Toni Morrison and Barack Obama

Toni Morrison has endorsed Barack Obama to be the Democrat nominee for president.

In Morrison's world, Obama would be the nation's #2 black president if he's elected.

She prefers Obama to Bill "#1 black president" Clinton's wife.

What a slap in the face to brother Bill!

Poor Hillary.

This is a rough Monday in Clintonland.

Murder and Crime in Milwaukee: "Isolated Events"

Here I go again... Talking about the crime crisis in Milwaukee.

And once again I ask the question: Where is Mayor Tom Barrett?

The brutal, senseless, cold-blooded murder of Miller executive Vic Milford prompts me to ask.

Before continuing, I want to make it clear that I'm mindful of the grieving family and friends of Mr. Milford. They are mourning the sudden loss of their loved one. For them, a discussion of crime in Milwaukee isn't an abstraction. They are suffering the reality of the out of control situation in the city very personally. In no way do I want to diminish the enormity of their loss and the intensity of their pain.

Mr. Milford's family and friends aren't mourning the state of the city today. They are living a nightmare.

They're reading the press and listening to reports that his death was a rare case and an isolated event. That's no comfort to them.

It should be of no comfort to anyone in the greater Milwaukee area.

Back to my first question: WHERE IS BARRETT?

He usually trots out to give a news conference whenever a child is murdered. He gets angry, calls out the thugs, and eventually his outrage degenerates into a whining rant about guns.

NO GUN EVER KILLED ANYONE. PEOPLE USE GUNS TO KILL.

In the murder of Vic Milford, I sense an effort on the part of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and local news broadcasts to spin it as an aberration. It's no public service to give an inaccurate picture.

Is there pressure to downplay the violence with the location of the headquarters of Miller and Coors still up in the air?

TMJ4 provides a description of the suspects in Mr. Milford's murder but then concludes its report with an idiotic statement.

The suspects are described as two Hispanic males in their late 20’s to early 30’s. They are 5’4” to 5’7”, weighing anywhere from 140 to 160.

This is Milwaukee's seventh homicide of the year compared to eight last year on this date.

That's accentuating the positive. This was only the seventh homicide in Milwaukee compared to eight on that date last year. There's some good news!

While factually true, it's a ridiculous way to end the report.

It's disingenuous to say that the Walker's Point neighborhood is not a violent area. How does one define the "area"? Where are the boundaries?

In reality, the near and not so near south side have been the scenes of many shootings and armed robberies in this first month of 2008. Only ten days ago, there were two murders.

Let's stop pretending. The city is a mess.

Look at this overview. It points out just a few of Milwaukee's violent incidents in 2008.

This weekend alone was bloody.

In addition to the murder of Vic Milford, there was other violence. A 7-year-old girl was shot.

A man walking through Kosciuszko Park was shot on Saturday at 6:45 PM. Three men tried to rob him. That ended with the 38-year-old victim having surgery for torso wounds.

Around 2:00 AM on Sunday, a "36-year-old Milwaukee man who was trying to help clear an accident scene was shot."

There's more:

A 73-year-old Milwaukee woman was shot about 11:20 Sunday night while watching television in her living room and her 42-year-old son was wounded moments later while confronting a man he suspected of firing the initial shots.

The 21-year-old suspect is still on the loose, and his two victims are recuperating in a local hospital, Milwaukee police reported today.

The first shots crashed through the front of the house in the 3600 block of N. 14th St. The second shooting occurred on the street, after the 42-year-old confronted and punched the suspect, police said.

The fact is the status quo in Tom Barrett's Milwaukee is violent and bloody.

Nonetheless, he's running unopposed for a second term. That's mind-boggling. It doesn't bode well for the city's future.

God knows Milwaukee needs a change of leadership. Let me rephrase that: Milwaukee needs leadership.

There are a handful of officials struggling to make a difference, but they are outnumbered by the "What, me worry?" crowd.

The Journal Sentinel reports:

Denver, with a population of 568,465, reported 1,748 violent crimes, including 19 homicides, during the first six months of 2007, according to FBI data released this month. Milwaukee, with a population of 581,005, reported 3,984 violent crimes, including 50 homicides.

London-based SABMiller Plc and Molson Coors Brewing Co., which splits its headquarters between Montreal and Denver, in December signed a definitive agreement to combine their U.S. operations. The proposed joint venture needs antitrust approval, and the transaction isn't expected to be final until midyear.

Until MillerCoors officially becomes a company, executives from Miller Brewing and from Coors Brewing, based in Golden, Colo., will not be commenting on where the joint venture's headquarters might be located.

Where would you locate the headquarters?

It seems like a very easy choice to make.

Bill and Teddy's Falling-Out

Will the lib media and some conservatives stop saying that it's only the Republican Party that is divided?

May we now admit that a massive chasm separates factions of the Democrat Party?

In "Kennedy Chooses Obama, Spurning Bill Clinton Plea," Jeff Zeleny and Carl Hulse make it sound like Bill is Ted's scorned lover.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, rejecting entreaties from the Clintons and their supporters, is set to endorse Senator Barack Obama’s presidential bid on Monday as part of an effort to lend Kennedy charisma and connections before the 22-state Feb. 5 showdown for the Democratic nomination.

Both the Clintons and their allies had pressed Mr. Kennedy for weeks to remain neutral in the Democratic race, but Mr. Kennedy had become increasingly disenchanted with the tone of the Clinton campaign, aides said. He and former President Bill Clinton had a heated telephone exchange earlier this month over what Mr. Kennedy considered misleading statements by Mr. Clinton about Mr. Obama, as well as his injection of race into the campaign.

Mr. Kennedy called Mr. Clinton Sunday to tell him of his decision.

The endorsement, which followed a public appeal on Mr. Obama’s behalf by Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, was a blow to the Clinton campaign and pits leading members of the nation’s most prominent Democratic families against one another.

Mr. Kennedy, a major figure in party politics for more than 40 years, intends to campaign aggressively for Mr. Obama, beginning with an appearance and rally with him in Washington on Monday. He will be introduced by Ms. Kennedy.

Mr. Kennedy then heads west with Mr. Obama, followed by appearances in the Northeast. Strategists see him bolstering Mr. Obama’s credibility and helping him firm up support from unions and Hispanics, as well as the party base.

...Mr. Kennedy had been seriously considering an endorsement for weeks — a break with his traditional practice of staying clear of primaries.

He remained uncertain of his decision as late as the middle of last week. But, according to allies, when he learned that his niece’s endorsement would appear as an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times on Sunday, he decided to bolster that with his own public embrace of the campaign at a joint rally at American University in Washington on Monday, giving Mr. Obama, of Illinois a potentially powerful one-two Kennedy punch.

As Mr. Obama flew here on Sunday, he smiled when asked about his new wave of support from the Kennedy family.

“For somebody who, I think, has been such an important part of our national imagination and who generally shies away from involvement in day-to-day politics to step out like that is something that I’m very grateful for,” Mr. Obama said of Caroline Kennedy’s support. Ms. Kennedy declined requests on Sunday to discuss her endorsement.

Trying to dilute the impact of the twin endorsements by the brother and daughter of the late president, the Clinton campaign on Sunday issued a statement of support from Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a former lieutenant governor in Maryland and a daughter of Robert F. Kennedy.

“I respect Caroline and Teddy’s decision, but I have made a different choice,” Ms. Townsend said in her statement, adding: “At this moment when so much is at stake at home and overseas, I urge our fellow Americans to support Hillary Clinton. That is why my brother Bobby, my sister Kerry, and I are supporting Hillary Clinton.”

But two years ago, Ms. Townsend’s mother, Ethel Kennedy, referred to Mr. Obama in an interview as “our next president” and likened him to her late husband.

Both Hillary and Bill must be fuming right now.

He must be thinking of those days on Martha's Vineyard.

What about that sun-kissed afternoon in 1997, sailing off Cape Cod? Didn't that mean anything?

Now, Teddy has thrown Hillary and Bill overboard the Kennedy family's 52-foot schooner.

Some Kennedys are remaining loyal to the Clintons -- Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and Kerry Kennedy.

The Kennedy clan itself is fractured when it comes to this presidential primary race.

Let's not pretend that the Democrats are united. Clearly, there are divisions and they are taking sides. Things are getting personal and hard feelings will linger.

This must be difficult for the Clintons. Hillary has dealt with plenty of betrayal but that doesn't make it any easier. Rejection is tough, especially for someone like Bill. He doesn't know the meaning of the word "no."

Hell hath no fury like a Clinton scorned.

John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Honor

I've said before that I would never sit out an election.

It's unthinkable. It's disgraceful for the likes of Rick Santorum and Tom DeLay to state that they would rather not vote at all than vote for John McCain.

Plenty of times I've had to choose the lesser of two or three evils. If that's the way it is, then that's the way it is. But under no circumstances would I opt out of an election.

If John McCain ends up being the Republican nominee, he'll get my vote. Plenty of conservatives have delineated his numerous faults. No need for me to reiterate.

In spite of McCain's inadequacies, I consider him to be dramatically better than any of the Democrat candidates.

I don't see a third party candidate being an option. If Michael Bloomberg has lied and he does run, I would have no interest whatsoever in supporting him.

Although I won't vote for McCain in Wisconsin's February 19 primary, it's possible that I will be voting for him in November.

If I have to, I will. I probably wouldn't feel good about it, but I'll do what I have to do to keep a high tax, socialized medicine, weak on terror liberal out of the White House.

Just when I think that I've come to terms with the notion of voting for McCain, then another problem surfaces.

This one isn't just a policy difference, like McCain-Feingold, his opposition to President Bush's tax cuts, or his position on amnesty for illegal immigrants.

This one gets to the heart of his character.

Kathryn Jean Lopez writes about a "great American’s not-so-great political attack" in her column "Dishonor on the Campaign Trail."

On Saturday, the McCain campaign worked the news cycle well, but at the cost of straight talk.

On Saturday afternoon, the McCain campaign issued the following statement: “Mitt Romney’s position on the war in Iraq has been a study in flexibility. Like every other issue of importance in this race, Mitt Romney has changed his position. On April 3, 2007 he advocated secret timetables for withdrawal from Iraq. His exact words were ‘of course you have to work together to create timetables and milestones.’ In October 2007, Romney said that Hillary Clinton, who supports Iraq withdrawal, is ‘not going to be demanding a dramatically different course in Iraq than the Republican nominee will.’ These statements, along with Romney’s inability to stick with a consistent position, provide further evidence that he lacks the critical experience and judgment necessary to lead as commander in chief.”

It was a dishonest line of attack. During an April TV interview — as anyone who clicked on a link that was provided to me by the McCain campaign can see for themselves — Mitt Romney said that of course there have to be some agreed-upon benchmarks for progress (including, yes, timetables) between the U.S. and Iraq, at least privately. John McCain himself had been suggesting something even more official, but along the same lines, in January of the same year.

All Saturday, his accusation that Mitt Romney has been for a withdrawal timetable in Iraq was the Republican presidential news story, as everyone waited for South Carolina primary results for the Democrats. By the time folks from Mark Levin and myself on National Review Online’s “The Corner” to the New York Times and Time magazine’s political blog had concluded that McCain’s line of attack was baseless, the new story was Florida governor Charlie Crist’s endorsement of McCain. A winning Saturday for the McCain campaign, if they were aiming for Florida residents watching cable news on Saturday. The storyline continued into Sunday, as he repeated the charge on Meet the Press and the issue continued to be debated on NRO and elsewhere.

...McCain is fond of saying he’d rather lose a political campaign than a war; he now seems to be swimming close to using the war to win a political campaign in the most dishonest of ways. It’s conduct unbecoming a man we all respect.

I agree. Straight talker McCain is better than this.

The first question from Tim Russert on Meet the Press dealt with McCain's charges that Romney called for timetables.

McCain had a national audience and an opportunity to retract his misleading statements about Romney. Instead, he chose to continue the ruse that he and Romney differ on Iraq policy.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, when she suggested timetables, you said was waving the white flag of surrender. Is Governor Romney waving the white flag?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, actually, Tim, what Senator Clinton said was that you would set a timetable within 60 days of withdrawal, complete withdrawal from Iraq. To me that's surrender. And I think in most people's view that would be surrender if we told al-Qaeda that we are leaving Iraq within a certain period of time.

MR. RUSSERT: Is Governor Romney suggesting surrender?

SEN. McCAIN: I said that he has said--is wrong, and I think he has equivocated on it. In one of the debates, he said the serve-- surge is "apparently working." It was working. It wasn't apparently. Look, these were tough time in American history, and I think historians will look back at April of 2000 when Harry Reid, the majority leader of the United States Senate, declared the war lost; when Republicans, even, were saying that we had to have "timetables" because we needed to get out of there. That was a critical time. I'm proud of the role that I played at that time. And I don't believe that Governor Romney's statement indicated anything but that we were going to tell--we were going to have a timetable for withdrawal.

That's dishonorable.

As Lopez notes, "John McCain and Mitt Romney are on the same side of this war. To pretend otherwise is wrong and is no honorable way to win."

Hillary: "He Loves Me"

Why has Bill Clinton gone wild and red-faced lately while campaigning for Hillary?

Love.

Love and lack of sleep.

Appearing on CBS News' Face The Nation, Democratic president candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton sought to dispel criticism of her husband for making comments on the campaign trail that some have called inflammatory.

..."My husband has such a great commitment to me and to my campaign. You know, he loves me," she said. "Husbands and wives get out there and work on each others' behalf. I certainly did that for him for many years. And I'm very grateful for all of the help he's given both supporting me, along with our daughter, and making the case for my candidacy.”

Face The Nation Transcript: 1.27.08

Sen. CLINTON: Well, I think it's human nature, Bob. I think that, you know, the spouses of all three of us have, you know, been passionate and vigorous defenders of each of us and, you know, maybe got a little carried away. But you know, that comes with a hard-fought election. It also comes with sleep deprivation, which, you know, I think is marking all of us, our families, our supporters. But, you know, I am very, very proud of my husband's record as a leader in our country going back so many years, and what he's done. And people know his heart. They know, you know, what he has stood for. So I'm really glad that he's there with me.

And I think everybody just needs to take a deep breath. We need to be focusing on what's important in the lives of Americans. That's what I have spent my life trying to do, that's what my campaign is about. That's what I'll be doing for the next 10 days as we travel across the country.

This approach could work for Hillary. It's worked for Bill Clinton before -- the "I'm only human" excuse.

Bill is human. He gets excited and upset, so he reacts out of love for Hillary. And he's so tired, poor thing.

Hillary believes, Bill "has such a great commitment to me."

Obviously, someone so committed could get a little too passionate while defending his wife.

In the past, voters have excused Bill for his transgressions. Can he be forgiven again?

Maybe. Tears could help.


Hillary got teary-eyed and she won New Hampshire.

Now if Bill gets teary-eyed talking about his beloved wife and does his "I have sinned" routine, it may be enough to undo the damage he's done.

Never underestimate the power of tears.
________________

Watch.

Bad News for Rudy

Giuliani drops to fourth in Republican race in Florida: polls

Ex-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani took a further hit on Sunday, when a poll showed he dropped to fourth place ahead of Florida's Republican primary, which looked set to be a tight race between John McCain and Mitt Romney.

And, just days ahead of Tuesday's voting, McCain got a major boost with the endorsement of Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who enjoys popularity levels of around 70 percent in the state.

The Arizona senator and Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, both scored 30 percent of the vote in a Zogby poll out on Sunday.

Giuliani got only 13 percent, which placed him one percentage point behind former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

The ex-New York mayor has bet heavily on the Florida primary, campaigning almost exclusively in the southeastern state and staying away from the earlier elections in smaller states.

Giuliani shrugged off his poor showing in opinion polls, and predicted Sunday that his strategy of skipping the early primaries and focusing on Florida would be vindicated in Tuesday's vote.

"I'm confident that we're going to win," he told CBS television. "The people who won those (early) primaries, they got all the attention. Now what we have to do is establish ourselves here in Florida."

Giuliani winning in Florida would be as miraculous an upset as the 2007 Miami Dolphins beating the New England Patriots.

Lodewikus "Vic" Milford

The victim in the Walker's Point shooting has been named -- Lodewikus "Vic" Milford.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

A man killed in a rare robbery and shooting outside of a Walker's Point bar was Lodewikus "Vic" Milford, 43, the director of compensation and benefits for Miller Brewing Co., Milwaukee police and the company said today.

Milford, a citizen of South Africa, had lived in Milwaukee since taking the Miller Brewing job in February 2005, said Miller Brewing spokesman Julian Green. He previously worked for Miller Brewing's parent company, SABMiller, since 2002, Green said.

"Vic was one of our best and brightest and will be remembered as a motivating presence whose generous spirit helped others realize their full potential," the company said in a statement.

According to police, Milford and two or three women had left a Walker's Point bar and were getting into his vehicle near S. 2nd and W. Walker streets about 1:10 a.m. Saturday. As they reached the car, they were approached by two men, one of whom was carrying a handgun. Milford handed over his wallet and was shot. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

...Milford is survived his parents, who are residents of Zimbawe, a sister in Australia and a man described as Milford's life partner, who lives in South Africa, according to the Miller statement.

Now we know who Milwaukee's 7th homicide of 2008 was.

He's no longer a statistic.

Milford sounds like he was an extremely talented and generous man.

What a terrible loss! How senseless!

His family and friends are in my prayers.

...The corporate owners of Miller Brewing Co. and Coors Brewing Co. announced Dec. 21 they had signed an agreement to combine the two brewers into MillerCoors.

Milwaukee-based Miller and Golden, Colo.-based Coors have said they won't comment on where the joint venture's corporate headquarters might be located until after the proposed merger gets antitrust approval from the U.S. Department of Justice. That could come later this year.

Asked about the headquarters question, Green said: "Out of respect for the family, our attention at this time is caring for those affected by this tragedy."

Now is hardly the time to be asking about the headquarters question.

Good grief.