There has been quite a bit of debate about Ted Koppel's attempt to gin up ratings by reading the names of all the soldiers KIA in Iraq on Nightline tonight. Of course, they're claiming this is simply a "tribute to the dead" and the fact that it's occurring during sweeps is pure coincidence -- sure it is Ted, sure it is.

That being said, there's nothing inherently wrong with reading the names of the fallen in Iraq. If let's say Brit Hume were to have done exactly the same thing Koppel is doing tonight, when sweeps were over, I doubt if it would have been treated like a big deal.

So why are people angry about what Koppel's doing? So angry that the Sinclair Broadcast group has yanked Nightline on its 8 ABC affiliates and said that the program is a "misuse of (the soldiers) sacrifice to support an anti-war position with which most, if not all, of these soldiers would not have agreed"?

Put simply, there are a lot of people, myself, who think the left leaning media's coverage of this war has been, largely for political and ideological reasons, lopsided to the point of being despicable. Remembering the lives ended and forever altered by the war is important, but obsessively playing up every life lost, every problem, and dramatically exaggerating every negative while either ignoring or downplaying the reasoning behind the war, what we're trying to do, and all the positive things that have been accomplished, should in no way, shape, or form, be considered to be objectively "reporting the news".

For example, the media just couldn't wait to show you the flag draped coffins coming back from Iraq and now Koppel's reading the names of the dead on Nightline. Did Koppel ever read the names of the people killed on 9/11? No. Didn't the networks collectively ban the footage of people jumping out of the Twin Towers 48 hours after it happened? Yes.

And that has been the pattern throughout the whole war. Members of 9/11 families angry at Bush about the war? That gets big coverage. Members of 9/11 families supporting Bush's stance on the war? It gets buried. Saddam Hussein is toppled? Big deal, let's talk about the Baghdad museum. Oh, and don't even get me started on Vietnam. We're on about 4th one of the war on terrorism. The war in Afghanistan was Vietnam, then we won. The war in Iraq was Vietnam, then we won. A few weeks after the Iraq war when things were still fairly chaotic, we were in Vietnam again. Then it quieted down for a while, but when Fallujah and Al-Sadr's militia heated things up, the media decided it was Vietnam again.

So gloom and doom are always the order of day with the media, but where's the perspective? How often do you hear ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the WAPO, the Chicago Tribune, etc, etc, etc, explaining how many people actually died in Vietnam and how long we were there, the difficulties of occupying Japan & Germany, comparing our casualties today to casualties in other major wars, talking about why it's so important for us to help bring Democracy to Iraq, talking about Saddam's terrorist ties, the ricin chemical weapon his scientists were working on, how many Democrats -- John Kerry included -- said Saddam has WMD before the war just like Bush did, all the good work we're doing in Iraq, on, and on, and on? Very seldom and that's the problem.

When you don't get that balance from the media, it undermines America's will to fight which encourages our enemies not only to hang on, but to try to take advantage of what is in effect "friendly" Western media coverage. Undoubtedly, there are soldiers & hostages who are dead today because the terrorists and insurgents wanted to try to break our will by using Ted Koppel and his ilk to their advantage.

That's why I don't particularly care for Koppel's little "sweeps week" stunt. You want to pay tribute to our soldiers who lost their lives in the line of duty? I applaud you for that. But, if you want to exploit our soldiers KIA to (stick it to Bush / slam the military / to try to undermine support for the war / to pull a few more eyeballs than normal during sweeps week / fill in the blank), then color me unimpressed. And yeah, Koppel -- as well as most of the mainstream media -- and while I'm at it, the overwhelming majority of bloggers on the left -- leave me very unimpressed.

***Update #1***: Joe Mariani from Guardian WatchBlog wrote a splendid column on this subject that I think is worth a read.

As a little thank-you to the blogs that have sent RWN the most traffic, I decided to list the top referrers for RWN for the first 4 months of the year along with the amount of traffic they've sent. If you're a blogger, this will help give you an idea of some of the best places to get linked. On the hand, if you read RWN, hey, these people must have something going on or they wouldn't have enough traffic to make this list, right?

(***No search engines were included on the list ***)

RWN's Top Referrers For 2004

25) Blogdex: 826
24) VodkaPundit: 831
23) National Security Blog: 848
22) Men's News Daily: 909
21) Tim Blair: 1,031
20) Curmudgeonly & Skeptical: 1,076
19) Little Green Footballs: 1,202
18) Broken Newz: 1,246
17) Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing: 1,320
16) Betsy's Page: 1,323
15) Newsfilter (Some Obscene Links): 1,334
14) Hugh Hewitt: 1,418
13) Kim Du Toit: 1,804
12) Right Thinking From The Left Coast: 1,817
11) Eject! Eject! Eject! : 2,173
10) Scrappleface: 2,396
9) Andrew Sullivan: 2,910
8) The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: 4,056
7) Allah Is In The House: 4,172
6) Mark Steyn: 5,051
5) IMAO: 5,110
4) National Review's The Corner: 5,367
3) Tongue Tied: 6,353
2) Fark: 23,393
1) Instapundit: 31,374

Wow, is Glenn Reynolds the "Capo di tutti capi" in the blogosphere or what?

The US soldiers who did this to Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison are disgraces to the uniform...

"The photos (JDH: only some of which are shown above) showed U.S. troops smiling, posing, laughing or giving the thumbs-up sign as naked, male Iraqi prisoners were stacked in a pyramid or positioned to simulate sex acts with one another."

Not only should the 6 soldiers responsible for this be court martialed, they deserve to spend a few years thinking it over in a military prison. I don't care what kind of training they received and it doesn't matter what sort of scumbags the people they tortured were, members of the US military DO NOT treat prisoners that way.

Furthermore, it's especially galling that these pieces of human garbage would treat Iraqis like this, given that one of the reasons Saddam was so reviled by his people was the torture his men inflicted on them. But at least we punish our troops who act that way, Saddam would have probably given them a raise.

In any case, we need to make absolutely sure this isn't happening anywhere else in Iraq and then we need to take steps to insure it doesn't happen again. What we're doing in Iraq and the deserved honor heaped upon the members of military is too important to be risked by some bunch of immature yahoos who get off on taking pictures of themselves humiliating prisoners.

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-WA, explained yesterday that he had omitted the words "under God" while leading House colleagues in the Pledge of Allegiance because he had learned the Pledge before 1954 when the phrase was inserted by an act of Congress.

Later, a spokesman confirmed that Mr. McDermott also often forgets about the 1964 Civil Rights Act, because when he was in grade school it was still legal to discriminate on the basis of race.

"The Congressman also needs repeated reminders that Alaska and Hawaii are states, since they weren't when he was a child," the unnamed source said. "Which also explains why he visited Iraq and praised its leadership before the war. Rep. McDermott learned about Iraq before it fell under Ba'athist control, and he just forgot that it was ruled by a ruthless, bloodthirsty dictator for decades."

If you enjoyed this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.

Have you ever read something and had to actually go back and read it again, just because you can't believe your eyes? Well today, I had that experience as I perused the Eye Weekly, a Canadian mag that I had admittedly never seen before, but that according to their advertising material (.pdf file), has 332,000 weekly readers in the Toronto area.

So what are our Canadian neighbors to the North advocating today you ask? Free hockey sticks for kids? Cheap igloos for the disadvantaged? Actually spending some money on their military (har, har, har)? No, the op-ed I ran across, was suggesting legalizing GROPING. Yes, you read me right, some perv named Bert Archer thinks it should be legal to grab the goodies of any hot Canadian woman you run across on the street. Just take a look at this...

"...Being touched, even if it is on our Janet-Jacksons, is a very small matter and shouldn't be against the law. We get touched all the time, on the subway, in streetcars, along busy streets, while trying to go out a door at the same time someone else is going in through it. And on these occasions, we frequently get our boobs, bums and crotches brushed or poked, and unless we are very fragile little flowers indeed, we think nothing of it. But for most of us, if that same brush or poke were not an accident but demonstrably the result of a desire on the part of the brusher or poker to brush, poke, or otherwise manhandle that particular part of us, we would be outraged. "Our bodies, our selves!" we would cry, at least to ourselves, in our justification for this outrage. "Consent!" we might also cry. "This is non-consensual sexual touching! We have a right not to be touched!" Except, of course, when we're on the subway or streetcar or in a doorway or narrow stairwell or on an elevator or in a closely packed aisle in a grocery store or an airplane gangway....

...The criminalization of harmless sexual acts (and there is no credible study anywhere to link either ogling or groping to any more invasive sexual crime) in a culture as sexually diffident as ours, which considers the sight of certain body parts inherently harmful to children, is a step in the wrong direction. As are fastidious notions about groping and the laws that bolster them."

If you honestly believe there's "nothing inherently sexually unhealthy about" say grabbing some woman's left ta-ta as you walk by her on the street, then take it from a psych major, you need to be laying on a couch somewhere talking out your issues with a psychologist. Because let me tell you, not only is it "inherently sexually unhealthy" to grope a stranger on the street, it's physically unhealthy to do it as well. As far I'm concerned, putting your hands all over some woman on the street is nothing but an invitation to get maced, punched in the mouth, or maybe even put in the hospital for a few weeks if she happens to be walking with a man who's big enough or mean enough to get the job done.

"Keep your hands to yourself" is something that most kids should pick up by the time they're in kindergarten and the only thing more disturbing than reading a column written by some degenerate adult who doesn't understand that, is knowing that a Canadian mag with over a quarter of a million readers would actually run his "pro-groping" editorial.

What a bunch of freaks, eh?

Rush Limbaugh came up with the perfect analogy for the Kerry campaign today and it was a thing of beauty to behold...

"... John Kerry's, campaign. It's like Chappaquiddick. It's like a car sinking to the bottom of a river with a drunk behind the wheel and the Democratic Party as the passenger. That's the John Kerry campaign. Chappaquiddick redux."

And indeed, it is. There has been a lot of lousy news in Iraq, book after book after book has targeted the Bushies, the partisans on the 9/11 commission have been gunning for administration, the Shadow Democratic Party has been pumping out the ads...and Bush has still managed to get stronger.

As much as anything, that's because Kerry, despite getting kid gloves treatment from the press most of the time, has run such a mediocre campaign. And sadly, for the Democrats, the two big issues of the campaign seem to be the economy/jobs and homeland security/war on terrorism, both of which will be big losers for John Kerry in Nov.

The economy has actually been roaring for about 9 months now and the first quarter job number were superb. Yet, Bush goes from even with Kerry to a few points down on job related issues right on most polls I've seen lately. But, if the economy stays as strong as it is today, all the way through the election -- and that looks likely -- I expect Bush to be up by 10 points on numbers related to handling the economy and job creation by November. Even with a friendly press helping them out, I just don't believe Kerry and company can fool people about how well the economy is doing for over a YEAR.

The War on terrorism will likely be a BIGGER PROBLEM for Kerry because even with things going poorly in Iraq right now, Kerry still can't get any traction. But honestly, that's not a big surprise. Kerry is a Massachusetts liberal and former radical anti-war protestor who voted against the Gulf War, voted against funding the troops in Iraq, and tried to eviscerate our military and intelligence services in the mid-eighties while the Cold War was hot and heavy.

So we're talking about a guy who is almost as weak as his pal Ted Kennedy on defense, yet he's trying to convince the American people he can be trusted to fight terrorism. So what does he do? He claims that he's the guy to take on Al-Qaeda because he won some medals 36 years ago, medals that he later pretended to throw away. Then when anyone brings up Kerry's three decade plus abysmal record on defense issues, JFK simply doges the issue by saying his patriotism is being questioned. The last guy who tried that lame routine was Max Cleland who now has lots of time to campaign for Kerry since he lost his own Senate seat. It's not going to work for Kerry either and as far as I can tell, Senator Flip-Flop has no back-up plan.

So it looks as if we're going to find out whether John Kerry can beat George Bush in the midst of a strong economy, while running on a platform of "I'm not Bush and I fought in Vietnam". I strongly suspect the answer to that question is "no," but time is going to tell whether Kerry becomes the next POTUS or more likely, loses big and drags a lot of Democratic Senate, House, & Gubernatorial candidates down with him...

For those you who don't know, I'm one of the judges in the IMAO T-Shirt Babe Contest.

And what is that you ask? 20 hawkish women all competing to win one hundred dollars cash and a hundred dollar shopping spree at ThoseShirts.com by becoming the IMAO "T-Shirt Babe" .

I've already made my 5 selections (although I can't say who they are until Monday). Feel free to take a look and see if you can guess who I chose in order. If any blogger can pick 'em out in order, I'll give you a free main page ad on RWN next week...

***Update #1***: I thought about this and decided it would be too hard to pick the 5 in order. So any blogger who can just pick out my 5 gets a free main page ad on RWN next week.

Things are looking pretty dour for John Kerry right now, and everything he does seems to make it worse. First there is his attempt to hold two simultaneous but conflicting positions like being for and against the war, for and against funding the troops, etc. He won't even need Bush for the Presidential debates; he could just do them Gollum style, making a statement, and then rebutting vehemently right after.

"We must fund the troops in Iraq!"
Camera angle on Kerry changes. "No! I hateses funding the nasty troopses!"

And now he's attacked Bush about his National Guard service - a story that played out months ago - after he said he was against such petty attacks. Really, presidential candidates are supposed to leave such sniping to subordinates; it's almost seeming like it's amateur hour at the Apollo with Kerry now.

I guess it's Frank to the rescue.

Yes, I want the Democrats to lose, and to lose so big it wipes out their "Bush was selected not elected" delirium. So big that they cry. So big that they actually follow through on their threats to move to France. Still, I just can't stand idly by and watch a train wreck, so here are my ideas to help the Kerry campaign:

* Get Rid of the French-Lookingness: This is a hard one, but essential. Instead of a suit, wear a leather jacket and sunglasses. Mess up that thousand dollar haircut of yours. Then, grow some stubble. If you can't grow stubble because of that Botox stuff, then have a Hollywood makeup artist give you some.

* Stop Talking: You seem to put your foot in your mouth trying to explain your odd positions, so don't talk at all. Be this mysterious, gruff looking individual of few words. Respond to most questions with a grunt or a "whatever". This moves you from aloof - which people hate - to apathetic - which is cool. If someone keeps pestering you with a question, instead of coming up with a lame dodge by attacking Bush, intimidate the individual. For example:

REPORTER: "Senator Kerry, did you or did you not throw your own medals over a fence in protest?"
MO'FO' KERRY: "Who f**king cares? What I do know, if you keep bothering me about it, I'm going to throw my fist in your face."

The average Joe - or even the average Steve - would really respond to that.

* No More Mentioning That You Served Vietnam: Okay, dude, we all know you served in Vietnam and are getting tired of you bringing it up, but there's a better way to mention it. Instead of saying, "By the way, I served in Vietnam", phrase instead as "I've killed people before." Said in a low, menacing voice, it's also a good dodge to questions.

* Pick a VP that Makes You Look Good in Comparison: Since everyone think you're haughty and aloof and uncharismatic, pick a VP that's even more haughty, more aloof, and less charismatic. But who...

Al Gore! He's even already got VP experience. He might be really tired of it, though, so if you get elected and you see him playing with garroting wire, don't turn your back on him.

* Use Reverse Psychology: Usually political ads say why you should vote for one guy or why you shouldn't vote for another guy. That's old and tired. If you want to be cool, have an ad where you say, "I'm John Kerry and... know what? F**k this. I don't even want your stupid vote. I'm outta here." Then just walk off camera. And people will be like, "That guy is cool! He doesn't even care if we vote for him! I'm going to vote for him!" It will totally work.

* Wrestle a Bear: Only a bad@ss could wrestle a bear. And then you'll have something to talk about other than being in Vietnam. No matter what policy question someone asks you, you can be like, "Hey! I wrestled a bear! I can handle that podunk crap!"

* Keep Bill Clinton in His Place: Using his new book, Bill Clinton is going to try and steal the spotlight for himself to the detriment of Democrats in general. You need to have a public meeting with him and then stomp his @ss. Be like, "I'm the leader of the Democrats now, b*tch!" He might call on Hillary for help, and I'll leave that up to whether you take her on. I hear that in a fight she's all nails and teeth.

* Improve General Bad@ssery: If people are going to take you seriously as a president who can handle the war on terror, you need to be a complete and total bad@ss. Instead of doing the usual politician thing of shaking hands and kissing babies, be like, "Keep your d@mn hands away from me!" and "Get that ugly baby out of my face!" People will be like, "D@mn! That guy is a bad@ss. To once think I believed he was haughty and aloof."

So, Kerry, the choice is yours. You can either known as "John Kerry, the haughty, french-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam" or as "John F'n Kerry, bad@ss loner of few words who's killed people and, by the way, wrestled a bear". Not much of choice, huh? I'd almost vote for you if you were the latter, except that I'm pretty sure you'd raise my taxes. By the way, I don't care if you wrestled a bear: if you raise my taxes, I kick your @ss.

I wonder if that could be a campaign slogan...

If you enjoyed this satire by Frank J., you can read more of his work at IMAO.

Geeze, ya just post on your blog that there is no glass ceiling in the blogosphere, that if you were stuck on a desert island, you'd rather be stuck there with attractive women, that there aren't 35 political readable blogs written by women on the right side of the blogosphere, and that women have the option of pulling a little extra traffic with sex if they so desire, and all hell breaks loose.

-- Meryl Yourish, Ilyka Damen, & Michele Catalano (who inspired the original post on this subject by the way) got P.O.'d

-- Kim Du Toit said I "stepped all over the (doubtless unpainted) toes of the Feminist Blog Brigade" (hehe)

-- The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler got sarcastic =D

-- Little Miss Attilla wrote an intelligent post on the subject and said she got a Hawkins-alanche out of it.

-- Ravenwood wanted to know why I didn't just say bite me instead of writing a 1000 words on the subject (Answer: bite me doesn't get 10 trackbacks).

-- Spoons & James Joyner got into related feminist flaps.

-- Venomous Kate responded to some of the carping with "I’m No Feminist. I’m Just Female".

-- And I Love Jet Noise wrote my favorite post on the subject and coined the phrase "minor oinkery".

Now normally, I'd just let this drop. I think I got my point across, a lot has already been said about it, it generated nice traffic, and fun was had by all...well except for the oversensitive people. But, something happened that persuaded me -- nay, FORCED me, to post just one last time. Michele Catalano took my advice & proved the point I was trying to make!

As I mentioned earlier, I first weighed in on this subject because Michele complained about Wonkette's sudden success, said she was advised to "stop writing about topics such as boobs and sex," and then opined that "(Men) just have to write. We have to be whores."

First things first. Michele at one point said,

"Many months ago I received an email from a male blogger who told me that if I want people to recognize my writing and if I wanted to make a name for myself, I should concentrate on my serious writing and stop writing about topics such as boobs and sex."

And I replied in my post

Psssst Michele? That would have been good advice if you're trying to get a job writing for the Cato Institute. But, you run a blog. Talking about boobs and sex on occasion is only going to help....The truth is: if you're female and you can write, you can make it just fine in the blogosphere -- just like Michele and Wonkette have. And as far as the sex talk goes? Heck, women should just be glad they have the option to use that as a way to pull in extra traffic if they so desire.."

AOG over at Thought Mesh understood what I was trying to get across...

"In my view, the anti-RWN side is reading “female bloggers should do sex talk and boobies (ST/B)” whereas I think that the actual point is that “female bloggers can do sex talk and boobies”. It’s like having a little turbo button on your weblog. You don’t have to use it, but it’s an easy way to generate additional traffic/links. There’s no “should” involved. The counter argument is “I’ll get less traffic/links if I don’t”. Yes, but less traffic/links option is the only one for guys.

The problem is that the supply of traffic/links is very limited compared to the demand. The most likely fate for any weblog, even if it’s very well written, is obscurity. It is certainly not the case that if you’re a male weblogger you get lots of traffic/link that can only be obtained as a female weblogger through the ST/B option."

BINGO, give that man a prize, because that's exactly what I was trying to say. Michele must have gotten it too because she busted out this cleavage shot late Sunday night...

(*** The pic of Michele Catalano's cleavage shot located here was removed per her request ***)

And what were the results? Well, she got 13 links just from movable type weblogs on the post (and they weren't linking for the hat) and traffic was way up. The previous Sunday/Monday Michele pulled a very respectable 7881 daily uniques, but on "cleavage shot Sunday night" & the following day she reeled in 11,301 daily uniques.

You see what I'm trying to get across here? Michele Catalano, who's a very talented blogger, was already pulling a lot of eyeballs. But, she showed a little cleavage and ***BAM*** she gets a nice traffic boost. She doesn't have to do it to succeed, she doesn't have to do it if she doesn't want to, but she has the option...and it works for her...and there's nothing wrong with that. Like I've said before, "sex sells".

There's one more thing I want to address before I finish and up and that's the lack of quality female bloggers on the right out there. Interestingly enough, I've found that left-wing blogs like Pandragon & The Daily Kos were in so many words asking the same questions about the left-side of blogosphere that I asked about the right, back in March.

So let me branch out: Why are comparatively so few female bloggers of note in the political blogosphere?

Personally, I have come to suspect it's just a numbers game. On the whole, women aren't as interested as men in politics, so therefore there are a lot less women than men writing about politics, and hence there is a much smaller pool of female bloggers with the talent to move up the ranks.

Some people probably won't like that answer, but hey, why aren't there as many women who are sports fans as men? Why are there a lot more women than guys who enjoy romance novels? Maybe it's nature, maybe it's nurture, maybe it's some combination thereof, but men and women on the whole don't have the same level of interest in politics.

Also, if I can make one more personal observation -- and I can since it's my blog -- I'd like note that for whatever reason, an unusually high percentage of talented women who in my opinion have what it takes to make it, either gave up or don't post enough to make it to the top of the blogosphere heap. Out of my fave female run poliblogs ever, Rachel Lucas & Moxiepop quit while Michele Catalano gave up politics to talk about baseball and comics. Then there's Dawn Olsen, Moxie, & Allison Kaplan Sommer of An Unsealed Room who have the skills, but for whatever reason don't post consistently enough to get really big. I keep waiting for Betsy to give up her blog so she can read more dusty textbooks and for up and coming faves Cassandra from I Love Jet Noise, Sarah from Trying To Grok, & Debbye from Being American In T.O., to all either quit, start posting once per day, or to drop politics so they can have more time to blog about make-up and house plants. All I can say is "Hang in there ladies! Somebody has to be the biggest female conservablogger on the net and the way they're dropping like flies, you've got a shot!"

JOIN THE RANKS...
http://www.patriotblog.com/patriotaward.php

I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows the Patriot Blog TRUE PATRIOT
winners!

Here they are:
January, 2004
* http://www.patriotblog.com

February, 2004
* http://www.punditfilter.com

March, 2004
* http://www.rightsided.org
* http://www.benjaminscole.blogspot.com
* http://brianfiles.homestead.com/home.html
* http://www.calblog.com
* http://www.sortapundit.com
* http://www.imao.us
* http://xrlq.com
* http://www.discountblogger.com

April, 2004
* http://www.laughingwolf.net
* http://www.blogcastlive.com
* http://home.earthlink.net/~marknkriswest/

JOIN THE RANKS...
http://www.patriotblog.com/patriotaward.php

ps. It would be great if someday the schools got all the money they needed,
but boy, oh boy would it suck if the air force had to hold a bake sale to buy a
bomber.

- http://www.patriotblog.com

Unfortunately, I have a once a year business commitment that is going to keep me tied up for a good chunk of today and tomorrow. That means nothing but news links Tuesday and Wednesday -- no posts. On the upside, I'm going to be posting an interview on Thursday and after this I should be back to my normal schedule until Memorial Day week-end. Sorry guys, that's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes...

As per usual a list of advertiser, I hope you'll give them a look while I'm gone...

Blogads
---------
52 Reasons To Re-Elect George Bush
Robert Lamutt For Congress
Bryan Coffman For Congress
Nathan Tabor For Congress
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Banners
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PABAAH!
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Vitamin USA

Other
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Shop The Right

***Update #1***: RWN returns to our regular schedule tomorrow. If all goes as planned, I should have up an interview with immigration expert Mark Krikorian and one final post on the "feminism in the blogosphere" issue. I look forward to getting back into the swing of things...

Now, I'll be the first to tell you that not every liberal thinks like the people about to quote to you from the Democratic Underground. However, I don' t think these people are on the fringes of the left either. Heck, John Kerry's Blog links to the Democratic Underground. Do you think the Democratic candidate for President would be linking to a "fringe" website? Of course not! You never know, maybe one of these people IS John Kerry in disguise blowing a little steam after a hard day of campaigning.

Oh and by the way, it's nice to see so many people at the DU living up to the old "hate America left" label. The honesty is refreshing....

skjpm: If by "America" you mean the majority living here now, then I hate America. If by "America" you mean the vision of the Founding Fathers, then I love America. But it's hard to keep that vision in front of me when the majority of "Americans" are fundamentalist, fascistic, homophobic, racist, sexist, ignorant, American Idol-loving morons who think Bush is a strong leader. I think that the America I love is beyond retrieval because it would take more than a new President, it would take a re-awakening of a whole group of stupid people who don't want re-awakening. Bush didn't destroy America. Americans who had no idea of the wonderful country they were given destroyed America, and will continue to destroy it whether Kerry is elected or not.

Should I stay? Would you counsel someone to stay in an abusive relationship and hope that the person will stop hitting them if they can just reach the person somehow?

leftofthedial: "I knew some *wonderful* people who were strong supporters of the Nazi Party.

"There's gonna be two dates on your tombstone, all your"

donsu: "try finding someone that is not a racist. try finding a man that is not a misogynist"

skjpm (later in the thread): "I am--what people are you looking at? Why is it so hard to admit that the majority of Americans are creeps? America should be a different kind of country--The Founding Fathers, whatever their own limits, set in motion a country that should, by now, be a beacon to the world. But Americans, particularly this generation, have destroyed that vision with their ignorance. Who are your neighbors? What are they doing? Do they calmly watch the children die on TV and then switch to Idol? That's what my nieghbors do.

Umm... I need to run some errands, but I'll come back to this thread. I never know how to keep a thread going."

david_vincent: It's not America you hate it's Americans. I think you have an excellent point about the sheer idiocy of those who ascribe to the antidemocratic attitude of "you're either with us or against us" since the advocacy of such a position, commonly held by those who believe themselves to be patriots, only reveals the adherent to be unworthy of the liberty they enjoy in this country, and claim to understand and love. I disagree with any contention that such people have not been in evidence throughout our history. I also have to point out that their numbers are not as great as you might think; they tend to be very outspoken and their self-righteousness and closedmindedness can easily lend them a false image of being more numerous than is really the case. Many, many Americans are neither loud nor extreme about their political views, and want mostly to be left in peace and security and have the chance to prosper, and I think that these moderates act as a keel to prevent the body politic from tilting too far to either side.

As for leaving: many people already have. Many others are making plans to leave if Gov. Bush is elected. It's a personal choice and it should be made only after a great deal of research into possible destinations and sober reflection on the nonexistence of earthly paradise. My guess is that unless Kerry wins, there will be a noticeable exodus of talented, valuable people to other countries, and there are probably a lot of DUers who are considering it."

Zorra: "You forgot bloodthirsty. This group you are speaking of loves the war and rejoices over every death and injury to any Iraqi or other Arabs. These people are so sick I would not be surprised if it gave them a secret thrill every time an American soldier was killed, in the same way that the crowds in the Roman coliseums were thrilled by combat and death.

I agree with you. A large number of Americans are very, very sick.
But it is not the majority."

saracat: "I question the inclusion of American Idol.I find Idol hilarious and display none of the traits discussed in the post.I do , however agree with your opinion otherwise. I have stated for a long time that I do not care for Americans.Their current stupidity is unfathomable. I find the fact that in the faceof mounting eveidence they can have anyfaith at all in the Rat B@stard in the WH remarkable.The American diconnect is spectacular.I am ashamed to be an American!"

riverwalker: "agree with skjpm but you have to stay! Americans have a rep for being incredibly dumb. Go any where in the world and it is a standing joke. Most can't even find other countries on a map, and know nothing of history. It's our ignorance that makes us so dangerous, because we don't even know how stupid we really are. There have been times when returning to this culture has left me totally depressed. It's seems more insane when you leave it for a while, and look at it with a different perspective. It can be like entering an insane asylum."

Mari333: Ive been having the same emotions about being here. They already took my kid to Iraq, they could take my other kids if Bush gets back in. I keep bringing it up to my husband about leaving, Im tired, I dont feel like this is my country anymore. Where I live, a GOP area, might have something to do with how I feel.

This is causing us a lot of concern and terror, in every way. I dont want to be a part of a country that embraces fascism."

LastChance2004: "Wait Until After Election 2004. If chimpy gets selected again, we're all in big trouble. The fascists you describe will start doing more than just voting, the "brownshirts" will be coming after people.

It'll then get ugly, real ugly."

Hat tip to Little Green Footballs for finding this.

It's not unusual to hear anti-Bush partisans carping that the President hasn't attended the funerals of any of the soldiers killed in Afghanistan & Iraq. But, as most people realize, it's not as simple for the President to attend a funeral as it is for the rest of us. If the President did show up at a funeral, not only would the families of the fallen have to deal with all the understandable, yet still draconian security procedures put in place by the Secret Service, there would be questions of favoritism (why that guy and not my son) and even a media presence that would likely be unwanted by the families. In short, it's very impractical for the President to show up at a funeral.

Of course, the Bush haters understand this just like most of the rest of us do, but they're still willing to try to take advantage of the situation to attack Bush politically. The implication here is that Bush doesn't go to funerals of the fallen because he doesn't want to face families that have lost someone he sent to war or perhaps that he's afraid he'll run into some of the soldier's buddies who were wounded overseas and are back home to see their friend off.

However, that's simply not true and just to prove it, I decided to do a little research on the "blogger's best friend" (AKA Google). It took me less than 10 minutes to pull up the following...

"As looting and sporadic firefights continued in and around the Iraqi capital, Bush and First Lady Laura Bush visited 40 wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and 33 others at Bethesda Naval Hospital, both in suburban Maryland just a short drive from the White House. One of the soldiers Bush visited was wounded in the fighting in Afghanistan." -- Chicago Tribune, April 12, 2003

"Several soldiers told me today, badly injured soldiers, that they want to get well quickly, and get back on their duty stations in Iraq," Bush said. "They want to serve our nation, and it's so refreshing and great to be here." -- CNN, March 20, 2004

George W. Bush DOES MEET with soldiers who've been wounded in combat and families who've lost loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. And if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, they simply don't know what they're talking about...

In his most vehement defense of the war in Iraq to date, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters today, “Iraq is not ‘Gigli.’”

Mr. Rumsfeld made his remark just hours after Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass) compared Iraq and the ill-fated Jennifer Lopez-Ben Affleck vehicle from the well of the U.S. Senate.

“Can there be any doubt that the United States is heading down a dangerous path in Iraq – a path not unlike the path that led us to ‘Gigli?’” Sen. Kennedy asked his Senate colleagues.

While the war in Iraq has been criticized in recent days, Sen. Kennedy’s comparison between the war and “Gigli” was by far the harshest critique yet, prompting Secretary Rumsfeld to say that all such comparisons were “unhelpful and wholly inaccurate.”

“For one thing, ‘Gigli’ was out of theaters after two weeks, and the war in Iraq will be with us for years and years and years and years,” Mr. Rumsfeld said.

In a pointed barb seemingly directed at Sen. Kennedy, Mr. Rumsfeld asked, “Have those who are comparing Iraq to ‘Gigli’ actually seen ‘Gigli’? Don’t say something is ‘Gigli’ unless you’ve seen ‘Gigli,’ because only ‘Gigli’ is ‘Gigli.’”

Later in the day, a spokesman for Sen. Kennedy acknowledged that the Senator had not in fact seen “Gigli,” but added, “Senator Kennedy did see ‘Charlie’s Angels 2: Full Throttle,’ and he believes that comparisons between that film and the war in Iraq are unavoidable.”

Elsewhere, in science news, a new study shows that toddlers who had difficulty sleeping improved after watching John Kerry on “Meet the Press.”

If you enjoyed this satire by Andy Borowitz, you can read more of his work at The Borowitz Report.

The first rule of the internet, the very first one, is "don't believe everything you hear". That seems simple enough doesn't it?. After all, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that something you receive in an email, see on a message board, or read on a web page with pictures of Elvis driving a flying saucer on the front page, probably isn't something you're going to want to bet the farm on. Only the ignorant, the gullible, or conspiracy theorists are going to be snookered by sources that dubious.

Then there are the biased sources, like Newsmax, The Village Voice, or even Right Wing News ;). Since these sorts of websites don't try to hide their partisan leanings, the reader can consider himself forewarned that people of a different ideological stripe might have a different take on the same issues. For example, if you went to Eschaton, a left-wing blog, and saw a headline that stated "George W. Bush wants to grind up fluffy kittens to help Haliburton profit margin," your antennae would go up -- because you know this a left-wing blog -- and you'd naturally take what you read with a grain of salt.

But, what gets people into trouble are the sources and articles that seem reliable, yet actually are about as trustworthy as the political info you get from your friend's cousin's mother's brother after he finishes off his second pitcher of beer at Pizza Hut. And that's where I come in. (Cont)

(Soothing Spring melody playing in the background) Serious voice: "Are you sick and tired of the Marxist-Islamist Alliance? Have you seen enough of Ketchup Boy to make you want to put WASABI on your cheeseburger from now on? Would you like a politician that DOESN'T have his hand out?"

--- LOUD RECORD SCRATCHING --- (Smackdown Announcer Voice): "Then Cooper ain't your man! Cooper for President - The site that skewers politics and society WITH AN ATTITUDE. This ain't your great grandfather's website!"

(Sound of a radio being smashed to bits)

Um... Hi.... Sorry about that... I'm Michael Cooper, and that's the LAST time I hire a Madison Avenue company to write an ad for my site. I should have known better. After all, I make fun of these types of unfunny, crap-can, cookie cutter commercials all the time. But that's not all.

Cooper for President is one of the fastest-growing websites on the internet. Come to think of it, since I started I've been one of the fastest growing presidential candidates (and I really need to hit the gym). But wedon't just skewer politics. We make fun of movies, self-important celebrities, and people who generally deserve it (like Parrotheads or people who own Segways).

The humor at Cooper for President crosses the entire spectrum. We have lowbrow, highbrow, and unibrow. John Kerry has promised 10 million new jobs and that he'll get the U.N. to help us in Iraq? Well I promise 10 "bajillion" new jobs, and that I will get every bloodthirsty Islamist to
convert to Seventh Day Adventist by next March. Piece of cake.

See me grilled by the 9/11 Commission like I was George Foreman's lunch. Read the Bill Moyers interview with Osama bin Laden. Learn about the origins of the Marxist-Islamist Alliance! Then get out and Rock the Boat. Or is it Rock the "Vote?" Who cares? Either way, its uber-retarded.

Michael Cooper - The OTHER Dennis Kucinich!