EVENING UPDATE:  MAY 1,  2008

Posted at 7:39 p.m. ET

VIRTUE IN ACADEME

A bit of unanticipated fallout from the Reverend Wright debacle.  Northwestern University has taken direct, militant action:

May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Northwestern University withdrew an invitation for the Reverend Jeremiah Wright to receive an honorary degree at this year's commencement.

Wright, former pastor to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, was selected to be honored at the June ceremony in Evanston, Illinois, on the recommendation of faculty committees, Alan Cubbage, vice president for university relations, said in a statement.

``In light of the controversy around Dr. Wright and to ensure the celebratory character of commencement not be affected, the university has withdrawn its invitation to Dr. Wright,'' Cubbage said.

Obama, an Illinois senator, has repeatedly denounced Wright's statements, which have included praise for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and a suggestion that the U.S. government was capable of developing AIDS to infect black people.

I think the term is "damage control."

But here are the questions for Mr. Cubbage:  "Uh, sir, why did you offer this man, with his incendiary anti-American views, an honorary degree in the first place?  Uh, Mr. Cubbage, if he actually deserves the degree, why withdraw it?  Uh, Mr. Cubbage, what does this say about the thought that goes into honorary degrees at Northwestern if you chose to honor this man?  Uh, Mr. Cubbage, how recently has Northwestern honored any conservative leader or military officer of the United States?

I'm not holding my breath waiting for answers.

Oh, by the way, you've all heard of William Ayers, the former Weather Underground member (and fugitive from justice) who's also a pal of Barack Obama.  His wife, Bernadine Dohrn, was a Weather lady herself, and also went on the lam for years.  She teaches law now...at Northwestern University.  I guess it only annoys the school if it makes the papers.

I'd estimate Northwestern charges about $42,000 a year.  When I was a student at the University of Chicago Northwestern was considered a party school.  It is still is, but apparently it's a different party.

May 1, 2008.      Permalink          

THE FALLOUT

The Wright fallout continues.  Robert Novak, for whom I have mixed feelings, does, I admit, have an astute column on the damage Wright is doing, and can do, to Barack Obama:  Novak's best point:

"That is just terrible, absolutely dreadful," a prominent supporter of Barack Obama said Monday morning after listening to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's screed at the National Press Club. He proposed to me that the presidential candidate at long last must denounce his former pastor, unequivocally and immediately. It took 28 hours after a tepid early reaction Monday, but Obama finally did it Tuesday afternoon.

Did that solve Obama's pastor problem? Leading Democrats certainly hope so, but they are not sure. His vulnerability transcends relations with a radical preacher. If Obama comes to be seen not as a presidential candidate who happens to be black but as a black candidate in the mold of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, he will face a difficult struggle in the general election against John McCain even if he bests Hillary Clinton.

That is the issue.  Here in New York we recall the city's first African-American mayor, David Dinkins.  By all accounts a decent man, Dinkins also portrayed himself as the candidate of all the people, describing New York as a "gorgeous mosaic."  But Dinkins ultimately could not escape race.  When he was elected, he started making decisions involving the use of the police that enraged whites.  He became, in effect, the black mayor.  We later learned that he was taking advice - this will sound familiar - from a radical black minister.  He was defeated for reelection by Rudolph Giuliani, in a racially charged contest that began the Giuliani era.

May 1, 2008.      Permalink          

THE ASSESSMENTS

The Denver Post, in what is the best single editorial I've read about the Wright controversy, summarizes the devastating case against Obama that the association with Wright suggests:

Just six weeks ago, Sen. Barack Obama said he could no more disown his former pastor than he could disown his own white grandmother.

Until, of course, he did.

Obama finally (and firmly) disavowed the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright this week. But the moment came only after sensing his presidential bid could be undone by the simmering controversy.

Yeah, that's the problem.  Credibility.  The same with the William Ayers thing.  More:

Obama's handling of this mess not only calls into question his judgment, but eventually could strike at the core of whether he's fit to be president.

And...

"The insensitivity and the outrageousness of the statements shocked me and surprised me," Obama said. Wright's rants, he continued, contradict "everything that I'm about and who I am. . . . The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago."

Does Obama really expect Americans to believe that it was Wright, and not the prevailing political winds, that changed overnight?

He could have diffused the situation had he been more straightforward at the very beginning. Instead, the senator has struggled to explain away his relationship with Wright for months, and it's only raised more questions for voters about who Obama surrounds himself with and who might have his ear as president.

Have you noticed the number of times Obama has had to distance himself from the views of some of his advisers?  Question:  Senator Obama, if you disagree with them, why did you hire them in the first place?

And...

This dust-up got personal Monday when Wright implied Obama quietly believes in Wright's views and suggested that Obama's speech on race last month was nothing but politics.

Obama, trying to win over some of the white, working-class voters who have been casting their ballots for Hillary Clinton, was just doing what politicians do, Wright said.

The senator may not have been doing what politicians do with his artful speech on race last month. But when Obama tossed his one-time friend under the bus Tuesday, he was definitely doing what politicians do.

Our parents teach us at an early age that we will be judged by the company we keep. That's true in life, but especially in politics.

After all these months we still must ask what Obama actually believes.  If Rev. Wright is correct that Obama quietly believes in Wright's views, the answers could be very disturbing.

May 1, 2008.      Permalink          

AFTERNOON UPDATE:  MAY 1,  2008

Posted at 3:08 p.m. ET

THE POLLS

We look for trends in the polls, not specific numbers each day.  The trends are not good for Senator Obama.  His position seems to be eroding. How much erosion is the key.  From other news reports, the decline is not moving any Democratic heavyweights to rush to Clinton.  Remember, the Democratic Party depends on the African-American vote to win elections, and cannot win a national election without a heavy black turnout.  It will take major political trauma to defy that community.

For the Democratic nomination:  Rasmussen has Clinton up two over Obama, but Gallup has her up four.

In the general, Rasmussen has McCain up three over Obama.  Gallup has him up four.

Rasmussen and Gallup both have a tie  in a Clinton-McCain race.

The latest Indiana polls ended on the 29th.  Rasmussen has Clinton up five.  TeleResearch has Clinton up ten.

Latest in North Carolina:  Mason-Dixon has Obama up seven.  Insider Advantage has Clinton up two.  These are hardly great numbers for Obama, but both polls ended two days ago.  We haven't yet seen the impact of his denunciation of the rough reverend. 

Quinnipiac, a respected polling organization, has now polled in some swing states:  The results:

Florida:  McCain 44, Obama 43; Clinton 49, McCain 41.

Ohio:  McCain 43, Obama 42; Clinton 48, McCain 38.

Pennsylvania:  Obama 47, McCain 38; Clinton 51, Obama 37.

There is no good news in any of this for Senator Obama.  But, again, we're talking about the Democratic Party, a party passionately committed to assisted suicide.  President McGovern.  President Mondale.  President Dukakis.  And the one guy they got through before the Clinton era - President Jimmah "Hamas is peaceful" Carter.

We also have to consider that the mainstream media is deep in the tank for Obama.  Have you watched CNN lately?  Or read the anti-McCain hit pieces in The New York Times?  That will be of enormous advantage to Obama in the general.

North Carolina and Indiana vote Tuesday.  Fascinating stuff.

May 1, 2008.      Permalink          

THURSDAY:  MAY 1,  2008

Posted at 6:28 a.m. ET

HOLIDAY GREETINGS

It's May Day, and I extend my gender-neutral greetings to all you Marxists out there.  May your day go exactly as you dreamed - filled with fury at the system, contempt for the bosses, and intense loathing of the Apple Store. 

May your greenhouse gases be corked.

May 1, 2008.      Permalink          

OBAMA ALONE

Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal notes a fascinating sidelight of the Rev. Wright affair:  Not one of Barack Obama's allies came to his side:

This week we learned the limit of a dream in American politics. At Barack Obama's darkest hour, not one prominent ally came forward to support him. Everyone abandoned Everyman.

No prominent black clergyman came forth to make even the simple point that Jeremiah Wright's notion of the "black church" is but one point on a spectrum of faith. Rev. Wright, now written off as a virtual nut case, got more support from black clergymen than did Obama.

Barack Obama was bleeding by Monday and needed cover. Where, when he could have used them, were Obama's oh-so-famous endorsers: Jesse Jackson, Ted Kennedy, Oprah, John Kerry, Chris Dodd, Patrick Leahy, Tom Daschle, Amy Klobuchar, Claire McCaskill, Jay Rockefeller, John Lewis, Toni Morrison, Roger Wilkins, Eric Holder, Robert Reich, Ted Sorenson, Alice Walker, David Wilhelm, Cornel West, Clifford Alexander, Donald McHenry, Patricia Wald, Newton Minow?

You know, that's a very good question.  Henninger goes on:

It isn't hard for big names to get on talk TV to make a point. Any major op-ed page would have stopped the presses to print a statement of support from Ted Kennedy or such for the senator. None appeared. Call it profiles in gopher-holing.

Blogs and Web sites are overflowing with how this meltdown is largely of Barack Obama's own making. What difference does that make? He is not running for class president; he's running for the presidency of the United States. Even at the crudest level of political calculation and cowardice, there's a point in a presidential race when a candidate's supporters are all in. We passed that point weeks ago. It's him or her.

Finally...

The list is long this week of supporters who let Barack Obama hang out to dry. More than a few were last seen running out on Hillary Clinton. Perhaps the solution here is for the two soloists to meet, flip a coin, and spend the next six months as a pair running against John McCain. It looks like they're the only friends they've got.

That's a wonderful comment on Obama's self-proclaimed "movement."  No he can't!

May 1, 2008.      Permalink          

THE CLINTON SMILE

Never say that the Clintons don't know how to benefit from someone else's misfortune.  Hillary Clinton, on television last night, never looked better.  Why the glow actually lit up a corner of the room.  Who would have thought that a radical black minister from Chicago would end up being her personal savior?  it shows what a lifelong commitment to religion can do.  Mike Allen and John F. Harris ponder the miracle in The Politico:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday sent a fundraising e-mail with the subject line “Roaring back.”

For the first time since her humiliating third-place finish in Iowa nearly four months ago, Clinton aides aren’t privately rolling their eyes at their own campaign bluster — even if the evidence of a comeback so far is still less than a roar.

For the past couple of months, Clinton has been resting her hopes — and resisting calls to drop out — on the possibility of a game-changer, some unforeseen event that would change the prism through which the media, superdelegates and average Democrats are viewing her uphill campaign against Barack Obama.

It won’t be clear until the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina whether the game really has changed. But recent days have shown that the ground has shifted in important ways for her.

Some are concrete: better fundraising, well-timed endorsements and a spate of polls showing how Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has broken skin politically. Others are more intangible: crisp performances by Clinton at a time when the usually poised Obama has appeared more rattled than at any time in this campaign, as well as a Clinton campaign team that is no longer defeatist and morose behind the scenes.

And...

Before, the Clintons knew they were fighting a story line that said she could never win unless superdelegates take the nomination away from a popular African-American who came in first.

Now they hope that they have subtly shifted to a new story line: Superdelegates must think twice before bestowing the nomination on an increasingly controversial politician who has missed repeated opportunities to wrap up the contest with a decisive, big-state victory.

It is still, though, an uphill battle.  If Obama were white, he'd be out of the race by now, wrecked by what has happened to his campaign.  But Obama has the most loyal of Democratic constituencies, African-Americans, behind him.  They will not leave his side, and that is the Democrats' dilemma. 

May 1, 2008.      Permalink          

CAROLINA POLLIN'

There's been much media buzz since late yesterday about an Insider Advantage poll that shows Clinton leading Obama by two points in North Carolina, a state thought safe for Obama.  The poll is at variance with all others, and I would be skeptical.  We'll have to wait for other tracking polls, which should report in the next few days, for confirmation. Indeed, the polls from Indiana and North Carolina are the only important surveys right now. 

By comparison, Rasmussen has Obama up by 14 in North Carolina.  His poll was concluded a day before the one from Insider Advantage. 

May 1,  2008.       Permalink          

THE LOWEST

Finally, there's a brewing scandal that threatens to shake America to its core.  It's about...about...look, let me give it to you straight, without tears:

LOS ANGELES — Paula Abdul acknowledged on Wednesday what some “American Idol” viewers have long suspected: The show’s judges sometimes see portions of the dress rehearsal for the show and use that to help formulate their comments on the evening’s live performance.

The issue came up on Wednesday as Ms. Abdul, one of the three judges on “Idol,” the Fox talent competition, tried to explain comments she made during Tuesday evening’s live broadcast, in which she offered a critique of a performance that had not yet taken place.

And we're worried about Iran, Reverend Wright, and the price of oil?  What kind of people are we?  If "American Idol" disappears in a cesspool of corruption, what will be left of our high culture and social cohesion?  Why isn't the president involved?  Why has Obama ducked this?  Why?  Why?

May 1, 2008.      Permalink