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Roger Simon has a good take on the NY Times flap.
… No matter what your politics, for too many years The New York Times has had far too much power over our national discourse for one outlet. No media source should have that much authority in a democracy. We need, pardon the expression, a thousand flowers to bloom. I know Bill Keller agrees with that, because I have heard him acknowledge it. He was clearly under considerable pressure from his reporters and editors to publish this unprofessional nonsense. …
Gerard Baker of the London Times wonders if the country is ready for the left-wing Obama.
For most ordinary Americans, those not encumbered with an expensive education or infected by prolonged exposure to cosmopolitan heterodoxy, patriotism is a consequence of birth.
Their chests swell with pride every time they hear the national anthem at sporting events. They fill up with understandable emotion whenever they see a report on television about the tragic heroics of some soldier or Marine who gave his life in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Foreigners don’t have to like America – and they’ve certainly exercised that freedom in the past few years. But most Americans can distinguish between the transience of policy failure and the permanence of the national ideal.
And surely even critics of the US could scarcely deny that there have been real causes for American pride in the past 25 years: the fall of the Berlin Wall; the victory in the first Gulf War in 1991; the nation’s unity in grief and resolve after September 11. Heck, I suspect most Americans got a small buzz of patriotic pride this week when they heard that one of their multimillion-dollar missiles had shot a dead but dangerous satellite traveling at 17,000 miles per hour out of the sky so that it fell harmlessly to Earth.
But not, apparently, Michelle Obama, wife of the man who is now the putative Democratic candidate for US president, and at this point favourite to succeed to that job. In what might be the most revealing statement made by any political figure so far in this campaign season, Mrs Obama caused a stir this week. She said that the success of her husband Barack’s campaign had marked the first time in her adult life that she had felt pride in her country.
This, even by the astonishingly self-absorbed standards of politicians and their families, is a remarkably narrow view of what makes a country great. And though she later half-heartedly tried to retract the remark it was a statement pregnant with meaning for the presidential election campaign. …
And Bill Kristol wonders if we are ready for another narcissist.
… Obama likes to say, “we are the change that we seek†and “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.†Obama’s rhetorical skill makes his candidacy appear almost collective rather than individual. That’s a democratic courtesy on his part, and one flattering to his followers. But the effectual truth of what Obama is saying is that he is the one we’ve been waiting for.
Barack Obama is an awfully talented politician. But could the American people, by November, decide that for all his impressive qualities, Obama tends too much toward the preening self-regard of Bill Clinton, the patronizing elitism of Al Gore and the haughty liberalism of John Kerry?
It’s fitting that the alternative to Obama will be John McCain. He makes no grand claim to fix our souls. He doesn’t think he’s the one everyone has been waiting for. He’s more proud of his country than of himself. And his patriotism has consisted of deeds more challenging than “speaking out on issues.â€
Barack Obama went off the reservation on the subject of vouchers. New York Sun editors recount how he then paid obeisance to the teacher’s unions, the “nomenklatura” of the Dem party.
No sooner had we issued Elizabeth Green‘s dispatch under the headline “Obama Open to Private School Vouchers” than his campaign was scrambling to undo the potential damage with the Democratic primary electorate. On February 20, his campaign issued a statement headlined, “Response to Misleading Reports Concerning Senator Obama‘s Position on Vouchers” that said, “Senator Obama has always been a critic of vouchers.” The statement went on, “Throughout his career, he has voted against voucher proposals and voiced concern for siphoning off resources from our public schools.” It noted that Mr. Obama’s education agenda “does not include vouchers, in any shape or form.” …
WaPo has a list of the top Obama and Clinton flip-flops.
Couple of our favorites look forward to the VP pick. George Will first.
… McCain needs someone who will help him win and be a plausible president during the next four years. He has been in Washington more years than Clinton and Barack Obama combined, and today, as usual, but even more so, Washington is considered iniquitous, partly because McCain, our national scold, incessantly tells the country that its capital is awash in “corruption.” …
Will looked at many with a scatter gun. Byron York concentrates on Pawlenty and Sanford.
John McCain faces a dilemma when it comes to choosing a vice president. He needs a running mate who will be a contrast to him in a few key ways — younger, more knowledgeable about economic issues, and, especially, more conservative. But if McCain selects a running mate whose conservative credentials are beyond dispute, he’ll be choosing a candidate who likely disagrees with him on some issues of great importance to the Republican base.
On Sunday, I spoke with two leading contenders for the McCain ticket, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, both in Washington for the annual meeting of the National Governors’ Association. While each expressed strong support for McCain, neither would deny differences with the candidate on two of the issues that have caused McCain the greatest trouble with the conservative base: immigration and campaign-finance reform. …
John Fund says there will be a meeting in NY next week that attempts to add common sense to the global warming debate.
… Let’s hope Mr. Lomborg is wrong in his fear that the media are uninterested in showcasing a real debate on climate change. The proof may be found next week, when hundreds of scientists, economists and policy experts who dissent from the “consensus” that climate change requires radical measures will meet in New York to discuss the latest scientific, economic and political research on climate change. Five tracks of panels will address paleoclimatology, climatology, global warming impacts, the economics of global warming and political factors. It will be keynoted by Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who has argued that economic growth is most likely to create the innovations and know-how to combat any challenges climate change could present in the future. (Information on the conference is here1.)
The conference is being organized by the free-market Heartland Institute and 49 other co-sponsors, including a dozen from overseas. Heartland president Joseph Bast says its politically incorrect purpose is to “explain the often-neglected ‘other side’ of the climate change debate. This will be their chance to speak out. It will be hard for journalists and policy makers to ignore us.”
I wonder. …
Canada’s National Post on the coming global cooling.
Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.
The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January “was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average.”
China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.
There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.
In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.
And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its “lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.
The ice is back. …
Don Surber reports on AP reporter who tells us the crook’s party affiliation only when GOP. Follow the link if you wish to read the full stories. But, you’ll get the picture.