Mount Virtus

Earlier today I pointed out the troubles Barack Obama is having with skeptics on the political Left who even after his “courageous speech” say he’s still in trouble. Well, if early signs like a large-scale Internet poll mean anything, these critics have a strong point.

John Hinderaker at Power Line notes an AOL Hot Seat poll that shows an overwhelming percentage of Americans don’t think Obama solved “his Jeremiah Wright problem with his speech yesterday.” By a margin of 68 to 26 percent. This might be (wait, just might be) the lead weight around Obama’s campaign.

If this is true, it’s because more people are seeing what Jonah Goldberg saw:

For all the wonderful rhetoric and tantalizing promise of Obama and his speech, there’s not much that is actually new here. This was largely a restatement of Jeremiah Wright’s indictment of America, delivered in University of Chicago parlance instead of South Side Chicago diatribe.

The old baggage has been replaced with shinier suitcases, but the contents are the same as ever. Black America’s problems can be solved by spending more money on the same old Great Society programs. Any talk about black America’s problems that takes the eyes off that prize is a “distraction.” And, yet again, white Americans can prove their commitment to racial justice by going along with more big government. My hope for something better proved too audacious in the end.

Hillary is way ahead in Pennsylvania, and has made up a deficit in North Carolina. Are Democrats changing their mind? If Hillary wins both of these major states, she’s still in all likelihood behind in the delegate count. But what does it mean for the Democratic National Convention in August?

A fascinating political season, indeed.

Jim Geraghty looks at the Rasmussen poll data (showing McCain and Obama tied at 46, but McCain clobbering Hillary 52-38) and muses:

We’ve seen Obama running ahead of Hillary in some states, but an 11 or 12 point difference? What’s got him so popular there, and her so unpopular? Does Obama come across as a mountain state kind of guy? Is he related to John Elway or something?

I don’t have a good answer to that question, but many hypotheses abound. Coloradans don’t like the old-style Eastern politics that Hillary Clinton represents. Colorado swing voters are more open to vapid liberal platitudes than cynical ones. Frankly, it beats me. Hillary polls terribly unpopular here and would have virtually no chance to win the Centennial State in a matchup against the Republican nominee. Barack Obama would at least make the race competitive, which might help Mark Udall in a close Senate race more than anything.

Right now, I’m just glad to see how different Colorado is from Ohio:

A new PPP poll in Ohio shows Clinton up 1 point over McCain, while Obama trails the Republican nominee by 8 points.

McCain 45 - Clinton 46
McCain 49 - Obama 41

McCain leads Obama by 0.7 points and Clinton by 0.2 points in the RCP Averages for Ohio

Yes, I’m just a little bit bitter that the Buckeyes snagged prep football phenom Terrelle Pryor, at the Wolverines’ expense. I’ll get over it, though.

If the rest of the nation’s well-being weren’t at stake in a Presidential race with key electoral votes in the upper Midwest, I’d say Hillary and Ohio can have each other. Pryor may cause more occasional heartburn (and heartache) come the next few Novembers. But the November heartburn that Hillary could create would last for (at least) four years straight.

Meanwhile, I’ll stick with Colorado. Thank you very much.

The Independence Institute is producing more Web video content. You’ve seen the more entertaining side - now here’s a 3-minute educational clip by Dr. Paul Prentice about property rights (via The Caldara Blog):

Well, somebody had to ask the question to get it going: “What is the relationship of property rights and liberty in general?” Hey, you don’t know how long I spent memorizing that line. Method acting - it’s called method acting.

Good news yesterday for the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI). The Detroit News reports that a federal court has rejected legal attempts to undo the same sort of measure that was recently approved by Michigan voters:

A federal judge Tuesday upheld the constitutionality of a Michigan law that prohibits racial and gender preferences in government hiring and public university admissions.

“To impugn the motives of 58 (percent) of Michigan’s electorate, in the absence of extraordinary circumstances which do not exist here, simply is not warranted on this record,” U.S. District Judge David Lawson wrote.

Michigan voters approved the constitutional amendment known as Proposal 2 in November 2006.

Several groups — including the NAACP and By Any Means Necessary — as well as minority high school and college students challenged the measure, saying it would reduce minority enrollment in public universities.

Among the arguments in the lawsuits was that Proposal 2 violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution as well as federal statutes.

Lawson rejected the claim. “The Court believes that Michigan may limit the ability of discrete groups to secure an advantage based upon a racial classification without offending the Fourteenth Amendment,” he wrote.

Petitions already have been submitted for CCRI to make the state ballot here. As a result, Colorado voters likely will be deciding this November whether they want to outlaw state-sponsored discrimination “on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.”

Sure, I could sit down this morning and link my readers to a dozen critiques of Barack Obama’s Tuesday Jeremiah Wright “damage control” speech from conservative bloggers and other commentators. That wouldn’t prove very much, I think. Besides, it would require more time than I have to give a thorough spectrum of responses.

Instead, here are a couple of takes from the Left. One not-too-surprising source is Mickey Kaus. On his Slate magazine blog, he highlights the “troubling equivalences” in Obama’s speech. One of his more salient observations:

In general. Obama’s explanations of black anger seem intimate and respectful. His explanations of white anger seem distant and condescending. (”They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away ….”) Unfortunately for him, it’s white votes he needs.

But then there’s the New York Times‘ snarky Left-liberal columnist Maureen Dowd (H/T Real Clear Politics blog). After offering up some flattery (”he addressed a painful, difficult subject straightforwardly with a subtlety and decency rare in American politics”), she came down hard on Obama:

The candidate may have staunched the bleeding, but he did not heal the wounds. His naïve and willful refusal to come to terms earlier with the Rev. Wright’s anti-American, anti-white and pro-Farrakhan sentiments — echoing his naïve and willful refusal to come to terms earlier with the ramifications of his friendship with sleazy fund-raiser Tony Rezko — will not be forgotten because of one unforgettable speech.

Most telling is what comes in her follow-up appeal to her liberal audience to rationalize the two thoughts:

A little disenchantment with Obama could turn out to be a good thing. Too much idealism can blind a leader to reality as surely as too much ideology can.

Huh? Wow … okay. Yeah, I guess that Obama was a bit too idealistic. Hope, change, and all that inspirational rhetoric … that was really too much of a good thing, a political liability for the junior Senator from Illinois. Better for the people to see him unable to come to terms with his spiritual mentor’s racist, anti-American hate speech.

Perhaps this confirms an observation recorded by Rich Lowry at the Corner:

By the way, my friend—who has shrewd political instincts—thinks the speech means Obama gets the Democratic nomination, but will have a big problem in the general election.

That wouldn’t be all bad.

Oral arguments are being held today before the U.S. Supreme Court in the truly landmark DC v Heller case about the meaning of Second Amendment rights. My Independence Institute and blogging colleague - and writing mentor - David Kopel is sitting with the plaintiffs today as the case is made for gun ownership as a Constitutionally-recognized individual right. You can visit David’s website to find a copy of the Institute’s amicus brief filed with the high court.

You also can head over to iVoices to tune into David’s discussion of the case and his trip to Washington, DC, with Jon Caldara.

For a quick and insightful summary of what DC v Heller is (and isn’t) about, read Prof. Randy Barnett’s column in today’s Wall Street Journal. Also, for more relevant facts and opinions on the revolutionary Second Amendment case than you can possibly absorb, head over to the Volokh Conspiracy and scan the page to follow the ongoing debate among legal scholars - including our own David Kopel.

This ruling will be one to watch closely. As Barnett concludes in his column:

But although the implications of striking down the D.C. gun ban are limited, a decision upholding an unqualified individual right in Heller would still be a significant victory for individual rights and constitutionalism. To shrink from enforcing a clear mandate of the Constitution — as, sadly, the Supreme Court has often done in the past — would create a new precedent that would be far more dangerous to liberty than any weapon in the hands of a citizen.

On the Tuesday before His crucifixion, Christ was famously tested by questions from the religious teachers. Two of his dazzling responses that confounded his questioners (both from the New American Standard Bible):

Mark 12:17
And Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were amazed at Him.

Matthew 22:37-40
And He said to him, “‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the prophets.”

Mark Hillman - the rare person in political life (okay, not at the moment) whom I truly admire - writes in the clearest terms about the dose of bitter medicine America needs:

The federal debt is more than $5 trillion — $48,359 per household. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We owe another $5 trillion to federal employees and veterans for health care and retirement benefits.

However, the cost of retirement and health care programs for the general public really shafts our children and grandchildren. The unfunded cost of providing Social Security and Medicare benefits to everyone alive today is more than $45 trillion. That’s not the total cost; it’s the cost that cannot be covered by existing revenues.

The board of trustees of these two programs says the promises we’ve made to ourselves “are not sustainable under current financing arrangements.” Social Security’s existing surpluses will “turn into rapidly growing deficits as the baby boom generation retires.”

“Medicare’s financial status is even worse,” the trustees warn. That should make any clear-thinking American recognize the sheer foolishness of creating a new health care entitlement for everyone.

Too many Americans, whipped into a frenzy by groups like AARP, prefer to sentence our children or grandchildren to stratospheric tax rates than to consider simply slowing the growth of future benefits. Without changes, government will grow from an historic cost of about 18 percent of GDP to 30 percent in just 22 years. In some 40 years, spending will consume 50 percent of GDP — more even than during World War II.

How many federal elected officials are taking action to address this mega-problem, much less even talking about it? But then Mark brings home the other bitter truth, that we too often get the political leaders we deserve. We can’t expect them to take action, if we won’t carry a bit of the burden ourselves:

If we hope to secure the blessings of liberty for our posterity, we must force our leaders to confront the future responsibly and aggressively. Most of us did not endure the Great Depression nor any of our country’s most demanding tests. However, we face a moment of truth that is just as crucial to our nation’s future.

It would be tragic if we who have been asked to do so little fail even this test.

Not the cheeriest thought, but necessary. What can and will we do to persuade our officials to serve up the bitter medicine to save us from the real pain later on?

Liberal columnist Jason Salzman writes in the Saturday Rocky Mountain News:

By the time Paul Chesser arrived at the “Environmental Hysteria” cocktail party thrown in his honor Feb. 11 at the “penthouse” of the Independence Institute in Golden, he was feeling pretty good about his day in the Denver media.

In his briefing to Republican lawmakers earlier, Chesser had trashed Gov. Bill Ritter’s plan to fight global warming, and an article with his views would appear in the next day’s Post.

Chesser, of the conservative John Locke Foundation, had yakked in the morning with KOA’s Mike Rosen. The conservative blogosphere had dutifully transcribed Chesser’s anti-environmental message, and he was booked on John Andrews’ KNUS talk radio show.

His interview on Independence Institute President Jon Caldara’s TV program was taped and set to air on public television station KBDI Channel 12 a couple days later.

You wouldn’t call this a media frenzy, but it’s not bad for an obscure visitor from North Carolina.

It certainly made the Independence Institute proud. It booked Chesser’s media appearances and covered his expenses, Chesser told me.

But you have to wonder, could Ritter’s supporters, who favor his efforts to stop global warming, pull off a similar media streak for their expert?

The dailies would give them a fair hearing. And their allies on the Internet would pay attention.

Their odds of catching airtime on commercial talk radio are low, obviously.

But what’s less obvious is that Channel 12 would be a long shot, as well, for an unknown liberal expert on a media tour.

The Independence Institute pays KBDI for the costs of videotaping Caldara’s Channel 12 show, and Caldara uses the program regularly as part of his orchestrated media campaigns, as he did with Chesser.

Left-leaning activists have no equivalent KBDI show.

It’s true, as KBDI President Wick Rowland e-mailed me, that the “left is very well represented, week in and week out, on much of [Channel 12's] traditional and regular programming.”

This includes Democracy Now with Amy Goodman, an icon of the political left.

But there’s no show on Channel 12 that serves as a cog in the political machine of a local left-leaning organization, like Caldara’s show does for his outfit.

[sarcasm]Yes, it’s just plain unfair.[/sarcasm] (Full disclosure: I work for the Independence Institute, which is featured in the column.)

To me, a column like this one is clear evidence of how spoiled Colorado liberals have become. The Left funded and orchestrated a takeover of most of the reins of power in state government, operates a slew of advocacy and media-type organizations, and has more allies in the local mainstream media than their counterparts on the other side. But the only thing holding them back from getting the truth out there is their own local show on Channel 12.

Channel 12. KBDI. Public television.

Does anyone else see the irony here?

By nearly all scholarly accounts, the following are from passages that happened on the Monday before Christ’s crucifixion (both from the New American Standard Bible):

Matthew 21:21
And Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly I say to you, if you have faith, and do not doubt, you shall not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it shall happen.

Luke 19:45-46
And He entered the temple and began to cast out those who were selling, saying to them, “It is written, ‘AND MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER,’ but you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.”

Two of Colorado’s hardest-working, most creative bloggers sacrificed their time and their mental well-being to mingle at today’s pathetic anti-war moonbat rally at the Colorado State Capitol.

In addition to some pictures of the predictably naive and downright scary Leftist variety, El Presidente has an edited video of what you’re glad to have missed, including the poet who wants to burn down Lockheed Martin.

Also, you can find a ton more pictures and snide commentary from the Drunkablog’s John Martin - it seems he has developed quite an unfavorable reputation with the Leftist wackos he highlights frequently.

All in all, these two bloggers deserve our thanks, because it’s better to watch the highlights from the comfort of your home than to have wasted any part of a precious Sunday afternoon with the 300 crazies at the Capitol.

FYI: Last night I added a permanent page titled “Who Writes This Blog?” as a means of providing greater clarity and transparency. A link will remain in the top, right-hand portion of the main page.

In addition to basic information about myself and the things I like to write about (for those who don’t read Mount Virtus regularly or have yet to figre it out), the page includes my general policies for comments. Writing the page was a good exercise. It really helped me to focus on defining a bit better what it is I do here exactly.

If you feel like your life has been devoid of elephant sightings - in particular blue elephant sightings - you might want to drop by and visit my house. In the past week, we’ve had somewhat frequent visits from various “big” and “heavy” pachyderms. Or so my 2-year-old daughter tells us. Sometimes the elephants are “babies,” but lately they’ve all been “blue.”

Hey, if you’ve got half an imagination, it’ll beat most anything you see on The Discovery Channel.

Seriously, though, I’m taking this fascination with elephants as a sign of some innate Republican sensibility. And when I say Republican, I interpret it in the sense of the traditional Reagan conservative coalition. The blue part? Beats me. Any theories out there? Personally, I just think it’s her favorite color.

Could there be more to the agent of “change” and “hope” than what the media had led us to believe? The story of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s America-hating longtime spiritual adviser Jeremiah Wright has started to sink into the public psyche. Meanwhile, the center-right blogosphere keeps digging deeper. Since there’s very little new I can add to this story from my remote observation post, here’s a quick roundup of some of the latest developments and keenest analysis out there:

Well, you can’t say I didn’t help provide your fix of information and opinion on the Barack Obama - Jeremiah Wright controversy.

Remember the cash-prize contest to get rid of America’s 10 worst teachers unveiled a few days ago? A publicity stunt, to be sure, but it looks like Center for Union Facts already has received some worthy nominations:

We’ve received more than three hundred nominations since our “Ten Worst Union-Protected Teachers” contest launched at TeachersUnionExposed.com on Tuesday. Just to give you a hint of what’s been coming our way, here are a few of the entries we’ve received so far (edited for privacy and clarity, of course):

* Music teacher. Takes personal cell phone calls and answers e-mail while kids are in the room waiting to be taught. She yells at them if they start to talk because she can’t hear. Doesn’t really teach anyways. Plays sing-along videos while she naps. Worst teacher I’ve ever seen.
* She can be heard shouting at her FIRST grade students all the way to the end of the hall. She threw a book at a student last year. She kicked a student the year before. She told my son he was too stupid to ever be anything. She also told him he’d never be smart enough to do anything but be an idiot. To this day, he’s a 4th grade homeschool student, he believes he’s too stupid to do anything. She deserves the nomination because she’s EARNED IT.
* [Nominee] is an raging alcoholic. He drinks Scope and spits wherever he feels. He doesn’t know what an iron or ironing board looks like. He sleeps on the job in his office and repeatedly comes to class late because his inner alarm clock never rings. I don’t even know if he is a good teacher or a bad one but the icing on the cake is the fact that recently he has been urinating in a bottle and leaving it on the floor of his office because he is too lazy to actually walk to the men’s room.

Do you have a bad union-protected teacher you’d like to nominate? Visit TeachersUnionExposed.com to submit your entry.

There’s no doubt the teachers union plays a major part in keeping teachers like these ones from being dismissed. But they don’t have the only blame: Unions thrive as protectors of their members’ jobs where ineffectual management and leadership exist. Of course, unions can complain about the problem all they want - they aren’t that interested in changing the situation.

Meanwhile, whether administrators and board members have the political will to deal with the problem, bad teachers with tenure protections will remain hard to get out of the classroom.