If you agree with whom?

A local Democrat – David Hill – penned an LTE to the Free Lance Star backing Krystal Ball, the Democrat who wants to defeat and replace Congressman Rob Wittman.

Hill (a genuinely decent fellow, BTW), opens his letter thusly:

Rep. Rob Wittman, a strong conservative, is in direct opposition to positions taken by Sens. Warner and Webb.  If you agree with the senators and disagree with Rep. Wittman, vote for Krystal Ball.

Read that last sentence again, carefully, “If you agree with the senators and disagree with Rep. Wittman, vote for Krystal Ball.”

Lest we forget, Warner (as a candidate) supported TARP, and Webb voted for it.  Wittman opposed it.  Warner and Webb voted for Democare; Wittman opposed it.  Warner and Webb voted to let the EPA impose anti-carbon “global warming” regulations; Wittman voted against cap-and-trade.

So by all means, “If you agree with the senators and disagree with Rep. Wittman, vote for Krystal Ball.”  I suspect most voters in the 1st District will, like me, vote to re-elect Wittman.

Cross-posted to VV and the Real Krystal Ball

Survey USA says Hurt increased his lead to 26 points

Survey USA has updated its well-publicized (and somewhat questioned) poll on the 5th District Congressional race.  Back in July, the polling group had Robert Hurt up a whopping 23 points on incumbent Democrat Tom Perriello.  It was widely assumed that the gap would shrink – and probably wasn’t that large anyway.

Well, if Survey USA is an outlier, they’re doubling down: the new poll has Hurt up 26 points.

FWIW, when it comes to Virginia elections, Survey USA was the first pollster to notice Tim Kaine leading Jerry Kilgore (Kaine won by 6 points) and the first one to see a landslide sweep for the GOP ticket last year (all won by more than a dozen points).  It also has a larger sample than the AAF poll from a couple of weeks ago which had Hurt up only six.

The battle among the pollsters could be almost as interesting as the one among the candidates.

Cross-posted to BD

On the president’s speech last night

I must confess, I missed the president’s speech – and not by accident.  I didn’t think the “end of combat operations in Iraq” was worth a speech anyhow, what with 50,000 troops still there.  Moreover, the question of whether Obama would ignore Bush’s “surge” (I put it in quotes because it was more than just that) or try to take credit for it was answered as I expected: he attempted both and accomplished neither.

What mattered to me were his comments on Afghanistan, and once again, he disappointed (speech reprinted in NRO - The Corner):

And, next July, we will begin a transition to Afghan responsibility. The pace of our troop reductions will be determined by conditions on the ground, and our support for Afghanistan will endure. But make no mistake: this transition will begin – because open-ended war serves neither our interests nor the Afghan people’s.

It all sounds so reasonable, until we remember that the enemy also has something to say about the length and breadth of a war.

Keep in mind, the current timetable on Iraq comes from an agreeement between the two countries last year.  It sent a message that Iraq was, at best, ready to take the burden on its own and, at worst, confident that it could do so by the end of 2011.

The July 2011 date for the beginning of the end in Afghanistan was imposed on the Afghan people from Washington (much to their dismay).  It sends no message of confidence, but rather one of exhaustion.  It sends the message that the Taliban can run out the clock on the Afghan people (government and anti-Taliban political opposition) – the same Taliban that welcomed, embraced, and all-but-merged with al Qaeda prior to 9/11/01.

The president doesn’t seem to understand this, which is why his speech was yet another disappointment.

Cross-posted to VV

Judge who ruled (mostly) against Cuccinelli kept quiet about a conflict of interest

Ad hominem criticisms are touchy matters: they can get personal and irrelevant very quickly, and as such can badly distract from the issue at hand.  One must be very careful with them, and make sure any to be used are, in fact, germane.

I say this because (as you, dear readers, may have guessed) I am about to engage in one against retired Judge Paul Peatross – the jurist who recently ruled in the matter of Ken Cuccinelli’s Climategate probe of UVa and Michael Mann.  For the most part, Peatross’ ruling was bad news.  Although he did leave open a road for Cuccinelli to press on, he all but stated he thought Cuccinelli couldn’t win.  Lefty blogs have been rejoicing ever since.

Yesterday, though, Chris Horner noted something about His Honor Mr. Peatross that put the entire thing in a new and different light (Big Govt., emphasis in original):

 Before the hearing commenced Peatross, substituting for the vacationing chief judge, cited his wife’s 1982 degree in environmental science from UVA – oddly, he then said “but not in global warming” — as part of a rather spare recitation of why he was hearing of this case (which he attested he had never heard about until reading the briefs that morning. A prominent case in the local, state and national news assigned to his old court! This man takes his retirement seriously…), and articulating his history so that counsel might decide whether he carried any conflict such that he should not hear the University’s motion.

That fact of her 1982 degree from Mann’s former Department, apparently, was relevant. Okay. But…

The fact that the judge’s wife had in fact previously worked in that Department of Environmental Sciences — the very Department that stands to suffer should he have ruled in favor of the Attorney General – was somehow not worth disclosing to counsel.

I only learned of this after the hearing by others who had also worked at the same time Ms. Peatross did, in messages expressing astonishment that her husband would decide such a matter given the obvious appearance of an inability to objectively hear it.

Also not worth disclosing was that Ms. Peatross’s relationships go much deeper, being, e.g., lauded for her role in producing a book edited by the Department’s then-chairman during Mann’s alleged hijinks, as well as, it appears, at least two of his papers.

Now, to be completely accurate, it is an open question whether Ms. Peatross worked for the Department of Environmental Sciences, or simply in the building, physically (which I am told with no doubts that she did), for one of two particular former colleagues of Mann’s (and one supervisor at the relevant times) in their consultancies. The latter response, if it were the case, would beg other questions about mixing research and consulting. Which is to say, there is no good answer to the question. Which may be why the University refused to answer it when I asked. Four times.

So, we have a judge who is married to a woman who worked in the same University Department that employed Mann – either as a direct employee of the Department or as part of a consultancy of a colleague of Mann - and thus whose career and credibility would be directly affected by the case over which he presides . . . and he doesn’t tell anyone.

I’d call that germane.

I’m also far more certain that Cuccinelli will not only take the road Judge Peatross left him, but also appeal the parts of the ruling that did not go his way.  Given the information above, he really has no choice, IMHO.

Cross-posted to VV