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The dinosaurs are still powerful

Posted by Richard on November 13, 2006

There’s been no shortage of analyses and finger-pointing to explain the GOP’s "thumpin’" this year. It was Iraq. No, it was corruption. They were too extreme. No, they abandoned their conservative principles. Immigrant-bashing hurt. No, failure to close the borders hurt. And on and on… I think one of the primary causes is something almost no one’s discussed — and some, like Dean Barnett, explicitly rejected. 

Hugh Hewitt, lots of bloggers, and other voices of the "new media" like to disparage the "dinosaur media" and point to declining ratings for network news, falling readership and revenue for the big liberal papers, and other signs of the declining influence of the mainstream media. They exaggerate the truth. The dinosaurs may be in decline, but they’re still immensely powerful and can crush you when they make the effort. And, boy, did they make the effort this time!

Yes, it’s the same media as in 2002 and 2004, as Barnett noted. But, (a) they really pulled out all the stops this time, and (b) their relentless propaganda campaign against Bush and the Republicans had a cumulative effect.

Lenin said, "A lie told often enough becomes the truth." After hearing it repeated as fact a bazillion times, most Americans believe that Bush lied about Iraq’s WMD threat and Saddam’s support of terrorists. After three years of negative stories from Iraq outnumbering positive ones by approximately ten thousand to one, most Americans believe the situation is hopeless.

Story after story about DeLay, Cunningham, Foley, and Ney hammered into the American consciousness the Democratic talking points about the "Republican culture of corruption." But there’s nary a media mention of more than 70 Democrats with ethical or legal problems, including Reps. Jefferson, Murtha, Rangel, Mollohan, Conyers, and Schakowsky, Sens. Boxer and Reid, and Govs. Blagojevich and Corzine.

For sure, the Republicans’ wounds were largely self-inflicted. After 2002, Hastert dismantled the Contract with America’s ethics and accountability rules, and the Republicans became arrogant, fat, and lazy. They governed like Democrats, and the American people rejected that, as they usually do. Meanwhile, the Democrats recruited a bunch of candidates who sounded like Republicans, and the American people elected them.

If they’re going to turn things around in 2008, the Republicans need to clean house. They need new leaders like Reps. Pence and Shadegg, and Sens. Kyle and DeMint. They need to embrace the primary candidates backed by the Club for Growth — 7out of 8 were elected this year.

But they need one more thing: an effective strategy for countering the power of those media dinosaurs, because they’re not dead yet.
 

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Kinsley embarrassed by Democrat plan

Posted by Richard on November 7, 2006

Captain Ed pointed to a remarkable column by Michael Kinsley posted last night in Slate and appearing this morning in the Washington Post. Kinsley did what apparently alrmost no one in the country bothered to do: to get a sense of what a Pelosi-led House would be like, he read the 31-page "manifesto" issued by House Democrats in June, "A New Direction for America." His critique, coming from a bona fide liberal with no love for Republicans, is devastating.

Kinsley noted that the Pelosi plan is heavy on bromides, promises of tax credits, misleading nonsense like calling for an end to the "Disabled Veterans’ Tax," and lots of new spending, but it’s light on fiscal responsibility (emphasis added):

Honesty is not just therapeutic. Fiscal honesty is a practical necessity. "New Direction" quite rightly denounces the staggering fiscal irresponsibility of Republican leaders and duly promises "Pay As You Go" spending. But in the entire document there is not one explicit revenue-raiser to balance the many specific and enormous new spending programs and tax credits.

But Kinsley put a dagger in the Democrats’ heart — remember, this is an anti-war liberal — when he looked at their "New Direction" for Iraq (emphasis added):

… For national security in general, the Democrats’ plan is so according-to-type that you cringe with embarrassment: It’s mostly about new cash benefits for veterans. Regarding Iraq specifically, the Democrats’ plan has two parts. First, they want Iraqis to take on "primary responsibility for securing and governing their country." Then they want "responsible redeployment" (great euphemism) of American forces.

Older readers may recognize this formula. It’s Vietnamization — the Nixon-Kissinger plan for extracting us from a previous mistake. But Vietnamization was not a plan for victory. It was a plan for what was called "peace with honor" and is now known as "defeat."

Maybe "A New Direction for America" is just a campaign document — although it seems to have had no effect at all on the campaign. My fear is that the House Democrats might try to use it as a basis for governing.

Read the whole thing. Read Captain Ed’s comments. Then go vote.
 

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Unintentional honesty?

Posted by Richard on November 3, 2006

Yesterday, I said Kerry probably didn’t intend to insult the troops because he didn’t intend anything. But today there’s new evidence that, even if he didn’t mean to say it, Kerry probably thinks what he said. In other words, in the great tradition of "fake but accurate," Kerry’s "botched joke" may have been "misspoken but honest." John Solomon of the Associated Press (can you believe it?) reported that Kerry’s comments in a candidate questionnaire from his 1972 congressional campaign "mirror" the statement that he now claims was an inadvertent gaffe (emphasis added):

After Kerry caused a firestorm this week with what he termed a botched campaign joke that Republicans said insulted current soldiers, The Associated Press was alerted to the historical comments by a former law enforcement official who monitored 1970s anti-war activities

Kerry apologized Wednesday for the 2006 campaign trail gaffe that some took as suggesting U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq were undereducated. He contended the remark was aimed at Bush, not the soldiers.

In 1972, as he ran for the House, he was less apologetic in his comments about the merits of a volunteer army. He declared in the questionnaire that he opposed the draft but considered a volunteer army "a greater anathema."

"I am convinced a volunteer army would be an army of the poor and the black and the brown," Kerry wrote. "We must not repeat the travesty of the inequities present during Vietnam. I also fear having a professional army that views the perpetuation of war crimes as simply ‘doing its job.’

Couple that with his organizing of the 1971 "Winter Soldier" hearings (full of liars and frauds, many of whom were never in Vietnam, and some of whom subsequently testified that Kerry pressured them into saying they committed war crimes) and his subsequent Senate committee testimony. Then add his accusations against U.S. troops in Iraq, such as this statement on ABC’s Face the Nation less than a year ago:

"And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the – of – the historical customs, religious customs," Kerry said Sunday.

The record strongly suggests that John Effin’ Kerry has for more than three decades consistently viewed the men and women of the U.S. armed forces with disdain, suspicion, and contempt. He may or may not have intended to speak the words he spoke this week, but they express what’s in his heart — misspoken but honest.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention: Kerry’s view was and is dead wrong — it’s not poor, uneducated, black and brown people with no alternatives who are fighting this war. According to a study I reported on last December, enlistees in the military are wealthier, better educated, and more rural than the average 18- to 24-year-old, and their ethnic makeup is just about representative of the general population.
 

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Kerry apologizes, troops plead for his help

Posted by Richard on November 1, 2006

After practically every veteran in the country except John Murtha and Wesley Clarke called for his head, and Democratic candidates fell all over themselves canceling appearances with the French-looking senator (who, I’m told, served a few weeks in Viet Nam and subsequently testified under oath that U.S. military personnel routinely committed war crimes, and who just a few months ago accused U.S. troops of terrorizing Iraqi women and children), John Effin’ Kerry has finally done what anyone with a lick of common sense — not to mention an ounce of basic decency — would have done 36 hours ago:

WASHINGTON — Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, under intense fire from both parties for remarks made Monday in which he suggested U.S. troops are "stuck in Iraq" because of their education, issued an apology Wednesday afternoon for what he called "my poorly stated joke."

"As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any troop," Kerry said in a statement published on his Web site.

Kerry said he regrets that his words "were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended."

Of course, Kerry’s apology was in keeping with his generally arrogant, condescending, and tone-deaf manner. Instead of standing in front of the cameras (as he did when he ranted about distortions by the "White House mouthpiece" and "right-wing nut jobs") and at least simulating looking the troops in the eye, he posted the brief statement on his website. And he managed to make it into one of those non-apology apologies: "I’m sorry you’re so stupid that you didn’t understand it was just a botched joke, and I’m real sorry that you can’t understand how Bush and his evil minions are twisting this and manipulating you for their nefarious purposes."

Truth be told, I’ve thought about it and decided his "botched joke" explanation and insistence that the insult was unintentional are probably true. My guess is that, as usual, someone told Kerry where to go and when to speak, and provided some words for him to say. He proceeded to read them with his usual level of awareness and involvement — meaning he was probably only marginally aware of what he was saying, didn’t realize that the education/Iraq bit was a joke, and maybe didn’t even realize he’d flubbed it or how badly. He didn’t intend to insult the troops because he didn’t really intend anything — except to go through the motions he’d been scheduled to go through.

John Effin’ Kerry strikes me as the quintessential empty suit. I am so glad Karl Rove got those Ohio voting machines reprogrammed! (That’s a joke, moonbats.)

Meanwhile, it’s clear to me that the morale of our troops in Iraq is high, that they’re defiant of fhe critics, and that they’re clever and funny:

Troops' humorous plea for help from Kerry

 

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Bush on the important issues

Posted by Richard on October 31, 2006

On Hannity & Colmes last night, Sean Hannity interviewed President Bush, and of course, the election was the first topic (emphasis added):

HANNITY: All right, so there you are. You think the GOP holds both houses. You’re confident. You made the statement that your opponents, Democrats, are picking out the drapes a little bit too early.

BUSH: That’s right.

Well, you know, in 2002, a lot of the pundits didn’t get the off-year elections right. In 2004, a lot of people thought I was going down eight days before the election. And in 2006, there is a lot of predictors saying that, you know, the Democrats will sweep the House and maybe take the Senate.

And I just don’t see it that way, because I think most people, when they take a look at the candidates and the positions of the candidates, realize that protecting this country and keeping this economy going are the two most important issues. And you can’t protect the country if you retreat from overseas, and you can’t keep the economy growing if you raise taxes. And that’s exactly what the Democrats in the House would like to do.

That’s the case for voting Republican about as clearly and succinctly stated as it can be.

You could fill a book with all the things wrong with Republicans (and match it page for page with one on the faults of Democrats). But when all is said and done, it’s hard to deny the importance of national security and taxes — and on those two critical issues, the Republicans get it mostly right, while the vast majority of Democrats are completely, utterly, and dangerously wrong.
 

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Perlmutter’s plan for Iraq

Posted by Richard on October 30, 2006

Ed Perlmutter is the Democratic candidate for Congress in Colorado’s 7th District, the seat currently held by Republican Bob Beauprez. It’s one of the most hotly contested congressional races in the country, and the Denver airwaves have been full of attack ads from both Perlmutter and his Republican opponent, Rick O’Donnell.

I think Perlmutter’s ad on Iraq perfectly illustrates the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the Democrats. It begins by saying that O’Donnell’s "latest idea" is to send 75,000 more troops to Iraq (CBS4Denver called Perlmutter’s claim "misleading") and continues in a shocked tone:

O’DONNELL GOES EVEN FURTHER THAN GEORGE BUSH, AND WOULD SEND 75,000 MORE TROOPS INTO COMBAT TO DEFEND A FAILED POLICY. ANOTHER BAD IDEA FROM RICK O’DONNELL. ED PERLMUTTER HAS A DIFFERENT IDEA.

Aha, here’s where Perlmutter succinctly outlines his brilliant plan for Iraq, right? Umm, yeah …  right:

" IN IRAQ WE HAVE TO HOLD THE PRESIDENT ACCOUNTABLE, AND HAVE REAL DEBATE IN CONGRESS. I’M ED PERLMUTTER AND I APPROVE THIS MESSAGE BECAUSE IRAQ IS A MESS, AND SOMETHING HAS GOT TO CHANGE."

The Democrat’s brilliant solution to the Iraq problem: (1) Hold the President accountable. (What does that mean — hearings? impeachment? just more of the current carping and criticism?) (2) Have a real debate. (Still more hearings?)

Now why didn’t we think of this sooner? If we just critizice Bush enough and have enough critics testify in front of congressional committees, the Iraq problem will be solved! The Democrats don’t have to come up with a policy alternative — the hearings and criticisms, like magical incantations, will cause a solution to reveal itself!

Of course, that’s just the part of his Iraq plan that Perlmutter is willing to share with the rubes sitting in front of the boob tube. If you’re the more sophisticated, savvy, and activist type of Democrat who seeks out the Perlmutter website, you’ll discover (to your MoveOn-motivated delight, no doubt) that he’s a huge fan of Rep. John Murtha’s "expedited redeployment:" of U.S. forces in Iraq.

That’s Murtha’s insane plan to begin withdrawing from Iraq immediately and "redeploying" to Okinawa. That’s the plan for which Murtha cited U.S. withdrawal from Somalia (see Black Hawk Down) as the example we should follow.

So there you have it. Depending on which message you listen to, the Perlmutter plan for Iraq is either a vacuous call for more finger-pointing or a demand that we emulate one of the most ignominious events in U.S. military history.

If you live in Colorado’s 7th District please think carefully — do you want the next two years to bring higher taxes and the re-enactment on a larger scale of Mogadishu?
 

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Centrist Democrats

Posted by Richard on October 27, 2006

Larry Kudlow has been talking about a "remarkable shift" taking place in the Democratic Party — a move away from the hard left orientation of recent years and toward the center. According to him, this was "under the radar" of the mainstream media until yesterday’s LA Times article on the subject.

I don’t find this news all that new or suprising. I certainly recall reading that the Dems went out of their way to recruit candidates who were veterans — maybe I just assumed that they’d be more centrist or conservative, too.

I guess I didn’t realize the extent of the shift:

As Larry Sabato pointed out on tonight’s show, there’s somewhere north of twenty moderate to conservative Democrats poised to be elected to this new Congress. This crew is pro-business, pro-life on abortion, supported by the NRA and so forth.

Get this: Over thirty of the Democratic candidates for the House are conservative enough to have been green-lighted by the Blue Dogs or the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.

If two-thirds of these more centrist Democrats actually win, I suppose that’ll be pretty remarkable, and in the long run, as Kudlow said, a "very good thing for the American people." But in the short run, those Dems will do just as the Republicans direly predict:

"They claim to be pro-life, pro-gun and anti-tax, yet their first vote in Congress would be to elect the most liberal speaker in American history," said Jonathan Collegio, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which aims to enlarge the GOP majority in the House. "In the first hundred hours they will roll back tax cuts and open investigations into the administration."

Even some centrist Democrats privately fret that the chairmen-in-waiting may be harboring pent-up desires for a robust liberal agenda and partisan investigations that could hurt the party. "There’s a desperate need for fresh blood, a general changing of the guard," said one moderate Democrat who asked not to be named.

Maybe a Democratic Party leadership that owes its narrow House majority to its most conservative members will be somewhat chastened and cautious — but recent statements by Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and Charlie Rangel don’t inspire confidence in that possibility.
 

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Pelosi puff piece reveals danger of Dems

Posted by Richard on October 23, 2006

Thank goodness I didn’t watch 60 Minutes last night. I couldn’t have taken Leslie Stahl’s fawning interview with Nancy Pelosi. I’ve heard and read enough of it this morning to conclude that CBS should be charged with an "in kind" campaign contribution. All the emphasis on what a wonderful wife, mother, and grandmother Pelosi is ought to make feminists gag — but of course, they like her politics, so you won’t hear a peep of protest.

The questions weren’t just softballs — most of them were whiffle balls. Stahl sounded tough one time — when she challenged Pelosi on the civility issue, pointing out that Pelosi has used terms like "immoral," "corrupt," and "criminal enterprise" to refer to the congressional Republicans and has called President Bush practically every name in the book:

"It sounds personal," Stahl remarks.

"This isn’t personal," Pelosi says.

"He’s "incompetent", he’s…," Stahl continues.

"Well, I think he is," Pelosi states.

"Well, that’s personal," Stahl points out.

"Well, I’m sorry, that’s his problem," Pelosi replies.

"How does this raise the level of civility?" Stahl asks.

"Well, this is a – well – we’re in a political debate here. We didn’t come here to have a tea party together, and toss a coin to see who would win on an issue," Pelosi says. "I have very thick skin, I don’t care what they say about me."

Note: I heard the audio clip of this exchange, and Stahl sounded less tough than you’d think from reading it. I suppose her inability to suppress giggles — for instance, when referring to Bush as incompetent — had something to do with that.

Nevertheless, Pelosi comes off rather mean-spirited and hateful, doesn’t she? Well, 60 Minutes can’t have that — time for some "moral equivalence":

And she needs that thick skin. She’s being used for target practice.

GOP ads have labeled her "liberal Democrat Nancy Pelosi." One Republican ad says "she’ll reward illegal aliens with welfare, food-stamps, and free education. How do we stop her?"

Republicans including the president go after her saying if she’s Speaker, it’ll mean a weaker military, pampering of terrorists, and higher taxes.

Sure, Pelosi calls her opponents criminals, bigots, morons, and incompetents, and says they’re corrupt and evil. But just look — they call her liberal and say she wants to raise taxes and give food stamps to illegals. Same thing, right? Both sides are doing it. They’re just debating the issues — whether the Dems would raise taxes on the one hand, and whether Republicans are the spawn of Satan on the other. No difference at all. Let’s just move on.

Let’s get really serious and talk about the war. Here comes the slow pitch right over the plate — Stahl noted that Pelosi wants to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq this year, and asked (emphasis added):

"Does that not open you up then to that charge of cutting and running? This is just what they’re saying," Stahl asks.

"The issue is them. The issue is the war they got us into," Pelosi replies. "If the president wants to say the war in Iraq is part of the war on terror, he’s not right."

"Do you not think that the war in Iraq now, today, is the war on terror?" Stahl asks.

"No. The war on terror is the war in Afghanistan," Pelosi says.

Well. By my reckoning, that’s not a home run, it’s a foul ball. Pelosi succinctly articulated the mindset that makes her and her fellow anti-war Democrats so dangerous. They believe that if we just captured Osama and his buddies, we could declare victory, go home, and return to the way things were on September 10, 2001.

If they have their way, a lot more of us are going to die.

I suppose 60 Minutes would just characterize my statement as another example of name-calling and incivility.
 

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Maybe Rove is right

Posted by Richard on October 18, 2006

The polls all predict disaster for the Republicans, and everybody from the mainstream media to conservative commenters and bloggers seems to believe them. It’s a done deal. Glenn Reynolds even offered a much-discussed "pre-mortem" explaining all the reasons (and they’re good ones!) why voters are likely to punish the Republicans severely come November (see also Glenn’s follow-up).

Prognosticators are so certain of a crushing GOP defeat that the Washington Post seemed genuinely puzzled that this belief isn’t shared by the White House:

Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove.
…

The question is whether this is a case of justified confidence — based on Bush’s and Rove’s electoral record and knowledge of the money, technology and other assets at their command — or of self-delusion. Even many Republicans suspect the latter. …

Today in The Corner, Rich Lowry quoted a White House bulletin that suggested viewing all the recent polling data with skepticism (emphasis in The Corner):

A spate of recent polls paints a very gloomy electoral outlook for GOP candidates in next month’s elections. One reason for that, possibly, is a set of samples in recent polls that do not mirror the historical norm for party ID. A memo circulating among Republicans on the Hill, authored by GOP pollster David Winston, takes a look at the historical spread between Democrats and Republicans in House elections and polling over the last 14 years. According to Winston’s analysis, there is a material discrepancy between the party identification listed by people in exit polls (people who actually voted) between 1992 and 2004, and those used over the last few weeks.

Since 1992, the party ID differentials have ranged from +4% Democratic (1998) to +2% Republican (2002). Winston looked at the October polling samples from 8 different polling organizations. The smallest party ID differential was +5% Democratic by CBS/NYT. CNN didn’t provide party ID data. The other six ranged from +7% Democratic (Pew) to +11% Democratic (Newsweek).

Can you say "wishful thinking"? Or "attempting to create a self-fulfilling prophecy"? I wouldn’t bet against Karl Rove just yet.

My take? Glenn and other critics are absolutely correct regarding the failings, betrayals, malfeasance, and incompetence of far too many congressional Republicans. They richly deserve to be punished. But Rush is right when he says that they may deserve to lose, but we don’t deserve the higher taxes, slowing economy, increased federal spending, decreased national security, and other consequences that are sure to follow if Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker of the House and Charles Rangel chairs the Ways and Means Committee.

Voters who are pro-free-market, limited-government conservatives or libertarians should exercise some discretion. If you’re looking at a House or Senate race that’s got an absolute shoe-in incumbent of either major party (and that’s most districts), by all means use your vote in a way that sends the best message — vote Libertarian, Constitution, write-in, or not at all (don’t add to a big-government liberal’s vote total for any reason — that sends entirely the wrong message).

But if you’re in a competitive district or state, don’t just blindly punish a less-than-ideal Republican or tell yourself that this particular Democrat’s pretty moderate, doesn’t support tax increases, etc. — helping to elect that Democrat, no matter how decent and harmless, helps to put Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and friends back in control. What do you suppose the consequences will be for taxes, spending, regulation, national security, judgeships, … ?
 

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Reports of my death exaggerated

Posted by Richard on October 14, 2006

Hi, there! Miss me? Sorry about the long absence (I can’t believe it’s been almost two weeks). I’ve been working toward a big deadline, and although I wasn’t really working killer hours (I don’t do that anymore — for one thing, my back won’t let me), I consistently found myself too mentally tired — or distracted — or lazy — or something — to sit down and blog. I finished up a couple of days ago, and have pretty much avoided the computer since.

I haven’t even been reading much or keeping up with world events during the last couple of weeks. I’ve been tossing most my newspapers in the recycle bin unread, and I’ve only glanced at a few blogs from time to time. Oh, I caught the news highlights, but I missed a lot of the details and follow-up stories.

For instance, I remember some Democrats suggesting that a gay man shouldn’t be permitted anywhere near a bunch of teenage boys. But somehow I missed the coverage of gay rights demonstrators demanding that those homophobes apologize. And did the Boy Scouts of America ever issue a statement of support for the Democrats’ position?

I heard a brief mention of Sen. Harry Reid’s illegal real estate dealings, but I never did hear details of the investigation that I’m sure was launched by the non-partisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). And I missed the stories about legislators calling on Reid to resign.

And then there was that North Korean nuclear test. I heard how Japan immediately imposed a strict trade embargo. Surely, France denounced Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s unilateralism and failure to work with the international community, right? And John Kerry must have held a press conference to declare that if he were the Japanese P.M., he’d have deferred to the United Nations.

It’s really a shame that I missed such important stories. Why, by only hearing part of the news like that, I could easily get the impression that fairness, balance, and impartiality are sorely lacking nowadays.
 

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Paper ballots

Posted by Richard on September 25, 2006

Bizzyblog noted that concern about electronic voting machines cuts across party lines, citing Maryland as the latest example:

The state’s governor and paper-ballot advocate is Republican Bob Ehrlich; the people who want to stick with the troubled e-voting systems, which had significant problems (link is to one blogger’s detailed in-person observations; HT Techdirt) in Maryland’s most recent primary, are Democrats.

Those who believe e-voting can still be used and trusted have to pretend that the Princeton IT study, which demonstrated that an easily installed virus can alter vote totals without being detected, and e-voting vendor Diebold’s incredibly weak response to it don’t exist. Oh, and besides that, you can get into the voting machine with a hotel mini-bar key.

This ought to disabuse anyone that the credibility and integrity, or lack thereof, of e-voting is a partisan issue, but it probably won’t.

Here in Colorado, a judge just ruled that the e-voting machines have serious security flaws, but we’re stuck with them anyway:

A Denver district judge ruled Friday that the secretary of state did an "abysmal" job of security testing on new computerized voting machines, but it’s too late to bar them from the Nov. 7 election.

Unable to be certain the machines’ software is safe from tampering that could distort the vote, Judge Lawrence Manzanares ordered the state to immediately devise detailed rules for counties to ensure that no one can get to the machines to reprogram them.

Plaintiffs showed malicious software could be installed with a screwdriver and a flash drive in as little as one minute on some machines, Manzanares noted.

He said the widely used voting machines, where voters cast ballots on a computer screen, "are certainly not perfect or immune from tampering." But he ruled that barring them roughly six weeks before the election, and four weeks before early voting, "could create more problems than it would solve."

Legitimate concerns about e-voting have been overshadowed by the moonbat left conspiracy theories — researching the political donations and affiliations of Diebold executives, repeating absurd, baseless claims about Ohio being stolen, and so forth. It’s good to see that reasonably sane people of varied political persuasions are making reasonable arguments against e-voting.

In Colorado, both the Republican and Democratic candidates for Secretary of State suggested using absentee ballots — paper — for in-person as well as absentee voting (the Libertarians aren’t running anyone for that office, and I can’t be bothered looking up the other parties). I thought that was a great idea, and I don’t understand the judge’s contention that it’s "too late" — I’m sure the printers getting ready to print absentee ballots would be happy to increase the print runs, and there’s plenty of time to do so.

Here’s how to make elections much more fraud-resistant:

  • Stop this trend toward giant voting-centers. Decentralize voting back to many small neighborhood precincts, each with only a few hundred registered voters. If necessary to staff them with sufficient poll workers and observers, pay an attractive fee. And/or arm-twist the political parties.
  • Require each voter to present a valid picture ID or be vouched for by two neighbors (living within a block) as to the voter’s name and address. The neighbors must be there in person and must sign a statement (with penalties for lying) before witnesses. And the neighbors must have previously established their identities in one of the same two ways.
  • Record all votes on paper ballots.
  • Immediately upon poll closing, have the poll workers count the votes at the precinct, with representatives of all parties free to observe. If there are only a couple or three hundred, they should be done about as quickly — maybe more quickly — than with today’s system.

Elections are an excellent example of a process that could benefit from application of the KISS principle — "Keep it simple, stupid!" Low-tech is the way to go.
 

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Watch “The Path to 9/11”

Posted by Richard on September 11, 2006

I hope that, like me, you’re getting ready to watch (or record) ABC’s docudrama, "The Path to 9/11", tonight (8 Eastern, 7 Central/Mtn.) and tomorrow. Judging from what I’ve seen and heard about it, this is a powerful, riveting drama with outstanding production values and acting. In other words, it’s well worth watching regardless of the politics.

Contrary to the Clinton camp and their friends on the left, it doesn’t strike me as unfair or biased against his administration (and they’ve flat-out lied about the 9/11 Commission report contradicting major points of the film; Behind Enemy Lines and Texas Rainmaker have some examples). It’s a fictionalization, after all — not every word spoken by every person is taken from the historical record. But the overall impressions it gives, the broad points, are clearly in line with that record. The 9/11 Commission chair was the technical advisor, after all.

The portrait of the Bush administration (and Condi Rice in particular) is equally unflattering — it’s just that they failed to do enough for 9 [correction] 8 months, while the Clintonistas failed to do enough for 8 years. Let’s face it — no administration did enough until 9/12/01. There’s plenty of blame to go around, at least back to the Reagan administration. But "The Path to 9/11" also makes it clear who the real villains are — the terrorists.

Aside from its intrinsic value as entertainment and the understanding of how 9/11 came about that you’ll get, there’s another compelling reason for watching: to support ABC against the contemptible intimidation attempted by Democratic senators with their barely veiled threats.

TigerHawk has more about the left’s over-the-top efforts against "The Path to 9/11," and he thinks those efforts are backfiring. I hope so.

UPDATE: Wow. The first half was stunning. Simply stunning. Forget all the controversy and the last-minute edits (although if you’re interested, Hot Air has the "before" and "after" video for comparison). Yes, Clinton, Albright, and Berger look bad — but they’re really only bit players. Setting them aside and judging "The Path to 9/11" as a drama, I believe it’s a tremendous achievement.

The acting, writing, cinematography — everything about it is first-class. Some scenes were achingly beautiful, others difficult to watch. Throughout, there was a level of intensity, excitement, and urgency that made watching a somewhat draining experience. For instance, we all know nothing happened on New Year’s Eve 1999 — yet, the scenes leading up to and at the Times Square celebration were absolutely gripping. When the scene switched to a celebration where O’Neil said, "we dodged a bullet," I felt the tension released as if a weight had been removed from my chest.

I can’t say enough good things about this film, and you couldn’t pay me to miss the conclusion Monday night. As soon as it’s available on DVD, I’ll buy it (I hope the original "uncensored" version gets released on DVD, but I’ll buy it either way). If you didn’t watch it, I hope you recorded it (or maybe ABC will offer a download). If not, I’d still strongly recommend watching the second half. Strongly recommend.
 

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Boffo Barone

Posted by Richard on August 29, 2006

Michael Barone has been on a roll recently. First, in Thursday’s Lessons for Tuesday’s Victors (August 14), he connected the Democrats’ rejection of Sen. Lieberman with the revelation of the British Muslims’ airliner bombing plot:

Tuesday was a victory for the angry antiwar Left that set the tone in the Democrats’ 2003-04 presidential cycle and seems likely to set the tone again in 2007-08. Thursday was a reminder that there are, as George W. Bush has finally taken to calling them, Islamic fascist terrorists who want to kill us and destroy our way of life.

Thursday’s lesson was not one Tuesday’s victors wanted to learn. … Here’s the reaction of one of them, John Aravosis, to the red alert ordered here in response to the British arrests: "Do I sound as if I don’t believe this alert? Why, yes, that would be correct. I just don’t believe it. Read the article. They say the plot had an ‘Al Qaeda footprint.’ Ooh, are you scared yet?"

What we are looking at here is cognitive dissonance. The mindset of the Left blogosphere is that there’s no real terrorist threat out there. …

Barone went on to contrast the "sterner stuff" of Neville Chamberlain — who realized his errors, built up the British military, and strongly supported Churchill — with today’s left. He doubted that the latter would measure up to Chamberlain. I agree — comparing the MoveOn crowd with Chamberlain is unfair to Chamberlain.

On August 21, he followed up with a brilliant and (uncharacteristic of the soft-spoken, nerdish Barone) rather fiery denunciation of Our Covert Enemies:

Our covert enemies are harder to identify, for they live in large numbers within our midst. And in terms of intentions, they are not enemies in the sense that they consciously wish to destroy our society. On the contrary, they enjoy our freedoms and often call for their expansion. But they have also been working, over many years, to undermine faith in our society and confidence in its goodness. …

At the center of their thinking is a notion of moral relativism. No idea is morally superior to another. Hitler had his way, we have ours — who’s to say who is right? No ideas should be "privileged," especially those that have been the guiding forces in the development and improvement of Western civilization. … Rich white nations imposed their rule on benighted people of color around the world. For this sin of imperialism they must forever be regarded as morally stained and presumptively wrong. Our covert enemies go quickly from the notion that all societies are morally equal to the notion that all societies are morally equal except ours, which is worse.

In A GOP Terror Bump, his August 28 column, Barone looked back at the events of August and the consequences thereof and thought about what they meant:

When asked what would affect the future, the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously said: "Events, dear boy. Events." The event this month that I think has done most to shape opinion was the arrest in London on Aug. 9 of 23 Muslims suspected of plotting to blow up American airliners over the Atlantic.

The arrests were a reminder that there still are lots of people in the world — and quite possibly in this country, too — who are trying to kill as many of us as they can and to destroy our way of life. …

Barone noted that there were many other reminders this year — the films United 93 and World Trade Center, the upcoming 5th anniversary and all the commemorations and retrospectives associated with it. Then he looked at the trends in the polls and the recent positive developments in Iraq. The man who is arguably America’s most astute political analyst concluded:

Earlier this summer, I thought that voters had decided that the Republicans deserved to lose but were not sure that the Democrats deserved to win, and that they were going to wait, as they did in the 1980 presidential and the 1994 congressional elections, to see if the opposition was an acceptable alternative. Events seem to have made that a harder sell for Democrats. A change in the winds.

I hope he’s right. I, too, think that most Republicans deserve to lose. I’ll spare you the recitation of the ten thousand reasons why most Republicans deserve to lose. But then I think about today’s leadership of the Democratic Party in control of Congress, and I shudder.

Never mind that the Dems would make the drunken sailors of the GOP look like Reaganites — rolling back tax cuts, fixing the "underfunding" of scores of domestic programs, regulating up a storm. The scary thing is that most of them think like (or pander to those who think like) John Aravosis — they simply don’t believe that there’s a serious, global, deadly Islamofascist threat to the existence of Western Civilization. They reject the notion that we’re in a war for our survival, whether we want to be or not. They believe that we can be at peace if we simply choose to.

And because they believe that, returning them to power will get a lot more of us killed.
 

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Beinart skewers Democrats

Posted by Richard on July 28, 2006

In Friday’s Washington Post, liberal columnist and TNR editor Peter Beinart delivered a scathing critique of Democrats’ recent foreign policy moves:

After years of struggling to define their own approach to post-Sept. 11 foreign policy, Democrats seem finally to have hit on one. It’s called pandering. In those rare cases when George W. Bush shows genuine sensitivity to America’s allies and propounds a broader, more enlightened view of the national interest, Democrats will make him pay. It’s jingoism with a liberal face.

As a first example, Beinart cites the shameless denunciations — by Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and others — of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for failing to side with Israel against Hezbollah. Mind you, half the Democrats in the blogosphere were guilty of the same crime, along with most of those sophisticated and nuanced Europeans that the Democrats want us to emulate. Mind you, the same Democrats had criticized al-Maliki’s predecessor, Iyad Allawi, for being a Bush puppet.

Beinart noted that al-Maliki’s position on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict was not only unsurprising, but a good sign:

… Iraq is not only a majority-Arab country; it is a majority-Shiite Arab country. And in a democracy, leaders usually reflect public opinion. Maliki’s forthright disagreement with the United States was a sign of political strength, one the Bush administration wisely indulged.
…

How, exactly, publicly humiliating Maliki and making him look like an American and Israeli stooge would enhance his "leadership" was never explained in the missive. But of course Reid’s letter wasn’t really about strengthening the Iraqi government at all; that’s George W. Bush’s problem. It was about appearing more pro-Israel than the White House and thus pandering to Jewish voters.

As another example of Democrats abandoning their own beliefs to score political points, Beinart cited the Dubai Ports deal:

… The Bush administration, playing against type, argued that America’s long-term security required treating Arab countries with fairness and respect, especially countries, such as the UAE, that assist us in the struggle against jihadist terrorism. One might have thought that the Democrats, after spending years denouncing the Bush administration for alienating world opinion and thus leaving America isolated and weak, would find such logic compelling. But what they found more compelling was a political cheap shot — their very own Panama Canal moment — in which they proved they could be just as nativist as the GOP.

Beinart cited another example: the Democrats’ political posturing against al-Maliki’s attempt to negotiate with the Sunni insurgents, possibly including some kind of amnesty:

… Obviously the prospect was hard for Americans to stomach. But the larger context was equally obvious: Unless Maliki’s government gave local Sunni insurgents an incentive to lay down their arms and break with al-Qaeda-style jihadists, Iraq’s violence would never end. Democrats, however, rather than giving Maliki the freedom to carry out his extremely difficult and enormously important negotiations, made amnesty an issue in every congressional race they could, thus tying the prime minister’s hands. Once again, Democrats congratulated themselves for having gotten to President Bush’s right, unperturbed by the fact that they may have undermined the chances for Iraqi peace in the process.

Personally, I think Beinart is being too kind to his Democrat friends here. It’s not that they don’t care about harming Iraq’s peace prospects — I strongly suspect that they do care, that harming Iraq’s peace prospects is one of their goals! A peaceful, democratic Iraq is not at all in their interests. They desperately want the Bush doctrine to fail.

In any case, Beinart delivered the coup de grâce in his closing (emphasis added):

Privately, some Democrats, while admitting that they haven’t exactly been taking the high road, say they have no choice, that in a competition with Karl Rove, nice guys finish last. But even politically, that’s probably wrong. The Democratic Party’s single biggest foreign policy liability is not that Americans think Democrats are soft. It is that Americans think Democrats stand for nothing, that they have no principles beyond political expedience. And given the party’s behavior over the past several months, it is not hard to understand why.

Bravo, Peter!

(HT: Clarice Feldman in The American Thinker)
 

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Financial privacy: what would Kerry do?

Posted by Richard on June 28, 2006

Hugh Hewitt has been a bit, um, put out by the New York Times’ disclosure of terrorist finance tracking. Today, Hewitt pointed out that the Gray Lady had a different attitude in a September 2001 editorial (emphasis added):

The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also must be closer coordination among America’s law enforcement, national security and financial regulatory agencies.…If America is going to wage a new kind of war against terrorism, it must act on all fronts, including the financial one.

The contrast between what the Times said then and now triggered something in my on-again, off-again memory. After refreshing that memory a bit, I have a question for the New York Times and its supporters: Would this story have been pursued — and published despite administration pleas — during a Kerry administration?

You see, if history is any guide, a President John Effin’ Kerry would not only have authorized the same SWIFT program monitoring — he’d have pushed for much more aggressive and far-reaching monitoring than Bush authorized, and he’d have put far fewer privacy and civil liberties safeguards in place.

On Sept. 26, 2001, Kerry testified on money laundering and terrorism before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. An adaptation of that prepared statement appeared in a DLC publication a couple of months later. It began:

There can be no war on terrorism without declaring a war on money laundering. Only Osama bin Laden’s vast resources allow him and al-Qaida to pay the living expenses of sleeper terrorists for years on end and move them around the world. This global terrorist network has a financial ledger that more closely mirrors that of a Fortune 500 multinational corporation than that of an isolated fanatic.

To defeat this new kind of terrorist, we must cut off the money that supports him. The United States must lead an aggressive effort at home and around the world to eliminate the ways in which dirty money flows through the banking system to finance new criminal enterprises. 

A burning desire to destroy all vestiges of financial privacy has been one of the enduring traits of Kerry’s character for almost his entire political career. When the Patriot Act was originally debated, Kerry fought strenuously to strengthen government access to financial records and weaken financial privacy protections. John Berlau’s 2004 Reason article, John Kerry’s Dark Record on Civil Liberties, documented the Senator’s long-standing hostility toward encryption and privacy, and his enthusiasm for financial transaction monitoring and asset forfeiture. For instance:

Many on the left and right worried about overreach from the federal "Know Your Customer" regulations of 1997-98, which would have required banks to monitor every customer’s "normal and expected transactions." Those proposed rules were eventually withdrawn after the ACLU, the Libertarian Party, and other groups generated more than 100,000 comments in opposition. But from his writings and statements, John Kerry seemed worried that the regulations did not go far enough. …

Kerry then expressed his belief that bank customers are entitled to essentially zero privacy. "The technology is already available to monitor all electronic money transfers," he wrote (emphasis added). "We need the will to make sure it is put in place."

A 2004 Money Laundering Alert article, which detailed Kerry’s many years of anti-money-laundering advocacy, noted (emphasis added):

The Kerry Amendment to the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 (S. 3697) was “a good example fairly early on that showed what Kerry was willing to take on,” said Bruce Zagaris, a Washington, D.C. lawyer and publisher of International Enforcement Law Reporter. …

The amendment called for Treasury to negotiate information-sharing agreements with foreign countries covering money laundering cases and currency transactions over $10,000. …
…

Kerry introduced four more money laundering-related bills in 1989. They included legislative proposals to create a money laundering advisory commission, make U.S. currency traceable by electronic scanning, improve money laundering intelligence and revoke charters of banks involved in money laundering. …
…

“Senator Kerry has long taken the view that U.S. national security requires us to have the ability to trace funds on a global basis when someone has engaged in criminal or terrorist activity,” said Jonathan Winer, a former State Department enforcement official who was Kerry’s Senate counsel and legislative assistant.

Months before 9/11, Kerry sponsored the International Counter-Money Laundering and Foreign Corruption Act, which would have authorized Treasury to require financial institutions to file suspicious activity reports on transactions involving any person or jurisdiction deemed a primary money laundering concern. Financial institutions would have been required to identify the owner of any account opened or maintained by a foreign person.

The bill, which did not pass, was criticized for giving Treasury too much power. After 9/11, however, Kerry was a major player in getting these provisions incorporated into the USA Patriot Act...

Do you recall anyone in the Democratic Party denouncing Sen. Kerry’s lack of respect for civil liberties and financial privacy? Neither do I.

Do you think if Kerry were President today, Al Gore, Russ Feingold, Max Baucus, and various other politicians, talking heads, and media pundits would be calling him a criminal and suggesting censure or impeachment? Me neither.

Do you suspect that in a Kerry administration, we’d never even know about such intelligence operations because the liberal/leftist career employees in the State Department, CIA, NSA, etc., would keep their mouths shut instead of doing everything in their power to bring the administration down? Yeah, me too.
 

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