What Caught My Eye Today

2008 Presidential Race - Aside from learning more than I ever wanted to know about super delegates and the convulted math that the Democratic party uses to dole out delegates, here are a couple of Super Tuesday observations that I managed to dig up.

Hillary Clinton [AZ, AR, CA, MA, NJ, NY, OK, TN] got victories in Massachusetts, New Jersey and especially California showing that her appeal is not easily undone by big-name endorsements or strong African-American support of Barack Obama. White and Latino women and older people still really like Hillary, and they like to vote.
Barack Obama [AK, AL, CO, CT, DE, GA, ID, IL, KS, MO, MN, ND, UT] held his own, making significant inroads among southern white men, especially in Georgia. He trounced Clinton in his home state of Illinois, winning a greater margin than she got in New York. Still, he only got just over half of the Latino vote in Illinois--and lost it by a margin of 2-1 in California, suggesting his efforts to sway the demographic have so far failed.
John McCain [AZ, CA, CT, DE, IL, MO, NJ, NY, OK] kept his momentum going and cemented his frontrunner status, with big wins in New York and California. He even won in Oklahoma, the most conservative state with no large Mormon population. Elsewhere, though, McCain still clearly has a lot of work to do among die-hard conservatives, who remain distrustful of him, and divided between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.
Mitt Romney [AK, CO, MA, MN, MT, ND, UT] failed to impress almost anyone, with wins in Massachusetts, Utah and a few other places he could not have conceivably lost. He vowed to stay in the race, but with Huckabee continuing to pull conservatives out of his column, the business man may soon have to re-evaluate his investment.
Mike Huckabee [AL, AR, GA, TN, WV] did far better than expected, which is mostly because he was not expected to do much of anything. Victories in Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, as well as a strong showing in Missouri, proved that his southern appeal is enough to keep him in the race - for the moment. The challenge will be for Huckabee to turn himself into something more than a regional favorite.

Being from California, I cannot teel you how glad I am that this primary is over with. I was listening to the radio yesterday and over the course of an hour, I heard 12 political ads. Can you imagine what could be accomplished with all those campaign advertising dollars if they weren't blown on filling the air waves? At the very least, maybe I'll actually hear some music next time I turn the radio on.

Al-Qaida - The U.S. military said videos seized from suspected al-Qaida in Iraq hideouts show militants training children who appear as young as 10 to kidnap and kill. It's viewed as a sign that the terror network may be using younger Iraqis in propaganda to lure a new crop of fighters. The military decided to show the videos of children to expose al-Qaida's "morally broken ideology" and encourage Iraqi opposition. An estimated 80,000 Sunni tribesmen have already crossed lines to join the Americans in ousting militants from their hometowns. Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called al-Qaida in Iraq "the most brutal and bankrupt of movements" after twin market bombings carried out by women described by Iraqi authorities as mentally disabled. This is probably the most effective strategy that the U.S. has employed to date. These images of Al-Qaida exploiting women and children do so much more to undermine Al-Qaida's credibility than the U.S. miliary could ever accomplish on its own. How ironic would it be if Al-Qaida's ultimate demise was not due to the military might of the United States, but rather ill-conceived plans of its own making?

Chad - Chad's president declared himself in control of the country Wednesday, even while acknowledging that three-fourths of his government had disappeared since rebels attacked the capital. President Idriss Deby said, "We are in total control, not only of the capital, but of all the country." Oil-rich Chad has accused Sudan of backing the rebels in an attempt to prevent deployment of a European force to protect refugees from the war-ravaged Darfur region that borders Chad. Sudan has long resisted such a force, but has denied involvement in Chad's coup attempt. Rebels accuse Deby of corruption and embezzling millions in oil revenue. While many Chadians may share that assessment, the uprising appears to be a power struggle within the elite that has long controlled Chad. Do you think that Deby read the same "Being President for Dummies" book that Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf read? On one hand, Deby claims that Sudan is responsible for the uprising, yet on the other, it would appear that Deby is falling victim to his own unscrupulous behavior--especially if reports that this whole deal is an internal power struggle turn out to be true.

Afganistan - Defense Secretary Robert Gates scolded NATO countries who haven't committed combat troops "willing to fight and die" to defeat a resurgent Taliban. "I think that it puts a cloud over the future of the alliance if this is to endure and perhaps even get worse." Didn't we hear some criticism of NATO for Gates a few months ago? If memory serves, he backpedalled something fierce the next day. "I worry a great deal about the alliance evolving into a two-tiered alliance, in which you have some allies willing to fight and die to protect peoples' security, and others who are not," Gates said. Gates didn't name countries that aren't stepping up, but Germany has flatly rejected sending soldiers to volatile southern Afghanistan. Instead, Berlin agreed to send about 200 troops to serve in a quick reaction force in northern Afghanistan, fulfilling a NATO request. So let me see if I have this straight. Nations will honor requests for troops so long as no one shoots at them? Gee, that's awfully big of them.

Waterboarding - The United Nations' torture investigator criticized the White House for defending the use of waterboarding and urged the U.S. to give up its defense of "unjustifiable" interrogation methods. Yes, you read that correctly. The White House defended the use of waterboarding. And people wonder why our standing in the international community has fallen. The White House on Wednesday defended the use of waterboarding, saying it is legal — not torture as critics argue — and has saved American lives. Waterboarding involves strapping a suspect down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. It has been traced back hundreds of years, to the Spanish Inquisition, and is condemned by nations around the world. A White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that CIA interrogators could use waterboarding again with the president's approval depending on the circumstances, with one important factor being "belief that an attack might be imminent." Call me crazy, but it seems to me that such a "belief" would offer a certain amount of latitude to the president that might not necessarily be justified. I know that "change" has been used a lot in this presidential campaign, but in this particular case, I'm inclined to "change" this policy sooner rather than later.