TUESDAY,  MARCH 4,  2008

A DATE TO REMEMBER

It's March 4th.  Quick, class, what is the significance of that date in presidential history?

I see a lot of hands up - white hands, black hands, yellow hands, gay hands, oppressed female hands, (I live in a liberal school district).  And yes, yes, you are all correct, no matter how you answered.  As I said, I live in a liberal school district.

March 4th used to be inauguration day.  The new president would be elected in November and sworn in on March 4th - an interval long enough for the voters to forget who he was.  The date was changed in 1937, so Franklin D. Roosevelt, just elected to his second term, was the first president to take the oath on January 20th.  That date has been used ever since. 

 MORE MEMORY

Today may be another memorable March 4th.  The day may end with the emergence of the first African-American to head a major ticket.  Or, it may end with the first woman who has a chance to head a major ticket upsetting the first African-American who wanted to head a major ticket.  Or, it may end with a draw between the first woman who has a chance to head a major ticket and the first African-American who has the same chance.  Or, it may end with Michelle Obama saying she still isn't proud of her country because someone voted against her husband, who is the first African-American to...ah, the hell with it.

There's a kind of justice in the fact that the Democratic Party, which cast its lot with identity politics, now has the first African-American (see above) and the first woman (also see above) opposing each other, and bitterly so.  That wasn't in the sixties script, but history doesn't follow a script.

We'll watch the returns together tonight.  I'll try to think of something profound to say. 

And, by the way, Republicans also will be voting.  It's conceivable that John McCain will get enough votes to wrap up the nomination that he's already wrapped up.

Today is the only poll that counts.  Some of you probably live in the states that are voting.  As we used to say in Chicago politics, vote early and often.

WATCH THIS

Reader Joseph J. Gallick alerted me to this new pro-Obama video.  Take a look.  I personally find it pretty chilling.  This isn't politics.  It isn't even political cheerleading.  It's a kind of cult, and I think it's dangerous for our country. 

Please note that Obama has never separated himself from this sort of thing.  He probably will, if he's asked, because when Barack Obama is asked about anything, he separates himself from every person he's ever known.  He may even start calling Michelle a casual acquaintance if it keeps him out of trouble.

BLAME CANADA!

This had to happen.  As you know, Barack Obama has been caught in a major flap involving, as the travel brochures always put it, our good neighbor to the north.  The issue is whether an Obama adviser privately told the Canadians that Obama didn't mean what he was saying publicly about NAFTA.

Now Canada is defending Obama.  This is a non-story.  Of course Canada is defending him.  He might be the next president of the United States.  He's also so gosh-darned multicultural, and Canada loves that kind of stuff.  So the Canadian government is defending him:

OTTAWA(Reuters) - Canada defended Democratic front-runner Barack Obama Monday over accusations from rival Hillary Clinton that he is secretly at ease with a hemispheric trade accord which he publicly blames for losing U.S. jobs.

Clinton's criticism, on the eve of make-or-break presidential nomination contests for her in Ohio and Texas, stemmed from a report by Canadian television station CTV that an Obama economic adviser told Canadian officials the candidate was not seriously considering disrupting the trade accord.

But the Canadian Embassy in Washington released a statement essentially backing up the Obama camp's version of the meeting between adviser Austan Goolsbee and officials at the Canadian consulate in Chicago.

"There was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA," the embassy statement said. "We deeply regret any inference that may have been drawn to that effect."

The consulate's written report of the meeting had left the suggestion that Obama's words on NAFTA were designed for a political audience and should not be taken too seriously, prompting an angry denial from the Obama campaign.

Pay no attention to that consulate report.  Pay no attention, I say.  The Canadian consulate people do not know English.  This is well known.  They're probably those French Canadians.  All they do is play hockey.  Pay no attention.

THE DEMS ARE KILLING OUR INTERNATIONAL IMAGE!

Did you ever think you'd read that in Newsweek?  Well, the magazine doesn't go quite that far, but it's getting there.  Fareed Zakaria, no great admirer of Bush 43, lays it out:

Already the mood is shifting abroad. Listening to the Democrats on trade "is enough to send jitters down the spine of most in India," says the Times Now TV channel in New Delhi. The Canadian press has shared in the global swoon for Obama, but is now beginning to ask questions. "What he is actually saying—and how it might affect Canada—may come as a surprise to otherwise devout Barack boosters," writes Greg Weston in the Edmonton Sun. The African press has been reporting on George W. Bush's visit there with affection and, in some cases, by contrasting his views on trade with the Democratic candidates'. The Bangkok Post has compared the Democrats unfavorably with John McCain and his vision of an East Asia bound together, and to the United States, by expanding trade ties.

And get this:

A senior Latin American diplomat, who asked to remain unnamed because of the sensitivity of the topic, says, "Look, we're all watching Obama with bated breath and hoping [his election] will be a transforming moment for the world. But now that we're listening to him on trade—the issue that affects us so deeply—we realize that maybe he doesn't wish us well. In fact, we might find ourselves nostalgic for Bush, who is brave and courageous on trade and immigration."

"Brave and courageous."  Are you believing that?  Look, it usually takes some years for a president to be resurrected.  Bush is being brought back from the dead before he's gone. 

Oh, it feels so good.

A FEW CHOICE WORDS FROM A FRIEND

There are other things going on in the world.

The most esteemed president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is visiting Iraq.  I elicited a few choice words on the subject from my good friend and Iranian-rights activist Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, who has not been known to mince words.  Here, unminced, is what she wrote:

Now how come you're misspelling "esteemed" Ahmadinejad? Isn't the correct spelling a-steamed Ahmadinejad? AND you'll get a kick out of this. In Farsi Ahmadinejad rhymes with ANTARI-nejad. Antar in Farsi is baboon, nejad means "from the tribe of"....when you say Antarinejad it means from the race of baboons. So now you know what his REAL name is.

The one thing I would say is this: When Ahmadinejad does not speak for Iranians, HOW on earth can he speak for Iraqis and say that Iraqis don't like Americans? Who died and left him in charge of their spokesmanship? AND I'm embarrassed for the Arab countries who sit around and say how much they are afraid of Iran and then, rather than extend a hand to the Iraqis, they wait 'til Iran beats them to the punch. Arab leaders need to be sent to some school of diplomacy or statesmanship because, at this rate, they will be engulfed and devoured by the Mullahs.

As of this morning Banafsheh has not been asked to be a member of Iran's religious police.

SOME COMMON SENSE ON TERRORISM

Speaking of Iran, Bret Stephens of The Wall Street Journal has an eloquent column this morning on one of the trendiest of intellectual trends - downplaying the threat of terrorism.  After all, how many people does it really kill?  Don't we lose more in accidents?  What if we just left it alone?  Stephens summarizes:

In 1977, Jimmy Carter told Americans to get over their "inordinate fear of communism." This year, expect to be told to get over your "inordinate fear" of terrorism.

Among politicians, the case is still being made sotto voce. When Barack Obama lists the "common threats of the 21st century" as "nuclear weapons and terrorism, climate change and poverty, genocide and disease," the suggestion is that Islamist terrorism is one of many problems, and not, as John McCain insists, the "transcendent issue of our time."

Among policy experts, however, the argument is being stated more baldly. "The fear of terrorism has reached the bogeyman threshold," writes Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist formerly with the CIA.

Stephens then proceeds to demolish that argument, and the implicit notion that we worry too much about terrorism, and do too much:

On the contrary, if recent experience in Iraq demonstrates anything, it's that nothing is likelier to deter future terrorists than the defeat of existing ones. In letters captured by U.S. forces in Iraq late last year, al Qaeda "sheikhs" lament how the flow of foreign suicide bombers has dried up as the likelihood dims that their "martyrdom" will result in anyone's death other than their own. There is, said one of these sheikhs about his dwindling minions, "panic, fear and an unwillingness to fight" ever since U.S. and Iraqi troops went on the offensive.

Which brings us back to the 39th president. Two years after he expressed a merely ordinate fear of communism, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. "History teaches, perhaps, very few clear lessons," Mr. Carter said in his response. "But surely one such lesson learned by the world at great cost is that aggression, unopposed, becomes a contagious disease." Mr. Carter learned that the hard way. Let's hope Mr. Obama won't have to learn the same lesson, the same way.

The key here is what the American people think.  So far, they've taken terrorism seriously, but their interest seems to be waning. Our universities are doing a splendid job of blaming the United States for all the ills of the world, so don't look to them for guidance.  And much of the press is suffering from Obamania, a symptom of which is the sudden ignoring of terrorism.

Maybe we'll be lucky.  Probably not.

PUSHING BACK IN IRAQ

As if to emphasize Stephens's point, The New York Times, in a refreshingly optimistic story, reports on Iraqis' growing disillusionment with religious extremism.  It's well worth reading:

BAGHDAD — After almost five years of war, many young people in Iraq, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.

In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives.

“I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us,” said Sara, a high school student in Basra. “Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don’t deserve to be rulers.”

Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said: “The religion men are liars. Young people don’t believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore.”

The shift in Iraq runs counter to trends of rising religious practice among young people across much of the Middle East, where religion has replaced nationalism as a unifying ideology.

Catch that last paragraph.  Iraq is different.  Now, you don't think it's different because we liberated the country, and people are free to speak, do you?  I mean, everyone knows that BUSH ruined everything, and lied, and BUSH is responsible for global warming and bad stuff, and...

But wait.  People in Iraq are more free, they are speaking out, and they're targeting the very religious extremists who breed terrorism.  As one of the stories up above said, maybe we'll be nostalgic for Bush.  And maybe the Iraqis will.

SOME GUYS JUST WANT TO DO IT AGAIN

This story is running on the internet this morning.  Read all about it:

Danny Kaye dies aged 74

Mar 4 2008  by Tony Woolway, Western Mail

HOLLYWOOD star Danny Kaye, who starred on screen, stage and television for more than 40 years, died yesterday at the age of 74.

Kaye, who entered Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon, died of heart failure brought on by intestinal bleeding and hepatitis.

Kaye’s wife, composer Sylvia Fine, and their daughter, Dena, had been mounting a vigil at his bedside. Kaye died at 11.58am London time.

Such a talented man.  The comedy.  The music.  The...

Wait a second.  Didn't Danny Kaye die in 1987?  Yeah, I just checked.  He sure did.  In fact, you can see his grave here.

What a stunt - to do it all over again!

I'm sure the newspaper involved will have an explanation.  I'm sure it will be artful.

And I'll be back later, not quite as dramatically as Danny Kaye, but I'll be back.
 
Posted on March 4, 2008.