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Notable Corner post. Michael Ledeen on the Berlusconi victory in Italy.

… And there’s an even more annoying feature to these elections, as seen by the chattering classes: Berlusconi is an outspoken, even passionate admirer of George W. Bush and the United States of America. Reminds one of the elections that brought Sarkozy to the Elysee, doesn’t it? Best to keep that quiet, or somebody might notice that hatred of America doesn’t seem to affect the voters in Italy, France or Germany. … That moron Bush sure is lucky.

John Fund on the Obama whistleblower.

Everyone knows that Barack Obama got caught on tape accusing Pennsylvania primary voters of being people who “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.” What isn’t well known is that his campaign tried to prevent Mayhill Fowler, the HuffingtonPost.com blogger who broke the story, from getting into the San Francisco mansion where the candidate made the remarks. …

John Fund writes about Obama’s many flaws.

Barack Obama’s San Francisco-Democrat comment last week – about how alienated working-class voters “cling to guns or religion” – is already famous. But the fact that his aides tell reporters he is privately bewildered that anybody took offense is even more remarkable.

Democrats have been worrying about defending Mr. Obama’s highly liberal voting record in a general election. Now they need to fret that he makes too many mistakes, from ignoring the Rev. Wright time bomb until the videotapes blew up in front of him, to his careless condescension towards salt-of-the-earth Democrats. Mr. Obama has a tendency to make such cultural miscues. Speaking to small-town voters in Iowa last year, he asked, “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?”

Mr. Obama is the closest thing to a rookie candidate on the national stage since Dwight Eisenhower, who was a beloved war leader. Candidates as green as Mr. Obama make first-timer mistakes under the searing scrutiny of a national campaign. Even seasoned pols don’t understand how unforgiving that scrutiny can be. Ask John Kerry, who had won five statewide elections before running for president. …

… While Republicans tend to nominate their best-known candidate from previous nomination battles (Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and now John McCain), Democrats often fall in love during a first date. They are then surprised when all the relatives don’t think he’s splendid. ..

Peter Wehner has a good take on Obama and his troubles.

… On a deeper level, what we saw in Obama’s comments is a glimpse into a particular worldview, one that animates his political philosophy (contemporary liberalism). Senator Obama seems to view ordinary Americans as bitter, often broken, small-minded objects of pity rather than anger, ostensibly in need of instruction from — you guessed it — Barack Obama. The words of Michelle Obama are worth recalling in this context. She has spoken about her husband pushing us out of our “comfort zones,” saying “Barack knows at some level there is a hole in our souls” and “Barack is the only person in this race who understands that before we can work on the problems as a nation, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.”

This is the Politics of Meaning on steroids. If one views Americans as fundamentally needy children rather than competent citizens, one embraces the precepts of the nanny state — the state that (in Margaret Thatcher’s memorable phrase) takes too much from you in order to do too much for you. This provides an enormous opening for Senator McCain, who can frame this election as pitting a candidate who believes in self-government, against a candidate who believes in the nanny state. …

Thomas Sowell on Obama.

An e-mail from a reader said that, while Hillary Clinton tells lies, Barack Obama is himself a lie. That is becoming painfully apparent with each new revelation of how drastically his carefully crafted image this election year contrasts with what he has actually been saying and doing for many years.

Senator Obama’s election year image is that of a man who can bring the country together, overcoming differences of party or race, as well as solving our international problems by talking with Iran and other countries with which we are at odds, and performing other miscellaneous miracles as needed.

There is, of course, not a speck of evidence that Obama has ever transcended party differences in the United States Senate. Voting records analyzed by the National Journal show him to be the farthest left of anyone in the Senate. Nor has he sponsored any significant bipartisan legislation — nor any other significant legislation, for that matter.

Senator Obama is all talk — glib talk, exciting talk, confident talk, but still just talk.

Some of his recent talk in San Francisco has stirred up controversy because it revealed yet another blatant contradiction between Barack Obama’s public image and his reality. …

Noemie Emery has a good Obama take.

… Whether this will do for Barack Obama in Pennsylvania and in Indiana what Hart’s remarks did for him in New Jersey remains unknown, but condescension towards the people by the party that loves them has a lineage that goes well beyond Hart.

In Our Country, Michael Barone traces this strain back to 1956 and the second campaign of Adlai E. Stevenson, who, when told “thinking people” were for him, said, “Yes, but I need to win a majority,” and when praised for having educated the voters, said that too many had not passed the course. “Stevenson,” Barone says, “was the first leading Democratic politician to become a critic rather than a celebrator of middle-class American culture–the prototype of the liberal Democrat who would judge ordinary Americans by an abstract standard and find them wanting,” and since Stevenson, there have been many such. Hart and Michael Dukakis were brought down by this failing, as was John Kerry, whose 2006 swipe at George W. Bush and those forced into the armed forces brought this response from some servicemen: “Halp us, Jon Carry–We R Stuck HEAR N Irak.” …

What’s it like when Obama goes to a mutual grope fest at an Associated Press gathering? Power Line has the transcript.

Monday, Barack Obama addressed the Associated Press’s Annual Meeting. That’s sort of like the Virgin Mary talking to a Knights of Columbus convention. The only way to read the transcript is for laughs. For example:

OBAMA: I don’t blame them for this. That’s the nature of our political culture. If I had to carry the banner for eight years of George Bush’s failures, I’d be looking for something else to talk about, too.

(LAUGHTER)

Talk about a receptive audience! Pretty much like the Democratic National Convention. Obama addresses “bittergate,” sort of: …

Jennifer Rubin’s comments in Contentions. On Bill first.

… With a rich selection of targets that might benefit Hillary, Bill chooses none of the above. Instead he latches onto the slur-in-passing on his reputation. There is no message control with him; it is just all about Bill 24/7, no matter what the circumstances. It’s enough to make you sympathize with her and her hapless campaign. …

Then on Hill’s skills as she grasps Barack by the throat and kicks him in the crotch.

… she makes the connection between Obama, a “good man,” and other recent “good men” (meaning Kerry and Dukakis) who bombed at the ballot box because they were perceived as elitists. And she comes across  as almost sincere:  she really does believe Obama is electoral poison for the Democrats.

She really has learned a couple things in her years in the White House: how Democrats lose elections and how to go in for the kill.

An Oxford University Press blog posts on Bill Clinton’s perks.

… The Clintons’ tax returns raise one further issue which also requires public discussion: The federal subsidy the Clintons have received over the last seven years while earning in excess of $100 million. Mr. Clinton’s aggressive pursuit of post-presidential income is incompatible with the extensive public support he has received from federal taxpayers since leaving office. That public support was designed to preclude the nation’s chief executives from facing financial hardship after their terms of office. It was not intended to subsidize the aggressive pursuit of a post-presidential fortune.

The federal taxpayer’s subsidy of Mr. Clinton has several components. First, as a former president, Mr. Clinton is entitled to receive, for the remainder of his life, the salary of a cabinet secretary. That salary is today $191,000 per annum. In addition, as a former president, Mr. Clinton also receives, at taxpayer expense, “suitable office space appropriately furnished and equipped.” Mr. Clinton’s office in New York City costs federal taxpayers over $700,000 per year to lease and operate. Federal taxpayers also defray the salary and benefits for office staff and some of Mr. Clinton’s travel outlays. The General Services Administration currently budgets for all of these costs a yearly total of $1,162,000 for Mr. Clinton. The equivalent annual figures for former President Bush and former President Carter are $786,000 and $518,000 respectively.

In addition, Mr. Clinton is also entitled, at taxpayer expense, to Secret Service protection for the remainder of his lifetime – even though, as president, Mr. Clinton signed legislation limiting Secret Service protection for his successors to the first ten years after they leave office. …

Ed Feulner on the dim bulbs that are elected to congress.

… Americans are smart enough to decide for themselves which products they’d prefer to use. It’s only inferior or unnecessary products (think of ethanol) that require congressional intervention to survive. Useful or innovative products (iPods, cell phones) thrive on their own.

The light bulb ban isn’t the first time Congress has attempted to protect Americans from wastefulness. Some years ago, lawmakers outlawed toilets that use more than 1.6 gallons per flush. The low-flow toilets don’t work as well, of course. Ironically they often require several flushes to, shall we say, get the job done.

Reflecting on the failure of a well-intentioned federal law, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said it made him “wonder what ever became of our capacity to govern ourselves.” Simply put, that ability goes away when Washington tries to regulate everything.

Here’s a brighter idea: Let’s allow Americans to choose our own light bulbs. And let the best bulb burn on.