South Dakota Politics

Daily Kos “Bloggers’ Strike”

Joe Gandelman: 

In yet the latest sign of how bitter the divisions in the Democratic party are getting in the epic battle between Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama for their party’s presidential nomination, some writers at Daily Kos have gone on “strike” due to what they charge is abuse aimed at them and Hillary Clinton. . . . This might seem to be a provincial conflict, but it is highly significant.   In political terms, it underscores the raw, angry and bitter rivalrly between supporters of Obama and Clinton.

You Think You're Sick of Hearing about Spitzer?

The lucky SIRIUS owners out there are getting a channel devoted to it:

NEW YORK, March 14, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- SIRIUS Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) today announced that it has created Client 9 Radio, a channel that will explore the breaking news, facts, fallout, psychology, and implications of the scandal. Client 9 Radio will air March 14 at 5:00 pm ET - midnight March 17 exclusively on SIRIUS channel 126.

SDP Jazz Note: Trane's Best Seller

Jazz fans would probably rank A Love Supreme, Giant Steps, and Live At the Village Vanguard, as John Coltrane's most important albums.  Each one is certainly a masterpiece.  But his greatest commercial success was My Favorite Things, which featured a jazz interpretation of the Sound of Music hit, and sold like hot cakes.  Backing him up were McCoy Tyner on piano, Steve Davis on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums.  MFT is a compelling disc.  I put it on a couple of nights ago, when I was preoccupied by a scholarly concern.  The music made me forget the paper I have due in about six days. 

I just got Coltrane's Sound from Barnes & Noble.  It was recorded at the same time as MFT, but is a little more restrained and romantic.  I have only listened to it once, but I would be hard put to say that it ranks second to the more popular album.  It does have one of the worst examples of cover art in the history of jazz.  Trane's face is depicted in smears of paint.  It looks like he is melting.  According to lore, he was distressed by it. 

You can hear and watch the Quartet play My Favorite Things at DailyMotion. The venue is Sudwestfunk TV Studio, Baden-Baden, West Germany, November 24, 1961.  Eric Dolphy joins in.  I am not sure that Dolphy was not a bad influence on Coltrane.  He was wild at heart, and a lot of his music is incomprehensible to me.  But in this set they stick very close to the melody.  Watching the light reflect off of Trane's cheeks is worth the ticket.   

Obama's Anti-American Church

The Wacky Pastor story, as Charles Krauthamer said on Fox, has assumed the proportions of a scandal.  The proof of this is that Senator Obama has gone into panic mode (Hillary should send him flowers).  He issued a statement on the Huffington Post:

Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.

That is nicely done.  It looks categorical, but it doesn't mention any particular statements.  When he denounces any statements that "divide us from our allies," does that mean, maybe, Israel?   

Let us recap some of the things that Reverend Wright has proclaimed from the pulpit: 

The United States knew the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor, and let them do so to justify a war.

The United States manages the drug trade to afflict Black Americans.

The United States invented the AIDS virus as an instrument of genocide. 

The United States deserved the 9/11 attack because of its sins. 

God Damn America!

Presumably, Obama has now disavowed all of these atrocious and ridiculous assertions.  Is his disavowal enough?   

Paul Mirengoff at Powerline has the best defense of Obama that I have seen. 

Here's a possible explanation, which someone acquainted with Obama in his early days in Chicago finds quite plausible, but which Obama can't proffer. Twenty years ago, Obama was trying to establish himself in Chicago with an eye (in all likelihood) towards a future run for office. Obama was an outsider. His Ivy League credentials, his having lived abroad, etc would have cut no ice on the south side of Chicago. He needed strong local connections. What better way to establish his authenticity on the south side than to affiliate with Pastor Wright and his influential church? (Obama reportedly also reached out to former terrorist and local political player Bill Ayers and, not ignoring another part of his future coalition, set himself up at the University of Chicago).

That is an explanation that I, as a political scientist, can have some sympathy with.  And it helps explain why Obama didn't leave the church.  It would have made it look like what it was: politically expedient.  But how can we be certain that it was merely expedient? 

Here is what bothers me: he didn't just get married by this full-tilt bozo of a priest.  He brought his daughters to that church.  He didn't seem to mind that they would be exposed to the ravings of a man who hates America down to the bottom of his heart. And it wasn't just Rev. Wright.  Watching the many clips of Wright's sermons, it seems pretty clear that the congregation was singing along.  Every execrable word was applauded.   

Did it never occur to Barack Obama that there was something wrong here?  That he might not want his children to grow up to be just like Rev. Wright?   Or did Barack Obama feel perfectly comfortable and at home in that environment?   

I confess that I am suddenly very concerned about what is in Senator Obama's heart.  Up till now I thought that the return of the Clintons was the great thing to fear.  I may have been wrong.   

Obama's Cherry-Picking Defense of Wright

Paul Mirengoff:  "The cherry-picking defense, even when plausible, has never been accepted when it comes to racism. Don Imus, for example, has received widespread condemnation for very occasional statements that showed racial insensitivity. Trent Lott was condemned for one statement praising Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign. Obama appears to be playing a double game here, distancing himself from Wright without really denouncing him."

Daschle Rules Out 2010 Rematch

From a Rapid City Journal  story entitled "Daschle helping state party recruiting":

Asked to respond to some political observers' musings about a political future for Daschle, he said he would not even comment on speculation that he could be a replacement candidate if Sen. Tim Johnson, who suffered a brain hemorrhage in 2006, had a medical problem during his re-election campaign this year.

"I won't answer that," Daschle said. "He's not going to have one, and I'm proud of his recovery. He's just doing a phenomenal job."

One political blog has speculated about a 2010 rematch between Daschle and Sen. John Thune, who defeated Daschle four years ago.

"That's not going to happen, either," Daschle said.

Obama's Wacky Pastor

Professor Schaff notes the Jeremiah Wright sermon available on YouTube.  Ronald Kessler at the Wall Street Journal has some fascinating quotes from another Wright sermon, this one at Howard University in 2006.  Here is an interesting tidbit from the Howard U. sermon

"No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body."

Now the Obama campaign was still over the horizon on January 15th,  2006, when Rev. Wright made those remarks, but Condoleezza Rice had been Secretary of State for nearly a year.  Rev. Wright is apparently a man of invincible ignorance.  No fact has enough power to penetrate the wall of prejudice he has built around himself. 

And then there are these gems: "We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs," which apparently refers to the belief that the U.S. Government intentionally allows heroin and other narcotics into the country in order to weaken Black Americans; and "We started the AIDS virus," which refers to a similar belief, that the U.S. Government created the virus in the laboratory, and then set it loose to kill undesirable populations. 

Now these views are not just stupid and hateful, they are tinfoil hat weird. To be certain, Rev. Wright has every right to believe and say such things.  It may be true, as Professor Schaff suggests, that Rev. Wright is in violation of laws preventing political advocacy on the part of tax exempt churches.  Since I regard such laws as an abomination against free speech, I have no  quarrel with Rev. Wright on that count.  But such views do identify him as a hate monger,  and a person who is about as sober and grounded in reality as your average issue of The National Enquirer.  If you can believe what Rev. Wright believes about drugs and AIDS, a two year old girl giving birth to a two-headed Elvis clone is not much of a stretch. 

I don't believe that a presidential candidate is responsible for everything his or her church has said or done in the past, or for everything his or her pastor has said. But it is not like it never matters.  If John McCain had been attending a church where the preacher regularly dished out hatred for Jews and claimed that AIDS was God's punishment for homosexuality, who believed that Catholics and Jews were in league with communists to poison our water supply, well, McCain would have some explaining to do.  And if the explanation were not pretty good, he would be in serious trouble. 

We really do need to know why Obama kept going back to this Church when it was so abundantly clear what kind of message he would hear.  Is it not possible that he liked that message?

Obama's Minister Of Hate, Part II

I previously wrote here about Barack Obama's "spiritual guide" (Obama's words) Jeremiah Wright. Check out the latest video of Rev. Wright:

What conclusions to draw? 
1. It appears that for Rev. Wright, white people are by their very whiteness his enemies.  Rev. Wright seems to have an essentially racialist view of the world.  This may explain Rev. Wright's friendliness towards Louis Farrakhan, a man who believes white people are the creation of the devil. 
2. I am not an expert in tax law, but if Rev. Wright's church is a tax exempt body, as most churches are, then he cannot advocate the election or defeat of a candidate for office.  He seems very close to doing that here. 
3. Does it not seem odd to say that Barack Obama is a poor, unprivileged man?  A man who went to Harvard as a legacy applicant and who now lives in a multi-million dollar mansion? 
4. We now know in part where Obama gets his demagoguery.  Rev. Wright makes little appeal here to anything other than anger, resentment, and pure emotion.  Obama's demagoguery goes down sweeter, but demagoguery it is. 

Along with his calls for God to damn America rather than bless her, Rev. Wright, who gave the title to Obama's book The Audaciousness of Hope, is a liability to the Obama campaign.  Obama has to cut ties with the Reverend, no matter how painful that is, or it becomes increasingly difficult to present himself as a uniter when his spiritual guide produces so much hate.

See Rod Dreher for more analysis.   

The Creature From the Black Lagoon Dies

Ben Chapman died at the age of 79.  He wore the extraordinary gill-man suit in the Creature from the Black Lagoon.  From the Economist:

THE monsters created by Universal Studios in the first half of the 20th century evolved in a backwards fashion. In the 1920s Homo erectus distorted himself a bit, and took to swinging round church towers or chandeliers as the Phantom of the Opera and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. A decade later his teeth and hair grew longer and his skin more chalky, preparatory to wallowing in human blood in “Dracula” and “Frankenstein”. The 1940s brought a coating of fur (“Wolfman”) or shrouds (“The Mummy”), the humanoid shape regressing to animal or worse. Then, in 1954, a beast who was half-man and half-fish dragged himself out of the sea.

That is better than average monster movie analysis.   There were a total of three movies man about the Gill-Man, as he was called in the movies: The Creature From the Black Lagoon; Revenge of the Creature, and The Creature Walks Among Us.   All three explored the connection between human beings and other predatory animals, without explicitly mentioning the theory evolution.  None of the movies is brilliant, but the first and second are quite good.  The real star of the show is the costume.  It cost a fortune to make, and it was unforgettable.

The creature was the basic celluloid monsters, after the Frankenstein Monster, Dracula, The Mummy, and the Wolf Man.  The Gill-Man never got near as much play on Halloween as the first four, in large part because he had very little personality.  Even the Wolf Man had Lawrence Talbot.  But the movies were a great contribution to monster lore.  Fare well, Mr. Chapman. 

 

From the Mailbag

Reader Darrin Holein writes in:

I take it from Badlands Blue that it is okay to go after someone personally that is running for Senate.  If that is true, cannot we as Republicans go after Johnson’s health? 

If Kirby’s wealth has something to do with his running for office than doesn’t Johnson’s health have something to do with his running for office?  I would argue that Johnson’s health is more serious to his running for office that Kirby’s wealth.

Why is it okay to go after Kirby’s wealth but don’t you dare talk about the wealth of Tom Daschle?  You could say that Kirby inherited his wealth and that he hasn’t worked for it.  So how is that different than Mrs. Daschle getting a great job as a lobbyist?   Both were given that position.  Don’t get me wrong Jason; I have no problem with Daschle’s or Kirby’s wealth.  Just don’t be hypocritical about it Democrats.

Geraldine Ferraro's Kinsley Gaffe

Professor Schaff's excellent post on the Spitzer resignation will suffice for that story.  Let me turn to the other moral drama of the internet day: the Ferraro resignation.  As I follow it, the story is this:

First, Ms. Ferraro was never a part of the Clinton Campaign. 

Second, she is resigning from the Clinton campaign for saying bad things about Barack Obama.

Third, what she said were true and there was nothing wrong with what she said. 

It reminds me of a Russian  joke.  A woman explains why she doesn't have to pay for her neighbor's tea pot.  First, I never borrowed the pot.  Second, when I borrowed it, it was already broken.  Third, when I gave it back, it was in perfect condition. 

Former Congressperson and second fiddle to Walter Mondale Geraldine Ferraro said this (USA Today):

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

There are four assertions there.  Numbers three and four are obviously true.  Number two is highly speculative.  Obama's masculinity is surely one of his assets, but nobody can say whether the right female candidate might not have made up for it.  A Black woman with Obama's intelligence and talent might well have been a more formidable candidate. 

It's number one that forced Ms. Ferraro to resign from a job she didn't have.  Again, it is subject to doubt, but it looks pretty solid.  Would a White Obama have been able to challenge Ms. Clinton?  No.  He would not have commanded the lion's share of the Black vote in so many key states, or forced the Clintons to alienate the Black demographic and so alienate many key Democrats.  Nor would he have attracted the White voters who, for various reasons, want to vote for a Black candidate.   That surely outweighs the voters who went for Ms. Clinton because she was not Black. 

Obama's race is an asset, and he has used it with admirable prudence. He didn't run as a Black candidate, and were it not for the characteristic nastiness of the Clintons, he might have run a largely race-neutral campaign.  That would have been very good for the country.  As it is, the Democratic races is now bogged down in identity politics.  But at the very least, Ms. Ferraro's first assertion was a plausible interpretation of the facts. 

She committed what has come to be known as a "Kinsley Gaffe."  That is when a political figure gets in trouble for blurting out the truth.  It is absurd that she should be forced to resign, even from a position she didn't exactly occupy. The politics of  political correctness is strangling public discourse.  There ought to be some limits on acceptable speech.  That is necessary for civil politics.  But the limits ought to be very broad, especially when it comes to a reasonable interpretation of the facts.  Senator Clinton should have supported her ally.  She could easily have disagreed while giving Ms. Ferraro's leave to express her own opinions. In the long run, it might have served her well.  But it would have required Senator Clinton to think about something other than her own immediate situation.  That is the last thing one would expect from a Clinton. 

Thank Goodness For Hypocrites

The travails of Elliot Spitzer (which now include his resignation) spur Roger Kimball to a consideration of the notion of hypocrisy.  He gives a limited defense of hypocrisy, noting at least the hypocrite defends decency, while not always being decent.  Our modern egalitarianism has little patience with hypocrisy, which is one reason why it holds hypocrisy up as one of the few remaining sins.  It is better to be an honest lout, it is sometimes argued, than a hypocritical nobleman. We value the "authenticity" of the unapologetic vulgarian over the struggle toward holiness of the saint. 

I find myself in large agreement with Mr. Kimball, although I can't help pointing out I made a similar argument almost three years ago.  But then my name is not Roger Kimball so no one really noticed. 

Kimball writes:

[H]ypocrisy is essentially an aristocratic failing. It extols "the best" even if the best is generally unattainable.

This indeed is one reason that hypocrisy, among all the vices, is regarded with particular disdain and horror by egaliatarians. A hypocrite publicly upholds noble values and standards of behavior even though he knows he may sometimes fall short of the conduct they require. He does this because he recognizes that those values are worthy of support and commendation even if he cannot always embody them.

La Rochefoucauld's observation that "hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue" will doubtless be trotted out early and often when in the case of Eliot Spitzer and the girls. It is a famous, though often misinterpreted, observation. The epigram has generally been presented as meaning--in the words of one journalist--that "the loudest moralizers may be most suspect." But I believe that La Rochefoucauld meant to suggest that hypocrisy was an implicit acknowledgment of the claims of virtue. Otherwise, why bother with dissimulation?

In his comments, Kimball presents an anecdote regarding German philosopher Max Scheler who apparently had a hard time living up to his own philosophy.  This puts one to mind of the introduction to C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain where he explains that he wanted the book published anonymously as all who knew him would easily realize that Lewis himself so poorly practiced that which he preached in the book.  Does this mean that Lewis has nothing to teach us about dealing with the reality of pain and suffering?  Surely not.  It simply proves that Lewis was a human being; flawed but striving for understanding. 

Kimball reminds us of a valuable lesson.  Defending a standard while not living up to it is unfortunate.  Not having any standards is worse. 

New SD Blog

The latest entrant to the South Dakota blogosphere is the South Dakota State Historical Society Press.  Be sure to visit often and spread the word!

Backpedaling on Kirby

SDWC:  "On Badlands Bleu (that’s a cheese joke, not a misspelling) , the Democrats are backpedaling as hard as they can on the Kirby affair. Despite previous braggadocio on knowing who was coming and going at the Kirby residence, and first-hand accounts of people out in front snapping photos, they’re actually trying to say 'well, can we be sure that we really did all of this?'"

It's A Put On?

Apparently playwright David Mamet has become a conservative.  The reasons for his move right ring true, essentially giving up an idealist view of the world for a tragic view.  But am I the only one who reads this piece and finds it a little too good to be true?  Mamet's conversion seems so thorough and his new found conservatism so conventional it sounds like, dare I say it, he's playing a part.  I mean, I like Thomas Sowell, but is Sowell really our "greatest contemporary philosopher" as Mamet claims? 

Mamet just got done writing a play in which two characters, a conservative and liberal, argue out their politics.  Could it be that Mamet, in a brilliant marketing ploy, is playing that conservative character in public?  Maybe.  And if not, Mr. Mamet, we appreciate your mugging by reality. 

When South Dakota Isn't South Dakota

Des Moines Register:

When Los Angeles-based filmmaker Bruce Isacson started scouting locations for his new movie, "South Dakota," he didn't go to Sioux Falls. Or Mount Rushmore. Or even rowdy Sturgis.

Nope, he headed for Earlham, Ia., the quiet little town 30 minutes west of Des Moines.

"After visiting Iowa, I decided it was the perfect South Dakota," he said. "It has everything I envisioned."

The West Coast writer and director, whose production team arrived last week to begin auditioning Iowans for supporting roles, was immediately charmed by Earlham's hospitality and wide-open landscapes during a visit last month.

Isacson is convinced it's the perfect setting for his story about a pair of high school lovebirds who wind up with a surprise pregnancy.

"It's that perfect Midwestern small town that Americans have fantasies about," said Isacson, who grew up in New York City.

But there's another reason he chose to film here: hefty tax incentives. Iowa leaders passed a law last May that offers 50 percent tax credits for films shot in Iowa with budgets of at least $100,000. Half of the credit amount helps producers recoup in-state expenses - hotel rooms, meals, rental vehicles - and the other half benefits the project's original investors.

"When we found out (about the incentives), we almost called twice to make sure," said the movie's production manager, Robert Gibson.

Those incentives make a big difference for the independent project's budget, which is between $2.5 million and $3 million, according to Gibson. The less they spend on taxes, the more they can pour into what audiences see on screen.

Why Criminalize Prostitution

The Elliot Spitzer story has generated some online discussion (for example) as to why we have laws against prostitution in the first place.  Lisa Schiffren has a nice summary as to why we criminalize prostitution, but there are a few related points to add. 

1. There should be a general consensus that the human body is not a thing to turn into a commodity.  Even if the entry into prostitution is consensual on the part of the woman, there are certain things to which we cannot justly consent.  Prostitution is a form of slavery, the only difference being you are renting a person instead of out right buying them.  As this story notes, the line between prostitution and conventional slavery is often very thin. 
2. It takes only the most modest powers of observation to note that most prostitutes are women servicing men.  Why that's the case is another question, but that it is the case is indisputable.  Prostitution lowers the status of women in our society be encouraging the notion that women exist merely for the gratification of male lust. 
3. Every time society weakens the connection between sexuality and marriage the family suffers.  While we do not need to criminalize every sexual act outside of marriage (and we'd be fools to try), because sex often leads to children and society should not be indifferent to the milieu in which children are raised, it should frown on the notion that sex is only an exchange of currency away. 
4. It cheapens the erotic portion of our soul that longs for completion to reduce it to a mere commodity. 

These are not the only reasons to criminalize prostitution, and perhaps no single one of them is a sufficient reason (although I think #1 is).  Most Americans would, all things being equal, prefer to simply let people live their lives and keep government intervention into our lives, particularly our sexual lives, to a minimum.  But taken as a whole, along with the reasons offered by Lisa Schiffren, we can see that this is a case when the good of society trumps individual choice. 

Another Vote For Condi Rice

Hendrik Hertzberg, writing in The New Yorker, makes a case for Condi Rice, whom I all but endorsed weeks ago. 

To deal first with the obvious: Rice may be “only” the second woman and the second African-American to be Secretary of State, but she is indisputably the highest-ranking black female official ever to have served in any branch of the United States government. Her nomination to a constitutional executive office would cost McCain the votes of his party’s hardened racists and incorrigible misogynists. They are surely fewer in number, though, than the people who would like to participate in breaking the glass ceiling of race or gender but, given the choice, would rather do so in a more timid way, and/or without abandoning their party. And with Rice on the ticket the Republicans could attack Clinton or Obama with far less restraint.

By choosing Rice, McCain would shackle himself anew to Bush’s Iraq war. But it’s hard to see how those chains could get much tighter than he has already made them. Rice would fit nicely into McCain’s view of the war as worth fighting but, until Donald Rumsfeld’s exit from the Pentagon, fought clumsily. And it would be fairly easy to establish a story line that would cast Rice as having been less Bush’s enabler than a loyal subordinate who nevertheless pushed gently from within for a more reasonable, more diplomatic approach.

Rice is already fourth in line for the Presidency, and getting bumped up three places would be a shorter leap than any of the three Presidential candidates propose to make. It’s true that her record in office has been one of failure, from downgrading terrorism as a priority before 9/11 to ignoring the Israel-Palestine problem until (almost certainly) too late. But this does not seem to have done much damage to her popularity. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll taken when opposition to the Iraq war was approaching its height, she enjoyed a “favorable-unfavorable” rating of nearly two to one. The conservative rank and file likes her. Though she once described herself as “mildly pro-choice,” she is agile enough to complete the journey to mildly pro-life. And she is a preacher’s daughter.

Choosing Rice would be a trick. Her failures would be buried in an avalanche of positive publicity for a personal story as yet only vaguely known to the broad public. (One of the little girls who died in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing was her playmate? We didn’t know that!) But the trick would not be an entirely cynical one. Her ascension, though nowhere near as momentous a breakthrough as the election of Obama or Clinton, would be a breakthrough all the same. In this connection, a kind word for George W. Bush may be in order. By appointing first Colin Powell and then Rice to the most senior job in the Cabinet, a job of global scope, Bush changed the way millions of white Americans think about black public officials. This may turn out to the most positive legacy of his benighted Presidency.

McGovern on Colbert

Here's the video of George McGovern's appearance on the Colbert Report last night:

Charles Stewart Parnell and Eliot Spitzer

It's a question that has to be asked in this modern age: why are adultery and the purchase of services from a prostitute by an elected official of any concern to the electorate?  Perhaps we should ask Parnell, the "uncrowned King of Ireland," a Protestant of English descent who came close to unifying Ireland in the late 19th century.  But it all came to naught when he unwisely allowed his adulterous affair with Kitty O'Shea to become public knowledge.  Or perhaps we should ask Bill Clinton, who wasted most of his second term as President covering up his own adulterous mischief.  Maybe adultery shouldn't matter in politics, but frequently it does.

As it happens, I heard about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's dilemma in the steam room at the local YMCA.  A acquaintance sitting next to me recounted the story with some satisfaction.  Spitzer was forced to come before cameras with his wife (that is now days standard procedure), and confess that he has been implicated in a Federal probe of a prostitution ring.  In fact, he was a member of the "Emperor's Club VIP."  Checking into the Mayflower Hotel, he enjoyed the services of at least one very high priced call girl.  My friend in the steam room was a bit gleeful because he is in the finance business, and Spitzer earned national fame by leading high profile prosecutions of "Wall Street gluttony."  My friend thought these prosecutions largely unjustified, and saw the story as a case of self-righteousness exposed. 

I have no strong feelings about Spitzer, though I had the same view of him as my friend did.  I am not particularly interested in or especially offended by the sexual escapades of politicians.  But adultery is a bad thing.  It is destructive of families.  And prostitution is illegal in most places.  Finally, for a Democrat and Governor of New York to be part of something called "The Emperor's Club VIP," is just plain stupid.  This is what corruption looks like. There seems to be some talk of Spitzer resigning. 

Last but not least, the price tag for this lady was upwards to $5,500.  This is a high price to pay for getting screwed. 

McGovern on the Colbert Report

Seth Tupper of the Mitchell Daily Republic has the goods on George McGovern appearing on the Colbert Report tonight.  He also has a video of Tom Daschle's recent appearance Jon Stewart's The Daily Show.

Jarding Promotes "body punching" of Kirby

Rapid City Journal:

On Monday, however, Kirby said the pre-campaign attack had an impact. So did comments on a pro-Johnson Web site that led Kirby to believe his Sioux Falls home was being monitored and possibly photographed.

“You don’t have to wonder whether people are driving by your home, because they’re telling you they are on blogs,” Kirby said. “It was so creepy that I had to ask myself, ‘OK, as a father and a husband should I be protecting my family here or should I run for the U.S. Senate.’” ...

Jarding said Kirby attracted a response from DSCC because he was making serious preparations to run. Kirby should have expected a ‘little bit of body punching.”

Spitzer Gets The Hook?

New York Democratic Governor Elliott Spitzer has been nabbed in a prostitution ring.  See The Smoking Gun for a rather...amusing headline. 

Tidewater Blue

Our blogging colleague Todd Epp has provided the equivalent of Badlands Blue -- Tidewater Blue:  "As a Democrat who has been to Virginia perhaps three or four times in his life, I believe I am well qualified to comment on Democratic politics and candidates in the Commonwealth of Virginia."

Well Played, Team Johnson!

Steve Kirby has decided not to run for U.S. Senate.  Pat Powers has the goods on Badlands Blue gloating over its intimidation of Kirby and his family as one reason why Kirby choose not to run. Badlands Blue apparently took down the post, but not before Mr. Powers had captured a copy of it.  Remember that Badlands Blue is the official website of the South Dakota Democratic Party and run by Lowell Feld, who is paid by Tim Johnson's campaign manager Steve Jarding.  In that sense Badlands Blue is a wing of the Johnson campaign.  Feld hired people to stalk Kirby and his family, which apparently played a large role in Kirby's decision not to run. 

Lowell Feld, a Virginia-based blogger who runs BadlandsBlue.com, a Web site paid for and authorized by the South Dakota Democratic Party, posted a list of winners and losers following Kirby’s announcement. Among the losers were “People who attacked the Johnson campaign team (and the DSCC) for its tactics in keeping Kirby out of the race. Guess what? They worked!”

Kirby said the attacks gave him and his family pause. Kirby has a high school aged daughter who lives at home. Two weeks ago, BadlandsBlue identified a mobile dog grooming service that had been at the Kirby household. That incident, combined with what Kirby thought was somebody photographing his home from the back of a moving car, played a role in his decision, he said.

Last week I was told that Kirby had decided to run but was having second thoughts because his family was "freaking out" over the fact that the Johnson campaign was stalking them.  Lowell Feld may have deleted his post, but one suspects that post betrays the real feelings of Feld, Jarding and Tim Johnson: they are gleeful that their tactic of intimidating Steve Kirby's family has paid off so handsomely. 

They have reason to be so happy.  It doesn't really matter that some South Dakota Democrats are angered at these tactics and that they are being pursued by a guy, Lowell Feld, who admits that he's only been to South Dakota once. In about two days the South Dakota media will forget this incident and away down the memory hole it will go.  The Johnson campaign stalked and successfully scared the wife and children of Johnson's best funded competitor so now Johnson can have a fairly easy road to re-election. Well played, Johnson team.

I recall seeing a video of Fred Thompson in a debate with Jim Cooper during the 1994 race for Senate in Tennessee.  Thompson said something like, "I'd rather lose an election than lose my honor."  I guess not everyone shares that view. 

Make That Plural: South Dakotans at Iwo Jima

I've gotten a couple of emails on my post about Sgt. Jack Thurman and Iwo Jima.  John Andrews writes in:

This is John Andrews at South Dakota Magazine. Thanks for the mention on South Dakota Politics. I thought I would pass this bit of info on to you. A couple of days ago I got a call from a gentleman who told me there is another South Dakotan in that picture. His name is Grady Dyce, originally from Chamberlain. I think he's the guy to the left of the flag with his left leg bent and his gun in the air (although I can't be sure -- I'd have to check in the book). I suggested the caller write a letter to the editor pointing that out, so hopefully he does. If so, we'll run it in the May/June issue.

A subsequent email from Mr. Andrews says the gentleman he speaks of wrote a letter to the editor that will be published in the May/June Mailbox.  Also, Cliff Hadley writes:

My father, a Marine radioman in the 4th Division, is also in that photo.  He's just over the shoulder of the last man at the right, two miles behind him on the far side of the island. 

I went to Iwo Jima in 2005 for the 60th anniversary of the battle, and wrote of that trip in the Memorial Day weekend edition of the Mitchell Daily Republic. Another writer wrote about Mr. Thurman in the same issue.

Here is a copy (PDF alert) of Mr. Hadley's article from the Mitchell Daily Republic that he passed along to me.

Argus Leader Quote of the Week

From the Argus Leader:

Sen. Tim Johnson didn't particularly extend a towel to Steve Kirby after his campaign manager slung mud at the Sioux Falls businessman before Kirby had even announced a challenge to Johnson for his U.S. Senate seat. Said Johnson of the fundraising letter Steve Jarding sent that trumpeted - repeatedly - Kirby's wealth and questioned his empathy for the less fortunate in the nation: "It's fair game to mention a millionaire might be running against me. It's typical. It's a way to get donors all fired up."

Senator Clinton's Untenable Situation

Dick Morris points out in Real Clear Politics that, despite the smashing victories in Ohio and Texas, it is still over for Hillary. 

Obama will go to the Democratic Convention with a lead of between 100 and 200 elected delegates. The remaining question is: What will the superdelegates do then? But is that really a question? Will the leaders of the Democratic Party be complicit in its destruction? Will they really kindle a civil war by denying the nomination to the man who won the most elected delegates? No way. They well understand that to do so would be to throw away the party’s chances of victory and to stigmatize it among African-Americans and young people for the rest of their lives. The Democratic Party took 20 years to recover from the traumas of 1968 and it is not about to trigger a similar bloodletting this year.

That is the way it looks to me, too.  The only thing that would change that is if Senator Clinton can somehow destroy Senator Obama as a candidate.  Johnathan Chait lays that out at the New Republic.  But he argues that, even if it works (and I think it would be quite a hat trick), it would destroy Ms. Clinton's chances in November.

Clinton's path to the nomination, then, involves the following steps: kneecap an eloquent, inspiring, reform-minded young leader who happens to be the first serious African American presidential candidate (meanwhile cementing her own reputation for Nixonian ruthlessness) and then win a contested convention by persuading party elites to override the results at the polls. The plan may also involve trying to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations, after having explicitly agreed that the results would not count toward delegate totals. Oh, and her campaign has periodically hinted that some of Obama's elected delegates might break off and support her. I don't think she'd be in a position to defeat Hitler's dog in November, let alone a popular war hero.

Both Morris and Chait agree that Senator Clinton cannot be elected President at this point, and that her remaining in the race is a terrible threat to the Democratic Party.  I am sure that, as long as she thinks there is a ghost of a chance of winning, there is nothing to which Ms. Clinton would not stoop to seize the prize.  But I also expect that, at some point over the next several weeks, it will become clear even to the Clinton's that their dream is not going to be realized.  Then she will concede. 

I admit to some feelings of elation at the thought that Clinton and Obama would burn their own party to the ground rather than give in.  But while that might very well be good for the ambitions of John McCain, it would be bad for the Republic.  Let us hope it does not come to that. 

Hillary Clinton: May I Have More Power Please?

This website has certainly spent its share of time dishing it out against Barack Obama.  How about Sen. Clinton?  The argument against Hillary Clinton for president is summed up in this conversation between Hugh Hewitt and Christopher Hitchens on Hewitt's radio show:

HH: 20 seconds, who’s going to be the next president of the United States?

CH: Hillary Clinton. 

HH: Oh…because of yesterday?

CH: No, no, I’ve feared it for a long time, and there’s something horrible and undefeatable about people who have no life except the worship of power.

HH: The Mummy is back.

CH: …people who don’t want the meeting to end, the people who just are unstoppable, who only have one focus, no humanity, no character, nothing but the worship of money and power. They win in the end.

This comment struck me as I have been in more than my share of meetings lately.  Perhaps you know these people, too.  People who absolutely love meetings, with the arguments, the sense of distinction that comes with hanging out with important people and making decisions, the almost giddy feeling they get when something goes wrong because now a there is a problem to be solved.  A smart administrator once told me to beware of administrators who actually like it when something bad happens because that makes them look important. 

The Clinton's strike me as having these pathologies.  I recall Bill Clinton lamenting once that there was no big catastrophe during his presidency that could have raised his legacy.  Apparently the Oklahoma City bombing wasn't big enough.  Hillary Clinton absolutely loves power and what it gets her: the warm feeling of being more important than other people and being able to tell them what to do.  To be sure, this is out of pure condescension.  Sen. Clinton is so smart and so compassionate we'd be fools not to let her tell us what to do. 

Hillary Clinton seeks the presidency out of a sense of entitlement.  Others seek the presidency out of a sense of duty.

 

SDP Jazz Note: Miles, Shorter, Hancock, 1967

Here is a nice clip from 1967, featuring Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter on bass, and Tony Williams on drums. The venue is in Stockholm.  The Quintet is interpreting Thelonious Monk's Round Midnight.  But it is only during Miles' opening solo that you can detect that lovely melody, and even then he plays so coyly around it that, well, you have to know what you are supposed to be hearing.  All of the solos are elegant and interesting, but I am not sure that this really has much to do with Round Midnight. 

I think that hard bop jazz, between the mid fifties and mid sixties, was clearly the center of genius in twentieth century music.  This clip represents the end of that fertile period.  Still, it's wonderful to watch my hero, Wayne Shorter, doing what Miles told him to do.  Jazz more or less died when the Beatles came on the scene, and only came back to life later.  This clip shows us how much genius and how much confusion was present just before the eclipse. 

Letting the Hot Air Out of Global Warming Gospel

I have written before about the "Gore Effect," that little understood phenomenon which seem to occur wherever Al Gore showed up to preach on Global Warming: temperatures at the venue seemed always to plunge to record lows.  Up until now, the Gore Effect seemed to be a local phenomenon, but since Gore won his prize, we have seen the coldest year in about a century.  From the British Telegraph:

Last week, virtually unreported in Britain, the extraordinary     winter weather of 2008 elsewhere in the world continued. In the USA,     there were blizzards as far south as Texas and Arkansas, while in     northern states and Canada what they are calling "the winter     from hell" has continued to break records going back in some     cases to 1873. Meanwhile in Asia more details emerged of the     catastrophe caused by the northern hemisphere's greatest snow     cover since 1966.

In Afghanistan, where they have lost 300,000 cattle, the human     death toll has risen above 1,500. In China, the havoc created by     what its media call "the Winter Snow Disaster" has     continued, not least in Tibet, where six months of snow and record     low temperatures have killed 500,000 animals, leaving 3 million     people on the edge of starvation.

Honey, it's cold outside!  Does this mean that Global Warming is finished?  No.  That, surprisingly enough, is one of the conclusions dominant at the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change.  We are constantly told by the mainstream media that no legitimate scientist doubts the global warming gospel, but in early March 500 delegates, including 200 experts in relevant fields, showed up in New York to commit heresy. The consensus that drew them to this venue was that the global warming gospel that Gore preaches and that world governments have embraced is, at best, hysterical. 

This does not mean that the delegates to the ICCC all think that global warming isn't happening, or that it isn't related to human activity.  Some question either the one or the other, but I don't think that was the dominant view.  My friend Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason Magazine, was there. Ron summarizes the words of the keynote speaker, University of Virginia Climatologist Patrick Michaels.

Michaels pointed out that the surface records show average global temperatures increasing at a steady rate of +0.17 degrees centigrade per decade since 1977. He also hastened to put the kibosh on recent assertions that "global warming stopped in 1998." While global average temperatures have been essentially flat since 1998, Michaels argued that natural variations in the climate mask any increases due to greenhouse gases. In particular, cooler waters in the Pacific ("La Nina") and lower solar activity have conspired to drop average global temperatures. When these trends reverse, average global temperatures will rapidly rise to reveal the established long term man-made warming trend of +0.17 degrees centigrade per decade.

So, global warming looks real to this climatologist, and he thinks we can expect it to continue.  So how does this differ from the global warming gospel?  The gospel tells us that we are headed for an environmental apocalypse, and that only if we (meaning we in the United States) confess our sins and correct them can we avoid that apocalypse.  The ICCC sins against the gospel by stating things that are obviously true.

One is that the pace of global warming is in fact similar to the natural course of things to which human beings and other creatures have been adjusting for the whole of our mutual histories.  It has been a lot warming in the recent past than it is now, and all the species that currently exists weathered those warmer periods.  The 0.17 degree increase per decade means about two degrees centigrade warming over the next century.  That will have consequences, but there is no reason to suppose that they will not be manageable. 

Two other obvious truths are that there is nothing we can do to stop global warming, and that anything we might try would be bad.  We just aren't going to reduce greenhouse emissions over the foreseeable future.  The U.S. is not going to cut its own throat, economically speaking, to save the planet.  Much less are China and India going to strangle their own economic growth.  Meanwhile, virtually all the proposals for curbing global warming would be useless and would have very bad consequences. 

Michaels worries that regulatory responses that aim to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions now will slow economic growth and technological progress, making future generations poorer and less able to address the challenges of man-made climate change.

The only way out of the problems created by modern civilization is further technological and economic advance.  One day we will bring these forces under control.  In the meantime we can use new technologies to adjust to climate change.  But it will go this way only if we don't kill the progressive goose that lays the golden eggs. 

You can find the rest of Bailey's dispatches here and here. 

 

No Mo' in the Democratic Race: Obama Wins Wyoming

One thing that is unusual about the 2008 presidential race: no one seems to be able to build up any momentum, at least on the Democratic side.  McCain did finally neutralize Mike Huckabee, shutting him out on March 4th, but that was only after it became clear that Huckabee could not catch up.  By contrast, Obama's win in 11 straight contests didn't stop Hillary from winning three out of four on that same day.  Nor did Hillary's big win stop Senator Obama from trouncing her in the Wyoming caucus, held today.  Obama won 61% of the vote, to Hillary's 38%.  The revolution may not be televised, but it is apparently federalized.  Each state seems to be acting as if the others did not exist.