Category: Blithe Spirit

The B-Man unmasked

Here is Biden without hair!  Telling a questioner how smart he is (Biden, not the questioner) and giving his 1988 version of hope and change.  Garrulous fellow.

But he was fooling people!  The trouble with his outburst was “that [his] insecure academic boasts were almost all bogus,” as Mickey Kaus observes, looking back to 2003, when B. was considering entry into the 2004 race and a spoilsport noted various inconvenient data, part of a previous run:

In 1987, Biden quit the Democratic primary race early after the revelation that he had delivered, without attribution, passages from a speech by British Labor party leader Neil Kinnock.

A barrage of subsidiary revelations by the press also hammered Biden’s image: a serious plagiarism incident from his law-school years, boastful exaggerations of his academic record at a New Hampshire campaign event, and the discovery of other quotations in Biden’s speeches pilfered from past Democratic politicians. [Emphasis added]

So what?  So he’s a con man of the first water.  Can’t con men run?  Give the guy a break, OK?

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The little library that could

Wowie!  The UIC library is unsealing the records in its special collections!

The records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an organization that Obama chaired and that Ayers co-founded, will be made available to the public Tuesday, UIC said in a statement.

The U. says it “now has legal authority to allow public access to the material,” apparently without specifying this, per AP.  It “had fulfilled the terms of the gift” in 2002 of the records, says Sun-Times.  Again sans specification.

Chi Trib’s Mark Silva i-d’s Ayers as “a radical protestor” of the 60s, having looked himself in the mirror and decided the bomb business — “nonfatal,” he says, as does AP — goes like this: Ayers’s

Weatherman group took credit for bombings that included nonfatal blasts at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol four decades ago.

He reports (as he sees fit), we decide (he’s at best a dork).

Commenter John D on Silva’s piece:

I love how Mark Silva classifies the Weatherman bombings as “nonfatal” as if since they were nonfatal, that means the bombings were OK. Now, UIC spares the Tribune the embarrassment. Four years ago the Tribune sued to get Jack Ryan’s divorce papers exposed so the paper can destroy Ryan and open the doors to Obama. Today, the Tribune had no interest in getting these files opened.

Posted by: John D | August 23, 2008 12:57 AM

 

 

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White smoke over the guardhouse!

Habemus eum qui stet in vice presidentis!*

The brief text message from the Obama campaign came about 3 a.m., less than three hours after word of the decision had begun leaking out. “Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee. Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3pm ET on http://www.BarackObama.com. Spread the word!”

*We got a veep (candidate)

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Meeks vs. unions! We can piously hope.

If Ill. Sen. Rev. Meeks wants to quote Chi Trib as supporting him on school reform, he should do so carefully.  Trib opens craftily:

Illinoisans who fear that state Sen. James Meeks is a dangerous threat may not know the half of it. The Chicago Democrat is a threat, all right—to timid lawmakers who really don’t want to overhaul this state’s school funding formula and to a public education industry that is terrified of being held accountable for its failures. [Emphasis added]

“Nobody’s going to put a dime into this system without demanding some reforms,” Meeks told the editorial writer, who ran with this estimable assessment and implied goal.

Trib does not like his keeping kids out of school for Alinsky-style bus ride to Winnetka — scroll down — but they agree that Illinois pols have not pushed for “better educations for Illinois kids”:

That’s in large part because many of those politicians are hostages to the politically active teachers unions. Most Springfield Democrats would rather have Dick Cheney as their party’s candidate for president than risk alienating those teachers union.

Not Meeks, Trib hopes, citing the op-ed on the next page, which notes that the bus riders will pass “many Chicago public schools—charter schools—that are performing on par with top-notch suburban and downstate schools.”

Oh.  But Meeks took the lawmaker’s equivalent of the 5th amendment last spring, when he “refused to vote on legislation that would have raised the Chicago charter school cap to 100” — effectively condoning the “ghettoizing” of kids in badly performing schools, to use a Trib word.

The problem is that unions have their monopoly and do not like trust-busting and as the huge political action committees they have become, they decide what lawmakers do, including Meeks, who is very cautious not to offend his patrons among the unions.  So he promotes a headline-grabbing cause that will be going nowhere, we assume, namely to force suburbs to take city kids.

[W]hile in Springfield last week, he filed legislation that would force suburban schools to accept any student who applies, regardless of whether the student lives within the district.

This is in the op-ed, by Collin Hitt, of the Illinois Policy Institute, a pro-charter schools operation which Chi Trib does not link, following its pattern and I assume policy of linking nothing but Trib stories. 

So Meeks wants Oak Park to open its schoolroom doors to kids from Austin, Berwyn, and the city north of north?  It is to laugh at the idea that even in ur-liberal OP that idea would gain traction.  Libs did go for Baby Todd Stroger 40% in the last primary, however.  You never know,

In any case, Chi Trib in its editorial would like to see Meeks declare support for charter schools.  We call it newspaper editorial ploy #4550, to assume the impossible best of a run-of-mill grievance-oriented politician.  Nice try!

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Zorn defends O.

Chi Trib’s Eric Zorn defends Obama in the matter of protecting aborted but born-alive infants, arguing that (a) O. voted against protecting them if it risked abortion rights in general and (b) he did so with fellow Dems as a matter of course.

[Republic Sen.] Winkel asked Obama’s committee to add that same “neutrality language” [that made it palatable to U.S. Senate Democrats] to his bill. In accordance with legislative tradition, the 10 members present voted unanimously to approve Winkel’s amendment. And then, after some discussion, they voted 6-4 along party lines to kill the bill.

“The feeling of the majority was that the bill still created great uncertainty about whether it would compromise abortion rights” in Illinois, said Sen. Jeff Schoenberg of Evanston, one of six Democrats, including Obama, who voted no. [Emphasis added]

Z. would seem to consider it irrelevant that O. acted this way, effectively making safety of the born-alive dispensable for what he sees as the greater good of abortion rights.  Crass pragmatism, that.  Chilling.

And O’s going along to get along in Springfield?  How would that sit with hundreds of thousand undecided voters?  Need we ask?

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This library knows the score

Chi Trib’s John Kass explains to National Review writer Stanley Kurtz why he can’t have at the Annenberg Challenge files at U. of Ill. at Chicago in order to check on how close Obama was to unrepentant terrorist/school reformer William Ayers.

The Richard J. Daley Library doesn’t want nobody nobody sent. And Richard J.’s son, Shortshanks, is now the mayor.

And nobody sent Kurtz. 

It’s the mayor, stupid, and he defended the non-access to library materials in Chicago’s premier bastion of state-campus learning, where free inquiry reigns and young minds and old rove happily through the groves of truth and beauty.

The Tribune’s City Hall reporter, Dan Mihalopoulos, asked Daley on Wednesday if the Richard J. Daley Library should release the documents. Shortshanks didn’t like that one. He kept insisting he would be “very frank,” a phrase that makes the needles on a polygraph start jumping.

“Bill Ayers—I’ve said this—his father [top dog at Commonwealth Edison] was a great friend of my father,” the mayor said. “I’ll be very frank. Vietnam divided families, divided people. It was a terrible time of [sic] our country. People didn’t know one another. Since then, I’ll be very frank, [Ayers] has been in the forefront of a lot of education issues and helping us in public schools and things like that.”

The mayor expressed his frustrations with outside agitators like Kurtz.

“People keep trying to align himself [sic] with Barack Obama,” Daley said. “It’s really unfortunate. They’re friends. So what? People do make mistakes in the past. You move on. This is a new century, a new time. He reflects back and he’s been making a strong contribution to our community.”

Point is, somebody sent Ayers.

UIC faculty and staff, understandably eager to keep bread and butter on table, are certain not to object to this thwarting of inquiry.  Sure, retired dean Stanley Fish, outspoken in liberal causes, could raise a stink from his now-Florida base, say in a NY Times op-ed.  . . . .  I said he could, ok?

My own Society of Midland Authors, hoary with antiquity by virtue of its founding by Chicago literary greats, could protest by withdrawing its archives from this very special collection which doesn’t want nobody nobody sent.  . . . .  It could, ok?

Meanwhile, what’s this Shortshanks business that the redoubtable Kass tosses into the journalistic hopper?  Well, make it Longshanks, and you have the English king Edward I, a big guy, who among other things in a long life of beating people up and taking over countries, expelled the Jews in 1290 — he needed the money.

The present Mayor Daley is not very tall, nor was his father, hence Shortshanks, with a nod to the powers of a medieval king.  It works for me, but still Kass might want to rethink the ‘Shanks part, or explain it better than I just did,

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Reader D: Mayor Daley in this instance may remind John Kass of Long or Shortshanks, but he reminds me of Chief Clancy Wiggum in The Simpson’s, who’s wont to say: “Okay folks, show’s over. Nothing to see here, show’s over, move on ….”

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Librarians, stay on alert!

The AP is on the story of apparent U. of Ill.-Chicago coverup of documents showing Obama and terrorist Bill Ayers working together to save Chicago schools:

University won’t open Obama-related records now

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer Tue Aug 19, 6:48 PM ET

WASHINGTON – The University of Illinois on Tuesday refused to release records relating to Barack Obama’s service to a nonprofit group linked to former 1960s radical activist William Ayers.

The university’s Chicago campus said the donor of the records that document the work of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge has not yet turned over ownership rights to the material.

The U. didn’t know that, now it does, so records are closed.

The owner [donor of the docs] notified the university about the absence of a signed ownership agreement last week.

“The donor’s only concerns regarding the collection are due to personnel information that could include names, confidential salary information and even Social Security numbers,” said the university spokesman.

They are being vetted?

Nothing in Chi newspapers yet (8:50 am 8/20).  They’re working on it.  Give them time.

The Annenberg Challenge was $50 million.  Ayers got himself put in charge of it.  Mayordaley II, that old radical, loves A. for it. 

Question: Who gave the $50 mill?  Answer: the Annenbergs — The Honorable Leonore Annenberg, President and Chairman [of their foundation]; Wallis Annenberg, Vice President, Lauren Bon, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, Charles Annenberg Weingarten.

Who put Ayers in charge?  These five signed off on it, presumably with guidance from staff:

Headquarters Office
Gail C. Levin, Executive Director
Joanne Cemini-Visintin, Assistant to the Executive Director
Linda Dunn, Operations and Accounting Administrator
Rachel Goldbaum, Grants Administrator
. . . . etc.

I’d start with Gail C. Levin, but for the heck of it, I’d go also to Walter Annenberg and his father Moses (Moe) Annenberg, to get the flavor of things, with special attention to the murderous Chicago newspaper circulation wars of the 1920s and Moe’s affiliation with mobsters and illegal gambling and his and Walter’s prosecution in 1939 in “one of the biggest tax-evasion cases in U.S. history” and Moe’s subsequent imprisonment after taking a guilty plea for fraud. 

Hey, this family has more going for it than the Joe Kennedy’s!  And now they give money to reform schools!  [”To reform” here as infinitive, not “reform” as adjective, though that might be something they should consider.] 

Is this a great country, or what?

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Big O. is for “fairness,” no matter what it costs us?

A capital gains tax reduces potential rewards of investment, I gather from p. 217 of Jude Wanniski’s 1978 book The Way the World Works.  Why wouldn’t it?  If it reduces rewards enough, the investment is not made.  New business is not started.  Jobs are not created.

Obama doesn’t see it that way.  Hearing the news that tax revenue increased during a certain time of reduced taxation, he was surprised but held his ground, opposing reduction for the sake of “fairness.”  He would rather all made less, for the sake of fewer earning more.

“[T]he idea of fairness is at the heart of his whole economic argument. And he goes back to it in almost every public appearance,” says William McGurn.

He talks about it as a general theme: “It is time for folks like me who make more than $250,000 to pay our fair share.”

He invokes it as a solution for Social Security: “[W]e will save Social Security for future generations by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.”

He points to how it guides his energy policy: “The first part of my plan is to tax the windfall profits of oil companies and use some of that money to help you pay the rising price of gas.”

And he stuck to it on capital gains, even after ABC’s Charlie Gibson noted that the record shows increased taxes on capital gains — which would affect 100 million Americans — would likely lead to a decrease in government revenues: “Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.”

In 1969, to continue with Wanniski, in Nixon’s first year, revenues were expected to rise $1.1 billion in 1970.  Instead, Nixon reneged on a tax cut, removed an investment tax credit, and spent on job training — and 1969’s $7.1 billion revenues dropped to an average of $4 billion in the following four years.

Also, hundreds of billions were lost in reduced output — and thus in jobs and overall prosperity.  This was “tax reform” in 1969.

In 1971, Nixon jettisoned his other promise, to balance the budget, and instead purposely unbalanced it for the sake of full employment in 1972 — which didn’t happen.  This gave him (us) a planned deficit to match 1970’s unplanned one. (218) 

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Librarians of the world, be alert!

This National Review writer can’t get to Obama-related archives at U. of Ill. at Chicago, he says.  I wrote a letter:

Dear [UIC] Pres. [B. Joseph] White:
 
I am quite exercised over your apparent denying public access to public records in the Stanley Kurtz case, as explained here and here.
 
I can only hope there’s some mistake, which you will correct as soon as possible.  I hadn’t seen my friend the late Bob Adelsperger in years before he died two years ago.  We used to meet at gatherings of the Society of Midland Authors, when he was on the board and I was president.  I can’t imagine Bob the UIC librarian doing what Kurtz reports your people doing. 
 
Thanks much for your prompt response to this potentially devastating problem.
 
Sincerely,
Bad cess to hiders of public info.  Let us hope the writer gets at his material.
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Next day, Tuesday, 1 pm: Just heard R. Limbaugh reporting this UIC cover-up, citing others, as John Kerry’s refusal to reveal military records, until long after the election, and then did he or didn’t he?  It’s the Dem way, he says.
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Yet later: Beltway Clips has links to a half dozen more treatments of this fiasco.  See also Instapundit.
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Decline of the west (suburban edition)

Here’s exhibit 125th — or is it 1,125th? — why I have subscribed to the Wall Street Journal.  It’s what I got on page one of my home-delivered Chi Trib, which landed right next to my Journal:

Russians, Georgians engage in war of spin

The Tribune’s Alex Rodriguez finds cagey denials and unverified claims aimed at gaining global support

By Alex Rodriguez | Tribune correspondent
12:07 AM CDT, August 18, 2008

TBILISI, Georgia — A Russian newspaper recently published what was portrayed as the seamy truth behind the conflict in Georgia: Vice President Dick Cheney helped engineer the war as a way to keep Barack Obama from getting elected.

The tortuous logic behind the claim may be hard to grasp, but the intent isn’t.

Russia acts like Germany in 1938, and we have time for relaxed irony?  And with a touch of pox on both their houses, at that?

The claim, made by Sergei Markov, a political analyst closely tied with the Kremlin and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, was meant to shift blame away from Moscow and lay it on an obvious target on the other side of the Atlantic. In an age when Russia tries to show itself as a democracy free from the shackles of the Soviet mind-set, it had all the markings of Kremlin propaganda.

This is Tribune thumb-sucking at its best — while the newspaper burns.  From their man in Russia, for God’s sake, here reporting from Tbilisi.

Now see what I found in the Journal:

First of all, it’s by one guy in Poti, another in Gori, each on the ground, as we say.  The lede is crisp and business-like:

Russia, under intense diplomatic pressure, announced it will begin pulling troops out of neighboring Georgia — but it leaves behind a battered Western ally.

Since a separatist dispute flared into open war Aug. 8, Moscow has occupied chunks of Georgia’s territory, strangled its economy, cut transport links and damaged key investment projects.

There’s diplomatic reporting, from Georgian economy minister, the Russian president, Sec. of State Rice, White House spokesman, the German chancellor, the Georgian First Deputy Minister of Economic Development, etc.

Then from Poti, a town on the Black Sea:

Though hundreds of miles from the fighting in Georgia’s separatist province of South Ossetia and clearly not a military asset, Poti’s huge commercial port was targeted 10 days ago in a Russian bombing raid that killed 10 people and wounded 40. The town itself has seen daily incursions by Russian troops who have looted stores, trashed offices and systematically destroyed military infrastructure, according to Georgian officials. Some looting has been captured on local television.

From Alan Middleton, the English head of Poti Sea Port Corp.:

“The Russians deliberately targeted commercial operations to inflict economic damage on Georgia. Dropping bombs on Poti port, killing people — I don’t see how you can connect that with South Ossetia.”

Lots more from Poti, including:

[A]bout 700 Russian troops trundled into town in tanks and armored personnel carriers. Tengiz Khukhia, the town’s deputy mayor, approached the Russian commander, who told him they had orders to eliminate all Georgian military facilities in Poti. He also issued a warning. “He said if any of you touch a hair on any of my soldiers’ heads, we’ll flatten the whole town,” says Mr. Khukhia. The commander couldn’t be located for comment.

Lots, lots more, plus another story from the scene, in this case Tkviavi, with this lede:

As armored columns rumble by, the body of Shamil Okroporidze is rotting for the fifth day in his garden, just two steps off the main north-south highway that bisects this village deep in Russian-occupied Georgia.

And there’s neither pathos nor bathos nor sentimental rot, just reporting in time-honored straight fashion, bringing the reader along.  And no “war of spin.”

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