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Saturday, November 13, 2004
This Proves the Media Aren't Liberal?
From the Hartford Courant:
Reporters like Los Angeles Times political columnist Ron Brownstein have heard the criticisms over the months of the bitterly fought presidential campaign and beg to differ.
There was an "incredible cacophony coming out of the campaigns and the 527s," the new special-interest groups allowed to raise and spend unlimited money, Brownstein said. "And by and large I think we did a reasonable job.
"I really feel that the press was tested this year in the intensity of the attacks and the money spent. I'm not in a high flagellation mode."
When, for example, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, one of the new 527s, broadcast ads attacking Democrat John Kerry's Vietnam service, major newspapers very quickly published detailed accounts undermining the claims, Brownstein said.
"But the problem is, of course, you may disprove something once, and it just keeps going," he said, arguing that there is a mistaken assumption among many news consumers that the press can drive political discussion.
Sigh. The media disproved exactly nothing. The detailed accounts undermining the Swiftees claims never existed.
Friday, November 12, 2004
Meet Tom Parks
Silver Star winner.
According to the Marines, Parks directed the security of the command group while exposing himself numerous times to heavy gunfire.
He moved from position to position, encouraging Marines and directing the gunfire to strong points in Saddam’s army.
During the fighting, Parks killed three of the enemy with his rifle, including a sniper who was about to fire his weapon at another Marine. He later destroyed a recently abandoned T-55 tank with an AT-4 rocket to prevent its future use.
Then running across the street under heavy small arms fire to direct the movement of an American tank. As he used the tank’s infantry phone to direct its fire, a rocket-propelled grenade fired from an enemy bunker narrowly missing Parks.
His orders to the tanks achieved the destruction of several enemy bunkers and strong-points.
By the end of the fight, Parks had single-handedly destroyed or demoralized a significant portion of the enemy defending the city of Al Kut.
"Through his bold leadership, wise judgment, and complete dedication to duty, Gunner Parks reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions to the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service," Parks’ proclamation reads.
The Reality-Based Community? X
Ralph Nader and some other lefties are trying to raise money for recounts.
Ralph Nader, who earned notoriety for decades as a consumer protection advocate, just wants to know the truth. How accurate are the Diebold voting machines in New Hampshire?
What's so unreal about wanting a recount in New Hampshire?
Kerry won New Hampshire.
On the Third Hand...
I commented earlier that Howard Dean was probably not a bad candidate for head of the DNC. However, one of the requirements of a party chair is to decide how to allocate scarce resources to races that his party has a chance to win, and Dean does not look like he did a good job of that. Here's the first "Dean Dozen" a set of candidates that Dean's organization, Democracy for America, endorsed, and how they did:
Mary Ann Andreas for State Assembly, CA: Lost 42-58
Ken Campbell for State House, SC: Lost
Mary Chapelle for State House, MO: Won (Unopposed)
Scott Clark, Mark Manoil & Nina Trasoff for the Arizona Corporation Commission: All lost
Kim Hynes for State Representative, CT: Lost
Richard Morrison for US House of Representatives, TX: Lost
Barack Obama for US Senate, IL: Won
Rob MacKenna for Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections: Lost
Monica Palacios-Boyce for Massachusetts State Representative: Lost
Lori Saldaña for State Assembly, CA: Won
Jeff Smith for US House of Representatives, MO: Lost (in Democratic Primary)
Donna Red Wing for State House, CO: Lost
Three for twelve, and one of the winners ran unopposed, so it's really two for eleven, and one of those (Obama) really ran effectively unopposed. That's a pretty pathetic record. This is just the first Dean Dozen; the website claims they were going to put forward another dozen every two weeks. I don't have time to go through them all, but it looks like Dean's not a very good horserace handicapper.
The Kids are All Right!
That's the message Newsweak wants to send with this silly little story.
So when exit polls suggested many of America’s youth had stayed home once again this year, the media wasn’t surprised. The Associated Press wrote them off by early evening on Election Day, saying the turnout wasn’t the groundswell that had been expected. Final exit polls showed that 18-29-year-olds made up only 17 percent of all voters—similar to 2000’s turnout. "Yeah, we rocked the vote all right,” gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson griped to the Aspen (Colo.) Daily News on election night. “Those little bastards betrayed us again." And as a final insult, the Drudge Report posted this snarky headline: VOTE OR DIE OR WHATEVER.
But it turns out that the youth vote did materialize, at least according to one study.
According to a new analysis of voter data, turnout among the under-30 set shot up 9 percent from 2000. The study, conducted by the University of Maryland’s Center for Information & Research on Civil Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE), found that at least 20.9 million in the 18-29-year-old bracket voted, compared with only about 16 million in 2000. The exit polls didn’t register the increase because they show the percentage of young voters out of all voters. Since every age bracket voted in higher numbers than in 2000, the exit polls showed about equal youth shares of total voters for 2004 and 2000—not an accurate picture of the youth vote, experts say. "The main information available to any of us at this point is the set of exit polls," says Scott Keeter, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. "CIRCLE's analysis is the best careful look at this ... It's like the Bible to me now."
I tend to doubt this myself. First of all, the numbers don't make sense. They say that the percentage of 18-29-year-olds voting (as compared to other age brackets) did not increase because the other age brackets increased as well. But if their numbers went from 16 to 20.9 million, that's a 31% increase. But nationally the increase in overall voting was only about 10%. And 16 million is not 17% of the total vote of 105,000,000 in 2000; it's more like 15.2%, and 20.9 million is just over 18% of the total turnout in 2004.
The Reality-Based Community? IX
Superhawk takes on the Bill Maher thread that we discussed yesterday, but uses it as a jumping off point to some thoughts about the nature of the Left.
Think about it for a minute...the moonbat's aren't happy unless they see themselves in the role of the underdog. Put upon by an uncaring, unfeeling world; their moral and spiritual superiority unrecognized or suppressed by a cabal of greedy, corporate media elites or sinister Christian yahoos, moonbats stand on top of the battlements waving the bloody shirt as the rest of the world looks on with doe-eyed admiration.
Yes, that strikes me as spot on. Indeed, when you look at it in that light, I can't help wondering if we Republicans have missed the real significance of the Left's comparison of President Bush to Hitler. It's not so much that they are diminishing Hitler's evil, or expanding President Bush's perceived evil. It's that they are putting themselves in the position of the victims (and resisters) of the Holocaust. It's not about Bush or Hitler, it's about THEM.
Meet Patrick Jordan
Six years ago, he had been kicked out of two high schools. Today he's a hero.
With bullets and rocket-propelled grenades zinging around him, Patrick Jordan, 24, helped rescue 20 soldiers pinned down in a Baghdad alley last spring and then, by thinking fast, saved six soldiers after their Humvee broke down under heavy fire.
"I might've got the Silver Star, but we're all heroes," said Jordan, who has since been promoted to staff sergeant.
"Everyone who served. They're all heroes. No matter what war they fought in or if it was peacetime. They took time out of their lives to serve. Not everybody does that."
Barton Hinkle Talks Bizarro
This a pretty funny column:
We look up numbers on Bush and Kerry voters. Outfit called Edison Media Research and Mitkofsky International did research for news media consortium. It say high-school grads go for Bush 52-47. Folks with some college learning go for Bush 54-46. College grads go for Bush 52-46. Only two groups go for Kerry: those with post-graduate schooling (55-44) and those who not even finish high school (50-49). If really smart people and really dumb people agree, does that make dumb people look smart, or smart people look dumb?
All that academic now, pardon expression. We take your word we dumb. From now on follow your advice: Vote for us, you stupid morons. Only true genius could come up with real winning political slogan like that.
Memories of a Fallen Hero
Over at Kerry Haters a few months ago, we posted a link to an article written by a woman whose father had died in Vietnam. That touched off a chain of events that leads to this post by Small Town Veteran.
Sgt. Jack Gell never made it home. He volunteered to carry the radio for Captain Tony Nadal on November 14, 1965. He was killed when crossing the creek bed to go help locate the lost platoon. His dying words....."Tell my wife I love her...." His body was the first to arrive to Ft Benning. Rebecca notified by a telegram, alone with three small children...Inconsolable and in shock, the EMTs gave her medication to help her sleep. Heartbroken, she asked..."Will it last forever?"
Read it all, it's a great post.
The Reality-Based Community? VIII
The New York Times takes on the liberal bloggers on the "stolen" election meme:
But while the widely read universe of Web logs was often blamed for the swift propagation of faulty analyses, the blogosphere, as it has come to be known, spread the rumors so fast that experts were soon able to debunk them, rather than allowing them to linger and feed conspiracy theories. Within days of the first rumors of a stolen election, in fact, the most popular theories were being proved wrong - though many were still reluctant to let them go.
Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor in the interactive telecommunications program at New York University, suggests that the online fact-finding machine has come unmoored, and that some bloggers simply "can't imagine any universe in which a fair count of the votes would result in George Bush being re-elected president."
But some denizens of the Web see it differently.
Jake White, the owner of the Web log primordium.org, argues that he and other election-monitoring Web posters are not motivated solely by partisan politics. "While there are no doubt large segments of this movement that are being driven by that," he said in an e-mail message, "I prefer to think of it as discontent over the way the election was held."
Mr. White also quickly withdrew his own analysis of voting systems in Ohio when he realized the data he had used was inaccurate.
Articles like these, poking fun at the ridiculous conspiracy theories, will be used by liberals in their cries of "What Liberal Media?"
The Reality-Based Community? VII
Check out this thread on Bill Maher's website on the morality of killing Republicans.
Hat Tip: Power Line
After The Election
We suddenly look around and see that our unity lasted only until the election was over. Already a debate is erupting over Senator Arlen Specter that has divided most of the writers at NRO from Hugh Hewitt. Roger L. Simon sent up smoke signals that he was unhappy about the push on the Gay Marriage Amendment.
In a war, whomever is on your side is your buddy, your pal, but when the war is over, everybody has their own hot buttons. :)
Thursday, November 11, 2004
The Reality-Based Community? VI
The link on this one will go away tomorrow, but it's too good to pass up.
VINCENT D'Onofrio, the star of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," passed out while shooting the hit TV series yesterday morning — prompting insiders to gossip that the actor is "losing it."
"Ever since John Kerry lost the election, [D'Onofrio] has lost his [bleep,]" said our on-set insider.
"He has been getting into fistfights with people, and when he passed out today, we all thought he was faking it. But then he insisted they call 911."
D'Onofrio, a big Kerry supporter, was said to be devastated over President Bush's re-election. "When PAGE SIX [last week] wrote about 'Law & Order' putting up signs forbidding political discussions on set, it was funny," our source said. "Those signs were put up because of [D'Onofrio]."
About a month before the election, D'Onofrio "insisted" on putting up anti-Bush posters and fliers, "and would attack anyone who disagreed with him," the spy added.
Hat Tip: Kitty
The Reality-Based Community? V
More folks making rumbles about moving abroad.
Leora Dowling and her husband thought returning from deep in "red" America to her native New England would make them feel more comfortable, more like the people around them shared their values. Since the election, she's been contemplating another move. To Italy.
Howard Dean Not a Bad Candidate for DNC Head
Dean actually does make sense in a couple of ways:
1. Proven ability to shake the money tree.
2. Proven ability to rouse the Democrats' left wing.
3. Arguable ability to attract new voters to the party.
Of course, he does have some negatives, too:
1. Nutty as a Starbucks macadamia latte (which is to say not as nutty as advertised).
2. Hates President Bush.
3. Shows no ability to lead or manage money.
That last one might need a little explanation. For those who weren't paying attention, in 2003 Howard Dean was the darling of pundits everywhere. He had a story, he was the antiwar candidate, he was attracting gazillions of dollars in donations over the internet, and more important he was establishing a monstrous organization. There was a kid living on an island off the coast of Alaska who had signed up 574 other Deaniacs from email and chatrooms who became briefly famous. There is no doubt that Dean had a ton of money compared to the other campaigns. There is also no doubt he had a ton of volunteers.
And he lost. Not only did he lose, but he lost big time. And not only did he lose big time, but he lost his ton of money.
Dean's a gamble, a roll of the dice. He might start screaming again, or he might kick start the Democrats' engine.
The Reality-Based Community? IV
Manuel Roig-Franzia and Dan Keating go through some of the conspiracy theories.
The Ohio vote-fraud theory appears to stem from the curious ways of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. During even-numbered years, the county's canvassing board posts vote totals that include the results from congressional districts outside the county that spill over Cuyahoga's borders. The quirk made it look as if the county had 90,000 more votes than voters.
The disparities were spotted, and urgent mass mailings began: "Ohio precincts report up to 1,586% turnout ... 30 Precincts in Ohio's Cuyahoga County report 'over' 100% turnout!" Later, the county added a disclaimer to its Web site in an attempt to explain the numbers.
"It takes me about three times to explain" why the fraud allegation is untrue, said Kimberly Bartlett, community outreach specialist for the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. "You have to ask them why no top Democrat is making these charges."
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
The Reality-Based Community? III
Kitty has a great post on this topic. Her opening line is a classic!
The Reality-Based Community? II
I enjoyed this story about a Kerry supporter who tried to get his ridiculous float included in a Pumpkin Festival parade.
Tuscola County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Timothy J. Rutkowski said police came to the scene after Pumpkin Festival officials asked for help in preventing an "inappropriate display" from entering the parade.
VanAllen's display "appeared to be some sort of blow-up doll of the upper torso of George Bush, with an arrow sticking through the head," Rutkowski said.
Rutkowski said VanAllen tried to enter the parade with the display set up in the open bed of a sport-utility vehicle, in front of 8- and 9-year-old children in a parade entry behind VanAllen's vehicle.
A bumper sticker uttering an obscenity about Vice President Dick Cheney was on the back of the sport-utility vehicle, and a "Kerry/Edwards" campaign sign had been set up in the vehicle bed.
Police reported Page was "met with a barrage of cursings and name-calling" from VanAllen when Page told VanAllen he couldn't enter the parade. Muska, a Caro resident, came to Page's aid during the fight with VanAllen, helping the chief drag VanAllen from the vehicle.
VanAllen is facing up to a year in jail for assault.
The Reality-Based Community?--I
That's what liberals are calling themselves these days, but you gotta wonder. The San Francisco Bay Guardian notes this about respondents to an online poll:
SO I'M NOT the only fool: 60 percent of the respondents to the last Bay Guardian online poll thought John Kerry would win the election. Another 18 percent thought the lawyers would be fighting it out for weeks – and only 6.4 percent thought George W. Bush would win.
I'm going to make examples of just how unreal the reality based commmunity is a regular feature of Brainster's. There are quite a few out there already, from Lawrence O'Donnell's call for a secession movement to those who think Bush will be impeached.
Happy Birthday to the US Marines!
They've been protecting and serving for 229 years.
Blackfive has a message from the Commanding General of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force.
Marine Corps Moms has some thoughts from the Commandant of the Corps.
Dave's latest email from the sandbox is from just before the Battle of Fallujah over at the Green Side.
Mike the Marine has some rather martial thoughts on the birthday.
ACE continues to provide excellent coverage of the Marines' current battle in Fallujah.
 Happy 229th! 
Bush's Mandate
Gay Patriot points out that only three Democrats (Jackson, FDR & LBJ) have actually gotten a higher percentage of the vote than President Bush.
Hat Tip: Polipundit
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
NFL Power Ratings for Week 9
New England moves back to the top of the list as Philly takes a tumble at Pittsburgh. The Steelers are moving up rapidly, but let's see how they handle their newfound stardom after knocking off the remaining unbeatens in consecutive weeks.
The AFC is the stronger conference this year, with a record of 8 games above .500 against the NFC. Home field advantage has become fairly strong again, at 2.9 points per game, after being below 2 points for much of the season.
Not hard to figure out the problem with the Chiefs; they've got the best offense in the league with the worst defense in the league, plus of course they're playing a top seed schedule based on their performance last year. Before you discount the ranking, remember, they beat Indy two weeks ago by 10 and Atlanta the week before that by 46. Their rating is skewed by those two victories, true, but they're also recent performance.
NE 109.6
Phi 108.2
SD 107.3
Bal 107.1
Pit 106.6
Ind 105.1
NYJ 104.9
KC 103.4
Den 103.0
NYG 102.7
Sea 102.6
Cle 101.9
Min 101.5
Atl 101.3
Jax 100.9
GB 100.2
Hou 100.1
Buf 100.0
Chi 98.7
Cin 98.6
Ten 98.4
Was 97.7
Det 97.4
TB 97.1
AZ 95.5
StL 95.2
Car 94.2
Dal 93.6
Mia 93.4
Oak 92.8
SF 90.8
NO 90.7
Fallujah Updates
The Belmont Club has been doing a great job as usual, but if you're looking for a little different perspective, I recommend our old buddy from the Kerry Haters blog, ACE. He's got lots of maps, photos and intelligent discussions of what's going on.
Secession?
Okay, so nobody with half a brain is suggesting it, just Lawrence O'Donnell on the McLaughlin Group:
MR. O'DONNELL: No, this mandate talk is ridiculous. And Tony just loosely used the word "everybody" -- (chuckles) -- which is very funny in a county where 49 percent said we've had this guy for four years and we don't want him for another minute. That's 49 percent. He has strength through the Republican Senate. That pickup in the Senate is very, very important. That's where all the strength's going to come from.
But he's -- the government's bankrupt. It can't do anything he's been talking about. He had a Social Security commission recommend options back when there was a gigantic surplus. None of their work is relevant to this deficit situation. But the big problem the country now has, which is going to produce a serious discussion of secession over the next 20 years, is that the segment of the country that pays for the federal government is now being governed by the people who don't pay for the federal government.
MR. BLANKLEY: Did you say secession?
MR. BUCHANAN: (Laughs.)
MR. O'DONNELL: Yes, yes.
MR. BLANKLEY: Are you calling for civil war?
MR. O'DONNELL: Ninety -- not war; you can secede without firing a shot.
MR. BLANKLEY: Not if you have a Lincoln in the White House.
MR. O'DONNELL: Ninety percent of the red states are welfare client states of the federal government. They collect more from the federal government than they send in. New York and California, Connecticut, the states that are blue are all the states that are paying for the bulk of everything this government does, from the ward of Social Security to everything else, and the people in those states don't like what this government is doing.
It is a symptom perhaps of how enraged the Democrats are that O'Donnell would suggest that there is something wrong with folks who don't pay taxes on a net basis voting. Of course, O'Donnell would never say that about individuals, but when it comes to states, he's happy to make the argument.
Here are MSNBC's exit polling data on various income levels. The first number is the income level, the second is the % of the persons polled with that household income, the third is Kerry's percentage of the vote from that income group, and the fourth is Bush's percentage.
Under $15,000 8 63 36
$15,000-$29,999 15 57 42
$30,000-$49,999 22 50 49
$50,000-$74,999 23 43 56
$75,000-$99,999 14 45 55
$100,000-$149,999 11 42 57
$150,000-$199,999 4 42 58
$200,000 or more 3 35 63
As you can see, as the income rises, the percentage of voters casting their ballots for Kerry declines. The correlation isn't perfect--for some reason those making $75,000-$100,000 were more inclined to vote for Kerry than those making $50,000-$75,000--but Kerry did not win either group; in fact he got trounced rather handily. If we assume that those making $50,000 and up pay the vast majority of taxes in this country, then it is pretty obvious that they are also heavily Republican.
This is not really controversial; in their saner moments, the Democrats like to characterize themselves as the party representing the poor and the working class. It's just that O'Donnell and the rest of the Democrats are not sane right now.
I'm with Hewitt
On the Arlen Specter kerfuffle.
I don't like what Arlen Specter said, and it was particularly classless of him to say it immediately following an election in which the President lent him a big hand to get past a primary challenge from a more conservative Republican.
But...
I'm reminded of something the President said in his news conference following the election. He'd earned some political capital with the election, and he was going to spend it. Hugh Hewitt earned some political capital with me with his steadfastness on election night. The folks over at NRO did not cover themselves with glory on election night; indeed they seemed to be doom and gloom central. Now I don't want to twit them too hard on this; they were passing on what they believed to be reliable information when they commented on the exit polls over at The Corner. But Hewitt, faced with the same polls, did not start running around like a chicken with its head cut off. He said they were wrong.
And Hugh is not suggesting that we accept Specter's conditions on the types of judges the President should nominate. The President should nominate the judges he deems fit, and then if Specter proves to be an obstructionist, Frist can appoint a new leader of the judiciary committee. But Hugh's right, the easiest way to lose this narrow majority we have is to start demanding purity from Blue State Senators.
I don't like the fact that we have to deal with RINOs any more than you do. But I'm a realist, not an ideologue. A chastened Specter is better than an angered Specter.
Bad News for Democrats
Hollyweird hasn't lost its taste for politics.
Consider the example of John Cameron Mitchell, flamboyant creator of the critically acclaimed transsexual musical comedy "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." He traveled to Ohio to get out the vote for John Kerry and refused to feel discouraged by the disappointing results. "Ultimately, after a period of depression yesterday, today I feel even more energized!" he proudly told the New York Times.
Hmmm, makes one wonder what parts of Ohio are susceptible to pitches from flamboyant creators of critically acclaimed transsexual musical comedies. I doubt if it's Cincinnati, despite its nickname as the "Queen City".
Monday, November 08, 2004
Ben Roethlisberger
The hot new last name in the league has 14 letters. Looking at his stats, it's not hard to see that he looks like the real deal. He's played in 7 games so far, and five of those grade out as excellent one as okay and one as slightly below average. Not too shabby for a 23-year-old playing in his first seven games, especially considering the defenses he was facing, including Baltimore, New England and Philly.
Who's Running in 2008?
Ankle-Biting Pundits sizes up the Democratic field.
Media for Kerry
Others ( Betsy Newmark & Lorie Byrd) have focused on the part of this article where the Kerry campaign complains about their coverage by the media. That is indeed quite silly as Betsy & Lorie point out.
But get this part:
After Fox News called Ohio for President Bush on Election Night, John Kerry's aides began phoning top executives at the other networks to urge them to hold off, while White House adviser Karl Rove pressed them to join Fox in making the call. CBS, ABC and CNN made no projection in Ohio, and NBC had called Ohio before the Democrats reached the network.
"It's perfectly appropriate to call a network and make that case," says Kerry adviser Howard Wolfson, when "we have a set of facts and figures at our disposal to help them make the right call."
Maybe it was appropriate for the Kerry campaign to make that call. But note how effective the call was in getting the media to stop from calling Ohio for Bush. Two networks had predicted a Bush win in the Buckeye State before the calls, no network predicted a Bush win after the calls. CNN didn't call Ohio for Bush until the Kerry campaign conceded the state; I'd suspect but don't know for certain that ABC and CBS did the same. I know about CNN because I'd left their site up Tuesday night/Wednesday morning after going to bed and was quite startled when I noticed over breakfast that they still did not show Bush with more than 270 electoral votes.
In the end, Ohio went for Bush by a larger margin (2.5%) than Pennsylvania went for Kerry (2.1%). Just as in 2000, the networks were much more cautious in calling states for Bush than they were for the Democratic candidate.
Open Letter to Europeans
John Hawkins explains the election to them.
Additionally, when conservatives wave the flag, it's because we like doing it. When conservatives say "we support the troops," it's not some kind of dodge; we realize what a tough job they have and believe we should look out for them because of it. When we listen to Rush Limbaugh, it's not because we think he makes up great lies about liberals; it's because we believe he's telling the truth.
Well, that and we like those monthly checks we get from Halliburton!
I'd Like to See This Meme Catch On
Michael Moore is already blamed in some quarters for costing the Democrats the 2000 election with his support of Ralph Nader. Now, he's beginning to get blamed for costing them the 2004 election with his support of John Kerry.
It is that literally millions of the hard-working, responsible, decent citizens of this nation just may have had it up to their eyebrows with those Hollywood types and others who disdain their intelligence, mock their religion, dismiss their values, deprecate their lifestyles and disparage their social contributions.
Yep, and there is no indication that the Hollywood types are toning down their remarks; if anything they're becoming more inflammatory.
Another Steyn of the Good Stuff
Mark at his usual best.
Inaugurating the new second-term outreach was Brian Reade in the Daily Mirror, who attributed the President's victory to: "The self-righteous, gun-totin', military-lovin', sister-marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport-ownin' rednecks, who believe God gave America the biggest dick in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land 'free and strong'."
Well, that's certainly why I supported Bush, but I'm not sure it entirely accounts for the other 59,459,765.
Worthy of reading all the way.
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Arizona Update
Republicans had a pretty good election day in my home state. John McCain won reelection handily with about 76% of the vote. We returned all 8 of our congressmen, which translates to a 6-2 record. Rick Renzi had been considered as somewhat vulnerable in District 1, and came under ferocious attack. He was facing Paul Babbitt, a member of a famous Arizona family. Renzi won quite easily, 59%-36%, winning every county in this huge district. And he wasn't riding Bush's coattails, as he had a higher percentage of the vote than the President in every county except Yavapai, where they tied. Looks like he's got that seat locked up for awhile.
Tom Wolfe
Brilliant, as usual.
They take Protestantism seriously. It tickles me when people talk about “the Christian right”. These people aren’t right wing, they’re just religious. If you’re religious, of course, you’re against gay marriage and abortion. You’re against a lot of things that have become part of the intellectual liberal liturgy.
Great article, although I am not enthralled by the "rock fight" description.
Michael Kinsley Has a Request
Don't call him arrogant or elitist.
I mean, look at it this way. (If you don't mind, that is.) It's true that people on my side of the divide want to live in a society where women are free to choose abortion and where gay relationships have full civil equality with straight ones. And you want to live in a society where the opposite is true. These are some of those conflicting values everyone is talking about. But at least my values -- as deplorable as I'm sure they are -- don't involve any direct imposition on you. We don't want to force you to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same gender, whereas you do want to close out those possibilities for us. Which is more arrogant?
This is the amusing and odd thing about the way the gay marriage debate has been turned around. Never mind the fact that no society in history has ever allowed gay marriage; that the "issue" was nowhere on the radar screen in say, 1985. We're intolerant for not embracing it.
And notice as well, that Kinsley assumes that John Kerry is on his side in this debate. I assume so as well, but to do so also requires that you assume that he's lying when he says he opposes gay marriage. And two of his precious blue states (reality-based states, they would call it), Michigan and Oregon, voted to ban gay marriage. Oh, so sorry! Guess they're part of Arrogant America as well?
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