Clear...as mud

I used to really enjoy Jon Stewart, and get a real kick out of the Daily Show and its mockery of the media's sensationalism and garbage. Stewart makes a better Daily Show host than Craig Kilborn ever was: nebbishy and self-mocking where Kilborn was snide and above-it-all (not that being snide and above-it-all wasn't funny. But Stewart's funny is far more welcoming). And most of the time Stewart, though an out-and-out Democrat, wasn't so doctrinaire as to ignore the insanity coming from his side of the aisle. I recall just before the start of the Iraq War, Stewart made a point of mocking the conspiracy hippies who opposed the war.


I haven't watched the show once since the spring, but I haven't watched much of any TV since the spring, since I don't have TV (culture rebel am I). But when the opportunity to watch TDS has arisen, I've made a determined effort to avoid it. The politics is wearing on the funny. Mostly this is because sharing a joke requires a shared sense of what is absurd, and Jon and I don't necessarily share that anymore. I can appreciate his technique but still find the end product annoying instead of amusing.


The post-debate commentary I caught at my folks' house over the weekend provides the clearest example. They showed the clip of Kerry saying something to the effect of:

I have always said that Saddam was a threat, and that there was a right way and a wrong way to disarm him. This President chose the wrong way.

To which Steward commented:

Blah-de-blah, there he goes again...wait a minute, that was pretty clear.

And I was left with this warm explosion of "NO IT WASN'T!" inside my head.


Kerry's statement gives us no details as to a) why the President's way is the "wrong way." or b) what the "right way" is, and why it's the "right way." Yet the media fawns all over his performance, as shaking off the "flip-flopper" vibe. But the statement and much of what else he said in the debate was vintage Kerry: trying to be on all sides of the issue. He sounds like he's for war in principle, and he sounds like he's against this particular war, or how it was waged, or how it was declared, or something, and he sounds like he's making a clear statement when he's doing nothing of the kind.


And this is why I avoid debates. They're not just boring, they're empty: two guys trying to put on the show of being presidential without actually revealing anything that might actually change anybody's mind. Kerry has no policy on Iraq, other than Bush did it wrong, and he'll do better because he'll be nicer to the world. And to listen to Bush, you'd be hard pressed to know what he's doing in Iraq, other than not running away.


We know why this is: television is awful at conveying anything other than the immediate. It's a phony alternate to reality. The debates don't gauge anything but which guy acts most presidential when the cameras are on, when 90% of what the POTUS does is off-camera: policy meetings, intelligence briefings, signing executive orders, etc. I want to have the guy who knows what he's doing when its time to push legislation through or make a decision and stick with it. Bush's legislative and foreign policy record have demonstrated to me that he knows how to do that. Nothing Kerry has done (done, not said) has indicated the same.


But his mush is treated as gold, and this gets ignored.

Watch the Donkey Flail

NEW YORK (AP) - Staking out new ground on Iraq, Sen. John Kerry said Monday he would not have overthrown Saddam Hussein had he been in the White House, and he accused President Bush of "stubborn incompetence," dishonesty and colossal failures of judgment. Bush said Kerry was flip-flopping.




New ground? This is to suggest that there's anything as solid as terra firma in Kerry's utterances, rather than the oozing mush we normally expect from the Empty Senator. Let's see how long he manages to stick to this before switching gears again to a Dean-like "But we're committed."




Less than two years after voting to give Bush authority to invade Iraq, the Democratic candidate said the president had misused that power by rushing to war without the backing of allies, a post-war plan or proper equipment for U.S. troops. "None of which I would have done," Kerry said.




Am I to assume that Kerry is the only guy in the U.S. Senate who was unaware of the fact that Chirac was going to support our operation when hell froze over, and that Schroeder was too busy running on "Bush = Hitler" to consider coming to our help? Or should I simply believe that the guy who voted against the supplementary funding bill for Iraq, then claimed to vote for it, and is now blaming the administration for not funding the war, is an idiot?


Is there anything that will get this silly bastard to stand on his vote?




"Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell," he added.




But typically, you're not only unwilling to put him in that place, you're willing to attack the guy who is, and render him unable to complete his job. So this acknowledgement of Saddam's wickedness serves only as dross for what your real goal is. Spare us.




"But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact:




What you mean "we," Kemo-sabe?




We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."




Unproven. Please demonstrate that we are less safe than we were on the morning our largest city lost its largest buildings.




Bush hit back from a campaign rally in New Hampshire, interpreting Kerry's comment to mean the Democrat believes U.S. security would be better with Saddam still in power. "He's saying he prefers the stability of a dictatorship to the hope and security of democracy," the Republican incumbent said.



"Today, my opponent continued his pattern of twisting in the wind," Bush said. "He apparently woke up this morning and has now decided, No, we should not have invaded Iraq, after just last month saying he would have voted for force even knowing everything we know today."



Note the dynamic: Bush, the guy that everyone described as a feckless, mumbling blueblood dunce in 2000, is now pointing at his opponent and laughing at him. And unlike the lame "fuzzy math" quip he tried to foist on Gore, this barb has already stuck.




Both candidates addressed partisan crowds, drawing cheers and hoots as they stretched each other's records and rhetoric - mixing facts with political creativity toward the same goal: raising doubts about the other man's credibility.




In addition, both candidates were speaking English and breathing oxygen, although CBS has recently found documentation claiming that Bush is not a carbon-based life form.




Kerry called on Bush to do a much better job rallying allies, training Iraqi security forces, hastening reconstruction plans and ensuring that elections are conducted on time. But his speech was thin on details, with Kerry saying Bush's miscalculations had made solutions harder to come by.




Do you love that? Kerry is trying to pin his indecisiveness on Bush, claiming that the problem of defeating a guerrilla insurgency is apparently so novel and difficult that John Wayne Kerry can't begin to come up with a solution. Well, it's unsurprising. The last time we were trying to do that, Kerry bugged out before he finished his tour.




Bush cited Kerry's four-point plan and dismissed it as proposing "exactly what we're currently doing."




One of these guys is cribbing notes. I'm gonna give the benefit of the doubt to the guy who gets the defense briefings.




With more than 1,000 U.S. troops killed in Iraq, including nearly 900 since Bush declared an end to major combat, with free elections in doubt, reconstruction efforts stalled and violence and kidnappings on the rise, Iraq could be Bush's biggest political liability. Even some Republican senators have begun to publicly second-guess the president's policies.




Fair enough. It's hard to maintain resolve when things look rough. But Bush isn't gonna cut and run, and I don't see that we're at that point yet. Kerry seems to be prepping us to do exactly that.




But Kerry has failed to capitalize thus far, struggling for months to find a clear, consistent way to differentiate his views from those of his Democratic rivals during the primary season and, since the spring, his general election foe in the White House.



Kerry's advisers say they're not sure whether it is too late for the Democrat to make the Iraq critique resonate. Polls show voters favor Bush over Kerry on Iraq and terrorism. The president shines the spotlight on his foreign policy agenda with a visit Tuesday to the United Nations.




So one candidate is proudly displaying his agenda to a world he knows damn well is hostile to it, and one candidate's boys can't come up with anything more forceful than "not sure whether it's too late to make [it] resonate."


Which of these candidates is taking the initiative and running with it?




Kerry said in August that he would have voted in 2002 to give Bush war-making ability, even had he known no weapons of mass destruction would be found. He stood by the vote again Monday, saying the president needed to use the threat of force to "act effectively" against Saddam.



He made a distinction between that vote to grant a president war-making authority and what he himself would have done as commander in chief with such power.



"Yet today, President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the same way. How can he possibly be serious?" Bush's presidential rival said at New York University.




"Even though I say that, knowing what I know, I would do exactly the same thing in my power as a Senator to authorize military force, it's obviously pig-headed for the President to say that, knowing what he knows, he would to exactly the same thing in ordering military force."


What a schmuck.




"Is he really saying to Americans that if we had known there were no imminent threat, no weapons of mass destruction, no ties to al-Qaida, the United States should have invaded Iraq? My answer is resoundingly no because a commander in chief's first responsibility is to make a wise and responsible decision to keep America safe."




But. What. WOULD. You. DO????????




Kerry called national security "a central issue in this campaign," a bow to the fact that the race is being waged on Bush's terrain.



"Invading Iraq was a crisis of historic proportions and, if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight," he said.



Kerry used the word "truth" a dozen times to say Bush had dodged it. That doesn't count the number of times he said the president "failed to level" with Americans or misled and confused them. He blamed Bush for "colossal failures of judgment."



"This is stubborn incompetence," he said.




Only if we lose, smart guy. Then it magically becomes world-changing courage. Now ask yourself the question: Can we win? If we can, and you think the President can't, then get off your deity-expletived high-horse and let us in on your strategy. It's go time.




Kerry has sounded more hawkish, as in December when Democratic primary rival Howard Dean said the world was not safer with Saddam out of power. Anybody who believes that, Kerry said, doesn't "have the judgment to be president."



Reading that quote to his GOP crowd on Monday, Bush cracked: "I could not have said it better."




I wonder if Kerry knows that Bush is using his own sound bites from the primary, the time when you're supposed to shore up your party base by getting in bed with the wings, to attack him in the general election, when you're supposed to run to the center. I wonder, if he knows, how he feels about that.




The running mates got into the act, too. "Iraq's a mess," said Democratic Sen. John Edwards, while Vice President Dick Cheney said Kerry offers only "confusion, weakness, uncertainty and indecision."




Couldn't have said it better myself.

On Dukakis

Or, What is the Press On?




Now that everyone is connecting Kerry to the man he served under as Lt. Governor from 1983-1985, I have a question regarding supposedly embarrassing campaign moments. Three are being passing through the meme-sphere:




1. George Bush the Elder's being shocked at a supermarket scanner.


2. Kerry going windsurfing.


3. Dukakis riding in the tank.




Plenty of hay was made about the first and third of these. In '92, Scannergate led our famously unbiased press to "wonder" to the effect that Bush was an out-of-touch blue-blood without a clue as to how the peons got their bread. Snopes.com denounces this as an urban legend, but even if it was true, so what? Presidents and Vice Presidents don't do their own shopping, and Bush had been one or the other for 12 years when this happened, leaving aside his time as DCI and a member of Congress. Besides, as Bill Buckley noted at the time, did anyone really believe that FDR did his own shopping? He came of a family no less wealthy than Bush's, and no one ever questioned his lack of sympathy for the common man. Why is Roosevelt, Kennedy, or Kerry wealth okay, but Bush wealth is somehow eeeeevil?


As to Dukakis on the tank, I saw that clip a thousand times back in '88 and to this day I have no idea what was so embarrassing about it. Sure, he was no George Patton, but it's not like he fell out or lost his helmet or fired off a HEAT round at the press box (if he'd done that, he might have won the election). He popped out of the tank, fired off a civilian's best imitation of a salute, and smiled. What's the big deal?


With that in mind, I'd like to address the subject of John Kerry windsurfing so I can henceforth continue to ignore it. So he windsurfs. So what? Calvin Coolidge liked to play canasta. Was this tacit support for cardplaying, with all the sin it leads to? Can't we talk about something in some way related to how these bobbleheaded schmucks are going to DO THEIR JOB?


It's long past time that we stopped scarfing up every mindless piece of trivia that the media throws at us and examining it like the Dead Sea Scrolls. In the four years that George W. Bush has been President, hardly a soul in our press corps has given the slightest thought to telling the nation what exactly he does all day, who he sees most often, how he makes the decisions that effect us. Beyond snide caricatures of the Boy Emperor Following Cheney's Lead or the Protocols of the Elders of Neocon, we've heard diddly.


Maybe the better question is, what does the media do all day?

Dixiecrats Under the Bed

Or, Drowning the Baby in the Bathwater



Sully can't seem to leave Zell Miller alone. I don't know if he finally sees someone he can denounce as a real live clansmen without sacrificing his "objectivity," but he's zeroing in on one statement and ignoring the rest of the man's subsequent career in public service, which has not been one of uniform racial hostility. Trent Lott he's not.


The sad thing is, he's got a real argument to throw against the old boy, the fact that a few of the weapon systems that Miller chastised Kerry for opposing have also been opposed, at one time or another, by GOP leadership, particularly Dick Cheney. A fair point, even if the WaPo's defense of Kerry that Sully links isn't quite the home run Sully thinks it is (so he didn't vote against them individually, just as part of a big package? Well, that makes it all better). But there is the beginning of an argument here, and if Sully stopped the "he's not a hippy, you redneck!" game, he might get somewhere with it.




UPDATE: Then again, he might not. Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller has the goods on Kerry's Defense stance back in the 80's. The documents are here and here and there's a whole laundry list of weapons systems Kerry wanted to junk. How come Zell didn't have this handy?

Yipes...Just Yipes

One never knows how well one should believe someone, who, in politics, cries "Unfair!" I especially don't want to beleive someone who says "our side is just too darn nice!" (riiiiiiight...that's what Moveon.org is...nice), as Susan Estrich says in her column from Wednesday.


But when Susan says she's mad as hell, and she isn't going to take it anymore, I believe her. Lacking firm evidence to the contrary, I can't even deny any of her assertions regarding Bush the Elder's 1988 campaign against Dukakis. But I also believe she's missing the message here.


Did anyone actually want to vote for Dukakis in 1988? I mean, was he the kind of man that people were falling all over themselves to elect? I was only a wee lad of eleven, but I don't recall any Kennedy/Clinton star-power that was turning the masses on. My folks were going to vote for him, and did, but then my folks voted for Mondale ('88 was the last such display of liberal certainty for them; Mom turned into a Republican during our three years in California, and voted to re-elect. Dad may have voted for Clinton, but wasn't overjoyed at it; both voted for Dole in '96 and for W. in 2000 and will be doing so again in two months).


Not that Bush had any either, mind you; P.J. O'Rourke, writing at the time, succinctly summed up the '88 election as "two quibbledicks vying for rides on Air Force One," and he was right. But when push came to shove, Dukakis was altogether too liberal and vague for the public. O'Rourke again: "If we liked Reagan, we could vote for Bush, and presumably, get seconds. If we didn't like Reagan or couldn't admit to ourselves that we did, we could vote for Dukakis and get someone else...but God knew what..."


And if I were Susan Estrich, making comparisons between Kerry and Dukakis is not the strategy I'd be pursuing right now. In fact, I'd be going out of my way to de-Dukakasize Kerry as fast as I possibly could. I don't know that reaching for further handfuls of mud, either. If Kerry had a clear objective for his potential Presidency other than Not Being George Bush, then a good combination of See My Platform and The Other Guy's an Even More Twisted SOB Than We Thought might work. But, lacking that, denouncing Bush with as-yet unheard mud ("There's gotta be three or four DWI's! And Abortions! Kitty Kelly Sez Ther're Abortions! And Cheney's a Drunk!") is gonna be more of the same-old, same-old Bushitler routine.


So it's go time. Let's have the Senator tell us exactly, or even approximately, how he's gonna fight the war on terror better, how he's gonna get the French on our side, how he's gonna raise taxes on the people that hire other people and not downshift the economy, etc. He's supposed to be a smart man, and you're all supposed to be sharp, sophisticated folk around him. So, in the debates, stand tall and tell us, what are you gonna do?


Or if it's too late for that, then set your sights on drafting someone for '08 who's done something in the past 35 years, who's taken stands and made them stick, who can draw respect from moderate Republicans and still appeal to the Democratic base. Find a candidate you can get Excited about, one that leads the party instead of hiding behind it. If you build it, they will come.

Completely Anecdotal, But...

An aquaintance of mine in the theater world was a Kucinich supporter, he even handed out literature to the gang, which I politely accepted, politely read, and dismissed. He's a quite liberal fellow who doesn't trust Bush any further than he can throw him, and has harsh things to say about Fox News and Ann Coulter besides (for the record, Coulter to me is a slightly more entertaining version of Sean Hannity, and the only time Fox gets on my nerves is when they stuff Laci Peterson and whatnot down my throat).


A few weeks ago I ran into him again at a theater camp, and as the crowd had some burgers and beer by the campfire, I heard him throw Kerry to the wolves: "He's gonna get his ass kicked."


Sour grapes? I thought so, too. I didn't believe anybody's ass was going to get kicked. I don't know that I believe it now. but I'm starting to get open to the suggestion...

No Permit

My girlfriend told me last night that the NYPD started cracking down on protesters yesterday. Haven't seen any mention of it on the news yet, but if anyone knows, I'd appreciate a heads-up.




FOUND IT: Nearly 1,000 arrested, most of them peaceful according to the report, although it admits "a few exceptions," whatever that might mean. Can't say I like the smell of this. I see three possibilities for what's going on:


1. There are more than "a few exceptions", and the police are knocking heads. I can't say I trust the mainstream press to report it, if the protesters really were getting out of hand. But I might have heard a trickle from the blogosphere. Likelihood: Below-Average.


2. The "few exceptions" have provoked the NYPD into an all-encompassing crackdown, bringing batons on heads regardless of what protesters are doing at the time arrested. Given my gf's anecdotal evidence, this very well could be the case. Likelihood: Average.


3. This is the usual back-and-forth between cops-and-protesters, who have two different definitions of "peaceful." This article about the 2002 World Economic Forum protests in NYC might lead one in that direction. It's from the World Socialist Web Site, and they seem to have a different idea of what protesters should be allowed to do than the NYPD does. I figure most protesters would prefer the WSWS' idea. Likelihood: Above Average.


Thoughts welcome.

Fisking Michael Moore

I do this because I'm a mean Republican who hates, and hates, and desires nothing more than to increase the degree of suffering in those I have arbitrarily decided are my enemies, and to hear the lamentations of their women. Also because I'm about to tie my post-per-day record.



The original article is here, in USATODAY.



The GOP doesn't reflect America




In point of fact, it porously absorbs America into itself, only to wring itself out again, and then to rub suds of America all over the Kitchen of Freedom, and oh, I've gone cross-eyed...



Michael Moore, Filmmaker



NEW YORK — Welcome, Republicans. You're proud Americans who love your country. In your own way, you want to make this country a better place. Whatever our differences, you should be commended for that.




Sounds almost sincere, don't he? I'm sure in some way he thinks he is, and doesn't see any form of condescension in this.




But what's all this talk about New York being enemy territory? Nothing could be further from the truth. We New Yorkers love Republicans. We have a Republican mayor and governor, a death penalty and two nuclear plants within 30 miles of the city.




I'm glad to see Moore is falling away from the usual "Republicans are Hick Aliens in Boffo, Socko NYC" routine. Good for him. But perhaps he'd like to explain how nuclear power is a strictly Republican issue. Or perhaps he'd like to explain where these two plants he refers to are. I went looking for nuclear plants in the NYC area, found this site, but couldn't find any plants within thirty miles. The closest one was in Buchanan, NY, and that's 46 miles away. The next closest one is in Forked River, NJ (81 miles), which would not seem to have anything to do with the Republicanism of New Yorkers. Maybe he means the Secret Halliburton Plants that have been built with money from the Saudis, the North Koreans, and the Freemasons.


As for the death penalty, it was re-instituted under Republican Governor George Pataki. But it was first de-instituted under Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller. One may argue that it's Republicans who support the Death Penalty more vigorously than democrats do, but public opinion polls have shown widespread support for capital punishment in every year since 1972. Presumably, that includes some Democrats.




New York is home to Fox News Channel. The top right-wing talk shows emanate from here — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly among them. The Wall Street Journal is based here, which means your favorite street is here. Not to mention more Fortune 500 executives than anywhere else.



You may think you're surrounded by a bunch of latte-drinking effete liberals, but the truth is, you're right where you belong, smack in the seat of corporate America and conservative media.




New York is home to every news Channel, and hosts most nationwide radio programs. Even PBS has an office in New York. That proves nothing. Surely Moore isn't arguing that every Fortune 500 exec is a Republican. Quick someone get the memo to Warren Buffet!




Let me also say I admire your resolve. You're true believers. Even though only a third of the country defines itself as "Republican," you control the White House, Congress, Supreme Court and most state governments.




Dare one ask, how that happened? Did we Reps, driven by our resolve, simply walk into the political branches of government one day, like student radicals did to President's offices in the 60's, and refuse to leave?


Or did the voters put them there, in spite of the fact that we're only a third of the country? Maybe we aren't a third of the voters?




You're in charge because you never back down.




That's funny, I could swear that I've read guys at NRO attribute the same character trait to the Democrats. Either one side is wrong, or, now bear with me here, both sides find the stubborn refusal of the other side to say "Gosh! You're Right!" incredibly irritating. Maybe that impression shouldn't be used as argument.




Your people are up before dawn figuring out which minority group shouldn't be allowed to marry today.



That's why today (but never before, mind you) we don't allow gays, tommorrow we won't allow asians, thursday it'll be the blind, and to kick of the weekend, just to be crazy, we won't let ourselves do it. It's called "strategery."




Our side is full of wimps who'd rather compromise than fight. Not you guys.



I can only guess this is sarcasm. If so, where's the kicker? Is the statement so ludicrous that it refutes itself? Or is the magic and holy word "compromise" what elevates your side?


I guess you'd prefer to compromise with the Saudis that you think are the real villains behind 9-11. Good luck with that.




Hanging out around the convention, I've encountered a number of the Republican faithful who aren't delegates. They warm up to me when they don't find horns or a tail. Talking to them, I discover they're like many people who call themselves Republicans but aren't really Republicans. At least not in the radical-right way that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Co. have defined Republicans.




And again, the reason that these non-Republicans are here to nominate a radical-right Republican is...?




I asked one man who told me he was a "proud Republican," "Do you think we need strong laws to protect our air and water?"



"Well, sure," he said. "Who doesn't?"



I asked whether women should have equal rights, including the same pay as men.



"Absolutely," he replied.



"Would you discriminate against someone because he or she is gay?"



"Um, no." The pause — I get that a lot when I ask this question — is usually because the average good-hearted person instantly thinks about a gay family member or friend.



So you ask a "proud Republican" three questions and discover that he desires clean air and water, favors equal rights for women, and is not a slavering homophobe. What do you conclude? That Republicans want the same things as the rest of us, and just disagree on the details? Noooooo...you conclude that this person, his claims to the contrary, obviously can't BE a Republican!




I've often found that if I go down the list of "liberal" issues with people who say they're Republican, they are quite liberal and not in sync with the Republicans who run the country. Most don't want America to be the world's police officer and prefer peace to war.




See? Since EVERYONE KNOWS that Republicans are warmongering savages who'd bomb a third-world nation as soon as look at them, people who think peace is better than war are OBVIOUSLY not Republicans! Why, it's so simple!




They applaud civil rights,



And here's more proof. Republicans never support civil rights. We must therefore conclude that Lincoln, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and all the Republican congressmen who voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, were, in fact, not Republicans.


Who was a Republican? Maybe...Woodrow Wilson...?




believe all Americans should have health insurance



And I think no American should have health insurance. Nope, none. That'll solve the problem...muhuhahahahahaha!


I don't suppose Mikey asked these people if they think the way to give all Americans health insurance is for the federal government to pay for it.




and think assault weapons should be banned. Though they may personally oppose abortion, they usually don't think the government has the right to tell a women what to do with her body.



Here's where I want Mike to show me his questionairre, and maybe reveal just how large his sample was. A lot of people who are opposed to "gun control" will say that they don't like "assault weapons," but I find it difficult to believe that he covered a wide swath of Republicans and met no NRA members. Likewise, no National Right-to-Life members.


Sure, it's very likely that there are plenty of Republicans who don't mind gun control and who don't mind abortion. As regards the latter issue, Republicans are a bit less doctrinaire than the other guys, as the careers of Pataki, Guiliani, and Schwarzenegger show. But when Moore claims that these views constitute the majority, I just don't believe him.




There's a name for these Republicans: RINOs or Republican In Name Only. They possess a liberal, open mind and don't believe in creating a worse life for anyone else.



Ideology is is an amazing thing. It renders someone capable of writing a sentence like that and not perceiving how utterly fatuous it is.



So why do they use the same label as those who back a status quo of women earning 75 cents to every dollar a man earns, 45 million people without health coverage and a president who has two more countries left on his axis-of-evil-regime-change list?



Hold the phone a second. Name me one instance where anyone in the GOP has said that women making less than men (which is a statistic I've always found specious, but that's an argument for another day), or that 45 million people without health coverage is a GOOD THING. Sit down for five seconds, breathe into a paper bag and allow this thought to cross your mind: MAYBE THEY JUST DON'T THINK MY SOLUTION WILL DO ANY GOOD OR IS WORTH THE COST.


And I seriously doubt that your conversations with these supposed "RINO's" led you to think that they disapproved of Bush' Axis-of-Evil Diplomacy. Hell, most Republicans I know favor P.J. O'Rourke's solution to Middle Eastern Conflict: "raze buildings, burn crops, sow the earth with salt, and sell the population into bondage," especially after a sufficient number of alcoholic beverages. Then they usually sober up and decide that giving Arab countries democracy so they can argue with one another instead of the rest of the world is the preferable alternative. If Mikey had asked anybody whether they supported removing Saddam Hussein from power, I'll bet he would have found a connection between the straw hats and Dubya.




I asked my friend on the street. He said what I hear from all RINOs: "I don't want the government taking my hard-earned money and taxing me to death. That's what the Democrats do."



Money. That's what it comes down to for the RINOs. They do work hard and have been squeezed even harder to make ends meet. They blame Democrats for wanting to take their money. Never mind that it's Republican tax cuts for the rich and billions spent on the Iraq war that have created the largest deficits in history and will put all of us in hock for years to come.



Because we weren't all in hock before that. Clinton balanced the budget for a few years (well, him and the presumably all-RINO opposition that, through rigid party discipline even though they know they don't agree with the leadership, somehow got voted into control of Congress), and that solved all our budget problems. The fact that prior to the Clinton years we hadn't had a balanced budget since the Johnson Administration (and that a weasely one) wasn't going to do us any financial damage, noooo....




The Republican Party's leadership knows America is not only filled with RINOs, but most Americans are much more liberal than the delegates gathered in New York.



How can that be, Mike? You've established that the delegates are all eco-friendly, gender-neutral, non-gay-hating, pro-civil-rights, pro-health-insurance-for-all, pro-gun-control, pro-choice, "normal" folk. I thought they were "quite" liberal.




The Republicans know it. That's why this week we're seeing gay-loving Rudy Giuliani, gun-hating Michael Bloomberg and abortion-rights advocate Arnold Schwarzenegger.



The fact that Guiliani was a national figure before 9/11, a celebrity afterwards, and the former mayor of the city where the convention is taking place; that Bloomberg is the current mayor of the city where the convention is taking place; that Schwarzenegger is a worldwide celebrity and the man who unseated the governor of the largest state in the Union by an unheard-of recall vote has nothing to do with it.


One might also keep in mind the fact that John McCain, who cannot fairly be described as gay-loving, gun-hating, or an abortion-rights advocate, also spoke the first night. There must be a reason for this somewhere...somewhere...




As tough of a pill as it is to swallow, Republicans know that the only way to hold onto power is to pass themselves off as, well, as most Americans. It's a good show.



This must be a motive similar to the one which caused the Democrats to spend their convention trying to convince the country that they actually gave a rat's ass about fighting terror. We shall see whose mask slips first.




So have a good time, Republicans. It could be your last happy party for awhile if all the RINOs and liberal majority figure it out on Nov. 2.



Figure what out, Mike? That real-life, actual Republicans, unlike the writhing cacodemons of your books and movies, are normal, bourgeois folks who wish no harm to anybody?


Why, you visionary you. It must have been like looking into Chapman's Homer.

Links Will Have Links

A day after I throw up Vodkapundit, he leads me to Infidel Cowboy, who's got the best summation of Kerry I've yet seen:

he is a flip flopping wishy washy no plan having say whatever is politically advantageous power hungry unserious about national security billionaire class warfare waging warmed over piece of Dukakis.

I think I'll stick him where Happy Fun Pundit used to be. Come to think of it, the linksheet could use some pruning....


UPDATE: There! Dropped some things, reorganized some things, and added Iraq the Model while I was at it. Good times...

Blog Triumphalism

It would seem that the bloggers have "forced" the Mainstream Media (or MSM, as the 'net-savvy would have it) to deal with the Swift-Boat issue. Such has been the running story for a week or more, and John Podhoretz encapsulates it in the New York Post today. He closes with expected grandeur, saying that "They (the "old" media) are worried the bell is beginning to toll for them, and they're right."


DUNH DUNH DUNNNNNNNNNNNNH!


Folks, don't you believe it. While getting the Swifties on TV and in newspapers was undoubtedley a triumph for the blogosphere, as was the bringing down of Trent Lott two years ago (with no help from this space, let the record show), it's a bit much to claim that we are somehow the "new" media.


The unspoken truth is that "we" really couldn't exist without "them." Take a look at Instapundit's postings on any given day. He links as much to articles from the "old" as the "new". More to the point, without press services and pro journalists on the ground handing in the facts, "we" would quickly run out of the raw material needed to fill our space. Let's not forget that this whole Swiftie story came from a TV ad.


As I mentioned some time ago, the purpose of the blogosphere is not to supplant, but to enhance and improve. We're no more going to get rid of newspapers than we are books. Our job, as independent content-promoters and commentators, is to watch the watchdogs, to question their motives, slam their tactics, force them to be what they claim they are: ideologically objective transmitters of important fact. In the blogosphere, we don't make the news, we make the news better.

Oy.

Reading Andrew Sullivan on his first day back from vacation is becoming a yearly exercise in slapping one's forehead. How can any man not memorizing Moveon.org's press releases dismiss the Swifties as merely "jumping like bait on the end of Karl Rove's line"? Does the possibility that these guys might be telling the truth bear no weight at all? And after Bush endured the firestorm about his service, I don't see the injustice in Four-Month Kerry being made to answer a few questions, too. Especially since he's made those four months the lynchpin of his campaign. But no, it's all the work of Bush's "cronies." All that's missing here is a description of smoke-filled rooms.


But, when it comes to the role of the federal government in politics, I can't say I disagree with the guy. Sully says he wants to hear Bush talking about "reform of entitlements, a U-turn on public spending, staying the course on education reform, reforming the military, simplifying the tax code." Frankly, so do I (although how we're to "stay the course" on education while slashing public spending is beyond me, but probably not beyond the chaps at Cato Institute). And I have little doubt that Bush will mention exactly those things, or at least some of them.


But I don't think that's really what Sully wants. Nothing short of the complete repudiation of "Santorum, Dobson, and DeLay" will suit him, even if Santorum, Dobson, and Delay are all willing to vote for reforming the tax code, entitlements, the military, etc. Lacking that, we're all supposed to vote Kerry, who won't give Sully anything he wants (that includes gay marriage, Sully. Kerry won't touch that with a ten-foot cattle-prod).


I'm not thrilled with Bush, either. Declaring war on the 527's last week was but one of a slew of incidents that had me shaking my head. But I don't have a choice between Bush and Thomas Jefferson; I have to choose between a guy who wants, at varying degrees of priority, to fix all the things Sully and I think should be fixed, and will vigorously go after terrorism and terrorist states, and a guy who's demonstrated a talent for nothing beyond straddling issues like a rodeo clown. To vote Democratic this November is to vote for the same old, same old: special interests feeding off the federal teet, socialization of everything that isn't nailed down, and surrendering our foreign policy to the the whores that starved Iraq and are currently playing their fiddle while slaughter goes on in Sudan. To vote Republican is to vote for the possibility of change, even if that change should come from those who don't consider everybody that wonders if God's Word ought to be taken seriously a "theocon."


Time to choose, old boy. What is it you really want?




UPDATE: I'm not alone. For Vodkapundit, merely mentioning Sully's name brought forth a torrent of "Gah, I'm sick of him." Observe.


I do believe I'll put VP on the linksheet. But I'm-a keepin' Sully. Old time's sake and whatnot.




ONE MORE THING:: Sully also unfairly slams Zell Miller, for condeming LBJ's civil rights agenda in the 60's. Fair enough, but when he was governor of Georgia, Zell advised the state legistlature to drop the Confederate flag from the state banner, mentioning that Georgia was part of the CSA for but four of the 270 years of her existence. In 2001 they did so, and in 2003, they adopted the new flag. That sounds like repentance to me. So lay off, Sully.

Rock the Boat

So the Kerry Daughters show up at MTV awards, and get booed by the crowd. It's tempting to read more into this than it warrants. Me suspects that while I don't see much Kerry love among the MTV crowd today, this has more to do with the kids not wanting their event hijacked by lame politics.


Bill Clinton Kerry ain't. And 1992 this is not.

"Did You Know He Was In...?"

Or, How a Cliché comes full circle



When my friend Jon Gibbons used to write for our University Newspaper, he promised every week to write about a particular subject, and begin every week's column with "I know last week I said I would write about ________, but..."


I open with this because I'm beginning to feel that way myself. I wanted to do a week of film reviews last week, and wrote one. It's getting to the point where I can't bother apologizing about it, because you've heard it all before. Like Jon's gimmick, it's a self-fulfilling prophesy: whatever I say I'm going to write about this week stands the least likelihood of actually being published on this blog. The difference is Jon was making a joke out of it, and I'm just being inconsistent.


I also open with this because it seems a fit analogy for the fun Kerry's been having with the Swiftboat Vets of late. I mind a time when it all America, democrat and republican, could have a good laugh when anyone said, in perfect mimicry of a debating TV pundit "Did you know John Kerry was in Vietnam?" Of course, this time was the primaries, when the donkeys hadn't married Kerry and the elephants weren't all that worried about whoever got nominated. Now only the Bush crowd still makes this joke, to fading laughter, and the anti-Bush crowd (what, you think anyone's actually voting for Kerry?) either sniffs disdainfully or launches into a tirade about Bush's National Guard service.


Frankly, I'm undecided on the Swift Boats issue. I wasn't "in-country" in '69 (my father wasn't even old enough), so I really can't say with any degree of certainty whether Kerry earned his medals or not. My guts tell me the events have been dramatized, but I could be wrong.


But frankly, that's not the issue, and this post by new-linksheet-member Adiemantus tells why:

If we believe Kerry's statement from thirty years ago that the war in Vietnam had nothing to do with the preservation of freedom, much less with the defense of America itself, then how can we possibly take him at his word now when he brags constantly that he "defended this country" by fighting in that war? Isn't that exactly the kind of assertion that young John Kerry called "criminal hypocrisy." But old John Kerry has never retracted young John Kerry's claim that the war in Vietnam had nothing to do with the defense of America's freedom. To the contrary, when given the opportunity to explain what he meant back then, old John Kerry contends that young John Kerry's claims were "honest":

When you try to have it both ways, you must admit to the tension and speak bluntly about each side, or you will provoke one or both sides trying to nail you down. That's what's happening here. The banality of Kerry's Veteran stance is turning to a hunt for the true John Kerry. And, like this humble blog, whatever he says the story is, that's the least likely to be the story.

I know I said I wouldn't Follow Convention Babble...

But damn me if I'm not starting to like Teresa Heinz-Kerry.



American politicians speaking the same language as the rest of the populace, in public? It may be the only thing that saves us.



Or something.



Update: I'm not alone

Democratic National Conven....zzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Won't be watching either convention. They're so hackneyed and boring as to make one wonder why they have the damned things.



That's my fresh topical commentary.



I'll be posting regular, starting tommorrow, and cleaning up a few things on the site. I've finally got a free week and I'm going to make use of it...cheers...

How to Change a Reputation

If John Kerry has any intentions on making inroads among hawks, he needs to repudiate this:




Unwillingness to use force to retaliate against terrorism or pre-empt attacks.

Inaction in the face of legal obstacles

Animus toward the intelligence community

Fear of unpopularity in the court of domestic and foreign public opinion

Failure to improve the effectiveness of bilateral relations with Arab states and Pakistan.




All of which were Clinton's failures, for eight years, and not Bush's. Bush can perhaps be faulted for not looking for an attack, but it wasn't his weakness that invited it, it was Clinton's. Woe betide those that forget their Machiavelli.


So, John-boy, let's hear it. What are you going to do? Aside from "not pull out," I mean. No one in the administration has suggested that Iraq is the final battle ground in the War on Terror. So what's next?

Official Notion Statement: Top Ten Reasons to Vote Kerry

10) He has distinguished himself in the Senate as a man of nuance, able to grasp that the same policy might be alternately right and wrong, depending on the circumstances, and the ever-shifting winds of politics. Therefore, he will do nothing without consulting his aides, Congress, the people at large, our allies, the UN, our "enemies" (because an act can be right and wrong according to the moment in which it happens, someone can only be our enemy in the short-term, provided it is not the result of a cross-cultural misunderstanding), and academics. This will prove so exhausting that President Kerry would never actually do anything, which is precisely what we would want our President to do.*


9) He's man enough to ride a motorcycle. VROOOOOOM!


8) He wants to raise taxes on rich people to stimulate the economy. This will confuse rich people so much that they'll go crazy and start hiring anyone that walks into the plant, and at good wages. As an added benefit, we prefer our rich people nice and confused, like Paris Hilton, who doesn't even know if she's a person or a city. If rich people appear sane and sorted-out, we must hate them, because success is nuanced, mmkay?


7) He was in Vietnam, and that means he knows all there is to know about fighting modern warfare. Hell, he could probably defeat al Qaeda all by himself! Sure, all wed have to do is airlift him into Afganistan (not Iraq, because al Qaeda has nothing, do you hear, nothing to do with Iraq. The fact that al Qaeda set off bombs in Spain in part because of Spain's support of the Iraq war means Nothing! Shut up, warmonger!), and he'd catch Osama faster than Lloyd Bridges took out Saddam in the second Hot Shots! movie. And with any luck, he won't come back.


6) He thinks the war shouldn't be a war, it should be an investigation, complete with arrests and warrants and trials and Interpol and prosecutorial discretion and negotiations. This will undoubtedley deter people willing to blow themselves up for a cause. And it won't require any broad, permanent increase in the power of the federal government. Nope, none. Good-bye, Patriot Act!


5) Look at this chin:





Tell me you wouldn't want to vote for a man who looks like Dudley Do-Right's shady lawyer cousin. "I'll sue Snidley, Nell!"


4) Much has been made of our potential first Lady, Teresa Heinz Kerry. Fear has struck through the Democratic camp that she's too rough, to sassy, to devoted to four-letter-words to be a proper first lady. I say, au contraire! Aren't we all just a little tired of First Ladies who claim to be feminists but roll over like beaten dogs when their husbands get drunk on the power? I think we all know what would happen if Teresa caught John playing pet-the-puppet with an intern. She'd kick the living crap out of him. And that's just what America needs: the sight of a diddling husband being pummelled by his wife in the highest office of the land. It would empower women like nothing has since the Pill.


3) Furthermore, Teresa is the heiress to the Heinz ketchup fortune, a veritable Ketchup Queen. This doesn't make John Ketchup King, but it does make him a kind of Prince Consort of Ketchup. That is so lame we just have to put them both in the White House! Think of the relief it will bring to our European friends. They're going through a bad patch right now, what with that dim, unspeakable fear that terrorists might just mean all that crazy talk they shout out about killing infidels. They need a good laugh. Such a magnanimous gesture will demonstrate to the whole world that we're willing to think about everybody's needs when choosing a President, and are moving beyond that whole looking-after-your-own-interests thing.


2) The economy is all Bush's fault. He stole jobs from under the pillows of poor minorities and sold them to foreign countries, and gave the money to Halliburton! OOOOOOOOOH! Halliburton makes me SOOOOOOO mad!


1) Remember, you can't say "Kerry" without "Care."














*That is, if the rest of us weren't so caught up in the "oooh, shiny" of politics, so we could safely ignore this process

Cold Truth?

Fisked for your entertainment:




Cold Truth Vol. 3: Vote Democrat if you want to live.


This must be an example of non-threatening argument I've been hearing so much about.


TBTM Commentary by bozak


"Hi, I'm bozak, and I like fudge. Hey! You aren't wearing your anti-CIA tinfoil!"


Howard Dean has brought youth into this election process this year.


Just like Clinton was supposed to have in '92, and the 26th Amendment was supposed to in '72...


If I was between the age of 18-27 right now it wouldn?t take Howard Dean to get me involved in politics. I would do my best to organize every young person in the country to vote for the Democratic representative in the final election, provided there is an election this year.


Well, that makes se...huh?


I wouldn?t be surprised if another unexpected catastrophe happened and Coup Leader Bush decided that the time for elections just isn?t right for our country.


You wouldn't be surprised by something unexpected. That's cool! Will you be my Jesus?


Why would I say something like this? Have you forgotten the Republikkkon parties denial of ninety thousand black voters in Florida to steal the election in 2000? I remember it like it happened yesterday.


Notice that he's not citing any evidence that any of that actually happened. Merely the fact that Republicans denied what EVERYONE KNOWS happened is sufficient. After all, minorities would never lie for political purposes! Their hearts are pure as the driven sn...well, not snow, but some substance which is pure but not white. Phew. Almost stepped over the line.


Getting beyond the modern Jim Crow party and their dislike for minorities,


We'd love that, thanks.


it?s the youth of this country that really should start worrying if the Coup Leader actually wins the election this year. It is possible that the staunch Republikkkon owners of Diebold could help make the Coup Leader victorious with their paperless voting systems anyway.


Welcome to the International Society of Non-Sequitorians. We like pizza.


Cant you see it, Bush wins! The public says lets count the ballots. To which Diebold tells us, what ballots?


These are the same paperless voting systems that every news organ couldn't stop fulsomizing about after the AARP crowd got confused by paper ballots. You know, the system that was supposed to guaruntee that nobody ever had to argue about dimpled chads again. But now this is an insidious plot to make sure that all the votes go Republican. Also, notice the assumption that a Republican win in Florida is an immediate grounds for a recount. Because he can't win there, he just can't!


This being the case, the youth of our country should be organizing like no group in the history of the modern world has before.


Underneath the leadership of the Vanguard of the New Tommorrow, right?


It is the youth of this country that will be sent to die in more wars for profit for the Coup Leader and his Republikkkon party.


I seem to recall that the average age of our military during the first Gulf War was around 26. Anyone want to contend that it's lower now?


At the current time there are well over 500 American citizens who have lost their lives in the Iraq war for profit, not to mention ten thousand Iraqi?s. The Coup Leader and his Klan think young American life is worth losing in order that Halliburton and their other cronies can be given no bid contracts to fatten their pockets. Imagine the kickbacks the high ranking Republikkkons will get once they leave office.


This meme is apparently resistant to antibiotics. Although it would explain why Clinton is suddenly rolling in oil kickbacks, given that he awarded a no-bid contract to Halliburton in 1997 to deal with the Bosnian reconstruction even though another company had the LOGCAP contract. It would also explain why the Moon Landing was faked.


The only kickback for the youth who votes Republikkkon and ends up in the next war for profit can only be death.


Not security, tax cuts, or social security reform. Nope, just DEATH! Why, at the rate of 500 dead soldiers a year, we won't have any youth at all in just 200 years! Assuming that they all serve in the military, and nobody wins the war for 200 years.


That reminds me, how come the lefties never shriek about the casualty figures from Afghanistan? Surely the soldiers who died their are just as betrayed as those that die in Iraq? Why was that war okay but this one not?


Think about it, even if you are a young white racist and you vote for the Republikkkon party because they keep it real (real white),


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! He said "real", and then "(real white)"! Chris Rock would just LOVE how you stole his joke!


would you rather vote for bigots to keep racism alive, or vote democratic to keep your ass alive? You have to think that even a racist would say I choose life over hatred and bigotry. Wouldn?t they?


'Course they would, silly. Islamic bigots choose their own life over hatred and bigotry all the time. That's why the West Bank is such a serene tourist destination today.


It should be obvious to American youth that this regime's plan is for more war for profit.


Don'tcha love it when they move beyond parody?


Where will you be shipped off to?


Wah, Ah don' rahtlee no, suh. Ah'm hopin' that massa' 'membuhs that Ah been a good hand.


Syria, Iran, North Korea? Imagine casting a vote as a youth for the Coup Leader and then being shipped off to a country to fight in a war for profit.


If you wanted, bozak, you could do better than imagine it. You could ask some of the soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division who've returned from Iraq how they feel about serving. Go ahead, ask them how they feel that the Coup Leader has forced them to fight a war for profit. Hope you like the taste of knuckles.


Think it can?t happen to you? It?s being said almost everyday now that our military is being spread way too thin because we are fighting wars on two fronts right now.


I haven't heard anybody say this since before Operation Iraqi Freedom. Maybe that's why we need to TAKE BACK THE MEDIA! Why, it should be obvious!


If the Coup Leader miraculously gets elected,


Hang on there, tiger. You just said that you wouldn't be surprised at all if he pulls a fasty and gets "re-selected." So now you wouldn't be surprised by the miraculous?


Gosh! You ARE Jesus!


look for the next war in the never ending ?wore on terra? to start as soon as possible. I?m sure this regime knows it?s so dirty that it could never finish another term even if the people of this country moronically elected them to office for the first time.


So they know that they can't finish another term even if they're re-elected, because re-election will have proved how much the American people don't....


*blither*


Look how long it took them to go from Afghanistan to Iraq. They never finished the war in Afghanistan before starting the war in Iraq. So most likely here comes the draft. You say you don?t want to die in a war for profit?


And here, at last, after paragraphs of deathless prose, is the rhetorical coup de grace. Why, of course! That's the plan! They'll just draft everybody! That always works! And we know that this is their real plan because none of them have even broached the subject publicly! They're just that clever and corrupt!


Did we mention the Moon Landing was Faked?


Then don?t vote Republikkkon.


Sorry, I have to. I'm a white racist who wants to see others die for Halliburton's stock price. Every day I check the casualty figures, and when they go up, I cackle mischeviously and pull my moustache, and for one bright shining moment I can forget about all the dirty minorities that have civil rights and all the poor people I haven't ridden my coach over today.




Look, I know that there's a difference between this tool and Atrios, and that aliterates of his kind are to be found on the right. But I'm not linking to them, am I?

John Jong Kerry

Just in case you thought Lileks was blowing smoke about who our enemies want to win the election, the Financial Times says that the North Koreans love Kerry (link via Instapundit). Naturally their are those prepared to spin this one away, and FT quotes Gordon Flake:" It would be harder for a Democratic president to do a deal because there would be a lot of pressure on him not to be a soft touch," quoth he.


Okay, Flake. Because there isn't going to be any pressure on President Kerry to be an accomodationist. No one's gonna want him to back away like a skittish horse from anything that smacks of "unilateralism." Isn't the escape from Cowboy Diplomacy precisely the thing that's animated Kerry's almost life-like candiacy?


Now, you and I both know that Clinton was able to bomb Belgrade into rubble without international furor of any kind, because he was the kind of American that European politicians understood (read: he was willing to say bad things about America). So it's possible that Kerry could simply put another face on "axis-of-evil" diplomacy. But I don't see tough-on-rogue-nations anywhere in Kerry's history, and I don't see much of a mandate for it from his party or the international community. If we remember that only Nixon could go to China, we should also consider that he wouldn't have done so if Johnson had tried it first.

I think I'm Becoming Repetitive...

But then, this is what tends to happen when, basically, nothing new is happening. Things are still blowing up in Iraq every now and then. We haven't decided what to do with our marriage laws. No one's been nominated for the Presidency yet (which won't stop anyone from writing and polling about November). We are...awaiting events.


I take comfort in the fact that it isn't just me. Lileks, for example, repeats his earlier argument of "Who Would Our Enemies Like to Win the Election?" to the nth degree. Heck, if this gets around enough, it might become a "meme".


So when I read this admission that the Bush Doctrine seems to be working (Link via Instapundit), I find myself saying "Good, Grasshopper." And then I find myself repeating myself:




OfCourseIt'sWorking*ching*


MerelyArrestingBinLadenAndDoingNothingAgainstStatesThatSponsorTerrorWouldBeAWasteOfBloodAndTreasure*ching*


WeAreCuttingTheLegsFromUnderneathTerrorists*ching*


SaddamRepresentedThe"RootCause"OfTerrorism*ching*


GettingRidOfHimGivesDemocracyAChanceToEnterTheArabWorld*ching*


WMD'sAreAMinorPartOfThePicture*ching*


TheDemocratsAreTooAfraidOfBeingUnpopularToBeSeriousAboutFightingTerror*ching*




There. Glad I got that out of my system.