Pandagon

Treat It Like It Has Meaning

It's an internet poll, sure, but right now it's 83/17 in favor of an amendment banning same-sex marriage - and you know that it'll find its way into someone's article as a "USA Today poll" if it stays this way.

UPDATE: Damn, I totally read that the wrong way. It's 83/17 no.

Sweetness.

Two Cows

Brad DeLong is asking for "Two Cows" jokes.

JONAH GOLDBERG: Did you know that uber-liberal economist Brad DeLong bought two cows as some strange anti-conservative joke? (Update from several readers: actually, they're jokes about two cows. Like I was supposed to know. I'm this generation's P.J. O'Rourke!)

SEAN HANNITY: He has two cows. He immediately names one Hannity and trains it to ram the other cow with its head until it's afraid to even come within ten feet of the first cow. Hannity-cow proceeds to name everything in the pasture after plays on its name. Cud is now "Hannicud".

GLENN REYNOLDS: You has two cows. Read the whole thing.

MICKEY KAUS: You have two cows. However, neither of them can mount a serious challenge to George W. Bush until they deal with their deeply-held character issues. In fact, the CW is completely wrong on this one - could a pony be the key to resurrecting Democratic fortunes?

BILL FRIST: You have two cows. Neither of them can hold a light to his cows, which not only have better breeding than yours, but which also smell better and can talk.

MSNBC: You have two cows. Not that anyone would know, because you keep reshuffling and retooling them, and eventually you just sell them and put on another three hours of Hardball reruns to fill the void.

RICK SANTORUM: You have two cows. Your cows are undermining the sanctity of all other cow relationships. If you insist on having your two cows, it could lead to all sorts of destructive things that would undermine the traditional bovine family. And then I might end up locked in a shed with a fifth of gin and one very confused group of farm animals.

YOUR LOCAL COLLEGE REPUBLICANS: You have two cows. However, you probably got them over some deserving white potential farmer. It's time for an affirmative-action barbeque.

That Democracy Show

Super Tuesday is just on the horizon, and I haven't quite decided who to support yet. Ohio is pretty much the key to this whole thing - the Holy Grail of the electoral puzzle.

(By the way, I just finished the DaVinci Code, so that Holy Grail mention has me itching to say "sacred feminine" a thousand times, and solve a murder mystery.)

Where I stand now is that Kerry could and Edwards would win Ohio in a close election. All of which doesn't lead me to push for one over the other too much in that respect - the problem is, I'm voting based on organizational strength, despite the fact that both of them will have fairly strong organizations after the nomination is decided, and both of them bring disparate but effective political skills to the table.

On the issues (excluding the past for now, I'm just going based on proposed platforms), I lean slightly Kerry over Edwards, which has more to do with Edwards' death penalty stance than anything else. When I first started following the race, I was leaning Kerry. Recently, I've been tilting Edwards, but I have to wonder how much of it is because of a reaction to Kerry's weaknesses, and how much of it is because I support him over Kerry. Either would make a fine president, and a quantum leap over what we have now - but I've yet to decide which would be the best choice.

I guess what I'm saying is that I probably won't know exactly who I'm voting for until I step in the booth (I live in a predominantly black working-class neighborhood, so we still have paper ballots, just so you all know). And at this point, I can still be swayed one way or another.

Commenters, prepare to enter...Mortal Kombat. Cue the techno music and Chris Lambert!

...No, Chris, we aren't actually going to pay you for this. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Is Our Children Learning?

Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?:

Women - 61
Men - 374

Senate:

Women - 13
Men - 87

President

Women - 0
Men - 1

Vice-President

Women - 0
Men - 1

Cabinet

Women - 3
Men - 18

I don't know if our children is learning, but they're sure as hell not researching.

Edited for addition. Clearly, this child wasn't learning...

It's Like Zell Miller, But Tolerable

In case you were getting antsy over the seemingly endless stream of as many as 20 or 30 former Democrats who've gone over to Bush's side in what I like to call the New Pants Revolution ("I soiled myself over terrorism, and Bush is the only one who I trust to keep my new pants clean and fresh"), meet the Stoney Creek Democratic Club.

If Bush is losing Democrats who've been trending Republican the past 15-20 years (the "Reagan Democrats") he's got a problem that a hundred endorsements from Zell "Democrat Wha?" Miller can't overcome. He's not losing them at a cultural or social level - he's losing them at a fundamental political level. It's not something he can fix by riding in the back of Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s car during a race, or by trying to popularize wedge issues. We worry so much about gaining the center that we sometimes miss the fact that Bush can lose it - and is.

Hug a centrist Democrat today. Take them out for chicken and waffles. Do your best impersonation of Bush at the rib joint, and then let them know that the Democratic president thinks that the problems of the American people are more important than choosing between a half slab and a full slab. Or, if they're weird like that, convince them that a Democratic president would choose a full slab. Or, hell - okra if they're a vegetarian.

Jean-Louis Gonzales

I forget who said it, but it's still true: if Elian had been Haitian, we wouldn't have heard a thing about him. The only thing magical about his adventure would have been how magically we turned right around and focused on something else entirely as it was swept under the rug.

Aristide has stepped down, and from the limited amount I know about Haiti, it seems like we're left in the same lurch that has plagued every violence-driven transition of power throughout human history. There exists the potential that a peaceful, powerful democratic government could rush in and fill the void left in Aristade's wake, calming down the problems which led to his ouster...but he was pushed out by a marauding band of murderers who are associated with his political opposition only in the sense that they also don't want him in power.

It does bring up an interesting question about the "Bush Doctrine", though. The last time Aristide was forced out of power, Clinton and the U.N. formed a multinational force which swept in and restored a semblance of peace and democracy to the nation. Now, the questions are manifold: will Bush portray Clinton's policy as a failure, despite the fact that the outline for the Haiti intervention is mirrored in both his proposed policy for dealing with Haiti, and the course he's acceeded to after the unilateral approach to Iraq failed? What happened over the past few years that allowed one of our neighbors to explode politically without the most interventionist administration in memory stepping in? Will the Bush administration take the same sympathetic approach to Haitian refugees as they do to Cuban refugees? Will the forces aligned against Aristide be allowed a part of the government in a post-Lavalas Family Haiti?

And do we trust George W. Bush to have the right (or even ideologically coherent) answers to these questions? I would love to see a policy for Haiti that treated it the way we would if this were Cuba, and we found a way to supplant Castro. However, I have the sneaking suspicion that the magical dolphins of electoral fortune are going to try to get the messier Haiti conflict out of the public eye as soon as possible.

UPDATE: One question sort of answered - Haitian refugees will be repatriated. I have a problem with this, though:

Regardless of Aristide's relative fitness to govern, is the whole "violent group of armed thugs" the preferable method of dealing with the problems of his rule? The line on the coup so far has been disconcertingly friendly to the opposition - it's feeling like the 80s all over again.

Open Thread

I'm tired and have surprisingly little to say right now. Maybe you guys are different. So here's an open thread for ya; tell me what to post about or simply talk amongst yourselves.

Those Long-Lost Scruples

Does anyone remember way back in the day, nearly a week or so ago, when various folks were raising a ruckus over John Kerry standing up against conservatives impugning his patriotism?

"What the hell is that?" they said. "Nobody's impugning Kerry's patriotism! These are all substantive, above-the-board comments on his foreign policy experience."

As soon as they felt they'd gotten outraged enough...

"Could someone push Iranian reports of bin Laden's capture as a bizarro conspiracy theory centered on how much terrorists would love to have John Kerry in office? Yeah, we're still keeping up with the nobody's impugning his patriotism schtick. Is anyone good enough with Photoshop to give Teresa Heinz Kerry a burka?"

The moral here is that yes, there are conservatives who will portray Kerry's foreign policy and terrorism records as not only the wrong ideas to protect America, but actively and knowingly dangerous to America's security. And they'll lie through their teeth about doing it.

Doing What's Right

A gay Republican official right here in Ohio has switched sides to the Democratic Party over Bush's endorsement of the Federal Marriage Amendment.

The Sullivan Rule is as follows: despite the fact that the Republican Party's core constituencies don't give a damn about any identity-based politics (other than conservative Christian ones), while they're taking care of your secondary concerns, you can convince the reasonable portions of the party to see the issues your way. Alternately, you can just reject identity-based politics altogether and pretend that promised Republican prosperity will be the balms that actually adressing issues wasn't.

It was first used to reach out to black and minority voters, then later to convince some gay voters that the party of "individual liberty" (but which talks in very, very communitarian terms) could actually mean individual liberty for them and not just their bank accounts.

Unfortunately, it simply doesn't work. Republicans are willing to ignore "specially" identified groups so long as those groups stop talking about their specific problems and support Republican issues. When push comes to shove, the most (and really, only) effective use that the Republican Party has for these folks is as counterweights and masks, in the main. Look at the President's "compassion" agenda (i.e., unfunded feel-good ideas and faith) - this is the closest the GOP has come to an outreach program to minorities in years.

I can only hope that a second group refuting this horrible logic will either prevent other minority groups from thinking the GOP will listen to them if they only help Republicans in other areas, or, heaven forbid, actually cause the GOP to listen and think of compassion as something more than the area of the website where you put the black children.

Oh, and we have Rick Santorum helping matters along quite nicely:

Now, the question here is - what toad did Santorum lick? Also, one might ask whether dissuading people from marriage who won't stay married is a bad thing, or, perhaps more importantly, HOW THIS CRAZY SHIT WORKS AT ALL, but we'll stick with the toad-licking inquisition until we get ourselves some.

Nail Nail Nail For Justice

I saw The Passion of the Christ.

First things first: was it anti-Semitic? Honestly, I don't think it was particularly so. The Jewish enemies of Jesus are generally portrayed extremely unfavorably, but the movie itself has a heavy hand in all aspects. Caiaphas and the mob, in particular, seem vengeful and bloodthirsty - but it's the Romans who become the real villains, almost cartoonishly so. There are bits and pieces that some interpreters may find anti-Semitic, but overall the film's concern is so single-mindedly on the pain involved that the people you ultimately end up hating are the sadistic Roman soldiers who flay, batter, and torture Jesus to his death. The main problem is that Gibson makes no effort to try and move beyond symbolically Jewish opposition to make it clear that they're representative of all humanity (as he said his intent was). Whether or not the film meant to implicate Jews in the death of Jesus, it makes no effort not to, which is just as bad in some ways.

The problem is, this film wasn't the Passion of the Christ. It was the Passion of Jesus of Nazareth. Ironically, the film's religious symbolism bled out as it wore on. Whatever religious power his sacrifice was meant to connote is lost in the film's perverse pleasure derived from his pain. It exults in showing you just how awful each lash, each cut was, in a pain that's meant to be nearly personal in its graphic nature. The ministry of Jesus, and his subsequent resurrection, are little more than bookends to the hideous physical destruction of a man.

I honestly believe that Gibson's audience is those Christians who already have a better understanding of Jesus' sacrifice than this film provides. It's powerful, but in the sense that you're solving a theological puzzle. If you understand the powerful theological import of the crucifixion, this film could potentially serve as a brutal visual counterpart to it - but even then, it requires a fixation on the physical torture of the act that is, at best, secondary to its actual meaning.

I have to tell you - I wasn't reminded of Last Temptation of Christ or The Gospel of St. Matthew. I was reminded of Die Hard or a particularly gruesome Jackie Chan film. Rather than communicating to the viewer the massive religious, social and cultural change that Jesus' death and resurrection meant, both for the Jewish people and humanity at large, this film focuses solely on the death, as if the most important part of that three-day saga (from the Friday of his death to the Sunday of his resurrection) was how much it hurt to die rather than how glorious it was to be resurrected.

The important part of the Passion to me is that Jesus died for our sins, so that we might enter the kingdom of Heaven. The most important part of it to Gibson is that Jesus died, and it hurt. As some point, I was expecting Chris Tucker to show up in front of the dying Jesus and say, "Damn, fool. You got fucked up. And you know this, man!"

What most disappointed me about the film was the smallness and paucity of the religious imagination involved. Gibson managed to turn a story about redemption, absolution, forgiveness, tolerance, charity, and the eventual and absolute triumph of those qualities over man's dark side into a story whose highest aspiration is to simply show you the ultimate expression of that dark side. This is not a movie that exalts, it's a movie that wallows. It's content with shocking and shaming you into Christian sympathy, while having little clear or livable vision outside of a visceral shame for the torture that Gibson depicts.

For a movie that garnered so much attention, it's not only less than the controversy that surrounded it, it's less than it even said it aspired to be. It seeks to evoke a singular moment in human history, but instead of trying to place it as one of the most revelatory moments, it's simply one of the grossest. The bits that Gibson added only serve to engage this sense of the macabre (Mary and Mary Magdalene cleaning up the blood from Jesus' torture after they watch it, Judas is tortured by demon children), and it casts a sordid, dirty, bloody pall over the entire thing.

The Passion of the Christ isn't a movie that sets out to inform you of why the crucifixion was necessary, or of its theological meaning. It's a movie that sets out to convince you by default that it simply must have had a good point, the greatest point - otherwise, why would it be that horrible? It's a powerful expression of pain and anguish - but is that a powerful Christian message? In my opinion, no.

My other major complaint - Latin is used as one of the spoken languages. First, it's the wrong kind of Latin, second, the Latin would have been Greek. It's telling about the overall tenor of the film: the most ornately crafted missing of the point I've seen in quite some time.

UPDATE: David Neiwert has more on the anti-Semitism of the film, if people are interested.

It's Time For A Big Ol' GOP Hug

Gary Aldrich, obviously scared into a corner of quivering harmlessness by the tyrannical onslaught of liberal hate speech, has come to his last recourse, the place where all desperate men eventually find themselves when all other outlets of reason and prudence are exhausted: .

Although I haven't necessarily heard that refrain played by "Liberal talking head(s)", I can understand what he means. After all, when one side is the side of vitriol and anger, and the other side is full of only brilliant rhetorical splendor and even-handedness, it can be difficult to respond back, particularly when you're not willing to lower yourself to the level of...::shudder::...accusing your opposition of "going negative".

It very nearly killed Lincoln. Until Booth did.

Michael Savage must have been given a tomato enema. Forcibly.

Dude. I hope this is the new standard for political reporting, because have I got some doozies for you.

For instance, with no evidence whatsoever, I can tell you that Bill Frist last week called John Kerry "Benito Mussolini's cabana boy". John Kerry, meanwhile, said that Frist was his "bestest friend in the whole wide world", and that hopefully they could "go see the Red Sox BLAST the Yankees!" He then feel down giggling and proceeded to hug his campaign director's leg, asking for a ride around the room.

(By the way - don't forget that Bob Dole called Clinton a bozo, too!)

"Liar" is pretty standard par for the course - even if you don't explicitly say that word, calling someone's assertion dishonest or untrue is the same thing.

Sidebar: actually, by post-9/11 Bushian rules, it may not be the same thing, since synonyms were officially outlawed under Patriot Act II. It's a qualification best left up to the White House press office.

"Deserter" was brought up by Michael Moore and not repeated by any actual candidate or official in the party after that (or, in fact, most Democrats, once they understood the difference between "deserter" and "AWOL"). And "moron"? If you took away stupid-related jibes, conservative talk radio would be lottery numbers, sports scores, and zucchini recipes - not that I have anything against zucchini.

Can We Capitalize Nouns That Aren't Proper? I Don't Know, George.

Well, he actually threw someone else's "metals" over the White House fence at their request. And you know that Jane Fonda reference you just made? That's the sort of thing that pisses people off - trying to equate Kerry's opposition to the war directly with Jane Fonda's actions. But you see, if I criticize him based on that...I'm just another emotional liberal.

I have to go cry now.

Well, see, it matters that when Bush was supposed to be flying that "sophisticated jet fighter" - you know, as opposed to the simple mass-market jet fighters that only have the buttons "go" and "stop" - and respond at a moment's notice to defending Birmingham and Houston from the Caribbean Vietcong, he might not have shown up for duty.

I forgot, we're in the lying phase of things. Of course, if I point this out, Katie Couric will ravage a Japanese metropolis in her outrage as the conservative temerity, being emotional and liberal and all.

Let's go to the book:

Liberals want to unleash criminals, destroy law enforcement, hate America, American families, American guns and American security. They also want to bitch uncontrollably about anyone who dares point this out.

You know, I'm convinced. I'm tired of this whole "progress" thing. Time to become conservative! Gimme some guns, a flag, and my government-provided family! I'll be in the den watching sports and fantasizing about Lola Falana in a flapper outfit.

"And then, one of the defeated Liberal women crawls up to me on her hands and knees, and slowly, unzips my pants, unfurling my Skin Spangled Banner..." Narcissistic power fantasies are awesome - they're like the new crystal meth.

You get the feeling Aldrich considers everything a refutation of his logic?

"Hey, Gary, let's get some Fritos."

"You only bring that up because you can't find a way to disagree with my stance on school vouchers besides whining about your corn chips."

"Wasn't that conversation three weeks ago? And didn't you storm out to watch Trading Spaces?"

"Always with the Trading Spaces cracks, Liberal."

"I pinned her pinko arms to the bed, feeling her heaving anti-American tide swelling against my patriotic bulwark..."

Some Thoughts

- I don't know if anyone else watched last night's debate, but it was really, really terrific. It was a roundtable format moderated by Larry King (the most inexplicable success story our country has ever seen. 6 wives and a top-rated TV show with neither looks nor obvious talent. Tt must be pheromones or something), Ron Brownstein (who's my favorite reporter) and some women I didn't know. It was fascinating to watch how these candidates have evolved and what they have become.

Sharpton started out as this feared demagogue, his run preceeded by predictions of doom. In the end, he has become a huge asset. Whenever there's a question the other's don't want to answer, a punch the others don't want to throw or a bit of red meat nobody else wants to give, Al steps in. That was what he did last night, tearing Nader apart and saving the others when tough questions got asked. He gave the impolitic replies the crowd wanted but the others couldn't say. When unexpected things came up, Al would jump in, half-cocked, and allow everyone else to formulate their thoughts. He's like a fat, soulful Lassie.

Kucinich has simply fallen by the wayside. Unlike Al, he doesn't add comic relief nor shock value to the debates. Instead, his high-pitched attacks seem barely tolerated. I'm not passing judgement on this, I'm merely saying that it was clear nobody in the debate wanted him there and he was nearly ignored because of it.

Kerry and Edwards have developed an almost symbiotic relationship. I hope, for Kerry's sake, that Edwards never leaves the race. He has clearly taught Kerry so much, and his polite demeanor and friendly pokes actually serve to humanize Kerry. The two have become excellent at playing off each other, going so far as to make inside jokes about what they said at the last debate. Kerry has stolen a lot of Edwards' best rhetoric and thrown in some policy wonk stuff. Problem is, Edwards has not done the reverse.

In this debate, Edwards looked like Kerry's little brother. They were clearly friendly, they were clearly in agreement on most issues, and they were clearly ranked. Kerry's policy answers with some values rhetoric thrown in just come off as much more mature than Edwards' stuff. The difference was clearest when asked about Haiti; Edwards had no idea what he was talking about which contrasted terribly with Kerry's five minute explanation of the situation, Aristide's problems and what should be done about it. I noticed the same thing last Sunday during their head-to-head interviews; Kerry is simply wonking out and making Edwards look bad in the direct comparison.

Kerry has also gotten very good at bigfooting Edwards. By that I mean, Edwards will launch an attack or lay forth a plan and Kerry, rather than respond to it, simply makes it part of his own reply. It's an incredibly effective technique which serves to marginalize Edwards by making his responses seem like mere components of Kerry's answers.

Further, Kerry's complex responses didn't seem like waffling last night. Somehow, they actually seemed like what they were: Thoughtful, nuanced positions. His reply on the death penalty was simply the best argument I've ever heard made on the subject and the general quality of what he said was leaps and bounds over what you normally hear in these forums. Somehow, Kerry was really able to take the informal setting and work it to his advantage.

As always, much of this is in the eye of the beholder. I like Kerry, always have, so I tend to see his improvement as more marked than others do. Nonetheless, this was the best I've seen him do and it really left me comfortable with the idea of him as our nominee. Beyond that, Edwards' absolute refusal to attack Kerry, no matter how much prodding he was given, coupled with his eery ability to make the stiff from the Northeast look more human has cemented my hope to see Edwards as Veep. I know he can be a fine AG, but I think he deserves the Vice-President position and it would be good for our party to keep him as visible and involved as possible. I can see him being a truly great President; an inspiring, JFK like figure. But not for another few years yet.

- While driving up to LA today, I listened to Hannity's radio show. Through the looking glass indeed. It got me irritated until I realized that it was simply the mirror image of us. His constant refrain that Kerry is a waffler, a weak nominee, a perfect target and the GOP's dream is really quite similar to our anti-Bush chorus.

It also made me realize that there is a real audience out there for a liberal talk show. It's not that I wanted to listen to Hannity but that there was nothing more politically agreeable on. If I had Franken as an option, my dial would have certainly rested there and so, I assume, would that of millions of other driving liberals like myself.

Ollie's Oranges

Ollie North. An incisive commentator or a trite hack? You decide:

I wonder if Clear Channel would have pulled The Passion for being indecent?

The funny thing about this last paragraph is that it could well have been written by Jesse or me. FCC banning gay marriage for being obscene is so patently absurd that it sounds satirical. But North thinks its entirely sane, which makes him patently absurd. But we knew that.

Are You Ready For Some NASCAR?

The Bush team really, really believes in the NASCAR dad.

As Josh Marshall pointed out, the pandering is beyond obvious. Now, I'm not sure why Bush believes that running towards white males in the South (the predominant viewing group of NASCAR), considering that he won white males 60/36 and Southerners 55/43. I don't understand why he would run towards a cultural cohort that strongly leans towards him, when the issues plaguing his reelection campaign have more to do with specific issues (namely the economy and terrorism) that aren't particularly endemic to white Southern males already predisposed towards Bush.

What is going on in Marc Racicot's head?

Renaissance Spears

You know, I'm pretty sure that Britney Spears didn't envision that the pinnacle of her career, rather than being a song, a movie, or a performance, would be a walking reminder of how badly heterosexuals can screw up marriage.

I do, however, have an objection with this bit from Cohen (sorry, Brit):

The problem is, by endorsing the amendment, he isn't leaving the door open to civil unions, as we've discussed ad nauseum in the past. This vastly differs from Kerry's position, as does the endorsement of the FMA.

I guess the question here is who is it that doesn't understand what's in this amendment - Bush, or Cohen?

Stunning Success

Dennis Miller's show is going so well that they're going to retool the whole thing while he's on hiatus.

See, it's working so well that they need new challenges. Here's what I don't get - there are still incredibly few liberals on television, despite the fact that there are a few who at least have the wit and charm of a Paula Zahn, Dennis Miller, or Sticky The Broom, who's taking over MSNBC's 10PM slot in March. We keep seeing conservatives get political shows, despite the fact that they're just the same ridiculous talking-head gabfests that aren't particularly interesting or novel unless you either have tradition and inertia (Larry King) or an entertaining persona (O'Reilly). A liberal can make awkward in-jokes with fetishized partisan guests just as well as Dennis Miller can.

"So, Michael Moore, is Bush an awful president, or a crapadocious one?"

Give me a show! Sticky's got nothing on me. (Well, did see action in Iraq, but he never saw the front lines!)

Warning: Cheap Shot

If this is the best that Indiana University has to offer in its college conservatives...

Hit. Counters. Measure. Visitors. And. Hits.

Go down to the rant on "cretin priorities". Please.

Hollywood Should Never Push Politics...Except Now

The Corner is castigating a bunch of celebrities for embarking upon a mission to promote peace in Israel, calling them "clownish" and "idiots".

One wonders how they'll react to Hollywood making a White House-endorsed Department of Homeland Security show with very real political overtones.

I'll be writing this later, but I find it amazing how Hollywood actors become scapegoats for political activism that conservatives hate. Particularly when the President of the United States is actively flirting with Hollywood over an adoring television series. Conservatives preach aversion to Hollywood, then turn around and embrace it when it pushes their values. Even if Hollywood shouldn't be pushing values at all (according to them), so long as someone's on their knees in front of a lifesize cutout of Ronald Reagan and/or Jesus before the credits roll...well, maybe they misspoke.

Bestsellers

Exactly how ironic is it to trumpet the fact that Sean Hannity's book is on the NYT Bestseller list at the same time you're selling it for 99 cents?

Just Felt The Need To Remark

I was there when this interview happened. I was even sitting in between them, rather awkwardly.

Get Your Hands Up

Tell you what - if your phone hasn't been tapped by U.S. and British intelligence, you get a cookie.

My Georgia Valentine

Amendment to ban same-sex marriage fails in the Georgia State House.

Hats off to the representatives who prevented it from being passed.

Your Taxes, Your Pocket, My Hand

Bush is backing off of his "renew mah tax cuts NOW, before I call my mommaaaaa..." cant, and instead saying that we should just make all the tax cuts that would expire next year permanent.

Now, there's something about the hypocrisy of battling over a highway bill to save $10 billion a year while simultaneously battling for a tax cuts that would add billions more to the deficit each year even if the highway bill was passed the way Bush wanted it that just sticks in my craw, but anymore, I've got 75% of what Bush does stuck there at any time, and it's getting a little bit clogged.

Anyway, this change in Bush's strategy, I hope, marks a sea change in the legislative thinking on tax cuts. It's been a lot of blather, a lot of hype, and a lot of deficits for very little in the way of real change, especially the promised ones. I'm hoping that tax cuts have ceased to be the free ice cream of politics and that George W. Bush has finally exhausted the political tolerance for overlooking the actual economic and fiscal effects of tax cuts. He's pushing for the soon-to-expire tax cuts to be passed because he (and, more importantly, congressional Republicans) realize that another massive tax-cut package won't pass electoral muster.

Of course, they have no plan to rectify the effects of the other tax cuts, either...but small steps, people. Small steps.

*Oberon points out, rightly, that this is basically a ploy to delay making the other tax cuts permanent until after the election. But, at the same time, they realize that cutting taxes right now is a liability rather than a boon.

Massages Vs. Flowers

Let's see - one one side, people are arguing that manicurists and massage therapists are revitalizing the economy. On the other side, it's a really good time to open up a flower shop in San Francisco.

Now, think about this - as more and more people from around the world pour money into floral shops in the San Francisco area, the shops will need to restock flowers. This means that all of those flower providers will need to grow larger stocks of flowers, which means they'll need to either hire more people to take care of them, or install new systems to manage them. All of the attendant industries that provide flower-related products (fertilizer, food, gardening implements, etc.) will step up production and subsequently, sales.

The question is: can we afford not to legalize same-sex marriage?

Bad Policy

Laci Peterson's mother is blasting John Kerry and the Democrats for holding up passage of "Laci and Connor's Law", a bill that would make it a double homicide if the victim is pregnant. I just don't understand this bill. I recognize that it's an even greater tragedy when the victim is carrying a child, but it seems that this is like increasing the punishment for theft is the item in question held sentimental value. Does the prosecution need to prove that the perpetrator knew the victim was pregnant or can he get a longer sentence simply because he "chose" the wrong victim?

More to the point, this bill seems like a blow at abortion. If killing a pregnant woman carries a charge of homicide for the unborn, then abortion becomes a logically untenable issue. Exactly the effect the Right is hoping for, or so I'd assume.

So good for Kerry and the Democrats for standing against this bill; it's bad policy carrying hidden effects and relying on emotional arguments.

Update: The House has passed the bill. It's off to the Senate we go...

The Muddy Constitution

If anyone doesn't understand why liberals seem so enraged at this President, Kevin Drum has a good starting point:

Homosexuality: A Biblical Perspective

You've heard the Gay Marriage amendment condemned for being bad policy, faulty ideology, low morality and craven politics. But I want to take this a step further and argue that it's mistaken theology. I don't mean to merely invoke Jesus's warnings to refrain from judgment; I mean to argue that the Bible doesn’t address homosexuality with the specificity nor clear condemnations that the Christian Right claims.

As we know, the Bible never mentions the word "homosexual"; it didn’t yet exist. We instead must deal with the words "Sodom", "know" and "lay".

• Sodom and Gomorrah

Sodom is usually the first you hear in their denunciations. After all, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed due to the homosexuality of its inhabitants. How do we know? Well, the word Sodom was the closest thing that existed to "homosexual" in Latin or any other known vernacular, so it should follow that a Sodomite was a homosexual. Only it doesn't.

John Boswell (a renowned scholar on homosexuality) informs us that the word sodomy has referred to everything from straight intercourse in atypical positions to bestiality. In some eras, it was used almost exclusively for homosexuality and in others it referred mainly to heterosexual excess. As for the term “sodomite”, its use in the Bible refers to male prostitutes associated with other Gods. In this context, they are condemned not for their sexuality but for their idolatry (mainly Canaan and Babylonian fertility cults).

This does not yet prove the wickedness that doomed the inhabitant of Sodom was not homosexuality. Most point to the episode where they bang on Lot’s door and demand to “know” the angels he was protecting as evidence that they wished to gangrape them; proving that they were a bunch of violent homosexuals. Lot, of course, famously offers his daughters up instead and the angels strike their would be attackers blind.

First off, rape is simply wrong and is biblically impermissible (particularly in the New Testament), so raping members of either gender would render the rapists utterly wicked. Secondly, there’s no reason to assume that “know” was carnal in this context. This particular form of the word used is 943 times in the Old Testament with only 10 of the uses falling in a sexual context. Further, this is the only time in the whole of the Old Testament that the word is thought to refer to homosexuality. There are a number of reasons that a wicked mob might want to interrogate or attack two angels that landed on the pious Lot’s doorstep; there is no reason to assume that rape was foremost in anyone’s mind.

More damning, Jesus himself is under the impression that the sins responsible for the destruction of Sodom was a lesser form of wickedness than inhospitability towards strangers. So unless Pat Robertson is a really welcoming guy, he’s in some serious trouble. (Matthew 10:14-15 and Luke 10:10-12). This also raises the suggestion that the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah was a level of inhospitability; attacking strangers and the like. There are two reasons for this interpretation. First is that Jesus connects Sodom's destruction with warnings to welcome stranger. Second, given the importance the Old Testament placed on welcoming guest’s (Jews were, after all, nomadic) this would fit right in with the Old Testament's moral imperatives. Either way, there's no good reason to think homosexuality was involved.

• The Law

The most impressive evidence against homosexuality is in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. The former reads “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman, it is an abomination” and the latter informs us that “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them”.

Context, context, context. This falls within the so-called “Holiness Codes”; the set of laws designed to create a higher standard of behavior distinguishing the Jews from the Canaanites, whose land they were acquiring. Other portions of this Code that are punishable by death are infidelity, cursing your parents, incest, bestiality and being a wizard. Being with a woman on her period results in being expelled and being with your family member’s mate will make you die childless. Peter J. Gomes (whose arguments I’m borrowing from liberally and whose book I highly recommend) writes:

• The New Testament

Up till now, we’ve been discussing the Old Testament, an odd thing considering Jewish groups are markedly less homophobic than the Christian Right. So what does the New Testament have to say on the subject? Well, not as much as you might think.

The most important statement comes in Romans 1:26 where Paul writes:

More importantly, the homosexual practices Paul would have known (and which he mentions in his writings) are pederasty (pedophilic homosexuality) and prostitution. These are against the spirit of sexuality in the Bible, as they are acts of lust and avarice involving the exploitation of the weaker partner. As Gomes writes, “All Paul knew of homosexuality was the debauched Pagan expression of it. He cannot be condemned for that ignorance, but neither should his ignorance be an excuse for our own.”

When Paul says that homosexuals will not be allowed into the Kingdom of Heaven, (I Corinthians 6:9) my copy of the HarperCollins Study Bible (an extremely well respected source) notes that:

With all this behind us, we’ve pretty much gone over the Bible’s mentions of homosexuality. Our study leads me to agree with Jeffrey S. Siker who, in the July 1994 issue of “Theology Today”, wrote:

Jesus brought a message of hope, tolerance and forgiveness. Those who claim to speak for him today are preaching hate, discrimination and fear. These two messages cannot be reconciled and it is the students, not the Teacher, who lie in the wrong.

Ye Olde Presidentiale Conventione

It's looking like the Republican National Convention is gearing up to be half politics, half Super Bowl halftime show.

No, they're not trying to politicize September 11th AT ALL.

It's Natural, You Know

This is so incredibly, amazingly ridiculous that I am merely going to reply to one part and let you all handle the rest.

The argument here is that because girls play football, you're teaching boys that it's okay to be sexually violent against women (using the case of Katie Hnida as a disgusting bit of evidence for this thesis), because in an organized sport with protection, pads, and rules, you're teaching them that it's okay to treat them like you would a member of your same sex.

Well, obviously, if this is the case, we should have seen an epidemic of male-on-male sexual violence as a result of football, right? After all, anything which normalizes violence against another person necessarily leads to sexual assault, by this lead.

Jeffrey is clasically blaming the victim here - sure, rape is wrong, but the girls who put themselves around boys in a nonsexual fashion have to be responsible for the boys thinking of them in a sexual light and raping them based on the on-field activity in which they participate. According to Jeffrey, strapping on the pads is an invitation to sexual assault.

Will he be as ashamed of himself as he should be? Answers are "no" and "hell, no".

Massage It Out

There's so much wrong with this article (including the fact that it reinvigorates Virginia Postrel's strange "I got a massage, so everyone's a masseuse!" thesis, also discussed here) that I don't actually know how to address it.

"In a sense" a massage job is a replacement for a manufacturing job if A.) the people who lose manufacturing jobs are switching to personal-care fields to replace their jobs (for which there's no proof other than the fact that Reynolds notices more massage therapy shops around); B.) you presume that there are no new entrants into the job market; and C.) you presume that there are millions of new self-employed people that employment surveys still haven't managed to count.

Obviously there are new fields opening up. But it makes no sense to say that since you notice a field (or fields) expanding, that all the people without jobs are simply going to transfer into the fields you happen to notice are expanding (particularly when your data points are 1980 and 2004). Someone opened a new Subway downtown - that means that there's no jobs problem, because all those jobs are transferring to the sandwich artists at Subway!

March, Students, Step

Students marching against creationism. Just as God intended it.

A Nation Cries Out In Anguish

Oral sex is linked to mouth cancer.

I blame the Bush Administration for this. Why? Because.

I'm not thinking rationally right now...it's like I just found out my best friend has been lying to me all these years. I have to go figure out where to go from here.

(Actually, it shows that HPV, transmitted orally, can lead to mouth cancer. But the headline alone is enough to scare many people.)

One Huge Dick Dump

Even though the relationship between Bush and Cheney isn't that of a typical president to his vice president, would getting rid of Cheney actually help Bush?

I mean, people generally don't look at the Vice President as indicative of the actual leadership of the administration, and no matter how successful anyone is at painting Cheney as the mastermind behind the Bush administration's worst decisions, all getting rid of him could do is staunch the bleeding from any wounds that he's opened. Generally, all a VP candidate can do is not hurt you - even the poll boost garnered by adding someone popular (like Giuliani) is short-term and temporary, as you're still, for better or worse, voting on the chief executive rather than his second in command.

Something that's nagged at me about Cheney's purported stepping down for the '04 campaign is that unless he was in the middle of a major ethical breach, there's no real reason to - his transgressions, so far, are political...and Bush is standing behind them. It might make sense to the wonks among us, but to most voters, Bush would only get a few-days shakeup bounce ("Something new is happening! I'm paying attention to them!"), but the Presidency is viewed from the top of the ticket down.

Plus, the Bush team will never admit they're wrong unless they can also disavow having had anything to do with the actual wrong part (see: budget projections for this year). If they try to disavow having had anything to do with Cheney over the past four years...well, they'll step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Heroes Are People, Too

First off, I want to apologize to everyone. I've had...something for the past three weeks or so, and my writing simply hasn't been up to par. I'm tired constantly, I haven't been able to concentrate on anything longer than fifteen minutes without feeling like I'm going to fall over, and most things that I set out to write are turning into failed projects rather than actual entries.

That having been said, I'd like to remind you that gay heroes are just like the rest of us (courtesy of Progressive Ruin):

Another Thought

It's looking like there won't be enough votes to pass the FMA (woo-hoo!), but this brings up something else: Bush endorsed a constitutional amendment. At least five members of his own party, according to Oxblog, aren't supporting it.

I think Bush's biggest problem coming out of this isn't losing on the amendment (they're incredibly difficult to pass to begin with, and you can be sure that all sorts of Republican flacks will let you know that), but rather than in a Washington environment where his party runs everything...Bush still can't get his whole party behind his endorsement of a constitutional amendment.

When you couple this with Bush's open antagonism to his party when it comes to government spending (he acts like Congress is run by aliens rather than the people who are supposed to be his ideological partners), it's becoming increasingly obvious that Bush considers himself the representative of a narrower and narrower political ideology that basically represents whichever groups he wants least pissed off at him.

Regardless of what happens with the FMA...can Bush retain the support and loyalty of his party?

Make It An Issue

This article shows that Republicans are desperately hoping that same-sex marriages will hurt Democrats more than they will Republicans, although one would think they would have drafted a better amendment that allowed civil unions if that was the case.

The issue for Democrats here is saying things not for the pro-civil rights left, but instead to rile up the Christian far-right. The proposed amendment obviously doesn't give legislative leeway for civil unions, which gives Kerry more than enough room even if he is pro-civil unions and anti-marriage. Bush has pushed his side of the debate well to the right, and the bad part for him is that he's pushing an agenda pandering to his right in an election where the important concerns (terrorism, the economy) cross political lines. The weakness of Bush's message is that it's geared in many ways for the right, but he's successfully hidden it by framing everything in more palatable terms.

Remember kids: compassionate conservatism means "I hug minorities!"

I think this is going to be worse for Bush, because right now, his leadership is what's on the table for the upcoming election. It's not that he's necessarily pushing a political loser in opposing same-sex marriage (for him, at least), it's that he's pushing a political loser in pushing his opposition to same-sex marriage over the issues that are actually pressing. People may have strong feelings on the issue, but it doesn't overwhelm the basic themes of Bush's tenure - his stewardship (or lack thereof) of the economy and the War on Terror. The more Bush is publicly pushed to the right, and the more right-wingers come out of the woodwork to push Bush on this, the less he looks like a legitimate representative of the American center.

It will also hurt him among Republicans who find themselves drawn to his economic and foreign policy platforms, but who lack the stomach for the cultural right that Bush is in bed with. If he allows this to define his reelection campaign, he is going to push away voters who were attracted to him because he seemed to show a steadfastness and competent focus on the issues that mattered. One of the strengths of the Republican image is that they supposedly focus on the "hard issues", namely money and war. And in an election about money and war, focusing on whether or not some people can get married draws away from the aura Bush is trying to maintain.

Of course, the fact that he's completely and utterly wrong and that his arguments make no sense doesn't hurt, either.

I've Got Respectibilation On National Security

Who in the hell thought this one up?

Hastert was faced with two choices: allow a panel investigating September 11th more time to get the information it needs from a recaltricant White House, or else call it all "political" and feed political critics of the administration by shutting down the investigation early enough that its results will both be hampered by the lack of cooperation on part of the White House and creating a final report from the committee that any serious interpreter will conclude is incomplete and inaccurate. He apparently decided that a report closer to the election would yield results more damaging than giving the committee the runaround until time runs out in May.

I wouldn't think that Republicans were unfit to run the country if they didn't keep proving they were unfit to run the country.

Agendas

Andrew Sullivan has a truly worthwhile E-Mail of the Day up at his site:

By giving in to the Christian Right's demands, Bush begins to hand them greater prominence, a louder microphone and a more pervasive media presence. As a group, the Falwell/Bauer subset make Americans profoundly uncomfortable and, by allying himself so publicly with their agenda, Bush risks making Americans profoundly uncomfortable with him.

The Talent Show pointed me to this cartoon:

It'd be even more effective if you bipaneled it next to the Christian Right's agenda:

Keep homos from marrying;
Keep homos from having equal rights;
Watch cartoons;
Break down the separation between church and state;
Get the Mexicans back to Mexico;
Breakfast;
You don't want to know.

I know which group scares me more.

The Advantage of Being the Frontrunner

The AP reports that Kerry Proposes Legislation to Aid Workers. All well and good, Kerry is supporting legislation requiring a 90-day notice for outsourcing. You have to read halfway through before finding that:

Media '04 - Informing You Like Nobody's Business

One Little Word

Why, asks Alex Knapp, does George W. Bush get some much more heat than John Kerry when their positions on gay marriage are essentially the same?

Probably because their positions are not essentially the same. I know it's only a one word change, but "I do support an amendment prohibiting gay marriage" is quite different than "I do not support an amendment prohibiting gay marriage".

Lies And The...Fuck It, You Know The Rest

When castigating Democrats for attacking Bush's jobs record, Robert Samuelson seems to have conveniently forgotten that Bush has been predicting job growth specifically tied to his economic policies for the past three years, and Democrats are reacting to his promises.

One would think that you could remember that the President promised job creation based his policies when complaining about Democrats attacking the President's policies for not creating jobs.

Analogizing

Jon Kalb calls my abstinence-only driving school analogy "false", because sex is different in some ways than driving.

I think Jon totally misses my point, which is that any time you're discussing something that has risks inherent to it, it's utter foolishness to dismiss any precautions which would lessen the risk of injury (with a liberal interpretation of what constitutes injury) because they aren't 100% effective. Given that the preceding was my point, it's a perfectly true analogy.

If you don't do something, you have no chance of facing the risks endemic to that action. However

And we're in agreement on this, even though he misinterpreted my post. The issue here is that all comprehensive sex education programs rightly address the success of abstinence in preventing STDs and pregnancy from consensual sexual activity. However, they also embrace rationality, and say that if you decide not to be abstinent, there are methods of greatly increasing the safety of sexual activity. Abstinence-only education completely ignores this, which was my point.

Not all analogies are meant to be a 100% similar point-by-point comparison of everything involved in the two things being compared, which seeems to be forgotten a lot in political debate.

Hittin' The High Points

What about the children?

Apparently the new line for marriage rights is that we can only give marriage rights to those who "are raising or have raised children". And, of course, we can't let same-sex couples get in on the gravy train of raising children, and if they aren't going to raise any children, then they shouldn't get married, because Lord knows that the legal system only respects marriages due to children, and totally disregards marriages which haven't produced any children at all.

You mean, it doesn't? But the rest of her article must be chock-full of sense and facts, right?

Does this make sense to anyone else?

Here is the relevant law on Canadian survivor benefits. How can a new marriage between people who are alive qualify someone for retroactive survivorship benefits for a dead person? If I'm missing something, let me know, but...damn. It works virtually the same way for American survivorship benefits as well.

How do you justify giving it to straight people?!? Especially those who don't have kids? In fact, these issues have nothing whatsoever to do with each other...but it sure is fun to try and find a different injustice to complain over. Especially considering that the author's apparently never heard of claiming dependents. And is she arguing that caretakers deserve the same legal standing with those they're taking care of as a spouse does to his or her partner?

How can we allow same-sex marriage when this person can't do a Google search for claiming dependents? It would be a travesty! (By the way, I'm using American tax laws because she's arguing this in light of the American legalization of same-sex marriage.)

Marriage is mainly an arrangement for the benefit of adults, considering that laws relating to children and parenting still apply, in the main, even if the parents aren't married. Changed somewhat, but you're still allowed to be a parent and claim tax and insurance exemptions for your children. The case is stating that a two parent household where both parents are of the same gender is an acceptable environment for children to be raised in.

Let's look at a red state's adoption laws. Namely, Mississippi. Now, same-sex marriage is about as likely to pass Mississippi's legislature as I am to ask Lucianne Goldberg for her hand in marriage. But, look who can adopt:

Mississippi allows single persons to adopt! Is this more or less of an affront to child-rearing than allowing homosexual couples in a stable, two-parent household to adopt? I'm waiting...

GOVERNMENTS CAN'T FORCE CHURCHES TO PERFORM RELIGIOUS MARRIAGES FOR PEOPLE THE CHURCH DOES NOT APPROVE OF. Any lawsuit would be thrown out immediately.

1.) Churches don't perform civil marriages. One need not ever step foot in a church to be legally married.

2.) Churches can discriminate in their rites against pretty much anyone they want to, because their rites have no legal bearing. Therefore, there would be virtually no ground to sue, particularly successfully. The Catholic Church can forbid divorce from any of its members, even though you can get all the legal divorce and remarriage you want in the civic sphere.

Does this woman know anything about the law?

Long story short: if you believe a bunch of shit this "Learned Hand Professor of the Law at Harvard" just made up about American laws, then allowing same-sex marriage is wrong, wrong, wrong. However, if you've actually looked at the law, you realize that these arguments are silly, silly, silly.

You Got Anti-Semitism In My Peanut Butter!

George Will writes another in the long, long, lengthening, expanding, ever, ever upward! line of articles accusing the left of being the new anti-Semites. He says that it's a migration from right to left, but, of course, anti-Semitism on the right plays no role in world politics, or at least it's not really relevant at the present time.

Specifically, it's the intellectuals, which, despite his undying affinity for wordsmithing, bowties, and weird analogies, Will isn't one:

Now, he goes on to list a series of things happening in Europe, none of which actually blames or implicates any intellectuals (other than a TNR article which says intellectuals are partially at fault and for which Will provides no supporting evidence). Funny how that seems to be happening more and more recently - make wide, sweeping statements about large cultural or political swaths

Will turns these incidents of European anti-Semitism into a wholehearted condemnation of "the left", and does so clumsily:

Now, I'm not sure exactly what the "left" is in Will's estimation, but I have the sneaking suspicion that it's far larger than a few protests and comedy sketches in Europe.

No political ideology is going to be free from bigots. There are going to be anti-Semites, misogynists, or racists somewhere on your side whether you're a conservative, a liberal, a libertarian, an objectivist, whatever. But does it really serve anyone to contort all opposition to Zionism into an anti-Semitic fervor, and then blame the entire "left" for it?

No, but it is axiomatic that I not challenge Will as Ted Williams was challenged in...

...I feel so tired. Anti-Semitic tired.

If an Egomaniac Visits Vermont and Nobody Cares, Does He Make a Sound?

Apparently Ralph Nader walked into Dean HQ and asked to be the Vice-President. Dean refused, fearing the schizophrenic campaign that would see his VP denouncing their ticket as "no different from the Republicans".

And The Winner...

Dude, this guy's kid totally beats Lilek's kid for adorable political statements. Now he's got nothing.

Abstinence-Only Driving School

Abstinence education annoys me because it presumes that we can teach sex unlike we'd teach...well, anything else. Imagine if you received driver's education like this:

Correct answer? None. A seat belt isn't designed to handle 85-90% of the things on this list, and the ones it is designed to handle, it won't absolutely prevent.

Now, you can avoid every single thing on this list if you never get into a car. However, any driver's ed program that taught that seat belts were useless because they didn't work 100% of the time and told you to abstain from driving until such point as you felt you were ready to drive, and then to use no safety precautions whatsoever would be a terrible fucking driver's ed program that would end up endangering every driver on the road. Why is it okay to teach sex like this?

I Have All Eternity In Which To Perfect My Art

The thing that I like about Kerry's current rhetoric is that he knows how to hit back. One of the basic rules of politics is that if you're trading blows, it's always the biggest ones that get noticed - and the first blow always has an advantage over the second one.

Kerry's doing something that Al Gore never learned, even when he picked up his populist message - Gore was getting hit by Bush, and hitting back at "the powerful", a connection that middle-of-the-road voters couldn't instinctively see when it came to Bush, particularly when the choice came down to a center-left Gore and a seemingly center-right Bush.

Here was 2000:

Bush: "Al Gore will endanger our nation's prosperity."

Gore: "I stand for the people against the powerful! They'll do bad things! I won't!"

2004:

Bush: "John Kerry will endanger our nation's prosperity."

Kerry: "If that means I'm endangering Bush's sorry record on the economy by making it better, then I'm a very dangerous man."

For now, he understands that you have to hit harder than your opponent, and he's even taken the opening (ridiculous) salvos from the Bush campaign in stride. And, given that my most important issue in this election is getting Bush out of office and a better alternative in, that makes me feel much better about Kerry's chances in the general election. I think part of the "electability" meme that's been overlooked is that many Democratic voters look as electability as not just who the most appealing candidate is, but also who's going to be the candidate who can best defend their own appeal and attack Bush's. Kerry's showing that he can do that.

Kerry's Lackluster Response

I agree with Kevin Drum on this. The Gay Marriage amendment is a loser on its own and an electoral danger for Bush. But John Kerry's response is pretty underwhelming. Kerry opposes what Bush is doing, supports civil unions and would accept an amendment to that effect. This is both a bad position from an ideological perspective and a bad one for Kerry. He's trying to align himself with factions on both sides of the debate, a tendency he has to convince people he doesn't have and should be using issues like this to show his ability to take strong stands. It's not as if this is a tough issue to strongly rebut.

"The President is dead wrong on this one. We should not be tampering with the Constitution as a political ploy and we certainly should not be enshrining discrimination into it. Gays and lesbians deserve equal rights, which is why I'm for civil unions. Beyond that, it's up to the states.

It's time for this President to stop dividing Americans and distracting them from judging his record. He's got a miserable record on the economy, on health care, on foreign policy and envrionmental protection. So he's looking for a wedge issue. He's playing politics with the Constitution and I won't stand for it."

Making DeLay Look Good

When Tom DeLay thinks you're too much of a reactionary, how #$%$#% crazy are you?

My Favorite Spam Yet

I got the best spam E-mail ever. I'm gonna share the licketylove:

Like, Two Last Things, I Promise

Just a couple of things on this ongoing Passion debate, and then I'm done.

First, I'd argue that Gibson hasn't done the opposite of most Christians in his interpretation of the Passion story, but has instead done the same thing in an opposing fashion - he's simply decided what he wants to privilege, and what he finds upsetting or divisive, and he came to a different conclusion than most mainstream Christians.

Second, the reason that the mystic is an issue isn't because she came around in the 19th century. It's two reasons, actually: first, if you're going to determine the accuracy of one thing in relation to another, you have to determine what it is that you're getting accurate. Most Christians don't take Emmerich's visions as a true account of the Passion, largely because it's a retelling of the entire Gospel narrative of the Passion with additional details. Most would privilege the Bible writers, who at least might have had direct or indirect access to firsthand accounts of Jesus, rather than a retelling of the story 1800 years out through visions.

Second, Revelations doesn't apply here, because Emmerich's visions were a vast reworking of a preexistent narrative, while Revelations was a vision unto itself, presenting a prophecy of the future. It didn't have nearly the same relation to the Gospel texts that Emmerich's visions did.

Okay, so I'm done. On to castigating Bush's remarks on same-sex marriages!

Last Note on The Passion

To quickly settle this, my argument on The Passion is quite simple. American Christianity has reconciled The Bible with contemporary morality by ignoring those parts which it finds upsetting, divisive or repellant (unless you're a homosexual). Gibson has done the opposite, latching onto threads and themes that most Christians consciously ignore (the rampant anti-semitism, the violence, etc). I label it unabridged because I was trying to make the point that Mel did something different but not biblically inaccurate. It is clearly true (as I mentioned before) that you cannot have an unabridged movie because the Gospels all contradict each other. However, The Passion is being attacked not for inaccurate events, but for biblically accurate events that most traditions tend to keep obscured. It is not more or less accurate than similar pieces of work, but it is accurate in a way that forces Christian (and others) to come to terms with parts of the Bible that are often hidden from view.

As one commentor mentioned, I did creatively define unabridged, but I did so with the best of intentions...

As a side note, we're dealing with a document culled from many different sources, many of which contradict each other, and some of which rely on dream (like Revelations). It contains resurrections, extrahuman abilities and omnipowerful Gods taking human forms. It seems kind of peculiar to easily discount the visions of a 19th century nun and not discount other pieces just because they were there first. Now, there might be other reasons to discount her testimony (I know very little about her), but it doesn't seem that her placement in time should be particularly important.

Abriged Like My Momma Likes It

Ezra contends that the Passion is actually unabridged, because it contains a different abridgement of Christianity than other abridged traditions.

The movie is not meant to be in dialogue with other traditions, it is meant to present its own tradition. It makes conscious decisions about what to privilege and what not to privilege, what its theological conception is. Because it presents a different picture than what we would consider mainstream, the film is not "unabridged" so long as the word still maintains its actual meaning.

Gibson's doing the exact same thing the other people that are abridging the text are doing. His choice to privilege other portions does not make the work unabridged. Any time you create a single narrative out of multiple sources, even if your interpretation differs from most others, you are not creating an unabridged work, you're simply creating a work that privileges different facets of those sources. In Luke, there is no crown of thorns. John features no clearing of the temple. In Matthew and Luke, he is offered to the crowd as the Christ and simply as "this man", while he is offered up as King of the Jews in Mark and John, In each Gospel, Jesus behaves and is treated somewhat differently, with different theological ramifications, when faced by his accusers.

If you tell any story as derived from the Gospels, you force yourself to abridge the source material from a single narrative, unless you do some weird TimeCode/24 thing with four different Jesus screens.

Two For One

Jesse and I unknowingly took on Prager's latest screed within 20 minutes of each other. So it's a two for one special today on Prager whuppings. Jesse's is two posts under this one, mine is one. Now run along and read.

Stop Titillating Me!

Dennis Prager is off and running once again Hey, you women! Stop doing my laundry for a minute and gather round while Dennis tells you how to fill your life with meaning:

We Don't Need No Water

Dennis Prager is back again (yes, Jonah, this time he's serious), expounding at length on why all women are doomed to a lifetime of depressing emptiness unless they put on long wool skirts and get back in the house.

Let me destroy him so that we can get on with our days.

Which "feminists" is he speaking for? I know of very few who disdain those roles but instead disdain certain conceptions of those roles. Prager's going to do this throughout the article, just to warn you - speak in vastly sweeping generalities about women and feminists with absolutely nothing to back up what he's saying. Different from his normal fare, I guess, because normally he's talking about other groups of people that he knows nothing about.

I'm glad Dennis Prager knows most women...I wish he'd introduce me to them. Now, what basis does Prager have for saying that landing a good man and cleaning up around the house is preferable for most women to working outside of the home? This is Dennis Prager. He don't need no stinkin' "basis".

And Juggernaut derives power from the Gem of Cyttorak.

Seriously, though - who, exactly, is keeping men or women from deriving power from gender roles? If a woman doesn't want to go into the workplace, Gloria Steinem isn't sitting outside of her bedroom window, picketing. Prager seems to be angry that women aren't choosing the roles he says give them power, and blaming that on...someone. Women, I think, but he spends a lot more time telling them what they need in this article. I guess that's moderately preferable to telling them everything they're doing wrong.

But wait, he does that, too...

I'm wondering why "the corporate world" is "male power" here, but Prager's tore up from the floor up, and trying to reconstruct his line of thought is damn near impossible.

Actually, it doesn't, since it makes very little sense. Since feminists have now opened up new avenues of power for women to aspire to, women are feeling more powerless than ever, because they have both their traditional feminine roles and a new world of opportunities.

Makes (no) sense to me.

And haven't we had nudie mags since before feminism? Or is it different, because those naked chicks were subservient and feminine?

This brings up the greatest (and by greatest, I mean worst) thing I've ever heard:

Basically, if men were only allowed to comment on women's bodies at will at work, women would dress in parkas all the time. Now, I'm wondering where Prager is working that women walk around in low-cleavage blouses and short skirts in a business setting, but I have a feeling he'll skate right past this, much like he's skated past any relevant proof for anything he's said.

I really want to see this. I mean, most women can't really hide their bodies, short of bulky layering, or else wearing body padding so that they become shapeless. If a woman has breasts, you're going to be able to tell virtually regardless of what she's wearing. Can we get national skirt-monitors to measure the hemlines of women's clothes? Are we going to have a bend-over test to make sure that no cleavage or panty lines are visible during the workday? Can I conduct it?

...Because of some sophomorically inane rationale that lumps all "modern" women into some submoronic lump of nipple-tweaked, thong wearing founts of desperation?

It's a good thing he said that, because I was really doubting whether or not he had any idea what he was talking about. I'm pretty sure that she "understood men" because she regarded them as the same dumb, cock and money-driven vessels that Prager does, although perhaps in more genteel terms.

Note that throughout all of this, the closest Prager comes to actually justifying anything he says is a reference to a New York Times Magazine article about some Ivy League women having children instead over going to work in the "corporate world". There's a reason this all smells very, very bad - it's pulled out of a stinky, stinky place.

Message to all women, everywhere: if you show more skin than the Prager Proportion, you are dressing for sex, and therefore I am required by natural law to ogle you like a side of meat. I can't help it! Dennis said so!

Abridged/Unabridged Part 3 - Return of the King

I'm going to have to disagree with Jesse here, you can make an abridged/unabridged judgement of things that attempt to reflect Christianity. In a very real sense, Christianity has far less to do with Jesus than the Bible. Since the man himself didn't write down his thoughts nor live to explain them to future generations, Christianity is entirely dependant upon the accounts of the Gospels. Now, most Christians pick and choose what they take from said gospels, leading to the abridged Christianity I reference. Mel takes the good and the bad, the loving and the hateful, all sides of Jesus's story and rolls it into a movie. In that respect his work is unabridged, he's not cutting things out (though you can argue whether or not he's interpreting them correctly).

My point is that the furor over his movie is not about his film but about the Bible. He's not inventing the anti-semitism nor misrepresenting the controversial portions; he's simply airing out parts of the Bible that most prefer to ignore. It is his refusal to edit out the ugliness that has resulted in the firestorm of criticism, and that firestorm only comes about because most Americans (Christian or otherwise) use The Bible as shorthand for a document that contains only bits and snatches of what one actually reads in said tome.

Father, Forgive Me

The website of the "Christian Party", the most disturbing thing I've seen in a while. Yes, they're serious (explore the wheel).

The long and short of the political platform: women have destroyed America, the white male, and families. Therefore, they're worthless sacks who need to be taken out of American politics, along with Jews and black people.

Go look crazy in the face.

Goose, Gander, Duck Sauce

Gay Democrats in Indiana are asking the state GOP to reveal the marital histories of Republican legislators.

Personally, I think a far more effective tack is to show long-term monogamous same-sex couples. Instead of saying, "We're no worse than you all would be," tell them that "We're as good as you could ever hope to be." I know quite a few people who were not necessarily homophobic, but anti-gay marriage, who looked at the pictures coming out of San Francisco and who have become more open to the idea of civil unions and even civil marriage.

I just don't like the idea of justifying same sex marriage by saying that gays and lesbians can't harm it any more than straight people are already doing.

Sacked!

Putin's just sacked his entire cabinet. Definitely something to watch.

Unabridged?

After reading Ezra's entry, I'm going to disagree with its basic assumptions.

Any Biblical claim to "accuracy" is itself flawed. The Gospels in particular were after the fact interpretations of Jesus' life affected as much by the environments they were written in as they were by Jesus' life. In that sense, Gibson's film isn't even a particularly accurate portrayal of any particular canonical source, given that he draws on numerous extracanonical themes and sources.

I'm not sure what the "abridged vs. unabridged" argument is about, since Gibson has himself decided to take a definitive stance on Jesus' suffering as a physically violent expurgation of humanity's sins, and has decided to privilege physical suffering over the other themes of the Passion and crucifixion. Gibson hasn't opened any new or complete interpretation of the Passion story, and to pretend that he's done something remarkable and opened up our eyes to a part of the Bible we're unwilling to look at...no. He has decided to create a particular reading that privileges certain factors above others, and much of the uproar is over whether his decisions have created an interpretation of the Passion story that overshadow the theological importance of the events in favor of hammering into the viewers a grisly hectoring over the pain and the blood of the crucifixion.

Gibson's Christianity is no more "literal" than most other interpretations of it - it's simply a lot more visceral.

Bush Endorses Marriage

In a *yawn* huge event today. Bush has announced his support for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. His endorsement is full of words like civilization and clarity and foundation, much like we'd expect. He's got some odd rhetorical framing going on, couching his endorsement with the rationale that he was forced to because the Courts had made marriage such a confusing topic. I'll stay away from the easy jokes here and just offer my full throated indifference to this entirely expected and completely symbolic act. Discrimination for electoral, rather than legislative, gain. That's my America!

The Bible - Unabridged

I've said very little about The Passion thus far. That's partly because I've made an effort not to follow the coverage and partly because I've had nothing terribly original to say about it. But I saw it being discussed tonight on Hardball and think I have one thing to add.

The debate over this movie is a proxy discussion; it's a safe and easy method of getting at a deeper, more painful, conversation. If you attack Gibson's movie you're a film critic, not a heretic. Regardless, the discussion that Passion demands and its detractors steadfastly avoid is somewhat heretical.

Quite simply, The Passion's problem is its accuracy. It's accurate in its anti-semitism, accurate in being gruesome and accurate in demonizing certain groups of people. This is because the Bible, or at least certain Gospels, do all of these things. Normally, we ignore these transgressions. Neither Jews nor Christians talk much about how patently ridiculous the characterization of Pontius Pilate is; nor do they mention how this brutal ruler is twisted into a benign sovereign so the Jews can play the role of villains. You can ignore it, but you can't escape the fact that the Bible, the single most influential document in this country (I rank it above the Constitution in influence, if not in legal authority), contains a disturbing amount of xenophobia, divisive precepts and upsetting rules.

Now, this is not to condemn the Bible as a bad or evil book. It's neither and the vast majority of its adherents take the good and leave the bad. But it's a more morally mixed bag than most would like to admit. Further, the accounts are contradictory and thus certainly flawed, yet we are unwilling to throw any away. The rules that the Christian Right has latched onto for their moral crusades versus those they ignore speak volumes about their motivations and points to a selective interpretation of the faith that simply does not square with the literal interpretations they claim to live by.

The Passion has aroused so much ire not because of anything Gibson did, but because of what he didn't do. He refused to take the edited Bible most Americans believe in and instead portrayed the unabridged version, exposing both the good and the bad that lay therein. Thus, everyone is having to speak not about the dominant Christianity we see around us but the literal Christianity that springs from the Bible. And a lot of people are not happy with what they're seeing.

Politics Is Fun

I will say two things about Stephanie Herseth. First, she needs a weblog. And two, I'm not just saying this because Carpeicthus is right.

I think too many blogs get overloaded with trying to provide every bit of information possible, but they do provide well-organized locus points that allow for quick and streamlined organization. Plus, it would provide me an excuse to go back to the site.

Dionne Nails It

I highly suggest you read this article by EJ Dionne exposing Bush's method of going negative and possible ways to counter it. It's one of the most important pieces you'll read on the upcoming campaign.

I'm A Big Bad Booty Daddy

Every election year, we get a new subgroup that's this year's "it" voters - soccer moms, security moms, office park dads, and now NASCAR dads. What always frustrates me about this is that it seems like it's simply a constant race to see who can classify what largely white, middle-class voters in swing states are concerned with. The convention itself annoys me - soccer moms, for instance, never made up more than 6 percent of the voting population, yet you would have thought that soccer was the new Playstation the way it was taking over America in 1996.

They're new, easily disposable methods of pretending you're talking about long-standing electoral groups in new and incisive terms. You know who NASCAR dads are? Working- and middle-class white males with families. You know who office-park dads were? Middle- and upper middle-class white males with families. You know what the difference is? Almost nothing, in real terms. Slightly different motiviations, slightly different economic strata, and a whole lot of assigned psychological and political phobias that various strategists wanted to make into issues.

I suppose that the whole "we're chasing after middle-class white people" thing might get a little old to repeat after a while, but the alternative is silly, and only about half of the time g. I look forward to the next group this election provides us (remember, we've still got over eight months left, and *something* has to change the face of this campaign). What's it going to be? Wal*Mart women? T-Bill uncles? Outsourcing octogenarians?

I don't know, but it'll be a fun and exciting ride as we try to lump a wide variety of different people together under a rubric that only makes sense to television screenwriters and the backup panel on Hardball. What group will I be a part of?

Chicken And Waffles

Bush is accusing Kerry of waffling.

I mean, other than his own drug and alcohol use, nation-building, stem-cell research, affirmative action, tarrifs, trade, the deficit, his tax cuts, the 9/11 and Iraq commissions, campaign finance reform, the international doctrine that he and his administration created, abortion, government spending, government intervention, and any question asked to him, directly or indirectly, Bush has a consistent history that's waffle-free.

A Plea for Civility

I am beyond disgusted right now. Someone who read my post calling John Cole a hypocrite went over to his site and told him to get cancer. That is repulsive and I'm ashamed to have had any part in it. Similarly, I write a post arguing with Kim DuToit and many on the site took it as a launching point to begin a "Kim is fat" chorus.

I don't much like John Cole nor Kim DuToit. But sinking down to the level of schoolyard insults and curses is far more uncivil than either of them are. There's a lot to take umbrage at on Kim's site, a lot to argue with on Cole's; but keep it there. They have different opinions than I, or you, do; opinions that any progressive who claims to love free speech and civil liberties should respect. Calling them fat; wishing dreadful diseases upon them; these simply make us look unable to defend our viewpoints, too immature to be taken seriously and too uncivil to have a seat at the table.

I apologize to John Cole for sending over whoever said that. I hope he stays healthy and becomes a liberal. And I ask the readers of this site to keep the tone of our discussions and debates civil and intelligent. One of this country's biggest problems is the amount of venom in the discourse and I refuse to let this site be anything but part of the solution. You want to mock? Great. You want to argue? Terrific. You want to rave and link and shout? Go ahead. But if you want to wish terrible things upon your ideological opponents then you're not welcome here.

Attention!

Why do I get the feeling that we aren't done hearing from Ted Sampley* by a long shot?

*Short summary: conservative whacko who functions as a grassroots hitman against Bush opponents who served. Will probably accuse Kerry of having committed war crimes and/or not actually having served in Vietnam and/or of being Bridget Fonda's real father (it's complicated, but trust me, it's bad!) sometime in the next few weeks.

ABBON

(Anybody But Bush Or Nader.)

Dean came out in strong terms against Nader. Good for him.

More Junk

The next bill down the pike: We Have No King But Jesus Act of 2004.

My favorite part is this bit:

So, basically, we can throw out large portions of federal case law and interpretation because it was made legally but wouldn't be legal under a law that didn't exist when the case was decided. In addition, there's no such thing as the Establishment Clause:

Well, I take that back - there's just no Establishment Clause for the Supreme Court.

Do this many weird-ass proposals normally come down the pike this rapidly, and we just don't hear about them?

Thanks for Getting Fired

This is lifted completely from the national Review's blog. I think it explains a lot:

The trade argument is caught up in reductionism and demagoguery. The fact of the matter is that outsourcing is a reality and protectionism is unrealistic. What you can do is create better environment for it to occur in. Workers should have three month notice on outsourcing since it's a planned act. As Robert Reich has suggested, outsourcing costs should not be total write-offs but slightly taxed to create a fund that would retrain workers and help with unemployment benefits. We really need to begin talking about how to face outsourcing rather than how to prevent it or why to support it. The latter conversation is just hot-air as we can't control the global marketplace without destroying international trade. The former is about what we can do; how we can help those who are free trade's causualties and how we can keep our workers a few steps ahead of expendability.

Edited because the post evolved away from its title.

Another Goodie

Bush is now saying that the unemployment rate is a "good number".

Okay, this is the same session at which Rod Paige called the NEA a terrorist group. Bush made a series of lame excuses to call his job record good in what's quickly becoming his reelection mantra, "It coulda been worse!" Who else from the administration was there? Did Gale Norton call the forests "nature's toothpick repository"? Did Elaine Chao call factory workers "gonorrhea on the nation's economic hoo-hah"?

By the way, did you know that we don't have an official Housing & Urban Development Secretary?

Right Wing Blogs

So I'm looking for good right wing blogs. I have a few but not nearly enough. Do you guys have any suggestions? Any right-wing columnists I should be reading regularly? Any sites I should be glued to?

Pot? Meet Kettle.

John Cole has the stunning audacity to say:

LOL! rOxXoR!!!

If only I was as good at snappy comebacks as Michael Graham...I'd make a completely irrelevant and borderline offensive comparison between two groups I don't like.

Carrie vs. Kimmel

In a fierce torrent of idiocy, Jonah Goldberg has managed to equate The Man Show with Sex and the City and blame the distorting lens of feminism for why one is celebrated and the other reviled.

The Man Show, on the other hand, is a parody characterized by prancing midgets and bouncing models. It is Maxim gone cable and it claims to be nothing more. The reason The Man Show is not seen as a cultural lighthouse is because it isn't one, it's a frat party on television. The reason Sex and the City is seen as a significant program is that it illuminate and comments on the disconnected lifestyles of urban professionals with a candor that no other programs have even attempted.

Oh, Man, I'm Just Joshin' Ya

Rod Paige called the NEA a "terrorist" organization.

I'm sure that there will be forty bloggers linking to some liberal publication, or somebody on Democratic Underground or Indymedia calling some Republican or some Republican group a terrorist/terrorist organization.

However, none of them are the Secretary of Education. None of them hold one of the highest-ranking positions in the entire federal government. None of them are cabinet level advisers to the president. I don't think that the government will start treating the NEA as a terrorist group, but when the national head of education policy holds a view as extreme and out of touch as this one, it's something to worry about.

We should, of course, be used to Paige saying things that make no sense whatsoever. He maintained that he'd performed an educational miracle in Houston which later turned out to be faker than a Bush deficit prediction. And I'm pretty sure that he was also lying last year when he said he could, and I quote, "freestyle longer than it took the Egyptians to build the pyramids/I have other MCs runnin' 'cause I'm the Pharoah of the Fearamid."

I have spoken to numerous other Houston-area MCs, and they have said that Paige was a mediocre lyrical stylist, at best.

FMHey, Hey, Hey!

Ramesh Ponnoru is attempting to fend off criticisms of the FMA from conservative and liberal commentators, but he importantly demonstrates the nonsensical balancing act going on among its more "moderate" defenders.

That's the Federal Marriage Amendment in all its glory. Ponnoru says that all the supporters declare that the second sentence would allow for the creation of civil unions - which isn't actually an argument that it does, mind you, but an argument that certain people say it does.

The major issue at hand is "legal incidents thereof". Ponnoru ducks and dodges around this issue, talking about how much conservatives want to fight this battle in the legislatures. However, the amendment specifically states that not just marriage, but legal incidents thereof cannot be required to be given to any unmarried group - either civil unions will have to confer rights that married couples don't obtain through marriage, or we'll have to change marital rights to rights that are conferred upon everyone - which is problematic in and of itself.

There's no real way to say that "we'll give these rights to you because you're married, but we're not giving these rights to because you're married", which is what Ponnoru is proposing. He argues that you can abolish an incident of marriage, but then he turns around and argues that you can reestablish it as an incident of marriages and civil unions.

A legal "incident" is anything which is dependent upon or a result of another legal status. For instance, your ability to vote is an incident of your being 18. It would seem to me that even if you redefined an incident of marriage as an incident of marriage and civil unions, it would still be an incident of marriage, and therefore unable to be transferred to any other coupling of people. The only way to get around this would be to declare that legal incidents of marriage which you want to make available to couples in civil unions are available to any two people, regardless of legal relation. Otherwise, any right which is specifically conserved for married couples, even if married couples aren't the only group that is supposed to be able to participate in them, can only be given to married couples.

The amendment either argues that no benefits which are conferred upon the legal state of marriage can be transferred to any other coupling, or it simply restates an obvious facet of law for no apparent reason, and is therefore meaningless: that any right or privilege conferred solely upon a married couple is non-transferable. As it is, it seems to be arguing the former - if married people get it, nobody else does. It doesn't allow for civil unions that share any legal aspect of marriage.

Anyone's welcome to correct me on any point.

We Win

No, seriously:

Which Sham Candidate To Run?

Matt Yglesias and Tim Noah are arguing over which conservative candidate could be the right's Nader. Matt argues for Buchanan again, while Tim argues for former Justice Roy Moore.

First, let me state that I don't really like the idea of hoping that another candidate will launch a bid for president to sink the fortunes of a major-party candidate. That having been said, I lean towards Moore. He's a newer face than Buchanan, who appeals to the most motivated sector of Republican voters: Christian conservatives. Most of Buchanan's challenge would be based on the same themes he's run on in the past: economic and social xenophobia. If same-sex marriage becomes an issue this election (which it likely will), Moore would be in a stronger position to challenge Bush than Buchanan's critiques of the Iraq war, particularly since opposition to the war (although not on Buchanan's ideological grounds, necessarily) would be seen more as a Democratic issue than a Republican issue, and could potentially draw away crossover voters.

I do think they're both overlooking a long-term structural challenger to the right, though: the Libertarian Party. Right now, they're the most well-organized third party in America, give or take, and they touch on the issues that Buchanan would without Buchanan's history. There's also a sizable body of Republican-leaning libertarians (and Republicans who call themselves libertarians) who've been functioning as mouthpieces for a conservative turn towards libertarian principles. The more viable the Libertarian Party is as a conservative alternative for the free trade/small government set, the more support they'll draw away from Bush - particularly with the anti-deficit conservative crowd. Plus, they're willing to run against Republicans aggressively.

Libertarians '04!

Capturing Bin Laden

Many of you in the comments are worrying about a Bin Laden surprise, be it in October or otherwise. I don't know how trustworthy the Sunday Telegraph is, but they're reporting that Bin Laden is boxed in and the Special Forces are simply waiting for Bush to say "go". This may or may not be true but Bin Laden's capture creates a political scenario we should talk about regardless.

First, let's get the specious misinterpretations out of the way. Bin Laden's arrest Would. Be. Fantastic. I'd be overjoyed to bring that murderous fanatic to justice and I very much hope that he is boxed in and we'll see his capture shortly. And yes, I mean arrest. I don't want him to become a martyr.

As the conventional wisdom goes, capturing Osama would make Bush a lock for reelection. I'm going to make the counter-argument and say that Osama's capture would be terrible for Bush's reelection. In fact, it would be one of the worst things that could happen to him.

Dick Morris has a theory that Presidents get beaten for two reasons. The first is for not doing what they promised. The second is for doing what they promised. The latter argues that the people gave their Commander a mandate and, once he's fulfilled it, his usefulness is pretty much over. Bush's current argument for his reelection is that he's a wartime President and the country needs him in the driver's seat pursuing our enemies. The problem with the rhetorical frame of war is that it isn't endless, it has heroes and villains. Once Osama is captured the war, in the minds of most, will have been won. People won't stay afraid forever; if Osama's capture doesn't end terrorism (and it won't), America will just blame Bush. he did all he said he would and failed, time for someone new. If Osama is captured and the terrorism does abate for awhile, the electorate will stop worrying about terrorism and Bush will have to run on the economy. His worst nightmare.

It's always easier to run on a vision than a record. Visions are unassailable; results can be shredded. Bush's wartime presidency ceases being a vision thing the day UBL is captured. Sure Bush will get a boost, but he won't be reelected based upon something that's over and done with. He'll have to immediately fill the yawning gaps in his campaign's rationale and I just don't think he can do it. He can try and scare us again, but it won't work; people don't want to be endlessly scared and they'll see it as political posturing. Kerry is (smartly) cutting the tax argument off at its knees and the economy simply will not have fully recovered its jobs by November. There'll be nothing left for Bush to run on. You can't be a wartime President without an enemy and you can't switch campaign rationales that totally mid-cycle. So stop worrying about UBL's apprehension and start rooting for his capture. Not only would it be a great day for all who love freedom and hate terrorism but it'll force this election to be about Bush's economic agenda. That's a fight I'm sure we can win.

Edited for apostrophes. Some of you are shockingly anal retentive...

Well, Ed, I Did Not Know That

We're still paying Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. Given that they did such a good job before the war, it's well deserved.

It's not so much a "scapegoat" as a "realization that you told the American government a bunch of stuff that had no basis in reality for the purpose of getting your desired military/political outcome". Slight difference...but important.

And Bush will make Chalabi fall on his sword just about as soon as he incorporates the phrase "we were wrong" into any aspect of his stump speech. Even that part that talks about predicting the Panthers in the Super Bowl.

The Evolution Of Media Bias

This opinion piece in the Washington Times shows that conservatives are going to be basing a lot of the attacks on Kerry around this testimony - oh, and misrepresenting the hell out of it.

This is the relevant passage, in full:

For all the apoplectic outrage, it's funny how every single quotation of this before the stock condemnation of Kerry as grossly maligning our soldiers begins on or around "they had..." in the second paragraph. Left out is the fact that Kerry did get this testimony from somewhere, that it wasn't simply a meandering hypothesis laid down in front of a congressional committee, but instead the gathered stories of over 150 Vietnam veterans.

It's a cheap misrepresentation, and one that ignores the context of the information Kerry had gathered and was relaying to the committee. It's fair game to ask Kerry about what he said. It's not fair game to ask Kerry about what you're saying he said.

We Haven't Mastered Symbolism, Sir

Robert Novak is valiantly trying to turn the fight over the highway bill into Bush's fight against a tyrannical Congress hell bit on stuffing all the pork it can find down its bile-filled gullet.

I really don't like the way Bush and Congress have spent, but any honest broker of the federal government's fortunes would have to admit that it's got an exponentially greater amount to do with tax cuts and Bush's spending priorities than the 10 billion a year Bush and Congress are fighting over (10 1/3, to be exact). Ezra and I have been talking about the incompetence of Bush's reelection team, and this is just another step in a bizarre, faltering direction.

Some basic math, to start us out. The current budget deficit is projected at $521 billion for this fiscal year. Bush hopes that he'll get the deficit down to half of that in five years - at most, $260.5 billion. If Bush gets what he wants, a permanent extension of the tax cuts, then deficits will likely rise over the next five years, meaning that Bush essentially wants a show dip followed by a real rise. Now, if Bush's deficit projections are righ (highly doubtful), he's fighting over what amounts to a 4% difference in the FY 2009 deficit. Assuming we see even a 10% drop in the deficit next year, that extra money would be a 2.2% change in the deficit.

All of these calculations are for naught anyway, considering the bill has a veto-proof majority in favor of it, but it's demonstrative - Bush is fighting over relative crumbs here, and it's a disingenuous tenacity. He's willing to go to the mattresses to reduce spending in a bill that's going to get passed anyway and which is relatively small potatoes, while ignoring the huge problem that he's sitting on.

"Well, uh, I fought to reduce spending. Once. Even though I knew it was hopeless. Reelect me? Please?"

Who Knew?

Dan Akroyd is secretly Bill Safire.

Big Muscles, Little Strength

Piggybacking off this post of Jesse's, is anyone else shockingly unimpressed with the Bush/Cheney reelect team thus far? Yeah, I know, he likes to be misunderestimated, but they've tried to make a lot of things succeed and failed, often spectacularly, over and again. The State of the Union, the Mars Initiative, Meet the Press, the capture of Saddam. They keep trying and falling short. Last week they went on an intimidation streak. They began beating their chests and bragging about how the President was about to go on the attack. So what do they do? Out comes Saxby Chambliss and then Kerry gave it them on the chin.

It reminds me of one of those cartoon fights where the cat walks up to the dog, gets punched to the next street. He comes back with a stick, gets punched again. He jumps up and exclaims that "he's just 'loosening up' for the campaign season", err, the fight. Then he gets hit again. Then he offers the dog one last chance to turn tail and run. You know the rest.

Bush keeps talking about how he's really gonna stick it to the Democrats this week, but that's all that happens. He does something lackluster, Kerry responds, and Bush leaks that next week...NEXT WEEK....Kerry's going to wish he never showed up near the slide after school!

It's all pointing to something rotten at the center of the Bush presidency. Bush was supposed to be unassailably strong, the tone of the reports clearly show that his attacks were expected to be unstoppable effective. Were he not the President and this was merely a campaign, his obituaries would already be written. As it is, he has the time and money to pull it together, but I'm beginning to seriously wonder if he has the standing to do so.

In true Josh Marshall fashion, I'll have more to say on this later. For now, think about the personality choices in this election and the personality wishes of the electorate. Can Bush do serious? And what does it mean if he can't, what does it mean if the American electorate refuses to take him seriously?

Anti-Capitalist Fervor

Something I've noticed is that this sort of anti-rich sentiment tends to bubble up a lot more on the right than the left. The monied are, to London, a vulgar and contemptuous set so taken with its own undeserved gifts that its largesse is ultimately wasted on itself.

London, a conservative, actually embodies the paradoxical angry elite stereotype of Democrats - bitterly resentful of the rich while simultaneously longing for a rich, aristocratic elite to properly handle the burdens and responsibilities of money, and take it away from those garish commoners.

Of course, London also likes tax cuts, so he's a populist's populist.

I Wish I Could Buy Me A Spaceship And Fly

Bush is revealing his brand new stump speech, which is good news for us, considering it's the old stump speech with new words thrown in.

Now, I understand there will probably be new rhetorical devices, new applause lines, and, most important of all, new backdrops. But one of the dangers of running the four-year reelection campaign is that Bush really doesn't have anywhere new to go.

Bush's only manner of amplifying or altering his criticisms is the method of delivery, not the content. The article makes obvious that Bush's main plan isn't in what he's saying, but instead that he's going to have a coordinated campaign of Republican figureheads repeating it for him. Bush's major argument (that what he's done has been right and effective) has been his major argument since his first tax cut passed.

An unintended consequence of the past few years of Democratic wandering in the wilderness is that we're back like Tom Hanks in Castaway - leaner, tougher, and able to spear a fish from 40 feet like it wasn't no thang. John Kerry's recent spate of ballsiness is only so remarkable in light of a Democratic Party that seemed intimidated by the punching bag, let alone Iron George Bush. Kerry, by showing anything resembling a spine, just showed a side of the Democratic Party that's been missing since at least 2000, if not well before then. Democrats have a range of political areas heretofore left undisturbed for fear of being branded negatively by Republicans.

It'll be an interesting election, just because Bush is left with an electorate increasingly dissatisfied with both his record, and his desperate support of it.. His reelection is not going to be predicated on the defense of his record, but instead how well he attacks those who disparage it. And a fangs-bared Democratic Party is much more difficult to attack than one bracing for it.

Run Or Do Not Run, There Is No Jog

Regardless of whether or not Arnold Schwarzengger would be a good president (all signs point to "and all of these things"), I do support the amendment Orrin Hatch is pushing that would allow those who had been citizens for 20 years or longer to run. During the formation of the republic, the prohibition on foreign-born executives made sense - there was a worry that if you elected one of those bleeping limeys, they'd turn us over to the crown sooner than you could say "Hail to the Queen". However, at this point, the risk of a foreign-born citizen turning the country over to another power is rather low.

Now, I say this with the realization that any foreign-born citizen is going to be subjected to some xenophobia and general bigotry, regardless of which party they run under or how "American" they sound. If Schwarzenegger ran for the presidency, there would be those who would doubt his Americanism, his patriotism, etc., even though he'd have a far harder time of it than an African or Asian immigrant. We don't make laws in order to assuage bigotry, though, and this case is no different.

America is a land that should reward perseverance and excellence, particularly on the parts of those who immigrate to it for just that reason. If someone has been a citizen of this country for a suitable period of time, and has made their home and their livelihood here, I see no reason they should be discouraged from seeking the presidency as being any less American than a native-born citizen. I'm pretty sure there are a sizable number of long-term naturalized citizens who are more competent and better able to handle the job than the current resident of the Oval Office, and who should be afforded the same opportunity to seek the office, should they desire it and be capable of handling the responsibility.

Rittenhouse Rescue

Jim Cappozola, writer of The Rittenhouse Review, has fallen upon some really hard times and could use our help. If you've got any money you could throw his way I know it'd be extremely appreciated. He's a tenacious fighter for liberal causes and a good, worthwhile person. If you can, please give him a hand. Step on over to the Rittenhouse Review, look at the Paypal button on your left and click. The nice folks at Paypal will help you from there.

It's Already Been Broughten

DAAAAMMMMNNNNN! Read this article and watch Mark Racicot just backpedal, defend, block and generally turn tail and run from Kerry's onslaught. If Kerry's trying to prove that he won't be Dukakis, he's got me convinced. I've never seen the President's spokespeople thrown this far back; particularly not from a counterattack. It's not even that the attacks are particularly good (or relevant), but watching Mark fall back is great fun. Watching him futilely complain that "Our campaign does not condone any effort to impugn your patriotism" while Kerry's spokesman accuses him of "craven tactics that degrade our democracy and question the patriotism of those who stand up and ask questions about the direction of our country" is a nice role reversal from what we normally see in these exchanges.

And People Wonder

Slimy. Slimy, slimy, slimy. No, not this letter from John Kerry to George Bush, making not-so-veiled references to his portraying Kerry as the Jane Fonda candidate and maligning his service in Vietnam and subsequent opposition to the war as somehow darkly indicative of his untrustworthiness in the War on Terror, but the Reynolds and Chafetz responses to it.

Of course, most of this outrage is based on a Nedra Pickler article, so perhaps our intrepid duo is simply misled by her inability to write a coherent, relevant sentence about a Democratic candidate if she was paid to.

Kerry's letter is a smart preemptive attack against the Bush campaign, particularly since they're already unleashing Chambliss to pull the same thing he did on Cleland in 2002. Every Republican attack on national security carries with it the implicit undertone of an attack on patriotism - it's ingrained into the rhetoric.

Something I noticed about Kerry's "32-year history of voting to cut defense programs and cut defense systems." that Chambliss references - Kerry first ran for national elected office in 1984. Before that, he was a prosecutor in Middlesex County and then Lt. Governor of Massachusetts for two years. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but during that intervening 12-year period, Kerry couldn't have voted to cut anything, because he wouldn't have had the power to do so. Chafetz, Reynolds, and Mickey Kaus all talk about Kerry running away from his record as a Senator, yet Chambliss and the Bush team are extending his record as a Senator by 12 years.

Should Chambliss, and by extension Bush, be misrepresenting the tenure and extent of Kerry's records in order to link his Senate term to Jane Fonda and his opposition to the war in Vietnam?

Everything Is Everything

Yes, I really do want this man to be president.

I also want some unanesthetized, back alley root canals for my birthday. Think you can help me with that?

Me Invade Iraq? Uncredible!

I'm sure as Bush's credibility gap gets more pronounced, we're going to be hearing the phrase "the American people trust this president on the issues that matter" only slightly more than a superlative out of Bill Walton's mouth in the upcoming months.

Think about everything in this administration (and in the party) that's under investigation. September 11th. Iraq. Valerie Plame. The Senate Judiciary files. The Texas GOP's fundraising.

It's long been my opinion that running on whether or not you trust the Bush administration with your national security is an incredibly effective strategy. Not in the realm of who's got the biggest antiterror grapefruits (because it's a schoolyard battle best fought by the moistened pants crowd on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal amongst themselves), but in the realm of who's actually going to be the most credible, competent, honest broker of America's safety over the next four years. Who's going to do the right thing, the right way? Not the right wing.

Unbalancing the Act

Conservative disgust with Bush is getting graphic:

Kerry v Edwards

Just watched the head-to-head between John Edwards and John Kerry on This Week. Aside from the vertigo inducing format, two one-on-one interviews being quickly spliced together so you heard their answers to the same questions, it was actually quite good. Jesse remarked a few weeks ago that it seems like we split Bill Clinton in half and got John Edwards and John Kerry. This morning proved him right.

Edwards gave a decent, if uninspiring, performance. He was likable and charming as always, but he relied too much on his visceral appeal. His rationale wasn't what he'd do but where he'd come from. Now, that's one thing when it's an underpinning for your campaign but wholly another when it's your answer to policy questions. Today, it was the latter. As far as I could tell, John Edwards didn't propose one policy in the whole interview, and he suffered from it.

The reason it hurt him is that Kerry decided to go full-wonk ahead into the program. Every question was met by a quick "here's what I think" and then "here's what I'll do", separated into planks 1, 2, 3, 4 and so forth. Kerry threw numbers around and really appeared to have a good handle on all facets of the government. In addition, his answers were quite short, he didn't take significantly longer than Edwards to reply to questions.

Now, even if he's improving, he's still got a long way to go. He needs to get better at joking around with his interrogators, he needs to figure out how to take off the serious face once in a while, if only to show that he can. Nonetheless, he was far better today than in past interviews I've seen (though I haven't seen anything one-on-one with him for awhile) and he really did come off as presidential. Edwards came off as a likable guy and a good candidate but not a president.

I've been flirting with voting for Edwards because he's such a damn good speaker and his "Two America's" message is something our country needs to hear. After this interview, I feel more like voting for Kerry if only because I really would feel comfortable with him in the Oval Office.

Nonetheless, the interesting part of this interview was how clearly it showed that each of these candidates brings to the table what the other lacks. If Kerry lacks charm, Edwards lacks gravitas; if Edwards lacks wonkishness, Kerry lacks empathy. Both are going to have to work on learning the other's strengths.

Run, Ralph...Huh?

There's been a great deal of handwringing over Nader's run for the presidency, but I have to say that given the actual standing of his campaign, as well as the organizational hurdles he's going to have to overcome, I'm more worried about angry Democrats puffing up his campaign than anything St. Ralph might do.

Nader has no party backing behind him. The Green Party support he had will likely go in large part to the Green Party candidate. Nader's biggest challenge isn't getting support, since he's already a marginal candidate, but instead actually getting the signatures and money together to get on the ballots in a significant number of states. Even in 2000, Nader was only on 43 state ballots (and Washington, D.C.'s) - and that was with a party backing that had a near-national apparatus, and that began running a campaign much farther out than Nader '04.

It's a selfish, pointless run, and everyone realizes it. The key here is to simply let Ralph stew in his little corner, and go on about the business of beating Bush. He's already taking care of his part, so let's take care of ours.

I Actually Have Nothing To Say

I don't.

Should I even bring up that South Africa has minimum wage laws today? After apartheid?

Do conservatives even have to make sense when they say things anymore? We have to outlaw same-sex marriage because it might make heterosexual couples less prone to get married. We have to outlaw the minimum wage because the apartheid regime in South Africa used it. Alas, we must now also outlaw water, because it's used to sate the thirst of dictators the world round.

Evolve, or die. H2O must H2Go.

Saxby the Hero Killer

When did Saxby Chambliss become the disgnated pointman for attacking the military record of decorated war heroes?

This seems to be the kind of thing Kerry should just knock out of the park. Every speech should talk about how Chambliss, in a call set-up by Bush, was attacking another war hero's security credentials. And every speech should make the parallel that Chambliss did it to Cleland and Bush is going to do it to Kerry. This election will be the pretend cowboys versus the real war heroes, and nobody should forget that.

Speaking of Cleland, he's having fun thinking up similes with which to attack Chambliss:

The Death of Understanding

I highly recommend that you pick up this week's Economist (the outsourcing of jobs is the cover story). The whole issues is great, but I want to flag the article on the situation in Israel as i think it makes some great points that advocates on both sides tend to miss.

I attend UC Santa Cruz where anti-Israeli sentiment is so strong that it occasionally veers if into anti-semitism. Luckily, it's of the ignorant rather than hateful variety, but it is troubling nonetheless. The graffiti and posters declaring opposition to the Israeli apartheid miss some truly fundamental facts that The Economist points out:

That, to me, is the essential dilemma that makes this conflict so intractable. Both sides respond logically, and these logical responses make the problem significantly worse, never better. Further, the emotions created by losing friends, by having your home demolished, by watching the latest reports of humiliation and terrorism on the evening news, lead to an anger and resentment so deep that empathy and understanding of your enemy's position is out of the question. And without that, there is little chance of breaking the cycle of logical-but-harmful responses and replacing them with restrained and peace-conducive ones.

Add in to leaders who make peace nearly impossible and you're really quite screwed. Had Sharon given the concessions he's currently making to Abu Mazen, the Palestinians would have a strong and moderate Prime Minister who could lead them down the road to peace. Instead, Sharon weakened Mazan and is back with Arafat, giving concessions to a partner who is unpredictable and untrustworthy. With these two firmly ensconced in the leadership, I fear peace won't be possible until the toll of time replaces those heading their respective states.

Paging Inside Politics...

I'm firmly convinced that either Bill Schneider or Jeff Greenfield will delineate Super Tuesday as the pop vs. coke vs. soda showdown.

Edwards runs strong with the coke vote, and splits the pop vote with Kerry, but in soda strongholds like New York and California, Kerry reigns supreme. Who takes the pop could determine who takes the nomination.

Bigger, Better, Stronger

Paul Bremer: On June 30th, we're going to be taking the brave step in Iraq from a provisional government controlled by Americans to a provisional government controlled by Iraqis...who are controlled by Americans.

You know, I respect the fact that a transfer towards a representative democracy in Iraq is going to be a long and arduous process. But what the hell does the June 30th date mean? Will the Iraqi police force be ready (doubtful at all, virtually impossible as a stand-in for the American forces)? Will the American forces leave in any sizable number? It seems like the June 30th date is simply a symbolic target at which point we'll really affirm our commitment to handing over power...but not actually be the date at which any real power is handed over.

Maybe we'll get a proposed trip to Jupiter on June 29th.

Redefining Marriage

Josh Marshall has a good post up on gay marriage, and he says some things that need to enter into the larger debate:

1) You don't get to choose these battles. It's very hard to make something like gay marriage an issue. For some reason, the time is right and the floodgates have opened, there's nothing we can do but fight the fight that has landed before us. The outcome of this fight will decide gay marriage for the foreseeable future, there are no quick do overs.

2) This isn't like trade policy or Medicare where you can pass a decent bill now and improve it later. Let's say civil unions are floated as a compromise. Then that's what you get. There will be little popular support or even tolerance for more activism on this issue. Most Americans will feel the "Gays" got civil unions, time for them to sit down and shut up.

That said, Josh is right. Gay Marriage is not an issue with electoral support. But I think there's a way to change this whole debate. I think we need to grab the values at the root of marriage and pull. The Conservative groups are right, marriage is being utterly ruined. 60+% end in divorce, drunks can jet to Vegas and get married because it seems like a good time and more and more children are being born out of wedlock. It's amazing to think that Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a report in the 60's saying that 3 out of 10 African-American children were born to a single parent and that this could become a problem in the future. The number is now 7 out of 10 and it is a problem in the present.

I think it's time marriage got harder. I think it's time we defined what marriage entails and created a system around that. For that reason, I think the Democratic nominee, whoever he may be, should latch on to the value of commitment. Use Britney Spears' recent Vegas marriage as an example, use the statistics on out of wedlock births and publicly commit to an agenda that will rebuild and strengthen the American family. People should have to wait a week for a marriage license, you can't just go to Vegas. Birth control and prophylactic information will become part of school curriculums because it's better to do that then see more out of wedlock births and, worse, more abortions. Bush's floated idea to spend money teaching couples how to communicate, resolve conflict and be better partners should be resuscitated and turned into a Democratic proposal. The base of this whole platform would be "Encouraging Commitment". We need to define marriage as a commitment between two people to each other and to building a life together. If they're gay, fine. As long as they're willing to wait for the permit, they can get married. If they're straight, fine. As long as they're willing to wait.

I haven't thought enough about specific policies that could be used in this framework, but I do believe they're out there. The idea has to be that marriage in the eyes of the State is a privilege and not a right. You can do what you want in Church, but if you want the many benefits conferred by state licensed marriage, you have to earn them. Through that, gay marriage will recede as the main issue and marriage will emerge. With that dynamic in place, we can launch a real attack on the Bush Administration's horrific attitudes towards sex education, birth control accessibility and women's health in general. They're creating the conditions for shotgun weddings, teenage mistakes and, worse, terminated pregnancies. When kids don't have the information to make smart, informed decisions, they make stupid, ignorant ones. We're willing to end that.

Bad Arguments for Dummies

There is no style of argument that irritates, nay, offends me more than this. Argument by superiority:

My Asshole Is Better Than Yours

Ed Feser manages to write a lot of very angry, silly things about academia with no proof, no real respect for common sense or argumentation and, in fact, no real point other than that if you disagree with him, he'll really show you that he's right by writing an even longer column ultimately bereft of any redeeming virtue.

Not really, since the "Nazi" and "Fascist" memes are not only vastly overstated in scope and relevance by the besieged conservatives who apparently find themselves forced into a pair of custom made jackboots every morning by their local College Democrats, and since the historical roots of Naziism, as well as the ideology it embodies, are a complex mixture of political beliefs that don't dovetail exactly with either tradition of American liberalism or conservatism, it doesn't behoove anyone to say that the "modern whatever" is more like Nazis than the other side.

Therefore, if you're going to make this argument, you need to argue that liberal values of the modern day have more to do with Nazi principles, such as a nationalist, xenophobic focus on uberpatriotism and loyalty to the state, along with a focus on the marriage of the capitalist system to the state. Saying that liberals are more Nazi than conservatives doesn't cut it.

Of course, we're dealing with someone who uses more scare quotes than a Black Panthers rally, so I'm pretty sure we'll never get that from him.

The best part, however, is this list of on balance, in general assertions. See, if you observe it, it must be true!

How would you measure this? How would you prove this?

I ask those questions because Feser apparently didn't, instead preferring to simply rant on as if the answers were so obvious, and so obviously a result of the liberal academy, that to challenge them would be the height of LiberoNazi hubris.

Now, my issue is that he simply ignores the purpose of higher education, which is to critically challenge traditionally held views. It's not just to tell you what people think . What Feser seems to be advocating isn't education - it's indoctrination. Are students, after having been exposed to a multitude of different ideas, more likely to believe in one of that multitude? Yes. Should the purpose of college be to discredit alternative ideas in favor of reinforcing "traditional" values? Personally, I believe that answer is no.

One of the curious things about this whole debate is the contention that conservative voices are either being driven out of academia or being ignored, when it actually seems like most of the conservative academic voices I read are simply agitators out looking for persecution around every corner, playing the victim card far more than any of the minority groups they claim are overrepresented. If this article is indicative of the type of academic work Feser does, I can see why universities are loath to hire conservatives like him.

Installation At No Extra Charge

Bush has installed William Pryor on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, over the Senate's wishes.

Between this and the fact that I just watched Hudson Hawk, I need a stiff drink.

No, No Islam?

A Christian group in Australia is suing to outlaw Islam, under the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act of 2001.

What I find interesting about the act is that it could legitimately be found to ultimately outlaw all religions. Suppose in your righteous indignation over the vilification of your religion by another religion, you overstate your case with respect to what that religion says or does. You could say that religion A vilifies religion B, and religion B vilifies religion A in its pointing out religion A's vilification of it.

Of course, the Christians have a way around this:

See, Christianity is a de facto lawful religion, and can't be found to villify other religions! It works out beautiful-like!

This is what happens when people get too much into the business of trying to legislate against hurt feelings.

Mr. Pickle

Josh Marshall has a post up on the latest development on Memogate (why not?). It's good and informative and blah blah blah. I want to highlight one particular part:

Anyway, back to your regularly shceduled programming.

The Crazies

Winton Smith has some worthwhile comments on the prevalence of crazies in the two parties. I think he's right on when he says that:

There's a reason ours are actually more dangerous to us. The first is that what they're saying isn't evil. When the Right denounces it's own, it's usually because it goes so far beyond good taste ("invade Muslim countries and convert them to Christianity at gunpoint") that any responsible person is disgusted by it. But with the Left, what's usually touted is some overly strident anti-war rhetoric or income redistribution. The difference between the party and the fringes is one of means, not ends. It's harder to effectively denounce someone who isn't saying something you really, really disagree with.

The other problem is that academia is quite separated from the majority of Americans. They have no personal connection to it, thus it's easy to make academicians sound nutty and there's no prior experience that would cause viewers to internally mitigate the impact of the nut on their screen. The evangelicals are just "overly" Christian, a group that most Americans either belong to or are broadly exposed to and are thus more likely to look upon sympathetically. When someone is too literal with the Bible, few people see it as a failing. When Pat Robertson says something terrible, well, he just went a bit too far. He spends all his time preaching, how bad can he be?

My Invitation Was Lost

The Wonkette's coverage from the National Press Foundation Award Dinners last night is must-read

Taking the 5th...For Decades Now

Oliver North writes:

The more you know.

Nader To Decide

Nader will announce his decision this weekend on Meet the Press:

Health insurance? Check.

More progressive wage policy? Check and check.

Criminal justice reforms? Our likely candidate doesn't even support the goddamn death penalty!

DON'T RUN!

You know, I like Ralph Nader. I don't blame him for what happened in 2000, though I think he should have pulled back in some battleground states. His years of public advocacy are more than enough to cancel out that decision, assuming he didn't make it with malice. But he's destroying himself now. He's making the whole of the Left look bad, he's making it a little bit likelier that Bush will win and he's deepening the divisions between the Democratic Party and those on the far left. I see no good in Nader's candidacy and see no reason for him to undertake it save his own ego. And unfortunately, it is sapping me of all my respect for him.

The Definitive Answer

Why is this site named Pandagon?

It started back in my freshman year of college. I give great hugs (and this is not just my estimation, but the opinion of literally hundreds of hugged people over the years). This, and a bunch of college kids sitting around deciding what our spirit animals would be.

Anyway, I needed a name for a website. I was joking around with someone, and we came up with the idea of a military-industrial complex full of pandas, given that pandas are actually large, surly, angry animals who would be warlike if it involved food. And this complex would be called the Pandagon.

Originally, it was just supposed to be a satirical take involving a series of ever-escalating panda wars, but then I decided that the idea wasn't actually that compelling - but I loved the name.

So, ladies and gentlemen - the story of Pandagon.

Newest Front In The War On Sense

I think that Glenn Reynolds is the newest editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal, as this could have come straight out of his addlepated take on the Plame scandal.

The first line of attack is the Orwellian betrayal of Novak by the traitorous press corps. To maintain that the journalistic protection of sources doesn't take ethical precedence over possessing evidence in a possible federal crime is, in fact, betrayal of your ultimate goal as a part of the Shiny Starlight Liberal Media Division to take down this administration through the use of a special prosecutor.

The second line is that there was a while between Novak's column and the investigation - and as we all know, in criminal law, if you don't prosecute a crime right after it happens, regardless of the statute of limitations, it's not really a crime. My law book says so, right on page...

...Also, Wilson was a critic of the Iraq war, and Novak's column was ultimately about that. So it's all just a fight over Iraq, anyway - how dare the liberal media pursue this witchhunt simply to silence a critic of a critic of the Iraq War! (I'm surprised at this point they didn't bring up that Novak was also against the Iraq War, as it might have made this bullshit case marginally less awful.)

Last, but not least, are the random bits of effluvium that, in some world, are persuasive: it's not clear if she was "undercover"! (We'll ignore everyone in the CIA and the Justice Department who says she was.) Joseph Wilson is a Democrat! (As we've learned from numerous Republican scandals, it's only improper if there's no hint of impropriety. Therefore, we distrust Wilson, trust Antonin Scalia, and split the difference.) Also, Joe Wilson isn't sobbing in a corner, hoping that John Ashcroft and the ramrod-spined editorial page of the Wall Street Journal will solve this all on their own.

Of course, as we remember, one of the theories involved when Ashcroft recused himself from this case was that he was recusing himself because there was nothing to it, and he was just installing a figurehead to announce that there was no there there. Like this entire editorial, it was less a compelling theory than a stark admission that many conservatives are willing to utterly divorce themselves from law and reality in order to figure out a way that this isn't bad.

Be Safe

Today our Professor told us that one of our classmates had been driving home from work late at night, lost control of his truck and died in the resulting crash. There one day, gone the next -- he was an amazing person, it's absolutely tragic. I looked at the newspaper clipping after class, the quote that stayed in my mind: "He probably would have survived had he been wearing his seatbelt."

Please guys, wear your seatbelt. I know this isn't the forum for safety admonitions, but after being touched by such a senseless loss, it's hard not to just put it out there.

Be safe, y'all.

Whew

Midterms - Finished.

Regent Application - Completed.

Exhaustion - Total.

Thanks for all the kind words, I'll be back up to full blogging strength starting whenever I wake up tomorrow.

Click Here For A Fair And Balanced Kiss Of My Ass

The populism is populamatin', just popadopped everywhere!

If that makes no sense to you, you're primed and ready to read this article. Kerry and Edwards may have populist messages, but they live in expensive houses. Why, then isn't George Bush, who lives on an expensive, technologically advanced ranch in Crawford as a campaign prop, included?

See, Peggy Noonan points out that George Bush, even though he's just as silver-spoon as anyone else, grew up next to a prostitute - a common whore! - and he's therefore more of a real, normal person than any of the Democrats, because prostitutes make you personable.

Was there a prostitute at that mill, John Edwards? Because you may be the next love of Noonan's life, and the next president of the United States.

Shorter Larry Elder

This, week, I had an argument with someone over the Iraq War. Some people, believe it or not, still disagree with my position! Let me tell you readers who don't disagree with me all about it.

I write 8 things a day more original than that and he's the one who gets paid?

Colin Powell

I have no doubt that one of the books out of this Administration will be on the fall of Colin Powell. Whether the man himself writes a tell-all or some enterprising underling from State publishes a memoir, Powell's plummet from internationally respected statesman to muzzled tool has been extraordinary. Definitely check out Kaplan's Slate article on the whole thing, it's fascinating stuff. I think the only thing saving the Administration from Powell's rage is that the Left has treated him terribly as well, he doesn't want to be on either side and so is just stuck in this weird loop, playing the good soldier to a leader who destroys his credibility and frustrates his efforts.

Kanye West

Slate is the latest publication to gush over Hip-Hops "Next Big Thing", Kanye West:

Cut That Mess

This article points out something I'd noticed, but had never thought to put out there: even for all the talk of how much the Democratic primary is dampening Bush's numbers, the fact still remains that he's done an awful job all on his own since the new year began.

Regardless of Democratic attacks on him, his response has been, at best, underwhelming. Bush has obviously planned for the attention on Democrats - it's just that he planned a lot of very unpopular, poorly thought-out counters.

Don't Get Personal

I'm reading this AP article, and I'm not sure whose voice this is, but it makes no sense whatsoever:

Well, two of those are distinctly non-personal attacks, unless we're now defining "personal" as anything involving the person in question, at which point the entire endeavor becomes pointless.

I'm not sure if it's Laura or the AP reporter connecting those two ideas, but either way it's erroneous and silly.

Well, it works until you decide to have sex, at which point abstinence is fairly, ah...useless. I've been researching this, and I can't find a single sex-ed program which doesn't, in some way, mention abstinence as the most effective method of disease and pregnancy prevention. The thing with sex education is that you can't simply educate kids about not-sex - at some point, you have to address safe and responsible ways to participate in sex itself. That's why it's sex education.

Switchback

It's becoming rather obvious that the important date isn't the June 30th switchover of power in Iraq, but rather which date Bremer and Bush push that June 30th target back.

Paul Bremer: "Look at all the complicated things we're doing! That's democracy-like!"

Kofi Annan: "Fool, please."

Deeply, DEEPLY Conservative

RE: THE "LEGEND" OF ZELDA [Jonah Goldberg]
I agree with you, Tim. The Zelda series, for all its bowing to traditionally conservative themes such as the individualist response to grave and gathering tyranny, as well as the clear and unequivocal portrayal of evil as evil. But even from its inception, focusing the title on the kidnapped princess as a potential show of gender equality, and its increasing reliance on symbols of supposed "gay identity" as normative tools of in-world expression - fairies, rainbows, flutes, pointy ears.

There are conservative games out there, such as the gender and race-blind Metroid series and many Japanese role-playing games, which focus on a revitalization of traditional values and a maintenance of small-town, "heartland" life. There are better games than Zelda to instill conservative values in your children and your teenagers.
Posted at 08:59 AM

CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS [Jonah Goldberg]
A reader wrote in to ask me to recommend conservative wet-naps. A little bit strange, because it's long been my position that conservatism is a tradition that doesn't need to justify itself by finding itself in the mirror of everything surrounding it.
Posted at 08:55 AM

THE "LEGEND" OF ZELDA [Tim Graham]
On the street yesterday, I saw a promotional poster for The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker. A young man from a nearby university saw me and introduced himself, and asked what I thought of the game.

Are our kids actually playing this? And did People For The Un-American Way have a hand in it?
Posted at 08:03 AM

CONSERVATIVE SPICES [John Derbyshire]
Are there distinctly conservative spices, a reader asks? Well, I would argue that Mrs. Dash promotes a constancy and a reverence for marriage that are otherwise absent from most mainstream spices.
Posted at 07:42 AM

Worst. Picture. Ever.

Can't CNN afford, I don't know, flashes for their cameras?

Kerry looks like a zombie, Edwards looks like a Ken doll. Both look like something you find in a children's toy store...

New Polls, Good News

New polling puts both Kerry and Edwards 10-12 points up on Bush - and this is a poll of likely voters.

Something I'm noticing is that a lot of Republican strategists are declaring that Bush will rebound. Now, I'm sure he will, at least a little bit, but this election is largely shaping up to be about what Bush has done. For all the talk of what this election is going to be about, Republicans are simply trying to cherrypick from the overarching drumbeat of the Democratic Party - explaining just what the hell has gone on the past four years.

The best part about it is that the noises Bush is making about a second administration are the exact same noises they made about the first one, which simply plays into an anti-incumbent campaign.

I have to wonder if Bush's low poll numbers are like Hillary's putative candidacy - conservatives are sure they'll rise again when the time is just right.

Why Gay Marriage?

I know I'm not blogging today but I had to quote Morford's insanely eloquent statement on San Francisco's gay marriage stand:

Stressed

Midterm tomorrow. Know nothing. Three essays due as well. Blogging = No.

Early Spring Cleaning

Okay, so I'm cleaning out my dresser, and all of a sudden I happen upon this card. I remember getting it right before I started high school from an uncle who'd won a binder of cards for $5 at an auction, and it was right when Clemente became one of my personal heroes.

I'm trying to decide whether or not to sell it.

(Let me rephrase that: it's tempting to sell it, but I'm deciding whether or not to entertain the temptation.)

Dean's Out

It looks like Dean's basically turning the "movement" and the Dean for America organization into a center-left-progressive activist organization, coming out strongly for the Democratic nominee and throwing his weight firmly behind beating Bush in '04. He's saying everything he needs to say, although he's now going into a somewhat bizarre line about the inevitability of change and the futility of resistance.

Hopefully, he becomes an answer to some of the firebreathers on the right in terms of scope, clout, and message and serves as a mobilizing agent for the activist wing of the party.

Kaus On Kerry On Crack

Does anyone else think that Mickey Kaus is rather gingerly toeing the line between obsession and paranoia?

Our ever-less-sane hero bravely unveils the thuggery behind the Kerry campaign, the, ah, not-really-threatish-style-type statements coming from advisers, many of whom talk about getting other candidates out of the race (shock!), responding to dirty campaigning by Republicans quickly and forcefully, unlike Dukakis (awe!), and talking down Edwards because he's only won one state (Iraqi reconstruction!).

You can virtually hear the malice dripping down their bared fangs, ready to slash the tires and break the kneecaps of everyone who dares go against them. This isn't politics - it's the mafia. Granted, a shitty, genteel, verbose mafia that responds through political ads and mildly uplifting speeches replete with implorations to surf the internet and donate money...but a mafia nonetheless!

Tomorrow's Kausfiles: How John Kerry Kidnapped The Lindbergh Baby...And Aborted It.

Knock It Out The Park, Luke

Jacob T. Levy writes in extended terms about the impact of the FMA, and how it actually does ban anything even remotely resembing a same-sex marriage, as the National Review decides "Homosexuality? NO! Polygamy? Ehh..."

Edwards...I Am....Your Father...

Take John Edwards, add 30 pounds, subtract two inches of hair, and you've got Morris Meyer; the next guy we're going to tell you to give money to. He's apparently got a reasonable shot at a seat in the heart of Texas. Hey, we've already pissed off Mitch McConnell, now it's time to smack DeLay around.

Buy! Sell! Trade!

If anyone's looking for an extra buck, the CIA's willing to shell out big money (or in-store credit) for WMDs or WMD information.

It's Mr. Bozell If You're Dirty

The firmness behind The Passion.

I found this article really disappointing, because it starts off so strong, talking about the "massive debut" of the firmness, talks about sitting in front of Diane Sawyer as it looks like she's sucking on that firmness, just like everyone in the liberal media should...and then it goes on to talk about how The Passion is some dumb movie about Jesus, and how everyone's afraid of that.

What's funny about all of this is that for all the furor over the film, its violence, its anti-Semitism, etc., I've yet to see a single attack by any critic of the film on Christianity, the story of Christ, the fundaments of the Judeo-Christian narrative...anything.

You bitch and you bitch and you bitch, and other people bitch in return, and the media covers the bitchfest, all of which is proof that the media is unsympathetic to your bitching and is actually doing all of the real bitching.

See the massive firmness, next Wednesday...if you think you can handle it. It's graphic.

Lay And Spray

Sometimes the Bush economic program reminds me of a bunch of guys standing around a locker room, none of whom can actually tell the truth about anything they've done and for whom all failures all the fault of some invisible hand conspiring against them.

"Man, we're gonna have economic growth like, like, this big, yo!"

"Daaaaay-um!"

"Well, yeah, yeah, you know, we- we would, but, uh...we had, like, September 11th and stuff, and all them scandals...but we could!"

"Yeah! And what about that Congress, man?"

"Yeah, dawg...you know, exactly."

As far as I can tell, the jobs projection for this year is somewhere between significantly less than 2.6 million to 3.8 million - or more. In addition, the deficit is $521 billion, or nearly $700 billion, when everything is added in, or, maybe more, but it'll go down in the future, or go up if Bush's projections are married to Bush's policies, or do the shuffle to the left, to the left, to the right, to the right.

I really would like to get rid of locker-room economics.

Willis Scandal Shakes Blogs!!!!!

Sources close to Oliver Willis indicate that he evaded fighting for his country alongside the Ikari Warriors. Mr Willis's staff could not be reached for comment, but one associate wondered if his inability to lob a pixellated grenade that simulated depth with different sized sprites renders him unfit for the Democratic nomination.

Update:

Notice Mr. Willis's conspicuous absence in the satellite shot above. Today The Sun called him a candy-ass bitch. Democratic Party reeling...Developing....

Trying Too Hard

Wow, if this isn't the most pathetic turn the anti-scandal has taken yet, I don't know what is:

Developing...

Dean and Edwards: Friendz 4 Life?

Draw your own conclusions:

That Old Gray Mare, She Ain't What She Used To Be

I love the fact that the marriages in San Francisco are showing people that same-sex couples actually aren't flamboyant, fire-breathing hetero-killers whose unions will lead us into a new age of depravity and destruction that will cause our children to run naked in the streets with a Filipino pimp named Gustav clapping them on and flogging them for pocket change and sexual favors.

Which simply makes this John Cole post all the sadder.

Not "whimsically", necessarily, but I wouldn't say there's anything "whimsical" about the decision to remove gender restrictions on marriage. I can only assume that Cole means that marriage is divine in nature, which is simply ludicrous as we're talking about civil marriage here. More importantly, he seems to be making the case that marriage has never changed, in conception or in practice, over the course of human history.

At this point, I'd like to direct the class to any point in human history which is not now. Polygamous marriages, marriages between young teenagers, bethrothed marriages, single-race/single-religion marriages, marriages which held one spouse as the property of the other, legal inheritance rights through marriage...in fact, there are few consistent practices around the world which have changed more than marriage, with no divine hand playing any role in it whatsoever.

For decades, some people have refused to cede that Elvis is dead, JFK was killed by a single assassin, or that the South lost the Civil War. That doesn't mean they're right.

I'm wondering what that "period" is for, because it's either punctuation or menstruation, and in that sense it's either redundant or biologically impossible. Guess what? People's gender identifications do not make those gender identifications valid or universal.

If I ask you to think of a secretary or a nurse, most everyone who does will think of a woman. If I ask you to think of a doctor or lawyer, most everyone who does will think of a man. Does it mean that these strong gender identifications should dictate to us the genders of those professions?

Could you actually find a person who would answer "yes" to this question?

Tradition isn't an argument because tradition isn't even tradition: it's the gloss of whatever particular set of values you want onto the past, as evidenced by the bizarre assertion that marriage has never been changed by human beings. Simply put, how people think of themselves, their relation to others, and relationships between other people does change, and it changes because of humanity's actions.

We call it "same sex marriage" because it's what we're talking about, and it's what the fight is currently over. We talk about "interreligious" and "interfaith" marriages, yet we don't consider either of those invalid (because we...changed the definition!). By this standard, any time I apply any adjective to anything, that adjective-laden noun is not actually in the same category as the noun by itself, because I added words to it. The entire regime of adjectives is actually an anti-traditionalist concept used to undermine our God-given, totally unchanged principles of what that noun is and how it is understood.

Humans generalize concepts. Whether it be gender, race, architecture, design, whatever - if I ask you to think of a general concept, you will give me an image of it, but that doesn't mean that other images can't also be held under the same conceptual umbrella.

See what I did there? I used the word umbrella, but it didn't refer to a literal umbrella! Go me!

We Helped This Man Win

Ben Chandler wins the special election in Kentucky.

It's times like these I wish I got more news by paper, so I could crush it in my hand and mutter to the night, "The first of many..."

So Simple It's Complicated

With each successive column, Dennis Prager is getting closer to his goal of making Lieberman look like a candy raver in comparison to his straitlaced, uptight self. It's really quite impressive:

1) Dress sexy;
2) Marry a man;
3) Get knocked up;
4) Give birth.

Catch Dennis next week on The View, where he'll talk about his most embarrassing moment.

Could it be that sexual clothing is not about femininity but sexuality? Could it be that women think they are women by virtue of being women (it's so simply it's complicated!), and see skirts as unnecessary in proving that they have ovaries? Could it be that Dennis is an insufferable prude?

Maybe.

Hire Me. Now.

In response to this entry:

THE AD:

[Establishing shot of Osama bin Laden giving an impassioned speech in Arabic.]

BIN LADEN (subtitled): We must defeat the great enemy of our people! We must destroy America down to its very immoral foundations! We must- Yes, you in the back?

AL-QAEDA RECRUIT (subtitled): The Satan America is having an election in November. What if this "John Kerry" wins?

BIN LADEN: I'd like to thank you for raising this issue, as it proves in the eyes of Allah that you are a dumbass. We are fighting AMERICA! This is a war against AMERICA and the Zionist oppressors! I do not give one suckle of a pig's teat who is in charge of that country! Allah opposes anything but a government under the rule of the Qu'ran, its words and its prophecies, but for his glory!

AL-QAEDA RECRUIT: Ah, uh, thank-

BIN LADEN: Do you have any more dumbass questions?

AL-QAEDA RECRUIT: [Stammering.]

BIN LADEN: No, really. Allah is already beseiged with a million imprecations for his glory from those who serve unquestioningly in his name, but I am sure he has more time to answer your mewling inanities. Please, Allah is waiting!

AL-QAEDA RECRUIT: [Silence.]

BIN LADEN: Sit down before you are shot in the head. Where was I? Oh, yes. We must defeat all enemies...

[Fade to black.]

Somehow, I think that's a bit closer to the truth, don't you?

Flynt's Scoop

You should really read Atrios's rundown of Larry Flynt's journalistic integrity because it looks like he's going public with the story that Bush got a women pregnant and she got an abortion in the mid-70's. This is an issue where I'm of two minds. The first is that I really don't want it to hit, I don't think this woman's abortion should be national news. That's beyond the humiliation of adultery, it'd be excruciatingly painful to relive on the cover of Time. I am strongly pro-choice, but I think it will be ugly and exceedingly divisive to have this become a scandal, it just feels to me like it goes too far.

On the other hand, the blatant hypocrisy of the Bush Administration needs to be stopped. They are actively making it harder to obtain education, information and access to birth control and something needs to be done to make them back off. Their insane resistance to the morning after pill and sex education is simply making abortions more necessary and more common for people who didn't understand what they were doing and didn't have the tools to stop the pregnancy before it happened. It's absolutely tragic and if this story will beat them back, then I guess it is all for the good.

I do believe, though, that Americans on all the sides of the political spectrum will rue the day this story breaks. A lot of women in this country will be forced to reexamine decisions they made, when young, that they had worked plenty hard to forget over the years. This conversation may be good and even necessary for the country, but it will leave a lot of destruction in its wake.

High Five, Mullah Omar!

You thought Jonah Goldberg's columns were weak? Well his proposed commercials are orders of magnitude worse.

The New Revolution

Hannidate.

The only question is, who's going to be Hannity, and who's going to be Colmes?

What is a "Hannity-style romance", exactly? Wouldn't it just be really angry masturbation with someone else watching on and weakly challenging your technique as you scream at them?

Work With Me, Now

I'm not sure, but I think Daniel Ruth is peeved with Bill O'Reilly.

Johnny Jehovah And The Case Of The Imperiled Prosecution

Jehovah Johnny, the greatest agent of justice that Jesus Christ and the J.M. Smucker Co. ever ordained, is getting sued by an infidel prosecutor over minor problems concerning a terror prosecution.

This tremulous termagant of a man dares criticize our War on Terror? Another one to add to the list, JJ! Doubters merely serve to embolden and embiggen the efforts of Those Who Hate Us.

I'm glad we have such a godly, holy man in charge of our Justice Department. Who needs criminal convictions when you have the conviction of your beliefs to back up your incompetence?

Plain Brown Wrapper

In this article about whether or not kids should see The Passion of the Christ, I'm quickly coming to realize that this isn't a religious statement - it's crucifixion porn.

I'm likely going to see this movie, just to see what all the furor is about. But I've always had a problem with depictions of the Passion story that focus on the physical suffering of Christ - it's a shock tactic, and a cheap one at that.

Success Begets Success

A rising tide lifts all boats - particularly one called the U.S.S. Unemployment Rate.

It brings up an interesting point about the unemployment rate that I honestly hope Democrats pounce on in the upcoming election. The unemployed in our country are vastly undercounted, and the true legacy of the Bush administration's "economic stimulus" is convincing more and more Americans that they simply can't find work.

The thing that's so remarkable about Bush's economic record is that all of his promises are based on either lamely rectifying or continuing his own failures. The only thing he has to run on is "I lowered your taxes, and I'm gonna keep doing it until I'm satisfied or out of office."

In short, everything that he did right is what's important, and everything else will be fixed through the magical panacea of "Stop worrying about it." Man, am I looking forward to this race.

Be It Ever So Humble

Instapundit, the site that declared strenuously that the world's most obvious transgression (the Plame leak) was, at various times, "too confusing", "bogus" and "nothing" is, at the very least, consistent: he's embarassingly behind the curve on Kerry's "intern scandal" as well.

See, when a Republican and/or Republicans were accused of commiting a serious national security violation, Glenn was only slightly more befuddled than Robert Downey during the making of Home For The Holidays. He is now the all-powerful Truth Seer, able to cut through all the crap and rely on his basic, primal instincts.

Which are wrong, mind you.

For all the idiotic carping over this issue, it still hasn't sunk in to anyone that no actual allegations have been made firsthand. Other than a "mystery friend" who appears to be an ethereal figment of Drudge's imagination, the only actual allegation that anyone is themselves making is that there were/are media sources investigating the story - and none were before Drudge brought it up.

If you want to know how bogus this story is, check out this link from Drudge, as compared to his link:

Given that the quote isn't in the story...it speaks volumes about Drudge's trustworthiness in this regard.

What's also funny about this whole thing, especially when compared to the AWOL story, is that conservatives are actually on the same side of both, attempting to prove something for which evidence is scarce or even nonexistent - and most of them don't seem to realize it.

Bush and Matches

Bush is claiming Democrats can't be trusted with money. Josh Marshall comes back with the best line, well, ever:

Hmmm

You think that MSNBC is starting to figure out that Internet polls are inherently meaningless?

(Hint to the braintrust at MSNBC, a contradiction in terms to be sure: this isn't the first time this has happened.)

Election Won

The Philosoraptor writes

Never Let It Be Said That You Have To Be Smart To Be Frum

David Frum does one of those hackjob political columns that I love, if only because you can almost see the flop sweat on his brow as he tries to work in every slur and meta-scandal he can find.

And when you break that, will you finally realize that you can't take it with you into the shower?

Isn't it curious how after a story like this turns out to be nothing, there's still at least one hack behind the curve, desperately yanking it along like their little red wagon with a wheel fallen off. It's kind of sad, in that "lost childhood" sense.

P stands for "Please, bitch." R stands for "Really, this is lame." E stands for "Every time this gets brought up, I feel a piece of me die." N stands for "Now, remember what happens when you assume?" U stands for "Under everything else, you really have no idea what you're talking about." P stands for "Probably still think Clinton ran drugs out of Mena." T stands for "Thank you for bringing this up, because I was looking for something easy to bat out of the park." I stands for "Intelligent people realize that you can't make an iBook work by banging it with a meat hammer." A stands for "A few days ago, this column's bite might have had teeth, but right now you're gumming more than the Perry Mason Fan Club at Shady Pines Rest Home." L stands for "Look, I think I've embarassed you enough, which is why I'm going to tell you that your wife's book was awful."

What does that spell? David Frum, you sound like a jackass. Oh, and PRENUPTIAL.

Rush Limbaugh was also speculating a couple of days ago that Ding-Dongs would replace the Eucharist in Catholic ceremonies. This is why we dont trust Rush Limbaugh, kids.

You know, I have to wonder what it was that Bill and Hillary did to replace the Illuminati, the International Jewish Conspiracy, and the Screen Actors' Guild in the paranoia-flavored conspiracy theories of right-wingers. Next up, when Kerry wins in November, it's actually a secret conspiracy by the Clintons to get Bill appointed Speaker of the House after they rig a series of House elections to gain Democratic control of the Congress.

Better question: is the rumor actually TRUE? Might you have asked that before you wrote this column? Is your common sense also in at the shop after several crashes?

Ladies and gentleman, the paranoiac's new conspiracy focus: Wes Clark's kid. The new top-secret focus of the Democratic Party is actually an unholy alliance between the Clark and Clinton families wherein Wes Jr. and Chelsea get married, take the presidency, give it to the spore people of Zargon-18, who's actually a communist plant of Fidel Castro and hardliner elements in the U.S.S.R. to destroy capitalism and Christianity.

Um...nope. Both pretty damned stupid.

Wouldn't it be funny if David Frum was actually a performance piece by Mike Myers that nobody in the Republican Party figured out? The theory's not as clever as, say, a 7th Heaven script, but it may come closer to making sense than anything Frum has himself said in the article.

Who's Got The Ideas?

John Kalb has some interesting comments on the current state of the Democratic Party and its supporters. He first lambasts me:

Supporting toothless campaign finance reform that still allows for the Energy Industry to have their contributions to the Bush Campaign coded with a special number so our President knows exactly how beholden he is to them does nothing for me. Attacking 527's that will allow for financial parity between the two candidates only furthers the likelihood that the party who tried to block even the paper reform we had will stay in power. That's a silly thing to be in favor of.

I supported Dean blowing the caps not because I like it when people blow the caps, but because it makes my goal of full public financing more likely. Dean has a plan to create it, blowing the caps made his election more likely, thus, I supported it. I'm not willing to compromise of my principles of taking money out of politics, instead, I refuse to allow my perfect principles to stand in the way of the realization of my goals. Principles mean nothing if you're not willing to get your hands dirty actualizing them.

John goes on to write:

I don't think that anyone who watched the 2000 election honestly thinks that Bush is more serious about preserving Social Security than Gore was. Bush's idea, partial privatization, costs 1 trillion that we don't have. Not too mention that as of now, it remains horribly unformed and entirely unsafe -- remember Enron? To save Social Security requires two things, revenue and political will. Bush has shown neither, cutting our revenue with taxes while increasing spending with huge programs. You can't tell me that's somehow praiseworthy.

As for the Democrats lacking ideas, that's just silly. A quick glance at any of the candidate's websites reveals a laundry list of new ideas and proposed policies. From cutting the deficit to expanding health care to guaranteeing college educations for those who qualify to dealing with Africa's AIDS crisis to creating national service programs to addressing urban blight. If this doesn't qualify as a program, I'm not quite sure what does.

John spends some time lambasting the Anybody But Bush movement, as if our opposition to Bush is somehow symptomatic of an inability to stand on our own merit. That's what happens when you take a bumper sticker and try and divine a political philosophy out of it, rather than actually researching the group in question. Terry McAuliffe wears that pin because he wants any Democrat instead of Bush, he wouldn't be happy with Buchanan as the replacement. And what is wrong with that sentiment? The truth is, the policies of the Democrats running are remarkable for their similarities. We are a party that is quite united under one vision for America and yes, we believe that any of those who agree with us would be better than Bush. Compare that to the Republican Party, which is rallying behind a President governing in a way that is antithetical to their beliefs. Last time I checked, the Republican Party still said they believed in small government, fiscal conservatism and restraining spending. Turns out that their "ideas" are less important than having their boy in the Oval Office.

John, your criticisms are all correct. But methinks they are aimed in the wrong direction.

We Have Our Answer

A lot of us have been wondering what would happen if the Iraqi people decided on a system of government based on sharia, Islamic law. Would it be allowed? Would it be disallowed?

Well, now we know.

It's a bone of contention, and one of the hard prices of bringing democracy in any way, shape or form. It was obvious from the get-go that no matter how much sovereignty we were willing to give the Iraqis, certain ideas would be intractable with the American vision of democratization, and it turns out sharia was one of them.

The question now is how large the role of Islam will be in Iraqi law, and how flexible the constitution of the country will be on this issue. For instance, even if Bremer won't allow sharia to come law, what's to prevent the first Iraqi legislature from simply amending the constitution to make Islamic law the basis of the law?

I also have to wonder how political parties in Iraq will form. It seems fairly obvious that the major political divisions in the country are explicitly based on religion, and as such, even if religion is not allowed to be the core of the Iraqi constitution, it seems it will be the core of Iraqi governance, which is likely going to be much more important than the wording of the constitution.

Hell, ours doesn't say that Christianity has anything to do with our system of governance, and we still have a political party that governs like it.

Respect For Privacy

Now, granted, I've never actually been in academia as a professor, and I've specifically never been a professor at UNC-Wilmington, but what kind of environment does it create when you reprint alleged e-mails from them to their class in syndicated columns?

Falling (But Not By Creed...They Suck)

In case you were wondering, the Kerry "intern" scandal is only slightly deader than the 8-track.

Apparently, a photo has surfaced of the woman with Jane Fonda at an anti-war rally in 1970, although many are questioning how a 27-year-old woman could have been at a rally 34 years ago.

And I just have to do this: I demand to see all of her records of not having an affair! If she doesn't release them, it's a coverup!!!

Sincerey, Peggy

Nooners is at it again:

I must meet him!

Sincerely,
Nooners

Nader

Political Wire is reporting that Nader is likely to run again. In other news, I am quickly losing all my respect for Ralph Nader.

TCB

I'm not going to be updating today - I've been trying to kick this bug for a week now, and it's just not going away. So, consider this an open thread.

You Stole My Heart And Now You're Asking For The Warranty

The Senate memo controversy looks to be heating up as it's coming out that the infiltration involved was far more systematic than previously thought, and more and more Republicans join the ranks of those realizing that this was a serious and systematic breach not only of Senate protocol, but also, likely, of federal law.

This doesn't stop some people from claiming that it's not really a scandal...because Democrats were accused of using a memo stolen from the Republican Attorneys General Organization (which, regardless of the veracity of the charge, is nowhere near the same level of transgression of systematic theft/misappropriation of thousands of government documents), and because Republicans are mad, too.

Manny Miranda is going to provide us with countless hours of entertainment over the next few months, just so you know.

Towards Financial Parity

One of the least covered but most important factors in the 2004 election is the role of the 527's, the advocacy organizations that can raise unlimited amounts of soft money and use it however they wish. In light of the Democratic Party's disadvantage on hard money contributions, these groups are our best hope for achieving financial parity with Bush. But the RNC has brought a challenge to the FEC arguing that these groups are illegal in light of McCain-Feingold (the campaign finance reform bill that, as you may remember, Republicans did their best to defeat). Today we got a huge boost in beating back that challenge:

Debate Coverage

Alright, you guys know the drill. Ezra's in plain text, Jesse's in italics. Newer commentary at top, participate in comments. With all due respect to Mills Lane...Let's get it on!

I'm really not in the mood to comment any more. Kerry's position, right now, is too dominant for other answers to matter. Plus, the stage lighting feels like the death of color and happiness. I think Daria is on.

Kerry's talking about his national service plan. I love these plans, both he and Clark had one. They're good policy and good politics. This debate is mind-numbingly dull, but the candidates are giving real answers. They're talking about their policies rather than spouting rhetoric. Kerry and Dean, in particular, are showing that they have a good handle on the specifics of the issues. I haven't been impressed with Edwards thus far, his answers have been easy to listen to but not very substantial.

I liked that Edwards brought up that you can't do everything in the world and balance the budget at the same time. It's the only thing from this debate that hasn't lulled me into a stupor.

Kucinich seems to believe that Universal Health Care can be paid for with leadership rather than money. Kucinich 2004: You Can Have It.

Shorter This Debate: I'm asking you something? "Yes, you are." What do you have to say to that? "The same thing you've already heard."

Hearing Sharpton talk about plans he's proposed is like listening to your stoner, slacker friend tell you about all the things he's going to buy once he gets rich. It's cute and you want to encourage their dreaming, but it just ain't gonna happen.

Since nobody's bought Kucinich's campaign, can he go bye-bye? (Sorry to Kucinich supporters, but...no.)

John Edwards feels your pain. I know personalizing policies is effective, but I can't shake the feeling that it's hokey. There are sad stories on any side of an issue, I prefer statistics. Dean, by the way, has balanced a budget, in case you didn't know. This debate seems like a formality, all the candidates seem to have checked out. Kerry is trying out lines of attack on Bush, Edwards is trying to seem pleasant and "in-touch" and Dean is moving to their left. And then there's Kucinich and Sharpton. Denny wants everyone to know he's going to take a big shit on free trade if he gets into office.

Could someone TURN UP THE DAMN LIGHTS? It looks like a Blue Man show onstage. And they need someone to shoot t-shirts out into the audience or something. Maybe Kucinich can do another comedy dating bit and liven the crowd up?

Kerry's doing a good job making the GOP's negative attacks look like what it is, a dodge against talking about their record. It gives him a good way to attack the Bush record and highlight their negative campaigning. He's getting pretty sharp.

Jesse's right, there is no energe here. Kerry got to take on the special interest claim and knocked it right out of the park. He really has a good answer on it, which is important. Kucinich is talking straight nonsense, by the way.

I'm watching this, but I can't help but shake the feeling that it's essentially a coffee klatsch for the candidates before Kerry takes the nomination. I do like that Borger is pointing out that Dean is essentially making the Republicans' case for them - Dean's swerve around the question isn't so great. This is remarkably low energy. And I don't think Kucinich and Sharpton are getting any questions that approach relevance.

Edwards is saying character is very important for a President. I like the values arguments he makes, I don't think the Republicans quite know what to do with those attacks.

They're asking Kerry whether or not a Guardsman saying Bush served is proof enough. Kerry pretty much says "I have no fucking idea". Segues into Iraq and hits Bush for cutting VA benefits. Not a great answer.

Nooners is extolling Edwards' sunniness. What the HELL?

Helping Our Own

Mary Beth of Wampum is running for a seat in the Maine Legislature. She's a wonderful progressive voice and would be a huge asset to the body. Head on over there, get informed and contribute if you can. Let's help her win this one.

Admission

The Drudge thing does seem to have been nothing. They're talking about it on Fox News right now, and nobody, not even the conservatives, are willing to do anything but says how little there is to ithe story.

I was wrong, and I could not be happier about it. In fact, one of the panelists claims to have spoken with reporters who were present during Clark's mention of the scandal. She says he wasn't talking about that.

Drudge was full of shit and I should have been more incredulous. Thank God.

By the way, Jesse and I will be doing live commentary on the Debate today, starting at 6:30 Eastern. Come join the fun.

Least. Surprising. Ad. Ever.

This is just too rich.

According to Amazon, his book won't be released for another two days. That means it has been marked down to, essentially, free, before it's even come out. High hopes for that one. But it gets better. Check out what you have to do to get it:

I just can't see this being a sustainable business model.

From The Inside

Looks like the Dean Campaign is coming apart from the inside:

What's interesting are the hints that Dean will use his supporters and celebrity to continue working for change. It would be cool to see Dean ally with Trippi and use their Grassroots movement to create Change for America. It could be a 527 that would use Dean's media appeal and his supporters dollars to beat Bush and advocate for Progressive causes (like universal health care). I could see Dean being extraordinarily effective in that position. He's a firebreather, and we really need some of them to compete with the Norquists of the world.

What Did The Five Fingers Say To The Face?

Tom Friedman to John Kerry: "SAY MY NAME, BITCH! And my exact take on Iraq, complete with melodramatic alliteration. Will you be my political valentine? I want to choo-choo-choose you."

Thank You For Granting Me This Moment Of Clarity

One of the major knocks against Democrats this election cycle will be that they're simply running against President Bush rather than for anything. I'd make the case that running against Bush's systematic mismanagment of the government for the past few years makes a more compelling platform than and set of issues or reforms I've seen offered up in recent memory.

Case in point: in addition to naming a nominally bipartisan commission all by his lonesome, Bush created the additional incentive that if you joined the commission investigating just how badly he was abused by those nasties over at the CIA, you didn't have to reveal your financial history, including any potential conflicts of interest with the scope and focus of the panel.

In a lot of ways, I think the best model for the Democratic 2004 campaign is Bush 2000. The central focus of his campaign was that he'd be everything that Bill Clinton wasn't. For all his proposals, all his recommendations, his central platform was that he would make the executive office into something that it hadn't been the past eight years. That's the same central focus of the Democratic primaries and the Democratic challenge to Bush - refocusing the executive branch to be more responsive, more responsible, and more beneficial to the needs of the American people.

If the 2000 election was defined by who would provide the greatest improvement in the culture of Washington (in an election that was defined by cultural and personal differences between the candidates, real or imagined), the 2004 election will be defined by who can provide the greatest improvement in the policy coming out of Washington.

Don't be afraid to not be Bush.

Cheaper Than Sin

I'm going to avoid taking the cheap shot with this one.

However, that doesn't mean that I'm discouraging anyone else from doing so.

Running Towards The Light

Ralph Nader is likely going to run again in 2004.

When he ran in 2000, his aim was nominally to force the Democratic Party to the left, or at least into a political position more clearly opposed to the Republican Party. In 2004, after quite possibly the most Republican-averse primary in recent memory and a base having clearly communicated that the point in 2004 is to Get Rid of Bush...Nader still runs.

For all the talk of Democratic ideological pliability and caving in to the Republicans on the issues, when Nader runs from the left and one of the major issues of the campaign is simply getting Bush out of office - who is it, exactly, that's not listening to the Democratic/liberal base?

I personally think that Nader's overall electoral appeal is going to be so negligible, particularly as a true independent outside of any organized party. But what he is going to do is give the legitimate Bush alternative a whole lot of headaches, particularly as reminders of 2000 come back in spades.

What is Nader's point? Running outside of the Green structure, he's even less likely to actually get his political voice heard, and for all his complaining of people silencing him, anyone who's paying attention would realize that such a potent anti-Nader sentiment among his supposed base would be an indication not to run.

UPDATE: Hit and Run, a Libertarian blog, predictably says that opposition to Nader renders anyone who participates in it a nutless wonder. Besides completely ignoring the basis for much of the opposition to Nader's run - his advancing a false and destructive dichotomy between the parties and Nader not having a realistic shot at doing anything but being a spoiler - it declares that the problem with "the left" is "balls", or the lack thereof.

From a party whose members tend to end up voting Republican in the same incrementalist paean that its members seem to decry (is it just me, or is the weed-and-guns Republican the most common breed of libertarian out there?), the criticism rings hollow, as does the idea that a marginal candidate who can only marshal enough support to give states to Republicans without advancing any real issues in the public sphere is where Democrats and liberals need to go.

It's dumb advice from Hit and Run, and that's being charitable.

Guns and Freedom

John Kalb writes:

This isn't 1775. A few guns and surly Frenchmen simply are not enough to level the playing field between America's extraordinary Armed Forces and America's citizenry. With that in mind, I'd far prefer to ensure our freedoms through an accountable government and informed populace.

Edited for clarity

Bang!

I'm curious, do you guys think there are enough guns on this blog? I think it could use ten or twelve more.

On a propaganda note, political philosophies symbolized by firearms tend to make me nervous. If the most important thing about being a libertarian is that you get to carry a semi-automatic, then your ideology seems to be disturbingly similar to the way gangs recruit...

Building A Wall

For all the talk over the Texas ANG when Lt. George W. Bush was serving (or not), it's easy to forget that the Texas ANG (and the National Guard nationwide) today serves a different and more vital role in our national defense, and that said role is largely dependent on national funding.

Watch this video, starting at about 1:07. At 1:08, the speaker (LTC Dan Steiner from the Texas Adjunct General's office), talking about the need for a second civil response team - a team of trained National Guardsmen who respond to domestic terror threats - is asked by the chairman of the committee what the impediment to obtaining the team is.

Steiner's answer is chilling: the Secretary of the DoD is refusing to give aid to military or anti-terror efforts unless they're directed towards Iraq.

When the majority of Americans say that the capture of Saddam Hussein hasn't made us any more safe at home, the statement's more true than most of them know.

Mo' Love From Above

A female Kansas state senator has stood up against the one agent of cultural change that has led to the current deevolution of cultural norms and acceptable sexual standards - the 19th Amendment.

Now, I have to admit, I like women. Hell, I love women. So, I might be a bit biased (in addition, it's Valentine's Day, and I want a woman), so I'm going to leave this up to you, the readers.

Fair and balanced debate at Pandagon: should we end suffrage for women because nutso state senators from Kansas are goddamned slackwits?

Back after this break with intelligent debate from both sides.

Ah, To Be Young And Sued For Libel

Via World O' Crap, we can fill out the Kerry Scandal InterWeb.

John Kerry, Senator from Massachusetts, married to Teresa Heinz Kerry, widow of former Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz, was accused by Internet gossip scribe Matthew Drudge of having an affair with 20, 24, and 27 year-old Alexandra Polier, a reporter for the Associated Press who interned at ABC News and went to grad school at Columbia.

Drudge declared that four-star general and Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, former Presidential candidate Wesley Clark was telling reporters that Kerry would be taken down in an "intern scandal", shortly before endorsing the Democratic candidate in his bid for the Presidency. Howard Dean supposedly decided to stay in the race past Wisconsin because of this intern scandal. This was theorized by many Republican crackpots to the work of Bill and Hillary Clinton designed to destroy Kerry's campaign in time for a brokered Democratic Convention so that Hillary could gain the Democratic nomination.

Polier is dating/engaged to a young man by the name of Yaron Schwartzman, and after she quit her job at the AP, they took a holiday to Africa. Mickey Kaus will take this as proof of Polier's serious character issues, which also include being at Columbia for most of the period she and Kerry were supposed to be involved, and Kerry having prostate cancer for the bulk of the excess time. The only apparent contact between the two was apparently in 2001 when Kerry allegedly asked her to work on his campaign.

All things being equal, Matt Drudge is a fucking liar and/or idiot.

Happy Valentine's Day. Ain't love grand?

Bush Releases Records

Apparently, Bush has ordered the release of his Vietnam era military records. I say apparently because I'm still slightly unclear on which records are needed, and if they are contained in this file dump. Hopefully Kevin Drum will enlighten us as to what this actually means.

My feeling is there's a scandal here that's not about where he was. Records from that era would reveal it, and by withholding all records they keep reporters off the scent. The Press and Democrats think it's about the Guard when it's really about drug use or something similar. I just can't understand why they'd make such a big deal out of this otherwise.

Timeline

Mother Jones has an illustrated timeline that starts out like this:

Democrats and Foreign Policy

If you're concerned, as I am, about the weakness of Democrats on foreign policy, this New Yorker article by George Packer is an absolute must-read. Democrats have spent a lot of time thinking about domestic policy, how to help Americans. But:

There are, however, places we can begin. Bush has repeatedly failed to give sugar along with his coal. His brand of justice is swift and harsh, but he's not winning us any friends. Democrats need to begin putting forth public proposals designed to create the sort of moral capital that we have enjoyed in the past. As a party, we have a historical context for this in the Marshall Plan. We need to use it. By reminding America that it was the Democratic Party that led our country through the last war anyone remembers with pride, and it was our unexpected rebuilding proposal that has helped Europe become a peaceful and powerful ally over the past 60 years, we can create a framework for why we are better suited to end the terrorist threat than Bush. And it can be a framework that all Democrats can agree on, predicated on using our economic strength to lift societies above the cesspools that breed terrorism rather than bombing them deeper into the pit.

AFL-CIO To Endorse Kerry

They'll meet next week to do the deed. An endorsement by the AFL-CIO pretty much ends the race, or so I would think. I actually hope this "scandal" breaks a bit before they endorse. It's important to be absolutely certain that Kerry can knock these things out of the park before the Party commits to him as the nominee. The Right is going to do their utmost to slime him -- after all, the last thing they want to talk about is Bush. I want to be confident that Kerry can walk through the mud and emerge unsullied.

Regardless, I take it as an immensely positive sign that the Party is uniting around Kerry even as this thing hits. Whether that means its nothing or we're just crazily toether on beating Bush, it speaks of good things for this election. Will Rogers once joked that "I don't belong to an organized party. I'm a Democrat". We're going to prove that wrong this year, and we're going to win doing it.

Gotta Love It

For some reason, this entry by Andrew Sullivan made me laugh much more than a normal Sullivan entry does.

Other than being absurd, does Sullivan remember a rather large liberal moviemaker named Michael Moore calling Bush a "deserter"? And a then-presidential candidate named Wesley Clark refusing to agree or disagree with it? Terry McAuliffe never "raised" the issue - he was asked about it in several interviews after it was brought up by Moore and then avoided by Clark.

Could Andrew Sullivan have raised this paranoid conspiracy-mongering to offset ruminations about why the Kerry story broke?

Duh.

Farking Drudge

Fark's doing a photoshop theme of "unlikely Drudge" stories. It's funny stuff, check it out.

How Do You Report A Scandal?

Timothy Noah has the perfect piece on why these scandals are worrisome. As long as you don't actually report on the sandal, who cares if it's true? After all, Kerry's alleged affair is only context for a piece on whether or not character matters in elections. We would never report on something so tawdry and unsupported...

'Cause He's A Scat Man

From the Drugman himself, Rush Limbaugh (just on his show): the leak to Drudge about Kerry has Bill and Hillary Clinton written all over it.

That's what I love about this whole thing - everyone's conspiracy is responsible for everyone else's conspiracy, and all we can really be sure of is that someone, somewhere, did something, unless they didn't and Karl Rove made the whole thing up.

I think it's time for an Uggabugga chart detailing who's accused whom of what.

As far as I can tell, Clark, the puppet of the Clintons, unleashed the scandal about Kerry, who he then endorsed in open defiance of Dean and Edwards, the former of whom is staying in the race because he also knew about this scandal. There's a mysterious friend shopping around this rumor, and Chris Lehane has been pushing it, as revealed by MSNBC. Drudge says several media sources are investigating it, even though many say they aren't, according to Editor & Publisher. Kerry, on Imus this morning, said that he did not have an affair with the AP reporter, erroneously referred to as an intern to bring up comparisons with Monica Lewinsky, but conservative news sources are loath to believe his denial. The reporter's parents deny any knowledge of the affair, although they do claim a personal dislike of Senator Kerry, who is married to Teresa Heinz-Kerry, formerly married to Sen. John Heinz. Drudge claims the reporter "fled" after being approached by a "top news producer", although it's not clear if the woman, who worked for the Associated Press, was approached by the news producer because of this story, or because she did many stories on health insurance and AIDS, and Africa has an AIDS epidemic.

Progress Report

Just got this E-Mail from them:

Update: Goldberg beat me to this by 4 minutes.

Internists

A note: I don't think anyone's saying Kerry was having sex with his intern. I'm still chuckling over the fact that most of the hard-news stories are asking whether or not the story's going to be covered, rather than adding anything to the story.

Kaus, of course, would be banging his intern in glee (if he had one), given how much play he's going to get out of this story.

Why I Hate America - A Primer

I hate America because when I see cute old lesbian couples in love for decades get married, it makes me want to fall in love with someone, get married, and be with them for the rest of my life.

How can I be so backwards?

Marching On And On...Hurrah...Hurrah

What's interesting about the way Drudge operates is that he's really quite genius in getting his "scoops" covered. As more and more outlets pick it up, almost all calling it an unconfirmed rumor and tracking it back to a right wing site (Drudge), he begins listing them as proof that the story is gaining legitimacy. It's not just him anymore, it's all these other guys -- though it really is just him (despite what Dave thinks, Pandagon has not yet been listed there, doesn't Drudge realize I'm on his side?).

It's quite smart, actually, and exactly why I refuse to leave it alone. This story will have legs. I'm not saying it should, I'm not saying it's true, I'm not saying it's just -- I'm just saying it's not going to go away because we really, really, really don't like Matt Drudge. Now the woman has been identified and her Dad is calling Kerry a "sleazeball". Details are coming out, angles are appearing...it's only a matter of time. True or not, this scandal will march forward for a while simply because it fits into a media mold -- Democratic presidential frontrunner having affairs. We can ignore it, but if the rest of the country doesn't; and they won't; we're going to have to deal with it sooner or later. I'd prefer sooner.

P.S - See if you can find any rhyme or reason to the punctuation I used in this post. Reading it over, I can't. But rather than edit it, I will leave it up as some sort of performance art.

We Need A National Condom For Bad Ideas

It's a small thing, but the abstinence-only position of the Bush Administration demonstrates the kind of thinking that turns me off to them completely.

Yes, and the only certain way to avoid getting in a car crash is not to drive. The only certain way to avoid getting a divorce is never to get married. The only certain way to avoid massive deficits is to not elect Republicans.

But we need prevention and safety, too. It's why we have seat belts and marriage counseling and elections. In case Bush hadn't learned from the past, oh, few thousand years of human civilization, you aren't going to scare people into not having premarital sex (granted, we don't have Census records for the Hittites, but I'm willing to bet against the house on this one).

Incidentally, has anyone ever heard of a contraceptive-only program? It's not like contraceptive programs say that abstinence doesn't work.

SCLM

File under liberal media bias:

Pulling Out The Big Boy Pen

Bush is set to open up the My First Veto package he was given back in 2001, against a bill that passed with a veto-proof majority.

Apparently, he's trying to prove to his base that he'll stop spending through bill-veto-related program activities.

"See, we found evidence that I had both the intent and was trying to develop the capacity to deliver a veto to a Congressional bill. It is obvious, then, that I am a low-spender in a low-spending administration."

A Rising Tide Lifts Bush Out Of Office

The Columbus Dispatch, which hasn't endorsed a Democrat since Woodrow Wilson, looks poised to endorse John Kerry.

If states otherwise shake out like they did in 2000, Ohio would determine the outcome of the election. And if the Dispatch is so fervently anti-Bush (they aren't this hard on Gov. Taft, whose cluelessness is even harming the run of his likely successor, Sec. of State Kenneth Blackwell), there could be a tectonic political shift on the way.

Just Remember

If you haven't done anything wrong you don't have anything to worry about.

Right? ...Right?

Rise To Honor

Joe Conason pretty fairly smacks around Drudge's story on Kerry, although he touches on something that I think is going to play a far larger role in this "scandal" than what Kerry did or did not do.

This is going to stay alive a lot longer than it has any right to, largely because of the "liberal media bias" chant. So long as it's not reported, the powerful conservative media can simply repeat over and over, "That's the liberal media hiding the truth."

It's strange how accusations of how the media dampens attention to certain stories has actually turned into a method to heighten attention for the selfsame stories.

Oh, What A Sight

Nick Confessore brings up the Lou Dobbs/James Glassman slapfight from last night, and I have to say that I was cheering on Lou Dobbs as I watched this.

I have no idea how anyone can sit opposite Glassman and not break down in comedic tears from the unadulterated screw-up that was Dow 36,000.

(By the way, I'm not necessarily advocating either man's viewpoint. I just like Glassman a lot less than I like Dobbs.)

Drip Drip Drop, There Goes An Eargasm

As I'm watching Wesley Clark endorse John Kerry in rather strong and unequivocal terms, I'm wondering exactly how much there really is to the Kerry rumors.

Is it bad if Kerry actually did have an affair? Yes. For him and for the Democratic Party. However, at this point, its impact is almost beside the point - how it would affect the Democratic Party is, at best, secondary, to whether or not it's true, as that's not determined yet. Something that blogging's taught me is that as consumers of the news, we are not only entitled to more than simply passive receptors of rumors, it's our responsibility to critically assess what we're being told. It's not simply wondering how a story is going to be played; it's determining whether a story should be played at all. At this point, the important focus is on the truth of the story, not its impact.

Here's the story so far: Drudge accused Kerry of having an affair. He said that other news sources were investigating it (many of those same sources later denied investigating it and/or declared that they'd found nothing that verified the story).

Drudge said that Dean and Clark were behaving as if the story were true, despite the total absence of Occam's Razor in this case - Dean's attacking Kerry because Kerry's the frontrunner and Dean's entire message is premised on contrasting himself with "insiders" like Kerry, and Clark just stood up and endorsed Kerry.

So far, what we've got is an accusation whose backbone rests on investigative sources that aren't investigating the story, opportunistic rivals whose behavior only makes sense outside of this story being true, and a straight-up Kerry denial on Imus this morning.

If it's true, it's going to be bad for him and potentially our party. But the issue right now is still whether or not this is actually true.

The Computer...It Works!

Kerry/Fonda: the connection so strong that we only have to Photoshop one picture.

Dynamo SPLIT!

With the adultery allegations, I'm feeling more and more like we split Clinton in two and got Kerry and Edwards.

The thing is...I would really not mind that at all, especially for the well-being of our country.

I Hereby Confer Upon You The Title Of Moron

Emmett Tyrrell, the man who spent an entire column agonizing over whether or not he should make public his encounter with Howard Dean on a readily accessible Canadian television show (it was a moral struggle, and when a conservative uses the word "moral", you know they're trying to pretend they're serious), writes about the moron vote.

Rather preposterously, it's not his own.

Keep in mind that Tyrrell is really, really convinced that Democrats are morons. So convinced that he commenced with a rewrite of his October 16, 2003 article, as morons require repetition and whiny, head-up-ass conservative rants (replete with dual "John Pierre Kerry" jokes, 'cause he looks French).

Did "discourteous" get redefined to mean "inaccurate and assholish" while I was in the can?

I've never quite understood why this is allowed to work, although my main theory is that Tyrrell simply knows that he isn't taken seriously by anyone who would actually read his work, and isn't widely read enough to be read by anyone who actually might take him seriously. I mean, who could otherwise be dumb enough to call 52% of American voters "morons"?

Honestly, could anyone be that stupid?

If it's not that you actually are that incredibly stupid, I'm not particularly interested in hearing it.

See, Emmett, you just failed to admit your own incredibly stupidity. I consider that strategic omission a lie in and of itself. As such, you are yourself the standard bearer of the "moron vote" as this lie was both egregious and insulting to the intelligence of anyone above the level of whoever the hell thought B.J. and the Bear was a good idea.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case, and ask that you find this man...stupid. Thank you for your time.

Kerry's Scandal Deepens

Looks like whatever is brewing with Kerry is new and fresh. If so, this could destroy him, he's not Clinton and, even if he was, no one wants to go through that again. If true, the only question worth asking is how he could have possibly been so stupid...

Goddammit.

Testify!

The 9/11 Commission is going to ask Bush to testify . Not visit, not share knowledge, not give a recommendation. Testify. And that's what we're going to call it.

We Won Cuz You're DUMB!

After having read this article, and some of the attendant responses, from "our intelligence wasn't this bad" to "deterrence doesn't work because Saddam was stupid", I notice that every reaction I read misses the major point: Saddam was not planning for an invasion.

Why is this important? If Saddam wasn't planning for an invasion, it makes it much less likely that he would have done anything to his WMD or his WMD programs, if he had any. Why would he have moved or hidden whatever stockpiles and production facilities he had if we weren't going to invade? The question, then, would be how Colin Powell could sit in front of the UN, make his presentation, and say, "Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries"?

That, to me, would seem to be the relevant question.

That Durned Intelligence Panel

The high-stakes Iraq intelligence panel (Investigating the issue that's barely relevant since two weeks from now!) has its final two members, Charles M. Vest and Henry S. Rowen. Rowen is also a member of the Defense Policy Board and PNAC.

Not that I'm saying there any such thing as a neoconservative.

I Done Stoled On You

I'm glad to see the memo uproar is finally getting some well-merited attention.

And, you know, I really hope Manuel Miranda gets more than his fair say on this one, particularly since he seems never to have read the law in question or, in fact, care about anything that he did. He is the voice of a new generation.

Of liars and thieves, I mean.

The Lament Of The Last Son

Vladmir Putin, democratically elected leader of Russia, is openly lamenting the death of the Soviet Union. When the president of Russia is playing up pro-Communist populist rhetoric, there are serious problems in Moscow.

Therefore, let us talk about Kerry's penis - or, as I like to call it, the JFKock.

Perceptions of Affirmative Action

Not to open up a can of worms or anything, but I want to reply to Jesse's post on affirmative action bake sales. He says:

The problem with AA is that this perception of inferiority is absolutely inherent. Since everyone knows that minority students are getting free points and they know it's because they're minorities, it's impossible to stop them from wondering if the minority students in their class are there on merit or there on legislation. This is unbelievably unfair to those who are their on merit, and somewhat unfair to those who are their on legislation.

It's not that I don't see the use in righting historical wrongs, I do, but it's also not right to blame people for holding views that are perfectly logical. Their viewpoint is an accurate reading of what the bill does and the reality it creates; it's not a nuanced outlook, but that does not make it wrong.

This is why I'm for affirmative action based on worth, not income. It would mainly help minority students, as the worth gap is heavily influence by historical wrongs, but would give the same aid to whites who grow up in poor areas without the advantages of SAT prep. It's almost impossible to look around and tell whose family has little in assets, and it's much easier to make the case that those who grow up working two jobs and taking care of 4 siblings while still studying hard and pulling good grades deserve an extra hand than it is to say that minorities deserve it by virtue of being minorities. The latter, though not the intent, is the actual statement made by affirmative action and it's why the Right so regularly kicks our ass when we bring it up.

Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

Which Republican pundit's marriage and/or engagement is going to end because of this?

After all, in the Dungeons and Dragons game that is marriage, same-sex relationships equal a +1 Straight Divorce Event, with a subsequent boost to all Straight Relationship Trouble Attributes.

Those damn Queer Chaos Mages.

Sexed Up

I've run into quite a few people in various comments sections of blogs comparing the Kerry "scandal" to the Bush National Guard story, apparently trying to play down the AWOL search by yelling that Kerry must also come forward with all of his papers, records, etc....or it's a cover-up!!!

I'd simply remark that private sexual dalliances (real or imagined) aren't government jobs, and the government's not supposed to keep detailed records on who you screw. The government is, however, supposed to keep detailed records on your military service. Just saying.

Oh, and my thoughts on the Kerry thing. I doubt Clark or Dean were behind it - Drudge brings up both of them, but I honestly can't see why Clark would drop out and promise to support Kerry if he knew this was coming up, or why Dean's staying in past Wisconsin is evidence of his having leaked this - Dean is staying in because his fundraising apparatus is still strong, and he's still getting money. He's second in delegates,

I don't think Bush leaked this, either. The "only twenty percent of delegates have been decided" argument is a lame duck when you're running a normal campaign and the frontrunner is leading in every upcoming state, but it's much different when there's a potential scandal on the horizon. As we've seen from the lame Fonda campaign (He was at the same place as her two years before she went to Hanoi! It's EZ-Bake Treason!), they're gearing up to nail Kerry as the general election candidate on national defense, not derail his candidacy before the nomination takes place (and recent adultery is a lot more potent than 30-year-old allegations that you knew someone bad).

So, who did it? My guess is that either someone independent of the campaigns dug/made something up and is leaking it now that Kerry's in the news, or this is the work of a Republican operative not working directly with the Bush campaign.

Anyway, back to William Schneider comparing all the candidates to entrants in the Westminster Dog Show. Hi-larious.

Kerry's Scandal

A few more thoughts on the Kerry "scandal". It's well known that Kerry was a bit wild back in the day, but he was single then! Luckily, all signs point to this being a blast from the past. Chris Lehane seems to have had this for awhile, a claim bolstered by Clark's apparent knowledge of it in an interview last week. If Lehane's got it, than Kerry's team knows about it and should be able to fight it off. If Lehane is behind this,what are his potential motivations for releasing it now?

I can see only a couple. First, he might be doing it for the party. If this is in Kerry's past, the best possible timing for it is now, before the primary is over. If this story is fatal, we want it to hit while we can still choose an alternate nominee. Clark dropped out, so Lehane can't be floating this for his boy, but he may be doing it to prove his oppo-worth to the other candidates. It's all possible.

Regardless, I tend to agree with Kos, the story is overblown from the outset. Drudge's breathless assertion that "campaign drama rocks Democrats" is not true at all. The promise of campaign drama has people wondering, but nothing is being rocked. Clark, who already knows about the scandal, is set to endorse Kerry today, a move that wouldn't be smart if he thought Kerry was going to implode. This'll come out, but I have a feeling it'll be merely a two or three day story, and will be something from the past that happened while he was single. Big deal.

One last thing. I have a hunch Kerry's people are behind the story's release. Notice that it came out on the one day Kerry isn't campaigning, the one day he's chilling on the office. He's not in the Press's glare, his people have time to call their sources and counter it, they can sit around and plan the rebuttal strategy and Kerry's comments completely. This seems preordained to me and, as a few of you pointed out in the comments, this would be the wrong time for the Republicans to release oppo on Kerry. They want to get him if he's the nominee, not kill him and then get Edwards as their opponent.

We'll see.

Form Of...Constitution!

Question for all you constitutional law/electoral law scholars out there: presuming we're working with Bush v. Gore rules (i.e., as long as the words are in the law somewhere, in something resembling a consecutive order, it's the law), what is the last possible statutory date that Hillary Clinton could possibly, in any fashion, take over the Democratic nomination?

Because I'd like to know when the last day is that the Clinton obsessives can speculate that the entire 2004 election is an elaborate ruse to get her in office. We'll have a pizza party!

Boom Boom

I'm not sure whether to be offended or puzzled by Michael Novak's bizarre comparison of Dean's (and potentially Kerry's) downfall to the terrorist attacks of September 11th.

Help Us Help You Help Them

This decent, caring, bold White House needs your help (and Nooners also needs to regain some credibility with her fans, a process directly inverse to gaining credibility with normal people).

The White House needs "a paragraph". This will be the foundational mission statement justifying their reelection to a credulous, cromulent populace, telling them in nice-sounding words just why capitalism, freedom and democracy depend on not letting Islamofascist Wet Dream John Kerry into the sacred confines of the Oval Office.

Here are the current responses. What's your paragraph?

Killa Beez

Tell me who you think has more direct ties to their respective companies (Glenn's answer is at the end):

John Kerry to Heinz Co. His wife's ex-husband left her some holdings but no control in the company, holdings that Kerry can't access anyway because of their prenuptial agreement, meaning that he has no actual direct ties to the company whatsoever.

Dick Cheney to Halliburton. Dick Cheney was the CEO of the company.

If you guessed that they have equal ties to the company, congratulations! You've passed the last of the 36 chambers of Insta-shaolin, and can now go out into the world and spread the teachings of the Shaolin monks. More accurately, you can refer to a bunch of other people talking about the teachings of Shaolin while making pithily inaccurate asides.

Provided Kerry is the nominee, anyone stupid enough to hold anything that Heinz does against him should immediately have their C-SPAN privileges revoked.

Real American Heroes

After we're done with this AWOL thing, could we get on this September 11th panel thing?

Why is Bush so hesitant to testify in front of a panel controlled by his own party? Somebody needs to sit Bush, Rove and the crew down and tell them that nobody was ever suspicious of the man who acted like he had no secrets.

Kerry Scandal?

It's not that I trust Drudge, but you never know:

Stop Me If You've Heard This One

Paul Sperry has written a column claiming that Arabic translators at the FBI cheered the September 11th attacks (printed a month prior at World Net Daily minus the cookie story, which I'll get to later), and that said translators are actively working against the War on Terror because of personal prejudices and departmental politics (wanting more money).

The only person identified in the column is Mike Feghali, a Lebanese translator who has previously worked on a case against bin Laden as the lead translator.

The FrontPage article adds an anecdotal tale about the Middle Eastern translators handing out date-filled cookies in party bowls about a week after September 11th. The closest dessert I can find to that is are the date-filled cookies called Ma'Amoul.

The thing about Ma'Amoul cookies is that they're Easter treats for Lebanese and Syrian Christians. This story may have happened...but why would a Lebanese man hand out Easter treats in celebration of Islamic terrorism?

Live By The Poll, Die By The Poll

CNN's Darryl Kagan is now running a story on Bush's credibility gap and his "once sky-high" poll numbers that have come crashing down to Earth.

Over the past few days, more and more "shaking off the cobwebs" stories have been running from various news sources, and I've noticed that quite a few of them have tones like this. The common conception of Bush as a popular/competent/untouchable president (taken from a freeze frame from around a year and a half ago) is getting shaken up, and the stories are actually much worse than they would have been had Bush been covered properly over the same period of time. Instead of the gradual erosion that we've seen, it's a sudden drop off a cliff, mainly because it's been taken as a given that Bush is still popular.

It helps our side, granted, but it would still be more honest and serve the public discourse far better if the media hadn't been trafficking in an increasingly untrue narrative for months on end.

A Popemobile Short Of A Fleet

It's not that Mel Gibson maintains that his wife is going to hell.

It's that the accompanying poll asks whether or not he's "one bead short of a full rosary".

Trippi's Blog

Joe Trippi's got a blog! Sweet!

I Might Coulda Been There

Bush had a dentist's appointment in Alabama in 1973.

Therefore, no more records need be released, because the man wouldn't be tartar free if he didn't love his country.

(Seriously, though. This not only contradicts reports that he was in Houston at the time, but going to the dentist's office in a state he wasn't supposed to be in explains nothing about his service. Not to mention that he would have had to return to Houston in November, go back to Alabama for a dentist's appointment on January 6th, and then head back to Houston to work for Project P.U.L.L. Possible, but very strange. Why is Bush drawing this out for so long?)

If You Only Knew

Who knew that Swarthmore had a sex-themed magazine?

Certainly not anyone who went or goes there...

Watch Out

There's an AIM virus going around, so watch out.

He's A Real Man, Full Of Water And Tendons

We did absolutely nothing wrong, which is why we'll capitulate to all of your complaints.

I wonder, are the Bush folks concerned about his rhetorical errancy?

Awful, Just Awful

South Dakota has passed a bill completely outlawing abortions, with no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. The bill, of course, will be thrown out as soon as it becomes law for being unconsititutional. But they know that. So what we have here is a white male passing a bill good for nothing but political posturing while fully aware that it is unconstitutional. Absolutely disgusting. Via Drastic Verge.

Me And Mine

The irrepressible nouveau-intellectuals over at the Corner (saying the same things Phyllis Schlafly was thirty years ago, now with more words!) are debating the case of Eckerd pharmacists who refused to give the morning-after pill to a rape victim. I bring up Ramesh's entry because it, quite frankly, appalls me. I cannot understand how anyone, in good conscience, would deny the victim of a rape to perform what is essentially pregnancy prevention by taking the morning-after pill.

I cannot morally fathom how you could look at a sexually violated woman and tell her that the clump of cells in her body which is in no way viably human takes supreme precedence over her physical and mental health. How could anyone be so presumptive?

Enquiring Minds Want to Know

Gotta love the RNC's polls.

The Unbearable Lightness Of Conservatism

Does anyone else find it ironic that cable deregulation, that giant triumph for the market that's resulted in millions of people paying for channels they don't want, services they don't need, and rate hikes that make no sense, is now the enemy of cultural conservatives who want more personal control over what they watch?

Laissez-faire conservatism vs. the grave and gathering threat of Weapons Of Mass Erection. Who will win? Who will lose? Who'll need to change their pants to hide their shame?

Feminist Nightmares

If I had to pick one book to never, ever read, it would almost certainly be Feminist Fantasies, by Ann Coulter and Phyllis Schlafly. Just knowing that those two wrote a book makes me ill, actually reading it might destroy my soul. Kind of like it did to whoever reviewed it for Publisher's Weekly:

Who Owns Sex?

Ampersand has an incredibly thoughtful post on rape culture, why it exists and how we can change it. I'm not sure I agree with all of the points, but his argument on who "owns" sexuality is, I think, spot on:

Saxamaphone

Stephen Hayes, who's already certified his journalistic credentials by running Doug Feith's "Crazy List O' Wacky Iraqi Threats", is back with what he considers ironclad evidence that Bush never, ever portrayed the Iraqi threat as "imminent".

Well, I'm going to be double-dog definitive up in this piece.

That's George W. Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. Scary, isn't it? And a little bit tittilating, in that "mass panic and hysteria is just around the corner" sort of way. Makes me want to get some scented candles and some World War II London-raid war recordings, and love a woman in the harried, slightly awkward way that I was always intended to.

Now, Bush declares "imminence" as the full and sudden emergence of a threat.

Assuming that we're breaking this down legal-style, I would assume that imminence would, in any meaningful sense, be constituted of motive, opportunity, and means. The verifiable presence of all three, even if the act hadn't been committed would constitute imminence - a full and (potentially) sudden emergence of a threat.

So, did Bush argue that Saddam was imminent? He certainly argued that Saddam had the motive, and is continuing to argue it. Bad man, no good will towards American, tyrant, madman, demagogue, the world's biggest Creed fan. He certainly argued that Saddam had the means (existing stockpiles of WMD, connections to terrorists) and was developing further, more deadly means (nuclear weapons) with which to threaten us.

The claim of imminence, then, rests on opportunity. Was Bush arguing that we needed to go after Saddam before he had the opportunity to attack, or was he arguing that we needed to go after Saddam because he had the opportunity to attack? This is the main disagreement, and the main reason that it's so controversial is because Bush constantly contradicted himself.

In his first paragraphs, Bush argues that Saddam could (and, in fact, likely is) consorting with terrorists. Terrorists who were and are plotting attacks on America could, at any time, be armed with Saddam's WMD. In that respect, Bush constructed a claim of constant imminence - it was Saddam's intent to attack us whenever and wherever he could, which meant that all active terrorism was, de facto, Saddam's opportunity to attack us. Bush then turns around and says that this isn't what he's saying, which is where the claim of the "Imminence Myth" is coming from.

Hayes argues as if Bush's contradictory interpretation of his own words is the final say. It ignores the fact that Bush creates an interpretation of "imminent" that is either so vague or so meaningless that his assertion in relation to the characterization of the Iraqi threat isn't really worth listening to.

Unless Bush can give a coherent explanation of what a "fully and suddenly emergent" threat is, and why, especially in lieu of his argument that September 11th redefined Hussein's threat into an "immediate" and "urgent" one, his definition of imminence doesn't apply, then apologias and revisions such as this one are mere distortions. He argued that it was a fully realized threat. He argued that it was a suddenly realized threat. He then argued that it wasn't an imminent threat, because an imminent threat was one that was fully and suddenly realized.

Ladies and gentlemen, the world's first Dadaist presidency.

What Is It Good For?

Am I the only one who really doesn't care about Bush's National Guard service? I mean, I'm all for bringing it up as a warning shot, I think it's sound strategy for Kerry to show he's not Dukakis at the outset. Nonetheless, this just doesn't seem like a big deal to me. It's almost impossible to prove what Bush did or didn't do, considering how easy it is to confuse people on ARF and the Guard and Alabama and pay stubs and released documents and every other twist and turn. Further, if he walked off from the Guard to work on a senatorial campaign, bully for him. He was what? In his 20's? It seems damn hypocritical for us to happily condemn Vietnam, exonerate Clinton, and attack Bush. Sure Bush is a child of privilege and his behavior was low, but, in his whole life, can we really not think of things more worthy of condemnation than his unwillingness to piss away years in the Guard when he could do something else? Because if we can't think of better ways to attack his upbringing, philosophies and policies in a fashion that resonates with ordinary Americans, there's a guy named John Edwards who could probably give us some pointers.

And even if we do prove it, so what? People will hear that he left the National Guard for awhile? They're not electing him on his service record and, after having him as President for four years, they're not going to judge him based on pay stubs. It just seems like a media created, inside-baseball issue. It's easy to talk about and touches on big, important themes. But in the end, no one really cares and it doesn't deserve the attention it's getting. I'd far prefer to see us make an issue of why the Intelligence Committee can't report back until next year when the American people have top judge the President this year. Now that's relevant.

Ignoreland

How does one excoriate the NAACP for giving a favorable response to an alleged child rapist while simultaneously serving as a public face for the defense of another one?

(Second link via Roger Ailes.)

Crunchy Crunchy

William Saletan does some surface-level numbers crunching and wonders whether or not electability is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Short answer: yes, to a large extent.

What I'm wondering, however, is why "electability" isn't considered an "issue" for primary voters? I mean, the obvious point of a primary system is to choose the guy who can beat all the other candidates, at least in part. Why is it divorced from the other issues that affect primary voting?

I'm also wondering how much you can weigh the opinions of Republican voters who vote in Democratic primaries. Can you really judge the overall tenor of a candidate's appeal to the country by results from a heavily-skewed partisan primary and its relatively minor and non-representative ideological spread? It's an interesting article, but most of the data in question is too unique and/or unbalanced to really glean anything useful from.

(By the way, I find the whole electability vs. issues argument to be utterly banal. Candidates who were more "electable" have lost, and candidates who were ideologically in sync with the base have lost. It's not an either/or proposition, and, in the end, this campaign is going to come down to who puts up the better fight in support of or in opposition to the past four years.)

Bang And Blame

Bush, for a man who doesn't govern by polls, sure does tend to govern in reaction to his, ah, polls. Which is what makes this Military.com article all the more disturbing.

Bush has a problem, which the article lays out in a later section - he's stuck between two difficult electoral rocks, and both choice are net losers for him, as is inaction. He's an increasingly unpopular president, stuck on the one hand with a war that Americans are losing patience for (and a switchover in July that's likely going to be more expensive than what's currently budgeted), and stuck on the other hand with a ballooning deficit (and, at some point, he's going to have to admit that the extra billions he didn't include in the budget is actual money).

The election year engineering of Bush's own crises is going to be interesting - if and when Bush has to request extra money, look for it to be announced right before he announces a major "soft" initiative (expanding NCLB, pre-natal care, a National Hug Your Mother program).

Bush: Fresh Republican Weakness in the '04.

Brainy and Beautiful

Ever wanted to see naked Harvard students? Yeah, me neither. We might not have a choice, though.

I guess the question is if alumni can pose. Who's ready for Matthew Yglesias, too hot for blogs?

Via the Wonkette.

William Campenni

Today, a letter from Col. William Campenni appears in the Washington Times, concerning George Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard.

What's curious is that he openly admits that the Guard was a place people went to avoid service:

He then goes on to say that it wasn't a place of refuge for pilots, because even though there was a serious glut of them, they could still get called up - even though the period of service involved, by the time Bush was done, would have virtually guaranteed that he wasn't going anywhere.

Mr. Campenni also has a past with this sort of thing, as far back as last May. What I find curious about this whole thing is that he essentially argues by anecdote, demagogy, and misleading statements - Bush's service was dangerous because Campenni knew other people who died. There's no problem with Bush's service because the incomplete records don't bear that out.

I'm still looking for more on Campenni, who appears to have only popped up last May, writing what's roughly this letter twice (the first, much more partisan than the second).

Gay Marriage

Bush is going to come out in favor of a gay marriage amendment. All candidates are going to need a good answer. Kerry has flirted with support, the others oppose gay marriage. DO NOT SUPPORT THIS AMENDMENT! It is potentially the stupidest thing one can do. Do not talk about homosexuals or marriage. Instead, just talk about values. Just talk about what our grandchildren will think if we write discrimination into the Constitution. Just speak of how future generation's will view us when they repeal this amendmetn in order to make real the dream of equal rights. This is not a battle to avoid, but it is a battle we must fight correctly.

Smash N Grab

Comcast has launched a $54.1 billion hostile takeover bid of Disney.

The Responsibilities of Blogs

I hesitate to write this post due to the intensity of the feelings on both sides. Nonetheless, I feel it is a discussion that needs to be had.

Blogs have grown far quicker than anyone expected. Our influence, though limited, is strong among a powerful portion of the electorate. I remember when Trippi said to The New Republic that he wasn't going after people like David Broder, he was going after people like Ezra Klein -- he said bloggers were shaping an important constituency. Now I, particularly at that time, had no important constituency save Joe Trippi, and that held true for most blogs. Even our top dogs, Kos and Atrios and Marshall, boasted a mere fraction of the influence they hold today. How times have changed, huh?

We wear many hats as bloggers. We promote candidates and parties, raise funds and organize activists, educate our readers and attempt to sway their opinions. Occasionally, we run for office or work for those who do. We're embedded in every level of the political process. If the media did half of what we do half as blatantly as we do it, we'd be calling foul left and right. But we don't, we're a different medium and play by different rules. Some of us, however, are beginning to get too large to play in such an ill-defined arena. Missteps and harsh words can cause real harm to greater goals, and it's something we should discuss.

This brings me to Jerome and Kos. More than anyone, they have pushed this medium forward, and pushed it hard. I remember reading MyDD daily during the 2002 elections, being astounded that someone could provide such comprehensive coverage while still being independent. Most don't know this, but Matthew Gross, of Dean for America fame, got his start as a guest blogger on MyDD. And Jerome's partner, Kos is certainly the largest force in blogging. Unlike Instapundit, he's not a portal. Unlike Atrios, he's more specific than a Democratic partisan. Kos provides horserace coverage, fundraising services, a huge activist organization and campaign consulting. It's a potent mix. He might have been the deciding factor if we take a seat in Congress next week (Go Chandler!). He is certainly the most influential in terms of horserace coverage and electoral analyses. If I were running for office and could convince only one person on Earth to strongly support me, it would be him. Such is the power of the activists who take their cues from him. His partner, Jerome Armstrong, shares in that influence. Which brings me to tonight.

Jerome is deeply anti-Kerry. It's not a hidden thing, or something I'm interpreting. Tonight's post by him, linking Kerry to the attack ads against Dean from months ago, resulted in an argument in the comments between him and a Kerry supporter. Within that, he said: "You are absolutely going to love it around here when it gets down to Kerry against the alternative Democrat, and we all choose the alternative. " I don't begrudge him the sentiment, God knows I've been clear in my biases. But it brings up an important question for bloggers, both large and small. At what point do our missteps become as damaging and irresponsible as the media's? Over 100,000 people will read Jerome's comment, what if he's wrong? What if Kerry had nothing to do with it? Over 100,000 people will read what he has to say about Kerry in the future. What if he hits Kerry often enough and with damaging enough things that the activists who read Kos no longer want any part of John? And what if these things turn out to be untrue, or motivated by partisanship?

My question here is at what point do bloggers begin having the same responsibilities as the press? Do we never have them? Is it the nature of our medium to say what we think and consequences be damned? Is it up to our readers to filter through it all and keep their heads despite the occasional misstep or exaggeration? Or do we have a responsibility to be as certain in the claims we make as we expect the media to be? I'm amazed daily at the traffic of Pandagon. Kos, Atrios and Instapundit have larger circulations than many newspapers. More importantly, their readers are far more affected by their analyses and opinions than the average reader of a newspaper. The personal bond formed between a blogger and his readers makes the dynamic more like one between friends than between media and consumer. But it's a conversation with your really smart and informed friend, and he's talking to tens of thousands of people all at once. That's a lot of power, so what are his responsibilities?

Binky The Doormat

Calpundit wonders what the specific wording of the FMA proposed by President Bush actually means.

As far as I can tell, it would technically allow civil-union status for same-sex couples...it's just that civil unions could not actually confer any "legal incident" (meaning any of a myriad of legal rights and priveleges reserved for married couples) on those who participate in them.

Basically, you could get a civil union, but it would be little more than a piece of paper declaring that you were a part of one. The major legal incident of a civil union would be the civil union itself, making the entire thing redundant. It would be like gaining the legal status of "Mumblat", but the only thing that being a Mumblat entailed was that you could call yourself, legally, a Mumblat. It does nothing, it means nothing, and it signifies just about that much.

It's also very cleverly worded - it prevents any law, no matter how poorly written or reasoned, from ever being construed as allowing same sex marriage or conferring any section of marriage benefits onto same-sex couples. It's not simply restricting the legal status of marriage to opposite-sex couples. It's preventing same-sex couples from being meaningful legal entities, whether married or not.

It's the "Only Straight People Count" Amendment. It's what a lot of anti-gay conservatives have wanted for a very long time - a Constitutional declaration that heterosexuality is the only valid sexual orientation.

I Have Seen The Future, And It Is Subdued

I haven't seen much on Andy's theory that 40-45% of the voting public follows the whims and wherewithal of Al Gore and Bill Maher's personal and professional feelings towards Bush...so I might as well say something.

The long and short of it is that because Al Gore got loud during a speech, Bill Maher's joke reveals that Bush "hatred" is dead and we might soon get to the serious business of agreeing that Andrew Sullivan is the only person who truly understands what's going on. A lot of power in those few words, Bill.

Like most of what Andrew Sullivan writes, the true power of it isn't in the nominal, non-self obsessed point he's tilting at, but instead, as always, in how it makes Andrew Sullivan look. Those loud, obnoxious liberals with personal vendettas and emasculated rage are overshadowing that some of us (rhyming with Randrew Mullivan) have serious, deep thoughts to share with you about Bush. All of them from his right. Which is where liberals would be if they were serious about running this country.

How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us

I'm on an REM kick, and the fluish-type sickness that I've had for a few weeks is on the verge of boiling over, so let me post this before I go sick-crazy.

Mario Cuomo tells Democrats to adopt a "conciliatory tone" towards Bush on Iraq, declaring that everyone was fooled by the intelligence.

With all due respect, this is only slightly more wrong than an Anne Geddes photo shoot with Sun Myung Moon ("Can you make the little Moonie baby spray the baptismal fire hose a little to the right? It's not coming off well on film."). It's only the drumbeat of Democratic criticism to this point that's driven Bush to admit that there's something someone needs to be blamed for.

What Cuomo is suggesting is that we either accept Bush's line, that we were fooled by intelligence agencies (a contention that's unraveling as we speak), or else we risk Bush a.) apologizing, b.) admitting a mistake and c.) being remorseful over having done both of these things. I respect Mario. I respect his years of public service, and his dedication to the Democratic Party.

But if I ever run into a worse set of political instincts outside of Dick Morris, I'll be surprised.

George W. Bush does not admit that he was wrong. He does not apologize for having been wrong, in large part because he never has to admit he's wrong. At this point, he's shown his hand: blame other people, talk about the fact that other people agreed with him (thereby absolving him of the responsibility for his actions), and repeat over and over again, "dangerous man in a dangerous part of the world".

The odd part is, Cuomo's version of Bush's hypothetical apology gives ground to Democrats. By saying in any way that anything about the Iraq war was mistaken, Bush would immediately cede all future interpretation about the validity of the war to its critics by admitting that any part of his influence on the decision was mistaken.

If Bush put "mistake" and "Iraq" anywhere near each other in any public statement, Karl Rove would immediately shed his pudgy exoskeleton as his state-of-the-art robot frame leaped onstage and slapped the living shit out Bush for having even thought it, let alone said it.

In fact, if Bush is going to negate criticism of his misrepresentation of the Iraq threat, he would be better off admitting that he exaggerated the threat, because it fits with his overall position on the war. Bush has consistently maintained that those things which did not support the war simply didn't count, whether they be Democrats, the U.N., Europe, or the State Department.

"Did I overstate a few specific threats? Maybe. But whatever I did, Saddam was a madman, a murderer, a dangerous tyrant, and a threat to us. I can't possibly overstate that." (He would still never do this, as it would admit some weakness. But it's a lot more likely than the alternative.)

So long as Democrats can successfully portray this as an issue of Bush's trustworthiness and competence, it is an effective strategy, not to mention a truthful one (which helps). Cuomo asks that Democrats either capitulate to the CIA scapegoating, or else force Bush (however improbably) into admitting that he made a mistake, even though he would still maintain that he didn't lie.

I'm really not seeing the benefit of that whole "blaming the intelligence community" deal here.

Finest Worksong

Following up Andy Sullivan, Ezra, and Kieran Healy's dialogue on conservatives in academia, I think there's a huge point that nobody's touched upon - outlets for intellectual (or pseudo-intellectual) conservatism outside of the university.

Kieran touches on this a bit:

What's missing from this argument about conservative academics is the fact that there are surrogate academic (but not educational) routes for conservatives to follow. There's a much larger network of think tanks and intellectual non-university organizations on the right - and they're also much more active recruiters.

The organizational structure of conservative think tanks (and even conservative magazines and journals) was set up in large part to provide a theoretical backbone to conservative ideas. As such, there is a large surrogate market designed specifically for conservative intellectuals, particularly those who may be hesistant to enter what they perceive as a liberal market (which, in turn, fulfills the selfsame fear by creating a market more skewed towards liberals). It's not just that a materialist conservative outlook is driving people from low-pay academia to high-pay business, but that there is a market set up to absorb the exact sorts of conservatives that might otherwise go towards academia.

There's a lot to be said for the fact that conservatives have a far more robust apparatus designed to recruit conservative minds for conservative causes, particularly in this case.

YES!

Finally Kerry is speaking like we need him to!

During tonight's victory speech, he mentioned Bush and people began booing. He stopped short:

"No no no, we're not going to boo during the course of this campaign. We're going to cheer for what we're going to do in the future."

Yeah baby, that's how to do it!

It Is As It Was. Or Something.

Well, it looks like Clark is another victim of Joementum - he's out of the race.

Somehow, however, Sharpton is still in the race. And he's still rockin' the President Perm. You know, a small, evil part of me did want to see the first president to stock the White House with relaxer.

In Vain?

The Philosoraptor has a great post deconstructing the assumptions within Wolf Blitzer's questions. For those of you who, like me, are into examinations of rhetoric, it comes highly recommended. The question must be asked though, is there a good answer to "Did the soldiers die in vain?"

I tend to think there is, but it requires a mental shift. Right now, the Candidates are consumed with being tough enough to take on Bush. The context of the answers is if it'll open them up to charges of being soft on defense. Saying "yes, there were no weapons" allows the Republicans to take up the "Saddam was a murderous tyrant" thread, an argument that, though disengenuous, is still mightily effective.

However, there's a Clintonian answer to this question that's worth exploring. If you focus not on their deaths but on their lost lives, you might be able to make it work while still putting forth the argument against Iraq.

"So did the soldiers die in vain?"

"Well Wolf, no life is ever lost in vain, particularly not in service to our country. Saddam was a terrible man and generations of Iraqis owe our fallen soldiers a debt of gratitude. But that's not really the issue here. What is at issue is whether or not they should have been alive today. Our troops were sent off to war to protect our people; their families and friends and neighbors; because Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction that threatened us. This was false. The issue here is whether or not they should have been sent off to a war in which so many have died on an argument that simply wasn't true. Their deaths weren't in vain, but they were not worth more than their lives.

The most important decision a President makes is whether or not to put our soldiers in harms way, whether or not the threat is so dire that we must risk their deaths. The question is not, Wolf, whether they died in vain. The question is whether they should have died at all."

Seems like you could say their deaths shouldn't have happened while shielding yourself from potential criticism. How does that sound to you guys?

One last thing. Under that post, Winston has one entitled "Ten Short Arguments
About Cyberbalkinization". With all due respect to one of my favorite bloggers, Winston, your arguments are never short. That's why I love them..

Can't Get There From Here

I was reading this story about a man who can no longer cross over the border between Maine and Canada to go to church (along with a variety of other things). Now, maybe it's the godless liberal in me, but I realized that even as I read the article, the authors and I had two entirely different focuses. If the problem was that he can't go to church, my issue was "can't go". WND's issue (and the issue of many social conservatives) is "to church".

Now, it's an uncredited, reedited AP story that's been altered to make it a story about a churchgoing Christian versus the tyrannical government, so that could be coloring my interpretation. But it's an interesting exercise in how two different political outlooks can take the exact same input and find two markedly different interpretations of it.

BREAKING NEWS!!!!

JOEMENTUM HAS RETURNED! JOE LIEBERMAN HAS SWEPT VIRGINIA AND TENNESSEE!!!1!!!!!!!

Sorry 'bout that, I just woke up out of Joe Lieberman's dream. Kerry took them both. My apologies for any confusion.

Note The Implications

I want you to keep in mind that this man was one of the architects of a massive military experiment to start a tidal wave of democracy and peace in the Middle East through the occupation and democratization of another country.

Doesn't this seem not only self-defeating, but also remarkably relativist for anyone advancing the Bush Administration line? What would the response be if a Democrat, talking about the insurgency in Iraq or international terrorism, declared that terrorism and political murder occured because "human beings are human beings"?

P.S. - Isn't it also weird that we've heard about how wrong it is for the Democrats to treat the "War On Terror" as a law enforcement matter, and then Rumsfeld turns around and excuses the loss of life from a terrorist insurgency by comparing it to the pitfalls of law enforcement?

The Dangers Of Derivation

I think the author of this post sort of misses the point of the whole "college admissions offices look at the whole candidate" idea. Guess what? Stanford and Amherst don't admit people the same way Florida State does - and there's a reason for that.

Florida State has 22,000+ applicants for each class, and accepts about 14,500 of them - about 2/3. Harvard receives 21,000 applications per year and accepts a little over 2,000 of them - less than 10%. This disparity in acceptance rates causes the schools' admissions programs to be run differently. It's not a "Hollywood fiction" to say that Harvard is going to evaluate students differently (more in-depth, at the very least) than a far larger state university. Having gone to a selective school myself, the whole "SATs don't count as much as the overall application" idea was true - there were so many applicants with similar scores and grades that accepting people by grades alone was simply unfeasible. Different colleges admit people in different ways.

It's a really strange indictment of "anti-standardized testing" forces, that's for sure.

My Favorite Little Corner Of The Internet

Whitehouse.com, one of the Internet's most accidentally accessed porn sites, is going goodbye.

That Bake Sale Thing

This conservative bake-sale idea is spreading, and it seems like the only thing it's done is provoke discussion over whether or not the bake sales are good ideas, not affirmative action.

Other than vastly oversimplifying the issue, it also brings up an issue about affirmative action that I've heard bandied about by opponents - that affirmative action causes those who disagree with it to believe that others are racially inferior. In general (and this may just be my knee-jerk liberalism talking here), when anything leads you to presume racially-based inferiority, that's the problem of the assumer, not the person being assumed upon.

These bake sales are the epitome of the bad protest politics I saw all the time in college, and their failure has less to do with the fact that colleges are hostile to conservatism than the fact that they do exactly what the protest shouldn't - leave people talking about the protest itself rather than the issues raised. It reminds me of nothing so much as a protest we had at Swarthmore right before the Iraq War - Stand Against The War.

The entire idea was to stand up throughout classes in protest of the war against Iraq. Now, how a bunch of college students standing around in their classrooms sends a message to anyone but the students and professors that they opposed the war (which is a remarkably insular goal in and of itself), I don't know. In much the same way that the right has adopted the PC mantle that it maligned the campus left for lo these many years, they're picking up the exact same brand of reactionary, attention-grabbing campus politics that has thrilled, chilled, and mildly annoyed many of us.

So Trill

VeriSign is trying to restart its awful Site Finder service again.

I look forward to the fight. Bring. It. On.

Bringiton.org doesn't resolve yet, by the way. Yet.

Academia's Ideological Divide

Andrew Sullivan brings up the elephant in the room of the whole academia debate. Are there fewer conservatives in academia because liberals are simply smarter?

The conventional answer to this is that conservatives are discriminated against in the hiring process. That's nonsensical for two reasons. First, it's utterly unproven. Second, this overwhelming liberal tilt had to occur somehow. Theoretically, there had to be a time when there weren't professors, and then that had to merge into a time when there were many and they were overwhelmingly liberal. Since academia did not start out as an arm of the Left, it doesn't work to argue that conservatives faced discrimination from the beginning.

So where does that leave us? Well, the conservative philosophy tends to be very materialistic. That's not a criticism, it's a simple observation. Conservative economic systems attempt to make it easier to acquire and retain wealth. Liberal systems, by contrast, treat money as an engine for social progress. It's nice if people get rich, but it's even nicer if everyone has health care. That ideological split is instructive. Those who can get into academia are, in most cases, highly educated and intelligent. Usually, they could be making significantly more in the private sector. So those who enter in the public sector tend to rank material acquisition as a lower priority, a value hierarchy consistent with liberal ideals. The flip side of this would be conservatives entering the private sector, as material wealth is more highly regarded within their value system and the public sector is a terrible route through which to acquire it.

If this analysis is correct, the fault lies not with the highly charged, politically active liberals. It lies with the conservatives who are unwilling to go into academia and teach the next generation. If true, then it is not up to the Left to fix the problem by shutting up, it is up to the Right to fix the problem by encouraging their best and brightest to train the young and ensure their values are given a fair hearing.

Bad Corporations

Why should we not see the free market as a magical cure-all that will encourage innovation and discourage cheating? Because it's not one.

It amazes me that the towering amount of corproate fraud seems so incapable of changing conservative minds on this point. Reagan said that if your children spend too much money, you have to cut their allowance. It would seem to follow that if your children stay out all night, come back reeking of booze and keep getting suspended from school, you might want to give them a curfew. But I guess not. I must not be able to comprehend the wonder of the free market.

The Revolution Will Not Be Surfed

Mozilla Firefox huh? A "revelatory experience" is it?

Mozilla: Doing today what Apple did a year ago.

And don't even get me started on Explorer. Has Microsoft seen fit to include tabs yet?

Steyn, Turreyns, And Spit Buckeyts

Mark Steyn has always struck me as one of those artists in search of a frame. And paint. And talent.

Today's missive says that the AWOL/National Guard story has no legs because John Kerry's service was in the sucktacular extravaganza that was Vietnam, and since he ultimately protested the war, that means that he hates his country (I'm not sure, since the logical trail is quickly dropped to get to why this is a net plus for Bush). At the same time, George W. Bush will ultimately come out on top of this because he fought two successful To Be Determined wars.

Also, it's wrong for any Democrat or liberal to ever doubt the terrorism-fighting prowess of the Bush team, for fear of weakening our image in the face of the terrorists...but it's a-okay to tell terrorists that Democrats are their best friends and that they have nothing to be afraid of. Because that's patriotism.

Exit Polls and the National Review

Why does the National Review always seem to have the first exit polls? This trend has been going on since New Hampshire and it makes no sense. They're a conservative magazine and these are the democratic primaries, why is the Left being so monstrously scooped?

In case you're curious about what the polls say, Kerry is far, far ahead. Kaus must be ready to cry.

On The Ropes

What a beating. I almost feel bad for Scott McLellan. Almost.

Taxpayer-Financed Campaigning

Only a blind man could miss the pattern of Bush's recent string of trips - he travels to states with Democratic primaries soon after the primaries are done, gives a big, stirring stump speech that reiterates everything he's already said and still doesn't make sense. But people do cheer him somethin' special.

I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with this, ethically (after all, it's impossible for an incumbent to do anything in an election year without it having some political ramifications), although it does raise the issue of where, exactly, the boundaries between office-holder and candidate fall. It's obvious that Bush is going to primary states to campaign in the face of lots of Democratic coverage and publicity, but, at the same time, does it play well politically to make such obvious overtures, and to do so repeatedly?

KAUS

Is it possible for Mickey Kaus to get a Mike Tyson-esque elephant tattoo on his face so that we know he's an open shill for the GOP? The man has gone from criticizing Democrats in a nominal effeort to better counter Republican ideas to simply hoping that the Democratic Party crashes and burns.

Oh, and he accuses Kerry of at least half a dozen character problems. Predictably. Another question: is there anything Democrats have done since January of 2001 that Kaus thinks is a good strategic idea? Has he commented on a single Democratic idea or strategy without concluding that it's destined to fail?

Spontaneity

Bush has recently made a practice of "spontaneous" visits on campaign stops. They are, of course, planned out days in advance and scouted thoroughly before he ever steps foot in the venue.

Anyone else get the sense this reporter is a wee bit fed up with the whole deal?

What a man of the people.

Could he possibly be any more aggressive? "As reporters, I'm going to tell you what you're supposed to be thinking and writing about." He truly has faced down the hostile forces arrayed against him, mainly by requesting that they drop money on food they don't want and sporting equipment they don't need.

It's All About The Face

Bill O'Reilly apologizes. For real.

The question now is whether or not this translates into him being an asshole to defenders of the war, or if he takes the predictable step and never, ever mentions this again.

Analogies

Richard Cohen:

Bush's National Guard Service : "Honorable Discharge" :: Your Blind Date : "A Really Nice Person".

I'm also glad that Cohen makes it very clear that the National Guard of 1968 and the National Guard of 2004 are two very different organizations in which membership has very different meanings.

A Little Bit Gassy, At Times

OPEC announced a surprise cut in oil production starting April 1st. It's possible that the decision could be reversed, but higher oil prices are not what we would call the "political hotness" in the upcoming election.

It's Not About Star Trek, I Promise

Jonah Goldberg slams Democratic concerns over due process, which isn't nearly as important as what's discovered through violations thereof:

Actually, we do have this system of codified laws and foundational ethics that promise due process to all people accused of a crime. It is, in fact, what makes our legal system what it is. Jonah manages to pick the one example that doesn't apply to this situation - parents looking around their child's room (and yes, there is even a problem with that, to some extent). The legal relationship between parent and child has nothing whatsoever to do with this memo situation. Republican staffers accessed Democratic servers in potential violation of federal law, and did so repeatedly.

Jonah's position is that any violation of the law and/or basic rights is permissible as long as you find out that someone is doing something bad. Just how little respect is this for the Constitution? Due process was, after all, enumerated specifically in the Fifth Amendment by the Founding Fathers. It's not some random effluvial concept that Democrats invented to divert attention from political scandals - it's one of the foundation ethics of the United States of America.

This is an idiotic "test" of how nonpartisan Jonah's opposition is. Democrats consulted groups representing important constituencies regarding important decisions they were making. I wouldn't be surprised if I heard about a Republican consulting a conservative activist group with regards to legislative actions, to be honest. Jonah's position seems to be that laws are less important than not setting off his Spidey-Sense of Rank Partisanship. If he wants to have that position, fine, but I certainly hope he never gets called up for jury duty.

Gore 2004

Given that John Kerry will likely be the Democratic nominee, and that this campaign is already being compared to every presidential contest from 1972-2000, I find it hard to believe that yet more substitution isn't on the way. Kerry is Dole, Dukakis, Mondale, McCain and McGovern, all wrapped into one. Hell, I'm sure someone will come up with a Hannibal Hamlin comparison before all is said and done.

My hunch, however, is that the conservative attack media, after they're done going through Kerry's Vietnam records and finding that he once touched a Vietcong soldier without exploding him through the use of Insane American Liberty Chi, will simply pick up where they left off in 2000. There's some mileage in those slurs yet, and you know there were some people who were gearing up for a Gore/Bush redux.

With no further ado, this year's Kerry-flavored Gore "scandals".

Gore said he and Tipper were the models for characters in Love Story, citing a Nashville Tennesean article from the mid-80s. Kerry will be reported to have claimed that we was the model for the Joan Allen character in The Contender. "I've had a very sensual past," Kerry will be reported to have said by Byron York in the National Review.

At a campaign stop, Kerry will enter into a "Build A Bear" workshop and make a teddy bear for his wife. Answering a question from a campaign reporter, he will say, "I made the teddy bear over there for my wife." Soon after, the RNC will clean up the quote to read, "I invented the teddy bear." Dennis Miller's head will explode trying to make jokes about the Russo-Japanese war relate to Kerry. It will be seen by approximately 138 people, only 22 of which will not be CNBC employees.

Just as a series of quotes from Dan Quayle (and attributed to Dan Quayle) were falsely attributed to Al Gore, so will John Kerry get a Republican's musings falsely attributed to him. Unfortunately, due to a mixup in the transmission, they'll be Spiro Agnew's, and everyone will just be really, really confused.

As Gore was attacked for joking about falling asleep as a child to a Union anthem that was written in 1975, Kerry will joke about falling asleep to the Grammy-winning single Hey Ya!, sung by Outkast member Andre Benjamin on 2003's Grammy-winning album The Love Below, and be summarily attacked as untrustworthy and unnecessarily deceitful. Benjamin will refrain from comment for several months until the Democratic National Convention, at which point he will perform the song, dressed as Woodrow Wilson.

Also, through some weird alignment of the planets, John Kerry will make out with Tipper Gore at the Convention. Oddly enough, this will be ignored.

We Will Bring Them Back Like Jesus

Sweet gosh, man. We're gonna be gettin' us some new jobs! At...well...I guess...some point...?

Now, all we have to do is wait for the tax cuts to create jobs so that we can take advantage of this trade! Anyone got any marshmallows? This burning hot economy will translate into great s'mores!

I'm A Conservative Man's Fantasy

Dennis Prager, who, in the past, created a fake interview with Jimmy Carter about Lord of the Rings that so fooled Jonah Goldberg her was ready to get straight Mordor on the Georgian's peanut-candy ass, is back with another fake interview - this time with Massachusetts Supreme Court Justices.

It may seem real, but it is not.

I'm not sure if this is a huge dis to Canada, or what. And is it just me, or does this "higher civilization" bit sound like every sniffling stereotypical European/American anthropologist in every stereotypical noble third-world country in every bad movie about white people facing culture shock...ever?

"How dare you go against the laws of the elders? They have told us of the fire gods, and the fire gods have protected us! You bring...devil magic!"

I suppose if liberals value feelings, conservatives value talking to people who aren't there as if it's a debate they can win?

At this point, the entire Massachusetts Supreme Court got up and had a massive orgy to the haunting melodies of Enya mixed with a looping tape of Adolf Hitler's speech to the crowd at the Berlin Olympics. When they got back, disheveled and wearing underwear that may or may not belong to them, their only remark was, "Damn, that felt good."

"...Because it's almost totally irrelevant. And why is it that you think of freakier shit in your Brooks Brothers pleated slacks than we do when we legalize "immoral" gay marriage?

"Do you like Enya?"

"And since we're also complete fucking morons, and apparently made our way to the highest judicial bench in the state of Massachusetts through a series of contrived, semi-humorous occurences and strategic sexual dalliances, we're going to see what happens if you dip this Snickers bar in Drano and rub your eyes with it."

"GODDAMN, that hurt! Hey, let's see what happens when we do it with liquid margarine..."

"Also, at least one of those Americans is you, and if we left it up to you, you'd keep the polling station open until three in the morning having an imaginary conversation with Russell Crowe's character from Master and Commander about how pirates are like terrorists, and we'd never get the vote counted."

"In addition, Nazi Supermen are your superiors. We heard that somewhere, and it sounded awesome."

"Is that shirt a poly/cotton blend? HEATHEN! HERETIC! JESUS SHIT, WE LIKE YELLING! CORN!"

"We have officially crossed the line from really stupid to transcendentally stupid. Next up is ethereally stupid, where we say that we legalized gay and lesbian marriage because of brainwaves we received from the trisexual satyrs of Gupnar-8."

"Hey, could you also call us secretly really good athletes and cooks? I mean, as long as we're closet-uncomfortable with homosexuality, we might as well get dates out of the whole thing. And we only go out as a whole, so we need a man and/or woman who is full of love. And, eventually, us. Just saying."

"Let's go turn on our 60-inch plasma screen TVs and make every child in our neighborhood watch The L-Word with us. Pam Grier is still sooooo hot.

"We hate families! We're here all week, folks. You're beautiful. Beautiful."

Scandal! ...No, Really

So, John Kerry was photographed near Jane Fonda at an anti-war event a year before she went to Hanoi.

There's a little bit more, but this is the first "bombshell" from conservative attack sources.

Three rows away. Three! That's almost like touching. And she had cooties.

Brooks on Bush

Shorter Brooks: Bush's interview would have gone better if he was more eloquent at expressing how terrified we all should be.

Thanks David, but no thanks. It scares me that influential columnists think that the President should say things like:

Line-Item Lovin'

The Bush Administration is trying to dust off the line-item veto. Only this time, it'll be constitutional!

The question still remains exactly why a Republican president needs such drastic measures to restrain his own party, since that's apparently who's at fault here. How big is the divide between Bush and the rest of his party if he needs to revive a fairly drastic executive measure to "control" them?

I suppose the honest question here is how far will Bush take the continuing charade that if not for the spendthrift Republicans in Congress, the budget picture would be starshine and twinklecakes.

More AWOL

Tim Russert was on MSNBC (Hardball) tonight, saying that reporters and investigators can't find the pay stubs and other records relating to Bush's military service. You know, the ones he said had been scoured and that everyone else could scour, too.

Interesting...

The Difference Between A Moderate and a Partisan

Gotta love this. It's an Amazon "So You'd Like To..." guide, written by some dude whose secret with women is being a well informed political moderate:

Academic McCarthyism

It absolutely amazes me how easy it is for campus conservatives to propose fixes for liberal bias that absolutely contradict their other beliefs. Everything from ideological affirmative action to anti-PC censorship comes down the pike. But neither is as disturbing as the recent move towards political McCarthyism. The logical quirk seems endemic; but it's self-contradictory and just plain wrong:

The Best Way To Counter Indoctrination - More Indoctrination!

I was told by David Horowitz that the best classroom possible would be one where you didn't know the ideological background of the instructor. Mike S. Adams seems to be to the right of Horowitz on this issue - he believes that any good conservative parent should make sure to put their kids through an intensive battery of intensely conservative Christian books, including works by Thomas "Kidney Bean" Sowell, David "I Swear, If I Was Taking Pain Pills For Fun, This Book Would At Least Be Entertaining, In That Lewis Carroll/Hunter S. Thompson Sense" Limbaugh, and Dinesh "Racism Isn't Dead? Really?" D'Souza.

It's a curious taxonomy of bias - apparently, if you load your kid up with enough right-wing material, they'll make it through an apparently left-wing academic experience as fair, balanced, and independent-minded thinkers. Or, they'll be the same screaming conservative activists that annoy the majority of their classmates about as much as the screaming liberal activists do. (I'm sorry, but college activism was universally high-minded and annoying, even the stuff I was inclined to agree with.)

You know, I was going to remark on his calling Michelle Malkin and Joel Mowbray talented young conservative writers, but then I realized that the standards for conservative writers are so far gone from anything resembling normal standards that it's actually perfectly apt nomenclature.

Something I've been thinking about recently: is anyone else tired of the partisan "issue" books, which are essentially like really shitty book reports?

Pick one topic (or two smaller, but related, subtopics), and tell how the people you don't agree with are responsible for everything bad that has ever happened in relation to that topic. Papers must be 12-15pp., double spaced, with appropriate citations, unless you can't find them.

So When Do We Get To See His Tit?

Looks like Vanilla Ice has a contender for the throne. The other white boy battling for recognition as the world's most awkward rapper? None other than Orrin Hatch:

Links to Al-Qaeda

I'm trying to decide whether or not I buy this:

Go Andy!

Golly gosh, Andrew Sullivan is making The New Republic seem like the shriller, more liberal cousin of the American Prospect. Quite a feat, that.

Media Definitions

(Via Kos) It does my heart good to see Time publishing graphs like this one:

We can be angry at the Press for giving Dubya a free ride until now, but it looks like the bumps are a-comin'. And the timing could not be better. We're soon going to move into the after-Primary lull, where Kerry's coffers will be depleted and Bush will attempt to define his opponent through paid media. But if the media is busy redefining Bush on their own, than a more effective counter-attack than we could ever mount will fall into our laps for free.

The problem with Bush's negative press in the past is that it never seemed to go anywhere. A bad story would occasionally come down the pike, but it'd be gone a few days later. Now, however, the media echo chamber seems to be in full gear, repeating and intensifying the criticisms of Bush. With Time and Newsweek clearly on the hunt, it'll filter throughout the whole press apparatus. And with Bush's boosters seemingly disappointed in their President, the counter-howls are not coming as loudly or quickly as they used to. It looks like Bush is going to have to spend his money redefining himself rather than going after us. And that's exactly how we want it.

At Your Discretion

Giles Ward contends that Bush's discretionary spending isn't out of control, because it's only increased one percent as a proportion of GDP.

What he ignores is the government's overall receipts during the same period. Government receipts as a percentage of GDP, according to the CBO, have fallen 4.4%. That rise in discretionary spending, besides going against a nearly 40-year pattern of falling discretionary outlays, is also coupled with a massive reduction in government receipts.

The rise may not be that much by itself...but when coupled with the fact that you have less money to pay for the current level of spending, let alone any increases, that rise looks bigger and bigger.

Zoned Out

Brad DeLong notes that the plan for the Bush administration isn't to add 2.6 million jobs this year - it's to add 5.3 million.

Keep in mind that would be the single greatest period of job growth since, ah, we became the United States of America.

UPDATE: The estimate was revised by Brad to 3.8 million. Still pretty ludicrous, given the circumstances (Bush being in charge).

Presidentialate

A note to anyone talking about how "presidential" a candidate is:

You look more presidential when you're the president than when you're not.

If you let Dennis Kucinich sit behind the big desk in the Oval Office and put on his glasses and sign things...he'd look presidential! Hell, if you slapped Justin Timberlake up there, he'd look presidential, too. And...guess what? If you took George W. Bush to a Hardee's and he had a ketchup stain on his tie, he wouldn't look as presidential as he would in the Oval Office, but he would still look more presidential than most, what with being the president and all.

Damn

I'm not one to say that critiques of politicians by their respective partisans are more powerful than other critiques, but it sure as hell is amusing to watch Sully shake off the cobwebs and go a couple of rounds with the Bush/Russert interview yesterday.

"Hold up...you mean, he's just saying shit to make himself seem right with no regard for the truth whatsoever?"

He's been doing this since he first figured out the phrase "tax cut", Andy. IF there's anything Bush said that was true yesterday, it's that he doesn't change. Sure, he may change a rationale here and there, but if he cares at all about it, he will do what he is going to do regardless of how stupid or bad for the country it is.

Welcome to the party. Chips and salsa are over on the dining room table.

Incapability

Walter Shapiro makes an assertion in his latest column that's both wrong and, I think, inattentive to what's going on in the national campaign:

I didn't get that Bush came off as "likable and presidential". I got that he came off as repetitive and defensive. Differences of interpretation aside, Shapiro says that Democrats have been speaking to largely partisan audiences. Bush, by contrast...hasn't? As Peggy Noonan pointed out breathlessly yesterday, his candidacy is predicated on giving speeches to receptive audiences - whether neutral or partisan. When, if ever, has Bush put himself in front of hostile or nonsupportive audiences other than the State of the Union?

Shapiro also misconstrues the "low expectations of his partisan critics". I've seen little or no evidence to say that Democratic candidates are saying he can't defend his policies - simply that the defenses he gives aren't persausive. Yesterday, we hadn't seen anything that we hadn't heard before, which doesn't speak well of Bush against this criticism.

I'm curious, also, as to why Bush is getting so much credit for a single interview with Russert when the Democratic candidates have undergone a battery of interviews over the past few months from sources ranging from Fox News to NPR, in a variety of media, and from a variety of hosts - most of them live. Giving Bush so much credit for this one interview seems to be setting fairly low standards in the first place.

All that from three sentences.

Electronic Voting

If you can read this and in any way justify to me that the mechanisms of democracy should be in the hands of Diebold (or, in fact, electronic voting in general), I'll be impressed. And a little bit afraid.

Regardless of the conspiracy theories going around, these systems are deeply flawed. And they need to be fixed, sooner rather than later.

Shorter Bush

Missed yesterday's interview? Wonkette hooks you up with the condensed version.

Where's the Beef?

The Government has ended the search for cows afllicted with Mad Cow Disease. Having not found any yet, they see the chances that there are additional cases as slim. Compare this with the search for Iraq's WMD's and get sick to your stomach.

Party of Inclusion?

One other thing that struck me about the Reagan documentary -- he'd voted for FDR and Truman, only going Republican once they got Ike on the ticket. And you knopw what? The Republicans were happy, nay, proud, to have him on their side. Kind of puts the whole "Clark is a Republican" thing into a new light, doesn't it?

Ben Chandler For Congress

There's a little over a week left before the special election in Kentucky for seat HR-6, and Democratic candidate Ben Chandler needs our help. Add seven cents ($.07) to each donation from a Pandagon reader to let him know he has our support.

And if you're in his district - vote!

Private Parts

The Bush team of economic advisers has weighed in, and the results for Social Security privatization (oh, excuse me, retirement accounts in the hands of private investment firms and funds which is in no way "privatization") don't look that great.

The stream of unadulterated equivocation reaches, at points, the finest moments of Campaign 2000.

Shall we investigate why the surpluses haven't materialized? No? (Here's a hint - something was increased, and then something else was decreased. You get candy if you guess right!)

No answer? Ah, well. Privatize Social Security, then!

Question: do we trust this as much as we trusted the deficit projections of George Bush a few years back? I mean, this year's $521 billion Gremlin was a $14 billion cute and fuzzy Mogwai just a couple of economic cycles ago. The 1.6 percent deficit as compared to a 4.5 percent deficit is a red herring - the former excludes all government spending, which can't be projected this far out.

And we get the "bad is better than worse" argument again. Hypothetically speaking, the entire American experiment could be destroyed as soon as 2006 should we not pass Social Security "reform". We have to get on this before our constitutional democracy is...done.

You can find extended summaries of various privatized systems here. Social Security privatization debates, particularly from the right, seem to happen in a vacuum. George Bush won't restrain spending or tax cuts in a war, how would he manage a several hundred billion dollar reorganization of Social Security?

Secret Societies

For those of you wondering exactly what being a member of Skull and Bones means and how much influence these secret societies have, I urge you to check out Hudson's explanation of them.

Dip The Toe In The Water

Australian Labor is set to potentially take over the Australian government from the conservative coalition government.

Ladies and gentlemen, the extent of my knowledge about Australian politics.

Bonnie And Clyde '04

If Michigan Democrats want to get Eminem to perform at a youth rally...DON'T. Everyone will find something to be offended about.

Who is George Bush?

I have to admit, I've been thinking about this Dole-Kerry thing a lot today. On the surface, it's actually a very good comparison. Both respected senators with distinguished war records, both establishment candidates, both less than charismatic. From there, things drop some. Dole was the heavy favorite in the race. Save for Dick Morris's fairly brilliant strategy of launching an early ad war in every inch of the country the media doesn't pay attention to, Dole might have beat Clinton.

Further, Clinton was Clinton. Say what you will about his morals, he was undeniably one of the most gifted politicians we've ever seen. His skills as an orator were staggering and his political dexterity unmatched. And this leads into the part I'm most curious about, who is Bush? He's not Clinton, he's not going to destroy a steady candidate through extraordinary political skills. He's capable on the stump, but not inspiring. He's a disciplined campaigner, but not an unstoppable force. So what has he got?

Well, he mobilized the Christian Right to beat Ann Richards in Texas. Considering that was a right leaning state and he simply fired his base up, it's no great accomplishment. He won the Republican primary in a fair show of political acumen, but he did so through an early anointment as the GOP's candidate. McCain's rise was powerful, but he was a candidate trying to grab the middle in an election that relied on the Right. The equivalent would be Joe Lieberman beating up on Howard Dean in the primary -- that could only go on for so long until the activists put a stop to it. I don't think Bush would have beat McCain in a real election.

Now we get to Gore and it gets interesting. Gore was a bad campaigner but a formidable candidate. He could raise cash, consolidate his base and cite an impressive record. Bush got close enough to win. Though the popular vote didn't swing his way, he campaigned smart and triumphed in the electoral college. The means may have been unsavory, but being cutthroat is hardly a bad quality in a candidate.

The early days of his Presidency were unimpressive, he seemed like a lame duck leader. His agenda was unclear, his priorities muddled and his leadership largely ineffective. Then came 9/11 and the whole dynamic flips. Then came the rout in 2002, and suddenly, he was invincible. An electoral absolute.

But what is Bush? Is he a new Reagan? I watched a long special on Reagan tonight, one composed almost entirely of his speeches. I'd seen little of his oratorical acumen before, seeing as how I wasn't even born until his second term. He was an incredible communicator, a gifted politician, Bush can't do what he could. There are those who can warp the political fabric, transcending their substance and carving out an apolitical space based solely on their charisma. Reagan's sainthood is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Bush can't do it, he can't even come close.

At the end of the day, Bush is a mediocre-to-good campaigner with a terrific team and lots of luck. His has been an events based presidency; his popularity a reflection not of the man, but of the time. Bush was popular because the American people, in a period of uncertainty and fear, needed to trust the captain at the helm. But now things are settling. Bush's popularity has never been predicated upon results; Saddam's capture merited hardly a hiccup in his downward slide. His numbers don't follow current events as much as they follow the public opinion on current events.

Bush is strong on personality, weak on presidentiality (not a word, but what the hell). When campaigning against incumbents, his personality does him a lot of good, he seems likable and decent enough. Problem is voters don't expect much from him and, when he's merely president and not "commander-in-chief", they don't approve of him. He's better at being elected than he is at being president. Every time he's had to actually govern the country, his numbers have dropped. This holds true pre and post-9/11. His attempts to be presidential: the State of the Union, the Medicare Bill and so forth, have been dismal failures. What Bush is weak against, in contrast to both Clinton and Reagan, is a resume challenge. Someone who appears more presidential than him, better able to get things done. Reagan and Clinton were both in their element running for reelection as President, I don't think Bush is. He's in his element running against incumbents, running on personality, humor and ideological tenets. Running as a leader is beyond him due to the simple fact that Americans don't like his leadership unless they psychologically have to.

For that reason, running a Dole-like candidate isn't a bad idea. Bush isn't going to get through on charisma or political skill, he's simply not a good enough speaker to make his personality stick. Running an experienced and well trained candidate who America can imagine as President should bring to light Bush's flaws and preclude him from playing on his strengths. The Dole-Clinton model is a good one for us. Not because Kerry is necessarily Dole, but because Bush is absolutely not Clinton.

Church & State & Main & Starsky & Hutch

I've been reading some arguments against gay and lesbian marriage, and I've found a recurring sentiment (referenced here, via World O' Crap) that the state is dictating to the church who they must marry.

Um...where did this come from, and why don't people know the law?

Awwwwk! Polly Want A Retroactive Justification For This War!

Glenn Reynolds - often parroted in the media - launches a V.D. Hanson-lite (keep in mind, kids, that there are very few times where being called Hanson-lite in any situation is a good thing) attack against the anti-war line, mainly by attacking a very few things that don't actually tie into the anti-war argument

Okay, okay. This is Instapundit. He vaguely bats at the outline of an idea, while linking to someone else making the attack. My bad.

Anyway, he says that there are two facets of the anti-war argument that supposedly undermine

It's amazing how, you know, this is a complete misrepresentation of reality. Unlike Glenn, I'm not going to outsource my political thoughts and debates to other people, however.

What Glenn, and everyone else arguing against the imminent threat idea seemingly forget in the orgiastic glee of being "right" seem to forget is that (1) Bush argued frequently that Saddam maintained an active stockpile of WMD that he might give to terrorists at any second. Regardless of whether or not the specific word "imminent" came out of Bush's mouth, it's as clear as it can possibly get without George Will declaring it "axiomatic" that we were supposed to believe the threat from Saddam Hussein was hidden and immediate. A secret network of currently active agents with actual weapons of mass destruction seems pretty "imminent" to me.

But, you know, using words to describe or summarize things is something the "media" would do.

(2) Bush also went above and beyond talking about whether or not Saddam had WMD to contending that he was producing new WMD. As we've been over repeatedly, Bush's case for war was premised on the new and active threat of Saddam developing a nuclear weapon - the tubes, the uranium, etc. There was already doubt about the veracity of those claims when Bush was making them - and yet he not only made them, but claimed they were certain. Everyone may have believed that Saddam had WMD, but that was almost beside the point.

The issues over the Iraq war have little to do with what Glenn is talking about, which is why the arguments are so easy to make. Anti-war folks felt that Saddam, given what we knew about his capabilities, could be contained, and was not a military threat to us. Bush felt that Saddam posed new and immediate threats to our nation's safety. His evidence for that either hasn't turned out to be true, or wasn't what he claimed it was at the time. That's the issue, but as long as we're batting above the Mendoza line against strawmen, why bring up that inconvenient point?

Some Dean Thought

Okay, I'm pretty much going to say here and now that the Dean ride to the Presidency is over. Every bit of information I've seen on Wisconsin shows that there is little chance for him to capture the state, and the fact that Edwards and Clark are likely going to sink each other throughout the South means that Kerry is likely going to into Super Tuesday having lost only two primaries.

As such, some thoughts on the Dean candidacy:

1.) Did Dean revolutionize campaigning?

To some extent. He used the Internet more effectively than any candidate this campaign cycle, and he set the template for other candidates in the future. Someone (I think Jonah Goldberg) remarked that it was like the discovery of direct mail, but that it wasn't revolutionary because soon, everyone was using it - don't ask, the argument didn't make any sense either.

I think

2.) Did Gore sink Dean?

I think the idea of Dean as an outsider versus the insider rest of the field was overplayed, and not nearly as important to the rest of his campaign as the criticisms of Bush that he levied. In fact, I think that the outsider/insider dynamic was a push in terms of Dean's perception, but impacted him negatively when it came to making his case outside of his natural base. In a year focused on beating Bush above all else, his criticisms against Bush were couched in the idea that nobody else in the Democratic Party would make these criticisms. Then, everyone did.

Gore's endorsement was circumstantial to all this. He didn't sink Dean. The Dean/Gephardt tiff sunk Dean in Iowa (as did, apparently, some of the Dean caucus behavior, which, according to reports I've seen, wasn't as professional as the Kerry and Edwards operations), and his losing a favored primary sunk him in New Hampshire. His having sunk so much money into those two primaries and having lost them (particularly Iowa) did more to sink his campaign than any endorsement(s). The "scream" and its subsequent overplaying didn't help, either.

3.) What did Dean do for the Democratic primaries and the general election?

I don't think Dean's impact can be measured in left/right terms. Dean wasn't particularly liberal, but he was fervently Democratic. Dean captured, and in many ways defined, the zeitgeist of this campaign: George Bush is a very bad president and we need someone who will absolutely not be George Bush. Everyone in the campaign, even Lieberman to some extent, moved to a more anti-Bush position in their campaigning. Dean helped define the political appeal to the base for the rest of the candidates, an appeal that also has a lot of weight in the general election.

People...People Who Need Terrorist People...

Does anybody remember when the Iraq/al-Qaeda ties were first being alleged by nuts such as Laurie Mylroie and relatively respectable folks like the President of the United States of America? Anyone remember how the almost uniform response from the doubters was that there was no real Iraq/al-Qaeda connection now, but the second you invade the country, there's going to be a lot more collusion, if not outright recruitment?

Bingo.

Policies? We Gotcher Policies Right Here!

I think this article is pretty accurate, which is why I think Ezra's worry down below is misfounded, at least in the long term.

Ideological dissonance tends to be more pronounced whenever a party is out of power - if anything, I think that this election has forced Democrats into more ideological unity. Even the pressure of "Old Democrats" (Lieberman and Gephardt) was both understated and underperforming among the Democratic base.

Something I also see is a rise in the sort of Nixonian/Reaganite politicking that formed the base of modern conservatism (although, not in the evil or neglectful sense). What we're seeing now is the rise of a muscular rhetorical and political anti-conservatism, which is starting to mirror the Republican Party's anti-liberalism. I don't think Kerry, Edwards, or even Dean is necessarily the mastermind or architect of this strategy, but they can be its beneficiaries in November of 2004.

The idea of an "overarching" policy is overrated. What the Republican Party has succeeded at is being master salesmen (and women) of their own anti-liberalism as government policy. If you look at the Republican platform, all you have to do is make the exact opposite of their proposals, and you're looking at a broad, highly inaccurate, but still powerful caricature of liberalism. Bush has done something very beneficial to Democrats - advocated a forceful anti-liberal message while simultaneously advocating policies that brought him towards the "center". More accurately, in the Republican parlance, it brought him towards the left. The anti-conservative (more accurately, anti-Bush) message is helped by the fact that Bush himself, as the forebear of the conservative movement, is all over the place politically. He's a "conservative" hawk of cartoonish proportions, he's a "liberal" spender - he hits wrong buttons everywhere.

So, do Democrats need to come up with grandiose neo-liberal policy stances? Well, other than as rhetorical props, no. What Bush has shown is that it's the language of the specifics that matters, the ability to convince voters that each action you take is motivated by deeply held principles, even if those deeply held principles don't necessarily make sense when pushed together. Bush's problem is simple. It's not that his "message" isn't resonating with the American people, that his overarching philosophy isn't connecting with the American people; it's that he's been saying he's going to solve problems for the past few years, and hasn't done anything to actually solve them.

Another Jobs Promise

Well, now we've got a new jobs number - 2.6 million. That's the number of jobs we're now supposed to create in 2004. Keep in mind that the original number for this year was supposed to be 3.672 million.

Amazingly, that's very close to the number of jobs the tax cuts were supposed to add to the economy this year...

A Poor Standard Bearer

Anyone else notice that the conservatives seem to think that Bush's performance this morning was way worse than the liberals are rating it? In part, this is explained away by the lowered expectations Bush's dectractors have for him. However, that dynamic is usually countered by the Right's intense affection for Bush, which often makes weak performances look like triumpant exhibitions. But lately, nobody seems to be on Bush's side. It's as if his own troops have begun to see him as less impressive, his performances slightly embarassing. Poll numbers seem to support this theory, but what accounts for the sea change? Has it been a lot of little things, or has something happened to make them lose faith in Bush?

I'd finger his runaway spending, but I'm honestly not sure. What do you think?

Foreign Policy Philosophy

Atrios writes:

Ah, Coldplay

"We'd like to dedicate this [Grammy] to...John Kerry, who will hopefully be your President."

I take back everything I ever said about your mothers. Which was nothing. But, still.

ARF?

Kevin Drum has what could be a big break in the George W. Bush AWOL story...except that I don't think it is.

The "ARF" in question much more likely refers to the Air Reserve Force, which includes the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard. It's much less likely that he was disciplined by the Army Reserve Force than that he was issued a document under the combined auspices of the Air Reserve Force.

UPDATE: I was shown this document, but all it shows is that Bush's records were transferred to the Air Reserve Personnel Center after his service with the TANG was done.

ANOTHER ONE: ORS refers to Obligated Reserve Service, but it's a common term for the period of time that Reserves (military and NG) are, well, obligated to serve.

I think that there's a definite issue of whether or not Bush showed up, what he did if and when he showed up, and whether or not we've been given all the valid documents. But I think this is barking up the wrong tree. If I'm wrong, I'll happily be proven so.

SOME MORE: There's this, which actually makes the ORS reference clear - if Bush was unable to participate in the ANG, he would be put in the Obligated Reserve Section, which might or might not call him up for active duty. If Bush couldn't or wouldn't serve (which, since he asked to be discharged from ANG duty, he couldn't), he would be placed in this section. As far as I can tell, the ORS isn't necessarily a punishment - it's the agreed result of Bush's requested early discharge.

I'm really, really not seeing this.

Huh

I'm not sure how an entry talking about how the relative quality of the Bush/Russert interview had to do with Bush's almost nonexistent political profile outside of his talking points can be used to argue that I'm calling Tim Russert biased, but I guess when there's a will, there's a way.

What's strange is that in every critique he listed, the writer says absolutely nothing about any particular partisan leanings of Russert, or partisan tint to the questions. We all simply lamented the incomplete quality of the interview. What Jon is talking about may rise from others reading our critiques, but grouping us together and pointing out something we aren't doing only sets us down the funhouse hall of mirrors that constitutes the liberal/conservative bias idea.

Isn't it sort of strange to bring up something we're not doing in order to criticize us for potentially doing it?

The Most Persuasive Case Not To Listen

Victor Davis Hanson lays out in excruciating vagaries why we should have gone to war with Iraq. I'm only going to bring up what I think are his two major rhetorical problems, and let you all intuit from there that when his entire argument is derived from these points, there's a problem.

Number One:

One should be careful when attacking thinking as "fuzzy" not to justify your clear-headedness by tying together the Cold War, September 11th, the War on Terror, Saddam Hussein and Tony Blair into what is supposed to be an intellectually consistent argument.

Simply put, bad intentions and no capability do not a threat make. During the Cold War, we were responding in large part to the military threat that the U.S.S.R. and Soviet client states posed to us. Say what you will about warring economic and political ideologies, in large part our actions during the Cold War did revolve around the technology and military that the U.S.S.R had, and what they were and were not willing to do with it. In fact, every conflict and interpretation Hanson mentions are explicitly influenced about the nature and scope of the threat each of those entities pose or posed. We aren't worried about terrorists merely because they're bad people who don't like us. We're worried about what those bad people can do to us.

Long story short, it does matter whether or not other states or entities can threaten us, both ideologically and materially. To pretend as if this isn't the case is more than foolish - it's dangerous.

Number Two:

Well, V.D., unless "most of us" is a phrase conveniently shortened from "most of us in the Bush Administration who were publicly making the case for the war and related those reasons to the American public", this is as far beside the point as what color socks I'm wearing.

Also, that's a trick. I'm not wearing any socks.

Kerry=Dole?

The Weekly Standard has a slightly triumphant editorial explaining that:

"Tim...I like...things. And I want you to step back and see the big picture here. Things are...meaningful, they may be, you bknow, unpopular, but that's just politics. I've been attacked for things all my life, back when I ran for Governor, when I ran in 2000...but I still believe in them. That's just who I am. Now, when we went to war for things, blatant lie was what we told the American people and it's the same now. Misrepresentation of Kay report, we did the right thing to protect things."

This guy is no Clinton.

Quandary For The Night

Which is less meaningless - the Pro Bowl or the Grammys?

Marketing Question

Does anyone know where, if Kerry is the nominee, we could get mock "Kerry 44" Celtics jerseys (or Celtics-style jerseys) for less than $160 a pop that the NBA charges?

Def Comedy Peggy

See, conservatives be drivin' like this, and liberals be drivin' like this...

Apparently, Republicans aren't too good at saying what they want to say when other people ask them to say it. They're only good at saying what they want to say when they get to skip the whole "challenging" bit of public debate and get straight to the "telling you without interruption" part. This, apparently, is good for democracy.

The most incoherent president in recent memory is only suffering at the hands of those demeaning fiends in the media who ask them questions. Best that we stop all that and give Republicans the chance to stream all their talking points together, into a speech.

Did I mention Peggy's a former Republican speechwriter?

The Platonic President

You have to read Saletan's analysis of Bush's interview, it's brilliant. And I'm not usually one to think well of those who group Bush with Ancient Greek Philosophers.

How To Rob An Industry Bushie

An overlooked facet of the Bush/Actual President '04 campaign is that he's going to try and run a strong incumbent campaign (look at everything I've improved!) from a position of weakness. The watchwords of this election are "would've been worse".

The economy would've been worse, if not for the tax cuts. Healthcare would've been worse, if not for the prescription drug plan. Our national security would've been worse if Bush hadn't shown bold leadership and gotten us into an optional war. On every issue - the dividends of a Bush presidency aren't good over the alternative bad, the dividends are bad over the alternative worse.

It's framing decisions like this which make the Presidency look like an ever more attainable goal for the Democrats (and perhaps even part of Congress, provided we retain at least 3 out of our 5 Senate seats in the South). Inherent in an "it could be even worse" is the implicit acceptance of things as bad. So long as Bush does this, he's doing half the job for the Democratic Party without us lifting a finger.

Lack Of Guard Service

One thing that has me a bit worried about Bush's interview was his spin on the AWOL charges:

That's not really what he's doing, he's criticizing him over a lack of National Guard service, but headlines like that paint a vastly different, and easily distorted, picture.

Lack Of Guard Service

One thing that has me a bit worried about Bush's interview was hi spin on the AWOL charges:

That's not really what he's doing, he's criticizing him over a lack of National Guard service, but headlines like that paint a vastly different, and easily distorted, picture.

Mimosas and George

What do you get when you combine utter intoxication and an hour of G.W Bush on Meet the Press? Well, whatever it is, it ain't pretty.

A Few Thoughts On Russert

I've seen a lot of criticism on Tim Russert about his not going in-depth enough on the interview segment with Bush, but I do have to give him the benefit of the doubt here. Bush is a president who's given fewer press conferences and press sessions than any President in recent memory. One of the hallmarks of a good interview is that you establish your ground terms in the quickest manner possible. Bush is a president who's steadfastly avoided the media spotlight (wisely, from his and Rove's standpoint), and so Russert had little to start out with. Most of Russert's time was spent figuring out what the President was actually saying about the various issues surrounding his campaign. Rather than get down to any nitty gritty, Russert was stuck trying to figure out where the surface he had to get under was.

That the interview this morning didn't do much wasn't Russert's fault - it was Bush's.

Unpresidential

It's funny, I don't think Bush did half as bad on Meet the Press as The Corner seems to. Bush came off as a man with strong values but not much else. He wasn't particularly eloquent, particularly informed or particularly charismatic. The interview may have been a disappointment to some and a boon to others, but it'll do little for either side.

The one thing that jumped out at me was that Bush did not look Presidential. Not by any means, he looked like he was just pretending to be President. Maybe others felt differently, but there was no sense of command or authority radiating off of him, no hint of gravitas collected in his three years on the job. He's a likeable enough guy, but Kerry's demeanor and encyclopedic policy knowledge might enable him to out-president the president. This is just a hunch, but if I think it's possible that Kerry will win this election because people will trust him to take them to war more than they will Bush. Bush just didn't seem competent today; these are serious times and I think John Kerry can out-serious George W. Bush.

There Will Be A Test

Captain Bible is apparently a pilot for American Airlines.

I'd hate to see what you have to do to get pillows...

A Pound Of Cure, An Ounce Of Prevention

Nah, really?

Next thing you know, we're going to be hearing in March about how it was hypocritical to run hour-by-hour coverage on how much CBS airing Janet Jackson's naked breast was a ploy to get ratings and attention for a shameless publicity stunt.

Terror, Whole World In Error

Interesting bit about the ricin in Bill Frist's office:

The theory is that this actually has more to do with the DOT attacks than it does with Frist, and that the ricin in the letter had have careless and incidental rather than intentional.

You know, I think that's actually more scary.

That Zarqawi Is Poison

The discovery of a block or blocks of cyanide salt brings up an interesting question.

Found in the home of Abu Musab Zarqawi, it's unclear whether or not what the purpose of the cyanide was, or if it was even weaponized/weaponizable. But, the curious thing is that Zarqawi is suspected of having a hand in several attacks in Iraq. I don't know whether the cyanide was a weapon, what its intended use was - but the issue here is that groups could be bringing weaponry and agents into Iraq, yet it will be cited as ex post facto evidence that Iraq had WMD before the insurgency ever started.

I'd also point that the name Ansar al-Islam, the Kurdish Iraq-based al-Qaeda cell, has come up again, but I think Pandagon readers are more than astute enough to make the connection.

Dammit, America

If you own a gun, and if you have ammunition for it, then according to the media elite, you only own it to sodimize your cousin/lover with the barrel in a reenactment of your own childhood abuse.

If you've ever owned a flag without burning it, the Manhattan limousine liberals who dictate our so-called public discourse think you're some sort of fascist overlord of their pathetic socialist ideal of reality, and want to see you dead.

If you're a carbon-based lifeform, the silicon-based alien lifeforms that run NBC along with the self-loathing Jews in control of the rest of the media want to harvest your precious bodily fluids for the army of humanoid clones they want to unleash on an unsuspecting populace to kill off any objection to a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Their biased bunk is more obvious than Janet Reno subbing in an all boy Japanese middle school wearing a day glow unitard. KY jelly is less transparent than Dan Rather’s ideological foundations.

They are the thrusting vibrator of liberal incompetence, indelicately exploring the nether regions of America's tolerance zone, trying to hit the G-spot and finding only the No-spot, until the time comes when we can no longer bear their unskilled touch. It is that time, and we must rise up against them, forcing them to sleep on the couch of America's rent-controlled apartment, not letting them into the chaste, mildly freaky bedroom of our hopes and dreams until they take that "How To Love Your Lover" class down at the Y that we've been reminding them of for months now.

One of these paragraphs isn't made up.

MTP Reaction

I may be a partisan Democrat, but damn, that Bush/Russert interview was awful. The tenor of Bush's presidency is, has been, and will be that nobody could possibly understand what America needs but him, and as such, either you're an America, or you're a partisan doubter of America's resolve.

Bush's political platform is a huge liability - the only thing that's going to win this election for him is if Rove can attack the other candidate with enough to make the majority/plurality of Americans think that Bush is less bad than the Democratic alternative.

Here's the transcript.

Reminder on the AWOL issue:

Bush/Russert

I think Bush just argued that Iraq wasn't a preventative war because other people said he was a danger. Bush is answering every question through answer by omission. And many of these questions are strange in and of themselves - "Will you testify before various panels?"

Russert's just asked whether or not Bush molded intelligence to his liking, and Bush is simply reiterating the old line that declares that he saw what Saddam and done, and he could intuit from that and the information he won't say if he massaged or not that Saddam was a threat.

Saddam was a madman in a dangerous part of the world! Terrorist connections!

North Korea develops WMD in secret, and we need to "run out the diplomatic string".

"Are you surprised by the level of resistance in Iraq?"

"No, I'm not."

Then why didn't you plan for it?

Bush just pulled out a Tom Friedman moment - he talked to an Iraqi.

Bush's entire manner during this interview is to get questions and then smirk his way through a reiteration of his policy, framing it as an explanation for a very, very slow student. Russert still hasn't challenged him on the whole "support for terrorists" bit.

Bush, when asked about Wolfowitz's statement that going to war to free the Iraqi people wouldn't be justification enough to risk American lives, said (guess what?) Saddam was a madman in a dangerous part of the world. He's failed to actually argue his point or add anything new to this debate - and now he's talking about his unfunded AIDS mandates in Africa as it relates to this...which it, at best, marginally does.

He's quoting David Kay's Interim Report as if he never testified to the Congress last month. Cute.

AWOL time. Bush is warning that people shouldn't denigrate the Guard. Which nobody is doing. He's also saying that there may be no evidence, but he's opened up his records, and there's still no evidence, but he did his duty. And he'll open up the records that he already opened up and which don't prove his point. Awesome.

And he's still trying to turn the issue to people denigrating the Guard. And now he's down on the Vietnam War because it was a political war. The irony simply drips.

The Economy: people should hire Bush because it's rilly rilly hard to run the economy, u know? There may not be new jobs, but there's momentum for new jobs.

"If Congress is wise with the people's money we can cut the deficit in half." Once again, not Bush's fault. I find it funny that the basic argument for Bush economic policy is to say that it's less bad than the outcome that we've never seen.

He just made some arcane (and inaccurate) point about Clinton having large appropriations bills, which means Bush isn't the biggest spending President in recent memory.

Bush said he can't balance the budget because it's hypothetical - yet, he can argue, hypothetically, that every policy that isn't his would destroy America's economy.

Why do people think you're a divider? Well, I don't know, I'm trying to unite everyone...I think it's all their faults. See, everything I do is for the good of the American people, and if you oppose it, it's always political in nature. I don't attack, ever!

See, Bush is asking all those surly Europeans to do hard things, which is why they hate him!

Bush isn't gonna lose because he wants to lead. Well, so does my nephew. He's not gonna be President either. I find it strange that Russert never brought up his approval ratings, only his head-to-heads with Kerry.

Snarky As An Arrow

Question: this bill allows for marriage between "one man and one woman". Well, the bill never specifies what relation that man and woman must have. Can a related man and woman get married? Can a grown adult marry a little child? Is it a human man and woman?

This could open the door to a whole range of opposite-sex depravity. These damned activists.

Somethin' Like A Phenomenon

Roy Moore continues to take a big, ethereal dump on the First Amendment, now in Virginia.

I liked this line:

While technically true, one of the major definitions of religion simply requires a belief in a supernatural power or powers. So, by recognizing a God, that is an establishment of religion. Which, ah, can be prohibited by the Constitution.

Nancy also needs to bone up on her Constitution a l'il bit:

Well, unless you squint really hard, and bong the sacramental wine...I don't think so. Hey! There's three branches, and there's a Holy Trinity! There were ten commandments, and ten amendments! The Israelites were white, and so are we!

Hmm...

Look at the Bill of Rights. Pick your respective version of the Ten Commandments. First person to find Amendment VIII in the Decalogue gets a commemorative Pandagon Speedo.

AFCSME Pulls Their Support

AFCSME has pulled their support for Howard Dean.

Gay Penguins

This piece on gay penguins is sweet and touching. It's unimaginable to think that these creatures, by nature of their devoted relationship, would be condemned to hell:

I Done Gone And Politicized It

Couple of things about this:

Two things: maybe you all shouldn't have used this war for straightforward political purposes, and what the hell happened to Colmes?

The push not to "politicize" things is often pointless, mainly because the only time politicization is ever talked about is when party A is accusing party B of politicizing something. It's impossible for politicians to talk about anything without politicizing it - the only way for something to remain above the fray of politics is for politicians to ignore it completely. Everything a politician says or does is to their ultimate gain or detriment - the Pollyanish view that politicians can somehow deal with political issues without being, well, political is a view that needs to be dropped as soon as possible. If a politician does it, politics garnered some consideration in it.

An Alien

Check out this CNN image:

Chirst, it looks like Clark is taking off his face!

The Best Defense Is A Good Offense

Bush is set to "go on the offensive" in upcoming days.

Well, maybe it's just me...but I thought he had been on the offensive. Going to Mars, the anti-marriage initiative, the State of the Union...Bush purposefully arranged a series of high-profile announcements and speeches through the beginning of Democratic primary season.

It's just that it all flopped, miserably.

If a president with fewer press conferences than any chief executive in recent memory is looking forward to being on your show...he's expecting a tough-talking softy. I'm certainly hoping that if Russert decides to go after Bush, he doesn't use facts and figures given to him by the Bush team. If Russert goes after him.

Republicans have been making a huge effort to pretend that Bush and Republican surrogates haven't been making political moves to counter the press that the primaries have gotten. They may not have unleashed the full nationwide campaign machine, but there's a reason Bush has given speeches in New Hampshire and South Carolina days after their respective primaries. There's a reason Ed Gillespie has been everywhere, and why Bush announced large-scale nonsense initiatives shortly before the serious campaign season launched off.

I'd wager that Mars alone cost more votes than all of John Kerry's speeches put together.

Just Show Up, They'll Do The Rest

This is...disturbing.

I used to have arguments with conservative friends of mine about the need for openness and transparency in the legal process, and how laws like the PATRIOT Act undermine the basic spirit of the American legal system. The response was almost universally, "If you didn't do anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about." (This from people who support tort reform.)

That line presumes that we have a perfectly functioning justice system, and that the innocent will always be able to mount a persuasive and ultimately successful defense against accusations. Even though this investigation isn't necessarily under the PATRIOT Act, it still highlights the error in that line of thinking - these groups are being investigated under a grand jury, with no clue as to what they're being investigated for. How can innocence rise to the surface when the accused has no idea what they're innocent or guilty of?

Still With Angry Picture

Ben Shapiro, who I swear I'm not going to make fun of, has a very weird idea of what constitutes success, progress, approval and, in fact, reality.

Okay, 22 percent is better, but it seems like the step from catastrophically low to disturbingly low.

Ben also appears to want to misrepresent (or misunderstand) the nature of government spending. You see, Schwarzenegger cut spending (good for Ben!). But, the university, which is state-run, increased the cost of his education - which means that Ben and his family aren't really saving any money, and they're still paying into government programs like his university whenever they pay taxes.

He also throws up a bunch of programs and people that he doesn't feel deserve his tax dollars, and pulls out the oldest of political tricks - saying "the taxpayers" agree with him. He doesn't argue why outreach programs for state universities shouldn't be paid for by the state (instead preferring to say that they should be paid for by private donors, which is the de facto solution to all state spending - make someone else who's not me responsible for it), or why the students he interviews are lazy. They just *are*.

A lazy article with lazy economics advocating lazy government. But there'll be less government spending! Sort of!

Dean as VP?

Speaking of Vice-President's, Dean's comment that he would consider the VP nod doesn't seem to be accurate. After reading the article a few times I have to conclude that either something was omitted or the media is extrapolating from his words. I can't see where he uttered the term "Vice-President". Regardless, the speculation it has engendered seems off to me. Dean doesn't strike me as a good VP for any of the candidates.

Dean brings nothing geographically (We're pretty strong in the Northeast). His campaign style is somewhat dangerous, as he makes gaffes and sucks up media coverage through them, thus threatening to overpower the nominee atop the ticket and hurt the campaign by going too far in his critiques of Bush. As for stopping a run by Nader, Ralph is the sort who will run simply because Dean is on the bottom of the ticket and slightly muzzled. A low key Dean will be his example of why we need a strong left. Not because it's true but because Nader is an unbelievable egomaniac who is itching to lead another crusade.

Someone like Edwards, who has geographical and stylistic advantages, would be more useful as an attack dog simply because he doesn't have an angry reputation, his friendly populism won't be discounted as mere partisan rancor as quickly as Dean's would. Evan Bayh or Bill Richardson are moderates who have constituencies they can reach out to (Bayh's got midwestern moderates and Richardson has Latinos). The last thing a candidate wants to do is get utterly overpowered by a VP who speaks off the cuff and has poor discipline. Those traits, while great in insurgents candidates atop the ticket, are antithetical to what is needed on the bottom.

P.S - Just so no one thinks this is indiscriminate Dean bashing. John Kerry would also be an atrocious choice for Vice President. So would Bob Graham. Somebody/Edwards 04 baby!

A Clarification on Plame and Cheney

The comments in my previous post on the Plame Affair lead me to believe that quite a few people misunderstood my point quite drastically. Of course I want justice done, of course I want the guilty caught. But I don't believe that Scooter Libby and a buddy in Cheney's office acted alone. It's too risky for them to have done without the approval of the political department (Rove). So now, with the Administration in damage control mode and a full-bore effort underway to make this scandal end as quickly as possible, what's the Administrations' likeliest move?

Admit that some did wrong and throw them to the wolves, hopefully containing the damage and making the President and those close to him look blameless. It happened to Condi and Tenet when the Niger Scandal hit and it was done well. To keep the President from (much) damage in this situation the best thing to do is blame the Vice-President's people, that's as many degrees of separation as you can get from George and still be in the "senior official" pantheon. The worst thing we can possibly do is make the sacrifice of Libby look like our ultimate triumph. If we cry victory then, to most, the scandal will be over and the DoJ will quietly wind down their investigation.

Next, from a political standpoint, it's stupid tosupport things that hurt Cheney. I don't like the guy, but he's one of our top political assets coming into the election. With approval numbers in the 20's and ties to every special interest in the book, he's a huge, easy target for the Democratic nominee. Cheney also has a very easy way to leave the ticket. With 4 heart attacks under his belt, bowing out due to health reasons (citing the stress of the job) is very possible and very understandable. Cheney is not Bush's brain, he's his advisor. Bush is a capable, thought not extraordinary man, and he will be able to replace the unpopular guy from Wyoming. The important thing for George will be winning the next election, not governing after it. If Cheney is more of a liability than an asset, he'll be off the ticket in seconds. These calculations don't require a secret decoder ring to follow, you can be damn sure Rove and Co. are making them. If he can put Plame on Cheney, keep the damage away from Bush, and then Cheney leaves the ticket well...damn. Triple play.

The reasons I keep referring to Guiliani are twofold. First, of course, the constant rumors that he'll do so mean some on the Right are pushing the idea. Secondly, if Bush is looking weak Rove will not try and shore up the conservatives, they have nowhere to go. He'll try and grab independents and do it by highlighting 9/11. Guiliani fulfills both requirements and would love to be the heir apparent in 2008. Rove can pacify the Right no matter who the VP is, to think otherwise is to fool ourselves. If he's confident going into the election, he won't try and rock the boat with a VP switch. But if things look bad, well, Guiliani makes a heap of electoral sense. When a switch is so obviously beneficial and Bush so obviously embattled, the last thing we should do is get overconfident in Bush's inflexibility. I want to keep Cheney on the ticket, but a damaged Vice-President and a low polling President might make the unveiling of Rudy Guiliani, at the Republican convention in New York, electorally irresistible.

The Right To Fair Taxation

An idea for the eventual Democratic nominee:

No matter who's running as the Democratic nominee for president, George Bush's "uniter, not a divider" comment will run front and center

As a campaign ad, run on stories like this. In Virginia, Alabama, Ohio, and numerous other states, Republican elected officials have either presided over or advocated tax hikes totalling in the billions. You can make two ads from this.

The first would simply be a recitation of emblematic figures - Republican Senator from Virginia endorses $1 billion tax hike. Republican Governor of Alabama endorses tax hike as a Christian imperative. Republican Governor of Ohio passes 1% sales tax hike, so on and so forth. Dean's Bush Tax plan was the right idea, but with poor execution. This way, you tie the systematic deficiencies that Democrats are alleging to a bridge that crosses partisan divides. The "Bush Tax" is an idea which is true and vitally relevant, but still seems partisan in nature. Instead of portraying it as a partisan issue, portray it as an issue which crosses partisan lines and ideologies.

The second ad might be even more effective, and another takeoff on the Bush Tax Idea. Have a generic, clean cut family of four argue with the camera - middle-aged parents, kids that could be in high school or college. "The Bush tax cuts helped us a great deal. According to George W. Bush, we pay X amount less in taxes." (X would be whatever Bush declares the "average" tax cut is.)

The model would actually be the Total cereal ads. "Did you know that your average property taxes have risen X percent? On your house, that's about X number of dollars. Do your kids go to college? Tuition hikes at state schools average X percent, and increase of X percent over the Clinton era. Do you pay sales tax?" Repeat ad nauseum as the family starts looking ever more worried and uncomfortable with what's actually happened to their tax bill. Get some number crunchers on your staff, figure out the total value of tax hikes in the Bush era, and figure out the gap between Bush's tax cuts and state and local tax hikes. Whatever's left (and it won't be much) is the actual value of Bush's tax "relief".

The problem with a lot of the attacks on the Bush tax cuts is that they focus on larger structural problems that make the issue too abstract. "It cost the government several trillion dollars" is a poor counter to an issue that is framed by the Bush Administration as giving money back to individual taxpayers. Democrats need to personalize taxes like Republicans do, because that's how voters approach the issue. Intellectually, I understand that Bush's tax policies will create massive structual problems that are eventually going to have to be remedied by tax raises. But, personally, I understand that Bush says less tax, and his opponent says more taxes. Taxes are an intensely personal issue, something that Democrats have been missing out on for a long time.

Nothing Really Matters...To Me...

The current reaction in the blogosphere to the Iraq intelligence panel seems to be focused on the very likely ineptitude of its co-chairmen, former Sen. Chuck Robb and incompetent jurist Laurence Silberman. It assumes, however, that they're going to have the opportunity to botch an investigation into something important.

Here's the relevant portion of the executive order governing this investigation:

In short, it's a very thorough investigation into the figurative rectum of the CIA in particular, to figure out where the Bush Administration could have gotten those nasty WMD ideas from. It's assuming that the interpretation and usage of the intelligence was flawless - by its very nature, the investigation into the intel used in the Iraq War assumes that the use of intel by various departments is governed solely by the intelligence's quality rather than any agency on the part of the interpreters.

The outrage here isn't that we've got two incompetent/avaricious chairmen of an important investigative committee. It's that the committee is designed to be irrelevant in and of itself. What Democrats in particular should be focusing on isn't that the Congress didn't get to determine the members - it's that they had no input on the mission.

What are we going to find out a year from now? Nothing particularly important. Why aren't we going to find out what we need to know? Well, Bush is going to impanel a commission on that very question that'll find out whether or not the intelligence community made Bush impanel this irrelevant commission, and those answers will be available in December.

Janet Jackson For President

Janet Jackson's breast could not only solve our national budget deficit, but also our national unemployment problem.

In case you're wondering, she's asking for per person damages. It's estimated that at least 90 million Americans watched the Super Bowl. You do the math.

Can we stop these sorts of frivolous lawsuits? Doctor chops off the wrong leg - let's limit that to $250,000, because we can't harm the incompetent doctors. CBS accidentally airs Janet Jackson's naked breast? Billions of dollars in potential damages.

Does anyone else think that the collective damage done to our nation's youth will be forgotten as soon as the kids inevitably sneak a peek at a Playboy, a National Geographic, or the parental lock code for Cinemax?

Doubling

Tell you what: I'm tired of getting e-mails about how some people's browsers double words, or how the blogads thing is blocking out some text.

If people know how to fix this, let me know.

Givers and Takers

In the comments to my last post, Clever Nickname writes:

The L-Word

Wouldn't you love to see a nation wide ad campaign redefining "liberal"? The ads would be easy to make and suddenly, we've got our label back. The commercials themselves are blindingly obvious.

Dark background, individuals stepping forward to speak their lines:

"I believe in the 8-hour workday."

"I believe that all children deserve health care."

"I believe in social security."

"I believe in protecting our environment."

"I believe in public schools."

"I am a liberal. I am a liberal. I am a liberal."

And so forth, until the whole group is murmuring that they're liberals. I think it'd be damn effective. Here's hoping that George Soros or the MoveOn team read Pandagon.

How To Prove A Point Without Really Trying

Paul Crespo writes the silliest piece of war rationalization since Doug Feith's grocery list of terrorism charges made the rounds in the Weekly Standard.

What's so funny is that he attempts to prove that Saddam was behind 9/11 and/or the sugardaddy of Islamic terrorism, because many terrorists moving in and about the Middle East were either Iraqi or in Iraq at some point. Any bit of evidence he tries to offer above and beyond this point is largely hypothetical and/or conjecture - the only real evidence he has is that a Clinton-appointed (read: left-wing, anti-American, borderline socialist judicial activist who loves him some Hillary) judge named Harold Baer found a link between Saddam and September 11th - a link that Baer himself said was based on circumstantial evidence.

But, you see, there were terrorists moving through Iraq! And Saddam killed one of them because the guy wouldn't train more terrorists he wanted to clean up the proof that he was training terrorists!

The best thing about having Bush out of office - no more three-card monte with national security.

The Twins

The Bush twins might be taking part in their father's reelection campaign.

Well, I've never quite been a fan of the Bush twins (or, necessarily, bashing them for the dumb things they've done in college), but I do have to wonder what happens if they're put in Laura Bush positions - soft-serve interviews designed to "humanize" the president and prove that all those nasty Democratic attacks on his policies are also hurting real people. (The actual people Bush's policies have hurt, however, remain a faceless mass in the background too stupid or lazy to take advantage of the second Golden Age of American Prosperity.)

Oh, Sure

Bush's numbers may be down, and he may have a majority of people wanting to vote against him for the first time since he came into office, but he has a secret, undermeasured weapon that will propel him to victory - "Bush Democrats" who switched to him in great numbers after September 11th, lamenting the fact that their party didn't support great ideas like preventative invasion of another country in the War on Terror, despite said country having little, if anything, to do with said War on Terror.

Unfortunately for Democrats, rank-and-file Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are ironclad in Bush's corner - the dissatisfaction now will never, ever turn into votes for the Democratic candidate.

Yes, but you're counteracted by the awesome might of a handful of bloggers, Mickey Kaus, and the comedic stylings of one Mr. Dennis Miller. You have no chance to survive make your time.

Employment

This would be great. Except, you know, that whole it not being great thing.

Unemployment fell but nowhere near enough jobs were added to explain the fall in the rate - 112,000 jobs was not only tens of thousands below what was expected, but even the expected number wasn't enough to get Bush anywhere near what his tax cuts promised.

We were supposed to have 5.5 million new jobs from the passage of the tax cut through the end of 2004. In seven months, we've seen 333,000 new jobs. We were promised 306,000 new jobs each month. In seven months, he's managed to do what he was supposed to do in one month. At that rate, his sixteen-month plan for creating 5.5 million jobs should have us at that point in roughly nine years and four months from last July.

And people wonder why there's so much animus towards Bush on the economy.

He's Innocent, I Tell You!

There's a bit of celebration among the Left now that people close to Cheney are being fingered in the Plame Affair. Stop. This is the worst possible outcome. The last thing we want is for Cheney to become an election year liability, making a Bush/Guiliani ticket all the more likely. Any sort of ticket shake up will give Bush publicity, the media a new face to report on, a new person to interview, and time that they won't have to spend covering the Democrat. Cheney could take the blame before dropping out, shielding Bush from the brunt of the investigation's impact. This is bad.

Update: To answer some of the comments:

Let's not get out of control here. I certainly want whomever did this to be brought to justice. But if you were the Bush Administration and you knew this search had to turn up some bodies, who would you put into the line of fire? I'm not saying Libby didn't do it, but he might not have been the only one. The last thing we want to do is make his departure seem like the ultimate triumph, this issue needs to go beyond a sacrificial resignation. If Cheney's going to self-destruct, so be it. But it is not in our interest to help that along. When your oppnent is shooting themselves in the foot, the best thing to do is step back and watch. The worst thing to do is get involved. We need to keep the pressure on, but not get involved. This isn't our dream resolution and we don't want to hype it up as all we need or it's all we're going to get. Your dealing with an opaque presidential administration here, the likelihood of real justice is quite slim. It shocks me that those who think the Bush Administration regularly steals elections think they aren't going to try and manufacture a politically-controllable outcome to this. They will and the easiest way to keep it from the President is to put it on the vice-president.

And to those who think Bush can't survive without Cheney, please, don't begin believing your own mockery. Bush is a capable, if not extraordinary man who can live without one of his advisors. Rove will get a bigger role, someone new will come on, whatever. Rudy has been floated a number of times for that job, and it's a pairing that makes a heap of electoral sense. I know he's more moderate and less acceptable to the far-right than Bush. That doesn't really matter. Evangelicals have nowhere to go, not if they want to prevent gay marriage and fund faith-based charities. As long as Bush appearsw to support their initiatives, they'll be part of the coalition and they'll like it.

More Ezra Goodness

I've been interviewed over at North Georgia Dogma. Check it out if you're so inclined.

Shorter Lileks

This one's easy:

How dare Patrick Stewart hold opinions that differ from those of the fictional character he portrayed on Star Trek? It makes me so...so...so....ANGRY!!!!

Go to bed Gnat, Daddy's gone crazy.

Kerry's Rhetoric

John Kerry (or one of his writers) had this to say on George Tenet's remarks:

What Can Be Said?

How do you deal with dishonesty at Kaus's level?

Is there any way to vote Kaus off the media island? If so, how can the proceedings be started? He's not a journalist at this point, he's simply a hatchet-man who does nothing but decivilize and devalue our political discourse. His attacks are all ad hominem and his substantive positions virtually non-existent. Anyone got any ideas?

Who Cares?

I think Matthew Yglesias has the best take on this whole anonyblogger thing:

Good

See? People sometimes do the not-insane thing:

So Shocking

You know, I keep being told that it was wrong for Janet Jackson to seek media attention for baring her breast onstage. It must be why it's been on the news every hour since Monday, why every commentator brings up not only that her breast was bared, but the side, the piercing, the shape and material in the piercing, the exact period of time the breast was on camera, and where you can find uncensored pictures of it.

How dare Janet think that she'll get attention for doing that.

The Lines Have Been Drawn

Election 2004: Wal*Mart vs. Costco?

Scoop Of Chocolate, Scoop Of Vanilla

Is anonyblogging wrong? Short answer: no.

Long answer:

The concerns about credibility in blogging ignore the general thrust of blogging. The point of most blogging is commentary, not reporting. You look at most bloggers, anonymous or named, and they're people who bring in journalistic work from elsewhere and comment on it.

For instance, a few days ago, the Corner was posting anecdotes about John Kerry and Wesley Clark. Even there, the issue was more the validity of the information they were sharing, who sent it, and whether or not it actually happened than what the Cornerites thought of it. Most bloggers share factual information from trusted sources - if I show you a story in the New York Times about George W. Bush going off on a classroom of second-grade students in a profanity-laced tirade, it's the New York Times' credibility that's on the line more than the blogger's. It's more important that people who are giving us what they claim are factual representations of reality give us their real identities, rather than the people who comment on said factual representations.

Even if you believe that pseudonymity (and let's be clear, all of the people cited in the article are pseudonymous, not anonymous) is problematic, it ignores the fact that the use of pseudonyms still creates a consistent identity (and a consistent source of information) which can be addressed, trusted, and discredited. If, say, Digby over at Hullabaloo declares that there's an international Jewish conspiracy to keep his voice from being heard, he will be discredited immediately and roundly by virtually everyone who reads him. Hullabaloo and Digby as source and provider of information will not be respected.

I find that the people most concerned about identities in blogging are the ones who derive an air of authority from their biography. I don't care whether Glenn Reynolds or LibrulzSux04 says that Concerned Women For America is a nonpartisan organization - however, the assertion seemingly derives more weight from a law professor than it does from a guy with a haxxor name, even though it's equally wrong. Folks like Reynolds and Sullivan who are so concerned with anonymity are people who believe that their identities entitle their opinions to greater weight - which is why they're so frequently attacked on their identities, oddly enough. A resume doesn't necessarily make your opinion any more correct.

So I Creep...Yeah, Yeah

I'm torn about this idea.

I've done computer repair before, and I always made the utmost effort to stay out of people's files unless I absolutely needed to look at them (for instance, if your Microsoft Word won't work, I might look in the registries and install folders for the program). My job was to make a computer work, not to look at what you're using it for. I was told, very strictly, not to discuss what I found on anyone's computer if I discovered anything, unless it was actively illegal (for instance, suppose in the course of making your Microsoft Word work, your last document popped up, and they were plans to kill the president - that, I'd report).

On the other hand, whenever I've taken my computer in to be repaired, I obsessively remove anything on my computer that's even remotely personal. Because, although I don't think it's ethical to look at what's on someone else's computer...it's certainly not illegal if the computer was given to you, and I don't trust people I don't know not to invade my privacy.

But, I have problems giving my computer to someone who's going to be performing an extensive FBI check on it, particularly when the guidelines are likely to be looser than I might like. I have thousands of MP3s on my computer - but they're all from CDs I own (seriously!). The ACLU has this right: what the FBI is asking for is a fishing expedition, pure and simple.

This oversteps the boundary of asking computer repair shop owners and workers for help in investigating specific cybercrimes to asking them to investigate all of their customers as if they already were criminals. This, to me, steps over the line, particularly since the suggestion appears to be that it's okay to look for files you wouldn't normally find in the course of your repair work.

I suppose a way to ameliorate this would be for repair people to draft an agreement with each customer that would either allow or prohibit access to software as well as hardware. I'm not sure entirely how it would work, but I'm simply not comfortable with the idea that bringing my system in for a hardware cleaning could result in me being investigated for music piracy.

By Any Other Name, It's Not A Recession

If the Dayton Daily News is any bellwether, the new line is that the recession started in February 2000...because that's when the stock market started falling. If anyone else sees something like this a local paper or editorial, let me know. It's a bit too suspicious that there's two comments about this today.

Employment

Okay...the number of unemployment claims surged, as worker productivity decreased. Long story short, we have one indicator that says that employment should be rising (the productivity), and one indicator that says it isn't.

Well, congrats to the extra 19,000 jobless who couldn't take advantage of all of our soaring economic indicators. By the way, any bets as to how many jobs the rebounding economy created in January?

Oh, God

Oh...God.

Before I quote any piece of this mess, I need to summarize it for you: Peggy saw a Michael Jackson show taping on September 8, 2001. Then, September 11, 2001 happened. And Peggy was full of hope that September 11th really was the day that changed everything. And then, more than two years later, two seasons of American Idol, Paris Hilton, Britney and Madonna, Joe Millionaire, Liza and David, Ben and Jennifer, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gary Coleman for Governor, the publication of not one but two Ann Coulter bromides...it's Janet Jackson's breast that causes her to lament the loss of the post-September 11th seriousness this nation had adopted.

First, can anyone tell me what in God's name this overreaction to Timberlake is about? EVIL?

Goofy? Yes. Confused? Yes. A wee bit out of sorts? Sure. But evil? There's a reaction, an overreaction, a hysterically insane reaction, and then there's calling Justin Timberlake evil, which is so far off the scale of sensical reaction that one needs to go to exponentials to be expressed in any meaningful sense.

Anyway, as I've pointed out, the "pre 9/11 freak show" never actually stopped. I wish there was a compendium of all the things that supposedly ended on September 11th that are still around and kicking.

Was there a problem with Janet Jackson planning nudity into her Super Bowl act? Yes. Was it a great cultural schism that's set to remind us of where we truly stand as Americans and reshape our culture into one that doesn't reward shameless self-promotion for indoctrination into the cult of celebrity?

Well, after 2/1, everything's changed. Everything.

...Anyone have any thoughts about Survivor: All-Stars tonight?

Refusal To Uphold Miranda

Bill Frist is set to receive the resignation of his top aide on judicial nominees, Manuel Miranda. If anyone needs a refresher (although I don't see why not, considering that this story has been on the news so incredibly much) Miranda is the staffer who was in charge of the crusade for the veritable handful of judges the Democratic Party was blocking, and who was also the first to step up and create the lame excuse that's been in front of this since it broke: because there was a problem with the server, they were allowed to access the documents, and there's no "property right" to federal documents.

I have to say, Orrin Hatch is starting to redeem himself on this. He's been consistent and principled about investigating this, and he's not bowing to the Trent Lotts of his party who want to make this about the perfectly legal advice Democrats received from activist groups. Good job, Orrin. And I almost hope for Miranda's sake that he's not arrested for doing anything wrong.

That's only because nobody will be able to resist the "Miranda getting read his Miranda rights" crack for at least two days. (It's more because they're completely unoriginal, Manuel, but still. Stay out of trouble. Although, I guess it's too late at this point.)

Betting the Farm

Wow. The Dean Campaign is publicly putting it all on Wisconsin. They're leaving no doors open, it will either be their triumph or their final defeat. From their latest E-Mail:

They won't, however, be alone:

Dogs Refusing To Hunt And Whatnot

I'm really surprised - when the Democratic spokesperson says that Ed Gillespie's line of attack is old and tired...he's telling the absolute truth.

This is the baseline of every Republican campaign...since Nixon, I think. As long as Ed Gillespie (who's not a particularly effective salesman even when he's got an effective pitch) is tossing this one around, it means that Republicans haven't actually come up with a strategy for Kerry. Unless, of course, the idea is to run Dukakis '88 again. Even then, you still need actual ideas and actions to fill in the game of GOP Mad Libs.

Too Easy

The G-Philes, that site whose mission statement reads "Promoting an awareness, love and general obsession for the National Review Online and its editor-at-large Jonah Goldberg", wants some:

On the scorecard so far, we're not as nerdy as Jonah is and we're more obsessed with him than his fan blog. Gentlemen, set your phasers on "retarded".

The G-Philes should be glad to know that we rarely mock Jonah for his spelling, we usually go after his inane political commentary, ridiculous opinions and insane metaphors. But there are just those days when you want to pick the low hanging fruit. Like if I wanted to poke you for being a Jonah Goldberg fan site defending him as the trekkiest treky who ever trekked. But that would just be too easy.

Russert On Bush On NBC

Bush is set to appear on Meet the Press this Sunday, and I only have two questions for Tim Russert:

1.) What are you going to ask him?

2.) How much of it will be supplied by the RNC?

I used to really like Tim Russert. He seemed like a tough, fair questioner who could hardball even the strongest political operative into giving up something. The problem with him now isn't that he's necessarily doing anything wrong...but that I can't shake the feeling he is every time that I watch him.

Vote In The Box, Son

Diebold systems are secure.

100% secure.

There is no way they could be broken into.

Ever.

Our votes are 100% safe.

Go out, my people. Vote.

The Emperor Has No Armor

But if he did, this would be a dent in it.

Israeli intelligence is now claiming it knew before the war both that the "45 minutes" claim and the claim that Saddam was actively maintaining WMD were false.

Amazingly, the further you go with this intelligence brouhaha, the more it starts to sound the same.

God Sent Me To You, After That I'm Not Sure

I'm always amazed when I read about folks like Tim LaHaye, one of the coauthors of Bad American Theology series Left Behind. First, to see the sheer amount of unseen influence they have on the political process:

Is there such a kingmaker on the left? Especially one people think of in such a (relatively) apolitical light? LaHaye is thought of as an author, and as a theologian/eschatologist. But, for all the talk of how the Hollywood liberals or the New England media elite (or the Clintons) or any of a various number of other groups must absolutely be appeased in order for a Democrat to gain office, is there any group that's as legitimately organized and crucial to a candidate gaining office as the religious right is to Republicans?

LaHaye also runs into one of the major problems of political eschatologists:

One wonders how an American-occupied Iraq fits into this interpretation...will the next leader of Iraq then be the Antichrist? Kofi Annan? Who?

I've read a lot of specific, politically-tinted end-times material, and I always run into the same question: none of this actually happened, and none of it could happen now, so why do people keep believing it? I'm sure everyone remembers The Late Great Planet Earth, the precursor to the fictionalized prophesy of the Left Behind.

It, and the books similar to it, are a mix of cultural inveighing and political tea-leaf reading, a pattern that often leaves authors embarassed in retrospect. The big issue is that, of course, the apocalypse has to be close enough to make the specific prophecy worth reading, but far enough away (generally) that it can be read and potentially draw in Christians. Now, the best way to appeal to moral and spiritual fears, as well as political ones, is to play upon the Great Enemy as the agent of theological fulfillment. It was the Soviet Union up until that fell, then it was China for a while, LaHaye's Iraq fixation (the Bible...as written by Laurie Mylroie!), and I'm sure that the next iteration will focus on how terrorists are the faceless agents of the Antichrist.

Why would you keep preaching explicit interpretations of the Christian apocalypse when it never works? I'm sure someone was standing in England in 1066 declaring that William the Conqueror was the Antichrist, and I'm sure there have been thousands of potential Antichrists (every pope, every conqueror of every country, various Presidents, celebrities, dog walkers...you know the deal), and as it turns out, none of them were born of a jackal or tattooed with the number of the Antichrist, 666.

But, you keep telling people they should be scared, and there's going to be some scared people.

See? See what I was saying! I was right!

Why aren't more people connected with Moon outed? I mean, a borderline psychotic, anti-everyone Messiah figure with a penchant for cultish behavior, deep ties to the Republican Party and billions of dollars isn't just a story, but a STORY.

Note also that LaHaye later returns to extreme prominence in the party. I guess this was after everyone realized that Moon was A-OK.

If the books are any indication, he'd undergo a series of contrived personal events while a series of similarly contrived world events happened, and the flight attendant would go on to become the Antichrist's footstool and sometimes sex-toy.

What, that isn't what you think about on flights?

Let me add to this: an assault on common sense so unrepentant that one is virtually forced to give up to the books' relentless idiocy in order to preserve a semblance of sanity after the last page is thankfully and mercifully completed.

Think that'll get me quoted?

And...LaHaye is nuts. Although, to be honest, he is simply the descendant of a long line of nuts.

But, still nuts. By the way, I still haven't received my refund on my Illuminati fees. Have any of you? Cheap pricks.

Pizza Party USA

Best. Idea. Ever.

Evangelical Strategy

I started to write a rebuttal to this column on God's feelings on federal spending and realized, midway, that something was wrong. You can't hit back at these sentiments, you can't factually attack policies based upon the proclamations of scripture, you're just arguing from such vastly different assumptions that there's no ground linking you and your opponent.

In a normal argument, there's a bridge between the two positions. Usually, that bridge is empirical reality, if you can factually prove someone wrong, then they're wrong. When you move into values this bridge breaks down because you can't prove anything, it's entirely subjective. Even so, you can usually go after the root of the values which tends to be based on, again, empirical reality. Though the subjective experience of empirical reality is usually responsible for the values, sometimes you can prove said experience to be atypical or incompatible with the issue.

When you begin dealing with faith-based arguments, there simply is no bridge. If one participant's argument is "God said" and the other participant doesn't believe in God, or at least not in this God, then there's simply nowhere to take the debate. There's just no way to reconcile the two views because there is no common ground between them. You can argue off of scripture but the Bible is notorious for supporting every argument in 10 ways, and so that quickly leads to nowhere. So where can we go with arguments like this? It seems damaging to our country to have to appeal to the Old Testament in order to support our policies, how will that make Muslims and Buddhists feel? Can we just appeal to values and hope that does the trick? Or is it time to make the argument for keeping faith out of public life? Is that even an argument that can be made? Should we ignore it altogether?

To wit, what is the strategy for bringing peoply like Brian Chilton into the Democratic tent?

The Party of Daddy

The current dominance of Republicans relies on one, and only one, thing. It's not tax cuts that unite the party, not Medicare spending, not deficit spending, not environmental regulations, not steroids in athletics and not gays who want to marry. What unites the party is being Daddy. Look around the blogs, check out the thoughtful conservatives writing in the papers, they admit that Bush's domestic agenda is rotten to the core. But what are they proud of? Iraq. Afghanistan. The War on Terror. Everything is secondary to kicking ass. And that, right now, is the secret of the Republicans.

When you need someone to take Osama out to the woodshed, you elect a Republican. When you need to get serious, you elect a Republican. When you're done having fun with interns and giving people free money, when times are tough, you elect a Republican. They are the party of responsibility.

It's time to take that back. We neutralize that message, that perception, then Bush can speak about 9/11 as much as he wants. The emotional connection to the tragedy won't elect him, it is the trust that came from steering our country through an attack once. If we are trusted to be tough about our nation's problems, then our natural advantages on education, the economy, fighting for the middle class and health care will win the election for us.

It'd be hard to take the mantle of responsibility away from the Republicans on national security. Al Franken's writings aside, the public perception of Republicans is that they are tough and responsible on protecting the country and changing that perception is beyond our current abilities. Luckily, we don't have to.

Domestically, Bush is the most irresponsible president in memory. He promises everything and sacrifices nothing. He blows up our deficit and weakens our dollar (remember, this is about perception). He gives tax cuts and Medicare entitlements, he repeals revenue sources while increasing our expenditures. He's blatantly irresponsible and therein lies our opening. If he won't make tough choices on domestic matters, how can we trust him to do right on national security?

Democrats are scared to be rhetorically responsible. That's mainly due to Mondale running around and gleefully declaring that he was going to raise taxes. That's a bit more responsible then this country can take. But George already has a storyline we can fit him into, people know he's not too engaged, not too bright, not too prepared for this job. We merely have to fill in the details. So let's tell them:

You can't have tax cuts AND new entitlements AND wars AND more tax cuts AND the repeal of the estate tax AND huge education spending AND go to Mars. It doesn't add up, it's not how adults manage money. We can do much of it. We can have health care, we can have targeted cuts, we can make schools better and protect our nation. But we can't be irresponsible with our money because it is our children who will pay for it. In 5 years, the first of the Boomers will retire. If we don't stop acting foolishly with our money, social security will collapse. Medicare will follow. Efforts to contain the damage will lead to far higher taxes and terrible economic distress. We can keep that from happening now, but to do so, we need Democrats to step back in and restore fiscal order.

We can't give schools mandates and then refuse to fund them. That is disgraceful behavior and our children pay the price. We can give Americans health care but we're going to need to repeal some of the tax cuts. We can protect our nation and enhance homeland security, but not if we're spending hundreds of billions on going to Mars. We can bring the deficit under control, we can bring the dollar back up, we simply have to be responsible with our money. Like Clinton was. Like Bush isn't. Like we are. Like they aren't.

Responsibility is a transferrable value. Being tough on fiscal policy allows us to adopt the same tone on matters of national security. Irresponsibility is a transferrable value as well. Being irresponsible on fiscal policy makes one look irresponsible in general, the question is can we shake people's faith in Bush enough to negate his advantage on national security? Absolutely. The ongoing commission looking into our fraudulent intelligence will make the gap a very small one to bridge indeed. Better yet, our likely candidate is well placed to highlight the President's failings and the Democrat's strength.

Kerry is peculiarly well suited to this strategy as he has the toughest fiscal record of just about any senate democrat. He was voting for balanced budget bills and spending constraints far before Clinton made it the Democratic thing to do (he was for balanced budgets before they were cool!). His credentials as a war hero will help establish the threshold credibility Americans need to trust him on national security. From there, Kerry is thoughtful and well versed on foreign policy, his gravitas and reasoned demeanor should create a positive contrast with Bush's cowboy-ish, more reckless persona. He looks, and acts, responsible. He did the responsible thing during Vietnam and fought with valor, he then did the responsible thing and followed his heart to try and stop the endless bloodshed. He did the responsible thing during the Securities scandals (implicating Democrats as well as Republicans) and in driving Iran-Contra. He's had a life full of making tough, and correct choices. Responsible choices. The contrast with Bush is too obvious to miss and too good to pass up.

How It Is

William Saletan has the best analysis I've seen of where the Primary currently stands. Check it out, it's really worthwhile.

Start Up The Band...Again

Once again proving that the British are ahead of us on this whole intelligence flap, one of the intelligence officers involved is getting to the true heart of the matter: regardless of accusations of "sexing up" the intelligence, or whatever other sundry accusations are flying around, Blair and Bush used intelligence over the warnings of advisors and experts.

This is the issue. Use whatever words you want, debate however many other issues you want to bring up - there were strong and consistent voices warning both of these leaders that the case they made for war was based on potentially faulty (or even absolutely faulty) information.

I'm also surprised that none of the major candidates have tied this into a commentary on Bush's leadership. Plain and simple, there wasn't an institional intelligence problem. The people in charge are not showing the wisdom necessary to assess and confront the threats that face us, and the voluntary conflict in Iraq is proof positive of that.

It's simple. Use it!

Star Trek, Misinterpretation, and "Cheap Shots"

Jonah Goldberg, who seems to think that calling someone a "traitorous crapweassel" (sic) is serious, high-minded debate, responds to my critique of his bizarre attack on Star Trek.

There's really not a whole lot here to respond to. He does the whole "deeply conservative" stick and shuffle, makes reference to the original Star Trek being a morality tale against Communism (which I don't necessarily disagree with, but which is really besides the point), and then, says this:

To clarify for Jonah, by moving the words into a more accessible pattern for his interpretation: "As it headed into space, a technologically advanced humanity had unified." In other words, as Stewart recommended, humanity had solved many of its earthly problems and unified under the common banner of the Federation before heading out on interstellar voyages. Which, incidentally, would completely negate Jonah's argument.

I'm still amazed that a man who refers to other people as "traitorous crapweassels" (sic) and talked yesterday at length about which corpses he would defile, given the chance, can refer to anyone else as "sophomoric".

In other words, Jonah, don't try to pull yourself out of the mud when you filled in the ditch in the first place, m'kay?

P.S. - Jonah doesn't like me, and just pulled the "you don't have enough qualifications to criticize me" card. Sigh.

Silly

I'm now in a remarkably silly argument with Jonah Goldberg over whether or not Al Franken "sucker-tackled" a guy, "simply because he thought he could".

I've pointed out to Jonah that the full report says that Franken and several others had already been assaulted by the heckler, making concerns over "sucker tackling" irrelevant. When you assault someone, retaliation ceases to be unexpected or surprising.

Bipartisan

I'm watching this guy parrot all of the brand new, shiny conservative talking points on Iraq - including the contradictory viewpoints that we moved the WMD to Syria because it's buried in the desert in Iraq.

The blatant historical revisionism of war supporters is mendacious, dishonest, and dangerous. More than that, however, it shows the overwhelming desire to reclaim rhetorical control over the entire issue.

The current line is that despite all the complaints of the pro-war camp about the obstructionism and reticence of the CIA and other intelligence agencies, they were the ones who led those in charge to believe that Iraq posed a threat. It's another contradiction in terms, but these are par for the course.

What's interesting is that this is quickly (although failingly) moving towards the same line of justification that buffetted George Bush through the first few months of the War on Terror: WMD, like terrorism, could theoretically be anywhere at anytime. Since we can neither prove they exist or don't exist, we must assume that they could exist and that they could be...anywhere.

I'm really curious to see where this whole defense of the Bush team goes. At this point, contrary to reality, the contention seems to be that the problem, which really isn't a problem yet because we can't be sure, is actually everyone else's fault. It's transparently silly...but so was the case for the war even when they were contending it was 100% accurate.

Where's My Underoos?

Psst...don't tell Jonah that Lynda Carter thinks star-spangled granny panties aren't the height of fashion.

First of all, his name is Patrick Stewart. Second of all, Star Trek revolved around one major philosophy: secularistic utopianism. In fact, a lot of Star Trek focused by and large on the idea that a technologically advanced humanity had unified as it headed into space, and the great conflicts came between interstellar races (more accurately species) governed by planetary single-system governments and/or coexisting multilateral factions.

In fact, if you look at most of the conflicts on Star Trek, they come from the fact that various systems of governance and/or governing attitudes are fundamentally flawed, usually in terms of aggression (Romulans, Klingons, Cardassians) or avarice (Ferengi). Humans/the Federation were the de facto lawkeepers of the universe because they either didn't have or had overcome the fundamental flaws that governed other species' behavior.

I guess the question is, did Jonah watch Star Trek? Or learn how to spell "weasel"? One 's', my man.

All Or Nothing

Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that in order to satisfy their previous ruling, only legal gay and lesbian marriage is suitable - meaning that Massachusetts can't pass some sort of cropped civil union act and call it marriage.

Unfortunately, however, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and my state apparently got the luck of the draw.

My Apologies, Good Sir

Nice to see that civility is still alive and well among Washington State Republicans.

Cemented

Joe Lieberman's drop out (and go away) speech last night was one of the most disgraceful things I've seen in a long time. From Salon:

What I hate about this article (and most of the reaction to Lieberman's campaign from the talking heads) is that it didn't have to do with his relative conservatism or "centrism" - it had to do with the fact that in a year where voters wanted a strong Democratic response to the Republican Party, regardless of relative political orientation, Joe was offering a series of implicit and explicit criticisms of the entire Democratic Party. Every other candidate ran a populist campaign of sorts, appealing towards the fact that they were running a campaign of Democrats, by Democrats, for America.

Joe's response was to say that everyone else was a fringe nutcase and that most Democrats (not just candidates, but their supporters) were out of touch with "the mainstream", despite his support in the party being somewhere in the single digits.

For all the talk of Dean's angry, negative campaigning, Joe Lieberman ran the most unrelentingly negative campaign - against the Democratic Party. I'm glad he's gone. I don't care where he stands politically, he was a bad representative for the national Democratic Party.

Lethal As Ever

This story paints a depressing operational picture of the Iraq theater. Even after the capture of Hussein, the insurgents have actually gotten more efficient and deadly, and on of the officers brings up a rather poignant question: how are we going to know that we've "won" in Iraq, now that the fight is against a loose and anonymous insurgency?

Dat Cray-zay Nixon!

Courtesy of William Safire, we find that Richard Nixon is in purgatory, not because of the whole Watergate thing, or those pesky bombings in Southeast Asia...but for price controls.

Well, I rung up Harry Truman on his landline in Heaven (he said don't call on his cell before noon), and he and I discussed this article.

Q: What do you think of this Safire article?

HST: It's, ah...sort of silly. I was talking to Jesus the other day, and he was telling me that in purgatory you only get pagers with text messaging. If Nixon was on a cell phone...well, he was a sneaky one, wasn't he?

Q: What do you think of what Nixon said about Kerry and Edwards?

HST: I like both of these guys, honestly. Kerry's sort of boring, but he's not Dole. Kerry just looks sort of old. Dole was weird. Dole did that whole "Bob Dole" thing. And Norm McDonald played him on Saturday Night Live. I'd take Dennis Miller playing me before that schmuck.

Q: Do you think the trial lawyer thing could sink Edwards?

HST: Only if he was a complete and utter dipshit about the whole thing. If Bush or Cheney brought it up, all Edwards would have to do is pull out one of those Reagan stories about someone who was grievously injured by some heartless corporate entity, and who he got compensation for. The tort reform thing's a loser against an actual trial lawyer...mainly because it's already stupid.

Q: Do you think anyone could match Bush on national security gravitas?

HST: My little admiral could beat Bush on gravitas. Someone explain to me how you could elect a guy with no national security experience and say that he's faced the past few years well, and then turn around and tell me that you can't elect a guy with no national security experience because he won't be able to do the same thing the other guy did. My head's up in the clouds, but it's sure as hell not up my ass.

Q: What about this whole "crisis" theory?

HST: Bush has a problem. He's set himself up as the great protector of America, as have his partisans. The entire illusion of his presidency is built on the idea that after September 11th, he put the entire terrorist community on warning, and he won't let anyone attack us again. He's only got a few potential "surprises" or "crises" that'll mean anything, and unless one of them is tromping into a debate with bin Laden trussed up behind him in a cage, not many of them are going to be good for him.

Q: So, you going for anyone in the primaries or the general election?

HST: The Democratic Party. I fought the Nazis, and I fought the Communists. I've fought real threats, and Bush wouldn't know a danger to America if it came up and bit him on his 7-minute-mile ass.

Q: Thank you for your time.

HST: No problem. You know how to play canasta?

Q: Nope.

HST: Ah, well. Talk to you later.

What's Going On Here?

This advertisement was above my Sitemeter stats:

Fine and well and good, the RNC is making an ass of itself. But when I click to it, it doesn't go to the RNC. It goes to Yahoo Hotjobs. And it occurs to me that no one, including the RNC, has much reason to attack Dean at the moment. So what is going on here, who's paying for these ads and why are they attributed to the RNC when they go to Yahoo?

I see few possibilities:

Other campaigns won't be responsible, at least not directly. Saying this is the RNC's if it isn't is blatantly illegal, none would risk that.

It could be the RNC's, but why does it go to Yahoo? Is the link simply malfunctioning? Is it unconnected to the advertisement> Does Yahoo hate Dean? What is going on here?

Because I Said So

Andrew Sullivan dishes:

Please submit your answer in essay format and with the appropriate citations. Thanks.

The View From Bizarro Land

If I were the Corner, what would I see?

Joesanity

More "Joe" puns per square foot than in anything else that's ever been written.

Primary Results

Wolf Blitzer: "I'm just filling time until polls close, because polls are closed after they closed and I like closing things South Carolina is closed and John Edwards won! Let's go to the reporters in the field."

So, uh Edwards won SC. And Candy Crowley doesn't understand how to use the word "blog".

Dammit. Nothing even happens until 8:00. I look forward to another 48 minutes worth of Jeff Greenfield and Bill Schneider peddling strange electoral theories that aren't borne out.

Judy Woodruff says we haven't heard about issues on the campaign trail. Maybe she hasn't.

Why is it that so many think that black people only hang out in churches?

Question about populism: when has a candidate ever said they don't care about voters' issues?

Lieberman's in a virtual four-way tie for third in South Carolina. He's just near the bottom range of that tie...

Bill Schneider: Black people aren't a bloc vote, as is obvious by the fact that they voted for one black guy in 1988 but didn't vote for another black guy in 2004. Keep in mind that this is the same guy who said that if you didn't count black votes, Democrats would be a hopeless minority party.

Okay, so the story until more results come in is that Al Sharpton hasn't run Jesse Jackson's 1988 campaign. Sigh.

Kerry has won Missouri and Delaware, 3-way tie in Oklahoma, they know nothing of North Dakota.

Damn. Edwards may win Oklahoma based on the Barry Switzer vote. Maybe the eventual Democratic nominee can get Roger Staubach to stump in Texas. Of course, I have no idea if he's a Democrat...

A Funeral For A Friend

MENTUM, Joe-.

Joementum, the nascent political “momentum” of Joseph Lieberman’s faltering political campaign, died today. It was nearly four weeks old.

The cause was being too successful, said a campaign spokesperson who refused to be named, photographed, or, in fact, referenced in this articles. Screw you, Bill.

Jomentum had, according to Mr. Lieberman, “taken over the political landscape, pushing us onward and upward.” Mr. Lieberman even claimed that Joementum gave him a “virtual” third-place finish, despite ending up several thousand votes and three percentage points behind his nearest competitor, Sen. John Edwards (D-NC).

After his decidedly non-stunning loss in Delaware, anemic or nonexistent results in eight other contests, lagging behind every major candidate in every race in every state in which he considered himself competitive, and garnering the only major attention of his campaign by being supposedly shunned by former Vice President Al Gore.

“Joementum will live on!” shouted Lieberman at a poorly attended rally in Mesa, AZ. It is, however, very much dead.

Oh, Bill Thomas

Rep. Bill Thomas (R-CA) is on Lou Dobbs being extolled for his non-Pollyannish virtues.

This, shortly after Thomas comments that we can grow our way out of the deficit by making the tax cuts permanent. He's also managing to answer all of Lou Dobbs' questions by answering with an economic figure that has nothing to do with the question.

"This economy isn't creating jobs. How do we solve that?"

"We need to support the president as best we can by restraining spending, Lou. Then, we'll see people add one person, two people here and there."

Republicans are seen to be credible on the economy largely because they give out lots of tax-cut ice cream, and otherwise garrison horrible economic arguments with various references to complicated-sounding figures and phenomena that people otherwise tune out.

Either that, or they secretly own the Hypnotoad.

Poll Interpretation

Something to chew on before the election results start pouring in: the results of the last USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll. We've all heard about Bush's historically low approval, his getting beaten by John Kerry (and potentially by John Edwards), but there's other numbers that underly those results - and which are very bad for Bush and the Republican Party.

The most important area is the set on policy approval. On the economy, foreign policy, Iraq, and healthcare, Bush's policies are disapproved of by a majority of Americans. Every major area in 2004, and a year out, the majority of Americans aren't agreeing with the incumbent's platform.

The other interesting bit was on party approval - what do voters think of the two major political parties?

Democrats: 59 Favorable, 34 Unfavorable.

Republicans: 48 Favorable, 45 Unfavorable.

None of this is good for the national Republican Party.

Weird Question

Did "Jenny (867-5309)" recently have some sort of copyright or licensing coverage lapse? It's everywhere now.

Whoa

Damn...Edwards is kicking ass. Is there anyway he can be the nominee and then, once he wins, let Kerry take the first two years of the Presidency? Sort of an apprenticeship type thing?

Can Kerry Be Populist?

How can John Kerry become a populist? After all, his upbringing was about as privileged as Bush's, his ancestry just as aristocratic. So how can he claim to be fighting against the favoritism of the rich without appearing a hypocrite?

I see an easy answer. Think back to what Clinton kept telling us about Bush's tax cuts. This was after he was President, after he'd started raking it in from speeches. He said the cuts would benefit rich folks like him, people who didn't need them. Instead of simply decrying them with no mention of their affects on his bank account, he embraced his privileged position and used it make his argument.

Kerry needs to do the same. He needs to fully embrace his upbringing. In the debates I want to see him turn to Bush and admit: "You and I, we were both born on third. You think you hit a triple while I realize I was there only by providence, but we come from the same place. The difference between us is that I want every child to have the same opportunities we did. And that is why I am calling for a true Opportunity Society, not for some children, but for all children."

And so forth. By admitting his class similarities to Bush, he forces Bush into either justifying his privileged status or admitting that change is needed. Regardless, by holding the opportunities he's had aloft for all to see, Kerry makes our society's inequalities starker; and by calling for reform without denying how much he has benefitted, he comes off as a social crusader rather than a hypocrite.

Exit Polls

Interesting.

Edwards could win two states, be a strong contender in Missouri...and Joementum is dead - he's not only losing Delaware, but he's getting mutilated. Dean could potentially pick up delegates in three states (out of the five state results given).

If these results hold up, I think Lieberman drops out, it officially becomes a two-way battle, and Dean and Clark are left scrambling for delegates.

It's Time To Overreact

While still in the midst of the whole corpse-mutilation saga (I swear, sometimes the Corner is eerily reminiscent of what would happen if you hotboxed AEI), Tim Graham refers to Janet Jackson's bare breast as one of "the seediest corners of the adult world". In a world where the three biggest non-political stories are a rape trial, a pedophilia trial, and a murder trial with wall-to-wall coverage, a naked boobie is the seediest thing "the adult world" has to offer.

Meanwhile, John Derbyshire is giggling over exploded whales and Conquerors. I swear to God, I could not make this up if I tried.

A National Party

The South is beginning to look like the Sarlacc Pit for Democrats. To try and win it, to try and contest it, to try and represent it is a foolhardy task whose only meaningful result will be the destruction of energies the candidate could have spent elsewhere and thus, the loss of the election we could have won with 30 more minutes in Ohio. It'll draw us in and chew us up, a President will never emerge.

When we give up on the South we lose something important, we lose the opportunity to be a national party. Zell Miller is a traitor, a turncoat a Republican, but he has it right in one respect. If we give up on the South, if we consciously allow our national face to play only in certain regions, we are no longer a national party.

All politics are local, except presidential politics. John Breaux and Barbara Boxer could very well be of different planets, their alliance under one banner is more an admission of our two party system than a unity based upon shared values. As far as they go, there are two Democratic parties, and possibly many more in between. Same goes for Republicans, an understanding of why Orrin Hatch and John McCain inhabit the same party does not come easily and it never gets logical. California's Republican Party is vastly different than Alabama's while South Carolina's Democratic Party has little in common with New York's. The only time that the Parties get the chance to create a national face, to define (even if dishonestly) their national agenda is in the presidential elections. For that reason it is critical, absolutely critical, that we don't give up on the South. We don't have to win it, in fact, we just cannot pander to it, we simply have to contest it.

Being a "national party" is not an theoretical idea nor an electoral abstract, how many states you win has no bearing on it. Instead, it relies on your willingness to put your message out to a national audience, your belief that you can represent South Carolina as well as California. Republicans clearly do. Though Bush puts a dishonest face on his party, he does so in order to assure Americans that the Republican Party is one they should feel comfortable with over all. Democrats don't, we do everything but admit we've lost the South. Problem is, while we're talking electoral math, we're simultaneously proving the Republican's argument that our values are out of touch with Southern ones, we are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

By competing in the South as a national party, even if we know we're going to lose it, we win a victory that is important well beyond the election. First, we assure Southerners that we don't dislike or look down upon them. This combats the impression of inevitable republican dominance. Second, we avoid the dissonance formed when the Party that stands up for minorities and the working class cedes their home states. Third, we might fucking win.

Either our values are right or they're wrong. But if we can speak of John Edward's' Two Americas, of Amer'ca's Two Americas, while refusing to be drawn into the values battle, there's no reason we shouldn't come out on top. It's true that the social mores of the South line up with the Republican Party better than the Democratic Party, but that discussion should take but a moment. We need to frame the debate; rather than let them draw us into the values argument, let us force them onto the ground of class warfare. Let's talk about the tax cuts, the crumbling schools, the lack of teachers. We need to talk about the lives of Americans and not the lives of homosexuals. Poverty cares little about who you fuck.

Clinton didn't win just because he was a Southerner, he won because he spoke to Southerners. He ended the days when Democrats defended their position of the death penalty and forced Republicans to defend theirs on the economy. Clinton would have lost the values debate in a moment, everyone knew he was an adulterer. But he spoke of overcrowded classrooms and, suddenly, audiences cared less about what the tabloids were reporting.

It's time we do the same. Dean began this discussion, he should get all the credit in the world for it. But he won't be the one to finish it. If Edwards is our nominee than we know it's going to be said. But Goddammit Kerry, you're a war hero, an American hero. It's time to stop talking about Washington and start talking about South Carolina. In this election, the one who wins will be the candidate who stops talking about DC and the people there, and begins talking about Missouri and the people there. And Wyoming and the people there. And Ohio and the people there. And Colorado and the people there. When running against an incumbent President who clears brush from his ranch on vacation, you need more than a national party. You need a national candidate.

Ah, The Intellectual Backbone Of Conservatism

How come we never do anything fun like talk about all the dead people we'd like to hang? Come on! We all must have some bizarre and overwrought personal pathologies that will make themselves well known as we discuss corpse desecration.

It's what all the cool kids are doing...

Critically Wrong

Glenn Reynolds:

He quotes a Melanie Phillips article that makes the same point Charles Krauthammer did a few days ago. As I pointed out then, and as I'll remind everyone now, the ricin in question was produced in an Ansar al-Islam plant in Kurdish-controlled Iraq.

There was ricin in Iraq...but Saddam didn't have it.

Reviews by the Haters

The Washington Post has James Pinkerton review Eric Alterman's new book, "The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America".

He gives it a thorough drubbing. Sucks, right? Could have been a good book.

Not so fast. James Pinkerton is a Newsday columnist and hard conservative who:

The Post is an influential paper whose political book reviews should be second to none. They can, and should, be better than this.

Say What?

Reading this, it is clear to me that our children isn't learning.

Shorter Drudge Report

Boobie, boobie, nipple, boobie, FCC boobie, some boobie boob, and, in related news, breasticle.

Terror Attack, American Soil, You Know The Drill

Does this count as a "terrorist attack on domestic soil" now?

And I just wanted to point this out before I go to bed: Dennis Miller's show is already in reruns.

Politicization

David Brooks has come to a novel conclusion, proving once and for all that novelty is vastly overrated.

You see, there's been an investigation into whether or not the Bush Administration pressured intelligence agencies to exaggerate the threat that Iraq posed. Now, a more interesting and relevant editorial would have been whether that was the proper question to ask (short answer: no; long answer: they had an intelligence chop-shop called the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon that took all the available Iraq intelligence and formed it into a highly selective picture that heightened the importance of the intelligence that formed an Iraq threat while dampening the intelligence that contradicted the assertion), but instead we get this decidedly off-key musing about why we need to put more political hacks in charge of our intelligence gathering.

Long story short, Brooks blames the bad intelligence on a CIA that's too "scientific". After several vague and tenuous assertions about the CIA's worldview being too cold and technocratic to understand how evil and bad some things are (this, of course, not being the point of intelligence-gathering), we end up with this gem:

Brooks wants intelligence rethought - as anger, politics and "intuition", an idea so laughably awful it makes me wonder if anyone could take the Republican Party seriously after reading this mess.

With the examples he provides, we're supposed to somehow believe that putting more "individuals" in charge of intelligence (what this is supposed to mean, exactly, is anyone's guess) would allow us to predict "irrational" events. How someone with "intuition, experience and a feel for the landscape of reality" is any different than a CIA analyst is a very sharp distinction that Brooks has forgotten to let us in on, but apparently this ideal intelligence analyst would be able to look at the same information that a CIA analyst would have, and be able to predict things which are, by their very nature, unpredictable. I don't know if the individuals in question are a part of the Psychic Network, but this is blind faith masquerading as a serious suggestion.

Brooks argues for irrational intelligence, an emotional and nonsensical appeal designed to play on the worst of conservative populist principles - the idea that professionals really aren't doing anything you or I couldn't do, and that specialization and training are merely masks to prevent an elite from being in "real" competition with "common sense" ideas. What Brooks is proposing isn't a change in the way intelligence is gathered or assessed; what Brooks is proposing is that the focus and purpose of intelligence be altered to fit the presuppositions of people who neither know nor care how intelligence information is properly processed.

We already did that with the Iraq war. Let's not do it again. The intelligence community has problems, notably in execution and organizational structure. But Brooks wants someone who will take the exact same information that CIA analysts have, apply a lens of preordained conclusion to it, and assume that all available information either supports their viewpoint, or is wrong.

Bad idea, Dave. We can have one massive "intelligence failure", or, if you have your way, we can have a dozen.

That There's Some Gooood Bigotry

My Girlfriend's home state of Kansas is really making a name for itself in the field of anti-homosexual court rulings:

Via: Metafilter

Posting Tomorrow

I'm going to be light-blogging tomorrow until the primary results come in. I'm working on an *article*.

(Cue "wooooo" music.)

The House Of Kaus

Mr. "RNC Oppo Research" himself, Mickey Kaus, is hot on the trail of that sneaky John Kerry. See, Mickey, as a Democrat, feels that it's his imperative to write the short version of what's going to be on the Wall Street Journal in a couple of days.

It's not even that Mickey stridently and continually chides Democrats while the only things he can find wrong with Republicans is their not being Republican enough. It's that he continually chides Democrats through the most banal, substanceless, and inane of "issues". "I can't prove that Kerry has ever done anything wrong, but someone else says that he might have spoken with Chung before he says he did, which is emblematic of why his botox is a synedochic issue."

His blog over the past few days: Kerry's bad, Kerry Kabuki, Kerry Kerry Kerry's bad bad bad, why Bush's showing in New Hampshire is just as good as Reagan's in '84, so don't worry, Kerry's bad, Kerry and who's going to be the kamikaze to take him down, lots of stuff on why Dean is a failure as a candidate, Kerry's bad, Dean's the failure to point out why he's bad, Dean's a horrible candidate and everyone hates Kerry, I'm going to F____g Curse because Democrats are awful, as are the poll services that measure how well they're going to do.

Interesting, intelligent stuff from the Internet's Zell Miller, in other words.

Marijuana Is Bad, M'kay?

The White House ONDCP ad (at bottom) last night was one of the dumbest anti-drug ads ever.

It's a "back in time" ad, where you go from a girl passed out (from weed in the afternoon and a beer), then back to vomiting, smoking, what looks like someone committing suicide (I can't tell), back to the girl's mother finding weed in her jacket (it looks like), and deciding to talk to her so that this horrible series of incoherent and biologically unlikely events never takes place.

Marijuana does not make you vomit. It is an appetite stimulant and a nausea suppressor. It's like showing that one of the aftereffects of Dramamine is dizziness.

Thank you, ONDCP. You will have just helped create a nation of potential marijuana smokers who are blatantly misinformed as to the effects of marijuana, and who are progressively less likely to trust warnings about serious drug use.

Dumbasses.

UPDATE: Well, we're getting some nice weed feedback in the comments, and there are many people who are saying that it has made them nauseous before. Now disqualifying myself from holding public office, my stomach has always handled it well. My big issue is switching from substance A to substance B. I've never been able to switch while imbibing anything - but I don't think the point of the ad was to advocate smarter illegal substance consumption.

Unless the ONDCP is a lot more subversive than we ever knew.

Bipartisanship

Looks like the President is readying the intelligence commission:

Bush/Cheney 2004: Or Else You'll Never Know.

You Put Down In Words What I Was Only Thinking

Our good friend Mickey Kaus is a hack.

"Loyalty Oath"

Turns out that Michael Graham was utterly misrepresenting the South Carolina "loyalty oath", which is no such thing. From the SCDP:

So, since there never was a loyalty oath, and there is now nothing that could be misconstrued as a loyalty oath...Knibb High Football RULES!

Graham used the same type of dirty tactic he purported to decry in his article. What he did was just as bad as the people who put up flyers declaring that you have to pay your parking tickets in order to vote, or that the election is on a different day, or that you have to bring your birth certificate to vote.

P.S. - Glenn Reynolds wonders why I say it wasn't a "loyalty oath". To which I say, read the letter. Calling it a "loyalty oath" is misleading and inflammatory.

P.P.S. - I'm beginning to rethink this, but I still don't think that calling this a "loyalty oath", or the way it's been portrayed by conservatives, is accurate or fair.

Setting Right a Wrong

I need a favor. My local senate candidate got google bombed by his opponent and I want to set it right. If you could click on the link below, I'd really appreciate it. He's a good man so, if you're interested, browse around his site and get involved.

Ted Lempert

Thanks.

Is Walmart Good For Us?

Walmart's launching an all out PR offensive aimed at repairing its tattered image and, we can only assume, delaying its eventual unionization. The result of one of the campaign's many fronts is this post by Daniel Weintraub, pointing us to a study, paid for by Walmart, that is "the first" to take an even-handed approach to to the effects of Walmart:

First, it is not only one region that will lose their wages. As Walmart's grab the supermarket sector, all groceries will lower their wages to compete. Unless Walmart opens up in every single affected sector, this will lead to quite a bit more lost in wages than will be made up in savings.

The second problem is the real one. Low prices aren't magical, they don't stem from Walmart's incredible storehouse of goodwill. They come from ruthless business practices that cost a lot of jobs:

Before Weintraub and other Walmart apologists begin buying into the company's sponsored studies, we need to see far more comprehensive data. The truth is that Walmart is not only lowering costs on consumers, they're also slashing wages for an industry, sending jobs out of America, squeezinbg suppliers within an inch of their life and creating a climate in which full time workers can't support their families on their salaries. Such a race to the bottom is bad for everyone involved, and this study doesn't go nearly far enough in proving otherwise.

PNAC Memo Happy Hour

This PNAC memo (Is he talking about Jews? Read on and find out!) is remarkably telling.

Kristol and Kagan take serious issue with the Pentagon's then-announced plan to not reward countries which didn't help in Iraq with Iraqi contracts. I previously said that it only took issue with the fact that the Pentagon publicized the policy, but that's what I get for skimming after I find the red meat. They do take the Administration to task for a stupid plan (thanks, Angry Elephant), and also recommend that they just kept the bidding open to begin with. Say what you want, they're at least pragmatic.

The site's also a good place to look for PNAC's rapid-response operation for neoconservative pundits.

God, the anti-Semitism is just dripping off this post...

Kerry v. Bush

The new poll coming out of Quinnipiac has some good news for Kerry. He's spanking Bush 51-43%. Oddly enough, none of the other Democrats are beating Bush in the polling. I say oddly because in past times of candidate coverage, think Clark when he entered or Dean when he was on all the covers, the difference between the publicized candidate ad Bush was rarely far from the other candidate's against Bush. There's often a 3 point variation, but in this case, you're looking at a lot more than that:

Kerry's Kid...Kloves

Via Calpundit, Ron Brownstein is wondering why Kerry is being treated so softly by the other Democratic candidates. Brownstein gives very short shrift to what I think is the real reason - Dean and Gephardt's mutual self-immolation in Iowa.

Candidates are afraid to go negative against Kerry and his record because the last time two frontrunners went negative at each other, both of them ended up with severe blows to their campaigns, one fatal. There is no greater teacher in politics than failure, and Kerry's ascendancy came after two spectacular flameouts from former frontrunners who clashed and burned.

I think there's another facet to this which Brownstein overlooks - the idea of Dean's "anger". The campaign media loves nothing more than to transfer ready-made storylines to candidates, and I can bet that Clark, Edwards and Lieberman all have people advising them not to come within 50 feet of anything that'll get them attached to Dean's narrative negatives. First, it would get them saddled with the "angry liberal" line, and second, it would simply push Dean more into the spotlight.

The first time, say, John Edwards launched an attack against John Kerry for a particular vote, the story the next day wouldn't be "Edwards Stands Up To Kerry" or "Kerry Faces Tough Questions From Edwards", but instead "Dean's Not The Only One Who's Angry" or "Edwards Takes Dean Role Against Kerry".

Kerry rose at the exact right time for his campaign - fast, swift, and after the failure of the candidate deemed "angry and negative" to win a contest he'd been well in front of. Kerry has now risen as the Dean alternative, and any opposition to him is going to be dominated by its relation to Howard Dean's campaign, however tenuous that may be.

Graham's Cracked

Michael Graham writes the Standard NRO Piece, which is to write as if electoral politics are stuck somewhere between 1994 and 1998, stuffed with "facts" and assertions that other people came up with.

Three things:

1.) Perhaps it was done to bring attention and involvement to the SC Democratic Party? If you make yourself important to the nomination process, local, state and national Democratic attention turns to you.

2.) California hasn't had a significant Presidential primary since the first season of 24, yet they continue to throw them.

3.) Bush is polling ahead of the Democratic candidate by a nigh-unbeatable margin of two points.

Anyway, Graham's major point is that South Carolina Democrats, based on his wholly inaccurate characterization of the party and its electoral chances, is politically foolish to request a loyalty oath of Democratic primary voters. The strange thing about it is, this has been a nationwide push since before the 2000 election.

On the part of the Republican Party. The only reason it isn't an issue in the Republican Party this year is becuase they're running an uncontested primary.

Amazingly, Graham is based in Virginia, where the Republican Party created a similar loyalty oath in the year 2000...yet it's like he seemingly only heard of this when the incompetent South Carolina Democratic Party thought of it. I'm torn on the issue, but to portray it as a desperate gasp from a pro-Kerry SC Democratic Party doing something unprecedent is foolish and dishonest.

Oh, wait. I think that last part was redundant when it comes to Michael Graham. My bad.

Worst Ratings Ever

President Bush is now below 50% in three major polls - Quinnipiac, Newsweek and Zogby, 48, 49 and 49, respectively.

Of course, I think I've figured out the secret of Bush's media-created "popularity". So long as he remains on the plus side of any major issue, he is "popular". It doesn't matter if he can't engender the overall support of a majority or plurality of the American people, so long as there's some area where he is popular, because that's the issue that will determine the 2004 election. Even if it's not.

More Confidence

President Bush is a bold and confident leader. Well, mainly when it comes to figuring out who else is responsible for things that are politically damaging to him.

Of course, given that his party runs Congress, proposed the plan with his knowledge, passed it with his support and aid, and he signed it at that cost...it's still Congress's fault.

This bit on the deficit, though, is teh awesum, as the kids say:

First, the brilliance of Bush's deficit-cutting plan. Ramp up the deficit to unprecedented levels, then hope that it falls to high, but not completely insane levels.

Second, the fantabulous manner of deficit calculation. Take two major policy initiatives, both of which have a minimum amount of money attached to them, and pretend that the billions of dollars they represent aren't being spent.

At this point, the Democratic nominee doesn't even need to campaign against Bush. As long as he's simply allowed to govern away, he'll sink his own ship.

Today...Is Our Independence Day

George Bush has agreed to an independent inquiry of Iraq intelligence. Small problem: he wants to choose all the members of the panel.

"I'd like to announce that this coalition will be made up of a majority of Democrats...Max Baucus, Zell Miller, John Breaux, and Ben Nelson. Along with Placeholder Number One, Token Intelligence Guy, and the rest of the Get-Along Gang, I hope this panel will accurately investigate the specific allegations that we pressured people at the CIA to give us specific information on Iraq's biological and chemical weapons programs, and that we knew before we went into Iraq that there were no WMDs anywhere in the country or the whole Middle East.

"I am confident that the CIA will be found innocent of all such charges of us pressuring them."

Worst Super Bowl Ad

I wasn't too impressed with the ads this year, but one stood out head-and-shoulders above the rest as utterly horrible - Charmin's.

For those of you unfamiliar with football peculiars, many players have towels clipped to their belts so that they can dry their hands during the game. Quarterbacks in particular have these towels to keep their hands dry and better able to grasp the ball.

Sometimes, centers (the people who snap the ball to the quarterback) will have towels clipped to their belts either in addition to QB towels or in place of QB towels, so that the quarterbacks can dry their hands before the snap.

The Charmin commercial theorizes that Charmin toilet paper is so soft and luxurious that if it were hanging off of a center's backside, and the quarterback felt it, he would be so distracted by its wonder during crunch time of an important game that he'd let the clock run out.

Now, that would be all fine and dandy, except for one small issue. When you see a piece of toilet paper handing out of the back of another person's pants, what would be your first thought?

And would you touch it? Lovingly?

Too Funny For Words

I just got a news alert from Newsmax telling me that Kenneth Timmerman and Donald Luskin have jointly theorized that George Soros will unleash an "October Surprise" and destroy the stock and/or currency markets to get Bush out of office.

Seriously.

No Caption Necessary

Sadly, even that couldn't save the halftime show.

Caption Time

Wait, these aren't truffles...

Men of Peace

George Bush and Tony Blair have been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize:

On the bright side, this story is less stupid after you read it. Apparently, it's really easy to nominate someone for the peace prize and some right wing Norwegian lawmaker keeps nominating G.W and Blair. Still, the headline alone makes me want to bang my head against the wall.

Better To Fight Him At The Airport Than On The Airplane

John Edwards: babyfaced Southern Senator with a shot at the Presidency...or potential terrorist?

The Great Obfuscator

Hey! Dangerous man in a dangerous region of the world!

Well, that certainly makes the line on WMD the past nine months...fucking dishonest.

Maximize And The Army Of Zin

The GOP is running their 2004 campaign with the emphasis on maximizing Republican turnout. It's the logical counterpart to the current Democratic mobilization (records turnouts so far in the first two Democratic contests, consistent polling that shows a firm half of America doesn't want to see him reelected, regardless of who the nominee is), and, well...it's a problem.

I wouldn't be so worried if the idea was to maximize voter turnout among people who have natural Republican tendencies. The issue with $200 million, though, is that it provides a lot of opportunity for the GOP to redefine what a Republican is. And make no mistake about it - if you thought the Saxby Chambliss campaign against Max Cleland was nasty, imagine it nationwide, coded in a more palatable fashion, and subsequently backed up by "letter-writing" campaigns (this is the 21st century, after all, and who actually takes the time to compose thoughts anymore) to local papers and news stations to reinforce the themes that need reinforcement.

What's odd is that the best hope Democrats have is that Bush campaigns too strongly and too glowingly, in contrast to his real record. The key is that it doesn't matter how well-organized the Bush message is if, like most of what Bush says, it stands in stark contrast to what they see on the news every night.

Bush is the lightning-bolt president when it comes to approval ratings, always headed down, with only sharp jags upward if and when a major world event occurs. Bush is in sharp danger of creating a $200 million backlash against him if he runs this campaign incorrectly.

Let's make sure he does that then, okay?

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

Campaign finance reports are due this week, and I'm sure the finances of Dean, Kerry, Edwards, Clark and the others will get lots of attention. But let's not forget what we're up against here:

This primary has been bloody, unexpected and tough on all involved. But before we get too wrapped up in our allegiances, too focused on this race, step back and remember, this is just the pre-game.

From A Father To His Child

I've recently been beset by an overzealous conservative friend who's taken to sending me wonderfully non-illustrative analogies about why conservative policies are so intelligent. You know the kind - a kid who runs a lawnmowing service gets his lawnmower destroyed by an angry Muslim competitor, a neighbor steps outside and says that it's the kid's fault, the kid goes and gets the Muslim competitor arrested and the neighbor's grass grows weedy and wild because he expects someone to come and cut it for him; therefore, Republicans are the children of the light, and Democrats have shitty lawns.

Here are a couple of letters to send back in response.

Daddy's Wisdom

The Dinner