And many writers have imagined for themselves republics and principalities that have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for there is such a gap between how one lives and how one ought to live that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be done learns his ruin rather than his preservation: for a man who wishes to profess goodness at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not good. -- Niccolo Machiavelli
"Al Qaeda militants in Saudi Arabia beheaded American hostage Paul Johnson Friday and their leader was then killed in a shootout with security forces as he tried to dispose of the body, Saudi officials said.
Abdulaziz al-Muqrin's group posted photographs of the 49-year-old aviation engineer's severed head on a Web site, six days after he was seized. The Saudi government had refused to free Islamist prisoners by a Friday deadline set by the cell.
Shortly afterwards, as Muqrin and two other top militants tried to deposit Johnson's body in the capital Riyadh, they were surrounded by Saudi security men and gunned down, a security source said."
...is a dead member of Al-Qaeda.
I only wish they could have killed them before they murdered poor Paul Johnson.
Military Interrogations: No Torture, But They Should Be Harsh
Americans are going to die one day, if they haven't already, because of the mainstream media's obsessive attempts to build Abu Ghraib up from a molehill into a mountain that can be toppled onto the Bush administration and the war effort in Iraq. Here's part of an email from an Army interrogator to the Corner that explains what I'm talking about...
"...(N)ow that we’ve had the congressional debates, the WSJ articles and all of the hand wringing, Gen. Sanchez has banned 9 more techniques overseas – and this isn’t the crazy stuff you’ve heard of, like simulated drowning, which we don’t teach – including sleep deprivation, hooding (which is as much a safety technique for us and the prisoner as an interrogation preparation technique). I figure than any more DOD knee jerking and we’ll be reduced to singing “Kumbayah” to guys that we’ve caught either planning to kill Americans or who have killed Americans.
Some parting shots.
Interrogation has saved thousands of US and US military lives – especially in Afghanistan with that thug Gulbudin Hekmatyr, with his 50,000 soldiers (sic), who has publicly stated that his goal is the overthrow of the Karzai Gov’t and the expulsion of all US forces – who daily plots ambushes, road side bombs, and sniper attacks against US personnel. It was two interrogators that got the information that lead to the capture of Saddam. People in my office in 1999 (can’t say where) helped wrap up the millennium plot. Despite the bombings you see regularly in Iraq, interrogations are foiling on a daily basis plans to kill Americans (big country, unfortunately you can’t interrogate everybody)."
As I've said before when I talked about Abu Ghraib, I don't support the naked piggy piles, sexual molestation, beatings, threats against people's families, or making prisoners crawl over broken glass. The people who did those things to Iraqi prisoners are a disgrace to the uniform and deserve court martials & jail terms.
However, that being said, military prisons during war time aren't supposed to be summer camp either. And we can't afford to tie our military interrogator's hands when they're dealing with terrorists and insurgents who are holding our people hostage, setting up ambushes, and planning to slaughter Iraqi civilians with car bombs. So when it comes to doing things like hooding prisoners, taking away the Koran, manipulating diets, shaving beards, isolation, threatening (not attacking) them with dogs, sleep deprivation, & stress positions, I'm all for it.
"But, what about their Constitutional rights!"
They're not Americans and they're not in America, so they have no Constitutional rights.
"But, what about the Geneva Convention?"
They don't wear uniforms or follow the rules of warfare, so the Geneva Convention doesn't apply to them.
"I don't care about that, I still say they're covered by the Geneva Convention!"
Then screw the Geneva Convention. We've never fought an enemy who abided by it and as Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, & Paul Johnson -- God bless their souls -- could tell you, our enemies care nothing about any sort of rules of warfare.
"But, what if they treated our prisoners that way?"
It would be a huge step up from how our men are being treated now.
Maybe you think that's harsh, but this is a war and getting information out of these terrorists & insurgents we're capturing is literally a matter of life and death, not only for Iraqi civilians, but for American soldiers. Maybe some people might think threatening a terrorist with a dog or keeping him up for a couple of nights in a row is inhumane. But, if the choice is between doing that and having an American die in Iraq instead of coming home to his family -- and it is -- then that should be a really easy call for us to make.
Kerry's Absence From Senate Not Reducing His Impact By Scott Ott
Rejecting a call from Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to resign from the U.S. Senate, John Forbes Kerry today said that missing 87 percent of Senate votes in 2004 has "not diminished my effectiveness in the least."
"If you examine my 16-year record in the Senate, you'll see that I'm just as effective when I'm not there as I was when I was there," said Mr. Kerry. "The major legislation on health care, energy and homeland security that I didn't introduce then, I'm not introducing now. The colleagues who I didn't rally to my causes then, remain unrallied. I think it's disingenuous for Gov. Romney to suggest that my absence from the Senate harms America in any way."
If you enjoyed this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.
The lovely and talented Michelle Malkin shot me an email a few minutes ago to let me know that some guy I'd never heard of named Dan Kennedy at the The Boston Phoenix used a quote from the RWN interview with Mark Steyn in a hit piece aimed at the "one man global content provider"....
"STEYN OFTEN criticizes the mainstream American press for its stodgy lifelessness. Last year he told the Web site RightWingNews.com that "almost any other English-speaking country, from Australia to Pakistan, has a livelier press than the US big-city monodailies.... I think that’s why when conservative US bloggers need a bit of red meat they can tear to pieces they go to the Guardian rather than the Boston Globe or the San Francisco Chronicle. Idiocy-wise, there’s no difference, but the boys at the Guardian can write."
I found it to be quite ironic that Kennedy used that particular quote, because I had to really fight to stay focused through his plodding, four page long attack on Steyn. It was like listening to a 15-year old who spends his afternoons fumbling away at a guitar in his mom's basement telling everyone within earshot that Jimmy Hendrix had no idea what he was doing. Of course, that only proves the point Steyn was making in that quote, which suits me just fine...
The weathervane in a windstorm that is John Kerry's position on Iraq has again been blown wildly to the left by the 9/11 commission's report....
"Kerry seized upon the commission's findings as further evidence that the White House misled the public about its reasons for invading Iraq. He said Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney ``on a number of occasions have asserted very directly to the American people that the war against al-Qaida is the war in Iraq. And on any number of occasions the president has made it clear that the front of the war against al-Qaida is in Iraq.''
``This administration took its eye off of al-Qaida, took its eye off of the real war on terror in Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan and transferred it for reasons of its own to Iraq,'' Kerry said. ``And the American people are paying billions of dollars now because of that decision. And most importantly, American families and American soldiers are paying the highest price of all.''
Asked what Bush's true motivation was for attacking Saddam's government, Kerry said that is a question for the administration.
``It is clear that the president owes the American people a fundamental explanation about why he rushed to war for a purpose that it now turns out is not supported by the facts,'' Kerry said. ``And that is the finding of this commission.''
Oooh, I bet the liberals love days like today when Kerry is trying his best to do a Howard Dean impression.
But, if the press were actually interested in getting to the bottom of the huge, gaping, inconsistencies in John Kerry's position on Iraq, these latest statements from Kerry would inspire lots of tough questions.
The first one would of course be, "Are you saying the war was a mistake?" To the best of my knowledge, John Kerry is still hedging on the answer that question which is really pathetic if you think about it. We went to war more than a year ago and yet here's a man who wants to be the POTUS who has yet to decide whether it was a good idea or not.
Also, this quote is quite fascinating...
"This administration took its eye off of al-Qaida, took its eye off of the real war on terror in Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan and transferred it for reasons of its own to Iraq."
...fascinating because it contradicts the position he took on the same issue in December of 2003. Back then, John Kerry said...
"Iraq may not be the war on terror itself, but it is critical to the outcome of the war on terror, and therefore any advance in Iraq is an advance forward in that..."
So which is it? Was Iraq "critical to the war on terror" or not part of the "real war on terror"? Why isn't John Kerry being asked to answer that question?
Furthermore, if this is all some big mistake, why did Kerry not only vote to give Bush the authority to go to war, but say the following in October of 2002,
"It would be naive to the point of grave danger not to believe that, left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein will provoke, misjudge, or stumble into a future, more dangerous confrontation with the civilized world. He has as much as promised it. He has already created a stunning track record of miscalculation. He miscalculated an 8-year war with Iran. He miscalculated the invasion of Kuwait. He miscalculated America's responses to it. He miscalculated the result of setting oil rigs on fire. He miscalculated the impact of sending Scuds into Israel. He miscalculated his own military might. He miscalculated the Arab world's response to his plight. He miscalculated in attempting an assassination of a former President of the United States. And he is miscalculating now America's judgments about his miscalculations.
All those miscalculations are compounded by the rest of history. A brutal, oppressive dictator, guilty of personally murdering and condoning murder and torture, grotesque violence against women, execution of political opponents, a war criminal who used chemical weapons against another nation and, of course, as we know, against his own people, the Kurds. He has diverted funds from the Oil-for-Food program, intended by the international community to go to his own people. He has supported and harbored terrorist groups, particularly radical Palestinian groups such as Abu Nidal, and he has given money to families of suicide murderers in Israel.
I mention these not because they are a cause to go to war in and of themselves, as the President previously suggested, but because they tell a lot about the threat of the weapons of mass destruction and the nature of this man. We should not go to war because these things are in his past, but we should be prepared to go to war because of what they tell us about the future."
Of course, Kerry supporters can also point to a bevy of statements Kerry has made that don't seem as hawkish, but that's the problem with Kerry. He's taking all sides of the issue.
He wants to be perceived as a tough, no nonsense, "Scoop Jackson Democrat" who can't wait to kick a little terrorist @ss while simultaneously winking to his supporters on the left so they'll know he's really a Ted Kennedy clone who believes the best way to fight terrorism is via tete a tete's with Kofi Annan and Jacques Chirac.
I'm betting he can't keep having it both ways until November. Time will tell....
George Bush -- Again -- Meets With Families Who Have Lost Someone In Combat
The left will tries to portray George W. Bush as a vicious warmonger who would happily send American soldiers to die in Iraq just to fatten his business buddies bottom line. But, anyone who takes the time to look into what type of man George W. Bush is, won't believe that for a second. Heck, I don't see how anyone but a partisan hack could believe that after reading this story...
".... (W)hen the (Ron Ginther) was killed by mortar fire last month, Donna Ginther worried how she would carry on without her husband. She was terrified her daughter would grow up to be a different adult without Ginther to lead the way.
Donna Ginther told President George W. Bush about her fears Wednesday when he met with families of fallen servicemen following a speech to troops at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.
"When I told him that, he pressed his forehead against mine and said, `You can do it, and we'll all help you through it,"' she said.
Donna Ginther took his words to heart.
"It wasn't something he was saying to make me feel better. Like trying to pacify me and walk away and forget it," she said. "He wasn't afraid to touch you. It wasn't like he was better than us. He kissed us. He cried with us. When I was crying, he cried."
Ron Payne of Lakeland was just as taken with Bush.
Payne lost his son, 23-year-old Ron Payne, last month during an ambush in Afghanistan.
Payne saw a sensitive president when Bush tried to comfort a distraught father during his meeting with grieving families.
"President Bush just kept hugging him and hugging him," Payne said. "He came across as very personable, a caring man. I didn't see any politics in any of this. I was very, very impressed." Bush talked separately with each of the 10 families, going over the contributions of young men like the 6-foot-7 Ron Payne who played basketball for Mulberry High.
Bush posed for pictures and signed autographs. Payne gave him a photo of his son, and Bush took it with him. The president said he was going to put it in his library.
"He was very compassionate with everyone," Payne said. "He said, `I want to cry with you, laugh with you. Take as much time as you need. We'll shed tears. If you want to, laugh. I'm here for you."
Lakeland's Kathy Seymour, Ron Payne's mother, was overwhelmed by Bush's gesture of support.
The mother had gone to Tampa not knowing what she might say, admitting beforehand that she was torn about the role of American military in the Middle East.
"He (Bush) just hugged me, patted me on the back and told me to hang in there. And said he was sorry for my loss . . .," Seymour said. "A lot of the mothers cried. And wives, they cried. Nobody yelled. Nobody was angry. In fact it went really well."
Seymour said she was touched by Bush's sincerity, concern and sympathy. And his teary eyes.
"I feel a little bit better now," she said.
Bush also managed to lighten Donna Ginther's burden.
He did it by not only offering help but by making her daughter happy.
President Bush made his way over to Alayna and...said he hoped she had a happy birthday.
After listening to President Bush talk about fighting terrorists on their turf, Donna Ginther said she better understood why her husband was so determined to go to Iraq because he also thought it might prevent another 9/11.
"She (Alayna) was telling me on the way home, `I'm so proud of Daddy," and I said, `Yes, he's a hero," Donna Ginther said. "And she said, `I'm proud of him because he let us meet the president.'
"I said, `He sent (Bush) right to us, and she said, `He knew we needed somebody like him in our lives.' And it's true."
I'm going to tell you something else too -- this isn't the first time Bush has met with the families of the fallen either, not by a long shot.
Remember that when the left tries to convince you of what a monster George W. Bush is...
I think this says everything you need to know about what Michael Moore's new movie "Farenheit 9/11" is like...
"Meanwhile, in the United Arab Emirates, the film is being offered the kind of support it doesn't need. According to Screen International, the UAE-based distributor Front Row Entertainment has been contacted by organisations related to the Hezbollah in Lebanon with offers of help."
Yes, that's right. Hezbollah, a group of genocidal, anti-American, anti-semitic terrorists with American blood on their hands are offering to help distribute Michael Moore's film. Like I said, that tells you "everything you need to know about what Michael Moore's new movie 'Farenheit 9/11' is like".
And this piece of news, tells you everything you need to know about Michael Moore. He's hasn't ordered his PR people to reject their help...
"...In terms of marketing the film, Front Row is getting a boost from organisations related to Hezbollah which have rung up from Lebanon to ask if there is anything they can do to support the film. And although Chacra says he and his company feel strongly that Fahrenheit is not anti-American, but anti-Bush, “we can’t go against these organisations as they could strongly boycott the film in Lebanon and Syria."
Hey, maybe this will gate with the hate America left? I mean lots of lefties trash America and try to undercut the war on terrorism. Among others there's Ted Rall, Noam Chomsky, Ted Kennedy, Ramsey Clark & even John Kerry back in his post-Vietnam days before he was elected to office. But, how many lefties actually have terrorists volunteering to help them promote their films? More importantly, how many people on the left have such complete disdain for their own country that they'd accept their help? Say what you want about Michael Moore, but this gives him "I hate my own country" indie cred in spades...
Clinton’s Promise Not To Upstage Kerry Upstages Kerry By Andy Borowitz
Former President Bill Clinton’s promise not to upstage Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass) has had precisely the opposite effect, as his promise garnered more press attention than the presumptive Democratic nominee for the third consecutive day.
Case in point: a Kerry campaign rally in Toledo, Ohio yesterday was attended by virtually no representatives of the media except for a lone stringer from a Japanese newspaper, who asked the candidate, “What can you tell us about President Clinton’s promise not to upstage you?”
A visibly angry Sen. Kerry ignored the reporter, thundering, “Where the [bleep] is everyone?” before a quick-thinking campaign aide unplugged his microphone.
The answer to Mr. Kerry’s question, it turned out, was Chappaqua, where hundreds of reporters staked out the former president’s home in the hopes of getting further comment about Mr. Clinton’s promise not to upstage Mr. Kerry.
Kerry campaign aides have been sensitive about the upstaging issue ever since a rally in Evanston, Illinois earlier this month in which the candidate was briefly upstaged by a plank of wood.
The pine two-by-four, which was leaning against the wall behind Mr. Kerry as he spoke, stole the audience’s attention away from the Massachusetts senator until it was spotted by sharp-eyed aides and removed.
Mr. Kerry briefly considered choosing the plank of wood as his running mate until advisers convinced him that the plank would upstage him.
If you enjoyed this satire by Andy Borowitz, you can read more of his work at the Borowitz Report.
As I was watching "Eurotrip" tonight, I was inspired to put together my top 25 funniest movies of all-time. Here they are...
25) Time Bandits
24) Eurotrip
23) Mallrats
22) The Blues Brothers
21) Ice Pirates
20) Adventures of Baron Munchausen
19) Southpark: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut
18) The Naked Gun
17) Ferris Bueller's Day Off
16) Office Space
15) Coming to America
14) Blazing Saddles
13) Tommy Boy
12) The Life of Brian
11) Super Troopers
10) Canadian Bacon
9) Ghostbusters 2
8) Stripes
7) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
6) Ghostbusters
5) Spaceballs
4) Caddyshack
3) Something About Mary
2) Clerks
1) Animal House
Hey look, I've been interviewed again. This time, it was an email interview done by blogger Dustin Hawkins (no relation). Make sure to check it out and afterwards, if you want to see any of my old interviews, you can see all of them that are still live on the net here.
Why People Like Wonkette & Michelle Malkin Are Good For The Blogosphere
I ran across a post by Steve H. over at Hogs on Ice which, judging by a lot of similar comments I've read around the blogosphere, sums up how a lot of people feel about Wonkette and the future of the blogosphere in general. Here's the relevant portion...
"I suppose Wonkette is a harbinger of things to come. Two years ago, only web nerds read blogs, and we were ridiculed by a somewhat nervous mainstream press. Then we acquired a sort of cachet. And Wonkette's boss decided to buy his way in. She had instant publicity and therefore instant traffic, and her site looked enough like a blog to fool the stupid. Well, it worked, so now we should probably brace for a tide of similar prefab syntho-bloggers.
The appeal of blogging, initially, was that anyone who wanted to write could come here and put his work before the public. We didn't have to wait for thick-headed or biased editors and agents to approve of our message. We slapped it on the page and waited to see who showed up. If we were good, we got hits. If we sucked, we didn't. We didn't compete with the big boys because we were in our own market. They bought eyeballs with advertising dollars. We did it with quality writing and link whoring.
That's all over with. We've been discovered. We're like the people back in 1990 who started thinking South Beach might be a cool, inexpensive place to open restaurants.
Now any opportunistic corporate moron who wants a piece of the Blogosphere pie can buy it. Look for new Wonkettes, popping up like spots of mold on a loaf of bread you've kept too long. And look for your own piece of the pie to shrink. Unless you, too, can afford a publicist and land advertisers with real money. And you can't. And because of the pressure we're going to face from these new, Monkees-like, greenhouse-grown wannabes, you probably never will be able to do those things.
...Frankly, I no longer care about my traffic. I gave up link whoring a long time ago, because I realized blog congestion had created an environment in which there was no way to make this kind of website profitable. I see the 'sphere as a place where I can make a few contacts, polish my writing, and get encouraging feedback from readers."
There are two schools of though about the blogosphere. One school of thought which Steve H. (and a lot of other people apparently subscribe too), says that there are a limited number of eyeballs out there and every time one set of them goes to look at Wonkette, that means some other blogger loses out. To a certain extent, this is true. The average reader can only hit so many pages in a day and if they add one blog to their regular reading list, that means they may not have the time to check out another blog.
However, I don't look at it that way. In fact, I think people like Wonkette are great for blogging because they expand the blogosphere. Let me explain what I mean.
First, you've got to remember that percentage wise, we bloggers get out to a very small fraction of internet. For example, Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit, the first name most people on the right think of when they talk blogging, pulls a very hefty 74,946 visits per day according to his statistics tracker. On the other hand, Matt Drudge over at the Drudge Report, who's probably the first person most people think about when you're talking politics on the web, received 8,872,781 visits in the last 24 hours. So while there's obviously a colossal number of people who are interested in reading about politics on the web, most of them have yet to discover blogs.
That's why it's fantastic that people like Ana Marie Cox at Wonkette are growing so big, so fast, with the help of contacts and mainstream media publicity. The more readers Ana Marie gets, the more people who are being introduced to the world of blogging for the first time.
The same goes for people like Michelle Malkin who are just getting into blogging. Malkin's blog has been up a week and she's already pulling more than 2300 visitors a day. Some people might hear about that and go "That stinks! I've been blogging for a year and I have 300 readers and some famous columnist walks in and cracks 2000 sets of eyeballs just like that. It's not fair!" Forget about "fair," people like Michelle Malkin are good for blogging. They not only make the rest of us more credible by their very presence, they introduce lots of new readers from their newspaper columns, books, & TV appearances to the blogosphere.
Furthermore, I'm VERY optimistic about the future of the blogging. In fact, I was telling a Chicago Tribune reporter last week (I'll let you know when the article comes out -- if it comes out) that I think in 2-3 years there will be 20-30 people making enough money through their blogs to live off of. I say that because the blogosphere is still growing, the ad revenue is now starting to really come in because of blogads (look for imitators soon), and the overwhelming majority of people who would enjoy blogs don't even know we exist yet. A few years from now, we'll have multiple bloggers pulling a half million visitors a day and I believe there will be at least 20-30 of us pulling 20k+ plus readers per day, which should be enough to produce to $2,000 - $3,000 a month worth of revenue, perhaps even more.
You don't buy that?
Is it really so unbelievable to think that bloggers like me, who've grown from 300 readers to 6000 in less than 3 years could crack 20k+ readers in another couple of years? Furthermore, would it help if I told you that right now, at 6000 readers, I'm already making as much money off of RWN as I probably would off of a part-time job? Heck, if I had to guess, I'd say that I might be underestimating, not overestimating, how bright the future for the blogosphere might be given how things have been going so far.
So I say bring on the established conservative columnists and bring on the "Monkees-like, greenhouse-grown wannabes" along with their "publicist(s) and land advertisers with real money". They are only going to help us introduce the blogosphere to more people, which means more money, more readers, and more kudos and bellyscratches for all the rest of us bloggers who are still slowly clawing our way up the ladder...
Kerry to Expand Middle Class by Taxing Wealthy By Scott Ott
Democrat presidential hopeful John Forbes Kerry, who is also a U.S. Senator, today laid out his blueprint for increasing the size of the middle class by boosting taxes on the wealthy.
In a speech to union members in New Jersey, Mr. Kerry answered critics who claim he has offered no coherent vision for America, and he slammed President Bush for "squeezing the middle class."
"I believe in building up our great middle class--expanding it," said Mr. Kerry. "Now, to increase the size of the middle class you can do one of two things--either help poor people escape from poverty and dependency on government programs, or take some money away from rich people so that they become middle class. Now, which one of those sounds easier to you? It's a no brainer."
Mr. Kerry said that the Bush administration "doesn't want you to be middle class. They want you to be like their rich cronies from Halliburton. But they don't tell you the dirty little secret...if you become wealthy, most of your money will go to pay taxes. Where's the compassion in their conservatism?"
If you enjoyed this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.
People Don't Know What John Kerry Stands For Because He's Lying About What He Believes
We're constantly, again and again, running across these stories that say people don't know what John Kerry stands for.
Do you know why that is? The Kerry people will tell you that it's because of Bush's negative advertising or because Kerry hasn't gotten a chance to get his message out. There's some truth to that, but that's not the crux of his problem.
The real issue is that John Kerry is LYING about what he believes in.
He's portraying himself as this hawkish Democrat and actually trying to get to Bush's right on some issues of national defense. But in reality, Kerry is just as dovish as Ted Kennedy or Jimmy Carter. Kerry voted against the Gulf War and funding the recent war in Iraq. Furthermore, he has a long, detailed, history of voting to slash funds from the military and our intelligence agencies.
But, if he told people the truth, he'd lose the election.
Kerry tries to convince people that he's a blue dog democrat who wants to hold spending in check and slash taxes on the middle-class. Again, that's bupkis. If you look at his record, John Kerry is a tax & spend Democrat who has a long history of voting for tax increases and fighting tax cuts. The idea that John Kerry is going to cut taxes and hold the deficit down is completely at odds with his voting record.
But, if he told people the truth, he'd lose the election.
JFK is also trying to get people to believe that he's a moderate, a centrist Democrat. But, in fact, he's a Massachusetts liberal who has a voting record to the left of Ted Kennedy.
But, if he told people the truth, he'd lose the election.
When you have a candidate who's like Ted Kennedy on domestic issues and Jimmy Carter on defense and he's trying to convince people that he actually will govern like John Breaux on the domestic front and Joe Lieberman when it comes to foreign policy, why is anyone surprised that people can't figure out what he really stands for?
When it comes right down to it, that's why Kerry is going to lose. Because you cannot run an entire campaign for President pretending to hold positions that are completely at odds with a 20 year voting record. Quite frankly, since Kerry refuses to level with the voters about what he believes and wants to do, he will richly deserve the defeat I expect him to suffer in November...
Do We Have To Stoop To Mocking How Our Political Adversaries Look?
While I'm really not a fan of Teresa Heinz Kerry, I have to admit that I was surprised to see this graphic on Drudge's page...
There are certain lines in life that shouldn't be crossed and one of them is comparing a man's wife to Dustin Hoffman in drag.
Of course, Drudge isn't the only offender in this regard. In politics these days, especially on the web, it's not unusual whatsoever to hear people attacking Janet Reno, Linda Tripp, Hillary Clinton, George Bush, Michael Moore, Rush Limbaugh, Chelsea Clinton, James Carville, John Kerry, & Ann Coulter (believe it or not), for their looks.
Folks, we're adults here, we should be beyond this sort of thing. I mean, 5th grade has been over for long time -- so do we have to bring looks into this?
"Yeah Hawkins, but you gotta understand -- they trash how conservatives look too!"
So what? It makes them look like a bunch of clowns. What do you think the average person's reaction to something like this is going to be?
"George Bush? He looks like a chimp! That's why I call him "Chimpy". He's a big, smirking chimpity, chimpity, CHIMP!"
Do you think people listen to that and go?
"Wow, he thinks George Bush looks like a chimp. I did not know that. Maybe I should vote for John Kerry who this person does not think looks like a chimp?"
Of course not. It's more like...
"Ok, this guy is a complete idiot. I'll just nod my head so he thinks I'm listening while I sing a little song in my head. One hundred bottles of beer on the wall, one hundred bottles of beer, if one of those bottles should happen to fall...."
Come on guys, we should be bigger and classier than stooping to mocking how our political adversaries look...well except for John Kerry's hair. What? No exceptions even for that? Ok, Ok, I apologize for mocking Kerry's hair. Seriously, I won't do it again and I hope the rest of the right will at least consider easing up on trashing people for how they look...
Press Bias, Teresa Heinz Kerry, & The Myth Of Max Cleland
If you're looking for a perfect example of liberal bias, then you need look no further than this article written by Emily Fredrix at the Associated Press. Fredrix simply regurgitates a piece of Democratic Party myth as fact, even though the GOP has always denied it and despite the fact that it's not true in the least...
"(Max) Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm as an Army captain during the Vietnam War, lost his re-election bid in a bitter campaign against then-Rep. Saxby Chambliss. The GOP had raised questions about Cleland's patriotism because of his position on legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security."
As I have noted before, Max Cleland's patriotism was not questioned in that campaign. That's nothing but pure spin that was dreamed up by the Cleland campaign as way to try deflect the voter's attention from the ex-senator's refusal to vote for the Homeland Security Department. The spin didn't work in Georgia, but since 2002, the Democrats have been trying to sell it nationwide. However, it doesn't even pass the laugh test. How can anyone who knows anything about politics believe the GOP could win a Senate seat in GEORGIA of all places by attacking a man crippled in Vietnam as "unpatriotic"? The people peddling this story are nothing but liars and charlatans and their numbers include Teresa Heinz Kerry...
"Teresa Heinz Kerry says anger, not ideology, prompted her to become a Democrat. The wife of Sen. John Kerry the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, says her emotion stemmed from the way the Republican Party, to which she had pledged allegiance, treated Democratic Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia in 2002.
...Heinz Kerry, in an interview to be broadcast Tuesday on the "CBS Evening News," says Cleland's status as a triple amputee is enough to prove his patriotism.
"Three limbs and all I could think was, 'What does the Republican party need, a fourth limb to make a person a hero?' And this coming from people who have not served. I was really offended by that. Unscrupulous and disgusting," she said, her reference being an indirect one to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney."
There are a lot of things I could say about Teresa Heinz Kerry, but one of them isn't that she's dumb enough to actually believe this. My guess is that they simply decided it was too embarrassing for her to continue on as a Republican when her husband was running for President as a Democrat, so she concocted this lame story. In her mind, maybe it's better to lie through her teeth than say, "John didn't want to see a never ending stream of news articles about my party affiliation during the election cycle so I became a Democrat".
Also, I hate to have to get into this again, but since Max Cleland is apparently going to allow the Kerry campaign to misrepresent him as a hero (which doesn't speak very well for his character), somebody needs to set the record straight.
Max Cleland was not injured in combat. He picked up a grenade he saw on the ground, in a non-combat situation, and it went off. That's how he lost his limbs. Cleland deserves a lot of credit for serving his country, because he was hurt in the line of duty, and for becoming a success after he got back from Vietnam, but he's the victim of a tragic accident, not a hero.
Furthermore, while Cleland does have a silver star, he has admitted that he didn't deserve it. Apparently, one of Cleland's men felt bad because of what happened to him and made up a story to get him a medal.
Again, I'd rather not have to bring this up. But, since Max Cleland is willing to stand back and let the Kerry campaign try to turn him into this mythical figure who heroically lost three limbs in combat with the enemy in Vietnam (that's always the implication even if they don't say it) and then was then voted out of office after those eeevvviiilllll Republicans challenged his patriotism, somebody has to set the record straight. At one time, Cleland himself, at least to some extent, seemed willing to do that, but now it looks as if he's content to live the lie...
The fictional characters that just missed making the list with 3 votes
Yoda: "Star Wars" William of Baskerville: "The Name of the Rose" Will Kane: "High Noon" Philip Marlowe: "The Long Goodbye" Odysseus: "The Odyssey" Montgomery Burns: "The Simpsons" Michael Corleone: "The Godfather" Magnum (Thomas): "Magnum P.I." Mad Max: From the "Mad Max" movies Lord Peter Wimsey: From the Dorothy Sayers detective novels Lloyd Dobbler: "Say Anything" King Arthur: From Arthurian legend John Galt: "Atlas Shrugged" Jo March: "Little Women" Huckleberry Finn "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" Horatio Hornblower: From the Hornblower books. Frodo Baggins: From the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy Death: From Terry Pratchett's books Cyrano de Bergerac: "Cyrano de Bergerac" Conan: From the stories of Robert E. Howard & others Bugs Bunny: Warner Brothers Cartoon Buffy Summers: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Basil Fawlty "Fawlty Towers" Aslan: "Chronicles of Narnia" Aragorn From the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy
My top 25 was as follows...
7 Of 9: "Star Trek" Ash: From the "Evil Dead" series James T. Kirk: "Star Trek" Conan: From the books by Robert Howard (among others) Dagny Taggart "Atlas Shrugged" Daria: "Daria" Drizzt Do'Urden: From the "Dark Elf Trilogy" Duncan MacCloud, The Highlander: "Highlander" Elric: From the Elric series by Michael Moorcock Eric Draven: "The Crow" Fafthrd: "Fafthrd & The Grey Mouser" books by Fritz Leiber Groo: "Groo the Wanderer" Grey Mouser: "Fafthrd & The Grey Mouser" books by Fritz Leiber Hercules: From Greek Mythology Inigo Montoya: "The Princess Bride" Kull: From the movie & the "Kull" books by Robert Howard Rambo: From the Rambo movies Rooster Cogburn: "Rooster Cogburn" Spiderman / Peter Parker: From the Spider-man comics & the movie Spock: "Star Trek" 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin: Pro-wrestling Tasslehoff Burrfoot: "Dragonlance" The Man With No Name: From the "The Man With No Name" trilogy Warf: "Star Trek" Wolverine: "X-Men comics"
I also noticed the list was a bit short on women & villains. So....
My top 10 fictional villains
Agent Smith: "The Matrix" Montgomery Burns: "The Simpsons" Bill the Butcher: "Gangs Of New York" JR Ewing: "Dallas" Darth Vader: "Star Wars" Jaraxle: R.A. Salvatore's "Dark Elf" Triology Hannibal Lecter: "Silence Of The Lambs" 'Tony' Montana: "Scarface" Riddick: "Pitch Black" Tuco: "The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly"
My 10 favorite female fictional characters
7 of 9: "Star Trek" Daria: "Daria" Michelle Flaherty: "American Pie" Gabrielle: "Xena Warrior Princess" Hu Li: "Rush Hour 2" Leeloo: "The 5th Element" Mary: "Something About Mary" T'Pol "Star Trek" Clarice Starling: "Silence of the Lambs" Dagny Taggart: "Atlas Shrugged"
If nobody has ever suggested that when you have a politician for a friend, you don't need any enemies, let me be the first.
The politician I have in mind has been a chum ever since college days.
Although he has held elected office for the past fourteen years, I have always told people that George (not his real name) was the most unassuming guy you'd ever want to meet. If you didn't know he was a U.S. congressman, the chances are he'd never get around to telling you.
Anyway, a few weeks ago, I discovered that our neighbors here in the San Fernando Valley had put their home up for sale. When I asked them why, they explained that they had been lying to their daughter's school, Coolidge High, about where they lived.
Some of the girl's friends had already been expelled when their parents had been unable to prove that they actually lived in the Encino school district. Rather than wait for the ax to drop, they were looking to move.
The reality, however, was that because of the differential in real estate values, even if my neighbors got their asking price, they didn't see how they could afford to buy in Encino. It was Catch-22 for civilians.
If they did nothing, their daughter would have to transfer to Cabrillo High, which is ninety percent Hispanic and is far inferior, academically speaking.
The only thing I could think to do was write to my favorite congressman. I was pretty certain it was a waste of time, but I figured there was always an outside chance that George would know somebody who knew somebody who could make a phone call. So I dropped him a line, spelling out the problem that these "poor, decent, hard-working people" were having because they were trying to provide a better education for their daughter.
He promptly wrote back to say that I was right, that there wasn't anything he could do. But then he went on: "When you have time, Burt, maybe you can explain the difference between your poor, decent, hard-working family that only wants a better education for their daughter, but has lied about where they actually live; and the poor, decent, hard-working family that sneaks across the border because they want a better education for their daughter."
Frankly, my friends, I was astonished. More than that, I was shocked and appalled. It was just such an unlikely response from my old pal, a fellow who, in spite of our political differences, has always struck me as being smart, sensible and amusing. When I realized that, on this occasion, he wasn't being any of those three things, and had actually taken the opportunity to climb aboard his moral high horse, I felt I had no option but to set him straight.
"Dear George," I wrote, "I am always ready to answer any of your questions. This happens to be a particularly easy one. For one thing, 'my family' are American citizens. Their taxes not only go to support both high schools, but help pay your salary.
"Next, their offense consisted of lying about where they lived because they saw no compelling reason why their child should suffer scholastically just because they happened to live a few blocks northeast of some arbitrarily-drawn boundary. 'Your family,' on the other hand, were sneaks whose first act upon entering this country was to break a federal law. How on earth do you find these two acts morally or legally comparable?
"Furthermore, as 'my family' is relatively poor, they are unable to send their child to a private school as you, a leading proponent of public education, have sent all three of yours. And as you are joined at the hip with the likes of Boxer, Feinstein and Pelosi, you are naturally opposed to vouchers -- vouchers which would have enabled these people to send the girl to a nearby, but pricey, religious school."
In conclusion, I wrote: "The most shameful aspect of all this is my realization that Coolidge High clearly protects its sovereignty with far greater diligence than you and your colleagues protect America's."
It's been over a month now. George hasn't gotten back to me.
If you enjoyed this column by Burt Prelutsky, you can read more of his work here.
Kerry Arrested For Stalking McCain By Andy Borowitz
Arizona Senator Seeks Restraining Order
Washington, D.C. police arrested presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry yesterday after Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) complained that Mr. Kerry was “stalking” him in an attempt to persuade him to join the Democratic ticket.
Police officers apprehended Sen. Kerry as he was shimmying up a drainpipe on the outside of Sen. McCain’s Washington townhouse, attempting to gain access to a second-story window.
“John is a dear friend of mine, and I was flattered that he wanted me to join the ticket – at first,” Mr. McCain told reporters. “But over the past few weeks he has gotten downright creepy.”
Sen. McCain said that Sen. Kerry’s courtship of him started as a series of friendly phone conversations, but then the calls started coming more frequently and often in the middle of the night.
After Sen. McCain placed himself on a “do not call” list to fend off future entreaties from Sen. Kerry, the increasingly impetuous Democrat resorted to more desperate measures, even disguising himself as a Domino’s Pizza deliveryman.
Now that Sen. Kerry is in police custody and undergoing psychiatric evaluation, Sen. McCain can breathe easy – for the moment.
The Arizona senator confirmed today that he has requested a restraining order keeping Sen. Kerry at least one hundred yards away from him at all times.
For his part, Sen. Kerry told reporters that he remained “optimistic” about persuading Mr. McCain and that such a restraining order would not ultimately prevent the Arizona senator from joining the ticket.
“The president and vice president never have to be within one hundred yards of each other,” Sen. Kerry said. “Look at Bush and Cheney.”
If you liked this satire by Andy Borowitz, you can read more of his here.
Bloggers Select Their Favorite Fictional Characters
Right Wing News emailed more than a 180 mostly conservative bloggers and asked them to send us a list of who they considered to be their "Favorite Fictional Characters". Representatives from 56 blogs responded.
All bloggers were allowed to make anywhere from 1-25 selections. Rank was determined simply by the number of votes received.
The bloggers were told they could select any fictional character from TV, the movies, books, comics, fairy tales, you name it. As you'd expect, there were a large number of different characters chosen (more than 600 that received at least one vote as a matter of fact).
