URLs du Jour (6/30/2005)

  • Peggy Noonan is in great form in her latest WSJ column.

    Not to pick on Senator Obama (still the smarter senator from Illinois), but:

    This week comes the previously careful Sen. Barack Obama, flapping his wings in Time magazine and explaining that he's a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better. "In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat--in all this he reminded me not just of my own struggles."

    Oh. So that's what Lincoln's for. Actually Lincoln's life is a lot like Mr. Obama's. Lincoln came from a lean-to in the backwoods. His mother died when he was 9. The Lincolns had no money, no standing. Lincoln educated himself, reading law on his own, working as a field hand, a store clerk and a raft hand on the Mississippi. He also split some rails. He entered politics, knew more defeat than victory, and went on to lead the nation through its greatest trauma, the Civil War, and past its greatest sin, slavery.

    Barack Obama, the son of two University of Hawaii students, went to Columbia and Harvard Law after attending a private academy that taught the children of the Hawaiian royal family. He made his name in politics as an aggressive Chicago vote hustler in Bill Clinton's first campaign for the presidency.

    You see the similarities.

    Ouch. Read the whole thing if you want to get more than a little bemused about the swelled heads found inside the Beltway.

  • A hero of mine, Thomas Sowell, is 75 years old today. He reflects here. He concludes on a note of optimism:

    There is much to complain about today and to fear for the future of our children and our country. But despair? Not yet.

    We have all come through too much for that.

  • Think your state has the most disgusting perverts in America? My friend, if you're not from New Hampshire, then the only question is whether you're in second place or not.

Last Modified 2012-10-26 11:55 AM EDT