Plumber Joe didn't go with the flow
Mark Steyn

Give a man enough rope line, and he'll hang himself. There was His Serene Majesty President-designate Barack the Healer, working the crowd at some or other hick burg, and halfway down the rope up pops a plumber to express misgivings about the incoming regime's tax plans.

Supposedly, under the Obama tax plan, 95 percent of the American people will get a tax cut. You'd think that at this point the natural skepticism of any sentient being other than 6-week-old puppies might kick in, but apparently not. If you're wondering why Obama didn't simply announce that under his plan 112 percent of the American people will get a tax cut, well, they ran it past the focus groups who said that that was all very generous but they'd really like it if he could find a way to stick it to Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove and whatnot. So 95 percent it is.

By the way, like the nightly news shows, this column now has an exclusive lavishly funded Fact Check Unit set up at great expense (a colorful graphic with the words "FACT CHECK ALERT!") in a lame attempt to pass off our transparent political bias as some sort of scientific exercise. Our accredited credentialed licensed expert Fact Checkers from the University of Factology in the Czech Republic are standing by to rigorously Fact Check the candidate's claims. We check facts so you don't have to. All you have to do is sign up to our Fact-Check-Me-Now! Service, and we'll send you a daily Fact Check on your Facts Machine, which costs only $79.95 from Radio Shack (sorry, no checks).

Anyway, our Fact Check Unit ran the numbers on the Obama tax-cut plan and the number is correct: "95." It's the words "percent" immediately following that are wrong: that's a typing error accidentally left in from the first draft. It should read: Under the Obama plan, 95 of the American people will get a tax cut.

Joe the Plumber expressed his misgivings about the President-in-waiting's tax inclinations, and the O-Man smoothly reassured him: "It's not that I want to punish your success," he told the bloated plutocrat corporate toilet executive. "I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

In that sentence about you spreading the wealth around, there's another typing error: that "you" should read "I, Barack." "You" will have no say in it. Joe the Plumber might think he himself can spread it around just fine, but everyone knows "trickle-down economics" don't work. So President-presumptive Obama kindly explained the new exquisitely condescending "talking-down economics." Put that in your pipe and solder it.

Evidently the O-Mighty One was not happy after his encounter with Joe. He's still willing to talk to Ahmadinejad without preconditions. But never again will he talk to Joe the Plumber without preconditions. Outraged at the way the right-wing whackos were talking up Joe the Plumber as if he were an authentic regular Joe, like Joe Biden, the O-Bots of the media swung into action. Vast regiments of investigate reporters were redeployed from the Wasilla Holiday Inn back to the Lower 48.

"We need you down here checking out this Joe the Plumber," editors barked to journalists.

"But I'm this close to wrapping up the Wasilla Town Library banned-book investigation!"

"Forget it! The Atlantic Monthly is claiming Joe the Plumber is Trig's real father. We can't get behind on this. Get to Minneapolis Airport. Joe the Plumber was seen in the bathroom with Sen. Larry Craig."

"Yes, but he was installing a stopcock."

"Look, you went to Columbia School of Journalism. This is what we bold, courageous journalists do. We're the conscience of the nation. We speak truth to plumber."

"Er, shouldn't that be 'Speak truth to power'?"

"That's the old edition of the handbook. Now we speak truth to power-tool operators. Joe the Carpenter, Joe the Plasterer, Joe the Electrician … . When you're building utopia, you don't want any builders getting in the way."

Alas, as a result of this massive investment of journalistic resources, no investigative reporter will be free to investigate ACORN voter-registration fraud or Obama's ties to terrorist educator William Ayers until, oh, midway through his second term at least.

Under the headline "Is 'Joe The Plumber' A Plumber? That's Debatable," John Seewer of the Associated Press triumphantly revealed that Joe is not a "licensed" plumber. In fact, he doesn't need to be licensed for the residential plumbing he does, but isn't that just typical of Bush-McCain insane out-of-control deregulation? It wouldn't surprise me to discover that most of these subprime homeowners got Joe in to plumb their subprime bathrooms. Next thing you know, the entire global economy goes down the toilet. Coincidence?

Joe is now the most notorious plumber in American politics since the Watergate plumbers. And they weren't licensed, either. It turns out Joe doesn't even make 250 grand, and it's only the $250,000-a-year types who'll be paying more (please, no tittering) under Good King Barack. Joe Biden – that's Joe the Blue-collar Senator – said that he didn't know any $250,000 plumbers in his neighborhood, or even in the first-class club car on Amtrak he rides every night to demonstrate his blue-collar bona fides. On "Good Morning America," Diane Sawyer emphasized this point, anxious to give the apostate plumber one last chance to go with the flow:

"Well, I just want to ask you now about the issue that was raised, because it's been a little confusing to me as I try to sort it out here. To get straight here, you're not taking home $250,000 now, am I right?"

"No. No. Not even close," confessed Joe.

So what's he got to be worried about?

The heart of the American Dream is aspiration. That's why people came here from all over the world. Back in Eastern Europe, the Joe Bidens and Diane Sawyers of the day were telling Joe the Peasant: "Hey, look, man. You're a peasant in the 19th century, just like your forebears were peasants in the 12th century and your descendants will be peasants in the 26th century. So you're never gonna be earning 250 groats a year. Don't worry about it. Leave it to us. We know better." And Joe the Peasant eventually figured that one day he'd like to be able to afford the Premium Gruel with just a hint of arugula and got on the boat to Ellis Island. Because America is the land where a guy who doesn't have a 250-grand business today might just have one in five or 10 years' time.

I'm with Joe the Plumber, not Joe the Hair-Plugger. He's articulated the animating principles of America better than anyone on either side in this campaign. Which is why the O-Bots need to destroy him. As Obama's catchphrase goes:

"Joe the Plumber!

Can we fix him?

Joe the Plumber!

Yes, we can!"

For the record, I am not a government-licensed pundit. But I expect they'll fix that, too.

©MARK STEYN

From The Wall Street Journal:
A Liberal Supermajority
Get ready for 'change' we haven't seen since 1965, or 1933.

If the current polls hold, Barack Obama will win the White House on November 4 and Democrats will consolidate their Congressional majorities, probably with a filibuster-proof Senate or very close to it. Without the ability to filibuster, the Senate would become like the House, able to pass whatever the majority wants.
[Review & Outlook] AP

Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven't since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s. If the U.S. really is entering a period of unchecked left-wing ascendancy, Americans at least ought to understand what they will be getting, especially with the media cheering it all on.

The nearby table shows the major bills that passed the House this year or last before being stopped by the Senate minority. Keep in mind that the most important power of the filibuster is to shape legislation, not merely to block it. The threat of 41 committed Senators can cause the House to modify its desires even before legislation comes to a vote. Without that restraining power, all of the following have very good chances of becoming law in 2009 or 2010.
[Review & Outlook]

- Medicare for all. When HillaryCare cratered in 1994, the Democrats concluded they had overreached, so they carved up the old agenda into smaller incremental steps, such as Schip for children. A strongly Democratic Congress is now likely to lay the final flagstones on the path to government-run health insurance from cradle to grave.

Mr. Obama wants to build a public insurance program, modeled after Medicare and open to everyone of any income. According to the Lewin Group, the gold standard of health policy analysis, the Obama plan would shift between 32 million and 52 million from private coverage to the huge new entitlement. Like Medicare or the Canadian system, this would never be repealed.

The commitments would start slow, so as not to cause immediate alarm. But as U.S. health-care spending flowed into the default government options, taxes would have to rise or services would be rationed, or both. Single payer is the inevitable next step, as Mr. Obama has already said is his ultimate ideal.

- The business climate. "We have some harsh decisions to make," Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned recently, speaking about retribution for the financial panic. Look for a replay of the Pecora hearings of the 1930s, with Henry Waxman, John Conyers and Ed Markey sponsoring ritual hangings to further their agenda to control more of the private economy. The financial industry will get an overhaul in any case, but telecom, biotech and drug makers, among many others, can expect to be investigated and face new, more onerous rules. See the "Issues and Legislation" tab on Mr. Waxman's Web site for a not-so-brief target list.

The danger is that Democrats could cause the economic downturn to last longer than it otherwise will by enacting regulatory overkill like Sarbanes-Oxley. Something more punitive is likely as well, for instance a windfall profits tax on oil, and maybe other industries.

- Union supremacy. One program certain to be given right of way is "card check." Unions have been in decline for decades, now claiming only 7.4% of the private-sector work force, so Big Labor wants to trash the secret-ballot elections that have been in place since the 1930s. The "Employee Free Choice Act" would convert workplaces into union shops merely by gathering signatures from a majority of employees, which means organizers could strongarm those who opposed such a petition.

The bill also imposes a compulsory arbitration regime that results in an automatic two-year union "contract" after 130 days of failed negotiation. The point is to force businesses to recognize a union whether the workers support it or not. This would be the biggest pro-union shift in the balance of labor-management power since the Wagner Act of 1935.

- Taxes. Taxes will rise substantially, the only question being how high. Mr. Obama would raise the top income, dividend and capital-gains rates for "the rich," substantially increasing the cost of new investment in the U.S. More radically, he wants to lift or eliminate the cap on income subject to payroll taxes that fund Medicare and Social Security. This would convert what was meant to be a pension insurance program into an overt income redistribution program. It would also impose a probably unrepealable increase in marginal tax rates, and a permanent shift upward in the federal tax share of GDP.

- The green revolution. A tax-and-regulation scheme in the name of climate change is a top left-wing priority. Cap and trade would hand Congress trillions of dollars in new spending from the auction of carbon credits, which it would use to pick winners and losers in the energy business and across the economy. Huge chunks of GDP and millions of jobs would be at the mercy of Congress and a vast new global-warming bureaucracy. Without the GOP votes to help stage a filibuster, Senators from carbon-intensive states would have less ability to temper coastal liberals who answer to the green elites.

- Free speech and voting rights. A liberal supermajority would move quickly to impose procedural advantages that could cement Democratic rule for years to come. One early effort would be national, election-day voter registration. This is a long-time goal of Acorn and others on the "community organizer" left and would make it far easier to stack the voter rolls. The District of Columbia would also get votes in Congress -- Democratic, naturally.

Felons may also get the right to vote nationwide, while the Fairness Doctrine is likely to be reimposed either by Congress or the Obama FCC. A major goal of the supermajority left would be to shut down talk radio and other voices of political opposition.

- Special-interest potpourri. Look for the watering down of No Child Left Behind testing standards, as a favor to the National Education Association. The tort bar's ship would also come in, including limits on arbitration to settle disputes and watering down the 1995 law limiting strike suits. New causes of legal action would be sprinkled throughout most legislation. The anti-antiterror lobby would be rewarded with the end of Guantanamo and military commissions, which probably means trying terrorists in civilian courts. Google and MoveOn.org would get "net neutrality" rules, subjecting the Internet to intrusive regulation for the first time.

It's always possible that events -- such as a recession -- would temper some of these ambitions. Republicans also feared the worst in 1993 when Democrats ran the entire government, but it didn't turn out that way. On the other hand, Bob Dole then had 43 GOP Senators to support a filibuster, and the entire Democratic Party has since moved sharply to the left. Mr. Obama's agenda is far more liberal than Bill Clinton's was in 1992, and the Southern Democrats who killed Al Gore's BTU tax and modified liberal ambitions are long gone.

In both 1933 and 1965, liberal majorities imposed vast expansions of government that have never been repealed, and the current financial panic may give today's left another pretext to return to those heydays of welfare-state liberalism. Americans voting for "change" should know they may get far more than they ever imagined.

From www.rockrap.com:
SOMETHING ABOUT YOU
Remembering Levi Stubbs
By Dave Marsh

When I was 15, I met the Four Tops on a downtown Detroit street, where they were doing a photo shoot with the Supremes. The group—especially Duke Fakir—were extraordinarily kind to a trio of white kids totally out of their element. I love the Four Tops for that, but I would have loved them anyway. They are the voice of adolescent angst and adult heartbreak, the pure, the absolute joy that humans can take in one another. Call them love songs –I’d say it was more like lifelines—but call them silly and you’ve branded yourself as a fool.

Phil Spector once said that “Bernadette” was a black man singing Bob Dylan. The name of that black man was Levi Stubbs. And for those of you who are Bruce Springsteen fans, go find the Tops greatest album, The Four Tops Second Album, and listen to “Love Feels Like Fire” and “Helpless,” two of my alltime Motown tracks (and they weren’t even singles). You’ll feel the same thing. Those crazed sax breaks are as close to free jazz as Motown ever let itself come, and they got away with it there solely because the Tops were such a perfect machine with the most powerful voice of its time at the fore. I could never figure out whether Levi was the toughest or the tenderest singer at Motown, so I finally accepted that he was both.

Yeah, a lot of the Tops is formula Holland Dozier Holland. Sometimes even I think it’s the Supremes when the intro to “It’s the Same Old Song” or “Something About You” comes on. So what? To begin with, HDH created the greatest formula in the history of rock and soul. Now: Go listen again to “Reach Out” and see if you can think of a Supremes record that could grab you in the gut that way. It’s the “Like a Rolling Stone” of soul—with a flute and hand percussion leading the way! The group always got Eddie Holland’s greatest lyrics (and he the most under-rated lyricist of the ‘60s) and that’s one.

They got those songs because Levi could sing the most impossible stuff. Any other soul singer I know would have insisted on editing. The great, long, image rich lines in “Bermandette” and “Ask the Lonely” were too long, that they needed more space to really sing. Not Levi. He charged into those words and wrestled everything out of them, and somehow, he sounded graceful as he did. “Loving you has made my life sweeter than ever” is so multisyllabic that they had to shorten it for the title: “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever” fit the label better, I guess.

The Tops got away with that as a group because they knew how to work with such vocal intricacy. By the time they had their first Motown hit they’d already been together for ten years. Duke told me recently that their earlier sojourn at Columbia Records in the late ‘50s came after a brief appearance at the Apollo. The talent scout who signed them was John Hammond—the same guy who found Bob, Bruce, and Aretha. That’s the company the Four Tops, and Levi Stubbs, in particular belong in. Who else could turn “Walk Away Renee” into soul music? Who else could get away with “7 Rooms of Gloom” as a love song without a hint of irony, let alone comedy?

I will testify. Levi and the Tops were among the graces of my own soul. When I get nervous before an interview, I always remember how kind those guys were to that 15 year old kid, and I feel beyond harm. When I listen to “The Same Old Song,” I remember once again the sweetness of sour. “Bernadette” calls to my mind the futility of believing you’re in control, and how easy it is to confuse passion with obsession. “Reach Out” is simply as colossal an extravaganza as rock and soul music have ever produced, as monumental in its way as “Like a Rolling Stone.” The focal point of all that musical gingerbread and the mighty Funk Brothers is not the group—it’s one man, Levi Stubbs, pushed not to his limit but way past it. But there’s not a hint—not a second—where Levi Stubbs sounds like anything but a guy from down the street, across the way or in your mirror. Imagine a Pavarotti on the corner. There he is. All of it helped, somehow, make my own life possible.

This is no case of “Shake Me, Wake Me (When It’s Over).” Levi Stubbs was 72 years old. He hadn’t been in good health for several years. This isn’t Marvin Gaye or David Ruffin or Tammi Terrell. This is a man who made his full contribution to our culture, our lives. That doesn’t make it all that much easier to hear the word.

At the Tops’ golden anniversary show in Detroit several years ago, he sang from a wheelchair. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” his friend and attorney, Judy Tint, told me this afternoon.

Ain’t any in this house today, either.

Permission to reprint this article (with full credit) given to all.

From The New York Times:
Levi Stubbs, 72, Powerful Voice for Four Tops, Dies
By MICHELINE MAYNARD

DETROIT — Levi Stubbs, the gravelly-voiced, imploring lead singer of the Motown group the Four Tops, who stood out in 1960s pop classics like “Reach Out, I’ll Be There,” and “Bernadette,” died on Friday at his home here. He was 72.

His death was confirmed by the office of the Wayne County Medical Examiner. No cause was given. Mr. Stubbs had had a series of illnesses, including a stroke and cancer, that forced him to stop performing in 2000, although he briefly participated in the Four Tops’ 50th-anniversary concert in 2004, which was broadcast on public television.

Formed while its original members were in high school, the Four Tops were one of the most successful groups of the 20th century. They had more than 40 hits on the Billboard pop charts, including their first No. 1 single, “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” in 1965.

Hugely popular abroad as well as in the United States, the group became a linchpin of Motown Records, the Detroit label started by Berry Gordy Jr., and was second only to the Temptations, with whom it was often compared, in popularity among its male artists. In 1990 the Four Tops were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Unlike the Temptations, whose members regularly changed, the Tops exhibited extraordinary loyalty, with the original four remaining together for more than 40 years. In fact, they began their singing career almost a decade before joining Motown in 1963.

In 1953 Mr. Stubbs, a student at Pershing High School in Detroit, and his friend Abdul Fakir, known as Duke, attended a birthday party at which they met two other founding members of the group, Renaldo Benson, known as Obie and Lawrence Payton, who were students at Northern High School.

(Mr. Fakir, who continues to perform with the Tops’ current lineup, is now the last surviving member.)

Originally calling themselves the Four Aims, they were rechristened the Four Tops in 1954 and signed with Chess Records, the Chicago rhythm and blues label, in 1956.

It was clear from the beginning that Mr. Stubbs, with his booming, rough-edged baritone, would be the lead singer, Mr. Fakir said in a 2004 interview. Yet many of his songs were written in a tenor range that pushed his voice higher and made it sound urgent and pleading.

Mr. Stubbs and the group did not plan a pop career, but began as jazz singers. Leaving Detroit in the mid-1950s, they headed for New York, bouncing around the nightclub circuit.

The four singers shared a studio apartment and rotated three daytime suits among them; whoever had the more important appointment got first pick, Mr. Fakir recalled.

The Tops added choreography to their act, but were advised to drop it when they toured with the jazz balladeer Billy Eckstine, who told them to master their singing. In 1963 Mr. Stubbs and the other Tops appeared on the “Tonight” show, then hosted by Jack Paar, singing a jazz arrangement of “In the Still of the Night.”

Mr. Gordy, who saw their performance, told his staff to sign them up, and assigned the songwriting team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland to shape their sound and deliver them a hit song.

It took a year before the group recorded “Baby, I Need Your Loving,” followed by their first No. 1 hits, “I Can’t Help Myself” in 1965 and “Reach Out” in 1966.

“We didn’t know what bag to put them in,” Mr. Dozier said in 2004. The three songwriters concluded that Mr. Stubbs’s booming voice should be most prominent, backed by the Tops’ harmonies; layered with vocals by a female group, the Andantes; and supported by the Motown studio band known as the Funk Brothers.

The combination worked.

“Stubbs’s bold, dramatic readings of some of Holland-Dozier-Holland’s choicest material set a high standard for contemporary soul in the mid-’60s,” the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said when the Tops were inducted.

Snappily dressed, even offstage, the Tops toured extensively throughout the United States and around the world, recording more hits like “It’s the Same Old Song” and “Standing in the Shadows of Love.”

In 1971 the group joined the Supremes to record a cover version of the Ike and Tina Turner song “River Deep — Mountain High.” But by then, relations with Motown were strained, and the group left the label after Mr. Berry moved it to Los Angeles.

The Tops continued to record during the 1970s and ’80s, often touring with the Temptations. Their biggest post-Motown hit was “Ain’t No Woman Like the One I’ve Got,” in 1973.

Levi Stubbles was born in Detroit on June 6, 1936, a cousin of the soul singer Jackie Wilson. His younger brother, Joe, sang with the Falcons and the Contours, two rhythm and blues groups.

Mr. Stubbs is survived by his wife of 48 years, Clineice; five children, Deborah, Beverly, Raymond, Kelly and Levi Jr.; and 11 grandchildren.

Mr. Stubbs took on a side project to become the voice of a man-eating plant, Audrey II, in the 1986 musical film “Little Shop of Horrors,” and also was the voice of Mother Brain, an evil character on the cartoon show “Captain N: The Game Master,” from 1989 to 1991.

By 1995, Mr. Stubbs’s health had begun to fail, forcing him to curtail his performances. Mr. Payton died in 1997, and Mr. Benson in 2005. Mr. Fakir has continued singing with Mr. Payton’s son Roquel; a former Temptation, Theo Peoples; and Ronnie McNair, a veteran Motown singer.

Before his death, Mr. Benson said in an interview that he was saddened by performing without Mr. Stubbs and Mr. Payton.

“It’s like having one body with two limbs missing,” he said.

From The Corner:
The Forgotten Man
Jonah Goldberg

For fans of Amity Shlaes' excellent book, this might not seem like such a novel insight (heck maybe nobody will). But it seems to me that Joe the Plumber fits William Graham Sumner's conception of the forgotten man quite well. And Obama's attitude is exactly like FDR's.

Sumner wrote:

The type and formula of most schemes of philan-thropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes, from a sociological point of view, is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C's interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man. For once let us look him up and consider his case, for the characteristic of all social doctors is that they fix their minds on some man or group of men whose case appeals to the sympathies and the imagination, and they plan remedies addressed to the particular trouble; they do not understand that all the parts of society hold together and that forces which are set in action act and react throughout the whole organism until an equilibrium is produced by a readjustment of all interests and rights. They therefore ignore entirely the source from which they must draw all the energy which they employ in their remedies, and they ignore all the effects on other members of society than the ones they have in view. They are always under the dominion of the superstition of government, and forgetting that a government produces nothing at all, they leave out of sight the first fact to be remembered in all social discussion — that the state cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man.

From New York Yankees Media Relations:
New York Yankees reflect
on the passing of former player Tom Tresh

10/16/2008 1:26 PM ET

On Wednesday, October 15, former Yankee Tom Tresh passed away at the age of 71 in Venice, Fla. Tresh earned American League "Rookie of the Year" honors in 1962, batting .286 with 20 home runs and 93 RBI, helping lead the Yankees to the World Series title that season. A player with the Yankees from 1961-69, Tresh was a member of three World Championship teams (1962, '63, '64), was a three-time All-Star (1962-both games and 1963) and won the Gold Glove in 1965.

The switch-hitter started at shortstop on Opening Day in 1962, a feat that would not be accomplished by another Yankees rookie until Derek Jeter in 1996. He also joined Joe DiMaggio (1936) as the only Yankees rookies to start for the AL squad in an All-Star Game. Tresh's father, Mike, was a catcher with the White Sox from 1938-49.

The family will hold a memorial service on Sunday, October 19 at 1:30 p.m. at the Unity Church of Venice, located at 125 North Jackson Rd., Venice, Fla., 34292. Central Michigan University, where Tresh played college baseball and returned in the offseasons to earn his college degree, will hold a memorial open to the public at 11:00 a.m. on Friday, October 24, at Theunissen Stadium on campus. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that a donation be made in Tom's name to the Unity Church of Venice.

"Tommy was a great teammate. He did everything well as a ballplayer and was an easy guy to manage. He was a good man and great friend. We're going to miss him."
-- Yogi Berra (teammate 1961-63, Manager 1964)

"Tom was a great teammate. We all loved him and we're sorry that we've lost him. He will be missed."
-- Whitey Ford (teammate, 1961-67)

"This hurts. He was my roommate for six years of my life, my hitting instructor and my best friend. He let me be me, but he was also the guy who kept me in at night. Tommy was a constant in my life and a calming influence. He was always there for me and stuck up for me. He was like my brother. When I had personal issues, he was always the person on the team I would turn to. During some rain delays, he would take out his guitar and we'd sing and dance."
-- Joe Pepitone (teammate, 1962-69)

"He was a heck of a person and a tough ballplayer. He loved people. He'd always ask me why I was riding him so hard, and I told him I made a promise to his father that I'd always keep him in line. And I did."
-- Moose Skowron (teammate, 1961-62)

"Tom was a good friend of mine when we played, but also long after we hung up our spikes. He was a wonderful, happy-go-lucky guy. I don't think I can ever remember him being mad. When my family held my retirement party in Atlanta back in 2000, he was the only former teammate who came to celebrate with us."
-- Bob Turley (teammate, 1961-62)

From SI.com:
Yankee Tom Tresh passes away

VENICE, Fla. (AP) -- Tom Tresh, the 1962 AL Rookie of the Year and part of three New York Yankees teams that reached the World Series, has died. He was 71.

Tresh died Wednesday after a heart attack, according to the funeral home handling the arrangements.

Tresh was an 1962 All-Star as a shortstop and made the team again in 1963 as a center fielder. He later earned a Gold Glove in the outfield.

"Tommy was a great teammate," Yankees great Yogi Berra said in a statement. "He did everything well as a ballplayer and was an easy guy to manage."

The Yankees were nearing the end of their decades-long dominance in the AL when Tresh became a regular, taking over at shortstop when Tony Kubek went to serve in the Army. He hit .286 with 20 homers and a career-high 93 RBIs in 1962.

Tresh joined a powerful lineup that already boasted the likes of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris and helped the Yankees reach the World Series from 1962-64.

The switch-hitting Tresh homered in the Game 5 victory over San Francisco in 1962, and made a running, backhanded catch on Willie Mays' drive to left field in the seventh inning in a 1-0 win in Game 7.

Tresh homered off Sandy Koufax in the 1963 Series loss to Los Angeles and homered twice in the 1964 loss to St. Louis, including a shot off Bob Gibson.

Overall, Tresh hit .245 overall with 153 home runs and 530 RBIs. He was traded by the Yankees to Detroit during the 1969 season and retired after that season.

Tresh, who was born in Detroit, attended Central Michigan and later was an assistant coach at the school.

"This hurts. He was my roommate for six years of my life, my hitting instructor and my best friend. He let me be me, but he was also the guy who kept me in at night," longtime teammate Joe Pepitone said.

"Tommy was a constant in my life and a calming influence. He was always there for me and stuck up for me. He was like my brother. When I had personal issues, he was always the person on the team I would turn to. During some rain delays, he would take out his guitar and we'd sing and dance," he said.

Tresh's father, Mike, spent 12 years in the majors, mostly as a catcher for the Chicago White Sox. In 1945, he was picked in an Associated Press poll of major league managers on who should be All-Stars -- there was no official list and no game that year because of World War II travel restrictions.

A memorial service will held Sunday in Venice and on Oct. 24 on the Central Michigan campus.

From cdtimes.co.uk:
The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound
Matt James

Bruce. The Boss. Brooooce. There I've said it. Every review of Gaslight Anthem's 2nd album will use at least one of those words. It's a given. Yes, ''59 Special' could only sound more like Mr.Springsteen if it had his name on the front and a free sticker of Clarence Clemons tucked inside as a 'Brucey bonus'. The Gaslight Anthem are blood brothers from the Garden State and they are here, boys and girls,to give it some serious BS.

But hey at least they are self-knowingly walking in Asbury's favourite son's footsteps. The whole album could even become a Where's Bruce? Drinking Game. I called the obvious tip o' the hat to 'I'm On Fire' - “at night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet, it's a pretty good song maybe you know the rest” and the name check to a pair of 'Born In The USA' sweeties, 'No Surrender, Bobby Jean' . Then 'in the backstreets' by 'The River', I found a bevy of Brucey senoritas called 'Sandy', 'Sally', 'Mary' and 'Maria'. Ooh La La. At this point I decided the Where's Bruce? Drinking Game was bad for my health and switched back to Dr.Pepper (SO misunderstood).

''59 Special's 12 tracks are ol' time, bar band rock 'n' roll. This is meat & potatoes three-chords-and-the-truth music with no dubstep loops or fancy studio wizardry. There's no time for hairdresser hair or new rave here, roll out the Chicken wire there's gonna be some Southpaw Grammar tonight. It's heartfelt, dramatic storytelling in the earnest street fightin' tradition of Joe Strummer, Steve Earle or Shane McGowan. It's The Hold Steady with scars and tattoos. With most tracks favouring the double pick-up beat so beloved of 'Born In The USA' it's lively and danceable in a strictly 'plastic glasses and mouth guard' stylee. It's got a high hit rate, is incredibly infectious (in a good way) and passes my stringent Whistle On The Bus? questionnaire with flying colours. It hammers a fair ol' pace throught, only stopping once for a-ciggie -and a-look-at-the-stars on the lovely 'Here's Looking At You, Kid' which is a moody 'Babe, I'll be gone in the morning' parole skipper cut from the 'I'm On Fire' mould.

Lyrically it's more elegant. A singer who's cares about words n' stuff? Praise the Bard! These cats are straight outta S.E. Hinton country; gang fights between the Greasers and the Socs, dreaming 'bout your girl and getting the hell outta dodge. It's easy to imagine Rusty James, Ponyboy Curtis & the Motorcycle Boy being chased through the choruses of these songs. Bands who bleed their pop culture mythology always impress me and ''59 Special' clearly wants to be a page in the American dream. These lyrics dream a Legends-R-US tapestry of Miles Davis, Elvis, Marilyn, Otis Redding, 'Casablanca',Tom Robbins, Tom Petty, 'River's Edge' and Audrey Hepburn. Oh and Bruce Springsteen, did I mention Bruce?

As well as Hollywood Royalty, the landscape is classic Americana, home of the Brave. Broken heroes in the backseats of burnt out Ole '55's, watching the Ferris Wheels in the Jersey Rain,chasin' the lights and the girls through the Santa Ana streets. It's not original but it feels vivid, vibrant and familiar like an old friend you can call on a dark day. Like Woody Allen in 'Play It Again, Sam' it's living in a dream world where characters spray paint silverscreen splendour over the greyness of everyday life. For this listener in rainyday September, Born In The U.K., it's far more idyllic than most of what I'm hearing on UK Channel Boredom.

It's not only escapism, there's always a shadowy threat of tragedy and violence such as in thundering lead single 'The '59 Sound's' killer payoff, “young girls, young boys ain't supposed to die on a Saturday night”.Paddy McAloon once infamously lampooned Springsteen's lyrics with the line “Somethings hurt more than Cars & Girls”, but I'd wager he had never been run over by his ex-Wife.

Of course their hand on heart sincerity leaves them wide open to some easy haymakers. At times it steers dangerously close to guilty pleasures like Bryan Adams' 'Reckless' or - zoiks!- Rick Springfield's 'Jessie's Girl'. The production would've benefited from being more dynamic and edgy, it feels slightly streamlined for FM Radio. It's a sure thing though that on stage, on the night, these tunes will grow and grow and become real contenders.

They might be giants or they might just be the next They Might Be Giants. For their considerable strengths and undoubted passion this is a work-in-progress band, but even if only for the promise of a title fight and not quite the full delivery, Gaslight Anthem are a solid 'outsider bet' well worth taking. For the future I hope they ride that Old White Lincoln through the 'Darkness On The Edge Of Town', but for now it's Saturday night and it's their round, mine's a Tequila Sunset.

CD Specs
Type:
CD Album

Release Date:
18th August 2008

Number of Discs:
1

Tracks:
1.Great Expectations
2.'59 Sound
3.Old White Lincoln
4.High Lonesome
5.Film Noir
6.Miles Davis & The Cool
7.Patient Ferris Wheel
8.Casanova, Baby!
9.Even Cowgirls Get The Blues
10.Meet Me By The River's Edge
11.Here's Looking At You, Kid
12.Backseat

Bonus Content:
None

Producer:
Ted Hutt

Label:
SideOneDummy

Catalogue Number:
SD1358

Other Releases:
'Sink Or Swim' (2007 Album), 'Senor & The Queen' (2008 EP)

Similar Releases:
Bruce Springsteen 'Born In The USA', Hold Steady 'Boys & Girls in America', Rancid 'Out Come The Wolves', The Killers 'Sam's Town', Marah 'Kids In Philly'

LISA JOHNSON
The New Brunswick-based Gaslight Anthem are, from left,
Alex Levine, Benny Horowitz, Alex Rosamila and Brian Fallon.

From nj.com:
Anthem salutes the greats
by Jay Lustig/The Star-Ledger

Saturday October 11, 2008, 10:00 PM

Maybe there is no new music, just new combinations of old music. Bob Dylan idolized Woody Guthrie and Little Richard, and look what happened. Bruce Springsteen has said that he wanted to write like Dylan, sing like Roy Orbison and sound like Phil Spector on his classic "Born To Run" album.

A New Brunswick band, The Gaslight Anthem -- which will open for Rise Against at New York's Roseland Ballroom, tomorrow and Tuesday -- has become one of the rock world's great young hopes by combining previously unsynthesized elements of New Jersey rock: the gritty romanticism and streetwise poetry of early Springsteen and the hard-driving, punk-influenced sound of bands like Bouncing Souls, Lifetime and Thursday.

"I had to blend it together somehow," says frontman Brian Fallon, 28. "I couldn't ignore either side."

Benefiting from a huge amount of underground buzz, the band's second album, "The '59 Sound" -- released by Los Angeles indie label SideOneDummy in August -- debuted at No. 70 on Billboard magazine's albums chart. It also has earned the band a cover story in British rock magazine Kerrang! (which pronounced it, "The best new band you'll hear in 2008") and an almost equally enthusiastic Rolling Stone feature (with the headline, "Punk Rock, Via E Street").

"It feels good right now," says Fallon. "We're been in various bands that have kind of sputtered and coughed and choked, for a long time. But it seems like we're starting to get that thing where even our parents are like, 'Hey, this is pretty exciting.'"

The band's musical influences extend beyond the Jersey border. "I'da Called You Woody, Joe," from their 2007 debut album, "Sink or Swim," was about Joe Strummer of The Clash. "Say I Won't (Recognize)," from their four-song, early-2008 EP "Senor and the Queen," reworked Sam Cooke's "Having a Party."

Various songs on "The '59 Sound" make references to Bob Seger, Tom Petty, Otis Redding and Elvis Presley, as well as Springsteen: "No surrender, my Bobby Jean," pleads Fallon in his rough-hewn voice, in "Meet Me By the River's Edge." Even the album's name was inspired by the 1959 Fender Bassman amplifier used by Springsteen and many other classic-rock musicians.

"We're fully aware that we're not reinventing any styles here," says Fallon, who writes the band's lyrics, though guitarist Alex Rosamilia, bassist Alex Levine and drummer Benny Horowitz co-write the music. "We're just trying to carry on a tradition of music that, in our minds, has been a bit neglected in the past 15 years: any kind of classic rock 'n' roll bands, your Elvis Presleys and your soul bands -- your Otis Reddings and Wilson Picketts.

"No one is listening to those guys right now, as far as in my age group. And I think that, mixed with your punk-rock bands like the Bouncing Souls ... combining them was one of those lightning bolt moments. You can't take any credit for it at all. It just kind of came down and hit you, and you're like, 'That's a good idea.'"

The Rise Against tour, which also features the bands Alkaline Trio and Thrice, began Oct. 2 in Cleveland and lasts through late November. After that, the band has a few U.K. shows lined up, then it will return home for the holidays, and probably make a few Jersey appearances around then.

Rise Against, Alkaline Trio and Thrice are all more established than The Gaslight Anthem, so The Gaslight Anthem gets the opening slot every night. The musicians are still thankful for the opportunity, though.

"It's been amazing," says Rosamilia, 26. "I've never played places this big before -- none of us have. Usually the first band doesn't see much of a crowd response, but the crowds have been great so far -- singing along and just getting into it."

The band has only been around since January 2006. Before that, Horowitz and Rosamilia had been in a New Brunswick group called The Killing Gift. Horowitz had also been in The Low End Theory, another local band, and Fallon had been appearing at coffeehouses in Red Bank, where he grew up.

"At the same time, I would play a lot of the basement shows in New Brunswick with a punk-rock band," says Fallon. "Me and Benny and both of the Alexes had all been mingling around the same scene, but never had played together. It almost seemed like we played with everyone else, except for each other."

A mutual friend suggested that Fallon and Horowitz join forces. "And then we kind of brought in the rest of the pieces," says Fallon. "It was really strange how well it fit together, and the way we did it that first practice. I think we still do it, when we write songs. No one tells anybody else what to do. They just go with it, and no one says a word. Everybody just does what they think is the best for the song."

They took "Gaslight" from the New York cafe where Bob Dylan once played. (In 2005, Dylan released an album called "Live at The Gaslight 1962.") "Anthem" seemed right because so much of the music they were making sounded anthemic.

They began touring, and released "Sink Or Swim" on the New Brunswick label XOXO in May 2007. A European tour in September 2007 showed them just how far their music had spread.

"The kids were singing along to our songs," says Rosamilia. "You'd try to talk to them afterward, but they didn't speak English. So there are these kids that can't converse with you, but they can sing along to your songs.

"It definitely took me aback. I wasn't expecting anything even close to that. I was expecting everything to be empty rooms. But everything was packed. It was pretty ridiculous."

In their brief time together, they have also played the Warped Tour, and hit the road with Bouncing Souls.

"We look up to those guys a lot," says Fallon. "They're not our elders, because they're not that much older than us, but we respect those guys, very heavily. To be able to play with those guys and hang out with them is really great."

He has not yet met Springsteen, though one of Springsteen's sons has attended a Gaslight Anthem show.

"Just this week, I got a call from our manager, and she told us to go look at Bruce Springsteen's MySpace page," he says. "And we go look at it, and we're his first friend, on his legit MySpace page.

"I don't know if he's even heard us, or it's just that his son likes us. But I hope that someday I can get to meet him and just be like, 'Man, I think you're great.'"

From The PublicDiscourse.com:
Obama's Abortion Extremism

by Robert George

Oct 14, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama's views on life issues ranging from abortion to embryonic stem cell research mark him as not merely a pro-choice politician, but rather as the most extreme pro-abortion candidate to have ever run on a major party ticket.

Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress.
Yet there are Catholics and Evangelicals-even self-identified pro-life Catholics and Evangelicals - who aggressively promote Obama's candidacy and even declare him the preferred candidate from the pro-life point of view.

What is going on here?

I have examined the arguments advanced by Obama's self-identified pro-life supporters, and they are spectacularly weak. It is nearly unfathomable to me that those advancing them can honestly believe what they are saying. But before proving my claims about Obama's abortion extremism, let me explain why I have described Obama as ''pro-abortion'' rather than ''pro-choice.''

According to the standard argument for the distinction between these labels, nobody is pro-abortion. Everybody would prefer a world without abortions. After all, what woman would deliberately get pregnant just to have an abortion? But given the world as it is, sometimes women find themselves with unplanned pregnancies at times in their lives when having a baby would present significant problems for them. So even if abortion is not medically required, it should be permitted, made as widely available as possible and, when necessary, paid for with taxpayers' money.

The defect in this argument can easily be brought into focus if we shift to the moral question that vexed an earlier generation of Americans: slavery. Many people at the time of the American founding would have preferred a world without slavery but nonetheless opposed abolition. Such people - Thomas Jefferson was one - reasoned that, given the world as it was, with slavery woven into the fabric of society just as it had often been throughout history, the economic consequences of abolition for society as a whole and for owners of plantations and other businesses that relied on slave labor would be dire. Many people who argued in this way were not monsters but honest and sincere, albeit profoundly mistaken. Some (though not Jefferson) showed their personal opposition to slavery by declining to own slaves themselves or freeing slaves whom they had purchased or inherited. They certainly didn't think anyone should be forced to own slaves. Still, they maintained that slavery should remain a legally permitted option and be given constitutional protection.

Would we describe such people, not as pro-slavery, but as ''pro-choice''? Of course we would not. It wouldn't matter to us that they were ''personally opposed'' to slavery, or that they wished that slavery were ''unnecessary,'' or that they wouldn't dream of forcing anyone to own slaves. We would hoot at the faux sophistication of a placard that said ''Against slavery? Don't own one.'' We would observe that the fundamental divide is between people who believe that law and public power should permit slavery, and those who think that owning slaves is an unjust choice that should be prohibited.

Just for the sake of argument, though, let us assume that there could be a morally meaningful distinction between being ''pro-abortion'' and being ''pro-choice.'' Who would qualify for the latter description? Barack Obama certainly would not. For, unlike his running mate Joe Biden, Obama does not think that abortion is a purely private choice that public authority should refrain from getting involved in. Now, Senator Biden is hardly pro-life. He believes that the killing of the unborn should be legally permitted and relatively unencumbered. But unlike Obama, at least Biden has sometimes opposed using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion, thereby leaving Americans free to choose not to implicate themselves in it. If we stretch things to create a meaningful category called ''pro-choice,'' then Biden might be a plausible candidate for the label; at least on occasions when he respects your choice or mine not to facilitate deliberate feticide.

The same cannot be said for Barack Obama. For starters, he supports legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions that are not necessary to save the life of the mother and are not the result of rape or incest. The abortion industry laments that this longstanding federal law, according to the pro-abortion group NARAL, ''forces about half the women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended pregnancies to term and bear children against their wishes instead.'' In other words, a whole lot of people who are alive today would have been exterminated in utero were it not for the Hyde Amendment. Obama has promised to reverse the situation so that abortions that the industry complains are not happening (because the federal government is not subsidizing them) would happen. That is why people who profit from abortion love Obama even more than they do his running mate.

But this barely scratches the surface of Obama's extremism. He has promised that ''the first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act'' (known as FOCA). This proposed legislation would create a federally guaranteed ''fundamental right'' to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including, as Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia has noted in a statement condemning the proposed Act, ''a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined 'health' reasons.'' In essence, FOCA would abolish virtually every existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry-protections against being forced to participate in the practice of abortion or else lose their jobs. The pro-abortion National Organization for Women has proclaimed with approval that FOCA would ''sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies.''

It gets worse. Obama, unlike even many ''pro-choice'' legislators, opposed the ban on partial-birth abortions when he served in the Illinois legislature and condemned the Supreme Court decision that upheld legislation banning this heinous practice. He has referred to a baby conceived inadvertently by a young woman as a ''punishment'' that she should not endure. He has stated that women's equality requires access to abortion on demand. Appallingly, he wishes to strip federal funding from pro-life crisis pregnancy centers that provide alternatives to abortion for pregnant women in need. There is certainly nothing ''pro-choice'' about that.

But it gets even worse. Senator Obama, despite the urging of pro-life members of his own party, has not endorsed or offered support for the Pregnant Women Support Act, the signature bill of Democrats for Life, meant to reduce abortions by providing assistance for women facing crisis pregnancies. In fact, Obama has opposed key provisions of the Act, including providing coverage of unborn children in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), and informed consent for women about the effects of abortion and the gestational age of their child. This legislation would not make a single abortion illegal. It simply seeks to make it easier for pregnant women to make the choice not to abort their babies. Here is a concrete test of whether Obama is ''pro-choice'' rather than pro-abortion. He flunked. Even Senator Edward Kennedy voted to include coverage of unborn children in S-CHIP. But Barack Obama stood resolutely with the most stalwart abortion advocates in opposing it.

It gets worse yet. In an act of breathtaking injustice which the Obama campaign lied about until critics produced documentary proof of what he had done, as an Illinois state senator Obama opposed legislation to protect children who are born alive, either as a result of an abortionist's unsuccessful effort to kill them in the womb, or by the deliberate delivery of the baby prior to viability. This legislation would not have banned any abortions. Indeed, it included a specific provision ensuring that it did not affect abortion laws. (This is one of the points Obama and his campaign lied about until they were caught.) The federal version of the bill passed unanimously in the United States Senate, winning the support of such ardent advocates of legal abortion as John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. But Barack Obama opposed it and worked to defeat it. For him, a child marked for abortion gets no protection-even ordinary medical or comfort care-even if she is born alive and entirely separated from her mother. So Obama has favored protecting what is literally a form of infanticide.

You may be thinking, it can't get worse than that. But it does.

For several years, Americans have been debating the use for biomedical research of embryos produced by in vitro fertilization (originally for reproductive purposes) but now left in a frozen condition in cryopreservation units. President Bush has restricted the use of federal funds for stem-cell research of the type that makes use of these embryos and destroys them in the process. I support the President's restriction, but some legislators with excellent pro-life records, including John McCain, argue that the use of federal money should be permitted where the embryos are going to be discarded or die anyway as the result of the parents' decision. Senator Obama, too, wants to lift the restriction.

But Obama would not stop there. He has co-sponsored a bill-strongly opposed by McCain-that would authorize the large-scale industrial production of human embryos for use in biomedical research in which they would be killed. In fact, the bill Obama co-sponsored would effectively require the killing of human beings in the embryonic stage that were produced by cloning. It would make it a federal crime for a woman to save an embryo by agreeing to have the tiny developing human being implanted in her womb so that he or she could be brought to term. This ''clone and kill'' bill would, if enacted, bring something to America that has heretofore existed only in China-the equivalent of legally mandated abortion. In an audacious act of deceit, Obama and his co-sponsors misleadingly call this an anti-cloning bill. But it is nothing of the kind. What it bans is not cloning, but allowing the embryonic children produced by cloning to survive.

Can it get still worse? Yes.

Decent people of every persuasion hold out the increasingly realistic hope of resolving the moral issue surrounding embryonic stem-cell research by developing methods to produce the exact equivalent of embryonic stem cells without using (or producing) embryos. But when a bill was introduced in the United States Senate to put a modest amount of federal money into research to develop these methods, Barack Obama was one of the few senators who opposed it. From any rational vantage point, this is unconscionable. Why would someone not wish to find a method of producing the pluripotent cells scientists want that all Americans could enthusiastically endorse? Why create and kill human embryos when there are alternatives that do not require the taking of nascent human lives? It is as if Obama is opposed to stem-cell research unless it involves killing human embryos.

This ultimate manifestation of Obama's extremism brings us back to the puzzle of his pro-life Catholic and Evangelical apologists.

They typically do not deny the facts I have reported. They could not; each one is a matter of public record. But despite Obama's injustices against the most vulnerable human beings, and despite the extraordinary support he receives from the industry that profits from killing the unborn (which should be a good indicator of where he stands), some Obama supporters insist that he is the better candidate from the pro-life point of view.

They say that his economic and social policies would so diminish the demand for abortion that the overall number would actually go down-despite the federal subsidizing of abortion and the elimination of hundreds of pro-life laws. The way to save lots of unborn babies, they say, is to vote for the pro-abortion-oops! ''pro-choice''-candidate. They tell us not to worry that Obama opposes the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico City Policy (against funding abortion abroad), parental consent and notification laws, conscience protections, and the funding of alternatives to embryo-destructive research. They ask us to look past his support for Roe v. Wade, the Freedom of Choice Act, partial-birth abortion, and human cloning and embryo-killing. An Obama presidency, they insist, means less killing of the unborn.

This is delusional.

We know that the federal and state pro-life laws and policies that Obama has promised to sweep away (and that John McCain would protect) save thousands of lives every year. Studies conducted by Professor Michael New and other social scientists have removed any doubt. Often enough, the abortion lobby itself confirms the truth of what these scholars have determined. Tom McClusky has observed that Planned Parenthood's own statistics show that in each of the seven states that have FOCA-type legislation on the books, ''abortion rates have increased while the national rate has decreased.'' In Maryland, where a bill similar to the one favored by Obama was enacted in 1991, he notes that ''abortion rates have increased by 8 percent while the overall national abortion rate decreased by 9 percent.'' No one is really surprised. After all, the message clearly conveyed by policies such as those Obama favors is that abortion is a legitimate solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies - so clearly legitimate that taxpayers should be forced to pay for it.

But for a moment let's suppose, against all the evidence, that Obama's proposals would reduce the number of abortions, even while subsidizing the killing with taxpayer dollars. Even so, many more unborn human beings would likely be killed under Obama than under McCain. A Congress controlled by strong Democratic majorities under Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would enact the bill authorizing the mass industrial production of human embryos by cloning for research in which they are killed. As president, Obama would sign it. The number of tiny humans created and killed under this legislation (assuming that an efficient human cloning technique is soon perfected) could dwarf the number of lives saved as a result of the reduced demand for abortion-even if we take a delusionally optimistic view of what that number would be.

Barack Obama and John McCain differ on many important issues about which reasonable people of goodwill, including pro-life Americans of every faith, disagree: how best to fight international terrorism, how to restore economic growth and prosperity, how to distribute the tax burden and reduce poverty, etc.

But on abortion and the industrial creation of embryos for destructive research, there is a profound difference of moral principle, not just prudence. These questions reveal the character and judgment of each man. Barack Obama is deeply committed to the belief that members of an entire class of human beings have no rights that others must respect. Across the spectrum of pro-life concerns for the unborn, he would deny these small and vulnerable members of the human family the basic protection of the laws. Over the next four to eight years, as many as five or even six U.S. Supreme Court justices could retire. Obama enthusiastically supports Roe v. Wade and would appoint judges who would protect that morally and constitutionally disastrous decision and even expand its scope. Indeed, in an interview in Glamour magazine, he made it clear that he would apply a litmus test for Supreme Court nominations: jurists who do not support Roe will not be considered for appointment by Obama. John McCain, by contrast, opposes Roe and would appoint judges likely to overturn it. This would not make abortion illegal, but it would return the issue to the forums of democratic deliberation, where pro-life Americans could engage in a fair debate to persuade fellow citizens that killing the unborn is no way to address the problems of pregnant women in need.

What kind of America do we want our beloved nation to be? Barack Obama's America is one in which being human just isn't enough to warrant care and protection. It is an America where the unborn may legitimately be killed without legal restriction, even by the grisly practice of partial-birth abortion. It is an America where a baby who survives abortion is not even entitled to comfort care as she dies on a stainless steel table or in a soiled linen bin. It is a nation in which some members of the human family are regarded as inferior and others superior in fundamental dignity and rights. In Obama's America, public policy would make a mockery of the great constitutional principle of the equal protection of the law. In perhaps the most telling comment made by any candidate in either party in this election year, Senator Obama, when asked by Rick Warren when a baby gets human rights, replied: ''that question is above my pay grade.'' It was a profoundly disingenuous answer: For even at a state senator's pay grade, Obama presumed to answer that question with blind certainty. His unspoken answer then, as now, is chilling: human beings have no rights until infancy - and if they are unwanted survivors of attempted abortions, not even then.

In the end, the efforts of Obama's apologists to depict their man as the true pro-life candidate that Catholics and Evangelicals may and even should vote for, doesn't even amount to a nice try. Voting for the most extreme pro-abortion political candidate in American history is not the way to save unborn babies.

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is a member of the President's Council on Bioethics and previously served on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He sits on the editorial board of Public Discourse.

From The Spectator.co.uk:
Pinch Yourself
By Melanie Phillips

The contrast between, on the one hand, the huge amount of material about Obama’s radical associations that has been published in on-line journals and in a few brave newspapers, and on the other the refusal by big media to address it and to vilify those who do, becomes more astounding by the day. The Obamaniacs are spinning the relationship between Obama and William Ayers, former of Weather Undergound Terrorism Inc, as of no consequence because this was supposedly a chance acquaintance and because the educational project they worked on, the Annenberg Challenge, was a worthy one.

Stanley Kurtz now nails that canard by showing how, through the Annenberg Challenge, Obama and Ayers channelled funds to extremist anti-American Afrocentric ‘educational’ programmes which were a carbon-copy of the world view of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s black racist mentor who, under pressure, Obama was forced to repudiate. These programmes promoted, amongst other radical ideas, the ‘rites of passage’ philosophy which attempted to create a ‘virtually separate and intensely anti-American black social world’ in order to ‘counter the potentially detrimental effects of a Eurocentrically oriented society.’ One such teacher taught that

‘The submission to Western civilization and its most outstanding offspring, American civilization, is, in reality, surrender to white supremacy.’

Kurtz concludes:

However he may seek to deny it, all evidence points to the fact that, from his position as board chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama knowingly and persistently funded an educational project that shared the extremist and anti-American philosophy of Jeremiah Wright.

No surprise there, since back in June Kurtz pointed to evidence that Obama shared the black racism of the Trinity United Church of Christ. In this article Obama was reported as rejecting ‘integrationist assimilation’ and wanting to channel black rage more effectively into political organisation. Kurtz dug out a chapter in a 1990 book called After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois in which Obama sketched out how radical black churches could be harnessed to help radicalise the black population. As Kurtz wrote:

So it would appear that Obama’s own writings solve the mystery of why he stayed at Trinity for 20 years. Obama’s long-held and decidedly audacious hope has been to spread Wright’s radical spirit by linking it to a viable, left-leaning political program, with Obama himself at the center. The revolutionizing power of a politically awakened black church is not some side issue, or merely a personal matter, but has been the signature theme of Obama’s grand political strategy.

Those few brave souls who do try to enlighten the public about all this come up against the kind of intimidation by Camp Obama charted here by Michael Barone:

Stanley Kurtz appeared on Milt Rosenberg's WGN radio program in Chicago. Mr. Kurtz had been researching Mr. Obama's relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers in Chicago Annenberg Challenge papers in the Richard J. Daley Library in Chicago - papers that were closed off to him for some days, apparently at the behest of Obama supporters. Obama fans jammed WGN's phone lines and sent in hundreds of protest e-mails. The message was clear to anyone who would follow Mr. Rosenberg's example. We will make trouble for you if you let anyone make the case against The One.

Other Obama supporters have threatened critics with criminal prosecution. In September, St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce warned citizens that they would bring criminal libel prosecutions against anyone who made statements against Mr. Obama that were ‘false.’ I had been under the impression that the Alien and Sedition Acts had gone out of existence in 1801-'02. Not so, apparently, in metropolitan St. Louis. Similarly, the Obama campaign called for a criminal investigation of the American Issues Project when it ran ads highlighting Mr. Obama's ties to Mr. Ayers.

No such threats, of course, will be made against this new book whose publication is tactfully timed for next year so as not to frighten the horses -- Race Course Against White Supremacy, by none other than William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

Meanwhile, it turns out that not only did Obama do favours for convicted Chicago fraudster Tony Rezko, but as this story reports Alexi Giannoulias, who reputedly bankrolled Michael ‘Jaws’ Giorango, a Chicagoan twice convicted of bookmaking and promoting prostitution, became Illinois state treasurer last year after Obama vouched for him, and has now has pledged to raise $100,000 for Obama’s campaign.

You have to pinch yourself – a Marxisant radical who all his life has been mentored by, sat at the feet of, worshipped with, befriended, endorsed the philosophy of, funded and been in turn funded, politically promoted and supported by a nexus comprising black power anti-white racists, Jew-haters, revolutionary Marxists, unrepentant former terrorists and Chicago mobsters, is on the verge of becoming President of the United States. And apparently it’s considered impolite to say so.

From The DailyBeast.com:
Bring Back Rev. Wright
by Tucker Carlson

October 13, 2008 | 7:31am

Why won't the McCain campaign attack Obama for an association more damaging than Bill Ayers—the one with Chicago pastor Jeremiah Wright?

The McCain campaign's attempt to tie Barack Obama to terrorist-turned-professor Bill Ayers appears to have failed. Most people still don't seem to know who Ayers is. And there still isn't evidence that the two were more than acquaintances. By the end of the week, McCain will likely have moved on to another line of attack. The obvious question is: Why not Jeremiah Wright?

Unlike Ayers, the Rev. Wright indisputably was one of Obama's closest friends. Obama himself has said so. Nobody in America needs to be reminded of who Wright is. As long as you've decided to go after Obama's character and associations, Wright seems like the obvious place to start. The 30-second attack ad essentially writes itself.

So Jeremiah Wright probably won't figure directly in this campaign. But at some point, it would be nice to hear Obama explain his relationship with Wright.

The spot opens with the familiar yet still shocking tape of Wright pounding the pulpit and looking crazy:

Wright: “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

Narrator: This is the man Barack Obama has called his spiritual mentor. In 2006, Obama gave Wright’s church more than $22,000 as a gift. Here's what Obama's mentor had to say about our country in the days after 9/11.

Wright: "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye…America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Narrator: For 20 years Barack Obama sat in the pews, even brought his family, as Wright preached hate. Obama never said a word, until he was caught. Then he defended Wright. Barack Obama: Divisive. Dishonest. Dangerous.

An alternate version might contain footage of Wright accusing the U.S. government of manufacturing AIDS in order to kill black people, or of spreading drugs in the ghetto, or it might show Wright dismissing murdered Alabama teen Natalie Halloway as a drunken slut. There's a lot of footage to choose from and it's all on YouTube. A seasoned media consultant could have that ad ready in a couple of hours. It'd be the most famous spot of this political year, and probably the most powerful.

So why not? The press would go crazy, but so what? They're rooting for Obama anyway. It's racist to bring up Jeremiah Wright? No, Jeremiah Wright is the racist. He's on tape confirming it. Truth is a defense, and the claims in that ad are true.

The campaign won't do it. This spring, McCain said he wouldn't use Wright as a campaign issue, and so far he's stuck to that pledge. While Sarah Palin did go briefly off message and mentioned Wright in an interview, the campaign hasn't run a single ad featuring Wright, and neither have the RNC or pro-McCain 527s. Late last week, senior McCain advisors broached the topic with their candidate, but McCain wouldn't budge.

So Jeremiah Wright probably won't figure directly in this campaign. But at some point, it would be nice to hear Obama explain his relationship with Wright. Obama already did that, you say? Laid the matter to rest in that lovely March 18th speech on race relations that made you think of Bobby Kennedy and MLK? Go back and read that speech carefully. Once you subtract Obama's eloquence, it doesn't sound so groundbreaking. It sounds like something Jesse Jackson could have delivered.

The thesis of the speech, the entire point of delivering it, comes toward the end, as Obama explains why he will not disavow a man who has just been revealed as a race-baiter. The reason? Because America has a long history of white racism. “This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up,” Obama said. ‘They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted.”

In other words, people of a certain color were once cruel to Wright, therefore we ought to understand why he lashes out against an entire race. It's the Bernard Goetz defense.

And anyway, Obama went on, this is the sort of thing that all black preachers say on Sunday morning. You didn't know that? Then maybe you're a racist, too. Or as Obama put it: “The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning.”

If you remember Marion Barry's pre-sentencing press conference, you'll recognize the argument: Yes, I made some mistakes. But the real problem here is white racism, your racism. You're the one who's actually responsible for this. So shut up and stop asking questions.

Over the weekend, John Lewis, the Georgia congressman and Obama supporter, made a species of that case against McCain. ‘‘As one who was the victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement,’’ Lewis said, ‘‘I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign.’’ The written statement went on compare McCain to George Wallace, whom, Lewis pointed out, ‘‘never fired a gun’’ but ‘‘created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed...’’

So for questioning Obama’s relationship with Billy Ayers, McCain is, according to an official Civil Rights Hero, morally comparable to George Wallace and the Alabama church bombers. Frank Rich went even further in the New York Times, accusing McCain not simply of racism, but of endangering Obama's life. ‘‘The McCain campaign has crossed the line between tough negative campaigning and inciting vigilantism,’’ Rich wrote in a column so hysterical it deserves a diagnosis.

If the argument seems depressingly familiar, it should. The Obama campaign used the same cudgel against Hillary Clinton in the primaries, even as Obama himself did his best to downplay the subject of race in public. But on background, and through surrogates, team Obama attacked the Clintons as bigots. They knew what we all know, that the quickest way to silence guilty white Americans is to accuse them of racism. It works.

But not for presidents. If he's elected, Obama will have to find a new dodge. Invoking George Wallace might scare a political opponent. It won't get you far with the Chinese.

From DailyGut.com:
A PLATEFUL OF HATE
by Greg Gutfeld

Monday, Oct. 13, 2008

Right now, in the press, "rage" is all the rage.

At the New York Times, Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich - who may be the same person since they both wear dresses - have columns on the rising tide of anger in McCain's campaign. Dowd is calling the whole thing "seamy," and whenever someone brings up Bill Ayers, Rich sees a "violent escalation" in rhetoric. He links addressing real issues to an increased risk of Obama's assassination – meaning if you think voter fraud is important, you probably also want to kill black people.

True, a few nutbags in the GOP crowd shouted "terrorist" at the mention of Obama's name. But how does that compare to the insane froth found among the left? Christ: How many times have you heard President Bush called a "terrorist"? The Angry Left calls Bush a "war criminal," a "chimp," and have referred to him as a Nazi so many times he now goose-steps instead of jogs.

You want to talk about hate speech? Go to any Lefty protest. You'll see Old Glory remade with swastikas replacing stars. And what of those ironic hipsters wearing "Saran Palin is a C__t" t-shirts in Philadelphia the other day? I suppose when the media sees that, it's just edgy. However, I just see assholes destined for a lifetime manning the counter at Kinko's.

Nope, when the Left calls people horrible names, it's just politics -- a few fringe loonies, not be taken seriously. When that same anger comes from the Right, though, it reflects a larger philosophy of hate – one that labels anyone who doesn't want to spoon Noam Chomsky an Aryan Brother.

Look: the right knows Obama isn't a terrorist. He never tried to bomb the Pentagon and Capital Building. That was only a friend of his. Obama never said 9/11 happened because America's "chickens are coming home to roost" or screamed "G-d Damn America!" from the pulpit. That was just his pastor. We get it.

But the left realizes that if you want to kill a legitimate line of questioning, simply call something racist or hateful - and the media nods. It's the best way to make sure McCain loses gracefully – and it's working.

Frankly, I'd say it makes them all worse than Hitler.