Miscellanea - Post-Christmas Blues Edition

Hindrocket at Power Line deconstructs Thomas Friedman in a tour de force...

JustOneMinute reveals the new, error-free New York Times post-Daniel Okrent...

Reggie White, according to his wife, died of respiratory problems related to his sleep apnea (nothing political or snarky to add here, just sorry to hear it, both because he died much too young, and for the more selfish reason that I was diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea just a few months ago, after going to the doctor and complaining of always being tired)...

The great Patrick Ruffini takes Scott Turow to the woodshed (hat tip to Lorie Byrd at PoliPundit...)

Merry Christmas From My Beagle

Hey, everyone, we had a white Christmas - I got some chew toys and a brush and some Christmas dog biscuits - hope your Christmas was a good as mine!

A Christmas Wish

I'll be leaving shortly to visit my family for Christmas. I hope to post some over the next few days, but it won't be my usual three or four posts a day, I'm sure. I'll get back to normal blogging on Monday.

I've really enjoyed putting this blog out and I thank all of you who have visited me, whether you like my work or hate it. My sincere wish for each of you is that your Christmas is safe, fun, full of presents and the presence of those who love. And don't forget, Santa's watching, so be good for goodness sake! Happy Holidays!

Am I a Fascist? A Conservative Responds...

Thanks to the magic of Trackback, I discovered this piece by Joust the Facts. He's all over the Michael Lind article like Garfield on lasagna, so please take a look...

Speaking of the Lind article, my post got a most curious response from Not a Fan (no kidding? I wouldn't have guessed it...). I quote in full:

People like you are a big reason that this country is on a downslide. You aren't wise. You aren't funny. You preach a political system that differs from facism only in name. You will wish you could retract your hate when the REAL American patriots return to power.

Now, I took another look at my post, and I couldn't find anything remotely hateful in it. That's fine, though, I've got a thick skin and anyone is welcome to comment, good or bad, as long as the language is kept relatively clean - but I'm getting a bit fed up with this fascist charge that gets so casually throw around. Look at my post - what is even REMOTELY fascist about it?

This isn't about me, though - it's time to stand up against this willful ignorance. The liberal branding of people on the right side of the political spectrum as fascist comes from the old canard that the extreme left is communism and the extreme right is fascist. As discussed eloquently in this article by Joseph Farah, the distinction is quite irrelevant, as fascism and communism end up in precisely the same place: the subordination of the individual to the greater good of the state or collective.

Anyone who takes a look around here or any conservative website with an open mind will realize at once that the modern conservative agenda is the complete opposite of fascism. It is the individual we seek to strengthen, and the state we wish to weaken. This doesn't mean we want a 'weak' America - we strongly support defense as a natural and welcome function of government, and we won't settle for anything less than the best. It's the control of the state over individual decisions that is our target.

Here are three examples from President Bush's domestic agenda:

1. Social Security Reform - partial privatization is a classic issue for modern conservatives in that it perfectly encapsulates our mission - it's all about who makes the choices, who has the control.
2. Tax cuts - as should be blindingly obvious to any but the most rabid Chomskyite, there are two reasons conservatives are for tax cuts - one, to put more money in the hands of the taxpayer where it belongs, and two, to starve the state from its natural state of agressive growth.
   
3. Health Savings Accounts with Deductible Premiums - taxpayers who take advantage of this proposal would save money on their taxes that would go directly towards reducing their out-of-pocket expenses and lowering insurance premiums. Again, more individual control means less control by the state.

It's not complicated, and its not a conspiracy. It's right there in the open. As I've said before, to equate support of Israel and a few anti-terror measures enacted in the wake of this century's Pearl Harbor with the crimes of Mussolini and Hitler is beyond contempt. Ironically, by crying wolf as often they do, the 'Progressives' are slowly devaluing the meaning of the word, and that's a shame, because true fascism is the enemy of all of us, right or left.

Last Minute Gift Ideas

For that bratty kid that belongs to some cousin you see once a year, some cheap toys from the Onion...

For the family 'Progressive', Cooper For President has politically correct gifts form Neiman Marxist...

All good conservatives will love this US out of UN Christmas ornament...

Finally (this one is real), in the spirit on the season, I've got ten GMail invitations for anyone who's interested (email me at mark.coffey@gmail.com - first come, first served). Merry Christmas!...

Good (and Bad) Advice for Democrats

deacon at Power Line linked today to an article in the American Prospect by Michael Lind under the heading 'One Leftist Gets It." There is much to like in the piece - read deacon's post (and the original, of course) for several highlights. Here are some more of the good bits:

According to the authors of The Great Divide: "If our analysis is correct, demographics will slowly bring the current Republican ascendancy to an end, even in retro America." This deserves to go down in history in a collection of famous last words. The truth is that the demographic prospects for blue-state Democrats are grim.
Phillip Longman of the New America Foundation has pointed out that in terms of fertility rates the red states had a 12-point advantage over the blue states in 2004. This partly reflects the higher fertility of Latino immigrants in red states like Texas, but among white Americans fertility differences reflect a gulf between the religious and the secular...

My typical middle-class suburb included middle-class blacks and Latinos, whites and Asians, Protestants and Jews and Catholics and Hindus, Democrats and Republicans. It had a dense civil society, revolving around common institutions like the public schools, sports teams and backyard barbecues along with the sectarian communities based on churches and synagogues. I only encountered real anomie and social isolation when I lived for four years in Manhattan, where neighbours never spoke to one another in apartment buildings or stores...

Even the most appealing economic programme cannot save American liberalism if it is associated with values that most Americans reject...

Unlike fundamentalists, a majority of Americans support gay rights and civil unions for gays and lesbians. At the same time, a majority of Americans oppose redefining marriage to include gay couples - but so do a majority of Europeans, to judge from the fact that only a few European countries have redefined marriage in this way...

That's all good stuff, but even an enlightened liberal like Lind still harbors some of the same ol' blue-state prejudices he so nobly warns against. He compliments Bush for adopting a religious tone of 'Enlightenment deism' while suggesting that his invocation of Jesus as his favorite political philosopher was a mistake. On the contrary, Bush's debate answer was the most frank moment in the history of those sorry, every-word-coached-and-rehearsed affairs. No one could have anticipated that answer, and none could doubt its sincerity.

Lind also accuses the Republicans of gay-baiting during the campaign. How? By being honest about their opposition to gay marriage, along with the majority of the public? In fact, it was the Kerry campaign that seemingly couldn't get through one discussion of homosexuality without mentioning Mary Cheney. Why? Once, maybe...but why again? Of what possible relevance to national policy is the sexuality of Dick Cheney's daughter? Kerry's gratiutious reference was the opposite of Bush's, and his rushed delivery gave him away. It was obvious from his awkwardness that this was a coached reply.

Still, it is encouraging to see that not all elements of the Left think that Bush won because we're all a bunch of fanatical idiots. Lind's article, despite its occasional missteps, is a success because he gets the fundamental point exactly right. You can't win the votes of someone you look upon with undisguised disdain.

Miscellanea - No Crisis? Who Cares? Edition

The Fly Bottle makes the excellent point that Social Security reform is a great idea even without a crisis (but there is one!) (courtesy of Reihan, guest-blogging for Andrew Sullivan)...

Arthur Chrenkoff goes around the world in 80 blogs...

In an astonishing display of stamina, Tim Blair posts the quotes of 2004, seperated by date - please check it out...

Forget Halliburton, why isn't someone investigating Maxine Waters?...

Weekly Jackass Number Four - Gore Vidal

I wanted to do something special for the holiday edition of Weekly Jackass. I thought of doing a Google search for somebody saying something outrageous about Christmas, but that's too easy. This week's Jackass would look at someone complaining about Christmas as a novice, in light of his impressive record of outrageous statements. He's a man of some talent, a great deal of paranoia, and a blinding hatred of anyone who loves America that rivals that of the great Chomsky. I give you - Gore Vidal.

The great thing about the Radical Left is they not only give you enough rope to hang them, but they throw the noose over the tree and tie the knot for you. Observe the twaddle that issues from our honoree's lips:

[The government] plays off [Americans'] relative innocence, or ignorance to be more precise. This is probably why geography has not really been taught since World War II -- to keep people in the dark as to where we are blowing things up. Because Enron wants to blow them up...

The Afghans had nothing to do with what happened to our country on September 11. But Saudi Arabia did. It seems like Osama is involved, but we don't really know...

We went to Afghanistan partly because the Taliban -- whom we had installed at the time of the Russian occupation -- were getting too flaky and because Unocal, the California corporation, had made a deal with the Taliban for a pipeline to get the Caspian-area oil, which is the richest oil reserve on Earth. They wanted to get that oil by pipeline through Afghanistan to Pakistan to Karachi and from there to ship it off to China, which would be enormously profitable. Whichever big company could cash in would make a fortune. And you'll see that all these companies go back to Bush or Cheney or to Rumsfeld or someone else on the Gas and Oil Junta, which, along with the Pentagon, governs the United States. We had planned to occupy Afghanistan in October, and Osama, or whoever it was who hit us in September, launched a pre-emptory strike. They knew we were coming. And this was a warning to throw us off guard...

I sometimes feel like I am the last defender of the republic...

The right wing are the bad guys, but they know what they want -- everybody else's money. And they know they don't like blacks and they don't like minorities. And they like to screw everyone along the way.

--- from an Interview with Vidal by Marc Cooper of the L.A. Weekly, 07/03/02

The entire world is horrified by what we do. He [Bush] goes into an innocent country called Afghanistan, knocks it down. One of his cabinet members knocks it down. Then he gives contracts to rebuild it to his vice president with Halliburton. Then he knocks down another country which has done nothing to us. Why don't you hit Denmark?...

Bush is about as evil as you can get, in the way of an American president...

There is no representative government. Congress doesn't represent anybody. And the Supreme Court, I must say, why some of them are not in jail, I don't know. ..

...democracy was something that the founding fathers hated. This is not generally known because it shouldn't be known, but it is...

This is the nation of torture...

---from an Interview with Vidal by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, 06/04/04

And that's just two interviews I've excerpted! I could go on and on and on and on (in fact, we'll have to do this again soon - do I smell the first repeat Weekly Jackass?), but this post is long enough as it is. As a parting shot, here's a link to some comments Vidal made to Liz Smith about Tony Blair and George Bush being dangerous 'Jesus-Lovers'.

I can say without reservation that Vidal is truly deserving of the honor of being our fourth Weekly Jackass.

Miscellanea - Boy, Was I Stupid Edition

I have already admitted to stupidity on the subject of presidential pardons; today, the Instapundit has led me to a source that reveals my ignorance in all its glory...

No Wictory Wednesday post yet from PoliPundit - but check out the blogroll to the right all the same; it's fun to check out new blogs now and then...

UPDATE 12/23 10:45 a.m. Central: Here's a Wictory Wednesday update at LeftCoastConservative...

Kerry Spot reports on some more CBS trickiness to watch for (hat tip to Hindrocket at Power Line)...

Find out what kind of dog you are here (it's fun and free, like Decision '08 - um, whatever...). I'm an Irish Water Spaniel (hat tip to bebere) ...

The New York Times Gets Religion

Sort of, anyway. Nicholas Kristof gets into the spirit of the season with some kind words for the Christian Right (hat tip to RealClearPolitics). He praises conservatives for leading the way on several issues that the Left should surely support, were it not for hatred of the Bushies. Included among them are Darfur, increased funding for the fight against AIDS in Africa, sex trafficking, and North Korea.

Kristoff is quite right that not every issue is a case of Left vs. Right. Surely there are some basic issues that all sides can agree on, and perhaps the way to that 'healing' that so many claim to want can be found through cooperation on, say, the genocide in Darfur. As Kristof concludes:

That would be a much better use of the next four years than sulking.

Oil-For-Food, Part Seven: A Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?

The Left, it seems, needs constant reminders that denial ain't just a river in Egypt (ouch!). A reader of this blog (see comments to this post) opines:

This whole O.F.F. 'scandal' is a joke: it's based on a list of people 'found' by an Iraqi general lying about the Ministry of Oil 2-3 weeks after Americans were 'protecting' the office, and given to a CIA-propped news organization!

Got that? A federal grand jury investigation, a UN-sponsered investigation led by former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, five congressional investigations - my, this is the broadest conspiracy since Oliver Stone's JFK theory!

Elsewhere on the, ahem, 'Progressive' front, Michael Pan at the Center for American Progress (there's that word again) lists 'Ten Things 'Progressives' (my scare quotes) Should Know About Oil-For-Food'. I highly recommend it, it's much funnier than any Ben Stiller movie. Especially hilarious is point number one - the program was badly managed. You can say that again, Michael! $21 billion down the toilet, I think that qualifies. Even Pan admits that there was massive fraud, though, and that action must be taken if the Volcker investigation shows wrongdoing. It bears repeating that Oil-For-Food is about the diversion of humanitarion aid in the BILLIONS to a tyrant who had three thousand palaces, give or take a dozen.

The 'Progressives' conveniently ignore the fact that the Bush administration is supporting Anan for now (what a sneaky conspiracy!). The proof of the ridiculous nature of the 'right-wing conspiracy' charge, though, comes from the man himself. This is Kofi Annan speaking:

Annan also rebuffed his 31-year-old son, Kojo, under investigation for having not revealing his full relationship with a firm that ran U.N. goods inspections in Iraq. The younger Annan, who had worked in West Africa for the Swiss company, Cotecna, has called the allegations "a witch hunt" and part of a broader Republican agenda. "I don't agree with that," Annan said.

Oh no, Kofi, they got to you, too! Sorry, lefties, it doesn't wash - checkmate. Please play again sometime....

Miscellanea - I Beg Your Pardon Edition

CNN has an article on Bush and his sparing use of the Presidential pardon. I very stupidly asked if it was time to get rid of the pardon in an earlier post, not having known or remembered that it's in the Constitution (d'oh!). For the record, W. is up to 31 (Clinton issued over 450, including you-know-who)...

The 3rd Annual Twenty Most Annoying Liberals in the United States (number 20 is Linda Ronstadt, so you can imagine how bad the first 19 are) - hat tip to deacon at Power Line...

The Daily Kos isn't happy about losing to a guy with a less than 50% approval rating: best line - The Democrats need to offer an alternative agenda over the next four years. It won't be enacted, so they can shoot for the moon. The hell with good policy, make proposals that sound great. It's a good thing the 'Progressives' aren't sore losers, isn't it? (hat tip to JustOneMinute)...

Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post (hat tip to No Left Turns):

...Islamic extremism is losing. The movement, in all of its variations, has been unable to garner mass support in any Muslim country. While people in many countries still despise their governments -- and that of the United States -- this has not translated into support for Osama bin Laden's ideas. It doesn't mean the end of terrorism by a long shot. Small groups of people can do great harm in today's world. But it does mean that the political engine producing this religious radicalism is not gaining steam.

As I've said before, we can't get rid of every terrorist, but we can and will win the War on Terror...

Hope Where There Is None

David Brooks has an excellent article in today's New York Times regarding the series of 'mistakes' Bush and Sharon have made that have us closer to peace in that region than any other moment in my lifetime. The critics of Bush and Sharon have been adamant in their conviction that we are targeting Islam and the Arab people rather than the terrorist elements among them. At every step, we have been assured that disaster is waiting in the wings.

We were told by such opportunists as Richard Clarke that the Iraq War is only worsening the War on Terror, and numerous 'experts' have warned that there can be no democracy in Iraq. Yet a vast majority of Iraqis are quite anxious to begin their democratic experiment, and the elections are only about six weeks away.

At ProgressiveTrail.org, Mike Whitney opined:

It's doubtful that either Bush or his friends in the media will be able to keep Afghanistan out of the headlines much longer. This mess bears the
American imprimatur, and sooner or later those chickens will becoming home to roost.

Wow, Mike, when you're right, you're right! Bush couldn't keep Afghanistan out of the headlines - now anyone who isn't blinded by ideological bias knows that Afghanistan just had democratic elections, the Afghan women have been freed from the tyranny of the Taliban, and the terrorist training camps disbanded - and yes, Mike, we proudly admit that this bears the American imprimatur.

Writing at Alexander Cockburn's ultra-left CounterPoint, Michael Labah had the following pearl of wisdom regarding Sharon's 'wall':

As with its other actions since 1967, Israel is again attempting to change the facts on the ground to influence the outcome of future negotiations
and continue its efforts to make life ever more miserable for the Palestinian population with the hope that they may simply give up and leave.

Michael, you're half right - of course Sharon is trying to change the tragic situation on the ground! Is the status quo what you're defending? I would suggest, though, that the Palestinian population has been made miserable by the failed leadership of the Arafat years, and Mahmoud Abbas is signalling that perhaps the time has come to forgoe violence.

I'm not naive - I know that Israel is still not secure, the Palestinians are still miserable, the drug trade and the War on Drugs are devestating Afghanistan in equal measure, and there are still way too many Iraqis and Americans dying in Iraq. My point is this: Bush and Sharon each have had the courage to say things are not acceptable as is, there must be a change, and we intend to move forward despite the inevitable harping from the Left. In this season of peace, let's say a prayer that their endeavors continue to bear fruit.

The Most-Blogged Blog

Intelliseek has a year-end study that names BoingBoing as the blog most often referred to in other blogs (this marks its first appearance here...not sure if that has any significance). The self-styled 'Directory of Wonderful Things' is apparently over 1 million monthly visitors - just a tad higher than I get here at Decision '08 (if by a tad you mean massively more many times over).

The most blogged story was Jon Stewart's pathetic grandstanding on Crossfire (though most didn't see it that way). Second place was much more meritorious, however - Christopher Hitchens' simply grand slamming of Michael Moore.

In Praise Of Mark Steyn

It's certainly good to see a Mark Steyn column of recent vintage. His website has had a message about a hiatus of sorts for some time that had me and others concerned. If you don't know his work, you should take some time to browse around the site. Few writers on Election '04 filled me with anticipation the way Steyn did. Here's Steyn from November 5th:

If you had to pick a picture that summed up what went wrong for Kerry, it would be the shot of [Michael] Moore and Jimmy Carter in the presidential box at the Democratic national convention. All you needed was P.Diddy, aka Puff Daddy (or vice-versa), of the Vote or Die mythical youth movement and it would have been the Democrats' equivalent of those Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin wartime summits. That picture is the Dems in a nutshell: yesterday's politicians, today's show-biz colossi.

Steyn is a former DJ and author of a book about musicals, among other things; he columns appear more places than I care to name (those interested can find out on his web site). I prefer to pay tribute with a few more choice excerpts.

On the election campaign: "I've been covering politics for 53 years, and that's just since John Kerry's convention speech. "

On the subject of Bush-hating: "In Britain and Europe, there seem to be two principal strains of Bush-loathing. First, the guys who say, if you disagree with me, you must be an idiot - as in the Mirror headline "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" Second, the guys who say, if you disagree with me, you must be a Nazi - as in Oliver James, who told The Guardian: "I was too depressed to even speak this morning. I thought of my late mother, who read Mein Kampf when it came out in the 1930s [sic] and thought, 'Why doesn't anyone see where this is leading?'"

On the Democratic field pre-nomination: "It's odd that when something big happens, as on Sunday, the Democratic candidates seem irrelevant to the story, like asking a lacrosse expert what he thinks of the Super Bowl. They get interviewed and they trot out their lame clich�s, about the need to "internationalize" Iraq, by which they mean not Tony Blair, John Howard, the Poles and Italians, but Kofi Annan, The Hague, the French, the Guinean foreign minister, all the folks who proved unwilling and unable to deal with Iraq before the liberation and who have given no indication of being likely to do any better after. "

Finally, Steyn on Oil-For-Food: "Oil-for-Fraud is everything the Left said the war was: it was all about oil - for Benon Sevan, the UN, France, Russia and the others who had every incentive to maintain Saddam in power. Every Halliburton invoice to the Pentagon is audited to the last penny, but Saddam can use Kofi Annan's office as a front for a multi-billion dollar global kickback scheme and, until it was brought to public attention by the tireless Claudia Rosett of The Wall Street Journal and a few other persistent types, the Secretary-General apparently never noticed."

Often funny, always caustic, but nearly always right on the issues: that's Mark Steyn in a nutshell.

Miscellanea - It Wasn't About the Election Edition

Tim Blair has a piece on Michael Moore's shifting motivations...

Writing in today's OpinionJournal, Kenneth L. Cain says Kofi Annan must go - but not for Oil-For-Food (and JustOneMinute says it's about to happen again)....

Merle Haggard a poet? He sure is, says the Big Trunk at Power Line (I couldn't agree more)...

Don't miss the Media Research Center's Seventeenth Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting (hat tip to Commonwealth Conservative)...

Required Reading

I highly recommend this article by Victor Davis Hanson in National Review on the credibility of the left. He has four recommendations:

1. Don't use the 'Islamophobia' excuse to avoid condemning terrorism and hatred.
2. Get over the use of 'imperialism' where it does not apply.
3. Wise up to the scandalous behavior of the UN.
4. Find some new heroes.

The whole thing is great, but here's my favorite excerpt:

Whether we call such notions �political correctness� or�progressivism,� the practice of privileging race, class, and gender over basic ethical
considerations has earned the moralists of the Left not merely hypocrisy, but virtual incoherence.
Democratic leaders are never going to be trusted in matters of foreign policy unless they can convince Americans that they once more believe in American exceptionalism and are the proper co-custodians of values
such as freedom and individual liberty.

In the words of the InstaPundit, indeed...

Miscellanea - Saddam Abandons Democracy Edition

Arthur Chrenkoff wonders if the Republican theft of the last two US elections influenced Saddam to abandon his precious democratic principles...

More on the trials and tribulations of the UN in the Kofi Annan era at Capitalism Magazine...

Mark Noonan on Mark Warner:

Mark Warner, to put it in a nutshell, is the perfect Democratic candidate for 2008 - he's intelligent, telegenic, well-spoken, energetic and takes a common-sense approach to political issues. In short, he's everything a Democrat cannot be and gain his Party's nomination.

George Soros, Saddam Hussein, and Human Rights

Clive Stafford Smith, a British human rights lawyer, is campaigning to ensure Saddam Hussein gets a fair trial, unlike his tens of thousands of victims. Smith's previous gig was to ensure that human rights were being observed at Guantanamo, courtesy of a grant from the George Soros Foundation (hat tip to little green footballs by way of Power Line). For those who don't know or don't remember, Soros is the genius who equated Abu Ghraib with 9/11. Let's see, posing and dressing a few people in a humiliating fashion versus mass murder on a gigantic scale - yep, seems about right. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for human rights, but as I've said before, the most basic human right is to live. I don't lose too much sleep over the treatment of murderers.

To get some idea of the mindset of Soros and the 'Progressives' who worship him, take a look at the opening of this profile in the New Statesman:

George Soros is angry. In common with 90 per cent of the world's population, the Man Who Broke the Bank of England has had enough of President Bush and his foreign policy. In a recent article in the Financial Times, Soros condemned the Bush administration's policies on Iraq as "fundamentally wrong" - based as they were on a "false ideology that US might gave it the right to impose its will on the world". Wow! Has one of the world's richest men - the archetypal amoral capitalist who made billions out of the Far Eastern currency crash of 1997 and who last year was fined $2m for insider trading by a court in France - seen the light in his old age? (He is 72.) Should we pop the champagne corks and toast his conversion?

After reading that, I don't know whether to hold Soros or his profiler Neil Clark in more contempt.

Where is the outrage from Soros and other human rights advocates towards the atrocities committed by our enemies? What could be more outrageous than the beheadings of hostages? Where is the outrage over the Islamic fundamentalists' treatment of women? Where is the outrage over suicide bombers killing people who were going to the supermarket, to work, or out for an evening of fun?

The United States is not perfect, but Soros knows better: there are literally dozens of countries that violate civil and human rights in the most egregious manner. The 'campaigns' for Saddam Hussein and the detainees are not about human rights; they are about publicity for a tired old rich man who spent $27 million of his own money to defeat George Bush, money that could have gone a long way towards really improving human rights in the areas that need it most.

Candidate Profile Six - Mark Sanford

Mark Sanford doesn't have the name recognition of a Powell, Rice, or Clinton, but the conservative governor of South Carolina has some other compensating qualities: he's relatively young, his conservative politics fit in well with the national mood at the moment, and there is a precedent for Southern governors winning nationally. A correspondent suggested I look at Sanford, and here's what I found.

Marshall Clement Sanford, Jr. - Official Biography

Unofficial 'Draft Sanford' site

Resume: South Carolina's 115th governor; former U.S. Congressman for South Carolina's 1st Congressional District; current Air Force Reservist

There's a lot to like about Sanford:

• He's a fiscal conservative, undoubtably Bush's weak point (though we Republicans tend to give Bush a pass on this because of 9/11, we must recognize that we have to control spending at some point). Sanford imposed major cost-cutting upon assuming the Governor's Office; when all but one of his 106 spending cuts were vetoed by the SC legislature, he strode into the statehouse with a live pig under each arm to symbolize the pork in the budget.
• He kept his word. When campaigning for Congress, Sanford said he would serve no more than three terms; at the end of his third term, he left.
• He's a tax cutter, preferring to control government growth through reduced spending. Steven Slivinski of the libertarian Cato Institute calls Sanford's proposed tax cuts the most agressive in the nation.

Do I agree with every position of his? Of course not. He voted in 1998 against abolishing race-based preferences in college admissions - I much prefer preferences based on economic factors. Does he have a shot? Alexander McClure at the excellent PoliPundit.com (hat tip to Country Fried) had this to say:

Very popular with mavericks and conservatives, Sanford comes from one of the reddest of red states, but he represents the New South. With his warm personality, Sanford could be just the candidate the GOP needs in 2008 to defeat the Democratic nominee, whom if past history is correct, will be extremely unlikable.

On the flip side, the great Ken Mehlman didn't mention Sanford when he recently tossed out eight possible GOP candidates in 2008.

Sanford will probably give it a shot, if the money and interest are there. How far he would take it if, say, McCain or Guiliani are running, is anybody's guess. He's young enough, smart enough, and conservative enough to be around for a while.

CURRENT ODDS: 12-1

UPDATE 01/10/05 7:39 pm central: Sanford's getting some good buzz. I'm upping him a notch.

CURRENT ODDS: 11-1

UPDATE 04/07/05 10:56 am central: Downgrade after Sanford 'rules out' '08 run.

CURRENT ODDS: 18-1

UPDATE 07/24/2005 10:56 p.m.:

CURRENT ODDS: 16-1: see here...

Left vs. Radical Left: Comparison by Example

I often use the phrase Radical Left in an effort to avoid demonizing every person who doesn't share my views. Is that just a copout? I think not - allow me to demonstrate:

Left: Newsweek.......................Radical Left: Rolling Stone

Left: Peter Jennings.................Radical Left: Dan Rather

Left: The New Republic...............Radical Left: The Nation

Left: Al Gore pre-2000...............Radical Left: Al Gore post-2000

Left: Joe Lieberman..................Radical Left: Howard Dean

Left: George Stephanopoulos..........Radical Left: Bill Moyers

Left: Bruce Springsteen..............Radical Left: Barbra Streisand

Left: 99% of professors/academics....Radical Left: 98% of professors/academics

Left: Mahmoud Abbas..................Radical Left: Yasser Arafat

Left: The British....................Radical Left: The French

Left: Christopher Hitchens pre-9/11..Radical Left: Noam Chomsky post-1776

Left: John Kenneth Galbraith.........Radical Left: Karl Marx

Left: Mickey Kaus....................Radical Left: Paul Krugman

Left: Thomas Friedman................Radical Left: Maureen Dowd

I think you get the drift. Feel free to add your own - it's fun and free!

A Quick Note of Congratulations...

...to Power Line on being named Time's Blog of the Year. Some blogs you check out once in a great while, others every day - for me, Power Line is in the latter category. Pay them a visit if you haven't already...

Miscellanea - Aziz is Naming Names!

In HUGE Oil-For-Food news, former Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz is spilling his guts, with the potential to blow OilyGate wide open. I quote:

U.S. officials say Aziz already has implicated the French and others, claiming payoffs were made with the understanding that recipients would support Iraq on key matters before the U.N. "He pointed to specific individuals in Russia and France, in the United States � that received favorable treatment," says David Kay. Now, sources tell NBC News that Aziz has indicated he's finally ready to talk about alleged bribes to U.N. officials. U.N. investigators refuse to comment.

That's worth repeating: "...payoffs were made with the understanding that recipients would support Iraq on key matters before the U.N." Of course, the whole scandal is just a right-wing obsession, right? (hat tip to Pejmanesque)...

In other UN news (under their new format - all scandals, all of the time), the always insightful Belmont Club says getting rid of Kofi Annan isn't the end of the story...

Even more on Bill Moyers from Deacon at Power Line...

I join Patio Pundit in sending best wishes to Mark Steyn in his absence (he very quickly became one of my favorites this past year)...

My Beagle with a Guest Movie Review

Once in a great while, you are privileged to see true artistry at work. Such is the case with 'Where in the White House is Miss Beazley?', the latest masterwork from First Dog Barney Bush. With a stellar cast that includes the President and Mrs. Bush, Andy Card, Karl Rove, and other noted thespians, Barney takes a cold, hard look at what happens when you misplace a puppy in cynical, calculating Washington. There can be no more timely reminder that dogs are man's best friend, but at what price? I highly recommend this movie, and all the other films in the acclaimed BarneyCam series - you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss seven minutes goodbye.

Bill Moyers, Sugar Daddy of the Radical Left

I hesitated to post again (at least, outside of awarding him a Weekly Jackass award) on Bill Moyers, who I have viewed as an inconsequential quack whose exit from TV 'journalism' will have precisely zero impact on our culture. I put the scare quotes around journalism because Moyers is, plain and simple, a polemicist. (I'm not being hypocritical - blogging of the sort I do is polemical in nature, and I freely admit it. I have never claimed the honorific 'journalist'.) Consider the following opening of a Moyers speech on December 1st, upon receiving the Global Environmental Citizen Award from the Harvard University Center for Health and the Global Environment:

One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.

By this, I suppose Moyers is criticizing Bush's principled stand against terrorism and his belief that religious organizations ought not to be completely excluded from our civic discourse. It's hard to take seriously his criticism of ideology - Bush says 'no litmus test' on Roe v. Wade, for example, while for Democrats the right to an abortion is the highest principle, a belief not to be violated under penalty of explusion from polite society. Moyers employs the tactics of the propagandist here and elsewhere, labeling his opponents as 'delusional' and hinting at broad conspiracies among the rich and powerful.

In other words, Moyers is a typical 'Progressive' voice, railing against an America that is at odds with his vision of a world of secular moral relativism. What you may not know is that Moyers puts his money where his mouth is - a LOT of money, millions and millions of dollars. Moyers is the President of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, a foundation with a $90 million endowment that doles out dollars to leftist causes, tax-exempt. Here are a few of the 'fair and balanced' organizations supported by Schumann Center grants administered by the same Bill Moyers who so sanctimoniously condemns the Bush administration for its ideological bent: the Washington Monthly, The Nation, Mother Jones, In These Times, the American Prospect, Sojourners, Salon.com, and the Sierra Club. The kicker: the organization headed by the anti-capitalist, neo-Marxist Moyers derives the majority of its income from stocks in oil companies. For a discussion of this and other Moyers escapades, see this informative article by Lowell Ponte.

Given his continuing role in funding the Radical Left, I think we need to continue to keep an eye on our good friend Moyers. I have a sneaking suspicion we haven't heard the last of him...

Update 12/18/04 5:32 central: Benjamin at Diary of an Anti-Chomskyite has published a far deeper and more lucid critique of Moyers than mine - I suggest you read it...

Miscellanea - I Didn't Inhale Edition

The great Christopher Hitchens joins the merely adequate Bill Clinton in claiming abstinence from Mary Jane in his review of 'Hippie'. Best line:

There was always a slight embarrassment to be experienced when these would-be Amish [the hippies] came sidling back to town, to resume work in brokerages and banks and universities. To this day, that especially vile reminder of the epoch -- the graying and greasy ponytail trailing off the balding pate -- is their living memorial.

Ah, to write like the Hitch...

The inspired and inspiring ScrappleFace reports that Kofi Annan is taking a page from the Dan Rather playbook...

I've been linking a lot to JustOneMinute lately, but the posts have warranted it. Here's a good one that ridicules Paul Krugman, solves the riddle of what to give him for Christmas, and knocks down one of the arguments against Social Security reform - a trifecta...

The Daily Kos joins the LOOOOONG list of 'Progressives' crying facism (they've never understood they couldn't do that in a facist state, have they?) while in deep denial of Bush's popularity, notes the incomparable Tim Blair...

Update 10:05 pm central: Speaking of crying facism, bebere has a timely link to a sickening display by good ol' Fidel (say, did this guy find the fountain of youth or something? He's what, 150 years old now????)...

Oil-For-Food, Part Six: What's a Little Corruption Between Friends?

Michael Crowley published a piece at Slate today on Oil-For-Food and predictably equates the uproar with right-wing fanatics who want to undermine the UN's authority (when, of course, we all know that undermining the UN's authority is properly the job of the UN itself). While acknowledging that billions of dollars in humanitarian aid were diverted, Crowley concludes:

...what was the ultimate damage? [Former UN Ambassador] Negroponte has told the Senate that the program largely met its goal of "creating a system to address the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi civilian population, while maintaining strict sanctions enforcement of items that Saddam Hussein could use to rearm or reconstitute his WMD program." The program did save lives: Average daily calorie intake nearly doubled in Iraq from 1996 to 2002. And Saddam never reconstituted the nuclear weapons program that was the ostensible reason for last year's invasion. The greatest tragedy of the oil-for-food program may be that, for all its Byzantine corruption, we never realized just how effective it was.

What a load of rubbish! What was the ultimate damage???!!! Would Crowley have us believe that the billions of diverted dollars are of no consequence? That money comes from taxpayers in the U.S. and elsewhere, so (1) billions of dollars were stolen from you and me. (I could use a little extra Christmas cash, how about you?) (2) Those billions of dollars were intended to benefit the Iraqi people, not buy Saddam golden toilets. The ultimate damage was every single Iraqi citizen who suffered needlessly because billions of dollars in aid were diverted. How effective it was, Mr. Crowley? You assure us that average daily calorie intake doubled, and that's a good thing, no doubt. How were the hospitals? Did they have the most modern life-saving technology? Can you think of some better uses of those billions of dollars than lining the pockets of Saddam and his cronies?

Again, we see the tiresome pattern of inexcusible behavior being shrugged off because Americans are upset about it, as if our interests are always illegitimate. I don't see this as a conservative or 'progressive' issue, and anyone who doesn't think the UN is actively anti-American and anti-Israel just hasn't been paying attention or is engaging in intellectual dishonesty. Mr. Crowley's defense of the UN is frankly a regurgitation of the UN apologists' talking points.

Tellingly, that creaky ol' liberal relic Mother Jones asks:

Can we really believe a scandal that seems to live on only on the pages of FOX, the [Wall Street] Journal op-ed pages, and various right-wing blogs?

I can't imagine a more effective condemnation of the liberal media's silence...

Fisking Michael Gorman

I know, who the hell is Michael Gorman, right? I didn't know him either, but he's the president-elect of the American Library Association and he has a baffling editorial in the LA Times arguing that Google hasn't made libraries obsolete (do you know anyone who's claimed that?). Gorman must be feeling the heat from the Google revolution; he is clearly rattled and has lost his capacity for lucidity. Time for a good ol' fisking:

The boogie-woogie Google boys, it appears, dream of taking over the universe by gathering all the "information" in the world and creating the electronic equivalent of, in their own modest words, "the mind of God." If you are taken in by all the fanfare and hoopla that have attended their project to digitize all the books in a number of major libraries (including the University of Michigan and New York Public), you would think they are well on their way to godliness.

Thus the tone is set from the outset - snide, condescending, accusatory. The mind of God reference comes from an interview with Sergey Brin, the cofounder of Google, who said the following in an interview with Red Herring:

What would a perfect search engine look like? we asked. "It would be the mind of God. Larry [Page] says it would know exactly what you want and give you back exactly what you need."

Now when I read that with my puny brain, I assume that Sergey Brin is responding directly and literally to the question asked, answering with a quite intelligence observation. Apparently, there are hidden depths here that only Gorman can see, as he has detected an undertone of Sergey Brin saying that he himself can achieve the exalted state of perfection.

I do not share that opinion. The books in great libraries are much more than the sum of their parts. They are designed to be read sequentially and cumulatively, so that the reader gains knowledge in the reading.

What is one to make of this statement? Does Gorman think his readers don't understand how to read a book, or the difference between a book and a search engine?

A good scholarly book on, say, prisons in 19th century France goes well beyond simply supplying facts. Just imagine that book digitized and available for Googling. Google isn't saying exactly how such a search would work, but if it's anything like the current system, you might enter, say, "Nantes+Prisons" and get back hundreds of thousands of "hits." Somewhere in those hundreds of thousands would be a reference to a paragraph or more in our book. If you found it, what would you do with it? Supposing it says " � there were few murderers in the prisons of Nantes in 1874 � " and gives you the source of the paragraph. That is all but useless. Absent a lot more searching, you have no idea whether there are other references to the subject in the book, and the "information" you have found is almost meaningless out of context.

So, you abandon that line of inquiry or resolve to read the book. Are you going to do that online, assuming it's out of copyright? (In the Google scheme, hundreds of thousands of books in copyright will not be available to be read as a whole.) Not many would choose to stare at a screen long enough to do that.

Gee, and all the time I thought Google was helpful in pointing out where I might find information - I guess the millions and millions of people who use it daily are getting no utility whatsoever from their meaningless and out of context searches. Again, does Gorman even understand the concept of a search engine? Is there anyone alive who expects a Google search to return an entire book?

Are you going to print the book, and end up with 500 unbound sheets? Or will you request the actual book (in copyright or out) through the active and developed interlibrary lending system that supplies thousands of books daily to scholars, researchers and dilettantes worldwide? The latter involves a short wait, of course. We all know that, in Googleworld, speed is of the essence, but it is not to most scholarly research in the real world.

In other words, because people prize speed in search engines, that means they don't have the patience to search out and read books (and where does this leave your libraries, Mr. Gorman?).

The nub of the matter lies in the distinction between information (data, facts, images, quotes and brief texts that can be used out of context) and recorded knowledge (the cumulative exposition found in scholarly and literary texts and in popular nonfiction). When it comes to information, a snippet from Page 142 might be useful. When it comes to recorded knowledge, a snippet from Page 142 must be understood in the light of pages 1 through 141 or the text was not worth writing and publishing in the first place.

I can't add anything to this condescending idiocy - we know the difference between trivia and useful knowledge, Mr. Gorman.

I am all in favor of digitizing books that concentrate on delivering information, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias and gazetteers, as opposed to knowledge. I also favor digitizing such library holdings as unique manuscript collections, or photographs, when seeing the object itself is the point (this is reportedly the deal the New York Public Library has made with Google). I believe, however, that massive databases of digitized whole books, especially scholarly books, are expensive exercises in futility based on the staggering notion that, for the first time in history, one form of communication (electronic) will supplant and obliterate all previous forms.

Google is a for-profit entity, and a quite successful one at that. They obviously believe there is a market for this; I don't think they just throw millions of dollars in the wind. Is Mr. Gorman a librarian or a stock analyst? What does the expense matter to anyone but Google shareholders?

It is beyond premature to prepare to mourn the death of libraries and the death of the book. If I had shares in publishing companies I would hang on to them. This latest version of Google hype will no doubt join taking personal commuter helicopters to work and carrying the Library of Congress in a briefcase on microfilm as "back to the future" failures, for the simple reason that they were solutions in search of a problem.

Who's mourning the death of the book? Mr. Gorman again engages in stock analysis and concludes with a basic misunderstanding of the profit motive. What a specious, ill-reasoned waste of time this editorial was. If I didn't know better, I'd say Mr. Gorman is delivering information rather than knowledge.

(hat tip to RealClearPolitics)...

Weekly Jackass Number Three - Barbra Streisand

Whoa, I let a Wednesday go by without naming a Weekly Jackass, so to make it up to you, I give you...Barbra Streisand, America's sweetheart. You could write a book with her idiotic quotes (here's a recent one from Say Anything) and her 'statements' on her web page , but here a few of my favorites:

• "The idea of a liberal media bias is simply a myth." (December 10, 2004)
• "This is censorship, pure and simple." (November 4th, 2003 - Babs after CBS cancelled the Reagan program that caused so much controversy - listen up, Barbra, and you, too, Michael Moore: CBS cancelled that show because its viewers were indignant - this is called threatening a boycott. Barbra knew this, but chose to ignore it as it clashed with her right-wing conspiracy theory. On November 10th, Barbra mused on the cancellation thus: 'It couldn't possibly just be the suggested "boycott."' Notice the scare quotes. You see, Babs, CBS is a "business"; they don't enjoy "bad" publicity. Censorship is being FORCED by the government to avoid publication or broadcast; a business decision will never qualify.)
• "...if you choose to air a story about George Bush's military service, or lack thereof, like CBS did last week, you and your award winning news anchor, get investigated by the FCC." (September 28, 2004)
• RUMSFELD,
  WE MUST GET RID OF RUMSFELD -
  HE'S THE SPOOKIEST PERSON IN THE WORLD.
  AS FOR POWELL -
  HE'S NEITHER FISH NOR FOWL.
  HE'S IN THE BACK OF THE ROOM,
  WHILE THEY'RE ALL FIDDLING WITH DOOM.
  NO ONE'S MINDING THE STORE.
  WHAT'S MORE,
  LET'S DISCUSS THIS WAR WE'RE LOST IN,
  DON'T ASK WHAT IT'S COSTIN' -
  WHAT'S A TRILLION OR TWO TO RULE THE WORLD? (special words to "People", An Evening With John Kerry And Friends, June 24, 2004)

I can't continue after the last one as my tears of laughter have impaired my vision. All those were just from ONE PAGE of her website...watch out, ScrappleFace, you've got competition in the Best Humor Site category.

Streisand is the worst kind of limousine liberal, pontificating behind her mansion walls, getting her news from Maureen Dowd (they apparently share the same lyricist) and other professional Bush haters - and she is more than qualified to be Weekly Jackass Number Three. Congratulations, Babs...

Miscellanea - Special kausfiles Edition

Pretty good short primer on the Social Security debate here...

Donald Luskin, in a LONG but entertaining fisking, takes on Michael Kinsley...

Political Wire has a Mary Beth Cahill quote I can actually agree with...

Mickey Kaus is on fire today. First he just demolishes the New York Times for allowing secondhand gossip about Bernard Kerik's sex life after he withdrew his name from consideration for a cabinet post. Given this new benchmark, Mickey is just sure the Times will apply the same standards to a Democratic presidential candidate whose name starts with an H and ends in -illary. Then, Mr. Kaus goes to town on the oft-mentioned Peter Beinart piece that argued for a more muscular Democratic response to terrorism combined with a take-no-prisoners push for gay marriage. Kaus wonders when gay marriage became an absolute "must" for Democrats, and concludes:

I don't see why we can't have a Democratic party that openly a) refrains from force-feeding gay marriage to the public b) has room in it for patriotic Iraq War skeptics and c) as a consequence of a) and b) is better positioned to wage an effective military and ideological battle against Islamic terrorism.

Miscellanea - Nearing the Weekend Edition

Hugh Hewitt uses a Newsweek 'hit piece on Christianity' to praise the merits of the blogosphere in the Weekly Standard (hat tip to RealClearPolitics)...

In a similar vein, Peggy Noonan asks liberals to please stop the war on religious expression...

JustOneMinute notes another Kerry flip-flop, but at least he flipped to the right side this time (let's see if he stays there - if he had this kind of courage in the campaign, he might be President Kerry - shudder!!!)...

Hindrocket at Power Line posts the results of a poll of 5,000 Iraqis in Baghdad that you should check out post-haste. The money quote:

...the only people who want the elections postponed are the ones who want them never to take place. The vast majority of Iraqis can't wait to begin exercising their privileges as free citizens. And it's good to see that an overwhelming majority expect the U.S. to stand by its commitment to January elections, rather than giving in to the terrorists and Democrats. They have learned, I guess, that President Bush is a man who says what he means and means what he says. As, thankfully, have we.

Terrorism Remains the Defining Issue of Our Time

In case you missed it, ultra-left millionaire slob Michael Moore famously compared the terrorist insurgents in Iraq to the Minutemen of the American Revolution. Moore also claimed that the terrorist threat in this country was nonexistent because an individual had slim odds of dying in a terrorist attack (an analysis sure to provide much comfort to the families of the 9/11 victims). Radical Left (credit due for truth in advertising) claims that the 'War on Terror' ('Progressives' always use the scare quotes) is nothing more than an excuse for American dominance.

For those who doubt the primacy and reality of this issue, here are seven major current news stories:

1. Oil-For-Food and the funding of terrorists;
2. a new Osama bin Laden tape advocating the overthrow of the Saudi government;
3. the possibility of al-Zarqawi relocating to Baghdad;
4. the Athens bus hijacking;
5. the State Department's plan to designate Hezbollah's television station a terrorist organization;
6. Britain's top court ruling against their 'Guantanamo'; and
7. Germany's attempts to extradite terror suspects in light of their inability to prosecute them.

These examples illustrate how the problem is world-wide in scope. This isn't about Iraq, and it isn't about George Bush. It's about freedom and democracy and the defeat of tyranny. I've said it before and I'll say it again: thank God we have a president who understands this. We simply cannot rest in this war, wearisome though it may be. We've got a long way to go, but Afghanistan and Iraq are good starts, warts and all. This issue will probably dominate our foreign policy for my lifetime, and that sickens me, but we have no choice but to see it through. We will win because we have to win, it's as simple as that.

Does that mean we will eliminate terror? Of course not, any lunatic anywhere can be a terrorist. The fact that crime exists doesn't mean you can't shut down the main criminal organizations. Others will sprout up, yes, and that is why we must remain vigilent, but I believe the day will come when every nation will view the harboring of terrorists as an unacceptable risk. This is the objective of the war; keep them worrying about their own safety, their finances, their ability to even get a good night's sleep for fear of being captured or killed; a terrorist who is worried about these things isn't likely to spend much time plotting new outrages.

Oil-For-Food Part Five: Marc Rich

Clinton's pardon buddy Marc Rich has popped up on the OilyGate radar again. The New York Post reports that Rich is facing a subpeona should he return to America regarding allegations he brokered illegal deals for Iraqi oil. Mr. Rich, number six on the Justice Department's outstanding fugitives list at the time of his 2001 pardon, currently lives a life of luxury in Switzerland. Law enforcement officials also are trying to determine if some of the ill-gotten funds made their way to Rich's ex-wife Denise, a huge contributor to both the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton Library (look here for a summary of Rich's shady past pre-pardon).

Captain Ed thinks this puts a huge dent in Hillary's 2008 bid, but I'm not so sure. As of now, we're looking at allegations, it's important to remember. It's a long way to 2008, also (but not too long away for me to devote my entire blog to it, of course). Hillary is sure to claim that she had no role in the pardon, as well, if it becomes necessary for her to comment.

Rich denies the allegations, of course, and there has been no comment from Bill Clinton or Denise Rich.

What's the real issue here? Of course, Bill Clinton has no direct knowledge of Rich's involvement with Oil-For-Food, but he should have known, given Rich's past associations with Iran, Iraq, and oil, that no good could come from letting Rich off the hook. The pardon stunk then and stinks worse now. It's a powerful tool, this presidential pardon; does it really serve a purpose anymore? Reagan pardoned his Iran-Contra subordinates, of course, and Ford famously pardoned Nixon, but aren't all these pardons political? Sure, there are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of people who have been pardoned on the merits, but surely there must be a better way to consider those cases.

What if, instead of a pardon, a president could choose a certain number of cases at the end of each year to send back to the appellate courts for review? That would surely weed out the most egregious pardons; a random selection of the court could be made to avoid the picking of one sure to be favorable to the request. I admit, I haven't really researched the issue, maybe that's fodder for another post. Any legal eagles out there know of a good source on this? Did the Federalist Papers mention the issue? We'll get back to this, I'm sure.

On a related noted, Oil-For-Food hero Claudia Rosett has an excellent article at OpinionJournal about the Ukraine and democracy...

Update 12/18/04 8:28 central: A federal grand jury is now looking into the Marc Rich link, specificially whether funds from Rich were sent to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

Miscellanea - It's Only WEDNESDAY???? Edition

Scott Lehigh to Hollywood: Don't let the door hit you on the way out (hat tip to RealClearPolitics)...

I'm not the only one wondering why OilyGate isn't dominating the headlines. VodkaPundit's choice for Man of the Year wonders why the MSM is giving Annan a pass (hat tip to Commonwealth Conservative)...

Roger Simon has more on Juan Cole and his ridiculous conspiracy theories...

Tim Blair has a link that leads to sheer hilarity...

It's Wictory Wednesday

If you're a regular reader, you know I take part in PoliPundit's Wictory Wednesday, dedicated to keeping the ball rolling the Republicans' way. You can see the other participants in the blogroll to the right.

The Washington state GOP is spotlighted again today; you help them prepare for the recount by donating at http://www.wsrp.org/donate.htm or volunteering as a recount observer at
info@dinorossi.com; check it out and keep involved...

Miscellanea - Moyers, We Hardly Knew Ye

Confessions of a Political Junkie shares my deep, deep sadness at the departure of Bill Moyers...

Alexandra McClure at Polipundit says this is the stupidest article she has ever read, but I'm not so sure - Timothy Noah has written a lot of contenders for that honor...

Tim Blair's new site is up...I suggest you check it out...

VodkaPundit has an interesting candidate for Man of the Year (hint: it's not me)...

My Beagle Has a Message for the World

Inspired by Jim Treacher...

Miscellanea - A Vast Right-Wing Iraqi Conspiracy Edition

For EVEN MORE proof that the 'Progressives' are actively opposed to America's best interests, check out Michael Totten's fisking of Juan Cole, ultra-left professor and blogger (don't sue him, though!). Cole is not happy with some Iraqi bloggers because they aren't in the 'mainstream' of Iraqi public opinion (i.e., they actually like democracy and freedom and stuff like that)(hat tip to the good folks at Power Line)...

John Behan at Commonwealth Conservative has a great looking new site and a wealth of good content (plus he had some nice things to say about me!), so check it out...

Captain Ed has some thoughts on Abbas's call for an end to Palestinian violence today. During his first go round as Prime Minister, Abbas struck me as someone who wanted to move things forward. Combine this with his apology to Kuwait and the upcoming Iraqi elections, and I'm feeling some strange sensations regarding the Middle East (oh, yeah, it's optimism - it's been a while)...

My beagle would like me to point out that she'll be guest blogging again very, very soon...

The Ukraine, Democracy, and the Left

The events of the last few weeks in the Ukraine have been inspirational for those who fight for the cause of freedom and democracy. On December 3, Ukraine's supreme court overturned an election that most observers agreed was a fraud. In an unwelcome reminder of the Cold War, the pro-Yushchenko forces in Kiev and the western Ukraine, most of Europe, and the US are in a tug-of-war with eastern Ukraine and Vladimir Putin's Russia (Putin's increasingly disturbing grip on Russia is a subject we'll take up soon). The pro-democracy demonstrators took to the streets in scenes reminiscent of the fall of the Berlin Wall and Tiananmen Square pre-crackdown. Add in an opposition leader who survived an assassination attempt by poisoning, and you have a stirring story for the ages.

Naturally, the Radical Left is taking the side of the democratic opponents. There is no 'progressive' cause so precious that it can't be abandoned for a chance to criticize American foreign policy. Radical Left (the blog) gets all misty-eyed over the old Soviet Union days when things were so much better before the filthy capitalists came along. To quote:

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, average monthly income in Ukraine has dropped to $30. In the cities, it is barely more than $60, and in Kiev, approximately $100. Spending power plummeted by 40 per cent between 1989 and 1999. Social and welfare structures and facilities�strongly linked to the factories in Soviet times�have been devastated. Life expectancy has sunk to 73 years for women and 62 years for men�after Russia, the lowest rates in Europe. In the meantime, the rate of new AIDS victims is one of the highest in the world. Four million inhabitants have left Ukraine over the past few years, and deaths of miners are exceeded only by China. .

Given these problems, you would think a little dose of foreign capital would be welcome, but in the eyes of the Marxist left, capital = exploitation. They simply cannot believe it's possible to do good for others while doing good for the U.S., too. Meanwhile, Gary Leupp has got it all figured out:

U.S. policy is very clear. Washington wants to gain control over the flow of oil from the Caspian Sea, especially Turkmenistan, and to do so, vies at every step with Russia. Backing regime change in Georgia earlier this year, it has increased its leverage in that former Soviet republic. It woes the former Soviet republics to join its NATO military bloc, which with the end of the Cold War would seem to have little raison d'�tre except to contain friendly capitalist Russia. While Eastern European allies once buffered the USSR from NATO, the alliance now borders Russia in the Baltics (Estonia and Latvia), and Washington would like to expand it to include Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan, encircling Russia's western flank. Meanwhile it stations U.S. troops and acquires military bases in the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, pursuant to the unpredictably expanding "War on Terrorism." A compliant Ukraine abetting its objectives would be a major prize for the Bush administration.

So the U.S. is plotting to get former Soviet Bloc countries to join NATO! How dastardly...better that we leave them to dangle or to form alliances with our enemies. Meanwhile, Russia is friendly and capitalist, which is good in their case, but would be bad in the case of the Ukraine. Confused yet? Don't be. The simple 'progressive' answer to any foreign policy problem is: pick whichever side would be the most harmful to the United States and run with it.

Miscellanea - I Haven't Even Read It Yet Edition

Well, thanks a lot, Ed Driscoll and Professor Bainbridge! I haven't even got around to reading my copy of Hitler's Pope yet and now you tell me it's a waste of time (Driscoll wonders if CBS is paying attention)...

Don't miss James Glassman's 10 ways for the Democrats to Save Their Party (I think it's just excellent advice) (hat tip to Classical Values)...

Erick Erickson at Confessions of a Political Junkie plays the numbers with Michael Moore...

There's nothing funny about the results of this German poll, via No Left Turns...

Economic Affirmative Action Revisited

I posted a few days ago on a better alternative to race-based Affirmative Action. I was very pleased to find the issue mentioned today on the WSJ's OpinionJournal web site. The list of schools to embrace the economic model include Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, Williams, Indiana University, and the state universities of Wisconsin. This is good news, indeed. The Journal's editors, however, speak of rumors that Alberto Gonzales and Margaret Spellings may not embrace this model; I join them in hoping that isn't so.

The article mentions some organizations devoted to this issue: they include the Center for Equal Opportunity (headed by another Nannygate victim, Linda Chavez); the Center for Individual Rights (Terence Pell, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education, is CIR's President); and the National Association of Scholars (advisory board members include Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Irving Kristol). Looks like this issue's not going away any time soon...

My Beagle Guest Blogs

Breaking Beagle News- I have captured this wild animal (I think it's a 'Progressive') and am in the process of ripping it a new one.

Miscellanea - They Really Hate Us Edition

Grab a seat, because I have shocking news - are you ready? The French and the Germans don't much care for us. You would never have guessed it, right? Even more amazing is the fact that they hate President Bush even more. Thank God for polls...

JustOneMinute has been exploring the Social Security Reform issue with far greater knowledge and insight than I. Today's post focuses on selling the reforms and the mistake of basing the pitch on stock market returns...

Power Line has been voted Best Overall Blog in the Wizbang awards. Congratulations, it's well deserved...

Best Conversative Blog winner Captain's Quarters has even more on that now legendary Peter Beinart piece...

A Must Read on the US, the Devil, and Iraq

Excellent, excellent Fareed Zakaria article on the Iraqi Elections. After noting the muted and/or downright hostile response of the Radical Left to the events in Afghanistan, Zakaria warns them to brace for the even worse news of a democratic Iraq. The article contains a most damning anecdote concerning the America-Haters:

The current issue of Foreign Affairs has an exchange between two scholars, Tony Smith and Larry Diamond. Smith accuses Diamond, a longtime supporter of human rights, of making a "pact with the devil" by working (briefly) for the United States in postwar Iraq. Diamond, who had opposed the war, responds: "I do not regard the post-war endeavor as a pact with the devil. Let Smith and other critics visit Iraq and talk to Iraqis who are organizing for democracy, development, and human rights. Let them talk to the families that lived under constant, humiliating, Baathist rule. Let them see some of the roughly 300 mass graves of opponents of the regime who were brutally slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands. Then they will find out who the devil really was." I can't say it better.

E-mail Updates Now Available

Thanks to the good folks at Bloglet, I've added e-mail subscriptions to the site. Basically, you just get a preview of what I post by e-mail once a day, simple as that (it's about midway down on the right, amidst the barrage of links). Blogger also includes a RSS feed option, and I have that enabled as well. I've also added a little rate-my-site feature from BlogHop (way down at the bottom right). (Sorry for the self-promotion; I just love your visits that much!) Happy Holidays...

Quote of the Day

'Socialism' and 'Communism' draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, 'Nature Cure' quack, pacifist, and feminist in England...George Orwell, Road to Wigan Pier, 1937

(hat tip to Mickey Kaus)

Miscellanea - Where Did the Weekend Go Edition

Two good links on the lefties today...the Washington Times notes that Harry Reid was taken to task by the New York Times for all the wrong reasons..meanwhile, George Will has more thoughts on that Peter Beinart piece, and wonders what Michael Moore was doing in Jimmy Carter's convention box (a couple of tips of the hat to RealClearPolitics)...

Even MORE on the Beinart article by Roger Simon (thanks to Hindrocket at Power Line). Simon can do without liberalism and conservatism, thank you very much, but he'll take a pound of democracy to go...

Newsday has two pieces of note on the Kerik Nannygate mess: this one says it takes a bite out of Rudy G., and in this corner, a possible answer to the bigger reason behind the withdrawal...

wretchard at the Belmont Club has a long, excellent piece on Kofi Annan and OilyGate (sorry, I just get tired of typing Oil-For-Food). Legal Disclaimer: OilyGate is a registered trademark of the United Nations. Any use of this phrase or rebroadcast without the expressed written consent of France and Russia is strictly prohibited...

Update 5:45 pm central: Newsweek claims that their phone call to the White House about an old arrest warrant was the straw that broke the camel's back on the Kerik nomination (hat tip to kausfiles)...

More on Chomsky: Blame America First

In awarding my second Weekly Jackass award to Noam Chomsky, I mentioned his contemptable response to the tragedy of 9/11. For those of you who missed it and are too lazy to hit the link above, here is the sum total of Chomsky's grieving: 'The terrorist attacks were major atrocities'. That's it - finis. I am sure you, like me, are reaching for a handkerchief after such a heartfelt expression of solidarity with one's nation.

Of course, this being Chomsky, he immediately launched into a tirade about the 'untold casualties' of the US's mistaken bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceutical facility during the Clinton administration. Here's a post by Oliver Kamm refuting the fairy tale that the Sudan bombing caused thousands of casualties. Still, that was never my point. Here it is, for those that missed it: the very day after the worst attack in history on American soil, an attack of which it can truthfully said that every single casualty was an innocent victim, and an attack mourned by the vast majority of the world's population, Chomsky's immediate reaction was to launch into a criticism of the United States after barely mentioning the epochal events of the day before. If that doesn't show the mindset of a Blame-America-Firster, then I don't know what possibly could.

Benjamin Kerstein does a far better job than I ever could describing exactly those elements of society that revere Chomsky's politicial writings. He breaks them down into two groups: younger people who naively equate rebellion against authority as 'hip', and the group of 60's radicals who have never outlived their perception of America as corrupt and imperialist.

I'm going to be posting on the very-much-related topic of conspiracy theories and the Left very soon...

Miscellanea - Snarky Humor Edition

If you're not familiar with ScrappleFace and Scott Ott, you should really rectify that right away. Ott is a great satirist because his humor is both outrageous and strangely plausible. Here is a prime example...

On the more just plain silly side of things, I always get a kick out of Andy Borowitz. Here's a good sample of Borowitz's work (bonus points for mocking Dan Rather, pompous blowhard)...

Speaking of Rather, Jim Treacher is the author of my all-time favorite Dan Rather post, and his other stuff is great, too...

All of these links serve to confirm my notion that the proper response to modern society is to laugh yourself sick at the absurdity of it all...

Nausea Alert - A Public Service Announcement

Today's column from professional Bush hater Maureen Dowd is bad...I mean embarrassingly bad, I mean, really, really, really...bad...don't say I didn't warn you...