Californian's "Narrowly Reject" Gay Marriage...By 19 Points

Patterico has a terrific post on how the L.A. Times skews its own poll numbers to try to say Californians aren't really for traditional marriage. Read all for the latest example of liberal bias on display.

Growing Up as a Child of the Feminist Revolution

According to Alice Walker--and lots of feminists--motherhood is just a form of slavery. I suppose that's why so many feminists are so desperate to avoid having children to the point where they support killing babies up till birth (maybe a few wouldn't mind killing babies after birth, but I don't have hard evidence to support that conclusion).

But her daughter Rebecca Walker wants to set the record straight about what it's like growing up in that doctrinaire household.

A neighbour, not much older than me, was deputised to look after me. I never complained. I saw it as my job to protect my mother and never distract her from her writing. It never crossed my mind to say that I needed some time and attention from her.

When I was beaten up at school - accused of being a snob because I had lighter skin than my black classmates - I always told my mother that everything was fine, that I had won the fight. I didn't want to worry her.

But the truth was I was very lonely and, with my mother's knowledge, started having sex at 13. I guess it was a relief for my mother as it meant I was less demanding. And she felt that being sexually active was empowering for me because it meant I was in control of my body.

Now I simply cannot understand how she could have been so permissive. I barely want my son to leave the house on a play-date, let alone start sleeping around while barely out of junior school.

A good mother is attentive, sets boundaries and makes the world safe for her child. But my mother did none of those things.

I've never really understood parents who don't want to be involved with their children. I'm not a helicopter parent by any stretch of the imagination, but among the happiest times in my life have been when I could be a full-time stay at home mom, taking care of all the day-to-day necessities of life and being there to listen to all the stories three children come home with on a daily basis.

There's something fascinating in having your teenager use you as a sounding board as she works towards adulthood, listening to your son discover the wonders of volcanoes, and having your youngest child explaining the latest melodrama of second grade. Maybe having a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is an enormous accomplishment--and I wouldn't turn that down at all!--but I know that, in the end, those closest to you are the people you invest your time and effort in. Your greatest influence isn't on millions of readers who will sell your book once they are done with it; it is with your family and children who will care for you long after the world has forgotten your accomplishments.

What's most cherished is when your child tells you you're a "good cooker" because you'll make macaroni and cheese or ham when they want it. Certificates and honors are wonderful accomplishments, but I would be devastated if, as an adult, my child thought I had been self-absorbed, selfish, distant and disinterested in him/her. But, unfortunately, there are too many of those parents out there.

Will Immigration Sink John McCain?

It's hard to believe John McCain would still be harping that amnesty--er, comprehensive immigration reform will be his top priority as president, knowing, as he does, that conservatives (already uncomfortable with his as their candidate) consider it to be a deal-breaker.

More from the Right will bail on McCain because of this issue than any other, and it is perfectly understandable. It makes me wonder if McCain has been included in Barack Obama's Team of Rivals.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air explains why we can't not vote for John McCain. Two words: Barack Obama.

"a good performer with an ear for how to make white liberals like him"

According to someone who has followed Obama from the beginning. Read all. Calling Obama "lightweight" is kind.

The Genius of George W.

Via Brothers Judd blog, Linda Greenhouse laments the demise of the Kennedy court.

Something is happening, clearly. The question is what. The caveats against drawing any hard conclusions at this stage are obvious. For one thing, the term is functionally only half over, with 35 cases down and 32 to come. And it is common for the hardest-fought decisions to come at the very end. The District of Columbia gun control case, the latest case on the rights of the Guantánamo detainees and a case on whether the death penalty is a constitutional punishment for raping a child are yet to be decided.

Still, there is a clear pattern in the cases the court has already decided this term. The court upheld Kentucky’s method of execution by lethal injection by a vote of 7 to 2. It upheld Indiana’s law requiring photo identification at the polls by a vote of 6 to 3. The justices voted 7 to 2 on Monday to uphold the latest federal effort to curb trade in child pornography.

All were major cases, all plausible candidates for 5-to-4 outcomes. All were government victories, hardly surprising coming from a conservative court. But even Justice John Paul Stevens, the leader of the court’s beleaguered liberal bloc, voted with the majority in all three cases. The surprise was that the government side won each so handily.

It would be too simplistic an explanation to say that the liberal justices, at least some of them, have simply given up. Something deeper seems to be at work. Each of those three cases might have received a harder-edged, more conclusively conservative treatment at the hands of the same five-member majority that controlled the last term.

Instead, the lethal injection and voter ID decisions hewed closely to the facts of each case. Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol passed muster, but the court left open the possibility that another state’s practice might not. The voter ID challenge reached the court on a nonexistent record, so perhaps a stronger case could be made at a later time. Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion in the child pornography case construed the statute so narrowly as to allay the First Amendment concerns of Justices Stevens and Breyer and win their full concurrence.

As Orrin Judd points out, the point of nominating Roberts was to change the atmosphere on the court in such a way as to allow more unanimous decisions and fewer splintered ones. It's only natural that it took a term for that to bear fruit.

Gaffe Morphs into Policy

Jeromy Brown, as well as other useful idiots, has tried to argue that negotiating with rogue states has always been a policy of the U.S. and that Obama is no different in wanting to meet with Ahmadinejad. Charles Krauthammer has a wonderful takedown of this argument.

Most of the time you don't negotiate with enemy leaders because there is nothing to negotiate. Does Obama imagine that North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela are insufficiently informed about American requirements for improved relations?

There are always contacts through back channels or intermediaries. Iran, for example, has engaged in five years of talks with our closest European allies and the International Atomic Energy Agency, to say nothing of the hundreds of official U.S. statements outlining exactly what we would give them in return for suspending uranium enrichment.

Obama pretends that while he is for such "engagement," the cowboy Republicans oppose it. Another absurdity. No one is debating the need for contacts. The debate is over the stupidity of elevating rogue states and their tyrants, easing their isolation and increasing their leverage by granting them unconditional meetings with the president of the world's superpower.

Obama cited Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as presidents who met with enemies. Does he know no history? Neither Roosevelt nor Truman ever met with any of the leaders of the Axis powers. Obama must be referring to the pictures he's seen of Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta, and Truman and Stalin at Potsdam. Does he not know that at that time Stalin was a wartime ally?

During the subsequent Cold War, Truman never met with Stalin. Nor Mao. Nor Kim Il Sung. Truman was no fool.

Obama cites John Kennedy meeting Nikita Khrushchev as another example of what he wants to emulate. Really? That Vienna summit of a young, inexperienced, untested American president was disastrous, emboldening Khrushchev to push Kennedy on Berlin -- and then near fatally in Cuba, leading almost directly to the Cuban missile crisis. Is that the precedent Obama aspires to follow?

A meeting with Ahmadinejad would not just strengthen and vindicate him at home, it would instantly and powerfully ease the mullahs' isolation, inviting other world leaders to follow. And with that would come a flood of commercial contracts, oil deals, diplomatic agreements -- undermining precisely the very sanctions and isolation that Obama says he would employ against Iran.

As every seasoned diplomat knows, the danger of a summit is that it creates enormous pressure for results. And results require mutual concessions. That is why conditions and concessions are worked out in advance, not on the scene.

What concessions does Obama imagine Ahmadinejad will make to him on Iran's nuclear program? And what new concessions will Obama offer? To abandon Lebanon? To recognize Hamas? Or perhaps to squeeze Israel?

Having lashed himself to the ridiculous, unprecedented promise of unconditional presidential negotiations -- and then having compounded the problem by elevating it to a principle -- Obama keeps trying to explain. On Sunday, he declared in Pendleton, Ore., that by Soviet standards Iran and others "don't pose a serious threat to us." (On the contrary. Islamic Iran is dangerously apocalyptic. Soviet Russia was not.) The next day in Billings, Mont.: "I've made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave."

That's the very next day, mind you. Such rhetorical flailing has done more than create an intellectual mess. It has given rise to a new political phenomenon: the metastatic gaffe.

Obama lies. Obama panders. Obama makes ridiculous statements then his adoring fans make excuses. This is presidential material?

Maxine Waters Wants to Nationalize the Oil Industry

You can't make this stuff up. Allahpundit at Hot Air has the outrageous video where Democrat whacko Maxine Waters gets pissy with the head of Shell Oil for telling her the truth about oil prices.

John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil, stated that he could "guarantee ever increasing prices unless demand comes down."

This is just a restatement of how supply and demand works. If everybody wants something, the price of that thing skyrockets whether you are talking about oil or Beanie Babies. Of course, we don't need Beanie Babies to get to work or get goods to stores, but demand is the only explanation for the high prices of both things. When way more people want something than the thing available, the price spikes until enough people don't want it anymore. In the case of oil, this means people quit using so much.

The outrageous part of the exchange came when Maxine Waters, in full don't-you-tell-me-I'm-the-one-in-charge mode, threatens to nationalize the oil industry, even though she can't come up with the right word for it.

"And guess what this liberal will be all about?" she snapped. "This liberal will be all about socializing--uh, uh, will be about (pause) basically taking over and the government running all of your companies."

It's bizarre to me that a Congresswoman can threaten to nationalize an industry she is angry with and it isn't hitting the news cycles. Maybe, like so many liberals, Waters agrees with Hugo Chavez. Amazing!

Texas Court Rules for FLDS Moms

In a case of common sense over governmental overreaching, "A Texas state court of appeals ruled Thursday afternoon that the state of Texas had no right to seize more than 400 children from a polygamist ranch in Eldorado, in the western part of the state, because there was not sufficient proof that they were in immediate danger."

The ruling asserted that the state’s child protection agency acted hastily in removing the children from the Yearning for Zion ranch in April and did not make a reasonable effort “to ascertain if some measure short of removal and/or separation from parents would have eliminated the risk” of abuse toward the children of 48 mothers who filed the suit. The district court was ordered to remove its restraining order giving the state custody of those children, but it was not immediately clear how the hundreds of other children, now in foster care, would be affected.

At news conference in San Angelo, the closest city to Eldorado, a lawyer for the sect said it was not sure when the families would be reunited, and that the team was reviewing the next legal steps in the process.

Typically, in cases of suspected abuse, the abuser is removed from the home and the child or children are left with the other parent because plucking children from their homes to be sent to live--and possibly adopted--by complete strangers can be a tad disturbing for said children.

The Difference Between Barack Obama and John McCain

Via Marc Ambinder, here is John McCain's rebuttal to Barack Obama's disgraceful politicking of the veteran's spending bill:

"It is typical, but no less offensive that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of. Let me say first in response to Senator Obama, running for President is different than serving as President. The office comes with responsibilities so serious that the occupant can't always take the politically easy route without hurting the country he is sworn to defend. Unlike Senator Obama, my admiration, respect and deep gratitude for America's veterans is something more than a convenient campaign pledge. I think I have earned the right to make that claim.
"When I was five years old, a car pulled up in front of our house in New London, Connecticut, and a Navy officer rolled down the window, and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. My father immediately left for the submarine base where he was stationed. I rarely saw him again for four years. My grandfather, who commanded the fast carrier task force under Admiral Halsey, came home from the war exhausted from the burdens he had borne, and died the next day. I grew up in the Navy; served for twenty-two years as a naval officer; and, like Senator Webb, personally experienced the terrible costs war imposes on the veteran. The friendships I formed in war remain among the closest relationships in my life. The Navy is still the world I know best and love most. In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home to the country they loved so well .

"But I am running for the office of Commander-in-Chief. That is the highest privilege in this country, and it imposes the greatest responsibilities. It would be easier politically for me to have joined Senator Webb in offering his legislation. More importantly, I feel just as he does, that we owe veterans the respect and generosity of a great nation because no matter how generously we show our gratitude it will never compensate them fully for all the sacrifices they have borne on our behalf.

"Senators Graham, Burr and I have offered legislation that would provide veterans with a substantial increase in educational benefits. The bill we have sponsored would increase monthly education benefits to $1500; eliminate the $1200 enrollment fee; and offer a $1000 annually for books and supplies. Importantly, we would allow veterans to transfer those benefits to their spouses or dependent children or use a part of them to pay down existing student loans. We also increase benefits to the Guard and Reserve, and even more generously to those who serve in the Selected Reserve.

"I know that my friend and fellow veteran, Senator Jim Webb, an honorable man who takes his responsibility to veterans very seriously, has offered legislation with very generous benefits. I respect and admire his position, and I would never suggest that he has anything other than the best of intentions to honor the service of deserving veterans. Both Senator Webb and I are united in our deep appreciation for the men and women who risk their lives so that the rest of us may be secure in our freedom. And I take a backseat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans. And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did.

"The most important difference between our two approaches is that Senator Webb offers veterans who served one enlistment the same benefits as those offered veterans who have re-enlisted several times. Our bill has a sliding scale that offers generous benefits to all veterans, but increases those benefits according to the veteran's length of service. I think it is important to do that because, otherwise, we will encourage more people to leave the military after they have completed one enlistment. At a time when the United States military is fighting in two wars, and as we finally are beginning the long overdue and very urgent necessity of increasing the size of the Army and Marine Corps, one study estimates that Senator Webb's bill will reduce retention rates by 16%.

"Most worrying to me, is that by hurting retention we will reduce the numbers of men and women who we train to become the backbone of all the services, the noncommissioned officer. In my life, I have learned more from noncommissioned officers I have known and served with than anyone else outside my family. And in combat, no one is more important to their soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen, and to the officers who command them, than the sergeant and petty officer. They are very hard to replace. Encouraging people not to choose to become noncommissioned officers would hurt the military and our country very badly. As I said, the office of President, which I am seeking, is a great honor, indeed, but it imposes serious responsibilities. How faithfully the President discharges those responsibilities will determine whether he or she deserves the honor. I can only tell you I intend to deserve the honor if I am fo rtunate to receive it, even if it means I must take politically unpopular positions at times and disagree with people for whom I have the highest respect and affection.

"Perhaps, if Senator Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully. But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as President, the country would regret his election."

Here's what Obama said:

I respect sen. John McCain's service to our country. He is one of those heroes of which I speak. But I can't understand why he would line up behind the President in his opposition to this GI bill.
I can't believe why he believes it is too generous to our veterans. I could not disagree with him and the President more on this issue. There are many issues that lend themselves to partisan posturing but giving our veterans the chance to go to college should not be one of them.

I'm sure the usual idiots will try to say this was not political posturing on Obama's part, but it looks like a potshot to me.

Cross-posted at Common Sense Political Thought.

What Does Gulf Coast Relief, NASA and Billions in Pork Have To Do with the War in Iraq?

Everything if you are the free-spending Congress.

But the committee's plan contained so many smaller items favored by senators in both parties — including money for Gulf Coast Hurricane recovery, NASA, and additional food and drug safety inspectors — that even GOP conservatives such as Larry Craig and Mike Crapo of Idaho rebuffed the White House. The duo were strong supporters of $400 million to subsidize schools in rural counties hit hard by declines in timber revenues.

The bill also contained $490 million for grants to local police departments, $451 million to repair roads damaged by natural disasters, $200 million for the space shuttle program, and $400 million for National Institutes of Health research projects.

And more and more and more pork.

Remember how Democrats argued about how much money George Bush and a Republican-led Congress blew? Is this merely an attempt to regain the tax-and-spend title?

Just One More Little Tax Won't Cripple the Economy, Will It?

San Francisco has decided that the way to combat global warming is to kill business. At least, that's my take on the new tax imposed on businesses for emitting greenhouse gases.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District's board of directors voted 15-1 to charge companies 4.4 cents per ton of carbon dioxide they emit, an agency spokeswoman said.

Experts say the fees, which cover nine counties in the Bay Area, are the first of their kind in America. The new rules are set to take effect July 1.

The modest fee probably will not be enough to force companies to reduce their emissions, but backers say it sets an important precedent in combating climate change and could serve as a model for regional air districts nationwide.

"It doesn't solve global warming, but it gets us thinking in the right terms," said Daniel Kammen, a renewable energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley.

Of course, as anyone knows, fees imposed for doing business aren't really borne by the businesses. Those fees are passed through to customers or the business goes under.

Of Dancing with the Stars and Sexism

I hate to reference the same blog twice in the same day, but this post at Echidne of the Snakes gives me a chance to both agree with her and disagree.

The part I agree with is that there is a certain degree of sexism involved in Dancing with the Stars. It is, after all, a program geared around ballroom dancing, an activity with very strict gender roles. So, the charge that different things are expected from the men and the women on the show are correct.

Echidne referenced this article to bolster the sexism argument, then makes a note that, perhaps, the largely female audience votes for the men because they are cuter.

Now Echidne admits up front that she's never seen the show. Unfortunately for her, this is a case where not following a program means not really knowing what you are talking about.

I've watched Dancing with the Stars since about the middle of Season Two, so I probably have a better perspective on why certain people win and other people don't. As I've said, the criticism that the judges are sexist have some validity. There's no doubt that the more visible role of the woman in these dances make them more susceptible to criticism than the men.

But more than just the judging--which only accounts for half the points--is the opinions of viewers, and there is more room for speculation there. My opinion is that visibility and popularity has as much to do with who wins this competition as anything. Many of the women picked for the show have been models or beauty contestant winners. Many of other women contestants were either not as well-known or didn't come out and grab the audience.


In other words, the people who do well in the competition have a combination of technique and fan appeal. Of course, that doesn't explain Billy Ray Cyrus making it to week 8 last season...or maybe it does. In the end, however, it comes down to fan appeal.

In this season, Kristi Yamaguchi was the clear favorite week after week. Her technique was fabulous and she clearly outperformed every other competitor. Moreover, she's a well-known and popular Olymic gold medal winner who remained visible as a professional skater long after leaving the amateur ranks. The combination made Kristi the obvious winner both with the judges and with the fans.

Fans are a notoriously finicky lot, and that is evident on other dance shows, as well. Cuteness may influence some viewers, but charm, talent, technique and personality have as much to do with winning as beef or cheesecake.

What's in a Joke

Echidne has one of her rather regular posts on why feminists aren't funny, or, rather, why jokes against feminists aren't funny.

To a certain extent, I can understand the point she tries to make: that jokes which victimize some particular subset say more about the speaker than about the subject.

So why are feminists not funny? Or rather: Why is accusing someone of not being able to take a joke a legitimate form of defense? A lot of jokes are boring or contrived or just not very funny. A lot of jokes base the laugh-line on a shared understanding that Other People are stupid. Take the Blonde Jokes, for example. Those jokes are only funny if you really think that women with fair hair are very stupid people. I might not laugh at them for a very personal reason, a reason which has nothing to do with my sick sense of humor. Or its absence. Or hair color.

Can funniness be analyzed and understood? Probably not in the sense of creating a formula that would always work, and the very work of doing so would be extremely unfunny. But all humor depends on surprise. How that surprise is delivered varies, and different folks laugh at different sources of surprise: slapstick, situational comedy, word puns, story jokes and so on.

The surprise is needed. It also needs to trigger the laughter reaction. Why feminists don't find certain surprises funny is for the same reason that you throwing a cake in my face might make me surprised in a way not conducive to laughter. You, on the other hand, might get a nice belly laugh out of that. At least until you have figured out what happens to people who throw cakes in the faces of goddesses. Burp.

It was interesting that she should bring up pies in the face, considering that it is the method of attack liberals like to use to silence conservative speakers. I can agree with her there that pies in the face are, indeed, not funny. They are designed to be insulting.

And there is all sorts of humor which this group or that might not find particularly funny. Sure, there are feminist jokes and blonde jokes and religious jokes and racist jokes and sexist jokes and liberal jokes and conservative jokes. There are jokes about short people, fat people and bald people. There are jokes about doctors, lawyers, engineers, hairdressers and jokes for practically every profession under the sun. And this isn't including redneck jokes and husband and wife jokes. (I don't vouch for the funniness of any of these jokes, btw)

Echidne usually complains about female and/or feminist jokes because there is a stereotype of feminists as not funny. But that's largely because of the strident tone of much of feminist writing. So, for example, this Jonah Goldberg column from 2002 in which he explains why feminists aren't funny is exactly why she complains about feminists not being "humorous" today.

What studies and polls do show is that most young women don't want to be called "feminists." Why? Because the term has become synonymous with "unreasonable ideologue," "chronic complainer," "crypto-lesbian," and perhaps most of all, "humorless toothache of a human being."

This annoys professional feminists to no end — but then again, what doesn't? Their main gripe is the ingratitude of young women who "betray" the cause of the "founding sisters" who brought us so much. When you read feminist junk — and most of it is, quite simply, junk — there's a lot of guilt mongering about "continuing the revolution" and "finishing the work of our foremothers." But, the unfinished work invariably involves such picayune and marginal issues as "transgender equality" and homosexual adoption. Insisting these are the same issues as women's suffrage doesn't make it so. This desperation to infuse the cause with new passion is the chief reason feminists are so humorless. Because there are so few specific meaningful issues, all sorts of minor or nonexistent issues get injected with outsized and outlandish meaning. See the letter Ramesh received yesterday for example. Make a joke about women or use the word "chick" in the wrong company, and you will likely receive a barrage of dragon breath about how "the degradation of women is no laughing matter!" You will be educated on the great chain of oppression, which begins with a dumb-blond joke and ends in female circumcision in Africa.

Are there jokes one group or another will find offensive? Sure. That's why I don't watch The Daily Show or Stephen Colbert. But I don't think funniness is necessarily tied to Otherness or putting down some other groups. Some jokes are just funny.

Student Suspended for Giving Noogies

I love reading legal opinions like this one.

On Dec. 5, 2007, Ethan, represented by counsel, appeared for a school disciplinary hearing on charges he "forcibly pressed his knuckles against [the] scalp" of a teacher on two occasions and violated the academic code of conduct by entering his former middle school without permission.

Terence E. Smolev, a partner in the Mineola, N.Y., firm of Forchelli, Curto, Schwartz, Mineo, Carlino & Cohn, presided over the hearing.

According to Phelan's decision, on Nov. 2, 2007, during a school-sponsored basketball game, Ethan approached his former teacher, Sharon Cantante and "forcibly pressed his knuckles against her scalp, grinding them into her scalp and causing her pain."

Evidently, the student did this a second time, which is when the suspension was put into place. Nine months seems like a lot for a noogie, but this kid definitely had some boundary issues.

This...

will be used to explain why we should get rid of the electoral college.

UPDATE: Turns out, the crowd may have showed up for the rock band playing before Obama's speech. You'd think the MSM would tell us that, wouldn't you?

Ted Kennedy Hospitalized

Hope for a speedy recover.

Oddly (or not), KOS can keep comments on for a Democrat's issue.

Obama Adopts Bush Policy on Iran

Ed Morrissey has a great column at Hot Air regarding Barack Obama's shifting positions on Iran.

Last summer, especially during the YouTube debate, Obama railed against the Bush administration policy, with “failed” being about the kindest term he could muster. Now, however, he has adopted the Bush policy towards Iran in toto. No talks with Iran until they end their nuclear-weapons programs, progressively tougher sanctions until they comply with international non-proliferation regulations and UN Security Council resolutions — that is exactly what the Bush administration has done since 2003.
What prompted this turn towards neocon policy? Obama can’t shake the consequences of his answer during that July debate and the promise of unconditional direct presidential-level talks with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the first year of his presidency. Even our allies, even those who thought Bush to be too hard line on Iran, don’t see what this would accomplish, other than boosting the prestige of Ahmadinejad and the mullahcracy’s hard-liners and further entrenching them in Iran. As John McCain put it yesterday, what exactly will Obama negotiate with Ahmadinejad? The destruction of Israel’s “stinking corpse”, or their grievances about the falsity of the Holocaust?

The moonbatosphere is filled with arguments that Obama's "quick response" shows how engaged he is on foreign policy. What it really shows is that Obama recognizes how stupid his original let's-negotiate-with-terrorists-and-radicals policy was.

The Republican 2012 Game Plan

From the I don't know what I'm talking about files, Pam Spaulding opines on what Republicans really want.

I think they want Obama to win the White House and the Dems to have strong control on the Hill. (Emphasis hers)

For the record, I'll state right now that I don't want the Democrats to own Congress and the presidency at the same time because they'll consider this a mandate for all their batshitty ideas from the war in Iraq to domestic spending to taxes to judges.

Some are arguing why we should vote for John McCain over Democrats, but the issues have always been clear to me: the war in Iraq is too important to lose and judges will make all the other decisions we care about. Those two reasons alone make it imperative that John McCain hold the veto pen over Democrat looniness.

Spaulding and a lot of other liberals overestimate the thinking of the GOP leadership at this point. I can't see any great "plan" to revive the Republican name brand at this point. Part of the problem is that most GOP faithful like President Bush and agree with him on a majority of his proposals. That's not to say they haven't protested big government expansions like the prescription drug benefit or revolted against amnesty for illegal aliens, but on issues that matter most to conservatives--taxes, moral issues like embryonic stem cell research, the military, judges--President Bush has been right.

The other part of the problem is that eight years with one president makes the electorate weary and open to even the idiotic ideas espoused by the Left. That's why HopeNChange is the Democrat candidate: it isn't his qualifications, it's the fact that he's not the establishment.

There's also been a lot of talk about Howard Dean's 50 state plan and how effective it has been. What is amazing isn't that Democrats have picked up seats that were considered Republican safehouses, but that the Democrats who have run have been far more conservative--and blue dog--than the Democrats that have been running Congress. This is why Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have been unable to enact any of their nuttiness.

In the end, I'm betting Americans are smart enough not to elect a leftwing radical with little experience and horrible ideas.

Gay Marriage and Suspect Classifications

I'll admit that Justin Levine was the first blogger to point out that the California Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage was significant mostly because it made homosexuality a suspect classification.

There were many moonbats extolling this portion of the ruling, so Justin shouldn't break his arm patting himself on the back with this one. What I find most interesting is the women who are ecstatic that their sexual orientation is considered a more immutable (if there is such a thing) characteristic than their sex.

Here is a definition of strict scrutiny (the level used by the courts for suspect classifications). "You'd better have a damn good reason for this law and no other way to solve it" is the shortest explanation. Intermediate scrutiny is applied to sex discrimination cases.

In other words, who you sleep with has now been elevated over whether you are male or female. It boggles my mind.