“Uppity Obama”

When Clintons attack, it’s time to take notes. David Corn has some Clinton favor here:

"They really, really hate Obama," one Democratic operative unaffiliated with any campaign, tells me. "They can’t stand him. They talk about him as if he’s worse than Bush." What do they hate about him? After all, there aren’t a lot of deep policy differences between the two, and he hasn’t gone for the jugular during the campaign. "It’s his presumptuousness," this operative says. "That he thinks he can deny her the nomination. Who is he to try to do that?" You mean, he’s, uh, uppity? "Yes." A senior House Democratic aide notes, "The Clinton people are going nuts in how much they hate him. But the problem is their narrative has gone beyond the plausible."

How dare anyone deny the Queen Consort her coronation? I guess Mrs Nice Guy is now retiring.

NIE Latest

Greenwald wonders why ElBaradei’s rep is so poor; Joyner summarizes Victor Davis Hanson’s first response:

Since our intelligence estimates are so often wrong, the neocons might still be right about Iran’s nukes. And, if not, it’s only because the neocons were right on Iraq!

Heh. They’re always right, doesn’t James realize that? Neocon Central has five questions for the NIE. Robert Farley suspects that the Iraq war might yet have had a good effect:

I think it’s possible that U.S. activity in Iraq may have had some effect on the Iranian decision. First, the destruction of Hussein’s regime removed the greatest threat to Iranian security, and ensured that Iran would have a greater influence over Gulf affairs whether or not it produced a nuclear weapon.

For my part, the news from the NIE comes, obviously, as a relief, although I think it’s fair to take all judgments from the NIE with a degree of salt. I don’t think it means abandoning diplomatic and economic pressure on Tehran; but I do think it removes all likelihood of this administration launching a new war in the next year. This will be the next president’s problem, and we have to ask: who is best capable of delivering a strategy of careful threats and inducements?

Race and IQ, Again

James Flynn is one of the most respected scientists in the field, the man who showed that we’re all getting smarter, i.e. the "Flynn Effect." Here’s a piece that focuses on the race and IQ questions, and the interaction between genes and environment. Money quote:

There is still the puzzle of how environmental differences can be so weak when we compare individuals born at the same time, but so strong over time. The key, which Flynn attributes to fruitful discussions with his collaborator, William Dickens, an economist at the Brookings Institution in Flynn’s hometown of Washington, DC, lies in the observation that superior genes cause superior performance by co-opting superior environments…

Flynn’s thesis … points towards a satisfying answer to his original question: why do black Americans still perform worse on IQ tests than whites do, even when matched for poverty and other disadvantages? It is perfectly possible that in a still-biased society their genes can only co-opt inferior environments.

ZenPundit comments here. Ten questions for Flynn here.

Clinton For Clinton

Now he’s touting her record and beating up on the press. She’s got a double-digit lead in New Hampshire and he’s stillwhining about press coverage. Seriously, when was the last time a former president campaigned this hard for a candidate in his own party’s primary? Bush did it for Bush, I guess – but far less crudely and less frequently as I recall. Or am I forgetting? There is one natural response to a former president trying to stack the deck for his wife: will Al Gore step up and tell us who he’s supporting? My guess is: not Hillary. C’mon, Al. Time’s running out. Time to even the playing field.