Right Wing Nut House

According to Noam Scheiber of The New Republic, the dust up over Obama’s two faced NAFTA policy doesn’t seem to be going away and in fact, may be working against the Illinois senator:

Okay, scratch what I said about Goolsbee and Canada. I still don’t think it’s substantively a big deal, but between hearing CNN’s reports from Ohio this morning, and listening in on a Clinton conference call just now (and hearing reporters’ questions on the subject), I think they’re getting some significant traction with this story today.

Two things make it problematic for the Obama campaign: 1.) The sudden appearance of this lurid-sounding memo written by a Canadian consular official. I don’t think it’s particularly revealing–as I said this morning, it reflects what the Canadians thought they heard from Goolsbee; there are, significantly, no direct quotes. But the term “memo” just sounds bad–as though there were some cover-up that’s now falling apart. 2.) Certain Obama officials denied last week that there was any contact between the Obama campaign and the Canadian government about NAFTA. That’s clearly no longer “operative,” as Howard Wolfson pointed out on the call. While the memo story is a little ambiguous on its own–the Canadian official claims Goolsbee said one thing; he claims he said another–the Obama campaign’s previous denials will make the press view their current claims more skeptically.

If this story is getting the kind of coverage in Ohio CNN is suggesting it is, it’s hard to see how Obama makes up ground there today.

If you read the parts of the memo from Joseph DeMora who works at the Chicago consulate, it is pretty ambiguous and not exactly a smoking gun showing that the Obama advisor - Austan Goolsbee - gave the wink, wink, nudge, nudge to the Canadian government on OBama’s real position on NAFTA:

Goolsbee disputed a section that read: “Noting anxiety among many U.S. domestic audiences about the U.S. economic outlook, Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign. He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.”

“This thing about `it’s more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans,’ that’s this guy’s language,” Goolsbee said of DeMora. “He’s not quoting me.

“I certainly did not use that phrase in any way,” Goolsbee said.

The meeting was first reported last week by Canadian television network CTV, which cited unnamed sources as saying that Goolsbee assured the Canadians that Obama’s tough talk on the North American Free Trade Agreement is just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously. The Obama campaign and the Canadian embassy denied there was any inconsistency between what the candidate was saying publicly and what advisers were saying privately.

Is that true? Even allowing for misinterpretation it is hard to believe that the consulate official could have gotten it that wrong. It may have been more subtle but clearly, Goolsbee left the impression that Obama was saying one thing but would do another if he was elected.

The Canadian government is denying it - for obvious reasons. They’ve already inadvertently injected themselves into the campaign and just wish it would all go away.

But CTV, who broke the story originally, went back and reconfirmed the story with their government sources. The fact that by all reports the memo in question received very wide distribution inside the Canadian government also points up the seriousness with which the Goolsbee conversation was taken. This despite the insistence by the Obama campaign that Goolsbee was pretty much of an independent operator and wasn’t speaking on behalf of the campaign:

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said Goolsbee’s visit was not as an emissary from the campaign, but as a professor from the University of Chicago. He was not authorized to share any messages from the campaign, Burton said.

Burton, who was on the call while Goolsbee described his visit to the AP, said, “It all boils down to a clumsy, inaccurate portrayal of the conversation.”

Asked if he agreed with Burton, Goolsbee said he did.

Goolsbee, by the way, is Obama’s senior economic policy advisor. Just what was the Canadian government to believe when someone with that pedigree shows up at their Chicago consulate and starts to talk about NAFTA and the campaign?

Regardless of how the events transpired between Goolsbee and the Canadians, the view from the ground in Ohio from Scheiber is significant. Over the weekend, steel workers were picketing Obama’s headquarters in Toledo demanding clarification on his NAFTA policy. And newspapers, pundits, and local talk shows are filled with talk about the incident.

What this has done is killed the momentum Obama was enjoying in Ohio that had allowed him to halve Clinton’s lead in the state. In fact, it appears in both Texas and Ohio, Hillary Clinton has arrested her slide and especially in Texas, has battled back even with Obama:

The Democratic Party presidential primaries in Texas and Ohio remain too close to call between Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, with momentum sloshing back and forth, a new Zogby International poll for Reuters/C-SPAN/Houston Chronicle two-day telephone tracking poll shows. As voters in these two big states prepare to wrap up their voting tomorrow, neither candidate has been able to break away from the other.

The two delegate-rich states with elections on Tuesday are among the last of the big states left in the primary election season, and both candidates stand to split the delegates under the party’s proportional delegate apportionment scheme.

This plays into a developing theme for the campaign - that the race is entering a new phase with Hillary Clinton on the rebound.

There are several factors that point to this scenario. First and most importantly, the national press was stung to the quick by the Saturday Night Live skit from two weeks ago that showed the press fawning all over Obama. The voters agree that the press has been much tougher on Hillary than on Obama.

Recently we have seen two major developments in the press that point to a possible bursting of Obama’s glowing press coverage balloon; 1) There has been increased attention paid to Obama’s national security inexperience; and 2) The national media has finally woken up to Obama’s “Rezko problem.”

Hillary’s “3 AM” commercial has generated an enormous amount of interest and talk on the newsnets as well as Sunday’s news shows. Hillary’s chief strategy guru Mark Penn issued a memo that shows the campaign is ready to take advantage of this issue:

Following up on their conference call earlier today, the Clinton campaign released a memo entitled: “Why Hillary Clinton is Ready to be Commander-in-Chief.”

In the memo, Mark Penn, the chief strategist for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (N.Y.) presidential campaign, writes: “If Barack Obama says it’s fear mongering to talk about how Senator Clinton will protect America, he is going to have a rough time up against John McCain. This is not a debate he can duck with two wars going on.”

Penn asserted today that an ad that raised the specter of a national security crisis and questioned Sen. Barack Obama’s (Ill.) readiness to handle such an event has fundamentally altered the shape of the race heading into tomorrow’s votes in Ohio and Texas.

Penn said the ad, which began airing Friday, effectively framed the question of “who’s ready and prepared to be commander-in-chief.” Penn added: “Just by merely asking the question and nothing more, millions of people understood what is the answer to that question.” He called it a “tipping point” in the race that has signaled a “change in momentum.”

Surely part of this is pure spin. But Penn is a savvy guy and I think the ad has finally given the Clinton’s a way to attack Obama effectively.

But the attack will mean little unless Obama is taken off his pedestal and shown to be an ordinary politician. And with the trial in Chicago of Obama’s long time friend and fund raiser Tony Rezko starting today, the national media has finally discovered this story and have begun covering it in earnest.

Obama will almost certainly not be called as a witness. But there’s a good chance his name will surface in connection with an illegal contribution to his campaign. Rezko asked one of this cronies to contribute money to Obama’s senate campaign and then reimbursed him for the contribution. Obama has given the money to charity but prosecutors may bring up Obama’s name in connection with that contribution as evidence of a pattern of behavior on the part of Rezko.

And the infamous real estate transaction involving Obama’s house and Rezko’s purchase of the vacant lot next door is also receiving increased scrutiny. At the time of the transaction, the Rezko’s were broke and creditors were swarming around his companies and assets. And yet, they were able to come up with $125,000 in cash to put as a downpayment on the $600,000 lot - a purchase that allowed his friend Obama to buy his house at a $300,000 discount. Rezko probably got the money via a loan from a shady Iraqi named Nadhmi Auchi who the Pentagon refers to as a “bagman” for Saddam Hussein:

But the case against Rezko prepared by the always determined U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald poses possible new pitfalls for the Democratic front-runner by introducing into the proceedings Auchi, who has been convicted on corruption charges in France and given a suspended sentence. While his friends describe Auchi and his family as victims of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny, Pentagon sources call him a “bagman” who laundered money in London for the Iraqi dictator.

Auchi may also be involved in the Oil for Food scandal where billions of Saddam’s dollars were funneled to western companies.

There are many other questions about the Obama-Rezko relationship that are being asked. More investigations targeting Rezko and his companies are underway which can only mean more trouble for Obama down the road.

NAFTAGate, Rezko, and questions about Obama’s national security credentials have all combined to perhaps - just perhaps - give Democratic voters a slight pause before they anoint The Chosen One as nominee.

And if Hillary has anything to say about it, that day will never come.

The feds are saying flatly that the Vegas ricin case is not related to terrorism but I’m not so sure.

The man who was staying at the Vegas hotel and is in the hospital in critical condition, who almost certainly manufactured the ricin from raw castor beans by following instructions in what authorities described as an “a book on anarchy,” is apparently obsessed with domestic animals:

Neighbors in Utah described Mr. Von Bergendorff as a peculiar loner commonly seen in brown slacks and a brown shirt. Pauline and Grant Dansie, who live three doors down from Mr. Tholen, said Mr. Von Bergendorff spent six weeks last summer searching their backyard daily for a missing cat that he eventually said he found.

“He’s just a little bit different,” Mrs. Dansie said. “He was so obsessed with this cat; it was really strange. He didn’t really act like he wanted to be a friend. I remember one time he put a cat trap out in our field, and he caught our neighbor’s cat. We told him he had to give it back.”

Mr. Von Bergendorff, who is believed to be a computer graphic artist whose work has appeared on several science fiction novels, appears to have a lengthy history involving pets and animals. The police also found three cats and an emaciated dog in his hotel room; the local shelter took custody of the animals, but the dog was so starved and parched it had to be euthanized.

Public records show that Mr. Von Bergendorff lived for several years in the 1980s and 1990s with a relative, Fred Bergendorff, in La Mesa, Calif. Mr. Bergendorff, who died on Jan. 27, was the founder of the Pet Place, a charity focused on assisting homeless pets, and the host of the organization’s long-running TV and radio programs in Southern California.

The Pet Place appears to be on the up and up - an earnest and effective organization that saves thousands of discarded animals a year. The board members and officers are all upstanding citizens from what information I can gather on the web. There isn’t a hint of radicalism associated with this excellent and caring organization.

But Von Bergendorff may have taken it upon himself to avenge the helpless creatures he cares so deeply about. How is anyone’s guess. The amount of Ricin he made would seem to indicate several potential targets. And since a deadly dose of the toxin could fit on the head of the pin, I leave it to your imagination how many people he might have killed with a couple of vials of the stuff that were removed from his room.

The death of his pet-loving relative relative on January 27 may have tipped him over the edge of sanity. A little more than 2 weeks later, he checks into a Vegas hospital (February 15) with respiratory distress - one of the major symptoms of ricin poisoning:

Inhalation: Within a few hours of inhaling significant amounts of ricin, the likely symptoms would be respiratory distress (difficulty breathing), fever, cough, nausea, and tightness in the chest. Heavy sweating may follow as well as fluid building up in the lungs (pulmonary edema). This would make breathing even more difficult, and the skin might turn blue. Excess fluid in the lungs would be diagnosed by x-ray or by listening to the chest with a stethoscope. Finally, low blood pressure and respiratory failure may occur, leading to death.

CDC investigators are on the scene at the hospital trying to determine if, in fact Von Bergendorff inhaled the ricin.

Other neighbors had an even bleaker description of the life led by Von Bergendorff:

A down-on-his-luck Roger Von Bergendorff lived at his cousin’s home for more than a year before moving to Las Vegas about a year ago, said Tammy Ewell, who lives across the street from Thomas Tholen in Riverton, Utah, and described him and his wife, Ellen, as close friends.

“He was very much a loner. I would say more or less socially regressive. He just barely got by in life. He’d just barely make it,” Ewell said. “Tom was the last resort.”

No word on how Bergendorff made his living in Vegas. The rate at the Extended Stay Motel would run him at least $1200 a month.

The major media won’t speculate on this angle of the story for good reason - no proof. But we have some dots and they can easily be connected with a little intelligent speculation. A man who has exhibited unbalanced behavior in his devotion to animals to his neighbors loses a close relative, goes off the deep end, and envisions himself as perhaps some kind of avenging angel. He acquires a book on how to make ricin in order to exact revenge on those he sees as harming pets or animals. His ignorance in how to handle the deadly poison results in his exposure and subsequent hospitalization.

It is not impossible for such a scenario to have occurred. And it would be interesting to see if Von Bergendorff had made any connections to radical animal rights groups although that idea would be a huge stretch. More likely, he’s a sad, lonely, disturbed man who, if left to his own devices, might have brought tragedy to many people.

I’m no scientist. Neither is Nobel Prize winning global warming alarmist and hypocrite Al Gore. Nor are the legions of global warming deniers who are pointing to a stretch of cold weather as “proof” that global warming is a myth.

We are, most of us, not qualified in any way, shape, or form to make any kind of technical or scientific judgment on most of the evidence relating to climate change unless we happen to hold an advanced technical degree and are able to examine that evidence in its totality and not pick and choose headlines that bolster one’s political position on the issue.

The idiocy inherent in the prospect of myself or 95% of internet commenters - right and left - trying to hold a scientific debate on a subject where almost all of us are not scientists and where most of the evidence is couched in the arcane and mysterious language of scientific disciplines for which the overwhelming majority of us barely realize the parameters of study is self evident.

Not that this matters because at bottom, we who are unable to examine the evidence on the same plane as climatologists, meteorologists, atmospheric physicists, environmental scientists, and a hodgepodge of chemists, archaeologists, anthropologists, and other scientists end up simply believing one side or the other. Like religious fanatics, the two sides argue dogma while rejecting the other’s “beliefs” as apostasy.

Considering the stakes, this is madness. And scientists are not helping matters any. Likening those who question the conclusion that global warming is caused largely by man and that it threatens civilization to Holocaust deniers is far beyond the pale of rational discourse. Similarly, those who use the term “climate Nazis” to describe global warming advocates have no place in this debate.

But because of the monumental importance of the issue, all of this matters little. Even though our opinions are half baked and ill informed, we scream at each other, accusing one side of being in the pocket of big business (or in thrall to the anti-science element in the Republican party) or the other side of blindly following a “scam” that seeks to destroy the American economy and promote a one world government.

Both sides have been guilty of laughable exaggerations. Every heat wave during the summer is trumpeted to the skies by warming advocates as “evidence” that the world is warming up. The ebbing of ice packs, glaciers, and snow pack on mountains, is fodder for the alarmists while every shred of evidence that might contradict the global warming scenario including core samples and faulty CO2 models becomes “proof” that global warming is a lie.

Case in point:

“Earth’s ‘Fever’ Breaks: Global COOLING Currently Under Way,” read a blog post and news release on Wednesday from Marc Morano, the communications director for the Republican minority on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

So what is happening?

According to a host of climate experts, including some who question the extent and risks of global warming, it is mostly good old-fashioned weather, along with a cold kick from the tropical Pacific Ocean, which is in its La Niña phase for a few more months, a year after it was in the opposite warm El Niño pattern.

If anything else is afoot — like some cooling related to sunspot cycles or slow shifts in ocean and atmospheric patterns that can influence temperatures — an array of scientists who have staked out differing positions on the overall threat from global warming agree that there is no way to pinpoint whether such a new force is at work.

And lest you think only one side can’t tell the difference between “climate” and “weather,” here’s an oldy but goody from 2003:

NBC Blames Global Warming for European Heat Wave

It was inevitable. Whenever someplace in the world gets hot for a few days, sooner or later a network story will blame it on global warming.

NBC’s Patricia Sabga won the contest on Wednesday night when she warned that “scientists attribute the extreme temperatures to what’s been described as a dome of hot air hovering over Europe, a summer weather pattern that may become the norm.” Sean Seabrook, identified on screen as a “meteorologist,” then asserted: “Scientists appreciate now that global warming is taking place and I think these occurrences of heat waves will become more frequent, so this may be a sign of things to come.”

The climate is warming. This is indisputable. It has been warming since the end of the last ice age nearly 20,000 years ago. During that time we’ve had rapid warming spells that last centuries and cooling periods as well (the “Little Ice Age” in Europe from 1300-1800 had a huge impact on politics and society).

But overall, for this last post-ice age epoch the temperature has been rising. No one disputes this. The problem, of course, is the last 100 years or so of human industrial activity and the burning of fossile fuels. Many scientists see the “spike” in average temperature of .75 degrees C as directly related to the increase in CO2 emissions resulting from the burning of hydrocarbons. Others point to a peak of sunspot activity or ice core samples that show past rapid warming periods where there has been an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere.

I have no clue who has the upper hand in this debate. Flat statements like “global warming is real” or “global warming is a scam” mean nothing when each side is contradicted by sound scientific evidence. This despite efforts by some in the global warming crusade who seek to end debate on the issue for political, not scientific reasons by trying to postulate that there is a “consensus” that catastrophe is ahead unless we reduce our emissions.

Whoever heard of ending debate on a question of science when there is credible evidence that challenges what has become conventional wisdom? What reputable scientist would agree with this nonsense? No one knows or can accurately predict what the weather will be like 100 years from now. Models that attempt to show a correlation between specific levels of carbon dioxide and temperature have been shown to be useless. No one knows what effect increased temperatures will have in the future. No one even knows if reducing emissions will effect the rise in temperatures one iota.

Closing off debate on climate change is not a question of science but of politics.

It is inevitable that politics would dominate the global warming debate because the solution proposed - reducing emissions - impact ordinary people’s lives enormously, perhaps even catastrophically. For some, whose agenda includes what can only be interpreted as the downfall of the capitalist system, the climate change debate is secondary to imposing their ideas of socialism and reduced influence of the nation state. Others may see a loss of profit and influence unless global warming is “debunked.” And when the cost to the US economy is measured in the trillions of dollars to “play it safe” and proceed as if global warming is the calamitous threat some say it is, the arguments for and against take on an urgency the demands attention.

And then there is the vast bulk of ordinary citizens - you and me - who are caught somewhere in the middle, forced to try our best to understand the debate by reading flawed analysis of both sides in a scientifically ignorant media. Even those few general interest science publications that lay people can read and understand are usually tainted by bias for or against anthropogenic climate change.

In the end, we are left believing one side or the other based largely on our political leanings and not on our scientific acumen. In a way, I envy those who can follow the debate on a technical level and are able to keep the spark of scientific inquiry alive by listening to all sides in this debate and evaluating evidence based on the facts while leaving politics on the outside.

If the only thing you take away from reading this is to have a little more respect for those who don’t agree with you on global warming, I will be content. Because at the moment, speaking for myself, I just don’t know. And the price of ignorance - on both sides - may be too much for us to bear.

UPDATE: 3/6

I thought about doing this days ago but just never got around to it.

Those who say we shouldn’t only take the word of scientists on global warming are correct.

The problem is any 3 year old chimp can understand the conclusions drawn by various studies and models. But only scientists can examine the evidence those conclusions are based on and make a judgement as to their accuracy and efficacy.

Cooking the books of a statistical study on temperatures or overstating some key piece of evidence can only be discovered by those with the knowledge and training to do so. That is why all legitimate studies undergo peer review.

Anyone who relies solely on the conclusions reached by scientists without examining the evidence from where those conclusions came from is talking throught their hat and need not be taken seriously. That was my point that was poorly made that I am now clarifying.

The Clinton campaign today apologized to Barack Obama for what it called “an inadvertent slip” in one of its ads that ran during the run up to Super Tuesday.

The ad portrayed Hillary Clinton walking and greeting voters on a street in a small New Hampshire town.

However, photo enhancement techniques employed by bloggers zeroed in on a house down the street shown in the background. Then, using similar technology developed by analysts at the National Reconnaissance Office for our spy satellites, it was discovered that the house in question had a racist lawn ornament - a small, black jockey known in the lawn ornament trade as “Jocko.”

“This was a clear and deliberate attempt to bring race into the campaign,” said blogger Ann Althouse.

“It’s almost as blatant as subliminally using part of the word N***er in an otherwise harmless ad.”

The Clinton camp’s apology was swift. “Frankly, I don’t see a damn thing,” said campaign aide Harold Ickes.

“But we’ve been beat up so much on this issue we may as well apologize now and get it over with before someone really decides to make an issue of it.”

Althouse said her next goal was to find clues to who really is behind 9/11 in John McCain’s commercials.

John McCain is in a minor dust-up at the moment over the endorsement of notorious anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, anti-gay bigot John Hagee. Not only did McCain appear onstage with the clownish hater, but he actually had this to say about his endorsement:

And I am very proud of the Pastor John Hagee’s spiritual leadership to thousands of people and I am proud of his commitment to the independence and the freedom of the state of Israel. That does not mean that I support or endorse or agree with some of the things that Pastor John Hagee might have said or positions that he may have taken on other issues. I don’t have to agree with everyone who endorses my candidacy. They are supporting my candidacy. I am not endorsing some of their positions.

This is the kind of “spiritual leadership” offered by Hagee:

Towelheads are coming! “Islam in general — those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews.”

New Orleans is Sodom! “I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.”

I’ll get you, Potter! “As millions of people anticipate the release of the latest Harry Potter book and film, we’re reminded once again of Satan’s ongoing attempt to deceive and destroy. The whole purpose of the Potter books is to desensitize readers and introduce them to the occult.”

And the above does not include some of the most nauseating, bigoted, anti-Catholic statements ever uttered in modern America:

“Anti-Semitism in Christianity began with the statements of the early church fathers, including Eusebius, Cyril, Chrysostom, Augustine, Origen, Justin, and Jerome …. This poisonous stream of venom came from the mouths of spiritual leaders to virtually illiterate congregants, sitting benignly in their pews, listening to their pastors. They labeled the Jews as ‘the Christ killers, plague carriers, demons, children of the devil, bloodthirsty pagans who look for an innocent child during the Easter week to drink his blood, money hungry Shylocks, who are deceitful as Judas was relentless.’”

· “The Roman Catholic Church, which was supposed to carry the light of the gospel, plunged the world into the Dark Ages…. The Crusaders were a motley mob of thieves, rapists, robbers, and murderers whose sins had been forgiven by the pope in advance of the Crusade ….The brutal truth is that the Crusades were military campaigns of the Roman Catholic Church to gain control of Jerusalem from the Muslims and to punish the Jews as the alleged Christ killers on the road to and from Jerusalem.”

· “The Spanish Inquisition was perhaps the most cynical plot in the black history of Catholicism, aimed at expropriating the property of wealthy Jews and converts in Spain for the benefit of the royal court and the Roman Catholic Church.”

· “Adolf Hitler attended a Catholic school as a child and heard all the fiery anti-Semitic rantings from Chrysostom to Martin Luther. When Hitler became a global demonic monster, the Catholic Church and Pope Pius XII never, ever slightly criticized him. Pope Pius XII, called by historians ‘Hitler’s Pope,’ joined Hitler in the infamous Concordat of Collaboration, which turned the youth of Germany over to Nazism, and the churches became the stage background for the bloodthirsty cry, ‘Pereat Judea’…. In all of his [Hitler's] years of absolute brutality, he was never denounced or even scolded by Pope Pius XII or any Catholic leader in the world. To those Christians who believe that Jewish hearts will be warmed by the sight of the cross, please be informed—to them it’s an electric chair.”

How this man has amassed the influence and power he has is frankly beyond my comprehension. To realize that still, in this day and age, there is the kind of virulent anti-Catholic bigotry that animated so much of American history by coloring our attitudes toward newcomers from Ireland, Italy, and Slavic countries is depressing in the extreme. To the ignorant followers and believers in this man and what he teaches, I have nothing but contempt.

The question is, why doesn’t John McCain share that feeling of disgust? He has issued a milquetoast disclaimer that he doesn’t hold with all of Hagee’s beliefs. In fact, since his warm acceptance of Hagee’s endorsement, McCain has done nothing but try and backtrack, tripping over himself as he does:

McCain was pressed on the issue Friday morning in Round Rock, Texas. Hagee “supports what I stand for and believe in,” McCain said.

“When he endorses me, that does not mean that I endorse everything that he stands for and believes in,” McCain said. “I don’t have to agree with everyone who endorses my campaign.”

He added that he was “proud” of Hagee’s spiritual leadership of his congregation at the 17,000-member Cornerstone Church.

Doesn’t McCain realize that Hagee’s “spiritual leadership” includes filling the heads of the faithful with hate filled rants against Muslims, gays, Catholics, and others? How can a presidential candidate who says he wants to change the quality of dialogue in this country accept the endorsement of this bigot?

McCain is no stranger to controversies like this. In the 2000 campaign, he spoke at the notorious Bob Jones University where interracial dating was against school policy.

(As an aside, why aren’t these people read out of the conservative movement the same way the Birchers and other extremists were kicked out by Buckley and others in the 1950’s?)

Simply saying you don’t agree with everything Hagee says isn’t good enough. There are some endorsements that should be rejected out of hand. Saying “I reject John Hagee’s endorsement and all the bigoted statements he has made…” would be political suicide with a segment of evangelicals but might be the start of sweeping these extremists out of the party.

Obama’s endorsement by the notorious racist Louis Farrakhan (whose entire religion - the Nation of “Islam” - is geared toward spreading hate of the white man) should have been similarly rejected by the candidate. Instead, he merely “denounced” the racist, saying that it was the same as rejecting Farrakhan:

I obviously can’t censor him, but it is not support that I sought,” Obama said. “And we’re not doing anything, I assure you, formally or informally with Minister Farrakhan.”

Pressed if he specifically rejected the endorsement, Obama said, “I can’t say to somebody that he can’t say that he thinks I’m a good guy” and that he didn’t “see a difference between ‘denouncing’ and ‘rejecting.’”

Pure political sophistry. Of course there’s a difference between “renouncing” and “rejecting.” But Obama dare not do the latter for the same basic reason McCain won’t “reject” Hagee’s endorsement: fear of offending millions of African Americans who see Farrakhan as an important spiritual leader.

There are differences, however, between Obama and McCain’s attitudes toward these problematic endorsements. Obama has spoken out against Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic, anti-white statements even before the Nation of “Islam” minister endorsed him. Also, he didn’t appear on stage with him nor has he ever praised him for his “spiritual leadership.”

The extremists in both parties should be marginalized by denouncing them and rejecting any association - however tangential - between the haters and the candidates. The fact that the candidate might lose their votes (or the votes of the ignorant masses who are either unaware or oblivious to the hatred spewed by the haters they follow) should not be a calculation in the campaign. They should all be consigned to the outer darkness of American politics so that even their endorsement will draw little notice. Perhaps then, at least some of the people that follow these haters will wake up and realize who they have placed their faith in and reassess their own support.

But in order to have that happy event occur, both candidates need to go all the way and not use weasel words in denouncing what the haters believe and rejecting out of hand any hint of support they might bring to the campaign. Anything less will perpetrate the illusion that the Hagees and Farrakhans of the world matter in American politics and that people actually care who they endorse for president.

I refuse to accept the argument “I can’t control who supports me.” This is stating the obvious and is therefore irrelevant. The candidate might not be able to control who comes out in favor of his candidacy. But he can damn sure tell the haters to take a hike and peddle their endorsement somewhere else. That would take true political courage - something both men brag that they have to no end.

Not wanting to offend the ignorant crowds that lap up the hatred spewed by Hagee and Farrakhan by rejecting their endorsement just doesn’t cut it as an explanation. For McCain especially, it becomes paramount for him to make a definitive, declarative, clear statement on Hagee where the candidate leaves no doubt that not only does he find the statements of Hagee troublesome but the man himself as well. No weasel words about Hagee’s “spiritual leadership.” Obama should do the same with Farrakhan.

Until our national leaders actually start leading the fight against bigotry and hate, both will continue to fester just below the surface of our politics. But for two men who claim to be “uniters” and possessed with uncommon political courage, their statements regarding the most problematic of their supporters leave much to be desired.

Terrorism and the threat of an attack has been a Republican strong point with the voter since 9/11. I’m not sure why. The Bush Administration has dropped the ball in so many areas of Homeland Security that if the Democrats had any brains, they would attack Bush not for making terrorism a political issue but for the spectacular failures of his administration on issues such as border and port security, airport screening procedures, and improving the security around soft targets like chemical and electric plants. (Talking about the fact that the Department of Homeland Security itself is a bureaucratic mess and a disaster could take up a whole other article.)

But they cannot bring these issues up because they don’t believe there is a War on Terror - or at least not in the sense that we have anything really to worry about. The great conundrum for Democrats when dealing with the terror issue is that since the 2004 campaign they have been screaming bloody murder every time the issue of terrorism has been raised by a Republican candidate. They call it “playing the politics of fear” and denounce any effort to talk about the threats facing us.

But people want to know what Obama and Clinton are going to do to keep us safe. Hence the conundrum; Democrats must talk about the threats facing us but leave themselves wide open to charges that they too are playing the politics of fear when doing so.

It is a problem of their own making made obvious by the latest ad from Hillary Clinton that shows kids in bed asleep at 3:00 AM and a telephone ringing. A voice over asks who they want answering that phone in the White House - presumably when some crisis is confronting the country. The last scene showing Hillary picking up a phone in a darkened room is quite effective. (Ed Morrissey has the video.)

Clinton is really hearing it from the Obama camp and the blogs:

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., pushed back hard against the new ad, which ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos described as “the nuclear option” on Friday’s “Good Morning America”.

Addressing a group of veterans at an American Legion post in Houston, Obama said: “We’ve seen these ads before. They’re the kind that play on peoples’ fears to scare up votes.”

The tone of the ad — which echoes the infamous Daisy Ad from the 1964 Johnson-Goldwater presidential race and the red phone ad former Vice President Walter Mondale ran against Gary Hart in their ‘84 race for the Democratic nomination — indicates that the Clinton campaign is pulling out the all the stops leading into the Ohio and Texas primaries.

Is it inevitable now that any candidate - Republican or Democrat - who wants to speak frankly to the American people about the real threats we face will be tarred with the charge that they are trying to scare people to get votes?

I see nothing inherently wrong with Hillary trying to highlight the exceptional inexperience of her opponent on national security matters. I hope McCain goes after Obama in a similar manner early and often. But the question remains; are we ever going to be able to talk about terrorism?

Not as long as an advantage accrues to one side or the other when running for office. The idea that a candidate will use the politics of fear in order to win has a long, dishonorable tradition in American politics. The Democrats have successfully demagogued social security for 50 years, scaring senior citizens into thinking that Republicans want to throw them out on the streets and make them eat dog food. Republicans have spent much of the last 30 years successfully portraying the Democrats as weak sisters on national security matters, scaring voters into believing they would surrender first to the Soviets and now to al-Qaeda.

The politics of fear is a powerful ally for any campaign. The temptation to use the tactic is overwhelming because, depending on the issue, it works extremely well. The threat of terrorism is real and immediate. And using it the way that Hillary Clinton does in her ad - as a way to place doubts in voter’s minds about Obama - should not penalize her for bringing up a legitimate issue with which the next president is going to have to deal.

This is the conundrum largely created by the Democrats to answer the GOP’s huge advantage on the issue of terrorism. Apparently, it has now come back and bit them in the ass.

I felt we needed some cheering up today what with the Prophet Obama getting caught with his private parts hanging out all over Canada. It seems that our once and always beloved Agent of Change pulled a fast one on the voters in Ohio by telling them that he was going to get tough with Canada and Mexico on NAFTA (mostly Mexico) by giving them notice that he wanted to renegotiate the treaty and force Mexico to play by all the silly and stupid labor and environmental rules we are forced by our government to play here in the United States (Sigh…am I not allowed just a LITTLE hyperbole? Please?)

Anyway, while breathing fire in Ohio, Obama had an aide whispering sweet nothings into the Canadian government’s ear not to listen to that man saying those mean things about NAFTA in Ohio. It really isn’t Obama saying them, just some guy who is pandering for votes.

Hillary is too busy whining about not getting a fair shake from the press to exploit this marvelous opportunity Obama has handed her on a silver platter. She’d probably fumble it anyway so it doesn’t matter. Hillary is toast and watching the meltdown when she is forced to withdraw will be a scene for the ages.

So with that hanging over my head, I threw up my hands in despair and said, “Enough!” No more politics today. Which leads me into our topic today which is my favorite Doomsday scenarios of all time.

It may surprise (and worry) you that there are actually organizations who do nothing all day except think of crappy ways we can all check out together. Just Google “Doomsday” and become afraid. With all these negative vibes, you have to wonder if there isn’t a sizable segment of the population so bored with cable TV as I am that any change in our dull, dreary existence would be welcome - even if it meant getting out the marshmallows and making smores as the planet burns out of existence around us.

That said, my list will not include Global Warming. Way to slow. No, these scenarios are, for the most part, so quick that we’d barely have time to decide whether we want to reconvert to Catholicism (or whatever higher power/religion/ you might deem necessary to avoid eternal damnation). Nor will my list include nuclear annihilation. Been there, done that, too boring, and besides there’s no guarantee that all life would end.

These are for the most part rock ‘em, sock ‘em, wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am blink and you’re gone scenarios for Armageddon. And I hope you enjoy them.

10. THE “SECOND COMING” SCENARIO

Least likely of all scenarios, I figured just to be on the safe side I better include it.

This is not the “rapture” scenario where 7,777 people suddenly disappear from around their kitchen tables and bodily ascend into heaven to be followed by the emergence of the anti-Christ and all that other stuff.

This is the Catholic version that used to worry me to no end when I was in about 2nd grade. This scenario envisions us humans just going about our daily tasks, not harming anyone (more than usual) when Jesus hisself comes down on a cloud and in a booming voice announces to the entire planet:

“OK People, this is it! Line up in single file and prepare to be judged. You dead people who’ve just risen from the graves on the left, please. Living people on the right. LET’S MOVE!”

And, of course, that’s it. No appeal to Big Daddy. No reprieve from the Holy Ghost. Jesus is back and he’s taking names and kickin’ butt. At least, that’s an approximation of how the nuns said it would go.

Actually, I believe that such an end would be much too good for humanity if I were God. And that’s why these other scenarios are much more likely.

9. THE “HOLY SH*T WHAT THE f**K IS THAT” SCENARIO

So called because that’s about the only thing you’ll have time to say before your mortal coil mixes with the flotsam and jetsam from the rest of the universe.

Suppose it’s a bright sunny day and you’re out sunning yourself when all of a sudden, you notice it gets brighter. I mean really, really bright - as if someone had thrown a switch and floodlights more powerful than sunlight was streaming down. You look up and the last thing you see before your eternal spark flees for safer climes is a great big chunk of the sun bearing down on earth like a runaway train moving 2 million miles an hour.

It seems our stable and friendly sun suffered an extremely minor solar event; in effect, it hiccuped. It expanded and contracted extremely rapidly. As it expanded again, a couple of minor pieces that it didn’t need were flung out into space. One of them, about twice the size of earth, headed straight for our planet. Ideally, we’d have about 45 minutes warning but don’t bet on it. Any solar scientist worth their salt wouldn’t be able to tear themselves away from this once in a lifetime observational opportunity. Besides, do you really think anyone would tell us?

8. THE “MING THE MERCILESS” SCENARIO

Yes, we laugh at the thought of space aliens coming to destroy us. But some smart folks think it a possibility:

As any alien race able to reach us is likely to be considerably more advanced than us, we would do well to develop a communications and diplomatic protocol to minimize any frictions caused by a first contact situation, be it friendly, unfriendly or neutral. In particular, we would discourage actions which could all too easily be misinterpreted as overtly hostile such as preemptively scrambling — let alone launching — nuclear weapons during a possible first contact. The rule when engaging in contact with an alien race is to do anything possible to avoid war since we are quite likely to lose.

This program will be devoted to developing the first contact protocol.

In addition to this protocol, we should be careful about any devices that we are told to construct via alien messages, as such devices could be unfriendly AI or other harmful devices. If such a danger is suspected, this warning must be immediately made public knowledge to discourage others from activating possible alien weapons.

Finally, we are against any efforts to on purposely provide our technological level and location to potentially hostile aliens.

So just how could an alien species extinguish life on earth? It depends what they want earth for. If they’re simply hell bent on destruction (maybe an episode of Two and a Half Men offended them) something as simple as destroying the magnetosphere that protects us from solar wind and radiation would do the trick. All these evil aliens would have to do is stop the internal heat processes of the earth that keep our core molten. That molten core spinning with the earth’s rotation creates a dynamo effect which throws a protective cordon of electromagnetic energy around the earth. Stop the dynamo, you kill the electromagnetism. Kill that and we roast pretty quickly.

I firmly believe that the “How to Serve Man” scenario is much less likely. This nightmare is courtesy of an old Twilight Zone episode where aliens come to earth to help us using the book “How to serve man” as a guide. But since we couldn’t translate what the book said we had no idea until the end that the book was actually a cookbook.

7. THE “ASTRONOMER’S DREAM” SCENARIO

This is a one in a million scenario but we’re talking about my favorite end of the world possibilities not the most likely.

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB’s) are caused by massive stars plunging willy nilly into a black hole. The violent death of the star is spectacular. It emits as much light and gamma rays in a few seconds than the sun does in 100,000 years.

So far, the only ones we’ve seen have been far, far away - billions of light years. But suppose - just suppose - one were to occur in our galactic neighborhood?

Research has been conducted to investigate the consequences of Earth being hit by a beam of gamma rays from a nearby (about 500 light years) gamma ray burst. This is motivated by the efforts to explain mass extinctions on Earth and estimate the probability of extraterrestrial life. A gamma ray burst at 6000 light years would result in mass extinction; a 1000 light year distant burst would be equivalent to a 100,000 megaton nuclear explosion — like standing a couple miles from Hiroshima everywhere on earth. A burst 100 light years away would blow away the atmosphere, create tidal waves, and start to melt the surface of the earth. There is a one in a million chance that there could be a gamma ray burst as near as the earth’s closest star, Alpha Centauri, in the lifetime of the earth. Such a burst, at 4.3 lightyears distant, would effectively incinerate the earth[

I knew I could make your day.

6. THE PERSEPHONE SCENARIO

Persephone is the name given to a theoretical (fictional) dark companion to our sun orbiting our solar system very irregularly. Every 60 million years or so Persy pays a visit to the Oort cloud where a couple of tens of billions of comets are just sitting - cold and dead, orbiting the sun beyond Pluto.

Well Persephone hits the Oort Cloud like a cosmic bowling ball and scatters tens of thousands of comets causing them to start dropping toward the sun - toward the inner solar system and us unsuspecting earthlings.

Many are captured by giant Jupiter and its huge gravitational field. But there are just too many of them and earth is in the cross hairs.

This may not be as quick as some scenarios but the reason it’s one of my favorites is just think of the night sky just prior to us getting blasted. What a sight it would be.

5. THE “PLEASE DON’T TURN OVER THAT ROCK” SCENARIO

Forget the hazards of bio terrorism. There are large swaths of the Amazon rain forest that have yet to be explored. The same could be said for a very few other remote places on earth.

Supposin’ you had a hankerin’ to do some explorin’. You bravely push your way farther and deeper into the rain forest than any man has ever gone. You come to a little clearing filled with flora that no man has ever seen. As you go to examine the strange and beautiful flowers your toe accidentally hits a small rock, turning it over for the first time in eons and exposing the underside to the air.

You think nothing of it at the time. But the underside of that rock contains fungi and the spores of that fungi are disturbed and waft up and are inhaled by our intrepid explorer. Lying in those spores is a virus with no name. And the countdown has begun.

Two weeks later you are back in civilization having exposed thousands of people in airports, airplanes, busses and trains to this new virus. It’s Captain Trips on steroids as the disease has a 100% death rate and doesn’t stop until the human race is a memory - if anyone were left alive to remember.

There are a lot of problems with this scenario not the least of which is the improbability that the epidemiology of such a disease would be so consistent as to wipe out all humans. It would have to be one smart bug to find a way to kill its host quickly while finding fresh hosts to settle in and replicate. Conversely, as the population shrank, the bug would literally have no place to go and there would be less and less of it.

But why spoil all the fun with that scientific stuff?

4. THE “INCOMPREHENSIBLE YET VERY KEWL” SCENARIO

Wow. I mean, like wow.

Imagine we’re living in a false vacuum - the whole dang universe is just a bubble in another universe, get it?

OK. Here’s the incomprehensible explanation:

A false vacuum is a metastable sector of a quantum field theory which appears to be a perturbative vacuum but is unstable to instanton effects which tunnel to a lower energy state. This tunneling can be caused by quantum fluctuations or the creation of high energy particles. Simply put, the false vacuum is a state of a physical theory which is not the lowest energy state, but is nonetheless stable for some time. This is analogous to metastability for first order phase transitions.

“Instanton effects.” Is that like when Glenn Reynolds gives you a link?

No matter. This is way kewl. Imagine this:

The possibility that we are living in a false vacuum has never been a cheering one to contemplate. Vacuum decay is the ultimate ecological catastrophe; in the new vacuum there are new constants of nature; after vacuum decay, not only is life as we know it impossible, so is chemistry as we know it. However, one could always draw stoic comfort from the possibility that perhaps in the course of time the new vacuum would sustain, if not life as we know it, at least some structures capable of knowing joy. This possibility has now been eliminated.

I think that last bit was just a touch of geeky humor there.

The possibility that we are living in a false vacuum has been considered. If a bubble of lower energy vacuum were nucleated, it would approach at nearly the speed of light and destroy the Earth instantaneously, without any forewarning. Thus, this vacuum metastability event is a theoretical doomsday event.

I give this one an “A” for absolute geeky originality.

3. THE “GLENN REYNOLDS MEMORIAL” SCENARIO

Beware the Robots! Or, artificial intelligence (AI) is coming and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

Glenn Reynolds has written extensively of the coming “singularity.” Man and machine are about to merge and we are all about to enter a brave new world that could eventually make us nearly immortal beings or cause us to become extinct in a wave of robot revenge killings on a massive scale.

Computers will not only become faster and easier to use in the future, the chances are very good that by 2025 and maybe sooner, AI will be an issue we will have to deal with.

And just what are some of the issues?

Risks from AI may arise from the HCI (human-computer interaction) paradigm that takes place. Such paradigms include the following, and more than one of them might occur simultaneously.

A. The tool paradigm. In this paradigm, AI will serve humanity as a new kind of tool, unique in part due to its post-singularity power.

B. The prosthesis paradigm. Here, AI will gradually integrate with the human body, producing cyborgian “people” with qualitatively greater capabilities than regular people.

C. The competition paradigm. According to this view, robots will ultimately have their own agendas which would most likely conflict with ours.

Number 3 obviously holds the most danger to our survival (although wouldn’t you love to be an EEO lawyer in the future litigating discrimination cases against “regular people):

Risks from the competition paradigm. These risks are a perennial favorite of apocalypse-minded sci-fi authors. The robots make their move. Humans run for cover. The war is on, and it’s them or us, winner take all. Alternatively, the takeover is so successful that humans can do nothing but hang out waiting until the AIbots eventually roboform the earth to make it suitable for them but, as a side effect irrelevant to the AIbots, unable to support higher biological life (oxygen is bad for robots, so they’ll get rid of it). A third possibility is that nano-ai-robots (nanaibots?) take over, creating the nano-nightmare “gray goo” scenario in which the gooey little bots destroy not only the ecosystem but even invade human bodies for their own purposes (germbots?), besting our immune systems and possibly sending us all to another plane of existence.

This is “The Borg Run Wild” scenario with no Seven-of-Nine to save us. We could always blame Glenn Reyolds - if there was anyone left to accuse him.

2. “THE BLACK HOLE ATE MY PLANET” SCENARIO

Suppose one of the couple of thousand or so migrating black holes in our galaxy decided to mosey along our way? It would enter the solar system like a cat burglar and we’d never know anything about it until all matter began slowly moving in its direction. Chances are we’d be long dead before we got close to the beast because we’d be ripped out of orbit and freeze to death as the sun, also moving toward the monster but much more slowly because of its huge mass, got farther and farther away from us.

This one is really a stretch and besides, we’d miss all the fun because we’d be dead long before we hit the event horizon. But ever since I read The Whole Shebang by Timothy Ferris, I’ve always wanted to take a peek into the maw of one of these ravenous beasts.

What is really kewl is that going over the event horizon takes an infinite amount of time - to an outside observer looking at earth. We just kind of hang there for all eternity. Meanwhile, we lucky ones on earth are hurtling toward the singularity at the center of the black hole. The closer we get the more it appears that everyone on the planet has gone on a massive diet. Our atoms, subatomic particles, molecules - everything - become unglued and we start to stretch out like a string of spaghetti.

Eventually we hit the singularity - something with zero height, width, and length. It has infinite density and gravity.

Nice ride, huh. Maybe Disney will put in their French Euro-Disneyworld next year.

1. THE “WHY DIDN’T I TAKE THE BLUE PILL” SCENARIO

Are we living in a computer simulation?

Here we go supposin’ again. Just supposin’ that you live 5000 years from now in what will be known as the “post human” age. You are probably half machine and much better than us.

But let’s be supposin’ you have a hankerin’ to see how your ancient ancestors lived all the way back in the 20th and 21st centuries. You would create an enormously complicated computer program and populate it with billions of people, all having consciousness and free will.

Now let’s say that you and I are living in the simulation. How could we tell the difference?

If each advanced civilization created many Matrices of their own history, then most people like us, who live in a technologically more primitive age, would live inside Matrices rather than outside them. If this were the case, where would you most likely be?

The so-called Simulation argument, which I introduced a few years ago, makes this line of reasoning more precise and takes it to its logical conclusion. The conclusion is that there are three basic possibilities at least one of which is true. The first possibility is that the human species will almost certainly go extinct before becoming technologically mature. The second possibility is that almost no technologically mature civilization is interested in building Matrices. The third possibility is that we are almost certainly living in a Matrix. Why? Because if the first two possibilities are not the case, then there are more “people” living in Matrices than in “real worlds.” As a “person” then the chances are that you are living in a Matrix rather than in a “real world.”

The Simulation argument does not tell us which of these three possibilities obtain, only that at least one of them does. The argument employs some math and probability theory, but the basic idea can be understood without recourse to technical apparatus.

Way. Too. Kewl.

Of course, Doomsday comes when our future overlords tire of the simulation and flick the off switch on the computer or perhaps the earth is struck by a planet killing asteroid 5000 from now. Either way, we’re toast.

*******************************

Well, I hope I brightened your day a little bit. Nothing like contemplating one’s total and utter destruction to get the juices flowing in the morning, right?

The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner for the second week in a row was yours truly for my post “Make Washington’s Birthday a National Holiday Again.” Finishing second was “Iraqi Political Progress Leaves Few Places For The Left To Move The Target” by Wolf Howling.

Finishing first in the Non Council category was “The Dungeon of Fallujah” by Michael J. Totten.
If you would like to participate in the weekly Watchers Vote, go here and follow instructions.

My latest column at Pajamas Media is up and it’s a doozy.

Basically, it’s a primer for those who don’t know as much as they’d like about the relationship between Barack Obama and Tony Rezko, the Chicago “Fixer” who has been indicted on 24 counts of fraud.

It is by no means a complete history. This is a very complex relationship with many threads interwoven in the story. I had to leave out some sidebars that may or may not prove significant - such as Obama’s relationship with the former Iraqi Minister of Electricity who is being investigated for stealing perhaps some of the $2 billion in US taxpayer reconstruction funds that have gone missing. Did Obama intervene to get a contract for Rezko with the Iraqi government to train power plant workers in Illinois?

It is issues like this that continue to feed the notion that there is much more to this story than a simple transaction involving Rezko’s wife and Obama’s house. Just as Whitewater was not just about a failed real estate deal, there are aspects to this relationship that investigators and journalists are looking at as I write this that may prove to be extremely troubling.

Here’s a small sample from a very long and detailed piece:

WHO IS TONY REZKO

Antoin “Tony” Rezko is a Syrian born businessman who was known in Chicago political circles as “a fixer.” Need to get a waiver of some kind of regulation to close a real estate deal? Call Tony. Want your kid to intern in the office of a United States senator? Call Tony. Are the wheels of government turning too slowly and need to have a legislator or two goose the bureaucracy? Call Tony.

Rezko had a lot of friends and associates because he collected politicians like a kid collects baseball cards. He was a fundraiser with the ability to shake the money tree for his political friends.

Entrepreneur, real estate tycoon, developer, and pal of the powerful, by all accounts Tony Rezko had his fingers in many pies.

He was also, according to Sun Times political reporter Carol Marin, a “staggeringly talented shakedown artist”:

The passing of a great man is sometimes accompanied by the end of an historical epoch. This is usually due to the titanic effect the man had on his times as well as a recognition that with his death, the world will change and that what transpired during the time he walked the earth can never be recaptured.

So it is with the passing of William F. Buckley, Jr. who died while at work at his home in Stamford, Connecticut. He was 82 years old.

It is impossible to exaggerate the influence of Mr. Buckley on conservatism, on politics, on political writing, on television and mass communications, and on America herself. That’s why it will be so easy to write this obituary.

The bare bones outline of his life includes his birth in 1925 to a wealthy family of ten children, educated at Yale, a stint in the army and the CIA, a 57 year marriage to a beautiful woman who gave him a son Christopher, also famous in literary circles.

A fierce Catholic, Buckley never allowed his faith and politics to mix but rather had his religious beliefs inform his character and ideology. The only book he ever wrote about religion - Nearer my God - a truly original work that defended Christianity and the Catholic faith by using arguments gleaned largely from ex-protestants who had converted to Catholicism:

Though Buckley quotes large numbers of Protestants in this book, they are mostly Protestants who ”poped” (converted to Catholicism), like Cardinal Newman, Ronald Knox, Richard John Neuhaus and Arnold Lunn, and whose ”poping” stemmed more from thoughtful consideration than any sudden access of irresistible grace. The few unconverted Protestants who seem to play a part are Bishop Butler, Reinhold Niebuhr, Martin Luther King Jr., Charles Colson, Charlton Heston and Buckley’s wife, Pat. Repeating the medieval saw that ”nothing contrary to reason” is required by true religion, Buckley uses a panel of the ”poped” to examine in their own words questions Buckley thinks important. These range from the oldest and most fundamental (the existence of God, the unique historicity of Jesus) to the most current and pragmatic (divorce, priestly celibacy, the ordination of women).

Only someone supremely confident in their own beliefs could use Charlton Heston and Reinhold Niebuhr to explain the mysteries of faith.

But this only demonstrates the extraordinary suppleness and depth of Buckley’s intellect. A man fascinated with language, he would use both the spoken and written word to elevate political dialogue, devastate his political foes, inspire legions of political acolytes, and invent, nurture, expand, and explain a political movement that when he started was moribund and something of a national joke.

The chronology of the rise of conservatism in the last half of the 20th century mirrors the growth in popularity of Buckley and his ideas. There simply is no other way to put it; Bill Buckley made it respectable to be a conservative again. The dominant American left in the 1950’s couldn’t dismiss this man and the movement he was building as his writings sparked interest in classic conservative ideas on college campuses across the country.

What Buckley sought to do was unite the traditionalist conservatives with libertarians - a marriage that today is strained beyond measure largely as a result of conservatism’s flirtation with big government and a curious desire to employ moral dogma as a club to try and tell people how to run their private lives. He succeeded in this unity of strange bedfellows by the force of his own vibrant personality reflected in his writings and by inventing a logical coherence that tied together the libertarian ideals of self sufficiency and unbridled personal freedom with the conservative belief in personal responsibility and a just moral order informed by Christian theology. He added a healthy dose of American exceptionalism and beliefs based on natural law to cement the marriage.

His first book, God and Man at Yale,, shocked the literary establishment by daring to criticize the stifling conformity of thought that had captured students and faculty at Yale University. In arguing for freedom of thought on campuses, Buckley was tarred by many critics as a “crypto-fascist,” a klansman, or worse. He shrugged it off and continued his efforts.

In 1955, he, along with another great conservative thinker Frank Meyer, founded The National Review, a conservative publication whose influence always far exceeded the number of subscribers. For the next 53 years and counting, the writings in that publication shaped and animated the conservative movement. Fearless, controversial, never boring, the best conservative writers of each succeeding generation always seemed to have gotten their start at TNR. Some notable contributors over the years have included Whittaker Chambers, George Will, Gary Wills, Russell Kirk, Joan Didion, Ann Coulter, and James Burnham.

Buckley mentored and encouraged several generations of writers and philosophers who argued, explained, and illuminated what conservatism was and what it stood for. In effect, he gave “word to the flesh,” inspiring debate at bull sessions on campus, across kitchen tables in American homes, all the way to the highest councils of government.

Buckley proved that ideas can spread like the plague with a virulence that can overcome powerful opposing forces that seek to stifle or marginalize them. We forget how overwhelmingly dominant liberalism was through the 1960’s. Conservatives were considered kooks - Birchers or Kluxers at worst. Rich, stuffed shirt, Babbitts at best. Buckley’s insurgency against this conformity struck a chord with large numbers of young people who joined the campaign to nominate Barry Goldwater.

Although a disaster, the election of 1964 saw the emergence of Reagan and more importantly, blooded a new generation of conservative activists who continued to be inspired and, in a very real way led, by Buckley and his writings.

To say that Buckley was a prolific writer would be to miss the point. He breathed projects into existence with a seeming ease born of a literary flair and a quick, penetrating mind. It is said he could write one of his 3500 “On the Right” columns in 20 minutes. His more than 50 books revealed a restless intellect as he wrote not only about politics but also culture, sailing, and his always fascinating personal experiences on the stump or on television.

He didn’t preach. He rarely tried to persuade overtly. Rather his writings shone a spotlight on an issue or a cause and forced the reader to evaluate and compare his own arguments against those of a master dialectition. In the end, persuaded or not, there was always a feeling of being uplifted by the arguments themselves.

This description of Buckley comes pretty close to capturing his public personae:

Editor, columnist, novelist, debater, TV talk show star of “Firing Line,” harpsichordist, transoceanic sailor and even a good-natured loser in a New York mayor’s race, Buckley worked at a daunting pace, taking as little as 20 minutes to write a column for his magazine, the National Review.

Yet on the platform, he was all handsome, reptilian languor, flexing his imposing vocabulary ever so slowly, accenting each point with an arched brow or rolling tongue and savoring an opponent’s discomfort with wide-eyed glee.

“I am, I fully grant, a phenomenon, but not because of any speed in composition,” he wrote in The New York Times Book Review in 1986. “I asked myself the other day, ‘Who else, on so many issues, has been so right so much of the time?’ I couldn’t think of anyone.”

In 1991, he had a falling out with long time friend and TNR contributor Joseph Sobran whose anti-Israeli columns Buckley felt crossed the line and became anti-Semitic. But Sobran never lost his affection for Buckley. This was written last year when Sobran heard the news that Buckley had been diagnosed with emphysema:

Over the years I came to know another side of Bill. When I had serious troubles, he was a generous friend who did everything he could to help me without being asked. And I wasn’t the only one. I gradually learned of many others he’d quietly rescued from adversity. He’d supported a once-noted libertarian in his destitute old age, when others had forgotten him. He’d helped two pals of mine out of financial difficulties. And on and on. Everyone seemed to have a story of Bill’s solicitude. When you told your own story to a friend, you’d hear one from him. It was as if we were all Bill Buckley’s children.

It went far beyond sharing his money. One of Bill’s best friends was Hugh Kenner, the great critic who died two years ago. Hugh was hard of hearing, and once, after a 1964 dinner with Hugh and Charlie Chaplin, Bill scolded Hugh for being too stubborn to use a hearing aid. Here were the greatest comedian of the age and the greatest student of comedy, and Hugh had missed much of the conversation! Later Hugh’s wife told me how grateful Hugh had been for that scolding. Nobody else would have dared speak to her husband that way. Only a true friend would. If Bill saw you needed a little hard truth, he’d tell you, even if it pained him to say it.

I once spent a long evening with one of Bill’s old friends from Yale, whose name I won’t mention. He told me movingly how Bill stayed with him to comfort him when his little girl died of brain cancer. If Bill was your friend, he’d share your suffering when others just couldn’t bear to. What a great heart — eager to spread joy, and ready to share grief!

Compared with all this, the political differences that finally drove us apart seem trivial now. I saw the same graciousness in his relations with everyone from presidents to menials. I learned a lot of things from Bill Buckley, but the best thing he taught me was how to be a Christian. May Jesus comfort him now.

A great light in the firmament of American letters has been dimmed today. Buckley leaves a conservative movement in turmoil, a victim largely of its own success - a success for which he was largely responsible. We must make our own way now, climbing on the shoulders of greats like William Buckley to reach ever higher, bettering ourselves and the human condition while being inspired by the irrepressible and indomitable spirit who passed into legend today.