Mark A. Kilmer's Political Annotation

The "Art" of British Protestors

According to the PA News wire (UK), via The Scotsman:

Around 80 people layed down at the Tate Modern in central London form the three words in the Turbine Hall – their message reflected on the mirrored ceiling above.

There message, formed by a bunch of people laying on the floor at an art exhibit, was: "Bush Go Home."

They didn’t have enough people to form the words, so they gathered volunteers from the small group of onlookers in the building. The article estimated that it took about 80 folks to form the words.

They did this in a temporary art exhibit, The Weather Project, by a British artist named Olafur Eliasson, who evidently claimed that this was a real name and that he is part Icelandic. Eliasson told the press:

“Stop what you are doing, think,” he said. “He is lying to us. He is lying basically about everything that the war has been based on and now I think we know his motives.”

He did not say what our President's motives for allegedly lying might be.

This bit about the President lying has been treated many times by conservative bloggers: the President did not make the claims which are being attributed to him. The texts of his speeches show that this is all invention; however, invention is accepted by the press and become part of the circulation, and will thus substitute readily for truth. It's nauseating.

Anyway, we're sure President will be concerned that he's bugged some artist guy named Olafur.

Also in Britain, in the village of Norfolk, they've been building a 26' effigy of President Bush out of chicken wire, recycled carpet rolls, papier-mâché, glue and several pots of green and gold paint. My source is EDP24 news out of Britain, though I had read of the effigy earlier elsewhere.

A protest group called Theatre of War built the effigy for another group called Stop the War Coalition, who are going to haul the statue to London Thursday and smash it with a toy tank. Why? According to one nut who worked on the effigy: "Bush has extremely aggressive foreign policies that we do not agree with. We want to raise awareness that this should not be happening."

At least they're having fun, and that's all it is. They get to feel like they're doing something about something, which is not actually much of anything about anything.

"Vegetable rights and Peace!"

0 comments

Blanco Defeats Jindal - Lousiana Revisited

This from on of the nation's premier political scientists, Charlie Cook:

In Louisiana, the conventional wisdom among politicos is Democratic Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco's upset, 52 percent to 48 percent win overRepublican policy wunderkind Bobby Jindal principally resulted from Jindal's refusal to counterattack after a withering assault of television ads against him over the final 10 days of the race. The ads charged as secretary of the state Department of Health and Hospitals, Jindal had ruthlessly cut costs and hurt patient care, particularly for
the poor.

This makes sense, as politicians cannot afford to turn the other cheek unless they're Ronald Reagan, but there could be another reason for Blanco's ultimate surge. Says Cook:

We worried from the start that many of the undecideds might not
actually be undecided," said the Jindal strategist, leading me to believe Jindal's ethnicity hurt him in rural areas but was not a problem in the more populous suburbs. While Jindal is the first Indian-American to seek a governorship -- and very few people of East-Asian descent live in the state -- most believed his ethnicity was not a real problem. To the extent Indian-Americans have any stereotype at all, it is largely positive.

Jindal received 9-percent of Louisian's African Americans, just about twice what the Republican usually gets. This might mean that the anti-Schumer (etc.) southern sentiment is active even amongst blacks who have traditionally voted Democrat. (Note: I used Schumer as a random name. Substitute Pelosi, Dodd, Clinton, etc.)

Here's one:

One decision that is not second-guessed much was Republicans'
determination not to have President Bush campaign for Jindal. Bush's overall numbers in the state are fine, but the Democratic Party was not particularly unified behind Blanco, and minority turnout was not expected to be -- and was not -- particularly high. A Bush visit probably would have energized the Democratic base in a way it otherwise was not in this race.

That statement assumes that Louisiana Democrats hate the President in much the same way as do many northern Dem activists. Nah. This race would have been won or lost by Jindall, Blanco, and the silk-figured creatures we call voters marking the spot with whimsy.

He throws in a few old truisms about the Democrats eating the undecided vote in Louisiana. It's time to revise that, though, as the Democrat Party is leaving the south in much the same way it left Ronald Reagan all those years ago. And Zell Miller of late, though he likes his comfortable, old shoe.

0 comments

The Same Message from the Dems…

Good morning. Here's another Jim VandeHai piece from the "beautiful", newly redesigned Washpost web site Democratic Candidates Assail Bills.

Seriously, the post site looks a lot less clunky than it did, almost as if they want to join the 21st century news arena. Of course, then they would be a blog, but we won't go there.

Here's what Mr. VandeHai writes:

Even before many of the details were known, the candidates blasted Bush for what they view as shortchanging consumers and using the bills to reward his campaign contributors. "The latest energy plan and the prescription drug benefit are more paybacks for George W. Bush's special-interest friends and campaign contributors," said Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), expressing the emerging Democratic message.

They know they'll have to attack the plan no matter what it looks like, they want to be the first on the block to criticize the President for it, so they go for the head start.

There's also the energy bill, and…

Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are critical of both the Medicare and energy deals, but they might have a hard time preventing moderates from breaking ranks and allowing Bush to declare bipartisan victories. Already, Sens. John Breaux (D-La.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) are hailing the Medicare agreement, which they helped strike, and several Democrats from oil- and ethanol-producing states are expected to vote for the energy package, too.

Life will be difficult for the Democrats this coming election year if the President is able to come up with a Medicare bill after the failure of the last President to do much of anything with it.

The AARP supports the President's bill. It's another incremental step in what many plan as the eventual socialization of medicine, so why not? That's not why the Dems oppose it.

0 comments

A few things…

…along the way.

I watched Special Report on FNC tonight, and Brit played a piece of tape of Hillary speaking at the Jefferson-Jackson thaang. She shouted something, rallying the crowd, which might have been particularly anti-Dean:

"Pundits and polls don't pick Presidents! People pick Presidents, and that's what's going to happen!"

That could have been merely a "yaaay, you're voters, you make the difference" line, or it could also have contained a slap at the pundits and the polls which have elected Howard Dean the next President of the United States.

The other thing. I saw Wes Clark interviewed by someone at FNC. He claimed that Newsweek magazine knows where Osama bin Laden. He explained, "I read their articles!" He thinks we ought to make Newsweek tell us where bin Laden is.

He's in Howard Fineman's basement.
0 comments

Governor Schwarzenegger

Arnold's in. He borrowed a phrase from the late John F. Kennedy, Sr. when he called himself an "idealist without illusions." He brought a few famous actors and actresses to watch his inauguration: Tom Arnold, Jamie Lee Curtis, Danny DeVito, Linda Hamilton, Rob Lowe, Dennis Miller, and Vanessa Williams.

He played nice with former Governor Gray Davis, and he emphasized that this was not to disgrace an individual (Davis), but to change the way things are done in Sacremento. There were a smaller scad of other ex-governors on hand: Pete Wilson, George Deukmejian, and Moonbeam (Jerry Brown).

Will he governor as a conservative? He's got the "R" on his t-shirt, so California can worry about that later. His first official act as governor will make the rest, if bad it be, much more palatable. He signed an order repealing the State's 300% increase in the Car Tax.

While he was campaigning, liberal pundits and some conservative ones deemed the tax impossible to rescind given California's economic situation. After he won, liberal pundits taunted him, saying that he would not be able to repeal the tax increase.

He did it. Taxes can be cut. God bless Arnold Schwarzenegger, and may God continue to bless the State of California. No matter how one opts to pronounce it.

0 comments

For Edwards…

Taegan Goddard, who does A-1 work over at his Political Wire site, uses the following headline: Edwards Struggles To Stay Relevant. Relevant to whom? To the press?

He talks of an article in Edwards's "hometown paper," the Raleigh News and Observer: What Edwards Needs to Stay in the Race. Mr. Goddard quotes the first paragraph:

With the emergence of Howard Dean as the clear front-runner in the Democratic presidential race, the task facing Sen. John Edwards and his rivals has come into sharp focus.

More relevant is the fifth:

Edwards has maintained a basic strategy from the outset: Perform respectably in Iowa and New Hampshire, and then win South Carolina, the first test of Southern strength, which comes a week later. After that, the field likely will be winnowed -- increasingly it's looking like Dean and one or two others. The Edwards campaign hopes the direct contrast with a front-runner will work to its advantage.

The article talks about how pundits say a third place finish in Iowa and a reasonable showing in New Hampshire would set him up for South Carolina a week later. That is what I have said, and it is what Edwards himself said on Sunday.

The article shows the race in which Edwards is involved in Iowa, is a race with John Kerry for third place.

Meanwhile, Howie Kurtz, in his Washpost column, excerpts from Edwards's new tome: Four Trials:

"I learned that you can never for a moment forget the big picture or the broad ambitions of justice," Edwards writes. "I am grateful for those years, for it was then that I came to genuinely understand how smart and decent all kinds of regular American people are. . . . I also learned how our great system can often discount the hardships and genuine suffering of such people -- and how it can sometimes seem to forget their struggle almost completely."

One can always sue.

0 comments

Jefferson-Jackson Dinner

Good Morning. The South Carolina Democrat's held their annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner on May 2, 2003, featuring Louisiana Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu.

Des Moines. The media love these events, the "real" Jefferson-Jackson Dinner run yearly by the Iowa Democrats. Last year, an almost-anonymous Howard Dean was the star of the event. This year, it was evidently Senator Hillary Clinton (D-New York) took that honor. Even to me, a solid Republican, she's much more interesting than the nine zeroes seeking the Dem top spot.

They had 8,000 people, raised $300,000, and staged the Hillary Clinton Show. It caused the nation's more drab political press to "speculate" whether or not she'll seek the Dem nomination. The media loves stars and does not comprehend politics.

Howard FIneman, the bozo-daddy of them all, goes into his bi-monthly swoon, writing of a triumphant Hillary "mak[ing] an entrance as healer and unifier at the end of the primary season in May or June." (He attributes the speculation to a "hard-boiled insider" who is also an "advisor," but regardless, the dreamy-eyed fairy tale is Fineman's.)

There, I've written about that gawdawful dinner. Next.
0 comments

John-Boy on Late Edition

Edwards was on CNN's Sunday show early this afternoon, chatting it up with Wolfgang Blitzer, but I have lost my notes except for one quote I had put with some other material. I can recreate this from memory.

Edwards's image in the CNN DC bureau was on a flat screen monitor, LED, a tall and thin rectangle hanging off the wall. He was in Des Moines.

The actual quote: "First, Wolf, I'm happy Ambassador Bremer and the Administration have admitted that their policy was failing." That's Edwards. No one involved with the Administration said any such thing, but our tort lawyer cum candidate is nothing if not a wanton mischaracterizer.

He again lashed out at the Patriot Act, and he did so like everyman's civil libertarian. Blitzer asked him why he voted for it. Edwards had a tale to tell.

You see, he said, it was so close after September 11 and some of these things we had to get on the books to combat terrorism. Now, however, we can get rid off the provisions that he does not think should be there.

He stressed the Feds rummaging through bookstores and libraries, which they say they've not done under the Patriot Act. (This was done pre-Patriot Act, though, in the hunt for the Unibomber.)

Blitzer showed the poll numbers in Iowa and New Hampshire, and they put Edwards at the bottom of the "Serious Six" pack, double digits behind the two frontunners in each State. (Gephardt and Dean in Iowa, Dean and Kerry in New Hampshire). He said the polls show that he's the only candidate with momentum. He's leading in South Carolina, he told us.

Keep an eye on this man. He is the only Democrat in the field with even an outside shot at defeating the President.

0 comments

Gephardt on This Week

The line was the same as that of everyone else: "I think the problem here, George [Steph], is that we've got to get the help of other countries." OTHER COUNTRIES. He used those words about one half of a dozen times. That's the general Dem so solution: the problem will go away once the French get there. After all, the reasoning goes, the world respects Chirac and the poet DeVillepin.

The new timeline for self-governance"? It was Gephardt's idea: "I've been saying for some time that we've got to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis."

However, he repeated numerous times: "This President doesn't work well with other countries." The way he kept repeating it, I had to assume he was making sure everyone got the joke. But what could be the joke?

A kindergarten teacher could write: "Marky doesn't play well with others." She'd have been wrong, of course, because all I was trying to do was…

Heaven forbid this should turn into a pasquinade.

Some kids don't play well with others, and some smarmy former minority leaders say that President Bush doesn't work well with other countries.

We'll give him a pass: he believes it's clever.

Columnist George Will tried to pin him on the internationalist nonsense. Gephardt had said that he lost the official endorsement of leadership of those labor unions, but he still had the rank-and-file. That may well be. Actually, I hope it is true. Trade unions no longer speak for the individual workers, and nobody owes their soul to the company store.

Anyway, Will said that if he were so internationalist, what did he think of the WTO ruling that the President's steel tariffs are illegal? "We've got to keep the tariffs." Will shot back with something like, "Doesn't that make us a unilateralist, go-it-alone, rogue nation?" Sarcasm indeed.

Gephardt replied: "I have a very internationalist trade policy." Okay. His solution, he said, would be to work with the WTO and bring the standards up in the other countries. Since when has an international organization made another country live up to U.S. standards? Instead, the WTO penalizes the United States until they lower their standards.

While whining about low standards in other countries, he alleged of Mexican workers: "They live in worse conditions than many farm animals in North America.' He lost the PETA vote if they watched anything other than cartoons. According to PETA and those sundry groups, no living creature lives in worse conditions than the American farm animal. Set them free to do what they will in our yards. (The animals, that is. PETA can stay in their comfortably padded cells.)

Of George Soros, Gephardt said that he "is not consistent with campaign reform, but it is consistent with free speech." Where was that line when he trumpeted McCain-Feingold as the "most important piece of legislation we've passed in all my years in Congress." (To Steph, he took credit for "working with John McCain" on campaign finance reform.")

"As you know, George, my dad was a teamster and a milk truck driver." This from a SLATE piece in September:

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Gephardt's account misses what other family members recall as a central part of [his father's] personality: that he hated driving that truck, deeply resented the series of bad breaks that put him there and objected vociferously to Roosevelt-style government programs. 'My dad was in the Teamsters at Pevely [a dairy company], but that's because he had to be' to get the job, says Gephardt's brother, Don. 'I don't recall him talking much about the union, about how great it was. He prided himself on being a Republican. He hated (Harry) Truman. … He had the feeling that you had to make it on your own, that any kind of welfare program would just raise his taxes." Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune adds that Dick Gephardt "didn't mention that his father also sold life insurance and real estate, which somehow don't convey the same sense of grinding deprivation."

He's still favored by the press to win Iowa, but it's too early to make those calls.

0 comments

The Dems on a Sunday

Wes Clark had the full hour of NBC's Meet the Press with Tim Russert. Trickless Dick Gephardt was fit between Paul Bremer and Dicky Rubin, and John-boy Edwards warranted a few minutes on CNN's Late Edition.

They all welcomed news that the administration had "beat a retreat" and agreed to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis by June, but they each expressed regret that this was not done sooner. It is important, they said as if in metaphysical unison, to internationalize the Iraqi situation.

[Has anyone asked the Iraqis about this? If it is their country and we should return control to them ASAP, should not the Dems be asking the Iraqis if they want blue helmets and Frenchmen running about their countryside?]

Clark wants the United States to "transfer authority to the Iraqis tomorrow." (The Iraqis say that they're not ready, but Wes wants to cut and run.)

Russert reminded Wes that in Kosovo, the war he ran for Clinton, the United Nations did not grant us authority. Wes said that Kosovo was an emergency, an imminent threat to the United States. We had to go alone, he said, because other nations refused to act. This brought up the obvious question, but Wes answered by saying that Iraq was not an imminent danger while Kosovo was.

He said it. I don't know why.

Wes talked about Iraq and Russert asked: "Are you saying you could have won in Iraq without losing a single American soldier?" We answered: "No, not necessarily."

He said it. I don't know why.

Clark said that we were distracted from catching Osama bin Laden, which he thinks should be our primary mission in the war on terror, by fighting in Iraq. OBL is secondary to the war on terror, but it sounds better campaign-wise for Dems to equate him with all terror.

He's going over to the Hague to testify about the 150 hours he spent talking to former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. He admitted himself that he would be providing only circumstantial evidence in the case against Milosevic, but, he added, "I'm proud to be doing this under international law." He digs international law, because that's the fashionable thing for Democrats to smoke these days. They will push this too far, if they haven't already.

Testimony courtesy of the Clark campaign.

Gephardt next…

0 comments

That's that

Today's Rightsided Newsletter has been composed and sent, but I've just noted that the Topica mailing system is down for maintenance until 1p PT this afternoon, which is another hour and a half. My server is giving me 502 proxy errors, so I cannot update the web page. This is all well and good.

Coming up in here this afternoon and evening will be descriptions of candidate Wes Clark's appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, Trickless Dick Gephardt's on ABC's This Week, and John-boy Edwards's brief stop on CNN's Late Edition. They all talked internationalizing the effort in Iraq. They also talked about how it was a good thing that the Administration was finally giving the Iraqis more control over their own country.

Has anyone asked the Iraqis if they want French and German blue helmets patrolling their streets? Before we internationalize it, by their reasoning, shouldn't we ask the Iraqis what they want?

0 comments

And the Gates of Hell Opened up…

…and we got this week's Sunday Talk Show.

Friendly faces are few. Paul Bremer, hardly a conservative firebrand, makes guest stops on Fox News Sunday (FNS) and ABC's This Week (TW), and Senate GOP Whip Mitch McConnell stops by CNN"s Late Edition (LE), but that's the extent of conservatism this morning.

Daschle's on FNS, and Chris Dodd of Connecticut and candidate John John Edwards are on LE. < b>Snore Richard Gephardt and former Clinton Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin further debase Steph's show (TW), and candidate Wes Clark own's NBC's Meet the Press.

The entire half hour of CBS's Fact the Nation belongs to Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), and I cannot think of why Schieffer would want to put his viewers and/or his ratings through that nonsense. What relevant has Kennedy to say? Unless he's trying to work off his hangover on national television.

I'll review and analyze these shows for this afternoon's Rightsided Newsletter, which you can receive by subscribing on the web site or by sending a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe@topica.com.

I'll be using an "Earth Write" #2 for the first time since I've been blogging. "Pencils made 100% pre-consumer waste materials." "Contains NO rainforest wood." I bought a package at Staples last summer, figuring I'd do my part, then they seemed to disappear amongst the other pencils.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A side note on Bobby Jindal in Lousiana. Democrat Kathleen Blanco ran on the Right, and I just discovered that she is a Cajun. Jindal is 32-years-old, so there will be other offices. Now that his name is known, perhaps he might consider a run for Democrat Senator John Breaux's seat next year. (Breaux is and has been the Mullah of the Moderates.)

0 comments

Allard on Daschle

From the AP, via CBS4: Denver:

Sen. Wayne Allard is criticizing the Senate's Democratic leader for leaving an around-the-clock debate to attend a fundraiser in Denver.

Allard, R-Colo., said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, should not have left debate about Democratic filibusters blocking several of President Bush's judicial nominations.

Daschle spokeswoman Ranit Schmelzer said the senator went to Denver Wednesday night to attend a fundraiser hosted by former U.S. Attorney Tom Strickland and Jim Crow, president and chief executive officer of Level 3 Communications.

Okay, Strickland was the Democrat who ran against Allard last November and lost. He also ran against Allard in 1996, and he lost then as well. Level 3 is a multinational firm, and correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Jim Crow once have laws that had to be overturned as Unconstitutional?

Okay, so the Tomster jetted out to Colorado Wednesday night. Daschle's Daschle's Daschle.

What struck me was this quote from Senator Allard:

"I'm extremely disappointed he would be back in Colorado raising money when we were having such important debate here in the Senate,'' said Allard. "This is a debate that is going to change the way the Senate does business.''

Change the way the Senate does business. How?

I heard some "conservative columnist" on FNC this afternoon whining that the debate did not accomplish its objectives, i.e. -- the nominees were not confirmed. The goal of the debate marathon was not to have the nominees confirmed. They knew that this was not going to happen. Rather, the debate was a lesson. And it was a prep. The American people had to see what was going on and prepared form what might happen next.

One of two things should now occur. In the first, the President would make some recess appointments, thus bypassing the Senate confirmation process and installing these nominees until they are voted on during the next session of Congress.

This would inflame the Democrats, possibly causing them to shut down the Senate. The American people have hopefully been prepped for this, but it would not change the way in which future nominations would be debated and confirmed. The goal, repeated throughout the marathon debate, is to eliminate the option of filibuster for judicial nominees.

The other thing which could occur, if something does, is known as the Nuclear Option. The Republicans would go to the Senate Parliamentarian and ask him to rule that a simple majority can invoke cloture for judicial nominees. The Parliamentarian would do so, as the GOP is the majority party in the Senate.

This would also anger the Democrats, but they would have less of a case to make to the American people AND the rules would be changed for any future Supreme Court nominee.

0 comments

Iraqi Political Timetable

Jalal Talabani, the current man in the revolving chair of the 23-member Iraqi Governing Council, announced Saturday that a Transitional Council would be selected in May to choose a Transitional Government by the end of June. United States occupation of Iraq would officially end then, though the U.S. would still have a contingent of troops on the ground. They've pledged to draft a constitution and hold elections by the end of 2005.

This news comes after the Governing Council met with administrator Paul Bremer late last week, after Bremer had been to Washington to meet with the President. The President evidently wants this wrapped up soon, and the June date would have U.S. occupation completed well before the election.

The French wanted the Iraqis to assume control by the end of this year. Many Dems wanted the President to share power with the French.

I am anxious to hear what they say on the Sunday shows. If you'd like to receive my free twice-weekly newsletter, including the review and analysis of the Sunday shows, visit the Rightsided Newsletter web site or send a blank email to rsn-subscribe@topica.com.

0 comments

Candidate Kerry says NO to Matching Funds

John-John Kerry's campaign has been adrift for several months. Howie Dean is doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire. Last week, Howie Dean decided to forgo federal matching funds. This week, John-John decided he didn't need them, either.

He told supporters in an e-mail:

I wish Howard Dean had kept his promise to stay within the campaign finance system. But he did not. He changed the rules of this race - and anyone with a real shot at the nomination must now play by those rules. And today, let me be clear: I'm in this campaign to win the nomination and to defeat George Bush next November.

Because of the matching-funds dilemma, he is now asserting that only he and Howie have shot at the nomination, as they've opted out of the Watergate-era federal system.

The federal system of matching funds provides a candidate up to 250 taxpayer dollars for every donation he receives. (Exact matches apply to donations less than $250,) The system maxes out at $18.7-billion and limits a candidate to campaign expenditures of $45-million

According to Responsive Politics, Kerry was already eligible for $5.6-million in taxpayers' money to fund his campaign.

It also limits how much a candidate can spend in each State, which the Kerry campaign claims is the restriction they do not want. They have pledged to stay within the $45-million overall limit.

Kerry's initial statement said that he would take out a personal loan to cover expenses, but that line was quickly removed.

In the e-mail, Kerry writes:

In doing this, I will follow the law which requires that those assets be mine and no one else. I am fortunate to be able to contribute it.

His wife is the former wife of the late Senator John Heinz (R-Pennsylvania), and as such, she possesses a tremendous ketchup fortune. If he uses any money from her or which the couple possesses jointly, he would have to disclose this. Not that he would.

Before the his campaign, when the Presidential run was in the talking stages, Kerry said that he would consider using his wife's ketchup fortune, but he retracted that shortly thereafter, perhaps after she learned of his statement.

Since so much about the Kerry campaign is fake, it seems only fitting that he should use imitation blood when he says: "I don't want your ketchup money!"

Seriously, since the Kerry Campaign is in no financial position to do something like this, it seems possible that they sought the press such a wild-eyed move would get. It gives political reporters reason to talk about the Kerry campaign, which might otherwise have been ignored.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BLANCO OR JINDAL: HISTORIC VOTE TODAY. Go Bobby Jindal!
0 comments

Dem Candidates Don't Vote For nominees...

...or against them.

We've heard the Dem candidates tell us how important the judiciary is, how seriously they take their advise and consent role with nominees.

My friends at RNC Research have uncovered that candidate John-John Kerry has missed 53 votes on judicial nominees. His colleague, candidate Joltless Joe Lieberman has missed 43, while candidate John-boy Edwards has missed 33.

Here it as a PDF.
0 comments

The "Bush Jobless Recovery"

I got this one from PoliPundit. It's a table including every Presidential term since Truman's, ranking them by rate of unemployment.

The worst two are the 8.58-percent of President Reagans first term and the 6.64-percent in the Nixon/Ford term ('73-January, 1977). The lowest unemployment rates are the 3.95% of Johnson's full term and the 4.22% of Eisenhower's first term.

Octobers rate of 6% is dab in the middle.

Perhaps this is why so many Dems want to make illegals welfare eligible: it'll knock the President's figures up a few notches. (I doubt it, but it's a snide comment.)
0 comments

Way down in Louisiana…

They are having a gubernatorial election. Either Democrat Kathleen Blanco or Republican Bobby Jindal will be elected the next governor of Louisiana after Saturday's vote. Both candidates portray themselves as a conservative, and each has a very clean image. (When looking at this race, I almost find myself pining for former Democrat Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, who was finally convicted a few years back of 17 counts of racketeering, money laundering, and conspiracy. It's more fun to poke sticks at the imbecilic and the corrupt.)

Okay, the latest tracking poll of from the Marketing Research Institute out of Pensacola, Florida. They surveyed -- on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings -- only people who claim to have voted in the October 4 primary. They got 46 percent backing Jindal, 42% on Blanco, with 12-percent who just don't know. (That seems like an awfully high percentage of voters still undecided considering that these people are involved enough to have voted in the primary election.)

That looks good, at first glance, for Jindal. That's a hypothetical pickup of six points from an earlier survey for Blanco, who issued a statement: "I feel my campaign surging as I have moved around the state in the past few days."

It's a close race, but it seems Bobby Jindal has it under control. I'll forecast the race for him because he has Darrell Waltrip. They like NASCAR in the South, and they like the drivers. Waltrip is a well-known driver, and he is stumping with Jindal. He has so far this year campaigned with Ernie Fletcher in Kentucky and Haley Barbour in Mississippi.

He has the pre-vote lead and the most important intangible down there.

0 comments

Howard Dean: Superstar?

The Case for John Edwards

Since his first flurry with voters, I have been repeating that candidate Dean will not win the Dem nomination. To me, it's a no-brainer. He appeals to a certain sect of Democrats, those who hate President Bush and demand some sort of unbranded change. Really, though, there is nothing to him. He had lost the south long before his little labeling with Confederate flags and pickup trucks. (Someone pass the grits.)

Howie Dean now has the support of two major labor unions. So? Labor unions, qua unions, cannot vote. Their endorsements, in today's political climate, are like an costume candidates wear to the appropriate occasions then throw in the closet until next time.

There are six Democrats within striking distance, according to the polls, of each other: Clark, Dean, Edwards, Gephardt, Kerry, and Lieberman. Of those six, Kerry can be most easily written off. His campaign has shot its wad and missed. He's running on having the experience to take on the President on matters of foreign policy, war and peace, etc. Why? He fought in a war? He was has been his State's junior Senator for a couple of decades?

Kerry's campaign is deflating. By attacking frontrunner Dean as he goes, the takes a chunk of Howie with him.

Gephardt should win the Iowa caucuses, but he'll be fortunate to finish in the top six in New Hampshire. His pro-war stance will not play well with the anti-Bush Dem dead-enders elsewhere in the country, and I do not see him lasting into March.

Lieberman. His core of support was the Dems who were still ticked about 2000. They're shiting elsewhere.

Clark. Dean's got the outsider role locked up. Wes is a little too outlandish, with his bizarre proposals to capture bin Laden and constant adjustment on his positions.

John Edwards. Democrat operatives had referred to him as the "next Bobby Kennedy. Senator Ted Kennedy has said that Edwards more closely resembles his brother John. Edwards has the looks, the message, the Southern charm, and the trial lawyers.

He has a book due out soon, one which details how he saved the day as a tort attorney for an innocent little girl who had her innards sucked out by a swimming pool filtration system, etc. His career as a trial lawyer can be turned into a scene of "John Edwards, champion of those victimized by LARGE CORPORATIONS."

According to the latest Gallup poll, 58-percent of Dems nationwide do not know enough about candidate Edwards to hold a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him. According to the same survey, 54-percent do not know Dean well enough to have an opinion. (Those are easily the highest of the six contending candidates.) As voters get to know these two, will they prefer the lunatic Dean or the "shucks-like" Edwards?

Dean's campaign has been an acerbic mass of negativity. Edwards says he is stressing the positives, with plans for the economy, this, that, and the other. Edwards is also laying it onto Howie Dean. (I found this James Ridgeway piece in the Village Voice which does a fair job of pointing out that Edwards is creepy.)

Edwards is the most skilled liar amongst the group of Dems. He has the… well, creepy ability to lie to you with a reassuring smile, leaving you scratching your head and wondering if the obvious untruth he just spoke is not reality. A third place finish in Iowa would set him up nicely for South Carolina. (A third place finish in New Hampshire and they might as well skip the rest of the primaries and nominate him then and there.)

Of course, if the UFO's do come, all bets are off and the nomination belongs to Wes Clark.

0 comments

Reverse Marathon, Part Four

Good morning. Senate Republicans last night decided to extend the marathon by ten hours this morning, asserting that the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) went on the defensive this morning, protesting that the Democrats were not anti-women. (They are blocking both female and minority nominees.) He proceeded to list Democrat Senators who are women -- Diane Feinstein, Babs Mikulski, Patty Murray, Debbie Stabenow, etc. -- and protested that they were not anti-woman. This is like the teenage skinhead denying that he hates blacks because he has a few on his paper route. (Leahy would have listed Democrat Senators who are black to defend himself against charges of racism, but there aren't any. They are not, in their language, diverse.)

The marathon will end with 45 Democrats refusing to vote cloture on the nominations of Judges Carolyn Kuhl to sit on the Ninth Circuit and Judge Janice Brown to sit on DC Circuit. The pro-abortion special interests have spoken. The United States Senate is being held hostage by a few crabs at NARAL. And the Democrats dare not vex them

It might being nearing time to talk to the Parliamentarian. The "nuclear option" might be what remains.

0 comments

Reverse Filibuster, Part Three

After this, I'll wait for the tracking polls to see if anyone actually noticed what has happened, if the message was made clear. Yes, the tracking polls. Mission accomplished?

Wednesday evening, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-California) argued that either Senate Democrats could rubber stamp all of the President's judicial nominees, or they could "take a stand on some, and we have chosen to take a stand on some."

They have chosen to take a stand on four of the President's nominees so far? Why? It's not for ideological reasons. As the Republican Senators have pointed out time and time again last night and today, almost all of the President's nominees are ideological conservatives. The reason, it seems to me, is that the Democrats have picked a few which they think would make funky examples and latched onto opposing them.

"No offense, Judge Pickering, but you're a white southern guy whom it would be easy to brand a racist."

"No offense, Mr. Estrada, but you're not really Hispanic. You're a disgrace to your ethnicity, and it would be easy to oppose you."

"No offense, Judge Brown, but you're not really black. You can easily be labeled another Clarence Thomas traitor to your race, so it's easy to oppose you."

It makes one wonder about Judge Kuhl, though. What about her makes it easy to cast her aside? I posit that she is opposed because she is nominated to the "Liberal Court." Like Thurgood Marshall's seat on the Supreme Court was "reserved from blacks" -- Justice Marshall rejected the term "African American" -- so the 9th Circuit out of San Francisco is "reserved for leftist kooks."

0 comments

Reverse Filibuster, Part Two

The Republicans have stressed that the Democrats are violating the Constitution with their filibuster, but Senator Chris Dodd said today that he carries with him ever day the pocket Constitution which Bobby Byrd gave to him a few years back. Said Dodd: "I read it every day."

He reads the same thing I do: The President "shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States." That's Article II, Section two - Executive power. In Article I, the Constitution specifies a 2/3rds vote for convictions of impeachment, but it gives no such majority for confirming judicial nominees, even such aspirants as considered "controversial" by less than a statistical minority of 45 Senators. (If 49 Senators can be a minority, then 45 could well be a nether-minority, in the same sense that 60 is a "super-majority. But that's called digression.)


Article II, Section 2 also states the following of the President: "He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur." Two-thirds for conviction of impeachment and two-thirds for ratifying treaties. Again, no such majority specified for confirmation of judicial nominees. That is wholly the extra-Constitutional invention of the Senate minority.

The Republican Senators have discussed the need for what Frist called "filibuster reform." This afternoon, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) was asked to hearken to his own words of over a decade ago, when he evidently sought to eliminate the filibuster entirely. When challenged by Senator Wayne Allard (R-Colorado), Harkin said that he still supported the notion, but that the Republicans wanted to keep the filibuster for legislation but eliminate it for judicial nominees.

Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) earlier said that the Dems were "breaking the law," and that "this is about violating our Constitution." Senator John Warner (R-Virginia) invoked the late Benjamin Franklin, who upon leaving Constitution Hall in Philadelphia after the work of the summer of 1787, told a curious person what type of government they had been given. Franklin answered: "We have giver you a republic, if you can keep it." Warner charged that the Dems were not keeping it.

Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, said of the nominees: "They are not qualified in the judgment of many." How many? Forty-five Senators and the abortion lobby scoring the vote.

There is going to be a vote tomorrow on the Frist-Miller rule, which would allow the number of votes required to invoke cloture to slip by three with each passing vote until it passes or reaches 51, whichever comes first. It takes 2/3rds of the Senate to vote in favor of a rule change, and thus this one will not pass.

This leaves the "nuclear option," which would be the Republicans going to the Parliamentarian for a ruling stating that a simple majority is needed to invoke cloture on a judicial nominees. Since the Republicans are in the majority, the ruling would be in their favor, as is their prerogative.

The Democrats have already pledged to shut the Senate down if this happens.

There will be a Supreme Court vacancy to fill soon. The Democrats' blockage-by-minority must be cleared by that time.

I have one more point to make about this, which I will do shortly. Then I want to discuss the race for the Dem nomination.

0 comments

The Ninth Circuit

A point of contention Wednesday night and Thursday, during the 30 hour session, has been the nomination of Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl to sit on the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the on which banned the Pledge of Allegiance last June, said that one could possess marijuana for "religious reasons," and ruled that California's recall election was Unconstitutional because of some punch card ballot machines disenfranchised minorities. It is said to be the nation's most unwaveringly liberal court in America. Judge Knight is, of course, a conservative.

In a letter written for people to sign and mail to their Senators, the NAACP has the sender accuse Judge Kuhl of demonstrating "through judicial activism a blatant disregard for ethnic minority Americans as well as a contempt for the rights of women, the disabled and individuals." She's a conservative. She is being blocked because she is a nominee to a traditionally very liberal court, It's as if to Schumer and his ilk, diversity demands a leftist judiciary.

Senate Minority Whip Mitch McConell (R-Kentucky) suggested that the Ninth Circuit "needs diversity." This afternoon, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) suggested that there was a move pending to split the 9th Circuit, which is the largest of the thirteen U.S. Circuits and currently includes all federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

The Dems not only do not want conservatives adjudicating in our federal system, they want at least one Court devoid of even moderates. And they'll scoff at their Constitutional duty to advise and consent on judicial nominations to do it.

posted by Mark Kilmer : 11/13/2003 05:30:00 PM [permalink]

0 comments

Reverse Filibuster, Part One

Yesterday, Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania) called the Senate marathon: "reverse filibuster," explaining: "Filibusters are put forward by the minority to try and block action from occurring. We're trying to move to the floor to try to force action on judicial nominations. We're going to do everything we can to get a vote on judges, and they're going to do everything they can to block a vote on judges."

Yesterday shortly after 6p, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) said: "Tonight, we embark on an extraordinary session." He wants filibuster reform.

The forty minutes or so after Senator Frist's opening remarks, though, were filled with Democrat questions and a few parliamentary moves.

The aging Senator Robert Byrd(D-West Virginia) said that he had nothing really to say about the filibuster, but that he wanted to vote on the veteran's appropriations bill before he has to catch a train Friday for West Virginia to received some gawdforsaken FDR bravery award. He was accommodated, but Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nevada), a nasty fellow, later twisted this incident. He claimed that Byrd was "outraged" because the Republicans wanted to waste time on four judicial nominees while our veterans go hungry, or some such. This was a lie, and I think he knew it.

The Republicans then called for immediate votes on the nominations of Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl of California to sit on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Janice R. Brown to sit on the DC Circuit. As expected, the Dems objected. A lot of the talk was about the accomplishments of Judge Brown and the stellar reputation of Judge Kuhn, but I'll treat that later.

A Dem talking point throughout has been a memo Reid says was faxed to someone by a producer at the Fox News Channel. The memo asked the Senators to walk onto the floor after 6p so Brit Hume could show it live on Special Report, the best political show outside C-SPAN. They say that this proves that the entire marathon is a "circus." The GOP has maintained that it is a show. Senator Frist has long maintained that this would not bring the nominees to up or down votes.

Another Dem them was that other judges have been filibustered, specifically Abe Fortas in 1968. At the time, Fortas was a sitting Justice whom President Johnson sought to promote to Chief Justice. There was a weeklong bipartisan filibuster -- based primarily on objections to separation of powers/independent judiciary concerns because of Fortas's proximity to the Johnson White House -- which was broken by a majority vote. (The rules then required only a simple majority to invoke cloture.)

Even though cloture was voted by a majority, Fortas did not have the necessary majority to confirm his nomination. He has Johnson to withdraw it, the President did, and the entire matter lasted ten days from start to finish.

The Fortas filibuster was broken. It was not used to defeat his nomination. New York Senator Chuckie Schumer (D-New York), who first brought it up, is a crass liar.

When he first spoke, Schumer showed a chart which said 168-4. The Dems evidently had pins made which said 168-4. They have confirmed 168 judges and filibustered only 4, the argument goes. Said Chuckie: "This debate will boomerang on the majority, because the American people will see those numbers."

That was more or less a setup, and I'll have more later.
0 comments

Power Outtage

I'm coming off a ten hour power outtage here: no television, no 'puter. I've a lot to catch myself up on, and a lot already to write.

I'll catch you after lunch.
0 comments

Past Judicial Filibusters?

A point of contention in the earlier hours of tonight's debate was the Republican claim that this was the first time in history that a judicial nominee had ever been filibustered. No, hissed Senator Chuckie Schumer (D-New York). What of Abe Fortas, President Johnson's 1968 nominee to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? Fortas had been filibustered, by Senators from both political parties, for a week, then the Senate voted cloture by a simple majority. (The rules were different then.) Not everyone who voted cloture for Fortas supported his confirmation, though, and Fortas asked President Johnson to withdraw his nomination when he saw that he did not have the votes to be confirmed. Chuckie's is a flawed example.
0 comments

The Talking Has Begun…

It began Senatorially enough. You know, deliberative body, plod along, etc. It's charming, even though the matter over which they met is gut wrenching.

"Tonight, we embark on an extraordinary session," said Majority Leader Bill Frist.

"Filibuster reform."

There was a lengthy delay in starting the discussion because Senator Robert Byrd wants to vote on a veterans' appropriation bill, with the vote scheduled at some time on Friday. Byrd, you see, has to drive back to West Virginia on Friday to receive some gawdforsaken Franklin Roosevelt courage award; he damn well wants to get home in time.

The first outburst from the gallery came when Senator Byrd said that he has "long admired the distinguished Senator." Someone found that offensive, and someone was warned to keep quiet. This person didn't let Senator Byrd finish: "I have long admired the Senator from Tennessee as a distinguished physician."

The Republicans asked to schedule votes on various pending judges, such as Carolyn Kuhl to the 9th Circuit and Janice Brown the DC Circuit. The Democrats kept interrupting and asking questions, and the floor debate did not begin until about 6:50p DC time.

Wisconsin Dem Senator Russ Feingold talked about manufacturing job losses, which was supposed to be the Democrat strategy for the 30 hours. Minority Whip Harry Ried, however, said "jobs and unemployment," then went off about someone wanting to time the start of the session so that it could be aired live on the Fox News Channel. (Special Report, with Brit Hume -- the politics program -- air at that time.)

Feinstein came out to whine about Blue Slips, which are no longer used. They allowed a single Senator from a nominee's home State to block the nominee. It's tradition. (Rather, it was.) She whined about a "filibuster of one."

And that's an hour and a half.

0 comments

Let the Dems Filibuster

This evening at 6p Easter Time, a GOP talk-a-thon begins. Lest you think for even a sec that this is a Republican-led filibuster, it is not. Currently, three of President Bush's Judicial nominees -- Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, federal district Judge Charles Pickering Sr. of Mississippi, and Alabama Attorney General William Pryor -- have been passed from the Senate Judiciary Committee with favorable recommendations, and their nominations are officially being debated on the Senate floor. These nominations will be officially in the floor debate stage until 60 Senators -- a super-majority -- votes to close the debate (cloture) and allow an up-or-down vote on the nomination.

It takes 60 Senators to invoke cloture, ending debate and setting up the vote; more importantly to the current situation, it takes 41 Senators to block cloture and thus an up-or-down vote. This is how a majority of Senators, fulfilling their mandate to advise and consent on judicial nominations, could find a nominee acceptable, while a minority, shirking that responsibility, could stubbornly block the process.

Why are they blocking it? I have heard that the pro-abort groups have told Democrat Senators that they are scoring the votes on cloture and will attack Senators who do not vote their way. If one counts on such groups for reelection, he thinks twice before ticking them off. So, it seems, the United States Senate is being held hostage by the crabs at NARAL.

Clearly stated Senate Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania yesterday: "Tomorrow, we're going to be starting what I call a reverse filibuster. We are going to do everything we can to do what they're [Senate Democrats] doing."

This evening, they begin. More senior Senators have little hideaway "nooks" in the Capitol where they can go to catch some sleep, and cots will be brought into the "Strom Thurmond Room" -- so named for the late Senators 24 hour and 18 minute filibuster back in 1957, when as a Democrat he filibustered the voting rights bill -- for the more junior Senators.

The Republicans, it is said, plan to talk about the nominees and the malignancy of filibustering them, perhaps setting the stage for the eventual use of the "Nuclear Option," having the parliamentarian rule that cloture can be invoked on a simple majority. Democrats have threatened nuclear winter for the Senate if it comes to that.

0 comments

It's Wictory Wednesday

Today is PoliPundit's"Wictory Wednesday," the day when Republicans from around the blogosphere do their thaang to remind themselves and others that it is important that we chip in and be a part of the effort to reelect President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Billionaire Dem George Soros is doing his heavy-walleted part to remove President Bush, whom his psychosis tells him is a Nazi ghost from his Hungarian past. That's a lot of nonsense to counteract, but we can do it one small donation and one pledge of time and effort at a time. By visiting the Bush/Cheney webpage, we can donate money via this secure server, and/or we can volunteer to be a "Bush Team Leader" using this secure server. Everything helps.

Here are those who've volunteered to carry this message, in whatever form, on this "Wictory Wednesday." The blogroll of the willing:


Backcountry Conservative
Boots and Sabers
Bowling for Howard
Dean
BushBlog.us (unofficial blog)
Bush-Cheney 2004 (unofficial
blog)
ExPostFacto
Freedom of Thought
The Hedgehog Report
The Irish Lass
Jarhead
Jeremy Kissel
Left Coast
Conservative
Matt Margolis
The Ole Miss Conservative
PoliPundit
Political Annotation
A Rice Grad
Ryne McClaren
Slublog
Southern Conservatives
Stephen Blythe
Viking Pundit
The Wise Man Says


0 comments

Yes, I was serious.

When I asserted that billionaire Dem George Soros suffered from a form of psychosis, I was not piling on the partisan name-calling of someone of whose actions I might not be happy. I don't play those games.

I was very serious. To wit:

1. Soros see in George Bush the reemergence of the Nazis who terrified him as a child. He might have the propensity to dislike President Bush for the typical Dem reasons -- the way he won the election, payback for Clinton -- but that standard aversion seems to be tainted by the psychosis of the re-emerging monsters.

He tells the Washpost post that he has nightmares which force him awake each night, leading him to scribble his thoughts in journal.

I do think the man is mentally unstable, and it seems that Halperin and Podesta and those sick people are exploiting his psychosis. Feeding him lines, amplifying it so that they can have ready access to his cash.
0 comments

"The Soros Doctrine"

Opinion Journal talked about billionaire Bush-basher George Soros yesterday in the context of how he,and Harold Ickes were exploiting the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law to contribute (Soros) or raise (Ickes) huge gobs of cash for the anti-Bush effort. I chose to look at the piece from the angle of the Democrats' anti-Bush machinery. [See Soros and Ickes from yesterday.]

The mainstreamers are now looking at the same thing. CBS.com opens:

Billionaire George Soros has pledged $15.5 million to efforts to unseat President Bush in an election that he sees as a "life and death" struggle to defeat the administration's "supremacist ideology," a newspaper reports.

"America, under Bush, is a danger to the world," the 74-year-old Soros tells The Washington Post. "And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is."

For their part, the Washpost reports:

"It is the central focus of my life," Soros said, his blue eyes settled on an unseen target. The 2004 presidential race, he said in an interview, is "a matter of life and death."

Soros, who has financed efforts to promote open societies in more than 50 countries around the world, is bringing the fight home, he said. On Monday, he and a partner committed up to $5 million to MoveOn.org, a liberal activist group, bringing to $15.5 million the total of his personal contributions to oust Bush.

Why is he so motivated? The Washpost piece offers this from Soros:

Soros believes that a "supremacist ideology" guides this White House. He hears echoes in its rhetoric of his childhood in occupied Hungary. "When I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans." It conjures up memories, he said, of Nazi slogans on the walls, Der Feind Hort mit ("The enemy is listening"). "My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me," he said in a soft Hungarian accent.

So his problem with the President is a result of his psychotic paranoia. It's that simple, it seems.

The Washpost prints of Soros's delusions:

Soros said he had been waking at 3 a.m., his thoughts shaking him "like an alarm clock." Sitting in his robe, he wrote his ideas down, longhand, on a stack of pads. In January, PublicAffairs will publish them as a book, "The Bubble of American Supremacy" (an excerpt appears in December's Atlantic Monthly). In it, he argues for a collective approach to security, increased foreign aid and "preventive action."

"It would be too immodest for a private person to set himself up against the president," he said. "But it is, in fact" -- he chuckled -- "the Soros Doctorine."

So we see the symptoms of the man's psychosis, but what -- or who -- could be fueling it? The Washpost tells us:

His campaign began last summer with the help of Morton H. Halperin, a liberal think tank veteran. Soros invited Democratic strategists to his house in Southampton, Long Island, including Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta, Jeremy Rosner, Robert Boorstin and Carl Pope.

So the Dems are exploiting the psychosis of a sick but wealthy man for political purposes. They are encouraging his delusions to take his money. This is sick.

Consider the post-Clinton political climate. Schooled by Begala and Carville, these Dems seem apt to do anything to suit their unfocused ends. The goal is power, or their conceptualization of it, and distraught men like Soros are they angry callers to C-SPAN are spreading a form of psychosis of one degree or another. A segment of our body politic is living in a parallel universe.

0 comments

Orrin Hatch on C-SPAN's Washington Journal

The Chairman of the Senate Judiciary was on Washington Journal this am, and he made a few generalizations about his fellow Senators which always takes us to that interesting speculation about whom he might have meant.

Speaking of the Rockefeller Memorandum, he first forgave Senator Rockefeller, the ranking Dem on Senate Intelligence whose staffer had written those 545 words. He said that JayRock, as we'll call the West Virginia Democrat, was a nice guy who "had to get a handle on that committee." The Chairman is Republican Pat Roberts of Kansas, so Senator Hatch must have meant that Rockefeller had to control the minority better.

Said Hatch of some committee Democrats: "They really shouldn't be appointed to the Intelligence Committee, but unfortunately they are." Whom could he mean?

Besides JayRock, the committee's Dems are Carl Levin of Michigan, Diane Feinstein of California, Oregon's Ron Wyden, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Indiana's Evan Bayh, Maryland's Babs Mikulski, and candidate John-John Edwards of North Carolina. Which of these Senators allow their own partisanship to supercede the general interests of the United States of America.

First and foremost, Hatch was talking about Levin. Carl, if I may so be so bold as the call the distinguished gentleman by his given name, has something painful in his pants. When he is scheduled to speak on some news show or -- as on the last Fox News Sunday: transcript -- takes to the well of the Senate, I brace myself for snide, partisan negativity. Ooze is the proper verb here, because that is the way general contempt seems to leave the man's person. He hates everything, and he seems uncertain as to why this is.

Levin is the main malefactor and possibly the only person Hatch had in mind when he said that some Dems "really shouldn't be appointed to the Intelligence Committee." (I'm here letting candidate Edwards off the hook, somewhat, because he's a known liar, as is Levin, and this is the type of thing Presidential candidates do. It excites their base.)

It most certainly was not Evan Bayh of Indiana, who is -- in my opinion -- the frontrunner in the Veep race, especially if Howie Dean wins the nomination. Bayh is from the Midwest, where the President has been strong. Bayh is not physically hideous, compliant, and a few bricks shy: all requisites to be a Dem veep nominee.

On the Senate floor Friday, Bayh explained the matter of Rockefeller and the memo in this manner: "Senator Rockefeller has been under intense pressure -- intense pressure -- by some others to pursue a much more partisan line of inquiry, to be much more confrontational. Instead he has chosen to try and pursue the cooperative path first."

Some others. Okay, maybe DiFi, Dicky Durbin, and the Dem leadership (Daschle, Reid).

On another matter, Hatch noted: "We have people in our [Republican] Party who are extreme and do some things they shouldn't."

This one has me baffled, unless he means Olympia Snowe, Linc Chafee, and Snarlin' Arlen Specter.

0 comments

It is Veterans Day

Veterans Day was Armistice Day. At 11 am on November 11, 1918, World War I ended with an armistice. Three years later, on November 11, 1921, an unknown soldier of World War I was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. This is Veterans Day. The same ceremony took place in both Britain and France for one of their unknowns, marking their own such Veterans Day.

Some news organizations, such as CBS News, are using this day to attack President Bush. Columnist David Broder of the Washington Post uses his column today to lament the fact that there are not more veteran's in Congress. He blames the lack of comity in the House on the fact that there are fewer veterans today than there were way-back-when.

I will use today to say thank you. Someone has to protect our nation and our freedoms if we are to keep it and them, and it is a job which requires a special type of person. Everyone who has served has helped keep all of this possible. Thank you. For the grueling training, the life on constant call, the uncertainty, the blood spilled, the sacrifices, and for the job well done, I thank you.

0 comments

The United States Senate is…"

…the deliberative body.

Or so they are fond of telling us. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle was on Fox and Friends this morning to pitch his new book. He was warm and friendly. He spoke of how much he likes President Bush as a person: "We differ on some matters of policy."

(RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie told Talon News last week: "My own view is that Daschle is more beatable than [South Dakota Democrat Senator Tim] Johnson was and that [former Congressman John] Thune would have a better chance of defeating Daschle [in 2004]." I can say that Thune would make it competitive, but he has not committed to doing so. He might do it, having lost to Johnson last year by the margin of only a few hundred dead South Dakota Sioux.)

I read a Reuters piece about how the clash in the intelligence committee over the memo -- 545 Words -- just might mean that "no more meetings or hearings will be held on prewar intelligence related to Iraq for the rest of this year." Carl Levin's bowels were in an uproar about this on Fox News Sunday yesterday.

For those of you who do not subscribe to my free Rightsided Newsletter, here's this, in the style of that newsletter:

The memorandum, written as it was by one of Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman ranking Dem Jay Rockefeller's staffers, is a partisan plan to use the committee as a political tool to damage the President as the election season is beginning. And it has actually made some on both sides angry, albeit for different reasons. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) told FNS host Tony Snow that he was "stunned by this memo, shocked by it." He said the memo threatened to destroy the committee's special nonpartisan nature, built since the days of the late Chairman Frank Church (D-Idaho), who ran the committee from 1975 through 1980. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chairman Roberts is most angry that no Democrat has so far been willing to "publicly state that this [type of thing] is not done." He argued: "Somebody has to disavow this memo." He added that "I can tell you my Republican colleagues are outraged," and he seemed affronted that "some [Democrat] members of the Senate [are] actually embracing it, reveling in it."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He agreed with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's (R-Tennessee) decision to shut down the committee pending an apology, but intimated that the members of the committee still receivie their usual intelligence briefings.

So that's that.

Then there is the old-style filibusters. The GOP are bringing the cots on Wednesday to begin 30 straight hours of debate. This has to do with the Democrats' filibustering of the President's judicial nominees, though Frist concedes that this will not get the names through; rather, it will call the public's attention to what the Dems are doing.

Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid of Nevada took to the Senate floor to day a grumble and whine. According to CNN this afternoon:

"It's inappropriate that we are not going to be able to work through this week; we're going to take two days to talk about judges," said Reid. "I've been told the reason it's being done, deliver a message to the base. Well, I don't know what that means except it's being done for reasons that I don't think are appropriate for the Senate."

The message is not to the GOP base, though. The message is being sent to the voting public who need to know who is obstructing whom.

GOP Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky then offered a dose of reality:

Before Reid started talking, Majority Whip Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, defended Frist's leadership. Frist, said McConnell, has performed far better than former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, under similar political circumstances.
"Someone on the floor of the Senate referred to the Republican leader last week as amateur and used the term mismanagement," said McConnell. "In addition to being quite unsenatorial, let us recall that this leader is laboring under a one-vote margin, just like the last leader had to endure, given that same burden.
"It might be appropriate and timely to compare the hard facts," he continued. "With the same one-vote majority, Senator Frist has pushed 10 appropriations bills across the Senate floor while last year's leadership delivered only three."

To protest the pending 30 hours of non-stop debate, Reid then proceeding to speak for six hours, throwing travel plans out of sync.

Let's be absolutely clear about the upcoming 30 hours. The filibuster is the Democrats' They can end floor debate at any time simply by voting to do so (i.e., cloture). It's their refusal to vote for cloture, allowing the nominees an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor, which allows the Republicans to do this. There was a time, many decades ago, when the Republicans would have done exactly that since the beginning.

If you hear them whine, think: Vote cloture, you weasels, and be done with it.

0 comments

Soros and Ickes

This morning, Opinion Journal reminds us, in spades, of Mr. George Soros and Harold Ickes

Mr. Soros is the billionaire hedge-fund operator turned drug-legalization advocate and liberal political activist. Mr. Ickes is the New York lawyer who was at the center of the Clinton fund-raising scandals of 1996. Thanks to campaign-finance reform, these two men are fast becoming the Democratic Party's most important power brokers, nearly as crucial to regaining the White House as the party's Presidential nominee.

Soros has

"already pledged $10 million to America Coming Together (ACT), a new outfit dedicated to spending an unprecedented $75 million to defeat President Bush next year. He has also reportedly chipped in $20 million to the Center for American Progress, a new liberal think-tank that is financing the likes of Bush-hating pundit Eric Alterman.

This is from the ACT web site:

What We Will do

In seventeen battleground states America Coming Together (ACT)

will listen to voters’ concerns about issues that affect them and their families;

will communicate with voters about those issues, highlighting the extremist positions of the Bush agenda and discussing positive, progressive alternatives;

will coordinate with progressive organizations so we will all be more effective and efficient, working together to mobilize millions of voters who will say NO to the Republican agenda by voting to defeat George W. Bush and elect progressives up and down the ticket.

Worst loss of jobs since Herbert Hoover was President … Massive deficits that threaten Medicare and Social Security and mortgage our children’s future … Alienating the United States from the international community … Right-wing judges … Underfunding of Homeland security … More arsenic and mercury in the water.

There are so many reasons for America Coming Together (ACT).

That's the standard Dem pep talk straight from their programmers, the same cast who would annex Poland for a nickel, and Soros is one of their bags o' money.

The Center for American Progress is a goofy policy org:

The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all Americans. We believe that Americans are bound together by a common commitment to these values and we aspire to ensure that our national policies reflect these values. Our policy and communications efforts are organized around four major objectives:

• developing a long term vision of a progressive America,
• providing a forum to generate new progressive ideas and policy proposals,
• responding effectively and rapidly to conservative proposals and rhetoric with a thoughtful critique and clear alternatives, and
• communicating progressive messages to the American public.

Here's another bit from the Opinion Journal piece:

More recently, since September 11, Mr. Soros has made it his goal to burst what he has called "the bubble of American supremacy." He has said that having helped to liberate Communist countries, he now views America as the gravest threat to world freedom. In the Financial Times in March, he wrote that Mr. Bush "deliberately fosters fear because it helps to keep the nation lined up behind the president." Other flavorful Soros descriptions of current U.S. policy include "imperialist vision" and "Orwellian doublespeak" and something that "cannot be reconciled with the idea of an open society."

I'm going to turn the words of Hillary "Ratbag" Rodham back on her: We're looking at a very well-financed and organized Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy to destroy our President. When she used that expression, she was simply assuming and inventing. We have it right here in print.

The opinion journal turns to the fundraiser, Ickes:

Mr. Ickes has had previous fund-raising star turns, most recently under oath before a Congressional investigating committee. The most memorable thing about the Clinton White House deputy chief of staff's testimony was his sudden lack of memory. While never charged with a crime, Mr. Ickes was called the "Svengali" of the Clinton fund-raising operation by Charles La Bella, who ran the Justice Department campaign-finance task force. Mr. La Bella recommended that Attorney General Janet Reno name a special counsel to explore in particular the Ickes role, but she refused.

And now thanks to campaign-finance reform, Mr. Ickes is back in business. Except that this time his $50 million fund will be able to tap fat cats with less scrutiny than before. His donors can give as much cash as they desire. And while he will have to report contributions to the Internal Revenue Service, the disclosure patterns of these "527" fund-raising committees have been full of holes and evasions, according to the liberal Center for Public Integrity.

The point of the O.J. piece is that everyone but John McCain knows that his legislation did nothing to get large contributions away from politics:

The new rules are arguably more corrupting than the old system because they promote the illusion that such influence has been banished. Dr. Dean can gather all of the small-dollar Internet donations he wants, but in the end he's still going to be relying on the Soros-Ickes machine to get him to the White House.

There's nothing knew there. The illusion has been explained for years, since long before the bill became law.

The penultimate paragraph of the piece closes with this line:

"A President Dean would owe far more chits to Mr. Soros than Vice President Dick Cheney has ever owed to Halliburton.

That assumes that Vice President Cheny owed anything to Halliburton aside from a good job while he had it.

To me, the point is that the Democrats have the funds and a machine to push their swill on the hapless American voters. And they're going to try, and it's going to be a good show, but it doesn't matter.

The left genuinely believes that voters are unsophisticated and easily manipulated, and they succeed only to the extent that they are right. But the facts cannot be disputed.

0 comments

Gore's Speech

I've really not much to say about Al Gore's speech to Moveon.org in Washington, having only read the transcript. It follows in the pattern of a lot of Democrat speeches/remarks/interviews of late, filled with distortion, lies, and non-sequitur.

This is really just an advisory to ignore it if these things make you want to strike something or someone.

Here's a sample quip, comparing the Patriot Act with the Iraq war:

In fact, in my opinion, it makes no more sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama Bin Laden.

In both cases, the Administration has attacked the wrong target.

In both cases they have recklessly put our country in grave and unnecessary danger, while avoiding and neglecting obvious and much more important challenges that would actually help to protect the country.

In both cases, the administration has fostered false impressions and misled the nation with superficial, emotional and manipulative presentations that are not worthy of American Democracy.

In both cases they have exploited public fears for partisan political gain and postured themselves as bold defenders of our country while actually weakening not strengthening America.
In both cases, they have used unprecedented secrecy and deception in order to avoid accountability to the Congress, the Courts, the press and the people.

He begins with an assumption he knows to be a lie, and does so for purely partisan political purposes. And he does this before the crowd at MoveOn.org, which is particularly dangerous. They're a group of politically unsophisticated, malleable people who await word from their leaders and blindly lurch forth as a mob. Al Gore could tell them that the Bush Administration is bad for America, next he will tell them to annex Poland. It's the same mindset, talking to the same crowd.
0 comments

I Won't Accept a Fee unless I…

…take money from you in the form of taxes.

Candidate John-boy Edwards, a tort lawyer, was on Meet the Press, and he had the whole show. He was by general acclaim trounced when he was on the show on May 5, 2002, when the media was just starting to talk about Edwards as a candidate. (I was talking about him as a scary Dem nominee the previous summer, and I received some gently taunting feedback after Edwards made an arse of himself that Sunday on Russert.)

Last July, Taegan Goddard ran with a story about Edwards and his desire to appear on Russert for a rematch. (I'm glad I was able to Google the link.) The rematch occurred today, and I paid as much attention as I could.

Edwards seemed calm, confidant, self-assured, Presidential, and he lied shamelessly without breaking a sweat.

He was, however, candid about the wealth he earned as a very talented and successful tort lawyer, and he feels that it was all luck and he should repay his debt to society. He said to Russert that wealthy folks "like me and you, Tim, who have been lucky enough to do well in this world" should give something back in taxes. He wants their money confiscated by the government by force, which is taxation.

What else do I have?

Lesse, Russert pointed out that in September, John-boy had said he would not leave our troops stranded in Iraq, but he voted against the money to support them. He voted to leave them stranded in Iraq. He explained to Russert that he was sending a message to the President that he had to get a plan and internationalize the effort. Russert stressed that if a majority of Senators had, God forbid, voted with Edwards, our troops would be stuck penniless in Iraq.

Aw, shucks. Edwards said that he refused to give the President a blank check. The troops would have been fine, he asserted, because the President would have come back eventually with a plan of which he, John-boy, approved.

He wants to "take the American face off this operational and internationalize it." The international community, as such, did not liberate Iraq. They refused.

About Howie Dean and the Stars and Bars, Edwards claimed that he grew up knowing that the flag of the Confederacy was a "divisive symbol." The chip appeared on his shoulder, as he complained about Dean's stereotype of the Southerner, "with a pickup truck and a confederate flag."

He talked of Dean's "Northern Elitism."

He also stated that convicted felons, once released, should be allowed to vote. He says he sees it as a way to help get these convicts back into society. It would also mean more Democrat voters, but I won't go there.

He then said that "we do it in North Carolina, and it works."

But he wants to Federalize this nonesens.
0 comments

Jack Snow on a Sunday

Let's talk first of Treasury Secretary John Snow's appearances on Fox News Sunday and CNN's Late Edition.

On Fox, he told host Tony Snow that job creation is still possible because the "American economy remains fully capable of creating jobs for all who are looking for them." We have a "strong, vibrant, healthy manufacturing sector," which he tells us is "60% larger than the entire Chinese [PRC] economy."

Secretary Snow mentioned controlling entitlement spending, and Host Snow asked Secretary Snow if the President were still eyeing former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil's concept of the option privatization of part the Social Security investment. Secretary Snow did not answer directly: "The best thing we can do for Social Security is to have a strong, vibrant, healthy economy." On further prodding, Secretary Snow mentioned that President Bush "still supports and investment option," but he did not touch the issue that the Dems and the AARP could and would use against him and the President.

Either he agrees with the quasi-socialists that private investment of Social Security funds is a bad thing or he is a coward. It's an idea which can and should be explained to people in honest terms, not in the psychotic, "all gonna die" language of the left.

He predicted that the President would cut the deficit in half in five years, and that because tax receipt will grow while spending is controlled, the deficit to GDP ration will be under 2-percent, which he termed "manageable."

On Late Edition, he was rightfully pleased but carefully not cocky: "I don't want to declare victory by any means. There's still a lot of work to do." As the President said about the U.S.S. Lincoln, "We have difficult work to do." The battles are different, but as the President acknowledged last May, Secretary Snow also conceded this morning: One taste of success does not mean the work is finished.

He predicted 4-percent growth for the 4th quarter of 2003 and throughout 2004. (Parenthetically, between the 4th quarter of 1992 and the 2nd quarter of 1996, real GDP grew only 2.6 percent per year.)

Blitzer showed a graphic of job gains during the terms of Presidents Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush. Snow explained that he President had inherited a recession and had gone through a lot of very difficult shocks. He said that European central bankers have expressed amazement to him that America's economy has done so well despite what we've been through.

0 comments

The RSN has been sent...

... to Inboxes around the world.

It is readable, in a slightly less attractive format, at the website.

Later this afternoon, I hope to put some of the rest of the Sunday morning chit-chat here in the Political Annotation. We've got Treasury Secretary Jack Snow on Fox News Sunday and Late Edition, candidate John-Boy Edwards owning Meet the Press, and candidate John-John Kerry on Face the Nation.

Also, the ghost of Dick Holbrooke and one of Steph's conspiracies from This Week.

After errands...
0 comments

If It's Sunday…

I see no pattern.

Treasury Secretary John Snow is to be a guest on Fox News Sunday, one presumes to discuss the Bush economy, but then there's… no one else. The term "the Bush economy" now means something vibrant and alive, but now the talking heads do not want to hear about it.

Unless it's from John-John Edwards on NBC's Meet the Press or Trickless Dickie Gephardt on CNN's Late Edition. Edwards gets the entire MTP, and one wonders if his campaign had to pay for the time. Either way, it's nice to know that someone else besides me thinks he has a real shot at the Dem nod. It's frightening to know that the someone else is Tim Russert.

Or maybe candidate John Kerry would like to discuss the economy on CBS's Face the Nation. He shares time on that half-hour show with Senator John McCain, that oft annoying maverick Republican from Arizona, so one suspects host Schieffer will continue to fret about ammunition dumps.

Steph has some good guests to grill with George Will this morning. Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware), who gave up a sure thing at Judiciary to take Foreign Relations, only to see his party lose their Senate majority, leads off. He'll question the intellect of the free world, then Clinton's "other" U.N. guy, Richard Holbrooke, will appear onscreen to reaffirm that he is irrelevant. Richard Perle follows if I'm still awake.

Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) and disgruntled partisan Carl Levin (D-Michigan) will be on FNS, one assumes to discuss the Democrat memo. The label fits nicely next to "obstructionist." Tom Daschle's stewardship of Senate Democrats has been an amusing failure, but I doubt they will discuss that aspect of the situation.

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), the new maverick, will drop by LE to criticize the President.

Do you remember Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, who prefers to be called simply "Abdullah"? He's the youngish, quasi-debonair guy who loved to be interviewed in his stylish Western outfits. He's been off the radar for a while, but he'll be on LE this morning.

I'll summarize and analyze for the Rightsided Newsletter, which will be in your Inboxes early this afternoon. You can subscribe at the web site or by sending a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe@topica.com.

I'll see you in a few hours.

0 comments

Funny How Time Flies

Tomorrow morning, the Sunday Talk Shows are live. Sunday afternoon, I glean what's important, describe and analyze it, and set it out to subscribers to the free Rightsided Newsletter. Visit the web site to subscribe, or send a blank e-mail to RSN-subscribe@topica.com.

I'm looking forward to it.
0 comments

"The Jobless Recovery"

I found this paragraph in the November 10 issue of NEWSWEEK magazine:

UNFORTUNATELY, THERE IS still no evidence that a surge of growth in the U.S. economy is creating jobs. Even the U.S. economy’s surprisingly strong third-quarter showing last week does not change the fact that many of the factors creating the jobless recovery in the United States are still in place. The dot-com boom led companies to hire floods of people and invest in all kinds of digital technology that they still have not begun to fully use. As markets have crept upward, businesses have tapped into these earlier investments to be productive without having to add employees. Equipment is still being used at three quarters of capacity, well below the average 84 percent, and quarterly productivity numbers are still rising. But the most powerful forces behind the U.S. jobless recovery are global phenomena that will likely hamper the rest of the developed world’s fight against unemployment when their economies eventually return to health. China is becoming a factory to the world, allow-ing American, European and Japanese firms to farm out production at much lower costs. And the Internet now makes it possible to outsource even high-tech services to such low-wage countries as India and the Philippines. The result of this global labor arbitrage, argues Stephen Roach, chief economist with Morgan Stanley, is “the distinct possibility that jobless recoveries may remain the norm in high-cost developed economies for some time to come.”

November 10, the date on the Newsweek issue from which those words were copied, is Monday. Two days from now. They hadn't heard the latest, but they did a good job of explaining what turned out not to be so.

It's global, Newsweek admitted. Productivity growth, for instance, 40% in Europe what it is in the United States, we're told, and German Thomas Mayer of Deutsche Bank offers: "It’s rather old-fashioned: no productivity miracle, no jobless recovery."

Now the jobs are being created: nearly 300,000 in the past three months.

But the Seattle Times finds time to whine:

But most of the new jobs were part time or in low-paying sectors, such as education, health care and services.

Let's have an election.

I read that candidate Howie Dean will not accept federal matching funds, and the concomitant behavior-limits, for his campaign. He thinks he can raise enough without them.

He might be able to out-plunder the other eight, but he cannot hold the President's pocket change.

0 comments

There is a Jimmy Stewart-style filibuster…

… in the works for the Senate next week, according to the Washpost this morning: "The Republicans are bringing in food and cots for the "Justice for Judges Marathon," scheduled for Wednesday night through Friday morning."

Good morning. Some conservative activists have been calling for a non-stop filibuster, the kind in which GOP Senators might be forced to bring in extraneous material just to keep the floor conversation going. We might get phone books, novels, and gun manuals, so be sure to have your TV tuned to C-SPAN2 for the fun, frolics, and hijinks. As Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) argued on Fox News Sunday last month, this move is almost certainly not going to get any of the President's judicial nominees the up-or-down votes to which they are Constitutionally entitled, but it will make for good theater.

And it will make news. People will see the Senate doing something very unusual, and they will be told why. The case can then be made with no doubt that Senate Dems are obstructing the President's judicial nominees, and it will be seen by all but the most partisan lefty as pure obstruction for purely political purposes. Because that is what it actually is.

It's almost an election year.

This will also play perfectly for Senator Zell Miller's book sales.

The Washpost piece contains this misleading paragraph, and it's what we can probably expect from the lefty press next week:

Bush and Republicans, meanwhile, may irritate rather than please their most conservative backers by promoting controversial judges who cannot win confirmation even in a GOP-controlled Congress. Some of those activists are accusing Senate GOP leaders of going too easy on the Democratic minority, a prime reason for next week's talkathon. No one in the Capitol expects it to solve anything, but the leaders hope it will convince voters that Democrats are to blame.

I supplied the italics. Every one of the judges currently filibustered by the Dems has enough votes -- including some Democrat votes -- to easily win confirmation in an up-and-down, majority rules Senate vote. And the President has given no indication that he will ever nominate a judge whom he does not believe can and should win such a vote. The reporter went fishing in the cobwebbed recesses of his brain for that one.

It's 2003, and we will actually get to see a genuine, old-style filibuster. I wish there were a way the denizens of the blogosphere could contribute to this drama.

0 comments

Dems Don't Vote

Would that it were so easy.

I'm referring, though, to the Democrat elected representatives of the people, none of whom (save Kucinich) cast a vote in Congress last week: Tricky Dicky Gephardt, John-John Kerry, Joltin' Joe Lieberman, and John-boy Edwards.

I come with documentation, in the form of a .pdf from RNC Research: DEMOCRAT VOTE WATCH: November 7, 2003. The subhead is: "Playing hooky from work." Yes, "Senate Dem hopeful skip key agriculture, judicial nomination votes."

The link will open up your Acrobat reader and detail the exact votes missed per candidate.

I offer this information about the Democrats as a part of my nascent effort to be a bipartisan blogger. Earlier today, I talked about President Bush and his speech before the National Endowment for Democracy, and now we've something about the Dems.

They don't do their jobs.

0 comments

In Politics, Obstructionists can be Punished

The Associated Press has a little Alan Fram piece discussing how the House GOP leadership is giving Democrats no projects for their home districts in the large education and health spending bill. Why not? They voted against the bill when it was first introduced last Summer.

The Democrats are whining:

But furious Democrats say the move would be an unprecedented retaliatory blow at an entire political party. They say Democrats voted their conscience against a $138 billion measure they said would shortchange schools and other high-priority programs at a time when Republicans have cut taxes for wealthy Americans.

"This would be a taxpayer-financed slush fund to intimidate members to vote to squeeze down education funding to get table scraps for their districts," said Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, which writes spending bills.

What has the Hammer to say about this matter?

"We're doing business as usual," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said Friday. "If you don't support a bill, you have no right to say what's in the bill."

A Majority Leader cannot act like he's trying to win a public popularity contest, which is why the House GOP is fortunate that N. Gingrich was never the Republican Leader. (When Foley was ousted after the '94 election, GOP Leader Bob Michel had not sought reelection, sp the Whip (Gingrich) was the natural choice to move up to Speaker. Had the Democrats -- don't laugh -- managed to hold-on to the House that election, Gingrich would have become minority leader.)

Anyway, this repayment is healthy for a representative Democracy. It should make the minority party think twice before opposing for partisan reasons a majority-sponsored piece of legislation or spending bill.

Let's hope Bill Frist is taking notes for when the Republicans expand their Senate majority after the 2004 elections.

0 comments

His most important speech…

This was it, President Bush's speech to the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy. This is not so because of the lofty, almost (John) Kennedyesque words about the future and the freedom of man. This is not so because of the lofty, almost Reaganesque words about breaking the yoke of tyranny. This about an international environment wherein the United States deals only with governments deriving their just powers from the consent of those they governed.

Said this President:

In June of 1982, President Ronald Reagan spoke at Westminster Palace and declared, the turning point had arrived in history. He argued that Soviet communism had failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people -- their creativity, their genius and their rights.

President Reagan said that the day of Soviet tyranny was passing, that freedom had a momentum which would not be halted. He gave this organization [the Endowment for Democracy] its mandate: to add to the momentum of freedom across the world. Your mandate was important 20 years ago; it is equally important today.

The Soviet Union, the single greatest threat to human civilization in mankind's history, is no more. The problem now is a sect of backwards runts intent upon damaging all that is good of human civilization to remake in within the confines of their dismal worldview. That's the Democrats, and the terrorists also fit the bill, although they are violent mutants.

He continued with these words, which I think have an interesting import:

A number of critics were dismissive of that speech by the President. According to one editorial of the time, "It seems hard to be a sophisticated European and also an admirer of Ronald Reagan." (Laughter.) Some observers on both sides of the Atlantic pronounced the speech simplistic and naive, and even dangerous. In fact, Ronald Reagan's words were courageous and optimistic and entirely correct.

While the audience was laughing, as indicated by the "(Laughter)" inserted into the text by the White House Press Office, President Bush tilted his head slightly and a smile crossed his face which I had seen before -- on the face of our fortieth President when pointing out to the nay-sayers that they are too often clueless.

The President continued:

Historians will note that in many nations, the advance of markets and free enterprise helped to create a middle class that was confident enough to demand their own rights. They will point to the role of technology in frustrating censorship and central control -- and marvel at the power of instant communications to spread the truth, the news, and courage across borders.

Historians in the future will reflect on an extraordinary, undeniable fact: Over time, free nations grow stronger and dictatorships grow weaker. In the middle of the 20th century, some imagined that the central planning and social regimentation were a shortcut to national strength. In fact, the prosperity, and social vitality and technological progress of a people are directly determined by extent of their liberty. Freedom honors and unleashes human creativity -- and creativity determines the strength and wealth of nations. Liberty is both the plan of Heaven for humanity, and the best hope for progress here on Earth."

The President is fully aware of the historic nature of his charge, of what is happening. Despotism is dying. Humankind will be free, and the United States if the Shining City on the Hill. The President said: "And now we must apply that lesson in our own time. We've reached another great turning point -- and the resolve we show will shape the next stage of the world democratic movement."

He forecast eventual liberty in the People's Republic of China, using the "give 'em an inch" argument. Then he talked of the Middle East:

In many nations of the Middle East -- countries of great strategic importance -- democracy has not yet taken root. And the questions arise: Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom, and never even to have a choice in the matter?

These are valid questions. Given vast lots of oil wealth, as is the case of many of them, their leaders prefer to act as despotic sheepherders and bedouin, living as settled peoples only because they were given a mandate and boundaries in the past by an erstwhile British Empire. Or the running joke of the United Nations.

President Bush borrows President Reagan's term for this attitude: "cultural condescension." They aren't as sophisticated in the Middle East as we are here in the United States. By the same measure, though the President did not point this out, it could be said that we are not as sophisticated as are the French. We in the United States suffer cultural condescension from some in Europe. That's their game, but it need not be ours.

The people of the Middle East can and will be free, the President said. He blamed much of the backwardness of the Middle East, at least tacitly, on the effects of European colonialism. He concludes of this:

Many Middle Eastern governments now understand that military dictatorship and theocratic rule are a straight, smooth highway to nowhere. But some governments still cling to the old habits of central control. There are governments that still fear and repress independent thought and creativity, and private enterprise -- the human qualities that make for a -- strong and successful societies. Even when these nations have vast natural resources, they do not respect or develop their greatest resources -- the talent and energy of men and women working and living in freedom.

Instead of dwelling on past wrongs and blaming others, governments in the Middle East need to confront real problems, and serve the true interests of their nations. The good and capable people of the Middle East all deserve responsible leadership. For too long, many people in that region have been victims and subjects -- they deserve to be active citizens

He chided Saudi Arabia and Egypt for not moving beyond their despotism, while maintaining that it is not innate, that it can be surpassed.

There are, however, essential principles common to every successful society, in every culture. Successful societies limit the power of the state and the power of the military -- so that governments respond to the will of the people, and not the will of an elite. Successful societies protect freedom with the consistent and impartial rule of law, instead of selecting applying -- selectively applying the law to punish political opponents. Successful societies allow room for healthy civic institutions -- for political parties and labor unions and independent newspapers and broadcast media. Successful societies guarantee religious liberty -- the right to serve and honor God without fear of persecution. Successful societies privatize their economies, and secure the rights of property. They prohibit and punish official corruption, and invest in the health and education of their people. They recognize the rights of women. And instead of directing hatred and resentment against others, successful societies appeal to the hopes of their own people.

The speech was the most visionary thing we have heard from the White House since Reagan was President. Such vision and intellectual curiosity are hallmarks of great thinkers, though I've not seen such a list which contain either of the names of the last great President of the 20th century and the first of the 21st.

The Semit Kory Wen said of the speech: "But it came at a moment when Mr. Bush is struggling to create democratic institutions in Iraq itself, and when the daily casualties among the American and allied soldiers have led many in the region to question whether the United States is capable of transforming the nation it invaded." That is not reporting. Those are the inventions and words of a myopic critic.

Most certainly not all is well, but at least we're working on it.

0 comments

Here come the Judges

Good morning. Three appointed federal judges -- District Judges Richard Casey of New York, Phyllis Hamilton of San Francisco, and Richard Kopf of Nebraska -- have blocked enforcement of the new federal law banning the partial birth abortion procedure. The injunctions are, of course, temporary -- to last at least until the judges can decide if the law actually violates the Constitution. Whether or not it does violate that Constitution can have little to do with the document itself, as judges and justices have been wont to find little things in the "emanations of the penumbra" -- I believe that phrase was the late Justice William O. Douglas's -- of the Bill of Rights.

The Nebraska ruling affected only the three doctors who sued for the injunction, but Louise Melling, the director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Act, said that the New York Order prohibited enforcement of the law against all National Abortion Federation (NAF) member doctors, accountable for half of all abortions performed in the United States.

Situations like this remind one of how important the Senate's advise and consent function with federal judges is to our Republic. There should be a thorough investigation as to whether they will uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, accepting that it cannot be altered via judicial whimsy. It is a "living, breathing" document, in the sense such descriptives are commonly used, only in that Article V allows for amendment and specifies how this can be done. To wit:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

There are no ever-changing emanations and penumbrae.

posted by Mark Kilmer : 11/07/2003 08:13:00 AM [permalink]

0 comments

His Most Important Speech

In a lot of ways, the President's speech to the National Endowment for Democracy was just that. I have a lot to say about this when time is on my hands, which will be tomorrow.

For now, I will say that the President admitted what he is doing, and that is finishing the job. I saw a flash of President Reagan's smile, with the tilt of the head, at one point.

The enemy is great, but President Bush today showed another trait the Gipper had in spades: optimism about America, her dream, and her place in the world. President Bush has always displayed an optimism which should by right be contagious with everyone were it not for those still embittered by the self-defeating past.

Iraq will be the shining city in the Middle East, to which others in the region will look for their own sakes. This was the policy since last summer, as gleaned from hints of what was said by the President, Secretary of State Powell, and several others. I saw it then, and I spilled it into print from the ,a href="http://rightsided.tripod.com">Rightsided Newsletter.

This is bigger than the danger of a long-term threat. This is bigger than one unaccountable despot. And this is bigger than one of the many things the press has attempted to label "The Bush Doctrine." This is bigger than, I daresay, President Reagan.

The Dems really need to think about adopting some of this as their own, offering new, constructive ideas about which the Administration maybe hasn't thought. There best bet, both in now and for the future, is to run with this.

They won't, conditioned as they are to say nay and oppose.

More on the speech tomorrow.
0 comments

"Gen. Clark, this is Earth Calling...

...are we reaching?"

I received this one from RNC research this afternoon.

WES CLARK:
CONSPIRACY THEORIST
Clarks Penchant For Rumors And
Innuendo Damages Campaign


CNN’S SOLEDAD O’BRIEN: “A speech made in New Hampshire Monday night, you said that there was a memo that was circulating within the administration after 9/11 which talked about overturning the governments of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan. Did you see this memo? Do you know that, in fact, this memo exists?”

CLARK: “Well, the people that told me about it would not have told me about it had it not existed. Now, what's happened to it since, I don't know. But it's been the subject of the sort of neoconservative talk network for some time. And the President's obliquely referred to it.” (CNN’s “American Morning,” 11/6/03)


LATEST WHOPPER: CLAIMS TO KNOW OF SECRET INVASION PLANS

Claims Bush Administration Planned To Invade “As Many As Seven” Countries After 9/11.
“Clark … renewed his charge that soon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration contemplated overturning as many as seven Middle Eastern and African governments. Clark … told an audience . . . that he learned while visiting with Pentagon acquaintances in the fall of 2001 that such thinking had already been put on paper … [H]e reeled off the countries that he had heard were on the administration’s potential hit list …” (Paul Barton, “Clark Again Tells Of Post-9/11 Hit List,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11/4/03)

Asked To Back Up Claim, Clark “Acknowledged” He’d Never Seen Proof, Just Heard “Gossip.” “Questioned afterward, Clark acknowledged he never saw the Pentagon memo or paper himself. ‘But they told me there was something, some kind of a memo or something. I never saw it. I said, “Stop, I don’t want see anything more. I just didn’t want to get into it.”’ When asked if it was prudent to make the charge when he hadn’t seen the Pentagon paper, Clark insisted it was. ‘It’s in my book,’ he said, adding, ‘You only have to listen to the gossip around Washington and to hear what the neoconservatives are saying and you will get the flavor of this.’” (Paul Barton, “Clark Again Tells Of Post-9/11 Hit List,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11/4/03)


CLARK MAKES HABIT OF RELYING ON
RUMORS RATHER THAN FACTS

Claimed Rumsfeld Leaked “His Own Memo.” “Clark asserted that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ‘had to leak his own memo,’ . . . . Asked how he knew that Mr. Rumsfeld was behind the leak, he replied, ‘Well, that's what the rumor is, and it's been talked about on the Sunday talk shows.’” (Katharine Q. Seelye, “Clark Lays Responsibility For 9/11 At Bush's Feet,” The New York Times, 10/29/03)

Claimed White House Tried To Get CNN To Fire Him But Had No Evidence. CLARK: “The White House, actually back in February, apparently tried to get me knocked off CNN. And they wanted to do this because they were afraid that I would raise issues with their conduct of the war.” FOX NEWS’ CARL CAMERON: “Clark said he had no evidence, only rumors, which he nonetheless made public.” (Fox News’ “Special Report,” 8/26/03)

Claimed “People Around The White House” Told To Him To Hype Saddam-9/11 Connection. CLARK: “I think there was an immediate determination right after 9/11 that Saddam Hussein was one of the keys to winning the war on terror. …” NBC’s TIM RUSSERT: “By who? Who did that?” CLARK: “Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, ‘You got to say this is connected. … This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.’ …” (NBC’s “Meet The Press,” 6/15/03)

Then Claimed His Wife Got A Call From Head Of “Middle East Think Tank” In Canada, Then He “Personally Got A Call” From Canadian, But There Is No Such Think Tank In Canada, So Clark Changed Think Tank Location To “Outside The Country.” After all of these shifts in his claim, Clark actually claimed, “There’s no waffling on [his story]. It’s just as clear as it could be.” (WDUN’s “The Martha Zoller Show,” 7/1/03; Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes,” 7/1/03; Matthew Continetti, “Drafting General Clark,” The Weekly Standard, 9/1/03; Wesley K. Clark, Letter To The Editor, “Hussein And 9/11,” The New York Times, 8/13/03)

We all know that Clark says he wants to be our President, but this is the kind of stuff which, pre-Clinton, would have a candidate locked in a padded room with Lyndon LaRouche. Is he getting away with this simply because the Dem frontunner, Howie Dean, is almost as lunatic?

0 comments

The Bush Economy

The words dripped off the mouths of the Dems with contempt: "The Bush economy." The President had, to hear the tale as told by our friends on the left, taken the Clinton boom and given it to Enron, Halliburton, and the very wealthy. He had destroyed the Clinton economy.

The President looked directly at the camera, the American people, and told them that his plan was going to work. He never had a doubt, and his certainty further irked the derisive left.

More good economic news today: lower jobless claims and increased productivity.

For a summary on the good economic news of late -- and there has been rather a lot -- please visit this post on the official BushCheney2004 blog: The Bush Boom Round up.

President George W. Bush is not a weak President. He's not a caretaker President. He's not a mediocre President. The man who won in a close election in 2000 -- was constantly told by the press that he did not have a mandate to lead -- is leading the country to great things. And he's taking the world along for the ride.

0 comments

Why CBS pulled RWR miniseries

Good morning. A man so great in his efforts for his cause -- individual liberty, individual achievement, individual merit, individual worth -- that he was an anathema to those who want to see Americans thralls to their government. A man so great in his efforts for his cause that he remains as a symbol to those who seek individual freedom from governmental control. That is President Ronald Reagan, and to some, he must be torn down. The truth cannot tear him down, so it must be time to invent material, attribute it to him, and attack that. And that was the miniseries. But that's not why CBS yanked it and sold it to Showtime.

We get the real reason this morning from a Brian Lambert in the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. He tells us that the miniseries got the hook because of the actions of "various kindred elements of what, collectively, can be called the conservative media attack engine." B-B-B-B-B-BOGEYMAN! Under the bed, in the closet, waiting for the liberals to make the wrong move!

He whines that the credibility of CBS and Viacomm has been damaged, and "[c]redibility is a precious commodity." I wish he would have thought before he wrote that. This had a lot to do with the credibility of the networks, but they didn't lose any by pulling the tabloidesque garbage. If they had aired it, they'd have lost any air of integrity and credibility they still possessed after two decades of Dan Rather.

But it's about Clinton to Lambert. It's always about Clinton. The visceral hatred of the left for President Bush is about Clinton, losing a part of what remained of his legacy when Al Gore was given the boot in 200.

Said Lambert of this maching:

The Drudge Report ran days of outraged headlines. Bill O'Reilly railed. L. Brent Bozell organized a campaign threatening advertiser boycotts. The Republican National Committee fired off a read-between-the-lines letter to CBS president Les Moonves demanding Reagan-friendly "experts" review the film prior to air — or else. Viacom chief Sumner Redstone grumbled from on high. Web sites hammering CBS were launched. And, of course, every foghorn with a microphone on the 800-plus radio stations broadcasting conservative choir music 24/7 from sea to shining sea railed that the film was further proof of the ongoing Hollywood liberal smear campaign against everything to the right of Bill and Hillary.

You know, of course, that to folks like Lambert and his ilk, Clinton was a great president who was ruined by the outside forces of The Conspiracy.

Someone else must be to blame, right?

He wanted that movie to air, no matter what it did to CBS. The network, on the other hand, was forced to make a decision. That's how things work in a capitalist system. We do not have to tolerate any offal that anyone wants to toss at us. It's our country, our revolution, and its non-violent.

Put the crap on PBS.
0 comments

President Bush signs PBA ban in Reagan Building

It is now illegal in the United States to perform a specific type of procedure wherein a baby is yanked most of the way from its mother's womb, its head punctured by scissors, its brains sucked out by a vacuum device, and its skull is crushed. The procedure is finished by yanking the now-deceased baby from the mother and tossing the bloody remains in the garbage. The procedure, commonly known as partial birth abortion, is called "dilation and extraction" by abortionists and their supporters.

President George W. Bush signed into law Wednesday afternoon a bill which makes performing such atrocities a federal crime. In Lincoln, Nebraska, however, Judge Richard Kopf fumed: "It seems to me the law is highly suspect, if not a per se violation of the Constitution." We assume that he meant the Constitutional right to abort invented in the emanations of the penumbra of the federal Bill of Rights, but he had still not settled on what the Constitution actually dictates: "It's probably likely I'm going to issue an injunction." All imperiousness aside, however, he said that his ruling would probably apply only to the four Nebraska abortionists who filed the lawsuit, not to all abortionists nationwide.

Twice previously -- in 1996 and 1998 -- a similar bill was placed before Clinton, who proceeded to veto it with the claim that he wanted to see an exception to the ban when the procedure is necessary for the health of the mother. (Abortion is a prima facie rejection of motherhood.) The procedure is, of course, never necessary to protect the physical health of a pregnant woman, so this exception could be used to allow such a mutilation if the "mother" might get ticked off upon having a child. Mental health. President Bush signed this ban Wednesday in the Ronald Reagan Trade Center here, the most fitting building in Washington for the signing. Said the President [Bush]: "Today, at last, the American people and our government have confronted the violence and come to the defense of the innocent child."

Opponents of the legislation had already filed suit in San Francisco, Omaha, Nebraska, and New York, New York to have enforcement of the law blocked. Pro-abort groups Wednesday began airing a television commercial which charges that President Bush is interfering with doctor-patient privacy and is for removing the rights of all Americans. It is an expected rabid reaction to a bitter group seeing their shibboleth -- "right to choose" -- exposed for what it is: gruesome death as an option. President Bush replied: "The executive branch will vigorously defend this law against any who would try to overturn it in the courts."

The confluence of a Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) -- who was front-and-center in the Reagan building for the signing -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a physician, and President George W. Bush has the potential for saving the lives of thousands of unborn Americans, as well as proving that the poorly-conceived 1973 case of Roe v. Wade is not annihilation set in stone.

This case, which will be pressed by the pro-aborts, likely will not make it to the Supreme Court in time for the current nine Justices. There will doubtless be at least one new face.

Godspeed, President Bush.
0 comments

Howie Dean and his flag…

Candidate Howie Dean is a Vermont liberal trying to look purrty to southern white guys. Last week, he told a reporter in Iowa: "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks. We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats."

At a Dem debate Tuesday night, Dean referred to the flag as "a loathsome symbol," but excused himself for allowing this atrocity because he was only "reaching out to poor whites." Howard Dean admitted to pandering to poor, white southerners whom he acknowledged that he believes are racists honoring a loathsome symbol.

At the debate, candidate Al Sharpton declared: "If a southern person running [for the Dem nomination] had said that, they'd have been run out of the race." Maybe, Al, but we know it would have been the end for any Republican.

Sharpton gave Dean a bye on the question of bigotry: "I think it is insensitive and you ought to apologize for it. You are not a bigot, but you appear to be too arrogant to say I'm wrong." Candidate John-boy Edwards also got in his shot, demanding an apology and chastising Vermont's Howie: "The last thing we need in the South is somebody like you coming down and telling us what we need to do." Dean has precious little and quickly evaporating chance of carrying any of the southern States, especially with John-boy there to call him on his little remarks. But the IF with Edwards is a big one.

In New York on Wednesday to talk about campaign finance, Howie showed that he had been told how badly he had looked. He offered:

"I regret the pain that I have caused, but I will tell you there is no easy way to do this and there will be pain as we discuss it and we must face this together hand in hand as Dr. [Martin Luther] King and Abraham Lincoln asked us to do"

And you could almost hear The Song play on cue.

On behalf of southerners everywhere, candidate Edwards accepted his apology: "It sounds like he's done the right thing. It would have been better if he'd done it last night." Edwards is not holding Dean's feet to the southern fire.

It's time for the Nine to say goodnight, a la the TV family on Walton's Mountain.

0 comments

Mississippi's undercard…

Former RNC Chairman Haley Barbour, whose signature is on the first of my RNC Life Member certificates, will be the next governor of Mississippi, having ousted Democrat Governor Ronnie Musgrave. This is neither an upset nor a surprise, but it is good news for President Bush, who campaigned heavily in-State for Barbour.

The undercard tells an interesting story. Republican Lieutenant Governor Amy Tuck, elected as a Democrat, was challenged by Democrat Barbara Blackmon, an African American who spent much of Tuesday night denying that she had lost.

Tuck, who had switched from the Democrat to the Republican Party in December of 2003, ran as a conservative, which is how she acted as lieutenant governor: "I have no regrets. I am the same person I've always been. I've changed parties...not principles."

Blackmon, with her campaign struggling and clinging to the pro-abort special interests, challenged the pro-life Tuck, several weeks ago, to sign an affidavit stating that she had never had an abortion. You see, Tuck had accused Blackmon of being an "extremist" on the abortion issue, which is a tactic I'd like to see more of on the national level. All pro-abort activists and most pro-abort politicians are out of the mainstream. They use the "out of the mainstream" argument on President Bush's judicial nominees, yet it more readily applies to them and they should be called on it. Either way, Blackmon's was garbage-innuendo, and though Tuck says she was insulted, she also pledged to sign such an affidavit.

[As an aside, the late Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the ill-constructed opinion in Roe v. Wade. The spelling of the surname is slightly different, and it is unlikely that the two were related.]

Last week, Tuck finally signed the requested affidavit, and Blackmon tried to portray the action, which she had demanded, as an attack on her: "This is a delicate issue that my opponent has continued to use as a springboard to attack me as she seeks to garner favor with her new constituents." The "new constituents" barb was a bit of a lash at Tuckman for switching parties.

Some Mississippi analysts say that the affidavit demand hurt Blackmon, while actually signing it helped Tuck.

But concluded the Jackson Clarion-Ledger:

Tuck's party switch to the GOP late last year apparently didn't hurt her. "This is not a place where the long-term prospects of Democrats are glowing,'' University of Mississippi political scientist John Bruce said.

President Bush carried the State by 17-points in 2000.

0 comments

It's Wictory Wednesday

Today is PoliPundit's "Wictory Wednesday." It is the day when we issue a wake-up call: The President cannot be reelected in a vacuum. By visiting the Bush/Cheney webpage, we can donate money via this secure server, and/or we can volunteer to be a "Bush Team Leader" using this secure server. Everything helps.

The war against terrorism is a war against mutans who are not compatible with civilization or humanity. The 2004 Presidential election is the most important in federal history, and a lot depends on reelecting President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Here are those who've volunteered to carry this message, in whatever form, on this "Wictory Wednesday":

Backcountry Conservative
Boots and Sabers
Bowling for Howard
Dean
BushBlog.us (unofficial blog)
Bush-Cheney 2004 (unofficial
blog)
ExPostFacto
Freedom of Thought
The Hedgehog Report
The Irish Lass
Jarhead
Jeremy Kissel
Left Coast
Conservative
Matt Margolis
The Ole Miss Conservative
PoliPundit
Political Annotation
A Rice Grad
Ryne McClaren
Slublog
Southern Conservatives
Stephen Blythe
Viking Pundit
The Wise Man Says


0 comments

Kentucky is Republican

Representative Ernie Fletcher -- 2002 ACU, 92 out of 100 -- is the new governor of Kentucky. When all votes are counted, there is an outside chance that he could defeat Democrat Attorney General Ben Chandler by 10-percent.

Kentucky Dem activists, figuring that no one could possibly like what President Bush is doing, told voters that a vote for Chandler was a vote against the President's economic policy. ("Failure," was the term they used.) Chandler himself kept discussing the "Fletcher-Bush economy." If they'd have paid attention, they'd have seen forecast growth of over 7% for the past two weeks or more. An economy begging for a rebound after tax cuts is the wrong item to campaign against, but Chandler now knows this.

Fletcher is anti-abort, pro-gun, and fiscally straight. A Baptist by religion, he's not hiding it from those afraid of such things.

I called this one, and I called Mississippi for Barbour. We'll see. (I also called Philly for Street, but that's all a part of the Rendell dynamic.)

I like Bobby Jindal to succeed Mike Foster in Louisiana, but I'm not getting enough to give that a good enough read yet. Is Blanco's support amongst African Americans eroding? That's a dynamic at which to look.

0 comments

"No More Mad Bob"

Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida) quit the run for the Dem nomination last month, and he just announced that he will not seek reelection to his Senate seat. This is not a surprise, as it was his initial position when he began talking about the chase for the Dem nomination: that he would run for President and, failing that, would retire. Well, he's going.

The popular pundit scuttlebutt is that Graham is the most popular thing in Florida since Disneyworld -- a shoe-in for reelection, this guy. Whether that was the case then, it's not now. Many Floridians are said to be scratching their heads when contemplating Graham. "Is this the guy we voted for in '98?" He let the campaign drag him into the land a unsightly attacks and irrational assertions, and to be honest, he did not look entirely comfortable doing it.

One thing in his favor, when he was Chairman of Senate Intelligence from 2001-02, he is said to have had a great working relations with Vice-Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Alabama). I have not heard the same about Roberts and Rockefeller this term. (Of course, Shelby was a former Intelligence chairman -- albeit briefly -- himself. Rockefeller a tall man with a wealthy surname.)

So who will replace Mad Bob after the 2004 election? For a while -- back when Graham had taken himself out of the running, before putting himself back in and finally taking himself back out -- I was looking at Representative Mark Foley, the House Deputy Majority Whip. He represents Palm Beach and Port Charlotte, that area. The media argued that he was too conservative -- ACU 92 -- but the media says such things. There's no basis in fact for much of that tripe.

But Foley took himself out in September, citing the health of his sick father, and some of his staff went to Republican Daniel Webster, who is not the one on whom I would put my money right now.

Former Republican Representative Bill McCollum is giving it another go, after having been beaten by now-Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat, in 2000. (At the time, I thought McCollum should sue to have a recount of the dimpled chats…) He is not the odds-on favorite this, though, by any means.

Florida House Speaker Johnnie Byrd of Plant City is also seeking the GOP nomination. From his web site:

I am running for the Senate because I believe the Democratic Party's liberal agenda is out of step with the typical Florida family.

With me, what you see is what you get. I have a pretty simple name, and a pretty simple message: lower taxes, fiscal responsibility, commonsense conservative values, and a strong national defense.

This should be another GOP pickup, and take that with GOP gains in the two Carolina States, we are beginning to look at a more functional Republican majority to open the President's second term.

0 comments

Election Day

Good morning! It is Election Day 2003, and we all have something for which to vote. For me stuck in these mountains, it's a County Commissioners race. It's a done deal, after the primaries, as we select two Republicans and one Democrat. (Or two Democrats and one Republican, should the universe be significantly altered.) This time, however, one of the Republicans is new, and I've heard rumors about him and a barstool. (Such rumors existed, in a particularly vociferous and nasty way, about our President in 2000.)

The other Republican, the longtime commissioner, is a malignancy who is registered with the wrong party.

One of the Democrats has been there so long that I think she had her first name legally changed to "Commissioner." (I think her given name was "Donna," but I cannot be sure.) I've never heard of the other Democrat, can't think of her (?) name, but will vote for her in about an hour.

You see, this is local stuff. There are no tax cutters running. It spins around personalities, but it's part of the political game.

Caspar Weinberger was briefly on FNC this morning, and I was alerted in time to see it. I'm hearing music from another time…

0 comments

Reagan: the CBS miniseries

They are probably going to pull it, perhaps relegating it to Showtime. ("CBS, Ronald Reagan, and the American People" by John Averyt)

The director quit because CBS was removing some of his slanderous fiction. Well, there was just too much of this film which evidently just wasn't so. So much of what President Reagan did, Clinton could not undo. President Reagan's legacy in firmly in place, and too many don't have the stomach for the cheap shots.

Well, good night. God bless you, and may God continue to bless America.
0 comments

"[T]hey let off steam by ridiculing the president..."

I found this piece of commentary -- Plumbing the anti-Bush sentiment, by Godfrey Sperling -- on the web site of the Christian Science Monitor. It's set to be in Tuesday's (November 4) edition.

Among other things, the piece looks into the form of this hatred and compares it to Republican hatred of President Roosevelt back "in the day":

WASHINGTON – We could hear talk against the president on almost any street corner. Media voices lashed out at the president every day. It had become an ugly scene, where president-haters seemed to be everywhere.

No, that is not today's America where anti-Bush feeling is intense. It's the Midwest of the 1930s where dislike of President Franklin D. Roosevelt was palpable in that stronghold of conservatism.

That dissent had become personal, much the same as what's heard from liberals today. Those Republicans were almost viscerally opposed to FDR's New Deal effort to lift the country out of the deepening depression. And they let off steam by ridiculing the president for his personal style. They particularly disliked the jauntily tilted cigarette, the supremely confident smile.

On the downside, he mentions the metaphysically irrelevant Al Franken, blames the total of the Dem hatred of this President on sour grapes over 2000, and speculates that "angry Democrats who, increasingly, bash this president could be the hard core of a Democratic force that overturns Bush in the next elections.

It's analysis with an asterisk, and those angry Democrats are a minority, a small but loud one at that.

0 comments

A Constitution is…

Something Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld said on ABC's This Week with former Clinton staffer Steph on Sunday springs to mind when reflecting on the process they are undertaking in Afghanistan. (It has become, it seems, a Constitution by focus groups.)

Rumsfeld was discussing the progress in Iraq, the upside, and he talked of their newfound freedom: "Anything which is not prohibited is permitted. That's a reverse." (I maybe should have had him exclaim those sentiments, as he did use that excited voice which surfaces when something excites him.)

Under Saddam Hussein, it is said, the Iraqis could do only that which Saddam allowed. The Iraqis have gone from a list of actions they could take, with every other action ventured on pain of death, to a list of what they cannot do, with everything else being permitted. Permitted not by a government, but by right.

The United States Constitution, as first adopted, granted the federal government specific powers. If it was not enumerated in the Constitution, the federal government could not do it.

In No. 84 of The Federalist, Alexander Hamilton wrote:

It has been several times truly remarked, that bills of rights are in their origin, stipulations between kings and their subjects, abridgments of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince. … It is evident, therefore, that according to their primitive signification, they have no application to constitutions professedly founded upon the power of the people, and executed by their immediate representatives and servants. Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing, and as they retain every thing, they have no need of particular reservations.

The Constitution was, to the government created by it, an organ specifying certain powers. The Bill of Rights, however, was contrary to the original document, in that it vested rights in the people, which rights the Constitution did not empower the federal government to take in the first place. Hamilton:

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colourable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?

Okay, so it is a wee tad late to argue against appending a Bill of Rights to our Federal Constitution, but it most certainly is not too late to point out the danger of creating a constitution as a giant bill of rights. Governments created under such documents will be able to rightly do anything their constitution does not prohibit them from doing.

We have the Afghan draft and the upcoming Iraqi document, and we have a United Nations with sticky fingerprints. Let's see what we get. (The world now has to live with these governments created with these documents.)

0 comments

New Afghan Constitution

Good morning. CNNi reports that a constitution for the new Afghanistan has been drafted by a 35-member Constitutional Review Commission and now must be approved by an Afghan loya jirga in Kabul next month. (The jirga is comprised of tribal elders selected by each individual tribe and sent to a meeting to vote on the document. It was a similar loya jirga which selected Hamid Karzai to be their president. Writing in the Rightsided Newsletter at the time (Spring of 2002), I referred to the council as the "U.N. Loya Jirga." It was to move Afghanistan from the U.N.-appointed "provisional government" to the partially elected "interim government," and I had determined that the U.N. was an inadequate organization by which to found a nation, and that the constitution would take a year to draft. It's taken six months longer than I had forecast.)

The article reads that "Included in the constitution are rules on the formation of political parties." A government with a hand in such things tends toward tyranny. According to the South African press service:

The draft also allows political parties to be established as long as their charters "do not contradict the principles of Islam" and sets other conditions such as not having any military aims or foreign affiliation.

From a Reuters piece via Swiss Info:

There will be a strong presidential system which will have one vice-president," Constitution Commission member Shukrya Barikzai told
Reuters at the ceremony on Monday.

She said there would be no position of prime minister and the president would be elected directly by the Afghan people, not by members of
parliament.

The draft describes Afghanistan as an "Islamic republic".

Constitution officials and Western diplomats expect Afghanistan to adopt Islam as its main religion, although they do not anticipate the
harsh imposition of sharia laws, as seen under the ousted Taliban regime.

But according to the CNN piece:

The draft is based on Islamic principles and recognizes that no law can be contrary to the sacred religion of Islam," Afghanistan's 35-member Constitutional Review Commission said in a statement Monday, adding that the document provided for the freedom of religion for other faiths.

The process of writing the constitution was criticized for it secrecy, so the "Constitution officials" sent out scads of questionings and received in reply even, they claimed, audiotape from people who were unable to read or write.

The United States Constitution was written in private during the summer of 1787.

0 comments

Zell Miller on Meet the Press

Looking at the Sunday morning talk shows hoping to find the next rumor for Wes Clark to repeat -- a la the one about Donald Rumsfeld leaking his own memo, attributable to disgruntled former NSC perp Dick Clark on ABC's This Week last Sunday -- I came across Tim Russert's interview with Senator Zell Miller (D-Georgia), who happened to be hawking his book: A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat.

First of all, nice guy that he is, Miller is no conservative. His ACU rating last year was 47 out of 100, while his life ACU was 54. Snarling Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) was at 50/42. But Miller has voted with the President on some key issues, and he is, in general, a tax cutter.

He mentioned that the national Democrat Party had written off the South as unwinnable, and that national Dem figures would do more harm than good for a candidate on the campaign trail down there, specifically mentioning: McAuliffe, Clinton, Gore, Daschle, and Pelosi.

McGovern ran on liberal social issues, Miller recalled, and won all of one State (Massachusetts and the District of Columbia) against Dick Nixon in 1972. Fritz Mondale wanted to raise taxes in 1984, and he won only one State (Minnesota -- barely -- and the District). This year, Senator Miller insisted, "they have managed to make this a double failure of what's worst about the Democratic Party."

He blasted Howie Dean and his remark about wanting voters who fly the confederate flag. (Miller has opposed that flag strongly.) Asked where he though the flag could be flown, Miller commented: "Maybe at a museum."

Interesting insight: "They can call [me] Bush-light or Republican-light, but that's where the people are." Right-of-center but not too far. I'm not certain how he calculated this, but it's worked for him in Georgia.

So why doesn't Senator Miller leave the Democrat Part: good riddance to bad rubbish? He explains: "It's like living in an old home." Maybe some strangers have moved into the basement, he said, but "I'm not leaving it. It makes sense to me, and that's all that matters."

Buy his book, is the message. I wonder his how sales will stack up against those of My Declaration of Independence, by Jumpin' Jim Jeffords.

0 comments

Gephardt on FACE THE NATION

To set this up, I'll include the opening paragraph of the bit I wrote in the Rightsided Newsletter this afternoon about Biden & Lugar on this week's Face the Nation (CBS):

Bob "Make Love, Not War" Schieffer began this morning's FTN by asking: "Senator, Lugar, I have to ask you: how long can this go on?" He later asked: "How much more of this 'winning' can we stand?" -- a statement he lifted from remarks of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota), who last week said: "I don't know how much more of this 'progress' we can take." In his closing comments, Schieffer argued that today's political discussion had become juvenile, with the (unnamed) cable people stating what they believe and questioning your patriotism if you disagree, an excuse used by many liberals to avoid discussion. That was Schieffer's direction this morning.

Gephardt was on the second segment, and he said that the downing of the Chinook outside Fallujah was prove that President Bush needed to get more international support for the effort in Iraq. (One assumes that he in some way believes that the Russians or the French could have prevented this with their European extra-sensory perception.)

Gephardt said that he had been advising the President to get more international involvement since before the war. (I guess Dick's not a trusted Presidential advisor, and for good reason.) He doesn't like Rumsfeld, but thinks it’s the duty of the President to fire him. The President obviously thinks Rumsfeld is doing a good job, which Dick sees as some indictment of the President's judgment. Dick's been hanging out at too many Gephardt 2000 campaign fundraisers.

A woman from the Cook Political Report -- didn't catch her name -- joined Schieffer in the questioning. She mentioned the 7.2% rate of growth in the third quarter of this year, asking if this news would damage the Dem message: that President Bush is destroying the economy. Dick responded: "I think it's too early to tell if that is a sustained trend." And: "We're still not seeing the jobs." And, of course, the debt problems. This could sell for the Dems if they push it correctly, but only until the job market expands.

Schieffer asked Dick if he'd quit if he did not win Iowa. Dick responded confidently that he will win Iowa.

The sooner he's gone, the better. One by one, they will leave our immediate discourse.

0 comments

The Talk Shows

Good morning. We're getting ready to report on this morning's public affairs Talk Shows for the free Rightsided Newsletter", and the dramatis personae reads Rumsfeld.

The Secretary of Defense will Fox News Sunday (FNS), NBC's Meet the Press (MTP), and ABC's This Week (TW). In fact, he's the only guest listed for FNS and TW, and he shares the show on MTP with Georgia Democrat Senator Zell Miller, who announced last week that he will support President Bush next election, even campaign for him if asked.

On CBS's Face the Nation (FTN), guests include Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lugar (R-Indiana) and his ranking member, Joe Biden of Delaware. Senator Biden is usually very interesting, as takes great pains to try to intellectualize the Democrat gripe-of-the-day. It's often amusing to watch.

Also on FTN, someone -- presumably host Bob Schieffer if he's there -- will ask the soft questions to candidate Dick Gephardt, as he nears the end of his political world.

On CNN's Late Edition, guests include the relevant --Iraq Administrator Paul Bremer -- the irrelevant -- IAEA chief Mohammed "Remember Me?" El Baradei -- and the requisite two Senate panel: Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) and his ranking Dem, Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia). We might get a good quip out of Jay.

It's easy to get my summary and analysis by subscribing to the free Rightsided Newsletter by visiting the web site or sending a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe@topica.com.

0 comments

President Bush in 2004: A French Analysis

One of my favorite tunes is George Gershwin's An American in Paris. It was written in 1928, seemingly aeons before Saddam, Chirac, and the poet DeVillepin, so it doesn't mention BYOAC ("Bring Your Own Air Conditioner").

The French want to analyze American politics, and they do just about as well as many of the single-cells populating the ranks of network punditry, as the Agence France Presse (AFP) headline reads: A year ahead of presidential vote, Bush vulnerable but still holding cards:

Thursday's announcement that economic growth hit a blistering 7.2 percent in the third quarter, the strongest quarter in 19 years, came just as the Republican president sought justification for his policy of stimulating the economy with tax cuts.

The economy has so far been the president's weak flank in his battle for a second four-year term. The rebound will have to last long enough to lower the unemployment rate, another stone in Bush's shoe. At 6.2 percent, the percentage of workers seeking jobless benefits is the highest in nine years.

The Dems can harp on jobs, and increased productivity and population growth tend to increase jobless claims.

The French (AFP) tell us that President Bush's largest advantage over the Dems is in campaign funds, but they point to "security in Iraq" as a problem. They quote the President:

"I will defend my record at the appropriate time and look forward to it.

"I'll say that the world is more peaceful and more free under my leadership, and America is more secure.

"That will be how I'll begin describing our foreign policy," he told reporters this week.

They quote University of Boston professor Lance Morrow. Morrow is also a single-cell at TIME magazine, who tells the French that in the American mind, the lessons of Munich are battling the lessons of Vietnam:

"The lessons of Munich say: 'Aggressors must be vigorously and promptly and actively opposed.'

"The lessons of Vietnam say: 'Don't go rushing with all your immense power into foreign wars, especially those involving people not of your race or background.'

"That way lies 'quagmire,' the dreaded word."

The thought of Iraq becoming another Vietnam is vacuous at best. The United States never occupied North Vietnam is the simple way of saying it. We weren't helping the Vietnamese to set up their own government. We were spending our wealth on the infrastructure of Vietnam. Vietnam was a war ostensibly to contain communism; Iraq is a war ostensibly to eliminate terrorism.

Geopolitics was altered irrevocably with the fall of the Soviet Union.

The French, by the way, did not surrender in Vietnam; rather, they ran away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tomorrow, the Sunday Talk shows are on the networks, and I'll cover them for the free Rightsided Newsletter. You don't want to miss it, so subscribe right now by visiting the web site or sending a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe [AT] topica.com.

0 comments

On Tuesday

November 5 is not a, per se, national election, but people will be, for the most part, choosing between Republicans and Democrats. I mentioned this in It's almost November 4 last Monday, but it is more than that.

In Kentucky, Democrat Attorney General Ben Chandler faces U.S. Republican Representative Ernie Fletcher for the seat now held by retiring Democrat Governor Paul "With a Woman-Not-My-Wife" Patten. This from a piece in today's Lexington Herald-Leader:

Democrat Ben Chandler and Republican Ernie Fletcher both knew it might come down to this: Traditionally Democratic far Western Kentucky is going to have a lot to say about who moves into the governors' mansion.

And although that block would seem to hand Chandler a big edge on paper, that's not exactly happening as both men scramble for votes on the far side of I-65 with three days left before Tuesday's election.

Fletcher's specially tailored anti-abortion, no-tax, pro-gun message is winning over many who are officially on the books as Democrats.

There is no home in the national Democrat Party for these people. The writing is on the wall -- and it ain't Philly-style graffiti -- for Kentucky to have its first Republican governor in over three decades. I must have been in second grade. That seems like such a long time ago. The Kentucky Dems are trying to make their election a referendum on the direction President Bush is taking the country. (The Dem presidential wannabes have also been big into this, and it should all backfire.)

Speaking of Philadelphia, Democrat Mayor John Street has a nine-percent lead over GOP challenger Sam Katz, but I'm not quite ready to ice this one yet. Street is bleeding, and he had the king of the political hemorrhage in to campaign for him lat week. From today's Philadelphia Inquirer:

Bill Clinton came to Philadelphia yesterday to boost Mayor Street's surging candidacy, urging voters to ignore the FBI probe and reelect a mayor who he said tackled crime, cleaned lots, and "gave the city back to the neighborhoods."

The way Clinton used it, "neighborhoods" is a code word for African Americans, and Clinton was again playing the race card to mobilize the black vote for Street.

Former RNC Chairman Haley Barbour, despite his media portrayals as a "Washington Insider" big money fat cat, is about to oust Democrat Governor Ronnie Musgrave President Bush is out for Barbour today, and the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported today on Barbour's efforts with black voters.

Barbour's camp said its strategy is nothing complicated: Barbour is simply asking for something other Republicans have not. Barbour has held community meetings with African Americans around the state, and also has arranged several larger statewide meetings with African-American residents.

And we end this post with this nice thought from an AP article today:

In Denver, a ballot item called the "peace initiative" would require city officials to start programs to reduce stress and promote peace. Some top ideas: soothing music in public places and better school lunches.

City leaders have expressed some skepticism.

More power to 'em, I guess.

0 comments

Crushing Corporate Capitalism, Soviet-style

Good morning. A brief bit of news caught my eye on my homepage -- news.google.com -- this morning, from CNN.com: Russians support Putin over Yukos. Yes, it's a Russian-style attack on BIG OIL, the bogeyman of our homegrown Dems here in the States.

[And note that I used the descriptive "Soviet" in place of "Russian" not because I am confusing the current system at work in the former Soviet Russian Federation with that of the Soviet Union. They're the same leaders and their apparatchiks as would have run that show if Gorbachev had not been forced out of office and the Communists out of power. The spawn of the Soviets are forced to play by different rules.]

Yukos, you see, is Russia's largest and most profitable oil company. It's Chief Executive, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has been arrested and charged with fraud, tax evasion, etc. Russian President Vlad Putin faces the voters next Spring, and he needs another issue besides his long-term support of Saddam Husseing, what with Saddam in hiding near Tikrit and directing attacks at the New York Times, or whatever they said.

According to the PRC's state-run Xinhua wire, they've also nabbed Khordorkovsky's main subordinate, Vasily Shakhnovsky.

Toss aside the key! Burn them at the stake!

According to Businessworld, out of Ireland, Russian premier Mikhail Kasyanov is one of a growing number of Russian leaders who fear the probe into Yukos is politically motivated.

The Russian people, however, are not stupid. From the CNN story:

Nearly two-thirds of Muscovites polled by the respected VTsIOM-A agency were skeptical about Kremlin assertions the YUKOS affair was purely a criminal matter and saw Khodorkovsky's arrest as political.

But, alas, this goes beyond the U.S. Dem diatribes against Halliburton, Enron, and Worldcomm. Rumor has it, according to CNN, that Khodorkovsky was about to enter politics:

Analysts said charges against Khodorkovsky and allies were prompted by his attempts to move into politics and reflected a desire by Kremlin hardliners to regain control over business.

But that is a smokescreen. The real dynamic at work is the "Kremlin hardliners [seeking] to regain control over business. It is the same dynamic which prompted the recent spate of corporate "scandals" in the United States -- i.e., Congress' desire to regulate as much of the economy as possible.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

0 comments

Credit for the good economic news…

Are you ready from some ultra-sheer audacity? This headline, and concomitant story, comes from the web site of the Dallas Morning News: Bush, GOP take credit for economic surge. Can you believe the effrontery of those tax cutters?

The article began:

WASHINGTON – The burst of unexpectedly good economic news Thursday set off a new round of political bickering that is destined to persist right up to Election Day, a year away.

The Administration has been forecasting this kind of expansion for a while, and this was hardly unexpected. On the 20th of this month, I wrote:

According to several reports, analysts are claiming a 7-percent growth rate for the 3rd quarter of this year. This is not a "Bush recession." This is not a "sluggish economy." (The growth rate for 1999 was 4.2-percent.)

Cut taxes, the economy will rise. Who ended the Carter malaise? President Ronald Reagan. Who is ending the Clinton-Bin Laden malaise? President George W. Bush.

The President and the Congressional Republicans, with some few likeminded Dems, deserve the credit. Their policies have enabled the American people to crawl from stagnation. But the Dems and their media stooges cannot let credit go where credit is due. Mission One: Create Doubt. Mission Two: Smile and say you did it despite the GOP.

From the Morning News article:

For President Bush and fellow Republicans, the fastest economic growth in nearly 20 years was hailed as proof that his tax-cut policy was finally boosting a stagnant economy.

For Democrats complaining about job losses and challenging the president's bid for re-election, the upbeat report threatened one of their key election-year premises: The president has made a bad economy worse.

Actually, the Dems' premise was that the President took a robust economy anemic.

And speaking of anemic, how's this from candidate Joe Lieberman?

"While today's news is encouraging, it does not change the fact that the president has turned Main Street into a one-way street going in the wrong direction," said Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, one of the nine Democrats seeking the party's presidential nomination.

"We've lost more than 3 million jobs, 3 million people have fallen into poverty, the budget deficit and national debt are growing, health care and college tuition costs are escalating," he said.
"And this president still has no real plan to sustain this growth, translate it into jobs and rebuild a strong middle class."

They even let candidate Howie Dean rant for print:

Still another Democratic contender, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, made clear the nation's economic vitality depended in large part on the restoration of jobs and the creation of new ones.

"President Bush has compiled the worst economic record since the Great Depression," Dr. Dean said, "and it is going to take a lot more than one quarter of growth to clean it up."

Yes, it's "Dr. Dean"! Like in the Mel Brooks film Young Frankenstein, the lab assistant ("pronounced "Eye-gore") hands him an abnormal brain and the good doctor creates a freak. And that's his campaign. But I'm digressing.

Jobs, jobs, jobs. Bipartisan political analyst Charlie Cookagrees:

"His tax cuts may turn the broader economy around," Mr. Cook suggested. "But if it doesn't do anything to create jobs and put some of these people back to work, it doesn't get the same political bang."

Yes, it's hard to vote for a President if you feel he cost you your job. It's easier to vote for a President if he hasn't. Chew on that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Miranda, the conservative teenaged Texas blogger, is back with her Right Winged blog after a month of computer purgatory. Check out her stuff.
0 comments

Planned Parenthood's Pro-Abort Lawsuit

According to the Planned Parenthood press release of this afternoon:

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), the nation's leading reproductive health organization, and Planned Parenthood Golden Gate (PPGG), the affiliate based in San Francisco, Calif., announced today at a press conference that they have filed a lawsuit in a San Francisco federal court to challenge the so-called Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, a federal abortion ban that was passed by Congress on Oct. 20 and has been sent to President Bush for his signature.

Since the ban on partial birth abortion is not now law, what are they suing? If there is no law against which to sue for an injunction, the case is not justiceable. The court technically can't hear it, as there is no "it" to hear.

Are they seeking an injunction against the President taking several pens to paper, as Presidents are often wont to do in as a way of manufacturing souvenirs, and signing the bill into law?

The case should be thrown out of court, and they should also be given the hook and told not to return.

0 comments

Foreign Aid and the Social Justice League of America

Good morning. A piece in Reuters this morning tells us that InterAction -- an alliance of nongovernmental foreign assistance groups -- does not approve of President Bush's linkage of foreign aid to national security.

"The administration has increasingly turned its attention to development assistance as a tool of the war on terrorism,'' InterAction said in a policy paper.

They also complained that the DoD had too great a role in distributing foreign aid in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It is a no-brainer, but is seems we're not dealing with people who have human brains in the metaphysical sense. At this level of cognition, abstracting beyond a simple "They need money, so give it to them" is impossibility.

The report also complains that the work of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), set up by Prez John F. "Ask Not" Kerry -- er, Kennedy -- forty years ago. The good folks at InterAction complain that the work formerly done by USAID is now being performed by other agencies.

There has been a long-standing effort to dismantle USAID and a lot of blame has been leveled at them. One way of doing this has been to disburse aid to other departments,'' said one aid agency source.

"Social justice." That's the term InterAction likes to call it.

Social Justice. Consider first the ultimate source of the monies in question.

0 comments

The PRC wants a counterbalance

We know about French Prez Jacques Chirac and his whimsy about a superpower to counter the untrammeled will of a United States which threatens to consume the entire globe in the absence of the Soviet Union to counter her expansionist schemes.

So it goes. The French tried that game, enlisting the Russians and Germans, over the UNSC feud over whether or not Saddam should get the hook. Saddam's gone, Iraq is working on independence, and Chirac's axis has fallen apart.

Wait…

Said the PRC's deputy Maoist dictator, Premier Wen Jiabao, at a meeting with the European leaders and Eurocrats Wednesday: "It is our hope that the European Union will become our biggest partner in economic cooperation and trade." To the definite exclusion of the United States.

European Commission President Romano Prodi, the Italian for whom no European outside of government voted, proclaimed in response: "We need to intensify our relations, both in the trade and investment sectors. We must become the biggest partners. We must have the biggest relations - more than anywhere in the world." He did not name the United States, but we were mentioned tacitly.

Okay, Chirac and the poet DeVillepin could be dancing an Axis/Vichy jig right about now. The dream is alive.

Or is it?

I don't think so. What is the main thing -- perhaps the only thing -- standing between the United States of America and the People's Republic of China? Human rights. In the PRC, there are none. They torture, kill, twist, manipulate, destroy. And the second baby must be eliminated.

Commerce Secretary Don Evans brought up the PRC's disrespect for intellectual property. The Europeans say, whatever. The PRC's human rights record draws yawns from the Eurocrats.

There's what this means. The Europeans are working out a deal with the PRC through which all refugees -- political by definition of the Chinese state -- would be returned to the PRC and their storied Lao gai.

The world's largest trading partners -- on the corpses of millions of dead Chinese.

0 comments

GDP Grows at Highest Rate Since Reagan

When Treasury Secretary John Snow told the Times of London ten days go that he expected interest rates to rise with a growing economy, I posted -- Secretary Snow and Interest Rates -- I intimated:

According to several reports, analysts are claiming a 7-percent growth rate for the 3rd quarter of this year. This is not a "Bush recession." This is not a "sluggish economy." (The growth rate for 1999 was 4.2-percent.)

The analysts were low by two tenths, as the Gross Domestic Product grew by 7.2-percent last quarter. This is the highest GDP rise since the first quarter of 1984.

President Reagan's growth in the first quarter of 1984 was in the first quarter of election year. President Bush's growth in the third quarter of 2003, is in the penultimate quarter before the election year. And this year, the "election year" politically began early.

In November of 1984, President Reagan was reelected 58.8% of the vote. None of the current crop of Dems resembles Walter Mondale -- or Jimmy Carter, for that matter, and any such talk is nifty as far as it goes, but it doesn't buy you beer.

So what have the Dems got? Well, it's been a jobless recovery, but it is no longer shedding jobs. With this kind of growth in consumer spending and business investment, re-employment is just a matter of time.

The Dems can harp on Iraq and the war on terror -- two issues on which they once thought the President to be untouchable -- but that issue is not a winner for them.

President Bush is doing very well right now, and things can only keep improving. The mutants are doing their worst in Baghdad as we speak. I daresay there is not much more that they can do in a country occupied by the United States military.

We are fortunate that President Bush is able to remain, for the most part, above the small talk, the cheap and snide pundits, the pugnacious partisans, and the wannabe presidents. I suspect he responds only when his staff begs him to do so: "Mr. President, you can't let them talk about you like this!"

After employment has revived, we've won the peace, and President Bush is comfortably reelected, I hope he expends his political capital on abolishing the Department of Education. And cutting taxes.
0 comments

Zell Miller to vote Republican

Democrat Senator Zell Miller of Georgia has announced that he will vote for President George W. Bush next November. Democrat Senator Zell Miller of Georgia has announced that he will campaign for George W. Bush's reelection if asked to do so.

Zell Miller is a Democrat, and he has been offered, no doubt, some high prizes if he were to make the switch. He has refused, but at the press conference held when then-Georgia Governor Roy Barnes appointed him to fill the vacancy left by the untimely death of Senator Paul Coverdell, Miller told those assembled: "I will serve no single party but rather 7.5 million Georgians."

That is what he thinks he's doing with his latest announcement, and that is what he is doing. Bypassing CNN, headquartered in Atlanta, the Georgia Senator told Fox News yesterday:

"The way I see it is, that these next five years are going to be crucial in determining what kind of world my grandchildren and great grandchildren live in, and I don't want to entrust that to any of these folks that are running out there on the Democratic side. I'm going to vote for George Bush," Miller said in a taped interview for Fox News' Hannity & Colmes show.

Of the Democrats' anti-Bush -- disguised as anti-war -- rhetoric, Miller said:

"It makes me ashamed. It's a disgrace for anyone to talk about -- talk like that in a time of war. … You know, if some of these folks have been living back to that April night in 1775 when Paul Revere came riding through, saying, 'The British are coming, British are coming' - if Howard Dean was living back then he would have yelled out the window, 'Shut up I'm trying to get some sleep in here.' It's a disgrace."

He told further told Sean Hannity:

"I've given this a lot of thought. I think that George Bush is the right man in the right place at the right time. The way I see it is, that these next five years are going to be crucial in determining kind of world my grandchildren and great- grandchildren live in.

And I don't entrust that to any of these folks that are running out there on the Democratic side.

I included so much of what Miller said because he sounds like so much of what I've been reading in the blogosphere and hearing from friends. It's what I meant when I wrote Tuesday night that: "We have to win this one. If we don't, civilization dies. The 2004 Presidential election is the most important political event in this history of the United States. We are playing for keeps."

"This does not mean I am going to become a Republican," Miller said yesterday. "It simply means that in the year 2004, this Democrat will vote for George Bush."

0 comments

Two New Quinnipiac Polls

Good morning. There are two new Quinnipiac polls out today, of 1262 registered voters taken from October 23-27, with a margin of error of plus or minus three points.

The first Quinnipiac poll shows President Bush with 47-perecent to candidate Wes Clark's 43-perecent. He was 48-43 if candidate Lieberman, 49-43 over candidate Kerry and over candidate Gephardt, and 48-42 over candidate Dean, considered by many to be the likely Dem nominee. (I still consider Dean to be doubtful.)

What if Hillary were to jump in the race? She'd be the probable Dem nominee if she did, and President Bush would beat her, 50-42, the most support the President receives against anyone. Hillary knows that she has half of America strongly opposed to her, so she is not about to enter the race. Her negatives are far too high.

The second poll is identical to the first.

The first poll is reported by the New York Post online as: Bush Tops Prez Field.

The second poll is reported by the Associated Press as: Bush approval rating slips, Dems gain. (The President's approval rating fell two percentage points, from 53% to 51%, from a September 17 poll of different people. This is within the margin, of course.)

They are the same poll, reported with two different biases.

The AP piece quotes poll director Maurice Carroll as intoning: "President Bush is ahead, but he's hearing footsteps." The results are not significantly different from previous polls, so the statement is a poll directors braggadocio and nothing more.

The Post piece also points out that the poll puts Clark atop the Dem field with 17-percent, tied with "Don't Know."

There's no Democrat-fever currently sweeping the nation. Unless or until the media manages to harp of something which catches the public's notice -- and they are trying -- the President's lead looks to be safe.

0 comments

New Dem Think Tank

Former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta is the president of the new lefty DC think tank: the Center for American Progress.

From their web site:

The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all Americans. We believe that Americans are bound together by a common commitment to these values and we aspire to ensure that our national policies reflect these values.

Okay, they claim to represent America's values. According to Podesta on Fox News, however, they want to change America's values:

We think the debate has been unbalanced in the country," center president John Podesta, a former chief of staff to President Clinton, told Fox News.

"The conservative movement has really built up an infrastructure of not just ideas, but the ability to kind of get out there and do the kind of hard communications work to sell to the American public," he added.

Liberals have this weird thing. They believe that the world will agree with them if they just yell loud enough. They believe that when America tells them to go to hell, it means only that they have to work harder to enlighten Americans to see the "truth."

They are launching a talk show to compete with conservative talk radio, now this think tank. Their news network is still losing its share. The kids still love Clinton, and they had candidate Wesley Clark at their opening conference. Wes Clark cannot make up his mind even about which lie he's telling when.

It's falling to bits, my friends. I'll have to post that Robert Reich column from 2001. It's even more relevant now.

0 comments

The Dems Get Funky

Back in September of 1999, Al Gore marched to the podium at the DNC's Plenary Session to the sounds of Love Train, by the Ojays:

People all over the world (everybody)
Join hands (join)
Start a love train, love train
People all over the world (all the world, now)
Join hands (love ride)
Start a love train (love ride), love train
The next stop that we make will be soon
Tell all the folks in Russia, and China, too
Don't you know that it's time to get on board
And let this train keep on riding, riding on through
Well, well

He later adopted the tune as a campaign them song, dressed as he was in Naomi Wolf's earth tones.

My mind raced. Here was a new Democrat Party, suitably retro with an A-1 '70s sound. Priceless. The Democrat Party had finally lost it.

The song disappeared with Gore, only to reappear at -- of all places -- the funeral of Paul Wellstone, this time covered by a new group. We were looking at a neo-new Dem Party, getting funky at a funeral. (PoliPundit includes a photo of Clinton and Mondale sharing a laugh at the funeral with his Wictory Wednesday post of this morning.

People, ain't no war
People all over the world (on this train)
Join in (ride the train)
Start a love train, love train (ride the train, y'all)
People all over the world (come on)
Join hands (you can ride or stand, yeah)
Start a love train, love train (makin' love)
People all over the world ('round the world, y'all)
Join hands (come on)
Start a love train, love train

But it is going to get better. I found this story on today's Washpost:

The Democrats have a dream, that politics can be hipped up. And that the disaffected young citizens of America will set aside their sense of abandonment and apathy and flash-mob the polls, pulling the Big D lever in '04.

The dream undulates into shape Monday night at Dream, the sleek, four-story dance club on New York Avenue NE, with a Democratic National Committee fundraiser that raises the roof and a quarter-million dollars, one $50 ticket at a time.
DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe looks out over the club's second floor, so packed it represents the sardines-in-a-can wing of the Democratic Party, and beams. "How great is this!" he yells over the blasting hip-hop, thrilled that 90 percent of those who bought tickets are first-time party donors.

The bass lines are so thumping that it defibrillates the hearts of all 4,500 people, lured to party with former president Bill Clinton. The aim is to make politics sexy for the 18-to-34 crowd, not in a "Sir, the girl is here with the pizza" way, but in a smart, leggy, sassy way. One person onstage will say that only one in five of this group voted in the last presidential election, and one will say only three out of 10, but why quibble about numbers? It's not enough.

The story goes on with who was there -- a mostly young(ish) set of varied backgrounds -- including the soul master of deranged funk himself, Bill "Da Man" Clinton:

…In Da Club" lyrics inside -- "I'm into having sex, I ain't into making love / So come give me a hug if you into getting rubbed." This is what's playing when the former president takes the stage.

Of course, all wasn't well after this funky fundraiser. The Washpost piece concludes:

Outside on the sidewalk, Richard Strauss, 34, a former Clinton staffer, reflects wistfully on Da Man. "I'm longing for him," he says. He sees President Bush as vulnerable, but doesn't see who right now in the Democratic field can generate the same excitement as the 42nd president.

"I don't think there's anyone else, period," says Justin Pascal, 29, the DNC staffer who directs McAuliffe's office and created the event. For young people, "he is their president. Most people came of age under Bill Clinton. They graduated when he was in office, got their first job when he was in office. He is their president."

So people all over the world, join hands. Start a love train.

0 comments

The Madness of Candidate Wesley Clark

This from the New York Times. While he was in Durham, North Carolina, to sell his health care scheme, he had a few interesting accusations for the Bush administration.

First, he declared that September 11 was indirectly the doing of President Bush:

"You can't blame something like this on lower-level intelligence officers, however badly they communicated in memos with each other," said the retired general, the latest entrant in the Democratic presidential field. "It goes back to what our great president Harry Truman said with the sign on his desk: `The buck stops here.' And it sure is clear to me that when it comes to our nation's national security, the buck rests with the commander in chief, right on George W. Bush's desk."

"And," he added, "we've got to say again and again and again, until the American people understand: strong rhetoric in the aftermath is no substitute for wise leadership."

This begs the question: who blamed September 11 on "lower-level intelligence officers" with bad memoranda? The blame is on the terrorists, as the President has repeatedly insisted, and some of us would add that they were buttressed by the belief that our reaction would be weak and ineffective. The terrorists themselves used the term: "paper tiger."

Clark's second lunatic assertion, made also by former NSC bureaucrat Dick Clarke on NBC's Meet the Press, was that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld leaked his own memo, "because no one would have believed him that we've been two years in the war on terror and we don't have a strategy and we don't know how to measure success." When confronted about this later, he admitted: "Well, that's what the rumor is, and it's been talked about on the Sunday talk shows."

Clark of all people ought to know better than to believe Sunday Talk Show rumors. He started his own whopper, what with his claim that he received phone calls from the White House on September 12 directing him to blame 9-11 on Saddam Hussein. It never happened, he later backtracked, and no one knows what he's going to say next.

0 comments

Wictory Wednesday

Today is PoliPundit's "Wictory Wednesday." It is the day when we issue a wake-up call: The President cannot be reelected in a vacuum. By visiting the Bush/Cheney webpage, we can donate money via this secure server, and/or we can volunteer to be a "Bush Team Leader" using this secure server. Everything helps.

The war against terrorism is a war against mutans who are not compatible with civilization or humanity. The 2004 Presidential election is the most important in federal history, and a lot depends on reelecting President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Here are those who've volunteered to carry this message, in whatever form, on this "Wictory Wednesday":

Backcountry Conservative
Boots and Sabers
Bowling for Howard
Dean
BushBlog.us (unofficial blog)
Bush-Cheney 2004 (unofficial
blog)
ExPostFacto
Freedom of Thought
The Hedgehog Report
The Irish Lass
Jarhead
Jeremy Kissel
Left Coast
Conservative
Matt Margolis
The Ole Miss Conservative
PoliPundit
Political Annotation
A Rice Grad
Ryne McClaren
Slublog
Southern Conservatives
Stephen Blythe
Viking Pundit
The Wise Man Says


0 comments

The Return of Edwards's Bus

Back in August, when fulltime fundraising was starting to grow thin on him, candidate John Edwards had his bus: the Real Solutions Express. At the time and in this space, I said that if it worked for McCain in 2000, with his Straight Talk Express, then Edwards might as well give it a go. One thing Edwards should remember, though: it did not work for John McCain in 2000. McCain, whom the press perceived as a certain loser to Al Gore, had a media-supported run for a while, then he quit.

Here's this from an Edwards e-mail of this evening:

That's right the Real Solutions Express was a hit in August, so we are bringing it back in November. We need your help to get the word out on November 1st & 2nd.

Don't miss the true NH experience of going door-to-door, talking about why John Edwards should be our next President and inviting voters to more than a dozen Town Hall Meetings with Senator Edwards.

New Hampshire's first-in-the nation primary is less than 100 days away!! Come learn how presidential campaigns are really won.

Which leaves me to remark in mock admiration: so that's how McCain did it!

On ABC's This Week last Sunday, John-boy predicted to Steph and George Will that he would finish third, behind Howie Dean and John-John Kerry. He'd better look out, though, as Wes Clark, Superstar is skipping Iowa to concentrate on the Granite State.

0 comments

Why Mutants Kill at Ramadan

Too many journalists and pundits attributing rational thought processes to the mutants in Iraq:

"They're killing the Red Cross to frighten international organizations out of Iraq."

"They're trying to reduce American public support for the war effort."

"They're not helping their cause by killing their fellow Iraqis."

Folks, human reason does not apply here. This is jihad. Their actions are not compatible with civilization. Their thought processes and their selves are not compatible with humanity. When I call them "mutants," it's not just throwaway name-calling: they are mutants.

A rational human being, if he had signed onto a suicide mission, would reach the target then detonate; if he did not make it to the target, he'd return to base and try again another day. A mutant kept from his objective would blow himself up wherever he stood, taking anything (whatever) with him.

Jihad. To the death, and the winners will meet in paradise. Tortured by the oppression of corrupted leaders who treat them as disposable pawns, they need to hate something. The mullahs tell them whom to hate: the monkeys, the dogs, and their allies in Washington.

The Nazis in Germany had a sophisticated system, a "well-oiled machine," for exterminating Jews qua Jews. This is what they did. The scale of this systematic slaughter defies sane credulity, but it happened. The Nazis were mutants. But in public, they put on the façade of civilization. We know what they did behind closed doors, because they kept records.

The mullahs teach this same breed of insanity. It is not human. And this mutant madness would devour the world if there was no one to stop it. Osama bin Laden saw one obstacle standing in his path: the United States of America. On September 11, 2001, he gave it his best shot to neutralize this impediment. He didn't.

We have to win this one. If we don't, civilization dies. The 2004 Presidential election is the most important political event in this history of the United States. We are playing for keeps.

0 comments

The President's News Conference

In the Rose Garden this afternoon, President Bush held a news conference. [transcript]. The questions had been asked before, and the answers, we've heard. But a few caught my ear.

Norah O'Donnell of MSNBC asked:

Mr. President, if I may take you back to May 1st when you stood on the USS Lincoln under a huge banner that said, "Mission Accomplished." At that time you declared major combat operations were over, but since that time there have been over 1,000 wounded, many of them amputees who are recovering at Walter Reed, 217 killed in action since that date. Will you acknowledge now that you were premature in making those remarks?

The President challenged O'Donnell to look at his May 1st remarks aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln: "I said, Iraq is a dangerous place and we've still got hard work to do, there's still more to be done. And we had just come off a very successful military operation. I was there to thank the troops."

Major combat operations are over. There are no more divisions racing north to Baghdad. There are no more cities and towns to liberate. There is no more Shock and Awe.

Aboard the Lincoln, the President said:

We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We're pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We've begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We're helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people.

The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq.

O'Donnell did not ask the President if he thought the remarks had been premature; she challenged him to admit that his remarks were premature.

His remarks were candid and accurate. O'Donnell is living in the media-generated "universe by reporters' consensus." Everything is what the press invents and repeats. Reality has no meaning.

Fox's James Rosen, in questioning the President, brought up the Bush Doctrine, which he phrased: "If you feed a terrorist, if you clothe a terrorist, if you harbor a terrorist, you are a terrorist." He then laid out the White House case for P.L.O. chief Yasser Arafat and his relations with terrorists. He asked, then, isn't Arafat a terrorist who "should be dealt with in the same way that you've dealt with Saddam Hussein and Charles Taylor?"

The Mid Eastern situation involving Israel operates with different factors than Saddam in Iraq and Taylor in Liberia. The most basic difference is that Arafat governs no nation from which he can be ousted.

Many of Saddam's neighbors assisted us in removing him. Many of Taylor's neighbors did most of the work in ousting him. Arafat's neighbors support him, monetarily in the case of the Saudis.

0 comments

Dealing with the Devil

Some Senate Republican staffers call it "negotiating with terrorists," but Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is striking a deal with the dour Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan) which would give Michigan two new federal judges in exchange for Levin dropping a few of his obstructionist moves. One GOP committee member called the plan a "split-the-baby solution."

Senator Levin has been disgruntled because the wife of one of his cousins was nominated by Clinton in 1997 to a federal judgeship, and the Republican Judiciary Committee never gave her a hearing. Because he was just plain mad at the world, Levin decided to spend the last two years, in part, blocking the Presidents judicial nominees from Michigan. He's been in the Senate since 1978, and he doesn't have to take any of this here nonsense. Or some such. Committee Democrats aided in the obstruction as a favor to Levin.

Word of Senator Hatch's deal with Levin comes in this morning's Washington Times. The deal is not yet done, but preliminary reports have another seat (the 23rd) being added to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals; the seat will be filled by someone from Michigan. Also on the table, the Times was told, is adding another seat (the 31st) to one of Michigan's two federal district courts.

Now, word is that the new seat on the federal circuit court would go to that wife of Levin's cousin, Michigan Judge Helene White, though the President would have to sign off on that.

From the Times piece:

Asked if he was willing to placate Mr. Levin by adding the Michigan judicial posts, Mr. Hatch said: "I'm always very open, but let me not ..." and trailed off.

"It's sensitive," he resumed. "These are very sensitive negotiations."

Generally speaking, Mr. Hatch said, he wants to "resolve this without poking anybody in the eye."

Another problem for Hatch if he's making the deal, the article reports, is getting his Republican colleagues on Judiciary to go along with it. He might not have trouble with weasels like Arlen Specter, but Texas' freshman Senator John Cornyn said: "It's not very palatable to me. I'd be very curious whether [White House Counsel] Al Gonzales and the rest of the West Wing would be amenable to that."

The Dems are embittered and tenacious, and it will require a substantial Republican Senate majority to move the Senate in the right (Right) direction. Note that I did not say it would require a conservative Republican majority, as we lack one now but even moderate and liberal Republicans tend to vote with their President on judicial nominations. For this and for other, similar reasons, I stress that it's important to keep liberal Republicans like Linc Chafee, Olympia Snowe, Specter, and the erstwhile Republican Jim Jeffords in the party. They not only increase the majority, but they can usually be counted on to vote correctly on certain issues and nominations.

That being said, Representative Pat Toomey (R-Pennsylvania) will make a better Senator than Snarlin' Arlen.

0 comments

A California Wildfire

Not in the Simi-Valley fire, but another of California's current wildfires is believed to have been caused by humans. Witnesses saw two long-haired white men in a truck throw a blazing object into brush on Saturday morning.

It seems likely to me that the truck bore the bumper sticker: "NO on Recall/ YES on Bustamante." It fits the profile: a disregard for private property and an awareness that the federal government will send them money.

Never fear: Geraldo's there.

0 comments

Bush to get his EPA administrator…

Good morning. Utah Governor Mike Leavitt, whose nomination had been obstructed by a few Dems, is set to become the next head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Senator Hillary Clinton and Jim Jeffords, candidates John Edwards, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, as well as former candidate now Senator-again Bob Graham. They had forced a procedural block on the nomination which would have required a 3/5ths majority (60 votes) to break, but they surrendered to the inevitable when it became clear that they did not have the 40 votes they needed.

The Senators and candidates had opposed Leavitt's confirmation, they had said, because they opposed President Bush. The President, they asserted, would not give them information regarding the reportage of the air quality at Ground Zero following September 11. Pulling a trick from their Texas brethren's book, they had even skipped a hearing so as not to have the quorum necessary for a vote on Leavitt's nomination.

Utah Senator Robert Bennett, the chief deputy GOP Whip, said that he expected Leavitt's nomination to pass this morning "with maybe 70-plus votes."

If they feared shame, this would have been a humiliating setback for Hillary and the Dems, who, by their own accounts, were opposing Governor Leavitt's nomination to make a case against President Bush as the election season approaches.

Natalie Gochnaur, a spokeswoman for Governor Leavitt, said Monday: "The governor remains patient and gracious; he feels optimistic he can make a meaningful contribution at the Environmental Protection Agency and looks forward to the final vote in the morning."

The Dems tried, but no one showed up at their little protest.

0 comments

It is almost November 4

There's an open governor's seat in Kentucky, and Republican Representative Ernie Fletcher is leading Democrat State Attorney General Ben Chandler comfortably. Fletcher will replace Democrat Governor Paul E. Patten is going the way of the term limit.

In Mississippi, we all remember Haley Barbour. He signed my first RNC Life Member certificates. (I received two of them in the space of a few months, by a fluke. I think it was a result of the transition between Barbour and Jim Nicholson.) Haley's leading Mississippi's Dem Governor Ronnie Musgrave by 5 points in the latest polls, but that's the margin.

Barbour's getting it from all sides in the press. I read one article a week or so ago -- "straight news piece" -- likening Haley's success with that of Arnold Schwarzenegger in California: a star with a national name firing up the voters with an anti-incumbent fervor a lots and lots of big bucks. There are so many flaws in that analogy that I had to spend time trying to think of ways in which it could be considered valid.

Anyway, that's two GOP gains this November, an off-year election. And it's tricky for a President to have coattails when he isn't running, and especially in an off-year, but this year might be different. The Democrats have made the President an issue, which shows questionable judgment when his job approval rating is in the mid-50s.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Democrat Party needs a political savior with a strong set of beliefs, someone to move that lazy leviathan beyond the current crop of nobodies doing nothing, beyond the retrograde Clinton nostalgia. That person does not exist, at least not in a big-ticket way. (Harold Ford is too young, and to little like Jesse, though he verges of leftism-lite. Nancy Pelosi brushed him aside like the dandruff settling on her shoulders.)

0 comments

Is Lieberman nearing the end?

It's an interesting thought from Talon News, in which Kennebec County, Maine GOP Chairman Charles Mahaleris writes that he thinks Joe Lieberman's campaign is coughing up blood.

He writes of Lieberman's tactics in Sunday night's debate, which seemed no different than standard Joe to me. He talked of Joe stubbornly clinging to support of the war and opposition to Palestinian terrorists. That's Lieberman being Lieberman, nothing new.

These efforts, however, could be just the last gasp for a dying effort. Lieberman's campaign, which at one time was leading the way, may be weeks from closing up.

Weeks? Lieberman still has money, and he he'll have a few weeks off later this year where he won't have to play Senator. Maybe he'll drop a little before Chanukah and enjoy the Festival of Lights with his family.

With the two Lieberman positions the article mentions, he seems perfectly sane, and those positions would appeal to rational voters. But remember, Lieberman is trying to win the Democrat nomination.

I think he's waiting for the delusions and hyperbole to wear thing on voters, and he could well see himself as the emergency escape valve for Dem voters who wake up to see just what (who?) is trying to operate their party. That times not going to come. Hatred is a powerful emotion, and there is an unsettling core to that party who literally loathe our President. If they let it consume them to the center, we're going to have a Democrat Howie Dean running against President Bush. Sure, it will be a walk, but I shudder to think of it. (John Edwards would be much more of a challenge against whom to run, and possibly even more frightening. He says what he says, but his manner makes it seem palatable.)

Thinking aloud.

0 comments

Iraq and Tourism

In Madrid Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi announced that Iran was going to do its part to help reconstruct Iraq. (No, the offer was not on of 100,000 new mullahs by the end of 2004.) Kharazi said that they would share oil facilities with the Iraqis, lend them $300,000, and promote tourism in Iraq. He spoke of 100,000 Iranian tourists (many of whom would doubtless be mullahs) per month, spending about $500-million annually.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher was asked about this at his Monday press briefing, and he answered: "There may be pilgrims who come for legitimate purposes but we've also raised concerned about [people traveling] across for not-so legitimate purposes, either smuggling or people coming across to foment violence and to oppose the progress that's being made." Not to belabor a point, but he was referring, in part, to the mullahs.

According to this French (AFP) story, half of the twelve imams the Shi'a hold holy are buried in Iraq.

The Administration, via Boucher, is taking the proper stance: "We've made clear that religious freedom is part of the environment that we'd like to create in Iraq and part of the environment the Iraqis themselves want to create. So as long as people are really pilgrims and not up to no good or smuggling, then I'm sure they'd be welcomed."

This can spread good will, of course, but there is no way of telling which Iranian tourists are going to foment discord and violence in the relatively tranquil south or Iraq. I think we can rely on the Iranian government not to attempt to stir the pot, as they know they are on a thin leash right now, with both the Europeans and the United States.

According to Paul Bremer Sunday, the real terrorists seem to be arriving from Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, and the Yemen. He stressed that Syria was a problem on Fox News Sunday and Face the Nation, while mentioning the other nations, but dropped the stress on This Week.

0 comments

Former bureaucrat Dick Clarke complains…

Good Morning. Former Bush cybersecurity chief Dick Clarke was one of Steph's guests on ABC's This Week yesterday, and I'm not sure why. He didn't seem to be hawking a book or complaining about anything recently in the news, and the man hadn't be the President's cybersecurity honcho since early this year.

He seemed deeply bitter, displaying an astringency which might require medication to bring the brain chemicals back into balance. He had, after all, spend three decades dealing with the nation's security and had been President Bush's counterterrorism chief on September 11, 2001 -- a day on which terrorism was not countered.

To Steph on Sunday, he said: "No, we're not winning the war on terrorism."

By invading and occupying Iraq, he said on ABC, "we've made it easier for them [al Qaeda] to attack us." His dull eyes seemed to blaze black when he faulted the President's "bring 'em on" line of earlier this year. He does not like the idea of having the terrorists focus on Iraq rather than New York and Washington, as it is more immediate on the ground near Baghdad.

On This Week, Clarke accused the administration, in the act of invading Iraq, of confusing Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, but Clarke in the camp of those who cannot quite understand that the ouster of Saddam and liberation of Iraq was not payback for September 11. It was helping to prevent other such attacks, but Clarke is stubborn.

According to former Clinton aide Sandy Berger, Clarke was not liked by subordinates because he pushed them hard. Berger says that he liked that in Clarke, and that Clarke "had President Clinton's ear." (This was not on the ABC show; rather, it was from quips made when Clarke decided to quit government rather than be transferred to the new department of Homeland Security.) So we have a Dick Clarke betrothed of Clinton and afraid of "this new-fangled Homeland Security stuff we didn't have in my day."

On This Week, Clarke complained of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the attempts of the Defense Department to try to do things which are the purview of others, such as the State Department, the CIA, or the National Security Council. He feels the DoD "should let the experts do it." He resents Rumsfeld.

Steph seemed to cut the interview short when Clarke announced that he had heard that Rumsfeld had leaked his own memo.

At least the man's out to pasture. We can thank him for his service to our country and regret that he stayed on past his mental fitness. It's sometimes sad, in a wistful way, to see a dedicated public servant/bureaucrat go out in this manner.

0 comments

Dem Debate Tonight

Here's the best quick analysis of tonight's CBC/FNC Dem candidate debate from the Fox Theater in Detroit = trade unions = Dick Gephardt. (Humor me, 'k?) For lack of anything better, we'll give him home field advantage.

Candidate Joe Lieberman had a major breakthrough tonight, announcing that he would negotiate with Hamas if they renounced terrorism. ("People can change.") Hamas is terrorism, that's their raison de'etre. Ground control to Joltin' Joe.

Candidate Dennis Kucinich is from the same county as was President James A. Garfield. He wants to create a cabinet-level Department of Peace, "to make non-violence an organizing principle in our society." Who, dude. "Vegetable rights and peace!" He's a high-minded globalist: "We need to work with other nations in the world to make war archaic." Let's talk to Kim Chong-Il, and Bashar Assad, Ayatollah Khamenei, and Hu Jintao of the PRC. Let's sit naked in our beds and sing along with John and Yoko.

Candidate Al Sharpton made a few unintelligible noises and the crowd went nuts.

Candidate Carol Mosley-Brain decreed that she would remove the trade deficit by implementing a single-payer health care plan.

Candidate John Edwards has a dream. Etc.

Candidate John Kerry talked about being presidential.

Candidate Dick Gephardt did not attend. Or he was hiding. Or I just didn't hear him.

Candidates Dean and Clark. It's a trick. I think they do it with mirrors.

Kerry seemed the most Presidential in bearing. Senator Edwards seemed the most likely to say shucks. Dean reminded me of Gary Hart circa 1984, sans even the ephemeral ideas. Clark looked like he had been let out for a while but would soon be put back in the jacket and put in a room where the walls won't hurt him.

There was no winner. Each candidate struck me as a loser, and that's hopefully not simply a partisan thing. I cannot picture any of them behind the Presidential seal, although Lieberman's close -- but Lieberman's not going to happen.

I didn't want to have the opportunity to watch this debate, as I was hoping beyond home for a Game 7. You know, though, seeing the Dems tonight was pretty much the equivalent of seeing my New York Yankees at the plate during the past week.

0 comments

Joltin' Joe Lieberman Faces the Nation

It now seems like a lifetime ago, but candidate Joltin' Joe Lieberman was a guest this morning on CBS's Fact the Nation with Bob Schieffer. I do not have the physical stats handy, but it seems to me that Lieberman appears on Schieffer's show more than any others, and that Schieffer has Lieberman as a more frequent guest than any other zany Dem crowd. It's actually comforting to know that they have each other.

Schieffer had the morning show talking point to lead off. Every host proclaimed this: "The news from Iraq seems to be even worse this morning." You see, the White House had been spinning it as getting better, so the networks had to quick portray it as getting worse.

Lieberman went through the usual bit about the United States going it alone -- a "one-sided process" -- and Schieffer accepted it as stated. Even Steph, a former Clinton sleepover pal, hassled candidate Edwards about this assertion.

Lieberman said that we went over there without any kind of plan. I've argued that the State Department had a plan, but I've received argument that this was not so much a plan as an outline of what to expect. The pre-war State Department report also contained suggestions for responses, though, so while it was not a plan in the concrete sense, it was more than the null which some Democrats -- including Lieberman this morning -- have suggested.

Paul Bremer on This Week this morning told Steph that there has been a plan since before he arrived there, and that the current version has 128 pages. It was by this plan that they got the electricity functioning at pre-war levels by October 1, Bremer said.

"We’re not doing as well as we should be doing," Lieberman asserted. He begs the question, how well should we be doing? There are a few malcontents causing a bit of trouble north of Baghdad.

Lieberman blamed Don Rumsfeld for the Administrations lack of planning. Again, the plans are in place and have been since before the war. But Joltin' Joe said, when asked by Schieffer if Rumsfeld should be sacked, said: "Judgment about whether he stays or not is up to President Bush. But if I were president, I would get a new secretary of defense." Sure. In a Lieberman administration, the Pentagon would answer to… Secretary of Defense Babs Boxer.

Fourteen months from now, these people will be off the airwaves. Be strong until then.

0 comments

Candidate John Edwards: A Damnably Good Liar

John Edwards is easily the smoothest liar we have seen on the political scene in ages; some say even Clinton had a slight tick. Edwards can do it well.

Edwards went on ABC's This Week this morning and began his verbal assault on the war effort. "It should be an international effort," he stated flatly. The United States if going it alone. But we have over 30 countries in the coalition, host Steph snidely protested, "and the Security Council resolution." Edwards countered that "it looks like an American operation to the Iraqis," the he returned to hammering President Bush for alienating the world by invading Iraq unilaterally.

To hear John-boy tell it, President Bush woke up one morning and decided to attack, catching the world by surprise.

On screen, Steph put up the words of Senator Joe Biden, saying that it was childish and incoherent to continue protesting that the action was purely unilateral. "It might work in the primaries," he said, "but it will fail in the general election." Edwards rebutted that: "What I have said from the beginning was completely coherent and completely consistent.

The current go-it-alone policy is not working, candidate Edwards insisted. As proof: "Look at what happened this morning with Secretary Wolfowitz." What happened this morning with Secretary Wolfowitz? The Al-Rashid hotel was attacked with crude rockets from a truck while Wolfowitz was evidently in the building, but he was out speaking a few hours later. He seemed fine. (Then again, candidate Edwards is a tort lawyer, and thus might know something about being injured when you're not.)

Edwards came out strongly against the Patriot Act. Columnist George Will, on hand to help Steph, pointed out that he had voted for it. Edwards retorted that he liked a lot of things about it, but he did not like that it gives the attorney general the power to rifle through people's library records and book purchases. Will pointed out that they could do this before the Patriot Act was passed; it was used to hunt the Unibomber, for instance. Edwards said he opposed the "level of discretion it gives to the attorney general," invoking John Ashcroft as the enemy of the constituency to which Edwards wants to appeal.

Search warrants, Will pointed out. He still needs those. Or is he arguing that the judiciary can also be subverted via the Patriot Act. Edwards said that the "Attorney General can do some things without judicial permission."

The man's face is earnest. His voice quavers at the right pitch. His eyes seem to open up his heart to those who watch him. And everything he says is complete crap, yet I can understand why most people would want to believe him. I'm concerned that more people will see him.

Steph flashed the poll numbers, with Edwards stuck in the middle group. Edwards said he's competing in Iowa and can win that State's caucuses. He said that this year's New Hampshire primary was unusual, in that you had two candidates from adjacent States in the field: candidate Howie Dean of Vermont and Massachusetts' John-John Kerry. According to Edwards's polls, he says, he's currently in third place in the Granite State. And, of course, "more importantly [than the polls]," he said, "I see what's happening on the ground."

He is certain of winning South Carolina, and what's more: "I'm not going to lose this election. I'm going to be the Democrat nominee for President."

He could be trouble. He's a damnably good liar.

0 comments

Edwards, Lieberman, and Clarke

The Rightsided Newsletter has been published -- it's on the web site, if you want to see that version -- and there are a few more things about this morning's Talk Shows to discuss.

Candidate Joe Lieberman was bland but trying to attack on CBS's Face the Nation, while candidate John Edwards was brazen and bald-faced on ABC's This Week.

I've got errands, but I'll scribble about those items when I return, as well as former NSC staffer Dick "New Years Rockin' Eve" Clarke's peformance on This Week. That cat was nearly surreal.

Back in a few...
0 comments

The Talk Shows

Good morning. The most relevant word this morning will come from, I think, Paul Bremer, the chief civilian administrator on the ground in Iraq. He will be on Fox News Sunday, and we can expect host Tony Snow to give him an interview on which he can accentuate the positive developments in Iraq. What the media isn't telling us. He's also appearing on CBS's Face the Nation, where host Bob Schieffer might try to pin him down about "quagmire" and sixteen words. Based on his record of late, Steph should give Bremer a good interview on ABC's This Week.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lugar (R-Illinois) and Democrat ranking member Carl Levin (D-Michigan) are guests on CNN's Late Edition, and host Blitzer is one of the consistently worst interviewers on Sunday morning. Levin is always a negative droner, and do you remember that Lugar ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1996? He was good on foreign affairs, natch, and he was certainly more exciting than was Bob Dole. (That's a truism which probably does not bear repeating.)

Tim Russert, on NBC's Meet the Press, interviews Secretary of State Colin Powell. If he's true to his latest form, Russert will bring up settled matters and move on to ask the Secretary if he's stepping down for President Bush's second term.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Fristof Tennessee will step onto Fox News Sunday, and he's probably our best bet to get word on the passage of the ban on Partial Birth Abortion. It's a no-brainer in a civilized society, so what was the opposition.

Candidates Joe Lieberman and John Edwards will be on Face the Nation and This Week respectively. This makes sense, as Schieffer has always seemed to dig Lieberman to the exclusion of the other Dems, while Edwards is the most Clintonesque in the Dem field, thus arousing a stirring in Steph's loins.

I'll review the madness and the nonsense in the afternoon's Rightsided Newsletter, to which you can subscribe for free, no strings. Visit the web site, linked in this paragraph and on this page, or send a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe@topica.com.

0 comments

"Gee, Let's Have a March!"

Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (A.N.S.W.R.), and United for Peace and Justice are the two strange groups of muddled souls who organized today's anti-war rally in Washington, DC. The main point of their objections was that President Bush and his Administration "butchered the truth."

These clowns haven't thought it through. They were told the President lied and they should protest, and that's what they are doing. They cannot recite the lies, because there were none.

Anyway, Agence France Presse (AFP)/a> reported that "[s]ome 25,000 protesters rallied on Saturday in US cities against the US-led occupation of Iraq":

More than 20,000 leftists marched in Washington… [a]nd in San Francisco, more than 4,000 marched."

The 20,000 figure is ten times too high, but the "leftist" appellation is accurate. These people were protesting capitalism, not a war or the President except as far as they are symbols of capitalism.

That's the word from AFP, the French wire. The organizers had prematurely forecast 30,000 in DC alone.

Here is the tale the U.S. press told about turnout. This from Knight-Ridder:

The crowd appeared to be much smaller than the 30,000 people the organizers had predicted would attend the first major anti-war demonstration held in the nation's capital since Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq on May 1.

Here's this from the Associated Press:

Hundreds of people marched in San Francisco today in an anti-war demonstration that mirrored a larger one in Washington.

On source put it at 2,000 in Washington. Looking through headlines, I see numbers like 15,000 and terms like "busloads."

I am not writing this to make a point that the press exaggerated the numbers. Not even the French press. Our media has been fond of taken several score loudmouths and writing them up as thousands. The French probably want to see Americans rebel against President Bush, who shut Chirac up. National pride.

Before you spend any time angry at these anti-war protestors, please remember that there are not a lot of them. Things are going well.

Remember that tomorrow's Rightsided Newsletter is a review of the Sunday morning Talk Shows. It is free, no strings, and it's very easy to subscribe. Visit the web page, or send a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe@tripod.com. It's a good read. I promise. Knock on wood.

0 comments

Intelligence Scuffle

West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller, the ranking Dem on Senate Intelligence, whined Friday that committee Chairman Pat Roberts was skewing the committee's report on pre-war Iraq intelligence to focus on the CIA rather than the Bush Administration.

Speaking to Washpost reporter Dana Priestly on Friday, Roberts threw around terms like "sloppy" and said that the intelligence community "ill-served" the President. "I worry about the credibility of the intelligence community. If there's stuff on the fan, we have to get the fan cleaned," he's quoted in the Priestly piece.

Better yet: get a new fan.

[Note: When I typed "Priestly piece," it called to mind the demeanor, the inner peace of those nice ordained Franciscans on EWTN. If you talk to Father Angelus, tell him I was not referring to them.]

An Associated Press story has Roberts annoyed at Priestly on Saturday:

The Kansas Republican said his committee has not finished a report from its examination of prewar intelligence, contrary to a published article that said the panel is preparing a report highly critical of the intelligence.

Roberts said in a statement Friday that remarks he made to a Washington Post reporter were "mischaracterized" and quipped Saturday, "That means you shouldn't have talked to the reporter."

The Friday statement said that Priestly had twisted Roberts's statements "to support assertions and implications that are not accurate. … The committee has not finished its review of the intelligence and has not reached any final conclusions or finished a report".

On Saturday, Roberts spoke to about 40 editors and publishers from Kansas, where he said: "There is much more work to be done. I hope that we'll have a more definitive conclusion the next few months." The report is nowhere near the stage at which Priestly erroneously placed. Rockefeller and the others reacted to what a inept reporter wrote, not to fact.

This was about Priestly's whimsy surpassing the physical news.

But also on Saturday, Roberts told the editors and publishers: "Saddam Hussein did have a WMD. We do not know whether it was destroyed or dispersed or hidden, or in the worst-case scenario, shipped off shore." He also said: "I'm concerned by the lack of significant results to date, but I am going to resist the temptation to make any hasty predictions about the ultimate outcome of the findings. This is not an easy undertaking. Dr. Kay wants more time, and we need to give him that."

When asked if he thought Congress would have supported a war based on what is known now about the state of Saddam's erstwhile weapons program, Roberts said: "I don't know. Right now, we're seeing a lot of people who say that because we haven't found the specific evidence or the actual weaponry, that they would not have voted to go to war."

That's political. When they voted to authorize the use of troops before the war, they did not know for certainty that Saddam had the weapons locked-and-loaded. He might have. The argument of the Administration was that Saddam wanted those weapons, had not accounted for the destruction of some he did have, the world believes he has them, and we cannot wait to see what happens when we find out.

This is an uncertain world. If we reacted only to things which we knew were certain, skipping things we had reason to believe were certain, the uncertain would become certain when it punched us in the jaw.

0 comments

"IMMINENT Threat!"

The Washington Post obtained a draft copy of the Senate report placing most of the blame for "exaggeration," vis the Iraq war, on the CIA. The Dem's say that it was actually the White House which did the exaggerating.

I'll get into that later, but I recommend this George Will column from Thursday: George Will: Rumsfeld. The latter part of the column is relevant to this discusison. Here's an excerpt:

After all, they say, Rumsfeld, the president and Secretary of State Colin Powell repeatedly asserted that Iraq's weapons programs posed an ``imminent'' threat.

Such assertions by those three officials may have numbered ... zero. Rumsfeld is more bemused than angered, and certainly not shocked, that critics profess themselves shocked and angered because he, Powell and the president supposedly said, repeatedly, something that none of them actually ever said. At least, says a Rumsfeld aide, an electronic search finds not a single instance of them using the argument that Iraq posed an ``imminent'' WMD threat to the United States.

Which leaves me to ask, how much of this exaggeration came from the White House and how much was created by the hyper-reactive press, in a flush of manufactured panic?
0 comments

Sharpton Leads Amongst Blacks

This is from a National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) story taken from BlackPressUSA.com. The NNPA, which serves, it says, "more than 200 black newspapers," commissioned the Gallup organization to poll and analyze likely Democrat voters.

They surveyed 205 African Americans and found the Reverend Al Sharpton was favored by 22-percent. Trailing him by nine points was the second place finisher, General Wesley Clark. They talked to 1,075 whites, however, and Sharpton finished dead last, with 1-percent.

Joe Lieberman finished third amongst blacks with 12%, followed by Howie Dean with 8-percent. Carol Mosley Braun finished behind Dean with 7-perecent. But hold all the presses. The margin of error with blacks in the survey was, because of the sampling size, eight-percent. Sharpton complains:

"We still have the problem in this country of Whites voting for Blacks, whether it’s Al Sharpton for president, whether it’s Carl McCall for governor of New York,” Sharpton says. “Whereas we are willing as a community to vote for people other than us, we can’t get a breakthrough in real numbers in the White community."

The article cites University of Maryland political science professor Ron Walters, who worked for both of Jesse Jackson's campaigns, as pointing out that race explains only part of the problem. He argues that Sharpton has high negatives among people of all races, "and 22 percent in the Black community is not that impressive [for an African American candidate]." (In 1984, Jackson received 77% of the black vote, while he received 92% in 1988. Jackson doubled his support among whites, also, from 5 to 12-pecent.)

Walters also claims that people saw Jackson as the candidate "to fight back against Reaganism." Sharpton lacks that advantage, and one "can't manufacture social movements." This sentiment is perplexing. If African Americans saw Jackson as the candidate to combat President Reagan, why wouldn't they see Sharpton as the man to fight Bush? Unless, of course, he's speaking in broader, philosophical terms. Simply put, President Reagan had an "-ism." President Reagan fronted a social movement, if we want to use that term. President Bush lacks the -ism and the movement.

Also, the attacks against President Bush by his political opponents have been by several orders more savage than those against President Reagan by his. (Politics has since been Begalastized, but more on that later.)

I'll speculate that African Americans wanted to vote for one of their own of whom they could be proud as President. This is legitimate and understandable, and the Reverend Jackson fit their bill in '84 and '88. It seems -- and Dr. Walters hinted at this -- that Sharpton does not. It is more difficult for blacks to be proud of Sharpton.

It's a shame that blacks (and whites) could not take serious a candidate like Dr. Alan Keyes. It's a shame that liberalism is being taught in terms of racial pride. It does not belong there.

0 comments

The Revenge of Gray Davis

Good morning. Yesterday was an off-day for blogging, and part of it had to do with Iomega and a girl named Rachel. (My wife knows all about it….)

In California of late, much ado-making has gone on about: TRANSITION. Incoming Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is making nice and working with outgoing Governor Gray Davis. Transition. Transcript of Thursday's joint press conference.

Davis tells a camera that he advised Schwarzenegger to "just enjoy every moment. This is the best job you'll ever have. Even on the bad days, enjoy it." Those are interesting words from a man who was tossed from his job by voters voting in droves.

Arnold deadpanned to a camera: "The governor has been very gracious. He's been fantastic. I will need the governor's help in the future." Interesting words from a man who carried the banner for an electorate who wanted Davis as far away from the governor's mansion as possible.

Arnold's even becoming somewhat cuddly with California Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, a man who, just a few weeks ago, referred to the future governor as a nazi sex-pervert.

It's politics. No hard feelings.

But Davis would have his revenge. The Democrat-run State legislature would send him liberal bill after bill to sign at the last minute, making them law and leaving Schwarzenegger to deal with the often insipid consequences. (Same sex marriage-lite for employees of private companies who contract with the State?)

Recess appointments! According to this story from the Associated Press, "Davis has nominated nearly 90 people, including some of his top aides, to state posts since voters recalled him Oct. 7." These appointments must be confirmed by the State senate soon, because Schwarzenegger can withdraw the nominations once he takes office. (The current estimate for that day is November 17.)

The State senate is out-of-town, though Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, a Democrat, promised Davis that they'd come back to confirm nominations before Davis beat his retreat to the suburbs of Sacramento and liberal strongholds in northern California, directing guerilla-style political attacks at Republican forces working at reconstruction.

Many senators, however, do not want to reconvene to confirm so many appointments by a governor who was so recently removed by the voters of the State. Some State senate sources say they have made a deal with Schwarzenegger's folks that would have Arnold relinquishing his power to remove a dozen to fifteen of Davis's last minute nominations Schwarzenegger spokesman H.D. Palmer told the AP, though: "I'm not going to speculate on speculation."

Speculating on speculation. I've seen a lot of that here in the blogosphere, and it makes for fine and simulating reading. Did you know that Pete Wilson -- the Once and Future Governor? -- left Davis with 134 unconfirmed nominations? I don't know how many of them were last-minute nominatiosn and how many were victims of pre-Daschlean obstruction, a la some of President George W. Bush's nominees.

Arnold Schwarzenegger can "learn the ropes" from Pete Wilson. His campaign was laced with Wilson people, and so will be his administration. His chief of staff will be a former Wilson girl, Patricia Clarey. (Please note that I use the term "girl" neither derisively nor dismissively. It is meant merely to denote association.)

Davis is getting his sops, I speculate, in order for Schwarzenegger to appear to be bipartisan and working only in the interests of an ideological mish-mash the press might call fair. It's an image thing, a way of peddling a perception. And Davis may get his 12-15 nominees. (Wilson didn't get any from Davis.)

0 comments

Google IPO: A Return of the "Clinton Economy"?

"Initial IPO!" "Dot-com Boom!" "Tech-stocks!" "Wallstreet!" "Clinton!" "Rubin!" "Record Growth!"

The hoopla was fun while it lasted. Investment bankers funded companies with little real equity, and the paper floated into it burned. The artificial and temporary "prosperity" faced as reality hit the books, and it somehow began as Clinton's term was ending.

Cynthia L. Webb of the Washington Post sees a return of those halcyon months, in a fashion, when she writes Baking on Google in today's Washington Post. It turns out that the Financial Times sees Google going live with an IPO, which is a "a process that is likely to lead to a stock market listing by about March next year."

According to FT, Google will go with an electronic auction:

designed to prevent a recurrence of the sort of financial scandals that have engulfed Wall Street since the collapse of the dotcom bubble, according to a person close to the company.

It could also slash the underwriting fees paid to investment banks, the person added, and in the process help to break Wall Street's hold on the lucrative IPO business.

Google's estimated value is said to be $15-25-billion, with earnings of $150-million on revenues of $500-million."

Ms. Webb writes in the Washpost:

Why the obsession with Google? An IPO by the company is expected to rival any issued during tech's glorious ride in the late '90s, when investment bankers chomped at the bit to underwrite offerings and market valuations mushroomed. A Google IPO, the thinking seems to be, would return The Street to the age of Camelot.

The Age of Camelot on Wall Street, when companies were overvalued and the bubble was waiting to burst. As in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when Graham Chapman as King Arthur stands before a castle in the distance.

"Knights," he proclaims, "I bid you welcome to your new home! Let us ride… to Camelot!"

In echoed tones, the Knights of the Roundtable individually repeat: "Camelot!" The king's servant, Patsy, reminds then under his breath: "It's only a model." He's silenced with a "shhhh," and they break into song.

It's only a model. Maybe not, though, given the FT quote above, lifted almost verbatim by Webb. And also according to the British financial broadsheet:

An auction would allow all investors to bid for Google's shares directly, rather than leave it to an investment bank to decide on the price of the shares and who should receive them.
One person close to Google complained that Wall Street's existing method of selling shares allowed banks to set the prices of dotcom stock issues deliberately low, then hand them to favoured investment clients.

It seems possible that President Bush could benefit from the same dynamic over which Clinton's Administration had no control but on which is bases is own concept of self-worth. Only this time, unlike last time, the companies may have found a way to do it right.

0 comments

The Rest of the Axis of Evil

The United States and Europe have taken a stand against Iran, forcing the theocratic dictatorship to allow inspectors in to look at its nuclear program. The United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia, and the People's Republic of China are working on North Korea. The French wire service Agence France Presse (AFP) begins their little piece with these words:

After going it alone against Iraq, the United States is letting its allies take a lead role in the campaign against Iran and North Korea, the two other suspected weapons-proliferating members of the "Axis of Evil".

The United States, of course, did not "go it alone" against Saddam. And even with UNSC approval, the invasion force would not have looked significantly different. The United States would have led and provident the bulk of the troops and materiel because the United States is the only country who could do so.

The United States has the lead in North Korea, and that is what North Korea demands. Pyongyang has repeatedly stated that it wants to deal with Washington one-on-one, lending it a certain air of importance, in Pyongyang's backwards mode of thought, of having dealt personally with the superpower.

The French story continues:

Now he seems to want to avoid further isolation.

But Bush must tread carefully in this policy to reconcile US objectives and the anxieties of his allies, according to US experts.

The United States was never isolated, remaining in the foreground before, during, and after the war. And it is the allies, it seems, who are treading carefully in this policy to reconcile the differences.

Of Iran and North Korea, the French write:

In both cases the US policy of "pre-emptive strikes" and "regime change" against anything that threatens the United States has been pushed to one side, at least for now.

Preemption was never the U.S. policy in regards to Iran or North Korea. The doctrine of preemption does not include the necessity of preemption in all cases. But it seems that the French journalists are as dim as many of our own here in the States.

The experts cited by the AFP to back its case do the opposite.

"I think the Iraqi case had its own momentum and its own rationale," said Helmut Sonnenfeldt at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

AND:

"The Bush administration deserves a lot of credit for forcing the issue [of Iran's nuclear program] and for bringing it to the IAEA," said [Joseph Cirincione, disarmament specialist at the Carnegie Endowment].

The President is still doing his thing.
0 comments

Five More Minutes for Joe Wilson

Former Ambassador Joe Wilson is the guy who tried to tell us that he spent 12-hours in Niger, was told by the government that they did not try to sell yellow cake to Saddam Hussein, and went home and submitted the report to the CIA. He further claims that he knows as a certainty that CIA Director George Tenet and even Vice President Dick Cheney read the report.

He claims that despite his efforts, President Bush intentionally lied in the Sixteen Words, ignoring what the important report from the important Joe Wilson which everyone read and knew to be certain proof. (We stopped, briefly, in Joe Wilson's dream world.)

He ran around saying that he wanted to "frog-march" Karl Rove. He implicated Rove in leaking his wife's name -- Valerie Plame, a CIA analyst -- to conservative columnist Robert Novak.

He went on CBS's Face the Nation one recent Sunday morning and claimed to host Bob Schieffer that his wife had received credible information that her life was in danger, that she was at the most risk of terrorism of anyone in the United States, and the Bush Administration had refused to provide security. (He had not mentioned this in his other Sunday morning interviews.) [blog entry from October 5[

Joe Wilson said that he was going to use his 15-minutes of fame to see to it that President Bush was not reelected. He claimed he was angry with Bush after the President had repudiated an earlier speech he had made at the Reagan Library as a candidate. In this space -- Bush's Speech at the Reagan Library -- we found that this line was a fabrication, as well.

On C-SPAN, Joe Wilson had said that he was politically liberal and that he had donated $1,000 to the campaign of candidate John Kerry. On Thursday, Wilson tried to sneak back into the spotlight by formally endorsing Kerry.

His big thing? He praised Kerry for being a fellow war protestor:

"John Kerry did the same thing after he came out of Vietnam, I did it at the age of 53 ... with a long and distinguished career behind me. John Kerry did it at the very beginning of his career.

"I know how these sorts of things test one's mettle. To have stood up and said what he did, at the time that he did, in my judgment, sets him apart from the other candidates."

Protesting tests one's mettle? From what universe is this man operating?

Joe Wilson, 53, thinks of himself as an Iraq War protestor. Would a peacenik have been believed had he traveled to Pyongyang and returned to tell us that the North Vietnamese did not want to take Saigon?

Joe Wilson is a silly man. It speaks miles about the gullibility of a certain segment of our population that the man has received so much press as if credible.

0 comments

Rumsfeld's Memorandum Revisited

More is being said about the memo Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent to four subordinates, so let's take another look.

Yesterday, I scribbled an entry I called Rumsfeld's Memo (the memo itself is there, as well). I concluded:

Secretary Rumsfeld took his post with aspirations to streamline the Department of Defense and the military, tailoring it to best prepare to fight a new, post-Soviet global set of threats. This memo is thinking along those lines, with questions as points of consideration and discussion. The questions are asked to gain intellectual input, not to express any specific sense of panic. If problems spring up, or could occur, they are dealt with.

But candidate John Kerry, who should know of this management technique, quickly spouted:

"I think it confirms what I've been saying all along, which is that they don't have a plan, they're not doing this right and if the secretary is now admitting privately what many have been saying publicly, it raises very serious questions about his leadership and the president's leadership."

Secretary Rumsfeld verified my assumption:

"I don't think that anyone who has ever come in to a position like secretary of defense is asked to cage their brain and stop thinking. And that's what we're here for, to try to think in the best interests of the American people, and to ask the kind of questions that are important and are probing and it seems to me that's a very constructive, useful thing to do."

Donald Rumsfeld is a brilliant, thoughtful, and intellectually curious man. Those three adjectives do not apply to most mainstream journalists. This is exceedingly apparent in the manner in which they treated an internal memo. Secretary Rumsfeld wants his subordinates to think, and to think deeply. Myers, Armitage, Pace, and Feith are capable of such thought. The press, for the most part, is just not equipped.

0 comments

Candidate Dennis Kucinich is Still Running

I was surprised to discover this afternoon that candidate Dennis Kucinich is still running for the Democrat presidential nomination. I received this bulk e-mail from the campaign concerning how it expects to put its boy "over the top."

I offer this copy of the mailing, cleaned of URLs, not as a poli sci lesson; rather, it is a curiosity. I wonder if they are going to retrofit a campaign bus to consume hemp rather than standard fuel.

The Kucinich campaign is spreading in so many ways, that you can now participate by walking, marching, singing, or even sitting in your chair. Read on.
WALKING

Jonathan Meier's walk from the Atlantic to the Pacific has left Maine and headed into New Hampshire, where Jonathan was met and encouraged by Dennis himself. Supporters are walking miles with Jonathan as he passes through their areas. Volunteers from 41 states have offered to join the walk when it arrives in their regions.

A Kucitizen from San Francisco was so inspired by Jonathan's walk that he came up with a way to participate without leaving his chair. Keep reading.

MARCHING

Rallies and marches to end the occupation of Iraq and bring the troops home are being organized in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and many other cities around the country for this Saturday, Oct. 25.

Wear a Kucinich shirt to one of these marches. Bring Kucinich stickers to stick on supporters. Download and photocopy a huge supply of these flyers to hand out:

Peace Flyer, Support the Troops Flyer, Peace Video Flyer

And make your own large creative signs. Here's a good basic theme:

"Kucinich Says: UN in, US out of Iraq!"

If you can't make it to a march, you can hold a house party to raise funds for the campaign. And it's not too early to start planning for a big day of Bring-Home-the-Troops parties on November 11, Veterans' Day. Order a free house-party kit:

SINGING

If you're in New Mexico on Sunday, you can catch Michelle Shocked's benefit concert for the campaign from noon to 5:30 p.m. in the Oscar Huber Memorial Ball Park on Route 14 in Madrid, N.M. Call 505-501-2606. Speaking of music, check out this interview of Dennis Kucinich in the new Rolling Stone:

SITTING IN YOUR CHAIR

This Sunday evening, why not gather together at the home of someone with cable TV and watch the next Democratic candidates' debate on Fox News (check your local listings). Remember to keep track of the minutes given each candidate and the accuracy of commentators' remarks after the debate, and politely express any concerns to [Fox News]. Remember also to pass the hat for the campaign!

AN INSPIRATION

"Dear Jonathan, Thank you for the inspiration and the beautiful example you're providing as you begin the 'Walk for Dennis'," wrote Bill H. of San Francisco. "I'm writing to offer a word of encouragement." Bill went on to suggest that if Jonathan could walk across the nation, people all over the nation could contribute $50 from the comfort of their chairs. "$50 is less than the cost of a night at the movies (with popcorn and drinks) for a family of four. And with U.S. war-related expenditures now exceeding $1,500 per American per year, it's clear that $50 would be a wise and timely investment in a more sustainable and peaceful future..May peace and hope accompany you...and I'll look forward to walking with you and Suzette."

RUNNING OUT OF STICKERS AND BUTTONS

Materials are flying off the shelves and we need $20,000 to restock. Help us reach that goal!

YARD SIGNS NEEDED

Supporters want signs in their yards, but yard signs cost money. Help us raise $20,000 for signs!

FILING IN EVERY STATE

We're putting Dennis Kucinich's name on the ballot in all 50 states, but the filing fees are costly. We need $30,000 and know you can help us reach that mark!

SO MANY MEETINGS

With MeetUps and house parties mushrooming, it takes dollars to provide every meeting with a CD full of useful materials. We can do so if we raise $50,000 for this project.

Please note their curious use of the term "house parties mushrooming. (Certain species of the wild species are used by a certain societal sector for their hallucinogenic qualities.)

I'm torn between Kucinich , Clark, and Dean as the ideal Dem candidates against whom to run. Sharpton or Mosley-Braun would be bad, as they could try to turn the election into a contest involving something else, and those two are fond of unfairly placing the GOP on the downside of that issue.

0 comments

Vacation in Havana

Senators Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho) are doing their part to see that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has the money he needs on hand to facilitate a smooth transition to another dictator in the event of his death. (That is one way of putting it, anyway.)

They offered an end to the ban as an amendment to the fiscal 2004 Transportation and
Treasury spending bill (HR 2989J), which the Senate refused to table, 36-59, and then passed by a voice vote. The House passed a similar end to the ban on September 9, 227-188. The White House warned against these attempts.

Dorgan opined: "The best approach for dealing with communist countries is engagement."

Craig added: "Ten per cent of the OFAC [the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control] budget is used to track down little old grandmas from the West Coast who, through a Canadian travel agency, chose to bike in Cuba."

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) retorted: "Why should we now open up travel to Cuba to give additional cash flow to the Castro regime? It is a cash-starved dictatorship, and no matter what anyone says, opening the doors to American tourism will feed that dictatorship."

The White House offered: "The administration believes that it is essential to maintain sanctions and travel restrictions to deny economic resources to the brutal Castro regime."

Now, any human being with an ounce of respect for their fellow man would refuse to vacation in or patronize la Republica de Cuba, but our national security does not depend on our government forcing people to stay away.

Trade sanctions are a different matter, as foreign trade is in the Constitutional purview of Congress.
0 comments

United Nation's Lack of Security at Fault

The New York Times said today (Thursday), in a 40-page report, that an "independent panel appointed to investigate the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad in August said on Wednesday in a scathing report that security breaches, inadequate security analysis and poor management left the organization vulnerable to attack."

The committee which faulted the U.N. was appointed by Kofi Annan and led by former Finnish president Martii Ahtisaari, known as "Yasser Arafat's favorite European diplomat" for his pro-terror investigation into Israel's April incursion into Jenin.

Directly after the August bombing, an imperious Annan was quick to blame it on the United States:

"The occupying power is responsible for law and order and the security of the country, We had hoped that by now the coalition forces would have secured the environment for us to be able to carry on the essential work of political and economic reconstruction, institution-building and for Iraqis to carry on with their work."

Kofi's independent panel, however, faulted the U.N. for rejecting offers of protection from the United States.

The other members of the Ahtisaari team were Peter Fitzgerald, deputy commissioner of the Irish national police, who was a police advisor to the pro-P.L.O. U.N. Jenin panel; Jaakko Taneli Oksanen, a brigadier-general in the Finnish army; and Claude Bruderlein of Switzerland, director of the program on humanitarian policy and conflict research at Harvard University. In an April 9 Washington Post chat, Bruderlein argued: " It is the duty of the Occupying Power to ensure law and order in the territory under its control."

The chat was ostensibly, according to Bruderlein, about "the laws of war," which can be assumed to include occupation. Why did the Ahtissari findings not only stand square against what both Kofi and a panel member had said was a U.N. law of war, but also reversed a fairly consistent pattern of "blame the U.S. as the aggressor" from the United Nations? What irked the Europeans to issue an uncharacteristic ultimatum to Iran, demanding that the Middle Easter theocratic dictatorship regarding its nuclear program?

There is a dynamic at work here, and we can be certain that it was generated by non-public words and actions on the part of President Bush. What we are seeing is something lacking in the international community in the 1990's, and that is a genuine respect for the needs, wishes, and demands of the United States of America. This respect is necessary to influence would-be terror-supporting states, and thus to thwarting the terrorists.

0 comments

It's... Boob Bait for Bubbas

Good morning. This was something which so violates the conscience of humanity as to forge a unanimity from an almost always staid group of men and women, the world's greatest debating society: the United States Senate. For this cause, the factional became fractious.

Setting the tone, Senator Conrad Burns steamed: "I don't go to a town hall meeting, I don't meet a friend who doesn't say, 'Take care of that spam." Everywhere he went, the people who had been trained to rely upon the government to fix their boo-boos and make the meanies go away were demanding an end to this nuisance.

Did the Senate contemplate this notion? Did they really ask themselves if the were Constitutionally empowered to BAN SPAM? Of course not! People were pissed, and the mob was on the move. With their pitchforks held high and the torches ablaze, the U.S. Senate was damn well going to burn witches!

S. 877: the CAN SPAM Act of 2003 passed the Senate 97-0, uniting such temporary bubbas as Ted Kennedy and Rick Santorum. The "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003" penalizes those who send spam:

Any person who initiates the transmission, to a protected computer in the United States, of an unsolicited commercial electronic mail message, with knowledge and intent that the message contains or is accompanied by header information that is materially false or materially misleading shall be fined or imprisoned for not more than 1 year, or both, under this title. For purposes of this subsection, header information that is technically accurate but includes an originating electronic mail address the access to which for purposes of initiating the message was obtained by means of false or fraudulent pretenses or representations shall be considered materially misleading.

There is no real way to catch these obnoxious e-mailers, be they weight controllers, phallus enlargers, or deposed dictators seeking access to your checking account, but the had to do something. Said the maverick Senator John McCain (R-Arizona): "[F]or us to do nothing would be a great disservice" to those constituents on whose money they relay to run reelection campaigns. So they did something, albeit it was nothing they are empowered to do. (It is going nowhere in the House.)

As McCain implied, it was a largely symbolic gesture, but it was Congress attempting to stick its sticky fingers into the internet. Nowhere does Congress derive the power to restrict this kind of commercial speech. (As unseemly as spam is, it is essentially commercial speech.) Let the government pass laws regarding one aspect of the internet, and the fat foot is in the regulatory door. The internet is vibrant and living precisely because government is not empowered to constrain it or force it to fit the "planners' model." Let the internet be anarchy.

But mostly, governments loves to united and pass laws against nuisances. It stirs naïve populist passions and gets well-intentioned dullards all fired up. This bill, like the doNOTcall list before it, is what the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called "Boob Bait for Bubbas."

This bill has not passed the House. Before the Senate reacts to such base impulses to enact laws in the future, they should consider their actions vis-à-vis the Republic, and resign.

0 comments

Senate Passes SPAM Ban

Here's this article: U.S. Senate Passes Anti-Spam Bill: Calls for the Federal Trade Commission to Implement a No-Spam Registry.

With an angry mob mentality, carrying metaphorical torches and pitchforks, the Senate Wednesday pass, 97-0, S. 877: the CAN SPAM Act of 2003. It's a cute acronym for: "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003."

SPAM is annoying. SPAM is often disgusting. No one likes SPAM, and well-intentioned people who have come to trust there government to take care of all that ills them have demanded that their Senators and Representatives DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

Congress is not Constitutionally empowered to regulate something simply because it is unpopular. If this becomes law, Congress will have their hands on the internet.

To borrow a phrase from the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-New York), this bill is "boob bait for bubbas."
0 comments

Babs Boxer's Mistake

Last Wednesday, October 15, Senator Babs Boxer introduced Amendment No. 1844 -- "To require a report on replacing U.S. troops with Iraqi forces or other non-U.S. forces in secure areas of Iraq" -- which passed by a voice vote. The initial story is from the Associated Press, but it didn't tell the full, sordid tale.

The offending provision reads:

(2) On September 9, Deputy Secretary of Defense John Wolfowitz testified, ``. . . the predominantly Shia south [of Iraq] has been stable and I would say far more stable than most pre-war predications would have given you.

The nodus: There is no Deputy Secretary of Defense named John Wolfowitz. The such deputy named Wolfowitz is Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.

In her defense, Babs is not the only low wattage type to refer to Paul as John. A Google search reveals that press in Brazil, Germany, and Turkey all did the same, once. But their news stories were not introduced in and passed by the United States Senate.

Asked about the matter today, Babs denied having anything to do with the mistake then quipped: "Maybe John would be easier to work with than Paul."

And that's that.
0 comments

Rumsfeld's Memo

The press is having fun with an October 16 memo sent by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to his subordinates: Joint Chiefs Chairman General Richard Myers, deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Joint Chiefs Vice-Chairman General Pete Pace, and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith. The media has the Secretary questioning progress, questioning effectiveness, and coming away with a "grim outlook."

Here is the memo, as lifted from Usatoday.com:

The questions I posed to combatant commanders this week were: Are we winning or losing the Global War on Terror? Is DoD changing fast enough to deal with the new 21st century security environment? Can a big institution change fast enough? Is the USG changing fast enough?

DoD has been organized, trained and equipped to fight big armies, navies and air forces. It is not possible to change DoD fast enough to successfully fight the global war on terror; an alternative might be to try to fashion a new institution, either within DoD or elsewhere — one that seamlessly focuses the capabilities of several departments and agencies on this key problem.

With respect to global terrorism, the record since Septermber 11th seems to be:
We are having mixed results with Al Qaida, although we have put considerable pressure on them — nonetheless, a great many remain at large.

USG has made reasonable progress in capturing or killing the top 55 Iraqis.
USG has made somewhat slower progress tracking down the Taliban — Omar, Hekmatyar, etc.

With respect to the Ansar Al-Islam, we are just getting started.

Have we fashioned the right mix of rewards, amnesty, protection and confidence in the US?
Does DoD need to think through new ways to organize, train, equip and focus to deal with the global war on terror?

Are the changes we have and are making too modest and incremental? My impression is that we have not yet made truly bold moves, although we have have made many sensible, logical moves in the right direction, but are they enough?

Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?

Does the US need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists? The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions.

Do we need a new organization?

How do we stop those who are financing the radical madrassa schools?

Is our current situation such that "the harder we work, the behinder we get"?
It is pretty clear that the coalition can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog.

Does CIA need a new finding?

Should we create a private foundation to entice radical Madrassas to a more moderate course?

What else should we be considering?

Please be prepared to discuss this at our meeting on Saturday or Monday.

Secretary Rumsfeld took his post with aspirations to streamline the Department of Defense and the military, tailoring it to best prepare to fight a new, post-Soviet global set of threats. This memo is thinking along those lines, with questions as points of consideration and discussion. The questions are asked to gain intellectual input, not to express any specific sense of panic. If problems spring up, or could occur, they are dealt with.

0 comments

When Kofi Speaks…

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, seemingly pleading the French case, delivered ninth annual H.J. Heinz Company Foundation Distinguished Lecture at the University of Pittsburgh. (Note: Candidate John Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz-Kerry runs the Heinz Family Foundation, not this one.)

His audience Tuesday was mostly Pitt students and faculty, and Kofi's people called it a "major policy address." Kofi decreed that diplomatic and not military is the force which moves the world. This statement is a dangerous lie, as a century's diplomatic failures have taught, but military power can now be effectively used by only one nation on Earth. The only thing these people have to stop the United States, should this country suddenly go on a colony-hungry spree of conquest, is paper. France and others want to use this paper to build a counterforce to U.S. interests, and Chirac and the poet DeVillepin foresee France at its heart.

It's a dream built on paper, and it seems to me to become increasingly pathetic as they are forced to concede more and more as situations arise when they require the military might of the United States.

A good place to look for coverage of Kofi's cry-for-help is the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which quotes Kofi as complaining that:

many people find it troubling and confusing when the United States appears to abandon the very international instruments that bear its mark and are so closely identified with the ideals and objectives inspired by this country.

"The war in Iraq upset a great many people, because they saw two permanent members of the Security Council taking military action without the support of the Council as a whole, or of the wider membership of the United Nations."

Kofi's missing something big, here. When the U.S. and Britain acted without the permission of the United Nations Security Council, they did so because they had no other choice. The U.N.S.C. was once again proving that it is not a workable option for solving the problems of member states.

The United States and Britain did not bypass the U.N.S.C.; in fact, they made every effort to have the Security Council sign on to the effort, to prove that it was relevant to a world in which the main security problem is international terrorism. Instead, the Security Council chose to reinforce the obvious: that another grave threat to international security would be an all-powerful United Nations Security Council.

Here's a case in point from the Post-Gazette news article:

The visit was not without protest, although only a handful of demonstrators passed out leaflets. Students from the Pitt Hillel Society distributed flyers calling on Annan to speak out against the detention of three Israeli soldiers who were seized by suspected Hezbollah members in a U.N.-secured zone along the Israel-Lebanon border earlier this month.

Annan will not condemn this, because he is on the side of the terrorists. He condemns Israel's unilateral defensive actions and condones the slaughter perpetrated by Hamas, Hezbollah, al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (P.F.L.P.). (The delirious Bob Graham knows the list and says that they were more dangerous than a locked and loaded Saddam Hussein.) They get a pass, and that is how the Security Council works.

0 comments

Wictory Wednesday

Today is PoliPundit's "Wictory Wednesday." I am not certain why it's a "Wictory," unless it's that all the world loves alliteration, but this is the day every week on which we are reminded of how important it is to reelect Bush/Cheney next year, and to remember that we can be a part of this effort.

We can donate some money via this particular secure server, and/or we can volunteer to be a "Bush Team Leader" using this different but equally important secure server. Everything helps.

Here are those who've volunteered to carry this message, in whatever form, on this "Wictory Wednesday":

Backcountry Conservative
Boots and Sabers
Bowling for Howard
Dean
BushBlog.us (unofficial blog)
Bush-Cheney 2004 (unofficial
blog)
ExPostFacto
Freedom of Thought
The Hedgehog Report
The Irish Lass
Jarhead
Jeremy Kissel
Left Coast
Conservative
Matt Margolis
The Ole Miss Conservative
PoliPundit
Political Annotation
A Rice Grad
Ryne McClaren
Slublog
Southern Conservatives
Stephen Blythe
Viking Pundit
The Wise Man Says


0 comments

A possible veto of funding for Iraq

A letter from O.M.B. director Joshua Bolton to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young (R-Florida), ranking Dem Representative David Obey (D-Wisconsin), Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), and ranking Dem Senator Bobby Byrd (D-West Virginia) contains the following paragraph:

Given the critical need, the Administration strongly opposes the Senate provision that would convert a portion of this assistance to a loan mechanism. If this provision is not removed, the President's senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill. [Ital added] Including a loan mechanism slows efforts to stabilize the region and to relieve pressure on our troops, raises questions about our commitment to building a democratic and self-governing Iraq, and impairs our ability to encourage other nations to provide badly needed assistance without saddling Iraq with additional debt. The sooner freedom and democracy take root in Iraq and Afghanistan, the sooner these countries will cease to be havens for terror groups and the safer America and the world will be.

This is essentially a veto threat.

The Senate passed a version of the $87-billion supplemental appropriations bill which would make half of the $20-billion reconstruction money a loan to the Iraqis contingent on other countries forgiving old Iraqi debt, while the House passed a version with the entire amount as a grant. Monday, however, the House passed, 277-139, a Democrat motion to rebuke the President and instruct House conferees to go along with the Senate version. The conferees can ignore this, as it is non-binding and was little more than a bit of dull drama.

I found a juicy quote from Senator Stevens regarding today's House motion: "This doesn't affect it at all." (That's as titillating as we're going to get with this.)

All other things being equal, the Senate will push its version, with the loan provision, in conference and the House will push what it passed, without the loans. The House now as an extra chit, in the form of director Bolton's letter, and will likely prevail.

It will soon be on the President's desk for signature, as will S. 3, the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. This passed the Senate today, 64-34. Senator Babs Boxer (D-California) protested: "This is indeed a historic day, because for the first time in history Congress is banning a medical procedure that is considered medically necessary by physicians." Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, an actual physician, called the procedure "morally reprehensible" and said that it was never necessary to preserve the life of a mother.

The procedure itself is particularly grotesque, and it would be nice to think that no lawmaker with any humanity would support such butchery, but they are at least willing to look past the procedure. They see a ban on this type of inhuman infanticide as the first of what they fear will be a series of restrictions which will weaken Roe v. Wade. There is that goal, but it's difficult to hold that concern immediate in the face of the procedure the Senate today voted to proscribe.

0 comments

South Carolina Dem Poll Shows Sharpton Strength

Charlie Cook mentions the results of a new Democracy Corp poll in South Carolina, the next major primary -- on a day with others -- chronologically after New Hampshire:

It was the Democracy Corps poll in South Carolina that was the most interesting, perhaps because we have seen less polling in the Palmetto State than in Iowa and New Hampshire. In South Carolina, Sen. John Edwards -- who hails from neighboring North Carolina -- held the first place slot with 14 percent, but Gephardt was just a point behind at 13 percent, with Clark another point behind him at 12 percent. Lieberman was in fourth place at 11 percent, Dean was tied for fifth place with the Rev. Al Sharpton at 10 percent, and the rest of the field was in single digits.

That shows Lieberman within striking distance, which is part of why he said he withdrew from the Iowa caucuses. But could the no-show in Iowa backfire in SC?

That's a tight bunch, with Sharpton and Clark only four points off Edwards. With a strong grassroots effort, we could see a Sharpton upset in South Carolina. (I'm snickering, yes, but one never knows.)
0 comments

Is Gephardt the New Threat?

Good morning. The Washpost's Jim VandeHei -- I assume the paper is using his actual name -- Dick Gephardt is the Dem some members of the GOP establishment fear most. VaneHei spoke to fewer than 24 such Republicans -- "Republican strategists, lawmakers and state chairmen across the country, including several close to the White House" -- but "many" of them cited Gephardt's consistent support for the war in Iraq, his Midwestern roots, and his support by the labor union leadership. (GOP Sees Gephardt as Toughest Rival for Bush) "They also cited his health care plan, experience and discipline as key factors." (Gephardt hasn't sold his health care plan, has no executive experience, and is often perceived as undisciplined and out-of-control, such as wearing Braveheart inspired makeup to a press conference while declaring "war" on President Bush's tax cut.)

The finance chair of the Republican National Congressional Committee (RNCC), Representative Mike Rogers (D-Michigan, says: "When [we] look at the whole picture and who can get [Democrats] there . . . people are saying Gephardt is the biggest threat." Note that Rogers is from Michigan, a State wherein labor unions wield a disproportionate amount of influence, and that his views are probably somewhat colored by his personal experience with those in his own district and State. Unions are a fading force in national politics, but this might not be as apparent to a Michigan Congressman.

He cites several "senior Bush administration officials" as pointed out that Gephardt lines up better culturally with the President than do the other Dems, because he's not perceived as an "eastern liberal elitist," like are John Kerry and Howie Dean.

Gephardt matches up best only if you discount candidate John Edwards, which has become increasingly easy to do as his campaign drifts nowhere. VandeHei gives him only a brief mention, say that Edwards "lags far behind the other candidates in the field."

I'm with McInturff and Luntz, with a more professional assessment:

Bill McInturff, a GOP pollster, said he thinks Gephardt would be a weak candidate because he has called for a repeal of the Bush tax cuts. And Frank Luntz, a former GOP pollster who has conducted focus groups for MSNBC, said Gephardt "falls absolutely flat" with voters because he is seen as too political.

Gephardt's highest-profile job, we must remember, was as House Minority Leader during the extremely partisan period after the GOP won control of the House and Clinton and his boyz were casting stones from the White House.

It looks to me as if the Times asked for a sexy politics story with some exciting new trend in the Democrat race, and VandeHei simply interviewed people and made something up. Everybody wants a story, I suppose.

(If anyone from the Times happens to be reading this, I apologize if I gave the impression that I think everything associated with your newspaper his laced with half-witted fabrication. As I'm typing, I am listening to the internet stream of WQXR -- "The classical music station of the New York Times -- so you get a bye on that.)
0 comments

Secretary Snow and Interest Rates

Read this paragraph from a piece in Monday's Times of London:

Given the American economy’s new-found strength, Mr [U.S. Treasury Secretary John] Snow said he would be “frustrated and concerned” if there were not some upward movement in rates. Expectations of tighter US monetary policy began to take hold on Wall Street last week after speeches from two senior Federal Reserve officials, which drew attention to the exceptionally wide gap between today’s low interest rates and the US economy’s booming growth rate.

This was bound to set off a few alarms, and the British paper added that, while Secretary Snow does not set monetary policy, "his comments implied that the Bush Administration was preparing for much higher rates in the election year ahead."

According to several reports, analysts are claiming a 7-percent growth rate for the 3rd quarter of this year. This is not a "Bush recession." This is not a "sluggish economy." (The growth rate for 1999 was 4.2-percent.)

Bond traders evidently took into consideration that Snow has breakfast every week with Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, concluded this might be upcoming policy, and got out, leading to an early fall in bond prices.

The White House was quick to point out that Snow was speaking on behalf of himself only, with spokesman Trent Duffy telling the Reuters wired: "Secretary Snow was not making a policy statement, only an observation that as the economy strengthens, it is likely that interest rates could rise." That's pretty basic stuff.

The problem with Snow among some circles is not the veracity of what he said, but the timing and the feeling that a Treasury Secretary should not be talking about interest rates when they are in the purview of the Fed.

I would not have mentioned this except that a thought occurred. If the economy were as described by the politicking Dems, Snow's remarks would have been treated as delusional and he would have been laughed out of the room. It's time these Dems faced the reality and adapted to it: the economy is going to grow more in the near term and more and more robust as November 2, 2004 draws near.

Then again, they are carping more about Iraq now. They are going to need some luck, though, in that David Kay cannot find anything which they cannot trivialize and the Iraqis must react poorly to liberty and increasing stability. The Dems have to hope for the worst, and there is nothing new about that.

0 comments

The Bush Administration Had Iraq Plan

I think a New York Times piece from Sunday -- State Dept. Study Foresaw Trouble Now Plaguing Iraq -- is worth considering, but not for the nefarious reason it was written.

The Times story begins:

A yearlong State Department study predicted many of the problems that have plagued the American-led occupation of Iraq, according to internal State Department documents and interviews with administration and Congressional officials.

The piece then goes on list various points that were made in this pre-war State Department report, most of which hindsight would call exactly prescient.

After the story was published Sunday morning, they discussed it on the Sunday AM Talk Shows. Here's this from yesterday's Rightsided Newsletter:

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) appeared with rank--and-file Intelligence Committee member Carl Levin (D-Michigan) to discuss these matters on [CBS's Face the Nation, in the segment following Powell. Chairman Roberts, who has read the State Department report discussed in the Times article, said that it deals more in "philosophies" and abstractions than the concrete "implementation" preferred by the Pentagon. He did, however, say that the report was helpful in Iraq now, and that Paul Bremer, chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, had a copy of the report on a CD-ROM, which disk had been distributed to "everyone involved." Levin, still in a somewhat foul mood, said that he found it "troubling" that Secretary Powell did not know how the report was being used by the Pentagon. (Perhaps Levin's usual brash criticism was tempered by knowledge that he voted for the $87-billion, and perhaps that might be why some did not: so they could continue to speak out recklessly against the everything the President does or requests.)

The Times article concludes:

The groups' ideas may not have been fully incorporated before the war, but they are getting a closer look now. Many of the Iraqi ministers are graduates of the working groups, and have brought that experience with them. Since last spring, new arrivals to Mr. Bremer's staff in Baghdad have received a CD-ROM version of the State Department's 13-volume work. "It's our bible coming out here," said one senior official in Baghdad.

Now, we've been told, by Democrats ranging from Joe Biden to Ted Kennedy, that the Bush Administration went into Iraq with no plan for how to handle the country post-Saddam. This "no plan" mantra has been a central them of their criticism of the Administration. It turns out that the Administration not only had generated a 13-volume plan, but they had also reproduced it on CD-ROM. The Bush Administration had expended time and effort into forecasting what they would fact in post-Saddam Iraq; it was not a blind rush.

0 comments

MacArthur Park is Melting in the Dark…

Good morning. Candidates Joe Lieberman and Wes Clark have announced that they are skipping the Iowa January 19 caucuses. Lieberman's people say that want to concentrate staff on a State which is more Lieberman-like, such as Arizona (February 3). Lieberman himself, on Sunday's This Week, suggested South Carolina --- also February 3 -- but staff may have already conceded that one to "local boy" John Edwards of South Carolina.

In the meantime, Clark's people say that they do not have the time to build sufficient organization in Iowa to get people to the caucuses, but last week, they hired Graham's girl -- a noted Iowa State get-out-the-vote operative -- and moved her out of State.

Adam Nagourney in the New York Times quotes -- in typical Times fashion -- a "senior Clark advisor":

What we'll do is what I call the General MacArthur strategy," a senior Clark adviser said. "General MacArthur was very successful in World War II because he skipped over the Japanese strongholds, where they were more organized, and instead picked islands that were favorable or neutral terrain. Which means we would choose not to focus resources on Iowa and instead focus them on New Hampshire and on Feb. 3," when there are Democratic contests in seven states.

This "Senior Clark advisor" has dead generals on his mind, which cannot bode well for General Clark's political future.

Another of Wesley's boyz, campaign spokesman Matt Bennett, told the Washpost:

"Let's face it: We're running against essentially two favorite sons," Bennett said. "So we want to do well in New Hampshire, but we are not setting the bar too high. We want to do well and come out as the clear alternative to whoever is in the lead at that time."

What do Iowans make of this? From the Times piece, this time attributed to an actual person:

"That [skipping the caucuses] would be very unwise," said Gordon Fischer, the Democratic state chairman. "That strategy has not worked before: Al Gore tried it in 1988 and John McCain tried in 2000. It didn't work for either of them, and I predict it will not work again."

If Al Gore had won the Democrat nomination in 1988, he would have lost the general election to Vice President George Bush, but his elected political career would have been finished -- you get only one chance these days -- and he may never have penned Earth in the Balance. You have to know that if Lieberman and Clark -- a new take on America's westward explorers -- do not win their party's nomination, we can expect political books. Maybe not one as obscene as Gore's, but…

Conceding in Iowa is a sign that your campaign is not completely healthy, but with so many delegates chosen so early, the first is not as do-or-die as it has been.

But this is Clark and Lieberman, who are about on a par with Gore '88 and McCain '00, gong nowhere in particular fast.

0 comments

Dean Seeks New Citizenship Rule.. sort of

When speaking to Arab-American Democrats on Saturday, according to a Reuter's piece, candidate Howie Dean revoked the citizenship of several Americans in absentia.

Pointing to an American flag, he declared: "It does not belong to General Boykin or John Ashcroft, or Rush Limbaugh or Jerry Falwell, or Pat Robertson!" In one fell swoop, he pretended to exile a military officer, a popular entertainer, two religious leaders, and the co-sponsor of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

The flag did not belong to them, Dean proclaimed, but "this flag belongs to every single American, including every single American in this room, and is the hope and aspiration for many other folks who are not yet citizens,"

It was a great applause line with the 300 or so Arab-American Democrats in the room.

Dean also promised, if elected, to send Clinton over to the Middle East to try again to negotiate a peace. The Israelis might be reluctant to offer Arafat everything in exchange for a few militants strapped to bombs.

The problem Arab-American Democrats have, according to press accounts, is that they see President Bush as being skewed toward Israel and away from the Palestinian terrorists.

0 comments

Lieberman Should've Listened to his Prof

Steph did one of his candidate promos this morning on ABC's This Week, this time for candidate Joe Lieberman. Steph announced that Lieberman had at the start been leading in the national polls. "Now," he continued, "six months later, this centrist Senator has slipped to the center of the pack."

I react badly when someone decides to call Joe Lieberman a centrist. He is a liberal with moderate to conservative stands on very few issues. A centrist is a John Breaux, one who is mindfully moderate on almost every issue.

He showed a clip of Lieberman campaigning in a restaurant in New Hampshire. A female patron told him that he had better not be a Yankees fan, as he was in Red Sox country. I don't know abut Lieberman, but a Connecticut casino, Foxwoods, advertises on the Yankees Radio Network. (They probably do so on the Red Sox network, as well.)

Steph confronted him, on his campaign tour bus, about being perceived as dull. (He very nearly put me to sleep as a droned on and on in his sleepy, unanimated monotone.)

He told Steph: "I'm not auditioning to be the host of Entertainment Tonight, or even the host of This Week."

Asked about the followings of candidates like Howie Dean and Wes Clark, Joltin' Joe noted that: "People are angry at what George Bush has done to the United States."

It begs its own question.

He should be President, he said, because he's been "out there." [Cue the sound effects.] He's mead with heads of state and such like.


Trailing, is Joe. "Look, it's early. People are just turning in to this race." If this be the case, why then has his campaign conceded Iowa and New Hampshire?

One wonders if he is running to win? If not, why is he running at all? Perhaps he's looking for another veep call, but why would a self-respecting candidate what a retread from the failed Gore-Lieberman effort? (Maybe some Democrats think they still have something to prove.) Always the bridesmaid?

Or if you want to go Newsmax.com-style conspiratorial, perhaps "Hillary has promised him the veep slot when she triumphantly enters the Dem race at the last minute, as was planned at a secret meeting in Little Rock."

An older woman, perhaps Jewish, spoke to the camera. She said that she really didn't think Joe could win because, really, "anti-Semitism exists." Lieberman told Steph that maybe it did to some, but not to any extent that would harm his Presidential aspirations (such as they may be).

Steph talked to him in the hall after speaking Friday to Arab-Americans in Dearborn, and though appearances can be deceiving, he looked as if his lips were made of rubber. He thought the appearance went well -- after being heckled and angrily interrupted -- and said that this kind of forum was what it was all about.

Lieberman seems hapless, but he is a trooper, of sorts. When trying to think of something positive to say about Joe Lieberman, though, I'm reminded of an answer he gave to Cokie Roberts on ABC's This Week very nearly three years ago:

Bob Bork was a neighbor of mine in New Haven. He was my law school professor. I have tremendous regard for him. And I might well have voted for him, but I’d have to go back and look at it, just based on his merits, and I think that’s what it means not to have a litmus test.

A student of Bob Bork was Joe. He troubles me only slightly less, though.

0 comments

Colin Powell in Bangkok

Secretary of State did two interviews from Thailand this morning, both aired as taped: one on CBS's Face the Nation (FTN) with Bob Schieffer -- I discussed that one in the Rightsided Newsletter, and the other for CNN's Late Edition (LE) with Wolf Blitzer, 'cept CNN's John King did the interviewing from Bangkok and Blitzer played part of it.

The United States is working on an agreement between North Korea and a five national group including the United States, South Korea, the People's Republic of China, Russia, and Japan. On FTN, Powell suggested that they wanted an agreement rather than a treaty in part because a treaty had to be ratified by the Senate. This brought to my mind another Kennedy-Daschle political obstruction in the form of a filibuster.

On LE, he told King that we did not want a bilateral agreement with the North Koreans because: "We saw what happened in the previous administration with a bilateral treaty." The North Koreans abused and ignored it. He also posited a multi-party agreement because "it involves more than [only] the United States."

King wanted to know if the Administration would go to the United Nations Security Council if North Korea did not sign-on to a multi-party agreement. Powell, for his part, could not think of why they would.

Finally, the President is at the APEC summit Bangkok seeking, primarily, Asian support in the war on terror. CNN's King asked him if the new bin Laden cassette would frighten Asian countries away from taking part in the war on terror. Powell said that no, it reminds them of why we're fighting.

"Head for the hills, Marge! OBL done called us an infidel!" But in the hills of the "lawless region" of Pak is where our intelligence -- bless their hearts -- say bin Laden's been laying his hat, so to speak, for the past 18 months.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lieberman on This Week is next…

0 comments

Don Evans: Back from Iraq

Commerce Secretary Don Evans -- whom Late Edition host Wolf Blitzer described as the "President's closest friend in Washington -- appeared on that CNN show this morning to discuss what he saw when he was in Iraq recently.

Blitzer confronted him with three numbers: 139, 199, 338. The first is the number of Americans killed before May 1, the second is those kill thereafter, and the third is the total. Blitzer then demanded of the Commerce Secretary: "Americans want to know when it's going to end." Evans mentioned the tragedy of American deaths and began to talk about the spirit of entrepreneurship he saw while he was in Iraq.

Blitzer again demanded: "How long will the military occupation last?"

It ends when we're finished, but Evans is not Rumsfeldian, a good thing in his position. He suggested that the progress we are making in Iraq might be further inciting the terrorists, ticking them off that things are going well. It's a good thought.

Blitzer then played Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz telling Congress before the war that Iraq's oil revenue could eventually pay for Iraq's reconstruction. Secretary Evans explained that you cannot have economic stability without physical stability, meaning that we had to shore up the peace in Iraq before we could count on their oil revenues.

Blitzer pressed him to declare Wolfowitz wrong, but it didn't happen.

Blitzer then played the clip of Ted Kennedy's caterwaul, describing it as "part of the debate." It cannot be dignified as part of any debate, but Blitzer seemed to feel empowered by Kennedy's cadence. Evans responded: "I'm disappointed in what the Senator said."

Blitzer claimed Evans went to Iraq to see the unveiling of their new currency. Evans corrected him, saying that it was coincidental that this was when he was there. The Secretary then showed the camera an old Iraqi note with Saddam's head on it. Then the new one, with a woman farming. He noted that women played a role in today's Iraq.

Blitzer literally rolled his eyes, asking incredulously if Evans were trying to tell him that putting a woman on a currency note is progress. Evans replied that it was symbolic of progress.

Blitzer asked Evans about the comments of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who on Thursday stated as if a matter of fact that Jews ruled the world "by proxy," and that it was up to the Moslems to stand up to them. Evans's response was naïve.

He said that everyone in the world wants the same thing: a world of peace, prosperity, safety, "a roof over our heads." That the other divisions should dissolve in the face of this fact.

The problem is, not everyone in the world wants the same thing. Some want to liquidate the Jews then go after the Americans, the "other kind" of Moslems, and everyone else. Some want to die while doing it. This is the enemy, and the Malaysian prime minister, though probably not one to use physical force to achieve his ends, sees the world in this way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Powell talking North Korea, and Ted Kennedy, on Late Edition next, then something lighter, with Steph and a campaigning Joe Lieberman.

0 comments

Graham: the Next McCain

There are a few things from this morning's Talk Shows which did not fit into this afternoon's Rightsided Newsletter, but we'll start with the clues given by former candidate Bob Graham (D-Florida) indicating that he sees himself as becoming the next John McCain. The two appeared together on this morning's Meet the Press.

As indicated in the RSN, Graham referred to McCain admiringly as a "good friend and thoughtful American." McCain, being the role-model, did not return the compliment. In fact, he accused Graham of being intellectually disingenuous for claiming that he voted against the President's $87-billion for Iraq because he wants a great commitment from the international community.

What gave it away for me, though, was when host Tim Russert asked Graham if he feared that he might be alienating some Florida voters with the positions that he took after joining the race for the Dem presidential nomination. Graham said he would not be hurting his chances for reelection because "Floridians want their leaders to be frank." (I assume he didn't mean New Jersey's Lautenberg.) So Graham is going to be frank, honest even if the truth ruffles some feathers. Straight-talk. Straight-talk express. Bob Graham the maverick!

Is this part of the reason Graham ran for the Dem nomination, to build a McCain-like image for himself?

Here's a James Carville quote, lifted from Graham's campaign web site:

Senator Graham was asked on "Meet the Press" why the Bush administration has tried to keep so much about what it -- led to the 9/11 secret. He said simply -- and I quote -- "One of the ways you avoid accountability is by secrecy." That's the kind of straight talk America needs more of.

Speaking of "straight talk" from Graham, on MTP He said that he does not want to see the money go to Iraq in the form of a grant, because the Iraqis would then be paying off debt to France and Germany while we wouldn't require repayment. He asserted that our money would then be going "to help a country that's not been an ally of the United States." He accused this nation, Iraq's largest creditor, of sponsoring terrorism.

Bob Graham did not name this country. I have. It's Saudi Arabia. I recommend to you Larry Kudlow's case for Paul Bremer as Colin Powell's replacement -- The Case for Secretary Bremer: Powell may ride the Saudi gravy train, but not our man in Iraq, from the NRO site last month.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think next I'll cover Commerce Secretary Don Evans's appearance on CNN's Late Edition. Yeah, Blitzer played part of Ted Kennedy's tirade from last Thursday for him, as he did for everyone else who appeared on his show.

0 comments

If it's Sunday…

What do we have for this morning's Talk Shows?

Carl Levin, Democrat Senator from Michigan, will be a guest on CBS's Face the Nation, where host Bob Schieffer will not doubt give him the pass that Fox News' Tony Snow wouldn't on last weeks Fox News Sunday.

On this week's FNS, host Snow will talk to Colin Powell and Representative Jane Harman (D-California), the ranking Dem on House Intelligence. The Secretary of State will also appear on FTN.

Condoleezza Rice will speak for the Administration on ABC's This Week. Former candidate Bob Graham will mumble on MTP, and we'll see where his rhetoric is now that he's dropped his Presidential pretense.

Joe Lieberman will be on TW, and he'll hopefully talk about when he refused to join the Intifada with the rest of the Dem candidates in Dearborn.

There's more, of course, and you can read the synopsis in this afternoons edition of the Rightsided Newsletter, to which you can subscribe free by visiting the web site or by sending a blank e-mail to rsn-subscribe@topica.com.

Here goes…

0 comments