Alternative to the Rules Committee meeting: Red State Update

Sometimes we need to eat our vegetables, sometimes we need dessert. (I happen to be one who enjoys dessert first, for one never knows when the Lord will call, but this is a personal matter.)

In politics as well as in gustation, there are vegetables and there is dessert. I consume more than the daily recommended allowance of political fiber, mainly through CNN. I want one of John King's "telestraters." I want to sit between Donna Brazile and Paul Begala on the CNN set on Election Night, and pick David Gergen's brain myself. I get a kick out of Wolf Blitzer's personal public relations campaign to promote the "best political team on television." Because a dear friend of mine in Raleigh and I often arrive at conclusions days -- sometimes weeks -- before Blitzer and his team get there, she and I wonder aloud often why we're not on CNN. And because my colleagues at work take in as much political roughage as I do, I'm fond of calling us "the best political team NOT on television."

But I want my dessert too. And where I used to get it only from Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert's "The Colbert Report," there is one more place I go to get my sugar fix: "Red State Update" at YouTube.

I first saw Jackie Broyles and Dunlap last summer, when CNN and YouTube were collecting questions to include in the presidential debate set at the Citadel in Charleston last July. Daisy and I stayed a few nights at Ocean Lakes, a little family vacation park south of Myrtle Beach, and we spent an evening there watching Red State Update's archived videos. We cracked up.

CNN selected the question selected by Red State Update for the debate, and Jackie Broyles and Dunlap were the ones who took note of all the light and heat and attention being given to the "Draft Gore" effort. They asked the Democratic candidates if it upset them, which cracked up the candidates as much as the crowd. Daisy and I were in the field house at the Citadel that night, and the Red State Update question was an audience favorite.

Okay, enough introduction. Go here and watch them for yourself. They're a riot.

King's comment on "The Purpose of Education"

Daisy found an item from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's speeches recently and I've kept it on the nightstand for the past couple of weeks. It says a lot, I think. Called "The Purpose of Education," the text was published in the Maroon Tiger, the newspaper of Morehouse College in 1947.

I found a copy of it online and reprint it here:

As I engage in the so-called "bull sessions" around and about the school, I too often find that most college men have a misconception of the purpose of education. Most of the "brethren" think that education should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses. Still others think that education should furnish them with noble ends rather than means to an end.

It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the ligitimate goals of his life.

Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively and to think for one's self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.

The late Eugene Talmadge, in my opinion, possessed one of the better minds of Georgia, or even America. Moreover, he wore the Phi Beta Kappa key. By all measuring rods, Mr. Talmadge could think critically and intensively; yet he contends that I am an inferior being. Are those the types of men we call educated?

We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character--that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living.

If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, "brethren!" Be careful, teachers!

MOC Trojans are 2008 NCAA Div II National Champions!

It's in the history books now: Mount Olive College's Trojans have won their first national championship in the NCAA Division II College World Series. In a great and poetic twist, the Trojans came full circle in their four-game series, playing the same team today -- Ouachita Baptist -- that they first defeated last Monday morning. How sweet it is.

Mount Olive Wins National Championship
SAUGET, ILL. - Top-ranked Mount Olive earned its first national championship with a 6-2 victory over No. 4 ranked Ouachita Baptist Saturday afternoon in the championship game of the NCAA Division II Championships at GCS Ballpark. Mount Olive went 3-0 in the tournament en route to the championship and finish the season at 58-6. Ouachita Baptist ends its season at 51-16.

"I've been coaching at the college level for 22 years and it's really hard to express what I feel right now," said Mount Olive head coach Carl Lancaster. "This is a dream come true. We are extremely excited to bring this to Mount Olive."

A two-out error by Tigers' third baseman Rudy Jovanovski in the top of the first inning helped Mount Olive to an early 5-0 lead and the Trojans never looked back.

"We just got off to a slow start today," said Ouachita Baptist head coach Scott Norwood. "They took advantage of our mistakes like we did all week against other teams."

Mount Olive then plated a single run in the fifth inning for a 6-0 lead before Ouachita Baptist got on the board with a pair of runs in the bottom of the eighth. Casey Hodges (10-1) garnered the win for the Trojans, giving up just two runs on seven hits in eight innings of work. He struck out six. Trent Lingle (1-1) took the loss, scattering six hits on seven runs in four and one-third innings. He also walked four and struck out three. The Trojans recorded 12 hits in the win with Josh Harrison going 2-for-4 at the plate with two runs scored and two RBIs.

Beautiful.

The town of Mount Olive, the Mount Olive Area Chamber of Commerce and the college are poised to host a celebration of this historic event on Monday evening. I got an email from the MOC Alumni Association a little while ago inviting the public to a "welcome home rally" at 5:30 p.m. on Scarborough Field.

"The celebration will include a brief presentation by town and college officials along with a great deal of pomp and circumstance!" the email reads. "Bring the family; come out and support this special team and Trojan Athletics! There will be plenty of photo and autograph opportunities; shirts, balls, food, etc."

Wish I could be there too. This is a great day for the whole college family. Good work, Coach Lancaster.

Photo documentary completes Memorial Day stay-cation

On Memorial Day itself, while we did other things in the house, Daisy and I left the television on the Sundance Channel, and luckily so: That afternoon, we caught "The Impassioned Eye," a sweet and beautiful film featuring an interview with Henri Cartier-Bresson and his commentary on many of his photographs. We weren't the only ones struck by the beauty of the film. A number of folks have written about it, so I'll include some notes I found online:

This one sets Cartier-Bresson in his context:

Henri Cartier-Bresson, the relatively reclusive master of 20th century photography and the grandfather of photojournalism, personally involves himself for the first time in a film project about himself in HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON: THE IMPASSIONED EYE.The intense vitality and presence of Cartier-Bresson’s recollections bear eloquent testimony to his “impassioned eye.” An incomparable visual journey traces half a century of photographic assimilation of the world, exploring entire continents and introducing us to people, whose often delightfully humorous portraits by Cartier-Bresson, are frequently as famous as the sitters themselves.Actress Isabelle Huppert, playwright Arthur Miller, publisher Robert Delpire and the photographers Elliott Erwitt, Josef Koudelka and Ferdinando Scianna present their own very personal views on Cartier-Bresson as friend and photographer.

One reviewer says the film didn't really fit the mold of a documentary but still reveres it:

"Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye" is not a documentary in any of the many accepted forms we know. It is not the documentary I would have made had I the same material at my disposal. This aside, as short a film as this is — it runs 72 minutes — and lacking the context it deserves and should have had about the man and his life, it gives us a fascinating insight into one of the greatest photographers who ever lived.

Henri Cartier-Bresson's legacy is enormous as a photographer and a man, and for the many photographers he influenced in his long life. We will probably never see the likes of him again. Sadly, he died in 2004 at 95 shortly after his interviews for the film. Despite the film's deficiencies, Cartier-Bresson comes to life as a warm, insightful man who always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. How he arrived at each place, when and why is never explained, but he traveled the world, from India, to China, to Mexico, to the United States. There he is in India with Mahatma Gandhi on the day he died. There he is in Mississippi covering a neglected part of America. There he is in Mexico rife with poverty, but glorious in its faces and landscapes. There he is in Paris for its liberation in World War II. There he is in China for the Communist takeover.

He rarely photographed the obvious, preferring to make his way where his instinct told him to go and then, simply — not quite the right word — take the picture destiny laid out for him. In some cases he needed only one shot, in other cases, just a few. And, perhaps, that was his genius. As some critics indicated, in the film we enter a master class in photography. To that I have no objection. I found what Cartier-Bresson said useful and insightful, and disarming as well as charming.

The film is mostly an extended interview in a number of different settings conducted by director Heinz Butler — rare for Cartier-Bresson, considering he was a private man in a very public profession. Music surrounds many of his comments. Sometimes we even pause long enough to meditate with Cartier-Bresson as we listen with him to the classical piano in the background. Despite the director's static approach, it is triumph enough to hear Cartier-Bresson talk about only a handful of the pictures from his cannon. His memory of the places he had visited and the people he had met was clear and often infused with good humor. Considering how rare it was for him to allow the public an opportunity to understand his work as a photojournalist, to see him recall how he took those pictures was worth the price of the ticket.

His portraits of Igor Stravinsky, Samuel Beckett, Alexander Calder, and an enthusiastic Leonard Bernstein conducting are remarkable because they are not what we expect. He easily and sometimes simply, too simply for my taste, recounts his long history of wandering about the world, camera in hand, his eye concentrating on the unexpected. He tells us he believes in grabbing the moment, and when he did, which was often, when his finger skillfully pushed the button to get the image, the resultant photos are memorable.

Most of the photos we see were taken with his 35mm Leica between the 1930s and 1960s. We see some of these photos as they appear in books, or when Cartier-Bresson holds a print before the camera and discusses its origin. We see a marvelous, thoughtful picture of Marilyn Monroe. We share the deadpan look on Marie and Pierre Curie as he enters their apartment and takes an inspirational photo of them. We see Henri Matisse framed in the doorway of his farmhouse. We share with him his remarkable ability to create geometry and architecture where none might have been apparent until he squeezed the trigger of his camera. We see a man leaping over a puddle and I wonder how in the world he made that shot because I know it would be impossible ever to duplicate it.

Had I made the film with the same material I would have added more background to get an understanding of Henri Cartier-Bresson's life, his loves, his adventures, his failures, and how success changed him or not. We get little of this in the film, but what we do get is priceless, and we should be grateful for even this small look at how he worked, which is now permanently on the record.

I think this reviewer has a point; here's a chronology of Cartier-Bresson's life, and another biography of the photographer.

Here's an interesting hour that Charlie Rose produced on Cartier-Bresson, too.

And here's the Washington Post obituary of Cartier-Bresson, who died less than a year after sitting for the interviews featured in this documentary:

Henri Cartier-Bresson, 95, who revolutionized photography as an art and a reporting tool by capturing what he called "the decisive moment," died Tuesday at his home in the southwestern Luberon region of France. No cause of death was provided.

Whether taking pictures of French resistance fighters and Gestapo informers during World War II, the death of Gandhi, a grizzled eunuch during the Communist revolution in China or a slew of celebrity shots, he was the epitome of the photographer who was at the right place at the right time -- all the time. "In photography, you've got to be quick, quick, quick, quick," he once said. "Like an animal and a prey."

His images, mostly taken with his ever-present 35mm Leica, were alive with playful shadows and rich geometric patterns based on his early interest in surrealism. He called himself a painter at heart, and the sheer beauty of his shots was heightened by the fact he never posed or planned them or later cropped them in any way. Each caught the drama, wit or joy of the immediate, or "decisive," moment.

With a productivity matched by the haunting grandeur of his pictures, Cartier-Bresson was a founder of Magnum Photos, a co-operative photojournalism agency based in New York and Paris; was the subject, in 1954, of the Louvre's first exhibit of photography; had exhibits at all the world's major galleries; and compiled his work in acclaimed books that showcased his worldwide travels. "No photographer alive has a more secure position in the history of art than Henri Cartier-Bresson -- aesthete, man of action, artist and reporter," Washington Post art critic Paul Richard wrote in 1981.

During his career, Cartier-Bresson also worked as a filmmaker. He was assistant director to director Jean Renoir, son of the impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, in the mid-1930s, and later directed his own documentary, in 1945, about weary French refugees returning to their homeland after World War II.

Cartier-Bresson, thin, wiry and slightly aloof, was long regarded as one of the art world's most unassuming personalities. He disliked self-aggrandizing publicity and exhibited a ferocious shyness since his days in hiding from the Nazis during World War II. Likewise, he never used his camera to intrude on moments he considered too private for others. That contributed to winning cooperation from such people as William Faulkner, Jean-Paul Sartre, Truman Capote and Marilyn Monroe, each captured in rare moments of unguardedness.
...
The notion of the decisive moment had its detractors, who said it amounted to snapping scenes quickly and slapping a fancy label on it. But Cartier-Bresson, who late in life returned to painting, argued that his photographic work required an essential intuitive, creative impulse.

"Photography is not like painting," he told The Washington Post in 1957. "There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera."

"That is the moment the photographer is creative," he said. "Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."

There's more of the obituary that I clipped out from this note, but I encourage reading the whole text. It's worth it.

Memorial Day stay-cation made by great documentaries

During this year's Memorial Day weekend, thanks in large part to the rising cost of Bushgas, Daisy and I took a stay-cation and spent most of the three-day break at or near home. We didn't get a lot of work done, but that wasn't our intent. We stayed up late, we slept late. On Saturday night, we ate a late breakfast at Waffle House, and on Sunday, I made barbecue (the noun, not the verb; but we'll get to barbecue in due course, for there is much to say about it) with corn-on-the-cob, green beans and new potatoes, and the cole slaw that I learned to make at my grandmother's knees. And, without intending to, we were sucked into three documentaties -- two of them on the Sundance Channel.

The first was one called "Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa." I was amazed that people can live in 2008 as was shown in this film -- a real-life version of "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" in the New Mexico desert -- and I'm confident I'd never want to live there.

A reviewer for the Chicago Tribune gave the movie four stars -- I don't know if I'd go that far but it definitely kept my attention -- and said it would be "too hasty, and quite possibly wrong" to dismiss the film's subjects as "a bunch of freaks" since they "demonstrate a civil lifestyle." Okay, so how does he explain them?

The 400 or so Mesa dwellers are a mix of hippies, veterans, runaways and other free spirits, surviving on about 15 square miles of New Mexico desert. Most consider their way of life the ultimate expression of self-reliant American freedom (but some charity food handouts and government checks do flutter into the area--one of several interesting paradoxes).

When a neighbor arrives asking for some gasoline, a Mesa-dweller named Gene (a.k.a. Gecko) tells him where to find a container with a couple gallons. Gene explains that while he won't get immediate compensation, he'll get something in return from his neighbor on another day.

In my opinion, this reviewer is sanitizing the folks on the Mesa a bit more than even they would prefer. Cleanliness, next to godliness, doesn't appear to be high on the list of the Mesans. Although he did get it right that these folks have an exceptionally healthy sense of right and wrong, and there's a mile-wide Libertarian streak running through their "Survivor" psychology.

Because of the climate, the people are also very frugal. They nurture a few crops (including some that ... y'know ... help mellow them out) and some animals. Many homes have solar arrays. But "living green" is often in stark contrast to fits of wanton destruction: After Gene's children return to his wife in Connecticut, he sets fire to a van outside his home. The landscape is beautiful except for the patches around the shanty/homes. Paradox.

The film is a scant 70 minutes, yet it embraces a broad range of people and ideas. In the end, you may find it difficult to decide if the last chapter of truly free America is unfolding in the New Mexico desert, or if it's just a bunch of wackos who've been toasting in the desert a little too long.

Todd Seavey got to attend a screening in New York last August with the producer/directors of the documentary, and he wrote:

In the Q&A that followed last night’s showing of the documentary Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa, one of the producer-directors said he was surprised (as a New Yorker who expects freedom-loving loners like the desert-dwellers depicted in the movie to be leftists) to find that this little community of people living on a southwestern mesa, while loving and raising marijuana and being suspicious of mainstream society, were also eagerly gun-toting self-proclaimed patriots, several of whom had served in the military and would do so again.

The head of the Lincoln Center Film Society, on hand to lead the proceedings, echoed my own thoughts when she said that if lots of people hear about the free-wheeling, Road Warrior-like (as one of the producers actually called it) life of the mesa-dwellers and want to share it, we may see “the gentrification of the mesa” — reminding me of last month’s Debate at Lolita Bar on such matters.

At the same time, it has to be said, some of the mesa-dwellers display the same psychological tendencies seen in the homeless, so they probably shouldn’t be a model for all of society (any more than Burning Man should be, as I suggested halfway through this entry). There’s always something a little crazy — though not necessarily bad — about leaving civilization behind and heading out into the wilderness. Or, as I believe my friend Deborah Colloton once said, “If men aren’t married by the time they’re forty, they start getting weird and go into the woods and make bombs [like Ted Kaczynski].” There’s probably some simple but profound truth to that. I have two years.

For more information on "Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa," click over here, and over here, and over here. My own advice: Don't watch the doc while having lunch. There's a particularly unpleasant sequence involving dead baby goats.

From the subverse to the sublime: Daisy went channel surfing on Sunday evening and landed on C-SPAN, which was airing a gorgeous documentary on Capitol Hill, including a fascinating guided tour all the way up to the top of the dome. In fact, what we watched was a series of short documentary segments, or, as C-SPAN describes it, "a special series looking into the history, art and architecture of the United States Capitol. Through interviews, tours, and unprecedented access into the building's public and private spaces, C-SPAN presents a groundbreaking look inside the building that both houses and symbolizes American democratic government here and around the world."

By sheer coincidence, the evening we watched this program was the twenty-fifth anniversary of my first visit to Capitol Hill, as part of my eighth-grade field trip to Washington, D.C. The documentary brought back some nice memories: My parents ponied up a hundred bucks for the field trip. We stayed in Falls Church, a suburb of Washington just beyond Arlington on the Robert E. Lee Highway.

I recall the hot, slow elevator ride to the top of the Washington Monument, and peering out of those tiny four rectangular windows at the top. I remember a slow walk through the sultry Botanical Gardens, and the ringing echoes in Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill. We also visited the Lincoln Memorial, but my favorite then, and still, was the Jefferson Memorial. I've only gone back to it once since then, last year, when Daisy and I visited it. Of all of the monuments, the Jefferson is the most emotional to me.

The field trip was great and I enjoyed Washington. I wouldn't be back in the city again for 12 years.

After watching the program on C-SPAN, both Daisy and I spent a few minutes online to search out more information about things we'd just learned, looking up great quotes and other notes. I've been back to Washington many times now -- I'm there fairly often -- but I learned things from the documentary I never knew before. To me, Capitol Hill is our national philosophical chapel. It's a powerful, spiritual place, given the history of the nation and all that has been said and done there.

I'll share notes on the third documentary we watched in the next note.

'Silent protest' planned for Dubya at Furman

I fear for the safety of some of Furman University's faculty and staff this evening when Dubya arrives. If his apologists don't cause bodily harm to conscientious objectors before the warmonger's visit, the university itself may be pressured to review those objectors' employment status after the evening. Such is the nature of First Amendment rights today, hm? And this is for silence, not a full-blown protest with marches, placards and chants. 'Cause, you know, a university isn't really the place for free speech nowadays.

As The State newspaper reports this morning:

Some professors and students plan to protest President Bush’s commencement address at Furman University today. A few professors will stand. Others will wear armbands. And some will just skip it altogether.

The president’s speech, the first commencement address by a sitting president in Furman’s 182-year history, sparked an intense back-and-forth between students and professors about the right to protest Bush’s policies and the desire to honor graduating students.

“There’s a part of me that wants to be there for the students,” said Stanley Crowe, chairman of the English Department at Furman, where he has taught for 34 years. “I want to be there for the institution, for what it stands for. And what it stands for is the opposite of what George Bush stands for.”

Crowe was one of more than 100 professors — roughly half of the university’s faculty — who signed a petition objecting to Bush’s visit. Crowe said he plans to stand during the president’s remarks to note his opposition.

At a meeting Friday, professors discussed their plans to protest Bush’s visit. Crowe said some professors plan to wear white T-shirts that say “We Object” on the front and back. Between 10 and 20 professors will stand. “Everyone will rise when the president is introduced and we will keep standing until he stops speaking,” Crowe said. “If they say ‘Sit down,’ we won’t. If they say ‘You have to leave,’ we’ll leave quietly. We’re not going to say anything or shout slogans or anything like that.”

Furman Provost Thomas Kazee said the university will not seek to remove protesters, as long as their actions are carried out “in a dignified way so the message is received but the majesty of the moment is not lost.”

Meanwhile, the Bush Youth are holding up their end of the bargain, having defended their Chancellor with a petition of their own -- see the value of free speech on a university campus? -- and now browbeating the faculty in media interviews:

Christopher Mills, a 21-year-old junior who heads up a group called Conservative Students for a Better Tomorrow, said he and other students have been let down by their professors. “When the faculty letter came out, we were just disappointed by what we saw as something that was more of a publicity stunt as anything else,” Mills said. “We didn’t want people to think that most or even half of the people at Furman felt this way. We wanted the focus back on the students and not on faculty who disagree with the president politically.”

Mills’ group countered the faculty-led petition with one of their own. It has been signed by more 700 people so far, roughly half of whom are students.

“As students at Furman, we thought this was reflecting badly on all of us,” Mills said.

And who was behind this entire debacle? Governor Mark "Vet Me, Senator McCain, I'm Ready to Serve" Sanford, the Libertarian in Republican clothing who took a degree from Furman way back when he was just a young LIRC. According to reports, Sanford jumped the gun, arranging Dubya's visit to Furman before informing Furman's president that he'd done so -- not only subverting the university's authority to choose its own commencement speaker as it's done before, but boxing in its president to swallowing Sanford's shotgun arrangement and getting himself in hot water with his faculty. Sanford ought to apologize heartily to David Shi when this is all over. Take him out to dinner. Better yet, give him a gift certificate for dinner out, so as not to punish the man further in public.

Joel Sawyer, a spokesman for Gov. Mark Sanford, said the governor, a Furman graduate, called the White House to see if Bush would be interested in addressing the graduating class.

“The governor knew this was the time of year when the president might be accepting invitations to make commencement addresses,” Sawyer said. “He called the White House and mentioned the possibility to him, and then he called (Furman President David Shi) to see if they would extend an invitation.”

Shi consulted with some Furman students and extended the offer, angering some professors, who feel they, too, should have been given a chance to weigh in on the decision. The faculty voted to admonish Shi for not consulting them. “In my judgment, he could have said ‘Thanks but no thanks,’” Crowe said. “None of it needed to be made public. No one needed to be embarrassed.”

Efforts to reach Shi were unsuccessful.

No doubt. He's likely in hiding, praying for no blood to be shed, praying that this day comes and goes as quickly as possible, praying that he, too, will be able to get work when this is over. Prediction: Furman President David Shi will be employed elsewhere by July 1, 2010.

Given that Sanford had already reached out to the White House, some professors wonder whether Furman officials could have refused to extend the invitation. But Kazee said the administration did not feel boxed in. “I don’t think we felt we couldn’t say no,” he said.

In recent years, Furman has not had outside speakers and has relied instead on students to make the commencement address. When university officials met with student leaders to discuss the prospect of having Bush make the speech, they thought it was a good idea, Kazee said. “They felt this was a situation where an exception was warranted,” he said.

Furman was not caught off-guard by the strong reaction to Bush’s visit, Kazee said. “I understand the strong feelings a president can arouse, especially at a time of war and with a president who isn’t very popular,” the provost said.

As his time in office draws down, Bush has reached historic lows in voter disapproval. A recent CNN poll found 71 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Bush is doing as president, the highest level of dissatisfaction ever recorded for any president. White House spokesman Blair Jones said the president “looks forward to making the address.” Bush, he said, is not deterred by the prospect of protests.

“The cornerstone of American democracy is the right to dissent,” Jones said.

Mmm-hm. So long as that dissent is held far from cameras and from Dubya's field of vision.

Trojans play for the trophy on Saturday

Three teams down, one more to go. Last night, the Mount Olive College Trojans made history again, defeating Central Missouri and winning the right to play for the NCAA Division II College World Series National Championship on Saturday. Neither the Mount Olive Tribune (which has been updated, slightly) nor the Goldsboro News-Argus has the most recent news on their websites, so I went directly to the NCAA website to get the latest:

May 29, 2008
Mount Olive Advances to National Championship

SAUGET, ILL. - No. 1 ranked Mount Olive secured its spot in Saturday's national championship game with a 5-3 victory over No. 7 ranked Central Missouri Thursday afternoon in the semifinals of the NCAA Division II National Championships at GCS Ballpark.

The Trojans (57-6), who will be making their first national championship appearance, will face either No. 2 ranked Sonoma State or No. 4 ranked Ouachita Baptist on Saturday at 1 p.m. Central Missouri ends its season at 47-17.

The Trojans earned their spot in the title game by holding off the Mules who scored two unanswered runs between the seventh and eighth innings to trim a four-run deficit to just two. Central Missouri then put two runners on base in the bottom of the ninth with two outs before Patrick Ball entered the game to earn his third save of the season.

"They made things tight near the end of the game," said Mount Olive head coach Carl Lancaster. "But we were able to work our way out of it."

Central Missouri put the first run on the board in the bottom of the first inning, but a three-run third inning gave Mount Olive a lead it would not relinquish. The Trojans plated two more runs in the seventh inning before Central Missouri got a pair of runs for the final score.

Kyle Jones (4-0) recorded the win on the hill for the Trojans, making just his second start of the season and allowed only two runs on five hits. "Kyle was a work in progress," said Lancaster. "He has been out of baseball for three years, but he's got a good arm and he got us two wins at regionals. I thought he did well and we had to give him his shot."

Mark Carey (10-2) was credited with the loss for Central Missouri. The starter lasted four and one-third innings, giving up three runs on five hits, while also walking five.

Rich Racobaldo went 2-for-5 with two runs scored and two RBIs for Mount Olive, while Erik Lovett and Josh Harrison also recorded two hits each.

There it is. If the Trojans win on Saturday, the recently-named Dianne B. Riley Trophy Case will have an historic new piece to add to its collection.

Odd, isn't it, that they could be facing Ouachita Baptist again? After they dispatched Ouachita on Monday, that team apparently squeezed through a loser's playoff to stay alive, and they've kept at it through the week. If they make it all the way to Saturday, they'll come back with a score to settle, no doubt. If it's them, I hope our Trojans are ready.

Scott McClellan begins a 12-step program

Scott McClellan has embarked on one of the grander 12-step programs -- at least one of the most public -- I've witnessed in recent times. (As the 12-step model was originated by Alcoholics Anonymous and licensed out to Narcotics Anonymous, shouldn't it be George W. Bush himself taking this program? Through either organization? But I digress.) Like everything about Dubya'a administration, however, there's a twist: Rather than simply admitting his transgressions -- which appear to fall in the category of pathologically lying, obfuscating, misleading, denying, covering up and lying some more, rather than mere alcoholism or substance abuse -- in a public statement and facing the consequences for them, Scotty has taken the entrepreneur's way out. He's written a book as part of his 12 steps, and he wants us to pay him for his healing.

From the appropriately brutal media analysis of Scotty's confessions, it appears that Dubya's inner sanctum is stunned to hear their former puppet gnawing on the hand that fed him. The offense is great, given the care and feeding that Scotty and others in his family enjoyed under Dubya's roof for more than a decade:

Born in Austin, Texas, McClellan is the youngest son of Carole Keeton Strayhorn, former Texas State Comptroller and former 2006 independent Texas gubernatorial candidate, and attorney Barr McClellan. McClellan's brother Mark McClellan headed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and formerly was Commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration. McClellan is the grandson of the late W. Page Keeton, longtime Dean of the University of Texas School of Law and renowned expert in tort law.

After graduating from The University of Texas at Austin, where he was president of the Sigma Phi Epsilon Texas Alpha Chapter, McClellan was the three-time campaign manager for his mother. In addition, he worked on political grassroots efforts and was the Chief of Staff to a Texas State Senator.

Karen Hughes, Governor Bush's communications director, hired McClellan to be Bush's deputy press secretary. McClellan served as Governor Bush's traveling press secretary during the 2000 Presidential election. McClellan became White House Deputy Press Secretary in 2003. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, who stepped down as White House Press Secretary on July 15, 2003. McClellan announced his resignation as Press Secretary on April 19, 2006.

I say that the media analysis is appropriately brutal because what Scotty did is damnable. His job as administration spokesman is to answer questions put to him on behalf of the American people by the Washington press corps. I know of no Americans who ask the administration to lie to them. The patent expectation is that the administration -- and specifically, Scotty -- would answer questions truthfully, straightforwardly. Scotty didn't do that. While he was never as transparently malevolent as grand vizier Ari Fleischer, but the evidence of Scotty's skill and stamina as Dubya's puppet is voluminous. In fact, a great book -- or set of books -- might be written on the combined sleights-of-hand of Fleischer, McClellan, Snow and Perino. But here are just three examples:

When Dubya didn't want Americans to focus on his administration's attempt to win exemptions to federal laws banning torture, Scotty fell in line, ducking and weaving through journalist Helen Thomas's repeated attempts to get a clear and straightforward answer on November 8, 2005:

Q I'm asking about exemptions.

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me respond. And he would never authorize the use of torture. We have an obligation to do all that we can to protect the American people. We are engaged --

Q That's not the answer I'm asking for --

MR. McCLELLAN: It is an answer -- because the American people want to know that we are doing all within our power to prevent terrorist attacks from happening. There are people in this world who want to spread a hateful ideology that is based on killing innocent men, women and children. We saw what they can do on September 11th --

Q He didn't ask for an exemption --

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and we are going to --

Q -- answer that one question. I'm asking, is the administration asking for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: I am answering your question. The President has made it very clear that we are going to do --

Q You're not answering -- yes or no?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, you don't want the American people to hear what the facts are, Helen, and I'm going to tell them the facts.

Q -- the American people every day. I'm asking you, yes or no, did we ask for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: And let me respond. You've had your opportunity to ask the question. Now I'm going to respond to it.

Q If you could answer in a straight way.

MR. McCLELLAN: And I'm going to answer it, just like the President -- I just did, and the President has answered it numerous times.

Q -- yes or no --

MR. McCLELLAN: Our most important responsibility is to protect the American people. We are engaged in a global war against Islamic radicals who are intent on spreading a hateful ideology, and intent on killing innocent men, women and children.

Q Did we ask for an exemption?

MR. McCLELLAN: We are going to do what is necessary to protect the American people.

Q Is that the answer?

MR. McCLELLAN: We are also going to do so in a way that adheres to our laws and to our values. We have made that very clear. The President directed everybody within this government that we do not engage in torture. We will not torture. He made that very clear.

When Dubya didn't want Americans to focus so much on the mastermind of September 11 -- still at large in the world years after that event -- Scotty fell in line and didn't immediately recognize the madman's name when asked on January 4, 2006:

Q Second question: The President's speech today at the Pentagon as far as terrorism and fighting terrorism is concerned, do you think that Osama bin Laden is still in -- is running the al Qaeda business?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry, who?

When Dubya didn't want Americans to focus on the ongoing humiliation of his war on Iraq, three years after he stood under his famous "Mission Accomplished" banner, Scotty fell in line and tried valiantly to deflect legitimate questions about that debacle on May 1, 2006, instead blaming Democrats for "misrepresenting and distorting the past":

Q I'm asking you, based on a reporter's curiosity, could he stand under a sign again that says, "Mission Accomplished"?

MR. McCLELLAN: Now, Peter, Democrats have tried to raise this issue, and, like I said, misrepresenting and distorting the past --

Q This is not --

MR. McCLELLAN: -- which is what they're doing, does nothing to advance the goal of victory in Iraq.

Q I mean, it's a historical fact that we're all taking notice of --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think the focus ought to be on achieving victory in Iraq and the progress that's being made, and that's where it is. And you know exactly the Democrats are trying to distort the past.

Q Let me ask it another way: Has the mission been accomplished?

MR. McCLELLAN: Next question.

Q Has the mission been accomplished?

MR. McCLELLAN: We're on the way to accomplishing the mission and achieving victory.

These are example of pathology, of pathological lying, an affliction that brings us back to the 12-step program that Scotty has undertaken.

The originial 12 steps as published by AA are these, but I've substituted "pathological lying" for the reference to alcohol:

1. We admitted we were powerless over pathological lying—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Scotty says he was "disillusioned" by his experience working for Dubya, which appears to be his rationalization for all the lying he did. Whereas he once consider Dubya to be the power greater than himself, Scotty appears to have discovered his earning potential as an author and public speaker, and it is indeed a power greater than himself. While it may never restore him to sanity, it will clearly make him wealthy, and wealth buys a lot of artificial sanity.

But as no one but William Kristol would pay someone to extol the virtues of Dubya's legacy -- which guarantees that Ari Fleischer will always have a supply of nickels and dimes -- Scotty had to come up with a different shtick if he hoped to realize all that earning potential. Hence, he would turn his life over to telling the truth -- or, more appropriately, what the book-buying public understood the truth to be!

And to begin this journey, he likely initiated a searching and fearless Lexus-Nexus inquiry of all Dubya's pronouncements as presented in the voice of Scotty McClellan. Then:

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Writing a book satisfied all of these necessities. It represents his admission to God and everybody the exact nature of his lies, it submits his heart to the book-buying public with these admissions laid bare, and it asks -- sort of -- for forgiveness. And twenty-nine bucks. The beauty of Scotty's 12-step program is that the list of all persons he'd harmed was so long -- it includes every man, woman and child in America -- and surely many of them would be willing to part with twenty-nine bucks to read his amends to them!

With the exception of a single bump in the road, the rest is easy:

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Publishing a book about his lies on Dubya's behalf would benefit everyone in the world EXCEPT Dubya and his minions. At first, I wondered how long Scotty puzzled over how to get around this snag, but media analysis of the book answered the question for me; Scotty's solution was to publish a bunch of photographs of himself WITH Dubya in the middle of the book. Everyone knows that Dubya only looks at the pictures in books, so he'll likely think this is another gospel of his praise. And so long as Dubya's cool with it, Scotty must have figured, the rest of his minions can go to hell. After all, none of them are putting scratch in his pocket any more. Problem solved.

As for the rest, Scotty's media blitz likely qualifies as continuing to take personal inventory and promptly admitting wrongdoing. He's getting a lot of practice at it. And the last two -- the prayin' and meditatin' and improving the blah-ble-blah -- okeydoke: All Scotty needs to know is, Would you like this book inscribed to you, or is it for a friend?

Right.

And people will buy it.

My take?

What a crock.

In expecting many gullible readers to buy his book, Scotty is crassly hoping that many of us to forget what we knew all along. Namely, that a great many of us knew in 1999 and 2000 -- and said out loud -- that Dubya was unfit to take our highest office, for a host of reasons. And subsequently, that in his role as chief apologist and denier, Scotty covered, lied, misled and discolored for his boss, in essence calling the rest of us liars and fools for believing as we did.

Now that he's admitted his complicity in Dubya's games, he wants absolution -- and 29 bucks each -- from the very people he made out to be liars and fools -- including bloggers -- from the time Dubya held office in Austin through the years he's occupied the Oval.

The facts that we've collected from many, many, many other sources demonstrate these principles: We were right to disbelieve Dubya and his minions, including Scotty, in 1999, and 2000, and 2001, and 2002, and 2003, and 2004, and 2005, and 2006, and 2007.

And we are right in 2008 to leave both Dubya and Scotty, and the many others who swirled in the cesspool of their own creation, to hang now by their own petards.

If Scotty wants to make amends to the American people, here's what he can do:

One, write no more books, and accept no more invitations to appear on television, forever. He has already used and misused the mass media enough.

Two, donate every nickel of the proceeds from this present book to Cindy Sheehan and her organization.

Three, reimburse the federal government -- and us taxpayers -- every cent he was paid during his years as Dubya's liar, deputy liar, assistant deputy liar, or towel boy to the assistant deputy liar. With interest.

Four, withdraw from the lecture circuit, return any proceeds he's made from speaking engagements since leaving the White House, and decline any future invitations to speak about anything related to his service to Dubya.

Finally, having returned all wealth he's accumulated from his pathological lying for Dubya, and accepting no future wealth from it, Scotty can do as any other average American does today: Get a day job, maybe even a night job too, and pay taxes.

Not only will I not buy this professional liar's book now, I will not buy this professional liar's book when it reaches the remainders bin. And while no one I know would be dumb enough to give me a copy, IF I'm ever given a copy, I'll happily give it back to the giver. Given the number of lives that have suffered as a result of Scotty's collaboration with his Liar-in-Chief, I'll be happy to let their mea culpas rot by the side of the road.

Have a confession? Give it to the judge. Or Jeff Gannon.

Why are peanuts called "goobers"?

Almost every day, Daisy* and I encounter in the natural course of things a question that begs an answer. Whereas, long ago, simple folk like we might have shaken our noggins in dumbfoundedness at the eternal opacity of the matter, nowadays we invariably say to one another, "I'll Google it." Then, upon getting back to the homestead from wherever the question was inspired, one or the other of us will fire up the machine, point it toward Google, and learn 'til we can't learn no more. O, what a wondrous creation is Google.

The phenomenon has become such a ubiquity that Daisy even gifted me with a variety pack of Post-It pads last week, so I might have one near me always, and jot down these inquiries as they occur, so we'll not forget them before getting back to the Internet. Daisy is thoughtful in many ways like that one.

Tonight, this question burgeoned forth over our hamburger-steak dinners at Wade's: "Why are peanuts called 'goobers'?"

We have yet to stump Google, which brought us these two sources of the answer. First, this one:

Peanuts are sometimes called "goobers." The word goober comes from the Congo word "nguba" and gives us a clue about the peanuts' African heritage. During the Civil War, soldiers ate peanuts as snacks. In 1903, George Washington Carver began his research on peanuts and discovered more than 300 uses for them, including shoe polish and shaving cream.

Then, this one:

"Goober" is the African name for peanuts. Slaves being brought to America were fed goobers to keep them alive during the brutal crossings. Goobers remained popular with slaves, who ate them both for nutrition and for a small touch of their lost homeland.

See what interesting things come to mind when you have dinner at Wade's?

Now, as for Daisy's asterisk above: In a former life, Daisy was a Native American woman, probably one who studied after the herbs and potions of the tribe's medicine man on her days off. She likely memorized the stars then. In this present life, she has a Government Name like the rest of us. But she prefers to go by the name she was given in that former time, which in English comes to Running Deer. But in the Cherokee language, "Running Deer" is still Awi Adesi -- pronounced "AH-wee ah-DAY-see."

So that's Daisy.

Trojans take another step in College World Series

Can it be that the Mount Olive College could win the 2008 NCAA Division II College World Series?

Thanks to a blowout win tonight over the 16th-rated Division II team in the country, they're now only two games away from it, for the first time in Mount Olive's history:

NCAA II National Finals: Seven-Run Fifth Inning Sparks No. 1 Trojans To 18-7 Win

Erik Lovett’s fourth-inning three-run homer put Mount Olive ahead to stay and Joseph Westbrook’s three-run shot ignited a seven-run fifth inning as the nationally top-ranked Trojans scored 13 unanswered runs for an 18-7 win over No. 16 Ashland in the second round of the 2008 NCAA Division II Baseball National Finals Tuesday at Sauget, Ill. The Trojans batted through the lineup in the fifth before recording an out. Paul Novicki pitched 5 1/3 innings of scoreless relief after Ashland had taken a 7-5 lead.

With the win, Mount Olive is off until Thursday when the Trojans the winner of Wednesday’s elimination game between Central Missouri and Shippensburg. Game time Thursday is 3:30 p.m. (Eastern).

Again, my old favorite hometown paper, the Mount Olive Tribune, is out of commission -- its website is stuck on its May 15 edition -- but the Goldsboro News-Argus is on the ball:

2 down, 2 to go: Lovett's home run arouses MOC offense

SAUGET, Ill. -- The Trojans' offensive power is back. No. 1-ranked Mount Olive College used a seven-run, fifth-inning outburst to defeat Ashland University 18-7 in their second-round, NCAA Division II College World Series contest. It was the Trojans' 28th come-from-behind win this season.

Despite the final score, Mount Olive (56-6 overall) had its hands full for four innings. Ashland (40-17) grabbed a 1-0 lead on Jacob Petkac's RBI single up the middle off Mount Olive starter Ryan Schlecht.

The Trojans responded with four runs on four hits during their first at-bat. Rich Racobaldo was moved from the fifth spot in the lineup to the No. 2 hole, a change that immediately paid dividends. The junior third baseman blasted an RBI double of the fence in his first plate appearance.

Despite working with a three-run advantage, Schlecht never settled into a groove and consistently missed the strike zone with his fastball. The right-hander allowed single runs in both the second and third innings, and was replaced in the fourth after surrendering the lead on Petkac's two-run homer.

"Ryan did not have his best stuff tonight," said MOC head coach Carl Lancaster. "He has been great for us all year, but tonight he couldn't find the zone with any of his pitches."

Trailing 7-5, the Trojans needed an offensive spark. Erik Lovett answered the call.

After Racobaldo reached safely on an error and Jason Sherrer drew a walk, Lovett strode to the plate with an opportunity to revive his team. The MOC first baseman hammered the first pitch he saw over the fence in the deepest part of the ballpark.

"I wasn't thinking about hitting it out," said Lovett. "I was just looking for a pitch I could handle and I knew that their pitcher had come inside on me a couple times in the previous at-bat, so I was ready."

Leading 8-7, the floodgates opened for Mount Olive one inning later. The Trojans sent nine men to the plate before making an out en route to seven runs and an emotional knockout punch. Designated hitter Joseph Westbrook delivered the big blow in the frame, a three-run homer that sent Ashland right fielder Jeff Yates flipping over the short fence.

"Erik's home run absolutely changed the momentum of the game, and then Paul came in and shut the door for us," said Lancaster. "He did a great job locating his pitches and came through with some big strikeouts."

Mount Olive relief pitcher Paul Novicki was saddled with the task of preserving an already over-worked bullpen as the Trojans led 15-7. Novicki responded with 5 2/3 innings of near-flawless pitching. Novicki was the ninth Trojan pitcher used in the first two games of the CWS.

"I didn't realize that the offense was going to come through like that," said Novicki. "But once we got ahead, I knew I had to try to save the bullpen a little bit."

The victory was Mount Olive's third straight win to start and end on different days of the week. The teams started play at 8:54 CDT on Tuesday and the game ended at 12:09 this morning.

Mount Olive gets a much-needed day of rest before facing either Central Missouri or Shippensburg (Pa.) University at 2:30 p.m. (CDT) on Thursday. Ashland faced Ouachita (Ark.) Baptist in an elimination-round contest today.

I hope these guys can keep their momentum through their off-night tomorrow. What a great way it would be for MOC to end its year with its first national championship.

On holding the Clintons "accountable"

I read something yesterday on DailyKos, my other posting spot, that left me feeling queasy. It was a warning to Bill and Hillary Clinton, saying (in the headline) "we will hold you accountable if we lose in November."

I had a number of reactions:

1. Wow. The poster is attributing a great deal of power to two people who are understandably powerful but who do not yet, so far as I know, have the power to control the thoughts and actions of many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of voters. Americans who choose to vote, will; those who choose not to vote, won't. Then, those who choose to vote for Barack Obama, will; those who choose to vote for John McCain, will. If a voter opposes Obama on principles or positions that are personal to that voter, is that the Clintons' fault?

2. Assuming that Obama will be the nominee, as I do, then whose responsibility will it be to (a) convince a majority of registered voters to vote on Election Day and (b) to vote for Obama's candidacy? Is it the responsibility of the Clintons, or any one or more of the Obama campaign's surrogates? Now, I separate "responsibility" from "activity." If Obama surrogates do take active roles in convincing voters to vote, and to vote for Obama, that's wonderful -- and healthy for the democratic process. But it is their "responsibility" to do? I don't use the word in its figurative sense; we would love to believe that it's the responsibility of all Americans to act in the best interests of the nation. Instead, I use the word in its most concrete sense: Is it not Obama's responsibility (through his positions, his actions, and his campaign) to convince voters to vote, and to vote for him? If so, then why attack the Clintons for whatever they might or might not do once Obama is the nominee?

3. What does "hold you accountable" mean? Is accountability about blame, or about retribution? Both are pointless: In the case of Sen. Clinton, voters outside of New York won't have the opportunity to decide her fate in any subsequent U.S. Senate races, and in the case of President Clinton, it's likely no one will ever have an opportunity to vote for or against him again. That leaves only "blame" as the instrument of accountability, and who does that serve? Even if we assume that in 2012, Hillary Clinton is a candidate for the presidency again, and even if she is the best candidate running in that year, voters will have no greater and no lesser an opportunity to support or oppose her than they had this year. Will it be rational in 2012 to "blame" Hillary Clinton for Obama's failure in 2008 to convince voters to vote, and to vote for him?

4. I read and understand the arguments made by the poster against the Clintons. I don't think anyone would claim that Hillary has been a wilting candidate, or an ineffective campaigner.

If it is true that she has won primaries, then it is true: Voters voted, their votes were counted, and there was declared a winner. Where she won, she won. Where Obama won, he won.

If it is true that she has won primaries in the states that will be battleground states in November, then that too is true; and if Obama is the nominee, then will it not be his responsibility to win those states in the general election?

If it is true that she wins the popular vote, then that too will be true, and it may have some legitimate impact on the decisions made by superdelegates. But it is the electoral vote -- not the popular vote -- that will count in the general election, and if Obama is the nominee, then will it not be Obama's responsibility to win the electoral vote in November?

So, as a candidate, Clinton has not been a bad candidate, a poor candidate, or an ineffective candidate. She has sustained a campaign -- say of it what you may -- for more than a year, and it continues to operate in the remaining contests, and it continues to collect votes. Voters have exercised their options to choose; some have chosen her, others have chosen Obama.

Is it not the role of a candidate seeking office to convince voters to vote, and to vote for his or her candidacy? And if the candidate makes mistakes, errors of judgment, questionable statements and the like, then is it not our role as voters (recognizing that mainstream media is less effective at researching and presenting news in context that it may ever have been before, and recognizing that information is more accessible to us today than ever before) to inform ourselves and include those considerations in our judgment? If that is the case, then the poster is left with a single argument: That Clinton should not be a candidate for the presidency.

To which I ask, Why not? Is the argument that her positions on major issues are flawed? Or that her policy statements do not reflect the will of voting Democrats? In fact, both Clinton and Obama have acknowledged that their positions are almost identical on most issues.

Then is the argument that her candidacy has become illegitimate because Obama is the likely nominee? That argument, too, is specious because the rules of the party -- rules that our own party freely adopted 24 years ago -- clearly indicate a threshold that neither Obama nor Clinton has reached. And, given that our superdelegates are not bound to their choice until they vote at the convention itself, it is a simple and incontrovertible fact that either Obama or Clinton can reach the threshold for nomination between now and the time of the convention.

These are, in my understanding, the circumstances under the rules. No one imposed these rules on us; we imposed them on ourselves.

That leaves the poster, then, with a single argument: That Clinton should abandon her candidacy because the poster prefers Obama. Which is fine; it is neither greater or lesser in value than the arguments offered by millions of other Democratic voters from Iowa through Kentucky who have already made their choices, or the arguments that voters in a few more places will make in the days ahead.

Which brought me to my next reaction:

5. What would the poster have the Clintons to do?

Accepting that the poster clearly desires an end to the Clinton candidacy, then what? "Holding [them] accountable" must mean something more, and the poster alludes vaguely to what the "more" may include -- "a decent show of supporting Obama" -- but there's no comprehensive definition of it.

(a) Must the Clintons endorse Obama? Sure, okay, if that's deemed necessary. But will it be sufficient merely to endorse Obama, or must the endorsement statement contain some really deep contrition for real or imagined slights? In order for the Clintons to satisfy the desires of Obama supporters to appropriately support their candidate, must Clinton not only endorse him, but apologize for her candidacy itself? Apologize for having been an impediment?

And how should we evaluate that endorsement afterward if Obama loses the general election? Indeed, how should we evaluate any endorsement that Obama has collected, if he should be defeated? Sen. Ted Kennedy and the majority of his family endorsed Obama's candidacy before the Massachusetts primary, yet Obama did not win that primary. Is Kennedy responsible for that loss, because his endorsement wasn't -- pick a word -- muscular enough? Likewise in Pennsylvania, where Sen. Bob Casey endorsed Obama's candidacy beforehand but where more voters chose Clinton. Shall we hold Casey accountable for not saying more, or saying it better, or in more places?

On the other hand, there are Bill Richardson and John Edwards, both of whom endorsed Obama after the primaries were held in New Mexico and North Carolina, respectively. Shall their endorsements be judged worthless currency if McCain defeats Obama?

And thirdly there are Al Gore and Jimmy Carter. Neither has endorsed at all, although Carter has made practical observations loudly and clearly. If they stay their courses and make no endorsement, unlikely as that is, then shall they be penalized for making none?

Ultimately, endorsements are pleasant but they do not outweigh the counting of votes cast on Election Day. So

(b) Should the Clintons contribute to the Obama campaign? Sure, that's fine, and I suspect they would. But will it be enough that they merely contribute? Must they match the amount that they invested in Hillary's own campaign? Whether or not they should, it appears they cannot under federal law, but must abide instead by the limits that govern the contributions of any individual.

(c) Should the Clintons traverse the nation, either with Obama or with the coordination of his campaign? Sure, that works too, assuming that Obama wants it. But will that be enough for the Obama supporters who threaten to "hold [them] accountable"? Will there be a quota of events, in a sufficient number of cities and town, in a sufficient number of states? Then, what should they say, beyond the standard stump speech and endorsement, that will satisfy the demand for "accountability" by Obama supporters? Are tears necessary? Must Chelsea cry, too?

And finally, how shall those following Obama judge their effectiveness at "holding [the Clintons] accountable" if Obama loses to McCain in November? What will define a "win" for Obamans?

Let's say that after four years of McCain, Obama chooses to run again for his Senate seat rather than seek the presidency. And let's say that Clinton chooses to run instead, and dominates the field, and wins the nomination. Shall present-day Obamans torpedo her campaign and ensure a second McCain term? Will that be a "win"?

Let's say that Obama sits it out, Clinton runs for president and fails to secure the nomination. Will present-day Obamans then declare victory, having blocked a second Clinton bid?

And what if, between 2008 and 2012, Clinton herself announced that she's retiring at the end of her second Senate term, going back to Westchester and choosing to pursue her passions in private life, as John Edwards has? Will then the present-day Obamans hoist a "Mission Accomplished" banner?

And, in perhaps the worst scenario, assume that Clinton retires but Obama mounts a second run for the presidency -- and either wins the nomination and loses the general election in a rematch against McCain, or he fails to secure the nomination altogether. Then what? Will the present-day Obamans still lay their blame and retribution at the Clintons' feet?

All of which brought me to my final reaction last night:

6. If you support Obama, vote for him, and maybe even urge your friends and neighbors -- or the people in your calling plan, or your civic group, or your sewing circle -- to vote for him. And if he wins more votes than McCain, then good for you: Obama wins.

It may well be true that the Clintons are guilty of race-baiting, of intellectual dishonesty, of double-counting, of short-sheeting, of selling indulgences, of fundraising in Beijing, of cheating on their taxes, of hiding documents, of bearing false witness, of lying to federal prosecutors, of killing Vince Foster, of teasing Larry King, of violating the fundamentals of fashion, of perpetrating a land swindle in Arkansas, of importing narcotics from Bogota, of hiring undocumented workers, of picking their noses and of popping gum in school. Okay. So don't vote for Hillary.

But threatening to "hold accountable"? Shouldn't that have started a long time ago, like the late eighteenth century? And only threatening to "hold accountable" if our candidate loses? Should I hold Obama and Clinton both accountable because Edwards didn't get the nomination, when I thought he was the best in the field, and I voted for him? If I should, what should I do to achieve retribution? I'd be interested to hear suggestions.

Can ordinary American be trusted to weigh what they think and feel about candidates and to make the decision that satisfies our minds at the end of this process?

Yes, we can, I think.

MOC advances in NCAA Division II World Series!

Hooray! My alma mater came back from a 5-2 deficit this morning to whip Ouachita Baptist with score of 6-5, bringing FOUR runs in the ninth inning.

What a story:

Top-Ranked Mount Olive Scores Four Runs in Bottom of Ninth to Top Ouachita Baptist

SAUGET, ILL. - Top-ranked Mount Olive used four runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to rally from a 5-2 deficit against No. 4 ranked Ouachita Baptist en route to a 6-5 victory in a first round game that began Sunday night and concluded Monday morning at GCS Ballpark.

The Trojans improve to 55-6 and advance to play the winner of the Ashland and Tampa game Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., while Ouachita Baptist, playing in its first World Series, falls to 47-15, and will play the loser of that game Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. in an elimination game.

Mount Olive's Josh Harrison singled down the right field line with one out and the bases loaded, scoring pinch runner Mike Kicia for the game winner.

"First of all, I'd like to congratulate our kids on battling," said Mount Olive head coach Carl Lancaster. "They just beat a really great ball team. I'm proud of our guys for coming out and not giving up and battling."

Jerry Helferich (6-5) took the loss for Ouachita Baptist, allowing four runs on three hits. He walked four and struck out two in two innings of work.

Mount Olive had jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the second inning, but saw Ouachita Baptist score single runs in the fourth and fifth innings to the tie the game at 2-2. Then following a 73-minute weather delay Sunday night, the Tigers went up 4-2 on a walk and a wild pitch. After spending 11 minutes on the field following that delay, the game was officially suspended in the bottom of the seventh inning until Monday morning.

The Tigers tacked on one more run in the eighth before Mount Olive's rally.

"Mount Olive hung in there and battled," said Ouachita Baptist head coach Scott Norwood. "It was a long, drawn out game over two days. We just didn't hold on. Someone has to come through the loser's bracket and I plan on it being us."

Patrick Ball (3-1) garnered the win for the Trojans in one and two-thirds innings.

Mount Olive collected 11 hits in the victory with Harrison, Jesse Lancaster, Alex Vertcnik and Dylan Holton recording two each. Jason Sherrer notched two RBIs on a single to left center in the ninth.

Destan Makonnen paced the Ouachita Baptist with two hits, an RBI and a run scored. The Tigers finished with eight hits.

If only the local paper in Wayne County updated its website for news like this, or the News & Observer covered Division II sports -- especially when the number one seed is less than two hours' drive from its main office -- then I wouldn't have had to surf the net for twenty minutes finding the good news. But there's hope, if Mount Olive takes Tuesday night's game, too!

Good luck, Trojans!

South Carolina: Christian symbols, not Christian policies

Two items published over the weekend at The State's website caught my eye. One explains that our legislative majority has agreed on a bill that "allows local municipalities in South Carolina to post a number of commonly-held religious documents in public places, including the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments."

Because, you know, that's important. It feeds the hungry, treats the sick and clothes the poor when we hang copies of religious texts on the walls of our public buildings.

Recognizing that such a bill might attract litigation, our lawmakers covered themselves by casting these texts as "historical" rather than merely religious, and they mixed a handful of other "historical" texts into the bill as additional options for hanging on the walls.

But, knowing that some of these texts were blatantly religious in nature, why did lawmakers vote to approve the bill? Because "few wanted to vote against the Lord's Prayer."

Aware of the constitutional mandate of separation between church and state, the Senate declared more than a dozen of some of the nation's most revered secular and religious documents and speeches to be historical.

The documents would have to be labeled as "historical" in their display, which, along with previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings, senators hope will give them constitutional cover for the displays.

The bill includes 10 original historical/religious documents, such as the Ten Commandments, along with several others lawmakers added as the legislation moved through the General Assembly. For instance, the Emancipation Proclamation and the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech were added at the Senate Judiciary Committee level. The Lord's Prayer and the 19th Amendment, establishing a woman's right to vote, were added on the Senate floor.

Some senators said the measure was unconstitutional on its face, but few wanted to vote against the Lord's Prayer.

"When the Lord's Prayer went in there, it's obvious to me that's not going to pass constitutional muster," said Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, an attorney. "We may look good doing it, but it's not good legislation."

Understandably, this item attracted some colorful bulletin-board banter. I fully expected to read opposition to hanging King's "Dream" speech. But these two stuck to the issue:

First, from Cap'n Louie:

In fact, one of the FIRST treaties this government authored stated very specifically that we are "in no way a Christian nation". Most of the founding fathers were Deists. Look that up. They were NOT Christians. The phrase "wall of separation between church and state" was written by Jefferson in a letter to a group who complained that their religious practices were not being recognized. Jefferson himself eschewed proclaiming days of prayer or fasting, even stating very specifically, that matters of religion and faith were entirely between "a man and his god."

I think the Uber-religious crowd who would shove and force Christianity on everyone around are the ones who should sit down and do some reading. They can start with their own bible, in which their prophet Jesus the Nazarene even warns them against public displays of religion and public prayers. He said the their god best listened when no one could hear but the man and the god.

So, Christians, will you practice your religion at the defiance of your own gods?

Then a response from Bob:

GET OVER IT PEOPLE, this nation was founded upon Judeo-Christian beliefs - period-end of story! We don't go into other countries demanding that our religious customs and beliefs supercede theirs and neither should immigrants coming to this country. They ALL have freedom of religion and "THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF" but you SUPPOSEDLY cannot change history and CHRISTIANITY and YES belief in JESUS CHRIST is the dominant religion in this country.

So, once AGAIN - GET OVER IT!!!!!!

As much as some would like, Christians DO NOT have to check their beliefs at the courthouse door and it is PAST time that CHRISTIANS quit acting like a bunch of WIMPS and speak out as they were COMMANDED to do!

Funny, I don't remember ever being told these things in Sunday school.

Nevertheless, neither of these comments were likely read by Joanne Mew, who works as a laundry machine operator at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Hilton Head Island, and who rides a bus five hours each workday to make the round trip to her job. Ms. Mew lives in Allendale County, 90 miles from her workplace, and she's done this for 15 years.

Why does she have to make this trip?

Jobs are scarce in Allendale County — South Carolina’s poorest — where more than one in three residents lives in poverty. The few jobs that are available pay minimum wage — $5.15 per hour — or just a few pennies more. Work on the island can pay almost double that or more.

Scores of people commute every day from Allendale and other impoverished inland towns to Hilton Head — located in the wealthiest county in the state — where they work at resorts, grocery stores, fast-food restaurants and other businesses.

Don't you wonder if Ms. Mew's life would be made better if they just hung copies of the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and the 19th Amendment on the bus she rides every morning and every evening? "Historical" and religious texts hanging on the wall are a balm to the soul, aren't they?

Seven publicly financed Palmetto Breeze buses make stops each morning in Allendale, Colleton, Jasper, Hampton and Beaufort counties to shuttle people to Hilton Head jobs. Nearly 4,100 round-trips from those counties are made each month.

It wasn’t always that way. U.S. 301 through Allendale County once was the main route from New York to Miami. Then, in the 1970s, Interstate 95 was built some 30 miles east and took away the traffic. The county has never recovered from losing all that pass-through business to I-95. Allendale became a “ghost town,” County Administrator Art Williams said. Motels along U.S. 301 are boarded up; the county has only two fast-food restaurants, and, he said, “you would not find a clothing store.” Most recently, Mohawk Industries, a carpet manufacturer in Ulmer, closed in November — causing 225 people to lose their jobs.

“If there was work in Allendale, honey, I don’t think none of us would be getting on that bus,” Mew said. “They need to bring jobs down here.”

After sitting on the bus 25 hours a week, Mew has just $10 for herself at week’s end after bills are paid. “That ain’t no money; that ain’t nothing.”

Mew rises at 3:30 a.m. — five days a week — and catches a ride to the bus stop at the intersection of Railroad Avenue and Marion Street. While the bus typically doesn’t arrive until 5:10 a.m., she knows it pays to get there early.

What's really poetic is that the buses, though publicly-financed, aren't free. Ms. Mew and the others from Allendale County pay $2.50 each way for the privilege of washing hotel laundry, and cleaning hotel rooms, and cooking hotel food, and tending to hotel landscaping and golf courses on Hilton Head Island.

I don't know how long our lawmaker debated the initiative to hang the Lord's Prayer in public buildings, but I suspect it was longer than Camron Freeman gets to spend with her two daughters in Allendale:

Camron Freeman of Allendale, a 30-year-old cashier at the Hilton Head Publix, is raising two daughters. For her, the long bus ride means missing PTO meetings. As passengers around her on the way home blow off steam with laughter — some joking around with the bus driver — Freeman talks of missing her children as they grow up.

“We catch the bus at 5 o’clock, so I don’t even know what (my) child be wearing unless I put it out the night before,” she said. “One of your kids take sick, how you gonna get home?”

But with the pain comes pride. “At least you don’t have to go out here and rob, cheat and steal from somebody for some money,” Freeman said. “You got an honest-paying job.”

To learn a little more about Allendale, I did some Googling. In just a few minutes, I picked up something interesting about race in that county.

According to the 2000 census, Allendale's population included about 8,000 African-Americans and about 3,000 white residents (and fewer than 200 Hispanic residents).

And according to the state's Department of Education report card on schools and school districts published in 2003, the school district population that was given the state's standardized test that year broke down this way: white students, 32; African-American students, 804; all others, 14.

That didn't seem right, if white citizens number roughly 3,000 and black citizens account for roughly 8,000 in the entire county. Are white families not having children in Allendale?

Here's the answer: Yes, they're having children, but those children don't show up on the Allendale School District's enrollment because they don't attend the public schools there. They attend school someplace a little... whiter, shall we say?

If only the Allendale School District had the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and the Emancipation Proclamation hanging in the halls of its schools, I bet children's lives would be better, and Allendale's white families would send their children to public schools there, too.

Again, I appreciate The State for these notes on their weekend website.

Another "Mission Accomplished" set to occur

As of this writing, George WMD Bush has fewer than eight full months to occupy the White House. It is highly likely that sometime during those eight months -- in fact, sometime within the next few weeks, if recent history is a guide -- someone far from Pennsylvania Avenue might unfurl a large banner reading "Mission Accomplished." It won't be an American citizen, or even an Iraqi citizen. Rather, it'll be who Robin Williams called "a six-foot-tall Arab on dialysis," none other than Osama bin Ladin.

It seems that bin Ladin made some pronouncements a decade ago about what he considered to be America's robbery of oil resources from Saudi Arabia. On Thursday, Anne Korin, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, testified to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs about bin Ladin's pronouncements. She titled her remarks, "Rising oil prices, declining national security."

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, about ten years ago, Osama bin Laden stated that his target price for oil is $144 a barrel and that the American people, who allegedly robbed the Muslim people of their oil, owe each Muslim man, woman, and child $30,000 in back payments. At the time, $144 a barrel seemed farfetched to most. Today, bin Laden is a mere $20 a barrel short of his target and there is little doubt it will be attained. I would like to impress upon this Committee that $144 a barrel oil will be perceived as a victory for the Jihadist movement and a reaffirmation that the economic warfare component of its campaign against the West is a resounding success. There is no need to elaborate on the implications of such a victory in terms of loss of U.S. prestige and our ability to prevail in the Long War of the 21st century. It is therefore imperative that the U.S. Congress do its utmost to forestall such a setback.

Deeply embroiled in a struggle against radical Islam, nuclear proliferation, and totalitarianism, the U.S. faces a crude reality: While its relations with the Muslim world are at an all-time low, more than 70 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves and over a third of production are concentrated in Muslim countries. The very same Shi‘a and Sunni theocratic and dictatorial regimes that most strongly resist America’s efforts to bring democracy to the Middle East are the ones that, because of the market’s tightness, currently drive the world oil economy. While the U.S. economy bleeds, oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran—sympathetic to, and directly supportive, of radical Islam—are on the receiving end of staggering windfalls. In 2006, the United States spent about $260 billion on foreign crude oil and refined petroleum products. This year, with oil hovering over $125 a barrel, the figure could surpass $500 billion, the equivalent of our defense budget.

At today's prices, foreign oil producers are extracting a tax of more than $1,600 a year from every American man, woman and child.

Catch that? An oil tax. And I thought Dubya was anti-tax. Apparently, if tax revenues go to pay for rebuilding America's infrastructure, or to essential services like health care and public education, then taxes are bad. But if they go to prop up the Saudi royal family and to satisfy the stated mission of Public Enemy Number One, then they're okay.

OPEC, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, is deliberately keeping oil supply tight to prop up prices. Not only is Saudi production lower today than it was two years ago, despite the increase in demand, but the cartel has effectively deleted 2.4mbd from the global oil market in what amounts to an accounting scam. In 2007, OPEC expanded its member roster to include Ecuador and Angola – together the two had accounted for nearly 2.4mbd of non-OPEC oil. Yet, total OPEC production remained constant, allowing existing members to reduce production. This translates into a net reduction in non-OPEC supply with no equivalent increase in OPEC supply. This is equivalent to the production of Norway disappearing off the market . Further, while non-OPEC production has doubled over the last thirty years, as the graph below shows, OPEC production today is virtually identical to its production thirty years ago, even as the global economy has grown and with it demand for oil.

The flow of petrodollars from consuming economies to the coffers of producers not only casts a large shadow over America’s prospects of winning the war on terrorism but it also limits U.S. diplomatic maneuverability on central issues like human rights and nuclear proliferation. Perhaps the most powerful statement of the impact on America’s ability to accomplish its foreign policy goals came from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who in April 2006 told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “We do have to do something about the energy problem. I can tell you that nothing has really taken me aback more, as Secretary of State, than the way that the politics of energy is . . . “warping” diplomacy around the world. It has given extraordinary power to some states that are using that power in not very good ways for the international system, states that would otherwise have very little power.”
...
Oil’s strategic value derives from its virtual monopoly on transportation fuel. This monopoly, which gives intolerable power to OPEC and the nations that dominate oil ownership and production, must be broken. Not long ago, technology broke the power of another strategic commodity. Until around the end of the nineteenth century salt had such a position because it was the only means of preserving meat. Odd as it seems today, salt mines conferred national power and wars were even fought over control of them. Today, no nation sways history because it has salt mines. Salt is still a useful commodity for a range of purposes. We import some salt, so if one defines independence as autarky we are not “salt independent”. But to most of us there is no “salt dependence” problem at all — because canning, electricity and refrigeration decisively ended salt’s monopoly of meat preservation, and thus its strategic importance. We can and must do the same thing to oil.

I read this testimony and shuddered at the thought that bin Ladin has been clever enough to orchestrate, from wherever he's hiding, an operation to achieve his decade-old, secret mission to raise the price of crude oil.

Then I poked around at Google to learn all I could about this secret mission and discovered it hasn't been a secret at all. Lots of people have been writing about this. For years.

A correspondent for Al-Jazeera -- the Fox News of the Middle East -- named Jamal Abdul-Latif Ismail apparently interviewed bin Ladin in June 1999 and took great notes on his thinking. Five years later, writer Youssef H. Aboul-Enein wrote about the Ismail interview in the September-October 2004 edition of Military Review.

Ismail describes Bin-Laden's belief that America robs Saudi Arabia of its oil wealth. Bin-Laden explains that during the reign of King Faisal, the United States paid only 70 cents per barrel [of oil]. In the 1973 oil crisis, the Muslims asserted their economic power using oil as a weapon, and prices began to rise to $40 per barrel. When the [oil] prices leveled off to $36, the United States pressured Gulf countries to increase their production to lower prices.

Bin-Laden labels this "the great swindle." Doing basic math, Bin-Laden explains that from $36 the price was lowered to $9 per barrel, he relates the retail price at $144 per barrel, or a loss of $135. He multiplied $135 by the 30 million barrels produced in the Islamic world daily, totaling a loss of $4.5 billion per day for Muslim nations. He breaks down the loss over 25 years to $30,000 for every Muslim man, woman, and child. Although this is an oversimplification of petroleum production and evolution of agreements between oil companies and oil-producing nations, it is highlighted to demonstrate the skill with which Bin-Laden panders to the disenfranchised, giving them an alternate history.

Six weeks after September 11, one oil-industry newsletter explained how bin Ladin might pursue his goal of $144-a-barrel crude. The Octover 27 edition of Czeschin's Oil & Energy Investment Report offered this analysis:

"The US stole $36 trillion from Muslims, buying oil at unfairly low prices," says Osama bin Laden. "This is the biggest theft in the history of the world. I'm going to make America pay."

He doesn't need great technical sophistication or a lot of money to send the price of oil skyrocketing to his target price of $144 per barrel (about 6 times current levels). All he needs is what he already has in abundance -- a cadre of kamikaze terrorists.

To bring America to its knees, he wants to attack America at its point of maximum vulnerability -- its insatiable thirst for oil, which can only be satisfied with huge imports from the Muslim Mid-East. He knows his armies are no match for America. But that doesn't bother him a bit. His plan is simple: turn off the oil spigot and stop the flow of oil to America and its allies. To the American economy, that would be like cutting off its air supply.
....
Shutting the Strait of Hormuz, by itself, will shut off the oil spigot on 15.5 million barrels of oil a day. To put that in perspective, the US consumes 19 million barrels of oil a day.

Osama bin Laden thinks US$144 per barrel is the right price for oil -- and if he succeeds in closing the Strait of Hormuz or the other choke points, America's going to see oil at that stratospheric price. "If oil prices rocket to anywhere near US$144 per barrel, it will tear the heart out of the American economy."

If Osama bin Laden has his way and pushes the price of oil to US$144 a barrel, the shock to the American economy will be enormous. In 1973, when OPEC cut off supplies of oil, the price of oil quadrupled to US$10 a barrel, America fell into the worst recession since the depression of the 1930s. In 1979, oil went from US$10 a barrel to US$40 -- pushing America's inflation and interest rates to almost 20%. In 1991, a doubling of oil prices from US$20 to US$40, wiped hundreds of billions off the balance sheets of investors and threw America into another recession.

Today, America is already in a recession. To hit it not with US$40 oil (as in 1979 and 1991) but oil 3 to 4 times higher at US$144, is an economic doomsday scenario. America runs on oil. There's not a single part of America's economy that doesn't depend on oil. Just about anything sold in America is made or moved with oil.

Imagine gasoline at US$9 per gallon. You spend US$100 to fill up your two-door Honda, or US$270 to fill up your SUV.

The last time I filled my Toyota, I paid $3.69 a gallon and it cost me $55.50 to fill my 15-gallon tank. As it is, I doubt I'll be going very far to celebrate Memorial Day. If Bushgas gets all the way to $9 a gallon as this newsletter predicts, I doubt I'll be going much of anywhere unless it's within biking distance.

Then, Randeep Ramesh wrote about it in the October 17, 2002, edition of the British newspaper The Guardian, -- well before the invasion of Iraq, when crude was still $25 a barrel. In fact, Ramesh had some interesting insights on the potential effects of bombing Iraq:

The question of whether oil is worth spilling blood over has been quietly raised by the foreign office minister, Peter Hain. In a speech today to the Royal United Services Institute in London, Mr Hain notes that the cost of protecting the Middle East's oil reserves, paid for mostly by the US and without which the west would grind to a halt, is as high as $25 (£16) a barrel - about the same as it costs to buy. Mr Hain, seen as an outrider for Blairite thinking, goes on to warn that no amount of money will guarantee petrol supplies to the west and consumers should be weaning themselves off the black stuff.

The potency of the oil weapon is not lost on Osama bin Laden, either, who has stated that crude oil should sell at $144 a barrel - about five times the price at which it currently trades. The attack on the Limburg oil tanker off Yemen's coast may prove to be al-Qaida's first targeting of the global economy.

The Bush administration prefers not to discuss the economic effects of the war on terrorism as this could sap support domestically and abroad, especially in the Arab world where critics suspect, with good reason, the US of wanting to seize its vast petroleum riches. Instead the White House prefers to talk about imposing democracy and ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction. These are noble aims, but they are undermined by leaks suggesting a bolder grab for oil riches.

Mr Bush's senior adviser on the Middle East, Zalmay Khalilzad, has pushed the idea of a post-Saddam Iraq as a colonial outpost of the American empire. Its large oil reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia, could be tapped more efficiently than at present and pay for the 75,000 troops required to administer the new Iraq. This both overestimates the ease of producing oil from a battle-scarred Iraq, which only manages to pump 1m barrels a day, and underestimates the risk of a global financial shock, a serious concern given that the last three big global recessions have been preceded first by a crisis in the Middle East followed by a spike in the oil price.

While bombing Iraq would not in itself cause the oil price to rise sharply, an attack by Saddam on Saudi or Kuwaiti oil fields or an uprising in Riyadh would. The loss of, say, 5m barrels a day of oil production cannot be made up quickly or easily. A big crude producer paralysed by revolution can see production fall precipitously because its workforce is out on the streets rather than manning the taps in the terminal. This is what happened in Iran during the 1979 revolution. Iranian oil production fell from 6m barrels a day to 3m and never recovered. If the same happened in Saudi Arabia, the world would see oil prices spurt upwards.

So if we knew that bin Ladin had this goal in mind, all this time, and we knew what his tactics might include, then why have we not focused our attention on finding him, capturing him, isolating him? Didn't he put bin Ladin and the Taliban "on notice," a la Bill O' Reilly, one week after the attacks?

PRESIDENT Bush said yesterday that he wanted Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile, "dead or alive" in some of the most bellicose language used by a White House occupant in recent years. "I want justice," he said after a meeting at the Pentagon, where 188 people were killed last Tuesday when an airliner crashed into the building. "And there's an old poster out West that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.' "

The blunt, Texas-style rhetoric, delivered off the cuff, came a day after Vice-President Dick Cheney said he would willingly accept bin Laden's "head on a platter". Some advisers said that although the comments might be popular in America, they would not be welcomed by European or Arab allies.

Mr Bush indicated that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan would be punished if it continued to support bin Laden. "All I can tell you is that Osama bin Laden is a prime suspect, and the people who house him, encourage him, provide food, comfort or money are on notice. And the Taliban must take my statement seriously."

As he shook hands at a Pentagon cafeteria, a woman in a civilian dress began singing God Bless America quietly. Before long, Mr Bush and everyone else there had joined in. Mr Bush also met the pregnant wife of one of the Pentagon victims, hugging and talking to her before giving her a kiss.

What is there to say?

But didn't Dubya also say something about not resting until he'd been caught and brought to justice for September 11?

He sure did. In fact, two days after September 11, Dubya said, "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."

But five months later, perhaps fatigued from five months without rest, Dubya said on March 13, 2002, "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." In case anyone was confused, he reiterated for them, "I am truly not that concerned about him."

By his third presidential debate on October 13, 2004, Dubya was sufficiently rested to tell Kerry, "I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations."

Exaggerations. The one thing that Dubya knows a lot about.

And since 2004? You know it's bad when Faux News mentions (on February 23, 2005) the absence of bin Ladin from Dubya's 2005 State of the Union Address, and quotes Ted Kennedy approvingly:

Just how many U.S. resources are being put into the search may be more difficult to ascertain these days. While President Bush mentioned the terror mastermind by name more than 10 times in his 2004 State of the Union address, bin Laden wasn't named once by the president during this year's address.

"It isn't the local Iraqis that are a threat to me in Boston," Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy recently told the Boston Herald. "It's Al Qaeda that is the threat to us here. It is unfortunate and tragic we haven't been able to apprehend him [bin Laden] after all this period of time."

Kennedy, a Democrat, noted the lack of mention of bin Laden in Bush's 2005 State of the Union address. "Why'd [Bush] mention [bin Ladin] one year ago 15 times? Now he doesn't mention him at all."

When asked in December how the search for bin Laden is going, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said: "The war on terrorism is much broader than any one person" but reiterated the theme that the Al Qaeda network has been smashed.

A month earlier, when asked if the United States was still actively looking for the ringleader, McClellan responded: "Yes, we are continuing to pursue him and he will be brought to justice. We are also continuing to move forward on dismantling and destroying the Al Qaeda network, and we have made great progress over the course of the last few years. But there is more to do. And we continue to stay on the offensive."

That Scott McLellan, a team player to the end. More than six and a half years after bin Ladin sent his emissaries to New York and Washington, and he's still at large, but Scottie had faith. Heckuva job, Scottie.

Speaking of that six-and-a-half-year era, has Dubya really gone without rest during that time, as he promised. Nah. But he HAS given up golf, because he thought it looked bad to the families of our 4,080 servicemembers killed over there, and the 30,329 servicemembers injured over there, for the grinning President of the United States to be chipping balls on the greens. Or so he has said. Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post says something different about all that:

The nation is in despair over the war in Iraq and the toll it is taking on our troops and their families. But President Bush shows no outward sign of inner pain. He is chipper in his public pronouncements. His weekly bike rides and daily workouts have put a perpetual spring in his step. He's always ready with a wisecrack. He just hosted his daughter's wedding at his multi-million dollar estate in Texas. He takes more vacations than any president in history. He has made clear that he doesn't lie awake at nights.

And yet now it turns out that Bush has indeed made a personal sacrifice on account of the war. According to the president yesterday, his decision to stop playing golf five years ago wasn't just an exercise in image control or a function of his bum knee -- it was an act of solidarity with the families of the dead and wounded.

Here's the relevant exchange in an interview Bush gave to Mike Allen of Politico:

Allen: "Mr. President, you haven't been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?"

Bush: "Yes, it really is. I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

Allen: "Mr. President, was there a particular moment or incident that brought you to that decision, or how did you come to that?"

Bush: "No, I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life. And I was playing golf -- I think I was in central Texas -- and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it's just not worth it anymore to do."

This is the latest in a series of statements by Bush, the first lady and Vice President Cheney illustrating how far removed they are from the consequences of the decision to go to war -- and stay at war.

Adding factual insult to Dubya's injuries to the truth, Froomkin finds reason to question the Resident's resolve. Apparently Dubya made this momentous decision on August 19, 2003, but the AP reported two months later that he spent October 13, a "cool, breezy Columbus Day" playing "a round of golf with three long-time buddies.

"Bush played at Andrews Air Force Base with Clay Johnson, Office of Management and Budget deputy director, Richard Hauser, Department of Housing and Urban Development general counsel and another friend, Mike Wood."

On that outing, he was typically full of what passes for good humor at the White House. The AP reported: "'Fine looking crew you got there. Fine looking crew,' Bush joked to reporters. 'That's what we'd hope for presidential coverage. Only the best.'

"He hit a couple of practice balls before flaring his tee-off shot into the right rough."

Dan Eggen writes in The Washington Post: "Democrats have criticized Bush for allegedly not requiring Americans to sacrifice enough while waging wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and for urging people to keep shopping as a way to fight terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Bush was also widely criticized in August 2002 when he decried terrorist bombings in Israel while golfing and then told reporters: 'Now watch this drive.'

"Although Bush says he has given up golf, he is a mountain-biking enthusiast who has been photographed taking part in rides. He took up biking after an injury sidelined him from running.

"Presidential historian Robert Dallek. . . said Bush's remarks about Iraq 'speak to his shallowness.' Dallek added: 'That's his idea of sacrifice, to give up golf?'"

Yeah.

So after all those butch pronouncements back in 2001 and 2002 about finding and bringing bin Ladin to justice, Dubya turned the entire might of the American military and economy toward Iraq, neglecting the Taliban until they're effectively back in power in Afghanistan, and leaving bin Ladin to move closer and closer toward his dastardly goal. Why is Dubya so beholden to the Saudis, and so namby-pamby when it comes to bin Ladin? I don't know the answer. Does anyone?

"Ours is a season of obscenity and absurdity," writes Lance Hames, a write-in candidate who offered his own "State of the Union" address online. "Currently, we have in the White House an alcoholic who failed at every business venture handed him, by his family, and by their lofty connections, friends in the oil industry, the Bin Laden family, and the royal family of Saudi Arabia, someone who was unable to find oil in Texas with infinite pools of funding."

And as we fumble on in Iraq, in the fight, and in the futility, we say nothing of our fair-weather friends the Saudis, a feudal monarchy we finance with the worship of our gas-guzzlers, two-faced fanatics who take the tithe we offer and finance schools of the fundamentalist Wahhabi sect, whose scholars teach their students to hate all things American except our cash.

And no one in the second Bush White House wants us to remember that fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 murderers were Saudis.
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And while the dying continues, and the light at the end of that tunnel dwindles, and our own President spends a billion of our dollars in Iraq every week to drive up the price of oil for his friend in the Petroleum Industry, we the people, in our conversations, in our coffee klatches, at our café counters, in our closed circles and our open opinions, complain of mothers on welfare, and the rising cost of the health care system we insist on keeping. We complain government is too big, not the corporate interests who control it.

While ExxonMobil, who controlled environmental policy for the second Bush Administration, posts a profit of $39.6 billion for 2006, $40.6 billion for 2007, a record for any corporation, we bitch about the price of gas, knowing we will do nothing, not even in the Spring, when the price will jump to greet the tourist season, when the oil monopolies will take it to $4 a gallon.

And Osama Bin Laden, our true enemy, an actual evil, remains at large, at leisure and on the loose, even after all the torture and wire-tapping, even after the execution of his hapless surrogate boogeyman, Saddam Hussein.
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We've seen the price of oil skyrocket, environmental warnings have been ignored to facilitate that rise, our national debt and our annual deficit have soared, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been shipped overseas, and health care costs have climbed as fewer Americans can afford them, and the examples of other countries with universal health care are ignored.

In essence, thanks to Dubya's earnest incompetence, or his malevolent neglect, or his active collusion in bin Ladin's nation-crippling scheme, the mastermind of September 11 is on the brink of achieving his longtime goal. Is this another case of the Lucky Enemy Syndrome -- like Tip O'Neill enabling his fellow Irishman Ronald Reagan's thirst for Pentagon spending, or Newt Gingrich flailing against the intellectually and politically superior Bill Clinton? Except in this case, it's bin Ladin who gained the upper hand when the Rehnquist Court installed their boy, the ultimate clueless cowboy, in the White House?

Of course, I'm not absolving the dark half of that package deal, Chancellor Cheney.

There's a little something obscene about the prospect of bin Ladin accomplishing his mission sometime between America's Memorial Day and America's Independence Day, two of the high-holiest days in the patriot's year. (Might it happen smack-between the two, on June 14, our Flag Day?) But asking Dubya himself whether the hunt for bin Ladin is still the "priority" it once was is a fool's errand. In less than eight months, it won't matter to him anyway. The charms of his Prairie Chapel Ranch await him, and he has a library to build at Southern Methodist University.

He intends to raise $500 million for his library -- making it the most expensive presidential library to date, surely a new definition for "supreme irony" -- which has real librarians howling: Says one, "The half-a-billion dollars is twice the total amount Bush spent on his entire 2004 Presidential campaign! Just think if public libraries had that kind of kind of support while he was in office."

Don't bring that up to Dubya, though. He's got things on his mind, or he did on May 3:

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. — President Bush on Friday touted his planned presidential library at SMU as a forum to promote freedom, brushing aside critics who say it will operate as a partisan venue. “This isn’t a political precinct, this will be a place where we get the thinkers from around the world to come and write about and articulate the transformative power of freedom, abroad and at home,’’ Mr. Bush said.

The SMU project, now being designed, will be composed of a library, museum and public policy research center.

The president, taking questions from employees at a technology plant in suburban St. Louis, said the center will help foster democracy around the world – what he called the “freedom agenda.”

“It’s going to be very important to be kept in the forefront of American philosophical thought,’’ he said.

Never a fan of discussing his legacy, Mr. Bush said after all the good days and the bad days in the White House he remains optimistic. “Interestingly enough, it is a lot harder to have been the son of the president than to be the president,” he said. “And so it’s been a joyous experience.”

Mr. Bush headed to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, for the weekend after his speech. “I’ve got a lot on my mind, by the way,” he cautioned the crowd. “I’m getting ready to march down the aisle.”

The president’s daughter Jenna is getting married next weekend.

Oh, and have you heard who Dubya's soliciting for contributions to the building of his library at SMU? I'll give you a hint: They're not Southern, and they're not Methodist.

In late-November, the New York Daily News reported that "Bush sources with direct knowledge of library plans" said that "Bush fund-raisers hope to get half of the half billion from what they call 'megadonations' of $10 million to $20 million a pop." According to the Daily News, "Bush loyalists have already identified wealthy heiresses, Arab nations and captains of industry as potential 'mega' donors and are pressing for a formal site announcement - now expected early in the new year...The rest of the cash will come from donors willing to pony up $25,000 to $5 million."

While the donors to Bush 43's library will remain anonymous, in February 2006, the Associated Press reported that among the donors to Bush 41's presidential library located at Texas A&M University in College Station, were a sheik from the United Arab Emirates, who contributed at least $1 million, the state of Kuwait, the Bandar bin Sultan family, the Sultanate of Oman, King Hassan II of Morocco, the amir of Qatar, and the former Korean prime minister. China also gave tens of thousands of dollars to the library. In addition, funds were received from the late Kenneth Lay, the former head of Enron, and Dick Cheney, the current Vice President.

"Presidential libraries," the Daily News pointed out, "are run by the National Archives and Records Administration, but building costs must come from private donations. Bells and whistles, like an institute or an academic program like Bush's father's public service school at Texas A&M, are also extras."

The really big extra embedded into this project appears to be what Bush insiders are calling the Institute for Democracy. Modeled after the Hoover Institution, a long-time conservative think tank located on the campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, Bush's institute would hire conservative scholars and "give them money to write papers and books favorable to the President's policies," one Bush insider told the Daily News. This would effectively be the post-administration version of a policy they established during his reign - paying columnists to advocate for administration policy.

So the same Middle Eastern interests who nurtured bin Ladin, who have controlled the petroleum economy for forty years, who have played games with the Bush family and its various corporate connections, who funded the elder Bush's presidential library in Houston and who now hold America's economic cojones in a vice-grip are going to pony up to the tune of millions to give the Boy King a gilt temple in which supplicants can worship his monkeyish legacy and eminence for generations to come.

And on the campus of an institution of higher learning. Where, likely, Dubya himself couldn't honestly earn a degree of his own, even if he majored in his own legacy.

Is there no one at SMU who could or would stand against this injury to logic and reason?

Maybe there is.

FORT WORTH, TEXAS (AP) -- Some ministers will use a PR campaign to try to stop George W. Bush's presidential library from being built at Southern Methodist University. Opponents have hired a Maine public relations firm to design ads for Methodist publications.

The Reverend Andrew Weaver of Brooklyn, New York, says the goal is informing people about the center's partisan think tank. Weaver says some Methodists believe Bush policies -- like the war with Iraq and torturing foreign prisoners -- conflict with church teachings.

Critics are launching the campaign before July's meeting of the United Methodist Church's South Central Jurisdiction, which owns the land for the Bush complex. Last year a smaller church council authorized SMU to lease land to the Bush Foundation for the spread.

SMU officials say that's all the approval needed.

More power to them, if they're able to stunt this mutation before it takes root.

But I think all the prayers in the Crystal Cathedral won't stop Osama bin Ladin from reaching his goal of $144-a-barrel oil soon. It's clear that our president won't.