Kerry’s ambition
“Just about everybody in the other camp now concedes that Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States. But most of us don’t have to concede anything: we’d felt it in our bones from the beginning,” the New Republic’s Martin Peretz writes in a blog at tnr.com.
“Many political people are so certain, in fact, that they are already appointing themselves and each other to coveted posts in the Obama administration. … The most obvious of these supplicants is John Forbes Kerry. As he tells it (obviously not to me, but to several people I deeply trust), he confronted Obama with a deal: Kerry’s endorsement in exchange for his appointment as secretary of state. Obama, he tells people, took the offer. Slam dunk.
“Actually, I don’t believe it,” Mr. Peretz said. “Oh, I believe that Kerry put the question to him. What I don’t believe is that Obama took the bait. One reason is that Obama is too savvy to designate someone whose mind is so indentured to abstractions like the United Nations and ’soft power’ after what the candidate has learned during the campaign about how combustible foreign affairs is.
“Moreover, you don’t appoint a secretary of state without knowing who will be secretary of defense and national security adviser. …
“Choosing Kerry as secretary of state would also be political nit-wittish. He is not exactly liked by his colleagues in the Senate. That is, liked as a human being. He is a preener, and almost no one appreciates a preener. His politics are simply too left-wing for the Democratic majority, which Obama will have cobbled together for his victory. Imagine starting out your term on January 20 with an appointment fight over this J.F.K.”
McGovern’s ad
Liberal warhorse George McGovern, who was the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee in 1972, not only opposes the “card-check” legislation being championed by organized labor, he is featured in an ad denouncing the legislation that Sen. Barack Obama has promised to sign as president.
The legislation, known as the Employee Free Choice Act, would eliminate a secret vote when unions attempt to win representation in a workplace.
“I have always been a champion of labor unions. But I fear that today’s union leaders are turning their backs on democratic workplace elections,” Mr. McGovern says in the ad. “Quite simply, this proposed law cannot be justified. Working families deserve a voice and a private vote.”
The ad can be viewed at www.employeefreedom.org. The group said its ad began airing Tuesday night after the presidential debate.
Blame racism
“Barney Frank has found another cause for the credit panic: racist Republicans,” the Wall Street Journal said Wednesday in an editorial.
“’They get to take things out on poor people,’ the House Financial Services Chairman said at a Boston symposium Monday. ’Let’s be honest: The fact that some of the poor people are black doesn’t hurt them either, from their standpoint.’
“No one thinks poor or black people are to blame for the lending mania at the root of the mess. But there is little question that it resulted, at least in part, from a push to relax lending standards so as to make it easier for poor and minority borrowers to get mortgages. This in turn created incentives for banks to make bad loans, many of which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac acquired,” the newspaper said.
“An influential 1992 report from the Boston Fed recommended: ’Policies regarding applicants with no credit history or problem credit history should be reviewed. Lack of credit history should not be seen as a negative factor. Certain cultures encourage people to “pay as you go” and avoid debt.’ The head of the Boston Fed at the time, Richard Syron, was ousted last month as CEO of Freddie Mac.
“Not all Democrats agree with Mr. Frank that such policies are off-limits to criticism. Last week Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama said in a statement: ’Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie and Freddie. I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership, when in retrospect, I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004. Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong.’
“Mr. Davis is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.”
’Rank snobbery’
Camille Paglia, who supports Sen. Barack Obama, has nothing but scorn for the way the media has treated Sarah Palin.
“The mountain of rubbish poured out about Palin over the past month would rival Everest. What a disgrace for our jabbering army of liberal journalists and commentators, too many of whom behaved like snippy jackasses,” Miss Paglia writes at www.salon.com.
“The bourgeois conventionalism and rank snobbery of these alleged humanitarians stank up the place. As for Palin’s brutally edited interviews with Charlie Gibson and that viper, Katie Couric, don’t we all know that the best bits ended up on the cutting-room floor? Something has gone seriously wrong with Democratic ideology, which seems to have become a candied set of holier-than-thou bromides attached like tutti-frutti to a quivering green Jell-O mold of adolescent sentimentality.”
Miss Paglia added: “One of the most idiotic allegations batting around out there among urban media insiders is that Palin is ’dumb.’ Are they kidding? What level of stupidity is now par for the course in those musty circles?”
Laura and Sarah
First lady Laura Bush, in an interview scheduled to air last night on the Fox News Channel, said Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is being treated unfairly because she is a woman and a Republican.
“I think she can take it though, for sure,” Mrs. Bush said. “There’s no doubt about it. But, you know, I guess they say, all is fair in love and war. And I guess politics is part of that.”
Mrs. Bush’s comments came on the program “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.”
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washington times.com.
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