Apparently, the Valley Swim Club in Huntingdon Valley, PA recently threw out over 60 Philadelpia kids explicitly because they were black:

The Creative Steps Day Camp paid more than $1900 to The Valley Swim Club. The Valley Swim Club is a private club that advertises open membership. But the campers’ first visit to the pool suggested otherwise.

“When the minority children got in the pool all of the Caucasian children immediately exited the pool,” Horace Gibson, parent of a day camp child, wrote in an email. “The pool attendants came and told the black children that they did not allow minorities in the club and needed the children to leave immediately.”

I hate to jump the gun on accusing the club management of racism, but the article doesn’t seem to leave any room for doubt. Their own statement was that “a lot of kids would change the complexion… and the atmosphere of the club.” Not hard to see where they are coming from on the issue.

Look, we all know that hypersensitivity to racism and racial issues has become a drag on our nation and our political discourse. Moreover, modern civil rights lawsuits are frequently meritless ’shakedown’ efforts rather than genuine efforts to advance the rights of minorities. But the only way to stop the hucksters and end the racial recriminations is to ensure that actual, blatant racism like this is shouted down and, as the law permits, immediately ended by the courts.

I believe the Montgomery County, PA district attorney (Risa Vetri Ferman) and the PA attorney general (Tom Corbett) are both Republicans. I would strongly encourage PA residents to contact them and let them know that Republicans are just as outraged over this conduct as Democrats are sure to be.

We are the party of Lincoln, after all. Let’s act like it.

If you are perverse enough to want to peer inside the Borg-like consciousness of the mainstream media, you could do much worse than a daily perusal of MSNBC’s “First Read” blog. On this blog, NBC’s political reporters (Chuck Todd and company) provide “off-the-cuff” analysis of the day’s political events, free from the rigorous journalistic standards of MSNBC’s on-air reporting. The result is a collection of rambling Beltway insights that combines the intellectual originality of David Gergen, the journalistic daring of Larry King, and the ideological independence of Andersen Cooper.

Despite these shortcomings, Chuck Todd’s ‘First Read’ entry today proves that a blind squirrel can find a nut now and again (even if the squirrel is also mentally challenged, a little on the pudgy side, and has a really goofy goatee):

When she wrote that it’s “honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling,” Palin might very well have been referring to Obama, who began running for president just after two years into his first U.S. Senate term. But there is one big difference between the two: Obama’s national reputation was pristine from the moment he gave that 2004 convention speech to his presidential announcement, while Palin’s image (after the Bristol-Levi breakup, the feud with David Letterman, and that devastating Vanity Fair piece) is more of mixed bag.

Todd correctly identifies why Palin cannot mount an Obama-like “movement” campaign for the presidency (if that is what she intends). To create the compelling cultural icon that Obama became during the 2008 campaign, you need a completely unsullied blank slate. Palin cannot be that blank slate because she is already defined in the media as incompetent, unintelligent, and uninspiring. (I know this description enrages many readers, but this is the conditioned reaction to Palin for about half of the voters - not only those on the Left but also those uninformed swing voters who get their impressions of candidates through osmosis from the popular culture.)

Not unexpectedly, Todd does not ask the important question, the question RedState readers should immediately be asking themselves: Why did Obama - with his ties to leftist terrorists like Ayers, corrupt thugs like Rezko, and racist radicals like Wright - have a “pristine reputation” in 2006, while Palin - who by comparison is as clean as the driven snow - is irreparably damaged after less than a year on the stage?

We could whine about media bias or moan about the other side’s unfair attacks, but the truth is that we have not had the will or the organization to hit hard and hit early. Barack Obama should have been seen as a laughingstock, a caricature of a corrupt leftist radical, within months of forming his exploratory committee. The Ayers story was known from the beginning of Obama’s career. Rezko was indicted in October 2006. Wright’s racist rants were being sold to the public on his own church’s website. If we had launched attacks daily and relentlessly on each of these fronts from 2006 forward, the media would be forced to cover the story. Sure, the reports would have been written with heavy undertones of “Look what those dirty, racist Republicans are doing now,” but the story would still be written and Obama’s “pristine” reputation would be gone.

I know the above sounds like a sad and fruitless lamentation over one of the many things that went wrong during the 2005-2008 political season. After all, the battle is lost with respect to Obama - if we beat him now, it will be on his record as President and not the old Chicago stories of radicalism and corruption. The battle is probably lost for Palin as well - it is hard to see an event or story with enough impact to undo all of the negative impressions that have been created over the past year. In sum, Obama is president through 2012, we’ve lost a charismatic champion for our side, and there is little or nothing we can do about it now.

However, we have to learn the lesson that this sad story tells. The politics of personal destruction are here to stay, and we do not have cadres of “unbiased” news reporters to do the dirty work for our side. Maligning reputations of public servants may be a cruel and unsavory weapon, but it is a weapon the other side is wielding to deadly effect. Instead of unilaterally disarming and hoping the rules of the game change, I humbly suggest we take Regan’s “peace through strength” approach. In other words, we need to find the future leaders of the Democratic Party and take them down. Today.

On just the third full day of his administration, Obama ordered that a $461 million federal program for international “population assistance” be used to finance abortions around the world.

This, of course, was old news even before it happened. The so-called “Mexico City policy” (which Obama’s order reversed) has been a political football since 1984. As with any football, the team on offense determines the policy’s direction. Obama’s action was thus a foregone conclusion from the moment Obama won election.

However, even given the utter predictability of this action, I was shocked by the lack of outrage from the right. Did Obama’s team outwit us with the age-old strategy of releasing controversial news on Friday evening? Were we too occupied crafting polemics against an economic stimulus bill to raise our voices on such a core issue to our movement? Or did we just stifle our objections because, well, “elections have consequences”?

Or have we simply started to believe it?

You know what I mean by “it.” You’ve heard it in the monotonous bleating of Beltway pundits discussing the future of the G.O.P. You’ve seen it in the smirk of reporters discussing Sarah Palin’s political prospects. It is the reason that David Frum created NewMajority.com, the reason Christine Whitman created the Republican Leadership Council, and the reason liberals created David Brooks. It is the underlying assumption of a thousand media reports, panel discussions, and strategy memos: “the extreme pro-life agenda is destroying the Republican Party.”

And it is a lie.

The truth is that Americans, according to a poll released by Gallup on Tuesday, oppose Obama’s order by the overwheming margin of 59% to 35%. For reasons of morality, fiscal prudence, or simple common sense, our citizens simply do not want to finance the extermination and disposal of human fetuses in foreign lands. In fact, ordering the funding of overseas abortions was by far the most unpopular action of Obama’s first two weeks – even more unpopular than closing a prison for terrorists.

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Promoted from diaries: video at bottom of post. - Moe Lane

On Monday, Joe Biden’s wife – in an interview with Oprah Winfrey – divulged an interesting little secret: Obama promised Joe Biden an appointment as Secretary of State if he were to turn down the Vice-Presidential nomination.

Scranton Joe hushed his wife with a loud “shh!” immediately after the slip. (Apparently, only Biden men are allowed to make inappropriate verbal gaffes in nationally televised interviews). It was just so darn cute, though, that the audience erupted into laughter. Jill Biden went on to explain that they turned down the SecState job because it would require a lot of travel, and Jill just can’t stand being away from the big lug. At this point, I am guessing that the crowd let out an “awww” that hasn’t been heard since the Olsen twins first strolled out on the set of Full House (and into our hearts). And so, the nation enjoyed yet another endearing and heartwarming moment during the inspirational build-up to the historic inauguration of Saint President Barack Obama.

At least, that is the saccharine spin from the AP. There is, however, an alternative interpretation of this story – one that does not fit quite as well with the mood of excitement and anticipation at the coming Golden Age: Jill Biden inadvertently revealed a serious federal crime by the President-elect, and her husband quickly tried to shut her up before she divulged more details about the criminal act.

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