Mar
18
2008

URLs du Jour

2008-03-18

  • One hundred fifty-five words, plus an eighty-two word correction. Read the whole thing and adjust your next shopping list accordingly. (Via Prof Bainbridge, who calls it, accurately, "a little gem.")

  • A number of bloggers (e.g., Shawn Macomber and Patterico) have pointed out this NYT article profiling Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor to Senator Barack Obama from April 2007. Final paragraph:
    "If Barack gets past the primary, he might have to publicly distance himself from me," Mr. Wright said with a shrug. "I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen."
    Rich Lowry also quotes it in his syndicated column. And it's risen to the attention of ABC reporter Jake Tapper.

    This, to put it mildly, puts in doubt Obama's recent claim that Pastor Wright's batshit remarks "were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation." If he wasn't aware of Wright's bonkeritude back then, why did he say he might have to "distance himself"?

    Now, in one sense, this is not a huge deal: Obama's still got a ways to go before his truth-shading and cynical posturing approaches Clintonian levels. But he was supposed to be Special and Different, that's his thing! How much air will go out of his campaign when his followers, trying to reach out and touch the hem of his garment, find out that it's mostly polyester?

  • Another sign of scales dropping from MSM eyes: AP reporter Ron Fournier opines that Obama is "bordering on arrogance"; he "can be a bit too cocky for his own good"; he and his wife "ooze a sense of entitlement"; he "can be aloof and ungracious".

    Ouch. At least Fournier didn't describe Obama as "uppity". And, to be fair, Fournier says that Obama's arrogance is still measured in the milliClinton range. But he's supposed to be Better Than That.

  • Thomas Sowell has it right:
    Senator Barack Obama’s political success thus far has been a blow for equality. But equality has its down side.

    Equality means that a black demagogue who has been exposed as a phony deserves exactly the same treatment as a white demagogue who has been exposed as a phony.