TEST ENTRY (02:35PM)

TEST ENTRY

Barack Obama, Socialist? Part II (11:43AM)

We wrote here about Barack Obama's ties to the New Party during the 1990s. The New Party was a far-left organization founded by members of the Democratic Socialists of America and other extremists. It not only endorsed Obama in his 1996 state Senate race, but, when Obama won, wrote that he was an "NP member." To my knowledge, no mainstream reporter or news outlet has asked Obama whether he was, as the New Party wrote, a member of that organization, or whether he subscribed to the New Party's far left--it's fair to say "socialist"--platform.

Some Obama supporters have denied that he was in fact a New Party member, although I don't think Obama himself has commented. Now a New Zealand web site called New Zeal has dug up a wealth of information on the New Party, including a second claim by the New Party that Obama was a member. This is from the Spring 1996 edition of New Party News:

New Party members won three other primaries this Spring in Chicago: Barack Obama (State Senate), Michael Chandler (Democratic Party Committee) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary)..."these victories prove that small 'd' democracy can work" said Obama.

This photo was on the front page of that issue of New Party News:

The photo's caption can be construed as creating ambiguity about whether Obama was a Party member or only an endorsed candidate:

Winners! NP-endorsed candidates Patricia Martin (far left), Danny Davis (center), and Barack Obama (far right), celebrate with Chicago New Party members Ted Thomas and Ruth Schools after their victories in the Democratic primary last month.

Taken together, the evidence strongly suggests that Barack Obama was a member of the New Party in the 1990s. At a bare minimum, he was endorsed by the New Party, worked with New Party members and attended New Party events. Given the radicalism of the New Party's program, it is hard to understand how any interviewer could fail to ask Obama about his association with the group.

The "troopergate" report -- thin gruel (10:11AM)

I've read the Alaska "Troopergate" report. Its analysis is quite thin and its key findings (the ones relating to Governor Palin) are not convincing.

The two key findings are:

* Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) provides: The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.

*Although Walt Monegan’s refusal to fire Trooper Michael Wooten was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a contributing factor to his termination as Commissioner of Public Safety. In spite of that, Governor Palin’s firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads.

Let's start with the second finding. Here the author is saying that Palin probably had "mixed motives" for firing Commissioner Monegan, some having nothing to do with Trooper Wooten. As I suggested last night, mixed motive cases are very tricky because the finder of fact must, in effect, enter the mind of the decisionmaker and try to figure out how she weighed a mixture of considerations. Careful analysis obviously is required.

Unfortunately, the author of this report offers essentially zero analysis. He is content to state that his finding is based on "the entire record." He does not bother to explain how that record led to his conclusion.

The first finding contains a bit more analysis, but it ultimately raises more questions than it answers. The statutory provision in question is violated only if a public officer engages in official action to benefit a personal or financial interest. Moreover, as the report acknowledges, the violation must be "knowing."

Here, the report does not find that Gov. Palin herself attempted to get Trooper Wooen fired, although it asserts that there is some evidence of this. Rather, the author bases his conclusion on the activity of Todd Palin and on Sarah Palin's "inaction," namely her failure to stop her husband.

Now it is apparently true that "inaction" by a public figure can amount to "official action" under the Alaska statute. However, since a violation must be "knowing," Gov. Palin can only have violated the statute if she knew that her husband was placing impermissible pressure on state employees to have Wooten fired (or disciplined more harshly than he was).

The report asserts that Gov. Palin "knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was applied. . .to get [Wooten] fired." But evidence that she knew Todd Palin was placing impermissble pressure (if he was) is not set forth.

It is also not entirely clear (at least to me) that the efforts of Gov. Palin and/or her husband were intended to gain a personal benefit. Wooten seems to have been a genuine menace. Among other things, he tasered his young stepson and apparently had quite a drinking problem. If a governor concludes that a state trooper is a miscreant, the governor should have the ability to discuss that trooper. The report does not convincingly show that the Palins were driven by the desire to obtain a personal benefit, as opposed to the desire to rid the police force of a bad apple about whom they had personal knowledge. However, Todd Palin's persistence suggests that, at a minimum, there probably was a personal agenda in the mix.

In the end, it seems to me that Gov. Palin did not exercise particularly good judgment in this matter. But the case that she abused her power by violating the ethics statute and/or that she fired the public safety commissioner because he wouldn't act against Wooten has not been made.

Nonetheless, the weakly reasoned "Troopergate" report may well represent another nail in the McCain-Palin coffin.

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"The Coming Obama Thugocracy" (09:05AM)

That's the title of Michael Barone's warning against the peril to free speech that an Obama Presidency will pose. Barone cites a number of examples of Obama's and liberals' efforts to suppress the First Amendment rights of those who disagree with them, and concludes:

Today's liberals seem to be taking their marching orders from other quarters. Specifically, from the college and university campuses where administrators, armed with speech codes, have for years been disciplining and subjecting to sensitivity training any students who dare to utter thoughts that liberals find offensive. The campuses that used to pride themselves as zones of free expression are now the least free part of our society.

Obama supporters who found the campuses congenial and Obama himself, who has chosen to live all his adult life in university communities, seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech that they don't like and seem utterly oblivious to claims that this violates the letter and spirit of the First Amendment. In this campaign, we have seen the coming of the Obama thugocracy, suppressing free speech, and we may see its flourishing in the four or eight years ahead.

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For a Dancer (08:13AM)

Singer/songwriter Jackson Browne turned 60 this past Thursday. If you were listening to popular music in the 1970's, you are familiar with his music in one way or another. Already writing songs as a teenager, he started out (briefly) with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in California in the mid-1960s. He headed out to make a name for himself in Greenwich Village, supporting Tim Buckley and teaming up with the mysterious Nico, who recorded three of his songs.

Tom Rush introduced Browne's work to a wider audience with his stellar performance of Browne's "Shadow Dream Song" on "The Circle Game" in 1968. It's an intriguing song that I don't think Browne himself has ever released. He says it was already "an old, old song" by the time he recorded his first album in 1972.

Browne's first first five albums are full of well-written songs that have touched a lot of people, me included. One song that stays with me is "For a Dancer," performed below with David Lindley. It's a moving meditation on art and death triggered by the loss of an old friend: "I can't help feeling stupid standing around/Crying as they ease you down/'Cause I know that you'd rather we were dancing..." The song seems to be a descendant of Yeats's great poem "Among School Children."

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Norm Coleman goes positive (06:26AM)

The financial crisis has obviously had an adverse impact on Republican candidates across the country. It certainly has in Minnesota, where it has leeched support from our incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman, who is locked in a tight race with former humorist Al Franken. Franken and his supporters have run an unrelentingly negative campaign against Coleman, while Coleman has mixed positive messages with attacks on Franken's record and temperament.

Franken has presented Coleman with a lot of material to work with on the negative side, including the failure of Franken's corporation to procure worker's compensation coverage for Franken's employees and the failure to pay income taxes in 17 states over the past five years. Franken paid a fine for the worker's compensation violation in New York and taxes and penalties for his failures to pay taxes in states where they were due, but only after his misconduct came to light in the course of the current campaign.

Franken has denied receiving any of the numerous notices sent to him on the worker's compensation issue. He attributed responsibility to his accountant for the tax issues, but he has not authorized his accountant to answer questions on Franken's taxes. The press has let the stories drop and it has therefore fallen to Coleman and his supporters to bring Franken's misconduct to the attention of the voters.

Franken's campaign includes the support of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has run an ad accusing Coleman of all but killing our troops in Iraq as a result of his support for the war. It is an outrageous, utterly disgusting ad. The DSCC is also running an ad stating that Franken has paid all his taxes, which we have no way of knowing is true in that Franken has concealed the relevant evidence in the case of his returns and prevented the most knowledgeable witness (his accountant) from talking. Franken has also refused to make his tax returns public.

Unlike Coleman's advertising, which has included several statements from Senator Coleman appearing on camera and speaking in his own voice, I have not seen a single Franken ad that promotes a positive message with Franken speaking in his own voice. They may exist, but I haven't seen them. Franken's campaign has not so far succeeded in driving up his support, but Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley appears to have picked up support. The race among Coleman, Franken and Barkley appears to be moving away from Coleman, though not necessarily toward Franken.

Yesterday Senator Coleman made a dramatic move. He suspended all negative campaign ads and called on those who support him to do the same. He issued a press release with this explanation:

I’m doing this for two reasons. First of all, this is a terrible time for so many people with the financial crisis – with real concerns and fear about people’s jobs – about their life savings – and their children’s future and education -- when we are all bombarded with negative messages of real consequence. At times like this, politics should not add to negativity – it should lift people up with hope and a confident vision for the future. And second, I decided that I was not all that interested in returning to Washington for six years based on the judgment of voters that I was not as bad as the other two guys. I want folks to vote for me, not against the other guys.

I saw Senator Coleman at services on Wednesday evening and chatted with him briefly. He was reflective and guardedly optimistic. I asked him if he had anything in reserve against Franken. He said he would be talking directly to the people of Minnesota. Yesterday his campaign told me he made the decision to pull down the negative advertising while reflecting about the campaign on Wednesday evening and the following day.

Franken's campaign responded with Franken's trademark humor. Franken's spokeman asserted that Coleman's directive was "a cynical ploy designed to change the subject and avoid scrutiny of his own record. It's like an arsonist burning down every house in the village and then asking to be named fire chief."

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The grudge World Series, a postscript (11:09PM)

The 1958 Yankess and the 1958 Braves were very evenly matched, and the World Series certainly could have gone either way. However, the reasons why the Yankees prevailed jump out of the statistical summary.

First, home runs. The Braves hit only three of them. Their two great sluggers, Mathews and Aaron, who had combined for four homers in the 1957 Series, didn't contribute any in 1958. Meanwhile, Hank Bauer himself out-homered the Braves with four, and the Yankees total was a remarkable 10. Given that edge, it's a bit surprising that New York outscored Milwaukee by only four runs.

Second, relief pitching. Milwaukee's was virtually non-existent, and I mean that literally. Braves relievers pitched only six innings in seven games. Duren alone pitched nine plus innings of relief, while Ditmar and Turley chipped in a combined ten innings. In these 19 plus innings of non mop-up relief, the Yankees surrendered only three runs. In the roughly 14 innings of relief by Yankee pitchers in the crucial Games 6 and 7, they yielded only two runs.

Fred Haney's unwillingness to use relievers with the game on the line was really an extension of his extreme reluctance to use any pitchers other than Spahn and Burdette. Remarkably, the two workhorses combined to pitch 51 of the 63 innings in the Series. Spahn pitched to a 2.20 ERA, but Burdette's was 5.64. Yet almost half of the earned runs he yielded involved runners that a reliever, not Burdette, should have faced.

If Buhl had been available, Haney surely would have used him, as he did in 1957. If Buhl had been effective, it's very likely that the Braves would have won the Series. But then, if Skowron hadn't been injured in the 1957 Series, the Yanks might have prevailed.

Stengel distributed his innings far more evenly. His top two pitchers, Ford and Turley, handled only 27.2 of the 62.1. But actually, Stengel was less egalitarian than normal. In 1958, he used only three different starters. In each of the three previous Series (all of which also went seven games), he had used five. It seems that in 1958, Stengel found a happy medium between his normal self and Haney.

But Stengel's real service consisted of pulling Ford and Larsen early in Games 6 and 7. Those decisions gave his team a chance to win that they might well have lacked had Stengel been slower with the hook.

1958 was the last Series appearance for the Milwaukee Braves, and the franchise would not return to the Fall Classic for 33 years. In 1959, they finished the season tied with an inferior Dodger team, which then beat them in a playoff. I believe that Bill James has called Haney's management of the 1959 club one of the worst performances ever. Hank Aaron is justified in bemoaning the fact that the Braves of this era came away with only two pennants and one championship.

For the Yankees, as I mentioned yesterday, 1958 was their seventh championship in ten seasons. And after each of the years in which they missed out, the Yankees obtained revenge the very next season (against Cleveland in 1955, Brooklyn in 1956, and Milwaukee in 1958).

The Yankees would miss the Series in 1959, but then start another streak in which they reached the Series five straight times.

As for Stengel and Haney, these two 1920s era ball players would both finish their careers with expansion clubs, Stengel as the manager of the dreadful New York Mets; Haney as a reasonably successful (under the circumstances) general manager of the Los Angeles Angels.

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We Make News In Minnesota (10:40PM)

On PJTV tonight, I talked about the emerging theme of "Republican anger," as peddled by the media. "Republican anger" mostly means that Republicans, and sometimes, at least, their Presidential candidate, are actually trying to win the election, rather than doing the gentlemanly thing and conceding to the press favorite, Barack Obama.

Today John McCain was in Lakeville, Minnesota, one suburb south of where I live. My radio partner Chad Doughty was there; here is how he saw the event:

I'll have a more thorough recap later. For now, I'll just pass on what I thought was the most significant news from the event.

It wasn't anything that McCain said. He hit on most of the same themes that we've heard throughout the campaign, although he was much more confident and at ease than in either of the two debates. The format--a real town hall--definitely plays to his strengths as we've so often heard.

Rather it was the advice that former US Senator Rudy Boschwitz passed on during the question and answer section. Clad in his trademark plaid shirt, Boschwitz had spoken on McCain's behalf earlier before the candidate arrived. The crowd was a little surprised when Boschwitz raised his hand among the many others who wanted to query McCain. I'm sure McCain was too.

Boschwitz began by saying that he probably knew and admired McCain better than anyone in the room. Then he said that he was afraid that if McCain didn't bring up some of Obama's past associations, he would lose the election. He added that McCain had to do it himself because the media wasn't going to do it for him.

This echoed the sentiments expressed by many at the event, who are obviously frustrated by what they feel is McCain's reluctance to get to the heart of the matter regarding Obama's past. It's one thing to hear a regular citizen vent that way. It's another when a former US Senator does. It will interesting to see how this plays out.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune's reporter seems to have attended a different event:

Struggling to contain an emotional fire his own campaign kindled, Republican presidential nominee John McCain spent much of a town hall meeting in Lakeville on Friday trying to cool his supporters' growing hostility toward Democrat Barack Obama.

Responding to repeated questions about Obama's truthfulness and personal background, McCain urged backers at a packed gym at Lakeville South High School to be "respectful" toward his opponent.

McCain found himself in the odd and uncomfortable position of defending an opponent who is pulling away in many polls at the end of a week when he and running mate Sarah Palin stepped up their own attacks against Obama -- often inspiring outbursts at raucous rallies, complete with cries of "terrorist" and "off with his head."

The Minnesota gathering lacked that kind of harshness, but sustained booing greeted many of McCain's attempts to discourage the crowd's fear and anger. Of the 21 questions posed to McCain during 45 minutes of give-and-take, one-third challenged him to take on Obama more aggressively, with a few making incendiary comments.

Late in the town hall meeting, Gayle Quinnell of Shakopee called Obama "an Arab." Taken aback, McCain shook his head and, taking the microphone from her, said, "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues." ...

McCain repeatedly tried to dial down his supporters' antipathy toward Obama. "I will fight, but we will be respectful," he said. "I admire Senator Obama" -- as the crowd booed loudly -- "I want everyone to be respectful. ... I don't mean you have to reduce your ferocity, just be respectful."

"Off with his head"? I don't think any Presidential candidate has ever faced a monolithic wall of establishment hostility comparable to what John McCain confronts this year. Nor has any political party been the subject of such an unrelenting campaign of vilification as the Republicans have sustained over the past five or six years. I don't doubt that the establishment will succeed in dragging their candidate across the finish line next month. What will happen after that is anybody's guess.

UPDATE: The Democratic National Committee put out a press release on today's event in Lakeville. Technically, you could say the Associated Press published it for them.

FURTHER UPDATE: You can watch the key exchanges between McCain and the crowd here. If this is the best the press can come up with as evidence of "Republican anger," it's much ado about nothing.

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PJTV--Check It Out (10:09PM)

Pajamas Media has launched PJTV, the first internet-only news channel. I've been participating on a pretty regular basis via webcam, and one of these days we're planning on a Power Line television show. For a sample of PJTV's programming, check out this commentary on ACORN.

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Shut out at Dartmouth (09:29PM)

Jennifer Bandy is a senior at Dartmouth College and a co-author of the Dartblog. I met Jennifer this summer in Washington where, if I recall correctly, she was interning at the State Department. She is the kind of bright, accomplished, and personable individual that makes you proud she attends your alma mater.

Jennifer has posted an important piece on the Dartblog describing, and suggesting remedies for, a serious problem at Dartmouth -- class "shut-outs." She notes:

Each term the waiting list for each government class can be as high as thirty or forty students. Interested and motivated freshmen must bide their time filling distributive requirements rather than immediately delving into material that interests them. Surely this has deleterious effects on their ability to later take time for thesis and research projects as they rush to finish the major they were not able to begin till sophomore year.

Nor is the problem confined to the government department. Jennifer also cites the economics department, and I understand that shut-outs are not uncommon in the history and english departments, as well.

The problem isn't a new one either. My daughter heard about it (from a government professor) when she visited the college in April 2006. And Jennifer confirms that it was an issue when she arrived as a freshman that same academic year. Unfortunately, Jennifer reports seeing "little or no progress" since then.

Dartmouth thus faces this question: is the number of classes to be expanded by the hiring of brilliant new faculty or are the departments to be transformed into the university model of large lecture halls and smaller groups run by teaching assistants?

Only one answer is consistent with the Dartmouth tradition of a focus on teaching and close interaction with professors. But things do not seem to be heading in a direction consistent with that tradition.

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Alaska panel finds that Palin abused her power (08:27PM)

According to the Associated Press:

A legislative committee investigating Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has found she unlawfully abused her authority in firing the state's public safety commissioner. The investigative report concludes that a family grudge wasn't the sole reason for firing Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan but says it likely was a contributing factor.

If AP's report is accurate, it looks like the committee thought that (1) Gov. Palin had, and acted based at least in part on, legitimate reasons for firing the commissioner, but (2) an illegitimate reason -- the unwillingness of the commissiner to fire Palin's former brother-in-law -- probably played a part in her decision too.

This sort of "mixed motive" finding, familiar to employment lawyers, is usually highly debatable. Here, as I understand it, Gov. Palin has said that Commissioner Monegan was dismissed for not adequately filling state trooper vacancies and fighting alcohol abuse problems, and because he was not "a team player on budgeting issues." The committee apparently concluded that one or more of these reasons actually did motivate Palin. Unless Palin made comments indicating that the "family grudge" also factored into the decision, the finding that it did seems like, in essence, an act of mind-reading.

Is the committee's decision as speculative as it sounds? Are the inferences that led the commission to its decision compelling, or at least reasonable? We'll find out when we read the report.

JOHN adds: I haven't read the report, either, but I have zero confidence in it. The entire "investigation" was a political farce. This is the statement the McCain/Palin campaign put out:

Today's report shows that the Governor acted within her proper and lawful authority in the reassignment of Walt Monegan. The report also illustrates what we've known all along: this was a partisan led inquiry run by Obama supporters and the Palins were completely justified in their concern regarding Trooper Wooten given his violent and rogue behavior. Lacking evidence to support the original Monegan allegation, the Legislative Council seriously overreached, making a tortured argument to find fault without basis in law or fact. The Governor is looking forward to cooperating with the Personnel Board and continuing her conversation with the American people regarding the important issues facing the country.

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Stock Market Collapse a Mixed Blessing for Obama (09:10AM)

The current worldwide financial collapse has obviously benefited Barack Obama's Presidential campaign; in fact, it will probably impel him to victory in a few weeks. But the bottom dropping out of the stock market does create a problem for Obama in the realm of tax policy.

The Democratic Party still dominates among low-income voters, but it is now mostly the party of the rich and the professional classes. The Democrats' indifference to blue collar voters (except during even-numbered Novembers) is obvious from the party's policies on immigration and energy. Obama, in particular, is the candidate of well-off liberals.

But those Obama supporters aren't so well-off anymore. This inevitably will make them more sensitive to Obama's redistributionist tax policies.

The Tax Prof computes that the top marginal federal tax rate under Obama's tax plan will be 50%, and under McCain's, 40%. If you live in a state with an income tax and are a high income earner, most of your money will be going to taxes under an Obama administration.

My guess is that Obama supporters who have just seen their net worth decline by 30% or 40% won't be very interested in paying over half their incomes in taxes for the next four years. That would make it more difficult, and likely impossible, to rebuild the wealth that they have lost in the current collapse.

It's impossible to say how many Obama supporters will switch to McCain to avoid the tax burden that Obama promises, but one thing we can say for sure is that if Obama wins, there will be a lot of pressure on him from prosperous Democrats--his base--to renege on his promise to increase taxes on "the rich."

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Acorn's Criminal Enterprise, Continued (09:05AM)

The New York Post has the latest on ACORN's continuing assault on the integrity of the upcoming Presidential election:

A man at the center of a voter-registration scandal told The Post yesterday he was given cash and cigarettes by aggressive ACORN activists in exchange for registering an astonishing 72 times, in apparent violation of Ohio laws.

"Sometimes, they come up and bribe me with a cigarette, or they'll give me a dollar to sign up," said Freddie Johnson, 19, who filled out 72 separate voter-registration cards over an 18-month period at the behest of the left-leaning Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

"The ACORN people are everywhere, looking to sign people up. I tell them I am already registered. The girl said, 'You are?' I say, 'Yup,' and then they say, 'Can you just sign up again?' " he said.

What's the point of signing up the same "voter" 72 times? ACORN employees are paid to meet a quota of new registrations, and the organization obviously doesn't care whether they are legitimate or not. But multiple registrations can easily open the door to voter fraud:

Johnson used the same information on all of his registration cards, and officials say they usually catch and toss out duplicate registrations. But the practice sparks fear that some multiple registrants could provide different information and vote more than once by absentee ballot.

At least nine states have now launched criminal investigations of ACORN, which has endorsed Barack Obama, and which the Obama campaign has paid $800,000 to support its voter registration activities.

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Obama worship at the Nation of Islam (07:18AM)

Via Newsbusters and Lucianne.

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Obama's magic (06:37AM)

Kimberly Strassel pays tribute to Obama's magic in a column that usefully summarizes the internal contradictions of Obamanism:

To kick off our show tonight, Mr. Obama will give 95% of American working families a tax cut, even though 40% of Americans today don't pay income taxes! How can our star enact such mathemagic? How can he "cut" zero? Abracadabra! It's called a "refundable tax credit." It involves the federal government taking money from those who do pay taxes, and writing checks to those who don't. Yes, yes, in the real world this is known as "welfare," but please try not to ruin the show.

For his next trick, the Great Obama will jumpstart the economy, and he'll do it by raising taxes on the very businesses that are today adrift in a financial tsunami! That will include all those among the top 1% of taxpayers who are in fact small-business owners, and the nation's biggest employers who currently pay some of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world. Mr. Obama will, with a flick of his fingers, show them how to create more jobs with less money. It's simple, really. He has a wand.

Those of us troubled by the fact that Obama's prescriptions would aggravate the financial crisis (among the consequences of various Obama postitions spelled out by Strassel) can take comfort, however small, in the fact that they show Obama to be an extraordinarily cynical politician. He doesn't believe in much, but he certainly believes in his own power to make voters believe whatever he says, even when what he says today contradicts what he said yesterday, and even when it constitutes a bald fiction.

We have observed Obama's cynicism on many occasions in posts including "Obama's committee of the hole" and in "Opportunism knocks, part 2." Today Charles Krauthammer observes Obama's cynicism in connection with Obama's associations with Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko. Rashid Khalidi should be added to the list of Obama's those whose indecent association proved useful to Obama until such time as it did not. But in addition to the cynical quality of Obama's associations, Krauthammer deduces Obama's ruthlessness as well as the "magic" that Strassel attributes to his policy prescriptions:

Obama is not the first politician to rise through a corrupt political machine. But he is one of the rare few to then have the audacity to present himself as a transcendent healer, hovering above and bringing redemption to the "old politics" -- of the kind he had enthusiastically embraced in Chicago in the service of his own ambition.

From Jeremiah Wright, whose racism and hatred for America came as a shock to Obama after sitting in the pews of his church for 20 years, to Bill Ayers, the former terrorist Obama thought had been "rehabilitated" (well, hadn't he? he's an education professor, for goodness' sake), to promotion of the destructive policies Strassel runs down -- let us salute the audacity of hype.

As for Obama's magic, Krauthammer predicted in a column on Obama's audacity this past February: "My guess is that he can maintain the spell just past Inauguration Day. After which will come the awakening. It will be rude."

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