Obama's Far Left-Wing Backlash

I've commented a couple of times now on the netroots outrage that's erupted in the wake of Barack Obama's FISA vote for telecom immunity. I seriously doubt that "progressive" contingents would consider abandoning the Illinois Senator for some throwaway vote alternative, or God-forbid, the GOP standard-bearer.

It nevertheless does look like there's some real alienation among young voting idealists, who're now shocked - shocked! - that Obama would tack to the center after wrapping up the nomination. Today's New York Times even has a big story on this, "Obama Supporters on Far Left Cry Foul":

Joe McCraw, 27, a video engineer from San Carlos, Calif., who writes three liberal blogs, said Mr. Obama’s shift on the domestic spying measure was a watershed moment.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen him lie to us, and it makes me feel disappointed,” Mr. McCraw said. “I thought he was going to stand up there, stand by his campaign promises like he said he would, and it turns out he’s another politician.”

Many Obama supporters said the most vocal complaining about various policy positions was largely relegated to liberal bloggers and people who might otherwise support Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate, or Dennis J. Kucinich, the liberal Ohio congressman who dropped out of the presidential race earlier this year.

“I think it’s accentuated by the fact that Obama’s appeal is an appeal to idealism,” said Kari Chisholm, who runs a blog, blueoregon.com, and does Internet strategy for Democratic candidates. “They believe their ideology is the only idealism and Obama’s is very mainstream. I’m not surprised they’re getting a little cranky. They’ve always been kind of cranky. A mainstream Democrat has always been too mainstream for them.”

This raises some interesting puzzles:

First, while it's certainly true that far left-wing activists are idealistic, what explains their own sense they are the "mainstream," and hence their resistance to terms like "radical" or "leftist," the types of people the Times is discussing? For example, Markos Moulitsas has long claimed his netroots hordes represent today's political center, which I've characterized as megalomania on a number of occasions. The mainstream press doesn't really see these folks that way.

Things get even more complicated if we consider figures like Senator Joseph Lieberman, who very likely will be driven from the Democratic Party because of the hardline antiwar forces among the party base (he's likely a special case of one who's paid a genuine price for extremist antiwar anger).

Still, it's fun to see the hard-lefties squirm when the press identifies them as "hard left," for example, Digby:

The NY Times has published a story proving that the only Democrats who give a damn about wireless surveillance, or anything else of substance for that matter, are a bunch of crazed, leftwing freaks...

Hey, her words, not mine, but I can dig it, Digby!

(Added bonus: Outrage at Comments From Left Field!).

Second, though, is the deeper, essential issue: Is Obama himself really the "mainstream"?

This is where Obama's political skills have really come in handy!

As we have learned throughout the year, the Illinois Senator attended Trinity Lutheran Church for roughly 20 years, absorbing a black liberation theology that has been identified as a gospel of revolution; he has known ties to ex-revolutionary fugitives William Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn, activists today who still denounce the United States and stomp on the American flag; he has a personal religious pedigree that raises startling questions about his sectarian fidelity to the nation's Anglo-Protestant heritage; his family ties have deep and troubling foundations in doctrinaire Marxist-Leninist activism and ideology; he espouses a form of patriotism that places him firmly in the minority demographics of public opinion; he's got a record of public policy that's been identified as the most left-wing of any of his contemporaries in government; and he's been beating the drums for an unconditional surrender in Iraq louder than most mainstream political leaders, with the exception of also-rans like Kucinich and Ron Paul, all the while trying to backtrack from his own antiwar retreatism.

But hey, some in the Democratic Party must think this is mainstream!

If Barack Obama wins the presidency the United States will have elected a genuine far-left candidate, which raises another puzzle: Is socialism coming to America?

Maybe those lefties aren't so extremist after all!!

Photo Credit: New York Times

Irish Eyes Look Past Guinness

The Irish love their dark, dry Guinness stout.

But it seems the luck of the Irish has shifted on this classic beverage, as Guinness sales have declined in Ireland, and some pub drinkers are even ordering up a "'Boodweiser' from the barman," the Los Angeles Times reports:

The problem is, Irish traditions are something many Irish simply no longer have time for.

In Dublin, working and commuting now take up much of the time once spent stopping at the pub for a pint after work. And as the Celtic Tiger begins, like everyone else, to feel the effects of the global credit crunch, with home prices declining and unemployment rising, it doesn't help that a pint of Guinness costs $7.20.

"I've got a hundred-mile round-trip commute every day. So you're out of the house for 12, 14 hours a day, and by the time you do get home, all you're fit for is a couple of hours of TV, maybe dinner, and go to bed. It would never, ever cross my mind to go for a pint on the way home," said Cormac Billings, a 33-year-old investment banker who works in Dublin's city center but lives in the suburbs.

"Maybe six, seven times a year, you might meet up with your mates for a few pints, but it's always a hassle to organize," he said. "People are busy. They're married, they're having kids."

Ireland is still the second-biggest beer-drinking market in the world, after the Czech Republic. But beer consumption has declined 15% since 2001. Rural pubs were closing last year at the rate of more than one a day, victims of high taxes, increasing supermarket sales and a nationwide smoking ban that went into effect in 2004.

Add to that an explosion in demand for wine and high-end coffee here, and Guinness now sells more beer in Nigeria -- "there's a drop of greatness in every man," the ads for the extra-robust, 7.5% alcohol foreign extra stout tell Nigeria's receptive males -- than it does on the Emerald Isle.

The company in May announced a $1-billion modernization program that will close two of its most venerable breweries and eliminate more than half its brewery staff, while transferring most Guinness export production, including beer bound for the U.S., to a large, new state-of-the-art brewery in the Dublin suburbs.

Production at Guinness' 249-year-old flagship brewery at St. James's Gate in central Dublin will be shrunk by a third, to focus almost exclusively on beer sold in Ireland and Britain -- for those whose Guinness tastes are so refined they wouldn't accept beer brewed anywhere else. The facility, Ireland's biggest tourist attraction, will get a major face-lift.

"We listened to our consumers, and we listened to ourselves. And something like St. James's Gate is really, really important to people," said Brian Duffy, chairman of the Irish branch of Diageo, the multinational company that owns Guinness and also distributes Tanqueray gin, Smirnoff vodka and Cuervo tequila.

"Not just in terms of its connection with the beer and the connection with the family, but with Ireland. It is almost regarded as part of our heritage."

Pub owners say they still sell more Guinness than anything else, but as Ireland has joined the European Union and become a new center for banking and manufacturing, they face a clientele with more choices and broader interests.

This is interesting.

We're seeing the globalization of refreshments - for example, with the recent controversy stateside over Budweiser's proposed sale to Belgian brewing company InBev. I wonder if what's happening with Guinness is just another indicator of the homogenization of cultures.

Maybe we better call Barack Obama?

Barack Obama's Candidacy: Wake Up America?

My dear blogging friend, Jan, at Vinegar and Honey, forwarded a powerful essay on Barack Obama, by the Reverend Lainie Dowell:

People of every race and hue are finding out daily that Obama is not the promised Messiah his campaign and mesmerized followers have tried to make him out to be. They may point to his charismatic speechifying, magnetic draw of the masses, made-over wife, and overflowing coffers, but, along the way, he is leaving a wide trail of indecision behind him among so many citizens who seek to know what is up ahead for them, as they move closer to the November 2008 general election.

We must keep in mind the seriousness of this political process and how, lest we forget, it must not be viewed as merely some hypothetical game or a test of wills of opponents and their surrogates, as some may suppose. This all-important right is a matter of life and death for too many people; and, therefore, it is imperative that it continues to be guarded against becoming flawed in any way by anyone. It demands from Americans that they choose the very best defender of our constitutional rights and that it is, of necessity, incumbent upon them to find that person to be trustworthy, willing, and competent to keep this sovereign nation strong, free, and proud.

Read the whole thing.

See also, Reverend Lainie Dowell, "America: Hijacked in Plain Sight."

Toward Energy Independence

My good blogging friend, Chris, from Panhandle Perspectives, has been honored with a published essay on energy independence at the homepage of U.S. Senator John Cornyn, "Toward Energy Independence":

The battlefield is one of ideas and it is the equivalent of war. It will require an effort similar to what it took to put a man on the moon. We can overcome our dependence on foreign sources of oil. We can become energy independent if we allow the American spirit of entrepreneurship, innovation and industry to work without the burden of unnecessary government regulation or intervention.

The role of government is to insure that a balance is struck between the competing needs of energy, environmental health and the well-being of its people. It should provide stimulus for the entrepreneurial spirit that has made this nation great. It should create opportunity for new ideas to blossom in an atmosphere of encouragement in the face of uncertainty. It should not penalize those who have paved the way and benefitted from their years of hard work and risk-taking.

We must attack the war for Energy Independence on multiple fronts. Those fronts are 1) expanded safe production of existing known resources, 2) good stewardship of those resources through conservation and efficient use and 3) innovation through the development of new technologies and the implementation of those technologies in a practical manner.

We must develop infrastructure to meet the needs of new and developing technologies while remaining ever vigilant to the possible need to change course when those technologies result in unintended consequences. Without the means to distribute new energy sources to the end-user in an efficient manner, our efforts will be in vain.

Our national security is at stake in the war for Energy Independence. Our purchases of oil from countries that consider us their enemy only increase our vulnerability to their whims. Our inability to control our energy destiny places our economy at risk to blackmail from those countries that control the source of our needs. We must cut the strings that bind us to foreign energy sources or we have only ourselves to blame if they choose to strangle us with those very strings.

Read the whole thing at Senator Cornyn's page.

Senator Cornyn's leading the push for energy independence in Congress. He was quoted in the New York Times on Wednesday, speaking about the need for new domestic drilling initiatives:

“When I was in Texas this last week, this is the No. 1 issue on people’s minds,” Senator John Cornyn said. “When people fill up their trucks or S.U.V.’s in Texas and pay over $100 to fill up their vehicle, it gets their attention, and they are looking to Congress to frankly get out of the way and allow America to develop more of its own natural resources as we take other measures to conserve energy and become more efficient.”

Be sure to visit Panhandle Perspectives for more commentary and analysis. Chris has been a great influence on my development. We are in communication involving matters of faith and goodness, and I thank him for his readership and support.

Tony Snow, 1955-2008

Tony Snow, the former White House press spokesman, has died. He was just 53 years old, and a good man. May he rest peacefully. The New York Times obituary is here.

The news is still breaking across the web, but I'll update with some sample reactions from around the blogosphere.

Sister Toldjah says:

He was the best.

My thoughts and prayers go out to his family. RIP, Tony, and God bless you.

But the commenters at Think Progress are already hard at work demonizing Snow and the evil BushCo:

IF ONLY, it would happen to boooosh and F**K YOU DICK. Only more painful and worse.

I can't imagine the left-wing reaction could get worse than what we saw after the death of Jesse Helms, but who knows.

See also, Fox News, "Tony Snow, Former White House Press Secretary and FOX News Anchor, Dies at 53."

Photo Credit: New York Times

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UPDATE: Captain Ed offers the nicest remembrance of Tony Snow:

At the 2004 Republican convention, when I had been blogging for less than a year, I was introduced to Tony almost accidentally. I was shocked when he knew my blog, and maybe even more shocked at how he treated me — as a colleague, an equal in an arena where most of us bloggers felt like Cindarella among ten thousand stepsisters.

He wanted to interview me for his radio show, but he couldn’t work me in. Instead, we chatted off the air for a while, and he impressed me as a man who absolutely loved his work. His joy and his good humor shined through every word, as it did when he worked at the White House, and appeared on television and radio. Viewers and listeners got the authentic Tony Snow; he didn’t build a false persona for public consumption.

When Tony told the world about his illness and took a leave of absence, I sent him an e-mail wishing him well. I was only a little surprised to get a note back from him on his return, thanking me and complimenting me on my work. By that time, I knew what kind of man Tony Snow was...

See also, the wonderful memorial at Gayle's blog.

UPDATE II: The left's campaign of hate is building, for example, in the comments at the Carpetbagger Report. Even those who try to be respectful just get pulled down into the evil of the left's secular demonology.

See also the celebration at Daily Kos, "Tony Snow MORE IMPORTANT than Dead Soldiers":

When a bad guy dies, we should rejoice, not sing his praises of wish him anything by scorn.

UPDATE III: Patterico lays down the line on disrespectful comments at his blog:

Anyone who says anything bad about him in this thread is banned and the comment will be deleted. Anyone who says anything bad about him today anywhere on this blog will be banned and the comment will be deleted. It’s not the time or place.

That's classy.

UPDATE IV: See also Goat's Barnyard, "The Difference in the Leftosphere and the Rightosphere," and Protein Wisdom, "How Some in the Reality-Based Community of Compassion and Caring Honor the Death of Tony Snow."

Obama Polling Bump Collapses in New Survey

Captain Ed's got an interesting essay on the latest results from Newsweek's presidential polling, which finds Barack Obama statistically tied with GOP nominee John McCain (at 44 percent to 41 percent):

Last month, Newsweek’s poll surprised many by showing a huge gap between Barack Obama and John McCain, with the Democratic nominee-apparent enjoying a 15-point lead over the Republican. One month later, Obama has lost all of the momentum and has dropped into a virtual tie with McCain. The latest Newsweek poll shows Obama up 44-41, within the margin of error:

A month after emerging victorious from the bruising Democratic nominating contest, some of Barack Obama’s glow may be fading. In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, the Illinois senator leads Republican nominee John McCain by just 3 percentage points, 44 percent to 41 percent. The statistical dead heat is a marked change from last month’s NEWSWEEK Poll, where Obama led McCain by 15 points, 51 percent to 36 percent.

Obama’s rapid drop comes at a strategically challenging moment for the Democratic candidate. Having vanquished Hillary Clinton in early June, Obama quickly went about repositioning himself for a general-election audience–an unpleasant task for any nominee emerging from the pander-heavy primary contests and particularly for a candidate who’d slogged through a vigorous primary challenge in most every contest from January until June. Obama’s reversal on FISA legislation, his support of faith-based initiatives and his decision to opt out of the campaign public-financing system left him open to charges he was a flip-flopper. In the new poll, 53 percent of voters (and 50 percent of former Hillary Clinton supporters) believe that Obama has changed his position on key issues in order to gain political advantage.

More seriously, some Obama supporters worry that the spectacle of their candidate eagerly embracing his old rival, Hillary Clinton, and traveling the country courting big donors at lavish fund-raisers, may have done lasting damage to his image as an arbiter of a new kind of politics. This is a major concern since Obama’s outsider credentials, have, in the past, played a large part in his appeal to moderate, swing voters.

See the post for additional analysis, especially Newsweek's sampling record as an extreme outlier.

What interests me is the reaction among the netroots base of the Democratic Party. As I noted yesterday, the far-left hordes will turn up their noses at Obama's alleged FISA capitulation, but they'll ultimately be lining up behind the Illinois Senator faster than you can say "regime change."

Far-left blogger Mike Stark, who earned a notorious netroots reputation by stalking Bill O'Reilly at his home, argued today that Obama still deserved "progressive" support after the hard-left's congressional defeat on domestic surveillance:

From the moment George W. Bush took office and ripped this country to the right, Democrats in Congress ran after him like abandoned puppies afraid of being left alone in a dark house. They gave him extreme tax cuts for the wealthy, backed his rush to war, enacted draconian bankruptcy reform legislation and stood by meekly (or actively helped) as he trampled civil liberties and the Bill of Rights.

The Democratic establishment should have learned that we need a Democratic Party that will draw clear distinctions between itself and the Republicans, but it has not. Political cynicism on the left is growing, and with good reason. We won both houses of Congress back in 2006, but we've seen almost nothing change. Most recently, a bipartisan coalition -- which included Barack Obama -- voted to subvert justice by granting the telecom special interests retroactive immunity for lawlessly spying on Americans. (It's worth noting that the capitulating House Democrats received over twice the telecom campaign contributions that their constitutional stalwart colleagues did.) ....

As I write, there are early reports that Obama's June fundraising totals were disappointing. (There is no official confirmation yet.) The Obama campaign is denying a Wall Street Journal report about this, but the Washington Post also reports that his Internet fundraising is off. Much has been made of the small-donor base Obama cultivated so assiduously. Could it be that a drought of progressive enthusiasm based on his FISA flip stunted his crop last month?

Actually, the main reason Obama's fundraising has dried up is that he's having a hard time winning over former Hillary Clinton supporters precisely as his "movement" groupies have maxed themselves out (in fact, 115 deep-pocket Clinton donors made big contributions to John McCain after Obama wrapped-up the nomination, and the intra-party divisions remain deep and lasting).

As Larry Johnson puts it:

What do you do after you have tapped out your own true believers? Who is left? I count at least four categories of potential donors–Hillary supporters, those who wanted other democrats besides Hillary and Obama, uncommitted independents, and disaffected Republicans. It stands to reason then that Obama must reach out to these folks. He needs to make nice. So what is he doing?

Not too good. He fell far short of his fundraising goals for the second quarter. He’s down according to some sources by more than 70%. So who is responsible for this brewing debacle? Hillary of course. Obama and his posse are blaming Hillary for his fundraising woes and–surprise, surprise–scapegoating Hillary for his own failings. The man is a putz.

Obama may be a putz, but the fact is the bloom is off the rose of his post-nomination boost in the polls.

Zogby's now reporting that McCain leads Obama in Florida, and Gallup also saw a tightening this week in the national surveys.

Obama's residual radicalism and his ties to the far-left nihilist base will be his biggest liabilities going forward. Obama needs to tack to the center, of course, but the more he renounces his past positions across a range of traditionally left-wing policies, the more vulnerable he'll become as a run-of-the-mill machine politician eager to pander to the largest voting constituency of the moment.

Photo Credit: "St. Barack of Chicago."

Juan Cole's Conspiratorial Anti-Israel Hatred

Once in a while, in my posts on Iraq, I'll link to Juan Cole, who's one of the most rabid antiwar leftists on the academic scene. A Middle East "expert," Cole's mounted a endless campaign on the utter demonization of Israel.

Cinnamon Stillwell has a report on Professor Cole's recent activities:

One can always count on University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole to excuse violence and hatred directed at Israel. At his blog, Informed Comment (which, judging by the references to the mythical Jenin “massacre” and the USS Liberty canard in the comments section, is read avidly by anti-Israel conspiracy theorists), Cole takes pains to explain away last week’s horrific bulldozer attack in Jerusalem.

Cole apparently sees no contradiction between his perfunctory admission that “Violence against innocent civilians is always condemnable and deplored by IC,” and his claim to add “context” to the attack by trying to justify the alleged motivations of the perpetrator, Palestinian construction worker Husam Taysir Dwayat.

Citing Al-Jazeera International (one of his favored sources), Cole asserts that, “the bulldozer operator had been working on a controversial rail line connecting West Jerusalem to Arab East Jerusalem, which many Palestinians feel will further disadvantage them.” He then launches into a litany of Israel’s supposed sins, including demolishing illegal buildings in East Jerusalem, what he calls “rapid encroachments on the Palestinians in the West Bank,” the so-called “violence of Israeli colonists (many of them Americans) against native Palestinians,” and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) use of military action to protect Israeli citizens from their genocidal neighbors.

Among his sources, Cole cites the Israeli leftist “human rights group” B’Tselem, which has been known to play fast and loose with facts in order to provide a sympathetic media with lurid stories about imagined Israeli human rights transgressions—qualities that make the group an ideal source for Cole’s unlimited paranoia. Earlier this year Cole used the occasion of the Hamas-inspired media fabrication regarding electricity and fuel shortages to accuse Israel of perpetrating atrocities, war crimes, and slavery against Gazans, not to mention killing asthmatics and newborns. Yet Cole can’t muster the same outrage over the calculated murder of women, children, infants, and any civilian unlucky enough to have crossed paths with Dwayat’s bulldozer.

As for Dwayat’s motivations, Cole chooses to ignore the fact that he yelled “Allah Akbar” while stepping on the gas pedal, that his mother praised him as a shaheed (martyr) while ululating from the balcony of the family home, or that Palestinian terrorist groups are tripping over themselves trying to take credit for the attack. Meanwhile, his family blames the Jewish woman with whom Dwayat was once involved (and who he was convicted of raping) and his neighbors continue to repeat rumors about “haredi teenagers” throwing stones at Dwayat the day before the attack. But in Cole’s morally relativistic world, Dwayat was simply forced to mow down Israeli civilians because he was “seized with a fit of rage over accumulated grievances in his own mind, real or imagined.” So much for context.

Such obfuscation is standard fare for Cole, who continues to insist that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinjad was mistranslated when, at the aptly named World without Zionism conference in October, 2005, he said that Israel should be “wiped off the map.” Of course, the Iranian regime constantly calls for Israel’s destruction and regularly evinces hatred towards Jews. Iran’s state-run television replays a seemingly endless repertoire of conspiratorial, anti-Semitic programming, much of which mirrors Nazi-era propaganda. The allegation that the films “Chicken Run” and “Saving Private Ryan” are tools for “Zionist propaganda” is just a recent example. Perhaps Cole can justify that ludicrous claim as well. After all, he’s accused Jewish-American officials of dual loyalty, and he has a habit of taking Iranian regime-owned press at face value.

There's more at the link.

Note that Cole's a major eminence in the radical leftosphere, folks who are also prone to the unhinged ravings of BDS sufferers. Indeed, as I write this post, Daily Kos has an entire entry pumping of Cole's theories of the "FBI’s proposed new system for profiling Muslims and Arab-Americans."

Thank goodness we have wonderful souls like Cinammon Stillwell to cast the light of reason on such abject nihilism.

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Related: If you've not done so, be sure to read Stillwell's post-911 classic essay, "The Making of A 9/11 Republican."

The Community Impact of Increasing Prison Populations

The Wall Street Journal offers a disturbing take on the trends in increasing poverty in the western United States, which is resulting from the success of law enforcement efforts in crime prevention and increased rates of imprisonment (non-subscriber links here and here).

Academic analysts and social policy professionals argue that high incarceration rates are causing increased poverty, an analytical perspective that reverses the traditional explanatory arrows in theories on poverty and crime:

When she hit 60, Sarah Coleman thought she was done raising children. But today she is among the millions of Americans left to fill the void for family members gone to jail.

Now 66 years old, Ms. Coleman has three youngsters at home -- ages 5, 3 and 1. She doesn't know the whereabouts of her granddaughter, who is their mother. As for the children's fathers, they have both been in trouble with the law. One is in prison serving a 10-year term for second-degree murder. The other has been in and out of jail on drug charges.

"I didn't intend to raise my great-grandkids," says Ms. Coleman, who relies on supplies of diapers and baby wipes from a local social-services center. "There are so many things I can't do for them because of money, but I have to try."

Here in South Mountain, a district in south Phoenix, more than 3,800 residents are displaced, serving time in prison or the county jail. For every 100 adults, 6.1 are behind bars. That's more than five times the national average of 1.09 per 100, according to a report by the Pew Center, a nonpartisan research group. Arizona has the fastest-growing prison population of the Western states, having increased 5.3% in 2007 to more than 38,000.

Behind those figures are many hidden, related costs -- financial burdens that communities are often left to manage. For every person who goes to jail, businesses lose either a potential employee or customer. Inmates' children often depend on extended families, rather than a parent, to raise them. With only so many government resources to go around, churches, volunteer programs and other groups must often step in to help.

In one nine-block stretch of central South Mountain, nearly 500 out of 16,000 residents are in the state system either as prisoners or as probationers who return regularly to jail. Prison costs associated with this nine-block area amount to roughly $11 million annually, according to an estimate from the Justice Mapping Center, a New York organization that examines crime patterns.

But the state spends more than half that amount -- an additional $6.5 million -- on social programs for the residents who remain. In that nine-block span, 2,000 people receive cash payments under the federal government's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Nearly 5,000 are on food stamps. Almost one-third of the residents live below the poverty level. The total cost of prison and social services combined: approximately $2 million per block.

South Mountain may seem like just another desert town, yet its demographics are complicated. While a crackdown on crime has produced a high incarceration rate, it has also made the area attractive to new pockets of middle-class residents. Shopping malls, restaurants and grocery stores dot the area; there's a Target and a Wal-Mart. Gated communities and golf courses abound.

Most notable is what's missing: men of a certain age. "It's sad but we have men who are over 35 and we have young people under 17," says Faye Gray, a 71-year-old neighborhood activist. "The ones in between are missing." She quickly recites a half-dozen names, all men serving lengthy drug sentences -- people she watched grow up.

South Mountain's residents are mainly Hispanic and African-American. According to various studies, those two groups are the most overrepresented in the criminal-justice system. The Pew study released earlier this year showed the overall incarceration rate for all whites was one person per 245 adults, compared with one in 41 for blacks and one in 96 for Hispanics.

Arizona officials are worried about the $900 million the state spends annually on corrections. In an attempt to reverse the trend, the Department of Corrections has created several programs to give inmates tools to live successfully on the outside. Many convicts, for instance, can't read, so literacy is a focal point. One project seeks to identify job prospects for inmates, and offers classes in automotive, construction and catering fields. More than an effort to counter recidivism, such initiatives are meant to ease the burden of social-service providers -- programs already helping inmates' families.

The interplay of crime, poverty and race has long been a topic of study among criminologists and sociologists. Whether poverty creates crime or crime begets poverty is "an impossible question" to answer simply, says David Kennedy, director of crime prevention and control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

The longterm decline of today's minority areas -- from drug epidemics and white suburban flight to a gradual rise in prison populations and budgets -- has taken a toll, says Mr. Kennedy. "These things play off each other," he says. "It's not arguable any longer that some of the things we're doing to fight crime are promoting crime and exacerbating poverty."

Read the whole thing, at the link.

What I don't see at the article is a discussion of alternatives. It's not enough to lament increased rates of imprisonment. We need to focus on the collapse of family values in minority communities that has led to the disproportionate number of young people winding up in prison.

British Neocon Blog Being Sued by Hamas

Harry’s Place, a left-leaning British blog of neoconservative opinion, writes of an impending lawsuit by Mohammed Sawalha, the President of the British Muslim Initiative:

Last Friday, in the wake of a closely argued debate about whether Mohammed Sawalha, the President of the British Muslim Initiative, had used the phrase “Evil Jew” or “Jewish Lobby” in a speech, Harry’s Place received a letter. The letter is from Dean and Dean, a firm of solicitors who are acting for Mr Sawalha. Mr Sawalha has demanded that we take down certain articles from Harry’s Place, and publish an apology “in the attached wording”.

The solicitors have failed to attach the apology that Mr Sawalha insists we publish. That omission matters little, as we have no intention of apologising to him at all, nor of taking down any article.

We have responded to Mr Sawalha’s solicitors, through Mishcon de Reya, who are acting for us.

Mr Sawalha claims that we have “chosen a malevolent interpretation of a meaningless word”. In fact, we did no more than translate a phrase which appeared in an Al Jazeera report of Mr Sawalha’s speech. When Al Jazeera changed that phrase from “Evil Jew” to “Jewish Lobby”, we reported that fact, along with the statement that it had been a typographical error.

Mr Sawalha says that the attribution of the phrase “Evil Jew” to him implies that he is “anti-semitic and hateful”. Notably, he does not take issue with our reporting of the revelation, made in a Panorama documentary in 2006, that he is a senior activist in the clerical fascist terrorist organisation, Hamas. The BBC report disclosed that Mr Sawalha “master minded much of Hamas’ political and military strategy” and in London “is alleged to have directed funds, both for Hamas’ armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah”.

Be sure to read the rest of post, at the link.

Harry's Place describes its mission as:

... venue for heated discussion of the Iraq war, the ‘anti-war’ movement, the Islamist far-right, the decline of the Marxist left, the rise of left anti-Semitism, the slow death of internationalism, Zionism and Anti-Zionism and also examined issues relating to religion and secularism ...

The blog's administration indicates they may need help in resisting Mr. Sawalha's attempt "to silence us with this desperate legal suit..."

Check out Harry's Place here.

Hat Tip: Neoconstant

The Moral Power of Ingrid Betancourt

I wrote previously on "The Ingrid Betancourt Rescue." Yet, the more I learn of Betancourt's ordeal, the more powerful is her story of moral courage.

André Glucksmann, at City Journal, argues for seeing Betancourt's six years in captivity as a story of personal bravery and the ultimate rejection of slavery and terror:

Public opinion, government officials, ordinary citizens, and her friends and family—all are moved by, and rejoice in, Ingrid Betancourt’s liberation from the FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). Bravo to the woman who survived and stood fast in her tropical gulag; to her family, who moved heaven and earth to secure her release; to the organizations that fought against forgetfulness; and to the politicians who worked tirelessly to free her. Such joy aside, however, I fear that the thunderous worldwide applause may smother, with flowers and compliments, a troublesome and insistent truth—one that the hostage pondered ceaselessly during her six-year ordeal and has sought to deliver to us since her arrival on the Bogota tarmac. This truth alone gives absolute meaning to her liberation.

From the outset, Betancourt has congratulated the Colombian army and President Álvaro Uribe for the military operation that saved her. She praised not only its impeccable success but also—as she deliberately pointed out—its daring, for any military operation risked going awry for some unforeseen reason and leading to the execution of the hostages, as has sometimes happened in earlier attempts. Unlike her family members—who, she is careful to emphasize, have always so feared losing her that they distrusted and criticized Uribe’s adventurism and militarism—Betancourt congratulates the Colombian president. To be sure, Operation Checkmate could well have ended in bloodshed; but Betancourt had long wished for it, ready to face death if necessary. This had become a matter of principle for her. Better, she said, “a second of freedom,” even deadly freedom, than an eternity of slavery. She had attempted five escapes, and in retribution the guerilla fighters had chained her up by the neck. “I always avoided imagining my wife’s living conditions,” her husband said. “Now I know she lived like a dog.”

Betancourt’s choice, which she has proclaimed loud and clear since her first breaths of free air, is the result of mature reflection: rather the possibility of a bloody outcome than the life of a dog. She does not tell us that anything is better than death; she says rather that freedom is worth any price....

Ingrid Betancourt’s physical, moral, and intellectual courage reminds us of what is fundamentally at stake in a civilization: the refusal of slavery.

Betancourt, who was interviewed on Larry King Live the other night, cannot talk of some of the sheer inhumanity she witnessed while in captivity: "The memories are better left in the jungle," she said thoughout the broadcast:

Charles Krauthammer writes on the larger implications of the Betancourt story for international politics, "How Hostages, And Nations, Get Liberated" (on the hard power of military force and moral clarity).

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Cross-posted at NeoConstant

Obama's Sister Souljah Moment

In an earlier post, I suggested that Jesse Jackson's "nuts" controversy provided Barack Obama an opportunity to "break dramatically from the racial grievance masters of the Democratic Party's black-American base." Jackson's coments, in other words have provided Obama his Sister Souljah moment.

Dan Balz, at the Washington Post, makes a similar point:

Barack Obama leads a charmed life. He finally had his Sister Souljah moment and didn't even have to show up. Jesse Jackson did it for him solo.

Sixteen years ago, Bill Clinton used a Jackson-sponsored forum to rebuke the rap singer for suggesting that black people "have a week and kill white people" rather than each other. Jackson fumed as Clinton made the comments and denounced them later. Politically, Clinton came out such a winner that "Sister Souljah moment" now has its own entry in Wikipedia.

Roll forward to this week and the controversy that is attracting so much attention. Obama did not have to rebuke an important constituency himself to define himself as different from the Jackson-Sharpton wing of the Democratic Party. Being attacked by Jackson was more than enough to get across the point. Whatever people may know or think they know about Obama, they can no longer mistake him as a direct descendant of old-style black politics....

Whatever his disagreements, Jackson's outburst suggested that he has some fundamental disagreements with Obama's worldview. The more he makes that clear, the better it's likely to be for Obama. Jackson is an old-fashioned liberal with an abiding faith in government, for which he makes no apologies. He has kept that flame burning for many years.

But he is also trapped in a battle that was resolved within the Democratic Party long ago, when Bill Clinton declared the era of big government over. The party is comfortable with both governmental and non-governmental solutions and Obama is on the other side of that divide. He speaks in a language that is foreign to Jackson's ears.

I'm not fully in agreement that Obama is "fully over that divide," as the Illinois Senator's policy proposals would make Lyndon Johnson smile.

But I do think Balz hits the bullseye with his points on Jackson, and thus Obama's opportunity. Jackson-style post-civil right black leaders are caught in a time-warp of grievance politics - the "blood of martyrs" - that turns the contemporary civil rights agenda into a guilt-mongering shake-down scam.

The opportunity for Obama is to fully denounce the racial politics of victimology. He has yet to do so formally, although he has thrown MoveOn and the radical netroots under the bus.

I'm seeing some outrageous rejection of the Sister Souljah frame for Jackson's "nuts" controversy, of course.The leftist Obsidian Wings says just raising the issue is "racist":

I keep hearing that Nutsgate is a “Sister Souljah moment” for Obama. Frankly, it’s annoying me. First – it’s not a Sister Souljah moment at all. Second – I’m sick of that term. It’s time to retire the Sister Souljah label altogether. It’s inaccurate, and even borderline racist....

The [use of] “Sister Souljah” means distancing oneself from black people. When used in this sense, the Sister Souljah label masks an uglier, racial dimension lurking below the conceptual surface.

It takes a lot of, well, balls, to argue racism is at issue in suggesting Barack Obama ought to distance himself from the hardline black grievance-politics constituency.

But note here the deep sickness in Obsidian Wings' reference to racism.

The author of this post has no business writing about race and politics if he fails to realize the Jackson's comment was a call to lynch Barack Obama. Lynching was the standard tool of terror for racist night-riders in post-bellum America, and the phenomenon wasn't just isolated to Dixie. For Jesse Jackson to even suggest Obama's castration recalls the face of horror so devious that to argue against those who criticize him as "racist" reveals a strange, malevolent victim's irrationality.

It is not "racist" to repudiate the "master's mentality" of racial recrimnation that drives the grievance hordes of the black underclass interest group lobby. This is the very cohort that Balz suggests is stuck in a time warp.

You know we're in a very strange era of politcs when lefties twist the genuinely evil comments of a discreditied civil rights icon into some form of alleged neo-Reaganite anti-black ideology.

See also, "'Nuts' Case: How Did Media Cover Jesse Jackson's Choice of Words?"

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UPDATE: For more substantiation of my thesis here, that lefties have no sense of the seriousness of Jackson's "cutting" remarks, look no further than Young Ezra Klein, who says:

Jackson is getting a bad rap. The problem was the live mic, not his comment. His comment was a private utterance, graphically constructed, but not atypical for conversations between friends.

This is really unbelievable.

The problem is not a "live mic." The problem is that Jackson is so consumed by jealousy at Barack Obama's success, that in his sickening mental complex of faded civil rights glory he freely conjures up images of castrating the Democratic nominee, and his powerful comfort in talking about these sentiments in a casual off-the-cuff style reveals an absolute degree of utter moral depravity.

I've said it many times, but again, there's truly an absence of "divine soul" among today's hardline leftists.

The more I see of these episodes, the more depressing the prospect of Democratic power next year becomes (or, this is all the more reason Barack Obama needs to throw these nihilists under the damn bus!).

Iran's Failure to Launch

Here's the actual photo of Iran's missile tests, which have now been identified as doctored:

My morning copy of the Los Angeles Times, on the front page, included the photoshopped version below (showing four missiles), as did two other major national dailies:

There's some media controversy over the story.

It turns out the New York Times has taken credit for revealing Iran's faked photos, although timestamps indicate the first scoop was provided by Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs.

See also, Beyond Babylon, "IRAN: Doctored Missile Image?"

Plus, Ace of Spades, Augean Stables, Blackfive, Gateway Pundit, Kamangir, and Suitably Flip.

The photos were produced by the media arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Further, the Iranian regime is apparently engaged in deep emergency planning at the prospect of an attack from Israel, the United States, or both (in contrast to firm public statements suggesting the West wouldn't dare attack Tehran).

For additional background, see "Iran in Preparations, Deployment to Withstand Possible Attack by West."

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UPDATE: The New York Times credits Little Green Footballs in a news story on Iran's photoshop controversy, "In Image of Iran’s Power, There’s Less Than Meets the Eye":

Little Green Footballs, a conservative blog, identified the altered image on Wednesday. Last year the blog pointed out a manipulated image that had been distributed by Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency. As in the case of Wednesday’s photograph and many others that the site has uncovered, the one from 2007 appeared to contain several cloned elements.

The End of Barack Obama's Ideology?

Presidential nominees unusually move back to the center of the ideological spectrum at the conclusion of the primaries, but the pace and scope of Barack Obama's centrist repositioning has thrown political observers across the spectrum into fits.

It's to be expected that the netroots would fly into hissy fits over Obama's new centrism. Over the last couple of week's the Illinois Senator's staked out middle-of-the-road positions on patriotic flag pins, the execution of child rapists, urban gun control, international trade (especially NAFTA), and faith-based initiatives.

Obama's also steadily thrown many of his most controversial political and religious associates under the bus, like William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright (and Samantha Power, and Michael Pfleger, and Wesley Clark, and ... well, you get the picture).

Now, with Obama's vote on retroactive immunity for corporations assisting government surveillance programs, even some top party leaders are scratching their heads in dismay: Where is Obama on the ideological map?

The Washington Post has the story:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama put himself on the opposite side of his party's leadership in the Senate yesterday by reversing course to support a compromise intelligence surveillance bill. His vote was the most dramatic in a series of moves toward the middle that have focused new attention on where he stands and where he would take the country.

Obama's vote was not unexpected, as he had signaled earlier that he would back the compromise legislation. But the senator from Illinois found himself at odds with Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), as well as three of his opponents for the Democratic nomination, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.).

Just the day before, Obama had denied suggestions that "I am flip-flopping." But in recent weeks, he has softened his once-harsh rhetoric about the North American Free Trade Agreement, embraced the Supreme Court decision overturning a District of Columbia ban on handguns and criticized the high court for rejecting the death penalty for child rape.

After telling reporters last week that he will probably "refine" his position on the Iraq war after he meets with military commanders there this summer, he gathered reporters again to say that he remains committed to ending the conflict and to withdrawing combat troops, conditions permitting, within 16 months, should he assume the presidency.

One factor in Obama's success has been his ability to confound both left and right. But while that may be a measure of a skillful politician determined to win a general election, it has left unanswered important questions about his core principles and his presidential priorities. How well he answers them over the coming months will determine the outcome of his race against Republican Sen. John McCain.

Statements he has made over the past month have ignited a debate about who Obama is ideologically. His current policy positions have convinced some progressives that he is not one of them. Matt Stoller, editor of OpenLeft.com, said that an Obama win in November would be a victory for "centrist government," adding: "Progressives are going to have to organize for progressive values."

Note Stoller's use of the term "progressive," which is essentially the term of choice for the most radical advocates on the political left.

Note, though, that Obama's shift to the center caused nary a ripple among many on the Democratic Party's left side, as the Los Angeles Times reports:

As Barack Obama moves to broaden his appeal beyond loyal Democrats, a chorus of anger and disappointment has arisen from the left. But those voices are a distinct minority because the party has a more pressing concern: winning in November.

On Wednesday, Obama again bucked his liberal allies, voting in the Senate to give legal immunity to phone companies that took part in warrantless wiretapping after the Sept. 11 attacks. Critics chided Obama for the vote -- which put him crossways with dozens of Democratic colleagues, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

The vote, a reversal of an earlier pledge, was Obama's latest perceived step away from his party's base on a range of issues, among them the death penalty, gun control and taxpayer money for religious groups.

Reaction has been swift and - aside from the blogosphere and some newspaper columnists - notably mild.

"We're willing to work through this period," said Richard Parker, president of the liberal Americans for Democratic Action, one of the party's most enduring advocacy groups. In the long run, he said, the organization's "serious concerns" about Obama are far outweighed by its disagreements with Republican John McCain.

That Obama has moved so far to the ideological center - essentially coming in from the cold of the ideological left - is a testament to his political skills. But his shifts are dangerous politically, as he's been so solidly steeped in the traditions of socialist ideology and postmodern cultural politics that his current move to the center can only be seen as crassly political or psychologically dissonant.

It is no wonder that Obama enjoyed powerful initial attraction among the most hardline actors on the left of the spectrum. The Illinois Senator's seen as "one of them," essentially a revolutionary in politics, one who will achieve power through non-violent means, but who will nevertheless facilitate a fundamental transformation of the conservative structures of hierarchy and attainment in American life.

The Obama backlash now seen among the netroots is thus completely understandable.

A sustained tour of the left blogosphere is to become submersed in the vile underworld of a nearly unbelievable maelstrom of implacable intolerance, bigotry, and ideological megalomania. It's not just one or two left-wing blogs, here or there: There's an entire radical subterranean establishment that wants nothing less than a wholesale restructuring of American politics, from education to foreign policy to health care to infrastructure to social policy to taxation and beyond.

The FISA debate demonstrated the genuine extremism of the far-left factions. But the big test of their influence lies ahead, during the post-Labor Day political mobilization of the general election campaign. The leftists will stay with Obama, grudgingly, out of sheer hatred for the GOP's governing legacy of the past seven years. But their true agenda is not difficult to discern.

Barack Obama, at this stage of the campaign, will demonstrate how fully he's abandoned his past associations with those on the left - and his indoctrination into state-socialist ideology - by decisively repudiating the extremist agenda of the netroots political establishment.

These people are today's protest generation - the revolution's gone online. If Obama wants to be a man of all the people, he's going to have to call out the left forces for what they truly are: unpatriotic nihilists intent on political retribution and totalitarian power.

Flint, Michigan, Cracks Down on Baggy Pants

David Dicks, the Chief of Police in Flint, Michigan, has ordered a city-wide crackdown on sagging paints:

"Some people call it a fad," Dicks told the Free Press this week while patrolling the streets of Flint. "But I believe it's a national nuisance. It is indecent and thus it is indecent exposure, which has been on the books for years."

The lefties and libertarians are already "cracking" wise:

* "Just Say No To Crack," announced the radical LGM.

* "Watch Your Butt," warns Jeralyn, at Talk Left.

* "Flint, Michigan, Battles Crack Epidemic," announces Reason, the libertarian standard-bearer.

While humorous, I think Chief Dicks is onto something.

To the extent baggy pants reflect the glorification of "gang culture" (which predicts limited school success) among particular urban demographics - or at least a hip-hop identity that is oppositional to educational attainment - then a crackdown on baggy pants might be considered a social extension of the "broken windows" theory of policing.

Image Credit: Detroit Free Press

Voters Reject Obama on Bilingualism

Here's Rasmussen's report, "Voters Reject Obama's Call for Bilingualism":

Barack Obama said yesterday that “instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English,” Americans “need to make sure your child can speak Spanish.” A national telephone survey conducted last month by Rasmussen Reports found that U.S. voters overwhelmingly disagree with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. (see video)

Eighty-three percent (83%) place a higher priority on encouraging immigrants to speak English as their primary language. Just 13% take the opposite view and say it is more important for Americans to learn other languages.

In his comments, Obama emphasized the economic benefits of learning a second language: “If you have a foreign language, that is a powerful tool to get a job.” Data suggests that most voters see the issue in a broader context.

A separate survey found that one factor fueling the anger over immigration is the belief that most government officials encourage immigrants to retain the culture of their home country. This helps explain why voters who are angry about immigration are primarily angry at the government, not immigrants. Among those angry about immigration, 59% believe most government officials encourage immigrants to retain their home country culture.

Last fall, a Rasmussen Reports survey found that 77% of Americans believed that employers should be allowed to require employees to speak English while on the job. With the Supreme Court recently upholding tougher standards for voter identification at the polls, 65% of voters now believe election ballots should only be printed in English. Thirty-two percent (32%) say they should be printed in both English and Spanish.

The importance of assimilation into the culture is highlighted in another recent survey: 54% of voters say it is more important to encourage all immigrants to embrace American culture than it is to reduce the number of immigrants. Just 36% take the opposite view and say reducing immigration is a higher priority. That survey, as with many others, also found a strong preference for ballots and other government documents to be printed in English only.

Only 26% believe that every American should be able to speak at least two languages. In his recent comments, Obama said parents should be thinking, “How can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language.“

That's an interesting, even troublesome, statistic finding that 59 percent believe government officials encourage newcomers to retain their indigenous language and identity.

Other research shows, also, that some immigrant popuations are resisting the American mainstream. See, "Mexican Immigrants Prove Slow to Assimilate."

See also, Fausta, "Oh Look, Obama Changed His Mind ... on Spanish" (with video updates).

Victory in Iraq: An Update

Last November, I published, "Victory in Iraq? The War Has Been Won," drawing on Andrew Bolt's essay, "The War in Iraq Has Been Won."

Well it turns out that Nancy Morgan has an update on victory, in her essay, "We Won":

America, its allies and the Iraqi people have won the war against terror in Iraq. How do we know? Simple. Just follow the money. European and Asian investment companies are beating a path to Iraq, money in hand. Iraqi Airlines is flying high thanks to a colossal $5.5 billion contract with Boeing and the United Arab Emirates just canceled billions of dollars of Iraqi debt as they moved to restore a diplomatic mission in Baghdad.

When foreign countries start investing billions of dollars in a country, its a safe bet they are aware of the risks involved. And, unlike the old news media and our elected Democrat officials, they see a relatively stable country ripe for investment.

The influx of foreign investment is largely due to the improved security in Iraq, which continues to improve even after the withdrawal of nearly 25% of U.S. combat brigades. The Joint Chiefs of Staff recently acknowledged cautiously that security 'is on its way to becoming sustainable.'

American and Iraqi forces have driven Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror. Al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister said that "the government has defeated terrorism in the country." Pretty unequivocal. In fact, things are going so well in Iraq that the discussion has now shifted to a timetable for more troop withdrawals.

The American media is silent on all this good news, possibly out of embarrassment for being so incredibly wrong on pretty much every single issue having to do with Iraq. They would like to forget their near universal scorn for the now successful surge. The Democrats had declared defeat and there was no way they would accept anything more. The media trumpeted their views. Lo and behold, the surge worked. Horror of horrors, Bush was right.

When evidence of the progress on the ground was too overwhelming to ignore, new talking points emerged on the left. Democrats avowed that our military victory meant nothing. (Think about that a second) What really mattered, they intoned with one voice, was the political progress, as measured by Congressionally established benchmarks.

More horrors. It appears that a March 2008 report shows that the Iraqis have met 15 of the 18 benchmarks. The silence from the left, and the old media is now deafening.

Desperate to ignore any and all evidence of our astounding victory, the left, aided and abetted by the old media, continue to desperately search for any smidgen of bad news from Iraq. Not finding any, new talking points are starting to emerge. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, the left has moved its focus off Iraq - to Afghanistan. The war has merely shifted, they say. We haven't won, they claim. For shame.

This is an excellent analysis, with more at the link.

Also, check out Morgan's news portal, Right Bias.