Opening Salvo

Most Conservative Columnists haven't responded to the Alito Confirmation yet. Most of them will take the opportunity with their regularly scheduled column to do that (some may have responded to it at their blogs, but I'm not interested in searching through Republican Blogs just now).

There is one article up at Townhall, by Curt A. Levey, which focuses on how the Democratic Party has apparently misjudged the American people.

Faced with the opportunity to prove their independence from ultra-liberal interest groups, Senate Democrats struck out Tuesday when they voted almost unanimously against the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Come November, Democrats will bear the cost at the polls.

This is a nice way to spin it. Total crap, of course, but effective enough.

Alito was an extremist nominee, but our party failed to make that case effectively, getting sidetracked into dead ends like his belonging to an alumni group several decades ago. Alito believes in the power of the executive (and particularly this executive) to do whatever the hell it wants to do. Alito will support Executive Torture and Executive Wiretapping. Presumably he's also cool with Executive Outing of CIA Agents.

But we failed to make that case, and by we I mean Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary,, in particular. So Levey might be right, there might be a price to pay come November.

Of course, I don't know how that will overcome Republican Ethics Scandals, or the President's illegal wiretaps, or ongoing trouble in Iraq, all of which could move voters as well.

I've seen the future and, boy, it's rough

One of the things about reading so much conservative commentary (as I do), is that you get a feel for what's coming. Not always, but sometimes.

This week some 19 Democrats voted with the Republicans in favor of cloture. Here's atypical response from Conservative columnist and bloggist Michelle Malkin.

And thanks to the principled Democrats who know you and your record best for standing up in your defense.

So that's nice for a change.

Of course the moment those Democrats disagree with Malkin, one presumes they will be back to being unprincipled or batshit crazy.

The more typical response I will hear all weak will be to happily piss on Kennedy and Kerry and Democrats in general for failing to stop Alito. I expect I will get to catalogue many examples of that. And I will.

But like the song says, "I would rather drink 6 razor blades, razor blades from a paper cup."

The Bush Economy

As we go into the State of the Union, in which Bush is sure to tout his economic success, let us consider some recent economic trends.

The savings rate for last year ended up a negative number. Which indicates that Americans are spending all the money they are getting and dipping into money saved previous years.

Since we know, according to Bush Supporters, that this economy is on fire, there can only be one answer. Americans are stupid and spending money like fish because they don't realize they should be saving money.

But wait, why did they save money in previous years (in fact, every year since the great depression, the last time (1932 and 1933) when the savings rate dipped into a negative number), and not this year? Hmmmmm perhaps America is in the grip of some kind of stupification ray that is making us all spend money hand over fish. Er, fist. Given that we know, according to Bush and his supporters, that the economy is doing great, this can be the only logical answer.

Come to think of it, I had a really hard time finding my glasses this morning.

Also, apparently wages are up the smallest amount in 9 years. That's probably just a clerical error. Since we know the economy is going great, I'm sure that America's business owners and managers are just having a hard time filling out all the paperwork to process all the raises they intend to give. Probably another effect of the stupification ray.

So remember, the economy is going great. Who are you going to believe, President Bush or your lyin' eyes.

Childlike Fantasy Realms

Hamas, as we all know, did very well in the recent Palestinian elections. This proves the need for genocide. Palestinians do not want peace with Israel, they want to eliminate Israel. So the only sensible solution is to eliminate Palestinians. Also liberals who believe that Palestinians and Israelis can peaceably coexist (in the same region, if not the same towns) are living in childlike fantasy realms.

Genocide. That is what Cal Thomas and Dennis Prager are calling for.

But that's not their main point of course. The main point is that liberals live in childlike fantasy worlds (Prager) or in extreme denial (Thomas).

Palestinians do not have their own nation. They do not have an army (they do have some sort of security force). They do not have control of their destinies. They are kept in racial enclaves. What more can Israel and the rest of us take from them?

Their lives. We can start killing them until they stop fighting back. Perhaps in childlike fantasy worlds where revenge and violence and cruelty leads to a happy ending, after we slaughter a bunch of them for electing terrorists, they will get the message and become nice little lap dogs. But I doubt it.

Once we return to violence as the solution to this problem, the inevitable ending is genocide.

Is it childish to believe there can be peace someday between the Palestinians and the Israelis? Maybe. But it's a damn site better than the alternative.

Alito is more or less in

For those of you in need of some rallying after the Alito Confirmation (sure to occur tomorrow), you might check out this post at firedoglake.

Did you Know?

A bad man walks very fast.

A bad man is afraid the devil (Ol' Scratch) is coming to get him, and so is a-scared to stay in one spot for very long. A good man knows he doesn't have anything to fear from the devil, so walks a bit more leisurely-like.

For those curious, I walk very very fast.

It's a problem that effects us all (but mostly liberals)

Suzanne Fields, conservative commentator, picks an unusual cultural touchstone for her latest article; The Colbert Report and "truthiness."

She does get the essential concept of "truthiness," that is truths that are from the heart not supported by facts or logic. And then she uses it to discuss Columbus day.

Columbus Day celebrations, for example, once were occasions for celebrating the achievements of Christopher Columbus, but it has become the venue to indoctrinate impressionable students, telling them how much better the world would have been if Chris had not sailed that Ocean Blue. "Since the 1970s, the dominant voices within academic history have worked to generate a widespread cynicism about the nature of Western democracies, with the aim of questioning their moral and political legitimacy," says Keith Windschuttle, an Australian historian who wrote "The Killing of History."

. . . Such ideological history can be the result of sloppy research and a dependence on questionable secondary sources, but more to the point, it derives from politically correct manipulation that replaces the disinterested search for truth with emotional appeals to denigrate and deconstruct the legacy of Western culture.

Of course the problem with this is that I know that the version of Columbus's story I was taught in elementary school was chock full of "truthiness," as well. And whatever the ideological motivations regarding anti-Columbus historians, they are no more offensive than your own ideological motivations in criticizing such work. Probably less so. Writing an anti-Columbus book doesn't imply that you can't write your pro-Columbus book in response. Writing off one side of the debate as motivated by "truthiness" is on more shaky ground, in my opinion.

John Leo Discovers Liberals Upset with the Media

This is a shocker. According to John Leo's latest article, Liberals don't recognize that the media is 100% on their side. In fairness Leo does better with this subject than most of this colleagues would (I shudder to think what Brent Bozell would do). John Leo, unlike most of his colleagues on the Conservative side, recognizes that Liberals do have a few legitimate gripes.

Liberal columnist Joe Conason thinks it’s unfair that photos of Bill Clinton’s coffee meetings were forced into the open, whereas photos of Bush with Abramoff are unreleased so far, while the media yawn. Some complain that the press took arguments for Clinton’s impeachment seriously but not arguments for Bush’s impeachment today.

So, fair enough.

I think the problem isn't liberal media commentary or conservative media commentary, but rather dumb media commentary. Dumb media commentary insists on a uniformity among thousands of reporters and editors and journalists that doesn't seem to exist. All reporters are working for the other side. There is no difference between the RNC and a reporter for CNN (unless of course the reporter says something that supports a liberal point of view (in this example)).

The purpose of dumb media mommentary isn't to improve the media. It's to give the dumb media critic (and his audience) an out when presented with information that contradicts his or her world view. Rather than considering the accuracy of this new information, and seeing how it fits within your current beliefs, the dumb media critic simply says "Damn Conservative Media Bias" and ignores this new information. It does make life easier I suppose.

I do want to point out that there is plenty of smart media criticism, particularly from the left (in contrast, premiere conservative media critic Brent Bozell and his organization are clearly in the dumb media critic camp).

Why We Probably Won't Fight

Salon has a story by Walter Shapiro on the Filibuster Fiasco. I'm not sure I agree entirely with his analysis, but he does raise some good questions.

An intriguing question, if one entirely theoretical at this point, is what might have happened if Senate liberals had decided at the outset that they would use the filibuster to prevent the Alito-for-O'Connor seat swap. For Alito was the be-all-and-end-all Supreme Court nominee -- the moment to put aside wait-until-next-year caution. The odds on such a filibuster still would have been long, but at least there would have been a glimmer of coherence to a get-40-votes opposition strategy. Yes, Republican senators might have succeeded in employing the "nuclear option" (outlawing by a majority vote all filibusters against judicial nominees), but if a Democrat were elected president in 2008, that would have turned out to be a short-sighted GOP ploy. Instead, Alito opponents are now left with plenty of nothing. Even if there are future vacancies during the Bush era, Democrats are sufficiently demoralized that they would probably join in approving John Ashcroft to the Supreme Court on a voice vote.

That is the key problem with the filibuster situation - Democrats never actually came up with a strategy for opposing Alito. More to the point, they never came up with a compelling reason to oppose Alito. Some seemed to think it was abortion, others that he lied on application or belonged to a racist organization in college (one or the others). For some it was that he supported executive power to the Nth Degree (in my opinion, this was the best reason to oppose him). But without a unified reason to oppose him, we were left with "Democrats don't like him because he is a Republican."

Which isn't enough.

Humor

You know what would be great? If someone slipped rat poison to Karl Rove.

Oh for any of you who might get offended, that was just a funny joke.

Did You Know?

Rodents take their name from the Isle of Rhodes, known for it's ferret like inhabitants.

On Second Thought

Just want to say that the post directly below was inspired by Rush Limbaugh making basically the same argument. He also said that if we really believed what we claim to believe, we would kidnap Alito. I'm not sure about that.

I also don't know if we can win. It seems like the most likely scenario if we filibuster is that Frist triggers the nuclear option (or constitutional option if you are a conservative hypocrite), and Alito gets in anyway. And the filibuster is gone. That's a valid concern.

But not fighting for what we believe in isn't going so well, in my opinion.

Why I Support Filibustering Alito's Nomination to the Supreme Court

Because if we don't, it means the he and his brand of extremism are normal. All the stuff that Liberals have said about him was just a bluff. Just normal partisanship. If he really is as bad as we say he is, than we will filibuster. If we don't filibuster, it means we never really gave a damn.

And I'm tired of belonging to a party that doesn't give a damn.

No Threat Vs. A Real Threat Vs. An Immediate Threat

There's little question that Iran getting the bomb would be a threat to the peace and stability of the Middle East and the worlds oil supply.

There's also no question that some conservative voices would like to send our troops in to fix Iran (presumably the same way we've fixed Iraq).

This desire persists, despite a pair of reports that suggest our military cannot even maintain our presence in Iraq for much longer.

Jeff Jacoby writes a sneering article today at Townhall in support of a military solution to Iran. His sneers are reserved for those who hope that Iran can be contained peacefully, particularly wussy Europeons.

To be sure, not every British politician has been so weak-kneed. Tory MP Michael Ancram has called for Iran to be -- brace yourself -- expelled from the World Cup tournament in June. Barring the planet's foremost sponsor of terrorism from soccer matches -- now *there's* Churchillian grit. Ancram says it will send "a very, very clear signal to Iran that the international community will not accept what they are doing." Sure it will. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's rabid president, must break into a sweat thinking about it.

Later on he does indicate that a peaceful resolution is preferable (although you get the feeling his heart isn't in it), but that such a peaceful resolution is only likely if the United States is ready and prepared to invade Iran.

It's somewhat like Iraq, when President Bush threatened Iraq with invasion if they didn't let inspectors back in. Iraq let inspectors back in so naturally we invaded. I wonder if Iran learned anything about the trustworthiness of the US from that experience.

There's also an interview at Salon with Joseph Cirincione, director of nonproliferation at the Carnegie Center. It's a thoughtful interview and well worth reading for an assessment of where Iran is in their development of the bomb.

There's a real threat of Iran developing nuclear weapons, but it's not an immediate threat. All this talk of a "point of no return" or Iran being in a position within months to have a nuclear weapon is nonsense. There is a broad expert consensus, including the U.S. intelligence community, that Iran is five to 10 years away from the ability to enrich uranium for fuel or bombs. Even that estimate assumes that Iran goes full speed ahead and does not encounter any of the technical problems that plague such programs.

In my opinion we have more to fear, at this moment, from conservative pundits and the Bush administration pushing us into another unnecessary war than we have to fear from Iran.

Did You Know?

In the original King Kong, film goers were astounded at the impressive visual effects (for that time), including the way Kong's fur would seem to move in the wind. That effect was actually caused by the animators fingers brushing the fur as they moved the puppet.

Dissent

There's a good article over at Commondreams on the value of dissent in a time of war, and how the President sees that dissent.

Bush has lashed out at Americans "who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel, or because we misled the American people." True, the president said, some "honest critics" have condemned his decisions about Iraqi reconstruction, U.S. troop deployments and so on. But Bush drew a bright line between "responsible" opponents and the "irresponsible" kind, who raise doubts about the entire purpose of the war and thereby bring "comfort to our adversaries."

In other words, it's OK to criticize the White House for bungling the war after it started. But if you question how the war started, then you're obviously helping the Bad Guys. And you're hurting the United States.

The president has it exactly backward. By asking tough questions about the buildup to the war, Americans are acting in the very best traditions of their history. And it's the president himself -- not his opponents -- who is ignoring this same history.

This is pretty much entirely correct. We have a right and a duty to speak out about our Government.

Intelligent Decisions and the Wal-Mart Effect

Kathleen Parker, over at Townhall, writes an unusual column for a conservative; one that is not completely laudatory towards Wal-Mart. Not to worry, she's no threat to Wal-Mart; she just allows questions to be asked about their long term effect on the world economy.

Take salmon. Wal-Mart, which buys all its salmon from Chile, sells more than anyone else in the country and undersells all other retailers by at least $2 per pound. That's a lot of market power, which prompts Fishman to ask: "Does it matter that salmon for $4.84 a pound leaves a layer of toxic sludge on the ocean bottoms of the Pacific fjords of southern Chile?"

Salmon in Chile are raised in packed underwater pens - as many as 1 million per farm - and fed prophylactic antibiotics to prevent disease. Here's a fact you'd rather not know: A million salmon produce the same amount of waste as 65,000 people. Combine that waste with unconsumed food and antibiotic residue, and you've got a toxic seabed.

Does it matter?

Only if consumers say it does, says Fishman.

Now it may seem like I'm damning with faint praise, but this really is a step up from "Everybody who doesn't like Wal-Mart is a pinko communist.

But not enough of a step. What Parker leaves out in her rosy thoughts on customer determinism is that customers are regularly deceived or given only half the story. How many Wal-Mart customers are aware of the ecological damage their cheap salmon is causing? Presumably very few.

And, of course, American customers are pretty good at overlooking or ignoring the moral implications of their spending power. Unlike Chilean Salmons, we all know that third world textile operations don't tend to be run along humane grounds (all protestations aside). Doesn't stop us from buying them. And I don't think the equation would change all that much if the abused employees were United States citizens.

Or, to put it another way, I don't think we can safely rely on Wal-Mart customers to save the world.

Screw All Y'all

Not you, my readers. Just Joel Stein and Steve Muscatello.

This morning read an article by Steve Muscatello which started out by comparing good, peaceful Pro-Life demonstrators with evil, violent Pro-Choice demonstrators, and ended by suggesting that criticism of the war (specifically Joel Stein's criticism of the war) was giving comfort to the enemy. You know how much that argument moves me.

Leave aside for a moment the merits of the Iraq War (something Stein says is impossible) and consider the fact that an American, a guy you went to high school with or who sits one cubicle from you at work, is right now patrolling an Iraqi street with a gun and enough fear to fill up every mansion in Beverly Hills.

While Stein writes pretty sentences, the soldier detonates an IED. While Stein dines at a steakhouse, the soldier eats an MRE. But really, Stein writes, we can't continue "blindly lending support to our soldiers."

Okay, fine. But can we continue pretending that such rhetoric doesn't embolden our enemies (see bin Laden, Osama), weaken troop morale, and desecrate the already fragile psyche of military families?

That struck me as the worst kind of pandering nonsense.

First of all, why doesn't the logic of "You have things pretty good; soldiers have them pretty bad, so you should shut up" apply elsewhere. I mean if it's good in this situation, why can't we say "Poor people in America have it rough, conservative columnists have it nice, so why don't they shut up?"

Secondly, any language opposing the War on Terror or the Bush Administration emboldens the enemy (by Conservative's warped logic). Unfortunately, expressing disagreement with the government is as American as apple pie. If you don't like it, go to some country that doesn't allow criticism of the government.

But then I thought I should check out the column (by Joel Stein) that inspired these words and I got angry all over again.

After we've decided that we made a mistake, we don't want to blame the soldiers who were ordered to fight. Or even our representatives, who were deceived by false intelligence. And certainly not ourselves, who failed to object to a war we barely understood.

But blaming the president is a little too easy. The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying. An army of people ignoring their morality, by the way, is also Jack Abramoff's pet name for the House of Representatives.

I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I'm tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel.

But when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it's Vietnam.

There's some things I agree with in here. Certainly I do think the most likely upshot of the Bush years is that we will blame President Bush for our failures as a nation.

On the other hand, the phrasing is entirely too casual; Mr. Stein doesn't seem to give a damn. It's one thing to say our Soldiers made a mistake when they signed up to fight; it's another to make jokes about it. If you believe, as Stein apparently does, that American soldiers let their love of their nation blind them to what they would be actually doing, that's a tragedy. They are losing their lives and Iraqis are losing their lives because they made the wrong call. I don't see how it's a matter of flippancy.

I suspect that the class suggestions in Muscatello's article might be correct. Stein has an idea about what sort of people join the military, so he's fine pissing (rhetorically) on them.

But I think his subject is too important for him to comfortably get away with taking a piss.

In reading Stein's piece, I am again reminded of a favorite quote by H. L. Mencken.

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

Stein's article is flippant almost to the point of cruelty; Muscatello would deride any criticism of our "mission in Iraq." Ultimately, the ideas Muscatello expresses are the bigger threat to America.

Did you Know?

The road less traveled leads directly to Madison, Wisconsin.

Tough Minded Conservatives

Tough minded conservative college students can't deal with being presented with views that do not line up with their own. Fortunately, Andrew Jones, an alumnus of UCLA, is there to help them, by encouraging them to tape their professors lectures and provide them to him, so that he can "expose their professors as liberal partisans who do not tolerate dissent in their classrooms."

Tough minded conservative film goers constantly complain about how movies are biased liberally, and have set up numerous organizations to protest this trend. But, as Zompist points out, you can easily make a case that Hollywood's product is Conservatively biased.

I'm starting to question how tough minded conservatives really are. Maybe Tom Tomorrow is on to something.