The Clinton campaign machine has decided to go “Alex Haley” on Barack Obama.

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…until a Clinton does it to them. Ah, sweet hypocrisy.

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The perverseness of the Kosovo situation is such that on the eve of the land theft last week, conservative Heritage Foundation writers Nile Gardiner and Sally McNamara co-blogged a piece titled “The West Must Back Full Independence for Kosovo,” filled with the usual talking points referencing Srebrenica as the “biggest atrocity in Europe since the Second World War,” and a quick gloss over the supposed case for independence — in much the same language that’s being parroted by every country supporting Kosovo independence to avoid unpleasantness from Albanians:

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From an AP photo essay:

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A former KFOR soldier emailed me last night:

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Clintonisms presents this week’s Clintonism Of The Week (not included in the book):

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Not much to comment on about the Oscars Sunday night. Without question, Cate Blanchett should have won the supporting actress award for playing Bob Dylan in I’m Not There.

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I’ve written recently about what I believe to be a deliberate strategy by Barack Obama to use words to inspire and motivate his audiences rather than actually offer specific steps for actual change. That’s not a “for or against Obama” comment. It’s a comment on strategy. I say this, because it’s not that different from a lot of pastors out there today. They don’t really know the Bible that well, and have become motivational speakers more that actual teachers and pastors. In my book, “Branding Faith” I talk about the fact that when I visit many pastor’s offices today, I notice that the bookshelves that used to be filled with books on theology, doctrine, and church history, have now been replaced by the latest bestsellers on motivation and marketing.I get that same feeling from Obama. He seems to be well spoken, and does a really great job of inspiring audiences. But up to now, he hasn’t really laid out too much in the way of specific steps for HOW he’s going to make this vague sense of “change” happen. Recently, in the Wall Street Journal, columnist Peggy Noonan echoed the same sentiment. She writes:

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At the Democratic debate last week, Hillary Clinton remarked that regardless of how the race ends, “we’ll be fine.”  She said how very “honored” she was to be on the same stage as Obama, and then wistfully recounted a story of seeing hundreds of wounded soldiers at the opening of a veterans’ hospital.  A lot of people took those evocative comments to mean that she was signaling the beginning of her campaign’s end.  That she’s seeing the writing on the wall.  That she wants to go out gracefully.

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“I Know Who Killed Me” –the Lindsay Lohan “epic”– was named worst picture (and pretty much worst everything) at the annual Razzies this weekend. Friends, I see about 150 movies in the theater each year. I know from bad, and “I Know Who Killed Me” was by no measure the worst picture of 2007. Here’s a Bottom 10 you can count on:

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Michele Obama’s senior year thesis at Princeton University leads one to conclude that she has the proverbial chip on her shoulder regarding race relations in America. So do I. Let me explain.

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     It was F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrongly proclaimed that there are no second acts in American lives.  Quite to the contrary, it seems to be what Americans are best at.  This coming Sunday, one of the nominees for an Oscar for best original song is Jamal Joseph, a former Black Panther who served time in several prisons for being implicated in many different crimes including robbery, murder and harboring a fugitive.  Most recently, Mr. Jamal has been employed as Chairman of the Film Division at Columbia’s School of the Arts.  Mr. Jamal earned two degrees while he was imprisoned and lest you think, as I did initially, that this is an unusual story, you should know that there are many ex-cons and former terrorists who find a second life in the welcoming groves of academe.

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…in both the positive and negative sense. On the one hand, she’s no Stepford Wife (one thinks of Ann Romney. The only words I heard out of that woman’s mouth during her months with Mitt on the campaign trail were the strikingly original, “We’re gonna go to Washington…and clean up that mess.” Yikes.)

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(First published in the Vallejo Times-Herald) 

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I’m fascinated by Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, whose in-your-face deceptions and misconduct are a constant challenge to securities regulators. Rarely in one location can one find so many issues, ranging from shady accounting to ethical and corporate governance lapses.

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On June 28, 1389 the Serbs lost to the Ottomans at Kosovo Field in the Battle of Kosovo. This began a 500-plus year dominance by the Ottoman Turks in Central Europe, and particularly in that powder keg known as the Balkans. It also meant that Islam-the faith of the Ottoman Empire-now had a door into Christian Europe.

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Two formerly powerful institutions are now fading into the sunset, and both are going out with Norma Desmond-like denial.

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Neil MacFarquhar’s latest paean to radical Islam appeared in Thursday’s New York Times, “For Muslim Students, a Debate on Inclusion,” in which he praises a known radical leader of the Muslim Students’ Association as some kind of moderate. MacFarquhar begins the story with a sweet vignette about Mertaban’s alleged moderate bona fides:

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Barack Obama sure can talk. No, I’m not going to weigh in on the plagiarism charges now hurled at the orator/senator. Our first topic today is transparency in government. He’s all for it. Indeed, he says he has the ability to work across party lines “on opening up and creating more transparency in government” so government spending is “posted on a searchable database” for all to see.

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I got the following letter yesterday morning with regard to the St. Louis minaret that Political Mavens printed photos of, and which Gateway Pundit confirmed with its own photos in a post titled “Islamic Prayer Tower Rises Over South St. Louis City”, which the Little Green Footballs blog picked up. The letter came from an Irl S.:

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Even among Muslims, their Serbian decency shines through:

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There’s no disagreement even among the most bitter rivals, when it comes to taking an anti-Serb position. After all, we drank that poisoned Kool-Aid together way back in the previous century: Clinton, Obama and McCain Endorse Kosovo They may be busy on their respective campaign trails, but supporting an independent terror state — that’s a no-brainer! Even Hillary was able to answer that without first conferring with her staff:

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John McCain has finally figured out how to win over the conservative base.

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As the Barack Obama Traveling Hope and Change Show pulls into Reunion Arena today, his campaign has to be looking for a change in the wind.

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In 1974, an aging Muhammad Ali was facing the much stronger George Foreman in a bout that came to be known as “The Rumble in the Jungle.” Entering the ring Foreman, while not particularly popular was, by all accounts, the big odds on favorite not only to defeat Ali but to knock him out early and humiliatingly.

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Barack Obama has a well-earned reputation for rhetorical skills that have John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Ronald Reagan nodding in admiration from Above.  He speaks with the rhythm and passion of a preacher; his rallies look more like tent revivals, his supporters swooning like bobby-soxers over Sinatra.

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Three Muslim states now look forward to EU membership — Albania, Bosnia and Kosovo — all of them professing, as Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci did to Israel’s Haaretz newspaper recently, “The future of Kosovo and Albania together with the rest of the Western Balkan countries lies within the European Union…”

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As appears increasingly inevitable, Barack Obama’s wave of popularity continued to swell today as he trounced Hillary in the Wisconsin primary - his ninth victory in a row.

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Hizb Ut Tahrir Demonstration

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Remember the girl who was dating the wrong guy; the girl people snickered at behind her back? She was ‘in love’ with a creep she dreamt was her knight in shining armor. He was cruel to her, cheated on her, mooched off of her, (or all three,) but she couldn’t give him up. He was a bully, a drug addict, a thief, but she believed all the lies and misdirection, made excuses for him, even loved him more, all for a fantasy.

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In a rare mainstream media report on the trend of loveable children’s TV characters in Gaza and the West Bank exhorting children to kill and maim Jews, it seems the elusive, legendary, bloodsucking creature of Latino lore, “El Chupacabra”, has been sighted, and confirmed:

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In the all-too-real reality show that has been Fidel Castro’s Cuba, he made sure he never got voted off the island.  Since 1959, he has ruled a communist hell of oppression and deprivation. Under his steel jackboot, the Cuban people could not speak, prosper, thrive, move, breathe.

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Here’s a collection from NRO’s The Corner of the three leading candidates’ statements on Castro’s resignation (sic). It makes me happy that we can all agree that Castro led “failed policies of the past” (Clinton); that today is the “end of a dark era in Cuba’s history” (Obama); and that Castro led an “apparatus of repression” (McCain). Now, if only the ugliest voices of the Democratic party would stop praising the authoritarian domestic policies of Castro (and suggesting them for use here at home!).

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Those who dream of a final settlement of the Israeli Palestinian conflict its central role in world affairs. During the Cold War it was a major Soviet/Arab card and today it is a major Shia card. Barry Rubin explains:

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