Republicans not fit to lead


John Kerry used a self inflicted wound as a free ticket out of Vietnam. Kerry backer George Soros earns his billions from an international street drug cartel.

These are not just the rantings of fringe wingers. There are the lies that the Republican Party leadership is counting on to scare undecided voters into reelecting George Bush.

We all know about the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush, whose only legitimate gotcha is Kerry's ill-perceived comment 16 years ago that he spent Christmas Eve in Cambodia. But now comes House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert, the second in line to succeed the President should one of George Soros' bagmen fly a coke-laden cargo plane into the White House. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Hastert hinted that George Soros' money comes from selling illegal drugs. As reported by the New York Daily News:
"(Hastert) insinuated that billionaire financier George Soros, who's funding an independent media campaign to dislodge President Bush, is getting his big bucks from shady sources. "You know, I don't know where George Soros gets his money. I don't know where - if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from," Hastert mused. An astonished Chris Wallace asked: "Excuse me?" The speaker went on: "Well, that's what he's been for a number years - George Soros has been for legalizing drugs in this country. So, I mean, he's got a lot of ancillary interests out there." Wallace: "You think he may be getting money from the drug cartel?" Hastert: "I'm saying I don't know where groups - could be people who support this type of thing. I'm saying we don't know."

The Republicans' behavior in this campaign reminds me of an incident from my youth. There was this kid I'll call Howard who thought he was really tough. One day we were hanging out at the beach, and Howard tried to drag my friend Roger into the water. But Roger threw Howard on the ground, in a second had Howard tied up real good, and was dragging him into the water.

Then Howard bit Roger. On the thigh. Roger let go, and Howard walked away. The rest of us guys looked at Howard like he was the biggest wuss of all, but Howard didn't care. In his mind, he won.

Die hard Republicans are thigh biters. They defend their tactics, saying Kerry and MoveOn and the rest brought this on the Democrats. There is a little bit of truth to that charge. It's a political campaign, and there's a tradition of political mudslinging that goes back 200 years or more in this country. But the Republican smear campaign goes beyond politics, and crosses the line into character assassination, drawing on the same bag of tricks as Joe McCarthy used 50 years ago to ruin the lives of artists and politicians who wouldn't bend to the Senator's will.

It's one more reason I could never be a Republican.
1.9.04 22:31


The hate


Andrew Sullvan on the Presidential race: "...the pathologies now affecting the far left are as real and as deep as those afflicting the far right. They deserve each other; but they do not deserve to usurp the discourse in the next two months."




And if Zell Miller was President, we wouldn't have all these problems

Anyone deluded enough to think the Republican Party is fair-minded and inclusive didn't see the rousing applause delegates gave to Zell Miller last night. Miller is the last of the Dixiecrats, a man who lambasted Lyndon Johnson for selling out to the negroes by signing the 1964 Civil Right Acts. But the world is changing, and women and negroes want the same rights as rich, white, southern landowners, and the only people who will listen to poor Zell's tale of woe are the Republicans.

Shame on them.


The occupiers

Slate's Will Saletan says the 2000 election is becoming a referendom on our right to hold the President accountable.

But the important thing isn't the falsity of the charges, which Republicans continue to repeat despite press reports debunking them. The important thing is that the GOP is trying to quash criticism of the president simply because it's criticism of the president. The election is becoming a referendum on democracy.

In a democracy, the commander in chief works for you. You hire him when you elect him. You watch him do the job. If he makes good decisions and serves your interests, you rehire him. If he doesn't, you fire him by voting for his opponent in the next election.

Not every country works this way. In some countries, the commander in chief builds a propaganda apparatus that equates him with the military and the nation. If you object that he's making bad decisions and disserving the national interest, you're accused of weakening the nation, undermining its security, sabotaging the commander in chief, and serving a foreign power—the very charges Miller leveled tonight against Bush's critics.

Are you prepared to become one of those countries?

Hat tip to Roger Ailes.


A non-political post

A third of my readers think I've been too serious lately, so I will tell a joke:

A young Catholic man goes to confession and says, "Father, it has been one month since my last confession. I have had sex with Nookie Green every week for the last month."

The priest tells the sinner, "You are forgiven. Go out and say three Hail Mary's."

Soon after, another man enters the confessional. "Father, it has been two months since my last confession. I have had sex with Nookie Green twice week for the last two months."

This time the priest questions, "Who is Nookie Green?"

"A new woman in the neighborhood," the sinner replies.

"Very well," sighs the priest. "Go and say ten Hail Mary's."

At Mass the next morning, as the priest prepares to deliver his sermon, a tall, voluptuous, drop dead gorgeous woman enters the sanctuary. The eyes of every man in the church fall upon her as she slowly sashays up the aisle and sits down right in front of the priest! Her dress is green and very short, with matching shiny emerald green shoes.

The priest and altar boy gasp, as the woman in the matching green shoes and dress sits with her legs slightly spread apart. The priest turns to the altar boy and whispers, "Is that Nookie Green?"

The bug-eyed altar boy can't believe his ears but replies, "No, I think it's just the reflection off her shoes!"

(Hat tip to Roger O.)
2.9.04 01:43


Soccer babes




From the Late Night Top Ten List:

Top Ten Things I Can Say Now That I've Won A Gold Medal

10. "Thinking soccer ball was Letterman's head made it more fun to kick."
Heather O'Reilly

9. "I'm saving on my gold medal insurance thanks to Geico!"
Lindsay Tarpley

8. "Now that the Olympics are over, it will be fun to use our hands again."
Cat Reddick

7. "I swiped a couple of miniature bottles of shampoo from the Athens Marriott."
Brianna Scurry

6. "We tested positive for being 18 really hot soccer babes."
Abby Wambach

5. "I regularly go to McDonald's to satisfy my Olympic-sized appetite. I just made $10,000 for saying that."
Kristine Lilly

4. "It was such an honor to play in front of dozens and dozens of crazed fans."
Joy Fawcett

3. "Thank goodness I won this thing--on the way to the theater my medal stopped two bullets."
Julie Foudy

2. "I'm pleased to announce that I'm now Mrs. Bob Costas."
Brandi Chastain

1. "It's pretty clear who wears the pants in the family now, huh Nomar?"
Mia Hamm


Old Schicklegruber is back

Germans are bracing for a controversial new film that depicts Hitler's last few days at the end of World War Two. The movie, titled "Der Untergang - Hitler Und Das Ende Des Dritten Reiches" (Downfall - Hitler And The End Of The Third Reich), has sparked a national debate over whether Germans are prepared to view the Nazi dictator as a tragic human being rather than as a monster.

Veteran "New Wave" actor Bruno Ganz stars as Hitler. A person close to the filming said "I took one look at (Ganz) in full makeup and a chill ran down my spin. Then he opened his mouth and sounded just like Hitler. Every nuance is there. It is a chillingly accurate portrayal, the likes of which I have never seen before on the big screen."

I'm a sucker for these types of movies, and I hope this one is translated to English and screened at the Oriental Theatre someday. World War II seems quaint by today's standards, with its propellor driven fighter planes and horse drawn artillery pieces. But the dynamics that created the most costly war in history are with us today, and we would all be wise to understand what happened then, and what could happen now.
3.9.04 03:25


Irony alert

"Destroy the young demagogue before he becomes another Ralph Nader." - Charles Colson, writing about the young John Kerry, in a secret memo to Richard Nixon. Colson and Nixon feared Kerry would use his charisma to turn the American public against the Vietnam War.


How does the hurricane obtain its energy?

From the BBC:

Great amounts of energy are transferred when warm water is evaporated from tropical seas. This energy is stored within the water vapour contained in moist air. As this air ascends, 90% of the stored energy is released by condensation, giving rise to the towering cumulus clouds and rain.

The release of heat energy warms the air locally causing a further decrease in pressure aloft. Consequently, air rises faster to fill this area of low pressure, and more warm moist air is drawn off the sea feeding further energy to the system. Thus a self-sustaining heat engine is created.

Only as little as 3% of the heat energy may be converted mechanical energy of the circulating winds. This relatively small amount of mechanical energy equates to a power supply of 360 billion kilowatt hours per day - or 6 months supply of electrical energy for the whole of the USA!
5.9.04 15:57


Unification

From today's New York Times:
South Korea's government goes to great lengths to promote the image of reconciliation taking hold on the Korean peninsula.

In August, the two Koreas prepared to present a unified front to world television viewers, marching together behind a neutral "unification flag" at the opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics. But North Korea realized it did not have an athlete tall enough to match South Korea's flag bearer, a 6-foot-1 volleyball player named Koo Min Jung.

South Korea broke with protocol and agreed to let Kim Sung Ho, a North Korean coach, be a flag bearer. Mr. Kim, a 50-year-old former basketball player, is an inch taller than Ms. Koo. He also stood head and shoulder above most of North Korea's athletes, members of a generation whose growth was stunted during the famine of the mid-1990's.
According to the article, the South Korean government is desperate not to offend the north, but the north is doing little in return to reciprocate. This is in large part due to economic considerations: South Korea knows that its economic boom relies largely on a high bond rating, which is directly tied to political stability. Make nice with the north, the economy keeps humming along. Call it Karl Marx's revenge.
6.9.04 15:30


The essence of war

Read Andrew Sullivan on the GOP and the war on terror:
"The Republicans have realized ... that the war on terror is far more popular and winning an issue for Bush if it is stripped of its actual events, and setbacks and triumphs and difficulties. That's why the convention rhetoric approached propaganda - focusing not on what has happened, but on the virtues of a strong war-leader."
This is not good for the country. Bush is not good for the country. Democracies win wars in large part because of the dissent that they allow. Not despite it.


Time to act like Republicans

If John Kerry wants to be President, then he needs to fabricate slurs against George W. Bush. That's how elections are won. It's not about open discussion of issues, or nuance, or history, or duty or honor. It's about who is the more brazen liar.

It's well known that George W. Bush was an obnoxious drunk once, and that his current vice president still drinks and has been arrested for drunk driving one at least two occasions. And we really don't know what happens at those Camp David retreats. Do Americans really want to risk giving four more years to an alcoholic? And what about Georgie's sex life during those lost years, when he was living off his daddy's connections and running businesses into the ground? I say drag a hundred dollar bill through a trailer park or two, and see how many middle aged women you can find who remember being slapped up by the congressman's son. Who know, maybe we'll hit paydirt and find rumors of an abortion or two. All it takes is a rumor, or the hint of a rumor, or a rumor about a rumor, and voila, you have a 527 ad - Former Texas Sex Workers for Truth.

Spare me the hand wringing about the better angels of our nature and dragging ourselves down to Karl Rove's level. We need to ask ourselves what is the price of victory over the cabal of liars and buffoons that have Americans convinced that questioning the conduct of this war., or any other war, is the same as treason.


Assume the position



Bush stumps for tart, I mean, tort reform.
7.9.04 15:38


Swift Boat Kitty

The White House is spinning overtime to minimize anticipated damage from Kitty Kelly's new book, which alleges drug use and other wild behavior by George W. Bush.
White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett said yesterday: "Kitty Kelley's allegations make Michael Moore look like a factual documentarian. We're not going to let this garbage she's historically known for spreading go unanswered." He said it would "violate journalistic standards" for news executives to "put this type of trash in their newspapers and on their airwaves." White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan added that the drug allegations were "discredited, dismissed and disavowed years ago."

Heh.


Explaining the French

The right loves to villify the French as cheese eating surrender monkeys, but when it comes to dealing with terrorists, nobody kicks derriére like the frogs.

Torture, deportation, endless detention and more await any Jihadist unlucky enough to be caught planning terrorism in the land of champagne and brie. According to this must read in the Jerusalem Post:
This year, eight Muslim imams have been deported from the country under a 1945 emergency law for preaching "discrimination, hatred or violence against a certain person or groups of persons." The judicial system has staged mega-trials of terrorist suspects – 100 at a time, in one instance. Suspects can be held without trial for years. Torture is not uncommon: According to a BBC report, the British High Court has blocked France's extradition request of Rachid Ramda, wanted in connection to the 1995 bombing, on grounds that "the evidence against him had been beaten out of one of the bombers by the notoriously tough French anti-terrorist police."

The French, like any other culture, hold contradictory positions. Just like Americans. Comme ci, comme ca.
8.9.04 22:58


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