The Mountain State proved insurmountable to Barack Obama, who conceded the contest to Hillary Clinton before the first vote was even cast. Unlike last week’s nail-biter in IN, within a nanosecond of polls closing at 7:30 p.m. ET, the networks put the check mark next to Hillary’s name (65 percent to Obama’s 28 percent).

Hillary was a shoo-in – the demographics of the state were even more favorable to her than OH and PA, according to The Associated Press:

The state looks a lot like the America of a bygone era: overwhelmingly white, largely rural, and proudly blue-collar. …

Obama's strengths are among black voters and college-educated voters, but only 3.3 percent of West Virginians are black and only 16. 5 percent of residents have bachelor's degrees, more than 10 percentage points below the national average, U.S. Census figures show.

For Clinton, the state is nearly ideal: She has consistently outperformed Obama among white, older and blue-collar voters in competitive primaries.

Exit polling in the 30 Democratic primaries in which both candidates competed shows whites favoring Clinton over Obama 55 percent to 40 percent, voters over age 65 favoring her 59 percent to 36 percent, and rural voters favoring her 52 percent to 42 percent.

West Virginia's median age of 40.7 is four years older than the national median, more than nine in 10 residents are white and the median family income is roughly $12,500 below the national median of about $58,500.

CNN’s John King describes WV as “is a state that appears built to accentuate Sen. Hillary Clinton's strengths and to highlight the weaknesses her campaign asserts would make Sen. Barack Obama a more vulnerable Democratic nominee.”

So how’d she do amongst these various demographic groups? Exactly as well as everyone expected. Here’s how NBC crunched the exit poll numbers:

Clinton won the white vote by 68% to 28%

While Barack Obama did narrow his margins in West Virginia among more affluent and better-educated white voters, this state was all about working-class whites again delivering their votes for Hillary Clinton.

Working-class whites earning less than $50,000 backed Clinton 72% to 24% for Obama. White women have been an important Clinton constituency, and she did win this group in West Virginia today.

She won white women by 74% to 24%, and most white men by, 63% to 33%. …

Seven-in-10 think Clinton shares their core values, while less than half feel the same about Obama.

That “core values” question suggests that Rev. Jeremiah Wright had an impact on WV voters. According to early exit polls of 1,016 voters in 30 precincts statewide, half the voters said that Obama shares the views of Wright either “a lot” or “somewhat,” and the other half said “not much” or “not at all.”

With only 28 delegates at stake in this race, Hillary remains behind Obama in pledged and superdelegates. However, WV is a swing state that went for President George W. Bush twice – and, as Hillary noted in her victory speech in Charleston:

It is a fact that no Democrat has won the White House since 1916 without winning West Virginia. The bottom line is this: The White House is won in the swing states, and I am winning the swing states. 
 

As in previous polls, seven in 10 WV voters want the race to continue until a clear winner for the nomination emerges. If that winner is not Hillary, as many of her supporters said they’d vote for Republican John McCain in November as would vote for Obama (35 percent and 36 percent, respectively) – and 25 percent said they’d stay home instead of voting for either alternative to Hillary.

Doing the math, as it stands now six out of 10 Hillary supporters – representing 39 percent of all the voters in the state – say they will not pull the lever for Obama.  

And so it’s on to KY and OR next Tuesday, where the two rivals are expected to split the races.

Slate: The Journal Editorial Report Is The Worst Cable New Show

Slate’s media critic Jack Shafer laments, “I wish I could write that The Journal Editorial Report has gotten worse since I first reviewed it two years ago, but it hasn't. Instead, it has preserved its 2006 badness as if it's an archeological artifact”:

Hosted by Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot, the show draws its guest list almost exclusively from Gigot's staff and contributors to his page, making each installment an extended exercise in groupthink. Dim groupthink. Dim groupthink punctuated with laughter and knowing nods. …

[V]iewers endure the formlessness of Gigot's "interviewing" his writers about what they've written and published in the Journal. …

Gigot conducts his interview as if he's unfamiliar with the story that his own page ran. …

But The Journal Editorial Report isn't a complete loss. By repurposing editorials and columns from the last week, it provides a substitute Wall Street Journal editorial page for people who can't read.

How dim is dim? Well, here’s OpinionJournal.com editor James Taranto’s contributions during the May 3, 2008 edition.

Responding to a question from Gigot about whether Barack Obama will get any political mileage out of opposing a temporary moratorium on the 18 cent a gallon federal gas tax that John McCain and Hillary Clinton say we need, Taranto cracks a joke that’s as funny as a crutch:

All of these candidates, including John McCain, say we have a terrible problem with global warming and burning less fuel. If they really believe that, they should call for raising gas taxes not lowering them.

Responding to Gigot’s observation that Rev. Jeremiah Wright is so over the top that most people will find it hard to believe that Obama agrees with him, Taranto – as is his wont - regurgitates analysis that viewers have already read days earlier on such political news and opinion sites as ThePolitico.com: 

We are supposed to believe it took Obama 20 years to figure out what Wright was about and then another six weeks to think about it. I don't think Obama believes America is responsible for 9/11 and these other nutty things Wright said. But the question is, what does Obama believe? Nobody knows that. The man is an ink blot. He got support early on because they projected their hopes on him. What this Wright kerfuffle shows us is that it is easy for people to put their fears onto him.

Considering that Taranto is neither easy on the eyes nor the ears, The Stiletto prefers to get her political analysis from the original sources rather than wait for him to parrot it back. After all, she can read.

† Israel And The Armenian Question: As Israel marks its 60^th birthday, The Washington Post examines the “changing relationship between American Jews and the Jewish state”:

Multiple new polls show that younger American Jews feel less of a connection to Israel than older Jews. And while there is heated debate about some of the polls' methodologies and conclusions, most Jewish leaders are very concerned about the data.

The leaders see them as a long-term byproduct of intermarriage, assimilation and controversial Israeli policies, including settlement expansion in the occupied territories. …

One obvious question is: What affect would a weakening of the emotional link between Israel and American Jews have on U.S. policy toward the Middle East? Last month, a group of left-leaning Jews established a lobbying group hoping to counter the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has often lobbied U.S. governments to maintain a tough line toward Israel's adversaries. …

Many experts, Jewish leaders and philanthropists say that the waning attachment felt by some younger American Jews has been caused by changes on both sides. Israel has gone from a scrappy pioneer state of Holocaust survivors to a diverse technology and military power, and American Jews have intermarried and become increasingly absorbed into mainstream secular U.S. culture.

There is one other factor in the generational divide that the WaPo omitted: Shimon Peres, a founder and current president of Israel, is an Armenian Genocide denier and many American Jews – but particularly the younger generation - are experiencing a crisis of conscience over Israel’s state policy of Armenian Genocide denial and its close diplomatic, military and economic ties with Turkey. In Israel - of all places - they argue, the fierce vow “never again” should have meaning. The hypocrisy is too much for them to swallow and they are pressing the old guard, like Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League to help guide Israel out of the moral abyss into which it has fallen rather than aiding and abetting Armenian Genocide denial.

† It Takes A Village To Support Couple’s Lifestyle: Former college student Jocelyn Kirsch, 22, who allegedly stole the identities of neighbors in her Philadelphia condo to live a jet-setting lifestyle with Ivy League boyfriend Edward Anderton, 25, is close to copping a plea, reports The Associated Press. The scope of the fraud is estimated as being upwards of $100,000, which means Kirsch is likely facing prison under federal guidelines.

† The Other Shoe Drops ("Carrying The Torch For The “Genocide Olympics,” second item): A Washington Post editorial notes, “When Beijing was bidding to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, part of its pitch was that the games would help promote human rights in China, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) bought it.” But instead of China becoming less repressive, the IOC is becoming more so, prohibiting “political expression - even nonverbal expression - by athletes anywhere within Olympic venues.” These forbidden nonverbal expressions – the WaPo calls them “thought crimes” – include wearing the color orange. The WaPo correctly insists that “The United States must stick to its position that athletes, no less than other citizens, are free to express themselves peacefully in Beijing or anywhere else.”

Quitters Never Win

- The Washington Post, May 10, 2008

Bladder Trouble Tied To Depression, Anxiety

- Reuters, May 9, 2008

By The Heel

 (5) the term "domestic terrorism" means activities that –

(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended –

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

Thanks to a tip by one of Suquamish Casino’s security officers, a Kitsap County Sheriff's Deputy was on hand when a 33-year-old Seattle man went to the casino’s lost-and-found looking for a black bag containing meth, knives, jewelry, a digital scale and blood pressure medication that had been turned in by another customer, reports The Associated Press. The man has been charged possession of a controlled substance and possession of a dangerous weapon.

For the 16 years they have been married, Michelle Obama has been Barack Obama's closest advisor, second only to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Should Obama be elected, his presidency promises to be another two-fer. In case you have any doubts, columnist Robert Novak reports that Hillary Clinton will not be offered the vice presidency, because Michelle Obama has nixed the very thought.

Since Michelle Obama, a Harvard-educated attorney, will be a shadow president it's time to examine her worldview. For one thing, Michelle Obama needs to be reminded why she should be proud of America, after all those years drinking in the Rev. Jeremiah White’s hateful, anti-American vitriol. (BTW, have you ever noticed that even when her face is in repose you can tell Michelle Obama is one pissed off, resentful – yes, bitter - woman? She always looks like she's just this close to biting your head off.)

Radio talk show host Michael Reagan writes, “[t]o know her is to know what her husband really believes”:

From what we’ve heard from Mrs. Obama she was paying close attention to the Reverend Mr. Wright, eating up his fiery words and probably enthusiastically nodding agreement as he blamed whitey for inventing AIDS to kill blacks as Barack dozed beside her, wondering when the Reverend Wright was going to shut up. …

Poor Barack, how can he admit that he didn’t hear any of that rabble-rousing rhetoric because he slept through all 20 years of it?

If you want to find the culprit here, turn to Michelle. I’m willing to bet she heard every word of the Reverend Wright’s inflammatory sermons, swallowed them whole, and seethed in anger over White America’s wretched mistreatment of her fellow black Americans as described by her pastor.

So here’s what Michelle Obama – and, presumably, her husband – believe about America and Americans: that we’re ignorant, fearful, isolated, insular, timid and can never hope to succeed because we’re getting screwed all the time – and we’re teaching our kids that they can’t succeed, either:

† A speech in Columbia, SC, January 23, 2008

“We don't like being pushed outside of our comfort zones. You know it right here on this campus. You know people sitting at different tables, y'all living in different dorms. I was there. Y'all not talking to each another, taking advantage of the fact that you're in this diverse community because sometimes it's easier to hold onto your own stereotypes and misconceptions, it makes you feel justified in your ignorance. That's America. So the challenge for us is, are we ready for change?"

† An interview with Katie Couric on the “CBS Evening News,” February 15, 2008:

KC: As an African American, you gave a very impassioned speech in South Carolina about meeting Coretta Scott King and the impact that had on you. … what would it mean to you to have an African American President of the United States?

MO: I spoke to that audience I also talked a lot about fear, because in this country we spend more time worrying about what we can't do, what won't happen, what won't change. And there is so much fear that ties us down in this country, not just in the African American community but in all communities. … We're worried about fairness and whether we're gonna get lost in the shuffle. And sometimes we make decisions based on that fear and that fear only and we don't look at the possibility. We don't think in terms of what we can move forward and how we have the power to control our own destinies because we're locked in that fear.

† A speech in Charlotte, NC, May 2, 2008:

[W]e’re still living in a nation, and in a time when … [t]hey say look, if you do these things, you can get to this bar, right? And then you work and you struggle, you do everything that they say, and you think you’re getting close to the bar and you’re working hard, and you’re sacrificing, and then you get to the bar, you’re right there, you’re reaching out for the bar, you think you have it, and then what happens? They move the bar. They raise it up. They shift it to the left and to the right. It’s always just quite out of reach. …

And folks are struggling like never before, working harder than ever, believing that their hard work will lead to some reward, some payoff. But what they find is that they get there and the bar has changed, things are different, wasn’t enough. So you have to work even harder.

[W]hen you live in a nation where the vast majority of Americans are struggling every day to reach an ever-shifting and moving bar, then what happens in that nation is that people do become isolated. …

And when you live in a nation where people are struggling every day to reach an ever-shifting and moving bar, then what happens in that kind of nation is that people are afraid, because when your world’s not right, no matter how hard you work, then you become afraid of everyone and everything, because you don’t know who’s fault it is, why you can’t get a handle on life, why you can’t secure a better future for your kids. … [F]ear creates this veil of impossibility, and it is hanging over all of our heads … our fear is helping us to raise a nation of young doubters, young people who are insular and they’re timid. And they don’t try, because they already heard us tell them why they can’t succeed.

What a depressing, Dickensian view of America and its people. Most of us – particularly those whose forebears immigrated here - think of our country the way Neil Diamond described it in this song from “The Jazz Singer”:

Everywhere around the world
They're coming to America
Every time that flag's unfurled
They're coming to America

Got a dream to take them there
They're coming to America
Got a dream they've come to share
They're coming to America

To Americans whose families escaped natural and state-engineered famines; communism, fascism and totalitarianism; or pogroms, genocide, civil war and sectarian violence, America is as close to Paradise as we will ever get on this Earth. And Michelle Obama will never convince us otherwise, no matter how much she whines about how long it took her and her husband to pay off the student loans for their Ivy-league educations.

Editorial Note: New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd debates the issue, “So how does Obama repay Hillary for running a campaign designed both to unman him and brand him as an unelectable black? Is the most ingenious way to turn the screw by not choosing her as his running mate, or by choosing her?”

There are good political arguments to be made on both sides, but should Obama choose Hillary as his veep, The Stiletto strongly urges him to hire a food taster.

When Is Military Intervention Justified?
 

In January 1990, The New York Times ran an op-ed, titled “Are Invasions Sometimes O.K?” that examined whether U.S. military intervention in Burma to rescue its people from a brutal regime – which The Times dug up from its archives and republished in the   “hope [it] sheds light on current news or provides a window on the past”:

Human rights abuses, wherever they might occur, are no longer accepted as business as usual. …

Can anyone really argue that we should grant any government - no matter how brutal or how unpopular - the right to terrorize or kill its citizens for as long as it can cling to power? …

In reporting on the 1988 revolt, I came to understand that the smallest gesture of U.S. military support - perhaps nothing more than a couple of battleships off the Burmese coast and a few warplanes over its skies - could have won the day for the Burmese people. …

In such clear-cut cases, would military intervention on human rights grounds be morally justified? If it is, a second question must be posed: How could the principle of big-power intervention on behalf of human rights be established without a future American or Soviet government perverting it to prop up, as in the past, repressive dictatorships? Could some effective international control mechanism be worked out - a Helsinki Accord with teeth?

Note that liberals generally favor of using our military might for humanitarian purposes – as does The Stiletto, by the way – but not for advancing our geopolitical interests or protecting our national security. Lest anyone forget, one of the reasons the U.S. invaded Iraq the second time around was to stop Saddam Hussein and his sicko sons Uday and Qusay from feeding political opponents into a wood chipper – the weapons of mass destruction, were in fact, only one factor in our decision to invade Iraq and not finding them in no way negates all the other reasons we had to take Saddam out.

† Since When Is Kidnapping And Rape A Matter For Arbitration?: U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison ruled that Jamie Leigh Jones is not bound by an arbitration agreement she signed when she was hired by Halliburton Co. subsidiary KBR and can sue over claims that she was drugged and raped by co-workers at Camp Hope, Baghdad, in 2005, reports The Associated Press. Halliburton's attorneys argued that the employment agreement Jones signed compelled her to arbitrate claims against the company “that in any way touch on his or her employment.”  

† It’s Only Racist When Don Imus Says It: In February 2007, columnist Kathleen Parker detailed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) discrimination complaint filed by Elizabeth Kandrac, a white teacher in Brentwood Middle School in North Charleston (SC), because of continual verbal abuse by black students that made Don Imus “look like a church deacon.” Now, Townhall.com columnist Mary Grabar explains why white teachers in public schools dare not discipline black students for unruly, disruptive or disrespectful behavior that Rev. Jeremiah Wright describes as a “different learning style.” More shocking, when a black student assaults a teacher liberal pedagogists chalk it up to “racial determinism, the idea that one’s behavior is the result of society’s injustices,” writes Grabar, adding:

[I]nterviewed on National Public Radio by Terry Gross in June 2007, Frank Burd, a Philadelphia math teacher … [demonstrated that a teacher] can say, “Put the iPod away” … as a command, and then in a nice, sensitive way. Ms. Gross, a former teacher herself, agreed that it is important that students know teachers are not “disrespecting” them.

But, some months earlier, when Burd asked a student to turn off his loud iPod, the 60-year-old teacher suffered a broken neck, brain damage, and a shoulder injury, his lesson for not making the request sensitively enough, apparently.

Teachers are also encouraged to display cultural sensitivity in their curriculums. Burd’s colleague, Ed Klein, a music teacher … undertook a course of study on the high art form of rap music and incorporated it into his curriculum. …

For calling in a parent one too many times, the 55-year-old Klein suffered a broken jaw. But that was after the perpetrator had come in two days in a row and sprayed him with a fire extinguisher, then told him on the third day that he would be killed, and on the fourth day, “ain’t nothing you can do about this, cracker.” It was on the fifth day that Klein was beaten. …

Terry Gross asked Klein and Burd, both white, about students “testing” teachers, and whether race was a “subtext.” Well, no, said Klein, “aside from the fact that I was referred to as ‘cracker’ numerous times.”

† Incarcerated Murderer Sues To Continue Sex Change Treatments: Harold Clarke, who heads the MA Department of Corrections filed a court statement outlining his objections to convicted killer Michelle Kosilek (née Robert) receiving the surgical and hormonal treatments needed to complete his sex change, reports The Associated Press:

“[B]ased on my review of the designated trial testimony and my many years of experience as a corrections professional, I believe that the safety and security concerns presented by the prospect of undertaking sex reassignment surgery for Michelle Kosilek are insurmountable.”

These include making him a target for assault by other inmates, and making it easier for him to escape if taken out of state to receive the surgery.

In 2002 U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf ruled in Kosilek’s favor in a lawsuit claiming that the prison system’s refusal to allow the sex change – which would be paid for by taxpayers – was cruel and unusual punishment.

Kosilek filed a second suit in 2005, because hormone treatments, laser hair removal and psychotherapy were inadequate, and he needed surgery.

† The Other Shoe Drops (“What Freedom Of Speech Means To Muslims, third item): In a speech at Stanford University Flemming Rose, culture editor of Jyllands-Posten, took American newspapers to task for not republishing the “Danish cartoons” of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked murderous riots worldwide by “outraged” Muslims two years ago. Here's a snippet of his comments, according to The New York Sun:

“Europe has usually been criticized for being politically correct and on the defense when it comes to Islam, but more European newspapers published the cartoons. We might not have had the kind of ongoing crisis if more newspapers around the world would have published the cartoons at the same time because by doing so you would have drawn a clear line. ... Instead, it was pretty unclear what people in liberal democracies thought of this issue.”

Rose, who received death threats and faces criminal charges over the cartoons, also noted, “It reads on the top of The New York Times, ‘All the News That’s Fit to Print,’ but it’s very hard to argue that this was not news on February 1, 2006.” Rose added that The Times later admitted to concerns that its foreign correspondents could have been endangered, but didn’t tell their readers this was the reason for their self-censorship.  

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders writes about her paper’s decision not to republish the cartoons, and how she wrestled with the decision at the time:

Then-Chronicle Managing Editor Robert Rosenthal wrote, “We always weigh the value of the journalistic impact against the impact that publication might have as far as insulting or hurting certain groups. In this case, we described the cartoons and felt that was sufficient.”

It was a controversy so complicated that it gave many opinion-makers - including me - pause.

On the one hand, any newspaper person will defend and must defend the right to run a cartoon that offends people. The day we fail to run opinion lest we offend anyone, we should pack it up.

On the other hand, newspapers regularly exercise self-censorship. If I were an opinion page editor, I would not run a cartoon that gratuitously insults members of any religion.

When you offend people's sensibilities - and I seem to do so every week - at least you should do so to make a larger point. The Danish cartoons seemed the journalistic equivalent of waving a red flag in front of a bull.

Saunders interviewed Rose after his speech at Stanford and had a change of heart:

I emerged from that meeting righteous in the belief that we in the media ought to be a little less concerned with Rose's manners and far more concerned about those who seek to intimidate and silence those who express opinions they don't like.

This February, Danish authorities arrested three men for plotting to behead cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who drew a cartoon depicting Muhammad wearing a bomb as a turban. In solidarity, two years after the 2006 riots, 17 Danish newspapers reprinted the cartoon.

Rose noted that the plot to kill the cartoonist proved the cartoonist's point: "They are basically saying, 'If you say we are violent, we are going to kill you.'" …

To Rose, who has been highly critical of the “victim-ology” practiced by radical imams living in Europe, the belief that criticizing Muhammad is incendiary is Islamophobic.

Rose warned against newspapers giving into intimidation by loudmouths who want to quash dissenting opinions.

“If you give into intimidation, you will not get less intimidation, you will get more intimidation.”

As Rose told The Sun, every day U.S. papers publish cartoons that are far more offensive than the ones he published. Yeah, well, our intrepid cartoonists prefer to exercise their free speech rights by taking on “safe” targets, such as Christians and conservatives.

† The Other Shoe Drops (“Desperate Congressional Candidate Fakes Disappearance,” second item): Former Dem congressional candidate Gary Dodds, sentenced in March to 20 days in jail and a year of home confinement for faking his own disappearance, has violated his bail conditions and will now be monitored for the next 45 days via global-positioning system to ensure he obeys a curfew that bars him from leaving his home between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., reports The Associated Press. Dodds, who had been allowed remain at liberty until while he appealed his conviction, was subjected to the more restrictive conditions after his wife reported that he had moved out of their home and had thrown her to the floor during an argument.

Wright Controversy Deepens Voter Divide

- The Washington Post, May 10, 2008

Foods That Can Aggravate Heartburn

- HealthDay News, May 7, 2008

Copper now sells for $3 to $4 a pound, up from just 83 cents in 2000, thanks to “worldwide booms in electronics and construction,” reports The Washington Post. Consequently, copper thieves are “scaling cellphone towers, ripping off baseball field lights, looting construction sites, tearing out potentially lethal live wires, removing huge spools from utility company grounds, hauling off massive sculptures in the middle of the night and even stealing gravestone plaques.” The WaPo details one particularly heinous copper crime:

Dave Fusselman figures he has seen a lot of different items come through his family's third-generation scrap metal business in Moberly, Mo. But an attempted sale last fall broke new ground.

During separate trips, two men tried to sell Fusselman increasingly large amounts of small, copper caps they said came from a derailed train's cargo. On the third try, Fusselman got suspicious and eventually called police.

The copper turned out to be bullet casings from a munitions factory where the two men worked - enough for 1.5 million rounds of ammunition. One of the men now faces a sentence as severe as 245 years in prison for military-related theft during wartime.

States are increasing criminal penalties for thieves and for dealers who buy stolen copper, and 35 states now require copper dealers to record identification for copper sales above a certain value, according to Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), a trade group.

At 44-years old and four months pregnant with her fifth child, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) found out that the baby would have Down Syndrome, which is caused by the presence of an extra copy of the 21^st chromosome so that each cell has three copies instead of one from each parent. She tells The Associated Press about whether having a special-needs child will affect her ability to lead the nation’s largest state:  

[The] prenatal testing were in, and the doctor's tone was ominous: “You need to come to the office so we can talk about it.”

Palin responded, “No, go ahead and tell me over the phone.” …

Her growing reputation as a maverick, for bucking her party's establishment and Alaska's powerful oil industry, quickly gained her a national reputation.

All that seemed put into question after the doctor's call in December …

Once her husband got the news, he told her: “We shouldn't be asking, ‘Why us?’ We should be saying, ‘Well, why not us?’” …

[T]here was never any doubt they would have the child, and on April 18 Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig Paxson Van Palin.

“We've both been very vocal about being pro-life. We understand that every innocent life has wonderful potential.” …

Three days after giving birth, Palin returned to work in her Anchorage office, accompanied by Trig and her husband.

This was not a mother's typical visit to the office to show off the new baby; instead, she was serving notice that a child of special needs will not hinder her professional commitments. …

“It's a sign of the times to be able to do this. … There is no reason to believe a woman can't do it with a growing family. My baby will not be at all or in any sense neglected.”

Neither, Palin said, will the state, as she prepares to lead deliberations on a multibillion-dollar natural gas pipeline. That is the economic future of the state, a means of getting North Slope natural gas to consumers throughout North America.

“I will not shirk my duties.” 

The list of species that global warming zealots claim will be wiped out by climate change is long: Antarctic penguins; Arctic polar bears; Australia’s koalas; British dragonflies …  

But in what could be a case of Darwinian evolution in action, the BBC reports that “great tits cope well with warming.” Presumably, great tits won’t do as well – at least in the short term - when the pendulum shifts towards global cooling and there’s a pronounced nip in the air.

Or, maybe not. The Stiletto highly recommends Ben Stein’s documentary, “Expelled,” about how evolutionary biologists who worship at the altar of Darwinism have thuggishly barred all dissenting opinions – particularly, intelligent design – from the marketplace of ideas and expelled (fired, denied tenure, blacklisted) apostates from universities, scientific journals and research facilities. They include biologist Richard Sternberg, who was fired by the Smithsonian Institution after publishing a peer-reviewed article that mentioned intelligent design; astrobiologist Guillermo Gonzalez, who was denied tenure at Iowa State University – despite having discovered several planets; and Caroline Crocker, who lost her professorship at George Mason University for showing students a PowerPoint presentation that mentioned intelligent design on two slides.

Dinesh D'Souza and other conservatives zero in on this scene:

Richard Dawkins is going on about how evolution explains everything. This is part of Dawkins' grand claim, which echoes through several of his books, that evolution by itself has refuted the argument from design. The argument from design hold that the design of the universe and of life are most likely the product of an intelligent designer. Dawkins thinks that Darwin has disproven this argument.

So Stein puts to Dawkins a simple question, “How did life begin?” … One might expect Dawkins to invoke evolution as the all-purpose explanation. Evolution, however, only explains transitions from one life form to another. Evolution has no explanation for how life got started in the first place. Darwin was very clear about this.

In order for evolution to take place, there had to be a living cell. The difficulty for atheists is that even this original cell is a work of labyrinthine complexity. Franklin Harold writes in “The Way of the Cell” that even the simplest cells are more ingeniously complicated than man's most elaborate inventions: the factory system or the computer. …

Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA double helix … is a committed atheist. Unwilling to consider the possibility of divine or supernatural creation, Crick suggested that maybe aliens brought life to earth from another planet. And this is precisely the suggestion that

Richard Dawkins makes in his response to Ben Stein. Perhaps, he notes, life was delivered to our planet by highly-evolved aliens.

Even Dawkins admits that his "X-Files" explanation just kicks the can down the street a ways, because it doesn’t answer the question of how these aliens came into being.

Aside from the sheer delight of seeing Dawkins – author of “The God Delusion” - hoist on his own petard, Stein also explores the association between Darwinism and atheism (you can’t have one without the other); explains how Darwinism was used to justify the eugenics movement in the U.S., during which tens of thousands of Americans were sterilized against their will because they were deemed too physically or mentally flawed to breed; and – most chilling – reminds us that Adolph Hitler combined Darwinism and eugenics to rid the Third Reich of "inferior" races and human specimens.

At its heart, “Expelled” is about scientific, academic and MSM censorship. Whatever your position on intelligent design, there is no denying that the stifling of scientific inquiry is spreading.

Global warming skeptics, for instance, are called “deniers” and the media gives their research short shift – or ignores evidence suggesting that global warming could be a cyclical phenomenon related to solar flare activity, for example – to create the false impression that the science is settled. It is not. And neither is the science settled on Darwinian evolution.

Scientific inquiry depends upon continually challenging hypotheses – no scientific finding is supposed to be considered “fact.” Stop people from asking the questions or dismiss research that doesn’t fit into the consensus, and you stop scientific progress and go down blind alleys.

The facts: Barack Obama won 38 percent of white Dems in NC, and didn’t do much better amongst whites in IN (35 percent). In exit polls of 1,881 IN Dems and 2,316 NC voters, two out of three Hillary Clinton supporters said they would be dissatisfied if he is their party’s nominee.

How much of Obama’s poor showing amongst whites is due to the lingering echo of the racist, anti-American comments Rev. Jeremiah Wright has repeatedly made from the pulpit and the podium, and how much is attributable to conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos”?

The Associated Press reports that Wright had little impact in either state because the electorate was already polarized along racial lines long before the revolutionary rev’s rhetoric came to light:

† Six in 10 white voters in both states supported Hillary Rodham Clinton … close to the average 57 percent of whites who had backed the New York senator in Democratic primaries since Super Tuesday, which was Feb. 5. It's also slightly below the 63 percent of whites who voted for her in Pennsylvania and 69 percent in Mississippi, the most recent contests before Tuesday's voting.

† Whites lacking college degrees favored Clinton over Obama by 31 percentage points in Indiana and 45 points in North Carolina. Since Super Tuesday, she has triumphed over Obama among this group by an average 30 points, including 41 points in Pennsylvania and 55 points in Mississippi. … Other than liberal Vermont, Wisconsin is the only state where Obama has won more than half of whites who have not graduated college.

† White men leaned toward Clinton on Tuesday, as she got 59 percent in Indiana and 55 percent in North Carolina. Clinton got 57 percent of their votes in Pennsylvania and 67 percent in Mississippi.

Wright’s influence would have been strongest amongst late deciders in both states, yet exit polls did not bear this out. Wright was cited as an important factor by the 25 percent of IN white voters who picked their candidate within the past month, and the 25 percent who knew which candidate would get their vote more than a month ago. Ditto NC, where 25 percent of whites also made up their minds late in the game and cited Wright as an important factor in their vote, along with the 30 percent of white voters who chose their candidate early.   

Hillary got 87 percent of these “Wright-thinking” IN late deciders and 92 percent in NC – compared to 86 percent of these IN early deciders and 91 percent in NC. In other words, in neither state did Wright affect the choice of early or late white voters.

Bottom line: Wright did not make white Dem voters any more likely to vote for Hillary.

Although Obama’s campaign is convinced that IN might have narrowly gone his way if crossover Republicans hadn’t skewed the outcome - Hillary won by just 14,000 votes - Rush’s effect on the outcome of the contest trickier to tease out. (The NC results are so lopsidedly in Obama’s favor because of the size of the black vote it’s not worth considering how much, if any, influence Operation Chaos had in that state).

The Washington Post reports:

As he had before several recent primaries, Limbaugh encouraged listeners to vote for Clinton to "bloody up Obama politically" and prolong the Democratic fight. …

In Indiana, 10 percent of Democratic primary voters described themselves as Republicans, a higher rate than in any state but Mississippi, and they went for Clinton by eight percentage points, according to exit polls. …

By contrast, Obama won Republican voters, often by very large margins, in seven of the eight states where exit polls were able to report the group before the Texas and Ohio primaries on March 4, when Limbaugh first coaxed listeners to vote for Clinton. …

Also notable was that in Indiana, six in 10 Republicans who supported Clinton on Tuesday said they would vote for presumptive GOP nominee John McCain over Clinton in the fall, if that were the matchup. By contrast, most Republicans who voted for Obama said they would back him against McCain. …

But at least as much data suggested that many Republicans voted for Clinton because the Democratic primary was the more meaningful one and because they simply preferred her to Obama. In Indiana, about nine in 10 GOP Clinton voters said she would make a better commander in chief, and more than six in 10 said she would have a better shot at beating McCain.

And Clinton's edge among Indiana Republicans was relatively small, if set against the broader racial divisions in the contest. Her eight-point advantage among Republicans, nearly all of whom are white in the state, was much narrower than it was among white Democrats, whom she won by nearly 2 to 1 over Obama.

Which means Rush didn't make white voters any less likely to vote for Obama, again because even in IN the effect of racial polarization dwarfed the effect of Operation Chaos.

However, the size of the Republican crossover vote does have implications in the general election - and belies Hillary's contention that will fare better against John McCain than Obama will.

The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait notes that the exit poll results show “7% of the Indiana electorate, voted for Clinton in the primary but have no intention of supporting her in the fall’:

Now, this isn't a precise measure of the “Limbaugh effect” - no doubt there are some Republicans who backed Obama in the primary out of anti-Clinton sentiment, but plan to vote for McCain in November. But it is a good place to start when making a ballpark estimate. And it's a sizeable number.

How sizeable? The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein does the math:

Among the 17 percent of primary goers who said they would choose Sen. John McCain over Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical general election match-up, 41 percent of that group came from Clinton’s own camp. … [s]even percent … (40 percent of 17 percent) said they would defect to the Republican should she end up the nominee. That would be a difficult punch to stomach in November. In 2004, nearly 1 million Indianans voted for John Kerry. A seven percent defection rate would have meant 70,000 less votes.

Tea leaf reading is, by definition, subjective. It’s one thing for a Dem to go into a voting booth and pull the lever for one candidate or the other – with the exception of a Bradley Effect, whatever criteria used to make the choice can be quantified in exit polling. It’s more difficult to measure the effect of Operation Chaos in exit polling, because in addition to determining why a crossover voter chose one candidate over the other, you need to consider how (s)he intends to vote in November.

Republicans who voted for Hillary were really voting against Obama, and can be expected to abandon Hillary in favor of McCain in the general election. What about Republicans who voted for Obama? Some, no doubt, sincerely believe him to be the best candidate in the race. Others might just have been much quicker on the draw than Rush, who has called off Operation Chaos because “I now believe he would be the weakest of the Democrat nominees.”

Mother’s Day Bonus

Liza Mundy, a staff writer for The Washington Post’s Sunday Magazine, writes about a ladies-only wine-and-cheese party she attended with some 20 mothers in her social circle, at which “a few of the women began reminiscing about their own youths, comparing the transgressions they'd committed in their teens and 20s and debating whose were the most egregious.” The shocker:

“I win, I win!” one mother exclaimed. “I was a stripper!”

This contribution came from a woman I have long admired. Smart and good-humored, she has always seemed a veritable supermother, remarkable for her ability to work a full day and come home to direct a range of extracurricular activities for her bright and engaging children. I see them sometimes out for a walk, and always imagine that they are discussing quadratic equations or figuring the velocity of the wind. And now it emerged that, in her salad days, this working mom with a security clearance had removed her clothing, onstage, to the accompaniment of “Pretty Woman.” …

Laughing, I asked if she would ever tell her children about her short-lived foray into the entertainment business, which ended when she came down with food poisoning the next day. “No, I don't think I'll be telling my kids about that one,” she said, although, she added, she would never want to lie.

She probably won't have to. Likely, few children would think to ask their mom if she appeared in her birthday suit, or portions of it, in public.

Mundy notes that “sooner or later many mothers of our generation will have some 'splainin' to do” and finds the silver lining behind this dark cloud:

Coming of age, as we did, in the 1970s … many of today's most responsible mothers (and fathers) once engaged in social experimentation that … they are glad wasn't photographed. Ironically, it is these very memories that have turned many of us into hyper-vigilant parents, intent on making sure our children don't get up to the very behaviors our cohort once engaged in with such glee.”

The rest of the article explores the question, “What do children need to know about their parents' pasts, and when do they need to know it?” and offers expert opinion.

Uninsured residents would have been identified from income tax forms, on which filers would have to say whether they had health coverage. At the hearing Friday, health-care advocates questioned penalizing low-income residents who do not have insurance because they cannot afford it. 

Catania’s proposal hit another bump in the road when private health-care provider CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, which would have contracted with the District to provide coverage, “may pull its planned $5 million annual contribution and its doctors network out of the deal.”

† Hillary’s Many Makeovers: “Often ridiculed for adopting a Southern twang when south of the Mason-Dixon line, Mrs. Clinton hauled out her best local pronunciation in her [NC] campaign stops,” writes John Fund, in The Wall Street Journal’s “Political Diary” (E-mail subscription required):

“It's time to quit wringin' our hands and start rollin' up our sleeves,” she told a crowd at High Point this past weekend. The town's name rolled off her tongue sounding like "Hah Point.”

Pretty scary, especially for this “Illinois native and Arkansas lawyer” who, as Washington Post columnist George Will points out, “became, retroactively, a lifelong Yankee fan at age 52 when, shopping for a U.S. Senate seat, she adopted New York state as home sweet home.”

Columnist Kathleen Parker – who is wet-your-pants funny when she wants to be – notes, “All politicians adapt and mold themselves to fit their audience, but Hillary Clinton has elevated the art of identity politics to a science of morphology.” She explains:

She doesn't just show people what they want in order to convince them that she's their “man” - and we no longer use that word entirely metaphorically. She becomes the people she wants to sway. …

In James Cameron's "Terminator II: Judgment Day," the T-1000 android was made of liquid metal and could duplicate others. He “learned” a person by touching him and absorbing his data. …

She's shown that she can speak in gerunds with or without g's. She can summon an African-American pastor's cadence in church or produce tears in a coffee shop surrounded by working gals who are tired, too. …

Impressive, if appalling. But most impressive of all has been Clinton's metamorphosis into a man. She isn't only the alpha dog. She's Cujo.

If you just think of the number of hairdos Hillary has had over the years – heck, just during her presidential campaign – David Byrne’s line “I changed my hairstyle so many times now, don't know what I look like” takes on a whole new meaning. 

† Why We Need Gitmo (second item): Former Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detainee Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi, 29, accused by the U.S. military accused of fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, was amongst the three suicide bombers who murdered seven Iraqi security forces in Mosul on April 26, reports The Washington Post. After Ajmi was released into the custody of the Kuwaiti government as part of a diplomatic arrangement inl late 2005, he made his way to Iraq via Syria. While this suicide bombing in Iraq is the first linked to a former Guantánamo  detainee, the Defense Intelligence Agency says up to three dozen others are confirmed or suspected of having returned to terrorist activities – a claim that international human rights groups and lawyers for Gitmo detainees dispute,  contending that “only a handful” have fought U.S. forces after their release. A Pentagon spokesman tells the WaPo, “Our reports indicate that a number of former Guantánamo detainees have taken part in anti-coalition militant activities after leaving U.S. detention. As these facts illustrate, there is an implied future risk to U.S. and allied interests with every detainee who is released or transferred from Guantánamo.” To date, some 500 detainees have been released from Gitmo or transferred to other governments, and 65 of the 270 still incarcerated there will be cut loose as well.