I DON’T LIKE TO SEE DEMOCRATS HOPING FOR DEFEAT IN IRAQ, or, in the case of Richard Cohen, observing that “From a Democratic perspective, what this country needs is a good recession.”

Call me crazy, but this isn’t the way to win elections. It’s the way to look like angry, bitter losers.

UPDATE: On rereading Cohen’s column, I think that my quote isn’t quite fair — though he means it, there’s a lot more there than bitter wishes for doom, including some good advice for Democrats.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Not so with Seymour Hersh, though. Check out his comments in this WP live chat: “the reality is that far too many americans are not interested in the facts, or in reality. not a new concept, tho.”

No bitterness here.

READER CHRIS WREN EMAILS:

There were a few things that convinced me that yes, there really is such a thing as the monolithic Main Stream Media, and that they really are biased to the point of unprofessionalism: Dan Rather’s petulant rant blaming bloggers for exit poll confusion, the haste which the networks and major media outlets leapt at calling the election for Kerry, and finally that whole thing Drudge is posting right now with the CNN Bush images labelled a**hole.jpeg and moron.jpg.

On the whole, I have to concede that the blogosphere conducted itself with far greater professionalism and integrity than the media giants.

Yes, I had seen the photo story earlier on Wizbang. And, yes, it does raise the question: If they’re willing to do something this petty and spiteful where they think no one will notice, what other things are they doing where they think no one will notice?

UPDATE: I received this statement in the mail from Turner:

“A web image and text disparaging President and Mrs. Bush currently circulating on the internet was not created, disseminated or posted by CNN at any time, as is alleged. It was done by an employee of Netscape and posted on Netscape.com. CNN had no knowledge of it until it surfaced on other websites.”

The dangers of co-branding, I guess.

ANOTHER UPDATE: You can see a more complete statement on CNN’s homepage — click the “Netscape responsible for Bush photo insult” link at the top right. But since that’s a java box and can’t be directly linked, and probably won’t be archived anywhere, I’m going to reproduce the full thing in the “extended entry” area below. Hit “read more” to read it.

(more…)

OVER AT GLENNREYNOLDS.COM, I’ve been posting advice for the Democrats. Here’s yesterday’s post, and here’s today’s post, which comments on the angry “Americans are dumb” remarks by some disappointed Kerry supporters.

THE BIG-MEDIA SPIN is that “Bloggers are to blame” for the leak of early exit-poll info. Hmm. Conspiracy theories aside, why blame the bloggers instead of the network folks who did the actual, you know, leaking?

If bloggers (is Drudge a blogger?) are to blame for publishing leaked information from news organizations, then why aren’t news organizations equally to blame when they publish leaked information from government officials? Do they really want to go down that path?

RADLEY BALKO is Fisking David Frum over a nannyish plan to tax fattening food. I’m with Balko, here: “What’s most troubling about Frum’s position is not only that he assumes a top-down government tax remedy to a perceived social problem will work, but that it’s okay in principle. Desirable even.”

UPDATE: Dollars to, er, donuts that if a plan like Frum’s went through it would tax HoHos and Big Macs but not stuff like this.

BUSH’S PRESS CONFERENCE is already producing sniping from the right: “And he calls himself a conservative.” I must say, I’m troubled by the omission, too. Look for a New York Times story by Adam Nagourney on how Bush’s coalition is already fracturing. . . .

BILL STUNTZ LOOKS AT THE ELECTORAL MAPS and observes:

Democrats aren’t likely to win when they can’t top Dukakis in the Midwest. And this is a moving target. Bush won Missouri in 2000; this time, he won Missouri and Iowa. With similar candidates in 2008, the Republicans might win all four. Ohio could be the least of the Democrats’ problems.

Still, the news is not all bad for Democrats, and not all good for Republicans. By historical standards John Kerry ran a very strong race, and George W. Bush was a shaky incumbent. Bill Clinton would probably have won this election by five or six points. Just as John McCain would have beaten Kerry in a landslide.

Which leads to a piece of conventional wisdom that’s actually pretty wise: America divides into red and blue because those are the colors the parties give us. Perhaps both sides need to see that the smart move is to paint with a different color. Purple beats red or blue, every time. In 2008, when Rudy Giuliani faces off against Barack Obama, those maps will look very different.

Now that would be an election!

THE “HOWARD STERN EFFECT” — I’m not vouching for his math, but Frank says that there was one!

ARAFAT IS REPORTEDLY DEAD, though a Palestinian official denies it.

PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW WHAT I THINK ABOUT 2008 ALREADY: Give me a break. But here goes, just to stop the emails:

Dems: Everybody expects Hillary to run. I think the nomination is probably hers if she wants it — if Edwards can beat her in the primaries I’d be surprised. But he’ll try. Will Kerry run again? I think the close election and his nicely done concession speech keep that option open. What he’ll have to do, if he wants to, is to take on some serious high-profile national security stuff and look strong doing it. I’m guessing he’ll choose windsurfing instead, but I could be wrong.

Repubs: McCain is obvious, but his biggest base of support is in the press. I don’t think he’ll run. Cheney won’t run, in fact I doubt he’ll finish the term. My favorite scenario: Cheney steps down, Condi Rice becomes VP, and runs in 2008. Long-shot, but I’ll keep pumping it. Beyond that, well, I’m not sure. Arnold would win in 2008, I think, but he can’t run and I don’t think that they’ll amend the constitution for him.

By the way, if we’re amending things we should make Senators ineligible for the Presidency. They seldom win anyway, so it’s no loss — and keeping Senators from thinking about running for President would probably improve the Senate immeasurably . . . .

ASHCROFT TO RESIGN? Hope it’s not because I keep blaming him for stuff.

BILL BENNETT thinks that Bush’s victory was all about traditional values, which to him apparently means opposition to gay marriage. Well, to me, the election was about the war. But if victory has a thousand fathers, it also produces a thousand people with their hands out, wanting to share in the spoils.

What’s funny is that there’s a weird alliance, here, with many others — including Andrew Sullivan — quoting the exit polls to suggest that opposition to gay marriage was the big motivator for Bush voters. And hey, maybe they’re right: when Andrew Sullivan and Bill Bennett agree on something gay-related, it’s certainly reason to sit up and take notice.

But given that the exit polls weren’t especially reliable — Jeff Jarvis calls them “laughably discredited” — I’m not sure why we should be accepting this point so uncritically. Nor am I sure that Andrew’s invocation of Jim Baker makes quite the point he intends. . . . Meanwhile, Virginia Postrel writes:

Nationally, gay marriage is a loser, but civil unions are a big winner, with 35 percent support (and 32 percent in the South). Assume that the 25 percent who back marriage rights (17 percent in the South), and you’ve got a clear majority (and a slim lead even in the South, where Bush won 32 percent of gay voters). The public is squeamish about “gay marriage,” but not about giving gay couples public recognition and legal rights.

So even if you believe the polls, they don’t make quite the case for anti-gay sentiment that Bill Bennett hopes for, or Andrew Sullivan fears. And if Bush is getting 32 percent of gay voters in the South, well, it’s hard for me to believe that the election was about gay-bashing — and I doubt that those, on the left or the right, who stake their political plans on that characterization will flourish.

UPDATE: Zach Barbera emails: “Bush took a majority of the people who support civil unions. Not exactly a group hat would be a part of the toss-the-gays-in-concentration-camps right-wingers, I imagine. And note that a 1/3 of the folks supporting a no legal recognition did vote Kerry.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Stephen Bainbridge has a different take — I guess I count as one of his “annoying libertarians” who don’t get the moral-values argument. I’m afraid he’ll continue to find me annoying on this front.

MORE: Andrew Coyne isn’t buying the “invasion of the theo-cons” argument, and also notes: “This, after Kerry campaigned from the pulpit in black churches on five straight Sundays.”

Everybody knows that’s different. Those are black churches.

STILL MORE: Fellow annoying libertarian Eugene Volokh has related thoughts.

THE EUGENE VOLOKH SUPREME COURT JUGGERNAUT has started to roll!

ADAM NAGOURNEY IS BUSTED for Kerry-speech revisionism, by Greg Djerejian.

JAMES LILEKS HAS A NEW BOOK OUT: Do you need to know any more?

JONAH GOLDBERG: “I’ve got to say that when people try to convert lions to Christianity (or Buddhism, Taoism, whatever) and then they get bit, it’s a sign to me that the universe is humming along properly.” Bill Bennett, take note. . . .

HITTING THE NAIL ON THE HEAD:

Who was the biggest loser of the 2004 election? It is easy to say Mr. Kerry: he was a poor candidate with a poor campaign. But I do think the biggest loser was the mainstream media, the famous MSM, the initials that became popular in this election cycle. Every time the big networks and big broadsheet national newspapers tried to pull off a bit of pro-liberal mischief–CBS and the fabricated Bush National Guard documents, the New York Times and bombgate, CBS’s “60 Minutes” attempting to coordinate the breaking of bombgate on the Sunday before the election–the yeomen of the blogosphere and AM radio and the Internet took them down. It was to me a great historical development in the history of politics in America. It was Agincourt. It was the yeomen of King Harry taking down the French aristocracy with new technology and rough guts. God bless the pajama-clad yeomen of America. Some day, when America is hit again, and lines go down, and media are hard to get, these bloggers and site runners and independent Internetters of all sorts will find a way to file, and get their word out, and it will be part of the saving of our country.

I think that the Big Media folks know it, too.

And I wonder how Jonathan Klein feels about his infamous “pajamas” remark now?

BUSH’S VICTORY is not playing well some places:

When it became clear that the American voters wanted none of that, the chattering classes in Europe were left speechless. One Paris TV anchor was literally struck dumb mometarily when, after hours of crowing over Kerry’s victory and the American people’s supposed liberation from Bushist tyranny, he had to admit that things had gone differently.

The shock felt in Europe was even greater because of the size of Bush’s victory. The president won more votes than any candidate in the entire history of America. Dubya also became the first to win the presidency with a majority of the popular vote, since his father in 1988.

People like French President Jacques Chirac, whose party has won just 16 per cent of the votes in a series of recent elections, or German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose party has lost every election in the past two years, would look with envy at the clean sweep made by Bush and his Republican Party on Tuesday.

I guess they’re starting to figure out the truth, now. . . .

Meanwhile, Arthur Chrenkoff has more on the diplomatic consequences of the Bush reelection.

FOLLOWING UP MY POST BELOW on media reactions, here’s a link to the NPR All Things Considered segment featuring E.J. Dionne’s astonishing anti-Bush tirade. And here’s video of Dan Rather’s attack on bloggers.

IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT THE ELECTIONS! Check out this week’s Blog Mela for a roundup of posts from the Indian blogosphere.

WELL, A LOT OF CONVENTIONAL WISDOM has tumbled: the incumbent rule, the “taller person wins” rule (to my great personal sadness), the predictive validity of the final Redskins game before the election, the exit polls, and all the other “infallible” indicators which showed Kerry going by a landslide.

What can we take out of this? Well, some of the conventional wisdom — like how the incumbent always wins if the economy is doing okay — has held up. Until next time, anyway.

I think the big story of this election was distributed information. That starts with blogs, of course. Bloggers were able to skewer some of the SwiftVet stories, blow up Dan Rather’s big “scoop”, and in other ways bring thousands of fresh eyes and fresh analysis to important issues that might otherwise have lain fallow. The media is a bubble world; we all mostly live in the same places and talk to the same people. The mainstream media has many advantages over blogs: resources, experience, editing, time to pursue a story, rigorous fact checking (no, really, I mean it), accountability. But it’s invaluable to have bloggers around to burst that bubble when needed.

But it sure doesn’t end with bloggers. I’m probably happier about the performance of the election betting markets than I am about the performance of George Bush in this election, because they vindicated a long held belief of mine: that if you take a bunch of people, and make them put their money where their mouth is, they generally get the right answer. Oh, there was a wild ride when the exit polls started showing up, but if you look at the electronic markets the day before the election, they called it better than the pundits — certainly better than yours truly, who had been expecting a Kerry win for months. (This is the first time I’ve voted for a presidential candiate who actually, y’know, became president. It’s a rather heady feeling.)

Finally it was a victory for public opinion, and not because the public voted the way I did. America’s a pretty neat place, and it’s been taking care of itself since long before I was alive.

I’m talking about Americans’ assessment of who would win. The polls had a hard time pinning down their eventual votes, but when the pollsters asked people who they thought would win the election, they called it correctly by an overwhelming majority. Each of the people asked was their own little pollster of family and friends; collectively, they were an information processing powerhouse. So really, what we should take away from this is that we shouldn’t trust the pollsters or the commentariat; we should trust ourselves. While those of us in the pundit biz were see-sawing with every poll, your friends and neighbours knew the answer all along.

It’s been an amazing experience blogging here for all of you, especially with three such outstanding co-bloggers. I hope a few of you will drop in at my blog, Asymmetrical Information, and keep sending me emails and leaving me comments, because I’ve enjoyed your attention immensely. Thanks to all the Instapundit readers, to Michael and Ann, and most of all, to Glenn, for inviting me to spend a week here. I’ll miss you all.

WHY KERRY LOST: It may be presumptuous to say John Kerry lost the election for the reasons I personally voted against him. But I’ve decided to say it anyway.

I didn’t vote for George W. Bush in 2000. I’ve never voted for any Republican president. This time was my first. And I did so because of the Terror War.

I know quite a few people who didn’t support Bush last time but did support him this time. And every single one of them did so for the same reasons I did. Because of the Terror War. Because Kerry could not be trusted.

I don’t know of anyone, anywhere, who swung from Al Gore to George W. Bush because of gay marriage, tax cuts, or for any other reason. I’m not saying they don’t exist. But if they do exist, I haven’t heard of ’em. They’re an invisible, miniscule minority.

There aren’t enough of us liberal hawks, disgruntled Democrats, neo-neoconservatives – or whatever else you might want to call us – to trigger a political realignment. But it does appear we can swing an election. At least we can help. And though I don’t think of myself as conservative (I did just vote for a Democratic Congress), my alienation from the liberal party is total. A political party that thinks crying Halliburton! is a grown-up response to anti-totalitarian war just isn’t serious.

I may vote for the Democratic candidate next time around. Then again, I might not. I’ll be watching what happens over the next four years, trying to decide if I’m part of the new wave of neoconservatives or if I’m just Independent.

This is my last post on Instapundit – for now anyway. You are all invited to join me on my own blog, Michaeltotten.com, where I’ll keep an eye on the next four years of history.

Thanks, Glenn – thanks so much – for letting me, Megan, and Ann play on your lawn.

HOW CAN BUSH DEMONSTRATE MODERATION? What better way than to nominate Eugene Volokh for the next Supreme Court vacancy? (Thanks to reader Mike McConnell for the suggestion).

BILL OF RIGHTS UPDATE: Dave Kopel says it was a good election for the Second Amendment.

TIME TO GO BACK HOME, to my home blog, Althouse. It’s been fun coming over here and cavorting on the big stage that Glenn Reynolds built out of sheer good sense and great writing. It’s been great blogging alongside Michael Totten and Megan McCardle. And it’s been a real pleasure to reach so many new readers here. I hope some of you will follow me over to my usual place. I started my blog back in January of this year, when this campaign season was already well under way. My departure from Instapundit and return back home begins a new phase of blogging without the election to kick around anymore, and I’m interested to see what new subjects I’ll discover with this old topic gone.

When I started my blog I didn’t have a particular topic in mind. I just wanted to express myself. I wanted to live freely in writing. My earliest posts are about high and low culture and life in Madison, Wisconsin. My first post about the presidential campaign was a very silly little thing about Wesley Clark’s body fat, not really even political at all. But as the weeks wore on, I got drawn into the fray, and I found my ways to talk about politics, a subject I’ve normally been content to leave to others. Using my blog to talk about politics, I was able also to see how not talking about politics had been, for me, a way to get along in the hothouse environment that is Madison, Wisconsin. Even though I didn’t mean to use my blog to talk about politics, I end this political season exposed on line as a person with political positions that do not fit in my real world environment. I was happy with the way the election turned out, but I was also confronted by people all around me who were very sad and really angry about the outcome. These people had endured the first term of George Bush’s presidency, beginning with outrage at the way he came into office and suffering a growing, festering anger as new events unfolded. That horrible – illegal! – war in Iraq! Yet there was always Election Day — an end in sight for all of that pain. And now, upon reaching that longed-for end they find it was a mirage. There will be four more years! How unendurable!

I’ve tried to use my last day on Instapundit to reach out to those people, those people who, after all, make up my real world environment. Can’t we put aside the anger and see what we share? An elevator conversation:

Did you hear Kerry’s concession speech?

I’m so glad he conceded today and did not drag it out. It was good of him.

You think so?

I think it will help people deal with things in a constructive, positive way. People have been so angry, and I think it will help heal the wounds …

Except that it won’t heal the wounds! George Bush got reelected by a bunch of gay-hating bigots, religious fanatics … a bunch of gun owners…

My interlocutor got out of the elevator and the doors slid closed in the middle of the list of lowdown, worthless folk from the hinterlands who have unleashed this new atrocity, this second term.

So life goes on in Madison. And I’ll go on blogging from Madison, my special, passionate little town, on my little blog, Althouse. Please come over and keep me company.