Friday, September 03, 2004
GOD BLESS
Bill Clinton to have heart surgery.
Get well soon.
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SECOND HALF COMEBACK
My thoughts on the speech at the Spectator.
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DID LAPHAM HURT KERRY?
Media bias backfired yesterday, when the Lapham—the predetermined storyline—was Dick Cheney takes potshots at John Kerry. (If you don’t yet know what a “Lapham” is, go here.)
USAToday led off with this headline:
Cheney Lambasts Kerry’s Record on Security Meanwhile, the New York Times had:
Cheney and G.O.P. Mount Vigorous Assault on Kerry Actually, the article by Adam Nagourney and Robin Toner wasn’t all that bad. Too bad I couldn’t say the same for the article in the Washington Post. Blaring the headline, “Cheney Calls Kerry Unfit” it began,
Vice President Cheney reached back decades into John F. Kerry’s life Wednesday night, arguing in taunting language that the Democratic presidential nominee has demonstrated through his public statements and votes that he is unfit to be commander in chief in an age of terrorism. Is it possible that the Washington Post is more anti-Bush than the New York Times?
The problem is that by choosing ‘Cheney Snarls and Growls at Kerry” as the Lapaham, they missed the far more damaging story of the evening, that of Zell Miller’s speech. As the Post put it,
Democrat Zell Miller of Georgia, who abandoned his party to give the Republican keynote address, used the same themes to deliver a bristling attack on Kerry. His voice booming and his face twisted into a countenance of contempt and anger, the senator said that “Kerry would let Paris decide when America need defending; I want Bush to decide.” Too bad the Lapham was focused on Cheney. Had the mainstream press gone in with an more open mind, they might have been more able to shift their focus to Miller’s speech, letting that be front and center on the front pages yesterday morning. That would have hurt Bush and helped Kerry far more than focusing on Cheney.
Oh well. Sometimes a Lapham can backfire. Heh.
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AND IN OTHER NEWS, WATER IS WET!
Andrew Sullivan: “despite my deep admiration for some of what this president has done to defeat terror, and my affection for him as a human being, I cannot support his candidacy.”
Boy, didn't see that one coming, did you?
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Thursday, September 02, 2004
THANKS ZELL, BUT…
I loved Zell’s speech insofar as the words go. It was absolute red meat.
Otherwise, I have to agree with Michael Graham that last night was “the night the Republican Party lost its smile.” Senator Miller’s facial expression varied from frown to outright scowl. His voice didn’t vary a bit—it was all shrill.
I can’t imagine Zell will attract any undecideds. The only benefit was that Dick Cheney looked like a benevolent, charming older man by comparison.
This leaves President Bush with an even bigger burden tonight. He has to come off ever warmer and fuzzier than usual to make up for the “niceness deficit” Miller created for the GOP last night.
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IT’S ONLY 79%!
How would you describe a service in which 79% of those eligible for it enrolled? “Popular”? “Enjoying wide support”? “Successful”?
Well, it turns out that 79% of those families who were notified of their eligibility for a school voucher in Washington D.C. have decided to use the voucher. So what do you do if you write for the media and oppose school choice? Why focus on the other 21%, that’s what!
Here’s the headline and sub-headline of the article in the Washington Post:
Many D.C. School Vouchers Go Unused 290 Students Forgo $7,500 Tuition Grants Combine this with the New York Times recent antics, and it’s official. The mainstream (read “left-wing”) media has declared war on school choice.
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Wednesday, September 01, 2004
KERRY WON’T WIN
John Kerry will not be president.
There is one basic reason, and it’s not the Swift Boat Vets, his pledge to raise taxes, or his stumbling campaign—though all of those hurt his chances.
Rather, it comes down to this: He has no clue how to approach the War on Terrorism.
This is clear from his actual policy proposals, like getting the French and Germans to help us in Iraq. No one takes this seriously. First, few voters save some die-hard Democrats really believe that the French and Germans would even be willing to send troops to Iraq. Second, it shows how tone deaf Kerry is on the issue. Given how unpopular France is among Americans right now, does Kerry really think he’ll attract a lot of voters by saying his Iraq policy relies on pleading with Mr. Chirac?
It is clear from his numerous flip-flops. From the derisive remark in his convention speech that, “Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn't make it so,” to his recent concession that he would have “voted to give the president the authority to go to war” even if he had known there were no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, he can’t make up his mind as to whether to support the war or oppose it.
It’s also clear from the way he has used his Vietnam service. He and his surrogates have not merely used it as a resume booster but also as an answer to every criticism of Kerry on national security. This was evident most recently when Cheney criticized Kerry for favoring a more “sensitive” war on terror. Kerry toady Senator Tom Harkin tagged Cheney as a “coward” and growled, “They’re running scared because John Kerry has a war record and they don’t.” From day one, Kerry has hoped that his Vietnam service would inoculate him against all questions about his foreign policy objectives. It was if he was saying, “You can trust me to fight the War on Terror, because I fought in Vietnam. I was willing to fight then, so you can trust me to fight now. And, frankly, I’m a bit outraged by the question—you’re not really questioning my foreign policy, but my service in Vietnam.”
While this may be sufficient for the mainstream (read “left-wing”) media, it is inadequate for many voters. They are not going to take on faith that Kerry will fight the War on Terrorism because of Kerry’s four months commandeering a swift boat thirty-five years ago. They want to know how he’ll fight it.
The problem is that Kerry doesn’t know how he would fight it. This was no where more apparent than his convention speech, where he never used the words terrorism, al Qaeda, Afghanistan, North Korea, or Iran. Imagine where Kerry would be in the polls right now if he had uttered the following words in his speech:
“I will be more cautious in my approach to this war than the Bush Administration. If we invade another country, I will make certain that my advisors carefully plan out how to win the peace, so that we can avoid many of the problems we are currently experiencing in Iraq. But make no mistake—we cannot dismiss the doctrine of preemption. If necessary, I will strike the terrorists, and the nations supporting them, before they strike us. Right now, we are facing a growing threat from Iran. It is a nation whose thuggish rulers support terrorism. They are on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. I will do all in my power to resolve this issue peacefully, to convince Iran to give up its weapons’ program, to allow continuous inspections to ensure that they have given up their nuclear program. Yet if that is not possible, I will use missile strikes and bombing missions to take out Iran’s nuclear capabilities. And although it will pain me enormously to do so, I will line up American troops on Iran’s border to remove Iran’s terrorist regime if the other options prove fruitless.” But Kerry didn’t say that because that would mean coming to the recognition that fighting a war requires the actual use of force. A liberal like Kerry can only envision using force when America is attacked. Force used in any other way is, in the liberal mind, an act of aggression. Kerry would rather rely on all the old liberal, and usually ineffective, standbys like sanctions, negotiations, peace agreements, the United Nations, etc. In his convention speech, Kerry said, “I will never hesitate to use force when it is required. Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response.” But go after an enemy before he attacks? Well, Kerry served in Vietnam!
Voters, at least a majority of them, want a president that will use all options, including force, to prevent future terrorist attacks. President Bush has already shown that he will. Kerry hasn’t, and he won’t. That means that come January, Kerry will still be a senator.
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HOW KERRY COULD REALLY LOSE
Some people never learn...
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Tuesday, August 31, 2004
BACK TOMORROW
I will begin blogging to Hog Haven tomorrow. Look forward to hearing from you all again.
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Monday, August 30, 2004
THE BUSH BOUNCE
My latest at the Spectator.
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Friday, August 20, 2004
WHAT KERRY SHOULD DO
Namely, tell Tom Harkin to shut up.
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Tuesday, August 17, 2004
THE NEA AND THE FAR LEFT
My latest at the Spectator.
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