Now THIS Is Embarassing: Obama's 2008 Campaign Co-Chair Introduces Paul Ryan To A Campaign Crowd In Virginia; Governor Wilder Denounces Joe Biden

 Ruh-roh.

From CNN, earlier today:

Artur Davis, the former four-term Democratic congressman from Alabama who co-chaired President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, introduced the running mate of Obama's Republican challenger in Virginia Friday.
 
"Are you ready to meet the next vice president of the United States?" Davis asked at a rally in Springfield, Virginia. It was Ryan's second event of the day. He held a rally outside Richmond on Friday morning.

In his introduction, Davis pointed to Ryan's age – he's 42 – as having energized the GOP. Davis is 44.
"Remember a week ago, some of our Democratic friends had the illusion that we were kind of an older party. That were the party of the last generation. One week later I'm the oldest man on this stage right now," Davis said. "What a difference a week makes."

Davis, who said in May he was switching parties from Democrat to Republican, said he had only disagreed with Ryan on one subject: the status of Led Zeppelin as the "#1 band of the modern era."
"I questioned you as you said it. As a Genesis man, I questioned it," Davis said.

He also praised Ryan's willingness to advance a House GOP budget that included sometimes-unpopular cuts to programs in the name of cutting the federal debt.

"President Romney is going to have a vice president who believes, in a town where no one takes responsibility for anything, Washington D.C., this man wrote a budget with tough, hard, necessary choices. He put his name on it," Davis said.

And there's former Virginia Governor Wilder letting loose about Joe Biden...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The nation's first elected black governor, Virginia's L. Douglas Wilder, lambasted Vice President Joe Biden on national television Wednesday for his remark to a largely black crowd about banks keeping people "in chains."

Wilder, a Democrat and a grandson of slaves, echoed indignant denunciations from Republicans, including presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney, that Biden's comment at a Tuesday rally in Danville, Va., injected race into the presidential contest.

"Without question, they were appeals to race," Wilder told CNN. "And if you don't argue with that, then you understand that, then the next question is: Why? Why do you feel you need to do that? But the more important thing that I got out of this was Biden separated himself from what he accused the people of doing. As a matter of fact, what he said is, they are going to do something to y'all, not to me, not us. So he was still involved with that separate America. And I'm sick and tired of being considered something other than an American."

Ouch!!

Both gents, in case it needs to be said, are black. You know, that core group of Obama supporters that would never ever ever ever think about voting for aaaaaannnnyyyone else--ever.

It takes real courage for reach gentleman to speak up--they will have a lot of anger spewed in their direction over the next few weeks.

OS wishes them well, and as the descendant of a Confederate soldier from Mississippi, really truly wishes we could somehow get past the race-baiting, the constant pouring of salt into old wounds, the relentless appeal to our resentments at the expense of our hopes and our sense of logic.

Even George Wallace publicly repented of the practice, for crying out loud. The rest of us would do well to look to his example.

Corzine Walks, Zakaria Gets His CNN and Time Jobs Back

Dog bites man. Corzine walks away from a massive, in many cases crushing, destruction of the wealth of his depositors (not his investors, his depositors), and the Justice Department clears him.

The sun rises in the East. Plagiarist Fareed Zakaria gets his gigs back with Time and CNN after publishing other people's work under his own name.

The stealing of depositors funds from the bank down the street would have resulted in the local bank president going to the sheriff, begging to be arrested for his own protection. He would not have a house to return to, in any case, it having already been burned to the ground by his customers.

But Corzine is OneOfUs, sez Mr. Holder. Nothing to see here, move on. Let all those ruined farmers recover their lost wealth via civil litigation. They'll get a dime on the dollar eventually. After all, those guys aren't going to vote for us, anyway.

Let's just move on, nothing to see here.

Since Mr. Zakaria is a champion of All Things Progressive, well--boys will be boys. Even if they are 48 years of age. Old enough to know better, still too leftist to care. After all, he was presenting a passionate case for one of our pet projects, gun control. Completely understandable mistake by one of our GoodOldBoys. He's OneOfUs, after all. Let's not look too hard, lest we allll come under scrutiny.

Let's just move on, nothing to see here.

This blatant plagiarism, which is what it is--not a 'mistake'--, would have resulted in Mr. Zakaria's failure in classes and perhaps dismissal from any number of universities that insist their 20-year-olds actually do their own work, and write their own words. As the father of one of those kids who lives with this risk, OS objects.

Close your eyes and imagine if the offender were of a much more conservative shade of opinion, and had plagiarized someone else's words.  One can smell the tar being heated even now, as the deliveries of feathers are being signed for in every mainstream media outlet in the nation.

The Double Standard lives, be it a thief of ideas, such as Zakaria, or a negligent destroyer of the wealth of depositors, such as Jon Corzine.

Boys, after all, will be boys...Good Old Boys...One Of Us...

Welcome to the Nixon Administration Redux. Heaven help us all.

Census Bureau Provides The Obama/Bush Legacy: One In Six In Poverty In The US From 2007-2010

This is the Obama/Bush legacy.

The top-down/federal-gubbermint-gunna-fix-it-all/crony capitalist, utterly incompetent and corrupt approach to governance does. not. work. Oddly enough, the real descent into Perdition coincides with the Democrats taking control of both houses of Congress in 2007. Hmmm....

One in six in poverty. Do we need to wait a bit longer for more results? Until it's one in five, perhaps?

Oddly enough, OS found this tidbit from a link provided by the NEA, aka the Democrat party's most obsequious Kool-Aid consumers.

How do they fail to understand?

Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Lagnatta: Five Years Spent Awaiting Trial, Exonerated Before Trial. OS Has A Few Questions.

The whole sad tale is reported here in the Courier-Journal.

The murder of Tina Tatro in 2007 was one of those depressingly familiar stories of the horrible end of a humble life. The police assured everyone they had their man, case closed, another bad guy off the street, no need to loiter and look any further, just move on there thank you very much.

Problem is, they had the wrong guy. They arrested Carlos Lagnatta on the grand jury testimony of Ms. Tatro's boyfriend. But, hey--Carlos was black, with a drug and violent crime history, he was seen in the neighborhood, the boyfriend said he did it, so--let's move on.

That appears to be the thinking of the original lead prosecutor, one Jason Butler. Defense demands for DNA evidence to actually link the suspect with the physical facts in the case were, shall we say, put on a slooooow boat to China. After all, Carlos was black, with a drug and violent crime history, he was seen in the neighborhood, the boyfriend said he did it, so--let's move on.

It took years to get the DNA tests done. Carlos lives in jail, no trial date, nothing being done to dispose of the case, but hey--Carlos was black, with a drug and violent crime history, he was seen in the neighborhood, the boyfriend said he did it, so--let's move on.

 In January 2011, Lagantta's original defense attorneys, Sheila Seadler and Michael Ferraraccio, laid the blame for the delay on police and the original prosecutor, Jason Butler, who is no longer with the office.
 
"Not to throw him under the bus, but he has dragged his feet on this (DNA testing) for a long time," Ferraraccio told Eckerle during that early 2011 hearing.

And Seadler said in court records that investigators failed to initially obtain and analyze some evidence, prompting the defense to request the testing years later.

Butler, who is in private practice now, acknowledged it took a long time to get the DNA testing, but denied dragging his feet. He argued in April that getting DNA tests is a lengthy procedure exacerbated in past years in Kentucky, as labs were unable to keep up with soaring demand.

Evidence? Schmevidence! Besides, Carlos was black, with a drug and violent crime history, he was seen in the neighborhood, the boyfriend said he did it, so--let's move on.

Finally--the DNA tests are completed, after the departure of Jason Butler, it appears. And, Holy Exoneration Batman!!, the DNA collected from poor Ms. Tatro's body points to The Boyfriend!
Dear Heavens, Whood-a-thunk-it!  A boyfriend killing his ladyfriend, blaming it on someone else and lying to the police and prosecutors! That's just unheard of!

Besides,  Carlos was black, with a drug and violent crime history, he was seen in the neighborhood, the boyfriend said he did it, so--let's move on.

So, today, five years later. Carlos is a free man, or at least not languishing in jail. He had to plead guilty to some lesser charges just to finally be able to walk away. God knows the prosecutor's office didn't want to send him to the streets to find an attorney to help him sue them out of existence.

Could it be that Jason Butler knew his case was not that strong, but decided to simply put Carlos on ice, let him simply disappear into the system, maybe wait for some other snitch to rat him out on some other charge, and keep him locked away, one means or another After all, Carlos was black, with a drug and violent crime history...it's all for a good cause, right?

So, now: What happens to Jason Butler? Does anyone, anywhere in the system--his former boss, the judge, the defendant--anyone at least take this man to the bar association to let him explain why he should still be practicing law? Does the judge not sanction his office in some way? Do people who do this simply walk away and do it again and again?

Here is his new address and vita--pretty impressive, is it not? Except...he buried an innocent man on a murder charge for five years.    He left that bit out, don't-cha-know.

Sorta' makes one want to put him on the old speed-dial in case a lawyer is needed in Lousiville, right? Especially if one is black...with a criminal record...

How many more Carlos Lagnattas are sitting in local jails?

OS is no bleeding liberal. Carlos is not a nice man--he does have a drug and violent crime history. But when the police and prosecutors so badly fumble a case such as this, it is easy to guess that there are many more out there. There are some really bad people walking the streets. Each one of these fiascos makes it that much tougher to protect the innocent and restrain the criminals.

OS does know that this nation is sitting on a ticking time bomb with a justice system that behaves in this manner.   If it's Carlos this year, it will be someone else's turn, much closer to home, next year.

Romney Picks Ryan: Three Cheers For The Geeks

Think about it, ya'll. If this country ever needed grown-ups in charge, it's now. These past four years have shown us what happens when we hand over management of the Republic to narcissistic children.

Is Romney exciting? No. Which may be a really good thing. He's actually kind of geeky.

Paul Ryan? No thrill up the leg, but he does know how to do math, and honestly folks, that's what we need.

Daniel Hannan, wrting about us from afar, says encouraging words about Ryan, and shares this video:




Since 1992, we've had Bubbah, George Dubyah, and Himself. That's twenty years of serious mismanagement. Time to hire grownups, and see if they can't right the ship.

In the meantime, OS is giving his shekels to conservatives at the state house level, and to conservatives running to unseat leftist incumbents. The state house people are our last line of defense, and it would be good to see a few more like Jesse Jackson Jr depart the scene from Washington.