Lawyer-Wearing-Yarmulka

A few days ago, I wrote that Barak Obama should not run for President in 2008, figuring he'd best spend some time tuning his executive skills as the Governor of some state.

Now Charles Krauthammer writes in today's Washington Post that Obama should run...and lose in 2008, setting himself up for victory the next time around. Obama is simply too green. He thinks there is little if any chance of Obama getting the Democratic nomination, but if he performs well in the primaries, he'd be a natural for VP, thus eliminating the knock against him that he has no foreign policy experience.

...and read a very good analysis of yesterday's New Jersey Supreme Court ruling.

How exactly can a court order a state official to resign?

Every time I kvetch about the judicial system in the U.S., I always remind myself that it's much, much worse in Israel.

The political universe is exploding over the possibility of Barak Obama running for President in 2008. Everyone is offering advice to the young Senator on how he should proceed. Bob Hebert yesterday said that Obama should not run in 08, rather he should stay in the Senate, gain experience, and then run the next time possible (2012 or 2016).

He and others telling Obama to wait are rightfully nervous about such a young and inexperienced candidate running for President in 2008. If he wins the Democratic primary, he could be chewed up alive by a much more experienced GOP candidate. (McCain anyone?)

But Hebert is wrong for telling Obama to stay in the Senate.

I don't normally give advice to Democracts, but here goes:

Mr. Obama, get the hell out of the Senate as soon as possible. The Senate is where Presidential aspirations go to die. Senators simply don't make good Presidential candidates. The last person to go straight from the Senate to the White House? JFK. Before that? Warren Harding.

Senators enter the primaries with voting records follow them around till they drop out of the race or lose to the other party's candidate. ("John Kerry voted 5 times for taking away puppies from senior citizens!") They have no leadership skills, no experience is running anything. Senators mostly talk.

The best candidates are those with Executive and thus managerial experience. Almost all our Presidents have been either Governors or Vice-Presidents. Bush 43, Clinton, Reagan, and Carter were all Governors. Bush 41, Nixon, LBJ, and Truman were all Vice-Presidents. Eisenhower was a General.

So Mr. Obama, here's my advice. Run for Governor of Illinois. And if Illinois isn't available, run for Governor of Ohio, Indiana, or any other State. But don't stay in the Senate, unless you're sure that you'll be picked as Hillary's VP in 2008, and you're sure Hillary will win.

That's how you'll end up having a chance at the White House.

"Envy is a foolish and self-destructive emotion. It is also thoroughly bad economics."

-Paul Johnson

I was going to write today about lucky Lynne Stewart, but the Wall Street Journal beat me to it.

It was a case of radical chic and the radical sheik. Yesterday in New York, Lynne Stewart, a self-styled "civil rights" attorney whose past clients include the Black Panthers and Weather Underground, was sentenced to 28 months in prison for illegally passing messages between her imprisoned client, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, and his followers in Egypt's Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, the terrorist group responsible for killing 62 mostly European and Japanese tourists in Luxor in 1997. Some of those tourists were beheaded; others were disemboweled. The Sheik was also involved in planning terror attacks in New York, for which he is serving a life sentence.

In an age when courts routinely impose five-year prison terms for drug offenders, and life sentences on former CEOs, 28 months may not seem an appropriate sentence for a terrorist accomplice, especially when the government sought 30 years. Ms. Stewart certainly had the sympathy of the judge, John Koeltl, who praised her as a champion of "the poor, the disadvantaged and the unpopular." She herself seems to have had few misgivings about her actions: "The government's characterization of me and what occurred is inaccurate and untrue,"she told the judge. "It takes unfair advantage of the climate of urgency and hysteria that followed 9/11."

In similar circumstances--albeit with a different defendant--a case could be made for leniency. Ms. Stewart is 67 and recovering from breast cancer. But remorse is also a prerequisite for mercy, and Ms. Stewart shows none, either for her crime or for the arc of a career which flows too naturally from championing the "liberation" movements of the 1960s to the Islamists of the present day. What her clients have in common is that they loathe America.

Now she basks in the pity and praise of her fellow radical travelers, who haven't seemed to spare much thought for the victims of Luxor. It says everything about her, and about them.

Being woken up at 5:00 A.M. by a neighbor's house alarm.

You know what's really, really irritating?

Being woken up again 20 minutes later by a neighbor's house alarm.

I’m confused by this story. What exactly is Mexico’s basis for arguing that the U.S. can’t build a fence on U.S. soil? The story doesn’t say.

The other night I went esrog shopping. My family has been buying from this one guy for 30 years, the quality is great. Each esrog more beautiful then the next. Naturally, the prices match the quality.

As I was picking out my esrog, I remembered what my Rosh Yeshiva once said:

"Imagine if lulav and esrog was a mitzvah that you did in your basement and not in shul. Can you imagine the kind of of esrogim people would buy? Tiny, brown, dried up shriveled esrogim..."

Just a thought when you're admiring your esrog in shul this Yom Tov.

"The Democrats say the Republicans should have done all the things Democrats won't let us do to al Qaida — solely because Foley was rumored to be gay. Maybe we could get Democrats to support the NSA wiretapping program if we tell them the terrorists are gay."

-Ann

Watching the Yankee game last night, my little sister remarked- "The Yankee lineup is like when you're playing Monopoly and your opponents has hotels on all his properties. No matter where you land, odds are you're gonna get killed."

"All legislation is morality, the only question is whose morality"

-Law school professor