A question has come across my inbox today, and as I am wont to do I began to answer my email friend (who I’ve known, by the way, since we both posted on the John Edwards blog). More or less 100 words into the reply it occurred to me that this was a question best answered in front of a larger audience.

The question? My friend is having trouble committing to Obama.

Why? I’m paraphrasing, but it would be fair to say that the sudden emergence of Obama’s “handlers” was a factor...and although it’s not in the note, I suspect the fact that Obama has “tacked to the center” recently on various issues is part of the problem as well.

It’s a great question...and in an effort to provide a great answer I’m going to offer a few words of my own—and then I thought we might reach back a bit into history and see if there might be something we can learn.

Having come to the metaphorical tee and taken the first shot, let’s head down the fairway and see where that ball might be...and where we can get it to go.

Those who are coming to this story today have jumped into the middle of quite a tale. I put myself in a tough position last time by promising to link a British “garden of lust”, Benjamin Franklin, and 18th Century bloggers into a narrative that concludes with the nascent United States of America and its shiny new Fourth Amendment.

So far, amazingly enough, I’m pulling it off.
If you need to catch up, here’s what’s been going on:

When last we met...it was in a world of scandal and intrigue; with King George III and the Earl of Bute (and of course, their assorted minions) very upset with John Entick, author, and John Wilkes, author and world-class raconteur (and drinking buddy to Franklin), because they had the temerity to...well, blog.

The Earl of Bute had taken so much abuse from the Johns that he had been forced to resign from his position as Prime Minister...leaving the minions under his control, many said, only now from behind the scenes.

Something needed to be done...and when you have minions, you put them to use.

This may be one of the strangest tales I have ever brought to the table, Gentle Reader, and yet one of the most fundamental in describing the birth of our Bill of Rights...and most especially the Fourth Amendment.

As many of you know, the new FISA compromise may or may not allow warrantless wiretapping of American citizens on a wholesale scale.

Something you may not know is that a similar debate raged in England (centered around the right of Government to seize the papers of whomever they chose, and use the papers as evidence against those persons) during the reign of King George III—or that it involved scandalous sexual behavior, Benjamin Franklin, the 18th Century version of blogging, and two men who decided to take on the corruption of the Crown...and won.

And because of all that, we have a Fourth Amendment today.

Ready for a tale of liberty and ribaldry?
Then let’s plunge right in, shall we?

Many words have been proffered regarding the FISA bill this week, and I was actually preparing an analysis of the events when, to my surprise, I received an email that made me alter my schedule completely.

I want to apologize in advance to Danny Medress, over at Democracy for America, for whom I was preparing the analysis; and all I can tell you, Danny, is that this was of such import that the schedule had to be slipped.

That said, presented here in its entirety is the memo I received …and having read it through, I have to say I feel much safer.

When last we met we had a conversation about the challenges the Air Force faces in providing a capable bomber force. We discussed the age of the existing bomber fleet’s backbone, the B-52, the limitations of the B-1, and the fact that the B-2s is limited by the age of the aircraft’s electronics from participating in the “network-centric warfare” model most appropriate for the 21st Century military.

We also examined the probability that future air-defense systems will likely soon raise the threat level to a point where existing US aircraft will no longer be able to operate safely in the highest threat environments.

So what are we to do?

Today we’ll consider several options, including some that change the nature of the heavy bomber fleet in very fundamental ways.

I come today with a message many of you will not want to hear, particularly in a time when we are looking forward to ending a war...and in a time where we are already struggling to provide enough money for military funding, the last thing you want to hear from me is that we need to send a couple hundred billion more to the Air Force—and that we need to do it soon.

Nonetheless, we have a problem we need to fix.

Of course, I hate to present a problem without a solution...and today I have two ideas that can help with the problem—and maybe save the taxpayer a mess of money in the process.

Y’all ready?
Then let’s go...

I bring to you today a story that is eight years old and as recent as today’s headlines.

A foolish tale of mirth and merriment it is indeed--and for those who want a real all-American Fourth of July story, well...this one fits better than a glass slipper on Cinderella’s foot.

The story, as you might have guessed from the headline, starts with a simple premise and ends by paraphrasing Ronald Reagan’s famous question:

Had we elected Jerry Springer in 2000 instead of George Bush the Younger, would we be better off today than we were eight years ago?

Come along for the ride, Esteemed Reader, and we shall see...

When you live in the place where Europe and Asia meet, you are just bound to be strategically important, and so it is for Turkey, so it was for Turkey’s antecedents Anatolia and Ionia in times past, and so it will be long into the future.

When you’re that strategically important and your Supreme Court is going to hear a case that could result in your President and Prime Minister—and the Nation’s majority political party—being banned from politics, it’s big news.

For some reason that news is not in the headlines in the United States—and it absolutely should be. Lucky for you, your friendly fake consultant has been on the case, and you will get a story today that touches on the confluence of Islam and secularism, military coups, and the desire of one of our allies to become a member of the European Union…and the European’s fear of what might happen if they do.

It is by now an accepted fact of life that the Internet is having some sort of impact upon the political process…after all, if it wasn’t, would we even be here?

But we’ve all wondered exactly how much impact; and now the good folks at the Pew Research Center have taken the time and trouble to do some survey work that seeks to answer that very question

The logical approach would be to “walk through” the data (which is, frankly, good news for Obama) and see what they have to say about it…but let’s take a different approach today.

Let’s instead look at the data and ask ourselves: who aren’t we reaching, why, and what implications might those answers have going forward—and downticket?

There is no way to save us from our dependence on oil, we are told, except to drill for more oil wherever it can be found—and some will even tell us it’s possible that there’s so much oil not yet discovered off the coast that all our problems will be over once we poke a few holes in the ground and git ‘er done.

Of course, it’s also possible there are monkeys to be found in certain of my body cavities...and I’m hoping most fervently that no one proposes drilling in my ANWAR in an effort to find out.

But what if there was another way?

What if we could afford to convert our gas-powered cars to something else...something that could reduce our national gasoline consumption by 70%?

Something we could put into place just as quickly as offshore wells could be drilled—and maybe even faster.

A “Manhattan Project” of fleet conversion, if you will.

Well, Gentle Reader, I think we can—and today we examine a way it might be done.

There is a lot of debate in the public space this week over the impact of the United States Supreme Court’s ruling that gives detainees in a “holding pattern” at Guantanamo Bay access to the United States Courts for the purpose of presenting petitions of habeas corpus.

It is a generally accepted misunderstanding that the Court’s ruling gave new rights to the detainees, which seems to be the issue that is the most controversial.

The purpose of today’s discussion is to explain why that view of the ruling is dead wrong…and to offer some thoughts on why this ruling might actually be one of the most important “restraint of government” rulings to have come down the pike in some time.

So off we go, eh?

Just yesterday I was doing some reading at the BlueNC site, and I found this story by persondem who is planning to make and presumably distribute anti-McCain yard signs.

persondem was asking the community for slogans...which got me to thinking, “why not?”

Before I knew what I was doing I had created roughly 50 of the darn things—and that’s how we get to today’s story...

As I said, there are quite a few...so do you have a handy beverage and a snack?

OK, then, if you’re ready, here we go...

Our Republican friends have begun the campaign season with their usual class and style; and the resulting Internet gossip has reported that Obama is a secret Muslim, that his Christian Reverend is the scourge of American religion, that he’s no patriot...and that he associates with every evil person on the planet, either by allowing them into his campaign or by his willingness to talk to those who hate us the most.

And Obama has, to this point, chosen to remain above the fray.

Because Obama has chosen the high road, I wanted to offer a few words about how we can be a more civil blogging community—and about a few things we should seek to leave off the table.

Your friendly fake consultant has been digging deep into the world of anonymous sources recently, which is why we were able to recently reveal the truth about Hillary Clinton’s Bosnian sniper story.

Today we take that effort further...which is why we are able to bring to light another exclusive peek into the past of a Presidential candidate...only today it’s Barack Obama.

We will examine his prior associations and as a result we will be able to draw new conclusions regarding his world view...and as we said about Clinton, you might be shocked...but probably not surprised.

There has been much made of Hillary Clinton’s recent Bosnian “sniper” incident, and many who have a lower opinion of her as a result.

For the first time ever, we can now reveal in this space that far from being untruthful, Senator Clinton in fact has taken a major political hit in order to protect an important national security program…the existence of which she has not been in a position to reveal.

Through the use of secret anonymous sources we will reveal the surprising reality…the “rest of the story”, if you will—and although you may be shocked, you probably won’t be surprised.