Jeremiah Wright? Who’s he?

If you are referring to Barack Obama’s no-longer-controversial-because he’s now-an-ex-pastor-millstone-around-the-neck-of-his-campaign misanthrope, I will let others say what’s been repeated ad infinitum about the situation. After my PJ Media piece yesterday, I have little to add to the discussion although I was mighty tempted to do a connect the dots post on the notion that the two old friends cooked the whole thing up and staged this little break up for the press. Both are now chortling over how they put one over on whitey and Wright is already writing the invocation for Obama’s inaugural.

So if it Wright you seek, you must go elsewhere. Instead, we have a moral crisis in America with which we must deal – a crisis where money, sex, rock ‘n roll, and one 15-year old megastar of a little girl who has been shamelessly exploited by her parents, her handlers, her corporate daddy, and an industry where “morals” is a word uttered with contempt and derision.

Miley Cyrus is a cute-as-a-button little girl who plays the wildly popular Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel. It’s a neat concept; Miley Stewart is a mild mannered, typically awkward high school kid by day and rock star Hannah Montana at night. She has all the typical problems of a young girl developing the first flush of womanhood; boys (non-sexual, almost platonic yearnings), food, shopping – in short, everything that the target audience of 9-13 year old girls look forward to and dream about when they fantasize about being a teenager.

The complication of being a rock star also plays to these little girl fantasies involving acceptance and glamour. In short, the show is a relatively harmless piece of fluff that also stars Miley’s father, one hit wonder Billy Ray Cyrus (“Achy, Breaky Heart”). He is a buffoonish but loving dad who, of course, doesn’t understand teenagers.

The show has spawned a financial empire worth more than some small countries. Records selling in the millions, a Best of Both Worlds concert tour and movie, a clothing line, dolls – the whole Disney treatment. Let’s not forget that this is the company that took a non-descript little mouse and made him into a worldwide icon, beloved of billions of children and adults.

Last year, little Miley raked in $17.2 million for herself – not a bad haul for a 15 year old kid with marginal talent. And what makes this story so incredible is that the guys with the green eyeshades at Disney believe that her career hasn’t taken off yet, that it is the next two years where the Miley Megamarketing Bonanza is expected to detonate on the American cultural landscape and a mother lode of money descend upon the corporation like manna from, well, Montana. For Disney, a troubled company in recent years, Miley Cyrus has been a godsend.

There’s only one small problem with this happy picture; the entire Miley enterprise rests precariously on the boney shoulders of a 15 year old girl and an absolutely, impossibly squeaky clean image of the star and her family. Like an upside down ziggurat balancing on a knife’s edge, one wrong move – one slip – and the whole edifice can come crashing down around their heads.

An overstatement? Earlier this year, Consumer Reports Magazine noticed that Miley and her father did not buckle up after getting into a car during the filming for Best of Both Worlds. In a blog post “Note to Hannah Montana: Seat belts are a necessity, not an accessory,” the consumers group criticized Miley for not setting a good example for her legions of fans by not buckling up.

The news nets picked up the story and ran with it. CNN, MSNBC, Fox, all devoted an entire news cycle to the “controversy.” Social scientists weighed in. Traffic safety groups had their say. Billy Ray actually felt compelled to issue an apology blaming the press of film making for his egregious error.

Disney execs fretted that the porcelain doll image of their little creation would take a hit. And while there was plenty of criticism from the busy bodies of the world, the seat belt controversy quickly died for lack of oxygen. After all, how long can you milk a story about absolutely nothing? Even the geniuses in cable news were hard pressed to come up with anything original to say after two or three days.

But there is trouble in Mileyland today as the young lady finds herself embroiled in a very grown-up controversy. And the issues raised by this imbroglio go to the heart of American morals, American culture, and the increasing sexualization of children to gratify adult desires.

A photo spread of young Ms. Cyrus in Vanity Fair turned into what can only be called a porn shoot. The shocking picture of little Miley in the altogether wrapped in a bedsheet to hide her breasts has thrown the muti-billion dollar Disney company into a panic and has angered parents groups, child welfare organizations, feminists, and millions of parents who saw the all-American image of Miley Cyrus as a godsend – a counter to the raw sexual images their kids are bombarded with every day.

Disney tried some immediate damage control with a statement from Ms. Cyrus:

“I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be ‘artistic’ and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed,” Miley said in a statement. “I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about.” The most controversial of the images, which appear in the June issue of Vanity Fair, is the classic, “Guess what I just did” pose, showing Miley apparently topless, with a silk bedsheet gathered around her chest, her hair and lipstick mussed. In other shots, Miley is draped languidly across the lap of her father, country singer Billy Ray Cyrus.

And pornography it is – child pornography as defined by statute. It is the deliberate posing of a minor to elicit sexual feelings in adults. The photographer – the award winning, brilliant and creative Annie Leibovitz – can tell us her photos of Cyrus represents “art” from now until the cows come home but that won’t change the reality of how those photos are viewed by the law.

Leibovitz will probably skate because of her reputation. But it raises the question; where in God’s name was her father? Her Mother? Her handlers? Surely anyone with half a brain would have seen enormous trouble with the publication of these photos.

It turns out, the Miley camp is spinning a tale of serendipity where the photo was set up and shot while everyone else was looking the other way or manged to be somewhere else. Miley herself is a little more sensible, issuing the statement of apology above (no doubt drawn up by fainting executives at Disney).

We’ve all seen the clothes little girls are wearing these days; the bare midriff tops, the skin tight jeans, the obsession with showing as much skin as possible. Why this is so goes to the heart of the culture wars – the idea that children are not impressionable beings with ill-formed social and intellectual gifts but rather just little adults.

Kids as young as 11 or 12 take part in sex parties where sexual acts are performed as a game. “Hooking up” – sex among friends without strings – is popular in teen circles. And why not? This is the culture to which they are exposed. Romantic ideals of sex and relationships are replaced by a soulless view of sex as some kind of release or duty.

No mystery. No emotional attachment, which some experts believe actually harm young women, some of whom will have difficulty in forming lasting relationships later in life. The question of when or if this madness will end is irrelevant. In a free society, it is the people who determine the limits of such things. And we have, as parents and concerned citizens, abandoned that responsibility and put it in the hands of people who have dollar signs in their eyes and exploitation on the mind.

To the skin masters of Hollywood and Madison Avenue, it really is a question of dollars and cents. And if parents of young girls don’t care enough to keep their kids from being caught up in this cultural cesspool, then perhaps we should stop blaming the purveyors of this crap and start pointing a finger at adults who are either too tired, to lackadaisical, or too cowed by their kids to put their foot down.

No one has covered these issues more regularly than Michelle Malkin:

The adults surrounding Miley Cyrus shamelessly abdicated their responsibility to protect her best interests. Mom and Dad got caught up in the Vanity Fair glam. Vanity Fair didn’t see a 15-year-old girl. They saw magazine sale dollar signs. And Annie Leibovitz saw skin, skin, skin and another notch in her belt.

The parents, grandmother, and teacher are not alone in shouldering blame. Shame on Liebovitz and the pretentious left-wing editor of Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter.

“Artists” and “literary magazine editors?” Nonsense. They’re the elitist version of Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis and his video camera operators, coaxing girls to take it all off–just with more refined tones and high-minded pretentiousness.

What happened to Miley Cyrus will not hurt her image – much. But by allowing their child to be exploited in such a public way, the parents of little Miley deserve all the disapprobation that comes their way. And I suspect that there are quite a few confused kids and parents out there right now, wondering whether the carefully constructed image of Miley Cyrus will be tarnished from here on out or whether the young lady can roll with this blow and come out unblemished in the eyes of her millions of fans.

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, a roundtable discussion with Ed Morrissey of Hot Air, Jazz Shaw of Middle Earth Journal, and Fausta Wertz of Fausta’s Blog regarding Barack Obama’s press conference and the Reverend Wright controversy.

For the best in political analysis, click on the button below and listen in. A podcast will be available for streaming or download around 15 minutes after the show ends.

The Chat Room will open around 15 minutes before the show opens,

Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.

I have a new column up at PJ Media about Obama’s presser this afternoon.

If he had said the same things last month, he would not have had to come before the press today. A sample:

Jeremiah Wright’s speech on Monday at the National Press Club turned into a full blown media feeding frenzy after the pastor not only repeated his charges that the US is a terrorist state, that the country deserved 9/11, and that the US government created the AIDS virus to kill black people, but amplified his charges. Wright also intimated that Obama was forced to denounce his words because of political considerations but that at bottom, he agreed with him.

By late afternoon in North Carolina, the campaign finally realized what was happening and trotted the candidate out before the traveling press at the airport in Wilmington:

Read the whole thing.

Would the last person reading the New York Times please turn out the lights?

The following circulation compares the new data to the same period a year ago. Daily circulation is the Monday-through-Friday average.

• The New York Times lost more than 150,000 copies on Sunday. Circulation on that day fell a whopping 9.2% to 1,476,400. The paper’s daily circulation declined 3.8% to 1,077,256.

According to New York Times spokeswoman Diane McNulty, the company had budgeted for the declines in Sunday and daily circulation. Two-thirds of the Sunday loss stemmed from the elimination of bonus days and third-party bulk copies. Also: the paper had a single copy and home delivery price increase in July. The paper also focused on growing “highly profitable circulation,” she noted.

• At The Washington Post, daily circulation decreased 3.5% to 673,180 and Sunday dropped 4.3% to 890,163.

• Meanwhile, daily circulation at The Wall Street Journal grew a fraction of a percent, up 0.3% to 2,069,463 copies. At USA Today, circulation inched up 0.27%* to 2,284,219. (Correction: the original version of this story said USA Today’s daily circulation was up 2.7%.)

If this keeps up, the dinosaur media will become fodder for archaeologists and story tellers (“Once upon a time, Americans got their news by reading something we used to call “newspapers”...)

I am happy to see that the Times “budgeted” for this catastrophe although their attempt to put a prom dress on a pig falls pretty flat as you can well imagine. And I suppose by “highly profitable circulation” the Times is talking about their efforts to get their own employees to subscribe to the paper. Perhaps they can branch out and start a subscription drive that would target employees’ mothers. Now there’s an untapped resource ‘ole Pinch never thought of, I’ll bet.

Really, this is getting serious. What will us conservative blogs do if the New York Times goes under? Think about it. No more Maureen Dowd to reduce to tears. No more Krugman to fact check. No more Frank Rich to laugh at.

On the plus side, our national security will improve. But then at the same time, we will no longer be able to write towering denunciations of the perfidious louts who continue to publish our closely held secrets. How can any self respecting conservative blogger get by without the occasional foray into sanctimony that the Times so generously provides us?

So we here at The House have decided to start a campaign:

SAVE THE NEW YORK TIMES!

To all our readers, we ask you to subscribe or give generously to the Times just so that we have something to write about in the future. This site and others would grind to a halt if the Times went out of business so we are asking you to save the Times – and save the righty blogosphere.

I suggest we hurry. At the rate these guys are losing readers, Bill Keller will have to cancel the annual New York Times Summer Retreat in the Hamptons.

Note: Much of the above piece was originally published in The American Thinker

“Whenever I want to know how bad the situation is in Lebanon, I look in the trunk of Rabieh’s car. If there are only a few revolvers, the situation is fine. If there are a few automatic weapons, the situation is tense. And if it is packed with AKs and M16s, I know the situation could explode at any time.”
(A member of the Democratic Left Party in Lebanon)

The talk is of guns in some quarters in Lebanon and of how expensive firearms have gotten. An AK-47 that cost $75-$100 a year ago now goes for between $700-$1000. The government is fully aware of the gun market but can do nothing. After all, they can’t disarm Palestinians in the refugee camps nor take Hezb’allah’s guns away from them. How can they stop people from arming themselves for protection against…what?

Indeed, that is the question in Lebanon today as the political stalemate between the western backed March 14 government and Syrian/Iranian backed Hezb’allah continues. Plans to end the stalemate come and go but the political life of Lebanon is at a standstill. Hezb’allah ally Speaker of the Parliament Nabih Berri continues to schedule a vote for President in Parliament – 17 times since December. But Berri and the Hezb’allah led opposition (which includes the largest Christian party led by Miche Aoun) do not recognize the “legitimacy” of the government led by Prime Minister Foaud Siniora and hence, are agitating for a new one – this time with Hezb’allah dominant. They refuse to show up at these scheduled parliamentary sessions thus denying the majority a quorum to get the business of electing a president over with.

The question “Can they do that?” is irrelevant. This is Lebanon. And in a nation so tied up in political knots, so on edge as the result of the murderous Syrian gangster regime next door that assassinates ministers and Members of Parliament who oppose them, all sides recognize the peril of taking the wrong step or making the wrong move or even of saying the wrong word.

The immediate problem facing the factions is a replacement for Syrian puppet President Emile Lahoud. He stepped down last November and the two sides have been at it hammer and tongs since. Every candidate put forward by the March 14th Forces has been summarily rejected by Hezb’allah. This was true even when the government swallowed its pride somewhat and agreed to nominate General Michel Suleiman, head of the Lebanese army and a nominally pro-Syrian figure.

At first, it appeared that Suleiman would breeze through and solve the presidential problem. But like a gambler who just can’t take his winnings and leave the table. President Assad in Syria nixed the idea until the make up of a new government had been agreed to. Since then, Hezb’allah has added the stipulation that there will be no president until the current electoral law – which favors Christians at the expense of Muslims – is reformed.

Back to square one – or before square one if you wish. Since early in the year, Sunnis and Shias have been buying guns while the old militias – who never gave their firearms up in the first place – have reportedly begun to drill. There have been some clashes in the streets between the factions – mostly riots over some perceived insult by one side or the other. The overall mood in the country is tense.

And now that they have completely bollixed up the political situation in Lebanon, Hezb’allah has felt free to get back to the business of destroying Israel. In recent months, a gigantic recruiting campaign has been underway as they have emptied towns and villages in the south of young men and sent them off to training camps in the Bekaa Valley and in special cases, Syria and Iran:

The significance of this latest recruitment drive is that Hezb’allah is apparently seeking to not only replace losses suffered in the war but also expand its military capabilities. And many analysts believe there is only one reason for Hezb’allah to make this move – they plan to incite another war with Israel sometime soon – perhaps as early as this summer.

The Israelis are still reeling from their perceived failure in the war with Hezb’allah. The Winograd Commission Report exposed several deficiencies in leadership, training, and tactics that are just now being addressed by the IDF. But the army can hardly be expected to have reformed itself in a few months. And with a looming conflict with an expanded Hezb’allah on the horizon, the Israeli government is watching political developments in Lebanon very closely.

Indeed, one reason for the expansion of the militia could be to have more fighters available if the clashes in the streets get serious – something Hezb’allah is perfectly capable of manipulating if they choose. At the moment, it appears unnecessary because the paralyzed government of Prime Minister Siniora continues an inexorable process of moving toward meeting opposition demands on changing the electoral law and forming a new “Government of National Unity” that would give the opposition veto power over cabinet decisions.

What choice do they have? The canny old Druze warlord Walid Jumblatt has come to the conclusion that the majority must talk with the opposition and that the basis of those talks must be meeting opposition demands:

Jumblatt noted the divergence in point of views between opposition leaders over dialogue. “MP Michel Aoun is rejecting dialogue while Berri is calling for it. If this is a maneuver on their behalf, let us check their intentions.”

“If this dialogue will not lead to the election of a president, the public opinion will be at least informed of the obstructing party,” he added.

“Probably this is the justification of the Syrian support to dialogue,” Jumblatt declared.

He also noted that March 14 forces must agree over the electoral law. “Dialogue will indicate the matter over which we can agree with the opposition.”

It comes down to this; the majority is seeking to act responsibly, bending over backward to accomodate the opposition’s demands while trying to maintain it’s position as the legally elected government. The opposition, backed by Syria, is simply sitting back and throwing monkey wrench after monkey wrench into the process. For in the end, chaos in Lebanon benefits only one man and one regime; Bashar Assad’s Syria.

There is little the US can do to prevent Syrian influence in Lebanon from causing an eruption of violence. In fact, it is an open question whether the next president – be he McCain or Obama – can resist the temptation to abandon Lebanon in favor of jump starting the Middle East peace process or getting Syria to assist us in Iraq.

Michael Young points out the perils of engaging Syria in dialogue:

Is it really in the U.S. interest to engage Syria in this context, when its major Arab allies are in the midst of a conflict with Iran they view as vital? In fact, I’m not at all convinced that asking Arab states to change Syrian behavior through “more robust interactions and investments in the country” would work. The Arabs have repeatedly tried to change Syrian behavior through more congenial means, most prominently at the Arab League summit in Riyadh last year. The Syrians have ignored this. Why? Because they know the price for their return to the Arab fold would be to give up on a return to Lebanon. They’re not about to do that, because only such a return, one that is total, with soldiers, would give Syria the regional relevance it lost in 2005, when it was forced out of Lebanon.

It would also allow Syria, from Beirut, to undermine the Hariri tribunal, which threatens the future of the Syrian regime and which will probably begin operating next year. In this, Syria has the full support of Hezbollah, which realizes that without a Syrian comeback, the party will continue to face a majority in Lebanon that wants the party to disarm. I find it revealing that Jon failed to mention Lebanon once in his post. That’s because advocates of engaging Syria realize that the only way you can bring about an advantageous dialogue with Damascus is to give it something worthwhile. That something can only be Lebanon, the minimal price Syria would demand to offer positive concessions in return.

Lebanon is not only the key to Syrian influence in the region it is also the key to Assad’s survival. Some may be unfamiliar with Syria’s role in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri and the formation of a tribunal (now under UN auspices due to Lebanon’s political paralysis) to try and convict the perpetrators.

The ongoing UN investigation has shown that 4 Lebanese army generals (now in custody) in cahoots with Syrian intelligence, carried out the car bombing that killed Hariri. The prosecutors have also uncovered evidence that the subsequent political assassinations of several leading government parliamentarians, journalists, and other anti-Syrian figures was also masterminded by Syrian intelligence as well as leading members of Assad’s regime – including Assad’s own brother in law Assef Shawkat who became head of intelligence 30 minutes after Hariri was killed.

The Tribunal – if allowed to function fully and properly – will no doubt indict people very close to Bashar Assad himself. This would spell catastrophe for Assad and Syria which would come under severe sanctions by the US and the United Nations. Since Syria’s forced withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005, the economy has taken a nosedive thanks to the drying up of “protection money” and other means by which Syria milked the Lebanese economy to benefit the regime. The pressure to get rid of Assad would be intense. There would probably also be calls for regime change from both Arab and western governments.

In short, most analysts agree that the number one priority of the Syrian regime is to get back into Lebanon and try and derail the Tribunal. No deal with the Arabs or the west about Iraq, about WMD, about the Golan, or about their relationship with Iran will take place without a quid pro quo involving Lebanon.

There is no apparent timetable to Hezb’allah’s plans. They don’t have to war with Israel anytime soon nor do they appear in any hurry to force the political situation in Lebanon to any kind of denoument. But it is equally clear that they now feel they have the upper hand in Lebanon. The explosion may not occur this summer. But it appears that the Syrians and Hezb’allah will get everything they want unless the government is prepared to stop them.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

It would be in the name of “peace,” of course. Either John McCain or Barack Obama (or Hillary Clinton for that matter) will most likely be faced with a choice at some early point in their administrations.

Do we continue our policy of isolating Bashar Assad’s gangster regime or do we engage them in a dialogue as part of a Syrian-Israeli peace deal? And if we engage, do we give Syria the only thing they want from us – our pledge not to interfere in Syria’s campaign to re-occupy Lebanon?

As Lebanon Daily Star editorial editor and contributor to Reason Magazine Michael Young points out, those are the grim choices that will face the next US President:

Is it really in the U.S. interest to engage Syria in this context, when its major Arab allies are in the midst of a conflict with Iran they view as vital? In fact, I’m not at all convinced that asking Arab states to change Syrian behavior through “more robust interactions and investments in the country” would work. The Arabs have repeatedly tried to change Syrian behavior through more congenial means, most prominently at the Arab League summit in Riyadh last year. The Syrians have ignored this. Why? Because they know the price for their return to the Arab fold would be to give up on a return to Lebanon. They’re not about to do that, because only such a return, one that is total, with soldiers, would give Syria the regional relevance it lost in 2005, when it was forced out of Lebanon.

It would also allow Syria, from Beirut, to undermine the Hariri tribunal, which threatens the future of the Syrian regime and which will probably begin operating next year. In this, Syria has the full support of Hezbollah, which realizes that without a Syrian comeback, the party will continue to face a majority in Lebanon that wants the party to disarm. I find it revealing that Jon failed to mention Lebanon once in his post. That’s because advocates of engaging Syria realize that the only way you can bring about an advantageous dialogue with Damascus is to give it something worthwhile. That something can only be Lebanon, the minimal price Syria would demand to offer positive concessions in return.

Lebanon is not only the key to Syrian influence in the region it is also the key to Assad’s survival. Some may be unfamiliar with Syria’s role in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri and the formation of a tribunal (now under UN auspices due to Lebanon’s political paralysis) to try and convict the perpetrators.

The ongoing UN investigation has shown that 4 Lebanese army generals (now in custody) in cahoots with Syrian intelligence, carried out the car bombing that killed Hariri. The prosecutors have also uncovered evidence that the subsequent political assassinations of several leading government parliamentarians, journalists, and other anti-Syrian figures was also masterminded by Syrian intelligence as well as leading members of Assad’s regime – including Assad’s own brother in law Assef Shawkat who became head of intelligence 30 minutes after Hariri was killed.

The Tribunal – if allowed to function fully and properly – will no doubt indict people very close to Bashar Assad himself. This would spell catastrophe for Assad and Syria which would come under severe sanctions by the US and the United Nations. Since Syria’s forced withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005, the economy has taken a nosedive thanks to the drying up of “protection money” and other means by which Syria milked the Lebanese economy to benefit the regime. The pressure to get rid of Assad would be intense. There would probably also be calls for regime change from both Arab and western governments.

In short, most analysts agree that the number one priority of the Syrian regime is to get back into Lebanon and try and derail the Tribunal. No deal with the Arabs or the west about Iraq, about WMD, about the Golan, or about their relationship with Iran will take place without a quid pro quo involving Lebanon.

And what of Syria’s main ally in Lebanon, Hezbullah? Clearly, Syria would be keen to have Hezbullah become politically ascendant in Lebanon if they were to move back in while simultaneously diminishing Sunni influence. The Christians, under Hezbullah ally Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement party would also share in the spoils of a Syrian re-occupation. So much for Lebanese democracy. So much for Lebanese independence.

The sad fact is that either a President Obama or President McCain will be under enormous pressure to bring Israel and Syria together, believing quite rightly that the best chance to avoid a regional war is to resolve the serious outstanding issues that exist between the two countries, especially Israel’s continued occupation of the Golan and Syria’s support for Hezbullah and their murderous rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. The price of a deal will almost certainly include giving Syria a free hand in Lebanon.

Would either or both be willing to pay that price? Almost all terrorism analysts agree that bringing peace to the Middle East is important to the War against Islamic extremism. And key to that process is making peace between Syria and Israel. Would both presidents see an overriding national interest in helping make peace between Israel and Syria at the expense of Lebanon? Michael Young again:

We are in a regional struggle for power, and Syria happens to stand at its nexus point. It is a weak link that some persist in wanting to strengthen by advocating U.S. engagement of it. But what are the conditions of such engagement? If it is that Syria must surrender Lebanon, Hamas, and Hezbollah to find its salvation in a better relationship with the United States, then be assured that Asad won’t accept such a patently bad deal. He prefers to take his chances with a fight, with Iran on his side. If there are those in the United States willing to give up on Lebanon’s independence, however, and by extension allow Syria to further bolster Hezbollah, then fine. But I again fail to see how that would be in the long-term U.S. interest.

The controversy surrounding the North Carolina GOP ad that features the now familiar Jeremiah Wright clip damning America has generated the largest amount of manufactured outrage I’ve seen in quite a while.

The ad raises a legitimate question: Is Obama too “extreme” for North Carolina? Does his belonging to Wright’s church for 20 years – “sitting in a pew” and listening to his pastor spout his hatred – make Obama himself an extremist?

There can be no reasonable challenge to the idea that Wright spreads hate. It is not only in his sermons but in the bulletins published by his church as well. Black “Liberation” Theology or not. Good works in the community notwithstanding. Jeremiah Wright encourages his flock to hate rich white people, hate Jews, hate the government of the United States, hate our ancestors, hate everything about America – including “middle classness – of which he doesn’t approve.

No amount of spinning can alter the fact that Wright is a conspiracy mongering, hate spewing preacher. If he has asked God to forgive those who he sees as having oppressed African Americans – as indeed there has been plenty of oppression – I have not seen it. This would seem to give the lie to Obama’s contention that Wright preaches a gospel of Christian love. Without forgiveness, there is no love and there is no room for “love” of anyone in Wright’s sermons except the oppressed – a curious belief for a Christian.

Where Christ forgave the Romans because the didn’t know what they were doing, Wright specifically makes mention of conspiracies against African Americans and genocide – atrocities carried out by whites with the full knowledge that what they were doing was wrong and evil. This is an interesting but flawed analysis because it presupposes a level of organization and an ability to carry out long term plans by generations of white people as well as (compared to today) an extraordinarily weak and divided central government. And, of course, Wright makes no mention of the many white abolitionists – many of them rich, white men – who fought to end the abomination of slavery.

But since there is no forgiveness (nor, one suspects, any redemption) for the architects of black oppression, the only possible conclusion to be drawn is that African Americans should hate those who Wright says are their oppressors. Wright urges God to damn America and Americans for our past and present sins. And if you can spin that any other way than promoting hatred, you should be a PR flack for the devil.

I am told that I don’t understand this kind of Christianity, that because I and others who are condemning Wright have not immersed ourselves in the black religious experience that we should just keep our mouths shut and ignore Wright’s hate mongering. This may be politically convenient for Obama but it hardly addresses the issue raised by the North Carolina ad – which, of course, is the entire point of criticism directed against it and the NC GOP.

Can Obama be tarred with the charge of being an “extremist” because of what his pastor of 20 years believes? And more to the point, by making the charge is the North Carolina GOP guilty of racism or even dirty politics?

As to the notion that Obama himself is an extremist I suppose that depends on your point of view. I don’t find him extreme – no more so than any liberal with a statist agenda. However, there may be some in North Carolina who feel differently. Conservative Tar Heels are a notoriously independent lot (they elected Democrat Heath Shuler who defeated 8 term incumbent Charlie Taylor) and some of Obama’s positions on gun control, late term abortions, perhaps even the Iraq War could be considered by some as “extreme.”

But to make that claim just because of what his pastor believes is another question. While Obama’s politics are not extreme to many, the fact that he sat in a pew for 20 years listening to Wright without leaving or even complaining about his pastor’s warped views – the point of the ad – raises legitimate questions as to Obama’s core beliefs about America.

The answer is we don’t know if Obama shares the extremist views of his pastor because he only denounced them when it was politically expedient to do so – when his campaign was in deep trouble immediately after Wright’s hate mongering came to light. To take Obama at his word that the reason he didn’t denounce Wright’s remarks earlier was because he wasn’t aware that his pastor held such views is becoming less and less credible as more information surfaces about the wide extent and dissemination of Wright’s beliefs. In short, Obama would have had to slept through Wright’s sermons not to have heard the pastor’s message.

However, there is considerable doubt whether Obama really believes that God should damn America or that AIDS is a government plot or that white people are evil. In that respect, the NC ad is a typical political ad – that is, it is stretches the truth to the breaking point.

But it is hardly racist nor, as the New York Times claims, is it designed to “stir up bigotry” in North Carolina. Why make that claim? Because it has black people in it? Because it makes the unarguable point that Wright is a hate mongering preacher? Because the ad portrays the close relationship Obama has with his pastor?

This is nuts. And it is a taste of the kind of defense that Obama will use in the general election against any and all Republican attacks. They will play the race card for all that it is worth. And that will be just as dishonest as any ad the GOP will ever run against him. It will be Obama who will seek to make this coming contest a campaign about race.

In this, he will have a willing assist from the press who will insist that the campaign should be about “issues” while calling out the GOP for any attempt to brand Obama as too liberal or too “extreme.” The will let slide Democratic attack ads that will portray McCain as “out of touch” (read “too old”) or unfeeling about the plight of the middle class.

It may be not accurate to intimate that Obama shares his pastor’s extremist views about America as the NC GOP ad clearly does. But the hysterical reaction – including McCain’s denunciation without even seeing the piece – gives us a taste of what’s to come as the Obama campaign and the press fully intend to “racialize” this campaign. Every attempt to criticize Obama will be decried as trying to scare white voters. Every attempt to bring Reverend Wright into the campaign will be denounced as racist.

It will not be the GOP playing the race card in the coming campaign. They wouldn’t dare. Rather it will be the Obama campaign using race to shield the candidate from attacks – fair or unfair. It’s probably smart politics. But what it says about Obama is not very elevating.

Obama’s problem associations with Wright, Rezko, and Ayers have really got the creative juices flowing on the left as they twist themselves into rhetorical and intellectual pretzels trying to downplay or dismiss, their candidate’s monumentally poor judgement in hanging around with these folks for much of his adult life.

Some may read this apologia for Obama’s associations from Reed Hundt at TPM Cafe and shake their heads in wonderment at the cluelessness of the author. Others may marvel at the sheer brazenness of Hundt’s dismissive comments about Ayers and Wright, admiring the guts it took to reveal oneself as an idiot.

Still others may laugh at the appellation “Swiftboating” as a descriptive for people who tell the truth about what Wright and Ayers have sermonized and accomplished in the past that makes them such problematic friends. Even the candidate has accepted as true what these hateful FOO’s (Friends of Obama) have said and done thus making the charge “Swiftboating” Obama pretty silly – as if the candidate would “Swiftboat” himself.

But as an anthropological exhibit showing an utter lack of honesty and integrity by the left in commenting about people that ordinary Americans find despicable, Hundt nails it:

It ought to be beneath senator McCain to have his side label Obama as a terrible person because he has failed to shun a fellow who did wrong 40 years or is not a patriot because he neglected to wear a flag on lapel, or declined to disavow a Korean War vet and pastor because he spoke too harshly one Sunday. McCain went to Vietnam to re-open peaceful relations, so he knows the place of forgiveness. He is a man of military honor and knows how to respect a friend and a foe. Hence, it ought to be beneath McCain to tolerate attacks against Obama that closely resemble the despicable charges bush launched against McCain in South Carolina in 2000. It should be the case that mccain doesn’t just pretend to stop these attacks, but actually does so. Aside from his laissez-faire positions on iraq and the economy, McCain’s primary disqualification for the oval office is that he knows these vile, crazy attacks are wrong for America but he won’t stop them.

“...he has failed to shun a fellow who did wrong 40 years…”

Yes, some may think trying to blow up the Pentagon is “wrong” although many more people might also believe that carrying out that act of barbarism and to this day not regretting it (indeed, wishing to have tried to commit more mayhem) puts such an individual beyond the pale of ordinary society. Most would agree that we should consign unapologetic miscreants like Ayers to the outer darkness where only criminals and radical wackos (and liberal universities) will have dealings with him.

Instead, Hundt believes we are “swiftboating” Obama by pointing out in the Age of Terror that our President being on a first name basis with an unrepentant terrorist is probably a bad example to set and causes most Americans with half a brain to wonder “What is that guy doing with William Ayers?”

For in truth, Ayers has not only not repented his criminal acts, he still holds views of America that are so outside the mainstream – hateful and laughably adolescent views they are – that carrying on a long term friendship with this lout calls into question not only Obama’s judgement but his sanity as well. Indeed, his campaign said after the ABC debate that Ayers and his wife, fellow former terrorist Bernadine Dohrn were “respectable fixtures of the mainstream in Chicago.”

Ayers most recent pronouncements (and Dohrns) are contained on some audio tapes dug up by a small radio station in Chicago and blasted over the internet on Wednesday by Powerline and Hugh Hewitt. The tapes show that Ayers and Dorhn are in the mainstream of Chicago politics only if Josef Stalin is mayor and Pol Pot is Cook County Commissioner.

This would come as a surprise to Mayor Daley who also has had kind words to say about Ayers/Dorhn – no doubt because he doesn’t wish to anger the liberals in Hyde Park and because he has a sneaking admiration for the former terrorist’s chutzpah. Daley is also a crook who gets away with his crimes which at least gives him something in common with Ayers. There is no excuse for Obama.

Hundt knows all of this and yet chooses to dismiss Obama’s association with Ayers in a way that suggests we shouldn’t be beastly to the candidate for hanging around with an ex-shoplifter. Pardon my gas but that fart ain’t stinkin’.

“...or declined to disavow a Korean War vet and pastor because he spoke too harshly one Sunday…”

First, I would ask my readers with an IQ above 60 to stop screaming at your monitor. Mr. Hundt can’t hear you and you are disturbing the dog who thankfully, can’t read what this monumentally dishonest and royally idiotic liberal has written about Jeremiah Wright. Otherwise, your beloved pooch might jump up on your desk and urinate on the screen -which is better than Hundt’s ridiculous notion of Wright’s rantings deserve.

Yes, everyone knows that Reverend Wright did quite a bit more than “speak harshly” about America, about whites, about Jews, and just about anyone else who this misanthropic nincompoop railed against in his sermons. If Hundt believes Wright saying “Not God Bless America but God Damn America” to be only “speaking harshly,” I would hate to see how he would categorize some of Bin Laden’s diatribes. Perhaps Osama is “just letting off steam” or maybe he’s “remonstrating” against the US.

Wright, of course, is a bigoted, America hating, anti-Semitic, nut case who believes AIDS was invented by the government to kill black people. And questioning Obama’s knowledge of his “Spiritual Advisor’s” outrageously hateful and despicable views is extremely relevant in that the candidate has denied being aware either in public or private that his pastor held to these positions.

If found otherwise, Obama is a bald faced liar. And it would appear just looking at what Tom Blumer has been able to come up with that either Obama looked the American people in the eye during his speech in Philadelphia and lied through his teeth or he was asleep during Wright’s sermons and never read any of the Trinity Church bulletins or purchased any tapes of his unbalanced pastor’s talks.

Blumer, by the way, makes a compelling case that Obama was wide awake during the services, went so far as to take notes of Wright’s sermons in the space provided by the church bulletin, and purchased at least one tape of Wright’s talks.

When Hundt makes his stupidly dishonest point that Wright preached his hate mongering only “one Sunday” he is either ignorant or is clumsily trying to excuse Obama’s incredible lack of judgement in continuing his association with a man the vast majority of Americans would have shunned like the plague after only one of his outbursts.

Instead, the candidate spent 20 years absorbing a worldview so at odds with the reality that is America that one can legitimately question Obama’s gut feelings about this country. This may anger the left but most of the rest of us see questioning Obama’s beliefs about America as a logical and reasonable outgrowth of the importance the candidate himself places on his relationship with Wright.

And this brings us to the essence of why Ayers, Wright, Rezko, Auchi, and other FOO’s are legitimate campaign issues; Obama’s claim that despite his lack of experience, it is his superior “judgement” that should recommend him to the American people. Obama conveniently tags questions about his associations as “distractions.” But are they?

Krauthammer:

With that, Obama identified the new public enemy: the “distractions” foisted upon a pliable electorate by the malevolent forces of the status quo, i.e., those who might wish to see someone else become president next January. “It’s easy to get caught up in the distractions and the silliness and the tit for tat that consumes our politics” and “trivializes the profound issues” that face our country, he warned sternly. These must be resisted.

Why? Because Obama understands that the real threat to his candidacy is less Hillary Clinton and John McCain than his own character and cultural attitudes. He came out of nowhere with his autobiography already written, then saw it embellished daily by the hagiographic coverage and kid-gloves questioning of a supine press. (Which is why those “Saturday Night Live” parodies were so devastatingly effective.)

Then came the three amigos: Tony Rezko, the indicted fixer; Jeremiah Wright, the racist reverend; William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist. And then Obama’s own anthropological observation that “bitter” working-class whites cling to guns and religion because they misapprehend their real class interests.

In the now-famous Pennsylvania debate, Obama had extreme difficulty answering questions about these associations and attitudes. The difficulty is understandable. Some of the contradictions are inexplicable. How does one explain campaigning throughout 2007 on a platform of transcending racial divisions, while in that same year contributing $26,000 to a church whose pastor incites race hatred?

Remember that one of the campaign slogans for Obama was “Judgment to Lead”. I often use the picture of Obama with that slogan on the lectern just to emphasize that Obama himself opened the debate over his judgment. Now that people want to start asking about the judgment he claims as his superior quality for the election, he wants to label it a “distraction”, but without it he has nothing else to offer except three undistinguished years as a backbencher in the Senate.

With no track record of legislative accomplishments and no evidence of any real engagement in change, judgment would have eventually become a focal issue for Obama anyway, even if he hadn’t brought it up himself. That means his judgment in launching his political career at the home of an unrepentant terrorist like William Ayers becomes relevant and germane, especially since the political connections between the two continued after Ayers announced that he wished he’d gone further in his political violence. Even in 2007, Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn talk about overthrowing the “corporate government” of the United States, to replace it with something more akin to Red China.

What is Obama’s judgment on Ayers and Dohrn? They’re “respectable figures of the mainstream in Chicago.”

I would say to Mr. Hundt that this is not “Swiftboating” – not by any means. If by using that term you imply that Obama is being falsely accused you are greatly mistaken. Accusations based on audio and video evidence that slaps ordinary Americans in the face with their virulent hatred and radical chic doctrines do more to undermine your candidate than anything Hillary Clinton, John McCain, or the right wing “noise machine” could ever do.

I stand corrected.

Actually, the fact that I’m sitting quite comfortably doesn’t matter as much as the fact that I was wrong.

Hillary Clinton did not – I repeat, did not – score a double digit victory over Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary.

As of now, CNN’s official tally of Hillary’s win shows her with 54.7501939494590227735948765900% of the vote to Obama’s 45.40193856383920203294874665848% percent of the vote for a victory margin by Hillary of 9.301929348375758339929219919287%.

So many of you were adamant that it was wrong of me to make the claim that Hillary won by “double digits” that I felt a correction was in order. In fact, some of you went to great pains to show me the error of my mathematical ways. Unfortunately, my Cray is down at the moment so I could only give a limited number of decimal point spread. I suppose I could have called the NSA and borrowed theirs but I understand they’re a little busy right now trying to decrypt the latest al-Qaeda intercepts so I nixed that idea.

I retract my earlier pronouncement that Hillary won by 10% or “double digits. Except if you’re talking about white voters.

Or Catholic voters.

Or Jewish voters

Or voters who go to church once a week.

Or voters who own guns.

Or voters 45-59 years of age.

Or voters 60 and over.

Or Female voters.

Or those with no college degree.

Or those who make $15-30 thousand and $30-$50 thousand, and $50-$75 thousand, and $100-$150 thousand a year.

Or those who believe the economy is the most important issue.

Or those with a union member in the household.

Other than that, Obama did great. He spent $11 million and got the stoner vote, the Limousine Liberal vote, the celebrity watchers vote, the elitist egghead vote, the atheists, anti-gun nuts, and open borders vote (the “Anti-Bittergate crowd), the perpetual student vote, and hundreds of thousands of rightly proud African Americans.

With a coalition like that, I predict that ex-President McGovern will be the first one to call with his congratulations on election night.

Conventional wisdom says Obama is not in any danger of losing the nomination as long as he remains ahead in the pledged delegate count. I would say that this is true at this point despite his blow out loss yesterday to Clinton in Pennsylvania.

And yes friends, it was a blow out. When you lose 62% of the white vote, that’s a blowout. When you lose 70% of the Catholic vote, that is a blowout. When you lose 57% of the Jewish vote, that’s a blowout. When you lose 58% of churchgoers, that is a blowout. When you lose 54% of workers making less than $50,000 a year (and win only those making less than $15,000 and more than $150,000), that’s a blowout. When you lose 63% of seniors, that’s a blowout. When you outspend your opponent by 3-1 and still lose by 10 points, that’s a blowout.

Obama was thoroughly and completely trounced, being saved only by his dominance with young voters and African Americans. Otherwise, Clinton would have gotten her 20 point win and we would probably be looking at an entirely different campaign today.

But we’re not. And Obama is not in trouble – yet. The May 6 primary in Indiana will be an interesting test for him since he is expected to breeze to victory in North Carolina’s contest held the same day. Once again he will have the opportunity to drive a stake through the heart of the Clinton campaign – this time by winning Indiana.

Indiana does not set up well for Obama except in the southeastern northwestern part of the state where Gary, an ex-steel town with an 85% African American population will give him overwhelming support thanks to its proximity to Chicago. The rest of the state will be a problem for him – especially Indianapolis which is one of the more conservative big cities in America. And Indiana voters look something like those same rural Pennsylvania voters who just snubbed him. Clearly, he has an uphill climb to defeat Clinton in the Hoosier state.

It is in North Carolina where Obama is in a must win situation. He is way ahead in the polls at this point – anywhere from 9-13 points. But looking at the PA exit polls once again, trouble may be brewing in Obamaland that could make North Carolina and much tougher race than it appears to be now.

In a piece headlined “The Next McGovern?” John Judis at TNR shows what is happening to some heretofore strong constituencies for Obama:

For his part, Obama cut into Clinton’s advantage, but couldn’t erase it. Even though he campaigned extensively among white working class Pennsylvanians, he still couldn’t crack this constituency. He lost every white working class county in the state. He lost greater Pittsburgh area by 61 to 39 percent. He did poorly among Catholics—losing them 71 to 29 percent. A Democrat can’t win Pennsylvania in the fall without these voters. And those who didn’t vote in the primary but will vote in the general election are likely to be even less amenable to Obama.

But Obama also lost ground among the upscale white professionals that had helped him win states like Wisconsin, Maryland, and Virginia. For instance, Obama won my own Montgomery County, Maryland by 55 to 43 percent but he lost suburban Philadelphia’s very similar Montgomery County by 51 to 49 percent to Clinton. He lost upscale arty Bucks County by 62 to 38 percent.

My colleague Noam Scheiber attributes Clinton’s success among these suburbanites to the influence of Governor Ed Rendell, who campaigned with Clinton, but I wonder whether Obama’s gaffes and his suspect associations—whether with Wright or former Weatherman Bill Ayers or real estate developer Tony Rezko—began to tarnish his image among these voters. If so, the electoral premise of Obama’s campaign—that he can attract middle class Republicans and Independents—is being undermined.

Indeed, if you look at Obama’s vote in Pennsylvania, you begin to see the outlines of the old George McGovern coalition that haunted the Democrats during the ‘70s and ‘80s, led by college students and minorities. In Pennsylvania, Obama did best in college towns (60 to 40 percent in Penn State’s Centre County) and in heavily black areas like Philadelphia.

They won’t be able to force Hillary out since she still has strong arguments — the popular vote may end up dead even, or even in her favor; while he won caucuses and out-of-play states, she won the critical fall battlegrounds — and by plebiscites; she is the more experienced and more likely to run a steady national campaign; she wins the Reagan Democrats that will determine the fall election; and by other, more logical nomination rules (like the Republicans’ fewer caucuses, winner-take-all elections) she would have already wrapped it up. There seems something unfair, after all, for someone to win these mega-states and end up only with a few extra delegates for the effort. The more this drags out, the more Obama and Hillary get nastier and more estranged from each other — at precisely the time one must take the VP nomination to unite the party.

On the plus side, Hillary is showing a scrappy, tough blue-collar talent that is critical for November — but apparently it will be all for naught, or worse, cause lots of these Middle America “clingers” to go over to McCain.

More and more, McCain will want to run against Obama and his far weaker coalition of elite whites, African-Americans, students — and closets of skeletons. More and more, we will start to see the buyer’s remorse of midsummer 1972.

This then, is the biggest race left for Obama. He is not expected to win in Indiana, or West Virginia the following week or Kentucky the week after that (Oregon is considered a toss-up). All of a sudden, North Carolina becomes a must win for him – proof that he still has that old magic and that his campaign is not falling apart, shriveling under the onslaught from Hillary, McCain, and a suddenly querulous press.

No, Obama is not in trouble because he lost Pennsylvania. But the harbingers in the exit polls tell a story by which Obama may not enjoy the ending. If he loses North Carolina, the drumbeat will begin from many Democrats to ignore the pledged delegate total and pick the candidate that has the best chance of defeating John McCain and the Republicans in November.

Correction: Gary is in the northwest not southeast part of the state. If it was in the southeast, the rest of the state would be under water, drowned by Lake Michigan.