Sarcastic Southerner

2003-11-15T20:22:00.000-08:00

Why Jindal lost

This blog is still on hiatus and will be for a month or two, but I have to comment a little about how Bobby Jindal managed to blow a ten point lead in the last week and lose the governor's race. There are several things that you could point to, but a couple of the biggest were the poor GOTV effort and the poor ads by the Louisiana Republican Party this week.

I live in a house with 4 other registered Republicans, and I don't think we got a call this week asking us to vote. Certainly, no one knocked on our door. Reporters only talk about message -- and message is important -- but campaign tactics are important too, and I certainly saw no evidence of a systematic voter ID and turnout campaign.

The ads talked about Blanco going negative (which is an old story) and said that Blanco even claimed that Jindal wanted to let women die. The Louisiana Democratic Party did in fact say that -- but the state GOP actually did Blanco a favor with their ad, because all they did was repeat the accusation without discrediting it. The ad's tone was mean-spririted, which violates the cardinal rule of campaigning when a man is running against a woman. Voters feel sorry for the woman if the man attacks her in a mean-spirited way, and those ads were awful.

2003-11-11T19:18:00.000-08:00

Going on hiatus

Unfortunately, I've had some things come up in my personal life that are going to require me to stop blogging for a while. I can't imagine not writing here on a regular basis, so I don't know how this is going to work out, but it has to. Maybe I'll be able to explain in a month or two when I've got things sorted out. In the meantime, I'll value your prayers. Thanks for reading.

2003-11-11T12:43:00.000-08:00

Democrats (now desperate) smear Jindal

As Bobby Jindal maintains a lead in the range of 5 to 8 points in most polls, the state Democratic Party is worried about low turnout leading to a Jindal landslide. So they decided to mail a piece alleging that Bobby Jindal "is willing to let Louisiana women die" because of his opposition to abortion. That's a lie, as Jindal supports allowing abortions when necessary to save the life of the mother.

Timshel can complain if he wants that the candidates are complaining too much about negative campaigning, but I think Jindal is right to be "offended" by this smear.

2003-11-11T10:32:00.000-08:00

Bad trends for the Dems

Mort Kondracke noticed the Pew numbers that I remarked on below. He writes on GOP gains in key swing states and adds:

Current approval ratings have yet to factor in an improving economy - the 7.2 percent third quarter growth rate, surging productivity and reduced numbers of new jobless claims - all of which are bound to help Bush.

Extravagant Democratic attacks on Bush's credibility and trustworthiness have caused no dents in his reputation. An October Zogby International poll showed that 56 percent of voters are "proud" to have Bush as president and only 26 percent "ashamed." By 64 percent to 31 percent, they consider him "honest and trustworthy."

It would seem that Bush's re-election rides on one thing: success or failure in Iraq. At this point, according to Pew, 60 percent of voters say that going to war was the right decision and only 33 percent say it was not. Democrats, who think it was wrong by a margin of 54 percent to 39 percent, are out of step - for now.

Kondracke is right. If Bush wins the peace in Iraq, then he will coast to re-election. Otherwise, we Republicans may find the election to be a long, hard slog.

2003-11-11T09:43:00.000-08:00

Dick Morris is right about Clark

Dick Morris is one of those people who is often brilliant and just as often totally full of it. You need a good BS detector to read his columns or listen to him on TV.

Today is one of those days when he nails it. He points out that the Wesley Clark boomlet is over and that the campaign all really comes down to Iowa. If Gephardt wins, there will be a real fight for the nomination, and you can construct scenarios where a number of candidates win (though Dean would still be strongly favored). On the other hand, if Dean wins in Iowa, then it's all over.

2003-11-08T14:29:00.000-08:00

Reflections on the electorate

I just finished going through the new poll from the Pew Research Center and I thought several things were important:

Republicans have made notable gains in a number of key swing states. Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa -- three Midwestern states Al Gore won in 2000 by very slight margins -- have all experienced significant shifts in party ID toward the GOP. And the five-point advantage enjoyed by Democrats in Florida in the run-up to the 2000 election has evaporated. In polling since Sept 11, 2001, 37% of Floridians call themselves Republicans, 36% Democrats.

Though there has been an overall net increase in the percentage of voters identify with the Republican Party, the largest increase has come in the swing states that were crucial in the 2000 election -- a 5% jump in those states collectively. This is devastating news for the Democrats, as it is going to make defeating President Bush much more difficult in 2004 than in 2000. The 5 point bump for the GOP in California also bodes ominously for the Democrats, since it would appear that Democrats will have to actively defend the state (which they cannot afford to do).

Something completely different that I noticed in the poll was the response of black Americans when asked whether discrimination against blacks is rare. While only 20% of blacks outside the South say that discrimination is rare, a full 31% of Southern blacks agree with that statement. That figure strongly suggests that racism is a bigger problem outside of the South than in it. When Howard Dean suggests that most white Southerners are racist, keep that statistic in mind. It shows how out of touch the liberal elite is with the true nature of Southern society.

Finally, it's worth noting that much of America's increasing political polarization in terms of values comes from increasing religious polarization. The percentage of Evangelical Protestants continues to rise, as does the percentage of young people who hold to no religion.

2003-11-08T13:11:00.000-08:00

Who does Howard Dean think he is?

That's the title of an expansive article by David Tell in The Weekly Standard that covers a lot of bases and makes for fascinating reading.

2003-11-08T11:21:00.000-08:00

Girl picked as Homecoming King

I was going to dismiss this as silly and stupid until I noticed this:

"We felt that once a girl runs for king, it becomes a gender issue," said teacher Mike Dwyer, co-adviser for Hayward High's Gay and Straight Alliance. "As long as some people don't fit neat definitions of gender, there's going to be gender inequality, gender discrimination, sexism and heterosexism."

...

Anthony pressed on because she realized that her running for king was meaningful to gays on campus.

"People said, 'I appreciate what you're doing,' That's when I realized it was bigger than me," she said. "I gave them confidence to openly say, 'I'm gay.'"

I think it's important to note how both the feminist movement and the gay rights movement have worked to stress the false idea that there is no difference between men and women.

I also noted this bit:

Students and teachers consulted the dictionary, which suggests a king is male. Despite that definition, Principal Debra Calvin ruled that Angela could try for king.

Then I guess it all depends on your definition of "male," right? Amazing that a school is willing to accept the idea that nothing means anything.

2003-11-06T16:48:00.000-08:00

Feminized church?

Reflecting on Kim du Toit's rant, Donald Sensing has an awesome post up about the sissification of Jesus, along with some pictures that illustrate the problem very graphically. Excerpt:

As children in Sunday School we see our first pictures of Jesus as the good shepherd (see above, for example). They are wildly inaccurate. They show a Zest-fully clean Jesus with his Breck-shampooed, blow-dried hair, in a spotless, Bill Blass robe, carrying a little lamb on his shoulders. This is an inoffensive, domesticated Jesus, a tamed Jesus who looks good. This Jesus is a poster boy for people who think that Christian faith is supposed to make them popular. But if this wimpy, smarmy, gender-confused, television-evangelist-looking Jesus ever told you, “I lay down my life for the sheep” (cf: John 10:11), you’d laugh out loud in derision. And if it ever occurred to you that your life was literally in his hands, you’d cry in despair.

A good shepherd Jesus would have grubby clothes that were torn and tattered, perhaps bloodstained. He would clip his hair short because it would be constantly dirty. Soot and sweat would be streaked across his face. His hands would be grimy. His aroma would prove he is unacquainted with Ban Roll-on. The type of fellow who can do the work that shepherding requires is not the kind of fellow any of us would invite home to meet mother. Good shepherds don’t appeal to persons of refined sensibility.

A good shepherd Jesus would look out of place in our Ethan Allen dining rooms, and probably in most churches as well. This is not a Jesus who has time to idle the day away with us. Jesus the good shepherd has countless skills and strengths, honed on this earth to rescue us from countless dangers, including ourselves. Bluntly, a good shepherd is ready for battle at any time. “Ours is a Jesus who is powerful enough to grab us from the jaws of a hungry wolf. But at the same time Jesus is also powerful enough to grab us from the jaws of too much civility and niceness, from our need to have a pretty picture and a happy ending to the story, from our hiding from the raw, sometime coarse and smelly vitality of life itself.” (Rebecca Young)

In the tame, domesticated and frankly feminine images of Jesus we use, we suppress Jesus’ masculinity, of which shepherding is one example. It’s a cultural thing, you see. Boys and men find it overwhelmingly important to be seen as manly men, independent, confident and self-assured, but Christian faith is culturally seen as a sort of wimpy crutch for people who can’t handle life on their own. Such stereotypes are reinforced by artistic and verbal images of Jesus that I think would make his first apostles wonder just whom we are talking about.

As I said in his comments, my Jesus is the guy who threw the money-changers out of the Temple with his bare hands, not the feeble, effete person he is sometimes drawn to be.

2003-11-06T15:32:00.000-08:00

Jindal takes huge lead in new poll

Thanks to Timshel for the update. Bobby Jindal (R) is pulling away from Kathleen Blanco (D) in our gubernatorial race. It's clear that Blanco is simply out of her league and only made the runoff because the black vote was divided in the primary. She never radiates any confidence, and I always wonder if she makes it through each speech or debate only by memorizing talking points.

The false accusation against Jindal made her look even more confused and incapable of governing.

Finally, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's entire advisory committee for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues has resigned in protest over the mayor's endorsement of Jindal. I think that fact alone will guarantee Jindal's election -- Louisiana as a whole is a very socially conservative state.

UPDATE: Read the comments on this post from the hyper-liberal Daily Kos. Some of them are voting for Jindal -- that's how poor of a campaign that Blanco has run.

2003-11-06T10:12:00.000-08:00

Democratic failures cause infighting

Oooo, this is fun. It'll be worse if Bobby Jindal wins Louisiana on November 15, as I think he will.

2003-11-06T09:56:00.000-08:00

Brokered convention?

CalPundit notes a column pointing out that the Democratic Party has changed its rules to allow for proportional delegate allocation in its primaries, meaning that the winner-take-all system is out the window and a brokered convention becomes more likely.

I will agree that this rules change makes it more likely than ever, but I still think a brokered convention is extremely unlikely. The argument that the compression of the primaries won't give a frontrunner time to emerge and gain momentum is negated by the Feiler Faster Thesis -- the news cycle has become so compressed that there is still plenty of time for those lagging behind to be pressured to drop out.

A brokered convention is a political junkie's fantasy, but it's very unlikely to happen.

In a related thought, what would happen if a major hurricane were to hit Florida on November 4 of next year and Florida ended up being the deciding state again?

2003-11-06T07:51:00.000-08:00

The Gelding of the American Male

Well, I think I'd better get around to commenting on Kim du Toit's explosive rant on why we don't have "real men" anymore and the damage that this is doing to society. Also be sure to read Spoons take on it. Basically, I think that Kim is right in the essentials of his rant, and Spoons is correct in nitpicking a few problems with it.

Among the reasons for this situation that Kim doesn't mention is the decreasing need for manual labor. A century ago, over 95% of the men in this country earned their living by working with their hands. Today, very few men have had the same benefit of growing up on a farm that I did. We have so many creature comforts that we have become soft. Most American men now sit in front of a computer screen during the day and make telephone calls as I do, instead of digging a stump out of the ground or chopping firewood or hoeing weeds all day (stuff I did growing up).

Kim is right that this phenomenon has had profound effects. I think we see that in the reaction to the War in Iraq. We see more and more people whining for the troops to come home, because we've lost a couple hundred soldiers since May. Sure, each loss is tragic, but during Vietnam we frequently lost over 500 soldiers a week. The loss of a few soldiers is taken as evidence that we "don't have a plan." How about toughing it out until the job is done and killing all the terrorists we can find? That sounds like a plan to me, but I'm afraid that Americans increasingly disagree. Can anyone out there doubt that America is losing its manhood?

All of that said, there's another criticism of du Toit essay that I'd like to make. Maleness does not equal honor, and it seems to me that the lack of honor is what du Toit is really criticizing. Moving away from the natural state, learning to curb our natural impulses -- this is what has allowed us to create what we call civilization. The changes that have occurred in our society are not all bad. Do we really want to go back to the days when wife-beating and workplace sexual harrassment were freely tolerated? I don't think we want to go back to the days when an aspiring actress had to perform on the casting couch before she was allowed to perform on screen. Nor do I want Marlon Brando's Stanley Kowalski to be a role model that we decide to emulate. I wish that Kim's essay had included that kind of clarification.

2003-11-05T12:07:00.000-08:00

Wictory Wednesday

Every Wednesday, I participate in this drive to raise money and volunteers for President Bush's campaign. Please do your part.

President Bush remains in very solid shape to win re-election. One of the odd things I noticed about the new Marist poll is that more people say that they will "definitely vote against" President Bush (44%) than will vote for any of the Democrats in a head-to-head contest. It's easy for a lot of people to say that they'll vote for someone else -- until they have to consider the alternatives. Just wait until Karl Rove gets the TV commercials running. (UPDATE: Best of the Web noticed the same thing.)

By the way, David Broder is right that the compressed primary schedule will hurt the Democratic nominee.

Here's a list of the other bloggers participating in Wictory Wednesday:

2003-11-04T14:03:00.000-08:00

Dennis Miller gets it

Justifying the Iraq War:

You can take only so much. They blow up an embassy. We hold back; we try to be reserved. They blow up the U.S.S. Cole, it gets heated up even more. They blow up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Listen, I'm telling you, this country wouldn't have been America if somebody didn't get its ass kicked.

That is the sentiment that a large number of Americans feel and is almost completly unrecognized by the intellectual elite. Saddam "had it coming to him."

2003-11-03T09:58:00.000-08:00

Another pickup opportunity for the GOP

Sen. Graham's decision not to seek re-election means that the Democrats chances of holding their ground in the U.S. Senate become even longer. I think that it is very likely that Republicans will win three of the four open seats in the South next year. The GOP should be favored in each race at this point. Keep in mind, too, that the Democrats may still not be done with the retirement announcements -- Louisiana's own John Breaux has been dropping hints that he may retire.

Bottom line: the GOP will gain seats even if the Democrats are able to pick off Illinois and win an upset in Oklahoma or Alaska.

2003-11-01T21:01:00.000-08:00

Confederate flag dustup

I guess this is more evidence of Dean's "anti-black" agenda, though Edwards says that Dean was insulting Southerners.

It's funny. A part of me thinks that Dean is going to be extremely difficult to beat for the nomination, and another part of me is convinced that he's going to open his big mouth, say something stupid, and talk himself out of it. I go back and forth on which prediction I believe the most.

UPDATE: I guess what I'm trying to say is that no one can beat Howard Dean except Howard Dean.

2003-11-01T12:47:00.000-08:00

Media impact

The media, with their insistence on limiting their Iraq reporting to those stories about Americans being killed, have succeeded in giving Americans the wrong picture about Iraq. Most Americans don't know that most of the country, including major cities like Basra, Mosul, and Kirkuk, are peaceful and rapidly making progress toward self-rule. Here are a few comments from interviews conducted by the Washington Post:

Sitting on the porch of her peach stucco house in the Albuquerque area, Lily Villaneuva, a Democrat, said it is time for the United States to get out of Iraq. "It would be embarrassing to pull out, but the way they are killing our soldiers," she said. "We should get out before they kill everybody."

Frustration over Iraq runs deep, cutting across party lines. Many of the people interviewed during the past two weeks said the near-daily reports of U.S. combat casualties and terrorist attacks have caused them to question the president's policy, including many who believe it was right to get rid of Saddam Hussein.

...

If there is one figure that has punched through to public consciousness, it is the $87 billion Bush has requested to fund military and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Opposition has risen to 64 percent.

...

Heather Rockwell, an Albuquerque Republican mother of two and casino supervisor, is critical of Bush, her choice in 2000, because "we need to be spending more money here, not in a country [Iraq] where we train them and educate them and then they end up killing us."

Will this media spin be enough to convince Americans to vote Democrat in 2004? Unlikely, because it's very unlikely that Iraq will still be a mess a year from now. It's much more likely that the country will be installing a democratic government, and President Bush will receive lot of praise for having the courage to see the thing through to the end.

2003-11-01T12:06:00.000-08:00

"Disinformation"

In a typical article trashing President Bush titled "Disinformation through the Stovepipe," a writer for Radio Netherlands writes:

Not a trace of Saddam's notorious WMD machine has been found, President George Bush recently admitted there was no demonstrable link between the ousted Iraqi dictator and al-Qaeda, and US troops on the ground have been pelted with grenades instead of flowers.

Of course, that statement is false, as President Bush only stated that there were no provable links between Saddam and the 9-11 hijackers, while specifically maintaining that there were links between Saddam and Al-Queda. And President Bush is right -- there is plenty of evidence.

So we have disinformation in an article criticizing President Bush for supposedly doing that very thing. Ironic? Yes. Surprising? No.

2003-11-01T08:45:00.000-08:00

The horror -- liberalism helps legal immigrants instead of illegals

Jim Miller brought my attention to this hilarious story. Misguided liberals in Washington state tried to pass a law helping illegal immigrants pay in-state rates for college tuition. Instead, most of the beneficiaries have been legal immigrants with visas.

2003-10-31T15:03:00.000-08:00

Louisiana gubernatorial update

I haven't been blogging much about Louisiana's gubernatorial election lately, but Bobby Jindal (R) is going to win. Every time I see Kathleen Blanco (D) talking on TV, she sounds like she's trying to remember her talking points, and she simply doesn't seem to have the intelligence necessary to be an effective governor. I originally thought that the runoff would be close, but now I think Jindal is going to win by 10 points.

If you want to read a lot of good stuff on the election, visit Timshel, who is liberal but seems intellectually honest.

2003-10-31T14:46:00.000-08:00

Muslims are great -- it's just the 90% of them who hate us who are the problem

Diana West nails it today. Small sample:

The impulse to hide the truth about Islam -- about its connection to terrorism and its disconnection from Western civilization -- is a shocking fact of the "war on terrorism."

We may not be fighting a war against their civilization, but they are certainly fighting against ours.

UPDATE: Wes Pruden makes a similar point, and compares the Boykin flap to the Dreyfus case.

2003-10-31T10:23:00.000-08:00

The flap over Lt. Col. West

I'm completely of two minds over this issue. On the one hand, the man successfully saved the lives of American soldiers. On the other hand, we hold our officers to a high standard and they understand the rules that they have to live by. Removing Lt. Col. West from his command is appropriate, but I don't understand why the military has to court martial him for this. The man made a mistake, but he's served his country for 20 years -- I say let him retire and collect his benefits.

2003-10-29T15:46:00.000-08:00

No protests over Ramadan dinner?

Scrappleface makes a great point.

2003-10-29T14:48:00.000-08:00

Wictory Wednesday

Every Wednesday, I and the other bloggers on this list encourage you to donate your time or your money to President Bush's campaign. Be sure to check out some blogs that you haven't looked at before.

2003-10-29T10:54:00.000-08:00

Sharpton Calls Dean's Agenda 'Anti-Black'

Oh boy, this is going to be good. The Democratic Party is going to regret treating the racist, anti-Semite Sharpton as a serious candidate. He's going to hurt them one way or the other. (That is to say, he will either alienate level-headed white voters who see his extremism and think that any party who embraces Sharpton is not the party for them, or he will end up discouraging black voters from voting for the Democratic nominee -- or maybe both.)

UPDATE: Rice Grad had the same thoughts I did.

2003-10-29T08:20:00.000-08:00

Building Democracy in Iraq

Most Democrats, including Kevin Drum, went off on President Bush for saying that the recent bombings in Iraq represent progress. I posted the following response in his comments:

I agree that any attacks on our troops can in no way be properly described as progress -- that's what was happening in March as we advanced into the country.

The attack on the Red Cross, however, does certainly smack of desperation, because it again indicates the frustration of the so-called "resistance" with attacking military targets. Simply put, they are able to pick off one or two of our soldiers now and then, but they basically have no means of making a dent in our military strength.

Attacking the Red Cross seems to be of a piece with Saddam's "Mogadishu strategy." The Baathists/terrorists obviously hope to incite enough domestic opposition to our actions to cause us to withdraw our troops. They hope that Americans will decide that Iraq is a hopeless quagmire and pull out.

The Baathists/terrorists bomb the Red Cross at considerable cost to themselves, because it will only make ordinary Iraqis hate them and support the American objective of bringing peace and stability. It should be no surprise that recruiment for the Iraqi police is very strong, despite the fact that they are consistently targets of attacks. Many of these people want to fight the terrorists.

Bombing the Red Cross makes ordinary Iraqis more likely to run to the Americans the next time they see someone with a bomb or hear anything about a bomb. Like the UN bombing, it provokes worldwide outrage and increases worldwide support for American actions to provide security and democracy for Iraq.

So, yes, it was a very desperate act. They know that they are losing.

On the other hand, it seems odd to me that many Americans don't realize that we are winning. At a cost, yes, but there is obvious progress in Iraq toward democracy and construction of a civil society, something that will pay huge dividends for America in the future as we attempt to change the Middle East from a hotbed Islamic fanaticism and collection of tyrannical regimes into a pro-western collection of free people.

When Dennis Kucinich and others call for us to "bring all of our troops home," they are doing exactly what Saddam wants them to. Most of them are not motivated by the desire to help Saddam, but that is the impact of their actions, because every call for the withdrawal of our forces encourages the Baathists/terrorists to think that their strategy will work.

UPDATE: Boots on the Ground testifies first hand about the bravery of the Iraqi police. These people are going to build a great nation.

2003-10-27T19:57:00.000-08:00

Why Dean will lose big to Bush

William Saletan gives us a preview in his comments about the Democrats' debate. Discussing Kerry's attack on Dean for wanting to raise taxes on the middle class:

On taxes, Dean is in bigger trouble. He wants to repeal all of Bush's tax cuts; Kerry wants to keep the parts that benefit the middle class. I've seen them spar over this several times, and it's increasingly clear that Dean's position is indefensible and a huge albatross in the general election. The sound bite he tried out in this debate—"What middle-class tax cuts?"—might well show up in Republican ads as evidence that he's out of touch.

Part of the problem is that the average middle-class person's share of the tax cuts, while low, isn't zero. As Kerry points out, for people with kids, it's substantial. Another part of the problem, noted by Kerry and Joe Lieberman, is that the middle-class portion of the tax cut was originally pushed by congressional Democrats. But the biggest problem is Dean's stated reason for repealing that middle-class portion: that he has to do so in order to balance the budget. If the amount of money involved is so small that you don't need it as a taxpayer, why is it so big that Dean needs it as president?

Dean's responses to Kerry on this point were exceedingly lame. He argued that anyone who agrees with any part of the Bush tax cuts is too similar to Bush to be elected. That's ridiculous. Nobody's going to have trouble distinguishing Kerry's position from Bush's. Dean's other response was that people will vote for a presidential candidate who says what he believes, even if "70 percent of the people in this country disagree with me." Tell that to Bruce Babbitt and Walter Mondale.

Yup.

2003-10-27T14:31:00.000-08:00

The ultimate eco-warrior

Like others I'm sure, I noted the recent news story about the man killed by a grizzly. With apologies to Paul Harvey, I didn't know the rest of the story. It's really hard not to laugh when reading about this idiot. (via DailyPundit)

2003-10-27T11:06:00.000-08:00

Gephardt boomlet

Howard Kurtz wonders why the media is suddenly pushing Gephardt's candidacy:

The last time I checked, the Missouri congressman had been relegated to also-ran status. He was old news, unexciting, and didn't even have his own blog. If Howard Dean and Wesley Clark were hot, Gephardt was like lukewarm meat loaf -- comforting, appealing to lunch-bucket types, but decidedly not nouvelle cuisine.

So how come a bunch of journalists are suddenly saying nice things about Dick?

Is it because Gephardt's understated virtues are finally being recognized? Or because journalists are tired of the Dean-is-running-away-with-it story line and are hankering for a real contest?

Anyway, the Dick G mini-surge must be real, because several reporters have said so. And as we know, that's enough to start a trend.

Actually, there are several good reasons for the Gephardt boomlet. Chief among them is the fact that he has regained the lead from Howard Dean in most polls in Iowa. Secondly, there is John Kerry's collapse and Wesley Clark's failure to maintain his initial momentum. Someone is going to be in the final round against Dean, and everybody else is becoming less and less likely. By default, that may leave the race as Gephardt vs. Dean after the dust settles from Iowa and New Hampshire.

Of course, I still think that Dean will win.

2003-10-27T03:31:00.000-08:00

Boykin update

Here's a strong article in the Weekly Standard. Sample graf:

Some journalists are all in favor of General Boykin's right to say and believe what he chooses--so long as Secretary Rumsfeld fires him. They are working under the theory that it is unacceptable for a DoD official to say that Christianity is true and that other religions are, therefore, false. The general also stands accused of calling for a Christian "jihad"--but he never used that word, and the accusation has long since been exposed as phony. And Boykin has been accused of casting aspersions on Islam--Heaven forbid! (What prigs we should all feel, after Islam has been so sweet to us.)

2003-10-26T17:59:00.000-08:00

Iraq reconstruction continues

If more reporters would get their lazy butts out of Baghdad, they would probably write a lot more stories like this one.

"It's too early to draw firm conclusions, but early evidence suggests that here at least the mixture of military might, generosity and democracy may still work."

What a surprise.

2003-10-26T14:05:00.000-08:00

More taxpayer-funded trash from NPR

Kausfiles has the story. I get pretty angry when I hear claims that the radio airwaves are controlled by ultra-conservative, right-wing extremists.

By the way, William Luse has been blogging up a storm about Terry Schiavo. If you haven't been to his blog lately, start at the bottom and read up.

2003-10-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

"Leave him alone"

Krauthammer on Easterbrook.

2003-10-24T11:23:00.000-07:00

New Hampshire Primary results

Dean wins! Folks, the new Zogby poll shows that it's over. Dean is at 40% and Kerry is second with 17%. Kerry really might as well drop out now, becaue it's going to be near-impossible for him to win New Hampshire unless Dean says something really stupid.

So the next question is how this impacts the race. Dean and Gephardt are still basically tied in Iowa. If Gephardt wins there, I think we'll end up with a Gephardt vs. Dean race. On the other hand, if Dean can win in Iowa, nobody's going to stop him. After winning the first two states, Dean will have substantially more money and volunteers than anyone else -- he'll be a steamroller at that point.

UPDATE: On the hand, maybe a new candidate could win the race.

2003-10-23T11:01:00.000-07:00

Boykin update

Hugh Hewitt smells a rat, and Collin Levey also has some excellent thoughts, while Clifford May echoes my own thoughts from Tuesday about who Boykin was calling an idol.

2003-10-23T10:54:00.000-07:00

Partial-birth boost?

Howard Fineman is right to point out that, though it has received only a moderate level of media attention, the ban on partial-birth abortions is a huge political victory for the President. Because Democrats are divided and the ban is popular with everyone except hardcore leftists, there's obviously a natural advantage here for President Bush. The larger effect, though, is that of strengthening his hand among social conservatives. The President needs a big turnout from his base next year to win, and he's making sure that he keeps conservatives strongly on his side.

2003-10-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

North Korea

Andrew Sullivan alerted me to yet another article on the horrors of living in North Korea.

I read about North Korea with a personal interest, as my mother-in-law was born there. Her family fled to the South during the war, but she had aunts and uncles that ended up on the other side of the line and, of course, haven't been heard from since.

That's why this editorial is so particularly frustrating. Max Boot, in postulating the possibility of peaceful regime change in the North, is engaging in wishful thinking. North Korea is not the Soviet Union in the 80's. There is no Gorbachev pursing a policy of glasnost. We can no more achieve peaceful regime change there than we could in Cuba or Iraq.

It's hard to know what the best policy in North Korea is. One policy risks the destruction of Seoul and the deaths of many thousands of people in South Korea. The other risks a nuclear weapon ending up in the hands of terrorists. It's important to understand, though, that this problem isn't going to go away on its own.

2003-10-23T10:27:00.000-07:00

President Bush strong with college students

Tom Bevan has some great posts up over at RealClear Politics. Here, he points out a new poll that shows President Bush's approval rating is at 61% among college students, almost 10 points higher than among the general public. As Bevan points out, college students are typically more liberal than the general public, so this is a great sign for the GOP, because these kids are going to be voting for the next 60 years on average -- best to get them started on the "right" track.

Why is the President scoring so high with this group? Bevan notes that the polls' authors statement that students vote more for leadership than ideology and adds his own observation than 9/11 may have had a significant forming influence on today's college students. I think both of these explanations are correct, and I'll also add that these kids are now mostly more than a generation removed from Vietnam. Unless they have old parents, their parents were to young to fight in that war -- all the liberal "quagmire" and "Vietnam" characterizations of our current conflict have no more meaning to them than a comparison to the Civil War might, because it's all ancient history.

2003-10-22T10:44:00.000-07:00

Wictory Wednesday

When I first saw this idea, I thought it was good -- but I didn't plan to participate because I wanted my blog to stay clear of direct campaigning because so that I'd still be free to criticize the President when I saw fit. Now, I've realized how silly that is and I've decided to join. I'll be making a weekly post encouraging you to volunteer or donate to the 2004 campaign. So go do it. Here's a list of bloggers participating:

2003-10-21T05:38:00.000-07:00

A day in the life of a reservist in Iraq

This is a pretty good photo journal that accurately depicts the good work our soldiers are doing. I'm surprised that the BBC put it up.

2003-10-21T04:37:00.000-07:00

Unbelievable

A 12-year-old student who brought his unloaded gun to a firearms-safety course at his public school was met with a surprise when administrators and instructors intercepted him in enforcement of the district's new "zero-tolerance policy."

You couldn't make this kind of thing up if you tried.

2003-10-21T03:14:00.000-07:00

Salam Pax is back

And he has a lot of new posts up -- very interesting stuff.
My favorite bit:

This is another thing I would like people to pay some respect to. Iraqi Police kick major ass. Much respect. Wherever you go now and open up that subject you will see a lot of sympathy with those brave men and women and a total incomprehension to what this so called resistance is doing. They are killing Iraqis now. They say Jihad against the Infidel Occupier and they go kill those Iraqi police men. The Baghdad Hotel, the Turkish embassy and many more. It is not the Infidel the attackers are killing but Iraqis and this just might be good because the general sentiment now is “what the fuck do the Jihadis think they are doing?”. I wrote or said some time ago that most Iraqis are just sitting on the fence, well the last couple of attacks are tipping the balance against the Jihadis because they are killing all those Iraqis, they are putting bombs in streets and in front of schools, threatening to bomb banks where Iraqis are standing in line waiting to get their new Iraqi Dinars. So as we say here [biha saleh – something good will come out of it] maybe the people who are dying in those attacks are helping us understand that what those saboteurs are doing is just pure evil, telling people they are Muslim Jihadis doesn’t cut it anymore because they are killing civilians indiscriminately.

2003-10-21T01:34:00.000-07:00

Easterbrook and Boykin

Gregg Easterbrook and Gen. William Boykin have a lot in common. Both have had recent remarks dealing with religion taken out of context and used as a cudgel against them to argue that they are bigoted and should not keep their jobs.

Fareed Zakaria foolishly pursues the strawman in a column in today's Post entitled "Rumsfeld's Crusader."

Over the past two years the general has given dozens of addresses to evangelical Christian groups in which, describing his battle with a Somali (Muslim) warlord, he has said: "I knew that my God was bigger than his God. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."

...

When confronted last week, Lt. Gen. Boykin claimed, of course, that his remarks had been taken out of context. When referring to the Somali warlord's God, he explained, he meant money and power. Untrue. In Boykin's original tale, he explained that the Somali warlord had bragged that the Americans would not capture him because his God, Allah, would protect him. "Well," Boykin continued, "my God was bigger than his God."

By his own logic, then, Zakaria apparently believes Somali warlords are true followers of Islam. These men routinely killed political opponents while getting high on khat every day with their followers. Zakaria amazingly seems to take the warlord's statement of faith in Allah at face value. So either his god was money and power -- or his actions can be justified as those of a true follower of Islam. Which is it?

His dissembling gets almost comic over another one of his comments. Boykin routinely told audiences that God elevated George W. Bush to the presidency. "Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him," he would say. "I tell you this morning that he's in the White House because God put him there." Boykin now explains that he believes God routinely decides American elections and has done the same thing for "Bill Clinton and other presidents." This is surely the first time a conservative evangelical has argued that Clinton's election was caused by divine intervention.

This is just plain stupid. Of course Gen. Boykin and I (and all Evangelicals) believe that Bill Clinton's election was part of God's plan, because all of history is part of God's plan -- how could it be otherwise? Of course we believe that (ultimately) God put Bill Clinton in the Presidency.

2003-10-20T23:58:00.000-07:00

Gephardt biggest threat to President Bush?

With the strongest union backing and deepest roots in the politically important industrial Midwest, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) is emerging as the Democratic presidential candidate many prominent Republicans fear the most in the 2004 elections.

In interviews with nearly two dozen Republican strategists, lawmakers and state chairmen across the country, including several close to the White House, Gephardt was portrayed by a majority as the Democratic candidate best prepared and positioned to defeat President Bush in a head-to-head matchup next year. The reasons, they said: Gephardt consistently supported the Iraq war, enjoys unrivaled support among union leaders and hails from the Midwest, where many Republicans believe the presidential election will be decided. They also cited his health care plan, experience and discipline as key factors.

So says today's Washington Post. I tend to agree, but I also think that his proposal to revoke the tax cuts would be lethal, especially after Karl Rove spent $100 million on TV ads trashing it.

I think Gephardt's chances of getting the nomination have gone up considerably within the past month. First of all, when Wesley Clark entered the race, he became the media darling and ended the Howard Dean boom. Suddenly the anti-Washington Democrats also had someone else to vote for, and Dean's numbers have been coming down. Gephardt is still basically even with Dean in Iowa, and he will continue to hammer Dean over Social Security. An Iowa win would put Gephardt in the driver's seat to be the anti-Dean candidate.

He won't have as much money as Dean, but I think Gephardt still has a realistic chance of winning the nomination. Since his foreign policy is basically the same as the President's, Gephardt needs good news in Iraq and bad news on the economy (especially the job market). Bad news in Iraq works to Dean's advantage, because Dean was anti-war from the beginning.

Contrariwise, keep Rauch's rule in mind. This "lack of freshness" for Gephardt is the same problem that the GOP had in 1996 with Bob Dole.

2003-10-20T19:55:00.000-07:00

More Christian-hating

Matthew Hoy has the transcript of NPR's Nina Totenberg making a Freudian slip and calling for the death of Gen. Boykin.

Personally, if being an Evangelical Christian were to make me an "extremist," then I would gladly be an extremist. However, no matter what liberals would like to pretend, the fact remains that we represent a very significant percentage of the population. We aren't extreme yet.

Clayton Cramer has some pertinent remarks on Boykin as well.

2003-10-20T16:04:00.000-07:00

More on double standards

Best of the Web makes a salient point today, though it doesn't quite put it into these words. If you are a white writer and make remarks that some construe as anti-Semitic, then you are fired. If you are a Democratic black "reverend" who makes anti-Semitic remarks, then you are widely respected as a legitimate candidate for President by your party.

2003-10-20T14:41:00.000-07:00

Time to get offended

Bryan Preston says that if we're going to start firing people who make ambiguous remarks that some people think might possibly be anti-Semitic, then it's time for Evangelical Christians to stand up against bigotry.

If you folks want to play this game, fine. I demand an apology from Andrew Sullivan and anyone else who has ever used the term theocrat or any other perjorative to describe evangelical Christians as a group. You folks who talk about us as though were some form of American Taliban may not realize it, but you sound far more bigoted than Gregg Easterbrook ever did. Really. So fess up, or I might just start chronicling your offenses. How would you like that?

I'm sick of this too, and I'm glad to see Bryan pointing it out. He should have also mentioned the Boykin situation, which may end up producing a scandal of a different kind.

(thanks to Lead and Gold for noticing the update to Bryan's earlier post)

2003-10-20T13:51:00.000-07:00

Conflicts of interest in media

The fact that Eisner ordered Easterbrook fired brings up another issue. Given that he's already done considerable work on the subject, I'm surprised Mickey Kaus hasn't already thought of it.

When otherwise objective journalists have permanent commentary gigs at more with more than one big media outlet, they risk becoming compromised. They either have to self-censor their commentary about their other employers, or they can be fired like Easterbrook. My guess is that the Easterbrook affair is going to have a chilling effect on speech as pundits take care to avoid stepping on certain toes.

The person most seriously compromised in this regard is Howard Kurtz, media writer for the Washington Post and host of CNN's Reliable Sources. As Mickey Kaus has explained, Kurtz has consistently ignored this conflict of interest in his reporting. Here's another example. Kaus also wrote a priceless parody of Kurtz interviewing himself.

2003-10-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

I was right

Easterbrook was fired from ESPN for criticizing Michael Eisner, not for supposedly making anti-Semitic remarks. It seems that Eisner simply ordered ESPN executives to fire him. Worse, Eisner is now trying to destroy Easterbrook's life.

UPDATE: The email that The Power Line posted was a fake. My apologies to all.

UPDATE II: Maybe so and maybe not.

2003-10-20T09:05:00.000-07:00

The Case for War

Jonah Goldberg absolutely nails it today.

So many in the media have become mesmerized by the question whether whether we supposedly fought the right war for the wrong reasons. Most of the media elites don't understand that most Americans put the case for war in very simple terms. Most Americans think that Saddam has had this war coming to him since 1991. He was a bad guy and he needed to go. There's nothing complicated about it, and that's why President Bush has maintained such a large well of support despite the never-ending negative press.

2003-10-20T06:55:00.000-07:00

Real hatred

I usually enjoy getting email from readers, so I happily clicked on a website that a reader suggested as having "interesting commentary" on the Easterbrook situation.

That website, the so-called Vanguard News Network, turns out to be a racist site of the most vile hatred imaginable. Look at the video game that they are selling, called "Ethnic Cleansing." Also, be sure to read the article "Building White Community."

Normally, I would reject out-of-hand the idea of linking to any of this stuff, but I think it's important in our times to recognize that vicious racism and anti-Semitism are alive and well in America. We need to fight this stuff with everything that we have, while at the same time being very careful not to lump people like Gregg Easterbrook in with the "Vanguard News Network."

2003-10-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

Great first-hand reporting of Arab media bias

Here's an instructive piece from the new Iraqi blogger Zeyad:

Most of the attacks are overrated. I know this. The following story is an example:

One afternoon I had just got back from work and was going to change my clothes when suddenly *BOOM* The windows shattered all around me in pieces, there was a smell of something like gunpowder. I looked out but there was dust everywhere. I remembered that my brother was outside. I carefully opened the door, and to my surprise found 4 American soldiers in our garden, they were knocking on my grandmothers house door, I worriedly asked them what happened. They told me to stay away. I offered to open the door for them, which I did. They entered and went upstairs all the way to the roof, I stood in the hall with one of them who informed me that a bomb exploded behind their humvee just in front of the house, no one was hurt. They were suspecting someone attacked them from this house. The others came down, apologized to me and my grandmother (who didn't understand what was going on anyway) then left the house.
I went out to find a crater in front of the house. My god that was close. By a miracle nobody in the street was hurt. The idiots who planted that bomb were dumb enough to put it inside a sewers drainage which absorbed the shock of the blast. The only damage was the sound it made. Most of our windows were shattered.
After a while the soldiers left the place. Suddenly a reporter and a cameraman from Al-Arabiyah station appeared, they were so fast. I crossed the street to take a look. They were talking to some bearded guy who I hadn't seen before in the neighbourhood. He was enthusiastically talking about the humvee that flew in the air, and the 4 injured soldiers. I didn't see any of that. I was bewildered. Someone next to me told me that nothing like that happened at all. My brother and a couple of friends of his started to chant in front of the camera: LIAR, LIAR,... Everyone laughed at this, but the bearded guy started to swear by Allah. Someone pointed out that the bearded guy wasn't even in the area when the bomb exploded. Uh oh, I thought, he seemed to know about it before it happened. The cameraman violently shoved my brother and his friend aside telling them to shut up. I stepped forward and gave hime a push from behind. He almost fell over. I warned him that the camera he was holding would be in a thousand pieces if he dared touch my brother again. He backed up. A neighbour of ours hollered them to come and see the damage in their house. They refused to do so and left.
In the evening, Al-Arabiyah reported the following: 3 Americans badly injured and one Jeep damaged at .... in Baghdad. They showed the bearded guy talking and edited the rest of it.

Thats the way media in present day Iraq works.

It would almost make you think that Al-Arabiya knew about the explosion before it happened or something.

2003-10-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

Public figures removed from their jobs by the blogosphere for presumed racism

1) Trent Lott

2) Gregg Easterbrook

While certainly not equal in public stature, both of these men lost their jobs because they made remarks that some people considered racist, and they then failed to quickly clarify their remarks and apologize for offending others.

Easterbrook says that he realized 20 minutes after writing the offending paragraph what he had done. He could have yanked that paragraph off right then and attached a small note apologizing to anyone who had already read it. I still don't understand why he didn't do that.

UPDATE: Colby Cosh's thoughts on the subject are required reading. I have to admit that my first instinct after reading about Easterbrook's firing was to scream at Roger Simon and Meryl Yourish "ARE YOU HAPPY NOW, YOU #&*$!?" After some further thought, though, I'm not going to lay any blame at their door for his firing, because only Gregg Easterbrook and ESPN are really responsible for that. It's true that Easterbrook might not have been fired if they hadn't overreacted by calling his stuff "racist garbage" and saying that he "looks like a totally bigoted ass, " respectively; but they were, like Easterbrook, only expressing legitimate opinions, and there was no way to foresee these particular consequences. Like Cosh, I think we need to be very careful in calling someone a racist or anti-Semite.

2003-10-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

TMQ gone

Another blogger has alerted me through Roger Simon's comments to the fact that ESPN has deleted all of Easterbrook's past columns. That's right, they have apparently not only fired him, they have deleted everything that he's ever written. I know that his columns were there last night, because I used them in writing my previous post.

This is really sad. The lesson here is that people have to be extremely careful about their language when mentioning those of another race or religion ... unless you want to criticize Christians or white people, because we all know they're still fair game.

ESPN, of course, is owned by Disney ... whose CEO is Michael Eisner, recently the subject of Easterbrook's commentary. Coincidence?

UPDATE: Roger Simon has said that he also doesn't think that Easterbrook should have been fired.

UPDATE: Here's the URL to give ESPN some "feedback" about Easterbrook's firing. I've already given mine, and it wasn't pretty.

2003-10-17T17:54:00.000-07:00

Easterbrook Update

Well, Roger Simon and Meryl Yourish have accepted Easterbrook's apology, though Simon doesn't appear convinced that Easterbrook isn't really an anti-Semite.

Yourish specifically takes issue with a statement in my previous post, in which I said:

Yourish seems to be saying that Easterbrook, because he isn't Jewish, can't criticize a few specific Jewish individuals for not respecting their ethnic history. I don't agree.

Meryl, if that bothers you, I'll take it back. You are correct that your original post does not say anything specifically about Jews being criticized my non-Jews. But if I'm going to do that, then perhaps you should read this sentence again from your original post: And is he actually implying in that last sentence that Jewish film executives are partly responsible for Muslim terrorism? Since Easterbrook said nothing of the kind, your criticism of me seems hypocritical. If I had phrased my statement in the form of a rhetorical question and replaced "seems to be saying" with "imply," would that have made my statement OK?

I'd also like to address your other criticism, that I seem unwilling to understand to understand why Jews might be offended by Easterbrook's original column. To the contrary, I certainly understand why Easterbrook's column might have seemed offensive upon first reading. He used buzzwords that reflect classic anti-Semetic stereotypes. I just thought that his post needed a careful, honest second reading, combined with putting the issue in the context of his past screeds against movie violence (see here, here, and here, including specific mention of "Hollywood executives" [UPDATE: links now don't work since ESPN deleted them]). Doing that made it clear to me that Easterbrook's blog entry was not an indication of anti-Semetism, and I certainly think that people deserve a chance to explain themselves (which Easterbrook admitedly took too long to do) before saying that they "look like a totally bigoted ass."

Anyway, can we just get back to criticizing the real anti-Semites now?

UPDATE: Isntapundit has had a rough time with this and makes a lot of good points.

UPDATE: Josh Chafetz worked with Easterbrook and has the last word.

2003-10-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

Tax referendum in Ohio

I haven't kept up with this story as well as I would like, but as best as I can tell it's an effort to stop some RINOs from imposing new taxes to pay for runaway spending. I had to laugh, though, when I read that Ken Blackwell's opponents are claiming that Blackwell just wants to get attention for a possible gubernatorial campaign in 2006. I met Blackwell while working for the Forbes campaign, and I can tell you that opposition to high taxes runs deep through his bones. This is definitely not a publicity stunt, and I wish him luck.

UPDATE: Here's a great WSJ editorial that explains why this tax revolt is such good news for conservatives.

2003-10-17T09:44:00.000-07:00

Domino alert

President Bush's plan to transform the Middle East is getting results, no matter how much the liberals sneer.

2003-10-17T09:28:00.000-07:00

Weekly Standard hits a home run

"Supreme Court Halts Recount, Dashes Red Sox Pennant Hopes"

This is great, but I'm hoping that some of the baseball talk in the blogosphere will slow down a little. Reading some political blogs lately, I've been missing the politics.

2003-10-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

Hosting Matters crash

Hmm ... maybe I shouldn't be too quick to leave Blogger after all.

2003-10-17T05:29:00.000-07:00

Easterbrook apologizes for wording

AN APOLOGY: Nothing's worse, as a writer, than so mangling your own use of words that you are heard to have said something radically different than what you wished to express. Of mangling words, I am guilty.

...

Looking back I did a terrible job through poor wording. It was terrible that I implied that the Jewishness of studio executives has anything whatsoever to do with awful movies like Kill Bill. Nothing about Eisner or Weinstein causes any movie to be bad or awful; they're just supervisors. For all I know neither of them even focused on the adoration-of-violence aspect until the reviews came out. My attempt to connect my perfectly justified horror at an ugly and corrupting movie to the religious faith and ethnic identity of certain executives was hopelessly clumsy.

Where I failed most is in the two sentences about adoration of money. I noted that many Christian executives adore money above all else, and in the 20-minute reality of blog composition, that seemed to me, writing it, fairness and fair spreading of blame. But accusing a Christian of adoring money above all else does not engage any history of ugly stereotypes. Accuse a Jewish person of this and you invoke a thousand years of stereotypes about that which Jews have specific historical reasons to fear. What I wrote here was simply wrong, and for being wrong, I apologize.

Every reporter who has called me today has asked me my faith. Since I say this is relevant for others, it's relevant for me. I'm a Christian. I worship in one of the handful of joint Christian-Jewish congregations in the United States. This website describes the Bradley Hills Presbyterian (USA) side of the church. This website describes Bethesda Jewish, a Klal Yisrael ("All Israel") congregation that shares the same worship spaces and finances. Two years ago I wrote in The New Republic of the Bradley Hills-Bethesda Jewish joint congregation, "One of the shortcomings of Christianity is that most adherents downplay the faith's interweaving with Judaism." I and my family sought out a place where Christians and Jews express their faith cooperatively, which seems to me a good idea. Bad idea: writing poorly about this, and being misunderstood. Again, I'm sorry.

This is good. Only, like the Instaman says, he should have done it right away. For crying out loud, Gregg, if you realized 20 minutes after your post that there was a problem, then you should have posted an update right then and cleared everything up. This story would never have appeared in the New York Times. Easterbrook apparently still doesn't really get how the whole blogging thing works, but I think his apology pretty thoroughly repudiates any thought that he's an anti-Semite -- I wonder if those who viciously attacked him will now take it back.

2003-10-16T15:17:00.000-07:00

Evangelical Christians unfit to serve?

Via Jim Miller, I'm absolutely infuriated by this article in the Los Angeles Times that suggests that military officers and defense department officials should not be allowed to speak in evangelical churches because it "might send the wrong message."

What message? The fact that we are supposed to have freedom of speech and religion in this country? Look at how biased this paragraph is:

Although the Army has seldom if ever taken official action against officers for outspoken expressions of religious opinion, outside experts see remarks such as Boykin's as sending exactly the wrong message to the Arab and Islamic world.

So it's OK for the Army to employ radical Wahabbi Islamist extremists as chaplains and translators, but it's not OK for a Christian to express his views in church? I mean, it doesn't seem that Gen. Boykin called a press conference to announce his religious beliefs to the world -- it looks like someone recorded his church appearances and decided to "expose" him.

Let me see if I can find the words for my outrage ... Gen. Boykin's speaking in churches would not have sent "the wrong message" to our Arab "friends" if the L.A. Times hadn't somehow decided that it was news and decided to make a story out of it! If anyone in this situation is hurting America, it is NBC and the L.A. Times.

And the L.A. Times has a lot of nerve to be talking about the messages that anyone sends, coming from a paper that's still sending the wrong message on the war. The liberal media and their Democratic friends have sent the Islamic world the message that the war in Iraq has turned into a quagmire and American public opinion is turning against President Bush because of it. "Hey you Islamist fanatics," they say, "just send a few more suicide bombers into Iraq and maybe we'll pull the plug on the whole thing!" Hypocrites.

UPDATE: Donald Rumsfeld is defending Gen. Boykin -- good for him. Meanwhile, check out this quote:

Senators who appeared before reporters at the Pentagon Thursday on another matter were asked about the reports. Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee, R-Rhode Island, said he had not been aware of Boykin's views as described by the Times, then added, "If that's accurate, to me it's deplorable."

Yeah, it's really deplorable that we have people in this country who believe that their religion is right and that others are wrong -- how disgusting. Why can't all those Evangelical Christians simply agree that all religions are equally valid? And how can Gen. Boykin say that Osama is motivated by Satan? After all, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Those Christians should keep their mouths shut, or other nations might get the idea that most Americans are Christian or something. [/sarcasm]

We get closer every day to the time when persecution of Christians is going to tear this country apart.

UPDATE: Good for Gen. Myers for saying that he has also appeared at prayer meetings in uniform. It's too bad that Gen Boykin "indicated that he had learned a lesson" -- I wish he had been a little more defiant, but I can certainly understand that he'd probably rather make news by catching Saddam.

UPDATE: Cut on the Bias correctly calls this a new "don't ask, don't tell provision for the religious in the military." Yes, except that the bigoted policy only applies to Evangelical Christians -- radical Muslims, for example, can say whatever they like.

UPDATE: Chris Regan gets it too.

2003-10-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

Rush Limbaugh and hypocrisy

I know that every conservative columnist has already written something about Rush, but if you're still hungry for more, then go read Ann Coulter. Sample graf:

When a conservative can be the biggest thing in talk radio, earning $30 million a year and attracting 20 million devoted listeners every week – all while addicted to drugs – I'll admit liberals have reason to believe that conservatives are some sort of super-race, incorruptible by original sin. But the only perfect man hasn't walked the Earth for 2,000 years. In liberals' worldview, any conservative who is not Jesus Christ is ipso facto a "hypocrite" for not publicly embracing dissolute behavior the way liberals do.

2003-10-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

The case against "gay marriage"

Wow. David Frum lays out the case against "gay marriage" in clear, dramatic fashion. This is the best answer I have seen as to why the gay rights movement will cause irreparable harm to marriage. Frum points out that "marriage" will not usually be what is adopted in most states, but instead some kind of "civil partnership." He then lays out the consequences:

It is highly unlikely that these proliferating domestic partnerships would be offered to same-sex couples alone. That might even be unconstitutional, a deprivation of equal protection, but certainly it would be politically impossible. Every American city and state that offers domestic-partnership benefits offers them equally to heterosexuals and homosexuals. The result of a national trend toward same-sex marriage would be that the young people of the country would be presented with 50 different buffets, each of them offering two or more varieties of quasi-marital relationships. In such a world, the very concept of marriage would vanish.

Please read the whole thing.

2003-10-15T16:56:00.000-07:00

Nobel Freedom Prize

Pejman Yousefzadeh has a TCS column up on a subject that I'd been meaning to blog about myself, namely that the Nobel committee seems to have a bit of an identity crisis. Some years they award a Peace Prize, and some years it seems that they award a "Freedom Prize."

Pejman argues persuasively that freedom is more important than peace and the name of the prize should reflect that.

2003-10-15T13:35:00.000-07:00

President Bush raises $83 million to date

And he'll collect at least another $2 million this week. I know that the campaign eventually wants to raise $170 million, but this is still very impressive.

2003-10-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

Democratic presidential campaign update

Here, from Howard Fineman. Interesting and (in my opinion) accurate.

2003-10-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

Racial censorship

How appropriate! Today, Walter Williams has a column pointing out the double standard on discussion of racial issues.

2003-10-15T08:05:00.000-07:00

Race and taking offense

I've been discussing several race-related issues lately, and I think they all have some commonalities.

Gregg Easterbook and Rush Limbaugh have both recently been attacked as racist for making comments that were not racist. I've also been discussing the Willie Horton ads, which were widely criticized as racist even though they were not.

In all three cases, the principles could have avoided the controversy by being a little more careful. Easterbrook could definitely have phrased his comments differently and avoided this current brouhaha, as could Rush. If Willie Horton had been a scary-looking white murderer instead of a scary-looking black murderer, the GOP would enjoy a much better relationship with black Americans today.

As a Christian, I believe that people have an obligation to avoid actions which hurt others. So even though I think Easterbrook and Limbaugh were basically correct in their remarks -- and both were certainly not racist -- they should have been more careful not to hurt others, as should the makers of the Willie Horton ad (which was not the Bush campaign, by the way). Racial tensions in our world are not likely to disappear soon, so we all need to be careful in how we frame our remarks.

2003-10-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

The Holocaust and movie violence

Meryl Yourish is furious with Gregg Easterbrook for some comments that he made in his blog implying that Jewish movie executives, because of the Holocaust, should have a higher awareness of the problems associated with glorifying senseless murders.

I see where Yourish is coming from, but she exaggerates what Easterbrook says and reads things into his comments that aren't there, so I'm going to reprint the key graf from his blog:

Set aside what it says about Hollywood that today even Disney thinks what the public needs is ever-more-graphic depictions of killing the innocent as cool amusement. Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice. But history is hardly the only concern. Films made in Hollywood are now shown all over the world, to audiences that may not understand the dialogue or even look at the subtitles, but can't possibly miss the message--now Disney's message--that hearing the screams of the innocent is a really fun way to express yourself.

Yourish accuses Easterbrook of characterizing Jews as money-grubbing and says that he looks "like a totally bigoted a$$." She also says:

That is one unbelievable ethical standard to hold Jews up to. That's right, the Jews have to be the most righteous among all nations, because six million of ours were slaughtered. Your logic is missing a crucial step here, though. The Jews weren't slaughtered in the Holocaust as a result of people reading the violent popular fiction of the day. The Jews were slaughtered because of bigotry and hatred.

Come to think of it, back in the 1930s, people were blaming Jews for being money-grubbing worshippers of the almighty deutschmark at the expense of the Fatherland's more moral Germans. So if one is going to draw a parallel here, one might draw one at Easterbrook's slap at Jewish movie executives, rather than comparing their financing of a film hack to drawing down the responsibility of Arab terrorism on their heads.

All the while, of course, giving the Hollywood Christian executives (and other religions) a complete pass.

I don't think Easterbrook in any way meant to characterize Jews as money-grubbing -- I think that he meant to characterize all Hollywood executives as money-grubbing. Easterbrook has a valid point that perhaps the most gratuitously violent movie ever will have no socially redeeming value and will inspire violence. We will certainly eventually debate whether certain "copycat" crimes can directly be attributed to the movie, etc. And there can be no question that Hollywood's immorality is a significant factor in the "why does the world hate us?" question (something, by the way, usually overlooked by those liberals who would prefer to say that "they" hate us because of President Bush).

Yourish seems to be saying that Easterbrook, because he isn't Jewish, can't criticize a few specific Jewish individuals for not respecting their ethnic history. I don't agree. Hollywood Jews have made many movies, including great ones like Schindler's List, about the Holocaust. They have done this so that people would not forget the suffering and violence done to the Jewish people, and also as a personal testimonial of the ways that the Holocaust has affected them personally. If that's true, then it's certainly fair to say that the impact of the Holocaust should inform their judgment concerning the desensitization of violence.

It's preposterous to say that one's ethnic history shouldn't inform one's thinking. Yourish's ethnic history certainly informs her thinking -- which seems to be exactly the point Easterbrook is making.

(By the way, the one detail that I think that Easterbrook gets wrong is in making the issue about religion by bringing Christianity into the discussion. Hollywood executives aren't Christian, nor for the most part, are they observant Jews. Hollywood is a highly secular place, and I don't think most executives have much faith of any kind. Anti-Semitism is, from everything that I've seen, more directed against those of Jewish descent than those who specifically practice Judaism. With regard to Hollywood, I believe the issue is related more to race than religion.)

UPDATE: Why is there a rush to condemn Easterbrook as a racist anti-Semite? Has he written bigoted things in the past? If so, I've never seen any.

To reiterate: Easterbrook's point was that we should learns lessons from past racism. His blog entry was obviously not racially hateful; it was instead arguing that past racial hate is something that we should learn from.

UPDATE II: I'll criticize Easterbrook a little by saying that I think such references as his tend to trivialize the Holocaust. I don't believe that we should try to use that event as standard reference point for morality comparisons -- the Holocaust is always much more evil than whatever is being compared to it, and making such a comparison usually tends to diminish the Holocaust by the association. (This is also my objection when people say things such as: "Bush and Ashcroft are Nazis!")

UPDATE III: Isntapundit basically agrees with me.

2003-10-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

Domino effect

Here's some more lawlessness and instability in the Middle East, no doubt caused by American imperialistic bullying.

2003-10-14T08:24:00.000-07:00

Affluent Genocide

There's an excellent article in FrontPage Magazine today by Robert Spencer that completely debunks the myth that Islamofanaticism is caused by poverty and lack of education. He writes about Hanadi Jaradat, a young affluent woman who had just graduated from law school when she decided to become a "martyr" for Islamic Jihad and kill Israelis. Money grafs:

“The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death,” said Maulana Inyadullah of al-Qaeda in the aftermath of September 11. He and Hanadi Jaradat love death so much that they are ready to bring it upon others in line with their understanding of the ways of Allah: “Those who love the life of this world more than the Hereafter, who hinder (men) from the Path of Allah and seek therein something crooked: they are astray by a long distance” (Sura 14:3).

Until moderate Muslims drop their posture of denial about the Islamic roots and appeal of suicide bombing, there will be more and more deaths. Until they recognize Maulana Inyadullah’s strange love and work to eradicate it from Islam, we will see many more Hanadi Jaradats.

As I've written before, I completely agree with the assessment that the problem we face is more religious than political.

2003-10-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

More defense of Rush

Some very good points are made here by the VodkaPundit.

Also read this post from Tom Bevan at RealClear Politics.

UPDATE: Finally, John Podhoretz is also required reading.

2003-10-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

Old fart idiot TV blatherers like Andy Rooney

Jeff Jarvis posts a hilarious dissection of Andy Rooney. You have to read it.

2003-10-13T05:06:00.000-07:00

The next Willie Horton?

David Adesnik keeps begging his readers to go read Phil Carter's blog, but I have to say that boneheaded posts like this one with regard to the Lackawanna six don't make me excited to jump over there very often. If I want to get silly Democratic wishful thinking about the 2004 Presidential election, I can just go visit the Democratic Underground.

Terrorism will likely be an issue in the 2004 presidential election, as either a subset of national security or a major issue in its own right. I believe the Democratic candidates will soon start to use this issue in the primaries to appeal to their core constituencies -- liberal Americans who feel their civil liberties are at risk with the current administration. The Lackawanna Six case will be a major piece of that argument, just as President Bush used the Willie Horton case in 1988 to appeal to the fears of moderate and conservative voters. (In principle the two are the same; in practice the latter is inherently more dirty than the other as far as political tactics go.) In the general election, I believe this will be an issue too. The Democrats will likely use this issue as a wedge to separate moderates from the Republican Party, and I think they will be successful.

Now I'm sorry to have to say this, but that's just stupid. How on earth are the Lackawanna six going to resemble Willie Horton? The Lackawanna six are in jail and I don't think they are going to be let out on a furlough. Willie Horton was out of jail because of a liberal, soft-on-crime attitude from Governor Dukakis. President Bush is supposed to be soft on terrorists?

It's true that Democratic candidates can say that we should be doing more to protect our national security, and they may have a case if there's another major attack before the election, but as of now I don't see any way the Democrats will be able to successfully attack the President on this issue. After all, we've now been over two years without any major terrorist attacks against the US. As things stand today, President Bush will be rightly be able to take credit for protecting America -- the issue will be huge positive for the President in his campaign.

UPDATE: I also don't want to let pass the idea that the Willie Horton ads represent a "dirty political tactic." Here are the facts:

William Horton brutally raped a woman and stabbed her fiance in Maryland after walking away from a weekend prison furlough in Massachusetts. Horton was a monster who was nonetheless allowed to walk out of jail despite the fact that he had been sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 85 years.

After Horton committed his crimes, Gov. Dukakis vetoed a bill that would have stopped the prison furloughs for those convicted of first-degree murder because he said it would "cut the heart out of inmate rehabilitation."

The reason that the Horton issue was brought up in the campaign was because it was a classic and accurate example of Democrats being soft on crime. That's why it was first raised by Al Gore (not George H. W. Bush) in a debate with Dukakis.

Willie Horton was the single worst example of the Massachusetts furlough program. If he had been white, he still would have been a huge campaign issue that would have benefited George H. W. Bush. The ad was unquestionably not "dirty." What was dirty was the liberalism that allowed vicious criminals to walk out of jail and escape to commit more crimes.

Unfortunately, Willie Horton was black, and the campaign ad was widely portrayed as demonizing black Americans as criminals. It ended up hurting the GOP with minority voters for years, especially after David Duke ran as a Republican in 1990 and 1991.

With the advent of mandatory minimum sentences for many crimes and the trend started by Rudy Giuliani of tough policing, crime has declined in America. The Horton case serves as a reminder as to what happens when liberalism goes unchecked.

UPDATE II: Phil Carter has responded by posting an update to his original post. I still don't think that there is any logical comparison between Lackawanna and Willie Horton -- in fact, I think his update actually shows just how silly the comparison is.

One of the reasons they are supposedly similar in that each is "an issue which appeals to each party's respective base, as well as moderates." Of course, 99% of all political ads and issues fall into this category!

Carter also says that the similarity is "You can't trust this candidate on X issue" that lies behind each. In Horton's case, it was "You can't trust Mike Dukakis to be tough on crime." In this case, it will be "You can't trust John Ashcroft with your civil liberties. So the issues are alike because one candidate is too soft on crime and the other is too tough? That makes sense only if opposites are judged to be similar.

The idea that ordinary people are going to be afraid of John Ashcroft locking them up seems to be very common among certain Democrats. I can only hope that their nominee decides to make this a major issue in the campaign.

2003-10-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

Disgusting smear of Limbaugh

I expected the sneers and laughs of the liberals like those commenting on the Democratic Underground or on the Daily Kos. They are quite predictable and completely inhuman. Typical example:

HA-HA-HAH!

Now, we all know what he WOULDN'T (not couldn't, but wouldn't) tell you stupid conservative B**CHES! (Until today.) The story is, RUSH IS A JUNKIE! No different than a dirty old crackhead standing out on a street corner. No different than that wino laying in the gutter with a brown paper bag over his "Mad Dog" 20/20, you know that wino, the one covered in his own urine. (At least his drug of choice is legal.) That's what Rush is!

Also, conservatives, cut out the "God-bless-Rush-and-Marta" crap! You know like I know, she's just after his money! C'mon, you know it's true. Smart, cute little blonde thing like her -- she could have done WAY better than that big, fat, drug addict. (ADDICT!) She probably fed him all those pills to make it easier for her to wrap her greedy little fingers around his money. (Okay, I admit, I have no evidence of this about Marta, but, c'mon, admit it! This subjecture of mine, you have thought it, too, haven't you? Haven't you!) . . .

. . . Somebody, please, point me to a conservative board where I can go be obnoxious as all hell! Seriously. Please.

Here's another:

I have NO sympathy for Rush Limbaugh.Death to all Republicans for their lying hypocritical ways. Send him up the river for life!

Anyway, all this could be completely expected. What I didn't expect was for Newsweek, as liberal as that magazine is, to go as far as it did with it's hatchet job. Read some of these quotes from this cover story:

Limbaugh's long-running act as a paragon of virtue is over. Now the question is whether he can make a virtue out of honesty ...

Granted, Limbaugh's act has won over, or fooled, a lot of people ...

"What's your idea of an ideal day?" "I don't have an ideal day," he replied, glumly. "Well, what if a good friend came into town one Saturday, what would you do?" "When I have someone coming into town for the weekend, I get stressed out on Tuesday thinking about it." Limbaugh went on to say that he hates walking, hates window-shopping and likes New York mainly because you can order in ...

Limbaugh's own mother remarked on his somewhat passive-aggressive reticence as a child ...

Limbaugh lasted only a year in college. He jokes that he flunked Public Speaking. Actually, he got a D his speaking teacher, Dr. Bill Stacy, told NEWSWEEK ...

But his personal life left something to be desired. Despite his fervent moralizing, he smoked a little pot and watched a little porn (as he has publicly admitted). His first two marriages failed. His second wife, Michelle, told Vanity Fair that Limbaugh's father never quite approved of his career path, and that Rush would be depressed and deflated every time he got off the phone with his dad. He struggled with his weight, which ballooned to as high as 320 pounds ...

His self-absorption made dating difficult ...

Gee, Evan, are you sure you didn't leave anything out? Maybe Rush has some more personal failings that you missed -- are you sure he hasn't beaten his dog or anything?

The story contains no mention of the large sums of money that Rush has raised for charity playing numerous celebrity golf tournaments. (How does that not contradict the image of Rush lying on his couch every weekend?) In fact, it contains nothing at all that's positive about Rush.

So many of the things in the above story are completely false and misleading. Anyone who listens to Rush's show knows that he is actually a very humble person and he's never maintained an "act as a paragon of virtue."

What happened to Rush is tragic. He was prescribed medication for the intense back pain he suffered after surgery, and he became addicted as a result. He's now taking responsibility for that addiction and is fighting to stop it.

As Gary Bauer said, “From a moral standpoint, there’s a difference between people who go out and seek a high and get addicted and the millions of Americans dealing with pain who inadvertently get addicted.”

Quite right.

2003-10-12T13:53:00.000-07:00

Dull Democrats

Even the very liberal Eleanor Clift recognizes how unappealing the Democratic presidential contenders are:

After all-Arnold, all-the-time, making the transition to the dreary Democrats is a hard sell. Whatever you think of the California recall, the theatricality of Schwarzenegger’s political debut made the Democrats seem even more charismatically challenged than usual as they lined up to debate Thursday in Phoenix.

She's right -- there's no question that the California recall has hurt the ability of the Democratic wannabes to connect with the voters.

Clift also recognizes, as I have said repeatedly, that the campaign is a Dean vs. somebody race, and Gephardt, Kerry, Clark -- and Lieberman and Edwards to a lesser extent -- are all fighting to be that somebody who emerges to represent the Democratic establishment.

The top candidates would have more success in getting people to focus on the race if they didn't have to share the stage with Sharpton, Kucinich, and Moseley-Braun -- who of course have no chance. A debate without them would allow allow more spontaneity and would give the serious candidates more time to expound on their views, but it won't happen anytime soon. Anyone want to guess why?

UPDATE: Monday's Novak column confirms Clark's poor performance and adds:

Although Gen. Clark did not look ready for prime time, his experienced competitors did not look much better.

Sometimes, it's really hard for me to believe that one of these guys is actually going to represent their party in the general election.

2003-10-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

Schwarzenegger's impact

There's a good article in OpinionJournal today by Daniel Henninger, backing up my statement that Arnold helps the GOP by being "cool." He's a superstar who, like Rudy Giuliani, will benefit Republicans across the country by his presence on the national stage. His fundraising potential for the GOP is huge.

I also like his quote that McClintock's "intellectual clarity has done for California GOP politics what Steve Forbes did for the national party." Yes, that's quite true. McClintock, by refraining from attacking Arnold as the campaign came to its conclusion, bought himself a lot of good will with the electorate and (I'm sure) with Schwarzenegger. He, like Forbes nationally, established the GOP as the party of right-thinking, intelligent people who want real solutions.

So the California recall, overall, presents Republicans as "cool" and as "smart," while presenting Democrats as whiny, corrupt losers. That what makes the Democratic spin attempts so funny.

(Hat tip to the Power Line.)

UPDATE: John McIntyre is right -- the left is in total denial.

2003-10-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

Tenet's head must roll

That's the message in an editorial from NY Rep. Peter King in today's Post.

The Wilson incident raises troubling issues and serious concerns. Why did the CIA entrust a non-CIA man with such a sensitive assignment? Wasn't the CIA aware that Wilson opposed the Bush policy in Iraq? How extensive was Wilson's investigation? Why didn't the CIA take action against Wilson when he went public against Bush and revealed the details of his mission?

Why didn't the CIA point out that Wilson's investigation never addressed what the president said in his State of the Union speech, that the British source was separate from the CIA's and that the British stand by their finding to this day. In other words, that despite Wilson's posturing and outrage, everything the president said about Niger was true.

Against this backdrop, isn't the position of Wilson's spouse at the CIA a matter of legitimate concern or debate? Isn't it more significant that we have a rogue spy machine operating at cross purposes with our national interest than who said what to Robert Novak?

And how much credibility should we give to Wilson, who shows off pictures of his wife, comparing her to an actress in a TV spy drama?

I'm not willing to go as far as Chris Regan is and demand that Wilson and Plame take lie detector tests, but this has to be the last straw for George Tenet, no matter how much President Bush likes him.

2003-10-10T14:08:00.000-07:00

Good for Rush

His statement today was honest, and he took responsibility:

I am not making any excuses. You know, over the years athletes and celebrities have emerged from treatment centers to great fanfare and praise for conquering great demons.

They are said to be great role models and examples for others. Well, I am no role model. I refuse to let anyone think I am doing something great here, when there are people you never hear about, who face long odds and never resort to such escapes.

They are the role models. I am no victim and do not portray myself as such. I take full responsibility for my problem.

Ironically, Rush's honesty and humility actually do make him a role model.

2003-10-09T15:49:00.000-07:00

Good odds for Gephardt?

Via the Daily Kos, I came across this item in US News:

Don't count Dick Gephardt out of the Democratic presidential race is the message coming from top party officials. Long the favorite of many in Democratic Party HQ for his years in Washington as minority leader and chief congressional fundraiser, senior officials are now pitching him as the alternative to Howard Dean who has shunned Washington in his fast-moving campaign. What's Geppy got? Insiders say he's still labor's choice and the union vote could push him over Dean in the early primary and caucus states. He's also strong in Iowa, home to the first presidential caucus. Of course, fans of Sen. John Kerry say he's the best alternative. Ditto for those of Wes Clark.

It's now pretty clear that the race for the Democratic nomination is going to come down to a Dean vs. somebody campaign. Wesley Clark had a legitimate chance to be that somebody, but as I state below, I think he's pretty much blown it. John Kerry also seems to lack a coherent message and his campaign seems in disarray. Lieberman and Edwards look increasingly like long shots. I think the odds are good that Gephardt comes out of Iowa with some steam and ends up being the main challenger to Dean. We'll see.

2003-10-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

Valerie Plame and the CIA

As I wrote in the comments to this Dan Drezner post, I've thought that the biggest question about Plame is the lax CIA security that allowed it to be "common knowledge" around Washington that Plame worked for the CIA. To my thinking, internal CIA security seemed to be the biggest issue here. Now, Mark Steyn has come up with a bigger one:

It's one thing not to be a card-carrying neocon, quite another to be as antipathetic to the administration and the war as this fellow. The White House asked the CIA, the CIA recommended Wilson, and their recommendation was accepted automatically ... an agency known to be opposed to war in Iraq sent an employee's spouse also known to be opposed to war in Iraq on a perfunctory joke mission.

It's time for Tenet to go.

Meanwhile, the Instaman has a lot more links.

2003-10-08T13:32:00.000-07:00

More thoughts on Rush Limbaugh

It is abundantly clear that black Americans still face discrimination in our society. This is not a topic that most conservatives like to think about, but it is one that cannot be ignored.

With that in mind, Jay Nordlinger writes today on something that I had thought about myself.

To me, it's simply a given that people root for black persons to succeed, certainly in positions from which they have been excluded. You could say that it's only decent that people engage in such rooting.

Like Jay, I'm proud to say that I root for black people to succeed, even over white people, in positions where they are underrepresented. (The converse of this is also true, as I root for white basketball players like Manu Ginobili and Pau Gasol to prove that white men can jump.) Unlike Jay, though, I don't think it's a given or natural -- I think people naturally root for those most like themselves. I think people actually have to make a decision to reject this unconscious racism.

Anyway, it's self-evident that Rush is right that people want black quarterbacks to succeed. If you need it, John Lott offers some statistical evidence.

UPDATE: Jay Nordlinger today prints an email from a conservative reader:

"About rooting for blacks: I do it all the time. Especially on Jeopardy. Needless to say, the show has very high standards. I know, as my nephew (age 13) did extremely well in a try-out last year and wasn't selected. For whatever reason, the population of contestants is skewed toward white males. I am thrilled to see black contestants, root for them, and look forward to the day when their numbers increase.

2003-10-08T09:52:00.000-07:00

Clark's stumbles

Lost in the California story is the fact that Wesley Clark has had a horrible 24 hours. Not only did his campaign manager resign, but it appears that he's broken campaign finance regulations.

Clark has already made a number of huge mistakes that have severly damaged his chances of winning the Democratic nomination. Since he had been considering jumping into the race for months, he should've used that time to put together a campaign team, figure out where he stood on the issues, and, yes, bother to change his party registration to Democrat. Instead, he's making everything up as he goes and blowing his chance.

UPDATE: With this in mind, it's ironic to hear Clark complain that we didn't have a plan for post-war Iraq -- that President Bush is just making it up as he goes.

UPDATE: I missed this TNR bit that basically says the same thing.

2003-10-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

Spanking cousins

The leading candidate for coronor in East Baton Rouge Parish is in trouble. In addition to his failed attempt to cover up a DWI conviction and the revelation that he currently has an outstanding bench warrant out for his arrest because of his failure to pay a traffic ticket, he now has to deal with this:

Two adult cousins of coroner candidate Jerry Sanders told sheriff's deputies last year that Sanders sometimes paddles their buttocks in return for rent and tuition money, but Sanders said Tuesday that he only paddled them as punishment for misdeeds.

According to a report by the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office, the deputies responded to a 911 call at Sanders' south Baton Rouge home last November, where his two cousins -- both in their early 20s -- said they had gone to receive their latest round of "swattings," as they called the practice.

One of the men was quoted in the report as saying Sanders had shoved him after the man refused to masturbate while being videotaped.

Bizarre, no? This guy never thought about the skeletons in his closet.

Sanders has run with the support of Coroner Louis Cataldie, who is not seeking reelection after one full term.

"If I'd known all this crap was going to come up, I would have said from Day 1, 'Dr. Cataldie, let me think about it,'" he said about running for office.

UPDATE: Here's the story from a press conference where he says that paddling his 23-year-old cousin is "tough love."

UPDATE II: Sanders has decided to withdraw from the race.

2003-10-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

Democratic anger

It's funny, because I thought some Democrats would be glad to get rid of Gray Davis, an unpopular albatross around the party's neck who was dragging their party down. But no, most of them are spitting mad. Look at Daily Kos saying "Recall Arnold!" and the comments on this CalPundit post. One of the comments was so (unintentionally) funny that I had to reproduce part of it here.

Even though I live in New Jersey I'll be making a $100 contribution to the first credible group that steps forward to start Schwarzenegger recall petitions. (Moveon.org maybe) [Yes, she really did propose that "Moveon.org" recall Arnold.]

I wasn't really for Arnold -- I probably would have ended up voting for McClintock, but Arnold's victory will be a boost for the GOP nationwide by helping make it "cool" again. A huge defeat for the Democrats is also a good thing, no matter what kind of governor Arnold turns out to be.

UPDATE: Tom Bevan shares some of my sentiments about last night's results.

UPDATE: John Hawkins has more hilarious Democrat reactions to Arnold's win.

2003-10-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

While I was out

I haven't posted anything in a week, so I'm still playing catch up, but here are some quick takes on a number of items. I'll post my thoughts tomorrow on the Louisiana gubernatorial election.

Iraq's constitution
Those appointed by Iraq's Governing Council to set the stage for Iraq's new constitution have reported that they are deeply divided on the process of selecting delegates to a constitutional convention. John Cullinan thinks that this is a good development because it forces Iraqis to start confronting important issues and notes that much more attention is being paid to Iraq's new constitution than was paid to Afghanistan's. Meanwhile, David Brooks argues persuasively that this process is far more important than issues relating to security and reconstruction -- but it is receiving much less attention.

Iraq media coverage
Yesterday's Washington Post contained a riveting item detailing the horrors at Saddam's Abu Ghraib prison complex. To force the media to change its overall negative coverage of our operations in Iraq, Frank Gaffney recommends that President Bush travel to Baghdad, something that would be very brave and provide the President with a tremendous political boost. Meanwhile, Bryan Preston notes that the media glossed over the important finds in David Kay's interim report.

California recall
Maureen Dowd has written her first intelligent column in months, and the column would be worth reading for that reason alone, but she also packs a wallop against today's so-called "feminists." Hugh Hewitt, meanwhile, eviscerates the L.A. Times and notes the huge loss in credibility and the fact that over a thousand people canceled their subscriptions over the Arnold smear.

Global warming
Gregg Easterbrook points out that Russia may not ratify the Kyoto protocal because global warming would benefit Russia economically. I bet that a lot of people in Buffalo and Duluth feel the same way.

Rush Limbaugh
John Hawkins has the most complete coverage of the whole Rush situation. The resignation from ESPN was totally unwarranted, as Spoons points out. What Rush said is obviously true to some extent. It's too early to comment on the drug story, because we really don't know very much yet.

2003-10-06T07:32:00.000-07:00

Back from Disney

Well, I'm back from Walt Disney World and very relaxed and happy. I had a wonderful time with my wife and daughter, and I haven't kept up with the news at all. I'll post something once I've had time to digest some of the headlines.

2003-09-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

I'm going on vacation

I'll be back next Monday -- see you then.

2003-09-29T10:06:00.000-07:00

The blogosphere gets results!

Both Deborah Orin and John Leo are pointing out that blogs are affecting the media's consistently negative spin on the news from Iraq.

Also, Max Boot's USA Today editorial is very persuasive in its affirmation of progress in Iraq.

2003-09-29T09:45:00.000-07:00

Your tax dollars at work

I had a sickening ride to work this morning listening to NPR. First the "anchor" said that members of Congress were in Iraq this weekend to tour "Iraq's crumbling infrastructure." That is a blatantly false and misleading statement, as Iraq's infrastructure was largely undamaged by the war and is now already in better shape, in many cases, than before the war.

Then I had to listen (yes, I recognize that I had the power to change the station) to a long story bewailing the plight of the Palestinians who live near the new security fence and whose lives will be disrupted. I wonder how many in-depth stories NPR has done on the families of those killed by Hamas terror -- I certainly haven't heard any.

With so many news outlets available these days, why can't the Republican Congress get the gumption to get rid of this boondoggle? Why does the government tax me to spout liberal nonsense? (Yes, I realize that this is a stupid question and that those in Britain have it worse.)

2003-09-29T09:38:00.000-07:00

Bustamante in 3rd place?

I think that Kenneth Khachigian is right that it could happen. All the trends are pointing in that direction. For McClintock to beat Bustamante would be a huge achievement, and it would be a serious blow to Democrats in California.

2003-09-28T15:06:00.000-07:00

Dean attacks Clark

I enjoy the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination because I really don't have a stake in it. Whoever the Democrats nominate will not be favored to beat President Bush, so I can enjoy the fighting without all the worrying and whining that goes with knowing that it's hurting your party.

Today, Howard Dean said that the Wesley Clark candidacy represents a "desperate" attempt by party insiders to defeat his candidacy by using "a general who was a Republican until 25 days ago." For what it's worth, Dean is obviously right. His attack on Wesley Clark, however, only raises Clark's profile -- an obvious misstep for Dean. He should let Edwards, Lieberman, Kerry and Gephardt attack Clark -- they would do Dean's dirty work for him if he would only be patient.

Howard Dean may be having some difficulty remembering that he is now the frontrunner for the nomination instead of an underdog. Dean's problem is going to be convincing the Democratic base that he'll be able to expand his appeal if he gets the nomination. He won't be able to do that if voters perceive him as simply an angry man who likes to attack others.

So why did Dean do it? My own gut feeling is that it was simply too good a zinger to pass up -- it felt good. Here's what he said:

"I think that Wes Clark is, first of all, a good guy," Dean told CBS's "Face the Nation." But Dean added, "I think what you see in the Wes Clark candidacy is a somewhat of a desperation by inside-the-Beltway politicians."

"You've got a lot of establishment politicians now surrounding a general who was a Republican until 25 days ago," said Dean. ...

Dean noted that Clark voted for Republicans Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon for president. "I think that's going to be hard to swallow for a lot of Democrats," Dean said.

2003-09-26T12:53:00.000-07:00

"He'll be martyring in the fall"

This is so true.

(via Spoons)

2003-09-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

Clark the Republican

In Slate today, Chris Suellentrop writes about Wesley Clark's solid performance in yesterday's Democratic debate and notes that none of the other candidates attacked Clark. He wonders:

But even with No. 10's quietly impressive performance, Edwards, Gephardt, Kerry, and Lieberman appear to be content to ignore him for the time being, to wait and see if his early support dissipates. My question for their campaigns: Isn't that the mistake you made with Howard Dean?

I actually don't think it's a mistake at all. First of all, by attacking Dean, they keep him as the presumptive frontrunner and help take Clark's new spotlight away from him.

Secondly, they may not have to worry about Clark. Though he has made a huge splash in national polls, there haven't been any new poll results from Iowa or New Hampshire (in other words, polls that count). Besides, it's looking more and more like Clark has too much baggage to win the nomination. Today, OpinionJournal has the complete transcript of Wesley Clark's now-infamous May 2001 speech at a Republican fundraiser. Lots of amazing stuff in here:

We were really helped when President Ronald Reagan came in. I remember noncommissioned officers who were going to retire and they re-enlisted because they believed in President Reagan. I remember when he gave his speech on the 40th anniversary of Normandy. I don't know how many of you all--do we have any World War II veterans in this room? Anybody who is here? I think we ought to give our World War II veterans a hand.

I was a colonel at the Pentagon. I was working for the Army chief of staff and doing lessons learned and things. And I didn't get to go to the celebration of Normandy, but we heard the speech when he gave it. He talked about how the rangers took Pointe de Hoc. He talked about how they did it for love. And we all cried. That's the kind of president Ronald Reagan was. He helped our country win the Cold War. He put it behind us in a way no one ever believed would be possible. He was truly a great American leader. And those of us in the Armed Forces loved him, respected him and tremendously admired him for his great leadership. ...

But the Cold War was over, the Berlin Wall was down. And President George Bush had the courage and the vision to push our European allies to take the risk to tell the Russians to leave, and to set up the conditions so all of Germany and later many nations of Eastern Europe could become part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, part of the West with us. And we will always be grateful to President George Bush for that tremendous leadership and statesmanship....

We're going to be active, we're going to be forward engaged. But if you look around the world, there's a lot of work to be done. And I'm very glad we've got the great team in office: men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condolzeezza Rice, Paul O'Neill--people I know very well--our president, George W. Bush. We need them there, because we've got some tough challenges ahead in Europe.

I can not imagine Clark getting the nomination after all this praising of Republicans, especially after the videotape surfaces. The Democratic liberal activists didn't really embrace Bill Clinton, and now they've "suffered" through four years of President Bush and they want a real Democrat as president, not an opportunist in a military uniform.

I think my favorite quote from the whole thing, though, is this:

Look, in politics they told me--I don't know anything about politics now, I want to make that clear.

Don't worry, you've made that perfectly clear.

Update: A new New Hampshire poll released today shows Clark a very distant 3rd behind Dean and Kerry.

2003-09-26T10:27:00.000-07:00

Bill Clinton needs to shut up about Hillary 2004

So says none other but the very liberal Bill Press, noting that the act of keeping Hillary's name in the news may be good for the Clintons' fundraising, but it "hurts every one of the 10 Democrats actually running for president by taking the spotlight away from them and making them look insignificant by contrast." He's right, of course.

2003-09-26T10:22:00.000-07:00

Does any Democrat have a position on Iraq?

Peter Beinart points out that the Democrats' position on Iraq is to take cheap shots against the President. Period. Money grafs:

A week into his presidential bid, Wesley Clark looks less like the Democrats' solution than another symptom of their basic problem. That problem is that much of the Democratic base still doesn't take national security seriously. Sure, Democrats know that most Americans don't trust the party to keep them safe. But they deny that this distrust has anything to do with prevailing Democratic ideology. The party, they reassure themselves, merely needs a tougher image.

And so Democrats keep trying to find new, ever more Rambo-like personas to proclaim essentially the same message. First, there was John Kerry, whose Vietnam heroism supposedly inoculated him against GOP attacks, his incoherent Iraq position notwithstanding. Now, there is General Clark. Maybe Clark does indeed have a proactive, coherent national security message. But, with his Kerry-esque, have-it-both-ways position on Iraq, he certainly hasn't articulated that message on the stump. And many of the Democrats who cheered Clark's entrance into the race don't particularly care; for them, Clark's resumé is the message. Once again, the Democrats are trying to solve an ideological problem with a biographical solution. It didn't work for decorated World War II flying ace George McGovern; it didn't work for Vietnam triple-amputee Max Cleland. And it won't work next fall. The voters--shocking as it may seem-- actually care what the parties believe.

Read the rest for the damning details.

2003-09-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

Bush poll hyperventilating

The folks over at RealClear Politics are backing up my assertion that President Bush is in a much stronger position for reelection than one would surmise from most media accounts.

They also present more evidence that the California race is essentially over and Arnold is the winner.

2003-09-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

Curiosity vs Obligation

I think that both the Burns and Shelton issues have this in common: journalists and bloggers want to know more, so they assert that Burns and Shelton are obligated to say more. I'm not going to put everyone into the same boat, but it seems obvious that some people have let their desires lead them to criticize others.

(Notice that I'm not going to name names either; I'm just going to sit back and let people attack me for not saying what I really think.)

2003-09-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

John Burns

Spoons (also see his comment here) and Jack Shafer, among others, are taking NYT reporter John Burns to task for not naming the reporters who bribed Saddam and coddled him at the expense of the truth.

Here's my take: it would be good if Burns would name names, but I don’t think he’s required to do so.

Saying that Burns’ credibility is on the line is simply not true, because Burns has build up a credible record for many years as a reporter and I haven’t heard anyone saying they thought Burns was lying. Why would anyone think that CNN was the only American news organization “seeing no evil” and ingratiating themselves with Saddam? Burns cannot possibly be “casting a pall on the entire Iraq-War press corps,” because Eason Jordan had already done just that. We already knew that many of the reporters in Baghdad before the war were scum who were only reporting Saddam's side of the story. Burns is only confirming that.

And what could possibly be wrong with making the “reader doubt EVERY news outlet”? They should be doing that anyway — the real danger is that readers would take the liberal media at face value.