[Guest post by DRJ]

“They’ve got a king, and the king wants to sit on the throne.”

Statement by Kippen de Alba Chu, executive director of the Friends of Iolani Palace, after he and other staff members were locked down in the palace and a nearby administration building during a takeover by “a group of Native Hawaiians claiming to be the state’s legitimate rulers.”

Hawaii’s Iolani Palace was also taken over in late April as discussed in this earlier post.

UPDATE 8/17/2008 – The King couldn’t find the throne:

“The leader of a Hawaiian pro-sovereignty group that broke into a historic palace once home to royalty said he planned to chain himself to the throne but couldn’t find it because he had never been in the palace before.

But palace officials said three locks, including those securing the throne room, were damaged. No artifacts were damaged or stolen, but the group broke into a barracks building and raised a flag on the flagpole, officials said.

Police arrested 23 people during the stunt, in which members of the Kingdom of Hawaii locked the gates to the Iolani Palace on Friday.

The leader, 67-year-old James Kimo Akahi of Haiku, claims he is the rightful king of the islands. He told reporters Saturday that he had never been in the palace before Friday and didn’t know where the throne was kept.”

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Michael Phelps went 8-for-8 as he won his 8th gold medal in the men’s 400 meter medley relay:

“Aaron Peirsol, Brendan Hansen, Phelps and Jason Lezak won in a world-record of 3 minutes, 29.34 seconds, lowering the old mark of 3:30.68 set four years ago in Athens.”

NBC is worried its ratings will drop now that Phelps’ quest for gold is over, although it “averaged 30 million prime-time viewers over its first eight nights” of Olympic coverage. NBC should be very grateful for Michael Phelps. Maybe it should send him to Disney World.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Gateway Pundit has this great interview from the Beijing Olympics:

“[NBC announcer Chris Cris] Collinsworth: Where does the patriotism come from inside of you? Historically, what is it?

Kobe [Bryant]: Well, you know it’s just our country, it’s… we believe is the greatest country in the world. It has given us so many great opportunities, and it’s just a sense of pride that you have; that you say “You know what? Our country is the best!”

Collinsworth: Is that a ‘cool’ thing to say, in this day and age? That you love your country, and that you’re fighting for the red, white and blue? It seems sort of like a day gone by(?)

Kobe: No, it’s a cool thing for me to say. I feel great about it, and I’m not ashamed to say it. I mean, this is a tremendous honor.”

I admit, I haven’t been a big Kobe fan in the past but I am now. Chris Cris Collinsworth? Not so much.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

I saw part of the Warren interview and recorded the rest to watch later, but I thought it was a superb format that revealed a lot about both candidates.

Feel free to discuss it here.

UPDATE: For those who missed the interview itself, Ann Althouse has an excellent live-blog.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

I don’t care what Denver does to enforce order at the Democratic National Convention (or, for that matter, what Minneapolis-St. Paul does at the Republican Convention), but I wonder why more Democratic leaders aren’t complaining about Denver’s secret jails with the same fervor reserved for Guantanamo:

“The newly created lockup is on the northeast side of Denver. Protesters have already given this place a name: “Gitmo on the Platte.”

Inside are dozens are metal cages. They are made out of chain link fence material and topped by rolls of barbed wire.

“This is a secured environment,” Capt. Frank Gale of the Denver Sheriff’s Department told CBS4. “We’re concerned about how that’s going to be utilized by people who will be potentially disruptive.”

In past conventions, mass arrests have taken place.

With Denver’s jails already overflowing, new space had to be created and officers trained.

Each of the fenced areas is about 5 yards by 5 yards and there is a lock on the door. A sign on the wall reads “Warning! Electric stun devices used in this facility.”

If he wants to be consistent, I think Barack Obama should condemn actions like this by the City of Denver. After all, he doesn’t want to risk losing the endorsement of those 80 volunteer lawyers representing Gitmo detainees.

— DRJ

Anyone in Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Napa, California’s Central Coast, or near the national parks (Yosemite and Sequoia), I may be in your area sometime in the near future. Anyone who’s interested in a meetup, feel free to shoot me an e-mail. I’ll be honest: I’m not optimistic about having time to meet anyone, but you never know.

[Guest post by DRJ]

CNN reports another example of a politician injecting race and gender into the Presidential election:

“If you look at folks of color, even women, they’re more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white, uh, excuse me, in the Republican Party,” [Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard] Dean said Friday in an appearance on NPR’s “Tell Me More” program.

Race and gender. Those are the Democratic talking points in this election.

UPDATE: Here’s the video from Breitbart and an expanded excerpt from the Boston Globe:

“If you look at folks of color, even women, they’re more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white, uh, excuse me, in the Republican Party because we just give more opportunity to folks who are hardworking people who are immigrants and come from members of minority groups,” Dean said at one point.

It’s not the first time Dean has done this. He called the GOP the “white Christian” party in a 2005 interview in San Francisco:

“Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, unapologetic in the face of recent criticism that he has been too tough on his political opposition, said in San Francisco this week that Republicans are “a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same. They all look the same. It’s pretty much a white Christian party.”

“The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people,” Dean said Monday, responding to a question about diversity during a forum with minority leaders and journalists. “We’re more welcoming to different folks, because that’s the type of people we are. But that’s not enough. We do have to deliver on things: jobs and housing and business opportunities.”

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

I don’t plan to read Jerome Corsi’s book Obama Nation so the closest I may come is reading this response from ABC News’ Jake Tapper.

The good news for the Obama campaign is that Tapper describes much of Corsi’s book as “demonstrably false, irresponsible, and feverishly conjured” and “indefensible.” The bad news is Tapper notes several “greedy” overstatements in the Obama campaign’ rebuttal:

Tapper says Corsi is anything but an apologist for the “Bush/Cheney Attack Machine,” as the Obama campaign labels him, and that it’s “not fair to blame [Corsi’s] nasty screed on the President.”

Tapper claims the Obama campaign is wrong to label as a “LIE” Corsi’s allegation that, when Obama ran for state senator, “(i)nstead of stepping aside in deference to (then-state senator Alice) Palmer, Obama decided to fight her for the nomination.” In fact, Tapper says, that’s true.

Tapper stated that, contrary to the claim of the Obama campaign, it was not “baseless” of Corsi to “to question why Obama was using [Gov. Deval] Patrick’s words as his own without crediting him.”

Tapper expresses doubts about the Obama response to Corsi’s claims regarding Obama adviser Air Force General Merrill ‘Tony’ McPeak (Ret.). According to Tapper, Corsi alleged McPeak holds anti-Israel views and the Obama campaign claimed Corsi described McPeak as anti-Semitic, a claim Tapper questioned.

In my opinion, Jerome Corsi had little to do with the ability of the Swift-Boat Veterans to raise doubts about John Kerry four years ago. The veterans’ detailed claims, the number of veterans who participated, Kerry’s inability to refute the claims and his unwillingness to release his military records, and Kerry’s own inflammatory and questionable rhetoric as a war protester and Senator (“seared, seared”) made the Swift-Boat claims effective.

Nevertheless, it’s clear the Obama campaign sees Corsi’s book as a threat and has responded aggressively. That may be good politics but it makes me more uneasy with the campaign’s weak response to Obama’s associations with people like Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers.

I don’t blame the Obama campaign for targeting Corsi and his book but they won’t succeed solely by refocusing the story on Corsi. The story is Barack Obama and he will always be open to attacks like Corsi’s until he defines himself.

Barack Obama is a cipher. He’s spent his whole life being all things to all people and now he’s doing it on a national scale. If Obama can’t define himself – and so far he hasn’t – there will be plenty of people like Corsi who will be happy to do it for him.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

The Obama campaign announced July 2008 fundraising of $51M, nearly double what John McCain raised in the same time period.

The total included 65,000 new donors which propelled the campaign to over 2 million people that have contributed to Obama’s campaign.

Those are very impressive numbers.

— DRJ