All for One?

Sen. Obama's association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a problem. And I don't believe it's just political. It demonstrates a core problem with Obama as a prospective President: he tolerated Wright's agenda and rhetoric until Wright questioned his credibility. Then Obama severed ties.

Given all that, this piece from RealClearPolitics' Steve Mitchell is, in my opinion, a tenuous stretch. Mitchell writes on the subject of embattled Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who has been charged with perjury and assault(!). Mitchell opines...

Although Kilpatrick has distanced himself from Obama and Obama has distanced himself from Kilpatrick, they are both inextricably linked to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. And, that is Obama's problem.

Nowhere in the article does Mitchell tie Kilpatrick directly to Obama. The only connection routes through Wright, whom Kilpatrick introduced at the Detroit NAACP meeting. Whatever I might think of the Obama/Wright association, linking Obama with Kilpatrick strikes me as entirely unfair. It would be like linking McCain with Ted Stevens or Tom Daschle, just because they all know James Dobson.

Update: Glenn Thrush of Politico also makes the point that Kwame Kilpatrick can damage Obama in Michigan, because he's "an Obama supporter." Meh.

Olympic Propaganda

The Olympics have been political for as long as I can remember. But I don't remember ever seeing this much propaganda. Case in point, here's a little press release published in Xinhua:

Returning from China after attending the opening ceremony, the president told the Seychelles media at the airport that Beijing was a clean city with high-spirited and progressive people.

Now as it turns out China and the Seychelles have been buddying up recently. I'm not up on my Indian Ocean geopolitics, but for whatever reason the Seychelles seem to be pretty friendly with China. So it's no surprise their president would want to give the Middle Kingdom some good press.

But the propaganda goes way beyond that. Look at the coverage of the Bachman murder: all the stories are laden with assurances that Beijing is a safe city, even though the murder rate rivals that of Atlanta.

Also look at the pollution controversy. Despite assertions that pollution is under control, we still see reports of extreme particulate counts.

I'm not sure what to make of this. It's no surprise that a highly centralized and tightly controlled government like China's would be orchestrating such propaganda. But at the same time, I would kind of expect someone in the Western media to highlight the fact.

GOP Choice

John Fund of the WSJ observes that the GOP is at a crossroads: rally around old-school pork monsters like Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, or join Sens. Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint, and Rep. Scott Garrett in fighting corruption.

Mr. Fund believes that a number of events will combine to reduce the political desirability of earmarks: Stevens' indictment, Young's probable primary defeat, and the defeat of the "Coburn Omnibus". I would like to agree with Mr. Fund, but I think there's more work to do. Republican leaders didn't help defeat the "Reid Ramrod" out of any sense of anti-corruption altruism--they just wanted to black Reid's eye. And even if you knock out Stevens and Young, there are still plenty of pork monsters remaining on both sides of the aisle, including the greatest of them all Robert Byrd.

On a brighter note I'm heartened to see Mr. Fund write this:

The day before, Republicans enjoyed a rare success when they beat back an attempt by Majority Leader Harry Reid to ram through an earmark-laden omnibus bill that Mr. Coburn had refused to help pass by the often-abused "unanimous consent" process.

That's a perfect description of Coburn's procedural tactics. Kudos to Mr. Fund for getting it right.

Coburn wins, Reid whines

Sen. Reid's "Coburn Omnibus" bill, designed to be rammed through the Senate with as little debate and amendment as possible, failed to get the 60 votes necessary to proceed.

The MSM is still portraying the 35 bills contained in the omnibus as "noncontroversial". If there weren't any controversy, they'd have already passed by unanimous acclaim. That's the whole point of the Senate: provide a check on the tyranny of the majority, which is especially important now that Congress has learned to trade favors with itself to protect incumbents.

Update: I should add, kudos to the MSM for even covering the so-called "Coburn Omnibus" vote. But why is their coverage (NYT, WaPo) so slanted against Coburn? Is it because he's a Republican? Or is he being covered by DC journalists who're miffed by his opposition to expanded DC Metro spending?

Reid vs. Coburn

John Fund posts at the WSJ:

Mr. Reid is telling reporters he will no longer tolerate the Oklahoma Republican blocking about 100 bills using the power Senate rules give individual member to stop legislation from coming to a floor vote.

This is incorrect. Sen. Coburn is not blocking any bill from coming to the floor. Rather he is blocking unanimous consent, because he wants those bills to come to the floor, where they can be debated and amended.

It's hard to tell where the error in the post comes from, whether it originated with Reid or was introduced by Fund. Either way, it doesn't help Coburn's cause.

Posting from the new 3G iPhone

So far I'm liking it well enough. As with all PDA's, the keyboard is not optimal for written composition, but I like it better than any other hand-held I've tried. I really like the iPhone version of Safari. It helps to have the larger screen, but what's really nice are the zoom and scroll functions. So far I've only found a few websites that don't work in the small browser.

The native mail app is okay, but I don't like it with gmail. It doesn't offer any way to archive conversations, and I don't see a way to search the archive. Which is fine, since gmail works great in Safari.

Things to try...
- Bluetooth headset
- Bluetooth sync (if that's possible?)
- Downloading/installing new apps

Coburn Omnibus

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is currently blocking 95 spending-related bills in the Senate. He won't release them until they've been debated and amended. This prevents them from being passed with unanimous consent, and requires an actual floor vote if not debate and/or amendment.

Senate Majority Leader Reid has now bundled many of those bills into what he calls the "Coburn Omnibus" bill, which he plans to ram through in late July. He believes the combination will enjoy broad support, and will therefore quickly pass with a veto-proof majority.

In other words, despite his anti-pork rhetoric, Reid is bound and determined to spend all the money he wants to spend. I wish I could find a list of the bills included, but apparently I'm not very good at searching thomas.gov.

Ryan Grim at Politico says "Coburn is blocking roughly a hundred bills that are generally non-controversial or have broad support." That's the point: Coburn believes government spending is a controversy, and is trying to raise awareness.

Question: Why isn't this getting any attention in the MSM?

(h/t Bob Novak via RCP)