And what did Sir Edmund Hillary find when he reached the top of Mount Everest?

Proof of a well-organized Hillary Clinton machine.

Reading this in today’s Washington Post:

Addressing civil rights activists in Selma, Ala., a year ago, Sen. Barack Obama traced his “very existence” to the generosity of the Kennedy family, which he said paid for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship and thus meet his Kansan mother.

The Camelot connection has become part of the mythology surrounding Obama’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. After Caroline Kennedy endorsed his candidacy in January, Newsweek commentator Jonathan Alter reported that she had been struck by the extraordinary way in which “history replays itself” and by how “two generations of two families — separated by distance, culture and wealth — can intersect in strange and wonderful ways.”

It is a touching story — but the key details are either untrue or grossly oversimplified.

… was quite entertaining.   Still, nothing beat this tale, recounted by Mark Steyn:

The defining fiction arose back in the mid-Nineties when she visited New Zealand and met Sir Edmund Hillary, the conqueror of Everest, and for some reason decided to tell him he was the guy her parents had named her after.

Hmm. Edmund Hillary reached the top of Everest in 1953. Hillary Rodham was born in 1947, when Sir Edmund was an obscure New Zealand beekeeper and a somewhat unlikely inspiration for two young parents in the Chicago suburbs. If any of the bigshot U.S. newspaper correspondents on the trip noticed this inconsistency, they kept it to themselves. I mentioned it in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph at the time, but like so many other improbabilities in the Clinton record it sailed on indestructibly for years. By 2004 it was preserved for the ages in Bill Clinton’s autobiography, on page (gulp) 870:

“Sir Edmund Hillary, who had explored the South Pole in the 1950s, was the first man to reach the top of Mount Everest and, most important, was the man Chelsea’s mother had been named for.”

Eventually, when it was noticed that Hillary was born six years before the ascent of Everest, Clinton aides tried assuring skeptics that her parents had seen a press interview with Sir Edmund in his beekeeping days, Mr. and Mrs. Rodham apparently being the only Illinois subscribers to The New Zealand Apiarist. Then, in the early days of her presidential campaign, Sen. Clinton quietly withdrew the story, by which time the damage was done.

Another reason to love Washington, DC:  The National Pastime Sports Bar & Grille at the massive new Gaylord hotel.  What pastime are they showing at this sports bar?  C-SPAN.

We don’t often offer stock market and stock picking advice — that’s better left to the experts.

But sometimes we see read about opportunities we’re just aching to take advantage of — or, more accurately, wish we already had.  Just to make a point.
One example is something called the Vice Fund.

Back in September 2004 Business Week ran an article on the Vice Fund:

The Wages of Sin Stocks: The Vice Fund’s Dan Ahrens says shares in alcohol, tobacco, gaming, and defense outfits have many virtues for investors’ portfolios

Are “sin stocks” a good bet for risk-free investing? Dan Ahrens thinks so — and he launched the Vice Fund (VICEX ) two years ago to focus on stocks in alcohol, tobacco, gaming, and defense. The strategy has worked: In the year ended Aug. 31, the fund was up 21.06%, against 11.45% for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

No matter what the market’s doing, no matter who wins the election, people continue to drink, people continue to gamble, continue to smoke,” says Ahrens. He first noticed the relatively better showings of stocks in those areas during the downturn of 2001 and 2002, and that led to establishing the fund.

The stock market, of course, has been throwing temper tantrums nonstop for the last several years.

So it was fascinating to see in the brand new issue of Business Week (April 1, 2008) another mention of the Vice Fund.  How’s it doing?  Here’s what the magazine reports:

Vice vs. Virtue

The Vice Fund, specializing in “sin” sectors such as tobacco and alcohol, is outpacing a leading socially responsible investing fund.

Business Week compares the Vice Fund (blue) with the Neuberger Berman Socially Responsible Fund (orange) and S&P 500 Index (black).   Looks like a solid investment — and a great cause.

Barack Obama’s right: let’s not get lost in trivial matters and character attack.  Let’s focus on big picture policies and the tissues, er issues.

Bill Clinton asserted this in Pennsylvania today:

“If we led the world to the moon, we ought to be able to lead the world to clean coal.  I know a certain candidate who is absolutely committed to that.”

Clean coal?  Clinton?  Pennsylvania?  Better not tell these folks …

The Washington Post reports this:

Sen. John McCain launched his first television ad of the general election yesterday — a 60-second commercial that links the candidate’s heroism during the Vietnam War with his call for Americans to “stay strong” and “never surrender” in Iraq, though the ad does not mention that war directly.

Generating the most attention, though, is the ad’s final line: “John McCain: The American president Americans have been waiting for.” It appears to be an allusion to Obama’s much-quoted line that “we are the ones we have been waiting for.” But it has also sparked an online debate about what is meant by “American president.”

Some folks in that American president debate argue this …

… but at least no one is saying this…

How fun to read this today in the Washington Post:

Responding to a comment from Obama that the Democratic primary race was like a good movie that had gone on too long, Clinton replied: “I like long movies.”

You mean, like this?

Hal Riney, who created this ad for Ronald Reagan, has passed away.

We continue our special in-depth educational series, Meet Your Superdelegates. A rare chance to get to know specific superdelegates who will be deciding the Democratic presidential nominee. We’re focusing on party elders, government officials, senior advisors, and other high profile politicians who feature prominently in television and film. And we boldly speculate whom they will back at the Democratic convention. Today’s superdelegate profile comes from the breakthrough western adventure movie sensation “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.”

Senator Ransom Stoddard’s body of work and career can be summed up by this nomination speech by Dutton Peabody:

“He is a man who came to us not packing a gun, but carrying instead a bag of law books. Yes, he is a lawyer, and a teacher, the first west of the Rosy Buttes. But more important, he is a man who has come to be known throughout this territory in the last few weeks as a great champion of law and order.  Ladies and gentlemen, I nominate as your delegate and mine, to the Congress at Washington, the Honorable Ransom Stoddard!”

Law books?  A teacher?  Honorable?  Clearly a Barack Obama superdelegate.

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