Friday, March 19, 2004
Hoax-Free Zone - The Monkeys comment on the sloganeering wars that have erupted at Claremont McKenna University.
The piece skewers one of the great signs of liberal higher-consciencemongering: The smug placard.
Read it!
posted by Mitch Berg 3/19/2004 04:39:47 PM
Kerry On National Security - One of the Democrat mantras this election has been "Bush Can't Touch Kerry on National Security".
Kerry is, of course, a complete non-entity on national security. It's entirely possibly that Dianne Feinstein would be better at National Security than John Kerry - a comparison that truly defines the phrase "Damnation by Faint Praise" for both.
In months of hearing the mantra, I've caught exactly three reasons that John Kerry is qualfied at all on national security, much less more qualified than the President:
I've heard nothing so far this campaign that would qualify John Kerry to argue with me in a bar about national security, much less lead the world's most powerful nation in wartime.
So here's the opportunity I'm offering, Dems. In the comments thread below, state John Kerry's actual national security qualifications to be President, in terms that would "sell" the idea to someone who takes national security seriously.
You may start now.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/19/2004 08:17:55 AM
Pat Hall - My grandmother, and last surviving grandparent, Pat Hall, died Thursday morning. It was the day after her 91st birthday - hence the name "Pat".
She died two years to the month after her husband of nearly 70 years, my grandfather Don Hall.
She was a lucky person - active and busy up to the very end. On her birthday, my aunts and uncles all gathered at her home in Houston and threw a party for her. She had seemed - from the distance I'm at - to have bounced back as well as possible from Grandpa's death.
And yet after nearly 70 years with someone, it must have been hard to go on. I have a hard time imagining that; after a ten-year marriage that splintered like furniture from Wal-Mart, I have a hard time picturing ever investing that much of my soul in another person; it seems oddly foolhardy, almost criminally stupid. "They *will* let you down, the cynical (or maybe just bruised) subconscious tells me.
And yet, there they were; from 1935 to 2002, always with each other, through bad times (a depression, a war, decades of teaching in skinflint rural high schools) and good times (three kids, nine grandkids, six great-grandkids and a step-great-grandkid). Always together, looking out for each other, whether being the big couple in college (they were homecoming royalty) to galavanting around Asia and tearing up every golf course in Phoenix in their sixties, to being each other's seeing-eye people in their eighties and nineties.
The fact that people like my grandparents ever existed gives me hope, and justifies some faith in humanity. I'm very glad I was able to know them.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/19/2004 03:05:07 AM
My Theory - I love oratory. A really great piece of public speech can be a wonder to behold.
Lileks talks about some of the speeches of note this past week:I heard four speeches this week – one by Carville before some firefighters, screaming like cat that had been dipped in turpentine; one from Kerry about something or other (it’s hard to stick with it; he sounds like a 45 RPM record played at 33 1/, and you keep making revolving-hand motions in the hopes you can somehow, like a butterfly that flutters its wings in Brazil and causes typhoons in Tahiti, cause him to pick up the pace a little); one from Dick Cheney, and one from Bush. Cheney’s speech was tailor-made for his speaking style, which consists of pressing the point of the sword into the opponant’s arguments and slowly pushing the entire blade in with steady force. Bush’s speech had many thick sheets of boilerplate, but it had economy and optimism.
This prompts me to think there's a pattern here; let's look at some of the last several elections:
My theory should be obvious; in most elections, the better public speaker wins. Sometimes the definition of "better" is squishy - Ventura is a terrible speaker, but he knows how to entertain and he gets body language, which is as important as your writing style. Sometimes the theory doesn't work - Mark Dayton isn't much better a speaker than John Kerry - but other factors are at play (the media lynched Rod Grams).
However, for the most part, the better oratorical communicator wins the election.
George W. Bush's speaking style is strained at times, but when he's on focus, he's blazingly effective. John Kerry is - words fail - dreadful. Worse than Dukakis. Nay - worse than the interminable bore, Gore. (On the state level, nobody will ever score worse than Roger Moe, a man who learned oratory from dairy cattle).
By this standard, Bush has an edge going into November, and - if taken to its illogical conclusion - John Kerry will be lucky to be elected to the Nantucket school board.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/19/2004 02:49:58 AM
On Franco - Joe Gandelsman was a reporter in Spain about the time the Franco government collapsed.
He has a blog today - and writes this fascinating piece about the Basque separatist and terrorist movement ETA.
He finishes:--- MY CONCLUSIONS:
The whole piece is incredibly fascinating. Read it.
---1. ETA is small. But you don't need big numbers to do damage as terrorists.
---2. ETA's longtime goal will never happen: Spain's Basque County won't unite with France's Basque Country and there are no signs the majority of Basques want to totally break away.
---3. There are Basque moderates and leftists. They're not in sympathy with ETA.
---4. ETA's one hope, then as now, is in provoking the government to overreact and do things that upset moderate or leftists. Think of it as a wedge issue, with higher stakes involved.
---5. If you look at the history of ETA in recent years, no matter what chronology you read, you see that ETA simply never adjusted to the times and was even battling Spain's first post-Franco Socialist government.
---6. If ETA's point is to provoke the government, then murdering 200 people and injuring 1200 would be a good test of the government's patience. If they DID do it and deny they did it and the government cracks down hard on them, they can call it a diversion -- that the government doesn't want the people to know it was really done by Muslim terrorists. (In this view, evidence the police found with Muslim links was to make the government look like it's lying about who did it)
---7. ETA has gone through various incarnations with varying styles of leadership and, in that context, and you can just hear some young ETA terrorist say: "Just kill THREE people? That's so 20th century!"
---So, in the end, what happened in Madrid may be an example of Al Qaeda as a bad role model for youth......
(Via Al in my comments section yesterday. Visit his blog)
posted by Mitch Berg 3/19/2004 02:35:56 AM
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Day From Hell - It's been one.
More later.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/18/2004 09:08:37 PM
Bienvenue A Des Moines - Hi, all. I've been in Des Moines on business for the last couple of days.
Naturally, today - on the last morning of my trip - I discover that my hotel has halfways decent free wi-fi in the lobby.
More tonight.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/18/2004 07:27:17 AM
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Frivolity - Jeff Fecke left this comment in my "Wages of Appeasement" post yesterday. I'm highlighting it because it spotlights so many of the fallacies that inflate the left today:
The terrorists did not win in Spain. Democracy did.
Right. It also won in 1933 in Germany.
Democracy "won", if "won" means "got manipulated by clever, evil people into doing something that sane people will deeply regret someday". It's a standard liberal conceit - that everything is OK, as long as a majority approves (or a majority of judges say that the majority is irrelevant, but that's a tangent).
No. The Spanish election may have been "Democracy in action", but it was also just plain wrong. Had Aznar told the truth about the attacks, rather than playing pin-the-blame-on-ETA, his party may well have won the election. Instead, his party lost. THAT WAS NOT THE TERRORISTS' DOING.
But "Democracy", given all the information that a free society can provide, chose to elect an appeasenik government. That was the Terrorists' goal and wish. One more time, slowly: OPPOSING THE IRAQ WAR IS NOT EQUAL TO OPPOSING THE WAR ON TERROR.
One more time, with ominous Churchillian resolve: Yes It Is. In fact, opposing the war in Iraq equals gutting the war on terror.
Opposing the liberation of Iraq is a vote to continue the war - on the enemy's terms. Letting the enemy choose the battlefield (here, not there) and the time and place the war will be conducted. Forever. And when you let the enemy control the place and time of a war, you cede the initiative.
And you lose. Inevitably.
Trying to separate the Iraq and Terror is one of those bedtime stories the left tells itself to convince itself that it's responsible and mature about foreign policy and defense, yet still hasn't sold out its antiwar, pro-appeasement-at-all-costs base. There are many of them; "Al Quaeda is the real enemy". "We need to bring the terrorists to justice". "There is no link between Iraq and Al Quaeda", as if international terrorists are bound by no-compete contracts, and they respect each others' turf and never overlap. "No WMDs!", as if the disappearance of the Iraqi WMD program invalidated the war.
For all the left's carping about "nuance", this is the line of thought that proves them completely incapable of grasping it. In the left's imagination, the "war on terror" involves bounding through the hills of Afghanistan hunting Al Quaeda, and chasing through the suqs of the Third World with arrest warrants until we bring Osama Bin Laden to The Hague...
...and then we're done.
Dumb. Too dumb for words. Saying the "war on terror" begins and ends with Bin Laden and Al Quada is like treating the flu by putting a cork in your throat so you can't throw up; it treats an obvious symptom without addressing ANY of the causes.
So here's your nuance - it was the liberation of Iraq that caused Libya to cough up their nuke and chemical programs (Hey! We found WMDs! And neither Blix nor Scott Ritter had any idea they were there!), and is ripping holes in the fabric of tyranny in Iran and Syria, and is forcing fissures in Saudi society that will eventually dry up the terrorists' funding, either by reform or overthrow. The Liberation started a process that will take patience (something no Democrat has when he is out of power), but whose results are already obvious to anyone who's not so blinded by ideology that they think...
...well, that John Kerry is a responsible choice for chief executive. Choosing to pull out of Iraq--as the Spaniards apparently will--is a rational choice for any country not named America. (For us, as the leaders and principals in the occupation, a pullout may or may not be desirable, but it is morally inconceivable.) It is not a capitulation to al-Qaeda, any more than our pulling our bases out of Saudi Arabia was.
It's a capitulation, though - to irrationality, and to the false security that you get from appeasing tyrants and madmen.
It'll work for a while - just like "staying neutral" worked for Belgium, Holland and Norway in 1939. It was perfectly rational - until 1940.
It's a fool's security.
And Kerry is the fool's candidate. A vote for John Kerry is a vote for letting the terrorists control the place, time, and agenda of the war on terror.
Like last weekend's vote in Spain - it's a vote for surrender.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/16/2004 07:21:39 AM
Out Of Town - I'll be out until Thursday on business. Blogging will be light, unless my hotel room's data port actually works.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/16/2004 05:40:22 AM
Goebbels 101 - "'If you tell a big enough Lie, and keep on repeating it, in the end people will come to believe it."
Case in point: Senator John F. Kerry attacked President Bush on national security issues today, asserting that Mr. Bush has played politics with the battle against terrorism and that the bombings in Spain show how ineffective his policies have been.
I could repeat the obvious; that the Bush Administration actually did something that has a chance of actually ending terrorism, given enough persistence; that Kerry's approach is downright infantile. I think everyone with the brain the comprehend this split already knows it.
"When it comes to protecting America from terrorism, this administration is big on bluster and they're short on action," Mr. Kerry, the Massachusetts senator and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said. "But as we saw again last week in Spain, real action is what we need. The Bush administration is tinkering while the clock on homeland security is ticking. And we really don't have a moment of time to waste."
And I don't think Kerry is shooting for that "know what's going on" vote.
By the way -Mr. Kerry, in his address to the firefighters' union, showed again that he was unwilling to be pre-empted by President Bush on security issues. He said the times demanded "truly dedicating ourselves to homeland security, not using it as a political prop."
Kerry is the one using the war as a prop. Goodness knows he can't use it as a qualification.
(Via Powerline)
posted by Mitch Berg 3/16/2004 05:03:13 AM
Terrorist Strategy? - It's occurred to me - probably much later than to most people - that the US is probably the safest place in the world to be right now, when it comes to terror. It's Western Europe, Japan and South Korea where I'd be nervous.
I'd lay money on this: the terrorists know that an attack on the US, the UK or Australia right now would make their lives much harder; at best, the Bali nightclub bombing reinforced Australia's will to fight; the UK weathered decades of IRA bombs, and has a superb counterterrorist intelligence apparatus (because of those IRA bombs). Above all, they have to know that an attack in the US right now would reinforce George Bush's presidential campaign.
Their best hope for four years of undeterred free worldwide reign is to get Bush out of office.
That means exactly what many commentators have said: trying to create more Spains; "swing nations" in the war on terror, especially ones with fragile conservative governments that are barely holding out against socialist, appeasenik oppositions, like Italy.
The more of those get picked off and leave the coalition, the more credible John Kerry looks. The more nations defect, the more Kerry's fraudulent claims of Bush's diplomatic incompetence will resonate with that segment of the swing vote that is illiterate enough in world affairs to believe in the virtues of multiateralism for its own sake.
So I'd say we can lower the threat level to "Green" until the first weekend in November.
After that? Well, it's then that our choice for President will really count.
More on why we, as a nation of free people, cannot afford John Kerry as a president as the week goes on.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/16/2004 05:01:16 AM
Monday, March 15, 2004
Munich, 2004 - Saturday, during the radio show, I asked Rocket Man and Captain Ed if they thought the Madrid bombings might signal a turning point in Europe's approach to terror.
Sunday morning I sat slack-jawed and depressed, seeing that it was a turning point indeed. For the worse.
The War on Terror has been an emotional kaleidoscope so far. On the morning of September 11, I ping-ponged back and forth between fear and jaw-wracking anger. The day the Northern Alliance took Kabul, I was agog with amazement. The day the statue of Hussein fell in Firdos Square, it was stunned pride in our troops.
Yesterday was the first time in this war I've felt depressed. An entire nation - one in which in whose integrity I had at least a shred of faith - has turned tail and run.
Appeasement and cowardice won in the Spanish elections. "He that trades a little freedom for a little security deserves neither" said Benjamin Franklin.
Sullivan says:it's vital that the Islamist mass murderers target those who backed both wars. It makes total sense. And in yesterday's election victory for the socialists, al Qaeda got even more than it could have dreamed of. It has removed a government intent on fighting terrorism and installed another intent on appeasing it. For good measure, they murdered a couple of hundred infidels. But the truly scary thought is the signal that this will send to other European governments. Britain is obviously next. The appeasement temptation has never been greater; and it looks more likely now that Europe - as so very often in the past - will take the path of least resistance - with far greater bloodshed as a result. I'd also say that it increases the likelihood of a major bloodbath in this country before the November elections. If it worked in Spain, al Qaeda might surmise, why not try it in the U.S.?
Let's see what it does for the Spaniards. It did wonders for the Turks, after all...
posted by Mitch Berg 3/15/2004 03:56:43 AM
Saturday's Show - Last weekend's Northern Alliance Radio Network broadcast was better than the first one. Everyone's starting to settle down a bit. The first week's show was awash in adrenaline, which causes all sorts of problems. Everyone - myself included - was a lot more relaxed and focused Saturday.
The interplay in the studio during the show is tightening up; people are communicating via hand signals as they listen to phone calls or interviewers, waving a hand to say "I got it" like good outfielders calling a pop fly.
The show's settled into a nice format: First hour is "Week in review", with Rocket Man, Captain Ed and (last weekend) Elder and I chewing over the news of the past week. Second hour we usually have an interview - although, given Big Trunk's facility at snaring interviews, we could probably fill 2-3 hours a week on 'em. Third Hour seems to be devoted to punchier fare; last show, Ed and J.B. Doubtless argued over the merits of The Passion for most of the hour, and drew a one-hour record for phone calls.
Speaking of which - it was great hearing from DC from Brainstorming, who called in during the third hour. Who'll be the surprise blog guest next week?
People keep asking - when will we start streaming the show? Stay tuned - we should have big news on that sooner or later. By that time, we should be fairly decent...
posted by Mitch Berg 3/15/2004 03:55:44 AM
Wages of Appeasement - Mark Steyn spells it out pretty thoroughly:
Suppose you're an ETA cell. Suppose you were planning a car-bomb for next month – nothing fancy, just a dead Spanish official plus a couple of unlucky passers-by. Still want to go ahead with it? I doubt it. Despite Gerry Adams's attempts to distinguish between "unacceptable" terrorism and the supposedly more beneficial kind, these days it's a club with only one level of membership. That's why so many formerly active terrorist groups have been so quiet the past couple of years. In that sense, Bush is right: It is a "war on terror", and on many fronts it's being won.
Kerry supporters! People with "No War in Iraq" signs! Is any of this getting through?
If Islamic terrorism were as rational as Irish or Basque terrorism, it would be easier. But Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, summed it up very pithily: "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you." You can be pro-America (Spain, Australia) or anti-America (France, Canada), but if you broke into the head cave in the Hindu Kush and checked out the hit list you'd be on it either way.
So the choice for pluralist democracies is simple: You can join Bush in taking the war to the terrorists, to their redoubts and sponsoring regimes. Despite the sneers that terrorism is a phenomenon and you can't wage war against a phenomenon, in fact you can – as the Royal Navy did very successfully against the malign phenomena of an earlier age, piracy and slavery.
Or you can stick your head in the sand and paint a burqa on your butt. But they'll blow it up anyway.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/15/2004 03:54:10 AM
Drifting Up? - Deacon from Powerline reports that some new polls are showing the base is returning to Bush.
I wonder if Kos is harangueing about these yet?
posted by Mitch Berg 3/15/2004 03:39:51 AM
Another Guy In A Red Jumpsuit - Elder, from the Fraters, is a fellow Mike Nelson fan. In a Thursday post, Elder notes with an especial spring in his prose that Nelson - one-time head-writer and then star of the classic "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" would seem not to be a "rabid, Bush-hating, foaming-at-the-mouth Lefty", who in Nelson's own words, says "And if it isn't clear by now, I think Bush should win" in an interview in the Lincoln Heights Literary Society.
I liked this quote especially:Mike Nelson: I'm one of those unfocused people who has eight books going at once. I'm finishing a very large work of non-fiction by the almost supernaturally brilliant Paul Johnson called "Modern Times," a history of the world since WWI. I've also started working through the one volume Martin Gilbert biography of Churchill.
Yet again. It was "Modern Times" that began my conversion from arrogant little liberal snipe to the libertarian-conservative I am today. That book is like the "Where's Waldo" of more former liberals than Johnson himself (also a former liberal) would probably believe.
And this piece here is wonderful:LS: What place does religion have in our lives? Can you be moral without belief in God?
Finally:
MN: Well, as a Judeo-Christian nation, there's obviously a great tradition of religion, but I do think there now seems to be a phobia about speaking of it in the public sphere. It's too bad, because it closes off a gigantic, well-developed and thorough intellectual discipline. (And I happen to believe there's that whole "saving your soul" issue, that I wouldn't want people to lose sight of.) As the apologist Greg Koukl is fond of pointing out, Christianity is well-equipped to compete in the marketplace of ideas.
And obviously, you can be a wonderful, completely moral, thoroughly beautiful human being without a belief in God (I think it's much more difficult, and you'd be pulling it off in spite of your beliefs, not because of them.) But on the intellectual plane, many Atheist thinkers have tried to construct a framework for morality and all of them have been unconvincing. To my thinking, "morality" is meaningless unless you talk about "absolute morality." And you can't do that without bringing God into it.LS: What's your favorite movie pre-1970 and why?
Attaguy!
MN: It's probably "Casablanca." I'd love to say it was some little known foreign film instead of this rather pedestrian answer, but there it is. Come on, it's just a beautiful film.
I liked MST3K a lot. I think I'll take Elder's advice and snare some copies of Nelson's writing.
Elder's right - read the whole interview.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/15/2004 03:30:47 AM
Bring It On! - The names, I mean.
Colin Powell called the candidate on his lie omission:Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, under pressure to say which foreign leaders were rooting for him to beat President Bush, refused on Sunday to reveal any names.
And we all know to whom you owe your loyalty, right?
"No leader would obviously share a conversation if I started listing them," Kerry told reporters after Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested he name some names or stop implying foreign leaders were encouraging him to beat Bush.Kerry...said last week he had met foreign leaders who told him "you've got to beat this guy" because of unhappiness over U.S. foreign policy.
Why should we do all the work?
He was challenged on the issue by Powell, who said on "Fox News Sunday" that "if he feels it is that important an assertion to make, he ought to list some names. If he can't list names, then perhaps he should find something else to talk about."
Democrats - tell us, who are these "leaders"? Do you people feel any need to hold your candidate accountable?Cedrick Brown, owner of a small business in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, also pressed Kerry on the issue during a town hall meeting and questioned whether he had met any foreign leaders recently.
I have always felt John Kerry is weasel. Why it's taking the rest of the nation so seemingly long to figure this out is downright depressing.
Kerry, who last traveled overseas in late 2002, insisted he had talked to and met with foreign leaders who were rooting for him. He said during the town hall he talked to "several" in the past week and that all the conversations were not face-to-face.
He said the leaders were "at all different levels" of government and said their support was fueled by dissatisfaction with U.S. unilateralism and "arrogance" in foreign policy.
posted by Mitch Berg 3/15/2004 03:30:03 AM
BRPI - 3
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