obama

Reason magazine faults Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and, especially, Sarah Palin, for continuing to favor criminal penalties for something they get to treat as a youthful indiscretion:

Never forget. But it's been seven years, and we have:

Seven years ago, the roar of exploding planes and the spectacle of collapsing buildings riveted the nation's attention on a single topic, terrorism - and in the terrible aftermath, it seemed that focus would never waver.

Here's an issue I agree with Barack Obama on:

 Barack Obama is promising to double funding for charter schools and replace inferior teachers, embracing education reform proposals normally more popular with Republican candidates.

Everybody else in the free world is weighing in on the "lipstick on a pig" flap, so I might as well wade in, too.

1. Of course he meant it as a sly dig at Sarah Palin, as the reaction to it makes clear:

The crowd apparently took the "lipstick" line as a reference to Palin, who described the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull in a single word: "lipstick."

Dismaying evidence that those on the left are very unclear on the constitutional concept:

While 82% of voters who support McCain believe the justices should rule on what is in the Constitution, just 29% of Barack Obama's supporters agree. Just 11% of McCain supporters say judges should rule based on the judge's sense of fairness, while nearly half (49%) of Obama supporters agree.

Let's just savor the moment:

In a moment of bipartisan unity, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama will come together at Ground Zero in New York City on Thursday to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The two campaigns issued a rare joint statement on Saturday announcing the plans of the Republican and Democratic rivals. They also will appear together at a forum later that day at Columbia University.

Stay calm, partisans. I'm linking to this New York Times article on Barack Obama not for any political reason but just because of an interesting word use:

FLINT, Mich.

"We can't afford on-the-job training for our next president." That was Hillary Clinton, way back in November, speaking of Barack Obama, though not mentioning him by name. This was my reaction:

Being president is a unique challenge, and in an election when there is no incumbent, there is no candidate who has any relevant experience.

[. . .]

I hate to be a nitpicker, but Politico is getting its generations mixed up:

Obama is the first Gen X Presidential candidate — for better and for worse.

He's the son of a baby boomer — his mother, Anne, was born in 1942 — and although his birth in 1961 puts him slightly ahead of the textbook mid-1960s start date of Gen X, he is the same age as the man who coined the term "Generation X," author Douglas Coupland.

He has a point:

John Weaver,  for years one of John McCain's closest friends and confidants, has been in exile since his resignation from McCain's presidential campaign last year.    With the exception of an occasional interview, he has, by his own account, bit his tongue as McCain's campaign has adopted a strategy that Weaver believes "diminishes John McCain."