The New Seven Wonders of the World

The people who put together the vote a couple of years ago on the New Seven Wonders of the World are conducting a worldwide internet vote on the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. Niagara Falls, Mount Kilamanjaro or the Ganges River? You can go here to check out the many nominations and then cast your vote.

...And speaking of voting, you can go here to vote for my humble blog. They allow votes every 24 hours. And thank you to all of you who voted already.

Who knew that you could tarnish Larry Flynt's name?

Larry Flynt is suing his nephews for tarnishing the family name by trying to sell what he considers low-quality porno films, unlike the high quality porn that Flynt considers his brand.

Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt has been called a lot of things over the years. But he insists that the Flynt name still stands for quality when it comes to adult entertainment.

So this week, he filed suit against two nephews who are using the family name for their own line of adult films. Flynt said he is going to court to protect his good name, saying that he is concerned that Jimmy Flynt II and Dustin Flynt might tarnish the Flynt franchise by producing lower-quality porn that the lawsuit calls "inferior products" and "knock-off goods."

"To come into the adult entertainment business and use my name not only confuses people who buy my products, but if they're not maintaining a certain quality, it could also hurt my name," Larry Flynt told The Times on Tuesday.

The younger Flynts strongly disagree, saying that they are trying only to break into the family business.

I guess that the judge will have to do an in-depth study of the porn involved to see if they are indeed diluting the Flynt brand.

Democratic scandals

Eve Fairbanks writes in the New Republic to explain why all these Democratic scandals we've seen recently don't really matter yet. Her point is that these are mostly scandals on the state level that don't involve the party leaders. There is no link between scandals like Jack Abramaoff provided for several Republican scandals. But then several of the Republican scandals weren't linked. Except by their tawdriness like with Mark Foley and Larry Craig. And, as Fairbanks concludes, the Democrats have their trump card. People don't despise Obama like they despise Bush.

It is the media who gets to decide whether scandals matter or not. While the media isn't ignoring the whole Blagojevich cess pool, we're not getting the steady drip drip on some of these other scandals. For example, The Wall Street Journal points out that Chris Dodd is still serving as Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee despite clear indications that he received sweetheart deals from Countrywide Financial which was just purchased by Bank of America which Dodd oversees. And Dodd, despite his promises, has still not released the details on the cozy loans he received as a Friend of Angelo at Countrywide.

With the opening of the 111th Congress yesterday, all of Washington is tingling with the allure of a fresh start. Not so fast. We've got some leftover business from the 110th Congress -- namely, Chris Dodd's July 2008 promise to release the details of his sweetheart loans from Countrywide Financial.
[Review & Outlook] AP

The Connecticut Senator got favored treatment from the subprime mortgage purveyor, even as he was a power broker on the Banking Committee that regulates the industry. When the news broke, the Senator first denied that he sought or expected preferential treatment. He later admitted that he knew he was considered a VIP at the firm but claimed he thought it was "more of a courtesy." He also promised the Connecticut press that he'd come clean with the documents and details of the loans. But six months later -- nada, zip, nothing.

The rest of the press corps may have moved on, but we'd still like to know. All the more so because former Countrywide Financial loan officer Robert Feinberg told us last fall that Mr. Dodd knowingly saved thousands of dollars on his refinancing of two properties in 2003 as part of a special program for the influential. Mr. Feinberg also reported that he has internal company documents that prove Mr. Dodd knew he was getting preferential treatment as a friend of Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide's then-CEO, and Mr. Feinberg has offered to provide those documents to investigators.

Just before Mr. Dodd made his promise, Bank of America closed its acquisition of Countrywide and Mr. Dodd has continued to oversee BofA and the rest of the mortgage industry as Chairman of Senate Banking. He will now play a lead role in drafting legislation affecting the very business that gave him preferential treatment, yet he still refuses to release the mortgage documents that would illuminate this treatment.

Contrary to Ms. Fairbanks, this is a scandal that involves the Senate Democratic leaders because they allow Dodd to remain as chairman despite such a conflict of interests. You can add in the House Democrats keeping Charlie Rangel in his place as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee responsible for writing tax laws despite his constellation of scandals, some of which involve tax evasion. Then there is the suspicious circumstances of his preserving a tax loophole for an oil drilling company at the same time that the chief executive of the company donated a million dollars to the Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service at City College of New York. It's not really much different from Blagojevich's whole pay to play schemes in Illinois.

But these are Democratic committee chairman so I guess Fairbanks is right and they don't matter. What really connects all these Democratic and Republican scandals is that they involve people in power taking advantage of their power to behave in ways that we ordinary folk couldn't get away with.

A way out from the Burris kerfuffle

Feisty Senator Feinstein, fresh from her brushback statement about the proposed nomination of Leon Panetta to head the CIA has made another statement distinguishing herself from the Democratic leadership in the Senate. She is objecting to the refusal to seat Roland Burris as senator.

"Does the governor have the power, under law, to make the appointment? And the answer is yes," said Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee, which judges the credentials of senators.

....Late Tuesday, Feinstein urged the Senate to settle the matter.

"If you don't seat Mr. Burris, it has ramifications for gubernatorial appointments all over America," the California senator said. "Mr. Burris is a senior, experienced politician. He has been attorney general, he has been controller, and he is very well-respected. I am hopeful that this will be settled."

One of the proposed tactics for the Democrats was to send the question of what to do with Burris to the Senate Rules Committee where it could be buried for long enough for the Illinois legislature to impeach and convict Blagojevich. Then his replacement could appoint someone new who would be sworn in. Now it sounds like Feinstein doesn't want to play along.

She's absolutely right. As Erwin Chemerinsky writes today, the Senate Democrats are in very questionable ground in thinking that they can keep from seating Burris. And allowing the Senate to reject someone who had been nominated by the duly elected governor of a state would be creating an ugly precedent. We don't want to give Congress the power to rule on the suitability of the people that states through either elections or gubernatorial nominations send to represent them.

During the roundtable on Special Report tonight on Fox, Charles Krauthammer proposed a way for this to be settled. The Illinois Supreme Court will tell the Illinois Secretary of State that he can't refuse to sign off on the Burris nomination. The Senate Democrats will then discover that they can seat Burris because he has now been certified and they'll back down. Such a scenario would take less time to go into effect than an impeachment and conviction of Blagojevich. And the Reid Democrats might actually be glad to have a way to get out of this hole they've dug for themselves.

Charles Krauthammer was the one who first proposed a face-saving way for Harriet Miers to withdraw her name from nomination by claiming that she couldn't give the Senate Judiciary Committee the papers that they were requesting from her time as White House Counsel. And lo it happened. Political leaders should pay attention when Krauthammer suggests way for them to extricate themselves from the fine messes they've managed to make for themselves.

Weblog Awards open up voting

Every year Kevin Aylward, founder of Wizbang does a lot of work to put together the Weblog Awards. Voting started today.

Check in here for all the nominees. There are a lot of blogs I had never heard of and this is a nice opportunity to check out some blogs you might not be familiar with and to vote for some of your favorites. I've already found a Jewish blog I'll be checking out from one that is nominated in my category, Israel Matzav.

You can vote once a day. And forgive my crass self-promotion, but here is the link to vote in the category for which I've been nominated. So vote early and often!

For what it's worth, here are some of my votes.

For Best Blog I'm going with Hot Air. I check there several times a day and enjoy the humor, intelligence and analysis that Ed Morissey and Allahpundit provide on a daily basis.

For Best Individual Blogger, I'm so happy for the Anchoress to be nominated in this category and will be voting for her on a daily basis. The religion blogging isn't quite my thing, but boy when she goes on a rant, she can really write!

It's a tough choice for Best Conservative Blog. I think I'll be rotating my vote. Both Powerline and Michelle Malkin are regular stops on my tour de blogosphere. But I'm a real fan of the sometimes crude, but very funny approach to politics at Ace of Spades. If you want to have fun with conservative politics, Ace is the place.

For Best Military Blog, Michael Yon has done great original reporting and deserves our votes. Though there are some other great blogs in that category.

For best Law Blog, I really enjoy the Volokh Conspiracy. Sometimes, the professors are over my head, but always enjoy their takes on legal issues. For a thorough roundup on appellate issues, How Appealing is the best.

I've been reading Joanne Jacobs' education blog for a while now and will be voting for her as Best Education Blog.

For Best Major Blog, there can be no other choice - the godfather of so many blogs, Glenn Reynolds.

For Best Very Large Blog, I'm going to be alternating between Right Wing News and Just One Minute. By the way, check out RWN's list of the Most Annoying Liberals of 2008. See what you think of his ranking.

There are load of other blogs and categories I want to check out. If only I didn't have a full time job!

What happened to consultation?

We might have suspected that Obama's pledges to consult with Republicans might fall by the wayside. But what about consulting with his own party members? Why wouldn't he have run his nomination of Leon Panetta by the incoming chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Feinstein, which must approve that nomination?

The incoming and outgoing chairs of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee signaled concerns about President-elect Barack Obama's choice of Leon E. Panetta to head the CIA, primarily because of Panetta's thin intelligence resume.

"I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta. . . . I know nothing about this, other than what I've read," said Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who will chair the committee in the 111th Congress, in an e-mailed statement. "My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time."

Senator Rockefeller, the outgoing Democratic chairman of that committee is also sounding lukewarm on the nomination.

Added an aide to John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., who served as chairman of the committee in the 110th Congress: "I think, based on press reporting if it proves correct, Sen. Rockefeller has some concerns about his selection. Not because he has any concerns about Panetta, whom he thinks very highly of, but because he has no intelligence experience and because he has believed this has always been a position that should be outside of the political realm."

It sounds as candidates with more experience in intelligence were rejected by those who objected to any connection with approving intelligence policies under President Bush.

Aides have said Mr. Obama had originally hoped to select a C.I.A. head with extensive field experience, especially in combating terrorist networks. But his first choice for the job, John O. Brennan, had to withdraw his name amidst criticism over his role in the formation of the C.I.A’s detention and interrogation program after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Members of Mr. Obama’s transition also raised concerns about other candidates, even some Democratic lawmakers with intelligence experience. Representative Jane Harman of California, formerly the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was considered for the job, but she was ruled out as a candidate in part because of her early support for some Bush administration programs like the domestic eavesdropping program.

Probably the reason that Jan Harman was nixed is that she didn't speak out against the interrogation procedures that the Bush administration adopted in the fight against terrorism. The Wall Street Journal has an informative article reminding us that top Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi by the way, were fully briefed on the Bush administration's interrogation policies.

Beginning in 2002, Nancy Pelosi and other key Democrats (as well as Republicans) on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were thoroughly, and repeatedly, briefed on the CIA's covert antiterror interrogation programs. They did nothing to stop such activities, when they weren't fully sanctioning them. If they now decide the tactics they heard about then amount to abuse, then by their own logic they themselves are complicit. Let's review the history the political class would prefer to forget.

According to our sources and media reports we've corroborated, the classified briefings began in the spring of 2002 and dealt with the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a high-value al Qaeda operative captured in Pakistan. In succeeding months and years, more than 30 Congressional sessions were specifically devoted to the interrogation program and its methods, including waterboarding and other aggressive techniques designed to squeeze intelligence out of hardened detainees like Zubaydah.

The briefings were first available to the Chairmen and ranking Members of the Intelligence Committees. From 2003 through 2006, that gang of four included Democrats Bob Graham and John D. Rockefeller in the Senate and Jane Harman in the House, as well as Republicans Porter Goss, Peter Hoekstra, Richard Shelby and Pat Roberts. Senior staffers were sometimes present. After September 2006, when President Bush publicly acknowledged the program, the interrogation briefings were opened to the full committees.

It's interesting that, in a time when we're confronted with terrorist threats around the world, Obama would opt for Panetta's managerial experience rather than hold out for someone with experience in intelligence and fighting terrorism. And I wonder how all those people who thought that John McCain was too old to be president feel about a man who will turn 71 in June taking on a very tough and time-consuming job in an entirely new field. I guess 70 really is the new 60!

I suspect that Senator Feinstein was quite miffed about not being consulted which is why she made such a public negative statement that was sure to be quoted in just about every story about the Panetta nomination. The interesting question is why the Obama transition team didn't consult her. Was it because they didn't want to hear her reaction?

I also suspect that, after some tough questioning in his confirmation hearings, the Senate Democrats will vote overwhelmingly to confirm Panetta's nomination. But they'll be sure that President Obama knows that they want him to do a better job of consulting them. Senators are nothing if not firmly protective of their own prerogatives.

Another anniversary this year

Not only is 2009 the 200th anniversary of the birth of both Darwin and Abraham Lincoln (did you know that they were born on the same day?), but it is also the 60th anniversary of the first pronouncement of what became known as Murphy's Law. Here's an interesting account of Edward Aloysius Murphy and how he came to make the statement that has become his eponymous law.

There are a several contradictory accounts of what happened on the day that Murphy's Law was coined, but some facts are clear. Murphy arranged for one of his assistants to hook up a series of 16 sensors to the subject's body, and the terrifying speed and stop test was then carried out. To Murphy's surprise the sensors failed to pick up any readings.

After investigating, he discovered the sensors had been installed the wrong way around, invalidating the entire test. Furious, Murphy was heard to say of his assistant: 'If there are two ways to do something, and one of those ways will result in disaster, he'll do it that way.'

It hardly trips off the tongue, but something in what Murphy said stuck with Colonel Stapp, and later at a press conference he attributed the success of the team's safety record to their willingness to anticipate and factor in disaster. He termed it 'Murphy's Law', which he explained as 'Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.' The press picked up the coinage, and it quickly spread until it became common usage.

Palestinian refugees

Natan Sharansky writes today of one of the root causes of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict - the fact that half a century after Arabs fled Israel in the 1948 war, they're still considered refugees and the United Nations is doing nothing to try to settle them in permanent locations as they do with every other refugee group around the world.

For decades, the international community has actively assisted in building the terrorists' unique system of control -- over where Palestinians live and in what conditions, and over what they think -- by allowing terrorists to turn the refugee camps into the center of the Palestinian war machine. Instead of working to relieve the refugees' misery, the United Nations has dedicated an entire agency, UNRWA, to perpetuating it. For the rest of the world's refugees, the U.N. works tirelessly to improve their conditions, to relocate them, and to help them rebuild their lives as quickly as possible. With the Palestinians, the U.N. does exactly the opposite, granting refugee status to the great-grandchildren of people displaced in 1948, doing nothing to dismantle the camps, and acting as facilitators for the terrorists' goal of grinding an entire civilian population under their thumb. Nowhere on earth do terrorists get so much help from the Free World.

It is not only the refugee camps that the West has helped sustain. For years, Hamas in Gaza -- like Hezbollah in Lebanon, and like the Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat -- has been amassing huge stockpiles of weaponry, most of it under the noses of Western observers who are meant to prevent the import of such weapons. It's as if we are telling the terrorists: Go on, build your armies, prepare for war. We understand.

The same can be said about the use of children as human shields. Where was the West when Palestinian leaders were actively transforming their children's classrooms into indoctrination centers for martyrdom?

And so, invariably, the script is played out: Hamas fires its missiles, Israel responds with military force in Gaza, children are killed, their pictures are played countless times on televisions in the West, articles are published saying both sides are evil, and Israel is pressured to stop.

As Sharansky details, everyone knows that the Palestinian leaders have no interest in they type of efforts that the U.N. makes for other refugee groups. They have a vested interest in keeping their own people as permanent refugees so that they have a ready supply of new fighters as well as ready victims for the cameras of the western media to excite sympathy and reflexive condemnations of Israel. Note also that other Arab countries have not assisted in trying to settle in their own countries those Palestinians they supposedly care so much about.

It's been 60 years since Israel's war for independence. Why haven't Arab countries absorbed their brother Arabs into their populations? We all know the answer. They prefer to have the issue to goad western sympathies and serve as a casus belli and an excuse for terror.

Taking all the fun out of parenting

Some British parents are letting themselves be governed by their worries about political correctness and so are depriving their children of some classic fairy tales.

Favourites such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella and Rapunzel are being dropped by some families who fear children are being emotionally damaged.

A third of parents refused to read Little Red Riding Hood because she walks through woods alone and finds her grandmother eaten by a wolf.

One in 10 said Snow White should be re-named because "the dwarf reference is not PC".

Rapunzel was considered "too dark" and Cinderella has been dumped amid fears she is treated like a slave and forced to do all the housework.

The poll of 3,000 British parents - by TheBabyWebsite.com - revealed a quarter of mothers now rejected some classic fairy tales.

I guess they've never heard of Bruno Bettelheim's theory of the Uses of Enchantment. Who knows which stories will scare children. Personally, I was never frightened by any of these fairy tales, but I still remember how disturbed I was by the classic E.B. White story, Stuart Little. I found it very upsetting that a family would have a mouse instead of a baby. I don't know why more people don't find that a very creepy concept. In fact, when I was pregnant with my own children, I had several Stuart Little-inspired nightmares about my baby turning out to be a mouse. But I would never say that kids shouldn't read Stuart Little and was quite happy for my own children to read it. You can't protect kids from every little thing even mouse babies.

Judge them by their intentions

Rand Sindberg poses a question for liberals who have been condemning Israel's decision to fight back against Hamas in Gaza. He points out all the issues such as welfare that liberals focus on intentions rather than outcomes. And then he wonders why those Israel-condemning liberals don't look at the contrast between the intentions of the Israelis and Hamas.

What are the Israeli intentions? To live in peace, without a threat to their lives and nation, and to minimize casualties, on both sides, in any war waged against them.

What are Hamas’ intentions? Their intentions (and not secret ones, but stated openly and proudly, as Ron Rosenbaum points out) are the most evil imaginable (other than the extinction of the human race itself). Their explicit goal is the extinction of all Jews in creation. They are prevented from achieving this goal only by their lack of military weapons with which to do so. If their capabilities matched their intentions, Israel would be no more, as would Jewry (and other infidels, eventually) everywhere.

If Israel achieved their ideal outcome, there would be peace for both Palestinians and Israelis. If Hamas achieved their ideal outcome, all Israelis would be either dead or expelled from the Mideast. Let's judge them by their intentions.

Link via Instapundit.

The privacy of the Obama daughters

One thing that people from all political persuasions should agree on is respecting the privacy of the Obama daughters as they start school and their new lives as the daughters of the most famous man in the world. However, I find it a little strange that the Obamas released pictures of the girls getting ready for school and saying good-bye to their dad. You can't have it both ways. Either the kids are off limits and the parents want to keep them out of the news or they're as much a part of the celebrity kid culture as Suri Cruise.

Bye-bye Bill

Now that Bill Richardson has withdrawn his name as Commerce Secretary nominee, is it time to wonder what the point was of that 63-page application form for nominees for the Obama administration to fill out. This was supposed to be the most exhaustive vetting process ever and it missed something that was reported in the media in August of this year. Shouldn't Richardson have included information about the Grand Jury investigation in his application? And why does he suddenly now think that he needs to withdraw his name? Presumably he knew about this a month ago. Did he really think that the investigation would be completed over the holidays? It sounds like the Obama team and the Richardson camp are busy casting blame on each other as to whether he was up front with them about the Grand Jury investigation.

UPDATE: It sounds like the investigation isn't going to stop in New Mexico.

According to federal law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation, federal officials are also looking into CDR's political and financial ties to Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, as well as to Democrat state and local officials in Illinois, California, Florida, and Pennsylvania.

Rendell placed Rubin on a political patronage commission in Pennsylvania, and Rubin was also given a seat on a Los Angeles City commission back in 2002, both seemingly as the result of political contributions to political action committees. Rubin has also been a financial supporter of Rev. Al Sharpton.

CDR also had close business ties to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, marketing and selling financial instruments created through low-income housing "lease to own" programs across the country. "If someone wants to understand just how deep Democrats are into the housing bubble and the economic crisis, they should look at some of the financial wheeling and dealing around some of those 'lease to own' programs," says a former Freddie Mac lobbyist based in Washington. "It's a veritable 'who's who' of Democratic state and local politics from New York to Los Angeles."

Go read Mark Steyn

The inimitable Mark Steyn has a great column today tying together Samuel Huntington's death, Hamas's vote to allow crucifixion, the disproportionate expectations of how Israel and how Hamas should behave, Britain's Channel 4's invitation to Ahmadinejad to issue a Christmas message, and several other topics into a humorous whole that will both anger and amuse you.

What the GOP senators should do about Burris

When Roland Burris shows up at the Senate asking or demanding to be seated, Harry Reid has stated that the Democrats in the Senate will refuse to seat him. There will need to be a vote on the question and the Republicans, although they don't have the power to determine what happens, will have to choose whether to support Reid or vote to seat Governor Blagojevich's choice. They should vote to seat him. In this case the right choice and the politically astute choice are the same.

Whether the Senate has the power to refuse to seat a senator who has been duly appointed by the sitting governor of a state is being debated by lawyers across the ideological spectrum. Akhil Reed Amar and Josh Chafetz argue that the Senate is well within its Constitutional powers to refuse to seat the nominee of a process tainted by the accused corruption of Rod Blagojevich. Eugene Volokh and Michael Barone disagree. The ruling in Powell v. McCormack seems pretty clear, but I'm not a lawyer. In that case the Supreme Court established that the only criteria the House could use to refuse to seat a duly elected Representative were the criteria in the Constitution. There seems no reason to think that an appointment to the Senate would be substantively or constitutionally different than an election.

Brian Kalt argues that the Senate can't refuse to seat him without holding hearings to decide if the process which led to his selection was indeed corrupt enough to justify their refusal to seat him. And it does seem that the Senate Democrats will set up some sort of committee hearing. Their plan is to delay his seating in a hearing long enough for the Illinois legislature to rush through an impeachment and trial to convict Blagojevich and eject him from office. Then the Lieutenant Governor could appoint someone untainted and the Senate could seat that person. Given that Patrick Fitzgerald is reluctant enough to share his wiretap transcripts with the Illinois legislature, we can just imagine the delay involved with the U.S. Senate trying to get information to determine if Burris was involved with any of the Blagojevich shenanigans in selling the seat. Controlling the Senate as they do, the Democrats could drag out that committee hearing as long as they wanted. Burris would be forced to appeal to the federal courts to force the Senate to apply the Powell v. McCormack precedent. However long that takes, it would give the Illinois legislature the time it needs to rush through their impeachment and trial proceedings.

Whatever happens, it is clear that the whole procedure is a mess. But it is a Democratic mess and the Republicans can just step out of the way. As Matt Lewis argues, the Republicans can stand on conservative principles and say that they, reluctantly, are supporting the Supreme Court precedent and the rule of law. They can talk about how Illinois could have and should have avoided the whole meshugas by instituting a special election as soon as the news of Blagojevich's attempt to sell the seat emerged. In the first hours after the story broke there were several Democrats who called for a special election. It's clear to everyone that the only reason they didn't do that was their fear that a Republican might possibly in overwhelmingly Democratic Illinois still be able to win in the midst of disgust over all the Democratic sleaze that has since come to light.

In that light, there is another political plus in seating Burris. The guy seems to be a towering mediocrity as Steve Chapman reminds us. He never was able to convince even Democrats that he deserved to be elected to higher office than state attorney general or comptroller. Once news of his grandiose and egotistical monument to himself leaked out, the guy became a joke. He would be a placeholder for the next two years. Then in 2010 when the next election took place the Republicans would be able to make the same arguments running against whichever Democrat got the nomination as they would have made in a special election held this year. Their chances of winning would be slight, but it was always going to be difficult to win that seat.

However, if the Democrats' machinations work out and Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn becomes governor and is able to nominate someone young and untainted by this whole scandal, that person would be in a much stronger position to run as the incumbent in 2010 than he or she would be in running for an open seat now amidst all the news of Democratic corruption.

So the Republicans can just sit back and enjoy the sight of the Democrats arguing amongst themselves about how sleazy the whole process has been and how tainted someone from their own party is. The GOP can stand on both principle and partisan self-interest. When opportunities like that arise, they should be grabbed.

Are we seeing a Democratic realignment

David Paul Kuhn has one of the most perceptive analyses of the 2008 election results that I've seen. Read the whole thing. Of course, we can't reach any conclusion about whether or not we're seeing a realignment of the electorate towards Democrats. We'll need a few more elections before we'll be able to look back and judge where we've been and where we're going as far as the electorate. But Kuhn's detailed analysis of the election results do point to one pretty sure conclusion. Without the economic collapse, Obama might still have won, but it would have been quite a narrow victory. It was after mid-September that he started to pull away. It helped, of course, that that was the period coinciding with Sarah Palin's weak performances in televised interviews and McCain's disastrous performance in response to the economic collapse.

Kuhn points out the danger to Democratic strategists if they overestimate the meaning of Obama's victory.

In general, much of what many pundits said would change in 2008 did not. Even after the collapse, turnout was predicted to be historic. In reality, voter turnout rose merely a percentage point compared to 2004. The religion gap did not shift at all with whites; most highly religious voters again went red and most highly secular voters again went blue. Even Obama's fundraising, bigger than ever before, was not new. Obama stood on the shoulders of Howard Dean's effort four years ago.

Obama did however impact two blocs. Blacks turned out at record levels, rising two points in the electorate and voted near uniformly for Obama. Obama's youth mandate--his margin with voters under age 30--was three times larger than any newly elected president since tracking became possible in the post-war era. This was the extent, as turnout expert Curtis Gans put it, of the "Obama phenomenon."

If the Democrats can maintain those high margins in future elections without Obama at the head of the ticket, that will be an impressive augury for them. However, there have been quite a few Democratic losers who have had their faith in black and youth turnout disappointed. It's an undependable support for future electoral success. But, as Kuhn points out, Democrats still have to struggle to win white voters.

Between 1984 and 2004, Democrats have had a modest strategy with whites. The campaigns depended on winning enough white women to offset losses with white men. In a two-man race, that tactic never succeeded. Despite the facts, Judis and Teixeira argued for its continuation as a guiding strategy. They particularly focused on educated white women, whom Democrats have won even in GOP years like 1980.

It's true that Democrats generally do better with college-educated whites. But it's hardly true for men as compared to women, a striking feature of Democrats pervasive white male gap.

Obama won college educated white women by 5 points and lost working class white women, of which there are more, by 19 points. Meanwhile, Obama lost college educated white men by 12 and working class white men by the same margin as women, 19. This pattern was true for Gore and Kerry as well.

In reality, Democrats should have finally discarded their gender and education strategy following the 2000 campaign. That year, Democrats split white women but lost white men by 24 points. The tactic left little margin for error. Democrats had to compensate for its huge deficit with white men by bolstering its support with all other groups. And cycle after cycle proved that the party's strength with women was not sufficiently offsetting its weaknesses with men.

The financial crisis altered this dynamic. The 2008 exit polls demonstrate that Obama was able to win white men, working class and not, but generally not white women. This is true in part because Republicans have been trouncing Democrats with white men for so long. There was more room to improve.

This is where the economic crisis was so crucial to Obama's victory. It is how he brought those swing voters to his column. Whether they'll stay there depends obviously on how well the Democrats cope with the economic conditions that the country faces now. Sure they can blame everything on the Republicans, but voters will be looking for more over the next four or eight years than blame-dodging. Fortunately, for the Democrats, the economic cycles we've seen in the past would presage an economy on the upswing by the time that Obama faces voters again. That is, unless they follow the parts of FDR's New Deal activities that prolonged the Great Depression.

For what it's worth before the man is even sworn in, I'd lay better than even odds that Obama will win reelection. But for there to be a true realignment, he needs to be able to transfer his success to another Democrat in 2016. He may well do so. The more that Americans come to look to the federal government for economic stability as well as for their jobs, health insurance, their kids' educational chances, and their retirement benefits, the less appeal that a message of limited government will have.

Stating the goal in Gaza

Charles Krauthammer lays out what Israel needs to achieve in Gaza. Israel needs to achieve what it failed to achieve when it completely withdrew from Gaza in September, 2005.

Hamas' rejection of an extension of its often-violated six-month cease-fire (during which the rockets never stopped, just were less frequent) gave Israel a rare opportunity to establish the norm it should have insisted upon three years ago: no rockets, no mortar fire, no kidnapping, no acts of war. As the U.S. government has officially stated: a sustainable and enduring cease-fire.

If this fighting ends with anything less than that, Israel will have lost again. It can ill afford to lose any more wars.

That, however, is not going to be an easy task. For, as Krauthammer also states, Hamas has a relatively easy goal to achieve - just kill a lot of people and it doesn't matter if they're Israelis or Palestinians if they can somehow blame those deaths on the Israelis.

That is the asymmetry of means between Hamas and Israel. But there is equal clarity regarding the asymmetry of ends. Israel has but a single objective in Gaza -- peace: the calm, open, normal relations it offered Gaza when it withdrew in 2005. Doing something never done by the Turkish, British, Egyptian and Jordanian rulers of Palestine, the Israelis gave the Palestinians their first sovereign territory ever in Gaza.

What ensued? This is not ancient history. Did the Palestinians begin building the state that is supposedly their great national aim? No. No roads, no industry, no courts, no civil society at all. The flourishing greenhouses that Israel left behind for the Palestinians were destroyed and abandoned. Instead, Gaza's Iranian-sponsored rulers have devoted all their resources to turning it into a terror base -- importing weapons, training terrorists, building tunnels with which to kidnap Israelis on the other side. And of course firing rockets unceasingly.

The grievance? It cannot be occupation, military control or settlers. They were all removed in September 2005. There's only one grievance and Hamas is open about it. Israel's very existence.

Nor does Hamas conceal its strategy. Provoke conflict. Wait for the inevitable civilian casualties. Bring down the world's opprobrium on Israel. Force it into an untenable cease-fire -- exactly as happened in Lebanon. Then, as in Lebanon, rearm, rebuild and mobilize for the next round. Perpetual war. Since its raison d'etre is the eradication of Israel, there are only two possible outcomes: the defeat of Hamas or the extinction of Israel.

With an organization that doesn't mind at all losing its own people, perpetual war is relatively simple to achieve. It's only peace that is difficult.

The one hope is that enough Palestinians in Gaza have woken up to what it means to have Hamas in power there. They didn't get government or any of the benefits that having the Israelis leave was supposed to bring. Instead they got destruction, constant fear, and squalid living conditions. I found it extremely interesting how Israel was able to gather enough intelligence to launch their original attacks on Gaza. They knew where members of Hamas were and when they'd be there. That type of intelligence implies a lot of eyes and ears belonging to Palestinians who were willing to give that information out. Perhaps some information came from Fatah members who were being attacked by Hamas. But there must be quite a few ordinary Palestinians in Gaza who would like to see the end of Hamas's presence there. They may hate the Israelis with an undying passion, but they're learning that Hamas isn't the answer.

Best wishes for 2009!

I'd like to wish all of my readers a happy, healthy new year for you and your loved ones. May some of your wishes for the year come true and may you keep a fraction of your resolutions.