Shot In The Dark - Politics and Current Events in Minnesota and Beyond

Saturday, August 10, 2002

Ticketgate - OK, perhaps that's an exaggeration - as may be Lloyd Grove's claim in this article that "Former vice president Al Gore's long and grueling comeback hit a speed bump yesterday -- well, more like an elephant abruptly crossing the road -- with Foxnews.com gossip Roger Friedman's report that Tipper Gore used her VIP status in a failed attempt to cadge free Bruce Springsteen tickets".

Still, it's always fun when two of my favorite diversions - politics and Springsteen - come conveniently packaged together.
posted by Mitch Berg 8/10/2002 09:27:15 AM

Friday, August 09, 2002

Green - like Camouflage - Ed McGaa is such a very strange character. The Green party senatorial candidate is a former marine fighter pilot. In the Green party, this stands out like, say, Ted Nugent in the DFL Feminist caucus.

Since every vote for him is a vote less for Paul Wellstone, all I can say is - go Ed!
posted by Mitch Berg 8/9/2002 12:46:45 PM

It's an OJ Thing - We're on the brink of a war. We just finished burying the dead from September 11. The economy is reeling - possibly as much from the "cure" (Democrat baying at the moon for regulations) as from the disease.

So what are the tabloids yammering about?

The travails of Martha Stewart.
posted by Mitch Berg 8/9/2002 12:38:47 PM

Emily's B-List - When Becky Lourey lost the DFL nomination to Roger Moe, some of her supporters protested bitterly. It was as if winning the governorship was less important than fielding a woman canidate. Any woman candidate.

It's not a localized problem. The pro-death group Emily's List exists to find big liberal money,and funnel it to candidates who are pro-female-choice on the abortion issue. They also swipe at the NRA, in the process.

And it's backfiring. Emily's List seems to be weakening Democratic candidacies - and not winning many races of its own.
posted by Mitch Berg 8/9/2002 12:36:30 PM

Words Fail Me - I don't know what's more depressing - that Woody Harrelson is such an idiot...

...or that the press eats it up so completely.

What was the last thing he did, anywahy?
posted by Mitch Berg 8/9/2002 12:26:49 PM

Thursday, August 08, 2002

Life Gets In the Way - Sorry about no entries yesterday. I've been buried at work, I have some kid trouble, and I'm flirting with the distant possibility of having a date one of these days.

I'm sure it won't be a problem for long. More blogging to come - including a few longer items this weekend!
posted by Mitch Berg 8/8/2002 12:31:34 PM

More Iraq Taq - James Lilek's screed on critics of invasion.
posted by Mitch Berg 8/8/2002 12:30:21 PM

Welcome to Missile Gap - For decades, now, opponents of Missile Defense have claimed that the whole idea is obsolete even before it's built - because "the main threat is from terrorists who sneak suitcase bombs into the country".

Leave aside the fact that the "suitcase bomb" is largely science-fiction (yes, they exist - there have been tactical nuclear weapons that weigh as little as 100 pounds, measureing 6 by 20 inches, but they require a lot of skill to use properly) - it may be much simpler, more reliable, and do more damage to launch a warhead from a SCUD missile based on a converted merchant ship. It takes old (by high-tech standards, ancient) but reliable technology and exploits its strengths.

And that is where missile defense is suddenly not at all obsolete.
posted by Mitch Berg 8/8/2002 12:15:20 PM

Let Slip the Dogs of Prosecution - I've always felt queasy about the way the terrorist attacks on the US have come to be called "Nine Eleven" by pretty much everyone. I've preferred (in conversation as well as in this blog) to call it "The Attacks" or "The beginning of the War".

Indeed, that is the way we have to think about it, if we as a nation ever intend to end it all.

With Iraq, the prima facie case for war is to end the threat of a nuclear-armed Hussein. So - is it "law enforcement?" "Seeking non-proliferation?" Are either of those terms things for which Americans should risk their lives?

In this article: Doug Bandow, with the case for declaring war on Iraq.
posted by Mitch Berg 8/8/2002 12:07:34 PM

The Price You (Don't) Pay - Algore didn't want to pony up for the Springsteen concert.

Speaking of which - see you on line down at the X Saturday morning at 10AM. (Assuming you're a Bruce fan...)
posted by Mitch Berg 8/8/2002 12:03:07 PM

Tuesday, August 06, 2002

Still Lying Through His Teeth After All These Years - In an interview last week about the roots of the current corporate morality crisis during his adminstration, former President Clinton tried to compare the shenanigans with his supposed inheritance of the Somali problem - which led to the massacre of US troops portrayed in Black Hawk Down - from George Bush Senior.

Problem was, he was lying. Again.
posted by Mitch Berg 8/6/2002 12:32:58 PM

Feedback - Thanks to everyone who wrote me about my Springsteen Album review yesterday. I posted the URL to the review on a few other sites, and it drew a few new people to Shot in the Dark - and my hit count for the day showed it.

I'll be buying tickets for Bruce's September 30 show this weekend. This is madness to say, since I'm a single dad whose free time is at a super-premium, but I miss the good old days of buying tickets - getting up at midnight, getting in line at 1AM to wait for the 9AM opening of the doors - trudging forward over the hours, meeting your fellow fans, making dates, swapping tour stories...

Enh. I'll be on Ticketmaster. Such is progress.

Did that sound crotchety or what?

Speaking of progress - the first time I saw Springsteen, at the St. Paul Civic Center in 1984, the ticket was $16.50, with all fees. This time, it's $75 - and that's relatively good, since it's the same price no matter where you sit in the arena. No $300 front row seats here.
posted by Mitch Berg 8/6/2002 09:21:49 AM

Sowing Misery - The fraud behind the Democrat claims about the economy.

They need us to be miserable, to have a chance in the fall elections.

But it's the Republicans who are the heartless bastards, doncha know...
posted by Mitch Berg 8/6/2002 09:17:42 AM

Hardball - A Pentagon briefing recommends turning Saudi Arabia's dependence on oil revenue back on them, should they reject the US ultimatum on ending support for terrorists.

The plan would involve seizing their oil fields.

Their military is tiny, and uses mostly equipment we supplied them.

But watch the weenie elements in the press and the State Department have aneurisms about the depiction of the Saudi autocrats - supporters of suicide bombing and home of most of the 9/11 hijackers - as "enemies".
posted by Mitch Berg 8/6/2002 07:53:27 AM

Monday, August 05, 2002

Come On Up for the Rising - I've posted my review of Springsteen's latest album.

I've been marinading my brain in this record for the past six days. It may be his best ever.

You be the judge.

Media Bias Watch, Part X - Time Magazine is apparently going to move a story echoing Bill Clinton's charge - that President Bush ignored Clinton's plan to deal with Al Quaeda.

In other words: Clinton all but ignores Al Quada for eight years, including four devastating attacks against Americans (the first WTC bombing, the Kenyan Embassy, the Khobar Towers and the USS Cole) - then coughs up a half-assed "plan" at the end of its tenure. The Bush administration doesn't run with the "plan", or otherwise solve the Al Quaeda problem in the eight months between inauguration and September 11 - and it's Bush's fault?

Unmentioned, most likely, is

Conservatives on Bruce - Conservatives have long had a tenuous relationship with the music of Bruce Springsteen. On the one hand, most of it is undeniably great - and, considered over the course of (this fall) 30 years, his output has been almost uniformly superb, commpared with how most of his contemporaries have drifted into complete irrelevance, mostly before Ronald Reagan was even elected to office.

But the contradiction is there - on the one hand, his political sympathies, while rarely overtly expressed, are generally populist, a movement of which conservatism is rightly suspicious. On the other hand, the themes of which he sings - faith, hope, family, love - are things near and dear to the conservative heart.

And he's undeniably a cultural phenomenon - even today, 18 years after his commercial peak. So we write about him and his music. Even hack bloggers like me try it (see top of page).

Some don't get it.

Some do.
posted by Mitch Berg 8/5/2002 09:06:38 AM

Let's Call It "Building Suspense" - Overslept today - gotta get the kids up and get going to work.
Later today, though - my review of the new Springsteen album, The Rising, plus the usual stuff.
posted by Mitch Berg 8/5/2002 07:58:13 AM

Berg's Law of Liberal Iraq Commentary:

In attacking the reasons for war, no liberal commentator is capable of addressing more than one of the justifications at a time; to do so would introduce a context in which their argument can not survive