The Fire This Time in 50B

It's hard not to talk about the presidential election this cycle, but in some cases what happens on the local level has a greater effect on your daily life. The politicians at the county and city level are just as able to raise your taxes and are even more likely to enact rules and regulations that can hamstring your freedom.

With that in mind, it's time to visit where we are at in some of the local races that affect New Brighton and the surrounding suburbs. The family and I were at Long Lake Regional Park this evening for a BPOU 50B bonfire/confab and a number of candidates were present, including several that this feature supports. Following is a long-overdue update on where the candidates are, one month from Election Day.

• Ed Matthews continues his quest to unseat Betty McCollum in the 4th Congressional District. It's a tough job, given the unfavorable demographics of the district, but Ed's opportunity to get noticed is nigh. McCollum has been essentially hiding from Ed for most of the campaign, but a debate will take place next week at Hamline University. It may be the only time that Ed will get a chance to share a stage with the incumbent, who is most often seen these days in one of two places: either serving as a footrest for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or quoted in anti-Al Franken ads. Today was the fourth time I've seen Ed and he continues to grow in confidence, precision and presence on the stump. He also picked up an endorsement from the Fraternal Order of Police, which is quite a coup in the 4th. Betty is hoping that people won't pay attention to the upcoming debate. It's quite easy to understand why.


• Lori Grivna's campaign to unseat Kate "Agent Orange" Knuth in 50B continues apace. Lori is doing very well in getting her message out this time and while yard signs are at best anecdotal evidence, it would appear that the message is getting through - I'm still seeing about a 55-45 split on signs in Lori's favor. Even though Knuth is the incumbent, Lori has a sizable advantage in experience, both politically and in life. Knuth's enthusiasm for the embrace of a bigger government is obvious and has been noticed in the district -- people I talk to aren't happy about the tax increases we've seen in Ramsey County and there's reason to believe that people are noticing that Knuth had a pretty big hand in making it happen. Knuth's maniacal fealty to global warming/climate change/cap and trade isn't resonating so much in this cycle, especially with gas prices remaining north of $3 a gallon. The next few weeks will be crucial and Lori will have opportunities to debate Knuth in the coming days; the distinctions are strong and clear and Lori should have the better of it.


• Richard Moses faces a tough but winnable fight against the entrenched incumbent, Jan Parker, for the District 2 seat on the Ramsey County board, which primarily includes New Brighton, Roseville, Lauderdale and parts of St. Anthony. Rick has a presentation up on his website and shares a truly maddening tale of the way the Ramsey County board currently operates. You should definitely click the link and hear what Rick has to say, especially about a supposedly open budget meeting that suddenly adjourned after only 10 minutes when it became clear that citizens wanted to participate. Parker chairs the County Board and she apparently thinks that she is above scrutiny. Rick is the guy to call her out on the egregious behavior that the Board has undertaken. Reform is needed in St. Paul and Rick will fight for it. He's a smart guy and he will take constituent service seriously, unlike Commissioner Parker, who is the political equivalent of Brigadoon, only appearing when she needs votes.


• Both candidates for District 1 (generally comprised of Mounds View, Arden Hills, Shoreview, North Oaks and White Bear Township) attended the event this evening. Tony Bennett is the incumbent and has been a member of the Republican Party for many years. He has performed valuable service for his constituents as a state legislator and on the County Board - it would be uncharitable to say otherwise. But at this point in his career, we're seeing diminishing returns. Commisioner Bennett has gone along with the other commissioners and has too often voted in ways that are contrary to taxpayer interests. That's why District 1 voters really owe it to themselves to take a close look at newcomer Jim Schottmuller, a very impressive young man who is challenging Bennett. When it comes to the issues, Jim stands with Rick Moses on the need for reform. I hadn't seen Jim before tonight and I came away very impressed. Jim has an excellent grasp of the issues and makes his case quite well. He understands that changing the culture on the County Board will be difficult and has no illusions about it, but my guess is that he would be a dynamic force for change on the board. No matter the results of this election, we will be hearing more from Jim Schottmuller, whose picture appears on this post.

I'll continue to watch these races as Election Day approaches. We have some excellent candidates in Ramsey County and they deserve your support.

Cross-posted at True North

Great Moments in Recent French Military History

I learned something last night during the debate. Like a lot of Americans, I had wrongly assumed that the French had lately been obstructionist at best in recent years and that about the only military power they had projected in recent years was in the suburbs of Paris.

Guess I was wrong. Joe Biden reminded me of something that apparently I never knew:

When we kicked -- along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, "Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know -- if you don't, Hezbollah will control it."

Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.

The fact of the matter is, the policy of this administration has been an abject failure.

The French kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon? Man, who knew? I'm guessing that Biden saw the news reports when he was visiting Katie's Restaurant in Wilmington.

Sarah Smile

Why is this woman smiling? Perhaps because it's likely that she won the debate tonight. A few thoughts about what we saw in St. Louis:

• If Palin did win (and I suspect she did), it didn't mean that Biden lost. Biden was impressive, frankly more impressive than the fellow on the top of his ticket. He has a command at the podium now that he was sorely lacking 20 years ago and the time format helped him, because it kept him focused so he didn't ramble.


• Having said that, the most important part of the post-debate scrum will be the fact-checking. Biden threw out a lot of assertions that seemed dubious to me, but they came so fast that I didn't really know where to begin in thinking about it. It's easier to tell when Obama is lying because his style is more deliberative and pedantic.
• Moderator Gwen Ifill came into the debate with great suspicion because she is writing a book on the campaign that features Obama. It did not appear to me that she favored either candidate and she didn't betray any agenda with her questioning, which is more than I can say for Charlie Gibson or Katie Couric. Good for her.


• The challenge before Palin was to avoid gaffes. She did. Palin didn't always answer the question she received, which seemed to frustrate Ifill from time to time, but what we saw tonight was the star power that she demonstrated at the Republican Convention a month ago. She has a very winning personality and when she gets to speak directly to people, she comes across very well.


• I'm sure someone else has made this point before, but Palin's folksy manner reminds me a bit of the Marge Gunderson character in the movie Fargo. She does have a bit of the yokel in her, but you underestimate her at your peril. When it comes to pure likeability, I think Palin has more of it than any of the other members of either ticket. Biden and McCain are both senators of a certain generation and they aren't really accesible personalities, and Obama's persona is hardly that of a regular guy. I have lived in the Midwest for nearly my entire life and I have known many women who are like Sarah Palin. I've never met anyone who is like Joe Biden. And Barack Obama is sui generis.


• One thing Palin didn't do, and this is a definite problem, is adequately defend John McCain. Biden is a good counterpuncher and he got in a lot of shots about McCain's record that Palin didn't really address in any substantive way. Again, a lot of what Biden said needs to be fact-checked, but the traditional expectation is that the vice-president not only attacks the candidates from the other party, but must be ready to defend the standard-bearer. Palin may be capable of that, but I didn't see it tonight.


• Will this debate move the needle back? Hard to say. My first guess is that it probably takes the "Palin is a disaster" meme off the table. She may not be 100% ready to be President on Day One, but she doesn't have to be. She's running for Vice President. No one is 100% ready to be president on Day One - it is a job of such massive scope and fiendish permutations that all Presidents, even those who have a strong moral code like Ronald Reagan, end up spending much of their time necessarily operating in the gray. In the end, the decision isn't about Sarah Palin or Joe Biden. It's about John McCain and Barack Obama.


• So far Barack Obama has been able to skate on the Day One question. If the McCain/Palin ticket wants to win, they need to move that question to the front burner and turn the heat up. On balance, I think McCain/Palin won today. But they lost most days in September and the hour grows short.

Cross-posted at True North

The Thousandth Time

You are reading the thousandth post on Mr. Dilettante. Milestones usually call for a few thoughts. And I have a few.

I began this thing on December 13, 2005, during my lunch hour, while I was working as a program analyst for Bank of America. I started my blog on the same day as two of my co-workers; we all decided it might be an amusing thing to do. The other blogs that began that day are no longer with us: Umlaut Free eventually faded out, although my friend has subsequently blogged intermittently at two other places since then. Regular readers of this feature know him as Strolling Amok or SA. The other blog, Raspberries, also faded from the scene as my other co-worker moved to Oregon with the Bank. I wrote two short posts that day and you can read them here and here. As you will note, I managed to namecheck Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Charles Lindbergh, John Murtha, Hugh Hefner, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Rawls and Lou Rawls that first day. Not much has changed that way.

It was a tough time in my life - we had learned a month earlier that Bank of America was closing their offices in Bloomington and that we could keep our jobs if we were willing to pull up stakes and move to Hillsboro, Oregon. Mrs. D and I had decided against the move and I had to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. As it has turned out, blogging is one of those things.

For the first two years of this feature, I made almost no effort to publicize my work in the blogosphere. I tried to write regularly but it wasn't unusual for me to go a week or more between posts. Life was complicated: I had to find a job and I was ill a fair amount of the time. As 2006 turned to 2007, the reasons for my illness became clear and I used this blog to chronicle my story.

Eventually I got better and by the end of 2007, things were going much better. And as my health improved, the pace of blogging picked up quite a lot. I joined the MOB, started writing for True North and even got the attention of a few local politicians. It took me 2 years to write my first 500 posts -- the second 500 have come in less than a year.

As I've pursued this venture, I've sometimes been surprised by a few things. I knew from the start that I would write about sports, music and politics, because those are things that matter. As things have developed, this blog has become increasingly political and sometimes I wished that weren't the case. Even though I spend a hell of a lot of time discussing political matters, I'd really rather not. What is evident is that we live in a time where politics have so thoroughly permeated the culture that it becomes very difficult to avoid political discussions, unless you decide to disengage from the larger world. We are in high season for politics right now and some pretty momentous things have been happening in recent days. There is an excellent chance that we might see a charismatic but deeply flawed man occupy the Oval Office in January. It's also possible that Barack Obama might win, too. It's a matter that merits discussion and I'll continue to follow it here; I fully expect that Post 1001 will concern the debate later this evening.

Once the election is over, my goal is to write a little less about politics. We'll always have politics and politicians always merit the gimlet eye, but it gets old. I'd rather post links to YouTube videos any time; there's more joy and surprise in mining the silliness of the past than trying to slog through a Lori Sturdevant column any time. Reaching that goal may be tough, but it's worth trying.

Most of all, I want to thank everyone who comes here for a visit. I am deeply grateful that you are willing to spare some of your time for this feature. Some of you comment frequently and I appreciate that, but there are others who visit regularly anonymously. I appreciate you, too. Writing is performance as much as anything else and I hope that you'll continue to see value in what you find here. Enjoy the show!

Fearless Dilettante Football Predictions - Dick Trickle Edition

The pro teams we follow here continue their early-season sojourn against NFL competition from the southern tier of states, so it seems necessary and proper to salute one of the greatest of Cheesehead racecar drivers, Dick Trickle. We could have picked Dave Marcis or Matt Kenseth, but Trickle's very name is comedy gold, as an entire generation of ESPN anchors reminded us 15-20 years ago. But enough about that: on to the picks!





Xavier Hawks 34, Berlin Politically Incorrect Term for Native Americans 14. Not many schools still use the name "Indians," but Berlin (pronounced BURR-lin for my non-Cheesehead readers) is bucking the trend. It's a better nickname than "Brownshirts," I suppose. In any event, the Hawks will handle them.

ACTUAL RESULT: XAVIER 21, BERLIN 0. Teri Nunn was unavailable for comment.

Irondale Knights 38, Chisago Lakes Wildcats 27. Probably the toughest conference foe left on Irondale's schedule and the game is up in Chisago Lakes. I suspect the Knights will prevail but it won't be easy.

ACTUAL RESULT: IRONDALE 35, CHISAGO LAKES 22. The Knights continue to play very well. This was probably the toughest conference game left on the schedule and the Knights are probably on the way to a high playoff seed in their section.




Mounds View Mustangs 31, Robbinsdale Armstrong Falcons 21. Tough one to gauge, as Armstrong is a member of the Classic Lake conference, an odd 5-team league that has four powerhouses in it. Unfortunately, Armstrong is not one of them.

ACTUAL RESULT: MOUNDS VIEW 40, ARMSTRONG 14. Armstrong might have thought they were getting a break getting away from the rugged Classic Lake. Guess not. The Mustangs win easily.





Lake Forest Foresters 21, Beloit Bucs 17. Lake Forest is a team that Beloit can beat. Lake Forest is also a team that Beloit does not beat, especially in Lake Forest. Go with the Foresters on their home field.

ACTUAL RESULT: BELOIT 27, LAKE FOREST 21. Real progress here. The Bucs hadn't won at Lake Forest for a number of years. Next week will be a trip to Ripon. A strong showing there would suggest that the team is turning the corner.


Wisconsin Badgers 21, Ohio State Buckeyes 20. The Badgers did one of the all-time choke jobs in Ann Arbor last week and this is not exactly an easy assignment. My guess is that Brett Bielema will have found a way to heal Bucky's psyche sufficiently to get past the Buckeyes in Madison. But I won't be surprised if I'm wrong.

ACTUAL RESULT: OHIO STATE 20, WISCONSIN 17. No band, no defense at the end. This is starting to look like 1995 or 2001, seasons where the Badgers were pretty good but not quite good enough. We'll find out how good a coach Brett Bielema is next week when Penn State comes to town.

Minnesota Golden Gophers 34, Indiana Wants Me (Lord I Can't Go Back There) 24. The Gophers have improved. If they are ready to take the next step, they need to beat the Hoosiers, a perennial footwipe in the Big Ten. The guess here is that they will.

ACTUAL RESULT: MINNESOTA 16, INDIANA 7. Defense? The Gophers play defense? Really? Hmm.


Green Bay Packers 31, Atlanta Falcons 24. I don't know what to expect from the Packers. The Falcons are a pretty ordinary bunch, but with all the injuries that Packers have suffered on defense, it wouldn't surprise me if the Packers have to go find someone off the street to play defensive line. Early possibilities include John Jurkovic and Clarence "Big Cat Williams," but we probably shouldn't rule out the immortal Blaise Winter.

ACTUAL RESULT: ATLANTA 27, GREEN BAY 24. Can't stop the run, can't win the game. Don't pin this on Aaron Rodgers, although he did throw a bad pick in the 4th quarter. He's not the problem right now. Maybe they could put some casters on Gilbert Brown or something.


New Orleans Saints 31, Purple Helmeted Love Warriors 17. The Saints feature a healthy Drew Brees. The Vikings feature a banged-up Gus Frerotte. Next question?

Easy for Him to Say

The Wall Street Journal has a deeply useful compendium of what various figures involved in our current financial crisis were saying while the crisis was developing earlier in the decade. It's worth your time to read it all, but I want to call out one particular exchange:

Senate Banking Committee, Oct. 16, 2003:

Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.): And my worry is that we're using the recent safety and soundness concerns, particularly with Freddie, and with a poor regulator, as a straw man to curtail Fannie and Freddie's mission. And I don't think there is any doubt that there are some in the administration who don't believe in Fannie and Freddie altogether, say let the private sector do it. That would be sort of an ideological position.

Mr. Raines: But more importantly, banks are in a far more risky business than we are.

Emphasis mine. In other words, Raines knew all along he was playing with the house money. And Senators like Charles Schumer were complicit in not only letting it happen, but pretty much compelling it. Again, you can bash Wall Street as much as you want, but it's long past time for someone to point out the responsibility of the solons for what happened. And I have a suggestion for who that someone ought to be.

Hurry up please it's time.

Guilty Pleasures Part Twenty-Eight -- Mental Health Break Edition

My goodness, I've been grumpy the past two days! I've posted nearly 1000 times in this feature (I'll probably pass that milestone tomorrow) and usually this is a good-natured place, but recent events have certainly beclouded my disposition more than a little bit. The elections are less than five weeks away and there's an absolute surfeit of politics, so let's take a step away from it and run some videos. For what it's worth, Barack Obama will still be there to bash tomorrow.

There's always been a thin line between genius and madness, and in rock history some very good songs (and some not so good ones) have danced around the topic of madness. Heck, back around 1980 or so we had a band called Madness that you might remember.

So, sometimes when things drive you crazy, you might as well go with it. Kinda like these people:

Seal

Patsy Cline

Gnarls Barkley

Ozzy Osbourne

Madonna

Paul Davis

Van Morrison

Paul Simon

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown

I'm sure there are other songs I'm missing, but that's probably plenty. Pick your favorite and tell me why!

American Idyll

Tell me if you think this is normal (OOPS - the video is no longer available, but it was a chorus of young schoolchildren singing a hymn to Obama).

With each passing week, this gets more and more prescient.

And in its own way, so does this (MAJOR CONTENT WARNING ON THIS ONE - DEFINITELY NOT SAFE FOR WORK).

But in the end, too many people are saying this.

Which leads to this.

Happy October, everybody!

White Sox 1, Twins 0

Where have we seen this before? Jim Thome, one of the all-time Twins killers, strikes the mortal blow. Meanwhile, our heroes can't get any hitting when they need it. Nick Blackburn pitched a great game, but John Danks was simply better. Nothing you can do but tip your cap to the Sox and wish them well. The potential all-Chicago World Series is alive.

Meanwhile, congratulations to the Twins. Remember that Denard Span, Alexi Casilla and Jose Mijares were not on the active roster at the beginning of the season, but all were key players in the last game. It's easy to take Ron Gardenhire for granted, but you would be very hard pressed to find a more resourceful manager. We are blessed to have such a fine team to watch here in Minnesota.

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

Take it away, T.S. Eliot:

When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said.
Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can't.
But if Albert makes off, it won't be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face
It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be alright, but I've never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don't want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.

What a repulsive display today. If there really a crisis, the people in Washington sure the hell aren't acting like it. Pelosi dumps a 55 gallon drum of bile on the Republicans whose votes she needs right before the vote, doesn't get them, and then the Republicans take their ball and go home.

The reasonable conclusion - this isn't really a crisis, it's just kabuki theater. I mean, if the financial system was really on the verge of collapse, Pelosi would have had the votes going in, right? And if Republicans realized the gravity of the situation, they would have gone along, right?

All last week I tried to maintain my equanimity about this clusterbleep. Tried to be fair, even though there was ample evidence which side was primarily responsible for getting the ball rolling some 30 years ago (that's a hint). Even tried to look the other way while Barney Frank (D-Fannie Mae) and Chris Dodd (D-Countrywide) tried to escape blame. In a just world, both of them would be facing federal indictment, instead of crafting legislation that obfuscates their role in the mess. They'll skate, though. They have for years and nothing is going to change about that any time soon.

George W. Bush is the only actor in this mess who is certain to leave the stage in January. The cretins on the Hill will return, quite likely joined by a new President who spent his formative political years tied to ACORN. Happy days are here again!

The only solace? Even though it's not part of Catholic theology, I fully expect that there will be enough karma to go around for all these miscreants.

Shantih shantih shantih

A Modest Proposal

So, where is all the money going to come from to pay for this bailout? I don't know about you, but I'm pretty tapped out these days. And our friends who took out the negative am loans in 2005 so they could afford the granite countertops and whatnot, well, they're not doin' so great, either. We could always do the Weimar Republic thing and print more money; I could get used to paying for a loaf of bread with a wheelbarrow full of Jacksons, I suppose, and I've always wanted to be a millionaire. We gotta get the money from somewhere, right? Here's an idea:

Yeah, let’s have a tax on the rich - the super rich - McCain should support a clawback tax on billionaires alone. A confiscatory one that causes the WSJ editorial page to go crazy. I bet you’d find they’re mostly Democrats and Democratic party contributors - and that would put Obama and the Democratic party in a genuine bind.

Hey, why not? If you're going to play class warfare, why not go for it? Warren Buffett is famous for being a Democrat and famous for opposing the estate tax. So why not start dismantling his estate now? He's doing pretty well - he had enough money to buy a big stake in Goldman Sachs this week. And he really doesn't need all that money he's accumulated over the years, right? Instead of investing in Goldman, why not take Warren's pile and invest it into ACORN? That was part of the plan until today, and goodness knows we wouldn't want to shortchange those guardians of liberty, now would we?

The Tony Awards

Things haven't been looking good for John McCain in the last few days -- his contribution to the ongoing bailout scenario seems to have been a wash at best and for reasons that aren't clear to this observer, the developing consensus seems to be that Barack Obama won the first debate, even though he did at least two things that would have blown up in his face if he were a Republican. Life isn't fair sometimes.

But it's possible that the latest deux ex machina has arrived. Something weird happened last night in the SNL skit on the debate. The name of Tony Rezko was pulled from the memory hole. And now, it appears that Tony Rezko has decided that he doesn't really like prison so much and may be about to start testifying. The danger for Obama may not be direct -- although Rezko certainly extended an out-0f-the-ordinary favor to Obama in helping him to finance his home in Chicago, the real heat will be on Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who is up to his eyeballs in rich Rezko-y goodness. But an indictment of an Illinois governor because of his ties to the same guy that Obama got his house from would certainly open Obama up to a bunch of questions he'd rather not answer.

As the Chicago Tribune notes, Rezko is due to be sentenced in October. If he starts to sing sooner than that, the repercussions will extend well beyong the borders of Illinois. And they should.

CC Rider

Brewers 3, Cubs 1. The big man does it again. Best. Midseason. Acquisition. Ever. And the Brewers are in the playoffs for the first time since 1982. The Phillies will be tough to beat, but they should have a puncher's chance. And the way CC Sabathia is going, he might be ready to pitch Game 2.

Meanwhile, the Twins finally righted the ship and whipped up on the Royals 6-0. The Whities won, too, so now we become Tigers fans for a day. If the Tigers can't do it, the Whities get their shot at revenge on Tuesday in Chicago. I'm an Occam's Razor type of guy, so let's go, Motor City Kitties!

Just Don't Call Her Unpatriotic

This is lovely. Click on this link from Allahpundit and watch the video as Nancy Pelosi calls the House Republicans "unpatriotic" for not providing her with political cover.

Remember, you are never to question a Democrat's patriotism. Ever. Just so we're clear.

Roll With Me, Henry

That didn't take long. As I noted below, McCain backed Obama into a corner after Obama asserted that Henry Kissinger supported Obama's approach regarding Iran. Sure enough, Kissinger has weighed in. From Jennifer Rubin:

But the killer quote came from Henry Kissinger whom Obama had invoked to criticize McCain’s stance that we should not meet unconditionally with Ahmadinejad. Kissinger retorted: “Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality.”

Unforced error for Obama. And millions of people saw it. That's gonna leave a mark.

True Blue

Brewers 5, Cubs 1. Rickie Weeks, a cipher for most of the year, strikes the mortal blow with a 3 run homer. Couple it with the Mets doing their typical el foldo against the Marlins and suddenly the Brew Crew is making like Lazarus. One game up with two to go is pretty good.

The Twins got their butts handed to them, but the Indians bailed them out by beating the Whities 11-8, so everything remains the same in the AL Central. Here's hoping that the Twins got it out of their system tonight.

The First Debate - McCain, Obama, Kissinger and Inigo Montoya

No live-blogging of the debate, but a few thoughts.

• No one scored a knockout in this one, so if the polls are accurate and Obama is leading, then chances are that Obama will still be leading when the polls come out next week. I say that with one major caveat, about which more in a moment. Still, I doubt what happened tonight moves the needle.


• McCain was the aggressor throughout and he seemed to get under Obama's skin a few times. The split screens were not kind to Obama, who was scowling and visibly perturbed on a number of occasions. I saw that several times during the course of the debates. Don't know if that makes a difference to people, but it might.


• Obama took one huge gamble in invoking Henry Kissinger repeatedly as supporting his notion of meeting with foreign leaders without "preconditions." When McCain challenged him on it, Obama doubled down. My guess is that the reporters will be coming to Kissinger to find out what he really thinks. It's been 30 years since Kissinger has been relevant and I'm sure he'll not hesitate to speak to reporters. If Kissinger contradicts Obama in a forceful way, it will definitely leave a mark on Obama and it could move the needle.


• Maybe it's just me, but as the candidates kept battling each other about what the meaning of "preconditions" is, I kept thinking of Inigo Montoya, the character played by Mandy Patinkin in the 1987 movie The Princess Bride. After listening to the character Vizzini (played by Wallace Shawn) continually refer to a series of events as "inconceivable," Montoya says "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Given the way McCain and Obama were bandying the word about, the word does not mean what one of them thinks it means. When I hear someone say that they will meet someone without preconditions, I assume it means that they don't have expectations that the other party will have to do anything prior to having the meeting. That's not what Obama said he meant tonight and he made it clear that he thought McCain was misrepresenting what he meant. Perhaps it was "inartful phrasing?"

Welcome to the Broom Town

Twins 7, White Sox 6. Alexi Casilla strikes the mortal blow but the game belongs to just about everyone as the Twins would not give up after falling behind 6-1 early. I'm guessing Ozzie Guillen can't wait to see the Dome go offline. Now it's 3 against the Royals, who are playing pretty well. Too bad they couldn't find a way to send the Pirates in here.

Brewers win dramatically as well, with a walk-off grand slam by Ryan Braun. The fate of the season hinges on how well the Brew Crew handles the Cubs this weekend. That's not gone well lately. But hope remains.

The Morphing MOB

Blogging is a pretty amorphous thing and people are constantly getting in and out of the game. In the past few weeks, a number of changes have been afoot among some of the better bloggers in the MOB.

It began with the announcement that the redoubtable Leo Pusateri was putting Psycmeister's Ice Palace in the deep freeze. Leo is a great guy and one of the best bloggers around, but his life has been getting more complicated and something had to give. That meant blogging. As Leo explains it:

As I've often said, a job worth doing, is worth doing right. Although I've enjoyed blogging, the time required to not only update a blog daily, but to really put thought into each post, was time that I was lacking. I was paying a little attention to each facet of my life, but nowhere near the attention each facet deserved; that included blogging.

The good news is that while Leo has shelved his operation, he has joined Chief and the rest of the Freedom Dogs and is contributing to that ever-worthy outpost, while continuing his ongoing efforts to oust John Murtha. Still, less Leo means that the MOB is lessened.

Meanwhile, our good friend John "Night Writer" Stewart is "re-purposing" his blog. What does that mean? Well, let the man explain:

Certain thoughts have been in the back of my mind for some time, and I let them come to the forefront while I was on vacation the last couple of weeks, and I've made a decision. Blogging has been a great exercise ... almost like calisthenics. The thing with calisthenics is that you can develop your muscles but at some point you're going to want to do something with them. As the Anthony Trollope quote in my header this week says, "Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write." I now know I can put two to three hours a day into writing, because I've been doing this and now...I need to break from the familiar and comfortable and see what else I can write.

As when I started this blog, I have no idea what I'm going to write about, or what form it will take. I think I'd like to try a novel, but I don't have a vision for a story yet. It may be short stories at first, as the next step in my process. What I do know is that I'm going to take those two to three hours a night to work it out, and that means not writing as often here.

Again, that does not mean that the Night Writer is leaving the fray. He will still post from time to time and his family/partners in crime (Mall Diva, Tiger Lily, the Reverend Mother and presumably Uncle Ben) will still be offering their bon mots over at his place. This much I know -- whatever the Night Writer decides to do, it will be damned good.

But there's more: we also learn that the invaluable Marty Andrade is pulling the reins back a bit:

It’s not that I’m not writing anything, just not on the blog.

Presently I am working on two Bleacher Report columns and an end of season MLB Awards ballot that all the community leaders in the MLB section of the Bleacher Report were given. Plus, the 2nd edition of the Burger Tour (with 3 new joints and 2 new essays) is getting worked on.

However, this week’s lack of posts might be indicative of things to come.

On Monday I start my MBA program. There won’t be any fooling around. The MBA program becomes my #1 priority. This blog gets pushed down the priority list.

This is not to say I’ll be quitting the blog. Hardly. But it might become one of those annoying one-post-a-week-on-something-everyone-else-has-already-talked-about blogs. I also might start liveblogging more. It’s easy and well…pointless. But fun.

Marty's not exactly slowing down, it would seem. But even if his blog is one post a week, it will be worth your time.

The MOB is a pretty loose amalgam of people and the intersection of self-expression and life can be the scene of some major pileups. There have been times where I've wondered if I spend too much time on this particular avocation. For now it's full speed ahead around here. But for my own selfish reasons, I hope that Leo, John and Marty keep writing. All of them are good friends of this feature and have all been quite generous with their support. And because they may be less prominent players in the MOB in the future, it means that the rest of us have to do more.

Cross-posted at True North

Rules of the Game

It always drives liberals nuts when a conservative blogger blames something on Bill Clinton. So I'm not going to blame Bill Clinton today. But it's necessary to bring the following article from the Los Angeles Times to your attention (H/T: Ed Morrissey).

Back on May 31, 1999, reporter Ron Brownstein chronicled "one the hidden success stories of the Clinton era.

It’s one of the hidden success stories of the Clinton era. In the great housing boom of the 1990s, black and Latino homeownership has surged to the highest level ever recorded. The number of African Americans owning their own home is now increasing nearly three times as fast as the number of whites; the number of Latino homeowners is growing nearly five times as fast as that of whites.

These numbers are dramatic enough to deserve more detail. When President Clinton took office in 1993, 42% of African Americans and 39% of Latinos owned their own home. By this spring, those figures had jumped to 46.9% of blacks and 46.2%of Latinos.

That’s a lot of new picket fences. Since 1994, when the numbers really took off, the number of black and Latino homeowners has increased by 2 million. In all, the minority homeownership rate is on track to increase more in the 1990s than in any decade this century except the 1940s, when minorities joined in the wartime surge out of the Depression.

No matter your view of Clinton generally, it was positive news. But as always, there were other factors at play. Brownstein turns to an old Clinton hand whose name came up recently in the news:

But the economy isn’t the whole story. As HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo says: “There have been points in the past when the economy has done well but minority homeownership has not increased proportionally.” Case in point: Despite generally good times in the 1980s, homeownership among blacks and Latinos actually declined slightly, while rising slightly among whites.

All of this suggests that Clinton’s efforts to increase minority access to loans and capital also have spurred this decade’s gains. Under Clinton, bank regulators have breathed the first real life into enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act, a 20-year-old statute meant to combat “redlining” by requiring banks to serve their low-income communities. The administration also has sent a clear message by stiffening enforcement of the fair housing and fair lending laws. The bottom line: Between 1993 and 1997, home loans grew by 72% to blacks and by 45% to Latinos, far faster than the total growth rate.

But how did it happen? The answer lies at the heart of our crisis nine years on:

Lenders also have opened the door wider to minorities because of new initiatives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–the giant federally chartered corporations that play critical, if obscure, roles in the home finance system. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy mortgages from lenders and bundle them into securities; that provides lenders the funds to lend more.

In 1992, Congress mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers. Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains. It has aimed extensive advertising campaigns at minorities that explain how to buy a home and opened three dozen local offices to encourage lenders to serve these markets. Most importantly, Fannie Mae has agreed to buy more loans with very low down payments–or with mortgage payments that represent an unusually high percentage of a buyer’s income. That’s made banks willing to lend to lower-income families they once might have rejected.

Emphasis mine. So what do you have here? Two Washington specialties -- an unfunded mandate and a system that encourages moral hazard. Both the banks and Fannie Mae assumed that Uncle Sam would ultimately pick up the tab if the market went south. It did. And that is where we are today.

So do you blame Bill Clinton for this? You could but I don't, at least not completely. Clinton left office in 2001 and the current administration has left this unstable edifice standing for over 7 years now. The Bushies noticed problems as early as 2001 and did propose reforms in 2003, as I noted yesterday. But the reforms never went anywhere for two reasons: opposition from congressional Democrats like Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd, and (perhaps more importantly) an unwillingness by the Bushies to fight the battle, most likely because they were afraid to be demagogued on the issue. It's all very understandable and makes perfect sense. And meanwhile, there was money to be made and a lot of people did make a lot of money during the past nine years. But now the bills are coming due.

It's easy to find news reports that chronicle the missteps and missed opportunities of the past. There's an especially apt line in Renoir's famous 1939 movie La Regle du Jeu ("Rules of the Game"). One of the characters attempts to explain the seemingly ordinary events that take place during a weekend hunting party in the French countryside that lead to a very bad end. The conclusion: they all had their reasons. It's true of all the players in our current melodrama. Chronicling the cruelty, stupidity and cupidity of everyone involved could occupy this feature for months but it won't change anything. What we need to do now is focus on the way forward.

Fearless Dilettante Football Predictions - Global Financial Catastrophe Edition

Rome is burning, y'all. So it's a perfect time to talk about football.





Xavier Hawks 21, Clintonville Truckers 17. Homecoming for the Hawks and a tough opponent. The Truckers are pretty good most of the time, but my sense is that the X will be ready for this one.

ACTUAL RESULT: XAVIER 27, CLINTONVILLE 16. The X was ready. Defense was tough all night.





Irondale Knights 31, Friendly Fridley 21. The Knights have been dominant lately, but they step up in class a bit with a tough game against their neighbors to the west. Based on what I can tell, the Knights should win, but it won't be easy.

ACTUAL RESULT: IRONDALE 42, FRIDLEY 7. A rout. Irondale wasn't especially friendly.





Mounds View Mustangs 34, Hastings Raiders 17. Hastings, like their Stillwater neighbors, is a river town with a fine football tradition. Also like Stillwater, Hastings is down a little this year. Look for the Mustangs to take advantage.

ACTUAL RESULT: MOUNDS VIEW 42, PARK OF COTTAGE GROVE 0. Lesson of this one -- don't depend on the schedule printed on the Mounds View website. Park is near Hastings, if that means anything.

Beloit Bucs 31, Knox Pure Prairie League Fire 24. Knox is one of the teams Beloit can beat and frankly any school whose nickname is "Prairie Fire" really deserves to get its butt kicked. Hope that my friend Stephen, who is a professor at Knox, will forgive me for making this common-sense argument.

ACTUAL RESULT: BELOIT 38, KNOX 0. That's about as big a butt-kicking as a Beloit team has ever delivered. Good for them, especially in front of the Homecoming crowd. And the worst part for the defeated Prairie Firers is that they have a 3+ bus ride back to Galesburg, Illinois.



Wisconsin Badgers 31, Meeeshegan Woolverines 21. Usually Ann Arbor is a graveyard but Go Blue is in transition right now. When the Badgers return there in two years, it will be a lot tougher than I expect it to be Saturday.

FINAL SCORE: MICHIGAN 27, BUCKY FREAKING FAILURE CHOKE MONSTERS 25. Epic Fail. Start the cheer now, kids.... "Over-rated... Over-rated." That was one of the worst chokes I've ever seen. And it won't look much better unless Michigan wins about 7 more games this season.



The Ohio State University 31, Minnesota Golden Gophers 17. Okay, let's give Tim Brewster some credit for righting the ship. The problem here is that OSU is still much better than the Gophers. But it won't be a rout this time.

ACTUAL RESULT: THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 34, GOPHERS 21. It is what it is.


Green Bay Packers 27, Tampa Bay Pewter Pirates 19. Tampa has been a tough place to visit for our beloved Pack in recent years, but this time the Pack has a better team. Look for Aaron Rodgers to come back smartly from last week's lessons.

ACTUAL RESULT: TAMPA BAY 30, GREEN BAY 21. Aaron Rodgers throws 3 interceptions, while Brett Favre throws six touchdowns for the Jets. Packer fans go back on suicide watch again. Not me, though - just go get 'em next week!



Tennessee Tuxedos 14, Purple Helmeted Love Warriors 10. If Matt Birk has trouble blocking massive, mean Albert Haynesworth, we might have a T-Jack sighting sooner than Week 8, which is still the over/under for when Gus Frerotte breaks down.

ACTUAL RESULT: TENNESSEE 30, VIKINGS 17. Easy to sum up this one, Vikings fans: Not. Good. Enough. Boy, the Packers are lucky that the rest of the division appears to stink.

By the way. . . .

It is worth remembering that Fannie and Freddie were on someone's radar screen five years ago. As that noted conservative organ The New York Times reported on September 11, 2003:

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

Two relevant points from the article. First, this:

The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which is part of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was created by Congress in 1992 after the bailout of the savings and loan industry and concerns about regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy mortgages from lenders and repackage them as securities or hold them in their own portfolios.

At the time, the companies and their allies beat back efforts for tougher oversight by the Treasury Department, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the Federal Reserve. Supporters of the companies said efforts to regulate the lenders tightly under those agencies might diminish their ability to finance loans for lower-income families. This year, however, the chances of passing legislation to tighten the oversight are better than in the past.

However, the oversight wasn't tightened. Why would that be? Well, consider this:

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Emphasis mine. Much will be decided in the coming days. One thing that has been suggested is limiting compensation for executives of companies that get bailouts. Perhaps the executives aren't the only ones who should have their compensation curtailed. Just sayin'.

(H/T: Powerline)

The Temple of Doom

Twins 3, White Sox 2. Sox fans probably are even more eager than Twins fans are to see that new stadium open up. This was the game that I thought would be the toughest one for the Twins to win. As expected, Mark Buehrle was really good for the Whities, but without Carlos Quentin and Joe Crede, it's tough for the South Siders to score runs right now. Nick Blackburn pitched just well enough and let's give a particular shout out to portly young portsider Jose Mijares, who merely dispatched two certain Hall of Famers and one of the most dangerous right handed hitters in the American League in the 8th inning. And a shout out to Carlos Gomez for making a great play in the 9th to save Joe Nathan's bacon.

Tomorrow night it's Gavin Floyd, who has been very good for the Whities, against Kevin Slowey, who has probably been the most consistent Twins pitcher in the second half. Getcha popcorn.

Oh, and the Brewers are now tied with the Mets for the wild card and the Marlins have informed America that they will actually try hard against the Mets over the weekend. Will the Cubs try hard against the Brewers over the weekend? Stay tuned.

Understanding How Bob Knight Felt

Back in the 1980s, the University of Wisconsin Badgers basketball team was a perennial Big Ten footwipe. For years the fans would grumble about the bumbling squads that Badger coach Steve Yoder would put on the floor. And every year, opposing coaches in the Big Ten would rush to Yoder's defense, telling anyone who wanted to hear that Yoder was a great guy, ran a fine program and was a credit to the university. Bob Knight in particular was especially fulsome in praise for Yoder. I'm pretty sure that in Yoder's 10 seasons in Madison, he never beat Bob Knight.

Over the past several years, I've felt the same way about Matt Millen, who finally got ashcanned today as the majordomo of the Detroit Lions. The Packers (and the Vikings and the Bears, for that matter) have been beating the Lions like a rented mule throughout the illustrious Millen era. For the record, I think Matt Millen is a great guy, has run a fine program in Detroit and is a credit to his franchise.

There's A Reason They Call Him Learned Foot

This is why. A quick excerpt:

You see, none of this would have been possible if all those people who read "maximum loan amount" on their preapproved loan documents as "buy a house that costs this much" had just stayed out of the market; or at least had been familiar with the nuances of the word "maximum". Because all the (well, most of) the troubles Wall Street is currently facing can be traced directly back to the dimwit making $35,000 per year who just absolutely fell in love with that 1800 square foot $400,000 bungalow in Tangletown with its $8000 per year in property taxes. The figures and locations are of course different from case to case, but the ratios tend to be the same. Sure, there may be a thin film of folks who were victimized by circumstances and were forced to default. I'm certainly not blaming them. Most people get farked by the fickle finger of fate at some point in their lives. I'm talking about those people that you think about when you drive past those vast tracts of McMansions and overpriced townhouses in Eden Prairie or Plymouth, wondering to yourself: "how can so many people afford these super-expensive homes?" You now have your answer. Most of them can't.

Read the whole thing.

You Know the Drill

Some good news amidst the unrelenting gloom rising from the Potomac:

WASHINGTON - Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., told reporters
Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election.

This is only the first step, since Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are planning to wait for a better deal that they expect to get from a President Obama. If you needed a reason to get involved in electing people like Erik Paulsen and especially Ed Matthews, here it is. Ed has a well-thought out position on the issue that you can read here. His opponent's position is to do whatever Speaker Pelosi tells her to do.

Speaker Pelosi might try to pull this back in the next Congress, but a Speaker Boehner would not. Retiring Betty McCollum would be an excellent first step and an act of civic hygiene as well.

Cross-posted at True North

Fellas - I'm Telling You - You're Gonna Want More Kubel

Twins 9, White Sox 3. Good win for our heroes, but tomorrow night is the game that matters. Mark Buehrle is one of the all-time Twins killers and Nick Blackburn has been pretty shaky of late. If the Twins win tomorrow night, it could get really interesting.

Oh yeah, the Brewers won, too, so they're not dead yet. The Pirates are better than chicken soup.

Get Back to Washington/Ask an Expert

Brief midday post. Two quick points:

• It's possible that the Senate will vote on the bailout bill this week and that both Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain will miss the vote because they are too busy campaigning. I think it would be a very good thing indeed if both of them get their butts back to Washington, participate in the debate and vote. This is the most important vote that will take place in this Congress and if these guys want to be President, the people ought to know where they stand. Oh, and Biden should vote, too. Almost forgot about him.
• Sometimes if you want to understand something, you should ask an expert. That's when I turn to the Nightwriter. Click the link, kids.
  

The Price of Moral Hazard

Moral Hazard:

The risk that a party to a transaction has not entered into the contract in good faith, has provided misleading information about its assets, liabilities or credit capacity, or has an incentive to take unusual risks in a desperate attempt to earn a profit before the contract settles.

See also: 1999-2008.

So what are we going to do about it? Who knows? The Treasury Secretary wants to administer a $700 billion bailout. The bidding on Capitol Hill has already begun. Partisans on both sides are blaming the other for causing the mess.

The only thing I am certain of this: the people who are taking steps to fix the problem aren't likely to fix anything, because they all had a hand in it. I sure did: I worked for Bank of America for 3 years during the height of the boom and B of A was involved in what's happened (and is bidding to benefit from the wreckage). B of A had better standards than a lot of lenders, but I was privy to financial information for our line of business and there were some bad loans in our portfolio, loans that would never have been made in a more normal time. We all knew it, deep down, but no one wanted the party to end.

You can't count on Congress to fix the problem -- Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd and yes, Barack Obama were wholly-owned subsidiaries of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. You can't count on the Fed: Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernake would occasionally make cryptic comments about things, but they didn't stand up to say that madness was afoot. And the Bush administration didn't bother, either.

We all own this. It won't do to pretend otherwise.

Heaven 17

Today is my wedding anniversary - Mrs. D and I exchanged vows 17 years ago at St. Adalbert Church in St. Paul. I'm not sure what the traditional gift for your 17th anniversary is, although this website suggests furniture, so perhaps I ought to go out and get an end table or something.

We ended up having dinner last night since she has to work today and it's a school night. Those are some of the realities associated with wedding anniversaries - the daily grind often intervenes. Three years ago, we ended up celebrated our 14th anniversary by bailing water out of our basement because our sump pump had been disabled by a power outage caused by a huge storm that wiped out hundreds of trees in New Brighton. We fought off the flood with a flashlight and a plastic Kirby Puckett souvenir baseball cup, bailing the rising water into the laundry tub for hours. It's times like that when you understand what "for better or worse" really means.

One thing is certain - after 17 years, I remain convinced that I am the luckiest guy in the world. Jill has always been a very special person but she is better in every way than she was when we married - she is smart, funny, wise, generous and loving. And we've learned to adjust - you have to be able to change and grow together if you are going to make a marriage work.

Senate Candidate and Former (Current) SNL Writer

The usually reliable Politico website is reporting that Al Franken had a role in writing the opening sketch on last night's episode of Saturday Night Live, a ham-handed bit satirizing John McCain's political ads. What do we make of this?

• In tough economic times, most business look at their supply chain as a place to cut costs.Is anyone really surprised that NBC would let a liberal Democrat currently involved in a political campaign participate in writing something for them? As a practical matter, NBC typically runs DNC talking points unedited on their newscasts, so at least this way they've cut out the middleman.


• It's good to see that Franken is taking steps to find something to do with his life after he gets his butt handed to him in November.


• As I watched the skit last night, I was wondering why it wasn't very funny. Franken's hand in the sketch explains why.

Bottom line - just about everyone in the media and entertainment industries are completely committed to pulling Barack Obama's butt across the finish line. The only person NBC employs as an on-air talent who isn't in the tank for Obama is Al Michaels, who has been known to let slip his conservative opinions during football games. (John Madden's candidate, from what I can tell, is Brett Favre.) Conservatives just have to accept it and move on.

Cross-posted at True North.

Curiouser and Curiouser

And now, for a trip down the rabbit hole.

The Washington Post published an article profiling Franklin Raines, the former Fannie Mae majordomo who has come in for justifiable criticism for his role in the financial shenanigans that took place under his watch. In the article, Post writer Anita Huslin notes that Raines also had been offering advice to Barack Obama's campaign:

In the four years since he stepped down as Fannie Mae's chief executive under the shadow of a $6.3 billion accounting scandal, Franklin D. Raines has been quietly constructing a new life for himself. He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap, taken a corner office in Steve Case's D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment and health-care companies and more recently, taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.

Not surprisingly, John McCain's campaign staff noted that and on Thursday they came out with this ad, which notes essentially what the Post reported.

Obama has no background in economics. Who advises him? The Post says it's Franklin Raines, for "advice on mortgage and housing policy." Shocking. Under Raines, Fannie Mae committed "extensive financial fraud." Raines made millions.

Fannie Mae collapsed. Taxpayers? Stuck with the bill. Barack Obama. Bad advice. Bad instincts. Not ready to lead.

Also not surprisingly, the Obama campaign didn't like the ad much and complained about it, loudly. And equally unsurprisingly, members of the news media swooped in to condemn the ad. What was surprising: that two of the people condemning the ad are with the Washington Post.

First, Howard Kurtz called the ad into question, even though he had to admit that the information that McCain's campaign used is accurate.

Fannie Mae did collapse, requiring a government takeover, and Raines, its former chairman, paid $25 million in April to settle a case brought by federal authorities investigating his role in the agency's accounting problems. But he has never been a close adviser to Obama.

The commercial's main charge is based on an April story in The Washington Post that said Raines has "taken calls from Barack Obama's presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters." Reporter Anita Huslin says Raines told her that during an in-person interview.

An Obama spokesman called the ad's contention "a flat-out lie," saying Raines has "never advised Senator Obama about anything, ever." But Raines did not claim to have advised the Illinois senator personally. In an accompanying statement, Raines said he never "provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters." That contradicts what he told Huslin five months ago.

In other words, either Huslin is lying or Raines is lying. Neither one of them is John McCain, though.

But then there was more - the Washington Post continued on the trail of casting doubt on the veracity of the ad. Post writer Michael Dobbs in his "Fact Checker" said this:

The McCain campaign is clearly exaggerating wildly in attempting to depict Franklin Raines as a close adviser to Obama on "housing and mortgage policy." If we are to believe Raines, he did have a couple of telephone conversations with someone in the Obama campaign. But that hardly makes him an adviser to the candidate himself -- and certainly not in the way depicted in the McCain video release.

Again, the Post does not dispute that Raines did field inquiries from Obama's campaign. Look again at the ad's text: does it say that Obama is a close adviser to Obama? No. That would be Jim Johnson, another old Fannie Mae hand who was deeply involved in the Obama campaign and whom McCain featured in another ad the following day.

So what do we make of this? Apparently John McCain was wrong to attach enough credibility to a report in the Washington Post that he used it for an advertisement. Take it from Howard Kurtz and Michael Dobbs -- Post reporting is not to be trusted.

Well, some of us have suspected that for a long time.

Cross-posted at True North

Saturday Morning Flashback World

One of my favorite media experiences is listening to "Saturday Morning Flashback" on WXRT, my favorite radio station from Chicago. The show runs from 8-12 every Saturday and what they do is pick a specific year and play music exclusively from that year during the four-hour time slot. As it happens, as I write this the show is playing music from 1973, but it could be any year from 1965 through about 1996. You get a feel for what the music was like and they also add additional features about the news from the year, what movies were popular, etc. It's always entertaining.

But it's also deceptive, because the 1973 you get from WXRT isn't really what 1973 was like. If you look at the Billboard Top 100 for the year, you see some really wonderful songs and some really dire stuff, too. Some of the songs that are played were Top 40 hits, although you won't hear "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree" on the show, even though it was the #1 song of 1973. Of the top ten songs of the year, typically you might only hear #4 ("Let's Get it On"), #7 ("Crocodile Rock"), #8 ("Will It Go Round in Circles", with Billy Preston sporting a sweet Afro in the linked video) and maybe #9 ("You're So Vain") in a typical 1973 show. Meanwhile, you do hear some great songs like Little Feat's "Dixie Chicken," Bruce Springsteen's "Rosalita," but most people sure didn't hear those songs in 1973. And you also hear some songs that were hits but most people have largely forgotten, like "Why Can't We Live Together" by Timmy Thomas (#75 on the charts) and "Dancing in the Moonlight" by King Harvest (#36).

Sometimes I feel like we live in a Saturday Morning Flashback world. It's very easy now to get whatever music you want, whatever news you want and whatever experiences you choose. While I love being the editor of my own life, sometimes I wonder if my editorial decisions are blinding me to information and perspectives that would be useful to have. And I really wonder if we are missing things now that, 36 years on, will seem blindingly obvious. This has been a pretty momentous week - lots of things have happened in the financial markets and in Washington that will have very long-term consequences. Are we seeing things clearly right now?

Singing In the Rain

As always, Iowahawk notices something:

LAS VEGAS, NV -- Barack Obama stepped up his attacks on Republican rival John McCain today during a campaign stop in Nevada, telling supporters to "get in the faces" of waivering voters with his message of hope, change, and "brass fisties."

"Righty right, me malenky droogs," said Obama, nonchalantly spinning a steel baton while pacing the stage before a packed audience at a Las Vegas baseball stadium. "Come with uncle and hear all proper! Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones. You are all invited. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their faces, with bootsie-woots if thou it suits."

Obama said his new gloves-off campaign strategy was prompted by what he described as a coordinated effort by McCain and talk radio to distract from his message of national unity."One thing I could never stand was to hear a filthy, dirty old partisan bushie, howling away his filthy songs and going blurpy blurp," said Obama. "Naughty, naughty, naughty! You filthy old soomkas!"

"So great bolshy yarblockos to you, Johnny brother," he added in a stern warning to the McCain camp, "We'll meet you with chain or britva or Dailykos anytime, not having you aiming factchecks at us reasonless. Well, it stands to reason we won't have it."

Indeed. Read the whole thing.

Houses of the Holy

Sarah Palin got a lot of grief because of last week's interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson, especially about the notion that we are fighting "a holy war," which Gibson doesn't seem to think is the case. Palin was widely ridiculed for her comments.

Turns out, there's a long line of presidents who have invoked God, as this video shows. Punch that link and give it a look. Further affiant sayeth not.

(H/T: Instapundit)

Guilty Pleasures Part Twenty-Seven -- Soul '72

Not much commentary this time, since I think the videos speak for themselves. I will say this, though -- the early 1970s had a reputation as being a time when music wasn't that good, especially coming off the glory of the 1960s. It's not really true, though - especially when you are talking about what was then called Soul. Here are four fine examples -- good tunes all, with some really alarming fashion choices.

First up, it's The Main Ingredient, from an appearance on Soul Train, with their biggest hit:

Everybody Plays the Fool

One of the biggest hits of 1972 was this one from Joe Tex. Pay particular attention to the somewhat esoteric outfits on the gals dancing behind ol' Joe.

I Gotcha

Those two were happy. But it wasn't all happy. Consider this cautionary tale from the O'Jays, even if you get distracted by the impeccable tailoring on display.

Backstabbers

Meanwhile, one of the biggest Motown acts of the 1960s, the Temptations, were still around and they had one of their biggest hits with this one, also a cautionary tale, written and produced by Norman Whitfield, who died on Tuesday.

Papa Was a Rolling Stone

They don't write 'em like that any more. Well, mostly they don't.

Cast your votes!