just trying to eat my waffles

November 23, 2004

Ra^ther Quits, Sort Of...

Dan Rather has finally succumbed to the inevitable, and the expected. He is stepping down from the CBS Evening News. i feel good about that, because i was one of the many voices urging CBS to fire him after he presented those forged memos in a transparent attempt to influence the presidential election. But i'm not patting myself on the back too hard. Rather's retirement was anticipated long before the scandal, and though his reputation is forever tarnished, he was not fired like he should have been.

Bill at INDC Journal has more:

Unfortunately, it only smells like victory, because ...
1. Rather's still working for 60 Minutes.
2. The findings of the independent investigation are overdue.
3. No action has been taken against Producer Mary Mapes or CBS News President Andrew Heyward. In contrast, the CBS News producer that dared to interrupt the final minutes of 'CSI' was canned within a few days. That says a great deal about their priorities.

If you're so inclined, i think its an excellent time to hit CBS with another round of e-mails calling for Mapes' and Heyward's
resignations.

As before, you can contact CBS News by clicking here.

Posted by: annika at 03:09 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 202 words, total size 2 kb.

November 22, 2004

All You Did Was Weaken A Country Today

i received another lovely comment from an anonymous troll the other day. Again, using the expletive-laden prose so typical of the frustrated left, i was urged to kill myself. That's the second time this month. This particular commenter was pissed that i hadn't yet posted about the so-called "marine shooting" incident.

The reason i haven't written about the incident until now was because i was still working out my own mixed emotions about what i saw on that video. Well, my emotions were mixed until this afternoon, that is. Now i just feel manipulated and angry. Here's why.

When i first saw the shooting video, i had not yet heard the story, so i watched it without having heard any spin from the right or left. i have to admit, when i heard the shot and the marine saying "he's dead now," i was appalled. My first gut reaction was that something was not right about the way things went down.

Since the time of my initial reaction, i've been able to put the event into its proper context. i understand how the marine was justified in shooting the terrorist under the rules of engagement. i understand that these enemy were not prisoners, and had not surrendered. i understand that marines are not cops. i understand that the act of feigning death is inherently threatening, and any marine who perceives such a threat must protect himself by killing it. But the words "he's dead now" continued to bother me. They sounded like something a sadistic Quentin Tarantino villain might say.

i had assumed that the marine who shot the terrorist was the same marine who said "he's dead now," but i was wrong. Since the day the story broke i've seen the video dissected many, many times on various TV networks, including "fair and balanced" Fox News, and not once have i heard anyone mention that the marine who shot the terrorist was not the same marine who said "he's dead now."

To me, that fact is critical to understanding what happened, and its omission from the news "coverage" of the shooting completely skewed my own perception of what happened. Strange that i learned this crucial piece of the story only by reading the embedded reporter's own website this afternoon. In his pathetic non-apology/explanation to the Marine Corps, Kevin Sites retells what he saw:

While I continue to tape, a Marine walks up to the other two bodies about fifteen feet away, but also lying against the same back wall.
Then I hear him say this about one of the men:
'He's fucking faking he's dead -- he's faking he's fucking dead.'
Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of his rifle in the direction of the wounded Iraqi. There are no sudden movements, no reaching or lunging.
However, the Marine could legitimately believe the man poses some kind of danger. Maybe he's going to cover him while another Marine searches for weapons.
Instead, he pulls the trigger. There is a small splatter against the back wall and the man's leg slumps down.
'Well he's dead now,' says another Marine in the background. [emphasis added]

iÂ’m pissed because iÂ’m at the mercy of the gatekeepers in the mainstream media yet again. They wanted to portray this marine, who deserves a medal by the way, as a modern version of KerryÂ’s Â“Winter Soldier,Â” ravaging the countryside in a manner reminiscent of Â“JinjissÂ” Khan. So they deliberately replayed the video without the proper context or explanation, in effect superimposing their anti-military and anti-American bias onto the objective facts in the most sneaky, despicable way.

My outrage doesnÂ’t end there. This punk, Kevin Sites, apparently wants the marines to not hate him for endangering their lives by providing the enemy with propaganda, which they will use to prolong their futile resistance. Make no mistake, Kevin Sites and his superiors have the blood of U.S. marines and soldiers on their hands. HereÂ’s how he tries to explain himself to the marines of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment with whom he had been embedded:

As you know, I'm not some war zone tourist with a camera who doesn't understand that ugly things happen in combat. I've spent most of the last five years covering global conflict. But I have never in my career been a 'gotcha' reporter -- hoping for people to commit wrongdoings so I can catch them at it.
This week I've even been shocked to see myself painted as some kind of anti-war activist.

Shocked, shocked I say . . .

It's time you to have the facts from me, in my own words, about what I saw -- without imposing on that Marine -- guilt or innocence or anything in between.

Then a few paragraphs later, Sites does exactly that. He imposes guilt on the marine, by way of this not-so-subtle sarcasm:

The Marine then abruptly turns away [After killing the insurgent] and strides away, right past the fifth wounded insurgent lying next to a column. He is very much alive and peering from his blanket. He is moving, even trying to talk. But for some reason, it seems he did not pose the same apparent Â‘dangerÂ’ as the other man -- though he may have been more capable of hiding a weapon or explosive beneath his blanket.

It seems reasonable to assume that a terrorist who looks like heÂ’s Â“faking heÂ’s deadÂ” is more threatening due to the element of subterfuge, than a terrorist who is only moving and trying to talk. At worst, this shooting was a justifiable mistake of combat - one which no American should lose sleep over. Even Sites admits to this reality of wartime:

No one, especially someone like me who has lived in a war zone with you, would deny that a solider [sic] or Marine could legitimately err on the side of caution under those circumstances. War is about killing your enemy before he kills you.

But SitesÂ’ justification for the videoÂ’s release conveniently ignores the harm he has done to our war effort, and to the safety of the Marines whose cameraderie he seems so afraid of losing.

We all knew it was a complicated story, and if not handled responsibly, could have the potential to further inflame the volatile region.

That is exactly what is happening. Two words: al Jazeera. And he knew the risk, too:

I knew NBC would be responsible with the footage. But there were complications. We were part of a video 'pool' in Falluja, and that obligated us to share all of our footage with other networks. I had no idea how our other 'pool' partners might use the footage. . . .
When NBC aired the story 48-hours later, we did so in a way that attempted to highlight every possible mitigating issue for that Marine's actions.

i disagree, see above.

We wanted viewers to have a very clear understanding of the circumstances surrounding the fighting on that frontline. Many of our colleagues were just as responsible. Other foreign networks made different decisions, and because of that, I have become the conflicted conduit who has brought this to the world. [emphasis added]

One thing that puzzles me is this, every time i see footage of our brave soldiers and marines in combat, thereÂ’s always a few shots of the dirty terrorists firing of their AKs. And the video is always shot from behind the terrorists, as if there are journalists who are embedded with the enemy. Who shoots that video? i assume itÂ’s al Jazeera photographers. Since al Jazeera is part of the Â“poolÂ” that shared the marine shooting video, no one could reasonably believe that foreign journalists who actively consort with the enemy would use the video in a neutral way. In fact, al Jazeera and the foreign press have used it to fuel anti-American hatred and embolden our enemies while we are engaged in defeating them. This will only lengthen the resistance, which can only lead to more American deaths.

Sites concludes his non-apology letter like this:

So here, ultimately, is how it all plays out: when the Iraqi man in the mosque posed a threat, he was your enemy; when he was subdued he was your responsibility; when he was killed in front of my eyes and my camera -- the story of his death became my responsibility.

And i am reminded of Jack NicholsonÂ’s final words from the movie A Few Good Men:

All you did was weaken a country today . . . That's all you did. You put people in danger. Sweet dreams, son.

Yeah, sleep well Sites.

More: Read Chris Roach's post about why this shooting was not a "war crime."

Still more context: Via Dean Esmay, this slideshow about "what really happened in Fallujah" should be required web viewing for everyone. John of Argghhh! has more commentary, here and especially here.

Posted by: annika at 09:56 PM | Comments (39) | Add Comment
Post contains 1477 words, total size 10 kb.

1 Annie: I hope the jerk somehow gets your post sent to him. Any way to include it in a letter to his editor? You'd think by now some of these press fools would better understand the meaning of the term "consequential behavior". This may be your best post yet; keep up the good work.

Posted by: shelly at November 23, 2004 01:54 AM (fLlQ8)

2 Funny, it was obvious to me that a different Marine said, "He's dead now." I was surprised anyone thought differently. I read quite a bit about the Pacific theater of WWII, and the Marines learned a lot of very tough lessons from the Imperial Japanese. The terrorist had plenty of chances to surrender before that Marine walked into that room in the mosque. Tough shit, terrorist. Oh, and why is no one bothering to point out that the terrorist's being in a mosque is evidence in and of itself of his war criminal status. I have ZERO sympathy for them.

Posted by: pedro at November 23, 2004 06:00 AM (/hHXD)

3 Our press laments and debates the shooting of a war criminal, as pedro points out, and yet when they continually cut the heads off of innocent people it gets just a blurb. This world, or at least the Main Stream Media, is just insane. No fucking perspective.

Posted by: Scof at November 23, 2004 07:10 AM (/pLgd)

4 I think it's unfair to judge. A free society is free because of the interaction of a number of different communities, each with a different emphasis. The miltiary protects from harm abroad. Journalists are supposed to pursue the truth. Priests and men of the cloth, to fight for God's transcendent truth. Lawyers, to fight for justice. If any of these groups were to simply submit to the community's demands at any given time in order to avoid popular rancor or to fulfill notions of "hopping on the winning team," than their more abiding ethical obligations to various abstract goods, then their interaction which produces a free society would be undermined. It's paradoxical, but each group must fulfill its particular professional mission as defined by a particular abstract good in order for our society to retain the qualities we want. Conservatives, I think, should oppose this notion that all are subordinate to the state and subordinate to its objectives, even in war. There are things more important than complete unity in the face of a particular, temporal objective. We know that we are all also citizens. That we have to make judgments. That we need relevant information to do so. I think we'll find that most people can handle these facts and judge the Marine fairly--other than the looney left. But the very problem you decry, the media's filtering and editing, is what you seem to demand of Sites, that he did not distribute this incindiary tape. I think he did the right thing as a journalist. I think we do not want to live in a world where journalists view their goals as anything other than telling us what they witness; i.e., it would ultimatley undermine the character and quality of our free society if journalists withheld things like this out of some notion of patriotic duty. I have some stuff on my blog about all this that I hope you take the time to check out. And I'm sorry some asshole told you to kill yourself Annika.

Posted by: Roach at November 23, 2004 08:49 AM (DHoAQ)

5 My first sentence above should read: I don't think it's fair to condemn Sites for doing his job as a journalist. Incidentally, I think it telling that the title of your post condemns another learned profession--law--for doing its duty, by commiting to individual justice, without taking into account a community-based or nationalist notion of individual duty.

Posted by: Roach at November 23, 2004 08:59 AM (DHoAQ)

6 "Letter from a Fallujah Marine" at the lower half of this link's page.......... http://www.zachtei.nl/2004/11/21/000536.html#reacties

Posted by: reagan80 at November 23, 2004 09:04 AM (4lFex)

7 Fair points, Roach. But you left out of the equation the key element: "responsibility." In WWII the press self censored because they had a sense of responsibility to the society of which they were a part. And the sky did not fall. Today's press has rejected the values of the society which gives them their freedom. And their coverage can't help but undermine that society. Our system of democracy assumes that people will act responsibly. It can't work otherwise. In law, you see the same thing. The days are gone when Clarence Darrow would accept Leopold and Loeb as clients, yet refuse to enter a plea of insanity because he knew they were guilty. Now we have Garregos and Cochran, who use every lie they can think of to get their clients off. And we call them good lawyers, instead of what they are, corrupt liars with no sense of responsibility to the society in which they live.

Posted by: annika at November 23, 2004 09:46 AM (zAOEU)

8 A lawyer's chief duty is to his client. If that duty were to be corrupted by some notion of community responsibility, I don't see how you could ever have competent defense counsel for criminal defendants. That said, lawyers cannot and should not commit frauds on the court or the public to support their client. Suborning perjury, for instance, is a crime. But to piece together the pieces of evidence in the way most favorable to one's client, that is exactly what a lawyer's duty is. Just like "separation of powers" and "market competition" this commitment to some subpart of the social good, when interacting with the other pieces of the puzzle, brings about our complete social good. It does not need some abstract responsibility to "justice" or "social good" to work. Indeed, it would be impaired thereby. I agree there's a time for self-censorship for journalists. And I don't know where that would be exactly. I guess here, knowing that the Arab media would have a field day, might have been one, but I'm not convinced. They'll always have a reason to hate us. And I think Americans should know what's going on out there, including the good the bad and the ugly.

Posted by: Roach at November 23, 2004 11:09 AM (DHoAQ)

9 The first question I would ask a journalist in this situation is 'Are you a journalist or an American first?'. Sadly I believe most would answer journlist. It goes back to the American flag lapel pins after 9/11 that some journalist would not wear for fear of showing bias. What? I do not understand that. Despite what Sikes has said, I can not let go of the feeling he felt he had big story and he could not wait to let it out. Never thinking of the consequences. Journalist and news agencies show restraint all the time. Juanita Broderick comes to mind. As well as how many stories have you seen of our soldiers passing out school supplys to Iraqi children? This instance in my opinion the journalist could have shown restraint and vetted the story in its complete context.

Posted by: Michael C at November 23, 2004 11:26 AM (yAKj9)

10 Annika, I agree with you assessment of the Marine incident. The video was put to the public without any context of the terrorist's tactics such as faking death or booby trapping bodies. This was an important omission and it help create the advocacy piece the "journalists" intended. I disagree with you assessment of Garregos but I think it applies to Cochran. The Peterson trial was a textbook example of how to conduct a criminal defense in a circumstantial case. Garregos did his job by forcing the prosecution to prove its' case. The most important thing in criminal law is the concept of zealous mutual advocacy. It keeps the system honest. I don not think Garregos knew for certain if Scott did it. (if he did, he certainly would be in volition of the Ca ethics code.) By proposing alternate theories of the case, Garregos forced the DA to prove him wrong. The system worked.

Posted by: lawguy at November 23, 2004 11:51 AM (YXTQ5)

11 Why are lawyers rarely sanctioned when they use intentional falsehoods to defend their clients? I'm reminded of a recent San Diego area case where, as part of a plea bargain negotiation, the defendant offered to lead authorities to the body of his victim. The plea bargain fell through, and the defendant's lawyers then presented a court case in which they argued that the defendant had not committed the crime. I can only assume the simplest explanation: At least some lawyers are able to skew the sanctioning system to innoculate themselves against whatever they might do in the future.

Posted by: gcotharn at November 23, 2004 01:29 PM (OxYc+)

12 btw: nice post. Kevin Sites: "Damn the morality. I'm advancing my career!" Both the Marine's actions and the media's actions make fascinating ethical studies. The Marine, bone-tired and in an ongoing fight for his and his comrade's lives, made a decisive ethical decision. I believe that Sites and his superiors, less tired and less life-threatened, never really addressed real ethical quandary inherent to their situation. They had that blinking red siren going off in the back of their heads the whole time: "Advance our careers! Advance our careers!" That loud blinking siren of ambition got in the way of their addressing the real issue. They grabbed for the best justification they could come up with, went with it, and released the video. Now Sites is pouting that the Marines don't like him anymore. Cry me a river "Ambition Boy." If you truly believe you are morally in the right, that will salve your wounded feelings.

Posted by: gcotharn at November 23, 2004 01:41 PM (OxYc+)

13 Gcotham raises an interesting issue. Basically lawyers do not testify in most caes. And they do not suborn perjury if they don't put their clients on the stand. They're hired guns; they drawn inferences and make arguments based on the facts presented in the trial. They're within their rights to draw inferences and make arguments that they know not to be actually true because they're not testifying; the jury must ultimately draw its own inferences and review the evidence. The prosecution has the burden of proof. Likewise, facts that come up in a settlement/plea discussion are inadmissible under the rules (otherwise, as you can imagine, such discussions would be very dangerous). This "advance their careers stuff" is getting old. Are priests advancing their careers when they maintain the confidedntiality of the confessional (or doctors or psychologists or lawyers)? As I tried to say above, the good of society depends on different groups in that society pursuing their own, more narrowly defined concept of duty that is, in individual cases, not entirely coextensive with society's at that given moment, even though in the long run that's how we want those people to behave, i.e., the doctor's duty to patient, the priest's duty to parishoner, the lawyer's duty to client, the journalist's duty to the story, etc.

Posted by: roach at November 23, 2004 02:56 PM (DHoAQ)

14 One interesting point you just made, Roach, and i don't know if it's intentional or just because it was a blog comment and therefore written on the fly. You cite: "the doctor's duty to patient, the priest's duty to parishoner, the lawyer's duty to client, the journalist's duty to the story, etc" Did you notice that in your examples the doctor, the lawyer and the priest all owe their duties to actual people, while the journalists owe their duty to an inanimate concept, "the story?" i forsee a lot of problems and potential for abuse when a group of people can justify irresponsible behavior by reliance on a duty to something inanimate that they themselves can define, i.e. "the story."

Posted by: annika at November 23, 2004 03:53 PM (zAOEU)

15 Annika and the crew, An awful lot of verbiage to explain justify or rationalize the wanton act of murder during battle. I have yet to read anyone disputing the supposed first impression of "faking dead" by the Marine. Do we know whether this guy was injured and unconscious, or sleeping, or something in between? I read that these IraqiÂ’s were left by another platoon the day before. They had engaged them, prevailed, wounded them and left them to die. They had surrendered, had been captured and were harmless starving, dehydrated human war detritus. Now we have three or four marines enter the room, looking around and they see four or five injured or dead Iraqi's. According to the logic posited by many that the "dead faker" posed some booby trap threat why not just shoot them all as you entered the room? Didn't they all pose a threat of some sort and should not the entire bunch been shot? Why single one out as an especially high risk: because he appeared to be dead? This is all an exercise in bullshit. Our soldiers, like the soldiers of all armies on the battle field, kill people who are not a threat or are innocent bystanders just because they want to. I am not surprised nor am I changing my opinion of our troops: most are professional, some are jerks, most are well trained some are not. This is an immoral war based on lies and deceptions and all that follows is to one degree or another immoral. This shooting is unfortunately neither surprising nor out of the ordinary. All this horse shit about a dog-tired Marine making snap Â“ethicalÂ” decision may make some feel better about murder but it has nothing to do with ethics. If the "dead faker" were booby trapped the marine who shot him would be dead. He was too close to avoid the explosion if the guy was rigged. If he was doing what all you war parsers say he was doing it badly. He was, in fact not doing it at all. He killed the guy because he wanted to. How many saw the video from a battle earlier this year shown on CNN of an Iraqi writhing in the street wounded, when a GI laughs, pumps two more rounds into him and his buddies let out a few whoops and they all laugh. He tells a reporter a minute later "These guys are dead now, ya know, that's a good feeling. LetÂ’s do it again." Your army, not mine. Rubes and rednecks with guns. How do we rationalize the Apache pilots from the first gulf war yakking to each other over the radio as they play a video game of "rocket into truck" They were hovering and shooting rockets into trucks filled with retreating Iraqi soldiers. That's murder too or if you do it with a weapon "system" is it just cowardice or a war crime? Let us stop the bullshit, war is ugly and destructive but most assuredly it announces that civilized, sophisticated men and women have lost their way and have regressed to a more primitive state of affairs. There are so many instances of soldiers in wartime loosing sight of the boundaries between their real mission, their anger, and their fear that I am amazed that this got any press at all. I can't know for sure what went through the mind of the soldier in this latest incident. It sounded to me like a guy with the juice of battle running through him, got pissed off that some Iraqi piece of shit might be trying to fool him and he was not going to let it pass. Just shoot the fucker. Booby traps, dog tired marine, snap judgments, all rationalizations, all the bulshit vomited up by a public and a command that simply can't sit back and enjoy the war they wished for

Posted by: mike at November 23, 2004 04:27 PM (0ZdtC)

16 Mike, I'll dignify your post with a response, though I probably shouldn't: "Murder" is the deliberate killing of a person when it is not committed in self-defense, or on behalf of a legitimate authority. Shooting trucks full of soldiers isn't murder. Shooting wounded soldiers who still have the means to resist, are conscious, and are not attempting to surrender isn't murder. Not all explosives blow up when you shoot them. You say "This shooting is unfortunately neither surprising nor out of the ordinary." How on earth would you know that? You're great with the generalities, but short on specifics to back them up.

Posted by: Eric Johnson at November 23, 2004 09:18 PM (84Org)

17 Roach, you said that the lawyer's "chief duty is to his client." I disagree -- his prior duty is to the law, and the court that administers it. You can't call yourself a lawyer unless you are admitted to the bar, and once you're admitted, you're an officer of the court. Only then can you have clients. If you mean the lawyer's immediate duty is to his client, then that's fine, but his highest loyalty must be to the law. Otherwise, you'd have lawyers doing all kinds of unethical crap to further their clients' interests. And we know lawyers would never do anything unethical, right?

Posted by: Eric Johnson at November 23, 2004 09:21 PM (84Org)

18 Mike walks with the gatekeepers. Eric is one of the keymasters.

Posted by: d-rod at November 23, 2004 11:38 PM (eUnAm)

19 In case anyone cares, I decided that Mr. Ambition could use a dose of how others see him, so I went to his site and got his email address. Talk about affected airs...he lists it as: kevin at kevinsites dot net (sic.) Give me a break...do ace embedded reporters not get computers with symbols and periods in them?

Posted by: shelly at November 24, 2004 01:32 AM (fLlQ8)

20 "Our soldiers, like the soldiers of all armies on the battle field, kill people who are not a threat or are innocent bystanders just because they want to." "Your army, not mine. Rubes and rednecks with guns." This perfectly epitomizes why I despise the Left. They'll disown their own country and fellow citizen soldiers in a heartbeat.

Posted by: reagan80 at November 24, 2004 07:27 AM (hlMFQ)

21 Here's another reason why I hate the Left.......... "It does not hurt that in current circumstances, the interests of Muslims coincide with the interests of the socialists in the war against crusaders." Bin Laden quote.........

Posted by: reagan80 at November 24, 2004 07:54 AM (hlMFQ)

22 Actually Shelly, not using the @ and . is a common way to prevent spam bots from getting your email address off a website. i do it like this: [at] [dot].

Posted by: annika at November 24, 2004 08:02 AM (BrLCm)

Posted by: Roach at November 24, 2004 08:28 AM (DHoAQ)

24 THAT is partly why spam has exploded into my email! Thanks! I'll be amending my blog email address forthwith. I always wondered why people listed their email addresses like that(but I didn't wonder enough to ever ask about it!). FYI: I use Yahoo email, and their spam blocker is wonderful. It lists all my spam emails in a spam file, and it makes a minimal number of mistakes.

Posted by: gcotharn at November 24, 2004 11:54 AM (OxYc+)

25 Annika - thanks for the link. I also discussed the Marine in this post: http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/003164.html I don't entirely agree with the demonizing of Sites, but there's plenty of room to argue there. I'm on the Marine's side, though that's a pretty gray area. I don't think Mike will like my analysis, however.

Posted by: John of Argghhh! at November 24, 2004 12:15 PM (AqZSF)

26 Eric, So you have told me shooting truck full of soldiers in retreat is not murder but you conveniently avoided another descriptive. What do you call it? I use the word murder to mean the wonton, needless termination of a human life. If it lets you sleep at night to shield yourself and your image of american soldiers by hiding behind the legal definition, more power to you. And "some explosives don't go off when you shoot them" is not too specific a statement my friend. Which kind of explosives did this guy not have strapped to his torso?

Posted by: mike at November 24, 2004 12:54 PM (0ZdtC)

27 Raygun, I am not "THE LEFT". Are you "THE RIGHT"? Or Just an American with many diverse opinions. Yours just happen to be indefensible bullshit laced with jingoistic dogma simmered over callow youth, but hey, we are both, when the covers touch our necks at night, just a couple of guys sharing our opinions. Seriously,Mr. Gun, I hope you have a nice thanksgiving dinner with your family.

Posted by: mike at November 24, 2004 03:24 PM (0ZdtC)

28 The whole issue of one's responsibilities as a "professional" vs one's responsibilities as a *human being* is one that needs a whole lot more explanation. My sense is that a lot of crimes have been justified on the basis of duty to one's profession. Certainly, Leni Riefenstahl felt her "art" justified her work on behalf of the Hitler regime, just as the German rocket scientists believed that their duty to "science" justified the same thing. In America, my sense is that the "gamesmanship" behavior that has been defined as acceptable for lawyers--taking money to pursue a case regardless of the moral merits of that case--has moved into the broader society. In law, this convention is beneficial, at least up to a certain point, because it is part of a structured adversary system. There are plenty of other contexts in which it is not beneficial.

Posted by: David Foster at November 24, 2004 09:09 PM (kGlsl)

29 just finished reading all this stuff....isnt america a great place to live. such serious discussions taking place and no one is dying for it. This country has many heroes and i will only say that humans that join a cause, and not one that makes them $225 an hour, to help others instead of enriching themselves is truly doing what is deserved of the title "hero". people who sit on the sidelines and critique what our military members are doing in a time of war are not ones that i would want protecting me or the freedoms of others. I even wonder if they have the capacity to think of others before themselves? Selfishness and hedonism, i find them to be a common belief among these people and sites like this can only cause them to get angrier at you (us) or cause them to rethink there reasons for living in a country that was built on sacrifices of others. Unless you have walked a mile in the shoes of a marine, soldier, sailor, or airmen then i challenge you to join the "all volunteer" military and see exactly what it is they do and think and sacrifice for.

Posted by: bucket at November 26, 2004 11:28 AM (A66gX)

30 Bucket, What are you saying? It is a little hard to tell. If I may attempt to suggest.... We have freedom of speech, OK. And can ramble ad nauseum on line with no repercussions, OK, but so can everybody in Europe, canada, scandinavia, Japan, India, and many other places. It is a bad thing to excercise our freedom of speech in a time of war? I think when people are dying because of what some people believe it is a GOOD time to try and discover the truth about what they believe. People who vocalize opinions different from the current administration would not do well defending freedom? That's just too stupid for words. If a person has not been in the military they should not have opinions or second guess what being a soldier is about? (Bush, Chainey, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rove, and the rest of this group save for Powell). And lastly, volunteers are the heros of the world. Not a bad sentiment, except if you think that includes our military which it does not; they are paid professionals.

Posted by: mike at November 26, 2004 12:26 PM (0ZdtC)

31 Yup, Mike. Certifiable Baby Killers, every one of 'em. Paid killers! Hell, I bet them American soldiers they eat dead, burnt babies for breakfast, every day! And not only, that, Mike. I'll bet they are Christers! Yep. Right out there from Jesusland! Worse yet, Evangelical Christers. They's the nastiest kind, Mike.

Posted by: Just Bill at November 28, 2004 08:03 PM (Leed1)

32 Oh Bill, You don't really mean that, do you? Or are you just being ironic and I missed it. Let me know for next itme, woodja?

Posted by: mike at November 29, 2004 01:30 PM (0ZdtC)

33 I used to think it was merely a joke that Scots musicians told, that the bagpipes are the only musical instrument ever banned as a weapon of war. Of course, the point is NOT that theyÂ’re scary--- The pipes were used to communicate tactical instructions for battlefield maneuvers, because the sound carried so well over the din of battle. And that was several hundreds of years before the wireless. In the context of the furor over a video that shows a U.S. Marine shooting a terrorist who had been trying to play dead in the immediate aftermath of a battle, I simply must respond to the idiocy of one journalist saying of a shooting he saw earlier in the battle for Fallujah. He described the target as an "innocent man simply talking on his cell phone on a rooftop." Excuse me, but this is a breathtaking example of EITHER obtuse innocence or bloody-minded perversity. An Iraqi standing on a rooftop in the midst of the battleground of Fallujah, speaking into a cellular phone, MUST BE PRESUMED TO BE COMMUNICATING TACTICAL INFORMATION TO ANOTHER ENEMY COMBATANT. How can a professional journalist who has spent more than ten minutes in a war zone POSSIBLY assume that any person using a cell phone would simply be making casual conversation? What the HELL would that person be discussing? Football scores? Performance of blue chip stocks in the Asian Markets? Or perhaps the relative charms of certain amiable slatterns who might be suddenly single, what with all the young studs being slaughtered of late? What pathetic excuses for thought must suffice to obtain a degree in journalism these days! Think back to Vietnam, when American personnel were routinely killed and maimed by bombs and grenades delivered by children and teenaged girls who seemed to our eyes to be far too young to be regarded as threats. Am I saying itÂ’s therefor okay to shoot any kid you see? Of course not. But in a city that has been a haven for terrorists for many months, where a substantial portion of the population can be assumed to be either terrorists or those who have aided and housed and fed and protected terrorists, it is reasonable to assume that anyone that cannot be identified as your own, must be hostile.

Posted by: David March, animator & fiddler at November 29, 2004 10:37 PM (RNEG0)

34 Mike- A few corrections. If you look up the word volunteer, the definition includes the following: " a person who freely enlists for (military) service" The key point is not being paid for service, but whether the decision to enter into paid service was made by the individual without force or coercion (i.e. a draft). The President served in the Air National Guard. The Secretary of Defense served in the Navy and retired from the Naval Reserves as a Captain. Having said that, there is the point of civilian control over the military. There is a law that prevents a military person from becoming Secretary of Defense for 10 years upon leaving service - and for good reason (the George Marshalls of the world aside). When you write, "They were hovering and shooting rockets into trucks filled with retreating Iraqi soldiers. That's murder too or if you do it with a weapon "system" is it just cowardice or a war crime." You must know that the retreating soldiers have the option to declare themselves non-combatants (white flag, stop carrying arms and surrender, etc.); otherwise, they are still legitimate combatants under the Geneva Convention and maybe engaged. The burden falls on both parties. Rubes and rednecks with guns - Well, if you would like to check the education, race, geographic representation and other demographic aspects of the members of the armed forces to support your claim, here is a site: http://www.dod.mil/prhome/poprep2002/contents/contents.htm

Posted by: Col Steve at November 30, 2004 02:20 PM (DmFF+)

35 Col Steve, As to the retreating Iraqi's in '91. It was night , there was nobody to surrender to, if they desired to do so, and they were murdered by a couple of rubes or rednecks driving helicopters having some fun. You militarists are such word play artists. If that is the pill you need to sleep through the stupor of your moral and ethical shortcomings, you might want to call a drug company and offer them the name-Semantac- The drug that let's you live in peace despite you moral deficit disorder. If our mission in 91 was to liberate the dictatorship known as Kuwait (but once a province of Iraq), but not to conquer Iraq, how do you justify blowing up truck loads of soldiers in Iraq? Oh wait, I think I know. These guys were headed to Bagdad to reconnect with their units, re-equip, get medical attention, food and then head back south to try and re-take Kuwait. Sorry, I didn't think of that. BTW, GW may have served out his time in the ANG, the jury is still out. none the less, calling him a military man is like you calling yourself a non-fiction writer and this Blog a collection of your edited works.

Posted by: mike at December 01, 2004 03:39 PM (0ZdtC)

36 Mike, You must have a pretty good view from your box seat looking over the arena of combat. Justice.. was a rocket and a chain gun that found those poor criminals in their trucks heading back to Baghdad after the r@pe of Kuwait when the Americans came. But for you, in your sad reality.....the Apache pilots were the monsters. Talk about needing some "Semantac." You need it in an IV drip. The Brits have an effective way of delivering it sans needle. You cut off the end of the IV tube so that the medicine flows freely. Then you insert the open ended tube into the rectum of the delusional patient. Lay the IV bag on the ground...and stomp it. Take two of those and post in the morning.

Posted by: FarArcher at December 01, 2004 06:15 PM (zsDi0)

37 Annika, I'm so sorry - I banned Mike after months of being extremely patient with his stupidity. Apologies that he has ended up here!

Posted by: Moxie at December 01, 2004 08:21 PM (tUFhb)

38 Oh Moxie! You lying Coulter clone! You banned me because you thought I insulted you. I suggested that you might be pleased that a certain left wing blogger could not muster the energy or maintain an erotic vision long enough to jerk off thinking about you. He claimed that your sick, reactionary politics and your MDD were too big a turnoff in spite of your good genes. I though you might take it as a compliment; Who knew you had such thin skin? Your ineffectual, knee-jerk RW retorts to my arguments had nothing to do with it. You, like most on the right (wrong) have real trouble with ethics and morals. i.e. Tom DeBug can now be in leadership even though the RW was quick to pass a bill banning those under indictment, but now that limp dick Bug man is going to be criminally charged with conspiring to undermine democracy in Texass, they vote the "high minded" bill out of existence. The same mentality that thought a Bill Clinton denial of a blow job was a good pretext to "get him" out of office. Sick f-cking hypocrites every one of them. In your world, Shooting retreating soldiers is warfare, shooting a man "playing dead" is good soldiering, turning a country to rubble to set it free is spreading freedom, and labeling everyone who fights to expel an invader a "terrorist", it is all wearing thin. Moxie, you are just another pathetic piece of deluded RW road kill lying, squashed and unawares on the hot macadam of an Iraqi highway. Mox, I think if W unzipped in the hallway to the Oval Office, you would be falling to you knees faster than you could say Mustafa Robinson.

Posted by: mike at December 02, 2004 11:47 AM (0ZdtC)

39 When is Annika going to finally give Mike the McClelland treatment? I can't understand his posts. They need to be "translated". *wink*wink*

Posted by: reagan80 at December 02, 2004 02:41 PM (hlMFQ)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

November 12, 2004

WTF?

What the fuck?

unflag

They just don't get it.

Posted by: annika at 08:52 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 10 words, total size 1 kb.

November 11, 2004

Letter From A Commander

A few weeks ago, CBFTW of My War posted an email from his Battalion Commander in Iraq. You can read the whole thing here, but i wanted to excerpt the following passage because i think it's appropriate on this day, as we remember the sacrifice of our nation's veterans.

The will to be free comes at a heavy price. For some it is more than they can bear. Divorce, estrangement, financial burdens, health problems, depression, and even suicide are very real costs. Sacrifice is rarely recognized for what it truly is because the price of recognition is guilt. Parades, giving medals, issuing promotions,and rousing speeches are simply the thin veneer that masks the desperate need of those who are kept free by our endeavors for absolution from this guilt. Adam Duritz wrote in the song Mrs. Potter's Lullaby that 'the price of a memory is the memory of the sorrow it brings.'
I submit that it is our love of freedom, the embrace of our wives or sweethearts, the love of our children or family, and the earned respect ofour brothers in arms that cast the walls that make the will to endure a fortress that can never be taken. I will be proud to stand the watch until my time is at an end, but soon you will mount the ramparts and stand the watch alone. In closing, I leave you with the words of Marcus Aurelius 'Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness.'

Somber, but it does make you think.

Posted by: annika at 01:57 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 277 words, total size 2 kb.

November 10, 2004

Arafat Is Dead

After hanging on, Rasputin-like, for fucking ever, chief Palestinian scumbag Yasser Arafat finally kicked the bucket, according to Fox News. It's not on Drudge yet, but there's a banner on the Fox site.

Update: Reuters now confirms the good news.

Posted by: annika at 07:00 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 46 words, total size 1 kb.

November 08, 2004

Slouching Toward Theocracy?

You know i think the liberal mass hysteria about the "evangelical vote" is totally overblown. But then i'm a churchgoing Catholic, so that makes my opinion suspect to secularist ears.

But celebrity blogger Michele Catalano, an atheist, is not convinced either.

I do believe the Democrats have just switched one brand of Kool-Aid for another. Their new drink is Jesusland flavored and they are swallowing it by the gallon.
If you read them correctly - and I'm not just talking about the fringe elements here, but your everyday journalists, talking heads, bloggers and Democrat on the street - the Christians are coming and they are going to burn crosses on your door and kidnap your heathen babies.
Oh, sure, I've said that I don't want to see this administration move towards the religious right. The difference between the Kool-Aid drinkers and myself is that they truly believe this is going to happen while I don't.
. . .
The Democrats seem to think that two things lost them the election: Christians and idiots.
. . .
Funny how those of us who voted for Nader or Gore last time around are now considered too stupid to breathe. What a difference four years makes. And I wonder if the Dems aren't being willfully ignorant in glossing over the other mitigating factors in their loss, the most blatant being that John Kerry was just not electable material. No one is talking about swing voters, the war on terror voters, security moms, first time voters. All we are hearing is how the moral majority sunk their claws into the too stupid to think for themselves hicks and brainwashed them into voting for a religious mandate that would sweep the nation and force us all to kneel down on Sunday and praise Jesus.
[links omitted]

i'm afraid that this new anti-religious hysteria is only beginning. It's been festering for a long time, but now, look out. Kerry's loss has given the haters a new excuse to hate.

Update: Celebrity blogger Moxie is another atheist who is not buying the "Jesusland" myth.

Posted by: annika at 11:06 AM | Comments (26) | Add Comment
Post contains 350 words, total size 2 kb.

1 I can't wait for the Democrats to make a law that requires you to pass a litmus test in order to vote.

Posted by: reagan80 at November 08, 2004 11:34 AM (BmbA2)

2 I don't know how you can say that, Annika. We all know the left is entirely peaceful, compassionate, pluralistic and committed to the democratic principle. Unless, y'know, like, the idiots win.

Posted by: Matt at November 08, 2004 11:38 AM (SIlfx)

3 Annika, I do not suscribe to the evangelical theory of the loss. It was a componant but one of many. I do however suscribe the belief that your fearless leader is a religious freak who is intent on breaching the establishment clause and actively promoting a christian agenda. Read on........... President Bush has announced his plan to select Dr. W. David Hager to head up the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. The committee has not met for more than two years, during which time its charter lapsed. As a result, the Bush Administration is tasked with filling all eleven positions with new members. This position does not require Congressional approval. The FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee makes crucial decisions on matters relating to drugs used in the practice of obstetrics, gynecology and related specialties, including hormone therapy, contraception, treatment for infertility, and medical alternatives to surgical procedures for sterilization and pregnancy termination. Dr. Hager, the author of "As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now." The book blends biblical accounts of Christ healing Women with case studies from Hager's practice. His views of reproductive health care are far outside the mainstream for productive technology. Dr. Hager is a practicing OB/GYN who describes himself as "pro-life" and refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women. In the book Dr. Hager wrote with his wife, entitled "Stress and the Woman's Body," he suggests that women who suffer from premenstrual syndrome should seek help from reading the bible and praying. As an editor and contributing author of "The Reproduction Revolution: A Christian Appraisal"...........

Posted by: mike at November 08, 2004 02:25 PM (0ZdtC)

4 They don't need a reason to hate. Losing is reason enough. You'd think by now they'd be getting used to it. Watch for lots more long term Democratic Congressmen and Senators decide not to run again; maybe even a few more ready to switch to get back a gavel. My prediction was that if Bush beat Kerry, the Democratic Party would become the permanent minority for the long duration. I feel stronger about it today than I did when I predicted it. Their latest ploy just doesn't track. If they really believe that drivel, it is worse for them than I thought.

Posted by: shelly at November 08, 2004 05:28 PM (fLlQ8)

5 The assault of the leftists on a public expression of religion is what did them in -- if this whole "moral values" motivation is to be believed (which I'm not convinced it is). Their problem is that they increasingly sound more like Judeo-Christian-banning communists than freedom-of-religion-loving Americans. They're afraid of Faith itself simply because it is personal, and supposes an authority bigger than the State. That might seem to be a bit over-reaching at first, but think about it: The biggest obstical to Government is a faith that God is superior to it. I'm an athiest, btw. But, if given the choice, I'd rather be ruled by devout Christians than by devout Communists. My history books taught me at least that much.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at November 08, 2004 08:13 PM (prOsX)

6 Let's see: We're too stupid to engage in meaningful debate, and what we believe is totally without merit anyway, and they're smarter than we are, so they need to pretend to believe what we believe so we'll vote for them. Yes, that'll work... I've got to be a racist xenophobe. (Please don't tell my wife I hate her because she's not like me or from here.) I'm only in it for me. (I made less and gave more than Al Gore. Blood Donor too but they give me cookies so that doesn't count.) I know, I'm stupid. (Maybe I didn't deserve to graduate with high honors. Those IQ tests - mean nothing.) I'm a vet. (Except I didn't go to Vietnam. I did however serve honorabley on active duty, in the Marines, during the war. My DI never gave me my get out of Vietnam free card - he must have forgotten.) I'm lazy. (After all, I should be on call all the time for my job and I don't deserve the money I make. I only work 50-60 hour weeks all the time, why shouldn't the Dems take my money and use it to buy votes?) Yeah, I guess the Dems deserve my vote, since I am obviously incapable of handling my own life. Better turn it over to Hillary next time.

Posted by: Mark at November 09, 2004 05:44 AM (oQofX)

7 Mark: You Da Man. Keep being stupid. You are stuck with the rest of us 59 million who just don't know what's good for us.

Posted by: shelly at November 09, 2004 06:53 AM (fLlQ8)

8 Shelly, I think Mark is on our side.

Posted by: reagan80 at November 09, 2004 07:07 AM (hlMFQ)

9 Shelly, If you 59 million don't think the other 55.5 million know what's good for them, how much of a stretch is it to look at it the other way? I love Turning spoor's logic that goes from those who think religious ferver and belief might be getting to much play in the current administration to those people being communists. What an idiot. But he is on your side, right Shelly? BTW, Shelly, how would you feel about seeing the doctor I mentioned for a problem with your reproductive organs?

Posted by: mike at November 09, 2004 07:32 AM (0ZdtC)

10 Mike, It seems to be common wisdom on the left that the Establishment Clause was intended to prohibit individual members of government from making decisions informed by their religious beliefs. Leftists want the Establishment Clause to mean that morality based in religious belief cannot play any role whatsoever in legislators' decisions regarding what leglislation to propose or support, or in the decisions of members of the executive branch. This appears to be your interpretation of the Establishment Clause, a conclusion that I base on your seeming inability to distinguish between a "Christian agenda" and "Christianity." This view is quite simply wrong. As is always the case in the law, there line between permissible and impermissible conduct isn't especially clear in some cases, and there's much room for argument over specifics in many areas. But there is no First Amendment right to be entirely free from religion, as you seem to wish. I don't question your right to oppose government policies, executive or legislative, on the grounds that they reflect religious beliefs with which you don't agree. As a libertarian I'm generally skeptical of "morals" legislation (just as an example), even where my religious beliefs condemn the activities that the legislation would regulate or prohibit. But I at least realize that if I wish to see a more libertarian society it will -- and should -- require persuading people to my view on its merits, not forcing compliance down their throats by means of unelected judges issuing distorted, outcome-driven interpretations of the Constitution. You should try to accept that paradigm, because your reliance on the Establishment Clause is a largely misplaced appeal to authority. I'd note that it's also intensely anti-democratic, but I suspect that you're not necessarily a great fan of democracy.

Posted by: Matt at November 09, 2004 07:53 AM (SIlfx)

11 Amen.

Posted by: annika at November 09, 2004 09:24 AM (zAOEU)

12 Praise the Lord!

Posted by: d-rod at November 09, 2004 10:09 AM (CSRmO)

13 Matt, Your argument is specious. The establishment clause has NOTHING to do with individual members of the government making their decisions based on their individual beliefs but rather on the outcome of those decisions. As in a state legislature requiring students to engage in a school led prayer before class. I don't care how any individual legislator thinks except to the extent that the OUTCOME of that thinking violates the constitution. That is how the courts have ruled time and time again. I can not expect to live in a society that is free from religious thought and symbols, we all have the freedom to practice our religion. Why you find it so hard to understand the distinction between private and public is hard to fathom. No cross on a school facade, no tablet of the ten commandments in a courthouse or library, no mezzuahs on the door jamb to school rooms, pictures of shiva on the wall behind the teacher or Jesus on the cross, mary and the baby, etc. DO these restrictions bother you? Who is forcing what down anybodies throat? What are judges doing other than keeping the government out of the religion business? What about this appointment to this committe on reproductive medicine? Nobody has a problem with it? Is it anti-religion of me to suggest that faith healing is not in the best interest of the patient? Or that a patient deserves to be treated with all that is available? Matt, what about the court case today in Cobb county Georgia, where the ACLU is suing the school district to remove stickers from biology text books that warn against evolution as "Just a theory, not a fact" and should be "approached with an open mmind, blah, blah, blah....." Do you think this is the government (school board) acting because they believe this view on evolution or because a relegious lobby is applying pressure? So, Matt, is this a breach of the establishment clause? Oh, and please explain why my opposition is "intensely undemocratic" and why you suppose I am no "great fan of democracy" Oh, wait, I think I know. You believe that democracy means majority rules! Therfore the christian majority in this country should, because they would like it to be so, get a picture of Jesus on the cross in all courtrooms, or have people put a hand on the bible when sworn in to testify (you of course know that is only done on TV), or a patron tossed out of a ballpark if they sit in the seventh inning during the singing of god bless america.

Posted by: mike at November 09, 2004 12:09 PM (0ZdtC)

14 Just for the sake of accuracy, i must point out that they still do use the Bible for administering the oath in some states.

Posted by: annika at November 09, 2004 03:02 PM (zAOEU)

15 aNNIKA, And If you decline what do they do? How about the phrase "so help me god."? Are you sure they still do this? I have only been sworn in NY. BTW, did I tell you that I have family in Copenhagen?

Posted by: mike at November 09, 2004 04:00 PM (0ZdtC)

16 i know that a friend of mine did a deposition in North Carolina a few years ago and was surprised to see the court reporter pull out a Bible at the beginning of the depo. he didn't think anyone did that anymore either. So i know that at least NC still uses a Bible, unless theyve gotten rid of that in the last few years. i learned in my civ pro class that anyone can refuse to swear (as some people are religiously forbidden to swear any oath, on the bible or not. i think jehovahs witnesses fall into this category, but im not sure) if someone refuses to say "swear" they can say "affirm" instead and that works. So i'd imagine that in NC, if someone refuses to swear on the bible, they probably don't have to. i should ask my professor if he knows what they do.

Posted by: annika at November 09, 2004 04:54 PM (zAOEU)

17 So here is what I want to say on the absolutely crucial matter of secularism. Only one faction in American politics has found itself able to make excuses for the kind of religious fanaticism that immediately menaces us in the here and now. And that faction, I am sorry and furious to say, is the left. From the first day of the immolation of the World Trade Center, right down to the present moment, a gallery of pseudointellectuals has been willing to represent the worst face of Islam as the voice of the oppressed. How can these people bear to reread their own propaganda? Suicide murderers in PalestineÂ—disowned and denounced by the new leader of the PLOÂ—described as the victims of "despair." The forces of al-Qaida and the Taliban represented as misguided spokespeople for antiglobalization. The blood-maddened thugs in Iraq, who would rather bring down the roof on a suffering people than allow them to vote, pictured prettily as "insurgents" or even, by Michael Moore, as the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers... ...George Bush may subjectively be a Christian, but heÂ—and the U.S. armed forcesÂ—have objectively done more for secularism than the whole of the American agnostic community combined and doubled. The demolition of the Taliban, the huge damage inflicted on the al-Qaida network, and the confrontation with theocratic saboteurs in Iraq represent huge advances for the non-fundamentalist forces in many countries. The "antiwar" faction even recognizes this achievement, if only indirectly, by complaining about the way in which it has infuriated the Islamic religious extremists around the world. But does it accept the apparent corollaryÂ—that we should have been pursuing a policy to which the fanatics had no objection? Secularism is not just a smug attitude. It is a possible way of democratic and pluralistic life that only became thinkable after several wars and revolutions had ruthlessly smashed the hold of the clergy on the state. We are now in the middle of another such war and revolution, and the liberals have gone AWOL. --Christopher Hitchens

Posted by: Scof at November 09, 2004 07:48 PM (9lWXc)

18 Case closed, bitches.

Posted by: Scof at November 09, 2004 07:49 PM (9lWXc)

19 He Scof, Hitch is an idiot. His whole argument is full of shit. Bush is not subjectively a christian, he is objectively a christian, with a christian agenda and while the outcome of the ruination of iraq may be to return the country to a secular one, (remember Saddam's gov. was secular) it was hardly the goal. And to characterize all the Iraqi's that are opposing the invasion of US forces as theocratic saboteurs is wishfull thinking. There is a grass roots resistance to the invasion that is also fueled by, hello, nationalism. To show the effectiveness of the assult on Iraq by measuring how angry the other Moslem countries are, is also childish. They may be angry for multiple reasons not the least of which being the killing of tens of thousands of innocents moslems and their objection to the further spread of Empire America. Far more than Fanatic Islamic leaders are infuriated. The Takiban have not been demolished and the smashing of the al Quaida network is more Bush propaganda. Did you see how COndi could not answer the question as to how many had been smashed to define 75% claim they make. She said there could have been tens of al Quiada when we started or she said in the same beath 100's! Sounds fishy to me. Have the caught 7 oout of ten? 75 out of 100? They are liars who will say anything because the press so rarely follows up and pins them down. WHen they are pinned down they squeal about lack of fairness and bias. The case is closed only if you refuse to take your head out of your ass. Hitch has bought his own and Bush's bulshit by the bushel.

Posted by: mike at November 09, 2004 08:29 PM (0ZdtC)

20 GO TEAM AMERICA!!! http://tawp.ytmnd.com/ Anyway, I remember the columns Christopher Hitchins wrote the week Reagan died. He practically pissed on his grave, so Hitchins can lick my ass and choke on the hairballs. However, I will give the bastard credit for bashing Moore and these other fringe Leftist freaks. It's sad when Bush has to kill Islamist vermin overseas while trying to shake off the reactionary ankle biters over here..........

Posted by: reagan80 at November 09, 2004 09:01 PM (hlMFQ)

21 I love being called an idiot in the morning! Smells like victory! BTW, you can't have a freedom of... AND a freedom from.... They are exclusive ideas and tend to upset your stomach if you try to mix them.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at November 09, 2004 09:21 PM (G7cFo)

22 "Look to the cookie!"

Posted by: annika! at November 09, 2004 11:36 PM (3r8is)

23 Let us remember that the establishment clause and the free exercise clause has its philosophical roots in John Locke's "letter concerning toleration" In that he argued that the Government should never have control over religious organizations' dogma nor should religions have control over government policies. In a society ruled by INDIVIDUAL representatives, it is implausible that any religion would control government. It is the believes of the elected individuals, and thus their electors that control government. Also remember that when the constitution was passed, the 1st Amendment did NOT APPLY to STATE ACTION. It only applied to national legislation. So the founders had no problems with individual states, through elected individuals, enacting a state religion. Why is this important? because the founders believed that that the people defined the society they live in, and if they choose the have a state religion, thy will be done! Liberals have less faith in the people then they do in their own idealized theories, no matter how wrong they may be, or how far in the minority their beliefs may be held.

Posted by: lawguy at November 09, 2004 11:39 PM (1G2Gp)

24 Mike, There now! You've stopped muttering generalities about "breaching the establishment clause and actively promoting a christian agenda" and actually given a few examples from which we can try to deduce what the heck you're complaining about! Was that really so hard? To the extent that you distance yourself from the many leftists who do in fact believe that the Establishment Clause guarantees them freedom from religion, I applaud you for it, and retract my criticism -- of you. I also hope you'll share your (correct, for once) view with the many of your fellow travelers who seemingly are unable to grasp it. I believe firmly in enforcing the Establishment Clause, properly understood (and I tentatively think the Supremes' current jurisprudence comes pretty close to a proper understanding). What I object to are apparent efforts by anti-religious bigots in the ACLU and elsewhere to refashion it into a sword with which to suppress and marginalize religious beliefs. For the record, yes, I consider that intensely anti-democratic. On a related note, I apologize for having stereotyped you -- but, to be fair, you left me little choice, since your complaint consisted of vague generalities that gave little insight into what was really going on in your head. Furthermore, the type of hostility to religion that you display is strongly correlated, in my experience at least, with a preference for the freedom-from-religion interpretation of the Establishment Clause. I'd add that your outraged tone rings hollow, considering your own willingness to make quick assessments based on little information. (E.g., "nor do I believe I will change you into a person of good character and compassion. . . ") Now, your specifics. First, as you've proven here many times, one of your greatest weaknesses is your willingness to believe just about anything, as long as it's hostile to someone you perceive as conservative, religious or -- horror of horrors -- both. There's plenty of reason to doubt the basis of your complaints about Dr. Hager. Let me know when you've got something substantial and reasonably verifiable to complain about. Second, the Cobb County case. The disclaimer in question reads: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered." Oooh! Pretty radical! I'm not going to debate the evidence of macroevolution with you, because I've read a fair bit of it (and criticisms of it), and much of it very quickly outstrips my scientific education -- which isn't bad, by the way -- and, very probably, yours as well. But leaving that aside, macroevolution is a theory, properly speaking, because it has never been tested by the scientific method (observe, hypothesize, predict, experiment, repeat as necessary) and indeed cannot be. There certainly are arguments and evidence for it -- and against it. But that fact alone means that refusing to teach it as dogma is hardly a matter of religious indoctrination; it is good science. An Establishment Clause violation? Hardly! In fact, the push to have these innocuous -- and factually accurate -- disclaimers removed from the textbooks is far less respectful of the Establishment Clause than was the decision to place them. The former is mostly about suppressing religious views by promoting materialist dogma.

Posted by: Matt at November 10, 2004 12:36 AM (eWM9Y)

25 "They don't need a reason to hate. Losing is reason enough. You'd think by now they'd be getting used to it. My prediction was that if Bush beat Kerry, the Democratic Party would become the permanent minority for the long duration. I feel stronger about it today than I did when I predicted it. Their latest ploy just doesn't track. If they really believe that drivel, it is worse for them than I thought." Posted by: shelly on Nov. 8, 2004 Well here it is November 2005 and your a freakin' idiot Shelly. Seems the Ameriacn support for your all mighty "leader" G. W. Bush is almost completely disappeared. Last time I looked (This week 10.05 Gallop Poll) the administrations approval rating among Americans was 39% approval 61% disapproval rating. Gee, with numbers like these, and the fact that a lot of Republicans are distancing themselves from the Bush administration already (after only one year since re-election), I can't wait till November '06 when no doubt the tide will turn once again like it did for the Republicans in '92! Seems like the Republican party always screws up a good thing long before their time. I voted for Bush/Cheny in November '04, and now realize what a huge mistake it was .... what a total bunch of incompetent idiots these two really have been all along ... and how I was duped ... like mant Americans are coming to realize! It's like we are all starting to rise up out of our sleepy stupor, and realize what a national nightmare this administration has created in America over the past few years!

Posted by: Shelly at October 23, 2005 12:39 AM (76Ykc)

26 "They don't need a reason to hate. Losing is reason enough. You'd think by now they'd be getting used to it. My prediction was that if Bush beat Kerry, the Democratic Party would become the permanent minority for the long duration. I feel stronger about it today than I did when I predicted it. Their latest ploy just doesn't track. If they really believe that drivel, it is worse for them than I thought." Posted by: shelly on Nov. 8, 2004 Well here it is November 2005 and it appears you're a real prophet Shelly. Seems the Ameriacn support for the all mighty "leader" G. W. Bush. has almost completely disappeared. Last time I looked (This week 10.05 Gallop Poll) the administrations approval rating among Americans was 39% approval 61% disapproval rating. Gee, with numbers like these, and the fact that a lot of Republicans are distancing themselves from the Bush administration already (after only one year since re-election), I can't wait till November '06 when no doubt the tide will turn once again like it did for the Republicans in '92! Seems like the Republican party always screws up a good thing long before their time. I voted for Bush/Cheney in November '04, and now realize what a huge mistake it was .... what a total bunch of incompetent idiots these two really have been all along ... and how I was duped ... like most Americans are just coming to realize! It's like we are all starting to rise up out of our sleepy stupor, and realize what a national nightmare this administration has created in America over the past few years!

Posted by: Reply to Shelly The Prophet at October 23, 2005 12:46 AM (76Ykc)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

November 07, 2004

i Am Now Your Representative, Thank You

Yesterday, i got a favorable mention from across the Pacific at BigHominid's Hairy Chasms. His election wrap-up post contains some reasoned analysis, most of which i agree with, along with this very funny analogy on a non political subject:

Fuck fucking Blogger. I haven't had much trouble with Blogger, but every now and again it'll seize up at the wrong moment and ruin my day. It's a bit like humping a sheep and having your dick ripped off by a sudden, violent, ovine pelvic spasm. It's always a nuisance to have to stop what you're doing, dig around the sheep's ass, retrieve your dick, sew it back on, and then keep on humping. If anything, you're too pissed off to hump but you feel, bizarrely, that you owe your spectators their money's worth. So you reestablish your rhythm and pray the sheep doesn't rip your dick off a second time.
I'd written a long post earlier today, only to have it sucked into the cosmos's asshole by an 'internal server error,' followed by a personal message from Bill Gates that read, 'Yeah, baby! Whatcha' gonna do about it, huh? Huh? Huh?' What follows is a severely truncated version of what I wrote earlier, pieced together from anguished memory.

Ah yes. i remember the bad old days, when i was still on Glogger. Thanks to Pixy Misa, i haven't had to worry about anything but self-inflicted blog debacles, since i moved to mu.nu. Regarding the sheep analogy though, let me paraphrase a Bill Murray line from Stripes. Kevin, "there's something wrong with you! Something very, very wrong with you! Something seriously wrong with you!." lol.

Anyways, that wasn't the favorable mention i was talking about. Here it is:

It's simplistic to say merely that 'America is conservative,' as if that were the end of the story. What counts as 'conservative' is always in flux. Well over a century ago, everyone in white America knew it was scandalous for women to expose their ankles. Today, a midriff-exposing, thigh-baring little hottie like Annika represents the righties. Old mores crumble and tumble; change is part of life.

Yes! And as your representative, i will bare midriff and thigh so you don't have to!

i took Kevin's quote out of context though, which is unfair to his larger point, which i also agree with:

There's a huge debate going on right now about the extent to which this election was a referendum on 'morality.' I contend that it wasn't: it was, fundamentally, about the war.
. . .
I still maintain that Andrew Sullivan is on to something re: where the country is trending in terms of gay marriage. Conservatives have a point when they say that the present hysteria about impending theocracy is way over the top. But the right shouldn't be too dismissive of the gay lobby: it needs to get ready for what's coming in a few years. . . .
. . . But what the righties need to remember is that Sullivan is correct to see a huge demographic shift going on. . . .
[G]ay marriage will never become mainstream (which also means that gay marriage is no threat to hetero marriage). But tolerance and affirmation of a gay person's right to marry-- and to receive the legal benefits of marriage-- will become mainstream, probably sooner than many think. If the Dems were unable to see certain realities this time around, I submit that the GOP needs to reconcile itself to the inevitable as well, or risk future marginalization... though not for a few years yet, obviously.

i think the liberal media's focus on the "values" factor is merely an attempt to deflect people from the truth about this election. It was a referendum on the Iraq War and the War on Terror, and the side of pacifism and anti-Americanism lost. (Never mind the fact that their candidate was neither pacifist nor genuinely anti-American.) Instead of accepting the reality that they're out of touch, the media has been quick to point the finger at those evil evangelicals.

The truth is, though traditional "values" motivated a lot of Bush voters, the argument that "values" won the election ignores young conservatives like me. i recognize that gay marriage prohibition will likely die a natural death within my lifetime, and i'm more focused on the fact that there's a bunch of people out there who want to kill me. That, more than anything else, was why Bush got my vote.

Posted by: annika at 10:03 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
Post contains 756 words, total size 5 kb.

1 Don't forget that we also voted against becoming more like the model the decadent European social-ists want us be. BTW, you're blog's vocabulary filter is insane. I can't post social-ist because it thinks I'm posting cial-is.

Posted by: reagan80 at November 07, 2004 01:26 PM (hlMFQ)

2 Thanks for the favorable mention in return, Annika. I'd bare some midriff as well, but I have a feeling that no one wants to see a rolling, hairy gut. Kevin

Posted by: Kevin Kim at November 07, 2004 02:38 PM (vatZK)

3 I agree with you that the Dems are spinning the values meme to effectively hide their 60's and 70's antiwar/antiamerican/pacifism philosophy. I should know, I was a college student in the early to mid 70's. They don't get the crux of the matter. As you write, "i'm more focused on the fact that there's a bunch of people out there who want to kill me." As I told my friends, "National security and the war on terrorism trumps everything." Period.

Posted by: joe at November 07, 2004 02:59 PM (H50II)

4 Shhh! We don't want the libs to figure out that the 'values' trope is a crock, or they might sit down & do some serious soul searching on why they lose elections. We can't have that.

Posted by: jeff at November 07, 2004 03:35 PM (23Azh)

5 Kevin, My humblest apologies! I'm banking on the fact the Dem/libs never admit they're wrong, wouldn't you agree?

Posted by: joe at November 07, 2004 03:50 PM (H50II)

6 reagan80, Funny! I had the same problem over at Moxie's the other day! You can substitute "collectivist," though. Or just use some asterisks, as though "soci**ist" were an obscenity. Hey, come to think of it . . . ;-)

Posted by: Matt at November 07, 2004 04:42 PM (eWM9Y)

7 "It's a bit like humping a sheep and having your dick ripped off by a sudden, violent, ovine pelvic spasm". I hate when that happens. In this election when I though of morality. I thought of the character of the candidates. Bush's courage, discipline,and steadfastness won me over.

Posted by: Jake at November 07, 2004 05:01 PM (h4tU8)

8 Character counts.

Posted by: shelly at November 08, 2004 12:05 AM (fLlQ8)

9 I think modern "liberalism" is less about policies and ideas than about social class. Many people choose their political opinions on the same basis they buy clothing, furniture, and cars: to increase their perceived status. The rage at the Bush re-election is largely the rage of the self-defined superior class against those they consider to be inferiors and outsiders.

Posted by: David Foster at November 08, 2004 12:19 PM (XUtCY)

10 When the exit voters talked about morals and values, I don't think they were merely talking about sex and sexuality. I think morals and values determines how you feel about the WOT, and how you feel about economic policy, and judicial appointments. I think that big picture is what most voters meant by "morals and values".

Posted by: gcotharn at November 09, 2004 02:05 AM (6krEN)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

November 05, 2004

Who Was Really Responsible?

Two things are inevitable after a Democratic loss. One, the liberals will call the American people stupid. Two, they will call their own candidate inept. Newsweek hits hard on the latter point in this fascinating story, which manages to slam their candidate while simultaneously reinforcing the "evil Republican" stereotype with subtle editorializations.

Many voters, i'm sure, were swayed by the Swift Vet ads, but just as many thought that Vietnam was irrelevant. Kerry could not escape his own words, though. In my opinion, while the Swift Vets had their effect, nothing was more devastating to Kerry's chances than his infamous "87 billion" quote. The Newsweek piece reveals the key moment of the 2004 campaign, and its true heroes (or villains, depending on your point of view).

[W]hen Kerry addressed a veterans group in West Virginia, a heckler kept demanding to know why he had voted against more funding for the troops. In his considered but long-winded fashion, Kerry tried to explain that he had wanted to vote for the funding, but only if the Senate passed an amendment that would whittle down President Bush's earlier tax cut for the rich. Kerry voted for the amendment, but when it failed, he voted against the funding. The heckler pressed, and Kerry, losing patience, fell into senatorial procedural shorthand. 'I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,' he said.
At Bush-Cheney headquarters, Joe Kildae, a 25-year-old campaign intern who monitored the war room (and never seemed to sleep), was watching. In his cubicle he kept three televisions and a battery of TiVos and VCRs. As soon as he saw Kerry make his remark on Fox News, he stood up in his cubicle and caught the eye of his boss, Steve Schmidt. Schmidt had seen the clip, too. The two men nodded at each other. Kildae thought to himself: 'We're going to be seeing this a lot.' He immediately hit pause on his digital recorder, wound the clip back and copied it to tape. Using a program called TVEyes, he pulled up an instant rough transcript. He e-mailed the transcript of Kerry's 'flip-flopping' to an 'alert list' of top aides, who could then click on a link to see the video.
'You gotta see this,' Kildae told campaign communications adviser Terry Holt. 'Oh, my God,' Holt replied. 'You have to send that to me on my BlackBerry.' The video of Kerry's shooting himself in the foot flew around Bush-Cheney headquarters and, very soon, into the hungry ether beyond.
McKinnon and his ad team wasted no time. 'The second we saw it, we knew we had a new ad,' McKinnon later recalled. 'The greatest gifts in politics are the gifts the other side gives you.' It was so simple. All they had to do was drop the footage of Kerry saying 'I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it' into the ad that was already running, chastising Kerry for cutting funding. McKinnon called the new ad 'Troops-Fog.' Much of its airing was free: news shows picked up the clip of the 'flip-flop' and plastered it on screens like wallpaper.
It took a while for the Kerry campaign to even realize that its candidate had been badly wounded. Kerry himself realized he had made a mistake, but at his headquarters, most of the chatter was about the 'weird heckler' who had asked him the question. The Kerry campaign would later insist that the Bush campaign had spent millions that spring to smear its candidate without much effect, but in fact Kerry's 'negatives' climbed in some key swing states. Just as important, perhaps, he had missed an opportunity to define himself in a positive or memorable way. The Bush 'Troops-Fog' act blew enough fog to unsettle voters, to make them wonder about Kerry's consistency and the depth of his conviction.

From there, talk radio and the blogosphere picked up the ball and ran with it. But i wonder how much closer the election would have been if Kerry himself had not provided the Republicans with their greatest weapon in the campaign.

Kerry once remarked to an aide "I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot." Well, who's the idiot now, Senator?

Posted by: annika at 10:22 AM | Comments (35) | Add Comment
Post contains 712 words, total size 4 kb.

1 In your new poll, I wanted to say that Ronald Reagan was the reason Bush won, but I ended up voting for the Evangelical Christians. I don't think they voted for Bush in such overwhelming numbers in 2000 because he didn't effectively reach out to them, but ever since the partial-birth abortion ban and gay marriage amendment proposal they came out in droves to put him over the top. I originally wanted to say Reagan since his death reminded everyone that he pulled us through tough times. I think people started to notice the parallels between him and Bush.

Posted by: reagan80 at November 05, 2004 10:52 AM (hlMFQ)

2 Annika, I don't think the Kerry 87 b. situation made a bit of difference. I do see the harping on this point, however, as the Bush people recognizing thet the AMerican public is stupid and that they would not notice that Kerry had a legimate reason to vote against it the second time it came up, since amendments concerning the tax cut had been added. But telling Americans something subtle is laughable. Even though EVERYTHING the Swift Boat hacks said was proved wrong, Americans believed them because they don't read past the headlines. I was just listening to a few choice clips from the campaine. Dr Rice saying when pressed how many al quiada there were to help clarify the the 75% figure of al Quaida honchos prosecuited, waffeled and said there could be 10's or hundreds! What a deception the 75% number was. Some would call it a lie. Or Kerry plainly said he would NOT be bound by ANY country or world body when it came to committing American troops. It was not ambiguous. It did offer the idea that it would be nice if there were some international consenus but no veto. No veto. How many times did we hear Bush lie, and say that Kerry will submit to a veto from the UN or other countries before he "protects" America. That I call a lie. Bush won the election because no body cared that he was lying. They had a wish, as I have said many times, to see the world through this lens and the issues of "culture" i.e. baning gay marrige, abortion were of paramount concern. When Renquist got sick they freaked thinking about all those 5-4's that went their way. I heard a figure that 1/3 of all votes cast were by evangelical types. Could this be true? JK may have made many mistakes, but the biggest mistake he made was thinking the American public cared that Bush was a liar. they did not.

Posted by: mike at November 05, 2004 01:36 PM (0ZdtC)

3 "Kerry once remarked to an aide 'I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot.'" Hmmmm...wait a second. I think you may actually be thinking of Jon Lovitz's immortal SNL impersonation of Mike Dukakis during the 1988 debate, where of course Dana Carvey as Bush Sr. can only speak in clipped soundbites, e.g., "not gonna' do it; wouldn't be prudent at this juncture" and he responds, "I can't believe I'm losing to THIS GUY." Same difference, of course, although it still strikes me as strange that the overwhelming majority of voters on both sides on Tuesday would still never have known that Kerry was Dukakis's Lt. Governor for two years.

Posted by: Dave J at November 05, 2004 01:37 PM (GEMsk)

4 well if i am stupid, what does that make you. That line should really be used more by republicans

Posted by: cubicle at November 05, 2004 01:44 PM (nyNr0)

5 Annie, The right answer is missing from the "who'se most responsible for Kerry's defeat" portion of your poll. The right answer is, "John Kerry."

Posted by: Matt at November 05, 2004 01:48 PM (SIlfx)

6 Mike, That's it. Keep calling 51% of the American people stupid, artless, bigoted rubes. You'll definitely win in '08 that way! Has it ever entered your mind that maybe, just maybe, you missed something they didn't? I'm reminded of Cromwell's plea: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

Posted by: Matt at November 05, 2004 01:57 PM (SIlfx)

7 Matt, No I don't. Given the lies, waffling, deceptions, death and dying, artless speech, nasty rhetoric, willful character assassination, did I mention lies?, pandering to religious zombies, pandering to school yard bullies, that was tossed at the 51% who said "ya know, that guys on the right track", I do not think I was missing anything, to the contrary I saw it all, I do not doubt, not deep in my bowels or at the tip of my cerebrum, that this man is an evil force, and that America will require years if not decades to recover from the direction he taking us. The world policy, the christianization at home, all are contrary to the stated precepts of the founding documents of this nation.

Posted by: mike at November 05, 2004 03:16 PM (0ZdtC)

8 Want the REALLY BAD NEWS? LMAO, actually good news for us. The fucking Dems have held on by the skin of their teeth by stuffing ballot boxes in the major metro areas for 30 years. Computerized registration takes hold in a little over a year, and then, they're not going to be able steal votes the way they can now. Now all we need is a senesence test, and we'll have a twenty year run before the opportunists take over and totally corrupt the party. The bad news is that the end of the world is probably VERY near.

Posted by: Casca at November 05, 2004 03:47 PM (cdv3B)

9 Mike, Gee, until you got to the "religious zombies" part, I thought you were talking about the Dems. My bad. But that aside, why don't you quote those founding documents you refer to? I'd like to see the one that mentions Christianization. And the one that codifies an immutable "world policy," too. (Especially if, coincidentally, it happens to perfectly correspond to your own policy preferences. Wouldn't that be neat!)

Posted by: Matt at November 05, 2004 04:47 PM (eWM9Y)

10 Dave J, i got the "idiot" quote from the Newsweek article. But, i do vaguely remember the SNL skit you mentioned.

Posted by: annika! at November 05, 2004 06:12 PM (9KCu7)

11 Mike, even if the Swift boaters were debunked: 1) How in heck does a man get more medals than Audie Murphy in 4 months, including three Purple Hearts, with no serious injuries and apparently no combat action that lasted for more than a few minutes? Kerry never released the records to clear this up. 2) Why would 200 Viet vets lie about Kerry? Oh, he lied about them and called them all babykillers. NO WAY CAN THIS MAN EVER COMMAND AMERICAN TROOPS!!!

Posted by: markm at November 06, 2004 05:48 AM (YTjlW)

12 Actually, in the professional military culture, and amongst Naval Officers. This no good cocksucker was in the parlance, "All show and no go", and quite literally a bounder. The kind of guy looking for a woman to support him.

Posted by: Casca at November 06, 2004 07:17 AM (cdv3B)

13 I think I am about blogged out on this election. I have read every pundit's vision of who was responsible for winning, who for losing, and who benefits and who doesn't. I have finally reached a conclusion that is obvious enough. The buck stops with the candidate, and Kerry lost it for himself by listening to Shrum. Bob Schrum is yesterday's politics. His idea was to portray Kerry as the war hero, thus assuring the American People that he could easily be Commander-in-Chief of a wartime nation. He almost got away with it. Enter the Swiftvets. With $200,000 they got out a so-so ad, and got it on a few stations in a few small states where they could afford the rates. The mainstream press, thinking it was a floperoo and a joke, picked it up to ridicule it, but (don't you love the law of unintended consequences?) lo and behold, many of us took it seriously, and it caught the attention of the blog world. It got really big, really fast, and Shrum was asleep. They ignored it for days, and when they went to respond, it was just too late. They never recovered, and Kerry spent the rest of the campaign explaining...when you have to explain, you are already lost. So, big winner, The Swifties - Heroes twice over in my book; big loser, Shrum. It is time to retire him and and put him out to pasture with Cronkite, Rather and Brokaw. One more big loser, Hillary. The Democrats now know that they cannot win with a liberal Senator, and they must go to the South or Southwest to have a chance of taking back the White House in 2008. I think her chances just went down the drain. So, biggest winner of all - United States of America. God Bless America.

Posted by: shelly at November 06, 2004 08:26 AM (fLlQ8)

14 Shelly, God blesses no one or everyone. Take your pick. There is no middle. Thinking that it picks America only renders you fit for the asylum. That is why Bush is president; Americans live in a fantasy world, a world of a god looking down on them, a world where the deaths of 1125 soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians seem like an acceptable reality. Well it is not. Not if you cherish life, not if you cherish the unborn, not if have a wit of humanity, and not if you believe in god. Try reading this complete editorial; I included the first and last para. And don't come back at me with some stupid bullshit about not caring what the rest of the world thinks, or what does some faggot Limey know. Just try and remember that we comprise 3-5% of the world's population. What are the chances that we will stay the dominant power for 50 years? 25 years? "Yanks had the chance to show the world a better way this week; instead they made a thuggish cowboy ride off into the sunset bathed in glory.......................................... And in doing so it brought Armageddon that little bit closer and re-christened their beloved nation The Home of The Knave and the Land Of The Freak. God Help America." http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14832124&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=god-help-america-name_page.html

Posted by: mike at November 06, 2004 08:52 AM (0ZdtC)

15 Mike, personally, I'm going to discount that editorial not because it's written by "some faggot Limey" as you so eloquently put it, but because the Mirror is the house tabloid of the British left, i.e., people who would read the Guardian if only they were more literate. Its basic editorial stance tends to be roughly "America is the root of all evil." But then, I suppose I'm just an ignorant, moronic, evil Yank who would know nothing about such things except "them furriners is stoopid." Never mind that I worked for the Tories when I lived in London.

Posted by: Dave J at November 06, 2004 10:00 AM (GEMsk)

16 Dave J, David Brooks says it very well in today's NYT: "he same insularity that caused many liberals to lose touch with the rest of the country now causes them to simplify, misunderstand and condescend to the people who voted for Bush. If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are? "What we are seeing is a diverse but stable Republican coalition gradually eclipsing a diverse and stable Democratic coalition. Social issues are important, but they don't come close to telling the whole story. Some of the liberal reaction reminds me of a phrase I came across recently: The rage of the drowning man."

Posted by: Matt at November 06, 2004 10:17 AM (eWM9Y)

17 "What are the chances that we will stay the dominant power for 50 years? 25 years?" You seem to almost root for your own country's failure, Mike. i repeat my suggestion that you seriously consider emigration. "God blesses no one or everyone. Take your pick. There is no middle." Interesting theology. It's not supported by a reading of the Bible, but it's interesting. Anyways, you've already indicated your anti-christian bigotry in other comments, so i'm not surprised that you'd be unfamiliar with the Bible.

Posted by: annika! at November 06, 2004 10:26 AM (KD7Zf)

18 Hey DaveJ, Discount it all you like. Whatever that means. I guess it means that a "left" leaning journalist cannot possibly see clearly the state of our presidency? That's an easy dodge if ever I saw one.

Posted by: mike at November 06, 2004 10:42 AM (0ZdtC)

19 Annika, My bigotry is not limited to Christendom, it is just that Christians are enjoined to proselytize and hence make an easy target. I find organized religion an execration. The bible is similar to the I Ching or Tarot Cards; inasmuch as the bigoted, the pious, the needy, and the ignorant all find what they need to further their agenda's. All straw grasping and looking for answers in a book written 1000 years ago by men elaborating on events of 1000 years earlier. I think that there are better choices one can make to help them come to a clearer view of the reality they inhabit. As to wishing for the downfall of our empire I truly do not but I try to stay aware of the possibility and asses the policies of our government that may bring us closer faster. Rome also believed it was eternal and the darling of their gods. David Brooks, who I watch every night and as a reader of the dreaded NYT, I read what he writes, is a smirking ass. I find his assessments of what makes America tick troubling and shallow. He has also passed the acid test for me, in that he never once has been offended by the constant lying of Bush and his horde as they softened America for the invasion of Iraq. He would shrug, give his little twisted smirk and excuse the lies as the product of bad intelligence and how unfortunate that Condi or Colin had these bad reports shoved into their hands. "Well what is she supposed to know about aluminum?" He is an apologist and a fraud for thinking of himself a journalist.

Posted by: mike at November 06, 2004 11:56 AM (0ZdtC)

20 I liked the story in the Mirror this week; "Woman Gives Birth To Walrus With Elvis' Head".

Posted by: d-rod at November 06, 2004 05:55 PM (PbWsi)

21 Mike, I'm just curious: Why do you come here? What's in it for you? You're angry, bitter, condescending and -- probably worst of all -- conclusory, so no one's likely to be persuaded by you, and I think you realize it. You're either mocked or ignored, or both, by most if not all of Annika's readers. Surely you've noticed this. So what draws you here? Is it just that you need a place to vent your anger, and you either don't know anyone in the real world who doesn't think like you, or aren't willing to make them the targets of your rage? Or are you really trying to persuade people to your view, and just blithely unaware that your tactics make that unlikely? It doesn't seem possible that you come here just for exposure to different views, because you don't seem at all open to different views except inside a very narrow ideological range. Even if you are, I don't recall ever having seen a comment by you that indicated you'd found something worthwhile here. So I'd think you'd have written off this little corner of the blogosphere by now. But you keep coming back for more. Why?

Posted by: Matt at November 06, 2004 07:05 PM (eWM9Y)

22 I have to agree - the Lovitz line is classic. What a difference a few days makes. Just before the election, someone would gaze at Kerry all teary-eyed, thinking of him as the hope for the future and all that. Three days later, he's the jerk that broke the same person's heart. Politics is like a love affair.

Posted by: Ontario Emperor at November 06, 2004 11:19 PM (qz/ss)

23 Mike keeps coming back cuz liberals are sadists, anyone who is a progressive has to be. I suppose that's why I keep dating them... ha!

Posted by: Scof at November 07, 2004 12:14 AM (Oo2Oh)

24 Matt, I have learned a lot here. I am able to report back to liberal headquarters on my observations which find the positions you proffer to be enlightening and frightening. So, you see, I am not looking for affirmation nor do I believe I will change you into a person of good character and compassion. I am not offended by the cold shoulder or the school yard invective. It is all revealing and helps me in my quest to find out how 59 million Americans can be, as the headlines in other countries have put it, so dumb. You voted against your best interests because you wish to be safe or against those who would kill babies for reasons of vanity, or those who chose not to work so they may have babies and enrich themselves on the dole with your money, or those who think the ten commandments have nothing to offer modern civilization, or those who think the idea of an American hegemony is a blight on the land, or those who find the deaths of 100,000 to secure democracy in Iraq an Orwellian bargain, and on and on. I am deeply interested in the rationalizations each of you (sorry for the collective you) uses to suspend or constrict your view of reality in the pursuit of your yearnings for revenge and keeping a veil over you weakness. America's weakness. This is a great and wonderful country, bountiful and full of promise but it is not perfect and it has room to grow and mature into a state that can offer far more to the world and its own people. I hope for that and you probably do as well, we differ considerably on how that will be achieved and what it will look like when accomplished. If you wish to sit around with a bunch of people who share you vision and pat each other on the backs maybe you should go some where else. Out here in public, life is more complicated and diverse. Here is a story that I think illustrates why I participate. I went to see Silence of the Lambs when it opened in a Brooklyn theater with some friends. I noticed a couple with two small children in tow and went up to them and as nicely as I could ask if they new what the movie was about. They started synopsizing for me missing the irony of my question. I said in fact I did know and was wondering why, if they knew as well, had they taken small children to see it. The kids were 1 and 6 years old. The mom seemed nonplused and said the little one would sleep and the 6 year old would too. I left for my seat. After the picture I asked if the kids did sleep and was informed the little one had but the older one just put his hands in front of his face at the scary parts. I was angry and lectured her about child rearing and how this was a form of abuse far more affecting that hitting a child and basically what rotten people they were. (I could have done better no doubt) I was told to go back to Russia where people had no freedom whilst here in America we could do as we pleased so go fuck yourself. The point is that a seed was placed in her mind in spite of her angry dismissal. My goal was achieved. If she mentions the incident to a friend or her mother-in-law, etc. she may hear an opinion supporting my, correct (call me conclusive, its no sin) position and she may be able to hear from a friend or priest, or rabbi, the same thing I told her and her abuse will stop. It is tough sometimes to lose the defensive postures were have been clinging to our entire lives. I may not change your mind, but you do hear what I say as I do you. I was not being factious when I said I have learned things here. I think I am much older than you Matt and have lived though periods in American history that you have not, and I may have some perspective that is worthwhile, even though "liberal" which BTW was a dirty word when I was active in politics as an SDS member in the 60's. I hope you can tolerate another point of view, and if you think I have been condescending I apologize and will try, as I hope you will too, to keep the conversations tempered and cogent

Posted by: mike at November 07, 2004 11:11 AM (0ZdtC)

25 Mike I read the entire piece of drivel. All I could think of is that the author surely believes all the Kerry rhetoric to be true. Probably bought Michael Moore's junk non-documentary lock, stock and barrel besides. There is no accounting for people who are blinded by hate, what they say and what they do is not logical. And, there is only one way to deal with illogical people; you don't. Anyone who seriously believes that one vote in the U.N. would have changed if Kerry asked does not understand where France has gone; 29% Muslim says it all. They will never be our friend again; it wouldn't matter if you elected Kerry, Clinton or Mrs. Chirac President of the United States. God (with a capital "G" for those who believe), has indeed blessed the United States; after all, a person like you can assail our President with impunity. Not too many other countries have these kinds of liberties. We're doing what we can to extend the numbers. It is worth dying for.

Posted by: shelly at November 07, 2004 02:53 PM (fLlQ8)

26 Shelly, Why aren't you fighting then or at least providing support ? I think the people who send others off to war for causes they are sure are worth dying for should have to be nurses, doctors, engineers or truckdrivers in the war zone if they can't carry a rifle. Otherwise they should zip it. The Kerry rehetoric was not made up by JK. He simply talked about what he saw, and that is for the most part what I see as well, I did not need JK to show me Iraq is a disaster, or that the economy sucks, or that health care coverage has gone down as the debt has become the largest ever, or that OBL is still on the lose threating us, or that Bush can't deliver a complete thought without a script, or that ALL of the bush advisors and cabinet members lied throught their teeth to develop reasons to go to war, or that Iraq was no threat but an excellent location for the US to make its beachhead in the ME. The fact that you overlook these things seems to me to be an indication of simplemindedness. Shelly, if you stopped thinking that the only opposition to the president and his policies is based on mimicry you might hear what they are saying. Leave god out of it, leave your unfounded fear of "terrorists" outof it and start lookin at the facts and thinking about waht the death of one son or daughter means then 100,000. As for god having something to do with the freedoms I enjoy I like to see your source material.

Posted by: mike at November 07, 2004 04:16 PM (0ZdtC)

27 Mike, you do realize that the Lancet's 100,000 figure has been discredited, don't you? Also, theres no need to apologize for being condescending, you poor misguided ignorant man. i too am am deeply interested in the rationalizations silly people like you use to suspend or constrict your view of reality in the pursuit of your anti-tradition, anti-religion, anti-American agenda. ; )

Posted by: annika at November 07, 2004 09:06 PM (zbCQg)

28 Mike Let me get this straight. Since I have chosen a different path by not entering the military then I can not comment on it? By that reasoning neither can anyone on the left who has not served in the military. It just doesn't wash. Are you trying to suppress free speach? You gravely miss the point of why people say God Bless Amerca. It is for future blessings. Why does it bother you that a God you do not believe in would bless America?

Posted by: Michael C at November 08, 2004 07:35 AM (yAKj9)

29 Michael C- I can ask why a person who thinks America is in a life and death fight why they are not participating, if they feel the stakes are so high. I can ask that the assurity they feel in sending someone elses son/daughter off to war be backed up by a more serious committment than lip service. How you view that as a suppression of free speech is decidedly odd since only the government can interfere with your rights in that regard. Your employer can certainly limit your speech and tell you not to put political banners on the wall of your cubical, as can your neighborhood association, or your coop/condo board, or the college you attend if they receive no federal funding. It always bothers me when otherwise intelligent people participate in faith based ventures, like read the astrology column in the paper, buying lotto tickets, praying to god, getting their palm read, and generally think there are forces at work in the universe that effect their lives but are unknowable. The problem is not that they have these beliefs but that they act as if they are true, tell others to believe the same, and expect that there is a decernable effect. Annika, I did not hear any follow up on the Lancet article and if it was an over statement so be it. I really don't make a distinction in this matter between 5000, 15,000, 100,000. It is a tragic waste of human life, in support of a polcy woven from lies, deceit and in service of an unstated goal. My "agenda" as you so sinisterly put it, is in fact quite pro America, just not your idea of what America is or should be. Not unpatriotic, not seditious, not hoping for America's downfall. I think America can do much better than it is doing.

Posted by: mike at November 08, 2004 08:19 AM (0ZdtC)

30 Heh. [His] support for Ralph Nader helped lose Florida for Al Gore. This time, he boosted President Bush by outraging Middle America. Take a bow, Mike: you've done it again. Oops, wrong mike.

Posted by: d-rod at November 08, 2004 08:58 AM (CSRmO)

31 War is a necessary evil. How can I justify sending troops to fight for our freedom without going myself? Simply I can't go. I injured my right knee in seventh grade rendering me ineligible for duty. Thus many others are going in my stead. When is a war necessary to you Mike? Is there ever a time when you can justify it? What proof do you need? It is proven that Saddam Hussein harbored terrorists. Tenent 2 of the Bush doctrine. I feel sorry for you for not seeing the power of God or never feeling it yourself. I like how you right-off those of us who believe in a higher power as being intellectually inept for believing so. I act on my beliefs because they are true to me. Many on the right are evangelical but if you think that is the only reason the election turned out the way it did you are gravely mistaken. I never vote because of my religion, but I could never vote for a party that holds such contempt for me because of it.

Posted by: Michael C at November 08, 2004 11:17 AM (yAKj9)

32 Michael C. I don't believe the election turned on the evangelical vote, I have not said so, so please don't assume facts no in evidence. I don't "write-off" those that believe in god, but I do think it is a belief that is counter productive in many and neutral in others. I don't discriminate and think they can and should have all the rights granted to everyone in this country, I only wish they felt the same way. I know it is wrong to generalize but you would admit that it is religious belief that fuels the anti-gay marriage movement and the movement to strip women of their right to reproductive freedom. Here is a description of a recent Bush appointee: President Bush has announced his plan to select Dr. W. David Hager to head up the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. The committee has not met for more than two years, during which time its charter lapsed. As a result, the Bush Administration is tasked with filling all eleven positions with new members. This position does not require Congressional approval. The FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee makes crucial decisions on matters relating to drugs used in the practice of obstetrics, gynecology and related specialties, including hormone therapy, contraception, treatment for infertility, and medical alternatives to surgical procedures for sterilization and pregnancy termination. Dr. Hager, the author of "As Jesus Cared for Women: Restoring Women Then and Now." The book blends biblical accounts of Christ healing Women with case studies from Hager's practice. His views of reproductive health care are far outside the mainstream for productive technology. Dr. Hager is a practicing OB/GYN who describes himself as "pro-life" and refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women. In the book Dr. Hager wrote with his wife, entitled "Stress and the Woman's Body," he suggests that women who suffer from premenstrual syndrome should seek help from reading the bible and praying. As an editor and contributing author of "The Reproduction Revolution: A Christian Appraisal"........... Does this make you proud to be an American, a member of a secular country?

Posted by: mike at November 08, 2004 12:25 PM (0ZdtC)

33 What you call reproductive "freedom" i call murder. And religion did not lead me to that conclusion, logic did. i have always been a practicing Catholic, but i was not always pro-life. Actually i was strongly pro-choice at one time. What happened? i used my head, instead of blindly agreeing with the "feminist" orthodoxy. The more i thought about the issue, the more i realized that the pro-choice position simply does not make logical sense. And that's true whether one is religious or not.

Posted by: annika! at November 08, 2004 03:16 PM (zAOEU)

34 "The committee has not met for more than two years, during which time its charter lapsed." I would consider that another step toward the elimination of an unnecessary government bureaucracy and reduction of government waste of tax dollars.

Posted by: reagan80 at November 08, 2004 05:45 PM (K6DAi)

35 Mike, please do not stereotype the religious right. What you call discrimination by the religious right is actually your projection of discrimination upon them. Yes there are some far right wing religius fanatics that want their religion thrust upon others. I discount them as you do. But you are lunping all christians into that mold. You are discriminating against them by saying they should have no place in government. They are only expresiing their views like everyone else. We do not want to get into the habit of supressing free speech.

Posted by: Michael C at November 08, 2004 07:17 PM (beN4P)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

November 03, 2004

Haa-Ha!

Yes, i was right. Kiss my feet, because i was almost alone in my defiance of "the conventional wisdom." (Which i recognized as liberal spin and never wisdom.) My confidence in the American people never wavered. i also don't think it's wrong to gloat. Go ahead, lets all gloat. Feel free, we've earned it, and until the liberals graciously concede, why should we be gracious in victory?

Update: And don't get me started about the so-called "youth vote." Memo to MTV: We chose, you lose! Jonah Goldberg deserves to be quoted in full here:

Look I don't know what the final tally will be. But it's now clear that the youth vote just didn't show. The liberal blogosphere is grumpy and introspective about it. I love it for reasons I will be writing about for months to come. The cult of the youth voter remains, once again, the most absurd, bogus, childish, romantic and misguided joke of liberal American politics. Period.

i couldn't agree more.

Update 2: Kerry is scheduled to concede at 10:00 a.m. PST. i still wanna gloat though. How 'bout i gloat for as long as it took Gore to give in last time? Would that be so inappropriate?

Update 3: Vodkapundit has more on the Nelson Muntz meme. Maybe someone should start a Dick Cheney as Mr. Burns meme. "Eeexcelent."

Update 4: Sarah says "Let them eat cake!"

Update 5: Robbie at Urban:Grounds reveals the dirty little secret behind all that Blue State vs. Red State nonsense.

Posted by: annika at 07:37 AM | Comments (44) | Add Comment
Post contains 251 words, total size 2 kb.

1 The AP is reporting that Kerry has called President Bush and conceded. Can we still gloat for just a little longer?

Posted by: Robbie at November 03, 2004 08:40 AM (AAqv2)

2 I've been gloating since 2AM(Central). My best gloating posts are at Moxie's blog. There are many sore losers out there. I got banned from some forums by some pissed Left-wing admin. Mox has a damn troll spamming her site now with "Moxie blows & Bush sucks" over and over and over again. Oh, I am so happy that the UN, Europe, Hollywood, college faculty nationwide, and the damned Kerry-fawning media have failed miserably to manipulate the public's opinions of who they should vote for. I'm soaking all of this up like UV rays. Don't let it end.......Michael Moore's tears taste so sweet now.

Posted by: reagan80 at November 03, 2004 08:44 AM (hlMFQ)

3 If you want my tears, have them. Your side won on the issues and on turnout. It's a devastating election for us liberals -- the sort that leads to long periods of wandering in the wilderness. By the way, I learned today that the term for what you are doing, Annika, is "votenfreude". It's Andrew Sullivan's term for delighting less in your candidate's victory than in the disappointment of those whom you oppose. It's human, but unseemly. I have conceded graciously on my blog. We got whupped. The crushing votes on same-sex marriage across the USA devastate me. The one piece of good news from Cali was Boxer's huge margin and the passage of the children's hospital bond (61) and the tax on millionaires (63). Oh, and Salazar in Colorado was nice. And I had been worried about my pal Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. But that's grasping at straws today. You won. This lefty grants you your triumph.

Posted by: Hugo at November 03, 2004 09:42 AM (MipRl)

4 Oh, and Annika, I would love to kiss your feet. But my fiancee's toes are the only ones I let near my mouth. My grudging admiration shall suffice, I hope!

Posted by: Hugo at November 03, 2004 09:50 AM (MipRl)

5 Hugo, you're all class. :-)

Posted by: annika at November 03, 2004 10:01 AM (zAOEU)

6 No poetry yet. I now declare annika's comments hijacked to "Post a Racy Limerick" day: annika looks good in her shoes. It's not like that's really news. Boots, pumps, or flats, She won't crush your cats, And her tush will wipe away your blues! Hmmm. My other one is better, but it might get me put on annika's shit list.

Posted by: Victor at November 03, 2004 10:08 AM (L3qPK)

7 Thank God.

Posted by: Matt at November 03, 2004 10:34 AM (eWM9Y)

8 I'd gloat, but I'd lose my job. I haven't even said much in the office today and people are snappish. But I do so love the graphic for this post. If I had a Nelson shirt, I'd be wearing it right now.

Posted by: ken at November 03, 2004 11:35 AM (xD5ND)

9 You're a good sport, Hugo. You're a better man than me by taking this news so gracefully because if it were the other way around I would be bouncing off the walls and having chronic road rage for the next couple years......

Posted by: reagan80 at November 03, 2004 12:44 PM (hlMFQ)

10 There once was a rude boy named Victor, Who shook like the scale of Sir Richter. He spied a cute lass, And grabbed hold of her ass. If she took twenty bucks he'd have lick'd her. ;-)

Posted by: annika at November 03, 2004 01:11 PM (zAOEU)

11 There are a lot of class clowns in this room. Better call the professor to break it up.

Posted by: d-rod at November 03, 2004 02:19 PM (OJLwL)

12 Disgruntled, disappointed and sad I honor the fact you're all glad -- but this vulgar verse gets worse and worse and Annie, it's making me mad...

Posted by: Hugo at November 03, 2004 03:01 PM (MipRl)

13 Gloat if you wish, whatever, this election has once again given support for a few of my pet observations about American electoral politics and the American people. 1. The party that is willing to assume the lowest common denominator and then pander to it wins. Republicans do it with alacrity, Democrats finds it sticks in their craw. 2. Christians can always be counted on to react to threats of encroaching moral terpitude. Tell them you are the candidate who will stomp the homosexual agenda and you have their vote. One third of the votes cast yesterday were by evn 3. Americans are very comfortable being lied to if the lies can create an illusion that they perfer to a reality they dislike. Menken-"No one in this world, so far as I know ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." P.T.Barnum-" There is a sucker born every minute." Menken-"I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking." Menken-" I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious." The Bush administration has for 4 years lied and pandered to the worst impluses of the American public and has been rewarded with the opportunity to continue undesturbed. Americans have chosen and they will rue the day. Who ever said Americans were afraid of a man with a big dick and a jar of vaselene. "Democracy is the theory that holds that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." Menken

Posted by: mike at November 03, 2004 03:33 PM (0ZdtC)

14 annika, why don't you gloat till the next Iraqi loses an arm.

Posted by: fairest at November 03, 2004 03:48 PM (/4kTn)

15 Yes, let's be happy about the small number of youth voters. It is good when an extremely low percentage votes. Yay democracy!

Posted by: BT at November 03, 2004 03:53 PM (nqpjs)

16 You guys are funny. Aesop wrote a fable about people like you. You know which one i'm talking about. i'd quote it, but this comment thread has exceeded it's limit of pithy quotations already. The tribe has spoken. If i felt the way you do, i'd emigrate. You should consider it. i'll hold the door for you.

Posted by: annika at November 03, 2004 04:05 PM (zAOEU)

17 Gee, Annie, I hardly know what to do with these illuminati around. Can't you, like, call out the digital Sturmabteilung to kick their asses or something? I mean, between the guy who can't stop quoting "Menken" (sic) and the razor-sharp intellect that gives us "gloat till the next Iraqi loses an arm," I'm feeling awfully ignorant and backward. A little gratuitous violence would really cheer me up. Cuz Bushies are all into that shit, right? "AMERICA, FUCK YEAH! So lick my butt, and suck on my balls!"

Posted by: Matt at November 03, 2004 05:50 PM (eWM9Y)

18 Ah, BT, I first voted when I turned 18 in 2000. I voted again this time around. It's not my fault that my peers would rather get stoned while watching the Real World instead of voting for the prez. I'm kinda glad they sat out this election anyway since most of them probably get their political news from Puff Daddy and Eminem. I wouldn't want the uninformed, apolitical morons of my generation to impose their ignorance and stupidity on the rest of us. Shamefully, my sister doesn't keep up with politics either since she's more interested in sorority crap than keeping tabs on the guys that could potentially get access to The Football(nuclear button). At least she voted for Bush even though she doesn't know exactly why.

Posted by: reagan80 at November 03, 2004 06:08 PM (UdGyP)

19 Stoned is the only way i could watch The Real World. ;-)

Posted by: annika! at November 03, 2004 07:17 PM (olOFd)

20 OK guys, get over it. We are all Americans. Let's go fuck the bad guys.

Posted by: shelly at November 03, 2004 07:24 PM (6krEN)

21 From Aala, a Iraqi blogger: "Congratulations to all American people and to our Iraqi people for this great outcome of the American Elections. This was a great statement by the American people; a statement showing the quality and backbone of this people and affirming their worth and qualification as world leaders". "All those who have been following my blog from the start should know how I feel towards El Bush, the Avenger, the Lion-Heart and I cannot hide my happiness for this outcome, purely from a personal feeling of gratitude for what he has done for us, despite all the pain and hardships that we suffered and still do. But the objective is so great and so important that all sacrifices and difficulties pale when contemplating the benefits and goals that are hoped for". I am gloating that the Iraqis think all Republicans are heros.

Posted by: jake at November 03, 2004 08:04 PM (h4tU8)

22 Funny one on Laura Ingraham today vis the "youth vote". "P-duddy" LMAO

Posted by: Casca at November 03, 2004 10:02 PM (cdv3B)

23 Hey -it's almost time for Laguna Beach on MTV. Kristen is gonna dance on the bar in Cabo! Everybody do a shot!

Posted by: d-rod at November 03, 2004 10:51 PM (0ds27)

24 hEY jAKE, Notice how it is only living Iraqi's that seem to like the Republicans American army? I wonder what the outcome of the poll would be if the dead spoke.

Posted by: mike at November 04, 2004 06:58 AM (0ZdtC)

25 "I wonder what the outcome of the poll would be if the dead spoke." My understanding is that in Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis and New Orleans they vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

Posted by: Dave J at November 04, 2004 07:37 AM (GEMsk)

26 DaveJ, You are the wit! Always the best way to parry the tough questions. Hey Shelly, Too bad you weren't at Abu Gravesite, your wish could have come true.

Posted by: mike at November 04, 2004 07:54 AM (0ZdtC)

27 If it were possible to poll the dead, poll all of them.

Posted by: annika at November 04, 2004 09:07 AM (zAOEU)

28 Annika, If you wish to cling to this naive belief that our efforts in Iraq were motivated by humanitarian concerns, be my guest. It is more proof of what I said yesterday, lies that create a truth you like are preferable to truths that describe a reality you find abhorrent. And give me you fax number so I might send you a prospectus for a few nice bridges that are surplus to the needs of the city here in Brooklyn or I could offer you a great deal on few choice acres of land in Colorado that would make some mighty fine homesteads. It is the land Neil Bush defaulted on after he loaned himself the money from Silverado S&L to buy and develop it. Oh, wait, you already own it since the S&L was bought out with government money. Sorry

Posted by: mike at November 04, 2004 09:46 AM (0ZdtC)

29 *exasperated sigh* Okay, once more, since you haven't been reading me for very long. We didn't go to war in Iraq for humanitarian reasons. We went to prevent Hussein from cooperating with terrorists and to provide a foothold for democracy in the Islamic world, to change the mindset that creates terrorism. Humanitarianism, the fact that an oppressed people are now free of a brutal mass murdering dictator, was an effect of our efforts in Iraq. But i think it's telling that you don't respond to my point. Instead you pull the old "liberal bob and weave." i point out that we did a good thing - you say we did it for the wrong reason.

Posted by: annika at November 04, 2004 10:16 AM (zAOEU)

30 The humanitarian reasons were there, stated right up front - albeit as a secondary consideration. But given the humanitarian reasons, the war in Iraq was indisputably the right thing to do, and on those grounds it has been massively successful. Liberals are always complaining when we do the right thing for (what they consider) the wrong reason. They'd much rather do the wrong thing for (what they believe is) the right reason.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at November 04, 2004 10:54 AM (+S1Ft)

31 Sigh.......back at you, oh, wise sage, I did not bob and weave. I am not the least convinced that the outcome of this adventure will realize any of the goals you assume whether direct or indirect consequences. It is not disingenuous to ask if the price paid in human suffering is worth the goal. The mass graves were the outcome of the slaughter of the troops and civilians that in response to George I tried, with help expected, to stand up and fight to over through Saddam. They failed, were abandoned by the US and many thousands were killed. This is not quite murder. The belief that Saddam was in league with terrorists and was going to provide them with neat effective weapons was an airy justification to invade a country. Maybe he would have maybe not. Certainly he hadn't and was more than likely an enemy of fundamentalists since he ran a secular government, something they abhor. As to forcing democracy onto a population that, now that the overriding military is gone, is reverting to religious alliances, I have my doubts. Democracy is not a glass of milk you put out on the table and everyone agrees it is godÂ’s gift to humanity. This is the way the Bushies seem to operate. It is far more complicated and far less of a golden opportunity. There are large groups of people that prefer the format of a benevolent King than a participatory democracy. In the case of Islamists, the adored, sage Ayatollah is fine with them. I think the whole adventure in Iraq is a sad, brutal effort by a bunch of angry men, who insist, against the advice and judgment of more learned students of the region, to foist their democratic "values" on a population did not ask for them, and has shown very little appreciation. I will not get into the poor planning of the logistics and the typically corrupt corporate implementation of American contractors at this time.

Posted by: mike at November 04, 2004 11:09 AM (0ZdtC)

32 i actually like that response very much, since you've stated positions that reasonable people can differ on, namely whether the price is worth the goal, whether we should "force" democracy on anyone, whether it can work over there, whether pre-emption is wise, or an over-reaction, and even the "poor-planning" and "corruption" issues. You and i disagree on all those points, but i think its much more constructive for people to discuss them than to dispute the obvious point that Saddam was torturing and killing Iraqis before, and now he's not.

Posted by: annika "wise sage" at November 04, 2004 11:40 AM (zAOEU)

33 Mike, "This is not quite murder." Oh? When I'm dragged off in the middle of the night and tortured to death because I once ate lunch with a guy who was later tortured to give up names of "traitors," I'll take great comfort in knowing that it's "not quite murder"? What do you call it? Those graves aren't all full of combatants who took up arms against the regime, Mike. Many were men, women and children who were slaughtered en masse because someone thought they might not subscribe 100% to the cult of Saddam -- or just for kicks. Do you know anything about the history of Baathist Iraq, or do you just parrot whatever Michael Moore happens to be saying today? What, you think Iraq was all "flowering meadows and rainbow skies and rivers made of chocolate, where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles" before 1991? You and Sean Penn. "Certainly he hadn't and was more than likely an enemy of fundamentalists since he ran a secular government, something they abhor." I take it you're not familiar with the old adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend? Churchill abhored the Bolsheviks, but it didn's stop him from buddying up to Stalin long enough to crush the Nazis. Stalin and Hitler abhored one another, but it didn't stop them from cooperating to divide Poland. Syria -- the other secular, Baathist autocracy in the Middle East -- sponsors Hezbollah, a group of . . . wait for it . . . Islamist terrorists, whose stated goal is (Shi'ite) theocracy! How many dozens of examples from history do you need before you'll admit that this is a specious argument? The links between Saddam and terrorists are well documented. The fact that they may not (or, on the other hand, may) have included direct links to al Qaeda, yet, is of little consequence to me as a voter. The mere realistic possibility was enough to make sitting around the U.N. Building with our thumbs up our butts dangerously irresponsible, in my view. Finally, I suggest you broaden your reading list to include some sources other than the New York Times. If you did, you might learn that a great many of those people you seem to see as incapable of handling democracy or appreciating liberty are in fact just as capable as ultra-civilized, postmodern, Western secularists, like our beloved American left. For example, the Afghans -- who'd never before experienced anything like democracy, and who were about as backward as any people on Earth, but who turned out in droves to participate in the democratic process when given the chance. Or like the Japanese, another backward people with absolutely no experience with democracy, and who fought like hell for years to resist its advance, but are now thriving under it -- despite its having been imposed on them at gunpoint, and despite having real reason to be bitter at the invaders. None of that guarantees democracy will work in Iraq. But you've done a rotten job of justifying your assumption that it won't.

Posted by: Matt at November 04, 2004 12:23 PM (SIlfx)

34 Matt, I will not much longer reply to people who grit their teeth, clench their butt and begin a bullying response to someone who has had the temerity to have a world view they do not share or whose argument they deem ineffective. If you have something to share that might illuminate why you think the IraqiÂ’s will embrace democracy and create a functioning government, please offer up something other than the tired examples of the mid-century occupations by the allies of conquered countries. Also, the verdict on what the Afghan. experiment has produced is not yet rendered. Only those with an agenda would jump to the fore to support their case with the simple fact that they were registered and showed up Election Day. Is that all democracy is? Oh, and to you point about the "murder" of the occupants of the mass graves, I limited myself to the group I defined. I do not dispute the horror's of the Saddam govenment, NO ONE DOES, so I wonder why the Right keeps harping on this issue as if Liberals think he was a sweet fella and only the enlightened can see otherwise. Why can you not, ever, recognize that if I(we) disagree with your policy and tactics, we are not also blind half wits who wish FTD would deliver to Bagdad? It says something to me about how secure you are in your position.

Posted by: mike at November 04, 2004 02:59 PM (0ZdtC)

35 "Or like the Japanese, another backward people with absolutely no experience with democracy..." Whil I'm not disagreering with your larger point, that's not really accurate, Matt. Until the military got actively involved in politics, Japan from the Meiji Restoration in the 1880's up until the mid-1920's had some limited experience with democracy. Yes, the franchise was limited, but then it was in the UK as well; indeed, one might compare the degree of democracy to the UK before the 1911 Parliament Act started the process of disempowering the House of Lords.

Posted by: Dave J at November 04, 2004 03:01 PM (GEMsk)

36 Very nice post, and I liked the Nelson image so much, I stole it, and now it resides on my blog. With regard to the implosion of the Crats of Dem, I can only say "Haa ha!"

Posted by: Mark at November 04, 2004 07:33 PM (Vg0tt)

37 Mike, "I do not dispute the horror's of the Saddam govenment, NO ONE DOES . . . " But: "The mass graves were the outcome of the slaughter of the troops and civilians that in response to George I tried, with help expected, to stand up and fight to over through Saddam. They failed, were abandoned by the US and many thousands were killed. This is not quite murder." "The mass graves." Not "some of the mass graves" or even "many of the mass graves" -- just, "the mass graves." Where's the limitation here? If this paragraph wasn't intended to minimize the moral implications of those mass graves you're talking about, then you should learn to express yourself more clearly. The right might stop hammering this point if leftists would stop making asinine statements that, like yours, make it sound as if lefties consider all those dead innocents unworthy of inclusion in the moral calculus. If you disagree in your moral judgment regarding the costs and benefits of the war, fine -- just include all relevant factors, and weight them honestly. "something other than the tired examples of the mid-century occupations by the allies of conquered countries . . . " Why? What, exactly, is it about those examples that, in your view, makes them "tired" and -- I gather -- irrelevant? "the verdict on what the Afghan. experiment has produced is not yet rendered. . . " Certainly that's true. But then, the verdict on what the American experiment has produced is not yet rendered, either. However, the signs are encouraging in both cases. In the case of the Afghans, there was extraordinary turnout despite dire threats to life and limb by the remnants of the Taliban regime. In this country we fairly crap our pants about voter "intimidation" when someone suggests it might be a good idea to have some cops at or near the polls. The commitment to and enthusiasm for the democratic process displayed by the Afghan people is positively inspiring, and is in itself a tremendously positive sign. Their system will not be as liberal as what we're accustomed to in the West -- not for some time, at least, though perhaps later -- but I doubt that it has to be in order for us to have accomplished our objective in Afghanistan, or for their lives to be radically improved. And I have no intention of creating an overly rosy picture, here. It's still a violent, rough-and-tumble country, and by no means would I call it a stable democracy. Then again, five years after the U.S. Constitution was ratified, George Washington was calling out the militia to put down the Whiskey Rebellion. Two years before its ratification there there had been Shay's Rebellion. And seventy-two years later we entered a four-year civil war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and nearly ended us. So the fact that things start off rough isn't necessarily an indication of impending doom for a fledgling democracy. As to Iraq, there's much about the history and dynamics of the country that's encouraging (a history of secularism; a relatively educated populace capable of contributing to a modern economy and building a decent quality of life; a limited number of factions; a majority faction whose leading figure, while no Western-style progressive, shows signs of sanity). There's a lot that we haven't done very well there, and we need to get a lot smarter about it. We certainly could fuck things up irretrievably if we're not careful. But whence the implication that Iraqis simply aren't interested in democracy, or can't handle it? Finally, since you consider democratization the solution of simpletons, you must have a far better plan. Please enlighten me. What would President Mike do? But I caution you: If it involves the term, "U.N.," not only will I laugh but you will have permanently discredited yourself.

Posted by: Mike at November 04, 2004 07:34 PM (eWM9Y)

38 Huh. Weird. The footer of that last post should say "Posted by Matt."

Posted by: Matt at November 04, 2004 07:35 PM (eWM9Y)

39 Dave, I stand corrected. Thank you for pointing out the error. I'll have to read up on this issue a little more.

Posted by: Matt at November 04, 2004 07:37 PM (eWM9Y)

40 Matt, FYI, here's the text of the 1889 Meiji Constitution: http://history.hanover.edu/texts/1889con.html

Posted by: Dave J at November 04, 2004 07:56 PM (GEMsk)

41 Hi Mike, Raygun, Matt I guess the simple answer as to what I would have done is nothing. I do not envision the role of the US to look over the various governments around the world deciding which it shall invade and which it shall leave alone. The situation in Iraq could have easily continued for many more years with various sanctions and inspectors to keep the baser impulses of Saddam under control. I firmly believe this is all a pretext for securing oil. Nothing altruistic about it. China is the threat we really fear and Â“terrorismÂ” is the cover that is allowing us to secure a better position in the larger battleground, that of access to raw materials. As to the moral implications of rescuing a distressed population I have very mixed feelings. Although I am deeply concerned about human suffering and oppression, liberty and freedom, I try not to make the mistake of believing that we or anybody can use a hammer other than to separate warring parties. We could probably have used a hammer to intercede in Rowanda, maybe now in the Sudan, or as we did in Bosnia. The possibility of humanitarian intervention is nice to imagine but not an easy reality to affect.. How does one leave and not allow the parties to simply go back to their old ways? How does one stay and afford the cost and political complications. I don't have the answer. Wilson thought a League of Nations could provide a venue where these conflicts and disputes could be aired and solutions, including force, could be implimented. How has that gone, you ask? Well, at times it has worked and at other times not so well. Other than the country with the biggest hammer running around trying to impose its will, which I think is no solution, I don't have a better idea than to use the UN, or form alliances. Or do you think we can continue as we have for the next 50 to 100 years? Crushing Iraq, ruining the infrastructure, destroying the status quo, killing possibly 100,000 civilians according to an article in the Lancet last week, toppling the dictator, underestimating the allegiance of the people to their respective religious affiliations, and on and on, could not be, in my opinion, the best we could have done. Maybe the goal of liberation and removal of a possible threat was noble and protective at the same time, but the methods, justification, and execution have been deceitful, innept, under equipped, careless and so far a tragic failure. The fact that Rumsefeld still has his job in unbelievable. What Kerry said quite clearly, time after time was that someone else, employing a different set of advisors and world view might be able to develop a better endgame. He never said he would not continue the fight. Never said he would turn his back and pull the troops out. But that is exactly what Bush kept telling America he would do. He lied. He basically lied about everything. And in the face of a situation in Iraq that is clearly out of control, an infrastructure that has not been rebuilt, schools that have not been reopened, an economy that has not been restarted, he looked everyone in the eye and said he do it all again without the least bit of irony. Very sad, very sick. But at the same time he convinces many people that any other way (Kerry's) would be worse. How much worse could it be?

Posted by: mike at November 05, 2004 02:59 PM (0ZdtC)

42 "the country with the biggest hammer running around trying to impose its will" If that country is the United States of America, i'm all for it. In fact i LOVE the idea!

Posted by: annika! at November 05, 2004 06:18 PM (9KCu7)

43 I knew you would!

Posted by: mike at November 06, 2004 04:20 PM (0ZdtC)

44 Read this one on the walls of a lecture hall at the University of Illinois at Chicago (Go Flames!): There once was a man named Dave, Who kept a dead whore in his cave. When asked of the smell, he said "What the hell? "Look at all the money I saved." ;-)

Posted by: Mark at November 08, 2004 04:09 PM (Vg0tt)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

November 02, 2004

Fox Calls Ohio

Fox called Ohio at about 9:40 p.m. MSNBC hasn't done so yet. i don't think i've ever seen Chris Matthew look so down. That alone is worth all the aggravation of the last year.

Update: MSNBC just called Ohio and Alaska.

One more point for four more years!

Posted by: annika at 10:00 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
Post contains 54 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Even Fox's own website waited another 15 minutes to call it.

Posted by: Ontario Emperor at November 02, 2004 10:20 PM (cQh0l)

2 He doesn't need another electoral vote -- even if Bush has 269, the election goes to the House and they'll vote him into office. How come you're not on Yahoo?

Posted by: Eric Johnson at November 02, 2004 10:53 PM (84Org)

3 The look on Cokie Roberts face was priceless, worth staying up for. I'm waiting for the Daschle Thune race to be called to pop the corks.

Posted by: wayne at November 02, 2004 11:53 PM (4IVsp)

4 Isn't Cokie Roberts a Republican or am I mistaken?

Posted by: reagan80 at November 03, 2004 12:23 AM (hlMFQ)

5 Majority in: White House? check Senate? check Reps? check Governors? check Supreme Court nominees on the way: double check! Fuck yeah, the GOP controls it all! Muhahahaha

Posted by: Scof at November 03, 2004 12:45 AM (9lWXc)

6 Not so fast here, yes, Bush has won, and Daschle has lost, but that is only two thirds of my trifecta. Yasser Arafat still has to die.

Posted by: shelly at November 03, 2004 02:07 AM (fLlQ8)

7 Heh A, get jealous. I'm in love with Shelly Sloan.

Posted by: Casca at November 03, 2004 05:15 AM (cdv3B)

8 You gonna have a poetry day, or do I have to hijack your comments again? Oops, sorry, it's only 6AM on the left coast.

Posted by: Victor at November 03, 2004 05:56 AM (L3qPK)

9 Hey Reagan 80; you are mistaken. Cokie's father, the late Hale Boggs, was a leader in the state of Louisiana, and a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. So is she.

Posted by: shelly at November 03, 2004 07:13 AM (fLlQ8)

10 One last comment: A.W.O.L on T.V. last night and today... William Jefferson Clinton Hillary Rodman Rodham Terry McAuliff Ed Rendell Zogby (James or John) Tom (I'm sad, so sad) Daschle To quote Gilbert & Sullivan, "I have a little list, of those that won't be missed...".

Posted by: shelly at November 03, 2004 07:35 AM (fLlQ8)

11 Oh, I didn't know that. I knew she was from my state, but I assumed she defected to the GOP like other Southern Democrats did back in the McGovern and Carter days. Oh well, she's just another Carvillista then. I'm disappointed in her......

Posted by: reagan80 at November 03, 2004 07:42 AM (hlMFQ)

12 I'm glad we don't have to worry about that putrid weasel, Chad Clanton, now. He won't be making anymore FCC threats to the conservative sect of the media.........Rush, Boortz, Hannity, Coulter, etc. are SAVED!!

Posted by: reagan80 at November 03, 2004 07:48 AM (hlMFQ)

13 Yes her dad was "Hale", and mom was "Lindy" who took the old demoncrat's seat when he was cast down to hell. Cokie went on te be a media whore, and her brother a big time lobbyist in DC. I'm still in love with Shelly.

Posted by: Casca at November 03, 2004 10:08 PM (cdv3B)

14 Sorry to disappoint you, Casca, but I've got a wife, an ex-wife, four married kids and nine grandchildren...you have a better shot with Annika. But, thanks for the thought, anyway.

Posted by: shelly at November 04, 2004 03:48 AM (+7VNs)

15 Damnit, I guess I'm back to mooning over Annika! LMAO, but we could sure be pals.

Posted by: Casca at November 04, 2004 03:52 PM (cdv3B)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Election Party Exit Poll (informal)

i took an informal poll of the attendees to the election night party at our house. Admittedly, the results are not scientific since we're all law students, but i thought they were interesting just the same. Keep in mind that my school is decidedly wacky-liberal.

Here are the results, with annotations:

annika: Bush
Colleen¹: Kerry
Charissa²: Bush
Lori³: Kerry
Kathy⁴: Bush
Kimberly⁵: Bush
Monique⁶: Bush
Stacy⁷: Kerry
Erica⁸: Kerry
Mike #1⁹: Bush
Mike #2¹⁰: Kerry
Quan¹¹: Bush
Greg¹²: Kerry
David¹³: Kerry
Marc¹⁴: Kerry
Jeffrey¹⁵: Kerry
Professor M¹⁶: Kerry

Total: 10 for Kerry, 7 for Bush
_______________

¹ Colleen is of my housemates. Her big issue is "the Supreme Court,"� which is code for "pro-choice" voter.
² Charissa is another housemate. Her family is from Utah. In order to live in Utah, there are two legal requirements, one of which is that you must always vote Republican.
³ Lori is a Democrat from Arizona. i didn't think those existed, but apparently they're about 44% of the voting population.
⁴ Aka Texas Kathy.
⁵ Aka Texas Kimberly. It's no surprise that the two Texans voted for Bush.
⁶ Monique defies conventional wisdom. She's an African-American conservative and voted for Bush.
⁷ Stacy is one of the top students in my class. Her vote surprised me. i thought for sure she was a Republican until i learned she went to UMass. Then i laughed when she told me she pictured me as a Kerry supporter.
⁸ Erica is also a one issue "pro-choice" voter, although she doesn't want to admit it. She repeats all the typical anti-Bush arguments, but without conviction.
⁹ My third housemate Mike is a thoughtful and committed Republican.
¹⁰ My boyfriend. He was afraid to tell me who he voted for. i'm mulling over whether or not to forgive him.
¹¹ Yes, that Quan. His family emigrated from Vietnam and raised him to be a good freedom-loving Republican.
¹² Lori's boyfriend seems apolitical and i might have swayed him had i known in time that he was undecided.
¹³ David is openly gay and open minded on many political issues, but like Andrew Sullivan, the FMA made up his mind for Kerry.
¹⁴ Marc is liberal Hispanic Catholic Kerry voter who won't forgive the Republicans for trying to take down Clinton.
¹⁵ Jeffrey is brilliant, but sorta crazy. He can't sit still and he's always spouting off some insane opinion, usually conspiracy related. He's fun to have around, but there's no sense arguing with him.
¹⁶ Professor M is an expert on criminal law and procedure as well as a member of the vast left wing academic conspiracy.

Posted by: annika at 08:06 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 449 words, total size 3 kb.

annika's Election Day Message To West Coast Republicans

Especially to Californians.

The polls are still open. Don't believe what you read in Drudge, it has been debunked already. Stick with HughHewitt.com for your news. He's based on the West Coast, and his site is still working.

Go out and vote. The fact that our state will end up being blue is no excuse for not doing everything we can to increase the popular vote, and thereby increase Bush's mandate.

Remember, today is more than just a Presidential election. It's a referendum between toughness and weakness. Toughness must win. And tough people don't mind standing in long lines to do what is right.

A virtual blogosphere smooch goes out to all who've already voted Bush today! (Even the girls, except it's on the cheek.)

It's not Poetry Wednesday, but here's an Election Day Special for y'all. It's by John Greenleaf Whittier, the 19th Century American poet, abolitionist and friend to William Lloyd Garrison.

The Poor Voter on Election Day
To-day, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
To-day, alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
My palace is the people's hall,
The ballot-box my throne!
The rich is level with the poor,
The weak is strong to-day;
And sleekest broadcloth counts no more
Than homespun frock of gray.
To-day let pomp and vain pretence
My stubborn right abide;
I set a plain man's common sense
Against the pedant's pride.
The wide world has not wealth to buy
The power in my right hand!

Stirring. In all of democracy, there's no act more exhilarating than casting your vote. Believe it!

Posted by: annika at 04:39 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 283 words, total size 2 kb.

November 01, 2004

Notes On Watching CSPAN

Why was George Bush's last campaign stop in Dallas, while John Kerry's last campaign stop was in Ohio? What does that tell you?

That both the President and his challenger share my confidence in a Bush victory.

Why was the one random crowd voice i could hear while Bush was shaking hands after his rally saying "we love you George Bush," while the one random voice i could hear while Kerry shook hands after his rally said "tell Bush to fuck off." What does that tell you?

That no one should discount the number of people who love this President, nor that Kerry voters are motivated by negativity.

Posted by: annika at 10:44 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 116 words, total size 1 kb.

Tomorrow

As promised, here's my final pre-election take.

Issue Number Three: The Apparent Dead Heat In The Polls

In short, i don't buy it for a number of reasons. i think the press and the pollsters, out of bias and self-interest, are making this thing out to be closer than it actually is. i also think that polling methodology has not kept up with changes in demographics and technology.

i'm confident that Bush will win the election. If i have any worry, it's that the Democratic get-out-the-vote effort will be very organized and strong. That's because there are more Democrats available to volunteer than Republicans. Students, union operatives and professional activists can easily take the day off to drive voters to the polls and staff the phone banks. Most Republicans still have to go to work. Then of course, there's also Democratic fraud.

But despite these concerns, i still have faith in the common sense of the average American. In fact, i am so certain that George W. Bush will win the election, that i am willing to make the following wager: i will bet this blog on a George Bush victory.

i offer to bet this blog against any liberal blog rated as a large mammal on the TTLB Ecosystem. Winner is the blogger who backs the prevailing candidate, Bush or Kerry. i take Bush. Loser shuts down his or her blog. For good. Effective inauguration day, 2005.

That should be a good incentive for fans of annika's journal to get out there and vote. Not that i expect any bloggers to take my bet, because deep down, everybody knows i'm right.

Update: Obviously, the offer expires when polls open on the East Coast.

Posted by: annika at 11:38 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 286 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Stayed up late looking at states and polls, and made my exact prediction in this post: http://theendzone.blogspot.com/2004/11/end-zone-predicts-bush-352-kerry-186.html "Horserace Blog (http://jaycost.blogspot.com/) believes Kerry has no more than a 2% chance of winning. That might be accurate, except for the Democratic cheating. Mark Steyn says Bush has to achieve victory "outside the 'Margin of Lawyer.'" I'd say the cheat factor gives Kerry a 5-10% chance of winning. If Kerry does win, he can thank his lawyers, his cheaters on the ground, and absolutely clueless voters. [...] Here's the incredibly obvious flaw that no one is mentioning: If turnout is huge, it overwhelms any metric for accurately predicting the results. [...] King Kong Margins of Error mean pollsters are not worth their big-money fees. I suspect that's the reason pollsters are not admitting the obvious correlation between huge turnout and pollster cluelessness." BTW, anyone who wants to do me a favor can rip into my cousin for his WOT views by leaving a comment on this post: http://theendzone.blogspot.com/2004/10/why-i-voted-for-george-w-bush-or-wot.html I cannot rip my cousin any more, b/c he is one of my great and close friends, and I'm afraid hard feelings might arise between us. But I would get a great laugh from seeing someone else rip him!

Posted by: gcotharn at November 01, 2004 03:05 PM (+7VNs)

2 Clarification: I wrote that WOT post, and my cousin Jeff commented on it, wondering why our military is in Iraq.

Posted by: gcotharn at November 01, 2004 03:07 PM (+7VNs)

3 Oy. I really wish I had your optimism. Here's hoping.

Posted by: Dave J at November 01, 2004 03:17 PM (GEMsk)

4 I'm optimistic, but you stand a better chance by making the bet contingent on the Jets' performance rather than those of lawyers/frauds.

Posted by: Scof at November 01, 2004 04:58 PM (9lWXc)

5 I don't believe all the polls saying how close this election will be. I believe Bush will win a second term and we will all know by tomorrow night. I may be after midnight, but we will hear of his history making re-election!

Posted by: Izzy at November 01, 2004 06:29 PM (zYgqP)

6 You are right about the polls. Bush will win by 11 points.

Posted by: Jake at November 01, 2004 06:42 PM (h4tU8)

7 From a war weary private on the battlefield in PA(ME): "Your honour calls you hence... And all the gods go with you! Upon your sword Sit laurel victory." - William Shakespeare The troops are positioned, the supplies are in place, the strategy is set and the battlefield has been chosen. The Ground war Begins At 6:45 AM. ONWARD to Victory for our President! Sure I am this day we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us." - Winston Churchill

Posted by: Lawguy at November 01, 2004 09:57 PM (nCl+P)

8 Congratulations on keeping your blog. Did any of body accept your bet? If so, who? I'd love to go read their parting words.

Posted by: Robbie at November 03, 2004 06:41 AM (AAqv2)

9 i've never had the impule to call any liberal wise. Until now. Wisely, no one had the guts to take my bet.

Posted by: annika at November 03, 2004 09:17 AM (zAOEU)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Conspiracy?

i live in the Central Valley and my mom lives in L.A. We're both registered Republicans. We sent in our absentee ballot requests on the same day. i got mine last week and i voted last Thursday.

i talked to my Mom last night.

She never got her ballot . . .

Posted by: annika at 08:05 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 54 words, total size 1 kb.

222kb generated in CPU 0.0546, elapsed 0.1218 seconds.
74 queries taking 0.0893 seconds, 395 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.

Search Thingy

Monthly Traffic

Pages: 28495
Files: 23
Bytes: 262.2M
CPU Time: 10:05
Queries: 1117672

Content

Posts: 2168
Comments: 17090

Feeds

November 23, 2004

November 22, 2004

November 12, 2004

November 11, 2004

November 10, 2004

November 08, 2004

November 07, 2004

November 05, 2004

November 03, 2004

November 02, 2004

November 01, 2004

Search Thingy

Recent Comments

Categories

Archives

Blogroll

Monthly Traffic

Content

Feeds