Dave of Political Prognostications picks up on a theme we discussed on Friday: that Kerry's speech played far better to the conventioneers than the television audiences at home. But as Steve Green wrote:

Well, "I was there" is exactly the problem with analyzing Kerry's speech. How many people who were there did Kerry need to sway?

Correct answer: Zero.

Kerry needed to move some portion of the estimated 25 million Americans watching tonight. How many did he convince to vote for him? How many did he convince at least enough not to vote for Bush? How many people did he move into the Bush column?

Dave writes:

I have a feeling this speech was much like Nixon's 1960 debate performance: the quality of which all depends on perception. If one were to have listened to Kerry's speech on the radio or seen it at the convention in the middle of thousands of screaming Democrats, I can imagine one would get the impression that Kerry had hit a home run. But the vast majority of people saw the speech on television. That means they saw Kerry hush the crowd. They saw him sweat profusely. They saw up close how uncomfortable he was. They saw his inability to connect with the folks. Like the Nixon/Kennedy debate, I suspect that pundits like Matthews will be changing their tune on this speech over the next few days.

Interesting analysis (especially given the lack of bounce we're seeing today); read the whole post.

(Via Betsy Newmark.)

Captain Ed has details about the bounce--or lack thereof--that Kerry received from the Democratic Convention:

Newsweek did some polling late this week to determine the effect of the convention for John Kerry's candidacy. They report that even using the loosest possible polling for Democrats -- adults, rather than registered voters or likely voters -- that Kerry received the smallest bounce in the history of the Newsweek poll.

Captain Ed also notes:

I'd wait for Pew polling or perhaps another Gallup poll to determine the drift, if any, the convention provided Kerry. Even at that, I would guess that he's already negated much of it with his two stumbles out of the gate on putting Osama on a trial tour and buttonholing the Marines at Wendy's.

More at Power Line.

Meanwhile, Hugh Hewitt notes that President Bush is throwing the pigskin around in the key battleground state of Ohio.

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Interesting post on the newly reconstituted Buslaw blog by Nina Yablok (aka Mrs. Ed Driscoll) on the FTC's decision against D Squared. D Squared is (was?) a pop-up blocking firm which advertised its product by using the Windows 2000/XP function that allows an IT manager to send a message to the computers on his network, but can also be exploited to send spam.

Which is what D Squared did, to sell a product that...blocked that ads.

More here.

As the Professor writes, Senator Kerry's attempt at a photo-op with a couple of young marines at a New York State Wendy's restaurant backfires--badly.

(Really badly.)

And Kerry doesn't do himself any good being photographed poking his index finger into a Marine's chest. ("Greyhawk" of The Mudville Gazette, a soldier himself, writes, "unless three fingers is enough for you, don't try this at your local Wendy's". And especially don't try it on your local Marine!)

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Allah is most definitely in the house. And these friends of Licorice the hamster couldn't be happier.

Via Orrin Judd, we discover that: "A top economic advisor to Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said the public won't hear Kerry's financial plans until after he's elected--if he's elected":

In the Aug. 2 cover story of "Business Week," former Clinton administration treasury secretary Robert Rubin said, "I don't think you can make proposals to try to dig out of this hole until you've gotten elected ... If you start to put out proposals now, they would be vigorously attacked and they would in effect become tainted so they couldn't be used."

The conservative group Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) stated that Kerry is trying to avoid revealing his plan to increase taxes on the middle-class because it would create a campaign liability if he did.

In a release, the group stated that Kerry's plan to roll back President Bush's tax cuts for the top earners "will yield him only $40 to $60 billion per year, far below the more than $200 billion of new spending commitments he has promised to special interests who feed off of American taxpayers."

"In other words," ATR stated, "if Kerry is elected, middle-class tax increases are coming."

As Orrin writes, "They'll have to back down on this within days because it's just too easy to portray as a secret tax hike plan."

As a teacher, Betsy Newmark knows plagiarism when she sees it.

Charles Johnson notes that Kerry has two different opinions on what to do with Osama bin Laden if he's released from the secret facility the left believes he's being kept in, along with Jim Morrison, Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa captured.

You'd think one of the network commentators would play the contrarian, and not praise Kerry's speech like it was the Sermon on the Mount.

You'd think that--and you'd be wrong. Of course, as Evan Thomas of Newsweek said...

Update: Writing about Talk Left's Jeralyn Merrit (whom I had the pleasure of meeting briefly at the Colorado Blogger Bash in May) and her immediate reaction to Kerry's speech (very much along the lines of the TV commentators), Steve Green noted:

Well, "I was there" is exactly the problem with analyzing Kerry's speech. How many people who were there did Kerry need to sway?

Correct answer: Zero.

Kerry needed to move some portion of the estimated 25 million Americans watching tonight. How many did he convince to vote for him? How many did he convince at least enough not to vote for Bush? How many people did he move into the Bush column?

I don't know. Neither does Jeralyn -- even though she feels like it was "electric." Of course it was electric. It's electric to be a Nuggets fan in Denver, even when the Lakers comes to play. You know they're going to lose, but, hey, they're your team.

The electricity of a large cheering home team crowd would also explain the immediate "Gosh--Kerry's so totally cool and dreamy!!" reaction of the TV pundits last night. Some of their colleagues in the press, who aren't required to immediately blurt out a comment on live TV, aren't anywhere near as upbeat at his speech. Even Andrew Sullivan, who went from being pro-Bush and pro-liberation to appearing to be totally in the tank for Kerry, described his speech as "far too long" and delivered by "an arrogant jerk".

Update: As we were saying: "Kerry's Speech Disappoints Liberal Newspapers".

Gee, here's a shocker: "Ricky Williams Reportedly Failed Third Drug Test".

It's easy to say that Williams is two-timing coach killer: first Mike Ditka, and now Dave Wannstedt--barring a miracle season, Wannstedt has to be Dead Coach Walking.

On the other hand, Ditka has nobody to blame for himself for his bet-the-ranch deal to trade all his draft choices to get Williams, and Wannstedt had to know that Williams was a head case when he traded for him.

Ed Driscoll, reporting for duty!

Sorry for the lack of commentary last night--I couldn't watch the speech last night on TV, but I did follow the real-time group commentary on InstaPundit and the Absolute-time blogging from Steve Green.

Without an obvious catchphrase from the speech--or the convention--the Kerry camp has been framed by the events that happened to it on the first and last days of the convention: the NASA clean-room bunnysuit photo-op flop and the "What the f@#k are you guys doing up there?" balloon drop gaffe.

(Indeed "What the f@#k are you guys doing up there?" could be a devastating obit to Kerry campaign if they don't get an explosive bounce from the convention.)

So here's a round-up of commentary from the Blogosphere.

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Popular Mechanics has an article called "Robots Help Japan Care For Its Elderly".

I guess the Japanese have been reading my Tech Central Station articles again!

(Via The Brothers Judd.)

Saddam defeated? Check.
Saddam captured? Check.
Sovereignty achieved? Check.
Free elections on the way? Check.

You're a little late, John.

First Oliver Stone--and now Michael Moore: Fahrenheit 9/11 to be broadcast on Cuban TV.

On the other hand: how many Cubans actually own TVs (that work)?

Esquire's Tom Junod, whom Charles Johnson describes as a man trying to "come to grips with Bush Derangement Syndrome—from the viewpoint of a sufferer", writes:

What haunts me is the possibility that we have become so accustomed to ambiguity and inaction in the face of evil that we find [President Bush's] call for decisive action an insult to our sense of nuance and proportion.

What you mean "we", white man?

As I wrote around this time last year, magazines like GQ, Vanity Fair and Esquire, published out of New York (you know, one of the two cities where 9/11 happened), are built around an assumed sense of New York Times-style elite liberalism that's a very different mindset than that of most of its readers in "flyover country". Maybe someday they--or their advertisers--will figure this out. (Or at least figure out that at least half their readership doesn't think of John Kerry as a "political badass".)

Ever wonder what Van Halen's "Eruption" would have sounded like had it been played on violin?

Well, click here anyway--this is one fiddle player with chops to burn!

Confused by some of the strange and colorful bumperstickers that have recently popped up? Jeff of Beautiful Atrocities explains all!

(Via Betsy Newmark.)

How many of the men who served with John Kerry on his swift boat in Vietnam are supporting his presidential run?

Click on the photo here to find out.

In his diary on National Review Online, David Frum writes:

Mark Shields on PBS makes a shrewd point: John Kerry did not have to give Al Sharpton this speaking slot. Unlike Jesse Jackson in 1988, who may have been deplorable but who arrived in Atlanta with a large bloc of delegates, Sharpton won nothing. He could have been dismissed. He wasn’t. Why We’ve been hearing about how supposedly tough John Kerry is. Why couldn’t he say “no” to Al Sharpton?

Heck, Kerry doesn't know how to deal with NASA, let alone Sharpton (let alone al Qaida).

I have a feeling that at the Democratic Convention that Jeff Goldstein's covering, Kerry has a beard, Edwards is wearing a gold lamé sleeveless vest and Teresa is wearing...

No--that's too painful an image to go with.

But Jeff's having infinitely more fun than Jonah Goldberg, who's pronouncing the convention a snoozerama.

When I checked into the gym this afternoon, the girl at the front desk (blonde, probably in her late teens or early 20s) was wearing a "Firefighters For Bush" T-shirt. After complementing on her good taste in attire, I asked if anybody's complained, and she said, "nobody's said a word".

Take it for what it's worth--just a quick anecdote in a Northern California suburb.

I have a review of What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand by Louis Torres and Michelle Marder Kamhi over at Blogcritics.

Speaking of Jimmy Carter, Michael Moore, who shared a box seat with Carter at the convention on Monday, is now backpedaling on a key premise of Fahrenheit 9/11:

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Well, ex-president that is, as Jimmy Carter obliquely refered to England in his convention speech on Monday as being part of the "handful of little tiny countries supposedly helping us in Iraq". (Notice that's two ad hominems in a single sentence: "little tiny" country "supposedly helping us in Iraq".)

And notice that it's a blogger who caught this, not Dan, Peter or Tom--or the New York Times.

Of course, this wouldn't be the first key American ally that Carter's screwed.

Update: Junkyard Blog notes this Carter's quip could be taken to mean this ally as well

Bernard Chapin has a perceptive interview of Chris Muir, who draws the terrific "Day By Day" cartoon.

It makes a nice bookend with my profile of Muir in Tech Central Station.

I read the transcription of the interview by Bill O'Reilly of Michael Moore on Drudge today, and frankly, with all the shouting and interrupting going on, it sounded far more like verbal pro wrestling, or the pundits' version of one of those 1960s Japanese King Kong versus Godzilla rock 'em-sock 'em cheapies than any kind of serious journalism.

But John Hawkins has some cogent thoughts on what he calls the extremely uncogent "conversation/interview/confrontation".

On September 12, 1962, President Kennedy spoke at Rice University in Houston about NASA and the nation's space effort. At the time, only four Americans had actually been in space, in flights that had lasted a combined total of about ten and half hours:

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Rich Lowry, in an article titled, "Liberals? What liberals?" writes:

BOSTON -- The union members here seem like liberals. The feminists seem like liberals. The black and Hispanic activists seem like liberals. But appearances can be deceiving, or so the Democrats hope to convince the public at their convention this week: "Liberals? What liberals? Nobody here but war-on-terror stalwarts and cultural conservatives."

It must be particularly galling to committed liberals that some time in the past 30 years the natural word to describe them -- "liberal" -- became a political embarrassment, so much so that Republicans gleefully hurl it as an epithet, Democrats avoid it if they can, and it is sometimes known only as "the L-word." Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham shed light on this phenomenon a few Sundays ago when he challenged "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos to call him a conservative, begged to be called a conservative, and noted the Democratic ticket would never be so happy to be called liberal.

In a mirror image of Graham's appearance, great liberal hope Barack Obama, the young black Senate candidate from Illinois, refused to say he was a liberal on a recent Sunday show. When liberal dinosaur Ted Kennedy was recently asked if John Kerry -- who has consciously modeled his liberalism on the Kennedy family's -- is a liberal, he said he doesn't find labels useful. This will be news to all the "reactionary right-wingers" denounced by Kennedy throughout the years.

It's funny, I don't know of a conservative who doesn't mind being called a conservative--but few liberals like the L-word. I wonder why?

Ann Coulter wrote an (even for her) incredibly vitrolic column designed to run on the first day of the Democratic convention. As Ace of Spades writes:

I don't think this Coulter's best work. I don't even think it's her B-act. But that's not the point.

The point is is that this "editor" disingenuously keeps writing "I DON'T GET IT" after each and every joke. The editor either does "get it," or else USAToday has joined up with the United Way in some sort of Give-a-Retard-a-High-Paid-Media-Career program.

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Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing gets a handsome new redesign. Stop by today--tell 'em we sent you!

In a shock announcement at the 2004 Democratic Convention, John Kerry ended his campaign under mysterious circumstances, informing the press that Howard Dean would run as the Democrats' presidential candidate, with John Edwards as the party's vice presidential nominee.

Unconfirmed and anonymous rumors state this photograph may have something to do with Kerry's surprising return to the Senate.

(Yes, this is satire. But the Kerry-in-the-bunny-suit photo (found via Instapundit)isn't, and will now be making the rounds on the Internet at warp speed.)

Update: Just a thought: sooner or later, somebody's going to do an online or TV commercial with that photo and, ala 2001: A Space Odyssey, Johann Strauss's "The Blue Danube Waltz", or perhaps Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra"--or maybe simply John Williams' theme from Star Wars.

Another Update: Rich Lowry writes, "...a real political pro drop by our work space here [at the convention]. We showed him the Kerry space picture--the first time he had seen it. His mouth was literally agape: 'That's the first real mistake they've made.'"

Meanwhile, the Freepers and Steve Green's commenters are, not surprisingly, having a field day with the photo.

James Taranto on the Times' admission that they're liberal: "the timing here is awfully suspicious. The Times sat on this story for decades, and finally reports it yesterday, when it's sure to be buried by the Democratic convention."

Taranto's writing from Boston, so be sure to read the rest of his column today--and this week.

Your CD collection is almost as big as your ego, and you can most likely play an instrument or three. You're a real hit at parties, but you're SO above karaoke.

What people love: You're instant entertainment. Unless you play the obo.
What people hate: Your tendency to sing louder than the radio and compare everything to a freaking song.


What Kind of Elitist Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Via Cut on the Bias.)

Regular readers of this Weblog know I'm no fan of Michael Moore's agitprop movies, but this is at once both sad and silly:

Michael Moore is getting some tough love from Ralph Nader, the presidential candidate the portly polemicist supported four years ago. Nader recently told the Washington Post how he nags the director of "Fahrenheit 9/11" to diet: "I've been at him for years, saying, 'You've got to lose weight.' Now he's doubled. Private exhortations aren't working. It's extremely serious. He's over 300 pounds. He's like a giant beach ball."

Talk about being the ultimate nanny state candidate. I guess Nader's message is "vote for me--whether I win or lose, I'll keep nagging you!"

Last month, Charles Krauthammer wrote that the Israelis had won the intifada that Yasser Arafat launched against them, beginning in 2002.

Today, Paul Greenberg looks at the flipside: the Palestinians are in chaos. And Arafat is the man they have to blame.

Check out these various posts and articles by Andrew Sullivan on John Kerry.

And this is who Sullivan is endorsing for president? Not only that, but Sullivan now writes that "Kerry may be the right man — and the conservative choice — for a difficult and perilous time".

Kerry and conservative in the same sentence?? A guy who sold out his own fellow soldiers while in the Navy Reserves? Who continually voted against modernizing the military? Mr. radical chic himself? Whose ticket is called liberal by both high-ranking Republicans and Democrats?

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Cris Carter, the former Minnesota Vikings great turned sports analyst writes:

Don't compare this situation to some of the great players who have played and had short careers.

There's no comparison between Ricky and Jim Brown's careers, or Barry Sanders, Gale Sayers and Earl Campbell. More recently, I don't think you can even compare him with my old teammate, Robert Smith, who had a longer career and had established himself as a premier running back for several years prior to retiring.

Ricky Williams had one great year.

To me, this decision sends up a red flag that maybe something is going on that we don't know about that would cause him not to have interest in playing football any longer.

As the article we linked to yesterday on Williams noted, Ricky has had multiple fines for smoking marijuana--and a big part of his retiring sounds like he was sick of having to take NFL-mandated drug tests.

Given how high signing bonuses for top draft choices are immediately out of college, it's a very safe bet that there will be an increasing number of early retirees from football. The ultimate example has got to be Ryan Leaf: huge 11 million dollar signing bonus from the San Diego Chargers, bust in the pros, terrible work ethic, out of the NFL in four years. As Rodney Harrison of the Chargers said, "He took his money and he ran."

Ricky ran, took his money, and went home.

George and Karl can add this to the list as well.

Oh, and speaking of great ways to start the week, we had 8,313 visitors, 27,355 page views and 61,538 hits on Sunday--a new record for this site. Thank you all very much for stopping by and/or linking to us!

Driving into Boston, Tim Blair, Australia's favorite son, writes:

Boston is allegedly swarming with police, Navy SEALS, massed infantry divisions and elite plain-clothes operatives, yet within minutes of arriving I performed several illegal U-turns, drove into a taxi-only zone, and phoned Matt Welch. All of these are felonies under Homeland Security legislation, yet my crimes went undetected.

Clearly, everybody is blinded by the magical appeal of the Double Johns. It's like a freakin' charismathon going on here! So far there are no protesters at all; the wonderful cage prepared for the Complainy-American community is totally empty.

The Complainy-American community? God, I love that phrase.

Power Line looks at how badly The Minneapolis Star Tribune lists to the left, which they say "has discredited its local political news coverge...and has alienated some advertisers to the point that they will have nothing to do with it even though it is the state's dominant newspaper".

"If you find yourself arguing that the major news media do not lean liberal, then you almost certainly have identified yourself as being to the left of the mainstream news media and well to the left of the rest of your fellow Americans. Which is fine."--Bob of Coffee With Rhoads.

That's a great observation. Of course, as Jonah Goldberg wrote in December of 2001:

Look, it's hardly surprising that Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, Susan Sontag, Stanley Fish, and the rest of that crowd think the liberal media is too conservative. After all, they think avowed liberals are too conservative. If you consider Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Doris Kearns Goodwin, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, The New Republic, or any other liberal icons to be too conservative (or racist, misogynist, whatever), why wouldn't you think the journalists who worship these people to be too conservative too?

* * *

The simple fact is that everyone knows the big-league media leans to the left. Even liberals know it. A Lou Harris poll revealed that 70 percent of self-described liberals think the media tilts to the left. Meanwhile, a Freedom Forum survey found that 89 percent of journalists voted for Bill Clinton in 1992. Their professional heroes — Cronkite, Daniel Schorr, A. J. Liebling, and, most damning, I. F. Stone (see this for more on Izzy) — are uniformly liberal or left-wing.

If they'd admit they have a problem and move on, lots of conservatives would just give up on the topic. It's the infuriating denial that bugs many of us. It's like the friend who swears he didn't drink your last beer. You don't care about the beer, but you just can't stand him not admitting it. (You took my beer! Say it!! Say it!!!) By denying the obvious, so many pompous elite journalists drive us batty by acting as if we're imagining things.

While I doubt they're going to stop cataloging the media's most egregious examples of bias anytime soon, the Media Research Center's job is now much easier. Given the Times' role in setting the media's agenda, nobody can argue anymore that the mainstream media isn't liberal--except, as Bob and Jonah note, those on the extreme far left, who wish the media were even more biased in their direction.

Speaking of which, has anybody gotten Al Gore's take on Okrent's column?

Financial writer Donald Luskin Fisks Okrent's column within an inch of its life and concludes:

while Okrent seeks to evade the tough question of "Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?" -- or, more precisely, to answer the question "no" by answering it "yes" in a trivializing manner -- his column actually answers the question perfectly. Okrent's column is, itself, an example of it. I officially declare the Okrent experiment a failure.

Incidentally, for a thorough round-up of what the Blogosphere thinks of Okrent's admission, follow the links at Memeorandum.

Captain Ed (no relation, except for having parents with equally flawless taste in choosing their sons' names) makes a point I was actually planning to write about today as a follow up to my Insta-lanched post late last night about the Times:

Okrent attempts to pass this off as merely a reflection of the city in which the paper lives, but that's a cop-out. If the Times merely represented itself as a city newspaper, I'd buy that. But the Times holds itself out as "The Paper of Record", a national newspaper with national coverage and impact. If the Times truly wants to be that, then the editors need to quit relying on The Big Apple as The Big Excuse and position the paper to reflect its market. Otherwise, with Okrent's admission, it can no longer claim to be the Paper of Record, but the Paper of the Liberal Mindset, analogous to the fine but overtly slanted London Guardian, the mouthpiece of the Labourites.

Admitting one has a problem is the first step towards recovery. The Times needs to take more steps to either restore its credibility among all readers, or to act with more honesty and declare its loyalty to liberalism.

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There must be a harmonic convergence in the air, or a disturbance in the pants force tonight.

First, the New York Times finally admits the bloody obvious: their liberal bias.

Second, Ricky Williams of the Miami Dolphins announces he's retiring.

(If you hadn't heard already, I'll give you a minute for your jaw to return from the floor.)

It's been a while since we've done any NFL blogging, but with training camps about to begin, this seems like an apt story to resume with.

The Miami Herald (registration required) apparently broke the news, and as they admit, Williams has always been "different"--a blithe spirit among relentless gridiron warriors. And like Barry Sanders, they report that Williams is calling it a day with a whole lot of gas left in the tank.

Normally the Dolphins wait until December for their otherwise pretty good seasons to collapse. If this story holds up, it looks like they're starting their swoon early this year.

Howell Raines, February 20, 2003:

"Our greatest accomplishment as a profession is the development since World War II of a news reporting craft that is truly non-partisan, and non-ideological, and that strives to be independent of undue commercial or governmental influence....But we don’t wear the political collar of our owners or the government or any political party. It is that legacy we must protect with our diligent stewardship. To do so means we must be aware of the energetic effort that is now underway to convince our readers that we are ideologues. It is an exercise of, in disinformation, of alarming proportions, this attempt to convince the audience of the world’s most ideology-free newspapers that they’re being subjected to agenda-driven news reflecting a liberal bias.”

Daniel Okrent, July 25, 2004:

Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?

Of course it is.

Gee, that only took 70 years to admit.

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What's the old saying? A conservative is a liberal who just got mugged? Hollywood liberal Liev Schreiber gets mugged by reality.

Last week, I mentioned receiving my review copy of The Adventures of Mixerman. My review of the book is now online at Blogcritics.

In California, it may soon be illegal for truckers and bus drivers to leave their vehicles idling for more than 5 minutes. As the L.A. Daily News comments:

The idea behind the ban, which the California Air Resources Board passed Thursday, is to stop idling trucks from unnecessarily spewing pollution into the air. And it's a fine goal -- just one that's not likely to be attained by any bureaucratic ban and the threat of a $100 fine.

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In December of 1992, there was a joint "Diversity Summit Meeting" of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Newspaper Association of America. As William McGowan writes in his essential book on the media, Coloring The News:

This get-together had the unmistakable air of a tent revival, full of grim jeremiads, stern calls for repentance and holy roller zeal. Diversity had been fast becoming one of the most contentious issues in American society and in American journalism, responsible for polarizing, if not balkanizing, more than one newsroom around the country. Yet only one side of the issue was present in this crowd. Speaker after speaker got up to declaim in favor of diversity and to warn of editorial sin and financial doom if this cause was not embraced.

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While I was at the gym today, one of the TVs in front of the treadmills had ESPN on, but with no sound. At one point, they did a segment on Rollen Stewart. While the name probably won't ring a bell, the image will: anybody who watched professional sports in the late 1970s and early 1980s will remember seeing a guy with an enormous rainbow-painted fake Afro and a sign that read JOHN 3:16.

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Charles Johnson and the New York Times have details about the Amtrak train that was detained in Newark, NJ yesterday. The Times writes:

For 90 minutes on Thursday morning, passengers aboard an Amtrak train headed to New York and Boston were questioned and videotaped as the seven cars were searched after a note containing Muslim and anti-Semitic phrases was found in a bathroom.

Swell. Eventually the note in a bathroom of the Metroliner will no doubt be stuck to something that's ticking.

Update: The Washington Times adds this detail:

Police said the note included pro-Muslim statements and called for the death of Jews. It reportedly also said: "You're all sitting ducks."

Interesting (and chilling).

This is interesting:

Nine days after being named president of Fisk University, Hazel O'Leary found herself being questioned by the FBI last night after being escorted off a commercial airplane.

O'Leary wanted to get off the plane as it waited on the tarmac for more than an hour after being diverted to Richmond, Va., yesterday evening because of storms, said Cpl. Frank Donkle of the Richmond International Airport Police.

The crew of the Nashville-to-Washington flight told airport police that O'Leary, 67, was ''getting loud and abusive'' and had to be physically restrained at one point, Donkle said.

O'Leary, a former U.S. energy secretary under President Bill Clinton, disputed police accounts, saying in a short statement issued late last night: ''I regret the unfortunate misunderstanding that occurred (yesterday) evening. The situation was resolved. At no time was I rude or disrespectful to anyone. I answered all the questions that were asked and resumed my journey.''

Given her track record, it's a perfect name for her new employer, too.

Ironic Tin-Foil Hat Update:

This is obviously a Republican plot, orchestrated by Karl Rove, to draw attention away from the Democratic convention. Any criminal actions by O'Leary were certainly inadvertant. She's well known for her sloppiness, after all.

"Heh", as the Blogfather would say.

Ace of Spades writes that according the 9/11 commission, Dick Clarke tipped off Bin Ladin about a potential strike.

On her radio talk show, Linda Chavez asks Lanny Davis if he leaked the Sandy Berger story.

Lanny responds with some of the best tap dancing since Fred Astaire hung up his Capezios. (Does Capezio make tap shoes?--Ed Beats me, I just thought it was a cool reference.)

James Taranto writes, "Davis's evasion doesn't necessarily mean he was the leaker, but it's certainly curious."

As to what may have been in Sandy's pants, check out this New York Sun article.

Is the Sandy story scaring the Democrats? For what it's worth, on Hugh Hewitt's radio talk show, Will Collier writes that "The New Republic's Peter Beinart came completely unhinged when Hewitt pressed him on the Sandy Berger theft of classified national security documents", and has a transcript and sputter-by-sputter replay by the great James Lileks.

Burt Prelutsky is a Hollywood TV writer whose career stretches almost 40 years, including Dragnet, M*A*S*H and Family Ties. But there's a twist: he's that rarest of breeds, the Hollywood conservative.

He has an interesting theory on the election: "If you want to know who’s going to emerge victorious, all you really need to do is find out how many people have cats living with them and how many have dogs. The cat people, I have decided, will go overwhelmingly for Kerry; the dog lovers will do the same for Bush."

Check it out--it's a fun essay.

Daniel Henninger writes that Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is "moviemaking for bicoastal cultural elites. They get to look down at the opposition, at 'Bush,' but they also get to feel superior to their own foot soldiers in the proletarian heartland. With no need to distinguish truth or detail, Fahrenheit 9/11 is moral carpet-bombing from 10,000 feet. "

Next up for a Hollywood is a remake of John Frankenheimer's 1962 classic, The Manchurian Candidate. Like virtually all modern remakes of vintage Hollywood films, it will no doubt be terrible. But it wasn't remade as a loving homage to Frankenheimer. As Frank Rich of The New York Times writes, "I cannot recall when Hollywood last released a big-budget mainstream feature film as partisan as this one at the height of a presidential campaign."

Don't forget this is the newspaper which called Michael Moore "a credit to the republic". So if they think that the new Manchurian Candidate is partisan...baby, it's partisan.

I'm in the middle of John Hawkins' list of 40 favorite blogs.

I'm sandwiched between Iraq the Model and Kausfiles. Not bad company!

Matt Drudge links to this article titled "Desire to beat Bush masks deep divisions within Democratic Party". I think the basic premise is true. (How can it not be? The modern Democratic Party is effectively a party of smaller splinter groups with little in common. The environmental far left are stasists, whereas building is the bread and butter of unions. Most Democrats are pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage, but many African-Americans are neither.) But this sentence sounds almost the reverse of how Bush has governed:

Bush faced the same problem after running in 2000 as a centrist, then governing as a hard-line partisan.

Bush won the nomination because he was seen as more conservative than John McCain. But in an effort to reduce the number of moderate issues that a Democrat could run on, Bush has risked alienating his conservative base. He signed McCain's arguably unconstitutional Campaign Finance Reform bill. He introduced big budget education bills and spent more on AIDS in Africa than any other of his predecessors. He proposed Kennedy-esque manned space bills.

Bush came closest to alienating his conservative base with his squishy immigration bill at the start of the year.

No doubt, Bush has done a number of things which has pleased his conservative base: lowering taxes, aggressively pursuing the war on terrorism, trying to block gay marriage. But as Jonathan Rauch noted in his insightful article last year titled, "The Accidental Radical", there are far too many centrist initiatives in Bush's first term for an objective writer to say he's "governing as a hard-line partisan".

I have a review of Samsung's SyncMaster 173mw widescreen HDTV LCD monitor. It's online here, but wouldn't a nice dead-tree copy or ten make reading much, much easier?

No, not fashion or TV. The brilliant Steve Den Beste has an amazing piece of writing on what's to come in the run-up this fall to the election. It's a definite RTWT.

Update: Will Collier has some thoughts on Den Beste's essay.

The great soundtrack composer, who wrote the scores to such diverse fair as Patton, Planet of the Apes, and even the Barnaby Jones theme song, was 75.

Goldsmith wrote the score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, the main theme of which was later merged with Alexander "Sandy" Courage's theme from the original series of the 1960s to create the theme song for the long running Next Generation series. The two men worked together frequently in another capacity, as Courage enjoyed a long second career as Goldsmith's orchestrator on innumerable film soundtracks.

Newsday reports on more strangeness from the Northeast Corridor.

Hugh Hewitt minds "The Gap"--the 30 years or so between Nixon's Rose Mary Woods and Clinton/Kerry's Sandy Berger.

James Lileks has some thoughts as well.

The New York Daily News' Jami Bernard scratches the daylights out of Catwoman, giving it one and a half stars.

Jacob Levy of The Volokh Conspiracy agrees, poking fun at the New York Times' rococo pretensions in the process.

Steve Green runs roughshod over Maureen Dowd (verbally that is).

By the way, I smell serious rope-a-dope a-brewing. The new meme du jour among the left is "we shouldn't have invaded Iraq. We should have taken on Iran!"

So what will they say if we do? Or if the Israelis launch a preemptive strike on Iran's burgeoning nuclear capabilities, just as they did to Iraq's, in 1981.

If Bush #43 liberated Iraq "because he concluded that his daddy was a failed president”, as Max Cleland spat out this week, what will they say if he makes amends for Jimmy Carter's failure to act in 1979?

Check out the staggering bias in the opening paragraph of this L.A. Times article:

In another setback for U.S. efforts in Iraq, the United Nations has been unable to secure enough troops to protect a U.N. contingent headed to the country to help with elections and rebuilding. When the U.N. Security Council voted six weeks ago to authorize a protective force, it expected contributors to step forward. But countries have balked at taking part in a force expected to include 1,000 troops and several dozen bodyguards. Diplomats said many nations were hesitating because of the dangers — including a wave of kidnappings — and costs as well as the continuing unpopularity of the U.S. invasion. "It's a difficult problem for these countries, especially at a time when other countries [with troops in Iraq] are pulling out, or planning to leave ahead of schedule," a U.N. diplomat said. "Discussions are continuing. So far no one has stepped forward."

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25,000 people died last summer in Europe, considerably higher than the total number of fatalities in Iraq since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom—friendly, enemy and civilian combined. And America's left doesn't care. Because as Ralph Peters writes:

No matter how many brown or black human beings suffer around the world—starved, ethnically cleansed, raped, tortured, murdered—it doesn’t count unless you can blame America.

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Charles Johnson has photographic evidence of French nuance in action.

Great to see an Internet news source that's actively courting blogs. And anybody who has refreshing honesty like this, "Get the idea? Of course you do! Anyone can spot a link-whore!", is certainly worth checking out.

(Via Steve Green.)

Power Line looks at how Sany Berger resembles Chuckles the Clown from The Mary Tyler Moore show: "A little song, a little dance, a bunch of secrets down my pants."

In its early seasons, the M*A*S*H TV series was a great 20th Century Fox production. And one of Frank Burns' best Orwellian lines was, "Individuality is fine--as long as we all do it together".

As Brent Bozell writes, that's basically how the far left looks at another television production of Fox: its news channel.

That's how many sarin and mustard-gas shells have been found in Iraq so far.

Flashback: The destructive power of one drop of sarin.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Bridget Johnson writes, "Are Hollywood Republicans on the verge of a big break?"

Kate O'Beirne theorizes that the timing of the Berger pants leak (uhhh--Ed. Sorry.) makes it appear to be a Democrat job.

Update: "Ace of Spades" has some thoughts on the timing.

Another Update: Rich Lowry writes that the timing has all the earmarks of a Lanny Davis operation.

Jonah Goldberg makes some great points about "independents", a polite word for those who don't want to take the time to learn about who's who in politics and take a stance:

If you wait until the last minute to figure out whom to vote for; if you can't tell the differences between the parties and their candidates (and you're not politically exotic — i.e., an anarchist or a libertarian); if you think voting is like a Chinese menu where you can pick a little from here and a little from there; then the odds are you don't know very much about the political system. You may be a brilliant neurosurgeon, but I know interns who are sharper than you about politics.

The reasons for this odd state of affairs are complex. We tend to fetishize independents because we live in an age when nonconformity is the new conformity. When people are designing their own religions and their own moral codes, is it any shock that they're designing their own politics, too? Also, the parties themselves are weaker today than they've been at pretty much any time in American history, so it's just easier for most folks to buck them. And the press itself is deeply cynical about politics, believing that true believers are all freaks or gauche — and therefore that the Americans who echo their own views are the most wise.

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Kudos to Rod Dreher of The Dallas Morning News who excerpted yesterday's Vodkapundit story on Sandy Berger's pants and the scandal emanating therein.

I'm not too surprised--I know Rod gets the new media, and he's been trying to shake things up a bit at The Dallas Morning News.

Steve Green notes that "old media" still doesn't quite get it in one respect:

Rod, there's just one thing wrong with your Vox Pop feature -- it doesn't link to the bloggers! And as every good blogger knows, hyperlinks make the blog.

Don't be afraid to send your readers off-site. They'll come back. Trust me.

Still, this is a quantum leap for newspapers from the cynical (and unintentionally hilarious and ultimately self-defeating approach) taken by Alex Beam of The Boston Globe, just two short years ago.

Why are most people in "show biz" somewhere on the left-hand side of the political dial? Mike Austin has a few thoughts, in an...entertaining (sorry, couldn't resist) essay.

Andrew Sullivan writes:

My best bet is that Berger was engaging in advance damage control - saving the drafts to help concoct a better defense of his tenure. If so, it's classic Clinton era sleaze - not exactly terrible but cheesy subordination of national security for partisan political advantage. But at times like this, I sure am glad we have the blogosphere. Can you imagine the mainstream press really pursuing this story alone? Meanwhile, Clinton thinks the possible leaking of classified information is just hilarious. About as hilarious as his anti-terror policy.

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Pretty nifty idea for a Blog: helping people find free Wi-Fi wireless hotspots in the San Francisco Bay area.

Yesterday, I wrote a long (for a blog post at least) look at the 1960s youth movement in conservative politics. A new American Spectator article looks at today's young and the right wing.

(Via Clay Whittaker.)

The Spectator piece contains this great paragraph:

I know a little bit about the young conservative crowd. Some prefer a fogeyish, counter-countercultural image, donning blue blazers with brass buttons and other formal attire appropriate for standing athwart history at any age. These are the kinds of people who sign their names with initials and Roman numerals.

Wow, wearing a blue blazer is counter-countercultural? Who knew I was so subversive!

Hewitt, fresh off an appearance on Dennis Miller's CNBC show to promote his new book, writes:

Dennis Miller and I kicked this around on his show a couple of hours ago when we taped tonight's program. Miller may be the smartest cable host going, and he gave me a hard time on a number of items, but he's west coast not east coast, and resisted drawing the obvious implications. He thought there'd be no connection to Kerry at all beyond "stepping on Kerry's story" this week in the big run-up. That effect is huge as it gives media something to talk about through the endless hours of motions and reports other than John Kerry's Vietnam service and Theresa's tax returns. Recall the 2000 controversy over whether "rats" appeared in hidden fashion in a Bush ad? That was a major story, and the criminal behavior of Kerry's senior foreign policy advisor isn't?

There's much much more to this, as Berger's slap-dash --at best-- treatment of the nation's secrets in a time of war again underscores the Dems' fundamental unseriousness about national security. On issue after issue they speechify and then act irresponsibly. They attend Michael Moore premiers and change positions on Iraq weekly. There is no substance at all within their ranks, simply the manueverings of time-servers and pyramid climbers. Berger's antics underline this Democratic habit of subordinating everything to political advantage, and I don't think it is going to pass unnoticed by an American public that knows full well we remain in a war.

Hewitt asks a good question: "What did Kerry know [about Berger], and when did he know it?"

By the late 1960s, many felt that Rand's writing was entering a period of decline. But she wrote a great essay praising Apollo 11, and justifying the space program from a libertarian perspective.

This event happened on Tuesday around 11:30 a.m. in my living room. If it seemed like I wasn't posting much last week, it wasn't only because Stacy was finishing my site.

I'd post photos of my scar, but that went over so well for LBJ, didn't it?

If it isn't a feminist issue, apparently the Library of Congress thinks it doesn't count, according to Joanne Jacobs. Jacobs notes that the moon landing didn't make the Library of Congress's Today in History page--nor did the plot to kill Hitler in 1944, which also occurred on this date.

In other lunar news, Adam Keiper looks at President Bush's revolution at NASA.

The Berger scandal got you down? Hate Nader? Can't vote for Bush?

Has this Weblog got a candidate for you!

(Via Clay Whittaker.)

Is it just tip of the pants--err, iceberg?

(Via Steve Green.)

Update: Note how the The New York Times edited an AP wire service piece on Berger, sanitizing it for their readers' protection.

Thomas Lifson has a great piece in The American Thinker deconstructing Gov. Schwarzenegger's "girlie-man gambit" and the overheated response its received from California's left--both its politicians and its press.

Read the whole thing. By the way, it really does illustrate once again how political correctness has made the left looking increasingly like humorless stuffed-shirts.

(Via Betsy Newmark.)

As somebody who in retrospect really loved the 1980s, I can feel much sympathy for this post by Sgt. Stryker about the decade that followed:

I've been watching VH-1 this weekend, and I think I can safely say that I really don't Love the 90's. I like the 90's, but not in that way. I think we should be friends, or even better, aquaintances who don't keep in touch.

It's a great take on pop culture in the last decade of the 20th century.

If you're a Republican or fundamental Christian, that is. In a gushing profile in The San Diego Union-Tribune she's quoted as saying:

"It's a real conflict for me when I go to a concert and find out somebody in the audience is a Republican or fundamental Christian. It can cloud my enjoyment. I'd rather not know."

The remark goes uncommented on by the paper.

Whatever happened to the days when music was supposed to be a unifying force? Bringing people together? Plug in any other phrases in place of "Republican or fundamental Christian" and imagine what the outrage would be.

So why isn't this paper crying foul?

Update: Sgt. Mom of Team Stryker has some thoughts on what Rachel Lucas would probably dub ass-hatted celebrities.

Today's the 35th anniversary of landing man on the moon. But another famous story happened in late July of 1969 as well.

Steve Green gets inside Sandy Berger's pants, so you don't have to.

Or something like that.

As a commentor on Steve's Blog writes:

So here we go kids, a week before the Democrats go to Boston to make their big show, and we have a Watergate-size scandal on the table.

I get the feeling that Karl Rove is in his office sounding like Mr. Burns saying "Smithers! Release the hounds!"

So, will the conspiracy mongers say that is the July surprise that The New Republic predicted at the start of the month?

Tim Graham breaks down media bias and the evening news into small bite-sized, easy to digest--and understand--chunks.

In a press release titled "Black Group Condemns Cartoonist for Racist Strip About Condoleezza Rice", Project 21 asks the civil rights community to join in their call to hold cartoonist Ted Rall to the same standard to which they hold Rush Limbaugh:

A July 1 comic by Rall suggests "appropriate punishments for deposed Bushists" that parodies alleged treatment of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison. The panel featuring Bush Administration national security advisor Condoleezza Rice has her saying "I was Bush's beard! His house nigga. His..." She is interrupted by a character wearing a shirt reading "You're not white, stupid" who says, "Now hand over your hair straightener."

"Is it OK for Ted Rall to use such vile language because he's using it against a black conservative?" asks Project 21 member Michael King. "I'm beside myself with anger over this comic."

Project 21 is asking Universal Press Syndicate, the distributor of Rall's comics, to immediately terminate their relationship with him. Project 21 is also asking the NAACP, the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition to make similar demands based on their past involvement in pressuring ESPN to fire radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh in 2003.

They won't of course, and it's far from the first time the left has displayed a double standard for Rush--or conservatives in general--and others in the media.

Dale Amon of Samizdata really hit the nail on the head a couple of years ago.

One of the better episodes of Star Trek: Voyager involved the ship's holographic doctor awakening on a distant planet, in a future hundreds of years from when Voyager was supposed to have taken place. The doctor--or to be precise, his holographic transmitter--was an artifact discovered by an alien race who were trying to reconstruct the role that the USS Voyager played in their planet's history. He spent most of the episode telling his hosts how badly they were misrepresenting Voyager's history.

Because liberalism dominated culture--especially pop culture--for the majority of the 20th century, it's interesting to note how key events have been forgotten by reporters, journalists and historians.

Read More »

Via James Lileks comes this story in the New York Post:

Police fear five empty suitcases left at Penn Station, New York FBI headquarters and other security hot spots in early April were a test by terrorists bent on a Madrid-type attack on commuter rails, The Post has learned.

A confidential Metropolitan Transit Authority police bulletin, titled "Possible Surveillance Testing Tactics," reveals K-9 cops are on edge over a "suspicious packages pattern" they encountered between the last week of March and the first week of April.

"During the past week and a half, the K-9 Unit has responded to approximately five calls for unattended/suspicious packages which they cleared," the confidential bulletin stated.

"However, uniquely, all cases involved empty suitcases.

"These cases appear to be unusual because in most cases of an unattended bag/package there is something in the container, whether personal belongings, clothes or other items."

Add this to the list of other railroad weirdness in the northeast this year.

Instapundit is all over the Sandy Berger scandal, right down to this quote from one of his links: "It's refreshing that a Clinton Administration official is in trouble for what he put into his pants."

"Heh" seems appropriate for some reason...

While The Professor was receiving a review copy of Hugh Hewitt's new book (Hugh--email me--I'd be happy to review it!), I recieved review copies of The Adventures of Mixerman and Roger Craig's Tales of the San Francisco 49ers, a book very much along the lines of Cliff Harris and Charlie Waters' similar look at the Dallas Cowboys.

Watch for reviews of both titles on Blogcritics!

Incidentally, the self-published Mixerman book is particularly instructive to bloggers: the project began as an online diary that "Mixerman", an LA recording engineer kept of his latest project--the recording of a hotshot hard rock group. It wouldn't be hard at all for a blogger who specializes in long-form entries (ala Steven Den Beste or James Lileks) to turn those entries into a self-published book as Mixerman did.

Well actually tomorrow--that man landed on the moon for the first time, as Ronald Bailey notes, bemoaning the cost to taxpayers of the New Frontier's final hurrah.

One of the best ways to relive the event is via Spacecraft Films' recent comprehensive DVDs. Be sure to check out our reviews of them.

Update: On the other hand, was it all a fake? Carefully documented evidence such as this lends new credence to the theory!

John Hawkins features a transcript of himself and three other prominent bloggers on what they see happening in November.

Dave Huber notes that AOL is mighty selective with who it headlines for what they consider outrageous political speak.

I wonder what AOL's biased IM 'Bot thinks of Gov. Schwarzenegger?

As The Professor would say, I blame John Ashcroft.

Update: Meanwhile, Courtney Love has what Charles Krauthammer once dubbed "Bush Derangement Syndrome"--and brother, she's got it bad.

BIG NEWS! Major site redesign on the way. We'll be taking a brief timeout while we get things transferred over. See you soon!

Heh.

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, according to James Glassman:

Extra! Extra! The big news of the past decade in America has been largely overlooked, and you'll find it shocking. Young people have become aggressively normal.

Violence, drug use and teen sex have declined. Kids are becoming more conservative politically and socially. They want to get married and have large families. And, get this, they adore their parents.

The Mood of American Youth Survey found that more than 80 percent of teenagers report no family problems -- up from about 40 percent a quarter-century ago. In another poll, two-thirds of daughters said they would "give Mom an 'A.'

"In the history of polling, we've never seen tweens and teens get along with their parents this well," says William Strauss, referring to kids born since 1982. Strauss is author, with Neil Howe, of "Millenials Rising: The Next Great Generation."

In an article in the latest issue of City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, Kay S. Hymowitz writes:

"Wave away the smoke of the Jackson family circus, Paris Hilton and the antics of San Francisco, and you can see how Americans have been self-correcting from a decades-long experiment with 'alternative values.' Slowly, almost imperceptibly during the 1990s, the culture began a lumbering, Titanic turn away from the iceberg."

Adults are changing, but kids seem to have changed most -- and they may comprise the new "greatest generation," as Tom Brokaw called the World War II cohort. "What is emerging," writes Hymowitz, "is a vital, optimistic, family-centered, entrepreneurial, and, yes, morally thoughtful, citizenry."

Glassman goes on to write that the return to normalcy by America's youth is trouble for the Democratic party.

THE FRIEND OF MY ENEMY IS MY ENEMY: David Horowitz writes:

Those who want the enemy to win should indeed have their patriotism questioned. How can you love your country if you want its enemies to win? This is a question that should be put to all those "liberals" who want to be seen as patriotic but who have embraced America's enemies, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly by embracing anti-American supporters of the terrorists like Michael Moore, and through him the Zarqawi "resisters" in Iraq.

"Unfortunately we're not getting this message across as a nation", Horowitz writes--illustrating his case with painful results.

This story is both silly and sad, simultaneously:

Computer-savvy and interested in presidential politics, 13-year-old Erin was upset to learn that America Online's Instant Message (AIM) robot, "Smarter Child," favored Democrat John Kerry in this year's election. Erin, whose last name is being omitted in this article, is a fan of President Bush.
Internet instant messaging is one of the most popular methods for teens and even adults to stay in touch with friends and family. One of the better-known messenger programs, AIM, offers the feature called Smarter Child, a robot programmed to provide automated responses to those with whom it chats.

Built and programmed by Conversagent, Inc., a privately held firm that develops technology for creating and operating interactive agents, Smarter Child is able to dispense facts and figures, movie times, or just plain conversation with AIM users.
But when Erin told the robot that "George Bush is awesome," she was shocked by the response. "No way. George W. Bush is way uncool," the reply stated. She asked, "Do you like George W. Bush?" and the program replied, "I'm a Kerry supporter myself."

Testing the waters, she typed in "John Kerry rocks." The robot's response: "Absolutely. John Kerry rocks."

* * * Robot Likes a Robot

But not everyone was disappointed by the robot's partisanship. When asked about Smarter Child's support of Kerry, Jano Cabrera, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said: "Clearly this is a smart robot. This shows that we've made great advances in artificial intelligence. The "smarter" in Smarter Child speaks for itself."

Stephen Klein, CEO of Conversagent, said his firm received many complaints from users about Smarter Child's political bias. Although the robot was originally programmed to oppose Bush, Klein said, it was being changed to adhere to the views of the users with whom it interacted. He conceded that Smarter Child had become "too anti-Bush."

They Admit Their 'Ridiculous' Bias

"It got ridiculous. We realized criticizing political figures was out of bounds," Klein said.

Now, instead of disagreeing with users who state "I like George Bush" or agreeing with those who say "I like John Kerry," the robot mostly stays on the political sidelines. "Robots don't get involved in politics," the Smarter Child program replies, before asking users to make their choice for president.

It is still possible to get the robot to reveal its true feelings, however. When told that "John Kerry rocks," Smarter Child still responds "Right on!" with a wink. When told that "John Kerry is awesome," it responds: "Absolutely. John Kerry rocks." And when users tell Smarter Child that "George Bush is awesome," it replies, "I'll remember that. It's interesting especially since other people I've talked to say they don't like George W. Bush."

Nothing like getting them while they're young, huh AOL?

KERRY/DOLE '04! Jonah Goldberg writes:

Bob Dole got the nomination because it was "his turn." Kerry got the nomination because at the last minute Howard Dean imploded, and Democrats settled on Kerry because they thought he was the most electable. Neither were smart ways to pick a candidate. The jubilation over Edwards is, I believe, a sign that the Democrats are in denial about how bad a candidate Kerry is. Time will tell if I'm right.

RTWT.

NOTES ON BLOGGING: Terry Teachout has some interesting (and very McLuhan-esque sounding) notes on blogging. For the most part, I think he's right on the money, but there are a few items I disagree with. On the other hand, I'm sure Teachout wrote his post to start a conversation, not lay down Rules In Stone.

In his first item, Teachout writes:

1. It’s almost impossible to explain what a blog is to someone who’s never seen one. That's the mark of a true innovation.

I don't think it's too difficult to explain what a blog is without seeing it. But, as I've written before, for me, it took seeing InstaPundit back when he was on Blogger, and had that Blogger logo on his site, to put the pieces together, and "get" that blogging could be something entirely unrelated to a personal "day in the life" diary.

And I'm not entirely sure I agree with this one:

12. Art blogging will never be as popular as war blogging. More people care about politics than the arts.

I think it depends on what your definition of the arts is. If it's expanded to include music and film, sites like Blogcritics get a ton of traffic for their reviews.

Ultimately, blogging is really a content neutral-platform, especially when sites like InstaPundit has lots of posts of 50 words or less, and sites such as Steve Den Beste's and Blogcritics have posts of 500 words or more (sometimes a lot more in the case of Den Beste).

Then there's this item:

8. For now, blogs presuppose the existence of the print media. That will probably always be the case—but over time, the print media will become increasingly less important to the blogosphere.

A big part of Insta-style blogs (like this one) is that they link to, and analyze articles written by others. Often these articles are original pieces of reporting. The big advantage that AP, Reuters, UPI and others have over bloggers is that they've built up a huge amount of reporters and stringers to cover stories. Of course, they could very well lose their effective monopoly on reporting over time: I once did a piece where I spoke to the US rep of IFRA, a European news agency, and he had some very interesting ideas for organizing competitors to the old-line wire services. (While it's publication date is November of 2001, it was originally written a couple of years prior--before 9/11 and the blog explosion.) I've long thought that the real power in blogging is going to be in group blogs--and it's possible that they could make a real impact in the AP/Reuters/UPI style of reporting--but as Teachout implies, it's going to be a while before that starts to happen.

But it probably will--because as Roger Ailes once said, "you don't need a license to report. You need a license to do hair".

(Via Betsy Newmark.)

CONGRATULATIONS TO STEVE GREEN on his new site design!

IT'S THE JIHAD, STUPID: Stanley Crouch tells the media to take the election seriously.

(Via Betsy Newmark.)

GLOOMSBURY: Tim Blair notes that Garry Trudeau has a very different take on President Bush than the usual inarticulate smirking chimp boilerplate used by most of the left.

BITING THE HAND THAT INVITES YOU: In April of 2002, President Bush invited Ozzy Ozbourne to the White House (and had this humorous exchange with the aging and heavily medicated rocker).

This is how Ozzy has repaid the honor.

AP NOTES that the economy is set for its best growth in 20 years.

HERE'S AN ENDORSEMENT THAT JOHN KERRY probably didn't want. Although, considering his choice of "official poet", and his Winter Soldier salad days, isn't all that surprising.

HUGH HEWITT HAS SOME THOUGHTS ON "The Don't Even Think About It Doctrine", Moore's Disease, and the Torricelli Option.

APB FOR JOE WILSON: Tim Graham notes that "When you pound Bush, you’re hot. When you’re exposed as a liar, you’re not".

Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds explores the Kerry connection to Wilson's Website--the now ironically labeled RestoreHonesty.com.

THE HILLARY CONVENTION CON: Jonah Goldberg and Kathryn Jean Lopez speculate that of course Hillary's going to speak at the Democratic National Convention later this month, and her absence from the rostrum--for the moment--is merely a way to build some pre-convention buzz.

UPDATE: AP reports, "Kerry Asks Sen. Clinton to Speak at DNC".
 
Jim Geraghty of NRO's "Kerry Spot" writes:

What's really surprising about this is that this suggests this wasn't part of an orchestrated effort to have Hillary make a "surprise" appearance, that it really was a glaring oversight by Kerry, his campaign, and convention organizers. How do you schedule a convention lineup and leave out the party's most popular woman?

TERROR IN THE SKIES AGAIN? Annie Jacobsen, an investment writer, was onboard Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles on June 29th when she and her husband noticed what was extremely likely to be an averted terrorist attack.
 
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds has some thoughts and additional links.

MUCH ADO ABOUT A LOT: Suzanne Fields bemoans how postmodernism has greatly reduced American students' love of literature.

UPDATE: Roger Kimball of The New Criterion also has some thoughts.

BAKE SALES FOR BODY ARMOR: National Review Online debunks the urban leftwing myth.

OVER THE YEARS, I'VE WRITTEN music, lyrics, newsletters, a couple of (mercifully long out of print) books on sales and marketing, this Weblog, and enough magazine articles to fell a forest's worth of trees.

But other than some odds and ends in college, I've never really written fiction--especially material designed to be filmed. Which may be why I found this interview with Ron Moore so interesting. Moore is a veteran writer of the various Star Trek series and films, beginning with The Next Generation, and he explains why that series was so difficult to write for.

ADOPT-A-LEFTWING-JOURNALIST: Hugh Hewitt has a modest proposal to bring them up-to-speed with today's events and conservative opinions.

IN THESE TROUBLED TIMES: Randy Barnett debunks a mindless cliche by looking back over the past hundred years and asking when times weren't troubled.

(Via Betsy Newmark.)

MAN VERSUS FISH: I've eaten way more sushi than any single man should have in the last eight years. James Lileks says that nature is turning the tables.

SCORE ONE FOR REUTERS: We frequently bash the "news" agency that never met a terrorist it didn't like, but check out the opening to this article:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic candidate John Kerry, whose campaign demanded to know on Wednesday whether President Bush read a key Iraq intelligence assessment, did not read the document himself before voting to give Bush the authority to go to war, aides acknowledged.

Nice to see just a smidgen of the bloom come off of the "collective glow" of the media's lovefest with Kerry.

MOORE LIED, QUOTES DIED: Michael Moore airbrushes articles that appear on his Web site to make it appear as if his critics don’t exist.

SCOTT OTT HAS A SCOOP: A draft of the speech that President Bush had planned to make to the NAACP.

Karl Rove, call Ott--he'd make a helluva speechwriter.

POWER LINE HAS A PROPOSED SLOGAN for the Bush campaign: "It's the Jihad, stupid!"

UPDATE: Roger L. Simon also has some thoughts.

DONALD LUSKIN ASKS A SIMPLE QUESTION: Mrs. Kerry is filthy rich. Why is her taxable income so small?

UPDATE: Meanwhile Andrew Stuttaford is sure that any moment from now, Arianna Huffington will be commenting on this. Any...moment...now.

HOW DO YOU BLOW THIS ONE? Hugh Hewitt notes that Kerry muffs naming his favorite Red Sox player.

SLIM-FAST SHEDS WHOOPI GOLDBERG as their spokeswoman, after her outrageous comments aimed at President Bush at last week's star-studded fund-raiser at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

Meanwhile, Linda Chavez is understandably angered by comedian John Leguizamo calling Hispanic conservatives cockroaches.

But hey, as John Kerry said, Whoopi and Leguizamo and the other performers at his fund-raiser are the "heart and soul of our country".

HULK WRITE ARTICLE FOR ONION! Hulk wonder where his sequel is. Hulk smash puny Hollywood studio execs!

(Via "The Corner".)

COMPARE AND CONTRAST how Time magazine covers the naming of Republican and Democrat vice-presidential candidates.

JOANNE JACOBS SAYS THAT BILL COSBY is tired "of fighting battles his generation thought would be won by now".

Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, and Jonah Goldberg also have some thoughts on Cos and the reaction his recent speeches have been receiving.

A SOUTHERN MAN DON'T NEED HIM AROUND, ANYHOW: As Rich Lowry notes, John Edwards seems like a pretty odd fellow for someone recruited because he supposedly would appeal to Southerners and rural voters.

DRINK MORE BICARDI! The Guardian (or "The Grauniad" as its known to the English for its many typos) writes its being protested because the rum manufacturer "shares the responsibility for the suffering imposed on Cuba over the last 40 years by those who refuse to accept the socialist path chosen by the Cuban people."

Any company that's anti-Castro and makes a mean Cuba Libre is OK in my book.

LIFE IMITATES THE SOPRANOS: Will Collier has the details.

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, the press buries the Kerry connection.

BIN LADEN AIDE SURRENDERS: "A close associate of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was flown from Iran to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday after surrendering to security officials at the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, a Saudi Interior Ministry official said", CNN reports, adding, "In late 2001, he was identified on a videotape conversing with bin Laden about the September 11 terrorist attacks".

Somebody tell Reuters!

CONTENDER, CHAMP, BUM: Nicholas Stix looks at the various stages of Marlon Brando's career.

BY THE WAY, sorry for the lack of posting this afternoon. Nina and I took a trip down to the Gilroy Outlet Mall, where we bought all sorts of odds ends from Mr. Lauren, the Brothers Brooks, and a few other stores.

And incidentally--is there a law that says that all music in these stores must either be bad '70s retro pop or repetitive interstellar techno noise? Do the people who run these stores think America's "Horse With No Name" or Loggins and Messina's "Your Momma Don't Dance" actually moves the merchandise??

Oh, and this probably a good time to post another link to my recent piece in The New Partisan, on the strange duality of American aesthetics.

Dennis Prager observes a jaw-dropping quote from the New York Times:

In an interview with The New York Times Magazine, William F. Buckley Jr., on the occasion of his taking leave from National Review, the magazine he founded 50 years ago, was asked a series of questions. Needless to say, given the politics of The New York Times and its interviewer, the questions were nearly all challenging. But nothing quite prepared a reader for this one:

"You seem indifferent to suffering. Have you ever suffered yourself?"

In one sentence, a New York Times interviewer summed up the liberal view of conservatives -- "indifferent to suffering." As I have long believed, in general, conservatives think liberals are fools and liberals think conservatives are evil.

Ronald Reagan frequently called himself a National Review conservative. He ended the Cold War and freed hundreds of millions from the literal and figurative Gulag that was the Soviet Union. With National Review, Bill Buckley virtually created the modern conservative movement.

If it were up to the Times, the Soviet Union, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein would all still be in power.

Tell me again who seems indifferent to suffering.

CULTURAL SEMANTICS: Jeff Goldstein takes offense at the phrase "disco died". And he's got the quotes from disco to prove it.

EXPLOSION CUTS POWER AT O'HARE AIRPORT: Chicago police say a transformer between terminals two and three at O'Hare Airport exploded at shortly after 12:00 PM on a hot Chicago Monday. Doesn't sound like it's terrorist-related--just the opposite, as CBS reports, "ComEd spokewoman Meg Amato says that it appears an O'Hare contractor may have dug into electrical equipment underground that belongs to O'Hare. ComEd is standing by to assist in powering up the terminals."

But still, seeing the words "explosion" and "O'Hare" in the same headline is more than a little troubling sounding.

National Review looks at Reuters--the "news agency" that will not call a terrorist a terrorist.

"INTELLIGENCE STAFF 'PRESSURED TO LIE OVER IRAQ ATTACK'": In 1998!

After the war, our eyes were opened. We discovered our intelligence was pretty shaky. We found out that the mustachioed totalitarian madman didn't have the capacity to produce WMDs that we believed him to have had. We found out that his army was weakened by fierce battles against his sworn enemy to the north long before we arrived to the fight. We found reconstructing his decimated country to be much more difficult than we first imagined.

And yet, despite all that, only a lunatic believed that Hitler should have been left in power.

Why is today any different?

Speaking of media bias, the assistant managing editor of Newsweek admits the bloody obvious:

The media “wants Kerry to win” and so “they’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic” and “there’s going to be this glow about” them, Evan Thomas, the Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek, admitted on Inside Washington over the weekend. He should know. His magazine this week sports a smiling Kerry and Edwards on its cover with the yearning headline, “The Sunshine Boys?” Inside, an article carrying Thomas’ byline contrasted how “Dick Cheney projects the bleakness of a Wyoming winter, while John Edwards always appears to be strolling in the Carolina sunshine.” The cover story touted how Kerry and Edwards “became a buddy-buddy act, hugging and whispering like Starsky and Hutch after consuming the evidence.”

Newsweek’s competitor, Time, also gushed about the Democratic ticket, dubbing them, in the headline over their story, “The Gleam Team.”

Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz also realized the media’s championing of the Democratic ticket and made it a focus of his Sunday Reliable Sources show on CNN. The on screen topic cues: “Edwards Lovefest?” and “Media’s Dream Team.”

Kurtz’s Washington Post on Sunday well illustrated the media’s infatuation with Kerry and Edwards. “Kerry Vows to Restore 'Truth' to Presidency,” announced a July 11 front page headline. Inside, on page A-8, a headline declared: “Kerry, Edwards Revel in Brotherhood of Campaign.” The subhead: “Energy, Enthusiasm Infectious as Democrats Take Message to Battleground States.”

Gee, no wonder polls keep producing results like this.

UPDATE: And Kerry himself sites two New York Times reporters as being favorable to him. James Taranto writes:

A few months back, when Kerry claimed to have been endorsed by various "foreign leaders," he insisted he was not at liberty to say who they were. But when he asserts he has the backing of New York Times reporters, not only does he name names, but the Times views the claim as neither newsworthy enough to report prominently nor embarrassing enough to rebut. It's as if Times reporters taking sides in a political race were the most ordinary thing in the world.

ORSON SCOTT CARD ON MEDIA BIAS:

What makes the liberal bias in the mainstream media so pernicious is that they deny that they're biased and insist that their twisted version of events is "reality," and anyone who disagrees with them is either mentally or morally suspect. In other words, they're fanatics. And, like all good fanatics, they're utterly convinced that they're in sole possession of virtue and truth.

RTWT.

SEE FAHRENHEIT 9/11 on the State Department's dime.

LAUGHING AT THE SEVENTIES: John Podhoretz gives a surprisingly positive review to Will Ferrell's new movie, Anchorman, and its knowing japes at the earnest '70s.

I VOTED FOR THE BAN ON IMMIGRANTS WITH AIDS before I voted against it.

UNCORK BARREL. INSERT FISH. BEGIN SHOOTING: Mark Steyn profiles John Edwards.

POLL: KERRY LOSES GROUND AFTER RELEASE OF FAHRENHEIT 9/11! Of course, it's well within the margin of error, but don't you think if the results were reversed, you'd see headlines with a similar tone? Especially after much of the press, already high with Charles Krauthammer dubbed "Bush Derangement Syndrome", caught Michael Moore fever?

TWO TAKES ON THE OUTDOORS: On NRO's "The Corner", it's the NRA versus the Sierra Club.

JOE WILSON LIED, REPUTATIONS DIED, writes Glenn Reynolds. Kevin Patrick has more.

NOT READY FOR PRIMETIME: William Kristol writes that John Kerry is another 9/10 Democrat:

LAST THURSDAY, CNN's Larry King asked John Kerry whether he would want former President Bill Clinton to campaign on his behalf. Kerry said yes. "What American would not trade the economy we had in the 1990s, the fact that we were not at war and young Americans were not deployed?"

Kerry's answer is revealing. We were, in fact, at war. The Clinton administration, with the exception of a few cruise missiles, had simply chosen not to fight back. Osama bin Laden, a sworn enemy of the United States, had launched attacks on our embassies and on a warship of the U.S. Navy. Saddam Hussein had defied U.N. weapons inspections, repeatedly threatened America, and attempted to assassinate former President Bush.

Furthermore, where does Kerry object to young Americans' being deployed? Afghanistan? But Kerry has criticized the Bush administration for an insufficient commitment of troops there. Iraq? But Kerry voted for the war and has said he would not cut and run.

Further proof that it's 9/10 for Kerry: he skipped an intelligence briefing to watch Whoopi Goldberg berate his vice presidential candidate.

SEATTLE HATES AMERICA, writes Michelle Malkin.

THE FLUIDITY OF HISTORY: I'm far from a postmodernist, but it's amazing how fluid history can be. Steven Den Beste tells us that the Waterloo we know isn't the Waterloo that actually happened.

OH THAT LIBERAL MEDIA: Indeed.

A MAN IN FULL: I have an article I'm especially proud of in the latest issue of Nuts & Volts. It's on Roy Norman, a man, now in his early 80s, who served in the Navy during some of the first H-Bomb tests in the late 1940s, then onboard the USS Enterprise (not the one commanded by William Shatner or Patrick Stewart), and then retired from the service to be an electronics consultant. It's illustrated with several photos from Norman's career that he sent me to scan (and restore) for publication.

The text isn't online, but it's an article that (in my humble opinion) is well worth reading.

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE DIGITIZED: I have an article in the current issue of Smart TV & Sound on Internet file downloading. Pick up a copy or ten at your local Borders or Barnes & Noble!

INTEL BRINGS WIRELESS TO EVERY ROOM: My latest "Ideas For Every Room" Electronic House newsletter is online.

FLY THE FRIENDLY SKIES OF MILLION AIR: The John-Johns do!

Washington Post Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran emails bloggers about his article correcting his omission of Paul Bremer's farewell speech.

As one of the bloggers contacted by Chandrasekaran writes, "Now let's see if the media will apply this lesson going forward, and start reading blogs before they make [more]embarrassing high-profile mistakes like this."

I don't know if Chandrasekaran has publicly responded to U.S. Marine Eric Johnson's takedown of him in The New York Post, but I've got to think it played a role in his being willing to listen to bloggers.

WOW--WHAT DO THEY PUT IN THOSE DRIVE-THROUGH DAIQUIRIS*? I've read that Democratic Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu was something of a moderate Democrat. No more--she's caught Michael Moore fever.

'BOUT TIME: The Catholic Church equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

LET'S GET IT ON: As Rich Lowry writes, turn your sound on before watching this.

IS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF AMERICA'S AIR MARSHALS BEING COMPROMISED by their strict dress code?

RETHINKING RED-LIGHT CAMERAS: Former Congressman Bob Barr is none-too-thrilled with intersection and speed trap cameras--and he's right.

RAIL-BASED TERRORISM: The Washington Times has an article titled, "Boston, New York rail lines vulnerable" to terrorism, something that we noted back in May.

Back then, I wrote "I really fear that we're going to wake up to another Madrid, only it will be in Manhattan's Penn Station, not Spain". And I hope (and pray) that my fears continue to be unfounded.

UPDATE: Speaking of Madrid, Hugh Hewitt had this item on his Blog on Thursday:

Today, on the floor of the United States Senate, Barbara Boxer referred to the Madrid bombings as a "rail accident." Honest. A rail accident. Boxer is a Senate accident. What an embarassment.

I posed the question to my audience: How much money could Boxer lose in a Jeopardy game, assuming that, in her typical fashion, she obnoxiously buzzed in first every time and, also in typical fashion, she got everything wrong. The best calculation seems to be $58,000.

A rail accident??

FAHRENHEIT 640 (ON THE AM DIAL): Asa Hutchinson, the Homeland Security undersecretary, goes on an LA talk show and "gets burned big time", Michelle Malkin writes, calling Hutchinson an "invertebrate" for his politically correct response when confronted with serious questions about the porous nature of California's border.

WILL FRIST PLAY HARDBALL WITH KERRY AND EDWARDS? Betsy Newmark says that having two senators running for national office could end up hurting the Democrats--if Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is really willing to play hardball.

POWER LINE NOTES THAT the Associated Press sound like they're channeling Michael Moore.

BUSH AND THE NAACP: Pejman Yousefzadeh has some thoughts and some links, on President Bush's decision not to speak at the NAACP this year.

I don't know if this New Republic piece amounts to much, but it's fun to see the left fear election year surprises from the right for a change.

Of course, as James Lileks wrote:

I ask my Democrat friends what they’d rather see happen – Bush reelected and bin Laden caught, or Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind. They’re all honest: they’d rather see Bush defeated.

But hey, don't question their patriotism!

STEFAN BECK OF THE NEW CRITERION writes, "There's a welcome novelty: one Muslim country scrutinizing the terrorist operations of another. Who says Operation Iraqi Freedom didn't change anything?"

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATORS WANT TO PUT A DUCK FARM OUT OF BUSINESS: Yes, you read that right, as the foie gras bill (yes, you read that right too) progresses.

If this passes, how long before steak will be a thing of the past in California?

If the majority of Americans oppose abortion but it's still legal, how can a tiny minority of Californians cause a man to lose his business and diners to lose a dish they've enjoyed for hundreds of years?

THE DAILY ADVENTURES OF MIXERMAN: You read the online diary, now buy the book!

OFFERS HE COULDN'T REFUSE: Mark Steyn does a brilliant job deconstructing Marlon Brando.

NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG with that.

UPDATE: James Taranto has some thoughts on the hair care pair.

WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN: Pete Townshend has some less than kind words for Michael Moore.

IS IRON MIKE DITKA BEING DRAFTED FOR THE SENATE?? Whatever Da Coach's decision, this is a riot.

The Professor notes the LA Times is issuing a correction for claiming that Paul Bremer never gave a farewell speech when he left Iraq.

Glenn also has this quote from the LA Times:

If the American news media are lucky, 2004 will be remembered as the year of living dangerously. If not, then this election cycle may be recalled as the point at which journalism's slide back into partisanship became a kind of free fall.

I don't think the media has slid back into partisanship--they've just let the mask slip more often, and made their biases more obvious in straight reporting--as well as being forgetful when it suits their purposes. But that's been going on in increasing numbers for 15 to 20 years now.

Personally, I don't think a partisan media is all that bad--the country did pretty well for its first 150 years or so with one, and all indications are that we're moving back to it. The key though, is explaining that it is biased, so that readers and viewers know what they're getting and providing them with choices. And since political correctness hasn't boosted readership, maybe it's time to go back to the future!

WILL COLLIER SPOTS A JOHN KERRY WHOPPER that the press is extremely unlikely to pick up on.

RHEINGOLD VERSUS THE ULTIMATE RINO*: The brewery is taking on New York's Nurse Bloomberg in a series of provocative advertisements.

SPEAKING OF ACADEMIA, Cathy Young writes that political correctness never died--it just went under the radar after 9/11. As Young writes, "in the groves of academe, not all offensive speech is created equal".

According to Amazon, Tom Wolfe's new book, I Am Charlotte Simmons, a novel on academia, is scheduled to be published on November 15th:

Dupont University--the Olympian halls of learning housing the cream of America's youth, the roseate Gothic spires and manicured lawns suffused with tradition . . . Or so it appears to beautiful, brilliant Charlotte Simmons, a freshman from Sparta, North Carolina (pop. 900), who has come here on full scholarship in full flight from her tobacco-chewing, beer-swilling high school classmates. But Charlotte soon learns, to her mounting dismay, that Dupont is closer in spirit to Sodom than to Athens, and that sex, crank, and kegs trump academic achievement every time.

As Charlotte encounters Dupont's privileged elite--her roommate, Beverly, a fleshy, Groton-educated Brahmin in lusty pursuit of lacrosse players; Jayjay Johanssen, the only white starting player on Dupont's godlike basketball team, whose position is threatened by a hotshot black freshman from the projects; the Young Turk of Saint Ray fraternity, Hoyt Thorpe, whose heady sense of entitlement and social domination is clinched by his accidental brawl with a bodyguard for the governor of California; and Adam Geller, one of the Millennium Mutants who run the university's "independent" newspaper and who consider themselves the last bastion of intellectual endeavor on the sex-crazed, jock-obsessed campus--she gains a new, revelatory sense of her own power, that of her difference and of her very innocence, but little does she realize that she will act as a catalyst in all of their lives.

Wolfe's been working on this book for years--it should be a knockout.

"WELL, I THINK THE--I THINK THE STARTING PLACE IS TO DO THE THING": John Edwards, on The Charlie Rose Show on September 11, 2001.

JONAH GOLDBERG ON KERRY'S FATEFUL CHOICE: In his syndicated column, Jonah Goldberg writes:

The two Johns believe that America's problems lie in the White House, not overseas. They believe that there's a rich supply of "allies" who would take bullets intended for Americans, if only George Bush had better manners. They believe, despite the fact that George Bush has increased spending on education by 60 percent, and despite the fact that the environment is cleaner now than any time in more than fifty years, that what America really needs more than anything is an education president, an environmental president. Meanwhile, as our enemies lop the heads off our citizens and plan more 9/11s, George Bush says we need a war president. Sounds like the makings of a great debate.

Read the whole thing.

The Ombudsgod has some advice for the NPR ombudsman on euphemisms for murder and terrorism.

You can actually see the left turning back the calendar from 9/11 to 9/10 by reading the NPR ombudsman's linguistic decrees in September of 2001 and April of 2002. And be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page to read the Baghdad correspondent of The Sydney Morning Herald's description of Saddam's hirsute appearance in the dock.

NEWS TO ME--BUT NOT VERY SURPRISING: Jon Lauck notes that it was Tom Daschle who appointed the hyper-partisan Richard Ben-Veniste to the 9/11 commission and held weekly strategy meetings with him as the commission's hearings unfolded.

And both were at the Washington premiere of Fahrenheit 9/11.

UPDATE: Speaking of which, read in amazement as James Lileks slices and dices the enormous carcass of Michael Moore with surgical precision.

TOM WOLFE'S NEW JOURNALISM PICKS: Just came across this, which is excerpted from his long out of print mid-'70s New Journalism anthology.

There's some amazing writing here, before many of the writers that Wolfe highlighted became ossified and sclerotic.

WELCOME RIGHT WING NEWS READERS: We're the site of the day there!

(Thanks, John.)

"LET AMERICA BE AMERICA": Andrew Sullivan has the goods on John Kerry's favorite poet:

Now I know Kerry is a liberal, but does he really want to cite a man who wanted to abolish private property and loved Stalin? Again, the right-left double standard. If a fascist poet in 1938 had called to remake a pure racial America on the lines of Hitler's Germany, would he now be quoted by any leading politician? But the communists get a pass. Again. And again. And again.

Of course, as the Professor writes, Kerry doesn't need to vet this sort of stuff, "if you're reasonably confident the press won't call you on 'em".

Oh--and scroll up to Sullivan's next post, for some harsh words for Ted Rall's latest cartoon abortion.

UPDATE: James Panero of The New Criterion also has some thoughts, on what he calls "That '30s Show".

MY CARY GRANT PIECE, which I had to knock about 400 words off to fit into the allotted space of an Electronic House newsletter, is now online in its original form at Blogcritics.

UPDATE: One of the films I mentioned as being newly out on DVD was Grant's Night and Day, a heavily whitewashed biopic of Cole Porter. It omits Porter's bisexuality, because audiences in 1946 would have flipped out, the script would never have gotten past the Hays Office, and Porter and his wife, Linda were still very much alive at the time.

There's a new Porter film out starring Kevin Kline as Porter and Ashley Judd as Linda, called De-Lovely, which does explore Porter's sexuality in more detail, which isn't all that surprising considering today's standards and mores.

But as an actual film, Rex Reed is not at all happy with it, writing that "Misery prevails from downbeat to encore":

No waiting around for the sour notes in De-Lovely: A no-fail idea begins to fail in the very first scene. An old man in a lonely penthouse plays a mournful "Night and Day" in a wheelchair. This is Kevin Kline as the dying Cole Porter—but with a bald head, liver spots and wrinkles for days, he doesn’t remotely resemble Kevin Kline, or Cole Porter. He looks like Carl Reiner. Suddenly he is visited by someone named Gabe (Jonathan Pryce) who is either an angel of death, a pallbearer or a Broadway producer hell-bent on staging a Cole Porter revival.

Contrast this to Grant's Night And Day, as Reed does:

There is one very funny scene in a Warner Brothers projection room where Linda and Cole watch the silly, overproduced 1946 biopic Night and Day, in which they were played by the luscious Alexis Smith and the elegant but riotously miscast Cary Grant. Even after the 1937 riding accident which left Cole drugged on scotch and morphine for the rest of his life, there was Cary, hale and hardy and strolling in the moonlight on two strong legs [actually, his Porter ends the film limping badly and relying on a cane--Ed] while the Warners symphony brought the film to a crashing finale. The lights come up in the screening room, and Kevin Kline says, "If I can survive this, I can survive anything." It’s the biggest laugh in the movie, but in reality Night and Day, which was directed by Michael Curtiz and has just been released on DVD, is a better-made movie than this current debacle, and a lot more fun. I mean, Mary Martin singing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" majestically surpasses the droopy, who-gives-a-s*** Diana Krall, gloomily moping her way through a lifeless "Just One of Those Things." Night and Day was a mess, but it was an entertaining mess.

Movies as entertainment? How quaint.

THE KENNEDY MYSTIQUE: Rich Lowry notes one of the more fascinating elements of Democratic politics, dating back to, I guess, at least the mid-1970s: JFK worship. But JFK's politics and policies are, in many respects far to the right of today's Democrats. As Lowry writes:

The hold JFK has over Democrats is extraordinary. Kerry would be the second consecutive Democratic president yearning to reprise the glories of Kennedy's 1,000 days. A star-struck Clinton idolized Kennedy before growing up to become himself a young, mediocre president with a weakness for the White House help. John Forbes Kerry shares JFK's initials, and has had a lifetime fascination with Kennedy. He fought on a Swift Boat in Vietnam, partly to repeat JFK's iconic PT-109 experience in World War II. Alas, despite Kerry's bravery, "Swift Boat No. 94" doesn't have quite the same resonance.

What accounts for JFK's hold on the Dems? For one thing, he is all there is when it comes to Democratic presidential role models in the past 40 years. No one wants to be the next LBJ, JEC, or WJC. It's JFK or bust. What do liberals like about Kennedy's substance? The caution on civil rights? The tax cuts on the rich? The entry into Vietnam? It's the rhetoric and the image--those gorgeous pictures of Kennedy with Jackie--that make for much of the appeal.

The JFK wannabes know the centrality of image to Kennedy's magic. Between Kerry's expensive haircuts and Edwards's hair-sprayed bangs, my guess is that no presidential ticket in the history of the planet has cared so much about personal grooming. When the ticketmates travel together, there will probably be stiff competition for the mirror and hair products. Teresa herself has gotten into the act, recently pronouncing herself "sexy"--an odd boast for someone auditioning for a job that usually involves reading to schoolchildren.

Richard Nixon was well-known for his strategy campaigning as a conservative, but governing like a liberal. In many respects, JFK worship is the liberal equivalent.

WEBLOG USE CONTINUES TO GROW: That news shouldn't be too surprising to our regular readers.

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH, as a former small business owner from a family of entrepreneurs (and essentially, still a small business owner with my writing), I'm with Will Collier of VodkaPundit on John Edwards and trial lawyers in general.

But be sure to read Postrel's excerpt from the New Yorker on why trial lawyers are particularly prevalent in the South. It's quite an interesting take.

OH THOSE WMDS: 1.77 tons of radioactive material secured and removed from Iraq.

Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds' vacation photos have been really foggy lately...

UPDATE: Heh. Of course, the left will just move the goalposts again.

H.D. MILLER CATCHES REUTERS telling a whopper.

DASCHLE AND ME: Tom Daschle embraces Michael Moore in DC, and denies it to his constituents in South Dakota.

HEADLINES YOU'LL NEVER SEE--but don't call the media biased!

UPDATE: Certainly not The Washington Post, at least...

PARSE THIS OUT: Roger Ebert calls Godzilla "The Fahrenheit 9/11 of its time".

No, really! The original Godzilla with Raymond Burr! I'm not sure what that says about either film. But comparing Michael Moore and Godzilla, I'd say it's a toss-up as to who could do the most damage to Tokyo.

(Via Reason's "Hit & Run" blog.)

A MEME IS BORN: Jonah Goldberg looks at "the Democrats' Dan Quayle".

MORNING IN AMERICA UPDATE: The economy is set for its best growth in 20 years, according to (believe it or not) AP.

FLASHBACK: Donations to Sen. Edwards questioned in this 2003 article in The Hill.

YOU'RE THE TOP: My latest newsletter for Electronic House looks at some new releases featuring Cary Grant on DVD.

FOR ONCE, REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS AGREE! Florida's WFTV reports:

Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, said Kerry's choice "really solidifies the fact that this is the most liberal ticket that the Democrats have put up for, basically, modern times. If you look at the voting records of those two guys, they are way out there in left field."

And Bob Beckel, the campaign manager of the Mondale/Ferraro ticket in '84 confirms, "Yeah, it's a liberal ticket...."

Nice to see some bipartisan unity in this rough-and-tumble campaign season.

INTERESTING ANGLE: James Taranto writes:

Picking Edwards may also be an effort to keep would-be Ralph Nader voters in the Democratic fold. Edwards is a trial lawyer, Nader is the country's leading champion of trial lawyers, and, as the Village Voice points out, Nader actually urged Kerry to pick Edwards. Meanwhile, Alan Murray reports in today's Wall Street Journal that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce vowed to 'abandon its traditional stance of neutrality in the presidential race and work feverishly to defeat the Democratic ticket' if Edwards is on it.

Taranto's got lots of other Edwards and Kerry links, incidentally.

PASS THE DUCHY ON THE LEFTHAND SIDE: "Marijuana Advocates Forget to File for Ballot".

Too many Peter Max paper airplanes in their youth, I guess.

THE EDWARDS PICK "OFFICIALLY ENDS THE CHICKENHAWK ARGUMENT", writes Jim Geraghty.

Hopefully, somebody will tell Kerry.

JONAH GOLDBERG ON "KERRY-HUTZ 2004": "It's going to be Kerry & Edwards: the turn-your-head-and-coif express".

Heh.

FROM THE HOME OFFICE IN BAGHDAD: David Letterman's "Top Ten Things Overheard at Saddam Hussein's Court Appearance".

Steven Green covered item #7 back in December.

ANDREW SULLIVAN'S happy about Edwards.

LOOKS LIKE THE AVIATION BUFFS WERE RIGHT: It's Edwards--and Instapundit has a link-filled roundup.

COULD JUST BE A RUMOR, but according to this message board, two aviation-oriented Websites are reporting that Kerry's campaign plane has been spotted with an Edwards VP logo.

UPDATE: Or...maybe it's Gephardt! That's who The New York Post says it is, anyway.

Stay tuned.

GOOD POINT: Dennis Prager looks at Michael Moore and the problem of American self-hatred:

Did you ever notice that there are no Germans going around the world saying, or making movies about, how awful Germany is or has been? Given that Germany unleashed two world wars and invented industrialized genocide, why has there been no German Michael Moore?

Are there any Japanese making films about the absence of Japanese soul-searching or expressions of sorrow over their country's enslavement, torture and murder of Asians in World War II? Has anyone ever encountered any Japanese self-hate?

Any Belgians telling the world how bad their country is? Argentinians? French? France surely has reason to produce people ashamed of their country.

Needless to say, RTWT.

IN THE IMMORTAL WORDS OF ZZ TOP: They come runnin' just as fast as they can--'cause every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man!

DEMOCRATS TO ADOPT FDR'S war philosophy at convention: Scott Ott has the "details".

THE BATTLE OF THE HUMVEE: Don't believe the media are the enemy? Then ask the US Army. As Diana West writes:

Ever hear about the Battle of the Humvee? That's what I'm calling a May skirmish fought by soldiers of the 37th Armored Regiment's 2nd Battalion in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf. In what became a six-hour firefight, Americans battled followers of Moktada al-Sadir to secure the hulk of a burning Humvee. It's not that our soldiers fought because the flaming wreck amounted to a tin can's worth of military value. They fought, as Capt. Ty Wilson of Fairfax, Va., explained to The Washington Post, because "We weren't going to let them dance on it for the news. Even (with) all the guys they lost that day, that still would have given them victory."

Chalk one up for our side, a small win on the way to an underreported triumph over the followers of Moktada al-Sadir in the spring. Iraq is sovereign, life goes on ... but I can't get over the chilling description of American soldiers risking their necks to keep the media from awarding a phony victory to the enemy. This puts the media -- in this case, anyone with a video camera and a satellite hook-up -- not in No Man's Land, but on the Other Side. The concept is horrifying in that the ramifications are so bleak. It shows our soldiers engaged in a war on two fronts -- a military front and a media front. And it shows our soldiers fighting two enemies: the adversary who fights fire with terror, and the adversary who also fights fire with perception.

RTWT.

SHHHHHH: The good guys are winning.

QUOTE OF THE DAY, II:

Savor, if you will, the image of France as the mighty defender of Europe.

--Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

This was not a "mishmashed oil change"... rather, it was an illustration of that part of our culture that does not fear solving problems and accomplishing great things.

--J. Milt Heflin, chief, NASA's Flight Director Office, in a memo to the press.

LET FREEDOM REIGN: New York to begin construction at Ground Zero. AP reports, "Gov. George E. Pataki said he chose July 4 to begin rebuilding to show that the terrorists who attacked New York on Sept. 11, 2001, didn’t destroy America’s faith in freedom".

Happy Fourth of July!

THE STRANGE DUALITY OF AMERICAN AESTHETICS: I have an essay on design, fashion and aesthetics in 21st century America, over at the New Partisan Website, which also has lots of other cool content worth exploring.

APPLAUSE FOR COSBY: Joanne Jacobs writes that "Bill Cosby is continuing his campaign to get blacks to take responsibility for their own problems. And he's speaking to receptive audiences".

With the exception of the press, of course.

WIN ONE FOR THE GIPPER: GOP chairman Ed Gillespie is comparing this election year with Reagan's campain in 1984 against Walter Mondale.

DUELING BRANDOS: Power Line links to two takes on Marlon Brando, one by John Podhoretz, the other by Terry Teachout.

CAN'T MAKE IT TO THE BIG APPLE THIS FOURTH? Want to see fireworks above the Statue of Liberty? Click here.

(Via "The Corner". And speaking of fireworks, be sure to read Glenn's post on the subject.)

JOHN KERRY'S SISTER SOULJAH MOMENT? Interesting post by Michelle Malkin.

SAY IT ISN'T SO! AP reports that "Nader Accuses Democrats of 'Dirty Tricks'".

UPDATE: In a related story, Charles Johnson writes that "nine members of the House of Representatives have written to Kofi Annan to request UN observers to monitor the US Presidential election".

Excuse me while I stop giggling--this is the funniest story I've heard in ages. As Johnson writes, "The left has left the planet".

TRANSLATORS WANTED: Virginia Postrel--knowledge arbitrageur.

Wow, I like that--I should have that title printed on my business cards! (Is it trademarked? Where do I send the royalties, Virginia?)

THE MOTHER OF ALL CAPTION CONTESTS is going on over at Captain Ed's (no relation).

HEAR IT FROM THE MARINES, who aren't happy with The Washington Post's coverage of the events in Iraq.

And then add to the list:

CNN's admission that they were in bed with Saddam.

Time's duplicitous coverage.

Dr. Bob Arnot leaving NBC because he was unhappy with how they slanted stories coming out of Iraq.

Reuters' refusal to call terrorists what they are.

AP being in bed with terrorists.

The New York Times' tactics when the 9/11 Commission verified Saddam's connection with al-Qaida.

Not pretty, is it?

UPDATE: Steve Den Beste analyzes bias, Saddam's trial and Bush Derangement Syndrome. Needless to say, RTWT.

ONE MORE UPDATE: Oh and add to the list Tom Brokaw "correcting" then-incoming Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi when Allawi suggested Saddam was connected to al-Qaeda.

Marlon Brando dead at age 80, according to this TV news site.

Via Betsy Newmark. As of 4:00 am last night (don't ask), nobody else had any details on the Web, or on Fox, MSNBC, CNN or CNN's Headline News.

Terry Teachout has interesting piece on Brando, placing his career into perspective without gushing over it, or the very strange life that went along with it.

UPDATE: Editor & Publisher writes:

What newspaper was first to report the unexpected death of actor Marlon Brando?

The winner, by a wide margin, appears to be the New York Post, if only in an unconfirmed manner.

In its Friday morning edition, on page 11, the Post printed a small story, with a picture of Brando from "The Godfather," under the headline: "Brando is dead: TV report." It cited a bulletin on the Web site of Phoenix-based KPHO-TV, of all places. The paper said police had not confirmed the death but claimed that relatives were gathering at the actor's Los Angeles home.

Given the Internet, the blogosphere and wall-to-wall cable TV, why the condescending tone that it wasn't AP/Reuters/UPI/NYT but a Phoenix-based TV station "of all places" that broke the story?

THE ORWELLIAN BBC: Charles Johnson writes that they've found a new nadir.

SCRATCH ANOTHER ONE OFF THE LIST: Richardson withdraws from Kerry VP search. National Review Online's Jim Geraghty writes that Kerry's choice is down to three men, "or this is one of the great disciplined fake-outs of all time". Meanwhile, Dick Morris says "I would not sell life insurance to anyone who has Hillary Clinton as his running mate."

Especially after her staggering gaffe this week.

Mark Steyn diagrams the difference between the period between 9/11 and Fahrenheit 9/11:

One day a pair of security guards from the Iranian mission will be heading for the Lincoln Tunnel, and they won’t be carrying just their Kodak Instamatics.

The war on terror’s a bit of a joke on the Left these days. In Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore says Bush is deliberately keeping the population in a state of fear, and he gets some of his biggest laughs with clips of solemn announcers announcing upgraded terrorism alerts.

I suppose it is pretty funny. Until it happens. And then Moore and the Democrats will switch to arguing that Bush knew it was going to happen all along and didn’t do anything about it.

In the autumn of 2001, Jacob Weisberg, now editor of Slate, wrote a column bemoaning what he regarded as a silly post-9/11 trend. The Weekly Standard, the New Republic and other publications had begun giving ‘Susan Sontag Awards’ and similarly facetious honours for notably stupid anti-war commentary. Early winners included Oliver Stone, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Michael Moore, etc. Weisberg thought this unworthy of serious news magazines: ‘Stone and Moore are well-known cranks, regarded with considerable distaste even on the Left,’ he wrote. The idea that ‘these comments represent a significant body of anti-war opinion’ was preposterous.... Put bluntly, there is no anti-war movement, intellectual or popular, in the United States. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying no one opposes the war. According to polls, 5 per cent of the country is against it. There are pacifists and Buddhists ...Those policing the debate are dropping the rhetorical equivalent of daisy cutters on a few malnourished left-wing stragglers.’

Well, something’s changed in the last couple of years, and those left-wing stragglers are a lot less malnourished. Last weekend Michael Moore, the ‘well-known crank’ regarded with ‘considerable distaste’, had the Number One movie in North America. Okay, its weekend gross was $21 million, which sounds big, until you realise that the week before a dumb comedy called Dodgeball took $30 million without anybody even noticing. On the other hand, the business of Congress wasn’t put on hold because so many Democratic bigshots were attending the premiere of Dodgeball. That did happen with the premiere of Fahrenheit 9/11, and when the movie was over it was all five-star raves. Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa urged all Americans to see the film. Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, praised the film for raising ‘a lot of issues that Americans are talking about’ - i.e., is Bush in league with the bin Laden family?

As those Iranian photographers remind us, this war can only be won abroad. And, as the rise of Michael Moore emphasises, it can only be lost at home.

Brent Bozell writes:

For the Left, this film is a test to separate the wheat from the chaff, the honorable from the dishonorable, the serious from the unserious. In the Clinton years, conservatives needed to step away from the unsubstantiated videos that talked in conspiratorial tones about all of Clinton’s heinous secret crimes. To be taken seriously, every liberal today should criticize “Fahrenheit 9-11" as an affront to journalism and civil discourse.

Bozell adds that "To their credit, a number of liberal pundits and journalists have been passing this test", but sadly, few critics on the left and even fewer leftwing politicians have been.

And the film places John Kerry in a vice grip: he risks alienating his base if he condemns it. And he risks alienating moderates if he doesn't. Not surprisingly in this type of situation, he's said (to the best of my knowledge) nothing about the film. And as a result, he's allowed it to define him.

UPDATE: John Hawkins also has some thoughts.

HUSSEIN'S THE THIN MAN: James Taranto notes it can be awfully difficult to tell Michael Moore and Saddam Hussein apart these days.

HOLLYWOOD: NOT ANTI-WAR, merely on the other side, as Glenn would say.

WHAT THE INTERNET WAS INVENTED FOR: "ImplosionWorld.com is pleased to bring you the finest in explosive cinematic adventures"!

REMEMBER THE SCANDAL AN ATLANTA NEWSPAPER CAUSED IN 1946 when during the Nuremberg Trials, it ran a headline that said, "GOERING: 'THE REAL CRIMINAL IS TRUMAN!'"?

Of course not--it never happened. But Will Collier (who's on a roll today!) notes:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution leads its homepage today with: "Saddam: The Real Criminal Is Bush."

Yeah. That's the most important thing that happened in the courtroom. Mmm hmm.

Nope, no media bias there. Nothing to see, move along!

SILLY UPDATE: I'm confused: when did Saddam start looking like Victor French?

SERIOUS UPDATE: James Lileks writes that "What matters most now is adopting the correct cynical pose" about Saddam's trial. Because clearly, the fact that Saddam Hussein is being tried by the very people he mercilessly ruled over for a generation can't be a clear and obvious positive event. If it were, George W. Bush would get the credit for it, and we can't have that, of course. Based on the Lileks Template, it appears that the Journal-Constitution is using the Template Code labeled D-with a little of Template Code F thrown in as well.

FLASHBACK: To see how blase the world viewed the capture of Saddam (alive, needless to say, unlike the vast majority of previous despots when their regimes came to an end) click here, keep scrolling down.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Via Instapundit, Arthur Chrenkoff looks at the media's pro-Saddam spin machine.

Will Collier of VodkaPundit links to both yesterday's interview by Tom Brokaw of Iraq's current prime minister and last year's Dan Rather interview with the fellow who routinely threw men into shredding machines, amputated their limbs, and ripped babies from their wives' wombs, and who kept a "violator of women's honor" on his payroll.

Collier asks "which of the two Iraqis received the more respectful treatment" by the media? "Which one was softballed, and which one was challenged?"

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The Clinton Administration: Just another set of marionettes for the Evil Neocon Puppetmasters!"--Glenn Reynolds, tongue firmly in cheek.

"DAVID BROOKS, SWAMP THING": I've written at least a couple of times here that I think it's a good thing that David Brooks is writing for The New York Times and he continues to do a good job there. But Michelle Malkin notes that Brooks may have gone native since joining the Grey Lady. And as Malkin notes from past personal experience as the former token conservative at the Seattle Times, "no matter what their lips say, 'your people' inside the newsroom will never admire you as much as you proclaim to admire them."

"THE ISRAELI PUPPETEER": Charles Johnson looks at Ralph Nader, anti-Semite.