EdDriscoll.com

Posted 12/14/2002 11:52:09 AM by Edward Driscoll
BE ALL THAT YOU CAN B-CUP: The Army has got to put this in their recruiting commercials:

A Western military attache told me how grenades and rockets were often retrieved from beneath the odd burqa. Women must be checked during routine arms inspections and this presents a quandary: how to be culturally sensitive conquerors and not offend the folks you liberated last year and now want to disarm. Some etiquette is evolving. Now American female soldiers start gun raids in Afghanistan by bounding out of helicopters and stripping down to their sports bras. Only then do they take village women aside to be searched. It is a quick way to prove their femininity to Afghan elders unaccustomed to seeing women in trousers. I reckon it must leave quite a few of the old boys slack-jawed and goggle-eyed.

I love it.

Posted 12/13/2002 05:57:16 PM by Edward Driscoll
"STUNNING": Andrew Sullivan has some prescient comments about Lott's speech in this post. Read it in its entirety, it's too long for me to post here. And then scroll up to the comments from one of his readers. Virginia Postrel writes:

I guess Lott figures if Bill Clinton can brazen out Monicagate, he can do the same. He may be right. But Trent Lott's no Clinton, segregation's no Monica, and Senate Majority Leader has no term limits. Do Republicans really want to tell voters that the only way to get Trent Lott out of the leadership is to give Senate Democrats a majority?

The Clinton reference is right on the money--Lott is trying to hold onto power and perks, for purely selfish personal gains, even though he's got to know--and I admit that Lott is the working definition of "dense"--that he's damaged goods of the worst order. One big difference though: Clinton had virtually the entire DNC national apparatus to defend him (Remember Al Gore's infamous "history will show..." speech at the foot of the White House about five minutes after Clinton was impeached?). As Sullivan writes, in Lott's case, "all you've got is Sean Hannity and Pat Buchanan in your corner, and a damning silence from your colleagues, and a public denunciation from your own president".

Posted 12/13/2002 04:13:06 PM by Edward Driscoll
LOTT HAS FOUND A NOVEL WAY to extricate himself from this whole mess.

Posted 12/13/2002 03:55:48 PM by Edward Driscoll
P.J. O'ROURKE ONCE WROTE that "The founding fathers, in their wisdom, devised a method by which our republic can take 100 of its most prominent numskulls and keep them out of the private sector where they might do actual harm". James Taranto writes:

Yesterday we noted that the 108th Congress will include two senators who were once segregationists: Fritz Hollings of South Carolina and Robert Byrd of West Virginia, both Democrats. Reader Steven Allen writes:
You're forgetting Sen. Zell Miller, who was executive secretary to Gov. Lester Maddox of Georgia (1967-71). Maddox became infamous in 1964 when he and his customers, with pick handles and a gun, chased African-Americans from his restaurant, the Pickrick. Other than George Wallace, Maddox was the most famous segregationist governor of the 1960s. I'm sure one reason Miller isn't inclined to switch parties is that he knows that as a Republican, he would no longer be given a pass over his "seg" past.

Add into that group Lott, Ted Kennedy, Tom Daschle, and Hillary, and the wisdom of O'Rourke's line becomes even more obvious.

Posted 12/13/2002 03:40:54 PM by Edward Driscoll
USEFUL TO A POINT: Dead on target (heh-heh) cartoon found by Charles Johnson.

Posted 12/13/2002 03:28:56 PM by Edward Driscoll
ON TO THE REAL NEWS OF THE DAY: The reviews for Star Trek: Nemesis are not looking good. Ebert didn't like it, and this fellow really didn't like it. (WaPo review found via Group Captain Mandrake.)

Posted 12/13/2002 02:48:42 PM by Edward Driscoll
LOTT STAYS ON. Insert epithet of your choice here.

Posted 12/13/2002 02:31:25 PM by Edward Driscoll
UNEXPECTED BOMBSHELL: No word yet on whether or not Trent Lott has resigned as Senate Majority Leader. But Matt Drudge is reporting that "Kissinger Resigns From 9/11 Commission", adding "Former Secretary of State cites controversy over private sector clients... " Here's a link to the Kissinger story.

Posted 12/13/2002 02:29:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
BELLESILES UPDATE: Melissa Seckora of National Review Online writes that "Columbia has revoked its Bancroft prize from former Emory professor Michael Bellesiles, according to Columbia's provost, Jonathan Cole. (Here's an AP story on it.)" Will someone tell the Ninth Circuit?

Posted 12/13/2002 01:27:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
"A HOUSE OF HORRORS" is how John Facenda once described Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium in an early 1980s NFL films highlight reel, and it's only gotten worse. Sunday will be the last time it's used in regular season. ESPN's Sal Paolantonio writes:

The horrid turf, the rats running through the team's weight room, the dank, cramped locker room, the drunken brawls in the stands, the seats with obstructed views, the bathrooms that were simply bad news -- whatever you want to say about Veterans Stadium, it aroused vile passions almost from the day it opened -- Aug. 16, 1971, when the Eagles played the first pre-season game there. From the beginning, the Vet was viewed as an unflattering "cookie-cutter" stadium, a multi-purpose concrete bowl, devoid of any kind of architectural charm. The early 70's were a time when the municipal policies of fiscal restraint and urban renewal often resulted in a compromise which served neither purpose. And that's what happened here -- and in Cincinnati with Riverfront Stadium and Pittsburgh with Three Rivers, the sister stadiums to the Vet. But unlike Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, where the stadiums graced downtown river vistas, Veterans Stadium was exiled to a neighborhood of warehouses and abandoned lots and had all the charm of a forgotten concrete outpost far from the historic center of Philadelphia.

Having been to numerous Phillies and Eagles games there (not to mention two Pink Floyd concerts in 1987), I can attest to all of that. Its concrete architecture might have been Le Corbusier's wet dream, but its concrete turf and awful fan (read: customer) accommodations will not be missed.

Posted 12/12/2002 04:15:41 PM by Edward Driscoll
VACANT LOTT: Add The Claremont Institute to the list calling for Lott to step down as Senate Majority Leader. Although their comment that, "The Founders' purpose in establishing the United States Senate was to elevate the characters of its members so that, following deliberation, it could act on behalf of the whole nation", implies that about three-quarters of the Senate would have be ousted, if held to that standard.

Posted 12/12/2002 12:33:13 PM by Edward Driscoll
STIMULUS AND RESPONSE: Roll Call says, "Emboldened by Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-La.) win last week, Democrats are prepared to prevent the Senate from organizing in January unless Republicans agree to near-equal committee funding in the 108th Congress." David Frum writes, "I fear something else too: That Lott will try to save himself by jettisoning the conservative agenda in the Senate." To paraphrase Glenn Reynolds, would somebody please have The Conversation with Trent Lott, before the next Senate is a carbon copy of the Jeffords Gang?

Posted 12/11/2002 05:27:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
SEGREGATION, 21st CENTURY STYLE: Joanne Jacobs has a post that includes a link to a recent Suzanne Fields essay about "ethnic theme houses", a euphemism for segregated college dorms. Diversity, for the Left, has long been an oxymoron in regards to thought. Today, it's easier than ever to receive a college education while only being around people who look--as well as think--exactly like you do.

Posted 12/11/2002 03:12:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
HOWELLING MAD: Brent Bozell on Howell Raines, executive editor of the New York Times:

Over the years, the Times has kissed the rings of oppressors from Fidel Castro to Daniel Ortega to Leonid Brezhnev. Now they’re concerned about oppression – at a golf club? To somehow suggest that opposing Hootie Johnson's club rules is comparable to facing down the hoses of Bull Connor in the segregated South is beyond laughable. It echoes the off-kilter liberal moral sensibilities of the Clinton years, when the White House crusaded against the evils of cigarette makers and Microsoft, while Osama bin Laden plotted in the desert largely untouched.

Posted 12/11/2002 12:47:09 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHOLE LOTTA NOTHING: Trent Lott needs to be replaced as Senate Majority Leader. Jonah Goldberg writes:

Trent Lott only does two things well, freeze-dry his hair and say stupid things. He mishandled impeachment, mishandled the 1998 elections, mishandled power-sharing with the Democrats after the 2000 election and mishandled Jim Jeffords straight into the Democratic Party. One reason so many conservatives are denouncing Lott is that he's never given conservatives much reason to trust him or care about him. He's a deal-cutter who seems to stand for nothing except massive amounts of pork to his home state and, occasionally, sticking up for Jim Crow. Already, many conservatives assume that Tom Daschle's muted support for Lott was paid for with some political concession. If incoming House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (or other Southerners like Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey et al) made a similar gaffe, conservatives would have bled in defense of the guy -- not only because he isn't racist, but because Delay stands for more than process and pork. But while DeLay stands for principle, Lott stands for little. And what he does stand for, we don't need.

I agree. On the other hand, this is just pathetic.

Posted 12/10/2002 11:36:14 AM by Edward Driscoll
"IT WAS AN ENTITLEMENT": National Review Online on liberal media bias:

From birth, they expected a thoroughly liberal media: It was an entitlement. And now there are all these . . . interlopers (or "fifth columnists," about which more in a minute). In the weeks following the Republicans' surprise victory in the November election, there's been a whole lot of whining going on. Pardon us if we don't get teary-eyed over these charges of conservative media bias. *** Liberal critics enjoy listing the conservative outlets (or outposts, you might even call them): Fox, the Washington Times, the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Drudge. (It doesn't take long to go through them, which is why critics list them all the time.) Fine. How about a trade? We'll take the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, CBS, NBC, ABC (news and entertainment divisions, thank you very much), Time, Newsweek, NPR, PBS . . . And then there's the movies, the teachers unions, the universities . . . Again: Pardon us if we don't tear up.

Exactly.

Posted 12/10/2002 12:21:42 AM by Edward Driscoll
GUNNING FOR THE COURTS: Balint Vazsonyi of The Washington Times sums up the latest ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, those same folks who tried to ban God from the Pledge of Allegiance:

We have been very fortunate most of the time. As yet, our system works. [Judge] Stephen Reinhardt can write all the opinions he wants. While others are overturned, Mr. Reinhardt's opinions are generally dismissed by the Supreme Court, not even dignified with an explanation. But there could be a time when the Reinhardts of this world — and since the 1960s their numbers have grown steadily — would acquire physical power. Heaven forbid, but the citizenry may find itself with a government that moves the people "to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government." As in 1776, that may be possible only with the use of firearms. Yes, but why does anyone need semiautomatic, so-called assault weapons? Perhaps no one needs them. Yet the history of smoking teaches us a bitter lesson. Where the enemies of freedom mean business, give them the tiniest opening, and they will rule the field in no time. Make no mistake. Smoking was not about health. It was about freedom. Gun control is not about protecting schoolchildren. It's about transforming this republic into a country like all others, where only the government possesses weapons. And once that happens, the judge's robe can turn into a military uniform at the drop of a hat. As indeed it came to pass countless times in countries we call civilized.

Posted 12/9/2002 11:35:51 PM by Edward Driscoll
LARGE COKE? WILL THAT BE COLUMBIAN OR BOLIVIAN? The New York Post reports that "Four people were arrested over the weekend for allegedly selling cocaine with Whoppers and fries" at a Mundelein, Illinois Burger King. Clearly, this is part of a national trend in the cut-throat fast food industry to provide a more full service fast food restaurant experience to their customers.

Posted 12/9/2002 09:25:22 PM by Edward Driscoll
"KILL KURDS, NOT MUMIA!" Napoleon Cole, writing on the Wall Street Journal's Web site, is having fun crashing the "peace" party:

I pull up alongside a lone 50-something protester walking with his sign folded so I can't see it. "Hey, did I miss the protest?" "Yes." "Do you know where any other pro-Saddam things are going on?" "No I don't. I'm not sure if I understand you. Do you mean pro-Saddam or antiwar?" "Either. I mean, same crowd, right?" "I suppose . . ." He thinks for a second. "I don't much care for your generation. You've got the message all wrong. This is all so stupid." "Where do you get your signs printed up? I want to make a sign that reads 'Kill Kurds, not Mumia.' How much do you think that would cost?" I'm not sure if he ended up thinking that I was an actual protester or not, but nonetheless I ruined his day. It showed on his face as he walked away.

Hollywood apparently (unwittingly) agrees with Cole's slogan.

Posted 12/9/2002 08:55:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
FISCAL CONSERVATIVES LIKE SNOW--Bush's choice of former CSX Corporation CEO John W. Snow as the new Treasury secretary, that is.

Posted 12/9/2002 06:11:58 PM by Edward Driscoll
MY VOTE'S FOR NUMBER TWO, AS WELL.

Posted 12/9/2002 05:35:56 PM by Edward Driscoll
JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Orrin Judd links to a peculiar Chicago Tribune article pining for "the Super Car" (aka a Yugo that could get 80 miles per gallon, aka Al Gore's wet dream), and wondering "what went wrong". Nice to know some folks miss John Kenneth Galbraith's goal of a centrally planned economy. It certainly worked so well for the USSR and Japan, as Ronald Bailey wrote in Reason:

Take a look at John Kenneth Galbraith's 1967 paean to planning, The New Industrial State (Houghton Mifflin), in which he asserted: "High technology and heavy capital use cannot be subordinate to the ebb and flow of market demand. They require planning and it is the essence of planning that public behavior be made predictable--that is be subject to control." Galbraith, too, has heirs--most notably, Robert Reich and Lester Thurow. In his 1980 book The Zero-Sum Society (Basic Books) Thurow suggested that "solving our energy and growth problems demand [sic] that government gets more heavily involved in the economy's major investment decisions....Major investment decisions have become too important to be left to the private market alone." Thurow ended with this revealing claim: "As we head into the 1980s, it is well to remember that there is really only one important question in political economy. If elected, whose income do you and your party plan to cut in the process of solving the economic problems facing us?" Ultimately, the neo-Malthusians and the zero-summers are pushing the same egalitarian agenda: Stop growth and then divvy up the static pie.

And let everyone drive government-mandated Yugos. In the meantime, don't buy too big a car--Big Grandparent is watching! UPDATE: Speaking of cars, Glenn Reynolds and Mickey Kaus spent the afternoon testing doing a little test driving. The cars they checked out aren't quite "super", but they're not too shabby, either.

Posted 12/9/2002 04:21:49 PM by Edward Driscoll
POT, KETTLE, AND LOTT: Al Gore, the man who made Willie Horton a national name, called conservatives "the extra-chromosome right wing", and lately, has been searching grassy knolls for a vast right wing media conspiracy, "blasts [Lott's] statement as 'racist'". UPDATE: Lott has issued an apology. While Gore and Jackson's statements against Lott were quoted in this AP article. As proof of Al Gore's vast right wing media conspiracy, there's no mention of Gore's gaffs, or Jessie Jackson's infamous "hymietown" remark, of course. ANOTHER UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan parses out Lott's apology and calls it "a weird non-apology apology".

Posted 12/9/2002 03:41:04 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE NEW PURITANS: The rap against Republicans--especially conservatives--is that they want to legislate morality. But compare the Left in the early 1970s to where it is now. In his excellent book on the 1970s, How We Got Here, David Frum wrote that prior to the Great Society, and certainly, prior to the mid-1970s, Americans were relatively carefree folks:

They lit rockets in their backyards on the Fourth of July. They bought their steak marbled with fat. They smoked. They bought cars without seatbelts. They gave boys .22-caliber rifles for their eleventh birthdays. How they would gape and stare at a contemporary playground, with its rubber matting underneath the swings, safety belts on the teetertotters, and three-year-olds strapped into crash helmets before they can mount their tricycles. How they would snicker at grown men girding themselves like test pilots to pedal through the park, at a Post Office that airbrushes the cigarette out of Humphrey Bogart’s hand lest some impressionable stamp-collector get the wrong idea about smoking, at the massive Range Rovers we buy so that we can commute to the office without fear. Back then, one did not show so much concern for one’s carcass.

Beginning with the combination of OSHA, MADD, PETA, the anti-smoking movement, the anti-SUV movement, the anti-fast food movement, the left changed from being wild and carefree to being--if not Big Brother, then Big Nagging Grandparent, who always bugged you to button up your coat, look both ways before crossing the street, make sure your shoelaces are tied--and be a general nag. Even sex--the last bastion of fun for the Left was looked down upon, when (prior to Bill Clinton's impeachment), seemingly any compliment a man gave a woman was suddenly sexual harassment--or at least potential grounds for such. You can't help but think that the Left, embarrassed by their own excesses during the 1960s felt that everyone needed the big nagging grandparent that they collectively lacked in the 1960s--and that they were each going to assume that role--thus the rise of MADD, PETA, Michael Moore, Gray Davis, Mike Bloomberg (the definitive RINO--"Republican In Name Only"), and all of the other Big Nagging Grandparents. 'Scuse me while I go run with scissors before I launch some rockets.

Posted 12/9/2002 02:55:35 PM by Edward Driscoll
CATS AND DOGS, REDUX: Wow, never thought I'd agree with Ed Koch on so many issues. Jay Nordlinger writes:

Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York — and about the most delightful and knowledgeable and interesting politician around — has made his New Year’s resolutions. Wanna hear a few of them? “I will avoid France as a place to vacation. France leads those countries in the Security Council that are the enemies of Israel. [Same goes for Mexico — says Koch.] “I will not support National Public Radio in any way. NPR’s reporters and management delight in unfairly attacking Israel. “I will not watch ABC’s World News Tonight anchored by Peter Jennings. For many years, Jennings has specialized in vicious and unfair portrayals of Israel intended to injure the Jewish state and lionize Palestinians. Also, the BBC News is horrifically anti-Israel, and I will shun it completely. “Susan Sontag will occupy the Ninth Circle of Hell for her outrageous assaults on Israel. I will no longer read her works.” How you like them apples?

I like 'em a lot--way to go, Ed! (By the way, see this post from August, when I found myself agreeing far more with Camille Paglia than Brent Scowcroft.)

Posted 12/9/2002 02:44:16 PM by Edward Driscoll
LOTT OF TROUBLE: I didn't blog very much this weekend, so I didn't get a chance to comment on Trent Lott's comments on Friday. Needless to say, Glenn Reynolds has been all over this one, and quite rightly so. For what it's worth, I agree with David Frum:

The Lott story seems to have been left behind in the dust [by most of the mainstream media]. And yet I cannot help thinking that this story is not over – that Republicans will hear Lott’s words quoted at them again and again in the months to come. I for one do not believe Trent Lott is a racist or a segregationist. My guess is that his speechwriter gave him note cards with a few jokes, and that when Lott finished reading them, he launched himself into what he probably intended to be nothing more than a big squirt of greasy flattery. But that’s not what came out of Lott’s mouth. What came out of his mouth was the most emphatic repudiation of desegregation to be heard from a national political figure since George Wallace’s first presidential campaign. Lott’s words suggest that one of the three most powerful and visible Republicans in the nation privately thinks that desegregation, civil rights, and equal voting rights were all a big mistake. These would be disgraceful thoughts to think, if Lott thought them. If Lott thought them, any Republican who accepted his leadership would share in the disgrace. So Lott needs to make it clear that he does not in fact think them. He owes his party, his state, his country, and his conscience something more – something much more – than a curt “I am sorry if you were offended.” If he can’t do that, Republicans need to make it clear that Lott no longer speaks for us.

Bush, Karl Rove, and/or Lott himself would be very wise to do serious damage control now, before this comes back to haunt Republicans during the next election--because it will.