Today, the mood and the marketplace are accommodating Let's Impeach the President, one of the most vitriolic titles on Neil Young's Living with War album. It was delivered because the veteran felt that younger stars weren't speaking up.
In fact, armies of musicians are churning out anti-war songs. Arriving Tuesday is The Diaries of Private Henry Hill by New York band Blow Up Hollywood, which mined a dead soldier's journals for its searing anti-war concept album. Experimental art-rock trio TV on the Radio bashes Bush in Dry Drunk Emperor. Rising British singer Nerina Pallot dreads news of a soldier's death in Everybody's Gone to War.
Why do I suspect that nobody's going to buy these albums? Neil Young's effort is currently at 92 after 7 weeks on the chart.
After the New York Theater Workshop had the good taste to back away from staging "My Name is Rachel Corrie" a few months ago, the British production has moved to New York's Minetta Lane Theater for a one-month run starting October 15th.
I love this editorial comment:
According to Corrie's aunt Cheryl Broderson, the family is "absolutely ecstatic" that the play will be seen in New York.
As am I, since I adore English comedy. I mean, let's be honest: I've seen how slowly a bulldozer moves. There's a lot of construction in my neighborhood, and my dog and I had to get out of the way of one that was heading toward us. We managed to do so 16 times before it got close. In other words, in order to end up under a bulldozer, you would have to really want to be under a bulldozer. It would have to be your life's ambition to be under a bulldozer. And if that's your life's goal, there's nothing anyone can do about it. So it's a good thing that the play's intention is to be celebratory of Corrie's life: unlike most of us, she achieved her dream and died doing what she loved: being under bulldozers.
With its polls, events, and forums, ConservativeMatch provides such embattled conservatives the chance to get together and engage on the topic of their alienation. The most charming manifestation of this sentiment is a movement on the site to refer to Democrats as "Vichi-crats." In the ConservativeMatch imagination, conservatives--even if they control every branch of the government--will always represent the underground Gaullist resistance to the liberals' sellout Vichy.
That's rather interesting, because at least in the blogosphere the term Vichycrats is pretty much reserved for Lefty bloggers discussing Joe Lieberman; the idea is that Democrats are collaborating with the Nazis.
Sadly, the article on Conservative Cuisine is subscriber-only, since the title and synopsis sounded intriguing:
Spam-a-Lot by Kelly Alexander The stultifying blandness of conservative cuisine.
Some of you may recall my takedown of a Paul Krugman error in a column on the Ohio Election, which resulted in Krugman having to issue a correction. That post is used as an example in a new book by Marshall University Professor Stephen D. Cooper, entitled, Watching The Watchdog; Bloggers as the Fifth Estate. I'll order a copy and review the book in the next week or so.
So the majority here is of the mindset that Al Qaeda detainees captured abroad in a time of war deserve United States Constitutional protections? There’s another question Republicans running for office should confront their democratic opponents with. BTW, still no word on whether Al Qaeda will be joining the Geneva Convention now in response to their victory over the US today.
The stronger GDP figure mostly reflected an improvement in the country's trade deficit, which was much less of a drag than previously estimated.
Gross domestic product measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States and is considered the best barometer of the country's economic fitness.
While I'm happy for Peter -- she's not the anti-Christ, for God's sake! -- I would be insulted at the idea that the substantive differences that I (and many others) have with Hillary can be resolved through some sort of outreach program. This member of the "online community" is not going to be persuaded by some "Internet game plan" that her stand on Iraq, and defense issues in general, is anything but a) unprincipled, and b) poor political strategy.
1. Hillary will actually listen to what Peter has to say and adjust her views and actions. 2. They will not be able to see eye to eye and Peter will be ignored and then will eventually leave the job. 3. Peter will become an apologist for Hillary’s current stances on things like Iraq, which are hideous and morally repugnant.
Hideous and morally repugnant because Cenk doesn't agree with them.
I should note one more point. Ross says I'm confusing moderate liberals for liberals generally. In fact, there are lots of disagreements within liberalism. I think McCain is (or was) a liberal because a liberal today is anybody who rejects conservative assumptions about the role of government (and isn't a socialist.) By today's standards Eisenhower and Nixon were liberals, a fact conservatives make themselves.
This does get back to a theme I blogged often on in 2004, that liberals today define themselves as un-conservatives. In other words, it's not that liberals have ideas and programs to propose; it's that they oppose the conservative ideas and programs.
As for Nixon and Eisenhower, they were conservative for their time; it was just a whole lot more liberal time.
Our buddy the Real Ugly American scores an interview with one of the Beltway Boys. Good job!
TUA: I would like to ask you about your partner on the Beltway Boys Fred Barnes; how long have you guys been friends now?
Mort: Well let’s see we covered the Ford White House together so that would have been 1975 and then let’s see I was a Nieman fellow at Harvard in 1973/74 and he became a Nieman fellow either the year after I was or two years afterwards. I mean he and I have sort of been trailing along before and after each other but we really became friends when he joined the McLaughlin group in about 1988. I think it was when Pat Buchanan quit to run for president one of his times. I can’t remember if that was 88 or 92. Fred was the chief substitute on the McLaughlin group for a long time so it was during the mid to late 80s that we really become good friends.
Peter seems like a nice fellow, he's just got a bee in his bonnet about that narrative stuff.
He's going to have his hands full trying to coax the netkooks to support Hillary. The good news is that they'll come around once the primaries start in February of 2008, just as they did in 2004 for John Kerry once the Vermonster imploded.
Dan Riehl connects a few dots. Let me just say that if Daou's really the one who leaked emails from the Townhouse list to TNR, he's not going to survive in the left-wing blogosphere.
I suspect it's not true. First, the timing's a little too obvious. Peter's no fool. and I doubt he'd have screwed up on the Gilliard email which is causing TNR some headaches.
Obligatory conservative comment: Deplorable and all that if he didn't have a prescription. Worse if he answered one of those email spams.
I can absolutely understand why this story will be hot on the blogs on the lefty side and off the radar screen among the right wing.
The main reason is that the libs believe that conservatism is about personality not ideas. They see this as another chance to attack the messenger. And, as we have seen countless times in the past, that's more important to them than winning.
I fondly remember seeing the Dead when I was at Cornell. It was the day of the fabulous Fiji Island party on the driveway “island” of the Phi Gamma Delta House. We'd cover ourselves in purple Crisco and drink purple Kool-Aid mixed with grain alcohol and dance on the front yard. Wait – I think got the order reversed there: We'd drink purple Kool-Aid mixed with grain alcohol and then cover ourselves in purple Crisco – then the dancing. You probably had to be there to grasp how utterly fantastic this was.
Hat Tip: Lucianne. For what it's worth, I hated the Grateful Dead, and all my friends at college loved them. When there was a party, we'd hear one album by another band, and then the rest of the night was wall-to-wall Dead.
Dennis Kucinich, proving once again that he doesn't get it:
"I think it's inevitable that there's going to be departments of peace and non-violence, and not only in the U.S.," said Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat congressman from Ohio.
Supporters of the concept say that peace departments would promote the values of peace just as environment departments --relatively new agencies -- protect the environment.
Kucinich introduced a bill last year that would create a cabinet-level department of peace. Seventy-three members of the U.S House of Representatives have said they would support the legislation.
"All over the world people are looking to establish these structures, and I'll tell you why," said Kucinich. "Because people don't want to live in fear."
The Department of Defense is the Peace Department.
Miner: Some media conservatives seem actually uncomfortable with the Religious Right. Why?
Hynes: Conservatives have their elites, too. And, of course, there are different kinds of conservatives. But those who dismiss the Religious Right do so out of ignorance, I believe. These folks generally operate under old, worn out stereotypes and believe polite society would be embarrassed if Christians were to represent the public face of conservatism.
But the counts that were being reported on TV bore little resemblance to the exit poll projections. In key state after state, tallies differed significantly from the projections. In every case, that shift favored President George W. Bush. Nationwide, exit polls projected a 51 to 48 percent Kerry victory, the mirror image of Bush's 51 to 48 percent win. But the exit poll discrepancy is not the only cause for concern.
As I never tire of saying, the exit polls were the outlier; the other polls taken just before the election all showed Bush winning.
Vote suppression and electoral irregularities in Ohio have been documented, first in January 2005 by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, and in June 2005 by the Democratic National Committee, which found, in the words of DNC Chairman Howard Dean: ``More than a quarter of all Ohio voters reported problems with their voting experience."
The Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee and the Democratic National Committee wouldn't have a horseface in this race, would they? And the percentage of Ohio Democrats reporting problems with their "voting experience" was not significantly higher than the percentage of Ohio Republicans reporting their own problems.
Why do they hate us? No, I'm not talking about Islamofascist terrorists. We know why they hate us: because we have freedom of speech and freedom of religion, because we refuse to treat women as second-class citizens, because we do not kill homosexuals, because we are a free society.
No, the "they" I'm referring to are the editors of The New York Times. And do they hate us? Well, that may be stretching it. But at the least they have gotten into the habit of acting in reckless disregard of our safety.
Last December, the Times ran a story revealing that the National Security Agency was conducting electronic surveillance of calls from suspected al-Qaida terrorists overseas to persons in the United States. This was allegedly a violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. But in fact the president has, under his war powers, the right to order surveillance of our enemies abroad. And it makes no sense to hang up when those enemies call someone in the United States -- rather the contrary. If the government is going to protect us from those who wish to do us grievous harm -- and after Sept. 11 no one can doubt there are many such persons -- then it should try to track them down as thoroughly as possible.
The answer, of course, is that the Times no longer believes that there are terrorists out there; to them the real threat is Bushitler. In this regard, the Grey Lady is hardly alone; the peals of laughter from the Left every time a terror alert is issued reveals that it's a common belief.
Last Friday, the Times did it again, printing a story revealing the existence of U.S. government monitoring of financial transactions routed through the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which routes about $6 trillion a day in electronic money transfers around the world. The monitoring is conducted by the CIA and supervised by the Treasury Department. An independent auditing firm has been hired to make sure only terrorist-related transactions are targeted.
Members of Congress were briefed on the program, and it does not seem to violate any law, at least any that the Times could identify. And it has been effective. As the Times reporters admit, it helped to locate the mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombing in Thailand and a Brooklyn man convicted on charges of laundering a $200,000 payment to al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan.
But it's all part of a pattern with this administration; they're so nosy. And secretive! Why are they so secretive when it just encourages the press to reveal their secrets?
It's not our job to pass judgment on whether this program is legal or effective, but the story cites strong arguments from proponents that this is the case. While some experts familiar with the program have doubts about its legality, which has never been tested in the courts, and while some bank officials worry that a temporary program has taken on an air of permanence, we cited considerable evidence that the program helps catch and prosecute financers of terror, and we have not identified any serious abuses of privacy so far. A reasonable person, informed about this program, might well decide to applaud it. That said, we hesitate to preempt the role of legislators and courts, and ultimately the electorate, which cannot consider a program if they don't know about it.
This is an excellent point, and should be considered in other cases. For example, when our military received the information regarding the location of Zarqawi, did the electorate get an opportunity to consider whether he should be blown up? No, and the nation suffered for it. I think we're close to a principle here, which is that the nation should not use any weapons against terrorism that have not been completely debated and voted on out in the open. Anything less is being unfair to the terrorists, who after all, may have legitimate reasons for what they do.
Mitchell was not the greatest writer in American history, but this may well be the great American novel. The combination of plot, backdrop and the unforgettable two main characters combine to make GWtW one of my favorite books of all time.
He reminds us that he is not part of the vast right wing conspiracy:
So here goes: The New Republic is very much against the Bush tax programs, against Bush Social Security "reform," against cutting the inheritance tax, for radical health care changes, passionate about Gore-type environmentalism, for a woman's entitlement to an abortion, for gay marriage, for an increase in the minimum wage, for pursuing aggressively alternatives to our present reliance on oil and our present tax preferences for gas-guzzling automobiles. We were against the confirmation of Justice Alito. And, institutionally, TNR was against several policies that I favor, including allowing the government more rather than less leeway in ferreting out terrorists and allies of terrorists. From today's newspapers: I see nothing wrong with the feds scrutinizing international monetary exchanges in the dragnet for enemies of not just our civilization but civilization. But TNR is a heterodox institution, a concept Kos surely cannot fathom.
But of course they oppose Kos, so they must be right-wingers!
Mr. Murtha's howlers about Okinawa obscured a more revealing comment he made earlier on CNN. He cited President Clinton's abrupt withdrawal from Somalia after 19 Rangers were killed there in 1993 as an example of the policy the U.S. should follow in Iraq.
Osama bin Laden gave the "change in direction" in Somalia Mr. Murtha applauds as the chief reason why he thought al-Qaeda could strike the United States with impunity.
"After a few blows … [the U.S.] rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace, dragging the bodies of its soldiers," bin Laden told ABC's John Miller in a 1998 interview.
Because he is a retired Marine Reserve colonel who served in Vietnam, Mr. Murtha is regarded as one of the Democrats' leading strategic thinkers. This, sadly, may be the case. But Mr. Murtha sounds less like a Marine colonel these days and more like a male Cindy Sheehan.
Voters in his district should take a close look at Diane Irey, the Republican who hopes to put an end to the embarrassment to Pennsylvania that Jack Murtha has become.
"We hope the fast will galvanize public attention, invigorate the peace movement, build pressure on elected officials, and get our troops back home," Sheehan said in a statement posted on the anti-war blogosphere.
The fast, organized by Code Pink and Sheehan's Gold Star Families for Peace, will begin on Independence Day in Washington, D.C. In her statement Sheehan said she would move the fast to Crawford, Texas, where the president owns a ranch and often vacations.
She should be nice and slender by the time August rolls around.
Acosta said the group came to law enforcement's attention when the alleged ringleader, Batiste, approached an individual about waging jihad inside the United States. This unidentified individual went to authorities with that information and later posed as an al-Qaida member, Acosta said.
He would not more fully describe the individual other than to say it was a person "who was working with us."
The age of the conspirators certainly indicates this was a genuine threat, not just some kids blowing off steam:
The seven individuals — ranging in age from 22 to 32 — were indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami. Six were taken into custody in Miami Thursday when authorities swarmed a warehouse in the Liberty City area, removing a metal door with a blow torch. A seventh was arrested in Atlanta.
Jason Zengerle prints some more emails from the liberal "townhouse" list.
Finally... what if it is true? We really need to hear from Jerome - regardless of whether or not this blows up. I will not be a republican rubber stamp. If Jerome was involved in some recent financial chicanery and he doesn't have an adequate defense, how does that make him different from any of the rest of the DC lobbyist/consultant class that will do anything for a buck?
It is kind of interesting to see who gets invited to the liberal email list. Glenn Greenwald, who insists he's not a liberal despite spending virtually every waking hour denouncing Bush (and right-wing bloggers), checks in with this:
The "Dean-paid-Kos" story from a couple of years ago got relatively little traction, and is virtually never mentioned outside of a small circle of right-wing bloggers, because Markos put the facts on the table so quickly, candidly, and comprehensively that it became clear that there was nothing there. To similarly kill off this story quickly and prevent it from taking root, I really think Jerome -- or at least someone on his behalf -- needs to do something similar, and soon. Terse denials and politician-like refusals to talk about it will, it seems clear to me, only inflame things further.
True enough, but of course as I said at the time, there was nothing right-wing bloggers could do about Kos; it was clear that each side was going to have to police its own. As one of the other emailers said, it's all about credibility, and Kos didn't have any of that to lose with me.
I suspect that this other post over at TNR will get more attention from the blog-bullies.
Even beyond the thuggishness, what I despise about so many blogurus, is the frivolity of their "readers." DailyKos might have hundreds of responses to his posts, but after five or six of them the interminable thread meanders into trivial subjects that have nothing to do with the subject that briefly provoked it. The blogosphere's lack of concentration is even more dangerous than all its rage. In the Middle East, they struggle with belief. In the United States, we struggle with attention. The blogosphere's fanaticism is, in many ways, the triumph of a lack of focus.
I'd guess that a number of big lefty bloggers will post that paragraph, and their commenters will prove that paragraph to be right.
Law enforcement sources told CNN that the arrests disrupted what may have been the early stages of a domestic terrorist plot to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois, the FBI building in Miami, and possibly other targets.
For many years the tallest buildings in a city have commanded the highest rents. I suspect that may be changing now. Who would want to work in a signature office tower?
Residents living near the warehouse told The Associated Press that the men taken into custody called themselves Muslims and had tried to recruit young people.
The men slept in the warehouse, Tashawn Rose, 29, told the AP.
"They would come out late at night and exercise," she said. "It seemed like a military boot camp that they were working on there. They would come out and stand guard."
The residents told the AP that FBI agents spent several hours seeking information from people in the neighborhood. They said the suspects, who appeared to be in their teens or 20s, had lived in the area for about a year, the AP reported.
I was disappointed that they didn't make it through to the elimination round, but really our soccer is nowhere near the level of other countries, and people who think otherwise are fooling themselves.
For example, consider the case of Freddie Adu. Adu is obviously a rare talent, playing in major league soccer at the tender age of 14 years. But his relative youth also indicates that American soccer is nowhere near as advanced professionally as, say, American baseball.
Adu is now 17 years old (barely). Who's 17 years old and playing in major league baseball? Answer: Nobody. In fact, it's been quite a while since a 17-year-old played in a major league game; Larry Dierker just missed in 1964, playing in his first contest on his 18th birthday. I believe that Ed Kranepool and Ed Kirkpatrick, both of whom played late in 1962 are the last two 17-year-olds in the major leagues.
I did a quick look at how many at-bats players 19 years old and younger have had in the majors by decade: Decade Beg. ABs 1870 3593 1880 5468 1890 2679 1900 1378 1910 1865 1920 1169 1930 1399 1940 1834 1950 1281 1960 2429 1970 933 1980 455 1990 355
As you can see, the general trend has been for fewer and fewer at bats by gentlemen 19 years old or younger in baseball. There was a brief upsurge in the 1960s, although the vast majority of that comes from a few players (Rusty Staub, Ed Kranepool and Tony Conigliaro), and is probably attributable at least partially to expansion.
Why has this happened? Well, mainly because the major leagues have gotten extremely efficient at funneling the best players to the majors, so that it's harder for a teenager to crack the team. The few teens that do make it to the major leagues are either a) extraordinarily talented (Ott, Yount, Griffey) or b) play for desperate teams--the Houston Colt 45s of 1963-64 started an incredible eight different teenagers.
So that's the problem with major league soccer in this country; it's just not competitive enough to have forced Freddie Adu to continue playing high school soccer, which is why the USA's not playing in the next round.
Ditto with Michelle Wie and the LPGA. If she's competitive at that age, it's a pretty good sign that women's golf hasn't yet gotten good enough, although I'm a little hesitant since it seems possible that the peak of athletic performance comes quite a bit younger in women than it does in men.
Ah, the irony. Back in the 1960s every boomer liberal hated the draft; now that they're safely past induction age they're pining for it.
Of course, what they're really pining for are the good old days of the Vietnam antiwar movement. So far the ponytails in the peacenik crowd are a little too gray; they want to "youthenize" the movement.
John Hawkins polled a bunch of center-right bloggers (including yours truly) on that topic, with the caveat that serial killers need not apply.
Looking at the list I sent, I can see I missed a couple (how did I forget John Murtha?), but almost everybody on my list popped up on at least a couple other ballots, with the exception of Dylan Avery (not famous enough yet) Laurie David (ditto) and Arianna Huffington. I left #3 off my list, because she's much better than a lot of the other people on the list. Don't want her to be president but you'd have a hard time convincing me that she's worse than Jimmy Carter or Nancy Pelosi.
People talk about the need for the left to work together and have a unified message in the face of a unified conservative noise machine. So a google group was created called "Townhouse", and it included many bloggers and other representatives of the netroots as well as a large number of partisan journalists and grassroots groups. It allowed us to discuss policy, issues, tactics and coordinate as much as you can ever get a bunch of liberals to coordinate.
There was one big rule for this list, an important cog in the growing Vast Left Wing Conspiracy -- everything discussed was off the record.
That was obviously violated today as the New Republic betrayed, once again, that it seeks to destroy the new people-powered movement for the sake of its Lieberman-worshipping neocon owners; that it stands with the National Review and wingnutoshpere in their opposition to grassroots Democrats.
True enough, I suppose, but could it be that TNR opposes the netkooks because they want the Democrats to actually, you know, win elections? Whereas Kos seems to be happy driving out moderate Democrats like Joe Lieberman.
This is an argument that the Democrats have been having for about 20 years now, and it shows no signs of being resolved. The left wing of the party claims that the Democrats have to move to the left, to offer a real choice. The centrist wing claims that the Democrats have to move right to attract the middle.
To a certain degree Bill Clinton proved the centrists (as represented by the DLC and TNR) right. Clinton ran as a "third way" candidate and became only the second Democrat elected to the presidency since 1964. But a new generation of activists has come along which declines to learn the lessons its elders were taught the hard way. And the elders on the Left are happy to encourage them, hoping that this time around they'll be proved right.
If you looked at the transformation in American politics that took place coming out of the 1960s, what would you suggest that the Democrats did wrong?
1. They allowed a cadre of antiwar activists to take over the party. 2. They moved significantly to the left on economic issues. 3. They abandoned the anticommunism of JFK and Truman.
Any of those three might have been problematic, but combined they were a disaster. No Democrat since those days has gotten over 51% of the general election vote; only Carter (1976) has even gotten 50%.
In 1992, Clinton tried to tug the party to the right on economic issues and the anticommunism issue largely went away. And so lefties allowed themselves to dream that they didn't really have to accept the rightward movement on economic issues.
Kos, of course, wasn't political during those years and so he has no idea that all the stuff he suggests has been tried in the past.
Update: The Leather Penguin catches the "It's the Joooos" part of Kos' rant. Good call!
I'm not one of those guys who starts his day with ABC's the Note, but that's just me. But liberal author Eric Boehlert lays into the writers over there with some zest.
The first thing you notice about The Note is that it sounds like it's written by high school students. Smart high school students--really smart students, even--but nevertheless teenagers who crack themselves up with their wit, rely on hard-to-decipher references to up their hip insider quotient, and have a penchant for words like "ginormous" and multiple exclamation points. Cutesy, creepy, and relentlessly effusive towards the media elite, The Note confirms the old adage that life really is like high school, with The Note filling the role of cheerleader-meets-yearbook editor, keeping tabs on where the cool kids are eating lunch, what they're wearing, and who's having the big party this weekend.
Gee, you mean it reads like Wonkette without the anal sex references? But of course the snarky, cynical attitude that Boehlert describes is everywhere--in Slate, in the Huffpo, in every Maureen Dowd column. The difference of course is that the Note is not as relentlessly liberal as those outlets.
Boehlert claims that the media aren't really liberal because they're not as liberal as he is. This despite all the data that indicates that the media in general are more liberal than the average Democrat in Congress. Essentially his gripe with the Note is that it does not follow every quote from a Republican with the words "he lied".
Like everybody else on the left he way overinflates the importance of the Terri Schiavo case:
Let's begin in March of 2005. The Note was all onboard for the Terri Schiavo saga, at one point linking to twenty separate Schiavo stories in one day. It also thought Republicans had themselves a winning issue with the right-to-life story: "The Republican leadership seems to have succeeded in framing the discourse around a moral question." At the same time, on March 21, The Note's parent, ABC News, released the findings from a Schiavo poll that found 67 percent of Americans thought elected officials were acting for political advantage rather than for the principles involved. The Note did its best to spin the results in favor of the White House, writing that the Republican intervention in the Schiavo matter had been met with "some public opposition." Only in the 2005 Beltway media environment could a controversial GOP initiative that was rejected by a broad cross-section of Americans--including 58 percent of self-identified conservative Republicans--be described as having been met with "some public opposition."
Two days later, detecting widespread mainstream criticism of the Republicans' heavy-handed intervention, The Note reported it was "perhaps the beginning of a media backlash." [Emphasis added.] When Bush's own poll numbers began an immediate decline in the wake of the Schiavo intervention--dropping seven points in seven days, according to one national survey--editors at The Note scratched their heads, declaring it was impossible to figure out "what exactly accounts for the President's droopy poll numbers."
This of course is post hoc reasoning at best; does anybody really believe that Bush lost seven points because of Terri Schiavo? I wasn't big on that issue myself, but I certainly didn't see it as damaging to Bush.
TNR obtained a missive Kos sent earlier this week to "Townhouse," a private email list comprising elite liberal bloggers, including Jane Hamsher, Matt Stoller, and Christy Hardin Smith. And what was Kos's message to this group that secretly plots strategy in the digital equivalent of a smoke-filled backroom? Stay mum!
It continually amuses me that Matt Stoller is one of the elite liberal bloggers.
It seems hard to believe, but only a few months ago, I was wearing sweaters in the evening, and tomorrow it's going to hit 109 degrees. This is completely baffling to me and could only be due to Global Warming. Or the summer sun.
The tale began when Guttman's best friend Ivanna left her cellphone in a taxicab, like thousands of others before her. After Ivanna got a new Sidekick, she logged on to her account - and was confronted by pictures of an unfamiliar young woman and her family, along with the young woman's America Online screen name.
The 16-year-old, Sasha Gomez, of Corona, Queens, had been using the Sidekick to take pictures and send instant messages. She apparently did not know that the company that provided the phone's service, T-Mobile, automatically backs up such information on its remote servers. So when Ivanna got back on, there was Sasha.
Using instant messages, Guttman tracked down Sasha and asked her to return it. "Basically, she told me to get lost," Guttman recalled. "That was it."
Is to hate, hate, hate him. John Kerry is about as popular as a fat guy passing gas on an elevator.
Senate Democrats have been loath to express their opinions publicly, determined to emphasize a united front. But interviews suggest a frustration with Mr. Kerry, never popular among the caucus, and still unpopular among many Democrats for failing to defeat a president they considered vulnerable. Privately, some of his Democratic peers complain that he is too focused on the next presidential campaign.
Mr. Kerry now describes the war in Iraq as a mistake, even though he once supported it. His critics say they believe the new stand reflects more politics than principle, and ignores other Democrats' concern that setting a fixed date will leave those in tough re-election fights open to Republican taunts that they are "cutting and running" in Iraq.
Exactly. As we have discussed here many, many times, Kerry's current position on the war has been calibrated to bring him popularity with the base, just as his position on the war in 2004 was calibrated to make him appear "electable".
Kerry knows that he's going to have to knock off Hillary, and that in order to do that he'll need the support of the netkooks. And the only way he's going to get those dolts on his side is to join in with John Murtha in calling for a deadline. But it puts those in tough districts at a disadvantage, because Murtha's plan only has support among the far left. By forcing those candidates to vote, Kerry gives them two options: lose the support of the activists, or loose the support of the centrists.
But of course Kerry's only interested in what helps John Kerry.
Adams, who is serving in Iraq, earned his Silver Star in January 2005 in the city of Husaybah in the Al Anbar province, an insurgent hotbed near the border with Syria, according to the Marines' account online.
Insurgents armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades attacked a Humvee carrying Adams and several other Marines, according to the account written by Cpl. Antonio Rosas of the 7th Regimental Combat Team.
The attack killed one Marine and wounded others, including Adams, who was hit with shrapnel and burned by the disabled Humvee. Adams took position and returned fire.
Adams then returned, under fire, to the Humvee, removed the body of the fallen Marine and carried him back through an open intersection "while broadly exposed to enemy fire," Rosas wrote.
As usual, with true heroes:
"I don't think I did anything any other Marine wouldn't do," Adams was quoted as saying in an online Marine News account posted June 10.
But of course we don't get to read it for ourselves but instead get the summary.
"What has surprised me is the utter lack of any degree of skepticism on the part of the national media with respect to the claims of the defense attorneys, many of which are misleading and some of which are absolutely false," he writes in the e-mail.
He continues to say that some of the defense claims are misleading and that the job of defense attorneys is to create reasonable doubt. He suggests defense attorneys might deliberately leave out facts and hints at how the defense might make some documents public record.
"Is anyone surprised that the defense attorneys are spinning this case in such a way that things do not look good for the prosecution?" he asks.
No. Is there any surprise that the media were spinning the case in your favor when you were leaking details to them?
Looking a couple moves down the road, Nifong sure seems in trouble. But he may be able to ride it out with no trial until after the election.
While Raw Story and Truthout broke news in the Plame investigation, they are not bloggers, but alternative news sites with their own investigative journalists. Most bloggers covering every detail of the Plame investigation, like Just One Minute, TalkLeft, Empty Wheel and Firedoglake, concentrated on reporting and analyzing the legal developments. Were those of us wrong who speculated Rove would be indicted? Yes. But we also were careful to detail and present our reasoning as our interpretation based upon media reports, statements attributed to Luskin and other attorneys involved in the case and pleadings in the Judith Miller/Matthew Cooper subpoena and Scooter Libby cases. How many mainstream journalists bothered to read every pleading, available transcript and court order in both cases? By and large, it was the bloggers, not the mainstream media, who gathered documents from the courts’ Web sites and made them available for all to read and interpret for themselves. Bloggers also educated readers on the legal process, from how grand juries work to the meaning of criminal statutes and the mechanics of cooperation deals.
I think she's right there, and where she points out that Truthout is not a blog, but an alternative media source. Good, thoughtful article. If only the rest of the lefty blogosphere was as reasonable!
CNN claims that 47% of Americans say "No way" when asked if they will vote for Hillary:
Regarding potential Democratic candidates, 47 percent of respondents said they would "definitely not vote for" both Clinton, the junior senator from New York who is running for re-election this year, and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the party's candidate in 2004. (Poll)
Forty-eight percent said the same of former Vice President Al Gore, who has repeatedly denied he intends to run again for president.
It was easier to create heroic stories in 1918 when the press was more pliable and the public more gullible, and the popular media had a fondness for uplifting tales of uncomplicated bravery. Though newspaper articles at the time refer to members of Sergeant York's platoon who challenged the accounts of that day, the doubters were given only enough attention to dismiss them.
I've talked in the past about how leftists hate heroes, because they rise above the common rabble. Leftism is all about how you can't rise above your station, that we are all helpless without the awesome power of collective effort.
You get up a little squirrelly. Discussing the recent 9-11 "Truth" convention in Chicago, the Journal of Higher Education notes a particular wackadoodle named James Fetzer, one of the co-founders of "Scholars" for 9-11 Truth:
On the second afternoon of the conference, Mr. Fetzer gave a speech in one of the hotel salons to a standing-room-only crowd. It began like an introductory lecture in moral philosophy he might have given at the University of Minnesota. He discussed different theories for the origins of right and wrong — moral egoism, utilitarianism, deontological moral rights. Then he came to the emergency.
"The threat we face," he said, is "imminent and ominous." He recommended arming the citizenry.
During the question-and-answer session, an audience member asked whether there might be a way to capture a TV station, to get the word out about September 11. Mr. Fetzer upped the ante on the idea.
"Let me tell you, for years, I've been waiting for there to be a military coup to depose these traitors," he said from the podium.
"Yeah!" shouted some men in the audience.
"There actually was one weekend," Mr. Fetzer went on, "where I said to myself, my God, it's going to happen this weekend, and I'm going to wake up and they will have taken these guys off in chains."
His voice was building. "Listen to me," he said. "The degree of perfidy involved here is so great, that in the time of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, frenzied mobs would have dragged these men out of their beds in the middle of the night and ripped them to shreds!"
The proposal to be offered by Kerry today would require President Bush to remove nearly all US troops from Iraq by July 1, 2007. The Massachusetts Democrat's initial plan -- to remove troops by the end of 2006 -- received just six votes in the Senate last week, and the later date is intended to build support for the proposal, said April Boyd, a Kerry spokeswoman.
``Every vote for a deadline withdrawal is Congress saying to President Bush that we will not accept war without an end policy in Iraq," Boyd said.
I predict that Kerry's bill will come close to passing when it sets a deadline of August 1, 2013.
What appears to have happened is that - and this is where Truthout blundered - in our haste to report the indictment we never considered the possibility that Patrick Fitzgerald would not make an announcement. We simply assumed - and we should not have done so - that he would tell the press. He did not. Fitzgerald appears to have used the indictment, and more importantly, the fear that it would go public, to extract information about the Plame outing case from Rove.
It was the strawberries, that was the clue!
Yes, it does appear that Truthout was used, but not lied to or misled. The facts appear to have been accurate.
Fake, but accurate only counts in National Guard records. Oh, wait a minute, it doesn't count there either!
Our sources provided us with additional detail, saying that Fitzgerald is apparently examining closely Dick Cheney's role in the Valerie Plame matter, and apparently sought information and evidence from Karl Rove that would provide documentation of Cheney's involvement. Rove apparently was reluctant to cooperate and Fitzgerald, it appears, was pressuring him to do so, our sources told us.
Oh, you mean the lefties are going to have to settle for Cheney? Snort, chuckle! That's like telling them, "Yes, it's true there's no pony under the manure--it's a unicorn!"
This is pathetic. It's Mary Mapes muttering about peripheral spacing, it's OJ saying he's going to find the killer.
There's one last point I'd like to make. Slate takes a pose that it isn't liberal. Indeed, Weisberg insists in interviews that the magazine shouldn't be seen as liberal but rather as—you guessed it—"contrarian." He told the Independent that proof of this can be found in the fact that Slate carries Christopher Hitchens. Please. Hitch is great and Slate is better for having him. But come on. Of course, it's liberal. It offers "contrary" arguments for liberal ends but almost never offers anything contrary to liberalism itself. Indeed, judging from my own informal polling, I would wager that the only people who believe that Slate isn't liberal are liberals—and a minority of them at that. Its editors are liberal. Its writers are liberal. Its story ideas are liberal. Weisberg is a quintessentially liberal pundit and often plays one on TV. Slate's critic at large began an article recently, "David Brooks is America's one genuinely likable conservative." Really? The only one? Only at a liberal publication could such smug silliness be written so un-self-consciously. And only a liberal would hold up an iconoclastic Trotskyist like Christopher Hitchens as a Medusa's head to prove to critics that his magazine isn't liberal.
Slate did a post in 2004 on whom all the employees were voting for. Here's the list boiled down to its essence:
That's 43-4, if you're keeping track. As I commented at the time, even Hitchens (although of course he was not voting because he wasn't a US citizen at the time) said:
I can't compete with this sort of thing, but I do think that Bush deserves praise for his implacability, and that Kerry should get his worst private nightmare and have to report for duty.
So yes, the notion that Slate is some middle of the road contrarian publication is ridiculous.
I think we can all agree that much like Cindy Sheehan, Zarqawi's mother has unquestioned authority.
If my son were alive today, he would surely decapitate Star Jones for her treatment of me in the Green Room. All i asked for was Poland Spring water, and the fat negro brought me common tap. She is a despicable fatbag. I would set her on fire but she is not worth the matches. Speaking of matches, i met Mike Farrell at David Geffen's house, and i think I am in love.
Kirsten Powers writes about a dippy feminist who believes that women should never quit their jobs to have children, pointing out that this sort of attitude shows why feminists have such a bad reputation. Fairly non-controversial, but get this priceless comment by SB Jack:
I usually like your writings. But watching you bend over backwards to defend something that can't be defended looks harder than some yoga postures.
Ms. Hirshman is right...quitting "life" to be a "mommy" and "hausfrau" IS a waste of a talented mind. Let me make this real clear:
PEOPLE NEED TO STOP BREEDING
Within the context of that belief, I think you can see why this is such a waste. The world has too many mouths to feed already. The youth of this country get shipped off to die in Corporate Wars fought for the profit of others. Our resources are dwindling, please explain why its a good idea to procreate? Is it your vanity at wanting a "little YOU"? Do you think your "precious" is going to save the world? Is "sweetums" going to change your Depends™ when you get old and gray?
Just why in the hell do you or anyone need to procreate?
To "cement" your loving life commitment with your partner? Someone who, by making this choice, you are going to send off to his own hamster wheel while you grow fat and resentful at home? What a great plan.
THERE IS NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON TO HAVE CHILDREN.
Being a mommy WAS a career choice when bearing offspring was about populating the farm with helping hands. Mommy was the shop boss. Now, she's wasting petroleum and incresing pollution driving all over town to take the little ankle-bitiers off to soccer in SUV.
Get an education and then go do something with it other than wipe the snotty noses of your sniveling over-privileged children. There are plenty of uneducated idiots who believe Jay-Sus will provide who keep their legs apart for the ingress and egress of their dip-witted spawn. Witness Britney "Trailertrash" Spears. Now THAT was some career move.
It has nothing to do with "feminism" and everything to do with making smart choices in a f**ked up world. Motherhood is not a career choice.
A lawyer in the New York state attorney general's office informally warned the American Civil Liberties Union that his office had concerns about proposed standards that would limit the group's board members from speaking publicly about policies and internal operations, according to three board members.
The Iraq war is covered mostly by reporters who hole up in Baghdad hotels and send out Iraqi stringers to collect what the reporters deem news, as an article in the April 6, 2006, New York Review of Books described in great detail. The reporters convert these accounts into prose and put them on the wire. Except for that all-powerful "Baghdad" dateline, they might just as well be writing from Podunk. But you can't just blame reporters for the non-coverage. I asked military public affairs for 15 days in Ramadi, was told the request had been granted, flew to Baghdad, and only then was informed that I would instead be sent to Fallujah, with a few days in Ramadi to come later. Last year I was also told I would be embedded in Ramadi, only to have it denied entirely once I arrived in Iraq.
Part of the public affairs officers' reasoning probably is that it's bad karma to lose a reporter, and Ramadi is a likely place to do so as photographer Toby Morris discovered a few months earlier. While on patrol with the 1st Battalion's D Company, he tried to photograph some soldiers while standing in the middle of the road. Big mistake. A sniper nailed him in the thigh, shattering his femur. Sgt. Patrick Meyer leaped to drag him to safety, only to be shot himself in the leg while the sniper pumped a third round into Morris, snapping his ankle. Morris now has a rod in his femur and a plate in his ankle. Meyer is still recovering. Soldiers repeatedly told me this story, which initially I thought was meant to get a rise out of me. Later I realized it was intended as a warning; even small mistakes in Ramadi can lead to pain and death. I promised myself I wouldn’t unnecessarily expose myself for any photograph; nor would any soldier risk his life for me. I would soon break both promises.
Interviewed on Bloomberg TV, Al Gore refused to endorse his former vice presidential running mate, Sen. Joe Lieberman (C-CT), in his re-election race.
Said Gore: "I am not involved. I typically do not get involved in Democratic primaries. Joe is my close friend, Joe and Hadassah are close to Tipper and me and it would be very difficult for me to ever oppose him. But I don't get involved in primaries typically. He's a great guy and he's right on a lot of other issues."
Translation: "I'm running for president in 2008 and I need to keep the netkooks on my side.
Let's say the obvious here, which is that Lieberman's going to have to run as an independent. He might as well pull out of the Democratic primary right now and avoid giving Lamont a headline in August. At this point, it's worth wondering whether a credible opponent might be capable of knocking out Hillary in the Democratic primary in New York.
The media coverage of the case has been enormous. NEWSWEEK put the mug shots of two of the players—Reade Seligmann, 20, and Collin Finnerty, 19—on its cover the week after they were indicted. Some early accounts raised doubts about the guilt of the players, but the story more typically played as a morality tale of pampered jocks gone wild. Lately, as more evidence from police or medical reports have been filed or cited in court documents by defense lawyers, the national and local media have been raising questions about Nifong's conduct of the case and his motivations.
In fact, most of the bloggers covering the case, with the exception of the hardline feminista blogs, were very suspicious of the case by the time the indictments were handed down. I've more or less stopped covering the case because it seems like such a complete farce (and because the DA has said there would be no trial until 2007).
It appears that Nifong had not actually seen the medical reports when he talked to reporters on March 29 about "my reading of the report of the emergency-room nurse." The medical report was not turned over to the police for another week, on April 5. Rather, Nifong may have relied on what a police investigator had told him. The detective's notes claim that the sexual-assault nurse told him that "there were signs consistent with a sexual assault during her test."
In fact, as noted earlier in the piece the only signs of sexual assault was swelling, which can happenen with ordinary sexual intercourse. Wizbang notes that while the rape case may be collapsing per Newsweek, the case against the District Attorney is just beginning.
Durham Republican County Chairman Steve Monks told ABC News that he will announce his intention to challenge Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong in a press conference at 4 p.m. ET today. Monks and Durham County Republicans acknowledged that the Duke rape investigation weighed heavily in their decision to field a GOP candidate in a traditionally Democratic county.
More excellent coverage of the Duke Lacrosse rape case. Thanks to commenter Betty Friedan for pointing this out.
Interesting post here. Of course, TNR and Kos are deadly enemies, so take it with a grain of salt. There were obvious conflicts with the endorsements/consulting contracts and Kos I am sure takes a scrape from the donations he organizes. But the conflicts of interest have been out in the open; I'm not sure they really matter.
All those late-night study sessions finally paid off. Christina Azimi graduated as valedictorian of Fairfax's Robinson Secondary School.
So did Travis Halbert, Azimi's friend since elementary school. And Jonathan Cross, who was in her English class. In fact, when Robinson Principal Dan Meier praised the school's top academic talent at commencement Thursday afternoon, nearly two full rows of graduates stood to be recognized as valedictorians.
"At this time, I would like to award all 41 students who have achieved that honor," Meier said as the crowd cheered. "I tell these guys," Meier joked, "the only thing I have in common with them is I rarely received a B in high school myself."
As high school graduates across the region accept their diplomas this month, one tradition has changed greatly. The title of valedictorian -- the coveted top slot for the brainiest student -- is no longer necessarily reserved for the single best student.
It's in response to the usual complaints. The students are too competitive; if we weight the grades somebody will take too many tough courses, while if we don't somebody will take too many easy courses. Gee, you mean they'll figure out what's to their advantage and do it? Can't have that, now, can we?
This is the same feel-good nonsense that results in every member of every team getting a trophy. When I was a kid trophies were few and far between; but they meant something. I won three trophies as a boy; one for winning the most events at a summer camp (my favorite trophy), one for coming in second at the football toss on the Fourth of July, and one for my little league team finishing third in our town league. And yes, the second and third-place trophies were significantly smaller than the ones the first-place finishers received.
Will it be the salmon teriyaki with organic greens, or asparagus tempura and tuna sashimi? As the waiter hovers with pencil poised, the Dixie Chicks debate the menu with the practised air of professional restaurant critics. The Chicks have traditionally been branded a country band, but clearly it's some time since their diet consisted of ribs, tacos and pancakes.
:) Because all them country folk, they eat a lot of tacos and pancakes.
But the real meat comes from Fat Nat:
"A lot of pandering started going on, and you'd see soldiers and the American flag in every video. It became a sickening display of ultra-patriotism."
"The entire country may disagree with me, but I don't understand the necessity for patriotism," Maines resumes, through gritted teeth. "Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country… I don't see why people care about patriotism."
And say that the decision not to charge Congresswoman and nutbar Cynthia McKinney is a good one. There are legitimate issues involved, the offense is minimal, and none of us should really care about a very junior (she lost all her seniority) congresswoman from Georgia.
We all agree, for example, that Congress cannot just pass a law changing the powers of the Presidency? Well then, how can we accept that the executive branch then can, without even passing a law, restrict access to Congress from lawfully elected members of that branch?
Yes, what McKinney is accused of doing is reprehensible, and certainly she should be held accountable for it in the court of public opinion. But at the same time it's risky to say that a congresswoman should be prosecuted for trying to enter Congress and not getting recognized. This is one of those rare instances, like with presidential power, that we cannot pretend that everybody is equal.
I recognize the pragmatic needs in a war on terrorism, but place Patrick Kennedy's issue alongside hers:
Underlying Conduct: Kennedy has already pled guilty to DUI. No real underlying conduct with McKinnney.
Circumstances: Kennedy hilariously claimed he was on his way to vote; McKinney was by all accounts on her way to work.
Update: The Leather Penguin disagrees, as do all my commenters. Look, if she was heading anywhere other than to work at Congress I'd agree that she should get prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Yes, she should wear her pin, yes, she's an idiot, yes, she deserves a full measure of scorn.
Gateway Pundit says so. I'd like to believe it, but Murtha didn't even attract a challenger in 2004. The woman who's challenging him, Diana Irey seems like a good, smart (and extraordinarily attractive) candidate, but I want to see some polling numbers before I accept that she's got a chance.
Ryan Lizza gives his thoughts on the event. It's amusing because obviously the bloggers want to be wooed, and yet they're wary of "selling out".
And then the whole effort seems to backfire, exposing exactly the new rifts that are on display all weekend--the establishment versus the rank-and-file bloggers; the partisans versus the ideologues. While meeting with a group of bloggers, Warner is confronted by one Edward Anderson, who forces him to fess up to the $50,000 party tab. "We don't want to join the consultant class," he scolds Warner. On the blogs, the debate over the Stratosphere bash turns into an opportunity to attack Warner for his views on Iraq and Iran and his association with the DLC. "[A]ll I saw at the Stratosphere was an old-fashioned politician spending something like $70,000"--the number somehow keeps rising--"on a garish party to soften up a constituency," Micah Sifry writes on Personal Democracy Forum. "If I'm gonna settle for a DLC, I'm going to settle for Hillary," a Kos commenter spits. (Clinton, who chose not to attend, is no doubt enjoying this effortless measure of success.) Moulitsas tried to suppress the uprising with a front-page defense of Warner that only angered his troops even more.
This gets into a topic that I've been dancing around the edges of. Instapundit noted the other day that Kos seems to be angling to the center. This in itself is not all that surprising. He's obviously aware of the millstone around his neck of 0-20 or so with candidates he's endorsed. Obviously the way to improve that record is to start endorsing some more moderate candidates, like James Webb of Virginia.
But the problem is that the followers may not be willing to follow. You know how it is, it's easy to lead a parade when everybody's going in the same direction, but the minute you try to make a sudden turn there are a lot of people who are going to ignore you and continue marching straight down the road. Lizza notes that Kos' coauthor of Crashing the Gates, Jerome Armstrong, is now working for Mark Warner.
Lizza misses the obvious here though:
There is no single issue that binds them together, and they have no discernable agenda.
Their agenda is fighting the Republicans and being anti-Bush is the single issue that binds them together.
Overall it's an interesting article though, one that splits the difference between the triumphalism of the lefty blogs and the amused cynicism of Byron York or Hot Air's mystery attendee. Lizza of course represents the DLC agenda that the lefty bloggers despise, but he's closer to them than to the Republicans at the same time.
Respected leaders like Senator Edwards and Ambassador Wilson are stepping up so early in the campaign because they know that this race has national implications. They know that a vote for Heather Wilson signifies a vote for the policies of George Bush, Dick Cheney and Tom DeLay.
We've discussed at some length the lies that Joe Wilson told to reporters to get his "let's frog-march Rove from the White House" smear going. The Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him back in 2004. That Patricia Madrid embraces this creepy liar just shows how out of touch she is with the citizens of New Mexico.
First Wittman stands up for Joes Biden and Lieberman and Hillary Clitnon for their steadfast support for the Iraq War. And gets perhaps just a little too close to the fire:
And, of course, Joe Lieberman refuses to waver. While many politicians claim not to be guided by polls, Joe truly puts principle first. He is a profile in courage. The scorn of puerile bloggers and assorted lefties should be worn as a badge of honor.
Well, you can imagine Hamsher going nuclear over that little comment, right? Sure enough, she did not hold back:
You’re absolutely right — nobody should listen to us "puerile bloggers and assorted lefties." It’s time for the adults to take charge of the Democratic Party, and you have always done a superb job of casting yourself as the Uber Grownup.
You assert that John Kerry and John Edwards are nothing but political hacks who oppose the war out of pure opportunism. Well, you’re a wise man who clearly knows more than we do. You’ve counseled us over the years to shut up and suck it up and not offend anyone with our "looney lefty" ideas so that you Democrats can retain power. Because consider how bad the alternative is, right? Party unity, go Democrats, blah blah blah. That’s always been your battle cry. In fact, you’ve defended every position you’ve ever taken based on the fact that it was "good" for the Democratic Party. So I know that you only have the best interests of the party at heart at all times.
Not hard to sense the dripping sarcasm there. Jane does the "But Brutus is an honorable man" bit about as well as anybody in the liberal blogosphere. Sargent instead tries the "we're patriotic too" wheeze:
As Wittman might say, let us please reason together. There are several basic problems here. The first is that Wittman is assuming that virtually anyone who doesn't agree with Biden and Liberman is automatically doing so out of partisanship. Wittman tries to compensate for the obvious ridiculousness of this assumption by allowing that there may be two liberals out there -- Russ Feingold and Ted Kennedy -- who are motivated by principles. But clearly he must think the rest of the world's unnamed liberals are driven by nothing but partisanship, since he accuses them of putting party before country.
Hmmm, Wittman's biggest mistake there is assuming that Feingold and Kennedy are standing up for a principle. If Feingold weren't obviously angling for the Democratic nomination in 2008 I might be willing to grant him that distinction.
But you know what the difference is; I'm not a Democrat. They don't care what I say. I'd much rather disagree with my fellow Republicans. Yes, we get passionate at times, but we seldom get to the point where our bitterest enemies are within our own party. Reading Hamsher and Sargent it's not hard to sense that they feel the biggest obstacle to progress is the DLC, not the Republicans.
It's hard to imagine that this is a good thing, but it's certainly not all that bad. First, it's based on a random sample of MooOn's membership, and the response rate was only 7% (!). So you're getting the committed 7% of MooOn.
Looking at the favorable/unfavorable ratings, you've gotta be impressed with John Edwards's standing, although some of that may be because he's better known than Feingold, who has the highest very favorable rating. I suspect if you asked 100 registered Democrats at random, 95% of them would have never heard of Feingold.
Although Hillary has the highest unfavorables at 33%, her very favorables are good enough for third to Feingold and Edwards. This indicates to me that the opposition to Hillary is like the Rio Grande; a mile wide and an inch deep.
If you look at Very Favorable minus Unfavorable, John Kerry does worst, at -11 percentage points. As we pointed out with some glee in 2004, to know, know, know him, is to hate, hate, hate him.
Oddly, Al Gore is not lumped in with the presidential candidates, but his numbers look off the charts, as do Barack Obama's. Murtha actually outpolls Feingold; perhaps he should consider a run for the Oval Office (yes, I know he's ridiculously old for that).
Bowers does a lot of huffing about how mainstream the netroots are; my response is that they're becoming a bit more pragmatic after getting their butts handed to them the last several elections. But not so pragmatic that they aren't going to try to anoint a Russ Feingold the frontrunner's spot in the 2008. They aren't in this for Hillary, but she's going to get shoved down their throats anyway.
Kerry and other Democrats accused Republicans of political gamesmanship, and promised an authentic debate next week. He and five other Democrats were in the minority on the vote — Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Barbara Boxer of California, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Tom Harkin of Iowa, and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Franklin Foer takes a look at the forms of government most likely to win the World Cup:
In addition to using the hierarchy above to guide your picks--fascism beats communism; military junta beats fascism; social democracy beats military junta--there are several other iron laws to apply:
Of course, the major one is rather predictable:
6. The caveat.
There's one iron law that overrides all the others. The political reality most likely to produce a Jules Rimet trophy at any given moment in history: whatever form of government has taken up residence in Brasilia that week.
With the excitement yesterday I didn't notice that the odometer had rolled over again. It took over 19 months for the first 100,000 (I didn't install the sitemeter until March of 2004), and about 9 months for the second 100,000.
Of course you know what they say, it's not how many are reading your blog, but who's reading it. I am confident I have some of the best readers in the blogosphere.
But then June 12th made me shiver Fate became an "Indian Giver" Bad news on the Internet Precisely what I had fret!
Oh, I remember how I cried When I thought of Wilson's "outed" bride Something deep within me fried The day that Fitzmas died
So don't cry, Ms. American Spy We'll get Libby for his fibby And then Cheney will fry And that smirking chimp will finally wave us goodbye Singin', this'll be the day donkeys fly This'll be the day donkeys fly
This one will have you rolling on the floor. Terrific job by Mr Right!
That's the question facing the senator from Connecticut. Fueling the speculation is the news that while Ned Lamont is gaining on Lieberman in the Democratic primary, Joe would cruise to victory in the general as an independent facing Lamont and a Republican.
According to a recent Quinnipiac University Poll, 57 percent of registered Democrats in Connecticut said they would vote for Lieberman, compared with 32 percent for Lamont. One month ago, Lieberman drew 65 percent to Lamont's 19 percent.
The poll found that if Lieberman runs as an independent, he would win with 56 percent of the vote, compared with 18 percent for Lamont and 8 percent for Republican Alan Schlesinger. Lieberman enjoys higher ratings among Republicans and unaffiliated voters than Democrats, the poll determined. Unaffiliated voters are the state's largest block of voters, followed by Democrats and then Republicans.
And actually that poll of Democrats gets worse for Lieberman; if you limit it to likely voters, he wins by "only" 15 percentage points. Now granted, that's still a win, but the trendline looks pretty dangerous.
The National Journal reports that Chuck Schumer refuses to rule out the possibility of supporting Lieberman even if he runs as an independent. Predictably, the liberal blogs are up in arms over this, apparently believing that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (which Schumer heads) should throw its money behind the guy who's going to get crushed in the general election.
So Chuck Schumer, head of the Democratic Incumbent Senatorial Campaign Committee sees no problem in supporting a Holy Joe "Cut-and-Run 2006" independent candidacy over dedicated Democrat Ned Lamont.
That's funny, I thought the problem with Lieberman from Hamsher's standpoint was his failure to cut and run.
You don't have to look any further than Joe Lieberman to understand why the entire world thinks Democrats are a bunch of chickensh*t losers. We're tired of being associated with someone who can't even stand a fair fight in the Connecticut Democratic party without whining like snivelling schoolkid and threatening to take his ball and go home. Why should anyone trust such a gutless tool with the reins of government? I know I don't. The party is on notice that this just won't be tolerated anymore by leading Blue State Democrats.
The good news for the Republicans is that this probably means that at least until the Lieberman situation resolves itself, liberal bloggers will not be flogging their readers to contribute to Schumer's committee.
I suspect strongly that if Lieberman does run an independent candidacy, Schumer will back down a bit. He probably will not directly give money to Lieberman, but he may steer money to him by suggesting donors give directly to the candidate.
The irony here of course is that the liberal bloggers would normally applaud the Democratic leaders for telling the people, "We know better than you do," if the subject were, say, CAFE standards or global warming or tax cuts.
Thomas Joscelyn points out that it's a lot closer than the media would have you believe.
Consider what a top al Qaeda operative, Abu Zubaydah, told his CIA interrogators after his capture in March 2002. According to the Senate Intelligence Report, Zubaydah said "he was not aware of a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda." But, he added that "any relationship would be highly compartmented and went on to name al Qaeda members who he thought had good contacts with the Iraqis." Zubaydah "indicated that he heard that an important al-Qaida associate, Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, and others had good relationships with Iraqi intelligence."
Zubaydah's testimony has since been further corroborated by a known al Qaeda ideologue, Dr. Muhammad al-Masari. Al-Masari operated the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights, a Saudi oppositionist group and al Qaeda front, out of London for more than decade. He told the editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi that Saddam "established contact with the 'Afghan Arabs' as early as 2001, believing he would be targeted by the US once the Taliban was routed." Furthermore, "Saddam funded Al-Qaeda operatives to move into Iraq with the proviso that they would not undermine his regime."
Of course, all that must be subsumed to the effort to defeat Bush, so the media are not interested in disclosing this information to the American public.
He acknowledges that he lied about his Christmas in Cambodia, that he lobbied for medals that he didn't deserve, and that he falsely slandered all his fellow Vietnam veterans.
Kerry, who led an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2004, said it was necessary to admit mistakes because "you cannot change the future if you''re not honest about the past."
What's that? Kerry isn't admitting he lied all those years ago? He's just claiming that his vote to authorize the Iraq War was wrong, so that he can get the netkooks on his side?
John Hawkins: How about dashing off a quick sentence or even just a word or two about the following individuals...
Cindy Sheehan: The Dennis Rodman of the peace movement. Joe Wilson: World's most intensely private exhibitionist. Michael Moore: Rumors of his depth are greatly exaggerated. John Murtha: The reason soldiers invented "fragging." George Bush: My Commander-In-Chief. John McCain: War hero and let's leave it at that. Alec Baldwin: Our main source of so-called "greenhouse gases".
The Dennis Rodman of the peace movement? I love it!
I recommend this book highly. When high ranking Democrats and their media lap dogs are putting this much effort into stopping people from buying a book, I see it as a huge endorsement.
