Right Wing Nut House

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.

I will make an hour long appearance on The Kathleen Dunne Show on Wisconsin Public Radio beginning at 11:00 AM Eastern (10:00 AM Central). The topic is “Will Obama Survive Reverend Wright’s Remarks?”

There will also be a discussion of the 2008 race for president.

You can access a live on line stream of the broadcast here.

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Mainlining the internet as I do both for my paying gigs at PJM and AT and as someone who just enjoys reading about history and politics, you can’t help but marvel at the varying emotions brought to the surface by Barack Obama’s candidacy.

I’ve made fun of his devoted followers in the past on this site, largely because they’ve got a great big red bullseye tatooed on their chest - easy pickings as they say. Having that much faith in any politician would have caused our Founders (George Washington excluded) much discomfort and worry. The men who sat through that long hot summer of 1787 in Philadelphia in order to bring forth our Constitution had absolutely no illusions about power and an individual’s desire to exercise it. Their greatest fear was that the “mob” would fall in love with one man, blinding themselves to the danger inherent in concentrating power in the hands of the few. Their wisdom has worn well through the ages.

But there is no denying the enormous attraction that candidate Obama brings to the table. He has that incredibly rare gift of being able to inspire people. His rhetoric on the stump touches something deep inside - so American, so seductive to believe that he really is “an agent of change” or that he is somehow a different politician who can bridge the chasm between the races, between ideologies, between all those who feel cut off from the body politic.

I think Obama is sincere in his desire to accomplish these miracles. The problem, of course, is that there is absolutely nothing in his past - absolutely nothing - that would give anyone not taken in by his post-racial, post ideological mantra any hope whatsoever that he has the first clue as to how to go about such a task.

Does intent count for anything? I am dubious. And I am much more concerned that perhaps the candidate himself doesn’t realize - as shown in his remarks about voter’s clinging to values rather than voting what he perceives to be their interests - just how hard his kind of “change” is going to be.

Are we to believe it just an accident of history that Obama, trained as a street organizer using the template supplied by radical leftist Saul Alinsky, would have so many radicals dotting his present and past associations? Not just Wright, of course, but also the Weather Underground bomber William Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dorhn as well as radical Arabs,, radical racialists like Reverend James Meeks, and the real lunatic fringe represented by Father Michael Pfleger, a fixture in radical Chicago politics for many years who “counseled” Obama prior to his presser on Tuesday.

These are not just run of the mill, starry eyed idealists. These are gimlet eyed radicals with decades of experience in the political trenches who are out to make a revolution - a leftist revolution that would turn America into something unrecognizable to the vast majority of us. It is immaterial whether Obama shares their beliefs regarding “change” - a word that takes on an entirely different meaning when keeping in mind the kinds of people Obama has been hanging around with for much of his adult life. The radicals, too, want “change” after all and have developed the strategies to mask their true intent while going about the business of turning America upside down.

Obama almost certainly dabbled in radical leftist politics in the years prior to his run for the US Senate. A blatant tell is that some of his rhetoric reflects a post-modern view of the world where substance takes a back seat to intent and meaning plays second fiddle to an interpretive dialogue with his audience. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” (from a poem by a left-wing-radical-feminist-bisexual poet named June Jordanis) a good example of this interpretive speech where Obama invites the audience to take their own meaning from the words.

As a rhetorical device, it is clever without being gimmicky. But as an indication of what kind of president Obama would make it is as obtuse as you can get without falling into gibberish.

But it doesn’t answer the question of just how radical is Obama? Not very, in my opinion. He is probably attracted to the radical’s certainty and their sense of outrage but beyond that, Obama is much too pragmatic to cater to their whims or listen very closely to their ideas regarding “changing” America. In this respect, Obama would not be leading any kind of crusade to turn America into some kind of socialist paradise. The most statist of proposals - national health care - is actually less draconian than Hillary’s mandate-laden, IRS enforcing disaster of a plan.

And we conservatives better get used to the idea of some kind of national health insurance. The people are “wild for it” as Abe Lincoln said about war and with an almost certain Democratic majority in both houses, it seems a foregone conclusion that Republicans will be fighting a rear guard action on the issue.

As for the rest of Obama’s program, his raising taxes won’t help the economy much and he will be constrained by enormous federal deficits in implementing some of his more problematic social programs. In this respect, his statist tendencies will be blunted by the reality of the budget. Good news for conservatives who will no doubt be surprised that Obama will turn out to be something of a budget hawk - if we can defeat any of his ideas to raise taxes across the board. We know from experience that any additional revenue received through an increase in taxes never, ever goes to reducing the deficit. Only budget cuts will accomplish that goal along with, as history also teaches us, a healthy, growing economy which will automatically put more tax dollars in the goverment’s coffers.

Where Obama worries me most is on national security and foreign policy matters. Here is where his inexperience and addle headed idealism could really cause problems. But he won’t skedaddle from Iraq nor will he be able to effectively engage Iran or Syria. Those are pipe dreams as is any notion of a peace deal between Hamas and Israel. Once again, Obama’s lofty rhetoric will be brought back to earth by reality.

I don’t buy the proposition that Obama would give up on the War on Terror. He will shift resources around and he will probably rename the conflict but beyond that what’s he going to do? Leave the United States wide open to attack? Not likely. And any hint that he would do so by Republicans would be seen for what it is; an attempt to use fear to get votes.

In short, an Obama presidency would not be the end of the world. Conservatives won’t like it. It is doubtful that a President Obama would be able to reach across the aisle very often or know what to do even if he does. He has not shown much inclination in the past to engage in bi-partisanship and campaign rhetoric notwithstanding, I doubt whether he would accomplish much anyway.

Nor will there be a magical racial reconciliation - not as long as the media keeps giving air time to the likes of Sharpton, Wright, and that crew of racialist demogagues. And Obama will probably turn out to be as partisan as any president in the past.

But the republic will survive. It has survived much worse and thrived. Even though an Obama presidency will almost certainly not live up to his rhetoric, those of us who take a realistic view of politicians and the presidency will probably not be too disappointed. His devoted followers may be another story.

But they too, will almost certainly bow to the wisdom of our founders who detested radical change and built into the system of government itself the mechanisms by which change is effected only through careful consideration of all viewpoints and a healthy respect for the minority.

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.

The link to the Time website shows the offending picture. As for the others, you can find them yourself I’m sure. I don’t usually link porn at this site but this is a special case.

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.

It is a constant, draining battle for parents to monitor their kids intake of everything from junk food to internet content. I sympathize. But giving in to your kid’s desire to fit in with the crowd by allowing them to walk out of the house dressed like a streetwalker is the wrong decision under all circumstances.

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.

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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.