Your Weekly Rush - Fear and Loathing in Tallahassee

Well, Rush Limbaugh has finally explained it all.  Now it can be told why we Liberals are so upset with President Bush.  

"They have rage. They have anger that is irrational, and I know the root of it and we'll talk about it when we have more time. Well, it's in their own -- they feel powerless. That's really, folks, if you want to understand it, the rage and anger stems from their utter feelings of powerlessness, and you look at them and you think, "My gosh, these people are strong and they're united. They got a sense of purpose. They know what they want." They are scared to death, and that's why they hate, and that's why they have rage, and that's why they have anger, and they are scared to death because they sense they have no power. "

That's it, my readers.  Forget all you might have heard about Liberals being upset with the war in Iraq or with the pressure on the economy from the deficit, or the Patriot act, or anything else.  Liberals are angry because of an irrational feeling of powerlessness. 
 
Personally I think this is a bit of projection.  Limbaugh Republicans, while controlling the Congress, the White House and having a good stake at the Supreme Court, having new ways of getting their message out, still feel like they don't have enough power in America and are overly persecuted. 
 
I personally have all the power I need.  A little more money would be nice. 

Round the Horn Part L7

Yep it's another round up of the old Liberal Coalition.
 
All Facts and Opinion has a piece on the Underblogs and the Overblogs, and their secret plan to conquer Earth.  Or just get more hits. 
 
Gamer's Nook has an anecdote on the perils of carrying a sword to a hardware store. 
 
In other news of smart guys around the world, Iddybud has a tale of a man and a his fishing hook.
 
Happy Furry Puppy Story Time has a witticism about the new Will Smith movie "I, Robot," which was apparently suggested by an Issac Asimov story.
 
Left is Right has an account of the Bush Campaigns ongoing effort to hold Hollywood against Future President Kerry. 
 
T. Rex's Guide to Life has a response to those who would argue that claiming this war was unnecessary trivializes the dead (based on a comment he received).
 
Collective Sigh has a report on new information coming out of Abu Ghraib.  Disturbing information which could put the whole "abuse" theory to bed. 
 
Steve Gilliard's News Blog has a bit on Future President Kerry's service in Vietnam as contrasted with someone else's service in the National Guard. 
 
And finally The Fulcrum has a suggestion that we all relax every now and again along with a nice picture. 

A New Link

Just added a new link to to the old Website, for the web page A Scrivner's Lament.  Seems like they have a fair amount of good information and stories over there.   Check it out!

Get up get down turn all around

I just read an interesting column from Ellen Goodman in which she decries the optimism assault during the political campaign. Apparently it's hard to get elected unless everybody thinks you are optimistic. I think personally that goes back to having a vision of what American could be and articulating that vision.

With his mouth President George W. Bush hasn't been able to articulate that vision very well, but with his actions he's done a little better (it involves manliness, stump removal, and no books). Kerry's got the opposite problem, he's good at talking about what his vision is (his current campaign theme "Let America be America again" is brilliant) but he doesn't project that vision as well. Edwards joining the campaign, however, should help with this a bit. Which, of course, is why the Bush camp is in such a hurry to discredit him.

I do think, however, the closing words of her article are pretty dead-on accurate.

"In my book, any politician who thinks he can beat the odds and become president of the United States qualifies automatically as an optimist. With the possible exception of Ralph Nader. But I am not willing to concede that a candidate's optimism is the political trump card. Attitude is no substitute for sober judgment. A cheerleader is not always a leader.

Some of our greatest accomplishments and some of our greatest disasters were all begun with optimism. The "can-do spirit" is fine and Yankee Doodle Dandy. But a leader needs to know the difference between what we can do and what we should do, and what we'd better not do.

That would give me reason for optimism."

Two for the Price of One

Two stories for the price of one.

First of all Larry Elder writes a column touting the negativity of the Kerry Edwards campaign. He begins his column with this paragraph.

"We're running a very positive and affirmative campaign," said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Indeed, Sen. Kerry, D-Mass., renounces nastiness: "We have not stood up," he said, "and attacked our opponents in personal ways." Really?

Let's go to the videotape."

He then quotes 11 Democrats / Liberal saying mean hurtful things about President Bush. Many of them are justifiably questionable statements; others aren't. But out of the 11, only one comes from the Candidate for President or the Candidate for Vice President.

Two come from the recent star-studded Hollywood fundraiser, so I guess we could put those in the camp of coming from the Kerry/Edwards campaign.

But 8 or 72.73% came from outside the campaign. They are all Democrats; but it certainly seems like nonsense to suggest that all Democrats are responsible for the actions of all other Democrats.

Incidently, the one statement by John Kerry? Made off stage. It was an open mike gaffe. He didn't apologize for the words, though, so I guess it counts.

On the other hand we've had on stage comments by both President and particularly Vice President slamming Kerry and Edwards. Their campaign website spends a lot of bandwidth ripping into Kerry and Edwards (the Kerry site doesn't reciprocate, merely pointing out discrepancies in the Bush attacks). They ran an web ad comparing Democrats to Adolph Hitler. So I think I'm going to continue believing that the Kerry Edwards people are running a far more positive campaign.

The second story is by Marvin Olasky, and I'm having a hard time figuring it out. He writes on a visit to Turkey and a comparison between the Haggia Sophia and the Sultan Ahmet. He moves from that to a discussion of the Crusades and the age old struggle between the Muslims and the Christians bringing it right up to the modern day.

" Those Christians saw a clash of civilization that went on for centuries, and their paintings are very much in an Onward Christian Soldiers motif, with lots of red ochre, green, and cobalt blue. In places of Cappadocia without cliffs, the Christians went underground: 32 Thirty-two underground cities probably housed at times 20,000 or more, with multiple entrances and exits for escape.

I visited one underground city at Derinkuyu that went down eight levels and included a church, classroom, baptistry, storerooms, bedrooms, dining rooms, wine cellars, stables on the first and second stories, wells, tombs, and 52 ventilations shafts to a depth of 75 to 90 yards. Christians apparently built the city by hollowing out airshafts and excavating from the sides of the shafts.

And talk about security: Christians built not bolt locks but bolt stones -- two feet thick and weighing half a ton -- that could be rolled across passageways in case of attack. Which leads to a question: What kind of bolt stones do we have today? We need to pray for peace and work to build honest Muslim-Christian friendship. But we must also be discerning, so that terrorists don't force us into a position of weakness where all we can do is hide."

I'm not sure what the point of Marvin Olasky's article is intended to be. It is a bit like an old time "Muslim Menace" article, and perhaps that's it. We should respect Muslims if they are willing to convert to Christianity or something, but otherwise we are enemies forever? I don't know. Certainly reminding us all of the Crusades in the middle of our current conflict isn't meant to encourage understanding of the Muslim world.

So you Want to be a Rock and Roll Star

I know my titles aren't making a lot of sense lately, but thems the breaks as they say.

I got this link from REMs website. The groups name is November 2 (I think), and they are apparently group of lefties that want to encourage as many as people to register and vote in the upcoming elections (which if memory serves, are being held on December 13).

That'd be funny if the Bush Campaign, last election, hadn't put out ficticious flyers in Democratic Districts (two bits of alliteration there, in case you didn't notice) which encouraged voters to go vote the day after the election.

Anyway the site has a really cool countdown to the election. It's apparently in 110 days 12 hours and 7 minutes, so get ready now. Book your parties in advance. I'm available to perform, but I must warn you that I no longer create balloon animals as part of my act.

A Functional Relationship

You know it really is a lot easier to debate when you just ignore the other sides position. Or distort it all out of reason. That's what today's William Safire column does.

"Think about that. Do today's groupthinkers believe that Osama bin Laden would sit down with Saddam in front of the world's cameras to sign a mutual assistance pact, establishing a formal relationship? Terrorists and rogue states don't work that way. Mass killers collaborate informally, without a photo op, even secretly."

The difficulty in uncovering evidence of a conspiracy is that failure to produce evidence is taken as proof of the conspiracy. The fact that we haven't been able to find any evidence of a collaboration between Saddam's Iraq and Al Qaeda is not evidence that such a link didn't exist but evidence of their skill in disguising that link.

Let is be clear on our terms. When we Democrats say there is no link between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, we don't literally mean no link. We mean no operatative link. They weren't working together to hurt America.

It's impossible to prove a negative, of course, and perhaps some Democrats are making overly strong statements denying such a link. But the other side of the argument is that the Administration and it's defenders have had three years to prove an operative link, and they haven't succeeded yet. After a while, the failure to prove the link becomes a kind of evidence.

Which you don't seem to Understand

If you have already watched the add to get one day access to Salon, you might as well check out this interview with Ralph Nader as well. I don't think either Nader or Talbot comes of particularly well.

Here are a few exchanges.

"Nader: This is ridiculous. You're treating Republicans like they're all criminals. Did you ever hear of Republicans who might work with us on issues over the years, who might believe in civil liberties even though they might prefer a Republican ticket?

Talbot: Look, you and I know that those kinds of Republicans are few and far between. And I challenge you to show me that the bulk of this money you're getting from conservatives is meant to advance the cause of American consumers. I just don't believe that. And if that's not the case, why is your own running mate, Peter Camejo, saying that you should give back this money?"

Yep, some Republicans aren't criminals. Nader's final comment before hanging up on Talbot is as follows.

"Nader: We're not going to play the fascist game of the two-party monopoly barricading itself from any competition, with all kinds of statutory obstruction that cost third parties immense time and money if they can surmount them. This is a dictatorship, which you don't seem to understand..."

Nader has the right to run, but he is showing a lot less attractive face than he did four years ago.

Goofy Article at Salon

Salon has a pretty negative opinion of Michael Moore, one they've had it for a long time. In 1997, they published an article by Daniel Radosh which stated, "For most people on the left, Moore is welcome news. Some of us, however, have had enough." They have taken the occasion off and on since then to take shots at Mr. Moore, and today they take another shot. But unlike some of their earlier efforts which made good cogent points, this one seems a little bizarre.

The story is this. Michael Moore has claimed that soldiers appreciate Fahrenheit 9/11. Bill Warhop, the author of this article, doubted this claim. So he took four soldiers with him to see Fahrenheit 9/11 and recorded their disapproval of it. This, along with the fact that the showing of Fahrenheit 9/11 was empty, proves that Michael Moore is a filthy liar.

Huh?

Well, maybe Mr. Warhop isn't going quite that far. After all he does spend nearly two thirds of his article telling us of the difficult he had to go through just to get four soldiers to go see the movie with him. I mean that's surely the most interesting part of the article, isn't it? The struggles of the reporter to round up people to talk to. Much more interesting than the abbreviated comments of these four soldiers you managed to watch the movie with.

Anyway it turns out the four soldiers didn't like the movie and felt it portrayed the military in a bad light. They make some good points.

"They particularly disliked the scene of a U.S. patrol on Christmas Eve raiding an Iraqi house in search of a male suspect. Marks said, "They just showed the two women crying, 'He's a student.' They don't show you what those soldiers said before that. Maybe this Iraqi guy killed an American soldier, planted a bomb ..."

"We don't know why they're looking at this guy," Garcia complained. "We don't know if maybe they found 10 RPG rounds or 200 pounds of C4. All we get is the family screaming.""

That's a fair complaint; we don't know. Odds are Mr. Moore doesn't know either or he knows that the guy was guilty. One has to assume that if Mr. Moore had known that this guy was totally innocent he would have made that explicit in his narrative. Pity Mr. Warhop didn't spend more time with the story rather than with his difficulty in getting the story.

Incidently, as for the question of whether the Military supports Fahrenheit 9/11, the answer is clearly, we don't have enough information. Mr. Moore has put up letters from soldiers who do support his work, and I'm sure that many exist. On the other hand, I'm sure that there are many who don't like Michael Moore and what he stands for. I don't know if you can really assess how it shakes out based on a handful of letters and four guys Mr. Warhop took to the movies.

Electioneering

There's a lot of talk this week about increased speculation that they may postpone elections in the case of a terrorist attack. I think that Joshua Micah Marshall over at Talking Points Memo has the right analysis.

"Added to my suspicion [about plans to reschedule the elections] is the increasingly common refrain from the White House that the Madrid bombing was responsible for Spanish 'appeasement' in Iraq and the obvious subtext that the answer to any future terrorist attack would be to 'not give in', i.e. reelect President Bush."

I personally don't really think there is any serious plan to postpone elections. The race is still pretty tight, and any terrorist attack close to the election will help President Bush not hurt him (unless he does something really unpresidential).

On the other hand this is another slam duck victory for the conservatives. When the elections are held on time, they will get to go on and on about how we Democrats didn't believe that we could trust the President to hold elections. "You Democrats, you didn't believe that we would even hold elections. You thought President Bush was some kind of dictator. Well look at what's happened now." That kind of thing.

Intelligence Failures

As we all know the Senate Intelligence Committee has published a report which would seem to place the blame for the Iraqi War squarely with the CIA. The CIA misled the President and the President then inadvertently misled the American people. This report does have several unanswered questions the chief being were the CIA pressured into providing President Bush with a specific answer. This question won't be addressed any time soon, if at all. After all the Congress and the House are firmly in the control of the Republicans who have no interest in an answer to that question. Instead, they are happy to have a report that exonerates the President. Sort of.

We're a long way from "the buck stops here" though.

Anyway for more details on this story, check out this article at Salon.

In other news, David Limbaugh places the blame for taking us into Iraq can rest squarely on the shoulders of John Kerry and John Edwards. Yep, they are the one's who took our country into Iraq. I can imagine it now.

President Bush: I just don't know if the evidence is strong enough for us to invade Iraq.

Vice President Cheney: Yes, perhaps we shouldn't invade just now.

Senator Kerry (bursting into the Oval Office with John Edwards right behind him): Mister President, I demand that you invade Iraq immediately. Don't give a second thought to it.

Senator Edwards: Yeah, you'd better invade. So what if the intelligence isn't that great? Invade now and ask questions later.

President Bush: Well if you guys say so.

Actually I think David Limbaugh's point is that if Future President Kerry calls President Bush a liar he's a hypocrite because he voted for the Iraq War Resolution (IWR). Kerry has explained that he voted for the IWR in order to give President Bush mower power to force Saddam Hussein to open his country to inspectors again. President Bush then chose not to let the inspections process run it's full course but invaded prematurely.

It's interesting watching David Limbaugh condemning John Kerry for doing something Limbaugh probably thinks was a good idea. In other words, Tom Delay voted for that IWR as well. Is he also a liar? No. Because of course, Senator Tom Delay is a Republican. When you strip aside all the attempts to take a highminded tone, David Limbaugh and his brother have a pretty simple agenda. Republicans Good, Democrats Bad.

A Campaign of Ideas

Here's what Rush Limbaugh was talking about last week (which is apparently important enough to give a prominent spot near the top of his website).

"If you haven't seen this yet, what you need to do, you need to go to the Drudge Report, www.DrudgeReport.com and take a look at the pictures there. Uh, you gotta click on the link that says "Can't Keep Hands Off Each Other." Looks like these guys are bringing that old Frankie Valli song from 1967: "Can't Keep My Hands Off of You." They're bringing it to life Kerry and Edwards are. You've got to look at these pictures. My gosh it's a couple of metrosexuals, and I'll tell you why. The issues have just gone south on them. The job numbers are the best they've ever been since 2000. We've got the situation in Iraq straightening out. So all these guys can do is act weird! It's absolutely el strange-o out there. Greetings -- and to me it looks like John Kerry finally, ladies and gentlemen, has found what's he's been looking for his whole life, and that is a trophy wife, in his vice presidential nominee, John Edwards."

And here's what Bob Herbert of the New York Times is talking about today.

"If we know that bin Laden and his top leadership are somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and that they're plotting an attack against the United States, why are we not zeroing in on them with overwhelming force? Why is there not a sense of emergency in the land, with the entire country pulling together to stop another Sept. 11 from occurring?

Why are we not more serious about this?

I don't know what the administration was thinking when it invaded Iraq even as the direct threat from bin Laden and Al Qaeda continued to stare us in the face. That threat has only intensified. The war in Iraq consumed personnel and resources badly needed in the campaign against bin Laden and his allies. And it has fanned the hatred of the U.S. among Muslims around the world. Instead of destroying Al Qaeda, we have played right into its hands and contributed immeasurably to its support."

Hmmmmmm. So who sounds more serious about protecting America? Of course there is always the possibility that this isn't a fair comparison. I mean Rush Limbaugh is America's Truth Detector. He is show prep for the rest of the media. The views presented on his program make more sense than anything anybody else is saying. I know all this because he says it every hour on the hour (right before he complains about how boastful John Kerry is).

But still, I think Mr. Herbert's comment is at least as germane as Rush Limbaugh'.

There are only two choices

You can read this comment thoroughly and leave a comment saying how great it is or you can appease the terrorists.

There are only two choices.

You can go see that great new Dodgeball (A true Underdog Story) movie or you can appease the terrorists.

There are only two choices.

You can either run around with no pants or you can appease the terrorists.

There are only two choices.

You can either appease the terrorists or you can appease the terrorists.

There are only two choices.

"There are two approaches to terrorists. One is to fight them with every weapon you can -- the military, intelligence services, interdiction of money flows, diplomacy. That is what George W. Bush is doing against the Islamist terrorists who struck Sept. 11. The other way is appeasement. Give the terrorists some of what they want, and hope that they will stop being terrorists any more."

The above quote is from Michael Barone. You can fight the war in the way President Bush has fought it or you can be an appeaser.

There are only two choices.

Only in the real world, there are a lot more choices. For example, you don't have to read this thoroughly (although if you got this far, my guess is that you have). You could have just skimmed it. You could have skipped it and read down to where I talk about comic books. You could of moved over to, say, Pen-Elayne on the Web. There are any number of things you could do.

And there are a lot of different strategies for dealing with Terrorism, many of which, in my opinion, would be more effective than what President Bush has done. I could go into ideas and suggestions, but that's not really the point. I just want to point out the inherent fallacy in saying . . .

There are only two choices.

New Quote - Huzzah!

Yep, a new quote and a new Quotes page. Enjoy.