Via Drudge we find this report about the family side of Barack Obama. In a discussion of her daughter's dance recital with US magazine, one of the rare events missed by her campaigning husand, Mrs. Obama says:

"He did miss one of Sasha's dance recitals in December and was broken up about it," Michelle Obama told the magazine. "No one wants to miss 20 6-year-olds in red cowboy hats tapping to 'These Boots Are Made for Walkin'.'"

Are we over jaded and too sceptical to see this as obvious pandering to the Obama campaign's idea of what the proverbial "Texan" would find appealing? (And no, we didn't miss the sarcasm). Or maybe this campaign has just been going on too long and we're seeing everything, but every thing as politically motivated.

But Byron York gives us this with an oh-my-gosh, laughably unself-aware elitist statement made by Mrs. Obama. Speaking to a group of women in southern Ohio where the median income floats around $37,000 plus or minus, she said:

“I know we’re spending — I added it up for the first time — we spend between the two kids, on extracurriculars outside the classroom, we’re spending about $10,000 a year on piano and dance and sports supplements and so on and so forth,” Mrs. Obama tells the women. “And summer programs. That’s the other huge cost. Barack is saying, ‘Whyyyyyy are we spending that?’ And I’m saying, ‘Do you know what summer camp costs?’”

And these are the folks who want to play the class-warfare card? (Thanks to David Boze for the link).

Image: Photo © 6strings used under CC Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 via wikimedia.

Attorney General Mukasey has refused to refer the contempt of Congress citations against Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers to a Grand Jury. Story via various sources, here.

From the great writer, Charles Dickens:

"But the oddest things of all are to be found in the dictionaries. Why they are all kept there no one knows; but what man in his senses would use such words as zythepsary for a brewhouse, and zumologist for a brewer; would talk of a stormy day as procellous and himself as madefied; of his long-legged son as increasing in procerity but sadly inarcid, of having met with much procacity from such a one; of a bore as a macrologist; of an aged horse as macrobiolic; of important business as moliminous,and his daughter's necklace as moniliform; of some one's talk as meracious, and lament, his last night's nimiety of wine at that dapatical feast, whence he was taken by ereption?"
- Charles Dickens (ed.), All the Year Round (1861)

Quote found via WWFTD.