Novak vs. Gingrich

Robert D. Novak's latest article is interesting, in that he accuses Newt Gingrich of playing loose and fast with the facts. He'd seem to have the truth on his side.

Gingrich has argued that we need to do a lot more to confront North Korea and Iran. When asked for clarification he suggested that we broadcast more than 3 hours a week of pro American propaganda to North Korea, and that we start broadcasting more to Iran. Makes more sense than invading I suppose.

But apparently Gingrich doesn't have the facts entirely on his side.

That got the attention of Tomlinson, Reagan-era head of the Voice of America (VOA) who in 2002 was named by President George W. Bush to head the BBG (which oversees U.S. non-military international broadcasting). A conservative Republican who provoked the Left in his tenure (2003-05) as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Tomlinson is proud of his record communicating with difficult places -- especially Iran. (A State Department investigation, released Tuesday, alleged that Tomlinson had improperly used his BBG office in a matter unrelated to Gingrich's complaints.)

In a "Dear Newt" letter July 17, Tomlinson explained to Gingrich that "we launched . . . live satellite television to Iran in 2003," quadrupling live TV feeds to four hours daily, for 12 daily TV hours in all. Radio Farda is broadcasting more than eight hours of news a day to Iran. He said VOA and Radio Free Asia are on the air three and one-half hours a day (not 90 minutes a week as claimed by Gingrich) with original programming, repeated to total 47 hours weekly.

Hmmmmm. Some people on the right are suggesting the time might be right for a Gingrich resurgence - but this sort of error doesn't lend credence to that idea.

20 Lines from 20 Songs

God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but the next time you see me comin' you better run" * Words I've spoken seem to leave a hollow sound * Sleep comes like a drug * If everything could ever feel this real forever * O torture me with the punishment of freedom * Inject your soul with liberty * I can't think of a better way to spend the night then speeding around underneath the yellow lights * Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice but to carry on * This is not a sitcom - where everythings alright * If the sun has faded away, I'll try to make it shine, there's nothing I won't do * I do regret the things I do regret * Sleep all day, drive all night Brain my numb, can't stop now * Well, I paid all the dues I want to pay * The fruit is rusting on the vine * Gentlemen don’t get caught * don't want to say goodbye so no one cares * I'm telling you how much I need and bleed for your every move and waking sound * and just as i'm breaking free she hangs herself in front of me slips her dress like a flag to the floor and hands in the sky surrenders it all... * You were awake and I should've stayed * Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

That Murderous Ann Coulter

I mean murderous in this case not to suggest that Ann actually murders people. Just that she is a big fan of murder. She has a lot of people she wishes would get murdered. And today you can add another person to that list. Lincoln Chafee.

Anns latest article has the catchy title, "They Shot the Wrong Lincoln." Very clever. And it makes Anns point - she wishes we lived in an America where we fight, not with rhetorical barbs, but with bullets and bombs.

But wait, maybe she's only joking. Nope! I'll bet she thinks she's joking, and I'll bet the dimwitted dimwits who like her think she's joking, but as Rush Limbaugh has explained again and again a joke has to be at least partially in the truth for it to be funny. And when Ann jokes about murdering her political enemies again and again, one has to assume there's something real behind the jokes.

Again, I obviously don't think Ann would dirty her hands by murdering herself. I mean murdering personally. I just think she wouldn't mind if someone else shot and killed Lincoln Chafee and would probably jump to their defense.

Townhall knows what sells

Michael Medved's latest article is entitled "Crying Wolf on the issue of evil." This is a select article for Townhall - they chose to highlight it on their articles page with this caption.

Liberals regularly discredit themselves by their refusal to recognize the existence of evil in this world, and with their notorious reluctance to call that evil by its proper name.

So pretty much the opposite of the boy who cried wolf. The boy who cried wolf yelled about the wolf when there wasn't one; liberals watch wolves eating people and keep their mouth shut.

So I was confused as to this title going with this article, but as it turns out Medved's title does make sense. His article is about people who have attacked him as evil for being insufficiently anti immigration and about Katherine Harris' comments.

The attempt to place domestic policy disagreements in the context of the "eternal struggle of good versus evil" represents one of the most loathsome trends in contemporary politics. That tendency turns up regularly on the Left (with the Bush-Hitler analogy, or the charge that Cheney is the "real terrorist") and increasingly on the Right, with arguments that Democrats aren't just misguided (as they obviously are) but ungodly, vicious, inevitably sinful.

Amusing that he admits this trend, but has to pretend that the Dems are a lot worse and have been doing it a lot longer. Not entirely true.

After all let's go back to the selection Townhall chose to highlight. They knew that the argument that Republicans occasionally over sell the evil-ness of Liberals wasn't going to be very popular. So rather than put that, they emphasized the parts of your article that underlined our evil-ness.

One presumes that Townhall knows what it's readers want to hear.

Paul Weyrich and Good News

I tried to write about this article last night. It's kind of upbeat and I was really pissed and depressed yesterday afternoon, so wanted to change the tone of the website. But for some reason I couldn't get Townhall to come up on my home computer. I suspect I'm under FBI surveillance following the marmalade Incident.

Anyway today it's working so here's the good news, from Paul Weyrich.

But here is the kicker and the reason why the Democrats have reason to be optimistic. Usually when pollsters ask about Congress, voters say nasty things about that institution. But when asked about their own Congressman, the voter says, oh, no, he is a good guy; we need to keep him in. This year, as in 1994 when Republicans won every seat possible, voters are saying bad things about Congress and then when asked about their own Congressman, only 57% said we ought to keep him. 43% said elect a new person. That number is bound to come down closer to the elections but even if as few as 10% of voters insisted upon electing a new Member it would be a revolution. Stay tuned.

This might be more handicapping, but it doesn't read that way. When you handicap you follow a specific pattern - if party x can't accomplish objective y it shows that they have no power, no skill, and gingivitis. There's none of that here. Rather it feels like a cold appraisal that the Democrats are going to win this one.

I will say that Weyrich also presumably believes that our gaining power for however briefly, will expose the Democrats as dopes who can't govern, so perhaps he's not altogether opposed to our victory.

Did you know?

Frogs are not what's for dinner.

The Muslim Menace

We are seeing an upsurge in these kinds of articles, presumably tied to the fall elections. Conservatives believe that their chances are better if they scare the crap out of everybody. They might be right.

Todays example was written by Dennis Prager, who's written plenty of these kinds of articles before.

It does suggest, however, that the dominant forces within Islam are bad at this time; that Muslims who see this evil in their midst have not mobilized any counterforce either out of fear for their lives or for some other reason; and that decent men and women around the world -- Hindu, Christian, Jewish, atheist, Buddhist and Muslim -- are threatened by this powerful, death-loving force.

Muslims who do not acknowledge the threat to civilization from within the Muslim world at least have two excuses -- fear for their lives or group solidarity. What excuses do non-Muslims have who deny this threat?

Well I'm pretty sure most people do see a threat from radical Muslims - we just differ on the best approach to the problem. We've given Bush nearly 6 years to try his approach and the American people aren't satisfied with the results. Does that mean that the American people want to get blown up? No. Rather it means that the Bush policies aren't working. So let's try something else.

Of course the Pragers of the world would also argue that the Bush policies have failed - they would just have a different explanation for this failure. Specifically President Bush has been too gentle with the Muslim world. One of his readers, Jman, states it pretty clearly.

I just can not understand why anyone (living in the USA) would not be strongly behind the 'riding the world of Islamic Killers' and, if a few innocents must die in the process, so be it? As any cancer, you must kill it or be consumed by it.

The fact that our invasion of Iraq has made things more dangerous and increased the recruiting possibilities of Islamic Terrorist Groups doesn't register. The policies haven't succeeded because we haven't killed enough yet.

Handicapping the Democrats

While some live in denial, more and more Republicans are starting to realize this may not be their year. There are, I suppose, a couple of ways to deal with that. One obvious way is to handicap the Democrats by, say, hitting their ankles with tire irons. Or by setting the bar very high for Democrats and then declaring victory when they fail to clear it, as William Rusher does in his latest article.

But, given the problems President Bush is facing in Iraq, the general deterioration of the situation in the Middle East, the threat posed by North Korea, the various incidents of corruption that have been breaking out in the executive branch and (mostly, though not entirely, among Republicans) in Congress, plus the fact that the generally healthy economy is overshadowed in the public's eyes by the continued high price of gasoline, the wonder is that the Democrats aren't widely considered sure to seize control of both houses of Congress in November and throw the Republican rascals out of the White House in 2008.

Yep. The fact that we aren't in a position to completely dominate America proves that we are weak and powerless.

Rusher trots out the usual arguments; Democrats don't have a vision for America, Democrats are just a collection of warring sub-groups, White people like Republicans. Yeah, I"m serious about that last one. White people, Males, Couples and small businesses like Republicans, so they win. Nice to see all the cards on the table like that.

It is pretty clear, incidentally, that every Democrat could recite a plan on national security, in unison, and Republican pundits would still bemoan the lack of a plan on the Democrat side of the fence.

Top 20

Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited
Neil Young - I'm the Ocean
U2 - In God's Country
Everlong - Foo Fighters
The Samples - The Lost Children (A Slow Motion Crash)

The Cranberries - Salvation
The Clash - London's Burning
Crosby Stills Nash and Young - Carry On
Oingo Boingo - Stay
The Beatles - Any Time at All

The Januaries - Juliette
Hombres - Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out)
Simon and Garfunkle - A Simple Desultory Philippic
(Or How I Was Robert McNamara'd Into Submission)
Cracker - Low
REM - Boxcars (Carnival of Sorts)

Love Spit Love - It Hurts When I Laugh
Smashing Pumpkins - Stand Inside Your Love
The Cure - From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea
The Dandy Warhols - You Were the Last High
The Byrds - My Back Pages

From my last trip down south - fourth in the series "The Road is Where You Are." I originally determined that I'm the Ocean and From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea would both be going on this one because they are both long songs and I usually don't put long tracks on this. They'd both been considered for other volumes in the series, and rejected. It helped that they tapped into similar themes. After that I just slide in the rest of the tracks around them.

For those curious - I've put out 4 volumes of road music - REM and the Byrds have appeared on each CD, a tradition I intend to continue. The Beatles have appeared on 3 CDs. Tori Amos, Belle & Sebastian, The Clash, The Cranberries, Dandy Warhols, Bob Dylan, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, The Psychedelic Furs, Radiohead, Simon And Garfunkel, Smashing Pumpkins, U2, and Neil Young have appeared on 2 CDs.

The Dominionists

Hey if you want to know what John Dean thinks of the Dominionists, check out this article.

Short version: he's not a fan.

Australia

There is an interesting article by E. J. Dionne Jr. over at Working for Change on the current Australian Prime Minister, John Howard.

It concerns a current move by the Prime Minister to examine how history is taught. Apparently history has been combined into a generic social sciences course (also covering economics, geography, sociology, psychology and so on and so forth). Like Dionne I think the Prime Minister has a point. I would argue that students should take both history and also get exposed to these other fields, but that you shouldn't short change one in favor of the other.

That said I don't find Dionne completely convincing in his suggestion that this model might be valuable to American Conservatives. I don't think it would. For one thing today's conservatives aren't interested in building collations with Democrats - they are interested in defeating them.

Lessons of Vietnam

W. Thomas Smith Jr.'s latest article is about the lessons of Vietnam and how we should learn from them. The big lesson? We shouldn't restrain our military and we shouldn't listen to the press or liberals.

What matters are that we were initially committed to the fight. We ultimately lost the war. The lives of 58,000 Americans were sacrificed without gain. And there are several reasons why (all of which violate the basic schoolyard lessons for winning fights).

- We went into the fight with no real intention of seeing the fight through to a decisive end.

- We went into the fight with our proverbial hands tied.

There's one he fails to put on his list because it would upset his narrative - we didn't know what we were trying to win. That's the different between the real world and the schoolyard. In the Schoolyard when a fight starts you just generally punch your adversary until he starts crying and runs away (or you start crying and running away). Wars are, in reality, a bit more complex than that.

What did we actually want to accomplish in Vietnam? We wanted to keep South Vietnam from becoming Communist. A strictly reactive goal. Perhaps if we had decided to invade the north and made our goal "One Vietnam, Capitalist" we would have done better - but of course that could have brought us into direct conflict with China which we didn't want to do.

He likens this to Iraq, and I see the parallels too. Our goal is to keep Iraq from crumbling into civil war and/or falling into Iran's sphere. Again, a completely reactive goal. I suppose we have the goal of defeating the insurgency, but given that they don't really stand up and fight us directly, that's a tough goal to achieve. Maybe we also want to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.

What I don't see, in either Vietnam or Iraq, is a clear and achievable military goal. In both cases I see governments willing to through men away for years for reasons they aren't willing to explain clearly.

New Format, New Quote!!!

Hi all!!!

Having to log in on Bryant's account this week - but hopefully we can get this little problem fixed shortly. Hope you are all having nice weekends.

Muslim Menace

Interesting article by Douglas MacKinnon over at Townhall this morning that really tries to have it both ways. The author wants to warn us about the potential for our Muslim Countrymen to turn on us without saying that we need to be wary of all Muslims.

If home grown Islamists ready to kill in the name of God, are on the rise in Europe, what then of our nation? Do we face a similar threat? Commonsense would say "yes," while political correctness would order us to ignore the possibility.

I maintain that 99% of the population of anything as a whole, is good and just trying to do the right thing. That certainly includes the Muslim faith in the United States. I strongly believe that the overwhelming majority just want to be good citizens and good neighbors.

That said, if we accept the estimate that there are 6 million Muslim-Americans in our country, and 99% of them are law abiding citizens who are loyal to our nation, then that means that there may be -– may be -- 1% who might put a twisted version of Islamic extremism before the wellbeing of their fellow Americans. When you stop to think that 1% of 6 million is 60,000 individuals, that then seems like a very intimidating one percent.

What's interesting about this approach, and MacKinnon is not the only one to use it, is how it really doesn't present any kind of solution. I mean if we are living with 66,000 potential homegrown terrorists, what should we do?

Well MacKinnon won't tell you that. No author of the Muslim Menace articles will tell you what we should do about our Muslim Communities (except, maybe, Pat Buchanan). Nor will they spend much time on the 5,940,000 Muslims who aren't a threat to us. Rather the whole focus is on getting you afraid of Muslims (particularly young Muslim males). All that fear has to go someplace doesn't it? I mean being afraid all the time, don't you naturally seek a solution at some point?

The War on Wal-Mart

As your beloved blog-0-fascist, it some times becomes me to take a stand on the issues. And on the issue of Wal-Mart, my position is firm. You are not to go to Wal-mart! Unless you really want to or it's more convenient to go there.

I think our friends on the Right, in between reminding us we are all going to get blown up if we don't vote for Republicans, are also trying to make Wal-Mart an issue in this campaign. Earlier this week we commented on a piece by Bill Murchinson on Wal-Mart. Today we have an article by Jonah Goldberg entitled "Wal-Mart drives Democrats batty." First of all, Mr. Goldberg, we don't need Wal-Mart to drive us batty - we can go batty all by ourselves, thank you very much.

Jonah Goldberg points out that Wal-Mart is probably a benefit to poor consumers. He also, surprisingly enough, acknowledges that Wal-Mart destroys small local businesses, but justifies this by saying, pretty clearly, that the small businesses that Wal-Mart destroys deserve to be crushed. Small business can't afford to provide cheap goods to the poor the way Wal-Mart can.

The tone of the article is similar to Murchinson's; Democrats must be crazy to take on Wal-Mart and that's good for Republicans.

Taking the cake for attacking Democrats on Walmart is Herman Cain who coined a new term for Democrats earlier this week. Hezbocrats.

The Hezbocrats, a roaming band of militant guerrillas seeking their party's 2008 nomination for president, have most recently lobbed their rhetorical bombs at Wal-Mart, that cruel capitalist occupying corporation. The most recent base of Hezbocrat activity was Iowa, the state whose January 2008 party caucuses are the nation's first measure of presidential preference. The Hezbocrats, armed with nothing more than Katyusha-grade class warfare rhetoric, descended upon Iowa earlier this month determined to take down Wal-Mart, a company they consider the nation's largest capitalistic oppressor of the proletariat.

Nice how Cain can't really decide whether we are communists or terrorists. Anyway this reads more like him trying to be witty and clever and failing. I don't know if he really believes the Democratic party is the equivialent of a terrorist organization because we think it would be nice if Wal-Mart paid a living wage. But it's still a pretty over the top description, and a nice way of combining the "Hey vote Republican or you'll die" and "Vote Republican or you'll have to pay more for Wonder Bread" threads of this campaign.

Building Walls

Cal Thomas writes a lot of what I call Muslim Menace type of articles. He's keen on us realizing that we are at war with Islam, and we need to win this clash of civilizations. His latest article is along these lines but a bit more muddled. He covers Bush's recent press conference which he describes as "verbal clutter," and then comments on how we need to fight the war on terror at home. Apparently the best way to do that is to follow Pat Buchannan's advice - end all immigration and build a wall on our southern border.

Pat Buchanan's latest book, by the way, is a return to insanity for those who don't know. It's very specifically a call to preserve White Culture, not American Culture. American Culture is light brown at lightest.

Turning back to Thomas he has this interesting phrase. "Abraham Lincoln said that no nation could exist half slave and half free. Neither can a nation exist half united and half disunited."

Believer it or not, I agree with Thomas. I think what's clear is that our friends on the right need to abandon their support of President Bush and united with us on reining him in. We need to be unified in our disdain for his desire to wiretap terrorists outside of the law. We need to unified in our desire to get out of Iraq sooner rather than later.

I don't expect this call for unity to bring the Conservatives running though.

The Godless Constitution Redux

Last year I reviewed The Godless Constitution, a book about the religion and politics and how they don't work well together. Well here's a page bringing together all my individual posts for those interested in this subject. Enjoy!

An Ill Wind

Tim Chapman's latest article argues that times may be changing for the Republican party for the better. He has a nifty original idea; why not use the war on terror to scare voters into voting Republican?

Ok that's not very original.

But he argues that world events have conspired to remind Americans that if they don't want to get blown up they'd better vote for President Bush. And in order to underline that point he advises Congress to take up giving President Bush more power after the recess.

The administration's firm conviction that the American people do in fact expect the President to use programs like TSP will only add to Bush's, and his fellow congressional Republican's, desire to pass a law ensuring that such programs are constitutional. Expect lawmakers to take that up as soon as Congress returns from its August recess. Indeed, even before this recent ruling congressional plans had been in place to act on legislation that would give the Terrorist Surveillance Program a congressional seal of approval, but now, conservatives in Congress have another incentive to act quickly, and they should.

James Carafano of The Heritage Foundation, an expert on Homeland Security and terrorism, recently argued that congress should do all in its power to give the President the tools he needs to successfully fight the war on terror.

One thing I would like explained is why the Presidents TSP (Terrorist Surveillance Program) can't operate under the FISA constraints.

At any rate we'll have to see how Democrats in Congress react to this; if they roll over and play dead, I would think it would bode poorly for them in November. But they may decide that Chapman's right and the best way to look like they are serious on terror is to be President Bush's lapdog. We'll find out in a little while.

Sci Fi Lists

A Blog Around the Clock has done a list of essential Sci Fi novels and books over at his blog (naturally!). Go check it out!

Make me want to do one of my own. Perhaps I will.

Creative Editing

Look at this stupid sentence from Ben Shapiro's latest article.

war in Iraq skews President Bush's

Look at that. It's not even a complete sentence. President Bush's what? It makes no sense, and shows what a dimwit Ben Shapiro is.

Oh it makes more sense than I thought. Apparently these other words around that fragment were part of the sentence too.

No doubt the unpopular war in Iraq skews President Bush's numbers, but there is something more going on: Americans relate to President Clinton in a unique way.

Oh well. I guess that's my mistake.

Of course Shapiro makes a similar mistake himself, by faulting President Bush's mention of his age during a speech to the World AIDs conference in Toronto on the 15th of this month.

On August 15, former President Bill Clinton addressed a world AIDS conference in Toronto. "In just a few days, I will be 60 years old. I hate it, but it's true," he stated. "For most of my working life, I was the youngest person doing what I was doing. Then one day I woke up and I was the oldest person in every room. Now that I have more days behind me than ahead of me, I try to wake up with a discipline of gratitude every day."

Turning 60 is certainly a bummer for a man as reliant on his prostate as Clinton is. Nonetheless, Clinton's speech was a stunning testament to his egocentricity. Who whines about a post-midlife crisis while discussing a disease that has pushed Angola's average life span to 39.9 years, Zambia's to 39.7, and Zimbabwe's to 37.9? Who tells a roomful of people worried about the devastation caused by a global plague that he is personally devastated by having another birthday?

Bill Clinton, that's who.

Kind of sounds like Clinton was given a microphone, stood up, and whined about aging for 40 minutes or so. The truth is a bit less narcissistic. First of all he didn't say it at the conference - he said it to reporters outside of the conference. If you look at the transcript of the roundtable he participated in (as I did), those words don't appear.

What does appear is a man who is seriously engaged with a serious problem. But that doesn't fit young Ben's narrative so he leaves it out. His narrative presents a shallow narcisstic dimwit who is the antithesis of the serious minded person we have in the White House now. You know the guy who can't believe that the Iraqis don't love us and really enjoys a good fart joke.

I guess Ben does have an uphill climb to convince us of that; a few misstatements along the way are bound to happen.