Obama Could Be 'Primaried' by Antiwar Democrat in 2012

At PuffHo, "Rendell: Obama Could Face Primary Challenge Over Afghanistan (VIDEO)" (via Memeorandum).

Lyndon Baines Johnson was not "The One" Democratic Party presidential candidate in the 1960s. John F. Kennedy was ("Camelot" and all that...). Nowadays we have "The Lightworker" Obama-Wan Kenobi in office, and I can't image any credible intra-party challenge to his (re)nomination in 2012. And Afghanistan is no Vietnam, in terms of lives lost and treasure expended, so I don't know if the analogy's going to work all that well going forward in any case. Interesting too that arch-paleocon Pat Buchanan's the one posing the question, more so as there's a left-(quasi)right alliance for cut-and-run from the deployment. That said, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell makes the possibility sound realistic, depending on how the ground situation looks in 2011. Fun the play armchair presidential strategist, in any case:

PAT BUCHANAN: [Anti-Vietnam sentiment] drew an anti-war candidate, Eugene McCarthy, first into the New Hampshire primary, and after he did fairly well with 42%, it drew Robert Kennedy in against their own president, tore the Democratic Party apart, and led, of course, to a Republican era. If the president is still hanging in to Afghanistan in 2011, 2012, do you see an anti-war candidate coming out of the Democratic Party?

ED RENDELL: It's possible, Pat. It really depends on how far it deteriorates [emphasis mine]. But on the other hand, if troop withdrawal begins in 2011, if there's some signs that we're trying to get out of there, and I heard, I think you were talking about, if there are only 3,000 American troops, we still have a presence. But if we start to begin to reduce our presence, I think that's probably enough to keep an anti-war candidate out of the race."

Also Blogging: Dan Riehl.

Al Franken's Keynote Speech at Netroots Nation

Here's more key evidence of how deeply top Democratic officials are tied to the neo-communist anti-Semitic hate-blog Daily Kos (and the rest of the progressive blogosphere, CAP, Media Mutters, etc.). Take your time and really listen to chief election thief Al Franken. This is today's progressive movement, looking to crush "evil" corporations and "restore" free speech. It's kinda chilling listening to Al Franken, but also funny in a macabre kinda way. If you check Google you can see all the left-wing blogs posting this video: "Sen. Franken to the Netroots: Only You Can Stop the Corporate Takeover of Free Speech." But notice that it's Fox News that broadcast Franken's speech, in its entirety! So the "evil" right-wing corporate media made it possible for the deranged leftist hacks to spread this message of censorship all across the web. Al Franken's probably not the brightest bulb, in any case. I can see a comedien like him emerging in a similar fashion historically in post-Wiemar Germany. A jolly sort, more than ready to exterminate political enemies in order to "make the world a better place." Unreal. (More background here: "Al Franken: Without Net Neutrality Fox News Will Load Faster Than Daily Kos"):

Michelle Rhee and Teacher Accountability

At Betsy's Page:

Kudos to Michelle Rhee who just used the power granted her by the new contract negotiated with the Washington Teachers Union to fire 241 low-performing teachers and put 737 other teachers and school staff on notice that they had been rated "minimally effective." If I were a teacher who can't find a job in a state like mine, North Carolina, which has slowed down hiring teachers, I'd send an application to Washington, D.C. It sounds like they're going to have some openings for dedicated teachers.

Betsy teaches AP American History and has a phenomenal record of success. Yet I'm sometimes leery of straight performance evaluations, at least to the extent that much of student success is completely out of the hands of teachers themselves. That said, I like Rhee and I know she's fighting an entrenched bureaucracy that hasn't put kids' interests ahead of unions. Still, readers may remember Joel Parkes' essay from a while back (previously posted here). It bears recalling. Gotta include this side of the debate in discussions of teacher accountability, "Something Wrong in Our Schools? Let's Blame Teachers":

Much has been written lately about merit pay for teachers, an idea with which I agree in principle. But merit pay would be unfair to teachers for many reasons.

I teach upper-elementary grades at a school that is at the absolute bottom of the Academic Performance Index, ranking one out of 10 in both statewide and "similar schools" APIs. The majority of my school's students are classified as "English language learners"; almost all are Latino. Virtually every student at my school lives in poverty and gets a free breakfast and lunch from the school.

Next year I'll teach fourth grade, and this is what my past experience at this school leads me to expect:

At least two-thirds of my students will have been socially promoted through every grade and, by definition, won't have the skills necessary for the work that the state and district standards requires them to do. Some of them, probably five or 10, won't even know the alphabet, through no fault of mine, but they won't be held accountable. I will be.

Out of frustration over not being able to do the work, a number of my students will chronically disrupt my class, so my learning environment will be adversely affected daily. There is no meaningful consequence for chronic disruptive behavior at my school, so none of those students will be held accountable in any meaningful way. I will be.

Other students will be so discouraged at not being able to do the work that they will make no effort. They will seldom complete homework assignments and will produce virtually no work in class. Our senior assistant vice principal has stated that "we don't retain [hold back] students for not trying," so the students who do no work won't be held accountable. I will be.

I'll give you two historical examples of accountability and leave you with a question.

First, when the Roman legions marched, they built roads and bridges, some of which survive to this day. When the legions had to cross a river, the engineers were called on to design and build a bridge. After the bridge was built, the engineers stood under the bridge while the army crossed. That's accountability, but at least they had what was necessary to build the bridge.

On the other hand, when the Khmer Rouge seized Cambodia, they took the teachers and other educated people to the rice paddies and said, "You're so smart and educated. Make the rice grow faster or we will kill you." So there were a lot of dead teachers in Cambodia. Accountability? The Khmer Rouge certainly thought so.

Consider, please: As a teacher, I have no control over a school system that does not require students to meet standards in order to move on to the next grade. But I am to be held accountable.

As a teacher, I have no control over the system's lack of disciplinary support and inability to make certain students produce work. But I am to be held accountable.

As a teacher, I have no control over uneducated parents, overcrowded and noisy homes or the other very real consequences of poverty. But I am held accountable.

With regard to merit pay, my question is this: Am I being told to build a bridge and given the tools I need for the job, or am I just being taken to the country and told to make the rice grow faster? I know what answer I would give.

With No Direction Home...

Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone." Heard it last week on "Triple Play Thursday," and again yesterday. Enjoy:

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you ?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone ? ...

Jewel Sings Karaoke Under Cover

Via TigerHawk, "It'll make you grin":

Undercover Karaoke with Jewel from Jewel

NewsBusted — Confidence of Congress at 11% ...

James Surowiecki on JournoList

I'm not sure I'd be willing confer "hero" status on Ezra Klein, but I'd certainly say James Surowiecki was acting heroically when bucking the left's jihad-abetting memes at the list-serve. From The Daily Caller, " Heroes of Journolist: Dan Froomkin, James Surowiecki, Jeffrey Toobin, Michael Tomasky — and founder Ezra Klein" (via Memeorandum):

When Nidal Hasan murdered 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas, shouting “Allahu Akbar!” before opening fire, members of Journolist debated whether the media should report on Hasan’s apparent ties to Islamic extremism.

Luke Mitchell, then of Harper’s magazine, said doing so “points the way to things that are actually alarmingly dangerous, such as the idea that there is a large conspiracy of Islamists at work in the United States, that we need to ‘do something’ about this conspiracy.”

Surowiecki replied to Mitchell and others that the truth was worth pursuing.

“I find it bizarre that anyone would argue that an accurate description of what happened is somehow pointless,” Surowiecki said. “That is, that it’s not useful to offer up an accurate picture of Hasan’s actions because nothing obvious follows from it. We want, as much as possible, to have a clear picture of what’s actually going on in the world. Describing Hasan as a violent Islamist terrorist is much closer to the truth than describing him as a disturbed individual.”

RELATED: A great piece from Mickey Kaus, "'Journolist' Was Not a Progressive Idea."

Photo Credit: Wikipedia, "James Surowiecki."

Frank Rich Whines for Nobama

At New York Review, " ‘Why Has He Fallen Short?’":

Of course Barack Obama was too hot not to cool down. He was the one so many were waiting for—not only the first African-American president but also the nation’s long-awaited liberator after eight years of Bush-Cheney, the golden-tongued evangelist who could at long last revive and sell the old liberal faith, the first American president in memory to speak to voters as if they might be thinking adults, the first national politician in years to electrify the young. He was even, of all implausible oddities, a contemporary politician- author who actually wrote his own books.

The Obama of Hope and Change was too tough an act for Obama, a mere chief executive, to follow. Only Hollywood might have the power to create a superhero who could fulfill the messianic dreams kindled by his presence and rhetoric, maintain the riveting drama of his unlikely ascent, and sustain the national mood of deliverance that greeted his victory. As soon as Inauguration Day turned to night, the real Obama was destined to depreciate like the shiny new luxury car that starts to lose its book value the moment it’s driven off the lot.

But still: How did we get to the nadir so fast? The BP oil spill, for weeks a constant fixture on the country’s television and computer screens, became a presidential quagmire even before Afghanistan could fulfill its manifest destiny to play that role. The 24/7 gushing crude was ready-made to serve as the Beltway’s bipartisan metaphorical indicator for a presidency that was verging on disaster to some of Obama’s natural supporters, let alone his many enemies. “I don’t see how the president’s position and popularity can survive the oil spill,” wrote Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal on Memorial Day weekend without apparent fear of contradiction.

Pressed by critics to push back against BP with visible anger and kick-ass authority, Obama chose to devote the first Oval Office address of his presidency to the crisis in the gulf—on June 15, nearly sixty days after the Deep- water Horizon rig had exploded. His tardy prescriptions were panned even by the liberal Matthews-Olbermann-Maddow bloc at MSNBC. To many progressives, Obama’s too-cool handling of the disaster was a confirmation of a fatal character flaw—a professorial passivity that induced him to prematurely surrender the sacred “public option” in the health care debate and to keep too many of his predecessor’s constitutional abridgements in place at home and at Gitmo. When, a day after his prime-time address, he jawboned BP into setting up a $20 billion escrow fund for the spill’s victims, the Obama-hating tag team of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and its Tea Party auxiliaries attacked him for not being passive enough. To them, the President’s aggressive show of action was merely further confirmation that a rank incompetent and closet socialist (or is it National Socialist?) had illegitimately seized the White House to subvert America and the free-enterprise system.

That's a pretty good sample, eh?

"The Obama-hating tag-team"?

RTWT. Interestingly, Rich places most of the blame on Obama-Wan Kenobi's own team of incompetent, unaccomplished advisors. And that sounds about right:

The administration is still young, and so is the President. If he has any immutable ideological tenet, it’s that he is “a big believer in persistence.” He doesn’t like to lose. Health care had not been an Obama priority in the campaign, but he embraced it during the transition. Though Joe Biden, Rahm Emanuel, and David Axelrod were all skeptical of pursuing it as a Year One goal, he wouldn’t be deterred.

CARTOON CREDIT: No Sheeples Here!

WikiLeaks and U.S.-Pakistani Relations

I'm mostly just fascinated by the left's struggles with honesty regarding the goals of WikiLeaks. Julian Assange spouted that he wasn't about bringing the war to an end. Of course, that was during the same press conference in which he alleged war crimes. So, it bears monitoring how all of this plays out. From a partisan perspective, it's kinda funny, but a precipitous Afghan withdrawal would be reminiscent to the troubles of the Johnson administration. It's Obama's war, and if the radical left has its way, he'll lose it. MSNBC's on the case, that's for sure. And interesting, I don't disagree so much with the analysis here, and British correspondent Declan Walsh is correct to indicate that the pressure's on Pakistan now to fix its ISI corruption and terror-abetting (although we already knew that). Mostly I hope that we don't cut-and-run while we're still needed, and we are. Pakistan is ground zero of global jihad, and leaving Afghanistan now before we're comfortable that country's stable will only make AfPak that much more attractive to the globe's killers. More on this throughout the day...

Julian Assange Press Conference, London, July 26, 2010

At Washington Post, "Wikileaks' release of classified field reports on Afghan war reveals not much." Plus, raw video from Monday's press conference:

The 10 Most Controversial Playboy Covers of All Time

A pretty interesting piece, at BroBible:

Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman obviously took offense.

Have times changed? Maybe we should ask Ms. Olga? She attends college where women are judged by brains over bods. As a college professor, I must say: I'm impressed!

RELATED: "Hottest Student Bodies: The 50 Best Colleges Ranked By Looks: 1-10."

The AfPak Non-Pentagon Papers

As I reported earlier, the WikiLeaks document dump hasn't generated spectacular revelations. Certainly, from an intelligence and government secrecy standpoint, it's a really big deal. By now, though, most analysts have actually kinda yawned at the whole thing. But for leftists, WikiLeaks is pure gold. Recall that Julian Assange denied that his goal was to bring an end to the war. That's pure bull. I've paid too much attention to this creep since the bogus Apache Reuters video ploy a few months back. These people are out to damage the U.S. big time, and all the hardline leftist organizations go into overdrive when a new doc-dump/video exposé goes live. Case in point is the hyperventilating coverage at Democracy Now!, "The New Pentagon Papers: WikiLeaks Releases 90,000+ Secret Military Documents Painting Devastating Picture of Afghanistan War." Amy Goodman's a commie, and communists have two big attacks on the West: "Wars of imperial aggression" and "hegemonic racism" (Israel demonization falls somewhere in between both of those, as the Jewish state is the racist outpost of American-led neo-colonialism in the Middle East). And of course, MSNBC's more of a "commie" network than CNN, and these folks are creaming over WikiLeaks, for example, Cenk Uygur at this clip featuring Matt Lewis of Politics Daily:

On an interesting related note, the Wall Street Journal sees a silver lining in the release of the documents, and the editors debunk the "Pentagon Papers" analogy at the same time. See, "The AfPak Papers":

We've long believed the U.S. government classifies too many documents as secret, and now we know for sure. How else to explain why Sunday's release of some 92,000 previously confidential documents reveals so little that we didn't already know about the war in Afghanistan? This document dump will only matter if it becomes an excuse for more of America's political class to turn against a war they once supported ....

Far from being the Pentagon Papers redux, the larger truth is how closely the ground-eye view in these documents reinforces what U.S. officials were long saying: that the war wasn't going well, the Taliban were making gains, and a new and invigorated strategy was needed to combat them. Both the Bush and Obama Administrations made the same diagnosis in recent years, neither one kept it secret, and this year Mr. Obama followed through with an increase in troops levels and a renewed counterinsurgency.

The most politically explosive documents concern the conflicting loyalties of Pakistan's Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. Nearly 200 reports allege that the Pakistani military intelligence arm is in cahoots with the Taliban, despite claiming to side with America. This is undoubtedly true but also no surprise.

The ISI helped the U.S. arm and organize the mujahideen against the Soviets, and it kept doing so to fill the Afghan power vacuum after America abandoned the region in the early 1990s. The reports released this week allege—often citing a single source or uncertain information—that the ISI helped train Afghan suicide bombers, plotted to poison beer slated for GIs, and schemed to assassinate President Hamid Karzai. It isn't clear how many of these plots were ever attempted, but there's no doubt that many Pakistanis doubt U.S. staying power, fear Indian influence in Afghanistan, and want to use the Taliban to shape events on their Western border.

Then again, we also know that Pakistan has shifted its behavior in a more pro-American direction in the last 14 months as the Taliban began to threaten Pakistan's own stability. Responding to a surge of terrorism against Pakistani targets, the Pakistani army has pushed Islamist insurgents from the Swat Valley and even South Waziristan. It has taken heavy casualties in the process. Islamabad now actively aids U.S. drone strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda leaders in the mountains along its Afghan border.

Pakistan can and should do more to pursue the terrorist enclaves along the border, as well as in Quetta and Karachi. The question is what's the best way to persuade their leaders to act. U.S.-Pakistan cooperation has been one of the Obama Administration's foreign policy successes, and it would be a tragedy if the leak of selective documents, often out of context, would now poison that cooperation.

That's the most sober thing I've read on foreign policy in weeks (be sure to RTWT). WSJ points out that the documents indicate that Iran is cooperating with al Qaeda and related Sunni extremist groups, another fact that puts the lie to the promise of diplomatic engagement with Tehran.

RELATED: "Why WikiLeaks' ‘War Logs’ Are No Pentagon Papers." (At Memeorandum.)

HBO's 'Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County'

Getting ready to watch this documentary with my family, at 9:00pm PST, Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County:

The director/producer is Alexandra Pelosi, who is the daughter of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Light My Fire

At Saberpoint, from last week, featuring this clip of The Doors: "Jim Morrison: Dionysian Shaman or Acid-Addled Freak?" Stogie watched the Oliver Stone flick and did a write-up.

Newlyweds Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr

Some news-related midweek Rule 5.

At People Magazine, "Newlyweds Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr Show Off Wedding Bling."

And ‎"PIRATE BOOTY: Orlando with Miranda (VIDEO: Miranda Kerr's new Victoria's Secret ad)":

Sexual Interactions of the Orgasmic Kind

At Feministe, "My Sluthood, Myself":

Last summer, I suffered the breakup of a relationship that I had thought would be permanent. Now, I’ve been through my share of break-ups, even of quite serious relationships, but nothing ever broke me like this one.

Since then, I’ve had sexual interactions of the orgasmic kind with 9 different people, none of which I was at any time in a committed relationship with.

I’m not telling you this to shock (though I am specifying the number because we all need to get over the whole “OMG! Be ashamed of your NUMBER! It’s either too big or too small!” thing). I’m telling you this because of something else that’s also true about me: I’d really like to be in a long-term, probably monogamous relationship. That’s right, folks, I’m a slut who craves a stable, loving, committed relationship. File me under “Lookin’ fer luv: ur doin it wrong.”

That’s the story we get sold, right? That women who sleep around are destroying their chances at True Love. Something to do with bonding hormones getting all used up? Or is it that we have so little self-esteem that no one could love us? Or maybe it’s that we’re all used candy wrappers or dirty masking tape. I can never remember.

Thing is: I’ve done it the other way. Until my mid-30s, I was largely a serial monogamist. Not for any grand ethical or philosophical reasons – it was just what felt comfortable to me. That’s not to say that I didn’t have some wild adventures in college, or never went to bed with someone on a first date – I did on occasion. It’s just that when I did, I’d often wake up the next day in a relationship. Let me tell you: not the best recipe for partnership bliss.

I’m thinking of one particular instance in which I had what was for me a very painful dry spell: a year and a half in which I barely got to kiss anyone, and didn’t get to do anything other than that at all, sexually speaking, with anyone. It… yeah. Didn’t feel too good. Made me feel like I would never be touched or loved again. Made me feel, in a word, desperate. You know what’s not a great emotional state for making important life decisions? Desperation.

To wit: after this year and a half of nothing, I went to bed with a woman I barely knew on our first date. Nothing wrong with that, we had a great time, and seriously, did I mention a year and a half? The problem came the next morning, when it became obvious that she was much more into me emotionally than I was at that point. Did I tell her that? And potentially get exiled back to my affectionless desert? I bet you know the answer. What followed was a two-year relationship in which we were unhappy for about the last year and a half ...

Lots, lots more at the link (amazingly).

I guess this is why feminists decry "slut shaming." They wanna be out and proud about their slutishness (and their sexual orientation?) and don't think they should hafta catch any flak for it.

And on a related note, I've never even heard of "Craigslist Casual Encounters" (the miracle that saved our orgasmic friend here, but RTWT).

No shame there, I guess.

Lindsay Beyerstein on JournoList

The Daily Caller's trickle of JournoList e-mails is providing a treasure-trove of insight into the twisted minds of radical leftists.

See, "Raw Journolist emails on ‘Palin’s Downs child’." (Via Memeorandum.)

Breathtaking is Lindsay Beyerstein's comments, for example:

"In the post-Rathergate era, journalists should be on their guard for Republican dirty tricks."

Dana Loesch picked up on this in a one-word titled post, "Irony."

But Ms. Beyerstein's extended discussion of Sarah Palin is almost unreal:

The story is far-fetched and as yet unsupported by evidence. Kathy’s right: So far, there’s not enough evidence for any responsible commentator to discuss this. Public speculation without proof is cruel and counterproductive.

However, if some reporter thinks this rumor is worth investigating further, and he or she absolutely nails this story, that would be great.

If I had the smoking gun, I’d proudly publish the evidence. (I don’t think the story is plausible enough to bother looking, but that’s a separate question.)

Anyone who decided to raise her granddaughter as her daughter is a liar and a hypocrite, not to mention an abuser of two generations of children. What kind of parent would force her family to live that kind of lie?

What warped values would give rise to such a decision? Lots of grandparents raise their grandkids. That’s admirable and commonplace. Barack Obama spoke movingly before a crowd of 84,000 about how his own grandmother helped raise him.

Why lie about the baby’s origins, except to spare Palin political embarrassment? She’s a self-professed Bible believing Christian whose mommy cred might be diminished by the revelation that she raised an unwed teen mom. That said, I imagine that she would have scored a lot of points for openly raising her daughter’s disabled child–and rightly so. A hoax would suggest extreme selfishness and blind ambition, not to mention vanity and a distinctly irrational preoccupation with keeping up appearances.

The fact that baby Trig has Down Syndrome isn’t the weakest link in the story. Yes, older mothers are at increased risk of bearing children with Down Syndrome. The majority of children with DS are born to younger mothers–because most babies are born to younger women, period.

My cousin, a pediatric nurse, mentioned a couple months ago that moms in their early teens are also at increased risk of bearing children with DS compared to women in their late teens and twenties. Does anyone know of a study to support that? The papers I’ve seen tend to put everyone under 25 in one category, instead of breaking the data down further.

Cheers,

Lindsay

Warped values?

Right.

The left is warped. Lindsay Beyerstein is the personification.

**********

Wait!

There's more! Turns out Andrew Sullivan, M.D., specialist in forensic gynecology, sees the JournoList as vindication!

Plus, William Jacobson's got a post up as well, "Journolist Trig Emails - All About The Story Line."

Crazy On You

I little music to brighten the afternoon?

Recall that Heart played Harrah's Rincon in May, which must have been awesome. This clip's from the 1970s. Enjoy "Crazy on You":

With Governor Jan Brewer...

...is my good friend Chris at Panhandle's Perspective, "Texas Business and Arizona Politics":

Haiti: Living in Limbo

An exremely moving photo-essay on Haiti earthquake survivor Alescandra Simin, from Carolyn Cole at the Los Angeles Times:

"Simin bathes Midjalannda in a large metal bowl, the same one the family uses as a latrine at night. She worries about her daughter's weight loss."

See the whole thing, at the link.