Follow Up to Gay Agenda: Polyamory? - UPDATED!

Check out Abby Ellin's story on "Threesome Marriages" (via Memeorandum):

Less than 18 months ago, Sasha Lessin and Janet Kira Lessin gathered before their friends near their home in Maui, and proclaimed their love for one another. Nothing unusual about that—Sasha, 68, and Janet, 55—were legally married in 2000. Rather, this public commitment ceremony was designed to also bind them to Shivaya, their new 60-something "husband." Says Sasha: “I want to walk down the street hand in hand in hand in hand and live together openly and proclaim our relationship. But also to have all those survivor and visitation rights and tax breaks and everything like that.”

Maine this week became the fifth state, and the fourth in New England, to legalize gay marriage, provoking yet another national debate about same-sex unions. The Lessins' advocacy group, the Maui-based World Polyamory Association, is pushing for the next frontier of less-traditional codified relationships. This community has even come up with a name for what the rest of the world generally would call a committed threesome: the "triad."

Unlike open marriages and the swinger days of the 1960s and 1970s, these unions are not about sex with multiple outside partners. Nor are they relationships where one person is involved with two others, who are not involved with each other, a la actress Tilda Swinton. That's closer to bigamy. Instead, triads—"triangular triads," to use precise polyamorous jargon—demand that all three parties have full relationships, including sexual, with each other. In the Lessins case, that can be varying pairs but, as Sasha, a psychologist, puts it, "Janet loves it when she gets a double decker." In a triad, there would be no doubt in Elizabeth Edwards’ mind whether her husband fathered a baby out of wedlock; she likely would have participated in it.

Before folks attack this post as "out there" or polyamory as "fringe," don't forget my earlier post, "From Gay Marriage to Polygamy."

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UPDATE: Check out also, Fausta's Blog, "Polyamory: What are you, nuts??"

Old-Fashioned, Un-Subtle Bigotry Against Traditional Families

I'm learning new things about the culture wars all the time. For example, while reading William Jacobson's post, I learned just now that the term "breeder" is a derogatory epithet for heterosexuals. Jacobson cites Matthew Yglesias' attack on Republican Senator John Thune. Senator Thune said yesterday that a gay nominee for the Supreme Court would be too polarizing, and then the radical leftists went out and proved the point. According to Yglesias, "I doubt John Thune would vote for a breeder nominee either ..."

So, what's a "breeder"? Turning now to Urban Dictionary for some illumination:

Slang term used by people of homosexual persuasion to refer to heterosexual couples, who have a significantly higher risk of contributing to the population increase than the homosexuals do.

Setting aside for the moment Yglesias' sexual orientation, there's a lot in that definition that's revealing of secular progressive ideology. It's not just that heterosexual norms are dominant in society, but that heterosexuals are at "risk" of having more babies, and thus "destroying" the environment.

I've been studying the left for sometime now, and the further you dig down into the nihilist epistemology of far-left wing collectivism, a comprehensive ideological framework does emerge. Gay marriage is the Trojan Horse of the radical postmodern ideological program. It's not just about granting "rights," as gay Americans are not a suspect class facing invidious discrimination. Redefining society's historic definintion of marriage paves the way for the destruction of the moral culture of right and wrong, good and evil.

Simply put, children and families are bad. Homosexual licentiousness is good.

See if you can figure that out in the context of the historic purpose of marriage as the institutional foundation for the regeneration of society.

God help this nation.

Satisfying Homosexual Rights Short of Gay Marriage

Everyone's all excited about Maine's approval of same-sex marriage legislation. With Democrat John Baldacci's signature, Maine becomes the fifth state to legalize gay marriage, giving a huge pychological boost to the radical homosexual rights movement.

But polls continue to show strong majorities favoring the retention of marriage as traditionally understood, as a union of one man and one woman for the regeneration of society. Americans should not be forced to have far left-wing secular views imposed on them unwillingly. As I've written about this controversy from here to eternity, I find it a shame to see leftist arguments, which are far from compelling, generally carrying the day in media.

The truth is that entirety of same-sex marriage agenda could be achieved without extending the definition marriage to include loving couples outside of the biologically regenerative conception of the marriage instiution.

Recall, from Susan Shell's argument, "The Liberal Case Against Gay Marriage:

Most, if not all, of the goals of the gay marriage movement could be satisfied in the absence of gay marriage. Many sorts of individuals, and not just gay couples, might be allowed to form "civil partnerships" dedicated to securing mutual support and other social advantages. If two unmarried, elderly sisters wished to form such a partnership, or two or more friends (regardless of sexual intimacy) wanted to provide mutually for one another "in sickness and in health," society might furnish them a variety of ways of doing so--from enhanced civil contracts to expanded "defined benefit" insurance plans, to new ways of dealing with inheritance. (Though tempting, this is not the place to tackle the issue of polygamy--except to say that this practice might well be disallowed on policy and even more basic constitutional grounds without prejudice to other forms of civil union.) In short, gay couples and those who are not sexually intimate should be permitted to take legally supported vows of mutual loyalty and support. Such partnerships would differ from marriage in that only marriage automatically entails joint parental responsibility for any children generated by the woman, until and unless the paternity of another man is positively established.

As for the having and raising of children--this, too, can be provided for and supported short of marriage. If two siblings need not "marry" in order to adopt a child together, neither need two friends, whether or not they are sexually intimate. Civil unions might be formed in ways that especially address the needs of such children. The cases of gay men who inseminate a willing surrogate mother, or lesbians who naturally conceive and wish to designate their partner as the child's other parent, can also be legally accommodated short of marriage, strictly understood, on the analogy of adoption by step-parents and/or other relatives. As in all cases of adoption (as opposed to natural parenthood, where the fitness of the parent is assumed until proven otherwise), the primary question is the welfare of the child, not the psychic needs and wants of its would-be parents.

What gays have a right to expect when seeking to adopt children is that their homosexual relationship as such not be held against them when the state weighs their claim to parental fitness. A liberal approach takes moral condemnation of homosexuality out of the public sphere. Individuals remain free, according to the dictates of their religion or conscience, to abhor gay relations. But they may not publicly impose that view on others. The civic dignity that gays may properly claim includes the right not to be held publicly hostage to sectarian views they do not share.

That liberal sword cuts both ways, however: American citizens should not have the sectarian beliefs of gay-marriage advocates imposed on them unwillingly. If proponents of gay marriage seek certain privileges of marriage, such as legal support for mutual aid and childbearing, there may well be no liberal reason to deny it to them. But if they also seek positive public celebration of homosexuality as such, then that desire must be disappointed. The requirement that homosexual attachments be publicly recognized as no different from, and equally necessary to society as, heterosexual attachments is a fundamentally illiberal demand. Gays cannot be guaranteed all of the experiences open to heterosexuals any more than tall people can be guaranteed all of the experiences open to short people. Least of all can gays be guaranteed all of the experiences that stem from the facts of human sexual reproduction and its accompanying penumbra of pleasures and cares. To insist otherwise is not only psychologically and culturally implausible; it imposes a sectarian moral view on fellow citizens who disagree and who may hold moral beliefs that are diametrically opposed to it.

The deeper phenomenal differences between heterosexual and homosexual relations are hard to specify precisely. Still, these differences seem sufficiently clear to prohibit gay marriage without denying gays equal protection under the laws. Gay relations bear a less direct relation to the generative act in its full psychological and cultural complexity than relations between heterosexual partners, even when age, individual preference, or medical anomaly impede fertility. Gay relations have a plasticity of form, an independence from natural generation, for which they are sometimes praised, but which, in any case, also differentiates them from their heterosexual counterparts. No heterosexual couples have such freedom from the facts of generation, which they can limit and control in a variety of ways but can never altogether ignore. Intimate heterosexual partners realize that they might generate a child together, or might once have done so. This colors and shapes the nature of their union in ways that homosexual love can imitate, and possibly even transcend, but cannot share in fully.

It'll All Get Better in Time...

My oldest son's been playing his (cooler) radio stations in the car, and I've taken a liking to Leona Lewis' beautiful song, "Better in Time":

American Prosperity

Philip Auerswald and Zoltan Acs' cover story at the new American Interest is the best piece on the economy I've read since the market crash of last October.

I've long maintained (1) that recent historical comparisons to the 1930s are deeply strained, since the nature of economic development and technology is virtually lightyears from the conditions during the New Deal, and (2) that the U.S. will come roaring back after the bottom shakes out of our current downturn. American dynamism and ingenuity will again lead the world through another cycle of spectacular growth, innovation, and human improvement:

Whatever lines pundits may like to draw from the present back to the 1930s, from the standpoint of the human experience, there is absolutely no comparison between the country that lay beyond the portico of FDR’s White House and the country into which Barack Obama sends his YouTube videos today. Without question, even in relative terms the magnitude of the Great Depression far exceeds anything experienced to date or, we dare to venture, anything that lies ahead. But what is certainly true is that the extent of societal advancement experienced over the past seventy years is so great that it has transformed America from what we would today refer to as an underdeveloped country into the most prosperous nation in human history.

The triumph of the Western idea—the “end of history” proclaimed by Fukuyama—has not, in fact, been called into question by the global financial crisis. Nor are future developments likely to reverse the judgment in favor of liberalism. Yet the institutional architecture of liberalism remains a work in progress. Continued institutional innovations will be required to ensure that democratic societies with market-based economies are as resilient in the future as they are prosperous.

For its part, this nation has little hope of realizing the potential of such institutional innovations until its leaders become as aware as its citizens are of the futility of trying to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s tools, all the while mistaking means for ends. Economic growth, or its absence, is merely an indicator on the dashboard of our ongoing national journey. The engine that propels American capitalism forward is entrepreneurship; the fuel is opportunity; the work of foundations recycles the energy of society, making progress and widespread prosperity sustainable. Yet, just as a Tesla Roadster is no Model-T, 21st-century entrepreneurship derives from a formula far more complex than the “1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration” once cited by Thomas Edison. Far-sighted government policies are an essential element within this formula. Political leadership must do more than celebrate the “risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things” who create opportunity and extend the reach of prosperity. It must act in partnership with private foundations to ensure the existence of an environment conducive to their efforts.

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing, here.

"Why would any thinking person assume that a gay nominee is necessarily someone on the ideological fringe?"

From Steve Benen's post on GOP Chief Deputy Whip John Thune's statement that a prospective gay nominee to the Supreme Court woud be too polarizing:

I don't expect much from Thune, but I have to wonder if he realizes how incredibly ridiculous this is ....

Why would any thinking person assume that a gay nominee is necessarily someone on the ideological fringe?

Geez, I don't know ... why would anyone?

Obama Sends D.C. Students to the Back of the Bus

President Barack Obama will continue the District of Columbia school voucher program until current participants graduate from high school, then he'll eliminate the opportunity for a better education for those seeking eligibility during his tenure. The President's message to students yearning for the chance at a better life? Step to the back of the bus:

President Obama will seek to extend the controversial D.C. school voucher program until all 1,716 participants have graduated from high school, although no new students will be accepted, according to an administration official who has reviewed budget details scheduled for release tomorrow.

The budget documents, which expand on the fiscal 2010 blueprint that Congress approved last month by outlining Obama's priorities in detail, would provide $12.2 million for the Opportunity Scholarship Program for the 2009-2010 school year. The new language also would revise current law that makes further funding for existing students contingent on Congress's reauthorization of the program beyond its current June 2010 expiration date. Under the Obama proposal, further congressional action would not be necessary, and current students would automatically receive grants until they finish school.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan had told reporters that it didn't make sense "to take kids out of a school where they're happy and safe and satisfied and learning," but Democrats effectively terminated the program by requiring its reauthorization. Obama must now convince Democratic lawmakers to endorse a gradual phase out by continuing to include grant funding in future appropriation bills.

The voucher program was created in 2003 and is a Republican favorite, providing low-income students with a maximum $7,500 grant to attend a private or parochial school. All students come from households with incomes below 185 percent of the poverty line, and 8,000 students entered a lottery to participate. But liberal education groups, including the National Education Association, have argued that the experimental program is poorly administered and that voucher recipients have not performed measurably better in their new schools.

Also, check out the Reason.tv video - it's heartbreaking how this administration damages kids (via Skye).

See also, "Protesters Blast Congress for Axing D.C. Vouchers While Sending Own Kids to Private School."

Cases in Radical Classroom Indoctrination

If recent college graduates were to skim through the top departments listed at the latest U.S. News and World Report's "Best Social Sciences and Humanities Schools," they'd find listed among the premier institutions many of the radical academic programs exposed in David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin's outstanding new book, One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors at America's Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy.

Horowitz and Laksin provide what the book jacket describes as "the first major comprehensive, in-depth, multiyear investigation of what is being taught in colleges and universities across the country ..."

And the authors don't disappoint.

I found myself interested in the work not only as an extremely well-documented piece of research, but also from the perspective of an academic with a personal acquaintance or knowledge of many of the individual professors whose activities form the case studies. Compared to Horowitz's earlier work, One-Party Classroom shifts documentary methods from students' testimony to the actual course materials of the hardline leftist professor-activists themselves. This approach avoids the potential for contested interpretations of reported classroom indoctrination by going right to the source, to the professors' actual published course documents.

If One-Party Classroom bears any flaws, it's in its repetition - but that's not the fault of the authors. Over and over again, across the case studies, and across the humanities and social sciences curriculum, the reader is introduced to a radical, mind-numbing structure of institutionalized social justice pedagogy at the nation's top universities. Frankly, there should be little defense of such classroom teaching, particularly if the goal of such undergraduate and graduate education is train tomorrow's revolutionary cadres.

What we see in the book, in case after case, is professors with little expertise in economics, history, international relations, or political science, lecturing and leading seminars in abstract courses in empires, global inequality, Marxist political economy, and so forth. I mean literally, English professors and media specialists are teaching courses in what would be advanced global politics courses, and even many faculty members in legitimately political subfields teach courses well outside of their scholarly training. The sense is that any leftist professor with an inclination toward teaching the next batch of radicals can offer a course in social justice education. For example, Professor Anthony Kemp in the Department of English at USC offers the "Theories of History, Ideology, and Politics"; and at the University of Texas, Professor Katherine Arens teaches a course in "Marxisms" for the Department of Comparative Literature (see Kemp and Arens' college websites here and here, respectively).

The broader point is not that it's inappropriate to teach these subjects, it's that such courses are not taught from the perspective of critical inquiry and academic contestation. Radical theories of imperialism, capitalist oppression, or the social construction of just-about-everything, are offered without counter-challenge from opposite paradigms or methologies. Students are frequently evaluated not by academic scholarship but progressive activism - for example, LGBT "service learning" projects - and through uncritical writing assignments of ideological regurgitation.

I recommend One-Party Classroom to anyone interested in what's happening in higher education today, but especially to parents who are planning on sending their kids off to college, at great expense, often getting little return on the dollar in terms of classic learning or real disciplinary expertise for their children.

It's tempting to write off such professors and their courses as a few eccentric cranks here and there, easily avoidable and thus largely tolerated as ideological oddities. But it's not like that.

Just this week, the board of trustees at the College of DuPage, in Illinois, voted to rescind the implementation of a Horowitz-inspired "academic bill of rights" at the institution. Apparently, "Faculty leaders at DuPage and elsewhere" condemed the bill of rights as "an attack on academic freedom." But as we see over and over again, on college campuses around the country, there is no academic freedom for those holding traditional views to speak and discuss their ideas without disruption or threats of violence. Most recently, Congressman Tom Tancredo was prevented from giving a talk at the University of North Carolina. A mob of radical activists literally took over the campus at Chapel Hill to successfully hijack Tancredo's First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association.

This evening, while searching for information on the decision at the College of DuPage, I came across a number of writings by Professor Dana Cloud at the University of Texas. Particularly noteworthy is her essay published this week at Dissident Voices, "The McCarthyism that Horowitz Built." As the title indicates, the piece attacks conservative challenges to leftist classroom indoctrination as "McCarthyism." As Professor Cloud alleges, "the noxious weeds of the new McCarthyism have begun to bear bitter fruit around the country."

Perhaps one might wish to take her argument seriously, except a look at her blog shows that in defending her practice of shouting down those with whom she disagrees, Professor Cloud is explicitly unwilling to extend to Horowitz the same kind of protections she claims are being denied to progressives:

... it is wrong to equate protest–even loud, disruptive protest–with censorship. Public disruption has been a staple of movements for social change in this country from the Boston Tea Party forward ....

Protest is not censorship; it is simply the exercise of more speech. Where would our democracy be without disruptive protests for women’s rights, civil rights for minorities, and for the meager protections and rights afforded gays and lesbians today?

Well, it's not "more speech" if the target of the protest is unable to get a word in edgewise.

But we don't have to adjudicate between the competing claims of Howoritz and Professor Cloud on who's censoring whom. We can simply look at Professor Cloud's own course syllabi for a glimpse of what this woman is all about. Take a look her Spring 2009 graduate syllabus for "Rhetoric of Social Movements":

Over the past eight years, the assumptions of neoliberalism—that corporate globalization would forestall economic crisis, that there is no better social system than capitalism, that preemptive war is justified and necessary, that society offers every person who works hard and keeps the faith has the same life chances, regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, or nationality—have fallen like a house of cards. Whereas during the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher could announce that “there is no alternative to capitalism” and Francis Fukuyama could declare the end of history (i.e., the end of major social transformation), the present economic crisis and upsurge of hope for change have prompted a rebirth of Keynesian liberalism; one can only expect that existing social movements will pick up momentum and that new social movements will arise from the gap between what the Obama administration promises and what it can deliver ....

This course will survey these disciplinary shifts in historical context. Our main theoretical frame will be that of Italian communist Antonio Gramsci, whose theory of hegemony, culture, ideology, and oppositional consciousness unifies the concerns of most social movement theory and history through the present day. The course is also committed to providing a comprehensive survey of U.S. social movements—from the War for Independence to the contemporary movement for gay civil rights—because it is difficult to find a coherent account of this history anywhere at the graduate level. The lessons of the past are key to understanding the conditions of possibility for change today.

What's interesting in reading this syllbus is how the entire thrust of Professor Cloud's seminar curriculum explicitly ignores the central purpose of graduate education: to train scholars in the research and methods of an academic field in order to prepare them to make an original scholarly contribution to the discipline. In other words, as Professor Cloud's introduction makes clear, the purpose of her seminar is to elucidate and facilitate the "conditions of possibility of change today." In contrast, in political science at my former graduate institution and at sister departments, grad students are required to produce seminar research papers of publication-quality, and such research has become increasingly a requirement for the advancement to Ph.D. candidacy (see, for a leading example, the UCLA Department of Political Science Graduate Handbook).

Professor Cloud's pushback against David Horowitz as "McCarthyite" in her pamphlet writing is tantamount to shouting him down at the podium of a public lecture. The goal is indeed to protest and excoriate with the intent to silence. There is no effort to defend academic curricula or exchange ideas. To Professor Cloud, Horowitz represents the "fascist" campus police, storming colleges like the jackbooted stormtroopers of the interwar era. Her real heroes are people like Willliam Robinson of UCSB, who has made a program out of equating Israelis to Nazis following Israel's recent military action against Palestinian rocket attacks on the civilian population within range of Gaza.

The case of Professor Cloud is repeated again and again on hundreds of campuses nationwide. A next step for Horowitz and Laksin will be to extend the analysis in One-Party Classroom into a larger statistical database of cases of radical activism and hardline left-wing indoctrination on America's campuses. There is no question that what progressive academics are doing is training the next generation of revolutionary hordes for the coming battles against the forces of "monopoly capitalism" and global inequality. These tenured radicals can't hide their program of indocrination and anti-intellectualism. Instead they decry "McCarthyism" and they pack college boards with progressive cronies and union hacks who have little interest in turning out highly-trained critical thinkers for the new millenium. Instead, we see the excoriation of efforts to restore intellectual diversity to scholarly programs - through the academic bill of rights, and so forth - as threats to "academic freedom."

It's a wacky world in the halls of academe today, but the more that clear thinking conservative activists and writers expose the campus radicals, the better by which the general public will be able to hold these left-wing intellectual mountebanks accountable.

Gavin "Clean Gel" Newsom Pushes Gay Marriage Vote in 2010

California may get its first "metrosexual" governor, if San Francisco Mayor Gavin "Clean Gel" Newsom is able to win the state's primary and general election next year.

Newsome's in the news today with an interview at ABC News, where he claims that "the time is right" to vote on another state gay marriage initiative. See the whole article, "California Gay Marriage Backers Poised to Try Again in 2010."

Actually, Newsom's a municipal law-breaker, as far as I'm concerned. His policy of marrying same-sex couples in San Francisco in 2004 was later overturned by the California Supreme Court.

Recall that Newsom toured Southern California in March, kicking off his gubernatorial campaign. The news reports at the time focused less on Newsome's politics than on his knowledge of the hairstyling gel, thus "firming up" his image as a political metrosexual, NTTAWWT:

Gavin Newsom may be running for governor of California, but "American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest had something else in mind during his Tuesday morning radio chat with the San Francisco mayor: "What is that product that you put in your slick, shiny hair?"

"L'Oreal," Newsom responded. "And it's the Clean Gel. It's the Total Control Clean Gel, because they've got seven or eight products, and the other ones don't work."

"I'm talking to a metrosexual," Seacrest marveled.

So began the opening day of Newsom's weeklong effort to introduce himself to Southern Californians who know little about him, apart from his attempt to legalize same-sex marriage.

Hey, that's cool! Keep talking about the hair gel, buddy!

A divorced philandering ANSWER-backed gay rights activist and L'Oreal-combing soft-on-homicide open-borders San Francisco mayor!

What a campaign! Boy, he'll sweep the California heartland!

Inside the Mind of an Extremely Bitter Gay Man

It's useful to see Andrew Sullivan as a proxy for nihilist left-wing gay progressivism. Despite his claims to the contrary, Sullivan's widely considered a gay radical on the far left-wing of the spectrum.

As readers know, Sullivan routinely takes demonization of Republicans to the extreme. I've paid attention to his ravings, not just because he's still taken seriously on the left (and in the White House, of all places), but because his singular issue is gay marriage; and the radical gay agenda is shaping up to be the key issue of today's culture war. I've been reading Sullivan's Virtually Normal off and on, to get a feel for where this man is coming from. He's something of a tragic, tormented soul, as anyone who reads his blog would know. His narrow jihad against Sarah Palin is mindless yet endless, although he also continues his obssessive attacks on the GOP as a whole as if it were a new Nazi Party.

Sullivan's hysteria is simply unreal sometimes, but behold his post today calling for a purge of conservatives, "Who Will "Sister Souljah" Them?":

I'm not a Democrat and if pushed, I'd have to say right now I'm a libertarian independent. I'm uneasy about Obama's long-term debt, to say the least, but I'm intelligent enough to know it's not Obama's as such, but mainly Bush's, and I'm also cognizant that the time to cut back may not be in the middle (or beginning) of a brutal depression. On most issues, I side with what used to be the center-right, but the GOP is poison to me and many others. Why?

Their abandonment of limited government, their absurd spending under Bush, their contempt for civil liberties, their rigid mindset, their hostility to others, their worship of the executive branch, their contempt for judicial checks, their cluelessness with racial minorities and immigrants, their endorsement of torture as an American value, their homophobia, their know-nothing Christianism, and the sheer vileness of their leaders - from the dumb-as-a-post Steele to the brittle, money-grubbing cynic, Coulter and hollow, partisan neo-fascist Hannity.

I'm waiting for the first leading Republican to do to these grandstanding goons what Clinton once did to the extremists in his own ranks: reject them, excoriate them, remind people that they do not have a monopoly on conservatism and that decent right-of-center people actually find their vision repellent. And then to articulate a positive vision for taking this country forward, expanding liberty, exposing corruption, reducing government's burden, unwinding ungovernable empire, and defending civic virtue without going on Jihads against other people's vices.

If today's "conservatives" spent one tenth of the time saying what they were for rather than who they're against, they might get somewhere. But the truth is: whom they hate is their core motivation right now. That's how they define themselves. And as long as they do, Americans will rightly and soundly reject them.

Andrew Sullivan was one of the biggest and most vocal backers of the War in Iraq, and hence the Bush administration's policy of regime change. He renounced his views in 2006, and has become more bitter over time. You'd think he'd be more optimistic and, well, gay, considering the number of victories his radical homosexual agenda has achieved. My sense is that Sullivan, as much as anyone, knows that the gay marriage equality issue is far from guaranteed, so he's become more unhinged by the day, insuperably bitter, marinating in his hatred amid an extreme left-wing ideological environment that's presenting a chance of a lifetime.

This man is not a "libertarian independent." He's got no long-term grounding and is bereft of values. He's a political leech who bites onto the ideological wave of the moment. Why he remains popular is something of surprise to me, but amid all the Obamessianism of late, nothing should be surprising.

Related: The Politico reports that "Groups push for first gay Supreme Court justice" (via Memeorandum). Maybe the first gay Supreme might brighten sullen Sullivan's day.

Carrie Prejean Nude Picture Scandal!

I just got word from Robert Stacy McCain that Miss California Carrie Prejean has been exposed as having posed nude!

MSNBC has the story, "Miss California: I’ll fight on despite racy photos":

With partially nude photos of her popping up on Web sites questioning her Christian credentials, Miss California USA Carrie Prejean has fired back, claiming the racy pictures are just modeling shots and vowing to continue her battle against same-sex marriage.

“I am a Christian, and I am a model,” Prejean said in a statement released overnight to the media. “Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos. Recently, photos taken of me as a teenager have been released surreptitiously to a tabloid Web site that openly mocks me for my Christian faith. I am not perfect, and I will never claim to be.”

But Alicia Jacobs, a judge at the April 19 Miss USA pageant during which Prejean made her highly publicized statement opposing same-sex marriage, said the pictures go beyond what the Miss California pageant says are appropriate.

“I can assure you they were quite inappropriate, and certainly not photos befitting a beauty queen,” Jacobs, a reporter for NBC’s Las Vegas affiliate, told NBC News.

The images may also hurt her status as a spokeswoman for conservative causes. “She can continue to advocate for causes, but I don’t think these causes are going to advocate for her,” Ken Baker of E! News told NBC.

Yeah, well, nobody's perfect, as they say. But I agree: It's pretty hard to be a spokesperson for traditional values when you're stripping down for racy lingerie shots.

I love Carrie Prejean, and she'll weather the storm, but it's just one more case of human frailty in the eyes of God, and no doubt the nihilist leftists will rush to hold her up as a poster girl for the "hypocrisy" of the fundamentalist right.

See here and here for more details. Ms. Prejean's "modeling" shot is here.

I don't see a thread yet at Memeorandum, but just wait. I'd bet this will be the leading story by late this afternoon, and I'll update at that time!

Big Hat Tip: Robert Stacy McCain.

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UPDATE: There's a Memeorandum thread now. Also blogging, Moe Lane, Red State, Flopping Aces, AmSpecBlog, and Taki's Magazine.

Charles Johnson and Andrew Sullivan: Separated at Birth?

Samuel Wurzelbacher's comments from his Christianity Today interview continue to dominate the news this morning. At issue is his remark on homosexuals, where he suggests, "I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children."

When read in the context of Wurzelbacher's deconstruction of the word "queer," the guy makes sense - at least from the perspective of a parent trying to instill strong moral values in his children.

Of course, "anywhere near my children" is politically incorrect, so Wurzelbacher's being hammered from both sides of the spectrum, and certainly there's room for debate on exactly what "threat" Wurzelbacher had in mind.

Still, I just can't help noticing how Charles Johnson and Andrew Sullivan performed some near-perfect telepathy in their respective, nearly-identical posts on the topic.

Here's Charles Johnson's, "Joe the Plumber Speaks Out Against 'Queers'." Johnson cites the "anywhere near my children" quote but can't quit ("I could stop with that one, but there’s more"), and adds a couple more passages before the sigh ... "Good. Grief."

Here's Andrew Sullivan's, "What Christianity Means to Some." Sullivan also cites the "anywhere near my children" quote, and then adds, "Sam Wurzelbacher has every right to keep his children away from anyone. But he is instilling bigotry at an early age. As is his party."

And there you have it.

Charles Johnson and Andrew Sullivan: Separated at birth now reunited to excoriate Joe the Plumber, the house bigot of the GOP.

P.S. I want neither Johnson nor Sullivan "anywhere near my children"!

The GOP and Moderates

Rick Moran on the Republican Party coalition, at Pajamas Media:

The fact that there are many in the party who actually think it a good idea to shrink the GOP by subtracting less conservative, less ideological, more moderate members is incomprehensible. In the minority already, draining the Republican Party of anyone who fails to demonstrate what many conservative activists determine as sufficient enthusiasm for their agenda strikes me as madness.

It’s not that the activists don’t have a point. Tossing aside conservative principles and running candidates who offer little in the way of contrast to the Democrats would be useless. But at the same time, there has got to be some recognition that the party must expand beyond the 30% or so of the electorate who identify themselves as “conservative.” Otherwise, you condemn the GOP to permanent minority status — a regional, monochromatic grouping that would exist largely in the south and pockets of the Midwest and Mountain West.

Read the whole thing, here.

Moran suggests that Jack Kemp would be "drummed out of the conservative movement today" for his moderate positions on immigration and race. That may be so on legalization, although I hardly think that home ownership for black Americans is a moderate position. Geez, why don't some of the base conservatives start talking up some of the former HUD Secretary's proposals? Kemp was light years ahead of his time. We could use more people like him.

P.S.: Moran doesn't really answer this question: If the GOP becomes "pro-choice, or pro-gay marriage, or pro-amnesty," why will moderates choose the Republicans over the Democrats?

Turning to Madrasas in Pakistan

From today's New York Times, "Pakistan’s Islamic Schools Fill Void, but Fuel Militancy":

Young boys reading the Koran at a madrasa in Multan, in southern Punjab Province. The concentration of madrases in southern Punjab has become an urgent concern in the face of Pakistan's expanding insurgency. The madrasas offer no instruction beyond the memorizing of the Koran, creating a widening pool of young minds that are sympathetic to militancy.

The caption to another photograph at the slideshow reads, "The impoverished expanse of rural southern Punjab, where the Taliban have begun making inroads with the help of local militant groups, has one of the highest concentrations of madrases in the country.

The full article is available here.

How Ezra Levant Beat Canada's "Human Rights" Censors

From Reason Magazine, Ezra Levant, "The Internet Saved My Tongue: How I Beat Canada's 'Human Rights' Censors":

Early on the morning of February 13, 2006, nearly 40,000 copies of the Western Standard rolled off the presses in Edmonton, Alberta. Tucked inside that week’s issue of Canada’s only national conservative magazine, on pages 15 and 16, was a story about the international controversy over a Danish newspaper that had printed a dozen satirical cartoons featuring the prophet Muhammad. Our article, which was illustrated by eight of the cartoons, would soon trigger a three year government investigation of whether I, as the Western Standard’s publisher, had violated the rights of Canadian Muslims by “discriminating” against their religion.

The investigation vividly illustrated how Canada’s provincial and national human rights commissions (HRCs), created in the 1970s to police discrimination in employment, housing, and the provision of goods and services, have been hijacked as weapons against speech that offends members of minority groups. My eventual victory over this censorious assault suggests that Western governments will find it increasingly difficult in the age of the Internet to continue undermining human rights in the name of defending them.

A phenomenal story, unreal in some respects. Read the whole thing, here.

Speaking about his dealings with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, Levant laments, "the right to not be offended trumps freedom of speech in Alberta."

Fifty-Four Percent of Americans Oppose Gay Marriage

From the new CNN/Opinion Dynamics Poll:

A new national poll suggests that a majority of Americans oppose legalizing same sex marriages — but there's a vast generational divide on the issue.

Fifty-four percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Monday say that marriages between gay or lesbian couples should not be recognized as valid, with 44 percent suggests they should be considered legal.

Among those 18 to 34 years old, 58 percent said same-sex marriages should be legal. That number drops to 42 percent among respondents 35 to 49 years old, and to 41 percent for those 50 to 64 years of age. The poll indicates that only 24 percent of Americans 65 and older support recognizing same-sex marriages as valid.

While a majority of those polled oppose legalizing gay marriage, 6 out of 10 feel that states that do not recognize gay marriages allow civil unions. When it comes to supporting civil unions, the poll indicates a similar generational shift.

The key theme is the generation gap, as always, because gay activists assume that generational cohort replacement will make legalization of same-sex marriage inevitable. It's a questionable assumption. The number of young people supporting gay marriage isn't asoundingly high. Plus, when question items are broken down into clear choices, (a) support for gay marriage, (b) support for civil unions, or (c) support for neither, less than one third supported option "a" in a recent national survey, and only one in four in Iowa. And life experiences - entering the workforce, owning a home, raising a family, etc. - have the effect of promoting traditional expectations on the role of government in society. That is, people generally become more conservative with age, so today's older cohorts could very well be replaced by younger generations holding increasingly more traditional positions on cultural issues with age.

This is why, from the perspective of gay activists, the battle for same-sex marriage has moved far beyond the question of rights (gay Americans have equal rights under the law, in any case, and gay marriage is not a civil right, for that matter), and has instead shifted to an agenda of wholesale change in American culture and institutions, and especially religion.

Nowadays, as we have seen with the recent controversy over Carrie Prejean, but also today with Samuel Wurzelbacher's statements, traditional Americans have been rebranded as "bigots."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Courts Granting Equality Between Same-Sex and Heterosexual Unions

If you read this piece at the Los Angeles Times carefully, you'll notice that gays are increasingly being afforded full family rights by the states (adoption, insurance, etc.) without changing the definition of marriage:

BUILDING MOMENTUM? Supporters of gay rights demonstrate in Philadelphia. Legal scholars expect several more states to legalize same-sex marriage this year.

When Maine's highest court ruled two years ago that lesbians Marilyn Kirby and Ann Courtney could adopt the two children they had cared for since 2001, the man who has led the state battle against gay marriage for 25 years got a glimpse of the defeat now looming.

"There's a sense people have -- a sense of inevitability -- and a tremendous sense of frustration because of the history of the gay rights fight in Maine," said Michael Heath, executive director of the Maine Family Policy Council.

He was referring to rights incrementally accorded to gay couples that have led to virtual equality between same-sex and heterosexual unions -- a significant trend occurring in Maine and other states where gay marriage remains banned, experts on both sides of the issue agree.

Those rights are expanding as legally married gay couples relocate to states that don't allow same-sex marriage, forcing courts, legislatures and employers to deal with the resulting issues of custody, divorce, inheritance and end-of-life decisions.

The adoption ruling in Maine had the effect of granting parental rights to same-sex couples. By the time the Legislature adjourns for the summer, experts expect Maine to become the fifth state to legalize same-sex marriage -- 11 years after voters banned it.

In New York, which doesn't allow same-sex marriages but recognizes those conducted elsewhere, recent court decisions have granted a divorce to two gay men and surviving spouse benefits to another.

In California, federal judges have twice overruled decisions by the federal government to deny healthcare coverage to gay employees' legal spouses, teeing up a constitutional challenge to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which forbids federal benefits for same-sex couples.

Same-sex marriage is legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont and Massachusetts, which began the trend five years ago. (Iowa issued its first marriage licenses April 27, a few weeks after its Supreme Court gave approval; weddings in Vermont will begin in September.) Within a year, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York will probably follow suit, say sexual orientation scholars at the UCLA School of Law's Williams Institute; New Hampshire's Senate approved a same-sex marriage bill Wednesday.

And as more same-sex couples wed in places where it is legal, the administrative fallout in other states is expected to keep expanding.

There's a couple of things going on here: (1) Many courts and legislatures are moving to expand equal protections to same-sex couples short of legalizing gay marriage, but the article also shows, (2) how gay activists are playing up the "inevitability" angle for all it's worth. Actually, less than one-third of American nationally, and even fewer in recent Iowa polling, support full-blown same-sex marriage rights (supporting civil unions instead). So, gay radicals - seeking to change the definition of marriage even though states are expanding gay partnership rights - will continue to push in the courts and legislatures at the state level to create a jigsaw puzzle of conflicting laws and regulations, attempting to tie the federal system in knots.

Conservatives know exactly what's happening:

These are serious cases of widespread importance, where we see same-sex couples attempting to use the laws of another state to push their agenda in a state that does not recognize their union," said Jim Campbell, litigation counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization.

"This is a danger that will spread to all states but will not necessarily result in same-sex marriage in all states," Campbell said, noting that opponents will continue to press their elected officials to reject same-sex marriage initiatives.

Julaine Appling, executive director of Wisconsin Family Action, agrees, saying her group "has always taken the position that these kinds of decisions should be made in the Legislature, where they can be fully vetted and can have public opinion given."

Well, gay activists really don't want to have their views "fully vetted." The more we actually hear these people, the less inclined are we to support their case.

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times, "Same-sex Marriages Gradually Gain Legal Ground."

Mario Lavandeira: "Lard Boy" of the Gay Marriage Movement

Perez Hilton, a.k.a, Mario Armando Lavandeira, has extended his shelf-life a bit by claiming copyright infringement for a 3-second video snippet of his "dumb bitch" attack on Carrie Prejean.

Patterico called him out (and is willing to fight Hilton in court), but I just love The Deceiver's take on it, dismissing the idea that he claimed copyright infringement out of embarrassment: "Perez Hilton Puts the 'Hippo” in “Hypocrite'":

I’m not sure Hilton is actually embarrassed. He’s never shown a capacity for it. No, he’s doing this out of spite, because he doesn’t like the unintended consequences of his actions. He’s an emotionally stunted bully, and he can’t handle it when somebody pushes back. Even when it means denying someone else’s right to Fair Use, after he’s made a name for himself by ineptly scrawling genitalia on stolen photos of celebrities and, when sued for violating copyright, declaring it Fair Use.

But then, this is hardly Lard Boy’s first instance of jaw-dropping hypocrisy. Just ask Jonathan Jaxson and Diane Wargo.

There's more at the link. Ouch factor courtesy of Glenn Reynolds.

Can't Touch This: Criticism of Obamessiah Off Limits!

From cocktail parties to late-night TV, American politics has turned into a no-slam zone for President Barack Obama, a.k.a, "Obamessiah."

Via Memeorandum, Laura Varon Brown, at the Detroit Free Press, shares her story, in "Obama criticism shuts down conversation":

Parties were more fun when George W. Bush was president. You could debate, argue even, praise and condemn, throw darts and laurels and solve the world's problems over a bottle of wine.

No more. At least not in my circles. If you want to stop a conversation in its tracks, just question something President Barack Obama has said or done. It's not open to debate - and I don't think that's healthy, for the country or the president.

It's especially unsettling for a free speech girl like me. The First Amendment is important - but lately, it feels like my right of self-expression is being squashed.

One example: Obama's comment to Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show," comparing his bowling abilities to someone in the Special Olympics.

Can you imagine the uproar had Bush said that? He'd be banished from bowling alleys for eternity. His bowling average and IQ would have immediately been compared in Twitter messages demanding his resignation.

But instead, media and water cooler conversations the next day were about bowling scores and how tough the game can be. Anyone bringing up the insensitivity of the president's remark heard, "Come on, give the guy a chance. So he said one thing wrong. Anyone could have said something like that." End of discussion.

End of the presidential punchline as well.

As today's Los Angeles Times reports, "Comedians are treading carefully as they test the limits of political satire with a black president":

On his HBO show, "Real Time With Bill Maher," the comedian routinely makes vicious fun of celebrities, politicians, presidents and even God. But he's learned that, for much of his audience, Barack Obama is off limits.

Not long after the historic presidential election, Maher joked that Republicans were feeling particularly superstitious: "They say the country is having bad luck because there's a black cat in the White House." The studio audience erupted in loud groans and boos - a reaction, Maher observed in a recent interview, that exceeded his often scathing attacks on organized religion.

"Obama is the new God," quipped Maher of the poorly received dig, which he pointed out pokes at conservatives more than the commander in chief.

You know, Maher dug down to the depths of depravity with his famous career-crashing line, "We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly."

And now he can't even joke that Obama's the new God?

Now that's cowardly! But what can you do when criticizing a black president gets you attacked as "racist"?

We're all Obamessianists now ...

In Defense of "Rule 5"

Did readers know that American Power is actually one of the key inspirations for Robert Stacy McCain's "Rule 5" blogging? Yep, it's true. In response to this photo of Natalie Portman, posted March 2008, Stacy suggested that "Donald Douglas of American Power is a blogger after my own heart..."

Well, things have been taking off for Stacy since then. A lot of that has to do with his embrace of unapologetic "babe blogging," which is, of course, embodied in "Rule 5" of "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in Less Than a Year."

"Rule 4" of the program is "make some enemies," and it turns out that said "unfriendlies" (friendly unfriendlies, actually) came out of the woodworks this weekend in response to Stacy's analysis of the Carrie Prejean breast implant story. Here's the post, with the key passage in defense of "Rule 5":

To assert that my Rule 5 blogging is sometimes indecorous is to state the obvious. Being indecorous is kind of the point. We live in a world constrained by political correctness, including the feminist insistence (backed by threat of federal lawsuit) that even the mildest workplace acknowledgement of a woman's beauty is vicious "harassment."

So it occurs to me that normal red-blooded guys might need some kind of "safe zone" exempt from this uptight neo-Victorianism. Out there in the cruel world, a guy could be professionally ruined if he were overheard to remark, "Hey, nice stems on that blonde." But here? Heh.

Read the whole thing, here (via Memeorandum). After laying out what's really ailing conservatives and the GOP (with a whole lot of asides), Stacy concludes:

Dear ladies, forgive me if my irreverent remarks about Carrie Prejean's fake boobies offended your delicate sensibilities. Please understand that years of youthful association with companions of low character have irretrievably corrupted me, rendering me permanently unfit for polite society.

Geez, I hope those hot shots of Bar Rafaeli don't get me in hot water with the ladies!

Trig Trutherism Lives!

Here's Andrew Sullivan on Sarah Palin's recent comments about her pregnancy with Trig:

I tend to assume that everything Palin says is untrue until proven otherwise, and in this case, have no basis to confirm or deny anything.

As I've noted many times, like JammieWearingFool, "It Must Be Mental Illness: Sullivan Still Suffering From Trig Trooferism."

Of course, President Obama's a fan of Excitable Andy, notes Gateway Pundit, "Obama's Favorite Blogger Is Still Discussing the Trig Palin Conspiracy." And as Scott at Powerline adds:

I hope the White House minders who are feeding Sullivan's deep thoughts to Obama don't hold back Sullivan's latest reveries on the Trig Palin conspiracy -- you know, the conspiracy to make out that Sarah Palin is Trig's mother. Sullivan's latest reveries on Trig are truly representative of Sullivan's illumination of the issues of the day. Unbelievable.

And in case you missed it from last year's campaign, "Don't Go Over There, But Sullivan Is Pushing (of Course!) Trig Trutherism Now":

Let's see a brain scan, buddy. Let's get some answers ... Medical fucking answers."

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

Change! Blacks Better Off Under Obama

Gallup reports that black Americans say they are faring better under the Obama administration, "Major Gains in Blacks’ Ratings of Their Standard of Living":

Gallup Poll Daily tracking of Americans' assessments of their standard of living finds continued improvement among blacks after a dramatic 31-point spike in January. Blacks' score on Gallup's Standard of Living Index dropped to as low as -1 during the height of the financial crisis last October, remaining low in November and December, but it now stands at +62.

But you're going to love the bottom-line analysis:

It is unlikely that the election of a new president would have much of an immediate effect on most individuals' actual standard of living. Most Americans would continue to work in the same jobs that they had before the election, with the same income and the same expenses. But having a president that one believes in may just lead people to have a much sunnier outlook, not only on the government but on other aspects of life, and may cause them to rate conditions in a variety of areas more positively.

You see? Change we can believe in! (Emphasis added.)

Hugh Jackman Returns!

I spent time with my family this weekend. I took my boys to see Wolverine last night, and the whole family had breakfast this morning at Cheesecake Factory.

I've had the most fun with the "superheroes" flicks over the last few years, since I get to enjoy them through the experience of my boys. But my youngest son, 7, is the best. He's just totally into all of the Marvel guys, and we read comics and watch the older movies on DVD. On Halloween, my little "super" has been "The Incredible Hulk" and "Spiderman," and a couple of others.

During the movie (slight spoiler alert), when Wolverine emerges from the submersion tank and breaks away with the adamantium upgrade, my son blurted out, "he's nakie!" I just started laughing to myself! I just love to see him enjoying it, so full of wonder and exclamation.

Anyway, the movie reviews were so-so, but I love Jackman's Wolverine simply because the dude's hot!

Anyway, check out the background story on Hugh Jackman at the Los Angeles Times, "Hugh Jackman Returns to Signature Role as Wolverine."

More later ...

Progressives Don't Want Specter!

Arlen Specter's getting the lefties all riled up with his comments today to David Gregory on Meet the Press: "I did not say I would be a loyal Democrat. I did not say that."

Steve Benen pretty much sums it up:

In the four whole days he's been a Democrat, Specter has voted against the Democratic budget, rejected a Democratic measure to help prevent mortgage foreclosures and preserve home values, announced his opposition to the president's OLC nominee, and this morning rejected a key centerpiece of the Democratic health care plan.

Benen suggests that Specter's initial signaling to the Democrats "practically begs for a primary."

William Jacobson's got a roundup on the additional outrage on the left, and see also Memeorandum.

Obama's Army of Followers

From the Associated Press, "Obamas take a walk, holding hands in the evening":

I'm guessing these folks weren't among the panicked New Yorkers during the recent Air Force One flyover in Manhattan!

California's Big Government Laboratory

George Will irks me sometimes, especially on foreign policy, but he nails it today with his essay on California as the laboratory of big-government liberalism, "No More California Dreaming."

Note in particular Will's comments on Proposition 1A, the May 19 ballot measure that proposes $16 billion in new taxes in exchange for the promise of "spending caps" in future budget years:

Proposition 1A would create a complicated - hence probably porous - spending cap and a rainy-day fund. Realists, however, do not trust the Legislature to obey the law, which may be why some public employees unions cynically support 1A ....

If voters pass 1A's hypothetical restraint on government spending, their reward will be two extra years (another $16 billion) of actual income, sales and vehicle tax increases. The increases were supposed to be for just two years. Voters are being warned that if they reject the propositions, there might have to be $14 billion in spending cuts. (Note the $15 billion number four paragraphs above.) Even teachers might be laid off. California teachers - the nation's highest-paid, with salaries about 25 percent above the national average - are emblematic of the grip that government employees unions have on the state, where 57 percent of government workers are unionized (the national average is 37 percent).

Flinching from serious budget cutting and from confronting public employees unions, some Californians focus on process questions. They devise candidate-selection rules designed to diminish the role of parties, thereby supposedly making more likely the election of "moderates" amenable to even more tax increases.

But what actually ails California is centrist evasions. The state's crisis has been caused by "moderation," understood as splitting the difference between extreme liberalism and hyperliberalism, a "reasonableness" that merely moderates the speed at which the ever-expanding public sector suffocates the private sector.

California has become liberalism's laboratory, in which the case for fiscal conservatism is being confirmed. The state is a slow learner and hence will remain a drag on the nation's economy. But it will be a net benefit to the nation if the federal government and other state governments profit from California's negative example, which Californians can make more vividly instructive by voting down the propositions on May 19.

Failing Teachers Get a Pass at L.A. Unified

Unless you're a parent or an educator, teacher tenure probably isn't the hottest of hot-button issues on your political agenda. But as we watch the debates over national education reform heat up in the years ahead, especially considering the refusal of the Barack Obama administration to support the Opportunity Scholarship Program in Washington D.C.'s public schools, keep in mind this Los Angeles Times investigative report on firing teachers at Los Angeles Unified School District.

This part right here is actually heart-rending:

Jettisoning a teacher solely because he or she can't teach is rare. In 80% of the dismissals that were upheld, classroom performance was not even a factor.

When teaching is at issue, years of effort - and thousands of dollars - sometimes go into rehabilitating the teacher as students suffer. Over the three years before he was fired, one struggling math teacher in Stockton was observed 13 times by school officials, failed three year-end evaluations, was offered a more desirable assignment and joined a mentoring program as most of his ninth-grade students flunked his courses.

As a case winds its way through the system, legal costs can soar into the six figures.

Meanwhile, said Kendra Wallace, principal of Daniel Webster Middle School on Los Angeles' Westside, an ineffective teacher can instruct 125 to 260 students a year - up to 1,300 in the five years she says it often takes to remove a tenured employee.

"The hardest conversation to have is when a student comes in and looks at you and says, 'Can you please come teach our class?' " she said.

When coaching and other improvement efforts don't work, she said, "You're in the position of having to look at 125 kids and just say, 'I'm sorry,' because the process of removal is really difficult. . . . You're looking at these kids and knowing they are going to high school and they're not ready. It is absolutely devastating."

Read the whole thing, here.

The article cites Obama's major address on education in March, where he announced,"It is time to start rewarding good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones ... I reject a system that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequences."

But as the Times piece indicates, the nation's tenure system itself may protect bad teachers from facing the consequences of their poor teaching. And, think unions!

Jack Kemp, 1935-2009

Jack Kemp, in my mind, was the premier Republican on race relations in American politics. No one spoke to the power of markets and opportunity to empower black Americans as he did. His agenda as HUD Secretary in the first Bush administration would still be light years ahead if its time if applied today. We need more conservatives like him. What a wonderful man, and a great loss to the nation.

See Kemp's obituary at the New York Times, and also Associated Press (via Memeorandum).

Plus, check Quin Hillyer's comments on Kemp from just a couple of months ago, "What conservatives need right now is another Jack Kemp for a younger generation."