Friday, August 13, 2004

Slow reflexes?

This Reuters story has a number of interesting aspects to it.
First off, the headline underscores an embarrassing thing about the president. Bush refuses to condemn the malignant ads by the Swift Boat Liars, ads that characterize Kerry as variously a coward, a traitor, and a monster. There are certain political expressions that cross a line, that are "beyond the pale." These ads cross that line, and many figures including Senator McCain have denounced them.
I saw David Brooks mischaracterize Bush's approach to these smears on television, saying that he had denounced them. If you're David Brooks and your worldview depends on seeing Republicans as something other than opportunists with blood under their fingernails, it's probably best to imagine your man is upright and decent. The elephant in the corner for the punditry during this Bush presidency is the president and his men are not decent. That, as John DiIulio recounted, these people are Mayberry Machiavellis whose decisions are made political calculation or emotion or grudges. These people will countenance these slanders because they know that the only fight they can win is a dirty one.
I shouldn't even go into how cheap it is for Bush to complain that 527s should be outlawed because they are used in political smearing. But I will. Campaign finance reform, which gave rise to the 527s, was, although it was supported more by Dems than Republicans, thought to weaken the Democrats by removing a fundraising avenue that benefitted Democrats (namely soft money) and leaving in place avenues that benefitted Republicans (hard money donations). However, the Democratic base was charged by the fact that Bush is such an awful and unloved president, and that comparative disadvantage disappeared in favor growth in grass roots donations and in liberal 527 groups. Bush's problem with 527s has nothing to do with the fact that some of them get a little nasty and some of them are a little loose with the facts. Bush's problem with them is that they counteract some of Bush's money strengths in this race. Pure and simple.
Theo other thing in this Reuters piece that caught my attention was this paragrapgh dedicated to the "Pet Goat" situation:

"Well, I had just been told by (White House Chief of Staff) Andrew Card that America was under attack. And I was collecting my thoughts," Bush said. "I think what's important is how I reacted when I realized America was under attack. It didn't take me long to figure out we were at war."

Hey Buddy. It took me about two seconds. You sat there for seven minutes with sweat pouring down you. What people have been (fairly, in my opinion) criticizing you for is that you did not respond quickly. No one is impressed by your response. Anyone who claims to be is just an apologist. Our next president, John Kerry, chased down a grenade-launcher bearing Viet Cong soldier who threatened his men and killed him at great personal risk to himself. In 1988, Kerry saved a Senate colleague from choking to death, employing both quick thinking and the Heimlich maneuver. John Kerry has demonstrated capacity for thoughful and decisive action. You sat in a classroom twiddling your thumbs for seven minutes with the full knowledge that this country was under attack. With this country facing such terrible threats, why would we want someone like you at the helm?

Thursday, August 12, 2004

And Now for Something Substantially Divergent

Via Boing Boing, a blog I cannot reccomend highly enough and will soon link, we find that a Leather furniture manufacturer called Jucci has built its website with a flaw in its code that makes possible all sorts of amusing exploitations.

Here's a Monty Python themed approach I came up with.

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

"Anybody But Moon"

This ridiculous wire story uncritically repeats a Washington Times story alleging that Al Qaeda is planning a major assassination and that its intentions are to disrupt the election. Further, it claims that Al Qaeda is of an "Anybody but Bush" persuasion, according to an unnamed intelligence official. Why don't I believe this?
Well, part of the reason is that I believe that Al Qaeda has been remarkably well served by Bush. After all, the effort and resources and manpower and potential future manpower that could have been put toward destroying Al Qaeda instead of removing a largely contained and defanged Arab despot that had nothing to do with it is enormous. Not to mention the increase of Anti-Americanism abroad and the alienation of our Western Allies that has accompanied Bush's presidency.
But the reason that I don't believe it really has more to do with the source. Just as I'm not going to believe Dick Morris if he's talking about Hillary Clinton's chances of running for president, and not going to take Pat Robertson's word if he's discussing the cause for Vince Foster's death, I'm not going to trust the Washington Times if it's trying to tell me who Osama wants in the White House. The Washington Times is one of the major "conservative" dailies in the US, the others being the Wall Street Journal, which would be one of the better American newspapers if its editorial page weren't written by Republican operatives, and the New York Post, the Murdoch tabloid and THE place to get completely inaccurate information about Kerry's running mate. I put conservative in scare quotes because I think it's hard to describe a paper whose owner had himself crowned Messiah by members of congress and is alleged to have been involved in passing submarine missile equipment to the North Koreans can really be conservative.
When I think of conservative I think of guys who wear ties every day and are are most comfortable with tradition. I think of middle aged, middle class, middle-American white guys who think things should be the way they used to be. I certainly don't think of people who work for cult leaders who advocate mass weddings, call homosexuals dung-eating dogs, claim to have been anointed by dead presidents, and claim in all sincerity that they're better than Jesus Christ.
The Reverend Moon is a dangerous man and the fact that his money, which comes from his fringe religious practice, Japanese fascists, and apparently extortion schemes, has tainted other religious groups and the US political order is terrible. I can't say specifically how much direct effect he has on his various publications, but they are clearly his babies. Moon has pumped over a Billion $ into the Washington Times over the years, and it has represented both his radical agenda and the Republican agenda since then. It has been shoddily reporting the news from a far-right perspective since 1982. The fact that wire services carry this dreck from the Times as if it's credible is deeply discouraging.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Ughhh!

It appears this website is the number one Yahoo! search item for Poop Torture.
Lame!

Local Man goes West

Maryland's own Alan Keyes is heading to Illinois. He is running for the Senate against one of the rising stars of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama. He has already compared Obama's position on abortion to slavery, and he's just getting started.
When I was in middle school I heard him speak on the television. He was running for the Senate then, too. Somehow I was impressed by his oratory, which is, as many have said, skillful but grandiloquent, somehow both impressive and cartoonish. Heck, I was twelve.
It's all so hilariously strange for the Republicans to have sent this odd duck to defeat a man more than a few commentators have decided, on the strength of his DNC speech, is likely to be the first black president of the US. What the hell does it all mean? After all, Keyes is an obvious carpetbagger who has, in the past, made special condemnation of Hillary Clinton's carpetbagging. He has admited he doesn't know much about the state, which isn't exactly a plus. And to top it of, not to go all Krauthammer, but Keyes' ego is preposterously huge. See this quote from his RenewAmerica website:

"[Keyes] Is capable of leading our country to widespread moral and political renewal, once all of America has a chance to see and hear, first-hand, his self-evident brilliance."

Ouch. Pretty big talk for somebody who couldn't even pull 30% in his 1992 race against Mikulski.
The only possible excuses for Keyes to have been chosen have to do with race, and it don't reflect well on the Republicans that they would throw an out of towner at their senate race essentially because of the color of his skin.