EVENING UPDATE,  FEBRUARY 28,  2008

GUILT BY WHAT?

You'll be hearing the term "guilt by association" in the next few months.  It's a standard label applied by the political left to shut down any discussion of a favored person's relationships with, uh, controversial types.

But what does it mean?  Well, leftists, it can't mean anything, and we won't let it.

The classic definition of guilt by association describes something like this:  Candidate Jones runs for Congress.   Someone "finds" a picture of candidate Jones, taken 12 years earlier, standing next to Nathan Nefarious, who was later convicted of embezzlement.  Therefore, candidate Jones associates with criminals.

Now, it turns out that candidate Jones never knew Nathan Nefarious, but happened to be at a gathering of chipmunk admirers, and Nefarious, who also admired chipmunks, was there as well.  Someone snapped the picture.

Candidate Jones loses his election.

That's classic guilt by association.  Jones didn't know the culprit, didn't know the culprit would turn out to be a culprit, and happened to be standing next to him.

Most reasonable people would say that candidate Jones was smeared and wronged.  Guilt by association.

But what if candidate Jones is a friend of Sammy Subversive, well-known friend of dictators, opponent of the United States, hater of the American military?  What if Jones went to many meetings with Sammy, only a few years ago, and served on political committees with him?  What if Sammy sent checks to Jones's campaigns, and Jones never returned them?

Now a picture surfaces with Jones and Sammy, arm-in-arm.  "Explain this," Jones's opponent demands.

Guilt by association?  No, I don't think so.  That's a legitimate inquiry.  Jones had to know who Sammy Subversive was.  His association was continuing and voluntary.  It is entirely proper to ask why Jones would associate with, even work with, Sammy Subversive.   

I bring it up because allies of Barack Obama are dismissing concerns about Obama's odd associations - with a controversial pastor, with a former member of the Weather Underground, a radical, violent, sixties and seventies group.  There may be more associations to be explained later.  It is correct for the press to demand explanations.  These associations were apparently not casual, and Obama knew with whom he was dealing.

For more than half a century the terms "guilt by association," along with the champ of scare words, "McCarthyism," have been used to limit inquiry.  Let that stop right now.  There are serious questions about Mr. Obama.  Someone must ask, and he must answer.   

SANTORUM ON OBAMA

I've always liked Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, defeated for reelection in 2006.  I don't always agree with him, but he strikes me as an honest man who speaks his mind.  Here he examines his former colleague in the Senate, Barack Obama, now running for some higher office.  What he finds isn't encouraging:

American voters will choose between two candidates this election year.
One inspires hope for a brighter, better tomorrow. His rhetoric makes us feel we are, indeed, one nation indivisible - indivisible by ideology or religion, indivisible by race or creed. It is rhetoric of hope and change and possibility. It's inspiring. This candidate can make you just plain feel good to be American.

The other candidate, by contrast, is one of the Senate's fiercest partisans. This senator reflexively sides with the party's extreme wing. There's no record of working with the other side of the aisle. None. It's basically been my way or the highway, combined with a sanctimoniousness that breeds contempt among those on the other side of any issue.

Which of these two candidates should be our next president? The choice is clear, right?

Wrong, because they're both the same man - Barack Obama.

Well said.  Santorum then goes on to discuss Obama's very extreme position on abortion, a position more extreme than that taken by Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy or Barbara Boxer.

It's stuff like this that could short out Obama's halo, if the Republicans are creative enough to mount a solid, fact-based attack.

McCAIN ON OBAMA

Fortunately, John McCain seems to get it.  He is developing a campaign style that won't let Obama get away with anything.  And McCain's words come from the heart.  He won't relent.  Consider:

Senator John McCain stepped up his critique of Senator Barack Obama on Thursday by accusing him for the second consecutive day of a willingness to hand over Iraq to Al Qaeda, as the Democratic contenders released record-breaking fund-raising figures.

At a news conference at Hobby Airport in Houston, where Mr. McCain was endorsed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, Mr. McCain opened with a formulation of why he contended Mr. Obama is not ready to be commander in chief.

“On the issue of my differences with Senator Obama on Iraq, I want to make it very clear: This is not about decisions that were made in the past,” Mr. McCain said. “This is about decisions that a president will have to make about the future in Iraq. And a decision to unilaterally withdraw from Iraq will lead to chaos.”

Well said.  Talk about the future.  What will the next president do? 

McCain was endorsed today by James A. Baker III, former secretary of state.  I've never had particularly warm thoughts toward Baker, but he spoke wisely today to conservatives who have doubts about McCain's ideological purity:

“John is what I think I am — a principled pragmatist,’ Mr. Baker said as he stood at Mr. McCain’s side at the airport. Although he praised Mr. McCain as a conservative, he said that “John appreciates the complexity of the real world, which after all is a world of hard choices and painful trade-offs.”

He then compared Mr. McCain to Ronald Reagan, whom Mr. Baker served as chief of staff and Treasury secretary. “Ronald Reagan was a staunch conservative,” Mr. Baker said. “Nobody ever accused the Gipper of being squishy.” At the end of the day, he said, “Ronald Reagan found solutions that worked, even if they sometimes occasionally failed the rigid tests of the purists.”

Mr. McCain stood behind Mr. Baker and beamed.

We need more of that kind of talk.

POLLS

The latest polls are all over the lot.  And remember, they're only a snapshot in time.  Real Clear Politics has the results here.  Pew Research has Obama with a seven-point lead over McCain nationally.  But Mason-Dixon has McCain leading Obama by ten points in Florida. 

Rasmussen has Obama four points over Clinton in Texas.  But Insider Advantage has it exactly reversed.

There are no up-to-the-minute polls from Ohio, but Clinton seems to be holding onto a modest lead.

Clinton's lead seems to be shrinking in Pennsylvania, to about five points.  That primary, however, is on April 22nd, almost two months away. 

It really doesn't look very good for Senator Clinton.  She must win convincingly in both Texas and Ohio next Tuesday.  Texas looks dead even, or leaning toward Obama, and Ohio looks like a narrow Clinton win. 

Of course, she could ignore the results and fight on.  Look, you never know.

THE DECISION

Mayor Bloomberg of New York has announced that he will definitely not run for president this year.  Can you just sense the disappointment?

Yawn.

BARACK, CALL CHICAGO

Well, it looks like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan won't go along with the script.  Barack Obama rejected Farrakhan's support during his debate with Hillary Clinton, but the notorious anti-American and anti-Semite won't take it lying down.  Well, it least the guy's got spunk, the way Joseph Goebbels had spunk:

Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said Thursday that backers of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama shouldn't be dissuaded by the senator's denunciation of Farrakhan during a Democratic debate.

His statement comes after Obama was asked during Tuesday's televised debate with Democratic presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton about Farrakhan's support for the Obama campaign. Obama said he denounces Farrakhan's past anti-Semitic remarks and rejects his support.

Farrakhan sent an unsolicited statement Thursday to The Associated Press that he said was meant to respond to "outrage expressed by many" over Obama's comments.

"Those who have been supporting Sen. Barack Obama should not allow what was said during the Feb. 26 presidential debate to lessen their support for his campaign. This is simply mischief making intended to hurt Mr. Obama politically." 

I know you're all relieved by that heartwarming statement.

TAKE THAT, 21ST CENTURY!

While we're on the subject of the Nation of Islam, or Islamic nations, or some such, it appears that the religious police in Saudi Arabia are real crackerjacks.  It's good to see people in the Middle East doing their jobs, making a difference:

A university professor allegedly caught in a Saudi-style honey trap has been sentenced to 180 lashes and eight months in jail — for having coffee with a girl.

The man, a prominent and well-respected Saudi teacher of psychology at Umm al-Qra University in the holy city of Mecca, was framed by the religious police after he angered some of their members at a training course, his lawyer said.

The academic has not been named by the local media, which have given his case wide coverage, but one senior Saudi journalist told The Times he was Dr. Abu Ruzaiz, a married man in his late 50s with children.

“He is highly respected and above-board. Nobody believes the religious police’s version of what happened. The whole of Jeddah (the main city near Mecca) is in uproar about this. Everyone believes he is innocent and was set up,” the journalist said.

Contact between unrelated men and women is strictly prohibited in the desert kingdom where religious police, commonly known as mutaween, patrol public places in teams to enforce their brand of ultra-conservative Islam.

What's remarkable here is the apparent reason for the arrest:

Abdullah Al-Sanousi, the academic’s lawyer, told local newspapers that his client had drawn the ire of some of the Commission’s staffers for speaking at length during a training session about how important it was for them to be polite to the public. Some of the trainees also wanted revenge because they had failed the course while others were not happy with their examination results.

Let us not be judgmental or harsh.  Let us understand how other cultures deal with teachers who are tough graders. 

WHERE IS THE ACLU?

I guess it's true. We're all fascists now.  How else to explain the horror that is Britain?  Lord, they're actually drawing up plans - plans, mind you - to counter the appeal of terrorism among some Muslim youth:

Senior police officers have drawn up a radical strategy to stop British Muslims turning to violence which will see every area of the country mapped for its potential to produce extremists and supporters for al-Qaida. The 40-page document, marked restricted, was approved by a top-level police counter-terrorism committee on Monday, and is expected to be formally adopted within weeks.

The Association of Chief Police Officers hopes it will help to stop al-Qaida's ideas gaining hold in primary schools, colleges, the internet and prisons. Other initiatives in the strategy include:

· guidance to parents on how to stop children searching for extremist websites

· an anti-extremism agenda to be included in "all state-maintained educational establishments from primary schooling through to universities" by 2008/9

· intervening to stop convicted al-Qaida terrorists and supporters from spreading extremist ideology in prison.

Acpo's plans have been prompted by a realisation that new recruits are being attracted to violent extremism despite scores of convictions, arrests and the disruption of plots. The country's most senior counter-terrorism officials believe the level of threat has remained severe and sustained since the July 2005 attacks on London killed 52 people.

Or, they can just bring in Barack Obama to lay on some hands. 

I loved this one, down below:

"Research last year revealed that the police service would be very low on the list of agencies that the Muslim community would turn to if they had concerns about a member of their community who embraced violent extremism ... the police service has a long way to go in building a relationship of trust around these issues..."

Trust?  Is that the problem?  Or is it fear of getting your head taken off if you go to the coppers?  Try the second one.

And I'll be back tomorrow.

Posted on February 28, 2008.