Politics/1st Amendment? It gets tough trying to separate the two some days. Updated from the top. Please treat this as a blog-within-a-blog, come back often, and scroll down till you hit something you saw on your last visit.

• Nancy Pelosi's First 100 Days
• Barry brings up the rear
• Hasta la Free Speech
• ACLU To Defend Nazis Again
• Democrats in Congress to Consider Making Laws
• The Law Of Unintended Consequences
• The Incredible Shrinking Candidates

***

Nancy Pelosi's First 100 Days

***

Barry brings up the rear
Michelle Malkin

Barry-come-lately jumps on the anti-rap misogyny bandwagon. Here's what he said late today:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday questioned the way some rappers talk about women in songs, saying the lyrics are similar to the derogatory language used by embattled radio host Don Imus.

They are "degrading their sisters. That doesn't inspire me," Obama said of some hip-hop artists when a man in a crowd of about 1,000 questioned him. The Illinois senator was responding to a question of what inspired him, and said God and civil rights activists.

Earlier this week, Obama criticized Imus, who was fired Thursday for labeling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos." ...

Funny, I don't recall Obama bringing this up when he met Ludacris last fall. The Media Blog reminds us of Luda's ho-ho-ho-ciferousness. ...

***

Hasta la Free Speech 
Jules Crittenden

An apology probably should have sufficed for saying something stupid, unfunny and defamatory.  Not that I want to defend Don Imus. He should have been fired years ago for his colossal body of stupid, unfunny work on an unlistenable show. 

One of my favorite Kurt Vonnegut stories was the one about mandatory handicaps,* and the grotesque ballet of dancers wearing weights so they wouldn’t be more graceful than oanyone else.  That is where we are headed.  Safety helmets, kneepads, blacked-out see-no-evil goggles and gags all around. ...

Big winner in this thing, Katie Couric. Looks like we can only take one media scandal at a time, and her ghost-written plagiarism has dropped off the radar.  According to the standard set in the other, excuse me, latest CBS scandal, they just should have fired Imus’ producer, because he’s the one who set up the stupid remark.

***

ACLU To Defend Nazis Again 
Ed Morrissey

The ACLU lost a number of members in 1977 when they defended the American Nazi Party when they wanted to stage a demonstration in the town of Skokie, Illinois -- a city where a number of Holocaust victims and their families had settled. Over 30,000 ACLU members staged a demonstration of their own when they marched out of the organization, even after the ACLU won the case, and even though the Nazis never did march in Skokie.

Thirty years later, the ACLU proves that they have not learned their lesson. The Ohio chapter has agreed to represent the American Nazi Party again in a conflict over a demonstration permit, this time in a predominantly black neighborhood in Cincinnati. ...

***

Democrats in Congress to Consider Making Laws
Scott Ott

(2007-04-13) — Democrats who control the House and Senate today agreed to a long term “progressive” strategy to begin making laws sometime in late 2008 or early 2009, once they complete their investigations of everyone in the Bush administration. ...

***

The Law Of Unintended Consequences 
Ed Morrissey

Don Imus started a brushfire of criticism for the latest in a series of racially insensitive remarks last week, ultimateky costing him his broadcasting platforms at CBS and NBC. Much of the demand for his termination came from the efforts of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, two former Democratic presidential candidates (2004 and 1988, respectively), who fired up demands for boycotts against Imus' sponsors. Their success may present a problem for their party, however, as Democrats routinely used Imus to access independent white male voters who comprised a large part of his audience:

They came by the hundreds that hot August day in tiny Johnson City, Tenn., gathering on an asphalt parking lot to meet Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. It was not just that he might become the state's first black senator. More than that, even in Republican eastern Tennessee, the Democratic congressman was a celebrity — a regular guest on Don Imus' radio show.

And today, with Imus' career in tatters, the fate of the controversial shock jock is stirring quiet but heartfelt concern in an unlikely quarter: among Democratic politicians. ...

Who appeared with Imus over the last few years? Men like [Rep. Harold E.] Ford [Jr.], John Kerry, and Barack Obama. Chris Dodd recently appeared to announce his candidacy for the presidential race. Kerry made a few appearances during his presidential bid in 2004, and undoubtedly the Democrats planned to have their eventual nominee do the same next year. Without Imus, the options for talk radio run to whatever's left of Air America -- and Al Franken doesn't work there any more. ...

***

The Incredible Shrinking Candidates
Why is there so little dignity in the presidential campaign?
Peggy Noonan

On Wednesday John McCain distinguished himself with a closely argued and eloquent address in which he spoke seriously and at length of his position on Iraq. He said America faces "an historic choice" with "ramifications for Americans not yet even born."

"Many Democrats," he said, view the war as "a political opportunity," while Republicans view it as "a political burden." But it is neither, he said. It is not a political question to be poll-tested but a challenge that bears on our continuance as a great nation. We must stay and fight and win.

"It may be standard-setting," the Hotline said of the remarks the next day, "perhaps the most powerful plea a war supporter has . . . sent to the American people since the troop surge began. Has any other presidential candidate written a speech to persuade--importune--an audience to change their minds?"

You can agree or disagree with Mr. McCain, but where he stands is clear--and clarity these days, from our candidates, feels like a gift. As does certitude. He isn't running from the war but owning it. A political rival might say, "He has no choice." But there's always a choice.

My larger point, however, is that he sounded like a serious man addressing a serious issue in a serious way. This makes him at the moment stand out. ...

***

In case you didn't make it by yesterday:

• 2007.04.12 Politics Roundup
  • LAT poll: Rudy 29, Fred! 15, McCain 12
  • LA Times Poll: Fred Gains As McCain Drops Back
  • There is no Fred Thompson Boulevard
  • 5 in the morning
  • Hoffa: We'll "Blow Up" Denver For Dem Convention
  • Thompson and Gingrich; apples and oranges
  • McCain Unbound
  • Fun Facts About The 110th Congress