John Hinderaker at Powerline notes that even the NYTimes is noticing; mainstream media coverage of Iraq is in freefall.

John concludes:

The conclusion of the Times piece is revealing, too:

Journalists at all three American television networks with evening newscasts expressed worries that their news organizations would withdraw from the Iraqi capital after the November presidential election. They spoke only on the condition of anonymity in order to avoid offending their employers.

It’s interesting that the journalists themselves link their employers’ interest in Iraq to the election. I think it’s fair to say that the mainstream media’s interest in Iraq has always been driven largely by the opportunity to spin events there in a way that advances a political agenda. Remember al Qaqaa? That story dominated the news for a week before the 2004 Presidential election. It was a story of great importance, however, only as long as it could be used to help John Kerry’s Presidential campaign. Once the election was over, al Qaqaa was never heard of again. With hindsight, that episode might be taken as a paradigm of far too much of the mainstream media’s coverage of the war.

So the bad news is that the mainstream media is, for whatever reason (and I’m neither rushing nor shying away from ascribing cynical, political motives to this) is losing interest in covering Iraq.

The good news?  The mainstream media is losing interest in covering Iraq.  Since we can not trust the MSM to be evenhanded in its coverage, it’s just as well that our troops can do their jobs without a malignant buzzard on their backs.

Oh, of course it’d be good if the media did manage to get the good news out – but that’d only bolster the case of the “stay the course” candidate.

And we couldn’t have that.

Let’s see – Obama’s gotten Castro, Qaddafi, Hamas…

…and now, Kim Jong-Il?

The Chosun Sinbo, the mouthpiece of North Korea’s Japanese front organization Chongryon and often for the North Korean regime itself, has announced its preference for Obama over McCain, whom it calls “a variant of Bush” and “nothing better than a scarecrow of neoconservatives,” which is a bit odd considering that the Bush Administration’s giveaway diplomacy is better for Kim Jong Il than even Clinton’s awful performance.

The blogger – from the “One Free Korea” blog, heretofore unknown to me – throws in a key caveat (I’ve added emphasis):

The Republicans’ efforts to capitalize on the Hamas endorsement made me slightly squeamish, because there are separate issues here that shouldn’t be mixed. It isn’t fair for anyone to imply, based on an unwanted endorsement, that a candidate in any way supports the endorsing entity’s ideology or actions. It is fair to ask whether the endorsement suggests that the endorsing entity knows something about the candidate. Why would Hamas or Kim Jong Il both believe that if Obama is elected, his policies would mean boom times for evildoers? Are they wrong?

I don’t want to presume that Obama solicits or appreciates the endorsement of these dictators – no more than I appreciate the usual howler-monkeys on the left drawing significance from some right-fringe wackjob endorsing a GOP candidate.

But what do these dictators know that Obama’s supporters – especially the ones who aren’t sporting “Che” paraphernalia – don’t?
(Via CW)

McCain came to town.

I didn’t have an invite.

But reading the leftymedia’s contortions on the subject is probably almost as much fun anyway. It ranged, as usual, from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Or at least from the groaningly obvious and cliche-driven to the moderately interesting.

For the former, we turn to former City Pages writer GR Anderson at the MNPost – who uncovered a real scoop:

Shocker! McCain’s visit to bring out the wealthy, protestors

GOP presidential candidate John McCain’s visit to the Hilton in downtown Minneapolis for a fundraiser this afternoon promises to be a moneyed affair: To qualify to be on the host committee, McCain’s web site says, “individuals or couples must raise or contribute $20,000.” For the less fortunate, “tickets for the Photo Opportunity & Dinner are $2,300 per person. Tickets for the Main Reception and Dinner are $1,000 per person.”

Right. As opposed to those Democrat fundraiser$, where $your $pocket $change will get you in?

Who says the economy is bad?

(I don’t have an exhaustive list, but I do know that the MNPost and the Minnesoros Independent will be calling it “Bad” until 18 months after the recovery is generally accepted as undeniable, or Barack Obama’s inauguration, whichever comes first. But I digress).

Seriously – does GR Anderson think that big-buck fundraisers are a Republican franchise?

Eric Black’s article was more interesting – or at least a little less predictable:

Senator McCain. Welcome to Minnesota. Thank you for your service. My question is about the occupation of Iraq.

I agree that some Democrats have tried to have a little too much fun with your “100 years in Iraq” quote a while back. I take you at your word that you didn’t mean 100 more years resembling the last five — 100 years of steady U.S. casualties. In explaining what you really meant, you have said that it would be fine with you if U.S. troops had a long-term presence in Iraq, like the troops have had in Germany, Japan and Korea.

Well, we’re off to a good start. That’s more honest than most of Black’s colleagues have been with that question.

Many Americans may think that sounds fine. I’m not so sure. No other country has huge military installations around the world.

But that’s a fairly recent development – not so long ago, plenty of other countries maintained genuine empires; Britain, France, Spain, Portugal and even Belgium had or have imperial possessions within my lifetime and, incidentally, Eric Black’s.

It’s not only expensive, but it smacks of imperialism.

Let’s touch on both of those assertions.

It “smacks” of imperialism, because it is – sort of – and always has been. And yet unlike every single other imperial power in history, our “imperialism” has left behind largely functional, largely democratic countries; Germany, Japan and South Korea are world leaders and, at least by their previous standards, incredibly liberal in that small-“l” way that even I approve of.

And the “expense” has to be based on costs and benefits – indeed, Black touches on that concept later, so we’ll come back to it. The “expense” of any “imperial” entanglement has to be judged against the benefits; the Cold War, for example, has to be gauged against the general good of having contained the Soviets until they collapsed.

Ask yourself how the U.S. — specifically the McCain administration — would view it if another powerful country — let’s say China for the sake of illustration — toppled the government of our neighbors — let’s say Mexico, and said that one of its goals was to leave behind a Mexican government that would be an ally of China. Let’s say China did install a Mexican government friendly to China and then reached a deal with its puppet government for a permanent military base close to our borders in order to protect what China declared to be its “vital interests” in the Americas. And then let’s say China announced that it would be fine if the bases were there for 100 years. My hunch is, the McCain administration wouldn’t like it, wouldn’t tolerate it, would view it as a threat and an act of aggression against the United States and a statement of China’s intent to dominate our hemisphere. Please correct me if I’m wrong about that.

Black is right – sort of. The Monroe Doctrine has pretty much been established policy, one we’ve enforced for almost 200 years.

Of course, the analogy makes Iran – a murderous dictatorship that has been in a de facto state of war with us for my entire adult lifetime – the moral equal of the United States.  Is that a dock  you wanna walk down, Eric Black?

There is, of course, another difference; China has not secured UN resolutions condemning our human rights abuses, our acts of war against China and their allies, our pursuit of Weapons of Mass Destruction and our defiance of previous agreements caused by our previous aggression.  We don’t pose a threat to China and the rest of the world.

The parallel, Mr. Black, really isn’t there.

And I know – your analogy doesn’t depend on the parallel, necessarily. But let’s just say that some of Mr. Black’s audience doesn’t know this.

Of course, the USA is not just any country. We are the world’s only superpower. How we use that position is essential to how the rest of the world views us as we try to repair some of the damage that President Bush — and the Iraq misadventure — have done to the our image in the world.

Actually, Mr. Black, Iraq has very little to do with the world’s “elites'” views of us. There’s another entire post brewing on that subject – but suffice to say that Europe’s opinion-class have never much cared for us (except when we’ve saved them from, say, Hitler or post-war starvation) and they never really will. The left’s conceit that Europeans will generally love the US once this “misadventure” is over are, at best, wishful thinking and utterly ahistorical.

I know I’m making more assertions than posing questions here, but the question is: If, as you hope, U.S. troops will be in Iraq for 100 years, what will that do to the perception that the U.S. seeks to dominate Middle East?

A “perception” that the left and media (pardon the redundancy) are trying to reinforce in every reference to the subject?

Your reference to the long-term U.S. troop presence in Germany, Japan and Korea is designed to illustrate that U.S. troops can be present in foreign bases without facing daily combat or casualties. My question is: How soon and at what cost in blood and treasure do you believe that the situation in Iraq — specifically the situation regarding the safety and normalcy of U.S. troops in Iraq — will resemble the situations in Germany, Japan and Korea?

I can answer that for Sen. McCain; “when the sentient terrorists realize that their chances of achieving their goals aren’t worth their lives”.

And Germany, Japan and Korea are bad examples (although to a nation of people who are largely ignorant of history, they may be the best we can do). The Philippines and El Salvador are better ones; insurgencies that died off (literally and metaphorically) as the result of an extended, judicious combination of military and civil action. It took six years for the Philippines’ insurgency to tail off a century ago; El Salvador is fairly recent history. Neither accomplishment was achieved without pain; both had the good luck to be either too early or too obscure for the attentions of the modern-day American media.

It’s wonderful that the level of violence in Iraq has fallen over recent months. But more than 200 U.S. troops, and a much larger number of Iraqis, have been killed in the less than half-year of 2008 so far.

Context counts, though. The number has been falling for a year, is at its lowest level of the war so far, and seems for the moment to be continuing to fall. Everyone from Petraeus to Michael Yon says to expect a counterattack to try to influence the election, and that’s reasonable. But if the violence continues to drop, the Iraqi government continues to improve (I notice you haven’t written, Mr. Black, about the fact that the Maliki government has quietly achieved most of the 18 criteria for recognizing Iraq as a legitimate government that the Dems were howling about last year), as Al Quaeda continues to be killed off (again, the MNPost is silent), it seems reasonable to believe things will tail off over the course of years rather than decades.

I hope, as you do, that the number continues to drop and soon gets close to zero. I assume we agree that the reasons for the decline in violence are several and complex and, as Gen. Petraeus said, “fragile” and “reversible.” Do you agree, “fragile” and “reversible?”

I agree with the General that it’s best not to be overconfident – but that while the fragility is a function of a difficult Iraqi situation, the progress will “reverse” only because of decisions made in Washington DC.

I suspect we may disagree, but I believe that there is no likely benefit to ordinary Americans of the invasion and occupation of Iraq that will outweigh the costs already incurred.

Those costs are already incurred and we can’t get them back. But decisions about war, including the future policy in Iraq, cannot and should not be shielded from the logic of cost/benefit analysis.

OK.  Let’s look those costs and benefits over:

Costs:  4,000-odd dead American troops, hundreds of billions of dollars.  (I’m not going to count “international goodwill”, becuase for the most part that is mercurial and cultural and if it hadn’t tanked over the Iraq war, it would have over soccer rules or trade balance or Susan Lucci’s Daytime Emmy or whatever they Euros are always whinging about whenever we’re not disposing of their genocidal dictators for them).

Benefits: Iran is firmly counterbalanced.  In a few years, the countries of the Middle East will very likely have a safe, stable neighbor against whom the people can find their own dictatorships and medieval baronies sorely wanting.  We have a base to contest Iran’s control of – I stress this – two thirds of the world’s currently-working oil reserves, which may be of much more importance to the third world and developing nations like China and India than to us.  Absent a serious US presence and counterbalance on the ground, Iran could close the Straits of Hormuz more or less at will (indeed, has been building for a decade and a half a force capable to doing that, with North Korean and Chinese anti-ship missiles and Russian submarines), with terrible effects on the US economy and potentially cataclysmic effects on the developing world.

You can, of course, easily reply that there are never any guarantees in war except that it will be bloody and awful. I agree. It’s one reason we should not get into unnecessary wars. But seriously, given the entire regional and historical context in which Iraq sits, what is your level of confidence — and how can you convince skeptical listeners to share your confidence — that the situation of U.S. troops in Iraq will resemble the situation in Germany within 20 years? Or, I don’t know, why not make it 100?

That’s easy.  There’s a zero percent chance that Iraq will ever resemble any of those countries.  Unlike Germany, its two primary religious factions are still in a low-level war (as opposed to “500 years ago”).  Unlike Japan and Korea, Iraq is ethically as well as religiously heterodox.  Unlike Germany and Japan, there was no clean, legal end to a conventional war, after which the people of both countries pretty much toed the occupier’s line. 

What we can hope for, and have worked for, is that Iraq will turn into the best Iraq it can be.

So I called this “Question for Eric Black”, didn’t I?  Here’s the question, then:  Given continued improvement on the ground, and assuming that over the course of the next year or two the insurgency dies off to a fairly background-level problem, and that the US involvement starts to draw down (as Gen. Petraeus has said) to a small garrison of mostly civil affairs and special forces troops over the course of the next 2-5 years, what do you think Iraq is most likely to turn into.  What do you think, given the above (and the above seems not all that unreasonable these days), are the best, worst and most likely cases for Iraqi civil society over the next decade or two?

Take it away.

MNBlue – a blog that includes the likes of Andy Driscoll and Grace “The Government Brought Down the Towers” Kelly – is running this ad:

It links to another conspiracymonger blog, naturally – par for the course with MNBlue, really.

Just saying – they must really be shooting for that military vote, huh?

MaryW, writing at the new District 66B GOP blog, notes an event that an awful lot of Republicans should oughtta attend:

Minnesotans for Limited Government (MNLG) is a newly established political action committee dedicated to promoting the idea that individual and economic freedom be the first consideration of any government.

We are having a kick-off picnic to celebrate MNLG and the summer! We will be grilling burgers, brats and hot dogs along with serving an assortment of other goodies.

Politics and cookout food?  It gets no better!  The party is going to feature healthcare privace expert Twila Brase, CD5 Congressional candidate Barb Davis White, gadfly Sue Jeffers, and my own candidate in the Fourth, Ed Matthews!

Of course, political and economic freedom must be joined by one other key factor; security.  Without judicious security, there is no freedom.

But that’s what picnics are for! 

I am going to try to get there!

For the past year or so, we’ve been noting the plans of some on the radical fringe left to not only disrupt the Republican National Convention, but to disrupt life in the Twin Cities itself.

Most troubling were the threats in some quarters to actually harass convention delegates, not merely in downtown Saint Paul in and around the convention itself, but back at their hotels.

I’m willing to write 90-99% of these sorts of things off to arrested-adolescent posturing by the sort of narcissistic, self-adulating fops that are drawn to this sort of fringe politics (every “anarchist” I’ve ever known in my life, and I’ve known quite a few, hailed from an upper-middle-class background; most were, at the end of the day, trying to get back at Mumsy and Dadders for being successful bourgeoisie.  I know there must be exceptions – but damned if I can say I’ve met any).

Who’s left?

I dunno – but someone’s looking out for ’em:

The imminent arrival of the Republican National Convention sent Minnesota’s three biggest metro-area cities scrambling to pass new regulations concerning the unprecedented number of street protests they’re anticipating. St. Paul’s existing ordinance requiring permits for public assemblies provided a model for the language approved May 19 by City Council members in Bloomington (PDF, see 5.4C), home to the Mall of America and oodles of hotel rooms where many convention-goers will stay.

Look – if you want to protest the RNC, or the party, or what it stands for, go for it.  And we’ll be watching.

But I have to ask – why the targeting of delegates at their hotels?

Hey, Chris Steller/Andy Birkey/Paul Schmelzer; if this were a Planned Parenthood convention, and pro-lifers were planning to harass conventioneers at their hotels outside of convention hours, are you trying to tell me you’d not be demanding the National Guard be called in?

Allahpundit on Barack Obama’s dangerous delusions about prosecuting – I use the term advisedly – the war on terror…:

…which start with an implausibility…:

redeploying tens of thousands of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan and having them shake their fists angrily in the direction of the Pakistani border?

…and ends with a pointless metaphor…:

So what’s a Nuremberg for Osama going to accomplish? Here’s what it’ll accomplish: It’ll give him a world stage to inveigh against the U.S. just like his crony-in-chief did a few weeks ago down at Gitmo, secure in the knowledge that the media would carry the good word back to the Wahhabi faithful abroad. That’s the other huge difference between now and Nuremberg. When Hermann Goering ranted on behalf of Nazism, there was no one left on his side to be inspired. Not so this time. If Obama’s so hot for analogies to German trials, he should think less about 1945 and more about 1924.

Everyone knows history begins in 1933, right?

I’m not one of the people who’s especially exercised about Franken’s record as a comedian or writer.  It was his career.  He was certainly successful at it; at times he was quite good (although he certainly faded into being a “satirist” over time).  And, as is the fashion among comedians these days, he certainly worked blue at times, saying and doing and writing some things that wouldn’t be advisable for a future politician (although to be fair he was able to count on a complicit media to keep all of that on the down-low up until the past five years or so).

It’s getting to the point where a potential politician has to sense by about age 12 that they want to be an elected official – and then start living their lives entirely with an aim toward avoiding future opposition research.  Which will leave us with a raft of politicians even more worthless than most of what we have in office today.

(Of course, while I don’t much care about Franken’s Playboy article or SNL skits, I think his tax problems are very legitimate issues, and his complicity in the looting of the Gloria Wise center is a genuine red flag).

Against this, and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman, the DFL has really only two points:

1. “We really really really really really hate Norm Coleman”
2. “You should vote for  Franken because he’s audaciously hopeful and he’s not Norm Coleman and you really really totally should, because you just should, and Paul Wellstone would want you to if he were alive but for whatever reason not seeking a fourth term”

More seriously?  His career as a comic, entertainer, “satirist” and failed pundit are all fair game, because it’s the only record he has.  I went over Alec Baldwin’s spate of logorrhea in support of Franken last week; in and among the ad-homina and the platitudes, there was not one single reason based in policy or experience that Baldwin could give…

…because there are none.

Norm Coleman has a fourteen year record in elected office – six in the Senate, eight as mayor of Saint Paul.  There’s plenty of things to take your shots at, no matter what side you’re on; Coleman’s votes on ANWR, the surge, and other bills drew conservative ire; the fact that he’s an apostate DFLer (he was in the party into the first part of his second term as Mayor, and even placed Paul Wellstone into nomination at the DFL convention 12 years ago), which is one of those things the DFL never, ever forgives.  For better or worse, his record’s out there; you can judge Norm, yea or nay, according to whatever criteria you choose – if little things like “records” and “experience” mean anything to you.

So here are a couple of questions for you Franken supporters:

1. If we’re supposed to leave his comedy, “satire” and freelance writing careers out of how we gauge Franken for office, what can we use to try to figure if Franken is someone we want in office?
2. Please give  me  some affirmative reasons – one, two, three, whatever -why anyone should vote for Franken.  Caveat; these reasons need to relate to Franken; “he’s not Coleman”, or “he’s not in bed with the Administration”, or “”Halliburton Cheney Wide Stance Bush Brought Down The Towers Duke Cunningham” don’t cut it.  In other words, leave out the reasons not to vote for Coleman (because those would apply to Ciresi or Nelson-Pallmeyer or Jerry Janezich for that matter, any of the people you DFLers could have, but didn’t, nominate); they have to be reasons to vote for Franken.

Can y’all do it?

Gary Gross over at LFR, in an article that notes at least one poll showing Norm Coleman with a 12 point head to head lead over Al Franken, discusses  the…

…I can hardly say it…

…the possibility of a Ventura candidacy:

The poll results make me slap my forehead. Hard to believe Jesse could rate 10%, let alone 23%. But there you have it, Norm still holds a 10 point lead after all the fruits and nuts are sorted out.

Here’s the part that I love – and that vindicates my opinion of at least some Minnesotans.

Bringing Duh Body into the race brings Coleman down from 52 to 41 – a tad over 20% of his numbers.  Franken drops from 40 to 31 – just a shade under a quarter of his share.

So Minnesotans do see Ventura as DFL-lite!

Paul Schmelzer, at the Minnesoros Independent – the site that joked about John McCain’s teeth (although to be fair, they didn’t know he’d been tortured in Vietnam) writing on the new Al Franken ad.

He starts by quoting Franken – who, to give credit where it’s due, has spent a lot of time in Iraq entertaining the troops – in his latest spot (emphasis added by me):

“We’re building 810 schools, 4800 water and sewage projects and 1047 roads and bridges.” But there’s a kicker: We’re building them not in the land of I-35W and Winona’s Highway 43 bridge, but in Iraq.

The message could come off as harsh—running the risk of seeming anti-troop or, for that matter, anti-Iraqi (who, bombed to kingdom come by coalition troops, might rightfully expect a little rebuilding)

Uh, Paul?

Since about April of 2003, most of the “bombing to kingdom come” has been done by the insurgents.

You know – the “other” bad guys?

But the ads, which will run in the Twin Cities, Duluth, Rochester and Mankato, might not satisfy supporters of Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, who could read into it a less-than-immediate pullout of troops in Iraq.

To be fair, to win over the Nelson-Pallmeyer supporters, he’d have to claim that we’d murdered a million Iraqis.

Franken’s not depraved enough get most of Nelson-Pallmeyer’s supporters.

Is this a way to reach out to Catholic voters – Algore imitating Pope John Paul II?

Habemas Demigogam?

There’s another that came out via email…:

Isn’t that supposed to be “and lo, I shall be with you always?”

As P.J. O’Rourke once said, life is full of ironies, if you’re stupid.

So let’s look beyond a few ironies:

• That someone who writes for the Huffington Post can call someone – anyone – a “political mercenary”.
• That someone writing on the Huffpo can yap about “orchestrated smear campaigns”.
• That same person can call anyone – in this case Fox News – a “mouthpiece” for…well, anything.
• That anyone on the left – the group that seethes with condescension and much worse for any ethnic or social minority that doesn’t hew to the lefty path – can call anyone a racist with a straight face.

Again – we’re looking beyond each of these. Andy Ostroy is…well, like most everyone who writes for the HuffPo – some level of lefty apparatchik or another.

But – assuming he’s not yanking something or another from whole cloth – he might have a point:

Have the right-wing media mercenaries over at Fox News lost their fucking minds?

[Did I mention Ostroy is a classy lad?  No?  Good].

During a discussion Wednesday between commentators Michelle Malkin and Megyn Kelly on whether Republican attacks on Michelle Obama have been too harsh, the following banner ran across the bottom of the screen:

OUTRAGED LIBERALS: STOP PICKING ON OBAMA’S BABY MAMA!

This blatantly racist, unconscionable remark is an outrage.

If that is indeed what happened, then it is an outrage.  And incredibly stupid.  Michele Obama is a prickly woman with a millenarian streak about her – and we’ve talked about this and the dangers it provides democracy in the past.

But “Babymama?”

Bad network.  Bad.  No donut.

Sheesh.

and is part of a carefully orchestrated campaign to incite America’s bigoted dumbasses

Hm.  Carefully orchestrated?

Leaving aside the very high likelihood that it was just some overworked, underpaid, twentysomething numbnuts working the Chyron who wrote the offending crawler (anyone who’s ever worked in a newsroom, can I get an amen?) – does anyone seriously think that any such “careful orchestration” would escape serious inquiry (meaning:  other than Andy Ostroy or Grace Kelly)?

Fox is nothing more than a shameless, unapologetic mouthpiece for the ruthless Republican attack-machine

He must be an “investigative journalist”, too.

At any rate – there are so many things to criticize Michele Obama over.  This is not one of them.

Google ranks things  by how many things link to them – especially linking to the exact search phrase.  For example, if you type “Polish Sausage” into Google, you get posts sorted as follows:

1. Posts written on the Daily Kos and Huffington Post that reference Polish Sausage
2. Posts where the link was in the phrase “Polish Sausage”, sorted in descending order of number of links
3. Every other post on the subject, again sorted in descending order of number of links.

With that in mind, Patterico wants to make sure the word gets out that Barack Obama Sucks:

Barack Obama sucks.

Barack Obama sucks because he will appoint terrible judges.

Barack Obama sucks because he will make John Edwards the A.G., and Slow Joe Biden the Secretary of State.

Barack Obama sucks because he will seek to pass big-government programs.

Barack Obama sucks because he will cut and run in Iraq, risking civil war in that country.

Barack Obama sucks because he reneges on his promises.

Barack Obama sucks because he has surrounded himself with bad people.

Barack Obama sucks.

My goal is to make sure anyone who uses Google to confirm their belief that Barack Obama sucks, will find this post and join the choir.

So if you want to know why Barack Obama Sucks, run over to Patterico.

Alec Baldwin – who broke his promise in 2004 to move to France or Canada or Angola or whereever – has all sorts of reasons for voting for Al Franken against Norm Coleman this fall:

Norm Coleman, a former Democrat who had the unusual luck to run against a retirement-age Walter Mondale in order to fill the seat vacated by the tragic death of Paul Wellstone, is busy digging up clips of Franken’s old SNL and other satirical work in order to dirty him up for their Minnesota US Senate race.

Well, yeah!  I mean, it’s the only thing he’s done for his entire career, and all.

Onward:

Let’s make one thing crystal clear. Paul Wellstone was a great man. His death stunned and saddened progressives around the world. I stood next to Paul at a fundraiser in Minneapolis two weeks prior to his plane crash. Paul’s career was everything one could want to emulate in public service. He was smart, decent and brave. Paul could never be replaced. Ever.

Yes, yes, we all missed Wellstone, gotcha.

But why vote for Franken over Coleman?

But to fill that seat with a hack like Coleman? I can see states like Texas having not one but two hack Senators. People who never propose or cosponsor any significant legislation while in office. People like Hutchinson and Cornyn, who are the worst type of go-along-to-get-along lackey for the Bush administration. People who view their role as doing anything to preserve their own power and who never have an original or courageous idea while in office.

OK, so we have ad-homina against an entire state and a couple of Senators…

…but why would I vote for Al Franken over Norm Coleman? 

But Minnesota?

Coleman becoming a US Senator from that great state was a travesty. Now the time has come to correct that mistake. Coleman, who makes Mitt Romney look like a visionary, is so far from the best that state has to offer, it is unbelievable to imagine that he is even in the running for reelection.

So – a slur against a highly-accomplished former governor, and a hopelessly-broad generalization about what Minnesota “has to offer” – got it.

But…why vote for Franken? 

 An uninformed and weak-willed apologist for this awful administration is being challenged by one of the best progressive minds of his generation.

Ah, OK!  Now we’re getting someplace – information about Franken!

Let’s look and see: 

I don’t care how much ribald and salty humor he has dished out during is entertainment career.

And I agree!

But, Alec, my question remains – why should I vote for him? 

Judge Al Franken by what he stands as today: a searingly intelligent and abundantly caring son of Minnesota who has returned home to attempt to lend his voice to our nation’s political discourse on the most formal of levels. No blogging. No books. No comedy sketches. Putting his career and his opinions on the line on behalf of serving the people of Minnesota.

But Alec?  He has no public record, other than his entertainment career!  His “searing intelligence” to date has been expressed solely via his blog, his books, his sketches, his standup, his failed Air America show!  So as he “puts his career on the line”, that is all we simple plebeians have by which to judge him!

Well, that and the impassioned assurances of Alec Baldwin, a fellow who stars in a TV show and lied about moving to France.

So I’ll ask again – why should I, a mere Minnesota citizen, vote for Al Franken?

And what does Coleman do? He trots out old SNL material to grade one of show business’ most respected satirists and judge him as insensitive or inappropriate.

Well, Coleman has a right to an opinion, right?

As do Senator Amy Klobuchar and Congresswoman Betty McCollum, a couple of other “searingly intelligent progressives” who already represent Minnesota, and who would seem to be more critical of candidate Franken than any of us conservatives!

And again – his show biz career is the only basis we have for judging him!

So I’ll ask again – why would, should or could I vote fo Al Franken?

Voters of Minnesota, your choice could not be simpler. Coleman is a pathetic hack who will do as little as possible in a US Senate office other than cover his own ass and protect his power.

So another ad-hominem… 

Meanwhile, Al Franken is everything you could hope for in a candidate to represent your state in the world’s most august deliberative body. Smart, caring, brave. That’s the choice.

So my “choice” is “ad-hominem” versus a vague assurance that someone with no public record whatsoever is just doubleplus swell! 

But I keep trying to find out, Alec – How is his intelligence, his caring, his “bravery” expressed?  Other than his showbiz career, I mean?

 Mitt Romney light. Or a return to someone special in the US Senate from the great state of Minnesota.

Maybe it’s the audacious hope.

Of course, that IS good enough for a good chunk of the Minnesota electorate.

At any rate, Alec Baldwin; while I’m generally loathe to cop Laura Ingraham’s line – shut up and act.

And I don’t mean like in Nadine, either. 

I’m going to join with Patterico in urging a little restraint in the claims of anti-semitism on “BarackObama.com”.

Oh, make no mistake about it – Obama is going to draw a lot of anti-semites to his campaign.  Anti-semitism is a key tenet of the radical American left.

But BarackObama.com is pretty much open to all.

How open?

This open.

I had a piece in the hopper this morning in which I was going to ask “I wonder how long it’s going to be before a DFLer tries to make “domestic tranquility” an issue in the Minnesota Senate race?”

It didn’t quite make the cut this morning (7AM, my cutoff time for morning blogging, came too dang early).  And it’s a shame, since I just knew this was going to happen…

…yep, the ink on Franken’s Rochester hotel tab is barely dry, and suddenly his minions are on the case!

From the 3rd Hour of [Fast Eddie Schultz’s Friday] show.

On the Al Franken scandals:

“This is all to just lather up the right, to shake down the Democrats, to make Norm Coleman look like he’s an altar boy, which he is not. And that is a story that the right wing media in Minnesota will never do. You know, Norm likes to chase the skirt, you know, there’s no doubt about that. Anybody wanna counter me on that? Anybody in the media want to write an editorial about what an altar boy Norm Coleman is? Any right wing talkers in Minnesota want to tell us what an upstanding, wonderful, highly moral guy Norm Coleman is? Come on! Let’s get it on!”

Schultz spent significant time in the 3rd hour of his show on Friday coming to the defense of Al Franken.

Of course he did. 

It’s been an open secret forever in Saint Paul and Minnesota politics; Norm and his wife have a rather unconventional marriage.  Schultz is being disingenuous if he claims this is some big revelation (or, equally likely, the dim little bulb inside his thick little head hasn’t quite quite figured it out yet, and his prime directive, “blow hard first, ask questions later”, is in control). 

And Franken is to be complemented; he’s been married to Franny for thirty-something years.  Kudos.

But since when did the party of “MoveOn.org” – an organization founded ten years ago to cajole the American people into ignoring the legal perjury (and, incidentally, marital infidelity) of a middle-aged lothario in the White House – care about such things?

It was made abundantly clear a decade ago; the Democrats wanted us to consider politicians solely on the issues. 

Wasn’t that what it was all about? 

So if Fast Eddie and his smarter colleagues in the trenches (that’s called “damning with faint praise”) want to try to ding Norm on the issues, go for it; Senator Coleman does have the advantage/liability of actually having a record to criticize.

Unlike Candidate Franken. 

Mark Steyn lets a little air out of the Obama balloon.

He notes – correctly? – that Obama’s phenemonon is a media-driven event:

“I felt this thrill going up my leg,” said MSNBC’s Chris Matthews after one of the senator’s speeches. “I mean, I don’t have that too often.” Au contraire, Chris and the rest of the gang seem to be getting the old tingle up the thigh hairs on a nightly basis. If Obama is political Viagra, the media are at that stage in the ad where the announcer warns that, if leg tingles persist for more than six months, see your doctor.

Out there in the voting booths, however, Democrat legs stayed admirably unthrilled. The more the media told Hillary she was toast, and she should get the hell out of it and let Obama romp to victory, the more Democrats insisted on voting for her. The more the media insisted Barack was inevitable, the less inclined the voters were to get with the program. On the strength of Chris Matthews’ vibrating calves, Sen. Obama raised a ton of money – over $300 million – and massively outspent Sen. Clinton, but he didn’t really get any bang for his buck. In the end, he crawled over the finish line. The Obama Express came a-hurtlin’ down the track at 2 miles an hour.

…and continues the Manhattan-Project-level effort to sanity-check his rhetoric:

“I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations…I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal … . This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation.”

It’s a good thing he’s facing it with “profound humility,” isn’t it? Because otherwise who knows what he’d be saying. But mark it in your calendars: June 3, 2008 – the long-awaited day, after 232 years, that America began to provide care for the sick. Just a small test program: 47 attendees of the Obama speech were taken to hospital and treated for nausea. Everyone else came away thrilled that the Obamessiah was going to heal the planet and reverse the rise of the oceans: When Barack wants to walk on the water, he doesn’t want to have to use a stepladder to get up on it.

There are generally two reactions to this kind of policy proposal. The first was exemplified by the Atlantic Monthly’s Marc Ambinder:

“What a different emotional register from John McCain’s; Obama seems on the verge of tears; the enormous crowd in the Xcel Center seems ready to lift Obama on its shoulders; the much smaller audience for McCain’s speech interrupted his remarks with stilted cheers.”

The second reaction boils down to: “‘Heal the planet’? Is this guy nuts?” To be honest I prefer a republic whose citizenry can muster no greater enthusiasm for their candidate than “stilted cheers” to one in which the crowd wants to hoist the nominee onto their shoulders for promising to lower ocean levels within his first term. As for coming together “to remake this great nation,” if it’s so great, why do we have to remake it?

Read, naturally, the whole thing.

Both the major dailies proclaim “Franken apologizes, accepts nomination” (Strib, PiPress); slightly different words; same sanitized message.

On the other hand, he didn’t – and even if he did, one prominent DFL feminist isn’t’ amused.

Joe Kimball in the MNPost apparently has been taking a hit off of Lori Sturdevant’s bong.

He apparently thinks that Minnesota Republicans should  bend over and ask Senator Obama where he’s like us to kiss him:

So much for Monday’s GOP ‘welcome’ of Obama to St. Paul …
Not wanting the Democrats to get all the St. Paul headlines today…

Perhaps he expected us to send Obama – our opponent – a marching band? 

…the Republican National Convention sent out this email today:

STATEMENT FROM 2008 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION SPOKESMAN MATT BURNS ON SEN. OBAMA’S VISIT TODAY TO SAINT PAUL, MINN.:

“The Xcel Energy Center hasn’t hosted anyone who skates and flips as much as Senator Obama since the U.S. Figure Skating Championships were in town and the Minnesota Wild were eliminated from the hockey playoffs. We look forward to Senator McCain’s visit to Saint Paul in September, where he will accept our party’s nomination and offer a more substantive vision for leading America forward than the spectacle witnessed tonight.”

Why does Joe Kimball hate dissent? [*]

(more…)

Via Gary Miller, Matt “No Relation To Gary” Miller notes that Hillary Clinton provided this nation a great service – way above and beyond the whole “soaking up Tic resources for a few months” bit – in the race.

There was the conventional stuff…

But, there’s something about what she’s done for politics in America over the last 2 years that deserves respect. She’s fought. She’s struggled. And at times, she’s pushed back against the hijacking of the Democratic Party, which has been, for all it’s flaws, a party of great and patriotic men and women; a party which has, until now, only once succumbed to out and out radicalism in the last 60 years of nominations. She’s tried to speak to hardworking Americans, not about them. She’s tried to communicate a responsible foreign policy, not historically laughable pie-in-the-sky utopianism. She’s tried to recall a party she loves from the abyss. She’s tried. And she’s failed. Not everyone can be avatars of hope and light.

Indeed, there can only be One.  But I digress.

There is  a lesson there for the GOP – especially in Minnesota, where the party had a hard-fought battle with its own utopian fringe.  Hopefully the good guys can find a better way to help channel all that utopian energy than the tic are managing so far.

And here’s the real salient point; the point that conservatives, and moderates, and patriotic Americans of all regions and all religions ought to be thanking her for; Hillary Clinton has revealed Barack Obama. Four months ago, Barack Obama was an insurpassable public figure. He was The One We’ve Been Waiting For. An agent of hope and change poised to bridge all gaps, overturn all conventions, and melt all hearts. He was the great redeemer, surpassing that other great redeemer, and we were his subjects, waiting in humble supplication for the touch of his gentle hand. Now he’s tarred with Wright. And Ayers. And Pfleger. And he’s schemed, and calculated, and given ludicrous explanations, and played old politics with the best of them. His halo has descended before our very eyes. Make no mistake about it, no inducement on earth could have brought the press to question Barack Obama in a general election campaign in 2008. And no amount of evidence could have made the public care. Not even in a campaign against John McCain, the media’s favorite Republican. Even as a Democrat who ostensibly shares many of their goals, Hillary has had little success in shaping the media’s narrative. But, she has shaped the public’s.

The whole thing’s worth a read. 

And I join with Gary; Thanks, Hills!  See you in ’12!  And ’16!  And ’20!  And ’24…

Susan Sarandon?  Please call Alec Baldwin’s travel agent in re your plans.

Baldwin fell short on some promises in the past four years, and he could use the love.

A Twin Cities feminist and longtime DFL stalwart wants feminists to write in Hillary! this fall:

Though she acknowledges it is a difficult sell, [DFL Feminist Caucus founder Koryne] Horbal said she and other feminists are promising not to vote for Barack Obama and write in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s name in November if the disputed Florida and Michigan delegations are not fully seated at the Democratic National Convention and Obama becomes the presidential nominee.

But if the move costs Obama the election?

“I don’t care,” Horbal said of the possibility that the move might cost Obama votes. She said she also would not be bothered if the write-in campaign indirectly helped elect John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. “Let McCain clean it up for four years, and then we can have Hillary run again,” she said.

Democrats; for the love of goddess, by all means follow Mz. Horbal’s advice.  If womyn don’t stand as one behind any liberal woman; any liberal woman at all Hillary this fall, when indeed might you get another chance?

I’ll be copiously posting the write-in rules in this space over the next five months.

To:  David Brauer, committed liberal and writer for the MNPost

From: Mitch Berg, critical reader

Re:  Because you say so, that’s why

Mr. Brauer,

Who wrote the following (no fair peeking!)

“I’m talking, of course, about the Internet, which is a terrific learning tool. For example, a couple years ago, when he was 12, my son used the Internet for a sixth grade report on bestiality. Joe was able to download some effective visual aids, which the other students in his class just loved. See, at that age the kids are sponges!” Source: Al Franken, Playboy, January 2000

###

“At first I thought it was my imagination, but when Dr. DeVine escorted me into the virtual reality room, she seemed to be coming on to me. She allowed her bodacious breasts to brush against my face as shelowered me into the prototype of the Virtu-Screw 2000. ‘How does that feel?’ she cooed. I didn’t know if she was referring to the Naugahyde bucket seat or to the two erect nipples pushing through her white lab coat and nearly poking my eyes out.

Then Dr. DeVine placed the Virtu-Screw helmet over my head. Sitting in the pitch dark, I felt slightly vulnerable but also excited. Sheasked me which setting I wanted. Since I’ve been married 23 years, I naturally chose ‘blow job.’ My chair abruptly tilted backward, and I ‘felt’ my pants being unzipped. If I hadn’t known I was sitting in the most state-of-the-art virtual reality sex machine, I would have sworn that a real woman’s hand had pulled my cock from my pants.

My nervousness disappeared, and I sat back and enjoyed the amazingly realistic cyber job. It was every bit as good as the last real blow job I had gotten 23 years earlier-if not better-because when I shot my wad, the virtual mouth swallowed.” Source: Al Franken, Playboy, January 2000

###

“I found myself extremely attracted to the vulnerable side of this sexy scientist, and when I offered to comfort her, she accepted, kissing me full on the lips and inserting her tongue into my mouth and moving it around suggestively. Then she reached down and started rubbing my crotch, and within just five or ten minutes my cock was again hard and ready for action.

That’s when Dr. DeVine took my hand in her other hand, and said, ‘If you think VRS is the future, wait until you see this.’

While still rubbing my crotch, Dr. DeVine led me through the Future wing to the Sexbot room. Once inside I was surprised to see a vinyl blowup doll wearing crotchless panties.

Dr. DeVine explained that the blow-up doll was the prototype for the Sexbot, and scientists at the IPS keep her around to remind themselves just how far they have come and how far they have to go.

And indeed they do have a long way to go. The most current Sexbot prototype, Connie, while quite attractive, has moving parts made of plastic and metal alloys and is considered quite dangerous. In fact, as a futurist, Dr. DeVine believes that the first Sexbots to hit the market will result in class-action suits filed by severely injured men.

That’s why Dr. DeVine urged me to forgo Connie and introduced me to Wilhelmina, a beautiful young German-born researcher who, while human, more closely approximates the Sexbot of the 22nd century. Wilhelmina escorted me to a private room with a bed and removed her clothes.If this is what Sexbots will look like a hundred years from now, I envy my great-great-grandsons. We made passionate love for two or three minutes before being joined by Dr. DeVine, who wanted to make the point that Sexbots will be used for threesomes.

I could describe the incredible sex the three of us had, but this is a piece of journalism about the future of pornography and not one of those cheesy letters from a horny reader. Suffice it to say that everyone came several times, except me, who came only once.”

Was it:

a) Senate Candidate Al Franken, or

b) Conservative archpundit William F. Buckley

If you answered “b”, Mr. Brauer, it explains a lot about this piece.

Note, Mr. Brauer; it’s not the appearance.  It’s the output.

As it were.

That is all.

I have my differences with Senator Norm Coleman.

That should be no shock; the guy came up through the DFL. He even gave Paul Wellstone’s nominating speech at the 1996 DFL convention.

But he was one of Saint Paul’s thin film of “good” DFLers, the tiny scree of Truman Democrats left in the increasingly loony Saint Paul party, along with his successor Randy Kelly; both represented what an eastside DFLer friend of mine called the “pro-life, assault-rifle-owning, pro-defense” wing of the DFL.

Hence, the DFL couldn’t tolerate either of them, and Norm became a Republican. Not a perfect conservative, mind you – he never claimed to be – but the closest to one that we’ve got in the Senate at the moment.

And so I voted for him, enthusiastically, in two mayoral races, and in 2002, and I’ll vote for him early and often this fall, too. Not because he’s the perfect conservative, but because he’s better than Al Franken or Mike Ciresi or the risible Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer – and because the MNGOP came nowhere close to showing us a vastly better alternative in this cycle.

And – more importantly – because while he’s not the perfect conservative, he does the blocking and tackling of good government generally well. A former prosecutor, he and his administration had a solid role in helping Saint Paul have a vastly lower crime rate, per capita, than Minneapolis.

Which is one reason, I suspect, that the Minneapolis and Saint Paul Police Federations have endorsed the Senator against whomever he’s running against:

The Saint Paul and Minneapolis Police Federations today joined forces to endorse U.S. Senator Norm Coleman’s re-election campaign. The Minneapolis Police Federation represents over 900 officers employed by the City of Minneapolis as well as Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. The Saint Paul Police Federation represents 620 sworn officers and 75 Emergency Communications workers in the City of Saint Paul.

Saint Paul Police Federation. “Since his time as Saint Paul’s Mayor, when he worked hard to put more officers on the streets, he has always listened to our needs and responded. He knows that the strength of our communities depends on the strength of our officers and their abilities to do their jobs. He has consistently been there for us, and that’s why we are here for him today and going forward in this campaign.”“Throughout his entire career, starting with prosecuting criminals across the state during his time in the Attorney General’s office, to his work in the Mayor’s office and now in the Senate, Norm has responded to the needs of law enforcement. His efforts have made a real difference in how we do our jobs. We need to keep Norm in the Senate working with us in the law enforcement community because he gets it,” said John Delmonico, President of the Minneapolis Police Federation.

Now if Coleman could only sic some of those cops on the UN, he’d redeem a few of his mistakes…

(And perhaps give him a warning about his apparent support for the “Cap and Trade” bill.  Maybe a tazer).

Living in a one-party city, you see and hear some strange things.

There’s a conceit on the part of an awful lot of Twin Cities leftists – Democrats, Greenies, and all their various flavors – that “if we just showed Republicans the truth, they’d be Democrats!”

That point of view is in full foam as we head toward the GOP Convention this fall. One “local” group plans on putting “huge Jumbotrons” on both sides of downtown – on Cathedral Hill and Harriet Island – to beam videos over the city during the convention, apparently to try to convert Republicans.

These, by the way, are some of the same people who fulminate about billboards in Saint Paul. Go figure.

And now, says Schmelzer at the Minnesoros Monitor, they plan to try to “Rock some sense into the Republicans”

No, really!

“The Republican National Convention is coming to the Twin Cities in September, and wouldn’t it be a shame if there was no one to play deafening power chords just up the street?” So reads text at the website of ProVention, online homebase for a concert planned in Lowertown St. Paul on Sept. 3 and 4 to coincide with the GOP convention.

They assure us, of course, that…

…the point isn’t an antagonistic, Noriega-psyops kind of thing, but to welcome Republican guests with “music, beauty and rational engagement” (here’s the group’s platform).

We’ll come back to that “noriega” thing in a bit.

The lineup — which may change, “probably in the direction of more and more ginormously powerful”

A quick tangent; I think Americans of all creeds, colors, orientations and parties can unite behind the notion that people who use “ginormous” in any context can and should be shipped to camps in the Mojave Desert.  Can I get an amen?

Anyway – out of one corner of their mouth, they say this is no “noriega-like psyop”.  And then they say…:

— has elephantine star power: Tapes ‘n’ Tapes,

Scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatch

Tapes ‘n Tapes.

I, for one, choose waterboarding.