From a reader named Roger:

"Mr. Derbyshire---Actually, Bates Gill has been around quite a while doing
foreign policy analysis. This situation reminds me of the scene in the
movie 'Office Space':

"(perky annoying secretary) Your name is Michael Bolton?

"(grumbling reply) Yes

"(perky annoying secretary) Any relation to the singer?

"(grumbling reply) No, it's just a coincidence.

"(cube mate) I don't know why you get so discouraged. There's nothing wrong
with your name.

"(M. Bolton) There WAS nothing wrong with my name. Until I was about 12
years old, and that no-talent a**-clown came along and started winning all
those Grammies!

"(cube mate) Well, why don't you just go by Mike then?

"(M. Bolton) Why should I change MY name? He's the one that sucks."

Somehow, after Microsoft Windows has crashed for the umpteenth time at CSIS,
I can see Bates Gill having a very, very similar conversation...

One of the most remarkable aspects of the current conflict with militant Islam is the way in which it has revealed the self-loathing that runs through so much of the western intelligentsia.

Here’s Roberto Benigni, the actor/director of Life is Beautiful. Now he’s making a movie about the Iraq war. The BBC has more.

“In a further interview on Italian Rai TV, Benigni criticised the West's role in the Iraq violence. "Westerners are running the show, all of those doing these things have studied in the West, it is not the Easterners. We know how many dreams the East gives, and how grateful we are to the East and love all its beautiful things."

What a statement. Not only is it utterly inaccurate, it also simultaneously manages to denigrate the West and patronize the East. Its real objective? To show Benigni’s moral superiority over the rest of us.

Marta Andreassen was the EU’s chief accountant. In 2002 she went public with a statement of the blindingly obvious : that the EU’s systems were open to corruption.

She’s about to get her reward.

Being fired.

Britain’s Tories, still wrestling with the problem of how, um, to actually win something have just been pushed into fourth place in a by-election (a special election) for a seat in the British parliament behind the anti-EU, but more than a touch odd, UK Independence Party.

Here is the response by the Conservative’s defense spokesman:

“A f***ing awful result.”

Refreshing.

Flawed, fascinating – and, for this, eternal gratitude: the man responsible for dreaming up the greatest film ever made.

“Major Calloway (Trevor Howard): That sounds like a cheap novelette.”

“Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten): Well, I write cheap novelettes.”

Here, on Reason’s website is this from Julian Sanchez:

"I just saw the Dixie Chicks on Bill Maher claiming that "corporate bans" on their music (i.e. stations deciding not to run their music for a while) were "against the Constitution." Can they possibly have been involved in this whole bruhaha for this long and not found one person to explain how the First Amendment works?"

Well, they might have found someone to explain. Whether they could have understood is an entirely different question.

"According to Bates Gill of the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies...."----The Economist 10/2/04, p.44.

Whoa! "Bates Gill"? Is that some kind of bizarro version of the great
software mogul?

Or are the Pod People taking over? Shall I wake up tomorrow and find that
the presidential race is between Jerry Kohn and Gush Beorge? With Rader
Nalph running a third party?

Or do I just need another cup of coffee?

This morning--he sounds much better than he did last night. Excerpts:

"My opponent last night said our troops deserve better. They certainly deserve better than they got from Senator Kerry when he voted to send them to war, and then voted against funding our troops in combat. . . .

"You may remember his famous quote about the supplemental funding that I sent up to Congress. He said: I actually did vote for the $87 billion, right before I voted against it. . . . Last night, he said he made a mistake in how he talked about that vote. But the mistake wasn't what Senator Kerry said. The mistake was what Senator Kerry did. . . .

"He said he was proud of his vote. And, finally, he said the whole thing was a complicated matter. Then he had a new wrinkle, a new explanation. During an interview this week, he described it as a protest vote.

"When we put American troops in harm's way, they certainly deserve better than to have a candidate for President use them as a protest.

"Last night, Senator Kerry only continued his pattern of confusing contradictions. After voting for the war, after saying my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision -- (applause) -- he now says it was all a mistake.

"But asked a logical question, does that mean our troops are dying for a mistake? [AUDIENCE: No!]

"That's what he said, no. You can't have it both ways. You can't say it's a mistake and not a mistake. You can't be for getting rid of Saddam Hussein when things look good, and against it when times are hard. You can't claim terrorists are pouring across the border into Iraq, yet at the same time try to claim that Iraq is somehow a diversion for war against terrorism. The President cannot keep changing his mind. The President must speak clearly. And the President must mean what he says. . . .

"The cornerstone of Senator Kerry's plan for Iraq is that he would convene a summit.

"I've been to a lot of summits. I've never seen a meeting that would depose a tyrant, or bring a terrorist to justice. . . .

"One other point I want to make about the debate last night. Senator Kerry last night said that America has to pass some sort of global test before we can use American troops to defend ourselves. He wants our national security decisions subject to the approval of a foreign government.

"Listen, I'll continue to work with our allies and the international community -- but I will never submit America's national security to an international test. The use of troops to defend America must never be subject to a veto by countries like France. The President's job is not to take an international poll -- the President's job is to defend America."

Justice Scalia gave a speech here on Sept. 20. (That’s the one Stanley Kurtz attended.) In that speech, he made the point that even if one were to adopt arguendo the assumption that orgies are socially beneficial, that assumption wouldn’t entitle judges to strike down laws against orgies. As a former clerk of his, I am certain that he made this same arguendo point at Harvard. Evidently it was a tad too subtle for the Crimson reporter.

Last May, finally, enter the tanned, energetic Jacques Chirac, eager to reassert raison d’etat and make a splash, unfortunately too literally. Chirac, though, was acting totally in national character. Daring to be different is nothing new for France, where galling allies is as enduring a national pastime as boules. Winston Churchill, who was host to Charles de Gaulle after the majority of his guest’s countrymen had capitulated to the Nazis, grumbled famously that of all the wartime crosses he bore, the heaviest was the Free French leader’s Cross of Lorraine. It didn’t help that De Gaulle constantly nattered on about how France was the “light of the world; its destiny is to illuminate the universe.” General Dwight Eisenhower managed to avoid gagging, but did complain that of all the Allies he was supremely commanding, “those damn French” were by far the most nettlesome.

De Gaulle gave clout to the once weak French presidency and stabilized France. But jealous of the Churchill-Roosevelt wartime bond, he remained a passionate anti-Atlanticist with a long memory. In 1963, still irate over Britain’s cave-in to U.S. pressure to pull back from Suez in 1956, he vetoed Britain’s application to join the European Economic Community. (His successors obstructed the entry of Spain and Portugal.) The following year, he withdrew France from the NATO military command and asked President Lyndon Johnson to remove U.S. troops from France. A seething Secretary of State Dean Rusk flew to Paris to seek clarification: “Does your order include the bodies of American soldiers in France’s cemeteries?”

Peter - Alas, the DNC was monitoring the Corner last night and shortly after the debate ended their talking points included comments from several of us. I am sure some folks will say -- a la Derb's correspondents who want us to deny Bush's poor speaking skills -- that this means we shouldn't speak our minds around here. But that's a non-starter.

What really bothers me about Moore's speaking fee is that a couple schools have booked me as a conservative counterweight to Moore. Balance, diversity, etc etc. Now, I don't really care what the motives of these administrators if it gets me booked -- even if I find disgusting the notion that I'm anything like Michael Moore. However, $35 Grand! I get a lot less than that. Talk about buying ideological diversity on the cheap!

Kerry needed to dominate this debate. He is an orator and, more importantly, styles himself as such. The fact that he, like Gore, was unable to humiliate our "simpleton president" means he lost.

Also, the time in our nation is over when style points and debate skills get you into the White House and keep you there. People still saw Kerry as an intelligent, but deeply flawed leader.

Rich - I agree. But I've been thinking about it and I think there's another candidate. One of the amazing things was how when Kerry had to really reach down to his gut to draw out a real example of the sort of superior leadership he would show as President he invariably declared he'd have a summit.

Oh how our troops must be hoping against hope that we get a change in Washington and get that summit! I'm sure today in mess halls and fox holes from Basra to Baghdad the men are a-chatter about how the guy who voted against sending them body armor is -- if elected, fingers crossed -- going to hold a summit.

From last night:

....I know I can do a better job in Iraq. I have a plan to have a summit with all of the allies....

....I'm going to hold that summit....

....But this president hasn't even held the kind of statesman-like summits that pull people together and get them to invest in those states. In fact, he's done the opposite. He pushed them away. ....

....Now, we have a choice here. I've laid out a plan by which I think we can be successful in Iraq: with a summit, by doing better training, faster, by cutting -- by doing what we need to do with respect to the U.N. and the elections....

From a reader:

Jonah, The terms fop and dandy come to mind as we hear more about Kerry's obsession with his appearance. He flies his hairdresser across the country, he uses spray on tan for that outdoors look, it appears that he has botox treatments and has had his choppers whitened. Finally, while in Florida he seizes the opportunity to pop in to the beauty parlor for a manicure while the Presidents visits the hurricane victims. I believe this is an indicator of the differences between the real deal and a self absorbed narcissist.

The more I think about it. Kerry's biggest wins were all secondary or passive. He didn't lose. He didn't cost himself the election. He scored better points on style. But the next day it's hard to remember much of the style. I think his biggest victory was giving his troops hope. Remember that "enthusiasm gap"? Kerry's supporters were increasingly resigned to the fact that there was no real reason to like their guy -- only to hate his opponent. This through the dogs a bone -- and the media too, which desperately wanted something new and nice to say about Kerry.

But as for Bush, he was right on more of the substance and that comes through in your memory. If you asked me their differences today based on the debate, I'd say "Bush wants to be offense; Kerry wants summits." Kery's answers had no logical consistency, and while logical consistency is overrated in these debates, Kerry needed to show more conviction than he did to change the race. And, I think the sound bites this week will probably reinforce that.

From a reader:

Hey Jonah:

I had a ball tonight reading the Corner and the Kerry Spot. I don't have an
internet connection at home.. my computer at work is only 20 minutes of
leisurely driving here in Kansas City, so i came in to catch the action on
NROnline.

I watched the entire debate at home, then headed out, salivating at the
pleasure i was sure would present itself. It did indeed.

I have only just come across NRO, and feel such a resonance with the
currents of the thoughts presented on it.

Thank you for allying yourself with such a fine group of people. I loved
the running-commentary-feel of the Corner, and the analysis of the overall
debate.

This is the second email i have sent you, and may not be the last.

Have a pleasant night, and God Bless you.

-patrick

Ms. Lopez, I'm a very nervous Bush supporter who thought that Kerry had won the election right after the debate ended. But, I'm watching again on CNN and I feel much better about the President's performance. President Bush definately won the first half hour of the debate. I missed that part live. Had I seen it, I would've come to a different conclusion on the President's performance. The first part of the debate is the part most people will have seen. The press is gushing about Senatoy Kerry's performance, but I think the polls will stay the same because of the first half hour.

Wishful thinking?

Dear Kathryn,

Tonight's debate was a decisive victory for John Kerry because America saw him as our next president. He showed strength, conviction, and a steady command of the facts. He offered clear plans for Iraq and fighting terrorism.

George Bush has a record of failure to defend, and he failed to defend it. The president just gave us more of the same shallow promises.

However, the Republican spin machine is already hard at work. We need your help to beat back their distortions. Right now we need you contact the media and speak your mind.

Contact national media using the link below and remember to emphasize the points above.

http://volunteer.johnkerry.com/speakout/tv

Thank you,

Mary Beth Cahill

LOCKHART: DEBATE CONSENSUS A 'DRAW'

Unbeknownst to Kerry adviser Mike McCurry, a C-SPAN camera quietly followed McCurry as he found Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart on Spin Alley floor and asked him his impression of the debate. Lockhart candidly said to McCurry , “The consensus is it was a draw.”

Plain and simple. The conservative eggheads are overanalyzing and the liberals are praying.

The president knows what he is doing and believes in it. Kerry will say anything he thinks is different than Bush.

Bottom line is that Kerry says: I would have done what the president did but better.

REMARKS BY THE VICE PRESIDENT FOLLOWING A PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE WATCHING PARTY

Denver Marriott City Center
Denver, Colorado

7:57 P.M. MDT

AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Good evening.

AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, thank you. (Applause.) Well, we're
delighted you were here tonight. I thought the President did a great job.
(Applause.) I was fascinated to watch on the one hand John Kerry saying that
he's committed to winning the war on terror, and to winning in Iraq, and then he
turns around and is unrelentingly negative about the proposition, the decision.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Useless.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Useless was your comment. (Laughter.) But I thought
it's -- the President made several very good points, especially saying how can
you expect to get support from our allies when you consistently trash our
allies' efforts? (Applause.)

And the real bottom-line decision in terms of what this election is all
about is who is going to be Commander-in-Chief, who do we want to have in the
Oval Office making those life decisions -- life-and-death decisions for the
United States, for our people, and the man who makes the decisions about when
we're going to send troops in harm's way. And I don't think you can look at
that debate tonight and conclude anything other than on the one case we've got
in George Bush a man who has done it, who has been there, done it four different
-- for four different years now, and done a superb job, made the right decisions
for America; is absolutely committed to taking offensive action whenever it's
necessary in order to defend the United States of America, and the wanna-be
Senator who says -- (laughter) -- says that in response to the question on
preemptive action, he would support it as long as it passed some kind of global
test.

AUDIENCE: Booo!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: What George Bush has made clear repeatedly is that
we're perfectly prepared to seek international support for international
efforts. We've got a great alliance -- we've got 30 countries fighting
alongside of us in Iraq. And we're prepared to work to lead a coalition, but we
will never submit to the objections of a few. We will never seek a permission
slip to defend the United States of America. (Applause.)

So I want to thank all of you for being here tonight. I've got to go do
some interviews. And of course, I would invite all of you to watch next Tuesday
when we'll do it all over again from Cleveland. (Applause.) John Edwards and
myself -- I'm very, very proud to have had the privilege of serving alongside
this President. And I'm delighted that the American people are going to give
him four more years to lead this nation. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

Which allies does Kerry want to bring into Iraq? France? Germany? It would be interesting to know how he would propose to do this - and the price he would have to pay.

From a reader:

The MSM will be gushing tommorrow about how great Kerry did, like the NYU speech, predicting a comeback and touting him as a closer. By next Friday the polls will be identical to today, and then the MSM will start wondering out loud why Kerry is not getting traction from such a great performance.

The biggest mistake made by the Bush campaign: agreeing to three debates. Doesn't look so smart now -- Bush gets tired and might be seen as saying the same things over and over again. Now hoping that everyone tunes out of the next two.

IN DECEMBER 2003, KERRY TOLD NEW HAMPSHIRE EDITORIAL BOARD BUSH "LIED" ABOUT REASON FOR GOING TO WAR IN IRAQ. "Kerry also told a New Hampshire newspaper editorial board Friday that Bush had 'lied' about his reasons for going to war in Iraq, a word Kerry has been reluctant to use publicly for months. Yesterday he said he did not plan to use the word again." (Patrick Healy, "Kerry Camp Lowers N.H. Expectations Behind In Polls, Senator Now Seeks Spot In 'Top Two,'" The Boston Globe, 12/8/03)

AND IN SEPTEMBER 2003, KERRY SAID BUSH ADMINISTRATION "LIED" AND "MISLED." "This administration has lied to us. They have misled us. And they have broken their promises to us. The president promised to the people and the Congress that he would build an international coalition, respect the United Nations' process and only go to war as a last resort. I will tell you that from my war fighting experience, I believe there is a test for a president as to how you go to war. And that test is whether or not you can look in the eyes of parents and say to them, 'I did everything possible to avoid the loss of your son and daughter, but we had no other choice in order to protect the security of our nation,' and I know this president fails that test in Iraq." (Sen. John Kerry, Campaign Event, Claremont, NH, 9/20/03)

As several readers have noted, Kerry's peeved because we "outsourced" the job in Afghanistan, using Afghan troops instead of American troops who are the best trained, best equipped troops in the world. But he's also vexed by the fact that we're not outsourcing in Iraq.

Although the media is talking about “security moms,” don’t be fooled. “Security moms,” like its predecessor “soccer moms,” is just spin that deemphasizes the gender gap. Everywhere the term appears in the media, there is only anecdotal evidence, not data, backing it up.

We have Googled and researched the term “security moms” and found it is currently being pushed by right-wing pollsters and commentators. These latest efforts began in July, although it first appeared as early as 2002.

From a reader:

Dubyah missed a great chance to nail Kerry. When Kerry was talking about us sending 500 gazillion dollars for cops and firehouses in Iraq instead of spending the money at home, Bush's response should have been to ask "Since when does America count the cost of bringing freedom to oppressed peoples?". I would have loved to see Kerry go to school on that.

The argument about the UN and allies, that is.

So the war was a mistake, but the people dying in it aren't dying for a mistake? Maybe I heard that one right.

Kerry says that his $87 billion vote was a rhetorical mistake, not a mistaken action--but it's the action that has been the focus of the criticism, including tonight.

And again with the summits!

Bush says some version of "Is that your final answer?" after Kerry explains his position on Iraq. Since the rules say he can't address Kerry, he might say to the moderator "You should have asked him if that was his final answer."

Or something like that.

I don't have much to add to the pre-debate chatter but I wanted to contribute something. Murmur. Grumble. Murmur. Shuffle, murmur.

Today's Washington Post -- in an article about misleading campaign claims, of all things -- said "'One of Bush's most effective lines on the stump is that he is running 'against a fellow who's promised over 2.2 trillion new dollars of federal spending so far.'The Kerry campaign disputes that estimate -- and Bush's spending proposals top $3 trillion, according to administration figures.'"

This is wrong on two counts. First, Bush proposed $2 trillion in spending (Social Security transition costs) and $1 trillion in tax cuts -- NOT $3 trillion in spending. Second, while the writers add Bush's tax cuts to his spending total, they DO NOT add Kerry's $800 billion in tax cuts to his spending total. That error accounts for all of the difference between the Bush and Kerry estimates, and negates the writer's entire argument.

Did I mention that the article is about misleading claims?

I got an email which looks real (DNC graphics etc) but obviously a joke. I'm sure some of you will get it. It's kinda funny:

Dear [Supporter] ,

Tonight, don't let George Bush's henchmen steal another victory. We need your help immediately.

We need you support to show that you are voting for Kerry.

Immediately after the debate, we need you to do three things: go to the grocery store; buy fake tannning lotion; apply it all over your face prior going to work on Friday.

The color ORANGE at work will let everyone know you support Kerry and that he won the debate.

Thank you,

Terry McAuliffe
Chairman

PS: Make sure to forward this email to at least 10 other people who will be watching the debate. Also, give printed out copies to your friends, family members, coworkers and neighbors and get them involved.

Keyes is the Kerry-Edwards election campaign's new (and first) religious outreach coordinator for Missouri, and on Monday afternoon he sat at a table at the campaign's St. Louis storefront headquarters in a Shrewsbury strip mall with six religious leaders, lay and ordained.

Keyes walked them through the sequence of speakers for an interfaith "prayer potluck" rally that night in Brentwood.

But in his zeal to include speakers of varying calibrations of faiths, denominations, genders, races and ages, Keyes had overlooked one of the most visible: Protestant women. ...

At the rallies across the [Missouri] on Monday night, about 400 people turned out, according to organizers. Former U.S. Sen. Jean Carnahan spoke at the event in Liberty. She called it "one of the warmest gatherings I've ever attended," adding, "the audience was very receptive to the message, which was that it's all right to be a Democrat and a Christian."

At the rally at the Brentwood Community Center on Monday night, about 100 Kerry supporters gathered to pray, testify and sing. The final verse of "Kumbaya" became "someone's voting, Lord, Kumbaya."

The surest explanation for the draft myth, the Cameron Diaz rhetoric and the rest can be found in this factoid:

"Forget the gender gap. The chasm that yawns the widest this election year is the Enthusiasm Gap.

Nearly two in three likely voters who support President Bush -- 65 percent -- said they were "very enthusiastic" about their candidate while 42 percent of Sen. John F. Kerry's supporters express similarly high levels of enthusiasm for their choice, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News Poll.

That's a 23-point difference in relative excitement...."

When your base doesn't like the candidate, scare the dickens out of them about the opponent.

Rich -- Good point. And I should add that I don't think my Clintonite conspiracy theory is the most likely explanation. I think a more likely one is a combination of two things. 1) Edwards is determined to remain "sunny" even though being a sunny loser is a lot worse for his career than a gloomy winner and 2) I suspect that Kerry is determined to be "tough". I think -- again because he's got horrendous political instincts -- he's internalized the Dukakis lesson of always responding. I also think he thinks he's so much more of a man than Bush that he must go on the offensive personally and he hates the image of letting Edwards do his fighting for him. Perhaps that's because Edwards is a far, far better politician than Kerry.

But whatever the reason, if Kerry loses, I look forward to the post-mortems and finger pointing. It should be fascinating.

Interesting point from a reader:

Sir:

You and Kerry both miss the point of the flip-flopping charge. Changing one's opinion isn't a problem. It's changing one's opinion (the flip), then changing BACK to the original opinion (the flop). THAT is what Kerry keeps doing, and Bush doesn't.

A friend of mine reminds me of this from EJ's July 7 column:

Putting a Southerner on the ticket was essential. Since 1960 five of the eight Democratic tickets that included a Southerner have been elected. The tickets without a Southerner went 0 for 3. Edwards allows Democrats to contest North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, Virginia and Arkansas. Democratic optimists -- yes, it's a stretch -- think Edwards's native South Carolina might also be in reach.

Forcing the president to compete on terrain he had mostly considered safe alters the election's dynamics. And in the primaries, Edwards's appeal seemed strongest in constituencies that the Democrats must win over. He ran especially well among rural voters and appealed simultaneously to blue-collar whites and upper-middle-class professionals.

It's early yet. But it seems to me this analysis isn't holding up too well. To be fair, I blame Dionne less than I do the Kerry campaign which has used Edwards like he's political saffron -- just a pinch will do.

It almost makes you wonder if the Clintonites on the Kerry campaign care more about keeping Edwards from being the natural 2008 front-runner than they do about getting Kerry into the White House. But that's way too conspiratorial. Right?

Remember last week when I complained that EJ Dionne's gripes about Bush's "distortions" and the failure of the press to cover them were unpersuasive? Maybe it's a sign of my partisanship, but I think Bob Novak's similar complaints about Kerry are far, far more serious.

From a reader:

Jonah, great points on Kerry's campaign. This is a pattern. After Kerry
dopped that "Lambert Field" comment, this was their damage control:

(From the WPost)
And David Wade, a Kerry spokesman, said Packers fans will see the failed
"playbook" of the Republicans. "Any Packers fan knows . . . Bush has fumbled
on Iraq, did a double reverse on the assault weapons ban and dropped the
ball on health care."

Ugh.

A reader makes a point I forgot to make:

I completely agree on the lameness of Bill Burton's retort to Lynne Cheney, and I think I know what the problem is. Although Mrs. Cheney's jab wasn't hilarious, she get's bonus points for being spontaneous and somewhat impolitic. Burton's comments are clearly scripted -- on message, if you will. They sound like the work of a committee, and the image of Kerry advisors huddled together to come up with something as lame as they did is deeply disturbing.

Made all the more disturbing when you consider that the Kerry camp could have declined to respond at all. The rule in my professional (PR) is you don't have anything to say that will help you, don't say something just for the sake of saying something. If Burton follows this rule, does he really think he comments will do Kerry a bit of good.

Have you seen Kerry's latest theme? It's that Bush is the "real flip-flopper" because he kept changing his rationale for the war. They did a segment on it last night on Fox. I don't have a link, but it does seem the meme is widespread.

The criticism is legitimate enough in a presidential debate, but the "real flip-flopper" angle is so revealing of how the Kerry campaign is still being held-hostage to the Bush campaign (as I argued in yesterday's syndicated column). It's just so lame. Can't these guys come up with their own campaign themes? I mean do they really want at this late stage to argue about who is the "real" flip-flopper? A question which almost concedes that Kerry is a flip-flopper but whines about Bush being one too? Is that really the terrain Kerry and Co. want to run on going into the home stretch?

Besides, running ads and such saying Bush is the real flip-flopper because of Iraq is simply preaching to the same choir Moveon.org & Co. have been preaching to for a year. The people who buy the Iraq argument are already anti-Bush. It's a dead horse. And it's lame.

The story about Lynne Cheney mocking Kerry's tan is hilarious, but not because Mrs. Cheney was that funny. Here's the full AP story (Via Drudge):

DULUTH, Minn. - Something about Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites)'s darker appearance has caught Lynne Cheney's eye.

During a campaign stop with her husband, a group of volunteers moved into the crowd with microphones for the question-and-answer period. Vice President Dick Cheney told supporters to look for the people with dark orange shirts.

When Cheney paused as if searching for the words to describe the shade of orange, Lynne Cheney said, "How about John Kerry's suntan?"

The remark drew a big laugh from the crowd and the vice president.

Responding to her comments, Kerry campaign spokesman Bill Burton said, "Is Mrs. Cheney jealous considering how hard it is to get sun in the undisclosed location with her husband Dick? Or is she distracted over how red-in-the-face George Bush should be considering his failed presidency?"

ME: I don't know, maybe I'm reading too much into this but does Bill Burton sound like an loser here? He may not be, I have no idea. But this sort of "oh yeah, well what about your mother's combat boots and that stupid hat you're wearing, and, and, and, and...." tone comes across as pathetically desperate. You can almost see him hanging up with the AP reporter and, with huge pride, turning to some guy with a pocket protector for a high-five -- and missing.

One of those posting a comment over at Harry's Place links to a website linked to the always entertaining William Topaz McGonagall, a 19th Century poet who always wrote, um, with enthusiasm.

Here are the concluding lines of The Battle of El-Teb

"Oh, God of Heaven! it was a terrible sight/To see, and hear the Arabs shouting with all their might/A fearful oath when they got an inch of cold steel,/Which forced them backwards again and made them reel.

"By two o'clock they were fairly beat,/And Osman Digna, the false prophet, was forced to retreat/After three hours of an incessant fight;/But Heaven, 'tis said, defends the right.

"And I think he ought to be ashamed of himself;/For I consider he has acted the part of a silly elf,/By thinking to conquer the armies of the Lord/With his foolish and benighted rebel horde.

Now that's what I call a clash of civilizations.

Desperate Dan is a British comic book icon. Or was.

The Scotsman has more:

"FOR decades, he gave not a jot for political correctness or cholesterol levels by encouraging his horse with jaggy spurs, six-gun at the ready and consuming live cow pies. Alas, the good times are over for Desperate Dan. The children’s favourite is the latest recipient of a makeover for more politically correct times. Dan is retaining his starring role in the Dandy, as he has since 1937, but the "new" DD is part of the legendary comic’s first revamp in nearly 70 years by its publishers, DC Thomson. Dundee’s most famous cowboy will even be required to lose weight to reinforce the fashionable healthy-eating message. Gone too is the pistol, which was said to promote gun culture. It used to be seen poking out of the top of Dan’s holster but has now disappeared - although the holster remains. Also axed are the spurs and Dan’s dramatic method of preparing his dinner by tearing cows apart, both of which are regarded as too overtly cruel to animals. The comic has been "reinvented", in order to capture a more politically-correct generation."

Sigh.

Via Harry's Place.

Dear Dad: 1. Not much to report on here in Najaf. Its been quite but we have heard about things being hot in other parts of Iraq so we are still being vigilant. Just recently the Mosques here in Najaf have re-opened and people are returning to them for prayer for the first time in almost a year. When the militia came into the city they took over the Mosques and used them as hideouts, even though it's against their own religious beliefs to use a holy site in such a way, but they did so because they knew that we wouldn't bomb there. The people kept asking us to just go in and get them, but we didn't want to destroy their Mosque, and some of my friends died as a result of sniper fire from inside, but we know it was the right thing to do.

As we were driving through the city on a security patrol the other day we drove by the newly re-opened Mosque. As we drove by many people came out and waved at us and some parents even held up their children and said "thank you America." I remember thinking that how lucky I was to be able to be from a country where I don't have to worry about someone using my church as a battle position, or that someone might shoot me and my family for trying to go to church. Some times I forget how lucky I am and I can't ever believe that I thought of going to church as being a "chore" We should feel blessed to be able to go in and pray as we choose. And I thank God every day that you and my family are safe and sound in the U.S. I love you guys so much that I would gladly lay down my life so that you never loose a single freedom that you enjoy today. And if anything should happen to me, don't worry there are a lot of guys like me out there who will never let that happen.

Lately we have been doing public affairs stuff, going around to different schools and seeing what kinds of stuff they need to be fixed. Things like desks and chalkboards and stuff. The hard part is dealing with all the little kids that come out to see us and they all think that we are going to be giving away food and candy. And it's not like it's just a couple of kids, we get mobbed by like a hundred kids. Instead of more candy or chocolate or stuff me , if you could send some basic school supply stuff to me we can get it right to the school kids. Things like pens, pencils, protractors, rulers, etc and we will get it out. I will also get some pictures of the kids for you that I will send. Oh, and don't forget those little hand held pencil sharpeners. Apparently they need some of those too......
Love,
David Jr

Okay, please don't send me anymore emails making this point (I don't mean to be rude, it's just that constutional questions elicit scads of redundant emails):

Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution requires that "[t]he United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government. . . ." http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articleiv.html

Your correspondent is right that the word "vote" does not appear in the constitution, but you can't have a a "republican form of government" without some kind of voting.

This point comes up a bunch too:

The SCOTUS cases dealing with voting rights are "fundamental rights--equal protection" cases, not substantive due process. Basically, this means that if a state chooses to allow citizens the privilege of voting, it must offer that privilege on an equal basis--can't discriminate against suspect classes without compelling government interest and narrowly tailored means, etc. A state could, ostensibly, deny the voting privilege to all citizens equally. Which would be stupid.

Folks - I'm getting a lot of email about whether or not there's a constitutional right to vote.

For example, "Your reader is wrong; the right to vote is NOT in the constitution. Only protection against having states limit your right to vote based on certain criteria. But the actual right to vote is established by the states themselves, since the states are the ones electing the president."

I understand the point. But the Supreme Court, I think does recognize a constitutional right to vote. So while it may not be in the Constitution it does exist. But, my larger point is, I really, really don't want to have a debate dripping with Marbury V. Madison etc on the question. Still, I figured I had to at least get the idea out there. If Ramesh wants to settle the issue fine. But otherwise let's just let this tangent sit where it is until another day.

My correspondent dismisses the notion of screening voters by simply saying it's in the Constitution that stupid people can vote. I don't dispute that, I simply don't accept that as the end of the argument. The Constitution certainly recognizes the right of the States and the Federal Government to set standards of one kind or another for voters. Through the amendment process and case law those standards have been made more and more universal. I see nothing wrong in principle with constructing some kind of criteria which filters out some voters. All of the valid objections to this suggestion are practical ones, which is not to say they aren't persuasive. How do you set up such a system? It would have to be race neutral, for example, not only in intent but in effect or it would never win legal or public approval. But in the abstract I have no problem whatsoever with a standard that made it more difficult for people to vote if the result of that difficulty was a more informed and serious electorate. But I'm a broken record on this.

From a reader who often sends in constructive criticism:

Subject: Terrific, terrific column!

(But you're wrong.)

The right to vote is in the constitution. Stupid people have as much right to vote as the Jonah Goldbergs of the world. That's a fact. Are you saying it should not be so?

What is your beef with a stupid majority that passes stupid laws or elects leaders based on skin tone, hairstyle or a previous career as a movie action hero?

Does not the stupid majority have the right to dictate public policy within the constitutional boundaries set by the framers?

What is your beef with that, other than "I don't like the result"? Is your complaint that stupid electorates will screw up your country? That's how liberals feel about NASCAR dads! (By the way, NASCAR stands for "Nearly All Smoke Cigarettes And Reek.")

What's your principle here? I LOVE it when you philosophize!

ME: My principle is pretty obvious, I think, and actually runs through dozens of my columns. Democracy in and of itself is morally neutral and can just as easily be evil as good. A mob is democratic when it lynches a man for no good reason. A country is democratic when it elects a dictator. If slavery were put up for a vote in many Southern states in the 1850s it would have passed even if blacks were allowed to vote. Surely we would think a politician who told his constituents they were wrong would be a hero among historians today.

The point of this column was pretty obvious, too, I thought. It was also bipartisan. I don't have any problem with liberal politicians saying the American people are wrong for believing the estate tax should be repealed or anything else conservatives believe in. My beef is with elected leaders and activists who think that simply because the American people at any given moment "think" something sounds good it must therefore be good. Democracy must be about argument, persuasion and education. There's simply no way to do that if the starting position of "the people" -- as gleaned by telemarketers -- is beyond criticism for the very people explicitly charged with conducting those arguments.

Jesse Jackson has signed up as an advisor to Kerry. And not a moment too soon. After all, the one thing the Kerry campaign has really lacked all this time is enough egomaniacal consultants.

This guy no like me:

Good Day to you sir, Yes, I heartily believe you are the typical, talking-out-the-side-of-your-neck neo-con that has brought this country to the sorry state that we are now in. I took greatest exception at your assertion, 'blacks should be worried that so many blacks are felons.' Spoken like someone with no appreciation for historical context of the history of blacks in America. Later, when you lump fans of Margaret Cho in with pedophiles I began to wonder what the criteria was for the position you hold at the National Review. It can't be too high, I reckoned because you don't seem to play, intellectually, with a full deck. You can only get better,

[Name withheld]

A nice note from a reader:

Jonah, we don’t always see eye to eye on things. I am a liberal (still don’t see that as a bad thing, and I don’t think conservatives are bad either) but I think this time you have nailed the Jello to the wall. I have been a college professor for over 10 years, teaching Political Science and Sociology. The greatest frustration in my life has been the incredible numbers of my students who basically don’t know anything. It becomes even worse when a student wants to know what the answers to the test are, but doesn’t really give a hoot about why they need to know this stuff. (The Constitution is details, boring and unimportant to most of them). I finally refused to teach International Relations at the last college I taught at, because not only did the students not know the issues, they couldn’t find these places on a map.

Appreciate the article, I agree that an informed and educated electorate is vital to democracy – which is why we haven’t had much lately.

Peace
[Name withheld]

A reader makes a good point about that Times story I posted (7:54AM):

My favorite part of that NYT story is the caveat “Experts caution that the race is highly fluid”. For months, whenever one of the “events” which was supposed to boost Kerry’s campaign failed to increase his support (naming Fallout Boy (aka Edwards) his VP, the Dem convention, this or that “big important policy speech”) the explanaiton from the ubiquitous experts was that the race was stagnant because the elctorate was stagnant and would not be persuaded, we are a 50-50 nation, there really aren’t that many swing voters available to be moved etc…, in other words, the race was anything but fluid. Now that Bush has opened up a solid lead, we are supposed ot believe that is because the electorate is “highly fluid”. You don’t think they are influenced by who needs to believe the race is fluid, do you?

Rich - I agree that Bush's debating skills are being wildly over-spun. But there's something else that bothers me. Maybe it's because I've been listening to so much NPR lately, but I thought the liberal anti-Bush, pro-Kerry spin went something like this. Bush is a moron. He talks stupid. He's uncurious, unintellectual, unknowledgable. Outfits like Slate have devoted a lot of time and energy cataloging "Bushisms" on the outright assertion that Bush's poor speaking skills reflect something of profound and enduring importance. These assertions and assumptions have soaked into the grain of elite liberal writing and thinking on both sides of the Atlantic. One cannot read Maureen Dowd or listen to Michael Moore, nevermind the lefty blogs, without hearing snotty allusions to them.

Meanwhile, with less passion perhaps, we've been told for more than a year that John Kerry is everything Bush is not: subtle, intellectual, nuanced, knowledgeable, curious, cultured etc etc.

And yet, these same people keep saying that Bush is the better debater. Okay, now, here are the problems. First of all, these people could simply be lying in order to help their candidate. That would make them liars. That's simple enough.

Or, second, they might not be lying. But if they're not. What the hell does it say about the importance of all these faults Bush has and all these attributes Kerry has, if the alleged dolt is the odds-on favorite to beat the cultured polymath? You get me? If Bush is the better debater -- despite Kerry's training as a star debater in the Ivy Legue -- then why have you wasted so much of our time with all this yammering about the significance of Bushisms?

On how to debate Bush. Quickly scanning the piece, I see nothing about how Kerry should walk up to Bush and get all up in his grill like they're going to fight.

Which reminds me. Here's a flashback to the piece I wrote fantasizing about a Bush-Gore donnybrook.

"Authorities in Kyrgyzstan say they have arrested two men who were trying to sell a large quantity of plutonium on the black market. "

Just another reminder that the administration needs to concentrate on the effort to retrieve or otherwise police the supply of nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union.

One more for the how liberals see themselves file. What I love about these explanations (We good. They bad. They simple. We complex.) is that they are so dualistic and simplistic in their us-versus-them-ness at the same time they righteously denounce that kind of thinking. From the novelist Roland Merullo in today's Boston Globe:

At their essence, conservatives are on guard, bristling, armed with a righteous anger, prone to mockery of their enemies, sure of themselves, unwilling to criticize America, especially by comparing it to anyplace else. The attacks of Sept. 11 only confirmed their world view: We are constantly at risk.

Liberals are mannered, sensitive, armed with intellectual cynicism, self-critical, eager to learn from other cultures, wanting there to be no pain in the world. The attacks made them sad and angry, too, but their reflex was more pensive than vengeful.

If I were John Belushi, I'd smash this guy's guitar against the wall.

seem unusually grumpy today, it might be because of this lede from The Times:

ASHINGTON, Sept. 28 -Days before the presidential debates begin, President Bush appears to be gaining in several swing states he lost in 2000.

Experts caution that the race is highly fluid, but Mr. Bush, for now at least, is surging ahead in several crucial states. Polls show Mr. Bush making headway in Iowa and Wisconsin, both of which he lost last time. He was also building leads in Ohio and West Virginia, states he won in 2000.

All four states have been hotly contested this year. And Senator John Kerry seems to have ceded Missouri to Mr. Bush.

The shocker in the last week was New Jersey, where three polls showed Mr. Bush pulling even with Mr. Kerry. The state, never on the battleground list, has voted Democratic since 1988 and comes with a sizable chunk of electoral votes, 15. Mr. Bush's strength there was a source of concern to Democrats....

From a reader:

Larry Lindsey (whose name Babs misspells) has become an icon of the
antiBush left, fired for telling the truth. He would be a better example
if he believed this too. Larry is a huge Bush supporter to this day, who
writes op-eds in support of the President. Plus, oddly enough, Larry does
not express the belief that he was fired. Larry intended to stay for
around 2 years, at the pleasure of the President, and left in December
2002. While O'Neill got in his car and drove off to Pittsburgh, Larry
remained in the White House until his successor arrived, and worked with
him for a few weeks to help get him started.

Karl Rove and Don Evans "roasted" Larry at the party celebrating his
departure. Senior Bush staffers (campaign and appointees) attended his
recent 50th birthday party.

Nurse Bloomberg: "As I watched international basketball, I thought of aging high-school gyms in Manhattan and Queens that would be upgraded into Olympic practice facilities. As I toured the cycling center, I thought of the Bronx, where we would build a cycling and athletic center on the Harlem River, strengthening our efforts to revitalize the neighborhood around Yankee Stadium."

As I read that, I thought of taxes soaring.

She is not a very bright woman. Oh, I don't say this because what she wrote is so blazingly stoopid so as to be beyond the pale. Though it is very dumb, but conventionally so. I say it because she's a multi-millionaire and she has the resources available to sound pretty smart by having ghost writers, assistants or, for that matter, a Guatamalan guest worker from her garden do her writing for her. And yet she comes up with this nonsense nonetheless:

If you cross this administration you get your head handed to you. If you open your mouth and tell the truth like former White House Economic Advisor Lawrence Lindsay did when he told the Administration that the Iraqi war was going to cost between $100-$200 billion dollars, you get fired. If you disagree with the President, like Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill did one too many times regarding the President's policy on tax cuts, you get canned. If you claim that the Administration is misrepresenting the facts and misleading the public, like Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson did, your wife's career gets ruined when she gets outed as a CIA operative in the national media. If you tell the administration that several thousand more servicemen and women are needed in Iraq, like General Shinseki did, you get publicly scolded as being incorrect. And, if you choose to air a story about George Bush's military service, or lack thereof, like CBS did last week, you and your award winning news anchor, get investigated by the FCC.

So it's no wonder that the press has taken a backseat to reporting the misdeeds of this administration. It's not surprising that the press failed to ask the hard questions leading up to the war in Iraq, when a more informed public still had time to speak up. Never mind that CBS's story included substantive and uncontested evidence that Bush didn't show up for duty when he was supposed to, that he skipped a required physical that grounded him from flying, and that he mysteriously received an honorable discharge. Yes...the documents CBS presented could not be confirmed for their authenticity, but these details of Bush's military record have been out for public consumption for years. Why is the media not discussing the facts behind the story instead of just focusing on CBS? For example, Killian's secretary said those memos accurately reflected the Colonel's feelings. Ben Barnes, former lieutenant governor of Texas, admitted that he pulled strings to get Bush into the National Air Guard. And Robert Mintz, retired National Guardsman who served in Bush's unit in 1972, doesn't remember seeing him there. And in contrast to Senator John Kerry, who said "send me" when given the option to go to Vietnam, according to the LA Times, when asked the same question, Bush checked the box stating "do not volunteer for overseas." The media's attention is diverted from the real story because we now live in a time where the fear of revenge by this administration sends a chill through the corporations that control our media and overwhelms the press' responsibility to investigate, educate and hold our leaders accountable.

Okay just to be clear: the people she mentions before Dan Rather, Joe Wilson and Gen Shinseki were political appointees of the White House. So when she writes "If you cross this administration you get your head handed to you" her examples are from a very select group of people. Al Franken, Michael Moore and countless others have gotten very rich by saying the very same things that Lawrence Lindsay and Paul O'Neill did. So her opening statement would be a bit more accurate if it was "If you are serving at the pleasure of the president and you cross them you will have your head handed to you." Of course, her examples don't back that up either because Lindsay and O'Neill were canned for lots of other reasons besides their candor.

As for Joe Wilson, well, a smarter liberal would be close to mortified to trot him out considering the laughingstock the 9/11 Commission report made of him.

And as for General Shinseki, an honorable man to be sure, is it really such a horrible offense to "scold" a general for being "incorrect"? Does Babs now subscribe to the school which says the civilian leadership of this country cannot declare a general incorrect without being authoritarian in some way?

And as for Dan Rather, his questionable "choice" was not to investigate Bush's record so much as his decision to drag CBS through the gutter by rushing to air documents his own experts warned him were probably fake. Numerous news organizations have raised the same exact issues as the CBS story over the last four years. None of them have been investigated by the FCC because they didn't use forged documents which have apparent -- though not proven -- ties to the Democratic presidential nominee's campaign. The reason the press isn't discussing these issues as much as Babs would like is precisely the reason she's making a fool of herself: they've discussed them endlessly already -- and never paid a price for it. Meanwhile, Dan's Nixonian self-immolation is news.

And, again: most people who "cross" this administration go about their lives doing just fine. I would be much more persuaded if Babs had cited a cab driver or one of her aroma therapists who paid a price -- any price -- for crossing the admistration, or is she simply made an intelligent argument. But that would take more resources than even she has at her disposal.

An astounding number of people feel very strongly about the Great Mistake of turning our backs on the pneumatic tubes. It's nice to know I am not alone.

PS "Tube" is an inherently funny word. Used as an adjective it makes almost any noun sound funny.

Rick - I saw this item in the Kerry Spot (which was borrowed from the Hotline):

James Rappaport, who challenged Kerry in MA SEN: "He didn't attack me for my positions as anti-tax and pro-growth and pro-growth. He attacked me primarily personally." More Rappaport: "At one point he called me a chicken hawk because I was strong on defense but hadn't served in Vietnam. He forgot that I was sixteen when the war ended." ("Nightline," ABC, 9/27).

Me: So here's the question. I know that candidates didn't personally brag about their war records in the past because A) it was -- and is -- unseemly and B) until recently almost everyone served, so it was largely taken as a given that you did your duty. But whenever anyone makes these points, they do it in the context of saying that Kerry brags about his record more than any presidential candidate of recent years. That begs the question, Was there ever a presidential candidate who personally -- not through surrogates -- boasted about his war record more than John Kerry? The only possible contender in the 20th century I can think of would be TR, but from the biographies I read I don't recall that really being the case. Yeah, he loved war but I don't remember him belittling others who couldn't stand up to his personal record. As for the 19th century, I just don't know enough. Andrew Jackson?

From a reader:

Jonah, A recent article in Time Out NY concerning political websites and media outlets fails to include the National Review. This is unfortunate b/c they go to great pains to mention nearly every other liberal site (the Nation, Slate etc.). Maybe a letter to the editor on the part of NR would be a good idea. "The Corner", in particular, deserves a good plug. I would do it myself, but as a musician, I learned long ago never to reveal your political leanings to NYC's weeklies if you want your band listed and/or reviewed.

[Name withheld]

Is Sid Blumenthal weeping now that Tony Blair has swept all that Third Way rubbish into the dustbin of history. I know this is a bigger deal than what it says about Blumenthal, but that doesn't make that angle any less fun. From Blair's speech to the Labor Party conference:

When I hear people say: "I want the old Tony Blair back, the one who cares", I tell you something.

I don't think as a human being, as a family man, I've changed at all.

But I have changed as a leader.

I have come to realise that caring in politics isn't really about "caring".

It's about doing what you think is right and sticking to it.

So I do not minimise whatever differences some of you have with me over Iraq and the only healing can come from understanding that the decision, whether agreed with or not, was taken because I believe, genuinely, Britain's future security depends on it.

There has been no third way, this time.

Psychic dogs predict Bush victory. Cats, meanwhile, remain silent biding their time to support whoever comes out on top.

You know the old joke, How do you tell who the winner of an election is? He's the one a cat is rubbing up against.

"Change Montana, to Minnesota. I really do know where Fort Snelling is. My fingers don't, however.

"I also send along another comment regarding mil spending.

"I think if you take a look at where procurement dollars go, excepting Texas and Florida, those dollars go to Blue and Light Blue states.

"But the big 'suck' in the military budget is the personnel accounts (hence the resistance to expanding the force) and most of the people are in the Red and
Light Red states, including the retirees.

"I might be wrong on that, but the last time I had occasion to look at procurement spending patterns, the Blue states had the lion's share of that pie.

"Thanks for the chance to correct the error before my friends start to spank me about it. I run with a tough crowd in that regard. Something about that soldier
thing."

From an editorial in the Guardian calling for a ban on smoking in public places in the UK. It's the usual nonsense, of course, a blend of bullying, bluster and baloney, but this sentence rather catches the eye:

"No one is asking the health secretary to ban smoking in the home, even though surveys suggest that 3,600 non-smokers are killed every year by inhaling the smoke of someone else at home."

Not yet, they are not.

From a reader:

Jonah,

Your post on the Kerry campaign making up words--"misleadments"--instantly
made me think of the silly Miller Brewing Company "President of Beer" ads
in which Miller's candidate for the post of President of Beers yells at a
debate moderator, "You're turning this debate into a travesty. And a sham.
And a mockery. It's a traveshamockery!"

Has a campaign hit rock bottom when it's become an unintended parody of a
television beer ad that was itself only a semi-humorous parody of a real
campaign?

Jeff

A reader comments:

Hey Jonah....

It's a wonderful little puff-piece about how effective John Kerry is at
using humor to soften his image.

And look at one of the examples they provide:

"Kerry said the occupation of Iraq is riddled with problems, "yet today,
President Bush tells us that he would do everything all over again, the
same way." Kerry paused for affect before asking sarcastically, "How can
he possibly be serious?"

Man, my sides are aching. You better be careful, John may take over the
G-file if he's looking for work after the election.

AP says Kerry's learning to use the hip phrases of the younger generation like -- I kid you not -- "blah, blah, blah."

Also, the author says the US Senate is the "country's oldest deliberative body." That simply can't be true. I googled "oldest deliberative body" and the first thing that came up was a press release saying the oldest deliberative body in the Western Hemisphere is Charo. I'm kidding, it says it is the Virginia General Assembly, which would make sense.

Some groups traditionally supportive of leftist London mayor Livingstone are at last joining in attempts to call Red Ken (endorsed for re-election, we should remember, by the Economist) on his flirtation with unsavory cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

"We feel that we deserve a serious conversation with you about this matter, and a serious response to our concerns before you welcome a man who endorses and provides theological justification for suicide bombings of innocent civilians, the execution of homosexuals under Islamic rule and domestic violence against women under certain circumstances."

A "serious conversation" seems long overdue.

Jonah's military guy weighs in: "The reasons are pretty simple, really. Prior to WWI, we didn't need large installations. You could train the infantry, cavalry, and artillery on the parade grounds.

"The expansion of the battlefield caused by machineguns, small bore smokeless powder rifles and indirect fire artillery changed tactics to more dispersed formations covering far greater distances, and the maneuver and control of forces shifted dramatically.

"Most of the big posts in the South we established in WWI, with some in WWII, or which were reopened in WWII.

"The South was chosen for many reasons, most of them economic. It was less densely settled, it was therefore cheaper to acquire the land, and you had
larger tracts of land that were clear of significant urban areas. There was a good mix of hilly, forested and clear land, as well, with good rivers etc. Labor
in the areas was cheap, building supplies plentiful, and the climate more benign, a consideration when trying to get things established. Try expanding Fort
Stewart Georgia in January 1942, vs. Fort Snelling, Montana in January 1942, for example.

"The southern installations were also generally closer to the ports that were going to be used to ship the troops overseas, and were adequately served with rail service to get the heavy gear the units would need to train to those locations.

"And when you wanted to conduct large-scale maneuvers, like the Louisiana Manuevers (which took place in several states) the overall dislocation and
inconvenience to locals and disruption of commerce was less in the southern states.

"Those same reasons still militate for keeping the bases we have there. You could make arguments about closing Fort Riley and Fort Carson, because they are in the interior, etc, but the reality is we don't dare give up large maneuver spaces anymore - because absent a war the scale of WWII, we're never going to be able to get parcels of land that size again.

"What was sufficient dirt to train an infantry division in WWII is barely large enough for a modern mech battalion."

From a reader:

Jonah,

The tube system we have can send tubes to any floor on the hospital, and it makes a very cool “whoosh” when it does it.

To paraphrase Seinfeld – we have pneumatic tubes, they are real, and they are spectacular.

David

Tacoma, WA

go now...

An email: "The answer to the question in the Corner is cultural. The places most accepting of military bases are culturally conservative. NYC always had protestors and mouthy local politicians causing trouble for the SI naval base. That doesn't happen at Quantico (or most of red upstate NY either). Moreover, military bases require a lot of land. The urban centers that make up the strength of the blue states don't have it to spare and its all expensive. Finally, blues states are older on average than red states. Old people are wealthier than younger ones. That's another reason for the disparity.

"Did you know that the 16th amendment (income taxes) was designed to be a millionaires' tax and at the time more than 90% of all millionaires lived in NY. It was explicitly thought that the wealth of NY would be tapped for the rest of the country. And that is exactly what is occurring."

It turns out that news consumers are dropping Dan Rather like a bag of dirt, at least for now. If this continues it's hard to see how Rather can stay on for the duration. However, if CBS dumps him because of bad ratings, they shouldn't be able to get away with the spin that they dropped him because of their high standards. I suppose they have one last chance to do that when the internal investigation's findings come out. But if they don't can him then but do let him go only when it's clear his ratings won't improve, then they won't be acting out of integrity and they shouldn't claim other wise.

Also, if that's how it plays out, the rest of the media -- particularly the Krugman-Brock crowd -- shouldn't be allowed to say that Rather was a martyr to good journalism who was sacrificed to the right wing hordes. Of course, they'll say exactly that. But what're ya gonna do?

From a reader:

Your high Google ranking is presumably because, to everyone else, that document is known as the "speech to the *electors* of Bristol." If you search on Burke "elders of Bristol" (in quotes), your G-File is one of only two results at all.

And double-d'oh, from another reader:

Dear Jonah: Do you mean Burke's speech to the ELECTORS of Bristol? Or is there a speech to the elders of Bristol?

If there is, you might not want to tell me, because I'd have to revise my dissertation, which I REALLY wouldn't like to do...

If there is not, that might be the reason that your name comes up when you search "elders of Bristol." What else comes up?

Show you how little editing there was in the early days of NRO.

I was just listening to an NPR broadcast (again, in the car) about the hostilities in Kashmir. It was a perfectly fine report but, as my wife will tell you, I have a bad habit of nickel-and-diming the writing in news broadcasts particularly about completely useless or wrong bits of information the reporter throws in. For example, in the NPR piece this morning the reporter briefly profiled a Pakistani widow she described as "a young woman in her thirties with dark hair." Um, forgive me, but who among the residents of the Kashmir region doesn't have dark hair? Isn't this one of the least telling details possible? Oh and please spare me the anecdotes about the rare blond in Pakistan. The point is that as far as details go this is akin to saying a "young woman in her thirties with thumbs."

I thought the "W is for Wrong" thing was lame. But this from yesterday was lameness wrapped in dorkiness swaddled in wimpiness. Yesterday, after whining that Bush's negative ads were getting so mean that the American people were getting scared from all the nastiness he declared:

"I'm calling them 'misleadisments,'. It's all scare tactics because (Bush) has no record to run on."

At least when Bush butchers a word he does it by accident. Kerry probably sat down and hammered this out with aides. I wonder why they didn't go with distortials or miscommercials.

I also wonder why I could only find this tidbit in foreign newspapers.

When I google "Burke, Letter to Elders of Bristol" the first thing that comes up is the third G-File I ever wrote.

Allawi’s speech was articulate, impressive and honest and most Iraqis I talked to lately share the same opinion with me, but much more impressive was the reaction of all members of the congress who were there. That was the American people there, the whole American nation not just republicans, standing and cheering not Allawi but what he stood for; IRAQ. They were showing support and friendship to Iraq not Allawi and that was a rare moment in history where the two nations Iraq and America stood as equal friends, no actually it was more like family as one American friend described. Insulting Allawi and Bush and the whole speech, speaking so harshly of that unique moment is an insult not to Bush or Allawi but to both the Iraqi and American nations, and yes that goes for everyone did that.

....you and I should thank God and America 9 million times and we would still be in debt. Just think whether you could’ve happened to you had you posted similar thoughts about any Iraq politician before the war. Oh but you weren’t posting before the war, nor did any other Iraqi, and I wonder why!

I’ll never stop telling what I believe is the truth and won’t stop fighting for that regardless of all the silly accusations and even threats sometimes. I’m not pro-Bush and I’m not pro-Allawi but I stand firmly with the new Iraq and with America. Iraq has run out of “historical leaders” and I guess there must be some people who still miss that time but they shouldn’t feel that bitter, as one can always visit one of our brother Arab and Muslim nations to remember the “good old days” that we, the vast majority of Iraqis are ready to give our lives to make sure they won’t be repeated.

So many emails like this one:

Jonah,

It appears they put a Kerry operative in the picture with him, rather than a local fan. The man appears to be drinking something clear, from a straw, with a lemon. No true football fan would be drinking a Grey Goose and tonic watching football, nor would there be an obviously recovering alcoholic sitting in a bar watching football drinking a water.

The point of this picture is that John Kerry is a "let's grab a brewski and watch the Packers game" kind of guy. Well, first of all -- as we can see from this montage of similar pics -- Kerry only sips his beer, while Dan DiMaggio the guy he's sitting next to drains his drink (perhaps because he wants to get away as quick as possible). Behind Kerry there are a bunch of suits standing and watching Kerry, seemingly confident this won't take so long as to make sitting down necessary. If you look very, very closely you can read on one aide's lips, "Todd, excellent job finding an authentic working class bar." The other aide can be seen saying, "Thanks Worthington. I googled it. And don't worry, I also put that little yellow thing on his wrist and wrote 'Lambeau field' over and over on it so he won't forget."

Or something like that.

From a piece in today’s New York Times:

“Voting has always required a leap of faith - one that, after the 2000 election debacle, and in a culture grown hip to the fallibility of technology, is proving harder to make.”

And paperless e-voting will only make that worse.

“TOKYO, Sept. 25 - With North Korea's nuclear threat flaring up this week, Senator John Kerry vowed in Philadelphia on Friday to get the talks about the country's weapons program "back on track" if elected president.”

Any more detail, Senator?

Here, slightly belatedly, is an interview with Christopher Hitchens. Well worth reading in full, but this stands out:

"The United States was attacked by theocratic fascists who represents all the most reactionary elements on earth. They stand for liquidating everything the left has fought for: women's rights, democracy? And how did much of the left respond? By affecting a kind of neutrality between America and the theocratic fascists." He cites the cover of one of Tariq Ali's books as the perfect example. It shows Bush and Bin Laden morphed into one on its cover. "It's explicitly saying they are equally bad. However bad the American Empire has been, it is not as bad as this. It is not the Taliban, and anybody - any movement - that cannot see the difference has lost all moral bearings….The world these [al-Quadea and Taliban] fascists want to create is one of constant submission and servility. The individual only has value to them if they enter into a life of constant reaffirmation and prayer. It is pure totalitarianism, and one of the ugliest totalitarianisms we've seen. It's the irrational combined with the idea of a completely closed society. To stand equidistant between that and a war to remove it is?" He shakes his head.”

Meanwhile in the London Spectator Frank Johnson, no supporter of the war of the Iraq, looks at the question as to why so many on the British left are prepared to make some sort of common cause with hardline Islam. The whole article is well worth noting, this in particular:

“We must always remember the Western radical intellectual’s wish to identify with the world’s rising and most frightening power. Coleridge spoke of Napoleon’s British admirers possessing a ‘prostration of the soul’. But British Napoleonists differed from British Stalinists, and were similar to today’s Muslamists in one respect. They did not want the foreign power to rule Britain. Byron said that Napoleon was his hero ‘on the Continent; I don’t want him here’. Those feminist columnists and academics — proclaiming Islam’s great past — do not want to have to go veiled in their native Camden Town or Islington. Their game is to use Islam to demoralise Western bourgeois life.”

Interesting.

I just caught the last 30 minutes of the 1984 foreign policy debate between Pres. Reagan and Walter Mondale (10/21/84) on C-SPAN . The substance was just as I remembered it but the tone: what a difference from today! It was all so . . . adult. Mondale came across as a solid citizen who disagreed with the president on the issues of the day in an agreeable fashion. The reporters were respectful to all parties; the crowd behaved. It is evident to me that the legacy of Clinton's "war room" approach to presidential campaigning -- intensely negative and relentlessly personal -- remains with us today.

Related to our North Korean problem, I noted the following in the Sunday [San Francisco] Chronicle, embedded in its largely SDI-friendly article called "Missile Defense Back on Radar:"

"Presidential candidate John Kerry has said he would cut the program's funding if elected and use the cash to hire more troops."

Let me get this straight: SDI is for defense; troops are, mainly, for offense. So Kerry wants to take money from defense and give it to offense? While the anti-Star Wars part probably appeals to the folks who've been ridiculing it for the past two decades, it seems, overall, like an odd stance to take for someone who is putatively a peacenik.

The Germans, it seems, can dish it out, but not take it.

“HEIDELBERG, Germany — The German military has pulled out of the U.S. Army’s annual Land Combat Expo, protesting an opinion piece written by a controversial retired U.S. officer slated to be a guest speaker at next week’s event.”

The ‘controversial retired US officer’? None other than Ralph Peters. I’m not always a fan of his viewpoints, and the Germans are quite entitled to do this (this isn’t ‘censorship’ ) but it does seem like an overreaction.

The ‘censorship’ claim aside, it’s difficult not to agree with the gist of Peters’ response:

Called for comment at home in northern Virginia, Peters said, “It’s perfectly all right for the Germans to call President Bush a Nazi, it’s perfectly all right for the Germans to criticize everything about America, to lionize Michael Moore and treat our soldiers as second-class human beings … but they want to try and censor the American media.”

Peters said the German decision was disappointing but not surprising.

“I think the fact that they’re pulling out is the best imaginable indicator of how weak our alliance is, how meaningless Germany’s contribution is,” said Peters. “If they pull out because they can’t stand one 800-word opinion piece in an American newspaper, how could we possibly expect them to stand by us in a violent crisis?”

Reading this, it's difficult not to think that at least a partial explanation of the current transatlantic tensions is that, in some ways for the first time, Americans are arguing back against constant European criticism. Thanks in part to the Internet, more and more Europeans are becoming uncomfortably aware of that fact - and it's not something they like.

Via Davids Medienkritik

Confronted with the murder of 50,000 in Sudan, we eschewed all that nasty old unilateralism, all that hegemonic, imperialist, go-it-alone, neocon, empire, coalition-of-the-coerced stuff. Our response to this crisis would be so exquisitely multilateral, meticulously consultative, collegially cooperative and ally-friendly that it would make John Kerry swoon and a million editorialists nod in sage approval.

And so we Americans mustered our outrage at the massacres in Darfur and went to the United Nations. And calls were issued and exhortations were made and platitudes spread like béarnaise. The great hum of diplomacy signaled that the global community was whirring into action.

Meanwhile helicopter gunships were strafing children in Darfur.

This is truly remarkable, and it demonstrates once again that the British census authorities were correct to ‘recognize’ the Jedi as, um, a legitimate religion.

Hat tip Matt Yglesias. If the National Cathedral can link to Darth Vader, the Corner can link to Matt.

From the Daily Telegraph:

“Syria's President Bashir al-Asad is in secret negotiations with Iran to secure a safe haven for a group of Iraqi nuclear scientists who were sent to Damascus before last year's war to overthrow Saddam Hussein.”

If (the usual caveat) this story proves to be accurate, it raises some interesting questions, both with regards to what Iraq was up to then, and what Iran is up to now.

Well, that’s two strikes, Kathryn.

On the other hand, Bush, apparently, has these.

The draft EU ‘constitution’ is going to be subjected to a test by referendum in a number of EU states. That’s good. But if the people vote no, will it make any difference? Writing in the Sunday Telegraph euro-MP Daniel Hannan isn’t so sure:

“No one wants to jinx things by using the phrase "no vote". Instead, Eurocrats talk about "irregularities" or "delays in ratification". But the message is clear: we intend to push ahead regardless. A report before the European Parliament's Home Affairs Committee is typical - not only in its content but also, I'm afraid, in its prose style: "Even if the constitution has not yet been ratified, or even signed, it must certainly inspire, to a large extent, the future multiannual guidelines."

Hannan then goes on to make this, crucial, point:

“We often talk about the EU's democratic deficit as if it were a design flaw, an oversight by the founding fathers. In reality, it was their chief purpose. Monnet and Schuman knew that their project would never survive if it were regularly subjected to national electorates. That is why they vested supreme power in a civil service, insulated from public opinion. Their calculation was that, if people were simply presented with a fait accompli, they would go along with it. Their strategy has been stunningly successful. Again and again, Brussels has extended its authority into a new area and then, years later, regularised the situation in a treaty. The Single European Act put a belated stamp on the EU's intrusion into environmental policy. Maastricht formally recognised the common foreign policy, which had been launched unofficially in the mid-1980s. Amsterdam and Nice retrospectively authorised a great deal of harmonisation in the fields of criminal justice and immigration. By the time we see what is being done, it is too late. “

For anyone interested in the evolution of a profoundly corrupt and deeply undemocratic superstate Hannan’s piece is an essential read.

Via the indefatigable bloggers at EU Referendum.

The late but not, unfortunately, unlamented, Che Guevara is, alas, likely to see his iconic status boosted still further by the film version of his Motorcycle Diaries. Not having seen the movie, which, it should be remembered, concerns Guevara’s life before he found a career in mass murder, I have no views on it one way or the other, other than to worry that it may exalt the memory of this repulsive individual still further.

Writing in Slate, Paul Berman reminds us of the true nature of the man that young Che was to become:

“The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system—the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che's imagination. In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …"— and so on. He was killed in Bolivia in 1967, leading a guerrilla movement that had failed to enlist a single Bolivian peasant. And yet he succeeded in inspiring tens of thousands of middle class Latin-Americans to exit the universities and organize guerrilla insurgencies of their own. And these insurgencies likewise accomplished nothing, except to bring about the death of hundreds of thousands, and to set back the cause of Latin-American democracy—a tragedy on the hugest scale.”

Berman concludes his piece by quoting from the jailed Cuban poet Raul Rivero. Here are the last lines:

“Eight policemen/in my house/with a search order,/a clean operation,/ a full victory/for the vanguard of the proletariat/who confiscated my Consul typewriter,/one hundred forty-two blank pages/and a sad and personal heap of papers/—the most perishable of the perishable from this summer.”

Someone should make a movie about him.

Sorry to return to this depressing topic, but the two greatest threats to the US are almost certainly nuclear proliferation and the large amounts of nuclear material still held under worryingly insecure conditions in worryingly insecure countries. Seen in this light, the apparent failure of the administration to make enough use of the Lugar program on ex-Soviet missiles (which I posted about earlier on the Corner) is disturbing, and so too may this be.

To be fair, it may well be that the notion that the US is not talking directly to Dr. Khan is no more than disinformation.

Lets hope so.

These guys will give you a much better picture of events on the ground than what you get from the correspondents. They don't go out only when there are visuals of explosions, but day after day.

Blackfive

Chief Wiggles

Citizen Smash

Greyhawk, at Mudville Gazette.

Sgt Hook

This is just a little taste -- there are a *lot* of others -- but these should give you a flavor of what's out there.

(By the way, the absolute best geostrategic commentary is offered by a fellow in the Philippines who calls himself "Wretchard the Cat." Whoever this gentleman is, he should be writing white papers in one of our better think tanks -- if not the Pentagon.)

As for the Iraqi blogs, the ones that I regularly read are:

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/

http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/

http://iraqataglance.blogspot.com/

As someone who is, with a few limited exceptions, notably the appalling prospect of the Olympics arriving in New York City, almost entirely indifferent to sport, the question as to which candidate likes which way of wasting time on mountain bike, gridiron or so on leaves me cold.

This piece of, um, analysis from today’s Financial Times is too good, however, not to pass on:

“[Kerry’s] worst athletic indulgence may be kite surfing, an extreme form of windsurfing and parasailing invented by the French, whose basic equipment can exceed $1,500.”

Invented by the French? Ah ha.

The FT goes on to note this:

“Mr. Kerry tried to cover this over when asked about his expensive recreational habits. “The guys who do it are all local guys – plumbers, construction workers,” he said, convincing no-one.”

Patronizing? Lui?

Justin Marozzi is a Brit working on the reconstruction effort in Iraq. In the middle of a piece on his life there in the London Spectator of September 18th, 2004 (owing to a technical Catch 22 too tedious to recount I can’t link) he had this to say about the US military’s civil affairs teams.

“They are a terrific bunch of men and women. Reservists drawn from all the professions…they apply themselves with extraordinary courage, professionalism, dedication and courtesy. And they do so to great effect, only their achievements rarely make it into the international press. Schools have been refurbished, football pitches, orphanages and children’s playgrounds constructed, sewage works repaired, district and neighbourhood advisory councils…initiated and funded.”

As it happens, a friend of mine has just shipped out to a town near Baghdad to do just this sort of work. Amongst other things, a recent e-mail from him had this to say:

“The base is fairly large. Took a few mortar rounds today. The reverb and concussions are one heck of a combination: they are unnerving and attractive at the same time.”

That’s another reminder that the stiff upper lip is not confined only to Britons.