WEDNESDAY,  FEBRUARY 13,  2008

•   After he swept yesterday's primaries, Barack Obama gave a long speech in Madison, Wisconsin, covered on TV.  The arena was packed.  Madison is the home of the University of Wisconsin, and a decidedly leftist village.

Later, the TV coverage cut away to show us John McCain giving his own victory speech after he, too, swept the primaries.  We were thus able to contrast Obama and McCain, almost side by side, and get an impression of both as candidates.  It may have been unfair.  Obama's was a staged, well-lit event before thousands.  McCain's was a standard acceptance speech, with the usual political supporters crowded behind him.  But it will have to do. 

Obama is a brilliant, attractive speaker.  He hits the right notes.  He is eloquent.  He has the sparkle and energy of youth.  You can really be sucked in to the message, and quickly, especially if you are under 30.  The young, lacking experience, have no idea how difficult "change" is.  They have no idea what skills are required to put an idea into practice, and make it work.  They have no understanding of the history of failure by those proclaiming themselves prophets in their own time.  Obama's message, to the young, is "cool."

Franklin Roosevelt, when he became president, cautioned us that he wouldn't make a hit every time he came to bat.  Obama sounds like a man fully prepared to step into the batter's box...as long as no one is playing on the opposite team.  The hits?  Why, they'll be easy.  The only hard part is getting elected.  But speeches will take care of that.

There was almost no substance in Obama's remarks.  Foreign policy was disposed of in a few sentences.  Terrorism wasn't mentioned.  Iran's nuclear program wasn't discussed.  But in one chilling passage, Obama pledged to get rid of the "mindset" that got us involved in Iraq.  He never told us what that mindset was.  Maybe some reporter, not swept up in a personal journalistic crusade to "make a difference," might ask. 

John McCain is no speaker compared with Obama, and that frightens me.  He does speak well, and sincerely, but he looked tired, and looked his age.  To a nation miseducated in once-great schools and colleges, he is the voice of a past, greater generation that understood sacrifice, realized the stakes, and accepted the challenge.  His speech, far less eloquent than Obama's, had the reach of history, not the emotion of the moment. 

Too much, but not all, of America has become adolescent.  It trusts in the now, in the glitter, in the feeling.  Thinking, analyzing, are strains, practices to be avoided lest we "kill the dream."  John McCain's speech last night had more wisdom in a single line than Obama's had in his complete text.  It is McCain, if you thought about it for more than four seconds, who is the true voice of the 21st century, the man ready to accept the reality of the new challenge before us.  Obama is very much the man of the past, re-warming old, leftist ideas that have failed repeatedly, giving us a view of the world consistent with the fashionable, trendy college crowd of the 1960s.

Will America understand the difference?  Or will the image win out over the reality?  Americans, in the past, have often, if only at the last moment, understood the need, and confronted what had to be done.  That is why they elected Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter.  That was 28 years ago.  I wonder if we are up to it now.

•   US News has a capable analysis of the race, with some sympathy toward Obama, but it's a piece that eventually asks the correct, devastating question.  Some Obama people claim he's the Democratic Reagan.  Is he?  The key quote from writer James Pethokoukis:

I wonder what Obama voters are really voting for? They want the United States out of Iraq, to be sure. But what beyond that? Well, consider this: I've heard Obama supporters say that Obama will be "their Reagan." That's interesting because whenever Democrats compliment our 41st president, they almost always focus on his personality (infectious optimism and generous spirit) rather than policy (slashing taxes and confronting the Evil Empire). But do voters have any expectations beyond Obama's optimism and his vow to bring America together? Are all those young voters, independents, and frustrated Republicans really voting for greater government involvement in the healthcare system and huge tax increases—in essence, Reaganomics in reverse? People knew what they were getting when they voted for Reagan. Obama? I'm not so sure. 

Yup.  That says it.

•  And now for the other one.  The New York Sun assesses the Hillary steamroller, and how the steam is hissing out.  Look, you never know.  She might turn this ship around, but so far the iceberg is winning, and getting colder and colder:

If Mrs. Clinton is to emerge as her party's contender, she has three weeks to make the case that it is she, not her rival from Illinois, who is best able to defeat Mr. McCain. Mrs. Clinton believes she can convincingly win on March 4 in Texas, a state that offers 193 delegates, the largest cache of delegates in the country, as well as most of the 161 delegates in Ohio on the same day. If on April 22 she also can capture by a wide margin a majority of the 158 delegates in Pennsylvania, in a closed primary that does not allow independents to join in, she may have enough votes to claim victory.

In the next 21 days, however, Mrs. Clinton hopes that her party's love affair with Mr. Obama turns sour. She has been making the case, largely in vain, that she is best prepared to be effective in the White House. Although Mr. Obama has no executive experience of any sort, Democrats do not seem to care.

The base of the party never cared about winning the Cold War either.  It's so hard to change.  Whoops.  I'd better get with the program.  Change is good!  Good change!

•   In a story we've been following at Urgent Agenda, the Berkeley City Council has met the United States Marine Corps half way.  The Berkeley heroism.  The sense of sacrifice.  The...the devotion to a cause.  What a day for the red, white and blue:

The Berkeley City Council attempted to make nice with U.S. Marines recruiters Wednesday morning by taking back a letter it planned to send calling the Corps "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" in the city.

But a motion to formally apologize failed.

Instead the City Council with a 7-2 vote at 1 a.m. sought to clarify one of its Jan. 29 Marines motions with new language that recognizes "the recruiters' right to locate in our city and the right of others to protest or support their presence."

The new statement also said the council opposes "the recruitment of our young people into this war."

The council heard testimony from about 100 people who came from as far away as Colorado to weigh in on the issue.

At the same time, the council let stand four other items it passed at its previous meeting, including one encouraging "all people to avoid cooperation with the Marine Corps recruiting station," another asking the city attorney to investigate whether the recruiting station is breaking the city's law against discrimination based on sexual orientation and two items giving the peace group Code Pink a free weekly parking space and sound permit to protest at the Shattuck Avenue recruiting station once a week.

Oh, the spirit of '76 lives!  Unfortunately, it's 1976.

•   I must report this.  All of us observed, and were sickened by, the events at Duke University last year.  Three innocent boys came close to being legally lynched in what came to be known as the lacrosse scandal.  Although eventually exonerated, they will bear the scars of their ordeal all their lives.  Now, in National Journal, Stuart Taylor Jr. continues the story.  Taylor and a colleague, K.C.Johnson, wrote the definitive book on the Duke case, "Until Proven Innocent."  Taylor tells us that Duke hasn't learned.  Caution - there are coarse references in this story:

Some might be surprised to learn that on this year's Super Bowl Sunday, Duke University played host to a group of strippers, prostitutes, phone-sex operators, and others in a "Sex Workers Art Show" to display their "creativity and genius." The university spent $3,500 from student fees and various programs to pay the performers and cover expenses.

That's just a taste.  Read the whole thing.  And remember that Barack Obama wants to give each kid $4,000 a year for college tuition.  Why, that would just about cover events at the "Sex Workers Art Show."  Bargain, ay?

•  And while we're on education, Duke and Berkeley, we finish with the story of a man who taught students for 17 years without being able to read, write, or spell:

OCEANSIDE, Calif. -- John Corcoran graduated from college and taught high school for 17 years without being able to read, write or spell.

Corcoran's life of secrecy started at a young age. He said his teachers moved him up from grade to grade. Often placed in what he calls the "dumb row," the images of his tribulations in the classroom are still vividly clear.

The explanation?  Well, it begins here:

The former teacher said he came from a loving family that always supported him.

"My parents came to school and it no longer was a problem for me reading because this boy Johnnie the -- native alien I call him -- he didn't have a reading problem as far as the teachers were concerned. He had an emotional problem. He had a psychological problem. He had a behavioral problem," said Corcoran.

Dearies, we must understand.  We must empathize.  And, of course, there's a moral reckoning:

"As a teacher it really made me sick to think that I was a teacher who couldn't read. It is embarrassing for me, and it's embarrassing for this nation and it's embarrassing for schools that we're failing to teach our children how to read, write and spell!"

Oh, the righteousness.  Put him on Oprah.

And then, naturally...

While still teaching, Corcoran dabbled in real estate. He was granted a leave of absence, eventually becoming a successful real estate developer.

Why not?  Why would a real estate developer need to read?  Why, next, this man could be president of Duke!  Why not improve things?

And I'll be back later.

Posted on February 13, 2008.