Your Weekly Rush, Again

Rush revealed this week that he wasn't raised very well. Apparently nobody ever taught him that wasting food was wrong and stupid; on Friday he related a story about going to a restaurant and leaving so much food behind he got questions from the waitress. What about all those starving kids in Africa and China Rush? You ever think of them?

He then, in a fan pleasing gesture, revealed that he never carries anything less than a $50 dollar bill. And somep people claim that he's out of touch with the common man. He had a $58 dollar lunch and gave the waitress $120 and let her keep the change (not sure how you get to $120 with out bills less than $50, but what do I know). Just in case you are not sure what to think of that that little story, Rush explains it to us.

". . . your observation should be, "you know, we misunderstand this Limbaugh guy. We think he's a racist, bigot, sexist, homophobe because he's conservative, but look how generous and caring and thoughtful he is about somebody who's not doing as well as he is!"

Thank you for telling us what we should think, O mighty one. Please keep regalling your fans with stories about how loaded you are and how much better off you are than all the rest of us poor slobs.

No I'm serious. I want to hear about how rough it is to be a drug user in America who never carries bills smaller than a $20.

Once 'Round the Horn

Good story from Archy on corruption in Texas. I particularly like the threat "You don't want to have the freakin' president of the United States mad at you for the rest of your life." Well yeah, but really, he's not going to be President the rest of his life. Is he?

Interesting discussion over at The Yellow Doggeral Democrat involving a sonic weapon recently deployed to Iraq.

In other news there are two new bloggers in the liberal coalition (which is kind of like the Superfriends, only with better parties. One of them is Bloggg. I don't know what the extra two g's stand for. Groovy Guy Perhaps? And he has an interesting article on Granny D, who if you don't know who she is, you should.

The other is called Musing's Musings which is very allitrative. He has a great explanation of why the Bush Attack Ads crumble in the face of reasson, which, unfortunately, does not make them unique in the history of Republican Attacks.

New World Blogger and Echidne of the Snakes both have well written and touching responses to the terrorist actions in Spain.

Pen-Elayne on the Web has comments on our wise and noble President's campaign stops. Turns out cheering crowds may occasionally not know what they are cheering for.

Words on a Page has uncovered a little tidbit on how President Bush's opinions have evolved since Law School. Like most evolution, his opinions will take hundreds of thousands of years before they evolve, apparently.

Respectful of Otters reports that Lauren Slater, who I had never heard of before, is a liar. The details are interesting though, as they involve behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner and uban legends.

Sooner Thought has an interesting article on how Republicans are controlling the terms of the debate by controlling the terms of the debate. Hmmmm. That could have been more clear. What I mean to say is that they are controlling the debate through controlling the language used.

Sometimes I worry that I'm over using the phrase "Interesting Article." But the feeling usually passes. More this afternoon. Maybe. Unless I get lazy.

Blast from the Past

"We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals - and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship. . . . Bipartisanship is another name for date rape." - Grover Norquist.

Something to keep in mind during this election season.

Your Weekly Rush!

Apparently if the election were held tomorrow, President Bush would win.

"I'm telling you if this election were held tomorrow Bush would win this by a much bigger majority than anybody in the media and any poll is showing right now. The fact that the election isn't tomorrow means that the polls that show John Kerry is up by four, eight, 12, or down by four don't mean diddlysquat. Because these polls are nothing more than a reflection of media coverage, media propaganda, if you will. And so everybody is all hot to trot here about all this, and it's unnecessary and it's irrational, because what's happening to propel this so-called John Kerry story is irrational."

So it's a good thing the election isn't being held tomorrow. In his own way Rush seems about as delusional as Ralph Nader. There's been a number of pools talking about how President Bush is in trouble; but they are irrelevant because, in Rush's Mind, there's a vast silent majority that is just waiting to vote for President Bush. Reminds me more than a little of the idea that Nader has put out that most unregistered voters would vote for him, if he got his message to them; they aren't part of the process because they don't like either party.

In both cases what's important isn't any statistical data; neither side has very much. Rush points to a poll that says that the number one issue is Homeland Security, and apparently that's a slam dunk issue for President Bush (Personally I'm not sold on that theory myself), but that's it.

There's a famous story the right wing likes to tell about Pauline Kael, New York Film Critic, who was surprised when Nixon beat McGovern because nobody she knew was going to vote for Nixon. One wonders if Rush might be falling into a similar self delusional trap. I personally hope so.

Ann Coulter's Latest

You remember back a year ago or a year and a half when Ann Coulter was writing about how Liberals who opposed the war on Iraq were basically traitors? One question that I and many others had was what about Anti War Conservatives and Libertarians (The Cato Institute at the time was putting out a steady stream of articles attacking the plan to invade Iraq)? Are conservatives who attack the war traitors too? Unfortunately, what with her busy schedule and all, as far as I know Ann never answered that particular question.

Well, in the issue du jour, The Passion, Ms. Coulter is apparently determined not to make the same mistake twice. So she slams into William Safire for his criticisms of the movie. She makes this wonderfully ahistorical argument. "With all the subtlety of a Mack truck, Safire called Gibson's movie a version of "the medieval 'passion play,' preserved in pre-Hitler Germany at Oberammergau, a source of the hatred of all Jews as 'Christ killers.'" (Certainly every Aryan Nation skinhead murderer I've ever met was also a devoted theater buff and "passion play" aficionado.)"

What a characteristic response! Ms. Coulter, the passion plays were a phenomenon of the Hitler regime (and the middle ages of course) and were used to incite that culture to hatred. Modern Skinheads wouldn't use them, because we now have Racist music and video games and, of course, the wonderful internet to bring them together. And we have "The Passion" which if one were a Skinhead, one might find it a confirmation of one's beliefs. Not that Mel Gibson should be held responsible for what viewers of his movie might bring into the theater with them, of course.

Ms. Coulter encourages Liberals to "get over" the Spanish Inquisition, because only 30,000 people were killed and Stalin killed a lot more than that. Although to be fair, Stalin did have the advantage of modern technology to assist him in his killings. I'm sure the Spanish Inquisition did the best they could.

What's also interesting is that I see no indication that Ms. Coulter has seen the movie. Instead of taking on what Mr. Safire says about the movie, she chooses to move the conversation to a discussion of what Christianity is; a story of salvation. That's all well and good, but it doesn't really answer the question of whether Mel Gibson's movie, along with telling that Jesus died for all mankind, also tells us that Jews did it and therefore they basically deserve what ever we chose to do to them.

Ms. Coulter begins her article with this paragraph, "William Safire, the New York Times' in-house "conservative" - who endorsed Bill Clinton in 1992, like so many conservatives - was sure Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" would incite anti-Semitic violence. Thus far, the pogroms have failed to materialize."

Well, I guess since we haven't started rounding up Jews and executing them, that there's nothing to worry about. Unless you live in Denver, perhaps (although it should be noted that hundreds of people from Denver also turned out en masse to help clean the Synagogue).

More on Gary Aldrich

I began the day with Tom Tomorrow so let's end it there too. For those of you who don't know Mr. Aldrich's past, he was the subject of this cartoon by Mr. Tomorrow. It's at Salon, so you might be subject to watching an ad before you can see it.

All this and Gary Aldrich Too!

Had quite a busy day today, for me anyway, and I didn't get to a story I came across first thing.

Here's the argument. "We must remain strong and respond smartly to attacks against American interests. We cannot simply open a new FBI investigation – we tried that tactic before, and it proved a deadly failure.

Three-thousand killed should provide sufficient “DNA evidence” supporting George W. Bush’s military approach."

Hmmmmmm. I'm not sure it does. I mean it provides data that the previous approach of President Bush ignoring terrorism because he hated President Clinton so much was a failure. It doesn't necessarily prove that any specific new approach will work.

I mean turn that around. What if some kooky liberal were to say, "We tried antagonizing other countries and pushing them around, and that approach proved a deadly failure. Three thousand killed should provide sufficient "DNA evidence" supporting a new approach in which we actually try to get along with other nations." Somehow I doubt that argument would convince Mr. Aldrich.

But wait, you say, there haven't been any terrorist attacks since September 11th. Doesn't that prove that President Bush's get tough approach is working? Again, not necessarily. Allow me to let Lisa Simpson explain.

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
Lisa: That's spacious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
[Lisa refuses at first, then takes the exchange]

Now who do you believe more, Gary Aldrich or Lisa Simpson?

Aldrich has more, mostly slanders on Senator Kerry's service in Vietnam, which I might get to later. Or not. We've heard it all before, so it may not sustain my interest.

A Quick Thought on Teaching

"To improve teaching, we must attract people of higher intellectual ability and we must make teacher salaries related to ability and effectiveness." - Walter E. Williams

In a surprising move I agree with Mr. Williams on this point. The problem comes in how you attract people of higher intellectual ability and how you make salaries related to ability and effectiveness. First of all, let's pay teachers more; that will attract people. Ambitious smart people don't go into teaching unless they are motivated by something besides money.

Basing salaries on how well they teach is a sick joke unless you raise the amount the can potentially earn well past what they currently earn. If the range is such that a dedicated hard working creative teacher can make a comfortable living; well than you will attract more people. If on the other hand you structure the system so that the best teachers make it to the lower middle class, and everybody else makes less, well, I know I wouldn't want to stick around in that system.

Tony Blankley and World Opinion

Just so you know it took me four minutes and eleven seconds to find out that the Prime Minister of Belgium is Guy Verhofstadt. Remember that. Four minutes, eleven seconds. It will come up later.

Blankley informs us today in his column that apparently Senator Kerry was talking to foreign heads of state who suggested that he needed to defeat President Bush in November. Mr. Blankley then asserted that he figured this was probably a lie since after an extensive review (more on Mr. Blankley's prowess at research later) Mr. Kerry just didn't have time to meet with any foreign leaders.

I suspect that this conversation turns on what foreign leaders mean; but to Mr. Blankley they mean heads of state, apparently. I mean it is far fetched to suppose that Kerry could have slipped in a meeting with Prime Minister Chirac, or chancellor Schroeder or Prime Minister Verhofstadt. But if he met with the French Ambassador? Is that a foreign leader? Or a member of the British parliament? Well you get the idea. By narrowing his search criteria Blankley makes Kerry look like a liar.

He goes on to eliminate our allies such as Britain, and states " . . . one has to assume that he (Mr. Kerry) is referring to France's Chirac, Germany's Schroeder, Russia's Putin, Belgium's whoever, etc. Mr. Putin is far too smart to bad mouth the president. So Sen. Kerry must be referring to Chirac, Schroeder or some of their lesser Euro-running dog lackeys."

Too bad Mr. Blankley didn't have an extra four minutes and eleven seconds, he might have been able to include Prime Minister Verhofstadt's name instead of the demeaning and insulting "whatever." Of course you might wonder if this lack of time also hampered his ability to determine if Sen. Kerry met with other foreign leaders.

He also states, "The American public rarely has put a particularly high value on the opinion of foreign leaders." This is true enough I suppose. I'm not sure, however, that we Americans are interested in being known as pushy jackasses. I mean if we could justifiably say we were keeping to ourselves, I guess that'd be one thing. But we aren't. Even discounting our military actions in the Middle East, we are involved in trade agreements with half the world, and in military alliances with a large part of them as well.

Mr. Blankley concludes with this crude imagery. "I am sure that M. Chirac will be glad to continue to kiss Mr. Kerry's hand -- as long as Mr. Kerry will kiss a lower, dorsal part of M. Chirac's anatomy. But I rather doubt John Kerry will get elected president by American voters while in that posture."

Let's imagine what Tony Blankley would be like as a neighbor, using his unique diplomatic style.

You hear a banging at the door in the middle of the night. You open the door and see Tony Blankley.

Blankley: "Look whoever you are . . . "

Verhofstadt: "My name is Verhofstadt. We've been neighbors for a couple of years."

Blankley: "Yeah, whatever. Look I'm going to beat the crap out of that guy down the street. Come with me."

Verhofstadt: "Why? What has he done?"

Blankley: "You remember when my car got stolen don't you?"

Verhofstadt: "You think he had something to do with that?"

Blankley: "Just come with me, dammit. I don't have time to argue. You're either with me or against me."

Verhofstadt: "You didn't really answer my question. I don't think this sounds like a good idea."

Blankley: "I'm not going to kiss your butt, jack! When I ask for help I expect you to give it."

Verhofstadt: "Well, I appreciate you not kissing my butt, but I'm not going to kiss yours either. I'm going back inside now."

Blankly stomps off muttering under his breath about what a bad neighbor Verhofstadt is. Any resemblance to people (other than Tony Blankley) or nations, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Free Trade Madness

Well there's a sort of a feud going on between NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman and Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, which you can read all about here.

At the heart of the conflict is the debate over Free Trade. Free Trade is a complicated issue and like many complicated issues the loudest arguments are heard from the extremes. Friedman is 100% behind Free Trade and seems to have dedicated the last several columns to proving the outsourcing is great and doesn't hurt anybody (despite the obvious fact that it does. Tom Tomorrow's position is a bit more nuanced, but I can't recall a time when he was pro-free trade.

Let me stop for a moment and admit that I am combining several issues into one under the blanket term Free Trade, and I know it. Outsourcing is the current fulcrum for Free Trade discussions, as the WTO was a couple years ago.

I think that this issue is one in which the Moderate Liberal has an occasion to shine. On a lot of issues the moderate liberal inevitably looks like a watered down version of a "real" liberal. In this issue, however, the moderate liberal can take the more viable middle path. One that accepts free trade as part of the world, but one that rejects the laissez-faire head-in-the-sand approach of the conservative. Free Trade needs government oversight to ensure that it works for everybody and not just guys with corner offices in Manhattan.

Here's a fun conversation to have with Conservative Free Traders.

Bryant: So if I understand correctly, all the poor people are poor because they are lazy and have poor family values?

CFT: Yep.

Bryant: And that therefore we need to cut welfare and food stamps and unemployment insurance and so on?

CFT: Yep.

Bryant: And you favor companies moving their operations overseas and throwing their employees out of work in mass layoffs?

CFT: Yep.

Bryant: And you don't see any conflict between these views?

CFT: Nope.

Apparently I was wrong

Last week I posted a little story on an article by Dennis Prager that, I thought, equated Terrorists with those who support Same Sex Marriage.

Well apparently I wasn't the only one to come away from Mr. Prager's story with that impression, so this weeks article is about that article.

"So, for the record, I consider the great majority of supporters of same-sex marriage to be thoroughly decent people, and the great majority of supporters of Islamic terror to be loathsome.

But the fact that most supporters of same-sex marriage are thoroughly decent people with loving intentions, as opposed to supporters of Islamic terror who are filled with hate and love death, in no way denies my premise that both are waging war against Judeo-Christian civilization. And that was the subject of my article.

Any further insinuation that I morally equate the people who support same-sex marriage with those who engage in or support Muslim terror is either deliberate distortion or an indication of an inability to think critically."

That's convenient. He goes on, however, to divide the Pro Gay Marriage group into three groups. First you have the Secularist religion hating Liberals. Secondly, fuzzy headed dopes who have been duped by the first group with their talk of tolerance and fairness. Thirdly, Religious Liberals who are practically schizophrenic.

Of the religion hating liberals, he states, "They are animated by their fear and loathing of Bible-based Christians (and Jews) whom they regard as religious fanatics. Destroying the Judeo-Christian definition of marriage is one part of the secular Left's assault. Every vestige of Judeo-Christian America is targeted . . . " Hmmm. These sound like pretty bad guys. I wonder if Prager considers them part of the "vast majority" of Gay Marriage Supporters who are decent people? Or if he considers them the other part?

But for the record, nobody distorted you Mr. Prager. You knew how that article would read, and that's why you wrote it that way. You were clearly equating supporters of gay marriage and terrorists. You may not have consciously meant that (although that's hard to believe), and you certainly don't want people to think you meant that (which is understandable I guess). But that's what you were doing.

Damned if you Do, Damned if you Don't

David Limbaugh has helpfully set the limits of dirty politics in his latest article.

"We must understand that dirty campaigning is lying about or distorting your record or your opponent's record. It is not dirty to expose the truth about your policy positions and record or that of your opponent, even when it puts him in a negative light. Such an airing of the record is not only not dirty campaigning, it is essential to inform the electorate."

Let me unpack that for you. It's Dirty Campaigning when Senator Kerry attacks President Bush; it's clean campaigning when President Bush (or his many surrogates in the right wing media) attack Senator Kerry.

Let's take a couple of examples. Is it clean politics for President Bush or his surrogates to attack Senator Kerry's votes on defense spending? Apparently it is, according to the D. Limbaugh theory of Clean Campaigning. But just to be sure let's see what Fred Kaplan of Slate Magazine says about Kerry's voting record on defense.

"In other words, Kerry was one of 16 senators (including five Republicans) to vote against a defense appropriations bill 14 years ago. He was also one of an unspecified number of senators to vote against a conference report on a defense bill nine years ago. The RNC takes these facts and extrapolates from them that he voted against a dozen weapons systems that were in those bills. The Republicans could have claimed, with equal logic, that Kerry voted to abolish the entire U.S. armed forces, but that might have raised suspicions."

Hmmmm. Now I'm no expert in Dirty Campaigning the way Limbaugh is, but to me, this seems to indicate that perhaps some Republicans are not exactly presenting Senator Kerry's record accurately. I wonder if this counts as "lying about or distorting your record or your opponent's record?"

What am I thinking, these are Republicans!

More on the Passion

For those interested--here's an humorous article on the Passion.

Got it from the wonderful Pen-Elayne on the Web.

Blasts from the Past

"Our citizenry must remain armed to protect itself against its own poor judgment in electing such tyrants as President Clinton." - David Limbaugh, April 26, 2000

"It is really rather amazing that when the left is given a choice of attributing Al Gore's historic loss either to the unpopularity of Democratic ideas or to a pervert like Bill Clinton, it's Clinton they decide to save." - Ann Coulter, January 4, 2001.

"From corruption in the White House and Wall Street fraud to phony Middle East "peace accords," the unstated but guiding principles of the Clinton Era were that truth didn't matter, wealth needn't be earned and national security wasn't important." - Oliver North, October 4, 2002.

"Clinton announced he would take an office in Harlem.

As one of my friends remarked, that should be nice: Having escaped a mugging on the way to work, Clinton's female employees will then have to face an accused rapist in the office." - Ann Coulter, February 19, 2001.

Just in case you, like Mr. Greenberg (see below), were under the impression that we Liberals had somehow invented the idea of disdaining the President. Oh, and as we are entering the electoral season, let's remember these words from David Limbaugh.

"The candidates most critical of "negative campaigning" are generally those with the most to hide." - David Limbaugh, March 14, 2000

Television without Pity

"In a truly, truly great line, Assorama says, "Well, Heidi speaks her mind, but what's on her mind isn't always that appealing." HA HA HA! Brilliant. Thank you, Assorama, for rather succinctly explaining to this particular kind of personality -- the "you can't criticize me for anything I say as long as it's what I really think" kind -- that you are not interesting just because you are sincere."

If you like laughing and stuff, you should check out Television without Pity. Not every recapper is hillarious, but many of them are. My personal favorites are the Recaps for The Apprentice and for Boston Public. Both are very funny.

The line above comes from the recaps of the Apprentice.

Irrational Hatred

Paul Greenberg, demonstrating his ability to write the same article as everybody else, uses a popular Republican meme. His article is entitled "Will Hatred Be Enough?", and it contains this paragraph.

"The glue that holds Senator Kerry's campaign together will be a visceral dislike - no, a sheer hatred - of George W. Bush, his policies, his personality, his accent, the way he walks and talks and smiles and wears his belt buckle . . . [ellipses from original]

You see what Greenberg did there? He cleverly equated our disdain for Bush's policies with our dislike for his accent, personality and so on. In that way our disdain for his policies gets equated with our hatred for his belt buckle. Well I can't speak for any of my fellow liberals but I am way more concerned about President Bush's policies than his belt buckle.

I am concerned that President Bush's economy seems to reward those at the very top while the middle class and the lower class have to be constantly in fear of losing their job.

I am unconcerned about President Bush's accent.

I am concerned that President Bush's administration has basically abandoned Diplomacy as a tactic to achieve our global goals. The only negotiating we want to do is with the bayonet at our bargaining partners throat.

I am unconcerned about President Bush's wardrobe.

I am concerned about misdeeds done by Republicans including the outing of Valerie Plame and the stealing of confidential memos from Democratic members of congress (which may or may not have ties back to the White House, it turns out).

I am unconcerned about President Bush's smiles.

But of course I understand why Mr. Greenberg is doing this. The problems with President Bush's policies are so numerous and obvious, they need desperately to keep us from looking them over. One technique is to suggest that we are irrational haters, moved by insanity. Some intemperate comments made by a few liberals have given them fuel for this argument. But of course they have to pretend ferociously that we are all irrational in our disdain for President Bush. But most of us aren't. And your attempt to keep the failures of Mr. Bush's policies off the table will not work.

But, please, keep trying.

New Quotes

Yep as is traditional on Sunday we have a new quote and a new Quotes Page. Enjoy.