I hope everyone enjoyed all the posts. I'll be doing another Q&A Friday in 3-4 weeks.

Also, get ready because over 200 bloggers of note were invited to vote on the best of the blogosphere in 16 different categories for "The Third Annual Warblogger Awards" and the results will be up on Monday!

You can see results from previous years by clicking the links below,

The 2003 Warblogger Awards
The 2002 Warblogger Awards

See you on Monday & have a nice week-end!

Question: "John, I'm a political science student at the University of Missouri Columbia. I have a two part question. I've read a lot of Ann Coulter, David Horowitz, Dan Flynn, Mona Charen, etc. I've also read some Molly Ivins, Al Franken, etc. But what books would you suggest a young poli sci student read?" -- Reagan1

Answer: Here are some books I'd recommend without hesitation...

Foreign Policy

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World by Margaret Thatcher

The Impact of War

100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present by Paul Davis
The Wars Of America by Robert Leckie (Warning: Very Long)
Carnage and Culture by Victor David Hanson

Influential Fiction

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Media Bias

Bias by Bernard Goldberg
Slander by Ann Coulter

Misc

The Way Things Ought To Be by Rush Limbaugh
Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell

Understand the Left

Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism by Ann Coulter
Radical Son by David Horowitz
The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell

Understanding Politics

The New Prince by Dick Morris (Audio version)
Power Plays: Win or Lose--How History's Great Political Leaders Play the Game by Dick Morris

Question: "Neo-con radio show most Michael Medved...(said that)...the FBI should keep a file on Michael Moore. Do you agree?" -- bob1577

Answer: Michael Moore allowed Hizbollah, an anti-American, anti-semitic, terrorist group with American blood on their hands, to help market "Fahrenheit 9/11".

If you are willing to cooperate with terrorists to promote a film, who knows what else you're willing to cooperate with them on? Especially when we're talking about a guy who considers the cold blooded murderers, suicide bombers and decapitation happy jihadis in Iraq to be the "good guys," the equivalent of the Minutemen.

Of course, I wouldn't support having the FBI keep an eye on every America-hating-lefty like Michael Moore, not just because they wouldn't have time to do anything else, but because of the 1st Amendment.

However, when you cross that line and start cooperating with terrorist groups, even if it's to promote your film, what you're doing deserves more scrutiny. So yes, there should be a file on Michael Moore because keeping an eye on Americans with Hizbollah connections is part of the FBI's job.

Question: "How long did it take before Right Wing News built a decent blog audience? As a new blogger, can you give any advice for "sticking with it" even though it seems as though the masses remain elusive?" -- PunditGuy

Answer: This is either going to be a very encouraging answer (for bloggers wondering if they should have already been successful) or very depressing (for bloggers who want thousands of people reading their blogs yesterday), but it takes a long, long, time to build your audience.

Like I've said before,

"Remember that you will have to be very, very, good, for a very, very, long time, while working very, very, hard to promote your work and you will be very, very, underappreciated the whole time."

Just to show you that I'm not kidding about this, I decided to try to piece together how RWN's traffic has grown since I started the blog. Do keep in mind, that this may not be perfectly accurate because I'm putting this together largely from memory, but here's what I came up with...

November 2000: I decide to start a political blog.
January 1 2001 (I think): RWN starts up
August 2001: 300 daily uniques per day (*** I switched formats at this point ***)
November 2001: 1000 daily uniques per day
November 2002: 3000 daily uniques per day
November 2003: 5000 daily uniques per day
July 2004: 6500 daily uniques per day
November 2004: 10,000 daily uniques per day
December 2004: 8,000 daily uniques per day

As you can see, it has been a long, slow, climb and I think that's fairly typical. Sure, there are some blogs that have hada rapid, meteoric rise to the top, but they're the exceptions, not the rule. Most of the blogs with decent traffic have followed the "very very rule" mentioned above to build their audiences over time.

In truth, what it really comes down to for most people is that you have to like blogging so much that you'll happily work like a dog, day after day, week after week, year after year, in order to get to the point where you can build a big audience....and that's if you have the talent.

Today is Q&A Friday #8 at RWN.

So, if there's a subject you've been wanting me to tackle or an issue you want to hear my opinion on, just ask your question in the comments section. Your question can be about politics, ideology, history, blogging, RWN, from a liberal, conservative, or libertarian perspective, heck it can even be about movies, music, TV, and film.

Then later today, I'll select some of the more interesting questions and answer them. My posts will probably be a little shorter than normal, but expect at least twice as many posts as normal.

So ask away!

Question: "With media chatter seeming to keep increasing, will anyone seriously take up the banner for the "Arnold Amendment" to allow foreign-born citizens to hold the office of President or VP? Would it stand a chance of being ratified?" -- Mike_M

Answer It's very, very, difficult to amend the Constitution. It requires a 2/3rd majority vote in the House and Senate and then 38 state legislatures have to go along with it. So if you're going to amend the Constitution, you have to have an issue that reaches across party lines and really moves people to act....and the "Arnold Amendment" just doesn't meet that threshold.

A lot of Americans, myself included, are generally opposed to letting foreign-born citizens run for the presidency and they're not going to change their minds just so Arnold can have a shot at it. So, I don't think the Arnold Amendment has any chance whatsoever ever passing.

Question: "Would you ever consider starting a "Piece of Crap List", and if so, who would be on it?" -- Schroman2002

Answer: A "Piece of Crap List" huh? Is this some sort of free floating list of people, places, & things I don't like? I'll give it a whirl..

The RWN Piece of Crap List
---------------------------
Arundhati Roy
Best Buy
Cats
Chevettes
Cranberry Juice
France
Jesse Jackson
Jimmy Carter
Noam Chomsky
Paris Hilton
Political Correctness
Macintoshes
Steel Magnolias (The Movie)
Ted Rall
The Abyss (The Movie)
The ACLU
The United Nations

*** Update #1 *** After reading through the comments section, I thought I owed you a bit of an explanation on some of these.

Best Buy: Good products, good price, but I had unbelievably bad customer service experiences returning a computer and car radio there. I actually even wrote an article about the computer back in my Brass Knuckles Webzone days and a lot of other people told me they had the same problem returning products there...

Cats: I don't hate cats per se, but they're just so incredibly overrated as pets. I mean if cats were considered to be on the same level as say ferrets, rabbits, or iguanas, I wouldn't care. But, how can anyone compare a snobby, half-wild, cat to a dog, an animal that earned the title man's best friend? More here =D...

Cats Suck (ICQ Prank)
Cats or Dogs. Which are the Better Pets?

Macintoshes:I know people who have macs tend to love them, but I find them to be annoying. Probably because they're such a pain in the butt to troubleshoot when they have a problem...

Question: "How would you respond to someone who attacks you and your writings in a cowardly way on his own blog without giving you any chance to respond?" -- Joey_D

Answer: Most blogs aren't going to give you any chance to respond to what they said unless it's in the comments section. Even then you have to remember that if you're on their blog, they have the power to delete your comments and their readers are going to generally side with them.

Personally, I usually don't bother replying on RWN unless the other blog is really big, has what I consider to be a valid point, or I think responding would be entertaining for my readers. Otherwise, I just ignore them.

My philosophy is why give them a link, attention on my blog, and waste my time responding to some silly criticism made by a person who, in a lot of cases, only has a very small, left-wing, audience in the first place? It would be counter-productive to even bother with addressing what they have to say.

So generally, you're better off just developing a thick skin and not worrying about every critical post on another blog...

Question: "Do you think our Founding Fathers would be proud of what has become of America? Has it become something they would like, or something they would not?" -- Hank_Hill

Answer: You know, I've actually thought about this before and the answer is....I'm not sure.

On one hand, this country is a long, long, way from what the Founding Fathers intended. My gut instinct is that most of them would be horrified at the size and power of the Federal government, the amount of taxes we pay, the national debt, and the way the Constitution has been twisted and distorted from its original intent, among other things.

However, the flip side is that in many ways we've succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. We're the greatest country the world has ever seen, a prosperous super power with the world's largest economy and the world's most popular military.

When you consider that at the turn of the 19th century, we were a relatively poor nation that actually had to duke it out with the mangy Barbary Pirates, in our own territorial waters with the French in the Quasi-War, and with the Brits on American soil, the War of 1812, we've come a long, long, way.

So would they be happy, angry -- it's hard to say for sure. My best guess is that while they'd be generally pleased with our success, they'd also have a lot of changes they'd like to see made.

In Washington State, the battle for governor still isn't over. Republican Dino Rossi beat Democrat Christine Gregoire in the original count by 261 votes and the machine recount by 42 votes.

Predictably, the Democrats want to keep going and do a manual recount, while Republicans want Gregoire to go ahead and concede the race.

Jerome Armstrong over at MyDD notes that some Freepers are complaining about the hand recount and says...

"According to their logic, machines are more trustworthy than humans, therefore, to follow the law, and have a handcount after the lawful machine recount, is theft.

What is it with the love of machines over people by Republicans."

Well, the law is the law, and if she meets the qualifications for a recount and she wants it, she should get it.

However, machines are more trustworthy than people when it comes to counting votes because they count everybody's vote, whether they're a Democrat or Republican, the same way.

When you bring human beings into it, especially partisans who will start the recount knowing that they only have to erase a 42 vote margin to win, there's absolutely no way to have any sort of confidence that the results are genuine.

Given what we saw during the unconstitutional manual recounts in Florida, with partisans counting "dimpled chads" and even ballots that had no selection in the Presidential race as legitimate votes, I think we'd be better off getting away from manual recounts entirely except when there's no other choice.

And recounting the same votes over and over again? No votes should be recounted more than once. Because how could any candidate ever be considered legitimate if let's say they lost the first count, lost the second count, and then won on the third count of the same ballots? How could anyone ever trust a result like that?

There used to be a time when candidates gracefully bowed out when they lost rather than risk damaging people's faith in the system and many still do. But in these days and times, we're also seeing a lot more "Al Gores" who don't have that sort of class. So states should take that into account and rewrite their election rules so these endless challenges, recounts, and legal wrangling aren't allowed to go on and on and damage the legitimacy of our elected officials.

"...Here's a message for everybody who is wondering, worried, hoping, you name it, that Ohio is going to turn blue: Not. Going. To. Happen.

The margin is just too big. Let me break down the numbers... let's say that Kerry takes 60% of the provisional ballots and Bush only takes 40%. Does that mean Bush is in trouble? Not at all. That would add 21,479 votes for Kerry which would put Kerry behind by 111,111 votes with 92,672 "spoiled ballots" left to be counted. So by the time the provisional ballots are fully counted, Kerry will be out of it." -- Right Wing News, 11/17/04

Well, the provisional ballots have been counted in Ohio and as expected, it's as good as over.

After counting all the provisionals and absentee ballots, the margin for Bush is 118,775 votes.

So even before we start the silly little recount demanded by the Libertarian and Green Party candidates, the margin going in -- 118,775 -- is larger than the number of spoiled ballots -- 92,672.

Game over....AGAIN!

Hat tip to RWN reader Ditch for supplying a link to the final ballot count.

My nerves can't take this anymore; I need to get out of here. It so deceptively warm and comfortable in the womb... like they want me to fall asleep. But I can't sleep... that's when they come for me. I'm sure that a couple of time I felt some poking and prodding was them preparing the vacuum... sure of it! They were just waiting for me to go to sleep… but I was on to them! You won't get me without a fight!

I'm so tired, though. I can't keep alert like this forever. I can't go on with this constant threat of death. Has it been nine months, yet? I want out! It’s felt like years…

Yes! It has been nine months! I can see the light! I'm getting out...

Wait! This could be one of those partial birth abortions! They're going to suck my brains out, those b@stards! Get your dirty hands off me!

No, I'm going out head first. They only do those feet first, I think. There, I'm partially out, but I got to get all out so they can't kill me. Come on feet...

Yes! I'm born! You can't kill me now, you @%$# b@stards! I have legal protections now. I'm a person, you @%$# psychos! And...

No... is that Dutch they're speaking? No, Lord, no. I've been born in the @%$# Netherlands! What does that doctor have in his hands? Is it something to euthanize me with?

When will the Sword of Damocles ever be removed from above my head?!

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

CNN today fell behind al-Jazeera TV, becoming only the second most trusted news source among Islamic terrorists ages 12-to-49. The slip was triggered by a Los Angeles Times story that the Atlanta-based Cable News Network had reported Pentagon "psy-ops" misinformation as fact before the liberation of Fallujah.

"We don't put too much stock in the polls," said an unnamed CNN executive, "Our Iraqi insurgent viewers know where to go to get accurate strategic and tactical news day in and day out. And our advertisers know that there's no better buy than CNN if you want to reach the demographic group we call YAFIs--Young Aggressive Fundamentalist Islamists. They're well-funded, passionate, risk takers and they make the cash register ring."

An Al-Jazeera spokesman downplayed the significance of its new "most trusted" ranking.

"We don't like to get into the camel-race aspect of the news business," said the source. "We're all objective journalists trying to report the facts as we see them. Unfortunately, we all have to rely on the U.S. military for information about troop movements and battleplans."

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

Stories like this seem to pop up every few weeks...

"Miami-Dade County animal control officers and homicide investigators are investigating the death of a woman found dead inside her home, surrounded by dozens of animals.

Animal control officers said the animals were living in poor conditions, in and out of cages. All the animals were extremely dirty and some of the dogs and birds were sickly."

Now some of you might think people who do this sort of thing, take huge numbers of animals into their homes, are crazy...and they are, at least a little bit.

But there's actually a lesson here that liberals would do well to pay attention to. Bear with me and you'll see what I mean...

First of all, think about the sort of people who would take all these animals into their homes. Are they bad people who are doing this so they can hurt animals? No way! To the contrary, much like a lot of liberals, they're just trying to be nice people and do what they think is the right thing.

It's easy to imagine how it starts. One of these women gets a dog or two and she loves her little doggies! All of us who have pets can relate to that, right?

However, most of us can also understand that taking care of an animal requires a lot of work and expense. You have to take the dog outside, take it to the vet when it's sick, feed it, play with it...there's just a lot to taking care of a dog properly and it ain't cheap either.

The sort of people who end up with a houseful of animals must understand how difficult it is to take care of animals...after all, they're doing it. But, they're so focused on being nice, on being compassionate, they just say, "screw the consequences," I'm taking these animals in.

And who's really to say how many animals are "too many"? Is it 5, 6, 7, 8? That seems like a lot of animals for one person to take care of, but there are people who can pull it off. But what happens when the numbers keep climbing to 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16? But these people just can't turn away a dog that is hurt, sick, hungry, or has nobody to take care of it, just as liberals are willing to spend almost any amount of tax payer dollars to help people they think are in need.

Eventually, if these animal collectors don't come to their senses or someone doesn't step in, things get way out of hand. The floor gets covered with feces and urine and they don't have time to clean it up, their house is ruined, they can't afford to take the pets to the vet when they get sick, and it spirals downward from there. Then these decent people, who love and adore pets, end up abusing them horribly through their neglect.

Unbridled compassion causes grave difficulties when people are involved as well. Welfare caused an explosion of illegitimate children. A program like Social Security, which was initially envisioned as a small supplemental income that most Americans would never live to collect, now takes up to 23% of Federal Expenditures, and I'm sure whoever came up with the idea of socialized medicine in Canada never envisioned people "who require major knee surgery" having to wait two years to get an operation.

The lesson here is that if compassion is not tempered with reason, it can be a destructive force not just for the person who's trying to help, but for those they are aiding...

Lefty Anne Applebaum echoes something that conservatives have been saying for a long time...

"The larger point, though, is that the "it's-all-an-American-plot" arguments circulating in cyberspace again demonstrate something that the writer Christopher Hitchens, himself a former Trotskyite, has been talking about for a long time: At least a part of the Western left -- or rather the Western far left -- is now so anti-American, or so anti-Bush, that it actually prefers authoritarian or totalitarian leaders to any government that would be friendly to the United States. Many of the same people who found it hard to say anything bad about Saddam Hussein find it equally difficult to say anything nice about pro-democracy demonstrators in Ukraine. Many of the same people who would refuse to condemn a dictator who is anti-American cannot bring themselves to admire democrats who admire, or at least don't hate, the United States."

There are plenty of left-wingers who hate America with such fervor, such passion, that it overrides most other considerations. Don't believe it? Look at the popularity of Noam Chomsky, a man whose entire works could be boiled down to the phrase, "America is the source of all evil in the world". Remember the glumness on the left side of the blogosphere when our troops liberated Iraq? Have you ever noticed how many lefties can talk and write constantly about what's wrong with George Bush, what's wrong with Republicans, what's wrong with America...but have almost nothing negative to say about the enemies our country?

It's no coincidence folks. "The blame America first" crowd that Reagan talked about has only gotten larger and more powerful on the left over the years....

Okay, Ukraine, we have a lot of crap to deal with. We have countries filled with wackos who love to blow themselves up, so we don't have time to deal with someone who can't count his chads. You think this is funny? We don't. We're p*ssed off, actually. And you know what happens when we're p*ssed off.

"Our degrees of diplomacy are measured by the tons of explosive used." I guess you don't care about that though. You just want to d*ck around and don't care what happens. I bet we could set Kiev aflame and this would still be some big joke to you. "Look at us silly Ukrainians, having election trouble and causing more instability in the world!" How about we bomb a few y's out of Kryvyy Rih (Kryvyy? 'y' is sometimes a vowel; try getting friendly with stalwarts 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', and 'u')? That means nothing to you, huh? You just like being the center of world attention.

Then what if we bomb... I dunno... Belarus? What, I have your attention now? I never even heard of the country, but I guess you have. They're right next to you. I'm sure you and the Belarusians get together and dance happy little East European dances. So what happens if we bomb Minsk, Pinsk, and cities in Belarus that don't rhyme? What, you think we're bluffing? Hey, we're crazy, muchachos, and all you foreign countries start to look the same to us. You keep up your crap, Ukraine, and you'll be seeing the Belarusians screaming and weeping and it will be all on you.

Oh, so suddenly this isn't funny anymore. Well, we're America, and our degrees of diplomacy are measured by the tons of explosive used. So why don't you have an open and fair election, or we will bomb you and the country next to you.

Frank J. is a syndicated columnist whose columns appear worldwide on IMAO.us - though is still available to replace William Safire if anyone from the NY Times is reading - and is the author of such books as "The Hindenburg Has Crashed into the Titanic: An Analysis of the Current State of the Democratic Party" and "Cats Like Lamps." (**Yes, this is satire **)

10) devinsgram: "...Everybody in middle American crying, putting out their flags and their show of emotion. Phooey on them, they are the ones responsible for what happened in NYC on 9-11. They are the ones who put this idiot in office."

--

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

They gave to charity, worked hard, and held marvelous little soires at their homes.

Please!

Support for Bush is 100% qualification for the "stupid fascist" label.

Good Germans, good bushgang supporters. Same difference.

One of two things allows one to support the bushgang:

Willful ignorance of the evil being done. Willful ignorance = stupid.

or

Complicity in the evil. Complicity = fascist."

--

8) JVS: "Lincoln was right to crush the South in the 1860's. Someone ought to do it again."

--

7) matcom: "F*CK YOU If You Vote For * - I Hope You Get ALL That You Want hey freepers! (and lurkers and idiots of ALL shapes and sizes)

YOU GET 100% OF WHAT YOU DESERVE!!!

When they come for YOU - F*CK OFF
When they come for YOUR children - F*CK OFF
When YOU are unemployed - F*CK OFF
When the NEXT attack hits - F*CK OFF

I HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR YOU AND MY FIRST QUESTION WILL BE "WHO DID YOU VOTE FOR?"

If you say Bush, F*CK YOU

I don't care WHAT the situation.

I don't care HOW much you are hurting.

MY liberalism tells me to CARE about ALL PEOPLE! Guess what......

IT.IS.OVER.

I DON'T GIVE A FLYING F*CK ABOUT YOU IF YOU VOTE THAT WAY

*the.end.*

TOUGH SH*T."

--

6) MCVet: The Republicans are Nazis....In order to defeat them, we too must become Nazis.

--

5) 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.

And the people like us will oppose them with whatever means necessary.

It'll then get ugly, real ugly."

--

4) skjpm: "I am frightened by what I am learning about America during this election. I think that a majority have an irrational fear of liberals, and that if Bush wins, and decides to send liberals to camps for their "protection," most would support the move and say "About time too." There would be some dissent, but the majority of Americans see liberals as a threat, and nothing would be done. The press would hold debates, but people wouldn't care. I think that all Bush has to do is say the word, and we'll be rounded up. Who would stop him?"

---

3) Joanne98: "Since tomorrow is the anniversary of the "excuse" the cowboy uses to attack anybody he wants to. I'm bracing myself for the ongoing images of people in small red state towns exploiting the victims of 9/11.

CNN is already showing people in small town Texas CRYING over New York City's loses. Well, you know what. You never liked New Yorkers. You hated New Yorkers remember. If you really cared about the victims of 9/11 you would vote for John Kerry because that's the only thing they want you to do. But NO! Instead you brought the Bush bastard's convention to ground Zero and thought NYC would be glad to see you.

Instead of getting flowers and candy you got protesters, a half a million of them that said. GO HOME. Do you remember the Evita song...DON'T CRY FOR ME DIRTSVILLE TEXAS..........

Let's get this straight, Dirtsville, IT DIDN'T HAPPEN TO YOU and it never will because no self respecting terra-rist would ever attack something so unimportant. It would be like the USA attacking Goatsgrave Yemen. It's never going to happen.

The bottom line is, you don't care about NYC or the pain, all you care about is getting Boosh re-elected and fighting a Holy pissing contest with the darkie Muslims. All in the name of Jesus which you're sure is coming back the day after tomorrow.

Nobody needs this sh*t, especially the people of NYC who still watch airplanes when they fly overhead. The people in big cities are in more danger than ever thanks to the cowboy's invasion of Iraq. But that's something the good people of Dirtsville don't have to worry about.

So take your flags, your prayers, your rodeos and your country music and stick it. You're waging war because you want too, because you like it and you're not fooling anybody. You're only happy when you have an enemy, if it wasn't 9/11 it would be something else. Like "libruls". At least have the decency to admit that."

Put on your public grieving shows tomorrow because you already have them planned but spare us the DRAMA next year. It didn't happen to you. Get over it.

I know this is harsh and I know not all people in small rural towns are Republicans but they ARE voting for Bush, who is only making big cities more dangerous. This is how I feel about it. Flame away."

--

2) Gyre: "I don't support them (the troops). We've exported our illiterate little kids with their tiny brains filled with images of Rambo. We've armed them and told them the enemy is a demon who doesn't deserve to live. Most of them are more than willing to believe that. They are stupid and dangerous and have no intellectual capacity to grasp basic concepts of democracy. They're a symptom of a disease that infects my country."

---

1) ReadTomPaine: As we’ve heard again and again recently, if we are going to beat this bunch of rule breaking GOP misanthropes, we’re going to have to start fighting as dirty as they do. I started this thread for one reason, to get everyone’s ideas on a list of things we as Democrats can consider to stop the takeover of this country. This isn’t going to be a thread for the squeamish, or for the ideologically pure. Best to steer clear if that describes you.

Here are half a dozen ideas to get the ball rolling.

1) Get Republicans fired at your workplace, or fire them yourself if you can – In the belief that all activism starts with the grass roots, do us all a favor, and fire your Republican employees this week. There are legitimate reasons to fire virtually any employee, so avail yourself of them. Not only will it quit the gloating you’re hearing around the office, it’ll stop those donation checks they are getting ready to write. Might also teach them a bit of humility regarding the poor and the disadvantaged. They can be the “Pioneers” of “Unemployment Window A”

2) Pretend to be a Republican, and then cut down the next Republican that you have a conversation with. - The more public/crowed the place you do this, the better. Use whatever remarks you know are sure to make the intended impression. “You’re no better than the liberal scum you claim to hate… get back into the kitchen… Just wait till we win next year and toss peons like you into the field or the workhouse… People in your income bracket don’t have the right to be Republican or vote etc.” If you need talking points, just observe in a Yahoo political chat room for a few minutes and you have all the right wing bile that you can use and quite possibly all that you can stand.

3) Create, plant and disseminate widely “news stories” that discredit GOP policies – A good way to do this is to print out stories in the visual style of a major newspaper or magazine (don’t use the logo or other copywrited material, however) and theme them similarly to the ones that targeted John McCain’s platform last presidential election. Make sure not to slander individuals directly. Leave stacks of the printouts where people are certain to find them – i.e. supermarkets, coffee houses, bars, community centers etc. As in #2 make sure to write these from the right wing perspective, for maximum effect on the target audience. Avoid digital media, as it’s too easy to fact check, not that most GOP voters care to check these things anyway.

4) Contact the IRS and anonymously tip them off regarding prominent GOP contributors in your area. – Lets face it, they are likely tax evaders in any case (that’s why they are GOP), so might as well have them go thru an audit and feel a bit of what it’s like to have a hostile government prying into their affairs. The tax money you shake free will be a little payback to your community for the egregious tax cut they undoubtedly are enjoying.

5) Make sure that you’re the only ride on voting day for a group of hard right types who live out of the way, and then don’t show up. – This works best in low population density areas and poor right wing communities. Cultivate a group of right wing friends and make sure they depend on you for the ride on Election Day. Then don’t show up. Every vote they miss is an uncontested vote on the blue side of the aisle. The right needs a taste of Florida 2000.

6) Impersonate Linda Tripp. – Whisper into the ear of GOP associates to encourage and get dirty laundry regarding their improprieties, and then make sure that information gets into the wrong hands. It’s hard to brag about family values or think about politics when you’re in a divorce court.

Are you really serious about winning the culture war? Do you mean it when you say it’s time to fight fire with fire? Then channel that anger and let’s hear some ideas. Given the thin skin of most conservative ideologues, it won’t take much to have them running far away from such policies and tactics so we can all enjoy proper, principled political discourse in the country again. First, however, they need to be taught that fighting dirty burns them as much as it burns anyone.

BTW- if you want to take action beyond the intellectual consideration of these ideas, please do so on your own. This thread is meant for the mental exercise of these ideas. Don’t involve DU.

--

You can view the 10 worst quotes from the Democratic Underground for 2003 by clicking here.

The most illuminating vignette in Newsweek magazine’s most excellent post-election issue was a line from none other than John Kerry. Arrogant to the core, the elitist ketchup-digger revealed his true feelings toward George Bush - and by extension all us clodhopping carp-chompers in the Red States - with one infamous slip of the tongue.

“I can’t believe I’m losing to this idiot” muttered Kerry in a moment of sputtering confusion, no doubt scratching the bolts on his neck and wondering if his next job would entail being a body-double for Herman Munster.

It has been a month since the election, and the Democrats still can’t believe it. There is a much repeated cliché - attributed to Albert Einstein - that insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different outcome. If such is true, then the clones and supplicants of the liberal contingent should jump on the ol’ thorazine train post-haste. In scientific terms, they’re nutty as a fruit-cake.

Rather than accepting reality and striving to regroup, the Blue State liberals grind their capped teeth, yank their woven hair and fiddle with their nose-studs. They visit therapists who hold a dual specialty in both post-election-stress-disorder and locating the inner child of mid-level hedge-fund managers. They still deny that George Bush won a far greater mandate than that which was heralded by the DNC upon the election of Bill Clinton. They still see the Kerry failure as an anomaly. Though they are in no position to make demands, they still scream for the Republicans to compromise. They cajole the Red Staters to reach across the aisle, to joyously implement after-school methadone programs, to offer free condoms to golden retrievers and ban handguns, spitwads, snowballs, lawn darts, Rush Limbaugh and other deadly devices.

In their despondency, Kerry supporters have gone around the bend. They’ve demanded recounts and hatched bizarre conspiracy theories as to how the election was stolen by a domestic cabal consisting of Dick Cheney, Halliburton and 3,000 dead winos who live in the oleander bushes behind a 7-11 in Columbus, Ohio. Unable to accept that they lost, and further unable to accept that loss with grace, a couple members of the latter day Blue Man Group have even decided to shed this mortal coil. I have no doubt the preferred method of self-whacking was a chest shot, as it’s tough to blow your brains out when they can’t be located without the aid of an electron microscope.

The radical libs curse the stupid evangelical Bush voters in Jesusland and threaten to move to Canada en masse. This latter tactic proved to be amusing, as the Canadian government quickly issued a press release stating that disgruntled Blue Staters would have to wait their turn if they chose to emigrate to the most boring and politically correct chunk of tundra on the planet. You know you’re sorta’ obnoxious when even Canada doesn’t want you.

Frankly, I worry about the libs and their geographic escape plans. When they took a shellacking in 2000, lefty icons such as Alec Baldwin and Barbra Streisand told us they were going to move to France. In 2004, the grieving Blues chose Canada. What the heck will happen if they once again are crushed in 2008? Will they all go to Portland, spending their remaining days tossing pink rice at gay marriage ceremonies? Will they all migrate to Seattle, wandering the rain-soaked streets while sipping on a triple soy latte with carob shavings? Will they all move to Idaho and build a tent city on the outskirts of the Heinz compound? One can only hope.

The liberal strategy of sour-grapes and self destruction gets better. The President has appointed new Cabinet members based upon ability, beliefs and shared vision, rather than pandering and political considerations. Talk about diversity. We have Condoleezza Rice as the next Secretary of State. We have Carlos Gutierrez, the Cuban-born chief executive of Kellogg Co., as the nominee to be Commerce Secretary. Alberto Gonzales has been tapped for the Attorney General slot.

But do the liberals celebrate the implementation of the diversity they have long claimed as their most fervent wish? Not on your life. Their talk radio lackeys portray Rice as “Aunt Jemima.” Gutierrez and Gonzales are labeled “yes-men.” You see, the Democrats have their own version of racial profiling. One can only be Hispanic or African-American if they accept the scraps and bones of welfare, if they voluntarily remain in poverty and praise the liberal agenda. To espouse conservative beliefs means you are just another “old, rich white guy,” no matter your age, race or gender.

The final proof of insanity is that the Blues find it repugnant that these Cabinet nominees agree with the President. They think he should hire people who find his goals disgusting (Democrats), people who will spend their time in endless meetings (Democrats), and people who accomplish nothing unless it involves bad-mouthing American traditions and undermining American interests (Democrats, Democrats, Democrats).

They’re really gonna’ freak out when they learn John Ashcroft is on the short list to be the next Chief Justice.

If you enjoyed this column by Ron Marr, you can read more of his work at The Trout Wrapper.

Bill O'Reilly wrote a rather -- get it, get it, I said "rather," and this is about Dan "Rather" and Memogate, har, har, har...extraordinary column about Rathergate that merits a response -- the sort of response that you'd expect from a Catholic nun with a ruler in her hand after one of her students makes a joke about the Pope and a bear in the woods. Here's Bill O'Reilly at his most bizarre...Ok, not his most bizarre if you believe anything that was in that sexual harassment lawsuit, but this is definitely out there...

"...Right-wing talk radio in particular pounded Kerry and also bludgeoned Dan Rather for his role in another smear incident - the charges against President Bush about his National Guard service. Again, Rather was found guilty without a fair hearing. Charges that he intentionally approved bogus documents that made Bush look bad were leveled and widely believed. It was chilling.

Unfair freedom of speech did him in. This is not your grandfather's country anymore."

Poor, poor, Dan Rather. Here he was just trying to do his job, to report the news, and now he has been "slimed" by talk radio ruffians and blogging hooligans! Oh the horror, the chilling, chilling, horror...what a load of horsecrap.

Let's do a short and sweet -- like Mary Lou Retton =D -- review of what actually happened in memogate with a particular eye towards old "honest" Dan Rather's involvement shall we?

To begin with CBS didn't just run any old set of forged documents that were designed to -- if I may borrow Bill O'Reilly's word -- slime George Bush during the 2004 election, they ran a laughably bad set of forged documents. I mean come on, they were written in Microsoft Word! These documents were such obvious forgeries that I was literally doing a CBS forgery parody on RWN the very next day!

Moreover, as the story progressed, we found out that CBS had every reason to think that the documents were forged before they ever put them on the air. The wife and son of Jerry Killian, the man who wrote the documents, both told CBS they didn't think the documents were credible and CBS's own document experts wouldn't authenticate them. On top of that the source for the documents, Bill Burkett, was widely considered to be less credible than an anger management clinic run by Ron Artest. And he wasn't even the original source of the documents...or so he says! Heck, CBS didn't even have the original copies of the counterfeit memos they were running.

It was almost as if there was a 50 foot high flashing neon sign that said, "Don't run the story Dan, don't run the story Dan, don't run the story Dan..." But apparently nobody at CBS cared very much whether the memos were real or not, so they ran with them anyway.

Almost immediately, the blogosphere and talk radio picked up on the fact that you could create almost an exact duplicate of these supposedly 30 year old forged documents with the default settings of Microsoft Word. This should have been a red flag the size of a football field for everyone at CBS, especially given the shoddy job they'd done of checking out the story in the first place.

So did Dan Rather issue a mea culpa, did he admit that CBS made a mistake and pledge to find out the truth? Absolutely not! Instead Dan Rather hitched up his combat boots and promptly tied them to the rails of the Titanic by defending an indefensible story until September 20th, 12 days after he broke the story, and 11 days after it was virtually proven to be based on pathetic forgeries.

Then during Dan Rather's spirited battle against people who were trying to reveal the truth about the memos, he told CNN in an interview that "I know that this story is true", opined that "partisan political operatives" were behind the attacks on the authenticity of the memos, & claimed the memos came from an "unimpeachable" source without revealing that Bill Burkett gave CBS the documents after receiving them from a mystery woman who probably doesn't exist.

In short, Dan Rather put his "lifetime of honor and hard work" -- as Bill O'Reilly calls it -- on the line and in essence told the public, "Trust me, this story is legit no matter what all of those bloggers and talk radio hosts say". Then the rest was history.

And while O'Reilly is right that "(t)his is not your grandfather's country anymore," that's a good thing at least as far as Rather is concerned. Back in those days, Rather would have trotted out his forged documents based on anonymous sources and there would have been no bloggers, no talk radio, no new media to call him on it. Yes, Rather would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for us meddling kids!....Ok, that's from Scooby Doo and it doesn't really fit since the people who revealed that he was peddling bogus documents weren't kids, but it's such a great line, and I've always wanted to use it in a post. As far as I'm concerned, Rather got off light. He deserves to be unceremoniously fired, just like Jayson Blair, and he certainly isn't worth defending after the journalistic flim-flam he tried to pull on the American people...

Just a day after The New York Times leaked excerpts from a confidential Red Cross report claiming that detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have undergone psychological and physical coercion "tantamount to torture," the Times has printed a second story alleging that Al Qaeda-linked terrorists in Iraq conduct interrogations "tantamount to beheading."

Al Qaeda terror cells, like the Pentagon, gave the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross complete access to facilities, staff and medical records of detainees for an entire month.

"We've found numerous incidents of Al Qaeda captives who were released," said an unnamed Red Cross source in the Times report. "And for that we applaud Al Qaeda. However, in a footnote to the report, we mention that a disturbing number of these detainees are released without their heads, which we believe may be a violation of the Geneva conventions."

The source emphasized that "both sides in the war on terror have transgressed."

"Whether it's the apparent videotaped beheading of an innocent civilian contractor, or psychological manipulation of an enemy combattant who may have knowledge of planned attacks on the U.S. citizens--it's all reprehensible," she said.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "Sure, we play head games with terrorists to get them to divulge information that will save lives. We can do that at Guantanamo because our detainees have heads. A recent internal study shows that the ratio of detainees to detainee-heads at Gitmo is one-to-one."

President Bush, upon learning of yesterday's leaked confidential Guantanamo report, said, "I'm always deeply concerned about allegations that our government has acted improperly. And of course this story has the added credibility of coming from anonymous sources leaking selected excerpts of confidential documents to the The New York Times. And that's tantamount to journalism."

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

One of the hot topics of late is whether there has been a political realignment that has made Republicans the dominant political party in the United States for the foreseeable future.

The answer? For the Congress, "yes". But for the Presidency, "No". Here's what I mean by that....

Gerrymandering is the name of the game in the House and since the GOP controls a majority of governorships, we have a lot of say about how the districts are drawn out. In essence, that means it will be almost impossible for the Democrats to even GET IN POSITION to take back the House until 2010, when the next census happens. But, because the majority of the country has gone red, even then there's no guarantee the Dems will be able to take a majority of the governorships, which would go a long way towards allowing them to redraw the districts in a way that would make them more competitive.

In the Senate, the Democrats are in deep trouble as well. That's because all the "yellow dog Democrats" in the South who in past years would rather have kissed Saddam Hussein's bottom than voted Republican, are finally changing sides. So for example, Louisiana, which is a fairly conservative state, just sent its first Republican to the Senate since 1877. As the South continues to get redder, the Democrats are probably going to continue to be locked out of power in the Senate.

But can the GOP continue to hold the Presidency? As Bill Clinton proved, not necessarily. Moderate Democrats, especially ones that are willing to triangulate and steal a few Republican issues, are capable of winning national elections. The Democrats still have a large base, plenty of money, and enough mainstream media firepower to keep just about anybody they run in the hunt for the presidency. Heck, if even a stiff like John Kerry can get 48% of the vote, then a decent candidate could certainly win in 2008.

Now here's a more interesting question: Why has there been a shift towards the GOP? There are a lot of different things that have played a role including...

-- The GOP's success and the Democrat's failure at handling foreign policy over the last 40 years.
-- The sheer awfulness of the Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter presidencies along with the mediocrity of Clinton's tenure.
-- Reagan's success in revitalizing the economy, rebuilding the military, and breaking the Soviet Union.
-- The weakening of the liberal mainstream media's domination of the news.
-- 9/11.

But perhaps the biggest factor has been the radical shift leftward of the Democratic party over the last 30 years. Today, large portions of the American left have happily embraced all manner of political poisons, everything from gay marriage, to reparations, Affirmative Action, unchecked illegal immigration, abortion on demand, rabid hostility to Christianity, gun control, bizarre conspiracy theories...you name it.

The left -- which dominates the leadership positions in the Democratic Party -- has essentially driven a lot of the conservatives and moderates in the Democratic Party into the waiting arms of the GOP. You remember those yellow-dog Democrats in the South that I mentioned? They might have hated the idea of voting for a Republican, but they hated the idea of being associated with people like Michael Moore, Jesse Jackson, and Maureen Dowd even more.

Because the left is so far out of touch, Democratic candidates are often caught in a bind. Do they try to please their radical base and turn-off large numbers of swing voters or do they move to the middle or hope not to alienate the libs in the party? Even when Democratic candidates move to the center these days they're still tainted by their association with wacko lefties. No matter how many ducks they shoot, speeches they give about their faith, or how many times they solemnly swear that they'll go after terrorists, most people just don't believe them.

This is not an insurmountable problem for the Dems, but the Democrats at the center are going to have to be willing to take control away from the liberals who have been slowly but surely dragging the party down for 30 years....and even when they do -- well, remember that the American public tends to be very skeptical when they hear politicians claim to have changed the way they do business -- and for good reason.

In summary, yes, the country has been slowly, almost glacially, moving to the right for years and yes, we do now have a small, but significant edge over the Democrats. Let's hope we can keep it up...

There was a post by Val Prieto over at Babalu Blog that caught my eye and I wanted to respond to it in a little more depth....

"Message for Michele Malkin

Get over it already. It's getting old."

Of course, I can't speak for Michelle -- although my guess is that she would say something similar -- but here's what I wrote in the comments section of that post,

"It matters because if republicans think they can add a 9% greater share of the Hispanic vote by pandering to illegal aliens, they may continue to do so. If they got nothing for their pandering, they will cease doing so which would make a lot of Republicans very happy..."

However, that in and of itself doesn't completely answer the question.

The reality is that most of us conservatives who rail against illegal immigration are not "anti-immigrant". In fact, off the top of my head, I don't even know of any conservatives who are truly hostile to legal immigrants who've come to our country seeking a better way of life for themselves and their families. Moreover, it personally makes absolutely no difference to me whether someone's ancestors came over on the Mayflower or whether they became a citizen yesterday. An American is an American is an American.

However, that whole "American is an American is an American" thing cuts both ways. Someone who's "not an American is not an American is not an American". So there is all the difference in the world between someone who is already an American citizen and someone who isn't.

That's why for example, my sympathy level for illegal immigrants is practically nil. They're criminals by definition, they use our hospitals, our schools, they fill up our prisons, & they shirk their taxes. I don't want people like that here and I support just about any legal measure that comes down the pike that will get rid of them. Any foreigners who hold our laws in contempt are not welcome in this country as far as I am concerned.

Then there's legal immigration. Put simply, I see no moral or ethical issues with setting a limit on the number of people we allow to become American citizens based solely on our country's needs and wants. After all, every country's first duty is to the people who are already its citizens, not to foreigners who want to become citizens. So if we reduce the number of foreigners we allow to become citizens from a million plus to say 300,000 or so, I see absolutely no problem with that.

So given that we can't control our own borders, we can't keep track of illegals who are working for American companies, we have Mexican officials openly saying they want to use Mexican immigrants to influence our political system, we have enormous blocks of Spanish speaking immigrants who don't seem to be assimilating, various European countries are having enormous difficulties assimilating their Muslim populations and we have reason to be concerned about that same issue here, we're in a war on terrorism and we're taking in large numbers of immigrants -- legal and illegal -- from terrorist supporting countries, etc, etc, etc.....

...It's just time to put the brakes on, drastically cut back on the number of people we're allowing to become American citizens, go after illegals, and then fix our broken system. Then in five to ten years, when we have a system that works, we can come back and decide if we want to up the numbers of people we're going to allow to become American citizens again.

It's not about "dislike of Hispanics" or hatred, it's about acknowledging that the way we handle immigration isn't working and trying to use common sense to fix the problem instead of pretending it doesn't exist.

What do you get when you cross "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider," "The Da Vinci Code," and a really bland script? Why you get this week's #1 movie, "National Treasure"!

The movie stars Nicolas Cage, who plays a low-rent Indiana Jones in search of a football field full of treasure hidden by some of our Founding Fathers, who were also Freemasons.

As I mentioned, this was the #1 movie in America this week and it's hard to argue with success, but I'm surprised that a largely unimpressive B movie is doing so well at the box office.

Now sure, "Riley Poole" was an amusing sidekick to Nic Cage's character who delivered more than his fair share of funny wisecracks. Ooooh and Diane Kruger plays Abigail Chase, an unbelievably hot, intelligent, charming woman, who has a comprehensive knowledge of American history (where are the women like this in real life?)...but those two characters were the high spots.

As I mentioned, Nic Cage's character reminds me of Indiana Jones, but he's about half as interesting. Furthermore, the entire movie revolves around Cage's character doing his best Mulder from "X-Files" impression. You know what I mean...

Scully: Mulder, it looks like this woman was killed by a blow to the head. It looks like this is run-of-the-mill murder, so why are we involved...

Mulder: Because Scully, there's a Haitian voodoo ritual that requires a woman to be killed by being hit in the head in order to raise zombies from the grave.

Scully: Mulder, that's ridiculous! People are killed every day of the week by being hit in the head...and we're in Salt Lake City, Utah -- not Haiti! This is just a waste of time....

Mulder: We'll see Scully, we'll see...

Fast forward 30 minutes...

Scully: Help! I'm being attacked by zombies!

Mulder: Our only chance is to stop the witch doctor by sticking needles into this doll!

In this case, Cage looks at obscure 200 year old riddles and figures out exactly what they're supposed to mean in about 30 seconds. Judge for yourself how likely that is.

Furthermore, say what you want about Indiana Jones -- at least he had interesting chase scenes. You know, he's running from giant boulders or rocketing through a cave in an out of control mining cart while bad guys try to kill him. In this movie, not only are the action scenes boring and pedestrian (Oh no, there are guys chasing us and they have guns!), but the bad guys are so generic they're barely even distinguishable. There was just no thought, no effort...no, no...anything put into making the bad guys more than cardboard cutouts who chase Nic Cage and company around.

So while I wouldn't call the movie "horrible" or "unwatchable," it wasn't particularly entertaining either. Thumbs down....

After a week of tough negotiating by France, Germany and Britain, the Islamic Republic of Iran has conceded to reduce the size of nuclear warheads it will use in the eventual bombing of Paris, Berlin and London.

"Iran blinked," said French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, who is a man. "We have achieved everything we wanted in these negotiations. Our capital cities will be spared to a certain degree and Iran has pledged to stop enriching uranium, while retaining 20 operating centrifuges, and continuing to process plutonium. This is a great victory of diplomacy."

A spokesman for Iran's President Mohammad Khatami said, "The Europeans are vigorous negotiators, and we have made deep concessions. The eventual survivors in Paris, Berlin and London will express gratitude to Allah when they compare their lot with the fate of Jerusalem and New York."

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

I was thrilled to get an opportunity to interview Jed Babbin, who was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush Administration. Mr. Babbin is also a columnist with The American Spectator & National Review.

We focused on Jed Babbin's new book, Inside the Asylum: Why the United Nations and Old Europe Are Worse Than You Think, along with a number of foreign policy issues.

You can read the entire interview by clicking here.