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As ABC News' David Wright and Sunlen Miller wrote, Obama seemed to either think Arabic is spoken in Afghanistan or he misunderstands the nature of military translators.

Imagine if McCain -- or any Republican -- had made such an error.  Most Republicans would be characterized as ignorant chicken-hawks.  In McCain's case, of course, it would be suggested that he's knee-deep into senility because of his age.

Well, maybe Barack's gaffe-proneness is attributable to his age, too . . . as well as to a heaping helping of inexperience.

[S]ecular liberalism has come to hold that because conscience is private or personal, its moral conclusions must be subjective, and because conscience should be free from coercion, its moral conclusions must also be free from public criticism.

He argues that in doing so, secularists have made a terrible mistake.  Sounds like an interesting book, and a valuable one.

Q: When will you, would you, ask the American people to stop buying SUVs? And what do you do in your own life?

Obama: Well these days I don’t drive much. I bought a hybrid but we keep it in the garage mostly. This is part of the reason why it’s important to continue to raise fuel efficiency standards on cars. One the advantages if we do so is you can see a gradual hike in fuel mileage standards, as opposed to these abrupt jumps, and that would probably smooth out increases in oil prices. Obviously that’s not an immediate option for this summer, and I think, as I’ve said on the stump, the most important thing we can do right now is provide some relief potentially in the form of an additional tax stimulus, and make sure that the next President starts immediately on implementing the kinds of alternative fuel strategies and gasoline savings strategies that can help reduce our oil consumption over the long term.

 By the way, there's a great feature in Wired magazine this month that explains how making hybrid cars is bad for the environment. "Pound for pound, making a Prius contributes more carbon to the atmosphere than making a Hummer largely because of the nickel in the hybrid's battery," it says. Making a Prius takes about 113 million Btus. A gallon of gasoline is about 113,000 Btus. Wired calculates a Prius drinks about 1,000 gallons worth of gasoline energy before it makes its first test drive.

Real conservationists would be sticking with their beaters, rather than buying the Lexus hybrid like Al Gore. "A used car on the other hand, starts with a significant advantage," Wired says. "The first owner has already paid off its carbon debt"--meaning since it was more energy-efficient to produce the older car, it doesn't hit the road with such a huge energy deficit. The article estimates it would take the Prius 100,000 miles to close the carbon gap with a 10-year old Toyota Tercel.

On Friday, I sent off this brief letter to a friend who's concerned (appropriately, it seems to me) with the current effort to smear a decent and sincere Friend of Israel, John Hagee, as some sort of closet anti-Semite. The attacks on this good man are horribly unfair, politically motivated and, ultimately, despicable.

"Dear.......

I've already defended Hagee on the air in this latest nonsense, and suggested that McCain made a mistake in his over-reaction. The fact that the brief excerpt from the sermon dates from ten years ago only highlights its irrelevance: with Pastor Wright, the controversy re-emerged because of comments he made last month.

Meanwhile, my main objection to the substance of Hagee's remarks involves its reenforcement of the mistaken strategy of linking Israel to the holocaust. I've written and spoken for years about the historical illiteracy and strategic stupidity behind this notion -- inviting the likes of Ahmadine-wackjob to say "since Germany committed the holocaust -- if it happened -- why not place the Jews on German land, rather than displacing Palestinians?"

You know that the 600,000 Jews who defended their functioning, independent community so successfully in 1948-49 had all arrived BEFORE the Holocaust--- only a handful were survivors smuggled into the Yishuv after the war. The Brits did a remarkably effective job preventing Jewish immigration both immediately before and after the war. Even after the new state earned its independence, no overwhelming wave of survivors arrived. In fact, the number of refugees from Islamic lands (800,000) outnumbered the total number of Holocaust survivors by at least four-to-one.

This is an important point, because Israel and its population emerged at least as much in response to persecution in Islamic nations as from the European Holocaust.

You know all this, and so does Pastor Hagee. But his unfortunate experience with this latest distortion and smear only re-emphasizes the importance of dropping Hitler references whenever talking about Israel -- or about contemporary politics, for that matter....

Thanks for your thoughts. I may try to talk some more on this subject today.... M"

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it." Clinton said."

"Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has tapped a former Reagan administration official to head his campaign’s search for a vice presidential nominee

Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) told The Hill that Arthur Culvahouse, who was Reagan’s White House counsel from March 1987 to January 1989, will be helping McCain vet candidates and develop a list."

As online editor of dcexaminer.com, Ham will be responsible for overall management of the site’s news and editorial content and staff, as well as working with Examiner and outside resources on creative development of new features and functionality. She will work from the Examiner’s downtown Washington, D.C. newsroom and will start June 10.

“We are especially excited and proud to have Mary Katharine Ham join The Washington Examiner because she among the most respected young stars of online journalism and is also well-known to cable television and talk radio audiences through her regular appearances on ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ on Fox News,” said Vivienne Sosnowski, editorial director of Clarity Media, which publishes The Washington Examiner, The Baltimore Examiner and the San Francisco Examiner, as well as the Examiner.com web site.

“Her hiring demonstrates again our commitment to building a great news and information company that excels in three channels, including newspapers, online and video,” Sosnowski said.

Just in time for Memorial Day -- when millions of travelers are vigilantly preparing for dreaded traffic congestion -- I had the opportunity to interview former Senator Jim Talent of Missouri about America's infrastructure problems.
 
Talent is co-chairman (former Michigan Governor John Engler is chairman) of a new broad-based coalition, or "comprehensive alliance" (roads, bridges, rail, locks, etc.) called The Alliance for Improving America's Infrastructure. 

While Talent notes that government shouldn't try to solve every problem, he believes improving and maintaining America's infrastructure is, "one of the four or five things government has to do if America is going to continue to be a place of opportunity for people." 

Talent points out that we haven't really invested in infrastructure since the Eisenhower Administration -- notes that China is rapidly investing in infrastructure -- and pointedly states:   "If you're optimistic about America's future, you need to invest in the infrastructure."   

So why haven't recent presidents invested in improving America's infrastructure?  Talent tells me it's, "because people get occupied with other things…we want to show Americans that this is our real priority."

He also says this bi-partisan effort would be good for safety (think bridges) and for the environment (because it reduces traffic problems and gas consumption).

And for those of us concerned about spending issues, Talent notes that investing in infrastructure has an economic multiplier effect:  "You get about $5.75 in economic growth for dollar you invest in infrastructure," he tells me. 

If you're traveling this weekend, Talent encourages you to visit their website, GetAmericaMoving.com -- and "upload pictures, videos, and messages detailing traffic bottlenecks, roads and bridges in need of repair, or other problems that are slowing us down."