Posted 6/19/2004 06:24:43 PM by Edward Driscoll
ALIEN VERSUS PREDATOR: You played the video game. Now go see the movie! (Or don't. Because it looks incredibly silly. And no sign of Sigourney Weaver stripping down to her undies either, even though she still looked pretty darn good on that Esquire cover a couple of years ago. So really, why even bother?) (Found via Murdoc Online.)

Posted 6/19/2004 04:14:33 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHY DAVID BROOKS IN THE NEW YORK TIMES IS A VERY GOOD THING: Think this detail about John Kerry would have gotten in there otherwise?

Earlier this month, Andres Oppenheimer of The Miami Herald asked John Kerry what he thought of something called the Varela Project. Kerry said it was "counterproductive." It's necessary to try other approaches, he added. The Varela Project happens to be one of the most inspiring democracy movements in the world today. It is being led by a Cuban dissident named Oswaldo Payá, who has spent his life trying to topple Castro's regime. Payá realized early on that the dictatorship would never be overthrown by a direct Bay of Pigs-style military assault, but it could be undermined by a peaceful grass-roots movement of Christian democrats, modeling themselves on Martin Luther King Jr. As a young man, Payá founded a magazine called People of God, but it was shut down. He criticized the Soviet Union and was thrown into a work camp. He was given a chance to escape Cuba, but refused. Then in the mid-1990's, he and other dissidents exploited a loophole in the Cuban Constitution that allows ordinary citizens to propose legislation if they can gather 10,000 signatures on a petition. They began a petition drive to call for a national plebiscite on five basic human rights: free speech, free elections, freedom to worship, freedom to start businesses, and the freeing of political prisoners. This drive, the Varela Project, quickly amassed the 10,000 signatures, and more. Jimmy Carter lauded the project on Cuban television. The European Union gave Payá its Sakharov Prize for human rights. Then came Castro's crackdown. Though it didn't dare touch Payá, the regime arrested 75 other dissidents and sentenced each of them to up to 28 years in jail. This week Payá issued a desperate call for international attention and solidarity because the hunt for dissidents continues. John Kerry's view? As he told Oppenheimer, the Varela Project "has gotten a lot of people in trouble . . . and it brought down the hammer in a way that I think wound up being counterproductive." Imagine if you are a Cuban political prisoner rotting in a jail, and you learn that the leader of the oldest democratic party in the world thinks you're being counterproductive. Kerry's comment is a harpoon directed at the morale of Cuba's dissidents. Imagine sitting in Castro's secret police headquarters and reading that statement. The lesson you draw is that crackdowns work. Throw some dissidents in jail, and the man who might be president of the United States will blame the democrats for being provocative. Imagine if in the 1980's Ronald Reagan had called Andrei Sakharov or Natan Sharansky or Lech Walesa or Vaclav Havel "counterproductive" because, after all, what they did spawned crackdowns, too. If there's anything we've learned over the past 20 years it is the power of moral suasion to buck up dissidents and undermine tyrannical regimes. And yet Kerry seems to have decided that other priorities come first.

Based on his record in the Senate, I'm not at all surprised that Kerry is an anti-anti-Castro. And while Brooks is an awfully squishy conservative, his column continues to pay big dividends with its location. UPDATE: More here.

Posted 6/19/2004 03:13:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
TEN SIMPLE RULES FOR DATING MY DAUGHTER: I rather like number three, myself.

Posted 6/19/2004 01:33:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
MYSTERIOUS WAYS DEPARTMENT: Charlotte Allen writes, "I admit it: I laughed, not cried, when I read that most of advertising magnate Charles Saatchi’s famous collection of "transgressive" art got burnt to a transgressive crisp in a London warehouse fire a few weeks ago":

One of the artworks destroyed in the Saatchi fire turned out to have been Chris Ofili’s Holy Virgin Mary. That was the elephant dung-splattered, female-buttocks-and-genitalia-surrounded painting of the Madonna that was part of the "Sensations" show of Saatchi-owned art at the Brooklyn Museum in 1999. As might be expected, New York City’s substantial Catholic population was incensed that a tax-supported museum was using their money to pay for what they considered to be a three-way combination of blasphemy, scatology, and pornography. Then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani threatened to pull the museum’s $7 million grant from the city. A lawsuit followed, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the rest of the usual suspects--but it would seem that the final justice rendered might have been divine, for most of the "Sensations" show perished in the recent fire. What I loved about the Holy Virgin Mary flap was the tidal wave of pretentious blather it induced from the intelligentsia, who cast themselves as usual, as defenders of free speech and great art from the mindless, puritanical mob.

Read on, to observe Salon’s Daniel Kunitz waxing philosphic--about a painting covered in elephant dung.

Posted 6/18/2004 03:53:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
TARANTO'S ON A ROLL TODAY: Just click here and keep scrolling. And be sure to note the update to this story from yesterday--it's a doozy.

Posted 6/18/2004 02:36:28 PM by Edward Driscoll
AL QAEDA BEHEADS AMERICAN PAUL JOHNSON: Outside the Beltway has numerous links. And be sure to check out these two posts by Andy McCarthy.

Posted 6/18/2004 02:08:45 PM by Edward Driscoll
PRAGER WAS RIGHT: The more I think about it, the more this quote by Dennis Prager hits home:

As a famous Soviet dissident joke put it: "In the Soviet Union, the future is known; it's the past which is always changing."

In the 1990s, President Clinton and his administration released numerous bits of intel and information on Bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein to the press. As a result, The New York Times, as well as Newsweek, and NPR each ran stories documenting his ties to Bin Ladin. Yesterday, the 9/11 commission confirmed those ties, and admonished the press for ignoring them. Was Saddam directly tied to 9/11? President Bush never said he was. But clearly, Iraq and Al Qaeda were quite cozy with each other. Something the press spent the past decade documenting when it benefited one administration, and the past three years chucking down the memory hole when it hindered another. UPDATE: Steve Den Beste has a new post which shows how Prager's line applies to academia:

In the "new" "enlightened" approach to history, you don't study historical events in order to learn the consequences and results of certain kinds of decisions and policies. History is a source of lessons, but you don't study history and derive lessons from past events. The lesson comes first. The conclusion is already known. You study history to find justifications for that lesson, but you already know the lesson is right before you begin that study. If history doesn't actually give you the justification you require, then you modify it as needed so that it does. That may mean you ignore some of it and emphasize other parts, or it may require you to rewrite it so that it happens the way it should have happened. This is a fundamentally teleological approach to history, in which the esthetic beauty of a conclusion, and the fact that we strongly want it to be true, are more important than whether it is empirically correct. If not, then the universe must change, because the mind and the concept are the most fundamental realities of all.

Needless to say, RTWT. UPDATE: The Gipper's farewell from the White House warned of such revisionism. Speaking of President Reagan, here are some thoughts on how his legacy should be tought in school, by Robert Mandel, that rarest of breeds these days: a conservative teacher.

Posted 6/18/2004 02:04:13 PM by Edward Driscoll
NEW YORK TIMES DISCOVERS SADDAM-BIN LADEN CONNECTION: Set the wayback machine to 1998, Mr. Judd!

Posted 6/18/2004 12:44:06 PM by Edward Driscoll
HUGH HEWITT ON THE LA TIMES and their omission of the new (favorable to President Bush) polling numbers: "If the facts don't fit, you must omit". That works equally for their counterpart on the other side of the country. Paging Mr. Goldberg. Mr. Bernard Goldberg to the red courtesy phone. UPDATE: And even if you don't omit it, if the truth doesn't fit, don't bother putting it in the headlines. Note the headline at AP has for this story:

Putin Says Russia Gave U.S. Intel on Iraq And then note the opening paragraph:

ASTANA, Kazakhstan - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday his government warned Washington that Saddam Hussein's regime was preparing attacks in the United States and its interests abroad — an assertion that appears to bolster President Bush's contention that Iraq was a threat.

I guess "Putin Confirms Saddam Was Threat" would be too gauche, huh? Or as Jim Geraghty wrote:

The Left: The war on Iraq is a disaster! The world hates us! You did it unilaterally! You should have gotten Russia on board. You should have gotten Putin to support a U.N. resolution. The support of Russia would show this isn't just America being imperialist, but the whole unified world coming together to face Saddam. The Right: Well, Putin says Saddam was going to attack us with terrorists. The Left: Well, who the hell trusts Putin and the Russians?

If the facts don't fit...

Posted 6/18/2004 12:16:43 PM by Edward Driscoll
KAFKA SAYS GIBSON TOP CELEBRITY: Peter Kafka of Forbes, that is:

Hollywood turned its back on his bloody Bible flick, a cross that Mel was only too happy to carry himself. With The Passion of the Christ bringing in more than $600 million at the box office, he is likely to make at least $150 million more in the next year. Mel made the top 10 in every category we measured this year: money, magazine covers, press clippings, Web presence, TV/radio hits.

Who says the auteur theory is dead?

Posted 6/18/2004 11:54:04 AM by Edward Driscoll
TERMINAL LOGIC: Over at National Review Online, Megan Basham reviews Spielberg and Hanks' The Terminal:

The real Viktor Navorski [Tom Hanks' character], a displaced Iranian named Merhan Karimi Nasseri, was stuck in Charles De Gaulle airport for over seven years before the two European governments made any attempt to resolve his situation. Now, sadly, it seems Nasseri has gone a bit mad, and refuses to leave the airport for any country save England, which is not an option for him. With Spielberg and Hanks at the helm, The Terminal is, for the most part, everything one would expect — charming, funny, and possessing its own singular character and visual beauty in much the same way as their last collaboration, Catch Me If You Can. But what it is not is intellectually honest. True, Spielberg most likely could not have set this film in France with as much success. But if he had, it is unlikely he would have made a French immigration authority the villain he makes out of Dixon. Truth, as always, remains stranger than fiction, and Hollywood's fiction, as always, does what it can to undermine the reputation of certain American institutions. The Terminal manages to amuse, entertain, and inspire. But as with almost all things connected to Tinsel Town, just don't expect it to educate — at least, not fairly.

The same is true of Saved which, as Jonathan Last notes, does something [satire] no other Hollywood film has ever done before [/satire]: make fun of Christians!

Don R. Lewis, of Film Threat, wrote that "Saved!" is "a sweet and funny movie that starts off with bite but settles into an honest feeling of happiness and acceptance for all types of people and their choices." Of course, he doesn't really mean all types of people. He went on to note that the movie is "a gentle exploration of why the judgments of the Catholic church are so screwed up." ("Saved!" is about evangelical Christians--not Catholics--but you know how it is. They all look alike.) John Leonard of CBS thought the movie "good-hearted," while Manohla Dargis, in the Los Angeles Times, labeled it "a soft-bellied, sweet-tempered satire." Both Newsweek and the New York Times judged as merely "gentle" the ribbing that "Saved!" gives to Christians. Too gentle, for some. The Chicago Tribune lamented that "after bravely lampooning an institution so many consider beyond reproach, Saved! chickens out." Michael Atkinson, from the Village Voice, wrote that American evangelicals--whom he called "warmongers praying for corpse-heaped victory"--need "a good, steel-tipped satiric whipping," and that the movie didn't deliver it. For good measure, he added: "the born-again, one-hand-in-the-air prayer stance. . .resembles a Nazi salute." Ms. Dargis faulted "Saved!" for not having the courage to "admit that some of [God's] most ardent believers will always be invested in hate." Other reviewers were not so dismissive of Mr. Dannelly's grit. "Teasing Christians," said Newsweek, "is risky business." David Denby, in The New Yorker, solemnly nodded, adding that although "Saved!" was not an attack on Christianity, "to make it at all took courage." Actually, it took no courage, since the movie plays straight into Hollywood's smug stereotypes about religion, especially the non-Buddhist variety.

For all its flaws, audiences instinctively knew that The Passion took its Christianity seriously, propelling a low budget vanity film by Mel Gibson into the box office stratosphere. Will anybody else in Hollywood get the message?

Posted 6/18/2004 01:42:09 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE INTIFADA'S OVER, writes Charles Krauthammer. And the Israelis won:

For Israel, the victory is bitter. The past four years of terrorism have killed almost 1,000 Israelis and maimed thousands of others. But Israel has won strategically. The intent of the intifada was to demoralize Israel, destroy its economy, bring it to its knees, and thus force it to withdraw and surrender to Palestinian demands, just as Israel withdrew in defeat from southern Lebanon in May 2000. That did not happen. Israel's economy was certainly wounded, but it is growing again. Tourism had dwindled to almost nothing at the height of the intifada, but tourists are returning. And the Israelis were never demoralized. They kept living their lives, the young people in particular returning to cafes and discos and buses just hours after a horrific bombing. Israelis turned out to be a lot tougher and braver than the Palestinians had imagined. The end of the intifada does not mean the end of terrorism. There was terrorism before the intifada and there will be terrorism to come. What has happened, however, is an end to systematic, regular, debilitating, unstoppable terror -- terror as a reliable weapon. At the height of the intifada, there were nine suicide attacks in Israel killing 85 Israelis in just one month (March 2002). In the past three months there have been none. The overall level of violence has been reduced by more than 70 percent. How did Israel do it? By ignoring its critics and launching a two-pronged campaign of self-defense.

RTWT. (Via Steve Green, who's going through the same mind-numbing hell fun of remodeling I went through last year, but left us lots of weekend links in the interim.)

Posted 6/18/2004 01:22:45 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE MOD SQUAD: Looking to hot rod your PC? Check out an article I wrote for the July issue of Videomaker Magazine. (Spot the Trogdor reference!)

Posted 6/18/2004 01:14:40 AM by Edward Driscoll
9/11 PANEL ADMONISHES MEDIA: Ace of Spades has the details. Fortunately, Newsweek got the story right--in 1999, that is.

Posted 6/18/2004 12:48:16 AM by Edward Driscoll
SWIMMING TO BOSTON: Eric Fettman of the New York Post writes:

The opening night of next month's Democratic convention in Boston is set to feature an emotional party tribute to hometown hero Ted Kennedy, who has served in office longer than every other senator but one. Guess no one at the Democratic National Committee took a close look at the calendar: That July 26 salute to Teddy just happens to coincide with . . . the 35th anniversary of Chappaquiddick.

Wonder if this writer from the Boston Globewill be covering the event. UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein has a copy of the invitation.

Posted 6/17/2004 10:00:42 PM by Edward Driscoll
"ENRON, YES. ISLAMIC FASCISM, NO.": James Lileks writes that The clock has been reset to 9/10. For some, that's true. Not for all of us, though.

Posted 6/17/2004 08:27:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
ARROGANCE AND ALTERNATIVES: The second half of my interview with Bernard Goldberg is online at Tech Central Station. (If you haven't read part one yet, it's here.)

Posted 6/17/2004 08:15:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
"NO ONE ASKED US": It's funny that the left only pulls the chickenhawk sophism out of their rhetorical playbook when they want to oppose something. Which is too bad--they might learn something from this essay by Major Stan Coerr, USMCR SuperCobra attack helicopter pilot and forward air controller, and veteran of the liberation of Iraq from Suddam Hussein.

Posted 6/17/2004 08:07:36 PM by Edward Driscoll
ON A MUCH MORE UNSAVORY NOTE, John Hawkins explores Michael Moore's Hezbollah connection.

Posted 6/17/2004 08:05:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE GIPPER-FDR CONNECTION is explored by Michael Barone, who writes:

Ambitious to succeed, the young Reagan went off to college, then made a career in radio, then passed a screen test and became a movie star. The 1920s and 1930s radio and 1930s and 1940s movies were universal media, aimed at all Americans, presenting a vision of a friendly and open nation. Those movies were the strongest popular culture since Charles Dickens and, for many, still define the American character. Ronald Reagan was suffused with their spirit and brought it or, rather, brought it back to American politics. Brought it back, because it was the same spirit brought to politics by Franklin Roosevelt, for whom Reagan voted four times. Roosevelt and Reagan both came to office when people had given up on the American economy, and both brought it back toward prosperity and abundance — Roosevelt by expanding government, Reagan by cutting taxes and curbing inflation, freeing the American economy to produce the largely unpredicted surge of prosperity of the past 20 years. Roosevelt and Reagan as presidents both faced a world where totalitarian regimes were on the march and where the United States seemed helpless to stop them. Roosevelt led the American people to victory and the destruction of Nazism and took steps to keep the peace in the postwar world he did not live to see. Reagan pushed the Soviet Union to the brink of collapse and had the satisfaction, before his mind dimmed, of watching the Berlin Wall fall and Moscow's empire crumble. He is buried now near a slab from that wall, overlooking the mountains and the Pacific to the west. Reagan always admired Roosevelt, even as he came to oppose many of his policies, and there were similarities in their characters. Both were optimistic and friendly and seemed open, yet both had hard cores inaccessible even to their closest aides: cold steel beneath the smiles. Both had courage, "grace under pressure," as Thatcher said. Roosevelt, at his speeches, stood in steel braces and with great effort, in enormous pain, walked forward to the microphone and addressed the nation. Reagan, after he was shot, stood and walked from the ambulance into the hospital, taking care to button his jacket. The two men stand now, in history, the two most consequential presidents of the 20th century.

That grace under pressure may best be summed up by a quote that Reagan himself made: "Uncle Sam is a friendly old man, but he has a spine of steel".

Posted 6/17/2004 05:09:54 PM by Edward Driscoll
GHOST TOWN REVISITED:Back in early April, we linked to this site at its old URL and wrote:

P.J. O'Rourke once wrote a book called Holidays in Hell. If you're up for a virtual one, how about a motorcycle ride past the abandoned hulk of Chernobyl and its nearby deserted ghost towns, with Elena, a beautiful Russian brunette as your guide?

Steven Den Beste links to Elena's site as the launching pad for an essay on the archeological implications of Chernobyl. Den Beste describes what it tells us about the state of the Soviet Union at the time of the Chernobyl meltdown, only four years after Arthur Schlesinger, just back from a trip to Moscow in 1982, said that President Reagan was delusional about the crumbling state of the Evil Empire:

"I found more goods in the shops, more food in the markets, more cars on the street -- more of almost everything," he said, adding his contempt for "those in the U.S. who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse, ready with one small push to go over the brink."

Posted 6/17/2004 03:22:28 PM by Edward Driscoll
EARTH TURNING TO DUST, UN SAYS: There's no way this article can be true. Because dammit--Spielberg owes me. I bought miles of property in Trenton, New Jersey after seeing A.I. a few years ago, and I expect to be sitting on prime ocean-front land in a few years!

Posted 6/17/2004 03:17:38 PM by Edward Driscoll
BUT DON'T QUESTION THEIR CREDIBILITY: The Chicago Tribune reports their crosstown rival, the Chicago Sun Times trashed large amounts of its own daily run to boost its circulation numbers. Do the environmentalists know about that?

Posted 6/17/2004 01:46:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE SOFT BIGOTRY OF LOW EXPECTATIONS: At the end of a Washington Times article on John Kerry's campaign trek through Ohio, is this:

Talking about education yesterday, Mr. Kerry also told the largely black crowd at the day care center that there are more blacks in prison than in college. "That's unacceptable," he said. "But it's not their fault." Rather than the inmates, the former Boston prosecutor blamed poverty, poor schools, a dearth of after-school programs and "all of us as adults not doing what we need to do."

James Taranto writes:

What do adults "need to do" to prevent youngsters from turning to crime? Surely, above all, instill in them a sense of personal responsibility. Kerry sends precisely the opposite message when he says of criminals--and, it would seem, only of those criminals who happen to be black--that "it's not their fault." There's a tinge of racism, what President Bush aptly terms "the soft bigotry of low expectations," in Kerry's assumption that young blacks can't be expected to do any better than end up in prison.

Another staggering Kerry gaffe that old media won't comment on, for several reasons. (Via Joanne Jacobs.)

Posted 6/17/2004 01:17:55 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHOOOO'S THAT GIRL?? Meet Esther. She's not quite like a virgin. But she's waiting for you to justify her love! Malcolm Muggeridge--call your offfice! UPDATE: Wow, that was fast! Jeff Goldstein has scored the first interview with Esther.

Posted 6/17/2004 12:28:14 PM by Edward Driscoll
FROM THE BOTTOM UP: I have a new (and relatively long) article, which traces the electric bass from the Fender Precision Bass to today's software synthesizers, online at Blogcritics. The article also has lots of tips for home recordists. UPDATE: First comment the article received was posted by this fellow: "Speaking as a working bassist, your kung fu is the best. Thanks Ed, for a fantastic article and reverent homage to the Low End." I really have to do a post with the kudos this site and my writing has gotten. And somewhere "your kung fu is the best!" has to be among them.

Posted 6/17/2004 11:37:06 AM by Edward Driscoll
NEWSWEEK AND NPR EXAMINE THE SADDAM-AL QAEDA CONNECTION: Back in 1999, that is:

There was a time not long ago when the conventional wisdom skewed heavily toward a Saddam-al Qaeda links. In 1998 and early 1999, the Iraq-al Qaeda connection was widely reported in the American and international media. Former intelligence officers and government officials speculated about the relationship and its dangerous implications for the world. The information in the news reports came from foreign and domestic intelligence services. It was featured in mainstream media outlets including international wire services, prominent newsweeklies, and network radio and television broadcasts. Newsweek magazine ran an article in its January 11, 1999, issue headed "Saddam + Bin Laden?" "Here's what is known so far," it read: “Saddam Hussein, who has a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild his intelligence network overseas -- assets that would allow him to establish a terrorism network. U.S. sources say he is reaching out to Islamic terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi exile accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa last summer.” ....NPR reporter Mike Shuster interviewed Vincent Cannistraro, former head of the CIA's counterterrorism center, and offered this report: “Iraq's contacts with bin Laden go back some years, to at least 1994, when, according to one U.S. government source, Hijazi met him when bin Laden lived in Sudan. According to Cannistraro, Iraq invited bin Laden to live in Baghdad to be nearer to potential targets of terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait....Some experts believe bin Laden might be tempted to live in Iraq because of his reported desire to obtain chemical or biological weapons. CIA Director George Tenet referred to that in recent testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee when he said bin Laden was planning additional attacks on American targets.” By mid-February 1999, journalists did not even feel the need to qualify these claims of an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. An Associated Press dispatch that ran in the Washington Post ended this way: "The Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against Western powers." Where did journalists get the idea that Saddam and bin Laden might be coordinating efforts? Among other places, from high-ranking Clinton administration officials. In the spring of 1998 -- well before the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa -- the Clinton administration indicted Osama bin Laden. The indictment, unsealed a few months later, prominently cited al Qaeda's agreement to collaborate with Iraq on weapons of mass destruction. The Clinton Justice Department had been concerned about negative public reaction to its potentially capturing bin Laden without "a vehicle for extradition," official paperwork charging him with a crime. It was "not an afterthought" to include the al Qaeda-Iraq connection in the indictment, says an official familiar with the deliberations. "It couldn't have gotten into the indictment unless someone was willing to testify to it under oath." The Clinton administration's indictment read unequivocally: “Al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.”

I wonder if the 9/11 Commission knows about this. UPDATE: More here. ANOTHER UPDATE: This issue's controversy in an election year is somewhat muted by the fact that John Kerry agrees with the president' position...

Posted 6/16/2004 09:39:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
PLANE ESCORTED BACK TO SEATAC WITH F-16 ESCORT? My wife has a friend who's a volunteer fire jumper with a scanner, who says that a Horizon Air passenger flight enroute to Hawaii was in the air for 30 minutes when it was escorted back to Seattle's SeaTac airport with a fighter escort. More on this if and when there are some substantial details to post. A FEW MORE DETAILS: Apparently, it seems the plane was not transmitting on its transponder which may be as simple as a blown fuse, but the fighter jets had to escort it because otherwise it's invisible on the transponder displays which are so crucial to air traffic safety. It's sounds like it's going to land at McChord Air Force Base just outside of Seattle.

Posted 6/16/2004 07:36:48 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE KERRY-REAGAN CONNECTION, as explored by Power Line: "Kerry yearns, say his friends, for the era of good feeling that prevailed during the Reagan presidency, highlighted by the Iran-Contra and Bork hearings". Heh.

Posted 6/16/2004 05:30:41 PM by Edward Driscoll
ARE REPORTERS ABOVE THE LAW? The obvious answer is "of course not". Over at his MSNBC Blog, Glenn Reynolds explains why. I've always liked Charlton Heston's response when CNN tried to claim some sort of made-up neutrality.

Posted 6/16/2004 04:16:06 PM by Edward Driscoll
IT IS THE END OF DAYS: Truly, it is. (Via Jeff Goldstein, who's equally frightened.)

Posted 6/16/2004 03:38:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
KERRY MAKES STATEMENT on his repeated absences from the Senate this year. Although he hasn't entered into this poll yet.

Posted 6/16/2004 02:22:01 PM by Edward Driscoll
SPEAKING OF JONAH, he explains the Geneva Convention to Joe Biden. (Via Betsy Newmark.)

Posted 6/16/2004 01:47:03 PM by Edward Driscoll
JONAH GOLDBERG TAKES ANDREW SULLIVAN TO TASK for his regular attacks on President Bush, and I think he's got a point:

A blog which soared with high-minded rhetoric about how the war on terror is the test for this generation and that Bush was the right man to lead that struggle, now day-after-day tries to whittle away at reasons to support Bush in the fall as if the war on terror were merely another issue which can be trumped by any other issue you happen to feel more passionate about.

"Some days", Jonah adds, "it really sounds like Sullivan wants to jump into the anti-Bush pool but he just can't muster the gumption if others won't join him." UPDATE: Jonah notes that Sullivan has pulled a fast one:

I must say I was surprised to discover this link from the gay magazine The Advocate. It seems that Andrew had been unequivocal about his opinions on Bush in that publication but not in his blog. In his Advocate essay he writes:

But it’s time to say something very clearly: Bush’s endorsement of antigay discrimination in the U.S. Constitution itself is a deal-breaker. I can’t endorse him this fall. Like many other gay men and women who have supported him, despite serious disagreements, I feel betrayed, abused, attacked.

And...

I will be excoriated by the same people who always denounce anyone who doesn’t toe the Democratic Party line. “What took you so long?” they sneer. Hope, engagement, principle are my answers. I do not regret trying to make conservatism safe for gays. It’s still possible to be in favor of small government, low taxes, a tough foreign policy, and to be a proud gay man. My principles haven’t changed. Nor will they anytime soon. But when a president allies himself with forces that really do want to keep gay people in jail, therapy, or the closet, it’s time to break off. The deal is broken. And no amount of rationalization can make it whole again.

Now I disagree with much (but not all) of what Andrew says in his essay. But it's an honest and decent position. Still what baffles me is why, to my knowledge, he's made no reference to this essay or his absolutist position on his site. Maybe, I missed it and he has. But I don't think so. Obviously, there's no binding code of ethics governing the blogosphere and even if there were I doubt it would have anything to say about not linking to articles you've written elsewhere or being obligated to express every significant opinion you have. But still, reading Andrew over the last year, you would have gotten the impression that at least theoretically his mind was open on who to support. According to this piece, it isn't. And that strikes me as an extremely significant silence.

Well, at least now we know. (Via InstaPundit.) UPDATE: Ace of Spades has some thoughts on Sullivan, in a long, detailed post. ONE MORE UPDATE: This sounds like some furious tap dancing to me. A THOUGHT: When Andrew finally does line up for Kerry, watch The New York Times eventually start running him on the Op-Ed page again. OK, ANOTHER UPDATE OR TWO: More from Ace of Spades, here. Meanwhile, Sullivan takes a real cheap shot at Jonah, quoting anti-gay posters from Jonah's mom's site, Lucianne.com. One would assume that when Sullivan endorses Kerry, it will be in spite of some of the more extreme comments written by the folks who post at say, Democratic Underground or IndyMedia.

Posted 6/16/2004 11:35:05 AM by Edward Driscoll
IS BILL RICHARDSON out of the Kerry veep running? UPDATE: Is Sam Nunn now in the picture? Will Collier writes, "Dubya should be so lucky".

Posted 6/15/2004 10:38:29 PM by Edward Driscoll
NEW HOME AUTOMATION STANDARD PROPOSED BY SMARTHOME.COM, whose CEO was nice enough to stop by my office today at noon (in between stopping by some very high-powered folks in the San Jose area). Here's an article about it on a site called Designtechnica.com. Expect my write-up in the not-too-distant future.

Posted 6/15/2004 09:56:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
PROTEIN WISDOM GENTLY REBUKES MICHELLE MALKIN for missing the subtext in Paul Krugman's latest article. (Looks like we missed it as well!)

Posted 6/15/2004 09:16:36 PM by Edward Driscoll
POSTMODERN TERROR: Steve Green writes, "I don't buy that the Paul Johnson video is a ransom message. I have the sick feeling Mr. Johnson is already dead". RTWT. UPDATE: Charles Johnson adds, "And now back to Prison Scandal 2004!, brought to you by the mainstream media of the West, currently at war but unable to recognize it".

Posted 6/15/2004 09:11:10 PM by Edward Driscoll
DEN BESTE: "I don't necessarily want you to agree with me. But if you disagree, I want you to understand why." Imagine if the elite media had that as their philosophy. It's easy if you try...

Posted 6/15/2004 09:08:49 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHY SCHROEDER LOST, and what it means for America: Kevin Hassett writes:

The Germans now face what is to them an unthinkable possibility. Their eastern neighbors are dramatically more successful than they are and may soon enough be richer. The costs of their lazy socialism are apparent even to their children, and the country is in a panic. "We all recognize," one participant told me, "that Germany needs its own Reagan."

That's true of several countries in Europe.

Posted 6/15/2004 09:00:16 PM by Edward Driscoll
HELL, REVISITED: Last October, when the conventional wisdom was the Howard Dean was going to be The Man that the Democrats would rally around, Jonah Goldberg had a great cover story in National Review about Vermont. The cover's chief headline was set in enormous type and was one word: Hell. (Here's an spin-off article that Goldberg wrote for National Review Online.) C.C. Kraemer picks up the theme, looking at "Green Mountain Statists" in Tech Central Station:

Vermont is a paradox. It's a relatively poor state filled with low-income families who can use the price breaks brought by discount retailers. But it's also a playground for wealthy progressives and elitists who tend to be concentrated in the Burlington area. They began flocking to state three decades ago because they saw an opportunity to take control of Vermont's policy-making process and force through a progressive agenda. Though their wealth is a product of our capitalist, free-market system, these left-leaning relative newcomers see development and economic advancement as threats to Vermont's rural and quaint small-town flavor. That puts them at odds with much of the more deeply rooted populace that shares neither the elitists' wealth nor their values. As such it becomes clear why the state is the perfect location for the escalating culture clash over Wal-Mart.

Kraemer concludes, "Most Vermonters could use more Wal-Marts and the low prices and job opportunities the retailer brings. Yet an elite few are willing to make sure they get neither. The world's largest retailer is unwelcome in Vermont and in other self-characterized progressive states and communities across the country. That might be OK for the cocktail party crowd, but it is a disservice to those who rely on Wal-Mart to make their incomes go further".

Posted 6/15/2004 06:02:56 PM by Edward Driscoll
THINK DIFFERENT: Then: The Belmont Club writes:

Sophisticates unwittingly paid Reagan a compliment by calling him a cowboy, by which they meant gunslinger, instead of in the more accurate sense of a man able to see nature without blinders; to know things for what they were. Although Ronald Reagan has left the nation a huge legacy of achievement still it would be incomplete and his bequest to posterity less final if we forget that his greatest strength was to think for himself and dare to do the same.

And now:

These days, [leftwing radio personality Phil Hendrie] is more likely to appear on Dennis Miller’s new MSNBC comedy news show, or even to be booed at the recent Aspen Comedy Festival, at a Saturday-morning panel on “Who’s Funnier — the Left or Right?” “I’m delighted to be counted among Phil’s admirers,” says Harry Shearer, “although he’s hopelessly wrong about the war . . . Long and short of it — he’s way too good for KFI.” “Ever since 9/11,” says Hendrie, “as the days tick by, I wonder if I’m insane. I wonder if I’ve overreacted, because I’ve seen the country drift back to this blasé attitude: Maybe 9/11 was this isolated thing, and maybe we should just cool out. And sometimes I doubt myself — should I be as shocked as I was? But I remember those days. Everybody felt it. And it’s changed me a lot. I feel like I need to say this. I’m not going to change anyone’s mind, but I’ve got to get it off my chest. And I’m not a Republican; I am a Democrat. I know I’m a Democrat, and I know what the Democratic Party stands for. I think the president is wrong-minded on certain domestic issues such as gay marriage. I think he’s being badly influenced by, once again, the thing that’s going to tear the Republican Party apart, the religious right. But that said, I don’t think I need to turn my card in just because I don’t hate George Bush. I know war is bad, but this is not the generation that’s going to end it.”

Posted 6/15/2004 04:51:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
BLOGGING TODAY'S EARTHQUAKE IN SAN DIEGO: San Jose is awfully far from San Diego, and I wasn't even aware of a quake until I read Glenn's post, unlike the Christmas week quake near San Simeon, which I definitely felt. But several San Diego-era bloggers noticed this one, and The Professor has links to them.

Posted 6/15/2004 02:53:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
JOHN HAWKINS LOOKS AT "Press Bias, Teresa Heinz Kerry, & The Myth Of Max Cleland". UPDATE: More on Cleland here.

Posted 6/15/2004 02:43:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
NARCISSUS' POND: Bestsy Newmark has some thoughts on Bill Clinton and his presidential portrait.

Posted 6/15/2004 02:18:22 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHY DIDN'T THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA COVER the speech given to terrorist Richard C. Reid (the would-be "shoe bomber") by the judge who sentenced him to life in prison? Instead, we get the New York Times printing that "Mr. Ashcroft has yet to convict any actual terrorists". The coverage of our war on terror by the press has all-in-all, been an abomination. Of course, as Lileks noted recently, it makes sense, when you consider that the nihilism of Hunter S. Thompson is the tone journalists love to affect:

Thompson has less hope than the Islamists; at least they have an afterlife to look forward to. All we have is a country so rotten and exhausted it’s not worth defending. It never was, of course, but it’s even less defensible now than before. He can say what he wants. Drink what he wants. Drive where he wants. Do what he wants. He’s done okay in America. And he hates this country. Hates it. This appeals to high school kids and collegiate-aged students getting that first hot eye-crossing hit from the Screw Dad pipe, but it’s rather pathetic in aged moneyed authors. And it would be irrelevant if this same spirit didn't infect on whom Hunter S. had an immense influence. He's the guy who made nihilism hip. He's the guy who taught a generation that the only thing you should believe is this: don't trust anyone who believes anything. He's the patron saint of journalism, whether journalists know it or not.

Of course, that doesn't mean the public--you know, the folks who actually buy newspapers and log-on to news Websites--think the same way. Which helps to explain this, doesn't it?

Posted 6/15/2004 01:58:06 PM by Edward Driscoll
SHADES OF THE IMPEACHMENT WARS: Remember during the impeachment of Bill Clinton, when the left and feminists (and the feminist left) would twist their arguments to the point where it resembled pretzels and Silly Straws? Pretzel logic, once thought to be fit only for Steely Dan records, is far from dead these days:

In a sworn statement to be made public Tuesday, University of Colorado President Elizabeth Hoffman said a four-letter word used toward women can sometimes be used as a "term of endearment." The comment comes from Hoffman's latest sworn testimony in connection with a federal lawsuit against the university. 9NEWS received a copy of the passage in question from the university after sources both outside and inside CU told us about it. * * * In the deposition, Hoffman was asked whether the "c-word" is "filthy and vile." She said she knows the word is a swear word, but "It is all in the context of what--of how it is used and when it is used." She was asked, "Can you indicate any polite context in which that word would be used?" Hoffman answered, "Yes, I've actually heard it used as a term of endearment." A CU spokeswoman said President Hoffman is aware of the negative connotations associated with the word. But, the spokesperson said, because Hoffman is a medieval scholar, she is aware of the long history of the word. She said it was not always a negative term.

Decorum prevents me from mentioning the school's initials are the same two... ...Well--moving right along now!

Posted 6/14/2004 10:16:03 PM by Edward Driscoll
COUNTRY JOE'S SECOND THOUGHTS: The singer/songwriter whose "Fixin' To Die Rag" was a showstopper in the 1970 documentary film Woodstock (complete with "follow the bouncing ball" on-screen lyrics), has second thoughts about the Vietnam that he and his fellow "peace" activists helped create. Expect a handful of today's anti-American/anti-West/pro-Saddam/pro-Al Qaida, etc., etc., celebrities to have second thoughts as well in the coming years. Of course, as we wrote earlier today, this past week has shown that introspection and second thoughts are a rare commodity in the world.

Posted 6/14/2004 07:06:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
NEW PURITANS UPDATE: Tech Central Station says, "They're Coming for Your Shrimp"!

Posted 6/14/2004 06:55:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
REMEMBER MICAH WRIGHT? We posted about him briefly here when, as Steven Den Beste wrote today, "He had his fifteen minutes of fame a couple of months ago, though it would be more accurate to call it his fifteen minutes of mortification". He's back though, with an Oliver Stone-like conspiracy theory about the people who did much of the legwork uncovering the fact that unlike his claims, he never actually served in the military.

Posted 6/14/2004 03:09:50 PM by Edward Driscoll
DEJA MOO: The feeling that you've heard the same bull once before. Maybe Mrs. Reynolds is more right than she knows. As I was saying...

Posted 6/14/2004 02:53:17 PM by Edward Driscoll
MICHELLE MALKIN DOESN'T MINCE WORDS when it comes to her take on Joe Biden and how he uses his son as a pawn in his speechmaking.

Posted 6/14/2004 02:35:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
DEPLETING THE URANIUM ARGUMENT: What does the Seattle PI newspaper really believe, Brian Crouch asks. "Is depleted uranium in munitions used by the military somehow more of a radiological threat than a bomb made of non-depleted uranium by a terrorist? I suppose it depends on whose side you're on". I've always thought Sgt. Stryker had the definitive warning on depleted uranium.

Posted 6/14/2004 02:03:30 PM by Edward Driscoll
MEET THE NEW IRAQI PRESIDENT: Roger L. Simon writes:

I find Meet the Press a prime example of the decline of the mainstream media during my lifetime. A show which began years ago with several voices has devolved into the fiefdom of Tim Russert--and the medieval analogy is not accidental. Still, I watch it, even if his questions are not designed to reveal the truth, but rather for dramatic-gotcha effect.

Simon says that Iraq's incoming president, Ghazi Al-Yawar, did a masterful job of defending himself from Russert's gotcha-games--and the quotes of Al-Yawar confirm it.

Posted 6/14/2004 01:26:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
DECONSTRUCTING THE TIMES: Steven Den Beste looks at a New York Times article that "tries to portray Reagan so as to present a sharp contrast to President Bush, and in the end...puts Reagan inside a bunny-rabbit costume and presents him as an accommodating cooperative multilateralist who was only interested in getting along with everyone and who didn't have a confrontational bone in his body". Den Beste concludes, "If you have to lie about something, it's stupid to lie to someone who knows the truth. It's really stupid to lie when 100 million people know the truth, and to tell that lie in a NYT column which lots of them are sure to see". For those who paid attention last week, numerous Websites, but especially the Media Research Center and National Review Online provided a valuable service: examining the original pieces that journalists and broadcasters filed on President Reagan before and during his two terms of office. Never have so many been so wrong about a man, and to this day been loathe to admit it. Why should The Times start now? No wonder the credibility of the press has plummeted. When you can use the 'Net to fact check their asses (to coin a phrase), it's easy to see how often they let their biases get in the way of their reporting. UPDATE: For future Times articles, Jeff Goldstein has an easy to follow template that should make first drafts much easier. CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER UPDATE: H.D. Miller is praising a Times article, something that I doubt happens very often.

Posted 6/14/2004 12:39:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHAT WE LEARNED LAST WEEK: Gleaves Whitney looks at Ronald Reagan and us.

Posted 6/14/2004 12:18:46 PM by Edward Driscoll
JAMES TARANTO IS REALLY ON A ROLL TODAY: Just keep scrolling.

Posted 6/14/2004 11:37:49 AM by Edward Driscoll
GOD LIVES: At least for now, in the Pledge of Allegiance. After watching President Reagan's funeral last week, Jonah Goldberg has some thoughts on what a central role He plays in our government. And nice to see another late Republican president's efforts still paying dividends. UPDATE: Joanne Jacobs warnes that "Somewhere in our fair land, there are custodial, pledge-hating parents who are polishing up a lawsuit".

Posted 6/14/2004 01:51:19 AM by Edward Driscoll
FROM THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO TO BERNIE SANDERS' STATE: Betsy Newmark looks at what Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's sons went through the day after Ronald Reagan was elected to his first term as president.

Posted 6/13/2004 06:42:25 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHAT IS AN "INTELLIGENT" PERSON? Roger Kimball and Mark Steyn have some thoughts on the subject. UPDATE: As does the Power Line blog.

Posted 6/13/2004 04:35:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
A TALE OF TWO LETTERS: Not surprisingly, Oh, That Liberal Media notes a pretty clear double standard at play with the LA Times.

Posted 6/13/2004 03:49:56 PM by Edward Driscoll
BUSH 41 TURNS 80, SKYDIVES TO CELEBRATE: George H.W., the first President Bush, decided to celebrate his 80th birthday by skydiving, making a 13,000 foot jump over his presidential library earlier today:

He made a tandem jump - harnessed to a member of an Army's Golden Knights parachute team - after officials decided the wind conditions and low clouds made it too dangerous for the 41st president to jump alone, which he did when he turned 75. "This was a real thrill for me," said Bush, wearing a black-and-gold jumpsuit. "I felt no fear ... for me to get a chance to jump with the Golden Knights is a dream." With Staff Sgt. Bryan Schnell on his back and a black-and-gold parachute ballooning above them, the former president waved his arms to some 4,000 spectators as he neared the drop zone - a painted logo of "41 at 80" in the center of a football-field-sized area on the grounds of his presidential library at Texas A&M University. "It's been a great day," Bush said after sailing to the ground, landing and scooting a ways on his backside. "This was a day of joy and a day of wonder for the Bush family, certainly for the old guy." The crowd included his wife, Barbara, his son Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev - whom the former president had invited to jump with him. "Afraid," Gorbachev said through an interpreter, explaining why he didn't accept the offer. "Maybe on his 90th birthday. ... For me, it would be a first. At my age, that may kill me." Gorbachev gave Bush flowers and a bottle of vodka.

This wasn't the first time Gorbachev felt afraid when confronted by a request from an American president... UPDATE: For some reason, this article omits the fact that Chuck Norris and Brit Hume also jumped with President Bush. I had to learn about the latter via "Day By Day" (!) and then Google for another news story!

Posted 6/13/2004 12:58:53 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE TEACHER'S T-SHIRT: Other than the gym coach, teachers at my school didn't wear T-shirts when they taught class. Particularly slogans like "War Without End? Not in Our Name" or "A Woman's Place Is in Her Union". As Joanne Jacobs says, "It's hard to get students to think for themselves. It's just about impossible when the teacher is flashing 'correct answer' on her shirt. I'd love to see the reaction of the teacher than Joanne profiles to this T-shirt.