antivenom

Boston Globe Leak

2006-11-06T11:34:00.000-05:00

It must be hard to be a Democrat these days. Beholden to (or petrified of) the hard left, afraid to take any position whatsoever because it will either villify you among the base or else make you permanently unelectable - what is a D to do? In the last several elections, the answer is easy: demonize Bush, complain about failure, and take no real position.

It seems that the D's have gone to great lengths to stifle their own position taking potential, at best every once in a while coming up with some lame set of goals ("double the size of the special forces!" "implement the 9/11 commission recommendations!") but otherwise totally mute on specifics. Why? Because the hard left, the Bush hating left, the American hating left, is a monster just itching to get out. But sometimes it does leak out, just a little. Check out today's Globe op-ed by James Carroll.

Make no mistake - there are many on the left that are happy about our troubles in Iraq. A difficulty for America, the death of an American troop, is justice against our large, imperial, oppressive nation. These folks are clearly poisoned by some kind of socialist curse and would spell instant doom for any political candidate, but they underlie the entire power structure of the hard left. Don't believe they could think such things? Lets check out how Carroll ends his Op-Ed, the grand finale:

...If the Democrats take power with the elections tomorrow, congressional hearings will have a lot of such questions to consider. But what about the moral question? For all of the anguish felt over the loss of American lives, can we acknowledge that there is something proper in the way that hubristic American power has been thwarted? Can we admit that the loss of honor will not come with how the war ends, because we lost our honor when we began it? This time, can we accept defeat?

Yes, he actually did write the phrase: can we acknowledge that there is something proper in the way that hubristic American power has been thwarted?.

The hard left, ladies and gentlment. Disgusting anti-Americanism on parade. I wonder how many of them would commit real treason, given the chance?

The Difference

2006-09-27T23:24:00.000-04:00

So, it seems the house has passed the dreaded interrogation bill at last - with 34 democrats crossing over to vote for it. I haven't even looked at what the swarming kossacks are saying about this, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a few more Liebermans come out of this. The Washington Post, has a seemingly balanced summary of the debate and results which is worth a read.

In it, you can see Democrats repeatedly agitating to give detainees more rights and protections, and ultimately being cut off by Republicans. Bravo. Here lies the difference between the parties: one is concerned with the rights of terror suspects, and the other is concerned with protecting Americans.

Get a load of this:

But Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said: "This is how a nation loses its moral compass, its identity, its values and, eventually, its freedom. . . . We rebelled against King George III for less restrictions on liberty than this." Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said the habeas corpus right is so fundamental that it "is un-American" to deny it to detainees held by U.S. forces.

I hate to tell ya Jerrold, but whether the detainees want to rebel against our government or not is of little concern. They already want to kill all of us. Interrogating terror suspects who are not US citizens, who are picked up on the battlefield as unlawful combatants, really has nothing to do with our rights, our liberties, or our constitution. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the rights of Americans, and therefore there is no downside on the domestic front.

Another excellent characterization

2006-09-21T10:23:00.000-04:00

Victor Davis Hanson spins an apt metaphor about the current political climate in today's RCP piece The Tortoise and Those Democratic Hares. Loaded with interesting insight, this article succinctly points out that no matter how bad you may think the Republicans are doing, in nearly every case the Democrats have either no solution (at best) or they support ideas which would make things worse.

This makes excellent counterpoint, in my opinion, to the notion of voting the R's out of power.

Nice Opinion Journal Piece

2006-09-17T10:09:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while I run across an article that distills many of my thoughts and beliefs into an elegant, readable form that makes me realize how many levels of writing aptitude must lie above my own.

The Liberals' War from Bret Stephens at Opinion Journal is such a piece. I can add nothing to this, except to say: go read it. And pass it on.

Democrats, Socialists, and Netroots

2006-08-11T20:11:00.000-04:00

I try to make it a habit to read the left wing blogs somewhat regularly to make sure I see all sides of the picture, as it were. I usually start with the king of lefty blogs, the most trafficked political blog in the world, daily kos. Then I ready mydd just to make sure that they are still doing nothing but repeating what is on dailykos. Then I read some local New England blogs like bluemassgroup.

Anyhow, I take Kos as representative of the entire left wing blogosphere, more or less, since so much of it copies so fully the kos content, tone, and mob mentality. Based on what I've seen, I agree with all the things being said in the press about the scary people on the left, and the extreme leftism of the so called netroots. Netroots (lefty blogs) are not so much democrats as they are socialists. Trouble is, no one on that entire side seems to know the difference.

Take this post and comments for example, which discusses a political trick that Vermot Democrats are doing to make sure that the dems dont have anyone running against socialist Bernie Sanders. Democrats are actually forcibly abdicating their own shot at the Senate in VT, in order to support a socialist!! This meets with universal approval among the commenters, many of whom applaud Sanders' socialism and none of whom criticize it. Many other posters equate his socialism with really great progressivism (I'd agree) and others do the same for liberalism. Democrats, liberals, progressives, socialists - there is no line between any of them, no one sees a difference.

More and more, I don't either.

Republicans: Don't Shed a Tear for Lieberman

2006-08-08T23:11:00.000-04:00

I'm confused about why conservatives and/or libertarians give any sort of a damn about Joe Lieberman losing the CT democratic primary. Sure, it means that the netleftists like moveon and dailykos have finally won something, and to the extent that their agenda touches our government, thats bad. And sure, it means that even centrist democrats are going to move to extreme anti bush and extreme anti war positions, and that will be marginally more annoying than what we've seen in recent years. Finally, it represents a movement to the left, which is almost always a bad thing in the long term. So on the surface there are lots of reasons to be unhappy about it but wait! - hey hold on a second here, lets consider the other side...

Lieberman himself has little going for him: He is a democrat. As such, he is fiscally liberal (i.e. welfarey socialistic) yet socially conservative. Talk about splitting the difference the backwards, he's got both positions wrong! Sure, he's pro war and that's great and all (cough cough) but the guy bashes Bush with the rest of em, and in the end he counts towards the democratic tally in the senate majority count, which he will do even if he wins as an independent. In that sense, he and Lamont are equally harmful.

But in Lieberman you had a supposedly centrist democrat with broad appeal in Connecticut whereas with Lamont you've got someone who, while he may or may not be a nutjob himself, will have been installed into power by leftist nutjobs. He will be beholden to them, for sure. As such, we suffer a short term infusion of leftist nutjobbery but potentially reap a backlash against same in the voter population of CT. Sometimes, you have to let the left have power so they can prove to the voters how utterly they must rejected, if not to lend a little momentum the other way. Think Jimmy Carter and pre-94 Clinton. Only Carter's incredible awfulness paved the way for, and enabled, the Reagan revolution.

This is a silver lining that I wish more people would see: its ok to give up a few yards in a close fight in order to let the bad guys blow themselves up for another 20 years.

Better yet, if the saner half of the Democratic party can hold on to their brains, the growing influence of the netleft may yet do what we can all only dream of for the moment: split and permanently destroy the democratic party.

Have a nice day,

Demolisher

ps: counterpoint from PowerLine;

UPDATE: Television reports indicate it's Lamont, winning pretty big. Several people have asked me which candidate I'm rooting for here. Some Republicans think a Lamont win will be a good thing, demonstrating how far off the rails the Democratic Party has gone. Not me. This is no time for partisanship. These days, I feel like a character in Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, with my fellow citizens turning into pods in alarming numbers. I'd like some reassurance that the pod people aren't yet a majority, even among Democrats.

FURTHER UPDATE: On the bright side, Cynthia McKinnie got trounced. Never let it be said that you can't shame a Democrat!

pps: Lieberman could still win in the general. Could the R's have a chance, too?

Juxtaposition

2006-05-23T08:31:00.000-04:00

Protests inside the stadium took a gentle form: About 50 of the 3,200 students seated on the stadium floor turned their backs and held up placards denouncing the war as Rice received an honorary doctorate of law. Some 200 faculty did the same, according to a count by faculty members. Approximately 30,000 people attended the commencement, according to BC police.

4 times as many faculty as students "turned their back" on Condi during her BC commencement speech? I call that progress...

Protests of Rice Muted

But then again...

NEWTON -- Outside Boston College's graduation ceremonies yesterday, some 200 protesters chanted, ``Shame, shame!" and ``Give her a subpoena, not a degree, for crimes against humanity!"

...they did have support from the local nuttery. Question: since when is declaring war on a nation a crime against humanity?

Moron Iran

2006-04-12T23:59:00.000-04:00

I expect nothing but liberal tripe from the likes of dailykos.com, the leading liberal blog in America.

But this front page article is just too much.

Everyone pretty much agrees that any type of strike [against Iran] would unleash hell and endanger American troops and American civilian lives as well. Given the grave and known consequences of military action, why does the government still have the military option on the table? Is it really an effective bargaining tactic if the Iranian has demonstrated it's more than willing to call our bluff?

Isn't there a politician brave enough and logical enough to stand up and say "endangering American lives is not an option"?

Above, they quote risks of Iran firing missiles at US troops in Afghanistan, among other things.

This article is the succinct summarization of the surrender mentality. Don't threaten them because they might hurt us. Never mind what they could do to us with actual nukes, since we are all cowards we'd better let them know that now so we can back down and hopefully they will forget about us.

Liberals left to their own devices would be extinct.

Attack Iran Now

2006-04-12T13:35:00.000-04:00

Well, its going to be another swat at the middle east beehive, but theres really no way we can let Iran get nukes. At least we won't have to worry about "hyped intel" this time around. We need to wipe out their nuclear capability in a big way, and if we have to invade to do that, so be it. Our troops are conveniently located on both sides of the target. Better to lose Iraq and Afghanistan for lack of troops than to have nukes in the hands of Iranians.

Couple nice pieces

2006-03-27T00:12:00.000-05:00

Either I've been too lazy to write much lately, or things haven't really been that interesting. Censure? Pure politics, yawn. Sectarian violence in Iraq? What is there to add?

But Big Lizards (h/t: powerline) has some nice articles up right now which I feel compelled to link:

Media bias takes the side of the enemies of America, no surprise but another piece of evidence for the pile, and well written at that. Oh yea and viva bloggers.

And not that I'm a huge DeLay fan, but apparently Abramoff is not naming him. Did you know?

Deep Rooted Socialism in France

2006-03-23T18:04:00.000-05:00

Well, France is rioting again. This time it isn't disaffected muslim youth, its - well I could say "everyone" but its primarily the youth I guess, but this time all of them.

Why? Because the government is attempting to modify french law such that employer will be allowed to fire employees for any reason within the first year or so of their employment. Employees can be fired? Non! Hence:

RIOT!

Once socialism gets its cancer into you, its awfully hard to get out.

Sanctions Are a Joke; Nukes Are Not

2006-03-18T22:50:00.000-05:00

It is in a way fortunate that Iran is acting so chest-thumpingly in its bomb development endeavor. With stealth and misdirection, and given the massive anti-American sentiment both at home and abroad, it would be exceedingly difficult for the U.S. to launch a pre-emptive strike without ironclad evidence of impending nukes.

Since Iran is giving us this opportunity, we should take it. We should strike any country attempting to develop nukes, hard and with little fanfare. Sanctions are a joke. Does anyone seriously think that there is any chance of sanctions causing an end to a nuclear program? Please. The only end will be an end by force, or an end under the threat of force.

Lets not kid ourselves. The consequences of a unilateral strike against Iran will be severe - for our nation, for our people and forces abroad, and of course for our president. But the consequences of a nuclear armed Iran could be immeasurably worse. This is our chance to save ourselves, and the world. We should take it.

The Usual

2006-03-16T23:17:00.000-05:00

With the recently escalated "reprisal killings" going on in Iraq and what seems like daily finds of dozens of executed bodies, it seemed recently that even some Republicans were starting to get cold feet about our presence in Iraq. They weren't so much parroting the left's endless no-wmd whining or calling the effort unjust; more just saying that we've lost. Some saying that Iraq is now in civil war.

Now, aside from the fact that "reprisal killings" might conceivably be killing terrorists, lets assume that this spate of violence is bad - really bad. But is this a civil war? Armed militant thugs of one side or another commit reprisal kidnappings and executions, and terrorists commit suicide bombings and we are calling that a civil war? Perhaps we've forgotten what civil war means. Or perhaps we're just hysterical. Or worse.

As long as terrorists are committing suicide bombings in Iraq, as long as al Qadea is taking its stand there, then that is where we must fight or flee. In this simple choice - fight or flee - why we are there makes no difference.

New England Aggregator

2006-03-01T23:11:00.000-05:00

I mentioned this to a few local bloggers, but I'd really like to have something for us on the conservative and libertarian side of the cyberaisle (ooh, lame term sorry) that approximates the leftyblogs.com blogwire. You can see it at mass leftist central blue mass group, on the right hand side. Shows the latest 10 or so posts from all area bloggers, linked nicely in.

So far I'm having trouble finding tools that easily do this, so I'm thinking of just hacking one up. Shouldn't be terribly hard as long as we stick to one or two formats. I'm kind of liking Atom, to be honest. If anyone knows of an existing tool (open source) to do this, let me know. (demo - at - ninemillimeter.com) Comments on the idea in general also welcome.

Bush Warned About Levees!

2006-03-01T22:52:00.000-05:00

More breathless idiocy from the AP, which of course is being picked up and repeated all over the damn place. It basically says that although people told Bush in "agonizing terms" about the dangers of Katrina, he "didn't ask a single question" (and thus must not have cared or must have been incompetent). Since most news coverage is just reprints of this same article, its tough to see any actual quotes that were so agonizing, but the one that I saw had some expert saying that no one could predict if the levies would hold, but it was a grave concern...

After umpteen briefings on the subject, Bush isnt getting animated and asking questions. Looks like a good chance to Michael Moore him and leak it to some anti Bushies at the AP. They'll fill in the blanks for the public nicely.

Now we get to rehash the whole Katrina garbage and pretty soon Bush is gonna hate black people again. Super. How do we tolerate this? I'm starting to wish for the end of the AP.

UAE + Ports: Powerline Weighs In

2006-02-27T21:33:00.000-05:00

Just because its been a hot topic here, and because I love Powerline, I'm linking to John's latest stand-taking post on the matter. More and more I think that the deal should not be blocked, and people should just come to recognize and reject the mountains of idiot-hype that surrounded this debacle.

How do you make this case to the average voter, succinctly? Here's Powerline for ya:

...Much criticism of the "deal"--there actually isn't a deal, a company headquartered in the United Arab Emirates bought a British company that had contracts to administer facilities at six ports--consists of general criticisms of the UAE, as though companies headquartered in that country can only do business in America if the Emirates' record on terror-related issues is spotless. That strikes me as a complete non sequitur. More confirmed terrorists have come from Great Britain than the Emirates, but no one raised any objection to British control over port terminals.

And no one seems to care that the National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia already controls terminals at nine American ports. Or that China operates both ends of the Panama Canal...

Its a nice post, go read it.

Addicted to Foreign Oil

2006-02-27T12:55:00.000-05:00

I found it remarkable that President Bush said in the state of the union that the US is "addicted to foreign oil". Who must he have been placating? Was this an olive branch to the left? What is a republican president, a former oil man himself, doing making a statement like this? What does it mean? Could he be serious?

Since the state of the union, Bush has been saying it more and more. So I think he means it.

Once I got over my intial surprise, I wrestled with vague notions of the government telling us not to drive SUV's, silly pie in the sky alternative energy promises (solar rocks, man!), and general anti consumerist malaise.

Then I realized why it was so important that this statement come from W:

When President Bush says we are addicted to foreign oil, that really means something. From any leftist or even democrat politician, its just the usual propaganda - likely accompanied by all kinds of cynicism, negativity, and the lack of any real alternative. From Bush, it means that he sees a problem, and he's going to act. From Bush, the actual meaning of this statement, and the implications, have a chance of penetrating the minds of the roughly half the country who has completely tuned out the ridiculous left. This message will get through. And if its a problem, Bush will do something about it.

Why is it so bad that we are "addicted" for foreign oil? What does this even mean?

It means that the entire US economy is dangerously tightly linked to oil. We can't live without it. We can't make enough of it on our own. We have to buy from all these awful nations like Iran and Venezuala, who then use their riches for anti American purposes. We have to care about what happens in the Middle East - A LOT! - because instability harms our economy. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the retarded left wing "blood for oil" or "don't drive SUV's" or "Americans are bad" pitch. The hard fact is that oil is critical for the survival of our economy.

On Friday Al Qaeda tried to blow up a Saudi oil terminal, thankfully failed, and oil prices spiked. With oil and energy prices high, almost every US citizen is impacted directly. Worse, large companies eat price shocks in their recurring cost structure. This lowers profits, maybe alot, maybe they go into the red. This hurts the stock market, maybe alot. Maybe some people lose their jobs.

Imagine what would happen if we had to go to war in Iran? Would our economy survive it? Is that the choice, either we let these nutcases develop nukes and save our economy, or we blow up their processing plants and cost US workers a million jobs?

Wouldn't it be great not to have to worry about that?

Sure, its a pipe dream at the moment, but what about this wind power stuff? If wind works as an energy source, then what could be better? OK so wind isnt going to power our cars, but it could sure reduce consumption of fossil fuels in, say, electic power generation. That would be really good.

What about ethanol for our cars? Too expensive? Up until now I would have said ethanol programs only exist because of the Iowa caucus, and they typify government handouts that should be eliminated. Now I'm not so sure. We are addicted to foreign oil, and the addiction is harmful. I don't think the solution is conservation, I think the solution is innovation. Conservation will occur naturally when prices get too high - never before that - but by then it will be too late. Innovation will also occur when prices get high. But the hidden costs today should also be considered. The cost of making hostile regimes rich, the cost to our economy of supply shocks, the cost of have to use our military in the middle east. These costs are high. These are national issues. In this addiction, the low prices are the drug, and the economic shocks and hostile regimes are the harmful effect.

Wouldn't it be great if Venezuala and Iran didnt matter? If the whole middle east didnt matter? I think it would.

Blogs Superior in UAE Port Deal Coverage

2006-02-27T09:43:00.000-05:00

If you've been watching the news at all, you've probably seen that the Bush administration is inexplicably selling our vulnerable ports to a company based in the United Arab Emirates - a country which is muslim, arab, and home to 2 of the 9/11 hijackers. Port security being a big deal and all, this decision and the subsequent strong defense by Bush himself ("try and stop it - I'll veto") smacked of classic Bush administration bad politics and worse PR. While governors and senators from both parties scrambled to outdo each other and score political points, Bush was - as usual - steadfast.

So what really happened here?

By now, there are so many articles about the ports deal that it would be impossible to post a meaningful chronology. For a sampling, try this. You'll have to go way back to see most of the initial articles. The long and the short of it is, the MSM went nuts and mischaracterized and blatantly misreported the ports "sale" (which in fact is just a UK company being bought by a UAE company). Gobs of politicians, including '08 hopefuls Bill Frist (R) and Hillary Clinton (D) scrambled to score big national security points. Even now, to the average viewer, Bush is looking pretty bad.

But against this tide, you can find some counterpoints. What do you do when politicians and the media are going berzerk and it just doesn't add up? Read blogs, of course. For example, you can read this balanced post at Captains Quarters, which contains slightly more extensive quotes from Bush than simply "I'll veto" and also fails to make some of the mainstream media errors such as calling it a ports "sale", or attributing port security to the UAE.

Better yet, you can look in our own New England blogosphere: To warm up, what is going on with these liberals playing the national security card and forgetting all about their heartfelt opposition to "profiling"? Pardon My English notes this lefty hypocrisy. Better yet, MuD and PHuD clams things down a bit and links to Big Lizards rather more balanced analysis of the situation. Rhode Island's Anchor Rising adds yet more balanced analysis while acknowledging the obvious visceral reaction that many of us are prone to feel on first hearing of UAE involvement in US ports.

Perhaps most surprising of all - and I can't even believe I'm going to say this - is that the king of Mass lefty blogs, Blue Mass Group, takes a similarly balanced approach in two apparently pro-Bush front page posts here and here! Now, don't get me wrong - the self styled (and deeply ironic) "Reality-based commentary" at BlueMass is no stranger to your typical Kos-derived anti Republican juvenalia, but this is really something worth noting. These progressives are so pro-Deval Patrick that they cant even keep their fangs out of the presumptive D Gov. frontrunners neck, these suckers are actually agitating to take Massachusetts further left, if that can be imagined. But yet there it is, on the front page - a sane and reasonable analysis of the UAE ports matter. How easy would it have been to jump on the anti-Bush bandwagon yet again? And yet while the MSM and politicians from both parties are busy knee jerk panic mongering for anti-Bush and political points, respectively, good ol humble blogs are taking a deeper look. A more balanced look. A smarter look. Even on the left.

When something makes absolutely no sense at all, 9 times out of 10, your understanding is flawed. Don't understand what the heck is going on in this world? Read the blogs.

George Will on Why Conservatives are Happier

2006-02-23T15:58:00.000-05:00

George Will doesn's always get it right, but he's a good and interesting writer and this piece is a gem:

Liberalism is Not Conducive to Happiness

Aside from the fact that I think liberals are generally wrong about almost everything, I sometimes feel that they can be a real drag to be around in any case. Why? Because there is this big cloud of miserable chip-on-shoulderness which seems to follow them everywhere. Maybe its the whole guilt-is-life thing, or maybe its that the US is so evil and bad, or that most exalted people in their estimation are the needy - but - well anyway, go read it! Here's a snippet:

Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.

The right to pursue happiness is the essential right that government exists to protect. Liberals, taking their bearings, whether they know it or not, from President Franklin Roosevelt's 1936 State of the Union address, think the attainment of happiness itself, understood in terms of security and material well-being, is an entitlement that government has created and can deliver.

UAE and ports

2006-02-22T10:59:00.000-05:00

I admit that I am somewhat baffled by Bush's decision to strongly defend the "sale of our ports" to a company from UAE. Here is some clarification from an unlikely source, CBS news!

Could it be that Bush is the only one with his head on straight, taking the principled stand against hyperventilation once again?

Fighting Dem Paul Hackett Surrenders

2006-02-14T13:53:00.000-05:00

Much has been made in the left wing blogosphere of the new "fighting dems" phenomenon: Iraq war vets who are returning home to run for political office as Democrats. Their hero and #1 highest profile fighting dem was this clown Paul Hackett from Ohio, who lost an unexpectedly close race against a weak but supposedly secure Republican incumbent last time around. This time he is lined up to take down senator DeWine (R-OH).

The hard left loved him.

But yesterday, Hackett dropped out of the primary against D frontrunner Sherrod Brown. True to conspiracy theorist nutjob form, he blamed Democratic party leaders for sabotaging his campaign and betraying him.

Some left wing sites are quick to forget how much they loved him but even though they all now say he couldnt have possibly won (!!) some are really feeling the hurt.

Me, I just find it ironic that the fightingest of the fighting dems acted in typically democratic fashion - and surrendered.

So what are they going to do about it? Apply their tired old marxist driven class based analysis to their own party, of course!

The real reason so many people are upset that Hackett left the race has less to do with ideology than it has to do with the ongoing class war within the world of progressive activists. Online, Hackett's support came primarily from those activists who have very little power within the progressive movement as a whole: the working class within the progressive movement. By contrast, Sherrod Brown's support came from the aristocracy within the progressive movement: those who, like Charles Schumer and Rahm Emmanuel, have a lot of power over the direction of the progressive movement. Class, in this sense and in the world to which I am applying the term, is not determined by income. Rather, it is determined by power and ownership over the progressive movement. The outrage comes from the generally accurate perception among the progressive activist working class that the progressive activist aristocracy used their vastly greater power to remove Hackett from the race in favor of Brown. The outrage comes from the fact that, like in IL-06, they made this decision on behalf of a candidate of their choosing without consulting the progressive activist working class. The outrage comes from the very real fact that the activist working class places the blame for the nation's continued conservative backslide squarely on the progressive activist elite.

To which I will only add this one snippet from Tom Matzzie, MoveOn.org Political Action Director:

The story about "the Democrat who sold out" has become too familiar. Too often progressives tip toe around these betrayals. But there needs to be real consequences for these Democrats.

Replacing a right-wing Democrat with a more progressive Democrat will help voters more clearly understand what Democrats stand for--and that will help Democrats win.

Could this represent a schism in the Democratic base? Activist elites vs. anyone remotely centrist? We can only hope. The sooner the Democratic party finishes imploding, the more time we'll have to form a rational and loyal opposition party.

We Should Thank the Hard Left Blogosphere

2006-02-08T15:46:00.000-05:00

This NY Times piece discusses Democrats' remorse over ongoing missed opportunities to take advantage of the troubles of the Bush administration. Some great quotes aside, the main message of the article is that the D's can't win unless they stand for something:

"It's absolutely required that the party talk about things in addition to the Abramoff scandal," said Martin Frost, former leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "I think the climate is absolutely right to take back the House or the Senate or both. But you can't do it without a program."

And Mr. Bayh said, "I don't believe we will win by just not being them."

The article doesnt mention it, but the real reason that the Democrats are completely unable to stand for anything is the overwhelming influence of the hard left blogosphere and related orgnazations such as MoveOn. These organizations dominate the activist community and ruthlessly attack any Democrat who does not hew close to the liberal line. (see: Lieberman) These people have taken their anger over the 2000 election, multiplied it by the war in Iraq, and added in a thousand additional ingredients - both real and imagined - and now they are insane. Insane, yet powerful. Too powerful to be ignored by Democrats, but too insane to appeal to the masses. This leaves the Democrats confused, unable to take a position, talking out of both sides of their mouths - or more often, not talking at all except to complain.

As long as the hard left retains such dominant influence, the Democrats must remain toungue-tied - or lose even worse than they already do! So, thanks, moveon and dailykos. You guys really help out alot in befuddling the Democratic party.

Alternatively, you might take Nancy Pelosi's view of things:

Ms. Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, did not dispute that argument. But, pointing to the Democratic strategy in defeating Mr. Bush's Social Security proposal last year, she said there was no rush.

"People said, 'You can't beat something with nothing,' " she said, arguing that the Democrats had in fact accomplished precisely that this year. "I feel very confident about where we are."

McCain blasts Obama

2006-02-07T09:44:00.000-05:00

McCain shows some teeth against Obama who apparently bait and switched on lobbying reform. Details here at the indispensible Real Clear Politics

"I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere. When you approached me and insisted that despite your leadership's preference to use the issue to gain a political advantage in the 2006 elections, you were personally committed to achieving a result that would reflect credit on the entire Senate and offer the country a better example of political leadership, I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable. Thank you for disabusing me of such notions...

Is McCain making all the right moves for 2008 by slapping down the Democrat hero du jour? Or is Obama just screwing up a whole lot and catching flak from all sides? (note: Obama took some heat from the left for his anti filibuster position on Alito.)

Mohammed Cartoon Fiasco

2006-02-03T09:34:00.000-05:00

The play by play goes something like this:

Danish newspaper published cartoon portraying Mohammed, God of Islam, offending many muslims around the world
Muslims begin violent protests, boycotts, threats, etc.
Euopean pols mortified, apologizing
Other European newspapers publish cartoon; similar cartoons follow
Editors being sacked, European pols mortified, apologizing and scrambling:

Europe's political elite were scrambling last night to contain the furore across the Arab world at the publication of caricatures of Muhammad, with leaders stressing that freedom of the press did not mean freedom to cause offence.

(from the Guardian UK)

I think there are a couple really interesting angles to this:

1. Gutless European pols will attempt to curtail their own freedoms in order to de-offend muslims, in a cowardly show of impotence

2. Nonetheless, freedom of the press oriented press folks will continue to mock Mohammed in cartoons in an escalating fashion

I mean, really, how could all of Europe ever seriously prevent this from happening? So long as the papers (and web sites, etc) have a mind to create and publish cartoons mocking Mohammed, they surely will do so. I can envision hundreds of cartoons, thousands even, coming from all corners of Europe and even other countries with free presses - completely overwhelming the muslim ability to take individual offense, protest, or carry out individual violent reprisal.

From there it goes one of two ways: a world war of muslims vs. the west (free press vs. offensiveness to faith), or a final acceptance by muslims that they just cant get violent every time their religion is trifled with.

I think its going to be the latter. If the world floods itself with images mocking Islam, the only possible outcome is that Islam will have to just chill the hell out. Theres just no way its going to come to a world war over a silly cartoon.

China as an Emerging Superpower

2006-01-26T13:34:00.000-05:00

Lately I've noticed that some of the more lefty of the American left have taken a certain relish in noting that "China is coming", the US is in decline, China will be the new world superpower, etc. Perhaps this is a long sought after vindication of the communism that they secretly idealize, or perhaps its just plain old garden variety anti Americanism.

The irony of course is that China's rise is 100% correlated to its newfound economic freedoms, its adoption of private property rights, its abandonment of communism as an economic system. It retains communism as a political system - how odd! - which leaves it with a free economy but a totalitarian government. Further ironies about liberal pleasure in China's rise could be found in the Chinese' grotesque abuse of the environment, human rights violations, and incredibly low wages. Like many liberal positions, taking pride in China's rise against a predicted US fall is largely nonsensical.

China's rise is not at all ensured, however. Nor is its continued adherence to a totalitarian government. As more and more people in China do well for themselves, and as the spread of the internet information age inevitably erodes the chinese "firewall", it is possible that we could see a popular resistance with some real clout forthcoming.

China's latest plan to quell unrest is not terribly surprising, but does seem to hint at a growing problem:

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is preparing to "strike hard" against rising public unrest, a senior police official said according to state media on Thursday, highlighting the government's fears for stability even as the economy booms.

As Chinese citezens gain some measure of wealth and intellectual freedom, will they continue to tolerate such heavy handed crackdowns? Or will they start asking hard questions about liberty, about where relatives have gone and what has happened to them, about the legacy of Mao?

I suspect that the whole communist apparatus could come crumbling down like it did in the USSR, pretty much overnight.