What is fascinating about Christopher Hitchens' current status as the world's heretic leftist, is that he is doing so for the most pure authentic left wing reasons. He is not alone in this, there are a good number of other political figures who stand with President Bush on the War on Terrorism and the war in Iraq while disagreeing with all or most of his other policies. For example, former New York Mayor, Ed Koch takes this position although otherwise a typical "liberal" Jewish New Yorker. Same for conservative Democrat Zell Miller of Georgia.
Hitchen's key argument is that Al Qaeda, the Talliban and other fundamentalist militant Islamic groups are patent and aggressive clerical fascist zealots whose ideology and actions are utterly repugnant by any Democratic standard and particularly repugnant to the those who follow a left wing ideology based on Marxist and generally understood secular humanist philosophy. On one level, that of ideology, he is foursquare on solid ground. The Islamofascists are a model of the most ferocious sectarian bigotry. Their ideas and policies toward treatment of women are extreme even by traditional Muslim standards, neanderthal by any Western standard and insane by the current standards of progressive left wing thinkers and activists. Their brutal methods of government and their enthusiastic use of the most savage forms of terrorism and barbarism are obvious and unquestioned.
So why do most leftists go fruitcake at Hitchens forthright stand against Islamofascism? In part it is a pacifist strain that has become strong in progressive circles. Also, it that racism in a very subtile patronizing form has become part of the progressive mindset -- this is the sort of attitude that allows progressives to support or at least tolerate Third World dictators who cloak their one man rule in some form or another of leftist rhetoric -- Castro, Mugabe or Saddam qualify among many others. It is assumed that since they rule over people of color, their unpleasant and often inept dictatorships are unfortunately the best that can be hoped for by enlightened folk since the "cultural" level of their nations is too primitive to permit generally recognized Democratic forms of government. The reality that most of these nations are what Mr. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times calls "Kleptocracies" is shrugged off as unpleasant reality.
Even though the Islamofascists make previous clerical fascists states like Franco's Spain or the Mullah's Iranian Islamic Republic look relatively liberal and open, most leading leftists ignore this reality because they think the USA is the enemy and anybody -- no matter how repulsive otherwise -- who is anti-American is OK and worthy of toleration if not out and out support. Since the USA is the sole super power in today's world, it is hated for all sorts of good and valid reasons but even more for all sort of bogus ones. This visceral irrational anti-Americanism permits otherwise sane left wing folk to take crazy political positions, to get into bed with the crazy people like the Talliban or the blood splattered murderers of Al Qaeda. Their infantile and irrational anti-Americanism allows them to suspend their political sense and support people and policies that are utterly foreign to their actual ideology.
Has this happened before? Sure, in the 1939-1941 period of the Hitler-Stalin pact, Communists and many other left wing activists (but not the Trotskyites) forgot the obvious evil of Hitler and worked for "Peace" and working class solidarity along side their working class National Socialist comrades. At least that's how they played it until Hitler betrayed his loyal ally Stalin and invaded the USSR in June 1941. This period is the most shameful in the history of the Left. Yet to someone like Hitchens it is almost the exact model for the current reality where most Left wing people are quite openly and enthusiastically standing up for the Islamofascists.
This post was propted by a long report on a three hour lunch with Hitchens and a British journalist. I found Mr. Johann Hare's article in today's Independent (London UK) worthwhile and more perceptive than most. Mr. Hare's article has an undertone of mixed emotions. The first is a queasiness that Hitchens may in fact be right and his only sin is being provocatively "premature" in his opposition to Islamofascism. The second is that contrary to the current fashionable opinion, it is possible that in the long term history may come down on the side of Hitchens. The third is a grudging admiration for Hitchens in daring to take on the strong if irrational tendency on the Left to ignore or excuse the obvious flaws in the ideology, the ways and the means of the Islamofascists.
It is a wise man who is prepared to accept that he may in fact be wrong or at least "late" getting to the party. Most importantly, he honestly understands that Hitchens position is rooted in the traditions of the Left, not in any way an example of the gradual slide to the right that marks so many political careers. Hitchens is not a "neocon" although he agrees with them on this issue.
- xxx -
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
The last thing the world needs a jumpy Russia
The unspeakable horror of the Beslan massacre of school children is so evil, so death-worshiping it is almost beyond comprehension. Yet in some places -- the pages of the sadly debased New York Times for example -- there is deep moral cowardice to call it what it was, an outrageous monumental evil act by evil people. Across the Islamic world many serious religious scholars denounced it for what it was, a terrible sin and a signal affront to God. Sure a few lunatics praised the killers, but they are beyond the pale in any case.
A jumpy Russia is a very dangerous thing in this world. The day after the taking of the Middle School Number One in Beslan, the Russian military and security forces seize more than forty relatives of identified hostage-takers. Worthy of the ruthlessness of Ivan the Terrible or Stalin, this is just a clear indication that when threatened at home, Russians do not respond according to the Marquis of Queensbury rules.
It appears the more rational and intelligent Chechyn rebel leadership knows this -- three or four centuries of living with and fighting Russians has enlightened them, made them face the real consequences of dealing with a very moody and -- when it feels necessary -- very cruel adversary. They understand the gravity of their situation. It would be an excellent time for the Chechyn leadership to find a Muslim patron, perhaps the Foreign Minister of Turkey or King Abdullah of Jordan, the King of Morocco or a senior Egyptian diplomat to go to Moscow and make a seriously acceptable peace offering. For example, the Russians would be asked to allow Chenya to become an autonomous Republic within the Russian Federation. In return the Chechyns would accept that they will remain a part the Russian Federation and provide a secular government respectful of its Islamic identity but not sectarian -- not attempting to impose the views exclusive views of one Islamic school (sect) on their nation. The Chechyns would also expel all foreign terrorists and turn any future foreign interventionists over to the Russian authorities for trial as enemies of the RODINA and the delivery of such justice as is appropriate -- from deportation, imprisonment of one form or another and where their crimes warrant it, execution.
To continue the war now that the Russian nation is enraged and vengeful would be foolhardy. From their own history the Chechyns know what the consequences would be and they would be crushing -- like Stalin’s exile of the nation to Siberia at the end of WW II when he made an example of them and killed through maltreatment, malice and disease 40% of the population -- man, woman and child. The Stalinist authorities went right up to the edge of genocide and their sole scruple was not crossing over that fatal threshold.
The sight of mothers kneeling in grief over the bodies of their children is an image I shall never forget. All civilized people must denounce such bloodly evil and work to stop it from occurring again to any nation and any people.
A major campaign staff problem is always a candidate problem.
On the Presidential campaign, Senator Kerry’s bad luck continues from a jinxed August into a vital September. No sooner do the Republicans rap up their Convention when the media sky falls on the Kerry campaign. The massacre in Russia, the huge devastation of Hurricane Frances across all of Florida, former President Clinton’s emergency hospitalization and then his by-pass operation knocked the Presidential campaign off the front pages and the first half of newscasts. President Bush had a real “bounce” perhaps as much as 11% if you believe the news magazines. Some say the weekly magazines over-sampled Republicans. OK, he still got a bigger “bounce” than Kerry did if you accept Gallup, which showed Dub'ya ahead before the Convention, unlike the newsmagazines. Take your choice. Pundits are talking about discord among the Kerry Campaign staffers. Let me tell you, “staff problems” are not just a bit of bad temper by the professionals or infighting (a constant and inevitable fact in every campaign), they are symptoms of deeper and real problems with the candidate. Every politician gets the staff he wants and deserves. There I said it. I have known one major political figure who was killed because of his inability to choose and direct his personal staff. Some politicians have a large and contentious staff and play them off each other as a means of controlling their own operation. Former President Bill Clinton was a prime example -- his staff was always in loud open public turmoil and that’s just the way he wanted it. FDR also ruled by tilting this way then that in his staff’s eternal civil strife. The Kennedys, President Reagan, and George W. Bush liked it just the other way. They ran tight, disciplined staffs where everybody knew where they stood and who they answered to, and what they were responsible for. Senator Kerry has a large staff of experienced people, but he does not have a quarterback calling the plays like Ken O’Donnell did for the Kennedys, Stu Spencer for Reagan, Lee Atwater for George H. W. Bush’s 1988 race, or Karl Rove for George W. Bush. Senator Kerry is far more involved in both the strategy and day to day tactics of his campaign. The politicians who have a good quarterback let him call their tactical plays, follow the daily plan as prepared for them and from time to time tour the horizon with their quarterback...then go back to the schedule prepared for them. In general, this is the best system. The FDR Clinton model can also work if the candidate is strong enough to make it work for him. When necessary both Clinton and FDR could jerk the reins hard and everybody would fall into line. A weak candidate can never jerk reins hard enough to the get his staff to fall into line or recognize that a discussion of this or that question is over and a the campaign has now has a firm position. Then you have candidates like Senator Kerry who cannot and will not accept management. They always fuzzy up the lines of authority, blur day to day tactics with long term strategy, have their fingers in everything on a haphazard crisis-driven trampling of lines of authority. In a campaign you have the strategic planners and pollsters and idea men who report to the campaign manager. These are the people who plan and direct the course of the campaign. Under the campaign manager you have the field and advance staff who do it, who call the tactical shots, get the candidate through the day with a minimum of off-message sound bites and gaffes. They will know when a venue has soured and will not let the candidate appear. They will keep the candidate stoked. They will make sure he gets enough sleep and pull him out of public venue when he is tired or angry or otherwise not fit for prime time. They tell him his fly is open, not to use the joke that worked yesterday because Charlotte, NC is not Kenosha, Wisconsin. They make sure his hair is groomed, his clothes are appropriate for the venue and he is on message and projecting his best “happy warrior” face and posture. A further problem with Kerry, it seems to me, is that he has spent too much time in the sheltered waters of the Bay State and not enough in rough and tumble world of competitive politics. The Senator’s often-touted ability to close at the end of the campaign is less remarkable than it seems when you realize that in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans almost three to one, victory is possible even when a large portion of his own party refuses to vote for him. Put bluntly, Kerry is not guy who can make a strong close in a highly competitive state like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida or Missouri. His ability is like that of a Republican who can campaign badly yet usually wins in Orange County. We are not talking about great and often overlooked skill of Bill Clinton who could keep every kind of Democrat in harness -- Liberals and Dixiecrats, Labor and Business Democrats, blue collar and yuppie Democrats, plus every one of the other cranky factions of the Democratic party. We are very much not talking about a great candidate like Rudy Guilani who carried New York City by convincing Jewish and Puerto Rican Democrats to vote for him.
A movie woth seeing. Saw a movie on DVD last night, “Ned Kelly.” Sadly it played just a few weeks at one small theater in LA last December and got a savage three paragraph review in the LA Times. Well their movie reviews are as stupid and ill informed as their political reporting. If you recall last year, they had Governor Gray Davis easily defeating the recall and Arnold Schwarzenegger. A retelling of Australia’s icon story, this film is a great picture telling a great story. The story of Ned Kelly is critical to molding the Australian national character. He was a reluctant outlaw, an Outback Robin Hood, a freedom fighter for the rights of his Irish kinsmen and his brother Australians. All of this, yet little known or understood in the United States. I was bowled over by the force and power of the film. It is an epic and, like all epics, a tragedy. Ned Kelly is the tragic Australian hero, son of Irish parents “transported” to Australia by the Crown as form of clemency instead of hanging them in Ireland. They live in a ramshackle place outside a small town in the Outback, a large noisy fractious Irish family ever the ready target of petty injustice and bullying by the local constables. The story is one of a doomed Irish hero and as portrayed by Heath Legger Ned Kelly is a grand Irish (and Australian) hero in the line of Chuchulain, Brian Boru, the Irish Brigade at Fredricksberg, the 7th Cavalry at the Little Big Horn and the New York Fire men at the World Trade Center on 9/11/01. He moves ahead boldly sure of his certain death. The movie is an unabashed tragedy. Legger’s Ned Kelly is a sum of all the manly virtues. In production design the film follows the slate hued colors of the tinted lithographs of the late nineteenth century. It celebrates the strange and unique beauty of Australia, its exotic aromatic foliage and exotic birds and Australia’s totem animal, the kangaroo. This truly is modern film that is also very much a dark John Ford movie. Legger’s Kelly is handsome, a man of few words but with an ironic humor at times. He is what the Auzzoes called a bushranger, like the American cowboy, he is a marksman, he man with special power over horses and over women too. There were moments in the movie when the young Australian actor made me believe he was John Wayne come back from the grave. Legger is actor of incredible skill and economy of word and gesture. He looks into the camera and makes you believe in the sincerity of his skill. The slightly younger British actor Orlando Bloom plays his best friend and second in command Joe Byrne. He plays the other familiar Irish character, the doomed hero who has a ready smile and a teasing eye and graceful good-natured charm. We’re talking Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Even in his final scene Bloom’s character looks death in the face with grace and undimmed bright ironic eyes. It is a fine movie, hardly the fluffy or esoteric sort of thing most films offer today. It tells a bitter story and tells it without flinching. It has the hard edge of John Ford’s best work. I cannot recommend it highly enough. The whole cast is fine and except for Bloom, Australian. One caution, if you ear isn’t attuned to the Irish accents of most of the characters, activate the subtitles on the menu at the back of the DVD. I honestly think the LA Times reviewer was frustrated because she was not “getting” large amounts of the dialog. It wasn’t just the accent, there were a lot of Irish words that are familiar to most Australians but not many Americans.
On the Presidential campaign, Senator Kerry’s bad luck continues from a jinxed August into a vital September. No sooner do the Republicans rap up their Convention when the media sky falls on the Kerry campaign. The massacre in Russia, the huge devastation of Hurricane Frances across all of Florida, former President Clinton’s emergency hospitalization and then his by-pass operation knocked the Presidential campaign off the front pages and the first half of newscasts. President Bush had a real “bounce” perhaps as much as 11% if you believe the news magazines. Some say the weekly magazines over-sampled Republicans. OK, he still got a bigger “bounce” than Kerry did if you accept Gallup, which showed Dub'ya ahead before the Convention, unlike the newsmagazines. Take your choice. Pundits are talking about discord among the Kerry Campaign staffers. Let me tell you, “staff problems” are not just a bit of bad temper by the professionals or infighting (a constant and inevitable fact in every campaign), they are symptoms of deeper and real problems with the candidate. Every politician gets the staff he wants and deserves. There I said it. I have known one major political figure who was killed because of his inability to choose and direct his personal staff. Some politicians have a large and contentious staff and play them off each other as a means of controlling their own operation. Former President Bill Clinton was a prime example -- his staff was always in loud open public turmoil and that’s just the way he wanted it. FDR also ruled by tilting this way then that in his staff’s eternal civil strife. The Kennedys, President Reagan, and George W. Bush liked it just the other way. They ran tight, disciplined staffs where everybody knew where they stood and who they answered to, and what they were responsible for. Senator Kerry has a large staff of experienced people, but he does not have a quarterback calling the plays like Ken O’Donnell did for the Kennedys, Stu Spencer for Reagan, Lee Atwater for George H. W. Bush’s 1988 race, or Karl Rove for George W. Bush. Senator Kerry is far more involved in both the strategy and day to day tactics of his campaign. The politicians who have a good quarterback let him call their tactical plays, follow the daily plan as prepared for them and from time to time tour the horizon with their quarterback...then go back to the schedule prepared for them. In general, this is the best system. The FDR Clinton model can also work if the candidate is strong enough to make it work for him. When necessary both Clinton and FDR could jerk the reins hard and everybody would fall into line. A weak candidate can never jerk reins hard enough to the get his staff to fall into line or recognize that a discussion of this or that question is over and a the campaign has now has a firm position. Then you have candidates like Senator Kerry who cannot and will not accept management. They always fuzzy up the lines of authority, blur day to day tactics with long term strategy, have their fingers in everything on a haphazard crisis-driven trampling of lines of authority. In a campaign you have the strategic planners and pollsters and idea men who report to the campaign manager. These are the people who plan and direct the course of the campaign. Under the campaign manager you have the field and advance staff who do it, who call the tactical shots, get the candidate through the day with a minimum of off-message sound bites and gaffes. They will know when a venue has soured and will not let the candidate appear. They will keep the candidate stoked. They will make sure he gets enough sleep and pull him out of public venue when he is tired or angry or otherwise not fit for prime time. They tell him his fly is open, not to use the joke that worked yesterday because Charlotte, NC is not Kenosha, Wisconsin. They make sure his hair is groomed, his clothes are appropriate for the venue and he is on message and projecting his best “happy warrior” face and posture. A further problem with Kerry, it seems to me, is that he has spent too much time in the sheltered waters of the Bay State and not enough in rough and tumble world of competitive politics. The Senator’s often-touted ability to close at the end of the campaign is less remarkable than it seems when you realize that in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans almost three to one, victory is possible even when a large portion of his own party refuses to vote for him. Put bluntly, Kerry is not guy who can make a strong close in a highly competitive state like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida or Missouri. His ability is like that of a Republican who can campaign badly yet usually wins in Orange County. We are not talking about great and often overlooked skill of Bill Clinton who could keep every kind of Democrat in harness -- Liberals and Dixiecrats, Labor and Business Democrats, blue collar and yuppie Democrats, plus every one of the other cranky factions of the Democratic party. We are very much not talking about a great candidate like Rudy Guilani who carried New York City by convincing Jewish and Puerto Rican Democrats to vote for him.
A movie woth seeing. Saw a movie on DVD last night, “Ned Kelly.” Sadly it played just a few weeks at one small theater in LA last December and got a savage three paragraph review in the LA Times. Well their movie reviews are as stupid and ill informed as their political reporting. If you recall last year, they had Governor Gray Davis easily defeating the recall and Arnold Schwarzenegger. A retelling of Australia’s icon story, this film is a great picture telling a great story. The story of Ned Kelly is critical to molding the Australian national character. He was a reluctant outlaw, an Outback Robin Hood, a freedom fighter for the rights of his Irish kinsmen and his brother Australians. All of this, yet little known or understood in the United States. I was bowled over by the force and power of the film. It is an epic and, like all epics, a tragedy. Ned Kelly is the tragic Australian hero, son of Irish parents “transported” to Australia by the Crown as form of clemency instead of hanging them in Ireland. They live in a ramshackle place outside a small town in the Outback, a large noisy fractious Irish family ever the ready target of petty injustice and bullying by the local constables. The story is one of a doomed Irish hero and as portrayed by Heath Legger Ned Kelly is a grand Irish (and Australian) hero in the line of Chuchulain, Brian Boru, the Irish Brigade at Fredricksberg, the 7th Cavalry at the Little Big Horn and the New York Fire men at the World Trade Center on 9/11/01. He moves ahead boldly sure of his certain death. The movie is an unabashed tragedy. Legger’s Ned Kelly is a sum of all the manly virtues. In production design the film follows the slate hued colors of the tinted lithographs of the late nineteenth century. It celebrates the strange and unique beauty of Australia, its exotic aromatic foliage and exotic birds and Australia’s totem animal, the kangaroo. This truly is modern film that is also very much a dark John Ford movie. Legger’s Kelly is handsome, a man of few words but with an ironic humor at times. He is what the Auzzoes called a bushranger, like the American cowboy, he is a marksman, he man with special power over horses and over women too. There were moments in the movie when the young Australian actor made me believe he was John Wayne come back from the grave. Legger is actor of incredible skill and economy of word and gesture. He looks into the camera and makes you believe in the sincerity of his skill. The slightly younger British actor Orlando Bloom plays his best friend and second in command Joe Byrne. He plays the other familiar Irish character, the doomed hero who has a ready smile and a teasing eye and graceful good-natured charm. We’re talking Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Even in his final scene Bloom’s character looks death in the face with grace and undimmed bright ironic eyes. It is a fine movie, hardly the fluffy or esoteric sort of thing most films offer today. It tells a bitter story and tells it without flinching. It has the hard edge of John Ford’s best work. I cannot recommend it highly enough. The whole cast is fine and except for Bloom, Australian. One caution, if you ear isn’t attuned to the Irish accents of most of the characters, activate the subtitles on the menu at the back of the DVD. I honestly think the LA Times reviewer was frustrated because she was not “getting” large amounts of the dialog. It wasn’t just the accent, there were a lot of Irish words that are familiar to most Australians but not many Americans.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
This morning, coffee & schadenfreude -- as good as an Irish country breakfast
There is nothing so good with your morning coffee as a large serving of schadenfreude -- better even than the best apricot and almond Danish, as good as sitting down to a life affirming Irish country breakfast with the sweetest bacon in the world, fresh eggs and aromatic dark Indian tea. On the web I found a cry of tearful despair from a new age eco-activist who lamenting the cruel fate (Bush’s reelection) he is now sure is about to come to pass. His rage, his despair and deeply painful suffering are so raw and devastating, you just had to love it. He used the required hysterical rhetoric -- Neanderthals, arrogant warmongers, attributing everything but teenage acne to Dub’ya and the evil Republicans. The pessimistic leftist is Mr. Martin LeFevre, a New Zealand activist who writes on ecological and political topics. Google him if you want to share my wonderfully malicious enjoyment of his no doubt sincere distress and horror.
Eat your heart out pal. You made my week. Welcome back to the reality. A steady diet of New Age high fiber low reality day dreaming is not good for you.
The opening night of the Republican Convention was a great show. It set the context for the three days to follow. It opened with a Bush supporting liberal Democrat, actor Ron Silver throwing slabs of raw meet to the delegates and reminding us that we are in long difficult gritty war with evil and tyranny.
We are engaged in deadly combat with the clerico-fascists who are trying to highjack a major religious tradition (Islam) and ignite a bloody religious war across the world. The fact they are rejecting or perverting the religion often goes unnoticed. For example, the concept of a suicide bomber is very very dubious in light of Islamic teachings. The Talaiban style treatment of women is also very much out of touch with the actual Koranic teaching and long accepted commentaries. Women are instructed to dress modestly. The Pakistani Olympic Committee went to the nation’s leading Islamic scholars on the question of could a Pakistani woman could compete in swimming. The scholars ruled that it was permissible if she wore one of the new full body speedo suits which covered her from the ankles to the neck. The young woman went to Athens and swam for Pakistan. Some backwoods mullah then went nuts -- the equivalent of our sleazier self appointed television preachers -- and put a death threat on the girl. She’ll be seeking political asylum in the UK or the USA. The crazies are out of control. The message of the Koran and tradition is not the lunatic ravings of a few fanatics.
Speaking of crazies, the “bad” demonstrators as opposed to the normal people who marched on Sunday are going to have the streets pretty much to themselves for the next couple of days. They have already provoked the cops and in one case beaten a cop who is hospitalized in serious condition. They are being rude, crude and ugly. Today they are going to begin vandalism and other direct action.
My sympathy goes out to the NYPD who have to deal with them, to the New Yorkers and the delegates who will be insulted and molested by these bozo’s and self important thugs. It is not going to play well on television across the nation. Even more important, it is a big time turn off to the swing voters -- especially to younger and single women who will feel threatened by the boorish, irrational actions.
Check out the ABC poll released yesterday. It concurs with the other fresh polls that Bush is running even or ahead before the convention. The back up questions all show major gains for Bush. Also check out the just realized Zogby poll of Iowa voters. The most interesting things about it are that while on policy questions the undecided voters are not very supportive of Bush on the “personality” question they believe he is a much better leader, a far more likable guy and more in tune with them than Kerry. The other gem is that they don’t like Kerry and don’t feel he is trustworthy.
It appears to be the consensus of the experts that right now the Midwest has rolled and Bush is even or ahead every midwest state except Illinois. Pennsylvania and West Virginia are also even or tilting mildly pro Bush. Today Bush would carry the states he did in 2000 and plus a number of of the states Gore did. The race is not decided, but it is nice when your side has the lead.
The second night of the Republican convention was worth watching. California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger gave the best reaching out speech of the week. I found the very real echoes of his wife Maria’s late uncle’s Jack and Robert Kennedy in his gestures and the rhythm of his words uncanny but somehow natural. He made his rhetorical points with his index finger point out and his right arm punching into the audience, same with his open armed “join me” gesture. The old three beat Kennedy phrasing -- point 1, point 2, point 3 then hitting them with the conclusion and stepping back to give the big applause line plenty of room. Arnold has become a bit Irish by marriage. The text was not great oratory, but he delivered from the heart making it all American and all Arnold with a subtle but real Kennedy optimism and humor. The mild self mockery of the authentic Kennedy humor was there in his line, “Somebody told me they hoped I was a good a Governor as I was an actor. What an awful thing to say.” Most Kennedy want-to-be’s including but hardly limited to Senator John Kerry miss this authentic element. JFK was like a Prince of the Blood but he always opened by making jokes about himself, dropping his “lace curtain” status and coming down to earth with his audience by reminding them he knew his Grandfather Kennedy was a south Boston saloon keeper.
I thought the cameo appearance of the Bush twins at times funny, but proof that like most fathers, Dub’ya is indigent to his daughters. I doubt they helped much with adults, but they may have warmed younger people and carried on the glow of Arnold’s emotionally uplifting speech.
On Laura Bush’s speech, let me commend Dick Morris’s glowing review to you. He says it all and thinks it was perfection in its presenting her husband to other women voters.
The world will have watch a growing tragedy in Russia as the security forces and commandoes prepare to assault the middle school where local terrorists have seized two hundred students. You pray for the children and their parents knowing in the end President Putin will soon give the order for Russia best special forces soldiers to assault the school and try to save as many children as they can. The tragedy is clear and looming like great wave about to engulf a ship. Poor Russia suffers again. Even the best result will break their hearts and ours too. We can only thank God that He has thus far spared us from a similar tragedy.
Eat your heart out pal. You made my week. Welcome back to the reality. A steady diet of New Age high fiber low reality day dreaming is not good for you.
The opening night of the Republican Convention was a great show. It set the context for the three days to follow. It opened with a Bush supporting liberal Democrat, actor Ron Silver throwing slabs of raw meet to the delegates and reminding us that we are in long difficult gritty war with evil and tyranny.
We are engaged in deadly combat with the clerico-fascists who are trying to highjack a major religious tradition (Islam) and ignite a bloody religious war across the world. The fact they are rejecting or perverting the religion often goes unnoticed. For example, the concept of a suicide bomber is very very dubious in light of Islamic teachings. The Talaiban style treatment of women is also very much out of touch with the actual Koranic teaching and long accepted commentaries. Women are instructed to dress modestly. The Pakistani Olympic Committee went to the nation’s leading Islamic scholars on the question of could a Pakistani woman could compete in swimming. The scholars ruled that it was permissible if she wore one of the new full body speedo suits which covered her from the ankles to the neck. The young woman went to Athens and swam for Pakistan. Some backwoods mullah then went nuts -- the equivalent of our sleazier self appointed television preachers -- and put a death threat on the girl. She’ll be seeking political asylum in the UK or the USA. The crazies are out of control. The message of the Koran and tradition is not the lunatic ravings of a few fanatics.
Speaking of crazies, the “bad” demonstrators as opposed to the normal people who marched on Sunday are going to have the streets pretty much to themselves for the next couple of days. They have already provoked the cops and in one case beaten a cop who is hospitalized in serious condition. They are being rude, crude and ugly. Today they are going to begin vandalism and other direct action.
My sympathy goes out to the NYPD who have to deal with them, to the New Yorkers and the delegates who will be insulted and molested by these bozo’s and self important thugs. It is not going to play well on television across the nation. Even more important, it is a big time turn off to the swing voters -- especially to younger and single women who will feel threatened by the boorish, irrational actions.
Check out the ABC poll released yesterday. It concurs with the other fresh polls that Bush is running even or ahead before the convention. The back up questions all show major gains for Bush. Also check out the just realized Zogby poll of Iowa voters. The most interesting things about it are that while on policy questions the undecided voters are not very supportive of Bush on the “personality” question they believe he is a much better leader, a far more likable guy and more in tune with them than Kerry. The other gem is that they don’t like Kerry and don’t feel he is trustworthy.
It appears to be the consensus of the experts that right now the Midwest has rolled and Bush is even or ahead every midwest state except Illinois. Pennsylvania and West Virginia are also even or tilting mildly pro Bush. Today Bush would carry the states he did in 2000 and plus a number of of the states Gore did. The race is not decided, but it is nice when your side has the lead.
The second night of the Republican convention was worth watching. California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger gave the best reaching out speech of the week. I found the very real echoes of his wife Maria’s late uncle’s Jack and Robert Kennedy in his gestures and the rhythm of his words uncanny but somehow natural. He made his rhetorical points with his index finger point out and his right arm punching into the audience, same with his open armed “join me” gesture. The old three beat Kennedy phrasing -- point 1, point 2, point 3 then hitting them with the conclusion and stepping back to give the big applause line plenty of room. Arnold has become a bit Irish by marriage. The text was not great oratory, but he delivered from the heart making it all American and all Arnold with a subtle but real Kennedy optimism and humor. The mild self mockery of the authentic Kennedy humor was there in his line, “Somebody told me they hoped I was a good a Governor as I was an actor. What an awful thing to say.” Most Kennedy want-to-be’s including but hardly limited to Senator John Kerry miss this authentic element. JFK was like a Prince of the Blood but he always opened by making jokes about himself, dropping his “lace curtain” status and coming down to earth with his audience by reminding them he knew his Grandfather Kennedy was a south Boston saloon keeper.
I thought the cameo appearance of the Bush twins at times funny, but proof that like most fathers, Dub’ya is indigent to his daughters. I doubt they helped much with adults, but they may have warmed younger people and carried on the glow of Arnold’s emotionally uplifting speech.
On Laura Bush’s speech, let me commend Dick Morris’s glowing review to you. He says it all and thinks it was perfection in its presenting her husband to other women voters.
The world will have watch a growing tragedy in Russia as the security forces and commandoes prepare to assault the middle school where local terrorists have seized two hundred students. You pray for the children and their parents knowing in the end President Putin will soon give the order for Russia best special forces soldiers to assault the school and try to save as many children as they can. The tragedy is clear and looming like great wave about to engulf a ship. Poor Russia suffers again. Even the best result will break their hearts and ours too. We can only thank God that He has thus far spared us from a similar tragedy.
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