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Dave at NixGuy highlights the double standard applied to Ted Strickland when it comes to politicians and pedophiles: The Foley standard, as we now know, is that when someone brings you allegations of sexual impropriety, you must immediately launch an investigation, AND call for full public disclosure of everything that is known. This is true if you are merely an associate of the person in question, much less the guys employer. Anyone who fails to take these steps on the first hint of a sexual impropriety must resign their positions. ... How does Strickland measure up against this standard? The actual hiring of a guy with an actual conviction, notified of it, handed the police reports. What does Strickland do? No public disclosure, no firing, keeps the guy after the election, and keeps him close enough for an after campaign reward trip to Italy. This is exactly the issue, yet the dinosaur media keeps talking about the controversy as if it's all about sex (and therefore, á la Bill Clinton, it doesn't matter). Barring any crippling lawsuits (ha!) we in the SOB Alliance will keep trying to put the focus where it belongs: on Ted Strickland's poor judgment in hiring, and on the likely statewide policy implications of a Strickland Administration's refusal to take pedophilia seriously. Now the Democrats have two choices here. They can take a step back, look at the Foley standard, look at Strickland, and honestly admit that maybe they were a little harsh on Pryce, Boehner and the rest. Or, they can throw Strickland under the bus. ... You can have Strickland, or you can have the Foley standard. You can’t have both. Exactly right. Kirsten Powers, a Democrat who's intellectually honest, gets it too (scroll down). We'll see how many other Dems take her approach. What say you, Buckeye State Blog? Read Dave's whole post. It's worth your consideration.

(Hat tip: Catholic World News) From The Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal: ALEXANDRIA, Va.-- Amid the cut and thrust of the midterm elections, two questions have frothed up within the recesses of the GOP--almost as an arcane distraction from the squalid business of holding on to House and Senate: Has compassionate conservatism worked? And should Republicans try it again? Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey has made his position plain. In a recent open letter from his organization, Freedomworks, he assailed some leaders of the religious right, suggesting that if Republicans lose in November it would be because they have abandoned the principle of limited government in favor of embracing government for supposedly conservative ends. Meanwhile, David Kuo, former deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, has complained in recent interviews and op-eds that the biggest promises of compassionate conservatism, especially the support of faith-based initiatives, have been broken. Perhaps the best person to sort out this business is Michael Gerson, George W. Bush's chief speechwriter from the beginning of his presidential campaign through the end of his first term, and then White House senior policy adviser until June. Now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Mr. Gerson is plotting a book about the future of conservatism. He has been giving a lot of thought to its history. Known around the White House as "Mr. Compassionate Conservatism," Mr. Gerson tells me: "I think it's a political truth that one reason we won the 2000 election was that Republicans finally had a message on education and welfare. In 2008, they will have to have something other than a simplistic antigovernment message." In Mr. Gerson's view, "compassionate conservatism is the theory that the government should encourage the effective provision of social services without providing the service itself." It was, in effect, a conservative twofer: limiting the scope of government and empowering faith-based institutions by entrusting to the latter services that had traditionally been performed by the former. Or so the thinking went. ***Mr. Gerson acknowledges that the antigovernment impulse "has a lot of intellectual energy" and has produced some "very healthy institutions and smart people with important policy prescriptions." But he is more interested in the strain of conservatism that is drawn from Catholic social thought, which stresses that human beings are responsible for others' welfare, and that the functions of society ought to be performed by the most local authority possible. Yet Mr. Gerson is an evangelical, not a Catholic. And before being hired by the president, he worked for two other prominent evangelicals, both of whom he counts among the pioneers of compassionate conservatism: Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson and Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana. Mr. Colson plucked Mr. Gerson from Wheaton College (Billy Graham's alma mater) in 1986, where he studied theology. Wheaton has no Catholics on its faculty, but has led an intellectual charge to get evangelicals to think more about Catholic teachings. "It's almost a shame to say," Mr. Gerson laments, "but evangelicalism doesn't have that rich a tradition, and so you look for other sources that represent an authentic Christian witness in society." Mr. Gerson's debt to Catholic teachings is also apparent on issues such as immigration. I asked him why, when most religious groups lined up this year to support the president's immigration proposals, evangelicals were noticeably absent. "There has been a significant history of Catholic reflection on immigration," Mr. Gerson says. He believes that a more "conspicuously global church" like the Catholic one is more likely to realize "that human beings in every culture and across every border have a radical equality before God." He also believes that evangelicals (and many secular Republicans) have succumbed "to one of the traditional temptations of conservatism": defining our national identity in terms of culture instead of ideals. [More]

NixGuy has been doing yeoman work on all things Strickland in the past two weeks, including today’s call for resignation based on consistency with the “Foley standard.” Ted could easily negate the validity of NixGuy’s call by renouncing the tactics orchestrated by his party, but he won’t. But all of this doesn’t matter any more. That’s [...]

Jay Nordlinger Every now and then, someone asks me — often a college student — how I came to be a conservative. I have spoken on this subject many times, but sometimes my memory grows misty. And then I’ll come across something that helps me remember: The Left repulsed me. I thought of this over the weekend, when reading a story from Ohio. Cincinnati renovated its Fountain Square, and had a grand reopening. They asked a poet named Nikki Giovanni to write and read a dedicatory poem. She did. It included the lines, “I am not a son of a bitch like Kenny Blackwell / I will not use the color of my skin to cover the hatred in my heart / I am not a political whore jumping from bed to bed to see who will stroke my need.” Kenneth Blackwell, of course, is Ohio’s secretary of state, the former mayor of Cincinnati, and the current Republican nominee for governor. Friends, this is the Left I grew up with. Women like Nikki Giovanni were a dime a dozen; men like Amiri Baraka were a dime a dozen. They were celebrated and honored and lauded constantly. They were at the center of everything. And I didn’t like it; I still don’t. The kind of performance that Giovanni put on was almost daily fare in my hometown. I never admired it; I never will. And, yes, once in a while I’m reminded. By the way, the Cincinnati Enquirer had a very cutesy lead: “If Ken Blackwell becomes Ohio’s governor, don’t look for Nikki Giovanni to be appointed the state’s poet laureate.” I have to wonder: If Right had attacked Left on such an occasion — and in such a fashion — would the paper have been so cutesy?

MLM Liberal (profile here) appears to be threatening legal action against any of us in the State of Ohio Blogger Alliance who don't quit the Alliance, starting with Nathan R.C. Warden: As the campaign nastiness gets more personal, MLM Liberal is fulfilling his promise to "Swift Boat the Swift Boaters." Interesting. There's more: Such comments are indicative of Ken Blackwell's base. Those of us who really do care about the future of this state, as well as our nation, are not about to cave in to people like Nathan R.C. Warden. And, as is stated in the Miranda rights, anything he says can be used against him in a court of law. Granted, we are talking civil as opposed to criminal proceedings. Nonetheless, every one of his blog entries, like mine, would be subject to court scrutiny. Of course, I'm no lawyer. I just work with law enforcement on a daily basis. A note to other members of the SOB Alliance who have not been a part of the continued smearing of Ted Strickland, much less getting on Scott Pullins' bandwagon: If you oppose what Scott Pullins is doing, leave the Alliance now before you get caught in the crossfire. Oooooo, I'm terrified. I have visited every blog in the Alliance, and a number of them haven't participated in the smear tactics or even discussed the matter at all. You should not have to suffer for the actions of others. Because once more bloggers on the left get wind of the situation, they will be speaking out in force. It's only about to get nastier. I wonder if MLM Liberal cares to be more specific? Since I've been covering Ted Strickland's Foley problem, am I also a target for this guy's not-so-veiled threat? On what grounds? Defamation? Intentional infliction of emotional distress? Being a mean old conservative poopy-head? I suppose that beyond his hatred for Scott Pullins, MLM Liberal's also got a craving for revenge against my colleagues Dave at NixGuy and Tom Blumer. Who else will he sue, Sean Hannity, Bill Cunningham, Bob Frantz, and Jerome Corsi? I wonder whos' covering MLM Liberal's legal expenses? Is he seriously hoping that some lefty lawyer's going to take his case on a contingency fee basis? Maybe he knows a lib attorney looking to do some pro bono work. This just goes to show that the typical leftist can't win policy arguments on the merits, and can't hope to have anything useful to contribute to a discussion about moral behavior. Their motto seems to be "If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em." I await MLM Liberal's response, but I'm not holding my breath.

Clearly, the guy is a paragon of free speech.

Fr. Tim Finigan of The Hermeneutic of Continuity, is in Rome. Read about it here, here, and here.

In reaction to House Member Duncan Hunter’s request to have any embedded CNN reporters removed: CNN won’t show the WTC towers being hit by terrorists, but they are delighted to show terrorists killing American soldiers in Iraq.

NixGuy has been doing yeoman work on all things Strickland in the past two weeks, including today’s call for resignation based on consistency with the “Foley standard.” Ted could easily negate the validity of NixGuy’s call by renouncing the tactics orchestrated by his party, but he won’t. But all of this doesn’t matter any more. That’s [...]

[Cross-posted at Brain Shavings] MLM Liberal (profile here) appears to be threatening legal action against any of us in the State of Ohio Blogger Alliance who don't quit the Alliance, starting with Nathan R.C. Warden: As the campaign nastiness gets more personal, MLM Liberal is fulfilling his promise to "Swift Boat the Swift Boaters." Interesting. There's more: Such comments are indicative of Ken Blackwell's base. Those of us who really do care about the future of this state, as well as our nation, are not about to cave in to people like Nathan R.C. Warden. And, as is stated in the Miranda rights, anything he says can be used against him in a court of law. Granted, we are talking civil as opposed to criminal proceedings. Nonetheless, every one of his blog entries, like mine, would be subject to court scrutiny. Of course, I'm no lawyer. I just work with law enforcement on a daily basis. A note to other members of the SOB Alliance who have not been a part of the continued smearing of Ted Strickland, much less getting on Scott Pullins' bandwagon: If you oppose what Scott Pullins is doing, leave the Alliance now before you get caught in the crossfire. Oooooo, I'm terrified. I have visited every blog in the Alliance, and a number of them haven't participated in the smear tactics or even discussed the matter at all. You should not have to suffer for the actions of others. Because once more bloggers on the left get wind of the situation, they will be speaking out in force. It's only about to get nastier. I wonder if MLM Liberal cares to be more specific? Since I've been covering Ted Strickland's Foley problem, am I also a target for this guy's not-so-veiled threat? On what grounds? Defamation? Intentional infliction of emotional distress? Being a mean old conservative poopy-head? I suppose that beyond his hatred for Scott Pullins, MLM Liberal's also got a craving for revenge against my colleagues Dave at NixGuy and Tom Blumer. Who else will he sue, Sean Hannity, Bill Cunningham, Bob Frantz, and Jerome Corsi? I wonder whos' covering MLM Liberal's legal expenses? Is he seriously hoping that some lefty lawyer's going to take his case on a contingency fee basis? Maybe he knows a lib attorney looking to do some pro bono work. This just goes to show that the typical leftist can't win policy arguments on the merits, and can't hope to have anything useful to contribute to a discussion about moral behavior. Their motto seems to be "If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em." I await MLM Liberal's response, but I'm not holding my breath.

Even though I was extremely involved in ag stuff all throughout high school and college, my best friend for the last nearly 15 years has been what folks might call a "city girl." We've had a great time acclimating her to farm life over the years. One Spring, in fact, she got to name her own heifer. One fall, for her birthday, I got her her very own pair of Wrangler blue jeans - which she wore for about three-and-a-half minutes on a dare from our math teacher, who happened to be one of the best 4-H advisors I ever had. As time went on, I went to Ohio State, she to Northwestern. I settled in a small farm town in Western Ohio, she lives in New York City and takes the subway to work each morning. Nonetheless, we still talk every couple of weeks; we've actually gotten better about communicating now that we're out of college and "settled down." So imagine my shock when last week, as I was recounting the story of my rollover accident, I learned that she had not been faithfully reading my blog! I was flabbergasted. I promptly told her that if she was a true friend, she'd read my blog faithfully. She promptly told me that if I was such a great friend, I'd write about her in my blog. Think of it as a game of cyber-chicken. I didn't think she'd read it, she didn't think I'd write it. I lost. She emailed me this morning, crushed that I hadn't fulfilled my promise to write about her. So consider this my attempt to right a horrific wrong; and, on the bright side, to welcome my new biggest fan, whom I expect to be reading this column every day... maybe twice a day for good measure.

In reaction to House Member Duncan Hunter’s request to have any embedded CNN reporters removed: CNN won’t show the WTC towers being hit by terrorists, but they are delighted to show terrorists killing American soldiers in Iraq.

From Jill at Writes Like She Talks (original entry relating to Jill’s effort is here) - Reason 19 — “Because the threshold of acceptable behavior in Ohio doesn’t need to sink any lower than it already has ….. Bringing a slots and casino culture here will sink it lower - and who thought that that was [...]

I have the story over at Weapons of Mass Discussion. Be sure to check it out. I have at least one more story on Sherrod Brown in the works for this week, so stay tuned...

LBGT – if Ted Strickland is elected governor, these are initials Ohioans are going to learn a lot more about. LBGT stands for ''Lesbian, Bi-Sexual, Gay, and Transgender.'' The initials are the code word for those who want to advance a frontal attack against conventional sexual morality and the idea that marriage is rightly constituted as a union between a man and a woman. The underground current of Ted Strickland's Democratic gubernatorial campaign is to turn Ohio from a Red State bastion into a Blue State hot-bed of sexual freedom and experimentation. Read the full column from Jerome Corsi at World Net Daily.com.Â

On Wednesday, October 18, Ken Blackwell was joined by conservative radio hosts Dennis Prager and Hugh Hewitt at a townhall meeting hosted by WHK 1420 AM, who broadcasted the event live. With more than 500 supporters, we ran out of chairs for all of the Cleveland-area Republicans who showed up to support Ohio's next governor, Ken Blackwell.

Click play to hear Ken Blackwell at the Cleveland Rally with Dennis Prager and Hugh Hewitt

From Jill at Writes Like She Talks (original entry relating to Jill’s effort is here) - Reason 19 — “Because the threshold of acceptable behavior in Ohio doesn’t need to sink any lower than it already has ….. Bringing a slots and casino culture here will sink it lower - and who thought that that was [...]

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is in the news again today for his remarks at a speech with Justice Alito where he asserted that the Supreme Court - or any court for that matter - has no place deciding issues like abortion and suicide…issues that plainly fall beyond the four corners of the Constitution. Scalia, during a talk on the judiciary sponsored by the National Italian American Foundation, dismissed the idea of judicial independence as an absolute virtue. He noted that dozens of states, since the mid-1800s, have chosen to let citizens elect their judges. “You talk about independence as though it is unquestionably and unqualifiably a good thing,” Scalia said. “It may not be. It depends on what your courts are doing.” Scalia added, “The more your courts become policy-makers, the less sense it makes to have them entirely independent.” He’s obviously right, it’s just that the liberal agenda has been imposed upon us by the judiciary, and although even the honest liberal scholar will admit the same, they’re afraid to give it up. Thus, judges that interpret the Constitution strictly and refuse to imply unintended rights are deemed “Conservative.” Judges willing to find rights in the Constitution because it seems just or for the good of America to do so are deemed “Liberal.” The public now isn’t sure what judges are supposed to do and now believe issues of jurisprudence are basically to be determined by the party in power rather than by a review of the plain meaning of the Constitution.

I can’t be the only person thinking that this “apology” is a tactic to keep the Feds at bay (link may require free registration). And talk about needing the world’s smallest violin: I fear I allowed the vicious criticism of The Times by the Bush administration to trigger my instinctive affinity for the underdog and enduring faith [...]

cross-posted from Nixguy.com   Wooo! There's been a lot of heat generated over the last week and a half. Unfortunately, as expected and as I talked about here, the media sensationalized the salacious aspects and never delved into the real issues.   This was expected and should not be suprising to anyone. In fact, I'm sure it was a key part of Strickland's strategy for dealing with it, as it is oh-so-clintonesque. Make it "all about sex" and then demonize the attackers. Right out of the playbook. Unfortunately for Strickland issues remain. We're going to deal with one in this post. First let's take a look at this from the Blackwell campaign's angle, as they've taken a lot of heat since Blackwell brought it up in the 4th debate. See my buddy newshound for a good CW idea of the negative response to the Blackwell campaign. The problem with this issue is that there is a lot of salacious stuff mixed in with the judgement issues. If the Blackwell campaign stayed out, there was a real possibility that the Ohio media would bury the whole thing. If the campaign jumps in they're negatively campaigning on "gutter politics". You get the idea, the headlines write themselves. As a tactical matter, I would have preferred that the campaign stay out of it as much as possible. I would also prefer that they issue a Press release making clear what the interest, issues, and priorities are in this case. Oh wait. They did. Well alright then. First let's deal with the gay angle. As some folks know, this first came up back in July and was something that Pullins put out there, leading to an email sent around by a campaign staffer who was subsequently fired. This also came up in an interview where Strickland completely blew the question. Strickland could have put it all to rest right there but he didn't. So when this came up again, he had to answer the question, again. And this time he was angry that he had to answer the question. Note to Strickland, you can be annoyed, you might even be angry, but you should not be shocked considering your history in dealing with this. As I noted in an earlier post, this wasn't an issue, it wasn't something I'm interested in or was pushing, and I'm taking his word for it. But that leaves us with one of the real issues, Stricklands hiring of a staffer who had had a real conviction for something that is really serious. Jerome Corsi lays it all out here. First, Strickland said he never knew about the man's record when he hired him. But that's a red herring. Jerome has shown that Strickland had the sheriff's records at the time. Strickland chose to believe the staffer's denial over the sheriff's records he had in his hand. As a practical matter, Strickland is not a newbie in politics and he must know that these sort of charges among the campaign staff are just a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Did he not want to risk it getting out in the open by firing the guy right then? Did he really sit down and have a heart-to-heart with the guy and decide that it was all in the past? The latter would have been an easily acceptable answer to many, including myself. Either way, it appears that Strickland has not come clean at all about what happened. Which brings us to the Foley standard. The Foley standard, as we now know, is that when someone brings you allegations of sexual impropriety, you must immediately launch an investigation, AND call for full public disclosure of everything that is known. This is true if you are merely an associate of the person in question, much less the guys employer. Anyone who fails to take these steps on the first hint of a sexual impropriety must resign their positions. The Democrats have been very busy in the last few weeks newly defining this standard and applying it to Hastert, John Boehner, Deb Pryce, and anyone else they can. How does Strickland measure up against this standard? The actual hiring of a guy with an actual conviction, notified of it, handed the police reports. What does Strickland do? No public disclosure, no firing, keeps the guy after the election, and keeps him close enough for an after campaign reward trip to Italy. Yeah I'd say that doesn't exactly meet the Foley standard. Now the Democrats have two choices here. They can take a step back, look at the Foley standard, look at Strickland, and honestly admit that maybe they were a little harsh on Pryce, Boehner and the rest. Or, they can throw Strickland under the bus. And this is exactly what PowersPoint takes: But it does raise a different issue. If it is true that Strickland knew about these offenses -- and this needs to be confirmed -- and didn't a) fire him and b) disassociate himself from this person, then the Republicans have a legitimate issue, especially in light of the criticism Hastert has received for his lack of oversight on Foley (criticism I have made myself). A lefty who gets it! Amazing. You can have Strickland, or you can have the Foley standard. You can't have both. And this is going to be a front page issue for me until you get this resolved. Now for Strickland himself there are two ways out of this mess as far as this particular issue is concerned. He can repudiate the Foley standard and declare that Boehner, Pryce, Reynolds, and Hastert all acted reasonably and his fellow Democrats are way out of line. That's what a "man of integrity" would do. Or he can resign and let Lee Fisher take over his campaign for governor. Your choice, Mr. Strickland.