Economics & conservatism

Two interesting data points this week seem to confirm one of my long-standing suspicions: economic knowledge and conservative political philosophy are strongly correlated. My belief, cultivated from years of observing liberals I know, is that those on the political left tend to favor some form of moral or ethical worldview, placing cold economic realities much further down the scale of importance than conservatives like myself.

The first point is a study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (not exactly a hotbed of conservative propaganda):

Most notably, the study found that the more economics classes a person took, the more likely he or she was to be a member of the Republican Party and to donate money to a political candidate or a cause.

“In sum,” the study said, “those taking more economics classes favored less regulation or government intervention affecting prices for specific goods and services, including wages and salaries.”

The second point of reference is a more controversial survey conducted by Professor of Econ at George Mason, Dr. Daniel Klein, and Zogby researchers. They asked eight questions, and counted as incorrect only those responses that explicitly opposed basic economic consensus on each subject. The design of the study could have been more neutral had they asked questions that challenged conservative sacred cows, but at least they admit that in the WSJ article summary. Here are the results:

Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.

Americans in the first three categories do reasonably well. But the left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals and aesthetics.

I consider myself to be a Libertarian with an asterix (I don't always agree with Libertarian foreign policy leanings - I tend to be more of a hawk).

Health Care Costs

I should have been blogging about Obamacare this past year, but family and work obligations overwhelmed me.

One of the big claims that the administration has made on this push is that the bill is deficit neutral, or even better: it will "bend the cost curve" down. Critics like Republican Paul Ryan (Wis) have done a good job dismantling that argument. The reality is that we cannot afford this new entitlement, especially at a time when we're faced with the insolvency of our two existing entitlements.

The Wall St Journal revisited the issue yesterday with The Cost Control Illusion, a rebuttal of administration propaganda being sown in a last-ditch effort to counter the charge of fiscal irresponsibility. It concludes with this zinger:

ObamaCare's real cost-control plan boils down to this: First subsidize coverage so much that costs explode, raise taxes as much as possible to pay for it, and when that isn't enough hand power to an unelected committee to limit treatment and control prices by government order. This is what Democrats are voting for.

I concur.

Tax Time

One little-covered story, hidden in the Washington Post just after tax day, was this gem:

As a candidate in 2008, Obama earned about $2.6 million from the sale of his books, "The Audacity of Hope" and "Dreams From My Father," according to returns the White House released yesterday.

And further down the page:

Most of Biden's income was from his Senate salary, although he reported about $9,500 from audio book royalties related to his 2007 autobiography, "Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics."

In short, Obama's book sales outearned Biden's by better than 270:1. Actually, the fact that anyone would pay to hear Biden talk on an audio CD is amazing. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

Liberals and Conflict

Two editorials on Monday struck a note on liberal attitudes toward international conflict, more specifically the 30-year U.S. conflict with Iran. First, George Will writing about the Obama administration's U.N. ambassador Susan Rice, who was interviewed on a Sunday morning show. Rice apparently rambled on about the "international community" and Iran:

Rice really thinks there is a community out there. To believe that is to believe, as liberals do, that harmony is humanity's natural condition, so discord is a remediable defect in arrangements.

Christopher Hitchens was even more direct with his critique of Obama's recent tour of Europe and the President's general naivete on the subject of talks with Iran:

Some differences cannot be split. Many conflicts are real and do not arise from mere cultural misunderstandings. Obama must learn this or be taught it, whichever comes sooner.

The best summary of the frustration that conservatives like myself have with these liberal attitutes was John McCain in the Sept 26, 2008 presidential debate:

So let me get this right. We sit down with Ahmadinejad, and he says, "We're going to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth," and we say, "No, you're not"? Oh, please.

Blast from the Past

My wife and I were watching Blast from the Past this weekend. I got the tip off a National Review list of the 25 Best Conservative Movies of the last 25 years. I love anything with Christopher Walken.

Its a good little comedy, and it has some subtle parts where the characters discuss things like marriage and manners. It doesn't really hit you over the head, but conservative values are given a positive light for a change! Plenty of other films like Pleasantville depict values from an earlier era as backwards and oppressive.

The Fantastic Journey

Okay, I'm back!

I was searching IMDB for new stuff to add to my Netflix queue when I ran across this TV show called The Fantastic Journey from 1977. This is a show I recall from my childhood, but I had no way of finding it for years. I remember there was a guy from the future with a handheld device that would amplify his thoughts and produce telekinetic results (requiring significant mental concentration on his part). For some reason, that aspect of the show struck me as innovative and original in Sci-Fi at the time. Okay, I was just a kid.

Anyway, over the years I remembered that one feature, but I had no idea what the show's title was. I also had no knowledge of any of the cast, the year it was produced, the creators or writers, the characters names, etc. In short, I had nothing to google, so it remained a mystery to me until tonight. Unfortunately, I checked on Netflix and it is not available on DVD.

1979: Best TV Year Ever

I've always been a fan of the 1970's culture, the bizarre fashion, and the incredible rock that came out of that era (Zeppelin, Eagles, Van Halen, Floyd). If you aren't a child of the 70's, you probably wouldn't understand. I was 11 years old in 1979, otherwise known as the best year ever for TV if you were an American kid at that time.

For those who weren't there, let me review. In January of 1979 the Dukes of Hazzard premiered. Fast cars jumping impossible obstacles, Daisy Duke in cutoffs, and Rosco P. Coltrane (say it with the accent on the "P"). What more could a boy ask for? Dialog and plot were irrelevant, my younger brother and I just wanted to drive that orange Dodge Charger and holler "yee-haw" at the top of our lungs. For the girls there was the tall blonde and uncomplicated brother Bo Duke, and the dark-haired cerebral brother Luke Duke. They were like a boy band of two designed purely for marketing purposes, only without the music. The show ran for 7 seasons, spawned a brief spinoff series Enos, two TV movies, and a theatrical remake in 2005. Most people don't know that Dukes was actually based on a 1975 movie called Moonrunners, complete with Waylon Jennings.

Also debuting in 1979 was Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. This was a cheesy ripoff of the Star Wars phenomenon, but we didn't care initially. It had spaceships flying and fighting, Erin Gray in tight jumpsuits, and weird aliens. Okay, so Twiki was a very lame attempt to do what R2-D2 did for the George Lucas franchise. Unfortunately, the show quickly degenerated in the second season because the writing got weaker; as I recall my brother and I gave up when they tried to introduce a little blue creature who was obviously Yoda-lite.

There were two towering shows already on the schedule in 1979: The Incredible Hulk and Battlestar Galactica. The Hulk was actually a somewhat poignant adaptation of the comic book, it certainly took itself more seriously than any of the other shows I review here. I used to feel sorry for the Banner character when he had to leave town at the end of each episode, hitchhiking on some lonely road. He was like a lost dog that any kid would want to rescue, "Mom, can we keep the Hulk in our house?" They had a two episode plot where guest star Mariette Hartley was Banner's terminally ill love interest. He tries in vain to save her with his knowledge and special blood chemistry. Heavy stuff.

The short-lived Galactica was the pinnacle of kidTV. Battlestar Galactica arrived in the fall of 1978, and like Buck Rogers it was designed to capitalize on the earlier success of Star Wars. Unlike Buck Rogers, Galactica had Star Wars-quality special effects because the same guy (John Dykstra) did the model work. It also had a more substantial background plot, bigger budget and better feathered haircuts. I can remember that it was imperative for me to catch every episode. Unfortunately the show was such a good imitation, George Lucas sued the producer for infringement and the series collapsed after just one season under the weight of the budgets necessary to do the special effects. 24 years later it spawned a revival on the Sci-Fi cable network, first as a miniseries, followed by 4 seasons of excellent science fiction. The new show is to my adult self as the original was to my 11 year-old self.

Today network TV has degenerated to the point where I hardly watch any shows regularly. Ironically, the best show on this past summer was Swingtown, a show about the 70's. These days I usually rent cable shows on DVD.

Vermont Part II: To The Moon!

One of the announcements the week we visited Vermont was from Democrat Gaye Symington, candidate for Governor in the fall election. She made the bold declaration that her administration would push the use of wind power from 0.2% to 20% of the state's total energy in 10 years.

This sounds familiar. First, there was Al Gore speaking in Washington D.C. July 17th:

I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources within 10 years

Gore was primarily talking about wind, solar and geothermal energy sources according to sources at his nonprofit, the Alliance for Climate Protection. More recently, Barack Obama made the following challenge at the Democratic National Convention in Denver:

For the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president: in 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Everyone thinks they're JFK launching us on another moon mission. Enough already! What do all these statements have in common? Answer: they are ill-conceived and unnecessary environmental posturing in the face of a real energy crisis. Nobody seems to have mentioned to Gore or Symington the simple fact that wind and solar energy both require some measure of backup, because they are not reliably continuous sources of energy. A single cloudy or windless day can mean that the utility company must reconfigure the electric grid to supply the missing power from another site.

The scale of the conversion necessary to fulfill each challenge is lost on these Democrats. Clearly none of them have scientific or technical backgrounds. We should strive to achieve change, but we should set reasonable goals for ourselves. A consultation with the experts on energy might yield a reality check, see Making Gore's Switch Isn't Quite So Simple in yesterday's Washington Post.

Tellingly, Gore and Symington both ignore nuclear power, which is perhaps the only currently available technology for generating power in sufficient quantity without carbon emissions. Obama mentions nuclear power in a strange way, after listing natural gas and clean coal he says he'll "find ways to safely harness nuclear power." Safely harness? Is he reassuring nutty environmentalists or does he really believe that nuclear power plants are somehow unsafe?

Manu!

In light of the news that Spurs guard Manu Ginobili will have ankle surgery, I dug up this golden oldie.

Vermont Part I

I took the family to Vermont for a week at the beginning of August. Vermont is always a source of political entertainment for me, with it's granola left-wing nutjobs. Despite being the land of my youth, I share no common ground ideologically with most of them.

The headline in the Burlington Free Press the weekend we arrived was "Lesbian Bigamy." A spat between a college professor and her former lover had turned sour. Vermont was one of the first states to offer civil unions, but now it's facing all the sticky questions that come with that legal designation. I'm actually in favor of legal equality for gays, I think it's only fair to offer civil unions if the state offers benefits to heterosexual couples. The U.S. offers some legal reciprocity to married heterosexuals, i.e. if you're married in Connecticut it must also be legally recognized in other states. This protection does not yet apply in cases of homosexual unions. In the case at hand the women were married in Canada (which has gay marriage), but after they split one moved to Vermont and entered into a civil union without first seeking a divorce.

The case highlights the willingness of a lesbian to take advantage of the benefits of marriage when it is convenient, but drop the legal designation in a flash when it no longer suits her. At least one lawyer interviewed in the article agreed that it probably was bigamy. Still, authorities were reluctant to prosecute it because the "gay" part of the equation was precedent setting.

Green Posturing

The mayor of Denver has challenged the organizers of the 2008 Democratic National Convention to "make this the greenest convention in the history of the planet." The Wall Street Journal reported that they've hired environmental activist Andrea Robinson as Director of Greening. How does one become an activist for a living anyway? Is that really a valid career, going around to protest rallies and writing angry letters to politicians? I digress...

The WSJ article contains alot of gems, like the litany of liberal interest groups each making demands that ultimately over-constrain the problem:

The host committee for the Democratic National Convention wanted 15,000 fanny packs for volunteers. But they had to be made of organic cotton. By unionized labor. In the USA.

Official merchandiser Bob DeMasse scoured the country. His weary conclusion: "That just doesn't exist."

This is absurd on so many levels, I don't know where to begin. There is no logic to the position that trading with other countries, or products made by non-union labor, or cotton that is grown with modern farming techniques are bad for us as a society. I look at this and wonder if the Dems wish that the miracle of the industrial age (enabling the dramatic rise in living standards we enjoy today) never happened. Economics says that competition, another name for trade, forces improvements in productivity, which in turn reduces costs for everyone. Unions, nationalism, and unfounded superstitions about agricultural technology are all antithetical to those goals.

Speaking of agriculture, the real kicker was the description of the catering guidelines:

No fried food. And, on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant, each meal should include "at least three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white." (Garnishes don't count.) At least 70% of ingredients should be organic or grown locally, to minimize emissions from fuel burned during transportation.

The rainbow food claim sounds like typical new age unscientific garbage. It may be good for culinary artistry, but I doubt that color has any correlation with nutrition. A pile of gray sunflower seeds can pack some vitamins and other essentials, can't it?

The second claim about local food is a common meme going around in enviromental circles these days. It's adherents even have a name: localvores. Trouble is, the idea that local food uses less fuel during transport is actually wrong in most cases. The Boston Globe had an article in 2007 explaining the details:

Judged by unit of weight, ship and rail transport in particular are highly energy efficient. Financial considerations force shippers to pack as much as they can into their cargo containers, whether they're being carried by ship, rail, or truck, and to ensure that they rarely make a return trip empty. And because of their size, container ships and trains enjoy impressive economies of scale. The marginal extra energy it takes to transport a single bunch of bananas packed in with 60,000 tons of other cargo on a container ship is more than an order of magnitude less than that required to move them with a couple hundred pounds of cargo in a car or small truck.

"Local food systems are often built around small-scale logistics," says Chris Foster, a research fellow at England's Manchester Business School and co-author of a December 2006 study on the environmental impacts of food production and consumption commissioned for Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. "You begin to make more trips in cars. More food is shifted around in small trucks and vans, which are relatively energy-inefficient ways of moving."

Democrats and Deficits

John McCain undoubtedly bites off more than he can chew when he promises to balance the federal budget. He is a champion for fighting earmarks and pork, but those amount to a tiny sliver of the budget pie. The real budget meat is in the entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and other transfer programs that currently amount to more than half of the total spending per year. Even if he is successful in forging a compromise fix for Social Security, it is unlikely to shrink.



Meanwhile the Democrats have done an about-face on deficits this election year, and nobody seems to notice. For most of George W. Bush's reign, the Democratic minority in Congress were deficit hawks. They complained incessantly about the supposed squandering of the Clinton surpluses, and held press conferences touting "record deficit" numbers (fiscally irresponsible, but not close to record if you adjust for inflation). Now that they're the majority party in Congress and Obama is the frontrunner, suddenly deficits don't matter at all. Asked about McCain's balanced budget pledge, Obama said:

"I do not make a promise that we can reduce it by 2013 because I think it is important for us to make some critical investments right now in America's families"

Note the weasel word he uses, investment. How did we go from Bush deficits being terrible to deficit spending = investment? It's simple, Democratic overspending is good, Republican overspending is bad. Libertarian Steve Chapman takes both sides to task for the coming fiscal disaster. The scariest part is that if the Dems control both the Whitehouse and Congress, the new spending burden will likely be much worse than if control is divided. Chapman notes:

The National Taxpayers Union Foundation added up all the promises made by the two candidates and found that McCain's would cost taxpayers an extra $68 billion a year. Obama's add up to $344 billion a year.

Please Do Piss on the Third Rail

I was not particularly impressed when John McCain said he'd balance the federal budget in 4 years. I think that such a goal is pure fantasy, especially with a Democratic Congress. Many analysts and observers agreed, noting that McCain's own numbers just don't add up. Still, I give him credit for trying. He has his heart in the right place: control spending! Maybe he should throw the Dems a bone and compromise on retiring the Bush tax cuts in exchange for tough cuts on the spending side. Of course that's really only something he could do as President, after winning the election.

I was stunned when he dared touch the third rail of politics a few days later, in Denver July 7th. McCain was roundly criticized by the lefty blogosphere for boldly declaring the impending Social Security crisis "a disgrace." The liberal nuts went insane, he muddied their sacred government cow. Matthew Yglesias called it "peeing on the third rail." The comments sections were flooded with the usual claims that Social Security has no real fiscal shortfall. This issue is the Dem equivalent of Global Warming denial: the science is all against them. The Trustees of Social Security themselves, actuaries with pocket protectors, publish a detailed report projecting demographic trends and resulting revenue versus spending. It says the program is in trouble. What's more, Obama believes there is fiscal imbalance. Why would he propose eliminating the payroll tax cap of $102000 if there were no need for higher revenue?

McCain was asked to clarify. Young people, he said, "are paying so much that they are paying into a system that they won't receive benefits from on its present track that its on, that's the point." Here is a courageous politician, willing to take on an issue that burned George W. Bush just 3 years ago. Anyone under the age of 40 should think long and hard about that. We pay more than 12% of our paycheck to FICA, yet the funds don't legally belong to us. The money is not in an account, it doesn't accrue interest or grow, and it can be redefined by Congress on a whim. In all likelyhood, future benefits for today's workers will be 75% of current benefits or less, and we will be forced to work years longer until retirement.

Note that McCain was not even proposing private accounts as the solution, that was D.O.A. for Bush in 2005. His very reasonable, politically moderate full response reads:

"Now, how do you fix it? Now, how do you fix it? You fix it by reaching across the aisle, and you say to the Democrats, 'Sit down with me at the table. Sit down with me, the way Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did the last time that Social Security was in deep trouble, and that was way back in 1983.'"

Zoom! Pow!

I'm part of the generation that grew up with Looney Toons on every Saturday morning. My brothers and I would wake up before our parents, and go downstairs to the T.V. room to watch Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Marvin the Martian and other classics. We loved other cartoons too, like the old Tom & Jerry ones, the Superfriends (kinda lame, I know), and Deputy Dawg to name a few. I never knew that these would make a lasting impression on me, but they did.

Now that I'm a father, I'm embarrassed to admit that I find myself making cartoon sound effects whenever I play with my kids. When I pick up the baby, there's always an accompanying "zoom!!" or other rocket-like soundbite. With our older daughter, I often "fly" her around in my arms, then set her down with a final "pow," as if she landed on the ground like a superhero with cracks radiating across the dirt away from the spot. All of this is in my mind, like some weirdly involuntary cartoon being played parallel to my real life. When I playfully tickle the girls, I can't help but provide a soundtrack "beep! BEEP! toot toot!"

I know that this must be cultural. I can't imagine that fathers back in 1840 used to do this. "Zoink!"

It Be Not Right

The Times-Dispatch had a Sunday column a couple weeks ago defending Jeremiah Wright, so of course I had to read it. I dislike Wright and his race-hustling contemporaries like Jesse Jackson. The author, Mark C. Hopson has this biographical info:

Mark C. Hopson teaches in the Department of Communication at George Mason University. He is completing a book entitled "The Talking Drum: Exploring the Role of Critical Memory in Intercultural Communication."

The larger point in the article seems to be that we should be sensitive to cultural minorities, this is a view I largely agree with. But being an academic, Hopson tries too hard to tie his defense of Wright into some larger context of language and clashing cultures. The real zinger was this:

Linguist Geneva Smitherman found that such stereotypes hinder the educational process for children. For example, a black child might be called "deficient" for using the phrase, "It be hot in here." But Smitherman and others recognize the interactivity of "be" as perpetually and concurrently encompassing the past, present, and future tense. Thus, "It be hot in here," indicates that it was hot yesterday, it is hot today, and undoubtedly it will be hot tomorrow. Three dimensions of time spoken in one simple word: Is this a deficiency, or a distinct rhetorical artifice? Perhaps it is time to re-present language and culture in our North American school systems.

Is this revisiting Ebonics? I'm all for admitting that language is dynamic, obviously, since Americans don't speak Elizabethan english these days. I freely admit that my diction is not perfect, and I'm sure you'll find some grammatical errors in this blog. But should schools really teach improper grammar to boost a minority's self-esteem? Barack Obama seems to speak the language relatively well.

The Character of a Great Man

There was a retrospective piece on John McCain earlier this month over on Slate, The Great McCain Story You've Probably Forgotten. This political season, it seems that people are looking for a President who can work across party lines, one that respects the other side and can transcend partisanship. Barack Obama has frequently claimed that mantle, but how do we reliably identify such a rare breed of politician when we see them? History has shown that we certainly can't trust what they say. When George W. Bush campaigned in 2000, he claimed famously to be "a uniter, not a divider." Look where that got us.

I think that there are three things to look for in identifying a true bipartisan who governs with principles rather than ideology:

1. Bipartisan legislative achievements
2. Key differences with the party base on some major issues
3. Strong friendships across party lines

McCain has worked on a number of bipartisan bills and cooperative efforts, such as McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, and the "Gang of 14" to name a few. He also holds positions on immigration, global warming, campaign financing and the religious right that contradict Republican orthodoxy. In fact, idealogical extremists on the right like Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity see John McCain as a traitor because of these views. Finally, it is well known that Senator McCain has a close friendship with independent Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, with whom he has sponsored many climate change bills.

All of this is fine, but what kind of man is he? I know the answer to that after I read about his friendship with Democrat Mo Udall, the senior Arizona congressman who took McCain under his wing. The Slate article highlights a profile written in 1997, years before McCain first ran for President. Udall was dying with Parkinson's disease in a veterans hospital:

A nurse entered and seemed surprised to find anyone there, and it wasn't long before I found out why: Almost no one visits anymore. In his time, which was not very long ago, Mo Udall was one of the most-sought-after men in the Democratic Party. Yet as he dies in a veterans hospital a few miles from the Capitol, he is visited regularly only by a single old political friend, John McCain.

Rumsfelded

We've all heard the term "to Bork" someone, a verb meaning to malign a person with the intent of denying a promotion or title, particularly with respect to a political appointment. The term comes from Robert Bork, who was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1987 by President Reagan. His nomination was contentious from the start, and ultimately he was voted down by the Senate after Democrats and civil liberties groups united to smear his reputation.

Few words derived from political surnames have entered the vernacular. Bork is perhaps the most widely used example. The next most popular must certainly be "Clintonian", meaning charismatic yet slippery, or a convenient parsing of language for personal gain, among others. That such terms are so rare makes them all the more unique and worthy of study.

Now David Brooks has freshly coined the term "Rumsfelded" on the PBS Newshour, referring to Hillary Clinton's dismissal of Mark Penn from her campaign:

I think the basic momentum of this race on the Democratic side is Obama going along smoothly, really no problems, continued potholes for the Clinton campaign. Mark Penn was fired, or pushed out, or "Rumsfelded" out.

Brooks defined the new verb as "Slightly pushed out, much too late, that sort of thing." I'd like to add some new words to the dictionary myself:

• Goreified - greatly exaggerated for environmental hysteria purposes
  
• Kerryness - lacking human qualities; resembling the undead
  
• Krugmanosticate - repeatedly predicting doom despite evidence to the contrary
• Obamatopoeia - naming an action using only empty soundbites containing "hope" and "change"
  

Useful Infidels

What's wrong with this picture?


For those who don't know, this is recently deceased al-Qaeda commander Abu Ubaida al-Masri, who is believed to have helped plan the 2005 subway attacks in London. He was a terrorist. He hated westerners so much that he spent much of his time planning coordinated attacks like the London one, and the failed attempt in 2006 to bomb trans-Atlantic airliners.

So why is he using a Bluetooth cellphone headset? That little miracle of technology would not exist were it not for the coordinated efforts of American universities, European engineers and Asian manufacturing expertise. It is a shining example of the wonders of economic and intellectual cooperation, a tribute to people who build useful things and seek to move humanity forward. It certainly was not created by bearded thugs living in the remote mountains of Pakistan.

One wonders what these guys think when they order their handsets, iPods and satellite dishes from Amazon.com. Do they curse at Microsoft Word when it mangles the HTML of their latest anti-American rant? Do they even notice the irony?

Selling Grandma Out

Christopher Hitchens is a keen observer and formidable commentator. Last week, following the uproar over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama spoke of his grandmother having "once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." Hitchens, in typical dry humor, writes:

You often hear it said, of some political or other opportunist, that he would sell his own grandmother if it would suit his interests. But you seldom, if ever, see this notorious transaction actually being performed, which is why I am slightly surprised that Obama got away with it so easily.

Obama's grandmother is now 85. I confess that I mused about what that phone call from the campaign trail might have been like. "Hi Grandma, how are you? Listen, tomorrow I'm giving a speech and you're in it. Yeah, isn't that great? Oh, hey I'm going to imply you are just a tiny bit racist, but just ignore it. When I'm President I'll buy you some knitting supplies and a bigger scooter. Love Ya!"

Jesus, MLK and the Rev. Wright

Oh boy, another post on race. On Monday, Richmond Times-Dispatch writer Michael Paul Williams tackled the controversy over Obama's ex-pastor Jeremiah Wright, and actually had the balls to equate Wright to Jesus and Martin Luther King Jr. I'm pretty sure that Jesus and MLK preached unity and love for people of all races, while Wright was consumed by hatred and bile. Michael Paul Williams is the T-D's voice of the African-American community, and I occasionally read him to gain some insight on that perspective, but this time I'm floored.

I'm left wondering why it's necessary for one man to have to explain or defend another man's words -- particularly a man most of us hadn't heard of until recently.

Why? We hold candidates for President, the highest office in the country, to a higher standard. We vet them thoroughly, and in this case "another man" happened to be a close spiritual adviser. I agree that Obama has handled the issue well, but don't think that the attention was unwarranted. I wonder if Williams and other African-Americans would be so forgiving if it were found that Bush or Cheney attended a church for the past 20 years that preached wild conspiracy theories about minorities?

America, for so long, denied black Americans fundamental rights. We have made enormous progress. But it appears some people still balk at hearing our anger and reject certain ugly truths about our nation.

Tactically slather on the liberal guilt, then try to claim that Wright was just preaching alternate truths. I'm not buying it. I think that it is perfectly acceptable to criticize policy, fight for a bigger voice in government, and expose the corruption and racism that still exist. I don't think it is acceptable to peddle divisive theories with no basis in fact, like the "HIV was invented by the government" doozy. My family is Catholic, and if I ever hear our priest spew such lazy internet garbage my children will no longer attend that church.