Jennifer Rubin posts on something that’s a truly significant moment: The great Sally Quinn recants her position on Sarah Palin.

Quinn had been one of Palin’s biggest critics in the days leading up to her speech (read her column here). But yesterday in an interview with Bill O’Reilly, she declared: “I was wrong about her.”

I thought that she was amazing. in her speech. She was funny and smart and poised and confident. She gave a great speech, beautifully delivered. I think she is going to be a formidable opponent. all of that I think is — I was wrong about her. and I didn’t know anything about her. I probably didn’t know any more than John McCain did a few days before he picked her.

Sally Quinn deserves credit for being far more honest than most of her media colleagues - she’ll actually admit she doesn’t know everything. Of course, there’s no evidence that McCain himself hadn’t known this stuff in advance, as Jen points out. But I think there’s something more here: I think a woman like Quinn is a perfect example of the sort of feminist most likely to be moved by Palin’s 21st century subtext of feminine empowerment, and subtle rejection of the vestiges of sixties-era emasculating uber-feminism.

Where Hillary embraced the sixties’ sexual revolution view of womanhood, Palin rejects much of it - it doesn’t take a village to raise her children, she and her guy can do it themselves - but in so doing, doesn’t lose any of the toughness or confidence that she needs to be a leader. This is the sort of thing, combined with great natural charm and humor (she can smile as she twists the knife) that Quinn finds so admirable.

Kudos to Quinn for admitting her error. Now if only the rest of the media was so honest.

originally posted at redstate

In case you hadn’t been reading us already. I’ll be crossposting everything shortly.

“My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We’ve got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year – [my campaign has] a budget of about three times that just for the month.”

“This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word “victory” except when he’s talking about his own campaign. But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed … when the roar of the crowd fades away … when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot - what exactly is our opponent’s plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he’s done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger … take more of your money … give you more orders from Washington … and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world. America needs more energy … our opponent is against producing it.”

A week ago, from far and wide, the followers came to the mountaintop to glimpse Barack Obama in his moment of glory. And the New Adonis did not disappoint.

The event was an act of soaring political grandeur, inspiring the devoted flock to call out in hallelujahs. Yet in the speech itself, try and find it you may, but there was no phrase particularly memorable, no quotable line.

Do not hold that against his speech. It is not what Obama said that mattered.

The lasting image of Obama’s speech will be the spectacle itself: a Super Bowl halftime show without a game score to go with it (unless it is New Democrats 0, Neo-Old Democrats 1). No one is prompted to such an equivalent force of emotion, the tears of joy, at the idea of President McCain. At least, no sane person. But sanity itself is an act of rebellion in a civic universe where the political pageantry surrounding a man who has accomplished such meager political crumbs and done so little in life is enough – more than enough – to carry a candidacy based on the unassailable purity and goodness and untapped power of that one man all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania.

What Sarah Palin came the Twin Cities to say tonight mattered. It mattered because it proved she was not merely chosen for her gender, for her looks, for her style, or for the historic mark she represents for the Republican Party. She was chosen because of her beliefs - because she’s taken on the hordes of corrupt bureaucrats and pork swilling politicians, even those in her own party, to achieve what she believes is right. It’s because on the most crucial test for any politician - will you stand up, despite all the forces arrayed against you, for what you believe to be right? - Sarah Palin passed, and Barack Obama has that nagging Incomplete.

When has Barack Obama taken an arrow from his own party for anything he believed in? When has he decided that he would act, with bravery and courage, staking out a tough decision that he believed to be right, against the wishes of the old political masters of his party? When has he broken with the leftist base, who today screams with all their might that this woman is not fit to lead even as she governs a state budget and an employee base that dwarfs anything Obama has run, that her family is fair game because she is vile, that her place is the home and not the campaign trail, and cannot possibly be a mother and a political leader?

Obama has no lack of a certain kind of courage – give him that. It takes bravado of a sort to declare that you deserve the credit for so many things in the state senate, in a biopic video so short that it cannot find space to mention Columbia or Harvard Law, where you had no hand in the legislation, and most often voted “present.” It is courage of a sort to take a file photo of yourself standing alongside Dick Lugar as an indication that you, through sheer force of will and over the objections of the warmongering right, ended the expansion of nuclear weapons. It is a form of boldness, yes, to declare in one instant that John McCain is a man to be respected and honored, and in the next contend that this man – who defended the Democratic nominee in 2004 against all attacks, even accurate ones – has committed a grave insult against all in the arena by declaring, old war hero that he is, that he will put his country first.

That man in the arena presented himself the kind of savior America needs, after all of his promises, declaring his ascendant “humility.” He read the word off the teleprompter carefully, as if using his mouth in a way it was not used to. Humility. Yes, the humility that promises on the one hand to create massive corporate loopholes to encourage artificially-created jobs, then on the other to pay for them by closing massive corporate loopholes. The humility that swears in the one instant to lessen costs, and in the next to require vast sums of money from corporations to a degree that would drive any sane organization from our shores. The humility that promises to cut taxes, even for people who do not pay taxes, and pay for them by going line by line through the federal budget and cutting out the treasured programs managed and cared for by Democrats in the bureaucracy since the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and defended by their allies in the Congress, with but the stroke of a pen.

And this is the man - humble, humble Barack, who has never cut one program, who has never shrunk one agency, who has never fired one bureaucrat - who says that Sarah Palin is too raw and naive.

One wonders which reporter will be brave enough to ask which major program he will cut first. He had, before people started paying attention to his campaign, mentioned NASA as a possible plum target – creating a sucking sound of irony, considering the prominent placement of the returning astronauts in his campaign video…but such needling questions are for after an election, not before.

Barack Obama came to Denver to give a Democrat speech. It may eventually be remembered as the apotheosis of a conventional Democrat speech: the images taken from places he did not live, jobs he did not work, wars he did not fight in, to connect with the broadest possible audience of people. It could have been given, nearly all of it, by John Edwards, man of the milltown – before he ceased to exist – or by Hillary Clinton, the original blue collar warrior from Chicago. It was a speech for Democrats, and delivered to Democrats – and hence the lack of the true outline that makes for powerful remarks. Like the State of the Union speeches given by the eloquent yet fickle President Clinton, it is assumed that this laundry list, a litany of campaign promises that merge together into a mushy feeling of warmth and contentment, would be met with glorious clamor, as if proceeding from the mouth of a god. And they were.

Sarah Palin did not come to speak as a god. Her words proceed not from the bowels of Olympus, but the heart of the enduring American spirit - the driving force that calls out from the rough frontier for young men and women to go West, and ever West. It asserts the worth of the seekers, the pioneers, and all those who are ever unsatisfied with the limits of the status quo - that things are as they ever will be, and you should accept it, and move on. She speaks to those who heed the call to carve out a spot of land and make it your own, to build a good home, to raise a good family, and to be ready, should they ever call for you, to defend the freedoms that made all this possible - to defend them with your all. This is an ordinary action - but in the course of doing it, it can become extraordinary.

What Sarah Palin said tonight matters. She asks you not to vote for her because of what she claims to be, but because of what she is - because of the principles that undergird her, that motivate her, that made her challenge the old guard in her own party and the bureaucrats in others - and now, to take on the self-proclaimed Arbiter of Change. What she said tonight shows that underneath her pleasant exterior and her mother’s smile is a sharp, talented executive - one who knows how to throw a punch, and how to make change a reality, not a promise. She is tough - she is a fighter - and she is not about to blink.

“Yes, I am a woman,” she says. “And I am ready.”

It was not what Obama said that mattered. Those were words – just words. He shined in his moment of beauty, his message delivered with the Chestertonian clarity of the absurd.

“No, I am not a man,” his speech declared, “I am a cause.”

And so, as the man has declared it, he is.

originally posted at redstate

Josh Trevino, Redstate co-founder, encounters President Roosevelt.

“Colonel Roosevelt at your service, sir!” “Colonel Roosevelt, lovely to meet you.” “And where are you from, young man?” “I’m from Texas, Colonel Roosevelt.” “Texas! Why, I trained my Rough Riders at Fort Sam Houston!” “You certainly did, Colonel!” “And have you had a bully time at this convention?” “Except for the protestors, yes.” “Those anarchists! You know they did in our great President McKinley.” “Ah yes — the dastardly Mr Czolgosz.” “Indeed, sir! And they tried to get me in Buffalo some years later!”

And thus for some time. Needless to say, he’s a McCain man.

Follow the link for the inspiring photographic evidence.

Bully.

It’s finally arrived.

Eight sports: Fantasy Football. Baseball. Basketball. Hockey. NASCAR. Golf. NCAA Football Pickem. March Madness.

Ten players: Tom, Emily, Jeff, Ellis, Brad, Kevin, Chris, Leon, Andy (the pro), and me.

One league: The Ultimate Fantasy Sports League.

Yeah, we know.  It’s crazy.  But we’re doing it.

Because this is America. And we can.

(Originally posted in December of 2002 - It’s Hall of Fame induction time, and it reminded me.)

My goal is not only to end a career but to be launched into a future that produces a light and carries out the purpose of God. With all this great joy, something in my heart has always said, ‘Is that it?’ You have given me a great platform and a great community to do what I believe … to change the world for all that is good, right and Godly.

How’s that for an exit quote? Darrell Green’s last game was a rush of emotional and sometimes bizarre plays,  as the classiest guy around suited up for the last time. The memories of reporters and fans filled the day, and the end to the Cowboy’s 10-game winning streak was just icing on the cake. The Skins even denied Emmitt Smith the measly 38 yards he needed for another consecutive thousand yard season. He rushed 18 times for a total of 13 yards. 13 freaking yards!

Wilbon says it best: “I want to be like Darrell Green when I grow up.” Not the player - but the man.

My latest oped in The Washington Times seems to be suffering from a CMS-based problem that cuts off the first sentence. Thankfully, if you got the paper on Monday, you know what it says. But in case you didn’t, here’s the lede:

The news last week that Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor had been contacted for vetting purposes by the Vice Presidential selection committee of John McCain’s campaign was met with one of two reactions: a whispered “now that would be interesting,” from conservatives who are quite familiar with Rep. Cantor’s history and capabilities – and from all other parties, the sound of one giant cacophonous “Who?”

Yet while Cantor is not the household name among Republicans of other potential veep choices, such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, in many ways choosing the young Virginian would be in keeping with McCain’s unique style of principled risk-taking, a throwback to his maverick origins, and one that might just cinch the election in November for the GOP.

Since I wrote my column, an initial attack on Cantor from the Democratic National Committee has been released. Oddly, for such a brief attack, the word “Jewish” appears five times, including the line “Both Abramoff and Cantor are Jewish.” That’s apparently the best they can do.

Read the rest of the oped here.

This is, as the alcoholics refer to it, a moment of clarity. From now on, Barack Obama’s Democrats cannot complain when we refer to them as “pro-abortion.”

Even as Barack Obama claims to welcome a position of moderation on the difficult moral question of abortion, the Democratic Party has moved today under his leadership to fully embrace the Culture of Death. The newly announced Democratic Platform has tossed the old language of “safe, legal, and rare” over the side, finally rejecting the idea that abortion is a social ill.

No longer do Democrats ask that “women not have abortions unless they absolutely must.” They are reclaiming the moral imperative for the goodness of destruction. And they will not be ashamed to demand what is rightfully theirs.

For years, the merchants of abortion have struggled with the dichotomy of their political circumstance. While triumphant at the Supreme Court level, the pro-abortion movement has had difficulty convincing enough people that being “pro-abortion” is not a bad thing…in fact, many of them argue, that it has social benefits, decreasing the number of unwanted pregnancies, decreasing poverty, and perhaps, as the Freakonomics folks argued, decreasing crime.

Slate’s Will Saletan – himself a pro-choice author who argues in his book Bearing Right that conservatives have “won” the abortion wars by establishing in the minds of the public that 1) abortion is a social ill that should be avoided, and 2) no government or taxpayer funds should therefore go to support it – has confronted this split personality on more than one occasion:

Friday morning, leaders of pro-choice and feminist groups gathered at the Center for American Progress to debate the movement’s future. One of the panelists reported that the latest annual tally of abortions in this country was 1.295 million. The most recent comparative numbers, detailed in an article I brought to the meeting, indicated that our abortion rate exceeds that of every Western European nation. “Raise your hand if you think that number is too high,” the conference moderator told the 50 people in the room.I saw one hand go up. The woman next to me said she saw another. The two hand-raisers used to work for pro-choice groups but no longer do.

These leaders of the pro-abortion movement cannot accept, as most of America and Saletan do, that the act of abortion be considered “bad” – a necessary evil, in other words. They recoil when he uses the word, and react as strongly to the idea of “responsibility.”

I knew I’d get flak for using the word “bad.” But I was amazed at the group’s reaction to the word “responsibility,” which was the subject of the next panel. “Responsibility is to me a code word that has a lot of racial and class … implications,” said one participant. “I don’t like the word ‘responsibility,’ ” said another. “I don’t want to talk about responsibility unless we’re talking about the government taking responsibility,” said a third. Hoping to bring the discussion back to earth, the moderator suggested, “Is there a way for us to reclaim the idea of responsibility?” The answer was a chorus of rejection, punctuated by a “No way!” She retreated apologetically.

The new Democratic Platform is a firm reclaiming of the idea that abortion cannot be “bad,” that it never is anything but good and right and responsible. And in taking this step, Barack Obama’s Democrats have embraced an idea not just at odds with everything we know to be morally right, but at odds with what the rising generation of Americans believe to be morally right.

The Wall Street Journal headline on May 4, 2006 read: “Support for Roe v. Wade Hits New Low, Poll Shows.” The article details the latest findings with medical detachment:

“U.S. support for Roe v. Wade is at its lowest level in decades, according to a new Harris poll…The latest telephone survey of 1,016 adults indicates Roe v. Wade is supported by a slim 49% to 47% plurality, compared with 52% who favored the decision in 2005 and 57% in 1998…40% of those polled favor laws that would make it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion, while another 40% say no change should be made to existing abortion laws, and 15% favor laws that would make it easier to get an abortion.”

According to Harris, the percentage of Americans who support abortion on demand—that is, the current law, which gives the right to obtain an abortion under any circumstance—has remained at a steady 24% for the past decade. That is the plateau of support that the abortion defenders turn to – and it is likely to be the only portion that will support the idea that abortion is a moral good.

The key to this growing sentiment against abortion on demand is the changing attitudes of young people, who view abortion not as a right to defend, but as a nagging socially disturbing activity, a relic of the days before the pill. In 2003, a poll by CBS News and the New York Times found that Americans between 18 and 29 had drastically decreased their support for the general availability of abortion from the respondents a decade earlier—a margin that fell from 48% to 39%. And a UCLA study of college freshman at 437 universities found a similar dropoff—54% of the teenagers supported legalized abortion, versus 67% in 1993.

In April of 2007, the Polling Company released a comprehensive survey which found that, given a set of six different options—“abortion should be illegal, illegal with an exception for the life of the mother, illegal with that exception and an exception for rape and incest, legal for any reason in the first trimester, legal for any reason in the first and second trimester, and legal for any reason throughout pregnancy”—a full 54 percent choose the three generally pro-life options, and 41 percent the three pro-choice ones. A mere 12 percent supported the current legal status, the most extreme position. The results are not surprising—in fact, they are virtually identical to those of a Wirthlin poll from November 2004. But there was something more: Young adults (18-34), and especially young women, were more likely than any of the other demographic groups to choose the pro-life options.

Even Hollywood is getting into the new anti-abortion rhythm – films like Juno and Knocked Up reject the decision for abortion – not ought of a deeply held moral sentiment, but out of the basic, ingrained belief that the decision for death is wrong. We’ve come a long way from Fast Times at Ridgmont High. These movies aren’t pro-life because of faith – they’re pro-life because being pro-death is so 1973.

Taken together, the trend is a shocking one – or, as the Times described it in their 2003 headline: “Surprise, Mom – I’m Anti-Abortion.”

In 2004, Liza Mundy described the difficulty of responding to a Newsweek article on new pregnancy technology, acknowledging that “[a]n atmosphere in which pregnant women happily scrapbook those early ultrasounds—have created a real image problem for the pro-choice movement.”

As Kirsten Moore, the president of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, told Mundy: the piece “kind of prompted us to realize, oh my God, our movement’s messages suck.”

The response:

“Consultants were called in, who urged abortion rights groups to ‘reframe the debate’ and ‘take back’ words like ‘baby’ and ‘mother.’”

But paid consultants can do little to change the out-of-touch nature of the pro-choice movement, and “reclaiming” words is very difficult when there was never any real ownership of them. Through foolishness, abrasive tactics, and a message that is increasingly weakened by the expansion of scientific knowledge, the abortion marketers are losing the next generation of American voters.

Essentially, a plurality of Americans now hold the Bob Dole position – that abortion in the case of rape, incest, deformity, or risks to the life of the mother ought to be protected, and that abortion rights as they currently stand are far too liberal. This is a position that is borne out by the polling data, which Ramesh Ponnuru describes here:

Twice in three days—in Slate and the New York Times —I have run across the claim that 75 percent of the public favors legal abortion. That seems incredibly high. The source for the Times claim, and the apparent source for Slate too, is a CBS/NYT poll that is currently at the top of the Polling Report’s abortion page. The question asked is whether abortion should be “generally available,” “available. . . under stricter limits,” or “not permitted.” The latest results: 39, 37, and 21. You can spin that to mean that 76 percent of the public thinks that abortion should be “available,” or that 58 percent of the public wants “stricter limits.” Or you can conclude that the poll is not terribly well designed.

More on the numbers here. The only way the abortion proponents can achieve a lasting political majority is by embracing the “safe, legal, and rare” triumvirate – by convincing enough people in that 37 percentile who believe abortion to be nasty but necessary in cases of rape and incest to go along with the idea that it ought to be an unlimited legal right. They have done this for most of the past two decades.

Now, Barack Obama’s Democrats are rejecting this idea and embracing the zealotry of their most pro-abortion constituency. They affirm the goodness, the rightness of their destruction. They insist: “We deserve to kill our babies without being ashamed – you will not just tolerate our decision as legally protected; you will accept it as morally right.”

Of note is the cast of characters who influenced this decision, which includes one Doug Kmiec.

The Brody File is told that people like Pastor Joel Hunter, (registered Republican) Jim Wallis, (President of Sojourners) Pastor Tony Campolo and conservative Catholic legal scholar Doug Kmiec all helped in the drafting of this new language. The Obama campaign has obviously been involved quite a bit too.

It’s a fitting cast, of course. Last night, in an appearance on The O’Reilly Factor, former Reagan appointee Prof. Kmiec reiterated his belief that Obama is a candidate who will emulate the Gipper (?) in reaching out to all political sides on the issues, and finding “common ground” with those who do not share his views.

Kmiec, the most prominent of the apparently mythical Obamacons, has infamously argued that Obama is secretly open to the pro-life viewpoint, that he is a moderate on the issue – even as outlets like the New Republic advance the bizarre theory that John McCain is a “pro-life zealot.” Of course, when Doug Kmiec speaks to Barack Obama about abortion and finds common ground, it appears that Obama primarily leans on the common ground that both of the people in the conversation adore him.

Indeed, it has become clear in recent weeks that it was Obama who lied repeatedly about the most important votes he’s ever made on the abortion issue, votes that put him in the most extreme camp of all: favoring the abandonment and death of born victims who survive the horrors of abortion and emerge from the womb alive.

Obama’s cover story had been that the bill did not include protections to prevent the anti-infanticide measure, targeted at an Illinois hospital (named, in one of those little ironies which make your heart break, Christ Hospital) which was repeatedly engaging in the activity, from affecting legally protected abortions. But in fact, the bill DID include this protection. Obama voted for them, and they were added to the measure by a unanimous vote in committee, mere minutes before he voted against passage and killed the bill to defend the young, helpless survivors of their mother’s attempts at destruction.

Documents obtained by NRLC now demonstrate conclusively that Obama’s entire defense is based on a brazen factual misrepresentation.The documents prove that in March 2003, state Senator Obama, then the chairman of the Illinois state Senate Health and Human Services Committee, presided over a committee meeting in which the “neutrality clause” (copied verbatim from the federal bill) was added to the state BAIPA, with Obama voting in support of adding the revision. Yet, immediately afterwards, Obama led the committee Democrats in voting against the amended bill, and it was killed, 6-4.

…In the record of the vote taking on March 12, 2003, the amendment was adopted unanimously by Chairman Obama’s HHS subcommittee. That added the neutrality clause to the bill — which then went down to defeat on a party-line 6-4 vote, with Obama voting against protecting infants born alive during abortions.

They have a Comfort Room in Christ Hospital, where you can say your goodbyes to all those inconvenient lives. I’ve stood in a Comfort Room like it before - other hospitals have them as well. One wonders if, now that abortion is declared by The One’s Own Disciples as a social good, there will be any need for such a room. The whole of society will supply it, instead.

There is no sound in the Comfort Room. It is a deafening sort of quiet. It is sterile. There is a scent of chemicals. Time hangs suspended. There is no glimpse, however brief, of the world as it might have been – no, there are no small footsteps in the hall – if all the broken, fragile lives snuffed out in this room of quiet death had lived to see the sun.

It is a room of nothingness, filled with the silence of the life not lived, and whispers of the breath not taken.

Barack Obama’s Democrats will no longer be silent about their mission to make America one vast Comfort Room. Abortion is a moral good that you must respect. And they will not be ashamed to demand what is rightfully theirs.

crossposted from redstate.

>> You’ll rarely hear me say “I wish I was in San Francisco.” But next weekend’s Outside Lands arts and music festival is fantastic (including Grace & The Nocturnals). If you’re lucky enough to be on the West Coast, head on down.

>> A quick post on Obama v. McCain at Saddleback: the initial reports confirm my feeling that McCain was surprisingly good, and Obama performed very poorly in a venue that seemed otherwise made for him to make inroads.  Revolution in Jesusland correctly points out that Warren teed up the abortion question perfectly for Obama. And he still couldn’t manage it.  Jake Tapper points out that Obama caught very few breaks, and meandered through answers as the audience sat silent.  This isn’t just the advantage of McCain’s incredibly powerful story - I love how they still have to explain IXOYE to folks - he seemed genuinely at home with a group of evangelicals that are not, frankly, part of his natural base, in front of a pastor who is decidedly favorable toward Obama.

And frankly, I found the one question I thought Obama would’ve been prepared for - about judicial nominations - to be one of his worst answers of the night.  How does Doug Kmiec respond to arguments from the candidate he has risked all to support when he says things like this?

Asked which existing Supreme Court Justice he, as president, would not have nominated, Obama immediately said he “would not have nominated Clarence Thomas…I don’t think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation. Setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of a lot of constitution.”

For good measure, he added he would not have nominated Antonin Scalia, “although I don’t think there’s any doubt about his intellectual brilliance.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, whose confirmation Obama voted against, “was a tougher question only because I find him to be a very compelling person.”