The Cardinal Bar, on 38th Street just west of Hiawatha, has attained just a tad of hYpStR chic in recent years; half a block from the 38th Street Light Rail station, it’s become a stop on one of the recent traditions among dissipate twentysomethings with strong livers, the Light Rail Bar Crawl (where people start at the Mall of America, the light rail’s southern terminus, and ride up the line, hitting bars near the stops along the way, at Fort Snelling, the Cardinal, Lake, Franklin, Cedar-Riverside, and finally downtown).

But back in the day, when the Card was the closest cheap bar to my first apartment at 38th and Hiawatha, it was a place to go to get $.50 tappers and dollar burger baskets on Tuesday nights, to sit on a well-worn bar stool with a bunch of alcoholics and yap about the Vikings”.

Anyway, while many of us have fond (also hazy) memories of the place, apparently not everyone’s awash in nostalgia:

The third arson to hit a Minneapolis bar and grill this summer has prompted authorities to again search the south side neighborhood for culprits.

The most recent fire struck the Cardinal Bar and Restaurant, 2920 E. 38th St., just before 6 a.m. Saturday, when firefighters arrived to find flames outside an unused doorway to the bar along 38th Street. The fire was limited to the outside of the building and was put out in about five minutes, said Sgt. Sean McKenna of the Minneapolis Police Department’s arson squad.

If we assume his motive is anger at the hYpStR faddism that’s put the place on the map, then please, please Minneapolis PD; find them.

Before the arsonist turns his attention to the Turf Club.

And now, back to the issues.

“It’s the economy, stupid”

(silence)

“Hello, is this thing on?”

A continued and unpopular (but successful) war, high gas prices, increasing unemployment levels, weakness in wages and an economy on the brink of recession, Obama should be doing better than what was characterized on CNN last night as a “dead heat”.

Election history tells us however that Obama should be in the lead.

…and President George Bush’s popularity at near historic lows, even many Republicans thought this year would be a virtual cakewalk for the Democratic nominee.

A fall in real incomes in the months leading up to the election almost always leads to a loss for the party in power, pointed out Nigel Gault, head of North American macroeconomics for Global Insight, in a recent conference call with investors. “The incumbents tend to take the blame,” he said. “This should be an uphill battle for McCain.”

But on the eve of what Obama and the Democrats hope will be their own Rocky Mountain high, that’s not proving to be the case.

Obama has not been able to capitalize on the economic woes to build an electoral lead. “It’s an absolute mystery that Obama has not been able to exploit this issue more aggressively,”

It’s no mystery. The American people are beginning to see that Obama is a wee bit light on experience and accomplishment in any area let alone the economy, and what he does actually spell out is clearly going to be bad news for the economy

“If he is going to win, Obama will have to win on the economy,” says Thomas Riehle, a Democratic strategist and pollster

His lofty rhetoric—and focus on criticizing McCain and the Bush legacy—have yet to demonstrate convincingly to many of these struggling folks just exactly what he would do to turn the economy around.

Even some Democrats may not stomach the huge expense and vast complexity of Obama’s proposals.
This year that gap between promise and reality may be even larger than usual. “Whoever wins will face a big wake-up call as soon as the election is over,” says Daniel Clifton, head of Washington policy research for investment group Strategas Research Partners. “Many campaign promises will need to be scuttled.”

The 2009 economy will offer tough conditions for a President set on bold new policies. The next Administration will face anemic growth, sluggish employment, a housing downturn expected to continue at least through much of next year, and continued tight credit markets as the shakeout works its way through the financial sector.

The American people, also knowing this, may already be answering the question “Under these circumstances, who do you want in the White House?”

“McCain.”

Pelosi: Newest GOP ad “insults our intelligence”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came out swinging at the first official convention event on Sunday, calling John McCain “bankrupt” of ideas after Republicans unveiled a new ad questioning why Hillary Rodham Clinton is not on the Democratic ticket.

Actually that, the Biden (in his own words) video and the Converted Clinton Delegate video are pretty good stuff, and Obama’s handlers should have anticipated all of the above if in fact there is intelligence enough to be insulted.

But is it working?

(Two separate polls) show a substantial number of Hillary Clinton’s supporters are considering voting for a Republican president, rather than Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in November.

Speaking of insulting our intelligence (emphasis mine):

Pelosi warned that the ad is “a sign of things to come,” arguing that since Democrats have the upper hand on “kitchen table” issues like health care and the economy, the McCain campaign will be forced to resort to “diversionary tactics.”

McCain started this campaign rather deliberately but his team is reacting to opportunities rapidly now and with some success. So take a pill Nancy. You’re gonna’ need it.

Join AM1280 The Patriot and its galaxy of stars[1] with expanded local coverage at the Minnesota State Fair! 

Tonight – Ed Morrissey and I will be live at the Patriot’s posh new digs, on Dan Patch just inside the main (Snelling Avenue) gate, across from the DFL booth!  We’ll be on from 5-7PM.

This is gonna be fuuuuun!

Catch the show – on the air at AM1280 in the Metro, or streaming at AM1280’s Website, or via podcast at Townhall.

(more…)

Last week, I wrote about the left’s rather unimaginative reliance on “Gitmo” metaphors; it’s only gotten worse.  Last week, I was in the Dunn Brothers on Grand Avenue, across from Macalester College (a local far-lefty hotbed).  A rather aromatic twentysomething white boy with dreadlocks and a Che Guevara t-shirt tried to order free-range vegan Guatemalan coffee, but was told that they were out.  The barrista asked the lad if he could wait two minutes while another pot brewed.

“What is this – Guantanamo?” the be-che’d fellow fumed [1]

At any rate, in a comment to that post, someone said:

With the frequency of the Gitmo moniker thrown about to mis-label every perceived wrong against liberal causes, someone should coin a “Godwin’s law”-style statement.

While I do appreciate the idea and take the point, adding another law to the books is, as with most things in the civil arena, not really the answer.  “Godwin’s Law“, [“As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”] – is a bad one to mimic, since it (like the Nazi comparisons themselves) are most often invoked by people with feeble understanding at best of the history or issues involved, and tends to be used to squelch even the (rare) literate, appropriate comparisons.  The lower 80% of Godwin users tend to employ the law as a rhetorical Daisy Cutter, indiscrimimately mowing lines of conversation good and bad.  Inappropriate reference to Godwin can cause problems in some serious cases.  At one point, I even codified a corollary to Godwin: 

Berg’s Fifth Law of Historical Illiteracy – 99% of the invocations of Godwin’s Law are done by 1% of the online population. Corollary: That 1% understands .000001% of the history required for a literate invocation of Godwin’s Law.

I minored in both History and German; hence, I invoke Nazi references both very sparingly and, when I do, with surgical aptness.  And I get a little peeved when, after coming up  with a thorougly impeccable comparison, some commenter bleats “Godwin’s Law!  Godwin’s Law!” in a perfect duckspeak accent, not really knowing what they’d doing, but fatally hobbling the conversation anyway.

What we have, in summation, is two conflicting problems:

1. Ill-informed, hamfisted use of inflammatory metaphors (Naziism, Guantanamo)
2. Misuse of memes intended to nullify #1.

Being a conservative and free-marketeer (unlike too many Republicans), I believe I have a comprehensive, free-speech-enabled, market-based answer; a certification program that allows internet users to use these memes, while assuring the reader/consumer that the user is qualified and competent to use them. 

I propose the following certifications:

• Certified Godwin’s Lawyer (CGL): Bearer of this certification will have exhibited an ability to discern between apt and inapt Nazi analogies in the application of Godwin’s Law to online dialog.  Hopefully, as technology advances, blog posts, comments, podcasts and even Youtube videos written by non-CGL-credentialled users can be automatically filtered out.
• Registered Totalitarian Analogist (RTA): Registered Totalitarian Analogists have the necessary background in history, ethics and logic to appropriately and aptly employ Nazi, Communist, Maoist, Khmer Rouge, Klan and Fascism-related metaphors.  (NOTE:  Having used unironically, even once, the term “Bushitler” is a lifetime disqualification from this credential).
• Authorized Guantanamo Referrent (AGR): These Authorized Referrants will have sufficient background in current events, the law (especially the actual text of the Geneva Convention as re: combatants who are not members of a military or indigenous partisan group) to competently use “Guantamo” similes and metaphors.  Additionally, AGRs will at least be aware of the irony behind the term “International Law” when referring to it.

I did note that this was a market solution.  I am the market.  To get your CGL, RTA or AGR, send $10 to my PayPal account.  (Limited time offer: all three for $25!).

Thank you.  That is all.

[1] The quote, like the story, is “fake but accurate.”

News that a well-managed campaign drops between 5PM Friday and noon Sunday:

1. The campaign’s finance manager has skipped out to Brazil with six months of campaign contributions.
2. Your poll numbers have dropped so far you have to switch to the Kelvin scale. 
3. The candidate has been caught in bed with a sixteen-year-old prostitute.

News a well-managed, confident, in-control campaign does not  run between 5PM Friday and noon Sunday:

1. Ones’ Vice President pick.

Submitted without comment.

So why did “The One” wait until after 3AM on a Saturday morning to announce The Pick?

My suspicions:

1. Evan Bayh turned him down on Tuesday.
2. Bill Richardson told him on Wedesday he planned to wash his hair between 2008 and 2012.
3. Katie Sibelius dodge the phone call, and finally sent a one-line email begging off around dinner-time on Thursday.
4. Hillary Clinton laughed and hung up her phone without an answer on Friday around noon.
5. Biden accepted by late evening, allowing the message to go out around 3AM.
6. The campaign was reserving Sunday at 3AM in case Biden begged off, and they had to announce Robert Byrd as the Veep choice.

I could be wrong, of course.

As most of you know, I’m a big supporter of charter schools.  They provide parental choice and, at the good operations, direct accountability to parents that you can not get in a public school district (outside of a small town with a tiny school – the kinds of places the education establishment is trying hard to close down and consolidate). 

The DFL hates them, of course, because – well, because they provide choice and accountability.  They tried to kill the charter school movement in its cradle, and then in March of 2007 tried again to cap the number of charter schools in Minnesota. 

Critics of charter schools – usually DFL apparatchiks like Nick Coleman, or media outlets that are basically flaks for the left – snipe at charter schools constantly.  “What about the lack of oversight”, they bleat, or they wonder about the charter schools that fail due to financial mismanagement (never asking the question “how many public schools would succeed if they had to operate on 3/4 of their money and mind their own books?”).

So with all that said, this story here is a kick in the teeth; Joel Pourier, director of the “Heart of the Earth” charter school in Minneapolis, is under investigation, for gross mismanagement at best, embezzlement at worst:

The school, founded by the American Indian Movement in the 1970s to provide a nurturing environment for American Indian students, faces closure because of its damaged finances.

Poor financial oversight has been the downfall of a number of charter schools in Minnesota and across the country. But Eugene Piccolo, executive director of the Minnesota Association of Charter Schools, said the Heart of the Earth situation is one of the worst cases of mismanagement he has seen.

People close to the 220-student school say they didn’t know just how bad things were getting until the director was suspected of embezzlement.

Bear in mind that Native American students – a big minority in Minneapolis, especially in the area around HOTE on East Lake Street – are, like most economically disadvantaged minority students, served worse than most by Minneapolis’ public system.  And it’s the economically-disadvantaged-but-still-aware minority parents that are leaving the public school systems the fastest, both in Minneapolis and Saint Paul; parents who can’t afford private school, but want better for their kids than the public system offers.

Into this mess can step the occasional (alleged) charlatan:

Pourier was hired six years ago as finance director, to pull Heart of the Earth out of debt. Principal Darlene Leiding had worked with him at another charter school where he was an unlicensed math teacher. He told her that he had an MBA with an emphasis in finance. The school survived and Pourier was later named executive director.

But trouble came to light in a June 30 audit for the 2006-07 school year. The audit, six months late, noted that the school failed to implement a balanced budget and lost more than $78,000 for failing to provide accurate information to state and federal authorities. In addition, more than $160,000 in expenses were unexplained.

That same audit noted that Pourier had unfettered power to pay school bills. Leiding said she reviewed bank records and found multiple checks that Pourier wrote to himself, without a second signature. Many of those checks are at the heart of the investigation.

Of course, Pourier has not yet been charged.  It’s possible he won’t be.  And it’s almost pro forma to say “here’s hoping he gets charged and punished to the limits of the law, and sued back to the Stone Age to boot”. 

Of course, the real problem is this:  behind each of those 220 students are parents who cared enough about their kids’ education to get them the hell out of the Minneapolis system – but who didn’t know enough about bookkeeping to find a (alleged) fraud. 

Where do they go? 

…to Col. Repya:

Our 14 year old Labrador Retriever “Bear” lost his battle with cancer and died. He was an excellent hunting dog but more importantly, he was a loyal and dear friend. For those of you who have lost a family pet you know the sadness we feel today.

Joe talked often about Bear; how he watched over Mrs. Col. Repya when Joe was in Iraq a few years back, what a great dog he was, the whole nine yards.

All the best, Joe.

McCain/Clinton ’08

It would do a couple things:

1) Crush Obama/Biden by stealing half of Obama’s base

2) and picking up almost all the women (figure of speech)

3) Remove a liberal from the Senate (although most likely to be replaced by another)

4) Force congress to reach across the isle (?)

It’s better than McCain/Lieberman (hopefully that never had a chance) and even Hillary in the White House is far better than Obama/Blowhard Biden.

Okay. The moment’s up. As you were.

…staring at my cell phone, waiting for The Text from The One, I was thinking “Mitch?  You know that the one area where “Barack”, as his friends call him, is vulnerable is among hard-core establishment liberals from the northeast.  If only “Barack” could shore up his support among white, upper-middle-to-upper-class northeastern liberals, he’d really become a strong “buy”. 

And then The Phone beeped.

It was a special offer from my cell phone provider.  I erased it.

And then The Phone beeped again.  It was The Text from The One, with The Choice!

“Wow“, I thought, “that was weird.  But what a choice!  “Barack” could have chosen Evan Bayh, to appeal to the more-moderate midwestern vote, the Hillaristas, where he’s traditionally a tad weaker.  Or he could have chosen Bill Richardson, and actually brought some common sense to the ticket.”

“But he picked Biden – and by doing so, he not only shored up his Northeastern Urban Institutional Liberal vote, but he also added “foreign policy experience”, because Joe Biden forty-odd years in the Senate where has been utterly wrong on every foreign policy issue from the Cold War on down“. 

I nodded my head, satisfied.

And then I pressed The Button to erase The Message.

The Next Bailout: Detroit

First came Bear Stearns, then mortgage lenders and borrowers, followed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: They’ve all looked to Uncle Sam for a bailout, and now the word around Washington is that Detroit will be next on the taxpayer supplicant list.

Bear Stearns wasn’t a bailout. It was a buy out, orchestrated by the government to protect our nations financial infrastructure.

Detroit’s political calculation is plain: Having seen the way Washington has bowed to rescue the mortgage industry and Wall Street, why shouldn’t auto makers give it a try? Michigan is up for grabs in the election, so now is the time to strike with a goal of getting the Bush Administration and both Presidential candidates to agree.

Many of us have already done our part. I own two American cars, both rare examples of exceptional design and appeal. A Chevy Suburban and a Chrysler 300C, both with advanced safety features and cylinder-deactivation technologies that allow for fuel efficiency that belies their size and utility.

None of us should be expected to pay to allow Detroit to play. Our American automakers, as much as most consumers would hate to see them fail, deserve their fate. Our political integrity (I know – that’s an oxymoron) should not be allowed to be held hostage.

They are not victims of the fear and economic conditions brought on by an act of terrorism like the airlines.

They are not critical to our financial system as our major banking and mortgage institutions are.

They are public (most of the time – Cerberus-owned Chrysler a current exception) companies that operate in a free (albeit heavily regulated) market.

While they may have been severely impacted by a spike in fuel prices and a concurrent (and resultant) recession, they are not victims of it.

The car makers can also claim with justification to have been hurt as badly as anyone by Washington’s policy blunders. The weak dollar has contributed to the spike in oil prices that has socked their most profitable vehicles. And the nonsensical way that fuel-economy standards force Detroit to subsidize cars that consumers won’t buy has helped put the Big Three in this hole.

Over the last two decades or so, the vehicles with the highest sales numbers have been either a four door family sedan or a pickup truck. The Big Three have dominated one and consistently ignored the other.

Auto industry publications have been imploring the “Big Three” to be competitive in the family sedan segment for decades while the Japanese, primarily with the Camry and Accord, have almost completely poached the market. Market trends have driven fuel economy for decades as well and the Big Three have ignored the signs. I don’t begrudge them the success they have had in the light truck and SUV segment – but at the same time ignoring the rest of the market has for years left them vulnerable to the inevitable day that gas prices would adjust for inflation, let alone represent a crisis as demand has outstripped supply. 

Americans won’t buy the cars that the Big Three have had to subsidize because the product, until only relatively recently, has lacked quality and appeal. When Honda and Toyota build factories in America to build the cars that GM, Ford and Chrysler claim aren’t profitable, their argument falls apart.

There also happens to be a thriving U.S. auto industry outside of Michigan. These plants are owned by foreign companies, but they employ 92,000 Americans and build and sell cars here. Tens of thousands of their shareholders are Americans.

Certainly the UAW shares a large share of the blame. Their myopic strategy of bleeding their host to death, ignoring market conditions and grossly over-valuing their collective services have forced the Big Three to cut content and engineering to compete on price with the Japanese. The result is a widening of the already formidable gap in quality further undermining consumer goodwill and forcing American domestic brand loyalty beyond its limits. In the end the UAW will be left holding the bag.

A bailout at this point is a really bad idea. First of all, it’s been done before – at least once. The result? The Chrysler minivan which simultaneously saved Chrysler and emasculated millions of American males.

More importantly, our long standing economic dominance in the world is predicated on the fact that capital and talent is free to find it’s highest and best use. Pouring billions of capital into a national bailout is exactly the wrong move, evidenced by the extended Japanese recession not all that many years ago. Good money was sent after bad. Capital became scarce. Failed business models and management teams were kept on life support rather than being forced to retool and reinvent.

Regardless of where and why these federal bailouts started, American taxpayers can’t save everyone. The only way to stop this parade of supplicants is to start saying no — and Detroit is as good a place as any.

The Northern Alliance Radio Network will be doing its entire lineup live at the Minnesota State Fair for the fifth straight season!

• Volume I “The First Team” –Brian, Chad and John kick off from 11-1.
• Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed and I hold forth from 1-3.  Whatever we talk about – fundraising, the convention, yadda yadda – will be done at top volume over the traditional 2PM parade.
• Volume III, “The Final Word” – King and Michael will be dishing the Minnesota smack from 3-5.

Check out our new digs, on Dan Patch just inside the front gate of the fair (off Snelling at Midway Parkway), across the street from the DFL booth (heh heh).   Catch the show – on the air at AM1280 in the Metro, or streaming at AM1280’s Website, or via podcast at Townhall.

And don’t forget the David Strom Show, with David Strom and Margaret Martin, from 9-11!

If there’s one thing I’m looking forward to having past us this political season, it is the leftymedia’s relentless comparison of every inconvenience thrown in the way of people who break the law en masse at the Denver and Saint Paul conventions as some sort of “Guantanamo” or another.

Pan over to David Brauer, doing his best to delegitimize regional law enforcement in a hack-job entitled “Gitmo on the Mississippi?”

Fox9’s Tom Lyden has a look at the St. Paul parking garage where Republican National Convention misdemeanor arrestees will be held.

Well, an exterior look anyway; officials wouldn’t let Lyden inside. Fox9’s camera shows a new air-conditioning unit and ductwork at the ramp’s street level.

I’d like to ask Brauer to put aside his tut-tutting for a moment to ask – what do he and the rest of this city’s bleeding hearts propose the city do with people who break the law, after over a year of committing to break the law?  Put them up at the Saint Paul Hotel until room opens up at the Ramco Jail?

Perhaps with a mint on their pillow?

Convention-site holding facilities have become an extremely hot topic since a Denver warehouse’s chain-link-laden…

wait for it……..wait for it……..

… “Gitmo on the Platte” was revealed.

Lyden says the garage is underneath the Ramsey County Emergency Operations Center. In the report, he notes, “If all goes well, those who have identification on them will be in and out with a ticket within four hours.”

So, bleeding hearts – where should they be held?  Or should the cops justs not arrest anyone at all, no matter what they do?

My original suggestion was to hold ’em in a couple of barges down by the Lafayette Bridge.  But if an underground garage isn’t good enough for them, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of volunteers to jam them, tokyo subway-style, into the existing holding cells.

Seriously, bleeding hearts – do you have an actual suggestion (beyond cutesy renamings?)  Or is deligitimizing law enforcement your only goal?

Discuss.

WOOOT!  MPR released a poll showing that Al Franken has pulled even with Senator Norm Coleman!

This is huge news! Why, even MNPublius’ kept Frankenblogger Aaron Landry says so!

…It boils down to this: some people have a strange impression that Franken’s campaign isn’t doing as well as it should, it is comparatively getting a ton of bad press and that Franken doesn’t own on the issues. It’s basically what you’d think if you used right-wing talking points to get your news.

We’ll come back to the “talking point” bit in a moment here…

…but first, let’s get to the bottom of what would seem, according to the MPR poll, to be a return from the dead for Franken.  I searched in vain in the MPR story for the set-up numbers – who they actually polled. 

Swiftee, over at MDE, would seem to have heard the answer:

it was revealed that in the MPR-HHH poll released today, which revealed a stastical tie, 59% of the respondents identified themselves as Democrats, and 39% identified themselves as Republicans.

In other words, the poll started with a 3:2 advantage for Franken before the tabulation even ran – and he still could only manage a tie!

It seems like more and more people are actually realizing that Franken is solid on the issues, especially as Franken has been continually touring the state talking about them.

Still waiting to hear what Franken’s “issues” are. 

As for negative press, Franken is only getting prodded on non-issues. 

Actually, while I don’t care about his career as a freelance writer or comic, I think the fact that Franken has nothing by which to judge him except his writing career, a couple of relentlessly smug “political” books and a failed talk show would make a sentient voter a little hinky about Al.

As most of the polls seem to be showing.

UPDATE:  My neighbor Flash seems to have replaced the beer in his kegerator with Koolaid.

First off, what movie is that quote from? Anyone?

Hillary gets stiffed

Wow. Obama may not be showing the best judgment here.

Does he underestimate the Clinton Empire? Does he not anticipate the shiver that will fall across the stage when Billary enjoins the festivities at the convention? Does he not need Hillary’s voters in what is now a margin-of-error race?

Obama could have at least vetted Hillary, even as a gesture. Now “a Democratic official” is reigniting the scorn of millions of liberal female voters.

What will this do for pantsuit sales?

How would you like to be Bill Clinton comin’ home to the little missus tonight?

The Convention might look like a WWE smackdown.

Join AM1280 The Patriot and its galaxy of stars[1] with expanded local coverage at the Minnesota State Fair! 

Tonight – King Banaian and Michael Brodkorb from NARNIII “The Final Word” will be live at the Patriot’s posh new digs, on Dan Patch just inside the main (Snelling Avenue) gate, across from the DFL booth!  They’ll be on the air from 5-7PM.

This is gonna be fuuuuun!

Catch the show – on the air at AM1280 in the Metro, or streaming at AM1280’s Website, or via podcast at Townhall.

(more…)

With the two respective party’s conventions nearly upon us, I found myself reflecting on the candidates as ostensibly one will be our next President, for better or for worse.

One is running on a platform of leadership and experience; the other: hope and change.

I must admit, the concept of change is alluring. Not to steal a line from Obama’s script, but I think we can all agree that a change from politics as usual would be nice in our near future and will ultimately be required (read forced) soon enough.

The blockbuster Term Limits, our own homegrown Vince Flynn’s first political thriller stories an operative and his father who conspire to cleanse our national government of the dead weight of perennial politicians…by murdering them systematically.

So apparently change has a ring to it when you think about all the things gone wrong with our government.

Change certainly resonates with Obama’s base. Liberals are always angry, the government perpetually the object of their ire while simultaneously the savior to their plight.

But let’s be clear on one thing. Neither candidate represents change.

No longer are the days that having a Republican in office forebodes fiscal restraint (although having a Democrat in office with a Democratically-controlled Congress all but guarantees a fiscal free-for-all).

Furthermore, if one man could bring change, it isn’t the President of the United States. McCain is no more a Ronald Regan than Obama is a John F. Kennedy.

Right now McCain and Obama are trying to associate each other with various unsavory characters, the ilk that have weaved their way through the lives of most every politician so it isn’t hard to do. They are deriding each other for not knowing how many homes one owns or for not knowing how many states there are in America. Obama is accusing McCain of being wealthy when really it’s only relative. McCain should be a lot wealthier. As well all know by now – he’s a lot older.

In the end, who knows how much any of this will matter. It reminds of the old advertising mantra: “We know that half of our spending on advertising is wasted. We just don’t know which half.”

The only thing novel about Obama’s candidacy is the color of his skin. While that shouldn’t be a factor in a modern and civil society, it most certainly is for some. Other than that, the more I read about Obama in the media that is self-admittedly skewed in his favor, the more I realize that Obama is no less marked by political avarice than anyone that has come before him.

Unless you consider Change a life spent perfecting the art of mass persuasion, the likes of which hasn’t been seen in recent history, Obama represents no more a Change than McCain. However, while most great leaders possess charisma, charisma doesn’t guarantee leadership. In fact, charisma without leadership and integrity is dangerous and that already represents a concern among Obama’s less committed supporters.

As it stands, Obama’s groupies won’t be swayed my McCain’s TV ads any more than McCain’s core will be by Obama’s. The meaty middle is the battleground. Nader will grab some. But the rest will decide in the next few weeks, even at the last moment, or maybe just as likely, stay home and watch TV, go for a walk or read a story to their kids.

The irony: we have two candidates, one with undeniable charisma and questionable leadership and one with undeniable leadership and questionable charisma. The election might pivot on this very point.

There has been much talk of a certain dissatisfaction with both candidates. Voters seem to want to give them back and get two new ones from the dealer.

Given that scenario, those voters who do show up may find themselves (and there is no better way to say this than the cliche) choosing the lesser of two evils.

They will choose the candidate that represents the least risk to their sensibilities. That, in my mind, is why the polls are leveling off, and why in the end I John McCain will have the advantage.

I can see all sorts of great arguments in favor of lowering the drinking age to 18:  if a kid can join the military and drive a submarine or operate a cannon, they should be able to get a beer.  If someone is deemed responsible enough to sign a contract, vote, have paternity enforced or be charged as an adult, they’re old enough to drink.

As MLP notes, quite correctly, over at Casual Sundays, none of those are the reasons the university presidents are talking about pushing for a lower age:

Instead of arguing for American’s rights, and against the over reach of the federal government which put the current legal drinking age in place– raise the age in your state or we’ll cut off your federal highway funds– in what universe is that not blackmail?–they are using the nanny-state-non-argument that lowering the age will cut down on binge drinking.

No it won’t.

Kids don’t binge drink because the legal limit is 21, they do it because they are morons.  Isn’t alcohol poisoning Darwinism at it’s best?

Why is it that some people (by “some people” I mean liberals), instead of reaching for a rock solid, Constitutional truth, would rather grab at the fluffy, gossamer of ‘we’re only doing it for your own good’ ?

What’s really going on here is not a push for the liberty of  American adults but a bunch of college administrator’s who are trying to preserve as much of the nanny state as possible while avoiding the necessity of answering uncomfortable questions when their students die of stupidity.

Why yes – do read the whole thing.

Q:  What do you call Dan Quayle if he’s black?

A: Barack Obama.  From Hinderaker:

Barack Obama without a teleprompter is an accident waiting to happen. Sometimes he reveals his ignorance of history, sometimes he stumbles incoherently, and sometimes he blurts out what he really believes. That’s what happened today when Obama tried to talk about Georgia, a topic that has embarrassed him more than once already, beginning when, in the first hours after the invasion, he parroted the Russian line.

Today Obama equated Russia’s invasion of Georgia with our toppling of Saddam Hussein:

Democrat Barack Obama scolded Russia again on Wednesday for invading another country’s sovereign territory while adding a new twist: the United States, he said, should set a better example on that front, too…

So our “charging into” Iraq–with dozens of allies, supported by a U.N. resolution, as a last resort after six months of build-up and negotiations, to unseat one of the cruelest dictators of modern times who had twice invaded neighboring states, was in violation of more than a dozen U.N. resolutions and was responsible for the deaths of something like two million people, who was shooting at American aircraft and had tried to assassinate a former President of the United States, in Obama’s childish mind, was just like Russia’s “charging into” Georgia, which resembles Saddam’s Iraq in no respect. And, of course, we invaded a horrifying charnel-house so as to establish a democracy, whereas Russia invaded a peaceful democracy that it wants to re-incorporate into its empire.

Four years ago, I said I  could never vote for a Democrat because they were so very unready to lead a nation in a complex world.

I feel today that I may have been almost too hard on Kerry, by comparison.

This message is aimed at you if you…:

• want to participate in the alternative media coverage of the biggest story in Minnesota in recent years, and…
• …are going to be somewhere near the convention, or, alternatively
• …you are going to be nowhere near the convention at all.

Here’s the deal: if you have a video cam, a still cam, or even just a cell phone, we want you to keep your eyes open. While some of them strenuously deny it, others among the protesters, out of adolescent posturing or out of malice, plan on trying to disrupt the convention and making life that week a very difficult for Twin Citians; “we want to make poeple in the Twin Cities understand what life’s like in Baghdad”, said my co-panelist on MPR’s “In The Loop” past year. We want to keep an eye on our city, so it looks the same as it did before they turned up. Which, if you live and pay taxes and send your kids to school here, should be a non-partisan thing.

So if you’re in the Twin Cities the week of the convention, here’s what we’d like you to do: Watch for:

• People gathering on off ramps or overpasses. Word has it that, since the venue itself is going to be pretty secure, they’re going to be aiming to shut down traffic to keep delegates from getting to the convention.
• People walking away from cars.
• People wearing green hats [they’re part of the ACLU legal team, and they can be expected at all protester “events”, looking for lawsuit fodder]
• Guys with purple armbands who have videos cameras.
• Piles of bikes. Bike thefts in the Twin Cities are way up in recent weeks; there’s evidence that “protest” groups are gathering bikes to use as cheap, traffic-proof transportation.
• Groups of people away from parade routes.
• Piles of stuff that could be used to block traffic.

With that in mind – as we get closer to the convention, we at True North will be publishing some contact information; if you see any of the above (and, in a perfect world, if you get pictures), we’ll be looking for your input.

Think about it.

More later.

Emily at X Perspective notes:

The New York Times reports a new movement of Barack Obama supporters who are “expressing solidarity with him” by adopting the middle name “Hussein” on Facebook pages and in daily life.

A cursory look at the results for a search of “Hussein” on Facebook today netted: Tonya Hussein Van Tol, John Hussein Hartman, Dustin Hussein Hamari, and Kyle Hussein Randall, all in the first 2 pages.

I have a hunch a lot of people are going to look back on this campaign in about 20 years the same way people just a couple years older than me look back on feathered perms, The Village People and parachute jumpsuits.

ASIDE:  Other than policies and proposals and personality cultism and peek-a-boo/ is-or-isnt’-he playing of the race card, y’know what really bugs me about the Obama campaign?

How his supporters fans call him “Barack”.

He’s a Senator, and a potential President of the United States.  He should be “Mr. Obama”, “Senator Obama”, or even just “Obama”.

Call me old-fashioned; the word, I guess, is “conservative”.

Join AM1280 The Patriot and its galaxy of stars[1] with expanded local coverage at the Minnesota State Fair! 

Tonight – David Strom and Margaret Martin will be live at the Patriot’s posh new digs, on Dan Patch just inside the main (Snelling Avenue) gate, across from the DFL booth!  They’ll be on the air from 5-7PM.

This is gonna be fuuuuun!

Catch the show – on the air at AM1280 in the Metro, or streaming at AM1280’s Website, or via podcast at Townhall.

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