Heir Apparent Deposed?

Another bit of good news — Barack Obama’s first-quarter fundraising came very close to Hillary Clinton’s, which puts a big dent in the assumption that Senator Clinton’s nomination is inevitable. Let the competition begin.

Even better — according to this chart at MyDD, Obama’s money came from 100,000 donors, while Clinton’s money came from 50,000 donors. That means Obama is getting smaller donations from more people, while Clinton is getting bigger donations from fewer people.

British Sailors to Be Freed

Iranian President Ahmadinejad has announced Iran will free the 15 British sailors. I don’t want to celebrate until the sailors are truly free, but I do get the impression it’s a done deal. The concession Britain made was to promise not to intrude into Iranian waters again, sort of admitting they had, although I’m not sure anyone really knows. I get the impression that exactly which waters are Iraqi and which are Iranian are a matter of long-standing dispute.

Pelosi Wears Scarf; Righties Bark at Moon

[Update: This post is being linked to in a forum in which some rightie claims it is only us lefties making a Big Bleeping Deal out of the scarf. The fact is, much of the rightie blogosphere went into hysterics about Nancy Pelosi’s scarf. Think Progress has a selection of links.]

Of all the dumb things to get worked up into a snit about, this one is almost as dumb as Ann Althouse’s boob post.

The jolly folks at Little Green Footballs have gone batshit bleeping crazy because Nancy Pelosi wore a headscarf to visit a mosque in Syria. “Pelosi in a hijab!” they shriek.

Hello? Some of us are old enough to remember when women were required to cover their hair in Catholic churches. Here’s the divine Jackie with that first guy she married outside a church sometime in the late 1950s.

Apparently scarves are still a requirement at the Vatican.

[Update] Speaking of Laura Bush, here’s a lovely photograph of her visiting the Muslim holy shrine the Dome of the Rock in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, May 22, 2005.

I’d also like to note that American women very commonly wore headscarves tied under their chins like that all through the 1950s and into the 1960s. I remember wearing them myself; one wrapped one’s head when going outside to protect one’s bouffant hairdo from wind and weather. Apparently the only woman on the planet who still does that is Queen Elizabeth II, as portrayed below by Helen Mirren in The Queen (which is a lovely little flm, btw).

Nowadays it looks frumpy as hell, but Audrey Hepburn could carry it off.

I can’t say that Muslim women never wear a tied-under-the-chin scarf, but from what I see in photographs an actual hijab is usually wrapped rather than tied.

I’m certain I’ve seen photographs of Karen Hughes and Condi Rice with scarves wrapped around their heads hijab-style while visiting the Middle East, but I couldn’t find one to post here. If anyone else can, please leave the URL in the comments.

Update: Check out the exclusive Pelosi in ’07 tee shirt!

Update2: Thank you and a big smooch to maha reader johnnyrocket, who found this photo of Condi Rice in “hijab.”

Update3: Now LGF is whining that we lefties are being mean to them. The point was not about the scarf, they say, but that Pelosi was in Syria.

First, read this post and tell me the point isn’t about the scarf.

Second, three Republican congressmen were in Damascus last week.