James Patrick Baen, 1943-2006

I saw this obituary for James Baen on The American Spectator website and decided to post the entire text:

Some who play a part in changing the world are hardly recognized. Jim Baen, who has died following a stroke at the age of 62, science-fiction editor and founder of the U.S. science-fiction publisher Baen Books, was one such.

His role as a cultural warrior was a proud one. He contributed very significantly, below the radar of sociological and cultural commentators, to the strengthening of Western culture.

He also did something not many cultural warriors, and not many publishers, can claim: he may have contributed directly and significantly to the West winning the Cold War.

Not bad for an ex-hippie who left home at 17, lived on the streets for several months and finally enlisted in the U.S. Army to avoid starving.

SF author David Drake said that the two books Jim Baen most remembered as formative influences were Fire-Hunter, by Jim Kjelgaard, and Against the Fall of Night, by Arthur C. Clarke: "The theme of both short novels is that of a youth from a decaying culture who escapes the trap of accepted wisdom and saves his people despite themselves. This is a fair description of Jim Baen's life."

After the Army (where he spent some time in Bavaria intercepting Soviet radio signals) he became a hippie managing a coffee shop in Greenwich Village.

He entered publishing as an assistant in the Complaints Department of Ace books, the beginning of what was to be a lifetime career in science-fiction publishing. Baen books was founded in 1983. Military SF author David Drake wrote:

"He never stopped developing new writers. The week before he died, Jim bought a first novel from a writer whom Baen Books had been grooming through short stories over the past year."

BAEN BOOKS OFFERED AN ANTIDOTE to leftism generally in science fiction. It helped rescue science-fiction publishing from the leftist, nihilistic "New Wave" science fiction that had arisen in the 1960s and was concerned, in parallel with postmodernism and deconstructionism in other literature and art, with denigrating Western traditions and values. The "New Wave" was never really popular (New Worlds, the major New Wave magazine in Britain, was bailed out by public money after the buyers and readers stayed away in droves), but it might well have had the purely negative achievement of driving traditional science-fiction writers out of publishing. Baen Books gave -- and still gives -- a voice to stories of traditional Western values like honor, patriotism, chivalry, duty and military valor.

It was probably Jim Baen, more than any other, who rescued the "military science-fiction novel," carrying on into the future and to other worlds the highly honorable tradition associated with the likes of Hornblower and C. S. Forester, and offering a voice against the anti-Western adversary culture so common in modern literature. In its way, and without beating up any obvious political message, Baen Books has played its part in the Culture War, on the right side.

Baen Books also gave me my own break into professional science-fiction writing. Multiple award-winner Larry Niven, working with Baen, looked to expand his "Known Space" stories ("Ringworld," "The Ringworld Engineers," etc.) with stories of the wars, referred to off-stage in his books, between the peaceful humans of several centuries hence, and the alien, tigerish Kzin. Larry Niven felt he could not write about the wars close-up, and it was decided to open the series to other writers.

Several SF Greats such as Steve Stirling, Dean Ing, Donald Kingsbury and the late Poul Anderson contributed. I also, with some temerity, and a complete unknown, sent Larry Niven a story (he remained editor of the series).

My story was accepted and so far ten more stories totaling 400,000 words have followed. Baen Books's dealings with me have always been prompt, courteous and professional. Also compassionate. I once asked Jim if I could have an advance on a story: he sent me twice the amount I asked for.

The distinguished science-fiction and fantasy artist and illustrator Stephen Hickman told me: "It was Jim Baen who lent me $15,000 towards buying our new home when we moved out of the awful Washington, D.C. Metro area, and further helped secure the home loan by guaranteeing a certain amount of work to me in writing -- I ask you to try and imagine any other publisher in the lenticular galaxy doing to same ...

"And I remember being surprised and very touched at finding that I was by no means alone in being so indebted to this man for his support and friendship."

Many authors have paid tribute to his generosity. Also among Baen Books's charities were large donations of books to U.S. servicemen overseas and in the Navy.

But before that, Jim Baen, Larry Niven and others had been responsible for something else.

In November, 1980, with President Reagan in the White House, a group of science-fiction writers including Poul Anderson, Greg Bear and Robert Heinlein (they coincide to some extent with the Man-Kzin writers), astronauts including Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad and Philip K. Chapman, space scientists and engineers, aerospace industry executives, computer scientists, military officers and others, met, initially at Larry Niven's California house, hosted by his wife Marilyn, to form the Citizen's Advisory Council on National Space Policy. Jim Baen was a major formative influence on the council.

It was to be, in terms of its effect and outcomes, one of the most extraordinary private initiatives of modern times. The caliber of some of the members meant that, with the coming of the Reagan Administration, it had direct input into government at the highest level.

The Council held regular meetings and reported to the National Security Advisor until 1988, after which there was electronic conferencing. Jim Baen attended all meetings from the council's inception and was an important part of the council and its work and direction.

A POSITION PAPER BY THE COUNCIL was instrumental in convincing President Reagan that it was technically feasible to intercept ballistic missiles in flight. With General Daniel O. Graham's High Frontier organization it prepared much of the Strategic Defense Initiative materials that led to President Reagan's speech announcing the development of the SDI as policy in March, 1983.

Leftish science-fiction writer Norman Spinrad, not invited to the council meetings, later claimed the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy was a sort of Trojan Horse devised to get the U.S. government to spend more money on space. Dr. Jerry Pournelle, a major member of the council, replied roundly:

"Although the Council wrote parts of Reagan's 1983 SDI speech, and provided much of the background for the policy, we certainly did not write the speech. Mr. Reagan was a better speechwriter than any of those working for him. By far.

"Norman's open and publicly expressed dislike of Reagan was certainly reason enough not to invite him to a meeting of a group that was first called into existence to write the Space and high-tech Defense portions of the transition team papers...many of those at the Council meeting had not voted for Reagan (some Democrats, some Libertarians) but all of them had sufficient respect for him to be able to work with the group...

"We were not trying to boost space, we were trying to win the Cold War, and we were all agreed that the West ought to win the Cold War. NASA exists now primarily to pay the NASA bureaucracy and keep it busy ($100 billion for a couple of cans they call a space station that won't do what SKYLAB did a long time ago?). Giving NASA more money would not have build a space program.

"But then we always thought winning the Seventy Years War was a good idea ..."

Many presidents would not have had the genius and imagination Reagan showed in accepting so utterly crucial and radical a policy from such outre sources, but as a result, and in the face of all manner of criticism and attack from every left-wing pressure-group including the World Council of Churches, the Strategic Defense Initiative was born.

The Soviet Union tried to match SDI and couldn't, either technically or economically. Gorbachev recognized there was no way out. That was the beginning of the end of the Cold War. It would be simplistic to claim too much. When the end actually came it had many causes, and was due to many people. But the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy with its science-fiction writers and publishers as well as others played its part and more. It was a story worthy of a science-fiction plot itself, but real, and Jim Baen was there on St. Crispin's Day.

Hal G. P. Colebatch, a lawyer and author, has lectured in International Law and International Relations at Notre Dame University and Edith Cowan University in Western Australia and worked on the staff of two Australian Federal Ministers.

Jim Baen was a class act from the get-go. His publishing company put out some of the best Sci-Fi novels on the market today. I am endlessly amused at the authors who carp about how Baen doesn't publish "real" science fiction. If the Honor Harrington series by James Weber or the Counsel War series by John Ringo aren't "real" science fiction then I and many many thousands of others aren't "real" science fiction fans.

It is a very sad thing to hear of Mr. Baen being cut down so young. It is my fondest wish that those who take the helm at Baen Books continue his legacy of publishing damn good stories that are damn fun to read.

A very short story

The screener eyed the approaching couple with growing interest. Not because they seemed suspicious, but because the woman was so stunning. Long jet black hair cascading past a perfect olive-skinned face and the faintly oriental eyes bequeathed by Mongol conquerors to so many Middle Easterners. A slim waist, shapely hips and a truly impressive pair of breasts completed the picture of his dream woman. Well at least tonight’s dream woman.

The bloke she was with wasn’t bad either, if you were the type to notice other men. Hair and complexion to match the lady’s with a neatly trimmed beard. His clothing was expensive, as was hers. The man’s platinum Rolex would have set him back a year’s pay and if those sparklers around the woman’s neck were real you could add the next couple of years’ to it as well. Even the man’s eyeglasses had an expensive look about them.

“Sir, I’ll need you to empty your pockets and ma’am I’ll need to see your bag, and I’ll need both of your passports and boarding passes”, he said as they stepped up to his screening station. The man had nothing in his pockets but his wallet, real alligator, and his passport and boarding pass. Their documents showed their names to be Andrés and Fatimah Siddig. The screener had pegged them for Saudis but their passports were American, from Atlanta.

As he looked through the Mrs. Siddig’s bag he found a zippered leather case bearing the logo of one of the most expensive hotels in London. He opened it and found a woman’s manicure kit complete with scissors and metal nail files. “Ma’am I’m afraid this can’t go on the plane. You may have heard that we’re on a higher state of alert; today being September eleventh and all.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry” the woman said. Her voice was just as amazing as the rest of her. The image that came to the screener’s mind was of liquid silver. “I bought it at the hotel shop and didn’t think to leave it at the hotel for the maid. You keep it and give it to your wife”.

“I’m sorry. We’re not allowed to keep things like this. It’ll have to be tossed.” He gestured to the wire basket in which items like that were to be placed. She nodded and he tossed it in, intending to retrieve it later and give it to his wife. He next drew out a paperback book, a current best seller, and another zippered leather case. This one was made of a much finer grade of leather than the other and had a gold monogram adorning it. He opened it and found a blood glucose meter, ampoules of insulin and syringes.

“It’s mine.” The man said, speaking for the first time. “My wife carries it for me. If you look in the pocket there you’ll find the doctor’s paperwork.”

The screener checked and confirmed that the man was carrying the correct paperwork to testify that he was and insulin dependant diabetic and that his kit was legally prescribed by a physician. Even then he made the man prick his finger and demonstrate that the glucose meter was for real.

The man spoke as he was waiting for the meter to give its result. “I’ve also just had a pacemaker put in. The metal detector isn’t supposed to interfere with it, but it will likely set the thing off so you might want to just wand me.”

The screener nodded his understanding to the man and finished inspecting the woman’s bag. He found nothing but her wallet containing her driver’s license and credit cards and a travel box of tampons. He motioned her through the metal detector and watched as the lights told him that she didn’t have enough metal on her body to constitute a weapon. He handed her belongings to her and took his wand from its holster to process her husband.

The husband passed as well, after opening his shirt to show the still recent looking surgical scar where his pacemaker was implanted. Retrieving his belongings he took his wife’s hand and they proceeded to the jet way to board their flight. The last thought the screener had of them was that money, looks and a hot wife weren’t everything. Diabetes and a bum heart were heavy loads to carry around. His wife wasn’t much to look at and his job sucked, but at least he had his health.

On the plane, a Continental 787 Dreamliner, a steward helped them find their first class seats and settle in. The flight, number 701 from London to Atlanta, took off on time, 9:15 PM local time. Since it was a late flight the meal was served as soon as they had reached their cruising altitude over the North Atlantic. The stewardess served them chicken Kiev and white wine. She later brought them complementary glasses of champagne. They watched the in-flight movie, a romantic comedy of the type that Americans call a “date movie” and then assumed a pose of relaxation. The stewardess noticed that they seemed to constantly hold hands.

Four hours later, after 1:00 AM to the biological clocks of Flight 701’s passengers, the man and woman, whose passports identified them as Andrés and Fatimah Siddig, arose and made their way to the lavatories at the end of the cabin. Looking around furtively they slipped into the same washroom. A businessman, bleary after three bourbons, turned at the sound of movement and caught Mr. Siddig’s eye. Mr. Siddig, whose real name was Mohammed Bouyeri, smiled and winked at the businessman and shut and locked the lavatory door.

“Mile High Club,” the businessman muttered as he adjusted his pillow and settled back to let the liquor carry him off to sleep.

Inside the cramped compartment “Mrs. Siddig”, whose real name was Wafa Bouyeri, sat on the toilet and opened her purse. She drew out the leather case containing the diabetic supplies and an airsickness bag which she had placed there shortly after boarding. As her husband filled one of the syringes she unbuttoned her expensive silk blouse and unhooked her brassiere. Her bare breasts still showed signs of the surgery which had transformed them from B cup to D size.

Mohammed took off his eyeglasses and popped one of the lenses out of the expensive gold frame. He gripped the piece of glass in both hands and applied pressure. It easily snapped in two along the bifocal dividing line giving him two cutting edges each as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel.

Looking his beloved wife in the eye he told her, “My dearest love. You know that you will feel no pain and we will be apart only for a little while. Wait for me at the gates of Paradise.”

“I will wait for you my only love.” She responded as she tightened her narrow leather belt around her arm, causing a vein to rise.

Mohammed picked up the syringe and injected his wife with pure heroin. A look of bliss spread across her face then she briefly convulsed and was dead. Mohammed did not know if anyone had heard the little noise that his wife had made as she died, but he felt the need to hurry, both to ensure that his mission would not be interrupted and because he wanted to join her as soon as possible.

Picking up one of his glass “knives” he made an incision on his wife’s left breast which exposed the implant. He carefully drew the bag of fluid out and placed it in the sink. He repeated the process on the right breast, a procedure that he had practiced three times on dead bodies, and placed the other implant in the sink. He then washed the blood from his hands and the implants.

Carefully making a slit in one of the implants he squeezed the fluid out of it into the airsickness bag. The contents of the other implant soon joined it. A chemical odor filled the small lavatory.

Next the man removed his shirt and took the other ampoule out of the leather case and filled another syringe from it. He injected the local anesthetic into his chest near the scar left from his “pacemaker” surgery. He did this not because he feared pain, but because what he had to do was so very important that he could not afford unsteady hands.

Taking his “knife” he slit his flesh along the scar, wincing a bit because the anesthetic hadn’t had time to take full effect, and pulled the modified pacemaker out. Taking the end of his eyeglass’s earpiece he inserted it into a slot on the pacemaker and twisted. If everything worked as it was supposed to the device was now armed.

Uncoiling the wires attached to the little electronic unit he placed them into the bag of liquid explosive. Using his glasses again he activated another control on the heavily modified device causing it’s built in defibrillator to discharge. The loop of wire submerged in the volatile mixture heated to white hot detonating the liquid bomb.

His last thought, before death was of his and Wafa’s 10 year old son, which they had deposited with relatives in Gaza after receiving the promise that he would be raised to become a suicide bomber.

The wreckage of the plane plunged into the marshland of Eastern North Carolina not far from the mouth of the Cape Fear River.

This action was repeated nine other times that morning on airliners flying into or over the United States of America. All of the planes blew up within 15 minutes of each other. On an eleventh plane, bound from Rome to New York, the bombers were stopped by a vigilant flight attendant backed up by two United States Marines who were flying home on leave.

At noon, Eastern Standard Time, a package was delivered to the Al-Jezzra office in Dubai. The package contained 11 “martyrdom tapes” made by the bombers and one tape by Osama bin Laden claiming responsibility.

The "Next Reagan"?

Bruce Walker has a piece up on American Thinker about who he thinks the GOP should choose as its nominee in 2012.

If Republicans could, surely they would nominate Ronald Reagan for president in 2012. As it appears increasingly likely that Republicans -- conservative Republicans -- will control Congress after the 2012 elections, the only missing element in the political equation is a strong, conservative president like Ronald Reagan. In the mix of possible candidates for 2012, there are some potentially promising people.

Sarah Palin, rightly beloved by nearly all conservatives for her honesty, her advocacy, and her spunk, will figure into any list of candidates. Mitt Romney, who decently withdrew from the race before he lost in 2008, ought to be on the short list as well. Mike Huckabee will be some conservatives' favorite as well. Tim Pawlenty has decided that America really needs him to be president, and other Republicans will too.

Already we see that Mr. Walker isn't up on the current situation. Romney just took himself out of the running by endorsing John McCain against J.D. Hayworth (Palin had no choice in this and Republican voters are smart enough to understand that).

Huckabee was removed from serious consideration late last year when another of the violent felons whose prison sentence Huckabee commuted while governor of Arkansas murdered police officers in California. The incident reminded the electorate once again of how profligate Huckabee was in granting clemency, pardons and commutations to men who should never under any circumstances been allowed out of prison. Huckabee did this more than all the governors of the states surrounding Arkansas combined and the murdered cops in CA are not the only innocent people to pay the ultimate price for Huckabee's insane desire to empty the prisons of societies most dangerous and violent bottom-feeders.

As for Tim Pawlenty remember when there was all that press speculation about McCain choosing Pawlenty as his running mate back in 2008? Remember how the consensus opinion in the GOP was that if McCain picked another RINO like himself it would doom what little chance he might have of winning? Pawlenty is still the same man now that he was then and if McCain's humiliating defeat to a know-nothing, done-nothing empty suit like B. Hussein Obama as well as the recent conservative ascendancy seen in everything from the Tea Party movement to the GOP's seizure of the "Ted Kennedy" seat in the Senate teaches us nothing else it is that the "era of McCain" is over (if it ever "was" in the first place)

With deepest respect for Sarah, none of these candidates is another Reagan. Many people have decided that we simply will not find another Reagan for a long time. I think otherwise. During the 2008 nomination season, I wrote several articles proposing a Republican not yet in the race as the Next Reagan. The stars were not aligned right then for him, but all that may be different in 2012. What do we want in our Next Reagan?

First, we want someone whose conservatism is beyond question -- someone who campaigned hard for Doug Hoffman, for example, even while the RNC was supporting the RINO. Second, we want someone of absolute integrity -- someone who is willing to stand all alone if he thinks he is right. Third, we want someone who does not "need" politics -- someone who was a great success in life before entering politics. Fourth, we want someone disassociated from the failures of Obama and also of Bush -- someone who grasped America's disgust with Washington long before the Beltway insiders. Fifth, we want a "grownup" -- someone who is in every sense of the word mature, sober, and serious. Sixth, we want a great communicator -- someone, like Reagan, who works well in every medium of communication. Seventh, we want someone who is universally perceived as a good man -- just like Reagan. One Republican in 2008 met all those criteria, and in 2012, he stands out at least as clearly as anyone as our Next Reagan: Fred Thompson.

First of all everything he says about Mr. Thompson is true, but with the exception of the masculine gender pronouns (he, him, man) it is also true of Mrs. Palin.

Some might quibble about whether Mrs. Palin was a "great success" in life before she entered politics but I challenge anyone to read her autobiography and not be impressed with her life prior to her entrance into politics.

(1) When conservatives began to despair of any true conservative in 2008, gradually, many began deducing that Thompson was the only one who fit the bill. Across the board, in a very thoughtful way, Fred Thompson represents conservative values. When Doug Hoffman ran for Congress, Thompson went to upstate New York to help.

What Mr. Walker says about the way conservative voters felt in 2008 is true. I was there after all. Anyone who was a reader of this blog back then knows how enthusiastically I supported Fred Thompson. And it is also true that Fred followed Sarah Palin's led and supported Doug Hoffman.

(2) No one questions Thompson's integrity. His career was founded on a willingness to fearlessly confront corruption in Tennessee. As a young Republican Senate staffer, Thompson boldly opposed the crimes of Nixon. And as pundits have noted, there are many Senate votes of 99 to 1 in which Fred was that single "no."

It is true that Mr. Thompson was first brought to the public's attention as a young attorney in Tennessee when he brought down a corrupt Democrat governor and that he played a part in the Watergate affair. His voting record in the Senate is very very good. If fact the only problem any conservative might have with it would be those few occasions when he allowed himself to be persuaded by his "good friend" John McCain.

Of course Sarah Palin also built her career on fighting corruption and in her case she had the courage and integrity to take on corruption within her own party.

And this brings us back to that "integrity thing". You see as much as I admire Fred Thompson we do have to admit that there is a stain upon his integrity. You see we found out after the fact that when Fred was holding himself out as a candidate for the presidency he was never serious about it. He was actually angling for an invitation to be someone's vice presidential pick. When he began doing well in the polls he had to make some attempt to seriously campaign but it was clear that his heart was never in it. That fact was never more clearly revealed than in the fact that his single best performance of the campaign was the speech in which he withdrew from the race. And to cap it off his performance on the campaign trail was so lackluster that he would up taking himself out of the running as anyone's VP choice.

(3) Thompson, a star of film and television and a retired senator, does not "need" political power. He is famous, rich, and popular without it. He has a beautiful, loving wife and delightful children. His only reason for seeking the presidency would be his love of America.

Again, everything said about Mr. Thompson here is also and equally true about Governor Palin. Her book sales have made her wealthy and she is able to command large speaking fees. Her online presence and contract with Fox News give her a forum for her views and she has more requests from political candidates who want her to campaign for them than she can possibly assent to. Her family is close and loving and offers her as much joy and fulfillment as Mr. Thompson's could possible offer him. Sarah Palin believes that political power and high office are not things that one seeks out of ambition but are duties that one is called to fulfill.

(4) Thompson gave up his Senate seat soon after Bush began as president. He has not held elective office since 2002. He left Washington in disgust for its machinations, Republican as well as Democrat.

Sarah Palin did not leave Juneau because of her disgust with "its machinations, Republican as wall as Democrat". She rolled up her sleeves and cleaned up the corruption. She left office only after accomplishing everything she had set out to do.

(5) Thompson, like Reagan, is not young. He would be just about as old on inauguration day in 2013 as Reagan when he was sworn into office. Thompson, like Reagan, grew up poor in a small town and worked many jobs and lived in the real world. Thompson is learned in the best sense of the word: He knows exactly why be believes what he believes, but he is also an excellent listener. He is a grownup.

Compare Sarah Palin's upbringing in rural Alaska, where if you didn't hunt you didn't eat, to Mr. Thompson's. Look at some of the jobs she has held. Waitress, journalist - both print and television, commercial fisherman (a business that she and her husband continue to own and operate).

Now compare Mr. Thompson's appearance today to Ronald Reagan's appearance in 1980. Ronald Reagan was an elderly man but he looked vigorous and healthy. The lines on Reagan's face made him look distinguished and wise. Fred Thompson on the other hand simply looks old, even decrepit. It isn't fair. It isn't right. But it is true that in the television age appearance matters to a very great degree. It is true that by 2012 the public might be angry enough at Obama to vote for a man who has aged poorly and looks much older than his actual years, but why take the chance on someone who has already proven himself to be a poor candidate?

(6) Thompson is not only a star of film and television, but Paul Harvey chose Thompson to stand in on his radio show -- a great compliment to Thompson's voice. He has spent decades in all areas of communication and mastered them well.

True, but none of that did him any good in the 2008 primaries. Think about it people. Fred Thompson couldn't even beat JOHN MCCAIN in an election in which most of the people voting were conservative Republicans! That has got to tell you something! In fact let's make it a rule. If you couldn't even beat JOHN MCCAIN is a Republican primary then you shouldn't be allowed to enter ever again.

(7) No one, including his ex-wife, has a bad word to say about Thompson. The left can criticize him only as being "too old, too conservative, and too dumb." This, recall, is precisely what they said about Reagan.

Again, how is this different from Sarah? The left says that she is stupid. The left called Reagan an "amiable dunce". They said that Reagan was a dangerous extremest who would start WWIII with the Soviet Union. They say that Sarah is a warmonger who can't wait to nuke Iran.

If you go back to the beginning of Mr. Walker's essay he says that Romney, Pawlenty, Palin and Huckabee are not the "next Reagan" but that Fred Thompson is. Read Mr. Walker's entire piece over at AT without my comments and then answer this.

In what way does Mr. Walker think that Reagan and Thompson are similar?

They are both men, Republicans, both were once actors, both grew up poor in small towns and both are honest men.

What does Mr. Walker have to say about policy?

Basically nothing. In Mr. Walkers view to be the "next Reagan" one must only have a superficial surface resemblance to Reagan. You have to have grown up in a small town, been an actor and be an old man.

Now I don't think that Mr. Walker is indifferent to policy and I don't think that he is overly concerned with a candidate's personal story. It's just that Mr. Walker loves Fred Thompson.

Mr. Walker is so in love with Fred Thompson that he is blind to both Mr. Thompson's deficiencies as a candidate and to Governor Palin's strengths. That blindness causes Mr. Walker to miss both how much Sarah Palin's personal story tracks with Ronald Reagan's and, for that matter with Fred Thompson's, and how poorly Mr. Thompson campaigned in 2008.

Does Mr. Walker really believe that four more years of age will make Fred Thompson a more attractive and energetic candidate in 2012?

Economy killing global warming bill to fail

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- An influential coalition of Fortune 500 companies and environmental groups that was formed to support climate-change legislation has splintered over the Lieberman-Warner bill that is headed next week to the Senate floor.

The U.S. Climate Action Partnership formed last year won't take a position on the bill, although nine of its members - including General Electric (GE, Fortune 500), Alcoa (AA, Fortune 500) and four utility companies - signed a letter to senators backing the legislation.

The letter, also signed by big environmental groups and obtained by Fortune, says: "Prompt action on climate change is essential to protect America's economy, security, quality of life and natural environment."

But other members of the coalition known as U.S. Cap, most visibly Duke Energy (DUK, Fortune 500), a coal-burning utility, are strongly opposed. "It's going to translate into significant electricity price increases," says Jim Rogers, Duke's CEO.

Without widespread corporate support, passage of the bill - already a long shot at best - becomes even more unlikely this year. President Bush remains opposed. House Democrats have been slow to act.

Besides that, a backdrop of rising gasoline prices and the sluggish economy makes it difficult to win votes for a regulatory scheme that will raise the prices of electricity and gasoline. In fact, a key purpose of the bill is to put a price on the emissions of greenhouse gases, as a way to speed the transition to a clean-energy economy and slow down global warming.

With the Senate scheduled to begin debate Monday, lobbying and advertising around the bill are intensifying. (Here's a new TV commercial supporting the bill from Environmental Defense Fund, and a radio ad opposing the bill from the Club for Growth.) But even supporters concede that the debate will set the scene for action in 2009.

"This will put us in a position to have action next year," says David Doniger, director of the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a supporter of the bill. "We expect in the Senate that the 60-vote rule will be applied. That's a hard one to get over."

"It's a teachable moment," agreed Scott Segal, an advocate for coal-burning utilities that oppose Lieberman-Warner.

The Lieberman-Warner bill sets a cap on greenhouse gas emissions that would reduce them by 70% by 2050. Companies would need permits to emit pollutants that cause global warming. The government would allocate some permits to utilities and industrial companies, and auction others to generate revenues. The question of how to distribute permits and what to do with the money divides even supporters of greenhouse gas regulation.

As currently written, Lieberman-Warner might fall short of a 50-vote majority in the Senate, let alone the 60 votes required to close debate, insiders say. Presidential candidates (and Senators) Clinton, McCain and Obama all support climate-change legislation.

This is why I am not so terrified of an Obama administration as many of my conservative friends are. Congress is comprised of politicians who wish to be reelected. This need to take reelection into account is especially acute in the House of Representatives every member of which stands for election every two years.

House members are extremely reluctant to vote for legislation which will have a pronounced negative effect upon their constituents when those negative consequences will manifest in the short term. This is why Hillary Clinton's socialized medicine plan failed to gain even one vote when it was put before the House.

There are politicians out there who are stupid enough to be global warming true believers. John McCain and Joe Lieberman are two such idiots.

Interestingly enough Al Gore is apparently not a global warming true believer. Otherwise he would be willing to publicly debate the issue with a global warming skeptic. He consistently refuses to engage in such a debate and channels much of his energy into trying to convince the media to stop even acknowledging that there is an ongoing debate about the issue.

But that is a topic for another post so let us get back to the central issue. The next Congress will not hand the next president a blank check even if that president is Barack Hussein Obama. With a Democrat president and a Democrat congress the Democrat party will be extremely reluctant to see the enactment of any measure which will cause a near-term economic downturn.

They will also be extremely reluctant to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq, not when it becomes their war to win or lose.

Not that Obama and the congressional Democrats will suddenly start to act like conservatives. It is simply that they will have a strong incentive to govern in the Hubert Humphrey liberal tradition rather than in the left-wing moonbat Jimmy Carter tradition.

Of course congress will be very willing to do things with terrible results - as long as those terrible results will not manifest themselves in the near term. For example amnesty for the tens of millions of alien criminals who are infesting our nation. As long as they write the legislation so that the "path to citizenship" doesn't open up for 25 years most of the men and women who vote for it will either be retired or dead (FDR knew that Social Security would go bankrupt, but he also knew that he would be long dead when it happened).

The moral of the story is that we are going to have a hard four years ahead of us, but all is not lost. Everybody in Washington except for the few genuine conservatives who remain is at least pretending to be a global warming true believer but the global warming bill is going to go down in bright hot carbon-emitting flames. No politician is going to vote for something which will cause the price of gas to rise to $7.50 per gallon when the price rise is near term and undeniable.

Some congressmen will vote for the measure secure in the knowledge that it will fail. That way they can go back to the eco-Nazis and say "well, I tried", but that vote will only come with the certainty of failure.

Ben Stein hurts himself

In an essay on yesterday's American Spectator Ben Stein, who I usually like, embarrassed himself by getting all weepy and indignant at the treatment of accused rapist Dominique Strauss-Kahn .

1.) If he is such a womanizer and violent guy with women, why didn't he ever get charged until now? If he has a long history of sexual abuse, how can it have remained no more than gossip this long? France is a nation of vicious political rivalries. Why didn't his opponents get him years ago?

2.) In life, events tend to follow patterns. People who commit crimes tend to be criminals, for example. Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes? Can anyone tell me of any heads of nonprofit international economic entities who have ever been charged and convicted of violent sexual crimes? Is it likely that just by chance this hotel maid found the only one in this category? Maybe Mr. Strauss-Kahn is guilty but if so, he is one of a kind, and criminals are not usually one of a kind.

Since his arrest we have heard that this is not an isolated incident.  Some who know Mr. Strauss-Kahn have been worried that something like this might come to light for some time.

3.) The prosecutors say that Mr. Strauss-Kahn "forced" the complainant to have oral and other sex with him. How? Did he have a gun? Did he have a knife? He's a short fat old man. They were in a hotel with people passing by the room constantly, if it's anything like the many hotels I am in. How did he intimidate her in that situation? And if he was so intimidating, why did she immediately feel un-intimidated enough to alert the authorities as to her story?

I admit that I've never stayed in a $3000 per night hotel, but I have spent several nights in a hotel whose rooms are currently renting for over $700 per night and I heard no noise from any other room or the hallway or the street (until I opened the window to catch some of the noise from Bourbon St. one block over).

As for how Strauss-Kahn could overpower an hotel maid I guess that Mr. Stein doesn't realize that the typical working mother doesn't spend half her time in the gym like the young Hollywood actresses that he associates with back in Los Angeles.

And the part about her feeling "un-intimidated" enough to file charges is stupid enough not to require a response, but I'll give one anyway.  She was "un-intimidated" enough to talk to the police after the rape, when she was no longer in the presence of her rapist.  When his arms weren't wrapped around her, when his weight was no longer pressing down on her and when his penis was no longer being thrust into her.  By Mr. Stein's logic any woman who reports being raped must be lying because if she had really been raped she would always be so frightened of her attacker that she would never dare to come forward.

4.) Did the prosecutors really convince a judge that he was a flight risk when he was getting on a flight he had booked long beforehand? What kind of high-pressure escape plan is that? How is it a sudden flight move to get on a flight booked maybe months ago?

Can anyone say Roman Polanski?  From France it is a short flight, or drive, to a nation with no extradition treaty with the US where Strauss-Kahn could live out his life in luxury.

5.) Mr. Strauss-Kahn had surrendered his passport. He had offered to stay in New York City. He is one of the most recognizable people on the planet. Did he really have to be put in Riker's Island? Couldn't he have been given home detention with a guard? This is a man with a lifetime of public service, on a distinguished level, to put it mildly. Was Riker's Island really the place to put him on the allegations of one human being? Hadn't he earned slightly better treatment than that? Any why compare him with a certain pedophile from France long ago? That man had confessed to his crime. Mr. Strauss-Kahn has not confessed to anything.

One of the most recognizable people on the planet?  What world does Mr. Stein live on?  Quick, show of hands - who knew what this guy looked like before the news hit?  Nobody?

As for putting him in Riker's Island that is what NYPD does with people who have been accused of crimes like rape and who are not eligible for bail.  And he is not eligible for bail because he possesses the money and the contacts to escape the country with or without a passport.

And if Mr. Stein thinks that working for an international organization which seeks to milk the American taxpayer in order to fund global socialism is a "lifetime of public service" I wonder why he is writing for a magazine like American Spectator rather than one like Mother Jones.

6.) People accuse other people of crimes all of the time. What do we know about the complainant besides that she is a hotel maid? I love and admire hotel maids. They have incredibly hard jobs and they do them uncomplainingly. I am sure she is a fine woman. On the other hand, I have had hotel maids that were complete lunatics, stealing airline tickets from me, stealing money from me, throwing away important papers, stealing medications from me. How do we know that this woman's word was good enough to put Mr. Strauss-Kahn straight into a horrific jail? Putting a man in Riker's is serious business. Maybe more than a few minutes of investigation is merited before it's done.

Mr. Stein is supposed to be a lawyer so I would hope that he would know that the police have a procedure that they follow when investigating an allegation of rape which involves a medical examanition of the victim.

And then we have his continuing obsession with Riker's Island.  What Stein seems to be saying is "Why would the police find the word of this insignificant peon so compelling that they would treat a wealthy and important global socialist in the same manner that they would treat any average American citizen in the same circumstances?".


Again I wonder why Stein is writing for American Spectator and not Daily Kos or the Huffington Post.

7.) In this country, we have the presumption of innocence for the accused. Yet there's my old pal from the Ron Ziegler/ Richard Nixon days, Diane Sawyer, anchor of the ABC Nightly News, assuming that Mr. Strauss-Kahn is guilty. Right off the bat she leads the Monday news by saying that Mr. Strauss-Kahn is in Riker's... "because one woman stood her ground..." That assumes she's telling the truth and he's guilty. No such thing has been proved and it's unfortunate for ABC to simply assume that an accusation is the same as a conviction. Maybe he's in jail because one person didn't tell the truth. I don't know one way or the other, but I sure know that there has been no conviction yet.

In this he does have a point regarding the media, we all remember the Duke Lacrosse players.  However as Harlan Ellison pointed out the presumption of innocence applies to a person's treatment in a court of law not the court of public opinion.  If Diane Sawyer stepped over the line and stated that Strauss-Kahn was guilty of rape and he is not convicted in a court of law he can sue her and ABC for liable.  Perhaps Mr. Stein would take the case.

I think that the business about Stein's "Nixon days" takes us to the heart of the issue with him.  Nixon, for those too young to remember, was more liberal than LBJ on domestic fiscal issues.  He is hated by the left because he exposed Ivy League darling Alger Hiss as a Soviet agent and got him sent to jail not because of anything he did while president (including Watergate). 

Stein's father was one of Nixon's economic advisors and Stein holds Nixon out as one of his major political heroes.  For someone like this instinctively coming to the defense of an international socialist like Strauss-Kahn would be a natural thing to do.

8.) In what possible way is the price of the hotel room relevant except in every way: this is a case about the hatred of the have-nots for the haves, and that's what it's all about. A man pays $3,000 a night for a hotel room? He's got to be guilty of something. Bring out the guillotine.

No, it is just pointing out the hypocrisy of another Lear jet liberal.  Here is a man who was once a member of the Communist Party, who left not because he disagreed with their goals but because he saw more opportunity to further his political career as a socialist, wallowing in those luxuries available only to the very wealthy.  $3000 hotel rooms (complete with maid "service" for me, but not for thee).  There is also the fact that as the head of an outfit that gets most of its funding from the United States most of that three grand per night might well have been ripped from working American's paychecks.

I don't know Mr. Strauss-Kahn. I have never laid eyes on him in person. He may well, in the future, be found guilty of atrocious conduct towards the complainant and maybe towards others. But, so far, he's innocent, and he's being treated shamefully. If he's found guilty, there will be plenty of time to criticize him and imprison him. But nothing has been proved yet except that the way this case has been handled so far is an embarrassment to this country.

Yes Mr. Stein Strauss-Kahn is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law but his treatment has not been "shameful".  He has been treated like any other person who has been credibly accused of a violent felony and who poses a serious flight risk.  What would have brought shame upon this nation is if a rich and connected man had been treated with the kid gloves that you wish had been employed in this case.

I've been hard on Ben Stein here so let me close with giving credit where credit is due and congratulate him on being able to get through an entire essay without once mentioning Ferris Bueller.

40 Years Ago Today

40th anniversary of Mary Jo Kopechne’s drowning at Chappaquiddick...Kennedy's story still doubtful

Sometime around midnight, on July 18, 1969 Kennedy drove his Oldsmobile 88 off of a small bridge on Chappaquiddick island, into eight feet of chilly water. The vehicle landed upside-down. While Kennedy managed to free himself from the wreck and swim to safety, his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne was left in the car to drown.

Once he reached shore, Kennedy claims to have made seven or eight attempts to rescue Kopechne, but could not free her.

Kennedy then walked back to the cottage where he and four other men, were partying with several young women known as the “Boiler Room Girls“ who had worked on Robert Kennedy‘s campaign. Though Kennedy passed by a fire station and a private home to return to the cottage, he never stopped to ask for help for the trapped Kopechne.

He returned to the party and according to Kennedy himself, informed his cousin and a friend of the situation. The two men, Joseph Gargan and Paul Markham claim to have returned to the scene of the accident and made several unsuccessful attempts to free Kopechne.

Then Kennedy’s story takes an even stranger turn.

After the failed rescue attempts, Kennedy claims to have jumped back into the water and made the 500-foot swim across the channel back to Edgartown. He then walked back to his hotel and spent the night. He even took the time to change clothes and pay a visit to the front-desk, to complain about a noisy party--no doubt Kennedy's sloppy attempt at securing an alibi.

The next morning, Gargan and Markham around 8:00 a.m., and were supposedly shocked to discover that Kennedy never reported the accident to police. According to Kennedy‘s own testimony, he told them: "about my own thoughts and feelings as I swam across that channel ... that somehow when they arrived in the morning that they were going to say that Mary Jo was still alive"

The two men along with Kennedy went back to Chappaquiddick, where Kennedy spent some time making phone calls, seeking advice from various individuals as to how to proceed.

Meanwhile, two fisherman had discovered the submerged car and notified police. At 8:45a.m. a diver recovered the lifeless body of Mary Jo Kopechne.

It was not until 10a.m., over nine hours after driving-off of the bridge that Ted Kennedy went to the police station in Edgarton to report the accident.

Kennedy then gave the following prepared statement to police: “On July 18, 1969, at approximately 11:15 p.m. in Chappaquiddick, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, I was driving my car on Main Street on my way to get the ferry back to Edgartown. I was unfamiliar with the road and turned right onto Dike Road, instead of bearing hard left on Main Street. After proceeding for approximately one-half mile on Dike Road I descended a hill and came upon a narrow bridge.

The car went off the side of the bridge. There was one passenger with me, one Miss Mary [Kopechne], a former secretary of my brother Sen. Robert Kennedy. The car turned over and sank into the water and landed with the roof resting on the bottom. I attempted to open the door and the window of the car but have no recollection of how I got out of the car. I came to the surface and then repeatedly dove down to the car in an attempt to see if the passenger was still in the car. I was unsuccessful in the attempt. I was exhausted and in a state of shock.

I recall walking back to where my friends were eating. There was a car parked in front of the cottage and I climbed into the backseat. I then asked for someone to bring me back to Edgartown. I remember walking around for a period and then going back to my hotel room. When I fully realized what had happened this morning, I immediately contacted the police”

In a move which must have been rather tortuous for her parents, Kennedy attended Mary Jo's funeral, wearing a neck brace (which he reportedly never wore again) and looking rather pathetic.

The diver who recovered Kopechne’s body, John Farrar testified at the official inquest that her body was found where the air pocket would have formed. He said: “Had I received a call within five to ten minutes of the accident occurring, and was able, as I was the following morning, to be at the victim's side within twenty-five minutes of receiving the call, in such event there is a strong possibility that she would have been alive on removal from the submerged car.”

A week after the incident, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a suspended two-month sentence. Kennedy then went on national television to repeat his rather implausible story, and to ask for the public’s “prayers.”

The ensuing scandal and questionable details given by all of those involved is now left to speculation. It was obvious to most people that Kennedy had allowed a young girl to drown, in a desperate and self-serving attempt to protect his political career.

The incident all but guaranteed that Kennedy could never be a serious candidate for President of the United States.

The Kennedy family is connected to organized crime through the patriarch Joe Kennedy, who made the family fortune bootlegging during Prohibition.

It is a practice in such circles to require someone to "make his bones" by committing a murder, a capital crime from which there can be go going back, in order to prove his loyalty and cement him firmly into the organization.

I strongly suspect that Ms. Kopechne was for some reason potentially dangerous or embarrassing to someone in the Kennedy family or to one of its criminal associates. Ted was required to make his bones by getting rid of the young woman.

Doing this forced him to abandon any realistic presidential aspirations but in return he was guaranteed a lifetime seat in the US Senate.

In this life Ted Kennedy's name and family wealth has protected him from any real consequences of his actions (other than never being president). He is now an old man who is dying from cancer and has but a short span upon this earth left to him.

He will very soon face One whose wheels of justice grind slow but grind exceedingly fine.

Things to be Thankful for Part 2: Ann Coulter

Here's a story that may not have been deemed "Fit to Print": In the six months that ended Sept. 25, The New York Times' daily circulation was down another 4.51 percent to about a million readers a day. The paper's Sunday circulation was down 7.59 percent to about 1.5 million readers. In short, the Times is dropping faster than Hillary in New Hampshire. (Meanwhile, the Drudge Report has more than 16 million readers every day.)

One can only hope that none of the Democratic presidential candidates are among the disaffected hordes lining up to cancel their Times subscriptions.

The Times is so accustomed to lying about the news to prove that "most Americans" agree with the Times, that it seems poised to lead the Democrats -- and any Republicans stupid enough to believe the Times -- down a primrose path to their own destruction.

So if you know a Democratic presidential candidate who doesn't currently read the Times, by all means order him a subscription.

On Sunday, Times readers learned that despite this year's historic revolt of normal Americans against amnesty for illegal aliens: "Some polls show that the majority of Americans agree with proposals backed by most Democrats in the Senate, as well as some Republicans, to establish a path to citizenship for immigrants here illegally."

Was the reporter who wrote that sentence the Darfur bureau chief for the past year? By "some polls," I gather he means "a show of hands during a meeting of the Times editorial board" or "a quick backstage survey in the MSNBC greenroom."

As I believe Americans made resoundingly clear this year, the only "path to citizenship" they favor involves making an application from Norway, waiting a few years and then coming over when it's legal.

Americans were so emphatic on this point that they forced a sitting president to withdraw his signature legislative accomplishment for his second term -- amnesty for illegal aliens, aka a "path to citizenship" for illegals.

This was the goal supported by the president's acolytes at the Fox News Channel as well as a nearly monolithic Democratic Party and its acolytes at ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, MTV, Oxygen TV, the Food Network, the Golf Channel, the Home Shopping Network, The in-house "Learn to Gamble" channel at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and Comedy Central (unless that was just a sketch on the "Mind of (Carlos) Mencia").

But ordinary Americans had a different idea. Their idea was: Let's not reward law-breakers with the ultimate prize: U.S. citizenship. And the ordinary Americans won.

The Times disregards all of that history to announce that it has secret polls showing that Americans support a "path to citizenship" for illegals after all! These polls are living in the shadows!

Only those "angriest on immigration," the Times said, are still using the various words related to immigration that liberals are trying to turn into new "N-words," such as, for example, "immigration." With an exhausting use of air quotes, the Times reports that: "The Republicans have railed against 'amnesty' and 'sanctuary cities.' They have promised to build a fence on the Mexican border to keep 'illegals' out."

In liberal-speak, that sentence would read: "The Republicans have railed against 'puppies' and 'kittens.' They have promised to build a fence on the Mexican border to keep 'baby seals' out." (In my version, the sentence would read: "Believing New York Times 'polls,' Democrats irritate 'voters.'")

Half the English language is becoming the "N-word" as far as liberals are concerned. Words are always bad for liberals. Words allow people to understand what liberals are saying.

According to the Times, all decent, cultured Americans cringe when politicians use foul words like "illegals" to describe illegals. Apparently, what most Americans are clamoring for is yet more automatic messages that begin, "Press '1' for English." That, at least, is the message the Times got from the stunning victory of grassroots over the elites on the immigration bill this year.

It is against my best interests to mention how utterly out of touch Times editors and reporters are with any Americans east of Central Park West and west of Riverside Drive. I enjoy watching the Democratic presidential candidates take clear, unequivocal positions in favor of driver's licenses for illegals and then denouncing those very positions a week later (after the real polls come in).

Some people love watching the trees change color every fall. I enjoy watching the candidates' positions on immigration change.

But it is too much for any human to endure to read the Times' version of history in which "most Americans" agree with the Times on illegal immigration in the very year Americans punched back against illegal immigration so hard that the entire Washington establishment is still reeling. It's not like we have to go back to the Coolidge administration to get some sense of what Americans think about amnesty for illegals. (I mean "amnesty" for "illegals.")

Using the Times' calculus, "most Americans" have also enthusiastically embraced soccer and the metric system.

Read The New York Times, Democrats. Make my day.

Cain survives

Robert Stacy McCain has an essay on The American Spectator website titled Campaign Crisis Tests Cain in which he speculates that the debate Wednesday night might have been a turning point for Mr. Cain.

When Wednesday's Republican presidential debate ended, CNBC switched to a post-debate panel featuring Larry Kudlow, who raved that Herman Cain had an "unbelievably good debate tonight" and said Cain's performance "blew me away."

The Atlanta businessman had help from a friendly audience at the debate, held at Michigan's Oakland University. When moderator Maria Bartiromo asked whether sexual harassment allegations against him raised "character issues," the crowd booed the question. And they loudly cheered Cain's answer: "The American people deserve better than someone being tried in the court of public opinion based on unfounded accusations." When Bartiromo's colleague John Harwood tried to get Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to address the accusations against Cain, the crowd again booed the question, and applauded when Romney refused to criticize Cain. People "can make their own assessment," Romney said, and that was the last time the topic was raised all night.

It is far too early to say that Cain has put the accusations behind him, but by the time Wednesday's debate ended, his successful performance had apparently changed the narrative of what seemed a potentially campaign-killing crisis just 48 hours earlier.

[. . .]

The boos and cheers from the audience at Wednesday's debate in Michigan seemed to indicate that Republicans are not ready to abandon Cain, and may be ready to rally behind him. Cain continues to lead the RealClearPolitics national poll average, as he has for the past three weeks. Sometimes the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, and any sense that Cain's campaign is in jeopardy was overshadowed during the debate by the blunder of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who found himself unable to name the third of three federal departments he proposed to eliminate. That prompted one top fundraiser to declare to a reporter that Perry's campaign is "over."

Ten days into the campaign crisis provoked by the accusations against him, Herman Cain is not yet out of the woods, but after Wednesday, he may be able to see sunshine breaking through the trees.

One thing I disagree with is that it is "far too early to say that Cain has put the accusations behind him".  I think that Mr. Cain has successfully moved past all the accusations that have been brought forward to this date.  The primary reason why I do not believe that the current imbroglio will damage Cain's standing before the GOP primary voters - or the national electorate next November, for that matter - is laid out in the afore mentioned Ann Coulter column:

Herman Cain has spent his life living and working all over the country -- Indiana, Georgia, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Washington, D.C. -- but never in Chicago. 

So it's curious that all the sexual harassment allegations against Cain emanate from Chicago: home of the Daley machine and Obama consigliere David Axelrod. 

Suspicions had already fallen on Sheila O'Grady, who is close with David Axelrod and went straight from being former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley's chief of staff to president of the Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA), as being the person who dug up Herman Cain's personnel records from the National Restaurant Association (NRA). 

The Daley-controlled IRA works hand-in-glove with the NRA. And strangely enough, Cain's short, three-year tenure at the NRA is evidently the only period in his decades-long career during which he's alleged to have been a sexual predator. 

After O'Grady's name surfaced in connection with the miraculous appearance of Cain's personnel files from the NRA, she issued a Clintonesque denial of any involvement in producing them -- by vigorously denying that she knew Cain when he was at the NRA. (Duh.) 

And now, after a week of conservative eye-rolling over unspecified, anonymous accusations against Cain, we've suddenly got very specific sexual assault allegations from an all-new accuser out of ... Chicago. 

Herman Cain has never lived in Chicago. But you know who has? David Axelrod! And guess who lived in Axelrod's very building? Right again: Cain's latest accuser, Sharon Bialek. 

Bialek's accusations were certainly specific. But they also demonstrated why anonymous accusations are worthless. 

Within 24 hours of Bialek's press conference, friends and acquaintances of hers stepped forward to say that she's a "gold-digger," that she was constantly in financial trouble -- having filed for personal bankruptcy twice -- and, of course, that she had lived in Axelrod's apartment building at 505 North Lake Shore Drive, where, she admits, she knew the man The New York Times calls Obama's "hired muscle." 

Throw in some federal tax evasion, and she's Obama's next Cabinet pick.  

The reason all this is relevant is that both Axelrod and Daley have a history of smearing political opponents by digging up claims of sexual misconduct against them. 

John Brooks, Chicago's former fire commissioner, filed a lawsuit against Daley six months ago claiming Daley threatened to smear him with sexual harassment accusations if Brooks didn't resign. He resigned -- and the sexual harassment allegations were later found to be completely false. 

Meanwhile, as extensively detailed in my book "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America," the only reason Obama became a U.S. senator -- allowing him to run for president -- is that David Axelrod pulled sealed divorce records out of a hat, first, against Obama's Democratic primary opponent, and then against Obama's Republican opponent. 

One month before the 2004 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, Obama was way down in the polls, about to lose to Blair Hull, a multimillionaire securities trader. 

But then The Chicago Tribune -- where Axelrod used to work -- began publishing claims that Hull's second ex-wife, Brenda Sexton, had sought an order of protection against him during their 1998 divorce proceedings.
  

From then until Election Day, Hull was embroiled in fighting the allegation that he was a "wife beater." He and his ex-wife eventually agreed to release their sealed divorce records. His first ex-wife, daughters and nanny defended him at a press conference, swearing he was never violent. During a Democratic debate, Hull was forced to explain that his wife kicked him and he had merely kicked her back. 

Hull's substantial lead just a month before the primary collapsed with the nonstop media attention to his divorce records. Obama sailed to the front of the pack and won the primary. Hull finished third with 10 percent of the vote. [Given that this happened in Chicago we also have to consider that the accusations and controversy served to shield the effects of massive voter fraud as well.  No one would think to question the numbers so the Democrat machine was free to stuff the ballot boxes as much as they wanted to - LC]

Luckily for Axelrod, Obama's opponent in the general election had also been divorced. 

The Republican nominee was Jack Ryan, a graduate of Dartmouth and Harvard law and business schools, who had left his lucrative partnership at Goldman Sachs to teach at an inner-city school on the South Side of Chicago. 

But in a child custody dispute some years earlier, Ryan's ex-wife, Hollywood sex kitten Jeri Lynn Ryan, had alleged that, while the couple was married, Jack had taken her to swingers clubs in Paris and New York. 

Jack Ryan adamantly denied the allegations. In the interest of protecting their son, he also requested that the records be put permanently under seal. 

Axelrod's courthouse moles obtained the "sealed" records and, in no time, they were in the hands of every political operative in Chicago. Knowing perfectly well what was in the records, Chicago Tribune attorneys flew to California and requested that the court officially "unseal" them -- over the objections of both Jack and Jeri Ryan. 

Your honor, who knows what could be in these records! 

A California judge ordered them unsealed, which allowed newspapers to publish the salacious allegations, and four days later, Ryan dropped out of the race under pressure from idiot Republicans (who should be tracked down and shot). 

With a last-minute replacement of Alan Keyes as Obama's Republican opponent, Obama was able to set an all-time record in an Illinois Senate election, winning with a 43 percent margin.

And that's how Obama became a senator four years after losing a congressional race to Bobby Rush. (In a disastrous turn of events, Rush was not divorced.) 

Axelrod destroyed the only two men who stood between Obama and the Senate with illicitly obtained, lurid allegations from their pasts. 

In 2007, long after Obama was safely ensconced in the U.S. Senate, The New York Times reported: "The Tribune reporter who wrote the original piece (on Hull's sealed divorce records) later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had 'worked aggressively behind the scenes' to push the story." 

Some had suggested, the Times article continued, that Axelrod had "an even more significant role -- that he leaked the initial story." 

This time, Obama's little helpers have not only thrown a bomb into the Republican primary, but are hoping to destroy the man who deprives the Democrats of their only argument in 2012: If you oppose Obama, you must be a racist. 

I have to disagree with Miss Ann on that last point.  In the fever swamps of liberal/progressive thought supporting Cain is absolute proof positive that one is a racist!  Because Cain is black and doesn't have his snout stuck down deep in the trough of of government entitlement that other black "leaders" feed upon.  Rather Cain had fled the liberal plantation and rejects the patronage of the Democrat party.


He is unwilling to sell out the nation and his fellow African-Americans for a place at the table of the current power structure.  He is unwilling to work for policies that keep black people ignorant and dependent upon the state.


This makes him a mortal enemy (as all conservatives are) to the political left, but because he is black he occupies a place of extraordinary vilification in that by his very existence, he disproves the left's narrative of American life.


Mr. Cain (like Clarence Thomas, another blood enemy of the left) achieved success without relying on the mechanisms of the state and so can serve as an example to other blacks that they do not need to either subsist on welfare, turn to crime or rely upon affirmative action to get and keep jobs for which they are not qualified.  Rather by rejecting the handouts of the left and applying themselves they can be excellent in their own right.  They can earn a place at the top by staying in school and working hard, by practicing self-discipline and believing that success is possible for those who toil to achieve it (in other words doing all the things that get black kids derided for "acting white").


This is to the Democrat party what sunlight is to a vampire.  If even 20% of black Americans voted Republican the Democrats would never win a presidential election and would win damn few congressional contests.


Democrats know this and they are desperate to keep blacks in their place.


It is also why they are so desperate to open America's borders and get amnesty for the millions of Mexicans illegally in this country.  They need a replacement minority that can be controlled in the event that the black population (or even a large minority of it) wises up and realizes that the white liberals they have been voting for are responsible for much of their misery and the black "leaders" they have been trusting have in fact sold them out.

This is the essence of the furor to destroy Herman Cain as it was the driving force behind the attempt to destroy Clarence Thomas.  It is why every black conservative who dares to step forward and declare him or herself is attacked is attacked and smeared.

This is why the Chicago machine bestirred itself to vomit out a small parade of women who were willing to falsely claim that Mr. Cain "harassed" them.  This is why Republicans have been unwilling to play along and boot him out of the race.  We know that they are trying to play us and we ain't going along.

One more victory for Karl

From NRO:

There were a lot of people to thank for George W. Bush’s reelection, and in Washington’s Ronald Reagan Building on November 3, 2004, the day after the voting, the president took the stage to recognize key players like Ken Mehlman and Ed Gillespie. They had played important roles, but the one who got a special nod was top political aide Karl Rove, to whom Bush gave what would become a lasting label, “the architect.”

Looking back, that day was the high point of Rove’s influence and power. After Bush’s victory in 2000, and, nearly as important, the Republican party’s precedent-defying pickup of House and Senate seats in 2002, Rove had engineered a Bush reelection victory in the face of troubles in Iraq and a newly energized Democratic opposition.

In 2004, Democrats and their 527-group supporters poured millions of dollars into elaborate voter identification and get-out-the-vote efforts. The papers featured story after story about the intimidating Democratic turnout machine, fueled by 527 money and anti-Bush passion. But Rove, much more quietly, had built a better machine, and Democrats didn’t know they’d been bested until election night. As a strategist, Rove was simply smarter than anyone on the other side, and in 2004 he proved it once and for all.

But after reelection, the White House encountered rough going. The Social Security initiative failed, the war effort struggled, Hurricane Katrina hit, and immigration became a nagging problem. There was success with the Roberts and Alito nominations, but it was accompanied by the oddity — to some conservatives, the outrage — of the Miers affair. The White House seemed strangely discombobulated. More than one observer wondered whether Rove was really on his game.

He wasn’t. Beginning in late 2003, Rove became increasingly distracted by the CIA-leak investigation that would lead to his appearing not one, not two, not three, not four, but five times before prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury. Rove was first interviewed by the FBI in October 2003, first appeared before the grand jury in February 2004, and appeared for a fifth and final time in April 2006. He would have to wait until June 2006 before Fitzgerald informed him that he would not be indicted.

“Nobody on the inside would ever admit it on the record, and Karl would never admit it,” says one well-connected observer, “but when the full force of the U.S. government is bearing down on you and trying to put you in jail, trying to ruin you, and you know in your heart that you have done nothing wrong, and it drags on and on and on, and the politicians and prosecutors are coming after you — it can’t help but drain you.”

It did. In 2005 and 2006, by several accounts, Rove spent a significant amount of time accommodating the demands of the leak investigation. And any time he spent doing that was time that he did not spend looking after the needs of the White House. “Everybody in Washington who knew Karl and knew how the White House worked knew that when he was under that cloud, things started to go a little awry,” the observer says. “He had to spend a lot of time dealing with it.”

Rove’s distraction was a victory for Democrats, who worked hard to create the political pressure for a CIA-leak investigation, culminating in the Bush Justice Department’s decision to appoint Fitzgerald even though investigators knew the sources of the CIA leak. (Rove was the second, confirming source for the Robert Novak column that started it all, something that Rove acknowledged to prosecutors from the very beginning.) Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who occasionally consulted with Democratic leaders on anti-Bush strategy, famously said he hoped to see Rove “frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs.” Democrats did not get that wish, but they did succeed in throwing Rove off-stride, with the political benefits that came from it.

It was a big victory, but it could not have been accomplished without a criminal investigation stemming from the rather bizarre circumstances of the CIA-leak case. Now, however, having won control of the House and Senate, Democrats can conduct their own investigations and issue their own subpoenas, and Rove is again in their sights. Getting Rove would be getting the president, and Democrats are pushing hard to force Rove to testify in the U.S. attorneys matter. So far, the White House has refused, setting up a confrontation that won’t change whether Rove is on or off the administration payroll. (As for Rove himself, he’ll still have to deal with congressional investigators, but he won’t have to deal with them and with his full-time White House job.)

We use the term "Bush Derangement Syndrome" to describe the insane desire on the left's part to not only defeat the president politically but to destroy him personally. This has led them to quite literally commit the crime of treason as they labor with all the energy at their disposal to hand victory to enemy forces which are engaged in combat with the US military. It has also led them to subvert every realistic political goal which they could have expected to accomplish given their control of both houses of the legislature to the overwhelming need to conduct an infinite number of endless investigations and paper the landscape with subpoenas to a degree that it appears to be snowing in August.

All of this has resulted in a congressional approval rating of 14%.

To the left Rove's decision to leave his White House job feels like an enormous victory. It has them thinking that whatever the latest round of investigations has focused on (the US Attorney firings?) has scared him and sent him running to the hinterlands.

To this I say good. Let them think that and let them step up their investigations to a degree not seen since Stalin's show trials. Distraction works both ways. The Democrats in congress have until next November to convince the American people that they deserve to be left in control of the House and Senate. Let them waste that time by acting like characters in a Three Stooges short about Latin American politics (do you think we can convince Pelosi and Reid to wear uniforms with giant epaulets and a ton of gold braid).

Remember that 14% approval rating?

Perhaps this is Rove's last victory over the Democrats. Taking back the House and Senate and putting another Republican in the White House by doing nothing more than going home.

The Sanjaya Malakar of politics

From The San Francisco Chronicle:

Democrat John Edwards has eloquently established his credentials as an advocate for the poor with a presidential campaign focused on the devastating effects of poverty in America. But the former North Carolina senator's populist drive has hit a series of troubling land mines: a pair of $400 haircuts, a $500,000 paycheck from a hedge fund, and now a $55,000 payday for a speech on poverty to students at UC Davis.

The problem now facing the Democratic presidential candidate is whether the pileup of headlines, including the latest regarding hefty fees from university speeches reported Monday by The Chronicle, threatens to obliterate Edwards' dominant campaign theme. The former senator, who has been portrayed as the champion of the poor and the son of a humble mill worker, now faces the possibility that voters will have a different image: that of a millionaire trial lawyer who talks one way and lives another.

When I said that Edwards was an empty headed twit a while back I was not using hyperbole. The man is an intellectual lightweight. He just isn't very smart. He became rich as a lawyer not by being a better legal mind than his opponents but by being skilled at playing on the jury's heartstrings. As a personal injury and medical malpractice lawyer he convinced juries to give large cash awards to clients based not on the guilt of the defendants but on sympathy for the plaintiffs and the knowledge that the defendants were covered by deep pocket insurance companies.

If Edwards had been required to make a living in the legal profession as anything but an ambulance chaser he would have eked out a marginal living writing wills and drawing up powers of attorney. That is if his short attention span would have allowed him to persist in such a mundane lifestyle.

Edwards' story of being born into a family of humble means is true and like many people who begin life poor and then find themselves wealthy he is unable to resist the ostentatious display of his money. Surely a man who aspires to run for the White House on the platform of being the voice of the poor and downtrodden could have chosen to live in a more modest dwelling. But Edwards did not and in fact the connection between what his mansion, along with his $400.00 haircuts and his hedge fund employment and astronomical speaking fees, would reveal about his priorities was beyond his limited intellectual powers to grasp.

Edwards will never be ready for prime time and someone who cares about him should take him by the hand and lead him out of the limelight before he harms himself any further.

What Crazy John wants you to forget

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Senator John McCain never fails to call himself a conservative Republican as he campaigns as his party’s presumptive presidential nominee. He often adds that he was a “foot soldier” in the Reagan revolution and that he believes in the bedrock conservative principles of small government, low taxes and the rights of the unborn.

What Mr. McCain almost never mentions are two extraordinary moments in his political past that are at odds with the candidate of the present: His discussions in 2001 with Democrats about leaving the Republican Party, and his conversations in 2004 with Senator John Kerry about becoming Mr. Kerry’s running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket.

There are wildly divergent versions of both episodes, depending on whether Democrats or Mr. McCain and his advisers are telling the story. The Democrats, including Mr. Kerry, say that not only did Mr. McCain express interest but that it was his camp that initially reached out to them. Mr. McCain and his aides counter that in both cases the Democrats were the suitors and Mr. McCain the unwilling bride.

Either way, the episodes shed light on a bitter period in Mr. McCain’s life after the 2000 presidential election, when he was, at least in policy terms, drifting away from his own party. They also offer a glimpse into his psychological makeup and the difficulties in putting a label on his political ideology over many years in the Senate.

“There were times when he rose to the occasion and showed himself to be a real pragmatist,” said Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader who was one of those who met with Mr. McCain in 2001 about switching parties and who is now supporting Senator Barack Obama. “There were other times when he was motivated by political goals and agendas that led him to be much more of a political ideologue.”

Such swings are common in politics, but for Mr. McCain, Mr. Daschle said, “those swings have been far more pronounced and far more frequent.”

In the spring of 2001, Mr. McCain was by most accounts still angry about the smear campaign that had been run against him when he was campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination in the South Carolina primary the previous year. He had long blamed the Bush campaign for spreading rumors in the state that he had fathered a black child out of wedlock, which Bush aides denied. Mr. McCain was also upset that the new White House had shut the door on hiring so many of his aides.

“Very few, if any, of John’s people made it into the administration,” Mr. Daschle later wrote in his book “Like No Other Time.” “John didn’t think that was right, that his staff should be penalized like that.”

Mr. McCain had begun to ally himself with the Democrats on a number of issues, and had told Mr. Daschle that he planned to vote against the Bush tax cuts, a centerpiece of the new president’s domestic agenda. Mr. McCain often made “disparaging comments” about Mr. Bush on the floor of the Senate, Mr. Daschle recalled.

Still, Democrats were stunned one Saturday in late March when, by their account, John Weaver, Mr. McCain’s longtime political strategist, reached out to Thomas J. Downey, a former Democratic congressman from Long Island who had become a lobbyist with powerful connections on Capitol Hill. In Mr. Downey’s telling, Mr. Weaver posed a question to him over lunch that left him stunned.

“He says, ‘John McCain is wondering why nobody’s ever approached him about switching parties, or becoming an independent and allying himself with the Democrats,’ ” Mr. Downey said in a recent interview. “My reaction was, ‘When I leave this lunch, your boss will be called by anybody you want him to be called by in the United States Senate.’ ”

Mr. Weaver recalls the conversation differently. He said that Mr. Downey had told him that Democrats, eager to find a Republican who would switch sides and give them control of the evenly divided Senate, had approached some Republican senators about making the jump. “I stated they couldn’t be so desperate as they hadn’t reached out to McCain,” Mr. Weaver said in an e-mail message last week.

Whatever transpired, Mr. Downey raced home and immediately called Mr. Daschle. It was the first step in what became weeks of conversations that April between Mr. McCain and the leading Democrats, among them Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and John Edwards, then a senator from North Carolina, about the possibility of Mr. McCain’s leaving his party. One factor driving Mr. McCain, Mr. Downey said, was his bad relations with the Republican caucus.

“They had booed him once when he came in,” Mr. Downey said. “It was bad stuff in the caucus. He didn’t see his future with these guys.”

Mark Salter, one of Mr. McCain’s closest advisers, said that Mr. McCain, although flattered, never took the idea of leaving the party seriously. The topic was in any case overtaken in May when Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont abandoned the Republicans and changed the balance of power. By June, when Mr. Daschle spent a long-planned weekend with Mr. McCain at Mr. McCain’s Arizona ranch, the question of changing parties was moot.

But less than three years later, Mr. McCain was once again in talks with the Democrats, this time over whether he would be Mr. Kerry’s running mate. In an interview with a blog last year, Mr. Kerry said that the initial idea had come from Mr. McCain’s side, as had happened in 2001.

Mr. Kerry, reacting to reports in The Hill newspaper last year about Mr. Weaver’s 2001 approach to Mr. Downey, said he saw a pattern. “It doesn’t surprise me completely because his people similarly approached me to engage in a discussion about his potentially being on the ticket as vice president,” Mr. Kerry told Jonathan Singer of MyDD.com, a prominent liberal blog, in remarks that are available in an audio version online and that Mr. Kerry’s staff said last week were accurate. “So his people were active — let’s put it that way.”

Two former Kerry strategists said last week that Mr. Weaver went to Mr. Kerry’s house in Georgetown a short time after Mr. Kerry won the Democratic nomination in March and asked that Mr. Kerry consider Mr. McCain as his running mate. (Mr. Weaver said in his e-mail message that the idea had come from Mr. Kerry.) Whatever the case, both sides say that Mr. Kerry was so enthusiastic about the notion that he relentlessly pursued Mr. McCain, even to the point of offering him a large part of the president’s national security responsibilities.

Mr. McCain, who has rarely spoken publicly of his talks with Mr. Kerry, said last month that he had dismissed the vice-presidential offer out of hand. “He is, as he describes himself, a liberal Democrat,” Mr. McCain said of Mr. Kerry when he was asked about the episode by a participant at a public forum in Atlanta. “I am a conservative Republican. So when I was approached, when we had that conversation back in 2004, that’s why I never even considered such a thing.”

Mr. Kerry declined last week to discuss his conversations with Mr. McCain, but three former Kerry strategists said that Mr. McCain had not immediately dismissed the notion of sharing the Democratic ticket. “McCain did not flat-out say no, regardless of what he’s saying now,” said one strategist who asked not to be named. “He was interested in this discussion.”


If McCain is such a "conservative Republican" why did it even occur to Kerry and his people to seek out McCain and offer him a spot on the ticket?

You people need to listen to me on this. John McCain hates conservatives and the conservative movement. He will use the power of the presidency, which will make him the head of the Republican party, to destroy the conservative movement.

What ever else he plans to do as president, like win the war in Iraq, he will as a deliberate policy, seek to eliminate organized movement conservatism as a factor in the Republican party's internal politics.

If John McCain is the next president he will be the last Republican president and Ronald Reagan will have been the last conservative president. At least the last on until after the Union of Soviet Socialist States of America that the Democrats will turn this nation into after they have 50 years of unbroken majority control of the Congress and the White House.

If being able to say "neener, neener, neener" to the Democrats in November is worth that then go ahead and vote McCain.