Sue and I are pulling up stakes today and moving from Algonquin, IL, our home of 5 years (and my home for 15 years), and moving downstate a ways to Streator, IL - a quiet town on the Vermilion River that began 130 years ago as a coal town. Streator today is a typical small town with a mix of industry and merchants – a sleepy, Midwestern rural metropolis that caters to area farmers as well townsfolk.

We will be twice as far from Chicago as we are now which is really no big deal because my trips to the big city have been infrequent lately. It just feels like its not really in the mainstream because the area around Streator is much more agricultural than Algonquin – a village that has grown from around 7500 when I first arrived to over 30,000 today. The open spaces around Algonquin are filling up very rapidly so it will be nice to get out into the country again – the reason I moved to Algonquin all those years ago.

I have many pleasant memories of Algonquin; fishing in the early morning with the sun coming up over the bluffs; boating on the lazy, meandering Fox River. It will be something of a shock to get out on the Vermilion river which features several stretches of Class II and III rapids – not that I would try that in a thousand years. Barbecues at sunset, friends who have come and gone, and, of course, meeting and falling in love with my Zsu-Zsu – the best thing that has happened to me in my 54 years on this earth.

Everything is much cheaper in Streator which will be important in these uncertain economic times. Sue and I plan to purchase a couple of bicycles and take them to 2 nearby state parks for some scenic riding. We have a full acre and a half (note to self: find some kid who likes to mow lawns.), a big fenced in back yard, with some fruit trees – peaches, pears, and plums. The house itself is a 3-bedroom ranch with an unfinished basement that we are going to turn into a family room. Not quite a dream house but a nice, comfortable place to live.

I will not be back blogging until Sunday at the earliest and probably not until Monday. I am taking the opportunity that comes with the move to retool my computer; new keyboard and mouse, new hard drive, a better sound card, and new, very expensive, very pretty headphones. We bought new furniture, a new 50” HDTV, a Bose sound system, and a new VCR-DVD machine – all paid for in cash, I might add.

You can imagine my stress level today. But Sue is doing her usual best to keep me relatively calm and has planned the move very well – so far anyway. I’ll let you know how everything turned out later.

The situation this morning in Lebanon is very tense. In response to actions taken by the government of Prime Minister Siniora, Hezb’allah supporters have rampaged through neighborhoods, initiated gun battles with Sunnis, and most threateningly, closed the only road to the international airport by setting up roadblocks using dirt to block the highway, and erecting a tent city similar to the one they have set up in downtown Beirut that has paralyzed the city for more than a year.

The war of words between Lebanon’s political leaders has translated into actual battles on the streets, as Wednesday’s opposition-supported labor strike quickly devolved into violent clashes and rioting. With the labor issue apparently pushed off the agenda, unrest has been stripped down to a contest between the government and Hezbollah, which the government has accused of trying to stage a coup.

In recent weeks, Hezbollah’s intractability has become the subject of increased government focus, culminating with the cabinet’s removal of Hezbollah-linked Brigadier General Wafiq Shqeir from his position as airport security chief, and the declaration that Hezbollah’s private communications network is “illegal and unconstitutional,” after a marathon cabinet session ending early Tuesday.

Hezbollah has given the Siniora government a 48-hour ultimatum to revoke the decisions. However, the government remains adamant that any retreat is out of the question.

Today, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah will deliver a “historic” address, at his first press conference in two years. It is possible Nasrallah will use the podium to attempt a face-saving exit before the situation fully detonates. However, with so much at stake, it seems far more likely that Nasrallah’s words will veer in the opposite direction.

It is a virtual certainty that Hezb’allah’s “private” communications network – an extensive set up that handles wireless phone and other telecommunications protocols – is a spy network for Syria and may be used in the future to plan violence and assassinations against the March 14th government forces. Siniora and his government – standing up to Hezb’allah for the first time – has not only shut down that network and fired the pro-Syrian officer who ran it from the airport, but has all but declared Hezb’allah a “state within a state.”

A detailed look at the Hezzies “communications network:”

Hizbullah has linked its private telephone networks to the Syrian Army’s communications System as well as to Syria’s Mobile telephone network allowing Syrian Intelligence to operate freely in Lebanon and avoid Lebanese controls, al-Mustaqbal’s Faris Khashan wrote.

Internal Security Forces Commander Gen. Ashraf Rifi and Director of Military intelligence Brig. George Khoury were assigned by the government more than a month ago to discuss the issue with Hizbullah, Khashan added. However, Hizbullah’s Security chief Wafiq Safa and the party’s International relations official Nawaf Moussawi informed Rifi and Khoury that “anyone who touches the network would be treated the same way we treat the Zionist enemy,” he wrote.

Khashan labeled Hizbullah a “militia,” noting that Hizbullah is not registered with the interior ministry as a political organization operating in Lebanon. Khashan said Police Counter-terrorism expert, Maj. Wissam Eid, has been assassinated because he managed to detect the serial assassinations committed against March 14 figures to the Hizbullah telephone network.

He reported that Hizbullah sped up work on extending the network after Eid’s assassination, “which means that the killing was aimed at destroying evidence on previous assassinations, including one that appears linked to Hizbullah.” The crime also aimed at creating “safe communications criteria for further assassinations,” he added.

Today, Hezb’allah chief Hassan Nasrallah gave his first press conference in two years and threw down the gauntlet to the government, daring them to challenge Hezb’allah’s status as the “resistance” to Israeli aggression and their privileged position within the state:

I said, before Jumblatt, that any hand that reaches for the resistance and its arms will be cut off. Israel tried that in the July War, and we cut its hand off.

We do not advise you to try us.

Whoever is going to target us will be targeted by us. Whoever is going to shoot at us will be shot by us.
Let’s look into who is really harming the people and stealing their money. Unfortunately, this is the government. Jumblatt acknowledges this openly on TV.

Jumblatt is a liar and a killer. He sits up there and draws red lines, and the martyrs and people who defended Lebanon will be handed over to the courts. This is not a government, this is a gang.

Herein lies the real reason Hezb’allah has taken to the streets; Nasrallah’s complaint that “people who defended Lebanon” will be put on trial. He is referring to the Hariri Tribunal that may start as early as next month under the auspices of the United Nations. It is a dead certainty that Hezb’allah’s role in some of the political assassinations that have rocked Lebanon over the past 3 years will be revealed. Nasrallah, and his patron in Syria Bashar Assad, will do everything in their power to prevent the tribunal from sitting. If it means taking the country to the brink of a civil war, so be it.

Indeed, less than a half an hour following Nasrallah’s bombastic speech, gun battles broke out all over Beirut:

Nasrallah delivered his message in hiding via a closed circuit press conference, where he accused “Jumblatt’s government” of launching a war against Hezbollah, stressing that “this is a new era in which all red lines have collapsed.”

“We are in war and they wouldn’t be able to predict our reaction,” Nasrallah said.

Nasrallah’s hate filled press conference inspired new clashes between his followers and government supporters in Beirut districts of Msaitbeh, Ras Nabaa, Mazraa and Basta. Soon after, clashes spread to Verdun, Karakon Al-Druze, Al-Zarif, Al-Mulla and around Ain Al-Teeni.

There were also reports of Hezbollah gunmen in Hamra.

The crackle of gunfire echoed across the streets of Beirut’s western sector along with the thuds of exploding RPGs.

Nasrallah said his wire communications network is a “weapon” vital for Hizbullah’s resistance and security of the party’s leaders.

In the end, none of the parties want a civil war which makes Nasrallah’s gambit of closing the airport a risky undertaking. He is banking on the fact that all sects will do whatever is necessary to prevent the country from sliding into chaos – a good bet to make except it may get to the point where the political leaders will lose control of their followers at which point all hell will break loose.

Instead of trying to calm the situation, Nasrallah’s words have thrown gasoline on the fire. Meanwhile, citizens are cleaning and oiling their weapons and preparing for the worst.

Note: Some of this post originally appeared at The American Thinker

UPDATE

Three sites to watch for Lebanon updates:

My friend Jim Hoft has extensive coverage and photos of the fighting.

Noah Pollak at Commentary has some prescient analysis of Nasrallah’s defiant speech.

Abu Kais is watching the developing situation at From Beirut to the Beltway. Just keep scrolling.

UPDATE II

 Sickening:

Lebanese governing coalition leader Saad al-Hariri proposed a deal to end the crisis under which government decisions that infuriated Hezbollah would be considered a “misunderstanding”.

The decisions would then be referred to the Lebanese army, which has been neutral in the confrontations, giving army commander General Michel Suleiman the option to suspend their implementation.

The threat of civil war is a weapon Nasrallah will trot out again and again until Hezbullah has everything they want and Hariri and the government are either in jail or dead.

Via the Jerusalem Post comes the disturbing assessment by Israeli intelligence that Iran will be able to begin enriching uranium on a “military scale” by next year:

With Iran racing forward with its nuclear program, Israel now believes the Islamic Republic will master centrifuge technology and be able to begin enriching uranium on a military scale this year, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The new assessment moves up Israel’s forecasts on Teheran’s nuclear program by almost a full year – from 2009 to the end of 2008. According to the new timeline, Iran could have a nuclear weapon by the middle of next year.

Iran, a senior defense official said on Tuesday, had encountered numerous technical obstacles on its way to enriching uranium but was now on track to master the technology needed to enrich uranium within six months.

Israel is also concerned that Teheran is developing a cruise missile that can evade interception by the Arrow, the IDF’s anti-ballistic missile defense system. Iran is suspected of having smuggled Ukrainian X-55 cruise missiles and using them as models for an independent, domestic project. A cruise missile, which flies at low altitudes to dodge radar detection and interception, could be used to carry a nuclear warhead.

Our own intelligence estimate, of course, says that Iran isn’t even trying to build a bomb. But could the Mossad’s evidence cause us to amend that NIE? This also from the J-Post quoting the London Sunday Times:

Mossad chief Meir Dagan is expected to brief Britain’s MI6 head Sir John Scarlett, who is slated to visit Israel later this month, on an intelligence breakthrough regarding the Iranian nuclear program, London’s Sunday Times reported.

Concern has been mounting in Israel that Iran’s nuclear capability may be far more advanced than was recognized by the US National Intelligence Estimate last December, which reported that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons development program in 2003 in response to international pressure.

A source quoted by the paper on Sunday claimed that the new information was on par with intelligence that led to the discovery and destruction of a partly constructed nuclear reactor in Syria last September.

Israeli officials believe the US will revise its analysis of Iran’s program.

“We expect the Americans to amend their report soon,” a high-ranking military officer said last week.

In the interest of fairness (and because I enjoy confusing my readers) allow me to quote extensively from a post on Arms Control Wonk in March that talked about a disturbing report from Janes Defense Weekly about what is going on behind the scenes of the Iranian nuclear program:

Documents shown exclusively to Jane’s indicate that Iran is continuing its pursuit of the advanced technologies necessary to develop a nuclear weapon, regardless of Tehran’s claims that its nuclear programme is purely peaceful. Jane’s was shown the information by a source connected to a Western intelligence service, and the documents were verified by a number of reliable independent sources in Vienna.

These documents purport to show that:

...an organisation within the Iranian MoD has actively pursued the development of a nuclear weapon system based on relatively advanced multipoint initiation (MPI) nuclear implosion detonation technology for some years, in parallel with developments within the Atomic Energy Authority of Iran.

The article further states that since 2000 Iran has tested these detonators and found them “good enough” for a nuclear weapon (it also discusses the organization of Iran’s nuclear programme but that’s for a different post).

But to show you the ambiguity inherent in even a report like that, I quote Dr. Lewis and his analysis of this news:

Well, the development of multipoint detonation systems isn’t by itself proof that Iran is developing nuclear weapons (let’s skip over the question of whether it really is sensible for the international community to demand proof as opposed to good evidence of wrong doing). As this patent from the US government shows, there are legitimate (largely military) reasons for developing explosive devices which involve multiple initiators.

My guess-and I am not certain-is that a multipoint detonation system can be unambiguously associated with nuclear weapons if its “jitter time” (that is, the time spread of the detonations) is particularly small. My knowledge of the pre-1991 Iraqi programme gives us some idea how simultaneous the detonations in a nuclear weapon need to be-Iraq aimed for a jitter time of less than 1 microsecond and ended up measuring it in nanoseconds. However, I don’t know for certain whether there is a legitimate application that requires the same degree of simultaneity. Sounds like an interesting problem to tackle properly when I get some time.

As you can see, Lewis is not entirely convinced that the detonators are used for the exclusive purpose of setting off a nuclear weapon. It is this kind of uncertainty that makes any decision to go after the Iranian nuclear infrastructure so problematic.

Who or what should we believe of Iran’s nuclear program? No one doubts Iran’s desire to possess a nuclear weapon. But are they really capable of overcoming the immense technical obstacles to build a bomb and a delivery system to threaten Israel as well as our allies in the region?

We can’t just dismiss these questions and then bomb hell out of Iran. An attack on the Iranians would bring far reaching and unseen consequences to not only our own security but the security of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other states in the region.

Others, like our own State Department and intelligence establishment, may have the luxury of burying their heads in the sand and pretending the problem doesn’t exist. But Israel cannot afford to do so – not without the potential for catastrophic consequences.

We know that the Iranians are making good progress in enriching uranium to the 5% level suitable for use in a nuclear reactor. Their facility at Nantanz is gearing up to double its centrifuge capacity which would increase their ability to enrich more raw uranium at a faster rate.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (who it should be noted have yet to prevent any country who wished to build a bomb from going nuclear) is monitoring the Iranian program but still have questions about their intent.

The Europeans for the most part are siding with us – as long as we don’t bomb Iran. Gordon Brown, Nicholas Sarkozy, and Angela Merkel all agree that the Iranian program poses a very serious threat to the west and have gone along so far with the US both at the UN and rhetorically as well.

But as far as actually addressing the threat, precious little has been done besides some ineffective sanctions imposed by the Security Council and equally ineffective jawboning by IAEA chief ElBaradei. In effect, the Iranians are getting away with whatever they are doing because they are able to stonewall the international community on what their intentions are.

All of this makes bombing more likely with its concomitant consequences staring us in the face. But as long as China and Russia keep handing the Iranians matches as they run toward the gasoline dump, there is precious little the world can do except stand by and watch the endgame scenario play out.

One of us – Israel or the United States – will almost certainly be compelled to bomb the Iranian nuclear infrastructure – unless the world community, including Russia and China, make a 180 degree turn regarding the seriousness with which they take the Iranian program. It probably will not happen this year. But once Iran is capable of enriching uranium by the pound rather than the gram, expect a countdown in Tel Aviv or Washington to begin.

Which man will you want sitting in the White House when this decision has to be made?

Note: Much of this post originally appears in The American Thinker

My latest at Pajamas Media is up and let me tell you, it was a labor of love – or a labor anyway.

I had the piece finished around 10:00 PM when Hillary was comfortably ahead by 40,000 votes. Then came the incredible – and ominous – news that the precincts in Lake County, including the city of Gary which is 85% African American, had not reported much of their total. When the mayor of Gary said that the results might be a “shocker,” one began to wonder how close the crooks in Chicago’s neighboring metropolis and kindred machine could actually make the race.

I began a major re-write (still with Hillary the victor) and finished just a few minutes after Fox finally called the race shortly after midnight.

Here’s a sample:

The optimism exhibited the last few days by the Clinton campaign that they were finally making progress in convincing Democrats that she would be the better candidate to face John McCain in the fall came a cropper in Indiana. It vanished in the middle of the night when a comfortable lead disappeared amidst hints of ballot shenanigans in one of the most crooked cities in the United States: Gary, Indiana.

Chicago has nothing on its close neighbor Gary when it comes to playing fast and loose with the electoral process. In 1967, the white city machine was in a panic because African American candidate Richard Hatcher appeared headed for victory. Like any crooked machine, they resorted to the time tested methods of vote fraud, ballot box stuffing, purging voter lists, and ghost voter registrants. Hatcher called in the Feds and the courts and got the process cleansed just in time for him to sweep to victory.

In the end, it really didn’t matter if Gary tried to rig the vote for Obama. By not winning comfortably in a state she was expected to do very well, Hillary Clinton’s campaign suffered the ultimate defeat: she failed to meet expectations.

As you know by now, Hillary cancelled her morning show appearances. Originally, the campaign also cancelled all her appearances for the day but apparently were taken aback by the almost universal interpretation of that action as the end of the road so they added an event at noon today in West Virginia.

But really, how can she go on? The Democrats seem bound and determined to nominate a Jimmy Carter – worse, a Jimmy Carter with baggage. But in this, the worst potential election year for Republicans since 1974, it might be enough anyway.

It’s no accident that the GOP has been losing these special elections in previously safe Republican districts. The party’s message is uncoordinated and mushy, there is trouble raising money, and the caucus is hopelessly divided on what to do to fix it:

Shellshocked House Republicans got warnings from leaders past and present Tuesday: Your party’s message isn’t good enough to prevent disaster in November, and neither is the NRCC’s money.

The double shot of bad news had one veteran Republican House member worrying aloud that the party’s electoral woes — brought into sharp focus by Woody Jenkins’ loss to Don Cazayoux in Louisiana on Saturday — have the House Republican Conference splitting apart in “everybody for himself” mode.

“There is an attitude that, ‘I better watch out for myself, because nobody else is going to do it,’” the member said. “There are all these different factions out there, everyone is sniping at each other, and we have no real plan. We have a lot of people fighting to be the captain of the lifeboat instead of everybody pulling together.”

In a piece published in Human Events, the Republicans’ onetime captain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, warned his old colleagues that they face “real disaster” on Election Day unless they move immediately to “chart a bold course of real reform” for the country.

But even with all of these advantages, Obama could still lose to John McCain in the fall. It appears that whatever gains he made with white voters over the months have been lost – at least temporarily – by the Wright fiasco. The party knows this but still seems unwilling to cut him loose and turn to Hillary as an alternative.

For her part, Clinton really can’t drop out immediately. She is going to win in West Virginia next week and Kentucky the following week – both by big margins. My guess is that she will trundle onwards, hobbled by a lack of money and with no rational argument to take to the Superdelegates to get them to overturn what is rapidly becoming inevitable.

Allah sums it up:

Slate’s keeping an eye on RCP’s running popular-vote totals and notes that not only will Obama widen his delegate margin tonight, he’ll erase the PV gains she made in Pennsylvania. In fact, as of this moment, even if Florida and Michigan are counted RCP gives her a popular vote lead of just 3,000+ votes — a margin of less than one-tenth of one percent. And that’s assuming that the popular vote totals from the caucuses in Iowa, Washington, Maine, and Nevada (which weren’t reported) aren’t counted at all. If you estimate for those states, he ends up with a lead of more than 100,000. Which means she has nothing left to commend her to the supers except an electabilty argument unsupported by a single key metric or even circumstantial evidence that Pastorgate has done Obama grievous damage at the polls. Are they going to take the nomination from the first serious black candidate for president without any compelling data to hang their decision on? Not a chance. It’s over. Let’s move on.

There are some – Sean Hannity for one – who have been hinting that Hillary’s oppo research on Obama has come up with some extremely damaging stuff that they have been showing privately to select party leaders in hopes of enlisting their support to carry out what would amount to a coup d’etat against the certain nominee. That sounds like Hannity passing gas. Obama has somewhat inoculated himself against further Wright outrages so it would have to be something that involved the candidate personally in Wright’s diatribes to have any effect at all.

It’s not quite time to write the post mortem yet. Hillary will not go quietly into that goodnight until external forces extinguish her candidacy. But the race is over – has been over as I’ve been pointing out – for a couple of months. All that’s left for Clinton is to find the right moment to exit the stage with as much grace as she can muster.

Join me from 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central time tonight for another edition of The Rick Moran Show – one of the most popular conservative talk shows on Blog Talk Radio.

Tonight, I’m joined by my primary night co-host Rich Baehr, Political Correspondent for The American Thinker. Blogger extraordinaire Ed Morrissey of Hot Air.Com will also join the discussion with Jazz Shaw of The Moderate Voice and Middle Earth Journal chiming in later on the results of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries.

For the best in political analysis, click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.” A podcast will be available for streaming or download around 15 minutes after the show ends.

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As the race for the White House enters its “malaise phase,” with Democratic candidates struggling to set a world record for talking out of both sides of their mouths without their lips moving while John McCain struggles just to get a word in edgewise, I have caught myself several times the last few weeks trying to shake the feeling of dread – the cold hand of history clapped around my shoulders, its icy grip reminiscent of a time when the world seemed to be spinning out of control and the American people made a conscious decision to radically alter the political landscape in Washington.

I am speaking of 1980, of course. It isn’t that the economy is suffering from out of control inflation, record high interest rates, and near double digit unemployment as was the case during Jimmy Carter’s disastrous interregnum. But the same fear about the future worries ordinary American families that afflicted us back then. And it is beginning to look to me as if the voters are eager to take out their frustrations and anger on the party who is largely responsible for the mess we find ourselves in today; the party of Bush, Cheney, Foley, Cunningham, Ney, Renzi and the whole gang of corrupt, arrogant, venal, greedy Babbitts who have turned the Republican brand into a badge of shame.

You would have to be brain dead not to see the trouble this country is in. As bad as 1980? No, but it certainly is bad enough. Our mortal enemy may not be on the march as the Soviets were in the late 70’s. But al-Qaeda is doing quite well thank you, largely the result of an over reliance on President Musharraf in Pakistan (who took us for $11 billion in military aid like a fast talking scam artist on the midway of some local carnival) and our inability to get NATO to commit combat troops to the fight in Afghanistan. Jesus, if we can’t get the Europeans to recognize what’s at stake in Afghanistan and give us a hand, then either the alliance is kaput or America’s political leadership just isn’t up to the task.

I will brook no argument about Iraq not being a disaster, at least in the near term. It may yet turn out to be a barely passable plus for our interests in the Middle East – given another several years. But what has transpired the previous 5 years has been appalling. It’s been like a 5 year Iranian hostage rescue mission – blunder after blunder committed by our elected leaders and the Pentagon.

I don’t want to hear the argument “Mistakes happen in war.” That may be true. But to carry the adage beyond reason, beyond logic, beyond belief just makes the person spouting that claim look like an idiot. Holy Christ! You would think Bushco would get something right in 5 years. I’ll grant the surge has helped but it has also created other unforeseen problems. Face it; Iraq is a mess and its our own fault. Just thank your lucky stars, I would say to my Republican friends, that the media is so shallow and stupid that unless things really go south in Iraq between now and the election, it will continue to be ignored – despite the fact that the laundry list of problems in that country is growing, not shrinking.

My analogy that Iraq is like the failed hostage rescue, I believe, is a good one. It has placed doubts in the mind of Americans about the competence of our elected leaders while underscoring the fact that our power has its limits. The difference is in the confidence our current voters should have in the military overall. Back in 1980, we saw what years of neglect had done to the military and doubts were raised about its abilities. Not so today. But the recognition that military power cannot solve what ails Iraq has been no less an eye opener for many.

Ronald Reagan famously said that he would rather other nations fear us than love us. I generally subscribe to that notion – especially as it relates to our enemies. But Bush has taken that adage beyond the realm of rhetoric and made it the basis of his foreign policy. When even your allies fear you, it should be obvious that you’ve taken the concept just a bit too far and that somebody, somewhere screwed up royally.

It is one of our glaring weaknesses that we love to be loved by other nations and can’t stand the idea of people thinking beastly things about us. The left has riffed off this meme for decades. But when even our allies give us the cold shoulder because being seen as too close to America is death to their political alliances at home, even a nincompoop realizes a change is in order.

In 1980, Carter managed a foreign policy twofer – being disrespected by our enemies and held in contempt by our friends. Our situation today isn’t the same. But when our friends are reluctant to follow our lead and our enemies feel emboldened to exploit that weakness, the differences hardly matter because the result is similar; our goals are not achieved and the world becomes more dangerous as a result.

As for the economy then and now, there really isn’t much comparison – in a technical sense. But in politics, perception is everything. Rising gas prices has the electorate spooked as do skyrocketing food prices. You can’t get much more basic than gas and food as far as what’s important to American families. And when those two items bite, well you can kiss the shopping trip to Walmart goodbye. Or if the parents do end up shopping for summer clothes for their kids, they will spend a lot less.

Inflation is not a problem yet. But with so much of what we buy dependent on the price of gasoline, how long before the cost of other things begins to creep up as well. And there is no more debilitating disease for an economy than inflation. It saps the will to produce and save when a dollar will be worth substantially less 6 months down the road.

Unemployment is still low by historical standards but that hardly matters when layoffs are starting to happen all over the economy. Who cares if the unemployment rate dipped by a tenth of a point last month? People are not cheered by news like that when they see and know people getting laid off in their town. All they can think of is “Am I next?”

Interest rates are ridiculously low but credit itself is tight because of wary lenders while people are pulling in their horns about making major purchases on their credit cards due to the uncertain future.

Taken as a whole, the economy is still relatively healthy. But “relative” doesn’t mean squat to voters whose perceptions are shaped by their own observations and a relentless drumbeat of criticism by the media and the Democrats – much more the former than the latter when you consider how often people shop for food or fill their tanks.

All of this has a logical ending; 75% of the nation believes we are on the “wrong track.” That may be the understatement of the year because what that figure is really saying is that people do not feel in control of their lives. Things are happening here and abroad that defy many people’s understanding and it has torn many Americans from their moorings and set them adrift politically. More than likely, they will end up tying themselves to the Democrats when all is said and done.

I believe John McCain realizes this which is why he is not pulling punches about how bad things are. Unlike Carter who, in 1980, tried to convince the voters that they were doing alright with inflation and unemployment at record highs while trying to scare people into thinking Reagan was a monster, McCain has judged the mood of the country correctly so far. He isn’t going after Obama nor is he soft pedalling our problems. I think that this is one reason he isn’t 10 points behind at this point (only that CBS poll has him that far behind).

As a general election strategy, I’m not so sure. Once the Democrats really begin their assault, voters will think Bush is running for a third term. Just about every commercial that features McCain for the Democrats will also have a picture of Bush – count on it. Whether the Arizona senator can successfully perform a Bushectomy and remove the most unpopular president in the history of polls from the body of his campaign remains to be seen. I doubt it. The Democrats will be rolling in 527 money thanks to Daddy Warbucks Soros and the rest of his billionaire crew.

My gut feeling – totally speculative at this point – is that the race between Obama and McCain will be close until after the debates are over – about two weeks before the campaign ends. At that point, I think voters will start to break heavily for the Democrats and it will be something of a rout. Perhaps not a 1980 style kick in the groin rejection of one party for another. But I fully expect the GOP to get slapped pretty hard by the electorate – well deserved in my view.

I really do hope I’m wrong – will gladly eat my share of crow if this analysis is off base. But I would say to my Republican friends that we better start getting used to wandering in the political wilderness. It may be a long time before we find our way back to where we were just a few short years ago.

As if awakening from a long, languorous slumber where dreams of the perfect liberal being comfortably ensconced in the White House made it impossible for the press to get up, rub their eyes, and return to the real world, it seems that the American media has finally decided to start treating Barack Obama with a little of the curmudgeonly cynicism that has been the hallmark of political reporting in this country for much of its existence.

The press likes to think of themselves as the “Fourth Estate” – the gatekeepers who protect American democracy from the ravages of crooked pols, greedy businessmen, religious charlatans, and most especially, unqualified presidential candidates.

Of course, many of my fellow conservatives don’t think of the press as the “Fourth Estate” as much as they see the media as a “Fifth Column,” deliberately undermining American policy abroad and either ignoring or savaging conservatives at home.

But that judgment may be too harsh. Overall, the press may hold liberal positions on the issues but their real failure lies in their total insularity from views different than their own.

Bernard Goldberg:

The problem is that there is a bubble that these media elites live in. They live in it in Manhattan & Washington. It’s a very comfortable bubble and they almost never run into people inside it who have differing points of view. They can go through a whole day, a whole week, a whole month, without running into someone who has a differing view on the big social issues of our time…

If you take into consideration how consolidated the media is today and the fact that most local newspapers and TV networks depend on the big boys for national and foreign news reporting, you can see how just a handful of insulated liberals can affect the way news is reported across a wide swath of the American media landscape.

So it is not surprising that the glowing, almost worshipful coverage of the Obama campaign would have powered the Illinois senator through the primaries to a now virtual lock on the Democratic nomination.

But as Howard Kurtz points out, the dynamic of press coverage has now changed:

After more than a year of mostly glowing coverage, Barack Obama is having to defend his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his temerity in not sporting a flag pin, even his arugula-loving, bad-bowling, let-me-eat-my-waffle persona that fostered what Newsweek has branded “the Bubba Gap.”

“The media have decided to get tougher on Obama,” says St. Petersburg Times media critic Eric Deggans. “There was so much talk about him getting such an easy ride that some journalists got tired of it.”

And the catalyst for this turnabout came from a very unexpected source; a couple of skits on the old political warhorse TV show Saturday Night Live. The bits were devilishly clever, playing to the idea that the media was in the tank for Obama – something almost everyone in America was aware except the media itself.

The February 23rd show was actually mentioned by Hillary Clinton in the Cleveland debate as proof that the press was biased toward her opponent. Those skits may have been one of the most impactful political satires in decades. Not since Chevy Chase’s bumbling portrayal of President Ford has a TV bit entered the political consciousness of the country.

The press was stung to the quick and began to look for opportunities to stick it to Obama. They didn’t have long to wait when the Jeremiah Wright fiasco exploded onto the scene in mid-March. Seeming to make up for lost time, the press latched on to the Wright controversy and began to question Obama’s judgement and beliefs – long overdue according to some:

Still, says David Greenberg, a Rutgers University professor of journalism and history, the coverage could be far worse. For journalists, he says, “there has been a real infatuation with Obama that has served as almost an unconscious restraint” as many became “taken with the idea of demonstrating their tolerance and America’s tolerance by electing a black candidate.”

What loosened those restraints, Greenberg says, was the media’s conclusion that Obama had virtually wrapped up his nomination fight against Hillary Clinton. “It’s backwards—the toughest scrutiny should come while it’s still a real fight,” he says.

Obama’s image has undergone something of a transformation. In March, feeding the curiosity about his background, a Newsweek cover story focused on “When Barry Became Barack” in college, while a Time cover profiled the candidate’s mother. By last week, Newsweek’s cover piece was exploring why he seems “strange,” “exotic” and, to some, “haughty” and “a bit of an egghead.” How did Obama, cast by some journalists as the new JFK, come to be depicted as what the New Republic’s John Judis says may be “The Next McGovern”?

What does it say about a press that waits until the candidate has the nomination virtually sown up before pouncing on his vulnerabilities? I think any reasonable person can conclude that they’ve got the process back asswards. Aren’t they supposed to vet the candidate while there is still a competitive race going on? And the fact that they haven’t played their traditional role of gatekeeper with Obama (closing the gate after the horse has gotten away) is significant.

That and the fact that all of this is happening 7 months before the election in November means that Obama – a gifted and inspiring figure to many – can still recover and beat McCain in the fall. One wonders if Reverend Wright would have received this kind of coverage in October.

My guess is no, he wouldn’t have been a big issue in September or October. Nor will Tony Rezko make an appearance between the time of the Democratic convention and election day. And I doubt we’ll be hearing too much about William Ayers and his flag stomping, terrorist ways either.

All of that will rightfully be seen as old news by then – that is, unless new information surfaces that would show Obama to be a liar as far as the extent of his problem associations have been. Whether such information is out there to be reported I have little doubt. But the only place you are going to see Wright damning America come the fall campaign is in a GOP 527 ad.

In short, the press may not be as puppy-dog worshipful as they were a couple of months ago. But their basic feelings about Obama don’t show any signs of changing. Witness the panting over his March speech in Philadelphia where he denounced what Wright was saying but not the man. It was hailed as one of the greatest political speeches in history. The press was just looking for an excuse to forgive him and they found it in Obama’s post-racial vision of America.

Then just last week, the press once again praised Obama to the skies for “distancing himself” from Wright – rarely asking the obvious question of why he couldn’t have done so the previous month in “one of the greatest speeches” of all time.

Yes the press has taken a more aggressive tack in covering Obama. But at the same time, they are still bending over backwards to excuse, to explain away, or, as in the case of the William Ayers story, simply ignore Obama’s lies about how well he knew him.

For these reasons, I don’t think we can say that the press still isn’t in the bag for Barack Obama. They may like McCain as well but does anyone really believe that when the campaign narrative is developed this fall that John McCain will be seen by the press in a positive light? It will be Barack Obama to America’s rescue, riding on a black and white horse but with the head of an elephant and the tail of a donkey. He will be the post-racial, post partisan candidate just as he was always meant to be.

Just as the press wants him to be.

My post on Friday that somewhat petulantly complained about people still saying that there was a legitimate chance for Hillary Clinton to win the nomination elicited many angry responses from Clintonites and even some Republicans.

While it is true that math was my worst subject in school even a numbers-challenged dummy like me can read the writing on the wall and declare without reservation that Hillary Clinton is toast and has been for weeks.

A casual examination of the delegate numbers reveals the unstartling truth that it is likely Senator Obama will have the nomination wrapped up shortly after the primaries end on June 6. It also shows that it doesn’t matter a hoot in hell what happens with Michigan and Florida’s delegates.

Using the RCP delegate totals (which differs from others by no more than 3 or 4 delegates), here is how we find the race today:

TOTAL DELEGATES:

Obama: 1742
Clinton: 1606

SUPERDELEGATES (795 Total):

Obama: 251
Clinton 269

PLEDGED DELEGATES:

Obama: 1491
Clinton: 1337

The chart shows Obama with a 136 delegate lead overall.  With 520 Superdelegates already committed, that leaves around 275 supers yet to choose (I’ve seen that number as low as 268). But let’s give Hillary the benefit of the doubt and use the higher number for our purposes.

Now let’s look at the remaining contests and the number of delegates at stake:

May 6: Indiana (85) and North Carolina (134)
May 13: West Virginia (39)
May 20: Kentucky (60) and Oregon (55)
June 1: Puerto Rico (63)
June 3: Montana (25) and South Dakota (23)

(Note: There are some state conventions in May and June that will determine some additional delegates but are based on primary and caucus results and hence, are predictable with a large degree of certainty. Most pledged delegate counts have included all but a handful of these delegates which is where the discrepancy between counts occurs.)

Now let’s take a pro-Hillary split on these delegates since she is really expected only to lose NC, OR, and possibly MT out of these remaining primaries although I think those three states will be close – no blow outs by Obama. Now let’s take each state and award Obama the absolute minimum he will win. Remember, Democrats award delegates proportionally:

Indiana: 38
N. Carolina: 65
W. Virginia 15
Kentucky: 25
Oregon: 30
Puerto Rico: 25
Montana: 10
South Dakota: 10

Total: 218 minimum delegates for Obama.

I don’t see how anyone could accuse me of overcounting Obama’s delegate totals in any of those states – especially since I assume Hillary will win every single primary. But let’s look now at Obama’s totals. Add the 218 additional delegates to Obama’s RCP total of 1742 and you get:

Total Delegates for Obama on June 3: 1960
Needed to Nominate: 2025

With 275 supers yet to commit, Obama needs only 65 Superdelegates to go over the top. And that is not counting those supers who come out for Obama between now and June 3!

In short, it is possible that at the end of the primaries, Obama will need only a handful – perhaps as few as 25-30 supers – to make Michigan and Florida moot and Hillary’s candidacy kaput.

Does anyone believe that the moment Obama goes over the top that anyone, anywhere is going to deny him the nomination? If you believe that, go back to sleep because the only place you’ll see a scenario like that unfolding is in your dreams. Just imagine Republican attack ads against Hillary and the Democratic party if that were to occur.

It would probably not only doom Clinton’s candidacy but possibly affect some of the down ballot races, especially for the House. The Democratic brand would be poison. Hillary would be a pariah with half the Democratic party and those superdelegates who switched or went for Hillary wouldn’t be any better off.

But there is nothing to worry about if you’re a Democrat because it isn’t going to happen.

Allow me to state at the outset that I believe that a vast majority of liberals believe themselves to be as patriotic as anyone else and that Republican efforts to portray this or that candidate as “unpatriotic” is wrong.

It is wrong because we cannot gaze into the hearts of our countrymen and establish their true feelings about America. Nor should we even try. A citizen’s relationship with his country is as personal as his relationship with God – and only pharisees in the temple and some TV preachers would have us believe that they love God more than others.

It is silly to say that this liberal or that one does not love this country enough – as if there is a scale on which all American’s patriotic feelings are placed and weighed, the result judged fair or foul according to explicitly subjective criteria.

“Do you put your hand over the heart during the playing of our national anthem?”

“Do you wear a flag pin?”

“Do you say the Pledge of Allegiance?”

If this be the measure of a patriot, gag me. I almost didn’t vote for George Bush #41 in 1988 because of his obsession with making it a requirement for schoolchildren to say the pledge of allegiance. It was embarrassing for any thinking person to watch the elder Bush tour flag factories and otherwise bring the issue up at almost every campaign stop. It was a transparent attempt to place his idea of patriotism above that of anyone else and by extension, accusing his opponent Michael Dukakis of being less patriotic than he.

At the time the Obama flag pin controversy first surfaced, I wrote what I believe to be a logical, sensible defense of liberal patriotism:

I think it is apparent that some on the right love America in a different way than some on the left. Think of the right’s love of country as that of a young man for a hot young woman. The passion of such love brooks no criticism and in their eyes, the woman can do nothing wrong. They place the woman on a pedestal and fail to see any flaws in her beauty, only perfection.

On the other hand, love of country by many liberals is more intellectualized – perhaps the kind of love we might feel for a wife of many years. The white hot passion may be gone and her flaws might drive you up a wall at times. And it is difficult not to dwell on her imperfections But there is still a deep, abiding affection that allows you to love her despite the many blemishes and defects they see.

It isn’t that most on the left love America any less than those on the right. They simply see a different entity – a tainted but beloved object that has gotten better with age.

There is some obvious exaggeration in both definitions but I believe they ring true at a basic level of understanding. It certainly makes it easier to acknowledge Senator Obama’s patriotism which the Washington Post examined today:

“You want to know about my patriotism?” Obama said last week in Chapel Hill, N.C. “My patriotism is rooted in the fact that my story, Michelle’s story, is not possible anywhere else on Earth. That the American dream, despite this country’s imperfections, has always been there. . . . That there are ladders of opportunity that all of us can climb. That we’re all created equal. That we’re all endowed with certain inalienable rights—life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. . . . That we’re willing to shed blood for those liberties, we’re willing to speak out for those liberties. . . . That we can make this country more just and more equal and more prosperous and more unified. That’s why I love this country. That’s why you love this country.”

Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist unaffiliated in the primary, said Obama’s patriotic talk early in the campaign was a shrewd attempt to reshape the debate to guard against a future vulnerability. “In successful campaigns, you recognize your potential liabilities and figure out how to turn them into strengths,” he said.

Obama’s patriotism then, is as exceptional as anyone’s on the right. This stands in stark contrast to other liberals and Democrats who belittle the idea of American exceptionalism or simply refuse to acknowledge it. It doesn’t mean that you are less patriotic if you reject the idea that America is different than anywhere else on earth. But since most Americans share the belief that we are an exceptional people and nation, it is a legitimate campaign issue to point out that a candidate does not share a belief in the same values as most voters.

That avenue of attack is not open to Republicans with Obama. Hence, the creation of non-issues like the flag pin and the demonstrably false issues of his not saying the pledge or putting his hand over his heart during the playing of the national anthem. They have not resonated with the voter because people aren’t buying it – until now.

Enter Jeremiah Wright and his “damning” America. To ask the question is Reverend Wright a “patriot” or is he a “patriotic” American stretches the notion of love of country far beyond where a vast majority of ordinary voters wish to go. If Wright is patriotic – and indeed, I do not believe him to be, proving an exception to the rule above – then it is a kind of patriotism never before seen in America. Wright’s critique goes far beyond dissent and attacks the very reasons America exists in the first place. Can you hate America and love it at the same time? That’s the kind of nuance only a liberal could embrace.

Obama has a different kind of problem with Wright than any Democrat has had in the past with their own personal patriotism being questioned. And making matters much worse for the candidate are his other radical associations with individuals who, like Wright, have attacked the foundations of American democracy and the existential reasons for America’s being. Unrepentant terrorists like Ayers and Dohrn – who I predict will become a huge problem for the candidate once it is revealed that he lied about the nature and extent of his relationship with those radicals – as well as his close association with other radical figures like PLO apologist Rashid Khalidi and radical Liberation Theology priest and warm friend of Louis Farrakhan Father Michael Phleger raise serious questions not about Obama’s patriotism but rather his values and judgement.

What is it about these people that attracts the candidate? There are just too many radicals in his background not to make this a legitimate question of the campaign. My own personal view – highly speculative – is that Obama is drawn to the certainty of their beliefs as well as their outrage. Obama’s emotional makeup makes it very difficult for him to share the radical’s certainty about their worldview while he yearns for that kind of black and white outlook. And since his own worldview is informed more by his intellect than his gut, he perhaps envies the radicals ability to express their outrage at perceived injustices in America.

A guess to be sure but better than what the candidate has offered as an explanation. And lest someone take me to task for my observation about so many radicals in his past, there is this from the Rolling Stone profile written last year:

This is as openly radical a background as any significant American political figure has ever emerged from, as much Malcolm X as Martin Luther King Jr. Wright is not an incidental figure in Obama’s life, or his politics. The senator “affirmed” his Christian faith in this church; he uses Wright as a “sounding board” to “make sure I’m not losing myself in the hype and hoopla.” Both the title of Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope, and the theme for his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 come from Wright’s sermons. “If you want to understand where Barack gets his feeling and rhetoric from,” says the Rev. Jim Wallis, a leader of the religious left, “just look at Jeremiah Wright.”

And the RR profile didn’t even mention Ayers, et.al. It is this “radical background” about which American voters are confused regarding Obama. His heartfelt rhetoric about his love of America cannot be denied. There is nothing about which to disagree with Obama when he talks about our race problems “not defining America” – the first black leader in a long time to make that point. There is nothing to criticize when Obama talks about the American dream and American opportunity and how it is a shared goal of all.

So why, in a Pew Research poll, did only 61% of of voters view Obama as patriotic, compared with 76% for Clinton and 90% for McCain? It can’t be the way that McCain or even Hillary Clinton have been hammering away at his patriotism in ads and in campaign appearances. Hillary has raised the issue that Obama’s associations will be attacked by Republicans in the fall and that because of that, the Illinois Senator is unelectable. But she hasn’t directly criticized him for his relationship with Wright or anyone else. (Update: An emailer reminds me that Clinton said at the Philadelphia debate that the Ayers relationship “raised questions.” – hardly a hard hitting attack.)

Something else is clearly at work and it goes to the heart of how people perceive Barack Obama’s relationship with Reverend Wright. Quite simply, voters place themselves in Obama’s shoes and ask themselves if they would act the same way as the candidate has acted for the last 20 years. They ask themselves would they allow an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers host a fundraising event in his home. The left would love to dismiss these concerns as typical ignorance on the part of the yahoos but for good or ill, this is how Obama is being judged. And a significant number of people are coming up with answers detrimental to the candidate’s standing in the polls.

I would love to see a campaign this fall where everyone acknowledged everyone else’s commitment to America and love of country. But Obama’s high minded, patriotic rhetoric will fall flat unless he can explain and thus distance himself from people he made a conscious choice to embrace in one way or another and who give the lie to that pretty talk about patriotism through their poisonous and yes, unpatriotic view of America.

Is the press on drugs? MSNBC’s Domenico Montanaro obviously is. Or maybe he’s just normally spaced out like some addle brained stoner:

What other explanation is there for this idiocy?

After Pennsylvania, a lot of folks—including us—figured that Obama would win North Carolina by as much, or even more, than Clinton won the Keystone State, thus erasing the gains she made there in delegates and the popular vote. But the race in Carolina is tightening from the double-digit lead he once held; a new Research 2000 poll has him up by seven points, 51%-44%. After several days of Jeremiah Wright dominating the news—plus some new polls showing an erosion of support—Obama’s back is against the wall, at least in terms of perception and momentum. Of course, almost every time a candidate’s back has been against the wall this campaign (think Clinton and McCain in NH, Obama and McCain in SC, and Clinton in OH and PA), that candidate has flourished. Will Obama continue the trend? His appearance on Meet the Press this Sunday might offer some clues.

Obama’s back is not against the wall. He could lose every primary contest between now and June 3rd and unless he were to get slaughtered in all 8 primaries remaining by an average of about 70%, there is no way in hell Hillary Clinton will have more pledged delegates going into the convention in August.

This has been a fact of the campaign for more than a month. More recently, Obama has been garnering uncommitted Superdelegates to the point that, according to RCP, he now trails Hillary – who once had a 180 superdelegate lead – by only 17. More importantly with only around 280 Superdelegates who are still uncommitted, by the time the primaries are over Obama will only need a handful of supers to clinch it.

And once he goes over the top it will be as if God himself had descended from heaven and annointed him. Any effort to unseat him will cause a backlash in the African American community so profound that it could radically alter the relationship between the party and blacks for a long while. It’s not that they would support Republicans. It’s the very real possibility that they will stay home in huge numbers on election day.

This idea of Black anger is more than just Democrats whistling past the graveyard.

If Obama isn’t the nominee, “there would be a significant number of African-Americans who would stay home. They’re not voting for (presumptive Republican nominee) John McCain,” predicted David Bositis, a senior analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which researches black voting trends.

Todd Shaw, a University of South Carolina political science professor, agreed, citing a groundswell of African-American disenchantment with both Bill and Hillary Clinton. They’re particularly annoyed by Bill Clinton’s performance during the South Carolina primary and by Clinton supporter James Carville’s description of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Latino, as “Judas” for endorsing Obama over Hillary Clinton.

“The comment plays very badly with African-Americans and Latinos,” Shaw said. “They remind them of ‘Look what we’ve done for you; you should stay in line.’ That doesn’t sit well with voters of color. They view it as Northern machine politics or Old South boss politics.”

Hunter Bacot, an associate professor of political science at Elon University in North Carolina, saw another piece of political history haunting black Obama backers.

“There’s a sentiment among blacks that they’ve been taken for granted by the Democratic Party,” Bacot said. “If Obama loses, it’s as though their candidate’s victory was overturned.”

Democratic National Committee officials acknowledge that there could be some falloff of African-American voters if Obama isn’t the nominee. Still, Karen Finney, a DNC spokeswoman, said the party expects African-Americans — frustrated by the war in Iraq, the sagging economy and high gasoline prices — to go to the polls in their usual numbers when they compare whomever the Democratic nominee is with McCain.

The bottom line is simple but lost on the mainstream press which, for reasons much more to do with bottom line journalism than with reporting the facts, continues to treat the nomination process as a competitive enterprise rather than the flailing efforts of the Clinton campaign to overturn a result that for all practical and realistic purposes has been confirmed by the party.

It should be obvious to even the casual observer the Hillary Clinton’s only hope for the nomination – and it is an extremely faint hope at that – is to split the Democratic party wide open by, in effect, trying to reverse the decision made by voters and caucus goers in 50 states at the convention. She will fail because the Obama campaign will ensure discipline among its delegates and party leaders, who will be running the convention, will deny Clinton any opportunity to use the rules to achieve victory.

Where Clinton will succeed is in splitting the party. Whether Obama – an enormously skilled politician – can put it back together in the wake of Hillary’s Kamikaze attack will be the question facing Democrats when the Illinois Senator makes what promises to be the most dramatic convention speech since Ted Kennedy’s masterpiece at the 1980 Democratic convention as Obama accepts the nomination of his party.