THANKS TO BOB OWENS’ FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST, Scott Beauchamp’s statements about his bogus TNR piece are now online. Will TNR respond? Doubtful . . . .
Archive for 2008
January 22, 2008
MILITARY VETERANS AND MURDER: Fact-checking the New York Times.
If you published a similarly anecdotal and unfounded piece about black people and murder, the NYT would call you a racist.
THE FEW. THE PROUD. The Morons.
THE GLOVES ARE OFF: Eric Scheie on last night’s Democratic debate. “In an almost schoolyard manner, they taunted each other over who was doing the most good while the other was engaged in the worst sleaze.”
HUCKABEE CONCERNS: “Remember, kids: The last time we had a populist moralizing evangelical in the White House, we gave away the Panama Canal.”
WELL, THIS IS NEWS: “The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the ‘imminent’ spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west’s most senior military officers and strategists. Calling for root-and-branch reform of Nato and a new pact drawing the US, Nato and the European Union together in a ‘grand strategy’ to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a ‘first strike’ nuclear option remains an “indispensable instrument” since there is ‘simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world’.”
MORE SCRUTINY NEEDED: Nonprofits Pay Zero Tax on Billions of Unrelated Business Income.
January 21, 2008
SO I WATCHED THE NEW EPISODE OF TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES — “Have you ever heard of The Singularity? . . . That’s pretty much the time we can kiss our asses goodbye” — and all I could think of was the whole Taser point. But would a Sarah Connor carry a pink one?
UPDATE: Hey, here are two plotlines that won’t make it to TV: (1) With the help of Ray Kurzweil, they develop a “friendly” AI that subverts and converts Skynet as soon as it’s hooked up; or (2) With the help of Miles Dyson’s widow — a recurring character already! — they tie Cyberdyne up in endless intellectual-property litigation, ensuring that nothing ever gets built. This would probably work, but Litigator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles doesn’t have quite the same appeal . . . .
I have to say that so far this series has wildly exceeded my (admittedly low) expectations. They’ve done a good job of porting the story over to a new cast, and the writing is excellent. So is the acting, including, but not limited to, Summer Glau’s trademark spookiness.
RAISING money-smart kids.
STEPHEN GREEN’S POST-DEBATE WRAPUP: “I’d entertained thoughts of voting for Clinton or Obama next November. Tonight’s debate — the ‘I’m More Dangerously Populist Than Thou’ debate — ended all chances of that happening.”
UPDATE: A Disney villainess?
WANT FRED THOMPSON IN THE RACE? Bob Krumm has a pay to stay plan. (Scroll down). “If Fred raises $1 million tomorrow (Tuesday), I’ll add another $1,000. So, if you’re going to complain that I’ve given up on Fred, don’t do it until you’ve spent at least that much money yourself. If you really want Fred to stay in the race, show him the money!“
THOUGHTS ON FIGHTING MALARIA from Katharine Mangu-Ward.
LONGEVITY UPDATE: A fundraising report from the Methuselah Foundation.
WHITHER (OR WITHER?) THE GOP? Bill Quick has been soliciting ideas for a third party. And lots of people — even Tom Delay — are saying they’ll stay home if the wrong guy gets nominated. Even Rush Limbaugh is saying he might not support the nominee.
Well, I’ve already said I’d vote for Hillary over Huckabee, but I’m not a Republican so that’s not as newsworthy. But the GOP folks seem pretty unhappy. Weirdly, a lot of people are unhappy that Fred Thompson isn’t running well, but not a lot of people seem to have, you know, actually voted for, or donated to, Fred.
A lot of that’s Thompson’s own fault — I mentioned before that in my dealings with the campaign they seemed utterly disorganized. And I just got a copy of Townhall magazine in the mail, and Bill O’Reilly is saying the same thing. Blowing things with the Glenn & Helen Show is one thing, but blowing off O’Reilly is another. Thompson’s good on policy, and I like him, but he’s run a lousy campaign so far. Still, Thompson aside you’re left with four Republicans of the less-than-conservative variety: McCain (good on the war, but what about immigration, campaign finance, etc.), Rudy (abortion, gun control, etc.), Romney (abortion, gun control, etc.) and Huckabee (“I’m from the government and I’m here to help!”). So you can see why people are unhappy.
Some people think it’s time to teach the party a lesson. Fine, but I thought 2006 was supposed to do that. Did they learn anything? Seems to me that things are about what they were when I put up my pre-mortem post that had Limbaugh exercised. (For that matter, did losing in 2000 and 2004 improve the Democrats? What, exactly, have they learned that led to the Hillary/Edwards/Obama offering? Are political parties capable of really learning?)
People will make up their minds closer to the date. Meanwhile, here’s a suggestion: If you care about saving the Republican Party, don’t blog about it. Get to work at the local and state level. Push your views, and find and promote candidates you like. Meanwhile, my earlier thoughts about culture and politics are still relevant. If you feel that way, then focus your energies there. But either way, don’t expect a candidate to be all you want. They seldom are, in my experience.
But note that neither political party is producing high-quality leadership, and that’s been the pattern for a while, even as we’ve lowered the bar on what counts as quality. That’s a systemic problem, and it’s bigger than what’s going on with either party, or any particular election.
UPDATE: “Isn’t it remarkable how quickly zero becomes normal?” Okay, different topic, but it fit.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Mark Martin emails:
I don’t know, Professor Reynolds. The whole “I’ll sit things out because no candidate fits my litmus test(s) 100%” seems infantile.
Particularly given the threat of Islamofascism and (perhaps even more importantly) the possibility of THREE Supreme Court appointments.
Maybe the folks who want to sit things out need to sit down and ask Hillary/Barack/John their plans for Iraq? For dealing with terrorism? For appointing Supreme Court justices?
And saying that McCain or Romney wouldn’t do much better isn’t a genuine answer, because it is not true. Pointing out squishy appointments in the past (Stevens by Gerald Ford) is a justification that seems forced to me.
Sitting out the election *assures* a Democratic victory in the Presidency, Senate, and House. And what it sounds like to me is “…so things will go awfully and then folks will come running back to REAL conservatism…”
And that is not a mature attitude. I’m nobody important, but it sounds precisely like my seven year old on the playground.
You gotta do what you gotta do. But figuring out what you gotta do — well, that’s not for sissies.
MORE: Reader Richard Rollo emails:
I chuckle at the idea of “teaching the Republicans a lesson.” When I was a Democrat, we thought we were teaching the Democrats a lesson but every year they would forget. Politicians are more like cats than dogs, and we all know that cats only learn what they decide to learn.
It’s all explained here.
STILL MORE: Reader Alex Bensky emails:
I don’t claim to represent anyone but myself. For what it’s worth I am a lifelong Democrat and not just as a political rooting interest. I was active in Teen Dems, Young Dems, on the county committee, etc. And in the Michigan primary I voted for the candidate I want to win in November, John McCain. I probably would vote for any likely Republican candidate except Huckabee.
I did so because in this election I’m a one-issue voter: national security. I don’t have any confidence in either of the likely Democratic candidates on this issue, and I even no confidence at all in their advisors, especially Obama’s.
As I watch the campaign I am often reminded of Elmer Davis’s remark that “the first requirement of any society is that it win its wars.” As a corollary, a society needs to recognize that it is in a war and want to win it.
True enough. As I predicted a while back, I think the fact that the war is going better has caused people to focus more on other issues, which is bad for the GOP.
HEH: “Saudi Arabia is to lift its ban on women drivers in an attempt to stem a rising suffragette-style movement in the deeply conservative state.”
Of course, the joke’s on me as I’ll now have Suffragette City playing in my head for the rest of the night.
A TEST FOR THE MEDIA: “Will they cover Bill Clinton nodding off (New York Post video of Clinton snoozing in church here) the way they did Dick Cheney?”
UPDATE: “They’ll fail it.”
SUPPORTING SEGREGATION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. Well, sorta.
JAMES TARANTO: “In an age of heightened sensitivity over slurs involving race, religion, sexual orientation and so forth, why is anti-American bigotry considered socially acceptable?”
SOME FUSION RESEARCH video.
BILL CLINTON: attack dog-in-chief.
STEPHEN GREEN IS drunkblogging the Democratic debate. “So far, both candidates (plus special guest John Edwards!) have tied in their answers to MLK’s legacy. That’s not easy to do when talking about stimuli packages.”
UPDATE: Tigerhawk is on the case, too. (“I hate to sound all Naomi Wolf, but what is CNN doing with those camera angles?”) And there’s more liveblogging at TalkLeft.
ANOTHER UPDATE: More from Ann Althouse: “Wolf Blitzer is still blabbing… 8 minutes into it! He’s stumbling oddly. What the hell?”
I’M FROM THE GOVERNMENT, and I’m here to help!
OBAMA PULLS HIS ADS IN TENNESSEE.
Plus this: “For all the talk about South Carolina being the death knell for Thompson, who South Carolina really killed was Huckabee.”