Friday, February 27, 2004
Thursday, February 26, 2004
Monday, February 23, 2004
Sullivan vs. Hannity
Today's Andrew Sullivan contribution (and I do mean contribution, because Sullivan is consistently one of the best voices of reason on the net), is unfortunately one I must take a little issue with.
And then, along comes Sean Hannity, whose new book has the following obscene title: 'Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism and Liberalism.' Why obscene? It is obscene for Hannity to purloin a sentence from the Lord's Prayer in order to advance his partisan political views. And yes, it is also obscene to equate terrorism and despotism with liberalism.
As a fairly regular listener to Hannity, I think I understand the guy, and I really don't believe he was equating liberalism with terrorism. Certainly liberalism, i.e., tired, socialist-and-leftward-leaning politics need to be defeated. So does despotism and terrorism. But I don't really get the equivalence from this. However I DO think the far left is wrong, even evil in some cases. Yeah, it may be overstatement but I don't count it as obscene.
Sullivan goes on to call Hannity a thug. Well, his arguing style is sometimes pretty aggressive, and in some cases, he uses irrelevant facts and overstated opinions to make his point. And I don't agree with HIM all the time either. But "thug?" Nah.
Twenty-four and counting
Saturday, February 21, 2004
Drezner to ABC: get better promo writers!
Friday, February 20, 2004
Jury doody
Democrats need to get serious
In this country's increasingly admit-nothing style of politics, one might conclude from listening to the Democratic presidential candidates that Iraq is on Mars, that its role in any of this obviously real global trade for weaponized nuclear technology was minimal or had become nothing, and so President Bush's reasons for replacing the Saddam Hussein regime were a 'pretense,' 'made up,' a 'distortion,' and a 'lie.' Americans are entitled to believe all of this if they wish, even in good faith. And our political establishment is entitled to spend the next eight months of the election debating how many angels danced on the head of Mr. Bush's intelligence estimates. And the Democrats may sustain a strategy to dismantle and demolish the authority of an American president. But it may not be in the country's interest to do so, and given what we now know about rogue nations seeking rogue weapons, it is dangerous to do so.
For a party that couldn't admit that President Clinton actually DID lie, i.e. commit perjury, they're now quite willing to make the charge almost meaningless by calling any kind of error by the opposition a "lie." They KNOW Bush didn't lie. If mistakes were made, if we acted in Iraq on faulty intelligence, if the policy of pre-emption is wrong, let's debate THESE things. Democrats want to personalize all this and ultimately dumb down any serious discussion to the level of schoolyard taunts. On this score, Kerry doesn't sound much more intelligent than Al Sharpton.
Meanwhile, rogue nations currently developing and/or selling nuclear weapons technology continue their activities, secure in the knowledge that the Democratic party will continue to cloud security issues with their childishness. The real JFK would never have tolerated this and Americans deserve better. Read the article.
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Harry left us six years ago
Peggy Noonan on Bush
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Watizit back online
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Dean's Done
If Kerry is the nominee, and I don't think that's a sure thing yet, the Dems are really going to be trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Kerry's only tactic at this point has been to attack Bush in vague terms -- e.g., that Bush somehow chose the "wrong way" to deal with Iraq when there was a "right way" that only Kerry seems to understand.
"Anybody but Bush" is not a campaign to run on. Eventually, Kerry's going to have to defend his votes and come up with some ideas of his own. If he doesn't, even the mainstream media are going to get sick of covering him and backing him up.
Deconstructing Kerry
I think we have an answer here: no war in Iraq; no war anywhere; just law enforcement measures and cooperation with the French, Russians, and Germans. All the problems of the world stem from U.S. policy. Nowhere does Kerry say anything about the threat of Al Qaeda, or the designs of the Syrians or Iranians, or of Islamist terror-states more broadly. These real threats just don't seem to register on his radar screen. If this is the Democratic candidate's recipe to tackling the nexus of global terror, then he will be creamed in the fall. And he'll deserve to be.
Candidate for the Children
Here's my question: Do we really need a president who vacantly makes fun of a fairly usual publicity stop? This sort of poking at the president, making fun of his participation at a sporting event, is completely non-substantive and damn childish. It's like saying 'na-na-na-na-boo-boo' on the playground. It reveals how dumb he thinks his audience is. Dean doesn't insult his constituents' intelligence like this, nor did Lieberman. Nor does Kucinich, for that matter, even though his ideas are loopy. Regardless of their hatred for Bush, Democrats shouldn't vote for a guy who thinks so little of them.
Sunday, February 15, 2004
George Will: A few questions for John Kerry
The left is constantly decrying any sort of tax cut, Newspeaking the concept into "giveaway for the wealthy." When, for crying out loud, will people get wise to this lie?
Friday, February 13, 2004
More on the idiocy of poltical correctness .
"So here is how New York made itself an international joke. The state's guidelines to language sensitivity, citing Rosalie Maggio's 'The Bias-Free Wordfinder,' says: 'We may not always understand why a certain word hurts. We don't have to. It is enough that someone says, 'That language doesn't respect me.' ' That is, if any word or phrase is likely to give anyone offense, no matter how far-fetched, it should be deleted."
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
GEORGE BUSH IN UNIFORM
No, Bush's record in the National Guard doesn't compare with Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites)'s service in Vietnam.
But the question of whether and how Bush served really isn't relevant in 2004, after four years as commander in chief - just as Clinton's record was no longer considered relevant by voters as he sought a second term (against WWII hero Bob Dole) eight years ago.
Recall that two of this nation's greatest war presidents - Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt - did not have extensive military service (though Lincoln had militia service in the so-called Black Hawk Indian war and FDR served as assistant secretary of the Navy during World War I).
Oh, yeah, and by the way, Bush has been serving as Commander in Chief of the armed forces for about three years now. Does THAT count as military service, Mr. Kerry?