HEH: “Shrewd of McCain to have planted those passages in 1973 in anticipation of the rise of the religious right.”

MORE CLARENCE THOMAS BLOWBACK FOR OBAMA:

So let’s see. By the time he was nominated, Clarence Thomas had worked in the Missouri Attorney General’s office, served as an Assistant Secretary of Education, run the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and sat for a year on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation’s second most prominent court. Since his “elevation” to the High Court in 1991, he has also shown himself to be a principled and scholarly jurist.

Meanwhile, as he bids to be America’s Commander in Chief, Mr. Obama isn’t yet four years out of the Illinois state Senate, has never held a hearing of note of his U.S. Senate subcommittee, and had an unremarkable record as both a “community organizer” and law school lecturer. Justice Thomas’s judicial credentials compare favorably to Mr. Obama’s Presidential résumé by any measure. And when it comes to rising from difficult circumstances, Justice Thomas’s rural

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CHILDHOOD’S END: “Britain is the worst country in the Western world in which to be a child, according to a recent UNICEF report. Ordinarily, I would not set much store by such a report; but in this case, I think it must be right—not because I know so much about childhood in all the other 20 countries examined but because the childhood that many British parents give to their offspring is so awful that it is hard to conceive of worse, at least on a mass scale. The two poles of contemporary British child rearing are neglect and overindulgence.”

OBAMA UNDERPERFORMING KERRY on the electoral maps: “Today’s map shows Obama with a projected 275 votes to McCain’s 250, with 13 up for grabs. Four years ago — Kerry 317, Bush 202, and 19 tied. Interesting.” Indeed. You can certainly see why some Democrats are starting to sound worried. Of course, Kerry was hurt by an overly grandiose performance at the Convention, and by media bias that backfired. Obama should be safe from that, right ? . . .

DAN RIEHL IS INCREDULOUS. Others are just plain credulous.

UPDATE: Megan McArdle: “The party that starts looking for implausible and unprovable conspiracy theories about the opposition candidate is in trouble.”

Plus this: “‘Obama insecurity’ hurts his electoral chances and hurts the intellectual future of the left as a corrective force in American politics. There’s not a convincing or credible path toward painting his enemies as immoral, even if that is what you believe.”

TOM MAGUIRE: The Chicago Annenberg Challenge - The Fog Thickens. “So let’s see - Obama has been misrepresenting his relationship with Ayers to the press (this misdirection of Ben Smith of The Politico from last February is a comedy classic) and now someone is blocking access to the records detailing the workings of the group founded by Ayers and chaired by Obama. In another world the press would smell a cover-up. In this one? My guess has been that the mainstream press will remain in the tank for Obama rather than risk annoying their remaining readers by appearing to be pawns of the right-wing attack machine.”

Disturbing!

WHEN BIG WIND TAKES OVER A TOWN, can goons and corruption be far behind? “Lured by state subsidies and buoyed by high oil prices, the wind industry has arrived in force in upstate New York, promising to bring jobs, tax revenue and cutting-edge energy to the long-struggling region. But in town after town, some residents say, the companies have delivered something else: an epidemic of corruption and intimidation, as they rush to acquire enough land to make the wind farms a reality.”

Plus, Pelosi and Pickens — Investment Partners? I’m disappointed. I really thought that this blend of government subsidies and private money would be different!

MCCAIN CHARGED WITH PLAGIARIZING SOLZHENITSYN: Tom Maguire is unconvinced. But I agree with a commenter that it’s not “Swiftboating,” but something far less: “In order to Swift Boat John McCain you will need his fellow POWs to come out and say he is bloviating, etc. Swift Boating means someone who was there who knows you are full of hot air is on your tail. Not, I repeat not, what the left wants it to mean. The only way John McCain can be Swift Boated is if someone who was there with him causes McCain’s campaign to scramble to answer the allegations. Otherwise, this is desperation by the left who sees their guaranteed win slipping away.” It’ll get uglier before it’s over.

THOSE SADLY ILL-INFORMED FOREIGNERS: British attitudes towards the United States are governed by ignorance of the facts on key issues such as crime, health care and foreign policy, according to a new survey.

A poll of nearly 2,000 Britons by YouGov/PHI found that 70 per cent of respondents incorrectly said it was true that the US had done a worse job than the European Union in reducing carbon emissions since 2000. More than 50 per cent presumed that polygamy was legal in the US, when it is illegal in all 50 states. . . .

The survey showed that a majority agreed with the false statement that since the Second World War the US had more often sided with non-Muslims when they had come into conflict with Muslims. In fact in 11 out of 12 major conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims, Muslims and secular forces, or Arabs and non-Arabs,

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HOW HARD IS THE PRESS LEANING TOWARD OBAMA? The WaPo Ombud explains. “The disparity is so wide that it doesn’t look good.”