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ELECTION ’02 FLASH GOP WINS IN TEXAS [David Guenthner] The Dallas Morning News is releasing its final poll in the races for Texas governor and U.S. senator. The numbers show Republicans maintaining solid leads since the paper's last survey two weeks ago. In the governor's race, Gov. Rick Perry (R) leads Tony Sanchez (D) by a 50-38 margin. Perry is receiving 13% of black and 22% of Hispanic support, while Sanchez is at 26% among whites. Even factoring for higher black and Hispanic turnout, a Democrat needs to win at least 37% of the white vote to win statewide -- Sanchez has not topped the mid 20's in any public poll taken since the Democratic primary. In the U.S. Senate race, Atty. Gen. John Cornyn (R) leads Democrat Ron Kirk (D) by a 50-41 margin. Kirk is doing better with whites (30%) but Cornyn is at 33% among Hispanics. The only contest in play at this point is the lieutenant governor's race, where Land Commissioner David Dewhurst (R) leads former Comptroller John Sharp (D) by the three-point margin of error. The lieutenant governor is the most powerful position in Texas' system of government because he is the presiding office of the Texas Senate -- he determines committee assignments and which bills make the Senate's agenda. For that reason, Perry is openly appealing in the last few days that voters who support him also vote for Dewhurst so that their vote for governor isn't cancelled out. (Perry narrowly beat Sharp for this office four years ago and they've hated each other ever since.) Posted at 08:14 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH ZOGBY SAYS... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] John Zogby gives the Senate to the Democrats. Posted at 08:09 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH MAINE GAMES [Jim Nuzzo] Doesn't seem that Tony Soprano has hurt the Democrat nominee for governor in Maine. Congressman John Baldacci has been the subject of a vicious negative advertising from the Green Party candidate Jonathan Carter. One ad suggests that Balducci's support for casino gambling in the Pine State will allow gaming establishments that are like the "Bada Bing!," the strip club portrayed in the HBO show, The Sopranos. The ad, and all of the GOP's attacks as a tax and spender, seem to have little effect on Baldacci, who is poised to be the first major party governor in almost a decade, succeeding Independent Angus King. Better news for the Republicans is that Senator Susan Collins, fending off an early challenge, will cruise to reelection. Posted at 08:08 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH RUNNING IN CONN. [Jim Nuzzo] In an independent media poll released today, Congresswoman Nancy Johnson is leading her Democratic opponent Congressman James Maloney by 9 points, 50 to 41 percent in the newly redrawn 5th congressional district. This confirms a U Conn poll released yesterday that showed the Johnson/Maloney match up at 53 to 36 with 10 percent undecided. The critical fact in both polls is that Johnson has reached or exceeded the magic 50 percent threshold. This was a race that the Democrats felt at the beginning of the campaign cycle that they could capture from the GOP. These polls make the capture of the House of Representatives that much more out of reach. Posted at 08:05 PM NORWAY'S DARK SECRET? [Andrew Stuttaford] I can't claim to be much of an expert on Norwegian politics. Outside of Norway who can? For all I know, the Progress Party may indeed be a deeply sinister organization, but on the face of it, this piece from the Guardian seems a little, well, alarmist. It's interesting to see, yet again, another example of the EU establishment argument that any party favoring a restrictive approach to immigration must by definition be extremist. Posted at 01:58 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH THE CALIFORNIA OUTLOOK [Allison Hayward] The latest field poll in the California gubernatorial race has Davis at 41 to Simon at 34 percent, 8 percent to third parties and 14 percent undecided. From Carla Marinucci's San Francisco Chronicle article on the poll: "The latest survey shows that -- clearly dissatisfied about their choices--voters will go to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots against one candidate, rather than in support of one. Nearly 7 in 10 Simon supporters, for example, told pollsters their vote would be more against Davis than for Simon. Two-thirds of Davis supporters say their vote is for Davis, with 37 percent saying they are casting a vote against Simon." By the way, three percent of likely voters say without being asked they won't vote for governor at all. According to the Marinucci piece, is this an unprecedented high number of respondents admitting voluntarily that they will skip the top of the ticket office. Assuming, as many do, that Davis will win, how can he govern? Posted at 11:53 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH THE ELECTIONS, FROM A SAUDI PERSPECTIVE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] An Arab News editorial: "[E]ven if Republicans fare badly, as is most likely, the war cries against Iraq are not going to diminish in intensity. After all, Saddam Hussein, whether vanquished or still in power, will be an invaluable electoral asset if Bush runs for re-election." Posted at 08:18 AM SAUDIS READY TO FIGHT FOR IRAQ [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From a BBC report: "A religious scholar told the BBC that there are whole regions in Saudi ready for jihad." Posted at 08:13 AM GETTING CLOSER TO IRAQ [Kathryn Jean Lopez] One-third of Kuwait is closed off today; U.S. troops are preparing for the coming battle next door. Posted at 08:08 AM WAR STORIES FROM CORNELL [Kathryn Jean Lopez] One last thing about Cornell. A graduate tells me: "Our prolife group tried to get Gannett Health Services to carry more prolife brochures, including a pamphlet on Natural Family Planning from the Couple to Couple League. Cornell’s only objection to the NFP brochure was that it had a mercury thermometer in it (danger!). Red Flag! Needless to say if it were a digital thermometer they would have come up with another objection. However, I also wonder what if some poor woman used a vibrator and electrocuted herself. " Perhaps students opposed to the vibrator policy might take that up as an objection and see how far it gets them. Posted at 08:04 AM MY BAD [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Remember earlier in the week there was some conversation in these parts about Cornell's health center stocking up on vibrators to more full cover female student "health" needs? Well, I took a swipe at some silly comment a gal student made about sex shops not being "woman-affirming" enough for her to buy her vibrator at, saying she had to be a women's-studies major. Nope. Don't have that at Cornell, evidently. The department has recently been changed to the “Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies” program. I apologize for the error. Posted at 08:00 AM THE OLYMPICS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] As a New Yorker, am I supposed to be hoping the gods on Mt. Olympus pick the Big Apple for the 2012 games? All I think about is the traffic and "do it somewhere upstate, there's ROOM there." Is that the attitude that makes people roll their eyes when you tell them you're from NYC? Posted at 07:43 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH YOU KNOW IT IS GOING TO BE A LONG ELECTION NIGHT... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...when Charlie Cook won't make a prediction about who wins the Senate. (Just now on the Today Show's Saturday edition.) After David Bloom practically begged him, he gave the Dems a win, but was real hesitant. Posted at 07:32 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH WAITING UNTIL JANUARY [Jim Nuzzo] While many states will not know the outcome of their elections on Wednesday because of court challenges, Vermont may not know the result of its gubernatorial election until its state legislature meets in January. The Vermont constitution requires that the state's constitutional officers be elected with a majority, that is over 50%, rather than merely a plurality of the vote. All of the Green Mountain's opinion polls show that both the Democrat Lt. Governor Douglas Racine and his GOP challenger James Douglas well below the majority threshold, with Racine holding a slight lead. Independent candidate Cornelius Hogan registers in the high single digits and less than ten percent remain undecided. While there is a great deal of talk in the press that the legislature should ratify the candidate with the most votes, their decision is made by secret ballot. The legislature has a nominal Republican tilt and in a vote which is shielded from the public, Douglas could lose the popular vote and still take the top office. Not that NRO readers should feel pleased at that prospect. James Douglas is, as James Jeffords was, a classic RINO, a Republican in Name Only. Posted at 07:13 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH SORRY, I ONLY ATTEND DEM. PARTY RALLIES [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Mondale is a no-show at debate. Posted at 06:59 AM Friday, November 01, 2002 ELECTION ’02 FLASH MITT CLOSING IN? [Jim Nuzzo] The Romney campaign tracking polls show a 7 point bulge for Mitt. This is up from 4 points ahead in the tracking before the debate. One of the concerns that any GOP effort has in Massachusetts is that the Dems have all of the ground troops for a big GOTV effort. Professionals usually credit an additional 3 to 4 points to the Dems just because of their GOTV. Now the Romney folks will never be able to match the bodies that O'Brien has at her disposal, but they have been aggressive in using telephone calls and mass mailings. They have mailed absentee ballot applications to every registered Republican in the state. A quick check with election commissions around the state show that absentee ballots are coming in at record numbers. Posted at 07:29 PM AIN'T IT THE TRUTH [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From the father of a homicide/suicide bomber: "The Israelis are armed with democracy, knowledge and order," he said. "We need these weapons. Blowing up 100 buses and restaurants will neither destroy Israel nor bring us victory." Posted at 06:33 PM A CANADIAN'S PLEA [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A reader from the north writes: "Once again our government has chosen appeasement over common sense, and our uniquely obnoxious PM (who still refuses to list Hezbollah as a terrorist org, for heaven's sake) has found yet another way to spit in the eye of the Americans who defend us. Please, please, just shut down the border completely! We need your commerce and support far more than you need ours. Canada is well on its way to becoming a replica of the surrender monkeys to the East...why W. and his team cares a rotten fig about the opinions of a bunch of pusillanimous pale Canucks is beyond me. PS Please sponsor me for refugee status. It's almost as bad here as in Cuba; don't believe me? 13 farmers went to jail yesterday for selling their grain independently, instead of going through the government monopoly. Posted at 06:22 PM I BET THESE PEOPLE ARE AGAINST THE WAR ON TERROR, TOO [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Crowds of angry residents in Berlin Friday protested attempts to return a road to its pre-Nazi-era name of Jewish Street, with several shouting, "The Jews have made us suffer enough.'' Posted at 06:08 PM EVEN THE CORNER NODS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] What? When did we cave to Canada? Was I napping? WHY? I just read this in CAIR's daily e-mail: CANADIAN MUSLIMS WELCOME CHANGE IN U.S. PROFILING POLICY U.S. Must Make Good On Assurances And Resolve Arar Case, Says CAIR-Can (Ottawa, Canada - 10/31/02) - A national Canadian advocacy organization today commended the Canadian government's efforts in securing recent assurances from U.S. authorities that Canadian citizens born in several Middle East and North African countries will not be fingerprinted and photographed upon entry into the United States. Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham stated today that he had received the assurances from US Ambassador Paul Cellucci. In a statement released this afternoon, CAIR-CAN wrote: "The Canadian government's vocal protest against discriminatory US requirements has been admirable and has, it appears, secured a rescinding of the US law for Canadian citizens. "Our government must continue to press the US to make good on its promise and ensure that Canadians are not racially profiled or denied their fundamental liberties in traveling to or through the US. "We call on Mr. Graham to insist that the US government resolves the issue of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was illegally and inhumanely deported by the US to Jordan in early October." The issue of the United States’ discriminatory treatment of Canadian citizens born in selected Muslim countries came to public attention through CAIR-CAN’s work on behalf of the Arar family. CAIR-CAN also praised the diligent efforts of NDP leader Alexa McDonough and Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark as playing a significant role in securing the US assurances. Posted at 05:46 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH CLUELESS AG [Jim Boulet] South Dakota's Argus Leader proclaims "No Illegal Ballots Found", thanks to statements by Attorney General Mark Barnett. The Argus Leader is itself not so sanguine, noting that "Barnett has smothered discussion of widespread voting irregularities." Barnett also seems clueless as to how an Indian-vote-fraud scheme would work: "So far I have not found that [a woman at the center of the scandal] had any ballots that have been illegally voted." She had no reason to carry ballots simply because vote fraud is easier on Election Day, as I explained in NRO. A person presents himself as an Indian voter falsely registered earlier. He gives the proper name and address. He gets a ballot. He votes. His fraudulent ballot is placed in the same box with all the others, unable to be located again, unlike an absentee or provisional ballot. Posted at 05:32 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH BURNING BALLOTS IN S.D. [Kathryn Jean Lopez] I’m not sure if I am more bothered by the corruption or the incompetence. "Attorney General Mark Barnett said Becky Red Earth-Villeda apparently tried to burn the original applications but then decided to retrieve them." Posted at 05:29 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH KEEPING OUT REPUBLICANS IN N.J. [Allison Hayward] Democrats like to talk about level playing fields and equal access to the political process, but they appear to be aggressively using a consent decree issued by the federal district court in New Jersey that dates from the early '80s to prevent equal access by poll watchers. The Democrats boast of deploying 10,000 election attorneys to prevent (or maybe exacerbate? we'll see) Election Day polling problems. The Republicans have told their volunteer attorneys, however, that they shouldn't participate in New Jersey. The Democrats have gone to court there claiming participation violates this consent decree, and the volunteer attorney's group can't afford the litigation. Moreover, I've read that a suit has been filed by Democrats in Florida, seemingly invoking the consent decree there to prevent GOP lawyers from participating. The consent decree requires that the RNC not pursue ballot security or anti-fraud activities in precincts "where the racial or ethnic composition of such districts is a factor in the decision to conduct such activities and where a purpose or significant effect of such activities is to deter qualified voters from voting." (In 1987 a further decree required the RNC to petition the court before engaging in ballot security programs, and tell the DNC in advance, too.) I don't expect that many readers will rush to embrace the interests of lawyers, but this is obviously about more than that. Fraud-prevention activities are necessary, especially when one's worthy opponents are hell-bent on maximizing turnout (in certain areas of course) with all tools at their disposal. The Democrats appear to be exploiting this decree to operate unchallenged in some areas. How can that be tolerated? Posted at 05:02 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH ELECTION-OBSERVER INTRO [NRO Staff] Allison Hayward is a political attorney practicing in California and Washington DC. She writes frequently on political and campaign-finance topics. Among her many impressive achievements, she was a member of the 1982 Stanford Band involved in "The Play," and she has been a National Review subscriber for more years than she'd care to admit. Posted at 04:58 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH BUSH WORKS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE [Jim Nuzzo] The president's appearance in New Hampshire may be enough to put Sununu over the top. New Hampshire political insiders say that the undecideds left in the Senate race give a lopsided favorability rating to Bush and his personal plea for Sununu will hold significant sway for many of these people. Senator Bob Smith was not present at the event in Portsmith, but his chief of staff has issued a statement saying that Smith disavows the write-in effort on his behalf. However, without a personal appearance, Smith's supporters may ignore such a statement. Craig Benson, the GOP nominee for governor, seems well ahead, in one poll he leads by double digits. Unfortunately for Sununu, many of his policy positions are closer to Shaheen's than Sununu's. Thus, the tycoon's GOTV effort will have little help for the GOP senate candidate. The old Sununu machine, controlled which was controlled by his father, is largely a thing of the past and so Sununu will have to rely upon the Gregg (Judd, the present senator is the latest of a line of Greggs to hold state-wide office in New Hampshire) machine to put him over the top. Posted at 04:39 PM MORE PROOF—WE’LL DO ANYTHING FOR SUBS [Rich Lowry] E-mail: “Subject: Subscribe or I'll Kill this Dog I've been enjoying the NRO site for quite sometime and have been touched by all the tender pleas to subscribe so Jonah can get a liveable wage and stop having to share Cosmo's kibble. . . . Unlike your correspondent Mr. Lynch, who virtually blackmailed you into getting some publicity for merely *promising* to subscribe, I have demonstrated good faith by actually subscribing to the magazine. You can see the text of the confirmation page below. So if Dave Lynch of Colorado Springs gets a NRO mention by virtue of promising to subscribe, so should these websites.” www.rokemneedlearts.com www.autothreads.com www.vegetativestate.com" Posted at 02:50 PM BLACK-HAT CRUNCHY CONS [Rod Dreher] Mazel tov to the Lubavitch Hasidim in this story, who have moved to rural Massachusetts and are attempting to live communally and farm organically. I've heard of contemporary Eastern Orthodox Christians doing things like this, but this is the first time I've seen anything about Jewish religious conservatives making a go of the agrarian lifestyle. As you can see from the story, they are doing so for conservative reasons. Posted at 01:54 PM GREAT SPORTING MOMENTS [Andrew Stuttaford] Time, I think, to mention a sport played by real athletes: Fischer-Spassky 1972. And if anyone complains about that selection I shall start talking - at length - about Geoff Hurst's hat-trick against West Germany, and, of course, the legendary achievements of Geoff Boycott. And then, of course, there was that rather epic game of table tennis I had with my brother... Posted at 12:30 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH MORE ON MINNESOTA [Robert Alt] Byron is right to point out the possibility of confusion. I think the court underestimates the trouble that receiving two votes from absentee voters will cause. But the court's order does have a few features worth noting. First, as I explain in more detail here, the court made clear that if an absentee voter votes for Wellstone and does not seek a new ballot, the vote counts for Wellstone. Second, they didn't buy the DFL's ridiculous arguments that election officials needed to use internet ballots for absentees--a proposal that would have assured Mondale a majority of the popular vote in China. And third, they didn't bite on any of the DFL's complaints about the supplemental ballots. None of this prevents lawsuits from being filed after the election, but on balance it's a good first sign from the court. Posted at 12:26 PM RED BAITING [Jonah Goldberg] In that David Corn piece linked below he's careful to assure readers that he's not "red baiting." I've got to say I've never really understood what's so bad about red-baiting. Maybe I just don't understand it. But my understanding is that red-baiting is: A) attacking someone because he is a Communist; B) Suggesting that an actual but secret Communist might be a Communist; C) Suggesting that someone who merely talks, acts and thinks like a Communist is in fact a Communist D) Suggesting that someone is a Communist when he really isn't E) All of the above. Now, of all these possibilities only "D" is really all that bad. To me it's not that different from falsely calling someone a Nazi. But here's the important thing: Why would actual Communists have a problem with being called a Communist? And why would they think the charge is all that big an insult? I'm sure the answer has something to do with the blacklists or the Hollywood Ten (yawn). And, that's fine if you want to explain why D is bad (losing your job for something you're not is unjust). But could someone tell me why it was so wrong to call high ranking members of the Communist party "Communists"? How is that red-baiting? Or if that is red-baiting, why is red-baiting bad? Posted at 12:24 PM OUCH—GOOD ANGELS’ MOMENTS [Rich Lowry] The last of my excessive “moments” posts. E-mail: “Since you asked, other than the entire month of October 2002 my greatest Angel moment was a three game series sweep in Anaheim against your defending champion Yankees in 1979 while the Angels were on their way to their first division title ever. Game one was a nationally televised affair with Nolan Ryan flirting with a no hitter before Reggie Jackson broke it up with a late single. Game two the Angels rallied from a 6-0 deficit to win 8-7 thanks to a Don Baylor blast that hit the foul pole. To cap the weekend, Bobby Grich hit a two-run, two-out home run in the ninth to win game three, 5-4. Yes, 23 years is a long time between memorable moments." Posted at 12:12 PM I'M UNFAIR AND UNBALANCED! [Jonah Goldberg] I fall over a lot because I'm so top-heavy and when I do I try to squish small children who annoy me, which is unfair. So there you have it. Posted at 11:47 AM I'M FAIR & BALANCED! [Rich Lowry] For what it's worth: I've signed up with Fox. Did Greta's show last night, Tentatively scheduled to be on again tonight (although these things are always subject to change during the day). Posted at 11:03 AM CHRIS TAYLOR--AN HONORABLE MAN (AND NOT A FREE-LOADER) [Rich Lowry] e-mail: "Boy Rich, you never stray off-message for even a second, do you? =) Okay, you got me... I read NRO daily and often get NROnDeadTree at the newsstand around the corner from the office... but until this morning I was not a subscriber. Out of freeloading guilt (and palpable fear that I might suddenly start receiving fake Nigerian-scam-mail imploring me to subscribe to NR), I did the honourable thing and anted up. I wouldn't want to see Jonah & Cosmo selling pencils out of a tin cup due to my being a cheapskate. Keep up the good work!" Posted at 11:02 AM TUNNEL VISION [Rod Dreher] The Washington Times' Diana West has some sensible things to say about the inability of a number of people, from The New York Times to Georgetown University, to speak plainly and truthfully about Islam when it would reflect poorly on that religion and its followers. Meanwhile, Bat Ye'or is offering to return to Georgetown to debate Prof. John Esposito, a non-Muslim who is America's leading academic apologist for Islam, on the subject of dhimmitude. Esposito recently dismissed Bat Ye'or as having insufficient academic credentials to comment knowledgeably on dhimmitude. That being the case, I can't imagine why the professor would object to debating in a public forum at Georgetown someone he would surely defeat handily. Right? Posted at 11:00 AM NO WAY! [Rich Lowry] A typically bizarre and interesting story today in the WSJournal's "a-head" (or is it a-hed): "In 1982 Larry Walters, a man with no prior ballooning experience, attached 42 hellium weather balloons to a lawn chair, intending to go up a few hundred feet. In fact, he soared to 16,000 feet. Mr. Walters survived the flight, despite accidentally dropping the BB gun he planned to use to pop the balloons and eventually landing, unhurt, on some electrical wires." Posted at 10:42 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH PRESIDENT BARTLET ON THE STUMP, TOO [Kathryn Jean Lopez] George W. Bush is not the only POTUS campaigning this weekend. This, from the Media Research Center: "California Governor Gray Davis has signed up the West Wing's President, actor Martin Sheen, for his re-election effort. Sheen's image next to a shot of Davis alternates with a photo of Magic Johnson at the top of the Gray Davis campaign Web site." Posted at 10:39 AM URGENT RESPONSE NEEDED [Rich Lowry] ATTN: SIR. I PRESUME THIS EMAIL WILL NOT BE A SURPRISE TO YOU. I AM AN ENGINEER WITH THE MINISTRY OF MINERAL RESOURCES AND ENERGY IN SOUTH AFRICA AND ALSO A MEMBEROF CONTRACTS AWARDING COMMITTEE OF THIS MINISTRY UNDER SOUTH AFRICA GOVERNMENT. MANY YEARS AGO, SOUTH AFRICA GOVERNMENT ASKED THIS COMMITTEE TO AWARDS CONTRACTS TO FOREIGN FIRMS, IN WHICH, I AND TWO OF MY PARTNERS ARE THE LEADER OF THIS COMMITTEE, WITH OUR GOOD POSITION IN THIS COMMITTEE, WE OVER INVOICED THIS CONTRACTS TO THE TUNE OF US$21,500,000:00, TO BE BENEFITED BY ME AND TWO OF MY PARTNERS THAT ARE INCHARGE OF THIS CONTRACTS AWARDING COMMITTEE OF THIS MINISTRY. TO QUALIFY FOR YOUR SHARE, APPROX. $21,499,999:99, OF THIS WINDFALL, SIMPLY SUBSCRIBE TO NATIONAL REVIEW! Posted at 10:36 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH FROM NARAL [Kathryn Jean Lopez] "A pro-choice Senate is the only barrier to President Bush's stated objective: An anti-choice majority in the Supreme Court and the severe restriction of legal abortion." Posted at 10:35 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH IT'S ALL ABOUT ABORTION [Kathryn Jean Lopez] FROM NOW: "In a matter of days we could lose the only thing that stands between George W. Bush and his determination to overturn the right to safe, legal abortion -- the United States Senate. Our rights are threatened as they haven't been for thirty years, and our only hope is to elect United States Senators who will stand with us. Our opposition is on the attack, some of our best friends are in trouble, and the time to act is now. Already we have lost a stalwart champion, Sen. Paul Wellstone, and this devastating loss makes it even more important that we win every other race by a decisive margin. NOW is using every resource of our unparalleled grassroots network of volunteers to mobilize voters who favor reproductive rights. There are four key races, each too close too call, where a handful of votes could make all the difference. We have targeted those states for special efforts, but we need your help for the last Get Out the Vote push. Take a minute to respond NOW -- it could make all the difference." Posted at 10:32 AM MORE MOMENTS [Rich Lowry] Ok, I'll stop soon. Here is another list I love because it's smart and quirky. It's Yankee heavy, but if an Angels fan sends me one as good, I'll post it: "Rich -- Enjoyed yours and they were truly memorable to those who saw them. Some of mine are: (individual -- I was at the park) the Nettles game, Mantle going 5-for-5 with 2 homers on Memorial Day 1968, Jim Abbot backhanding a Baltimore chop with backspin barehanded and nail the runner at first (he got a long standing O from the Stadium crowd in a game in which he was bombed), Guidry catching a foul pop-up bunt, Gooden with no hitter stuff in '85 (the Cubs got 2 "hits" courtesy of Wally Backman), and Toby Harrah running down the third base line on Gossage as the tying run with two out in the ninth, running back to third on the fair side, and getting hit on the cheek by a line drive (they replayed it about 20 times and the fans still wouldn't leave they were laughing so hard). In terms of the overall list, they missed the obvious top two achievements, the called shot and Harvey Haddix's perfect 12 innings. Didn't they also miss Williams playing that doubleheader on the ast day in 1941 when his .400 season was on the line? Also, is it true that Joe DiMaggio snubbed Bobby Kennedy at Old Timers Day in 1964? If so, that surely rates top 10." Posted at 10:32 AM HELP [Rich Lowry] A friend in the Washington area is looking for an editorial job, on or off the Hill, anything involving editing. If you know of any such opening please let me know. He’s a very upstanding, bright young guy who would be an asset to any organization. (Sorry for another classified-style Corner posting.) Posted at 10:30 AM FROM RICK BROOKHISER [Rich Lowry] “Dear Rich, So if we're doing favorite moments in other sports, let me nominate the most dominating performance by an athlete I have ever seen--by an equine athlete, as it happens--Secretariat's win of the Belmont Stakes. Thirty lengths? Maybe more? It looked like the other nags had just stopped. He may still hold the time record for that race. Back to baseball, the late Stephen Jay Gould wrote a learned article for The New York Review of Books arguing that DiMaggio's streak has a uniqueness among all baseball records. It is possible, apparently, to calculate the odds of each incremental game in a hitting streak, versus the odds of each season or lifetime home runs or hits, incremental points in batting averages or ERAs, etc., and Gould argued that DiMaggio's streak is not just impressive, or unlikely, but freakishly so. I do not understand the math (and I don't want to be instructed). A simple yes or no from the wearers of pocket protectors in the Corner will suffice. –Rick” Posted at 10:29 AM LIBERATE MUMIA, NOT IRAQ [Jonah Goldberg] This is a fascinatingt behind-the-scenes glimpse into hardcore leftist protest culture as put on display at teh Washington anti-war march. What is perhaps even more interesting is that it was written by David Corn for LA Weekly, LA's only major alternative paper. One must ask whether Corn's own magazine -- The Nation -- would have run such a sober-eyed account. Posted at 10:28 AM BLACK-MAILED! [Rich Lowry] Dave Lynch in Colorado Springs writes... "Mr. Lowry, I see your most recent post in the corner for a subscription to NR. I have been trying for several months to get one of my emails posted in the Corner, to no avail. My lack of wit and style are working against me in this regard. However, when I see a post with `Dave Lynch in Colorado Springs writes...', count me in for a subscription to NR. I will continue to provide my rather dull and dry insight to today's political culture, and maybe, just maybe, a NR writer will make me famous. Regards, Dave Lynch Colorado Springs, CO PS--This is not blackmail." 1) Yes it is. 2) We submit--now where's your subscription?!? Posted at 10:26 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH DIRRTY IN TEXAS [David Guenthner ] Tony Sanchez injected racial ugliness into the governor's race this morning with a new radio ad attacking Rick Perry for accepting $100 (which was quickly refunded) from a white supremacist. Commercial has a black narrator and includes quotes from the white supremacist and Perry's pro forma thank you letter to the donor. Narrator emphasizes the accent on Sanchez's last name. Posted at 10:16 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH ELECTION-OBSERVER INTRO [NRO Staff] David Guenthner is managing editor of The Lone Star Report in Austin, Texas. Posted at 10:11 AM ONE MORE SPRAY-PAINT THOUGH [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Wonder how many of those states where you can't buy spray paint at 16 for homecoming are states where you can get an abortion--or birth control even--without any parental notification. Posted at 10:06 AM SPRAY-PAINT LAWS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From a Texas reader: Imagine my surprise. My 16 year old daughter goes to Target to get spray paint and some other materials to make football posters for homecoming.If anyone knows a handy link to the states where this is law, I'm sure we would all find useful--saves two trips to Target. (N.B. These laws in the U.S. are probably about concerns that kids are trying to "get high" on spray paint and markers more than vandalism.) Posted at 09:44 AM I CONFESS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] I totally stold that last post from occassional NRO contributor Kevin Cherry. But since sports is the only way to get some of the boys interested in The Corner some days... :-) Posted at 09:37 AM THE FUNNIEST LINE IN BASEBALL HISTORY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The greatest line in basketball history is "Havlicek stole the ball!" by Johnny Most, longtime Celtics announcer. Posted at 09:34 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH WRONG ANSWER! [Jim Boulet Jr.] Last night, C-SPAN aired the October 29th debate between two candidates for Congress in Florida's 13th district, Katherine Harris (R) and Jan Schneider (D). The debate included telephone calls from the public. In a funny moment in the debate, Carmella, a woman with a pronounced Spanish accent, asked about the candidates' views on amnesty for illegal aliens. Schneider said she supported amnesty for illegals who had been in the U.S. a while and urged more be done on "multicultural issues" like language. Carmella asked the moderator's permission to ask another question, which was granted. Carmella then asked Schneider if she really supported amnesty. Schneider said that she certainly did. At which point Carmella announced that she was not impressed because her family "went about this [immigration] in a legal manner." Posted at 09:22 AM NOT ONLY JEWS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The MEMRI report notes: "It should be noted that the religious Muslim sources also mention transformation of Christians and sinful Muslims into apes and pigs. However, in the case of Christians and Muslims the sources are not Koranic--as in the case of Jews - but are Koranic commentary and traditions. Furthermore, the number of references to Jews as apes and pigs in these sources is greater." Posted at 09:20 AM SPRAY PAINT DOESN'T DEFACE PROPERTY, PEOPLE DO [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Britain cracks down on anti-social behavior. Among other things, illegal to sell spray paint or indelible markers to anyone under 18. Posted at 09:05 AM OF JEWS, PIGS & APES [Kathryn Jean Lopez] MEMRI has out a disturbing report on the Koranic roots of some often-repeated anti-Semitic slurs against Jews. "Viewing Jews as the "descendants of apes and pigs" is grounded in the most important Islamic religious sources, both in divine revelation in the Koran, in the Hadiths (traditions about the Prophet Muhammad), and in the most reliable compilations of traditions collected by the leading ninth-century sages Al-Bukhari and Muslim [both mention transformation into mice and lizards as well]. The notion of transforming Jews into animals appears also in ancient Arabic literature." Posted at 08:49 AM A COMPLIMENT (I THINK) & A BRILLIANT IDEA [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A loyal, wise reader writes: "Fear not! You have plenty of room to maneuver on the shameless-huckster scale. I'd put you slightly ahead of Billy Mayes (the Oxy Clean guy), but well behind the WWF or local siding commercials....I'll be sure and mention the NRO store as the place to shop for my Christmas present when my kids ask this year." So remember: Not only do your shopping at the NRO store, but make it easy for your loved ones to shop for you. Get them connected to the NRO store. Posted at 08:28 AM CAN WE GET ON WITH THIS ALREADY? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Student model U.N.s have less ridiculous rewrites than the real one (if you've been anywhere near a h.s. or college U.N., Congress, student council, etc., you know what I mean). There's further deal in the Security Council on Iraq. On this topic, Charles Krauthammer should be read today. Posted at 08:21 AM [NRO Staff] GET 4 FREE ISSUES OF NATIONAL REVIEW! That's right: We'll send you 4 FREE issues of National Review at absolutely no risk to you. If you're impressed by National Review's superior writing style, analysis, and wit, we'll send you the next 12 issues — for a total of 16 in all! — for only $19.95. Click here for details. Posted at 08:06 AM NORTH KOREA CONTINUES TO BUILD [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A Bill Gertz report. Posted at 08:04 AM TGIF [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Instead of forcing your way through Friday hyper from the candy you have left over from Halloween, do something different: Buy something from the NRO store. I really am running out of creative ways to do this....maybe I'll be better next week (when you're already keeping yourself warm in this NRO fleece pullover.... Posted at 07:45 AM SHARANSKY TO THE FRONT! [Kathryn Jean Lopez] In the Jerusalem Post today, Saul Singer proposes that Natan Sharansky, a Sovet-gulag survivor and consistently right-minded voice on issues Middle East, terror, and right and wrong, be made Israeli foreign minister, hoisting him into the forefront of Mideast negotiations. (The link to his AEI speech, too, should be followed.) Posted at 07:37 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH EVEN! [Jim Nuzzo] In a Boston Globe poll out today, the race for Massachusetts governor is this close: O'Brien leading Romney by one point. Romney has reduced his deficit among women from 18 to 8 and O'Brien has nearly the same gap among men. The reason for O'Brien's harping on Romney's use of "unbecoming" during the last debate is also seen in the polls--independent women hold the key to the election. Posted at 07:21 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH DEAD-HEAT IN N.H. [Jim Nuzzo] from the University of New Hampshire, Governor Jean Shaheen leads Representative John Sununu 46-42 percent -- which is within the margin of error. However, the poll also notes that Senator Bob Smith's lack of support is costing Sununu 3%, that is nearly all of Shaheen's lead. The good news for Sununu is that the write-in campaign for Smith is not picking up any traction. So, the question is whether, on Election Day, will those remaining disgruntled Smith vote stay home, vote for Shaheen or, hold their nose and vote for the GOP candidate? The president will be in New Hampshire today helping them decide. Posted at 07:06 AM IN ENGLISH, TOO [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Al Jazeera plans on an English-language channel. Posted at 04:34 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH MINNESOTA JUSTICE [Jonathan Adler] The Minnesota Supreme Court decision is out. New absentee ballots are to be mailed out to those that ask. Otherwise, all absentee ballots that come in will be accepted. The decision is here (link via How Appealing). News coverage here. Posted at 03:03 AM Thursday, October 31, 2002 ELECTION ’02 FLASH FRITZ UNPLUGGED [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Bruce Bartlett e-mails: Remember what Walter Mondale said in 1984 about taxes. As reported in "Showdown at Gucci Gulch" (Random House, 1987) by (then) Wall Street Journal reporters Jeffrey Birnbaum and Alan Murray (page 35), Mondale had just delivered his line at the Democratic convention in which he said, "Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did." Mondale then turned to (then) House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rosentenkowski and said, "Look at'em, we're going to tax their ass off." Posted at 06:25 PM PAX VOBISCUM [John Derbyshire] Overwhelming response to my trashing of The Peace in this morning's column. NRO readers are pretty solidly with me on this. We could start a peace-free sect of the Anglican communion... except that it seems there already is one. In any case, I should count my blessings on this one. There are, apparently, some really unspeakable practices going on out there. Some congregations hug. Posted at 05:50 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH SMITH & THE ENEMY [Jim Nuzzo] Senator Bob Smith sure wants to throw away a lifetime reputation as a conservative stalwart. Ever since his ill-conceived independent run for the presidency, Senator Smith's actions are hard to comprehend. After returning back to the Republican fold (this following his blasting his once and future colleagues on the Senate floor) and ascending to the chair of the Environment & Public Works Committee, he all of sudden becomes "green." His League of Conservation Voters rating changes nearly 180 degrees--he went from a zero rating in 2000 to being an 'honorable mention" for legislator of the year in 2002. Now following his primary loss to Representative John Sununu, Smith has refused to campaign with the GOP nominee. Indeed, he has quietly encouraged both a write-in campaign for him, or to vote for the Democratic nominee, Governor Jean Shaheen. The number of Smith defectors may be more than enough to deny Sununu victory in this very close race. While accurate estimates are difficult to come by, new Hampshire operatives believe that as many as 25% of Smith primary voters could decline to vote for Sununu. The White House is aware of the situations and political aides have offered Smith a number of enticements, all to no avail. How bizarre would it be if this staunchly pro-life advocate's personal pique denies the Republicans the Senate; thus preventing pro-life judges the ability to take their places on the bench. Posted at 05:05 PM HEY, RICH [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Does that work for Jonah and me, too? $100 for three minutes' work? Posted at 05:00 PM $100 IN 3 MINUTES!! [Rich Lowry] Hi, This Will Cost YOU NOTHING ! You get $100 just for joining and the referral potential earnings is STAGGERING! You will Never SEND money, Never SPEND anything, and Never ASK for money but you will still make THOUSANDS !!! I know what you're thinking, "Yeah right. I've heard that before!" Well, TRY this! Subscribe to National Review! Posted at 03:05 PM GOOD VIBRATIONS [ Cornell Review's take on the Cornell "health" issue....] Cornell Review's take on the Cornell "health" issue. Posted at 03:01 PM I FIGURED [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Another reader: Footballs have not been made of pigskin for years (1941). Here is the evolution of the modern football. Posted at 02:38 PM HAVE YOU GONE NRO SHOPPING YET? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The new NRO store is here. Posted at 01:59 PM SOCIALIZED-MEDICINE WATCH [Andrew Stuttaford] According to a new report from the World Health Organization, ten percent of the patients brave enough to enter a British hospital end up suffering "measurable harm." This is roughly comparable to the toll in a number of other European countries, but three times the figure in the United States. Posted at 01:50 PM MORE MOMENTS [Rich Lowry] Someone yesterday e-mailed this, the play-call from the famous 1982 Cal/Stanford game—the one with the band out on the field. One of my favorite things in life is exciting play-calls—“The Giants win the pennant!”—and this one has to rank near the top, with one caveat: Joe Starkey doesn’t seem to mention the laterals during the actual play. You can listen here. Posted at 01:30 PM RE: PIGSKIN [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A reader: Actually, why don't they just bury each one clutching a real NFL football...seems cleaner (assuming footballs are still made out of pigskin)...and just as "damning". Betcha they could even get the NFL to donate them to the cause. Posted at 01:23 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH MOMENTUM SWITCH IN SOUTH [John Hood] The latest batch of polls in southern gubernatorial and Senate races suggest that, on balance, Republican prospects are brightening. Jeb Bush is back out to an 8-point lead in Florida against Democrat Bill McBride. Republican Mark Sanford now has a slight edge against South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges. In Georgia, Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes and Sen. Max Cleland still lead their Republican challengers, but not by much. In North Carolina, Elizabeth Dole’s lead over Erskine Bowles continues to shrink in the public polls, but I am told that the GOP campaign’s private polling has begun to show an uptick. In Tennessee, Lamar Alexander’s lead for the Senate seat has “dropped” to 10 points; more importantly, one of two media polls released this week put Republican Van Hilleary slightly above Phil Bredeson in a governor’s race that many observers had thought was a likely Democratic pick-up just a few weeks ago. Only bad news for the GOP is that embattled Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman has closed the gap in his reelection bid against Republican Bob Riley. Given what’s going on elsewhere in the country, Republicans might feel a bit relieved at the turnaround in Dixie — but the outcomes remain in serious doubt because of the Democrats’ demonstrated superiority in getting out the vote. Posted at 01:10 PM PIGSKIN [Jim Nuzzo] Kathryn, if Israel or the U.S. did that, there would be PETA protests. Posted at 01:03 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH FUNNY [Andrew Stuttaford] Walter Mondale says that he is "worried" about the economy. Could this be the same Walter Mondale who was Vice President during the 'malaise years'? Posted at 12:55 PM JONAH, WHY I CARE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Ok, for a few reasons, but here's a creepy one for Halloween: a student says, "At this point, you either go online or go downtown to the sort of scary and not very woman-affirming place sex-shop downtown." a) You poor dear. B) Who talks like that, but women's studies majors (I'd bet a dollar...)? Posted at 12:52 PM LAST LAUGH [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Russia is burying the dead Chechen terrorists from the Moscow theater attack in pigskin. The reasoning: The Islamic terrrorists consider themselves martyrs. Buried in unclean pigskin, however, by their own beliefs, their plans are derailed. Posted at 12:47 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ELECTION ’02 FLASH ”MAN OF THE PEOPLE” Raul Damas of Opiniones Latinas makes this point: One of the more racist attacks against Miguel Estrada, President Bush's nominee to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, was that his being a brilliant lawyer from a middle-class family, meant that, in the words of Sen. Leahy, Estrada "did not exactly share in the experiences of most Latinos." One would think this kind of low expectation-mongering would keep the Dems from backing the mostly self-financed campaign of Texas oil millionaire Tony Sanchez. One would be wrong. Sanchez has spent $60 million of his own money only to be down by 10 points with a week to go in the TX Governor's race. Maybe next time the Democrats will run someone who has shared "the experiences of most Latinos." Posted at 12:32 PM BY THE WAY... [Jonah Goldberg] I've been astounded by how many Minnesota Democrats have written me essentially agreeing with yesterday's Goldberg File. Most didn't even have a problem with my calling Welstone more useful dead than alive. Surely, this is a sign that "memorial" really was a debacle (to use Howie Kurtz's word for it). Posted at 12:32 PM WHY I CARE [Jonah Goldberg] A couple people have written me asking why I should care one way or another if Cornell wants to provide vibrators to female students (See, below). It's the kind of question that takes you a moment or two to answer because it's not immediately obvious in an intellectual way why we sometimes say "yuck" to things. So, let me answer now that I've thought about it. By offering these devices as part of its "Health Services," Cornell embraces the idea that sexual pleasure is not merely a "women's health issue" but that it is in a sense an entitlement that should be guaranteed by public institutions. It also, diminishes sex and romance while elevating self-indulgence. As some dopey kid told the Cornell Daily Sun, "We know masturbation is healthy, so any tools that can help people discover their sexuality are positive. Any action by the University that gets the idea of sexuality out of the marginalized place that we're used to seeing it in is a good thing," he said. I could go on, but as I write this I've decided that "yuck" was the right and most apposite response from the get-go. Posted at 12:09 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH I DON'T BELIEVE HIM [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Mondale just said he plans to serve all six years. Posted at 10:11 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...except that I cannot believe I am watching Walter Mondale running for the Senate. Posted at 10:09 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH NEWS ON THE WEB? NO! [Chip Griffin] Reuters discovers there's campaign news on the Internet. Ironically, a UC Berkeley prof says he prefers sites with "neutral content." He explains: "Like talk radio and cable TV, certain Web sites find a niche of people who want to hear things that they already believe. That just reinforces the prejudices of certain people." And, of course, Berkeley isn't known for any bias. Posted at 10:07 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH ELECTION-OBSERVER INTRO [NRO Staff] Chip Griffin serves as senior consultant for Capital Idea Ventures, advising CIV clients on Internet communications strategy. Chip brings to CIV a unique combination of corporate, political, and public-policy experience and in-depth technical knowledge. The Washington Post, Washington Times, Manchester Union Leader, Des Moines Register, Concord Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle, National Review, The Weekly Standard, and other leading publications have featured his work. Posted at 10:05 AM CORNELL: RIDING THE BANANA PEEL TO HELL [Jonah Goldberg] Cornell Health Services is contemplating selling um, err, umm, self-pleasuring devices for females. Posted at 10:04 AM LEAHY DON'T LIKE IT [Jonathan Adler] The Judiciary Committee chairman responds to Bush's proposal on judicial nominees. Posted at 09:56 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH COLEMAN SHOULD GO ON THE ATTACK [Jonah Goldberg] I know it would be suicidal to go negative on Mondale, but why couldn't he run an ad which said something like this: "All Minnesotans, and all Americans, were saddened by the recent tragedy....But one of the things Paul Wellstone stood for most forcefully was fighting for what he believed in. He believed politics was about arguing and persuading. He stood against the idea that elections should simply be coronations of the powerful and the popular. Well, I agree with Paul on that. That is why I'm asking Walter Mondale to debate me. Now. Today. Mr. Mondale is an honorable public servant, but no man is entitled to a Senate seat without explaining his views. Paul understood that leadership is something you earn, not something you inherit. There isn't much time. Please ask Walter Mondale to do the right thing. Thank you."If Mondale agrees to a debate, great. He would either have to run as his own man or he would constantly invoke Wellstone, which I think would backfire. But he probably wouldn't debate and that would reinforce the idea that Mondale is either unready or underserving. Posted at 09:51 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH BEST POLITICAL TRIVIA EVER! [Jonah Goldberg] Guess who Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's godfather is? None other than Joseph McCarthy! I learned this last night during the toasts at a tribute to Bill Schulz the longtime Washington editor of the Reader's Digest and all-around conservative über Mensch. When this tidbit sunk-in, some in the crowd actually started chanting "Townsend! Townsend!" Posted at 09:16 AM [NRO Staff] GET 4 FREE ISSUES OF NATIONAL REVIEW! That's right: We'll send you 4 FREE issues of National Review at absolutely no risk to you. If you're impressed by National Review's superior writing style, analysis, and wit, we'll send you the next 12 issues — for a total of 16 in all! — for only $19.95. Click here for details. Posted at 09:15 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH HYPOCRISY [Jim Robbins] The thing that bugged me about the Mondale election rally/Wellstone memorial service wasn't the event itself--nothing wrong with an Irish wake--but its contrast to the tone of the days leading up to it. Daschle et al were being such sanctimonious wieners about keeping politics out of the whole thing, attacking the most-innocent statements from Coleman's camp with high dudgeon, keeping high ranking Republican's at arms length, generally behaving boorishly--then capped it with the Mondale good-time revival. Now the apologies? Please. Everyone in America should be plain disgusted. Posted at 09:08 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH FRAGILE O'BRIEN [[Jim Nuzzo]] "The vapors, I got the vapors" seems to be Shannon O'Brien's new slogan. O'Brien has been getting smacked around by all of the pundits, focus groups and talk radio for her rude, bullying and less-than-forthcoming style in Tuesday's debate with Mitt Romney. Now, the Massachusetts treasurer, who is well known for using choice four letter invectives, has siezed upon Romney's use of the word "unbecoming" to inject the gender card into a race that is slipping away from her. She was shocked at his use of such a word. Sorry, Shannon. It won't wash. You are anything but a wilting flower. By the way, Shannon, the term "unbecoming" does not connote "womanhood." A military officer--male or female--can be court-martialed for "conduct unbecoming." Posted at 08:47 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH ELECTION-OBSERVER INTRO [NRO Staff] Jim Nuzzo is the Managing Partner of The Colchester Group, a public-policy consulting firm. He was Deputy Director for Economic and Domestic Policy for Vice President George HW Bush. He is a Adjunct Scholar at the Ethics & Public Policy Center in Washington and a Research Fellow at Harvard University. He has been a freelance producer for ABC News Nightline and on-air Republican analyst for New England Cable News. He received his JD with honors from Harvard Law School in 1994. Posted at 08:42 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH DASCHLE'S SCARED [Kathryn Jean Lopez] NARAL sent out an urgent plea from Tom Daschle yesterday: Rarely has so much been at stake for a woman’s right to choose in a U.S. Senate Election. If you and thousands of other pro-choice Americans like you don’t act today by giving to NARAL’s Save the Senate Campaign, the U.S. Senate could fall into anti-choice hands on November 6th - the first day after the election. Anti-choice forces are organizing and mobilizing right now to defeat champions of reproductive rights, champions like Missouri Senator Jean Carnahan. The U.S. Senate’s pro-choice leadership cannot afford to lose an ally like Senator Carnahan. Posted at 08:17 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH MONDALE CAN LOSE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] So the president thinks. He'll be campaigning for Coleman this weekend. Posted at 07:33 AM Wednesday, October 30, 2002 ELECTION ’02 FLASH "OUR CHURCHES" [Kathryn Jean Lopez] If this were a Catholic or evangelical church handing out pro-life election-guides, wouldn't Donna be taking them to court? WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats are working to repeat their aggressive voter turnout effort of 2000, while Republicans are countering with a campaign they acknowledge tries to match the successful face-to-face strategy used by the AFL-CIO. "We have experienced grass-roots veteran organizers on the ground,'' said Donna Brazile, who is heading up the voter turnout efforts for the Democratic National Committee. "We have the best technology we've ever had, our ground operation is fully funded, we have gas in our vans, gas in our trucks, we have literature for our churches.'' Posted at 09:50 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH LAWSUITS IN ANY LANGUAGE [Jim Boulet Jr.] Minnesota Democrats filed a lawsuit yesterday regarding the Senate election. Among their demands: "To include English, Hmong, Russian and Spanish instructions on supplemental ballots." The translation issue only invites further litigation given that, as National Review Online's Byron York reports today, Minnesota Democrats are also upset with the English version of those instructions. Posted at 09:21 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH LAWSUITS IN ANY LANGUAGE [Jim Boulet Jr.] Minnesota Democrats filed a lawsuit yesterday regarding the Senate election. Among their demands: "To include English, Hmong, Russian and Spanish instructions on supplemental ballots." The translation issue only invites further litigation given that, as National Review Online's Byron York reports today, Minnesota Democrats are also upset with the English version of those instructions. Posted at 09:21 PM BASEBALL MOMENTS—HERE’S A GOOD NON-YANKEE LIST (IF THERE IS SUCH A THING) [Rich Lowry] “Rich, Rich, Rich: Love your magazine, love you, but your Yankee-centric baseball list is seriously misguided. Here's mine, composed during Series Game four: Willie M's catch against the Indians' Vic Wertz in the 54 Series would have been my first; for pure physical effort, nothing will top this. Carleton Fisk's Sixth game-winning homer in the 75 series would be my second. Bill Mazeroski's walk-off homer to win the '60 Series for the Pirates is number three, getting the nod over number four, the Blue Jay's Series-winning walkoff homer. Number five I give to Ripken 2131, not for the record itself but for the emotion of the victory lap. Six goes to the Mookie Wilson/Bill Buckner 6th game hit (though the score already was tied by then; Boston had essentially already given away the game). Seven is the Babe's called shot. Eight is Bobby Thompson's shot heard 'round the world. The final out of Don Larson's perfect 1956 World Series win is number nine. And number ten is a close call, but I'll go with the Merkle boner that cost the Giants the '06 pennant, which just beats out Gibson's game winning homer off Eckersly to win Game One of the Dodgers-As series.” (Thanks to all the others who wrote) Posted at 05:33 PM NOW YOU KNOW... [Rich Lowry] "Subject: Two L's Two R's They are confirming that the safeties for the emergency exit slides are in. Without these safeties the slides deploy explosively when the doors are opened." (Thanks for everyone who wrote in about this.) Posted at 05:32 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH MORE ON TEACHERS UNIONS SITTING OUT RACES [John Hood] I wrote earlier that teacher unions are breaking with tradition by not endorsing the Democratic candidates in the Georgia governor’s race and North Carolina Senate race. Now I am told that the same thing happened in the Alabama governor’s race, where Democrat Don Siegelman won election in 1998 promising to boost education funding with lottery revenues. The following year, an anti-lottery coalition formed and killed a referendum authorizing it. Now Siegelman is on the defensive, locked in a dead-heat race with U.S. Rep. Bob Riley — and without the strong support of a key element of the Democratic base as the teacher union has not issued an endorsement. Posted at 05:04 PM HOW? WHY? [[Andrew Stuttaford]] There's been a lot of talk in the media about how the 200 Haitians who landed in Florida had "chosen freedom". How can this be? Isn't the Haitian president the sainted "Father Aristide" about whom we used to hear so much? Posted at 05:02 PM STEIN SLIMED [Ramesh Ponnuru] This story doesn't reflect well on the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, but it doesn't reflect well on Robert McTeer or the National Center for Policy Analysis either. Posted at 04:45 PM BREAKING THE JUDICIAL LOGJAM [Jonathan Adler] In remarks earlier today, President Bush outlined specific proposals to accelerate the nomination and confirmation of federal judges, including deadlines for nominations, hearings and Senate votes. The proposals are eminently sensible, but don't expect the Senate -- or at least not the current Senate -- to go along. Posted at 04:38 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH THE BREAKS [Ramesh Ponnuru] Just spoke to a pretty savvy Republican strategist. Here's what he had to say: "I don’t think things are going well for us. We’re catching some bad breaks. . . . I think our chances of winning the Senate are slim. I'd put them at 25 percent." On the other hand, he's more optimistic about GOP senator Tim Hutchinson's re-election bid in Arkansas than most observers are. Posted at 04:30 PM BUSINESS PROPOSAL [Rich Lowry] FROM: ENGR. JOSEPH OTUMBA. 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Posted at 03:38 PM MY MOMENTS [Rich Lowry] Belatedly here are my favorite baseball moments (in contrast to the lame picks during the World Series, especially the Cal Ripkin breaking Lou Gehrig’s record, which was one of the great cheese-fests of all time): 1) Bucky Dent’s home-run in the 1978 play-off against the Red Sox. Nothing is sweeter than watching that kind of dramatic game when you’re 10 years old. 2) Mookie Wilson’s ground-ball through Bill Buckner’s leg—absolutely unbelievable. 3) Kirk Gibson’s World Series homer. Storybook. Who hasn’t imagined as a kid hitting a game-winner in similar circumstances? 4) This is more Yankee-centric even than usual—but Jim Layritz’s three-run homer to tie game 4 of the 1996 World Series. I’ve never rooted so hard during any game in my life. 5) Tennessee Titans (my NFL team) kick-off return to beat the Bills in the play-offs a few year ago. Ok, it’s football, but the play was called the “homerun throwback.” Posted at 03:32 PM THE DECLINE OF BASEBALL [Rich Lowry] We’ve been told forever that it’s big-market dominance that accounts for baseball’s trouble. But we just had a little-market World Series and the ratings were terrible. To me it proves that the Yankees were not, in fact, “ruining baseball.” The fact is baseball is in long-term decline. One other straw in the wind: USA Today’s Baseball Weekly just became Sports Weekly (or something like that) so it can be devoted largely to football coverage. A friend tells me that sales now are 3 times higher than last year. And this week the World Series isn’t even on the cover. Posted at 03:23 PM IS IT JUST ME... [Rich Lowry] …or have the airports gotten better? Seems a lot easier lately—less lines and a few less ID checks. (Something I’ve always wondered: why at the end of a flight when the plane has finished taxi-ing and everyone can get up, the flight attendant always gets on the intercom and says what sounds like “Two L’s, two R’s”?) Posted at 03:21 PM CANADA WARNS ARABS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Canada has issued a travel advisory to some Arabs living in Canada--against travelling to the United States! Canadian officials think the extra scrutiny Arabs are supposedly (are they, now, really?) getting in the U.S. is unfair. Canadian citizens should be exempt--even if they've come from other countries in order to gain easy access to the U.S. That being said, I'm all for any Arab terrorists living in Canada staying away from the U.S., of course. So be advised. Posted at 03:07 PM GOD BLESS GROVE CITY COLLEGE [Rich Lowry] Gave a speech there yesterday. What a wonderful place. Started with a Saddam Hussein joke that would have prompted half the crowd to get up and leave at most places, and it just got better from there… Posted at 03:05 PM BLACK PEOPLE LOVE US [Jonah Goldberg] I wish black people loved me like this. Posted at 03:00 PM RAMESH, [Jonah Goldberg] There's always the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderbergers, ZOG, the Pentaveret and a host of other controlling authorities. Posted at 01:57 PM G-FILE IS IN [Jonah Goldberg] Kathryn has it. And, to make up for the short one yesterday, it is long and full of bile -- like a trench behind an Irish pub during the World Cup. Posted at 01:30 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH POLITICAL PRINCIPLES [Andrew Stuttaford] Rick Kahn, the friend of Paul Wellstone who made what has been seen as an excessively partisan speech at the late senator's memorial service was, apparently, unrepentant afterwards. According to this report he repeated his call for certain Minnesota Republicans who were friends of Wellstone to help ensure that he is succeeded by a Democrat: "Can they not one time, just one time, step forward for Paul and honor that friendship? Why can't they do that? One time, for one week. That's what we're asking. That they go out there and say Paul Wellstone did this wonderful work and we need to keep his legacy alive by sending his successor to his seat. " A characteristic of Paul Wellstone was the fact that he stuck by his beliefs. His friends, therefore, should not ask Republicans to abandon theirs. Posted at 01:23 PM DEGRINGOLADE [Ramesh Ponnuru] The Israeli government's collapsed. Who's going to give us our orders now? Posted at 01:13 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH DEMS' SOUTHERN STRATEGY IN DOUBT [John Hood] Two quick points about the Democratic party’s 2002 prospects in the southern states. The first is that James Carville’s old strategy--honed when he helped Zell Miller win the Georgia governor’s race--was to use the issue of a state lottery to make Democrats competitive in the south. The idea was to be able to promise gobs of new money for education, which energized the teacher unions and sounded good to swing-voting parents, while also promising conservative Dems and male swing voters that taxes wouldn’t rise. After success in Georgia, the Dems used the ploy to help defeat Republican governors in Alabama and South Carolina in 1998. But the issue isn’t working any more. It’s not helping those same two governors in 2002--both are on the run--and in North Carolina an unlikely alliance of social conservatives, liberals, libertarians, business magnates, and religious leaders has thwarted any push to move the state lottery there. My second, related point is that the teacher unions aren’t working hard for Southern Democrats this year. Indeed, in the Georgia governor’s race and North Carolina Senate race, they didn’t endorse at all. That’s a serious problem in states where mostly safe congressional seats could translate into low statewide turnouts. Posted at 01:12 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH ABOUT LAST NIGHT... [Robert Alt] AP reports Governor Ventura has reversed course on his previous decision to appoint a Democrat to replace Wellstone for the week leading up to election, because of the partisan tone of the funeral. Ventura reportedly walked out on the funeral, noting that the call by Wellstone friend Rick Kahn to win the Senate election for Paul drove his wife to tears. Posted at 01:05 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH DUH [Robert Alt] Mondale says he'll run if nominated. Posted at 01:03 PM GET YOUR WALLET OUT! [Kathryn Jean Lopez] So, you have already subscribed to National Review On Dead Tree? You’ve bought your college kid a subscription in the hopes of saving his ideological soul. You’ve even gotten your dog a subscription because you’ve bought the Goldberg household spin about how cool canines look when they’re reading National Review. You’ve even donated to NRO because you love the site and don’t want us to spend our last dollar feeding Jonah his last peanut butter (we can’t afford jelly) sandwich. But you want more. You want to wear NRO with pride. You want your co-workers to know exactly where you are spending your lunch and break time by looking at your mug, your mouse pad, the cap you walk in and out of work with. You want your neighbors to know during the block-party cookout that you really do know more about the world than they do. You want the guys at the gym to know your locker-room talk is not just B.S. by just looking at your backpack. You can fulfill all these dreams now, and more. Visit the new NRO store. And come back often. We’ll be adding as the days, weeks, and months advance. Feel free to send us your comments--your suggestions, wants, and needs. But before you do that, BUY SOMETHING. No, don’t do that. BUY SOMETHINGS. You’ll be all the cooler for it. (Seriously.) Posted at 01:01 PM "JUDENRAETE" [Rod Dreher] Here's a must-read reflection on the Bat Yeor debacle at Georgetown, and the lure of liberal self-hatred and abasement before authoritarian lies. Posted at 12:25 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH ANOTHER NEW JERSEY? [Robert Alt] The question, finally, is whether the Minnesota court will follow the law of its state which is quite generous in permitting changes to ballots but which has reasonable limits, or whether it will choose to ignore the law wander down the New Jersey path. Posted at 11:54 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH BAD, BAD [Robert Alt] Extending the deadline would set a very bad precedent, allowing absentee voters to cast their votes after the physical polls close. Of course, there could be another motive. As Byron suggests, by stopping the current absentee ballot process, the DFL may be preparing to launch a second suit after the election, claiming disenfranchisement of absentee voters. But this is like the boy who kills his parents and then begs the court for sympathy because he is an orphan: in such a scenario, voters will have been disenfranchised by the DFL, and no one else. That might not be a disappointment for the DFL, however, for it appears that their political calculations may be predicated on maximizing the non-absentee vote, and minimizing the absentee vote. Posted at 11:53 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH MORE PROBLEMS [Robert Alt] The complain also alleges voter general voter disenfranchisement, and no doubt they will argue that this statute disenfranchises voters. This is wrong for two reasons: 1) Voters may still write in candidates’ names. As the NJ Supremes so artfully forgot, a candidate does not have an unmitigated right to appear on the ballot, or to appear at a particular place on the ballot. Where as here the state has a very good reason for not issuing new ballots, a candidate may be excluded. 2) The state has a substantial reason for not issuing new absentee ballots: there simply isn't enough time to do a complete redistribution of absentee ballots. As I have noted elsewhere, even with the use of overnight mail there and back, it would be difficult to meet the deadline of election day. While voters may turn in the ballots in person on Election Day to make the deadline, they may also simply show up in person to vote with the supplemental ballots, so mailing to have people come in person makes little sense. Thus it appears that the DFL may really be seeking to postpone the deadline for receiving absentee ballots. Posted at 11:52 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH LEGAL PROBLEM [Robert Alt] There is one problem with this statutory "spoiled" ballot argument: Minnesota law. Section 204B.41 of Minnesota Election Statutes states: "When a vacancy in nomination occurs through the death or catastrophic illness of a candidate after the 16th day before the general election, the officer in charge of preparing the ballots shall prepare and distribute a sufficient number of separate paper ballots which shall be headed with the words 'OFFICIAL SUPPLEMENTAL BALLOT.' . . . Absentee ballots that have been mailed prior to the preparation of official supplemental ballots shall be counted in the same manner as if the vacancy had not occurred. Official supplemental ballots shall not be mailed to absent voters to whom ballots were mailed before the official supplemental ballots were prepared." Posted at 11:51 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH DEMS SUE [Robert Alt] As Byron spells out today, the DFL has already filed suit in Minnesota challenging the absentee ballots. The claim, best as I can make it out by the press accounts, is that Minnesota law permits the replacement of spoiled ballots. Because the absentee ballots have in ineligible candidate on them (dead men can't be elected), they are "spoiled." Therefore, the Secretary of State is delinquent in not informing voters of their ability to seek replacement ballots. Posted at 11:50 AM THE HIRED HELP [Kate O'Beirne] During the Wellstone political rally last night, while speakers carried on about the late senator’s devotion to the voiceless and powerless working people, the pilots who lost their lives remained nameless. Sen. Tom Harkin ignored them entirely, and David Wellstone referenced “the pilots,” Guess the hired help didn’t merit a mention. Along with the Wellstones, their daughter, and the three campaign aides who were all memorialized, Richard Conry, 55, and Michael Guess, 30 also died. Posted at 11:39 AM [NRO Staff] GET 4 FREE ISSUES OF NATIONAL REVIEW! That's right: We'll send you 4 FREE issues of National Review at absolutely no risk to you. If you're impressed by National Review's superior writing style, analysis, and wit, we'll send you the next 12 issues — for a total of 16 in all! — for only $19.95. Click here for details. Posted at 10:50 AM DIVERSITY AT AMHERST [Stanley Kurtz] Affirmative action can’t help but distort our democratic values. Consider the institution of special “diversity seats” in the Amherst student Senate. Diversity seats are bad enough. But clever conservatives at Amherst actually managed to wrangle a diversity seat for conservatives. A bad idea, of course, but one that nicely draws out the flawed logic of affirmative action itself. Now the Amherst student Senate has reversed itself and denied the conservatives their diversity seat. Of course the whole idea of “diversity seats” mocks democracy. Under the guise of aiding minorities, a leftist majority tyranny stacks the political deck by packing the Senate with like-minded votes, over and above what a fair election would have yielded. This turns those who oppose representation by “victimhood” into victims themselves. The student Senate and the conservatives alike are caught in the contradiction. Posted at 10:47 AM FREE SPEECH FOR POT [Jonah Goldberg] A federal appeals court has ruled that doctors cannot be barred from recommending pot to their patients. The judges held that such restrictions conflict with a doctor's free-speech rights. "An integral component of the practice of medicine is the communication between doctor and a patient. Physicians must be able to speak frankly and openly to patients," Chief Circuit Judge Mary Schroeder said. That's cool, I guess. But isn't this true about a lot of other professions as well? What about the world of financial planning. My broker cannot give me "inside information" without losing her license or even going to jail. Isn't it an "integral component" to the practice of financial planning to speak "frankly and openly" to clients? Of course, medicine and investing are different but that doesn't necessarily mean one is always more important than the other. A doctor is free to recommend ganja for my headaches but a financial planner isn't allowed to give me information that would permit me to pay for my wife's heart-transplant. Also, despite what the propagandists say, medically prescribed pot is not always a medical necessity. Sometimes -- though not always -- doctors prescribe pot because their customers (i.e. patients) want to get pot when other drugs would be more effective. In other words, the court understands that free speech in a doctor's office isn't always about medical needs, sometimes it's just about bidness, and yet the Doc's free speech rights are still absolute. Posted at 10:33 AM TEST [Jonah Goldberg] This is me testing the new blogger software. Posted at 10:23 AM NO CLASS [Rod Dreher] I still can't get over the unutterable vulgarity of the Wellstone "memorial." Remember all the kind, generous and genuine things Republicans and conservatives said about the dead Senator in the wake of his death? The surviving Wellstone children didn't have the grace to welcome the Vice President to the memorial service, but you give them that. What you don't concede to the Wellstone survivors is the right to turn a politically ecumenical memorial service, presumably something to which all Minnesotans and Washingtonians were invited to mourn, into a partisan political rally. Trent Lott and Jesse Ventura were right to leave after being insulted so gravely at such a solemn occasion. It's perfectly understandable that Democrats would want to capitalize on sympathy for the dead Wellstone and build momentum for Mondale going into the election. But you do that at a rally after the memorial service. You don't turn a commemoration of the dead into a get-out-the-vote event. I was moved nearly to tears by the grief Sen. Tom Harkin showed last week, as he doubled over in tears trying to make a statement before cameras on the day of Wellstone's death. But with his performance yesterday, Harkin proved himself no statesman, simply a political hack. Even the NY Times in its coverage today said there were no tears at yesterday's memorial service. I hope the Minnesota voters remember this insult on Election Day, and vote accordingly. Posted at 09:54 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH BETTER MINNESOTA SPIN [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A Minnesotan e-mails: I just read your post about Coleman and the poll that just came out - do not believe it. There is huge backlash already taking place after last night's fiasco. If Mondale's lead is only 8 after 5 days of Wellstone tributes this race is going to be a coin flip. Coleman is just playing the part of the wronged candidate. The radio stations are just on fire this morning with complaints about the tackiness and unfairness of the service and coverage of it. The media outlets feel totally burned and now either look foolish or partisan (when they are both in reality). People are calling in demanding equal time for the other parties and station managers are lamely trying to explain themselves. Jesse Ventura and his wife got up and left when that weasel was screaming "Win it for Wellstone" ( he continues to vex me by acting like a rational leader these last few weeks of his term). Posted at 09:20 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH MINNESOTA MIRACLE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Norm Coleman said this morning it would take a miracle for him to win this thing. In a poll taken Monday, before the Dem lovefest last night, Mondale was already leading. Posted at 08:22 AM HMMM [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ELECTION ’02 FLASH I was just editing John J. Miller's piece for today on the Minnesota race and was surprised to be reminded that there's a Democratic party convention there tonight to formally name Mondale as their man. I really thought that was last night. Posted at 07:40 AM BUNGLED SNIPER CASE? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] This NYTimes piece says Muhammed was on the verge of giving investigators a confession when the the MD U.S. Attorney walked in to deal with federal weapons charges. Posted at 06:31 AM NOW WE KNOW WHY CHENEY WASN'T INVITED [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Maybe they were doing him a favor, based on the non-Democrat reception last night. Posted at 04:36 AM SMALL & UNIMPORTANT... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...I know, but neat all the same. Girl's Club is gone. Posted at 04:33 AM Tuesday, October 29, 2002 BUSH DOWN? [[Stanley Kurtz] ] Drudge has linked an important piece by Dick Morris on a recent decline in the president’s popularity. Morris argues that intensive campaigning by the president has weakened his image as a wartime leader. More important, Morris argues that the president still needs to make the case to the American people that an invasion of Iraq is necessary. I strongly agree with this. To this day, I don’t think that the real nature of the nuclear threat that Saddam Hussein poses has sunk in with the American public. The mainstream media, of course, hasn’t helped, since the many critics of an invasion seldom even address the key issues in favor of a move. On a more encouraging note, Kenneth Pollack’s, The Threatening Storm will be at number twelve on next Sunday’s New York Times best seller list. This might be a good time for the President to be seen publicly reading The Threatening Storm. Posted at 09:41 PM MERCY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From Drudge: Executives Plan Wednesday Meet To Discuss Canceling Low-rated David E. Kelley GIRLS CLUB on FOX... Developing... If Girls Club was remotely interesting, there would be Time magazine covers about it. Three twentysomething gorgeous lawyers who make their way in the mostly male waters of a San Fran law firm. In two episodes, a man on trial for rape killed himself accidentally while gratifying himself as he obsessed about blonde lawyer girl, too-much-makeup-girl gets sexually harassed, sorta, maybe (and makes an idiot of herself), brunette with glasses girl is dating a guy the other girls think is gay; as if a theme, she accuses her office nemesis of being a "dyke" for stealing her ideas. And that's about the show. They whine to each other about how hard their little lives are. If this were a statement on "where women are" or "what women want," we'd have some serious societal rethinking to do. Luckily it may be gone before Time gets a free cover. Posted at 09:30 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH EXPECT A LONG ELECTION NIGHT IN MICHIGAN, TOO [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Too many people on the voter rolls in Detroit. Posted at 08:53 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASHMCBRIDE STALLED [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The Florida Democrat's last success was Reno's concession. Posted at 08:47 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH W. MAY GO BACK DOWN TO FLORIDA [Kathryn Jean Lopez] GOP star-studded week campaigning for Jeb. Posted at 04:05 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH REPUBLICANS MAY BE BETTING ON WRONG ISSUE [John Hood] Just two of North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts are in play this year: the competitive 8th District along the South Carolina line from Charlotte to Ft. Bragg and the new 13th District that runs along the Virginia border from Greensboro to Raleigh. In both, the Republican candidates are turning in the last week to national security as an issue. Threatened incumbent Robin Hayes in the 8th has a new TV ad that features President Bush, jets taking off, waving flags, the works. But in neither race has the Democrat come out against the president on the war. Looks like an attempt to change the political subject. It may be thwarted in that the Dems have already taken steps to neutralize the issue. Could be a mistake GOP candidates are replicating elsewhere--downplaying other issues like taxes where the contrast is more stark. Posted at 03:25 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH [NRO Staff] John Hood is chairman and president of the John Locke Foundation, a public-policy think tank based in Raleigh, North Carolina, that focuses on state and local issues. Hood is also a syndicated columnist on state politics and public policy for the Durham Herald-Sun, and newspapers in 30 other North Carolina communities. He is a regular radio commentator and a weekly panelist on N.C. Spin, a discussion program on state issues that is broadcast on ten television stations across North Carolina, including stations in Charlotte, Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Greenville, Wilmington, and Asheville. His latest book is Investor Politics: The New Force That Will Transform American Business, Government, and Politics in the 21st Century. Posted at 03:22 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH THE FIRST LAWSUIT IS FILED... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...contesting the vote in Minnesota. Posted at 03:21 PM ELECTION ’02FLASH NOW YOU KNOW HOW TO VOTE [Ramesh Ponnuru] Barbra's endorsements are up. But couldn't she have saved some poor staffer some time by just telling people to vote the straight Democratic ticket? Posted at 03:20 PM I PROTEST! [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Rick Fulbaum(sp?) on FOX just said, "The White House says time is running out in New York," teasing a story on the U.N. resolution. I resent that. I really don't think that is fair to New York. I have never considered the U.N. technically part of New York. More like an alternative reality. Posted at 03:06 PM HOW CLUELESS IS THE NATION? [Ramesh Ponnuru] Michael Massing has an article in the Nation complaining about the Washington Post's hawkishness. Ross Douthat skewers it on NRO. One more point: Massing describes Robert Novak as a "staunch supporter[] of the Administration's position" on Iraq. Huh? Novak opposes war with Iraq, as he opposed the first Gulf war. Posted at 02:46 PM FEDEX TRUCK EXPLODES IN ST. LOUIS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] On the road. Mercifully, looks like the casualties and trailors are packages. Cab, even, looks as if driver could have been protected. Posted at 02:37 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH MORE MINNESOTA ELECTION PROBLEMS [Jim Boulet] "Minnesota has election-day voter registration: Show up at the polls with some documents establishing who you are and where you live, and you can vote. . . . "Minnesota law [also] allows a registered voter to bring six unregistered ones with him or her to the polls -- and allows those six each to bring one more -- the potential for swelling student turnout, and the Wellstone vote, is considerable." --from "Politics with People, Reinvented” By Harold Meyerson The American Prospect 9/23/02 Posted at 01:16 PM ELECTION-OBSERVER INTRO [NRO Staff] Jim Boulet Jr. is executive director of English First and an NRO contributor. Posted at 01:14 PM ANOTHER G'TOWN WITNESS [Rod Dreher] Washingtonian Cyrus Robl went to hear Bat Ye'or and David Littman speak at Georgetown, and reports the following: "The Muslim students were disruptive and rude from the start, and during the question and answer period it became apparent that they had come solely to confront Ms. Ye'or. They couldn't really contest either of the speakers on facts, on which Ye'or and Littman had a much stronger grasp in any event, so they resorted to hostility, obfuscation and subject-changing. One student in particular was so violently angry at the presentation that on two occasions he began shouting out at the stage. I was a mere two rows in front of him, so I got quite an earful from him. It was that kind of evening. So when Rabbi White says he doesn't think it was intimidation, I must respectfully disagree with him. I don't believe he was there [He wasn't, and told me he was only making a guess -- RD]. I'll say that I felt somewhat intimidated, and I'm not a student, so I never have to see those people again." Posted at 01:08 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH BYRON IS RIGHT [Robert Alt] Byron is right, and as I read the Minnesota statutes, you can expect challenges not only to the absentee ballots, but to the paper ballots at the polls as well. Harkening back to Palm Beach, the claim will be that they are "confusing." Under Minnesota law, supplemental ballots will be distributed with "official" ballots. The official ballots will have the senator race blacked out, while the supplemental ballots will have the Senate race. But this gives the voter more than one piece of paper. How can they possibly keep it all straight? Get ready for a parade of voters who really intended to vote for Hubert Humphrey--I mean--Fritz Mondale, if only the ballot were more clear. Posted at 11:34 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH ELECTION-OBSERVER INTRO [NRO Staff] Robert Alt is a fellow in the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Claremont Institute and an adjunct fellow for the John M. Ashbrook Center. Mr. Alt specializes in constitutional and election law, and has served as a consultant to local, state, and national campaigns. He is a regular contributor to the No Left Turns Blog, and was a familiar election 2000 contributor on NRO. Posted at 11:31 AM "RUDE"? [Rod Dreher] In my account today of the controversial speeches on jihad and dhimmitude given last week at Georgetown, I note that some of the students found historians Bat Ye'or and David Littman "rude" in their treatment of questioners. This brought an illuminating response from Jim Jatras, a Washington attorney who until recently worked in the Senate on issues related to religious freedom and terrorism. Jatras was at the Ye'or-Littman event, and his description of events gives credence to the view that the Jewish and Christian students were intimidated by Islamic students' pique: "From what I saw, many of the student critics prefaced their 'questions' (rhetorical in nature) with hostile observations (A parapharase: 'I will not address your misrepresentation of the facts now, but I would like to ask you . . . ') at which point Littman (I did not hear any particularly sharp exchanges involving Bat Ye'or, but maybe they happened earlier) would cut them off and demand: 'Hold on now, where have I distorted the facts? Give me one fact I have misrepresented.' At which point the 'questioner' would say Littman was being rude, and Littman would insist (correctly in my view) to be told on what basis the 'questioner' was impugning his honesty. Now, I understand there is a matter of style involved here. Some speakers in Littman's position, would allow the skewed 'question' to be asked without interruption and then addressed as a whole. Littman chose not to do that, but instead to stop the 'questioner' as soon as he heard himself in effect being called a liar and demand at that point that the 'questioner' support his charge. I think he was entirely entitled to do so. While a speaker MAY choose to let the accusation go while his critic poses his 'question,' he is not OBLIGATED to allow himself to be called a liar. Perhaps the university culture is so intimidated by youthful 'wisdom' nowadays, that it is considered bad form to nip such rudeness in the bud -- and it is now considered 'rude' to do so. Note too that the one supportive letter in The Hoya said it was the students who were rude, not the speakers." Posted at 11:08 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH NARAL ON THE LINE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] NARAL just called! In a recorded message NARAL warned me about John Faso, the Republican running for NY State Comptroller (and a rising star to keep your eye out for). Just in time for Halloween, I was warned what he wants to do to New York women: “John Faso would make abortion a crime.” (Um, yes, and the state comptroller is going to do that. If so, I’d take a sabbatical and work for him for the next week!) The brief, but scary message instructed, “Tell John Faso that you’re pro-choice!” (Well, isn’t everyone?) Posted at 10:03 AM ELECTION ’02 FLASH NEWS ON ELECTION NEWS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] One week and counting before the election lawsuits begin (see Byron today). For the next week--and after--if necessary, expect to see some new faces in The Corner (well, not completely new, you'll know many of the names and faces from NRO and elsewhere) with updates on various races and other scoop and news. If you're visiting quickly and need to scan the election news first, election news will be highlighted with this “ELECTION ’02 FLASH” designation. Posted at 09:50 AM ANOTHER SCHOOL SHOOTING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] In Jersey City... Posted at 09:18 AM JIHAD'S MANY FRONTS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Beware the cyber war. Posted at 08:59 AM [NRO Staff] GET 4 FREE ISSUES OF NATIONAL REVIEW! That's right: We'll send you 4 FREE issues of National Review at absolutely no risk to you. If you're impressed by National Review's superior writing style, analysis, and wit, we'll send you the next 12 issues — for a total of 16 in all! — for only $19.95. Click here for details. Posted at 08:54 AM SNIPER INTOLERANCE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Simply shocking. That the sniper suspects would shoot up a synogogue of all places. Posted at 08:22 AM CANADA, A PLACE TERRORISM CAN CALL HOME [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The National Post is reporting the "strongest Canadian connection to the Sept. 11 attacks yet" here. Posted at 08:13 AM CHENEY DISINVITED? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The vice president (and president of the Senate!) was reportedly asked by Wellstone's family not to attend the funeral today because he criticized Mondale over the weekend. Of course, I hate to play this game, but the Dems started it. Norm Colman halted his campaign. The Democrats started talking replacement this weekend. I'm not criticizing that, but the media war against Cheney seems unfair. Posted at 07:17 AM NOT GOOD [Andrew Stuttaford] Jonah is in London? That's bad. Posted at 07:13 AM SINCE YOU ASKED... [Kathryn Jean Lopez] ...yes, Jonah is in London. I'm told there's no Internet service there (ok, so guess who told me that), but a homing pigeon is dropping off a Goldberg File shortly. Posted at 05:16 AM MR. CRONKRITE [Kathryn Jean Lopez] There's an argument to be made that we are living WWIII right now, isn't there? Posted at 04:35 AM Monday, October 28, 2002 MORE AMERICANS THINK ILL OF ISLAM [Rod Dreher] According to an ABC News poll, Americans are feeling increasingly uneasy about Islam. This news analysis quotes frustrated American University professor Akbar Ahmed, to wit: "For the first time in history, Muslim civilization is on a direct collision course with all the world religions. ...After Sept. 11, there was this mantra, 'We are peaceful, we are peaceful.' After Muslims killed 3,000 people, it makes no sense to me. ...I feel a sense of sorrow and embarrassment [because] we are at the bottom of the pile." Posted at 04:54 PM CORRECTION [Ramesh Ponnuru] Both on CNN yesterday and on NRO today, I wrote that Walter Mondale had supported private accounts for Social Security and an increase in the retirement age. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Mondale served on a commission that supported both policies, but he himself signed a vigorous dissent from the report, which you can read at the bottom of this link. I was working off a misleading AP story (as cited in my NRO article) and a too-cursory glance at the commission's report (using a link that neither mentioned nor included the dissent). I should have known it was too good to be true. I learned about my mistake by reading the American Prospect's weblog. I thank TAP for the correction, although not for the accusation that I have "lied, pure and simple." TAP, in fact, knows that I was not lying in the sense of intentionally spreading a falsehood, since in the very next sentence it suggests that I should have done more research instead of "reading the RNC talking points." Which means that their characteristically overheated rhetoric is more dishonest than anything I wrote. Posted at 03:59 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH PREPARING FOR A LONG ELECTION NIGHT [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Gov. Ventura says he expects the election results will be challenged in the Minnesota Senate race, whatever happens. Posted at 02:42 PM IS THIS WHAT THEY MEAN BY "SPECIAL INTERESTS"? [Emmy Chang] The Democratic National Committee's page, democrats.org, currently links to a porn site. (Go to their links and click on "Willie Velasquez Institute." Better yet, just take our word for it.) Editor's note: You really don't want to follow that Willie Velasquez link. Posted at 02:26 PM ELECTION ’02 FLASH BAD NEWS FOR DAVIS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Court unseals decade-old fraud papers the implicated Gov. Davis in a bribery scheme. Posted at 02:17 PM INCHING TOWARD ONE BILLION [Jim Robbins] As a long time follower of Drudge Report page stats, I'm looking forward with great anticipation to the day when his annual hits pass the 1 billion mark. (He's currently over 975 million.) Drudge has been pronounced dead so many times by the liberal media and other species headed for extinction, it's worth noting that his circulation shows no sign of diminishing. I remember the days when 15 million hits a month was a good showing. Now he's getting 110 million a month and climbing. It's hard to argue with objective measures of success, at least credibly. It won't stop his critics, but who reads them anyway? Posted at 01:08 PM SAT. MORNING IN MOSCOW [Andrew Stuttaford] Here's a good account from the London Times on the siege at the Moscow theater. Posted at 12:41 PM NOT ENOUGH WORK [[Andrew Stuttaford]] As this story from the Daily Telegraph reveals, despite having two "jobs" (she is the UK's industry minister and its "minister for women"), British politician Patricia Hewitt is clearly a woman with too much time on her hands. Posted at 12:30 PM HATE AND THE LEFT [John Derbyshire] Couple of weeks ago I remarked in a column that the two most widespread forms of hate* in these United States are (1) hatred of white people by nonwhites, and (2) hatred of religious people by the irreligious. The Public Interest article Stanley Kurtz has brought to our attention to certainly confirms my (2). The article is brilliant, and raises all sorts of interesting questions. E.g. will black "church ladies" go on voting solidly Democrat (as they apparently do) if it dawns on them that the Democrats are, in fact, the party of irreligion? (I think I could make a case for the answer probably being "yes.") Some of these observations, though, are not new. It is around 20 years since Peter Berger, commenting on the then-emerging picture of America as an irreligious elite governing a religious populace, encapsulated the phenomenon as: "Swedes ruling over Indians." * As opposed to "hate," as in "disapproving of homosexual marriage," or "seeing nothing wrong with racial profiling." Posted at 12:05 PM UNDER CONSTRUCTION [Kathryn Jean Lopez] An Islamic superstate. Posted at 11:19 AM JIHAD DIPLOMACY [Kathryn Jean Lopez] A USAID diplomat in Jordan was gunned down at his home today. Posted at 11:16 AM JARRING PAGE [Stanley Kurtz] I’m fascinated by the juxtaposition of a couple of op-ed’s in today’s Washington Post. Fred Hiatt defends affirmative action in the face of its possible demise at the hands of the Supreme Court. Hiatt points to the “10 percent rule” by which Texas tries to circumvent an affirmative-action ban, and notes that even the pro-Bush Senate candidate in Texas backs both the rule and the basic goal of diversity in Texas schools. On the same op-ed page, William Raspberry criticizes the feminists who are trying to force Tiger Woods to oppose the men-only rule at Augusta, and takes on Harry Belafonte’s swipes at Colin Powell. The tribe that really matters, says Raspberry, is the human tribe. Why should blacks be forced to toe any given political line, he asks, or be treated as “house slaves” if they don’t? As Raspberry points out, whites aren’t subject to the same pressure for political conformity. But of course, as long as the pro- “diversity” policies supported by Hiatt (and probably Raspberry as well) are in effect, blacks will continue to be treated as members of a group, rather than as individuals, and thus forced into political conformity. Posted at 11:13 AM LEFT AS RELIGION [Stanley Kurtz] The new article from The Public Interest, "Our Secularist Democratic Party," (linked in my previous blog) is important for other reasons as well. For one thing, it provides a kind of socio-political grounding for my argument in pieces like "The Church of the Left" and "The Faith-Based Left" that the ideologies of the secular Left now function as a de facto religion. The same Democratic national convention delegates who identified themselves as secular were the ones who carried the ideologies of the new post-sixties movements. It’s also interesting to note that the Democratic secularists had a hostility to traditionally religious folk that would have been called prejudice if maintained against any other group. In effect, what Bolce and DeMaio show in this piece that our contemporary culture war was started, not by religious conservatives, but by the rise of ideological secularism. And again, the media, being secular, Democratic, post-sixties ideologues themselves, have ignored or suppressed this fundamentally important angle on the contemporary relation of religion and politics. This article is a must read. Posted at 11:10 AM SIMPLY THE BEST [Stanley Kurtz] The current issue of The Public Interest headlines a piece that just may be the best article on press bias I’ve ever read. In “Our Secularist Democratic Party,” Louis Bolce and Gerald DeMaio show that the real story of religion and politics in the past few decades has not been the takeover of the Republican party by religious conservatives. On the contrary, the real change since the sixties has been the takeover of the Democratic party by militant secularists. The rise of ideological secularists within the Democratic party--and particularly the party leadership--is an historically unprecedented and hugely significant development. Yet it has been entirely ignored by the media--chiefly because the media elite is also secular, and would rather skewer the Republicans than accurately report a secularism that tends to separate the Democrats from mainstream America. Posted at 11:07 AM SLOW NEWS DAY? [Kathryn JEan Lopez] The AP has a piece up on crime being on the increase. Eli Lehrer wrote about the numbers in July on NRO. Posted at 10:51 AM ACCIDENTAL RHYMES [John Derbyshire] From Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus today: "Eileen Simpson, wife of John Berryman, died. Her obituarist quoted Delmore Schwartz as saying, 'All poets ’ wives have rotten lives.' Did he mean it to rhyme? Was it accidental?" Jay: No, not accidental, these are actually the first two lines of a poem. The rest of it goes: "What could possibly be worse / Than a husband hooked on verse?" Posted at 10:42 AM MARRIAGE PROBLEMS [Stanley Kurtz] Tom Sylvester, at marriagemovement.org, has a powerful analysis of leftist cultural bias at the New York Times. Sharon Lerner, the Times reporter in question, was recruited from The Village Voice, where she specialized in knocking marriage promotion and other programs in support of the traditional family. Having come to the Times, Lerner’s barely concealed bias comes through in the way she puts scare quotes around the claims of pro-marriage experts but not critics, and in a whole range of other devices. Posted at 10:31 AM TWO TUNES [John Derbyshire] Andrew: When my mother was in her last illness, I asked her what she would like to have sung at her funeral. "Well," she said, "Either 'Crimond' or 'Abide With Me,' I don't really mind." I pointed out that we had sung "Abide With Me" at my father's funeral. Mum: "Oh, that's right. 'Crimond,' then." And "Crimond" it was. [Note for non-Anglican readers: "Crimond" is the tune to which Anglicans usually sing the 23rd Psalm. The name comes from the village in Aberdeenshire where Jessie Seymour Irvine, apparently while just a teenager, composed the tune as an exercise for an organists' class she was attending, circa 1855.] Posted at 09:55 AM [NRO Staff] GET 4 FREE ISSUES OF NATIONAL REVIEW! That's right: We'll send you 4 FREE issues of National Review at absolutely no risk to you. If you're impressed by National Review's superior writing style, analysis, and wit, we'll send you the next 12 issues — for a total of 16 in all! — for only $19.95. Click here for details. Posted at 09:31 AM YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY NEED A PHOTO ID TO GET ON AMTRAK [Kathryn Jean Lopez] From Time: The FBI has long been worried about the vulnerability of the nation's rail system to terror attack. But the threat was deemed immediate enough late last week for the agency to issue a formal warning. The alert cautioned that al-Qaeda, "possibly using operatives who have a Western appearance," might try to destroy key rail bridges, derail trains or target hazardous-material containers. What prompted the unusually specific warning? Intelligence sources tell Time it came as a result of the attack by two gunmen who killed one U.S. Marine and wounded another on a Kuwaiti island on Oct. 8. Kuwaiti authorities who afterward raided an al-Qaeda cell believed to be supporting the gunmen found a computer hard drive with photos of American passenger and cargo trains as well as rail crossings. At about the same time, senior al-Qaeda operatives in custody told their CIA and FBI interrogators that the organization had plans for targeting railroads. Posted at 08:53 AM GINGRICH ON MONDALE [Jonathan Adler] On Meet the Press yesterday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich outlined the case against the Democrats' soon-to-be Senate candidate in Minnesota: "Walter Mondale chaired a commission that was for the privatization of Social Security worldwide. He chaired a commission that was for raising the retirement age dramatically. He has a strong record of voting to raise taxes. And I think that what you'll see on the Republican side is an issue-oriented campaign that says, you know, 'If you want to raise your retirement age dramatically and privatize Social Security'--Walter Mondale's a terrifically courageous guy to say that-'and if you want a big-tax-increase person with a long history of raising taxes, Walter Mondale's a perfect'" Sure, his proclivity for tax increases is a good reason to vote against Walter Mondale, but it seems odd to attack Mondale on social security privatization. As one friend noted, that's probably the best policy recommendation Mondale's ever made. Posted at 08:50 AM WHAT ARE THE ODDS? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The former head of Sony (where she made three movies) winds up on Winona Ryder's jury. Well, it does help make it a jury of her peers. Posted at 08:49 AM LIVE FROM IRAQI PRESIDENTIAL PALACE #5 [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Fox News wants to go in to Iraq with the weapons inspectors (assuming weapons inspectors ever go in). Posted at 05:46 AM AL QAEDA HAS NUKES? [Kathryn Jean Lopez] Might be a fact. Posted at 05:43 AM WORKING YOUR WAY THROUGH SCHOOL [Kathryn Jean Lopez] By testing condoms. Posted at 12:13 AM MOSCOW FALLOUT [Kathryn Jean Lopez] The White House is reminding people that Russia was the victim in the theater attack--the Russian government was not the aggressor, in other words. As the Chechen terrorists' standoff fades into history, expect them to be forgotten about (most are dead anyway) and the blame all be placed with Putin. That's not to say this mystery gas was the best way to go, but the media best not forget that most likely everyone in there would have died if action wasn't taken. Posted at 12:01 AM Sunday, October 27, 2002 DAMNING WITH FAINT PRAISE [Rod Dreher] Check out this money graf in the San Diego Union Tribune's extremely reluctant endorsement of GOP challenger Bill Simon over Gov. Gray Davis: "So, voters are left to choose between a corrupt Davis and an incompetent Simon. Fully recognizing this choice, we come down on the side of Simon. He is, undeniably, a risk. But considering the demonstrated corruption that Davis represents, Simon is a necessary risk." Posted at 09:48 PM NOT WHISTLING DIXIE [Andrew Stuttaford] If there was one person even less musical than my grandmother it was, apparently, Ulysses S. Grant. A reader has sent me the following quotation from Grant: "I know only two tunes: one of them is "Yankee Doodle" and the other one isn't." Posted at 08:14 PM NOT FOLLOWERS OF SEITAN [Andrew Stuttaford] Meanwhile, in a frank e-mail (he confesses to having eaten green jello and "funeral potatoes") one Mormon reader writes to say that he has never heard of Seitan, while another makes the same claim and backs up his carnivore status with a rather greedy request for "steaming heaps of charred flesh, please." Point taken. This mystery non-meat is obviously not a Mormon thing. We know now that Seitan is favored by at least one "right-libertarian epicure", but the claims I quoted earlier about the rest of its fan-base ("vegetarian monks of China, Russian wheat farmers [and] peasants of Southeast Asia") must now be taken with, I suppose, a pinch of salt, but not Salt Lake City. Posted at 07:45 PM A FOLLOWER OF SEITAN [Andrew Stuttaford] A reader writes to say that I was unlucky in last night's Seitan. It can, he says, be quite good. Perhaps this is true: the guy obviously has good taste (he likes Marmite) and he is not, he claims, a "Dreherist crunchy-con". He prefers instead to see himself as "more of a right-libertarian epicure". Posted at 07:05 PM THANKSGIVING [Kathryn Jean Lopez] An obvious observation: We knew all we did during the Moscow hostage crisis because of cell phones. A number of families got one last convsersation in with their loved ones on 9/11 as their planes were headed to become bombs. Posted at 06:54 PM CHECHEN/AL QAEDA [Andrew Stuttaford] Here's an interesting story from the Sunday Telegraph on the hostage rescue in Moscow. Note the report that a number of Arab fighters, "believed to be of Saudi Arabian and Yemeni origin", were among the group that seized control of the theater. Posted at 06:21 PM VANITY FARE [Andrew Stuttaford] In the current (October) issue of Vanity Fair, the editor, Graydon Carter, admits to readers that he likes to give his children what are, in reality, scrapbooks about himself. He notes that his own father "was of a generation not given to retrospective chitchat," which would mean, I suppose, that Mr. Carter Senior would have been most unlikely to have contributed to a conservative blog. The son has obviously not inherited his father's reticence. One year he "assembled [his] 120 favorite poems, had them typeset and bound, one copy for each child." Last year he subjected his luckless brood to a 10-CD set of, good grief, "the 225 songs that had essentially formed the soundtrack to [his] life", one of which is, apparently, The Internationale, that lugubrious hymn to mass murder and revolution. Such an ordeal would be highly unlikely to occur in the not noticeably musical Stuttaford family. If such a nightmare ever had been one of our traditions, however, the briefest contribution would have come from my paternal grandmother, a woman who went through life claiming to recognize only two tunes - Abide With Me and God Save The Queen. Granny would not have needed a 10-CD set : one good old 45 RPM single would have done just fine. Posted at 06:18 PM MEACHER SPEAKS [Andrew Stuttaford] Michael Meacher, a faintly ludicrous man in an extremely ludicrous job (he is Britain's environment minister) has announced that "we [presumably the Labour Party] do not believe in capitalism. Capitalism is something that threatens inequality across the whole of society." In a sane world, these remarks would attract no attention. With its high taxes, intrusive regulations and relentless political correctness, Britain's Labour government is quite obviously opposed to capitalism. It's just that their leadership don't like to admit it. Check out this blog at Samizdata.net to see what happened next. Posted at 05:29 PM THANK FARRAKHAN FOR SMALL FAVORS [Kathryn Jean Lopez] "He has not formally been kicked out of the Nation of Islam, but certainly if he's found guilty of something like this he would not be considered at all a member," Farrakhan said. Posted at 05:17 PM THANKS, HILL! [Kathryn Jean Lopez] She rarely disappoints. Posted at 05:15 PM TACTLESS [Andrew Stuttaford] There are election posters up in my neighborhood for the local congresswoman, Carolyn Maloney. Her slogan? "A Democrat who gets things done". That's a frightening prospect, but this choice of slogan raises an interesting question. Is Rep. Maloney saying that other Democrats don't get things done? Posted at 05:00 PM MEAL FROM HELL? [Andrew Stuttaford] Intrigued by the comment that 'Satan' would be on the menu, I went out last night to my first ever vegan meal. Disappointingly Beelzebub never made an appearance, although we did eat something called 'Seitan' . Seitan is, apparently, derived from wheat and, according to one expert, is "a staple food among vegetarian monks of China, Russian wheat farmers, peasants of Southeast Asia, and Mormons". If that's true, it is something of a relief that I fall into none of those categories. Seitan turned out to be a somewhat chewy - and tasteless - phenomenon. Theologians and gastronomes can unite happily over the explanation for this one disappointment in an otherwise interesting dinner. It was Seitan's fault. That stuff is muck, evil Tofu's even more evil twin. The chef was clearly not to blame, for the rest of the meal was delicious if a little unsatisfying for the carnivores present, something that will be remedied by feasting on burgers and (to use Mencken's term) other "sweepings of the abattoir" all day today. There is no better way to exorcise Seitan. Posted at 03:14 PM USEFUL IDIOTS [Andrew Stuttaford] NPR ran a story this morning on this weekend's 'peace' demonstrations in the US. The reporter noted that many of those demonstrating were veterans of Vietnam war era protest. In a revealing slip of the tongue, one woman recalled how those protests had "ended Vietnam". Indeed they did. Within two years of the US withdrawal, South Vietnam had fallen to communist rule. Thousands were murdered by the new regime, an estimated 500,000-1,000,000 people (out of a population of twenty million) were incarcerated in concentration (oh sorry, 're-education' ) camps for periods of up to ten years, and hundreds of thousands of boat people took the dangerous and often fatal route into exile. Quarter of a century later Vietnam remains a communist dictatorship. Doubtless the Vietnamese are most grateful to the peace campaigners of yesteryear. Posted at 02:06 PM |
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