I ran across this link yesterday and can’t remember where I found it, but here’s a letter from one of our boys in Iraq that says it all quite nicely:

It has been interesting to follow the news reports from the Republican National Convention, to include the protests in New York by 10s of thousands of people. I am all for standing up for what you believe, which should include voicing your opinions against wars and against presidents, if that is your calling.

But, it really makes me mad when I see people with signs that say things like, “Bring our Boys Home!” There have been several pictures published of protesters carrying flag-draped coffins, and carrying these types of signs.

I have news for you.

The soldiers in Iraq, and Afghanistan do not want your sentiment, or your voice that would have the lives of those already lost dishonored by not finishing the job.

Regardless of how you feel about why we went to war, America made a commitment. It’s time we see the job through to fruition. Lack of resolve by many U.S. citizens is the main reason for a lack of trust on the part of those being liberated.

Iraqi citizens are waiting for our resolve to crumble, and see us depart before adequate Iraqi security is established. Al Qaida does not have to beat America in a fight in order to win, they just have to get us to go home.

Ask yourself, what would happen to Iraq, if America were to take your misguided advice and went home before finishing the job?

On the Democratic ticket, natch.

In another scrupulously fair and non-partisan piece, the AP writes the Dem response to Bush’s speech last night for them and passes it off as a “news report.” Simply mind-boggling—not that they did it, but that they apparently expect to keep getting away with it without anybody noticing.

(Via LGF)

Jeez, when I decided to goof around a bit on the Dems using Death as a theme in that last post, I didn’t mean it literally:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Former President Bill Clinton will undergo quadruple bypass surgery later on Friday, television networks reported.

ABC and CBS television reported that Clinton, 58, had checked in to the hospital for quadruple heart bypass surgery.

CNN reported that the former Democratic president was undergoing tests at Columbia Presbyterian hospital after experiencing chest pains.

Via Wretchard, this telling point made by Dick Morris:

From the excellent polling and brilliant analysis of Scott Rasmussen, who takes daily tracking polls, comes evidence of Democratic division and Republican unity.

One example: Rasmussen asked if Iraq was a part of the War on Terror or a distraction from it. Republicans overwhelmingly said it was integral — by 79-14. But Democrats were divided. Half said it is a distraction — but 36 percent felt it was a key part of the war effort.

So what is Kerry to say? Either way, he loses votes. And if he waffles, he strengthens his reputation for flip-flopping.

Should we give a priority to finishing the mission in Iraq or to bringing the troops home? Republicans say “stay the course,” 71-23. Democrats divide: 54 percent say “come home”; 37 percent want us to finish the mission.

Who is winning the War on Terror? Republicans say we are, 77-10. Democrats divide almost equally, with 33 percent saying America is winning and 42 percent saying the terrorists are gaining the upper hand.

So how is Kerry to characterize the war? Say it’s a success — and alienate 42 percent of his vote — or call it a failure — and drive away 33 percent?

Republicans are sure, by 67-12, that if we’d left Saddam in power, life in America would be more dangerous. Democrats again divide, with 20 percent saying life is safer because he is out, and 34 percent saying it’s not.

Should the United States follow the lead of its allies more than we do now? Republicans say “No,” 72-5; 44 percent of the Democrats say “Yes,” and 19 percent say “No.”

So, on each of these issues, whenever Kerry opens his mouth, he loses.

Our little hour,—how short a time
To wage our wars, to fan our hates,
To take our fill of armoured crime,
To troop our banners, storm the gates.
Blood on the sword, our eyes blood-red,
Blind in our puny reign of power,
Do we forget how soon is sped
Our little hour?
—Leslie Coulson

Kind of hard to figure out what to excerpt from this one, since it covers a lot of ground. But I’ve just got to go with this bit on Mikey Moore, and since it’s Hanson it’s quite possibly the most definitive statement imaginable on the Lard Lad:

Michael Moore is only temporarily dormant, and, as we just saw, he is starting to froth and rumble. It has been a little while since he was in the spotlight with Fahrenheit 9/11 — a near-fatal quiet for an egomaniac of his caliber. He inaugurated the present cycle of American viciousness right after 9/11 (lamenting that Republicans were not more in evidence at the 9/11 World Trade Center) and never really stopped — calling Americans “stupid,” praising the beheaders in Iraq as “Minutemen,” and slurring Bush as a “a drunk, a thief, a possible felon, an unconvicted deserter, and a crybaby.” For the moment his presence has been trumped by the Swift-boat veterans, whose mainstream third-party ads have done more harm to Kerry than Moore’s creative slumming ever did to Bush.

But it is worse than that. Michael Moore is a greater albatross around John Kerry than any Republican ever could have wished — providing tit-for-tat exemption for outside groups on the right to emulate his methodology, but without his counterproductive, buffoonish, and repulsive antics. Moore is the Abbie Hoffman or Jerry Rubin of our times, and thus might do for John Kerry what the latter two and their followers did for Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern.

So get ready for another Moore belly-flop into the American political cesspool. It is too late to make another propaganda film before the elections, but we will see his hand in a variety of media, with his characteristic allegiance to untruth, hysteria, and malice.

Stephen says:

Watching, listening to Bush’s tribute to fallen soldiers and their families, I remember the pride I felt in him when he held that bullhorn at Ground Zero.

Nuance? None. Backtracking? Zero. Calculation? There, probably, but undetectable.

Tell me I’m not the only one who sees all that.

Update! Bill says….well, hell, just go read it.

Updated update! Man alive, there must be at least thirty or forty people at the hastily-convened-in-frantic-desperation Kerry rally. He just pinched off this real zinger, too: “After reading the speeches, I figured out what “RNC” actually stands for: Really Not Compassionate.”

And when I think about how much some stooge probably got paid to come up with something that hopelessly lame, I realize once and for all that I have wasted all these years in the wrong damn business. But I did just whip up a fine, fine slogan for the Kerry campaign: “George W. Bush: just not compassionate enough to run a properly-sensitive war.”

Hire me, fellas.

Okay, so I’ve been mulling things over a bit, and I find myself confused over something. (Okay, okay, I’m really not at all, but you know what I’m getting at here.)

Jim Geraghty nails why Zell the Dragon was so effective, and why it matters, and why his outraged passion was in no way inappropriate:

There’s been a lot of talk about Democrats’ anger this year. Well, the Michael Moores, the Al Frankens, the accusations of warmongering for profit and Hezbollah propaganda assistance has generated more than a wee bit of anger on the right. Miller was the first speaker at the convention to let out a bit of that anger from the right.

I would love to see some instant-polling data on how it played – whether the general public loved it, or whether it was too spicy for a delicate palate.

That’s why Republicans went wild for Miller and that’s why Allah’s not sure how the speech will play with undecideds. He is sure of one thing, though: For Sullivan to begrudge the GOP a moment of anger given what’s been coming down the pike from Democrats every day for the past eighteen months requires balls that are elephantine even by elephant standards.

After all the talk about how hot Jenna is (and she is), I’m going to risk being considered completely tasteless here (gee, that’ll be a switch) and observe that both Laura Bush and Lynn Cheney are not exactly what you’d call chopped liver. Way too staid and conservative-looking to suit any of my usual unusual fetishes, of course, but still fine-looking women, the both of them.

And don’t sit there looking all shocked, dammit; I know I have some older guys hanging around this hogwallow, and you know you’ve all thought the same damned thing.

And then there are those Democrats who are hoping to see Bush “admit his mistakes” in Iraq, who think that Cheney should have used his time to “explain defeats and setbacks,” to “grapple with reality.”

Absurd. Sullivan has now officially lost it—his hysteria over gay marriage has finally gotten the better of him, I guess. To expect that Cheney and the Repubs should have spent even a moment of convention time wringing their hands in anguish over how tough the reconstruction of Iraq has been (and they said all along it would be, mind) is laughable. And if Sullivan really considers that an appropriate way to get undecided voters on board and energize the base at the Republican convention, how come he didn’t notice that the Dems weren’t exactly waxing pensive over Clinton’s abject failure to deal with terrorism at theirs? Nope, as I recollect, according to Sullivan the Dem convention was nothing but one thrilling, inspiring “home run” after another, interleavened with some pretty perfunctory and half-hearted caveats.

I still think Andrew is a wonderful writer and a thoughtful, decent guy. But he’s clearly bought the wormy bill of goods being sold by the Dems hook, line, and sinker.

Update! And as you’d no doubt have figured already, Ace is a lot harder on him than I can bring myself to be.

Updated update! Cole gets his two cents in, too. That’d be two cents on the gold standard, I mean.

Jonathan Last says:

ZELL MILLER, of course, passed “stern” exactly eight sentences into his speech, when he declared, “my family is more important than my party.” From there, Katie bar the door.

The first thought that crosses one’s mind while listening to Miller’s speech is that someone ought to fetch the fine people at the New York Times some smelling salts. Perhaps a bucketful. All through Miller’s remarks, I could—literally—hear liberal reporters seated around me tsk-tsking and exclaiming, under their breath, “That’s not fair!”

(As an aside: Can you guess the words which will be used to describe Miller’s speech this morning? “Harsh,” “diatribe,” “smear,” “strident,” “partisan,” “attack,” “personal,” “negative,” “severe,” “abrasive”? Anything else? “Rough,” maybe. Oh, and I’ll see you an “angry” and raise you an “ugly.”)

Think Zell Miller’s old-school Southern Baptist sermon was over the top? Well, according to Tacitus, the fire-and-brimstone speech he delivered was actually toned down from the original.

Boy, would I like to get a peek at what he was originally planning to say before they dialed back the outrage. As I said last night, my God. The original draft probably just spontaneously combusted after it was written, necessitating the rewrite. We’re all going to be talking about this one for a looong time, folks.

...good luck to Chris Muir. Stay safe, buddy. We’ll all be here when you get back.

...Zell Miller is flaying Kerry alive. If you ain’t watching this, you sure oughta be.

Update! Cheney’s first line: “I’m glad Zell Miller’s on our side.” You got that straight, Dick. Zell’s speech was sixteen minutes of pure supernova inferno. And Kerry’s ass will be burning from it for weeks.

Updated update! So far Cheney is coming off like ice cream after jalapenos, which might not necessarily be a bad thing. But he has some flamethrower tendencies of his own; we’ll see if he turns ‘em loose.

Update to the updated Update! Just gotta post this before I hit the ol’ hay: what I, at least, consider to be the heart of Zell the Dragon’s absolutely devastating speech:

Only in New York—and a very good reason why I still love the place, and always will.

(Via Insty)

Ben Ginsberg has an important question:

A $500,000 ad buy made by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth brings searing media scrutiny and “proof” of illegal coordination based on a lawyer (me) representing both the Bush-Cheney campaign and the Swift Boat Veterans; on an accountant working for Tom DeLay’s political action committee; and on a $200,000 contributor to the group who is not a major donor to Bush-Cheney 2004 but who does know Karl Rove.

Meanwhile, the media give practically no scrutiny to a $63 million, five-month, negative-ad buy done by Democratic “527” groups (the Media Fund, MoveOn.org and others) with a revolving door of connections to the Kerry campaign. Consider:

• Kerry campaign lawyer Bob Bauer and Democratic National Committee counsel Joe Sandler also represent 527s—not illegal, but doesn’t it deserve a little scrutiny?

• Jim Jordan, John Kerry’s campaign manager until last November, works for three of the 527s.

• Harold Ickes, an executive committee member of the Democratic National Committee, heads the Media Fund.

• Bill Richardson simultaneously chaired the Democrats’ national convention and a 527.

• Michael Meehan became Kerry’s spokesman after running NARAL Pro-Choice America’s “soft money” programs.

• Zack Exley went from being a MoveOn.org executive to the Kerry campaign.

The coordination law prohibits individuals from “using or conveying” information on the private “plans, needs or projects” of a campaign to a 527 or vice versa. If the media can scrutinize my legal work, which doesn’t even fall under the anti-coordination rules, why can’t they scrutinize these Democrats with equal diligence?

But I’ll give credit to the WaPo for putting this little slice of truth in amongst the rest of the slanted swill, I’ll say that much.

Great line from Boortz’s wife:

Donna returned home to Atlanta yesterday afternoon. As she got into the cab on the street between our hotel and Ground Zero I told her that there where ghosts across the street. ”Yes there are,” she said. ”But they’re not here to hurt you. They’re here to remind you.” 

Nobody could have said it better.

Oh, those peace-loving, dissent-promoting protesters:

The demonstrations grew demonic at the Republican National Convention yesterday as protesters set fire to a traffic light, tipped over a fruit cart, tossed around garbage cans, attacked a journalist and spit on Republican conventioneers in a wave of mayhem across Manhattan.

Police said more 1000 people had been arrested by 11 p.m., but that number continued growing as the NYPD rounded up activists gathering at the New York Public Library, Herald Square, Union Square, Madison Avenue and elsewhere.

At least 16 arrests involved assaults on cops, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said.

The huge number of arrests did not humble those behind the anti-Bush outbursts.

“We’ve showed that there are thousands of people in New York who are willing to stand up to the police,” said Eric Laursen, a spokesman for the A31 Action Coalition, which coordinated more than a dozen demonstrations yesterday.

“The streets of New York belong to the people.”

Look, I’m all for dissent, I’m all for protests, I’m all for freakshows. I have a great time poking fun at them, and I’d hate to see them all go away. New York City of all places ought to be a place where they feel absolutely free to express themselves. But these people have not only crossed the line into stifling the right of free expression for those they disagree with, they’ve turned around and pissed on it. These violent, criminal jerks are patently unAmerican. They’ve forfeited their right to speak out by their unlawful intimidation of anyone they even suspect of disagreeing with them. They have absolutely no clue what this country is supposed to be all about, and they don’t care; all they know is their vicious, simpleminded contempt for American ideals, that they hate everyone who doesn’t share their warped viewpoint. They are spoiled, debased, ungrateful, whining über-children. And they’re totalitiarian criminals who represent a tangible threat to freedom of thought in America.

Fuck them. I have not one iota of sympathy and not one moment of consideration to waste on idiots like this. Send ‘em to Rikers and throw away the key for all I care. Let them shout their pharasaical tirades about freedom of speech at the walls of the filthiest cell we can find for them. They can say that it proves I’m a Nazi all they like; coming from these latter-day Hitler Jugend, it won’t bother me one bit. Dissent is a fine thing, one that it is absolutely essential to protect, but there is absolutely no obligation whatsoever on anybody’s part to tolerate what these twerps are doing. The principle behind their way of thinking so closely mirrors that of the Islamists we’re currently fighting a war against as to be indistinguishable from it but for the religious aspect of the latter. They ought to be dealt with harshly. That’s all there is to it.

The Commissar crams diversity right up Wonkette’s silly Dem-flack ass.

Here’s a little something from Allah for you to chew on a bit:

She (Laura Bush – ed) mentioned that her father helped liberate Nordhausen during World War II and followed it up with this rather arresting line: “The methods of the terrorists we face today are different — but my father would know this struggle.” Another gripper was when she mentioned sharing meals with Bush after 9/11:

I remember some very quiet nights at the dinner table. George was weighing grim scenarios and ominous intelligence about potentially even more devastating attacks.

Allah recalls only too well that Time magazine story about an informant telling the government in October 2001 that Al Qaeda had smuggled a 10-kiloton atomic bomb into New York City. Imagine splitting a pizza with a guy who expects someone to walk in at any minute and tell him that Manhattan is up in smoke, and that it’s his job to figure out a way to deal with it.

Y’know, Arnie may be sort of goofy at times, and he may lay it on a bit thick here and there, but you just gotta love the guy, don’t you?

More convention hilarity via Allah:

At 15th Street on the West Side Highway, the City of New York has set up a temporary detention center on Pier 57 for people arrested during the RNC protests. The building was formerly a garage for buses, and the conditions are appalling: the large holding pens are made of chain link fence with razor wire on top; each pen has only two portable toilets and very few benches; most people have to sleep on the floor; arrestees have gone for many hours without access to food, water, phones, or lawyers.

The building most likely has asbestos and there are large areas where oil from the buses that used to be housed there has spilled. There is some question about whether the building has an operable fire-suppression system. On top of that, people are being held an unusually long amount of time before they are moved through the process and released.

No word on how many of those older buildings in NYC that have people actually, you know, living in them full-time still have asbestos also. No mention either of the fact that during their convention, the Dems were locking the freaks up in cages before they even had a chance to commit any crimes against persons or property.

This is an outrage. While the red carpet is being rolled out for the RNC, the City is housing protesters who were detained during sweep arrests in demeaning, dehumanizing, and potentially hazardous conditions. The situation is so bad that many are calling Pier 57 “Guantanamo on the Hudson.” We call on the City of New York to move all arrestees out of this facility immediately. We call for speedy processing all arrestees, and fair and decent treatment of everyone held by the police.

Alternatively, we might try this more direct and concise translation: “Waaaa!!” But I’m sure their Gitmo comparison is apt: a detention area falsely claimed by the Lefty snivelers as a literal Hell on Earth, but which is in fact nothing of the sort.

Join us in a picket line in front of Pier 57 tomorrow morning to protest the appalling conditions there and show solidarity with arrestees.

And I’ll note here that this A31 group probably ought to be called A200 instead, since I haven’t seen anyone else make that joke yet.

Could this election season possibly get any funnier? I think I’ve cracked a couple of ribs already.

The desperation mounts—incredible as that may seem:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – President Bush said Tuesday “we will win” the war on terror, seeking to quell controversy and Democratic criticism over his earlier remark that victory may not be possible.

In a speech to the national convention of the American Legion, Bush said, “We meet today in a time of war for our country, a war we did not start yet one that we will win.”

That statement differed from Bush’s earlier comment, aired Monday in a pre-taped television interview, that “I don’t think you can win” the war on terror. That had Democrats running for the cameras to criticize Bush for being defeatist and flip-flopping from previous predictions of victory.

“What if President Reagan had said that it may be difficult to win the war against communism? What if other presidents had said it’d be difficult to win the war — the Cold War?” Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards said on ABC’s “Nightline” program. “The war on terrorism is absolutely winnable.”

Or maybe a fresh approach would be best. Something like, say, “Bush is a pirate! A big, scary pirate with an eyepatch and a cutlass and everything! He loots and plunders from poor defenseless commercial sailors! He has no regard for international law and unilaterally violates the long-respected tradition of free passage on the high seas for all! Isn’t that frightening? Arrr!! Booga booga!” Maybe that would do it.

Then again, maybe you should just take the sage advice of an old favorite of mine, the Mack character from Cannery Row (as played by the great M. Emmett Walsh), to wit: “Why don’t you just give up?”

Looks like they’ve done it again:

Looks like the cognitive dissonance has already gotten to Moore:

I’ve often found that if I go down the list of “liberal” issues with people who say they’re Republican, they are quite liberal and not in sync with the Republicans who run the country. Most don’t want America to be the world’s police officer and prefer peace to war. They applaud civil rights, believe all Americans should have health insurance and think assault weapons should be banned. Though they may personally oppose abortion, they usually don’t think the government has the right to tell a women what to do with her body.

There’s a name for these Republicans: RINOs or Republican In Name Only. They possess a liberal, open mind and don’t believe in creating a worse life for anyone else.

So why do they use the same label as those who back a status quo of women earning 75 cents to every dollar a man earns, 45 million people without health coverage and a president who has two more countries left on his axis-of-evil-regime-change list?

I asked my friend on the street. He said what I hear from all RINOs: “I don’t want the government taking my hard-earned money and taxing me to death. That’s what the Democrats do.”

Money. That’s what it comes down to for the RINOs. They do work hard and have been squeezed even harder to make ends meet. They blame Democrats for wanting to take their money.

Sheesh. This guy is so out of touch with current reality he can’t even see it with a telescope from where he’s standing, and he’s saying the Repubs are out of the mainstream. The poor man ought to be in some sort of home.

Hindrocket says:

By far the loudest response McCain got—probably the strongest response anyone got—was when he denounced Michael Moore as “a disingenuous filmmaker who would have us believe that Saddam’s Iraq was an oasis of peace, when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty…” I think the Republicans should do more of this. The problem with Moore isn’t that he is fat, crude or unpatriotic, although all of those things are true. His main fault is that he is a liar. He is also the intellectual leader of today’s Democratic Party. The Republicans need to do more to hang him around the Democrats’ neck, while empasizing his untruthfulness.

Oh, and before I forget to mention it, this part of Giuliani’s speech will no doubt have left some liberal teeth grinding too, as some intense cognitive dissonance sets in:

I don’t believe we’re right about everything and Democrats are wrong. They’re wrong about most things. But — but — but, seriously, seriously, neither party has a monopoly on virtue. We don’t have all the right ideas. They don’t have all the wrong ideas.

But I do believe there are times in history when our ideas are more necessary and more important and critical. And this is one of those times when we are facing war and danger. These are times — these are times when leadership is the most important.

I think maybe it’s time for Tiemann to write off Canada altogether and find someplace more hospitable to vacation.

Glad you got back safe and sound, my friend.

Lest any of y’all get to feeling too warm and fuzzy about Rudy’s fine speech last night, let me remind you of what some New Yorkers used to think of him….and no doubt still do:

Boy, when the Left gets hold of a dead horse they just keep right on flogging it, don’t they?



Look, he’s crushing The Peepul, maaaan!



Class, wit, and fine art—somebody get this guy a NEA grant, quick!



And one for New York’s finest, too—can’t have a Lefty hatefest without some of that good ol’ Lefty cop-hate, can we?

What a bunch of hopeless dimbulbs, eh? “People” like the scum who came up with this hackneyed, artless garbage ( I was living in NYC when Giuliani became Mayor, and I remember seeing posters like these plastered all over my neighborhood) are exactly who John Kerry is trying to run away from now. But he can’t, because once upon a time he was one of them.

But know what the truly nice thing is? These morons have lost. The pendulum has swung in the other direction, thanks to a dastardly attack that they still insist we richly deserved. It’s all over for them, and the more intelligent of them know it. Far from being the cutting edge of radical opinion, they’re as quaint and irrelevant now as flappers and bathtub gin; their day is at long last over. All that remains now is to finish cleaning up the mess they left us. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

« Enough already

So did McCain really just say: “....and that fat bastard traitor filmmaker sitting up there in the nosebleed section where he belongs is going to be first in line to get a little car-battery electrolysis done on his testicles once we get those Ashcroft Reeducation Centers set up….”—or did I mishear him?

And when the cameras cut to Moore and we could get a peek at his reaction, was that a Kenworth hubcap full of mashed potatoes and sausage gravy Moore was passed out snout-down in? Or no?

Update! Hot damn! Rudy Giuliani has Janeane Garofalo in a headlock, while simultaneously administering a wicked Indian rope burn on failed broadcaster Al Franken! And he’s making John Edwards hold his jacket while he’s doing it! Cool!

Updated update! This is turning into quite a little entertainment tour de force for Rudy, who just released Franken and Garofalo and proceeded to tapdance back and forth across Ted Kennedy’s stupendously-drunk ass before launching into a note-perfect riff from an old Redd Foxx routine. Meanwhile, Franken crawled up to Moore’s booth and attempted to borrow some barbecue sauce from Moore to make a poultice for his Indian rope burn. Moore was snarfling up three jumbo orders of ribs at the time, plus a bucket of jalapeno poppers and two quarts of Diet Coke, and Franken lost three fingers and an eyebrow in the resulting brouhaha. No word on Garofalo’s condition, or how good the employee health-care plan provided by Air(head) America really is.

Update to the updated Update! It seems that Garofalo has been forced to don white go-go boots, pasties, and booty shorts and dance in a cage purely for the edification of some rowdy lesbian conventioneers from Idaho. It’s also rumored that the injuries she suffered in her tussle with Giuliani will indeed be covered by the Air (Anti)America health care plan, but her deductible is going to be a real killer. In other news, John Kerry has put himself in for a fourth Purple Heart as a result of tonight’s convention action.

Update redux! Thanks to a lawsuit, an injunction, a writ of habeas corpus, and a restraining order filed by John Edwards against me this morning, I’ve realized that I misstated the number of Purple Hearts Kerry has. This latest one he’s put in for would be his eleventh, with combat V, pink hearts, green clovers, and blue diamonds. I regret the error.

Well, I’ll be damned:

CONCORD, N.C.—Indian Larry, a master motorcycle mechanic and stunt man, passed away Monday morning following an accident while performing Saturday at the Liquid Steel Classic and Custom Bike Series show at Cabarrus Arena and Events Center in Concord.

Want to see what stifling of dissent really looks like? Look no further than right here.

(Via Ed Driscoll)

There he goes again:

‘’I’m pretty tough on Castro, because I think he’s running one of the last vestiges of a Stalinist secret police government in the world,’’ Kerry told WPLG-ABC 10 reporter Michael Putney in an interview to be aired at 11:30 this morning.

Then, reaching back eight years to one of the more significant efforts to toughen sanctions on the communist island, Kerry volunteered: ``And I voted for the Helms-Burton legislation to be tough on companies that deal with him.’’

It seemed the correct answer in a year in which Democratic strategists think they can make a play for at least a portion of the important Cuban-American vote—as they did in 1996 when more than three in 10 backed President Clinton’s reelection after he signed the sanctions measure written by Sen. Jesse Helms and Rep. Dan Burton.

There is only one problem: Kerry voted against it.

(Via Caruso)

The Bear has come through again with another fine idea, perusable here.

“...I reiterate that we’ve learned a little more about Jim Boyd every day over the past week and we’ve already learned more than we ever wanted to know.”

Gawdalmighty, but the Powerline boys are slicing and dicing the stunningly arrogant dead-tree despot Jim Boyd, and it’s more fun than a Herschell Gordon Lewis film festival. Just scroll around a bit, but you might want to consider putting on some hip waders or bib overalls first, because the gore from the corpse is being splashed around pretty liberally at this point.

Well, just as effectively as it ever did, anyway.

And another former lib comes out of the closet for good:

Although I had grown up in the liberal counterculture, I was increasingly uncomfortable with the way that it was hardening into a rigid and intolerant orthodoxy. I resented the fact that there were ideas you couldn’t discuss and opinions that were considered immoral. Nor did I share the existential panic of most liberals over the emergence of conservative Christians as a political force.

Finally, in 1987, Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind. Bloom was a friend of my father’s, and I had spent the previous year at the University of Chicago taking courses with him on Plato, Machiavelli, and Rousseau. Bloom’s attack on relativism and multiculturalism and his defense of the Great Books were bitterly condemned as racist, sexist, Eurocentric, and elitist. Many who denounced the book clearly had not bothered to read it, relying instead on hostile reviews that distorted it beyond recognition. This was a fatal blow to my esteem for the Zabar’s Left. For an earlier generation, it was the excesses of the antiwar and Free Speech movements that had pushed them into the conservative camp. For me, it was the intellectual dishonesty of the debate about Bloom’s book.

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm-dmmty-hmm. *drums fingers on desk….sips coffee, lights cigarette, pets cat, tosses pen in the air, drops it, picks it up….*

Damn, y’all read slow.

Best. Steyn. Ever. It’s here, and I won’t even attempt an excerpt this time. Just go read it if you haven’t already; I’ll wait.

So by Friday of last week, my monthly bandwidth allotment is blown out completely, thanks to a steady increase in traffic around these parts over the last couple of months. I shrug my shoulders, get on with some other work I’d fallen behind on, leave town for the weekend, come back, and find this. What a depressing way to start the week.

But in all seriousness, I need to add my voice to all the others saying a sincere thank-you to SDB for all the good reading over the past couple of years. The blogosphere won’t be the same without you, Steven, and I also greatly appreciate the support you’ve given this site since back when it sucked even worse than it does now. You’re definitely one of the good guys, and I wish you the very best in your future endeavors.

James Taranto has it nailed down tight here:

So why do Democrats feel so vulnerable on the issue of patriotism? This question takes us back to the 1960s and, yes, Vietnam. That war, which a Democratic president escalated, split the party, costing it the presidency in 1968. By 1972 the countercultural left was firmly established as a part of the Democratic coalition—and it remains so. A significant and vocal minority of the party, that is, believes that America is imperialistic, racist, militaristic, oppressive, etc. These views aren’t necessarily unpatriotic; it is possible to love one’s country and also be a harsh critic of it. But if dissent can be patriotic, assent is far less complicatedly so.

That’s especially true during wartime, when domestic disunity can aid the enemy. Several men who were prisoners of war in Vietnam have said their communist captors used tapes and transcripts of Mr. Kerry’s antiwar testimony in an effort to demoralize them during interrogation sessions. These days, overseas opponents of America’s war effort cite the agitprop movie “Fahrenheit 9/11” as if it were authoritative—and the Democrats treated the maker of that film as a hero at their convention, where he was an honored guest of Jimmy Carter.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, it seemed possible that the antiwar counterculture was a thing of the past. But old habits die hard, and for the most part the Democratic left soon returned to its Sept. 10 mindset. Democrats nominated John Kerry, respected on the left for his antiwar agitation, on the theory that his war-hero pose would establish his patriotism and be sufficient to compensate for his lack of a muscular foreign policy.

Instead it has raised questions about his character. One veteran quoted in “Unfit for Command” puts the matter pungently: “In 1971-72, for almost 18 months, he stood before the television audiences and claimed that the 500,000 men and women in Vietnam, and in combat, were all villains—there were no heroes. In 2004, one hero from the Vietnam War has appeared, running for president of the United States and commander in chief. It just galls one to think about it.”

The Democrats’ problem goes deeper than their flawed nominee. Just as in 1968, they are a party divided on questions of war and peace. This didn’t matter during the seemingly placid 1990s, but today it puts them at a severe disadvantage. It’s difficult to see how they can overcome it.

I’m something of a freak myself and so have some sympathy with the other freaks, and I enjoy a good puppet-show-cum–mad-parade featuring half-naked punkettes on stilts as much as anybody, but I also am old enough to know that “Give peace a chance” is not an adequate philosophy to consider governing a rich, powerful, and much-envied nation by—nor do I consider it the greatest work of sheer genius poetry ever devised. They’ve locked themselves into a quite strong little box here, and perhaps the biggest mistake of all was turning custody of the keys over to their pals on the hard Left.

(Via Hugh Hewitt)