Angry Dennis Rodman Defends Bizarre North Korea Trip

At the Boston Herald, "Raving Dennis Rodman puts a lid on it":

The Red Sox would rather not discuss Dennis Rodman’s choice of head gear after the cigar-chomping, North Korea-lovin’, face-pierced freakshow went nuts on CNN yesterday — all while sporting a black and gray “B” cap!

“I don’t have anything for you on this one,” a team spokesgal told the Track.

Not surprising. Dennis’ on-air meltdown isn’t exactly the best PR for the World Series champs!

In case you somehow missed it, Madonna’s ex-BF did an interview with Chris Cuomo on CNN yesterday and went off the rails when Chris questioned the wisdom of his latest trip to North Korea to play hoops with a band of 10 other former NBAers in honor of tin-pot dictator Kim Jong Un’s B-day.

Rodman angrily insisted that the trip was a “great idea for the world” as Cuomo questioned his bromance with KJU and whether he would press the North Korean boss on the welfare of American prisoner Kenneth Bae, who’s been held for more than a year there.

“If you understand what Kenneth Bae did. Do you understand what he did in this country? No, no, no, you tell me, you tell me. Why is he held captive here in this country, why?” ranted Rodman, who didn’t appear to know the answer to the question.

But The Worm really turned while discussing the 10 former pros — including former Celtics Kenny Anderson and Vin Baker — who were sitting behind him during the interview. All 10 looked like they’d rather be out walking KJU’s uncle-eating dogs than listening to Rodman rave.

“You know, you’ve got 10 guys here, 10 guys here, they’ve left their families, they’ve left their damn families, to help this country, as in a sports venture. That’s 10 guys, all these guys here, do anyone understand that? Christmas, New Year’s ...

“I don’t give a rat’s (expletive) what the hell you think! I’m saying to you, look at these guys here, look at them! They dared to do one thing, they came here. ... We have to go back to America and take the abuse. Do you have to take the abuse that we’re gonna take? Do you, Sir, are you going to take the abuse?”

As you might imagine, Red Sox fans were less than pleased that Rodman was wearing the Sox 
Basic Storm Grey 59FIFTY Fitted Cap ($34.99 on MLB.com) for his televised meltdown.

“Why, Dennis Rodman? Why did you wear a Boston Red Sox hat when sounding like an (expletive)hat? Why?” tweeted @DanDrezner, the Twitter handle of Tufts Fletcher School international relations professor Daniel W. Drezner.

New York City Takes Hard-Left Turn

At WSJ, "Election of Bill de Blasio as Mayor Could Be Test of Revival of Liberalism in American Political Life":

For the past 12 years, the nation's largest city has been run by one of the country's wealthiest corporate titans, a self-declared iconoclast untethered to either party.

On Tuesday, New York overwhelmingly elected an unabashed liberal activist and political strategist who is sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street movement and once spent time in Nicaragua supporting the Sandinistas.

Political analysts say the election of Democrat Bill de Blasio —who ran on a platform of raising taxes on the wealthy to fund education programs, cracking down on aggressive police tactics known as stop-and-frisk and creating a more inclusive, collaborative government—could become the biggest test yet of a recent revival of liberalism in American political life that is occurring in urban areas.

The test will have many pundits keeping a close eye on the new mayor's many challenges, including the delicate task of appeasing business leaders used to dealing with one of their own, and of resolving the city's biggest showdown with unions in a half century. "Bill [will be] the most liberal big-city mayor in America today and a lot of people are going to be watching it: Can he pull it off?" said Harold Ickes, a mentor to Mr. de Blasio and former White House deputy chief of staff for Bill Clinton.

In 2000, Republicans led five of the nation's largest dozen cities. By the end of 2012, they no longer led any. In Tuesday's election, the candidate favored in opinion polls to be Seattle's new mayor, Ed Murray, appealed to voters partly by citing his role in passing the largest tax increase in Washington state's history to fund transportation improvements. In Boston, State Rep. Martin Walsh was elected after squaring off against another progressive Democrat to succeed Thomas Menino, a Democrat who built strong relationships with the city's business community.

Liberals are emboldened, said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. He said that after decades of feeling that Democrats had to move to the center to be elected, "we're seeing more and more in the Democratic Party a sense of confidence and outspokenness among progressives."

But observers say that with momentum can come some obvious risks, including overstepping mandates and stepping out of the mainstream. "They could go too far left, because there's a tolerance for moderation, not necessarily for liberalism," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "If they show themselves to be incompetent then they'll pay a price." Mr. de Blasio has said he has made, and will make, an effort to reach out to all sides.

The shift hardly means liberals are taking over. Conservatives hold safe seats in the House of Representatives, and the rise of liberalism in some places reflects increased partisanship on both ends of the political spectrum. In 1982, 344 members of the House were considered to have some ideological overlap with the opposing party. In 2012, there were 13 such members, according to an analysis of voting data by National Journal.

In New York, Mr. de Blasio, 52 years old, will be the first Democrat to be mayor in 20 years. "Make no mistake," Mr. de Blasio said in his acceptance speech Tuesday night. "The people of this city have chosen a progressive path."

The victory could "make other Democrats think of this 'tale of two cities' theme as a possible driver of their campaigns in 2014," said Jeffrey M. Berry, a political-science professor at Tufts University.

The question for critics is whether Mr. de Blasio has enough experience running a large city, and can run it in an effective manner. As the city's public advocate, a government watchdog, Mr. de Blasio managed a staff of 40 people with an annual budget of $2.3 million. New York City employs around 300,000 people with an annual operating budget of $69.9 billion.

"I have no trouble praising de Blasio's political skills," said Fred Siegel, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank that focuses on economic choice. "It's his governing that worries me."

In response, Mr. de Blasio has said that he has learned under some of the most skilled leaders in the Democratic Party, including Mr. Ickes and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. They taught him "to always to check reality against your presumptions," he said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal.

New Yorkers rejected several of Mr. de Blasio's positions in a poll last month, despite their overwhelming support of his candidacy. A majority of voters said they wanted to retain Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. (Mr. de Blasio promised to remove him, which the city's mayor can do.) They wanted more charter schools. (Mr. de Blasio has expressed skepticism.) And nearly half of voters support the stop-and-frisk tactic used by police officers. (Mr. de Blasio's criticism of the practice is one of his central platforms.)

More, "De Blasio Elected Next New York City Mayor in Landslide: First Democrat to Win City Hall Since David Dinkins in 1989."

Pro-Gun Laws Gain Ground

At the Wall Street Journal, "Since Newtown Massacre, More States Ease Regulations Than Bolster Them":

President Barack Obama made another push Wednesday to build support for gun-control laws in the wake of December's mass school shooting in Connecticut. But since then, states have passed more measures expanding rather than restricting the right to carry firearms.

Arkansas eliminated prohibitions on carrying firearms in churches and on college campuses. South Dakota authorized school boards to arm teachers. Tennessee passed a law allowing workers to bring guns to work and store them in their vehicles, even if their employer objects. Kentucky shortened the process for obtaining licenses to carry a concealed gun.

Those laws, along with the long odds for major federal gun-control legislation, show how the march toward expanded gun rights in recent years has hardly slowed since Mr. Obama pledged to use the "full force" of his office to tighten limits after 20 children and six adult staffers were killed at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

This year, five states have passed seven laws that strengthen gun restrictions, while 10 states have passed 17 laws that weaken them, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which tracks and promotes gun-control laws.

Gun-control advocates have scored some victories. In New York and Colorado, which was the site of a movie-theater shooting last July that left 12 dead, new laws require background checks for all firearm sales and limit the size of ammunition magazines. Connecticut lawmakers Wednesday were debating legislation to expand the state's ban on certain semiautomatic weapons and require background checks for all firearm sales, among other restrictions. Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, has said he would sign such a measure.

Kristin Goss, a Duke University professor of public policy who supports gun-control legislation, said these measures are more sweeping than the gun-rights expansions in other states, which she called "technical and incremental."

Still, gun-control bills have faltered in Congress and other states, while pro-gun-rights bills move along elsewhere. On Tuesday, an Indiana House committee passed a bill that would require an armed staffer in every school.

Actually, those gun-control "victories" are already backfiring, at Instapundit, "FOR ANDREW CUOMO, A HASTY LAW IS IN TROUBLE ALREADY," and "HASTE MAKES WASTE — AND ANDREW CUOMO LOOKS STUPID: Cuomo’s 7-Bullet Limit to Be Suspended Indefinitely, Skelos Says."

Also out of Colorado, "Just days after Colorado Governor Hickenlooper signed them into law, new gun control measures are being declared by state sheriffs to be unenforceable due to ambiguities and constitutional concerns. And businesses are fleeing the state, at Denver Business Journal, "HiViz intends to follow Magpul's example, leave Colorado."

Yeah, those are some most excellent victories!

Yay idiot progs! Keep winning those gun control victories!

Blood of Tyrants

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." — Thomas Jefferson.

The left's gun-grabbers are fomenting a patriotic insurrection so fierce even old Thomas Jefferson would be gobsmackingly astonished.

At SHTF Plan, "Will You Submit & Obey?":

In New York, we have a prequel of what’s to come – the repeal of the Second Amendment and summary criminalization of peaceful citizens merely for possessing the means of self-defense, even in their own homes. As in Great Britain, citizens of NY face prison if they use proscribed weapons against murderous thugs – even in their own homes. The tyrants Michael Bloomberg and Andrew Cuomo have made their decision. Now New Yorkers will have to make theirs. And so will the rest of us – if, as seems likely, the federal tyrants succeed in issuing a New York-style fatwa that applies to the rest of the country. Which brings us to the question:

What will you do?

It is a very hard question. Perhaps the hardest question Americans have had to face since 1861. As then, there may be no peaceful way to preserve our rights. There may be blood. As then, one side is absolutely determined to impose its will at bayonet-point. To murder us in the thousands – perhaps millions, this time - if we refuse to submit. There is no reasoning, no discussing. What we face is violence against our persons by people who absolutely will not leave us in peace – no matter how peaceful we try to be – until we have submitted to them utterly and for all time to come. We wish only to be left alone – and demand that our right to defend ourselves against those who will not leave us alone be respected. That self-defense is the most basic of rights – a right conceded even to the lowest animal. They do not acknowledge our rights; they despise the very notion of us having any rights at all. They regard their power over us as limitless in principle – and rage at even the smallest assertion of freedom of action. They loathe our guns because our ownership of guns is an expression of our determination to defend our very lives – and thus, of self-ownership.

And that is what cannot be tolerated. Which is why the current bum-rush to disarm us has become absolutely frantic. The moment is at hand. We will either stand up and be reckoned with as free men – or we will sit down forever and accept any degradation, any humiliation. And in that case, we shall have proved worthy of such treatment. Future generations will look upon us with the same mixture of incomprehension and contempt that our generation looked upon those who meekly lined up naked in queue for their turn at the edge of the pit. Because it will come to that, in time.

Continue reading (via Director Blue and Cold Fury).

RELATED: At the New York Post, "Only rebellion can save America," and Canada Free Press, "Understanding the Obama Conspiracy & U.S. takeover."

EXTRA: At Right Wing News, "2/23/2013 Will Be a Day of Resistance."

Obama Administration Takes Action on Guns

An executive order. WTF?

That is exactly in the freakin' Obama administration's style.

At WSJ, "Biden Says White House May Bypass Congress Over Guns":

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama is considering taking executive action to stem gun violence, Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday, suggesting that some federal gun regulations will change even if support doesn't materialize in Congress.

"The president is going to act," Mr. Biden said, as he opened multiple days of meetings with interest groups as part of his assignment from Mr. Obama to draw up proposals for responding to the elementary-school shootings in Newtown, Conn. White House officials said no decisions had been made about what steps the administration would take.

Mr. Biden met Wednesday with gun-safety advocacy groups, as well as victims and survivors of shootings. He also made calls to governors, mayors and other local officials.

The vice president said in the private meeting he hoped to deliver recommendations to the president as soon as next week, a participant said. The meeting yielded consensus on calls for improved background checks and on bans on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, according to the participant.

Mr. Biden is likely to face resistance to most of those ideas on Thursday, when he is due to meet with the National Rifle Association, the nation's most powerful gun lobby, and other gun-rights groups. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., WMT -0.03% the country's largest seller of guns, initially said it couldn't meet Thursday with the vice president but on Wednesday said it would send a representative.

There is little sign lawmakers and advocacy groups on either side of the debate are willing to alter their stances, though room for agreement may exist in some areas, such as requiring states to increase their submission of mental-health records to the background-check system used to screen people buying guns from federally licensed dealers.

Mike Hammond, legislative counsel for Gun Owners of America, which wasn't invited to meet with Mr. Biden, said he didn't expect Thursday's meeting with gun-rights groups to be constructive. "They are being summoned" and will be "lectured," he said.

The NRA declined to comment on what it expects will happen at the meeting. The organization, which last month called for a national campaign to place armed security in the nation's schools, sent a letter to members of Congress last week saying it planned to be a constructive voice in the debate while emphasizing that "gun bans do not work."

One person who has taken part in several of Mr. Biden's meetings said one issue has been what role the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives should have. A law-enforcement official involved in the talks said the administration has questioned whether the ATF should be given a new mission or moved into another agency.

Some states are trying to advance their own measures. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed broad changes to the state's gun laws Wednesday, putting New York on track to be the first to revamp its gun laws following the Newtown shootings.

New York already has some of the nation's strictest gun laws, including an assault-weapons ban, but Mr. Cuomo directed his calls for change at so-called loopholes in the laws.

More at that top link. And also lots more at Memeorandum.

Plus, at Instapundit here and here, for starters.

And at The Blaze, "FOX’S ‘THE FIVE’ RETALIATES AGAINST GAWKER’S NYC GUN OWNER LIST BY AIRING FOUNDER’S PHONE NUMBER."

More at RealClearPolitics, "'Krauthammer: Gun Confiscation "Unconstitutional And Would Cause Insurrection In The Country'."

BONUS: At the Right Scoop, "Pat Caddell: ‘This country is on the verge of an explosion’."

I'll have more later...

Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy

At the New York Post, "At least 18 people dead, nearly 1 million without power in New York metro area in Sandy's aftermath":

New Yorkers dug out from Hurricane Sandy’s carnage today, following the hellish reign of death and destruction brought on by the killer storm.

Gotham residents today, about 750,000 of them without any power, had to carefully navigate streets littered with uprooted trees, and avoid dangerous spots with downed power lines.

Sandy also sucker punched Long Island, leaving 900,000 customers -- 90 percent of Nassau and Suffolk Counties -- in the dark, according to Gov. Cuomo. Two million statewide are without power, the governor added.

“We expected an unprecedented storm impact here on New York City and that’s what we got,” Mayor Bloomberg said earlier today. “So while the worst of this storm has passed, the conditions are still dangerous.”

The mayor added: “Clearly the challenges our city faces in the coming days are enormous.”

Continue reading.

I'm going to have more in a little bit, on the politics of the hurricane. Check Memeorandum for some of the controversies. And then check back in here throughout the night.

California Seeks to Be #1 in Income Tax Rates

At IBD, "Will New California Income Tax Hike Drive Rich Away?":

California's Gov. Jerry Brown has just signed on to a labor-backed ballot initiative to raise tax income tax rates to as high as 13.3%, and so far the voters seem to approve. A new Los Angeles Times poll puts public support for the plan at 64%. If the measure wins in November, California will hold the prize for the highest income tax rates in the nation.

That is, if some other state doesn't jump past it before then.

In recent years, the country has seen something of a tax-the-rich derby among states enacting so-called "millionaires' taxes" on top earners. Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Maryland all raised rates on high earners during in the 2000s. California's rates were high already.

In some cases the taxes were temporary, in others, not. And you didn't always have to be earning a million dollars to feel the bite. As of January 2012, according to data from the Tax Foundation, Hawaii was the top taxer with a rate of 11% on incomes over $200,000 (for single filers). California was close behind with 10.3% on incomes over $1 million. New Jersey has let a 10.75% tax lapse, but its top rate was still a relatively high 8.97%. Oregon's temporary 11% tax was history, but the top rate was still 9.9%. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo resisted pressure to keep a top rate of 8.97% in effect, but the state ended up with a tax only slightly lower — 8.82% — on incomes over $1 million.

If Brown's initiative succeeds in California, taxes will rise to 12.3% for single filers at $500,000 and for joint filers at $680,000. Another 1% — a tax approved voters in 2004 for mental health programs — kicks in at $1 million. The total top rate of 13.3% would put California ahead of New York City, where state and city income taxes top out at just below 12.5%. California also would raise already-high sales tax rates.

What would happen then? In the short term, the state would get some new revenue. In the longer term, the impact gets murkier because a new question arises: What will this tax do to the state's economy?

More at the link.

BONUS: From John Hawins, at Hot Air, "Good news! California’s choo-choo to nowhere will only waste 68 billion instead of 98 billion."

Original Ray's Pizza Serving its Last Slice in New York's Little Italy

I wrote about it at my old blog, and it's the funniest thing, but when my mom came to visit a few weeks back, she brought back a couple of the business cards we picked up in New York in 2007. She was using them for bookmarks. My son and I loved Airways Pizza in Queens. My mom also had a card for Dean's Pizzeria, in Manhattan, not far from the U.N. My son really liked that one. It was a little upscale and we were dressed casually. I asked my son if he wanted to go somewhere else and he said no, he liked Dean's and wanted to eat there. Anyway, I'm thinking of New York pizza again after reading the front-page story at NYT, "Ray’s Pizza, the First of Many, Counts Down to Its Last Slice":

It did not call itself the flagship Ray’s Pizza because it never really had a fleet. It was not Original Ray’s or Famous Ray’s or Original Famous Ray’s or Real Ray’s or Ray’s on Ice or any of the other cloned shops sprinkled like shredded mozzarella all over town. It was simply Ray’s Pizza, and in the great pizza wars of New York City, it was respected as having been the first, standing more or less above the fray at 27 Prince Street in Little Italy, with tree limbs holding up the basement ceiling and an owner whose name wasn’t even Ray.

And now, it seems, barring any surprises, Ray’s Pizza — the original that was so original it did not have the word “original” in its name — appears doomed to close at the end of the month.

This is not a popular topic at Ray’s right now.

“I don’t want you to put that this is the end,” said Helen Mistretta, the manager who, seven months before her 80th birthday, is in no mood for weepy nostalgia. “It’s the end of 27 Prince, not the end of Ray’s of Prince Street.”

The closing, long story short, follows a legal dispute among heirs with various interests in the building at 27 Prince, which includes apartments and the two sides of Ray’s: the pizzeria and an Italian restaurant, each with its separate entrance, but sharing a kitchen and the corporation name, Ray’s of Prince Street. When the Ray in Ray’s, one of the owners of the building, died in 2008, a row arose over whether the restaurant’s lease was valid and whether it should pay rent. A lawsuit was filed in 2009 and settled this year.

Now Ray’s Pizza is moving out amid a lot of head-shakes and shrugs and what-are-you-gonna-do Little Italy resignation.

You could say Ray’s on Prince Street kept to itself, perfectly content with its place in the constellation where others burned brighter. Just a block away, tourists line up on the sidewalk for a seat in Lombardi’s, waiting for a hostess wearing a microphone headset to call their names from loudspeakers. Wait for a pizza? This was not the Ray’s way, where pies come whole or by the slice, hot from the oven, enjoyed without hurry in a humble booth beneath a hand-painted “Ray’s Gourmet Pizza” board.

The closing of Ray’s would seem to remove from the neighborhood any vestige of the late Ralph Cuomo, its first owner, who once loomed large.

Keep reading.

My wife just walked in with pizza for dinner, from the local Lamppost, which is good, but nothing like New York pizza.

RELATED: At NYT, "New York’s Little Italy, Littler by the Year."

P.S. Checking the link to the old blog, turns out Repsac3 was commenting way back then. He wasn't banned. He might still be a commenter here had he not freaked out and turned stalker. I'll welcome progressives if they're cool. Repsac3 once was, but no longer. Too bad too. I had to go to moderation and all that.

Flooding Devastates Vermont and Catskills: Irene Death Toll at Least 35 People

At NYT (via Memeorandum):

CHESTER, Vt. — While most eyes warily watched the shoreline during Hurricane Irene’s grinding ride up the East Coast, it was inland — sometimes hundreds of miles inland — where the most serious damage actually occurred. And the major culprit was not wind, but water.

As blue skies and temperate breezes returned on Monday, a clearer picture of the storm’s devastation emerged, with the gravest consequences stemming from river flooding in Vermont and upstate New York.

Here in southern Vermont, normally picturesque towns and villages were digging out from thick mud and piles of debris that Sunday’s floodwaters left behind. With roughly 250 roads and several bridges closed off, many residents remained stranded in their neighborhoods; others could not get to grocery stores, hospitals or work. It was unclear how many people had been displaced, though the Red Cross said more than 300 had stayed in its shelters on Sunday, and it expected the number to grow.

In upstate New York, houses were swept from their foundations, and a woman drowned on Sunday when an overflowing creek submerged the cottage where she was vacationing. Flash floods continued to be a concern into Monday afternoon. In the Catskills, where Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo led a helicopter tour of suffering towns, cars were submerged, crops ruined and roads washed out. In tiny, hard-hit Prattsville, what looked like a jumble of homes lay across a roadway, as if they had been tossed like Lego pieces.

“We were very lucky in the city, not quite as lucky on Long Island, but we were lucky on Long Island,” Mr. Cuomo said. “But Catskills, mid-Hudson, this is a different story and we paid a terrible price here, and many of these communities are communities that could least afford to pay this kind of price. So the state has its hands full.”

And see also LAT, "Irene death toll rises to 35 amid cleanup effort."

Look, this was a devastating storm for many people, and thus I was irked this morning to see some media reports suggesting that Irene was "hyped." William Jacobson, who rode it out, was not pleased: "Irene wasn’t overhyped in train- and drive-through country."

RELATED: Dan Drezner blogged the hurricane, a little more seriously this time, compared to 2005, when he dissed Katrina coverage as "hurricane porn." That's around the time I stopped reading Drezner on a daily basis. See: "We interrupt normal blogging about the rest of the world to freak out about THE BIG STORM!!!!" Idiot.

Tim Pawlenty Ends Presidential Campaign

I just clicked on The Other McCain and saw this: "Tim Pawlenty Quits!" While the news could probably use a couple of exclamation points!!, I'm not surprised. The GOP field is getting crowded with Rick Perry's entry into the race, and as we saw from the debate the other night, Pawlenty was hoping for the knock out blow against Michele Bachmann and he failed miserably. She held her own and made Pawlenty look a Republican Mario Cuomo. Bachmann went on to win Iowa and that had to be like a right upper-cut landing on Pawlenty's chin. He's down.

See also Legal Insurrection and New York Times (via Memeorandum).

New York Legalizes Gay Marriage

Well, six down and 42 to go.

At Los Angeles Times, "New York Legislature passes gay marriage bill."

With the forceful backing of a newly elected Democratic governor, the New York State Legislature gave final approval late Friday to a bill permitting same-sex marriage, enabling gay couples to head for the altar in late July.

After a sometimes emotional hourlong debate, the 62-member, Republican-controlled Senate approved the measure, 33 to 29. Earlier in the evening, the Democratic-led Assembly had amended its version of the bill to match the Senate's, which carried additional exemptions for religious organizations that do not want to acknowledge or extend benefits to gays who marry.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who made the issue a centerpiece of his election campaign last year, signed the bill just before midnight. It will take effect in 30 days, making New York the sixth state, and the most populous by far, to permit same-sex marriage.

"What this state did today brings marriage equality to a new plane," Cuomo told reporters. "We reached a new level of social justice." Outside the Senate chamber, many opponents sat on the floor and prayed aloud for the state.

The amazing thing is how anti-climactic this is.

Gay marriage is coming to America, but it's not coming through a wave of popular, down-home demand. It's coming through the ram-it-down-your-throats progressive politics on the coasts, and the Berkeley-esque enclaves in the major urban areas across the heartland. If there was ever a case for letting federalism prevail, this is it. States should be free to decide their own policies on same-sex marriage. The Blankenhorn and Rauch manifesto is workable, and vital in preventing a progressive tyranny at the federal level from crushing the states. See: "A Reconciliation on Gay Marriage." And the progressive sensationalism on this is deeply offensive, for example, "The arc of history bends towards justice in N.Y." Actually, gay marriage is not a civil right. Gay Americans are not an oppressed minority, but one of the most affluent and powerful interest groups in American politics. That's why a federal solution to the gay marriage issue remains vital. The gay radical lobby will browbeat kind and reasonable Americans, folks who don't want to put up with the fuss of being hammered over the head or dragged before Stalinist show trials. It's pretty bad, but it's the way things are going around here.

Image Credit: Good as You, "Photo: Stonewall. Right now. 42 years later" (via Memeorandum).

RELATED: Rim-station radicals celebrate in New York.

Progressives Think They Gained Momentum in Wisconsin — They Should Think Again

I wasn't able to get to it earlier, but there were a few huzzahs on the left over the size of last weekends latest protest in Madison. Was the crowd size 100,000? Impressive. But the comparison to the tea party falls flat. Conservatives have set the new standard for a sustained populist movement, and it's about returning to core values, not about confiscating other people's money. I'll have more on all of this. But meanwhile, Mona Charen writes, "Who Won In Wisconsin?"

Who won the battle of Wisconsin? Republican governor Scott Walker got a legislative victory. On the other hand, Democrats, with a wary eye on 2012 and noting the worrying drop in support for President Obama in union-heavy states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, claim to be delighted that Governor Walker has picked this fight. “Republicans have done organized labor a great favor by putting the movement back in [the] labor movement, creating a level of passion and activism for workers’ rights that hasn’t been seen in generations,” crowed Democratic strategist Mike Lux.

Maybe so. Though the three-week tantrum by union protesters in Madison (which escalated to harassment of Republican legislators by the Party of Civility), along with the flight of Democratic legislators to Illinois may well offend more Americans than it energizes ....

During the last election cycle, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) contributed $90 million to Democratic candidates. In 2006, then New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine addressed a rally of 10,000 public employees in Trenton, declaring “We will fight for a fair contract.” Corzine was supposed to be management. With whom was he fighting?

The answer, as even Democratic governors like Andrew Cuomo and Jerry Brown are discovering is — other middle-class people, i.e. the taxpayers. The taxpayers are the ones left holding the bag when elected officials team up with public-sector unions. Middle-class taxpayers, only 65 percent of whom have access to retirement plans, are picking up the tab for the 90 percent of government employees who do. Nearly 70 percent of lower-wage government workers receive health benefits, compared with only 38 percent of private-sector workers.

Many state workers avail themselves of the option to retire in their early to mid 50s at nearly full pay. If they were New Jersey teachers, they can collect free health benefits for life ...

RTWT.

More later ...

God and Gettysburg

From Professor Robert George, at First Things:

The Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, and the Constitution of the United States of America—those were the three texts in the blue pamphlet I found on the table in front of me as I took my seat at a conference at Princeton.

On the cover was the logo of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, an influential organization whose boardmembers include former New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse, controversial Obama judicial nominee Goodwin Liu, former New York governor Mario Cuomo, former solicitors general Drew Days and Walter Dellinger, and former attorney general Janet Reno. The new Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was a speaker at the society’s annual conventions in 2005, 2007, and 2008. And inside the pamphlet was a page saying, “The printing of this copy of the U.S. Constitution and of the nation’s two other founding texts, the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address, was made possible through the generosity of Laurence and Carolyn Tribe.”

How nice, I thought. Here is a convenient, pocket-sized version of our fundamental documents, including Lincoln’s great oration at Gettysburg on republican government. Although some might question the idea that a speech given more than eighty years after the Declaration qualifies as a founding text, its inclusion seemed to me entirely appropriate. By preserving the Union, albeit at a nearly incalculable cost in lives and suffering, Lincoln completed, in a sense, the American founding. Victory at Gettysburg really did ensure that government “by the people” and “for the people”—republican government—would not “perish from the earth.”

I recalled that in sixth grade I was required to memorize the address, and as I held the American Constitution Society’s pamphlet in my hands, I wondered whether I could still recite it from memory. So I began, silently reciting: “Four score and seven years ago . . . ,” until I reached “the world will little note nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.” Then I drew a blank. So I opened the pamphlet and read the final paragraph:

It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Deeply moving—but, I thought, something isn’t right. Did you notice what had been omitted? What’s missing is Lincoln’s description of the United States as a nation under God. What Lincoln actually said at Gettysburg was: “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” The American Constitution Society had omitted Lincoln’s reference to the United States as a nation under God from the address he gave at the dedication of the burial ground at Gettysburg.

At the time, staring at the text, I wondered whether it was an innocent, inadvertent error—a typo, perhaps. It seemed more likely, though, that here is the apex of the secularist ideology that has attained a status not unlike that of religious orthodoxy among liberal legal scholars and political activists. Nothing is sacred, as it were—not even the facts of American history, not even the words spoken by Abraham Lincoln at the most solemn ceremony of our nation’s history.

More at the link.

And more history that we don't get from the purveyors of contemporary culture and values.

Liberal Piety and the Memory of 9/11

Scotty Lemieux is too predictable on the news from New York: "Landmark Preservation Commission To Bigots Who Despise Principles of American Constitutionalism: Drop Dead."

And I don't call folks like him "liberals" (they're radical leftists), but Dorothy Rabinowitz nails it anyway:

Americans may have lacked for much in the course of their history, but never instruction in social values. The question today is whether Americans of any era have ever confronted the bombardment of hectoring and sermonizing now directed at those whose views are deemed insufficiently enlightened—an offense regularly followed by accusations that the offenders have violated the most sacred principles of our democracy.

It doesn't take a lot to become the target of such a charge. There is no mistaking the beliefs on display in these accusations, most recently in regard to the mosque about to be erected 600 feet from Ground Zero. Which is that without the civilizing dictates of their superiors in government, ordinary Americans are lost to reason and decency. They are the kind of people who—as a recent presidential candidate put it—cling to their guns and their religion ....

Long discussion of Mayor Michael Bloomberg (hardly a commie like Lemieux, but a fellow traveler in hopeless political correctness nevertheless), and then:

In the plan for an Islamic center and mosque some 15 stories high to be built near Ground Zero, the full force of politically correct piety is on display along with the usual unyielding assault on all dissenters. The project has aroused intense opposition from New Yorkers and Americans across the country. It has also elicited remarkable streams of oratory from New York's political leaders, including Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

"What are we all about if not religious freedom?" a fiery Mr. Cuomo asked early in this drama. Mr. Cuomo, running for governor, has since had less to say.

The same cannot be said for Mr. Bloomberg, who has gone on to deliver regular meditations on the need to support the mosque, and on the iniquity of its opponents. In the course of a speech at Dartmouth on July 16 he raised the matter unasked, and held forth on his contempt for those who opposed the project and even wanted to investigate the funding: "I just think it's the most outrageous thing anybody could suggest." Ground Zero is a "very appropriate place'' for a mosque, the mayor announced, because it "tells the world" that in America, we have freedom of religion for everybody.

Here was an idea we have been hearing more and more of lately—the need to show the world America's devotion to democracy and justice, also cited by the administration as a reason to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City. Who is it, we can only wonder, that requires these proofs? What occasions these regular brayings on the need to show the world the United States is a free nation?

It's unlikely that the preachments now directed at opponents of the project by Mayor Bloomberg and others will persuade that opposition. Those fighting the building recognize full well the deliberate obtuseness of Mr. Bloomberg's exhortations, and those of Mr. Cuomo and others: the resort to pious battle cries, the claim that antagonists of the plan stand against religious freedom. They note, especially, the refusal to confront the obvious question posed by this proposed center towering over the ruins of 9/11.

It is a question most ordinary Americans, as usual, have no trouble defining. Namely, how is it that the planners, who have presented this effort as a grand design for the advancement of healing and interfaith understanding, have refused all consideration of the impact such a center will have near Ground Zero? Why have they insisted, despite intense resistance, on making the center an assertive presence in this place of haunted memory? It is an insistence that calls to mind the Flying Imams, whose ostentatious prayers—apparently designed to call attention to themselves on a U.S. Airways flight to Phoenix in November 2006—ended in a lawsuit. The imams sued. The airlines paid.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser—devout Muslim, physician, former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy—says there is every reason to investigate the center's funding under the circumstances. Of the mosque so near the site of the 9/11 attacks, he notes "It will certainly be seen as a victory for political Islam."

The center may be built where planned. But it will not go easy or without consequence to the politicians intent on jamming the project down the public throat, in the name of principle. Liberal piety may have met its match in the raw memory of 9/11, and in citizens who have come to know pure demagoguery when they hear it. They have had, of late, plenty of practice.

This should be a ragin' discussion all day, for example, at the far-left Salon, "Michael Bloomberg delivers stirring defense of mosque" (and the links at Memeorandum). Sigh. Those "enlightened" leftists. What would we do without them?

Sotomayor's a Disaster on the Issues

Lots of folks are saying conservatives should forget whether Sonia Sotomayor qualifies as a “racist” ... So okay, let's take a look at her record on the issues ...

How about Sotomayor on foreign policy and international law? Well, she's a radical. Check Joshua Keating, "How Sotomayor Sees the World":

Five ways Obama's Supreme Court nominee could change U.S. foreign policy.

The issue: One of the fiercest debates among legal scholars today is the degree to which it is proper for U.S. judges to cite foreign case law in making decisions. Conservatives, notably Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, tend to take the view that international agreements and laws should not apply, as they derive from different constitutional systems, while liberals, notably Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, tend to argue that a more "internationalist" legal philosophy is needed.

Sotomayor's record: The 2000 case Croll v. Croll involved the application of the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Mrs. Croll had removed her child from Hong Kong to the United States in violation of a Hong Kong court's joint custody order and Mr. Croll filed a petition under the Hague Convention seeking the child's return. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where Sotomayor currently sits, sided with the mother, ruling that the convention did not give Mr. Croll the right to determine the child's place of residence.

Sotomayor dissented, not only arguing for a more expansive interpretation of the treaty, but also referring to foreign case law to make her argument. "Sotomayor went through the foreign cases quite extensively and found that the view she was taking was consistent with what had been found by foreign courts. She paid a lot more attention to them than the majority had," said attorney and SCOTUSBlog co-founder Amy Howe.

This suggests that Sotomayor sides with those who believe that foreign case law should at least be considered when applicable. Howe, whose firm is currently arguing a largely identical case before the Supreme Court, is thrilled. "We think she's brilliant," she said.

Sotomayor also holds an expansive view of international insitutions, and hence on limitations on U.S. sovereignty. As Keating observes, Sotomayor seems to take a "positive view toward the construction of international courts and legal institutions."

*****

Okay, how about gun rights? Check Bob Owens, "Sotomayor: Obama’s End Run on the Second Amendment" (via Memeorandum):

The recent landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller put an end to decades of arguments regarding the meaning of the Second Amendment. In a 5-4 decision, SCOTUS rejected the collectivist interpretation favored by gun control advocates such as President Obama, noting that the Second Amendment’s protection of the right of citizens to own firearms for private use is an individual right that predates the Constitution, with its authority tied directly to the natural right of self-defense.

Just six months after Heller, however, Sotomayor issued an opinion in Maloney v. Cuomo that the protections of the Second Amendment do not apply to the states, and that if your city or state wants to ban all guns, then they have the right to disarm you. Such an opinion seems to fly directly in the face of Heller, exposing Sotomayor as an anti-gun radical who will affirm full-on gun prohibitions and believes that you have no right to own a firearm, even for the most basic right of defending your family in your own home.

*****

How about Sotomayor on racial preferences, and not whether she benefitted from them, but whether she'll rule in favor of minority racial preferences? David Paul Kuhn offers a devastating indictment of Sotomayor in, "Obama, Sotomayor, Ricci and White Male Privilege":

It is now asked whether Sonia Sotomayor has empathy for Frank Ricci.

It's a question larger than the first Latina nominated to the Supreme Court, larger than the first black president who selected her and larger than the case before the high court of a firefighter who did not get a promotion because he was white and male.

Three personal narratives interlocked as Obama nominated Judge Sotomayor on Tuesday. Sotomayor, if confirmed, would be the first Latina and only the third woman of the 111 justices to serve on the high court.

Sotomayor is a legal heavyweight. But she was also chosen, in part, because of her color and gender.

In an odd twist of fate, the first Latina nominee now finds herself cast not as the discriminated but the discriminator.

Sotomayor sits on the appellate court that decided against Frank Ricci, one of the more significant affirmative action cases before the Supreme Court in decades. The case evokes issues of discrimination. It highlights whether we can see white men as victims, a half-century after affirmative action was first implemented.

It was Obama who emphasized empathy as he discussed the makeup of his ideal Supreme Court nominee. And it was also Obama, in his acclaimed race speech during the presidential campaign, who noted that when whites hear "that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed ... resentment builds over time."

That resentment is captured by the Ricci case. Ricci has brought affirmative action back into the political debate at a time of towering firsts. It's these same firsts that bring culturally uncomfortable questions forward of affirmative action's role in the era of Obama ....

In 2003, the New Haven fire department had several vacancies for new lieutenants and captains. Candidates for promotion had to take a written and oral test. Candidates had three months to prepare. Ricci gave up a second job to study. Because he is dyslexic, Ricci paid an acquaintance more than $1,000 to read textbooks onto audiotapes. He studied 8 to 13 hours a day. And he succeeded. Ricci's exam ranked sixth among the 77 candidates who took the test.

But New Haven's civil service board ruled that not enough minorities earned a qualifying score. The city is more than a third black. None of the 19 African-American firefighters who took the exam earned a sufficient score. The city tossed out the exam. No promotions were given. Ricci and 17 other white firefighters, including one Hispanic, sued New Haven for discrimination.

In 2006, a Federal District Court ruled that the city had not discriminated against the white firefighters. Judge Janet Bond Arterton argued that since "the result was the same for all because the test results were discarded and nobody was promoted," no harm was done.

But in reality, the decision meant that Ricci and other qualified candidates were denied promotions because of the color of their skin. This is the essence of discrimination. The exclusion of a person from earned advancement because of his or her race. The Ricci case exemplifies decades of faulty policy that mistook equal opportunity for equal outcome.

When the case came before the three-judge panel of the New York federal appeals court, Arterton's ruling was upheld in an unsigned and, as the New York Times described it, "unusually terse decision." One of the judges who upheld the ruling was Sotomayor.

Judge Jose Cabranes' dissenting opinion noted that the ruling "lacks a clear statement of either the claims raised by the plaintiffs or the issues on appeal" and "contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims at the core of this case," concluding that the "perfunctory" actions of the majority in their decision "rests uneasily with the weighty issues presented by this appeal."

As Slate's Emily Bazelon wrote, "If Sotomayor and her colleagues were trying to shield the case from Supreme Court review, her punt had the opposite effect. It drew Cabranes' ire, and he hung a big red flag on the case, which the Supreme Court grabbed."

In April, the Supreme Court took up the case in oral argument. The ruling is expected in June. Most legal scholars expect Ricci to prevail. But the debate over affirmative action will continue.

Okay, that should be enough substance for a policy discussion on Sotomayor's nomination.

This woman will be a left-wing disaster on the Supreme Court.

Maybe she'll be Obama's Harriet Miers?

Fore more on that, see The Astute Blogger, "Sotomayor is Tostada, (That's Latina for Toast, Gringo!)."

Caroline Kennedy and the Family Dynasty

The recent media attention to Caroline Kennedy, who is lobbying for an appointment to the U.S. Senate, is not that big of a deal to me. She's certainly under-qualified, but I'm one of those who remains fascinated by the Kennedy mystique, and seeing Caroline in power in Washington will likely give many Americans a warm sense of nostalgia in a period of tumultuous socioeconomic change.

Caroline's by no means assured an appointment, of course, despite all her glamour and name recognition. As John Fund reports, New York Governor David Paterson, himself recently appointed to office upon the fall of Eliot Spitzer, has a powerful incentive to appoint New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to replace Hillary Clinton. By sending Cuomo to Washington, Paterson would remove one of his top rivals in home state politics.

Today's Los Angeles Times offers an interesting take on all of this, focusing on New York's dynasty politics. Recall, for example, that Cuomo is a former in-law to Caroline, having once been married to Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, Caroline's late uncle.

In any case, I like this section from the Times article:

The joke in the U.S. Capitol this week is that a primal scream echoing through the hallways is from the senior senator from New York, Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat with a voracious appetite for attention even by the self-promotional standards of Washington. He was first overshadowed when the former president's wife waltzed in to New York to win her Senate seat in 2000. And now he may again be eclipsed by the supernova of the 51-year-old Kennedy, even though it's unclear, as one graybeard of New York politics put it, whether "she can cut the mustard."

This is a woman who long avoided the public -- a seemingly shy princess of Camelot who moved with her reclusive mother, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, and younger brother, John Jr., to Manhattan's Upper East Side a year after her father, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated. She later graduated from Radcliffe College at Harvard University and Columbia Law School; she married Edwin Schlossberg but never officially changed her name. She wrote and edited books and became a fixture not only at the openings of the American Ballet Theatre but also on the walk to school with her daughters and at her son's basketball scrimmages in sweaty public school gyms.

Kennedy has always been close to Uncle Ted, the iconic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy from Massachusetts, who walked her down the aisle and whom she reportedly speaks to several times a week.

But she only began stepping out as a high-profile political surrogate earlier this year after delivering a timely endorsement of Obama over Clinton.

"She always asked campaign staff on the ground how she could make the most out of her appearances, and apparently she did," said Joel Benenson, a former New York political writer and the lead pollster for the Obama campaign.

Robert Shrum, a Democratic strategist close to the Kennedy family for decades, said Caroline Kennedy needed to get her children launched (two of the three are in college) before she was ready to move into a more public chapter of her life.

Citing her inherent intelligence and leadership at the Harvard University Institute of Politics and John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, Shrum said: "She'd be a terrific senator. Caroline has always been interested in politics and public life."

Still, it is one thing for Kennedy to be treated as an admired flower under glass and quite another to be the target of pesky political observers and covetous rivals.

Despite the collective swooning over Kennedy this week, it's far from certain that she is a shoo-in to become the next senator from New York. (More back story: Her uncle Bobby, who was also assassinated, once had the same job.)

See more analysis at Memeorandum (here and here).

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times

Poll Weakens Case for Clinton Electoral College Victory

As the Democratic primary contests grinds on, one case made for Hillary Clinton is that she's done better in more populous states, crucial to a November Electoral College victory.

U.S. News reports on new polling data that's undercutting that argument:

While Hillary Clinton tries to fight her way from behind in the Democratic presidential race, pouring millions of dollars into a last-ditch effort in the Pennsylvania primary, some of her supporters have begun suggesting a novel approach to selecting the nominee—and ending the current political deadlock. Instead of relying on the number of delegates the candidates have won (where Obama enjoys a small lead), the popular vote (which Obama leads by about 700,000 votes), or the number of states won (Obama's 27 trumps her 14), Sen. Evan Bayh, a Clinton backer, suggested this week that the nominee should be selected using another measure: the number of electoral votes the candidates have acquired. "Who carried the states with the most Electoral College votes is an important factor to consider because, ultimately, that's how we choose the president of the United States," Senator Bayh of Indiana said on CNN recently. Using this standard, Clinton, by carrying states like Texas, Ohio, and California, would have tallied a total of 219 Electoral College votes at this point in the race. Obama's wins in smaller states would have garnered him only 202.

A poll released today in California, the home of 55 electoral votes, the most of any state, underscores some of the weaknesses of this new electoral methodology—and serves as a reminder, experts say, of just how difficult it may be to determine a clear winner in the divided Democratic race, even in the states that have already voted.

On Super Tuesday, Clinton won the Golden State's primary by a margin of 52-to-43, surprising political experts with her dominance among Latinos, women, and older voters, in particular. Obama seemed to be unable to break through this electoral firewall. But in a new survey of more than 2,000 California voters, released today by the Public Policy Institute of California, an independent research group based in San Francisco, Obama appears to have experienced a significant bump since then. Over a month after voting in the primary, more Democrats here now say they have a positive view of Obama than of Clinton (78 percent to 74 percent)—a shift, experts say, that may be even larger than it appears, since much of Obama's support in the primary came from independents. Decline-to-state voters, who represent a sizable voting block in California, continue to flock to his campaign (57 percent have a favorable view of Obama, compared with 47 percent for McCain and only 35 percent for Clinton). Overall, more than 6 in 10 voters of all political stripes say they view Obama favorably, compared with 45 percent for Clinton. If the general election were held today, the poll indicates that Obama, not Clinton, would do better here: He polls at 49-to-40 percent over McCain, while Clinton-McCain is a statistical tie (46 percent of voters say they would support Clinton; 43 percent for McCain).

The Bayh approach, in other words—which assumes that because Clinton won the primary in California, she not only still enjoys the support of most voters in the state but would be more likely to win the state's electoral votes in the general election—seems flawed. "There's been a shift, no question about it," says Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Edmund "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State University-Los Angeles. "A lot of Democrats, who were once supporters of Hillary's—not bedrock supporters but voted for her on February 5—now they're leaving her."

It's worth noting, experts say, that the poll was conducted during the week of March 11, one of the roughest stretches Obama has experienced in his campaign, as he faced a barrage of questions about race and his relationship with his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In spite of all the bad publicity, California voters still seem to be moving toward him—or at least away from Clinton. "That makes it all the more remarkable," says Regalado.

The Clinton campaign can't be blamed for trying to swing for the electoral fences, analysts say, but the challenges it faces appear to be growing ever more formidable, even, it seems, in some of the states she's already won. "People are getting tired of the contentiousness of the campaign," says Regalado. "Almost nobody except for Clinton supporters and Clinton herself wants to see this play out all the way into August."

If this new argument gains currency, it'll be interesting to see how long the Clinton camp holds together. Hillary's already under increasing pressure to exit the race, and top campaign operatives will see brighter futures elsewhere, as John Heilemann notes:

Despite all the wailing of the party’s Henny Pennys, my own view is that, in the long run, Clinton’s scuffing up of Obama has so far done him more good than harm; it has toughened him, steeled him, and given him a taste, if only a taste, of what he can expect this fall. But Democrats are right to fear that Clinton may find it irresistible to turn her campaign into an exercise in nothing less (and little more) than political manslaughter against Obama. They’re especially right to be worried that she may want to fight on all summer, all the way to the Denver convention—especially with Clinton now talking openly about a floor fight over seating the disputed Florida and Michigan delegations.

Some senior members of Clinton’s campaign have no intention of sticking around if Obama is substantially ahead come June; as much as they’re devoted to their boss, they want nothing to do with a black-bag operation designed to destroy her rival, no matter what the cost. But these same people are also deeply convinced—beyond spin, beyond talking points, to their core—that Obama would be doomed against McCain. And Clinton believes this, too, which is one important reason why she persists despite odds that grow longer each passing day.

Yet, by an irony, Clinton’s grim assessment of Obama’s chances may also be the best cause for hope that she will, sometime between now and the middle of June, find it in herself to leave the stage with a modicum of grace. It may even be a reason, as Walter Mondale’s campaign manager, Bob Beckel, suggested in a column this week, that she winds up filling, against her instincts, the slot as Obama’s veep. For if HRC believes that Obama will lose in November, there can be no doubt that she’s already calculating, in the back of her head, the best way to position herself for 2012. A scorched-earth campaign against Obama is plainly not the way to do that. A classy exit, a show of unity, an act that apparently places party before self: That’s the ticket.

All of which is why party elders aren’t the last best hope for a peaceful resolution of the Obama-Clinton race. The last best hope is that Hillary will eventually come to see yielding as not merely the path to self-preservation, but also as her only route to long-range self-aggrandizement.

See also, Mario Cuomo, "How to Avoid a Democratic Disaster."