Iowa?

I opened up the AP "Odd News" category at Yahoo News and was more than a bit surprised to see three stories pop up that originated from Iowa. Heck, one a week datelined Iowa is unusual. (Unless it is political near election time, of course.) But these were just odd items. We have an instant trifecta! Item: The SUV in the river:

SIOUX CITY, Iowa - A sport utility vehicle stuck in the Missouri River in Sioux City will have to stay put — for now. There are no plans to move it, and there's a question of who's responsible for getting it out.

The SUV went into the then-frozen river last February in what police call a botched suicide attempt.

Police contacted the owner, and authorities left it in the river because no one was trapped inside. According to police, the SUV became frozen in the ice and it became the owner's responsibility to hire someone to get it out.

There's a lesson here somewhere. The authorities left it because nobody was in it. But now they can't get it out - too stuck in the mud, apparently. Maybe next time get it out before it settles into the river bottom? Next item: Early Warning Cat:

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - A cat named Oreo is being credited for nipping a carbon monoxide leak in the bud. Jeanie Probst said her cat began to act strangely since she began using her heater in the past couple of weeks.

"He came out here yelling," Probst said.

Oreo would run in circles under the vent or jump onto the back of a chair, stare at the register and make loud noises, she said.

Eventually, they figured out that something was badly wrong. A technician from the local utility found the problem and stopped the carbon monoxide leak that could have killed them all. Cat included. Last item: Late warning dog. (The warning was on time. Sadly, though, the hero did not make it out.)

CARTER LAKE, Iowa - Bryan Smith has pictures of his dog in his coat pocket, a reminder of the pet that sacrificed itself to save him from his burning house.

It was Tuesday night when Storm jumped on the slumbering Smith and alerted him to the growing smoke and flames outside his bedroom.

Smith says he grabbed his curtains, wet them for a mask and grabbed his puppy Daisy while the older dog ran ahead.

It was the last time Smith saw Storm.

The man ran to a neighbor's home to call the Fire Department and noticed too late that Storm had not escaped.

Smith says he nearly lost his own life going back for Storm. Two Carter Lake firefighters had to pull him out the back door, where he collapsed while trying to save his pet.

"I know it was stupid, but … people with pets understand," he said.

Yes, we do. Smith was very lucky to have survived - and very lucky in his choice of pets as well. Smith figures it was Storm paying him back, having been rescued by Smith about seven years ago. This is the saddest story of the bunch. That's it for Iowa tonight, though. Now back to your regularly scheduled flyover.

Love Is In The Air…….

Ah, love is in the air for Rahm Emanuel tonight from the Crooks and Liars gang.

Many of you have probably heard that Rahm is backing the extreme right wing Tom Tancredo and his hateful stance on immigration. C&Lers have made their voices heard loud and clear on this issue and understand the need for good border security, but with a comprehensive—humane plan in mind. We’re human beings after all.

And so, Rahm, it is your turn to star in tonight's episode. Our condolences.

Criminal Madness - Part Two

I no sooner posted the previous post when this new item from the The Olympian popped up over at Memeorandum. The Executive Editor of the newspaper, Vickie Kilgore, writes about the situation her reporters found themselves in, in danger not from police, but from out-of-control, thuggish and downright criminal protesters.

However, photographer Tony Overman was threatened by protesters and felt endangered to the point of calling 9-1-1 for assistance.

There is much misinformation on this topic in community blogs and conversation.

Journalists covering breaking news often put themselves at risk. Being on the frontlines to report news as it happens is essential. Most of us love that adrenaline rush of the big story happening before our eyes. But in volatile situations such as the protests of the past week, our journalists are exposed to the same risks as everyone else when tension escalates.

And an out-of-control crowd — as the local demonstrators proved to be several times — is a scary thing.

Tony is experienced in shooting dangerous scenes. He spent several weeks in Iraq last year covering our troops.

But last week Tony was cornered against a chain-link fence by protesters angry at being photographed. One grabbed at his lens. Tony said the hostility was alarming, and he felt threatened as they yelled at him with growing intensity. He reached for his cell phone, punched 9-1-1 and explained the situation, officers arrived and the demonstrators pinning him to the fence backed off.

There is quite a bit more. The criminals - and that is the correct term - repeatedly threatened reporters and , for the second time, a report also surfaces about the abuse of children:

Tony, who is not easily intimidated, was angry. You don't mess with a photographer's equipment. But it was more than that. The young demonstrators surrounding and taunting him were being egged on by adults, men in positions of influence in this community. They should have behaved more responsibly.

This is criminal activity and some people need to go to jail for a long time. This is not civil disobedience, it is inciting riot and abusing children. I do not care how much you oppose the war, if you would sanction this behavior you really need help - or punishment.

There is quite a bit more. The criminals - and that is the correct term - repeatedly threatened reporters and , for the second time, a report also surfaces about the abuse of children:

Tony, who is not easily intimidated, was angry. You don't mess with a photographer's equipment. But it was more than that. The young demonstrators surrounding and taunting him were being egged on by adults, men in positions of influence in this community. They should have behaved more responsibly.

This is criminal activity and some people need to go to jail for a long time. This is not civil disobedience, it is inciting riot and abusing children. I do not care how much you oppose the war, if you would sanction this behavior you really need help - or punishment.

UPDATE: Others: Say Anything: I generally view protests with some degree of bemused - if impatient - tolerance but this is over the top. These people need to go to a federal prison.

Wake Up America: It's one thing for a grown adult to protest and form a human blockade against tons of rolling metal. It's another thing entirely to use small children to do so. These people are not responsible parents, which is obvious by their actions.

Sister Toldjah: The witch in the video and pictures is not a mother. She’s a damn monster. SHAME ON YOU, LADY, and the other crazy lunatics out there who have lost their bleeping minds. (She has video of the criminal child abusers up.)

Environmental Republican: Words actually fail me sometimes. This is full-on child abuse in my opinion. If you want to protest, that's your inalienable right, but when you include your kids and have them hide their faces, sorry, I draw the line.

Urban Grounds: That woman should have her children removed from her custody while she is serving a long, long stint in a mental health facility.

Squiggler: THESE PEOPLE ARE INSANE!

Discerning Texan: Leftist Mom Drops Baby on head to stop Olympia WA troop transports

American Pundit: She was apparently so busy celebrating the fact she was able to damage our ability to fight a war, that she allowed her baby to fall face first on the pavement.

Ace of Spades: And of course a "Peace Mom" using her kid as a prop gets distracted by a drum circle and drops her baby to the ground.

Jawa Report: When you see images like the one above that drive self-appointed saviors of the world to use their children as human shields in their quests for "peace," you begin to wonder if some of todays self-described leftwing super-patriots aren't flirting with this kind of fanatical violence in the name of their so-called causes. (Read it to see what Good LT talking about. It matters. Because it is just like 1968 all over again.)

Criminal Madness

Some anti-war extremists have been protesting the unloading of returning equipment from Iraq at the Port of Olympia in Washington state. The protests have triggered the arrests of quite a few of the protesters. But what is more troublesome is the use by some protesters of children to block convoys. This is, with no question whatsoever, endangering the welfare of a child and could (should!) be considered child abuse. Michelle Malkin has photographs of one woman who dropped her child face first onto the concrete - after endangering his life by sitting down in front of a tractor-trailer. One of her readers sent the pictures and this description:

I work at the port, and have observed some truly mind boggling events unfold, but the most astonishing was the use of children as human shields. The attached pictures were taken on 11/9/07; the night military equipment was first blocked from leaving the port. The Olympia Police Department essentially abandoned any effort to remove the protesters out of fear that a child would be harmed in their efforts to enforce the law. The mother of these children apparently had no such concern.

After the military convoy was forced to retreat, a victory celebration ensued, with chanting dancing, etc. I was horrified to watch as the woman in the attached photograph, distracted by events, allowed her infant to fall from her lap and land, face first on the pavement. The second photo shows her retrieving the crying baby as her other two children, dressed as terrorists look on.

This situation, and another two days later, when dozens of college aged girls were arrayed in rows with arms linked to block the road, showed a deliberate effort to use the same tactics as the terrorist savages who manipulate us, knowing that decent people cannot abide putting innocents in harm’s way. And, while the police were dragging the females away, under the glare of the media’s cameras, the males were establishing rolling blockades; throwing rocks at police and military vehicles; breaking windows, etc.

The whole event had the flavor of a huge mob of children playing some updated version of “Cowboys and Indians” — with live ammo.

The complete lack of sense this woman displayed - the utter disregard for the safety of her child - is sickening. There is a clear picture of the woman and officials should immediately begin whatever procedures are needed to protect those children. This is an issue on which I have zero flexibility and zero tolerance. Period. There is no defense for this behavior. None.

One woman who is totally against the war is quoted in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

By contrast, Jill Wolf, who said she strongly opposes the war in Iraq, took issue with the protesters' tactics and described them as criminals.

"I would suggest that today's protesters are making Olympia look ridiculous while wasting thousands of dollars in taxpayers' money," Wolf said.

I agree, they are criminals and at least one of them is a child abuser and should be treated as such at once.

UPDATE: Roundup is here.

The Headless Goats Of Laguna Beach

Okay, it isn't as catchy as "The Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow" from the Washington Irving short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but unlike the story, the goats actually exist. Also headless chickens and a pigeon. The appearance of the nogginless critters is creeping the Laguna Beach police out, too.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two headless goats, three decapitated chickens, a beheaded rooster and a dove or possibly pigeon have been found on a scenic Southern California beach in the past week, puzzled police said on Thursday,

Police in Laguna Beach said they were unsure whether the seven animals had washed up on shore or been placed there. They are trying to figure out who was behind the decapitations, and why.

The headless goats were found inside a purple burlap sack on the sand a week ago. The other beheaded animals turned up in recent days.

"We are looking at all kinds of things — Halloween prank stuff, kids or cold, ritualistic-type activities," Laguna Beach police Sgt. Jason Kravetz told the Los Angeles Times.

We'd go with the curse theory, since goat parts are always involved in serious curse activity. But we'd really start worrying if coconuts turned up.

A Hearty Round Of Applause For J. A. Jance

Bestselling mystery novelist J. A. Jance deserves a really big round of applause. When she read about First Lieutenant Walter Bryan Jackson being awarded the Distinguished Service Cross - and the conspicuous absence of major media attention about it - she took matters into her own hands. She contacted both the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Seattle Times inquiring as to why they were not covering the story of a local hero. (Jackson is originally from Oak Harbor, Washington.)

The Seattle P-I has now written an article on Lieutenant Jackson and the Seattle Times has answered her email saying they are working on something. (Ms. Jance copied me on both emails.)

Second Lt. Bryan Jackson was eight months into his first tour of duty in Iraq and out on patrol in Anbar Province in September 2006 when the Humvee he was towing behind a Bradley Fighting Vehicle got stuck in the mud.

It was a mundane mishap, but it made Jackson and his crew nervous. Not only did they fear the Humvee would roll over, but they also knew the stall made them a naked target for insurgent fire. Just a month earlier, a comrade had been seriously wounded at the same spot near the town of Hit.

What happened next would earn Jackson, now a first lieutenant, the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism in action — making him only the seventh soldier since the Vietnam War to receive the nation's second-highest military honor. Jackson, a West Point graduate, is from Oak Harbor where his father, now based in Washington, D.C., commanded a Navy P3 Orion squadron on Whidbey Island.

On Sept. 27, 2006, Jackson and his crew climbed down and began working quickly to try to free the mired Humvee. In almost the same instant, Jackson heard the cracks of multiple machine guns opening up on them.

Jackson looked over to see two fellow soldiers downed under fire. Instinctively he headed toward 1st Sgt. David Sapp, whose head was bleeding. On the ground nearby lay company commander Eric Stainbrook, also gravely wounded.

As Jackson worked frantically to apply pressure to Sapp's wounds, bullets ripped through his own body — first his thigh, then his left hand. Stunned and disoriented, he slumped over.

It is a nicely done article, well worth taking the time to read. Again, J. A. Jance deserves the credit and a hearty round of thanks for her work on this.

*Pop* Goes The Left’s Heads!

Karl Rove has been hired by Newsweek to "balance" coverage that is to be provided by Markos "Kos" Moulitsas. Both will write several columns throughout the 2008 election cycle.

Less than three months after leaving the Bush White House, Karl Rove is becoming a member of a community not all that popular with administration officials: the media.

Newsweek has signed the president's former deputy chief of staff as a commentator who will turn out several columns on the 2008 campaign through inauguration day. The move is not likely to prove popular among liberals who believe the mainstream media have been too soft on the Bush administration.

"We want to give readers a feel for what it's like to be on the inside," says Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham. "Our readers are sophisticated enough to know that what they get from Karl has to be judged in the context of who Karl is…Readers will have to decide if he's simply an apologist."

Newsweek (which is owned by The Washington Post Co.) will announce tomorrow that it is granting regular space to both Rove and Markos Moulitsas, the liberal firebrand who founded the Web site Daily Kos. "I'm fully prepared for both the right-wing and left-wing blogosphere to be outraged, which means we're doing our job," Meacham says.

I did not comment at all when Kos made his announcement, figuring I'd wait. I didn't really see all that much outrage on the right over Kos getting hired. Let's see how the left handles Rove's new gig!

UPDATE: Not particularly well. 287 comments and counting and the love starts really quickly in the comments:

What was that? Karl Rove to become Newspeak distributor?

Why put Newstweak's reputation at risk with an immoral deformity?

Democrats and Progressives should seize all copies of Newsweek as soon as they appear on the stands, and then publicly burn them.

There are other, more violent fantasies as well. Yes, this is "nutpicking" from comments, but there really are some seriously deranged comments - and Huffington Post should not stand by while those kinds of people spew.

Spitzer Finds A Loophole

Desperate to make something work, Eliot Spitzer copies a "success"…..

The Case Of The Counterfeit Crocodile

It seems that there are always reports surfacing about some product of other being counterfeited in China. Books, music, DVDs, watches, water, Loch Ness monster - you name it and someone in China counterfeits it. For example, the latest bogus food item they have rolled out: Counterfeit crocodile.

Hong Kong's Consumer Council tested 24 samples of crocodile meat from dried seafood shops across the territory and found that 16 were fake, constituted instead from dried lizard or snake.

"It is difficult for ordinary people to differentiate between the meats of various reptiles. Consumers are advised to buy … at reliable shops and get receipts that state clearly what they are buying," Council chief executive Connie Lau was quoted by the Standard as saying.

Three people were arrested for selling fake products, the paper added.

While there have been no reports of people falling ill from eating the fake meat, the paper quoted Chinese medicine practitioner Julianna Chau as saying the consumption of snake meat could cause excessive "heaty" effects in certain people.

Heaty? Doesn't it all taste like chicken? One has to wonder why there is a crocodile shortage in China. There certainly isn't one in Vietnam at the moment:

VietNamNet Bridge – Local hunters and army marksmen have captured or shot dead 80 crocodiles that have escaped from the country's biggest crocodile farm last Saturday. The exact number of escaped animals remains unknown.

Managers of Khatoco company - that owns the Yang Bay crocodile farm in the central coastal province of Khanh Hoa that had 5,000 animals said the search for the escaped reptiles was becoming more complicated after some of them were spotted in the Song Cai River, 30km away from the farm.

On Tuesday, residents in Dien Khanh township, 40km from the farm, found and killed a 90kg crocodile and sold it at the local food market. Earlier, seven others were caught by boatmen at Yang Bay waterfall, 2km from the farm.

Of course, it may have been a snake disguised as a crocodile.

Quid Pro Cash

ABC News reports that at least three people pardoned by Bill Clinton before leaving office have made political contributions to Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign. The Clinton campaign reacted sarcastically when the contributions were brought to their attention.

Three recipients of controversial 11th-hour pardons issued by former President Bill Clinton in January 2001 have donated thousands of dollars to the presidential campaign of his wife, Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., according to campaign finance records examined by ABC News, in what some good government groups said created an appearance of impropriety.

"It's not illegal," Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told ABC News. "But, of course, it's inappropriate and she should return the money. It does raise the appearance that this is payback.

"One can only hope that she wasn't yet aware of who made the donations," said Sloan.

"We have raised over $65 million from over 200,000 people," said Clinton campaign manager Howard Wolfson, adding sarcastically, "I appreciate your bringing the instance of this $5,300 and these three people to our attention."

The campaign has a point, of course. With the amount of cash in play, $5,300 is not even noise on the system. It speaks more to the judgment of the people who made the donations than it does to the campaign. Yet those people obviously felt that they owed something to the Clintons, did they not? It just adds another odor to the overall scent of corruption that seems to hang around the Clintons.

Bustard Blog says that a number of Republicans who had been pardoned by George Bush had contributed to George Bush. Sorry to disappoint you, Bustard, but if that information is correct that is wrong, too. It is not illegal but it is improper - it just plain looks bad. Period. Regardless of party involved.

The Coup In Caracas

The Washington Post comes straight out and calls the so-called reforms that (T)Hugo Chavez is imposing on Venezuela by the correct name: it is a coup. They denounce both the coup and the Chavez apologists who excuse or turn a blind eye to the situation in Venezuela in an unsigned editorial today.

TENS OF thousands of Venezuelan students marched to the Supreme Court in Caracas last week to protest the new "socialist" constitutional reform that President Hugo Chavez is preparing to impose on the country. On their return, students from the Central University of Venezuela were fired on by gunmen who roared onto the campus on motorcycles. Nine were hurt; university officials later identified the shooters as members of government-sponsored paramilitary groups. That's just one example of the ugly climate of intimidation Mr. Chavez is creating in advance of a Dec. 2 referendum that he expects will formally confirm him as de facto president for life and give him powers rivaling those of his mentor, Fidel Castro.

Mr. Chavez's apologists like to dismiss the Venezuelan forces opposing his deconstruction of democracy — which include the Catholic Church, the private business community and labor unions as well as students — as a corrupt elite. So it's worth noting what some of Mr. Chavez's long-standing allies are saying about his constitutional changes. The political party Podemos, whose members ran for parliament on a pro-Chavez platform, call it "a constitutional fraud." Mr. Chavez's recently retired defense minister, Gen. Ra¿l Isa¿as Baduel, said it was an "undemocratic imposition" and that its approval would amount to "a coup."

The left is, for the most part, completely silent about the situation in Venezuela. So are Democrats in Washington as far as I can tell. It is nice to see the Post break the cone of silence.

Almost Too Funny To Post About

My sides hurt. Really, they do. The increasingly inept Eliot Spitzer has just reversed himself on his plan to tax internet sales! In ONE day the man wrote the plan into policy and then abandoned it entirely.

In a second major policy reversal in less than a day, Governor Spitzer is backing down from a plan to require Amazon.com and other online retailers to charge state and local sales taxes on all purchases from New York.

Yesterday, just hours after The New York Sun reported on the new revenue collection scheme, the Spitzer administration announced that it was burying it for the time being — at least until after the Christmas shopping season. The move saved New York City shoppers from having to pay an additional 8.375% on many Amazon.com goods.

"Governor Spitzer believes that now is not the right time to be increasing sales taxes on New Yorkers," Mr. Spitzer's budget director, Paul Francis, said in a statement. "He has directed the Department of Tax and Finance to pull back its interpretation that would require some Internet retailers that do not collect sales tax to do so."

Drat! Now he'll have to find another loophole. Holy cow, who is planning strategy for this guy, Daffy Duck? By the way, notice the wording of the announcement. Yesterday Spitzer was calling it closing a loophole; today he admits it was raising taxes. Best laugh of the day so far - and the day is still young! Spitzer still has time to reverse another policy before dinner!

Changing The System

Steven Malanga, writing in the Washington Post, points out that there is more than just a problem with illegal immigration - there are also problems with the legal immigration system. Those problems need rectification but it will take a discussion over how we, as a nation, want our policies to work.

Hillary Clinton helped to elevate immigration to a central position in the Presidential election when she waffled on the question of whether she favored drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants. Yet much of the public discussion that has followed Clinton's confrontation with questioner Tim Russert has focused only on illegal immigrants. We still know very little about what the candidates would do to reform our broken system of legal immigration.

Our current system results from changes begun in the mid-1960s, when the country scrapped its old immigration policy, based on quotas determined by a person's national origin, in favor of broader hemispheric quotas and visa preferences for family members of those already here. The framers of this new system claimed that they were merely tinkering with policy. "Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants," Sen. Edward Kennedy said.

But not only did legal immigration soar by 60 percent in the first 10 years after the reform legislation; the origins of immigration shifted to poorer countries around the world, and many new immigrants arrived with low levels of education and little job training, stranding them in low-paying jobs and slowing their economic mobility. A recent study by Harvard economists George Boras and Lawrence Katz of Mexican immigrants who came here in the 1970s found that after 20 years in the American workforce these workers were still earning about 40 percent less than American-born workers — a sharp contrast with earlier generations of immigrants, who after several decades here tended to be virtually at par with American workers. The economists also estimated that recently arriving young Mexican workers (and Mexicans make up the largest category of legal immigrants to the U.S.) were starting off with an even bigger wage disadvantage relative to American workers than their predecessors did in the 1970s.

I would point out that the fact that immigrants are not as upwardly mobile as in years past probably has rather a lot to do with the flood of illegal immigrants who are knocking the economic props out from under them. That is, however, beside the point of Malanga's piece. He points to Australia, which uses a very stringent skills based immigration process. That policy has ensured that immigrants to Australia are very successful and very upwardly mobile. In contrast, Canada uses a standard that does encourage better-educated immigrants but is not skills-based. That policy has led to less successful immigrants.

The mess that passes for policy that we have in this country is a disaster for immigrants and native-born citizens alike. It is past time to have a discussion on how to fix the train wreck of our immigration policy. The answer is not opening the floodgates further or leaving things in the state they are in now.

Titanic Campaign

David Broder will certainly get a load of emails from the usual suspects after they read today's column. Broder has the unmitigated gall to point out the icebergs ahead for the Democrats and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 elections.

As the Democratic presidential race finally gets down to brass tacks, two issues are becoming paramount. But only one of them is clearly on the table.

That is the issue of illegal immigration. A very smart Democrat, a veteran of the Clinton administration, told me that he expects it to be a key part of any Republican campaign and that he is worried about his party's ability to respond.

I think he has good reason to worry. The failure of the Democratic Congress, like its Republican predecessor, to enact comprehensive immigration reform, including improved border security, has left individual states and local communities to struggle with the problem. Some are showing a high degree of tolerance and flexibility. Others are being more punitive. But all of them are running into controversy.

I noticed a new Siena College Research Institute poll of registered voters in New York. It found heavy opposition to Gov. Eliot Spitzer's proposal to permit undocumented aliens to obtain driver's licenses; nearly two-thirds opposed the latest version.

Broder is not the first to point out the vulnerability of the Democrats to this issue, of course. What is actually more interesting is a question that has been largely off the table so far but will become a front and center issue: what to do about Bill.

The former president's intervention — volunteered during a campaign appearance on her behalf in South Carolina — raised the second, and largely unspoken, issue identified by my friend from the Clinton administration: the two-headed campaign and the prospect of a dual presidency.

In his view, which I share, this is a prospect that will test the tolerance of the American people far more severely than the possibility of the first female president — or, for that matter, the first black president.

As my friend says, "there is nothing in American constitutional or political theory to account for the role of a former president, still energetic and active and full of ideas, occupying the White House with the current president."

No precedent exists for such an arrangement, and no ground rules have been — or probably can be — written. When Bill Clinton was president, the large policy enterprise that was entrusted to the first lady — health-care reform — crashed in ruins.

Again, Broder is not the first to point this out, but the question really remains unexplored at this point. Because there really is no precedent for such an occurrence, having a former president back in the White House with no elected powers is unheard of. It is a legitimate thing to wonder - and worry - about. America has largely avoided dynastic Presidential families until George W. Bush. Frankly, that dynastic succession has been a point of contention since 2000. It will be a negative factor for some voters. In a tightly contested contest with a nearly evenly split electorate, any factor that splits of votes may be critical.

The 2008 Presidential election is shaping up to be a titanic struggle. It would be a good idea to remember another Titanic and the danger of icebergs.

Magical Mystery Tour

Daniel Henninger takes readers of his weekly column on a tour of 1968, a watershed year in American political history. 1968 was a year, which, in many ways, many people in this country have never gotten beyond. It is an interesting magical mystery tour, indeed.

The year began with sales of the Beatles album, "Magical Mystery Tour." In retrospect, it was a premonition. In late January, North Korea captured the USS Pueblo and crew members. A week later, the North Vietnamese army launched the Tet offensive. On Feb. 27, Walter Cronkite announced on CBS News that the U.S. had to negotiate a settlement to the Vietnam War. On March 12, Sen. Gene McCarthy defeated incumbent President Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, aided by antiwar students that Sen. McCarthy called his "children's crusade." Two weeks later, LBJ announced on TV that he would not run for re-election. One week later, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It was only April 4.

There were race riots everywhere. On April 24, students occupied five buildings at Columbia University, protesting the war. In May bloody student riots erupted in France, likely witnessed by the impressionable Mr. Sarkozy.

On July 3, Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol in a New York City loft. The next day, Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In August, the Soviet Union occupied Czechoslovakia. Seven days later, antiwar demonstrators at the Democratic convention fought pitched battles with the Chicago police.

On Nov. 4, having absorbed all this, the people of the United States voted. They gave 43.4% of their vote to Richard Nixon and 42.7% to Hubert Humphrey. Alabama Gov. George Wallace got 13.5%. Four years later, George Wallace was shot dead while running for president. 1968 lasted a long time.

Many of the people active in Democratic party politics in particular are still fighting the same battles as they fought that year. Barack Obama's remark on Fox News is the trigger for the column:

"There is no doubt that we represent the kind of change that Senator Clinton cannot deliver on. And part of it is generational. Senator Clinton and others, they have been fighting some of the same fights since the '60s. And it makes it very difficult for them to bring the country together to get things done."

Henninger points out that the civic culture of America essentially fractured right in the center in 1968 with an almost perfect 50-50 split. Half of the people thought there was something fundamentally wrong with America and that the country required a complete overhaul. The other half believed that America remained essentially sound, only in need of minor improvements. In many ways, we have never gotten beyond that.

I have pointed out that it has been feeling a lot like 1968 for a while now. The saddest thing is that many of the idealists who formed their worldviews in the 1960s do not see that they have become more rigid in their outlook and even more authoritarian than the society they rebelled against in their youth. The same applies to those younger people indoctrinated by that older generation of aging and ossified idealists. There is not a single hint that they see the irony in complaining vehemently over the reaction to an inappropriate display of anti-Bush sentiment by a bridge team while simultaneously screaming for the silencing of talk radio.

No, 1968 never really ended for some of these folks.