Joust The Facts

Why I Don't Read Andrew Sullivan's 'Daily Dish'

Exhibit 1:  The Palin-hating Trig-truther puts together a compendium of "The lies of Sarah Palin," and the first one he lists, the very first one, the one which should be his strongest, turns out to be false.  Mr. Sullivan writes:

Palin lied when she said the dismissal of her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, had nothing to do with his refusal to fire state trooper Mike Wooten; in fact, the Branchflower Report concluded that she repeatedly abused her power when dealing with both men.

Interestingly, the link he uses is to his own blog post on the topic.  Had he chosen to go outside of his own writing, he might have found this.

The report says Palin failed to reign in her husband's inappropriate efforts to use the governor's office to contact trooper employees in his attempts to have Wooten fired.

"Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda ... to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired," Branchflower's report says.

"Compliance with the code of ethics is not optional. It is an individual responsibility imposed by law, and any effort to benefit a personal interest through official action is a violation of that trust. ... The term ‘benefit' is very broadly defined, and includes anything that is to the person's advantage or personal self-interest."

In the second finding, Branchflower says Monegan's refusal to fire Wooten was not the sole reason for his dismissal but that it was a "contributing factor." Still, he said, Palin's firing of Monegan was "a proper and lawful exercise" of the governor's authority.

So there was a finding by a partisan investigator in an ethics complaint lodged to influence a presidential election, and even with that backdrop the finding is of a "proper and lawful exercise" of the governor's authority in the firing of Mr. Monegan.

Still, you could claim that Gov. Palin was still found to have violated the code of ethics, and was found to have placed "impermissable pressure" on subordinates.  And you might be right, as of Oct. 10, 2008 when this story was written.  But as of Nov. 4, 2008 not so much.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Alaska Gov. and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was cleared on Monday of wrongdoing in an abuse-of-power investigation into the firing of the state's public safety commissioner.

The Alaska Personnel Board report, issued on the eve of the U.S. presidential election, ran contrary to findings from a legislative inquiry that concluded in October that Palin had abused the power of her office by pressuring subordinates to fire a state trooper involved in a feud with her family.

Palin, who is Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate, brought the issue to the personnel board herself after complaining the legislative probe was a partisan effort led by Democrats.

The board, a three-member panel under Palin's authority, was responsible for determining if she had broken any laws.

The investigation concluded there was no "probable cause" that Palin violated the state's executive ethics act in dismissing Walt Monegan as public safety commissioner.

It also cleared her of ethics violations in respect to her dealings regarding Michael Wooten, the trooper involved in a contentious divorce and custody battle with the governor's sister.

This isn't a lie, simply a matter of who Mr. Sullivan chooses to believe.  Given his obsession with the origins of her youngest son this take is unsurprising.  So why bother to read the rest.  You'd think Mr. Sullivan would lead with a winner.  You'd be wrong.

Hmmmm.   She was exonerated on November 4th ... something else happened on that day, I think.  And although the complaints were dismissed as without merit, the damage was done.

Rest Assured, Many Of Us Had Little Doubt

Members of the mainstream press, however, have not seen any flaws to this point, though it's not due to the absence of such flaws.  "57 States?"

Husbands of the world rejoice!

President Barack Obama, who has seemed to set an impossibly high bar for many men when it comes to dealing with their wives, has finally stumbled — and in a very public way.

“I don’t know if anybody else will meet their future wife or husband in class like I did, but I’m sure that you’re all going to have wonderful careers,” he said as he warmed up the audience before delivering a commencement speech at an economics school in Moscow Tuesday.

Obama seemed to be playing off an introduction that referred to him meeting his future wife, Michelle Robinson, while he was a student. But the truth is that the couple met not “in class” but at a law firm in Chicago, Sidley Austin, in 1989.

The reverence is palpable, isn't it?  Mr. Gerstein is certainly full of ... something.  "Impossibly high bar for many men?"  Not for this blogger.  I doubt Gwendolyn is in such awe of their relationship.  Maybe we should coin a neologism to signify such worship?  Call it an "Obasm."

Someone Finally Read The Bill

None of the 219 Representatives who voted for Waxman-Markey actually read the bill before the vote, as it was still being assembled - with its 300 page last minute amendment - at the podium as the debate and vote were occurring.  The fine folks at National Review have gone through it now, however, in advance of Senate debate on the measure, and have discovered 50 things wrong with the bill.  Some are amusing, most are sad, and all are worth a look.  By the way, I think it's likely that the number 50 is a low estimate.  Here's a taste.

5. In addition to the permits, the bill also allows for the creation of “offsets” — the medieval-style indulgences of the carbon-footprint world. In fact, nearly all of Waxman-Markey’s carbon-reduction targets can be met with offsets alone through 2050, meaning decades before any actual reduction of greenhouse gases is required. That means huge new expenses for small businesses and consumers in return for basically zero environmental improvement.

This is, in fact, the best evidence yet that CO2 producing a large global warming effect is nonsense.  For if it were the case then this bill, as onerous as it is in terms of cost yet doing nothing to reduce emissions, would be howled at, not lauded, by the administration and other true believers.  Mr. Krugman instead took the opportunity to attack those who voted against it.  And if that wasn't enough evidence,

9. Waxman-Markey directs the EPA to ignore the real environmental impact of ethanol and other biofuels. The gigantic subsidies lavished on the farm lobby through the ethanol program encourage farmers to clear forest land to plant corn — a net environmental loss that the use of ethanol does nothing to offset.

It wouldn't be a Democrat-authored bill without union protectionism.  Here are two items that do just that.

12. Waxman-Markey provides an excuse for trade protectionism. The bill will give the Obama administration broad new powers to enact tariffs on imports from jurisdictions that have not had the poor sense to enact similar legislation, meaning that it invites both politically driven trade protectionism and retaliatory measures from abroad in the service of an empty green dream.

14. Naturally, Big Labor gets its piece of the pie, too. Projects receiving grants and financing under Waxman-Markey provisions will be required to implement Davis-Bacon union-wage rules, making it hard for non-union firms to compete — and ensuring that these “investments” pay out inflated union wages.

The former increase the cost of foreign competition once these green tariffs are applied, the latter increases the cost of doing business for non-union businesses by unilaterally ordering pay raises.  And if those cost increases weren't enough, there's this.

18. The legislation calls for the establishment of a Carbon Storage Research Corporation (CSRC) to steer $1 billion annually into the development of carbon-capture technologies. The CSRC would be funded via assessments on utility companies. Hear that? It’s the sound of another charge being added to your bill.

And, of course, ACORN gets a cut.  Another payoff to loyal Democrats.

42. Another Obama constituency, the community-organizing gang — i.e., ACORN — will be eligible to receive billions in funding as the bill “authorizes the Secretary [of Energy] to make grants to community development organizations to provide financing to businesses and projects that improve energy efficiency.” Think federally subsidized consultants paid $55 an hour to tell businesses to turn down their AC in the summer.

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.  Have a look at the whole list for the complete picture.  Then call your senator, particularly those of you in Maine, Nebraska, Louisiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.  My own senators (NH), unfortunately, are set on this.  One will vote for, one against.

7/3/09 0910:  Meanwhile, why so afraid of dissenting views?  And "the largest corporate welfare program" ever?

Why ABC's John Stossel Wasn't Invited To Participate In ABC's ObamaCare Infomercial

No, I don't have inside information.  But it should be obvious.

"The more time I spent in the Canadian system, the more I came across people waiting for radiation therapy, waiting for the knee replacement so they could finally walk up to the second floor of their house." "You want to see your neurologist because of your stress headache? No problem! Just wait six months. You want an MRI? No problem! Free as the air! Just wait six months."

Polls show most Canadians like their free health care, but most people aren't sick when the poll-taker calls.

[...]

We saw this in Canada, where we did find one area of medicine that offers easy access to cutting-edge technology -- CT scan, endoscopy, thoracoscopy, laparoscopy, etc. It was open 24/7. Patients didn't have to wait.

But you have to bark or meow to get that kind of treatment. Animal care is the one area of medicine that hasn't been taken over by the government. Dogs can get a CT scan in one day. For people, the waiting list is a month.

Mr. Stossel's absence from the program is the biggest sign that the Obama White House and not ABC was calling the shots.  And despite that Mr. Obama tanked on a number of the questions, including this one:

DR. ORRIN DEVINSKY, EPILEPSY SPECIALIST: Yes, in the past, politicians who have sought to reform health care have tried to limit costs by reducing tests, access to specialists, but they've not been good at taking their own medicine. When they or their family members get sick, they often get extremely expensive evaluations and expert care.

If a national health plan was approved and your family participated, and, President Obama, if your wife or your doctor became seriously ill, and things were not going well, and the plan physicians told you they were doing everything that reasonably could be done, and you sought out opinions from some medical leaders and major centers, and they said there's another option that you should -- should pursue, but it was not covered in the plan, would you potentially sacrifice the health of your family for the greater good of insuring millions? Or would you do everything you possibly could as a father and husband to get the best health care and outcome for your family?

OBAMA: Well, first of all, Doctor, I think it's a terrific question, and it's something that touches us all personally, especially when you start talking about end-of-life care. As some of you know, my grandmother recently passed away, which was a very painful thing for me. She's somebody who helped raise me.

But she's somebody who contracted what was diagnosed as terminal cancer. There was unanimity about that. They expected that she'd have six to nine months to live. She fell and broke her hip. And then the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough that they weren't sure how long she would last, whether she could get through the surgery. I think families all across America are going through decisions like that all the time. And you're absolutely right that, if it's my family member, it's my wife, if it's my children, if it's my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.

But here's the problem that we have in our current health care system, is that there is a whole bunch of care that's being provided that every study, every bit of evidence that we have indicates may not be making us healthier.

Note that Mr. Obama transformed a straightforward question about whether he and his family should be subjected to the same restrictions as the ones he would impose on America into a question of complex medical decision making.  The question wasn't whether surgery was the correct care for his grandmother.  The question was, what would he want if it was the right thing to do but disallowed by the government. 

The folks at the libertarian Cato Institute have some responses for Mr. Obama.

As Aretha sang, you better think.

7/2/09 0900: Speaking of infomercials ... (more details here)

Change In The Air

Amid all the Hope 'n Change* now taking place in Washington, there's been a steady increase in change of another kind.  Kimberley Strassel writes about it today in the Wall Street Journal as the U.S. House prepares to make another naked power and money grab under the guise of protecting the earth.  As if.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

Australia is considering their own Cap & Tax bill, and some after kicking the tires are walking away.

Mr. [Steve] Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S., attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.

Earlier we learned that the administration that was going to raise science to its rightful place in this debate is doing nothing of the kind.  (Originally in the NY Times Science blog.)

You can check out Dr. Pielke’s blog or a detailed rebuttal of how the report presents science in his area of expertise, the study of trends in natural disasters and their relation to climate change. While the new federal report (prepared by 13 agencies and the White House) paints a dire picture of climate change’s impacts, Dr. Pielke says that the authors of this new report, like those of previous reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Stern Review, cherrypick weak evidence that fits their own policy preferences. He faults all these reports for all relying on “non-peer reviewed, unsupportable studies rather than the relevant peer-reviewed literature” and for “featuring non-peer-reviewed work conducted by the authors.”

Which is, of course, exactly what Mr. Obama (while in the Senate) and his fellow Democrat senators previously accused Mr. Bush of doing.

The Cap & Tax program will raise prices for Americans on all goods and services.  The costs will be passed on to the consumer at every step of the production chain, and all in the name of cutting CO2 emissions, something that Mr. Obama calls a "contaminant," speaking of not understanding the science.  This is about government central control of economic activity, and about increasing tax receipts.  The one thing it's not about is protecting the environment.

The best evidence that this is nonsense hasn't yet been mentioned.  The fact that Al Gore is it's prime spokesman is the biggest red flag of all.

6/26/09 1600: Christopher Monckton takes apart the aforementioned administration report here (note: pdf format).

6/26/09 1625: Ooh, it looks like the environmental gestapo does not tolerate dissent.  But I thought that was the highest form of patriotism? Found at Wizbang.

*Hope 'n Change = increase in government control of, well, everything, including our lives

Gallows Humor And ObamaCare

With the specter of ObamaCare on the horizon, even the patients are starting to notice.

Exhibit A yesterday - a woman with a shoulder problem, immigrant from Poland

Her: "I had enough of government care in Poland.  You waited for everything.  Here now you can see a doctor when you need one.  There it was wait to be seen, wait for tests, wait for treatment.  Awful.  I hope it doesn't end up like that."

Me: "Why do you think they're pushing for it?"

Her: "Because they're ... (hesitates) ... stupid.  There, I said it."

Exhibit B today - a man, union member, who had a knee arthroscopy.

Me: "You've got some arthritis in your knee.  It'll feel better now that the torn cartilage is out, but over time the arthritis may worsen."

Him: "And then?"

Me:  "Well, if it gets bad enough ultimately we can solve it with a knee replacement."

Him: "Nah.  The government will probably say I ain't worth it by then."

$313B "Saved Or Created?"

President Barack Obama's health care proposal is running into road blocks.  Today he attempts to get past one of them, the costs of government healthcare, by "saving or creating" $313B in money to fund the overhaul.

Obama on Saturday is announcing an additional $313 billion in new proposed savings that he says would bring the total funding available for his top-priority health insurance reform to nearly $950 billion over 10 years.

White House officials insisted the new savings were rock-solid, but also acknowledged they had yet to settle on a specific mechanism to achieve lower prescription drug costs that make up nearly one-quarter of the new savings....

White House was moving aggressively to counter public criticism that funding plans for the health reform effort are unrealistic, particularly in the face of an expected 10-year pricetag of $1 trillion or more. Some analysts have faulted the White House for being overly optimistic about savings and tone-deaf to which tax-raising proposals are likely to fly in Congress.

Tax and spend, baby.  And this latest salvo is even more overly optimistic.  This strikes me as just as believable a proposal as the claim that 600,000 more jobs will be "saved or created" next quarter.  Shouldn't Mr. Obama have to produce the savings first to justify spending those savings on nationalizing healthcare?  My favorite line in the article is this.

The bulk of the new $313 billion in savings would come from cutting or reducing the growth of payments to hospitals, medical equipment manufacturers and laboratories — though the major cuts don't target doctors, [OMB Director Peter] Orszag said.

Don't kid yourself.  Cuts in government healthcare spending have always targeted physicians in one way or another, to the point that many physicians now lose money on Medicare and Medicaid patients.  And some have opted out.

For more on why nationalizing healthcare is a bad idea, see David Gratzer in the WSJ, Karl Rove in the WSJ, and Tevi Troy in the WSJ, the latter on why it's a bad idea to force prices down aggressively in prescription drugs.  And then there is the whole "public option" thing, which is really designed to force private insurance out of business.

Hat Tip: Hot Air/Ed Morrissey for the video, originally at Verum Serum.

And, by the way, heres the jobs graph that puts the lie to the "saved or created" nonsense.  Or at least to any belief in the Obama team's predictions of future economic conditions.

The Words Speak For Themselves

Mr. Obama has the right to fight for his appointee.  But nobody is distorting anything.

"I am certain that she is the right choice," the president said in his weekly radio and Internet address in which he scolded critics who he said were trying to distort her record and past statements. Those include her 2001 comment that a female Hispanic judge would often reach a better decision than a white male judge.

He derided "some in Washington who are attempting to draw old battle lines and playing the usual political games, pulling a few comments out of context to paint a distorted picture of Judge Sotomayor's record."

Those comments weren't pulled "out of context."  Rather, they speak for themselves.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Prior to the highlighted section she advises that "there can never be a universal definition of wise."  Perhaps.  But it would have to be a very broad definition to allow that highlighted quote to fit..

What's The Difference?

In Oregon, you can request the administration of medication to terminate your life if you are terminally ill.

On October 27, 1997 Oregon enacted the Death with Dignity Act which allows terminally-ill Oregonians to end their lives through the voluntary self-administration of lethal medications, expressly prescribed by a physician for that purpose.

The Oregon Death with Dignity Act requires the Oregon Department of Human Services to collect information about the patients and physicians who participate in the Act, and publish an annual statistical report.

In Minnesota you are not allowed to refuse treatment if you are afflicted with cancer.

Minneapolis (AP) — A 13-year-old boy's vow to resist chemotherapy by punching or kicking anyone who tries to force it on him will present doctors with a tough task if they can't change his mind. ...

Daniel and his parents stopped chemotherapy after one treatment and opted for "alternative medicines," prompting Brown County authorities to intervene. The cancer is regarded as highly curable with chemotherapy and radiation, but likely fatal without it. ...

"It can be very difficult to treat a 13-year-old boy who doesn't want to be treated," said Arthur Caplan, chair of the medical ethics department at the University of Pennsylvania. "I don't want to say it's impossible, but it makes it very tough on the doctors."

Last week, Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg said Daniel's parents, Colleen and Anthony Hauser, were medically neglecting him. Rodenberg said if a new X-ray shows a good prognosis for Daniel, chemotherapy and possible radiation appear to be in his best interest, Rodenberg said.

Yes, I understand that in Oregon the process depends on certification that the illness is terminal, and that Hodgkins Lymphoma in a young man is very treatable.  In the Oregon situation, though, the state has granted the individual to make informed decisions about their own life; in Minnesota, that ability and responsibility has been taken away by the state simply because the state disagrees with the decision.

My opinion?  I think that physician assisted suicide is absolutely wrong, and that in this case the state of Minnesota is likely correct in ordering treatment.  In both cases I come down on the side of the physicians not being a party to the hastening of death.

The JTF "Quote of the Day"

Michael Kinsley Mike Murphy in Time, on the concept of "shared sacrifice":

The sacred cows that voted Democratic last November are mooing more happily than ever. Big Labor is making no sacrifices. Nuclear power plants spew no CO[subscript 2] into the air and consume no foreign oil, yet a serious effort to build new ones is missing from the Obama energy plan because it offends the environmental left. Health-care reform will be massively expensive, yet the trial lawyers' lobby is not being asked to endure the cost savings that tort reform would bring to health insurance. The teachers' unions are unscathed as billions in new spending is poured into public education. Costly--and popular--farm subsidies are untouched (except for those painlessly targeted at "rich" farmers).

Obama's defenders will point to the concessions the Administration forced Detroit's autoworkers to make in the arranged-bankruptcy negotiations with Chrysler. It is true that the United Auto Workers (UAW) got less than it asked for. But without Obama's billions in auto subsidies, it would have gotten far less from insolvency. The children of nonunionized American autoworkers in Kentucky and Alabama who build cars that succeed in the marketplace made the largest concessions. They will endure a larger national debt so that billions of federal dollars can be used to prop up the UAW jobs of far less successful autoworkers in Michigan, Ohio and Ontario.

Now, Mr. Kinsley Murphy uses that premise to argue that Mr. Obama should pursue Large Tax Increases on everyone - a huge gas tax and higher taxes on the middle class - which he hasn't (yet).  That argument has serious flaws, which I'm not prepared to address right now.  But Mr. Kinsley Murphy is clearly well aware that the moves so far have largely paid off and/or protected supporting groups.

Oh, by the way, hi again.

5/15/09 1730: Weak goof on the name.  Hey, I'm starting slow, okay.  Gimme a break.

Brother Obama's Traveling Salvation Show

Step right up, folks, and behold the ninth wonder of the world, behind these presidential seal-encrusted curtains!!

ELKHART, Indiana (Reuters) – Chafing over congressional delays, an energized President Barack Obama began a new drive on Monday to win passage of an $800 billion economic recovery plan, taking his message directly to Americans hit by the downturn.

The president, in office just three weeks, flew to Elkhart, Indiana, for a campaign-style town hall meeting with some 1,700 residents of a city whose recreational vehicle manufacturing industry has been hit hard by the recession.

Later on Monday he was due to hold his first White House news conference.

The president was trying to regain momentum after a week in which a key cabinet nominee withdrew in a flap over unpaid taxes and his push for a stimulus plan hit unexpected snags in the Democratic-controlled Congress.

The Indiana visit gave Obama a chance to make his case for the economic rescue package in a familiar setting. The White House said the manufacturing city has seen its unemployment rate soar to 15.3 percent from 4.7 percent over the past year.

Here's an unfortunate truth of economic downturns.  Those industries hurt the most are those that people are most willing to deny themselves - luxury items, like RV's.  If the largest contributor to a city's economy is a luxury item manufacturing plant, that city will take it on the chin.

This Democratic-designed stimulus package is a hard sell for two reasons, and only two reasons.  One is its size and the subsequent effect on the national debt.  The second reason is the contents of that package, which are in large part non-stimulative.

The idea that the government can spend the economy out of a recession is highly questionable, and even with Senate moderates pushing for changes, the current package is unlikely to see much improvement. Nevertheless, this presents an opportunity to remove some of the most egregious spending, to shrink some programs, and to add guidelines where the initial bill called for a blank check. Here are 50 of the most outrageous items in the stimulus package:

Read the whole thing, and tell me which of these belong in a "stimulus" bill.  I would be more likely buy the concept that government could spend the economy out of a recession if three things were true.  First, that the primary costs of the bill aided businesses in stabilizing themselves and, in the future, growing.  Second, that spending was targeted at job-creating opportunities.  Third, that government spending was acknowledged to require future trimming to pay down the debt created in this emergency.  Unfortunately, none of these is true in the current bill.

Wherein Republicans Are Responsible For Every Mistake

As an example, see the conclusion to this story.

It looks like President Obama hasn't gotten acquainted to his White House surroundings. On the way back to the Oval Office Tuesday, the President approached a paned window, instead of the actual door -- located a few feet to his right.

[...]

Obama, who was returning from meeting with Congressional leaders, may have been distracted by Republicans' icy reception to his $825 billion stimulus package, which is poised to pass on Wednesday even without a groundswell of Republican support.

You see?  It's not his fault! It's opposition to the stimulus package laundry list of liberal spending projects that had him flustered.  The story, which managed to squeeze two paragraphs about a similar episode* involving President Bush in the ellipsis above, simply must find a villain for any error by the  "kind of really perfect" Mr. Obama.  And these days all villains are Republicans.  All.

*Actually, the stories aren't all that similar, as President Obama has been in the White House for 8 days whereas Mr. Bush's episode occurred in Beijing while attending a conference, and he had no ongoing familiarity with the location.  Mr. Bush's gaffe proved him an idiot, as legend has it.  What does his own say about Mr. Obama?

Meet The New Boss

Same as the old boss?

 

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Changefest '09 - Obama's Inaugural Speech

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

So here's the question.  Is it okay to sound like your predecessor if you don't mean it, or is it okay to lie to your supporters to get elected? Inquiring minds want to know.

Obama's First Mistake

And it didn't take long.

Obama was going to the State Department Thursday to join Clinton in addressing diplomats there and — very likely — setting forth major elements of the administration's emerging national security strategy.

One key aspect of that policy would move forward Thursday, with Obama planning to sign an order to shutter the much-maligned Guantanamo prison within a year, according to a senior administration official. This would redeem a promise that Obama frequently made on the campaign trail.

This is, however, attributed to the ubiquitous "anonymous aide," and so may be pure hokum designed to mollify a demanding liberal press intent on holding Mr. Obama to the most left-wing of his campaign statements.  I therefore reserve the right to say I told you so if the order doesn't come about.

That said, if he does sign the order it's a mistake on the order of the Iraq timetable that many, including the new president, were demanding when the war was going badly there.  Right now there are a) dangerous men in Guantanamo, unrepentent in their hunger to continue their bloody quest and b) others who, although releasable, have nowhere to go, including the U.S. mainland.  It's not helpful to state you're closing it if you have no idea what to do with the inmates.

Unless you're going to move them from one holding facility to another, call it different, and use Guantanamo to continue the propaganda war against the now deposed service-concluded Mr. Bush.  In that case I can see the purpose.

1/22/08 1005: Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades writes that these moves, including "banning" harsh interrogations, appear to be fig leaves designed to appease the demanding left while leaving open the option of pursuing them if deemed necessary.

The new White House counsel, Gregory B. Craig, briefed lawmakers about some elements of the orders on Wednesday evening. A Congressional official who attended the session said Mr. Craig acknowledged concerns from intelligence officials that new restrictions on C.I.A. methods might be unwise and indicated that the White House might be open to allowing the use of methods other the 19 techniques allowed for the military.

So, a fig leaf, and an implicit acknowledgment that President Bush was right. The CIA hasn't waterboarded anyone since 2003, but they wanted the option if it became necessary. Obama just agreed.

Burton's Boards Vs. Brattleboro's Bods

Vermont is a strange state.  There is liberal angst in the state, particularly in ski areas, over risque photos of Playboy Playmates on the equipment of snowboarders.

BURLINGTON, Vt. - For Nicole Zarrillo, seeing a snowboarder with one of Burton Snowboards' new Playboy designs at a Vermont ski slope underscored the reasons why many Vermonters - including her boss - are protesting the new men's snowboards.

"When you really think about it, it's a young man standing on top of a naked woman's body," said Zarrillo, 38, an office manager for a nonprofit based in Burlington, also home to Burton's headquarters. "I probably could have gotten past it, because I try to have an open mind, but seeing it like that, it's offensive."

Burton Snowboards, located in Vermont's largest city since 1992, cemented its reputation among Vermonters as a progressive company through employee benefits such as matching child-care payments and paying for half of a worker's gym membership.

Yet the company has found itself at the center of a grow ing controversy in the liberal state, with residents, students, and politicians debating free speech and sexism on the ski slopes. The Burlington City Council discussed asking Burton to withdraw the boards, and the Girl Scout Council of Vermont is considering taking concerns to lawmakers next month.

See, "progressive" is just another word for PC and liberal.  Burton was "progressive" in offering benefits like matching child care.  But photos on boards?  This is, of course, the same state that thought teens hanging out naked in the city was fine and dandy.

Ah, liberal Vermont.  Where the maple syrup flows, the air is pristine, the skiing is divine, and teenagers with too much free time on their hands can be seen - really seen - on every street corner.

The nudity began in earnest this year, Brooks said, when one young woman decided she wanted to bare her chest in public, just like her male friends.

Since then, the no-clothes fashion has gained popularity and has expanded to include group bike rides, skateboarding, hula-hoop contests, and a grass-roots music event that the group dubbed the Brat Fest.

In Vermont, it seems, it is quite alright to be naked in public*, but to be seen with a tasteful nude photograph is awful, just awful.

*a law banning the practice was considered, then rejected in 2007.