George Soros apparently doesn’t care what he has to do to buy public perception.

First, it was his attempts to flood the media market with left-leaning propaganda – “Media Matters for America” and the the “Center for Independent Media”.

And now – abject anti-war lies:

A STUDY that claimed 650,000 people were killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq was partly funded by the antiwar billionaire George Soros.Soros, 77, provided almost half the £50,000 cost of the research, which appeared in The Lancet, the medical journal. Its claim was 10 times higher than consensus estimates of the number of war dead.

The American left; if you can’t win the war of ideas, buy it.

The study, published in 2006, was hailed by antiwar campaigners as evidence of the scale of the disaster caused by the invasion, but Downing Street and President George Bush challenged its methodology.

New research published by The New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 151,000 people – less than a quarter of The Lancet estimate – have died since the invasion in 2003.

And where, oh where, have we heard this bit before (emphasis added)?

“The authors should have disclosed the [Soros] donation and for many people that would have been a disqualifying factor in terms of publishing the research,” said Michael Spagat, economics professor at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Controlling your own media means never having to explain yourself.

…by how many points “the polls” gave Kerry the ’04 election in January of ’04.  Or for that matter Algore in ’00.
I seem to remember them looking pretty bad for the President in both cases.

Just saying.

Johnathan Adler, writing at Volokh, writes about the Solicitor General’s brief against the Heller case:

the Solicitor General’s office has filed a brief in D.C. v. Heller supporting an individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment, but nonetheless calling for a remand in the case because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit applied too high a level of scrutiny in the case.

Read the whole thing.

Im the meantime David Kopel – perhaps the best Second-Amendment issues writer in the business – writes about the various amicus briefs re the Heller case (the revisit of the DC gun ban):

In the Comments below, there will be some people who want to engage in a troll-driven debate over the gun issue in general, and others who will want to criticize or praise the Bush administration for the SG brief. However, I encourage readers instead to read one of more of the amicus briefs in toto, and to offer thoughtful comments on the brief.

I’ll take ’em to be beach with me.

Quando quotes Megan McArdle on yet another Paul Krugman recession prediction:

Megan McArdle:

Paul Krugman is voting for doom. It’s worth keeping in mind, however, that Paul Krugman has predicted eight of the last none recessions under the Bush administration.

Like Megan, I think “a recession seems likely-ish”, but “Krugman predicts” is generally a good sign to bet the other way.

Followed by a run-down of Paul Krugman’s last eight recession predictions.

sEd notes that it’s Rush Limbaugh’s birthday:

Happy Birthday to the man who made conservative talk radio a dominating presence — Rush Limbaugh. We’re all in your debt, sir, and thank you for all of the hard work you do.

In 57 years, he’s had more impact on the world than any radioman I can think of.

And on me, actually; when i was a 25 year old neophyte talk radio host, Limbaugh’s big surge sorely constricted the number of stations that would actually pay kids like me to work mid-day and evening shows; while a mid-market station might have paid me $24K, LImbaugh’s satellite show was scot-free to the stations. In a sense, the industry ate its seed corn; there aren’t many local political talk hosts out there under age 50, anymore. But that’s the fault of a ton of short-sighted General Managers – and without Limbaugh, the market wouldn’t exist at all.

So happy birthday, El Rushbo. Enjoy the weekend. There is much ass to kick.

(And keep my chair warm for me).

Today on the Northern Alliance Radio Network:

• Volume I “The First Team” – John, Brian and Chad – will kick things off from 11-1. No idea, as this is written, what they’re going to talk about.
• Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed is back from assignment, so we’ll be throwing down from 1-3; call in early and often! We’ll be talking debates, and I suspect Larry O’Donnell might pop up as well.
• Volume III, “The Final Word” – King and Michael will talk Minnesota trash after that until 5PM; they’ll be talking Instant Runoff with Andy Cilek, and with CD1 GOP candidate Brian Davis about his campaign to unseat Tim Walz.

So tune in to all six hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of sanity. On the air at AM1280 in the Metro, or streaming at AM1280’s Website, or via podcast at Townhall.

(Along with the Stroms, from 9-11, natch).

I try to be civil. Yes, indeed, I do.

But sometimes, it’s totally wasted.

To wit: Every time I try to figure out what are the most irredeemably stupid leftyblogs, I get to a short list; “Mercury Rising”, “Jesus General”, Atrios, “Clotting Stool” all hold places of honor…

…but at the top of the list is always “Shakespeare’s Sister”, a collection of the most vacuous, whiniest bloggers this side of Ken “Ned Luddington” Weiner.

And among the whole pack of defectives, “Space Cowboy” has to be…what’s the word?

The dumbest. The dumbest of the lot.

I know I’ve read things dumber than Space Cowboy’s drive-by of the President’s visit to Yad Vashem, but for the sake of my outlook on humanity, I don’t like to dwell on them.

It was only just yesterday when Olmert Pile thought that Bush is a wise man full of Yale and Harvard infused wisdom. Here’s a closer look at that wisdom, as exhibited by our man of the hour during a tour of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial:

At one point, Bush viewed aerial photos of the Auschwitz camp taken during the war by U.S. forces and called Rice over to discuss why the American government had decided against bombing the site, Shalev said. […]

Between 1.1 million and 1.5 million people were killed at the camp.

“We should have bombed it,” Bush said, according to Shalev.

[At this point, I guess I should take small solace that Mr. Cowboy hasn’t accused the President of bombing Auschwitz instead of finding Bin Laden. Oh, don’t worry – historical myopia almost as stupid follows. I digress].

“I was most impressed that people in the face of horror and evil would not forsake their God. In the face of unspeakable crimes against humanity, brave souls — young and old — stood strong for what they believe,” Bush said.

I really don’t know what to make of this. I’m not sure that Bush realizes that had the US bombed the camp, the people of whose adhesion to religion he’s so enamored [why does Mr. Cowboy have a problem with that? – Ed.] would be stone dead. Bush doesn’t seem to be aware that there were survivors at Auschwitz; is he really saying to the survivors that they should’ve been killed for the greater good of “disrupting service” at the camp?

One wonders only briefly if Mr. Cowboy has read anything on the subject at all. Briefly, I say – lefties that have read history are rarer than All Star Wrestling fans who can recite James Joyce.

While nearly everyone that was in the camps ended up “stone cold dead”, as Mr. Sensitive Cowboy puts it, anyway, there were survivors. And, nearly to a person, they said (after the war) that they hoped we’d bomb not just the railhead, but the “showers” and crematoria, right amid the camps. In those days before GPS and laser-guided bombs, a bombing raid leveled everything within miles of a target in a rolling cascade of destruction. And yet in account after account – Elie Wiesel’s is the most famous (“we didn’t fear death – at least, not that death”); other resports come to us from the Black Book of Nazi atrocities, from British Sergeant John Coward, an escaped POW who infiltrated Auschwitz and brought out intelligence and served as a witness at Nuremberg; from accounts related at the Holocaust Museum – a shocking number of inmates reported that they’d have preferred a death from an Allied bomb, if the same raid took out the gas chambers and crematoria, to what they knew probably awaited them.

And it’s completely irrelevant, because it’s not what Bush was talking about. At our remove from the events – 62 years after Auschwitz was liberated – it should be fairly obvious to the thinking sentient person that Bush was talking about the larger concept of Roosevelt bombing the Auschwitz/Birkenau complex, as opposed to weighing operational options in preparation for setting up an Air Targeting Order.

Bush wasn’t sending targets to the Air Force; he was apologizing in effect for President Roosevelt’s inaction on the camps.
Speaking of “thinking people”, Mr. Cowboy tries to put a “thinking guy” costume on…

A true thinking man, the kind that really has wisdom, might have opined that the bombing of the roads and supply lines surrounding the camp would’ve been a great way to start.

Which was, indeed, what the President was saying.

Would it have stopped the killing? Definitely not. And neither would have Bush’s vision of bombing the whole thing.

Which is, of course, a scabrous lie… .

But the former could’ve netted more survivors. Sure, it’s speculation..

…the sort of ghoulish monday-morning quarterbacking that would get a guy kicked out of Source Games on Warhammer night for being “too weird”.
Also, ignorant as hell. At the Holocaust Museum, and in the many books written about Franklin Roosevelt’s policies on the extermination camps, you can see letters from Jewish leaders fairly begging FDR to bomb the camps, regardless of the loss of life among the inmates, to prevent further, future industrial murders.

Ghoulish, horrible stuff, the stuff of Sophie’s Choice come to real life, the notion of sacrificing hundreds or thousands of ones’ fellows and coreligionists to save hundreds of thousands more.

But speculation requires a reflective thought process and reasoning. All you have to do is watch any Bush presser footage to know, unequivocally, that he does not possess skill one.

Well, let’s be fair, Mr. Cowboy; you had your mind made up about that a long time ago, didn’t you?

President Bush had tears in his eyes during an hour-long tour of Israel’s Holocaust memorial Friday

Let me know when the press orgy begins about Bush showing weak emotion.

“Weak emotion?”

Mr. Cowboy. You greasy little f*ckstick and wannabe Vulcan. I dare you to visit the Holocaust Museum, or Yad Vashem, and not come away emotionally wracked. I’m as dour and Scandinavian as they come, and by the time I got to the third floor of the Holocaust Memorial, I was biting my lip bloody. Many people – many in yarmulkes, many not – wept openly at the horror of what they saw. Some – my stepson was one – had to drop out of the tour. It’s just too much.

And any of them, from the President on down to the every visitor that takes the horror related at the Museum or Yad Vashem in, is a better person than you.

And I’ll tell you in person.

Jeff Kouba’s piece on the upside of McCain this morning prompted me to drag out a bit I did – very obliquely – on the NARN show last weekend.

Going through my short list based on the principles that matter. 

There are two lists of those principles that I like:  Hugh Hewitt’s, and the one we use over at True North.

Hugh’s list:

• Win the war.
• Confirm the judges.
• Cut the taxes.
• Control the spending.
• Secure the border.

The True North list:

• Liberty
• Security
• Prosperity
• Culture
• Limited Government
• Family

For the sake of “brevity”, let’s consolidate these two lists into one.  For argument’s sake, and with apologies to Hugh Hewitt, I’ll mash ’em together like this:

• “Win the war” and “Secure the Border” are both narrow applications of “Security”
• “Confirm the judges” and part of “Cut the taxes” fit under “Limited Government”
• “Controlling the spending”, along with  “Cutting the taxes”, fits under “Prosperity”.
• Liberty
• Culture
• Family

So let’s go through ’em one at a time, candidate by candidate:

Limited Government

• Romney – Although being governor of Massachussetts means he’s never had to really prove it, I think Mitt makes all the right noises.  When Ed and I interviewed him last summer, he at least talked the talk – and he was a CEO’s faith in private enterprise that I think will serve us all well.  Grade: A
• Giuliani – On the one hand, anyone who can face down New York’s public employees’ unions deserves some points.  He has been as strict a limiter of government as anyone on the parade of candidates.  Of course, he broke a few eggs to make the omelet that is New York, so I’m going to dock him half a point  Grade: Tough one.  Call him a A-. 
• McCain – He’s always made most of the right noises here – except, of course, for McCain-Feingold.  And while Thorley Winston is right – the BCRA is hardly alone among things we’re all willing to forgive an otherwise-better-than-the-alternative candidate for, now is the time to make our displeasure known.  Grade: B
• Thompson – Says the right things, but I dock a point for both McCain-Feingold and for never really having had to prove it.  Grade: B.
• Huckabee – Bad nannystater.  No donut.  Grade: C.
• Ron Paul – Well, he certainly qualifies here.  Grade: A
• Hillary – Please.  I’ll give her a point back if only because she might have a shred of DLC left in her pedigree – and it’s a gift, at that.   Grade: D
• Obama: He’s got a program for everything.  Grade: F 

Prosperity

• Romney – Probably the best, most untrammelled free-enterpriser in the bunch.  Grade: A
• Giuliani – On the other hand, anyone who could create the New York of today out of the New York of the Dinkins era has got something going for him.  Whatever Rudy’s other faults, I think he’s close enough to fiscal conservative to score.  Grade: A
• McCain – I worry about his take on tax cuts; they would seem to be the biggest blemish on JMac’s pedigree.  Grade: A-
• Thompson – Makes the right noises, again.  Docked a minus for having never had to deliver on those noises.  Grade: A-
• Huckabee – Nannystatist.  Grade: C
• Ron Paul – While I’m a small-l, free-market libertarian, burying one’s head in the sand and failing to recognize that government has a role – positive and negative – in prosperity is not what I want in a president.  Grade: B-
• Hillary – Not as stupid as the liberals would like her to be, but would certainly reprise her husband’s tax-jacking practices.  Grade: D-
• Obama – A program for everything and everyone.  Grade: F+

Liberty

• Romney – Can’t seem to find any major problems with Mitt.  Grade: A
• Giuliani – Docked a point for his stances on gun control.  Grade: B
• McCain – Docked a point for BCRA. Gets a plus back for having a lifetime “A” from the NRA Grade: B+
• Thompson – Again – says the right things.  Grade: A
• Huckabee – I can’t find a reason, off-hand, to disparage him here.  Grade: A
• Ron Paul – Well, if a Libertarian can’t score points on liberty, what’s he good for?  Grade: A
• Hillary – The Fairness Doctrine.  ’nuff said.  Also, would revert to her husband’s awful policies on gun control. Grade: F-
• Obama – Relentlessly anti-gun; led the Senate in gun-control efforts.  Supports campaign finance reform.  No position against the “Fairness Doctrine”.  Grade: F- 

Culture

• Romney – Relentless proponent and role model for personal responsibility: Grade: A
• Giuliani – Let’s invoke the Clinton doctrine here; what a guy does in his personal life isn’t the public’s business.  Move On, people.  Rudy kicked the Mafia’s ass, got New York’s welfare recipients to work, and put a gag on at least parts of the entitlement culture.  Imperfect, but damn good about the parts that matter most to me.  Grade: A
• McCain – Our culture would benefit greatly by being led by a genuine hero.  Grade: A.
• Thompson – Our culture would benefit greatly by being led by a genuine conservative.  Grade: A.
• Huckabee – Our culture would benefit greatly by being led by a genuine Christian.  However, I dock him a bit because of the focus of his single-issue supporters.  Grade: A-
• Ron Paul – Our culture would benefit greatly by Ron Paul staying in Congress and serving as a gadfly.  Grade: D.
• Hillary – “Stagflation” was the great historical paradox of the seventies.  “The Authoritarian Libertine” would be the paradox of a hypothetical Hillary! era.  Would destroy Western civilization  Grade: G.
• Obama – Docked many, many points for being a nanny-state ultraliberal.  Gets one back for at least repudiating the Clinton Machine’s politics of destruction.  Grade: D+

Family

• Romney – If the Mormons have one thing going for them, it’s their focus on families.  Grade: A
• Giuliani – If he holds to his promise to appoint constructionist judges, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.  Suspect he’d not repudiate the Department of Education.  Grade: B.
• McCain – I dock him half a point for being less-than-enthusiastic about reforming education Grade: A-
• Thompson – I think he’s making all the right noises, again.  Grade: A
• Huckabee – Oh, what the heck: Grade: A
• Ron Paul – For his stance on schools, alone, I say Grade: A
• Hillary – The paradoxical support of both Hollywood and the Teacher’s Unions and NOW is dispositive, here.  Grade: F
• Obama – Like Hillary, only less oppressive.  Grade: D-

Security – This is, of course, the make-or-break issue for me.  Given that this is wartime, I will give it extra weight in the final grading.

• Romney – Right noises, but no experience.  The Olympics were impressive; they are not a war.  Grade: B-.
• Giuliani – Says the right things.  Has the right experience.  Grade: A.
• McCain – Rock solid.  Grade: A.
• Thompson – A solid defense conservative.  Docked a point for being a Senator rather than an executive; gets half a point back for having been the best DA in the history of Law and Order.  Grade: A-.
• Huckabee – Are you inexperienced?  Yes, and not convincing even by that standard.  Grade: C.
• Ron Paul – The second-biggest reason I left the Big-L Libertarian Party was their myopia about defense.  Defense does not start at the border.  Even the paladin of the Libertarians, Thomas Jefferson, realized this, and built a standing Navy and Marine Corps to project American  power and protect our interests overseas. Grade: D.
• Hillary – Not as dumb as the opposition, although her husband’s record in dealing with the military counts against her, as does her relentless triangulation.  Grade: D+
• Obama – All of Huckabee’s inexperience, none of the wisdom.  Grade: F.

Final Scores – Of course, the exercise only really helps if it shows any differentiation.  Well, there is, but not in a way that helps me narrow my own choices.

Below, I calculate each candidate’s “Grade point average” based on the grades I issued above.  I gave Security extra weight in the grading, since it is by far the most important issue.

• Romney – Very strong B+ (3.46), hampered by lack of foreign policy and defense experience.
• Giuliani – An A- (3.53); could gain a few points back on civil liberties, maybe, assuming he puts some meat to the bones of his promise to appoint constructionist judges.
• McCain – Squeaks into A- (3.53), tied with Rudy based largely on security.
• Thompson – Very nearly a dead heat with JMac and Rudy (3.57) for an A-.
• Huckabee – Weak B- or strong C+ (2.74)
• Ron Paul – I call him a C+ (2.61), largely based on having a security position that’d pass muster with the Daily Kos.
• Hillary – Squeaks into D- territory by the skin on her teeth (.51), largely based on at least being able to fake being tough on security.
• Obama – F+ (.3).

Well, I know who I won’t vote for, anyway.

…who’ll rescue Bank of America?

So I was reading this week-old op-ed by Vince Beiser in the Strib, about the arc the Death Penalty has had in this country over the past forty or so years.

Beiser notes that the Death Penalty withered away on its own, for a while; indeed, in 1968 there were no executions in the US.  The Supreme Court stopped executions in 1972.

And then…:

But just a few years later, the nation began an astonishing about-face. The Supreme Court reopened the door to capital punishment in 1976, launching an era in which the country didn’t just bring back the death penalty, it feverishly embraced it…What happened? By the mid-1970s, much of middle America was deeply uneasy about how the very fabric of society seemed to be unraveling. Drug use and crime were rising; minorities, women and homosexuals were demanding more power and respect. And the mighty United States was humiliated, first in Vietnam and later by Iranian hostage-takers.

In this milieu, politicians increasingly learned that crime could pay — for them.

Shocking – a political expedient being embraced by petty politicians.

And yet, starting a few years later, the United States took some political prozac, got out of its national funk and, today, 25 years later, are doing pretty well; compared to the rot and malaise of the 70’s, the misery of the pre-Reagan years I remember growing up, we’re doing fantastic.  And crime – media hype aside – dropped.
And now…:

Today, however, the nation is again losing its enthusiasm for capital punishment…Although about two-thirds of all Americans still support capital punishment in principle, that number is considerably lower than what it was just five years ago. In practice, we’re ever more reluctant to impose it. That’s largely because of the more than 100 men and women who have been freed from death row in recent years, thanks to DNA testing and other advances. That shocking proof of the system’s fallibility also has made juries, judges, prosecutors and politicians much more wary about pushing for the ultimate punishment.

Correlation does not equal causation, of course – but it’s interesting to note that peaks in capital punishment seem to be associated with troughs in national self-image, and vice versa.  During the Depression, Death Rows were humming; during the long post WWII boom, they slowed way down and, 23 years after the war as the US was on the way to the moon, stopped.  During the aftermath of Watergate, stagflation, Iran and the other detritus of the Carter meltdown, it boomed again.  And now – troubled as we are, but still generally in a good national mood (compared with the nadir we endured 30 years ago) – it seems to be going out of fashion.

The ingredients for a resurgence seem to be out there, though:

According to Amnesty International, 133 countries have abolished the death penalty. Last month, the United Nations voted for a worldwide moratorium on capital punishment.

And since we have a depressingly-likely shot at getting an overly UN-influenced government in place in Washington in November, the national self-image will peak and start back toward the trough by mid-2009.

My other neighbor, Peter, went on a mission the other day:

Last Thursday, I got to thinking that it might be fun to watch the Iowa returns with some other political junkies in a bar or coffee shop. Mind you, I’m not so addicted to politics that I thought up this idea myself. I read about a caucus watching party at SLOG, the blog of Seattle’s alt weekly, The Stranger.

Could I find a caucus watching party in the Twin Cities?

I wondered about that myself.  I’ve never heard of such a thing.

And I’m not alone…

I took a look at the City Pages blog, The Blotter, but there was no mention of any caucus watching party. Heck, there wasn’t a single mention of the Iowa caucus. Meanwhile, on SLOG, the Stranger was offering regular updates from the reporter they dispatched to Iowa and the former intern who was now attending college there.

So I Googled the following: Minneapolis Iowa caucus watching party.

I found one — from four years ago.

 And I’m gonna bet it was a bunch of those “Drinking Liberally” people. 

Okay, so maybe this stuff doesn’t get to Google. I tried Seattle Iowa caucus watching party. Four decent hits, including the SLOG post.

Damn. I’m living in the wrong city.

Or we need to throw a party on Super Tuesday.

After I get done at my caucuses, if you please…

Malkin: Mexican military, cops routinely cross the border to aid drug and human traffickers:

fiscal year 2006 alone, there were 29 confirmed incidents along the U.S.- Mexican border involving Mexican military and/or law enforcement personnel, 17 of which involved armed Mexican government agents. Moreover, between 1996 and September 30, 2006, there were 253 confirmed incursions into the United States by Mexican government personnel.

The recipe for the border, once again for those who weren’t paying attention for the past thirty years:  a high fence.  Wide, well-lit gates with instructions in all the world’s languages on how to get in legally (and learn English) posted prominently, to welcome those who come legally.  But not without the high fence.

I’m all for privacy – as in, “more than you”, whomever you are (and that means you too, Chuck Samuelson). As someone whose free speech Hillary Clinton has in her cross-hairs, I’m obviously a First-Amendment advocate (and the rest of the Bill of Rights as well). And I’m a pretty forthright critic of the public school system.

But I still would like to see these kids tossed out on their ears

Thirteen Eden Prairie High students who were pictured drinking online face penalties. Some students are planning a walkout after first period this morning, and they’re promoting the protest where the controversy began: on Facebook.com.

The walkout – as opposed to a job strike – has always struck me as the most gutless and snotty form of protest, in general. I don’t know who’s teaching these kids about rhetoric, civil disobedience and protest, but if it’s a teacher, the district should get its money back.

“‘Liberated’  Women voters seize the day” is the Times’ headline re Hillary!’s “upset” comeback in New Hampshire:

Yesterday she claimed to have “liberated” women politicians, after a campaign in which she revealed a previously unseen passion and personal empathy.

And how did she do that?

Mrs Clinton played down claims that her tearful appearance in a Portsmouth coffee shop on Monday had been the catalyst for the turnaround in a contest that Mr Obama had expected to win easily. Instead, aides said that a more personal and open approach had allowed voters to see the “real Hillary Clinton”.

See “Ron Brown’s Funeral“.

Hillary in Cthe last round of Democrat debates (emphasis added):

This is the toughest job in the world. I was laughing because you know in that debate, obviously Sen. Edwards and Sen. Obama were kind of in the buddy system on the stage. And I was thinking whoever’s up against the Republican nominee in the election debates come the fall is not gonna have a buddy to fall back on. You know, you’re all by yourself. When you’re president, you’re there all by yourself.

Yep.  All by yourself.  Nobody to whine about.

I’m fairly sure that Ahmadinejad, Chavez, Kim Jong-Il and Hamas operate in something of a “buddy system”, too, Hills.  What’s Katie Couric going to do for you there?

I’m not the only whom events are dragging into near-existential political conflict.

Kouba writes:

With Duncan Hunter out of the race, it surprises me to no end, given that a few months ago I wouldn’t have given him the time of day, I am all but prepared to declare myself a McCain supporter.

I’m not quite there yet; I’m still sorting out who’s on the short list.

• Reagan said if you agree with someone on 80% of issues, give him the benefit of the doubt on the other 20 and support him.  Giuliani comes in somewhere between 65% and 85%, depending on my mood. 
• So, as a matter of fact, does McCain.  Thorley’s excellent defense aside (we did forgive Bush for signing McCain-Feingold; I respond that now – rather than after the election – is the time to register that displeasure, and so I shall), McCain-Feingold is a problem, and I plan on raising it until such a time as JMac is the candidate, in the unlikely hope he repudiates it.
• Do I dock points because someone seems too slick, smooth and polished?  If not, Romney looks good.  But is he a wartime leader?  That’s the $64,000 question.
• Fred?  Fred?  Any ol’ time, here.
• The Hucker has one advantage; he’d be better than any Democrat.   It’s not enough to get him elected, of course.  He’s got all of Bush’s weak spots ($pending) and none of his strengths. 

On the other hand, I do love a horse race.

The legislative auditor – Jim Noble – has concluded after interviewing Mark Ritchie and several of his employees that he did not misuse his office in using public data for fund-raising emails.

• Secretary of State Mark Ritchie did not misuse state resources when he organized civic education events and collected contact information from the participants. The events were appropriate activities of the Secretary of State’s office, and the contact information fulfilled a public purpose.
• Secretary of State Mark Ritchie did not violate Minnesota law when he provided the contact information to his campaign since the information is “public data” under Minnesota law.

And apparently he’s just a little above the law…:

• Secretary of State Mark Ritchie did not fulfill his legal obligation to make a full and timely response to a request for information from the Legislative Auditor.

So.  That’s that.

As Michael notes, this might just be as much a victory for the notion of scrutiny as for Ritchie’s ethics.  And the Strib – as in-the-bag for the DFL as any official DFL organ – isn’t especially pleased with the Secretary of State, either.

But my favorite response is the always-apoplectic “Phoenix Woman” – AKA “Ms. Furious” – from Mercury Rising, who tries to spin the news as a win for Ritchie.  Note, Ms. Woman:  being proven not to be corrupt is something a good SoS might file under “damnation by faint praise”.

Oh, and when Ms. Woman “writes”:

It’s going to be awfully tough for Mitch Berg to accuse State Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles of being a DFL hack, since, as Charlie of Across the Great Divide reminds us, Mitch is already on record with the opposite opinion:

Fascinating bit of “logic”, since I never even thought about criticizing Mr. Nobles, and one didn’t have to go to Charlie Quimby to know that.

Which merely proves that if Phoenix Woman didn’t have that whole “purple-faced anonymous apoplectic ranting” thing going, she’d have precious little to write about at all.  On the other hand, straw men may be her only social circle.

All ya had to do was ask, toots.

Whether it’s this story – about a Polish couple that is divorce after meeting in a “client-to-provider” capacity in a brothel:

A Polish man got the shock of his life when he visited a brothel and spotted his wife among the establishment’s employees.

Polish tabloid Super Express said the woman had been making some extra money on the side while telling her husband she worked at a store in a nearby town.

 …or that Ed was able to seamlessly correlate it with Rupert Holmes’ “Pina Colada Song” (AKA “the day Satan conquered the Seventies”).

I’ll get back to y’all on that.

The “bad” news:  yesterday’s New Hampshire primary clarified nothing.

The good news:  yesterday’s New Hampshire primary clarified nothing.

On the right side, frankly, the fact that the GOP race is wilder and woolier than ever is a good thing; if I have anything to say about it, it’ll draw people out in droves on Super Tuesday, especially to the Minnesota caucuses.  For reasons I’ve elaborated before, I’m glad to see McCain resurging, although I’m nowhere close to deciding who I want as a candidate yet.
As to the Dem side – more of the same.  Much, much more.

With the almost-irrational hype over Obama this past few weeks. I was starting to wonder if Obama wasn’t close to re-capturing the woozy hype of the Kennedy clan – the style-and-appearance-over-substance delusions that impelled a generation of Americans to vote for a slate of hug toys.  An irrational America is an America that listens to the Doors and thinks Abby Hoffman is groovy and that Kathleen Soliah is a solid citizen.  So I’m deliriously happy to see that rumors of Hillary’s demise are premature, and her semi-trailer full of negatives is still solidly in the race.

…to indulge in schadenfreud, may I just briefly say ha ha ha ha ha, you bastards.

Thanks.

Iranian speedboats Mthreaten US Navy ships in the Gulf:

Video and audio recordings clearly show Iranian boats confronting U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf, and a voice speaking in heavily-accented English can be heard threatening that the American vessels were going to explode, military officials said Tuesday.

The incident, which President Bush denounced Tuesday as a “provocative act,” was videotaped by a crew member on the bridge of the destroyer USS Hopper, one of the three ships that faced down five Iranian boats in a flare-up early Sunday.

In related news, Moveon.org, Harry Reid and Nanci Pelosi declared the naval war in the Gulf “unwinnable”.

While I think the Huckabee train may have left the station for now, the frighteningly prolific Miss O’Hara sums up something I’ve been pondering for quite a while:

Christians of varying stripes support [Governor Huckabee] for no other reason than “he’s one of us”, an intellectually and spiritually neglectful position to take. Don’t tell me this isn’t happening; I’ve heard talk show caller after caller and read person after person saying, “We’re supporting the Christian!” Whoop-dee-doo. Thompson and Hunter are believers as well. So is Ron Paul. Mitt Romney may be Mormon and Rudy Giuliani may be Catholic, but I dare say they believe in Jesus too. I believe in Him. So do satan and his minions. Care to use Huckabee’s evangelicalism as your route to logic again?

Make no mistake about it; I’m a Christian.  So is most of this nation.  It stands to reason that I’d And I believe that being of faith is an important thing in a person; all other things being equal, I’d vote for a person of faith over an atheist. 

Of course, all other things are rarely equal.  Would I vote for a pro-growth, low-taxes, strict-constructionist, pro-defense Moslem over, say, Jimmy Carter?   Well, let’s burn that bridge when we come to it, shall we?

Too many believers are not thoughtful as the Bible admonishes us to be, but buy into anything proclaiming itself as faith-friendly hook, line, and sinker without ever stopping to consider what it is we’re aligning ourselves with.

Which is, unfortunately, what I see from a lot of “people of faith”.

Town ponders banning swearing in bars:

A St. Louis-area town is considering a bill that would ban swearing in bars, along with table-dancing, drinking contests and profane music. City officials contend the bill is needed to keep rowdy crowds under control because the historic downtown area gets a little too lively on some nights.

City Councilman Richard Veit says he was prompted to propose the bill after complaints about bad bar behaviour.

I’m wondering if there mightn’t be another problem – a “root cause”.  I’ve heard rumors of mood-altering drug.  It comes in liquid form, and is usually found in bottles or glasses.

No confirmation on this rumor, yet…

…I think it’s funny that the people who whinge the hardest when someone drops the “ic” from “Democratic”, alleging some Rovian conspiracy to insult Democraticicicics (as opposed to just not wanting to type the two extra letters)…

…are the same people who use the phrase “Swift-boating” to mean “character assassination”.  Ironically, at that.

Just saying.

That is all.

Note:  the first conservative candidate for whom I was ever genuinely active was Jack Kemp, back in 1988.  Kemp, along with Reagan, P.J. O’Rourke and Brett Schundler, is one of my lifetime heroes of conservatism.

GeeEmInEm notes:

Just days after I mourn the absence of a genuine pro-growth candidate in the GOP race, Jack Kemp comes out and endorses John McCain.

Snap.

While I take the endorsement as an article of faith, I take it nevertheless.

With this field, I’ll take what I can get.

Which, in my case, is “yet another reason to move JMac back onto my short list”.