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Order
Hugh Hewitt's new book from Amazon.com today.
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It is a comprehensive
and passionate statement of the reason to vote
for President Bush, the strategy for a Republican
win, and the dire consequences of a John Kerry
victory. Buy one for your yourself and two for
the undecided or Democratic voter in your life.
|
July 17,
2004Posted
at 4:15 PM, Pacific I
spent the lunch hour with Governor Arnold and his advance team in Ontario, California,
introducing him to an enthusiastic crowd of many hundreds gathered at a large
indoor mall about fifty miles from LA. The Arnold team brought back the Twisted Sister's "We're
Not Gonna Take It" theme song from the recall campaign, and the crowd went
wild.
Arnold then promised them that November 2 would be "Judgment Day" for
the Sacramento insiders and special interests who are blocking the budget deal
he has outlined. He plunged into the crowd after about 20 minutes of patented
AS rhetoric --the "girly boys" in Sacramento had better watch out, he
warned, because their dysfuntion was well known and he'd been sent as an "outside
intervention" by "the people"-- and "the people" loved
it.
John Burton, the San Francisco ulta-liberal who has led the obstruction in Sacramento
is taking his party towards a cliff. I hope Burton digs in because if he
does, Arnold will flick him aside like a flea, and not only will the GOP pick
up needed muscle in Sacramento, the confrontation will help Bill Jones and of
course President Bush. California's a very long shot for W, of course, but the Arnold effect
is real and lasting. The idea to give him a prime time spot was a brilliant stroke
as well, and the GOP Convention will go as wild as today's crowd did. I
asked him if he'd ever addressed a huge indoor crowd in the tens of thousands.
Turns out he has, a crowd of 70,000 at one world sporting event. "You have to
slow down," he replied, noting the sound system difficulties of such venues.
It will be quite a night in the Garden. Note
to Bush-Cheney: When Arnold slammed the "trial lawyers," the crowd went
nuts. Edwards is such a target. The
book
reached #6 on Amazon this morning, though it is back at #7 at this writing.
Given that 175,000
or so titles get published in any year, I am very happy to have launched this
well in the world's biggest book store. Now if bricks-and-mortar
stores start putting it out with the anti-Bush tomes (see the e-mails in the left
column), I expect even better weeks ahead. More thanks for book plugs to: Sptibull
(actually, a double-plug!), brainshavings,
That's
News To Me, Mangled
Cat (and what a fine way to obtain a copy), Kevin
McCullough and Ben
Monkey. The best reading, though, comes from the Amazon reviews from
the Kerry-Moore moonbats who don't even bother to dress up their frothings with
an aside here or there that might lead a reader to conclude that the reviewer
had at least picked up the book for a minute. The Amazon rule of political
effectiveness: A book's political impact is equal to its ranking over the first
month of release times the degree of dismissiveness and hatered displayed by the
negative reviewers. Yes, I love the positive reviews, and thanks those wonderful
people for their glowing remarks. But I treasure the venom --the best sign that
a whack has found its mark. Time
Magazine has the story on the 9/11 murderers passing through Iran in the months
before their attack. How long until the Kerry-Moore Democrats announce
that this is not evidence of al-Qaeda-fanatic-mullah cooperation? Roger
L. Simon has wisely described the relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam
and presumably Iran, rogue elements of Pakistan's ISI, and the Taliban as the
sort of relationship that exists between various crime families of the Mafia.
They don't write down their contracts and execute them in triplicate. They
have understandings and alliances and joint ventures that are as real as they
are difficult to document. But try telling that to Kerry and his ostrich
team. Elect the know-nothings and the refuse-to-know-anythings and the threat
will grow and grow again --as in the '90s-- because the intelligence will never
be firm enough, the ties will always be too murky. Until 3,000 or more people
are dead. Then we will have to ask who knew what when. The answer
is that some of us knew all along. Finally
this afternoon, a
fun piece from tomorrow's New York Times on which television shows the campaigns
prefer when it comes to embedding their ads. "[T]he biggest television battle
is over the elderly and women," concludes the report. Think talk radio,
ad buyers, where both demographics are in abundance. Especially late night
talk, which when I worked in that slot a decade ago, could reliably count on the
older, sleepless demographic to be listening no matter what the subject or the
hour.
July
16, 2004
Many
posts
are appearing that discuss the "Terror
in the Skies, Again?" article by Annie Jacobsen,
including here,
here
and of course Instapundit's.
(UPDATE: Be sure as well to read Donald
Sensing's sensible skepticism.)
I hope someone
has pushed this story in front of Tom Ridge, John Ashcroft,
and yes the president and vice president, along with
a cover memo saying: "Boss, if a similar situation
develops and a "Syrian band" takes an airplane
down --or worse, commandeers it in a replay of 9/11--
the fact that this was a widely reported and discussed
incident will be a damning indictment of the government's
incompetence or worse, indifference. We need a detailed
policy on such situations that is agreed upon and communicated
throughout the aviation network, and we need it yesterday.
We still haven't got such a policy on the suitcase
drill, but this one is even more urgent as we control
this issue and we can't dictate to every city what to
do if empty suitcases start turning up. Not to
respond rapidly, effectively, and formally will be on
all of our heads, appropriately so, if this sort of
thing really does turn out to have been a 'dry run.'"
Another round
of book
plug thank-yous, as the book, sitting this hour
at #11 at Amazon overall, #3 on the nonfiction list,
begins to attract the ultimate compliment --angry reader
reviews from gnashing-teeth lefties. Heh. Anyway,
thanks to Mount
Virtus, Mudville
Gazette, Red
State, New
England Republican, King
of Fools, Step
Into My Parlour, The
American Mind, Clay
Calhoun, Infinite
Monkeys, FratersLibertas
and an early, but over-looked shout-out from Matt
Margolis.
Instapundit
points us to Michelle
Malkin, who has checked out the "terror in
the sky" story: A Syrian band?
John
Kerry's Catholicism is the subject of a lengthy
Washington Post piece this morning. The article,
incredibly, does not mention the American bishops' gathering
in Denver last month and the unambiguous
statement they issued on the subject of Catholic
politicians and abortion. The article is also
vague on which
bishops bar Kerry and like-minded politicians from receiving
Communion. In short, it is lousy, cover-Kerry's-rear
journalism, not intended to inform the reader about
the central conflict that Kerry faces as he holds himself
out as a Catholic to voters, which is that the Church
has officially condemned Kerry's beliefs as apostate.
Even abortion absolutists like Kerry who cooperate in
the Democrats' boycott of orthodox Catholics on the
federal bench ought to recognize the bias in this sort
of reporting.
Tom Daschle
must hate Al Gore for inventing the internet, because
the blogosphere isn't giving Tom a free pass on his
self-serving rhetoric, branding
his posturing on the Marriage Amendment exactly what
it is: blatant hypocrisy.
The MoveOn-Hitler
ad crowd has been trumpeting its grassroots gatherings.
Last night, 6,922
pro-Bush parties were held. The Michael Moore
left has some catching up to do.
Whoopi's
mad. The concert of hate cost her big bucks,
and of course she's claiming McCarthyism. Now
you can add basic ignorance of First Amendment issues
to Whoopi's vulgarity as reasons to avoid her gigs.
Of course Hollywood will invite her to host next year's
Oscars when Moore gets another trophy from the know-nothing
left. President Bush should send a video greeting
from the White House full of good humor and grace.
Don't miss
Victor
Davis Hanson in National Review.com today.
And thanks
for book
plugs to Raincross
Conservative, RightWingNews,
The
Crusader, ParsonsPantry,
and Cockalorum.
July 15,
2004
This is what
I get for reading Paul
Krugman before going to bed --the blogging
equivalent of a gag reflex. Krugman is as dishonest
as he usually is, this time about the Kerry and Bush
"health plans," as he puts it.
Perhaps because
I spent double digit hours at a hospital today in the
company of a dear friend having complicated surgery,
I am unwilling to let this nonsense pass --this puffing
of Kerry promises without even a mention of the Edwards'
wreckage. Because it is Edwards' gang of ambulance
chasers --er, plaintiffs' lawyers-- that is the worst
crisis in American medicine, a genuine plague of locusts
driving doctors from the field, quickly forcing thousands
of practitioners to flee their craft. Krugman
doesn't even mention this huge blight, no doubt
because a well-heeled New Yorker can still find an ob-gyn,
but not for long in rural or urban America. Kerry can
offer all the dream benefits he wants, but none of it
happens without doctors, and I don't expect Vice President
Edwards will be pushing tort reform any time soon.
Look, don't
believe me. Believe the cover story in this past
Sunday's Los Angeles Times' Magazine: "Medical
Alert" by Janet Wells. Here's the key
graph:
" Then
there's the risk aspect of medicine. U.S. doctors get
sued—a lot. Half of the country's neurosurgeons are
sued each year, along with one-third of the obstetricians.
On any given day, more than 125,000 malpractice lawsuits
are in progress against America's doctors. The liability
associated with practicing medicine has sent malpractice
rates soaring, according to The Doctors Company, a physician-owned
medical malpractice insurer based in Napa. In California,
rates went up 31% during the last five years. In Florida,
the rates increased 105% over six years, and in Nebraska,
184% during the same period. Some specialists pay $200,000
for insurance each year."
Draw a chart.
Use a straight line projection, not an exponential one.
Even the low ball wrecks the medical profession.
Senators Kerry
and Edwards are opponents of tort reform. Which
makes them opponents of genuine health care reform,
no matter what their "plan" promises.
It is that simple. And Paul Krugman is either
a fool or a liar for not even addressing the subject
in two columns on "health plans."
Late night
thanks for book
plugs go out to: A
Time for Choosing, Hedgehog
Blog, Keith
Devens, World
of Tomorrow, The
Daily Rant, Exultate
Justi, Miller's
Time, Southern
California Law Blog, and even SW
VA Law Blog, who seems to think that just because
two people make accusations, both must have truth on
their side. The Dems have electoral dishonesty
in their DNA --think Tammany, Pendergast, and Daley.
Yes, the GOP has cheated, and has promptly turned on
itself, investigated and castigated --think Watergate.
The Republican Party exiled Nixon. The Dems still celebrate
Clinton and Gore. Electoral malfeasance in American
political history isn't equally distributed, not even
remotely so. It is silly to think it is.
Note: The
Monkeys give a double
plug.
Some would think this unseemly. Not me. Not until
I get a review in the big
magazine.
The book swims
along at #15 on Amazon at this hour, #4
among non-fiction books. Win the blogosphere,
win Amazon. I wonder when publishers will figure
it out: A blog-ad on Instapundit
or Powerline
is far more effective than a half-page in the Lost
Angeles Times Book Review.
BTW: One of
my college roommates, Dan Poneman, is a former NSC big
and a North Korea expert, and he's in
a quarrel with Powerline. Dan is way smart.
So are the Powerline gents. Read the relevant
entries and see, not only a debate on North Korea policy,
but the triumph of the blogs over boring newspapers.
If
this account is true, the plane should have been
obliged to land upon the first indication of concern
among the flight attendants and passengers. Calling
the Homeland Security Department: Is this a true
account, and if so, are you happy with the actions of
the pilot/marshalls etc? (Hat tip to Leaning
to the Right.)
Posted
at 3:45 PM, Pacific
"Four
Facts and Five Conclusions" has received some
nice
notices
around
the
blogosphere, largely, I think, because it is blunt:
Joe Wilson lied. Joe Wilson's wife did have a
hand in sending him to Niger. Saddam was trying to buy
enriched uranium from Niger --and there is only one
reason to do so, which is to build nukes. And Bush and
Blair didn't lie. In fact. they acted as any sane leader
would act: To preemptively remove a dangerous tyrant
trying to gain even more lethal weapons than the ones
our intelligence agencies already believed him to possess.
Instapundit
(who, along with Roger
L. Simon, will join me on air at 4:20 pacific) is
right to gloat over the collapse of credibility of the
Bush Lied crowd, but note carefully how they are covering
their collective ears and raising their collective voices
so as not to have to notice the appearance of the truth
at their door. The truth doesn't matter to these people.
Power matters. They want it back, even if it means denying
real threats to the country and thereby setting impossibly
high standards of threat visibility in the future.
Quite simply, they have taken the Democratic Party to
a position where it could not be trusted to take any
action to prevent an attack on the United States because
they have denounced the legitimate basis for having
attacked Saddam. They have raised the bar too
high to ever act preemptively, and in so doing, have
disqualified themselves. It is that stark.
More thank-yous
to book
pluggers, beginning with Lileks,
who is very kind, Betsy's
Page, Mudville
Gazette, Mount
Virtus, MooreLies
(again), and KerryHaters.
This is why the book stays in the top
25 at Amazon.
My WeeklyStandard.com
column, "Four
Facts and Five Conclusions," summarizes the
key developments in a week of exoneration for the president,
and introduces the "Don't Even Think About It"
Doctrine.
Mark D. Roberts
has concluded his excellent series on Robert Reich's
argument that religious belief rather than terrorism
rates as the new century's greatest danger.
The New York
Times asks "Will
bloggers be tamed into centrism?" About
the time Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman come back to
earth, and the Times doesn't spin its polls. The
Times also reports that some Democrats, new victims
of Moore's Disease, are speculating
that the vice-president dismissed his doctor in order
to hire a new one who would tell him to get off the
ticket. Conspiracy
theory addiction is an early warning sign of Moore's
Disease. The vice president has already dismissed
the idea this morning, which will no doubt give
rise to another theory. How about this:
We are in a war, and the president likes having a vice
president who is a serious and experienced man at his
side, not only for his counsel, but also as a hedge
against a terrorist getting through. Every time
I hear a talking head speculate on Cheney's removal
from the ticket, I tell myself: "There's a fool
who doesn't know there's a war going on."
The Washington
Post's Howard Kurtz reports that John
Kerry is spending big dollars wooing the...black vote?
What does that tell you about Kerry's billionaire appeal
to the heart of the Democratic base?
The Washington
Times' Bill
Gertz notes the Roberts' report assessment of Al Qaeda-Baghdad
links. Folks like Chris Matthews, on the Today
Show Tuesday night, and Matt
Yglesias, on my program yesterday, continue to dismiss
as now discredited the idea that Saddam had ties to
Al Qaeda, as though repetition equals persuasion. Most
of the evidence runs towards the opposite conclusion,
and the stubborn refusal to deal with the facts is evidence
of Moore's Disease, not of intellectual seriousness.
John Kerry's indifference to this evidence as well as
to the Saddam-seeking-uranium evidence tells us the
approach he would employ if elected president, and it
is a dangerous one of blindness to threat until it is
too late to act.
Finally this
morning, thanks for book
plugs to PrestoPundit,
Thinking
Right, Floyd
the Chimp (though I can't stop the transmissions),
Bonfire,
and Confessions
of a Jesus Phreak.
July 14,
2004
Roger
L. Simon is also thinking about the "which
blogs have influence" question discussed below.
(And he gave the book
a nice plug. Thanks Roger.)
I had Rikki
Sabia of the National
Downs Syndrome Society on the program today to review
the debate over the reauthorization of the Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act. Links are available
here
for more information. Conservatives have to resist
knee-jerk criticisms of disabilities legislation on
cost grounds. The extension of educational opportunity
to children with disabilities is a mark of a highly
civilized society, as contrasted with barbarian societies
that abandon children with special needs.
Here's a link
to the latest news on the reauthorization debate.
Thanks to
Joe
Carter of The Evangelical Outpost for his very kind
post.
Thanks to
Captain's
Quarters for a nice plug of the book
and my "Adopt a Lefty Journalist" program.
Northern Alliance colleague SCSU-Scholars
threw in a plug as well.
And thanks
to Peter
Gammons of ESPN for revealing more evidence that
Kerry is not to be trusted on matters small or large:
"We have
been led to cynically believe that many politicians
are disingenuous and generally phony, but few will ever
beat Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. This man,
who changed his middle initial to be JFK and at an anti-Vietnam
rally threw someone else's medals in the water, made
a self-promotion appearance with Boston talk-show maven
Eddie Andelman and claimed he was a big Red Sox fan
from his days growing up in Groton, Mass. And
at the promotion he claimed Eddie Yost was his favorite
player.
"The
Problem with that is just the simple fact that Eddie
Yost never played for the Red Sox."My favorite
player was Larry
Brown. Don't ask me why. He just was .UPDATE: Many
posts on Kerry's Yost blunder at The
Corner, as well as the correction to Gammons: Kerry
did not change his name.
Jonah
has pulled the crucial portions of the Butler Report.
Read them Commit them to memory.
And Bob
Burney provided the link to the roll
call on the Marriage Protection Amendment.
Pro-marriage activists need to subtract eight of the
anti-marriage group (say, the open seats in Florida,
South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana and
the seats held by Daschle, Murray and Boxer) while holding
on to the pro-marriage seats at risk in Oklahoma, Colorado,
Illinois and Alaska. Pretty simple. Start
by sending a contribution to John
Thune in South Dakota.
BTW: On the
subject of Tom Daschle's hug of Michael Moore, Michael
Moore "stands
by his comments," according to the Washington Post.
Which means that Michael Moore is calling Tom Daschle
a liar, since South Dakota's senior senator denied the
embrace. (Hat tip: Daschle
v. Thune.)
Jeff Jarvis
is struggling to measure the influence
of blogs. Interesting subject, because influence
is equal not to audience size, but to the impact of
any given idea times the power of those that idea actually
influences. If my blog has only two readers --George
W. Bush and John Kerry-- but each of them act on information
and opinion I dispense, it would be the most influential
blog of Campaign 2004. On the other hand, if 100,000
daily visitors all read every word, but none of them
voted, the blog would have zero influence on this election
cycle.
Given that
we cannot know our audience, it will be impossible to
measure influence, except via tracked responses with
meaningful results. I have been noting those blogs that
have helped plug my book, and my book's ascent on Amazon
is a measure of their collective influence, though not
a very distinct one, since many different blogs have
plugged the book, as have I on the radio show and in
other media. The best measurement would be to run a
simultaneous beg-a-thon for some agreed upon charity,
with tracking of the contributions made through various
blog points. The total raised by every blog would be
a pretty good check on the swing any blog could muster
for any cause requiring effort or cash.
Until the
"metrics" emerge, I'll continue to believe
Instapundit
rules the roost, followed by my humble combo of blog-plus-radio
when it comes to meme distribution. Can someone come
up with a way to chart sharply declining influence?
We can call it the Marshall Index.
Nest,
Kevin Drum asserts that John Kerry's not a Paul Wellstone
liberal, so Professor Bainbridge smacks Kevin Drum around
with some facts.
Peter Principle bloggers never seem to learn that facts
are not only stubborn things, but that they are easily
surfaced and linked to in these days of DSL connections.
Just because Kevin doesn't want Kerry to be a Wellstone
liberal doesn't distance Kerry from Wellstone-like voting.
When the National Journal tells you Kerry is the most
liberal member of the United States Senate, you can
take it to the bank.
Mark
Steyn is getting to the left, as evidenced by this
hit piece in that bastion of the give-away press, The
Boston Phoenix. It is always a good sign to
be attacked by Joe Conason, defender of all things Clinton,
and the envy in this piece is so palpable I am surprised
it didn't get sent to Mark with a mash letter.
Note especially the lame attempt to identify the "good"
conservative commentators as opposed to the "over-the-top"
conservative pundits. This is code for "usually
ineffective and thus harmless types" versus "he
shoots, he scores" types. The tactic attempts
to make defenders of Steyn defend all columns/commentary
by all pundits from the center-right, which is like
asking David Broder to account for Whoopi Goldberg's
excesses. All piffle. Steyn is widely read
and admired, and the most acclaimed guest on my radio
show because, like the late Michael Kelly whose spot
on my program he filled, Steyn brings genuine but wicked
wit along with his tremendous grasp of history and wide
travels.
He's good
because he's right. Something Joe Conason and
the rest of the wish-I-weres in the article couldn't
begin to understand.
More blog
support for the book
from The
Corner, Publicola
(though not very happy with my theory that winning elections
trumps assault weapon ban victories), the Llama
Butchers, again, (and like K-Lo at The Corner, endorsing
my "Adopt
a Lefty Journalist" program), ~elderflower~,
Leaning
to the Right, Slings
and Arrows, and Bill
Hobbs. My WorldNetDaily
column also focuses on the book and why the blogs
helped it breakthrough to the top of Amazon.
Read Powerline's
summary of President Bush's visit to Duluth yesterday
and the response from the Kerry camp. (The
Washington Post also has an account of the Bush
swing into Michigan.) The Bush campaign seems
to have a very good stride, and has put Kerry on the
defensive again and again --though not without a good
bit of help from the assisted suicide experts guiding
the Kerry campaign and especially the Hollywood bright-lights
who put on the concert of hate. The Kerry campaign
stumbled into a debate
over "values," that it now cannot escape,
and as the
Washington Post/ABC dead-heat poll demonstrated yesterday,
Edwards hasn't provided a bounce at all.
The result
is confusion
in the Kerry camp and yet another planned "reintroduction"
of Kerry, who is becoming the Joan Rivers of presidential
candidates, he's been worked over so much. But
all the nips and tucks in the world can't change the
fact that the Dems nominated the most liberal member
of the Senate who has used his candidacy as an opportunity
to define flip-flopper for a generation. As
a New York Times account of the Bush campaign's "war
room" vividly illustrates, the Bush team watches
every word Kerry speaks, and Kerry continually provides
Bush-Cheney with material with which to educate America
on Kerry's many shortcomings on the leadership and policy
fronts. (The
Lost Angeles Times also has a "war-room" story.)
Kerry has squandered his early lead, his unexpected
millions and the energy of the "Bush lied"
crazies, and arrives in Boston all but stalled.
He'll get a bounce from Beantown, of course, but the
smell of panic is unmistakable.
Oh, by the
way, the British government's report on Iraqi intelligence
proves for the second time in a week that
Bush didn't lie about the Saddam-uranium story.
Watching
Joshua Micah Marshall melt has been fun, but the
Michael Moore Democrats won't notice. Their eyes have
bulged out too far. Remember that John Kerry told
Larry King he didn't have to see F911 because he'd lived
it.
Finally this
morning, John
Hawkins of RightWingNews poses "Ten Questions for
John Kerry," any one of which would have been
tougher than all posed by Leslie Stahl in Sunday night's
embarrassment to all CBS real journalists sit-down on
60 Minutes. Suggestion: E-mail the questions to
various campaign journalists incapable of coming up
with a news-making question of their own. Question:
Given the softballs Kerry's been getting from the bigs
inclined his way, how can he be doing so poorly?
Answer: He's a stiff. You know it. The media knows
it. The Dems know it. Even Kerry knows it.
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