Tony Who?

Not to keep harping on this, but ... I've seen zero blowback on Senator Obama's admission of his closer ties with Rezko while everyone has been distracted by Rev. Wright. I didn't watch his speech yesterday, but people seem to accept his explanation that, I gather, its ok for blacks to hate America. (His message might have lost something in translation.)

Now, its a terrible mistake for supporters and opponents to assume that "everything happens for a reason" and there is some [malign] genius behind everything that happens in politics (the way that both Republicans and Democrats assuming that Karl Rove is behind everything bad that happens to the Dems and everything good that happens to the Reps). But I note that Senator Obama chose to let two different stories slip out on the same day, one of which has overshadowed the other. The one that has gotten all the attention is one that is good to get out of the way now and one that he had an answer for. If anyone has the bad taste to bring up the other story now, well that's old news and this campaign is about moving America forward.

The Wright Stuff

Everyone (and by "everyone" I mean those strange bedfellows, Hillary Clinton and the conservative commentariat) seems to think that the various extreme claims made by Senator Obama's pastor, the Rev. Wright, hurt Obama. I'm not sure I see that. The fight right now, and probably in the general election, is for the moderate middle. If I'm right that the entire justification for the Obama candidacy is racial reconciliation ("A black president will help heal our racial divide, and I'm the only candidate who can deliver that promise"), doesn't Rev. Wright's extremism help Obama with the moderate middle?

When moderates contemplate reconciling radical and alienated blacks with the majority culture, what they want is for blacks to come to the middle -- for Rev. Wright to become (in tone and temperament) more like Senator Obama. They certainly don't contemplate changing themselves. In other words, for moderates Wright's extremism makes the work President Obama would do, just by being president, that much more urgent.

I understand that mine is a minority view, but it might be shared by the Obama campaign. OJ comes close to the truth by (almost) noting that the campaign is using the Wright kerfluffle as cover for what could be truly damaging admissions about his relationship with Tony Rezko.

Will His Walking On Water Make It Hard To Bathe?

Will Obama's Vow to Fight Clean Hurt Him? Barack Obama's Promise to Take the High Road Could Leave Him With One Hand Tied Behind His Back (Marcus Baram, ABC News, 3/7/08)

"For him, the trick is going to be to find a way to make a contrast [between Obama and Clinton] in a way that is grounded in hope," says Democratic strategist Steve McMahon.

It's going to be such a pity when this contest is over.

Now, That's Speaking Truth To The (Temporarily) Powerful

Obama Camp Rejects Adviser's Comments (Nedra Pickler, 3/8/08, AP)

A former adviser to Barack Obama, who resigned Friday after calling rival Hillary Rodham Clinton "a monster," said Obama may not be able to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within a year as he has promised on the campaign trail.

Samantha Power, a Pulitzer Prize-winner author, made the comments in two separate interviews with foreign media while promoting her latest book. The comment that led to her resignation came in an interview with The Scotsman, and she immediately tried to keep it from appearing in print.

"She is a monster, too — that is off the record — she is stooping to anything," The Scotsman quoted her as saying. A few hours after the comments were published, Power, an unpaid adviser and Harvard professor, announced her resignation in a statement distributed by the Obama campaign.

This almost got a "can't anyone play this game?" headline. Everyone knows that he's lying to his base. That's what candidates do in the primaries. Then, in the general, they tell completely different lies to the American people as a whole.

And All We Got You Was This Moderate War Hero

We really owe thanks to the Democrats for giving us such an entertaining primary season. It's been great fun to watch them try all the same tricks on each other that they usually try on the Republicans, and to watch their shock -- shock I tell you -- that it's not just the evil Republicans that try to win. What I'm looking forward to now is what anti-democratic back-room deal the party will use to select -- not elect -- its nominee.

I'd Call Them Larry, Moe and Curly, But They Wouldn't Get The Reference

The occasion of Bill Buckley's death, about which I have nothing useful to add, has brought to the fore again the weird trio of English immigrant anti-immigrationists who found their way to the National Review.

John O'Sullivan, John Derbyshire and Peter Brimelow (who can't apparently let go of the English habit of vicious obituarying) show us, once again, that the last one into the life-boat always wants to be the last one into the life-boat. Odd that National Review collected the entire set.