ED DRISCOLL: Attention CNN’s Interview Scheduling Department.

WELL, SURE: Oliver Stone: ‘Jewish-Dominated Media’ Prevents Hitler from Being Portrayed ‘in Context’. “The director also defended Hitler and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and railed against the ‘powerful lobby’ of Jews in America.”

Note: Not actually from The Onion.

UPDATE: Reader Jeff Brown writes: “You lock people up in camps and murder six million of their family and friends, people hold a grudge. What can you do? But then the progressives have been working to keep Reagan and Bush from being portrayed in context.” Yeah, sometimes context is really important, other times not. It’s so confusing.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH: The Case of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer.

THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST, REDUX? “The difference between 1.0 and 2.0 is that 2.0 are not all Protestant, white males sprung full-blown from the Establishment as 1.0’s fathers and their fathers’ fathers were. Like Obama himself, they are by and large onetime middle-class overachievers who made their way into the Ivy League and then catapulted to the top levels of class and power by being . . . well, the best and the brightest. But in elitism as in religion, no one is more devout than a convert, and these people, again like Obama, all having been blessed by the Ivy League, also embrace Ivy League arrogance and condescension. On this, the Republican critics are right: The administration exudes a sense of superiority.”

MARKDOWNS ON toys and games.

PILING ON JOHN KERRY OVER YACHTGATE: Lifestyles Of The Rich And Clueless. “Boston Herald piles on, with New England boat builders wondering why, in times of hardship, Sen. Thurston Howell … I mean John Kerry, D-Mass., had to outsource his luxury, going halfway around the world to buy the $7 million luxury yacht he was berthing across state lines in tax-free Rhode Island.”

Hey, he may be dodging taxes and costing local jobs, but at least he’s not destroying fragile coral reefs while he’s at it. So he’s got that over Jeff Greene, anyway.

UPDATE: Reader Ben White emails: “They told me if I voted for Scott Brown, that my Senator would decide important issues to benefit the super rich instead of the working people of Massachusetts. And they were right!”

WIKILEAKS AND THE JOURNOLISTS: “How many of the Journolists who object to the release of their e-mails regarding the 2008 presidential campaign will spend the next several days gloating over the publication by WikiLeaks of over 90,000 classified military documents regarding the war in Afghanistan?”

JAKE TAPPER interviews Chris Christie. “I think Republicans across the country need to get back to our brand.”

HMM. PAYBACK? Wikileaks leaker prosecuted — and now, Wikileaks dumps more classified documents. Of course, the initial Wikileaks video turned out to be deceptive, so keep that in mind as you ponder the new leaks. They could be disinformation from people who don’t like the United States — or they could be disinformation from U.S. intelligence agencies. Who knows? But the White House says it’s a bad thing.

SO JOHN FOGERTY WAS INDUCTED INTO THE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME for his song Centerfield, which is pretty cool. That got me to go back and look at all my old Fogerty posts, which was also kind of cool. I knew I’d blogged about him, but I didn’t realize how much, or in how many contexts.

PETER SUDERMAN: A Legacy Of Budget Trickery: Peter Orszag’s Sleight Of Hand. “Under Orszag’s watch, budget gimmicks became a way of life for the Obama White House. Both he and Obama may want to pretend their budget numbers tell the truth, but at this point, it’s tough to see their constant fiscal fakery as anything other than a long exercise in make believe.”

SIGN OF THE TIMES: LA suburb residents march over high city salaries. “Several hundred angry residents from a modest blue-collar Los Angeles suburb marched Sunday to call for the resignation of the mayor and some City Council members in a protest sparked by the sky-high salaries of three recently departed administrators. The residents of the city of Bell marched to Oscar’s Korner Market and Carniceria, owned by Mayor Oscar Hernandez, then to his home, demanding that he reduce his own six-figure compensation or quit. They then did the same with some members of the City Council, with many marchers wearing T-shirts that read ‘My city is more corrupt than your city.’”

LAW SCHOOL GRADUATES face a bimodal salary curve. We used to call this a “brassiere curve” back when i was in college, but that’s probably politically incorrect now. But you’ve got two humps — a lower one, where the salaries for most law school graduates cluster, and a much higher one, centered around what those who go to big firms make. The important thing, in calculating the risk/return ratio of time and money on law school, is figuring out which of the two you’re likely to end up in.

As Above The Law’s Elie Mystal notes, “A lot of wanna-be lawyers claim that they don’t even want to make $160K. Fine. But understand the curve. If you don’t make $160K, it’s not likely that you’ll make just a little bit less — say, $120K. It’s not likely that you’ll make the average; it’s not even likely that you’ll make the median. If you don’t win the $160K lottery, chances are you’ll be clumped into the left-hand side of the curve, earning somewhere between $30,000 and $60,000 a year. That’s the kind of pay that a lot of people can get without three years of post-graduate education and six figures of debt.”

UPDATE: How it happened.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ilya Somin says it’s not as bad as it looks. As the higher education bubble talk continues, expect people to talk about this more.

SHOULD YOU BE TAKING ASPIRIN PREVENTATIVELY? “Indeed, mounting evidence reported in a number of leading medical journals now suggests that if you’re healthy and not at significant risk for a heart attack, you should not be taking aspirin preventively. That’s because the studies show that aspirin doesn’t reduce the risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke in healthy people. Furthermore, the potential risk of a cerebral hemorrhage, gastrointestinal bleeding, and ulcers outweighs any heart benefits the aspirin might provide.”

TODAY AND MONDAY, a clothing clearance at Amazon.

ALEXANDER MARLOW: Shirley Silenced: Sherrod Kept Out of Sunday Talk-shows.

TOM BLUMER: It’s the Uncertainty, Stupid.

AL GORE, INTERVIEWED BY PORTLAND POLICE, denies any wrongdoing.

UPDATE: “No comment.”

CLARICE FELDMAN: KNOW WHEN TO HOLD ‘EM. “In my view, Obama still doesn’t know when to hold or fold his race cards. Neither does the NAACP. They’ve been bluffing the dummies so long they think they can get away with it forever. And they are wrong. ” Read the whole thing.

NEW YORK POST: JournoList: The Fix Was In.

UPDATE: The Anchoress emails to point out that I posted those words in 2008. Well, actually it was a journalist-reader who emailed, but I’ll take credit for breaking the news early . . . .

THE WORLD’S strangest bathrooms.

“SMART DIPLOMACY:” White House Backed Release Of Lockerbie Bomber.

UPDATE: Some readers wonder if BP, which donated heavily to Obama’s campaign and stood to benefit from the bomber’s return, lobbied the Obama Administration on this. I’ve seen no evidence, the Brits deny that BP was involved in their decision, and I doubt anyone will be talking, but who knows? Stay tuned.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Jeff Weintraub thinks the linked article misrepresents the White House’s position, and recommends this article from The Guardian. The difference between the two doesn’t seem as strong to me, but you can compare them and make up your mind.

STEWART BAKER: Will Jihad Jump The Shark?

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Toward a more honest discussion of race. “With the election of President Obama, race relations in America have obviously come a long way since former Ku Klux Klan member Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1952. Just as clearly, there is still a long way to go before our society attains the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream that his children ‘will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.’”

NIGHT AND DAY AT the Fort Knox of Uranium. Conveniently, not that far from my house! You know, in case I want to make a deposit or something.

BUT OF COURSE: Catherine Zeta Jones Loves Bacon Sandwiches. Well, I mean, they do come with bacon.

UPDATE: Did your heart do flipflops at the combination of Catherine Zeta Jones and bacon, all in one post? InstaPundit is not for the weak.

IN THE MAIL: From Michael Z. Williamson, Contact with Chaos.

CHANGE: ABA Considers Dramatic Changes This Weekend in Law School Accreditation Standards, Including Dilution of Tenure. Plus, charges of hanky-panky: ‘The Clinical Legal Education Association accuses the committee of sandbagging the process by posting some of the material only three days in advance of the meeting.”

IF YOU MISSED IT THIS WEEKEND ON SIRIUS/XM SATELLITE RADIO, the latest PJM Political is now online.

SHIRLEY SHERROD PUSHED OUT BY the “West Wing white guys?” “That contradicts the official story of a few days ago, where the White House staffers were passive, surprised bystanders and Agriculture Secretary Vilsack was to blame. I don’t know if anyone believes that, but I don’t expect to see any reporters push on it, either.”

UPDATE: Related thoughts from Rand Simberg. So who’s the whitest? Journolist, the Obama White House, MSNBC hosts, or the burglars in Broadview Security commercials? I’m thinking, I’m thinking. . . .

GULF OIL SPILL UPDATE: Inspector General investigating Department of Interior report falsely claiming experts endorsed offshore drilling ban.

ILYA SOMIN: James Webb on Affirmative Action and Race. “In his much-discussed recent Wall Street Journal op ed, Virginia Senator James Webb makes some good points about affirmative action and race, but also some key mistakes and omissions.”

SHOCKER: Fiscal Evasion In State Budgeting.

ED DRISCOLL: Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) Rides The Racialist Mobius Loop.

ZOMBIES EVEN INFILTRATE food-blogging, now.

PETER SUDERMAN: More Deficit Damage Ahead. “Budget director Peter Orszag’s response? Could be worse! . . . But saying that it could be worse doesn’t excuse the fiscal problem, or the near-total failure of Washington legislators to substantively address it. This is hardly the first sign that the federal budget is in terrible shape.”

Maybe if they feared that angry journalists would hunt them down and push them through windows, they’d take some notice.

DIVERSITY CONSULTANT THROWS THE “K-BOMB.” It’s in the interest of diversity consultants to foster racial division, of course. That’s what keeps them employed.

RICH GALEN: Of all the dopey countries on the planet, none is dopier than North Korea.

CHANGE: Running For The Door: German Giants Flee Wall Street. “With expensive accounting rules, an increased threat of litigation and hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for some firms, the once prestigious New York Stock Exchange and other American markets have become unattractive to Germany’s biggest companies. Daimler and Deutsche Telekom have fled this year and the few remaining are likely to follow.”

ADVICE TO WOMEN: Bad-Mouthing Your Husband Slowly Kills A Marriage. It’s good advice. Not all women do this. I heard two women discussing a problem with a husband at the gym yesterday, and they were very positive and solution-oriented.

JOINING THE COMMUNITY OF SCHOLARS: Andy Stern Joins Georgetown University as Research Fellow.

THE YOUNG AND THE JOBLESS: New Evidence That The Minimum Wage Has Hurt Teenagers.

REQUESTING A CORRECTION from the Los Angeles Times.

AMAZING PHOTOS: Pilot ejects an instant before fighterjet crashes.

UPDATE: Reader Stephen Hill writes: “The pictures ARE amazing, and in one regard more than anything else: the first photo in the sequence illustrates how miraculous technology is getting – in this case in the form of the 0-0 ejection seat. The canopy is not even out of frame yet, and the seat has already oriented its passenger vertically, despite having fired out of a cockpit pointed at the ground.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Video.

WHAT ARE THE geekiest grilling gadgets?

WELL, HE’S PART OF THE CLINTON CROWD: Carville Slams Obama On Drilling Moratorium.

RUBES: Russia’s Falling-Out With Iran.

FROM STEPHEN GREEN, IT’S The Week In Blogs.

MICHAEL MOYNIHAN: “False (or flimsy) accusations of racism abound—they are everywhere one looks—though they rarely provoke the level of outrage seen in the Sherrod affair.” Well, because they’re usually aimed at Republicans.

But Moynihan’s piece produced the comment of the week:

My take:

(1) Breitbart was aiming at the NAACP as a reaction to yet another baseless Tea Party racism charge. Boy, did he hit his target. Sherrod was purely incidental.

(2) Breitbart succeeded in making the NAACP look racist, succeeded in provoking them into making an unfounded charge of racism themselves, and succeeded in stampeding the whole lefty racism industry into suddenly pontificating about the need for context and the horribleness of unfounded charges of racism.

I would say Breitbart has, once again, achieved all his objectives.

Indeed.

PATTERICO: James Rainey: Breitbart Was Irresponsible for Doing What I Do All the Time. “Regular readers will recall how Rainey uncritically quoted an ACORN worker who suggested that she had ordered Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe out of her office. Rainey (who today lambasts Breitbart for failng to contact Sherrod) hadn’t bothered to contact Breitbart — or Giles or O’Keefe — to ask their side of the story. If Rainey had bothered to do his job, he might have learned that the ACORN worker in question turned out to be only too eager to help Giles and O’Keefe with their purported child prostitution ring.”

ILYA SOMIN ON the debate over tenure. As the higher education bubble unfolds, we’ll see more of this kind of discussion, I think.

SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO EMBARRASS YOURSELF WITH A YACHT TO BE A DEMOCRATIC SENATOR, but apparently it helps: Jeff Greene denies his anchor damaged Belize reef.

On a Tuesday morning five years ago, Summerwind, a three-story, 145-foot luxury yacht, maneuvered above the celebrated barrier reef that lines the coast of Belize.

There it dropped anchor — and plunged into controversy over severe damage to a coral reef system officially recognized by the United Nations as one of the world’s most magnificent and irreplaceable treasures.

“The guys from the area told me they were beside the boat before it dropped anchor, and they were yelling and waving their hands, shouting, `No! No, don’t drop here,’ ” recounted Melanie McField, a marine scientist with the Smithsonian Institution who surveyed the reef soon after the incident. “It was bad. There was a lot of damage.”

The owner of that yacht? Billionaire Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene.

The real-estate mogul from Palm Beach was not aboard the boat at the time. And, oddly, Greene today says the incident never happened, despite extensive publicity about it at the time (including statements from his representatives), eyewitness accounts, scientific surveys of the damage and an extensive case file at the country’s Department of Environment.

At least he pays his taxes. As far as we know, anyway. Oh, wait: “Greene bought Summerwind in 2003, registering it in the Marshall Islands, a well-known tax haven.”

It’s a two-fer! Reef damage and a Kerry-like tax-avoidance scheme.

POLITICAL RACISM IN MEMPHIS: Ex-mayor makes Memphis primary about race: Once-unbeatable former mayor accuses white incumbent of ‘trying to act black’.

BOB OWENS: No, Texas hasn’t been invaded. There are some sections of Texas I would not advise you to invade. Like, you know, all of it. . .

ARNOLD KLING: “The Internet serves as a constant reminder of the wisdom of Hayek.”

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: Will Liz Warren be nominated/confirmed to head consumer financial agency? Does it Matter?

BURGLAR? Or civic hero?

MICHAEL S. MALONE: An American Life.

VIDEO: Cast of Mad Men Sings “Bye Bye, Birdie.”

LAW 1, MULTICULTURALISM 0: Cultural Defense Accepted as to Nonconsensual Sex in New Jersey Trial Court, Rejected on Appeal.

ANDREW BREITBART: Where are the firings at Politico or Bloomberg News?

UPDATE: Related: Prof. Jacobson is Still Waiting For Apologies. Now that “context” suddenly matters . . . .

BAD NEWS FOR LEGAL EDUCATION: Class of 2009 Employment Data: Jobs Down, Salaries Flat.

Is this evidence of a higher education bubble, or just of a crappy economy?

MARK WALKER: Why Transhumanism is the Best Bet to Prevent the Extinction of Civilization. “In a nutshell, the argument is that even though creating posthumans may be a very dangerous social experiment, it is even more dangerous not to attempt it: technological advances mean that there is a high probability that a human-only future will end in extinction.”

A YOUNG BRIDE SAYS marriage matters. I suspect these articles are just as relevant whether it’s gay or straight.

“THE STATE PLAYING GOD LIKE THIS GIVES ME THE CHILLS.”

Before you follow the link to see what they’re talking about, take a guess below.

IN THE MAIL: From Jerry Pournelle, Fires of Freedom.

POWER LINE: The Great Divide.

The current state of American politics can be summed up in this poll data, published today by Rasmussen Reports:

75% of Likely Voters prefer free markets over a government managed economy. Just 14% think a government managed economy is better while 11% are not sure.

Well, one would hope so. But here is the kicker:

America’s Political Class is far less enamored with the virtues of a free market. In fact, Political Class voters narrowly prefer a government managed economy over free markets by a 44% to 37% margin.

That strikes me as a rather stunning finding.

Yes, and one that perhaps explains why so many voters think the current setup lacks the consent of the governed.

JOURNOLIST: A Vast White-Wing Conspiracy?

MORE ON YACHTGATE: Dan Mitchell: Taxes Are for the Little People, not John Kerry. “Senator Kerry says that tax planning is a horrible sin when conducted by ‘Benedict Arnold’ companies and facilitated by those wicked tax havens. But I guess that it’s not such a bad thing when Senator Kerry is protecting his wealth. For the rest of us peasants, it’s our job to meekly get in line and submit to whatever taxes Senator Kerry graciously decides to impose.”

Plus, a roundup: Sen. John Kerry Skips Town on Sails Tax.

And reader Pat Courtney suggests this poll:

REVEALED: The Obama Donor List.

YOU CAN’T BE A JOURNALIST AND CARRY WATER FOR POLITICIANS. But you can be a Journolist!

“A COMMANDEERING OF THE PEOPLE:” The Wall Street Journal interviews Randy Barnett on ObamaCare and the Constitution. (Bumped).

TUNKU VARADARAJAN: Charlie Rangel Is Toast. “There will be resistance to Rangel’s departure, primarily from members of the Congressional Black Caucus, for whom Rangel is, for all his flaws, a revered elder statesman. But Rangel is now indefensible, and not merely because Pelosi wants to show him the door: His is a style, a method, a politics from an age when it was simply not done to ask uncomfortable questions of a black politician, lest that politician (and his supporters) retort that the questioning was racist. That protective smokescreen of ‘racism’ was good to men like Rangel, allowing them to go about their merry ways blithely, and untroubled. It is harder to strike pouting, Manichaean postures now, when a black man holds the highest office in the land. There can be no cheap and easy shaming of critics, no slick refuge in a narrative of racial oppression.”

TIM CAVANAUGH: California Roundup: $8 Billion Rail Project Results In Fewer People Riding Public Transportation.

WHY REPUBLICANS SHOULDN’T GET COCKY: GOP candidates trail House Dems in fund raising for key races by nearly 2-1. And these are toss-up races.

CAP AND TRADE is only mostly dead.

A ONE-DAY-ONLY SALE ON Mystery Science Theater.

KRUISER CONTROL: Stephen Kruiser Answers Some Questions from Danika Quinn.

As always, if you like these videos, please consider subscribing to PJTV.

DAVID HARSANYI: Was this a teachable moment on race?

NEW BLOOD FOR SOCIAL SECURITY? Should public-sector pensions shift their workers to Social Security? “Unlike private-sector workers, who are required to participate in Social Security, state and local governments have been given a choice. In a number of states workers aren’t enrolled in Social Security and instead rely on their own pension plans. But as public-sector pensions have become more clearly underfunded, some policy makers are considering shifting workers into Social Security.”

DENGUE FEVER showing up in Central Florida. Well, there’s no DDT now. I’ve been told that we don’t need it to control Dengue Fever. Let’s hope. . . .

CHARLIE RANGEL’S FADING FRIENDS: “Just one day after learning that he will face a House Ethics Committee trial on multiple ethics allegations, it looks like Rep. Charlie Rangel is starting to turn toxic for fellow Democrats. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — who’ve been among Rangel’s staunchest defenders during the committee’s two-year probe — issued terse statements conspicuously lacking in political support.”

MOE LANE HAS questions for the Pennsylvania press. The non-JournoList part, anyway.

WHAT IN THE WORLD IS DAVID FRUM THINKING? “So, which is worse: Breitbart’s failure to investigate enough to determine that the clip he was sent was misleading, or Frum’s linking to a series of posts and excoriating the authors for not mentioning Breitbart’s role when, in fact, they did? Did Frum link to the posts without reading them, or was he trying to mislead his readers?” Does he write his own stuff, any more, or is it farmed out? Because while I don’t like joining in the semi-annual Frum pile-ons, he seems to be trying to live up to his critics’ worst complaints.

NEW DEFICIT NUMBERS, LOOK WORSE, NOT BETTER. “According to the White House, things are getting worse: The deficit in FY2011 will be $150 billion larger than predicted in February . . . . This is bad news for the American people, not only because more deficit is bad and unemployment remains high (even Krugman is down), but also because the administration and the Deficit Commission are already setting the stage for increased taxes in the future. The narrative goes like this: The deficit is getting worse because of a lack in tax revenue, and while we don’t have recommendations about how to cut spending, we can tell you right now that we need more taxes. The truth is that we are in this situation because we overspent, made excuses for it, and lied about it.”

SOCIAL PRIVILEGE: Paul Campos sounds like Angelo Codevilla while writing about the career of Elena Kagan. “The relative ease with which Elena Kagan is being confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court illustrates the extent to which Establishment America believes that a member of the club in good standing – someone who has gone to the right schools, and gotten the right kinds of jobs, and befriended the right sorts of people – can be counted on to do the right thing, even though her own legal and political views remain largely unknown. Naturally, from the establishment’s perspective, the right thing is to do nothing that might seriously disturb any of the social arrangements that continue to serve its interests so well. And in the end, Obama’s faith in Kagan is most likely based on a well-warranted belief that, as a Supreme Court justice, she will prove to be as acceptable to that establishment as Obama himself.”

ROMANTIC (PERHAPS) BUT DEFINITELY IMPRACTICAL: A Chocolate-Covered iPad.

CNN HOST CALLS FOR crackdown on bloggers. Of course.

UPDATE: Reader Eugene Heim writes:

I think you got to this point much sooner than I, but my reaction to that story is:

Who do these people think they are that they seek to determine what I should be able to read or hear? I am better educated, have seen and done things that they can only pontificate about (military, private sector, federal employee), and -going out a limb here- am more intelligent than these people who wish to regulate what I can know and think.

I hope I speak for many when I say, I might be late to the game, but I am awake and taking the field.

I think a lot of people feel this way.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Nancy Lynn Hargis says she has just two words for Big Media folks criticizing bloggers as irresponsible: “Richard Jewell.”

MORE: Ann Althouse says not so fast.

THE AL GORE SEX SCANDAL just got a little juicier. The big problem is this: “I need some more evidence before I pass judgment, but I’m not going to be happy no matter how this turns out. Either Gore abused his position of power to harass these women and scare them into keeping quiet. Or they’re all lying and trying to tarnish his reputation for some cash and their 15 minutes.” As with Bill Clinton, there’s tension between the “women don’t lie” and the “Democrats don’t do that” memes . . . .

PAUL RYAN: GOP Playing Politics By Ignoring My Deficit-Reduction Roadmap.

UPDATE: Reader Stephen Clark writes: “The Ryan Road Map would be a solid policy framework around which state Tea Party organizations could rally. It makes sense at the state level in so far as the exploding costs of Medicaid, and the unknown but likely enormous additional costs as unfunded mandates in the health reform act, will have disastrous effects on state budgets. Building state parties around this conceptual framework and holding aspirants to public office to its tenants would turn a movement into a serious political force.”

CHANGE: Government decides Sustainable Development Commission is unsustainable. Tee hee.

OKAY, I LINKED THIS STEPHEN GREEN COLUMN EARLIER, but this bit is worth quoting on its own:

Candidate Barack Obama ran as a moderate. He promised a “net spending cut.” Health reform was not, we were assured, intended to take over the insurance industry or feature an individual mandate. Taxes would go down for anyone making under $250,000 a year. “Too big to fail” was to be a thing of the past. Our nation was to become post-racial by the long-awaited election of a black man to the White House. And so it goes.

Instead, we got… more of everything. Taxes, spending, regulating, mandates, racial division — the entire liberal waterworks turned up to the max and pretty much all at once.

Indeed. And those broken promises are Obama’s biggest weakness.

ED DRISCOLL: Shirley She Can’t Be Serious.

Related: Shirley Sherrod, Behaving Badly.

NOW, A liberal tax revolt?

Kudlow has thoughts.

EARLIER, I MENTIONED JAMES WEBB’S PIECE ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION AND RACISM, and a reader from Virginia emails:

What you’re seeing from Webb is the beginning of his 2012 re-elect campaign. He knows he won in 2006 for one reason: macaca. If not for Allen’s fateful stumble, it wouldn’t even have been close. Since then, he’s managed to vote for ObamaCare, Cap and Trade and a ton of other things that are hugely unpopular in Virginia.

A colleague of mine got a 20 minute live-operator poll from Webb last week, testing different messages related to Cap and Trade. Webb knows which way the wind is blowing, and he’s afraid that Obama will be a huge boat anchor in 2012. Add in the fact that Allen is considering running again, and it’s little wonder he’s beginning to say to eye-opening things.

It’s a matter of survival.

Well, especially now that the press has concluded that using embarrassing video without the full context is some sort of breach of journalistic ethics. . . .

Meanwhile, reader Bruce Goldston writes: “Let’s not get so worked up over Sen. Webb’s comments on race and affirmative action programs. Its very likely that his Op Ed was calculated by the White House as an attempt to stop the hemorrhaging of white voters and to bring enough of them back into the democrat party’s fold to rescue their candidates in November.” Hmm. Possibly, but I have to say I find the first explanation more convincing.

UPDATE: Moe Lane predicts disaster: “Senator Webb seems to have forgotten that he has a ‘D’ after his name these days, which effectively means that this entire article is thoughtcrime that will pretty much guarantee him a messy primary in 2012. Progressives do not appreciate thoughtcrime, particularly in their converts: they bought Jimmy Webb in 2006, and they expect their purchases to perform as expected.” If they expected loyalty from Webb, they weren’t paying attention. . . .

THE HILL: EXCLUSIVE: House Democrat calls on Rep. Charles Rangel to resign. “In a major development, Rep. Betty Sutton (Ohio) on Friday night called on beleaguered Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) to resign. Sutton’s statement comes one day after the House ethics committee charged the 80-year-old Democrat with multiple violations.”

SPENCER ACKERMAN: Wait, this is the guy who’s always talking about shoving people through plate-glass windows? Really?

UPDATE: Run away! Run away!

JONAH GOLDBERG: “Shirley Sherrod, who didn’t know who Andrew Breitbart was 72 hours ago, now knows him well enough to say that he wants to put all blacks back into slavery. If I were David Axelrod, I’d be calling this woman and beg her to stop talking. And, yes, she does owe Andrew an apology.”

UPDATE: Reader Bill Ernoehazy writes: “Glenn: At this point I think it’s worth asking: Did someone on Vilsack’s staff push for a panicky ejection because Sherrod had a _reputation_ for race-baiting? In less than three days she’s castigated the President, and now Breitbart, on nakedly racial grounds. What did Vilsack’s staff know, and when will WE know it?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: More thoughts from Dave Price. “And remember — the Obama admin now owns Shirley Sherrod. There’s no way for them to look good on this anymore. If they fired her, then apologized and offered her a promotion on a flimsy ‘context’ argument, then found out she was someone whose wildly inflammatory accusations make Reverend Jeremiah Wright look like the soul of racial unity and reasonable dialogue… the already oil-drenched competence myth is now taking a slash to the jugular.”

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