Posted 2/19/2004 09:19:53 AM by Edward Driscoll
ONE FOR THE ROAD: Before I head out, I wanted to leave you with this passage from Sofia Sideshow, found via Stephen Green. It's too good not to share:

Something about this war is eating Bush's detractors alive, something unquantifiable with conventional weights and measures. I think that it is because if George W. Bush really did lie (and thus surprising both the Right and Left), the anti-war crowd would still have to face a disheartening Spectacle of Freedom For An Entire People, instead of the more satisfactory Humiliation Of Bush At The United Nations And Mass Graves Nobody Knows About. That simple. Nothing is more irritating than watching your enemies fail to live up to your worst expectations. If George W. was hawking stolen museum art, or John Ashcroft was forcing Shiites to convert, or Dick Cheney was sucking the oil from Iraqi teenager's skin, the Left would have far lower blood pressure. They would be relieved, vindicated, because the war would be delightfully immoral. The anti-war crowd long ago started measuring themselves as culturally, intellectually, and morally superior to the pro-war crowd, instead of measuring whether their policies were superior. Thus, the incredible success in Afghanistan and Iraq is not a blow to their policy, it is a blow to their ego and sense of self. I think the worst example I can give is during the campaign in Afghanistan, where it became popular to repeat that ANY civilian casualties should classify the endeavor as a failure for George W. Bush and the administration. This was to raise the goalpost to a level not out of concern for Afghani civilians, but out of concern that the critics' self-image not be a casualty, to attempt to force the debate into one where it was guaranteed that the pro-war side would be inferior. Hey, to each their own, I guess. Yet as of now, they are constantly reminded that their intellectual and cultural inferiors have accomplished something quite historic. Wonderful, even. And they know it; nobody is this sputtering and unhinged when proven right.

I really think Jonah pegged it, a few months before the war in Iraq, when he called the left on their "hypocrophobia"--their fear of actually being taken seriously.

Posted 2/19/2004 01:33:10 AM by Edward Driscoll
I'LL BE TRAVELING LATER TODAY, so don't look for much posting. But between the material that's already on the Weblog, and the Essays and Articles pages, there should be plenty to keep you busy. Just tidy up when you leave, OK? Thanks.

Posted 2/19/2004 12:38:08 AM by Edward Driscoll
IRANIAN TRAIN DISASTER: A train loaded with a variety of toxic chemicals crashed about 20 miles east of the city of Neyshabur, leaving a death toll of 295, and climbing. Debka reports:

DEBKA’s sources in Tehran have heard unconfirmed reports that the disaster was no accident, but possibly sabotage carried out by anti-government forces in Khorassan province, which borders on Afghanistan. This report ties in with another that claims the train was not carrying innocent industrial cargoes but hundreds of tons of explosive materials Iran was smuggling into Afghanistan via the Shiite city of Herat to be used by Iranian saboteurs and agents for guerrilla attacks on US troops and the forces of President Hamid Karzai, as well for supplying the Taleban in their Kandahar stronghold. DEBKAfile’s sources report that there were a series of blasts; the first inside the Neyshabur train station was powerful enough to trigger a second explosion in the remote station of Khayyam. There, it set ablaze another train carrying fuel and other flammable material. Iran has long used Khorassan province as a conduit for smuggling thousands of its agents into Afghanistan. But the province is also home to nearly two million Afghan refugees, some of whom hire out as agents to the Kabul government or the US military. The suggestion is that a group of these agents were ordered to blow up the train when it pulled into Neyshabur. Their mission: to deter the Iranians from further meddling in Afghanistan. It would not have been hard to persuade Afghan refugees to undertake the mission. As Sunni Muslims, they harbor strong feelings of resentment against their discrimination at the hands of Iran’s Shiite majority. Three years ago, Afghans were responsible for a large explosion in Mashad, an attack launched after Iran ordered the destruction of a makeshift mosque the refugees had built. Several weeks later, a similar blast occurred in Zahedan, capital of Iran’s Baluchestan province, where Iranian authorities had pulled down another mosque constructed by the refugees.

Of course, as with anything from Debka, take it with a big grain of salt. But at a minimum, it's an interesting and for the moment, very plausible hypothesis.

Posted 2/18/2004 10:56:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
IF KERRY'S LOCKED UP THE NOMINATION, then it's time to discuss the issues, writes David Limbaugh.

Posted 2/18/2004 10:51:09 PM by Edward Driscoll
SET 'EM UP IN THE OTHER ALLEY: Circumventing the law appears to have failed in San Francisco, at least for the time being:

The California state agency that records marriages said yesterday that forms that have been altered, which San Francisco has done on its homosexual "marriage" licenses, will not be registered. California has a standard application form for marriage licenses, "and if it has been altered in any way, then it will not be registered and recorded. It will be sent back to the county of origin," said Nicole Evans, spokeswoman for Kim Belshe, the California Health and Human Services secretary. The more than 2,600 homosexual couples who have been "married" since last week with the help of San Francisco city and county officials have been crossing out "groom" and "bride" as printed on the standard application and writing in phrases such as "Applicant #1" and "Applicant #2" or "spouses for life." None of these forms will be accepted, Ms. Evans said yesterday. * * * California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who generally supports homosexual rights, criticized San Francisco officials for disobeying state law. "I support all of California's existing laws that provide domestic-partnership benefits and protections," Mr. Schwarzenegger said in a statement released late Tuesday. "However, Californians spoke on the issue of same-sex marriage when they overwhelmingly approved California's law that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. "I support that law and encourage San Francisco officials to obey that law."

They won't, but it's a nice thought from the California governor.

Posted 2/18/2004 10:28:00 PM by Edward Driscoll
4,595 VISITORS TODAY!! Thank you all very, very much for stopping by our little corner of the Internet.

Posted 2/18/2004 07:50:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
FEDERAL ANTI-TRUST OFFICIALS ON THE ALERT: Glenn Reynolds has yet another Blog, continuing his monopolization of the Blogosphere.

Posted 2/18/2004 07:45:43 PM by Edward Driscoll
THANKS KALAT: Back on April 9th of last year, Peter Jennings rued the loss of sculpting jobs under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Maybe Jennings should check out the recent work of Saddam's former personal sculptor, Kalet. (Karl Rove, if you're reading this, there's a touching campaign commercial in this story.) UPDATE: And it's better than this lame campaign slogan, which if true (I could certainly see the RNC trying to put one over on Clymer's Times of course), sounds much like the pathetic "Don't Change Horses In Mid-Stream" mock advertisements at the beginning of Wag The Dog.

Posted 2/18/2004 07:18:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
QUOTE OF THE DAY comes from Michael Duff:

In 2001, New York was burning and we were afraid. Today, there are American flags flying in Baghdad and our enemies are afraid.

And this from a critic of President Bush! (Link via InstaPundit.)

Posted 2/18/2004 06:39:29 PM by Edward Driscoll
IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I'VE LINKED TO KESHER TALK, but this is a good one: Judith Weiss looks at where some of Teresa Heinz Kerry's charitable contributions have been going. Hint: Ramsey Clark and IndyMedia are two of them.

Posted 2/18/2004 06:06:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
BLOGGING: THE NEXT WAVE: Writing in Tech Central Station Glenn Reynolds has two main suggestions for anyone thinking of starting a new blog: regional/local blogging and/or multimedia. While the ease of getting start with a blog means that there will always be lots of lots of new "one man band" blogs, group blogs such as "Team Stryker", Blogcritics and Samizdata (to name three of many) will only grow in popularity, since they can share their resources and the marketability of their names to leverage their efforts.

Posted 2/18/2004 05:06:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
MORE BIAS FROM AP: Check out this headline:

"Laura Bush Says Gay Marriage 'Shocking'"

Geez, can you say "misleading"? I knew that you could. Here's what the body of the article quotes Mrs. Bush as actually saying:

Laura Bush says gay marriages are "a very, very shocking issue" for some people, a subject that should be debated by Americans rather than settled by a Massachusetts court or the mayor of San Francisco. Asked how she feels about the issue personally, Mrs. Bush replies: "Let's just leave it at that."

So at worst, she punts on the issue. But that's a far, far cry from "Laura Bush Says Gay Marriage 'Shocking'". As the Professor wrote about a different AP article, "This is unusually transparent partisanship, even by the not-very-demanding standards of Big Media in an election year. The good news is that it is transparent." UPDATE: Columbia Journalism Review has more.

Posted 2/18/2004 02:49:49 PM by Edward Driscoll
END GAME: Charles Johnson writes that "the logic of the war on terror inevitably leads to a confrontation with Pakistan". Which would certainly lend credence to this news item from a couple of weeks ago.

Posted 2/18/2004 02:39:50 PM by Edward Driscoll
HUGH HEWITT IS OFFERING TO LET JOHN EDWARDS co-host his radio show between now and Super Tuesday (March 2nd). "Why? Just because I like a good race." Think Edwards will accept?

Posted 2/18/2004 01:35:54 PM by Edward Driscoll
DID NATIONAL REVIEW DOOM DEAN? This cover certainly didn't help him, but NR editor Rich Lowry defends it, citing multiple reasons.

Posted 2/18/2004 01:29:45 PM by Edward Driscoll
GIVE HIM CREDIT FOR ONE THING: John Kerry is a tireless campaigner, always finding new and novel ways to get his message out. (Via Andrew Sullivan.)

Posted 2/18/2004 01:06:20 PM by Edward Driscoll
A GREAT IDEA, UP IN SMOKE: So much for Arnold's smoking plaza. James Taranto writes:

It seems Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is not planning to tear a roof off California's state capitol to make way for a "smoking plaza," as the Daily Telegraph had reported (and we repeated yesterday). Sacramento Bee blogger Daniel Weintraub says the story is false: "I checked with the governor's office. They officially confirmed: no plans for any demolition or altering of the Capitol. They have, of course, installed a donated tent, about 10 feet by 10 feet, in the center of the governor's (pre-existing) open air courtyard. The tent looks for all the world like a smoking tent, complete with ashtrays. But Schwarzenegger aides insist on calling the shelter a 'deal-making tent.' "

Too bad. But maybe someone else will run with the idea.

Posted 2/18/2004 12:53:38 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE AIRBRUSHED BBC ARTICLE that we mentioned here and here (and was the subject of yesterday's Instalanche) is still available, in its original form, in Google's cache. (and Rush's Website has it as a PDF file.) If you're interested, save it before it's gone! (Hat tip to reader Stephen Hill.)

Posted 2/18/2004 12:23:36 PM by Edward Driscoll
FLIP-FLOPPING KERRY? Willing to say anything to anybody to get elected? Or is he suddenly pro-business and development? You make the call! UPDATE: Roger L. Simon says it's all part of The Unified Kerry Theory. A commenter to Roger's post says:

The Unified Kerry Theory is on a collision course with the "Fact-check their asses" theory of the blogiverse, and I'll betcha the latter comes out the winner. If Kerry had been paying attention to New Media, he'd know that he can never get away with his flexibility, no matter what Teddy Kennedy tells him.

Or as we said a couple of days ago about the press, "I'd like to think that eventually, the left will be damaged by how easy it now is to Google, Lexus/Nexus and search the huge database that the Media Research Center has built up, to compare and contrast how they respond to Republicans versus how they respond to Democrats. Sooner or later, their hypocrisy has got to catch up with them."

Posted 2/18/2004 11:33:02 AM by Edward Driscoll
NOT WITH A YEAAAARGH!!! BUT A WHIMPER: "Dean Ends Campaign, Vows to Back Nominee". UPDATE: Picking up the theme, James Taranto writes one of his famous bye-kus:

He raged and he screamed Then lingered long enough to End with a whimper

What can I say? Great minds pun alike.

Posted 2/18/2004 11:21:54 AM by Edward Driscoll
LIFE IMITATES SCRAPPLEFACE: "Once again, Scrappleface's Scott Ott is writing the lines. Kerry's just living them".

Posted 2/18/2004 11:19:31 AM by Edward Driscoll
LIFE IMITATES WALTER MONDALE:

[In 1984], with the nation facing huge deficits, Mondale told the voters that a raise in taxes was inevitable. "Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I," he said. "He won't tell you, I just did." It was a disastrous strategy. Reagan promised prosperity, a strong defense, and balanced budgets without raising taxes. On election day, he lost forty-nine states and carried only MN and DC. Assessing the results, Mondale commented, "Reagan was promising them `morning in America,' and I was promising a root canal."

John Kerry, in 2003:

"We have to either roll back or prevent the top end of Bush tax cuts from taking place … I’m prepared to go at it and say we’re going to take it away."

Yeah, that'll sell.

Posted 2/18/2004 11:13:57 AM by Edward Driscoll
MORE ON SCHWARZENEGGER'S SMOKING PLAZA: Jacob Sullum writes:

The outraged response from the anti-smoking crowd is further evidence that the main point of smoking bans is not to protect bystanders from secondhand smoke but to discourage the habit by making it less convenient and less socially acceptable. "That's very frightening that he would even think about smoking inside the heart of our state Capitol," said one activist, clearly more concerned about the symbolism than the smoke. "He could do more good by championing our cause rather than trivializing it."

Maybe Arnold's more of a pro-choice kind of guy?

Posted 2/18/2004 12:57:48 AM by Edward Driscoll
JOANNE JACOBS HAS A GREAT IDEA for a book on parenting:

Some day I'll write a book titled Everything I Know About Parenting I Learned from Mick Jagger. You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need.

Heh.

Posted 2/17/2004 07:34:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
INSTALANCHE! Thanks, Professor.

Posted 2/17/2004 07:33:33 PM by Edward Driscoll
HERE'S HEWITT'S BLOG POST ABOUT KERRY'S 1971 SPEECH. He also has a link to a PDF transcription. This will come back to haunt Kerry, if he gets the nomination.

Posted 2/17/2004 07:30:29 PM by Edward Driscoll
HUGH HEWITT IS RUNNING AN AUDIO RECORDING of Kerry's "Winter Soldier" speech in front of the Senate in 1971. It's got every possible early-70s "baby killer" cliche all rolled into one. If you're reading this as of the time of this post, click on over to KCBQ 1170 AM San Diego to hear it on the Internet.

Posted 2/17/2004 03:54:21 PM by Edward Driscoll
ADVANTAGE ED! Rush Limbaugh picks up on the airbrushed BBC quote that we posted early--very early--this morning. He has links to the original and whitewashed versions of the article.

Posted 2/17/2004 03:16:47 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHO'S THE LIMPEST WRITER AT THE NEW YORK TIMES? Their frequently MIA ombudsman, according to The New Criterion.

Posted 2/17/2004 03:05:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
WILL "SLASH" GET SLASHED? Kordell Stewart's not expected back with Bears.

Posted 2/17/2004 01:51:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
HOW THE DVD WAS BORN is the topic of my latest Electronic House newsletter.

Posted 2/17/2004 12:53:45 PM by Edward Driscoll
REBUILDING THE PERFECT BEAST: Will Collier, guest-blogging on Stephen Green's VodkaPundit site, has some suggestions for Don Henley, whose ideas of business seem permanently stuck in 1977. UPDATE: Collier has a follow-up to his original post.

Posted 2/17/2004 12:40:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
SMOKE 'EM IF YOU GOT 'EM: England's Telegraph reports that "Cigar-loving Arnie plans a 'smoking plaza' at state capitol":

Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's cigar-smoking governor, is to tear a roof off the state capitol so that smokers can enjoy their vice inside the legislature. The Austrian-born actor, elected governor last November, is facing protests for deciding to turn a courtyard in the building into a "smoking plaza". It will include a drinking area. Part of the roof will be removed to get round a California law banning smoking in offices, bars and restaurants. The governor's spokesman, Terri Carbaugh, said he planned to be among those using the area. "It's a more positive environment where they can all be on an equal footing, as opposed to everyone going into the governor's office where he's behind his desk."

This is an amazingly common sense solution. As James Taranto wrote, "Now if only we can somehow install Schwarzenegger as mayor of New York."

Posted 2/17/2004 12:28:50 PM by Edward Driscoll
BEST. BLOG. NAME. EVER: Asparagirl and Scott Ganz have a new blog they call, "The Protocols of the Yuppies of Zion".

Posted 2/17/2004 11:44:03 AM by Edward Driscoll
INSTAPUNDIT ON AP: "This is just campaigning against Bush, in the guise of reporting".

Posted 2/17/2004 02:23:14 AM by Edward Driscoll
AIRBRUSH AWARD: Drudge links to a story on the BBC, and quotes from it:

WASH POST REPORTER: 'Nobody would be too shocked if Kerry lied about an affair. Even if someone came to us with photographs we still wouldn't run it'...

But that quote--damning to the Post--is removed. However, as of the time of this post, it's still in the link that Google uses to link to the story. And here's a screen capture, for when it scrolls off. The BBC has quite a checkered recent history of airbrushing its stories with no warning. Looks like it's happened once again. UPDATE: More here.

Posted 2/16/2004 11:16:34 PM by Edward Driscoll
GEE, I GUESS HE'D PREFER SADDAM: Bishop Tutu says Bush and Blair should say they're sorry for "immoral" Iraq war. Tutu should take this simple test. I'd love to hear his answer.

Posted 2/16/2004 10:49:30 PM by Edward Driscoll
DOES THIS MEAN PHIL DONAHUE'S COMING BACK? MSNBC boots its president, and hires former ABC and CNN chief Rick Kaplan. Over a year ago, I posted my thoughts on the little network that couldn't. And little's changed since (other than Phil getting the axe).

Posted 2/16/2004 10:25:37 PM by Edward Driscoll
AS I SAID YESTERDAY, "I'd like to think that eventually, the left will be damaged by how easy it now is to Google, Lexus/Nexus and search the huge database that the Media Research Center has built up, to compare and contrast how they respond to Republicans versus how they respond to Democrats. Sooner or later, their hypocrisy has got to catch up with them". James Lileks compares a week at his newspaper in 1992 to their coverage today.

Posted 2/16/2004 05:19:52 PM by Edward Driscoll
GLENN REYNOLDS has an extremely good point about San Francisco's new mayor, Gavin Newsom, and the law. I caught a few minutes of Bill O'Reilly on Friday saying that Newsom is breaking the law, and should be impeached, but Gov. Schwarzenegger doesn't have the nerve to do something so blatantly un-PC. And sadly, I think he's right on both counts. UPDATE: Jacob Levy of The Volokh Conspiracy looks at the legal issues involved here.

Posted 2/16/2004 05:07:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
KERRY ACCUSES BUSH OF PLAYING THE RACE CARD: Well, at Daytona, at least... Orrin Judd has some (more serious) thoughts on Kerry, who believes the key to electability is by being our national scold. UPDATE: Once again, life imitates Scrappleface. Scott Ott's post was written before Kerry condemned Bush's visit to the Daytona 500!

Posted 2/16/2004 04:37:36 PM by Edward Driscoll
FASTER PLEASE, PART II: "Bremer Hints He May Bar Iraqi Islamic Law". Good move if he does.

Posted 2/16/2004 03:14:29 PM by Edward Driscoll
FASTER, PLEASE: British government considering dismantling BBC.

Posted 2/16/2004 03:04:03 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE CONSERVATIVE LEFT: Forgive me, please, for chuckling a little at Radley Balko's new meme, but he's definitely onto something:

You know, you sometimes get the feeling the day after the polio vaccine was invented, today's left would have run editorials lamenting the good ol' days, when we were a little more cautious about what swimming pools we jumped into, and expressing sadness that we'd now have no new stories about the afflicted overcoming their disability to inspire the rest of us. I'm not kidding. They're that resistant to change. Every mill that shuts down is a "sign of our sad times." No matter that the new mill will do things better, faster and cheaper than the old one. New farming techniques grow more food on less land. But dammit, if there wasn't something romantic about the old-stye "family farm" that's deserving of government protection. Innovation isn't celebrated, it's excoriated for displacing some idealized vision of the way things once were. In matters of progress and dyanmism, the left is far more conservative than the conservatives are.

Radley's far from the first guy to notice that the left are far more reactionary these days than the right ever was, but "the conservative left" is a great way to phrase it. UPDATE: Let's look at the election from the point of view of the ones now standing athwart history and yelling stop (to coin a phrase). A narrowly-elected president who's spent the last four years toppling the Taliban, putting Al-Qeada on the run, arresting Saddam Hussein and getting Libya to allow inspections of its nuclear program, not to mention making the Tranzis of "Old Europe" look like fools, even has he enlarges several of your social programs has got to drive you absolutely, totally insane.

Posted 2/16/2004 02:32:25 AM by Edward Driscoll
LOOK SHARP: Musician Joe Jackson makes a surprising amount of sense when it comes to his take on smoking.

Posted 2/16/2004 01:13:00 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE LANGUAGE POLICE: Joanne Jacobs writes, "Diane Ravitch, author of The Language Police, got her hands on New York state's guidelines for textbooks. Anything that could offend anybody is out". And how! Or, as George Orwell wrote, some 56 years ago:

'Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition [of 1984's Newspeak Dictionary], we're not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,' he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. 'Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?'

I'd say the Party's efforts are right on schedule.

Posted 2/15/2004 11:18:29 PM by Edward Driscoll
THOSE JOHN KERRY/JANE FONDA PHOTOS: Snopes says that one is doctored, but one is real.

Posted 2/15/2004 10:33:54 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE BOSS: Bruce Springsteen's faux-populism has become a bit too screedy and obvious in the past few years for my tastes, but Bruce Walker has some kind words for Springsteen's charitable efforts.

Posted 2/15/2004 10:19:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
OH YEAH, THAT LIBERAL MEDIA, Part XXXVIII: I'd like to think that eventually, the left will be damaged by how easy it now is to Google, Lexus/Nexus and search the huge database that the Media Research Center has built up, to compare and contrast how they respond to Republicans versus how they respond to Democrats. Sooner or later, their hypocrisy has got to catch up with them. UPDATE: Speaking of which...

Posted 2/15/2004 08:47:28 PM by Edward Driscoll
I'VE BEEN SAMIZDATA'D! Christopher Pellerito of the nifty Samizdata.net Weblog has some thoughts on my guitar article in Tech Central Station.

Posted 2/15/2004 08:42:30 PM by Edward Driscoll
867-530NINEEE-INE: Remember the hit song "867-5309"? That number can be yours, if the price is right: $40,100 is the current eBay bid at the time of this posting, and the auction has several days to go.

Posted 2/15/2004 08:38:43 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE LAST, LAST TANGO IN PARIS: Reason looks at Bernardo Bertolucci latest film, The Dreamers, and finds it wanting.

Posted 2/15/2004 04:50:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
WATCHED CASABLANCA after dinner at Parcel 104 last night. My wife wanted to see it for Valentine's Day, and there's a fairly new deluxe edition out on DVD, with a second disc full of bonus features. Humphrey Bogart's Rick is the quintessential liberal figure of WWII: he's got a misty leftist past (supporting the Communists in the Spanish Civil War), his business isn't all that profitable, but his staff is well paid, and his cafe, like America itself, is a haven and melting pot for refugees all around the world. He starts off the film (set at the beginning of December, 1941) as an isolationist, and ends it by selling his bar, getting Ilsa on the plane to America with freedom fighter Victor Laszlo, and becoming a partisan once again, along with his new best friend, free-French policeman Louis Renault, played wonderfully by Claude Rains. (Renault is from the province in France where they speak the King's English perfectly; Jean-Luc Picard will be born there 400 years later.) Hollywood was certainly liberal in WWII, but as I understand its past from books like Neal Gabler's An Empire Of Their Own it wasn't quite leftist, despite the best efforts of reds like Dalton Trumbo. But if Hollywood were to make Casablanca today, Rick would chuck it all, move back to America with Ilsa and do his best to dodge the war on terrorism, and probably dub Victor Laslzo a Nazi, terrorist, or racist himself. Look at Hawkeye, as played by Alan Alda in the M*A*S*H the TV series: a draftee, the minute his hitch is up, he's getting out of Korea just as fast as he can. He can't see any difference between the communists and America, and while he's a dedicated and brilliant doctor from a New England state (!), he turns a complete blind eye to the devastation and terror that will befall North Korea after the war. For America--not just the liberal left of WWII and their president, but the formerly isolationist Republicans as well--Pearl Harbor was a turning point and a rallying point. For today's left, 9/11 never happened. FDR became a hero for millions of Americans for willing to wage a two front war against the Japanese and the Germans--again, not just of the left, but for the right as well (President Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole and both Presidents Bush have all praised him). But for the left, stoked by Al Gore, Howard Dean, and John Kerry, President Bush is an enemy of freedom himself. As cynical as Bogey's character was in Casablanca, would Rick say about that? UPDATE: As I was saying...

Posted 2/15/2004 12:10:25 PM by Edward Driscoll
GEORGE WILL HAS A LIST OF QUESTIONS FOR JOHN KERRY. Steven Den Beste only has three.