Right Wing Nut House

The maneuvering began before Barack Obama was even elected president. A genuine political scramble was on as Illinois politicians great and not so great let it be known subtly and not so subtly that they wouldn’t say no if Governor Rod Blagojevich tapped them to fill out the unexpired portion of Obama’s term in the United States Senate.

There are so many issues and personalities involved in the decision-making process that the selection promises to be controversial no matter who is chosen. It would take the wisdom of Solomon to sort out the confusing, conflicting currents of race, faction, and family in order to arrive at a consensus so that the Democratic Party in Illinois doesn’t fly apart at the seams.

And smack dab in the middle of the maelstrom is the current governor, Milorad “Rod” R. Blagojevich, proud Serbian-American. He is also a man on the cusp of becoming the fourth Illinois governor out of the last seven to be indicted for corruption. He was mentioned prominently and not in the best light, during the trial of Obama friend, financier, and patron Antoin “Tony” Rezko, who was convicted of fraud in connection with a statehouse “pay to play” scheme. Federal prosecutors have leaked the information that they think they have enough on the governor for an indictment, largely — it is believed — because Rezko is singing to the feds in exchange for a lighter sentence. There is also a move among members of his own party in the Illinois House to impeach him. The governor is not only unpopular in the state, he is spectacularly and universally hated. A recent poll conducted by the Chicago Tribune found that just 13% of residents approved of the job he was doing.

In short, Governor Blagojevich might want to hurry the process of selecting Obama’s replacement along since he may not be sleeping in the governor’s mansion much longer. He claims he wants to settle the matter before Christmas. If so, he will probably be able to make that deadline — barely — before either resigning in disgrace or being kicked out by members of his own party.

If it were only Blagojevich who had input into the decision it would still be difficult, but at least the governor would avoid incoming fire from several factions with a huge interest in who will replace the new president in the Senate. And there is no interest group making more noise and demanding consideration than African Americans.

They’ve got a good case. Once Obama formally resigns from the Senate, that body will be left with no African Americans serving. There are two prominent African Americans in Illinois who may have the inside track as well as a few other blacks not as well known but who might be on Blagojevich’s short list .

One candidate, Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett, who served as Mayor Daley’s staff chief and headed up the powerful Transit Board in Chicago, is a long time friend of both Michelle Obama (who she hired for the Mayor Daley’s staff years ago) and Barack. But she has  removed her name from consideration because she is destined for the national stage, being named Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President. She is also currently busy as co-chair of the Obama transition effort.

The other major African American contender is Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr., son of former presidential candidate Reverend Jesse Jackson and a power in Chicago politics. If Blagojevich wanted to open a can of worms, he could do no better than select the younger Jackson to replace Obama. It would tick off Mayor Daley, anger a rival faction of African Americans in the city, and worry many downstate Democrats who feel Jackson would be a millstone around their necks in 2010.

Jackson carries a lot of political baggage. He once disrespected Mayor Daley’s father, the former Mayor Richard M. Daley, very publicly. He has opposed Daley in his efforts to expand O’Hare airport, desiring that the government build a new airport in his district. He has also clashed with Governor Blagojevich on several issues and railed against the corruption of his administration. A congressman since 1995, Jackson ran an abortive campaign for mayor in 2006, smartly dropping out when the Democrats achieved a majority in the House of Representatives. It would have been an uphill fight to pull enough liberal white, African American, and Hispanic votes to beat Daley who is very popular with many minority groups, especially Hispanics.

Jackson wants to replace Obama badly. He was first out of the box, making it known in October that he would be “honored and humbled” to take Obama’s seat. He actually commissioned a Zogby poll showing him in the lead among all candidates who had been mentioned.

He is also very liberal — a fact not lost on downstate Democrats who have figured out how to run in previously Republican territory and believe that having Jackson at the top of the ticket in 2010 might very well set them back and allow the Republicans to retake control of one or both houses in the legislature.

Given all this, it appears that Jackson would only have an outside shot at being chosen. That leaves two potential candidates — one not very well known and another known all too well as one of the more colorful characters in Illinois politics.

At age 73, state Senate leader Emil Jones has had a long career as a Chicago Machine politician. Starting as a sewer inspector, Jones worked his way up the ranks and is now one of the most powerful politicians in the state. His own campaign kitty funds dozens of Democratic senators in their runs for office, making him a force not only on the Senate floor where he rules with an iron fist, but also in the corridors and cloakrooms where his legendary powers of persuasion are put to use in service to what some see as his own agenda.

Jones, who is retiring from the state Senate in 2010, has said he wouldn’t turn the job down. In fact, some observers believe he would make a perfect replacement for Obama. He almost certainly wouldn’t run for re-election, thus clearing the way for a battle royal among all the current crop of Senate hopefuls in a free for all primary in two years. African Americans would be happy. Daley would be happy. Obama might even like to see his former mentor get a nice reward at the end of his career. And Governor Blagojevich could breathe a sigh of relief — temporarily — as he would have avoided a bruising fight.

But Jones, as Roger Simon of Politico points out, has some major drawbacks:

He was one of Obama’s political patrons, is close to the governor and is an African-American, yet I got snorts of derision when I ran his name past some other Illinois sources of mine. That’s because Jones is from the old school — he started out as a sewer inspector, which is not bad training for a life in politics — and is not a modern, ready-for-TV candidate, possessing an orator’s tongue. He is a Chicago pol — the ring tone on his cell phone is the theme from The Godfather — but he would be a “place holder” only and would not run in 2010.

So Jones would appear to be out of contention. The other dark horse candidate from the African American community is Congressman Danny Davis. But Davis has many of the same problems that Jones has. He is 67, a former Chicago alderman, and while he is well spoken and knowledgeable, he may have too much baggage to be a good choice to run in 2010. He once accepted a trip to Sri Lanka paid for by the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group. He is also a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America. If downstaters thought they might have problems with Rep. Jackson in 2010, Davis might be their worst nightmare.

Other candidates include the lieutenant governor, longtime Democratic office holder Pat Quinn. However, Quinn may be busy moving into the governor’s mansion if Blagojevich is booted out or if he resigns. Then there’s Congressman Jan Schakowsky, a popular Democrat from Chicago’s near north side. If Blagojevich wants to choose a woman, she would be one option.

The other female option open to Blagojevich is one of the more compelling figures in Illinois politics. Tammy Duckworth is an Iraq War veteran who lost both her legs in combat and ran a spirited campaign in 2006 against Peter Roskam, who was vying to replace 16-term Congressman Henry Hyde. Although losing that race, the Asian-American won national attention both for her heroism and her anti-war advocacy.

Now serving as Blagojevich’s veterans affairs chief, Duckworth has made known her desire to be selected to be Obama’s replacement. And Obama himself may have sent a signal of who he might be favoring. When the president-elect laid a wreath at a soldier’s memorial in Chicago this past Veterans Day, at his side was Tammy Duckworth. Now it is true that Duckworth is head of veterans’ affairs for the state. But Obama didn’t have to have anyone by his side. The fact that he chose Duckworth may give us some sense of who he might wish to see in his Senate chair next January.

Duckworth also has a stellar list of supporters including Illinois’ other senator, Dick Durbin, who recruited her to run for Congress in 2006. Her campaign that year was managed by Rahm Emanuel, and she had David Axelrod as a media advisor.

A female war veteran, an up and coming star of the Democratic party in Illinois, a young (40), intense campaigner with a compelling personal story, a choice that would please the new president, and someone who could run very well downstate — Tammy Duckworth would seem to solve a lot of Governor Blagojevich’s headaches.

But this is Illinois. And if there is anything about politics in this state that is consistently true it is to expect the unexpected and take nothing for granted.

This article originally appeared at Pajamas Media

My latest column at PJ Media is up and I am sure you are going to love it. Judging by the comments left already, I am going to be even more popular with the conservative base than I am already - if that’s possible.

What’s it about? It’s an article that refers to Obama as “Lucifer” and bemoans the loss of freedoms we would have seen if John McCain had lost the election. But of course, McCain is going to win in a landslide so we don’t have to worry. I look at Obama’s nefarious plans to nationalize the snack food industry which will force Frito-Lay to cook all their snacks in mink oil as well as his probable cabinet appointments that include William Ayers as Secretary of Domestic Terrorism and Jeremiah Wright as Special Assistant to the President for Anti-Americanism.

I also delve into what agenda the new Republican majority in the House and Senate will take up once President McCain takes ofice.

I also include a paragraph or two on the best, most painful way we can execute elite conservative traitors like Peggy Noonan, Mark Frum, and Christopher Buckley. You won’t want to miss that one.

Finally, I look at Obama’s trip to Hawaii to see his seriously ill grandmother which, as we all know, is just a stunt, that he doesn’t hold any love for her whatsoever, and that his real reason for going to Hawaii is to personally fight off the courageous suit trying to force Obama to come clean about his Indonesian (or is it Kenyan?) birth by that lover of puppies, kittens, and even the occassional Jew Andy Martin.

A sample:

[A]uthenticity intruded yesterday on this little Kabuki dance we call a presidential campaign. With less than two weeks to go in the campaign and the race still considered close by many, Barack Obama is flying 5,000 miles to Hawaii in order to visit the woman who took care of him and taught him so much during his formative years.Madelyn Payne Dunham, Obama’s maternal grandmother, lies seriously ill in her home following what the Honolulu Advertiser has learned was a fall resulting in a broken hip several weeks ago. The 85 year old former bank vice president suffers from osteoporosis and has weakened considerably over the last few months. She was discharged from the hospital early this week and by some reports, is sinking.

So there’s something for every one in this piece - well, everyone with half a brain anyway.

My latest column is up on PJ Media. In it, I look at the Gallup poll that shows 91% of Americans are not satisfied with the way things are going in the US. What about that 9% that thinks otherwise - 16 million adults?

A sample:

Really now, who are these 16 million optimists?

So I would guess that the overwhelming majority of that 9% of us who are satisfied with how things are going in America simply don’t want to accept that we have bitten into a gigantic crap sandwich and we’ll be on a steady diet of crapola for the foreseeable future.

Read the whole thing.

My latest for PJ Media deals with the failure of blogs to fulfill their promise of changing politics for the better while racing with the rest of media to the gutter.

A sample:

I suppose it was unrealistic to expect that the political blogosphere might make some positive contributions to the 2008 election campaign. But judging by the smears and lies that are either created by bloggers or are simply echoed again and again on websites both right and left, along with the painfully shallow emphasis on whatever bloggers can blow up into a “gaffe” by hugely exaggerating some minor misstatement by either candidate, one is left with the sad conclusion that most blogs are contributing absolutely nothing of substance to this election.

Perhaps it is time to pause and ask “Is this the best blogs can do?”

Yes - if you peruse this site you will see I am a prime example of a blogger who deals in these “gotchya” themes. But I also try and cover the race from the perspective of a serious analyst who weighs the import of many of these gaffes and how they will affect the race.

I have also tried to debunk smears on both candidates while taking a more realistic view of Mr. Obama than many of my more conservative readers like.

That said, I realize my shortcomings in this area and make no apologies. I like having a few readers now and then and if I were to turn all wonky on you (and I hate wonk writing) both you and I would be miserable. And God help us if I ever got to the point where I had to be fair and balanced when it came to writing about the left!

So you see, my friends, I am trapped by my own choosing in this little cocoon of trivia and mud slinging. This blog is what it is and I am what I am and you can like it or take your eyes elsewhere. That is the beauty of the blogosphere.

So enjoy!

I’m leaving shortly for the airport to fly out to Minneapolis and the Republican National Convention.

I will be covering it as part of the Pajamas Media team - the only online publication granted a booth above the Excel Center floor. Not sure what my responsibilities will be but I will almost certainly do a little writing, a little editing, and no doubt a little partying as well.

I might mention that PJTV will be making its debut at the convention. Read here what it’s all about - sounds new and exciting. It’s a subscription service but I think it has a chance if what they’re talking about as far as programming is concerned. I intend to pony up and I hope you at least give the idea some consideration.

This Palin smear on her baby that I write about below is incredible. It is based entirely - entirely - on supposition. Things like how a woman is supposed to look when she’s six months pregnant and the tiny bulge in her daughter’s teen age tummy being seen not as evidence that she eats too many Ho-Ho’s but that she is with child is “balmy” is the Brits would say.

It’s daft. It’s nuts. It’s cuckoo. It’s every adjective you could possibly come up with that denotes unhinged idiocy on the part of the left. I was joking yesterday when I wrote that the left would demand that Palin take a DNA test to prove the child is hers. Judging by how this story is spreading like wildfire across the leftysphere, my joking may become a reality sooner than I ever dreamed.

Coupled with the other major attack meme that is emerging - that Palin should be staying home and taking care of her Down Syndrome kid - and you have an interesting contretemps for the left; that for all their whining about how low and dirty the GOP and conservatives play the game, they have proved they can get in the gutter and root around with the worst the GOP has to offer.

I will try and post on this site during the convention but time factors may make that an impossibility. If not, catch my stuff at Pajamas Media as I’m sure I’ll have a few things to say about the RNC.

This piece originally appeared at Pajamas Media

This past Wednesday morning at 8:15 AM in Hiroshima, Japan, it was partly cloudy and 78 degrees with light winds. Visibility was about 10 miles. A bell softly rang in the immaculately kept Peace Memorial Park, remembering the moment in 1945 when the atomic age was born. The anniversary is marked in a similar manner every year with tens of thousands of people from all over the world joining in the solemn ceremony.

The dwindling number of survivors come forward each year and tell their tales of horror about that day. It’s almost as if they are re-living something that happened just recently, so vivid and emotional are the memories. Most of the survivors (many refer to them as “victims”) were young children in 1945. Many lost their parents in the blast. They say they come to bear witness so that there will be no more Hiroshimas.

Exactly 63 years earlier, weather conditions were eerily similar when Colonel Paul Tibbets, commander of the 509th Composite Group and pilot of a plane he named after his mother — the Enola Gay — flew over Hiroshima’s Aioi Bridge and began to bank his aircraft.

Just as Tibbets started his turn, the B-29 lurched violently as 10,000 pounds of American technical, industrial, and scientific ingenuity fell out of the bomb bay almost exactly on schedule (navigator Captain Theodore Van Kirk’s calculations of time over target was 15 seconds off). Little Boy, they called it, in an ironic juxtaposition to its massive bulk. It was a gun-type nuclear bomb — a crude, primitive, inefficient device by our standards. And for all the effort, money, time, and brainpower that went into designing it, Little Boy was simplicity incarnate.

A hollow bullet of highly enriched uranium 235 was placed at one end of a long tube with a larger mass of enriched uranium at the other end. The larger cylinder of nuclear material was barely “subcritical” — that is, needing just a bit more in order to start a chain reaction and cause an explosion.

When Little Boy hit 1900 feet above Hiroshima (it had drifted about 800 feet from the target), the uranium bullet fired down the barrel and impacted the cylinder perfectly. For two millionths of a second, the mass that used to be Little Boy became as hot as the sun. This heat so thoroughly eliminated humans directly below the blast, all that could be seen afterwards were shadow-like outlines of people on the concrete.

The blast — equivalent to about 13,000 tons of TNT — literally scoured out the center of the city and the resulting fires took care of most of the rest. About 70,000 people perished within hours of the blast with another 70,000 dying before the end of 1945.

Three days later –63 years ago today– history would repeat itself over the city of Nagasaki. This time, a plutonium bomb was used, increasing the efficiency of the device dramatically. Due to some topographical quirks (there were no large hills as in Hiroshima to focus the blast effect), the casualty rate was lower. Still, Fat Man managed to kill more than 40,000 that day and another 40,000 before that fateful year faded into history.

How could we have done it? Much of the world to this day asks the question, “Wasn’t there another, less cruel way to end the war?”

The decision to drop the bomb will always be controversial because the answer to that question is yes, there were other ways we could have ended the war with Japan. Some would almost certainly have cost more lives than were lost at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Army Air Force Commander of Strategic Forces in the Pacific Curtis LeMay believed if given six months and freedom to target whatever he wished, he could bring Japan to its knees by completely destroying its ability to feed itself. Victory assured — at the cost of several million starved Japanese.

The navy thought a blockade would do the trick. Starving the Japanese war machine of raw materials and the people of food they were importing from occupied China would have the Japanese government begging for peace in a matter of six months to a year. Again, visions of millions of dead from starvation came with the plan.

The army saw invasion as the only option. A landing on the southernmost main island of Kyushu followed up by an attack on the Kanto plain near Tokyo on the island of Honshu. Dubbed Operation Downfall, the plan called for the first phase to be carried out in October of 1945, with the main battle for Japan taking place in the spring of 1946. Casualty estimates have been hotly debated over the years, but it seems reasonable to assume that many hundreds of thousands of Americans would have been killed or wounded while, depending on how fiercely civilians resisted, perhaps several million Japanese would have died in the assault.

But there were other plans to end the war as well. Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph Bard sat in the meeting room where the Interim Committee was meeting on June 1, 1945 to decide on where the atomic bombs should be used and how. And from his vantage point, he did not agree with the main conclusions of the committee to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki without warning. Later that month, he wrote a memo to his boss, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, where he tried to make the case for not using the device.

Ever since I have been in touch with this program I have had a feeling that before the bomb is actually used against Japan that Japan should have some preliminary warning for say two or three days in advance of use. The position of the United States as a great humanitarian nation and the fair play attitude of our people generally is responsible in the main for this feeling.

During recent weeks I have also had the feeling very definitely that the Japanese government may be searching for some opportunity which they could use as a medium of surrender. Following the three-power conference emissaries from this country could contact representatives from Japan somewhere on the China Coast and make representations with regard to Russia’s position and at the same time give them some information regarding the proposed use of atomic power, together with whatever assurances the President might care to make with regard to the Emperor of Japan and the treatment of the Japanese nation following unconditional surrender. It seems quite possible to me that this presents the opportunity which the Japanese are looking for.

I don’t see that we have anything in particular to lose in following such a program. The stakes are so tremendous that it is my opinion very real consideration should be given to some plan of this kind. I do not believe under present circumstances existing that there is anyone in this country whose evaluation of the chances of the success of such a program is worth a great deal. The only way to find out is to try it out.

Was Japan ready to surrender in June? The cabinet had been wanting to give up at least since April. They had extended feelers to the Russians in hopes of using Stalin as a go-between in negotiations. But intercepts by our codebreakers released unredacted in 1995 clearly show that in addition to a demand to maintain the Emperor’s position, the Japanese would only settle for a “negotiated” peace with the army command structure still intact and no occupation. In short, an invitation to another war as soon as the Japanese recovered. Even that proved too much for many in the military who saw surrender as the ultimate disgrace according to bushido, their code of honor. When Stalin stalled the Japanese peace delegation, the military killed the tentative outreach completely.

Would warning the Japanese of the existence of the bomb have done any good? It may have. But the Interim Committee came to the conclusion that the Japanese were just as likely to move thousands of American prisoners of war to the target area. And a demonstration of what the bomb could do was out of the question. There was enough plutonium for two devices — the Trinity test “gadget” and Fat Man. After that, the supply was a question mark because of manufacturing problems at the Oak Ridge gaseous diffusion plant in Tennessee and Hanford reactor in Washington state.

Besides, after 82 days of the most brutal combat in any theater of the war, the battle for Okinawa was finally winding down. It is hard to grasp the wave of helplessness that descended on many in the civilian and military leadership as they watched the Japanese on Okinawa fight so fanatically and to the death. The prospect of invasion and continued combat throughout the Pacific was frightening. The gruesome toll of 100,000 Japanese soldiers dead and 50,000 American casualties weighed heavily on the Interim Committee in making their recommendations to President Truman.

Bard almost certainly discussed his memo with both Stimson and Truman. Stimson, an old world, old fashioned diplomat who said when disbanding the code breakers after World War I “Gentlemen don’t read other gentlemen’s mail,” was impressed by the arguments and even shared some of Bard’s sentiments but felt he had an obligation to abide by the Committee’s majority findings.

Truman, president for less than 3 months and in the dark about the Manhattan Project during his entire vice presidency, was being given advice from every corner on how to end the war. The decision to drop the bomb did not, he claims, initiate a great moral conflict within him. He accepted the recommendation of the Interim Committee and went off to Potsdam where the allies issued an ultimatum to Japan: surrender or suffer the consequences. The die was cast and the fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was sealed.

With no good plan to end the war without massive death and suffering, an intransigent Japanese government insisting on fighting to the bitter end, mounting casualties in the Philippines and Okinawa, a war weary public, the prospects of transferring millions of men who had just survived the horrors of the European battlefields to the Pacific, and his own belief that using the bombs would end the war quickly, Truman gave the go ahead in a handwritten note on the back of a July 31, 1945 memo from Stimson regarding the statement to be released following the bombing.

“Reply to your suggestions approved. Release when ready but not before August 2.

In the end, there were probably many calculations that went into the decision by Truman to drop the bomb. Other considerations probably included the effect it might have on the Soviets. For many years, this reason was considered by several historians to be the primary concern of Truman when he gave the go-ahead to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While it no doubt was one factor in Truman’s decision, it appears now, thanks to publication of radio intercepts from the time, that the president’s primary focus was using a weapon he felt could end the war in days and not months.

Another factor was the advice given him by his good friend and confidante Jimmy Byrne, former senator from South Carolina. Byrne pointed out that spending $2 billion for a bomb that was never used, not to mention the chance that it could end the war and save lives, would anger the American people — especially those who lost loved ones because the bomb had not been tried. Some historians have pointed to this factor as an overriding one, but that almost certainly isn’t the case. Byrne’s political instincts were solid, but Truman would hardly have based his decision on what the voters would have thought after the war.

If all of this is went into deciding to use the bomb, why then does most of the rest of the world criticize us for using it?

The stories of survivors are harrowing — flames everywhere, people walking by whose flesh had been ripped off their bodies by heat and the blast, the inability to find loved ones. All the ghastliness of Dante’s Hell and a Gothic horror novel rolled into one. We pity them and ache for what they went through that horrible day.

But once –just once– I would like to hear the horror stories of the men and women of Pearl Harbor as counterpoint to the suffering of the Japanese and a reminder of who started the war and how they did it. I want to hear from those who can tell equally horrific tales of death and destruction. How Japanese aircraft strafed our men with machine gun fire while they were swimming for their lives through flaming oil spills, the result of a surprise attack against a nation with whom they were at peace. Or how the hundreds of men trapped in the USS Arizona slowly suffocated over 10 days as divers frantically tried to cut through the superstructure and rescue their comrades.

Perhaps we might even ask surviving POWs to bear witness to their ordeal in Japanese prison camps — surely as brutal, inhuman, and gruesome an atrocity as has ever been inflicted on enemy soldiers.

While we’re at it, I am sure there are thousands of witnesses who would want to testify about how the Japanese army raped its way across Asia. This little discussed aspect of the war is a non-event for the most part in Japanese histories. But the millions of women who suffered unspeakable mistreatment by the Japanese army deserve a hearing whenever the tragedy of Hiroshima is remembered.

Yes, no more Hiroshimas. But to take the atomic bombing of Japan totally out of context and use it to highlight one nation or one city’s suffering is morally offensive. The war with Japan, with its racial overtones on both sides as well as the undeniable cruelty and barbarity by the Japanese military, should have been ended the second it was possible to do so. Anything less makes the moral arguments surrounding the use of the atomic bomb an exercise in sophistry.

This article originally appeared on the Pajamas Media website.

I must confess to a weakness for listening and reading good political speeches. I wrote an article a while back on the top ten American political speeches of all time and never had so much fun writing and researching anything.

What determines a good political speech? Theodore H. White believed there were three elements that made a speech special. First, the moment in history when the words are delivered helps frame the speech and give it the proper context. Second, there must be a suitable backdrop: Gettysburg Cemetery, the Lincoln Memorial, the House of Burgess in 1775 where the focus of American resistance to British tyranny settled. Patrick Henry giving his “Give me Liberty or give me death” speech in a tavern or in a church would not have been as impactful.

Finally, the words themselves must be memorable, crafted so that the man, the moment, and the backdrop all come together to create superior oratory.

For Barack Obama, it might be unfair to saddle him with the expectation that he would make a speech as memorable as the address delivered by John Kennedy when Berlin was the flashpoint for nuclear confrontation with the Soviets and the airlift still fresh in Berliners’ memories. Or that Obama could match an address that was as emotionally satisfying as Reagan’s challenge to the Soviets to “tear down this wall” when hope for change had been stoked to a very high level by Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost. Reagan and Kennedy went to Berlin in order to accomplish something specific. Obama went to Berlin to make a campaign commercial.

Obama is not president. There is no great crisis in Berlin or in Europe that would make Tiergarten Park a place of resonance for his words to echo down through the ages. Instead, he was a political candidate with the gift of oratory who came to Berlin to show the folks back home that he wasn’t a total rookie when it comes to overseas affairs.

The first leg of his trip was designed to underscore the candidate’s knowledge and judgment about Afghanistan, Iraq, and the thorny issues of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Playing to rave reviews in the press and getting a boost from the Iraqis who appeared to embrace his talk of setting a timetable for American withdrawal, the first leg was judged a big success by the punditocracy (could it ever have been anything else?).

But was it really necessary to come to Western Europe? This leg almost appears to be included for the sake of vanity - to show how much the rest of the world wants Obama to be president. Outside of a few American expatriates, there are no votes to be harvested there. Only photo-ops with leaders of countries about which most Americans could care less.

But that didn’t stop the hype from beginning to build days in advance for Obama’s Tiergarten Park speech, moved after the German government gently refused permission for an address at the Brandenberg Gate. Some enthusiasts in Germany predicted a million people would turn out for the party. Last night, the Obama crew sought to tone down expectations considerably, and it’s a good thing they did: somewhere between 100-200,000 turned out for Obama’s attempt to leave his mark on history. Still an enormous throng but not the overwhelming crush of humanity that some were saying would show up.

The speech itself was good, filled with plenty of Obama cliches that somehow sound new when he delivers them. It was well delivered like all Obama addresses, but curiously subdued at times. Whether it was because a sizable segment of the audience did not speak English or some other reason, Obama seemed to struggle in getting reaction from the crowd. Interrupted several times by applause, the speech nevertheless was not greeted with the wild enthusiasm many expected. There was occasional chanting of “O-BA-MA” and “YES-WE-CAN,” but it wasn’t sustained and tailed off rather quickly.

Obama used the seminal event in Berlin’s history - the 1948 airlift - as well as the former presence of the Berlin Wall to talk not as an American but as “a citizen of the world” to the “people of the world.” After a glowing recitation of how Germans and Americans worked together to save Berlin during the Soviet blockade, Obama consciously evoked the memory of John Kennedy, if not in words then in meter and imagery. Where Kennedy challenged the world by telling the doubters “Let them come to Berlin” and see what free men were capable of, Obama called on “people of the world” to come to Berlin and witness what the German-American partnership had accomplished:

People of the world - look at Berlin!

Look at Berlin, where Germans and Americans learned to work together and trust each other less than three years after facing each other on the field of battle.

Look at Berlin, where the determination of a people met the generosity of the Marshall Plan and created a German miracle; where a victory over tyranny gave rise to NATO, the greatest alliance ever formed to defend our common security.

Look at Berlin, where the bullet holes in the buildings and the somber stones and pillars near the Brandenburg Gate insist that we never forget our common humanity.

People of the world - look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.

With “walls” as context, Obama sought to show that new walls that have been erected in place of the east- west divide must also be torn down:

That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.

The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.

We know they have fallen before. After centuries of strife, the people of Europe have formed a Union of promise and prosperity. Here, at the base of a column built to mark victory in war, we meet in the center of a Europe at peace. Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together; in the Balkans, where our Atlantic alliance ended wars and brought savage war criminals to justice; and in South Africa, where the struggle of a courageous people defeated apartheid.

So history reminds us that walls can be torn down. But the task is never easy. True partnership and true progress requires constant work and sustained sacrifice. They require sharing the burdens of development and diplomacy; of progress and peace. They require allies who will listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other.

His call to bring down the walls between “Christians, Muslims, and Jews” received the largest applause of the speech. That, his call to end the Iraq War, and his desire to rid the world of nuclear weapons drew the only enthusiastic responses from the throng during the entire speech.

Obama didn’t get much reaction when he called on the people for support of the effort in Afghanistan and against terrorism in general:

This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it. This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it. If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York. If we could win a battle of ideas against the communists, we can stand with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the extremism that leads to hate instead of hope.

This is the moment when we must renew our resolve to rout the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan, and the traffickers who sell drugs on your streets. No one welcomes war. I recognize the enormous difficulties in Afghanistan. But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO’s first mission beyond Europe’s borders is a success. For the people of Afghanistan, and for our shared security, the work must be done. America cannot do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them rebuild their nation. We have too much at stake to turn back now.

Calling on the Germans to help with security in Afghanistan is pointless since the German government will not allow their troops to engage in combat operations, just like most other NATO countries. Indeed, Obama’s base here at home is having difficulty with his Afghanistan policy, where he calls for additional troops to be transferred from Iraq.

And this bring us to Obama’s peroration:

But I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived - at great cost and great sacrifice - to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world. Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or kingdom - indeed, every language is spoken in our country; every culture has left its imprint on ours; every point of view is expressed in our public squares. What has always united us - what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America’s shores - is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.

Those are the aspirations that joined the fates of all nations in this city. Those aspirations are bigger than anything that drives us apart. It is because of those aspirations that the airlift began. It is because of those aspirations that all free people - everywhere - became citizens of Berlin. It is in pursuit of those aspirations that a new generation - our generation - must make our mark on history.

People of Berlin - and people of the world - the scale of our challenge is great. The road ahead will be long. But I come before you to say that we are heirs to a struggle for freedom. We are a people of improbable hope. Let us build on our common history, and seize our common destiny, and once again engage in that noble struggle to bring justice and peace to our world.

Earlier, Obama alluded to his major campaign theme - that “this is our moment. This is our time.” When placed beside the litany of challenges he issued on Darfur, Iran, the Middle East, nuclear weapons, global warming, and a host of others, his call to action seemed forced and unnatural. Accomplishing anything - especially against the kind of instransigence demonstrated by Darfur or Iran - will take much more than feel-good, cliché-riddled speeches. Since no plan was offered to specifically address these problems, the whole exercise had an air of fantasy about it.

He left the Tiergarten as he had arrived - to thunderous applause. But how will this play in a place like my hometown of Streator, IL - population 15,000 and as close to the middle of Middle America as you can get?

First, I suspect news of the speech will come to most of my fellow Streatorians as a whisper on the wind. Most will not have seen it or read it and will be influenced - if they are influenced at all - by the usual suspects. The media will be talking about the speech for days and a consensus will eventually form. They will also talk to their neighbors about it (Streator is a very neighborly town) and make a judgment of their own.

Will they be impressed that so many turned out to hear an American that they don’t know much about? Will they wonder what the heck the guy was doing in Europe talking to Germans when they would rather have him here talking to Americans, telling them what he’s going to do about gas prices? Will it alter their perception of Obama as a man who doesn’t know as much about foreign affairs as his opponent?

In the end, my fellow townsmen will shrug their shoulders and not think it a big deal anyway. And perhaps, in the larger scheme of things, it isn’t the history-making event it might have been. Obama was hoping for a grand slam home run, a thumping denouement to his overseas trip. Instead, he gave a middling performance in front of a relatively subdued crowd and will come home secure in the knowledge he didn’t strike out - but still finding elusive the time and backdrop that will allow his rhetoric to resonate down through the ages.

Here’s a sample of my latest PJ Media column - a look at what’s ahead in the campaign:

 But regardless of how he achieved it, Obama’s victory is one of those “hinge” moments in American history where a door is opened and the country walks through it, leaving the past behind forever. Putting politics aside for one moment, the victory of this talented, passionate, brilliant man whose life story is perhaps even more incredible than his singular achievement in winning the nomination should be a source of enormous pride for all Americans. We should revel in it for a few moments, if only because there has been so little to truly unite us in recent years.

But once the sheen is off the novelty of the event, it’s back to business - the business of trying to figure a way to win enough states to get to 270 electoral votes. Nothing else matters from here on out and both candidates - John McCain and Obama - will mix and match the states on the electoral map, weighing every decision against how far it advances their plan for victory.

Last night saw the unveiling of the outline of those plans when both candidates gave speeches that, for all intents and purposes, kicked off the general election campaign. And for Hillary Clinton, last night was a strange and sad interlude. A campaign not suspended. A race not conceded. But a clear realization by the candidate that her consuming desire to be president would not be achieved.

Earlier in the day, she allowed her staff to mention that she would accept the Vice Presidential nomination if it was offered. But there is much more to that acknowledgment than meets the eye. One school of thought holds that she would not have put her name forward so aggressively if she thought it would be refused. Another side of the coin is that she allowed her name to be mentioned because she knew Obama would never choose her.

She doesn’t want to appear the supplicant begging for scraps from Obama’s table. But at the same time, she doesn’t want to be seen as thrusting herself forward either. It is a difficult position for her to be in, and over the next few days the two candidates and their staffs will probably feel each other out carefully, with Obama making the decision whether the “dream ticket” will become a reality.

I’m taking the day off today - partly writers burn out and partly due to a persistent cough and cold that has had me up most of the week and unable to sleep very well.

But I thought I’d link to my piece from yesterday in PJ Media regarding Hillary’s campaign-ending gaffe. Here’s a sample:

This is the gaffe of gaffes, the Mother of all campaign faux pas. There’s no taking it back at this point. The statement is out there, hanging like a rapidly decomposing side of beef in the hot sun. To suggest that you should hang around and stay in the campaign “just in case” the unthinkable occurs is beyond anything yet seen in this campaign. And considering all the race and gender cards that have been flying around, the assassination card tops them all.

Both camps have come out and vigorously denied talks are taking place. Indeed, after today’s events, it would seem very unlikely - if there had ever been much of a chance in the first place — that Senator Obama would agree to adding Hillary Clinton to the Democratic ticket as vice president.

My latest column at Pajamas Media is up and I am getting socked around by everyone for my less than hateful portrayal of Hillary Clinton’s motives for staying in the race:

A sample:

For all the talk of “glass ceilings” and “old boys networks” — and there are still significant barriers to professional women who seek power and influence in the political and corporate world — Hillary Clinton’s candidacy has shattered a few of those ceilings as she has elbowed her way into the oldest and most male of all networks: serious consideration for the most powerful office on the planet.

This is not a quest for the nomination as much as it is the road to a validation of her place in history. One can hardly fault her for trying to keep faith with the millions who see her as a living icon and a harbinger of things to come. For that reason, she may decide to stay in the race until the last primary has been held so that every woman who believes in her and, more importantly, what she represents, can be heard.

I have heard from conservative women that they feel exactly the same way so maybe I am channeling my feminine side today. Or maybe I see Clinton as a historical figure rather than the rapacious, power hungry harridan that many rightly claim also dominates her personae.

People are three dimensional - they are not cartoons. To find absolutely good or evil people is extremely rare. Reagan was not a good father and could be distant with people - even his wife. FDR was a philanderer and wished to transform America into something approaching communism. To accept the good and bad in people is to recognize that they are human beings - imperfect, prone to mistakes, and not always living up (or living down) to our expectations.

I see Hillary as a historical figure standing astride two eras in American history. Her campaign will open the door to other women running for president so that the next time, the fact that a candidate is a woman will hardly be noticed. This is incredible for someone my age who grew up with June Cleaver as the model mother - a model I saw in my mother and the mothers of all my friends at that age. To travel from there to here in my lifetime is a journey that demands its own story, its own narrative. And Hillary Clinton is supplying that story.

In another decade, it will be commonplace for women to be running Fortune 500 companies, starting their share of new businesses, and running for president. This will not take place because of Hillary Clinton. But her campaign is a very significant milestone along the road we have travelled to give women the respect and dignity - and the power - that men demand for themselves.