The Dish

A Zimbabwe blogger gives an inside look at the situation:

As they decided to invade farms and arrest election officials this past that we are living in just became a worse future. The parallel realities we live in have become the only reality now. The other one is paralysed. So bread is now hustled on street corners for two US dollars. Like an illegal drug. Milk has also joined the list of ‘goods’ that are sold in our parallel economy. Not in the shops but on the streets. And if you’re looking for toliet paper then just drive to the nearest ‘Give Way’ sign, a Zimbabwean ‘Stop’ sign.

(Hat tip: Global Voices)

Amazingly, Protein Wisdom’s Karl gives a fair account of Obama’s evolution as a Christian, and presents the mixed motives that Obama obviously felt when converting. What’s remarkable about Obama is his honesty in describing the alloyed motives he had for finding Christ. But no Christian would argue his faith is thereby false. On the contrary. God works in mysterious ways and sometimes redeems us when we least expect or deserve it. Karl also notes, however, the liberal Christianism this implies:

Obama is far more a candidate of the Religious Left than most realize, and far moreso than any GOP candidate has identified with the Religious Right.

That’s pushing it. I don’t hear Obama’s speeches making religious arguments for public policy; just describing a spiritual and religious core of his identity. To give one example of where Obama differs from the religious left: he does not support equal civil marriage rights, while Jeremiah Wright does. His only real explanation for this is political, not theological. He wouldn’t call a civil license "sacred" as Bush did. (It’s worth pointing out here that I don’t actually believe that the Catholic sacrament of matrimony should be extended to same-sex couples. Catholic theology cannot do that, given the way it has constructed matrimony theologically. But civilly, the issue of equality is a slam-dunk for a secular Christian like me.)

Made of thousands of chopsticks recovered from a city hall cafeteria.

A small truth from Albert Camus:

"The more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you."

A temptation to be resisted.

Ross and Mickey don’t approve this message:

I do. It’s an encouraging sign that McCain is not going to pull a Rove this fall; it’s a deft way of dealing with racial difference – check out the number of African-Americans in the ad – and it co-opts the "Goodbye To All That" appeal of Obama. A bit syrupy – and McCain doesn’t always live up to its message. But it suggests to me that McCain has figured out the public mood. And sees himself as a unifying father-figure. That’s shrewd and encouraging.

Obama is 50 or above now; Clinton keeps fading – at her lowest rating in a long while:

John Tierney holds a contest.

A new map: showing the Southeast as big a spewer as the Northeast.

"The Amnesty Committee took only a few days to determine what we have been saying for two years. Bilal Hussein must be freed immediately," – Tom Curley, the AP’s president. What will smear-artist Michelle Malkin say? This:

There is more to this story, believe me. Amnesty does not equal absolution.

I didn’t realize she was a priest.

Ross’s point is well-taken:

Reagan’s ’80 campaign was badly mismanaged – he fired nearly all his senior staff after losing the Iowa caucuses, remember – yet once in office he was able to run circles around the Congressional Democrats, and match the canny Gorbachev at brinksmanship. George H.W. Bush won the Presidency by playing the hard-nosed partisan on the campaign trail, but he ended up alienating GOP true believers by cutting deals with Democrats from the White House. Bill Clinton ran as a centrist New Democrat in 1992 but tried to govern as a liberal (gays in the military, Hillarycare), before the ’94 debacle forced him back to the middle. And George W. Bush ran two campaigns that were notable for their ruthless competence – yet competence of any sort has been strikingly absent from his administration’s governance.

Still … Reagan saw excessive delegation come back to haunt him in Iran-Contra. The first Bush doesn’t count – he ran against Dukakis as Reagan’s heir, and his pick of veep was an omen of his lack of popular touch. Clinton’s campaign was as disorganized and as fly-by-night as his administration – made good by his prodigious talent. W is indeed the counter-example. His campaigns were crude but very efficient. If Cheney had turned out to be for policy what Rove was to gutter politics, it may have worked out well. But Cheney turned out more turd than blossom, didn’t he? Delegation depends on the judgment of the delegated-to.