DO YOU WANT AMERICA TO WIN?
Archive for October, 2006
October 28, 2006
October 27, 2006
PHOTOBLOGGING FROM THE STANDS at the World Series.
IT’S AN HONOR JUST TO BE NOMINATED: Though I think Andie MacDowell would fit the part better than Angelina Jolie.
Watching and reading the recent Washington punditry, whether in print or on television, is a depressing spectacle. Almost all—Charles Krauthammer is the most notable exception—have somehow triangulated on the war, not mentioning why and how in the B.C. days they sort of, kinda, not really called for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. For some the Road to Damascus was the looting or Abu Ghraib, for others the increasing violence. Still more now say the absence of WMD did the trick.
But almost none of the firebrands of 2003 speaks the truth behind the facade: They supported the war when it looked like few casualties and a quick reconstruction and thus confirmation of their own muscular humanitarianism—and then bailed along the way when they realized that wasn’t going to happen and the unpopular war might instead brand them as “war mongers”, “chicken-hawks” or just fools.
Instead of that honest admission, we get instead either cardboard cut-out villains of the “my perfect three-week war, your screwed-up three-year occupation” type—a Douglas Feith, Gen. Sanchez, or Paul Bremmer—or all sorts of unappreciated and untapped brilliance: from trisecting the country to “redeploying” to Kurdistan, or Kuwait, or Okinawa?
Read the whole thing.
ROGER SIMON interviews Tony Blankley.
MARY KATHARINE HAM posts another must-see episode of Ham Nation.
UPDATE: I wonder if Mary Katharine could find the “coded racist messages” in this ad?
Probably — she’s that good!
AN INTERVIEW WITH MARK STEYN: Over at Hot Air.
AUSTIN BAY has thoughts on Al Qaeda’s media war.
DANIEL GROSS: “So the Dow hit 12,000. Big whoop.”
Well, it would be a big deal if a Democrat were in the White House. . . .
I do like this line, though: “Only 24,000 points more to Dow 36,000! ”
The Amazon reviews for Dow 36,000 are kind of funny, too. Hey, they didn’t say when . . . .
UPDATE: More thoughts from Daniel Harrison. He also notes that the NASDAQ is way up.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Rob DeJournett notes that although the NASDAQ is way up over recent years, it’s nowhere near its peak. True enough, but as the chart demonstrates, “peak” is really the right word.
ROB HUDDLESTON says that the GOP is “surging,” but that seems a bit optimistic to me.
REMEMBERING THE HUNGARIAN REVOLUTION: John Fund reports on an event now 50 years in the past.
JON HENKE, George Allen’s campaign blogger, responds to criticism of the Jim Webb novel story in my post this morning by emailing:
Mr. Reynolds,
Something to remember about the Webb/book story — here’s Keith Olbermann talking about the sex scenes in Scooter Libby’s book:
“we have beaten the hell out of Libby for this, and deservedly so. If a Democratic White House official had written this book, his head would be on a pike somewhere.”
Well, now a Democrat HAS written that kind of book. So it’s funny to see how quickly the Democrats have rediscovered the irrelevance of fiction writing. If voters are not bothered by Webb’s work, fine….but it’s not a ‘smear’ to cite the public record that Webb himself talks about in commercials, interviews and on his campaign website.
It’s true that the Dems have gotten mileage out of steamy Republican novels in the past. Though “steamy” isn’t quite the term I’d use here.
UPDATE: Ann Althouse thinks it’s stupid to judge a candidate by his fiction writing. Well, if Olbermann does it, that’s a strong argument . . . .
Amusing line from Althouse’s comments, where there is much interesting discussion:
Republicans who write about sex and murder are depraved, fucked-up sickos who write about grisly repressed fantasies. Democrats who write about sex and murder are artists, flowering the world with beauty and challenging our perceptions.
Christ, don’t you people understand how it works?
Yes. Kind of like this: “When Republicans appeal to rural, white, socially conservative voters, they are Neanderthals. When Democrats do it, they are shrewd tacticians.” I’m beginning to sense a pattern here!
MORE: Matt Rustler writes:
I hate to break it to you, folks, but the military — especially the Marine Corps, the service that Webb knows best — is largely composed of macho young men with foul mouths and an unhealthy obsession with all things sexual. It’s a giant locker room. No one who’s been in the naval service beyond boot camp — especially back when Subic Bay was still open — hasn’t heard a story or two about a Filipino stripper dicing a banana with her vagina. . . . I admit that I don’t see the point of some of the rather bizarre, homoerotic scenes mentioned in Allen’s press release. But they’re presented entirely out of context. And I’ll bet that if I read those books, I would see the point.
He’s voting for Webb, though he was before. I think that Allah captures both sides of this story best, with two passages. First: “Have we actually reached the point where Senate seats now turn on the sex scandals of fictional characters?”
But also: “If George Allen had written this book, not only would the left be going berserk, they’d be circulating lists of characters in his other books whom they suspect of being gay.”
Yes, it’s that bad.
MORE STILL: Novelist Bill Quick weighs in.
Meanwhile, the DSCC isn’t elevating the tone: “GOP Conservatives’ Library Features Bestiality & Pedophilia.”
JIM CHEN writes that the New Jersey gay marriage case is just like Loving v. Virginia. I think he’s right, which is why I think that it’s wrong to call the New Jersey decision a compromise. It’s a flat-out win for gay marriage advocates.
AT BLOG WEEK IN REVIEW, Austin Bay and his guests get Kinky — Friedman, that is.
THE CARNIVAL OF CARS is up!
LASHAWN BARBER is liveblogging from GodBlogCon.
POPULAR MECHANICS lab-tests digital camcorders.
They really liked this Panasonic, which looks like it would be a cool videoblogging tool, too. I have to say, though, that for videoblogging the video capabilities of digital still cameras are looking pretty good. My little Sony pocket camera shoots 640 x 480 30fps video, with shockingly good sound. And I shot all the video for this piece using still pocket cameras — a Sony and (for the underwater parts) an Olympus.
There’s even one that shoots in HD (1280 x 720 pixels). That’s overkill for videoblogging, of course, but it’s sort of cool.
Maybe I’m racially insensitive, but I don’t get the uproar over the ad in which a hot chick says she met Harold E. Ford, the Tennessee Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, at a Playboy party and asks him to call her. A Vanderbilt expert on political advertising says it “makes the Willie Horton ad look like child’s play.” Really? It’s worse for voters to think that beautiful women want to have sex with you that it is for them to believe that you let a dangerous criminal out of prison to commit rape and murder? I think Michael Dukakis would disagree. He could have benefited from this sort of slander, if anyone would have believed it.
I agree. As I’ve said before, I think the Playboy thing helps Ford more than it hurts him.
UPDATE: Reader Janice Lyons says it’s not about the bimbo:
By focusing on the blonde the Dems are either being really really clever, or are really really dumb.
It’s the WHOLE AD that has the bang. It is not only hilarious, it’s points to Ford’s positions (I assume, since I’m not a Volunteer), which when voiced in their implications, are pretty damning.
Perhaps by calling race! sex! – and – gasp! bimbo! they are trying to divert attention from the problem of Ford’s positions (the actual content of the ad, not his sex life) with [self righteous] indignation.
Surely more than a few people see the ad, snicker at the blonde, and wonder if Ford really does think they own too many guns, it’s no big whoop that the family farm which has now become a developer’s (and the tax office’s) dream can will be lost to the family because of property and death taxes, that people who produce stability in the society pay higher taxes, that the US should stop trying to slow down the nuclear train to hell, and that people committed to blowing up as many Americans and as many America ideas and things as they can should have the right to be treated as citizens, and better.
That’s what the Dems are really worried about. Or should be anyway. That’s the message of the ad the Dems are trying to distract from while “whining” about the bare shouldered blonde.
Well, of course, the complaints just caused many, many more people to see the ad. Smart? We’ll see.
And I think Dukakis would have picked up at least 3 states if it had come out that he’d partied with Playboy bunnies . . . .
The U.S. Department of Defense is now taking its requests for corrections public through a website known as For the Record (located at http://www.defenselink.mil/home/dodupdate/index-b.html). Here, the Department of Defense is openly calling for corrections from major media outlets, and even noting when they refuse to publish letters to the editor.
The most recent was this past Tuesday, when the DOD published a letter, that the New York Times refused to run, which contained quotes from five generals (former CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks, current CENTCOM commander John Abizaid, MNF Commander George Casey, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers, as well as his successor, Peter Pace) that rebutted a New York Times editorial. This has been picked up by a number of bloggers who have been able to spread the Pentagon’s rebuttal – and the efforts of the New York Times to sweep it under the rug – across the country.
They’ve got a long way to go on the information-war front, but at least they’re getting into the game.
CNN: “Most Americans do not believe the Bush administration has gone too far in restricting civil liberties as part of the war on terror, a new CNN poll released Thursday suggests.”
I like Bob Owens’ spin: “CNN says Bush failed, America not completely fascist yet.”
INTIFADA IN FRANCE: Richard Miniter interviews Paul Belien of Brussels Journal.
IT’S A BLOGFEST: Now Michael Yon is on C-SPAN, following up Virginia Postrel and Sally Satel.
Our podcast interview with Michael Yon is here.
There are hundreds of websites featuring dozens of professionally produced videos of violence against US forces in Iraq. Dubbed with loud monotonal music for an extra creepy effect, at the point of the attack, the filmers usually erupt into cries of “Allahu akbar!”
The US might film its own missions for forensic or debriefing purposes sure, but that is a far cry from reveling in them. So what might motivate someone to be so twisted as to film and celebrate death?
One answer: recruitment. . . .
This mobilization is real. It has tangible impacts. Look no further than what is now being called “the YouTube jihad.”
Read the whole thing.