By Randall Rasmussen

General Motors will file for bankruptcy today, making it the largest industrial bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Under negotiations led by the Obama administration, U.S. taxpayers will sink another $30 billion into the company on top of $20 billion already loaned to GM. The loans will be taken as stock equity and will give the government a 60 percent ownership stake.

Welcome to Government Motors.

You can read the government’s fact sheet here.

The Wall Street Journal weighed in this morning with an editorial that you can read here.

I have opposed government intervention in failing businesses as counterproductive, and GM is a prime example.

GM was declared “too big to fail” and the Treasury Department earlier loaned it $20 billion to avoid bankruptcy. Now, taxpayers have bought in to the tune of $50 billion, and GM is still bankrupt.

It was a bad idea to bailout GM and it is an even worse idea to, in effect, buy the company in order to save it.

Canada will get 12 percent of GM, the United Autoworkers Union will get 17.5 percent and the bondholders will get a paltry 10 percent.

If GM had gone into bankruptcy without government interference, the private bondholders would have received more than 50 percent of the company. A major reason for keeping government out of the marketplace is it chooses sides and plays favorites with political partners. The UAW is a political ally of President Obama, and he came through for them – big time. We taxpayers will pay the price.

I expect that taxpayers will continue to subsidize GM and its products, which fewer people will want to own.

By Kevin Woster

Personally, I don’t mind so much when politicians break campaign promises.

Some of them deserve to be broken. Many of them should have never been made in the first place.

The campaign trail - with its phony emotions, manipulative policy points and pandering promises  - is a really bad place to develop a presidential platform and chart the course of a nation. Good elected officials know that intuitively, I’d think, but understand it practically when they come into office.

At least, I hope they do. And there are some pretty strong indications that’s the case with Barack Obama.

His subtle and not-so-subtle back-stepping in areas that include the use of military tribunals and the handling of suspected terrorists who are captured in other countries tells me that he’s a talented politician quickly evolving into a real-life leader. It hasn’t all come naturally, of course. He’s had some evolutionary help in some areas, including the slap-down delivered by Democratic allies such as Jim Webb and Harry Reid over the dubiously devised shut-down schedule for Guantanamo. That might have the ultra-liberals wailing but it makes me feel better about the guy in the White House.

When it comes to keeping America safe and helping its citizens in a multiplicity of ways, I’ll take an angst-ridden decider over a smooth-talking promiser any day.

With the period of promises over until the 2012 campaign, Obama must be a decider, smooth talking or not.

If he bends, breaks or delays some of his many 2008 promises, that’s just fine with me.

By Kevin Woster

Some of my fellow gun owners are getting pretty worked up about the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S> Supreme Court.

Some think her nomination is a sign by President Obama that he is in essence declaring war on American gun owners.

I think that’s clearly an overstatement aimed at manipulating the gun-loving masses, although clearly Obama likes the idea of gun control and certainly Sotomayor has shown judicial leanings that way. The most obvious I guess is her involvement in a three-judge federal ruling in 2004 that included this already oft-quoted partial sentence: “the right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right.”

I’m not sure how one tells the difference between a right and a fundamental right. Nor am I sure how much that sentence tells us about Sotomayor and her feelings about the Second Amendment, or Obama and his feelings about the same subject, for that matter.

I guess we’ll get to find out about Sotomayor. Becuase I can’t imagine this nomination won’t go through.

And I’m pretty sure that Sotomayor won’t be less sympathetic toward guns rights than Justic David Souter, who she would replace. So at worst it seems like we’ll keep the Second Amendment status quo.

And I really think Obama’s position on guns is a work in progress. I’ve been heartened by the way the president has taken positions that didn’t exactly thrill his liberal base, simply - it seemed to me - because he was acting like a president to all people.

He hasn’t done that on every issue, of course. Nor would I expect him to. Politics permeates the Obama administration just as it did the Bush administration.

But it’s interesting to watch a new president shape himself in response to important issues and challenges. When he gets around to guns - willingly or otherwise - I’d expect him to be a different man than the younger Obama, who showed a pretty clear anti-gun bias.

How much different he will be is something the president himself might not yet know.

By Kevin Woster

If I were running for governor - a thought hilarious enough to make the four faces smile - I’d get a bit nervous about the bucks.

Suppose you had a fund-raising barbecue, for example, and nobody came? Or they showed up, snarfed up the shrimp and Riesling and disappeared into the night?

None of that happened to Dave Knudson over at Kelby Krabbenhoft’s place, where burgers were served and $250,000 was raised for Knudson’s campaign run. (Speaking of Krabbenhoft, people seemed surprised that the stormy-looking weather cleared up perfectly for the outdoor gathering. I wasn’t. If the guy can control a system full of doctors, I can’t imagine he’d have much trouble with the weather.)

Added to the $170,000 or so Knudson brought into 2009, he’s sitting pretty good for bucks at this point in his run for the Republican nomination for governor.  He’s still less than halfway to Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard, however, who began the year with $811,000 on hand and surely must has raised a few more greenbacks since January.

I’ve got an e-mail in to Daugaard on that point. And I hope to add an update on his fund-raising soon. (Is there anything else to do with an update but add it?)

I mentioned the money to Democratic possible Scott Heidepriem yesterday, and wondered if it intimidated him. He said not so much, having raised $200,000 for a state Senate race. (Doesn’t that seem like a lot for a state legislative race, even in Sioux Falls?)

Heidpepriem hasn’t begun official fund-raising yet, although I have to believe he’s made some contacts with people, and knows what’s out there. He waits and taps his toe while Stephanie Herseth Sandlin ponders the fugure and delays the Democratic Party candidate movement toward 2010.

ALmost certainly, she knows what she’s going to do by now. If she doesn’t, she begins to raise questions about her decision making. Uncertainty at this point is starting to become, well, unbecoming.

Surely she knows. Why won’t she tell?

I think Heidpepriems comments to me yesterday may give a hint of the Herseth Sandlin decision (or, rather, announcement) to come. He said he’s not interested in a U.S. House race, and really only has eyes on the state governor’s chair. (Also not interested in another state Senate term.)

I can’t imagine he’d say that unless he was pretty sure - or already knew - that Herseth Sandlin wasn’t running for governor.

Clearly Heidepriem wouldn’t challenge her for her House seat. Neither would any other Democrat in his or her right mind. And if she were serious about the governor’s run, I have to believe Heidepriem wouldn’t be turning away from a possible House run (although he didn’t rule that out completely.)

So, I’m tempted to say it’s all but settled. Herseth Sandlin will run for the House again, while Heidepriem will become the lead Democrat - at least initially - in a governor’s race that should be the most interesting and competitive since 1986.

Where the heck’s Denise when I want to throw down a bet?

By Kevin Woster

Paul Guggenheimer seemed puzzled a few moments ago when I told him I thought that Judge Sonia Sotomayor seemed to be a moderate nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Apparently, NSU political science professor Ken Blanchard preceded me on the Guggenheimer’s Dakota Midday radio show by defining Sotomayor as more of a liberal. (I missed that, because I was so busy right up to air time - as usual - churning out news for the benefit of Lee Enterprises and support of the First Amendment and a free America … or something like that).

Anyway, Blanchard probably had more basis for his appraisal of Sotomayor than I did. Mine was based on one story by the Associated Press, the nation’s oldest, largest and some would say best news-gathering organization. (At least that’s what my brother said back when he worked for them.)

A back-channel source provided this interesting New Republic story on Sotomayor, which may provide better insight than either Blanchard or I (as hard as that might be for Ken and me to believe).

Mike Belmessieri, of South San Francisco, salutes in front of the grave of U.S. Marine Michael Bianchini at the Golden Gate National Cemetery, where over 100,000 U.S. war veterans are buried, in San Bruno, Calif., on Friday. Binachini died serving in Vietnam. Belmessieri, himself a former Marine, is active in promoting causes for veterans. His son Dominic Belmessieri is a U.S. Marine about to be deployed to Afghanistan after two tours in Iraq. (The Associated Press)

By Randall Rasmussen

Today is Memorial Day, a day set aside to honor the men and women who have died in service to their country.

We should be forever grateful that they were willing to defend this nation and our freedoms, and willingly gave up their lives for that cause.

Abraham Lincoln said it best 146 years ago at the dedication of a battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg, Pa.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Thank a veteran and remember our fallen soldiers, sailors and airmen who died so that we may live free.

By Kevin Woster

It might just be a one-day political fund-raising record in South Dakota.

The Dave Knudson for governor campaign took in $250,000 Thursday at a backyard barbecue hosted by Sanford health CEO Kelby Krabbenhoft and his wife, Heidi, in Sioux Falls, along with a host of co-hosts.

“Because it’s a tough fund-raising environment, I was pretty pleased,” Knudson told the crack Mount Blogmore political reporting team today. “As far as I know, that’s more than anybody has raised in a single event ever in South Dakota.”

If that’s not true, somebody will tell us. Kranz? Mercer? Denise? Napoli? (I threw in Napoli because people are always accusing me of promoting him, so what the heck…)

The Knudson event was  casual, with jeans common and burgers served. But the donations were serious. The suggested level was $1,000, and about 200 folks turned out. The list of co-hosts included:  Barb and Tom Everist, Dave and Jill Bockorny, Bob Thimjon, Tom and Patti Dempster, Dan Kirby, Jeff and Carol Parker, Kevin and Carmen Schieffer; Rob and Larissa Skjonsberg and Don and Christine Dunham.

Skjonsberg is especially interesting, since he was chief of staff to Gov. Mike Rounds, who supports and promotes the campaign of Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard. Also on the Knudson bandwagon is former Rounds press secretary Mark Johnston.

“I think they look at the total picture and believe I’m the better governor,” Knudson said.

Rounds believes otherwise, of course. And Daugaard began 2009 with both the governor’s endorsement and a substantial lead in campaign funds, close to $900,000, versus Knudson’s $170,000 or so. (I’m remembering here, not looking, so proceed with caution…)

But in the catch-up game, Knudson had a surge Thursday that helps solidify his standing as a candidate to deal with.

“I needed to make a big effort to catch up, and I certainly still have a substantial ways to go, ” he said.

He’s planning fund-raising events similar to Krabbenhoft’s for Rapid City, probably in June, and other bigger communities.

My guess is, the Sioux Falls even will be the high-water financial mark for the campaign. But money makes money in campaigns, so it will surely influence giving elsewhere.

“It was certainly a major effort,” Knudson said. “We’d been working on it for a month, with a large group of co-hosts. They made a lot of calls. I made a lot of calls.”

And they called in the cash.

By Randall Rasmussen

It was high noon in Washington, D.C., Thursday. First President Barack Obama spoke at the National Archives, defending his policy on prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama attacked the Bush administration’s approach to fighting terrorism a “poorly planned, haphazard approach.”

Then former Vice President Dick Cheney took the podium at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, defending President Bush’s national security policies. Cheney attacked the Obama administration’s approach: “Finding some less judgmental or more pleasant-sounding name for terrorists doesn’t change what they are or what they would do if we let them loose.”

You can read Obama’s speech here. Cheney’s speech is here.

One day after the Senate voted 90-6 to cut funds to close Guantanamo Bay and bar the administration from bringing the terrorists to U.S. soil, Obama said he was going to bring the prisoners to maximum security prisons in the U.S. and put them on trial. No one has ever escaped from a maximum security prison, Obama pointed out.

But bringing al-Qaida suspects to a U.S. prison also brings them within reach of something worse: lawyers. ACLU lawyers will descend on the prison where the detainees are brought like flies to a turd. They will jump at the chance to defend the terror suspects and make their own anti-America arguments.

Cheney was in fine form and made one of the clearest defenses of the Bush administration’s response to 9/11 yet presented.

Obama vs. Cheney. Mano a mano. Who won?

By Kevin Woster

Suddenly, I feel like such an idiot.

Just imagine, I’d been wasting all that time lately thinking about SDSU President David Chicoine and whether it was appropriate for him to sit on the Monsanto board, which gave him $195,000 worth of stocks and pays him $195,000 a year.

To, well,  sit on the board.

Chicoine also gets $320,000 or so in a state salary for running SDSU, which many of us would consider a livable wage in Brookings.

I’ve been wondering whether it’s appropriate for the president of our land-grant agriculture school to sit on the board of a giant in the world of corporate agriculture, and to received hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation from that corporate giant. I’ve even been stupid enough to worry about whether it could could in any way raise questions about the research integrity of the school, particularly when Monsanto is involved in funding it, or the thrust and balance of the agriculture education offered there.

Silly me. Turns out I was just being a backwards-thinking South Dakotan, as usual. (Which I suppose is understandable, since SDSU was just a D-2 school when I attended.)  Anyway, USD President Jim Abbott cleared things up for me on the public broadcasting show, South Dakota Focus, just moments ago, when my main man Rich Muller politely raised the issue of Chicoine’s Monsanto position and perks.

Not to worry, Abbott said with a trademarked sniff. In fact, it’s standard procedure at universities across the nation to have school presidents on corporate boards, and apparently to have them be well compensated for it.

It’s part of a valuable academic-industrial connection on research that is widely recognized and valued across the Land of Division One, says Abbott, who makes the same state salary as Chicoine - a livable wage in Vermillion, I’d guess - and also sits on a corporate board or two.

Only in South Dakota, it seems, would anyone question a proven and productive collaboration between industry and education.

“We might be the last state in the union where people don’t catch that right away,” he said.

Well, shucks, shoot, durn and golly whiz, I’m plumb sorry to be one of the dumb ones. I shoulda known that a corporation wouldn’t expect any favors in return for a few hundred thousands dollars here and there.

What was I thinkin?

By Kevin Woster

I’ll have to admit, I don’t recall ever gazing up at the granite face of Mount Rushmore and thinking: “Gee, I wish I had my Glock.”

But then, I don’t have a Glock. I have a Ruger, two Remingtons and a Stevens or two. And I find good use for them all.

But I haven’t felt the urge to carry them on my visits to Mount Rushmore, or Badlands National Park, or Wind Cave National Park.

Which doesn’t mean I oppose provisions of law approved by Congress this week to allow people to carry loaded weapons, as allowed by state law, in national parks.  I don’t much care either way whether we change the current policy, which requires that guns be unloaded and cased while transported through national parks. (Although I would like a full discussion on why we can’t allow hunting in Wind Cave, to be used as a management tool as it is with apparent good effects in adjoining Custer State Park.)

It’s aggravating that the policy change was tagged onto the previously mentioned credit-card reform bill. Such mixing of issues, while common, is a bad way to run a Congress. It diminishes clear debate and defined positions on one issue by injecting another, and forces people to vote for something they hate to get something they love.

So, in voting against the credit card bill for purely South Dakota political reasons (even former Gov. Bill Janklow, the father of the credit-card industry in South Dakota, says the regulations won’t kill the industry here), Tim Johnson and John Thune will now have a “no” vote on an “aye” issue for the NRA.

And while each has a perfectly reasonable - from a political standpoint - reason for the vote, it’s still likely to be considered anti-gun. That could cost either or both their “A” rating, I’d think.

That’s just goofy. It’s also another example of the need for change in a the mishmash of D.C. politics that leads to all these odd legislative bed fellows (the bills, not the people, although…).

Barack Obama is known as the change agent. He could show it by vetoing a bill that includes provisions that have nothing to do with each other and do nothing to support statesmanship.

He might get overridden. And he’d have to come back for another round on the credit-card bill, just as the guns-in-parks folks would have to wait and try again, too.

That would be best for both issues.

By Kevin Woster

So, if you’re on the minority end of a 90-5 vote in the U.S. Senate, do you go home wondering if everybody else knows something you don’t?

I couldn’t help but wonder after I read in this morning’s Journal (I’m on vacation, and on a short break in-between streams) that Sens. Tim Johnson and John Thune voted against a credit-card reform bill supported by 90 senators.

90-5. That was the vote. South Dakota’s senators joined Lama Alexander of Tennessee, Jon Kyl of Arizona and Robert Bennett of Utah in voting against the bill, which credit card companies in South Dakota say will hurt their business and cost South Dakota jobs.

South Dakota has a distinct interest on that issue. Credit-cards have been good to the state in job creation, business growth and tax generation. It would be easy to say that Citibank and First Premier and the like have been great benefits to the state. They have been.

But it could also be argued that those benefits came in large part on the backs of people who were spending money they didn’t have, building a troublesome debt load they found debilitating and that they were encouraged in those unwise spending-borrowing habits by the credit-card companies themselves.

South Dakota has benefitted in many says - including millions of dollars in charitable giving from First Premier’s Denny Sanford - from money that was largely provided by credit-card users in other states.

Senators from those other states - 90 of them at last count  - seem to think reform is needed. It’s hard to know what Johnson and Thune think. It’s easier to know what they know:

Credit cards are big business in South Dakota.

That was obvious in their votes.

Next up, the House, and Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin.

It’ll be interesting to see what she thinks, or knows.

By Jerry Steinley

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin says she isn’t worried about GOP criticism, but she should be.

From the Associated Press: “Herseth Sandlin’s Blue Dog rhetoric has South Dakotans red-faced as she continues to say one thing in South Dakota and to do the exact opposite in Washington,” South Dakota Republican Party Executive Director Lucas Lentsch said after the House passed a budget outline. “Instead of being fiscally responsible, the purported Blue Dog Herseth Sandlin is paddling in a river of red ink.”

With fancy rhetoric like that – blug dog/red faced, paddling in a river of red ink – the message is sure to be resonate with voters.

Our lone House representative has painted herself a fiscal conservative wanting to cut the federal deficit; and it’s growing at record pace. She might have voted against TARP, but she’s still a Democrat, and in 2010 “Democrat” will be spun as being synonymous with overspending.

Herseth Sandlin was almost a shoe-in for any seat she went after in the 2010 election, but the GOP has found the chink in her (and every Democrats) armor.

How does this play out for Herseth Sandlin and South Dakota politics in 2010?

By Randall Rasmussen

President Barack Obama was presented with an honorary degree and gave the commencement address at Notre Dame University Sunday.

All the controversy stemmed from the president’s pro-choice views conflicting with the stated vision of the Catholic Church that supports the university.

You can read his speech here.

I thought it was a pretty good speech. It seemed to set the right tone for a commencement address and avoided partisan speechifying.

He even touched on the abortion question.

“So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions, let’s reduce unintended pregnancies. Let’s make adoption more available. Let’s provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term. Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound science, but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women. Those are things we can do.

“Now, understand — understand, Class of 2009, I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it — indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory — the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.”

Sage advice.

In fact, Obama’s speech has a lot of good advice. The Class of 2009 would do well by heeding much of it.

By Kevin Woster

Dr. Rowen Zetterman gave my son, Casey, and 126 other members of the Creighton University School of Medicine Class of 2009 an inspirationally solemn send-off into into their residency programs last night here in Omaha.

The world of health care is troubled in the United States, the dean of Creighton’s med school said, with too many uninsured, too many who can’t afford the care they need, too many areas of sub-par health outcomes for a nation with great resources that should rank at the top internationally in providing medical services.

In slapping the graduates with a dose of 2009 reality, Zetterman also issued a challenge: Things can improve. And they can improve one doctor at a time.

His message emphasizing a commitment to service was labeled as a “charge to the graduates” in the program of the “Hooding and Academic Honors Convocation” at the Quest Center. And it came, appropriately enough, before the graduates took the Oath of Hippocrates, including these powerful words: “I will maintain the utmost respect for human life and the dignity of my fellow man. I will not use my knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity and will strive to do no harm.”

As the father of a doctor - What, my little boy’s a doctor?!  How did that happen? - now heading for St. Paul Regions to train in and practice emergency medicine, I feel the weight of those words like never before. And I also got a sense of the weight that Dr. Zetterman placed on 127 sets of shoulders,  a charge for unrelenting service and a commitment to change that I hope they all figure out how to carry.

But what can doctors themselves do to improve a good system that seems to cost too much and ends up beyong the reach of too many Americans? And did the change the dean spoke of begin with the meeting President Obama had with doctors, and his charge - on a grander, more politically-charged scale than Dr. Zetterman’s - to find meaningful cost saving in health care in coming years and reshape the system so it better serves the nation and its sick?

I hope so, for my son and other new doctors, and all the patients they will serve.

By Randall Rasmussen

Don’t say I’ve never supported anything Barack Obama does. On Wednesday, Obama announced his administration would try to block the court-ordered release of photos allegedly showing U.S. troops abusing battlefield prisoners.

He did the right thing for the right reasons.

Obama said he was reversing his position on the photos because they would “further inflame anti-American opinion” and endanger U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“This is not a situation in which the Pentagon has concealed or sought to justify inappropriate action,” Obama said of the photos. “In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”

The administration may yet lose its appeal of the court-ordered photo release, but he’s right that the photos show nothing that hasn’t been seen before – in particular, the Abu Ghraib pictures – and the images would be used for propaganda purposes by our enemy and provide an excuse for more violence against Americans.

Right on, Barack.

By Jerry Steinley

Earlier this year I realized my credit card company had upped the interest rate on my card to a whopping 21 percent without my knowledge. They did it because I was a few days late on a payment. With good credit it was easy to get the rate lowered to where it was — 7 percent — but I’d already paid dearly in interest rates for the time the fee was hiked.

The Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009 (see the Senate version here) would put an end to those kind of shenanigans by the card company and it will almost certainly be on the president’s desk by Memorial Day.  The bill passed the House with widespread support, although not the support of Rep. Herseth Sandlin who said the bill didn’t find the balance between guarenteeing access to credit and putting an end to deceptive practices.

Thanks to lax usury laws, the credit industry results in about 20,000 jobs in South Dakota. I think the industry could survive some common sense reform imposed by Congress and people will still have access to plenty of credit.

Herseth Sandlin missed the mark on this one. We’ll see how Johnson does later this week.

By Randall Rasmussen

The saga of the most-famous beauty pageant runner-up reached its climax Tuesday when Donald Trump, owner of the Miss USA pageant, said Miss California USA Carrie Prejean could keep her crown.

Prejean became a lightning rod for the gay marriage debate when she was asked during the Miss USA pageant about legalizing gay marriage. She answered that she believed marriage was between a man and a woman. The judge who asked the question, Perez Hilton, is a gay advocate and viciously criticized Prejean after the pageant.

Later, semi-nude photos taken of her when she was a teenage model surfaced and were posted on the Internet, prompting Miss USA officials to investigate whether to take away her Miss California title.

Trump defended her, telling a packed news conference, “We’ve made a determination that the pictures taken were acceptable. Some were risque, but we are in the 21st century.”

Trump also defended her answer at the April 19 Miss USA pageant. “It’s the same answer the president of the United States gave,” Trump said. “It’s the same answer many people gave. She gave an honorable answer. She gave an answer from her heart, and I think for that she has to be commended.”

Prejean addressed the media: “On April 19 on that stage I exercised my freedom of speech, and I was punished for doing so.
“This should not happen in America.”

The Associated Press story says Prejean said she was briefly tempted by Satan to answer Hilton’s question in a way that would please the judges. Instead, she said she decided to give her honest opinion, even if it prevented her from winning the pageant.

Prejean’s story has a moral.

If the left doesn’t like what a person says, they’ll attack them and try to destroy them.

Unless, they’re politically useful. Thus, President Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden can say that marriage is between a man and a woman and the left ignores them because A) they know they’re lying, or B) they’re politically useful to further the liberal agenda in other areas.

Carrie Prejean, on the other hand, was openly Christian and believed in what she said. That made her a target.

Fortunately, her story has a happy ending, so far.

To the smart one goes the salmon: KW serves up the fish in settling up on the long-due Botticelli’s meal with Denise Ross, as Susie and Bill enjoy.

By Kevin Woster

Three years ago, I gave the Democratic presidential nomination to Hillary.

That happened to be two years before the actual primary, and about 20 seconds before Denise Ross said: get serious.

No way, Denise said, too many negatives. She’ll never be the nominee.

At that time, we didn’t know much about the kid named Obama. (OK, so he was 44 at the time, but he seemed like a kid.) But I knew Hillary was the one as surely as Denise knew she wasn’t.

Turned out that Denise knew more than I did, which is not unusual.

Obama proved me wrong - but not by that much - in an extraordinary primary victory almost a year ago. Which is, coincidentally, about how long I owed Denise a dinner out at the Botticelli’s.

It was a long delay, but it wasn’t entirely my fault. She and her husband, Dave, complicated the schedule with a baby boy, David. Then there was that pesky 2008 campaign season to get through.

And a winter that was a lot worse than the campaign.

And finally, Saturday night was payback time in downtown Rapid City. But I had some help.

Former Journal reporter, Blogmore founder and neutrino translator Bill Harlan went in with me on the Hillary pick way back when, and agreed to buy dessert. Bill Fleming - a completely innocent bystander who ends up in trouble simply by being a nice guy - wanted to pay for the wine.

In the end, Harlan, Fleming - accompanied by wives of superior reasoning powers named  Marge, Susie and Mary - divided the $300 tab and happily consumed an evening of good food, great friendship and rigorous political speculation - but  no new bets - with Denise and Dave. (David the superboy was home taking care of the grandparents.)

It could have been worse for me. A lot worse.

Now that I have the big bill out of the way, I can start working on my many smaller tabs from the election season.

I owe Tom Fritz a hamburger on the general, and Tyler What’s-His-Name from Badlands Blue a burger, fries and shake, for either the primary or the general, or both.

It was a tough campaign season for me. I might bet candy bars in 2010.

(Oh, by the way, that’s Bill Harlan in the photo below, delivering dessert. And how do you like the way the type is being displayed, Harlan? Suddenly the cranky Mount BLogmore machine won’t let me write UNDER the photos…But really, who’d want to do that?)

By Kevin Woster

There’s no split among Catholics at our house about the president’s visit to Notre Dame.

There’ no real passion, either. We think there are bigger things to worry about.

Some Catholics disagree, including - apparently - the U.S. Catholic bishops, or at least most of them, on the record at least. You can read some of that feeling on Mary’s blog which you should check out on the regular basis here on the RCJ Web site, if  - like me - you’re interested in religion and spirituality and the politics that often go with them.

But neither my wife nor I are upset by the idea of a president with a clear pro-choice philosophy  speaking at the May 17 commencement at the Catholic university that,  in theory at least, promotes an anti-abortion philosophy. And we’re not outraged  that Barack Obama will receive an honorary degree from the school, either.

He’s the president. He’s a good man, from everything I know and have seen so far. He believes in this nation and in his vision for it as fervently as George W. Bush believed in a different vision for the land he loves.

Obama departs from the Catholic Church on the abortion issue, and from the church-influenced feelings on this issue at our house. And that’s a big issue to depart on, for most Catholics - even those with doubts about the way the church sometimes advances its opposition to abortion.  But denying our president access to an important Catholic campus and audience wouldn’t do anything to change that.

Rather, it would deepen a divide that we should be trying to fill and cross.

If those who would block the president’s visit fail , as I’d expect they will, and he attends and speaks, I have no doubt that he’ll hear from some Catholic clergy - I’d suggest a thoughtful, forceful nun (are there any other kind?) for starters - about the church’s concerns about his position on that key Catholic issue.

And I have no doubt that he’ll honor the Catholic university and its graduates (and isn’t the day supposed to be about them, rather than social and political wars?). And you could further argue that in appearing there, he will to a degree  also be honoring what the school and the church stand for.

Including, among the many key points of conscience and policy regarding human life and social issues,  its opposition to abortion.

What’s there to get outraged about in that?

By Randall Rasmussen

Former Vice President Dick Cheney lately has been the frontman for defending the previous administration. On Sunday, he took to the TV airwaves to say he’d rather follow radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh than former Joint Chiefs chairman Colin Powell in political battle.

If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I’d go with Rush Limbaugh. My take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican,” Cheney said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Last week, Powell said the Republican Party was too far right and needed to move to the center if it wanted to win elections. Powell, a Republican, endorsed Barack Obama in November.

Powell also said “Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less.”

“The suggestion our Democratic friends always make is somehow if you Republicans were just more like Democrats, you’d win elections,” Cheney said. “Well, I don’t buy that. We win elections when we have good solid conservative principles to run upon.”

Cheney also said in the CBS interview that:
– transferring suspected terrorists from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States would be a bad idea that would enlarge their legal rights.
– it remained his belief the U.S. has become more vulnerable to a potential terrorist attack since the Obama administration renounced harsh interrogation tactics such as waterboarding that Cheney said provided good intelligence.
– the administration should release CIA memos he said list successes derived from those interrogations, including “attack planning that was under way and how it was stopped.”

Despite popular opinion, I like Cheney. He’s a rarity in Washington: someone who speaks his mind without worrying about offending liberal opinion makers.

Still, you know the Republican Party is in trouble when two members of the previous administration argue over the direction the party should take.

Cheney is right about one thing: Republicans trying to become more like Democrats isn’t going to win elections.