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"TIP JAR"

 

 

June 11, 2004

Posted at 3:00 PM, Pacific

The service this morning was inspiring and memorable, with every speaker hitting a different, but crucial note.  The singing of Jerusalem surprised me, but fit perfectly a ceremony that included Lady Thatcher's moving tribute, and the presence of Prime Minister Tony Blair.  This hymn, so English, was nevertheless perfect for a ceremony that celebrated what the English-speaking peoples had accomplished in the '80s through the leadership of Reagan and Thatcher.  The tribute of former Candian PM Mulroney added to the unspoken theme of the allies who, far more than any others, saw the Soviet Union for what it was and brought it down.

President Bush's tribute was obviously hearfelt and reminded the nation of the long expanse of Reagan's life and of his love of family, country and freedom.  Former President Bush was the most emotional of the eulogists, reflecting his indebtedness to Reagan, an indebtedness the first President Bush was quick to acknowledge.  (I appreciated President Bush's reference to the fact that Ronald Reagan bested two good men to reach the presidency, one from Plains and one from Houston.  Watchers from around the world would get a lesson in that comment on the underlying strength of the democratic traditions of the country.)

The Washington Post collected some observation from around the city which makes for fine reading, but if you missed the funeral, it would be well worth the effort to find a replay this evening.  Rarely does such a tribute occur because such men are rare.

Winston Churchill's grave is far from London, in the cemetary of St. Martin's Church in Bladon, Oxfordshire.  But in Westminster Abbey there is a marble slab near the entrance that records the simple command: "Remember Winston Churchill."

Such a memorial in our nation's Capitol would be fitting.

 

Posted at 6:30 AM Pacific

 

Charles Krauthammer gives President Reagan a great send-off in his Washington Post column today.

The New York Times, on the other hand, runs a column by an obscure history professor that uses the occasion to try to score points on President Bush by arguing that unlike Reagan, Bush has been mastered by those dangerous neocons.  "But many neocons came to hate Mr. Reagan," claims the piece.  Oh?  Could we have some names please?  Like Richard Perle, Frank Gaffney, or Bill Kristol?  The Times allowed this column to run without a single name to bolster this wildly partisan and inaccurate thesis?

There is panic on the left as the connections between Reagan and Bush are so vivid.  What a silly piece to run on such a significant day.  The New York Times: Wrong about Reagan then; wrong about Reagan now.

The Times also has a silly piece that argues only 5% of the electorate is yet to decide between Bush and Kerry., and that the election turns on these 5%.  While late-deciding voters surely are important, many more will change their minds between now and November, and some portion of one or the other's base will grow demoralized and stay home.

Which is why the Boston Globe's article on John Edwards "pick me, pick me" operation is so interesting.  The Kerry people know their man is as dull as dirt, as inspiring as liquid versus solid detergent.  But Edwards would only underscore the dreariness of Kerry, making Democratic voters regret their nomination every day that the fresh and energetic Edwards appeared on the trail, followed by the lugubrious Kerry.

Would a Yugo dealer really want a Lexus dealer to open up next door?

Time to go watch the farewells to a great man.

 


June 10, 2004

 

Posted at 5:30 PM, Pacific

 

Lileks e-mailed me a link to Michael Moore's website that gives you a quick education on the DNC's new favorite film-maker.  If the deal has in fact been struck, we also have to ask if the Moore distributor has made an illegal campaign contribution to the DNC/Kerry campaign by subsidizing the purchase of the DVDs of Moore's new agit-prop.

UPDATE: Friday's Los Angeles Times carries a very amusing story of a blustering Jabba the propagandist threatening to turn the least feared p.r. consultants in America loose on anyone who attacks his film.  That's right, he's hired Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani, last seen working together as a team advising Gray Davis on California's energy crisis, though both have moved on to other high profile efforts --like Lehane's assistance to Wesley Clark.  Said Moore:  "Employing the Clinton strategy of '92, we will allow no attack on this film to go without a response immediately.  And we will go after anyone who slanders me or my work, and we will do it without mercy.  And when you thin 'without mercy,' you think Chris Lehane."

What's he going to do?  Sit on people?  And Lehane as fearsome?  When I think of Lehane, I think of Monty Python's The Comfy Chair.

Still, the boys at Powerline who have revealed Moore to be a fraud, and Fred Barnes, who has documented Moore as a liar are on notice.  No mercy for you!  You get...the Comfy Chair!

 

Posted at 4:45 PM, Pacific

 

Command Post, Rantburg, Llama Butchers, and Tim Worstall are all over the very significant news that U.N. weapons inspectors have found banned missile parts from Iraq in Jordan.  It will be interesting to see if the media's editing-with-a-purpose (see Patterico and New England Republican on the subject) hits this story as well.

Oh, and give a look at American Thinker's thoughts on Ronald Reagan, and Powerline's comments on the same Washington Post article that launched my morning blogging.

Pay no attention to Fraters.  They've all been in the bottle again.

 

Posted at 4:00 PM, Pacific

 

Reuters reporting that four men tried to pass themselves off as journalists in Baghdad were nabbed when security detected explosive residue on their clothes.  Explosives were then found in their hotel room.

This is similar to the trick the Taliban-Al Qaeda used to assassinate the leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, just prior to the invasion of Afghanistan.  Obviously the new government in Iraq are marked men, and deserve enormous respect for their courage.

 

Posted at 3:20 PM, Pacific

 

The American Spectator is reporting an unbelievable story: That the Democratic National Committee will purchase a half-million DVDs of Michael Moore's hate-filled, anti-American, French- and Hollywood-approved movie.  Of course this has the effect of putting, what, $4 million in Moore's pocket, which would be a nice payday for the leading propagandist of the left.

Of course the DNC sponsorship, if proven true, has the effect of putting John Kerry squarely behind Michael Moore.  There is no other way to interpret the backing of the DNC, except as a Kerry-endorsement.  Now Moore did wonders for General Clark in the primaries, and is the sort of repulsive figure whom most mainstream Democrats don't want hanging around the party's front door.

But there he is, a sort of Kerry running-mate.  So when will the elite media get around to asking Terry McAuliffe --who's under a gag order these days-- whether this is his latest brainstorm?

UPDATE: Caller Leslie from Houston points out that had the RNC purchased a half-million copies of the Clinton Chronicles when that hit-video appeared in the '90s, the media would have melted down in indignation.  But of course today's media doesn't really think Moore's a nut.  Edgy, maybe, but not a nut.

Even though he's a nut.

 

 

Posted at 2:55 PM, Pacific

 

My WeeklyStandard.com column from today:"Both Great and Right."  It shamelessly steals from Peter Robinson's declaration on my program earlier this week that "Ronald Reagan was great because Ronald Reagan was right."  Peter's book remains your best bet for understanding why people are so moved: How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life.

 

Posted at 2:25 PM, Pacific

 

Here's an e-mail I received from Jayson Javitz (Polipundit.com) concerning my morning post.

"Hugh:

Today you wrote: “Some stories cannot be spun, and all of those things favor the President because facts are stubborn things.”

How right you are.

Indeed, the job market is the Sine Qua Non of an incumbent President’s re-election chances.  Why? Two reasons: (1) when it comes down to brass tacks, the American electorate votes the way their pocket books tell them to vote; (2) unlike virtually every other issue, the job market cannot be self-censored or spun by the media. 

Although vast swaths of our electorate admittedly do not know the difference between GDP and GOP, they know if they’re working or not. They know if their machine shops are hiring or not. They can see the “help wanted” signs with their own two eyes. They drive to work, instead of the unemployment office, in their own vehicles.

Or to put it another way: Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

Has there ever been an incumbent President in “worse shape” at this point of the election cycle than Tricky Dick? He presided over the worst years of the Vietnam War.  Then, there was Kent State . And the abrupt end to our Moon exploration program as a result of the Apollo 13 near-disaster to boot. 

McGovern was swept to the nomination by a grass-roots campaign of angry, young liberal voters. It was a “revolution,” right? And, of course, back then, there was no Fox News, or Rush, or the internet, to counter the mind-numbing bias of the national media.

So, President McGovern, right? Wrong.

The job market surged in 1972. As a result, Nixon, of course, annihilated McGovern in arguably the most preposterous landslide in history. 

Same for Reagan. 

The recession in 1982 was the worst since the Great Depression (in fact, not just in the media).  There were huge job losses. Then there was Beirut in 1983. And continuing tensions with the Soviet Union .

Mondale was a former Vice President, not a mere Junior Senator from the Northeast. He named a woman to be his running mate. My God, that should have energized the base and locked up the national female vote, right? And, again, still no Fox News, Rush, or Hugh Hewitt, to counteract the astonishing propaganda campaign in which the national liberal media engaged. In light of the prior job losses, the still-high rates of inflation and mortgage rates, Beirut , the gender gap, and media bias, Reagan should have been defeated, right?

Wrong.

The economy turned around in the third quarter of Reagan’s third year (exactly as it did last year). The job market started surging in roughly March of 1984 (exactly as it did this year).

Reagan, of course, destroyed Mondale in arguably the most preposterous landslide in history.

Hugh, we’re heading for Kael-ish moment on November 3rd. George Bush will win this election in an electoral landslide, with perhaps as much as 56 percent of the total vote.  The next day, the Aaron Browns, Meyersons, Finemans, Rathers, Brokaws, Krugmans, John Carrolls, and the Eleanor Clifts of the World literally will not know what hit them. It truly will be self parody. 

“Why, I don’t know how Bush won; nobody * I know * voted for him.”

Yes, Virginia, there’s a whole other country out there west of the Hudson River and east of Glendale.

 

Best regards,
Jayson Javitz"
Polipundit.com

 

Posted at 9:20 AM, Pacific

 

The Los Angeles Times says Kerry is building a lead. Right. They thought Gray Davis was in the hunt last fall as well. But the folks who have decided to turn on Bush, like Andrew Sullivan, have seized on the Times' push-polling via crack-pot sampling to proclaim doom and gloom. The president's pollster, Matthew Dowd, replied in a story at MSNBC. Sure enough, the oversampling of Dems drives the results the Times wanted to achieve, a technique perfected in 2002 by the Minneapolis Star Tribune when it was puffing first Wellstone and then Mondale.

As noted below, Deborah Orin in the New York Post is keeping her eye on the Iowa Political Futures market. You should as well.

UPDATE:  Captain's Quarters reminds us why the Los Angeles Times is not to be trusted on matters of polling.  Ed links to the Times poll one month before Gray Davis was recalled by a landslide and Arnold won by 16%.  The Times poll showed the vote on Davis to be within the margin of error, and Cruz Bustamante leading Arnold by 5%.

The Times recently announced it was cutting many positions from its editorial staff.  If any of these are good reporters, they might want to ask why money is being spent on worthless polls that bring scorn onto the paper while slashing keeps up in the newsroom. 


 

Posted at 5:30 AM, Pacific

 

The Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman is "shocked, shocked" that the strong economy hasn't helped President Bush's poll numbers.

After three years of negative stories about his economic policy, and then nine months of minimizing the robust recovery, only recently have the nation's elite media outlets begun to report the breadth and scope of the economic boom underway.  First it was a "jobless recovery."  Then the jobs were the right kind of jobs.  Now that the job growth is spread across the economy and the GDP is galloping, the scribblers are worrying about interest rates and oil shocks. 

Weisman speculates --and that's what it is, pure speculation playing on page 1 of the Post-- that the war is obscuring the economy.  But the war doesn't report.  The media reports.  And on the war much of the coverage has been bleak as well, even as despotism and terrorism give way to genuine democracy.  (For an example of turning good news into dreary news, read Thomas Friedman's column this morning.)

Why are Bush's numbers down?  Because the media has been about driving them down for months.  Why will they spring back?  Because facts are stubborn things, and the genuine progress in Iraq combined with the undeniable economic boom are great things touching the lives of millions of voters.

Pew has a vast new report out on the news habits of Americans that concludes among other things that Americans are growing more polarized in their news choices  --that they have definite views about which news source to trust and modify their news acquisition habits accordingly.  My favorite section of the report: "Media Credibility Declines."  What a surprise.  This election cycle has ratified every suspicion the center-right has about elite media bias, and so polling that doesn't reflect good news in Bush's numbers doesn't surprise me.

Inevitably, however, elections are about choices, not about news spin.  Voters focusing on the choice between Bush and Kerry haven't bolted for Kerry despite two months of non-stop negative coverage of Iraq and avoidance of the economic sparkle.  As November draws closer, the nets and the papers have to compare and contrast and are obliged to cover both candidates and the day's stories, just as they are obliged to cover Reagan's funeral and the D-Day memorials.  Some stories cannot be spun, and all of those favor the president because facts are stubborn things.

Weisman's story seems a jammed-in gift to Democrats in a week where they must be feeling run over by Ronald Reagan --again.  Not only are they watching the country and the world celebrate a political life they opposed at every turn, they also know what happened at the U.N. Monday, and they see the support for America that is flowing from the new Iraqi government. 

So the Post gives the Dems some ice-cream on the front page.

The cruel political reality for the left is that if the Dems hold on to the hope that Bush's numbers are down because of what Bush has done, they will continue to criticize what Bush has done, making themselves the enemy of liberation and economic expansion.  As Dems on the Senate Judiciary Committee did on Tuesday, Kerry and his surrogates will continue to berate everything Bush has undertaken, thus cementing in the public's mind the knowledge that Kerry would do everything differently.  He would fight the war on terror differently.  He would raise taxes.  He would cut-and-run from Iraq, etc.

Fine by me.  The clearest choice since 1980 straight ahead, and the parallels to the campaign of 1980 are also pretty amazing.  (See the New York Post's Deborah Orin's commentary this morning.  Orin is always ahead of the media pack with both news and analysis.)  We know how that contest turned out when the American people were offered a choice between fear and timidity on the one hand and bold leadership on the other.

 

 


 

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