This cannot pass

I should be downstairs already, but this story turns my stomach.

Rice appeared before the Senate in defense of President Bush's tactical change in Iraq, and quickly encountered Boxer.

"Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price," Boxer said. "My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young."

Then, to Rice: "You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family."

I have to agree with the author of the editorial:

It's hard to imagine the firestorm that similar comments would have ignited, coming from a Republican to a Democrat, or from a man to a woman, in the United States Senate. (Surely the Associated Press would have put the observation a bit higher than the 18th paragraph of a routine dispatch from Washington.)

Camille Paglia gets it... sort of

You know it’s pretty bad when even some Democrats in the MSM (Camille Paglia in this case) are describing the Foley incident with words like “collusion” and “suspiciously” - and they’re talking about the Democrats and MSM!

The way the Democratic leadership was in clear collusion with the major media to push this story in the month before the midterm election seems to me to have been a big fat gift to Ann Coulter and the other conservative commentators who say the mainstream media are simply the lapdogs of the Democrats. Every time I turned on the news it was "Foley, Foley, Foley!" -- and in suspiciously similar language and repetitive talking points.

After three or four days of it, as soon as I heard Foley's name, I turned the sound off or switched channels. It was gargantuan overkill, and I felt the Democrats were shooting themselves in the foot. I was especially repulsed by the manipulative use of a gay issue for political purposes by my own party. I think it was not only poor judgment but positively evil.

The article digresses into a rationalization of the nobility of homosexuality, but then acknowledges Matt Drudge’s coverage of the issue.

The Foley scandal exploded without any proof of a documented sex act -- unlike the case of the late congressman Gerry Studds, who had sex with a page and who was literally applauded by fellow Democrats when they refused to vote for his censure. In the Foley case, there was far more ambiguous evidence -- suggestive e-mails and instant messages. Matt Drudge, to his great credit, began hitting this issue right off the bat on his Web site and radio show. What does it mean for Democrats to be agitating over Web communications, which in my view fall under the province of free speech? It's a civil liberties issue. We can say that what Foley was doing was utterly inappropriate, professionally irresponsible, and in bad taste, but why were liberals fomenting a scandal day after day after day over words being used? And why didn't Democrats notice that they were drifting into an area which has been the province of the right wing -- that is, the attempt to gain authoritarian control over interpersonal communications on the Web? It's very worrisome and yet more proof that the Democrats have lost their way.

I, for one, would welcome a future where the GOP has a real Democratic party to compete with.The irony of this article is the self-feeding nature of the “interview”. The two parties in this “interview” are an anonymous Salon reporter and one of Salon’s founding contributors. This is less interview than a transcript over lunch, and the flow of the interview reflects that. Continuing immediately after the previous quote:

It also advances a line the far Christian right has employed for years -- to make a connection between gay men and child molesters. It's one of the most despicable smears imaginable.

And with the Democrats' record of sex scandals, what the hell were they thinking of? For heaven's sake, after we just got through the whole Clinton maelstrom!

The boldface indicates that the interviewer speaking. In a trial court, this is known as “leading the witness”. In modern journalism, it’s “expanding on a point”.

Still, I am pleased to hear a self-proclaimed Democrat and atheist make some of these points that are often lost on the left:

I think the center of the Republican Party really is small-businessmen and very practical people who correctly see that it's job creation and wealth creation that sustain an economy -- not government intervention and government control, that suffocating nanny-state mentality. The Democrats are in some sort of time warp in always proposing a government solution to every problem. It's like Hillary's philosophy that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, does it? Or does it take a strong family and not the village?

What's broadened the appeal of conservatism in recent years is that Republicans stress individualism -- individual effort and personal responsibility. They're really the liberty party now -- I thought my party was! It used to seem as if the Republicans were authoritarians and the Democrats were for free speech and for the freedom to live your own life and pursue happiness. But the Democrats have wandered away from their own foundational principles.

The Democrats have to start fresh and throw out the entire party superstructure. I was bitterly disappointed after voting for Ralph Nader that he didn't devote himself to helping build a strong third party in this country. When the American economy was still manufacturing based, the trade unions were viable, and the Democrats stayed close to their working-class roots. But now the Northeastern Democrats, with their fancy law degrees and cocktail parties, have simply become peddlers of condescending bromides about "the people."

I, for one, would welcome a future where the GOP has a real Democratic party to compete with. Today, only the Republican party seems to have anything close to a grasp of reality, and even if I agree with them, that’s still not choice. If the Democrats would get back to what they supposedly stand for and stop trying to be more like Europe, we might actually have some thought-provoking choices in the voting booth.

But Clinton went off on a tirade, waved his finger in Chris Wallace's face, and accused him of sitting there with a "smirk." That was over-personalizing the interview by any standard. And to charge Wallace with setting his guest up, with ambush journalism -- good heavens, the problem with American journalism is hardly that it's too severe and punitive. [...] So for Clinton to make a huge fuss about a mild question about his administration's record in dealing with Osama bin Laden was a bullying of our journalists -- an act of war, in fact, on American journalists, saying, "Don't you dare go off our agreed-to list of questions!"

...

The recent filing for bankruptcy by Air America dramatizes my party's abject failure to produce shows that are informative and entertaining and that systematically build an audience -- the way all the top radio hosts did who climbed the ladder from obscurity to their present prominence. Aren't we the party of Hollywood? The fact that we've failed so miserably at this central medium of communication shows how something has gone very wrong in Democratic sensibility.

Preach it, sister! Speaking of religion...

It seems like religion has never been a bigger issue in American politics, recognized on both sides of the aisle as something that needs to be addressed. Have the Democrats changed the longtime Republican characterization of them as godless?

Well, as long as the Democrats are perceived as the anti-religion party, we're going to lose the culture wars. That's why Hillary has made such a show of churchgoing and wearing crucifixes -- even while there seems to be little connection between her Christian ideals and her backstage activities as a politician and money raiser. But religion is absolutely central to this country in ways that Europe's secularized intellectuals fail to understand. I'm speaking here as an atheist who studies religion and respects it enormously. In the history of mankind, the benefits that religion has brought to society in shaping behavior and moral choice are overwhelming in comparison to the negatives, which anyone can list -- like religious wars and bigotry. Without religion, we'd have anarchy.

It’s good to hear that some Democrats actually get it on some of these issues. I don’t mean that as a slam against Democrats in general, but the people who get the press time seem to me to be totally disconnected from reality here in “flyover country”.

[via Drudge]

Related posts: Point:Counterpoint, Too much truth in one place, Meta-meta-meta-censorship, The future of news, Foley, A great choice for President, On chickens and roosts

Point:Counterpoint

After reading Geoffrey R. Stone’s column “What it means to be a liberal” from the Chicago Tribune, and “What It Means To Be A Conservative”, Cassandra’s point-by-point response, I felt like these two documents deserve a side-by-side comparison. Hopefully, reposting both in full won’t get me in any kind of trouble with either party.

This comparison really highlights for me the ways that Liberals misunderstand or mischaracterize Conservatives. I’m sure there’s some of that going the other direction as well, and I’m probably too close to this issue to spot it. Despite Stone’s suggestion in point 1, I am very interested in finding my biases so I can better understand those I disagree with.

Comments?

What it means to be a liberal		What it means to be a conservative
For most of the past four decades, liberals have been in retreat. Since the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, Republicans have controlled the White House 70 percent of the time and Republican presidents have made 86 percent of the U.S. Supreme Court appointments. In many quarters, the word "liberal" has become a pejorative. Part of the problem is that liberals have failed to define themselves and to state clearly what they believe. As a liberal, I find that appalling. In that light, I thought it might be interesting to try to articulate 10 propositions that seem to me to define "liberal" today. Undoubtedly, not all liberals embrace all of these propositions, and many conservatives embrace at least some of them. Moreover, because 10 is a small number, the list is not exhaustive. And because these propositions will in some instances conflict, the "liberal" position on a specific issue may not always be predictable. My goal, however, is not to end discussion, but to invite debate.		In response to something Charlottesvillian posted on What it means to be a Liberal, my off the cuff ideas on what it means (at least to me) to be a conservative:
1. Liberals believe individuals should doubt their own truths and consider fairly and open-mindedly the truths of others. This is at the very heart of liberalism. Liberals understand, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once observed, that "time has upset many fighting faiths." Liberals are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate.	1. Conservatives believe that while many matters are open to debate, there are also some eternal truths. We do not believe right and wrong are flexible concepts, wholly dependent on one's frame of reference. Like Liberals, Conservatives are skeptical of censorship and celebrate free and open debate. Moreover, we understand that in a society where people use threats or intimidation to force their views on others, enforcing the rules is needed or our rights become meaningless. One cannot "fairly and open-mindedly consider the truths of others" if speakers are shouted down or forced off the stage, no matter how distasteful their ideas may be. The way to defeat inferior ideas is with better ideas, not with brickbats or heavy-handed threats of government censorship.
2. Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support the civil rights movement, affirmative action, the Equal Rights Amendment and the rights of gays and lesbians. (Note that a conflict between propositions 1 and 2 leads to divisions among liberals on issues like pornography and hate speech.)	2. Conservatives believe we have an obligation to live together peaceably and tolerate each other's differences, but we have no duty to subsidize, support, or lend our approval to choices we find wrong or destructive. Responsible adults understand that we all make our own way in life. While we have no right to interfere with the lives of our neighbors, they have no right to reach into our pockets and ask us to pay for the consequences of lifestyle choices that we may find difficult to understand or approve of. We do not ask that they change what they are doing. We only ask that they not expect us to fund a lifestyle we don't agree with. Live and let live. This, to us, is the true meaning of tolerance.
3. Liberals believe individuals have a right and a responsibility to participate in public debate. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion expansion of the franchise; the elimination of obstacles to voting; "one person, one vote;" limits on partisan gerrymandering; campaign-finance reform; and a more vibrant freedom of speech. They believe, with Justice Louis Brandeis, that "the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people."	3. Like Liberals, conservatives believe individuals ought to participate in public debate. However we are not inclined to force them, or to round them up like cattle come Election Day. We believe voting is an individual responsibility, and we have seen what happens when liberals load first-time voters who don't understand how to fill out a ballot, or even know the names of the candidates or what they stand for, onto buses on election day to swell the ranks of Democrat voters. These people are not stupid, but they are not prepared to vote and the nation is not well served by sending an uninformed electorate to the polls. The nation is also not well served when the parties exacerbate racial tensions at election time.
4. Liberals believe "we the people" are the governors and not the subjects of government, and that government must treat each person with that in mind. It is liberals who have defended and continue to defend the freedom of the press to investigate and challenge the government, the protection of individual privacy from overbearing government monitoring, and the right of individuals to reproductive freedom. (Note that libertarians, often thought of as "conservatives," share this value with liberals.)	4. Conservatives see government as a social contract in which individuals freely and intelligently barter some small part of their freedoms for mutual protection from the more rapacious elements of human society. This is a factor which Liberals often forget, preferring to take all the benefits of government protection while giving up none of their freedom, an inherently unworkable proposition. With their inherent suspicion of all authority liberals cede too much power to the press, setting up a completely unelected and unaccountable fourth branch of government which openly defies the law with complete impunity, releasing classified information at will, blowing federal terrorism investigations, interfering with law enforcement, and defying grand juries. Liberals are fond of talking about reproductive freedom and "choice", but their rhetoric conveniently ignores the fact that men have exactly zero reproductive choice: Legally, from the point of view of a woman: the fetus is a lump of tissue which may be excised at will if she subsequently regrets having conceived a child. It imposes no obligation or legal duty unless she chooses to accept it. Legally, from the point of view of the man: the fetus is a human being which must be allowed to live, even if he subsequently regrets having conceived a child. It imposes an absolute and irrevocable legal duty, regardless of his wishes in the matter.
5. Liberals believe government must respect and affirmatively safeguard the liberty, equality and dignity of each individual. It is liberals who have championed and continue to champion the rights of racial, religious and ethnic minorities, political dissidents, persons accused of crime and the outcasts of society. It is liberals who have insisted on the right to counsel, a broad application of the right to due process of law and the principle of equal protection for all people.	5. Conservatives believe that justice ought to be blind: there should not be different laws for whites, blacks, Latinos, females, gays, or other demographics. We are not blind to the fact that humans can and do discriminate, but we do not believe the law should, in addition to the thousand inherent injustices and inequalities which exist in nature, impose additional unfairness via our justice system. How does a human system weigh unfairness? How do we compensate individuals for the hardships imposed by skin color? Gender? Nationality? What if there are offsetting factors - what then? Does that rich black kid who ends up at Harvard get the same compensation as a poor black kid from the inner city? How about the poor disadvantaged white boy from West Virginia with the alcoholic parents? Does he get nothing, just because his skin is the wrong color? Isn't that institutionalized racism? Or is it just Liberal values in action? Equal protection is often what liberals call a "code word" for making exceptions in treatment based on race or gender. Enforce the laws strictly, across the board, regardless of gender or skin color. Period.
6. Liberals believe government has a fundamental responsibility to help those who are less fortunate. It is liberals who have supported and continue to support government programs to improve health care, education, social security, job training and welfare for the neediest members of society. It is liberals who maintain that a national community is like a family and that government exists in part to "promote the general welfare."	6. Conservatives believe people have a fundamental duty to help themselves and they will be stronger and better if they develop the habit of self-reliance rather than dependence on government. We don't believe people are helped by programs that sap personal industry and initiative and undermine family bonds, as Daniel Moynihan warned in the 1960s. Rather, we prefer to see the private sector handle charitable giving, perhaps with tax incentives to encourage donation. This is a more ethical alternative to forcibly appropriating the paychecks of the more productive members of society to support less productive members, regardless of the wishes of the former.
7. Liberals believe government should never act on the basis of sectarian faith. It is liberals who have opposed and continue to oppose school prayer and the teaching of creationism in public schools and who support government funding for stem-cell research, the rights of gays and lesbians and the freedom of choice for women.	7. Most conservatives don't wish to see entanglement of church and state either. The difference between liberals and conservatives here is that conservatives understand the purpose of Establishment Clause was to protect the free exercise of religion, not to drive all mention of God from public life. Even non-churchgoing conservatives like me are offended by the ACLU's open persecution of Christians and Christian symbology. Not every historic cross on a county or city seal amounts to state sponsorship of religion and the miscasting of abortion as a religious debate is beyond dishonest. There are atheist liberals who oppose abortion and religious conservatives who are pro-choice. The Left's near-obsession with, and paranoia about, religion is as good a proof as any that the Party of Tolerance and Diversity, isn't.
8. Liberals believe courts have a special responsibility to protect individual liberties. It is principally liberal judges and justices who have preserved and continue to preserve freedom of expression, individual privacy, freedom of religion and due process of law. (Conservative judges and justices more often wield judicial authority to protect property rights and the interests of corporations, commercial advertisers and the wealthy.)	8. Conservatives understand that our individual liberties are bound up in many of those larger societal rights liberals love to decry. Try exercising your so-called "individual" rights (your sexual freedom, perhaps?) once the city you live in has eminent domained your home right out from under your feet, a lovely court decision for which you may thank the liberal half of SCOTUS and its stunning disregard for the original, and quite plain, meaning of the Public Use clause. There is such a thing as competing interests, like the tension between freedom and security. Liberals like to argue, because we already have security, that personal freedom should somehow be unlimited. But without the former we will not long possess the latter. They are intertwined. Our fellow humans prey on the helpless and on children and and liberals (in addition to championing some very valuable causes) have also championed some pretty worthless causes like the freedom to view child pornography (which is illegal) and the freedom of ten year old girls to get abortions without their parents finding out. Personally I am not convinced a ten year old girl really needs the freedom to have sex with pedophiles. She is not a "woman" yet, so it is neither a "woman's right to choose" nor a "woman's sexual privacy" that is at issue. But apparently this shocking opinion makes me some sort of snake handling Jesus freak, though I don't attend church and am something of a libertarian. Not all individual freedoms are worth protecting.
9. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, for without such protection liberalism is impossible. This, of course, is less a tenet of liberalism than a reply to those who attack liberalism. The accusation that liberals are unwilling to protect the nation from internal and external dangers is false. Because liberals respect competing values, such as procedural fairness and individual dignity, they weigh more carefully particular exercises of government power (such as the use of secret evidence, hearsay and torture), but they are no less willing to use government authority in other forms (such as expanded police forces and international diplomacy) to protect the nation and its citizens.	9. In response to the liberal statement of belief below, conservatives believe government must protect us also. What we believe, however, is that liberals often assert the rights of individuals over the collective right of society to be secure, often to a degree that is unreasonable. A good example is the NSA wiretapping brouhaha. Most Americans when polled don't object to having the NSA monitor and sample from a large number of calls. They understand the risks and they don't wholly trust the government, but they also understand the risks of inaction, and on balance they trust our own government more than they do the terrorists. Liberals, on the other hand, have allowed their dislike of this administration to lead them to make statements like "the administration is more of a danger to our freedoms than the terrorists". The bottom line is that they may well believe that, but they don't have the right to allow their subjective doubts to imperil the rest of us, and unless and until Congress is willing to call a halt to the NSA program (and it's not) they need to stop with the conspiracy theories. The truth is that democracy is functioning exactly as it should. They are simply outnumbered and their side didn't win the argument. Get over it. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, for without such protection liberalism is impossible. This, of course, is less a tenet of liberalism than a reply to those who attack liberalism. The accusation that liberals are unwilling to protect the nation from internal and external dangers is false. Because liberals respect competing values, such as procedural fairness and individual dignity, they weigh more carefully particular exercises of government power (such as the use of secret evidence, hearsay and torture), but they are no less willing to use government authority in other forms (such as expanded police forces and international diplomacy) to protect the nation and its citizens.
10. Liberals believe government must protect the safety and security of the people, without unnecessarily sacrificing constitutional values. It is liberals who have demanded and continue to demand legal protections to avoid the conviction of innocent people in the criminal justice system, reasonable restraints on government surveillance of American citizens, and fair procedures to ensure that alleged enemy combatants are in fact enemy combatants. Liberals adhere to the view expressed by Brandeis some 80 years ago: "Those who won our independence ... did not exalt order at the cost of liberty."	10. Conservatives believe there is an inherent tension between the rights of the accused and the safety of citizens. Therefore government must intelligently balance the rights of accused criminals against the rights of crime victims and ordinary citizens to be secure in their homes and on the streets. There is no liberty without security. On the extreme end of the scale, when we have liberal judges defining pedophilia as a disease and letting defendants off because they're "sorry" (there's an inconvenient truth for you), something is wrong. This is about as fair to your average liberal as tarring all conservatives with the excesses of the religious right, but it is liberal philosophy carried to the illogical extreme: individual rights trumping societal rights. Yet liberals can and do tar conservatives with that broad brush - all the time.

[via Patterico]

Too much truth in one place

You’ve got to see this video. It’s created by David Zucker, the producer/director of “Airplane”, “The Naked Gun” and “Scary Movie 4” with the intention of allowing the GOP to use it in campaigns. Zucker, a longtime Democrat, voted Republican in 2004 based on concerns he had about national security.

One GOP strategist said "jaws dropped" when the ad was first viewed. "Nobody could believe Zucker thought any political organization could use this ad. It makes a point, but it's way over the top."

The comedy is polished, and the point it makes is rock solid. It's too bad this is so politically hot that it can't be used, so I'm doing my part to make sure people can see it. Hopefully it will stay up for a while. I’ve created a transcript of the video in case it’s taken down. Please email people to the link below instead of just forwarding this message.

Announcer: In the year 2000, in an effort to stop the North Koreans from building nuclear weapons, President Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright [“Pyongyang - North Korea” Pan in on North Korean state building (?)] gave North Korean leader Kim Jong Il a basketball signed by Michael Jordan. [“October 25, 2000”, MA presenting basketball to KJI, clinking glasses for cameras. “We’re not making this up”]

A: The Democrats’ thoughtful gift had two major results. This first was this. [Rocket launch] And the second was this. [KJI playing basketball]

A: In a post-9/11 world, [U.S. Embassy - Tanzania] making nice to our enemies [U.S.S. Cole - Yemen] will not make them nice to us.

A: On the contrary, to them it is a sign of weakness. [MA serving cookies and singing Kum Ba Yah in the house while terrorists run from the basement. Singing continues to end.]

A: The Democrats have their own ideas on how to stop North Korea from building nuclear weapons. [“North Korean Nuclear Weapons Lab”, MA mowing the lawn]

A: Some people think the terrorists will change their ways if only show our good intentions. No matter what we do, the fact remains there is evil in the world. [“Afghanistan”, cave interior, MA painting cave wall while Osama Bin Laden lookalike holding gun makes a video.]

OBL: You missed a spot

A: History has taught us that evil needs to be confronted, not appeased. Evil dictators will be evil dictators, no matter what we do. [MA changes the tire on a Middle Eastern dictator’s limousine.]

Dictator: “Place the bomb in the cargo hold.” [points at watch]

A: Unlike basketball... [KJI coming off the bench at a basketball game]

MA: “Go get 'em you animal”

A: ...the security of the United States is not a game. [MA waving pom poms, fans holding signs reading “go great leader”. KJI comes up from fall with an automatic rifle.]

A: Can we afford a party that treats it like one? [Gunshots, crowd runs, zoom on scared MA staring into camera, fade to black]

[via Drudge]

Related posts: Foley, A great choice for President, On chickens and roosts, Armed and Dangerous

Incredible celebrities

On his radio show today, Bill Bennett got into a discussion with his callers and assistants about musicians and actors who take political stands. Mentioned were Dixie Chicks, Toby Keith (who wrote Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue), George Clooney (spoke during Academy Awards), Johnny Depp (stumped for John Kerry) and others like them.

One caller said he has a hard time enjoying the work of an artist (George Clooney and Johnny Depp) after they have spoken out against the U.S. and the President. He went on to apologize for having a double standard, because he enjoys artists who speak out in support of the country, like Toby Keith.

Bill responded (correctly, I think) that this is not a double standard. There's nothing wrong with liking people who speak out for something you believe in. It makes me uncomfortable as well to know that some people who are enjoying the freedoms of this country are so intent on weakening it.

On the other hand, I am not so upset by performers who make grand pronouncements about politics and foreign policy. I would pretty much go to see any movie Johnny Depp appears in. He is a fabulous actor, and really has that "slightly crazy" persona down pat, as he recently demonstrated in both Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. (I could just be going slightly crazy myself from seeing Chocolate Factory so many times recently, but never mind that.)

On the other hand, he has no credentials as a political pundit, and has not demonstrated (to me) any particular deep insight into matters international. Without those credentials, his opinion counts no more than anyone else's. For him to speak out as if his opinion means something extra only makes him look foolish. Opinions are still like armpits — everybody has them, and most of them stink.

It's like if I'm sitting in my dentist's chair and he starts telling me how to manage my finances, or fix my car. He might be right, he might be wrong, but he really doesn't have any more of a vote than anyone else I bump into on the street, until he demonstrates he has some extra ability in this area. As long as he's speaking within his domain of expertise, he's an authority. When he's not, he's not.

What does bother me is the importance given by others to the spoken opinions of Depp and others. The media treats their opinion as more important (assuming, of course, that their opinion is liberal and gets any press at all), star-struck masses listen and start to believe, and what they say becomes "everybody knows..." knowledge, true or not.

The other difference between the supporters and detractors (on the whole) is that the detractors' actions serve to tear down the reputation and authority of the United States of America on the global stage. Even if they get a Democrat elected President in 2008, that President will have been hobbled in his ability to influence international matters because of the attacks made today against President Bush.

President Clinton's despicable actions in the Oval Office have had the same effect. The image of the POTUS has been tarnished with the image of lechery and abuse of power, and also the belief that we, as a nation, are on the whole, OK with this behavior. It's no wonder the muslim faithful see us as "The Great Satan" and want to destroy us. In an earlier age, Christianity also held high standards. Now we name homosexuals to high offices within the church, and soft-pedal sin.

Setting a date

Did you see the House vote this morning? (The link is the same as from my last post.) HR 861 was passed 256 to 153, with 3 GOP voting against, and 42 Dems voting for. After a lot of "Whereas" clauses, it reads:

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

1. honors all those Americans who have taken an active part in the Global War on Terror, whether as first responders protecting the homeland, as servicemembers overseas, as diplomats and intelligence officers, or in other roles;
2. honors the sacrifices of the United States Armed Forces and of partners in the Coalition, and of the Iraqis and Afghans who fight alongside them, especially those who have fallen or been wounded in the struggle, and honors as well the sacrifices of their families and of others who risk their lives to help defend freedom;
3. declares that it is not in the national security interest of the United States to set an arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Iraq;
4. declares that the United States is committed to the completion of the mission to create a sovereign, free, secure, and united Iraq;
5. congratulates Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and the Iraqi people on the courage they have shown by participating, in increasing millions, in the elections of 2005 and on the formation of the first government under Iraq’s new constitution;
6. calls upon the nations of the world to promote global peace and security by standing with the United States and other Coalition partners to support the efforts of the Iraqi and Afghan people to live in freedom; and
7. declares that the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror, the noble struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary.

This follows on the heels of the 93-6 vote in the Senate to reject a timeline.

And as usual, Scrappleface has the best summary:

(2006-06-15) — After the Senate voted 93-6 today against setting a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq, Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy held a news conference to announce that his 93 colleagues are “clearly out of the mainstream of American opinion.”
Senators Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts voted for the timeline, along with Democrat Senators Tom Harkin of Iowa, Barbara Boxer of California, Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.
“The six of us represent the heart’s cry of every red-blooded American,” said Sen. Kennedy. “We hear the voice of the people, and the people say they want immediate, unconditional withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.”
Senator Kerry, the presumptive runner-up for the 2008 Democrat presidential nomination, criticized the legislation introduced by Republicans as a cheap stunt designed to preempt his own forthcoming Iraq pullout bill.
“I have a plan for a strategic withdrawal from Iraq,” said Sen. Kerry. “I plan to release my plan about the same time the Democrat National Committee unveils its plan for America’s future, or right after Microsoft releases its new Vista operating system, whichever comes first.”

Note that the Senate bill was to set a date and was defeated, while the House resolution was to not set a date, and was passed. Note also that the Senate bill was proposed by Kerry, yet he called bringing the measure to a vote a "political maneuver"

Supreme Court Battle

I don't know much about the President's nominee for the Supreme Court, but it appears that he may be so non-controversial that nobody likes him. Ann Coulter has not much nice to say about the selection. If she's right, he may be confirmed by each side simply because they know the other side dislikes him. My jaw dropped when I read this line, which is shocking and yet probably true:

It means absolutely nothing that NARAL and Planned Parenthood attack him: They also attacked Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Hackett Souter. The only way a supreme court nominee could win the approval of NARAL and Planned Parenthood would be to actually perform an abortion during his confirmation hearing, live, on camera, and preferably a partial birth one.

Ann also says some very encouraging things about the political state of our nation. If true, this really shows how much the mainstream media, the DNC and "Screaming Dean" have pulled the wool over the eyes of the public.

If the Senate were in Democrat hands, Roberts would be perfect. But why on earth would Bush waste a nomination on a person who is a complete blank slate when we have a majority in the Senate! We also have a majority in the House, state legislatures, state governorships, and have won five of the last seven presidential elections — seven of the last ten! We're the Harlem Globetrotters now - why do we have to play the Washington Generals every week? Conservatism is sweeping the nation, we have a fully functioning alternative media, we’re ticked off and ready to avenge Robert Bork . . . and Bush nominates a Rorschach blot.

This nomination is going to be interesting, that's for sure. W is pretty savvy, but this candidate does seem a bit odd. Even if he knows there will be other vacancies during his term, with only 9 positions to be filled, there's no room for "testing the waters" with a less than perfect candidate. I just hope he really knows what he's doing.

Fili-busted!

At the heart of this is the issue of how federal judges are appointed. According to the Constitution, the President nominates and the Senate either approves them or votes them down. The Senate as a whole can approve or deny a candidate, but a minority is nowhere granted the ability to defy the majority. In this matter, as with most every other I can think of, the majority rules. Isn't that the central concept of democracy? Not according to quite a few anti-Bush people holding public office or positions of public trust. The MSM and vocal democrats (is there a difference?) have pulled no punches in claiming that filibusters are a time-honored component of our democracy. Oddly enough, many of the same people who now want to protect the filibuster are on the record as denouncing the practice when the shoe was on the other foot. Senator Joe Biden:

The Washington Times notes that, in an appearance on ABC's "This Week," Biden flatly denied having said in 1997 that judicial nominees are entitled to an up-or-down Senate floor vote. Yet according to the Congressional Record, Biden stated just that on March 19, 1997:

I respectfully suggest that everyone who is nominated is entitled to have a shot, to have a hearing and to have a shot to be heard on the floor and have a vote on the floor. . . .It is not appropriate not to have hearings on them, not bring them to the floor and not to allow a vote.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune:

...we quoted a Strib editorial dated September 30, 1994, which said: "[Reformers] should crusade for changes in Senate procedures that would prevent an obstructionist minority from delaying action indefinitely." Today we got an email from Jim Boyd, titled "Oops." It said:

John: Re. the filibuster: I was looking only at the one 1993 editorial about filibusters. There was a second editorial in 1994, in which we endorsed a Don Fraser proposal for revising senate rules. We'd missed the second one in a search we did before running our Sunday editorial. We found it about half an hour ago. I think you actually have caught us in a contradiction. We can change our mind, as we did on light rail, but in this case, we really didn't. We simply missed the precedent and, like a court, if we make such a shift, we owe readers an explanation for why we did it.

And, to nobody's great surprise, the New York Times. Watching the NYT talk out of both sides of their mouth is too good to pass up, so forgive the long excerpts.

... Free Republic has posted the text of the still-timely January 1, 1995 New York Times editorial: "Time to retire the filibuster." Here is the Times's 1995 teaching:

The U.S. Senate likes to call itself the world's greatest deliberative body. The greatest obstructive body is more like it. In the last season of Congress, the Republican minority invoked an endless string of filibusters to frustrate the will of the majority. This relentless abuse of a time-honored Senate tradition so disgusted Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, that he is now willing to forgo easy retribution and drastically limit the filibuster. Hooray for him. ... One unpleasant and unforeseen consequence has been to make the filibuster easy to invoke and painless to pursue. Once a rarely used tactic reserved for issues on which senators held passionate convictions, the filibuster has become the tool of the sore loser, dooming any measure that cannot command the 60 required votes. Mr. Harkin, along with Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat, now proposes to make such obstruction harder. Mr. Harkin says reasonably that there must come a point in the process where the majority rules. This may not sit well with some of his Democratic colleagues. They are now perfectly positioned to exact revenge by frustrating the Republican agenda as efficiently as Republicans frustrated Democrats in 1994. ... The Harkin plan, along with some of Mr. Mitchell's proposals, would go a long way toward making the Senate a more productive place to conduct the nation's business. Republicans surely dread the kind of obstructionism they themselves practiced during the last Congress. Now is the perfect moment for them to unite with like-minded Democrats to get rid of an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose.

The Free Republic thread includes Senator Cornyn's March 10, 2005 letter to the editor regarding the Times editorial earlier that week. We yield the floor to Senator Cornyn:

"The Senate on the Brink" (editorial, March 6) supports the "historic role of the filibuster," which is a curious position for a newspaper that 10 years ago said filibusters were "the tool of the sore loser" and should be eliminated ("Time to Retire the Filibuster," editorial, Jan. 1, 1995). Federal judicial appointments have certainly been controversial, but surely all Americans can agree that the rules for confirming judges should be the same regardless of which party has a majority. Now you praise the filibuster as a "time-honored Senate procedure." In 1995, when Bill Clinton was president, you called it "an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose." You disparage the Republicans' view that 51 votes should be enough for judicial confirmation. Yet the 51-vote rule is a consistent Senate tradition. By calling for an end to filibusters, the Senate is simply contemplating restoring its traditions by traditional methods you disparage as "nuclear," even though they were once endorsed by such leading Democrats as Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Charles E. Schumer and Robert C. Byrd.

Rhetoric aside, what is the right thing to do? Outside of Those In High Places, it seems most people think the candidates should be voted up or down. So does Senator Bill Frist, majority leader. In his speech before the Senate today (full analysis here), Frist called for new Senate rules disallowing filibuster of Judicial nominees either on the floor or in committee.

• The judiciary committee will continue to play its essential oversight and investigative roles in the confirmation process. But the committee -- whether controlled by Republicans or Democrats -- will no longer be used to obstruct judicial nominees.
• When a judicial nominee comes to the floor, [the Senate] will set aside up to 100 hours to debate that nomination. Then the Senate as a whole will speak with an up-or-down vote.
• [T]hese proposals will apply only to appeals court and Supreme Court nominees. Judges who serve on these courts have the awesome responsibility of interpreting the Constitution.
• The filibuster -- as it existed before its unprecedented use on judicial nominees in the last Congress -- will remain unchanged.

The 100 hours rule allows for one hour of debate per senator, a fair compromise for a body which only has the role of "advise and consent". The speech and analysis both make reference to the fact that Democrats have a few grudges on account of Clinton nominees who were blocked in judicial committee. Neither side is without blame here, though filibustering in the Senate takes it to a new extreme. Especially interesting is PowerLine's analysis of the political impact of presenting this offer.

Will the Democrats accept? I think they might, since they know (at least, I think they know) that the Republicans have the votes needed to change the Senate rule and ban the filibuster with respect to judges. For the Democrats, it comes down to a political calculation. The first part of the calculation is, if they reject the compromise and force the Republicans to proceed with the Constitutional option, do they gain or lose votes? Notwithstanding their bravado, my guess is that the Democrats fear they will be the political losers if they go to the wall for the principle that a minority should be able to block a judicial nominee from receiving a vote. But the calculation has a second stage: whatever the general public may think, do Democratic Senators risk losing the support and enthusiasm of important elements of their base if they stop short of doing everything possible to block President Bush's judges? I suspect that they do. Among the Democrats' richest and most fervent supporters, this may be the number one issue. So Senator Frist's proposal puts the Democrats in a very difficult position.

There's no doubt it's fortunate for the Republicans that this situation is currently playing in our favor, but Frist's proposals make sense for the long run as well as the short term. The Democrats are between a rock and a hard place, and Frist's proposal has done much to force them to fish or cut bait: go on the record supporting the indefensible filibuster, or play ball and let the nominees come to a vote. Before I run out of cliches, I'd better end with sober news from the analysis of Frist's speech:

Frist said previously that he would not accept any offer that lets Democrats filibuster past or future judicial nominees. And [minority leader] Reid said he would not accept any deal that keeps Democrats from blocking future nominees.

The count by county

Michelle Malkin discovered some maps at USA Today which show the red/blue map by county rather than state. You can view both the 2000 and 2004 maps. 2004 is still incomplete, but I expect it will be updated soon. On the one hand, this doesn't take into account population, so it can't be used to extrapolate the vote. On the other hand, notice where all the blue counties are, especially in states that went blue like California, Oregon, Washington. Maybe this isn't news to anyone else, but I find it striking how much of the Democrats vote comes from big cities, and how few rural areas vote Democrat. It appears the only states where more than half of counties voted Democrat are in the New England area: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and these three states are completely blue in 2000. I wonder if any Dems are nervous that the GOP seems to have picked up a county in Connecticut this year? Also interesting that the New York Times shows 100% of counties in Iowa counted, but still won't call it for Bush, and yet was able to call Maine for Kerry with 95% of precincts tallied and still enough open votes for Bush to win. Rumor has it that the outstanding precincts tend Republican. Perhaps there's a rational reason for this, but it looks to me as if they're trying to give Bush a win without showing any more votes in the Electoral College than they have to.

The politics of hate

It has been quite a week on the campaign trail, but not everything has made it to the evening news. The Bush/Cheney campaign headquarters in several states have been raided. The daylight raids have generally been AFL/CIO protests gone bad, resulting sometimes in injuries to the volunteers. After hours, several offices have been shot at or broken into. The national headquarters even had several key computers stolen. Attributing the breakins to the Democratic party is an easy assumption, but innocent-until-proven-guilty still applies. The Philadelphia Inquirer is running a series called "21 reasons to elect Kerry". One conservative author (so far) has been given the podium for a rebuttal - well worth the read. What amazes me is the disparity with which the candidates are treated - here and elsewhere. Bush has revealed all his records, yet he's still assumed to have enlisted to avoid going to Viet Nam, and blamed for not fulfilling his duty, despite all evidence to the contrary (and there is plenty).

• George W. Bush applied to enlist in a unit which was currently stationed in Viet Nam when he could have chosen others. At the time he applied, it was not clear when the unit might return to the states, which might have taken him overseas as well.
• When offered the opportunity to fly in Viet Nam, he applied to go. He was turned down because they were looking for more seasoned pilots.
• The unit he belonged to was not full when he enlisted, and at times during his tour, as many as half the available slots remained empty. Therefore, he did not have to pull strings to get into the unit.
• His chosen position, flying a plane known sometimes as "widow-maker", was a very unlikely position for someone trying to avoid the draft. By all reports, he not only fulfilled the position, but excelled.

On the other side, it is a matter of record that Kerry has not released over 100 pages of information about his enlistment. As reported today on Powerline, a bit of investigation has suggested that Kerry may not have received an honorable discharge after all. An update later today trims the sails a bit, but there still remain two important questions:

• If Kerry has nothing to hide, why won't he release his full records and dispell the speculation?
• Why aren't the mainstream media having a feeding frenzy over the intimations and possibilities suggested by the evidence we have?

It seems so obvious to me that the media is stumping for Kerry. I can't understand how this isn't visible to anyone who thinks about it - but maybe that's really the key. The Liberals (I won't say Democrats, because there remain conservatives in the party) succeed on the backs of the uninformed.

Just yesterday, I heard a radio program caller saying he wanted Bush out of office because he had taken us into an illegal war. That was the gentleman's entire argument, and he couldn't back the statement up with any kind of evidence, even when pressed by the hosts. Similarly, I have heard people who genuinely believe that Bush lied in order to go to war. Operating on the best information obtained by the intelligence agencies of at least four countries is not lying.

Lately, the actions of the radical Left seem to be more in concert with the terrorists than democracy. Apart from the campaign headquarters raids, some Bush/Cheney supporters have had their signs destroyed and swazticas burned into their lawns. These attacks are being investigated as hate-crimes, and rightfully so, but I wonder if the term hate-crime needs to be extended to those who use violence to disagree with your political perspective, not just those who use Nazi emblems in the commission of those attacks? Do we need another revolutionary war in order to make sure the conservatives are given equal rights?

Another example of MSM bias: a columnist for the London Telegraph had his column pulled because his article suggested that maybe, perhaps, Tony Blair had done the right thing by not sending in commandos to rescue Kenneth Bigley. Rather, it's likely that Bigley's last words will result in even more people being captured and used as leverage. Certainly, I can't begrudge a man who knows he's about to die from saying many desparate things, but I can hold a big grudge against the media who choose to amplify that message because it serves their political purpose.

On preparations for elections, the increased scrutiny has brought out evidence of fraud and inaccuracies on both sides. A Denver news station has uncovered major voter registration fraud which has resulted in some people registering multiple times. If done with the registrant's knowledge, each additional registration constitutes a felony, yet one person quoted in the story admits to having registered about 35 times this year! Other investigations (many from the same news source) have unearthed votor registration groups which ignore registrations for one party or the other. Some states are discovering that they have many convicted felons registered as well. And don't forget the thousands of people double-registered between New York and Florida.

Zell Miller, the Democrat senator who spoke at the Republican convention, has written an editorial on how the battle for Iwo Jima might have been covered if today's media had been around. A short excerpt:

Cutie: "There is no way the Marines could have expected this. Someone got it all wrong. No one predicted this. This has been a horrible 24 hours for our country. This is a slaughterhouse. After all this fighting, Marines control only about a mile and a half of beach and the casualties are now over 3,500 and rising rapidly. We'd like to know what you think. Call the number on the bottom of the screen. Give us your opinions on these three questions: 1. Were the Marines properly trained? 2. Is this nothing of an island worth all these lives? 3. Has the president once again misled the American people? "After the break, we'll ask our own Democratic and Republican analysts, both shouting at the same time, of course, what they have to yell about all this. It should make for a very shrill, provocative morning.

What exactly has happened to this country that has brought us from Patrick Henry's "I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." to the point where freedom of speech only includes those who espouse a particular political viewpoint? It makes me want to put up a Bush/Cheney sign on my lawn just to make sure the attacks have the opposite effect. It's certainly more of a gesture than activism, but it's the very least I can do to help the campaign.

Democrat desperation

It's hard to imagine how much worse it can get for the Kerry and the Democrats. Whatever the source of Senator Kerry's orangish hue, you have to admit it's kinda funny looking. The late night talk shows certainly haven't wasted any time making jokes. Lynne Cheney got in a quick reference to Kerry's tan which seemed pretty mild to me.

During a campaign stop with her husband, a group of volunteers moved into the crowd with microphones for the question-and-answer period. Vice President Dick Cheney told supporters to look for the people with dark orange shirts. When Cheney paused as if searching for the words to describe the shade of orange, Lynne Cheney said, "How about John Kerry's suntan?" The remark drew a big laugh from the crowd and the vice president.

So far, so good. Doesn't sound like any kind of partisanship or attack on his character - just an interesting coincidence that gave people a giggle. Now read the response from the Dems:

Responding to her comments, Kerry campaign spokesman Bill Burton said, "Is Mrs. Cheney jealous considering how hard it is to get sun in the undisclosed location with her husband Dick? Or is she distracted over how red-in-the-face George Bush should be considering his failed presidency?"

Hello! Where did that come from? Are we a little touchy here? Can't even laugh at yourselves? I'm not sure if bitterness is a campaign strategy, or just a continuing theme among liberals. I fail to see how their response improves their position. How much nicer to have seen a response like this:

Responding to her comments, Kerry campaign spokesman Bill Burton wryly replied, "We selected orange for the debates after extensive polling. Blue was preferred by focus groups, but caused problems with the cameras." He also noted, "The spray-on tan treatment should fade to a more natural tone in time for the debate."

Respond to a joke with a joke, right? The counterattack just makes Kerry (or his minions) appear to have the personality and sense of humor of a stick. We already have Al Gore - we don't need another National Tree. To say it another way (though he was talking about a different situation):

Bush spokesman Scott Stanzel said, "Humor is an effective way to be persuasive without being corrosive. Americans appreciate humor and leaders who don't take themselves so seriously."

"Persuasive without being corrosive" - what a concept. Liberals take note: you really do catch more flies with honey than vinegar. If the RNC is poking fun at Kerry, it's at least partly deserved. His platform hasn't exactly been one you would call "clear". Even when he tries to explain himself, he just ends up making it worse. Take, for example, his now-infamous quote of "I actually voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it." Kerry's explanation:

"I had one of those inarticulate moments, late in the evening when I was dead-tired in the primaries, and I didn't say something very clearly," Kerry said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

The problem with this is that the fateful quote was made at a noontime rally. What really has me concerned is that the Kerry campaign seems to be in take-no-prisonors mode, striking out on any front they can think of. The insults last week of the Iraqi President don't inspire me to think of him as a Commander-In-Chief, coalition-builder type. In fairness, Kerry didn't make the comments himself, but this comment and others like it indicate that Kerry accepts this treatment. Why would we expect that he won't staff his presidential cabinet the same way he's staffed his campaign? Furthermore, Kerry has shown clearly and stated publicly that he'll say whatever he needs to say to get elected. When he was fighting against Howard Dean, he modeled himself as the anti-war candidate. Now that Dean is out of the picture, he's more willing to support the war. That's not called taking a position - it's called playing the field.

tinfoilhat

This article starts out talking about paranoia and insanity, but then moves into a discussion about why people continue to believe that the 2000 Presidential election was rigged. There is actually ample evidence that the Democrats were the ones trying to modify the results. An enjoyable read that should have you shaking your head if you read it with an open mind. A friend from work says that inside every Democrat is a Republican waiting to be educated. I'm inclined to believe him more each day. Read Bias to hear how and why the media has a liberal bias but doesn't realize it. Both of these points tie in nicely with the (somewhat obvious) concept that if you are unskilled at something, you lack the ability to accurately evaluate your own abilities, and will tend to think you are more competent than you are. The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (by the American Psychological Association) published a detailed study on this topic. Worth skimming, at least.