One of the D.C. gangs

Oak Park (IL) village manager Tom Barwin is not apologizing for saying the Supreme Court is “in alliance with the gangbangers” in its ruling in favor of individual right to own a gun, but he does have advice for others:

“I really think we ought to tone down the emotion, which I will also try to do,” he said. “But I think we should be working harder to find common ground and eliminate these conditions that breed violence.

He will try very hard to tone it down but is willing to leave the Supremes dangling with gangsters.

“I think the … gangbanger comments really just were a way to succinctly express that, in my experience and view, the further proliferation of guns will inevitably result in more drug pushers and those of a criminal mind ending up with firearms.”

As it is, of course, they have to get along with their bare fists?

Later, from Dick Cutler in Ann Arbor:

I have strong sentiments about private possession of firearms.  I grew up on a farm; I had guns then; I have guns now (several, would you like an inventory and a report of my marksmanship?); and FINALLY, “I intend to keep my  guns and my skill in using them  — so as to be prepared to shoot the miserable ass off anyone who comes to take them from me.”

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Senator Chameleon

The man never ceases to amaze.  When 72 senators voted for a “sense of the Senate” resolution last year rejecting the moveon.org ad rhyming (Gen.) Petraeus with “betray us,” O. took a pass, though he voted on two other bills that day, explaining:

“The focus of the United States Senate should be on ending this war, not on criticizing newspaper advertisements,” Mr. Obama said. “This amendment was a stunt designed only to score cheap political points while what we should be doing is focusing on the deadly serious challenge we face in Iraq.”

But the other day in Independence, Missouri, when he came out as a patriot, he bemoaned the fact that “a general providing his best counsel on how to move forward in Iraq was accused of betrayal.”

“That was then,” says Kim Strassel in Wall St. Journal’s Political Diary

 — back when Mr. Obama was apparently eager not to ruffle the Netroots activists. This is now — with the MoveOn.org endorsement firmly in hand, Mr. Obama evidently feels free to pander in the opposite direction. Mr. Obama is certainly serving up the audacity of something, but I wouldn’t call it hope.

He’s got brass.  But as for balls, can you imagine him confronting an international enemy with something he believes in that goes against the polls?  This will be the Obama security problem — not the leftist friends who can’t count on him but his firm determination to do anything that preserves popularity.

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Food, glorious — sardines!

I am in close daily contact with someone who has my best interests at heart but can’t abide sardines for reasons connected with the disease “food prejudice.”  I am recommending this item to that person:

Dr. Bowden [author of The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth] calls [sardines] “health food in a can.’’ They are high in omega-3’s, contain virtually no mercury and are loaded with calcium. They also contain iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper and manganese as well as a full complement of B vitamins.

He suggests what packed in — olive or sardine oil — and how to eat them — “plain, mixed with salad, on toast, or mashed with dijon mustard and onions as a spread.”

I like them — no, make that love them — plain, thank you.

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On tee-vee tonight, life at the polls

NY Times review of “Election Day,” produced by #3 Daughter Maggie, opens with the Chicago story:

All that slick, heavily financed campaigning at the top of the ticket in a presidential election year makes it easy to forget that the whole democratic system sinks or swims on mundane things like this: “E, F, G, J, H.”

That is the alphabetic sequence that Jim Fuchs, a Republican committeeman in Chicago, reads off with dismay as he examines a polling-place something-or-other on Nov. 2, 2004, in “Election Day,” a ground-level look at the Bush-Kerry election on Tuesday on PBS’s “P.O.V.” series. It’s not quite clear what he’s looking at, but it is clear that it has been incorrectly assembled, possibly confusing voters; Mr. Fuchs quickly has it replaced.

Mr. Fuchs, who spent the day keeping an eye out for irregularities in Democratic Chicago, is one of an assortment of people the film follows from the predawn hours until the polls close on the day of the election. The documentary’s director, Katy Chevigny, set videographers loose all over the country that day, and the resulting vignettes are full of glitches, some less innocent than others: long lines, lost voter registrations, shortages of ballots, general confusion and understaffing.

Fuchs is a great subject.  His and the film’s cinematic marriage was made in heaven. 

The NYT man continues.  A disapproving note:

The film isn’t as dispassionate as it strives to be; its choices of focus include an Indian reservation and a group concerned with voting rights for ex-convicts, and several times it lets its subjects indulge in aimless complaining about the economy that seems off-topic.

But see the Chicago and Cincinnati stories and the heart-touching closer that leaves audiences cheered, even cheering.

An concluding, approving note from NYT:

But the overall collage is interesting, and a bit disheartening. Four years after the ballot mess in 2000, there were still far too many ways for the simple act of voting to go awry.

Disheartening if you dwell overly long on the personal, sad parts, but cheering at the end, as I say above.

It’s on most PBS stations tonight — check local listings.

Directed by Katy Chevigny; Maggie Bowman [cheers!] and Dallas Brennan Rexer, producers; Penelope Falk, editor. Co-produced by P.O.V. and Independent Television Service.

And: WTTW-Channel 11 is the Chicago station, set for 10 Chi time.  But look also at Chicago Tonight, same channel, 7 to 8, for appearance of Maggie Bowman to discuss the film, barring breaking news that edges her off the air.

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Imus, Gen. Clark, & the Rome-bound St. Louisian

Start with this from Steve Rhodes:

North By Northwest
“I challenged people’s sensitivities and the way they think,” Mike North [newly fired smashmouth sports radio commentator] told Rob Feder [Sun-Times media reporter] last week.

I thought that was Don Imus’s job.

Then from an Investor’s Business Daily editorial about “the Sunday performance of Gen. Wesley Clark, an Obama adviser and possible VP pick” talking to CBS’ “normally unflappable” Bob Schieffer:

Obama talks about change and hope and masquerades as the anti-politician. But as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright noted after Obama disowned his pastor of two decades, Obama will do and say the things a politician has to do and say to win.

Clark dismissed McCain as military leader, not having “been there and ordered the bombs to fall” but merely “riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down.”

When a visibly shocked Shieffer asked what Obama’s command credentials were, Clark said Obama was running on the strength of his character and judgment. Oh. Considering that Clark was probably given the green light for his ad hominem attack, both are open to question.

Finally from AP:

Canon lawyer Raymond Burke, well known for urging denial of communion to pro-choice pols as archbishop of St. Louis, has been sent (not kicked) upstairs as newly appointed Vatican supreme court judge. 

Tom Reese SJ, ex-editor of America, sees the appointment as demonstrating high papal regard for Americans, who have been largely frozen out of churchwide governing positions.

Burke named presidential candidate John Kerry as not eligible for communion during the 2004 campaign.  This may become the churchwide norm, speculates Reese.

Burke’s new job makes him an adjudicator of marriage annulments among other things.  The word in Rome has been that American bishops give too many annulments.  But this American is a bet for stricter church practice in the future.

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Trouble in Dem city?

Bill Clinton is steamed:

A senior Democrat who worked for Mr Clinton has revealed that he recently told friends Mr Obama could “kiss my ass” in return for his support.

What’s more, he’s not betting on O.:

A second source said that the former president has kept his distance because he still does not believe Mr Obama can win the election.

On the other hand, O. got “effusive,” said UK Telegraph:

“I know how much we need both Bill and Hillary Clinton as a party. They have done so much great work. We need them badly.”

So what?

The Democrat told the Telegraph: “He’s been angry for a while. But everyone thought he would get over it. He hasn’t. I’ve spoken to a couple of people who he’s been in contact with and he is mad as hell.

“He’s saying he’s not going to reach out, that Obama has to come to him. One person told me that Bill said Obama would have to quote kiss my ass close quote, if he wants his support.

“You can’t talk like that about Obama – he’s the nominee of your party, not some house boy you can order around. . . .

Ouch.

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This explains everything

The whole tone of this e-blast to potential contributers is one of dreadful, overweening pride and arrogance:

Dear Jim —

On Monday, everyone will be watching our fundraising totals to see if we can compete with the McCain campaign.

This month is the first test of our grassroots fundraising strategy since we declared our independence from the broken campaign finance system.

You can help build our organization and show that a movement of ordinary people giving only what they can afford is changing the way presidential campaigns are funded.

Now is the perfect time to step up and own a piece of this campaign. And if you make your first donation right now, you’ll receive a special gift.

Make a donation of $15 or more by midnight on Monday, June 30th, and show off your support with an Obama logo car magnet:

etc.

Note the “broken campaign finance system” — the trumped-up talking point that justifies his not honoring his pledge of only months ago.  When did it break?  Since then?  No?  Then at what point in that last few months did O. and his people decide it was broken?

Note the ridiculous, mendacious “to see if we can compete with the McCain campaign,” after he broke his pledge only when it became clear he was swamping McCain with money.

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Catholic si, Roman no

The Pius X society has said no:

The leader of a breakaway traditionalist Catholic group has rejected a Vatican offer to rejoin Rome, accusing Pope Benedict of trying to silence dissenting voices.

Bishop Bernard Fellay, head of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) that broke with Rome 20 years ago, said conditions set by the Vatican amounted to muzzling the traditionalists who claim to be the only true Catholics since Church reforms in the 1960s.

Fellay, at the SSPX seminary in Winona, Minn., said. “They just say ‘shut up’ … we are not going … to shut up.”

That’s it, according to the Milan daily Il Giornale‘s well-informed Vatican expert Andrea Tornielli, who wrote, “Such favorable conditions for a return to full communion will in all probability not come again.”

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Obama v. Kerry: it’s O. hands-down on CHANGE (of mind)

We have seen John Kerry, Mr. Obama, and you’re no John Kerry.

We used to call John Kerry a flip-flopper for his enbarrassing quote on his opposition to Iraq war funding. Obama has now changed position on almost every key position in this election, and exposed himself as incompetent as a Constitutional law analyst as well. Democratic superdelegates may want to rethink their position on this nomination before Obama changes his party registration, too.

Yes, Chi Trib, there is an “inartful” way of saying what I say now, that the D.C. gun law is unconstitutional, and it’s what you heard my campaign say last November.

It’s not his fault! 

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