the side of caution; it’s still Obama’s race to lose. Make no mistake; the Republicans are the underdogs. Polling aside, Obama’s got months of momentum to overcome; see McCain/Palin as the X-wing pilots and Obama as the Death Star. Mac ‘n Sarah are still battling uphill against not only that status quo, but the legacy of ’06. Can Mac and Sarah refocus the campaign?

Well, that’s up to all of us, isn’t it?

…you mean “no-talent has-been”, you might have a point.

You’re killing me.

Dump Biden. You’re losing your grip on Pennsylvania, certainly at this point the only compelling reason to have selected Blow Biden.

You can’t undermine Governor Palin without appearing sexist and rallying more women to Palin’s side.

Hillary is still available. You’ll make history.

Sincerely,

Your Candidacy

Charlie Gibson, spectacles dripping off the end of his nose, asked Governor Sarah Palin to offer an opinion on the “Bush Doctrine.”

In my interchanges with some of the most politically articulate people I know, Sarah Palin’s response to the question has come far less into question than the existence of a “Bush Doctrine” and the wisdom of Gibson’s attempt to trip up the Governor.

The consensus? There is no singular “Bush Doctrine.” Clearly, President Bush has articulated (admittedly a poor choice of words for G.W. Bush) America’s response to the attacks of 9/11 as a desire to secure America’s safety through the promotion and support of democracy throughout the world. This is an element of his neoconservative roots. He has also asserted that America now retains the unilateral right and responsibility to strike terrorists and hostile regimes before they strike us; but no one has consistently used the phrase “The Bush Doctrine.”

That is, until now.

From Wikipedia (emphasis mine)

The Bush Doctrine is a term used to describe the foreign policy doctrine of United States president George W. Bush, enunciated in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. It may be viewed as a set of several related foreign policy principles, including stress on ending terrorism, spreading democracy, increased unilateralism in foreign policy and an expanded view of American national security interests. Foreign policy experts argue over the meaning of the term “Bush Doctrine,” and some scholars have suggested that there is no one unified theory underlying Bush’s foreign policy. Jacob Weisberg identifies six successive “Bush Doctrines” in his book The Bush Tragedy, while former Bush staffer Peter D. Feaver has counted seven.

Set back on their heels, Democrats on the talk show circuit are saying Charlie Gibson wasn’t tough enough.

The rest of America is putting themselves in that chair across from Charlie Gibson and saying (or at least thinking):

“Charlie, you’re an a**hole.”

We expect the media to conduct hard-hitting interviews and do their part in the “vetting” process. But to intentionally attempt to trip up Sarah Palin with a contrivance only serves to elevate the contempt the voter has for the media.

And it surely doesn’t help the Obama campaign because everyone is still talking about Sarah Palin. They are rooting for her because so many Americans are like her.

The Gibson interview is a bad omen for Obama. The Democrats are quickly realizing that there is no way to take down Sarah Palin without severe blowback. She is rubber, they are glue.

…and the best is yet to come!

The confluence of Joe Biden’s inability to control his diction and the strengthening warm front that is Sarah Palin’s candidacy portends The Perfect Storm for the Obama campaign.

No. Not the Vikings. They’re dead to me after 1998.

It’s this:

Minnesota Poll: Obama, McCain are dead even in state

The poll found that McCain has made gains across the board since a May Minnesota Poll that showed him trailing by 13 points. He has picked up considerable support among men and to a lesser degree among women. He also has boosted his standing with whites, young voters and all levels of household income and education.

I don’t know what to think about a poll from the Strib that shows a dead heat between their annointed One and the guy who can’t thumb an email.

RCP lists Minnesota as +7.0% for Senator Obama as of September 2.

Minnesota a Purple State according to the Red Rag? Does this mean McCain is doing even better than tied with Obammy?

…and on McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin v. Obama’s choice of Biden?

…John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin has moved independent voters towards the GOP ticket, while Obama’s choice of Joe Biden has bombed.

If Minnesota becomes a Red state, can Iowa and Wisconsin be far behind?

Point.

Counterpoint.

Disrespectful is the title…

…too much? “They” say this stuff works.

Polls on McCain v. Obama have swung in favor of the man that can’t email, not because he’s too old but because of injuries sustained during the time he became a national hero in his service to our country – but once again, I digress.

For the time being this is encouraging for supporters of McCain/Palin, especially given the source of these polls and their dubious design.

When it comes down to pulling the lever however, even exit polls can be inaccurate as the Bush/Kerry race revealed, and the current McCain/Obama race still hinges on whether enough American’s truly are post-racism and whether newly-minted young liberals will get off their second-hand Lazy Boy’s and actually vote.

When people put their money where their vote is however, the results are intriguing – and amazingly accurate. Using that measure, McCain is up over the 50% mark.

Intrade is not a poll, it’s a free market wherein people place bets on the outcome of future events by buying or selling “contracts.” The more likely the market thinks–at the moment–that the event is to happen, the higher the price of a contract.

…no one is going to lie when they bet on Intrade. And having to put up real money, like the prospect of being hanged, concentrates minds wonderfully.

Many believe that traders simply reflect conventional wisdom and lack predictive value while at the same time consider them to be more accurate than polls. The truth is somewhere in between but consider this…

In 2004, Intrade correctly predicted the outcome of the presidential election in every single state, even those the pollsters thought too close to call.

Intrade is tracked on Real Clear Politics and may just be another source of data on the leanings of voters if not a predictor. Either way, it bodes well for McCain right now.

So it is interesting that while Obama has been consistently in the 59-61 range (peaking in mid-July, just before his foreign trip, at about 67) ever since the primary season ended in June, he has suddenly fallen to 48.1 as of this morning. In other words, while 60 percent of the traders thought Obama would win two weeks ago, now only 48 percent do.

In political discussions of late, I have maintained that the only way Obama is going to turn things around is to dump Biden, admit his weakness, and put Hillary on the ticket. Do you want to win or not?

Sure enough, although trading is thin, Intrade is showing a rising market value on this event as well although as of this moment there is not enough volume on Hillary Clinton to be on Democratic ticket on Election Day to depict a trend.

Greed is Right. Greed Works. Greed clarifies, cuts through..

A few months ago, I predicted that if Congressional Republicans went into next year with more than 20 seats in the Senate and 100 in the House, it’d be a huge defeat for the Democrats; things were looking that bad. (It was pointed out to me that there are not that many potential GOP Senate seats to lose in the election.  My response; who said anything about elections?  I figured if a huge swath of Republican Senators didn’t resign in fear, it’d add to the Dems’ moral defeat).
Now – it seems Mac and Sarah have some coattails:

A potential shift in fortunes for the Republicans in Congress is seen in the latest USA Today/Gallup survey, with the Democrats now leading the Republicans by just 3 percentage points, 48% to 45%, in voters’ “generic ballot” preferences for Congress. This is down from consistent double-digit Democratic leads seen on this measure over the past year…

…The new results come from a Sept. 5-7 survey conducted immediately after the Republican National Convention and mirror the resulting enhanced position of the Republican Party seen in several other indicators. These range from John McCain’s improved standing against Barack Obama in the presidential race to improved favorability ratings of the Republicans, to Republican gains in party identification. The sustainability of all of these findings is an open question that polling will answer over the next few weeks.

The positive impact of the GOP convention on polling indicators of Republican strength is further seen in the operation of Gallup’s “likely voter” model in this survey. Republicans, who are now much more enthused about the 2008 election than they were prior to the convention, show heightened interest in voting, and thus outscore Democrats in apparent likelihood to vote in November. As a result, Republican candidates now lead Democratic candidates among likely voters by 5 percentage points, 50% to 45%.

I’ll stick with my prediction, of course; there’s almost two months ’til the election, and the Dems are running against four years of awful GOP history.

But there just might be a shift in momentum, here…

…when the likes of the Minnesoros “Independent” thought this was a real ding on Mac.

Now that Obama is using it…

John McCain is mocked as an out-of-touch, out-of-date computer illiterate in a television commercial out Friday from Barack Obama as the Democrat begins his sharpest barrage yet on McCain’s long Washington career.

The new fighting spirit comes as McCain has been gaining in the polls and some Democrats have been expressing concern the Obama campaign has not been aggressive enough. Obama’s campaign says the escalation will involve advertising and pushes made by the candidate, running mate Joe Biden and other surrogates across the country.

If Obama can’t play guitar, he should just stop.  Because that’s what’s really important.

Bill Clinton and Obama release joint statement 

Clinton: I didn’t inhale.

Obama: I still do.

…keep moving folks. Nothing to see here.

More of this, please.

It’s doing our work for us.

Thanks. That is all.

UPON REFLECTION:  Seriously, lefties – especially “feminists”; does Cintra Wilson speak for you, or resonate in any way?  Why?

…the “whole world” would elect Obama.

On the other hand, they’re all truthers.

Thus, in other words, paying attention to “the whole world’s” views on this election is like listening to your crazy John Bircher neighbor.

That is all.

Feminism, at one point, was about “empowering women”; making them legally and socially equal to men”, or things to that effect.  I’m usually loathe to try to actually define feminism, since for most of the past thirty years most “feminists” have been more concerned about the semiotics of defining degrees of victimization than about actually doing anything useful for women.

Of course, the Clinton years – where organized feminism dropped all pretense of being about women in favor of being about the politics of infanticide – stripped away a good chunk of the canard for those who were paying attention.  And if the organized “feminist” movement had any remaining credibility, the Palin episode should have fed it into the wood chipper.

“It’s not about actually being able to go where your merits take you“, the message has become; “it’s about abortion, and about institutionalizing victimization, and not a lot else.”

And so the kinds of women that feminism would have held out as dreams and ideals a generation ago – Sarah Palin, Condoleeza Rice and others – are excoriated by organized “feminism”; while they’ve succeeded, and done it their way (Rice by leading an academic and political life not tied to any particular guy, Palin by having a family and a wildly successful political career), they have neither supported the civil sacrament of infanticide nor equated federal funding and programs with achievement.

And so, behind the backs right in front of the eyes of Big Feminism a crop of real feminists – women who actually embody the higher original ideals of feminism, merit and equality – have grown up and taken their places and, to the mortification of Big Feminism, realized that the Empress has no clothes is so 1972:
R Tammy Bruce, writing at RCP:

Make no mistake – the Democratic Party and its nominee have created the powerhouse that is Sarah Palin, and the party’s increased attacks on her (and even on her daughter) reflect that panic.

The party has moved from taking the female vote for granted to outright contempt for women. That’s why Palin represents the most serious conservative threat ever to the modern liberal claim on issues of cultural and social superiority. Why? Because men and women who never before would have considered voting for a Republican have either decided, or are seriously considering, doing so.

They are deciding women’s rights must be more than a slogan and actually belong to every woman, not just the sort approved of by left-wing special interest groups.

Palin’s candidacy brings both figurative and literal feminist change. The simple act of thinking outside the liberal box, which has insisted for generations that only liberals and Democrats can be trusted on issues of import to women, is the political equivalent of a nuclear explosion.

Big Feminism traded a benevolent husband for a huge, uncompromising, unthinking, hidebound “movement”.  Little feminists, like Palin and Rice and a whoooole lot of women who are deserting the Democrats today, have worked out the details with hubby and – I get to be optimistic sometimes, don’t I? – ditched the movement.

…and Jesus was a community organizer.

But then so was Lenin.

It would appear Barack Obama’s candidacy for President has a popular edge over John McCain’s outside the US among those queried. Probably because John McCain didn’t go on a whirlwind rock star tour. McCain is probably more concerned with what Americans think of their government than what the rest of the world thinks.

Democrat Mr Obama was favoured by a four-to-one margin across the 22,500 people polled in 22 countries.

It is interesting to note however, when you stack the electoral votes allocated to each of the countries whose citizens were polled, Obama and McCain are dead even.

Here’s a complete list of the countries included in the poll, along with the number of electoral votes in each:

Australia (0)
Brazil (0) 
Canada (0) 
China (0) 
Egypt (0) 
France (0) 
Germany (0) 
India (0) 
Indonesia (0) 
Italy (0) 
Kenya (0) 
Lebanon (0) 
Mexico (0) 
Nigeria (0) 
Panama (0) 
Philippines (0) 
Poland (0) 
Russia (0) 
Singapore (0) 
Turkey (0) 
United Arab Emirates (0) 
United Kingdom (0)

Al Franken got around 2/3 of the vote yesterday.

In the DFL Primary, where the usual margin of victory among endorsed DFL candidates compares to those of Robert Mugabe or Leonid Brezhnev – conservatively, 100+%.

Gary Gross:

Frankly, these totals must be giving Franken’s campaign alot of heartburn. If they aren’t, they should be. As Michael said here, this is a “total embarassment” to Team Franken. To say that Franken doesn’t appeal to central Minnesota voters is understatement. Frankly, I don’t see Franken’s appeal to independents or moderates.

The Unhinged Left is his base. It doesn’t extend beyond that, which means that he’s toast this November. Any statewide candidate that can’t appeal to voters beyond their traditional base is history.

Michael Brodkorb:

I thought it was reasonable to ask if Al Franken would get less than 90 percent in the primary election. I thought Franken would get over 90 percent.  But Franken got less than 90 percent and 80 percent…he even got less than 70 percent.  As of 11:49 p.m., Franken has only received 65 percent of the vote in the DFL primary election.

Tonight’s primary results are a total embarrassement for Team Franken.

And Al Franken’s organ-grinder blogpet Aaron Landry:

Analyzing primaries can many times be a fruitless adventure, but hey, why not? Here’s a couple numbers I found interesting:

While Priscilla Lord Faris got 29% of the vote, for some strange reason the amount of people that chose to vote in the DFL column was just shy of double that of the GOP.

Right.  Because it’s a contested vote.  That draws people.  

I think there are some people on the right that wouldn’t believe that DFLers in Minnesota outnumber GOP’ers 2 to 1.

And, silly as we might look, we’re supported by the last couple of election results, in which we finish between two and six points out of the majority.   

Who are all these people voting in the DFL slot?

I dunno, but a third of ’em don’t seem all that thrilled by A-Frank.

I missed the first two days of the convention due to a family emergency. I didn’t actually get a lot of news; i didn’t go near downtown Saint Paul.

Unfortunately, I had to depend on the news media for information. It was that bad.

Like most party conventions, the RNC was pretty much a scripted, predictable pageant, up until Palin’s speech a week ago (for which I was in attendance), so there wasn’t much news.

Now, the mass of protesters – which turned out to be 1/5 to 1/10 as big as “organizers” had originally predicted? They got media coverage. Not only were most of the mainstream media gamboling about among the clots of the disaffected upper-middle-class whites on the street, but practically half of the “demonstrators” were calling themselves “media” as well. So the protests? Yes, they got covered.

Well, let’s be clear; the parts of the protests that the agenda-driven leftymedia wanted covered – alleged police overreaching and alleged excessive force – got covered in slathering detail.

Other stories? Like, atrocities committed by the anarkids?

You can scan the lefty alt-media a long time and find no reference to anything like this:

One 80 year old delegate had to be hospitalized from the violence by the Leftists.

The Alabama delegation was one of the buses that was attacked today in Minnesota.

The Leftist, anarchist, Obama-supporting radicals attacked RNC delegates today at the Xcel Center and sprayed them with a toxic substance.

An 80 year old RNC delegate had to be hospitalized!!

With all the video cameras the likes of the Minnesoros Independent were deploying, you’d think this bit of video might have gotten some play. Molly Priesmeyer would probably breezily quip that they’re all just a bunch of old white people; but if she did, it’d be more coverage than all the rest the “citizen journalists” of the lefty altmedia devoted to the lethal attack on people exercising their First Amendment rights.

They certainly didn’t cover this:

As the Connecticut delegation was getting off a bus near the Xcel Center, a group of protesters broke free from authorities and attacked the delegates.

Connecticut delegate Rob Simmons told FOX 9 that a group of protesters came toward his delegation and tried to rip the credentials off their necks and sprayed them with a toxic substance.

The unknown substance burned their eyes and stained their clothes.

One 80-year-old member of the delegation had to be treated for injuries, and several other delegates had to rinse their eyes and clothing.

Or, um, this?:

…a busload of Cub Scouts were en route to the convention, where they were to present the colors to open the convention. A group of protesters–liberals, Obama supporters, or whatever–blocked the road, surrounded the bus, and attacked it, rocking the bus back and forth, denting and scratching the sides, and generally terrifying the children trapped inside. The left-wing protesters attacked a number of buses in the same way, but there is something especially despicable about attacking a group of Cub Scouts.

(UPDATE: Powerline isn’t so sure about this one anymore.  Let’s wait a bit on that).

This? No? Never mind.

I know some of you leftymedia types read this blog. Where were you when your people attacked the delegates? Most of these attacks occurred before the first demonstration, on 9/1 (which was “highlighted” by anarkids smashing things and attacking the police).

No, I don’t expect an answer. I’ve been asking leftymedia types to answer that one for a week now. Not one has ponied up yet.

The leftymedia is shocked, shocked that the police – who did know about the attacks – didn’t treat the demonstrators, or the lefty alt-media with whom they were pretty much indistinguishable, with kid gloves and greet them like heroes of liberal tolerance.

Hugh Hewitt is a great friend, and was a crucial benefactor behind the launch of the Northern Alliance Radio Network.  He’s one of the five best radio talk show hosts out there.

But if he has one habit that irritates the bejeebers out of me, it’s his constant focus on “credendials” – as if an opinion, story or statement by someone with a BA in History from Northern Arizona is, in and of itself, of less veracity or value than the same one from someone who went to Harvard Law.

That someone gets out of high school and goes to an Ivy League college at 18, and then moves on to an Ivy League post-grad school (especially Law School) at age 22, tells you something.  Yes, it tells you that student is most likely pretty smart. It also tells you that at age 12 or 13, they knew they wanted to focus on getting the kind of grades and prerequisites they needed to get into the Ivy League.  That kind of focus has tradeoffs, just as does the maniacal focus one needs to become a doctor or a professional athlete or a full-time musician; someone who’s that focused on academia during junior high is trading off some other experiences that will be of use in their lives.

Some lefty critics titter about John McCain’s ranking at the Naval Academy, near the bottom of his class.  Of course, most of those critics couldn’t have gotten into the USNA in the first place – but that’s really beside the point.

Because as James Robbins notes in National Review, it’s actually a strength:

Some have suggested that McCain’s low class ranking reflects negatively on his fitness to lead the country. But there is no clear relationship between Academy class rank and leadership qualities. For example, Jimmy Carter, the only Naval Academy graduate to serve as president to date, graduated 59th out of a class of 820, so draw your own conclusions. Seventeen class anchors [people at the very rock bottom of their classes] have attained flag [admiral] rank, and many low-ranking graduates have gone on to brilliant careers. This tracks with the thesis I developed in my book Last in Their Class; the bottom of the class tends to produce a different kind of leader than the top. Those who wind up at the foot are often there by choice. They could do better if they studied, but they would rather trade class ranking for other pursuits. They tend to be the risk takers, the innovators, usually very well liked and in their own way driven. They know how to get into trouble, and more importantly how to get out of it. They also tend to have more than their share of luck.

To them, I suspect, life is a richer, more interesting place, and they are most likely better, more interesting people than they’d be if they’d spent eight years concerned only with banging out A’s.

Which is one of the things that makes ’em leaders.  Robbins notes that 17 “anchors” have gone on to serve as admirals; I’d love to see if that many valedictorians got flags.