Drudge has posted the flashing siren. I don’t want her to be president or vice-president of the United States, but I hope she’s OK.
Update: Hillary’s OK. Stomach virus. Rush says she was probably dizzy from the 180 degree turn she made on abortion last week. 
More on her “faint scare.”
Personally, I think the Democratic National Committee should select the best-qualified candidate. I bring up the color and sex issue only to mock Democrats’ obsession with votes while they care nothing about putting “people of color” in leadership positions. Read this sarcastic post.
From the Los Angeles Times:
The seven candidates seeking the job — a group headlined by former presidential contender Howard Dean — has spent the last several weeks trooping to regional Democratic forums around the country, holding fundraisers to build campaign treasuries that exceed $200,000, juggling demands from influential interest groups and deluging the 447 voting DNC members with calls pursuing their vote…Former Ohio Democratic Chairman David Leland and former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, the only African American in the contest, have drawn limited support.
While Bush is appointing black women and Hispanics to high-profile positions, let the white boys at the DNC fight among themselves. Who cares? Howard Dean, Michael Moore: What difference does it make?
Unrelated link: Check out last night’s blogger symposium with myself, Hugh Hewitt, John Hawkins and Karol Sheinin.
Update: Looks like screaming Dean is a shoe-in. We shall overcome some other day…
Left-wing commentators, in Britain as in much of Europe, have focused disproportionately on the difficulties that any state must undergo during a transition process. To many of them, every terrorist bomb, every murdered election official, every sign of heightened military alertness — even the loss of a British aircraft — makes a nonsense of Iraq’s democratic aspirations. (Source)
Substitute Britain and British with America and American, and the paragraph applies to leftists in the United States as well.
The Iraq election is now a part of history. Over 70 percent of the electorate turned out. In our lifetimes we’ve seen the fall of a brutal dictator under the watch of a vilified and hated American president. But even the New York Times (reg. req.) had to concede that election day in Iraq was a success:
Courageous Iraqis turned out to vote yesterday in numbers that may have exceeded even the most optimistic predictions. Participation varied by region, and the impressive national percentages should not obscure the fact that the country’s large Sunni Arab minority remained broadly disenfranchised - due to alienation or terror or both. But even in some predominantly Sunni areas, turnout was higher than expected. And in an impressive range of mainly Shiite and Kurdish cities, a long silenced majority of ordinary Iraqis defied threats of deadly mayhem to cast votes for a new, and hopefully democratic, political order….This page has not hesitated to criticize the Bush administration over its policies in Iraq, and we continue to have grave doubts about the overall direction of American strategy there. Yet today, along with other Americans, whether supporters or critics of the war, we rejoice in a heartening advance by the Iraqi people. For now at least, the multiple political failures that marked the run-up to the voting stand eclipsed by a remarkably successful election day.
Aside from this editorial, I won’t be linking to news stories. The biased headlines tell you all you need to know about MSM’s coverage of the elections. But if you must read the stories, do so with delight as jaded leftist journalists try to spin the overwhelmingly positive news coming out of Iraq into something negative. They’re so predictable, it’s boring.
Maggie Gallagher gave me permission to post this e-mail. She sent it in reference to this column in the Washington Post (reg. req.):
“Did you see Fred Hiatt’s column this morning? Maggie
Statement from Maggie Gallagher, January 29, 2005
Yesterday I sent a letter to the Washington Post, asking the paper retract the specific claim the Bush administration paid me ‘to help promote the president’s proposal.’ For, as I wrote, ‘whether Howard Kurtz and the Washington Post acknowledge it or not, it is this specific charge and not the question of disclosure that is feeding the media coverage.’
This morning, the editorial leadership of the Washington Post has done an honorable thing by retracting this charge: ‘[Gallagher] was not paid to covertly espouse administration views in her columns.’
I hope that other media outlets that, relying on the reputation of the Washington Post, repeated that false charge as fact will show the same integrity and issue their own retractions or corrections. I specifically ask the New York Times to retract the charges made in its January 27 editorial ‘The Best Coverage Money Can Buy.’”
According to blogger Stacy Harp, who says she received an e-mail from Michael McManus’s son, the government funds in question went to his non-profit organization and not to him personally:
After checking our records, HHS paid a total of $10,199.98 to Marriage Savers, Inc for making six presentation (including travel expenses). We were also were awarded a federal grant of $48,993 (via a competitive bidding process) in a “capacity-expanding grant” to adapt our materials to serve unwed couples having babies out of wedlock. These funds came to Marriage Savers Inc. not to me personally. They are only 2.7% of the $2.1 million we have raised, mostly from churches, foundations and individuals….In addition to my work as President of Marriage Savers I write and self-syndicate a column, Ethics & Religion, to about 35 newspapers. There is no connection between my column and the federal funds awarded Marriage Savers.
It’s a fine line. I still think he should have noted this in the tagline at the end of his columns:
Michael McManus is the president of Marriage Savers, a non-profit organization that receives federal grants.
Or something like that. There are other columnists who run non-profit organizations, and they apply for and receive money from the government. I know of at least one. Should they speak up now? If they don’t, the information will “leak” out, and people will assume wrongdoing where there is none.
(Hat tip: MediaSoul)
It must be a slow news day. Vice President Cheney’s outfit wasn’t solemn enough for the recent Auschwitz rememberance ceremony.
“The vice president…was dressed in the kind of attire one typically wears to operate a snow blower,” quipped the sharp-witted Robin Givhan, a “writer” for the Washington Post. (Source)
With a not-so-subtle implication that Cheney, in opting to stay warm in Oswiecim, Poland, must be anti-Semitic because the cold didn’t seem to bother him on Inauguration day, Givhan says, “[His clothes] had the unfortunate effect of suggesting he was more concerned with his own comfort than the reason for braving the cold at all.”
Good grief.
Scott Sala’s blogging about this, too. We’re both bored, I guess.
Unrelated Addendum: Air America has a blog. And somebody posted my link in the comment section.
Good grief.
Speaking of Air America, Power Line’s Hindrocket just finished doing an interview with used-to-be-funny Al Franken.
Update: I’ll always have a warm place in my heart for Mean Dean. He helped me get my first Instalanche. 
Apparently he’s another conservative columnist who writes about a particular subject without disclosing that he’s being paid by the Bush administration to write about a particular subject.
For the “What’s the big deal?” crowd, read this nugget from Michelle Malkin:
I wonder if McManus will say he “forgot” about the $10,000 payment, too. That line seems to be working pretty well now among some of my fellow conservatives. I’ll have more to say about all this in the morning, but for now, let me just say that if I accepted $10,000 or $20,000 or $40,000 in taxpayer funds for my writing, I wouldn’t forget it in one year or 5 years or 10 years. And I’d make damn sure I disclosed it in relevant columns, books, or media appearances, even if it invited condescension from the “don’t be such a holier-than-thou-goody-two-shoes-must-you-disclose-everything?” crowd.
Accepting money to pay your bills is not the problem; failing to disclose you’re being paid to push a “product,” with taxpayer’s money, is the problem, especially when readers value your opinion and “independent” viewpoint. If you’re being paid by the government to promote government policy, say so!
Developing…
Update (1/28): From Editor & Publisher:
Senior writer Eric Boehlert wrote that Salon had confirmed that McManus “championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed.â€This report emerged one day after President Bush ordered his Cabinet secretaries to stop hiring commentators to help promote administration initiatives, after revelations surrounding commentators Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher.
According to Salon, Dr. Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at HHS, had responded to the latest report by announcing that HHS would institute a new policy that forbids the agency from hiring any outside expert or consultant who has any working affiliation with the media. “I needed to draw this bright line,” Horn told Salon. “The policy is being implemented and we’re moving forward.”
McManus could not be reached for comment.
In order to remain on higher ground, Republicans need to stop allowing things like this to happen. We call upon each other to account; Democrats don’t. Let’s show the country why and how our system of values is morally superior.
Also see Pundit Payola: Williams, Gallagher Were Wrong, But What’s Right?
The first black woman and the second woman to occupy such a high position in a president’s cabinet, Condoleezza Rice deserves praise for remaining dignified and calm in the face of blatantly racist, envious and old-haggish attacks on her character and intelligence. She’s a better woman than I.
I could use some serious counseling on how to control my temper in case my integrity is ever questioned by the likes of Ted “water torture” Kennedy or John “war hero” Kerry. And if I weren’t a Christian woman, the things I would say to Barbara Boxer…
I know you were expecting me to blog about Rice’s confirmation hearing, but I didn’t have the stomach for it. I wanted to wait until the inevitable conclusion to say that I am proud to “know” Condoleezza Rice. She’s given her life to the pursuit of serious study and government service, is unappreciated by white liberals who resent her accomplishments and independent thinking, and black liberals whose accusations of “race traitor” betray their poor reasoning ability and infantile envy toward a woman they should be proud of, regardless of her political ideology. But I’m sure it doesn’t keep her up at night.
The final Senate vote was 85-13. Voting against Rice were James “Independent” Jeffords, Barbara Boxer, Daniel Akaka, Dick Durbin, Evan Bayh, Tom Harkin, Ted “water torture” Kennedy, John “war hero” Kerry, Carl Levin, Mark Dayton, Frank Lautenberg, Jack Reed, James Jeffords and former Ku Klux Klansman, Robert Byrd.
That’s all I have to say about Rice’s confirmation. I suspect that she and I would disagree on a few things, but I’ll save those for another post. She is in my prayers, and because I am a Christian, so are the people who loathe her.
Related post: Condi Rice and the Squad of Liberal Losers
Unrelated: Nominations for the Evangelical Blog Awards are rolling in. Don’t forget to nominate your favorite blogs. I’ll post my nominations next week.
The Anchoress goes off. Also see Wizbang.
Evangelical Underground just came up with a great idea: Evangelical Blog Awards. Go vote for your favorites!
Other announcements: Please visit and support a new blog on the block, Young Americans For Social Security Reform.
The Carnival of the Vanities is up at The Raving Atheist.
If you’re in town on Friday, stop by the Heritage Foundation and check out the “Rathergate panel,” featuring Matt Sheffield of Ratherbiased.com, Power Line’s Paul Mirengoff and Kevin Aylward of Wizbang.
The Cato Institute is sponsoring an event tomorrow. Seth Mnookin, author of Hard News: The Scandals at The New York Times and Their Meaning for American Media, will discuss his book, and Jack Shafer of Slate will comment.
Looks like I didn’t make the top 125 political web sites. Again.
What’s a GodBlogCon?
Update (1/27): Captain Ed fact-checks the New York Times. He’s fact-checking the Washington Post, too.
Go see the 54th Christian Carnival. A few stand-outs:
Fringe: “Christians today suffer from severe spiritual drought and famine, lacking in Christian principles and values, embracing worldly pursuits and pleasures, and most importantly and regrettably, the absence of Jesus-centered lives. In many respects, I’m just as guilty of contributing to these horrifying statistics as the next Christian.”
Pseudo-Polymath: “There is a common meme on the left that the reason the right does not support their government sponsored charities is that the right is more concerned with amassing personal wealth and does not ‘care’ for the poor.”
Personal Trainer: “[W]hen the drums of war sound, and peace flees over the horizon, we have a duty to respond to war in a way that is honoring to God at every level, both public and private.”
Also see Onward, Christian Soldiers.
In the Outer: “While I do not doubt that Islam has within its religion, and its scriptures, references that are suspiciously alarming to the West, the same can be said for fundamentalist Christian religion and Christian texts, read out of its context, to those outside the faith.”
Update II: Check out the CPAC Bloggers:
Ana Marie Cox, www.wonkette.com
Kevin Aylward, www.wizbangblog.com
Erick Erickson, www.redstate.org
Kevin McCullough, kmc.crosswalk.com
Sean Hackbarth, www.theamericanmind.com
Robert Cox, www.thenationaldebate.com
James Joyner, www.outsidethebeltway.com
Chris Nolan, www.chrisnolan.com
Steve McCutcheon, www.ace.mu.nu
Bryan Preston, www.junkyardblog.com
Pat Hynes, www.anklebitingpundits.com
Robin Burk, www.windsofchange.net
Karol Sheinen, www.alarmingnews.com
LaShawn Barber, www.lashawnbarber.com
Hugh Hewitt, www.hughhewitt.com
Laura Thomas, www.terrorismunvelied.com
Radley Balko, www.theagitator.com
Ryan Sager, www.nypost.com (His blog)
Ryan Zempel, www.townhall.com
Update III: HaloScan users, for very irritating and complicated technical reasons I’m sure I’d never understand, HaloScan doesn’t work well with Word Press. Try Simpletracks.
