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November 30, 2004
Political Correctism Run Amok: Military Recruiters May Now Be Barred From College Campuses
Universities and Colleges may now bar military recruiters from their campuses. The New York Times is reporting that the United States Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit (in Philadelphia) has now said that these institutions of “higher learning” have a First Amendment right to keep recruiters off their property. Ironically, the schools get to keep all the federal funding that they are now receiving. The rationale? The Idiot Court says that because the military does not allow practicing gays (don’t ask; don’t tell) in the military, then colleges may prohibit recruitment activities in protest. To add insult to injury, the appeals court cited a Supreme Court Decision (2000) that allowed the boy scouts to bar gay scoutmasters. We here think that this is judicial activism at its worst. Specifically, this despicable act can be laid at the door of several law schools, some of which did not have the courage to “go public,” with their asinine lawsuit. Some might say that obstructing military recruiters from seeking volunteers during wartime is tantamount to treason. Note To Academia: Has anyone told you people that our nation is at war? Cross posted from: The Education Wonks November 26, 2004
Hillary's stealth issue for '08
NewsMax offers a roundup of Hillary being to the “right” of Bush on immigration matters: “Hillary Eyeing Immigration as Top 2008 Issue”. There’s no outright statement from her saying if she ran she’d make it a key part of her campaign, but some of the things she’s said might make people think she’s got that in mind. If she makes reducing illegal immigration a key part of her campaign, who would support her and who would oppose her? On the opposition side would be the de facto left-right alliance that supports massive legal immigration and massive illegal immigration. You can see this alliance at work in the opposition to Arizona’s Prop. 200 or in the categorized list of the 400 companies and organizations that support the AgJobs amnesty program. The members of this alliance include:
What about the other side of the ledger? Here’s who Hillary would get support from:
If handled correctly, I think she’d find that the support would far outweigh the opposition, despite the opposition’s clout. For every member of the far left she lost, she’d gain at least one and probably more from the center or the right. In the words of the Sacramento Bee’s Daniel Weintraub:
I wouldn’t be surprised if immigration became a major issue again, and it will happen overnight if we are attacked by terrorists who are found to have entered the country through the Mexican border. Right now both parties are reluctant to address it. The Democrats seem to believe that illegal immigration is really no different from legal immigration, and the Republicans are afraid that if they focus on it, they will suffer a backlash from Latino voters, as they did in the 1990s. I have always thought that a leader willing to take a calm, rationale look at illegal immigration while lauding legal immigrants would do fine. Seems to me that illegal immigrants hurt legal immigrants by “cutting in line” in front of those who are waiting and by bidding down wages in the entry level jobs that many legal immigrants hold as they try to climb up the economic ladder. Handled carefully, this should be an issue that appeals across party lines. November 25, 2004
The Desolate Wilderness And The Fair Land
Thanksgiving in the U.S. is a day of traditions. Here’s one of mine. Each year since 1961, the day before Thanksgiving in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal has published the same two pieces on it’s Op/Ed page—The Desolate Wilderness, an excerpt by Nathaniel Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, describing what he and other Pilgrims saw in 1620—And The Fair Land, a piece by the Journal editorial board. My tradition has been to take time on Thanksgiving morning to read these pieces back to back, reflect on their meaning, and share them with others. I now extend that tradition to my Command Post family. Enjoy. The Desolate Wilderness Help Us Bring More Blogs to the Mideast!
As some of you know, we’ve formed a team called “A Mighty Wind” (we’re also considering “Pajamahdeen”, let us know what you think) for Spirit of America’s blogosphere challenge.  Why that name? Because the focus of our efforts is the project to create Arabic blogging tools and hosting, so that more bloggers like Alaa, Zeyad, Big Pharaoh, The Religious Policeman, Chan’ad Bahraini et. al. can work to join us and make “citizens media” and the blogosphere a tool of freedom in their own societies. Together, we and they can be a mighty wind for change. You can contribute money here. We strongly believe that having one unified, thematic team of bloggers promoting the “Viral Freedom” blog tools project will really raise its visibility and give it the momentum it needs to succeed. If you have a blog, we’re asking you to become part of our team. Make a difference. Click here to join the team, and help our friends in the mideast join the pajamahdeen! Blogosphere Akbar!!! November 24, 2004
Iraq and Vietnam
Seen on a professional forum, this article by Patrick E. Proctor, President, ProSIM Company. It was written immediately before the assault on Fallujah, and the “embedding” of journalists in US units. There are three vital ways in which Iraq is COMPLETELY different from Vietnam. Published with the permission of the author. November 19, 2004
California Looking At It's Own Proposition Restricting Illegal Aliens From Services
After the successful approval of Proposition 200 in Arizona, conservatives in California are looking at putting their own proposition together severing services for illegal aliens. Even with businesses, politicians and churches against the Proposition in Arizona, which requires proof of citizenship when seeking public benefits or registering to vote, it was passed with a fifty-six percent vote approval. An astounding statistic within that approval percentage is that forty-seven percent of Hispanic voters voted in favor of the proposition. This reinforces the fact that the legal Hispanic community is sick of the bad name illegal aliens are giving them and that they are also sick of their taxes being wasted and people jumping ahead of those trying to come to the United States through legal channels. In Arizona the proposition, which will be ratified on November 22nd, will face a lawsuit by the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund attempting to bar its enforcement. In California Republicans are more positive on the mandate passing this proposition has delivered. "It's clear there is public support for cutting off benefits to people here illegally,' said Mike Spence, president of the California Republican Assembly, a group pushing a similar proposal in California. "What happened in Arizona is definitely a benefit because it keeps the issue at the forefront.'This is not the first time that a Proposition has been put forth, and approved, in California. In 1994, Proposition 187 was passed with a fifty-nine percent approval rating and went into effect on November 9, 1994. Proposition 187, Section I.A preliminary injunction was approved against Proposition 187 on December 14, 1994 -- just 34 days after the people spoke. The preliminary injunction is still in force. ( more info on the injunction ). There of course are opponents to bringing the issue back up again.
"The passage of Prop. 200 in Arizona obviously gives them media momentum and energizes their political base,' said Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican-American Political Association. "That's part of the challenge we face."Ahh the shear arrogance of his statement! I would like to direct Mr. Lopez to the forty-seven percent of Hispanic voters that voted for restricting this in Arizona. It is no longer simply a "Racist Issue" as these pro illegal alien groups would have you believe. It is not a racial issue it is an issue of law and taxes. People who are paying taxes for their families services are getting fed up with those taking and taking without giving back. Politicians in California are of course worried about a potential backlash from the Hispanic community if they support such an initiative, but the people have spoken. They spoke in 1994 with approving Proposition 187 in California and they spoke again in 2004 with Proposition 200 in Arizona. Politicians need to stop fearing this issue and realize that the people want these issues addressed and will support leaders who step up and take on the challenge. Thomas Galvin tipped me off to this issue. Originally posted at Diggers Realm
Why The New Sudan Accord Will Fail
Another attempt at peace in the Sudan has been signed in Nairobi. The Associated Press report passed on by the NY Times offers a glowing account of its prospects, but it doesn’t realize how far its reporting misses the mark. I’ll try and explain a few of the issues I have with the AP’s characterization of the fighting in the Sudan. Rebel officials and the Sudanese government committed themselves Friday to ending the 21-year civil war in southern Sudan before January, signing an agreement at a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council in Africa. The 21 year figure they are referring to is the amount of time it has been since former President Nimairi dissolved the Southern Regional government and began moving harder to implement Sharia law throughout the country. This angered many in the South, causing a massive split in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) between those interested in working with the Khartoum based government for a solution and those interested in seceding from it. But the issue that the peace treaty is trying to address— and the reason that there has been as much attention from the United Nations Security Council as there has been— is the violence in the Darfur province of the Western Sudan. In actuality, that conflict is related only tangentially to the Second Sudanese Civil War, which most experts agree began on a low level in 1983, but escalated dramatically in 1985/1986 after Nimairi was thrown out of power. Historically, Arab pastoralists in the Sudan (who are essentially nomadic camel herders) have always gone South- where the land is richer- during the dry season. I don’t have a physical map I can put up for you to see, but Northern Sudan is all desert with a very low altitude, and the Northern and Southern Darfur are much more fertile and have land that ranges from 1500 feet above sea level to 3000 feet above sea level, with some isolated areas (like the Nuba Mountains) reaching heights of 6000 feet. Having Arab pastoralists come South during the dry season to use the land was always a source of contention, but the tribal system was usually effective at resolving these disputes by getting the Arabs to pay some sort of tribute to the local tribes for use of their land. In the 1980’s, with the proliferation of automatic weapons and other light arms, the tribal system of resolving these problems broke down entirely. The Arabs were refusing to pay for what they were taking, and were using violence to ensure they were not challenged. Many of the Africans fled the area, but many more stayed. They began arming themselves, and for several years there were a series of seasonal small-scale engagements between the Arab pastoralists and the African tribal members. By 1989, most estimate that around 5000 members of the Fur tribe (the dominant African tribe in the region) had been killed, and over 40000 displaced. When the conflict in Darfur began to become entwined in the Sudanese Civil War is when the SPLA split in August 1991 over, among other things, the issue of self-determination. The Nassir faction- led by Riek Machar and Lam Akol- saw an independent Southern state as essential, and the Torit faction- led by John Garang- wanted a unified central government that granted the South degrees of autonomy. Over the years, the Torit faction steadily established itself in the Western area of the Sudan (including Darfur), and the Nassir faction stayed in the East by the Ethiopian border. In November 1999, Hassan al-Turabi (the Islamist Kingmaker in Sudan, and President of the Sudanese Parliament) introduced constitutional amendments that would have restricted President Bashir’s power. This was the first in a series of spats between the two power-players that culminated when Turabi was imprisoned in 2001- where he still languishes today. But, despite being imprisoned, Turabi is still a powerful figure, and he managed to strike a kind of the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend deal with Garang against the Bashir’s government in Khartoum. Ultimately, the SPLA came out worse from the deal with Turabi. The fighting force he promised to deliver for Garang’s SPLA faction was never created, and the Southern diaspora was furious at Garang for striking a deal with Turabi- who is viewed as the chief architect of the devastation in the South. But, regardless of the political fallout, last April the SPLA launched an attack against an airport in al-Fashir that killed 75, destroyed four military aircraft and resulted in the kidnapping of the Sudanese Air Force Chief. The increase in violence against the Africans in Darfur that we’ve seen since last year- over 20000 janjaweed militiamen armed by the Bashir government, around 75000 killed and over 1 million refugees- is not the central front in the civil war, then, but rather it represents a) the continuing effort of the Arab government to carve out new territories for its nomadic pastoralists, and b) revenge against Turabi. Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha and southern rebel leader John Garang, the main negotiators for the two sides, made a similar pledge last year that never came to fruition. But this is the first time the warring sides have put a deadline in writing before the U.N. panel. As I’ve just established, Garang doesn’t have the power to negotiate because he is politically weak after alligning himself with Turabi and because there is another faction of the SPLA to contend with (as well as several other militias that must be considered), and the Bashir government simply doesn’t want to negotiate. Right now, Khartoum has the military initiative and the political and economic advantages. That is why the peace accord last year broke down so miserably, and those underlying factors have not changed at all in the last year. Garang, in a rare address by a rebel leader to the council, said the only way to avert tragedy is “to install a broad-based coalition government of national unity.” There are some in the SPLA who believe that to be true, but there are many who simply refuse to negotiate with Khartoum and demand independence. The remnants of the Anyanya forces from the 1950’s and 1960’s are part of this group, as are many of the disparate elements. One of the reasons the conflict in the Sudan has been so intractable over the last 60 years is because the debate over independence in the South has not been settled amongst Southerners. The North knows just where it stands, and has been unified- more or less- in its pursuit of an Islamic state and the subjugation of the South for material gain. And the South’s divisions have made it weak and incapable of mounting a really effective response against the North. Creating the framework for a solution to the conflict in the Sudan is a near impossible task at this point, but any progress depends on violence being halted, and that depends on the insertion of a foreign military force designed to keep the peace while the political solution is hammered out. And when I say “foreign military force,” I’m not talking about 300 Nigerians under the flag of the African Union. I’m talking about a couple battalions of Americans or Europeans, or some other disinterested modern fighting force. From a political standpoint, I believe that it would be hard to enforce a two-state solution in the Sudan because the North would never accept international borders that denied them access to the South’s considerable oil wealth, hydro-wealth, and rich soil. Because of this, if there is to be a settlement, it must be a jacked-up version of the Addis Abba accord of 1972 that granted the South and the North large amounts of regional autonomy. One of the reasons that treaty unraveled is because it didn’t address issues important to Southerners- like the structure of the economy, the presence of Islamic Banks, the over population of administrative positions in the South with Northern bureaucrats, and the existence of Northern Army garrisons in the Southern territory- and because it didn’t foresee the 1978 oil discoveries by Chevron and Total. All of these factors would need to be seriously addressed in any new agreement. And the North would also have to accept secularism, which would be a tough thing for the National Islamic Front to handle. We’re a long way off. UPDATE: The New York Times’ Mary Lacey and Christine Hauser have done some original reporting on the Nairobi accord. They do make the distinction between Darfur and the broader Civil War, but, without challenging, they pass on the belief of some UN Security Council ambassadors and create the false impression that a North-South resolution would resolve the conflict. But hanging over the meeting was another military clash, the war in Darfur, in western Sudan, which has continued unabated. On Darfur, the Council continued to hedge. Council ambassadors believe a north-south peace accord for Sudan could serve as a blueprint for Darfur. As I went over above, no “North-South” blue print will succeed because no matter how far North the regional borders are drawn, the Arab pastoralists will still insist on going South during the dry-season, and Bashir’s government- which officially declared the violence against Africans in the Sudan a jihad several years ago- will still foment violence in Darfur, under the auspices of an Islamic fatwa, to punish Turabi’s allegiance with Garang. And no matter how far South the regional borders are drawn, a significant and well armed portion of the SPLA- using an absurdly complicated labyrinth of backchannels to take funding from Bashir to fight against Garang- will still advocate secession. There is no way to resolve this conflict without military intervention. That should be abundantly clear at this point, and it should also be clear that the failure of the international community to live up to the commitments it made in the wake of the Second World War, and reiterated time and again throughout the last 50 years, is an embarrassment on a scale we will only begin to understand when the results of Bashir’s policy towards Darfur is exposed as the holocaust that it is. Cross-posted at Mayflower Hill. November 18, 2004
So Much For Supporting Our Troops
Liberals’ Veneer of Patriotism Collapses Again You all know the story. A Marine was in Fallujah in a room with dead and wounded terrorists. He shot one to death. It looks like—“looks like”—the terrorist was unarmed. And the liberal establishment media response? “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” The coverage is almost universally unfavorable, as was the premature airing of the video. Val Prieto has a great collection of links you can click, if you want to see the blogdom response. He linked to blogs of soldiers and veterans, which was a good idea. You know. Blackfive, Sgt. Hook, Baldilocks, and so on. Now, here is my simple question: what ever happened to “WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!”? Hmm…here we have a grunt in the field. Not Donald Rumsfeld. Not Paul Wolfowitz. Not George Bush. And he made a split-second decision to kill an enemy combatant, in an environment where terrorists have been pretending to be dead so they could ambush and kill coalition soldiers. Isn’t he…part of our “TROOPS”? No, I guess not. I guess he’s a BABY-KILLER! Come on, say it, liberals! You know you want to! BABY-KILLER! I mean, granted, the guy he killed was a dirty old terrorist, but “DIRTY-OLD-TERRORIST-KILLER” just doesn’t roll off the tongue, especially after a few dozen puffs of the herb. People, the left does not support our troops. They don’t really see the troops as helpless, uneducated dupes who can’t see through George Bush’s magical screen of smoke and mirrors. They know perfectly well that soldiers and sailors are overwhelmingly conservative, and the smarter leftists also know that without military votes, George Bush would never have been elected President. That’s why Bill Clinton and Al Gore worked so hard to prevent military personnel from voting and from having their cast votes counted. I have to tell you—and I am truly sorry I didn’t write about this earlier, because I wanted to, and I have no excuse—I am floored by the selflessness and courage of our troops in Fallujah and Mosul. I’m always awed by the courage of our soldiers at war, but in my mind, these troops are even more impressive. We are taking dozens of casualties, and we expected that beforehand, and by all accounts, our fighting men and women were not just willing but eager to get in there and get started. God bless every one of them. Quite simply, they are better people than I am. How do you thank people with hearts like that? The thought of it actually brings tears to my eyes. How do you thank someone who accepts low pay and unbearable working conditions in exchange for marching into hell’s very mouth? The very idea that spoiled liberal brats are condemning this brave soldier before they know the facts—it makes me wish we could flog them. In the video of the incident, it’s clear the Marine feared for his life. He shouted that the terrorist was faking death. To any sane, reasonable person, that is prima facie evidence that the shooting was justified. If you love our troops so much, why won’t you let this man make his case before you air the video and condemn him? You’d do that for the Fedayeen Saddam, you America-hating morons. Implicitly, you’re doing it for the dead terrorist in this story. Why can’t you do that for for a man who is risking his life so you can have the right to sit here on your fat, comfortable asses and criticize him? And what exactly is the brain deformity that caused NBC reporter Kevin Sites to air this video in the first place? He was in the room when it happened, depending on the accused Marine to keep him alive. Is this liberal gratitude? If you hired a brain trust and had them sit down for a month with nothing else to do, could they imagine a more egregious example of biting the hand that feeds you? In World War Two, to name but one example, journalists witnessed military errors and misdeeds all the time. But they understood that war is not peacetime, and that a certain degree of wartime self-censorship was necessary, morally correct, and patriotic. Our modern liberal press has no such understanding. They sniff that journalists are supposed to be “above” patriotism. And so we end up with G.I.’s losing their lives because our treacherous press insists on airing items like the shooting video and the Abu Ghraib photos. Don’t perpetuate the lie that news has to be reported quickly. If that’s true, why did Dan Rather wait until fall of an election year to unveil his bogus anti-Bush documents? That story was in the work for months. There was no reason to air the Fallujah video before the facts were known. In truth, there was no reason to air it at all. NBC could have reported the story using objective speech instead of an inflammatory video our enemies will use as a recruiting tool. Remember how furious MSM flunkeys were back in 2001, when American flags started appearing on the lapels of newsreaders and analysts? That should have told us something. That should have told us these people had the moral fiber of babies with wet diapers. If there is a silver lining to this story, which will needlessly subject our country and our troops to more violence, it is that it will serve to expose and irreversibly confirm the left’s hatred of our men and women in uniform. Blog it all you can. We whipped Dan Rather’s ass, and we’ll whip NBC’s, too. The PC Media on the Battlefield
This OpEd was written by Jay Bagley and originally appeared here. It is reprinted with permission of the author. Recent military battles have been party to unprecedented media coverage. I believe that while this media coverage has been great for television ratings, media has in fact hindered the military operations that it has been covering. William Tecumseh Sherman once said “War is hell” and quite often the acts of man fighting in wars are hellish. That hellish side of war is at times a necessary evil. Recently an embedded pool reporter witnessed a Marine in Fallujah, Iraq shoot an apparently unarmed and wounded terrorist without cause. Why would someone commit such an apparent atrocity without reason, other than finding pleasure in killing the enemy? I will give one possible explanation. There were recent reports of insurgents’ booby-trapping corpses of the fallen. It is possible that the Marine, most likely was aware of this new tactic, was acting in self defense against the possibility of the wounded terrorist detonating some type of explosive device. This would go a long way to explain the Marine shouting “He’s faking he’s dead!” before shooting him. I believe that what the media, whether intentionally or not, has portrayed is a callous soldier murdering an unarmed enemy purely for the joy of the kill. They reported that the previous day the same Marine was shot in the face by the very terrorists he encountered a day later. Why is this story even being told? The U.S. military has always allowed journalists to go to the front lines of battle to cover the bravery and valor of our fighting men. Yet, recently the media has become increasingly biased in their reporting of the battlefield, foregoing the stories of bravery for stories of barbary. Where are the stories of the heroic acts that these men are performing on a daily basis? Where are the heart-warming stories of the good that these men are doing? Those stories don’t get reporters noticed, they don’t get ratings. The media plays to an American society that has become so overly sensitive to being politically and morally correct that they are beginning to hinder the operations and safety of the very troops they are reporting on. Maybe that Marine did just shoot him for the hell of it, but by creating such a ruckus over it, he has endangered the lives of others serving our country. What happens when the next Marine or Soldier comes across a booby-trapped body of a terrorist and hesitates for a split second because he doesn’t want to go through the bureaucracy of justifying his actions, and in that split second the booby trap goes off killing him and others around him. What will the reporter report then? I believe that reports like this are causing the military to fight a politically correct war, a war that puts the lives of our young men and women at risk from being overly cautious. The media, in my opinion, is doing a great disservice to our servicemen and women, by constantly reporting on the atrocities of war, and not on how they are attempting to better the lives of the people they are fighting for both home and abroad. These men and women aren’t savages; they are sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fighting to survive in a savage environment. The savages are the media exploiting the environment in search of nothing more than to make a name for themselves as the one who broke the big story. —— November 17, 2004
Pop the top and blue sky with me
Have you ever “blue-skyed” about an uninvented technology, or thought of a way that a current technology could get even better? Even if you aren’t “technical”, please read the following press release from Siemens and imagine the possibilities:
The Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services Group (I&S) has received an order from Puget Sound Regional Council, Seattle, in the U.S. state of Washington, to implement a satellite-supported road pricing system as a pilot project, during which around 500 vehicles are to be fitted with on-board units (OBUs). With the help of the Global Positioning System (GPS), the position of the vehicle is detected in real time. The OBUs use GSM technology to communicate with a management control center where the user accounts are kept. The aim of the pilot project is to assess the feasibility of a use-dependent electronic pricing system. Another objective is to investigate the levels of acceptance encountered by the new system among motorists and the American public. Introduction of this system, unique in North America, is scheduled for the middle of 2004. Using this system, drivers could be charged by the mile depending on how they use the roadways. States currently have gas taxes, but new, more fuel-efficient cars mean less gas tax revenue. Plus, there’s a difference between driving a gallon’s worth on an uncongested freeway and driving the same distance on the same freeway during rush hour. And, heavy trucks pay the same gas tax as small passenger cars, yet they cause much more damage to the roadways. Why shouldn’t they pay their fair share? This new system could allow a true, fair, level playing field for drivers. Those drivers who spend a lot of time on a freeway downtown during rush hour will pay more; those who drive during off-peak hours will pay less. Drivers could start allocating how much time they spend on each type of street. You don’t leave your tap running all day because you don’t want to pay a high water bill. In fact, some utility companies charge a higher rate for peak usage. Why shouldn’t driving be the same? Bear in mind this isn’t “rocket science”. GPS and GSM (cellular) are both here now and they’re very widely used technologies. And, it’s only going to get better! Insurance companies could use this system to lower rates for safe drivers. The GPS could be used to determine how fast a driver goes and even if they change lanes too often. Coupled with data from computerized traffic signals or central traffic control centers, the insurance company could determine whether someone frequently runs red lights or commits other traffic infractions. If you’re a safe driver shouldn’t you pay a low rate even if you happen to live in a certain zip code? After all, fair’s fair, right? In fact, the police could even use these systems to automatically fine those who speed or park in handicapped parking spaces. And, what if a heinous crime is committed in your neighborhood or against a loved one? The police would be able to subpoena the records of all those drivers who were in the area at the time. The innocent would be eliminated from their list of suspects, and the guilty would be quickly caught. These systems could lead to a very sharp decrease in crime and make our streets very much safer. Or, imagine if there’s a possible terror attack. The police or other authorities could focus in on those drivers in affected areas, and tell them to evacuate immediately and what routes to take. Traffic could be routed on various roads to make sure everyone was safe. The cars of suspected terrorists could be monitored without the need for costly and error-prone physical surveillance. But, bear in mind, the data recorded by these devices would only be used by those authorized to receive the data. The computer systems can be programmed to only give out information to the various departments of transportation or law enforcement agencies. It’s only a few “Nervous Nellies” and “Worried Wilberts” who care about things like “usage creep.” To be frank, while some people are concerned about civil liberties, most people are not. Let’s face it: if the government wanted to track you, they have other ways to do it. This is simply a smart - and cost-saving - use of technology that’s already available. I applaud its use and I strongly encourage everyone to do the same. For further reading, see: “[CA] DMV Chief Backs Tax by Mile” “At 87, [WA] state’s transportation guru still a driving force” “Speakers say value pricing could ease Twin Cities congestion” You can also contact the CA DMV and tell them you fully support this proposal here or by calling their Executive Office at 916-657-6940. Or, call Arnold Schwarzenegger at 916-445-2841. While he hasn’t yet seen the light and come out in favor of the wonderful new proposals of his new DMV appointee, it can’t hurt to tell him what you think. UPDATE: From the LAT article “[CA] DMV Chief Backs Tax by Mile”:
“[Arnold’s appointment to head the CA DMV, Joan Borucki, is] devoted, and she’s knowledgeable about the state’s situation,” said Elizabeth Deakin, a policy expert with the UC Transportation Center who has known her for 15 years. “She understands the state’s concerns about wanting good service, and she understands technology.” November 16, 2004
The "V" Insurgency
Falluja has pretty much been liberated. There are some “diehards” holed up in al-Shuhada, but they have been completely cut off from the outside world, and the Marines are dealing with them harshly. So, assuming that we accept the Battle of Falluja is at its end, we must ask ourselves where we go from here? Before that, though, we need to figure out where we are now. Presently, the insurgency is limited to Sunni Muslims- most of them Iraqi- from predominantly Sunni areas of Iraq. The popular analogy is that it takes the shape of a “triangle,” but that seems slightly misleading. A more appropriate way of looking at the physical shape of the insurgency is as a “V” that extends North out of Baghdad along the Tigris and the Euphrates. One line of the insurgency goes through Falluja, Ramadi and Haditha and over the border to Syria. The other line goes North through Baqubah, Samarra, Tirkrit and eventually Mosul. The main reason it is important to see the insurgency in this way is because it simplifies the strategy of military defeat. When dealing with a “triangle,” considerations have to be made for isolating a vast region of the country on all sides- which is a tremendously difficult task when you have too few troops to begin with. When you see the insurgency as two distinct lines that follow Iraq’s main water-arteries as they snake through the desert, then you begin to see that the insurgency is not a regional phenomenon so much as it is a supply line phenomenon. One of the things we are now learning in Falluja is that insurgents have been using the city as a final staging ground for launching attacks into Baghdad. Explosives and other bomb making materials were obtained out of the country, smuggled over the border and then delivered to Falluja where IED’s and car bombs were assembled. They would then be “distributed” to Baghdad and other cities in the “Sunni Triangle.” In a way, this kind of process is a lot like an assembly line in a factory. Imagine being able to disrupt the end of a factory line, and imagine killing most of the workers at the same time. The factory wouldn’t be able to produce the same amount of product. In this case, the product is violence. Until we secure the border with Syria near the Euphrates, there will be a somewhat steady stream of explosives and money entering Iraq. But by taking Falluja, you have immediately forced the enemy to launch attacks from 75 miles further West of Baghdad. And if any effort is made to pacify Ramadi (which doesn’t offer the insurgents a lot of the amenities Falluja did), you can further that distance by another 125 miles and force insurgents to operate out of Haditha (which is a tiny little backwater at least 5 hours away from Baghdad by car). One of the things we noticed after taking Samarra a month ago is that the level of violence declined in Baghdad. At the same time, violence increased in Mosul and other cities North of Samarra along the Tigris river. We can infer that Samarra was a way-station en route to Baghdad for insurgents and terrorists looking to foster violence in the capital. Expect a similar effect once activity in Falluja settles. There will still be some violence within the capital, and within areas around the capital, but we can start to see a bubble being constructed to the North and West of Baghdad. Violence in Ramadi and Mosul is still a troubling thing, but it is far less troubling- given the prospect of trying to organize national elections in January- than violence in Baghdad. For Americans to capitalize on their successes in Falluja and Samarra, they must make sure they plug all the holes and prevent violence from leaking into Baghdad again. It will be a difficult thing to accomplish, but it is possible- particularly considering that it will soon be possible to open up meaningful negotiations with the ex-Baathist Iraqi Nationalists who make up a full 75% of opposition forces (that percentage is probably a little low now that the Marines in Falluja have dealt with a great number of foreign fighters). After the Battle of Falluja, it should be clear to the ex-Baathists, who have solid negotiating leverage, to begin with, due to their economic status, that the foreign fighters are curses, not enablers. If Zarqawi and his friends are allowed to stay and fight for a new Taliban state then every city in Iraq will soon lie in rubble the way Falluja now does— and the way Afghanistan did after the Russians had had enough of the jihadist ideology. The blueprint for negotiations has already been established by Moktada al-Sadr, and I don’t think it will be long now before we see some secular insurgent leaders follow his suit. Cross-posted at Mayflower Hill. November 15, 2004
Pew Takes On "Moral Values"
I’ve already used the CNN exit polling data to demonstrate that “Moral Values” were not, in fact, the deciding factor in the 2004 election. If you looked at the issues most important to voters, National Security and the economy were weighed more heavily than the categories that fall under the heading of “Moral Values” by a ratio of roughly 3-1. Further, if you look at the distribution of votes by people’s ideological compositions- liberal, moderate or conservative- you see that 45% of Bush’s support came from self-described “liberals” or “moderates.” Kerry lost the center, and he was doomed because of it. Now the Pew Research Center is taking on the conventional wisdom. Pew found that when respondents were given a choice of seven items for their “most important issue,” 27% chose “moral values” and 60% chose something related to National Security or the economy. When the question was open-ended (which Pew defines as “an unprompted verbatim response to an open-ended question”), “moral values” got 14% of people’s first choices and National Security and the Economy combined for 47% of people’s responses. The “other” category jumped from 4% to 31%. What does this tell us about how voters made up their minds on November 2? “Moral values” were important, to be sure, but not nearly as important as the War on Terrorism, Iraq or the economy. The whole narrative that the media has constructed since the election about not being “in touch” with Red America is therefore a confused and muddled one. Kerry didn’t lose because he was perceived as “out of touch” with people in the fly-over states. He lost because those people didn’t think he would protect the country from terrorists as well as George W. Bush. He lost because Bush convinced more Americans that he could improve their economic lot than Kerry did. It won’t hurt the Democrats to speak in more moralistic terms, but they shouldn’t simply pander to religious groups. The Democrats of the 1930’s, 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s (an era of unquestioned Democratic dominance) spoke not in terms of “faith,” but in terms of “right” and “wrong.” Reinhold Nhiebur was their guiding philosopher. The Democrats of today- and no one embodies this more than Kerry- equivocate and speak in shades of gray. Bush is certainly not an equivocator, and that was enough to get him re-elected- despite so many obvious short comings. I can think of very few Democrats these days who can articulate “right” from “wrong” on foreign policy issues and still be taken seriously. Joe Biden comes to mind and Joe Lieberman does as well. Neither of these men- for very different reasons- could win a Presidential election, but the next Democrat who does win one will do so by co-opting their rhetoric and, more importantly, by adopting their ideas. Cross-posted at Mayflower Hill. The Top Eleven Reasons Why John Kerry Lost The Election
John Kerry was a terrible candidate who did everything wrong, a real Michael Dukakis version 2.0. In fact, Kerry ran such a poor campaign that I think we in the GOP should examine the Kerry campaign and try to learn from it, so we don’t make the same mistakes. With that in mind, here are what I believe were the top eleven reasons why John Kerry lost the election… I’m Talking ‘Bout The Man John Kerry Sees In The Mirror: Put simply, John Kerry is an awful candidate for the Presidency in almost every way imaginable. He’s a dovish Massachusetts liberal who originally made a name for himself as an anti-war protestor, he has a mediocre Senate career, and JFK isn’t especially charismatic or likable. The fact that the Democrats chose this stiff in the first place was bad enough, but when you consider that the general consensus after the Democratic primaries was that Kerry was the most “electable” candidate in the field, you have to go, “Whoa, just what were these people thinking”? Vietnam Part 1: Could You Shut Up About Vietnam Already? One of the poorest decisions the Kerry campaign made was to try to make John Kerry’s Vietnam experience the centerpiece of their campaign. While Americans certainly admire military service, it’s not enough to carry someone to the presidency. That should have been obvious to everyone given that Bill Clinton beat George Bush Sr. and Bob Dole. Moreover, how Kerry thought he could go though an entire presidential campaign running as a war hero without the public ever being truly informed about some of the despicable things he did while he was protesting the war is beyond me. It would be like running Mike Tyson for President because he was heavyweight boxing champ of the world and expecting that the time he bit off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear would never come up. It just doesn’t work that way. Vietnam Part 2: Friendly Fire The Swift Boat Vets for Truth spent all of August savaging John Kerry and they continued to hammer away, albeit not as effectively as they did initially, until the end of the campaign. And the damage they did to Kerry’s likability ratings, particularly among veterans, was significant. In fact, I think it’s entirely possible that had the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth not come along, John Kerry might have been the 44th President of the United States. The conventional wisdom among Democrats today is that Kerry was too slow to respond to the Swifties, but the real problem is that Kerry was never able to mount an effective response. Kerry didn’t release his military records, spent more than a month dodging press conferences, and to the best of my knowledge never personally tried to refute any of the charges against him. That’s despite the fact that the campaign had to do major backtracking about Kerry’s mythical trip to Cambodia and how he behaved in the battle in which he received his bronze star. This is an issue that SHOULD HAVE been brought up and explored during the Democratic primaries and the fact that it only became a big issue in August of this year, after it had been talked about incessantly on talk radio and the net, gives you an idea of what lapdogs for Kerry the mainstream media were this year. A Pretty Smile & A Great Head Of Hair Do Not A VP Make: At the time he was picked, John Edwards seemed like about as good of a choice as anybody Kerry could have selected short of John McCain. But, Edwards turned out to be a dud — a pretty dud with a great head of hair mind you — but a dud nonetheless. Edwards was beneath the media radar practically from the time he was chosen onward, only surfacing to get schooled by Dick Cheney in the VP debate and to produce the most ridiculous quote of the entire campaign, “If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is President, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.” While elections don’t generally hinge on the selection of a VP, I‘m sure Kerry wishes he would have at least selected someone who could carry his own state. Convention Of The Damned!: Ok, maybe that title is overdoing it a little, but the Democrats’ fake dog and pony show of a convention was a major failure that barely boosted Kerry in the polls at all. Part of the problem was that the Democratic Party lacks star power these days. Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Howard Dean, Max Cleland, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton? This is not a group of people in whose hands you want to place your political life. On top of that, the convention was bland, wasn’t heavy on the issues, was free of attacks on Bush, centered entirely too much on Vietnam, and featured a stunningly dull, yet long speech by Kerry in which he barely even discussed his 20 years in the Senate. This was a golden opportunity squandered and Kerry’s campaign never truly recovered from it. I’m Against Gay Marriage — Sort Of: While John Kerry did say he thought marriage was between a man and woman, most people sensed he was at best straddling the fence on the issue. That’s because Kerry didn’t support a Constitutional Amendment to protect marriage, he wasn’t for any of the 11 state bans on gay marriage that were on ballots across the country, and he had little to say to those in his party who insisted that anyone who was against gay marriage was a backwards homophobe. Well, when you get on the wrong side of 5,000 years of human history, you’re going to turn a lot of people off. Bill Clinton understood that and told Kerry to back the local bans on gay marriage, but Kerry chose not to take Clinton’s advice and paid for it at the polls. I’ll Take Dick Cheney’s Daughter Is A Lesbian For $1000 Alex!: After John Edwards went off on a tangent about Dick Cheney’s daughter Mary being a lesbian in their debate, it drew a lot of attention. In fact, when Saturday Night Live did a parody of the debate, that’s something even they focused on extensively. So when John Kerry brought it up AGAIN in his third debate with George Bush, it stood out like a sore thumb. People perceived it, quite correctly I might add, as an attempt by Kerry to use Dick Cheney’s daughter against him — the idea being to appeal to homophobes who Kerry thought might vote for him if they knew Dick Cheney’s daughter was a lesbian. As John Kerry found out to his dismay, going after the other guy’s child is not something the public generally appreciates. When Kerry made his remark, it didn’t seem like the big quip that everyone would be talking about later, but past debates have often hinged on exactly such small turns of phrase. In this case, it stopped the momentum Kerry had been building by winning all three debates and left him a couple of points behind Bush in the polls, where he essentially stayed for the rest of the election. Flip-Flop? I got Your Flip-Flop Right Here! Look, all politicians change their minds about certain issues. But Kerry’s positions on the issues seemed to depend almost on who he was talking to, especially when it came to the war. We’re talking about a guy here who said it was the “right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein” but that it was the “wrong war, wrong place, wrong time,” that we’d be “better off without Saddam Hussein” before the war & that we shouldn’t have invaded afterwards, and who claimed Iraq was “critical to” & also a “distraction from” the war on terror. If you want to be President of the United States, especially during a war, you’ve got to be willing to take a firm stand on the major issues. John Kerry never did. War, Domestic Issues, & Shrum: This is going to be hard for a lot of liberals to accept, but from day one, John Kerry never had the slightest chance of being competitive with George Bush on security issues. Bush is a hawkish conservative who led the country through 9/11, knocked off Saddam and the Taliban, and wrapped up 2/3rds of Al-Qaeda’s leadership among other things. The idea that a dovish liberal, who wasn’t a cold warrior, who voted against the Gulf War, and who voted not to fund the war in Iraq was going to beat George Bush on security issues was pure fantasy. Yet, the Kerry campaign focused incessantly on national security which ironically helped to convince voters that it was the most important issue of the campaign. Why did the Kerry campaign try to keep picking a fight that they could never win? Someone ask Bob Shrum because I don’t have an explanation. Why Did Kerry Want To Be President? Who Knows?: Like him or hate him, people had a pretty good idea of why George Bush wanted to be President. He wanted to continue to fight the war on terror, to make his tax cuts permanent, and to amend the Constitution to protect marriage. Now, why did John Kerry want to be President? No one’s really sure, but I think it had something or another to do with Vietnam. The Kerry campaign didn’t center the campaign around any big issues, instead they simply latched on to whatever the issue of the moment was and that just wasn’t enough for the voters. At some point, John Kerry needed to give people some compelling reasons to vote for him and not just against George Bush, but Kerry wasn’t up to the task. It’s The Lawyers Stupid!: I firmly believe that in 2002 and 2004, all the talk by Democrats about bringing in hordes of lawyers to “make sure every vote is counted” has ironically cost them a lot of swing votes. Americans absolutely HATED the contested election of 2000, they loathe the idea of lawyers being involved in the process at all, and they find the concept of a candidate trying to win in the court room after failing at the ballot box to be repulsive. By so publicly “lawyering up,” John Kerry undoubtedly turned off a lot of potential voters and helped to give Bush a little boost right before people went to the polls. The Top Eleven Reasons Why John Kerry Lost The Election
John Kerry was a terrible candidate who did everything wrong, a real Michael Dukakis version 2.0. In fact, Kerry ran such a poor campaign that I think we in the GOP should examine the Kerry campaign and try to learn from it, so we don’t make the same mistakes. With that in mind, here are what I believe were the top eleven reasons why John Kerry lost the election… I’m Talking ‘Bout The Man John Kerry Sees In The Mirror: Put simply, John Kerry is an awful candidate for the Presidency in almost every way imaginable. He’s a dovish Massachusetts liberal who originally made a name for himself as an anti-war protestor, he has a mediocre Senate career, and JFK isn’t especially charismatic or likable. The fact that the Democrats chose this stiff in the first place was bad enough, but when you consider that the general consensus after the Democratic primaries was that Kerry was the most “electable” candidate in the field, you have to go, “Whoa, just what were these people thinking”? Vietnam Part 1: Could You Shut Up About Vietnam Already? One of the poorest decisions the Kerry campaign made was to try to make John Kerry’s Vietnam experience the centerpiece of their campaign. While Americans certainly admire military service, it’s not enough to carry someone to the presidency. That should have been obvious to everyone given that Bill Clinton beat George Bush Sr. and Bob Dole. Moreover, how Kerry thought he could go though an entire presidential campaign running as a war hero without the public ever being truly informed about some of the despicable things he did while he was protesting the war is beyond me. It would be like running Mike Tyson for President because he was heavyweight boxing champ of the world and expecting that the time he bit off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear would never come up. It just doesn’t work that way. Vietnam Part 2: Friendly Fire The Swift Boat Vets for Truth spent all of August savaging John Kerry and they continued to hammer away, albeit not as effectively as they did initially, until the end of the campaign. And the damage they did to Kerry’s likability ratings, particularly among veterans, was significant. In fact, I think it’s entirely possible that had the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth not come along, John Kerry might have been the 44th President of the United States. The conventional wisdom among Democrats today is that Kerry was too slow to respond to the Swifties, but the real problem is that Kerry was never able to mount an effective response. Kerry didn’t release his military records, spent more than a month dodging press conferences, and to the best of my knowledge never personally tried to refute any of the charges against him. That’s despite the fact that the campaign had to do major backtracking about Kerry’s mythical trip to Cambodia and how he behaved in the battle in which he received his bronze star. This is an issue that SHOULD HAVE been brought up and explored during the Democratic primaries and the fact that it only became a big issue in August of this year, after it had been talked about incessantly on talk radio and the net, gives you an idea of what lapdogs for Kerry the mainstream media were this year. A Pretty Smile & A Great Head Of Hair Do Not A VP Make: At the time he was picked, John Edwards seemed like about as good of a choice as anybody Kerry could have selected short of John McCain. But, Edwards turned out to be a dud — a pretty dud with a great head of hair mind you — but a dud nonetheless. Edwards was beneath the media radar practically from the time he was chosen onward, only surfacing to get schooled by Dick Cheney in the VP debate and to produce the most ridiculous quote of the entire campaign, “If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is President, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.” While elections don’t generally hinge on the selection of a VP, I‘m sure Kerry wishes he would have at least selected someone who could carry his own state. Convention Of The Damned!: Ok, maybe that title is overdoing it a little, but the Democrats’ fake dog and pony show of a convention was a major failure that barely boosted Kerry in the polls at all. Part of the problem was that the Democratic Party lacks star power these days. Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Howard Dean, Max Cleland, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton? This is not a group of people in whose hands you want to place your political life. On top of that, the convention was bland, wasn’t heavy on the issues, was free of attacks on Bush, centered entirely too much on Vietnam, and featured a stunningly dull, yet long speech by Kerry in which he barely even discussed his 20 years in the Senate. This was a golden opportunity squandered and Kerry’s campaign never truly recovered from it. I’m Against Gay Marriage — Sort Of: While John Kerry did say he thought marriage was between a man and woman, most people sensed he was at best straddling the fence on the issue. That’s because Kerry didn’t support a Constitutional Amendment to protect marriage, he wasn’t for any of the 11 state bans on gay marriage that were on ballots across the country, and he had little to say to those in his party who insisted that anyone who was against gay marriage was a backwards homophobe. Well, when you get on the wrong side of 5,000 years of human history, you’re going to turn a lot of people off. Bill Clinton understood that and told Kerry to back the local bans on gay marriage, but Kerry chose not to take Clinton’s advice and paid for it at the polls. I’ll Take Dick Cheney’s Daughter Is A Lesbian For $1000 Alex!: After John Edwards went off on a tangent about Dick Cheney’s daughter Mary being a lesbian in their debate, it drew a lot of attention. In fact, when Saturday Night Live did a parody of the debate, that’s something even they focused on extensively. So when John Kerry brought it up AGAIN in his third debate with George Bush, it stood out like a sore thumb. People perceived it, quite correctly I might add, as an attempt by Kerry to use Dick Cheney’s daughter against him — the idea being to appeal to homophobes who Kerry thought might vote for him if they knew Dick Cheney’s daughter was a lesbian. As John Kerry found out to his dismay, going after the other guy’s child is not something the public generally appreciates. When Kerry made his remark, it didn’t seem like the big quip that everyone would be talking about later, but past debates have often hinged on exactly such small turns of phrase. In this case, it stopped the momentum Kerry had been building by winning all three debates and left him a couple of points behind Bush in the polls, where he essentially stayed for the rest of the election. Flip-Flop? I got Your Flip-Flop Right Here! Look, all politicians change their minds about certain issues. But Kerry’s positions on the issues seemed to depend almost on who he was talking to, especially when it came to the war. We’re talking about a guy here who said it was the “right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein” but that it was the “wrong war, wrong place, wrong time,” that we’d be “better off without Saddam Hussein” before the war & that we shouldn’t have invaded afterwards, and who claimed Iraq was “critical to” & also a “distraction from” the war on terror. If you want to be President of the United States, especially during a war, you’ve got to be willing to take a firm stand on the major issues. John Kerry never did. War, Domestic Issues, & Shrum: This is going to be hard for a lot of liberals to accept, but from day one, John Kerry never had the slightest chance of being competitive with George Bush on security issues. Bush is a hawkish conservative who led the country through 9/11, knocked off Saddam and the Taliban, and wrapped up 2/3rds of Al-Qaeda’s leadership among other things. The idea that a dovish liberal, who wasn’t a cold warrior, who voted against the Gulf War, and who voted not to fund the war in Iraq was going to beat George Bush on security issues was pure fantasy. Yet, the Kerry campaign focused incessantly on national security which ironically helped to convince voters that it was the most important issue of the campaign. Why did the Kerry campaign try to keep picking a fight that they could never win? Someone ask Bob Shrum because I don’t have an explanation. Why Did Kerry Want To Be President? Who Knows?: Like him or hate him, people had a pretty good idea of why George Bush wanted to be President. He wanted to continue to fight the war on terror, to make his tax cuts permanent, and to amend the Constitution to protect marriage. Now, why did John Kerry want to be President? No one’s really sure, but I think it had something or another to do with Vietnam. The Kerry campaign didn’t center the campaign around any big issues, instead they simply latched on to whatever the issue of the moment was and that just wasn’t enough for the voters. At some point, John Kerry needed to give people some compelling reasons to vote for him and not just against George Bush, but Kerry wasn’t up to the task. It’s The Lawyers Stupid!: I firmly believe that in 2002 and 2004, all the talk by Democrats about bringing in hordes of lawyers to “make sure every vote is counted” has ironically cost them a lot of swing votes. Americans absolutely HATED the contested election of 2000, they loathe the idea of lawyers being involved in the process at all, and they find the concept of a candidate trying to win in the court room after failing at the ballot box to be repulsive. By so publicly “lawyering up,” John Kerry undoubtedly turned off a lot of potential voters and helped to give Bush a little boost right before people went to the polls. November 14, 2004
The Last Word on Arafat
From the Boston Globe : It would take an encyclopedia to catalog all of the evil Arafat committed. But that is no excuse for not trying to recall at least some of it. Amen. You call that a Rant?
This is a Rant. (One Commenter described it as “PJ O’Rourke turned up to 11 and armed with an acid-soaked chainsaw” - a masterpiece of understatement) November 13, 2004
Is Bush going to flip-flop?
Arafat’s body isn’t even cold yet, and the Palestinians have come up with yet another gambit to create an independent state without making peace with their neighbor… AP: Jailed Palestinian Wants to Succeed Arafat Imprisoned uprising leader Marwan Barghouti has decided to run for president in upcoming Palestinian elections, a source close to the popular politician said Saturday. The principles that President Bush laid out in the summer of 2002 as well as within the Roadmap clearly state the two basic initial responsibilities of the Palestinians:
By rallying behind Barghouti, an unapologetic organizer of murders of both Israelis and “collaborator” Palestinians, the Palestinians will demonstrate that they are not serious about peace or putting the love of terrorism behind them. Just as Bush refused to accept Arafat’s Nobel Prize false front behind which Arafat continued to organize, fund, and reward the murder of innocents, Bush must not accept Barghouti as a “leader uncomprimised by terror” as well. Even if Jimmy Carter watches and approves every ballot cast in Barghouti’s name, it’s just proof that the Palestinians themselves are still in the thrall of Arafat’s decades of indoctrination of murder and hate. Based solely on their both being in prison by “colonial” regimes for working towards self-rule, some call Barghouti the Palestinian Mandela. If Nelson Mandela has no argument against such a comparison, then it may be time to try Nelson Mandela for multiple counts of homicide, conspiracy to commit homicide, and war crimes. By the way, the future of Arafat is Full Of Crap is now in your hands with a new poll. November 12, 2004
Safe and Sane eVoting
I’d like to know if this eVoting system is used already, and if someone can point out flaws: It’s a two step process. The voter first fills out a normal paper ballot using some standard technique: filling in circles, connecting arrows, etc. Then they walk over to a scanner with a monitor and insert the ballot into the scanner. The monitor displays their selections. If the voter sees everything is OK, they press “OK” and the ballot is ejected from the machine. The monitor (or keyboard) only has two choices: “OK” and “Cancel.” The voter can’t use the scanner/monitor to change their votes, they can only accept or reject the selections shown. If the voter chooses “OK”, the voter then puts that ballot into an envelope and puts that envelope into the ballot box. Poll workers make sure no one can put a ballot into the ballot box without first putting it through the scanner; perhaps the ballot could be marked by the scanner with a mark identifying the exact machine but not using a sequential number that could be used to identify the voter. The scanner records a preliminary count which stands as the official count unless something unexpected happens. A memory card in the scanner is physically transported to a central tabulator and the votes are read and published. The scanner would not have a modem. (Someone switching in a fake memory card here would need to be addressed in some way). Random samples of precincts are done to ensure that the machines worked OK and the data on the memory card(s) from that precinct matches the votes on the physical ballots. There would be a possible series of random samples of widening sizes, depending on errors found. If, in the first random sample no errors are found, then the preliminary count is assumed to be correct. However, if a certain percentage of problems are found, then a larger sample is taken. At some point, the whole state would be recounted if enough problems are found in the preceding samples. When doing a sample, the physical ballots would be counted by hand using a group of observers from all major parties. In the case of a recount, the physical ballots are counted and they take precedence over the electronic count. If, during the voting procedure, the voter says the scanner’s output doesn’t match how they voted (i.e., they press “Cancel”), that ballot is placed in a special bin, perhaps together with a note about the specific discrepancy. Then, the voter is given a completely new ballot and has to go through the process from the beginning. These “canceled” ballots could be inspected later to investigate problems or to correct flaws in the system. If enough voters notice discrepancies, then we have first warning of a problem with that scanner or the ballot or other things. November 11, 2004
Remembrance Day, 2004
Today is Veterans Day in the USA, and Remembrance Day in the British Commonwealth countries. Too many others have said it better than I can, so I’ll just let them do so:
Thank You
————— Taken at the Eishenhower Park Veteran’s Memorial, Long Island. See a slideshow of photos from the memorial here. Arafat's Final Frontier
A stirring anthem in tribute to Yasser Arafat’s Peace Prize, his condition in the last few days, and the continued announcements that he was still alive. From the crew of the Enterprise. In Death, no dignity
From their profile page of Yasser Arafat: Born in Gaza in 1929 to a relatively well-to-do merchant family, he was given the name Muhammad, which has since been almost completely eclipsed by the nickname Yasir. He was born in Cairo, not Gaza. Keep an eye out for Gaza and Jerusalem claims over the coming days. Just in case you didn’t realize that Al-Jazeerra was propaganda first, news second. November 10, 2004
President Bush Resurrects Amnesty Plans For Illegal Aliens
Angered and frustrated. That's how I feel about President Bush's continued pushing of giving rights to illegal aliens who have broken our laws and used our services costing taxpayers over $10 billion a year.
President Bush yesterday moved aggressively to resurrect his plan to relax rules against illegal immigration, a move bound to anger conservatives just days after they helped re-elect him.As many of you know Tom Tancredo is my hero! I sincerely love the guy over this issue alone. I don't understand why Bush is pushing this sh*t. In my opinion it is not just to stroke the Hispanic vote, it is to try and avoid the issue altogether. John McCain said at the RNC "He has not wavered. He has not flinched from the hard choices. He will not yield." Yeah, well how about facing up to this issue and making the hard choice huh George? How about enforcing the law and actually protecting our southern border? You too McCain. I normally like you, but pushing this garbage continuously is ignorant. Tipped by: In Search Of Utopia, who loves when right people bash Bush. The fact is I could give a crap about Bush, I'm an issues man. I care about the issues not King Georgie. Other Commentary: Originally Posted at Diggers Realm
French "Respect" Their Allies
The British have several holidays honoring their brave soliders that gave their lives for UK and its allies. One such holiday is coming up this Sunday. Remembrance Sunday was started after the first World War ended.In The Battle of Loos many British soldiers lost their lives fighting alongside the French against the Germans. How do the French show their respect for British sacrifice on their behalf? A BATTLEFIELD where soldiers from Norfolk died in one of the bloodiest episodes of the First World War is being turned into a rubbish dump. This story may not be making headlines here, especially with France making headlines elsewhere, but the English are rightfully upset over this utter disrespect for their honorable dead. Armed Liberal: About Veteran's Day 2004
This is the third post I’ve written on Veteran’s Day. I plan to do this every year from now on; even after I stop blogging (if I ever do). I want to do this because I have reconnected in these years with three things I’m not sure I knew enough about or valued enough beforehand.
So it started in 2002 when I wrote something about Veteran’s Day over at Armed Liberal. Here’s what I wrote in ‘I Started To Write About Veteran’s Day…’:
And worried that what I wrote kept coming out sounding either too qualified or would be interpreted as being too nationalistic. November 09, 2004
Ask And Ye Shall Receive: The Enberg Fisk
I asked here, half-joking, for a fisk of Eric Enberg’s latest. Leave it to the CP readership to comply. Read gus3’s fisk here. A taste: This is the kind of stuff we used to run in my aforementioned school paper, when the speculation surrounded who was going steady. The difference is that the bloggers aspire to being a force in our public life and claim to be at the forefront of a new political-media era. Why Kerry won
The election’s been over for almost a week, so I think it’s time to look back at what lead to the Kerry landslide:
What’s that you say? Kerry did none of those things? Oh. J.P. Barlow Gets Shown the Light
Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow becomes a sane individual again. It happens in his column (eventually), and it seems to be happening in his larger reality as well - something long-overdue for many members of the liberal-left. Barlow has some good points to make, and some critical admissions:
He wasn’t exactly alone in this, it wasn’t exactly a big secret, and it’s clear that there’s still a long way to go before we get to the kind of dialogue Barlow says he wants. That said, Barlow’s admission is more than just refreshing. It’s a critical first step. Especially when it’s followed by this burst of sanity on his part: November 08, 2004
Whatever Happened to Richard Thornburgh...
and that other guy? Weren’t they supposed to do some big investigation about something bad, and report back to us within a couple weeks? It’s been months, seems like. Is there a “Report of Lost Investigation” form or something we should fill out and turn in? Just askin’. More From Alan? Is This Bizzaro World??
This is an administrative matter more than anything else: I’ve posted a short Op/Ed piece, but as it’s primarily about matters Command Post, I’ve put it on the Publisher’s Desk. BUT: As it is opinion, and as the PD is relativley new, I’m cross-linknig it here so (1) more of you see it, and (2) more of you might come to regularly check the Publisher’s Desk, which is where Michele and I post about the Command Post, contests, calls for feedback, etc. So, if you’re inclined, read Blogs, Exit Polls … And Clarity From The Wall Street Journal on the Publisher’s Desk. Thanks. Moral Values
Despite my vow to quit it with the political crap, if I don’t get this off my chest, I’m going to develop a brain aneurysm and start acting weird. And we wouldn’t want that, now, would we? A lot of folks have been stewing in their juices about the results of last Tuesday’s election. How could over half the country possibly have voted for this loser of a President? They all must be stupid, homophobic, intolerant, theocratic, zealots! Well, I don’t doubt that there are a lot of S.H.I.T.Z. out there, but I am concerned with the big, sloppy brush that everyone seems to be using to paint the picture of the “average” Bush voter. Some of the things I’ve heard my fellow Democrats call people who had the gall to disagree with them would make Don Rickles go, “Hey, now, that’s just mean…” Of all the people I know personally who voted for Bush, not one is a religious extremist. In fact, other than their association with me, they’re not even idiots! They voted for Bush because they were pro-military, or they thought he was the better candidate to prevent terrorism, or because they didn’t like Kerry. Most of them agree with us on all of the social issues people talk about when the term “moral values” pops up, including gay rights and abortion. Sure, we lost in part because the Republicans got out the vote of their evangelical crowd, but mostly we lost because John Kerry sucked as a candidate. He was handed the election on a silver platter and managed to louse it up. That’s just the way it is. If he had had a clearer message and half of Bill Clinton’s personality, he would have wiped the floor with George Bush. Even still, he got more votes than any other liberal candidate for president in history and lost the election by a measly 135,000 votes in Ohio. I can only speak for myself, but I am going to take the same energy that I would otherwise be using to excoriate those who don’t agree with me and employ it in motivating those who do. If I am successful (and have help), there is no doubt who will prevail next time. By the same token, it’s hard to sit and listen to people call your patriotism into question (and worse) for three years, then watch as a President who has—as far as you’re concerned—absolutely no right to be re-elected on his merits get swept back into office amid an apparent wave of voters concerned with “moral values.” The bile and vitriol being spewed at liberals on a daily basis is enough to make anyone want to barf it right back. Well don’t. As I’ve told others, I’m not saying we have to be all saintly, but stooping to their level isn’t going to do any good, either. Let’s assume that we are absolutely, 100-percent right on the issues. What good does it do us if we get so nasty that we wind up with a voter saying: “Now, which one of you is the party promoting hate, again?” I don’t mean to get all preachy, but I am Christian. It’s what we do. We follow Christ: But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Keep the faith, brothers and sisters. And remember these words: MY family values include gay families. One election does not an Armageddon make. Palestinian Minister of Denial denies his recent appointment
RAMALLAH (Command-Post.org) - Minister of Denial Mohammed Durka spent his first press conference vehemently denying his recent appointment as Minister of Denial. “I am not the Minister of Denial!” shouted Mohammed Durka to reporters. “There is no such thing as the Ministry of Denial! We deny any and all reports of its existence or my appointment as its minister!” According to reports from unnamed sources, all of which were denied by Minister Durka at the press conference, The Ministry of Denial was formed by Achmed Queri and Mahmoud Abbas after they agreed that there needed to be a central authority from which Palestinian denials were issued. Both were concerned about a lack of credibility of their joint temporary administration due to a wide range of conflicting press reports and denials from various sources within their administration. By centralizing the denial process, they are hoping to restore credibility in their authority, which will be crucial when Palestinian Authority and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat is officially declared deceased. Mohammed Durka is well-versed and experieced in the art of denial, having served at the United Nations as a cultural attache for several years. He then acted as a spokesman for Yasser Arafat’s varied and diverse security organizations, all of which he regularly denied were involved in terror operations against Israelis. When asked about his plan to contain the damage from conflicting reports regarding Arafat’s near-death or his wife’s refusal to allow PLO figures to ascertain the situation themselves, Durka denied any such plans existed. “There are no plans! There is no Ministry! There is no Minister!” An Open Letter To American And European Liberals From A Red State Republican
Since George W. Bush was reelected there has been a lot of very angry talk from the left about “Red State Americans”. Since then, those of us in the red states have been called “greedy,” “sister marryin’,” “slow learners” & “fascists” who live in “Jesusland”. Well, I’m a “Redstate Republican” from the South and I think it’s a good idea to take a few minutes to let the left, American and European, know how things appear from the other side of the looking glass. Sure, maybe this won’t faze any of the “Michael Moore is genius and conservatives are Nazis crowd,” but we can always hope, can’t we? First of all, this may come as a shock to our condescending liberal European cousins who believe they live in the crown jewel of civilization and tend to think Americans are backwards barbarians, but many of us across the pond don’t see much worth emulating in Europe. From our perspective, the majority of the last hundred years has been nothing but Europeans getting into trouble time and time again and Americans being called upon to pull their buns out of the fire. Think about WW1, WW2, the Marshall Plan, the Cold War, and then Serbia in the late nineties. Many liberal Europeans may believe themselves to be more sophisticated, smarter, and generally superior to Americans, but who has been calling on whom for help over and over again? But of course, when finally WE here in America asked for Europe’s help in the War on Terror, many European nations begged off, many delivered very minimal help, and almost all of Europe’s left have acted angrier with Bush and America than the terrorists we’re fighting to stop. That’s not very neighborly and I suspect at some point in the future, we will have the opportunity to remind Europe’s left of that fact when they’re asking us to save the day for them once again. On top of that, what do we see in Europe where liberalism has largely taken over? We see secular welfare states, strangling in red tape, featuring mediocre militaries & sluggish economies. Furthermore, today’s Europe has adopted the appeasement mentality that Neville Chamberlain was much derided for, they don’t like America very much, and birthrates have dropped so far, so fast, that much of the continent seems to be in a death spiral. Is that something we here in America should aspire to? Not bloody likely…. Now, on to America. Many liberals here tend to assume that conservatives hate them or think they’re stupid. Personally, that’s not true for me. However, I do think liberals tend to be hopelessly naive about human nature, are borderline suicidal when it comes to their views on national security, and they tend to be titanically arrogant about how right they are and their capabilities given the paucity of what they’ve accomplished in…oh, say the last 30 years or so at least. I’d also note that liberalism these days often (but of course, not always) seems to be largely synonymous with “blaming America first,” extreme hostility to religion and American businesses, and a willingness to entertain bizarre conspiracy theories. Likewise, liberals tend to assume that opposition to their ideas in of itself is base: that it’s based on greed, racism, homophobia, and dare I say it…just plain, old, eevvvviiil. Well again, I don’t want to shock anybody, but conservatives genuinely believe that the whole country, rich or poor, men or women, minorities or majorities, are not only better served by conservative policies, but that liberal policies hurt the country. Yes, we think a small government is better than a big one, that low taxes for everyone, including the rich, are good for the country, & that the “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” portion of the First Amendment is just as important as the, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” section. Additionally, when conservatives wave the flag, it’s because we like doing it. When conservatives say “we support the troops,” it’s not some kind of dodge; we realize what a tough job they have and believe we should look out for them because of it. When we listen to Rush Limbaugh, it’s not because we think he makes up great lies about liberals; it’s because we believe he’s telling the truth. Liberals, American and European, probably won’t buy into what I’m saying because it’s much easier to just paint conservatives as gap toothed, fundamentalist, bigots and homophobes who dream of locking liberals in camps and running some sort of one party theocratic state. Believe that if you will, but it will not make it into reality, nor will it change the ugly face of modern day liberalism into something that will appeal to most Americans. Another Voice Says It Wasn't About Values
James Wilson takes space in the WSJ to note that he, too, doesn’t think John Kerry lost on values. It is easy to explain the election. Too easy. Depending on your instincts and how much time you are given to think, you can say that the electorate has moved to the right or that John Kerry flip-flopped or that the Democrats were unable to appeal to the moral values of people. Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times that President Bush was re-elected by people who disagree with him on what America should be. His evidence is that “Christian fundamentalists” have used their “religious energy to promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad.” Garry Wills has said much the same thing. A Conspiracy And Propaganda Surrounding Yasser Arafat's Death
Ok, there's something going on that I think we non-Muslim's are ignorant about surrounding Yasser Arafat's death and how it is being pre-arranged. Bear with me here as I put forth my theory.
Throughout history, events have been specifically made to happen on certain dates in order to give them more importance. The current very closely guarded state of Yasser Arafat's condition, I believe, is being specifically targeted to coincide with a date of importance in the Islamic calendar. Tuesday night is the night that Muslims believe the Koran was given to the prophet Mohammed. They know it as Lailat al-Kader. By having Yasser Arafat be declared to have died on this day it could be used as propaganda in elevating him to a symbolic saint in the Muslim world. Arafat may have died a few days ago and the French and Palestinian Authority being involved in the cover-up of his death in order to have the benefit of somehow linking his death to an important day to keep the fight alive for Palestinians. There is recent news that the Palestinian Leaders are heading to France in preparation of his death. There is also word that Arafat's wife, Suha Arafat, called into Al-Jazeera in a plea to the Palestinian people. "Let it be known to the honest Palestinian people that a bunch of those who want to take over are coming to Paris tomorrow, You have to realize the size of the conspiracy. I tell you they are trying to bury Abu Ammar alive," She said. Abu Ammar is Yasser Arafat's given name. If true this is a wide conspiracy on the part of the leaders prepared to take over to give Arafat more status in hopes of retaining their positions in following through on his declarations. We should know for sure tomorrow if this conspiracy put forth is even possible. If he is not declared dead tomorrow then the question will be whether that was their plan and it was dismissed or that it was just a conspiracy theory all along. Resources:
Originally published at Diggers Realm
November 07, 2004
Peggy Noonan Writes About Bloggers
Over at The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan has chimed in with her list of winners and losers from this election cycle. She considers the elite mainstream media as, “The biggest loser.” Concerning CBS’s “60 Minutes”(Rathergate) as well as The New York Times (Bombgate) episodes, Noonan comments on the Bloggers as follows: “The yeomen of the blogosphere and AM radio and the Internet took them down. It was to me a great historical development in the history of politics in America. It was Agincourt. It was the yeoman of King Harry taking down the French aristocracy [armored knights on horseback] with new technology [long-bows] and rough guts. God bless the pajama-clad yeomen of America. Some day, when America is hit again, and lines go down, and media are hard to get, these bloggers and site runners and independent Internetters of all sorts will find a way to file, and get their word out, and it will be part of the saving of our country.” Yes, we jinn have been turned loose from our respective bottles, and it is highly unlikely that Rather, Brokaw, Jennings, Coppel, Time/Warner, or any of the other traditionally left-leaning media (or Rupert Murdoch, for that matter) will be capable of putting us back into them. November 06, 2004
Arafat "Pining For the Fjords"
This is on the Op-Ed page rather than the Global Recon one, as no-one in MSM wants to mention the elephant in the room. From CNN : Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat remained in a coma Friday at a French military hospital on the outskirts of Paris, amid various reports over the gravity of his prognosis. And to figure out where he stashed the $4.5 billion in loot. Arafat’s family always has wanted him to be buried in Jerusalem, but Israeli officials have said they would not allow that. There is some discussion about Arafat being buried in Egypt. On Judgement Day, the dead shall rise again! Speaking in an interview on French Radio Friday morning, Shahid denied reports that the Palestinian leader was brain dead. Some would say that he’s been that way for decades, of course. But not literally, till now. Shahid said the coma was initially induced by doctors on Wednesday afternoon in order to perform a biopsy after his condition took a turn for the worse. In other words, Whoops…. the biposy was successful, but the patient, er, well, his condition became more complex. The two U.S. officials say that since Muslim custom requires burial within 24 hours of death, no one will declare Arafat dead until they figure out where to bury him. They said Arafat will not be taken off life support or declared officially deceased by his family until the negotiations are complete, and they hope to have those talks wrapped up within 24 to 48 hours. Whereupon they can officially pull the plug on the fully-automated all-electric Arafat. Batteries not included. “This is a very sensitive matter,” one official said, adding, “We are running out of time.” In other words, bits are falling off, and he’s starting to smell. Even worse, that is. When the French Military said that Arafat’s condition had become “more complex” a few days ago, this meant that the corpse could now only be kept fresh by continuous heart stimulation and a ventilator. In other words, his feet are nailed to the perch. He wouldn’t go “Voom” if they put 20,000 volts through him - because that’s what they have to do now just to stop a certain greenish tinge on his face, and grey fuzz growing from the eyeballs. Arafat’s condition is now “more stable than it was”, in fact, it’s as stable as a doornail. He is an ex-Arafat. Bereft of life, he doesn’t rest in peace though. The Peace of the grave will be denied him, until they find where the money is, or the charade gets too difficult for even the French Military (experts in farces) to keep up. Thursday afternoon, French President Jacques Chirac was allowed to briefly visit Arafat’s room. He also spent about a half hour with Suha Arafat, the Palestinian leader’s wife. Dare we hope that some spark of awareness might remain, some activity within the stimulated, oxygenated, ventilated, and medicated rotting nervous system? I doubt it. Some things are too much to hope for. But maybe there is justice after all. And just think, with luck this could last for days, even weeks! November 05, 2004
Empowerment, Defense, and the Undoing of the Democrats
Over the winter, the Democrats are going to need to do some serious soul-searching about what they want their party to represent. Do they want to be the champions of empowerment, or the champions of handouts? Do they want to be the champions of liberty, or the champions of relativism? Do they want to liberal proselytizers, or provincial isolationists? Their descent into post-modernism has been disastrous for the party and disastrous for America. If the Democrats are to go forward, they must look to their past, and they must embrace what they see. This past election was devastating to liberals, but it shouldn’t be considered exceptional in any way. Kerry was lucky the race was even as close as it was. Bush was probably the weakest incumbent in 100 years: he presided over the worst economy since Hoover, his Iraq War has produced some horrifying headlines, and he has managed to alienate virtually the entire world. But Kerry still lost, and he still lost decisively. Compounding the defeat, the GOP made gains in both the House and the Senate, increasing their majorities and strongly establishing the Democratic Party as the “opposition” party. The reasons for Kerry’s loss have less to do with Kerry than they do with the Democratic Party’s trajectory over the last 35 years, but we’ll get to that in a moment. Since the election, we’ve heard the pundits pouring their hearts out on TV- almost apologetically- for not being “in touch” with Middle America, and for not accurately reporting “values” as an issue. The reason, one would suspect, for this guilt trip is the statistic being bandied about showing that the “largest single block” of voters picked “moral values” as the “most important election issue.” As Andrew Coyne points out, that is a very misleading statistic. For starters, the “largest single block” is only 22% of the electorate. Further, the category “moral values” is broad and all encompassing: it could include, among other things, issues of gay marriage, faith in society, abortion, stem cell research, school vouchers, etc. If you broke it down by category, it is unlikely that any one would register significantly over the other. Further, “Iraq” and “Terrorism” were grouped separately. I remember when I took an exit poll and was asked what the most important issue to me was, and I responded by asking if the Iraq War and Terrorism were grouped in a broad “War on Terror” category. I was told that was not the case. I chose the Iraq War for my answer, but only because I believe it is the central front in the War on Terror, and the latter cannot proceed without success in the former. Coyne points out that if the Iraq War and Terrorism were grouped under one heading- his choice is “national security”- then that category would have fetched 34% of people’s first choices. He also notes that “taxes” and the “economy” combined for 25% of the people’s first choices. Adding that up, you see that people, by a margin of almost 3 to 1, are more concerned with National Security and with the Economy than they are with “moral values.” Now that Coyne has dismissed the “values” canard, we can move on to look at the election from a more traditional perspective: liberal, independent, conservative. Here the answers are more indicative of the Democrat’s problems. Coyne notes that 45% of Bush’s vote came from moderates and liberals. 45%. That is a lot- 23% of the total vote. When the Democrats lose their base and the center, what chance do they have? The reason the Democrats should be fretting is because this is becoming a trend. They’ve lost 5 of the last 7 Presidential elections, and they’ve seen their historic hold on the Congress disappear completely. Why? The voters, we’ve already seen, have not changed. Sure, Bush may have been able to bring some evangelicals to the polls, but that’s just because Bush is seen as one of them. The Evangelical Protestant community in the United States is a fairly introverted one. If McCain had been the GOP nominee, the majority of their vote would probably have still gone to him, but a lot of them would have stayed home. The voters of America, as shown above, care more about security and the economy than about “morals”- some things just don’t change. So if the voters haven’t changed that much, than that means the Democratic Party must have. And, indeed it has. During the 1930’s, 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s, the Democratic Party was unquestionably the majority party. It had the White House for 28 out of 36 years. Getting back to that is surely the goal for Democratic strategists, so they should pay more attention to the candidates the party offered for office in those years. Look at the Democratic Presidents from that span- FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ. What common thread- other than party affiliation- connected them all? They were hawks and they were empowerers. FDR sent Americans to Europe to combat fascism, Truman dropped two atomic bombs to send a message to the Soviets, JFK hectored Nixon about the “missile gap,” and LBJ escalated a liberal hawk’s war, however misguided, in Indo-China. The stars of the party were politicians like Scoop Jackson, who spoke of foreign policy issues in clear, stark terms: there was right and wrong, and when the Democrats called someone an “evil dictator” they meant it, and people knew they meant it. On domestic issues, the Democrats owned the “empowerment” debate. Their policies from this era are often associated with the term “welfare state,” but it was always clear to voters that the Democrats were just trying to help people help themselves. They were using the power and reach of the Federal Government to empower people to run their own lives. And the people responded to these policies by electing Democrats year after year. The Democratic Party of that era looks absolutely nothing like the party of today. In an age where there really are thousands of wicked men sitting outside our gates waiting for us to let our guard down so that they can do us great harm, what kind of message does it send to the American people that Denis Kucinich and Howard Dean are taken seriously as Democratic presidential candidates? And in an age where the majority of Americans are ready to say good-bye to a culture of affirmative action, what does it say to the American people when Al Sharpton isn’t booed off the stage by Democratic audiences as a race-baiting shake-down artist? The biggest criticism of the Democratic Party of the last decade- particularly under the leadership of people like Tom Daschle and Nancy Pelosi- is that it has traded principles for a strategy of pandering to as many different minority groups (in the mathematical sense) as possible, and just hopes that on election day enough of the group members turn out to make an electoral majority. So imagine the reaction when, the day after the election, people like Dick Gephardt start saying that the Democratic Party needs to start pandering to Evangelical Christians by speaking more openly of their faith! The lesson wasn’t exactly learned. Over the winter, the Democrats are going to need to do some serious soul-searching about what they want their party to represent. Do they want to be the champions of empowerment, or the champions of handouts? Do they want to be the champions of liberty, or the champions of relativism? Do they want to liberal proselytizers, or provincial isolationists? Their descent into post-modernism has been disastrous for the party and disastrous for America. If the Democrats are to go forward, they must look to their past, and they must embrace what they see. Seen on the web...
At SanDiego IndyMedia, not a place I visit very often. Warning: the language is a bit strong. But it’s the voice of millions of Middle Americans, and quite a few from other parts of the world too. Here it is. Author is unknown (Correction: See below - the original and slightly less salty version was by Mike Hendrix of Cold Fury) “Christ almighty, what is it with you people? You’ve spent a couple of years asking why we didn’t prevent 9/11, calling for an investigation, asking ‘how much did Bush know and when did he know it?’ You blamed us for something we failed to prevent after eight months in office, and yet to this day you give the Clinton admin a free pass, even though he had eight years—eight fucking years, people—to do something about al Qaeda and didn’t do one goddamned thing. It’s signed ” wife, kids, job & responsibility”. I’m Alan Brain, and I endorse this message. UPDATE : Original version authored by Mike Hendrix at ColdFury on August 4th 2004. Hat Tip : reader Max Darkside Left Stepping up Efforts to Cut Off Nose, Spite Face?
Being Right This Often Almost Hurts I finally figured out who Paul Krugman reminds me of. Have you seen the film Erik the Viking? It was actually pretty good, even though it featured Anyway, it was about a bunch of vikings trying to end Ragnarok, which was a miserable period during which there was universal suffering and despair and the sun never shone. Sort of like the Clinton years. The vikings sailed off in a little boat, with the intention of meeting Odin and having a chat with him. Much like Kerry calling Clinton in the hospital prior to his bypass. There was one traitor in the crew; an arms merchant named Loki. He wanted to keep Raganarok going because it was good for business. Sort of like Michael Moore secretly rooting for Bush. Now, I don’t know if you saw this guy, but he was Krugman’s evil twin. Oops, oxymoron. Okay, “twin.” He was a weasely little guy who told horrendous lies while grinning hopefully and peering impishly at the suckers to see if they were buying it. If you’ve seen Krugman’s act on video, you will be stunned by the resemblance. I realize LoTR fans will disagree violently, claiming Krugman is more like Wormtongue. However, Wormtongue stood up straight and bore a lot less resemblance to a young garden gnome. Look, I don’t care if you disagree. Go back to AIM and having cybersex in Elvish, you lunatics. I got your ring of power, and guess where I’m wearing it. Today, Krugman is squeaking again, doing his valuable work for the GOP. He just wrote another blistering fantasy piece for the Times. The title? “No Surrender.” God, I love this guy. How much is Karl Rove paying him? Yesterday, I correctly noted that benighted Internet socialists were predictably responding to America’s wholesale rejection of their twisted extremist values…by embracing those values even more tightly. This is like falling into the pool and asking someone to throw you a concrete lawn jockey. And Krugman is throwing with both hands. Excerpt (swallow coffee now): President Bush isn’t a conservative. He’s a radical - the leader of a coalition that deeply dislikes America as it is. Part of that coalition wants to tear down the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt, eviscerating Social Security and, eventually, Medicare. Another part wants to break down the barriers between church and state. And thanks to a heavy turnout by evangelical Christians, Mr. Bush has four more years to advance that radical agenda. The guy who held onto Clinton holdover George “Dude, Where’s My WMD’s?” Tenet? A radical conservative. The guy who gave us increased socialism for wealthy seniors who don’t feel like paying for medical care? A radical conservative. The guy who infuriates Republicans by signing every spending bill he can get his hands on? A radical, radical, BAD old conservative. But then to Paul Krugman, Barney Frank is a radical conservative. Quoth Loki: I don’t hope for more and worse scandals and failures during Mr. Bush’s second term, but I do expect them. 1. You damn well DO hope for them. 2. “More”? More scandals? Have we had a scandal YET? Well, there was the time Bush’s dog pooped on camera during a press conference. But so far, his administration has been marked by a conspicuous absense of scandal. Abu Ghraib? Is that what you’re talking about, Krugs? That’s not a scandal. That’s a military screwup. That’s the unfortunate nature of the armed services. Overall, they’re wonderful, but there’s a reason the acronym “FUBAR” originated among our troops. The left has attempted to excrete a number of bogus Bush scandals, and so far, it has found itself woefully constipated. “Enron”? Uh, they made huge contributions to Democrats, including Joe Lieberman. And Terry McAuliffe made $18 million off of Global Crossing. “Yellowcake”? Turned out Bush was right about that, and Hussein had around 500 tons of the stuff. Wait, maybe you’re talking about the Plastic Turkey. Which betrayed the left by turning out to be a real turkey. That was a real black eye for Bush, wasn’t it? The man picked up a decorative turkey and pretended to SERVE it, but he was really only HOLDING it. AHA! Impeachment? Screw that; let’s have a summary execution. What? He didn’t pretend to serve it? The press made that part up? Um…ENRON! ENRON! CHENEY’S DAUGHTER IS A LESBIAN! Ha! Talk your way out of THAT, neocons. More: Those people still have Mr. Bush’s ear, and his election victory will only give them the confidence to make even bigger mistakes. Damn, I hope so. I hope he mistakes his way into another ten Senate seats. I keep hearing this sentence in my mind: “I was with them when they blundered into Berlin in 1918.” Yet more: One faction of the party is already calling for the Democrats to blur the differences between themselves and the Republicans. Or at least that’s what I think Al From of the Democratic Leadership Council means when he says, We’ve got to close the cultural gap.” But that’s a losing proposition. You know it, Krugsy. Testify. You know who you need to run next time? Rosie O’Donnell and Ol’ Dirty Bastard. No, I’m not referring to Bill Clinton again. O’DONNELL/BASTARD ‘08! R. Kelly can be the new Secretary of Education. You know how he likes hanging around schools. Can you believe this nut? He’s a gift straight from anthropomorphic, Judeo-Christian, Eurocentric, patriarchal, homophobic God. I’d trade ten Bill Safires for one Paul Krugman, and I’d throw in a six-pack of Cal Thomases. The Democrat Party is on life support, and Krugman is standing on the oxygen hose. Here, look: Democrats shouldn’t cave in to Mr. Bush when he tries to appoint highly partisan judges - even when the effort to block a bad appointment fails, it will show supporters that the party stands for something. They should gear up for a bid to retake the Senate or at least make a major dent in the Republican lead. They should keep the pressure on Mr. Bush when he makes terrible policy decisions, which he will. Wow, Paul, how do you come up with these ingenious plans? Opposing conservative judicial appointees…it’s crazy, but they just might go for it! And running candidates for Senate…it’s so wacky, so unprecedented…the GOP will never see it coming! Hey, here’s a nutty idea: what if the Democrats nominate a candidate and run him for President! Don’t laugh! It could work! It would be funny if the Democrats were responding to their third ass-kicking in four years by offering more of the same. But moving even farther to the left…that’s downright hysterical. If they keep it up, during the next round of elections, we’re going to see street nuts in San Francisco telling reporters, “We have to get rid of these liberal head cases before they ruin the country.” No surrender, Paul! Stick to your guns! Well, you can’t have a gun, because you live in a hive of demented socialists, but you know what I mean. Stick to your rape whistle! Or whatever. The problem isn’t the product, Democrats. It’s the customers. All you have to do is convince 60% of Americans to adopt a political stance that repels them the way success repels Bob Shrum. Next time around, let’s not whine about left-wing PAC’s and 527’s. Let’s send them all the support we can. The lemmings are boogying into the sea to the derivative beat of Bruce Springsteen; let’s build them a nice ramp. Jane Smiley's Raid
(I would like to make clear to any Democrats reading this, I am not attacking Democrats, I am attacking Jane Smiley). The author Jane Smiley has taken to rewriting history over at Slate in order to smear Republicans. If there is one thing that chaps my hide it is when critics (whether they be from the left or the right) purposely distort the verifiable history of the oppositions actions/positions in order to denigrate them – particularly when in doing so they hide the deplorable actions of their own party. Consider this paragraph from Ms. Smiley’s screed about the election… Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states … When the forces of red and blue encountered one another head-on for the first time in Kansas Territory in 1856, the red forces from Missouri, who had been coveting Indian land across the Missouri River since 1820, entered Kansas and stole the territorial election. The red news media of the day made a practice of inflammatory lying—declaring that the blue folks had shot and killed red folks whom everyone knew were walking around. The worst civilian massacre in American history took place in Lawrence, Kan., in 1862—Quantrill’s raid. The red forces, known then as the slave-power, pulled 265 unarmed men from their beds on a Sunday morning and slaughtered them in front of their wives and children. The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America. … I do not know about bloodlust, but apparently ignorance has a long tradition that includes Ms. Smiley. Here she distorts (willfully or not) a massacre committed by Democrats – that was an example of the pro-slavery violence that lead Horace Greeley to start the Republican Party in the first place – into a phony example of Republican mendaciousness. I am assuming by “red forces” she means Republicans, and “blue forces” she means Democrats. First, I am not sure what her point is about the “Indian land”. She says that the “red forces” “coveted” the land. Did the “blue forces” who were already living on the land not covet the Indian land? She seems to be implying that the “blue forces” bear no responsibility in the theft of Indian land; which seems a stretch for people who had already taken it. Maybe she meant to say that the “red forces” coveted the land that the “blue forces” had already stolen from the Indians. Either way, both parties are equally complicit in this theft, and her phony appeal to Indian land rights is just a way of hurling the “racist” epithet at her opponents, when, in fact, it simply reveals her own racism. This does not show an increased perfidy of the “red forces” over the “blue forces”, this shows her willingness to laud people who steal Indian land as long as they are people whom she perceives as Democrats. You can see this contempt when she tries to pass off the 200 or so killed at Quantrill’s raid as, “The worst civilian massacre in American history.” Apparently Ms. Smiley does not see Native Americans as humans or she would realize the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Indian “civilians” were murdered in much the same way as the civilians of Lawrence. As some one who is more than a quarter Cherokee (my father grew up on a reservation), I would like to personally tell Ms. Smiley to take her phony sympathy for my ancestors and shove it up her “blue forces”. But let us move on to the circumstances that lead to the establishment of the Republican Party. In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act established that the settlers of the states of Kansas and Nebraska would be allowed to decide whether each state would allow slavery to be legal (the Missouri Compromise of 1820 had divided the country into slavery and non-slavery states, but neither Kansas or Nebraska had existed then). This started a flood of pro-slavery settlers crossing the borders into Kansas and Nebraska. Concern over Kansas and Nebraska turning into new slavery states caused the abolitionists Horace Greeley, Salmon Chase and Charles Sumner to start a new party in 1854 for the express purpose of preventing Kansas and Nebraska turning into slave states. As Horace Greeley wrote announcing the Republican Party, “We should not care much whether those thus united (against slavery) were designated ‘Whig,’ ‘Free Democrat’ or something else; though we think some simple name like ‘Republican’ would more fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery.” This seems to be a point that many Democrats are ignorant of, or are just unwilling to admit, that the Republican Party’s whole purpose for existence was to oppose slavery in Kansas and Nebraska, and ultimately to oppose slavery throughout the union. It was not an accident that Lincoln, the first Republican president, ended slavery; it was the fruition of the entire goal of starting the Republican Party. So when Ms. Smiley says, “The red forces, known then as the slave-power,“ she is either lying or completely ignorant of the facts. The Republican Party was opposed to slavery from day one, and saw the opposition of slavery as its primary platform plank. It was born of abolition, abolition was its aim, and abolition it achieved. Which leads us to Quantrill’s raid. In 1862 the Union Army had stationed a unit in Independence, Missouri. You may remember the Union Army, you know the army run by the Republican president Lincoln (i.e. the “red forces”). William C. Quantrill was a northerner who had been converted to the pro-slavery cause in 1857 and had been leading a band of guerilla fighters who captured escaped slaves and returned them to their owners. Quantrill attacked Independence and captured the Union forces. The Confederate army rewarded Quantrill by making him a captain. You may remember the Confederate army, they were the pro-slavery southerners. The Democratic Party had fractured in 1860 over the civil war, and barely existed at this stage. What was left of the Democratic Party was largely the Copperhead Democrats; who tried to encourage a peace agreement with the Confederacy and openly accused the Republicans of pursuing the dreaded “Racial Equality”. The Copperheads collapsed in 1865 when their reputation was sullied by the ultimate success of the Civil War. The Democrats were then resurrected in the South to oppose reconstruction, and become the party of the former Confederacy. In other words, Quantrill was the “blue forces”; that would become the modern Democrats. In 1863, Quantrill lead his group of now confederate soldiers to the city of Lawrence, Kansas where they murdered over 200 anti-slavery settlers – now known as “Quantrill’s Raid”. Quantrill’s Raid is the story of the pro-slavery future Democrat blue forces murdering the anti-slavery Republican red forces. And Ms. Smiley has twisted this whole history around and pretended that this massacre of anti-slavery Republicans by her party somehow explains the mindset of Bush supporters. Knowing the history of the parties as I do, I always assume that Democrats believe that blacks are inferior non-humans who should be treated as property, but I am glad to hear, Ms. Smiley, that you have broken with your party’s tradition. However, if you wish to convince us that you are a reformed Democrat, you should probably stop bringing up examples of its murderous past in defending human rights abuses, such as the Civil War, the Confederacy and Quantrill’s raid. Stay Free To My Democratic Congressman
My friend the anonymous New York Jewish Liberal who voted for Bush (whose previous essays you can read here and here) has some words for her Congressman (who represents the district which includes the World Trade Center). Dear Jerry, That means no more seating Michael Moore in the Presidential Box at the convention, no more diatribes from Ted Kennedy that the war “is a fraud cooked up in Texas”, no more gleefully jumping on every military setback with an unseemly joy that sickens Americans everywhere. November 04, 2004
The Gay Angle
There are a lot of things about Andrew Sullivan’s views these days that I don’t agree with, but he seems to have detected something about this election that I’m growing to believe is true, which is that Bush won reelection by harnessing the anti-gay vote. This is depressing beyond belief. I cannot count the number of times that I’ve heard pro-war voters attempt to persuade gay people like myself to continue to support the President by placing the importance of success in Iraq and the global war on terror above our own equal rights battle. As unbearable a choice as it was, that’s exactly what I did. I remain more concerned with the progress of freedom and equality in Afghanistan than in Massachusetts, because the Afghan people have so much more ground to make up. I stood by my conviction that the war on terror is the single decisive issue facing the country, and cast a vote in which I set aside matters of domestic social policy. How appalling then, that so many conservatives did not do the same. From the FMA, to their gay-baiting campaign tactics, to the fatuous attack on John Kerry’s mentioning of Mary Cheney in the debate, to the leverage of 11 anti-gay state marriage amendments, Bush mobilized support from a segment of the population that almost nobody had considered. While I, like many other people, believed this election to be a referendum on the President’s foreign policy, others took it as an opportunity to launch a cultural carpet-bombing campaign against equal rights for gay Americans. I choose not to vote for John kerry because I did not want the country to lose its focus on the war on terrorism, but amazingly it has already done so. Intelligent Post-election Blogging Roundup
After elections, you can expect some people to say stupid things (oh, baby, this one takes the cake). I could care less about those. Here are some of the really intelligent essays floating around the blogosphere - and beyond. For your convenience, we’ll follow those up with some key quotes and excerpts:
On to the key quotes… Continue Reading “Intelligent Post-election Blogging Roundup” Richard Brookhiser Flunks His Own Test
From the National Review Online: Shame on the liberal hawks (with a few exceptions- Ron Silver, Christopher Hitchens) who, when the test came, flunked. This is the kind of knee-jerk support for Bush that really gets under my skin. The “liberal hawks” he’s referring to are the editors at the New Republic, Andrew Sullivan and, I guess, myself. But did we really flunk? Or were we the ones who passed? If you think the election should have been a referendum on Bush’s decision to invade Iraq- 18 months ago- or if you think the election should have been about deciding between Bush and Kerry’s initial policies on Iraq, then you’re doing a gross disservice to the American soldiers in Iraq, and to the Iraqi civilians who have been living through harrowing times for the past year and a half. Kerry was the only candidate at the debates who proposed any sort of strategy for fighting the insurgency- the “spineless liberal” even went so far as to chastise Bush for pulling out of Falluja. Kerry kept serious foreign policy advisors around him- like Richard Holbrooke- who openly talked about how it would be a mistake to pull out of Iraq. Today, at Kerry’s concession speech, he even made a point of lecturing the left wing of his party on Iraq and its connection to the war on terror, and how both must be won: “Now, more than ever, with our soldiers in harm’s way, we must stand together and succeed in Iraq and win the war on terror.” Does this sound like someone a serious hawk should be ashamed of supporting? Granted, Kerry had been difficult to pin down during the campaign because he was appeasing his left-wing base as well as trying to make sure the moderates didn’t jump ship. But you barely have to scratch the surface to find a person serious about seeing Iraq through. And based on what we’ve seen the last 4 years, it would be quite a feat to argue that Bush is more “competent” on the micro-level managing of the occupation in Iraq. Bush made the right decision to go into Iraq. But his record in the post-war has been abysmal. I don’t necessarily fault him for sending too few troops initially- to do so would be sheer Monday morning quaterbacking- but I do fault him for not changing troop levels when it became apparent we needed more boots on the ground. And I do fault him basing important military decisions- like pulling out of Falluja in April- on domestic politics. And I do fault him for picking the starting date of the war and then not getting armor to every soldier in the theatre. And I do fault him for Abu Gharib. No, he didn’t personally humiliate prisoners, but he didn’t hold those who did accountable enough, nor did he hold his administration accountable enough, nor did he investigate the prison abuse scandal thoroughly or transparently enough. And, because of this, we lost the moral high ground in a war that was desperately wanting for justification. Bush has dithered with the fight against the insurgency, and it is clear that our occupation has very little strategy behind it. The election is over now and Bush won, but this debate is still worth having. Serious hawks- liberal or otherwise- should have voted for the candidate that stands the best chance of steering Iraq towards liberal, tolerant and consensual government. That is the “test” that all of us hawks just took. Brookhiser seems to think that wrapping yourself in the flag and showing your partisan colors is good enough to pass, which is precisely why he flunked. November 03, 2004
My Greatest Fear
Believe it or not, my greatest fear was not that George Bush would be reelected. My greatest fear was that John Kerry would be elected president. I know many of you believe that my feet are firmly cemented in the leftist camp, and I plead guilty to having liberal leanings on many issues. But I have been trying desperately to find a conservative candidate that I could get excited about. George W. Bush was definitely not it. I think he is a na’er-do-well who has had everything handed to him by others, and does not have the interests of the country as a whole as his number one priority. There are some talented people in the Republican party; why, for the love of God, did ya’ll have to pick Bush? So, yes, I was one of those “Anybody-but-Bush” types, but I was not just “holding my nose” to vote for Kerry. While I had many reservations about his record and his inability to clearly articulate solid positions on issues, I believe he had a great vision for the future of this country. And I trusted his motivations. His (ultimate) assessment of the Iraq war was right on. I believe it was important for Congress to authorize the President to go to war in Iraq. But I also believe President Bush rushed forward and took the country to war without adequate planning, without giving his best effort to secure the broadest possible international coalition, and without developing an adequate exit strategy. On this point, despite the election results, most of the country agreed. But now the die is cast. Iraq is Bush’s mess, and it is his, and his alone, to clean up. Today, 3 Iraqi Soldiers were reportedly beheaded, and the road-side bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations continue on the eve of the Falluja offensive. Some of the people who voted for Bush will have their sons and daughters returned to them to bury. They, more than anyone, have an interest in seeing the Iraq situation resolved and Bush succeed. But what does that mean? Either the U.S. military will remain in Iraq indefinitely to prevent a theocracy from forming, or the U.S. will leave, plunging the country, and perhaps the region, into civil war. Either way, at this point who among us can define success in Iraq? If 100,000 people in Ohio — roughly the number that were in attendance for the Ohio State/Penn State game last weekend — would have woken up yesterday with a different attitude (or if it just hadn’t rained in Ohio yesterday), then Kerry would have been elected president. He would have lost the popular vote, but he would be president. And, without a mandate, he would have had an impossible task before him. Any attempt to clean up the Iraq situation would have been second-guessed such that no matter what Kerry did and whatever the result, his critics would have screamed “Bush would have done it better” and laid sole blame at Kerry’s feet. Given how the other election results have shaped the next Congress, it would have been impossible for Kerry to get through any of the aggressive domestic programs he had promised. I doubt any Republicans in Congress would feel the need to come together and get on with the nation’s business. They, along with the right-wing media types, would be plotting his demise every minute of the next four years. They would have had the power, and the will, to make Jimmy Carter look like FDR. The irony is that many of Kerry’s programs would have benefited most of the people who voted for Bush more than any policy Bush will implement over the next four years. But perhaps they will be happy with their new jobs as Wall-Mart greeters, being able to sleep at night knowing that Bush is keeping them safe from the terrorists that are waiting to attack the good people of Sandusky. So, George W. Bush, I say to you this: Congratulations, you finally earned something. The Presidency is indisputably yours. My one solace, which is the dust of snow falling from the hemlock tree today, is that I do not have to face my greatest fear: the fear of Kerry and Edwards attaining the Presidency without the means to effectively govern a bitterly divided country. And, I will make a concession of my own. I was wrong. I thought America would reject the path that George Bush has staked out for us. Despite what was a close shave in the Electoral College, the popular vote clearly bears out a resounding statement. Whether that amounts to a mandate, I will leave to debate another day. Today, President Bush said “America has spoken” and that is undeniably true. He also said:
Mr. President, you are right. You do need the support of all of America. And you’ve got the right attitude: you are going to have to earn it and work hard to deserve my trust. The reigns of the government are in your hands. You and your republican cohorts have the reigns of the Executive, Legislative, and soon the Judicial branches of government (not to mention the state governorships) completely in your hands. There is no blaming Clinton or Kerry or anyone else. It is your watch. And you are accountable for all that happens on it. You have the opportunity to recruit a new team, and to lead this country with more authority and power than any U.S. President in modern time. But leadership is more than imposing your will on the minority. As Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “You do not lead by hitting people over the head - that’s assault, not leadership.” Lead, damn you, Mr. President, lead. For all our sake. As for the Democrats, it looks like they have some time on their hands to think about how to get their political house in order and craft a vision for America that they can sell to the voters in 2008. Here’s a hint: Hilary ain’t the answer. Instead, Dems should look at Alan’s piece below for their guide, as well as the words of Benjamin Disraeli: “I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?” Democrats, you need some leaders. Get crackin. "A Time For Healing", Lets All Cry For John Kerry
I agree with Michelle Malkin on all of this stuff the media keeps repeating. How we are "all divided", how "We need to heal".
Tell that to all the ignorant slamming done by the Democrats during this campaign. I don't feel bad for John Edwards or John Kerry. Why should I? They spent the better part of 2 years running around making speeches, shaking some hands, ignoring their Senatorial duties and spewing filth. Comparing the two campaigns that basically boiled down to Bush repeating "We're in danger from the terrorists and we need to fight them" and Kerry repeating "Bush is wrong on everything Iraq, the economy and terrorism" without having a positive word to say about America, it's not too much of stretch to see why Kerry lost. I can't feel sorry for a couple of millionaire who have been paid well for the past two years to shirk their duty while seeking personal ambitions. For those of you out there all weepy about Kerry and his loss, take a look over at the Sudan and Africa and then tell me how sad you are for a couple well off individuals who didn't win a race they were running for. To you liberals out there who would slam me for the above, trust me I'd be saying the same thing if Bush lost. I would think it was a mistake that Bush wasn't elected, but I wouldn't be crying for him or Dick Cheney. They are both well off as well and would not have any difficulty with living out their life in a comfortable fashion while the rest of us go off to work everyday, paying bills and getting by on a paycheck. Enough weeping for poor Kerry already. Originally posted at Diggers Realm
Folks to Watch: 2004's Heroes, Villains & Losers
There’s going to be a lot of stuff going on over the next week or so. Ohio’s provisional ballots will be counted 11 days from now, military ballots are still filtering in over the next 10 days, etc. Whatever. The Presidential race will work itself out. So let’s ask a different question. Use Winds’ comments to highlight the U.S. House & Senate candidates from either party whom you’re glad to see back, or who you think will be rising stars after winning a 2004 race. If you think there are specific candidates who deserve mention in the “Hall of Shame,” meanwhile, leave them in the comments too and summarize why. We’ll keep tabs here.
Go ahead and noninate someone for these listings… An Op-Ed From Alan?!?! On Red States, Competing Narratives, And More ...
I’m going to do something which, if memory serves, I have yet to do at Command Post … I’m going to post original writing on the Op-Ed page (those other Op-Eds have been from Alan E. Brain, a different Alan altogether … I’m the co-founder, he’s the rock-solid Australian contributor). For me Command Post has always been about Journalism By The People, For The People, and not about a platform for my own writing, so I’ve stayed away from this page. Today, though, perhaps because of my closeness to the news, my participation in the two conventions, and my unwillingness to publicly impose my “side” on others, I’ve been asked all morning about my take on the election. And so while I traditionally eschew self-punditry here, this time, I actually do have something I’d like to share. So here goes … I’ll start with an email I received this morning … one typical of the queries I’ve received throughout the day: I don’t know if you care about what I have to say or not, but I have to share this with other election watchers. I’ll post here the gist of my reply. Yes, the Democrats awake in a strange and foreign land … a land with Red as far as the eye can see. But frankly, I don’t think the moral majority is the issue. If anything, it’s an oversimplification in explaining the election. I just don’t believe that there are that many people who voted Republican based on gay marriage and abortion … at least, not appreciably more than voted Democrat on the same issues. For the Democrats I think the reality is worse than that: The Democratic party has lost its ability to connect, in a compelling way, with much of middle (read, “average”) America. Operationally, they’re still planning strategy as if the GOP is the party of the wealthy and powerful. But look at the distribution of votes last night … the huge swaths of Red nearly everywhere where major cities are absent … and it’s clear the GOP isn’t the party of the Country Club, it’s the party of the Rotary Club. Of course, discourse like this doesn’t help: Why were we in this fight in the first place? Because terrible leaders are doing terrible things to our country and calling this wonderful. Because radical reactionaries are trying to impose their imperialist schemes on whoever they wish and calling this just. Because amoral oligarchs are determined to enhance their slice of the economic pie and calling this the natural order. Because flag-wrapped ideologues want to chop up civil liberties and call this security. Because myopians are in charge of America’s future. That sort of language simply doesn’t resonate with large numbers of “average” folks in any town in America. What’s worse, the sentiment, “I know better than you and you’re just not bright enough to see it,” strikes as snobbish and elitist, and alienates the Rotary Club. The fact is that the Republicans have a philosophy … a narrative … that works for lots of people who disagree with the President on gay marriage and abortion. That narrative: we’ll let you keep more of your money, we’ll keep you safe internationally through strength, and we’ll keep government off your back. It’s an old Republican narrative. Ronald Reagan first articulated it in his Goldwater endorsement speech (“A Time Of Choosing”) in 1964: This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. Old, but still relevant. Indeed, you have to work awfully hard to find a Democratic narrative that can compare … that isn’t simply “we’re not what the Republicans are.” The fact is: there IS no compelling Democratic counter-narrative. Witness Mother Jones: It’s plain why this [the Republican] story works as well as it does. It presents a classic hero and a journey that reaches down through the brain into the gut. And Republicans can translate it into simple, clear lines of action: Wage war and don’t stop. Cut taxes. Put bad guys in jail, or to death. Last night Bob Novak said that the Democrats are now “in the wilderness.” Regardless of the good Electoral College showing of John Kerry, the whole damn country is Red … the White House, the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court, the Governorships, local legislatures, school boards. But it’s not uncharted territory … the Republicans were in the wilderness when LBJ demolished Goldwater (and the entire Republican party) in 1964 … a time when people wondered if the Republicans would ever win a national election again. The Democrats can find their way back, but they first must craft the compelling narrative … the political philosophy that will be relevant to Rotary members all across this land: We believe in this land no man is a loser … that everyone has potential. And if times get tough, which they will, we’ll be there to give you a hand up, but never a hand out. Oh … and we’ll keep you safe, too might be a start. Clinton had that narrative nailed … but when he left office, the narrative left with him. Before the DNC I heard Mark Shields note that Reagan said his inspiration was FDR, and that the next great Democratic leader will say his inspiration was Ronald Reagan. He’s right. The Democrats are never going to get America to come to them; they must go to America … an America that has changed from when it considered the Democratic Party the party of the “average” man, as it did in 1964. They must articulate a clear and compelling political philosophy and narrative … here’s what we stand for! … and must then leave their ivory tower and go to the field … spreading that compelling narrative one school board race … one Rotary Club … at a time. The Morning After
Buckle up. I’ve got a lot to say today. As the whole world knows by now, it is pretty evident that George W. Bush will be the President of the United States for the next four years. Obviously, that makes me happy. A lot of people are having some trouble with my happiness right now. That goes for you, too, if you voted for GWB. A flow of nastiness is seeping from through the floors of the country, pooling around the feet of the collective left. But which left, you ask? Because sometimes, people will come after me for saying ‘the left” as if that phrase represented everyone who sits, well, to the left of me and not just the wingers, even though they knew full well I meant the Michael Moores, the DU citizens, the Oliver Willises and MoveOn members of the world. Not so sure about that today. I woke up to a very different world in which people I assumed were rational Democrats are spitting poison nails. I received some nasty emails and comments on my weblog that were alarming in their venom and hatred. People I never had a harsh word with were suddenly knocking down my virtual door to leaving the equivalent of letter bombs. This did not frighten me so much as make me sad. I can say with all honesty that, had Kerry won this election, I would have done no such thing. But, that’s just me. I did read through some of the near lunatic fringe of the left today. Sad state of affairs, really. They seem to be so overcome by bitterness and anger that their emotions are getting in the way of rational thinking. How else do you explain the call to arms, the threats to join al Qaeda, the pleas for violent uprising, or the wishful thinking for a terrorist attack to happen now? And here we go again with the “illegitimate” election fantasies. The whole basis of argument for the left in recent times has been “if I don’t agree with it, it must be a lie.” This has never been more evident than right now. Witness: This election is a fraud, a sham. The Republicans (sorry, Rethuglicans) cheated their way through another vote. The vote counts are all wrong. The machines were fixed. Someone was paid off. And, of course, the exit polls were rigged. Even if Bush were to win both the Electoral vote and the popular vote, his win would be decried as illegal. Perhaps that is what is driving the hate today; the fact that there is nothing to point to in order to support the cries of another fake presidency. I do believe that even if every person in America who voted for George Bush marched themselves in front of a line of lefties outside of George Soros’s mansion this morning and pledged that they did, indeed, vote for GWB, they would claim that Karl Rove implanted mind control chips in each and every person. Why is it so hard to imagine that not everyone thinks like you? Are these people so arrogant, so self-smug that they truly believe their way is the only way? Funny, that. They accuse Bush of that all the time and here they are engaging in it, with relish. If you don’t mind, I’d like to address the throngs of Chicken Littles who seem to be out in full force on the net today. I just want to clear up a few things, as you all seem to be pretty misguided in more than one area today. I voted for George Bush. You will not be thrown in jail for the sole reason of being a liberal. This is not Nazi Germany in any way. What does the (presumed) election of George Bush mean to you, as a member of the left? It means you and your party have four years to get yourselves together and figure out exactly what you stand for. It means you have a couple of years, max, to come up with a viable candidate who represents the majority of you and doesn’t pander to every knock off group of your party. It means you have time to get your act together and decide once and for all what you stand for and produce a leader who will stand up for your ideals. It means you better find a candidate who is someone you can vote for with conscience, and not just vote for out of hatred for his opponent. What did you all believe in this year? Hate? Anger? You ran your own campaign, one filled to the brim with bile and acidic spittle and you wonder why you feel so black today? You were pinning your hopes on the the wish that the rest of America harbored the same intense hatred as you and would vote with their clenched fists. Now that you are left without the hoped for victory party as an outlet for your rage, you have to direct it somewhere else. If not at the candidate, then at his voters, right? What I am seeing today makes me pity you, and it’s a pity tinged with disgust and should not be mistaken for empathy. It means the same things for us moderate Republicans. Maybe in this time we can produce a candidate who doesn’t alienate the social liberal in us, yet speaks to our concerns about defense, security and the war on terror. I am not completely enamored with the Republican Party. There’s a lot of work to be done within the ranks. I’d like to see a full stop of the move towards the religious right. Perhaps there is the perfect candidate out there for both of us, someone just making his or her way up the political chain right now. With any luck, there will be a day when a president is elected who is liked by both sides of the fence, who is respected by everyone. And that’s the great thing about waking up today. See, the world is still here. The sun has risen, there were no great floods or earthquakes or visits from Lucifer during the night. We have the future. We can all - Republicans, Democrats and everyone else - learn a lot from this election and use those lessons to move this country forward. Sure, it’s easy for me to say those things while I’m sitting in the victor’s chair at the moment. But I believe in my heart that if Kerry were today making a victory speech, I would feel the same way. I certainly wouldn’t be calling for violent action. I would not be threatening total strangers with death or wishing ill will on them. But this is a left that is buttressed by people who have more bile than good will, more venom than virtue. They are fronted by circus sideshow acts like Michael Moore, who turn up the flames underneath their followers until the kettle is whistling like mad. That is the shrill sound you hear coming from the left today. And I fear no one is going to turn the flame down. We are living out the proverbial Chinese curse of living in interesting times. I do hope with all my heart that we can turn down the hate at some point and make the next four years a little less interesting. I was right (within the margin of error)
I remain confident in my Cassandra-like abilities as a pundit and prognosticator. I thought Vinnie Roe would win the Melbourne Cup by a nose. I also thought that Kerry would win the Presidency by a cemetery. So I was right (within the margin of error). November 02, 2004
ELECTION 2004: What Will The 'Poetry Of History" Be?
(This is also posted today on Joe Gandelman’s webblog) Today’s the day when millions of Americans will go to the polls and vote in an exercise that makes those of us who live in a democracy feel a small bit of power in our very hands. Yet, even when we vote there are forces beyond our control. And if you read history there often seems a kind of poetry of history. Sometimes it is cruel; sometimes uplifting. There is the story of Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, father and son. Both single termers: Reared for public service, John Quincy Adams became one of the nation’s preeminent secretaries of state, but he proved to be the wrong man for the presidency. Aloof, stiff-necked, and ferociously independent, he failed to develop the support he needed in Washington, even among his own party. Faced throughout his term with organized opposition from the Democrats — who were committed to limiting Adams to a single term and replacing him with Andrew Jackson — Adams refused to forge the political alliances necessary to push his ideas into policy. His father, President John Adams, had also ignored the political side of the office, and he served only one term. History repeated itself with his son: John Quincy Adams lost his reelection bid to Jackson in 1828. A bitter quirk of history: father and son sharing the same fate. But it wasn’t the last time. President John F. Kennedy was murdered in 1963. His brother Bobby was assasinated a few years later. A few years later their brother Teddy committed national political suicide at a place called Chappaquiddick. And a few years ago JFK, Jr, beloved son of JFK, died with his wife and sister-in-law in a hideous plane crash. A quirk of history. All of this happening to the Kennedys (and we didn’t include some other Kennedy tragedies). There are other examples in entertainment. Vaudeville was dying and a young comedian named Jack Benny decided he had to get involved in a new medium called radio to survive. His first broadcasts in 1932 were like any others — filled with set-up/joke, setup/joke. He studied radio and wanted to find out a way to make it work, so he crafted a show where comedy arose from situations, not jokes (there were few jokes) — and invented the situation comedy. An actress who’s star was falling and her Cuban-born husband wanted to do a TV show together to save their marriage. But the network CBS said Desi Arnez would never be believable as Lucielle Ball’s Cuban-born bandleader husband (even though he was her Cuban-born bandleader husband). So they took the show on the road, testing it. And rather than do it live in New York, they wanted a family life so they convinced CBS to let them film it…with three cameras. So I Love Lucy pioneered the three camera technique that is used today. But the point is, sometimes there seem to be forces out of our control. Well-ordered forces. Things take on a momentum of their own.. So what will today bring for George W. Bush? Will he win and be an example of a son of a President who came in and used a different play book on purpose to learn from and avoid his Dad’s mistakes? Or will he suffer his Dad’s same fate — so the Bushes would become, in effect, two single-term Presidential book ends between Bill Clinton’s two terms? We wouldn’t be a penny on the outcome of the race today. But we do think about the poetry of history. Destiny. Fate. It has a kind of eloquence at times. We will soon have the answer……. Scientists Study Differences Between GOP And Democrats' Minds
Editor’s Note: We will resist the impluse to make cheap jokes based on the set up line provided by this post’s headline. However, YOU are free to leave your cheap jokes, explaining the differences, in the comment boxes. We will run this story straight, with no wisecracks. SAN DIEGO - Applying some of the same brain-scan technology used to understand Alzheimer’s and autism, scientists are trying to learn what makes a Republican’s mind different from a Democrat’s. What could be worse than that? Paul Begala or Karl Rove inside your head. I think that’s called a “brain tumor.” (WHOOPS! I slipped! Sorry!!) Already, the scientists are predicting that brain scanning — known as functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI — will be a campaign staple four years from now, despite ethical concerns about “neuromarketing.” Hopefully they were clothed. (Rats! I did it again! Sorry!!) When viewing their favorite candidate, all showed increased activity in the region implicated in empathy. And when viewing the opposition, all had increased blood flow in the region where humans consciously assert control over emotions — suggesting the volunteers were actively attempting to dislike the opposition. Then Bob Dole showed up and sold them Viagra. (Sorry!!!) Nonetheless, some differences appeared between the brain activity of Democrats and Republicans. Take empathy: One Democrat’s brain lit up at an image of Kerry “with a profound sense of connection, like a beautiful sunset,” Freedman said. Brain activity in a Republican shown an image of Bush was “more interpersonal, such as if you smiled at someone and they smiled back.” Researchers also scanned the brains of Dennis Kucinich and Alan Keyes and found nothing. (Not sorry.) FORGET THE POLLS: Indian Astrologers Say Kerry Will Win
Yes, the Redskins lost — so by some weird quirk of history, that would indicate it’s all over and John Kerry (the challenger) will be elected Tuesday…but there’s MORE. The children’s Weekly Reader poll, which has predicted winners, picked Bush. The cable channel Nickelodean poll which has predicted winners, picked Kerry. The two candidates have been tied on Halloween masks (OH: a young blogger came up with a perfect Alan Keyes costume) — and the biggest selling candidate mask usually predicts the winner. Well, forget all of these. The TRUE psychics have spoken. The Indian astrologers. Reuters reports: Surveys in the United States may be showing the race for president as too close to call but top Indian astrologers say the planets have clearly made up their mind: John Kerry will win. Bhambi is a deer, but what does he know? I digress:
Indeed, Bush will end his term defying the year ending in “0” curse which is allegedly seen in the fact that most Presidents who came to power in a year ending in a “0” don’t live out their terms. The notable exception was Ronald Reagan, whose defiance of the curse is attributed to his wife Nancy’s use of an astrologer to carefully plan his day. We will see Tuesday who is correct: the pollsters, the partisans…or the stars. Media Watch Briefing: 2004-11-02
As the Scotsman noted in the wake of Rathergate:
Today is election day in the USA. Here’s a look that steps beyond the candidates to take a hard look at the media - in the USA, and beyond. TOP TOPICS
Other Topics Include: Media partisanship stats; Empty headed journalism; Poll shennanigans; Opening the records; LA Times dishonesty; Election contributions; Slant-O-Meter; Fager & cBS; BBC on blogs; BBC cries for Arafat; CBC exposed; Euro press bias; Osama’s tape; Covering hate in Germany; Duelfer report; al Qaqaa. I Plead With You To Get Rid Of Congressman Robert Matsui In District 5 California
I know this is late for a lot of you and I've been meaning to write it but we must get rid of Robert Matsui as our Congressman in District 5 for California. He has probably the worst record in the whole house for immigration. An illegal alien as our congressman for district 5 would do better!
From Congress Grades for Robert Matsui:
You can't get much worse than F- for everything. Originally posted at Diggers Realm
November 01, 2004
Should conservatives support Kerry?
Here’s what president Bush said at a campaign rally on July 4 in Charleston, West Virginia:
…on the Fourth of July, we confirm our love of freedom, the freedom for people to speak their minds, the freedom for people to worship as they so choose. Free thought and free expression, that’s what we believe… It sounds good, but let’s look at the context:
On July 4, Jeff and Nicole Rank went to hear George W. Bush speak in Charleston, West Virginia. Tickets in hand, they found seats ten or 15 rows from the stage. There they sat, quietly, wearing t-shirts that read love america, hate bush and regime change starts at home. Forty-five minutes before the president took the podium, event staffers approached the couple and said, “You need to either take those shirts off or leave.” According to The San Antonio Express-News, Jeff Rank replied, “People around us have Bush-Cheney t-shirts, pro-Bush t-shirts. Why can’t we express our views?” The staffers left, but a few minutes later, two police officers arrived and told the couple to “cover up, take them [the t-shirts] off or leave completely.” The Ranks refused, at which point they were handcuffed, expelled from the event, and briefly thrown in prison. With the Ranks safely off the premises, Bush addressed the crowd, declaring that “on the Fourth of July, we confirm our love of freedom, the freedom for people to speak their minds, the freedom for people to worship as they so choose. Free thought and free expression, that’s what we believe.” Two days later, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Nicole Rank’s employer, told her that, as a result of the incident, she was being dismissed from her assignment in West Virginia… Is it wrong to read too much into that? Well, here’s a similar case. And, there’s the little matter of loyalty oaths. And, two thousand Floridian Republicans recently stood and took the Bush pledge: “I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States.” Looking at those incidents as well as the growing personality cult and the chants of “Viva Bush!”, you would be forgiven if the hairs on the back of your neck are standing up. But, what are minor infractions of our civil liberties if jihadis could roam the streets mowing down innocent women and children? We must vote for Bush or face the threat of nuclear holocaust. Is fear just a campaign strategy, or does it reflect how we’ve been governed for the last four years and, more importantly, how we would be governed for the next four years? Are tactics like this truly American, or do they have the whiff of the Second or Third World about them? If you were an immigrant from a Second or Third World country, wouldn’t you have a sense of deja vu? In these and many other cases the rhetoric of the Bush administration stands in direct opposition to reality. We’re told that it’s better to fight the terrorists over there than here, and that the homeland is secure. Yet, thousands of illegal aliens cross our deliberately porous borders each day, and thousands of Middle Eastern illegal aliens have been released into the U.S. due to lack of jail space. The DHS has no idea how many of those could have been terrorists. We’re told that Bush is the only person who knows the correct way to fight the war on terror. Yet, the roots of terrorist ideology remain largely untouched. Our supposed allies are still spending billions of dollars spreading the very ideology that supports most Islamic terrorism. The country we were supposed to liberate has been turned into flypaper, and terrorists don’t need to stock up on weapons, they can make regular runs to unguarded ammo dumps. 380 tons? Try 250,000 tons of unaccounted for munitions, part of the fourth largest weapons stockpile in the world. We’re told that the blame for the flu vaccine shortage lies at the feet of trial lawyers, or Bill Clinton, or technology, or the “English company.” Yet, when you look into it it seems to be a clear case of managerial incompetence on the part of the FDA. We’re told lots of things that just don’t make much sense when exposed to analysis. And, these are things that conservatives should be opposing, not supporting. Here’s a solution to this problem: vote Kerry for president, and Republicans for most other offices. Then, support Kerry when he does good, and oppose him when he does bad. The Republicans in Congress and the American public will keep him in check and make sure he does the right thing. I believe he would do it in a more competent, intelligent, and transparent fashion than we’ve been getting for four years. In any case, before voting I strongly suggest looking back over the past four years, and using that as a guide to what might happen if we make the wrong choice. Crank's Endorsement: George W. Bush
I have neither time nor space here to go through all the reasons why I support Bush. So, I’ll just summarize the top three. For a compare and contrast, you can look back at why I voted for McCain over Bush in 2000. 1. The War on Terror: By far the overarching issue in this election is the war. Put simply, Kerry could get me killed. Having been targeted for murder once before on September 11, and given that I still work a few blocks from Times Square, that’s something I take rather seriously. I’ve written too much about Bush, his leadership and his strategy to recount here, but let’s just say this: from the time that he grabbed that bullhorn at Ground Zero to vow that we would be heard from, Bush has gotten it. My philosophy in the war on terror is aptly summarized by the Churchill quote I use as a tagline to my blog; the full quote:
Germany must be beaten; Germany must feel that she is beaten. No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong. Does Bush apply a similar philosophy to the war on terror? I believe he does, and his willingness to absorb endless abuse and wavering support from the public and from some of our allies is, in a wartime leader, a sign of the kind of constancy we desperately need. Bush knows what he wants to do, and he will not be deterred until it is done. Which brings us to the contrast with his opponent. Can you even begin to picture Kerry insisting that the war on terror does not end until our enemies feel that they are beaten, that it ends only on our terms and at a time of our choosing, that we will not and should not believe we have peace until we have victory? I can’t. Not with Kerry’s history, not with how he has conducted himself in this campaign. And, of course, Kerry’s long history of shifting course with the winds, too well known and extensive to be worth rehashing here, does not inspire confidence in his ability to stay single-mindedly focused on a coherent strategy in the face of obstacles, setbacks and criticism. (For more on Bush’s and Kerry’s differences as leaders, see here and here). Even aside from the issue of the two candidates’ fundamental differences in philosophy and temperment, there is the question of strategy, which is why this election - which frankly everyone recognizes is a referendum on that strategy - is so critical. Kerry has tried, at every opportunity, to attack Bush on tactics. But even if you agree with some of Kerry’s tactical criticisms (which I discussed here), the larger issue is that Kerry rejects the overall strategy of the Bush Administration in fighting the war on terror (including the place of the Iraq war in that strategy), and has not advanced a credible alternative strategy or even convinced me that he would have one other than a return to the do-not-enough policies of the Clinton era. Consider the major strategic doctrines of this administration - each of which I wholeheartedly endorse (see Steven den Beste for more on the grand strategy; the Bush Administration thus far has stuck rather closely by the detailed vision surmised by den Beste) - and how little faith Kerry has in them: A. The United States is pursuing a “forward strategy of freedom” by which it seeks to encourage reform and/or directly undermine or overthrow undemocratic regimes and replace them with more democratic regimes. Kerry went out of his way in the debates and at the Democratic Convention to avoid saying anything complementary about democracy promotion as a key weapon against tyranny; instead, just as in his dealings with Communist regimes in the 1970s-1980s (think: Daniel Ortega) and his statements about Arafat and Aristede in more recent years, Kerry has shown a disturbing degree of deference to existing regimes that are recognized as legitimate by the international community, no matter how little their legitimacy derives from the consent of their people and no matter how hostile they are to the United States, its allies and its interests. When he does talk about democracy, Kerry says things like this:
“We must support human rights groups, independent media, and labor unions dedicated to building a democratic culture from the grassroots up.” Labor unions???? In countries with huge pools of unemployed young men and no skilled labor? And that’s how you propose to topple the region’s tyrants? By getting them to join the AFL-CIO? Independent media and human rights groups do have a role to play, assuming they don’t get co-opted into carping mostly about the tyrant’s enemies (as so many did with Saddam), but most of the region’s regimes need stronger medicine than that. B. States that sponsor, harbor, or encourage terrorists are as culpable as the terrorists and will be treated as enemies; states with past connections to terrorists must be either with us or against us. Kerry, again, seems more concerned with making sure that we are on the sides of our allies than the other way around, and is profoundly allergic to incurring the anger of allies if it is necessary to get people to do what we want. (See here on why I think Kerry is saying he would not have gone to war with Iraq). C. The United States reserves the right to launch a pre-emptive strike against our enemies when we believe they represent a serious and developing threat to our security, whether or not we have established that the threat is imminent. (As announced, I don’t think this doctrine extends to threats to our interests, but more narrowly to direct threats to our physical security). Kerry, as I have discussed, takes a narrower view of when and how we can respond to threats. (For more on Kerry’s overall foreign policy outlook, see here, here, here, here, here, here and here). On whether Kerry can effectively rally the nation to finish the job in Iraq no matter what the obstacles, just ask yourself: you work for a big company, and a new guy gets appointed CEO after a protracted power struggle. Do you really want to get assigned to a project that the new CEO, all the way through his climb up the ladder, has savaged as a diversion, a waste of money, and precisely the opposite of the direction the company should be going in? I didn’t think so. Finally, and of grossly underestimated significance in this election season, there’s the signal a Kerry victory would send to the world. As I noted recently, when you try to strip Kerry’s message down to soundbites - which is how a president’s message gets translated to the rest of the world - it can’t be seen as anything but a message of retreat and retrenchment and a popular repudiation of Bush’s aggressive defense of American interests. Kerry would need to labor long and hard, at great cost in life and treasure, to correct that impression even if he was totally dedicated to doing so. (More on Kerry’s credibility and the message a Kerry victory would send here and here). 2. The Courts: I tend to focus my concerns, on the domestic side, first and foremost on those areas where the president’s polices, once in place, are most difficult to change. Nothing has a longer-lasting impact than Supreme Court nominations. One reason for the rising temperature of the last three presidential and last five Senate election cycles is that activists on each side have, on each occasion, steeled for battle over the next Supreme Court nomination on a narrowly divided Court, and each time we’ve gone another two/four years with nothing happening. That can’t hold forever, with a couple of Justices past 80 and several suffering major health problems. As a practicing litigator, I see the many ways in which the composition of the courts affects the progress of litigation and its effects, direct and indirect, on society. And although it’s not an ironclad rule, it’s true in most cases that conservative judges, even when they err, wind up leaving things in a position that can be changed by the voters; liberal judges tend, when in doubt, to constititionalize more issues in a way that gradually narrows the scope of democratic accountability and control. That’s an ominous development. 3. Social Security: The biggest long-term issue in the federal budget is entitlements. Bush took a step backward on that issue when he fulfilled his campaign promise to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. But in his second term, Bush will be looking for a domestic legacy, and he recognizes the importance of changing the fundamental operation of Social Security as the key to his long-range view of an “ownership society” in which individuals have ownership and control over more aspects of their lives. And Bush is a guy who gets things done. (More on the larger themes at stake here). I look forward to the debate on this issue after the election (see here for a key point on the transition-cost issue); if Kerry wins, of course, nothing will change in the way the government does business. Conclusion: There are many other issues at stake here, and many reasons I have not discussed. But on the biggest of the big things - leadership, determination and strategy at war, the role of the courts in our society, and the long-term structure of the entitlement programs that consume the largest share of the federal budget - the choice of Bush over Kerry is clear. May the right man win; I cast my vote for him already via absentee ballot, and hope you do too. My Greatest Fear
It’s the job of military analysts to be on the lookout for worst-case scenarios, as well as most-probable ones. Bearing that in mind, here’s one that I’ve dreamed up. It’s purely hypothetical and speculative.
Of course my second greatest fear is that the whole issue is a Machiavellian smear, designed to discredit Kerry, a man who I think is unworthy of election. A smear I’d be party to by writing this article. I really, really wish Kerry would sign that Form 180. Because although I think the story - that these doubts are being raised, regardless of their truth or otherwise - is newsworthy. I think I’d not be doing my self-imposed duty by not reporting it on TCP. But I’m cowardly enough not to put it on the Election 2004 page, only in the Op-Ed section. So please don’t let the possibility that the theory is true affect your vote. Neither let the possibility that it’s a smear affect you likewise, because at this stage, I have an opinion, but no knowledge. My opinion is that it is very very probably not a smear, and may possibly be true, but not enough that anyone should take any account of it, barring further confirmation (or, about equally likely, disproof). After all, isn’t it best for the country that the 2004 Kerry be judged, not the 1972 one? (Though I think they’re the same, Godammit!) But this is why I stated a “most probable date” for settling the election result as June next year. Cross fingers I’m totally wrong - like I was about Salam Pax’s survival chances 18 months ago. Calm down and vote, Beavis!
No matter what, you should go out and vote without fearing the consequences. Contrary to what it sounds like on TV and across the bloggernetisphere, this is not the end of the world. If the Red Sox winning the World Series couldn’t do it, then some silly election isn’t going to trigger Armageddon. Relax. If John Kerry wins, you should be able to keep your Bibles for at least the first couple of weeks. Your taxes won’t go up for another six months or so. Your mandatory, government-funded abortions won’t be required until 2006. And while your sons will immediately run away to Vegas and get married to some guy from the Village People, your daughters won’t grow up to be cowboys. At first. If George Bush wins, you won’t be thrown into the gulag on January 20 (the paperwork will take at least until May). You’ll have time to finish reading one more novel before it gets thrown onto the fire with the other books. All radio stations will be immediately forced to play country music, but you can get used to that. And while you won’t have a job much longer… hey! everyone needs some time off! So, take it easy. Don’t stress. Remember that we are all just human beings trying to get along on this dirtball in space called Earth. We have different opinions, and this is a good thing. It doesn’t make your opponent evil. Just stupid. If he wins, it just means you’ll be ruled by some stupid guy you don’t like. Why should tomorrow be any different? |
Armed Liberal’s 2003 post about 