A question of trust

It’s a given that all politicians lie at one time or another. Americans generally don’t expect our politicians to be truthful on small matters. What we want is leadership we can trust to do the right things, who will tell us the truth on the issues that matter.
Nixon still had the support of a majority of Americans until he admitted he had lied, repeatedly, about Watergate. A week later he resigned.
Most Americans didn’t much care about Bill Clinton’s philandering, or even his perjury. But his weasel words on the meaning of the word “is” permanently damaged whatever trust he had left with the public. Clinton was lucky: he never had to speak to the country on an occasion like 9-11 or Katrina.
I never shared and don’t understand the deep dislike of George W. Bush that developed in the last few years of his Presidency, but I suspect a lot of it stemmed from a growing lack of trust. More and more people doubted that he could be believed, or be trusted to do the right thing.
Reagan, even when it was clear that he had been deceptive (Iran Contra) never lost the people’s trust. Conversely, most Americans in 1980 probably still believed that Jimmy Carter would never lie to them. But they no longer trusted him to make the right decisions.
Obama has shown a consistent habit of breaking promises and stretching the truth. He attended Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years but never heard Wright’s more incendiary comments. Bill Ayers was just a guy in the neighborhood. Obama’s government will be open and transparent, with bills posted on the web before they are voted on and Congressional negotiations on C-Span.
The Dianne Sawyer interview is the latest. Does he seriously expect us to believe that he would rather be a good one term President than a mediocre two term President?

I read this as a slap at W and Bill Clinton. But my fear is that, in the not too distant future, Obama will need Americans to trust him to make really hard decisions, to believe him when he speaks to the country in a moment of crisis. And we will need to trust that we have a leader who has the depth, wisdom, and maturity- and the smart advisors- to make hard decisions. A year in, I do not have that confidence in him, and I fear what will happen in a real crisis.

Carter lost the public’s trust after malaise, cardigan sweaters, the Iran embassy takeover, and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. He wasn’t dealing with attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Napolitano said after the Christmas Day near miss that ”the system worked.” Eric Holder wants to try terrorists in New York City, and reads Abdelmotallab his Miranda rights. This is thunder from a distant but approaching storm. More than just trouble for the Democrats in November 2010, no matter how much or in what direction Obama pivots, it bodes trouble for all of us.

I wrote this before the SOTU. Nothing to change. I'll just add a quote from a comment over at Tigerhawk:

This POTUS is a dangerously disingenuous dilettante and a growing disgrace to the office.

Damn, I wish I'd said that.

How Obama treats U.S. Allies, v 2.1:

Less than a week after honoring India with his first state dinner, Obame offers Pakistan expanded strategic partnership.
I know the US walks a delicate balance in working with Pakistan, and I suspect the timing of this has more than a little to do with Obama's Afghanistan speech tomorrow, but still, with smart people like Obama, Biden, and Hilary Clinton in charge, I expected our foreign policy to have a bit more nuance.

Amateurs in charge

Unbelievably, we now have a worse example of egocentric self promotion than Balloon Boy's parents. Every component of the story is over the top: the drop dead gorgeous blond wife who spent seven hours in a salon prepping for a night out; the press spokesman who provides quotable quotes that skate the truth; the sheer chutzpah- or idiocy?- of crashing a White House dinner and the amazing fact that they pulled it off. Fifteen minutes of fame is fourteen minutes and fifty- nine seconds too long for people like this.

The Salahis' meeting with President Obama reminds me of both Michael Fagan, (who breached security at Buckingham Palace in 1982 for a ten minute conversation with Queen Elizabeth 2 in her bedroom), and German teenager Matthais Rust, who eluded Russian air defenses to land his plane in Red Square in 1987. How on God's green earth do these things happen? Successfuly crashing a State dinner seems just one more bit of evidence that the grown ups- or as Peggy Noonan more diplomatically puts it , the wise men and women- are not in charge anymore.

Noonan thinks that the pictures of Obama bowing are becoming iconic. I'd argue for the photo above.

What ever happened to Aunt Zeituni?

History will judge Barack Obama’s presidency better than any of us can today, but one of his campaign's signal accomplishments was to singlehandedly kill public financing of Presidential elections. The campaign developed an enormously successful fundraising operation, with no accountability and apparently no means to determine if donors were American citizens or used their own names.

Besides characters such as Doodad Pro, Obama's most famous illegal contributor was his Aunt Zeituni Onyango, found living on an expired visa in a Boston housing complex. The Times noted, early on, that since "Ms Onyango made a contribution to the Obama campaign (that) would indicate that she is a US citizen." (Can you say journalistic naivete?)

The potential fundraising fraud was a minor kerfluffle at the end of the campaign. The RNC asked for an investigation, the FEC promised one after the election, and the campaign vowed to immediately return all illegal donations (without explaining how they could tell which ones were illegal). After Obama's victory, everyone lost interest.

Why? Perhaps there is no story here. Perhaps there really were only a handful of illegal contributions. Or perhaps both Obama's supporters and opponents see the campaign's fundraising success as the brave new world of politics. It worked well, so don't rock the boat. We'll use the same methods.

There were multiple causes for President Nixon's downfall, but two may may be applicable. Woodward and Bernstein's investigations were driven by Deep Throat's advice: Follow the money. And it was not the dirty tricks, but the cover up, that turned so many against Nixon.

If half the energy that has been spent on birth certificate research had gone into chasing the money, what would we find? A year in, some of Obama’s supporters are becoming disillusioned. Maybe some of them have stories to tell. Perhaps they will tell them to this decade's Woodward and Bernstein.

What ever happened to Aunt Zeituni? She found a sympathic immigration judge and is apparently still in Boston.

Lynn Woolsey, churches and politics

From Ace of Spades

Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey is suggesting that the IRS revisit the Catholic church's tax-exempt status (because) the role the bishops played in pushing the Stupak amendment, which unfairly restricts access for low-income women to insurance coverage for abortions, was more than mere advocacy.

It's not a new argument. Gay rights groups argue "if the LDS church insists on meddling into political affairs they should not be allowed to hold a tax exempt status." Opponents of Jerry Falwell''s Moral Majority expressed similar fears twenty years ago about religious groups' involvement in politics.

The only thing missing from Lynn Woolsey's concern is a knowledge of history. Is she unaware of the Catholic bishops' support for nuclear disarmament? The involvement of mainline American Protestant denominations in the nuclear freeze movement in the eighties? Perhaps she never heard of the Reverend Dr.Martin Luther King. Fifty years ago he led the Montgomery Alabama bus boycott. King's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church frequently hosted rallies during the boycott. Along with other Southern church leaders, King formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to fight segregation; they were joined in the early sixties by many northern white church leaders. Church involvement in the civil rights movement was not peripheral; it was critical. It was certainly, as Lynn Woolsey says of the Catholic bishops' role in the Stupak amendment, "more than advocacy."

Fifty years ago, segregationists such as Ross Barnett and George Wallace argued that churches had no role to play in politics. Lynn Woolsey is in good company.

If loving you is wrong…

I’m developing a man crush on this guy.

First Senator Joe Lieberman, who heads the Senate's Homeland Security Committee, announced he was launching a congressional investigation to find out whether the Fort Hood attack last week was preventable, calling it the “most destructive terrorist act committed on American soil since 9/11.”

Then he ripped the public option in the health insurance reform bill.

If the public option plan is in there ... I will not allow this bill to come to
a final vote. I believe the debt can break America.

If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Lieberman’s statements reminds me of the furor when Washington National Airport was renamed for Ronald Reagan. Sure, it’s the right thing to do; but what’s almost as satisfying is the people whom the action is sure to irritate.

The Magic Number is 41

With a House vote (maybe) today on health care reform, and all the Republicans lined up to vote against it, Nancy Pelosi can lose 4o votes of her 259 seat majority and still pass the bill. The curent tally per Jim Geraghty at NRO is 22 Democrats who have said they will vote no, and 7 who seem poised to do so. 69 Democrats have recently expressed opposition to the bill.
The final vote may hinge on parliamentary maneuvers on two key issues. Pro choice Democrats want a prohibition on insurance funding for abortion. Hispanics fear a GOP amendment to bar undocumented workers from purchasing insurance. The House leadership will be busy making deals, right up until the final vote-- if it occurs this weekend.
The Democrats have to get the bill out this weekend; any more time allows more analysis, more polling, more angry phone calls from constituents to wavering Democrats. If there is no vote, or a "no" vote, this weekend, I call the bill dead.
Whatever the House passes will bear little resemblance to a final Senate bill; and the reconciliation process will give House Democrtas in marginal districts one more thing to worry about.
If Pelosi can't pass this, I expect a coup in the House leadership. Steny Hoyer is a smart guy. Obama will need someone to blame, and it will be hard to pin failure on 177 Republicans.

The GOP ain't dead yet.

Two quotes afterthe 2009 elections:



Ed Gillespie at the Washington Post:

McDonnell laid out a steady stream of policy initiatives rooted in a commitment to lower taxes, less regulation and innovation. Too often, however, Republicans don't "finish the sentence" and remind voters outside our base why such conservative policies are better. McDonnell's campaign attracted crucial independent voters by focusing on the benefits of his policies.

Ramesh Ponnuru, TIME

Republicans' principal problem in recent elections has not been that they are too far right, or not far right enough... The problem has instead been that voters have not thought Republicans of any stripe had answers to their most pressing concerns.

Democrats have run against George W. Bush for eight years. While successful in 2006 and 2008, it didn’t work in 2004 and it sure didn’t work in 2009. A year of Obama, Pelosi and Reid has given the American people a pretty clear idea of what the Democrats are for, not just what they were against. Hope and Change looks like unlimited spending; a health care plan that is long on smoke, mirrors and promises and short on specifics; Treasury officials who don’t pay their taxes; an antipathy for dissent; Presidential advisors who “speak truth to power” without realizing that they are the power structure now; and an incoherent foreign policy based more on dreams and expectations than actual plans or results.
But, hey, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize!
All that may keep voters from supporting Democrats; but it is not enough to make them support Republicans. We have to finish the sentence.

I see three areas where Republicans must reach a consensus to move forward;
· What are we for?
· How do we bridge the party’s divide on social issues, and unite on all the issues where we agree?
· Are we Glenn Beck populist bomb throwers, or are we serious about winning elections and governing?


Here are some suggestions on what the GOP could be for:


Strong national defense and homeland security, with a recognition that America’s concerns do not end at the shores of the continental United States. We aren't all neocons or internationalists; but we can be neither isolationists nor apologists for all of America’s past evils . We should be willing to negotiate with anyone who will talk to us in good faith, while realizing that not everyone fits that description. ( Ronald Reagan: “Trust but verify.”) The President of the United States (once known as the leader of the Free World) must protect and defend the interests of the United States. If he doesn’t, no one else will. We will work with allies and friends; but we will capitulate to no one.


Civil rights and civil liberties. How do we make sure that while our government is protecting us, they are not infringing on our freedom? On a different level, we benefit from having an enormous amount of data on our behavior stored on the computers of Google, Safeway and Travelocity. How do we make use of technology and still protect the individual's right to privacy?


A belief in equality of opportunity, with no guarantee of equality of results


Free trade.


Tort reform.


Energy independence. This is more than just drill here , drill now; it is developing solar and wind power where they make sense, even if it is off Nantucket. It is new, safe nuclear; it is Yucca Mountain. (Sorry, Senator Ensign.) It is increasing energy efficiency everywhere we can.


Tax reform, earmarks reform, and entitlement reform. We’ve had national dialogues on race. How about one on the fact that we have to pay for the services we want?
· Residents of metropolitan Washington DC should not expect to have their highways expanded, their broken water mains repaired, and their teachers and police officers paid, from revenue raised in Walla Walla, Washington. Or vice versa.
· We must limit government spending, whether it is for new fighter jets or bridges to nowhere. We can't fund everything, we need to make wise choices.
· Everybody should pay taxes, not just "the Rich." We should all be invested in the American system.
· The tax code should be fair, simple and transparent. Economic decisions should not be made on the basis of lowering one’s tax liability.
· Entitlement reform is the third rail of American politics, but if Bill Clinton could enact welfare reform, why can’t the GOP tackle entitlements?


Immigration and border control. We are a nation of immigrants; as long as our economy needs inexpensive labor, it will find its way here. At the same time, we have to find a way to control our borders. There’s no easy fix on this one but it is an issue we need to honestly discuss and try to address.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
None of this is easy. But we’re smart people. We put a man on the moon. We invented the microchip and the PC and the IPOD. In fifty years we went from the Montgomery bus boycott, to Watts and Detroit, to the assassinations of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr, to Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice and President Barack Obama. We can do this.


Social issues, for the most part, are secondary to me. National security trumps everything else. Yet I know that social conservatives, and those who disagree with them, have valid concerns. Can we agree to disagree? Or, even better, can we find common ground on some issues –that we don’t care what two consenting adults do in their own homes; that government should neither require nor prohibit employers from providing benefits to their employees’ spouses or unmarried partners? That people in New York City may have valid reasons for gun control, which have no relevance to residents of Gage County Nebraska? That religious groups can provide terrific services to those in need, but should not be forced to support practices they disapprove of?

The GOP has come back from defeat before, in 1980 and in 1994, in both years winning contests that no one expected Republicans to win. We can do the same in 2010. But we have to finish the sentence. We don’t have to have a Ronald Reagan or a Barack Obama; we have to offer the American people something to believe in.

What if the GOP sweeps?

I'm by nature an optimist. I want to believe that Bob McDonnell, Chris Christie and Doug Hoffman will all win tomorow, and even that David Harmer will beat Garamendi in the California 10th CD special election. Heads will explode, and the spin from Robert Gibbs will make Linda Blair in The Exorcist look like a piker.
Two results if that happens:
1) Health care reform, and Cap and Trade, are DEAD. Congress may pass a health care bill but it will bear no resemblance to the most recent proposals from Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi. The President, in a rare moment of candor, will blame the failure on Congress's lack of quick action in August.

2) The Obama Administration will renew its war on Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the GOP, and expand it to other major media outlets. Valerie Jarrett will continue to "speak truth to power" (ARGGH!) but be more roundly ridiculed.

It would be fun to watch the meltdown, except that it is the United States government. This may be worse than Jimmy Carter.

Senator Clinton isn't ending her campaign anytime soon

Conventional Wisdom six months said Hillary Clinton would coast to the Democratic party nomination and the Presidency. Today's CW: she can't win and will surely drop out after Pennsylvania or North Carolina.
This morning Clinton loyalist Lanny Davis ("speaking only for myself", he notes) pens a Wall Street Journal op ed on Obama's Minister Problem. There is nothing new here. Davis asks the same questions that were asked when Wright's sermons first became famous, but he warns the Democrats,

This issue is not going away. If many loyal, progressive Democrats remain
troubled by this issue, then there must be even more unease among key swing
voters....If Mr. Obama doesn't show a willingness to
try to answer all the questions now, John McCain and the Republican attack
machine will not waste a minute pressuring him to do so if he is the Democratic
Party's choice in the fall. But by then, it may be too late (emphasis added).

Whoever wins the popular vote in Pennsylvania and North Carolina wll be hailed as a victor, neither candidate will come away with a huge delegate lead. Senator Clinton has no reason to quit unless and until the superdelegates start to turn to Senator Obama. She has every reason to hold on until a convention credentials committee in Denver decides what to do with the Florida and Michigan delegates. (Both Senators Obama and Clinton probably have a few lawyers on retainer to file injunctions at that point, too.)

Lanny Davis's op ed is a warning: the Clintons are not going to go away.

I expect interesting campaign news before the Pennsylvania primary.

Denver in August: Panicked Democrats turn to Lord Palpatine

David Freddoso at NRO does Delegate math for Dummies

This is the outcome Democrats dread most, the one likely to cause hard
feelings more than any fair-and-square election victory ever could. The
salvation of the Democratic system has previously been the propensity for
voters to unite around a winner early ... This time, the Democratic race has
come down to just two candidates, either of whom could win. It is going into
the late states, no matter what. It is an undemocratic game in which the
voters are mathematically incapable of picking the winner without the help
of unelected party elders.

He has a lot of company in this opinion. This looks to be the first party convention since 1976 (Ford and Reagan) in which the nominee has not been sure thing before the delegates gathered.

I've thought for the last six months that Hillary Clinton would not be nominated. I'm still not sure she will be, but I think the Democrats, at the wire, will pull back from nominating a two- year Senator from Illinois. There are too many flashpoints inthe world right now. Before August, one or more will ignite, and foreign policy or terror or both will be more on voters minds than the economy.

Senator Obama would make an exciting peacetime presidential candidate. In a time of war, the Democrats will want someone more experienced.

But it still may not be Hillary.

Hillary and Barack fight all the way to the convention. It gets nasty. After the first ballot, with neither a winner, the convention lights go out as spotlights illumine the podium. The curtains behind the podium part and Al Gore descends a staircase, a halo above his head, his Nobel in one hand, his Oscar in the other. The crowd goes wild, drowning out Bill Clinton's cries of anguish. Hillary rushes the stage but is restrained by the Secret Service. Gore and his Veep Obama are nominated by acclamation.

More voter suppression in Bush's America

Throughout Virginia on Super Tuesday, voters showed up at their usual polling places only to find them closed, Fox News reports.

By noon, the State Board of Elections had received about 400 calls, many of them
from callers asking why their polling places were closed.

Virginia's primary is next Tuesday ,February 12.
A half dozen people also showed up at a Milwaukee polling place on Super Tuesday to vote. Wisconson doesn't have a primary today either.

Thoughts on Super Tuesday and beyond

McCain could put Romney away today. Romney can slow McCain's momentum, but it will take more than a Romney victory in California. Is the groundswell of anti McCain sentiment enough?
On the Democrat side, a draw in popular votes and delegates today - even a narrow win for Hillary- counts as a victory for Obama, no matter how much the Clintons spin it. Obama has the momentum. Watch for the the gloves to come off in the Clinton campaign. This one really may go to a convention floor fight, and some great television.

Down the road, who do the nominees pick as veeps? If the Clintons go nuclear to stop Obama, Hillary- Obama is unlikely. If Obama wins, to maintain the change mantra he needs to turn to someone else; the same 40 some odd percent of Americans who don't want a Clinton back in the White House, don't want them in the Vice President's home either.
VP's have been chosen for geographic balance (Kerry- Edwards, Kennedy- Johnson) and for party unity (Reagan- Bush). It seems George W. Bush chose Cheney because he liked him and thought they would work well together. (Why did George H.W. Bush pick Dan Quayle?) Bold moves are usually seen as desperate pandering: think Reagan - Schweiker or Mondale- Ferraro.

If McCain or Romney go up against Obama or Clinton, it's arguable that they need to pick a woman, or an African American, as VP. Yet the potential candidates look either politically untenable (Condi Rice, Colin Powell) or are Quayle/ Ferraro political nobodies (J.C Watts, Michael Steel, Alan Keyes.) And would a Michael Steele do the ticket any good?

For both McCain and Obama, the VP choice is critical. If McCain is nominated, his age ensures we'll see stories this fall about President Reagan's Alzheimers. For Obama it is his first major appointment. He needs some foreign policy gravitas to complement all the change. The Democrats have won twice since 1964: Carter, (post- Nixon), Clinton, (post Cold War). Are voters ready to trust the Democrats again in a dangerous world?

The Republicans have one advantage: they go last. If there is a fight at the Democrats' shindig in Denver, the GOP may be able to take advantage of it.
Prediction:
McCain- Giuliani
Obama- Richardson.
But six months is a long, long time.

Does Bill Clinton want to be the President's spouse?

The New York Times reports on a friend of Bill's who's done far better than a $100,000 gain on cattle futures.

After Kazakh mining deal, financier donated $31 million to Clinton charity.


Bill Clinton, ex-President and Senator's spouse, doesn't have to look for fundraising opportunities. They just come to him. Most of them probably avoid media attention. As the President's spouse, the money may not dry up, but it will certainly be tracked more closely. What's the opportunity cost of living in the White House again?


Maybe it's so high that with the economy a campaign issue, it makes Bill Clinton say that

We have to slow down the economy to fight global warming

The Kennedy endorsement

The Kennedy family's anointing of Barack Obama as the true heir of JFK must be particularly galling to Bill Clinton. He was supposed to be the Second Coming of JFK. Bill's most cherished political (and personal?) icon is the photograph of himself at Boys Nation, shaking hands with President Kennedy.
Barackomania seems to be another recurrence of America's quest for a knight in shining armor. Whether Obama can fulfill that role for longer than it takes some intrepid investigative reporter (with help from James Carville) to expose details of the Senator's days in the Illinois legislature is a good question. Obama's similarities to JFK are few. Kennedy represented generational change. He had interesting rhetoric but was vague on details. Both come from ethnic groups that one can argue are on the verge of assimilation into mainstream America. (See, for example, How the Irish Became White.) But beyond that?
JFK was a war hero, fifteen years after the end of the Good War. I'd argue that much of his popularity while in office resulted from the Cuban Missile crisis, (just as George W. Bush enjoyed a surge of support after 9-11.) He captured our imagination with the Apollo program. Our guesses on what Kennedy would have done, had he lived, on Vietnam, civil rights, and economic policy, depend as much on our own political views as on any real knowledge of the choices he would have made. Kennedy only became a god after his assasination. That is not a model that many would choose to emulate.

Caroline Kennedy's endorsement of Senator Obama invokes our memories of her father and our dreams of Camelot. But for thirty years, Ted Kennedy's name and his legislative ideas have beene a key component of successful Republican fund raising letters. Senator Kennedy's endorsement may win Obama the nomination; but he will need to distance himself from the Ted Kennedy wing of the Democratic party to win in November.

Quests for knights in shining armor- whether one is looking for a spouse or a Presdent- tend to end badly. Let's hope for a gentle letdown from Barackomania.

Shooting themselves in the foot?

Here's an interesting use of money.
Liberal Group Plans Yearlong Anti-Bush Campaign With Goal to Deny Positive Legacy

one goal is to make sure Bush does not enjoy a resurgence in public approval
that could help Republican congressional candidates and the Republican
presidential nominee in this year's elections.

Funny thing, it all goes back to Reagan who

became a rallying cry for conservatives and their ideology. Progressives are
still living with that.

The Democrats can't run against Bush this year. He isn't on the ballot. They need to give voters a reason to vote for them. And whoever the Republicans eventually nominte, he will not run as another Bush
It's just that much more money that they can't spend on Obamary.

Paul and LaRouche: Cults?

Twenty five years ago a buddy and I were walking through Houston Hobby airport when he spotted the LaRouche table (back then his vehicle was the "U.S Labor Party") and walked up to them. "OK, what's your theory on who killed JFK?" he asked.
"We don't have a theory. We know."

Ron Paul and his supporters seem cut from the same cloth. Dr. Paul has no doubts, no nuance. All that is wrong with America can be fixed if we just follow the Constitution. The abortion debate disappears when the states are allowed to decide it. Our economic problems are solved when we return to the gold standard. There really are simple solutions to complex issues. And Ron Paul is the LAST chance to save America.

Or so it seems from reading Dr.Paul's supporters on the web. Whether gold standard monetarists, 9 11 truthers, white supremacists, or his more sane supporters, all have a certainty that few other campaigns can match. What's interesting about the Paul cult is its inclusiveness. This is a big tent party. LaRouche was a Stalinist; his campaigns were a cult of personality with a fixed ideology. Everyone drank the same Kool aid and followed the Dear Leader. Paul is more like a Unitarian New Age cult. There is room for different opinions; but only Ron Paul can save America.

The Paul campaign can't keep all its divergent groups together for long. And no one is quite as bitter as an ex cult member. But Paul's campaign may still give us another six months of cheap entertainment.

So much for Solidarity

First Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien crossed the writers' picket lines. Now Stewart and Colbert are coming back. Will they use scab writers? Illegal aliens ? Or outsource the writing to India?

Huckabee and gastric bypass surgery

Mike Huckabee’s weight loss scam

Vanderleun calls it a blog hit.

I’m not a Huckabee fan. There are plenty of serious issues for which Huckabee can, and should, be criticized. He’s fourth or fifth on my list of candidates I’d support, behind Giuliani, Thompson and Romney but still well ahead of Ron Paul.
But this is just indecent.
I haven’t read the whole 10,000 words, and I don’t plan to do a point by point analysis , but Plutarch lost me at the marathon and fuel belt.

The marathon prowess that Huckabee often touts is not so likely to be an example of exercise inducing weight loss, as it is the expected result of (bariatric) weight loss permitting exercise.
While running marathons Huckabee is shown carrying that energy supplementation, that is both expected of, and associated with, bariatric marathoners.

I’ve run 26.2 miles. Trust me, you get hungry. I carried snacks with me. That’s evidence I had gastric bypass surgery?

100% of wife beaters are men. I‘m a man. Therefore….

And I really want to see the evidence that running marathons is an expected result of bariatric weight loss.

That Governor Huckabee took a vacation and didn’t reveal where he was going seems to be the same sort of argument.

If you have a good argument you don’t need to pile on.
The whole article reminds me of the poor schnook who built a model of the World Trade Center from chicken wire and proved that fire does not melt steel. He’s even got graphs. In color.

I don’t really care whether Romney believes Jesus is Satan’s brother; or Hilary seduces twelve year old boys. The personal lives of some of the candidates (in both parties ) are a little tawdry. But if we can’t win elections based on issues, we don’t deserve to win.

If Plutarch’s “research” is true, yes, Huckabee is toast.

I call BS.

Global warming causes blizzards; school children and teachers rejoice.

Snow on Mount Ida

National Review online notes that Global warming saps hurricane strength.

It apparently causes heavy snow too.

My office has a project in upstate New York; a team just spent a week there. (Tragically, I was unable to go.) On their return they reported the area is having snow earlier and heavier than usual. It's global warming. Lake Erie hasn't frozen over yet; so the open water generates more lake effect snow.

The first computer game I ever purchased was SimEarth. It was a cool little toy. The user's guide included a long appendix on the Gaia hypothesis, with a discussion on what might cause an ice age. Snow has a high albedo; it reflects a lot of sunlight, which reduces the energy in the atmopsphere and cools the earth. More snowfall, less melting.

Global warming causes glaciation.

The good news is, the rising sea level will fall.

Breaking news: Earthquake in Bali. I blame all the Gulfstreams parked there for the UN Global Climate conference.