In “Paul Campaign: Make Lemons Out of Lemonade,” David Codrea of The War on Guns protests Fox News’ decision to refuse to invite Paul to its New Hampshire GOP debate taking place tomorrow night.

Meanwhile, ABC News has invited Paul to its New Hampshire GOP debate taking place tonight. Thus, Fox News now has two black eyes. One for refusing to invite Paul in the first place, and a second for being shown up by its socialist competitor as anything but “fair and balanced.”

If Paul were a fringe candidate, Fox’ conduct–which it has not even sought to rationalize (since media rationalizations always involve dumping buckets of urine on the public’s head, I suppose that’s a blessing)–could be justified. But at this point, he’s more real than some of the alleged heavyweights. As CNET reporter Declan McCullagh points out, Paul almost tripled Rudolph Giuliani’s performance in the Iowa caucuses, and polls over three times as strongly as Fred Thompson (7 percent to 2 percent) in New Hampshire.

McCullagh reports that Paul’s platoons “responded by flooding a Fox News Web page on the debate with over 580 comments and creating a ‘Protest Fox’ Web site…. They’re also planning protests outside Fox News affiliates. Another likely protest site is Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., which has given Fox News space for a broadcast studio. That’s where Sunday’s debate will take place.”
Fox may seek to ignore such protests, but if its competitors cover them, they could spell a free publicity bonanza for Paul, and yet more bad PR for Fox.

According to McCullagh, Paul thinks Fox shut him out because he is the only GOP candidate opposed to the War in Iraq. Paul also responded by slapping down Fox as a “propagandist” for the war. Meanwhile, the debate’s co-sponsor, the New Hampshire GOP, is making murmurings suggesting the exclusion was all Fox’ idea, and suggesting that the invitation list may yet change (“talks were continuing with Fox”).
I think Fox blew it, big time. Meanwhile, ABC is going to score big for including Paul. Its decision to invite him may simply have been intended to poke Fox in the eye; no matter.

Ron Paul is no Howard Dean. In 2004, the MSM promoted the former Vermont governor, as a way of spicing up the presidential campaign, and then, when it decided that he had served his purpose, cutting him loose, by repeatedly showing the candidate giving a war whoop, as if he were insane. Such is the power of the MSM to humiliate those it wishes to marginalize.

Like Dean, Paul’s campaign has benefited from his supporters’ ability to marshal the Internet both to promote him, and to quickly raise large sums of cash (“money bombs”). The MSM believe they can make or break candidates, and the cases of Sen. John McCain (Media-AZ) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are testimonials to their power.

The media created McCain in 2000, I believe, because he had so little in common with the GOP base. And McCain responded to the media’s support by crafting the campaign finance bill they wanted, in order to order to stifle independent media. And though McCain now says he supports the enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws, no sentient being believes him.

The media idea, since 2000, I believe, has been to get McCain enough support to win the GOP presidential nomination, and then turn on him, after the GOP convention. Instead of emphasizing that his “straight talk,” as it previously had, it would emphasize his volatility. One must always keep in mind that the socialist MSM will do whatever it takes, to help the Democrat candidate win.

Mike Huckabee is in a similar situation to that of McCain. The socialist MSM like him, because his longtime Open Border and welfare state positions are the same as theirs. Heck, he’s even more radically pro-open borders than McCain. Huckabee, like McCain, has flip-flopped on immigration, which along with his folksy demeanor and lots of free media attention, helped him to win in Iowa. But Huckabee’s political incoherence (a Christian Evangelical who supports a right to sodomy?) and general hostility to the GOP base will not survive scrutiny. Again, in his case, I believe the socialist MSM will do everything in its power to cast Huckabee in a favorable light, and then, if he wins the nomination, to savage him with the GOP base.

I do not support Paul or any of the other leading candidates. I supported Tancredo; Hunter is DOA, only no one has pronounced him dead yet; and the Open Borders evangelists who suddenly have “seen the light” of immigration restriction are all lying.

With that said, there is no longer any justification for keeping Paul out of the debate. And Fox’ strategy will fail. Paul is not going away. He’s got zealous support from people in sufficient numbers, who are willing to devote enough time and money and Net resources to him, and unless the media have tapes of Paul secretly pledging his eternal allegiance to the UN, International Criminal Court, and to the creation of a North American Union, attempts to humiliate and silence him (Dean II) will simply redound to his benefit.

Fox has left a sizable, or at least very vocal chunk of its viewers feeling betrayed. That was a lose-lose move on the network’s part. Paul’s supporters are articulate, well-to-do, bear grudges and have long memories. And there is no group that Fox’ conduct will now draw to the network to offset its losses in viewership and good will from the Paul snub. Not to mention the hit its reputation will take, by seeming to be a shill for the war, which will reinforce the attacks it has long endured from the Left.

Meanwhile, David Codrea has three suggestions for Paul to turn the situation to his advantage:

1. Use a portion of that $20M they’ve raised to buy a 1-minute ad for Ron to be aired immediately before the debate–if not on Fox, then on their competitor CNN. The content of the ad should be to call attention to his exclusion, to provide an overview of his message, and to direct viewers to #2,
2. Have Ron live on the Internet at the same time as the debate, answering all questions posed to the candidates on the Fox program. This could actually work to his advantage, as there’d be no distractions from other candidates, no questions intentionally leaving him out, and no misrepresentations of his positions or statements by the other candidates. It could also draw a significant portion of the audience away from Fox.
3. Publicize the hell out of this. Issue press releases to get it into the news. Use the unprecedented Internet network Paul supporters have established.

Mexico continues its descent toward becoming a failed state. The latest victim is the integrity of the electoral process as the narco-cartels remind candidates of the syndicates’ growing power.

MEXICO CITY, Jan. 4 — Drug cartels are trying to influence the outcomes of major elections in Mexico by kidnapping and threatening candidates, according to Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora.

The remarks by Medina Mora, released by his office Friday, underscored the Mexican government’s growing willingness in recent months to acknowledge the threat drug cartels pose to the nation’s fragile democracy. The problem is most severe, Medina Mora said, in the border states of Baja California and Tamaulipas, and in Michoacan, the home state of Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

“We have evidence, complaints from candidates who were kidnapped or intimidated, or who received threats intended to influence the results of an election and the behavior of candidates,” Medina Mora told the Spanish newspaper El Pais, according to a transcript of the interview.
[Mexican Drug Cartels Threaten Elections, Washington Post, Jan 4, 2008]

The latest uptick in cartel crimes indicates that Presidente Calderon’s campaign against the drug lords is not going well. The escalation shows one reason why he put the squeeze on Bush for $1.4 billion in military aid, which will be stolen or squandered if history is any indicator.

Keep in mind that at the same time as Washington is moving forward to deliver over a billion taxpayer dollars to ultra-corrupt Mexico, it recently pulled the plug on funding for the border fence.

Furthermore, Mexico is losing a lot of money because American travelers are choosing to forego beautiful tropical sunsets to avoid worsening danger: Mexican violence driving away U.S. tourists (Houston Chronicle, Jan 5, 2008).

PLAYAS DE ROSARITO, Mexico — Assaults on American tourists have brought hard times to hotels and restaurants that dot Mexican beaches just south of the border from San Diego.

Surfers and kayakers are frightened to hit the waters of the northern stretch of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, long popular as a weekend destination for U.S. tourists. Weddings have been canceled. Lobster joints a few steps from the Pacific were almost empty on the usually busy New Year’s weekend.

Americans have long tolerated shakedowns by police who boost salaries by pulling over motorists for alleged traffic violations, and tourists know parts of Baja are a hotbed of drug-related violence. But a handful of attacks since summer by masked, armed bandits — some of whom used flashing lights to appear like police — marks a new extreme that has spooked even longtime visitors.

Lori Hoffman, a San Diego-area emergency room nurse, said she was sexually assaulted Oct. 23 by two masked men in front of her boyfriend, San Diego Surfing Academy owner Pat Weber, who was forced to kneel at gunpoint for 45 minutes. They were at a campground with about 30 tents, some 200 miles south of the border.

The men shot out windows of the couple’s trailer and forced their way inside, ransacked the cupboards and left with about $7,000 worth of gear, including computers, video equipment and a guitar.

With Mexico as a neighbor, we need a fence and the military on the border to keep out the worsening crime and narco-violence.

I hadn’t been following the election of Jacob Zuma as president of the African National Congress, the ruling party of South Africa, other that this item from the genially witty I, Ectomorph:

Quote of the day:

“I am happy Zuma won because under his rule women will have fewer rights,” said Johannesburg parking attendant Brilliant Khambule.

It just works on all levels.

But, Brilliant does seem to have a point. The Washington Post reports:

Zuma, 65, is a former guerrilla with no formal education and a personal theme song, “Bring Me My Machine Gun,” that evokes the party’s history of armed struggle rather than its more recent emphasis on the unglamorous work of reconciliation.As a polygamist with a reported 16 children–as well as a former rape defendant acquitted in 2006–Zuma has alienated many South African women, and his personal life threatens to tarnish the party’s image as a champion of gender equality. The wedding, scheduled for Saturday, would bring the number of his current wives to four, news reports say. …

His ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, is South Africa’s foreign minister and, according to many reports, Mbeki’s preferred successor as party leader before Zuma’s election last month. Another wife, Kate Zuma, killed herself in 2000. In a scathing suicide note, published by a South African newspaper, she wrote that her married life was “hell.”

Among Zuma’s three current wives is his first, Sizakele Zuma, news reports here say. His marriage to Ntuli would make four.

Zuma’s sexual encounter with a family friend infected with HIV also became public fodder after she accused him of rape. Zuma defeated those charges in court, but statements from the trial — including his assertions that her knee-length skirt made clear her sexual intentions and that his culture compelled him to satisfy her–outraged women’s rights groups.

But many of his supporters reached a different conclusion about that trial, saying the rape charges came only after the family of the woman, who was not publicly named, tried but failed to have Zuma take her as a wife.

California has a budget shortfall of $14 billion, but generous Governor Schwarzenegger is considering an expensive new plan to improve the state’s troubled schools. A large chunk of the increase is targeted at children who do not speak English:

Some legislators familiar with the report are also pessimistic about the prospects of implementing the panel’s recommendations, which include two costly initiatives: $1.1 billion to expand pre-school programs with free day-care and all-day kindergarten and $5 billion for a program for poor students who are learning English.
[ School reforms price tag: $6 billion San Jose Mercury News, Jan 4 2008]

That’s $5 billion in addition to what is already being spent to teach English to foreign kiddies. California now pays a stunning $66 billion on general education costs for K-12, half of the entire budget.

But no amount of taxpayer money will ever be enough to bring California schools up to previous standards as long as education-disinterested Mexicans are allowed to keep coming.

John McWhorter has a review in the New York Sun of Randall Kennedy’s new book, Sellout: The Politics Of Racial Betrayal, which is about trying to discourage African-Americans from calling each other “Sellouts” when they take positions in line with the majority of Americans:

Mr. Kennedy also points out another weakness of the “sellout” label. It is most readily leveled on the basis of one position: To oppose racial preferences is to be an Uncle Tom, regardless of one’s other views. Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson is generally viewed as quite bien-pensant despite an array of views about the causes of poverty and the significance of racism that are hardly PC. Patterson does, however, espouse the continuation of racial preferences, and this keeps him “in the club.” As Mr. Kennedy notes, black America is too “wildly heterogenous” for it to be easy to logically designate a view as “antiblack.”

This means that the modern definition of “sellout” is politically incoherent, subjecting whole idiosyncratic constellations of political positions to a single-issue standard. “Contrary views on gay rights, environmental policy, abortion, tax policy, foreign affairs, or church-state relations are acceptable,” Mr. Kennedy writes, but affirmative action is “the litmus test.” For legions of college town Blue America types, the black professor opposing racial preferences is repulsive, while the black minister disapproving of homosexuality and abortion occasions no comment, or at best, polite “questions” seldom and quietly asked.

Of course, Mr. Kennedy devotes a chapter to Clarence Thomas, a prime demonstration of the unreflective thinking behind accusations of Uncle Tom-ery.

Over the years, Mr. Thomas has provided sensible explanations as to why he sees his views as helping black people rather than hurting them, but accusations that he knows the PC “truth” deep down but spouts a right-wing line just to please whites continue still.[Black-on-Black Thought Crime, January 2, 2007]

There are a couple of points in here–since any African-American who isn’t in favor of racial preference is automatically accused of being “self-hating,” I’d like to repeat my suggestion that anyone who finds themselves being called “self-hating” should say “I don’t hate me–I hate you!”

The second point is that while affirmative action does hurt blacks in general, (while helping some in particular) that’s not the only thing wrong with it.

The fact that it unintentionally hurts blacks makes it a fairly pointless exercise in the long run, but it’s not intended to hurt blacks–it’s intended to hurt whites.