Heather Mac Donald offers a lesson in Afrocentric education. Make that, miseducation, of the sort supported by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and eaten up by white liberals.

Money Q:

"This leveling argument recalls the bizarre doctrines of University of Pennsylvania law professor Regina Austin. In a widely reprinted California Law Review article from 1992, Austin asserted that the black community should embrace the criminals in its midst as a form of resistance to white oppression. People of color should view “hustling” as a “good middle ground between straightness and more extreme forms of lawbreaking.” Examples of hustling include “clerks in stores [who] cut their friends a break on merchandise, and pilfering employees [who] spread their contraband around the neighborhood.” It never occurs to Austin that these black thieves may have black employers who suffer the effects of black crime—as do the larger neighborhoods of which they form the essential fabric. Officially incorporating crime into the black identity, as Austin and Wright do, is a pathetic admission of defeat and marginalization."

Read the whole thing.

Karl Rove tells tales on John McCain. Congressional Medal of Honor winner Col. Bud Day recounts their time together in the Hanoi Hilton.

Read it and I dare you not to be impressed.

Ralph Peters gets the problem with the Rev just right.

Money Q:

"The sorrow and the pity of it all is that the Chicago pastor, who's reveling in his 15 minutes of fame, is only one of many demagogues in all races and creeds who foster cults of victimization around the globe.

"And nothing is more certain to keep those at the bottom down than self-appointed messiahs who assure them they'll always be victims."

Interestingly, Obama has a similar (though softer and more palatable) world view. Listen to his speeches and they're really about uniting the supposed victims of America.

Send me to Washington, he says, and I'll fix your problems. Put your faith in me and I'll save you from high gasoline prices, bad schools, xenophobic small-towners, greedy corporate CEOs. Or, at least in the case of the latter, I'll punish them for you.

Today's print column is up. It's about a mom trying to get child support from the ultimate deadbeat dad.

Here's Spencerblog's suggestion: End parental rights for fathers who have not married the mothers of their children. Also end the legal responsibilities of fathers who have not married their children's mothers. Make it a completely voluntary system, worked out by the parties involved.

If it is a "woman's right to choose" whether or not to have a baby or kill it, it should be a man's right to choose whether or not to be a father to it and support it.

Such an approach will end the preverse incentive for young women to get pregnant outside of marriage, believing that the biological father can and will be forced to support their children.

What? You say. Young women get pregnant by mistake, not intentionally. You'd be surprised at the number of girls who get pregnant on purpose. In any case, sexual carelessness and promiscuity should not be subsidized.

Society should not positively incentivize the creation of single-parent families for they are the greatest predictor of failure in children to grow up whole and productive.

Across all race and class lines, it's kids who grow up in two-parent families who do the best in school and the best in life.

There are, of course, plenty of kids who do fine as the products of divorce or growing up in single family homes. Divorced parents who care about their kids will work hard and together to mitigate that tragedy. And divorced men should be required by law to financially support to the children that had while married.

But women who choose to have children out of wedlock would have to do so with the understanding they are on their own as far as the government is concerned. They will be at the mercy of their families and social networks they have and can build.

In Eve's case, she met and had a second child with another man, with whom she lives. Presumably he supports her, his son and the deadbeat's son. Good for her.

Is Spencerblog being cruel? No. Tough? Yes. Especially by today's standards. But at least it will make clear the daunting task of single parenthood for the one person who will be most responsible if they get pregnant and carry the baby to term.

There will, of course, still be plenty of charities, adoption agencies and other helpful civic organizations concerned about the welfare of children. Strong CYS departments will still be needed to investigate abuse and neglect cases and take children away from abusive or neglectful mothers or fathers.

Having a child is an act of heroism. Raising a child requires, patience, hard-work and sacrifice that is well-mitigated by the love a parent gets in return.

But mothers, fathers, children and worst of all FAMILIES, are not helped by a Domestic Relations system that pretends to work but doesn't.

Robert Samuelson says "Start Drilling" and he's not talking about teeth. Those chompers of environmentalists will be set on edge by such a common sense suggestion.

Money Q:

Members of Congress complain loudly about high oil profits ($40.6 billion for ExxonMobil last year) but frustrate those companies from using those profits to explore and produce in the United States.

The death of a Nether Providence police officer has sent the local rumor mill into overdrive.

Typically, our policy at the Daily Times is not to report on such sad incidents out of respect for the privacy of the family.

This much can be said, almost all of the rumors we've heard have turned out not to be true. We have checked them out with reliable investigative sources and can find nothing to them.

It is true that police from other municipalities have been patroling Nether Providence over the weekend last. This is only because members of the Nether Prov's small department are understandably devastated. They asked for and received some time off. These other patrolmen, fellow police officers from neighboring communities, were merely covering for them on their own time.

Sgt. Tom Six was buried yesterday. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. The Nether Prov police should be back in full force today, though with heavy hearts. Our best wishes to them too.

And the hits (against Obama) just keep on coming.

This one, comes from the Supreme Court and liberal icon John Paul Stevens, who rejected arguments that Indiana's voter ID law was unconsitutional because it put to great a burden on voters.

Obama is a big supporter of ACORN, a far-left group well-known to register phony and illegal voters.

Joe Katzman gets to the heart of Obama's problems. Actually, there is more than one.

Money Q:

Obama wants me to believe that a candidate who: (1) was utterly supine and silent for 20 years in his own church as racial hate was propagated by the pastor; (2) who refuses to condemn a prominent supporter and fundraiser for whom bombing American sites is still seen as a good thing, and (3) who has said not a single word on the campaign trail as his party heavyweights removed post-Abramoff earmark reforms... is a candidate who will stand up to Washington interests and change the way business is done. While helping get America past its racial issues, and healing its political divides. That a candidate talking up charter schools as part of the solution, who has received positive ratings from teachers unions for blocking them, is to be taken at face value.

50 bucks for that whole bridge, you say?

And there's more. Read the whole thing.

Spencerblog says: Thomas Sowell for President.

Here's why.

Dana Milbank and a host of others are noticing the re-emergence of Jeremiah Wright at the National Press Club.

UPDATE: More of "The Wright Stuff." Commentary and video.

UPDATE II: This is why Hillary stayed in the race. The more Wright talks, the more it raises questions about what Obama was doing in his church for 20 years. And the better Hillary looks to Democratic Super Delegates who want to back a winner, not a loser.

UPDATE III: Wright says blacks and whites have different brains.

Obama had a white mother and black father. What sort of brain did that leave him?

UPDATE IV: Frank J. says Wright must love America to be doing what he is doing to Obama's chances to become president, that is to say, ruining them.

UPDATE V: "I served six years in the military," Barack Obama's longtime pastor said. "Does that make me patriotic?

Not necessarily. After all, Benedict Arnold served in the military too?

UPDATE VI: George Will gets a two-fer; a chance to expose Obama and slap McCain. He succeeds at both.

UPDATE VII: WaPo's Eugene Robinson says:

"Politically, by surfacing now, he was throwing Barack Obama under the bus.
Sadly, it's time for Obama to return the favor.

But I thought, he can no more disown him than he can the African American Community or his own white grandmother.

Cop: Who's run-over reverend is this?
Obama: Mine, Officer. My white grandmother threw him under that bus. Now, can I get back to eating my waffle?

Here's a transcript of Antonin Scalia interview on 60 Minutes last night.

I was too busy watching the Sixers jump out to a 10-point first half lead against Detroit and then collapse in the second half to watch it live. But it's good stuff and a faster read than the video.

Early Money Q:

"It is an enduring Constitution that I want to defend," he says.

"But what you're saying is, let's try to figure out the mindset of people back 200 years ago? Right?" Stahl asks.

"Well, it isn't the mindset. It's what did the words mean to the people who ratified the Bill of Rights or who ratified the Constitution," Scalia says.

"As opposed to what people today think it means," Stahl asks.

"As opposed to what people today would like," Scalia says.

"But you do admit that values change? We do adapt. We move," Stahl asks.

"That's fine. And so do laws change. Because values change, legislatures abolish the death penalty, permit same-sex marriage if they want, abolish laws against homosexual conduct. That's how the change in a society occurs. Society doesn't change through a Constitution," Scalia argues.

Exactly.

Bruce Bawer warns of the Western culture's fear of confronting the Islamicist movement under its very nose.

Money Q:

"The key question for Westerners is: Do we love our freedoms as much as they hate them? Many free people, alas, have become so accustomed to freedom, and to the comfortable position of not having to stand up for it, that they’re incapable of defending it when it’s imperiled—or even, in many cases, of recognizing that it is imperiled. As for Muslims living in the West, surveys suggest that many of them, though not actively involved in jihad, are prepared to look on passively—and some, approvingly—while their coreligionists drag the Western world into the House of Submission."

By the way, Bawer is gay. He is not the only gay man in America who understands that radical Islam is a greater threat to basic civil rights than the average Republican but sometimes you have to wonder if he is.

Bill Kristol comes to bury Hillary and to praise her.

Money Q:

"On Friday in Indiana, Obama talked tough in response to a question: “I get pretty fed up with people questioning my patriotism.” And, he continued, “I am happy to have that debate with them any place, anytime.” He’s happy to have fantasy debates with unnamed people who are allegedly challenging his patriotism. But he’s not willing to have a real debate with the real person he’s competing against for the nomination."

Some people get hooked on gambling. Not Joe Epstein. He's hooked on the Democratic Primary. He can't get enough of it and he is ashamed. I know just how he feels.

Money Q:

"Each morning I check the New York Times for new stories about Hillary and Bill Clinton's fresh feelings of betrayal, as more superdelegates depart their glorious cause. I also read for further accounts of bad company that Mr. Obama has kept. (Will he turn out to have lunched with Osama bin Laden in Sadr City in 1989?)"

Read it all.

George Will give McCain another shot to the solar plexus for his supporting political speech restrictions.

He suggests McCain take a trip to Park North, Colorado.

Mark Steyn on the dumbness of eco-warrioring "chickenfeedhawks".

Money Q:

"When you divert 28 percent of U.S. grain into fuel production, and when you artificially make its value as fuel higher than its value as food, why be surprised that you’ve suddenly got less to eat? Or, to be more precise, it’s not “you” who’s got less to eat but those starving peasants in distant lands you claim to care so much about."

Victory in Basra. Democrats, look away

Swarthmore and county police investigators are holding meetings for the victims of Hania Danko, the Swarthmore chiropractor who allegedly ripped off dozens of customers through unauthorized charges to their credit cards.

Swarthmore Police Chief Brian Craig says the meetings will be held May 1 and May 8 at the Swarthmore Borough hall at 7 p.m.

Investigators have already invited a dozen or so people to the meetings and are encouraging anyone else who might have had problems with Danko to attend.

"If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. -- "A Nation At Risk" (1983)

George Will revisits Pat Moynihan's famous report on the state of education in America.

Money Q:

"Released quietly on the Fourth of July weekend, the report concluded that the qualities of the families from which children come to school matter much more than money as predictors of schools' effectiveness. The crucial common denominator of problems of race and class -- fractured families -- would have to be faced.

"But it wasn't. Instead, shopworn panaceas -- larger teacher salaries, smaller class sizes -- were pursued as colleges were reduced to offering remediation to freshmen."

Today, Democrats, like Barack Obama, offer the same shopworn panaceas more as a sop to teachers' unions than to improve educational outcomes.

WASHINGTON (AFP-EJP)—-Democratic White House contender Barack Obama could not hide his irritation Monday when asked by a reporter what he thought about former president Jimmy Carter’s meeting with Hamas last week.

“Why can’t I just eat my waffle?” the Illinois senator said as he ate breakfast in Scranton, Pennsylvania, according to MSNBC television pictures.

Pressed again for an answer, he replied: “Just let me eat my waffle.”

That, my friends, is a line that is going to stick.

Good visit with Delco Democratic leader Cliff Wilson yesterday. My print column on Delco's lovable long-time loser can be found here.

A few things I left out.

Cliff said he thought an Obama-Bob Casey Jr. ticket would rock, except that they would be vulnerable to the charge of too much inexperience. Casey has only been a senator for two years. So he figures Obama will pick a female governor to run with.

That, of course, assumes Obama wins the nomination, which he will.

If the super delegates take it away from him and give it to Hillary at the convention, all hell will break loose. Obama is winning the black vote 92 to 8. If the nomination is handed to Hillary, a serious percentage of that vote will stay home come November. The Dems can't risk it. (That's what I say, not Cliff.)

Cliff said that McCain was the best candidate the Republicans could have nominated, in so far as he has the best chance of winning the White House in this environment.

Given that the last two standing Dems are both very flawed candidates, McCain has a real shot.

Cliff said it's a shame Chester's soccer stadium isn't up and built yet, Obama could have filled it. True, but then so could Beyonce. I don't see her winning elective office anytime soon.

Cliff also said he hates the primary and electoral college system. He thinks there should be a one-day national primary and easier ballot access for everyone. I don't disagree with him, but I haven't thought enough about it.

We talked about the "race" thing eliptically. I suggested Obama's big problem wasn't that he's black but that he's liberal. The first black person elected president in this country will be a moderate, if not a conservative. Same goes for the first woman.

Cliff suggested the same thing for the first Jew. He compared Lieberman, a very observant Jew to Rendell, who a lot of people don't even know is Jewish. Working against stereotypes works for politicians.

Locally, he said Dems can't run ideologically, but that even admitted liberals can win and stay in office if they provide the kind of constituent service Bryan Lentz and Joe Sestak are providing. I pointed out Greg Vitali has been doing it for years in Havertown.

He said the slate of county council Dems got beat last year because the Republicans were smart, ran new people and joined them at the hip. Besides being outspent, the Dems didn't run as a ticket (curse you, David Landau) and that helped ruined their chances.

As for his predictions: He guessed that Obama would win Delco and Philly but lose the state 53-47. I told him Obama would lose the state by 10.

Final figures: Hillary 55, Obama 45.

UPDATE: The headline on my column says "Wilson Excited..." Cliff Wilson doesn't get excited. He gets mildly and calmly enthused.

Dorothy Rabinowitz thinks the main stream press isn't doing Obama any favors by trying to protect him from tough questions.

Spent some time with Delco Dem Leader Cliff Wilson today. Nice guy. Thoughtful.
He did a pretty good job calling the race. Read my print column tomorrow.

"Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zone. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

So says Mrs. Obama.

Somehow "Ask not what your country can do for you..." sounded a lot less threatening.

"Hope," writes WaPo's E.J. Dionne, "usually beats the status quo."

Right. And then disappointment sets in.

The NYT reports on politicians going on pop TV to promote themselves and their spouses.

Spencerblog happened to catch George Bush's appearance on "Deal or No Deal." (The Phillies game hadn't started yet.) In cheering on a decorated Iraq War vet, the president was self-deprecating and well-received. Other pols have been smart to do the same sort of thing. Expect more of it.

But when they start making appearances on "Flip This House" expect a backlash.

Rupert Murdoch pens a very sensible piece on the fraying of the NATO alliance.

Money Q:

"We must face up to a painful truth: Europe no longer has either the political will or social culture to support military engagements in defense of itself and its allies. However strong NATO may be on paper, this fact makes NATO weak in practice. It also means that reform will not come from within."

The supposedly right-wing Murdoch is a fan of Hillary Clinton's (He hosted a fundraiser for her back in 2006.) Which means, I guess, he's either crazy or she can't be all bad.

Patrick Moore, founder of Greenpeace, celebrates Earth Day by bashing Greenpeace.

Money Q:

"Sadly, Greenpeace has evolved into an organization of extremism and politically motivated agendas."

And the left says the Bush Administration is anti-science.

My Sunday print column is up. It's about frequent Spencerblog poster C. Scott Shields, his lawsuit against Philadelphia for its new gun ordinance, and his giving Rutledge borough council president Greg Lebold heartburn.

Michael Yon, the best reporter in Iraq, in a Q&A with National Review.

His book is climbing the charts on Amazon.com

Obama leaves out a bunch in quoting John McCain on economics.

This is "The Politics of Hope... that people don't link to Youtube."

Sociologist Arthur Brooks reports that gun-toting Americans are the happiest Americans.

Makes sense. When you depend on others to defend and protect you, that's not a good feeling.

The SEIU is supporting Barack Obama. You've probably seen their TV ads on his behalf. The powerful service workers union is run by Andy Stern.

Read more about him here.

Mike Barone explains Pennsylvania. Finally, we get to make some primary noise.

HBO host Bill Maher recently called Pope Benedict XVI a Nazi on his show. It is being reported that he has or will apologize.

For what? It's not like he called the pope a "nappy-headed ho."

News Item:

UPPER DARBY — A 92-year-old man who suspected his wife was cheating on him was arrested for repeatedly striking her with a metal cane after punching her in the face, police said.

I'm no fan of domestic abuse but you've to admire this guy's spunk.

Advice to his 45-year-old wife: Hit the old coot back.

And this from Powerline's John Hinderaker:

Hamas endorsed Barack Obama for President on Sunday. Yesterday, after Hamas's endorsement was reported here and elsewhere, his campaign tried to distance Obama from the terrorist group:

"Senator Obama has repeatedly rejected and denounced the actions of Hamas, a terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of many innocents, that is dedicated to Israel's destruction," Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor said.

Left unaddressed by the campaign was what it is about Obama's policies that makes his candidacy so attractive to a leading terrorist organization. Here is one obvious possibility: Iran controls Hamas. Obama has said that as President, he would meet one-on-one with Iranian leaders, without preconditions. Perhaps Hamas's endorsement reflects Iran's pleasure at the prospect of an American President with whom the mullahs can do business.

My print column on the big debate is up.

Swarthmore professor Mark Kuperberg is a good guest and a good sport. (Correction: It's "curriculum vitae," and his is impressive.)

But his complaints about the debate questions are, I think, less so. Both Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos asked tough ones, not so much policy based, but ones based on the candidates own statements, misstatements gaffes and questionable relationships.

Stephanopoulous asked a very interesting question Barack's relationship with Bill Ayers, the former 60's radical who says he still not sorry for planting bombs back during his days in the Weather Underground.

Obama tried to deflect the question by saying he can't be to blame for something somebody else did 40 years ago, when he was 8 years old. Furthermore, he suggested an equivalence between what Ayers DID and remains proud of and what his "friendly" acquaintance Sen. Tom Coburn SAID about believing that some abortionists should get the death penalty.

Pretty big difference there.

When Hillary jumped on Ayers being brought up and mentioned his statment to the NYT that appeared on Sept. 11, 2001, about not being sorry about his bombing days, Obama suggested she had no room to talk since her husband pardoned two members of the Weather Underground.

Hillary could have said it is one thing to pardon a criminal, it is another thing to go to their home for a political gathering and for them to throw you a coming-out party.

Obama fans are furious about the question and blame Stephanopoulos for even asking it. But some in the press have been trying to get Obama to answer it for some time. And he has refused.

Obama has complained that these sort of "guilt by association" questions are unfair. But his campaign and the Democrats in general, have played that game to the hilt. (How many times have they linked George Bush and Dick Cheney to the evil oil industry?)

I say if you want to know the candidates' policy positions go to their websites. But if you wanted to see how they handled tough questions about their judgement, mistakes and misstatements, Wednesday's debate was both informative and interesting.

You'll recall this story about our County Councilman Jack Whelan and Gene Whelan. And how they disarmed a crazed man at a local drug store.

Here's an interesting note from people purporting to be "The Family of Cebrian Spence." I see no harm in posting it.

It says:

To: Mr. Gene & Jack Whelan

We would like to commend you for doing what the two of you did in that situation on March, 30, 2008. If the two of you did not intervene, it could have been worse. Cebrian has a drug problem. He (is) also homeless living in abandoned houses, but he's never hurt anyone other than himself. The drug called wet, which is embalming fluid sprayed on marijuana, caused him to go off like he did.

To: the Manager of the CVS

We would like to say that Cebrain Spencer and his family are very sorry for what happened. We have asked God to forgive him for what he has done to you. Cebrain is very remorseful and has asked for your forgiveness for his actions.

Thank you and may God bless you & your family

From: The Family of Cerbrian Spence

Sounds sincere to me, for what it's worth.

Lower Chi Solicitor Frank Sbandi wrote it to suggest I misquoted him in Sunday's column concerning the township's new gun registration law.

I didn't. But I can see how he thinks I did.

So to clarify, Frank doesn't believe the ordinance he wrote is "illegal." Though it clearly is under the state's exemption law.

Frank didn't complain about me misspelling his name. But I did. Sorry about that Frank.

The Daily Times was banned from a press conference to announce where talented high school b-baller, Tyreke Evans, is going to go to play his semi-pro ball (i.e. college for a year.)

Apparently, the Evans family had a problem with this newspaper covering a Chester shooting incident in which Tyreke was the driver and dissing him by not naming him Delco Player of the Year.

My colleague over in sports, Terry Toohey, strikes just the right note between amusement, disgust and Who Cares!

Dan Henninger writes that when it comes to presidential politics the culture war is over, thanks to Obama's flubs and Hillary's needs.

And conservatives won.

Money Q:

"What's left of the rancid war are guerrillas in the Hollywood foothills, pot-shotting at Pat Robertson and other bogeymen. But at the big-league level of presidential politics, it's over. Say good-bye to the Michael Moore Mockathon. Say hello to the spirit in the sky."

My print column on the Newtown Square Town Center project is up.

After covering this story for months, I'm convinced we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

Swarthmore native Holman Jenkins explains the unprofitability of the airline industry.

The problem: Even empty seats fly. The solution: Price fixing.

Read the whole thing.

Robert Samuelson explains that the Democrats are being idiots on free trade.

Money Q:

Almost everyone wishes for a renaissance of American manufacturing, and none have said so more louder than the Democratic presidential candidates and Democratic members of Congress. The trouble is that their deeds don't match their words. They have blamed trade for almost anything that might ail the U.S. economy -- in particular, manufacturing -- when the opposite is now true: only through expanded trade can the economy thrive and manufacturing stage a comeback.

Former Greenpeacenik Patrick Moore blasts the pop environmental movement.

Money Q:

Newsweek: Why do you favor nuclear energy over other non-carbon-based sources of energy?

Moore: Other than hydroelectric energy—which I also strongly support—nuclear is the only technology besides fossil fuels available as a large-scale continuous power source, and I mean one you can rely on to be running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Wind and solar energy are intermittent and thus unreliable. How can you run hospitals and factories and schools and even a house on an electricity supply that disappears for three or four days at a time? Wind can play a minor role in reducing the amount of fossil fuels we use, because you can turn the fossil fuels off when the wind is blowing. And solar is completely ridiculous. The cost is so high—California's $3.2 billion in solar subsidies is all just going into Silicon Valley companies and consultants. It's ridiculous.

WaPo's Dana Milbank suggests that Obama was somehow mistreated by the nation's newspaper editors the other day:

He wrote:

"So much for the liberal media.

"John McCain and Barack Obama both appeared before the nation's newspaper editors yesterday. The putative Republican presidential nominee was given a box of doughnuts and a standing ovation. The likely Democratic nominee was likened to a terrorist.

"At a luncheon for the editors hosted by the Associated Press, AP Chairman Dean Singleton quizzed Obama about whether he would send more troops to Afghanistan, where "Obama bin Laden is still at large?"

"I think that was Osama bin Laden," the candidate answered.

"If I did that, I'm so sorry!" Singleton said.

"This," Obama told the editors, is "part of the exercise that I've been going through over the last 15 months."

Milbank quips: "Bitter, are we?"

Maybe this is Milbank's idea of a joke. But I watched the snippet provided by Fox News. Not only did Obama handle the gaffe by Singleton with grace and humor, the newspaper editors laughed and applauded his reply. Especially after he added (I'm quoting from memory) "It's amazing I'm still standing here."

There wasn't a bit of bitterness in Obama's tone. He was very good and the newspaper editors appreciated it. Maybe Milbank was seated too far away from the action.

Turns out that mandating Ethanol in gasoline causes food prices to rise, doesn't make fuel any cheaper and doesn't reduce our carbon footprint.

Liberals have hit a Trifecta!

Barack Obama wants to "penalize" oil companies for benefitting from the high price of gasoline.

Anyone for increasing taxes on public school teachers?

Afterall, the cost of education has risen faster in the last 20 years than gas.

Obama's solution: Pay teachers more.

Here's an update from Kenn Stark on the rift between BPG and Newtown Square officials concerning the Town Center proposal.

I went to the meeting last night and it will be the subject my print column tomorrow.

This much is clear: a game of chicken is being played and the trash talking is heating up.

More tomorrow.

Writing about Obama's small-town Pennsylvania gaffe, Democratic stategist Ed Kilgore characterizes Obama's conservative critics as "hysterical." Funny that, given George Will is one such critic. Will would be sanguine about a Martian invasion.

"The one thing we know for sure is that the Right's reaction is providing a full-on sneak preview of its strategy to defeat Obama if he is the Democratic nominee," Kilgore writes. "And it ain't pretty."

Hard to imagine it will be any uglier than the 2000 NAACP ad comparing George Bush's position on hate-crime legislation to the lynching of James Byrd.

UPDATE: Here's Will's "hysterical" reaction. You be the judge.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Thomas Sowell recall a lefty kindred spirit and his opinion of the lower middle class:

Fabian socialist George Bernard Shaw included the working class among the "detestable" people who "have no right to live." He added: "I should despair if I did not know that they will all die presently, and that there is no need on earth why they should be replaced by people like themselves."

UPDATE III: Frank J. says, "When Spiderman is bitter, he clings to walls."

Superheroes are not going think that is very funny. OK, maybe the ones at D.C. but not Marvel.

Obama lobs one in and Billy Kristol hits it out of the park.

Money Q:

What does this mean for Obama’s presidential prospects? He’s disdainful of small-town America — one might say, of bourgeois America. He’s usually good at disguising this. But in San Francisco the mask slipped. And it’s not so easy to get elected by a citizenry you patronize.

And what are the grounds for his supercilious disdain? If he were a war hero, if he had a career of remarkable civic achievement or public service — then he could perhaps be excused an unattractive but in a sense understandable hauteur. But what has Barack Obama accomplished that entitles him to look down on his fellow Americans?

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus' analysis is pretty good too.

A colleague reports that the Town Center project in Newtown Square has jumped the tracks and is barreling toward a cement wall.

A meeting, planned to roll out the details of months of negotiations has been cancelled by township offiicals for no good or legitmate reason. Fed up, BPG officials, say they're re-activating their alternative "by-right" plan that would land a big-box store and strip mall in the center of Newtown.

I understand there is a township supervisors meeting tonight. Could be very interesting. I think I'll stop by.

Speaking at a San Francisco fundraiser, Obama said:

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

"And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Yes, Pennsylvania's small-town voters are pretty much like children aren't they? They get frustrated by a world they don't understand and cling to their superstitions and prejudices.

No doubt San Francisco Democrats think of them that way -- backward, small-town rubes who don't know any better.

Such pronouncements should serve Obama well in California. But small-town Pennsylvanians aren't so stupid as not to understand when they are being insulted.

Singer Alicia Keys tells Blender mag that gangsta' rap was invented to get black people to kill each other.

And she wears a replica of an AK-47 to symbolize... oh, you figure it out.

My print column on our slow poke Medical Examiner is up.

After watching Fredric Hellman at his press conference I've concluded that he is stiffer than some of his subjects.

His predecessor, Dimitri Contostavlos, could at least offer an opinion that didn't sound like it was coming from a cadaver.

Dan Henninger wonders if the presidential campaign would be different today...

"...if in August 2006 seven airliners had taken off from Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport, bound for the U.S. and Canada and each carrying about 250 passengers, and then blew up over the Atlantic Ocean?"

For the Democrats, the answer is no. It would still be all George Bush's fault.

Michael Yon has been covering the Iraq war more closely and longer than just about anyone. He says we are winning it.

Money Q:

As the outrages of Abu Ghraib faded in memory – and paled in comparison to al Qaeda's brutalities – and our soldiers under the Petraeus strategy got off their big bases and out of their tanks and deeper into the neighborhoods, American values began to win the war.

Iraqis came to respect American soldiers as warriors who would protect them from terror gangs. But Iraqis also discovered that these great warriors are even happier helping rebuild a clinic, school or a neighborhood. They learned that the American soldier is not only the most dangerous enemy in the world, but one of the best friends a neighborhood can have.

Read the whole thing.

A Navy Lt. Commander admits working for the D.C. Madam as a call girl.

Just another example of how a military mistreats our veterans. If she had paid a decent wage with suitable benefits she wouldn't have had to sell her body to make ends meet.

"Boston Legal" just aired or re-aired an episode that justified a bi-polar Vietnam Veteran killing and eating a seal because of how this nation mistreats it's crazy veterans. If hunting and killing for seal meat can be justified, certainly whoring can.

Daily Times reader and Diane Hamill schoolmate, Nadine Blanchard, reviews "Women Behind Bars."

"Well, the Diane show is over. Interestingly she said her father always wanted a son (brother came much later) so she was a tomboy growing up. She talked about playing sports all the time. Geez, as I recall, she could barely bounce a basketball. At that time gym class for girls meant throwing the javelin, broadjumping, discus and shotput and field hockey. Her homework was always perfect and her test scores were
always nearly the best but an athlete... not.

"Ernie Preate was her big champion on her last try for freedom : a crook and a liar (perhaps that word is too harsh), what a pair. I feel sorry for her... she looks pathetic... but those four boys lost their mother. That is pathetic.

Though I have rather low regard for her parents and their politics, Chelsea Clinton is aces with me.

She is brave and loyal and like both her parents she can take a punch.

Several times in the last few weeks while she has been campaigning for her mother she has been asked about the impeachment of her father and the circumstances surrounding it.

In this day and age, I suppose such questions are fair -- tasteless but fair -- and she answered them quite well.

"If that's what you want to vote on," she said, "that's what you should vote on. But I think there are other people (who are) going to vote on things like health care and economics."

Good answer. Next question.

Former Clintonite, Michael Zeldin, writes of the problem with the Hillary brand. It's been tarnished by her exaggerations, misstatements and evasions.

She claims she would the better candidate against McCain because she has been fully "vetted" but she hasn't. Zeldin writes: "... the recently released tax returns appear to undermine this argument as well."

"Specifically, these returns demonstrate the former President Clinton made tens of millions of dollars on the speaking circuit and by helping to broker business deals or make introductions around the world. This is his prerogative as a private citizen. What the returns do not tell us, however, is who paid for these speeches; who his clients were/are; whether he can unwind his business relationships (he is being sued by one of his clients for fraud in state court in California); what conflicts of interest or appearances of conflict reside in his seven-year, private-sector career."

The Clintons also refuse the donor list to the Clinton Library. To be fair, George W. Bush has said he's not sure whether he'd release the donor list to his future presidential library.

It could be a problem when Laura Bush runs for president.

The WE (Women's Entertainment) Channel featured Diane Metzger in its "Women Behind Bars series" tonight.

Our Barb Ormsby, who covered her trial was prominently featured. (I was interviewed for the show too but ended up on the cutting room floor, where I belonged.)

Barb did any excellent job dispassionately describing some of the testimony at the trial.

Prosecutor Ed Weiss spoke convincingly of his belief that Diane not only was involved in the actual murder of Marti Metzger, but planned it as well. Frank Metzger, was not interviewed but in photos he looked like the low-life creep that he is in real life.

Diane came across rather poorly. I thought. Especially when she described how her infant son was cruelly ripped from her arms upon her capture. Did she expect them to let her take him to jail with her?

Marti's neighbor Colleen Carroll (I forget her married name) gave a damning interview, making Diane's story seem less and less credible.

My friend Art Donato, Diane's defense attorney, made it on to the show as did former Pennsylvania AG Ernie Preate, as Diane supporters. No mention was made of Preate's 1993 conviction for mail fraud or the 14 months he spent behind bars. (Since then he's been a lot more sympathetic to criminal types. Nothing wrong with that.)

Preate says Diane should be released from prison because she's been a model prisoner for the 30-plus years she's been inside.

As I said before I wouldn't squawk if she were let out but I don't believe she's ever been honest or come clean about her part in the crime. She's still the self-pitying dissembler, she's always been.

In all, I thought WE did a pretty good job with the show. It's a pretty entertaining series, even if it tends to be a bit overly sympathetic to the murderesses it features. But then that was to be expected.

Peter Wehner stylishly demolishes an amazingly pitiful and inartful Joe Klein.

They were friends once. Klein's loss.

Nice piece by a young, black female prosecutor in Louisville. She is not the enemy.

I should say not.

Money Q:

Many surreptitiously accuse me of being a race traitor, a puppet of a racist criminal-justice system. Race does not enter the equation for me. My question to these black people who believe me to be a traitor is, when will you connect the dots? Please realize, the police and the prosecutors are not the problem; it is the criminals in these depressed neighborhoods who are.

And she's not even a Republican.

Gen. David Petraeus, testifying before congress, ended his opening remarks this way:

"In closing, I want to comment briefly on those serving our nation in Iraq. We have asked a great deal of them and of their families, and they have made enormous sacrifices.

"My keen personal awareness of the strain on them and on the force as a whole has been an important factor in my recommendations.

"The Congress, the executive branch and our fellow citizens have done an enormous amount to support our troopers and their loved ones. And all of us are grateful for that.

"Nothing means more to those in harm's way than the knowledge that their country appreciates their sacrifices and those of their families. Indeed, all Americans should take great pride in the men and women serving our nation in Iraq and in the courage, determination, resilience and initiative they demonstrate each and every day. It remains the greatest of honors to soldier with them."

Too bad John Kerry didn't feel the same way about his comrades in arms. If he had, they might have felt the same way about him.

Heather McDonald explains now that the Democrats have "won" the debate to bascially outlawing stressful interrogation techniques getting helpful information from terrorists to prevent their acts will be much harder to come by.

Money Q:

According to interrogators in Afghanistan and Guantanamo, stress worked. “The harsher methods we used . . . the better information we got and the sooner we got it,” writes Chris Mackey in The Interrogators, an account of his interrogation service in Afghanistan. Mackey testifies to how “ineffective schoolhouse methods were in getting prisoners to talk.” He warns that his team “failed to break prisoners who I have no doubt knew of terrorist plots or at least terrorist cells that may one day do us harm. Perhaps they would have talked if faced with harsher methods.”

The torture narrative has foreclosed any debate on whether marathon questioning, say, is an acceptable means of getting potentially life-saving information. The new rules for interrogation, issued in September 2006, are even stricter than the previous ones interrogators found so useless. If the country is attacked again on a large scale, however, the country will have to reopen these debates and answer some hard questions.

We'll see.

The Politico nails Obama for not being able to admit his saying McCain wanted another "100 years of war" in Iraq was inaccurate.

Good stuff.

Sen. Jay "Rocketman" Rockefeller has apologized to John McCain for comments he made about his military service.

"McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet.," He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they (the missiles) get to the ground? He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues," said Rockefeller, an Obama supporter.

I guess he forgot that McCain's father called in airstrikes on Hanoi when his son was a POW there. Or perhaps Rocky thought McCain Sr. didn't know what bombs do when they hit either.

In any case, Rockefeller decided to apologize.

"I made an inaccurate and wrong analogy, and I have extended my sincere apology to him," Rockefeller said in a statement. "While we differ a great deal on policy issues, I profoundly respect and appreciate his dedication to our country, and I regret my very poor choice of words."

If only John Kerry had had the sense to apologize to all the soldiers he slandered during the Vietnam war, calling them war criminals and rapists we might never have been a group called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

UPDATE: Michael Goldfarb takes a few laser-guided shots at Rockefeller's stupidity

Funny piece by David Boaz on Starbucks refusal to allow the words "laissez faire" on one of its personalized coffee cards.

Someone should try to get "Don't Tread on Me" past the Starbucks message police. Be sure and let Spencerblog know if you succeed.

But politely. Spencerblog may be more tolerant than Starbucks but we have our standards, low as they may be.

According the Politico, Obama isn't making many inroads with Pa. college students. At least he has this kid's vote. (Check out the pic.)

If you read the entire post you'll get down to Anne Kolker from Swarthmore College. She said she's been signing Obamicans, left and right. Well, just left, but you know what I mean.

I met Anne on Election Day in 2006, when she was getting out the vote for Joe Sestak in Springfield. Joe's a Hillary Clinton guy. Looks like Joe's support isn't cutting much ice with the younger crowd.

Sen. John Kerry was in Lansdowne stumping for Barack Obama the other night.

According to our Amy Brisson's excellent report...

"Kerry spent much of the event responding generally to the audience’s questions on Obama’s electability, how to defend him from the kind of “Swift Boat” attacks that damaged Kerry’s 2004 campaign... "

The assumption here seems to be that the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, the group that criticized Kerry for attempting to use his Vietnam-era military service to get elected president, unfairly misrepresented his service.

The problem with such an assertion is that the none of the accusations against Kerry by his fellow servicemen were ever proven to be false.

As they pointed out at the time:

"John Kerry's service in Vietnam lasted 4 months and 12 days, beginning in November 1968 when he reported to Cam Ranh Bay for a month of training. His abbreviated combat tour ended shortly after he requested a transfer out of Vietnam on March 17, 1969, citing Navy instruction 1300.39 permitting personnel with three Purple Hearts to request reassignment. So far as we are able to determine, Kerry was the only Swift sailor ever to leave Vietnam without completing the standard one-year tour of duty, other than those who were seriously wounded or killed.

"It is clear that at least one of Kerry's Purple Heart awards was the result of his own negligence, not enemy fire, and that Kerry went to unusual lengths to obtain the award after being turned down by his own commanding officer.

"John Kerry has long insisted that using the three-injury loophole to leave combat early was his own idea, but Kerry's fellow Swift officer Thomas Wright, who served on occasion as the OIC (Officer in Charge) of Kerry's boat group, contradicts that claim. Wright reports that he "had a lot of trouble getting Kerry to follow orders," and that those who worked with Kerry found him "oriented towards his personal, rather than unit goals and objectives." He therefore requested that Kerry be removed from his boat group. After John Kerry qualified for his third Purple Heart, Thomas Wright and two fellow officers informed him of the obscure regulation, and told him to go home. Wright concluded, "We knew how the system worked and we didn’t want him in Coastal Division 11."

"Constructing a complete picture of Kerry's service is difficult due to gaps in the Naval records provided by the Kerry campaign. These gaps include missing and incomplete fitness reports, missing medical records and missing records related to his medal awards.

"For this reason we call upon Senator Kerry to authorize complete access to all his military records by filing a standard Form 180, a simple two-page release form.

He never did.

Only 3 of the 19 men he served with supported his candidacy. A dozen said he was "unfit to be commander-in-chief."

And only 3 of 23 of his fellow Swift Boat commanders supported his bid for the presidency.

If the people who worked with Obama when he was a young man had similar problems with his candidacy, it would be good to know why.

The lesson of the Kerry campaign is don't run as something you're not. And don't have the arrogance to think you can get away with it.

UPDATE: I don't think anyone has written about Kerry and the Swift Vets better than Mac Owens. Here's one of his old pieces. that sums things up pretty well.

Nice piece in the NYT on John McCain's son, Jimmy, who joined the Marines at 17 and who has served a couple of tours of duty in Iraq.

The Times notes that the McCains declined to cooperate with the article and asked that it not be published. But given that the Times published an ugly bit of journalism suggesting with little evidence that McCain had an inappropriate (possibly romantic) relationship with a female lobbyist, it couldn't spike a story that actually honored the Republican candidate and his family.

What the story doesn't mention is that Jimmy McCain is a rich kid (his mom is an heiress) but he chose to sign up for military duty anyway. Like Prince (Dirty) Harry giving al Qaida hell in Afghanistan.

No doubt the story will drive the anti-war left nuts. Good.

Michael Barone says the Democrats are engaged in "tribal warfare."

"Exit polls have shown that the contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has produced deep divisions among Democratic constituencies. It looks something like tribal warfare. Whites have voted, if you average the results from the states, 53 percent to 39 percent for Clinton; blacks, 80 percent to 17 percent for Obama; Latinos, 58 percent to 39 percent for Clinton; Asians, in California (the one primary state where they’re numerous enough to gauge), 71 percent to 25 percent for Clinton."

It's an unwinnable civil war: a quagmire. Americans should get out of the Democratic party before it's too late.

There's a stand-off with a religious cult in Texas. Somebody call Janet Reno. She knows how to handle these things.

Nice ad and video from the McCain Campaign, a little wordy but it attempts to appeal to our better angels.

He's saying he's gong to take the high road this campaign. We'll see.

UPDATE: Mickey Kaus HATES this ad. I can see where he's coming from.

When the voters in liberal states like Wisconsin are firing overly liberal, activist judges, it's time for the Democratic party to rethink its whoring for the tort bar.

Absolut's new ad campaign is seeing a bit of a backlash.

Frank J. responds in humorous fashion.

Where did this guy get the idea to steal 300 gallons of fat? I bet it was from this episode of the Simpsons.

Scott Ott reports that while 81 percent of Americans feel the country is "on the wrong track" a full 48 percent "are going to remain in the country anyway."

Nice admission from John McCain for being wrong in opposing a holiday for Martin Luther King Jr.

Of course, he was booed for making it. But if you listen closely you hear an unmistakably black voice say "We all make mistakes."

Generous and gracious. Both of them.

How about a windfall profits "penalty" on this? I bet Obama would be all for it.

Canada has Soviet style healthcare and a Soviet style Human Relations Commission. As revealed by this terrific piece by Kathy Shaidle.

“I am not in favor of concealed weapons,” Obama said. “I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations.”

He didn't say it at Strath Haven and a good thing too, or Junior Roger Lott, who asked Obama a pointed question about his healthcare plan, might have cited chapter and verse from his dad's book, "More Guns, Less Crime."

Frank J., however, makes the point a little more colorfully.

Juan Williams has a nice piece on Martin Luther King's magnificience and Barack Obama's shortcomings.

Money Q:

When King spoke about the racist past, he gloried in black people beating the odds to win equal rights by arming "ourselves with dignity and self-respect." He expressed regret that some black leaders reveled in grievance, malice and self-indulgent anger in place of a focus on strong families, education and love of God. Even in the days before Congress passed civil rights laws, King spoke to black Americans about the pride that comes from "assuming primary responsibility" for achieving "first class citizenship."

While Obama...

... in a full political pander, is busy excusing Rev. Wright's racial attacks as the right of the Rev.-Wright generation of black Americans to define the nation's future by their past. He stretches compassion to the breaking point by equating his white grandmother's private concerns about black men on the street with Rev. Wright's public stirring of racial division.

Good and thoughtful stuff.

A new intelligence report says progress is being made in Iraq.

Democrats, of course, are furious.

Having be pretty hard on Obama the last couple of weeks, I have to admit I did learn something Wednesday during his talk at Strath Haven.

My cell phone charger "bleeds energy" when left plugged in. Obama said so and I checked and he's right. There are all sorts of things that people can do to save money and energy if they want.

Also I just read about the new battery powered car GM is working on - the Volt. It sounds promising. But will it have the range and durability people want at a cost that makes sense?

Here's hoping.

Mrs. Spencerblog wants people to know that Main Line Animal Rescue will be featured on Oprah's show this afternoon at 4 p.m. to expose the puppy mills in Lancaster county.

(And Mrs. Spencerblog gets what she wants.)

Wait a minute, isn't that a cell phone in his hand?

My 83-year-old father got off a pretty good line the other night.

I had both him and my stepmother on the line and she was telling me about some book they were both reading.

"I hate it," my father snapped.

"It has a lot of discriptions about AIDS and bodily fluids," my stepmother explained.
"Your father hates reading things that involve bodily fluids."

To which the old man replied, "Because I don't have any."

And then there's Ted's ex-wife.

Guess who she's endorsing for president?

Hint: It ain't the guy who spent five years in a North Vietnamese prison camp.

CORRECTION: Make that closer to six years.

Just read this 15-year-old piece by the late Michael Kelly about Hillary Clinton when she was First Lady and in her "politics of meaning" stage.

It's pretty long but very interesting and worth reading today given her designs on the White House. Kelly pretty much hangs her with her own words. But she comes across not as an unsympathetic character but one that is slightly deranged and possibly dangerous given her thirst for power.

One line jumped out at me. Late in the piece she says:

"I want to live in a place again where I can walk down any Street without being afraid. I want to be able to take my daughter to a park at any time of day or night in the summertime and remember what I used to be able to do when I was a little kid."

And Kelly writes:

"At that moment, irritation still edging her voice, she doesn’t sound at all like the Hillary Rodham of 1969. She doesn’t sound like a politician or a preacher. She sounds like just another angry, sincere, middle-aged citizen, wondering how everything went so wrong.

What the line reveals is the frustrated utopianism that still lives in Hillary Clinton's heart. I can only imagine two places where a mother would be able to take her daughter to walk down "any street" or to a park "at any time of the day or night..."

Those two places are a police state and nowhere.

Ted Turner is at it again. He says the world has too many people.

Maybe we should eat the extras.

I heard Barack Obama claim Wednesday he was tired of Republicans using 9/11 to scare up votes. Then he went and he used the so-called crisis of global warming to scare up votes.

What do you think we should be more concerned about climate change or guys like these?

Sex researchers have now concluded that sex lasting between 3 and 13 minutes works pretty well for the participants.

Well, which is it? 3 or 13? That's a pretty big difference.

Put it this way, it's the difference between "Thanks a lot, Quickdraw" and "Ummm, You know 'Deal or No Deal' is about to start."

Dan Henninger sees a line from Vietnam to Baghdad for Democrats and the anti-war left.

He mentions the anti-war film "Hearts and Minds." I remember it well. I saw it in college.

Writes Henninger:

"Toward the film's end, Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, casts off the preceding generation when he tells the camera that Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all "lied." He adds: "We weren't on the wrong side" in Vietnam. "We are the wrong side."

Obama and Clinton are dangerously close to adopting and conveying the same attitude concerning Iraq. Clinton, to get right with the base of her party; Obama, who knows. Maybe because he believes more the the things his pastor, Jeremaiah Wright, preached than he wants to let on.

In any case, on military matters, the country isn't nearly as far left as the base of the Democratic party. Proof of this is that John McCain leads both Clinton and Obama by 14 points when it comes to his views on handling Iraq.

I am still a bit embarassed to admit that my view of the U.S. military was colored by seeing films like "Hearts and Minds." Through my 20s, I was lightly contemptuous of those who joined the military. I thought such people had been brainwashed. As I got older I realized it wasn't them so much who'd been successfully propagandized, but me.

Then there's this from Neal Boortz.

"Barack Obama is running an ad in Pennsylvania designed to play on the voter's general dissatisfaction with the oil companies. He mentions Exxon's profits but does not mention the profit margin. Then he says "I don't take money from oil companies .... "

"OK .. so that's not a direct lie. He's right. He doesn't take money from oil companies. Either does John McCain. Either does Hillary Clinton. Ditto for all candidates for the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. And why not? Well, Obama hasn't taken any contributions from oil companies because since 1907 it has been illegal for any corporation to make a direct contribution to a federal candidate. So .. let's call BFD on this campaign ad claim.

"But wait! There's more! And you're going to get this without paying shipping and handling. Here are two goodies from Factcheck.org:

• Obama has accepted more than $213,000 from individuals who work for companies in the oil and gas industry and their spouses.
• Two of Obama's bundlers are top executives at oil companies and are listed on his Web site as raising between $50,000 and $100,000 for the presidential hopeful.

Ah ha! A bit of deception there, wouldn't you say? Obama doesn't take money from the oil companies. That would be illegal. But if the top oil company executives want to round up some contributions from friends and employees ...well that's just fine.

Ted Turner says global warming is going to be catastrophic and turn human beings into "cannibals."

He also calls the terrorist insurgents in Iraq "patriots."

Sounds like the perfect running mate for Sen. Obama. Or Clinton.

UPDATE: Some other Turner Classics:

The United States has got some of the dumbest people in the world. I want you to know that we know that.
Ted Turner

There's nothing wrong with being fired.
Ted Turner

"I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere. There's really no reason for them to cheat or do anything to violate this very forward agreement... I saw a lot of people over there. They were thin, and they were riding bicycles instead of driving in cars. But I didn't see any brutality in the capitol, or out in the DMZ."
Ted Turner

Given that today I heard Obama make a few unflattering remarks about Vice President Dick Cheney, I found this piece by Arthur Brooks to be interesting.

In it, Brooks notes the Barack and Michele Obama were not particularly generous when it came to charitable giving when they made a crummy $230,000 a year.

"The Obamas got rich in 2005. Their income increased sevenfold from 2004 to 2005, mostly because of Mr. Obama’s book royalties, and stayed very high in 2006 for the same reason. In 2006, another wealthy political couple with significant book royalties was Mr. and Mrs. Cheney, who had a combined income of $8.8 million, largely due to Mrs. Cheney’s books and the couple’s investment income. Just how much did the Cheneys give to charity from their bonanza? A measly 78 percent of their income, or $6.9 million. (No, that is not a misprint.)

This last fact does not generally square with the well-cultivated liberal trope of the blackhearted Cheneys. Unless, that is, you believe that private charity is not an important value that defines one’s character, compared with government taxation and welfare spending (which Mr. Cheney generally opposes, despite the profligate ways of the Bush White House).

Being generous with other people's money. Not a bad definition of the Obamas brand of liberalism.

Couldn't resist seeing Obama over at Strath Haven High. Talked to a number of nice kids over there. Surprisingly discerning, even the "Marxist."

More tomorrow in a special Thursday print column. Look for it in newsstands everywhere.

75 cents. Still cheap.

UPDATE: Left out of the column were comments by Hillary supporters Diane Gardner, Letitia Jeavons and Bonnie Kaplan. They and about a dozen others were also in Media just before noon trying to drum up honks for Hillary at the corner of State Street and Providence Road and take some of the thunder out of Obama's visit.

"I thought I'd be fine with either one," said Kaplan about the two Democratic candidates, "but the more I learned about Obama..." the more "naive" he seemed to be.

Jeavons echoed Kaplan.

"I was initially undecided. The more I read, I realized Obama is really naive and more of a gamble, not having much experience."

Diane said simply, "I think we're ready for a woman in the White House. We've had too many men mess things up."

Then she confided, "we've been working for Joe Sestak too."

Why do liberal Democrats always deny being liberal, when liberal to moderate Republicans embrace the conservative moniker?

Investors Business Daily explains why food stamps use is a pretty poor indicator of how bad the economy is. Nevertheless, the media like to use it for it's own reasons.

Hillary as Rocky? Does that make Obama Apollo Creed or Clubber Lang?

Obama misleading the American public?

Say it isn't so O. Say it isn't so.

A bad review for the dog and pony show congressman Rep. Ed Markey put on to bash Big Oil.

"It's true that industry profits are at a record high, but oil is a classic boom-and-bust business, which is why billions in capital investments are folded back into exploration and production. Besides, the industry's effective tax rates are in the neighborhood of 40% to 44%. Over the past five years, Exxon Mobil's total U.S. tax bill exceeded its U.S. revenues by some $19 billion."

Hmmm. How does it stay in business then? Read the whole edit.

UPDATE: My favorite snippet was of Markey's diatribe against Exxon Mobil for not putting as much money back into "clean, renewable" energy as BP or Chevron. And then being told by the head of BP, oil is where the money is and will be for the next three decades.

Chester used to have a Flash Bandit. Now Villanova has a Flash... er.

Anybody recognize this guy? He's got a new video out.

Our print column on Obama's Sock-It-To-The-Oil-Companies ad is up.

He's heading over to Strath Haven High School today. Spencerblog daughter, a freshman, was the first to inform us of this. The candidate will only be meeting with seniors at the school, she says, and it's "not fair." The audacity of youth.

This budding voter is pro-choice, pro-soldier, pro-cheerleading but doesn't believe, for instance, that alcoholism is a "disease." She's looking more and more like a South Park Independent.

Incidentally, Spencerblog has learned that Strath Haven students call the information sheets they are sent home with "proofs" because they "prove" what the students are telling their parents about what is going on at school.

When Spencerblog was in school, he vaguely remembers proofs having something to do with geometry. Times change.

In the housing market doing bad by "doing good," your government at work.

For tomorrow I'm writing about Obama and his new TV ad blasting big oil and the need to penalize Exxon/Mobil all in his bid to win Pennsylvania primary voters away from Hillary Clinton.

Here, by the way, is the greatest campaign ad I've ever seen, though it's not for any political candidate. It's for a chemical company.

If John McCain were smart he'd hire the agency and writers that produced it. Or just ask Dow if he could borrow it straight up.

Most people say there is no accounting for taste. But some say there should be.

Licensing interior decorators to protect the public? Please.

What went wrong in Detroit with its Hip Hop mayor? It's an old story. Rich Lowry explains

Congress to investigate Big Oil profits.

Democrats want to cut tax subsidies but oil man Bush says the industry shouldn't be singled out for punishment.

Next up: The $11.7 billion bottled water industry.

UPDATE: In the meantime, Obama says he's going to hit big oil with a windfall profits tax penalty. In his most recent ads he refers to the gas shortages of the 1970s and says how nothing's changed. Except the price of gasoline is much higher. He better watch it. What caused the gas shortages were, in part, President Nixon's amazingly stupid price controls. Once they were lifted the price of oil stablized and then fell. That's the way markets work.

Dems seem to think voters are entitled to cheap gas and at the same time push environmental policies (No drilling, no nukes) that make that near impossible. What is driving the price of oil is economic expansion in the second world. China and the rest of Asia are slurping it up. Demand is higher than ever. Increase taxes and watch "Big Oil" move overseas.

County councilman takes on blade-wielding shoplifter.

If only Whelan had been around to wrestle this one to the ground