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kausfiles: A mostly political Weblog.

Will Obama Kill Bling?The audacity of hope!

By Mickey Kaus
Updated Friday, June 13, 2008, at 3:07 PM ET

More Friends of Angelo? Dodd, Conrad, Shalala. ... Holbrooke! ... 12:31 P.M.

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Will Obama Kill Bling? Mary Battiata thinks maybe. ... Now that she mentions it, I kind of hope Obama's election will kill off much of hip-hop, at least the gangsta-inspired parts. But just killing off bling and gangsta fashion would be a start. ... 3:08 A.M. link

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Obama's new anti-smear website looks more effective than I expected. ... And I'll be checking back regularly to find out the latest charges! It's the new go-to spot for Obama dirt. ...P.S.: That's the problem. The site creates an expectation that the Obama camp will respond quickly and persuasively to every accusation and rumor. Should it fall short, the damage will be magnified, no? ... P.P.S. Obama recently chastised reporters for asking him about the Michelle "whitey" rumor:

"We have seen this before. There is dirt and lies that are circulated in e-mails, and they pump them out long enough until finally you, a mainstream reporter, asks me about it," Obama said, bristling. "That gives legs to the story."

But according to Time, when the Obama camp "got wind" of the "whitey" rumor, his aides took it so seriously they confronted Michelle and "grilled her on the particulars." So why can't bloggers and reporters do the same thing? ... 3:05 A.M. link

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The Wages of Sid? Buried in GQ's interview with Mark Penn:

So when they come out with, like, "Mark Penn was paid $4 million," 3.4 million of that was postage?
The actual consulting fee is, you know, we received $27,000 a month, which is split between me and Sid Blumenthal [a senior adviser]. So it makes the net around half that.

Wait, Sid makes as much as you?
You know, again, I don't own these companies, so—

No, really, Sid Blumenthal makes as much as you?
His fee is about the same.

To me the interesting angle here isn't whether Penn was making that little--Crowley doubts that half of $27,000 a month was all he got--it's whether Sid was making that much. Also what did he do for it? ... Half of $27,000/month is a rate of about $160,000 a year. ... I'm getting jealous. ... P.S.: I've emailed Blumenthal to get his comment, if any. ... 4:20 P.M.

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"Auntie has been beaten and they threw her in the fire." ... [via Insta] 2:23 P.M.

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Undernews Update--"samztiF" Edition: The Chicago Tribune reports

Two months before he was convicted of federal corruption charges, political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko told his trial judge that "overzealous" prosecutors were pressuring him to tell them about any wrongdoing involving Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama or Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

But in a two-page typed letter, Rezko said he was never involved in any wrongdoing with either of the Democrats and wouldn't make up stories about them in an attempt to benefit himself. [E.A.]

Still, if you're a Democrat this can't make you feel 100% secure. ... Update: Actual Rezko letter here. [via Newsalert] 12:14 P.M.

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Jim Johnson's ambitions (from WaPo):

In 2004, he had hoped a Kerry victory would make him White House chief of staff or Treasury secretary, former Kerry campaign aides said yesterday, and he had similar ambitions with Obama.

2:42 P.M.

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Spanish Lesson: Jason DeParle, discussing Spain's six illegal-immigrant amnesties since 1985, and the effect they might have had on encouraging more illegal immigration:

Lorenzo Cachón, a sociologist at Complutense University, analyzed the program's "call effect" by studying municipal records. Most immigrants in Spain, legal or not, register with local governments to obtain benefits like health insurance. Their numbers grew 20 percent the year after the program was announced, compared with 3 percent the year before.

"That means the maximum call effect is 17 percent," he said.

A 17% rise seems like a lot to me, especially only one year after an amnesty. You'd think the incentive "call effect" might actually grow over time--after all, would-be illegal immigrants would know that the next amnesty is probably at least a few years away. ...

P.S.: I'd like to see American advocates of what the Times now frankly calls "amnesty" argue "It will only produce an immediate 17% increase in immigration." ...

P.P.S.: According to The Hill, "Hispanic Democratic lawmakers" are warning:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) must commit to helping illegal immigrants achieve citizenship or else risk losing the vital Latino vote in the general election ... [E.A.]

I thought the party line after the California primary was that it was a mistake to assume that Latino voters cared only about legalization. It seems to be practically all Latino politicians in Congress care about, though. ...

P.P.P.S.: The Hill's Jared Allen adds

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), Obama's Republican opponent, is also liked by Latinos. He co-sponsored with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) the immigration bill that the CHC is demanding, which would put the country's 12 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship. And he did not buckle under pressure to abandon that position during the GOP primary. [E.A.]

You don't mean he only tried to con conservatives into thinking he'd abandoned that position? Uckers-say! ... 2:00 A.M. link

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Subtle jab of the day:

Instead, in Zell, what Los Angeles has is a visiting Visigoth, whose civic influence is about as positive as that of the Crips, the Bloods and the Mexican mafia.

And Meyerson says Zell's the one producing "dumbed-down" writing. ... P.S.: Meyerson complains that the LAT's "editorial staff is about two-thirds its size in the late 1990s." Jesus, how bloated was it in the late 1990s? ... [Tks to reader MDL] 145 A.M.

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Wednesday was maybe not the best day for Mark Halperin to explain how brilliant and on-offense the Obama campaign's message operation is. But he could be right! ... 12:34 A.M.

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Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Change We've Been Waiting For: Jim Johnson bails as Obama's veep-vetter, after Obama defended him in what NBC's Chuck Todd said could "be the worst answer Obama has ever given in print" (Johnson was only a "volunteer," he was doing a "discrete" job; he was "tangentially related to our campaign;"' "these aren't folks who are working for me;" what's Obama supposed to do, "vet the vetters"? etc. )

But vetting wasn't necessary in this case. Just Googling!. ...

P.S.: If Johnson is so honorable, shouldn't he have vetted himself? Obama has now pulled off the Johnson Band-Aid, but not before Johnson cost him a few days of bad news and tarnished his image. And not before other juicy Johnson stories came out: Johnson "angling for a job" in a possible Kerry administration, his lucrative consulting deals at Fannie Mae, his (lucrative) role "on the board of five companies that granted lavish pay packages to their executives ." ... Question: Will Johnson come back in an Obama administration? Samantha Power similarly quit the Obama campaign, but everybody expects her to be back. I would think Johnson is now radioactive in a way that Power is not. ...

P.P.S.: Why pick Johnson in the first place? One possible answer is implicit in Kerry's pre-bail defense: In the course of his veep-vetting, Johnson learns all the dark, damaging secrets of all the potential #2s. This means that Johnson effectively already has the dirt on a lot of Democratic pols from his previous vetting stints--but, as Kerry notes, he has been discreet with this "very sensitive" info.** By appointing Johnson as vetter yet again, Obama was limiting the number of people potential Dem VPs would have to bare their souls to--limiting them, essentially, to Johnson. Now Obama will have to name a new vetter, and the potential Dems VPs--many of whom, like Biden, are repeat Veepstakes customers--will have to tell their secrets to a second person. That can't be a comfortable feeling. ...

**--Still, if you were one of those vetted pols, would you want to tell Johnson "no" if he came around later asking for your support on a piece of legislation? ... 1:15 P.M. link

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Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Suicide Marketing Update:

"Want Windows XP pre-installed? Time's running out."--Promotional email from Dell Small Business Systems

After that, you'll have to buy the product Microsoft actually wants to sell you! ... A strong vote of confidence in Windows Vista from Dell. ... P.S.: "Dell makes it easy to migrate [to Vista] on your schedule .... " Let's see. How about never? That fits my schedule. ... [The interesting piece now would be a defense of Vista--ed Typical reflexive contrarian.] 2:54 A.M.

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Scarlett Johansson doesn't understand why Barack Obama finds time to return her emails. ("You'd imagine that someone like the senator who is constantly traveling and constantly 'on' — how can he return these personal e-mails? But he does ....").

I think I understand. As does Ted Frank. ... Update: As does Bob Wright, after I try to explain Dipdive to him. I feel so hip. ... 12:40 A.M.

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Monday, June 9, 2008

Obama's Friend of Angelo: Barack Obama's choice of Jim Johnson to vet his VP prospects is already embarrassing his campaign, thanks to a WSJ story reporting that Johnson (according to the NY Sun)

took at least five real estate loans totaling more than $7 million from Countrywide Financial Corp. through an informal program for friends of the company's CEO, Angelo Mozilo. ...

Mozilo and Countrywide were deeply enmeshed in the subprime meltdown, of course, and Mozilo has been denounced by Obama for his business practices and multi-million dollar compensation. ...

a) Always trust content from kausfiles!

b) Obama's response suggests these were "completely above board transactions," which is a little different from saying they were "arms-length" or "market-rate" transactions. Why would Johnson avail himself of Mozilo's "friends of Angelo" program unless he got some kind of special deal, better than the deal Joe Citizen would get? (And if it's so difficult to tell "the factors that went into these arrangements," as the Obama camp contends, then how "above board" were they?)

c) Johnson headed Fannie Mae. If Fannie Mae was really "the biggest buyer of Countrywide's mortgages," should Johnson really have gotten enmeshed as a consumer with Countrywide, particularly if it was hard to tell if he was getting a special deal or not?

d) I don't know if Mozilo is a benevolent genius or evil. I saw him at a conference once and he's clearly an impressive person. But it's also quite clear that Obama has made him a symbol of the subprime mess, as McCain has noted. Update: As the RNC has been pointing out, Obama's campaign previously attacked Hillary strategist Mark Penn because he did some P.R. work for Countrywide--and attacked Hillary's campaign because it took contributions from representatives of Countrywide. ** (Now-embarrassing self-righteous David Plouffe quote below.)

e) Johnson was an atrocious, tin-eared choice on many other grounds. He's a symbol of old Democratic elites--the Mondale Restoration!--and of Beltway business as usual. He's gotten obscenely rich off of public service while pursuing a failed liberal antipoverty theory (community develpment) and taking credit for spreading around other peoples money. He failed to catch Geraldine Ferraro's problems before they blew up on Mondale. He helped lead Fannie Mae into a multi-billion dollar debacle (even though he let his successor catch most of the blame). He said Mozilo's firm had "done a brilliant job of insulating itself for the down cycle" shortly before Mozilo's firm was clobbered in the down cycle, eventually selling itself to Bank of America for about a tenth of it's former value, according to the Sun.

Why would Obama, in his first big personnel decision, choose a paleoliberal greedhead with a track record of failure? You tell me! He's described Johnson as "a friend." It looks as if he was at best highly susceptible to amicable overtures from someone he about whom he should have retained some critical perspective.

f) Is Obama really going to let this story drag out all week? Are Johnson's allies so powerful he must be protected--the way Rev. Wright was protected, for a time? Why not say "This is not the Jim Johnson I know" and throw him overboard? Remember the Parable of the Band-Aid. ...

**--From WaPo back in March:

"Obama aides also said Clinton is in no position to stiffen oversight after taking contributions from mortgage industry lobbyists, including funds from representatives of Countrywide, which has been at the center of the mortgage meltdown. 'If we're really going to crack down on the practices that caused the credit and housing crises, we're going to need a leader who doesn't owe these industries any favors,' campaign manager David Plouffe said." [E.A.]

Update: Byron York has some more links. ... 5:47 P.M. link

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Sunday, June 8, 2008

Venti Snooty Latte: A new threat to social equality--the frequent-customer snob. The NYT's Ron Lieber doesn't just want freebies for his repeat Starbucks patronage. He wants something more:

Rewards are nice, but recognition is better. So if I'm one of Starbucks's best customers, I want to have elite status, as I do on American Airlines. I want shorter lines, better freebies, special seating (Aeron chairs, preferably) and electrical outlets reserved just for me and my laptop. [E.A.]

A creep, no? It's one thing for Starbucks to give Lieber free wi-fi and discounts. It's another to reward him by undermining the essentially egalitarian experience that's part of the appeal of a good American "third place." ...

P.S.--The Welfare State Angle: Lieber's elision of consumerism and snobbery is similar to the mistake doctrinaire Democrats make when they defend universal Social Security receipt as an egalitarian institution just like universal health care. It isn't--because getting health care is an actual communal experience (going to doctors, chatting in their waiting rooms, complaining in their waiting rooms, etc.) while getting Social Security checks is just ... getting checks. It's only money. A little more money for well-off Social Security recipients isn't going to bolster solidarity with the working poor any more than a little discount for Lieber is going to destroy the vibe at his local Starbucks. Letting him flounce around in his Aeron in the roped-off Starbucks Select VIP section, on the other hand . ... well, things could get ugly! ...

"I'm glad to report that Starbucks is indeed considering some sort of elite status," says Lieber. Next: Skyboxes? ...

P.P.S.: [Isn't Lieber just clinging bitterly to his Starbucks status because of stagnant middle class living standards?--ed Don't be condescending.]

Backfill: Lieber also wants to be invited to "a members-only party when new products come out." Wow. You can be condescending now. ... [Backfill via Gawker] 3:02 A.M. link

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Phillippe Reines Memorial Item explaining why there's no Hillary post-mortem in kf: "We don't comment on campaigns that are utter and complete failures." ... 2:19 P.M.

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The Los Angeles Times notes that Obama beats McCain 62% to 29% in a May Gallup survey of surveys. The LAT s Peter Wallsten has a pat explanation ready:

The numbers suggest that McCain's image has suffered after a competitive GOP primary in which he renounced some of the moderate views on immigration popular among many Latinos.

It couldn't be that Latino voters don't care about immigration as much as reporters at the LAT assume, preferring to focus more on other domestic and foreign policy concerns (health care, the economy the war) that they share with voters in general, could it? The numbers "suggest" that explanation too. ...

P.S.: Defenders of the Times' bloated staff argue that new owner Sam Zell's aides are being unfair when they compare the "51-page" annual output of LAT writers with the 300 page output of Hartford Courant writers. That's true. The comparison is unfair to the Courant journalists, who surely aren't permitted the pointless verbosity of "quality" LAT writers. Wallsten's story is a case in point: a) He opens with a back-in anecdote about Obama's Spanish-language ad in Puerto Rico that he eventually has to admit makes the opposite of the point he's trying to make, since Obama got "trounced" in P.R. and Wallsten's story is supposed to be about how well Obama's doing with Hispanics; b) He wastes column inches on bland, predictable, if not actively misleading stop-reading-this-story quotes from Latino consultants and activists who argue that McCain and Obama must pay more attention to Latino consultants and activists ("they need to beef up that operation"); c) He then has no room for the obvious counter-thesis--that Obama leads among Hispanics because Hispanics aren't receptive to Latino-specific campaigning. ...

Update: I stole the "verbosity" point from Michael Kinsley who has now deviously gone ahead and stolen it from himself. ... 1:11 A.M.

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Friday, June 6, 2008

Zell's Golpe: Looks like Sam Zell is onto the overlayering at the L.A. Times

[Tribune COO Randy Michaels] also warned of further cuts in newsroom expenses, based in part on a company study of its journalists' productivity. "You find you can eliminate a fair number of people without eliminating much content," Michaels said.

The review found that reporters at the company's smaller papers were more productive than those in the biggest markets of Chicago and Los Angeles. Michaels did not address findings for the Chicago Tribune, but said the average Los Angeles Times journalist produced "51 pages" per year, while the average journalist in Baltimore or at the company's Hartford Courant produced "300 pages" per year. [E.A.]

[Tx to reader J.L.] 12:14 A.M. link

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Thursday, June 5, 2008

Undernews Update: The Michelle Holy Rail/"Whitey" rumor is disputed by David Weigel, Robert George, and Barack Obama (who argues he shouldn't be asked about it). See also Geraghty. ... Since it's hard to prove a negative, former Gingrich aide George's appeal to history is probably the most effective of the latest debunkings:

No tape exists. I am willing to bet my first-born on it.

You know why I know no tape exists? Because all copies of it were wrapped up in an American flag and burned on a woodpile ignited by Hillary Clinton and Kitty Dukakis. I didn't see it, but my best friend's cousin's boyfriend saw the whole thing.

Let me explain.

This is the '08 version of a really weird conservative urban legend that pops up every four years, The names change, but the basics remain the same: 1) It always involves the wife of the Democratic presidential candidate; 2) It always portrays the wife -- not the candidate -- committing some anti-American, unpatriotic act.

P.S.: Meanwhile, Vanity Fair gets a Singer Letter--a fairly strong one. ... 11:58 P.M.

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Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Emailer Z, who knows business and politics--and isn't a liberal (or even a Democrat)--writes to usefully amplify David Corn's Mother Jones piece, which blamed Sen. Phil Gramm for engineering an ill-fated non-regulation of financial services that contribuled to the sub-prime meltdown:

The non-regulation of the not banking system has been a team effort in Washington. Major financial services firms, hedge funds and private equity groups set out in the 1990s to own Washington and they have succeeded completely. 80% of banking activity used to be regulated. Today, 20% of "banking activity" falls under regulatory guidance. (See Charles Morris's The Trillion Dollar Meltdown). Capital networks own the Democratic and Republican parties. Barney Frank didn't even bother to try to get the tax on "carried interest" increased after the Ds recaptured control of Congress in 2006 ... the members understood that such a tax would make their fund-raising lives a LOT harder.

This is the part of Kevin Phillips' analysis of Washington that is exactly accurate. The power of private capital sources hasn't been as overwhelming since the days of JP Morgan. [E.A.]

Update: Maguire elaborates. ... 10:40 P.M.

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Bob Wright and I discuss Obama's cosmopolitanism. ... 10:01 P.M.

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Arianna is on Jay Leno saying Sen. Chuck Hagel has "consistently and eloquently been a major critic of the war." Except, you know, when he voted for it.... 9:20 P.M.

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Fitzmas in Reverse: Steve Bartin speculates on the potential Rezko Shoe. ...Update [also via Bartin]: The Chicago Sun-Times Mark Brown wonders why Rezko elected to go directly to jail rather than trying to remain free on bond:

There's a more interesting way to look at this, which paints a scenario you'd more likely see in a trial where there is some sort of mob connection.

Tony Rezko is a guy who knows a lot about a lot of people. Those people have a very serious stake in him keeping his mouth shut. Rezko is also known to be a very security-conscious guy.

I know this is going to sound overly dramatic, but it's not really that far-fetched to think Rezko may well believe he's in danger if he goes free and that by reporting to jail it's proof that he's not cooperating.

It's one way of saying, "You don't have to worry about me."

3:25 P.M.

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Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Unions Make the Wage-Price Spiral Go Round: Paul Krugman argues we aren't about to see a return of 70's style stagflation because

there's no sign whatsoever of the wage-price spiral that, in the 1970s, turned a temporary shock from higher oil prices into a persistently high rate of inflation.

He also identifies a mainspring of that wage-price spiral: union power,

Here's an example of the way things used to be: In May 1981, the United Mine Workers signed a contract with coal mine operators locking in wage increases averaging 11 percent a year over the next three years. The union demanded such a large pay hike because it expected the double-digit inflation of the late 1970s to continue; the mine owners thought they could afford to meet the union's demands because they expected big future increases in coal prices, which had risen 40 percent over the previous three years.

At the time, the mine workers' settlement wasn't at all unusual: many workers were getting comparable contracts. Workers and employers were, in effect, engaged in a game of leapfrog: workers would demand big wage increases to keep up with inflation, corporations would pass these higher wages on in prices, rising prices would lead to another round of wage demands, and so on.

The point isn't that unions were greedy. They were doing what they were supposed to do under the Wagner Act--protecting their members interests--in a period of inflationary expectations (fueled in part by the big contracts won by other unions). Yet the larger social result of this institutional arrangement was a destructive game of leapfrog in which the most powerful labor organizations (like the UAW) did quite well, but those without collective bargaining power--that is, most people--got it on the chin. And it took the brutal early-80s recession to wring inflation out of the economy.

Today, though, there's little union power--and little threat of stagflation, says Krugman:

But where are the unions demanding 11-percent-a-year wage increases? ...

And since there isn't a wage-price spiral, we don't need higher interest rates to get inflation under control.

OK. But then why do Democrats want to legislate a restoration of organized labor's power by allowing unions to sign up workers without secret ballots? Do they want to bring back the wage price spiral? The irony seems lost on Krugman, though it's hard to believe it really is.

I suspect it's simply a train of thought Krugman doesn't want to follow right now. His plan for reducing income inequality is built, in part, on rebuilding union strength. Doubt about the wisdom of that effort would complicate things--quite apart from whether it's what his Democratic fan base wants to hear ... 2:59 A.M. link

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Dare to Gush: He's not excitable. He's "open to the moment"! ... 1:32 A.M.

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Monday, June 2, 2008

Bill Clinton calls Todd Purdum a "sleazy ...slimy ... scumbag:" HuffPo's Mayhill Fowler delivers again. ... P.S.: Why'd he do that! ... P.P.S.: Brendan Nyhan notes the creepiness of Clinton aide Jay Carson demanding that Dems "protect" the "brand" when talking to reporters. ... P.P.P.S.: What about the zippy Burkle brand? That took decades to build! ... 3:48 P.M.

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Undernews Alert: Have Michelle-bashers finally found the Holy Rail? ... Update: Larry Johnson describes a tape, but doesn't show it. It may be more like Annie Hall. ("Jew eat?") ... NRO speculates. .. More: Johnson counterattacks, not very convincingly. ...But NRO's increasing skepticism ("the evidence suggests this is a hoax") isn't 100% convincing either. Ditto Reason's Dave Weigel--though he makes a good point about Farrakhan's alleged presence on the tape:

If anyone wants to compare Louis Farrakhan's travel records to dates the Obamas appeared at Trinity, go ahead (the last Farrakhan appearance at Trinity was 11/2/07, when the Obamas were presumably busy trying to win the Iowa caucus), but it beggars belief that he could join a panel with Obama's wife as late as 2005 and no one would hear about it . [E.A.]

[Weigel via Harper's] 2:25 A.M. link

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Powerline posts a satsifying collection of now-embarrassing gushes from Andrew Sullivan, Joe Klein and Garry Wills about Obama's Great Philadelphia Race Speech. PL leaves out the gushiest parts of Sullivan's reaction,, though:

Alas, I cannot give a more considered response right now as I have to get on the road. But I do want to say that this searing, nuanced, gut-wrenching, loyal, and deeply, deeply Christian speech is the most honest speech on race in America in my adult lifetime. It is a speech we have all been waiting for for a generation ... [snip]

I love this country. I don't remember loving it or hoping more from it than today. [E.A.]

And some people say he's excitable! ... P.S.: "Deeply, deeply." Not typo typo. ... Also now gloating: Mark Steyn, eerily prescient Amy Holmes ...1:34 A.M.

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Sunday, June 1, 2008

A few words about Chuck Hagel (as a possible Obama VP) that will probably get me into trouble. ... 12:42 P.M.

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Saturday, May 31, 2008

Tight Like That in Iowa: I don't want to make too much of this, since John Leland's story concerns a tight labor market for skilled workers, not necessarily those at the bottom of the labor market. But a) This is the condition we should want the national labor market to be like, for all skill levels, right? b) Unions not required! c) Low immigration seems to have something to do with increasing the competition among employers for workers. ... They're scouring the prisons. And they're competing for $14/hour welders, which means the tightness isn't restricted to salaried "symbolic analysts. "... 12:50 P.M.

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Friday, May 30, 2008

David Corn argues that McCain co-chair Phil Gramm helped bring on the subprime crisis by preventing regulation of something called "credit default swaps." Corn almost succeeds in making these "newfangled financial products" understandable. ... P.S.: He notes that Gramm's legislation was "supported by Fed chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury secretary Larry Summers." You sort of want to hear from them on whether they now think they were wrong. ... 11:39 P.M.

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Chinese Economy Grinds to Halt: China is suspected of surreptitiously trying to hack into computers at the U.S. Department of Commerce? ... Isn't that sort of like sleeping with the writer? ... Next target: HUD! ... [via Insta] 11:05 P.M.

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Where does Obama get that "hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year"--an alleged increase he blamed on "people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up"? The latest FBI statistics I can find are from 2006, not last year. They show about a 14% increase from 2005, by my calculation. Even the Southern Poverty Law Center only claims

According to hate crime statistics published annually by the FBI, anti-Latino hate crimes rose by almost 35% between 2003 and 2006, the latest year for which statistics are available.

A 35% increase over four years is not "doubled last year." (Never mind why the SPLC may have picked 2003 as their base of comparison ).

Am I missing some Obama data source? Or is this an overly overlooked incident of Obama pulling convenient facts out of the air? ...

Suppose John McCain had said the same thing! ... Er, actually, McCain probably will say the same thing. And he'll probably get a pass too. Who'd attack him for it? Obama? The Dobbs-deriding MSM? This is not an area where you can rely on the normal adversarial political process to yield the truth, because Obama, McCain and the MSM essentially agree on immigration. ...

Backfill: Dobbs questioned Obama's stats, as did Lonewacko. But who else? ...

P.S.--Who's #1? Ruben Navarette, struggling to defend Obama, wrote:

Nevertheless, Hispanics in 2006 were considered by the FBI as the No. 1 victim of hate crimes motivated by one's ethnicity or national origin, and by a margin that was the highest since records have been kept.

What Navarette's hiding is the FBI's category of crimes motivated by "ethnicity or national origin" does not include crimes motivated by "racial bias"--a far larger category. In 2006, there were about 4 times as many attacks on African-Americans because of "racial bias" as attacks motivated by "anti-Hispanic bias."

Of course, it's entirely possible that many attacks on illegal immigrants go unreported due to those immigrants' fear of coming into contact with authorities. That means the FBI stats might be off. It doesn't remove the suspicion that Obama's stats are essentially made up. ...

P.P.P.S.: "Hate Crimes Surge in Valley"--L.A. Daily News Aha! Here we can see the effects of Limbaugh and Dobbs' "ginning"! ... But no again. It turns out "Jews and African Americans" suffered "most of the attacks. ... 6:42 P.M. link

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Thursday, May 29, 2008

"FNC stays on top" says TVNewser. But it's closer than you'd think, at least in the prime-time 25-54 demographic, notes commenter pdxuser. .. Make that 'the prized prime-time 25-54 demographic.' ... Indeed, on any given day you might find MSNBC beating FOX in that prime time "demo."... I had no idea. I thought Roger Ailes still ruled cable. Fox News' slide is the story, no? ... [via Drudge].4:59 P.M.

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The Gall of Gallup! In a release that apparently excited Hillary aide Howard Wolfson, Gallup compared Hillary vs. McCain and Obama vs. McCain in the swing states where Hillary beat Obama, and then performed the same comparison in the swing states where Obama beat Hillary. Hillary came off looking better (mainly because her swing state group has more electoral votes).

But that was a bizarre way to organize the results, no? Who cares who won the party primaries or caucuses in what state? We want to know who'll win the general. Just as it's a well-known fallacy to assume that a primary loss by Obama in Pennsylvania, say, will translate into a November Obama loss to McCain, isn't it also a fallacy to assume that just because Obama lost to Hillary among Democrats he'll do worse in the general against McCain than she will? (Maybe more Republicans who didn't vote in the Dem primary will cross over to vote for Obama in the general--who knows?)

By grouping states into "Hillary states' and "Obama states'--and lumping together all the states in each group-Gallup may miss individual states that buck their group's trend (only to see that anomaly washed out when their results are averaged in with the other states.) For example: Hillary did better against McCain when the six swing states she won (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire and Arkansas) are lumped together. But does she really do better in each of those states? Maybe Obama does better in New Mexico by a few hundred thousand votes--but they get swamped in the overall 6 state average by his deficit in Ohio. We have no way of knowing--or at least Gallup gives us none.

Only a state-by-state poll can give the answers wavering superdelegates (if there are any) need. I'm amazed Thomas Edsall doesn't point this out. ... 1:42 A.M. link

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Wednesday, May 28, 2008

I missed the death of Claus Luthe, who designed some very attractive German cars (NSU, Audi, BMW) in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. The really great BMWs appear to have predated his tenure, but he carried forward the clean, "modern" traditions that current design chief Chris Bangle would later destroy. ... P.S.: Some of the most familiar Euro car styling tricks appear to have been borrowed from the Chevy Corvair, in contravention of what I've always reflexively assumed (that good designs start in Europe and get copied here). ... See also. ...[Thanks to reader T.S.] 2:50 A.M.

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Undernews Alert: With friends like Roger Stone. ... 1:48 A.M.

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Tuesday, May 27, 2008

What if the Dems aren't serious about health care? The immigration angle! Bubbling around the blogosphere is an inconclusive debate on whether Dem Senators are preparing to go slow on health care, staging endless hearings but passing little actual legislation. ... I'd been counting on the Dem push for universal health care to crowd out other big, difficult issues, such as ... immigration semi-amnesty. Congress can only do so much at once, even if the Dems also control the White House. But if the Dems don't push for health care, that raises the troubling possibility that they will push for something that important business and ethnic constitutencies (plus cynical party builders) desperately want, namely mass legalization for illegals.... P.S.: This is still only the second most nightmarish scenario facing skeptics of such "comprehensive" reform. Nightmare Scenario #1 remains a McCain Presidency coupled with a large Democratic congressional majority--in other words, a president who has nothing more important he wants to do, domestically, than pursue his ancient goal of legalization--which would also be the only major domestic issue where his views coincide with those of the Democratic leadership. ... Both nightmares would still require comprehensivists to override the worries of Rahm Emanuel's swing-seat Dem candidates, many of whom ran on tough-on-illegal-immigration platforms. ... 3:10 P.M. link

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Payday! Why isn't it transparently obvious that the main point of the controversially inconclusive last episode of The Sopranos wasn't to show that Tony got whacked, or to show that Tony didn't get whacked, or to provoke a profound existential discussion of whether Tony got whacked, but to enable a lucrative theatrical follow-up, a la Sex and the City? ... 2:17 P.M. link

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McWhorter and Loury parse the various reasons whites might vote against Obama--including "He's the radical type who might bring in Farrakhan" and "[I'm] more comfortable with a white candidate"--that aren't "racist.". ... Also: McWhorter--

There seems to be this tacit idea that if the college-educated brie-eating Blue American has not been for Obama, then it's because they have an intelligent, principled interest in Hillary Clinton ...[snip] .. but if the beer bottle person decides that they like Hillary Clinton better, it's because they're tribalists who are more comfortable with their own and/or they're outright racists ...

[via Baltimoron] 3:15 A.M.

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Monday, May 26, 2008

Nearly 1,000 state employees in California make more than $200,000 a year, according to the S.F. Chronicle. That's excluding university employees. ... The month before Gov. Schwarzenegger took office, there were only eight. ... Mainly, the high earners seem to be dentists, doctors, and psychiatrists in the state prison and mental health systems. ... The total state employee head count has gone up by 26,000 under Schwarzenegger. ... [via Newsalert] 2:05 A.M.

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Sunday, May 25, 2008

Senator Dianne Feinstein takes a stand:

Simply put, I cannot vote for another $165 billion to give President Bush a blank check and fund the continuation of the war in Iraq, without condition, for over another year.

This is a difficult decision and not one I take lightly. But I believe that the time has come for Congress to exercise the power of the purse and bring this war to a conclusion.

But, hey, if they'd included her sneak 5-year amnesty for illegal ag workers ... 9:42 P.M.

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Saturday, May 24, 2008

L.A. Times--"Californians narrowly reject gay marriage ..." By, er, 19 points (54-35% among registered voters). ... Patterico reviews the LAT's embarrassing history of pretending polls are close when the paper wants them to be close. Ask Gov. Davis. ... Note to Zell: More layoffs please! The chain of editors who worked on yesterday's poll story would be a good place to start. Are there still four layers? Or is it down to three? ... 1:18 A.M.

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Thursday, May 22, 2008

McCain to GOP: "Suckers!" John McCain in Silicon Valley today--

"But we must enact comprehensive immigration reform. We must make it a top agenda item if we don't do it before, and we probably won't, a little straight talk, as of January 2009." [E.A.]

Media Matters, in its clueless way, has been trashing the press for reporting McCain's pro-legalization position "without noting his reversal on the issue." But that ignores his reversal of his reversal, which now appears complete. ... P.S.: If McCain even contemplates possible enactment of "comprehensive" reform (i.e., including semi-amnesty) before January, 2009, what does that say about the seriousness of his promise to "secure our borders first"? ... Backfill: See also SacBee. ... NYT reports: "Mr. McCain has made some gains in reassuring conservatives nervous about his views on issues like immigration, polls suggest." Time to become un-reassured? ... It's tempting to call these conservatives cheap dates. But that would be unfair to cheap dates. Cheap dates aren't spending their own money! ... 4:50 P.M. link

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A Bloomberg lede:

Fewer Americans than forecast applied for unemployment benefits last week, indicating companies are reluctant to fire more workers even as the economy slows.

Hmmm. Next consumers will be unexpectedly reluctant to cut back on purchases even as the economy slows. And manufacturers will be unexpectedly reluctant to cut production even as the economy slows. ... Slowly, the realization may dawn that the economy is not slowing anymore! ... But reporters will be not-unexpectedly reluctant to stop reporting that it is. ...[via Insta] 2:53 P.M.

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"The same old Washington game with the same old players": Please tell me that Obama has not picked Jim Johnson, Walter Mondale's campaign chairman and an an architect of the multi-billion dollar Fannie Mae debacle, to lead his vice-presidential selection process. ... Johnson helped Walter Mondale pick a nominee who immediately became mired in controversy, as Ambinder notes. (He also helped John Kerry pick a running mate who didn't help the ticket --and creeped the candidate out.) ... Obama's rhetoric about avoiding the old Washington players always seemed to me the phoniest part of his message. Now we know just how phony. Johnson's exactly the sort of veteran Dem Party bigshot--now rich off the wages of doing good--whose clutches you'd hope a smart freshman Senator would avoid. What's next? Terry McAuliffe as Secretary of the Treasury? ... Obama says: "He is a friend of mine. I know him." ... Starter Tip for Johnson: The Edwards Campaign Love Child has been born! ... Traditional link: Here's a prescient Slate piece on Johnson and Fannie Mae that Johnson called "unbelievable trash." .. 1:27 P.M. link

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Now the success of the our counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq represents a "vindication of a left of center worldview": Even dour Bob Wright is softening on the Surge--to the point of making a surprise preemptive appointment to Obama's cabinet. .... 1:29 A.M.

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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Paul Maslin's Electoral College math looks surprisingly grim for Obama:

If Obama wins the 255 votes in the states where he's favored, then to get to 270 he needs to choose from the following menu: 1) Win Ohio, which takes him to 275; 2) win in the West -- Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, for 274; 3) win the three N's (Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire) for 269, plus one other state; or 4) win two of the three N's and either Colorado or Virginia.

I think this means he basically has to win either Ohio or Colorado. Not the odds-on bet you would expect in a Democratic year. ... See also Karl Rove's maps. [via RCP] ... Update: Indefatigable Dem emailer K.B. pushes an Obama strategy of a) holding all the Kerry states plus b) winning Iowa and Virginia. That would avoid the need to win Ohio or Colorado. But it would also require Obama to win New Hampshire, where both Maslin and Rove currently give McCain the edge. ... 1:34 A.M.

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You know the primaries are getting dull when even Mystery Pollster turns in early on election night. ... 12:59 A.M.

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Tuesday, May 20, 2008

My favorite bit of analysis from CNN's Indiana/N.C. primary election coverage two weeks ago:

GLORIA BORGER: One thing, Anderson, in looking, again, through these exit polls, there is a clear correlation between which candidate a voter believed was better on the economy and the candidate they voted for.

We'll see if they can top that tonight. ... 5:29 P.M.

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Model Two Isn't Everything: I've become sensitive to compliments that have the effect of putting you in your place. ( "I love your writing about cars!") My friend Jon Alter pulled this trick a couple of weeks ago while berating me for not weighing in against Hillary Clinton's proposed gas-tax holiday:

"There were not all of these pundits and bloggers and everything who were all over it. I had to do reporting to find out what was wrong with it. ... If you had last Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday even Thursday, if you had written about it you know you could have gotten maybe the thing rolling sooner. ... I wanted you to be ahead of me. You would have saved me some work. I would have linked off your site. .... I wanted you to be ahead of me.

Translation:, "You bloggers do a great job digging up stories for us in the MSM. Keep it up." Grrr.

There's an implicit model underneath Alter's comments--blogs as the minor leagues, Off Off-Broadway, trying out storylines and scoops that may or may not make it to the Big Show. I have to admit I've embraced this model myself, as "Model Two." I think blogs are (for the moment***) particularly suited to functioning as a sort of intermediate tryout area for burgeoning scandals ("undernews").

But Alter adds a revealing bit of the newsweekly reporter's traditional self-loathing:

Look I write for Newsweek. It doesn't matter if I'm behind you. I rely on you and other great bloggers--you know, Josh Marshall and other people like that to give me links cause you see all kinds of stuff, you're much better at you know being on top of this early.,And it's not a problem for me , because I writer for the MSM, you know, or on television and I can come to it a little later.

Exactly. Alter makes big bucks because he's called on to write about the story of the day at the precise moment it breaks out into the mainstream--and not a moment too soor! If the US bombs a Syrian nuclear reactor, the public wants to know about it right then--and Alter more or less has write about it or have a pretty damn good excuse why not. Newsweek's editors, in effect, can make Alter jump. He's very good at it. I'm not.

The problem with the "minor league" model of the blogosphere, is that it's simply an extension of this "just in time" model of journalism--blogs are a conveyor belt, if you will, delivering news. ideas and angles to the MSM on a precise production schedule.

But I didn't start a blog because I wanted to be yoked, no less than poor Alter, to the story of the moment--certainly not so I could be yoked more firmly but in a subordinate capacity. It's all well and good for blogs to be feeders of the MSM. But it's also desirable to have freedom from the MSM and from the imperative to cover what's hot now--or even the imperative to generate what's going to be hot tomorrow.

P.S.: Of course, the commercial incentive to cover the "story of the day" isn't as bad in the blogosphere as it is in the MSM. It's worse. If Senator X gets hit by a bus, Slate's editors don't want a retrospective by the next day. They want a retrospective in an hour. That's what gets hits--and hits are how Slate makes money. The ideal type here is Christopher Hitchens' appraisal of John F. Kennedy, Jr.--which was probably one of the worst articles Hitchens has ever written, but which made the Web within minutes of the grim news. It got about 18 billion hits, if I recall.

The Web holds out the technological possibility of something better, however, or at least different: People writing about what interests them, when it interests them, maybe writing better for that--and maybe finding an audience. You have the whole planet to troll, after all.

***--Blogs now work comfortably as a "middle" tryout area because 1) they are technologicallly distinct from most of the MSM, which still mainly operates in print and broadcast formats and 2) the vast majority of Americans still get their news from the MSM (the Major Leagues), not blogs (the minors). If both these conditions disappear, as seems quite possible--if newspapers stop being distinguishable from blogs and if the public stops getting its news from the MSM--then the "minor league" or "undernews" model of blogging would seem to break down. There would be no "major league." The conveyor belt will have nowhere to go. In that case, we'll need a new model. But it will presumably still be one in which tips, rumors and angles are proffered, sifted, sorted, and tested until a consensus somehow emerges as to whether they are valid. .. 1:25 A.M. link

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Why does every establishment I enter play Sara Bareilles' "I'm Not Gonna Write You A Love Song" in the background? That goes for both upscale cafes and 7-Elevens. It's an awful song, full of forced vigor. Not a new song either. Does it have some proven stimulative effect on consumers? ...1:23 A.M.

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Monday, May 19, 2008

Michelle Malkin is tracking the Feinstein sneak half-decade amnesty for illegal immigrant farmworkers, which currently looks like it will come up for a vote on Wednesday. ... See also Numbers USA for updates. .. P.S.: What's John McCain's position? Didn't he promise to "secure our borders first," holding off on "other aspects of the problem" (i.e. legalization) until a "widespread consensus" that border-security had been acheived? I think he did! He will presumably have to vote one way or the other (or else be conveniently absent). A not-small test case of whether he'll keep any of his promises to the right when he decides he'd rather not. ... 4:47 P.M. link

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Mutnemom in Action: RCP's chart shows Hillary closing in Oregon, of all places. ... Backfill: See Faughnan--"Is her mutnemom kicking into overdrive now that even Senator Obama seems to be tossing dirt onto her grave?" ... [Thanks to reader P.F.] 10:32 P.M.

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The Possibilities of Push-Off Politics: 1) David Frum argues Republican Congressional candidates should treat the presidential election as "already lost" and campaign "on a message to balance the crazy left-wing things a President Obama is sure to try." 2) Jennifer Rubin argues the Republican presidential candidate should treat the Congress as already lost and campaign on a message to moderate the things a lopsidedly Democratic legislature is sure to try.

It's hard to see how both these strategies could plausibly be successful, assuming polls on the week before election day offer an accurate picture of whether the GOP has a chance to control either branch of government. At the moment, Rubin's strategy looks closer to reality--McCain has a shot at the presidency, so writing him off doesn't resonate. But even the Republicans in Congress think the Republicans in Congress are doomed.

Would Rubin's proposed McCain strategy of running against the looming Congressional Democratic majority make it impossible for him to "triangulate" by dissing Congressional Republicans? Not really--presumably he could do both, contrasting himself with the conservative GOP caucus and with the Pelosi Democrats.

What about "reverse triangulation" (noitalugnairt!)--the possibility that a party's Congressional delegation could get closer to the center than its presidential candidate? That seems impossible for the Republicans. It's not impossible for the Democrats. If Obama fails to pivot to the center (as Frum, at least, predicts) Rahm Emmanuel's House candidates could easily position themselves as moderate checks on a very liberal prospective President, no? ... 1:15 A.M.

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Sunday, May 18, 2008

Strange piece on the huge, attractively Apollonian Ford Flex in Automobile, in which the editors get driven around but don't say much about the actual car. ("Sadly, the dog ate our notes.") Is that because the Flex, er, sucked? Maybe Ford's PR department restricted what the editors could say and do, envisioning a benign pre-rollout teaser. But if the car's any good, that approach backfired by raising doubts. ... P.S.: When is the last time a Ford interior was criticized for being "luxuriously upscale"? Ford should have that problem. ... 12:26 P.M.

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Note that, Dick Morris, in his cynical advice to McCain, advocates that he appeal to Dems and independents by moving to the center--but not on McCain's signature issue of "comprehensive immigration reform" (which Morris has supported). Indeed, Morris thinks McCain should:

Attack Obama for favoring federally subsidized health insurance for illegal immigrants.

Says something about the vaunted popular appeal of immigration semi-amnesty, no? It's not like welfare reform--a popular initiative policy elites resisted for decades. If it happens, which it might, it will be because political, policy and business elites (plus ethnic lobbies) manage to finesse it through Congress despite unenthusiastic popular sentiment. ... 12:05 P.M.

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Saturday, May 17, 2008

Today's Obama Gaffe to Ignore: No point covering this, Mr. Halperin, sir. Move right along. Obama's our nominee. We're stuck with him. Here he explains his impending loss in Kentucky:

"What it says is that I'm not very well known in that part of the country," Obama said. "Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it's not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle." [E.A.]

Cling Alert! ... As emailer "S" notes: 1) "Last time I checked, Illinois was more 'nearby' Kentucky than Arkansas. Heck, they even touch." 2) "[I]sn't there something a tad condescending in his reference to "some of those states in the middle"? ...

P.S.: Obama also said that Kentucky Democrats are fools who let themselves get pumped full of false rumors by Fox News, or words to that effect. But he'll rally them in the fall! ...

Note to Sen. Obama: Please stop explaining! ... 6:43 P.M. link

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"Forget 'Comprehensive.' Just Give Us the Amnesty!"--Senate Version-- Senator Dianne Feinstein's quickie last minute amnesty sneak play--tacking a 5-year amnesty for 1.5 million agricultural workers onto the Iraq supplemental--has been approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee. ... Full Senate vote expected next week. ...

Note that this isn't what I've called a "semi-amnesty." It's not that "semi". What illegal ag workers have to do to get the 5-year legalization appears to be minimal--no learning English, or paying back taxes, etc. Just a $250 "fine." ... I don't know whether there is a serious threat of Feinstein's bill passing, or if she's just trying to show big farmers and Hispanic groups that she's trying. Or to see if the other side's machine guns are still working. ... Best to assume it's a serious threat. ... Bush would surely sign the bill if it passes. ... Other than that, comments on the House's earlier sneak play apply to the Senate's version.:

a) Bad for McCain, right? Just when he's papered over his split with the right on immigration, this would reopen the wound. Maybe that's the Dems point. ...

b) Bad for Rahm Emanuel's swing-district Democratic first-termers who campaigned on tough-on-illegal-immigration platforms, no? If it ever comes to a vote, will they reveal to their electorates that it was all just a pose? ...

c) But not an unclever strategy, if you are a pro-legalization Congressperson and want to strike while Hispandering Season is at its height. ...

d) Presumably McCain is now honor bound to oppose this, having pledged to push legalization only after "widespread consensus that our borders are secure." (If he sticks to his word, it might actually wind up helping him in November, you'd think.)

e) Can you pass a big bill like this in a presidential election year? Well, welfare reform passed in 1996. The key difference? Welfare reform was overwhelming popular, virtually across the board. The fight was largely over who could claim credit for it. Congressmen weren't worried that someone might run an ad accusing them of making welfare recipients go to work.

f) Is this a tacit admission by the legalization caucus that a semi-amnesty might not be as easy to pass in the next president's first two years than you might think (given that all three contenders are formally pro-legalization). ...

g) Or is this an expression of fear that local get-tough enforcement measures, in states like Oklahoma and Arizona, might already be having a surprising effect (at encouraging emigration

P.S.: Is there a clearer way to signal to potential new illegals, now in Mexico and Central America, that they should come on over--because if they make it across the border and work for a couple of years, their employers will have the lobbying muscle to get them legalized? ... Note also that the House version of the quickie last-minute amnesty was designed to hitch a ride on Rep. Shuler's popular border security bill (the SAVE Act). There's no such immigration-related locomotive for Feinstein's bill...

P.P.S.: Feinstein's website features a pathetically unimpressive trio of ag horror stories, including the now-familiar Bush appointee who stopped growing tomatoes in order to plant corn, and Steve Scaroni:

Steve Scaroni couldn't find enough workers to work at his lettuce processing plant in California. So he moved the plant to Guanajuato, Mexico to get the labor force that he needed. He now has 2,000 acres in Mexico and 500 employees. He exports to the United States about 2 million pounds of lettuce a week.

Is it crazy to ask why the Scaroni horror story is horrifying? We still get the lettuce. Mexican workers still get the jobs (which, according to Feinstein, were jobs Americans weren't willing to do anyway). Mexico builds its economy, and we don't have to create a group of disenfranchised second-class residents. Nor do we open the borders to workers who can then compete, not just in ag jobs but in all sorts of other jobs that unskilled, hard-pressed Americans will do.

Seems like a sensible deal. If this is really an "emergency situation" requiring a last-minute sneak addition to a must-pass Iraq war bill, you'd think Feinstein would be able to come up with more gripping examples. Some crops rotting, maybe? Wilting a little around the edges? Losing their traditional succulence? Have the Farm Bureau put an intern on it. ...

More: From Malkin, Askew. ... 5:48 P.M. link

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