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| 5/25 |
| 2004/6/3-4 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:30588 Activity:high |
6/3 I'm not sure which is better, the part about Connerly being part-black,
CNN's Rhetorical Arsenal, or The Kerry Echo chamber. Anyway, this is
how the left looks to the right every day:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110005163
Oh yeah, there's also some nice polling numbers and a link to the
Iowa Electronic Markets so you can put your money where your mouth is
and buy contracts betting that Kerry will win.
\_ See, why you gotta hate? I'd rather read Joe Bob Briggs:
http://www.joebobbriggs.com At least he's got style. |
| 5/25 |
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| www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110005163 BY JAMES TARANTO Thursday, June 3, 2004 4:00 pm EDT Bush Victory Portents Five months before the election, President Bush has been taking a pounding in the press, and his poll numbers are suffering. Elliott's formula has Kerry picking up six of 2000's red states--Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire and Ohio--along with every state Gore won. Of course, late-spring polls don't necessarily predict the election outcome. In 1988, the last time a man named George Bush ran against a Massachusetts liberal, the latter looked a lot stronger than Kerry does today. Gallup helpfully provides trendlines for past elections. In a May 1988 Gallup poll, Michael Dukakis had a 16-point lead--54% to 38%--and Vice President Bush continued to trail until after the Republican Convention in August. Gallup's latest poll this year, conducted May 21-23, shows Kerry with a scant two-point lead, 49% to 47%. Kerry's edge narrows to a single point, 47% to 46%, when Ralph Nader is included. Iowa Electronic Markets (click on "get prices") have just begun trading futures on the election outcome. As of yesterday's close, a contract paying $1 in the event of a Republican victory was selling for 554 cents. New York Times is to be believed, the Bush-loathing leaders of France and Germany seem to be banking on Bush: "Officials in both countries say that their leaders have come to conclude that Senator John Kerry's campaign to defeat Mr Bush has not caught fire and that they may have to coexist with Mr Bush for another four years," the paper reported Monday from Paris. Rasmussen polling firm has a fascinating analysis of a survey of 2,000 likely voters. It asked them if they would consider voting for each candidate. Bush does better than Kerry, with 54% saying they'd consider voting for him, vs. Thirty-nine percent say they would "definitely NOT" vote for each candidate. A deeper look at the numbers suggests that Bush's base is more solid than Kerry's--which is to say, more Kerry voters than Bush voters are likely to switch: Ninety-one percent (91%) of those who would consider voting for Kerry already plan to vote for him. Just 3% of those who would consider Kerry are currently planning to vote for Bush. However, just 81% of those who would consider voting for Bush are planning to vote for him at this time. Another 10% of these potential supporters are currently planning to vote for Kerry. Another Rasmussen analysis looks at "swing voters"--the 12% who said they would be willing to consider voting for either candidate. Currently this group breaks down 39% for Kerry, 36% for Bush, 6% other and 20% undecided, but several demographic characteristics bode well for Bush. All this inclines us to think Bush remains a solid favorite for re-election. So does our evaluation of Kerry, who strikes us as pompous and overcautious. True, Harding had won in a landslide and replaced a wartime president of the opposite party--but the war was long over by November 1920. To be sure, we claim no special talent at political prognostication, and we've certainly been wrong before. Right up until the Iowa caucuses, we thought Howard Dean would be the Democratic nominee. We wrote Kerry off for the same reasons we're inclined to discount his chances now. Our error in that case was a failure of imagination: Never having voted in a Democratic primary, we didn't understand how the mind of a Democratic primary voter works. It turns out, as the exit polls made clear, that the Democrats really, really wanted to beat President Bush, so they chose the "electable" Kerry over the passionate Dean. By deeming Kerry electable, the Dems made a judgment about how independents and (to a lesser extent) Republicans would view him in November. If Kerry ends up losing, it will show that Democratic primary voters are as bad at anticipating the preferences of other groups as we were when we concluded he was going to lose the nomination. The Kerry Echo Chamber One reason Kerry appears to be doing well is that the media are generally friendly--if not to him, at least to the anti-Bush cause. Press bias is a perennial complaint of conservatives and Republicans, but it may well hurt liberals and Democrats more than it helps them, because painting an unrealistically rosy picture of their prospects breeds complacency. But he added: "The problem is for many Americans, however, they can't take it as face value. Which means something has happened about the credibility of this administration in this process. It's a question of the level of confidence Americans have in this administration, and I think that's a serious issue." So here we have a reporter leveling an unsubstantiated charge against the Bush administration. Kerry responds by (wisely) declining to endorse the accusation directly, instead doing so tacitly by attributing it to "many Americans." Does Kerry really believe that "many Americans" agree with the anonymous reporter's allegation? But most of the Americans he hears from are no doubt his own supporters--people who are naturally inclined to believe the worst of the president. What we have here, in other words, is an echo chamber: Kerry, his supporters and journalists all saying what they would like to believe is true. No doubt it's comforting to the president's opponents to pick up the Times and read stuff like this. But if Kerry wants to wage a winning campaign, he'd be better off if he had a way of finding out what is true. Gerald Ford served in the Navy and saw action in the Pacific during World War II. In fact, every major-party presidential nominee since 1952 has served in the military in some capacity, with the exceptions of Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey and Bill Clinton. Reuters dispatch about President Bush's visit with "one of his harshest critics," a certain John Paul II: "In the pope's remarks last Thursday, the pontiff did not mention Iraq but it was the first time he has spoken specifically about torture since photographs of US soldiers abusing Iraqis in Abu Ghraib prison emerged last month." New York Times story on John Kerry's slogan, "Let America be America again": "The phrase has surfaced at a time of outrage over the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, aides noted, and on Thursday in Seattle, Mr Kerry used it again to articulate his differences from Mr Bush on foreign policy." Associated Press article on nonlethal weapons--those that aim only to immobilize the enemy: "But in an era of secret interrogations of al-Qaida suspects and revelations of US abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, Executive Director Doug Johnson of the Minneapolis-based Center for Torture Victims is skeptical." how words can be used as "weapons" and to sway political opinion. Have students discuss how Bush is using words as weapons and what he hopes will be gained by his rhetoric. how words can be used as "weapons" to sway political opinion. Discuss how bin Laden is using words as weapons, and what he hopes will be gained by his rhetoric. Well, you didn't think it was going to be John Kerry, did you? Don't Know Much About History The Washington Post published an op-ed the other day by Pakistani ruler Pervez Musharraf titled "A Plea for Enlightened Moderation." Musharraf's piece includes this whopper: "Before the anti-Soviet Afghan war, the sole cause of unrest and concern in the Muslim world was the Palestine dispute. It was this issue that led to a unity of Muslims--in favor of Palestinians and against Israel." "Go there and recognize that it's going to be one of the greatest experiences of your life. You're not there to engage in this racial, 'Mirror, mirror on the wall' kind of thing." Whereas the AP refers to Connerly as "part-black," it quotes numerous supporters of racial preferences without mentioning their race, much less determining whether they're "all" or "part" anything. Oh well, at least they didn't call him a "mulatto" or a "quadroon." Abortion Alfresco From a Washington Post report on this week's court decision declaring the Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003 unconstitutional: The ban on the procedure that critics call "partial birth abortion" was already on hold temporarily as three courts... |
| www.joebobbriggs.com For the week ending May 15, 2004 The Palme d'Or, top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, was awarded to Michael Moore for his documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11." Isn't it customary, when an American wins one of the world's top competitions (Tour de France, Nobel Prize, Olympics), for the winner to be invited to the White House? He begged the judge for leniency, saying he loves the Army and admitting to a lapse in judgment, but even though he's about as far out on the farthest-out fringes of the scandal as anyone can be, he got the maximum--a demotion, a year in prison, and expulsion from the Army. Johnson is 40 years old--an old man in baseball terms--and was working with a rookie catcher, Robby Hammock, who had his signals shaken off only two or three times. In sports terms, that's the equivalent of Haley's Comet. From now on, the seventh-inning stretch song will have to go this way: Take me out to the ball game! Buy me some peanuts and Crunch 'n Munch, I don't care if I never get . Yes, it's true, Crunch 'n Munch has replaced Cracker Jack at the concession stand. And it gets worse: there's NO PRIZE in a box of Crunch 'n Munch. Cicada Mania was especially fervent in Ohio and on the Eastern seaboard, with bars offering cicada cocktails and people daring each other to eat them. Most people opted, however, for the extremely satisfying ritual of nature in which the cicada is crushed under the shoe, making a sound like a tiny cereal box being flattened. In the state regarded as the most hardass for the death penalty, Governor Rick Perry rejected the pleas for mercy, which sort of makes him a hardass even to hardasses. Wouldn't you think that, of all cities in the world equipped to guard against Olympic terrorism, New York would have its act together in that department? The independent federal commission investigating the September 11 attacks announced its findings on the same day the Olympic committee announced the finalists, and commission member John F Lehman said that "the command and control and communications" of New York were "a scandal"--"not worthy of the Boy Scouts, let alone this great city." After the World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists the first time, in 1993, the city under the guidance of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani did . Since then the city has done nothing again, setting up conditions for Mayor Michael Bloomberg to become a hero someday soon. The number one contender for the 2012 Olympics, by the way, is Paris. Among other advantages they have is that they don't send any of their security guards to Iraq. Is every single gay marriage from now till the end of time going to be honored with a cutesie feature article? Sonia thought about it, then decided to decline the country's leadership and have a little Chianti instead. The demonstration came shortly after rabbis in Jerusalem declared that wigs imported from India were unacceptable for devout Jews, because they were made of human hair and might have been used in Hindu ceremonies. The wig- burners are part of the Satmar community of Jews who believe that, after a woman marries, she's never again allowed to display her hair in public. The result is that women wear wigs their whole lives, preferring the ones made of human hair, which retail for $1,000 apiece. Once they learned they were wearing unholy wigs, though, they got positively feverish about destroying them, starting as many as a dozen fires all over Brooklyn and causing the police to get nervous about crowd control. One woman was arrested for disorderly conduct, but the officers failed to report as to whether she was bald, synthetically wigged, or simply clutching her favorite Hindu wig to her breast and wailing that she'll never be able to match the highlights. Okay okay, we'll restore the tusks, but it's gonna be nasty. Most likely reason: air pollution, which refracts the light back into space and causes more water droplets to condense, leading to thick dark clouds. At a conference in Montreal, the effects on weather, water supplies and agriculture will be discussed, as well as the likely benefits for vampires. It was impossible to determine whether the dead man's last words were in response to the question "Do these shoes make me look fat?" The Great Mai Tai Hunt (Frat Parties Turned the Classic American Libation Into an Umbrella Drink. I Went to Find the Real Deal) by Joe Bob Briggs (Reprinted from October 2000) You people should be ashamed of yourselves. We all know that standards in this country have plummeted to depths known only by the dead bloated body of Leonardo DiCaprio. As my buddy Roddy Piper would say, it's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum--and I'm all out of bubble gum. It doesn't have an ounce of single-malt Braveheart wheat-juice in it. It has nothing to do with the latest cranapple-flavored Rooskie pseudo-vodka sloshed out of bottles by guys named Evan. The Mai Tai doesn't come from some candy-ass gun club lounge where racehorse owners talk about debentures in Singapore while sipping "juleps." A Mai Tai, properly made, is strong enough to put permanent fissures in a fat man's brain, yet delicate enough to make his girlfriend try to conjugate verbs with her thighs. But the Mai Tai comes from California and is so by-God American that any bartender who can't make it should be shot for treason. I had no idea it would come to this when I ascended the 107 floors to the top of One World Trade Center recently in search of a Mai Tai. Windows on the World bills itself as "The Greatest Bar on Earth," and I don't think it's because of the local cover band--called, appropriately, Deep Cover--that was wailing on some seventies disco bullstuff when I got there. I shouldered my way to one of the busiest bars this side of the SAE house at the University of Arkansas, elbowing a few Euro-weenies in the ribs and mussing their shiny leather shoulder-strap jackets. harried bartenders, I said, "Can you make me a Mai Tai?" I should have known by the long pause that his answer would consign me to Umbrella Drink Hell. I watched him as he placed a highball glass on the counter. One was a milky white jug and one was a Coke-bottle-green jug. I watched the ice cubes in the highball-with-rum-and- unknown-mixes melting away. He confessed that he had no orgeat syrup, necessary for the subtle almond flavor that, in my opinion, makes or breaks a Mai Tai. He searched the adjoining restaurants for orgeat, found none, returned, and was about to give up when one of his fellow bartenders whispered something to him. He picked up yet another unmarked bottle, dumped a little of it into the drink, poured it into a shaker, strained it back into the glass. As he was inserting the little umbrella, I said "What was that?" It was like a combination of cough syrup, pancake batter, and the automatic transmission fluid from a 1973 Oldsmobile Toronado. I staggered back to the bar to find out if the white bottle and the green bottle had contained either anti-freeze or tick repellent. The total price of this industrial cleaning solvent: nine bucks. I tried to offer some to Harvey "Choo Choo" Morris, the drummer and lead singer in Deep Cover, but he was a wise man and declined to imbibe while drumming. I mused three days later, after regaining full use of the left side of my body. I resolved not to rest until I got an act of Congress, or at least a bulletin from the Food and Drug Administration, requiring the return to real Mai Tais within my lifetime. The Mai Tai was invented by one of our greatest bartenders, the one-legged foul-mouthed rum-lover Vic Bergeron, on a day in 1944 when he was experimenting with tropical drinks at his original Trader Vic's restaurant in Oakland. At this point Vic was in his bartending prime, having spent 20 years working up to what would be his piece de resistance, and to start it he took down from the shelf a bottle of 17-year aged Jamaican rum. Anyone who thinks the Mai Tai is a cheap drink should consider this. Jamaican rum aged 17 years is so rare that it doesn't even exist anymore. When the big multi-national companies started buying up the sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean, they shut down all the little rum... |