A Chinese court on Thursday jailed four referees and an official for their roles in a corruption scandal that brought the country's football league to its knees, the state Xinhua news agency said.
Lu Jun (R) at the 2002 FIFA World Cup. A Chinese court on Thursday jailed four referees, including Lu, and an official for their roles in a corruption scandal that brought the country's football league to its knees, the state Xinhua news agency said.
The four defendants, among them Lu Jun, who officiated at the 2000 Olympic Games and the 2002 World Cup, were the first to be sentenced over the match-fixing and gambling scandal since it was exposed two years ago.
Lu's crimes were linked to domestic league matches, state media has reported.
Gambling, match-fixing, crooked referees and poor performances by the national team have made the sport the laughing stock of increasingly indifferent Chinese fans, and a matter of state concern.
The scandal brought down top Chinese Football Association (CFA) heads Nan Yong and his successor Xie Yalong and several vice heads, including Yang Yimun, who will be sentenced on Saturday.
The court in northeast China's Liaoning province sentenced Lu, China's best-known referee and once dubbed "golden whistle", to five and a half years in jail and confiscated property valued at 100,000 yuan (about $16,000), Xinhua said.
Former referees Huang Junjie, Wan Daxue and Zhou Weixin were jailed for seven years, six years and three and a half years respectively.
The court also sentenced the former head of the China Superleague's commercial arm Lu Feng to six years and a half years in prison. The cases of Nan and Xie have yet to go to trial.
According to state media, CFA officials routinely fixed matches, including national team and league games, by allegedly buying off the teams and referees involved.
Calls to the Dongdong court and to lawyers went unanswered Thursday.
According to state media, up to 24 league and club officials will be sentenced by a court in Liaoning on Saturday.
Pakistan on Thursday welcomes the leaders of Afghanistan and Iran for a regional summit at a key juncture in peace efforts with the Taliban and amid rising tensions between Tehran and Israel. Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in Islamabad mid-morning, the Pakistani foreign ministry confirmed, for a series of talks with government and opposition figures on his second visit to the country in nine months.
Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was expected to arrive in the afternoon before formal summit talks on Friday, followed by a news conference.
Karzai's office said his talks with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani would focus on expanding relations, economic ties and "enhanced cooperation" on ending 10 years of war in Afghanistan.
Soon after his arrival, Karzai went into talks with Gilani, Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and senior government ministers, officials said. Pakistan, the historic ally of the Taliban, says it will do anything required by Kabul to support an Afghan-led peace process, but there is a wide degree of scepticism in Afghanistan and the United States about its sincerity.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar visited Kabul this month on a fence-mending visit amid reports that Kabul and Islamabad felt isolated by contacts between the United States and the Taliban in the Gulf state of Qatar.
But in an interview published in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Karzai said the Afghan government was part of three-way peace efforts.
The Taliban have refused to talk to Karzai's US-backed government.
"There have been contacts between the US government and the Taliban, there have been contacts between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and there have been some contacts that we have made, all of us together, including the Taliban," Karzai was quoted as saying.
He did not mention any Pakistani involvement, but said cooperation from Islamabad "would make the whole matter easier".
Pakistan says the trilateral summit will focus on cooperation on counter-terrorism and transnational organised crime including drug and human trafficking, border management and trade issues.
Islamabad is moving towards a detente in its own relations with Washington, which took a drastic turn for the worse over last year's covert American raid that killed Osama bin Laden and air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
But despite strong US objections, Pakistan says it is pressing ahead with a multi-billion-dollar project to build a gas pipeline to import fuel from Iran.
"There is no change or shift regarding the gas pipeline project and it is scheduled to be completed by 2014," said the official.
Israel this week accused Iran of targeting its diplomats in Georgia, India and Thailand, against a backdrop of speculation that the Jewish state or the United States could be months from launching military strikes against Iran.
On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad unveiled new strides in Tehran's nuclear programme in a defiant blow to US and EU sanctions designed to rein in its atomic activities.
"I don't think so," a senior Pakistani government official told AFP when asked if mounting tensions between Iran and Israel, and the showdown over Iran's nuclear programme, would dominate the summit.
BANGKOK — Three Iranians detained after accidentally setting off explosives in Bangkok were planning to attack Israeli diplomats, Thailand’s top policeman said Thursday in the first confirmation by local officials that the group was plotting attacks in Thailand.
The allegation came after days of strong accusations by Israel that Iran was behind the botched plot as well as two others in India and the former Soviet republic of Georgia this week. Iran has denied the charges. Citing the similarity of bombs used in New Delhi and Tbilisi, national police chief Gen. Prewpan Dhamapong said that Thai authorities now “know for certain that (the target) was Israeli diplomats.”
“This issue was about individuals and the targets were specific,” he said. “This was something personal.”
Israel has accused Iran of waging a covert campaign of state terror and has threatened military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran has blamed the Jewish state for the recent killings of Iranian atomic scientists and has denied responsibility for all three bomb plots, including an explosion Monday in New Delhi that tore through an Israeli diplomatic vehicle, wounding the driver and a diplomat’s wife, and a foiled attempt the same day in Georgia.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday it has stepped up security for diplomats posted overseas. The plot in Bangkok was discovered Tuesday only by accident, when explosives stored in a house occupied by several Iranian men blew up by mistake.
One of the Iranians, Mohammad Kharzei, was paraded before journalists Thursday wearing a striped short-sleeve shirt, his apparently handcuffed hands covered by a dark sheet.
Prewpan said Kharzei had “partially confessed” and had acknowledged knowing one of the other suspects, Saeid Moradi, whose leg was sheered off by an explosive he was carrying as he fled police in the Thai capital’s busy Sukhumvit Road area.
Surveillance video released by police already links the suspects: it shows them leaving their destroyed house just after the first blast. Moradi was the last to exit, and as he walked out with a heavy backpack over his shoulder, a small crowd that had begun to gather backed away, clearly terrified.
Kharzei, grim-faced, did not speak as he stood before reporters, but Prewpan described him as “stressed out” and another official said he was having trouble eating.
The third Iranian, Masoud Sedaghatzadeh, was detained in Malaysia and the country’s federal police spokesman, Ramli Yoosuf, said he was being investigated for terrorism-related activities linked to the Bangkok blasts. The official could not say whether Sedaghatzadeh would be extradited to Thailand.
A Bangkok court has approved arrest warrants for all three suspects, as well as an Iranian woman named Leila Rohani who rented the destroyed house. However, Rohani has left Thailand and is now in Tehran, according to the top immigration police official, Lt. Gen. Wiboon Bangthamai.
All four now face criminal charges including possession of explosives, attempted murder, attempted murder of a policeman and causing explosions that damaged property. Prewpan said he believed there already was enough evidence to prosecute them. The Israeli ambassador to Thailand, Itzhak Shoham, declined to comment on reports his staff had been specifically targeted. He said the Israeli Embassy was open and functioning as normal.
Shoham told The Associated Press earlier this week, however, that the similarity of the bombs found in Bangkok and New Delhi had led Israel to believe the plots were linked. Prewpan also said that two homemade “sticky” bombs found at the blast site Tuesday matched the devices planted on Israeli diplomatic cars in India and Georgia a day earlier.
Thailand’s acknowledgment that terror attacks were being planned on its soil stood in contrast to its denials of that last month, when police arrested a Lebanese-Swedish man with alleged links to Hezbollah. At the time, authorities insisted Thailand was only being used as a staging ground for attacks, but was not the target. The man led police to a warehouse near Bangkok packed with more than 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms) of urea fertilizer and other materials that could be used to make bombs.
After that incident, Israel and the United States warned their citizens to be alert. The U.S. Embassy said foreign terrorists may have been looking to attack tourist areas in Bangkok and Thai media reported the attacks were aimed at Israeli targets, including the Israeli Embassy.
Thai officials say it is not clear if the two incidents are connected.
On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the violence.
“If this aggression isn’t halted, ultimately it will spread to many other countries,” Netanyahu said in Israel’s parliament Wednesday. He convened his Security Cabinet to discuss terrorism against Israel and “Iran’s involvement in repeated attempts to attack Israeli targets,” his office said.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast called the allegations baseless and said Israel was trying to damage his country’s relations with Thailand and fuel conspiracy theories. Iran has blamed the Jewish state for the recent killings of Iranian atomic scientists.
WASHINGTON: Chinese heir apparent Xi Jinping told US business leaders Wednesday that relations between the two powers were at "a new historical starting point," as he broadened a week-long US charm offensive.
Speaking during a lavish ballroom lunch aimed at wooing the top crust of corporate America, Vice President Xi described Sino-American ties as an "unstoppable river that keeps surging ahead" despite twists and turns.
"It is a course that cannot be stopped or reversed," he said describing ever more intertwined interests. "Chinese-US relations are now at a new historical starting point in the second decade of the 21st century."
Xi is on a high-profile visit to the United States, which many hope will close an acrimonious chapter in relations characterized by mistrust and mudslinging, particularly in the commercial sphere.
As the tectonic plates of global trade have shifted in the last two decades, China and the United States have frequently collided, jutted and bumped against each other, sometimes to damaging effect for both.
With Xi widely tipped to get China's top job next year and Obama in a November re-election battle, Xi's US visit is being seen as a dress rehearsal for what could become the world's most crucial political and economic relationship.
During the trip Xi has worked US constituencies key to the bilateral ties: official Washington, corporate leaders and, later Wednesday, small-town America.
Stops have included the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, Congress, the US-China Business Council and Muscatine, Iowa -- where he visited on an exchange in 1985.
Throughout his trip Xi has received the trappings of a state visit -- even if he is only head of state in waiting.
In a broad-ranging speech Wednesday, Xi told business leaders that ties should now focus on increased understanding, mutual respect for core interests, trade and cooperation in international affairs.
"Over the past 33 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties, the friendship between our two peoples has deepened, mutually beneficial cooperation has expanded and our interests have become increasingly interconnected."
At the luncheon Xi was flanked by a cadre of Chinese Communist Party officials, as well as chief executives from Coca Cola, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Procter & Gamble and Estee Lauder.
Coca Cola CEO Muhtar Kent expressed the cautious optimism felt in the US business community about expanding ties with China.
He described Xi's visit as "another important milestone toward building an enduring and constructive relationship between our two nations."
The Chinese leader largely steered clear of specific policy pronouncements, but stressed the mutual benefits of trade, pointing out that 47 of 50 US states had seen their exports with China grow in the last decade.
Despite this growth many Americans and their Congress angrily accuse Beijing of not playing by the rules.
They accuse China of keeping the value of its currency unfairly low to fuel inexpensive exports, which have catalysed China's headlong dash toward becoming an economic superpower.
From June 2010 Beijing has allowed the yuan to rise 8.5 percent against the dollar, in part because of domestic inflation pressures -- making the yuan an increasingly dubious scapegoat for lopsided trade.
In the last decade trade between the two countries has increased over 275 percent and is now worth half a trillion dollars a year.
But Chinese exports still make up 80 percent of bilateral trade, despite China joining the World Trade Organization a decade ago, leading to accusations of protectionism from US industry.
SINGAPORE : Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said there is no fixed time within which he must call a by-election. Responding to media queries over the Workers' Party's expulsion of its MP for Hougang, Yaw Shin Leong, Mr Lee said an election is a very serious matter and noted that Singapore just had a General Election less than a year ago. Mr Lee said: "Now, the Hougang SMC is vacant, as a result of what Mr Yaw Shin Leong has done, and the way the WP has handled the matter". He said that "the WP has let down the voters of Hougang". On whether a by-election in Hougang will be held, and the timing, Mr Lee said he "will consider the matter carefully". He added that "there are many other issues on the national agenda right now".
SINGAPORE : Singapore's opposition Workers' Party has expelled its Member of Parliament (MP) for Hougang, Yaw Shin Leong, with immediate effect, amid allegations of an extramarital affair.
Mr Yaw had secured a win in the last General Election, where the WP had its best showing.
The decision paves the way for a by-election in Hougang, just nine months after the May elections.
Party Chairman Sylvia Lim said at a media conference on Wednesday that the party believes strongly in transparency and accountability, and expects no less from party members, especially an MP.
She said Mr Yaw has been accused of several indiscretions in his private life.
Ms Lim said Mr Yaw was asked many times to come forward and explain himself to the party but he remained silent.
She said by continuing not to account to the party and the people, especially the residents of Hougang, he has broken the faith, trust and expectations of the party and the people.
The shocking announcement on Wednesday came after weeks of speculation and rumours that Mr Yaw had an alleged extramarital affair with a fellow party member.
Other WP MPs will cover Mr Yaw's duties in Hougang.
Ms Lim said the decision was difficult and painful for the party.
Party leaders said it is only fair that Hougang residents have another opportunity to elect their MP.
Ms Lim said: "There is no doubt that attention has been drawn to the party and we are of course cognizant of that but at the same time, we are also firm in our beliefs about what we expect of our party members and our MPs.
"The action that we have taken today may be no doubt deemed by some to be very drastic, but we feel that this is something necessary for us to do and it is in the public interest for us to do that. And we would like to assure the public that we are serious in our commitment to maintain high standards."
She said the party apologises for having to put Hougang residents through a by-election.
She also assured Hougang residents that they will continue to be served by the party until the by-election is called.
The Meet-the-People sessions in Hougang will continue, with other WP MPs covering the sessions.
The party said it made the decision to expel Mr Yaw during a Central Executive Council meeting on Tuesday night. Mr Yaw's wife was informed of the decision on Wednesday morning as Mr Yaw was uncontactable.
Ms Lim said Mr Yaw was invited to attend the party's Central Executive Council meeting on Tuesday night to discuss the allegations but he did not show up.
Mr Yaw has been a core member of the party leadership for more than 10 years. The party's Secretary-General, Low Thia Khiang, groomed Mr Yaw to helm the Hougang seat at the last General Election.
Mr Low said the decision to expel Mr Yaw was "painful" but stressed that the party has to act so that its MPs can stand tall and take the People's Action Party (PAP) government to account.
Mr Low added that the decision by the Central Executive Council was not unanimous but a "clear majority" voted for the motion to expel Mr Yaw.
Also present at the media conference were Aljunied GRC MP Pritam Singh and Non-Constituency MP Gerald Giam.
This was the first time party leaders spoke openly about the issue.
Things came to a head after more reports of personal indiscretions surfaced about Mr Yaw.
Mr Singh, a member of the Executive Council of the Workers' Party, said: "The party realised that there could be more individuals and we were not in the know of what information was in the hands of the media, who were these women, what are the details, we did not know any of that.
"Our concern was previously there was just one individual, the scope of one individual for Yaw to have come out and accounted himself to the people in a responsible manner, but for more individuals coming to the fore, we did not feel that keeping quiet was an option anymore; the obligation to be upfront to the people, to be upfront to the party, to the voters, took a new turn.
"He continued in his action to remain silent...we do not feel that is in keeping with the standards the Workers' Party expects from its elected MPs."
The party said Mr Yaw still has an avenue to appeal his expulsion.
The party has not decided who it will field for the by-election.
If and when a by-election happens, will be decided by the Prime Minister.
Meanwhile, Desmond Choo, who was a PAP candidate for Hougang during the General Election last year, has not ruled out the possibility of contesting in Hougang should a by-election be called.
Mr Choo currently serves as advisor to the Hougang grassroots organisations.
He lost to Mr Yaw in the last General Election after securing slightly more than a third of the votes.
But Mr Choo did not want to comment on the WP's decision to expel Mr Yaw.
He said: "I have been serving the residents, and I think I have built up a certain bond with them. And I will continue to serve the residents. As for what happens in the by-election, will I be put there as a candidate, I think that I will have the party leadership decide."
Political watcher Zulkifli Baharudin said the WP's move to expel Mr Yaw shows the party holds itself accountable to the public.
Mr Zulkifli said Singaporeans expect their politicians to have clean and responsible values in both public and private life.
He said: "One signal that the WP is sending is that they are here; perhaps they are making a significant compromise in the short term, knowing that they fought very hard to have Hougang as their foothold, and entrusted that to a young member of their leadership.
"And I think they are making a huge sacrifice in this effort, simply because they are clearly focused on the long term and want to get the support of Singaporeans at large."
Chile’s central bank kept its main interest rate unchanged as the economic growth reduced need for an interest rate cut. The Chilean peso was flat versus the US dollar, while rose against the euro.
The Central Bank of Chile decided to keep the benchmark monetary policy interest rate at 5 percent on its last policy meeting. The bank said in the statement:
Domestically, economic activity and domestic demand have tended to outperform forecasts from the latest Monetary Policy Report.
Chile’s economy grew 6.3 percent last year, beating the forecast of 6.2 percent. Policy makers still believe that growth will slow to between 3.75 percent and 4.75 percent this year. Europe, unsurprisingly, is the main foreign downside risk. The central bank wrote:
Internationally, advanced economies are growing slowly. Some output and employment indicators in the United States have shown signs of increased dynamism, while in Europe indicators have worsened. Doubts persist about how problems will be resolved in the Eurozone economies, where fiscal and financial risks remain very high.
USD/CLP stayed at its opening level of 484.7500 as of 1:03 GMT today. At the same time, EUR/CLP slipped from 633.3750 to 632.9650.
The Canadian dollar erased its earlier gains fell today against the US dollar and the Japanese yen as politician of Greece and other European countries argue about the bailout for the Hellenic Republic. The currency maintained its gains versus the euro.
Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said that wealthier eurozone members are “playing with fire” and accused them of attempting to expel Greece from the European Union. Other members of the EU blamed the country for not fulfilling any of the promises that it made to get rescue. The decision about whether Greece would get the bailout was postponed till February 20.
Earlier, the loonie climbed as prices for crude oil increased after Iran stopped exporting the commodity to the United States and the EU. Futures for crude oil rose 0.9 percent to $101.88 per barrel in New York after reaching $102.54. Expanding manufacturing in the USA also helped the Canadian currency, but Europe harmed market sentiment enough to make the loonie reverse its gains.
USD/CAD was up from 0.9987 to 0.9998 as of 23:49 GMT today after it slid to 0.9937. CAD/JPY was down from 78.48 to 78.41, following the advance to 79.01 — the highest since November 1. Meanwhile, EUR/CAD dropped from 1.3113 to 1.3018 before trading at 1.3060.
Australian dollar got a boost in earlier trading as the governor of the People’s Bank of China reassured Europe — and the world — that China is still committed to investing in the euro as an asset. The news provided a little bit of risk appetite in the midst of uncertainty. Aussie is also receiving help from the Reserve Bank of Australia, which continues to show caution about cutting interest rates.
Worries about the eurozone are cropping up again as a Greek debt deal is delayed again. However, PBOC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan expressed his confidence that the eurozone would be able to navigate the trouble, and he reiterated China’s support for the euro. This show of faith helped give the Aussie a bit of a boost — even if it failed to help the euro much against the US dollar.
Another focus has been on the RBA. RBA officials have been reluctant to cut interest rates, and that has proved a positive for the Aussie. That Australia doesn’t feel the need to ease monetary policy is encouraging to many who hope that the economy Down Under will remain somewhat strong. Higher gold prices are also providing a certain amount of support for the Australian dollar.
At 15:37 GMT AUD/USD is up to 1.0726 from the open at 1.0682. EUR/AUD is down to 1.2190 from the open at 1.2281. AUD/JPY is higher at 84.04, up from the open at 83.84.
US dollar is mixed this morning on the Forex market as traders look for direction, and all of the latest news and information is processed. From China to Europe to Zynga, there is plenty to talk about today, and the US dollar is very mixed as a result.
Overnight, China provided some bracing words for Europe, encouraging leaders of the eurozone. Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, expressed confidence in the eurozone and said that China plans to invest more in the region. However, even so, the US dollar is currently higher against the euro.
Additionally, investors in the United States are looking to Zynga, the online game maker. The company recently offered its IPO, and it is very active today, helping propel US stock futures higher. European stocks are also mostly higher, and that is adding to the success of the Great Britain pound against the US dollar right now.
Greenback was higher against the Japanese yen after the Bank of Japan announced that it will expand its easing program but now the greenback is retreating. US dollar is lower against the Canadian dollar on higher oil prices and better stock performances. It will be an interesting day ahead.
At 14:23 GMT EUR/USD is lower at 1.3108, down from the open at 1.3134. GBP/USD is up to 1.5713 from the open at 1.5694. USD/JPY has dropped to 78.3020 from the open at 78.4380. USD/CAD is lower at 0.9954, down from the open at 0.9990.
From The Washington Times comes the story of a boy who enrolled in college at the age of 8 and earned the first of two Associate of Arts degrees at age 9, graduating from East Los Angeles Community College with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. Today, Moshe Kai Cavalin is 14 years old and about to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in math from the University of California, Los Angeles. He also happens to have just published an English version of his first book (originally published in Chinese) called “We Can Do.”
Cavalin is convinced he’s not a genius and that plenty of kids are capable of accomplishing similar academic feats:
“That’s always the question that bothers me,” Cavalin, who turned 14 onValentine’s Day, says when the G-word is raised. “People need to know you don’t really need to be a genius. You just have to work hard and you can accomplish anything.”
And maybe cut out some of the TV.
Although he’s a big fan of Jackie Chan movies, Cavalin says he limits his television time to four hours a week.
Not that he lacks for recreational activities or feels that his parents pressured him into studying constantly. He writes in “We Can Do” of learning to scuba dive, and he loves soccer and martial arts. He used to participate in the latter sport when he was younger, winning trophies for his age group, until his UCLA studies and his writing made things a little too hectic.
Indeed one of the key messages of his book is to stay focused and to not take on any endeavor half-heartedly.
Like Amy Chua’s controversial article about tiger motherhood in The Wall Street Journal, Cavalin’s story raises an important question: Might we be expecting too little from children academically? All people have a profound way of rising to expectations — and history demonstrates that children are capable of more than we give them credit for today. Cavalin’s experience teaches that children can achieve more while also still living childhood to the fullest; he doesn’t sound like the driven child of a tiger mother — just like an open and disciplined kid.
My firsthand experience also suggests public schools might expect too little from students. In middle school, when I was homeschooled, my curriculum made use of the once-standard McGuffey’s readers. In sixth grade, I was required to read Francis Bacon’s “Of Studies.” In high school, when I went to public school, I again encountered an excerpt from Bacon’s classic essay … in a senior-level English class on a practice test for the ACT. Unfortunately, schools have to work around any number of problems that are completely unrelated to education — bureaucratic red tape, for example, or out-of-control family problems that interfere with a child’s ability to concentrate. But the point is a hopeful one: More is possible.
Incidentally, it strikes me that children would be able to handle more mentally if we didn’t so saturate and overwhelm them with what they’re not prepared for emotionally. Intellectual advancement and preserved innocence can go hand-in-hand. Children, like all of us, are subject to the restraints of time and space; the time they spend learning about one subject is time they cannot spend learning about another. How much time do we really want to spend teaching kids about how to avoid obesity, manage their finances, or cope with their as-yet-undiscovered-sexuality when we could stick to the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic?
If a superstar of thrash metal is going to endorse, obviously it’ll be the candidate who compares himself to Richie Cunningham.
Speaking of news, you were a correspondent for MTV during the 1992 presidential election. What’s your take on US politics in 2012?
“I’m just hoping that whatever is in the White House next year is a Republican. I can’t bear to watch what’s happened to our great country. Everybody’s got their head in the sand. Everybody in the industry is like, ‘Oh, Obama’s doing such a great job…’ I don’t think so. Not from what I see.
“Looking at the Republican candidates, I’ve got to tell you, I was floored the other day to see that Mitt Romney’s five boys have a $100 million trust fund. Where does a guy make that much money? So there’s some questions there. And watching Newt Gingrich, I was pretty excited for a while, but now he’s just gone back to being that person that everybody said he was – that angry little man. I still like him, but I don’t think I’d vote for him.
“Ron Paul… you know, I heard somebody say he was like insecticide – 98 percent of it’s inert gases, but it’s the two percent that’s left that will kill you. What that means is that he’ll make total sense for a while, and then he’ll say something so way out that it negates everything else. I like the guy because he knows how to excite the youth of America and fill them in on some things. But when he says that we’re like the Taliban… I’m sorry, Congressman Paul, but I’m nothing like the Taliban.
“Earlier in the election, I was completely oblivious as to who Rick Santorum was, but when the dude went home to be with his daughter when she was sick, that was very commendable. Also, just watching how he hasn’t gotten into doing these horrible, horrible attack ads like Mitt Romney’s done against Newt Gingrich, and then the volume at which Newt has gone back at Romney… You know, I think Santorum has some presidential qualities, and I’m hoping that if it does come down to it, we’ll see a Republican in the White House… and that it’s Rick Santorum.”
I haven’t listened to them since “Countdown to Extinction” (I remember it as more melodic than most metal but not as poppy as Motley Crue), but Dave Weigel — who titles his post on this “Megavest” — notes that Mustaine’s conservative leanings have been more overt in recent recordings, including a rant against the UN on, er, “United Abominations.” It’s not just foreign policy, either: Check out the interview he gave to KIRO in Seattle about gay marriage.
Chris Kornelis: Does his stance on these social issues bother you?
Mustaine: It doesn’t bother me at all.
CK: Do you support gay marriage?
DM: I’m very conservative. So, take it for what it’s worth.
CK: Washington state, just this week, the governor signed gay marriage into law. Do you support gay marriage, or is that something you oppose?
DM: Well, since I’m not gay, the answer to that would be no.
CK: OK. What about for people who are gay?
DM: Since I’m not gay, the answer to that would be no.
CK: Would you support legislation to make marriage between a man and another man legal?
DM: I’m Christian. The answer to that would be no.
He’s the second coming of the Nuge, minus about a thousand machine guns and crossbows. To commemorate the occasion, here’s the first track off of 1990′s “Rust in Peace” — as selected by our own Ed Morrissey. Yes, really. The big E knows his Megadeth well enough to have kicked off his radio show today with this song, advising me that it “makes an awesome intro.” Somewhere out there, my friends, I guarantee you, there’s 20-year-old footage of him thrashing around in a mosh pit. Find it for me.
The economy’s looking up and, thanks to our … unfortunate field of GOP presidential candidates, Republican enthusiasm’s looking down.
This is the fourth national poll in two weeks in which O’s hit 50 percent. Dude, I’m nervous.
The president’s approval rating has edged up three points from last month and is up six points from November. The last time Obama’s approval rating was at 50% or above was last May, as a result of the killing of Osama bin Laden, and it stayed there for about a month before fading…
The survey suggests that the contentious Republican primary season has decreased enthusiasm among Republican voters, virtually erasing the “enthusiasm gap” that promised to provide the ultimate GOP presidential nominee with a major advantage in the fall. In October, 64% of Republicans said that they were extremely or very enthusiastic about voting for president, compared to only 43% of Democratic voters. GOP enthusiasm since that time has tumbled 13 points, to 51%, virtually the same as the Democrats’ level of enthusiasm.
Republicans actually outnumber Democrats in CNN’s sample of registered voters so there’s no obvious reason to suspect the data. The GOP enthusiasm trend (the columns represent “extremely,” “very,” “somewhat,” “not too,” and “not at all” enthusiastic):Back in October, the field was still huge and we were proceeding apace through the “anyone can win” wheel o’ frontrunners. Three months later, when the January poll was taken, Romney had just won New Hampshire (and Iowa, we thought at the time) so the race suddenly felt like a foregone conclusion. A month later the race is unsettled again, but it’s nastier than ever and no one’s thrilled with their options. I wonder what the numbers look like next month if we get another good jobs report and if the vote splits three ways on Super Tuesday.
Beyond that, Ron Brownstein of National Journal noted yesterday that Obama’s numbers head to head against Romney across various demographics are starting to look a lot like his numbers against McCain four years ago, a sign that the disgruntled Hopenchange coalition might be piecing itself back together. Of special note: The One does six points better against Romney among white women voters than he did against McCain in 2008, and bear in mind that Romney is the stronger of the two top Republican candidates among women right now. He leads Santorum in that demographic by nine points, which is nothing new for RS: He lost women in his 2000 Senate victory and got clobbered among women in his landslide defeat to Bob Casey in 2006. Gonna be a lot of gender politics, starting with his old comments about contraception being “harmful to women,” in the general election if he’s the nominee. Romney and Gingrich are perceived as candidates of the rich whereas Santorum is seen as more blue-collar. But even as between Mitt and Newt, there’s a distinction. When tea partiers are asked whether Gingrich favors the rich or the middle class, they split 35/53. (Santorum’s split is 15/65.) If even a majority of core conservative voters thinks one of the GOP’s candidates is biased towards the rich then Team Hopenchange clearly has very fertile populist ground on which to attack him in the general. For further reading on that, I’ll leave you with this Nate Silver piece provocatively titled, “Why Obama Will Embrace the 99 Percent.” In key swing states like Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, and Indiana, there are enough working-class white voters to make a big difference to Obama’s margin against Romney if he can exploit perceptions that Mitt’s in the pocket of the, ahem, “one percent.” Santorum would be much tougher for him to beat on that point — but of course, potentially much easier for him to beat among women. Who’s more electable ultimately?
Update: Meanwhile, Fox News says O is up against everyone in a broad regional poll of swing states. Dude, I’m nervous.
These swing states fall into three regional tiers. The Rocky Mountain tier includes Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. The Rust Belt tier includes Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And the Dixie tier includes North Carolina, Florida and Virginia.
Across these states, Santorum performs about as well as Romney in matchups with the president.
The swing-state voters back Obama over Romney by 8 percentage points and Santorum by 9 points.
Note: Obama does trail in certain individual swing states. In Ohio, Romney leads him by six and Santorum leads him by three.
Update: Even Obama girl seems ready to vote for him again.
They’ve hatched a diabolical plot to support the guy whom few people think is electable over the other guy whom few people think is electable.
Why would we do such a crazy thing? Lots of great reasons!
Republican turnout has sucked, and appears to be getting worse by the contest. Unlike the 2008 Democratic primaries, which helped President Barack Obama and the Democrats to build a national organization, the GOP is an organizational disaster, with waning voter interest. That means that it takes fewer votes to have an impact than if Republican turnout was maxed out.
Several of the contests have produced razor-thin margins of victory. Rick Santorum won Iowa by 34 votes, Mitt Romney “won” Maine by 194 votes. It won’t take many of us to swing contests the way we want them to swing.
The longer this GOP primary drags on, the better the numbers for Team Blue. Not only is President Barack Obama rising in comparison to the clowns in the GOP field, but GOP intensity is down—which would have repercussions all the way down the ballot.
The longer this thing drags out, the more unpopular the Republican presidential pretenders become. Just look at Mitt Romney’s trajectory, which followed Herman Cain’s trajectory, and Newt Gingrich’s trajectory, and Michelle Bachmann’s trajectory, and so on.
Their choice, of course, is Santorum, since he’s easier to demagogue on social issues and more poorly funded than Romney is. The first target: The increasingly important state of Michigan, which has an open primary. Rush pioneered this idea four years ago to drag out the Democratic primary by boosting Hillary when it seemed Obama had the Democratic nomination locked up. It might or might not have helped her; there’s some reason to believe that it did but no way to know for sure since Hillary was viewed as the slightly more conservative candidate head to head with O. She was more overtly hawkish than he was at the time (although that distinction has since faded) and she had the centrist cred Bill earned from welfare reform to make her arguably more appealing to moderates than Obama was. As such, it could be that Republicans were crossing over for her on the merits, because they thought she’d govern more like a third-way Democrat than Obama would if elected. We’ll have the same problem deciphering the results in Michigan if Santorum wins. Revisit the data I posted earlier from the CNN poll; RS is by far a more blue-collar populist candidate than Romney is. If he wins Michigan with help from Democrats, is that simple mischief-making by the left or rural, more socially conservative Democrats responding to a Republican who seems to understand the working class a lot better than Romney does?
Exit question: Why do we have open primaries again, anyway? Is there any reason to believe that the independent voters they attract remain loyal to the party in the general election?
I’m skeptical, especially if you count his Super PAC as part of his campaign. (And who doesn’t?) But the basic logic makes sense. If you depend heavily on a small-ish base of wealthy donors who are capped by law on how much they can give, then you’d better win early to grow that base before they’re all tapped out. If Santorum bumps him off in Michigan and Romney underperforms on Super Tuesday, it suddenly gets much harder for Mitt to lure big money with the promise of access to the eventual nominee.
Romney has proved unable to tap into the emotion-drived small-dollar contributions that helped power Barack Obama in 2008, and which fueled even his more Establishment rival, Hillary Clinton, this time four years ago when she too began to run out of big donors. The result: Republican fundraisers say that despite his success so far, they think Romney is fast approaching a wall, and that he will likely be forced to pay for the campaign out of his own deep pockets…
Over 82 percent of Romney’s haul from individuals in 2011 came in donations greater than $1000 —which doesn’t even include the larger donations to the SuperPAC that supports him, Restore Our Future. And as Rick Santorum stays in the game with a growing pool of small donors — to whom he can return for another $20 or $100 when the millions they’ve given him runs out — Romney’s campaign has launched an intense, late scramble for the cash to fend off his conservative challenger…
Three Republicans who work closely with Romney’s bundlers said they had begun to shift their focus away from the presidential campaign entirely.
“All the low-hanging fruit has been picked,” said a top New York finance industry donor and fundraiser who is currently neutral in the race and described Romney as “a Republican John Kerry running Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”
Follow the link for six different reasons why he’s having trouble. The obligatory caveat: Stories like this are self-fulfilling prophesies insofar as the worse the news gets for Romney, the more skittish his donors are likely to become about ponying up. It’d be easy for mischievous Republicans inclined towards Santorum or Gingrich to plant an extra seed of doubt in the media by pushing an angle like this — which is not to say that’s what’s going on here, but merely that it’s possibility. The big wrinkle in the narrative is that Romney’s donors can, of course, give unlimited amounts to his Super PAC, which is doing most of the heavy lifting for him anyway. His whole campaign is an exercise in making his opponents seem just a little bit worse/less electable than he is, and it’s the Super PAC and its negative ads that are chiefly responsible for doing that. As long as he’s got rich friends willing to give millions to Restore Our Future, he should be okay, and the richer and more generous they are, the fewer of them he needs. In fact, according to the WSJ, Newt’s billionaire backer Sheldon Adelson might end up cutting Romney a check purely in the interest of stopping Santorum. Evidently he thinks RS is too socially conservative; doubtless many libertarian-minded conservatives agree. If Santorum cements his status as a genuine threat for the nomination with a few more wins, Romney should get some new support from those voters plus donors who fear that RS can’t win the general election and needs to be stopped now. (See, e.g., the conservative media reaction to Gingrich after he won South Carolina.) In other words, the newly anointed “Not Romney” will turn Mitt into “Not Santorum” and then we’ll have a fight all the way to Tampa over which of these two candidates Republicans dislike least. Just like we’ve always dreamed.
Here’s Romney on “Fox & Friends” this morning feigning puzzlement as to why Palin would doubt his true-blue conservatism. “Living life tends to make you more conservative,” he says. Philip Klein’s response: “So he started ‘living’ at age 58?” Click the image to watch.
How does an underfunded candidate defend himself against a big onslaught of negative attack ads? Newt Gingrich tried leveraging the media attention received from going nasty and personal in response and ended up flaming out in Florida and a string of caucuses in the last three weeks. Rick Santorum has decided to use humor to just attack the attack in a new ad running called “Rombo”:
Up in OH and MI, Santorum using humor to parry Romney attacks posted at 9:15 am on February 15, 2012 by Ed Morrissey
How does an underfunded candidate defend himself against a big onslaught of negative attack ads? Newt Gingrich tried leveraging the media attention received from going nasty and personal in response and ended up flaming out in Florida and a string of caucuses in the last three weeks. Rick Santorum has decided to use humor to just attack the attack in a new ad running called “Rombo”:
In its morning e-mail blast, Politico reports on the strategy, which purposefully avoids what it sees as the mistakes made by Gingrich in January:
Campaign leaders feel that Newt Gingrich’s initial dilly-dallying in Iowa after the Romney machine started attacking in early December proved fatal. They understand their man’s favorables will come down to earth as negative ads run, but they’re determined not to allow the frontrunner to define the former Pennsylvania senator without a fight. They decided that going funny, instead of nasty, would engender more goodwill from voters who think Romney went into the gutter to sideline Gingrich after South Carolina. Santorum plans to stay as positive as possible on the stump. Campaign officials will point out at every opportunity that Romney is the candidate being overwhelmingly backed by Washington lobbyists. The main talking point in coming earned media will be that Romney is attacking because he does not have a good record to run on.
Voters may well appreciate the lighter touch, especially after the campaigning seen so far since the race turned serious in December. Romney already has seen his favorables decline during his internecine fight with Gingrich. “Rombo” makes those attacks an issue itself for the campaign, and it might inoculate Santorum from the inevitable wave of ads coming in states like Michigan and Ohio.
Speaking of which, Santorum has taken leads in both states, although narrowly. Rasmussen polled Michigan over the weekend and found Santorum up by three:
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, following his wins last week in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, has now jumped ahead of Mitt Romney in Michigan’s Republican Primary race.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary Voters in Michigan shows Santorum with 35% of the vote to Romney’s 32%. Well behind are Texas Congressman Ron Paul with 13% and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 11%. Only one percent (1%) prefers some other candidate in the race, while eight percent (8%) are undecided.
The latest survey marks a significant 18-point boost for Santorum in the Wolverine State where he trailed Romney 38% to 17% less than two weeks ago just after the former Massachusetts governor’s big win in the Florida GOP Primary. Gingrich has dropped 12 points from 23% support, while Paul earned 14% of the vote at that time. The Michigan Republican Primary is on February 28.
Santorum is the only candidate who leads the national GOP front-runner when the race is down to a two-man face-off in Michigan. Santorum bests Romney 49% to 37% in a one-on-one matchup, while Romney leads Gingrich 51% to 32% and Paul 63% to 25%.
Quinnipiac shows Santorum up by seven points in Ohio, a big change in their polling series in the state. Those negative ads have taken their toll:
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum shoots to the top among Ohio likely Republican primary voters with 36 percent, followed by 29 percent for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich runs third with 20 percent, while Texas U.S. Rep. Ron Paul gets 9 percent. …
“For the first time, numerically more voters in Ohio view Romney unfavorably than favorably. His pattern in the earlier primary states has been to use his money advantage to run a large number of negative ads on his biggest challenger. But doing so now risks further increasing Romney’s own unfavorables as a side effect of throwing the mud himself. Yet, Romney may feel the need to raise questions about the lesser-known Santorum in the eyes of GOP voters.”
Romney gets a slightly negative 37 – 40 percent favorability rating from all Ohio registered voters, with a 61 – 25 percent positive from likely Republican primary voters. Santorum, whose overall favorability was 25 – 25 percent in January, is now 35 – 22 percent favorable among all voters and 62 – 7 percent favorable among likely Republican primary voters.
However, Santorum’s new frontrunner status means a lot more scrutiny — and not just from this point forward. Michael Scherer at Time goes back to an October interview with evangelical blog Caffeinated Thoughts, and finds Santorum pledging to speak out against contraception as President:
One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, “Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.”
It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also [inaudible], but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act. And if you can take one part out that’s not for purposes of procreation, that’s not one of the reasons, then you diminish this very special bond between men and women, so why can’t you take other parts of that out? And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure. And that’s certainly a part of it—and it’s an important part of it, don’t get me wrong—but there’s a lot of things we do for pleasure, and this is special, and it needs to be seen as special.
Again, I know most Presidents don’t talk about those things, and maybe people don’t want us to talk about those things, but I think it’s important that you are who you are. I’m not running for preacher. I’m not running for pastor, but these are important public policy issues. These how profound impact on the health of our society.
That won’t win over too many voters who wouldn’t be voting Republican anyway, needless to say. However, in practice, Santorum has avoided making any pronouncements on contraception. Even in the current debate over the Obama-HHS mandate for employers’ insurance to fully cover all contraception costs, Santorum has emphatically refused to address it as a social-conservative issue; in our interview from CPAC, Santorum tells us explicitly that “it is not a social conservative issue, it is a religious liberty issue.” He didn’t take the bait in the much-derided ABC debate in New Hampshire, either, when George Stephanopoulos insisted on spending more than ten minutes on the topic.
Still, it’s not helpful at all, and there may be more sound bites like this that will emerge over the next couple of weeks. Expect this to be a question raised in the next debate, especially in the context of the debate over the mandate — and we’ll have to see how Santorum handles it then.
Part of the reason Republicans would be better served to stick to principle is that they rarely, if ever, manage to out-maneuver Democrats at the political game. No better evidence of this exists than the manner in which the president continues to school GOPers on the payroll tax cut extension.
The payroll tax cut is one tax cut progressives can really get behind. Why? Even workers among the nearly half of Americans who pay “no taxes” still contribute to Social Security. It’s the one way they’re still somewhat invested; lessen or eliminate that contribution and they have no reason to worry about the insolvency of Social Security. After all, they’re not paying for it in any way — not even through income taxes that go to the general fund that will pay out benefits when Social Security goes bust. In other words, the payroll tax cut extension — and, what progressives probably ultimately want, the elimination of the payroll tax — makes redistribution of wealth that much easier.
So, the president started carping for the payroll tax cut extension — and Republicans, many of whom have pledged not to raise taxes, had to support the cut. They should have taken the time to explain that “the payroll tax cut” is not a proper tax cut, but they lost the rhetorical battle before they even began to fight the policy battle.
Initially, they at least insisted that the cut be paid for — but, eventually, they caved on even that, proposing a clean payroll tax cut extension. Theoretically, that was supposed to force Democrats to temporarily forgo their obsession with other types of spending. Republicans would pass the clean extension and Democrats would have to either go along with it or allow Republicans to accuse them of hiking taxes. Later, they’d all take up the issues of unemployment insurance and the Medicare doc fix — but the three issues would no longer have to be bundled into one.
It doesn’t look like that’s what’s going to happen, though:
Congressional negotiators reached a tentative agreement Tuesday to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits while avoiding a fee cut for Medicare doctors, according to multiple legislators and aides. …
The agreement covers all three measures — the payroll tax cut, the unemployment benefits extension, and the so-called “doc fix” — for the rest of 2012. The latter two measures — costing a combined $50 billion — will be paid for, aides said.
Possible funding sources to pay for the latter two measures include savings from broadband spectrum sales of about $13 billion, increased pension contributions by federal employees of about $16 billion, and cuts to Medicare hospital and specialist fees that would not affect patients, according to the congressional aides.
Under the terms of the deal, the maximum time an unemployed person can receive benefits will drop from 99 to 73 weeks, according to a GOP aide and a Democratic aide close to the discussions. The maximum length of time for people in states with an average unemployment rate will drop to 63 weeks.
Certainly, I understand why Republicans would rather not debate the payroll tax cut extension over and over again: Given the president’s framing of the extension as “a middle class tax cut,” it doesn’t play well for Republicans to oppose it. The answer, though, would have been to reframe the issue, not to allow the president to drag them into nonsensical battles they’re destined to lose. When the president wants the people’s support, he takes his case to them. Congress is poised to do that even more effectively than he does; the president can’t be all across the country at one time, but the GOP majority in Congress can.
Once again, Republicans should have stuck to principle.
In case you missed this video, which came out a few days ago, I’m reposting it here. You might remember how enthusiastic I was about Bill Whittle’s “Vote Pump” vid; this is just as refreshing.
Video: Why conservatives suck posted at 6:03 pm on February 15, 2012 by Tina Korbe
In case you missed this video, which came out a few days ago, I’m reposting it here. You might remember how enthusiastic I was about Bill Whittle’s “Vote Pump” vid; this is just as refreshing.
My favorite quote comes at the end: “Conservatives never claim that our own behavior is the standard, only that a standard for good behavior exists — and that sucks more than anything.” It does, doesn’t it? I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wake up some days and wish I were a moral relativist. Then, I remember relativism doesn’t deliver the freedom — or even the fun — it promises; the days I deny right and wrong are the days I’m a slave to my impulses and horribly, horribly … bored. Marc Barnes explains why:
Contrary to popular belief, the problem with moral relativism is not that it allows far too much fun and annoys the hell out of the Puritans. If it were, it might be a tempting worldview, this whole what’s-wrong-for-you-ain’t-wrong-for-me frolic. No, the problem with moral relativism is that it takes the fun out of everything, and makes the world hellishly Puritanical.
There are two ways to ruin a game. The first to add too many rules, and the second is too eliminate all of them. If a man were to sit me down for a one-legged, blindfolded game of chess in which pieces could only be moved according to the fibonacci sequence, and the sides were switched every 17 moves, I might play a few moves before proposing we watch cat videos instead. Worse though, would be if a man were to sit me down at a chessboard and say, “Let’s you and I do whatever we like. What’s right for you isn’t necessarily right for me.”
I don’t think I’d wait for the inevitable juggling of chess pieces. I’d run straight to cat videos, no hesitation. The most limiting cage in existence is woven by the lack of limitations, and it seems a rather obvious fact that the eradication of rules can only lead to the eradication of the game itself.
And yet we live in a world in which the current fad is the absence of rules. This — my good-looking individuals — is a very boring fad. It cannot come from a mind with a good sense of the joy, beauty and fun of life. Such a mind would never be so miserly as to ruin a child’s game. No, it’s the moral relativists sucking the fun out of life, the fun of sin as much as the fun of virtue.
So, sure, it sucks to be the standard-bearers. Would we rather have no standards? Talk about hell on earth.
After at least one friend (ahem, Jazz Shaw!) accused me of taking an unfair approach to the president yesterday, I thought I’d say a few kind words about the leader of the free world today. Jazz said my post about the POTUS’ Valentine’s Day advice did Obama an injustice. After all, the president didn’t actually tell guys to “go big” beyond what they can afford; he just said to “go big.” When you really think about that advice, it’s quite sweet. I just couldn’t help drawing a connection between Obama’s advice and the way he “goes big” every day as president.
At any rate, today, I unreservedly agree with the president’s assessment of New York Knicks phenomenon, Jeremy Lin, who has scored more points in his first six career starts than any player since the merger of the NBA and the ABA. The president is impressed, and I say the president’s appreciation of athleticism speaks well of the president:
Lin drained a three-point shot with half a second left to propel the Knicks to a 90-87 win over the Toronto Raptors Tuesday night. The undrafted Harvard point guard was living on his brother’s couch and fighting for a roster spot just two weeks ago, but after a spate of injuries gave him an opportunity for playing time, the Palo Alto native took the league by storm. The Knicks are undefeated since he began starting for the team, and President Obama – who continues to regularly play pickup basketball games with friends – is impressed.
“It’s just a great story, and the President was saying as much this morning. It’s obviously terrific for the New York Knicks, but it’s the kind of sports story that transcends the sport itself,” Carney said.
Carney did not mention whether the president had reached out to the rising star, although declared Obama “very impressed and fully up to speed.”
Excellence in any realm is inspiring. Even though superiority in one area of life frequently leads to imbalance in another (why did Tiger Woods have to spoil the “proof” I thought he offered that it’s possible to be the very best professionally and personally?) — athletes at the top of their game are always a reminder to strive for more. “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
Exit question: Is it fair to compare Jeremy Lin to Tim Tebow?
If you don’t know what this is about, Univision’s Tumblr will catch you up more quickly than I can explain. Like Ace, I wonder what the breakdown is percentage-wise between people who are genuinely offended by what Messina said, people who are ginning up indignation because they want to watch a ruthless Democratic partisan hack squirm (this is the guy who promised the White House would “punch back twice as hard” during the 2009 health-care townhall uproar), and people who calculate that if we rub liberals’ faces in a pile of shinola every time one of them says something that’s insensitive, they’ll be more circumspect in demagoging conservatives when one of us does. If you’re in group three, you’re kidding yourself: This line of attack is essential to the left’s core argument that conservative impulses not only produce ineffective or damaging policies but are always, always malignant in origin. It’s one thing to do it as payback, but don’t expect anything to change. Ever.
The Hispanic Leadership Network is in group one.
“The fact that the campaign manager of President Obama’s reelection campaign thinks it’s appropriate to disseminate insulting jokes about the Hispanic community is a perfect example of the kind of empty rhetoric that characterizes this White House’s so-called outreach to Latinos. We demand that Mr. Messina immediately apologize and we ask that President Obama disavow his campaign manager’s ridiculous statement. Liberals are always trying to put Hispanics in a box. In typical fashion, when liberals cannot speak substantively to the top issues facing our community, they resort to name calling…
“The facts remain the same, and they are no laughing matter. President Obama broke his campaign promises to the Hispanic community on jobs and immigration. Our community is suffering from over 11% unemployment rate. In addition, President Obama has deported more immigrants than any other U.S. president in history. When confronted with his record, this President has no standing with Hispanic voters across our country.”
I understand the objection to ethnic stereotypes that involve food — they pigeonhole complex people as provincial and narrow-minded — but Ace’s point about the double standard in the reaction to Messina’s tweet is better. How come this guy making a dumb joke associating Latinos with tacos is a scandal while the captain of the good ship Hopenchange circulating a dumb joke associating Latinos with chimichangas is good clean liberal fun? Is there some sort of spectrum of Latino cuisine in which tacos are offensive but chimichangas are “tolerant”? Does it have to do with the condiments involved in each dish? Both sides should hash this out now, because eventually some dopey pol’s going to make a crack about burritos and none of us will know how to react.
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