ANOTHER READER BOOK PLUG: Reader Mel Kowal writes: “My beautiful wife of 57 years, Eileen, writes books for children in the 8 to 14 year old category under the pen name of e.b. kowal. Her latest and fifth book, Sara and the Puzzling Ancient Secret, is now available in both hardcover and e-book at Amazon.com.”

First not packing venues, now this.  No more Greek columns for Obama.

THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD sheds its mask.

Some of us have seen through these guys all along. When I met with Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Essam El-Erian in Cairo he gave me the most bizarre and frankly deranged interview of my entire career so far.

AT LEAST SOME PART OF THE ECONOMY IS GROWING: GUN SALES:  Guns sales are up– way up.  Women, in particular, are arming up like never before. Yes, it has something to do with the Obama Administration’s frankly scary totalitarian tendencies.  And yes, it also has something to do with the raw freedom that comes from a pair of Supreme Court decisions, Heller v. District of Columbia (US 2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (US 2010), that had the chutzpah, after over 210 years post-ratification, to finally declare that the people, indeed, have a right to keep and bear arms.

Oh, but of course the Obama Administration supports the Second Amendment, too– at least for Fast &Furious Mexican drug smugglers. House Republicans considering contempt charges against AG Eric Holder, now joined by several Democrat colleagues, are just playing politics with guns.  Defending the rule of law has nothing to do with it–unless you are one of those naive types who thinks the rule of law still matters.

Is this the administration line?  Blame Bush for everything?  Or is it Biden being Biden?  (Come the zombie apocalypse, a zombie locked in with this man would starve.)

1967 REDUX? Israeli historian Benny Morris argues in Tablet that the Middle East could be on the verge of another conflict a la 1967.

Mofaz will join Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak in a three-man kitchen Cabinet or the fuller eight-man “Inner Cabinet,” where the call of whether or not to launch a military strike against Iran will be decided. Both Netanyahu and Barak are on record as pessimists when it comes to the possibility that sanctions or diplomacy will stop Tehran’s march toward nuclear weapons. Both have made it clear that Israel will have to rely on its armed forces to resolve the problem, whether or not Washington gives Jerusalem a green light.

Thinking in Jerusalem is currently focused on the period between July, when a further round of sanctions against Iran will kick in, and the American presidential elections in November. Netanyahu and Barak believe that President Obama will find it very difficult to punish Israel for attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities just before the elections, since Obama will need the help of Jewish donors and voters, and other supporters of Israel, to win. On the other hand, an Israeli strike after the November elections will incur Obama’s wrath—and, some fear, could translate into sanctions against Israel.

BULL RUN FOR THE BULLY PULPIT: “Once-red Virginia went purple after Obama’s 2008 victory,” Bridget Johnson writes. “Can Romney win this swing-state’s critical electoral votes?”

LUGAR LESSON: DON’T TREAD ON THE TEA PARTY: Richard Mourdock’s big (20 point) Republican primary win last night in Indiana shows that the tea party is very much alive and well. The progressive post-mortem on this uniquely American movement–defined by fiscal and constitutional conservatism–were vastly premature. Mourdock himself is properly giving credit to the tea party for his victory.  Even DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz seems to get it, saying, “It’s official: the Republican Party is now indistinguishable from the Tea Party.”  Mitt Romney: Are you listening?

PHILISTINISM AND FAILURE: If you enjoyed* our latest Silicon Graffiti video, check out David P. Goldman at his “Spengler” column (and that nom de blog dovetails remarkably well with our theme, doesn’t it?) on “Philistinism and Failure,” then follow David’s link to Fred Siegel from the April issue of Commentary, for his brilliant article on “How Highbrows Killed Culture,” for much more on the themes that our video scratches the surface of.

* In an entirely relative sense, of course.

MAN BITES DOG: Credit where credit is due: Columbia Journalism Review Busts the Media: Obama ‘Evolves,’ Romney ‘Flip-Flops.’

SARAH PALIN ENDORSES DEB FISCHER in Nebraska GOP Senate primary. Nebraska Watchdog has the story.

THE WISCONSIN RECALL PRIMARY “WAS A GIANT REPUDIATION OF BIG LABOR. It was a huge smackdown of the union bosses by a Wisconsin that is 86.5% non-union and tired of all the whining. Gov. Scott Walker was the real winner last night… With no reason for Republicans to vote, Gov. Scott Walker darn near got more votes than the four Democrats combined – 626,538 to 665,436.” And that was despite the big temptation to cross over.

ADDED: There were over 900,000 signatures (supposedly valid signatures) on the petition to recall Walker. Why didn’t those people bother to vote yesterday? Do they not really exist, have they changed their minds about wanting a recall, or did the sign the petitions because of real or perceived coercion?

MICKEY KAUS TWEETS: “When you look up ‘eerie prescience’ in the dictionary you will not see this article.”

MILTON WOLF: Desperately avoiding Obamanomics and Obamacare.

CHRISTIAN ADAMS: DOJ Defends Employee Comment that Mississippi Is ‘Disgusting and Shameful.’

IT MEANS MORE WHEN YOU EARN IT– “JULIA,” ARE YOU LISTENING?:  This is of course commonsense, but then again, many folks seem to have lost commonsense in recent years– witness the Obama campaign’s pathetic, government dependent “Julia.” Arthur Brooks has great op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, “America and the Value of ‘Earned Success,‘” in which he compares his experience working and living in Spain with that of the U.S.  He concludes, “what set the United States apart from Spain was the difference between earned success and learned helplessness.”  Earned success is indeed, as Brooks points out, the heart of American exceptionalism, and it leads to individual happiness in a way that handouts never can.

BLOGGER FIRED FOR CRITICIZING BLACK STUDIES DEPARTMENTS, PART II:  I wrote about this late last night. The Wall Street Journal has a spot-on editorial about it today and the fired blogger, Naomi Schaefer Riley, has a must read op-ed across the page.  Welcome to Obama’s beautiful post-racial, rainbow-filled world!

AT AMAZON, an Outlet Sale in Storage & Organization.

Plus, up to 60% off Bosch Tools.

IF OBAMA’S RHETORIC ON SYRIA IS A JOKE, WHY TRUST HIM ON IRAN? “Obama Hits Syria With Brutal Blasts of Adverbs.”

ROGER L. SIMON: “Preaching to the Choir” — is it possible to escape the echo chamber?

OBAMA TAKES WIDE STANCE ON GAY MARRIAGE TO PLACATE VOTING BLOCS.

RELATED: New civility apparently on hold in liberal reaction on Twitter to North Carolina gay marriage ban.

CHANGE: “Carville: Democrats Will Rule Washington for 40 Years.”

— Headline, US News & World Report, April 26, 2009.

“Carville: ‘Wake Up’ Democrats You Could Lose.”

— Headline, Breitbart TV, last night. More at the Daily Caller.

RELATED: “Obama’s awful, terrible, catastrophically bad day.”

UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE: Peter Robinson interviews Thomas Sowell on the second edition of Intellectuals and Society.

PRESIDENT OBAMA EMBARRASSED BY INMATE NO. 11593-051.