Posted 10/4/2003 04:54:40 PM by Edward Driscoll
HOW DO I GET ON THE NO CALL LIST? Even with running around and being out of the house for a couple of hours, that's twice today I've been called by Barbra Streisand. I thought she was too busy suing environmentalists to be calling voters. UPDATE: Bill Clinton called on Sunday. Who's next? FDR? Truman? Thomas Jefferson? UPDATE: Arnold called a few minutes ago as well.

Posted 10/4/2003 02:24:28 PM by Edward Driscoll
"RUSH LIMBAUGH, MEET JAYSON BLAIR": I'm not sure if I agree with all of the points that Robert A. George makes in this essay, titled "Why black America distrusts conservatives", but his concluding paragraphs are awfully damning. UPDATE: Thomas Sowell has a different take.

Posted 10/4/2003 01:33:36 AM by Edward Driscoll
QUOTE OF THE DAY:

The Left is so busy saying John Ashcroft is Hitler, and President Bush is Hitler, and Rudy Giuliani is Hitler that the only guy they wouldn’t call Hitler was the foreign guy with the mustache who was throwing people who disagreed with him into the wood-chipper.

--Dennis Miller, in The American Enterprise.

Posted 10/3/2003 10:09:06 PM by Edward Driscoll
PLAME/WILSON: R. Emmett Tyrrell says it's "Another Black Cat News Story" in Washington.

Posted 10/3/2003 10:29:04 AM by Edward Driscoll
IS KYOTO DEAD? It doesn't sound like it has much of a pulse based on this report by Ian Murray.

Posted 10/2/2003 01:41:45 PM by Edward Driscoll
ADVANTAGE: GEORGE WILL! As James Taranto noted today, back on September 4th, Will presciently forecasted today's events:

Can the tone of the recall campaign get worse? Just wait. Ken Khachigian, a veteran Republican strategist, warns that Schwarzenegger should brace himself for what has become the Democrats' trademark tactic. In football it is penalized as a "late hit," but in politics it is often rewarded with success. George W. Bush received such a hit in the final weekend of the 2000 campaign -- the revelation of his drunk driving arrest 24 years earlier. That probably contributed to an unusual development: Late-deciding voters, who usually break against the incumbent party, broke for Vice President Gore in 2000. California Republicans have experienced late hits three times in the past 11 years. In 1992 Bruce Herschensohn narrowly lost a Senate race against Barbara Boxer when it was revealed on the Friday before the election that he and his girlfriend and another couple had visited a strip club. In 1994 Michael Huffington narrowly lost a Senate race against Feinstein when, a few days before the election, it was revealed that he had hired an illegal immigrant as a nanny. In 1998 Darrell Issa -- he is now a congressmen; his $1.6 million funding of the recall petition drive produced this recall election -- lost a Senate primary when it was revealed that he had embellished his military record. A late hit by the Davis campaign against Schwarzenegger cannot come so late that there is no time for another such hit, one against Davis's other problem, Bustamante. This could get even uglier.

The late hit on Schwarzenegger came today, but as Steve Hayward notes, it may have been seriously deflected by the maximum blitz that Rush Limbaugh sustained over the past two days:

The Left can't even keep out of the way of its own attacks, because the Groping Arnold story is being completely eclipsed by the Rush Limbaugh controversy, which is leading the network hourly radio and TV news broadcasts this morning. You'd think the media hive would have sorted out their priorities better than this, and timed these bombshells better.

Exactly. I never knew Buddy Ryan worked at the DNC.

Posted 10/2/2003 01:17:56 PM by Edward Driscoll
RUSH LIMBAUGH'S WEEK FROM HELL: John Hawkins is doing regular updates on both the ESPN flap, and Limbaugh's drug controversies. "The Corner" and Greg Easterbrook also have some thoughts on El Rushbo. UPDATE: The answer to this headline would be a distinct, "No". And Amon's Law still very much holds true.

Posted 10/2/2003 01:13:35 PM by Edward Driscoll
NEW PRODUCT REVIEW: The AdrenaLinn, "The Swiss Army Knife of Guitar Stomp Boxes" is up on Blogcritics.

Posted 10/1/2003 01:22:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
STUPID DEBATING TRICKS: John Hawkins lists nine of his least favorite debate tactics.

Posted 10/1/2003 01:11:52 PM by Edward Driscoll
LIMBAUGH ON ESPN UPDATE: Back on Monday, July 14, we wrote that Rush Limbaugh will go on ESPN's NFL pre-game show each week...

...and discuss nothing but football. Meanwhile, his detractors will start foaming at the mouth at what an evil, vile, racist, awful, dangerous, psychotic Nazi he is. Sort of a dispersed version of the how James Taranto described what the protests outside the Republican convention in New York will be like.

Back on Saturday, July 26, 2003, we linked to an essay by Sports Illustrated's longtime commentator, Paul "Dr. Z." Zimmerman, who really did sound like he was foaming at the mouth talking about Limbaugh. Yesterday, a new controversy emerged, as AP and Sports Illustrated columnists took shot after shot after shot at Limbaugh for his comments regarding Donovan McNabb, the quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles. Sports Illustrated is of course owned by Time-Warner, which also owns CNN. ESPN is owned by ABC/Disney. Limbaugh claims the flurry of articles is payback for his comments regarding CNN's coverage of Iraq. Whatever the case, it's truly fascinating to watch the liberal sports media manufacturing dissent. Maybe Rush should have read Rod Dreher's latest column--it's advice to conservatives in newsrooms. UPDATE: Scott Hogenson of CNSNews.com has some thoughts. UPDATE: Limbaugh counterpunches, here. UPDATE: And--surprisingly--resigns from ESPN, here.

Posted 10/1/2003 12:12:43 PM by Edward Driscoll
AS IF MEChA WASN'T ENOUGH: Meet Cruz Bustamante's sister, a performance artist in every sense of the word...

Posted 9/30/2003 04:38:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
POSEUR ALERT: Ever since The Digital Bits DVD review site started linking to Matt Rowe's Music Tap Website, I've enjoyed its coverage of new CD, DVD-A and music-oriented DVD releases. But this review of a new version of John Lennon's Imagine album, released on CD by Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, shows the typical, and very silly reaction that so many have towards its title song:

The tremor felt around the world on the eve of John Lennon's murder was that of John turning into the demigod that he has since become. That has accelerated throughout the decades since his death culminating in a reverence for his body of work that encompasses not only his Beatles production and everything that he brought to them but also, his solo work. None of those works shine more brilliantly than his Imagine. Imagine is home to his most well known composition, the song that represents not only his entire output but also the cosmic sphere of that strange and elusive force known universally as peace. Peace was something that Lennon actually believed could be effected in his lifetime. Little would he know that the very anti-thesis of peace would be his demise.

Uhhhm....Ohhhhhhhhhkay. First of all, there was no tremor "felt around the world on the eve of John Lennon's murder". There was a certain amount of disappointment towards John's 1980 comeback album, which combined mildly interesting songs like the vaguely Elvis-sounding "Starting Over" with a collection of typically horrid Yoko Ono tunes. But believe me, the Monday of his murder was a very typical day, capped by a very typical Monday Night Football game featuring the Dolphins and Patriots, where Howard Cosell broke the news to many viewers (including myself) that Lennon was shot. Second, in 1980, with the Soviet Union trying to invade Afghanistan, and plotting to then introduce communism to Central America, while the Ayatollah Khomeini was holding Americans hostage in Iran, and an American economy in the midst of the worst economy in 50 years (to coin a phrase), peace was a long way away--and freedom for much of the world an even more difficult task. (Why is it that the left loves the idea of peace, but doesn't seem to understand that freedom is even more important?) It would take somebody who understood that peace through strength, not peace through surrender and passivity, was the only possible way to achieving those goals. Meanwhile, Lennon's song "Imagine", while containing a nice melody and backing music, is grossly overrated by a left, which 30 years after its recording, no longer believes many of its key lines about a color-blind society. as Thomas Hibbs wrote, a few weeks after 9/11:

For all the calls to embrace difference, the song that has emerged as the post-Sept. 11 anthem of the rock community is John Lennon's "Imagine," a song that imagines all difference away. Thus does current rock oscillate between two extremes, neither of which is much help in thinking through our current crisis. Admittedly, Lennon's song is not so much about practical politics as it is about an inspiring and hopeful ideal of peace. But how, one cannot help but ask, are we to imagine the road toward this world beyond all national and religious differences, beyond possessions, with nothing "to kill or die for," where we all live in the moment? Clearly not by the old religious answer, which has to do with God's decisive and transforming intervention into history. Instead, "Imagine" is a sophisticated advertising jingle for Communism. In what it fails to say and especially in its hypnotic and placid melody, "Imagine" is a deeply dishonest song. Tracy Chapman's "Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution," with its warning that "poor people are going to rise up and take what's theirs" is more honest about the violence necessary for revolution. If we must have Lennon, let's at least have him as part of the Beatles, whose wry and ambivalent "Revolution" is superior to anything Lennon produced as a soloist.

Exactly. I love many of Lennon's compositions with the Beatles, and even a few of his less political solo songs, but worshiping "Imagine" (the song, less so the album as a whole), is a sign of a skull full of mush of proportions that would make Professor Kingsfield want to hit the thinker on the hands--or maybe the head--with a ruler moving at warp speed. But that shouldn't be taken as a slam against the rest of Rowe's site. He does a thorough job of reviewing new music releases. He just needs to be careful when it comes to thinking through his hero worship. And to be fair, he might very well say the same about me, as well. One more thing: it's curious to see that Lennon's widow Yoko, who watched her husband die a bloody and violent death, seems to have moved beyond the idea of non-violence and peace through submission. At least as it applies to suicide bombing enemies of Israel, of course. UPDATE (10/18/03): I was way too harsh on Rowe, who's actually a very reasonable fellow.

Posted 9/30/2003 09:46:10 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE MOOCH WAS JUST THE BEGINNING: Having gotten Steve Mariucci removed as head coach for the '49ers, wide receiver Terrell Owens (he of the infamous Sharpie incident) now appears to be hunting for additional game: quarterback Chris Garcia, and Mariucci's replacement, Dennis Erickson. The San Jose Mercury's Skip Bayless blasts Owens in his latest column. This Sunday, Mariucci's Lions face his old team in San Francisco. If the Niners' losing streak continues, watch for this soap opera to get even uglier.

Posted 9/30/2003 09:35:57 AM by Edward Driscoll
POT MEET KETTLE: USA Today reports, "Davis camp accuses Schwarzenegger campaign of 'dirty tricks'". If you know anything about California politics, just roll that headline around in your head for a few times to get a sense of how unbelievably ironic it is--even without the delicious use of quotations around "dirty tricks" by USA Today's headline writer. Which is making me start to believe that maybe the polls showing Schwarzenegger in the lead are right.

Posted 9/30/2003 08:55:48 AM by Edward Driscoll
OP-ED SHOVING MATCH: Donald Luskin explains why having David Brooks at The Times is a very, very good thing. Unless your name happens to be Paul Krugman, of course.

Posted 9/29/2003 04:34:46 PM by Edward Driscoll
ELIA KAZAN DIED SATURDAY at age 94. As Orrin Judd writes, he brought the light of scrutiny to Hollywood in the 1950s.

Posted 9/29/2003 04:18:19 PM by Edward Driscoll
DICHOTOMY: David Frum looks at Edward Said:

Said served for many years on the Palestinian National Council – the theoretical government of the Palestinian national movement. As such, he was at least formally implicated in Yasser Arafat’s three-decade-long terrorist crime spree. Nor did Said flinch from his responsibility: He may not have liked Arafat much as a man or leader, but he excused and condoned Arafat’s atrocities. Yet ironically, the same Islamic intolerance that has unsuccessfully sought since 1948 to drive the Jews out of Israel lay at the foundation of the larger campaign to drive Christians like the Said family out of the whole Middle East. The thugs and murderers to whom this embittered exile lent his strength were the same thugs and murderers who had exiled him in the first place. And the only people in the region who championed the humane, liberal, and democratic values that Said praised but did not practice were the very Israelis to whose extermination he sacrificed both his vocation and his integrity.

Frum concludes, "We can only be judged against the circumstances we actually encountered – and by that standard, Said does not deserve the many accolades that will surely now be showered upon him."

Posted 9/29/2003 04:05:23 PM by Edward Driscoll
NOT SOFTENING: Despite Amina Lawal being acquitted of a death sentence last week, extreme Islamic-law (sharia) punishments live on in Africa, writes Paul Marshall.

Posted 9/29/2003 04:00:08 PM by Edward Driscoll
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED: Steve Spurrier goes conservative. Bill Parcells gets radical. Both are big winners in the NFC North this week.

Posted 9/29/2003 03:50:08 PM by Edward Driscoll
END RUN: John Leo writes about one-sided and flawed reporting by big media on Iraq, and the efforts of Bloggers and military personel to counteract things. Leo has a quote from Senior Chief Petty Officer Art Messer of the Navy Seabees that puts everything in Iraq into a perspective not typically found in big media coverage:

"The countryside is getting more safe by the day despite all the attacks you are hearing about. Imagine if every shooting incident or robbery committed in Los Angeles was blown out of proportion."

Exactly.

Posted 9/29/2003 02:47:33 PM by Edward Driscoll
CLARK: Day By Day has a new slogan for his campaign... UPDATE: And Ronald Bailey has discovered an apt comparison for Clark, as well. One gets the feeling that Ike isn't looking down and worrying about his place in history being usurped.