[Guest post by DRJ]

“U.S. President Barack Obama bows to Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio at MacDill Air Force Base on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010 in Tampa, Fla.”

H/T Hot Air and GatewayPundit, because I didn’t believe it the first time I saw it.

— DRJ

I was wondering how I had initially gotten the idea that James O’Keefe had been accused of trying to wiretap Mary Landrieu’s phones. After all, if you look at my original post — in which I mistakenly said O’Keefe had been arrested for “allegedly attempting to bug Mary Landrieu’s office” — I linked a Times-Picayune blog post as my source. Follow that link, and you’ll see it begins as follows:

Alleging a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O’Keefe, 25, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group’s credibility.

Hm. Nothing about wiretapping there.

When I read the affidavit later that day and saw there was no allegation of wiretapping, I tried to figure out why I had messed it up. I went back and clicked on the above link to the Times-Picayune blog post, where I saw the language quoted above. So, I assumed that I had just misread the story, and had leapt to a bad conclusion.

As it turns out, I hadn’t. The Times-Picayune blog post originally said something different:

Alleging a plot to wiretap Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O’Keefe, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group’s credibility.

That’s how the very same story was originally quoted at Ace’s. And at a whole bunch of other places.

See, the Times-Picayune originally said it was a wiretapping plot. Then, later in the day, they stealth-corrected their post. Meaning that when I went back to look, I was reading different language than I had originally read at the same link. I rubbed my eyes and thought: “I could have sworn that story said he had tried to wiretap her. Guess not.”

I wasn’t hallucinating. It had said that. I just didn’t catch the stealth correction — until now.

Weaselly move on the part of the Times-Picayune.

By the way, that fact-challenged CBS story has now been fully corrected. Glad to see it.

[Guest post by DRJ]

David Axelrod explains that President Obama has become used to “unusual outbursts” in response to his Congressional speeches, and includes in that group Justice Alito’s reaction to Obama’s State of the Union remarks:

Alito’s “unusual outburst”:

— DRJ

Roman Polanski could be in his Gstaad chalet for a year:

Film director Roman Polanski could spend up to a year in courts appealing if Switzerland decided to extradite him to the United States, the Swiss justice minister was quoted as saying on Sunday.

. . . .

“After an extradition decision by the Swiss justice ministry, Mr. Polanski has the possibility of appealing to the Federal Criminal Court and then the Federal Supreme Court,” Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf told the newspaper Le Matin Dimanche.

“It’s hard to say how long (an appeal) would take, but it could be from several months to a year.”

The evident goal here is for him to collect so much time “served” at his chalet that, when that time is credited against any possible prison sentence he might receive, Polanski wouldn’t have to spend any time at all in a California prison. I won’t express any opinion as to whether he would be entitled to have his time at the chalet credited against any prison sentence. But if he were entitled to such credit, and if it takes a year for all the appeals to be resolved, that could eat up most or all of the actual time he would have to serve — given he reportedly faces a maximum sentence of two years, minus any credits he would already be entitled to from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Lovely.

Disclaimer.

P.S. The story repeats the canard that there was an “agreement” that he serve only 42 more days:

He has said he feared the judge was going to renege on an agreement to sentence him to the 42 days he had already served behind bars.

An “agreement” implies a quid pro quo. And as I have explained countless times, there was no “agreement” because Polanski pled to a charge that he knew carried at least 20 years, with no agreement as to what the sentence would be.

Good luck trying to get a correction . . .

[Guest post by DRJ]

The Boston Globe recounts how three Harvard Law friends sacrificed everything for their country:

“They were three best friends at Harvard Law School who turned their backs on lucrative careers to follow an exceedingly rare path: Michael Weston, who jogged through Harvard Yard in combat boots and openly scorned corporate life, joined the Marines. Helge Boes and his girlfriend Cynthia Tidler, who shared their friend’s sense of duty and adventure, joined the CIA.

Their choices – made out of passion, patriotism, and an urge to live an unconventional life – intertwined their fates.

Boes, a covert CIA operative, died when a grenade went off during training in Afghanistan in 2003, leaving Tidler, whom he had married after school, a widow. In their grief, Weston and Tidler reconnected and married earlier last year. Three months later, Weston deployed to Afghanistan; he died there in October, in a helicopter crash, widowing Tidler once again.”

It’s an article you need to read but this section in particular made me think twice:

“Weston’s decision seemed all the more strange to some of his peers because he wanted to join as an enlisted “grunt,’’ not a military lawyer. That summer, when most of his classmates worked high-paid summer jobs, he went to boot camp at Parris Island, S.C.

“People thought it was bizarre. Quirky. Maybe crazy,’’ said Orin Kerr, a former classmate who is now a professor at George Washington University Law School. “Everybody at Harvard was trying to fit in, and Mike was going out of his way to stick out.’”

Hats off to these young people who didn’t want to fit in, and bless them and the country they sacrificed for.

H/T Dana.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

If you like Texas politics or you’re a fan of political showdowns, G.M. Roper looks at the Heavyweight Showdown in Texas GOP Primary for Governor.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Atlas Shrugs reports an Ohio high school — Perry Local in Massillon, Ohio — is allowing Organizing for America to offer internships [and, based on my reading of the materials posted at the link, the internships could be] for credit as a part of or to supplement the school’s curriculum. Go there for the details.

Assuming this story is true, it’s up to the local school board to decide if this is what they want for their schools. If it is, then local Republicans should copy the OfA attachments and demand that its internships be given equal time …

… except the GOP internships should start 2 hours later in the morning and end at the same time.

— DRJ

Pretty good rant:

H/t Curtis F.

[Guest post by DRJ]

Have 7,200 Colorado jobs been “saved or created” by the Stimulus? It depends on how you look at it:

“Stimulus spending by state agencies during the last three months of 2009 preserved or created the equivalent of about 7,200 full-time jobs in Colorado, state officials said Friday.

“The impact on the state is enormous,” said Don Elliman, chairman of the Colorado Economic Recovery and Accountability Board.

About 70 percent of the jobs were positions retained in higher education and the state prisons by using federal stimulus dollars to backstop the state budget, the report showed. That leads to questions about whether the state would have really cut positions from prisons and universities — putting criminals on the street and turning students away from education — rather than looking hard for other efficiencies.

State Rep. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, and a member of the Joint Budget Committee, said the money is simply a temporary way to preserve government jobs and avoid hard choices rather than a way to jump-start the economy.”

The initial report covered “saved or created” state jobs. Federal officials will release data on local and non-profit job savings and creation this weekend.

— DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is having a bad year. Not only were serious doubts raised about global warming following the East Anglia email scandal, but earlier this month IPCC had to retract a report that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035:

“Calls for the resignation of the embattled head of the UN climate change body were dismissed by its vice-chairman today as the organisation sought to repair its damaged credibility.

The discredited claim that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 because of global warming was just “one page in a 938-page report”, said Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chairman of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”

The UK report, as published in the Times of India, said the glacier evidence formed the basis for much of last year’s Copenhagen summit but that IPCC Chairman R.K. Pachauri waited two months — until after the conference — to correct the error.

As if that weren’t enough bad news for the IPCC, the UK’s Sunday Telegraph revealed today that 2007 IPCC reports of melting ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa are also suspect:

“In its most recent report, it stated that observed reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and Africa was being caused by global warming, citing two papers as the source of the information.

However, it can be revealed that one of the sources quoted was a feature article published in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them.

The other was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying for the equivalent of a master’s degree, at the University of Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain guides in the Alps.”

Mistakes can happen in science and every area of life but the global warming fiasco is more than a mistake, it’s a delusion.

— DRJ

UPDATE — Cue clueless Senator Lindsey Graham:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said today that skeptical Republicans and Democrats should throw their support behind climate change legislation not only because it’s good for the economy and the environment, but because Congress desperately needs a win under its belt.

“We tried immigration. It’s hard. And we failed. We tried Social Security. It’s hard. And we failed. We tried health care. It’s really hard. And it looks like we’re going to have to start over again,” Graham somberly told a luncheon audience of energy and climate advocates on the Hill. “On the energy, climate change front, I don’t want to add that to the list. There is no reason in my mind that the Republican Party and the Democratic Party can’t come together.”

UPDATE 2: Bradley J. Fikes has more details on the climate change meltdowns mentioned above.