Epic Obama Victory Unlikely, Trends Suggest

David Paul Kuhn, at the Politico, reports that a runaway landslide victory for Barack Obama in November is highly unlikely, based on presidential election history:

From the fever swamps of the blogosphere to the halls of academia, there is a chorus of voices who have come to the same conclusion about the presidential election: Barack Obama is going to win in November, by something resembling a landslide.

Yet for all the breathless analysis and number-crunching that has convinced observers Obama is en route to an epic victory, there is one key historic fact that is often overlooked—most popular vote landslides were clearly visible by the end of summer. And by that indicator, 2008 doesn’t measure up.

In five of the six post-war landslides (defined as a victory of 10 percentage points or more) the eventual winner was ahead by at least 10 percentage points in the polls at the close of August, according to a Politico analysis of historical Gallup polls. Over the past week, however, Gallup’s daily tracking poll pegs Obama ahead of John McCain by a margin of 2 to 5 percentage points.

The one exception to the August rule was 1980. Ronald Reagan was trailing slightly in the August polls before surging forward to win by roughly a 10-point margin.

By comparison, the biggest post-war landslides—1964, 1972 and 1984—were signaled by a large, double-digit advantage held by the eventual winner at the close of August.

Lyndon Johnson was trouncing Barry Goldwater in one late August 1964 Gallup poll, 67 percent to 26 percent, taken on the opening day of the Democratic convention. A July poll showed Johnson also winning by a two to one ratio. Johnson went on to win the race 61 percent to 38 percent.

While Richard Nixon in the summer of 1972 was not faring as well as Johnson in late summer 1964, it was nevertheless clear in Gallup’s polling that the incumbent was on his way to a rout that would have been hardly imaginable just four years before.

In mid-July, Nixon was only ahead by about 10 percentage points. But by early August Gallup tracked that his lead had grown to twice that. He went on to win by 23 percentage points, nearly his exact margin in August.

Reagan, in his 1984 re-election campaign, also was ahead by a modest 10 points in August. But he won in the fall by nearly twice that margin.

In the past two months, Obama’s polling has held steady, remaining in a narrow single-digit band.

“There certainly was a definite cockiness that Democrats felt once they regained control of Congress, and I’ve also felt it was a misplaced cockiness,” pollster John Zogby said.

Still, he acknowledged why there was such optimism. “You’ve got a lot of conditions that are similar to 1932 and similar to 1980, a very unpopular president and the party brand badly hurt.”

Only two post-war popular vote landslides have occurred without an incumbent finishing on top—1952 and 1980. They offer conflicting lessons.

In the case of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, two late August Gallup polls showed him with at least 53 percent of the vote and ahead by at least 15 percentage points. But the race narrowed in polling to a dead heat before Eisenhower pulled off his 11-point win. In his 1956 rematch with Adlai Stevenson, he expanded his margin to a 15-point blowout.

Read the rest of the article, here.

The essay cites additional polling experts and political scientists who see the Democrats by far the odds-on favorite. Pollster Brad Coker sees the makings of a landslide, but suggests that race may play a factor:

“This may sound kind of harsh, but if the Democratic nominee were a white male from a red or purple state, the theory would be dead on that this would be set up, there would be a very, very high probability for a Democratic landslide,” said Brad Coker, the managing partner of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research. Coker said that, in his view, two factors along with race are anchoring down Obama. He cites Obama’s political inexperience and that “you’ve never had a young guy win by such a large margin, post-war.” Coker added that Obama’s ideology and geography were also factors, though of lesser importance in his view.

I had been one of those Republicans who was becoming resigned to a Democratic victory this fall.

But last month's Wall Street Journal poll, finding John McCain holding an 11-point lead over Obama on the values divide, along with Obama's huge campaign missteps this last couple of weeks - starting with the Illinois Senator's celebrity world tour - has convinced me that the GOP has a huge opportunity to snag the White House in November.

The best analysis on this last point is Steven Warshawsky's "Why Barack Obama Will Not Win." Warshawsky touches on all the vulnerabilities mentioned by Coker, but his discussion of Obama's inexperience is the best:

One of Obama's most striking characteristics is how "green" he is compared to previous presidential candidates. Obama was born on August 4, 1961. He just turned 47 years old. The average age of elected presidents since 1952 (the era of televised politics) is 56.

If elected president, Obama would be the fifth youngest president in U.S. history. The only younger presidents would be Teddy Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Ulysses S. Grant, all of whom were much more accomplished than Obama. Grant, Roosevelt, and Kennedy were war heroes. (Not Clinton, notoriously.) Roosevelt and Clinton had served as state governors. Grant had been the general-in-chief of the Union Army during the Civil War. The least experienced of the four, Kennedy, had served twelve years in Congress, six in the House of Representatives and six in the Senate, and had been a serious candidate for vice-president in 1956.

What has Obama accomplished to date? In truth, not very much -- except to master the art of self-promotion.

Obama has written two best-selling autobiographies: Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995) and The Audacity of Hope (2006). Yet he has never served in an important leadership position in government, business, or the military. His ability to perform as a chief executive officer is completely untested.

Obama has prestigious degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, but no significant professional achievements to his name. No businesses or organizations he has founded or managed. No law firm partnerships. No important cases he has tried. Not a single work of legal scholarship he has authored, despite having been Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Law Review and a part-time law professor at the University of Chicago for twelve years. (This is unheard of in the elite ranks of the legal profession, and calls into question the bona fides of Obama's professorship.)

Obama's principal occupation before entering politics was as a "community organizer" in Chicago. By his own admission, these efforts achieved only "some success," and none worthy of highlighting on his campaign website. Obama then served eight unexceptional years in the Illinois Senate, and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, where he is not even considered one of the Democratic Party's legislative leaders.

And this man believes he is "the one we have been waiting for"?

Obama may be considered a "rock star" by his supporters, but the kind of superficial glamour and excitement that this terminology suggests is not what most voters are looking for in a president. Heartland values, not Hollywood values, still define what most voters want in a president. Most voters want a president whom they perceive as loyal, courageous, hardworking, and fair. Someone who commands the respect of others through the strength of his character and the wisdom of his actions. Someone who is prepared to fight to protect his home and country from invaders. In other words, someone who appeals to voters, on a psychological or emotional level, as the kind of person they would want for a father, husband, boss, or comrade-in-arms.

Rock stars may be fun, but they do not fit this image. Neither does Obama. His life story, while unique and interesting, bespeaks little more than an ambitious and opportunistic young man, still wet behind the ears, with an unhealthy fascination with his own ego - and potentially unreliable when the chips are down.

The American people are not going to entrust the security and prosperity of the country to such an immature and unproven man.

Warshawsky predicts Obama winning about 45 percent of the national popular vote.

I think the final results will be closer (the third party factor is insignificant this year), but I'm confident the Republican John McCain can win a majority of the electorate based on his experience, bipartisan appeal to independents, his traditional American values, and his national security credentials.

Moscow's Western Apologists

Victor Davis Hanson wins gold with his analysis of the permissive causes of Moscow's Georgia incursion.

One of the most important factors contributing to war is the left's refusal to see naked neo-imperialist aggression in Russia's strike in the Caucasus. For Hanson, there's a brilliance in Moscow's perceptions of Western capitulations to its designs in the south:

The Russians have sized up the moral bankruptcy of the Western Left. They know that half-a-million Europeans would turn out to damn their patron the United States for removing a dictator and fostering democracy, but not more than a half-dozen would do the same to criticize their long-time enemy from bombing a constitutional state.

The Russians rightly expect Westerners to turn on themselves, rather than Moscow — and they won’t be disappointed. Imagine the morally equivalent fodder for liberal lament: We were unilateral in Iraq, so we can’t say Russia can’t do the same to Georgia. (As if removing a genocidal dictator is the same as attacking a democracy). We accepted Kosovo’s independence, so why not Ossetia’s? (As if the recent history of Serbia is analogous to Georgia’s.) We are still captive to neo-con fantasies about democracy, and so encouraged Georgia’s efforts that provoked the otherwise reasonable Russians (As if the problem in Ossetia is our principled support for democracy rather than appeasement of Russian dictatorship).

From what the Russians learned of the Western reaction to Iraq, they expect their best apologists will be American politicians, pundits, professors, and essayists — and once more they will not be disappointed. We are a culture, after all, that after damning Iraqi democracy as too violent, broke, and disorganized, is now damning Iraqi democracy as too conniving, rich, and self-interested — the only common denominator being whatever we do, and whomever we help, cannot be good.

There's more at the link.

Particularly insightful is Hanson's discussion of the postmodern paralytic aversion to realpolitik. The resort to military force is "mindless" and "inhumane." Meanwhile, whole populations fall under the hegemony of the revived Russian Bear, and it's all the Bush administration's fault.

The End of Consumerism?

I'm still trying to figure out if this "phony recession" is really as significant as earlier eras of American economic dislocation. Sure, housing's collapsed, credit markets and banking institutions have face bailouts and shakeouts, and unemployment is up near 6 percent.

Yet, the economy grew in the 2nd quarter at 1.9 percent of GDP, which is more than double 0.9 percent growth rate for the first quarter of this year. Meanwhile, the Dow-Jones industrial average is pushing 12,000, as international oil markets have seen a pull-back in petroleum costs.

I know many families are facing the strains of the subprime fallout and the drop in housing prices, so it remains to be seen how it all ends up, but there's a resiliency in the economy that has kept things rolling along.

Is it consumers? Have consumers continued to spend while income has lagged, breaking out the plastic to keep the party going?

This week's U.S. News argues that indeed credit card-driven spending has kept the economy afloat, but the good times are coming to an end. We may be seeing "The End of Credit Card Consumerism":

When it comes to longevity, few royals can top America's King Consumer. For more than four decades, our shopaholic nation has shown an insatiable desire to spend until our credit cards melt. And throughout this era, consumer spending has, well, consumed a greater and greater share of our total economy. Only twice since 1965, despite half a dozen recessions, have Americans spent less in a year than the previous one. Indeed, it often seems that we have defined ourselves by our ability to buy supersized everything, from McMansions to tricked-out SUVs to 60-inch flat-screen televisions—all enabled by decades of cheap credit.

On the surface, it may seem that there's nothing wrong with all that conspicuous consumption, especially for the biggest, most productive economy on the planet. After all, our undying love of stuff has helped fuel a global economic boom. Yet today, America finds itself at a once-or-twice-a-century economic tipping point. A sharp slowdown, record-high gas prices, high consumer debt levels, a plunging real estate market, and the growing green movement all seem to be conspiring to dethrone King Consumer and transform the economy and the American way of life for years to come....

Party's over. Many consumers, of course, don't have much choice but to scale back. Total credit card debt has increased by over 50 percent since 2000. The average American with a credit file is responsible for $16,635 in debt, excluding mortgages, according to Experian, and the personal savings rate has hovered close to zero for the past several years. High gas and food prices are causing real incomes to fall. Even worse, rising inflation will probably cause the Federal Reserve to start jacking up interest rates once the credit crisis on Wall Street has passed, tightening credit even further. "We're shedding jobs, it's much harder to borrow, and what used to be capital gains are now capital losses," says Scott Hoyt, senior director of consumer economics at Moody's Economy.com. "There's no source of funding for spending." Because many of us won't be able to as easily use our homes as ATMs, Hoyt expects to see an upward trend in saving and slower growth in consumer spending, compared with the binge of the past decade.

It was our appetite for housing, after all, that served as the catalyst for the multidecade consumer boom. Consider this: Consumer spending has risen to just over 70 percent of the U.S. economy from a bit more than 60 percent in 1965. The pace really picked up in the 1970s, when the first baby boomers started buying and furnishing their own homes. But now, Rosenberg says, the median boomer is in his early 50s and looking to unload his fleet of leased SUVs.

To some degree, then, demographics are destiny. Longer term, an aging population will need to spend less and save more for retirement. As that process plays out, consumer spending may become less important in the big economic picture. Moody's Economy.com forecasts that the combination of demographic and financial factors will cause just such a seismic economic shift. Reversing a four-decade ascent, consumer spending could actually start falling as a percentage of U.S. gross domestic product, slipping to 68 percent over the next seven years.

Read the whole thing, here.

It seems to me a bit premature to suggest this particular economic crisis will trigger an end to the modern industrial growth model of the American economy. We may indeed see this period as wake up call for rethinking some priorities, especially on automobile travel and gasoline consumption.

But I don't think we've had enough economic crisis and market dislocation to shake the notion from the great multitudes of people that their birthright is to share in the promise of the American way, which includes material affluence as well as political liberty.

Related: "Inflation Staggers Public but Economy Still Seen As Fixable."

The Politics of the Olympic Games

I was 11 years-old in 1972. The Olympic Games that year form my earliest recollections of the world's quadrennial sports competition, but also my earliest memories of Middle East terrorism.

The '72 games were far from the first to be so politicized (Berlin in '36 and Mexico City in '68 come to mind), and this year - right on cue - we've seen the tremendous political conflict leading up to this year's summer games in Beijing. Indeed, as Elizabeth Economy and Adam Segal argued, in "China's Olympic Nightmare," Beijing's coming-out party has been wracked by organized anti-Chinese political activism around world. China's politburo may have thought the protests would be isolated or overwhelmed by the excitement and spectacle of the approaching competition, but from human rights to enviromental pollution, China's public relations have been hammered, and the regime's not expected to get as big a boost from the Olympics as had been anticipated.

From the perspective of an observer, the broadcast and images of Beijing's opening ceremonies, and the initial competitions, seem to have dampened some of the pessimism of that thesis.

As the games have commenced, I've been impressed with Presdident Bush's presence at the Olympics, which gives some weight to the message that China has emerged as an accepted partner on the world's stage (it will be more difficult for the U.S. to paint Beijing as outside the institutional rings of power in world politics, if it wasn't before). Others are appalled. Gordon Chang argued that Bush's presence on opening night legitimizes China's authoritarian rule. Christy Hardin Smith attacks Bush for seeking his own poliltical rehabilitation in the People's Republic.

All of this is a reminder of how essentially politicized is the Olympic competition. Foreign Policy has more on that:

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge said in March, “We do not make political choices, because if we do, this is the end of the universality of the Olympic Games.” Two weeks later, Rogge observed indignantly, “Politics invited itself in[to] sports. We didn’t call for politics to come.” But after 75 years of watching the political manipulation and exploitation of the Olympic Games, can anyone actually believe this?

Trapped by its grandiose goal of embracing the entire “human family” at whatever cost, the IOC has repeatedly caved in and awarded the games to police states bent on staging spectacular festivals that serve only to reinforce their own authority. Of course, the most notorious example is the 1936 Berlin Games, which were promoted by a network of Nazi agents working both inside and outside the IOC. Pierre de Coubertin, the French nobleman who founded the modern Olympic movement, called Hitler’s games the fulfillment of his life’s work. As a reward for this endorsement, the Nazi Foreign Office nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

But the IOC’s history of working with unsavory regimes didn’t end with the Second World War. The 1968 Olympics in Mexico City were awarded to a one-party, faux democratic government that hoped to use the games to legitimize its rule. Like the 2008 Games, they were confronted with massive antigovernment demonstrations that culminated with the Mexican Army mowing down 300 protesters. (The IOC has never acknowledged this greatest of Olympic-related political crimes.) The 1980 Moscow Olympics were only awarded to the Soviet Union when, in 1974, it threatened to leave the Olympic “family” after losing its bid for the 1976 Games. The IOC awarded the 1988 Olympics to Seoul in 1981, one year after South Korea’s military government carried out a massacre in the city of Kwangju, where paratroopers crushed a citizens’ revolt against the junta, killing at least 200 and injuring more than 1,000 people.

Whether unwelcome or not, politics is a part of the games. The problem is, the IOC seems not to have a clue as to what to do about it. Having failed to anticipate the scope of the anti-China protests this year, and lacking any real political clout, the IOC has fallen back on old clichés about Olympic “diplomacy” and its “nonpolitical” mission on behalf of peace and human rights.

Here's more detail on the Olympic politics of human rights:

When the IOC awarded the games to China in 2001, it assured the world that it was “not naive.” There would eventually be “discussions” about China’s human rights policies, the IOC promised. It was apparently the committee’s hope that the games would catalyze some sort of political opening. By the spring of 2008, as Chinese troops stormed into Lhasa, the IOC was claiming that the games had “advanced the agenda of human rights” by putting China’s human rights record on the front pages of newspapers around the world. That the committee would have much preferred to be spared this attention was wisely left unsaid. Nor has the IOC been willing to demand better behavior from China’s rulers. IOC president Rogge prefers to condemn “violence from whatever side.”

What the Olympics promote instead is a form of amoral universalism in which all countries are entitled to take part in the games no matter how barbaric their leaders may be. Some argue that the United Nations follows the same principle. But don’t be fooled. On a good day, the United Nations can affect the balance of war and peace. On its best day, the IOC cannot. What the IOC offers instead is a highly commercial global sports spectacle. It was instructive, for instance, to hear in April the sentimental invocations of “the Olympic family” as the IOC and the United States Olympic Committee quarreled in Beijing over their shares of global revenues from the games.

“Olympic diplomacy” has always been rooted in a doublespeak that exploits the world’s sentimental attachment to the spirit of the games. In the absence of real standards, the spectacle of Olympic pageantry substitutes for a genuine concern for human rights. At the heart of this policy is a timid and euphemizing rhetoric that turns violent demonstrations and state-sponsored killings into “discussions,” a combination of grandiosity and cluelessness that has long marked the IOC’s accommodating attitude toward unsavory Olympic hosts. Even today, with regard to Beijing, the committee has fallen back on its old habit of claiming to be both apolitical and politically effective at the same time. Although the IOC “is not a political organization,” it does claim to “advance the agenda of human rights.” Sadly, neither is true.

I think it's pretty easy to get caught up in the "spirit of the games," and to forget the brutality of the Chinese state.

In fact, the intensity of the competition - and the brilliance of athletic performances - have a way of melting even the hardest hearts pushing for greater democratization and liberty for the Chinese people.

It's a tough call, for deepening engagement, but an important one. But I'm going hold off on those questions for a few more days, while I tune into the lesser politics of Michael Phelps' quest for eight Olympic gold medals, among other things.

Photo Credit: New York Times

Breaking: Neocon War in the Caucasus!

I saw it coming.

Once Firedoglake announced the return of the Kaganite-Kristol axis of evil, it was only a matter of time before the Georgian war was uncovered as a neoconservative plot to open the latest neo-imperialist, petroleum-push crank-up for the U.S. armaments industry war-masters.

Think Progress' headline says it all, "Neocons Call For U.S. To Launch War With Russia":

Today the New York Times reports that Russia is escalating its war with Georgia, “moving tanks and troops through the separatist enclave of South Ossetia and advancing toward the city of Gori in central Georgia” and even bombing parts of Tibilisi, the Georgian captial.

Russia’s increasing aggression is putting a spark into American neoconservatives. Today on the Times op-ed page, one of their leaders, William Kristol, claims the U.S. must “defend” Georgia’s sovereignty as a reward for its participation in Iraq, while the conservative Washington Times is calling for “maximum pressure” on Russia....

Writing in the Washington Post today, Robert Kagan goes even further, suggesting that the Georgia-Russia conflict may be the start of World War III....

Like a good neoconservative, Kagan also links the Western response to the conflict and its wider policy towards Russia as “appeasement.”

There's a complete unseriousness in raising the specter of a neocon war against Russia.

It's certainly odd, for example, that Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, who has been a consistently harsh critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, stated Sunday that:

... what Putin is doing vis-a-vis Georgia to what Stalin did vis-a-vis Finland: subverting by use of force the sovereignty of a small democratic neighbor ...

Barack Obama's first instinct was to recoil at the mere possibility of war, although he soon adopted a more hardline position as the realities of international power politics struck him.

For that, he'll no doubt be pilloried by the left, although neocon demonizations will naturally be reserved for the GOP warmongers.

**********

UPDATE: Be sure to check out these additional conspiracy theories of "neocon war" over Georgia:

* The Carpetbagger Report, "Neocons Still Love That Cold War Mentality."

* Crooks and Liars, "Russia and Georgia Hostilities Escalate Dramatically."

* Down With Tyrrany, "McCain And His NeoCon Allies On The Warpath... Again."

* Empire Burlesque, "Marching Through Georgia III: Reality's Rout and Cheney's Viagra."

* Shakesville, "Let's Take on Russia Too."

But see the more sober analyses at PoliGazette, "Three Sides on Georgia," and Rightwing Nuthouse, "Georgia on My Mind."

No Antiwar Protests Against Russian Aggression in Georgia?

TigerHawk asks, "Where's the "anti-war" movement on the Russo-Georgia war?"

Well, as they say, "a picture's worth a thousand words":

Here's TigerHawk's summary:

Of course, the Russians have no meaningful justification under international law, far less than the imperfect case the United States and its coalition built to justify regime change in Iraq.

That caused me to wonder, where are the anti-war groups?

Well, as of this morning, you can find no mention of the war on A.N.S.W.E.R.'s home page. The group is addressing many other pressing matters, but apparently not the unremitting attack on Georgia. Code Pink? Nyet. Democracy Now!, which is a left-wing media group, has lots of news about American wars on its web page but nothing about Russia or Georgia. Nothing from the comrades at Peace Action. Stop the War Coalition? What war? You can search the home pages of left-wing groups until the cows come home and not find anything on the Russo-Georgia war.

C'mon guys, Human Rights Watch - to its credit - was all over this on Saturday with a boilerplate press release (although you would not know it from the scant press coverage it received, neither Israel nor the United States being involved). The least you can do is copy that one.

So far, at least, it is safe to conclude that these organizations are not so much anti-war as they are anti-American and anti-Israeli. It is useful to clear that up. And, by the way, if they decide to organize massive anti-war rallies against Russia and belatedly reveal themselves as intellectually honest, I will be the first to say so.

As I noted in my previous essay, "Moral Clarity and the Crisis in Georgia ," a big crises like Russia's revanchism in the Caucasus call for unflinching resolve, without ideological blinders.

So what do we see around the leftosphere?

Well, we have, "What a Convenient Little War for The Republicans," at the Huffington Post (I thought this piece was satire, but the huzzahs in the comments quickly snapped me out of it).

Firedoglake sees neocon total war designs, with the conflict being pushed by Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and Randy Scheuenemann (John McCain's national security advisor), "Let’s Bring Back the Band."

And at Newshoggers, hands are being thrown up in disbelief at Democratic Party capitulation to alleged GOP war orchestration, "Obama Turns More Hawkish On Georgia Conflict."

Yep, it's all a BushCo-McCain plot to wag the dog just as Barack Obama's on an "exotic" celebrity vacation in Hawaii.

Photo Credit: Un-American Revolution, "Bush Hitler Reference, Gotta Love The Irony."

Conservative Coffeehouse Serves Up Right Blend

I've never been all that bothered by the left-wing environment at Starbucks-style coffeehouses. I see a lot of diversity, new-age hippy types, and techno-sophisticates plugging away on Wi-Fi, and I sit happily in my buttoned-down attire (on weekday afternoons, at least), reading the Wall Street Journal or grading papers. A lot of the kids sitting nearby might as well be my students.

I like to think I'm hip while I sip my double-latte.

But a conservative coffee proprietor in Crown Point, Indiana, is having none of it:

From the moment customers enter the front door, A Conservative Cafe is serving up caffeinated doctrine.

Ann Coulter books sit stacked by the fireplace and a picture of President Reagan hangs on the wall. Fox News plays on all the televisions and stock market quotes scroll along an electronic ticker above the cash register.

Behind the counter, owner Dave Beckham smiled proudly in a T-shirt with the face of Uncle Sam on it that read "Zip It Hippie."

The T-shirt is for sale at the cafe. So are others, including one with a peace sign that says "Peace Through Superior Firepower."

"It's a change from the traditional liberal bastion coffeehouses," Beckham said. "No one is going to bad-mouth America in here."

Friends warned Beckham to stay away from the conservative theme before the cafe opened in October 2007. The former art teacher came up with the idea about five years ago, he said, after souring on Starbucks and other high-end coffee chains.

He didn't like piped-in folk music, specialty drinks with faux-Italian names or patrons who frittered the hours away on laptops or listening to iPods. The atmosphere, he said, seemed an affront to Midwestern values he learned growing up in northwest Indiana.

"Coffee shouldn't be about sitting in a cafe for 12 hours," Beckham said. "Coffee gets us through our workday. It's what we drink before we make steel for the rest of the country or head out into the fields."

His disdain for the coffee chains coincided with his fear of an erosion in national pride, so Beckham made plans to build an old-fashioned java joint near the Crown Point town square.

There were two Starbucks within three miles of the shop's location, but Beckham and his wife, Jill, were convinced his pro-U.S. decor and Indiana-roasted coffee would strike a chord with the community.

About six months after Beckham opened for business, Starbucks announced plans to close one of its Crown Point locations. Since then, Beckham has begun pondering franchise opportunities for his cafe.

He acknowledged that Starbucks' downturn stemmed from a sagging economy and the company's massive growth, but he thought his success proved that some people were turned off by traditional coffeehouse culture.

Crown Point resident Matthew McPhee is one of them.

McPhee doesn't feel comfortable in trendier coffeehouses, where he often doesn't agree with the political conversations. He prefers Beckham's cafe, where red, white and blue bunting hangs outside the brick building and patrons can buy T-shirts emblazoned with the face of Reagan that read, "Silly liberal . . . Paychecks are for Workers."

"I like it here," he said. "I don't have to worry about listening to beatnik poetry or some political ideology that makes me want to vomit."

McPhee usually orders a radical right blend, the cafe's strongest roast. The other blends are conservative, moderate and liberal -- the latter of which Beckham described as a "Colombian decaf with no substance."

That's too cool!

Democrats On Edge as Obamania Cools

The Democratic National Committee has announced that Michelle Obama will give the opening-night address to the party's Denver convention in two weeks.

The buzz also has it that Chelsea Clinton will introduce her mother, Hillary, when the New York Senator giver her address on the convention's second night (Chelsea will speak instead of her father, Bill, a switch approved by Barack Obama himself, perhaps as a matter more of relief than retribution).

While the national party conventions have been criticized in recent years as anti-climactic, the closeness and controversies surrounding election '08 have placed a premium on campaign choreography and candidate image. With the Democrats first to hold a nominating convention, and with Obama's novelty wearing thin, the totality of the events in Denver - both inside and outside the convention hall - could dramatically impact the Democrats' presidential prospects after Labor Day.

The Guardian provides a nice synopsis:

Before flying with his family for a week's holiday in Hawaii yesterday, Barack Obama expressed concern about taking a break in election year. "During the middle of a campaign you're always worried about taking some time off," he said.

He may have good reason to worry. He leaves behind a Democratic party that over the past fortnight has been showing signs for the first time of nervousness about the November 4 election.

For them, this is supposed to be the Democrats' year, an inevitable march towards the White House after the catastrophic defeats of 2000 and 2004. Almost everything seems to be going their way: unpopular president, disenchantment with the Iraq war, a faltering economy and an inspirational Democratic candidate.

What is worrying the Democrats, in spite of all these pluses, is that Obama's poll lead has remained stubbornly small. A tracking poll by RealClearPolitics published yesterday has Obama on 46.9% compared with John McCain's 43.3%.

"I think there are a lot of Democrats who are nervous," said Tad Devine, chief strategist for the Kerry White House bid in 2004. "I think they thought this election would fall into their laps."

Sarah Murray explains the thaw in Obamania:

Obama has bestrode the news cycle like a Colossus since he entered the presidential race a year and a half ago. Whenever he hit low points like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright debacle, Obama’s instinctive response was to deliver a stirring speech… But there comes in politics a moment where what was once exhilarating (a presidential nominee who is the hopeful embodiment of 21st century America) becomes predictable and commonplace.”

There’s still plenty of room to spice things up though and alleviate that boredom. “In the next month, Obama will have twin opportunities to restore a sense of surprise and wonder to his campaign. A pedestrian vice-presidential rollout (especially if it is a make-no-waves selection like Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh) and an eloquent-but-empty convention speech could signal trouble. Obama needs to give independents and loosely affiliated voters new reasons to vote for him, since he appears to have reached a temporary ceiling a bit shy of 50 percent in most public polls,” [Salon's Walter] Shapiro says. Before this the goal was to “dominate the news cycle” but “Obama may be a victim of too much too soon.” At any rate, it seems like a good time for that Hawaiian vacation, Shapiro notes.

Well, Obama better be rested and ready, as he's got a lot of work ahead. Today's Gallup poll showed the Illinois Senator just barely on the upside of a statistical tie, 46 to 43 percent over John McCain.

Related: Steven Warshawsky, "Why Barack Obama Will Not Win."

Where is NATO Intervention in Georgia?

One of the debate's surround the crisis in the Caucasus is the nature of the casus belli. Has Georgia launched a war on a militarily preponderant geopolitical rival, or has Moscow cracked down on a breakaway republic in a burst of new oil-back Russian revanchism?

Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez argue for the latter scenario:

As we write, reports are coming in that after a bombardment by Russia's aircraft, its tanks are advancing on the Georgian town of Gori - the birthplace of Iosif Djugashvili, better known as Stalin.

This throwback to the heyday of the Soviet Union is more than symbolic. Historical analogies are never perfect, but our sense of déjà vu was acute as we watched Moscow's Soviet-style move to reassert its domination of the USSR's former fief.

Moscow perceives a threat to its strategic interests from a small regional actor. It prods its neighboring clients to commit such provocations that the adversary is drawn into military action that "legitimizes" a massive, direct intervention to "defend the victims of aggression."

Svante Cornell makes a similar case in, "The War That Russia Wants":

For more on the origins of the conflict, see the analysis from political scientists Daniel Nexon and Charlie Carpenter.

Note, though, as the New York Times reports, Georgian soldiers on the ground feel betrayed by the United States, an ally of Georgia, the diplomatic delays, and the failure to mobilize a NATO riposte to Moscow's aggression:

In retreat, the Georgian soldiers were so tired they could not keep from stumbling. Their arms were loaded with rucksacks and ammunition boxes; they had dark circles under their eyes. Officers ran up and down the line, barking for them to go faster.

All along the road was grief. Old men pushed wheelbarrows loaded with bags or led cows by tethers. They drove tractors and rickety Ladas packed with suitcases and televisions.

As a column of soldiers passed through Gori, a black-robed priest came out of his church and made the sign of the cross again and again.

One soldier, his face a mask of exhaustion, cradled a Kalashnikov.

“We killed as many of them as we could,” he said. “But where are our friends?”

It was the question of the day. As Russian forces massed Sunday on two fronts, Georgians were heading south with whatever they could carry. When they met Western journalists, they all said the same thing: Where is the United States? When is NATO coming?

Since the conflict began, Western leaders have worked frantically to broker a cease-fire. But for Georgians — so boisterously pro-American that Tbilisi, the capital, has a George W. Bush Street — diplomacy fell far short of what they expected.

The logical answer here is the United States will not risk a great power conflict in Russia's backyard, a strategic area of Moscow's historic regional hegemony. But if alliance commitments and the NATO mission are to have continued relevance in its own theater of operation, the question of diplomatic inertia and NATO intransigence is troubling.

Michael van der Galien at PoliGazette indicates that NATO may still be relevant:

It could threaten with military action or, better, intervention and it could start talking to Russia actively to convince the Russians to stop their aggression. If this does not suffice, NATO countries can punish Russia by other means, and they can start the procedure to send peacekeepers to the region. Turkey, an important NATO ally, is located close to Georgia; Turkey’s territory can be used by NATO to push the Russian forces back into Russia. Such a threat alone would be suffice to push the Russians back into their own territory. My own estimation is that Putin and the country’s president have decided to attack Georgia because they believe that the West will sit by and do nothing. If the West would unite, they would take a step back immediately.

In other words, speak to Moscow in a language it understands: power politics.

Obscenities and the Left-Wing Blogosphere

A couple of weeks back I wrote a post examining the tendency toward profanity among leftist bloggers: "Obscenities in the Blogosphere."

I argued that crude vulgarity has become essentially the lingua franca of the hard-left blogosphere and commentocracy. Widespread profanity appears to provide leftists with some assumed heightened firepower with which to beat down opponents, who are demonized as fascist imperialists intent to exterminate racial minorities and the poor, among other things.

My observations derived from recent experience, as well as the debate surrounding profanty at last month's Netroots Nation conference in Texas.

Well it turns out that Matthew Sheffield at the Washington Times has performed a Google content analysis to determine the relative propensity to profanity between top left and right blog communities: "Profanity Greater on Liberal Blogs":

Are liberals more profane than conservatives? Online, the answer seems to be yes. Profanity, those taboo words banned from the broadcast airwaves, is a feature of many people's daily lives. It's much less so in the establishment media world. TV and radio broadcasts are legally prohibited from using it, most newspapers (including this one) have traditionally refrained from its usage.

That's not the case with the Web, where bloggers and readers face no such restrictions. That likely comes as no surprise; what may be surprising, however, is to what degree profanity seems to be a feature more common on one side of the political blogosphere than the other....

The top 10 liberal sites (Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Democratic Underground, Talking Points Memo, Crooks and Liars, Think Progress, Atrios, Greenwald, MyDD and Firedoglake) have a profanity quotient of 14.6.

The top 10 conservative sites (Free Republic, Hot Air, Little Green Footballs, Townhall, NewsBusters, Lucianne, Wizbang, Ace of Spades, Red State and Volokh Conspiracy) have a quotient of 1.17.

What explains this disparity?

Sheffield hypothesizes that Bush derangement is a precipitating factor. But beyond that, religious belief among conservatives inclines them less toward the use of profanity in their daily lives, and thus in blogging:

Conservatives, especially those who are more religious, are less likely to use profanity in their daily conversation.

This ties in pretty much with the my thesis on the left's secular demonology:

How might we explain all of this? Well, in my view, these folks are essentially Marxist, and at base, we might consider Marxist thought a doctrine of hatred, a secular demonology:

We hate those, whose existence urges us to reconsider our theories and our vocabularies. We hate what places a safe and irresponsible categorization of the world in jeopardy. We hate what threatens the purity and predictability of our perception of the world, our mode of discourse, and in effect, our mental security.

Thus, for the left, rather than consider that vulgarity has no proper place in the respectable exchange of ideas, crude language is a tool to beat down those who would challenge their way of seeing the world, especially those allegedly in the right-wing superstructure of greedy imperialistic designs.

See also, "The Obscenity of Spencer Ackerman," and "The Commentocracy of Hate."

Moral Clarity and the Crisis in Georgia

The fighting in the Caucasus region is providing a real-time leadership contrast between John McCain and Barack Obama. As president how would each respond to an international emergency?

Ben Smith suggested yesterday that the Georgian crisis was "3 a.m. moment" for the presidential campaigns, a reference to Hillary Clinton's argument from the Democratic primaries that she was more prepared to answer the red phone at 3am in the White House.

McCain and Obama have offered opposed positions, as Smith reports.

As I noted yesterday, Moscow has provoked a crisis in the south for months, "in a deliberate attempt to engage its small neighbor in military conflict."

McCain's response provides a powerful contrast in leadership style between himself and Obama on Russian revanchism.

As Smith noted yesterday, McCain's response "put him more closely in line with the moral clarity and American exceptionalism projected by President Bush’s first term."

This descriptive three-way combination has set tempers aflare. This is a neconservative epigram, and what better way for the left to prove that McCain represents Bush's third term than to hammer the GOP nominee as setting a course to U.S.-Russian Armageddon.

Steve Benen warned that McCain's statement is "scary," while Cernig at Newshoggers cowered with apocalyptic allusions:

If [McCain] was the one taking those 3am phone cals [sic] on this conflict, there would be American armed might on its way to Georgia to confront Russia right now and the world would be listening to the ticking clock of holocaust. That's far too dangerous a man to allow into the Oval Office.

This is fantasy. There's nothing in McCain's statement yesterday to suggest a McCain move to hair-trigging brinksmanship:

The government of Georgia has called for a cease-fire and for a resumption of direct talks on South Ossetia with international mediators. The U.S. should immediately convene an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to call on Russia to reverse course. The US should immediately work with the EU and the OSCE to put diplomatic pressure on Russia to reverse this perilous course it has chosen. We should immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia’s security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this very dangerous situation. Finally, the international community needs to establish a truly independent and neutral peacekeeping force in South Ossetia.

Indeed, how much more "internationalist" a response could McCain have issued?

The left-wing liberal interationalist are all about ending the Bush administration's era of alleged "unilateral hubris," but when the GOP nominee issues a statement calling for a U.S. leadership of the U.N. Security Council, the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with the aim of crisis management and the establishment of an international peacekeeping force, the left goes haywire?

The reality is that, for Bush-McCain opponents, the lofty patina of internationalism gets thrown under the bus when the U.S. faces a true foreign policy crisis demanding unequivocal firmness and resolve. This is the kind of sheer hypocrisy emblematic of the left's Manichaean theology of relativism and appeasement: Do not stand tall, for risk of confrontation. Do not confront evil, for risk of moral grandstanding. And most of all, do not broach the possibility of the use of force.

So Obama supporters have painted themselves into a corner. No approach, neither a multilateral-institutionalist tack or a unilatateralist "war-fighting" move is acceptable.

In truth, this leaves inaction. In a crisis requiring moral clarity and quick action, Barack Obama and his left wing allies will be frozen like deer in the headlights.

Hindrocket at Powerline sums things up perfectly:

Barack Obama has been criticized for acting as though he is already President. That's natural, since the actions in question have been presumptuous: the pseudo-Presidential seal, the speech in Germany, and so on. Today, one might say that John McCain is acting as though he is already President, but in a substantive and positive way. In his response to Russia's invasion of Georgia, McCain is giving us a preview of what sort of President he would be.

McCain has strongly and unequivocally come out in support of our ally Georgia, while placing the onus for the war squarely where it belongs, on Russia. In this, he has aligned himself with our most loyal European allies. Obama, on the other hand, issued the sort of vapid statement that would ingratiate him with the State Department while not requiring any distraction from his Hawaii vacation. An interesting point, by the way: McCain is supposed to be the old guy, but Obama is the one who needs a vacation.

The choices in this election have never been clearer as today.

John McCain stands in the great tradition of American moral power and exceptionalism, while Barack Obama represents the foreign policy of Carteresque weakness and the sacrifice of American national interests in the name of a naïve idealism that will weaken American security and consign America's friends to the sharks of advancing worldwide despotism and postmodern capitulation to anti-Western attacks on world order.

**********

UPDATE: See also, Roger Kimball, "The Crisis in Georgia, 9/11, and the Lessons of Gratitude":

On 9/11 we were grateful to have a leader who could distinguish between friends and enemies and who was not so crippled by moral relativism that he believed that victims should be equated with their victimizers. In 2008, we have a choice between 1) a man who knows evil and repudiates it and 2) a man who believes that there is “fault on both sides” and that discredited “progressive” institutions like the United Nations are better equipped to deal with disputes among sovereign nations than the nations themselves.

Which would you choose?

Obama Throws Kenya Under the Bus!

Barack Obama has thrown Kenya under the bus!

Gateway Pundit is breaking the news in the blogosphere that Barack Obama holds dual citizenship in the United States and Kenya:

Apparently, The One has two ... Obama has Kenyan citizenship as well as U.S. citizenship.

Why the secret?

Isn't Obama's country of origin a big deal, considering the controversies over his qualifications for office, as well as the allegations that he's a "Kenyan jihadist." Is there any connection to the release of Obama's controversial "certificate of birth" published at Daily Kos, of all places (no anti-Americanism there, eh?). Markos must be in on something ...

Gateway Pundit includes a link to the Rocky Mountain News, which notes that Obama:

Holds both American and Kenyan (since 1963) citizenship.

Barack Obama's thrown a lot of folks under the bus so far, including his former rival John Edwards, when he said this morning that Edwards won't be at the Democratic National Convention, due to the Rielle Hunter scandal.

But now he's thrown an entire Third World country under the bus. He really does need a bigger wagon!

Russia's Correlation of Forces in the Caucasus

Has Russia invaded an American ally? What's the appropriate response from Washington?

Much of the political debate online has only peripherally addressed these issues.

One fundamental element of the current outbreak of war in the Caucasus is Moscow's growing assertion of sovereign national power. Russia, having grown stronger over the last couple years on the back of petro-ruble recycling, sees the current era of growing preeminence as a means of restoring the earlier eras of Sovet superpower status and great Russian nationalism.

There's some analysis focusing on the Georgian offensive, suggesting that it was a huge strategic mistake.

An interesting take is Neo-Neocon's where she admits no special expertise, but sees in Moscow's actions an effort to keep Georgia in its sphere of interest rather than straightforward allied assistance to the Ossetins:

... I’m more inclined towards the first point of view than the second. Perhaps they are not even mutually exclusive.

But as I was mulling over the situation, a quote from Winston Churchill came to mind. It seems as apropos today as it did when he first said it in an October 1939 radio broadcast:

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

Perhaps Russia actions are difficult to discern or predict, but Svante Cornell offers some perspective:

For months, Moscow's successive provocations in Georgia have left observers suspecting that it was provoking a war in the Caucasus. It seems to have finally gotten what it wanted. The Kremlin's blatant aggression puts at stake not only the future of the most progressive state in the former Soviet Union, but the broader cause of European security.

In recent years, the Kremlin had escalated its interference in Georgia's territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia - bombing Georgian territory twice last year, illegally extending Russian citizenship to residents there, and appointing Russian security officers to their self-declared governments. South Ossetia's government in particular is practically under Moscow's direct control, with little if any ability to act independently.

But this flare-up is a direct consequence of Russia's deliberate and recent efforts to engage its small neighbor in military conflict. In April, Russia's President Vladimir Putin signed a decree effectively beginning to treat Abkhazia and South Ossetia as parts of the Russian Federation. This land grab was a particularly galling move because Russia is in charge of both the peacekeeping operations in the conflict zones, and the negotiations over their political resolution. The mediator had now clearly become a direct party to the conflict.

Moscow then sent paratroopers, heavy weapons and other troops into Abkhazia. Although these measures constituted military occupation of Georgian territory, Georgia failed to respond militarily. Instead, with European aspirations in mind, Georgian leaders listened to western calls for restraint, and put their faith in half-hearted western diplomatic initiatives.

Having failed to provoke Georgia to a war in Abkhazia, the Kremlin then tried in South Ossetia. Its proxies, the Ossetian separatist forces, escalated their attacks on Georgian posts and villages, making a response inevitable. Predictably, Moscow claimed a right to intervene, pouring Russian tanks into the area and bombing Georgian territory - including the country's capital. But why would Russia seek a war in the Caucasus, and why does it matter?

Cornell points to NATO's growing influence in the East, which is now encroaching in the historic Russian sphere of domination, and particularly Georgia' bid to join the Western alliance, as the precipitating factor in the current crisis. I’m intrigued by the timing of the confrontation, which has parallels in 20th-century Russian (Soviet) history.

The Soviets invaded Hungary in 1956, during the Suez,crisis, Czechoslovakia in 1968, as the U.S. was heavily engaged in Vietnam, and Afghanistan in 1979, after the Iranian Revolution and the seizure of American hostages by "students" in Tehran . Today's Russian leaders, of course, are not inattentive to the world correlation of forces. What better time to fight a war than when the world is focused on the “peace and goodwill” of the Beijing Olympics, and when American forces are deployed in two wars along the old Russian Empire's southern perimeter?

While "internationalist" foreign policy commentators have hypothesized a neocon raison d'guerre in the current crisis, a more sober analysis may indeed see this period as a genuine presidential testing ground finding John McCain in his element and Barack Obama over his head.

Socialism and Islam Against the West

In previous essays I've noted that Islam is a "religion of victory," and I've highlighted the alliance of socialism and Islam against the West. So, I'm always interested to see smart essays that pull these various strands together.

It turns out that Baron Bodissey, at Gates of Vienna, lays out an insightful manifesto on the mission of his blog in defending the values of Western liberty, progress, and rationalism against the growing politically-correct Muslim-multiculturalist onslaught:

The Left has recently become fairly monolithic in its alliance with and support for Islam. By adopting the time-honored anti-imperialist, anti-American, and anti-capitalist rhetoric of the Marxists, Muslims have managed to make common cause with Greens and Socialists across the entire Western world.

The Right, however, remains divided on the topic of Islam. Some traditional conservatives view orthodox Islam — which does, after all, display a notable moral rectitude — as less of a threat to the West than the native modern depravity of popular culture, with its emphasis on mass consumption, hedonism, promiscuity, homosexuality, and mindless self-gratification.

Such thinking, however, remains a minor strain among conservatives. The central argument on the Right is between those who believe that a “moderate Islam” exists, and those who think it is a mirage....

The jury is still out on this question, of course. But in four years of blogging it I haven’t seen any signs of a moderate form of Islam. There are plenty of Muslims who are moderates, of course — people who lead normal lives, don’t brutalize their families or kill apostates, and don’t strive to institute a new Caliphate through violence, intimidation, and deception. But they are “moderates” to the extent that they don’t practice their faith. They are MINOs (Muslims in Name Only), or unannounced apostates, or Muslims who pay very little attention to their religion.

The sad fact remains that there is no significant alternative within Islam to the “radical” version if one wants to be a practicing Muslim in a faith community. Any Muslim who turns to the roots of his faith in the Koran and the hadith finds a blueprint for violence, intolerance, and bestial treatment of women and non-Muslims. He discovers that his faith requires him to make war against non-Muslims until the entire world submits to Allah, or to die in the attempt. He learns that the precepts of Islam govern his life down to the minutest of details, including which shoe to put on first and in what direction to face when urinating.

There are a few Muslim scholars who would like to abandon the hadith entirely and re-interpret the Koran to edit out the violent and intolerant parts, in order to bring Islam into line with the modern world. But these courageous individuals face insurmountable obstacles — the tenets of Islam insist that the core scriptures are the immutable word of Allah, and may not be changed or interpreted. Not only that, anyone who dares to attempt such a project is the worst of heretics and deserves to be killed.

Needless to say, these conditions tend to put a damper on Islamic revisionism.

The essay continues, but the author turns away from extreme reactions to the Islamist wave, suggesting a pragmatic approach to assimilation and reform:

No American political figure of national stature is willing to go on record talking about the actualities of Islam. Not only would he face a full-bore media assault as a “racist” if he did, but Saudi money has been spread so widely and corrupted so deeply that our political structures are seriously damaged, perhaps irreparably. Members of the federal government are even officially forbidden to associate “Islam” and “jihad” with “terrorism”. That’s how bad it’s gotten....

I asserted above that none of the policies demanded by dedicated right-wingers — a halt to Muslim immigration, containment, mass deportation, the destruction of Mecca, etc. — are realizable in the current political climate.

But that climate can change at a moment’s notice. Mujahideen all over the world are desperate to get a suitcase nuke or a bucket of ricin into a major population center in the United States. Given the number of zealots who intend to do us harm, and the current sieve that we call our borders, it’s all but inevitable that a deadly catastrophe will eventually occur, devastating our economy and ushering in a brand new political climate within the space of a few short weeks.

At that point the situation becomes chaotic and unpredictable, and many of the stringent measures advocated by the Islamophobes — plus even more horrific ones — are likely to be implemented.

Baron Bodissey trails off here into a disussion of an authoritarian response to the creeping assualt of Islam on the West. Would the U.S. or the major European states welcome the "man on horseback," the strongman who concentrates despotic control with the backing of the muted masses to wipe out Islamo-fascism root and branch?

Well, not exactly, but the discussion ends inconclusively.

To me, it's not a question of capitulating to multicultural political correctness and the widespread acceptance of the banality of Muslim evil. Nor will we need to give up our freedoms to a populist dictatorship.

The United States will defeat radical Islam just like we've defeated other totalitarian threats in the past: with a combination of hard power in economic and military strength, and the soft power of enlightenment ideals of rationalism and forward movement.

There is a model that works, which is the American way. As long as we keep a focus on economic growth, international trade, and individual freedom, the nation will prevail in our current difficulties with our religious enemies worldwide.

This outcome is predicated, of course, on the acession to power in the United States of a leadership that sees the nature of our challenges clearly, and one which will not take the option of moderation to its malignant outgrowth of appeasement and capitulation.

If that does happen, perhaps as early as next year, with a victory for the Democrats in the fall, I'm less confident the American traditions of openness, reason, and tolerance will prevail.

The Presidential Scam of John and Elizabeth Edwards

I doubt there's much new insight I could add to the John Edwards sex scandal, but it's troubling that Elizabeth Edwards knew of her husband's infidelity in 2006.

Mrs. Edwards has written an essay asking the public to understand her family's trauma. What's most striking about her comments is the blame. She blames the media and the public for turning a "private" matter into a public scandal. She's lauds her husband's courage to admit his infidelity on camera, saying it shows "honesty in the face of shame." But then she excoriates the "hurtful" and "absurd lies" the tabloid press has inflicted on her family:

I ask that the public, who expressed concern about the harm John’s conduct has done to us, think also about the real harm that the present voyeurism does and give me and my family the privacy we need at this time.

The "real harm"?

Isn't the real harm found in John Edwards' forsaking his vows to forsake all others? Isn't the real harm found in the purposeful family lie that was the foundation of the Edwards 2008 campaign for the presidency, in the collusion that's apparent between John and Elizabeth Edwards to foist this abject political dishonesty on the public?

Recall that the couple made the marriage bond, in sickness and in health, the basis for much of their political appeal. In this they played on the public's deep culture and respect for family - they pulled on the heartstrings of America for partisan gain.

Kristen Powers sums up the Edwards scam perfectly:

Normally, cheating on your spouse is a private matter. Many Americans wind up facing it; many families stay intact and recover. I hope that's so for the Edwards family.

But this is not a private matter: Following his affair, Edwards chose to run for president, using his family as a centerpiece for his campaign. In June of last year, he accepted the Father of the Year Award from Father's Day/Mother's Day Council. Shortly afterward, he renewed his vows with his wife and provided pictures to People magazine.

And in December, Katie Couric asked the candidates about the importance of marital fidelity in assessing a presidential candidate. True to form, Edwards said that it was a "fundamental" way to "judge people and human character" - but shouldn't be a "controlling factor" in choosing a president.

Unfortunately she didn't ask him what it would tell you about a politician if he used his family as a campaign prop and then lied to the public repeatedly about an affair.

This story's a genuine tragedy.

John Edwards very well could have become president of the United States. He's young, handsome, and smart, and his working class origins provide authenticity for upward mobility in America.

Yet, the Edwards family has always embodied the contradictions of Democratic power politics, especially in John Edwards' concern for the poor amid his ostentatious displays of wealth and privilege.

The Rielle Hunter scandal strips the mask of hypocrisy off it all. The Edwards family has the right to expect concern for their family's privacy. But they shouldn't be so quick to criticize the media for paying inordinate attention to the scandal. John and Elizabeth Edwards lived a scam. The fact that so much this evolved through tremendous physical and emotional pain makes it almost too much to think about.

John Edwards is a major political figure in Democratic Party politics, and may very well have been a top offical in a Barack Obama administration. This story's not off limits to the intense coverage it deserves.

The Edwards family nevertheless deserves our prayers for their personal recovery.