TEN JACK TEN

I knew two things about Obama’s pick for a running mate before he made it: it would be a white guy and it would be a disappointment.

Obama’s pick of Joe Biden fits both of those criteria.  Biden is the biggest horse’s ass that I’ve ever seen taken seriously as a presidential candidate.  And yes, I’m including Ross Perot. Biden is smug, arrogant, condescending, insincere, and has a pathological need to appear smarter than he actually is.  Which is not much above average.  This guarantees that he’ll be a constant source of embarrassment for the campaign. And that the story will be about Biden, not Obama.

Obama betrayed his lack of campaign confidence with the pick.  Biden’s an old-guard lefty straight out of the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do school of thought.  Biden won’t help him carry a single significant state.  Obama must have thought he was weak with the old-line Dems.

Obama passed up an opportunity to make a bold choice and instead picked a hack blowhard Senator with a track record of failure on the national stage.  Who is he trying to win over with this pick?  The new, young voters excited by his candidacy?  Or the Clinton voters who handed him primary loss after primary loss at the end of the homestretch?  We know how well pro sports teams do when they go into the playoffs on a losing streak.

Obama has to know his shelf life is expiring.  The pool of young voters that were literally swooning over him is eroding thanks to their pitiful attention spans –especially with the emotional peak of the primary win making a good jumping-off point.  The media wants him elected so much that the country’s contrary streak is kicking in. And he’s a terrible public speaker without a teleprompter. His honeymoon period is over, and he’s got to show he knows something, anything, about the way the country should be run. And all he’s got is the same old Democrat/Santa Claus agenda: presents for you, bought by someone else.

I thought it was Obama’s race to lose, but he doesn’t seem to have a lot of momentum going into the stretch.

-  I heard the phrase the other day that “Democrats fall in love, and Republicans fall in line.”  That pretty much explains McCain, Obama, B. Clinton, Dole, G.H.W. Bush, and Carter.  It also means there’s going to be a lot of pissed-off Democrats if Obama doesn’t get the nomination.  It’s not business, it’s personal.

-  Huckabee’s out, but he’s been a non-issue for longer than that.  I think he’s really been running VP or setting himself up for 2012 or 2016.  Or maybe he really likes to be on TV.  The SNL appearance was funny, but it was funny at his expense.

-  We’re not used to having Texas matter.  This year, the Democratic primary brought out voters like Christmas services bring out marginal Christians.  In my polling place, the early voting line was over 100 persons long last Friday, the last day for early voting.  On Tuesday, there were separate lines and voting machines for Democrats and Republicans, and the Democrat line was over 20 long, while the Republican line was open for walk-up service.

-  Was the press really shamed into asking tougher questions by the SNL skit that had the press kissing up to Obama?  If so, they’re damn shallow.

-  I’m at a total loss as to why everyone seems to be amazed by Obama’s speaking style.  He takes a long time to not say very much, and what he says shows a grade-school level of polictical thinking.  Pretty much it’s “government should do nice things for everybody” as a platform.  (Then again, who would get elected on the “geez, people, we can’t afford to pay for all your crap” platform?)  He’s got to be smarter than that, so it comes off as condescending.

- Boom — in one week, we lose Giuliani, Edwards, and Thompson. Since Ron Paul is no more than a statistical curiosity and Huckabee was an Iowa one-shot, it’s now down to Clinton-Obama and McCain-Romney.

- McCain has won it on the Republican side, of course. The Republicans are well known to fall in line behind a clear favorite and there’s the added plus of it being “his turn.” That’s what got the respectable (but clearly an awful candidate) Bob Dole the nomination back in 1996. Expect the talk to turn to who McCain’s running mate will be. Since Giuliani’s endorsing McCain within 24 hours of dropping out, let’s assume he’d like to be considered.

- How interesting that white old-school Democrats are endorsing Obama, but most of the black ones are sticking with Clinton. Loyalty to the machine above all . . .

Nobody’s winning the race yet because nobody deserves to yet. Eventually, someone will have to get picked, so a valid strategy is to be the one not losing the most at the end of the selection process. As they say, you don’t have to be faster than the bear, you just have to be faster than the other guy.

- Mike Huckabee

I’ve finally figured out who Huckabee reminds me of: 24’s President Logan. I’m not saying he’s out to get Agent Bauer, but he strikes me as dumb enough to find himself in a situation where he’s got no choice but to eliminate him.

For all his personal charm and TV presence, the guy’s a buffet of things to dislike, just pick a few. Tax raiser, illegal immigrant sympathizer, paroler of violent criminals, or government Christianizer, take your pick. I don’t think he’s going all the way, but then I picked the Packers over the Giants.

- John McCain

McCain has ridden the “don’t question me, I was a prisoner of war” wave all the way to the shore, paddled back out, and rode it back a few more times. Maybe it works again, maybe it doesn’t.

The trouble with McCain is that he’s a prick. Worse, he’s a prick to the people who are supposed to be on his side. That makes him the darling of the press, who share his belief that conservatives are shitheads. But, they’re shitheads with long memories, and he’s carrying a lot of baggage into the big primaries: support for amnesty for illegal aliens, hostility for the first amendment as it relates to criticizing politicians, enthusiasm for changing the economy to suit the cult of global warming, and backroom deals on judges. His years of self-serving political angling are a classic example of why senators are bad presidential candidates.

- Mitt Romney

He doesn’t look like a candidate as much as a CEO. He’s obviously a privileged rich guy and he speaks in focus-group-tested buzzwords. Which would be great if CEOs were the universally beloved group they think they are. He’s slick, professional, and polished. Good for him, but he offers absolutely no reason for anyone to emotionally bond with him.

And then there’s the Mormon thing. I think everyone’s underestimating the visceral mistrust southern Christians have for Mormons. The press seems to think they’re out of line for disliking the Mormons’ claim that they too are Christians. If you have a hard time understanding why the Baptists, etc, have a problem, let me give you this completely non-religious example.

Let’s say you have an imaginary friend. This is a friend you’ve spent a lot of time with, and you know a lot of very specific things about him. You love him, and he loves you. And then I come along and say I can talk to him, too, and your imaginary friend has told me a lot of Very Important Things he hasn’t told you. Oh, and your imaginary friend likes me better than you. He told me. What the hell are you upset about?

- Rudy Giuliani

Because I’ve described various candidates as having baggage, let me be clear that Rudy’s dwarfs them all. An extramarital affair IN OFFICE followed be a messy, ugly divorce and remarriage to the mistress. His own kids won’t support him.

So why even consider him? Like McCain, he’s a prick, but he’s a prick to the right people. You can expect Giuliani to be completely unsentimental about identifying, questioning, surveilling, and if necessary, killing the nation’s enemies. I would expect nothing less from a former mob prosecutor. However, social conservatives should be wary because it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t care at all about moral issues.

- Fred Thompson

I think Fred’s been pretty honest about not operating with a burning desire to be president. Which is odd, since he really went to a lot of effort to disengage from his acting career to be able to get into the election. He’s been so damn nice to his competitors in the primaries I’m wondering if he’s really running for vice-president.

He’s probably the most conservative of the bunch, and the candidate that seems the least interested in “fixing” everything in sight. If you think the biggest favor the government can do for you is leave you alone, that has a certain amount of appeal. But that’s hardly a campaign slogan, is it?

I suppose it’s time to pay attention to these guys, as much as I’d like to hit the political fast forward button. At the request of absolutely no one, here’s my take on the candidates. Republicans next.

- John Edwards

The amazingly rich trial lawyer has decided to keep running as a populist, eternally concerned about the little guy. Unless of course the little guys want to live next door to his mansion.

This strategy might work if Edwards wasn’t one of the biggest phonies politics has ever seen. This is a guy who couldn’t even deliver the state where he served as a senator as Kerry’s running mate in 2004. He’s still technically a serious candidate, but that’s just because the kooks and VP hopefuls have decided to stop wasting their money and time. He’s getting almost no discussion time anymore. And he’s sent his wife out to do battle for him too many times for it to work anymore.

- Hillary Clinton

It’s hard to think that anyone so widely and deeply disliked could actually have a chance at the presidency. She seems to remind everyone of a bad experience with someone they had no choice but to deal with, like an ex-wife or an ex-boss.

She’s running on her years and years of experience. But those years and years were spent exploiting political connections for money, rather than helping anyone other then herself. But she’s also trying to ride an undercurrent of victimhood, what with the shamelessly cheating husband and the crying about how frustrating it is that we aren’t all obeying her will yet. Good luck with that.

- Barack Obama

He was Barry back when he wasn’t trying to be exotic. He reminds me of that guy who worked down the hall from you, never talked much, but always managed to give you the impression he regarded himself as occupying a higher level than you. Then he quit for (presumably) a better job. Or maybe to take some time to write yet another autobiography.

The strategy right now is to keep pumping out the platitudes and stay vague. As long as he’s a cipher, he can be the screen that everyone can project their desires onto. Once he gets specific, he’ll be exposed as just another guy who wants the government to get bigger. He’ll win if he can stall everyone through Election Day.

Jonah Goldberg: 

Liberals used to be the ones who argued that sending U.S. troops abroad was a small price to pay to stop genocide; now they argue that genocide is a small price to pay to bring U.S. troops home.

Guess what this woman did:

“I was accused several times of being a ‘stupid, redneck bitch,’” recalls TCPR’s vice president Nicole Williams, who fielded numerous calls. “I repeatedly was called a ‘whore’ and asked ‘Whose whore are you?’ for three days straight, almost as if those were talking points… I was shocked by these sexist insults — basically attacking my gender.”

The calls continued beyond Williams’s Nashville office.

“I had to change my home number and get an unlisted number,” Williams tells me. “I got about 10 death threats by phone that made an impression on me. I got the ‘I’m gonna get you’-type threats more than 100 times…I was worried that I would get shot walking to my car.” Williams discovered her obsolete address posted online. “If they could find my old home address, it would not be so hard to find a current one.”

Give up? The Tennessee Center for Policy Research (TCPR) pointed out that Al Gore’s Nashville estate “devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours” of electricity in 2006, “more than 20 times the national average.” Follow the link for more venom.

Thought one: I’m sure every one of those hate-spewing nuts felt completely justified in doing what they did, and believed they advanced the interests of all they regard as “good” with their actions.

Thought two: Who the heck has time to sit around and send hate mail and do telephone harassment?

From Suzanne Fields’ column via Townhall.com:

. . . researchers asked 96 volunteers to read a transcript of a fictitious mugging case, look at a photograph of the defendant, and render a verdict. All the mock jurors got the same transcript, but half got a photograph of an “ugly” defendant and half a photograph of an “attractive” defendant. Jurors who voted “guilty” were asked to pass sentence. More jurors voted to acquit the attractive defendant than the ugly one, and even when guilty, the attractive defendant got a lighter sentence.  

LINK

There needs to be a word that expresses the degree of stupidity involved in a situation, similar to the way “speed” expresses the rapidity of movement. I ran across the word “dumbth” in a Steve Allen book years ago, and it seems to fit. It’s also pleasantly awkward, making the very act of saying it an expression of its essence.

Why do we need a word like “dumbth”? To describe cities like the District of Columbia. As described in this Washington Times story, the city (1) writes its own police officers tickets when the city’s automated camera system records them speeding and running red lights on emergency calls and (2) makes the process of dismissing these tickets cumbersome and time-consuming. Other jurisdictions with automated systems don’t make their officers go to court over on-duty camera records.

The District has installed 49 red-light cameras and 10 speed cameras that take photographs of offenders’ license plates and issue tickets that are sent through the mail. Twelve patrol cars are equipped with similar automated cameras. Mr. Baumann said officers are captured by the cameras as many as 10 to 15 times a day. His union represents the Metropolitan Police Department’s 3,400 officers, sergeants and detectives.

D.C. police Capt. Melvin Gresham said while officers sometimes get tickets while responding to a legitimate emergency, the cases are dismissed. He also said he hasn’t received any complaints from officers about the tickets. “We have had individual instances where officers on legitimate calls for emergency services were captured by photo red-light cameras, and as long as they can justify their actions, then more than likely the infraction will be dismissed,” he said.

Still, officers must spend a considerable amount of time dealing with them, and there have been instances where officers have paid their tickets to avoid the hassle, Mr. Baumann said. Officers must deal with the tickets either by mail or through court. When trying to get the ticket dismissed by mail, an officer must write a letter saying that he or she was on duty at the time and obtain a letter from a commander, as well as get radio logs and other data that would prove they were responding to a legitimate emergency. But some get called to court, where they must explain where they were and what they were doing at the time the cameras captured their vehicle.

“These are man hours that could be spent actually doing police work,” Mr. Baumann said.

LINK

As linked on the Drudge Report, the University of Minnesota is considering giving Al Gore an honorary doctorate in climatology:

University spokesperson Daniel Wolter said since Gore is an expert in the subject, several colleges at the University have expressed interest in inviting Gore to speak on campus. “He’s in the news and is a legitimate expert on a pressing issue of global concern, climate change, so this level of interest is understandable,” Wolter said.

An “expert,” eh? If this is an expert, we’re going to need a new word that indicates someone has extensive personal knowledge of a subject area. Heaven forbid he starts running around demanding his “credentials” be cited everywhere like Bill Cosby did for a while.

This is a guy who either flunked out or dropped out of law school and seminary school. This is a guy claiming that the oceans might rise 20 feet when even the most alarmist of actual scientists use a figure of about 18 inches. This is the ultimate product of a culture that holds Congressional hearings on agriculture and takes testimony from actors who appeared in movies about farms.

This is a guy working an angle — the moral equivalent of the people selling TrimSpa. And if we as a nation encourage him, we’ll only get more hucksters marketing the next doomsday.

LINK

EDIT: An article by former Delaware governor Pete DuPont addresses the available data.

From NBC 4 in Washington DC:

Marion Barry said that he is talking to his lawyers and thinking about suing the D.C. government and the U.S. Park Police after he was stopped, arrested and then released this past Saturday. Barry said that he was driving to a holiday party around 4:30 p.m. Saturday when U.S. Park Police officers, who said that he was driving too slowly, stopped him.

Barry said the officers asked him for his license and registration and then said that his license was suspended. Barry told NBC4 the suspension was a clerical mistake, and he accused the U.S. Park police of racial profiling. Park Police said Barry’s license was in fact suspended, and that’s why he was arrested.

LINK

But that’s not the great part.  Follow the link and you’ll get this list of Barry’s hijinks of the last year or so:

November 14, 2006: Barry Pleads Not Guilty To DUI
September 11, 2006: Marion Barry Detained By Police
August 7, 2006: Barry Facing More Legal Woes
May 12, 2006: Police: Former Mayor Fails Field Sobriety Test
March 9, 2006: Marion Barry Sentenced On Tax Charges
February 27, 2006: Barry Shows Off Gasifier Machine
February 8, 2006: Federal Judge Postpones Barry Sentencing
February 7, 2006: Marion Barry Heads Back To Court
January 11, 2006: Marion Barry Fails Drug Test
January 3, 2006: Marion Barry Robbed At Gunpoint
October 28, 2005: Marion Barry Pleads Guilty To Tax Charges
October 5, 2005: Mayor Offers Words Of Support For Barry
October 4, 2005: Barry To Plead Guilty For Failing To File Tax Returns

What the hell is a Gasifier Machine?

From the Washington Post: 

The wait before a notable person who has died can be honored on a U.S. postage stamp is being cut to five years, half what it has been.

Postmaster General John E. Potter recently announced the change at a meeting of the postal governing board. “For more than three decades we have had a rule requiring notable Americans be deceased 10 years before they could be recognized for commemoration on a postage stamp. We created this rule to make certain their legacy stood the test of time,” he said. 

* * *

The change will take effect Jan. 1. It does not affect the rules for presidents, who are commemorated on a stamp on their first birthday after their death.

LINK

Judith Regan pays the price for insensitivity and bad taste.

O.J. Simpson’s would-be publisher, Judith Regan, was fired Friday, her sensational, scandalous tenure at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. ending with the tersest of announcements.

“Judith Regan’s employment with HarperCollins has been terminated effective immediately,” HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman said in a statement. “The REGAN publishing program and staff will continue as part of the HarperCollins General Books Group.”

LINK

I can’t resist a good slam piece, and Mr. Will sent one out today on Virgina’s new senator, Jim Webb.  I’d already had my suspicions from a distance that he was a sanctimonious jerk, but Mr. Will nails him before he can even take the oath of office.

When — if ever — Webb grows weary of admiring his new grandeur as a “leader” who carefully calibrates the “symbolic things” he does to convey messages, he might consider this: In a republic, people decline to be led by leaders who are insufferably full of themselves.

LINK

Fox cancels the TV special, HarperCollins cancels the book.  I’m sure OJ can find an alternative outlet for his hypothetical scenario, however.

Maybe it’s just a ploy to lure the real killer out of hiding.

LINK