Anima Christi

This beautiful prayer, often said after receiving Communion, dates from the early 14th century. St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, was particularly fond of this prayer. The translation given below is by John Henry Cardinal Newman, one of the great converts to Roman Catholicism in the 19th century.

The prayer takes its name from its first two words in Latin. Anima Christi means "the soul of Christ."

Anima Christi

Soul of Christ, be my sanctification;
Body of Christ, be my salvation;
Blood of Christ, fill all my veins;
Water of Christ's side, wash out my stains;
Passion of Christ, my comfort be;
O good Jesu, listen to me;
In Thy wounds I fain would hide;
Ne'er to be parted from Thy side;
Guard me, should the foe assail me;
Call me when my life shall fail me;
Bid me come to Thee above,
With Thy saints to sing Thy love,
World without end. Amen.

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McCain Gets In The Game With Sarah Palin

The game is practicing identity politics. For the past year the Clinton's, Biden and McCain have been making the case that Obama does not have the experience to be president. Despite the evidence and criticism, Obama won his party's nomination and is likely to win the general election. William Kristol on Fox does a great job of explaining why that strategy has failed to date and would likely fail in the general election as well:

Obama has no experience, obviously. He was a state Senator. Sarah Palin has much more executive experience. She has been governor of the state while Obama has been pretty much an absentee senator running for the presidency.

But why do we think, actually, whether you agree or not, that Obama has the stature to be president? Because of the campaign he's run, which has been awfully impressive. He has been in debates and given speeches, and you think this is a serious person.

That is why for Palin, these next two months, it's all win or all lose. We will see whether she is up to it. She will give a major speech here. She will obviously do interviews over the course of the next month or two.

And, above all, she will have that debate with Joe Biden. People will not be able to say--if she holds her own with Joe Biden, I don't think people with a straight face can say it is a horrifying thought that Sarah Palin is going to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Pretty good analysis.

So for better or worse, the voting public equates the ability to campaign effectively as a determinant of the candidates qualifications for the office. McCain could have continued to beat his head against that wall to get voters to change their way of judging qualifications or get in the identity politics game. Conservatism is supposed to be the politics of reality. The conservative move is to get in the game, not to argue how the game should be played -- especially two months out from an election.

I hear president's love legacies, but probably not what 'W' had in mind. But the real, and imagined, incompetencies of the Bush administration's impact on this election is to denigrate the value of experience, given that if he had it and still performed so poorly, what's the point?

Kristol had a written an earlier column touting Palin. His latest Weekly Standard column predicts how they [Barzini?] will be coming after her.

[Post-post Sept 2] - A few days later, confirming Kristol's analysis, the Obama campaign itself makes the argument that the campaign is evidence of his ability to govern.

[Post-post Sept 5] - Even a few more days later, confirming Kristol's analysis, John Harris & Jim Vandehei of Politico, state exactly his point in a post titled, 'How Palin Changed the Race' - excerpt below:

• Republicans can play identity group politics too

This brand of politics — voters who support a candidate not because of what that person has done in public life but because of the symbolism of the candidate's personal story — is a big part of why Obama is the Democratic nominee. With Palin, the GOP showed that it, too, can play this game.

Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, told us this week that his wife, who is even more conservative than he is, doesn’t think much of McCain. But she loves Palin, perhaps enough to get her to now back the GOP ticket. He said he was astonished how Palin has woken “the sleeping giant: Republican women.”

It is the talk of the hallways, in the convention and nationwide. Women, especially Republican women, were thrilled by the Palin speech. Already, the campaign is reporting a huge surge in fundraising. The bigger question is whether this will translate into a huge surge at the polls. Republicans get clobbered in national elections when it comes to the women’s vote. One way to narrow the gender gap is to juice turnout among your own people. Palin could do that. Another way is to juice turnout among female swing voters.

[Post-post Sept 15] This from Joe Trippi, Democratic consultant of Howard Dean pedigree:

But the McCain campaign learned something from watching the Democratic primary fight. Throughout the 2008 primary season no matter how many polls said that Hillary Clinton had more experience to be President, no matter how wide her margin over Obama on "ready to be President on day one" it did not matter. Obama and his message of change won.

The Clinton campaign kept seeing in their polling and research that Hillary's experience trumped change and could not understand why she was losing the nomination with her substantial experience advantage,

The hunger for change was that powerful. The hunger for a different kind of post-partisan politics that would shake up Washington was overpowering "experience" and "more of the same".

Now it seems so obvious. It is amazing that so few (including the Obama campaign) saw it coming.

Leave Kristol off that list. See various complete columns below.

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Let Palin Be Palin
Why the left is scared to death of McCain's running mate.
by William Kristol
09/08/2008, Volume 013, Issue 48


A spectre is haunting the liberal elites of New York and Washington--the spectre of a young, attractive, unapologetic conservatism, rising out of the American countryside, free of the taint (fair or unfair) of the Bush administration and the recent Republican Congress, able to invigorate a McCain administration and to govern beyond it.

That spectre has a name--Sarah Palin, the 44-year-old governor of Alaska chosen by John McCain on Friday to be his running mate. There she is: a working woman who's a proud wife and mother; a traditionalist in important matters who's broken through all kinds of barriers; a reformer who's a Republican; a challenger of a corrupt good-old-boy establishment who's a conservative; a successful woman whose life is unapologetically grounded in religious belief; a lady who's a leader.

So what we will see in the next days and weeks--what we have already seen in the hours after her nomination--is an effort by all the powers of the old liberalism, both in the Democratic party and the mainstream media, to exorcise this spectre. They will ridicule her and patronize her. They will distort her words and caricature her biography. They will appeal, sometimes explicitly, to anti-small town and anti-religious prejudice. All of this will be in the cause of trying to prevent the American people from arriving at their own judgment of Sarah Palin.

That's why Palin's spectacular performance in her introduction in Dayton was so important. Her remarks were cogent and compelling. Her presentation of herself was shrewd and savvy. I heard from many who watched Palin--many of them not predisposed to support her--about how moved they were by her remarks, her composure, and her story. She will have a chance to shine again Wednesday night at the Republican convention.

But before and after that, she'll be swimming in political waters infested with sharks. Her nickname when she was the starting point guard on an Alaska high school championship basketball team was "Sarah Barracuda." I suspect she'll take care of herself better than many expect.

But the McCain campaign can help. The choice of Palin was McCain's own. Many of his staff expected, and favored, other more conventional candidates. The campaign may be tempted to overreact when one rash sentence or foolish comment by Palin from 10 or 15 years ago is dragged up by Democratic opposition research and magnified by a credulous and complicit media.

The McCain campaign will have to keep its cool. It will have to provide facts and context, and to hit back where appropriate. But it cannot become obsessed with playing defense. It should allow Palin to deal with the charges directly and resist the temptation to try to shield her from the media. Palin is potentially a huge asset to McCain. He took the gamble--wisely, we think--of putting her on the ticket. McCain's choice of Palin was McCain being McCain. Now his campaign will have to let Palin be Palin.

There will be rocky moments. But they will fade if the McCain campaign lets Palin's journey take its natural course over the next two months. Millions of Americans--mostly but not only women, mostly but not only Republicans and conservatives--seemed to get a sense of energy and enjoyment and pride, not just from her nomination, but especially from her smashing opening performance. Palin will be a compelling and mold-breaking example for lots of Americans who are told every day that to be even a bit conservative or Christian or old-fashioned is bad form. In this respect, Palin can become an inspirational figure and powerful symbol. The left senses this, which is why they want to discredit her quickly.

A key moment for Palin will be the vice presidential debate, to be held at Washington University in St. Louis on October 2. One liberal commentator--a former U.S. ambassador and not normally an unabashed vulgarian--licked his chops Friday afternoon: "To steal an old adage of former Secretary of State James Baker .  .  . putting Sarah Palin into a debate with Joe Biden is going to be like throwing Howdy Doody into a knife fight!"

Charming. And if Palin holds her own against Biden, as she is fully capable of doing? McCain will then have succeeded in combining with his own huge advantage in experience and judgment, a politician of great promise in his vice presidential slot who will make Joe Biden look like a tiresome relic. McCain's willingness to take a chance on Palin could turn what looked, after Obama's impressive speech Thursday night in Denver, like a long two months for Republicans and conservatives, into a campaign of excitement and--dare we say it?--hope, which will culminate on November 4 in victory.

--William Kristol

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September 15, 2008

It's Not Just Palin -- Its the Message

By Joe Trippi

There is no question that John McCain's pick of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has changed the dynamic of the 2008 Presidential campaign, moved the current wave of polling to the GOP's favor, and altered the terrain the rest of the election will likely be fought on.

The Obama campaign's ability to recognize the shifting ground, understand that it is real, and adjust accordingly will determine the outcome. And the outcome, for the first time, is in doubt.

The Obama campaign went into the Democratic National Convention believing that the race would be fought out on Washington experience and "more of the same" vs change. This was essentially the same frame of the race the Obama camp had sustained for the first 16 months or so of the nominating fight with New York Senator Hillary Clinton. It worked in the primaries until the Clinton campaign shifted from "35 years of experience" to a much more "woman for change" oriented message in the later stages of the fight and nearly came back to win the nomination.

But the McCain campaign learned something from watching the Democratic primary fight. Throughout the 2008 primary season no matter how many polls said that Hillary Clinton had more experience to be President, no matter how wide her margin over Obama on "ready to be President on day one" it did not matter. Obama and his message of change won.

The Clinton campaign kept seeing in their polling and research that Hillary's experience trumped change and could not understand why she was losing the nomination with her
substantial experience advantage,

The hunger for change was that powerful. The hunger for a different kind of post-partisan politics that would shake up Washington was overpowering "experience" and "more of the same".

Now it seems so obvious. It is amazing that so few (including the Obama campaign) saw it coming.

John McCain and his team had to make a decision. Run as the more experienced ticket, and run smack into Barack Obama's trap of change vs more of the same just as Clinton had. Or pick Sarah Palin and run as the original mavericks that really will shake up Washington.

If you are an advisor to McCain. Faced with that choice, you urge McCain to pick Palin.

But now its the Obama campaign's turn to learn the lesson of the Clinton campaign. The Obama campaign looks at all its polling data and research and in a race between change and four more years of George Bush, change wins big. So it keeps trying to frame the race as four more years of George Bush and more of the same vs change and cannot understand why it isn't pulling away.

It's not just Palin.

The brilliance of the McCain strategy and messaging is that it includes a trap for Obama. To push back on the McCain claim of "country first" and "the original mavericks who will shake up Washington" the Obama campaign's attack of "four more years of George Bush" becomes a problem. In a country that yearns for post-partisan change the Obama campaign risks sounding too partisan and like more of the same.

It would not surprise me if in one of the debates Obama or Biden uses the "You voted with George Bush and supported him 93% of the time" and its John McCain that retorts "that's the kind of partisan attack the American people are sick of....".

What worked for Obama is now working for McCain. The important lesson for the Obama campaign is that the Clinton campaign kept looking at its research, kept stressing experience and did not adjust until it was too late. The McCain campaign has not only adjusted to the Obama message, they have changed the terrain.

Now the Obama campaign and its allies need to understand that in arguing that John McCain represents a third term of George Bush and the GOP agenda it is the Obama campaign that risks sounding partisan in a country that yearns for the post-partisanship of "country first" and "shaking things up in Washington".

One last point. Hamilton Jordan, who passed away recently at the age of 63, was among a brilliant group of Democrats who plotted the strategy behind Jimmy Carter's campaign for the White House. Carter was the only true insurgent candidate on the Democratic side to make it to the Presidency in the modern era.

Carter was running against Gerald Ford in 1976. The Watergate babies, a large group of reform minded Democrats, had been swept into office in the change election of 1974. Carter who ran as an outsider throughout the primaries looked like he would beat President Ford going away. But Ford who had pardoned Nixon and was a joke machine for Saturday Night Live, came back and nearly won the election holding Carter to just 50.1% of the vote. Ford received 48% after a debate gaff that probably cost him an outright win.

I remember Hamilton Jordan saying something I will never forget. He said the mistake that had cost Carter his big lead, and nearly cost him the election was that after Carter won the nomination the campaign started to listen too much to Washington Democrats and lost much of its outsider thinking that made it different.

The Obama campaign needs to get back to the basics that got it here. Stop listening to the Democrats who are wringing their hands and fighting the last war.

Clinton adjusted too late, McCain may have adjusted in the nick of time. Will Obama's campaign make the right adjustment now? Get back to being an outsider. And get there fast.

McCain is the one running against Washington now. Obama can't just run against Bush. That's my take.

Joe Trippi is a Democratic political consultant. He writes at JoeTrippi.com.

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The Fruits of Victory

I'm no fan, but a lot of my fellow citizens are very happy today and I think that is a good thing. Last night at the University of Miami college football game, a black woman who was selling me something, said the following after pleasantries; "My heart's not here, I wish I was watching Obama, but I gotta work." As I was leaving, I grabbed [gently] her arm and told her, 'enjoy tonight and all that's coming' - hard not to feel good for someone like her.

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The Logic of Political Extremism

Sometimes we can over-analyze these things. Why is Hollywood so predominantly liberal? Just look at who they are and what they do. That's what Richard Posner does below.

But why should actors and other creative workers in the Hollywood film industry, and indeed "cultural workers" more generally, be drawn to political extremes? The nature of their work, which combines irregular employment with high variance in income, an engagement with imaginative rather than realistic concepts, noninvolvement in the production of "useful" goods or service, and, traditionally, a bohemian style of living (a consequence of the other factors I have mentioned), distances them from the ordinary, everyday world of work and family in a basically rather conservative, philistine, and emphatically commercial society, which is the society of the United States today.

See his, as well as Gary Becker's, complete post below.

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Why Is Hollywood Dominated by Liberals? Posner

A recent article in the Washington Times by Amy Fagan, entitled “Hollywood’s Conservative Underground,
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/23/hollywoods-conservative-underground/ (visited Aug. 23, 2008), is a reminder of the curious domination of the American film industry by left liberals. The industry’s left-wing slant drives the Right crazy (if you Google "Hollywood Liberals," you'll encounter an endless number of fierce, often paranoid, denunciations by conservative bloggers and journalists of Hollywood's control by the Left). Fagan's article depicts Hollywood conservatives as an embattled minority, forced to meet in secret lest the revelation of their political views lead to their being blacklisted by the industry. The conservatives' complaint is an ironic echo of the 1950s, when communists and fellow travelers in Hollywood--who were numerous--were blacklisted by the movie studios.

We need to distinguish between actors, actresses, set designers, scriptwriters, directors, and other "creative" (that is, artistic) film personnel, on the one hand, and the business executives and shareholders of the film studios, on the other hand. (Producers are closer to the second, the business, echelon than to the creative echelon.) The creative workers, I think, are not so much magnetized by left-wing politics as drawn to political extremes--for there have been a number of extremely conservative Hollywood actors, such as Ronald Reagan, John Wayne, Charlton Heston, Mel Gibson, and Jon Voight--Voight recently wrote a fiercely conservative op-ed in the Washington Times, where Fagan's article was published. The left end of the political spectrum in this country is still somewhat more respectable than the right end, and so if one finds a class of persons who are drawn to political polarization, more will end up at the far liberal end of the political spectrum than at the far conservative end, yet it will be polarization rather than leftism as such that explains the imbalance. No one has a good word for Stalin and Mao nowadays, but socialism is not a dirty word, as fascism is.

But why should actors and other creative workers in the Hollywood film industry, and indeed "cultural workers" more generally, be drawn to political extremes? The nature of their work, which combines irregular employment with high variance in income, an engagement with imaginative rather than realistic concepts, noninvolvement in the production of "useful" goods or service, and, traditionally, a bohemian style of living (a consequence of the other factors I have mentioned), distances them from the ordinary, everyday world of work and family in a basically rather conservative, philistine, and emphatically commercial society, which is the society of the United States today.

The choice of a political ideology, which is to say of a general orientation that guides a person's response to a variety of specific political and ethical issues, is less a matter of conscious choice or weighing of evidence than of a feeling of comfort with the advocates and adherents of the ideology. An ideology attractive to solid bourgeois types is unlikely to be attractive to cultural workers as I have described them. So we should not expect those workers to subscribe to the conventional political values, and apparently a disproportionate number of them do not. Moreover, though most actors and other creative film workers are not particularly intellectual, as cultural producers much in the public eye they have a natural affinity with public intellectuals, who I found in my book Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline (2001) split about 2/3 liberal 1/3 conservative.

The situation of Hollywood's business executives, including investors in the film business, is different. They are not cultural workers, and one expects their focus to be firmly on the bottom line. It is true that the Hollywood film industry was founded largely by Jews and has always been very heavily Jewish, and that Jews of all income levels are disproportionately liberal. But if Hollywood based its selection of movies to produce and sell on the political views of the studios' owners and managers, that would be commercial suicide, as competitors would rush in to cater to audiences' desires. The idea that Hollywood is a propaganda machine for the Left is not only improbable as theory but empirically unsupported. Hollywood produces antiwar movies during unpopular wars and pro-war movies during popular ones (as during World War II), movies that ridicule minorities when minorities are unpopular and movies that flatter them when discrimination becomes unfashionable, movies that steer away from frank presentation of sex when society is strait-laced and movies that revel in sex when the society, or at least the part of the society that consumes films avidly, society turns libertine. The Hollywood film industry follows taste rather than creating taste, as one expects business firms to do.

What troubles conservatives about Hollywood is less the promotion in movies of left-liberal policies than the breakdown of the old taboos. Those taboos were codified in the Hays Code, which was in force between 1934 and 1968 with the backing of the Catholic Church. The code forbade disrespect of religion and marriage, obscene and scatological language, sexual innuendo, and nudity. The code was abandoned because of changing mores in society rather than because leftwingers suddenly took over Hollywood. If conservatives bought the studios and reinstituted the Hays Code they would soon be out of business. But what is true is that when movie audiences demand vulgar fare, then given that conservatives are more disturbed by vulgarity than liberals are, the film industry becomes less attractive to conservatives as a place to work in. This may be an additional reason for the left-liberal slant of the industry. But as long as the industry is an unregulated competitive industry, market forces will prevent studio heads and owners from trying to impose their own values on audiences, rather than trying to create movies that are in sync with those values.
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Hollywood and Liberals-Becker


For every Ronald Reagan Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jon Voight, Charlton Heston, and a few other prominent conservative Hollywood stars, there are probably more than 50 strongly liberal actors, directors, producers, and other "above the line" categories of filmmakers. The top "below the line" categories of cinematographers and production designers are also heavily liberal.Less creative crew members, such as grips, have political views that are closer to those of the general American voting population.

Posner gives several explanations of the liberality of filmmakers, including their engagement in fantasy projects, their irregular employment, and the prominence of Jews, who are mainly liberal, in the industry. There is an additional consideration of great importance. Whereas most actors and other filmmakers have little interest in tax policy, approaches to Medicare and social security, other domestic economic and political questions, and even in many foreign policy issues (except wars), they are very much concerned about policies regarding personal morals. I believe the single most important reason why so many of these Hollywood creative personnel are opposed to the Republican party, especially to the more conservative members of this party, is that the personal morals of many filmmakers deviate greatly from general norms of the American population.

Creative contributors to films divorce in large numbers, often several times. Many have frequent affairs, often while married, they have children without marriage, they have significant numbers of abortions, have a higher than average presence of gays, especially in certain of the creative categories, who are open about their sexual preferences, they take cocaine and other drugs, and generally they lead a life style that differs greatly from what is more representative of the American public. By contrast, an important base of the Republican Party is against out of wedlock births, strongly pro life and against abortions, against gays, especially those who adopt an publicly gay lifestyle, against affairs while married, and very much oppose the legalization of drugs like cocaine and even marijuana.

It becomes impossible for Hollywood types who adopt these different lifestyles to support a political party that is so openly and prominently critical of important aspects of their way of living. That the majority of the relatively few conservative filmmakers lead more ordinary lifestyles confirms this hypothesis: they tend to be heterosexual, married, have children while married, are less into drugs, and in other ways too have more conventional lifestyles. True, some of the most prominent conservative member of Hollywood, such as Reagan and Voight, have been divorced, but divorce is now more accepted even by most conservative Republicans. After all, Ronald Reagan was a darling of conservative Republicans, and John McCain also has been divorced. Note that below the line members of crews lead more conventional life styles, and so they are less likely to be anti conservatives and against Republicans.

When other issues affect filmmakers more than attacks on their morals, their views often become very different. So while many of the more creative filmmakers consider themselves to be socialists, filmmakers, writers, and other creative types in communist countries were typically very strongly opposed to their governments. The obvious reason is that these governments imposed substantial censorship on the type of films that could be made, and so directly interfered with what filmmakers and writers wanted to do.

Another important factor stressed to me by Guity Nashat Becker is that members of the print and visual media who generally have strongly liberal political views surround actors and other creative contributors to films. Since it is well established that political views are greatly affected by the attitudes of people one interacts with closely, it is not surprising that some of the liberality of the media rub off on actors and others in the filmmaking industry. In addition to their concern about political approaches to personal morality, their association with the media helps make filmmakers anti-business, especially big business, and strongly pro-union.

Do the liberal views of Hollywood stars and leaders have a big affect on the opinions of others? I do not know of any evidence on this, but I suspect they only have a small indirect effect. This is not the result of speeches or other statements of their views-since they usually are not articulate in their extemporaneous comments- but their entertainment at various political functions can help generate enthusiastic audiences. More important probably is that whereas audiences do not go to films unless they enjoy them, anti-business and other liberal views will often be an underlying message of popular films. I doubt of these messages have a large permanent effect on the opinions of the audiences, but some affect is surely possible. So all in all, I believe Hollywood is a very minor contributor to general political views, but I do not think their influence can be fully dismissed.

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Spies in Our Opinion Section

A Cuban spy who is an FIU professor and an editorial page contributor to the Miami Herald sounds Tom Clancy-ish. But unfortunately, it apparently belongs in the non-fiction section. The scenario is laid out in detail on a post from a local blogger, Henry Gomez of Babalu, and is featured in RealClearWorld - an offshoot of the very popular political web site, RealClearPolitics, owned by Time Inc.

That means that this story has now gone mainstream, which should prove to be an interesting time to watch how the Miami Herald handles this. The supposed spy, Marifeli Pérez-Stable, was outed publicly by Chris Simmons, who has been a Counterintelligence Officer since 1987 and worked on cases involving Cuba.

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Ayers Today, Gone [Presidency] Tomorrow?

Barack Obama is making Dan Uggla's slump look mild.

His steady decline in the polls culminated today, on the second day of his Convention, to show him dropping behind McCain [by 2 points], for the first time since March. That's not the bad news.

William Ayer's is the bad news. An unrepentant terrorist with ties to Obama. A writer from National Review [a conservative] magazine was trying to research those ties. John Kass from the Chicago Tribune documents his difficulties - an excerpt below, entire article copied at end of post:

Kurtz's research was to be done in a special library run by the University of Illinois at Chicago. The library has 132 boxes full of documents pertaining to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation vested heavily in school reform.

Kurtz believes the documents may show Obama and Ayers were close—far closer than Obama has acknowledged—over oodles of foundation gifts on education projects the two worked on together.

First the librarians told Kurtz yes, come look. But by the time Kurtz landed in Chicago, the librarians changed their minds. The donor of the documents hadn't cleared his research. Perhaps they'll let him look at the documents on Nov. 5.

The relationship between the ambitious Obama and the unrepentant Ayers is a subject that excites Republicans, who haven't really thwacked that pinata as hard as they might. It really irritates Obama and his political champion, Chicago's sovereign lord, Mayor Richard M. Daley.

"This is a public entity," Kurtz told us Wednesday. "I don't understand how confidentiality of the donor would be an issue."

You don't understand, Mr. Kurtz? Allow me to explain. The secret is hidden in the name of the library:

The Richard J. Daley Library.

Aug 28 - Funny what a little publicity can do. A few days later the files were available. Here's how the Obama campaign is handling it - by intimidation.
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Michael Barone of US News & World Report and Fox, weighs-in:

Which leads us back to Barack Obama, who is now a U.S. senator and will shortly become the Democratic nominee for an office that even Chicago regards as more important than mayor. And the question presents itself: How did this outsider from Hawaii and Columbia and Harvard become a somebody? His wife, Michelle Robinson Obama, had some connections: Her father was a Democratic precinct committeeman; she baby-sat for Jesse Jackson's children; and she worked as a staffer for the current Mayor Daley. Obama made connections on the all-black South Side by joining the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church. But was Obama's critical connection to le tout Chicago William Ayers? That's the conclusion you are led to by Steve Diamond's blog. And by the fact that the National Review's Stanley Kurtz was suddenly denied access to the records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge by the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle. (Kurtz had already been given an index to the records.) Presumably the CAC records would show a closer collaboration between Ayers and Obama than was suggested by Obama's response at the debate that Ayers was just a guy "in the neighborhood."

The increasingly sharp McCain campaign had the wit to ask the University of Illinois to open up the CAC records. But it didn't seem likely the university will open them up; as John Kass puts it in a characteristically pungent column in the Chicago Tribune, "Welcome to Chicago, Mr. Kurtz." Now the University says the archives are open. But Kurt's friends wonder if they have been flushed of inconvenient documents in the meantime.

Does it matter if William Ayers was the key somebody who made Barack Obama a somebody? I think it does. Not that Obama shares all of Ayers's views, which surely he does not. Or that he endorses Ayers's criminal acts, which, as he has pointed out, were committed while he was a child in Hawaii and Indonesia. But his willingness to associate with an unrepentant terrorist is not the same as Daley's.

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Chicago Tribune article
When Daley says shhh, library is quiet on Obama

John Kass

August 21, 2008

Conservative writer Stanley Kurtz—researching an article for the National Review about connections between Barack Obama and former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers—made a big mistake.

The poor man took a wrong turn on the Chicago Way. Now he's lost.

Kurtz's research was to be done in a special library run by the University of Illinois at Chicago. The library has 132 boxes full of documents pertaining to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation vested heavily in school reform.

Kurtz believes the documents may show Obama and Ayers were close—far closer than Obama has acknowledged—over oodles of foundation gifts on education projects the two worked on together.

First the librarians told Kurtz yes, come look. But by the time Kurtz landed in Chicago, the librarians changed their minds. The donor of the documents hadn't cleared his research. Perhaps they'll let him look at the documents on Nov. 5.

The relationship between the ambitious Obama and the unrepentant Ayers is a subject that excites Republicans, who haven't really thwacked that pinata as hard as they might. It really irritates Obama and his political champion, Chicago's sovereign lord, Mayor Richard M. Daley.

"This is a public entity," Kurtz told us Wednesday. "I don't understand how confidentiality of the donor would be an issue."

You don't understand, Mr. Kurtz? Allow me to explain. The secret is hidden in the name of the library:

The Richard J. Daley Library.

Eureka!

The Richard J. Daley Library doesn't want nobody nobody sent. And Richard J.'s son, Shortshanks, is now the mayor.

Obama, wearing the reformer's mantle, has generously offered to extend that reform to Washington, even to Kenya, but not Chicago, because he knows Shortshanks would be miffed.

Ayers, a former left-wing radical accused of inciting riots during the anti-war protests in the 1960s, is now also under Shortshanks' protection. After Ayers finally resurfaced in 1980, he got a job the Chicago Way, as a professor at UIC.

The Tribune's City Hall reporter, Dan Mihalopoulos, asked Daley on Wednesday if the Richard J. Daley Library should release the documents. Shortshanks didn't like that one. He kept insisting he would be "very frank," a phrase that makes the needles on a polygraph start jumping.

" Bill Ayers—I've said this—his father was a great friend of my father," the mayor said. "I'll be very frank. Vietnam divided families, divided people. It was a terrible time of our country. People didn't know one another. Since then, I'll be very frank, [Ayers] has been in the forefront of a lot of education issues and helping us in public schools and things like that."

The mayor expressed his frustrations with outside agitators like Kurtz.

"People keep trying to align himself with Barack Obama," Daley said. "It's really unfortunate. They're friends. So what? People do make mistakes in the past. You move on. This is a new century, a new time. He reflects back and he's been making a strong contribution to our community."

Mr. Kurtz finally got his answer. It should grace the cover of the National Review, with a cartoon of Shortshanks, dressed like a jolly Tudor monarch, holding a tiny Obama in his right paw, a tiny Ayers in his left:

They're friends. So what?

Welcome to Chicago, Mr. Kurtz.

The Republican National Committee lost no time in demanding that Obama personally defy Shortshanks and call for the documents to be released from their dungeon.

"The American people have a right to know more about Barack Obama's relationship with unrepentant terrorist William Ayers," said RNC spokesman Danny Diaz in a statement. "Will Barack Obama step forward and call on the university to immediately release all the records?"

No chance, Danny.

"It leads me to have tremendous fear for the documents," Kurtz said. "What if they are going through them right now and deciding which names to take out? I'm completely alarmed. I think public scrutiny is the only way to save the documents."

He should be worried. Though national pundits get thrills running up their legs when Obama speaks, it's when Daley says "I'll be very frank" that you've got to worry.

Kurtz fears "they'll manage to take this all the way past the election."

You think?

Even before Shortshanks, when Chicago had a true reform mayor, his freedom of information officer was Clarence McClain, a former pimp with a bad wig who ended up in federal prison for taking bribes. Now that the Daleys run things, forget about it.

It's obvious that Mr. Kurtz and the National Review didn't have the special Chicago Democratic machine library card:

The mayor's smiling face on one side. And your voting record on the other.

jskass@tribune.com
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Michael Barone column

Obama Needs to Explain His Ties to William Ayers
By Michael Barone

It doesn't help the Obama campaign that William Ayers is back in the news. Ayers, you'll recall, was the Weather Underground terrorist in the late 1960s and '70s whose radical group set bombs at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol. During the April 16 Democratic debate, Barack Obama explained his past association with Ayers by saying he was just a guy "in my neighborhood," meaning the University of Chicago enclave known as Hyde Park. But is that end of it? This is, after all, Chicago we're talking about; where political patronage and nepotism are the only ways one moves up the power ladder.

Decades after his radical youth, Ayers was one of the original grantees of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform organization in the 1990s, and was co-chairman of the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, one the two operational arms of the CAC. Obama, then not yet a state senator, became chairman of the CAC in 1995. Later in that year, the first organizing meeting for Obama's state Senate campaign was held in Ayers's apartment.

You might wonder what Obama was doing working with a character like this. And you might wonder how an unrepentant terrorist got a huge grant and cooperation from the Chicago public school system. You might wonder--if you don't know Chicago. For this is a city with a civic culture in which politicians, in the words of a story often told by former congressman, federal judge, and Clinton White House counsel Abner Mikva, "don't want nobody nobody sent."

That's how William Ayers got where he was. When he came out of hiding after the federal government was unable to prosecute him (because of government misconduct), he got a degree in education from Columbia and then moved to Chicago and got a job on the education faculty of the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle. How did he get that job? Well, it can't have hurt that his father, Thomas Ayers, was chairman of Commonwealth Edison (now Exelon) and a charter member of the Chicago establishment. As Mayor Richard M. Daley said recently, in arguing that the Ayers association should not be held against Obama, "His father was a great friend of my father."

In none of our other major cities is genealogy so important. The voters of Chicago and Illinois respect family ties in a way that voters in no other state or city do. Mayor Daley is, of course, the son of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley. The two Daleys have been mayors, and effective and competent mayors, of Chicago for 40 of the last 53 years. The attorney general of Illinois is the daughter of the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. The governor of Illinois is the son-in-law of the Democratic ward committeeman in Chicago's 33rd Ward. The congressman from the 2nd Congressional District is Jesse Jackson Jr. Jackson's predecessor-but-one in the district was Morgan Murphy Jr., whose father was chairman of (get this) Commonwealth Edison.

But my favorite example of the importance of family ties is 3rd District Rep. Dan Lipinski, who was first elected in 2004 to replace his father, Bill Lipinski, who was first elected in 1982. Bill Lipinski won the Democratic nomination in the March 2004 primary. But on Aug. 13, he announced he would not seek re-election and would resign the Democratic nomination. The deadline for replacing him was Aug.26, and a meeting was set on Aug. 17 for the 19th Ward and township Democratic committeemen to choose a new candidate. Lipinski announced his support for his son, who was then a professor of political science at the University of Tennessee and had not lived in Chicago for many years. Among the committeemen making the decision were: 11th Ward committeeman and County Commissioner John Daley, son of the late mayor and brother of the current mayor; 13th Ward committeeman Michael Madigan, Speaker of the Illinois House and father of Attorney General Lisa Madigan; 14th Ward committeeman Edward Burke, who succeeded his father as a council member in his 20s and was longtime chairman of the Finance Committee, and whose wife is a justice of the Illinois Supreme Court; 19th Ward committeeman Tom Hynes, former Cook County Assessor and father of Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes; and 23rd Ward committeeman Bill Lipinski. An electorate more averse to an argument against nepotism cannot be imagined. Lipinski advanced his son's name and said, "I'm optimistic, but one never knows in politics until the votes are counted." It did not take long to count them: Dan Lipinski was nominated without opposition. To the charge that the nomination was rigged, one participant dryly noted that anyone could have run.

One reason that Chicago and Illinois voters have acquiesced to the politics of nepotism is that its products--or many of them--are quite competent. Mayor Richie Daley, if I can call him that, has on the whole been an excellent mayor. Edward Burke is a cultured man of high intellect. Michael Madigan seems to be a solidly competent sort, and for all I know his daughter is, too. Dan Rostenkowski was a highly competent chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee for 14 years, until he was laid low by a bit of cheap chiseling; at that point he and his father had been the 32nd Ward committeemen for just about 60 years. (The younger Rostenkowski got his seat in the House in 1958 because his father, Joe Rostenkowski, had supported the late Mayor Daley in the 1955 Democratic primary against fellow Polish-American Benjamin Adamowski.) There are exceptions. Many political observers would put Rod Blagojevich, the son-in-law of 33rd Ward committeeman Dick Mell, on the top of the list of the nation's dumbest governors. But then, for Chicago, it has always been more important who is mayor than who is governor (not to mention out-of-town jobs like U.S. senator).

Which leads us back to Barack Obama, who is now a U.S. senator and will shortly become the Democratic nominee for an office that even Chicago regards as more important than mayor. And the question presents itself: How did this outsider from Hawaii and Columbia and Harvard become a somebody? His wife, Michelle Robinson Obama, had some connections: Her father was a Democratic precinct committeeman; she baby-sat for Jesse Jackson's children; and she worked as a staffer for the current Mayor Daley. Obama made connections on the all-black South Side by joining the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church. But was Obama's critical connection to le tout Chicago William Ayers? That's the conclusion you are led to by Steve Diamond's blog. And by the fact that the National Review's Stanley Kurtz was suddenly denied access to the records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge by the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle. (Kurtz had already been given an index to the records.) Presumably the CAC records would show a closer collaboration between Ayers and Obama than was suggested by Obama's response at the debate that Ayers was just a guy "in the neighborhood."

The increasingly sharp McCain campaign had the wit to ask the University of Illinois to open up the CAC records. But it didn't seem likely the university will open them up; as John Kass puts it in a characteristically pungent column in the Chicago Tribune, "Welcome to Chicago, Mr. Kurtz." Now the University says the archives are open. But Kurt's friends wonder if they have been flushed of inconvenient documents in the meantime.

Does it matter if William Ayers was the key somebody who made Barack Obama a somebody? I think it does. Not that Obama shares all of Ayers's views, which surely he does not. Or that he endorses Ayers's criminal acts, which, as he has pointed out, were committed while he was a child in Hawaii and Indonesia. But his willingness to associate with an unrepentant terrorist is not the same as Daley's:

"Bill Ayers, I've said this, his father was a great friend of my father. I'll be very frank. Vietnam divided families, divided people. It was a terrible time of our country. It really separated people. People didn't know one another. Since then, I'll be very frank, (Ayers) has been in the forefront on a lot of education issues and helping us in public schools and things like that.

"People keep trying to align himself with Barack Obama. It's really unfortunate. They're friends. So what? People do make mistakes in the past. You move on. This is a new century, a new time. He reflects back and he's been making a strong contribution to our community."

For Daley, family is paramount, and Ayers is admitted into le tout Chicago because his father is one of its pillars. And electoral politics is also paramount: In a city that is roughly 40 percent (and falling) white ethnic and 40 percent black, with an increasing gentrified white population, the current Mayor Daley has maintained very strong support from lakefront liberals, including the Hyde Park/Kenwood leftists like Ayers who were the original movers behind Obama's 1996 state Senate candidacy. It's in Daley's interest to work with these people and against his interest to do anything that seems like disrespecting them. As Bill Daley told me when I asked him some years ago whether his father would have approved of Richie marching in the gay rights parade, "Our father always told us when a group was big enough to control a ward; we should pay attention to them." Staying mayor is real important to Daley, and Daley staying mayor is real important to le tout Chicago. An unrepentant terrorist? Hey, we know your dad. And you control the 5th Ward.

For Obama, the outsider who gained the trust of the insiders, the position is different. He was willing to use Ayers and ally with him despite his terrorist past and lack of repentance. An unrepentant terrorist, who bragged of bombing the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, was a fit associate. Ayers evidently helped Obama gain insider status in Chicago civic life and politics--how much, we can't be sure. But most American politicians would not have chosen to associate with a man with Ayers's past or of Ayers's beliefs. It's something voters might reasonably want to take into account.
Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/08/obamas_ayers_ties_are_relevant.html at August 26, 2008 - 10:43:12 AM PDT
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New York Times
September 11, 2001
No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen
By DINITIA SMITH

''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough.'' Mr. Ayers, who spent the 1970's as a fugitive in the Weather Underground, was sitting in the kitchen of his big turn-of-the-19th-century stone house in the Hyde Park district of Chicago. The long curly locks in his Wanted poster are shorn, though he wears earrings. He still has tattooed on his neck the rainbow-and-lightning Weathermen logo that appeared on letters taking responsibility for bombings. And he still has the ebullient, ingratiating manner, the apparently intense interest in other people, that made him a charismatic figure in the radical student movement.

Now he has written a book, ''Fugitive Days'' (Beacon Press, September). Mr. Ayers, who is 56, calls it a memoir, somewhat coyly perhaps, since he also says some of it is fiction. He writes that he participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972. But Mr. Ayers also seems to want to have it both ways, taking responsibility for daring acts in his youth, then deflecting it.

''Is this, then, the truth?,'' he writes. ''Not exactly. Although it feels entirely honest to me.''

But why would someone want to read a memoir parts of which are admittedly not true? Mr. Ayers was asked.

''Obviously, the point is it's a reflection on memory,'' he answered. ''It's true as I remember it.''

Mr. Ayers is probably safe from prosecution anyway. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department said there was a five-year statute of limitations on Federal crimes except in cases of murder or when a person has been indicted.

Mr. Ayers, who in 1970 was said to have summed up the Weatherman philosophy as: ''Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at,'' is today distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. And he says he doesn't actually remember suggesting that rich people be killed or that people kill their parents, but ''it's been quoted so many times I'm beginning to think I did,'' he said. ''It was a joke about the distribution of wealth.''

He went underground in 1970, after his girlfriend, Diana Oughton, and two other people were killed when bombs they were making exploded in a Greenwich Village town house. With him in the Weather Underground was Bernardine Dohrn, who was put on the F.B.I.'s 10 Most Wanted List. J. Edgar Hoover called her ''the most dangerous woman in America'' and ''la Pasionara of the Lunatic Left.'' Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn later married.

In his book Mr. Ayers describes the Weathermen descending into a ''whirlpool of violence.''

''Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon,'' he writes. But then comes a disclaimer: ''Even though I didn't actually bomb the Pentagon -- we bombed it, in the sense that Weathermen organized it and claimed it.'' He goes on to provide details about the manufacture of the bomb and how a woman he calls Anna placed the bomb in a restroom. No one was killed or injured, though damage was extensive.

Between 1970 and 1974 the Weathermen took responsibility for 12 bombings, Mr. Ayers writes, and also helped spring Timothy Leary (sentenced on marijuana charges) from jail.

Today, Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn, 59, who is director of the Legal Clinic's Children and Family Justice Center of Northwestern University, seem like typical baby boomers, caring for aging parents, suffering the empty-nest syndrome. Their son, Malik, 21, is at the University of California, San Diego; Zayd, 24, teaches at Boston University. They have also brought up Chesa Boudin, 21, the son of David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin, who are serving prison terms for a 1981 robbery of a Brinks truck in Rockland County, N.Y., that left four people dead. Last month, Ms. Boudin's application for parole was rejected.

So, would Mr. Ayers do it all again, he is asked? ''I don't want to discount the possibility,'' he said.

''I don't think you can understand a single thing we did without understanding the violence of the Vietnam War,'' he said, and the fact that ''the enduring scar of racism was fully in flower.'' Mr. Ayers pointed to Bob Kerrey, former Democratic Senator from Nebraska, who has admitted leading a raid in 1969 in which Vietnamese women and children were killed. ''He committed an act of terrorism,'' Mr. Ayers said. ''I didn't kill innocent people.''

Mr. Ayers has always been known as a ''rich kid radical.'' His father, Thomas, now 86, was chairman and chief executive officer of Commonwealth Edison of Chicago, chairman of Northwestern University and of the Chicago Symphony. When someone mentions his father's prominence, Mr. Ayers is quick to say that his father did not become wealthy until the son was a teenager. He says that he got some of his interest in social activism from his father. He notes that his father promoted racial equality in Chicago and was acceptable as a mediator to Mayor Richard Daley and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966 when King marched in Cicero, Ill., to protest housing segregation.

All in all, Mr. Ayers had ''a golden childhood,'' he said, though he did have a love affair with explosives. On July 4, he writes, ''my brothers and I loved everything about the wild displays of noise and color, the flares, the surprising candle bombs, but we trembled mostly for the Big Ones, the loud concussions.''

The love affair seems to have continued into adulthood. Even today, he finds ''a certain eloquence to bombs, a poetry and a pattern from a safe distance,'' he writes.

He attended Lake Forest Academy in Lake Forest, Ill., then the University of Michigan but dropped out to join Students for a Democratic Society.

In 1967 he met Ms. Dohrn in Ann Arbor, Mich. She had a law degree from the University of Chicago and was a magnetic speaker who often wore thigh-high boots and miniskirts. In 1969, after the Manson family murders in Beverly Hills, Ms. Dohrn told an S.D.S. audience: ''Dig it! Manson killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they shoved a fork into a victim's stomach.''

In Chicago recently, Ms. Dohrn said of her remarks: ''It was a joke. We were mocking violence in America. Even in my most inflamed moment I never supported a racist mass murderer.''

Ms. Dohrn, Mr. Ayers and others eventually broke with S.D.S. to form the more radical Weathermen, and in 1969 Ms. Dohrn was arrested and charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer during the Days of Rage protests against the trial of the Chicago Eight -- antiwar militants accused of conspiracy to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

In 1970 came the town house explosion in Greenwich Village. Ms. Dohrn failed to appear in court in the Days of Rage case, and she and Mr. Ayers went underground, though there were no charges against Mr. Ayers. Later that spring the couple were indicted along with others in Federal Court for crossing state lines to incite a riot during the Days of Rage, and following that for ''conspiracy to bomb police stations and government buildings.'' Those charges were dropped in 1974 because of prosecutorial misconduct, including illegal surveillance.

During his fugitive years, Mr. Ayers said, he lived in 15 states, taking names of dead babies in cemeteries who were born in the same year as he. He describes the typical safe house: there were usually books by Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh, and Che Guevara's picture in the bedroom; fermented Vietnamese fish sauce in the refrigerator, and live sourdough starter donated by a Native American that was reputed to have passed from hand to hand over a century.

He also writes about the Weathermen's sexual experimentation as they tried to ''smash monogamy.'' The Weathermen were ''an army of lovers,'' he says, and describes having had different sexual partners, including his best male friend.

''Fugitive Days'' does have moments of self-mockery, for instance when Mr. Ayers describes watching ''Underground,'' Emile De Antonio's 1976 documentary about the Weathermen. He was ''embarrassed by the arrogance, the solipsism, the absolute certainty that we and we alone knew the way,'' he writes. ''The rigidity and the narcissism.''

In the mid-1970's the Weathermen began quarreling. One faction, including Ms. Boudin, wanted to join the Black Liberation Army. Others, including Ms. Dohrn and Mr. Ayers, favored surrendering. Ms. Boudin and Ms. Dohrn had had an intense friendship but broke apart. Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn were purged from the group.

Ms. Dohrn and Mr. Ayers had a son, Zayd, in 1977. After the birth of Malik, in 1980, they decided to surface. Ms. Dohrn pleaded guilty to the original Days of Rage charge, received three years probation and was fined $1,500. The Federal charges against Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn had already been dropped.

Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn tried to persuade Ms. Boudin to surrender because she was pregnant. But she refused, and went on to participate in the Brink's robbery. When she was arrested, Ms. Dohrn and Mr. Ayers volunteered to care for Chesa, then 14 months old, and became his legal guardians.

A few months later Ms. Dohrn was called to testify about the robbery. Ms. Dohrn had not seen Ms. Boudin for a year, she said, and knew nothing of it. Ms. Dohrn was asked to give a handwriting sample, and refused, she said, because the F.B.I. already had one in its possession. ''I felt grand juries were illegal and coercive,'' she said. For refusing to testify, she was jailed for seven months, and she and Mr. Ayers married during a furlough.

Once again, Chesa was without a mother. ''It was one of the hardest things I did,'' said Ms. Dohrn of going to jail.

In the interview, Mr. Ayers called Chesa ''a very damaged kid.'' ''He had real serious emotional problems,'' he said. But after extensive therapy, ''became a brilliant and wonderful human being.'' .

After the couple surfaced, Ms. Dohrn tried to practice law, taking the bar exam in New York. But she was turned down by the Bar Association's character committee because of her political activities.

Ms. Dohrn said she was aware of the contradictions between her radical past and the comforts of her present existence. ''This is where we raised our kids and are taking care of our aging parents,'' she said. ''We could live much more simply, and well we might.''

And as for settling into marriage after efforts to smash monogamy, Ms. Dohrn said, ''You're always trying to balance your understanding of who you are and what you need, and your longing and imaginings of freedom.''

''Happily for me, Billy keeps me laughing, he keeps me growing,'' she said.

Mr. Ayers said he had some of the same conflicts about marriage. ''We have to learn how to be committed,'' he said, ''and hold out the possibility of endless reinventions.''

As Mr. Ayers mellows into middle age, he finds himself thinking about truth and reconciliation, he said. He would like to see a Truth and Reconciliation Commission about Vietnam, he said, like South Africa's. He can imagine Mr. Kerrey and Ms. Boudin taking part.

And if there were another Vietnam, he is asked, would he participate again in the Weathermen bombings?

By way of an answer, Mr. Ayers quoted from ''The Cure at Troy,'' Seamus Heaney's retelling of Sophocles' ''Philoctetes:'' '' 'Human beings suffer,/ They torture one another./ They get hurt and get hard.' ''

He continued to recite:

History says, Don't hope

On this side of the grave.

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up

And hope and history rhyme.

Thinking back on his life , Mr. Ayers said, ''I was a child of privilege and I woke up to a world on fire. And hope and history rhymed.''
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C.S. Lewis on How to Not Fool Yourself

Thanks to Tico Herrera for reminding me about this quote from Mere Christianity:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Text version of Mere Christianity
C.S. Lewis BBC radio address.
C.S. Lewis audiobook reading of introduction to Mere Christianity.

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Greatest Swimmer, Si -- Greatest Athlete, ... please

Great to see an American athlete, Michael Phelps, dominating his sport. But why isn't the title of greatest swimmer ever enough? No way a swimmer belongs in the greatest athlete debate. Whoever that is needs to be able to hit above at least the Mendoza line at the MLB level and be dominant in another sport. Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders types come to mind, not swimmers, other than Joe Frazier of course.

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Just One Please, Just One Right-Wing Priest

The Economist reported on a papal dispensation and then profiled Paraguay's new leader, Fernando Lugo:

But it will not be easy for Mr Lugo. He is a former missionary who embraced a school of theology that blended Marx with St Peter. He spent more than ten years as bishop of San Pedro, one of the poorest regions of Paraguay, peopled by Guaraní Indian peasant farmers and landless labourers. He backed invasions of large rural estates by radical movements, becoming known as the “bishop of the poor”.

He ran for president at the head of a coalition including the centrist Liberal Party and a dozen small far-left groups. Though he won handily, he got only 42% of the vote and he may not command a legislative majority. As a priest he was a radical, but as president he may have to be pragmatic. His choice of ministers was a balancing act, mixing centrists, leftists and reformers such as the finance minister, Dionisio Borda. He has said that he will not renew Paraguay’s expiring agreement with the IMF; he also wants to attract private capital to state companies.

Which generated one of the great all-time letters to an editor:

SIR – Your round-up of the week’s news reported that the papal dispensation given to Fernando Lugo in order that he become Paraguay’s president was the first time that the Vatican allowed a bishop to resign (Politics this week, August 2nd). Cesare Borgia was made a bishop at the age of 15 and a cardinal at 18 by his father Pope Alexander VI. On August 17th 1498 he resigned both positions and on the same day the French king, Louis XII, made him Duke of Valentinois.

A few observations:

1. I pray the letter writer had to look that one up.
2. I also pray for an epiphany on Lugo's economics.
3. I love the fact that 'Cesare Borgia' searches on this blog no longer come up empty.
   
4. What accounts for the dearth of right-wing priests?

Are economics courses only electives at Seminaries? I can understand how working with the poor would cause a priest to advocate a more aggressive role for governments, but at some point you would think that facts would affect, even priestly, thinking on how best to help the poor.

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Rove Electoral Map -- August 2008 -- Obama +66

Please click on map to enlarge or print.

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Prayer is Not About Getting What You Want

The Rev. Vallee, a priest and philosophy professor at the local seminary, St. John Vianney, distributes his upcoming homilies through e-mail. I try to read them regularly and they are a source of great comfort to me. Excerpts from one of his homilies:

Being healthy and pragmatic modern people, we tend to think that prayer works when we get what we want. I fear it is not so simple as that. Sometimes God answers our prayers and the answer is “no.” Sometimes God is silent. Sometimes prayer is not about getting what we want but about learning to reach down deeper for our faith when we don’t get what we want....

Prayer is not about arguing with God, influencing God, convincing God or getting what we want from God. Prayer is something much simpler than that. Prayer is simply about trusting, no more and no less. In the end we are, each one of us, very like the little boy Bishop Noonan saw in the Irish restaurant. We don’t always get what we want. But in the end all that matters is that our trust in the Father remains unbroken.

Aside from the Catholic teachings, for which I need all the lessons and reminders I can get, I trust the source completely, which allows me to focus on the message itself. In contrast, I enjoy reading Garry Wills, but since he is such a critic of the Vatican, and of the late John Paul II in particular, I'm always weighing how that bias influences his views on the Gospels. On a secular level, it's the equivalent of watching NBC's political coverage.

The email address to request to be put on Vallee's email distribution list is Cioran262@aol.com. See the entire homily from 8/17/08 below.


I. The bishop in Ireland Bishop Noonan told me a story today of a little boy he saw in Ireland who, all through a meal, was pestering his father for something. Finally the father said,”Enough of this foolishness, eat your meal and don’t be a brat.” When the meal was over the boy snuggled up next to his father and the father gave him a big hug. If you are Irish, you realize what a big deal this is. I used to joke with Bishop Noonan that the basic principle of Irish morality is: “Never touch another man, except in anger.”

II. Cannanite woman
Today’s Gospel gives rise to similar questions as the story: How do you deal with the silence God? What do you do when God says, “no.” In this today’s Gospel, Jesus encounters a Caananite woman with a very reasonable request: She wants her daughter cured. Not only does Jesus, at first, refuse to help her but he is downright rude. He calls her and her sick daughter, “dogs.” “It is not right to take the bread of the children and cast it to the dogs.” The woman responds with an extraordinary acclamation of faith, “Even the dogs eat what falls from the master’s table.” Jesus cures her daughter and concludes, “what great faith you have.”

III. Prayer is not about getting what you want
I think there is important message about prayer contained in this little passage. Being healthy and pragmatic modern people, we tend to think that prayer works when we get what we want. I fear it is not so simple as that. Sometimes God answers our prayers and the answer is “no.” Sometimes God is silent. Sometimes prayer is not about getting what we want but about learning to reach down deeper for our faith when we don’t get what we want.

IV. How would I respond?
Imagine you are this poor woman, who has not only been told no by Jesus, but has been called a dog by Jesus. How would you respond? As for myself, I fear that I would get angry or be hurt but I pray that I would respond as the woman did, with a deeper and more trusting faith. No wonder Jesus tells her, “what great faith you have.” Pray for faith like the faith of this woman. It is easy to believe and trust when you get what you want. It is much harder to believe and to trust when God is silent or when God says, “no.”

V. The illogic of prayer
This woman is extraordinary on all accounts. The dramatic heart of the dialogue comes when we wait to see how she will respond to being called a dog by Jesus:. She says: “Truth, Lord, but even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the master’s table.” There is a certain lack of logic here. The woman admits that Jesus has no responsibility to help her with the “truth, Lord.” Then, she proceeds to beg Jesus to help her. I think this bit of illogic is the whole secret of prayer. Notice that in the Our Father we pray that God’s will be done at the same time that we pray for our daily bread and a bunch of other things. How do we explain the contradiction? As I said, this is the deepest mystery of prayer.

VI. Prayer is about trust
Prayer is not about arguing with God, influencing God, convincing God or getting what we want from God. Prayer is something much simpler than that. Prayer is simply about trusting, no more and no less. In the end we are, each one of us, very like the little boy Bishop Noonan saw in the Irish restaurant. We don’t always get what we want. But in the end all that matters is that our trust in the Father remains unbroken.

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Mao and His Communist Party Successors

I was catching up on my saved DVR programs and saw the CBS Sunday Morning program which aired 8/3. There was a great segment by correspondent Martha Teichner which was based on the book, Mao: The Unknown Story. If I didn't know better, I could have sworn it was on Fox. It was that unapologetic. The authors, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, document how Mao was responsible for the deaths of approximately 70 million people. The cynic in me wonders if it took a rival network's Olympic coverage from China to get them to run such an anti-communist segment. But that is ungracious, many kudos to CBS.

As good as the segment was, I wanted more. I wanted them to document the fellow travelers in the West who aided his time in power, those who carried around and spoke glowingly of his little red book, Quotations from Chairman Mao. To draw the parallels to someone like Castro, who while the number of deaths attributable to him could never approach those of Mao, essentially operate from the same playbook. Today, Hitler and Stalin have no defenders [thankfully] , Mao and Castro still do. In the case of Mao, its the Party putting on the Olympics.

That's what it's like to live outside of a communist society, while having the awareness that others not as fortunate, are dependent on us to notice and speak out about what we know. You know that people in Taiwan and Tibet are hoping that someone cares. So we watch the Olympics from China and try to enjoy them. But the ubiquitous image of Mao in the background is instructive. Whatever the aspirations of regular Chinese people, what the rest of the world must deal with is a government who differs from Mao in execution not philosophy.


5 Things You'll Learn from Mao: The Unknown Story

1. Mao became a Communist at the age of 27 for purely pragmatic reasons: a job and income from the Russians.
2. Far from organizing the Long March in 1934, Mao was nearly left behind by his colleagues who could not stand him and had tried to oust him several times. The aim of the March was to link up with Russia to get arms. The Reds survived the March because Chiang Kai-shek let them, in a secret horse-trade for his son and heir, whom Stalin was holding hostage in Russia.
3. Mao grew opium on a large scale.
4. After he conquered China, Mao's over-riding goal was to become a superpower and dominate the world: "Control the Earth," as he put it.
5. Mao caused the greatest famine in history by exporting food to Russia to buy nuclear and arms industries: 38 million people were starved and slave-driven to death in 1958-61. Mao knew exactly what was happening, saying: "half of China may well have to die."

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Dear Lefty, Match.commie Has Found Someone ...

The Castro dictatorship(s) have been a disaster for Cuba. Their longevity has been an embarrassment for their supporters. They outlive all rationalizations for their continued hold on power. Not that it matters to those who support them still. The principal characteristics of Castro supporters has been anti-Americanism and residence outside of Cuba.

When those supporters mated, it was until death [confirmed on state TV] do them part. In true leftist fashion, the death of others as a result of their union, being merely an inconvenience. Actually, it's useful to think of it as a Match.com scenario on a geopolitical level for haters of the US.

First, came the email tease. Dear Lefty, have we got a match for you ... she lives in the tropics and Hemingway wrote about her with passion. Lefty scans the profile and spots free health care [the equivalent of a cute picture.] A 'whoa, what have we here' moment ensues. Profile further notes that she refuses to bend to US imperialism [lives alone] and is determined to fight illiteracy [divorced.] Lefty sends email which is returned with a picture of Che [gal in bikini, holding a bottle of beer.] Ka-ching! Dating and inevitable disappointment follow. Co-workers ask what good is literacy is you can only read what the state approves. Family notes that health care is not free, comes at expense of freedom. Best friend says she reminds her of that other Soviet gal, who was an economic disaster. No use, Lefty's in love.

The latest evolving casualty for continued support of the Castro regimes is the 'China or Cuban or Third Way.' The theory was that economic liberalization was supposed to lead to political liberalization. We can now add that one to the ash heap of under-performing sugar harvests, otherwise known as the list of rationalization theories which the Castro regimes have outlasted. Noted neo-conservative and McCain adviser, Robert Kagan, summarizes in the Weekly Standard:

Nor has the growth of the Chinese and Russian economies produced the political liberalization that was once thought inevitable. Growing national wealth and autocracy have proven compatible, after all. Autocrats learn and adjust. The autocracies of Russia and China have figured out how to permit open economic activity while suppressing political activity. They have seen that people making money will keep their noses out of politics, especially if they know their noses will be cut off. New wealth gives autocracies a greater ability to control information--to monopolize television stations and to keep a grip on Internet traffic, for instance--often with the assistance of foreign corporations eager to do business with them.

For a slightly different perspective, see a recent Economist editorial regarding China:

Those who have argued for the beneficial effect of the Olympics on China have made three specific claims, none of which holds water. First, Chinese officials themselves said the games would bring human-rights improvements. The opposite is true. China’s people are far freer now than they were 30, 20 or even 10 years ago. The party has extricated itself from big parts of their lives, and relative wealth has broadened horizons. But that is not thanks to the Olympics, which have brought more repression. To build state-of-the-art facilities for the games, untold numbers of people were forced to move. Anxious to prevent protests that might steal headlines from the glories of Chinese modernist architecture or athletic prowess, the authorities have hounded dissidents with more than usual vigour. And there are anyway clear limits to the march of freedom in China; although personal and economic freedoms have multiplied, political freedoms have been disappointingly constrained since Hu Jintao became president in 2003.

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How AMT Confuses Taxpayers

WSJ Tax article
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How AMT Confuses Taxpayers

AUGUST 13, 2008

By TOM HERMAN

If you're confused by the alternative minimum tax, you have lots of company.

A new Treasury Department report says about 226,000 federal income-tax returns filed in 2006 either failed to include the AMT when it apparently should have been or contained "discrepancies" in calculating the amount of the tax. The report, issued by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, also found a few cases in which the Internal Revenue Service itself made errors.

Of those 226,000 returns, about 165,000 showed differences between what taxpayers thought they owed and what the IRS later calculated they owed, says the report. The other 61,000 returns appeared to owe more tax because of the AMT but didn't include it.
Additional Reading

The AMT, originally designed to make sure a small number of high-income Americans pay at least some federal income tax, has become one of the biggest and most tangled tax-law webs ever devised by Congress. Last year, the tax ensnared an estimated four million taxpayers, up from about 1.1 million in 2001. Unless Congress changes the law, the number of AMT victims will soar to more than 26 million this year, the Treasury Department estimates.

One reason many people may assume they don't have to worry about the AMT is that they'd heard it was originally aimed only at the rich. True enough. But the tax has expanded rapidly, especially over the past decade, and now is hitting many not-so-wealthy people, too -- often much to their amazement.

"Many people discover they're in the AMT only after they've filed and later get a notice" from the IRS informing them they hadn't paid enough because they neglected to calculate their AMT liability, says Len Burman, director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and a former Treasury official.

Even if you've done your own return for years, the AMT can be surprisingly deep water. "I would guess virtually all of these errors are inadvertent and reflect taxpayer confusion and ignorance about their requirement to pay AMT or how to compute it," says Eric Toder, a former IRS director of research and now a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. Mr. Toder also says the number of taxpayer errors could grow much larger if Congress fails to curb the AMT's rapid growth.
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Congress is expected to approve a stopgap measure this year, known in Washington parlance as a "patch," designed to prevent the number of AMT victims from soaring. The Bush administration and influential members of both political parties agree on the need for some kind of temporary solution. But nobody knows when Congress will act or precisely what it will do.

Speculation is growing that Congress may even wait until after the elections, in a special "lame duck" session, to act on this issue and also to resurrect several popular tax breaks that expired at the end of last year. Among those breaks is the option to deduct state and local sales taxes, instead of state and local income taxes, on federal returns.

The AMT operates under many different rules than the regular tax system. For example, it has different allowable deductions, credits and other items. For example, some popular deductions allowed under the regular system, such as state and local taxes, aren't permitted under the AMT. Among those taxpayers most likely to be affected by the AMT are large families who live in high-tax areas, such as New York City, Washington, D.C., California and New Jersey, and whose income ranges between $100,000 and $500,000.

Winslow Marston, a retired bond analyst who lives in Morristown, N.J., was one of those who were surprised by the AMT last year. "I am one of the poor little schlemiels who is now trapped by the AMT," he says. He assumes the main reason was his family's high New Jersey taxes. "This part of the tax code strikes me as not only illogical, but even unconstitutional," he says. "Basically, it makes no sense to tax people more who already are paying more taxes at the state level."

The Treasury report urges the IRS to provide information to its examiners reiterating the importance of correctly resolving AMT discrepancies and highlighting specific issues that could lead "incorrect resolution." The IRS said it agrees and will do so late this year.

One way to avoid an AMT-related mistake on your return is to use tax-preparation software, such as Intuit Inc.'s TurboTax. That can help alert you to whether you're subject to the AMT and do the number-crunching for you.

A web site offers help to investors who may benefit from a recent IRS courtroom defeat.

Many insurance companies that once were owned by their policyholders converted years ago into publicly traded companies, a process known as "demutualization." The IRS said the shares that policyholders received in the process had a tax cost of zero. Last week, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims disagreed. For a copy of the opinion and background on the topic, go to www.demutualization.biz. This site was set up by Charles D. Ulrich, a Baxter, Minn., certified public accountant who has long argued the IRS was wrong.

A Justice Department spokesman says "no determination has been made as yet" on whether to appeal the decision.
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Theme Parks - Separate and Unequal?

I visited the Disney World and Universal theme parks in Orlando on vacation recently. It reminded me of the difference in how they choose to manage the lines for their rides. Universal allows visitors to pay their way out of long lines [Express pass] with an additional daily charge or for staying at one of their resorts. Disney [Fast pass] allows visitors to select which rides they can eliminate their wait times for, but severely restricts the number times of times it can be used.

I prefer Disney's way of attempting to manage the lines. Here I must admit to a socialist tendency in my otherwise right-wing-Cuban-exile DNA. In our increasingly [by choice] segregated lives, I much prefer the 'we're all equal here' mind-set which the Disney way encourages. Part of the appeal in visiting a theme park is the people-watching aspect. Some of it can be mean-spirited [obesity on parade? - see Michael Fumento]. But mostly it's a very positive reinforcement of those things we have in common with other people, and especially parents, who don't look like us.

At Disney, when you stroll past those in a regular line with your Fast pass, there are no issues since you are exercising an option which was available to them as well. To paraphrase John [keeping it Rielle] Edwards, the two Americas are on the same vacation page. But that all changes at Universal.

At Universal, it feels as though social stratification never takes a vacation. I've had Universal's Express pass the last few times I've visited and I find myself never making eye contact with the people in line I'm walking past - almost like I don't want to rub it in. Now the guy in line with the 2.5 kids may have $2.5 million in an IRA and fully funded his kid's college tuition, but that's not the point. He may also be getting embarrassed and then resentful about having to explain to his kids that they can't afford the pass which is allowing others to walk past them.

Those of you without kids may be tempted to suggest that if you just explain ..., please rid yourself of such nonsensical notions now. If as a parent you're having that conversation, you have officially left 'happy-land' and won't be returning until you get on the ride or the next purchase.

Some basics about Theme Park attendance as provided by TEA - in 2007 the combined visitors to the 4 Disney parks in Orlando totaled approx 47 million as compared to the 2 Universal parks total of 11.5 million - or about 25% of Disney's visitors - see the worldwide top 15 list below.

1. MAGIC KINGDOM at Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA 17,060,000
2. DISNEYLAND, Anaheim, CA, USA 14,870,000
3. TOKYO DISNEYLAND, Tokyo, Japan 13,906,000
4. TOKYO DISNEYSEA, Tokyo, Japan 12,413,000
5. DISNEYLAND PARIS, Marne-La-Vallee, France 12,000,000
6. EPCOT at Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA 10,930,000
7. DISNEY'S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS at Walt Disney World, Lake Buena V 9,510,000
8. DISNEY'S ANIMAL KINGDOM at Walt Disney World, Lake Buena Vista, FL 9,490,000
9. UNIVERSAL STUDIOS JAPAN, Osaka, Japan 8,713,000
10. EVERLAND, Kyonggi-Do, South Korea 7,200,000
11. UNIVERSAL STUDIOS at Universal Orlando, Orlando, FL 6,200,000
12. SEAWORLD FLORIDA, Orlando, FL, USA 5,800,000
13. DISNEY'S CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE, Anaheim, CA, USA 5,680,000
14. PLEASURE BEACH, Blackpool, UK 5,500,000
15. ISLANDS OF ADVENTURE at Universal Orlando, Orlando, FL, USA 5,430,000

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House-Hoppers May Suffer

WSJ Tax article
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House-Hoppers May Suffer Under New Tax Rules Housing Package Makes It Harder To Exclude Gains

AUGUST 6, 2008

By TOM HERMAN

Life is getting tougher for some people who own more than one home.

Part of the housing-stimulus package signed into law last week by President George W. Bush could reduce -- though not eliminate -- the appeal of a tax-saving strategy used by wealthy home-hoppers.

While the new law won't affect the vast majority of the nation's homeowners, it will likely affect some people planning to sell their primary residence, claim the full home-sale exclusion to pay little or no capital-gains taxes -- and then move to a second or third home they've owned for some time, convert it into their primary residence, sell it and once again pay little or no capital-gains tax.

Under both the old and new law, most homeowners can sell their primary residence and exclude as much as $250,000 of the gain if they're single, or as much as $500,000 if they're married and filing jointly with their spouse. To qualify for the full exclusion, owners typically must have owned the home and used it as their primary residence for at least two of the five years prior to the sale.
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But under the new law, which takes effect next year, many owners might not be eligible to claim the full exclusion on a vacation or rental home they convert to a primary residence.

Congressional staffers estimate the new restrictions will raise about $1.4 billion in revenue for the U.S. Treasury Department over the coming decade. The move was designed to help offset costs of other breaks in the new law and also plug what congressional staffers viewed as a major loophole in a law enacted in the late 1990s.

The new law "will certainly complicate tax returns" and tax planning for some people, says John Olivieri, a tax partner at the White & Case law firm in New York. It also "contains traps for the unwary," he says.

Most people don't have to worry about the new law since most don't own multiple homes, and many who do will never convert theirs to a principal residence. Even if they did, they wouldn't dream of moving and jumping through legal hoops just to save taxes -- and their second or third home might not work well as their primary residence anyway. Also, with home prices in a deep slump, many homeowners probably don't have large gains to shelter.

Even so, tax lawyers predict the new law probably will prompt some wealthy people who own several homes to rethink the home-hopper strategy. "I know one individual with four homes who had planned to convert each of his three vacation and resort properties to a principal residence" and sell each at varying intervals to take advantage of the full home-sale exclusion, thus paying little or no capital gains tax, says Linda Goold, tax counsel at the National Association of Realtors in Washington. "It won't be as easily done now."

Here's a primer on the basics and a summary of the changes, along with an example of how it's supposed to work:

The basics. When the law was changed in 1997, government officials said it would mean that most people who sell their primary residence don't owe any federal capital-gains taxes. Even if you can't meet the requirements for the full home-sale exclusion, you may still be able to claim a partial exclusion depending on how long you owned and lived in the home and why you sold it.

For example, you might be eligible for a partial exclusion if you had to sell because of a change in your place of employment, or for health reasons, or for certain "unforeseen circumstances," such as the death of your spouse, says Bob D. Scharin, senior tax analyst at the tax and accounting business of Thomson Reuters.

As with so many other tax laws, there are important exceptions. For example, there are special rules for members of the uniformed services and the Foreign Service, and for certain employees of the intelligence community, such as the Central Intelligence Agency. Also, the exclusion doesn't apply to the extent the gain is attributable to depreciation allowed for rental or business use of your principal home for periods after May 6, 1997.

These home-sale exclusion rules apply only when you sell your primary residence. But in the late 1990s, real-estate agents, developers and others discovered special benefits for home-hoppers: These owners could pay little or no capital-gains taxes by carefully timing which home they used as their primary residence and when they sold it.

For example, consider a married couple with several homes who had lived in their main home for two years or more. They typically could sell their primary residence, exclude as much as $500,000 of the gain from tax -- and then move into a vacation home, make it their new primary residence, live in it two years or more, sell it and once again take advantage of the full $500,000 exclusion.

A new twist. Under the new law, you can't exclude the gain from the sale of the home allocated to periods of "nonqualified use." That typically refers to any period (after the end of 2008) when the property isn't used by you, your spouse or former spouse as a principal residence, according to a congressional staff summary. Also, the new law is effective only for sales beginning next year.

Here's an example: Suppose a married couple buys a home on Jan. 1 next year for $600,000, says Mr. Olivieri of White & Case. They plan to hold it as an investment. On Jan. 1, 2012 -- three years later -- they begin using it as their principal residence. They live there two years and sell it on Jan. 1, 2014 for $1.1 million, for a profit of $500,000.

Under the old law, they would have been able to exclude the entire $500,000 gain from their taxable income, Mr. Olivieri says. But under the new law, they could exclude only two-fifths of the gain, or $200,000, since the other three-fifths would be considered attributable to the three years the home wasn't their principal residence, he says.

So what, if anything, should homeowners do? For starters, before buying a second home, consider consulting a tax professional, says White & Case's Mr. Olivieri. He points out there are important exceptions to the new rules. It's remarkably easy for people who aren't experts and who rely solely on common sense to make costly mistakes.

For more details and examples of how the new law works, visit the Web site of Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation (www.jct.gov) and look for publication JCX-63-08, dated July 23, 2008.

Many taxpayers who take the standard deduction get a new break.

The new housing law includes a property-tax deduction for people who claim the standard deduction instead of itemizing. They are allowed to claim an additional standard deduction for 2008 for the state and local property taxes they paid during the year -- up to $1,000 for married couples filing jointly and $500 for other filers, says Bob Trinz, senior tax analyst at the Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters.

If the actual amount of property taxes you paid is less than that, you can deduct only the amount you actually paid. Taxes written off as business deductions don't count, Mr. Trinz says. This new deduction is available only for 2008.

Taxpayers most likely to benefit from it include "homeowners who have paid off their mortgage (and, therefore, no longer itemize interest payments) and lower-income homeowners (whose overall itemized deductions generally do not exceed their standard deduction)," according to a report by CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business.

About 63% of all the federal individual income-tax returns filed for 2006 claimed the standard deduction instead of itemizing, according to IRS preliminary data.
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