EdDriscoll.com

Posted 7/16/2004 01:00:49 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, according to James Glassman:

Extra! Extra! The big news of the past decade in America has been largely overlooked, and you'll find it shocking. Young people have become aggressively normal. Violence, drug use and teen sex have declined. Kids are becoming more conservative politically and socially. They want to get married and have large families. And, get this, they adore their parents. The Mood of American Youth Survey found that more than 80 percent of teenagers report no family problems -- up from about 40 percent a quarter-century ago. In another poll, two-thirds of daughters said they would "give Mom an 'A.' "In the history of polling, we've never seen tweens and teens get along with their parents this well," says William Strauss, referring to kids born since 1982. Strauss is author, with Neil Howe, of "Millenials Rising: The Next Great Generation." In an article in the latest issue of City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, Kay S. Hymowitz writes: "Wave away the smoke of the Jackson family circus, Paris Hilton and the antics of San Francisco, and you can see how Americans have been self-correcting from a decades-long experiment with 'alternative values.' Slowly, almost imperceptibly during the 1990s, the culture began a lumbering, Titanic turn away from the iceberg." Adults are changing, but kids seem to have changed most -- and they may comprise the new "greatest generation," as Tom Brokaw called the World War II cohort. "What is emerging," writes Hymowitz, "is a vital, optimistic, family-centered, entrepreneurial, and, yes, morally thoughtful, citizenry."

Glassman goes on to write that the return to normalcy by America's youth is trouble for the Democratic party.

Posted 7/16/2004 12:38:27 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE FRIEND OF MY ENEMY IS MY ENEMY: David Horowitz writes:

Those who want the enemy to win should indeed have their patriotism questioned. How can you love your country if you want its enemies to win? This is a question that should be put to all those "liberals" who want to be seen as patriotic but who have embraced America's enemies, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly by embracing anti-American supporters of the terrorists like Michael Moore, and through him the Zarqawi "resisters" in Iraq.

"Unfortunately we're not getting this message across as a nation", Horowitz writes--illustrating his case with painful results.

Posted 7/15/2004 11:50:58 PM by Edward Driscoll
AOL IM ROBOT IS A BUSH BASHER: This is both silly and sad, simultaneously:

Computer-savvy and interested in presidential politics, 13-year-old Erin was upset to learn that America Online's Instant Message (AIM) robot, "Smarter Child," favored Democrat John Kerry in this year's election. Erin, whose last name is being omitted in this article, is a fan of President Bush. Internet instant messaging is one of the most popular methods for teens and even adults to stay in touch with friends and family. One of the better-known messenger programs, AIM, offers the feature called Smarter Child, a robot programmed to provide automated responses to those with whom it chats. Built and programmed by Conversagent, Inc., a privately held firm that develops technology for creating and operating interactive agents, Smarter Child is able to dispense facts and figures, movie times, or just plain conversation with AIM users. But when Erin told the robot that "George Bush is awesome," she was shocked by the response. "No way. George W. Bush is way uncool," the reply stated. She asked, "Do you like George W. Bush?" and the program replied, "I'm a Kerry supporter myself." Testing the waters, she typed in "John Kerry rocks." The robot's response: "Absolutely. John Kerry rocks." * * * Robot Likes a Robot But not everyone was disappointed by the robot's partisanship. When asked about Smarter Child's support of Kerry, Jano Cabrera, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said: "Clearly this is a smart robot. This shows that we've made great advances in artificial intelligence. The "smarter" in Smarter Child speaks for itself." Stephen Klein, CEO of Conversagent, said his firm received many complaints from users about Smarter Child's political bias. Although the robot was originally programmed to oppose Bush, Klein said, it was being changed to adhere to the views of the users with whom it interacted. He conceded that Smarter Child had become "too anti-Bush." They Admit Their 'Ridiculous' Bias "It got ridiculous. We realized criticizing political figures was out of bounds," Klein said. Now, instead of disagreeing with users who state "I like George Bush" or agreeing with those who say "I like John Kerry," the robot mostly stays on the political sidelines. "Robots don't get involved in politics," the Smarter Child program replies, before asking users to make their choice for president. It is still possible to get the robot to reveal its true feelings, however. When told that "John Kerry rocks," Smarter Child still responds "Right on!" with a wink. When told that "John Kerry is awesome," it responds: "Absolutely. John Kerry rocks." And when users tell Smarter Child that "George Bush is awesome," it replies, "I'll remember that. It's interesting especially since other people I've talked to say they don't like George W. Bush."

Nothing like getting them while they're young, huh AOL?

Posted 7/15/2004 10:07:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
KERRY/DOLE '04! Jonah Goldberg writes:

Bob Dole got the nomination because it was "his turn." Kerry got the nomination because at the last minute Howard Dean imploded, and Democrats settled on Kerry because they thought he was the most electable. Neither were smart ways to pick a candidate. The jubilation over Edwards is, I believe, a sign that the Democrats are in denial about how bad a candidate Kerry is. Time will tell if I'm right.

RTWT.

Posted 7/15/2004 08:49:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
NOTES ON BLOGGING: Terry Teachout has some interesting (and very McLuhan-esque sounding) notes on blogging. For the most part, I think he's right on the money, but there are a few items I disagree with. On the other hand, I'm sure Teachout wrote his post to start a conversation, not lay down Rules In Stone. In his first item, Teachout writes:

1. It’s almost impossible to explain what a blog is to someone who’s never seen one. That's the mark of a true innovation.

I don't think it's too difficult to explain what a blog is without seeing it. But, as I've written before, for me, it took seeing InstaPundit back when he was on Blogger, and had that Blogger logo on his site, to put the pieces together, and "get" that blogging could be something entirely unrelated to a personal "day in the life" diary. And I'm not entirely sure I agree with this one:

12. Art blogging will never be as popular as war blogging. More people care about politics than the arts.

I think it depends on what your definition of the arts is. If it's expanded to include music and film, sites like Blogcritics get a ton of traffic for their reviews. Ultimately, blogging is really a content neutral-platform, especially when sites like InstaPundit has lots of posts of 50 words or less, and sites such as Steve Den Beste's and Blogcritics have posts of 500 words or more (sometimes a lot more in the case of Den Beste). Then there's this item:

8. For now, blogs presuppose the existence of the print media. That will probably always be the case—but over time, the print media will become increasingly less important to the blogosphere.

A big part of Insta-style blogs (like this one) is that they link to, and analyze articles written by others. Often these articles are original pieces of reporting. The big advantage that AP, Reuters, UPI and others have over bloggers is that they've built up a huge amount of reporters and stringers to cover stories. Of course, they could very well lose their effective monopoly on reporting over time: I once did a piece where I spoke to the US rep of IFRA, a European news agency, and he had some very interesting ideas for organizing competitors to the old-line wire services. (While it's publication date is November of 2001, it was originally written a couple of years prior--before 9/11 and the blog explosion.) I've long thought that the real power in blogging is going to be in group blogs--and it's possible that they could make a real impact in the AP/Reuters/UPI style of reporting--but as Teachout implies, it's going to be a while before that starts to happen. But it probably will--because as Roger Ailes once said, "you don't need a license to report. You need a license to do hair". (Via Betsy Newmark.)

Posted 7/15/2004 08:10:17 PM by Edward Driscoll
CONGRATULATIONS TO STEVE GREEN on his new site design!

Posted 7/15/2004 02:52:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
IT'S THE JIHAD, STUPID: Stanley Crouch tells the media to take the election seriously. (Via Betsy Newmark.)

Posted 7/15/2004 02:33:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
GLOOMSBURY: Tim Blair notes that Garry Trudeau has a very different take on President Bush than the usual inarticulate smirking chimp boilerplate used by most of the left.

Posted 7/15/2004 02:17:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
BITING THE HAND THAT INVITES YOU: In April of 2002, President Bush invited Ozzy Ozbourne to the White House (and had this humorous exchange with the aging and heavily medicated rocker). This is how Ozzy has repaid the honor.

Posted 7/15/2004 12:55:10 PM by Edward Driscoll
AP NOTES that the economy is set for its best growth in 20 years.

Posted 7/15/2004 12:48:30 PM by Edward Driscoll
HERE'S AN ENDORSEMENT THAT JOHN KERRY probably didn't want. Although, considering his choice of "official poet", and his Winter Soldier salad days, isn't all that surprising.

Posted 7/15/2004 12:40:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
HUGH HEWITT HAS SOME THOUGHTS ON "The Don't Even Think About It Doctrine", Moore's Disease, and the Torricelli Option.

Posted 7/15/2004 11:24:47 AM by Edward Driscoll
APB FOR JOE WILSON: Tim Graham notes that "When you pound Bush, you’re hot. When you’re exposed as a liar, you’re not". Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds explores the Kerry connection to Wilson's Website--the now ironically labeled RestoreHonesty.com.

Posted 7/15/2004 11:19:00 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE HILLARY CONVENTION CON: Jonah Goldberg and Kathryn Jean Lopez speculate that of course Hillary's going to speak at the Democratic National Convention later this month, and her absence from the rostrum--for the moment--is merely a way to build some pre-convention buzz. UPDATE: AP reports, "Kerry Asks Sen. Clinton to Speak at DNC". Jim Geraghty of NRO's "Kerry Spot" writes:

What's really surprising about this is that this suggests this wasn't part of an orchestrated effort to have Hillary make a "surprise" appearance, that it really was a glaring oversight by Kerry, his campaign, and convention organizers. How do you schedule a convention lineup and leave out the party's most popular woman?

Posted 7/15/2004 11:00:38 AM by Edward Driscoll
TERROR IN THE SKIES AGAIN? Annie Jacobsen, an investment writer, was onboard Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles on June 29th when she and her husband noticed what was extremely likely to be an averted terrorist attack. UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds has some thoughts and additional links.

Posted 7/15/2004 01:42:34 AM by Edward Driscoll
MUCH ADO ABOUT A LOT: Suzanne Fields bemoans how postmodernism has greatly reduced American students' love of literature. UPDATE: Roger Kimball of The New Criterion also has some thoughts.

Posted 7/15/2004 12:47:11 AM by Edward Driscoll
BAKE SALES FOR BODY ARMOR: National Review Online debunks the urban leftwing myth.

Posted 7/14/2004 11:10:14 PM by Edward Driscoll
OVER THE YEARS, I'VE WRITTEN music, lyrics, newsletters, a couple of (mercifully long out of print) books on sales and marketing, this Weblog, and enough magazine articles to fell a forest's worth of trees. But other than some odds and ends in college, I've never really written fiction--especially material designed to be filmed. Which may be why I found this interview with Ron Moore so interesting. Moore is a veteran writer of the various Star Trek series and films, beginning with The Next Generation, and he explains why that series was so difficult to write for.

Posted 7/14/2004 08:53:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
ADOPT-A-LEFTWING-JOURNALIST: Hugh Hewitt has a modest proposal to bring them up-to-speed with today's events and conservative opinions.

Posted 7/14/2004 08:18:10 PM by Edward Driscoll
IN THESE TROUBLED TIMES: Randy Barnett debunks a mindless cliche by looking back over the past hundred years and asking when times weren't troubled. (Via Betsy Newmark.)

Posted 7/14/2004 08:02:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
MAN VERSUS FISH: I've eaten way more sushi than any single man should have in the last eight years. James Lileks says that nature is turning the tables.

Posted 7/14/2004 06:35:42 PM by Edward Driscoll
SCORE ONE FOR REUTERS: We frequently bash the "news" agency that never met a terrorist it didn't like, but check out the opening to this article:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic candidate John Kerry, whose campaign demanded to know on Wednesday whether President Bush read a key Iraq intelligence assessment, did not read the document himself before voting to give Bush the authority to go to war, aides acknowledged.

Nice to see just a smidgen of the bloom come off of the "collective glow" of the media's lovefest with Kerry.

Posted 7/14/2004 06:30:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
MOORE LIED, QUOTES DIED: Michael Moore airbrushes articles that appear on his Web site to make it appear as if his critics don’t exist.

Posted 7/14/2004 05:04:52 PM by Edward Driscoll
SCOTT OTT HAS A SCOOP: A draft of the speech that President Bush had planned to make to the NAACP. Karl Rove, call Ott--he'd make a helluva speechwriter.

Posted 7/14/2004 04:36:03 PM by Edward Driscoll
POWER LINE HAS A PROPOSED SLOGAN for the Bush campaign: "It's the Jihad, stupid!" UPDATE: Roger L. Simon also has some thoughts.

Posted 7/14/2004 03:51:55 PM by Edward Driscoll
DONALD LUSKIN ASKS A SIMPLE QUESTION: Mrs. Kerry is filthy rich. Why is her taxable income so small? UPDATE: Meanwhile Andrew Stuttaford is sure that any moment from now, Arianna Huffington will be commenting on this. Any...moment...now.

Posted 7/14/2004 03:46:10 PM by Edward Driscoll
HOW DO YOU BLOW THIS ONE? Hugh Hewitt notes that Kerry muffs naming his favorite Red Sox player.

Posted 7/14/2004 03:04:34 PM by Edward Driscoll
SLIM-FAST SHEDS WHOOPI GOLDBERG as their spokeswoman, after her outrageous comments aimed at President Bush at last week's star-studded fund-raiser at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Meanwhile, Linda Chavez is understandably angered by comedian John Leguizamo calling Hispanic conservatives cockroaches. But hey, as John Kerry said, Whoopi and Leguizamo and the other performers at his fund-raiser are the "heart and soul of our country".

Posted 7/14/2004 02:30:00 PM by Edward Driscoll
HULK WRITE ARTICLE FOR ONION! Hulk wonder where his sequel is. Hulk smash puny Hollywood studio execs! (Via "The Corner".)

Posted 7/14/2004 01:11:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
COMPARE AND CONTRAST how Time magazine covers the naming of Republican and Democrat vice-presidential candidates.

Posted 7/14/2004 12:52:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
JOANNE JACOBS SAYS THAT BILL COSBY is tired "of fighting battles his generation thought would be won by now". Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, and Jonah Goldberg also have some thoughts on Cos and the reaction his recent speeches have been receiving.

Posted 7/14/2004 12:02:33 PM by Edward Driscoll
A SOUTHERN MAN DON'T NEED HIM AROUND, ANYHOW: As Rich Lowry notes, John Edwards seems like a pretty odd fellow for someone recruited because he supposedly would appeal to Southerners and rural voters.

Posted 7/13/2004 11:02:48 AM by Edward Driscoll
DRINK MORE BICARDI! The Guardian (or "The Grauniad" as its known to the English for its many typos) writes its being protested because the rum manufacturer "shares the responsibility for the suffering imposed on Cuba over the last 40 years by those who refuse to accept the socialist path chosen by the Cuban people." Any company that's anti-Castro and makes a mean Cuba Libre is OK in my book.

Posted 7/13/2004 10:45:40 AM by Edward Driscoll
LIFE IMITATES THE SOPRANOS: Will Collier has the details. UPDATE: Not surprisingly, the press buries the Kerry connection.

Posted 7/13/2004 10:43:03 AM by Edward Driscoll
BIN LADEN AIDE SURRENDERS: "A close associate of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was flown from Iran to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday after surrendering to security officials at the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, a Saudi Interior Ministry official said", CNN reports, adding, "In late 2001, he was identified on a videotape conversing with bin Laden about the September 11 terrorist attacks". Somebody tell Reuters!

Posted 7/13/2004 02:36:50 AM by Edward Driscoll
CONTENDER, CHAMP, BUM: Nicholas Stix looks at the various stages of Marlon Brando's career.

Posted 7/12/2004 09:41:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
BY THE WAY, sorry for the lack of posting this afternoon. Nina and I took a trip down to the Gilroy Outlet Mall, where we bought all sorts of odds ends from Mr. Lauren, the Brothers Brooks, and a few other stores. And incidentally--is there a law that says that all music in these stores must either be bad '70s retro pop or repetitive interstellar techno noise? Do the people who run these stores think America's "Horse With No Name" or Loggins and Messina's "Your Momma Don't Dance" actually moves the merchandise?? Oh, and this probably a good time to post another link to my recent piece in The New Partisan, on the strange duality of American aesthetics.

Posted 7/12/2004 09:40:47 PM by Edward Driscoll
NEWS THAT EXPLAINS OUR WORLD: Dennis Prager observes a jaw-dropping quote from the New York Times:

In an interview with The New York Times Magazine, William F. Buckley Jr., on the occasion of his taking leave from National Review, the magazine he founded 50 years ago, was asked a series of questions. Needless to say, given the politics of The New York Times and its interviewer, the questions were nearly all challenging. But nothing quite prepared a reader for this one: "You seem indifferent to suffering. Have you ever suffered yourself?" In one sentence, a New York Times interviewer summed up the liberal view of conservatives -- "indifferent to suffering." As I have long believed, in general, conservatives think liberals are fools and liberals think conservatives are evil.

Ronald Reagan frequently called himself a National Review conservative. He ended the Cold War and freed hundreds of millions from the literal and figurative Gulag that was the Soviet Union. With National Review, Bill Buckley virtually created the modern conservative movement. If it were up to the Times, the Soviet Union, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein would all still be in power. Tell me again who seems indifferent to suffering.

Posted 7/12/2004 12:54:37 PM by Edward Driscoll
CULTURAL SEMANTICS: Jeff Goldstein takes offense at the phrase "disco died". And he's got the quotes from disco to prove it.

Posted 7/12/2004 12:44:23 PM by Edward Driscoll
EXPLOSION CUTS POWER AT O'HARE AIRPORT: Chicago police say a transformer between terminals two and three at O'Hare Airport exploded at shortly after 12:00 PM on a hot Chicago Monday. Doesn't sound like it's terrorist-related--just the opposite, as CBS reports, "ComEd spokewoman Meg Amato says that it appears an O'Hare contractor may have dug into electrical equipment underground that belongs to O'Hare. ComEd is standing by to assist in powering up the terminals." But still, seeing the words "explosion" and "O'Hare" in the same headline is more than a little troubling sounding.

Posted 7/12/2004 12:38:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE KINGS OF QUOTATION MARKS: National Review looks at Reuters--the "news agency" that will not call a terrorist a terrorist.

Posted 7/12/2004 12:34:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
"INTELLIGENCE STAFF 'PRESSURED TO LIE OVER IRAQ ATTACK'": In 1998!

Posted 7/12/2004 12:15:20 PM by Edward Driscoll
AFTER THE WAR, our eyes were opened. We discovered our intelligence was pretty shaky. We found out that the mustachioed totalitarian madman didn't have the capacity to produce WMDs that we believed him to have had. We found out that his army was weakened by fierce battles against his sworn enemy to the north long before we arrived to the fight. We found reconstructing his decimated country to be much more difficult than we first imagined. And yet, despite all that, only a lunatic believed that Hitler should have been left in power. Why is today any different?

Posted 7/12/2004 12:06:37 PM by Edward Driscoll
SPEAKING OF MEDIA BIAS, the assistant managing editor of Newsweek admits the bloody obvious:

The media “wants Kerry to win” and so “they’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic” and “there’s going to be this glow about” them, Evan Thomas, the Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek, admitted on Inside Washington over the weekend. He should know. His magazine this week sports a smiling Kerry and Edwards on its cover with the yearning headline, “The Sunshine Boys?” Inside, an article carrying Thomas’ byline contrasted how “Dick Cheney projects the bleakness of a Wyoming winter, while John Edwards always appears to be strolling in the Carolina sunshine.” The cover story touted how Kerry and Edwards “became a buddy-buddy act, hugging and whispering like Starsky and Hutch after consuming the evidence.” Newsweek’s competitor, Time, also gushed about the Democratic ticket, dubbing them, in the headline over their story, “The Gleam Team.” Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz also realized the media’s championing of the Democratic ticket and made it a focus of his Sunday Reliable Sources show on CNN. The on screen topic cues: “Edwards Lovefest?” and “Media’s Dream Team.” Kurtz’s Washington Post on Sunday well illustrated the media’s infatuation with Kerry and Edwards. “Kerry Vows to Restore 'Truth' to Presidency,” announced a July 11 front page headline. Inside, on page A-8, a headline declared: “Kerry, Edwards Revel in Brotherhood of Campaign.” The subhead: “Energy, Enthusiasm Infectious as Democrats Take Message to Battleground States.”

Gee, no wonder polls keep producing results like this. UPDATE: And Kerry himself sites two New York Times reporters as being favorable to him. James Taranto writes:

A few months back, when Kerry claimed to have been endorsed by various "foreign leaders," he insisted he was not at liberty to say who they were. But when he asserts he has the backing of New York Times reporters, not only does he name names, but the Times views the claim as neither newsworthy enough to report prominently nor embarrassing enough to rebut. It's as if Times reporters taking sides in a political race were the most ordinary thing in the world.

Posted 7/12/2004 12:00:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
ORSON SCOTT CARD ON MEDIA BIAS:

What makes the liberal bias in the mainstream media so pernicious is that they deny that they're biased and insist that their twisted version of events is "reality," and anyone who disagrees with them is either mentally or morally suspect. In other words, they're fanatics. And, like all good fanatics, they're utterly convinced that they're in sole possession of virtue and truth.

RTWT.

Posted 7/11/2004 09:43:08 PM by Edward Driscoll
SEE FAHRENHEIT 9/11 on the State Department's dime.

Posted 7/11/2004 05:17:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
LAUGHING AT THE SEVENTIES: John Podhoretz gives a surprisingly positive review to Will Ferrell's new movie, Anchorman, and its knowing japes at the earnest '70s.

Posted 7/11/2004 04:28:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
I VOTED FOR THE BAN ON IMMIGRANTS WITH AIDS before I voted against it.

Posted 7/11/2004 03:02:00 PM by Edward Driscoll
UNCORK BARREL. INSERT FISH. BEGIN SHOOTING: Mark Steyn profiles John Edwards.

Posted 7/11/2004 02:24:52 PM by Edward Driscoll
POLL: KERRY LOSES GROUND AFTER RELEASE OF FAHRENHEIT 9/11! Of course, it's well within the margin of error, but don't you think if the results were reversed, you'd see headlines with a similar tone? Especially after much of the press, already high with Charles Krauthammer dubbed "Bush Derangement Syndrome", caught Michael Moore fever?

Posted 7/10/2004 03:25:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
TWO TAKES ON THE OUTDOORS: On NRO's "The Corner", it's the NRA versus the Sierra Club.

Posted 7/10/2004 03:09:51 PM by Edward Driscoll
JOE WILSON LIED, REPUTATIONS DIED, writes Glenn Reynolds. Kevin Patrick has more.

Posted 7/10/2004 03:02:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
NOT READY FOR PRIMETIME: William Kristol writes that John Kerry is another 9/10 Democrat:

LAST THURSDAY, CNN's Larry King asked John Kerry whether he would want former President Bill Clinton to campaign on his behalf. Kerry said yes. "What American would not trade the economy we had in the 1990s, the fact that we were not at war and young Americans were not deployed?" Kerry's answer is revealing. We were, in fact, at war. The Clinton administration, with the exception of a few cruise missiles, had simply chosen not to fight back. Osama bin Laden, a sworn enemy of the United States, had launched attacks on our embassies and on a warship of the U.S. Navy. Saddam Hussein had defied U.N. weapons inspections, repeatedly threatened America, and attempted to assassinate former President Bush. Furthermore, where does Kerry object to young Americans' being deployed? Afghanistan? But Kerry has criticized the Bush administration for an insufficient commitment of troops there. Iraq? But Kerry voted for the war and has said he would not cut and run.

Further proof that it's 9/10 for Kerry: he skipped an intelligence briefing to watch Whoopi Goldberg berate his vice presidential candidate.

Posted 7/10/2004 02:54:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
SEATTLE HATES AMERICA, writes Michelle Malkin.

Posted 7/10/2004 01:32:23 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE FLUIDITY OF HISTORY: I'm far from a postmodernist, but it's amazing how fluid history can be. Steven Den Beste tells us that the Waterloo we know isn't the Waterloo that actually happened.

Posted 7/10/2004 01:23:35 AM by Edward Driscoll
OH THAT LIBERAL MEDIA: Indeed.

Posted 7/9/2004 07:55:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
A MAN IN FULL: I have an article I'm especially proud of in the latest issue of Nuts & Volts. It's on Roy Norman, a man, now in his early 80s, who served in the Navy during some of the first H-Bomb tests in the late 1940s, then onboard the USS Enterprise (not the one commanded by William Shatner or Patrick Stewart), and then retired from the service to be an electronics consultant. It's illustrated with several photos from Norman's career that he sent me to scan (and restore) for publication. The text isn't online, but it's an article that (in my humble opinion) is well worth reading.

Posted 7/9/2004 07:54:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE REVOLUTION WILL BE DIGITIZED: I have an article in the current issue of Smart TV & Sound on Internet file downloading. Pick up a copy or ten at your local Borders or Barnes & Noble!

Posted 7/9/2004 07:53:12 PM by Edward Driscoll
INTEL BRINGS WIRELESS TO EVERY ROOM: My latest "Ideas For Every Room" Electronic House newsletter is online.

Posted 7/9/2004 07:14:48 PM by Edward Driscoll
FLY THE FRIENDLY SKIES OF MILLION AIR: The John-Johns do!

Posted 7/9/2004 05:14:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
A GOOD SIGN, IF FAR TOO LATE: Washington Post Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran emails bloggers about his article correcting his omission of Paul Bremer's farewell speech. As one of the bloggers contacted by Chandrasekaran writes, "Now let's see if the media will apply this lesson going forward, and start reading blogs before they make [more]embarrassing high-profile mistakes like this." I don't know if Chandrasekaran has publicly responded to U.S. Marine Eric Johnson's takedown of him in The New York Post, but I've got to think it played a role in his being willing to listen to bloggers.

Posted 7/9/2004 04:59:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
WOW--WHAT DO THEY PUT IN THOSE DRIVE-THROUGH DAIQUIRIS*? I've read that Democratic Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu was something of a moderate Democrat. No more--she's caught Michael Moore fever.

Posted 7/9/2004 03:51:19 PM by Edward Driscoll
'BOUT TIME: The Catholic Church equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

Posted 7/9/2004 12:20:35 PM by Edward Driscoll
LET'S GET IT ON: As Rich Lowry writes, turn your sound on before watching this.

Posted 7/9/2004 01:52:29 AM by Edward Driscoll
IS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF AMERICA'S AIR MARSHALS BEING COMPROMISED by their strict dress code?

Posted 7/9/2004 01:45:02 AM by Edward Driscoll
RETHINKING RED-LIGHT CAMERAS: Former Congressman Bob Barr is none-too-thrilled with intersection and speed trap cameras--and he's right.

Posted 7/9/2004 01:40:01 AM by Edward Driscoll
RAIL-BASED TERRORISM: The Washington Times has an article titled, "Boston, New York rail lines vulnerable" to terrorism, something that we noted back in May. Back then, I wrote "I really fear that we're going to wake up to another Madrid, only it will be in Manhattan's Penn Station, not Spain". And I hope (and pray) that my fears continue to be unfounded. UPDATE: Speaking of Madrid, Hugh Hewitt had this item on his Blog on Thursday:

Today, on the floor of the United States Senate, Barbara Boxer referred to the Madrid bombings as a "rail accident." Honest. A rail accident. Boxer is a Senate accident. What an embarassment. I posed the question to my audience: How much money could Boxer lose in a Jeopardy game, assuming that, in her typical fashion, she obnoxiously buzzed in first every time and, also in typical fashion, she got everything wrong. The best calculation seems to be $58,000.

A rail accident??

Posted 7/8/2004 11:28:19 PM by Edward Driscoll
FAHRENHEIT 640 (ON THE AM DIAL): Asa Hutchinson, the Homeland Security undersecretary, goes on an LA talk show and "gets burned big time", Michelle Malkin writes, calling Hutchinson an "invertebrate" for his politically correct response when confronted with serious questions about the porous nature of California's border.

Posted 7/8/2004 10:48:47 PM by Edward Driscoll
WILL FRIST PLAY HARDBALL WITH KERRY AND EDWARDS? Betsy Newmark says that having two senators running for national office could end up hurting the Democrats--if Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is really willing to play hardball.

Posted 7/8/2004 10:46:21 PM by Edward Driscoll
POWER LINE NOTES THAT the Associated Press sound like they're channeling Michael Moore.

Posted 7/8/2004 10:39:34 PM by Edward Driscoll
BUSH AND THE NAACP: Pejman Yousefzadeh has some thoughts and some links, on President Bush's decision not to speak at the NAACP this year.

Posted 7/8/2004 10:21:52 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE JULY SURPRISE: I don't know if this New Republic piece amounts to much, but it's fun to see the left fear election year surprises from the right for a change. Of course, as James Lileks wrote:

I ask my Democrat friends what they’d rather see happen – Bush reelected and bin Laden caught, or Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind. They’re all honest: they’d rather see Bush defeated.

But hey, don't question their patriotism!

Posted 7/8/2004 10:13:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
STEFAN BECK OF THE NEW CRITERION writes, "There's a welcome novelty: one Muslim country scrutinizing the terrorist operations of another. Who says Operation Iraqi Freedom didn't change anything?"

Posted 7/8/2004 09:54:47 PM by Edward Driscoll
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATORS WANT TO PUT A DUCK FARM OUT OF BUSINESS: Yes, you read that right, as the foie gras bill (yes, you read that right too) progresses. If this passes, how long before steak will be a thing of the past in California? If the majority of Americans oppose abortion but it's still legal, how can a tiny minority of Californians cause a man to lose his business and diners to lose a dish they've enjoyed for hundreds of years?

Posted 7/8/2004 08:49:09 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE DAILY ADVENTURES OF MIXERMAN: You read the online diary, now buy the book!

Posted 7/8/2004 07:18:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
OFFERS HE COULDN'T REFUSE: Mark Steyn does a brilliant job deconstructing Marlon Brando.

Posted 7/8/2004 01:25:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG with that. UPDATE: James Taranto has some thoughts on the hair care pair.

Posted 7/8/2004 01:24:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN: Pete Townshend has some less than kind words for Michael Moore.

Posted 7/8/2004 12:14:12 PM by Edward Driscoll
IS IRON MIKE DITKA BEING DRAFTED FOR THE SENATE?? Whatever Da Coach's decision, this is a riot.

Posted 7/8/2004 11:47:36 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE PROFESSOR NOTES THE LA TIMES is issuing a correction for claiming that Paul Bremer never gave a farewell speech when he left Iraq. Glenn also has this quote from the LA Times:

If the American news media are lucky, 2004 will be remembered as the year of living dangerously. If not, then this election cycle may be recalled as the point at which journalism's slide back into partisanship became a kind of free fall.

I don't think the media has slid back into partisanship--they've just let the mask slip more often, and made their biases more obvious in straight reporting--as well as being forgetful when it suits their purposes. But that's been going on in increasing numbers for 15 to 20 years now. Personally, I don't think a partisan media is all that bad--the country did pretty well for its first 150 years or so with one, and all indications are that we're moving back to it. The key though, is explaining that it is biased, so that readers and viewers know what they're getting and providing them with choices. And since political correctness hasn't boosted readership, maybe it's time to go back to the future!

Posted 7/8/2004 11:35:10 AM by Edward Driscoll
WILL COLLIER SPOTS A JOHN KERRY WHOPPER that the press is extremely unlikely to pick up on.

Posted 7/8/2004 02:34:42 AM by Edward Driscoll
RHEINGOLD VERSUS THE ULTIMATE RINO*: The brewery is taking on New York's Nurse Bloomberg in a series of provocative advertisements.

Posted 7/8/2004 02:30:18 AM by Edward Driscoll
SPEAKING OF ACADEMIA, Cathy Young writes that political correctness never died--it just went under the radar after 9/11. As Young writes, "in the groves of academe, not all offensive speech is created equal".

Posted 7/8/2004 01:42:18 AM by Edward Driscoll
JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS: According to Amazon, Tom Wolfe's new book, I Am Charlotte Simmons, a novel on academia, is scheduled to be published on November 15th:

<MAP NAME="boxmap-p8"><AREA SHAPE="RECT" COORDS="14, 200, 103, 207" HREF="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" ><AREA COORDS="0,0,10000,10000" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/eddriscollcom-20" ></MAP><img src="http://rcm-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/rcm/120x240.gif" width="120" height="240" border="0" usemap="#boxmap-p8" alt="Shop at Amazon.com">Dupont University--the Olympian halls of learning housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition . . . Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a freshman from Sparta, North Carolina (pop. 900), who has come here on full scholarship in full flight from her tobacco-chewing, beer-swilling high school classmates. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting dismay, that Dupont is closer in spirit to Sodom than to Athens, and that sex, crank, and kegs trump academic achievement every time. As Charlotte encounters Dupont's privileged elite--her roommate, Beverly, a fleshy, Groton-educated Brahmin in lusty pursuit of lacrosse players; Jayjay Johanssen, the only white starting player on Dupont's godlike basketball team, whose position is threatened by a hotshot black freshman from the projects; the Young Turk of Saint Ray fraternity, Hoyt Thorpe, whose heady sense of entitlement and social domination is clinched by his accidental brawl with a bodyguard for the governor of California; and Adam Geller, one of the Millennium Mutants who run the university's "independent" newspaper and who consider themselves the last bastion of intellectual endeavor on the sex-crazed, jock-obsessed campus--she gains a new, revelatory sense of her own power, that of her difference and of her very innocence, but little does she realize that she will act as a catalyst in all of their lives.

Wolfe's been working on this book for years--it should be a knockout.

Posted 7/7/2004 11:43:01 PM by Edward Driscoll
"WELL, I THINK THE--I THINK THE STARTING PLACE IS TO DO THE THING": John Edwards, on The Charlie Rose Show on September 11, 2001.

Posted 7/7/2004 11:21:30 PM by Edward Driscoll
JONAH GOLDBERG ON KERRY'S FATEFUL CHOICE: In his syndicated column, Jonah Goldberg writes:

The two Johns believe that America's problems lie in the White House, not overseas. They believe that there's a rich supply of "allies" who would take bullets intended for Americans, if only George Bush had better manners. They believe, despite the fact that George Bush has increased spending on education by 60 percent, and despite the fact that the environment is cleaner now than any time in more than fifty years, that what America really needs more than anything is an education president, an environmental president. Meanwhile, as our enemies lop the heads off our citizens and plan more 9/11s, George Bush says we need a war president. Sounds like the makings of a great debate.

Read the whole thing.

Posted 7/7/2004 10:53:28 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE OMBUDSGOD HAS SOME ADVICE for the NPR ombudsman on euphemisms for murder and terrorism. You can actually see the left turning back the calendar from 9/11 to 9/10 by reading the NPR ombudsman's linguistic decrees in September of 2001 and April of 2002. And be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page to read the Baghdad correspondent of The Sydney Morning Herald's description of Saddam's hirsute appearance in the dock.

Posted 7/7/2004 10:30:52 PM by Edward Driscoll
NEWS TO ME--BUT NOT VERY SURPRISING: Jon Lauck notes that it was Tom Daschle who appointed the hyper-partisan Richard Ben-Veniste to the 9/11 commission and held weekly strategy meetings with him as the commission's hearings unfolded. And both were at the Washington premiere of Fahrenheit 9/11. UPDATE: Speaking of which, read in amazement as James Lileks slices and dices the enormous carcass of Michael Moore with surgical precision.

Posted 7/7/2004 10:02:09 PM by Edward Driscoll
TOM WOLFE'S NEW JOURNALISM PICKS: Just came across this, which is excerpted from his long out of print mid-'70s New Journalism anthology. There's some amazing writing here, before many of the writers that Wolfe highlighted became ossified and sclerotic.

Posted 7/7/2004 09:19:30 PM by Edward Driscoll
WELCOME RIGHT WING NEWS READERS: We're the site of the day there! (Thanks, John.)

Posted 7/7/2004 07:20:28 PM by Edward Driscoll
"LET AMERICA BE AMERICA": Andrew Sullivan has the goods on John Kerry's favorite poet:

Now I know Kerry is a liberal, but does he really want to cite a man who wanted to abolish private property and loved Stalin? Again, the right-left double standard. If a fascist poet in 1938 had called to remake a pure racial America on the lines of Hitler's Germany, would he now be quoted by any leading politician? But the communists get a pass. Again. And again. And again.

Of course, as the Professor writes, Kerry doesn't need to vet this sort of stuff, "if you're reasonably confident the press won't call you on 'em". Oh--and scroll up to Sullivan's next post, for some harsh words for Ted Rall's latest cartoon abortion. UPDATE: James Panero of The New Criterion also has some thoughts, on what he calls "That '30s Show".

Posted 7/7/2004 04:13:43 PM by Edward Driscoll
MY CARY GRANT PIECE, which I had to knock about 400 words off to fit into the allotted space of an Electronic House newsletter, is now online in its original form at Blogcritics. UPDATE: One of the films I mentioned as being newly out on DVD was Grant's Night and Day, a heavily whitewashed biopic of Cole Porter. It omits Porter's bisexuality, because audiences in 1946 would have flipped out, the script would never have gotten past the Hays Office, and Porter and his wife, Linda were still very much alive at the time. There's a new Porter film out starring Kevin Kline as Porter and Ashley Judd as Linda, called De-Lovely, which does explore Porter's sexuality in more detail, which isn't all that surprising considering today's standards and mores. But as an actual film, Rex Reed is not at all happy with it, writing that "Misery prevails from downbeat to encore":

No waiting around for the sour notes in De-Lovely: A no-fail idea begins to fail in the very first scene. An old man in a lonely penthouse plays a mournful "Night and Day" in a wheelchair. This is Kevin Kline as the dying Cole Porter—but with a bald head, liver spots and wrinkles for days, he doesn’t remotely resemble Kevin Kline, or Cole Porter. He looks like Carl Reiner. Suddenly he is visited by someone named Gabe (Jonathan Pryce) who is either an angel of death, a pallbearer or a Broadway producer hell-bent on staging a Cole Porter revival.

Contrast this to Grant's Night And Day, as Reed does:

There is one very funny scene in a Warner Brothers projection room where Linda and Cole watch the silly, overproduced 1946 biopic Night and Day, in which they were played by the luscious Alexis Smith and the elegant but riotously miscast Cary Grant. Even after the 1937 riding accident which left Cole drugged on scotch and morphine for the rest of his life, there was Cary, hale and hardy and strolling in the moonlight on two strong legs [actually, his Porter ends the film limping badly and relying on a cane--Ed] while the Warners symphony brought the film to a crashing finale. The lights come up in the screening room, and Kevin Kline says, "If I can survive this, I can survive anything." It’s the biggest laugh in the movie, but in reality Night and Day, which was directed by Michael Curtiz and has just been released on DVD, is a better-made movie than this current debacle, and a lot more fun. I mean, Mary Martin singing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" majestically surpasses the droopy, who-gives-a-s*** Diana Krall, gloomily moping her way through a lifeless "Just One of Those Things." Night and Day was a mess, but it was an entertaining mess.

Movies as entertainment? How quaint.

Posted 7/7/2004 12:17:17 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE KENNEDY MYSTIQUE: Rich Lowry notes one of the more fascinating elements of Democratic politics, dating back to, I guess, at least the mid-1970s: JFK worship. But JFK's politics and policies are, in many respects far to the right of today's Democrats. As Lowry writes:

The hold JFK has over Democrats is extraordinary. Kerry would be the second consecutive Democratic president yearning to reprise the glories of Kennedy's 1,000 days. A star-struck Clinton idolized Kennedy before growing up to become himself a young, mediocre president with a weakness for the White House help. John Forbes Kerry shares JFK's initials, and has had a lifetime fascination with Kennedy. He fought on a Swift Boat in Vietnam, partly to repeat JFK's iconic PT-109 experience in World War II. Alas, despite Kerry's bravery, "Swift Boat No. 94" doesn't have quite the same resonance. What accounts for JFK's hold on the Dems? For one thing, he is all there is when it comes to Democratic presidential role models in the past 40 years. No one wants to be the next LBJ, JEC, or WJC. It's JFK or bust. What do liberals like about Kennedy's substance? The caution on civil rights? The tax cuts on the rich? The entry into Vietnam? It's the rhetoric and the image--those gorgeous pictures of Kennedy with Jackie--that make for much of the appeal. The JFK wannabes know the centrality of image to Kennedy's magic. Between Kerry's expensive haircuts and Edwards's hair-sprayed bangs, my guess is that no presidential ticket in the history of the planet has cared so much about personal grooming. When the ticketmates travel together, there will probably be stiff competition for the mirror and hair products. Teresa herself has gotten into the act, recently pronouncing herself "sexy"--an odd boast for someone auditioning for a job that usually involves reading to schoolchildren.

Richard Nixon was well-known for his strategy campaigning as a conservative, but governing like a liberal. In many respects, JFK worship is the liberal equivalent.

Posted 7/7/2004 11:48:57 AM by Edward Driscoll
WEBLOG USE CONTINUES TO GROW: That news shouldn't be too surprising to our regular readers.

Posted 7/7/2004 11:39:03 AM by Edward Driscoll
FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH, as a former small business owner from a family of entrepreneurs (and essentially, still a small business owner with my writing), I'm with Will Collier of VodkaPundit on John Edwards and trial lawyers in general. But be sure to read Postrel's excerpt from the New Yorker on why trial lawyers are particularly prevalent in the South. It's quite an interesting take.

Posted 7/7/2004 11:33:01 AM by Edward Driscoll
OH THOSE WMDS: 1.77 tons of radioactive material secured and removed from Iraq. Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds' vacation photos have been really foggy lately... UPDATE: Heh. Of course, the left will just move the goalposts again.

Posted 7/6/2004 07:33:38 PM by Edward Driscoll
H.D. MILLER CATCHES REUTERS telling a whopper.

Posted 7/6/2004 05:20:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
DASCHLE AND ME: Tom Daschle embraces Michael Moore in DC, and denies it to his constituents in South Dakota.

Posted 7/6/2004 02:14:08 PM by Edward Driscoll
HEADLINES YOU'LL NEVER SEE--but don't call the media biased! UPDATE: Certainly not The Washington Post, at least...

Posted 7/6/2004 01:55:45 PM by Edward Driscoll
PARSE THIS OUT: Roger Ebert calls Godzilla "The Fahrenheit 9/11 of its time". No, really! The original Godzilla with Raymond Burr! I'm not sure what that says about either film. But comparing Michael Moore and Godzilla, I'd say it's a toss-up as to who could do the most damage to Tokyo. (Via Reason's "Hit & Run" blog.)

Posted 7/6/2004 01:35:17 PM by Edward Driscoll
A MEME IS BORN: Jonah Goldberg looks at "the Democrats' Dan Quayle".

Posted 7/6/2004 01:22:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
MORNING IN AMERICA UPDATE: The economy is set for its best growth in 20 years, according to (believe it or not) AP.

Posted 7/6/2004 01:20:03 PM by Edward Driscoll
FLASHBACK: Donations to Sen. Edwards questioned in this 2003 article in The Hill.

Posted 7/6/2004 01:00:38 PM by Edward Driscoll
YOU'RE THE TOP: My latest newsletter for Electronic House looks at some new releases featuring Cary Grant on DVD.

Posted 7/6/2004 12:38:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
FOR ONCE, REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS AGREE! Florida's WFTV reports:

Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, said Kerry's choice "really solidifies the fact that this is the most liberal ticket that the Democrats have put up for, basically, modern times. If you look at the voting records of those two guys, they are way out there in left field."

And Bob Beckel, the campaign manager of the Mondale/Ferraro ticket in '84 confirms, "Yeah, it's a liberal ticket...." Nice to see some bipartisan unity in this rough-and-tumble campaign season.

Posted 7/6/2004 12:26:06 PM by Edward Driscoll
INTERESTING ANGLE: James Taranto writes:

Picking Edwards may also be an effort to keep would-be Ralph Nader voters in the Democratic fold. Edwards is a trial lawyer, Nader is the country's leading champion of trial lawyers, and, as the Village Voice points out, Nader actually urged Kerry to pick Edwards. Meanwhile, Alan Murray reports in today's Wall Street Journal that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce vowed to 'abandon its traditional stance of neutrality in the presidential race and work feverishly to defeat the Democratic ticket' if Edwards is on it.

Taranto's got lots of other Edwards and Kerry links, incidentally.

Posted 7/6/2004 12:19:35 PM by Edward Driscoll
PASS THE DUCHY ON THE LEFTHAND SIDE: "Marijuana Advocates Forget to File for Ballot". Too many Peter Max paper airplanes in their youth, I guess.

Posted 7/6/2004 12:13:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE EDWARDS PICK "OFFICIALLY ENDS THE CHICKENHAWK ARGUMENT", writes Jim Geraghty. Hopefully, somebody will tell Kerry.

Posted 7/6/2004 10:50:43 AM by Edward Driscoll
JONAH GOLDBERG ON "KERRY-HUTZ 2004": "It's going to be Kerry & Edwards: the turn-your-head-and-coif express". Heh.

Posted 7/6/2004 10:38:11 AM by Edward Driscoll
FROM THE HOME OFFICE IN BAGHDAD: David Letterman's "Top Ten Things Overheard at Saddam Hussein's Court Appearance". Steven Green covered item #7 back in December.

Posted 7/6/2004 10:33:49 AM by Edward Driscoll
ANDREW SULLIVAN'S happy about Edwards.

Posted 7/6/2004 10:20:02 AM by Edward Driscoll
LOOKS LIKE THE AVIATION BUFFS WERE RIGHT: It's Edwards--and Instapundit has a link-filled roundup.

Posted 7/6/2004 12:04:22 AM by Edward Driscoll
COULD JUST BE A RUMOR, but according to this message board, two aviation-oriented Websites are reporting that Kerry's campaign plane has been spotted with an Edwards VP logo. UPDATE: Or...maybe it's Gephardt! That's who The New York Post says it is, anyway. Stay tuned.

Posted 7/5/2004 11:53:49 PM by Edward Driscoll
GOOD POINT: Dennis Prager looks at Michael Moore and the problem of American self-hatred:

Did you ever notice that there are no Germans going around the world saying, or making movies about, how awful Germany is or has been? Given that Germany unleashed two world wars and invented industrialized genocide, why has there been no German Michael Moore? Are there any Japanese making films about the absence of Japanese soul-searching or expressions of sorrow over their country's enslavement, torture and murder of Asians in World War II? Has anyone ever encountered any Japanese self-hate? Any Belgians telling the world how bad their country is? Argentinians? French? France surely has reason to produce people ashamed of their country.

Needless to say, RTWT.

Posted 7/5/2004 08:25:28 PM by Edward Driscoll
IN THE IMMORTAL WORDS OF ZZ TOP: They come runnin' just as fast as they can--'cause every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man!

Posted 7/5/2004 08:10:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
DEMOCRATS TO ADOPT FDR'S war philosophy at convention: Scott Ott has the "details".

Posted 7/5/2004 02:31:25 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE BATTLE OF THE HUMVEE: Don't believe the media are the enemy? Then ask the US Army. As Diana West writes:

Ever hear about the Battle of the Humvee? That's what I'm calling a May skirmish fought by soldiers of the 37th Armored Regiment's 2nd Battalion in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf. In what became a six-hour firefight, Americans battled followers of Moktada al-Sadir to secure the hulk of a burning Humvee. It's not that our soldiers fought because the flaming wreck amounted to a tin can's worth of military value. They fought, as Capt. Ty Wilson of Fairfax, Va., explained to The Washington Post, because "We weren't going to let them dance on it for the news. Even (with) all the guys they lost that day, that still would have given them victory." Chalk one up for our side, a small win on the way to an underreported triumph over the followers of Moktada al-Sadir in the spring. Iraq is sovereign, life goes on ... but I can't get over the chilling description of American soldiers risking their necks to keep the media from awarding a phony victory to the enemy. This puts the media -- in this case, anyone with a video camera and a satellite hook-up -- not in No Man's Land, but on the Other Side. The concept is horrifying in that the ramifications are so bleak. It shows our soldiers engaged in a war on two fronts -- a military front and a media front. And it shows our soldiers fighting two enemies: the adversary who fights fire with terror, and the adversary who also fights fire with perception.

RTWT.

Posted 7/5/2004 02:24:07 PM by Edward Driscoll
SHHHHHH: The good guys are winning.

Posted 7/5/2004 11:15:45 AM by Edward Driscoll
QUOTE OF THE DAY, II:

Savor, if you will, the image of France as the mighty defender of Europe.

--Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs.

Posted 7/5/2004 11:12:30 AM by Edward Driscoll
QUOTE OF THE DAY:

This was not a "mishmashed oil change"... rather, it was an illustration of that part of our culture that does not fear solving problems and accomplishing great things.

--J. Milt Heflin, chief, NASA's Flight Director Office, in a memo to the press.

Posted 7/4/2004 10:42:44 AM by Edward Driscoll
LET FREEDOM REIGN: New York to begin construction at Ground Zero. AP reports, "Gov. George E. Pataki said he chose July 4 to begin rebuilding to show that the terrorists who attacked New York on Sept. 11, 2001, didn’t destroy America’s faith in freedom".

Posted 7/4/2004 01:17:19 AM by Edward Driscoll

Happy Fourth of July!

Posted 7/4/2004 01:14:18 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE STRANGE DUALITY OF AMERICAN AESTHETICS: I have an essay on design, fashion and aesthetics in 21st century America, over at the New Partisan Website, which also has lots of other cool content worth exploring.

Posted 7/3/2004 04:04:19 PM by Edward Driscoll
APPLAUSE FOR COSBY: Joanne Jacobs writes that "Bill Cosby is continuing his campaign to get blacks to take responsibility for their own problems. And he's speaking to receptive audiences". With the exception of the press, of course.

Posted 7/3/2004 03:41:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
WIN ONE FOR THE GIPPER: GOP chairman Ed Gillespie is comparing this election year with Reagan's campain in 1984 against Walter Mondale.

Posted 7/3/2004 01:28:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
DUELING BRANDOS: Power Line links to two takes on Marlon Brando, one by John Podhoretz, the other by Terry Teachout.

Posted 7/3/2004 11:19:36 AM by Edward Driscoll
CAN'T MAKE IT TO THE BIG APPLE THIS FOURTH? Want to see fireworks above the Statue of Liberty? Click here. (Via "The Corner". And speaking of fireworks, be sure to read Glenn's post on the subject.)

Posted 7/2/2004 02:37:08 PM by Edward Driscoll
JOHN KERRY'S SISTER SOULJAH MOMENT? Interesting post by Michelle Malkin.

Posted 7/2/2004 01:11:21 PM by Edward Driscoll
SAY IT ISN'T SO! AP reports that "Nader Accuses Democrats of 'Dirty Tricks'". UPDATE: In a related story, Charles Johnson writes that "nine members of the House of Representatives have written to Kofi Annan to request UN observers to monitor the US Presidential election". Excuse me while I stop giggling--this is the funniest story I've heard in ages. As Johnson writes, "The left has left the planet".

Posted 7/2/2004 01:04:54 PM by Edward Driscoll
TRANSLATORS WANTED: Virginia Postrel--knowledge arbitrageur. Wow, I like that--I should have that title printed on my business cards! (Is it trademarked? Where do I send the royalties, Virginia?)

Posted 7/2/2004 12:47:35 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE MOTHER OF ALL CAPTION CONTESTS is going on over at Captain Ed's (no relation).

Posted 7/2/2004 11:47:27 AM by Edward Driscoll
HEAR IT FROM THE MARINES, who aren't happy with The Washington Post's coverage of the events in Iraq. And then add to the list:

CNN's admission that they were in bed with Saddam.

Time's duplicitous coverage.

Dr. Bob Arnot leaving NBC because he was unhappy with how they slanted stories coming out of Iraq.

Reuters' refusal to call terrorists what they are.

AP being in bed with terrorists.

The New York Times' tactics when the 9/11 Commission verified Saddam's connection with al-Qaida.

Not pretty, is it? UPDATE: Steve Den Beste analyzes bias, Saddam's trial and Bush Derangement Syndrome. Needless to say, RTWT. ONE MORE UPDATE: Oh and add to the list Tom Brokaw "correcting" then-incoming Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi when Allawi suggested Saddam was connected to al-Qaeda.

Posted 7/2/2004 11:30:42 AM by Edward Driscoll
MARLON BRANDO DEAD AT 80, according to this TV news site. Via Betsy Newmark. As of 4:00 am last night (don't ask), nobody else had any details on the Web, or on Fox, MSNBC, CNN or CNN's Headline News. Terry Teachout has interesting piece on Brando, placing his career into perspective without gushing over it, or the very strange life that went along with it. UPDATE: Editor & Publisher writes:

What newspaper was first to report the unexpected death of actor Marlon Brando? The winner, by a wide margin, appears to be the New York Post, if only in an unconfirmed manner. In its Friday morning edition, on page 11, the Post printed a small story, with a picture of Brando from "The Godfather," under the headline: "Brando is dead: TV report." It cited a bulletin on the Web site of Phoenix-based KPHO-TV, of all places. The paper said police had not confirmed the death but claimed that relatives were gathering at the actor's Los Angeles home.

Given the Internet, the blogosphere and wall-to-wall cable TV, why the condescending tone that it wasn't AP/Reuters/UPI/NYT but a Phoenix-based TV station "of all places" that broke the story?

Posted 7/1/2004 07:37:21 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE ORWELLIAN BBC: Charles Johnson writes that they've found a new nadir.

Posted 7/1/2004 07:21:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
SCRATCH ANOTHER ONE OFF THE LIST: Richardson withdraws from Kerry VP search. National Review Online's Jim Geraghty writes that Kerry's choice is down to three men, "or this is one of the great disciplined fake-outs of all time". Meanwhile, Dick Morris says "I would not sell life insurance to anyone who has Hillary Clinton as his running mate." Especially after her staggering gaffe this week.

Posted 7/1/2004 06:58:30 PM by Edward Driscoll
FOR THE LEFT, IT'S SEPTEMBER 10th AGAIN: Mark Steyn diagrams the difference between the period between 9/11 and Fahrenheit 9/11:

One day a pair of security guards from the Iranian mission will be heading for the Lincoln Tunnel, and they won’t be carrying just their Kodak Instamatics. The war on terror’s a bit of a joke on the Left these days. In Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore says Bush is deliberately keeping the population in a state of fear, and he gets some of his biggest laughs with clips of solemn announcers announcing upgraded terrorism alerts. I suppose it is pretty funny. Until it happens. And then Moore and the Democrats will switch to arguing that Bush knew it was going to happen all along and didn’t do anything about it. In the autumn of 2001, Jacob Weisberg, now editor of Slate, wrote a column bemoaning what he regarded as a silly post-9/11 trend. The Weekly Standard, the New Republic and other publications had begun giving ‘Susan Sontag Awards’ and similarly facetious honours for notably stupid anti-war commentary. Early winners included Oliver Stone, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Michael Moore, etc. Weisberg thought this unworthy of serious news magazines: ‘Stone and Moore are well-known cranks, regarded with considerable distaste even on the Left,’ he wrote. The idea that ‘these comments represent a significant body of anti-war opinion’ was preposterous.... Put bluntly, there is no anti-war movement, intellectual or popular, in the United States. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying no one opposes the war. According to polls, 5 per cent of the country is against it. There are pacifists and Buddhists ...Those policing the debate are dropping the rhetorical equivalent of daisy cutters on a few malnourished left-wing stragglers.’ Well, something’s changed in the last couple of years, and those left-wing stragglers are a lot less malnourished. Last weekend Michael Moore, the ‘well-known crank’ regarded with ‘considerable distaste’, had the Number One movie in North America. Okay, its weekend gross was $21 million, which sounds big, until you realise that the week before a dumb comedy called Dodgeball took $30 million without anybody even noticing. On the other hand, the business of Congress wasn’t put on hold because so many Democratic bigshots were attending the premiere of Dodgeball. That did happen with the premiere of Fahrenheit 9/11, and when the movie was over it was all five-star raves. Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa urged all Americans to see the film. Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, praised the film for raising ‘a lot of issues that Americans are talking about’ - i.e., is Bush in league with the bin Laden family? As those Iranian photographers remind us, this war can only be won abroad. And, as the rise of Michael Moore emphasises, it can only be lost at home.