THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† The Uh-Oh-prah Effect?: The Washington Post examines why NH polls showing a huge lead by Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) over Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for weeks before Primary Day, only to lose the state to her, albeit by a narrow three-point margin. The WaPo dismisses the Bradley effect (the state is 95 percent white) as a plausible explanation, and attributes Obama’s loss to Clinton on what The Stiletto calls “the Uh-Oh-prah effect” of celebrity endorsements:
On Dec. 9, Oprah Winfrey stumped for Barack Obama in Manchester. … Two days later, Obama beat Clinton in a New Hampshire poll for the first time since July. …
By early January … the polls showed Obama and Clinton statistically tied among women. Oprah drew the attention of New Hampshire women to Obama, they liked what they heard and some began telling pollsters that they were leaning toward him.
On primary day, however, almost half of all women who voted in the Democratic primary voted for Clinton. …
Consider also that Clinton's support came largely from lower-middle-class families, who are routinely underpolled. Samples are weighted to account for that, but that technique does not always work. …
Whatever the polls said, some well-informed New Hampshire Democrats privately predicted that Clinton would win or come close. They picked up what the polls did not - that many Democratic women really wanted to vote for Clinton but felt it was their duty as informed voters to check out all the candidates. …
That, not race, is the story of her surprise victory in the New Hampshire primary.
† Globetrotting Tort Lawyer Exposes Airline Passengers, Crews To Rare Form Of TB: In October, four more plaintiffs joined a civil suit filed in Montreal District Court in Quebec by nine Canadian and Czech passengers exposed to multiple-drug resistant TB when they unwittingly shared a flight from Prague to Montreal with infected attorney Andrew Speaker that seeks more than $1.3 million in damages for pain and suffering, loss of income, potential costs for medical treatment and disrupted travel plans. Now, Speaker’s homeowners' insurance company, USAA Insurance, has filed a petition for declaratory judgment in GA’s Fulton County Superior Court asking that it be shielded from claims targeting Speaker's homeowners' policy.
† Turkish MSM Even Less Trustworthy Than Ours (second item): R. Nicholas Burns, 51, the third-highest ranking diplomat at the State Department, is resigning and will be replaced by U.S. Ambassador to Moscow William J. Burns (the two men aren’t related). The Washington Post reports:
Nicholas Burns was so close to Rice that conservatives frequently said he was responsible for the pragmatic aspects of her diplomacy. "His influence on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is so surprising that critics use the word Svengali," columnist Robert D. Novak wrote in April 2006.
A foreign service officer since 1983 … [h]e has held top jobs under Republican and Democratic administrations. …
Although one of Rice's closest advisers, he was also spokesman for secretaries of state Madeleine K. Albright and Warren M. Christopher.
Nicholas Burns’ “pragmatism” no doubt influenced Rice, Albright and Christopher to put aside historical fact and moral certitude to abet Turkey in continuing its nearly century-long denial of the Armenian Genocide.
The WaPo also notes that Burns I “has cast an optimistic gloss on U.S. diplomacy” – a diplomatic way of saying that he has not been especially candid: “On a 2006 trip to Moscow, he told reporters that Rice's meeting with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had gone smoothly, unaware that reporters had overheard a tense lunch conversation.”
The Stiletto can only hope that Burns II has a different interpretation of “pragmatism” than his predecessor, and is more willing to clue in his boss that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other “allies” in the War on Terror are perfidious and unreliable (second item). In 2002 at the request of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Burns II and Ryan C. Crocker, now the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, co-authored a six-page internal report about the likely outcome of a U.S. invasion of Iraq. The pair’s “Perfect Storm” assessment accurately predicted post-Saddam sectarian violence and the concerted effort to hinder our political and military goals in Iraq by Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
On a somewhat related topic, The Washington Times has poached Washington Post national reporter John Solomon, 41, to succeed Wes Pruden as executive editor of the Moonie-owned newspaper. In a memo introducing himself to the staff, Solomon promises that under his leadership, “[o]ur reporting [will be] broader, deeper and more enterprising.” The Stiletto hopes that this means that The Washington Times will purge its ranks of Armenian Genocide deniers, and no longer offer Turkish propaganda to its readers (last item, “The Other Shoe Drops”). Solomon starts his new job on January 28th. The Stiletto will be watching.
† The Sum For The Parts: Two years ago, Michael Mastromarino, 44, then owner of Biomedical Tissue Services, was accused of trafficking in bone, skin and tendons plundered from more than a thousand corpses at funeral homes in NY, PA and NJ; several funeral directors already pleaded guilty in the scheme and others are facing trial. Now, to avoid rotting in jail until he becomes a corpse, Mastromarino has agreed to rat out the companies that purchased the stolen tissues for transplantation.
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