To me, the one great disappointment of the 2008 election was that Mike Montgomery lost his seat on Richland County Council. It wasn’t the presidency — after all, I liked Obama almost as much as I did McCain — or any other result that day. As I wrote at the time:

But Montgomery was arguably the best, brightest, hardest-working member of council, a guy who truly had the interest of everyone in the county, regardless of party or anything else like that, at heart. On a council that had lost its way recently — putting $30 million for parks ahead of transportation and other critical needs — he was one guy who was right on those and other issues, an extremely level-headed pragmatist with his priorities straight. This is a deep loss for anyone who cares about the future of the county.

And he lost to a guy who — and I kid you not — had exactly two reasons for running:

1. He didn’t think Decker Boulevard was getting redeveloped quickly enough.
2. He thought there should be a Democrat on the ticket to take advantage of the Obama Effect. Really. That was his reason. When his wife, who lost to Montgomery in the last election, wouldn’t run again, he put his own name on the ballot. That’s pretty much his story.

Whenever the subject has come up since then, I’ve tended to grumble along the same lines. Usually, I just say that Jim Manning’s only excuse for running was because he figured a Democrat could win (which to me is unforgivable, on his part and the voters’). But I then add, reluctantly, “…and to push Decker redevelopment.” Of course, the fact that he wanted to move Decker alone was no great selling point. Nothing against helping Decker, but such a limited concern doesn’t make up for booting an incumbent who was a genuine leader on issues affecting the entire county. In fact, it highlights Mr. Manning’s deficit of qualification.

This week, we saw the sort of thing that Mr. Manning had in mind for Decker — high-stakes bingo. Fortunately, the community rose up and stopped him. I wonder how many of them are having second thoughts about the decision they made in 2008?

Just a very quick one today, without elaboration:

1. Times Square Bomb Suspect Charged
2. Sidebar: Suspect linked to Pakistan
3. Sidebar: Should Suspect have been Mirandized?
4. BP Fights Oil Slick with Chemicals
5. GOP Hopefuls in Lockstep on Key Issues
6. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer losing browser share — Story says it’s down under 60 percent, which to me still seems way high. I’m surprised when I see anybody use it (I’m a Firefox guy myself).

Yesterday, I glanced over a piece in The Washington Post about how the furious debates and jockeying over ideology going on within the Republican Party are distorting national issues. An interesting little reminder of the way a minority of a minority (say, the Tea Parties) can wag the whole dog if it has the right leverage at the right moment. All you have to do is create enough paranoia within the mainstream of one of the two big parties when it’s feeling particularly vulnerable, and the whole national conversation changes. Another thing that’s wrong with party politics.

But that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is to express my disappointment that, based on reports of last night’s GOP gubernatorial debate I’ve seen (unfortunately, or fortunately, I missed the event itself), we’re not getting any incidental benefit from this national debate here in SC. Instead of getting a choice between several types of Republicanism, we get four candidates all trying to be just alike — and unfortunately, in the wrong direction, away from the more centrist strains of the party.

All four say:

• They’ll veto a bill to raise the cigarette tax that 75 percent of the voters want to raise.
• They want to go full-bore Arizona crazy on immigration.
• They all want offshore drilling.

OK, that last one’s not so bad — as founder of the Energy Party, I want offshore drilling, too, as part of a complete, rational energy policy (acknowledging that disasters will happen, but seeing the imperative of weaning ourselves off foreign oil as essential). But you’d think we could get some debate on it when you have four candidates on the stage.

But the worst, the inexcusable, point of the three is the sheer boneheadedness on the cigarette tax.

Yes, as I’ve heard Henry McMaster explain before, we DO need comprehensive tax reform. That’s why I’ve resisted any kind of adjustment in tax revenues, up or down (even the perfectly sensible proposal to increase our gas tax to fund needed infrastructure work) for years. No one has spent more years arguing for comprehensive tax reform than I have.

But Henry — and the rest of you — raising the cigarette tax isn’t about raising revenues. It’s not about funding government. It has always been about pricing cigarettes out of the reach of kids. We have data from all over the country that shows this works, and adolescents are saved from lifetimes of addiction and eventual painful, expensive deaths. It’s not about the money. You can burn the money, and you’ll still accomplish the purpose (although, let me say quickly, burning the money would be stupid).

The really maddening thing is to hear someone like Henry — who had once offered promise of being the most rational, least ideological, most pragmatic guy in the field — say such idiotic things as “I believe the impulse we have to raise taxes to solve all problems is not the right answer.”

First of all, Henry, WHAT freaking impulse? Where? In what State House? On what planet? Have you been in some state capital up north or someplace where someone might even suggest raising revenues when they’re down? Something no one in our State House EVER does? Since 1987, a general tax — the sales tax — has been raised ONCE, and that was just to pay for the bizarre move of eliminating homeowner property taxes for school operations.

As for the rest of that statement… “to solve all our problems…” again, what the HELL? What, because this one time we want to save some kids lives by raising a tax — not out of some vague hope or unfounded belief, but because we KNOW that every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces youth smoking by about 7 percent and overall cigarette consumption by about 4 percent.

I don’t know about you, but I find this really disturbing. Is there really no one in the GOP willing to step out and think about issues and chart an independent course?

Maybe you don’t care. Maybe you’re a Democrat and don’t want a Republican to win anyway. But let me clue you in on something: No matter what you want, Republican nominees tend to win statewide elections in this state, regardless of their merits or lack thereof. So you should worry. I’m certainly going to.

Being someone who doesn’t care which party a candidate comes from as long as he makes sense, I like to play it safe. I like there to be someone I like, someone I can cheer for, in each party. I always hope for a situation like we had on the national level in 2008 — the first time in my whole life that my favorite Democrat and favorite Republican both got nominated. A no lose situation.

Increasingly, though, I’m starting to think a rational independent in South Carolina had better start hoping against hope that the right Democrat wins his party’s nomination, and then goes all the way against the odds. Odds that, this year at least (because of Mark Sanford and other GOP embarrassments recently) aren’t quite as long as usual.

But to cover my bets, the way I always do, I’d sure like to find a Republican I like too, between now and June.

"'You want another copita?' the barman asked. 'No, thank you,' said the waiter and went out. He disliked bars and bodegas. A clean, well-lighted cafe was a very different thing."

OK, this is the last post I’m going to bore you with from our mad, Dean Moriarty-style dash to Sarasota and back over the weekend. But hey, I took a lot of pictures, and I like to do something with them.

Of course, this isn’t the usual fare for this blog. But I refuse to be pigeonholed. And since I know The Shop Tart reads this blog, I thought I’d share some stuff she might enjoy. So I took pictures of my food, and merchandise in the St. Armand Key shops that my wife and youngest daughter stopped into, and now I present this Tartesque report.

My favorite part of the dining and walking around was spending the time with the wife and daughter. But I did sort of get into the moment when I sat alone at the sidewalk table outside Columbia restaurant (where we had eaten the night before — I had the Filet Steak Salteado with a local beer, and we shared a pitcher of sangría) and said “una copita mas” to the waiter. Very Hemingway. Way existential. The waiter just smiled, indulging the tourist, and murmured “una copita mas” as he went to fetch my second expresso, which I drank Cuban style with loads of sugar. It set me up quite nicely for the long drive home later that day.

Having driven to Sarasota on Saturday and back on Sunday, I just could not drag myself back behind the wheel to drive to Gallivants Ferry last night for the Stump Meeting. Besides, we were having a birthday party last night for my son-in-law. Sorry, Russell; I said I’d try to make it but I couldn’t. (I said that when I ran into her at the Clyburn fish fry.)

I thought briefly at one point during the day about asking whether any of y’all were going and could report back to us, but I I didn’t think of it early enough.

So here’s the best I can do for you: Ex-blogger Laurin Manning, now working for the Vincent Sheheen, provided the above video of her guy speaking at the Stump.

Couple of things strike me: He seems to be getting into his stride as a speaker. And Dick Harpootlian may have had it wrong that he doesn’t have the fire in the belly enough. Of course, I think maybe Dick started figuring that out back when Vincent unloaded on his guy, Dwight Drake.

Anybody else have a report from the Stump? Apparently, only the Myrtle Beach paper covered it. You can find slightly more comprehensive video (2 minutes of it) on that site; I saw no imbed code.

Didn’t I just DO one of these? How time flies. Here are your top stories this evening:

1. US and Iran Clash at Nuclear Talks — Hillary C. reads Ahmadinejad the riot act. Don’t just know he just loves getting chewed out by a woman? Forgive me for enjoying this.
2. International Ties Seen in Bomb Plot — It’s looking less like the work of a mere incompetent loner.
3. Sanford Cleared of Criminal Wrongdoing (thestate.com) — You read that here earlier today, but it’s still a big story.
4. US Car Sales Climbed 20% in April — Even Chryslers. More solid evidence that things are getting better. (Oh, and someone else called me a few minutes ago wanting to advertise on my blog, which cinches it.)
5. BP will Pay for Oil Spill Disaster, CEO Says — Yeah, I guess he’d better, but I appreciate him going ahead and taking responsibility.
6. ‘Georgy Girl’ Dead at 67 — And you don’t feel so good yourself, do you, boomers? Lynn Redgrave, dead so soon?

This came in this morning, just in time for me to use it in my Health & Happiness monologue at Rotary today:

S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster has cleared Gov. Mark Sanford of any criminal conduct for two trips to South America to meet his Argentine lover and, also, his use of state aircraft, upgraded airfare and campaign money.

The Attorney General’s office conducted a five-month investigation of Sanford, which included new interviews Sanford’s staff, Commerce Department officials, a Department of Natural Resources pilot and an attorney with the Republican Governors Association. The investigation followed a S.C. State Ethics Commission probe that resulted in 37 civil charges against the govenor….

McMaster, a Republican candidate for governor, said the “evidence does not support, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the governor knowingly, willfully and intentionally set out to break state law.

This is not to say, of course, that the evidence doesn’t support the face that the governor “knowingly, willfully and intentionally set out to” do other stuff.

My favorite quote from Henry in this piece of news:

“The time has come for our state to put this controversy behind us and move on.”

Yup. If you’re a Republican who wants to be elected governor this year, you would wish that — most fervently.

But the prize-winner, the real cake-taker in this piece is this quote from a written statement by the gov:

While I’ve acknowledged repeatedly my own moral failing in this matter, we feel confirmed in our consistent belief that this Administration has always been a stalwart defender of the taxpayer.

That may mean nothing to me, but it taps on that same little sore spot that’s been irritated in my mind for far too long by this guy: The non-apology apology. He travels the state, doing it over and over. And it always goes something like this: I’m sorry for what I did, and I ask you to forgive me, but I didn’t do anything wrong. Or, I did something wrong, but that shouldn’t have any impact on the relationship between you and me as your public servant, because I apologized, and so you’re obliged to forgive me — and if you don’t, you have some sort of nefarious political agenda.

Maybe you can’t hear it. But I do, every time.

The masterful thing about this latest iteration is that this time he goes, I did bad but I’m the hero of the taxpayer, so yay, me. You should applaud.

This is intriguing:

WASHINGTON (AP) ― The Supreme Court is closing its iconic front entrance beneath the words “Equal Justice Under Law.”

Beginning Tuesday, visitors no longer will ascend the wide marble steps to enter the building. Instead, they will be directed to a central screening facility to the side of and beneath the central steps that was built to improve the court’s security as part of a $122 million renovation.

Two justices, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, called the change unfortunate and unjustified.

That’s the entire news item, near as I can tell, which is weird. It feels like a chopped-down version of a full story from somewhere — it even has reactions from those two justices — but I haven’t found the original report yet.

As I drive to Sarasota and back this weekend, y’all contemplate this commonsense speech by the president:

http://nyti.ms/b0Ubp6

Remember when you were a kid and the breakfast cereal companies were always advertising cool stuff you could send off for if you saved up enough boxtops? Well, if you grew up when I did you should.

Well, I never actually accumulated the sufficient number and followed through, because I didn’t have that kind of attention span when I was a kid. Which is probably what they were counting on: They wanted me to bug my Mom to buy another box, and then maybe one more, and then forget about it — and then they wouldn’t have to send me the realistic sub that dives and surfaces and fires torpedoes, or whatever.

But just to show you how much my character has improved since then, I finally followed through. I just collected stickers for all eight Starbucks bold coffees — a different one highlighted each week, and you had to buy a cup to get a sticker.

I got my last sticker yesterday, and today I turned in my completed little booklet thingy and got the bold coffee of my choice.

I chose the 100 percent Fair Trade-certified Estima, which just makes me feel all kinda good about myself.

I really have a tremendous sense of accomplishment. Mock me if you will — call me a hauler for showing off my coffee — but I do.

An artistic note: I shot that picture above against the background of the bed of my truck, which I think looks kind of cool. I’m going to try that more often.

Wrapping up the week, here you go:

1. Sanford Chooses to Cede Healthcare Control to Federal Government (AP) — Probably not the headline he would put on it (he’d likely say, “Sanford Boldly Rejects Tyrannical Unfunded Mandate”), but you be the judge.
2. Gulf of Mexico oil spill sparks new US drilling ban (BBC) — Also, the rate of the spill could be five times as bad as originally thought.
3. Putin Seeks to Control Ukraine Gas Network (NYT) — The guy doesn’t lack gall, you have to admit.
4. City releases Benjamin-wreck 911 calls (thestate.com) — You won’t learn a whole heap from them, but there you go.
5. Utah uses eminent domain to seize land of … Uncle Sam (CSM) — Sort of a man-bites-dog story, although it might be better to call it a “little dog picks fight with big dog” story.
6. A Third Attack on Chinese Schoolchildren in 3 Days (CNN) — Just bizarre. Hard to understand. You might even say inscrutable. What’s getting into these people?

First, congrats to Mayor Bob on his big celebration yesterday! Now, to his latest e-mailed “City Update,” in which he continues to insist that we acknowledge before he leaves that he and the present council are getting the city’s fiscal house in order:

I wanted to give you a budget update from this Wednesday’s meeting. We are making great progress in bringing in a balanced and effective budget. The current shortfall in next year’s budget is $2 million. The proposed budget includes a $2 million “cushion fund” to be used throughout the year as a contingency fund (not our rainy day fund-that is fully funded). During the current budget we have a cushion fund of $800,000 and have used $90,000 with two months to go and no expected additional need. Additionally, the current budget is $5.7 million below expenses. City Council and staff believe a smaller cushion fund would be appropriate. We will get a report on May 12^th on the savings from early retirements, eliminating vacant positions and other efficiency measures that will most likely save between $500,000 to $1 million. Staff will also present a list of possible reductions in various City function for Council consideration. Additionally, Council is considering a capital fund to replace police, fire and public works vehicles. We will finalize and approve the budget in June.

The City has taken a number of steps to reduce expenses over the last year. We adjusted health care benefits; we changed the way we calculate overtime; we eliminated a number of unfilled staff positions; and implemented a number of common sense provisions from an efficiency study. The proposed budget includes an additional $500,000 for police overtime, and 15 new police officers from stimulus funding. The budget fully funds all fire suppression, prevention, and staffing levels, including fully restoring both engine 8 and Engine 9 to service. I will keep you posted.

Robert D. Coble

Here are your top six stories, which is what you’d get on any self-respecting front page (I’m Old School):

1. Gulf oil spill could hit Louisiana coast tonight (WashPost) — This definitely bears watching. I guess setting it on fire didn’t work. Meanwhile, the Obama administration is making sure it doesn’t get accused of not doing enough, as happened to a previous administration after a disaster on that coast.
2. U.K. Leaders Go on the Attack in Final Debate (BBC) — I made the mistake of not putting this on my front yesterday. All the Yank media seem to be paying attention now, after the PM’s gaffe.
3. Is Teacher Tenure Still Necessary? (NPR) — Now there‘s a hot issue that’s worth discussing.
4. Blacks Show New Trust In U.S. Government (NPR) — In the annals of public opinion, this is a historic shift. Meanwhile, all the cranky white folks are having tea parties.
5. Record numbers of GOP women campaigning for House seats (WashPost) — Another interesting trend. This, of course, is not what some of the folks I hear talk about the need for more women in office had in mind.
6. Belgian lawmakers pass burka ban (BBC) — Apparently, the cranky white folks over yonder haven’t discovered tea parties, so they express themselves this way.

I now expect to win an award for most gratuitous use of the word “Belgium” in a serious news roundup.

Just had an interesting exchange with Kathryn. We were talking about something else, and I mentioned birthers, and she said something dismissive about them. They are, of course, absurd and pathetic people.

And yet… and mind you, I’m bending way backward to be the devil’s advocate here… the birthers are trying, in a ridiculously literal, ham-handed way, to get at a true thing that bother them: Obama is different.

He’s not different because he’s black; if he were black it would all be simple. He’s just very different, from other politicians and certainly from anyone who has been president of the United States.

He is a disjointed person, who grew up partly in the rather unique (among American states) environment of Hawaii, always feeling deprived from not having his foreign father in his life, and partly in Indonesia with a foreign stepfather. He self-identifies as black, yet was raised mostly by whites in a place where the concept of “black” as the term is used in the lower 48 has very little meaning.

Most of us think this is great, very cool — the first post-racial president. But one wonders, is there a time when you get something really different (and not in a good way) in a president with such a different background?

I’m sort of different from the average American myself (this morning I heard a lecture about homeless children, and when it was mentioned that they sometimes attend two or three schools in a year, people gasped — and yet I did that, more than once, and sometimes the schools were not conducted in the same language). This inspired me to write my “Barack Like Me” column. But… when I lived in the Third World, even when I learned to speak Spanish without an accent, there was never the slightest doubt that I was a American, a gringo, the son of an officer in the U.S. Navy, something that gave me a very firm sense of who I was — while I might not be like someone who has spent his life in West Columbia, I was most assuredly an American, in heritage and worldview. (That difference between me and Obama inspired me to write the sequel to that “Barack Like Me” column, the one in which I identified just as strongly with John McCain, who was very, very different from Obama.)

But different strokes, right? Yes, certainly.

But just recently, I read a piece by Charles Krauthammer that seemed to point to a way that Obama’s difference played out in an approach to the presidency different from that of any other president in my lifetime. And rather than being cool and affirming and all that, it was disturbing. It was the speculation that the president sent that valuable bust of Winston Churchill back to Britain and has in other ways given the Brits the back of his hand because he doesn’t have the importance of the “special relationship” saturating his bones. To him, it was suggested, Churchill wasn’t the man who saved the West from the Nazi horror by inspiring Britain to stay in the fight until we could step in and tip the balance. To him… he was the guy who was PM when his grandfather was imprisoned for political reasons by British authorities in Kenya. The ending of the Krauthammer piece:

… But the Brits, our most venerable, most reliable ally, are the most disoriented. “We British not only speak the same language. We tend to think in the same way. We are more likely than anyone else to provide tea, sympathy and troops,” writes Bruce Anderson in London’s Independent, summarizing with admirable concision the fundamental basis of the U.S.-British special relationship.

Well, said David Manning, a former British ambassador to the United States, to a House of Commons committee reporting on that very relationship: “[Obama] is an American who grew up in Hawaii, whose foreign experience was of Indonesia and who had a Kenyan father. The sentimental reflexes, if you like, are not there.”

I’m not personally inclined to neuropsychiatric diagnoses, but Manning’s guess is as good as anyone’s. How can you explain a policy toward Britain that makes no strategic or moral sense? And even if you can, how do you explain the gratuitous slaps to the Czechs, Poles, Indians and others? Perhaps when an Obama Doctrine is finally worked out, we shall learn whether it was pique, principle or mere carelessness.

Fascinating….

Anyway, I think that’s what the Birthers are trying, in their own pathetic way, to get at. They’re wrong, but if you approach the subject of Obama’s uniqueness intelligently, it leads to some interesting places.

Over on Facebook, my friend Michael Kohn asked:

What do you think of Jan Brewer and immigration politics in AZ, SC, & DC?

At first, I thought that was a bit open-ended to ask someone on Facebook, but I decided to give it the old college try and provide a succinct answer. Here it is:

Not a whole lot. Without looking her up, I wouldn’t have known who she was.

I guess she’s sort of their Joe Wilson. One day an unknown, the next day the darling of the angrier elements of the right. I suppose we’ll be talking about someone else next week.

As far as immigration is concerned — it’s an issue that I didn’t think much about before those who really, REALLY care about it a LOT starting forcing the issue onto the front burner, where it doesn’t deserve to be. The absurdity of it was that when President Bush and John McCain and Lindsey Graham got together with Democrats to forge a sensible approach to addressing their concerns, the people who were all worked up about immigration went ballistic. They don’t want a real-world solution, they just want to be ticked off about those people being here. The main obstruction to a solution to illegal immigration is that the people who are really upset about it stand in the way of sensible solutions, and no one else cares about it enough to take the heat that they generate, so it languishes.

For more, check out the “Immigration” category on this blog, or on my old one.

Feeling sort of sorry for Gordon Brown today. Yesterday I watched this video, in which he spends a considerable amount of time patiently (for him) engaged in discussion with a complaining voter.

I’ve been there. I’ve been there at the end of a long workday, fielding a call from an angry reader. So you spend a certain amount of time listening, try to make your points patiently, try to make some personal connection, see if you can defuse the anger. Usually you can, if you’ll spend the time. It’s amazing how often just listening will turn a caller from someone who hates you to someone who appreciates the chat and goes away friendly.

So Gordon, grouchy as he naturally is, gets through the confrontation with some grace.

Then he gets into his car, and once the door has closed and he starts to ride off, he lets out his irritation, lashing out with a “Whose idea was that?” before muttering something about “bigoted woman” and “just ridiculous…”

This happened with the election a week away, and the PM has apologized profusely and abjectly, but it’s not just going away. It was the centerpiece on today’s Wall Street Journal.

A couple of contradictory points occur to me:

• How did this guy get so far in politics? The contrast to Tony Blair couldn’t have been more marked. Tony wouldn’t have been caught like that for a couple of reasons. First, he’s too media savvy; I think his Spidey Sense would have picked up the presence of a live mike. Second, he enjoyed the give and take of politics too much. He may have found the woman just as off-putting, but I think he’d have felt more satisfaction for having handled it well. Gordon Brown’s way is to go away glowering, resenting that he’d had to put in the time.
• Just to swing violently in the other direction: The world is much too much with us these days. At what point to we get to blow off a little steam and express our honest frustration without the world hearing it? Who the hell was responsible for that microphone being on? It makes me feel a bit like 1984 — not the year, the dystopian novel.

So — while I miss my man Tony (possibly my favorite politician of his generation — here’s my paean to him when he left office) and don’t like Gordon nearly as much, to some extent Gordon can’t help the fact that he’s not Tony. And I feel for him that he can’t even express (what he thought was) private frustration without losing an election.

Oh, by the way — if you haven’t seen it, check out “The Deal,” an excellent film about the political relationship between Blair and Brown. It’s made by the same folks who made “The Queen,” and the same guy plays Tony Blair. Brown is played by the actor who portrayed the politician in trouble in the original British production of “State of Play.” See an excerpt below…

When the house phone, the land line, began its maddening rendition of “Home Sweet Home,” I was dog-tired, and my wife was indisposed. So I threw off the coverlet I had on me in my recliner as I watched “Hamlet” on PBS (staged in modern dress for some reason) — with the house down to 68 Fahrenheit, I fancied I was getting a chill — and trudged over to it, just beating the message machine.

I seldom answer the blasted thing; usually my wife does. I tell myself she doesn’t mind it as much as I, but in truth she’s just far more saintly and tolerant.

To my gruff “hello” a lady’s voice told me her name and that she was calling on behalf of Bill Banning, my county councilman. For a moment I thought I detected a mechanical quality in her delivery and wondered whether it might be civil to hang up, but I realized she was just reciting this spiel over and over. I didn’t really take it in; it was all about what a fine councilman Bill had been. I’m fairly sure keeping taxes low came into it at some point. Saying one has kept taxes low is sort of the Pater Noster of Lexington County politicians; they are obliged to say it and do so automatically.

Finally, she asked whether I planned to vote for Bill. Smugly, knowing I had it in my power to satisfy her and end the call, I said “Yes.” I’ve always voted for Bill in the past, near as I could remember, so I could say this in good conscience and we would part on good terms.

She was very pleased, confirming for me with her reaction that this was not a recording. She then urged me not to forget to vote June 8 and rang off. Blast, thought I — this means a return call to remind me to vote, now that I’m on the record as one of “their” voters.

It was only later that I realized I had no idea whether I’d vote for Bill Banning or not. I knew not who was running against him — Chuck Crouch, my records tell me. I don’t recall anything about Chuck Crouch, if I’ve met him. But, knowing Bill, you’ll likely vote for him again, right? I urged myself. Well, now, I don’t really know for sure, said the stickler voice.

This leaves me with several questions:

• Did I lie to my neighbor (as neighbor she almost assuredly was)? Undoubtedly, I said something that may turn out to be untrue, although I suspect I’ll vote for Bill and all will be right in the end. But I won’t do it merely to make all right in the end, if I sincerely think the other fellow is better. I’m perverse that way. I mean, what if Chuck Crouch is Joe Riley, Lindsey Graham and Segolene Royal all rolled into one, with a bit of Daniel Patrick Moynihan thrown in for seasoning? (There’s an odd picture for you.)
• How will I find out whether he’s better? I mean, he won’t be coming in to see me for an endorsement interview. I suppose I’ll have to figure it out the way most folks always do, but I don’t know how that works exactly.
• If I did lie to my neighbor, was I aware that I might be doing so at the time? Seems not. “Lie” implies intent. I had not gone through these thought processes at the time; I thought it was a true answer. I think.
• The  thing that muddles it is that I was pleased at the time to give her an answer that satisfied her. I think I thought it was true, but did I merely seize upon it and tell myself I thought it was true to end the call?

A couple of things now occur to me. First, Kathryn was right when she said on a previous thread that Steve Benjamin may not know the objective truth of what happened in that accident. After all, that was a much more traumatic experience than my phone call, and I don’t know whether I told the truth or precisely what the truth was.

Second, I wish these people wouldn’t call me when I’m so bone-tired.

Here’s hoping I can find some more interesting news than I did yesterday…

1. Greece crisis: Fears grow that it could spread (BBC) — The EU folk are talking about a 100 billion Euro bailout. Pretty soon they’ll start talking real money.
2. H-P Agrees to Buy Palm (WSJ) — Not sure why. I used to have a Palm dumbphone. They lost their edge after the original Pilot, which had the cool feature of being able to beam your business card info to other people via microwaves. All the rage in the 90s.
3. Republicans Agree to Debate on Financial Overhaul (NYT) — Wow. I’m sorry, people, but EVERYTHING out there is boring stuff about money. I’m not seeing any wars or anything to relieve the monotony.
4. Coast Guard to Try Burning Oil as It Nears Land (NYT) — OK, well this is pretty cool. Setting an oil slick 600 miles in circumference, visible from space, on fire. Whoa. Reminds me of the Farm Film Report on SCTV: They’re gonna blow it up REAL good.
5. Immigration Law Ignites Fury In Mexico (NPR) — Just to show you how politicians can pander on BOTH sides of the border.
6. North Carolina beach town bans thongs — On a dull day like this, thought maybe we needed something else along the lines of yesterday’s Boobquake. I’ll bet that guy who tried to look at porn 16,000 times isn’t going to waste any of his valuable time at that beach.

I’m sorry, folks. That was probably my most boring front ever. But I have standards. I will not, repeat NOT, put Sandra Bullock and Jesse James on my front page.

Corey Hutchins calls my attention to his profile of some South Carolina Tea Partiers in the Free Times. An excerpt:

When Allen Olson isn’t molding a movement, he makes his living as a carpenter. He’s a wiry, self-employed 48-year-old who can’t keep still. A pack of smokes juts from the pocket of a faded blue T-shirt the same color of his eyes as he sips a Miller Lite at Hard Knox Grill in Cayce on the rare occasion he might do so. He wears a Carolina baseball cap, but he grew up in Boston. Most recently he lived in Milwaukee before a divorce drove him to South Carolina. He drives a beat-up green pickup truck with a “Nikki Haley for Governor” sticker on the back windshield.

Olson is what you’d call an ultra-conservative.

It’s how he defines himself, too, with a mild roll of the eyes. He admits that because he doesn’t consider U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham a traitor, some of the people he’s been rolling with lately might call him a moderate. He’s OK with that.

Olson has never been politically active before, but these days he’s charged up like an atom in the Hadron Collider. While you won’t see any “Allen Olson has a posse” stickers slapped on local street signs just yet, his Columbia Tea Party group has been growing since he started it last year, he says.

But do not call Allen Olson a leader, for the group he leads is by definition leaderless….

Don’t know why Corey thought I’d be interested. Just because I occasionally go to their rallies…

I forgot to post something on the revelation the other day that when the news broke that SEC employees spent their days surfing porn as Wall Street collapsed:

The memo was first reported Thursday evening by ABC News. It summarizes past inspector general probes and reports some shocking findings:

— A senior attorney at the SEC’s Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office. He agreed to resign, an earlier watchdog report said.

— An accountant was blocked more than 16,000 times in a month from visiting websites classified as ”Sex” or ”Pornography.” Yet he still managed to amass a collection of ”very graphic” material on his hard drive by using Google images to bypass the SEC’s internal filter, according to an earlier report from the inspector general. The accountant refused to testify in his defense, and received a 14-day suspension.

I don’t know about you, but that’s just the kind of persistence I want in a Wall Street regulator: A guy who gets knocked back 16,000 times, but keeps on tryin’.

Anyway, Republicans who don’t like the idea of commerce being regulated anyway are pointing to this as evidence of the utter futility of government and the amorality of all bureaucrats. This has inspired the WSJ’s House Liberal, Thomas Frank, to scoff. But along the way, he has to get in an obligatory swipe against the right for crusading against porn at all:

Ever since the dawn of the culture wars, when widespread obscenity seemed to symbolize all that was going wrong with America, no subject has furnished more demagogue gold than pornography. Of course, it backfires against the family values set on a fairly regular basis—the latest example being that Republican National Committee outing to a bondage-themed nightclub in Los Angeles—but for grandstanding purposes nothing can beat it….

As we know, no tirade from the Left would be complete without the ritual mention of The Hypocrisy Of Those Holier-Than-Thou Republicans, suggesting that anyone concerned about common decency is also a hypocrite — which makes as little sense, of course, as suggesting that all bureaucrats are lazy, useless porn fiends.

Allow me to suggest a Third Way to look at the subject. How about we not stretch the fact that these guys were looking at dirty pictures to make either the point that regulation is useless, or that everyone who tries to make a buck on Wall Street is a crook who needs five reglators looking over his shoulder? Either way, it’s a flimsy edifice you’re constructing on a foundation of dirty picture.

How about we say that the ubiquity of dirty pictures on the Web — the extreme ease of access to people of all ages and all proclivities — is in itself a problem? I’ve always sort of doubted that “sex addiction” was a real thing. When one speaks of celebs such as Tiger Woods having an addiction problem, I think, He’s not an addict. He’s just a GUY without any barriers, external or internal. If women don’t say “no” to a guy, and he doesn’t say “no” to himself, this is what you get.

But when I hear about a guy trying 16,000 times to overcome barriers to simply look at some pictures, I’m thinking we have a guy with a problem. And it’s a problem that wouldn’t emerge without such pictures being there, enticing him. If the pictures hadn’t been there, he’d have quit trying, and who knows? He might have caught a crooked trader or two.

I’m not suggesting a solution, mind you. I like the fact that we have access to all sorts of info on the Web, and I’m not suggesting that we set up an Internet Censorship Agency — not least because these SEC guys would sign up to work for it.

I don’t know what the solution is. But it seems like, if we care about the fact that there are thousands (maybe millions) of men obsessed with this stuff — whether because you see the body (including the eyes) as a temple or you don’t like seeing women degraded and objectified — and realize that before the Web, these same guys might have gone their whole lives not seeing the amount of porn they could see in a few hours on the Net, it seems we could at least acknowledge that it IS a problem.