David Brooks' latest column opens with a question:
Is Barack Obama really a force for change, or is he just a traditional Democrat with a patina of postpartisan rhetoric? That question is surprisingly hard to answer.

Which raised the question. Does David Brooks really believe what he writes, or does he pretend to believe certain things for the benefit of the audience he is writing for. Call me skeptic, but I don't think that question is so hard to answer.

Idiocy Watch

immanent eschaton has decided to start a new feature to point out idiotic statements in the blogosphere. Today's example comes from the New Republic, but this is a non-partisan venture. The goal is to respond to idiotic statements, and since the New Republic only allows comments from subscribers, the pool of non-idiots to respond to their idiotic statements is statistically insignificant. Anyhow, here it is:
Dept. of Pots and Kettles

"ICYMI: Okla. Dem Calls Obama Liberal, Declines To Endorse"--McCain campaign press release touting Oklahoma Rep. Dan Boren's decision not to endorse Barack Obama, June 10"At least 14 Republican members of Congress have refused to endorse or publicly support Sen. John McCain for president, and more than a dozen others declined to answer whether they back the Arizona senator.... Republican members who have not endorsed or publicly backed McCain include Sens. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Jeff Sessions (Ala.) and Reps. Jones, Peterson, John Doolittle (Calif.), Randy Forbes (Va.), Wayne Gilchrest (Md.), Virgil Goode (Va.), Tim Murphy (Pa.), Ron Paul (Texas), Ted Poe (Texas), Todd Tiahrt (Kan.), Dave Weldon (Fla.) and Frank Wolf (Va.)." -- The Hill, June 12--Christopher Orr

Did it ever occur to our author that Republicans are not endorsing McCain because he is too moderate, something Obama would probably not look to highlight?

Rich Lowry on Obama's hypocrisy:

Here are the Obama rules in detail: He can't be called a "liberal" ("the same names and labels they pin on everyone," as Obama puts it); his toughness on the war on terror can't be questioned ("attempts to play on our fears"); his extreme positions on social issues can't be exposed ("the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives" and "turn us against each other"); and his Chicago background too is off-limits ("pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy"). Besides that, it should be a freewheeling and spirited campaign.Democrats always want cultural issues not to matter because they are on the least-popular side of many of them, and want patriotic symbols like the Pledge of Allegiance and flag pins to be irrelevant when they can't manage to nominate presidential candidates who wholeheartedly embrace them (which shouldn't be that difficult). As for "fear" and "division," they are vaporous pejoratives that can be applied to any warning of negative consequences of a given policy or any political position that doesn't command 100 percent assent. In his North Carolina speech, Obama said the Iraq War "has not made us safer," and that McCain's ideas are "out of touch" with "American values." How fearfully divisive.We could take Obama's rules in good faith if he never calls John McCain a "conservative" or labels him in any other way. If he never criticizes him for his association with George Bush. If he doesn't jump on his gaffes (like McCain's 100-years-in-Iraq comment that Obama distorted and harped on for weeks). And if he never says anything that would tend to make Americans fearful about the future or divide them (i.e., say things that some people agree with and others don't).

ישיבת הגר"ז שוב עוברת למודיעין עילית

ישיבת "רמת שלמה" שבראשותו של הגאון רבי זבולון שוב, עוברת למשכנה החדש בעיר מודיעין עילית. המעבר אמנם זמני ובעתיד תעבור הישיבה לגבעת זאב.
ירוםח שמואלביץ	כ"ד בניסן התשס"ח 15:53
ישיבת "רמת שלמה" שבראשותו של הגאון רבי זבולון שוב, עוברת למשכנה החדש בעיר מודיעין עילית. אמנם מדובר במעבר זמני, שכן מתחילה הייתה אמורה הישיבה להיות בגבעת זאב, אלא שהקפאת הבנייה במקום הביאה לכך שגם בניית הישיבה הוקפאה, אך כעת עם הפשרת הבנייה בגבעת זאב מקווים שהבנייה תואץ והישיבה תוכל לעבור למשכנה החדש בהקדם. כאמור באופן זמני תעבור הישיבה למודיעין עילית ברחוב 'נודע ביהודה', והדבר יתבצע כבר עם תחילת זמן הקיץ שייפתח בר"ח אייר. בימים האחרונים ביקר הגר"ז שוב בביתם של מרנן ורבנן שליט"א ובראשם בביתו של נשיא הישיבה מרן הגרמ"י ליפקוביץ שליט"א וקיבל את ברכתו. בתמונה: הגר"ז שוב בביתו של מרן הגרמ"י ליפקוביץ שליט"א

At least Huckabee tried to be subtle

שערי זבולון Part I

.או"ח א' סי' ב

Hey, it's better than "G-d Damn America"

can you guess which candidate this guy supports?

Obama and Waffles

Maureen Dowd:

He is frantic to get away from her because he can’t keep carbo-loading to relate to the common people.

In the final days in Pennsylvania, he dutifully logged time at diners and force-fed himself waffles, pancakes, sausage and a Philly cheese steak. He split the pancakes with Michelle, left some of the waffle and sausage behind, and gave away the French fries that came with the cheese steak.

But this is clearly a man who can’t wait to get back to his organic scrambled egg whites. That was made plain with his cri de coeur at the Glider Diner in Scranton when a reporter asked him about Jimmy Carter and Hamas.

“Why” he pleaded, sounding a bit, dare we say, bitter, “can’t I just eat my waffle?”

His subtext was obvious: Why can’t I just be president? Why do I have to keep eating these gooey waffles and answering these gotcha questions and debating this gonzo woman?

גדושה

Prediction: It's not even going to be close

where close means less than one percent of the popular vote, and less than 15 electoral votes.

But before Michelle Obama starts measuring the White House for new drapes, let's take a look at historical precedent.

The first Republican to win a presidential election was Abraham Lincoln. Since that initial success, the GOP has won 23 presidential elections compared to just 14 for the Democrats.

Since the Civil War only four Democrats -- Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson, Franklin Roosevelt and Samuel Tilden -- have won a majority of the popular vote. (Tilden in 1876, lost the Electoral College vote and never became president.)

It has been 32 years since a Democrat won a majority of the popular vote. The last to do so was Carter, who won a whopping 50.1 percent of the votes in 1976. He defeated Republican incumbent Gerald Ford, the man who pardoned Richard Nixon and carried the burden of Watergate and the Vietnam War into the election.

Obviously, 1976 was not a good year to be a Republican. Nixon's disgraceful resignation and reputation for deceit and corruption fatally wounded the Republican presidential ticket. But even with such enormous advantages on his side, Carter barely eked out a majority. Carter's once sizeable lead in the polls dwindled as election day drew near, so much so that some observers believe that had the election taken place a couple of weeks later, Ford might have prevailed.

Like the 1976 contest, all conditions point toward an easy Democratic victory this November. George W. Bush, the Republican incumbent, suffers from abysmal approval ratings -- below 30 percent in some polls. The economy is weak and appears to be entering a recession. And the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, while certainly something of a maverick, is quite close to the president on the one issue causing him the most damage -- the war in Iraq.

Yet right now in a hypothetical head-to-head match-up, McCain and Obama appear to be in a dead heat. A recent USA Today/Gallup poll shows Obama leading by 3 points; the latest Rasmussen tracking poll shows McCain up by 3. A McCain-Clinton match-up is also too close to call at this point. If this is a Democratic year, one wonders what a Republican year would look like.

He's Not Elite, He's Elitist

Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, after showing a montage of all of the media calling Obama an elitist:

"You know, I hear what you are all saying, but doesn't elite mean good?"

Poll: Preacher Calms Dem Fears of Obama's Faith by Scott Ott for ScrappleFace · 25 Comments(2008-03-19) —

The latest presidential poll shows that public exposure to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s racially-charged, anti-American preaching has allayed Democrat voter fears about Sen. Barack Obama’s evangelical Christianity.Sen. Obama’s long-time pastor and mentor has called on God to ‘damn America’, and he blames rich, white people for everything from the crucifixion of Jesus to the epidemic of HIV in the black community.“Until mainstream Democrats heard Rev. Wright’s remarks,” said an unnamed pollster, “many were troubled by Sen. Obama’s profession of faith in Jesus Christ and his regular church attendance, which are generally-accepted indicators of mental weakness and deep-seated bigotry.”However, the source said, now that Democrat voters know that Sen. Obama’s pastor essentially preaches mainstream progressive talking points, they seem more willing to tolerate the Democrat candidate’s Christianity.As one survey respondent said, “At least he’s not some kind of religious nut, like George Bush, trying to force his god delusions and twisted morality down our throats.”

What Jesus and Obama's Pastor Have In Common

From your favorite theologian, reviewing Jacob Neusner's book on Jesus:

As such, Neusner’s friendly dialogue with Jesus amounts to what Matthew Scully, in a 1993 review of the book in National Review, called a “polite hedge.” Faced with a man who insists he is the equivalent of the Lord, one cannot disagree “with respect and reverence,” one cannot challenge the man’s claim while remaining “moved” by his greatness. “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher,” C.S. Lewis famously wrote. “He would either be a lunatic—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. . . . But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Meanwhile, Mark Steyn on the messiah's mentor:

The Reverend Wright believes that AIDs was created by the government of the United States — and not as a cure for the common cold that went tragically awry and had to be covered up by Karl Rove, but for the explicit purpose of killing millions of its own citizens. The government has never come clean about this, but the Reverend Wright knows the truth. “The government lied,” he told his flock, “about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”Does he really believe this? If so, he’s crazy, and no sane person would sit through his gibberish, certainly not for 20 years. Or is he just saying it? In which case, he’s profoundly wicked. If you understand that AIDs is spread by sexual promiscuity and drug use, you’ll know that it’s within your power to protect yourself from the disease. If you’re told that it’s just whitey’s latest cunning plot to stick it to you, well, hey, it’s out of your hands, nothing to do with you or your behavior.

But you can't really blame the guy, if god is his disciple.

what if obama doesn't pivot?

mickey kaus

What Obama Should Have Said

LA Times Blowback:

In my considered judgment as a race and civil rights specialist, I would
say that Barack Obama's "momentous" speech on race settled on merely
"explaining" so-called racial differences between blacks and whites -- and in so
doing amplified deep-seated racial tensions and divisions. Instead of giving us
a polarizing treatise on the "black experience," Obama should have reiterated
the theme that has brought so many to his campaign: That race ain't what it used
to be in America.He should have presented us a pathway out of our racial boxes
and a road map for new thinking about race. He should have depicted his
minister, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., as a symbol of the dysfunctional
angry men who are stuck in the past and who must yield to a new generation of
color-blind, hopeful Americans and to a new global economy in which we will look
on our neighbors' skin color no differently than how we look on their eye
color.In fact, I'd say that considering the nation's undivided attention to this
all-important speech, which gave him an unrivaled opportunity to lift us out of
racial and racist thinking, Obama blew it.

Media & Politics is back!

The Politico explaining why the media tried to cover up Wright's comments:

The minister’s controversial history has been written about countless times
throughout the campaign. Wright has ties to the Rev. Louis Farrakhan, the black
supremacist leader of the Nation of Islam — a fact that has been noted in more
than 100 news stories just in the past few months, according to the Nexis
database of news coverage. Opponents of Obama have constantly pushed reporters
to write about the minister, which these critics considered a ticking time bomb
for his campaign. On Feb. 20, after a fiery guest sermon by Wright in Little
Rock, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette ran an article that said: “On Tuesday,
Wright criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq and likened the insurgents to the
Israelites under Babylonian rule.” At 9:20 that morning, Obama opponents were
already trying to get Politico to link to the story. That’s why many news
outlets — including Politico — did not initially pile on with rehashes after
Ross’s story on “Good Morning America.”

One hundred stories which mentioned Obama's pastor in just the past few months! That's almost as much as the 4,351 stories about the woman who sat on the toilet for two years (in one week.) So I perfectly understand the media reaction: "G-d damn America? No news here."

Best Obama Speech Coverage Award (so far) goes to Mickey Kaus here

Andrew Sullivan on Obama:

As this campaign progresses, this man grows and grows. The same cannot be said for his two remaining opponents.

At this accelerated rate of growth, Obama will have like, four years of experience by the time he takes the white house!

Obama and the Bible

In light of Obama's posthumous conversion of Daniel to Christianity noted here, his "Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us" comment makes me wonder how often he really did attend church after all.

Must read Shelby Steele on Obama here.

"Bill Buckley Mekareved Me"

David Klinghoffer here. h/t to anonymous

One More Thing Obama and Jesus Have in Common

Jesus was a poor black guy in a county run by rich white people:

When Even GOP Believes in Hope

As I said, Obama was running well ahead of Clinton in head-to-head matchups a few weeks ago, and now they're tied. After several more weeks of Clinton reinforcing McCain's message against Obama, Clinton will probably be performing better than Obama against McCain. This is the point I made in my TRB column. She needs to convince the remaining uncommitted superdelegates to split for her by about a 2-to-1 margin. The only way she can get a split like that is if she can persuasively argue that Obama is unelectable. And the only way she can do that is to make him unelectable. Some people have treated this as an unfortunate byproduct of Clinton's decision to continue her campaign. It's actually a central element of the strategy. Penn is already saying he's unelectable. It's not true, but by the time the convention rolls around, it may well be.

--Jonathan Chait

Fwd: She was probably in the middle of a very long book...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: YK

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VC22HO0&show_article=1&catnum=0

Sheriff: Woman Sat on Toilet for 2 Years

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - Deputies say a woman in western Kansas became stuck on her boyfriend's toilet after sitting on it for two years.

Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.

"We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."

Whipple said investigators planned to present their report Wednesday to the county attorney, who will determine whether any charges should be filed against the woman's 36-year-old boyfriend.

"She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body," Whipple said. "It is hard to imagine. ... I still have a hard time imagining it myself."

He told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.

"And her reply would be, `Maybe tomorrow,'" Whipple said. "According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom."

The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that "there was something wrong with his girlfriend," Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.

Police found the clothed woman sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to her mid-thigh. She was "somewhat disoriented," and her legs looked like they had atrophied, Whipple said.

"She said that she didn't need any help, that she was OK and did not want to leave," he said.

She was taken to a hospital in Wichita, about 150 miles southeast of Ness City. Whipple said she has refused to cooperate with medical providers or law enforcement investigators.

Authorities said they did not know if she was mentally or physically disabled.

Police have declined to release the couple's names, but the house where authorities say the incident happened is listed in public records as the residence of Kory McFarren. No one answered his home phone number.

The case has been the buzz Ness City, said James Ellis, a neighbor.

"I don't think anybody can make any sense out of it," he said.

Ellis said he had known the woman since she was a child but that he had not seen her for at least six years.

He said she had a tough childhood after her mother died at a young age and apparently was usually kept inside the house as she grew up. At one time the woman worked for a long-term care facility, he said, but he did not know what kind of work she did there.

"It really doesn't surprise me," Ellis said of the bathroom incident. "What surprises me is somebody wasn't called in a bit earlier."

(Authorities might not know if she was mentally disabled, but I think I might hazard a guess.)