Still an Army of One

Boortz: Despite overwhelming evidence that the incriminating National Guard documents are complete forgeries, "CBS continues to drink the Kerry campaign Kool-Aid."  All for the sake of their star Dan Rather, of course. 

 

Mr. Rather continues his tradition of rushing forth where even his fellow liberals are reluctant to tread.

Democrats doing what Democrats do best

Novak reports that lawyers for the Democratic Party are systematically working to push leftist presidential candidate Ralph Nader off the ballot in as many states as possible.  They have already succeeded in a handful of states, but only one of these states (Arizona) is considered to be a tossup.

 

The Dems are showing that their efforts following the 2000 presidential election were not an anomaly.  It seems to now be a standard part of their campaign toolkit to use the courts to achieve political goals that are not otherwise achievable at the ballot box.  I doubt that anybody will be surprised to see them do the same this November.

Zell Miller answers his critics

Miller has written an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal to respond to the left's fury over his speech at the Republican Convention.  Here's a sample:

A lot has been said about my angry demeanor. I've made enough speeches to know that you're supposed to connect with the audience by telling a joke or a humorous anecdote or some amusing tale. It's a tried-and-true formula that I've used for most of my life. But this was not a normal speech in a normal time.

Today, we are at the most serious moment of history that we may ever know, and I wanted to connect with the seriousness of this moment, not the audience.

Although Miller continues to share many of the values of the Democratic Party, he understands the times better than any other prominent Democrat...and he's man enough to say so, regardless of the political consequences.  For that reason, he has my admiration.

From brouhaha to kerfuffle

In response to Jesse Jackson Sr. and Jr.'s demand for the abolition of the Electoral College, Opinion Journal looks into the Pandora's Box that would be opened by such a change:

Direct popular election would also vastly increase the risk of corruption and electoral disputes. With every vote competing directly against every other vote, dishonest politicians everywhere would have an incentive to engage in fraud on behalf of their parties. And a close race would make the 2000 Florida brouhaha look like a kerfuffle. Every one of the nation's 3,066 counties could expect to be overrun by lawyers demanding recounts.

They also note that the required constitutional amendment is unlikely to gain ratification by a two-thirds majority of the states:

The effort to institute direct popular election of the President is also likely to go nowhere. That's because the Electoral College benefits two groups of states--sparsely populated ones, whose representation in the College is disproportionately high relative to their populations, and closely divided "swing" states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, where both parties have a decent shot at winning.

Based on 2000 Census data and election results, only 11 states are both populous and politically monolithic enough that their influence would grow with popular election of the President: California, Texas, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Massachusetts, Indiana and Maryland. Amending the Constitution to abolish the Electoral College would require the assent of 38 state legislatures, so at least 27 of them would have to vote against the interests of their own states.

 

Can we dispense with the euphemisms now, please?

Lileks on the Beslan massacre:

Hundreds of children dead. Hundreds missing. Children bayoneted for requesting a drink. Children shot in the back as they fled. Does the word "evildoers" still seem so laughably simplistic?

Do the terms guerrilla and "militant" and "gunmen" and every other wire-service euphemisms for Islamist terrorists rise to the challenge of describing the depravities of Beslan?

Even the word "terrorist" seems inadequate nowadays, drained of its dread through overuse. "Monsters" or "devils" would be more apt, but it's wrong to dehumanize the men and women who committed this barbarity. Even dogs know other dogs are dogs. These people don't see others as people at all, but animate meat in thrall to the wrong god. Better off dead, really. And you get gold stars in Paradise for pulling the trigger. How do you vanquish such people?

Read the whole article, then check here to see speculation on how such an atrocity might happen in our country.

The sum of good government

[A] wise and frugal government...shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum ofgood government.

--Thomas Jefferson

(Courtesy of The Federalist's "Founders Quote Daily")

9/11/2001 online

As the events of September 11, 2001 unfolded I remember trying without success to gather information on the Internet.  All news sites were overwhelmed to the point where I just stopped trying.  Secondary news sources like the conservative Free Republic website were similarly overwhelmed -- I don't think I ever got a page load from that site on that day.  On that one day, the broadcast and cable media were a more available source of news than was the Internet.

 

Those who were able to access Free Republic were going nuts as they related what they were hearing on a moment by moment basis.  The Patriot Edition has done the service of compiling links to FR's "live threads" from that morning.  Whatever one's political persuasion, it's hard to read these without feeling a chill while reading as the thread participants come to the realization that the crash of the first plane at the WTC was not just a horrible tragedy...

An excellent question for Bill Frist

Robert Novak relates an interesting exchange between Phyllis Schlafly and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist at the GOP convention:

Conservative leader Phyllis Schlafly responded to a conciliatory gesture by Sen. Bill Frist by gently suggesting that he should be as tough in his day job as Senate majority leader as he was in chairing the platform committee at the Republican National Convention.

 

Schlafly had grumbled that Frist acted like an old-fashioned Soviet Communist in blocking her efforts to modify the immigration and stem-cell research planks. After the platform was wrapped up, Frist approached her to make some friendly remarks. Schlafly responded, with a smile: "I have only one question. Why can't you run the Senate this way?" Frist has been criticized for not being more effective as majority leader.

Given that the minority party has been walking all over the majority party in the current Senate, I would say that Schlafly's question is right on the money.

 

 

The horses are already lining up for 2008

Human Events reports that the names of as many as eleven Republicans are already being circulated as possible successors to President Bush, should he win a second term.  Since VP Cheney's questionable health makes it possible that he won't seek the nomination, the field is considered to be wide open.  Some of these men were gladhanding delegates at this week's convention.  Apart from Cheney, here are the ten that Human Events sees as potential candidates:

• New York governor George Pataki
• Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani
• Virginia Senator George Allen
• Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel
• Tennessee Senator and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
• Massachussetts Governor Mitt Romney
• Colorado Governor Bill Owens
• Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum
• Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge
• NATO Supreme Commander Gen. James Jones (who??).

Conspicuous by their absence are Arizona Senator John McCain (little loved by conservatives) and National Security Advisor Condi Rice (much admired by conservatives).

 

The point was made over at Free Republic that in presidential races, history has favored governors rather than senators and representatives (unless they first served as VP).  Statistically speaking, that knocks out almost half of the above list.  Some of the others have their own albatrosses, for example: Jones (obscurity), Pataki, Giuliani and Romney (socially liberal). 

 

Current events, however, point to the likelihood that the war on terror will still be trumping most other issues in the minds of the voters.  It remains to be seen who will be ready and able to rise to this challenge.

The offense of moral clarity

The Democrats and their media allies have never bothered to hide their distaste for the moral clarity of President Bush's worldview.  Zell Miller displayed a similar clarity Wednesday night, and the media wasted no time loosing their artillery on him (and on Dick Cheney, who was less forceful, but who also said things that apparently hurt the Massachusetts senator's feelings).

 

Tech tangent: 'Disposable' digital cameras?

Reuters reports that CVS Pharmacies are now selling a one-time-use digital camera, similar in concept to a one-time-use film camera.  Pay $20, and you get a camera with many of the features of a normal digital camera: color LCD viewfinder/preview, flash, exposure control, timer, delete.  Pay $10, and you get the above without the LCD. 

 

The camera stores up to 25 pictures (the deleted pictures don't count against this total).  When you're done taking the pictures, you return the camera to CVS and (for an additional fee, presumably) they give you prints and a photo CD.  CVS then "recycles" the camera for use by the next customer.

 

I suppose that those who like 'disposable' film cameras will embrace the new technology as well, but it seems like the early adopters are going to get soaked.  $20 (plus processing) is IMO far too steep. 

 

In my own experience, people with digital cameras take far more pictures than those with film cameras, mainly because there is no additional cost associated with additional photos.  With my digital camera, I am likely to take far more than 25 pictures at a given event.  The CVS camera seems to be designed on the assumption that the customer will take pictures sparingly, as if it were a film camera.

 

A customer who uses such a camera for just a few events has already paid for a regular camera of similar quality.  Oh, well... as the saying goes: it's their money.

 

Another significant cultural divide

The Washington Post reports (in an article cleverly titled "From Here to Maternity") that people in the "red" (GOP-dominant/leaning) states are reproducing more rapidly than people in the "blue" (Democrat-dominant/leaning) states. In fact, the fertility rate in red states is above population replacement levels, while the rate in the blue states is below replacement levels. Maybe we should just wait this out*.

Best of the Web sees this as a different way of describing what it calls the "Roe Effect":

If a pregnant woman chooses tomorrow to have an abortion, the result in 2021 [18 years after the article was written] will be one fewer eligible voter--and that's a statement of fact, not a moral judgment. If tens of millions of women have abortions over decades, as they have, it will eventually have a significant effect on the voting-age population.

Not all women, after all, are equally likely to have abortions. It's almost a truism that women who have abortions are more pro-choice than those who carry their pregnancies to term, and it stands to reason that they generally have more-liberal attitudes about sex and religion. It also seems reasonable to assume that parents have some influence on their children, so that if liberal women are having abortions, the next generation will be more conservative than it otherwise would be.

^*Note for the humor-impaired: Just kidding.

Zell Miller, class act

Georgia Democratic Senator Zell Miller gave one of the best speeches heard thus far at the convention.  One reason his speech resonates so well with me is that he is so obviously driven by principles rather than politics, and is willing to go wherever those principles lead him.  You can read the entire speech here.

 

Kerry spokeswoman Debra Deshong said that Miller's speech was "full of lies and distortions".  Does she mean, for example, that Sen. Kerry in fact voted for funding of the B1 and B2 bombers, F14-As, F-14Ds, F15s, Apache helicopters, Patriot Missiles, Aegis destroyers, etc., etc.?  I anxiously await the Kerry campaign's documentation of these and other "lies and distortions".  Of course, Kerry has been running as if he never served in the Senate, so it wouldn't do to keep his voting record in the limelight.

 

Rather than deal with the substance of Miller's charges, Deshong simply dismisses him by saying he is "not a Democrat".  She's quite right in that Miller has no place in the modern Democratic party, which bears no resemblance to the party of Miller's youth.

Bias most egregious

The Reuters news service has long had a reputation among conservatives of having a leftward bias that stands out even among its brethren in the mainstream media.  It came as no surprise, then, to hear that the National Right to Life Committee was blasted in a private e-mail from a Reuters editor writing in response to an NRLC press release on partial-birth abortion:

What's your plan for parenting & educating all the unwanted children you people want to bring into the world? Who will pay for policing our streets & maintaining the prisons needed to contain them when you, their parents & the system fail them?  Oh, sorry.  All that money has been earmarked to pay off the Bush deficit.  Give me a frigging break, will you?

What is surprising, though, is that the editor may in fact face discipline for his indiscretion.

Studiously avoiding commentary on the convention

Let's see, now.  Four days since my last post.  Nothing about the Republican convention.

 

My goal on this blog is to focus not on the rough and tumble of day-to-day politics, but rather on the big ideas and philosophies (often unacknowledged) that drive the debates on the political, cultural and religious issues of the day.  I stray from that goal from time to time, but I feel really bad about it afterwards.

 

Although my schedule has been tight, I have been following the convention second-hand, reading opinion pieces and speech transcripts.  If I see something that pushes my buttons, I'll be all over it.  If you see something that you think I ought to get exercised over, feel free to leave a comment (or contact me privately).

 

Besides, I don't have anything approaching the raw energy and enthusiasm of the various tier-one bloggers, including Neal Boortz, Charles Johnson and uber-linker Glenn Reynolds.  Check them out for some good fine-grain analysis of the convention.