Right Wing Nut House

There is an argument to be made for America’s never-ending presidential campaign in that it tests a candidate in a variety of different ways. It examines a potential president’s physical stamina, ability to organize and prioritize, strategic thinking, tactical ability, and gifts of persuasion.

Eventually, it will also test a candidate’s ability to handle adversity. Judging by what has transpired this week for Barack Obama and his suddenly faltering campaign, one would think the candidate would have had a bellyfull of untoward occurrences, staff gaffes, bad luck, and perhaps a touch of incompetence on the part of the candidate himself.

It began Monday with Obama’s worst performance before the national media to date. The candidate has been chided in the past for his lack of press availability so perhaps the media was a little on edge as Obama, smiling, stepped up to the podium.

He wasn’t smiling when he stepped down 15 minutes later. After a staffer called out “Last question,” Obama didn’t even wait for the query but instead, stomped away while the press roared out a cacophony of questions about Tony Rezko and the NAFTA flap at the retreating candidate. Opening himself up to derision, the candidate turned back briefly and with a forced smile on his face, pleading with the press, “C’mon guys. I answered like 8 questions.”

The Chicago Sun Times, whose reporters were a big part of making the presser an uncomfortable experience for the candidate, taunted Obama; first, with a piece that featured the phone number of the newspaper in the headline asking the candidate to call in and answer questions about his relationship with Tony Rezko - this after Obama said that he had been unable to sit down with reporters about the matter. Then today, the Sun Times takes Obama to task for only answering 8 questions:

Try to imagine President Bush, fleeing questions coming at him fast and furious over a controversy, closing a news conference by saying, “Come on, I just answered like eight questions.” Democrats in Congress and liberal interest groups would be shouting coverup. The editorial pages of the national newspapers would be thundering outrage. The late night comedians and left-wing blogs would be heaping ridicule on him.

Or contrast Obama’s avoidance strategy to John McCain’s response to what was universally considered a shoddy New York Times story. It alleged two disillusioned McCain aides eight years ago thought he might have had a romantic relationship with a lobbyist. McCain met with reporters and took every question they had about the article.

Obama is lucky the Rezko affair is a Chicago issue with which national reporters are unfamiliar. And, given what’s known today, it’s hard to see how the Rezko case could wound Obama’s political ambitions. But for that reason, it’s hard to understand his reluctance to answer questions from the Chicago investigative reporters who know the Rezko issues best.

Tuesday only got worse. Still reeling from fallout from the NAFTA kerfluffle and lost in the excitement of the primaries was something Obama said that John McCain and the Republicans have carefully filed away, sure to bring up at some point in the general election campaign if Obama were to win the nomination: That the Sermon on the Mount justifies same sex unions and abortion:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told a crowd at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, Sunday that he believes the Sermon on the Mount justifies his support for legal recognition of same-sex unions. He also told the crowd that his position in favor of legalized abortion does not make him “less Christian.”

“I don’t think it [a same-sex union] should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state,” said Obama. “If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans.” ((Hear audio from WTAP-TV)) St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans condemns homosexual acts as unnatural and sinful.

Then there was the results from the primaries themselves. Obama was swamped in Ohio and ambushed in Texas - perhaps by Republican crossover votes for Hillary. His momentum destroyed, the candidate gave a perfunctory speech that lacked passion and fire following his defeats.

Wednesday dawned to a whole new campaign. A Gallup poll showed Obama trailing Clinton for the first time in weeks. The campaign then got down to business firing an awkward salvo at Hillary Clinton, taking her to task for not releasing her tax returns. This was somewhat overshadowed by news that Obama’s name figured prominently on a Columbian terrorist group’s computer. Clinton meanwhile, undercut Obama’s campaign by suggesting she would take him as a running mate. This had the effect of freezing Super Delegates who may have been willing to bolt for Obama between now and the Pennsylvania primary 7 long weeks away.

By Thursday, it appeared the Obama campaign was in disarray. Unpaid advisor Samantha Powers - Obama’s most visible foreign policy spokesperson - began a series of incomprehensible verbal faux pas that shook the organization to its roots. First, she referred to Hillary Clinton as a “monster.” Naively trying to take back the comment, by late afternoon it was plastered all over the internet.

But Powers was far from finished. In another interview, she insulted British PM Gordon Brown by averring “I am confused by what’s happened to Gordon Brown. I thought he was impressive.” And for the pièce de résistance , Powers cut the legs out from underneath Obama’s anti-war position by claiming that the candidate’s plan to withdraw troops from Iraq was a “best case scenario:”

“He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator,” she said at one point in the interview.

Power downplayed Obama’s commitment to quick withdrawal from Iraq on Hard Talk, a program that often exceeds any of the U.S. talk shows in the rigor of its grillings. She was challenged on Obama’s Iraq plan, as it appears on his website, which says that Obama “will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months.”

“What he’s actually said, after meting with the generals and meeting with intelligence professionals, is that you – at best case scenario – will be able to withdraw one to two combat brigades each month. That’s what they’re telling him. He will revisit it when he becomes president,” Power says.

Hillary pounced:

“While Senator Obama campaigns on his plan to end the war, his top advisors tell people abroad that he will not rely on his own plan should he become president. This is the latest example of promising the American people one thing on the campaign trail and telling people in other countries another. We saw this with NAFTA as well,” Clinton said.

“He has attacked me continuously for having no hard exit date and now we learn that he doesn’t have one -– in fact he doesn’t have a plan at all according to his top foreign policy adviser,” she said. “He keeps telling people one thing while his campaign tells people abroad something else I’m not sure what the American people should believe but I would refer you to the BBC interview in which the top foreign policy adviser is speaking about senator Obama and Iraq,” Clinton said.

The day was not done.

Another staffer, Susan Rice, provided a kick in the teeth when she blurted out on national television that neither Obama or Hillary were ready to take that 3:00 AM phone call featured in the most effective campaign ad to date:

“Clinton hasn’t had to answer the phone at three o’clock in the morning and yet she attacked Barack Obama for not being ready,” Ms. Rice said. “They’re both not ready to have that 3 a.m. phone call.”

The sun came up on Friday and the Samantha Powers issue had reached critical mass forcing her resignation. One prominent aide, Zbigniew Brzezinski , publicly disagreed with the decision to throw Powers under the bus while other Democrats piled on the Obama campaign. It was “amatuer hour,” according to some. The entire day was spent in damage control on Powers and the rest with the candidate himself feeling for a means to attack Clinton without coming off too negatively.

To top off the dreary day, it didn’t take long for the Chicago trial of Obama’s long time friend and patron Tony Rezko to do damage; Obama’s name was brought up by Rezko’s defense attorney in his opening arguments to the jury.

But beyond the questions about Powers and Rice, there was a feeling that things were getting out of control. The staff was going off on their own and projecting their own opinions rather than sticking to the campaign script. This came into sharper focus today as Obama’s chief intelligence advisor came out in favor of immunity for telecoms - in direct contravention of the candidate’s position and a statement that has gotten the left roots in an uproar:

In a new interview with National Journal magazine, an intelligence adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign broke with his candidate’s position opposing retroactive legal protection for telecommunications companies being sued for cooperating with a dubious U.S. government domestic surveillance program.

“I do believe strongly that [telecoms] should be granted that immunity,” former CIA official John Brennan told National Journal reporter Shane Harris in the interview. “They were told to [cooperate] by the appropriate authorities that were operating in a legal context.”

“I know people are concerned about that, but I do believe that’s the right thing to do,” added Brennan, who is an intelligence and foreign policy adviser to Obama.

That wasn’t just a personal opinion, Brennan made clear to Harris. “My advice, to whoever is coming in [to the White House], is they need to spend some time learning, understanding what’s out there, identifying those key issues,” including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, he said — the law at the heart of the immunity debate.

Question for the Obama camp: Is anybody in charge these days?

Obama is now being questioned about everything from campaign strategy to his judgment on choosing aides. And the fact that some of those aides have gone off the reservation on vitally important issues would seem to indicate a lackadaisical approach to controlling the message of the campaign.

Contrast the Obama’s campaign scattershot message lately with that of the Clinton camp werre everyone from the candidate on down to surrogates knows what the talking points are for the day and delivers a consistently clear message. It is that kind of discipline that appears to be lacking from the Obama camp and will only raise more questions about the inexperienced Obama’s fitness for the highest office in the land.

Whenever I’m stuck and can’t figure out why I believe what I actually believe as a conservative, there’s only one thing I can do.

No, don’t be silly. I don’t sit down, carefully and systematically analyzing the underlying assumptions that make up my beliefs, testing them against the available facts, buttressing or weakening my arguments as the case may be and arrive at an intelligent, intellectually coherent position.

Instead, I ask Lambchop.

Conservatives love to claim that Obama supporters have excess reverence for their candidate and see him as some sort of transcendent messiah figure. There is a small minority of Obama supporters — as is true for most candidates and political movements — who probably expect more from Obama than it is healthy to expect from political leaders generally.

But listening to this objection from the right-wing movement is the ultimate irony. There has not been a political figure in a long, long time who was revered, worshiped and transformed into a grotesque Icon of Transcendent Greatness the way the Commander-in-Chief, George W. Bush, has been. For years and years, the Right sustained itself as little more than a glorified Cult of Personality around the Great, Conquering War Hero.

Mr. Ellison’s post is entitled “Why do conservatives really find the Obama campaign scary?” Unfortunately, the World Famous Sock Puppet never quite gets around to answering that question. This proved a huge disappointment to me as I am always interested in bettering myself by having my fears allayed by someone whose stock in trade is portraying conservatives in the scariest, the lowest, the most hyperbolically evil manner possible.

No matter. Instead of telling me why I’m scared of Obama, Lambchop gravely informs me that I harbor the same messianic delusions about George Bush as millions of Democrats and liberals believe of Barack Obama.

This is very comforting - if it were true. The fact is, although George Bush is a handsome fellow (in a “Bushy” sort of way) he could be said to have the charisma of a goat and the rhetorical gifts of a Macaw. He does not engender the same fawning, fainting, chest heaving, breathless, hyper-sexual responses to his presence as Barack Obama.

But does that singular fact stop our favorite sock puppet from reaching for the stars in trying to compare the reaction of supporters to the two men?

Don’t bet on it:

When introducing the Commander-in-Chief at the 2004 GOP Convention — that Orwellian orgy of unprecedentedly creepy, relentless hero worship — Gov. George Pataki said: “He is one of those men God and fate somehow led to the fore in times of challenge.” The righteous Gen. Boykin said: “The majority of Americans did not vote for him. He’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.” Rudy Giuliani added: “I say it — I say it again tonight — I say it again tonight: Thank God that George Bush is our President.”

Politicians are funny, aren’t they? They can dress a pig up in a prom dress and swear on a stack of bibles that Porky is the belle of the ball. Lambchop’s problem in evaluating the relative enthusiasm and love directed at Obama and Bush appears to be one of (big surprise) proportion. For one so hysterically inclined to exaggerate, to denigrate, to posit the most outrageously ignorant motivations for conservative actions, our man Mr. Ellison simply lacks the ability to evaluate anything in an adult manner. Instead, he reminds me of a teenage girl in the way he dramatizes the most insignificant events and statements from conservatives as sinister and evil. A true drama queen of the left, he is incapable of the kind of balanced, nuanced judgement ascribed to most grown ups who write about politics and politicians.

Lambchop cannot tell the difference between political hyperbole as given by politicians above and the raw, emotional, slavish, worshipful, and fervent idolatry that millions of Obama supporters demonstrate on a regular basis. They can’t tell you why they are for him. They can’t tell you why they faint and weep in his presence. They can’t tell you why they believe he can “change the world” when he can’t even change the politics of Chicago.

All they can tell you is that they love him and will follow his “movement.” Does this sound like something George Bush supporters would be saying?

Describing various encounters with Obama supporters, she writes, “Excuse me, but this sounds more like a cult than a political campaign. The language used here is the language of evangelical Christianity – the Obama volunteers speak of ‘coming to Obama’ in the same way born-again Christians talk about ‘coming to Jesus.’…

Even someone as juvenile as Lambchop - James Wolcott - can tell the difference between party loyalists and those who genuflect at the altar of Obama:

The always interesting James Wolcott writes that “(p)erhaps it’s my atheism at work but I found myself increasingly wary of and resistant to the salvational fervor of the Obama campaign, the idealistic zeal divorced from any particular policy or cause and chariot-driven by pure euphoria. I can picture President Hillary in the White House dealing with a recalcitrant Republican faction; I can’t picture President Obama in the same role because his summons to history and call to hope seems to transcend legislative maneuvers and horse-trading; his charisma is on a more ethereal plane, and I don’t look to politics for transcendence and self-certification.”

No one has ever accused George Bush of being a rock star. No one has ever said that Bush causes the hearts of women to palpitate uncontrollably thus causing them to pass out.

And yet Lambchop, in what can only be described as one of his more desperate leaps of illogic, tries to assign equal value to the Obama phenomena and the small number of Bush-bots who I’ll bet never thought any impure thoughts about George.

It’s silly, of course. It proves that Lambchop is a very silly man with the singular inability to be rational in discourse and temperate in his analysis.

Why this continues to qualify Mr. Ellison as a lion of the left escapes me.

The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner in the Council category is “In A PCNation, How Will The GOP Run?” by Cheat Seeking Missiles. Finishing second was “Find the Adjectives” by Soccer Dad.

Leading the pack in the Non Council vote was “To Die in Jerusalem, Part II” by My Shrapnel.

If you would like to participate in next week’s Watchers Council, go here and follow instructions.

Malone: You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I’m saying is, what are you prepared to do?
Ness: Anything and everything in my power.
Malone: And *then* what are you prepared to do? If you open the can on these worms you must be prepared to go all the way because they’re not gonna give up the fight until one of you is dead.
Ness: How do you do it then?
Malone: You wanna know how you do it? Here’s how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way…
(From “The Untouchables”)

Many of us familiar with Chicago politics have been wondering for months at the apparent disconnect of the media regarding Obama’s relationship to the Chicago political machine. Where did they think this guy came from?

The lack of curiosity by the press about Obama’s connections to one of the most corrupt city governments in the United States should be one of the big media stories of this campaign. While it is true that Obama’s connections to the Machine are not as extensive as many other politicians, I’ve got news for you Obama apologists; try running for any office in Chicago - local, state, or federal - and see how far you get without support from the regular Democrats.

Besides, examining Obama’s first state senate race should have been a tip off to the national press that this fellow can play the game of politics “The Chicago Way” as well as any corrupt Daleycrat:

The day after New Year’s 1996, operatives for Barack Obama filed into a barren hearing room of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.

There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city’s South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama’s four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot.

Fresh from his work as a civil rights lawyer and head of a voter registration project that expanded access to the ballot box, Obama launched his first campaign for the Illinois Senate saying he wanted to empower disenfranchised citizens.

But in that initial bid for political office, Obama quickly mastered the bare-knuckle arts of Chicago electoral politics. His overwhelming legal onslaught signaled his impatience to gain office, even if that meant elbowing aside an elder stateswoman like Palmer.

A close examination of Obama’s first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.

Don’t you think that information like this might be included in any standard media bio of the candidate, MSNBC? Or have you guys at Fox never heard of the internet and Google?

This is politics “The Chicago Way” as John Kass points out in this ground breaking column today:

The Chicago Way.

What is it? Is it easily abused? Is it dangerous in the wrong hands?

This is critical, as the nation’s eyes turn toward Chicago’s federal building, where Barack Obama’s personal real estate fairy, Tony Rezko, stands trial on federal corruption charges.

The phrase must be put in context, something the national media fails to do when they portray Obama as the boy king drawing the sword from the stone, ready to change America’s politics of influence and lobbyists, ignoring the fact that Chicago ain’t Camelot.

With opening statements expected Thursday, the court will be packed with journalists foreign to our idiom. In the past, a few reporters have applied “The Chicago Way” to our pizza, theater and opera, thereby embarrassing themselves beyond redemption.

“Chicago ain’t Camelot” may be the understatement of this political year. Chicago is…well, Chicago. For instance:

Chicago’s mob — we call it the Outfit — was slapped last summer by federal prosecutors in the Operation Family Secrets trial that convicted Outfit bosses, and cops and put political figures in with them. We’ve had our chief of detectives sent to prison for running the Outfit’s jewelry-heist ring. And we’ve had white guys with Outfit connections get $100 million in affirmative action contracts from their drinking buddy, Mayor Richard Daley, who must have seen them pink and white and male at some point.

That’s the Chicago Way.

Are you getting the picture New York Times? Do I have to spell it out for you Washington Post? Wake up and smell the coffee, CNN!

“This country was built on taxes,” said a Democratic machine hack, Cook County Commissioner Deborah Sims, as she and other Democrats prepared to slap Chicago with the highest sales tax of any major city in the country….

“There’s not that many political hacks in Cook County,” Sims insisted after the tax hike.

Not that many hacks? The only one reporters need to bother about is also involved at the same federal building: the mayor’s own Duke of Patronage, Robert Sorich.

Sorich has been found guilty by a jury, but the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals above the Rezko courtroom is still deciding whether to redeem the jury or redeem the mayor, who’d much rather have Sorich happy than Obama in the White House.

Sorich was convicted two years ago of running the mayor’s massive and illegal patronage operation, and he’s still not in prison. Thugs, morons, idiots, and convicts were put on the city payroll to work the precincts so that Daley could keep getting elected. Obama’s spokesman, David Axelrod, defended Daley patronage in a Tribune op-ed piece.

As an aside, for a while there it looked like Fitzy might be targeting hizzoner himself, measuring him for prison coveralls. But the Daleys have always been too smart to get caught doing anything really illegal and the Mayor’s luck held.

But seriously LA Times, this is the political culture Barack Obama matured in. Would it do any harm to perhaps, you know, pretend that you’re doing your job and send a reporter down here to look into a few things.

Maybe you folks at ABC News could start by looking into those letters Obama wrote to city and state officials on behalf of his now indicted patron, friend, and fund raiser Tony Rezko to get a $14 million contract to build senior housing - a development located outside of his senate district:

The deal included $855,000 in development fees for Rezko and his partner, Allison S. Davis, Obama’s former boss, according to records from the project, which was four blocks outside Obama’s state Senate district.

Obama’s letters, written nearly nine years ago, for the first time show the Democratic presidential hopeful did a political favor for Rezko — a longtime friend, campaign fund-raiser and client of the law firm where Obama worked — who was indicted last fall on federal charges that accuse him of demanding kickbacks from companies seeking state business under Gov. Blagojevich.

The letters appear to contradict a statement last December from Obama, who told the Chicago Tribune that, in all the years he’s known Rezko, “I’ve never done any favors for him.”

And lest there be any doubt CBS News, here’s Obama’s “Chicago Way” response:

On Tuesday, Bill Burton, press secretary for Obama’s presidential campaign, said the letters Obama wrote in support of the development weren’t intended as a favor to Rezko or Davis.

“This wasn’t done as a favor for anyone,” Burton said in a written statement. “It was done in the interests of the people in the community who have benefited from the project.
“I don’t know that anyone specifically asked him to write this letter nine years ago,” the statement said. “There was a consensus in the community about the positive impact the project would make and Obama supported it because it was going to help people in his district. . . .

Um, no Boston Herald, the project was not benefiting people in Obama’s district. It was benefiting his buddy Rezko to the tune of $855,000. But hey! It sure sounds good when you can say that you don’t know “that anyone specifically asked” Obama to write the letters. That’s the key to any “Chicago Way” denial; be as vague as possible so just in case evidence surfaces later that you’re lying through your teeth, you have an out.

The same goes for the shady deal on the house, Philadelphia Inquirer:

Naturally, there are some squares who don’t think taxpayers should pave the Chicago Way to make it easy for Rezko to help purchase the senator’s dream house in a kinky deal exposed by the Tribune and still not fully explained.

“It’s really the Old Chicago Way,” said Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association. “In the old days they would pretty much admit it up front, and now they deny it. It’s essentially about power, access to government jobs, government contracts and taking care of your own.”

“Taking care of your own” was something Obama was very good at. How good we probably won’t know for a while. That’s because it’s not only what Obama did for Rezko and vice versa that should be occupying the press as they write about the potential next President of the United States. It’s what he did for Rezko’s cronies and other contributors that should also be examined. And the candidate himself isn’t volunteering any information. That, too is “The Chicago Way.” Be smart and keep your mouth shut.

Perhaps the Rezko trial, now underway at the Federal building downtown, will change this dynamic. But I guess I shouldn’t be too optimistic. Kass explains:

One secret DaVinci Code-type sign for the Chicago Way is in the back room of the Chicago City Council chambers at City Hall, where a portrait of George Washington looks down at the crookedness below, and extends his own hand, palm up, itchy, needing that special grease.

When even sainted George Washington is on the take, you know that something is really rotten in this town.

DRIP…DRIP…DRIP…

From today’s Sun Times: “Did Rezko find jobs for Obama staffers?”

Among those on the list were two people who appear to have Obama links and a third who’s now an Obama presidential campaign staffer.

“We do not know how decisions were made to fill specific state positions, and we have no records of any individual recommendations we were asked to make or made,” says Obama spokesman Bill Burton “But we do know that Tony Rezko, among others, was helping to gather names for the positions coming open with a new administration, and, if it is established any names came through our office, we would have no reason to doubt it.”

UPDATE II: COMMENT MODERATION OFF

With so many links on this piece - especially Insty and Hot Air - I am removing comment moderation because I am too lazy and besides I don’t want to read what you have to say anyway.

Uh - just kiddin’ about that last one, people. Let’s just say I don’t want to have to be interrpupted every few minutes and batch the comments. This is a serious site here and we do serious work.

Now excuse me while I get back to HotMovies…

UPDATE III

Reliapundit, who has been on the Rezko-Obama story for about 2 years longer than I have, has a long, detailed post on Obama’s rise in Chicago and his connections to the machine.

Man, you knew this was coming. Super Delegates in Ohio are demanding a quid pro quo for their vote. And they don’t care if it’s Hillary or Obama that meets it:

Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, one of the leading protectionists in Congress, said Ohioans have many suggestions on economic and trade issues they hoped the candidates would address.

“We have a laundry list of measures we think would be effective, some involving tax policy, some involving investment policy, intellectual property incentives to hold investments in this country,” Kaptur said. “I’m hoping superdelegates [who] are uncommitted that have the economy as their major concern will gravitate to our group and use that power to gain additional attention.”

Much of this article originally appears in The American Thinker

Among congressional Democrats from Ohio, only Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a Clinton backer, has endorsed. The rest — Kaptur, Reps. Dennis J. Kucinich, Tim Ryan, Zack Space, Betty S. Sutton and Charlie Wilson, and Sen. Sherrod Brown — remain uncommitted even after their state’s voters handed Clinton a decisive victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.

“We had a general agreement,” Kucinich said of the pact. “We have economic issues that need to be addressed. Ohio has economic issues more urgent than any other state.”

This will be a treat to watch. How many of these “deals” do you think are going to be announced and how many are going to take place in some smokey back room? Just what is the presidency worth? Perhaps a more accurate question is what do you think it will go for this year? How many more billions will either Hillary or Obama be willing to add to federal spending to fulfill their promises to these delegatations and receive their support?

For a party predisposed to spend the living daylights out of the budget, having a front row seat for this bidding war is going to be like watching an auction at Christie’s involving a Da Vinci or Rembrandt.

So sit back and relax. Make some popcorn if you like. And make sure you have your calculator handy because adding up the goodies for each state’s delegation is going to be hard to follow without one.

Portions of this article appear in The American Thinker

Even if Hillary Clinton had wrapped up the Democratic party nomination for president on Super Tuesday in early February as most expected her to do, the problem of what to do with Florida and Michigan delegates would have remained.

That’s because the Democratic National Committee, in what might be termed a fit of pique, took away all of those states’ delegates as a result of their violation of primary scheduling rules (while also preventing candidates from campaigning in those states). At the time this occurred, I couldn’t have been the only observer who wondered how a national party could disenfranchise two of the biggest states in the union and not suffer untoward consequences. At the very least, by denying the delegate’s credentials from those two states - states that have proven competitive in most national elections - the DNC risked losing the presidential election because of their slavish adherence to rules designed to enforce party discipline.

Contrast the behavior of the Democratic National Committee with their counterparts at the RNC. The Republicans, also seeking to get control of the primary process, took away half the delegates from Florida, Michigan, South Carolina, Wyoming, and New Hampshire - also as a result of their violations of primary scheduling rules. They also allowed full participation by all candidates in those primaries.

As a result, while there was some grumbling and even some legal challenges, the primaries went forward on the Republican side with little or no backlash. (Note: There may yet be a blow up on this issue for Republicans. But it probably won’t rise to the level of what the Democrats are going through.)

Now the Democrats are in a pickle of their own making. With Hillary Clinton desperate for delegates and the Michigan and Florida state parties still seething, a push is now underway to either seat delegates who were chosen during the illegal primaries by forcing a showdown at the convention with the credentials committee or hold some kind of “re-vote” with the blessing of the DNC that would allow full delegate participation in the convention from those two states.

Howard Dean will not bend the party rules to grandfather in the disputed delegates from Michigan and Florida, the Democratic party chairman said in a statement today.

Instead, he put the state parties on notice: either they can wait and allow the credentials committee to decide whether to seat their delegates, or submit to a re-vote sanctioned under DNC rules. “We look forward to receiving their proposals should they decide to submit new delegate selection plans and will review those plans at that time,” he said in the statement.

“Everyone seems to be asking what the DNC will do,” a Democrat close to Dean said. “But the question is: what will the state parties do.”

Dean’s statement implies that he has no intention of changing the rules to accommodate any solution proposed by the candidates or the state parties. There has been some suggestion that the two remaining presidential candidates might try to broker a deal among themselves. His line in the sand narrows the options for Hillary Clinton’s campaign because it is unlikely that a credentials committee would endorse a delegation congenial to her mathematical interests.

In other words, the ruling last November that disenfranchised Michigan and Florida really doesn’t count. If the two states want representation at the convention, all they have to do is submit a plan to the DNC on how they wish to choose the delegates and they will sanction it.

So much for party discipline.

Dean’s blunder has the potential of leaving a trail of blood all the way from Denver to the November election. By placing the burden of holding a nominating contest on the state parties, he effectively washes the DNC’s hands of any responsibility for maintaining discipline in the face of rank defiance by local entities.

Why not stick to your guns and enforce the original decision? And if that decision was wrong - and supporters of both candidates believe it was - Dean should resign and allow his successor to clean up the mess. Paying for do-over primaries in both states would be an expensive proposition. A primary in Michigan would cost taxpayers in that cash-strapped state $10-12 million - a not inconsiderable sum even if the candidates were to pay for the two primaries as some have suggested. (The cost of a do-over primary in Florida is estimated at $15 million.)

Then there are the organization challenges of staffing the polling places, polling machine maintenance, absentee ballots, and setting up the whole infrastructure necessary to hold the contests. Could all of that be done in just a few months?

Florida would appear to be hesitant:

Karen Thurman, the chair of the Florida Democratic Party, issued a statement late Wednesday that seemed to discount the possibility of a second primary.

“It is important also that we are clear about one issue. At this time, no suggested alternative process has been able to meet three specific and necessary requirements: the full participation from both candidates, a guaranteed commitment of the millions of dollars it will cost to conduct the event and a detailed election plan that would enfranchise all Florida Democrats, including our military service members serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.”

“The Florida Democratic Party cannot consider any alternative that does not meet these requirements. Indeed, it is very possible that no satisfactory alternative plan will emerge, in which case Florida Democrats will remain committed to seating the delegates allocated by the January 29th primary.”

Granholm seems to have ruled out a primary altogether:

Granholm made it clear her first choice would be to find a way to seat the delegates from the January 15 Michigan primary, but acknowledged the fact that Barack Obama was not on the ballot creates a fairness issue.

“It could not be a primary because a primary is publicly paid for, and the taxpayers would not spend any more tax dollars on a primary. So if there’s anything it would have to be a caucus, but we’d have to have a way to pay for it without taxpayer dollars.”

What an unholy mess.

The Michigan Democratic party is up for a do-over primary but the governor won’t allow it. The Florida Democrats want the result of their original primary accepted and can see no alternative primary or caucus scenario.

Can you say “trainwreck?”

Dean’s “solution” is useless. No money - no primary. And it is apparent that Florida Democrats have dug in their heels and want their $15 million primary results validated.

If this is a game of chicken between the national and state parties, Denver would seem to be where the two sides will collide. If the national party prevails in the credentials committee (which is almost guaranteed), they will make 6 million Democratic voters in Florida and Michigan very unhappy. If Clinton were to somehow win the day and have those delegates seated, how many millions of unhappy Obama supporters will there be?

A Hobbesian choice to be sure. And one for which Howard Dean is completely responsible.

UPDATE

Howard Dean sums up the Democrats problem in one quote from this morning’s GMA:

“They have to be seated within the rules,” Dean said on “GMA.” “What you cannot do is change the rules in the middle of the contest.”

Of course they’re trying to change the rules in the middle of the race. That’s because the DNC ruled originally that the states were ineligible! And if they can’t change that rule why are we even bothering with all of this?

Howard Dean is a dunce, don’t you think?

My latest column is up at Pajamas Media. I take a look at Hillary Clinton’s surprising showing last night and wonder what happened to Obama.

A sample:

Americans admire bulldog tenacity in their politicians. And they hate quitters. If you can say nothing else about Hillary Clinton’s night, it is that she rose to a very steep challenge and fought through to victories in Rhode Island and Ohio, breaking the spell Obama had on the voters, stifling his momentum, and at least slowing his march to the nomination that seemed so inevitable just a few days ago.

And then there was “the ad.” It’s now infamous portrayal of a phone ringing in the White House at 3:00 AM while showing pictures of cute kids fast asleep and a voice over asking who the voter wants answering that phone may have been a clumsy evocation of Lyndon Johnson’s “Daisy” ad (a child counting petals she is pulling off a flower morphing into a countdown to launch a nuclear missile), but nevertheless appears to have had an impact. This is especially true in hawkish Texas where Clinton arrested a slide and clawed her way back into the race. (As of midnight Eastern time, Texas is still too close to call).

Yes, it was a very late night indeed.

Join me and my trusty sidekick Rich Baehr, Political Correspondent for The American Thinker, for a special primary night edition of The Rick Moran Show. We will go live beginning at 7:00 PM Central time and continue on the air until at least 8:00 PM Central (longer if there is no winner called in both Ohio and Texas).

Tonight, Rich and I will be watching Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont as these primaries will probably determine Hillary Clinton’s future. Joining us from Texas for a live report will be Silvio Conti who will be talking to us from McCain party central.

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,

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A great sadness has descended across much of the Midwest today. In Detroit, Minnesota, Chicago and especially the tiny town of Green Bay, Wisconsin, the news that Packer great Brett Favre is retiring was greeted with an indescribable feeling of loss that NFL Sundays would no longer feature perhaps the greatest quarterback ever to play the game.

A subjective statement to be sure. There will be those in Montana’s corner or those pushing Unitas or perhaps even Dan Marino as best ever. And if I had to live off the difference between any of those Hall of Famers, I wouldn’t get rich that’s for sure.

But the case for Favre is compelling. Three time MVP - never done. He had 275 consecutive games started, including playoffs - never done and probably never to be duplicated. Most yards, most TD passes and an absolutely frightening desire to win. Of all the athletes I have cheered and booed down through my 54 years, Favre and Michael Jordan stand head and shoulders above all others as the greatest competitors I have ever seen.

But look beyond the numbers and the desire. This is a man who thoroughly enjoyed the game. How many times did we see him take a gargantuan hit by some 300 LB lineman and bounce up like a jack-in-the-box with a huge grin on his face and fanny slap for the guy who planted him? His youthful exuberance in his declining years made it seem as if he could play forever.

But, of course, he couldn’t:

“I know I can still play, but it’s like I told my wife, I’m just tired mentally. I’m just tired,” Favre, a 17-year veteran and three-time NFL MVP, told ESPN’s Chris Mortensen in a voice mail message.

“If I felt like coming back — and Deanna [his wife] and I talked about this — the only way for me to be successful would be to win a Super Bowl. To go to the Super Bowl and lose, would almost be worse than anything else. Anything less than a Super Bowl win would be unsuccessful,” Favre said in the message.

“I know it shouldn’t feel unsuccessful, but the only way to come back and make that be the right decision would be to come back and win a Super Bowl. And honestly, the odds of that, they’re tough. Those are big shoes for me to fill, and I guess it was a challenge I wasn’t up for. “

He would never admit it but even someone as seeming indestructible as Brett Favre was starting to feel the pain of a thousand bumps, bruises, strains, and sprains that occurred over his brilliant 17 year career. Like most retired football players, he will be in some kind of pain for the rest of his life. But also like most players, he would gladly go back and start his career over even knowing what awaited him upon retirement.

He was a joy to watch - as long as he wasn’t playing your team. I had the misfortune of watching Brett Favre through 34 contests against my Beloved Bears. I cannot tell you how many games the Bears would be up going into the final minutes only to have this Grand Master Magician put the Packers on his back and carry them down the field for what would ultimately prove to be the winning score. It was maddening. It was uncanny. And it was sheer brilliance.

The weather never phased him. In this respect, he was a throwback to the “old” Packers who played in the Central Division with Chicago, Detroit, and Minnesota all with outdoor stadiums. Now only Chicago features an outdoor amphitheater for Favre to display his courage and ability to endure the cold and frozen tundra that Green Bay fans take such pride in enduring along with him.

Favre was the most enthusiastic passer I ever saw. By that I mean, he could be in the grasp of three lineman and still heave the ball 40 yards downfield for a completion. I saw him complete passes underhanded, pushed like a shot put, flung like a discus, and heaved 70 yards downfield. He may have been the best downfield passer who ever lived.

As the fortunes of the Packers waned over the previous 3 or 4 seasons prior to 2007, speculation grew that Favre would retire rather than be on a losing team. Indeed, at times Favre took desperate chances to get a moribund offense moving in those years resulting in more interceptions than at any time in his career. It seemed that his skills were waning at the same time the Packer’s fortune’s were ebbing.

And then came this past magical season and Favre looked almost like a rookie again flying around the backfield, taking off to run, meeting the challenge of directing a young team with a breathtaking combination of enthusiasm and experience. Favre willed the team to the NFC Championship game only to lose in the bitter cold and snow to the Giants.

Yes, I shall miss watching him play. But I and every other Bears fan will also breathe a huge sigh of relief now that he is headed to Canton. He made our lives miserable all those years he would snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. But on a much broader and more important level, he enriched our experience in watching and appreciating the game of football - a game he played with love and abandon for 17 years.

The Prophet of Change:

Toward the end of the press conference, the question of Goolsbee’s meeting was raised again. Obama answered curtly and then walked out after a staffer called last question. The press erupted with shouts, but Obama continued to walk out.

He paused only to say, “Come on guys; I answered like eight questions. We’re running late.”

On the flight from San Antonio to Dallas, Obama, unsurprisingly, did not wander back to make small talk with the traveling press corps.

Yesterday, I idly wondered when Obama would start addressing the numerous questions about his relationship with indicted Chicago fixer Tony Rezko. The candidate’s press availability was starting to become an issue and I surmised that with the Rezko trial beginning yesterday, sooner or later Obama would have to bite the bullet and face some tough questions.

For fifteen very uncomfortable minutes yesterday, we got a preview of what’s in store for Obama from here on out in the campaign:

Led by the Chicago press corps that has covered Obama for years, the candidate today faced a barrage of questions in what turned out to be a contentious news conference.

Questions centered on why his campaign had denied that a meeting occurred between his chief economic advisor and Canadian officials as well as questions on his relationship with Tony Rezko, a Chicago land developer and fast food magnate, now on trial for corruption charges.

Obama claimed that when he had first denied the meeting between Austan Goolsbee and any members of the Canadian administration he provided “the information that [he] had at the time.”

He added, “Nobody reached out to the Canadians to try to reassure them. They reached out, unbeknownst to the rest of us; They reached out to Mr. Goolsbee, who provided them with a tangible conversation and repeated what we’ve said on the campaign trail.”

When did the meeting take place? Why did the Canadian officials reach out? Did Goolsbee not come forward right away and admit the meeting to Campaign Manager David Plouffe and Obama when both denied it last week? These are questions that went unanswered as the press conference was cut short.

Much of the back and forth, though, between reporters and Obama was about his relationship with Tony Rezko, with reporters demanding to know why new details were emerging from the case though Obama and his staff had claimed they had been forthright with all the details.

Indeed, what made this press conference different for Obama was the presence of a cadre of Chicago journalists who have been on the Rezko-Obama story from the beginning.

Carol Marin - TV news editor but a first class print journalist as well - along with Chris Fusco and Tim Novak of the Sun Times have been ferreting out the details of this very complex relationship between the candidate and the crook for more than 2 years. And Marin especially made life hell for Obama yesterday:

Obama and Carol Marin, political editor at NBC5 in Chicago and columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times, tangled over how up front Obama had been about Rezko. Obama cut off her line of questioning, saying that Marin’s questions were personally motivated.

“Carol, can I just say I have to really dispute this,” Obama said. “It is true that you wanted an individual sit down, but I don’t think that’s fair to speak for the entire Chicago press corps because on this — Let me finish,” he interjected as she tried to interrupt.

“Before you were reporting on these issues I had an avail,” Obama said, pointing to members of the Chicago press corps who were present, “where I literally stood there and took every question people could think of.”

Lynn Sweet from the Chicago Sun-Times then jumped in and told Obama that he may have answered questions for the Chicago press, but many other reporters hadn’t had a chance to hear him on the issue.

“I just want to make that point an issue,” Obama said. “You may still have questions, which I’m happy to answer, but I don’t think it’s fair to suggest somehow that we’ve been trying to hide the ball on this. There have been more attacks. There have been several hundred stories written on this issue. The fact of the matter remains unchallenged.”

Here’s the problem for Obama and the press; that “avail” (shorthand for an unscheduled press conference or “candidate availability”) was not with reporters on the Rezko-Obama beat but with embedded campaign reporters. Also, that avail only scratched the surface of the real estate transaction involving Obama and Rezko and did not address issues that have come up since then such as Obama’s assistance to Rezko that got his client a contract to build senior housing - a favor that gave Rezko a windfall of $855,000 in fees.

Nor has the candidate addressed numerous other issues relating to the purchase of his house, the possible intervention of the senator with the State Department to secure a visa for Rezko business partner and convicted fraudster Nadhmi Auchi, or exactly what kind of legal work Obama performed for Rezko’s slumlord management company while he was with a law firm doing business with Rezko.

The modus operandi of the campaign in the past has been to request written questions that would be submitted by reporters to the campaign and answered in due course. Or just as often, the questions are ignored or dismissed as having been answered already as the candidate did yesterday.

So it’s not surprising that when Obama was made available to the press with the Rezko wrecking crew of Chicago reporters present, fireworks would ensue. If you asked that contingent of Chicago reporters where this story was headed, they would probably tell you that they had yet to hit bottom and that other issues such as Obama’s relationships with Rezko cronies have yet to be fleshed out and explored. Some of those cronies also donated monies to his campaigns for state senate and the US senate and it remains to be seen if there were any favors exchanged as a result of those contributions.

But is this what we can expect from the candidate in the future? Tantrums and sulks just because the press is trying to do its job? Ed Morrissey compares John McCain’s presser the day after the New York Times smear against him:

Compare this to the press conference John McCain held after the New York Times smeared him by accusing him of having a sexual affair with a lobbyist. Not only did McCain — whose temper has its own zip code, according to some Capitol Hill staffers — give a lengthy and reserved statement, but then stood at the podium until the reporters ran out of questions. In fact, at the end, McCain had to ask twice whether anyone had anything else to ask him before leaving the podium.

By my count, McCain answered 36 questions in this press conference. How many did Obama take before walking off in a huff?

I would say to Barack Obama that after next Tuesday’s Mississippi primary, there is a lull in the campaign until the Pennsylvania showdown on April 22 (assuming Hillary Clinton wins either Ohio or Texas). It would be well to try and get ahead of the Rezko issue by making yourself more available to those who are covering the story in Chicago and answering questions that have been avoided or ignored. Otherwise, your campaign will be in reaction mode until the November election.

And as the drip, drip, drip of revelations continue, your prospects for victory diminish substantially.

UPDATE

Karl at PW also notes the Chicago cadre of reporters - most notably from the Sun Times - who tried to hold Obama’s feet to the fire yesterday but were dismissed in Marin’s case as trying to promote some kind of personal agenda.

Karl notes Marin’s bio where she quit NBC 5 because they hired Jerry Springer to give “commentary” on the news. Marin’s resignation (and co-anchor Ron Magers threatened resignation) doomed Springer’s run at WMAQ to 4 days.