Can you imagine how weird it felt rehearsing this?

O'REILLY: And I want to ask you flat out. Do you think President Clinton's an honest man?

RATHER: Yes, I think he's an honest man.

O'REILLY: Do you really?

RATHER: I think -- I do. I think he's an honest man.

O'REILLY: Even when he lied to Jim Lehrer's face about the (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

RATHER: Listen, who among us have not lied about something?

O'REILLY: Well, I didn't lie to anybody's face on national television. I don't think you have. Have you?

RATHER: I don't think I ever have. I hope I never have. But look, it's one thing...

O'REILLY: How can you say he's an honest guy, then?

RATHER: Well, because I think he is. I think at core, he's an honest person. I know that you have a different view. I know that you consider it sort of astonishing anybody would say so. But I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things.

O'REILLY: Really?

RATHER: Yes, I do

SG-1 managed to save the lives of millions of Jafar - by thwarting the planetary nerve gassing plans of the nefarious "Trust."

Colonel Samatha Carter, clad in half of a new Catwoman outfit (she was fully clad, but the black shiney stuff was confined to above the waist) was responsible for cracking the mystery and stopping the bad guys.

Just don't know what I will do until next year. At least there was "closure" to the season - rather than leave us hanging - ala past years. Hmm. Maybe it will go off the air? Zounds! "Swack" "Boff!" (Archaic reference to cartoon aspects of mid-60s TV show "Batman")

Jon - That whole TNR piece is shockingly sub-par. As most people know around here, I'm a fan of TNR, but this thing is really just a collection of lefty cliches strung togther. First of all, Buck's right. It's flatly untrue that Fox never acknowledged the fakery of those Fonda photos. I remember seeing them address it more than once. Moreover, the silly habit of Fox-bashers to match-up Sean Hannity and Brit Hume as if anyone thinks they have the same job is so lazy. I don't hold Judy Woodruff accountable for what Paul Begala says on Crossfire, but for some reason I'm supposed to think that Hume and Chris Wallace are interchangeable with Hannity? I just don't get that.

But on a broader level, the obsession with Fox is just so lame. Crying "What about Fox!" everytime the mainstream media gets criticized is not an answer to legitimate complaints -- it's an attempt to deflect them. Besides, Brit Hume is great but liberals can't keep citing him as a match for Rather, Jennings, Brokaw, Woodruff, Couric, et al. combined.

"It was not always so. There was a brief window in Kitty Kelley's career when respectability hovered within her grasp. His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra (1986), which among much else described Sinatra's mother as an abortionist and depicted Ol' Blue Eyes himself bellying up, so to speak, to a steak-and-egg breakfast served off the bosom of a Las Vegas prostitute, had been praised in most establishment circles. Then, in 1987, she announced that her next subject would be Nancy Reagan. Within months the Washington Post, whose proprietress Katharine Graham was close to Mrs. Reagan, ordered up the definitive profile of Kitty Kelley. Exhaustively reported and cheekily written by Gerri Hirshey, the story appeared in three installments in October 1988. It ran to over 25,000 words, a sordid tale of personal betrayals and professional malfeasance, and it established, beyond a reasonable doubt, that its subject was a bit of a head case.

The best source on that was Hirshey herself. "Shortly after I'd begun my research," Hirshey wrote in the article's first installment, "anonymous mail began to arrive." There were anonymous phone calls, too, including one from an unnamed woman who shouted, "Do you DARE tell the truth about one of Washington's most esteemed citizens?" But the letters were more frequent and more interesting. They "followed my investigations from Spokane [where Kitty grew up] to Georgetown to New York." They carried various return addresses, some of them nonexistent, and "praised Kitty Kelley, limned her accomplishments, her kindnesses to small and crippled children." Not all the notes were anonymous--some were signed by fabricated names--and not all were flattering; at least one contained a sinister tip about Kelley's personal life, which, bizarrely, proved false. And most of the notes, according to a forensic analysis undertaken by the Post, were typed on typewriters known to have been used by Kitty Kelley for other business correspondence.
Posted at 10:12 AM

WHO YOU CALLING A TERRORIST? [KJL]
Consistent Reuters complains about a news agency's (CanWest) use of the word "terrorist."
Posted at 10:08 AM

MORE CBS COOKIE CRUMBLES [Tim Graham]

Posted at 10:03 AM

D.C. DOWNERS [KJL ]
You guys who live in D.C. are way used to it by now, I imagine, but I still can't spend time in D.C. without getting depressed and angry. This town--especially if you are (realistically) idealistic about the American republic--is the most romantic town we have. (Stop laughing, all you who live in God's country.) Nothing like a Friday night walk around the Capitol. Long-time D.C.ers recall doing so (one Georgetown alum did last night, in conversation) at the end of dates during college, etc. But that's really all gone now. The big white slabs. And not even unform security barriers. (And how exactly do they decide which Cabinet buildings get concrete slabs and with don't?)

I'm being unfair here, but in NYC we were attacked, and you look around and we just fought back, darnit. We savor the large crowds and the famous buildings. And, despite large guns about, we carry on as normal, with 1,000 possibilities for jihadist dangers. In D.C.--where, granted, a government facility exists roughly every yard in some areas--nothing will ever be the same. Maybe it had to happen that way--I don't know. But it makes you livid.
Posted at 09:56 AM

WE'RE NOT BIAS [KJL]
W. is up in the polls. Washington Post Editors call emergency meeting: "QUICK. NEED HALLIBURTON STORY FOR FRONT PAGE ASAP."
Posted at 09:44 AM

AMTRAK SHOCKER [KJL ]
Got what had to be the last seat on the 3:00 train to DC yesterday. Was at a table, four seats at it. Two lively, attractive college girls, one laid-back Philly-area lawyer. ALL REPUBLICANS. ALL BUSH VOTERS.

Whenever I take a cab I inevitably get into politics without trying. Most drivers, frankly, who I have encountered, are in the Kerry camp—and they are usually Arab and have the impression Bush is waging war against them. But, I have encountered pro-Bush ones lately, and some Arab pro-Bush cabbies. And it’s always tied to 9/11.

Maybe things did change. For one, it became safe to admit to being Republican in the northeast corridor.
Posted at 09:42 AM

RATHERGATE [KJL]
I've received many emails from people complaining that we have somehow forgotten there is a war going on.

Read Victor Davis Hanson and call me in the morning.
Posted at 09:27 AM

RICH LOWRY [KJL]
is on Fox and Friends right now.

Dan Rather--what the heck else?

Notice Rich is never on pre-8 am. I know he must really want to do the 6 am one...a shame..
Posted at 09:26 AM

STAY TUNED [KJL]
a Ledeen piece up in a few.
Posted at 09:24 AM

FOX AIN'T CBS [Jonathan H. Adler]
Kevin Drum and TNR complain CBS' handling of the forged Killian memos is no worse than Fox News' alleged treatment of doctored Vietnam-era photos showing John Kerry side-by-side with Jane Fonda. Fox accepted the photo as real and never issued a retraction, they claim. Yet, as Stuart Buck demonstrates, Fox didn't fall for the fake photos -- and repeatedly told viewers about the doctored pictures making their way around the internet.
Posted at 09:19 AM

REPUDIATE THE VOTE [Rich Lowry]
I'm beginning to think Kerry should just repudiate his vote to authorize the war. Yes, it will be one of his largest flip-flops, and would be a major risk. But at least it would give him an Iraq position that is coherent in the here-and-now, even if it hasn't been consistent over time. It's obviously much easier to argue that we have been mislead into a mistaken war and you regret your vote to authorize it, than it is to argue that we have been mislead into a mistaken war and you stand by your vote to authorize it. It must be the flip-flopping criticism that is keeping Kerry from doing this, so this Bush campaign line of attack has two benefits: it tars Kerry as a flip-flopper AND keeps his Iraq position incoherent.
Posted at 09:14 AM

BYRON YORK [KJL ]
Will be on Tim Russert’s CNBC show this weekend...Saturday at 7pm, again at 10pm, and again at 1am.

I can tell you the show is pretaped because Byron will be celebrating NRO at the O’Beirne home tonight with some of our top donors.
Posted at 09:10 AM

Friday, September 17, 2004

AH, CAPITALISM [Jonah Goldberg]

Posted at 10:21 PM

ABSURD TIMEWASTER [Jonah Goldberg]
I'm posting this over the weekend so as not to cause the economy too big a blow productivity-wise.
Posted at 10:19 PM

THAT SF THING [Ramesh Ponnuru]
will run from 7 to 10 pm.
Posted at 06:25 PM

LOOK'N GOOD SENATOR [Jonah Goldberg]
Two words: Donkey Teeth.
Posted at 05:57 PM

NRO SF UPDATE [Ramesh Ponnuru]

This thing has gotten a little out of control--I did not expect more than 50 people to RSVP, but that is what has happened. We now have Steve Hayward, Deroy Murdock, and the legendary Bill Rusher--NR's publisher for many years--confirmed. (No word from Peter Robinson yet, but he may still be sick.) And maybe this lady:

"I will try to be there Monday night – mostly because I never pass up an opportunity to drink with Steve Hayward when he is in town. And I figure you should have a couple of conservative women there just to prove we are not extinct in San Francisco.

"Oh, and I want to meet the panty-waist Saab driver who’s afraid to put a W’04 sticker on his car. I have mine proudly displayed on my un-PC pickup truck, and while I’ve been called a [expletives deleted] a couple of times, no one has keyed it yet – even on Haight."

They can meet Monday night on the second floor of Gordon Biersch at 2 Harrison Street. You can email me at rponnuru@nationalreview.com if you want to join us.

Posted at 05:56 PM

KEN MEHLMAN [Ramesh Ponnuru]

He's Bush's campaign manager, and I just talked to him. He doesn't believe the polls that have Bush up 14. "I think we're about a 4 or 5 point race." He's not worried about overconfidence: "The reality is I think everyone understands that the nature of the environment is it’s never going to be like 1984 where you know you’ve won the election.” He thinks it's a tight race in Minnesota. "That's a state that is trending away from its historic Democratic roots. You're also seeing it to some extent in Wisconsin, and you saw it in Texas in the '80s and '90s: First the suburbs and then the rural areas begin to vote their ideology instead of their heritage. Those areas are culturally conservative and increasingly economically conservative."

He mentioned Bush's oft-expressed hope that he does not have a "lonely victory." "Candidates that want a personal victory say vote for me, I’m a good guy," said Mehlman. "Candidates that want a broad-based victory say vote for us, we have an agenda. That’s what the president is doing."

Posted at 05:41 PM

SHOT FIRED FROM LEXINGTON [Ramesh Ponnuru]
The Economist's "Lexington" column snipes at National Review this week, describing NR as a magazine from which a Republican will learn only that "abortion is a bad thing yet again." There is a lot that could be said about that comment, but I think the key thing to say to Adrian Wooldridge, the Economist's Washington editor, is this: I'm sorry my review of your book hurt your feelings, and I promise to write a rave of your next one if it's any good.
Posted at 03:18 PM

FROM GEOGRAPHY TO DEMOGRAPHY [Ramesh Ponnuru]
David Winston, the Republican pollster, argues that a Bush lead of 4 to 5 points poses a problem for the Kerry campaign that hasn't been much discussed. Kerry's campaign has been focused on ekeing out a victory in selected swing states--Ohio, West Virginia, etc. That makes sense if the electorate is closely divided. But a significant Bush lead means that he has to gain ground nationally among select demographic groups. "You have to move married women with children in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Wisconsin," says Winston. "And they're going national at the same time that they reshuffle the campaign." They have to restructure their strategy while having already spent money on the old one, he adds. They have to change the national equilibrium--and things like "the hurricanes are taking time off the clock."
Posted at 02:59 PM

FISHING STORIES [Rich Lowry]
After the Cornell debate I went fly-fishing up near Lake Ontario. It turns out it was the first day of the salmon fishing season. We went to a bend in the very aptly named Salmon River. My guide told me that this would be the best salmon fishing anywhere except Alaska. I know nothing about fishing, but he looked to be right. There were about 10 people on either side of the shore, and literally about every 30 seconds someone would yell “Fish on!” and a huge salmon would jump about 3 feet in the air. It was unbelievable. The salmon were like popcorn going off. Unfortunately, I had no idea what I was doing during the crucial time between about 6 and 8 am and hooked nothing. I had to be the only person there who hooked nothing. The guy next to me must have hooked 15 salmon. He would give me some tip, “See here, you want to cast in right about here.” Bam--he hooked a fish. He would cast again. “And don't pull out, until about here.” Bam--he hooked another fish. It was embarrasing. My guide repeatedly gave me that consolation line, “Well, its really all about just being out here.” When they stopped biting there, we went to a little creek where my guide thought there might have been a few salmon that swam up during the flood the week before. For a while, I thought that this was going to be the closest I came to a fish, smaller than my quarry last year, if that's possible. But we ended up hooking 5 salmon in there between us--he hooked three, I hooked two. It was very, very cool. They all got away (no big deal since we were catching and releasing and if you fight them too long you risk killing them on the line anyway), except one. Reeling this thing in has to be one of the most exhilirating sporting experiences I've had. Unfortunately, my guide hooked it, so I was cheating, but he handed me the reel and the thing dashed upstream about maybe 50 yards (?), as you can see here. The splash in the far background is the fish. Then I closed in on her and she turned around and booked maybe 100 yards in the other direction and I had to run after her, as you can see here. Eventually, she stopped in calm water and my guide managed to pull her out of the water, an absolutely amazing 3-foot long creature. It was awesome. During the transfer so I could hold her for a shot, we (mostly I, of course) dropped her and she got away. But it was a great day. If you want to catch salmon get yourself up to the Lake Ontario area right away.
Posted at 02:32 PM

WASHINGTON POST VS HOUSTON CHRONICLE [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Good point.
Posted at 02:25 PM

JUST 57 SHOPPING DAYS TILL CRUISEMAS [Jack Fowler]
Still a few cabins left. One of them is yours – if you don’t dilly-dally. Sign up here.
Posted at 01:56 PM

UPDATE [KJL]
We've passed the 30K mark on our post-defense defense fund drive, but are still far short of the 65K we lost. We are planning on ending the appeal over the weekend so if you have yet to give and would like to, please go here. And, again, thank you. We ask because we have to. NRO wouldn't be NRO without you. Again, here are the deals.

And, again, a heartfelt thank you.
Posted at 01:32 PM

I LIKE THIS THINKING ( & THANKS) [KJL]
An e-mail:

I just saw your post on the Corner:

An e-mail:

I sent NRO some money ($100) to help out with the [legal] bills. [H]ere's why: Hey, I'm visiting NRO (particularly the Corner and the Kerry Spot) three and four times a day to get the REAL news about Rathergate and the Kerry campaign (or is that redundant); how can I not chip in to help the cause??

Since I’m good for double that number of visits to NRO daily, I figured I better get cracking. Wife and I cut a check for $200.

Posted at 01:26 PM

HANK [Jonathan H. Adler]
Now there's something Derb and I can agree upon!
Posted at 01:26 PM

THE GIRL AT THE RALLY [KJL]
Michelle Malkin has more.
Posted at 01:24 PM

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HANK [John Derbyshire]
He would have been 81 today.
Posted at 01:21 PM

NOWHERE LEFT TO FLOP [Jonathan H. Adler]
Krauthammer pounds on Kerry's Iraq positions in today's column:

If the election were held today, John Kerry would lose by between 88 and 120 electoral votes. The reason is simple: The central vulnerability of this president -- the central issue of this campaign -- is the Iraq war. And Kerry has nothing left to say.

Why? Because, until now, he has said everything conceivable regarding Iraq. Having taken every possible position on the war, there is nothing he can say now that is even remotely credible.

Ouch.
Posted at 01:13 PM

O.C. BLOGGING [Jonathan H. Adler]
I'm in Newport Beach, California attending the Claremont Institute's Constitution Day conference on "Defending the Constitution: Property Rights and the New Regulation." I'll be live blogging bits of the conference today over on The Commons Blog.
Posted at 12:56 PM

DEFENDING PRYOR [Jonathan H. Adler]
Mother Jones grossly distorts the record of Judge William Pryor, but SA's Feddie is on the case to set them straight.
Posted at 12:56 PM

KUDOS TO ESPN [Jonathan H. Adler]
All week they've been broadcasting Sportscenter from a military base in Kuwait as part of their "Support the Troops" week.
Posted at 12:56 PM

THE BUSH ENVIRONMENTAL RECORD [Jonathan H. Adler]
The NYT profiled the Administration's environmental policies here. Max Borders assesses the record rather favorably on TCS here, and the Administration defends himself here.
Posted at 12:56 PM

MUST SEE TV [KJL]
This Sunday night, 9/19 at 9 PM ET, the Fox News Channel special: “Breaking Point: UN Blood Money.” NRO Contributor Claudia Rosett--the Oil-for-Food reporter will, of course be on.
Posted at 12:52 PM

CNN [Jonah Goldberg]
I'll be on Inside Politics around 3:45. FYI.
Posted at 12:32 PM

NEW SWIFT VET AD: DAZED AND CONFUSED [Jonah Goldberg ]
I'm not sure how effective it is for people who haven't followed the story closely. But I don't see how anyone can claim this stuff isn't fair game.
Posted at 12:31 PM

KERRY, WAR, MEDIA... [Michael Ledeen]
I too, have emails from readers, many of whom keep asking that NRO keep chanting, "We want Kerry's 180! We want Kerry's medical records."

And maybe, in the interests of understanding media bias, someone would like to go back and see how often the NYT and CBS and the rest of the dead wood crowd asked for the medical records of republican candidates, compared to the dems...

Finally, Andy McCarthy is right (as usual) to say that the coordinated strategy among the various terrorists in iraq shows that Saddam and the terrorists knew one another and planned their actions together. But it doesn't go far enough, as the WSJ editorial is too limited as well. I constantly warned, in the months leading up to Operation IRaqi Freedom, that we were going to face a terror war in Iraq after the fall of Saddam, because it was quite obvious that Iran, IRaq, Syria and Saudi Arabia were planning it.

It is very discouraging to see Zarqawi's picture in the WSJ, as in USA Today of late, without mentioning that his headquarters were and probably still are in Tehran. Proof of this is superabundant, starting with German and Italian court records, all public.
Posted at 12:25 PM

AND THE EMMY GOES TO... [KJL]
... Matt Stockes of Tuscaloosa, Alabama and Eric Berlin of Milford, CT. were first to ID the two running themes (if someone forced at moments) on the homepage today: Rathergate, natch (notice all of the articles teaser lines) and Ramones titles: the text on the three art spots are titles of songs Ramones did. Try as I did, I really could't make Hanson say "I Want to Be Sedated."
Posted at 12:13 PM

FOX [Rich Lowry]
I'll be on Dayside around 1:30, talking politics of the day.
Posted at 12:04 PM

RE: KERRY'S MIND [Jonah Goldberg]

A reader writes:

I think what you are describing (Kerry's ability to nuance his butt off) is actually a symptom of a bigger failing. I have often thought and others have written extensively about the moral relativism of modern liberals. I believe the phenomena you describe is simply part of the condition that makes all things good or evil based upon a constantly updated current evaluation of how I feel and what others are doing or thinking. Kerry and those like him have to reevalutate what is right and wrong every moment of every day because they are too sophisticated and brilliant to be constrained by a dreary notion of right or wrong rooted in anything so silly as religion or even philosophy. The inability to recognize their own wishy washy behavior is a symptom of the disease that is moral relativism.

Ironically, a fundemental division exists between parties and portions of society that those who hold to a belief system that recognizes a stable concept of right and wrong are always going to be at odds with those who redefine right and wrong on an hourly or daily basis. Frankly, Kerry is just a highly evolved liberal. A true conservative may be willing to overlook flaws in a system that generally works well. Kerry, on the otherhand, is never willing to appreciate the benefits (unless of course he can take credit for them) of a system that can be shown to have flaws. Kerry can with a straight face (long long straight face) claim to have a more nuanced approach because it is true. Kerry will reshape, alter, fold, spindle and mutilate his own plans and beliefs every moment of every day to take into account every little change in the world that he perceives.

The difficulty Kerry has is that most regular, working people are not wealthy enough or privileged enough to afford this sort of nuance. Bosses tend to not care how sophisticated your approach is. They tend to want results. And, anyone in business knows that the wrong decision based on the facts you knew at the time will always work out better than the right decision two months too late. Most folks are way to busy living and learning and earning. We just don't have the time to be so slick. Being unsophisticated hicks we rely on traditional notions of right and wrong, good and bad in the here and now of our lives. We are parochial and boring and we are the backbone of this country and the world. We are also the folks who save the world every single day while brilliant and nuanced deep thinkers dither away the days constantly coming up with the right answer just a few days too late to matter.

Posted at 11:33 AM

"THE CAMERA BLINKS" [KJL]
A reader:

Until I saw this headline, I had completely forgotten my first journalism class at the Univ. of Montana. It was titled “Introduction to Journalism”, but we ONLY read Dan Rather’s book, as if it were the Bible. It was all we studied for the entire quarter. I changed my major after that class.

Posted at 11:19 AM

NRO THIEVES [Jonah Goldberg]

From a reader:

Jonah:

Just thought you'd like to know I just contributed to the NRO Legal Defense Fund. I thought of that Simpsons episode Missionary: Impossible where Homer tried to pledge $10,000 to end the PBS pledge drive. It was the one that featured Betty White:

Betty White: And if you watch one minute without contributing, you're a thief! A common thief!

PBS Man: Okay, Betty White, calm down.

Betty White: I'm sorry. It's just that these thieves make me so damn mad. You know who you are- THIEVES!

Maybe you should use that as a fundraiser: "And if you read one minute of NRO without contributing, you're a thief! A common thief!"

Posted at 11:16 AM

SAN FRAN [KJL]
Ramesh, maybe you should start your get-together at Borders: everyone walking in at once asking for Unfit for Command. Here's an e-mail:

Hi Kathryn:

Living in San Francisco, I'm rarely surprised by anything anti-Bush. Last weekend, I went to three different bookstores (B. Dalton, Waldenbooks, and a local store called Green Apple) before finally finding Unfit for Command at Borders. The catch? Someone had turned all of the copies around, so that they were facing backwards. Plus, there were only about 10 on display, in contrast with the umpteen copies of My Life and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them (didn't that book come out like 2 years ago?).

Anyway, I turned the copies back around, bought one (no snarky comment from the cashier, although it was a busy Saturday), and went about my day. And donated another few bucks to the Swiftees.

Keep up the great work on NRO -- it helps to keep me sane out here!

Posted at 10:58 AM

FROM THE BBC! [KJL]
Iraq the model has some valuable translations and commentary from the BBC's Arabic website:

America is not an enemy of Arabs and Muslims, on the contrary, on many occasions she backed Muslims when other Muslims did nothing like in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. America helped us get rid of the worst dictatorship in history and despite the unstable security situation now in Iraq we breath freely and say whatever we want to say without fear from Saddam and his dogs...

Posted at 10:54 AM

NEWS OF THE DAY [Andy McCarthy]
WSJ editorial on Iraq today makes a critical point: based on all we now know, the resistance by combined forces of Saddam loyalists and jihadists is not an ad hoc arrangement caused by the U.S. invasion, the version of history the MSM and the Democrats are trying to sculpt as the conventional wisdom. It is, instead, a strategy that was adopted before the invasion -- and a very shrewd one at that. Knowing they were unable to match our forward march, the enemy played to its strength. It planned to go dark and wage a guerrilla campaign on its own turf during the occupation. Obviously, this suggests we could have planned better, could have reacted better, and made a real error in pulling the plug on the Marines' Falluja operation this past spring. Falluja and the rest of the Sunni triangle are proving to be the heart of this resistance -- which can't be coopted and thus has to be wiped out. But it also shows that this is a thought-out plan, not a later development -- a plan that banked on Saddam's ties to terrorism which, notwithstanding the nay-sayers, he assiduously developed throughout the 1990's.
Posted at 10:50 AM

CHARACTER RECOGNITION SOFTWARE [Jonah Goldberg]
No, not for candidates -- for me. I have a huge number of PDFs of old newspaper and journal articles. They are basically pictures. Does anybody know of good -- Mac based and relatively cheap -- software that would make it possible for me to search them by key word etc? I assume it exists. Heck, for all I know it exists on my computer. Please send answers or other solutions I'm too stupid to figure out to JonahResearch@aol.com. My normal address is too full to deal with tech responses -- which are always voluminous.
Posted at 10:48 AM

THE LITTLE GIRL EPISODE [Jonah Goldberg ]
The plot thickens.
Posted at 10:39 AM

PLEAS(E) [Kate O'Beirne]
As a recovering lawyer I can say something about winning a suit but losing owing to costs of the defense. That’s the situation here at NRO, and why we could use your assistance. Read here and consider supporting your favorite website.


Posted at 10:37 AM

HOW TO WIN THE WAR ON TERROR [Jonah Goldberg]
Convince Osama Bin Laden to hired Bob Shrum as his master strategist.
Posted at 10:33 AM

PARIS 2012! [Andrew Stuttaford]

OK, the New York Press may not always be a paper that I agree with, but who, apart from Nurse Bloomberg , a few misguided boosters, oddly insistent masochists, and some ill-informed corporate cheerleaders, could possibly take issue with these comments from this article on the idiotic idea that the 2012 Olympics should come to New York City?

“Some might say that the Olympics, should they come here, are still eight years away, so what's the point of worrying about them now? Well, the mayor's office is worrying about them now, and that's what concerns us. These things take years to put together, and planning for 2012 needs to be snipped in the bud.

“The Olympics never bring about the kind of economic boom they promise, as the last few host cities can attest. (And is anybody ever going to trust estimates from the mayor's office again?) Security measures would be much, much worse than during the RNC, because the general public would be involved and not just party delegates. Instead of a singular, localized event space to keep an eye on, there would be half a dozen spread all over town. Traffic would be a nightmare, not just during the games, but for years prior to their arrival as the infrastructure gets built. Instead of bringing in a few thousand delegates, protestors and journalists, you're talking about many hundreds of thousands of extra bodies. The worst of it would drag on for weeks if not months. Olympic hype, already suffocating the event no matter where it occurs, would reach a truly unbearable pitch. And speaking of the ancient Greeks, the target-rich Olympics would put dangerous strains on the men and women in charge of Operation Atlas, whose expensive wheels would no doubt be put in motion.

“So what's the point of squeezing the Olympics onto our geographically tiny, overcrowded city? Prestige? We've already got prestige. We don't need to prove anything to anybody. Apart from that, what is there, really? New badminton courts on the waterfront? Higher billboard ad rates? Who exactly would benefit from this? Not you, and not us.”

Amen.

Posted at 10:06 AM

WE HAVE TWO WINNERS--TIED ON TIMING [KJL]
details to come
Posted at 10:02 AM

CRIS RAPP [KJL]
a former editor at NR (and classmate of Ramesh's at Princeton) just came closest. But didn't fully pull it off.
Posted at 09:45 AM

WOW [KJL]
I'm surprised. Everyone so far has gotten the second theme wrong.

I bet those would see it are the late-rising types.

Or maybe I was drinking too much while working last night.
Posted at 09:38 AM

THE FIRST PERSON [KJL]
to e-mail me identifying both running themes on the NRO homepage today will be the recipient of a commemorative set of NRO's 2004 Republican National Committee buttons, mailed direct from K-Lo's cove at NR HQs to your home.
Posted at 09:24 AM

RE: KERRY'S MIND [Jonah Goldberg]

A reader responds with my kind of constructive criticism:

Jonah,

While I think you are right, I also think that you overestimate the originality of your position. It seems to me that you have simply defined or more clearly explained the essence of a flip-flop. In other words, I think you and Krauthammer may be saying the same thing in different words. John Kerry takes the position he deems most politically prudent, as Krauthammer says. He then explains his position as if it were how he has felt all along in order to create the appearance of consistency (which he obviously fails to do), as you say. I think one is an extension of the other. I think John Kerry feels it necessary to support whatever position he happens to take as though it has been his position all along. He's a flip-flopper and, evidently, proud of it.

Regardless, you kick ass. Anyone that can turn my once apolitical (left leaning because of college) girlfriend into a staunch conservative has truly provided a great service and I owe you my thanks.

All the best,
[Name withheld]

Posted at 09:20 AM

"THE CAMERA BLINKS" [KJL]
Byron writes on the Pajamahadeen vs. Rather here.
Posted at 08:28 AM

CLASSY [Jonah Goldberg ]

Dozens of people keep sending me this story/picture.

Basically, some Kerry guys made a little girl cry by ripping up her "Bush Cheney" sign.

Not to be too mercenary, but if Karl Rove is on his game, he should have the President send her something nice. The West Virginia media would lap it up.

Posted at 08:16 AM

ZHANG-YEOH WARS [John Derbyshire]
I am getting a *lot* of very partisan e-mail on an issue obviously more important to a lot of NRO readers than the election, the Iraq War, or the fate of Dan Rather, viz.: Who is more attractive, Zhang Ziyi or Michelle Yeoh?

I am not going to take a position on this. It occurs to me, though, that if this is a major issue for so many people, some enterprising movie company could make a feature of the two ladies fighting for supremacy -- sort of like King Kong versus Godzilla. Hmmm. Is it getting warm in here?
Posted at 08:14 AM

KERRY'S MIND [Jonah Goldberg ]

I was just reading Charles Krauthammer's excellent column on Kerry and something occurred to me. First, here's the part about Kerry on Imus that got me thinking:

When Don Imus asked him this week, "Do you think there are any circumstances we should have gone to war in Iraq, any?" Kerry responded: "Not under the current circumstances, no. There are none that I see. I voted based on weapons of mass destruction. The president distorted that." But just last month he said that even if he had known then what he knows now, he would have voted for the war resolution.

Me again:Now, Krauthammer's interpretation is that Kerry's simply an ever shifting flip-flopper who takes whatever position he thinks is politically warranted at the moment. Fair enough. Indeed, I think this is the most plausible and likely interpretation.

But there's another one. This one takes Kerry at face value. What if Kerry's positions are constantly shifting not because of the polls but because of the changing events in Iraq? What if he's the kind of guy -- and I think we've all met them -- who greets every setback with the declaration "This was a stupid idea to begin with!" but who greets every triumph by saying "I knew this was a great idea from the get-go!"

In other words, maybe Kerry constantly plays the movie backwards judging past decisions by the here-and-now rather than what's in the long term. I think this is quite possible -- in part because it doesn't contradict interpretation number 1. Kerry's "vision" is profoundly stunted. His accomplishments in the Senate can be found with a microscope and tweezers. Maybe it's because he lacks the kind of imagination which can comprehend a trendline that moves in more than one direction. Things are going bad now, they must always be bad. Things are going good now, always good. And so on. In this scenario what he calls "nuance" is actually an acute inability to grasp that today's headlines do not automatically corrupt yesterday's decisions or tomorrow's goals. If I'm right, this strikes me as the worst possible characteristic of a Commander-in-Chief.

Anyway, I think I'm on to something. But I'll keep pondering.

Posted at 08:12 AM

HUMOR IN EURIPIDES [John Derbyshire]
Good grief! There *is* a joke in "The Trojan Women." Who knew?

"Mr. Derbyshire---You accidentally pushed my hot button. So far as I know, I am the only classicist (Ph.D. Indiana U. 1974) who has discovered humor in Euripides' 'Trojan Women.' I can't cite the line, but at one point Andromache is expostulating with Menelaus, trying to convince him not to allow Helen to ride back to Sparta in his boat (she apparently believes that Helen will bewitch him into doing something foolish). From memory, here is the bit of dialogue that left me gasping for air: A--Let her not be put in the same ship with you. M--What do you mean? Is she heavier than she was?

"No commentator that I know of found this worthy of remark. Solemnity rules, apparently."

Can this be true? Yep, found it. It's actually Hecuba, not Andromache.

. . . .

HELEN
Oh, by thy knees, I implore thee, impute not that heaven-sent affliction to me, nor slay me; pardon, I entreat!

HECUBA
Be not false to thy allies, whose death this woman caused; on their behalf, and for my children's sake, I sue to thee.

MENELAUS
Peace, reverend dame; to her I pay no heed. Lo! I bid my servants take her hence, aboard the ship, wherein she is to sail.

HECUBA
Oh never let her set foot within the same ship as thee.

MENELAUS
How now? is she heavier than of yore?
. . . .
I can't resist adding my Greek tailor joke.

Man walks into Greek tailoring shop, puts a pair of pants on the counter. Examining them, the tailor finds a big tear in the fabric.
Tailor: "Euripides?"
Customer: "Yes. Eumenides?"
Posted at 08:11 AM

RE: PASSION BLOG [Rod Dreher]
There's was a bad link up yesterday: SHould be this.
Posted at 08:08 AM

RE: TIME FOR CHANGE [John Derbyshire]
I *almost* believe this: "John---The reason that the MSM [=Mainstream Media] has decided now--of all times--to begin reporting on immigration is quite simple. It shows how desperate things are in terms of getting their guy elected in the presidential election. The Time report is a trap they are hoping to set for Bush. If popular discussion of this grows it hurts Bush, who is pathetic on the issue, with his base. If Bush tries and respond to criticism from his base and say he will do something about it the dems begin race baiting immediately."

See what I mean? It hovers on the edge of plausibility. There is, I think, no issue on which GWB "loses his base" more than the issue of illegal immigration. (No, not even public spending: the losses there are mostly among the wonks.) Highlighting this now might just persuade a few more members of the GOP base to stay home Nov. 2nd. Hmmmm. A couple more MSM features on "the Bush administration's failure to enforce immigration laws" and I really will believe it.
Posted at 08:07 AM

BULL DOG BOB VS. MOVEON [KJL ]
WHERE was this side of the man when he was running for president?
Posted at 08:04 AM

FROM WRONG TO RIGHT [KJL ]
Can I just say: CUA is an example of a school that can turnaround. When I was there--not that long ago, the president told me, in an open forum that having a school-sponsored abortion-rights group was acceptable (among other things), even something to be encouraged. If a Catholic school is not Catholic, what is it though? The current president, Fr. David O’Connell, gets that.
Posted at 08:03 AM

SORRY, STAN [Kathryn Jean Lopez ]
If I weren’t still paying my tuition (the L-word: loans), I would totally give money to my alma mater, the Catholic University of America, every time they did the likes of this: Deny Stanley Tucci the floor because he advocates abortion.
Posted at 08:02 AM

BERNIE GOLDBERG [KJL]
writes in the Journal today
Posted at 06:55 AM

MY RIDE HOME [John J. Miller]
I was on CNBC last night to discuss a subject of enormous interest to me, and the network offered me a ride home, which I gladly accepted. My driver was Bosnian; he has lived in the United States for eight years. We were together for about 50 minutes (the studio is in DC, and I live outside the Beltway), and we talked about politics, what he thinks of America, and so on. He leans a bit to the left, but mostly enjoys chatting with the people he drives around. Toward the end of the ride, he mentioned that he thinks Republicans are much more polite than Democrats. "Someone can be in the car with me for three minutes, and I'll know their party just from how they behave," he said. I told him that sometimes my wife takes phone calls from people I'm trying to interview, and always tells me who is friendly over the line. The most polite phone caller, hands down: Ken Starr. He once returned a call of mine, got my wife, and immediately apologized for interrupting "the dinner hour." (In my house, "the dinner hour" is about 20 minutes of madness involving children, toys, vegetables, messes, and quarreling over who sits where.) At any rate, I mentioned this bit about Ken Starr--and my driver turned around (we were at a red light) and lit up: "Ken Starr is the nicest man in Washington."
Posted at 06:22 AM

QUICK [KJL]
can a conservative do a poll and manage to find W. behind just so noone gets lazy here? 14 makes me so nervous. Much more than when it was tied.
Posted at 12:19 AM

Thursday, September 16, 2004

BUSH UP 14... [Jonah Goldberg ]
According to Gallup. Obviously, this is too good to be true. But is it really so bad in the eyes of the AP to bury it so far down?
Posted at 10:37 PM

NURSE! [Jonah Goldberg ]
This guy needs another round of electroshock.
Posted at 09:38 PM

SHOULDER RANK DOOHICKEYS [Jonah Goldberg]

From a Captaain in the USAF:

Jonah,

You’re right that we’re not very happy about his “shoulder rank doohickeys”, or “shoulderboards” as they are called by those of us who wear them correctly and proudly.

I was horrified to get my first look at this lieutenant colonel in an e-mail from one of my young sergeants bearing the subject line, “Before you go on national TV….” We may have a reputation for less rigidity than the other services, but the uniform requirements are a non-negotiable. It’s really embarrassing to see an officer senior to oneself become a target for the troops’ ridicule.

The sad part is that no one around him, from the producers, cameramen, et al. was savvy enough on the military to catch the problem prior to airtime. I’m not exonerating the colonel, but anyone who has served would (almost instinctively) have noticed the upside-down insignia. If someone did notice and chose to allow an officer of the United States to appear in that manner, the only word I could find for that choice is “reprehensible”. Mind you, I’m not ascribing malice toward the United States military to anyone, but I do realize it has been known to exist in some circles of the Fourth Estate.

I’d feel a bit better if the so-called “military correspondents” could learn the difference between self-propelled artillery and tanks (which have significantly different military utility), would know the rank structure well enough to address sergeants-major as “Sergeant Major” rather than “Sergeant” (which the newest of recruits understands by Day 2 of basic training, along with all the other forms of address from “Private” to “Mr. President”), and that the rifles fired at a military funeral are not a “21-gun salute”, but are from an older tradition of firing three volleys over a grave to signify the conclusion of a battlefield truce to succor the wounded and bury the dead. The press tries to hire science reporters with some science background to help explain stories to the non-scientist public, but when it comes to covering those of us sworn to defend the nation, the media organizations send reporters who couldn’t readily identify an A-10 and an F-15 if they were standing next to them. Nor do those reporters seem to care to research the issues beforehand. After all, they could learn most of what they wanted to know just by going online and reading the fact sheets from the service Web pages. I guess immersing themselves in a military history course or interviewing content, professional soldiers to gain background information just isn’t as satisfying as spending a (well-publicized after the fact) weekend sleeping on the streets to “truly understand the homeless question”.

Feel free to use this e-mail as you see fit; I would request, however, that you not use my name to avoid any misunderstanding among my colleagues.

Thanks for the great writing and the outstanding contribution NR and NRO make to the public discourse, and for the “gold standard” that the Corner sets for the blogosphere.

Respectfully,

[Name, but not rank, withheld]

Posted at 09:09 PM

HUNTING WOES [Andrew Stuttaford]

Flew back from the UK today, where the big news was the demonstration in Parliament Square against proposed legislation (to ban hunting with dogs) and the ‘invasion’ of the House of Commons by a small number of protestors. This is a complex story, but over at the EU Referendum blog, Helen Szamuely gives a good introduction:

“Let us get things into proportion. What happened yesterday was a very large (over 10,000 people), peaceful though noisy demonstration outside Parliament of people who are looking at the complete destruction of their lives, their livelihoods, their communities, their traditions, their freedom for no reason at all. Anyone would get angry and they were angry. As someone who has been with these people on previous rallies and marches, who has also worked alongside many of them, I can testify that they are not unreasonable and are not full of bloodlust. Nor are they toffs, despite the hate-filled faces of the police, who, no doubt saw themselves as defenders of the common people. Many of those in Parliament Square yesterday were the common people. Mostly, they are bewildered. Just exactly, why are they under this attack? They have never harmed anyone. And why will their perfectly reasonable arguments (acknowledged to be so by every single commission of enquiry set up by this government) not be heard? Among the many thousands there were a few who became somewhat more angry and possibly more abusive than is necessary. The police proceeded to clout anyone who argued with them on the head.”

Just another day in Tony Blair’s England.

Posted at 07:12 PM

GRIFFITH ON THE ROCKS [Jonathan H. Adler]
The Deseret News reports that BYU general counsel Thomas Griffith's confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit looks increasingly unlikely. (LvHB)
Posted at 06:52 PM

LEFT TURN? [Jonathan H. Adler]
Is the Kerry campaign turning left? Bob Novak has an interesting report.
Posted at 06:31 PM

SIGH [Jonathan H. Adler]
Sitting here in the Detroit airport reminds me that there won't be much of a hockey season this year, and therefore little chance of a Detroit-Philadelphia Cup final.
Posted at 06:21 PM

MAD ABOUT MADD [Andrew Stuttaford]

Radley Balko is mad about MADD – and he’s right. Just like the anti-smoking crusade has little now to do with health, so MADD, once a valuable response to a real problem, has now let its flirtation with prohibitionism get the better of its original purpose. What a shame.

And while we’re on the topic of destructive legislation, it’s worth repeating what one former university president has had to say about this country’s idiotic minimum drinking age:

“The 21-year-old drinking age is bad social policy and terrible law. It is astonishing that college students have thus far acquiesced in so egregious an abridgment of the age of majority. Unfortunately, this acquiescence has taken the form of binge drinking. Campuses have become, depending on the enthusiasm of local law enforcement, either arms of the law or havens from the law.”

Indeed. And it’s something to remember next time Elizabeth Dole comes up for re-election.

Posted at 06:19 PM

INTERESTING EMAIL [Jonah Goldberg]

I've never subscribed to the theory: So goes Columbia, so goes the nation. But still:

Jonah:

I'm a conservative undergraduate student at Columbia College
(recently subscribed to NRODT) and I've noticed something you might
find interesting. Most of my lefty friends, who are mostly ABB
types, are now coming to the conclusion that Kerry's a loser.
They're talking about "voting their hopes, not their fears" (for
Nader). I'm not even talking your standard International Socialist
Revolution-type, I'm talking regular liberal democrats who were
talking about "electability" last January. There are posters and
meetings for Nader-Camejo 2004. I was thinking maybe Bush's bounce
has put just enough scare into these folks to either not bother
voting ("cause kerry's gonna lose anyway") or to vote for Nader. I
wonder if this is a nationwide thing among leftys or just a local
aberration?

Posted at 05:30 PM

I DON'T WANNA KNOW... [Jonah Goldberg]

But the airpower guys are in a tizzy over lax dress codes. I think.

UPDATE: His shoulder rank doohickeys -- to use the technical lingo -- are all kerflunky. Yes, I'm phrasing this in such a way to invite a beating.

Posted at 05:14 PM

A TAXPAYER BILL OF RIGHTS [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Heritage is pushing it. Sign me up.
Posted at 05:12 PM

NRO SF: FEAR AND GREED [Ramesh Ponnuru]

An email: "I'm truly torn over attending Monday's NRO West Coast Jamboree. While I'm interested in listening to the comments and opinions of the NRO staff and readers, the thought of the Bay Area kooks getting wind of more than 10
Republicans in one location might be more than I'm willing to tolerate.

"I have this picture in my mind of pseudo-activists from The Haight, Cal, UC
Santa Cruz, and Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley creating a protest that looks
like a weird combination of Burning Man and the Iraqi War protest marches.

"It's crazy but true. I'd love to put a W04 sticker on my new Saab, but it would be seriously damaged if I parked it on the streets. Such is life when you live in this glorious city."

Another one: "I'll be there. I'll bet one of our guests will have enough cash to pick up everyone's tab. Or maybe I've been reading too much Paul Krugman?" Well, even if someone could pick up the tab, that would be wrong--because they should spend the money here.

Posted at 05:09 PM

HERE'S THE NEW PEW POLL [KJL]

Posted at 04:41 PM

SAY WHAT? [Rich Lowry]
I've been catching up on that Knox interview. She said this last night, in explaining how the forgeries were produced, “It seems that somebody did see those memos, and then tried to reproduce and maybe changed them enough so that he wouldn't get in trouble over it.” Does that make any sense? You would reproduce the memoes, but reproduce them poorly so you would not get in trouble?
Posted at 04:38 PM

HERO: AN EXCHANGE OF VIEWS [John Derbyshire]
"Mr. Derbyshire---I must protest. I am white and 23, and I have a Chinese girlfriend/soon-to-be-fiancee. I do not find Zhang Ziyi attractive. I think she looks juvenile (the precocious and petulant roles she plays do not help). I think that Michelle Yeoh is a much prettier Chinese actress than Zhang. When Crouching Tiger came out during the time I was in college, all of my friends captured pictues of Zhang for their computer backgrounds, so I understand you have the majority opinion on your side. I, for one, however, do not see it. Also, I loved Hero. I will concede to most everything you said about the movie (including the commie/nationalist message), and yet I still loved it. I am as big a supporter of Taiwanese statehood as I know, and yet it wasn't enough to turn me off of this movie. Take that for what it's worth."

[My reply] "Well, the fact that Hero was a box-office smash in Taiwan tells us something, I suppose. But you are still WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! about Ziyi. Go wash out your mouth with soap and water."
Posted at 04:36 PM

INTERESTING POINT ABOUT THE PHYSICAL BUSINESS [Rich Lowry]
I hadn't noticed this point before, but it's probably because I've been away and haven't been reading enough Geragthy at TKS. Anyway, Gary Killian said last night on Hannity & Colmes (according to the Hotline newsletter), “The documents themselves, which I have seen, for example, the one directing him to report to the clinic, people that were requested or directed to report to a clinic for a physical, those letters came from the clinic commander, not from operations.”
Posted at 04:35 PM

BREAKING: TERESA'S NEW BOOK [KJL]
Joke making the rounds: "Did you hear that Teresa Heinz Kerry is writing a book? The title is It Takes a Villa."
Posted at 04:25 PM

THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS [KJL]
A blogger (@ "Editors in Pajamas):

Thursday, September 16, 2004

Head of the Pajamahadeen to release a statement soon

Pojama Been Bloggin' (a.k.a Jim Geraghty) says he's working on some news. What else is new? This guy is on fire.

By the way, Pojama won the "Golden Drawstring Award" over at Lucianne's site, yesteday, according to K-Lo at The Corner.

Dan Rather: STOP THE MADNESS!
Posted at 04:24 PM

RATHER UNTRUE [KJL]
Jim Geraghty says Dan Rather's heart-of-the-story contention is bogus.

In the end, not a single "witness" relied on by Rather has been corroborated. the only corroboration of the child-of-privilege-who-didn't-fulfill-Guard-requirements case were the memos!
Posted at 04:11 PM

WHERE WE ARE [KJL]
We've raised, by the way, about $23,000 thanks to generous readers. We obviously have far to go yet to make up the money spent defending ourselves. Would you consider helping up make up the $65,000?

Thank you--from all of us here--for your support.

Details, again, are here.
Posted at 04:09 PM

THE FIRST THING TO TO... [John J. Miller]
...is consider a donation. If you've ever complained about trial lawyers and lawsuits, then you need to take a moment and read about what happened to NRO last year. Many of you have been generous to help up make up for this lost money--if you haven’t, and can, please contribute. Details here.
Posted at 04:00 PM

MOVEON.ORG [Ramesh Ponnuru]
The Kerry Spot criticizes its latest ad. I think if you're going to complain about all the money the Iraq war is costing, you probably shouldn't also complain that our troops are "poorly equipped."
Posted at 03:55 PM

I HAVE A WITNESS [KJL]
An e-mail:

I sent NRO some money ($100) to help out with the [legal] bills. [H]ere's why: Hey, I'm visiting NRO (particularly the Corner and the Kerry Spot) three and four times a day to get the REAL news about Rathergate and the Kerry campaign (or is that redundant); how can I not chip in to help the cause??

Posted at 03:28 PM

ERRATA [John Derbyshire]
In my previous post

(1) I mis-spelt "Dao-jia" and "Dao-jiao" as "Tao-jia" and "Tao-jiao." Dang! (Or possibly "Tang!")

(2) I said "artsy self-consciousness" when I really meant "self-conscious artsiness." The first I can just about tolerate; it's the second that brings me out in hives.

I blame the DayQuil for these errors.

Just one more note on Hero: so far nobody has contested my opinion about Zhang Ziyi. It is in fact, I believe, incontestable.
Posted at 03:21 PM

TIME ON IMMIGRATION [Ramesh Ponnuru]
I don't trust Donald Barlett and James Steele, even when, as here, I agree with what they are propagandizing for.
Posted at 03:18 PM

RASMUSSEN... [Rich Lowry]
today shows an uptick for Bush--for what it's worth.
Posted at 03:09 PM

FAIR ENOUGH [Jonah Goldberg ]

Andrew Sullivan says he doesn't hate George W. Bush. I take his word for it, though considering the rhetorical lengths he goes to it's sometimes hard to tell.

In all honesty, however, I got the notion that he "despises" Bush from something I recalled incorrectly. I could have sworn a friend of mine had told me that Sullivan had written in Esquire that he "detests" Bush. Apparently it got garbled in my memory. Sorry about that.

Posted at 03:00 PM

KEEP THE NATIONAL GUARD IN THE NEWS! [KJL]
Not that women are fickle about these things, but can the president as a hot Guardsman hurt?
Posted at 02:58 PM

RE: TIME FOR CHANGE [KJL]
Heather Mac Donald has an excellent piece on the Time cover here.
Posted at 02:51 PM

TIME FOR CHANGE [John Derbyshire]
Just read the TIME magazine report on illegal immigration

Amazing that TIME, of all outlets, should break the code of silence on this topic. A real breakthrough. How much longer, I wonder, can the mainstream political establishment remain deaf, dumb and blind on this issue?
Posted at 02:50 PM

JJM TV [KJL]
John J. Miller will be on Kudlow and Cramer tonight, to talk about his new book. Will be on toward the end of the show, in the final quarter hour.

And my sincerest apologies: I forgot to mention that WFB would be on Larry's show last night. Mea culpa. If I could buy you all a copy of his new book, Miles Gone By, I would. But I can lead you to an autographed copy offer.
Posted at 02:38 PM

MORE RE: MRS. KNOX [Jed Babbin]
Just spoke to another one of Dubya's squadron mates from the 111th. (I don't know how to do superscripts on e-mail). He passed on the Question of the Day for Mrs. Knox: You said that Mr. Bush got into the National Guard on the basis of preferential treatment "...because there were a lot of other boys in there the same way." Does that include your son, Ted, who joined the squadron in about 1972?
Posted at 01:47 PM

NOTRE DAME CORRECTION [Rich Lowry]
Oops. It has been pointed out to me that that was the wrong information on the Notre Dame debate earlier. Here are the correct coordinates: 7pm at Notre Dame's Washington Hall, next Wednesday the 22nd.
Posted at 01:41 PM

HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO [John Derbyshire]
I was surprised by the level of passion in responses to my trashing of the movie Hero. Passion on both sides: A lot of people hated the movie as much as I did -- "I left the movie fuming," said one reader. A different lot, including many I'm-a-conservative-BUT readers thought that Hero was a terrific movie. Well: "One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other."

Permit me to have a little fun with some of the sillier comments. At the end, to make up for my snottiness, I'll concede a gotcha.

Comment: Having written previously that I like ballet, how can I not like those sword-fight scenes, which after all are just a kind of ballet?

Response: I have seen a lot of ballet, but I don't recall any of it using skyhooks or slow motion; and to the best of my recollection, beautiful music was an essential part of the ballet experience in all cases. I have a definite impression, in fact, that the movements of the ballet dancers had something to do with the music...

Comment: Why must a movie or theatrical production have humor? Would you want humor in a play about The Holocaust?

Response: I don't see why not. I will cling to Shakespeare as my guide here. Far as I can recall, not one of his plays is without humor -- not Macbeth, not even Lear. Now, if you want to tell me that it is possible for a profound and brilliant play to have no humor in it at all, I will certainly agree -- I can't recall too many jokes in, e.g., The Trojan Women. Unfortunately, Zhang Yimou is not Euripides. (And, I must say, having seen the Trojan Women performed once, I have no strong desire to see it again. I was on suicide watch for a week.)

Comment: You obviously understand nothing about cinematic art.

Response: I am a well-educated, well-informed and fairly intelligent person. There are movies I like, and movies I don't like. Are you telling me that in order to have an informed opinion about a movie I must first put myself through college classes in "cinematic art"? If you are, then I offer the following prediction: If movie-makers are going to start making movies that can only be appreciated by people who have studied "cinematic art" at college level, then movie-making will pretty soon be in the same state as modern poetry.

Comment: How dare you pour scorn on eastern religion, about which you obviously know nothing?

Response: I never mentioned "eastern religion" (whatever that is). I passed some remarks about philosophical Taoism, spelling it out like that. Unfortunately the English word "Taoism" covers two quite different Chinese words: "Tao-jia," which is the name of a philosophical system, and "Tao-jiao," which is the name of a religion. A writer on this topic should, therefore, always make clear whether he is talking about the philosophy or the religion. I think I did that. I have actually said kind things about the Taoist *religion* elsewhere.

Comment: You object to "myriads of people all moving and speaking in unison." Ever heard of the Greek chorus?

Response: Sure; but that was a convention of the time, with a clear purpose understood by everyone. It is not a convention in the modern cinema, and when those hundreds of black-robed figures (who they? we are not told) show up and surround the Emperor (what happened to the hundred paces rule?) and harangue him in unison the effect falls entirely flat.

Comment: You plainly know nothing whatsoever about Chinese culture.

Response: Uh-huh.

All right, now I'll concede a gotcha. I grumbled about "the modernist-experimental layering of the narrative" and said: "I prefer my narrative plain and simple: beginning, middle, end." A reader pointed out that this eliminates quite a large part of the western literary tradition, starting with The Odyssey. Yes, of course it does, and I overshot my mark, expressing myself badly. I don't object to the skillful use of flashbacks and breaks in chronology. I'm fine with them. The layering of "alternate narratives" in Hero goes way beyond that, though, into the realm of artsy self-consciousness, to which I am strongly allergic. (See my remarks on T.S. Eliot in this space recently.)
Posted at 01:16 PM

NEW MOVE ON AD... [Rich Lowry]
...has video of an American soldier sinking in quicksand, with his arms raised helplessly above his head by the end. It strikes me as the kind of thing the left will love seeing, but that will make a lot of people pretty uncomfortable. Probably some backlash potential there.
Posted at 01:12 PM

RE: GALLUP [Jonah Goldberg]
Rich -- You must have gotten the same fake-but-accurate memo I got.
Posted at 01:02 PM

PLAGIARISM AT HARVARD [Jonathan H. Adler]
Stuart Buck blogs on the latest plagiarism scandal to hit Harvard.
Posted at 01:01 PM

GALLUP [Rich Lowry]
I'm hearing that the new Gallup number is going to have Bush up BIG.
Posted at 01:00 PM

HURRICANES AND CLIMATE CHANGE [Jonathan H. Adler]
Before anyone tries to connect Charley, Frances and Ivan the Terrible to global warming, they should read this and this.
Posted at 12:51 PM

BIG BET AGAINST TOM [Kate O'Beirne]
Last evening, Fox News reported that Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid has given $1 million from his campaign's war chest to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to help his party's candidates - and himself. The Committee's Chairman, Senator Jon Corzine, was elated. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle must be less pleased. Should Daschle be defeated, Reid is expected to run for the Leader post and now is the time to build up support from grateful colleagues. The Nevada Senator has just placed a big bet that there will be a vacancy next year.
Posted at 12:37 PM

BACK FROM CORNELL, ONTO NOTRE DAME [Rich Lowry]
Debate was fun. C-SPAN was there, so it might show up on air at some point. The crowd was very liberal, but good-humored. I was a little harsher than I like to be, but I tend to get driven crazy by David Corn's unwillingness to apply some minimally consistent standard for calling someone a liar. He calls Bush officials liars for supposedly saying that Iraq was an “imminent” threat. But he won't call John Edwards a liar for actually saying saying Iraq was an “imminent” threat. I brought this up, over and over, and he never answered--because there is no answer. Anyway, we are having a rematch at Notre Dame Wednesday. The debate will be held at McKenna Hall Auditorium in the Center for Continuing Education on campus, and starts at 7pm.
Posted at 12:24 PM

OPUS ON RATHER [Jonathan H. Adler]
It seems Bloom County called this one . . . in 1984. (LvInstapundit)
Posted at 12:23 PM

KERRY'S CONSISTENCY [Jonah Goldberg]

From a reader:

Gentlemen,

Pointing out that John Kerry is inconsistent on Iraq is like pointing out that Bart Simpson has problems with authority. But still, this latest line from Kerry's interview with Don Imus yesterday caught my attention.

IMUS: "Do you think there are any circumstances we should have gone to war in Iraq, any?"

KERRY: "Not under the current circumstances, no. There are none that I see. I voted based on weapons of mass destruction..."

(Quote taken from Jim Geraghty's Kerry Spot blog.)

Wasn't it just ONE MONTH ago that Kerry said he would have voted to approve force even if he had known then what we know now about the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? And if there are NO circumstances under which we should have gone to war with Iraq, why did Kerry vote yes--for any reason?!?

I think all reporters on Kerry's campaign plane should be issued mega doses of Dramamine--not for air-sickness but for the head-spinning changes in Kerry's beliefs.

Posted at 12:14 PM

KEEP IT COMING! [KJL]
From a reader:

If it's true that Bush gets ahead in the polls the longer the news media talks about the National Guard/Bush physical story, shou