When Reagan won big for conservatism in the 1980s, the official line from the media was that he's telegenic, that he's an actor, that he's a smooth talker. But the line about Bush all along has been that he's lousy on TV (the debates), that he's abrasive (the swagger and the bluntness), and doesn't speak well (the gaffes). Now, W. has won big for conservatism. Isn't it time to admit that it's conservatism itself that wins big?

In the military, your boss yells at you when you do this right?

F-16 Accidentally Fires on School Thursday, November 04, 2004

LITTLE EGG HARBOR, N.J. — A National Guard F-16 fighter jet on a nighttime training mission Wednesday fired 25 rounds that tore through a Little Egg Harbor elementary school.

No one was injured.

The military is investigating the incident that damaged Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School shortly after eleven o'clock.

Police were called to the area when a custodian heard what sounded like someone running across the roof of the school.

Police Chief Mark Siino says police officers noticed punctures in the roof. Ceiling tiles had fallen into classrooms and there were scratch marks in the asphalt outside the building.

Folks, Moby's blog is High-larious. I found it because I was reading a "What now?" symposium at Salon. I never wondered why Moby's counsel isn't sought at the highest levels of government, academia and finance before, but I found the answer anyway. An excerpt:

.. some of us might long for a secession wherein certain parts of the country declare their sovereign autonomy, but given our current state of quasi-united states, well, bush won. tonight i realized that although america is possessed of a lot of progressive people, america is essentially a right-wing republican country. we might resist this fact, but it is a fact. it's not a fact in manhattan. it's not a fact in l.a or san francisco. but for 100+ million people it's a fact ... and now we ask ... what now? with another 4 years of a republican president/senate/house, well ... what do they want? the right-wing have re-asserted their dominance. what do they want? i do hope that the democrats in the house and senate do their best to impose sane restrictions upon the more extreme tendencies of the newly empowered right-wing ... the sun will rise tomorrow, and the people who voted for bush will: a) send their sons/daughters off to war in iraq; b) complain about unemployment; c) lament their lack of health care; d) complain about the high price of prescription drugs; e) complain about a low minimum wage; f) complain about high gas prices/heating oil costs; g) and so on; h) and so on ... the people have made their choice. and now, for better or worse, they have to live with their choice ... can someone remind me why secession is not an option at this point? i mean let's be realistic, we live in a divided country. can't we have the breakaway republics of 'north-east-istan' and 'pacific-stan'? wouldn't the red states be happier without us?"

November 3, 2004 Transcript

JORDAN: Senator, you didn't talk about the Judiciary Committee, it is something you are expected to Chair this January. With 3 Supreme Court Justices rumored to retire soon, starting with Rehnquist, how do you see this unfolding in the next couple of months and what part do you intend to play on it?

SPECTER: You know my approach is cautious with respect to the Judiciary Committee. I am in line, Senator Hatch is barred now by term limits and Senate Rules so that I am next in line. There has to be a vote of the Committee and I have already started to talk to some of my fellow committee members. I am respectful of Senate traditions, so I am not designating myself Chairman, I will wait for the Senate procedures to act in do course. You are right on the substance, the Chief Justice is gravely ill. I had known more about that than had appeared in the media. When he said he was going to be back on Monday, it was known inside that he was not going to be back on Monday. The full extent of his full incapacitation is really not known, I believe there will be cause for deliberation by the President. The Constitution has a clause called advise and consent, the advise part is traditionally not paid a whole lot of attention to, I wouldn't quite say ignored, but close to that. My hope that the Senate will be more involved in expressing our views. We start off with the basic fact that the Democrats are have filibustered and expect them to filibuster if the nominees are not within the broad range of acceptability. I think there is a very broad range of Presidential Discretion but there is a range.

ODOM: Is Mr. Bush, he just won the election, even with the popular vote as well. If he wants anti-abortion judges up there, you are caught in the middle of it what are you going to do? The party is going one way and you are saying this.

SPECTER: When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v Wade, I think that is unlikely. And I have said that bluntly during the course of the campaign and before. When the Inquirer endorsed me, they quoted my statement that Roe v Wade was inviolate. And that 1973 decision, which has been in effect now for 33 years, was buttressed by the 1992 decision, written by three Republican justices-O'Conner, Souter, and Kennedy-and nobody can doubt Anthony Kennedy's conservativism or pro-life position, but that's the fabric of the country. Nobody can be confirmed today who didn't agree with Brown v. Board of Education on integration, and I believe that while you traditionally do not ask a nominee how they're going to decide a specific case, there's a doctorate and a fancy label term, stari decisis, precedent which I think protects that issue. That is my view, now, before, and always.

ODOM: You are saying the President should not bother to send somebody up there like that.

SPECTER: Can't hear you

ODOM: You are saying the President should not bother or make the move to send somebody up there who is clearly anti-abortion.

SPECTER: I don't want to prejudge what the President is going to do. But the President is well aware of what happened when a number of his nominees were sent up, were filibustered, and the President has said he is not going to impose a litmus test, he faced that issue squarely in the third debate and I would not expect the President, I would expect the President to be mindful of the considerations that I mentioned.

JORDAN: However, Senator the President has President has sent up, as you know, a number of very very conservative judges socially, you have made a point in this campaign of saying that you have supported all of those ______ at least I the last two years, how is this going to square with what you are saying today about wanting the Republican party to be big tent and moderate.

SPECTER: I have been very careful in what I have said and what I have done. The nominees whom I supported in Committee, I had reservations on. As for judge Pryor, there had been an issue as to whether as Attorney General he had raised money, I said in voting him out of committee, that he did not have my vote on the floor until I satisfied myself about collateral matters. The woman judge out of California, who had dismissed a case on invasion of privacy where the doctor had permitted an insurance adjuster to watch a mammogram, I had a reservation on it, so I wanted to talk to her to see if that was aberrational or whether that really reflected her judgment on each and every one of those cases. This may be more detail than you want, but there was one judge for a district judgeship, Judge Holmes, in Arkansas, who was first in his class at the University of Arkansas, had a PhD from Duke, had a master's degree, was touted by both Democratic Arkansas Senators, was supported by 2 pro-choice women, Senator Landrieu and Senator Lincoln, highly regarded in the Arkansas editorial pages, and for a district court judgeship I thought. He had made two statements, and they were, one was in a religious context that a wife should be subservient to a husband, that was in a religious context. Then he made a statement doubting the potential for impregnation from rape, and made an absurd statement that it would be as rare as snow in Florida in July. That was about a 20 year-old statement and I brought him in and sat down, had a long talk with him and concluded that they were not disqualifiers. He was the only judge whom I voted to confirm on the floor vote where any question has been raised and I think that was the right decision for a district court judgeship, not to make that a disqualifier. There are few if any whose record if you go back over 30 or 40 years, and not find some dumb thing, I don't want you to take a to close a look at my 40 year record.

HIGHSMITH: Talk to us a little bit beyond judgeships, you said again today and last night that your goal now is to moderate the party, bring it to the center.

SPECTER: Correct

[BREAK-Bringing the Country Together Question]

[BREAK-Stem Cell Question]

MACINTOSH: What are the characteristics that you are looking for in any candidate for the high court who might come your way in the next year or two?

SPECTER: Well I would like to see a select someone in the mold of Holmes, Brandeis, Cardozo, or Marshall. With all due respect to the U.S. Supreme Court, we don't have one. And I haven't minced any words about that during the confirmation process.

MACINTOSH: Meaning?

SPECTER: Where I have questioned them all very closely. I had an argument before the Supreme Court of the United States on trying to keep the Navy base, and you should heard what the eight of them had to say to me. They were almost as tough as this gang here this morning.

ODOM: Senator, the judges you mentioned are obviously renown. Are you saying that there are no greatness on there, is that what you're driving at?

SPECTER: Yes. Can you take yes for an answer Vernon? I'm saying that we don't have anybody of the stature of Oliver Wendell Holmes, or Willy Brandeis, or Cardozo, or Marshall. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying that we have a court which they're graduates from the Court of Appeals from the District of Columbia basically, some other Circuit Courts of Appeals. I think that we could use, and I am repeating myself again, a Holmes or a Brandeis.

ODOM: Would you resign to take the appointment? You're the only person I can think of?

SPECTER: I can think of quite a few other people.

JORDAN: Like who?

SPECTER: I think there's some possibility, just a slight possibility, I may not be offered the appointment.

JORDAN: Senator, who do you think would be a good candidate?

SPECTER: For the Supreme Court?

JORDAN: Yes.

SPECTER: I have some ideas but I'm going to withhold my comments. If, as, and when the President asks that question, Lara, I'll have some specific information for him. In the alternative, if you become President, I'll have it for you.

[BREAK-Election 2010 question]

[BREAK-Iraq questions]

Jordan: Do you expect to continue supporting all of President Bush's judicial nominees?

AS: I am hopeful that I'll be able to do that. That obviously depends upon the President's judicial nominees. I'm hopeful that I can support them.

[BREAK-Election question]

[End Press Conference]

Washington, D.C.- Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) made the following comments today on the judicial confirmation process.

"Contrary to press accounts, I did not warn the President about anything and was very respectful of his Constitutional authority on the appointment of federal judges.

"As the record shows, I have supported every one of President Bush’s nominees in the Judiciary Committee and on the Senate floor. I have never and would never apply any litmus test on the abortion issue and, as the record shows, I have voted to confirm Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice O’Connor, and Justice Kennedy and led the fight to confirm Justice Thomas.

"I have already sponsored a protocol calling for a Judiciary Committee hearing within thirty days of a nomination, a vote out of Committee thirty days later, and floor action thirty days after that. I am committed to such prompt action by the Committee on all of President Bush’s nominees.

"In light of the repeated filibusters by the Democrats in the last Senate session, I am concerned about a potential repetition of such filibusters. I expect to work well with President Bush in the judicial confirmation process in the years ahead."

But like many liberals I'm betting on the Armageddon theory of politics. Bush and the GOP majorities in the House and Senate will make things so bad in the next four years that the country will never elect a Republican ever again. So here's hoping things get much, much worse!

Why were the initial exit poll results more Democratic than the actual tabulated vote? No one is sure, though the national sample at midafternoon, which showed Kerry ahead 50 to 49 percent, was 58 percent women. My own suspicion is that some Democrats-at the command level, or somewhere below-had an election-day project of slamming the results. New Hampshire, Minnesota and Pennsylvania initial exit poll results had huge margins for Kerry-much larger percentages than he won in any pre-election poll. If somebody had slipped some Democratic operative the list of exit poll sites-40 to 50 sites in each critical state-he or she could have slipped several hundred operatives into the polling places to take the exit poll ballots and vote for Kerry. The results would have shown Kerry much farther ahead than he actually was and, broadcast through drugdereport.com and other sources, could have heartened Kerry supporters during the afternoon and disheartened Bush supporters. When I was active in Democratic politics, in 1964-80, it would have occurred to us to do no such thing. But Democrats these days are so filled with a sense of grievance and with a feeling of justification for employing any dirty tactics to win, that this is not unthinkable. If people can game the exit polls, there's not much point to having exit polls any more.

DC office number is 202-224-3344 (fax is 202-228-1264)
Nashville office number is 615-352-9411
Majority Leader office number is 202-224-3135

If your a Tennessee resident, call the Nashville office

One of the obvious lessons of the electoral map: George Bush, Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie need to find a savvy, attractive, ruthless politician to fix the Illinois GOP.

Lots of email like this one:

Jonah,

With all due respect to your correspondent - there has been enough silence about Arafat for the last decade or more to suffice, I'd say. The press has treated this moron and major terrorist with a respect and dignity he does not deserve. He has STOLEN from the Palestinians, kept them mired in misery while pointing the finger at Israel and others, rewarded, aided, abetted, planned and implemented terrorist attacks, and called for the second terrorist intifada, among other things.

He is a billionare who encouraged sending Palestinian children to their deaths wearing bomb-vests.

The press is silent and incurious about the diagnosis of his terminal disease, they are incurious about his roots to terrorism and his involvement in the Palestinian quagmire, and will even say kind things about him in his obituary.

Let's just call this man what he is/was a MAJOR friggin' TERRORIST! A POX on the world. The model for corruption and incompetence. He defined bad faith and racism. He was a cynical manipulator and the world is better for his death.

telling the truth about this man does not, in any way, denigrate the Palestinians. If Arafat was, as your correspondent said, "the symbolic figure of Palestinian nationhood for several millions of human beings" then what does this say about those several millions of human beings? The man was a sewer. What kind of symbol is that for a nation?

I'm just asking.

Specter, as presumptive chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested that he would block any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court who opposed abortion rights. Reiterating his position that a woman's right to choose is "inviolate," he said overturning Roe v. Wade today would be akin to trying to reverse Brown v. Board of Education, the court's 1954 landmark desegregation decision.

Barring unforeseen GOP objections, Specter, 74, should assume the committee chairmanship in January. He also sent an unsubtle message to the White House that he expects nominees for the federal bench to be of the highest caliber, and took a critical swipe at the stature of the current court.

From a reader:

Jonah Goldberg

The worse news coming out of the 2004 election for libertarians in New Hampshire is that by all appearances New Hampshire will become nothing more than another Vermont in 20 years. I hope I am wrong but New Hampshire appears to be the fourth or fifth bluest state by county and getting bluer every minute. We are only less blue than MA, HA, VT, and CT.

It appears that West Virginia has joined the rest of the south and New Hampshire has joined the rest of the northeast. I just not prepared to accept Ben and Jerry has desirable icons for New Hampshire.

Maybe it is good that the Old Man did not live long enough to see this happen.

From a reader:

The key thing for public commentators is to recognize that self-indulgence is just that, and does nothing positive.

Although we can agree that Arafat was very bad, or evil, or wicked, or what have you, he is/was nevertheless the symbolic figure of Palestinian nationhood for several millions of human beings. Unless you want to simply dismiss those millions, it is probably best to greet the death of Arafat with silence.

From a reader:

From a column in today's Boston Globe...

"Some Kerry supporters were fairly bursting with anger yesterday. Jessica Johnson, 59, of Cambridge, who said she had volunteered for Kerry, said she was filled with optimism on Election Day, telling herself: ''When Kerry gets into the White House, this stone, this weight on my chest, will be lifted."

''He could have made a great president," Johnson said. ''Many Americans have nothing between their ears. Americans are fat, lazy, and stupid. I don't like this country anymore."

But none dare call them unpatriotic!!

I am generally sympathetic to the notion that you shouldn't speak ill of the dead. The recently dead, that is. I don't think there's anything wrong with speaking ill of the long dead. Woodrow Wilson was a terrible man, for example. But when political opponents go, the temptation is to score points. Most liberals behaved admirably when Ronald Reagan passed away and I would like to think that conservatives would do the same when various stars of the liberal pantheon depart.

But all that goes out the window with murderers and terrorists. This tradition is predicated on the assumption that ones opponents are not ones enemies. A poliical opponent shares a bedrock faith in political norms and (small L) liberal rules.

None of this applies to Yasser Arafat in my opinion. He's a bad man who's been terrible for his people and if there's any justice, when he dies he will receive 72 virgins who look exactly like him.

A reader forwarded me this post:

I really don't care what happens anymore. From here on out, we
get exactly what we deserve whether it's a fiscal depression,
increased poverty, return to witchhunts, terror attacks, whatever.
I don't blame the rest of the world for hating us. I hate us too."

Arafat clinically dead -- Israeli television JERUSALEM, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was determined to be clinically dead on Thursday in a French hospital, Israel's Channel Two television said citing French sources.

From a reader:

Jonah, I'm a college professor, and needless to say, I meet and know a lot of people who hate Bush. In the past week, three colleagues in different situations (when they found out that I support Bush) named Bush's record on the environment as his primary evil. Hearing this same line from unrelated sources made me wonder if I'd missed the talking points memo. But more than that, each of them spoke as though it were personal ("We're full of lead," said one, as though this were both factual and Bush's fault).

Which brings me to my question and my point: what is Bush's record on the environment and, if it is so bad, what can be done to improve both the perception and the facts? This isn't like abortion, where the conservative position is clear. The environment should be our concern and if the Republican president isn't strong on this issue, why not?

Thanks for your time, but don't post my name (I'm not tenured).

From an old e-buddy:

Your post was right, but let's not "leave gay marraige out of this for a moment." Because it seems undeniable (at least, no partisans on either side are arguing it) that Bush won re-election on the votes of people whose primary concern was gay marriage, abortion, and other "values" issues. While you, most of NRO, and most especially the right-wing bloggers were focused on foreign policy issues as the reason to vote for Bush, they apparently had little to do with why he won. Doesn't that bother and/or worry you a little? (It should worry the leftist bloggers even more, of course.) Is banning gay marriage really _that_ important? And doesn't Bush owe those folks a lot more than he owes the hawks?

"As for the ones who put him in, across the Bible Belt and the South, us outsiders can only feel pity...the self-righteous, gun-totin', military lovin', sister marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport ownin' red-necks, who believe God gave America the biggest d*** in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land "free and strong".

Someone, I think, needs a nice cup of tea - and urgent psychiatric attention.

Am listening to the Laura Ingraham radio show. She just related the story of her invitation yesterday afternoon from the Today booker to participate in this segment. She agreed, but only after repeatedly asking whether her invitation had been cleared by Katie Couric, who doesn't like to have Laura on the show. Later in the afternoon, she received an email that withdrew the invitation. Sounds like Katie isn't feeling particularly forgiving toward Republicans these days.

This election outcome should have been implausible, if not impossible. With a litany of complaints — bad economy, bad deficit, bad foreign war, bad gas prices — amplified by a national media that discarded any pretense of neutrality, a national opposition party should have won this election.

But the Democratic Party is no longer a national party. As difficult as the challenges are — both real and fabricated — Democrats offered no solution that was either believable or acceptable to vast regions of America.

I stayed up all night using my new Mozilla Firefox browser. In the tabs, I had FNC, CNN, MSNBC, Drudge, and "The Corner'. The Corner was always a half hour ahead of any of the on-line news services.

I just want to add my voice to the others who have said thanks for keeping them sane before and during the election. Your site was the voice of reason in the midst of it all...and may I say that in terms of up-to-the-minute coverage, you blew away any of the mainstream media sites. I should have done this before, but I am now a subscriber and will be back often!

I felt it not only an obligation, but a priviledge to thank you and your site for giving me a sense of sanity and calm I really needed. I am a diehard Republican and was for them all the way, I even volunteered for them in my state and gave my all. I was exhausted. As much as I knew we did all we could, I have to admit I was sweating it, panicky. The ups and downs I was hearing was playing havoc on me. I cried when MSNBC called Ohio for Bush and then seconds later Alaska also (I guess it all hit me at once: one of the ups I just mentioned) then the downs of too close to call Ohio, Iowa's machines breaking down, etc.

A friend told me about your site late election day afternoon and it kept me in check. I stayed up all night watching the polls and staying with you.

One thing I saw totally amazed me. I read a posting that told everyone they were only seeing Kerry/Edwards signs behind the newscasters and no b/c. I'll be darned if not 20 minutes or less later, the next time they went to those newscasters I saw Bush, Bush, Bush! I just knew it was due to what I had read and I was speechless.

Thank you for letting me share and for being there.

I've always preferred to call myself a mouse jockey. You're right, mouse potato sounds much, much too passive. Mouse jockeys, like regular jockeys, have to learn how to navigate around obstacles when it gets crowded and tight (think political blogs on election night). Plus, like horseracing, speed is the crucial element. The technology trinity of man, mouse, and high speed access all work together. If it all clicks, I win by getting in. If my DSL is slower than your cable access then I'm staring at overloaded server messages while you're reading to your heart's content.

The Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism congratulates President George Bush on his victory and reelection to the presidency of the United States. Bush won a decisive victory and we wish him all the best in the next four years. President Bush has led the War on Terrorism with clarity and steadfastness. In the face of extreme criticism, President Bush never wavered. He continued to fight the War on Terrorism, despite political and personal risks. Since we formed, the Free Muslim Coalition endured criticism and attacks from all sides for our efforts in the War on Terrorism. We understand how difficult it is to fight the temptation to bend to constant criticism and stick to your principles, as Bush has done with confidence. President Bush is the leader we need to win this war and we are encouraged to have his courage and leadership. We also thank John Kerry for running a vigorous campaign, and we congratulate the voters that showed the world that America's democracy is strong and vibrant. Now that the campaign is over, we ask President George Bush and Senator John Kerry to work together to unite the people behind a more prosperous, stronger, and more secure America. The United States has many challenges ahead. However, no challenge is so great that a free and united country with strong leadership cannot overcome. For more information visit our website at: www.freemuslims.org

I'm not qualified to check the math (at least not quickly). But the Baseball crank contends that higher turnout was a huge boon for Bush, not Kerry. Take that conventional wisdom!

This is the standard trope, cliche or talking point used by Democrats and liberals to explain the sorts of issues they think their party is better at dealing with. If you ever watch West Wing, paid attention to Bill Clinton's eight year rule, listen to Hillary Clinton, read liberal magazines or blogs or care about politics at all than you've heard some variant of this 8 hundred katrillion times. I understand what they mean: Maternity leave, health care etc.

Fine. Good. Nice.

But here's the thing I'm missing. These people who hate Bush with such blinding passion, the ones who talk about fascism this and lost civil liberties that: when I ask them what they hate about Bush and his policies they almost never talk about the issues that affect their daily lives. It's all this righteous indignation about Abu Ghraib or Gitmo or Jose Padilla. Or it's about the Patriot Act. Or the tax cuts.

But in almost all of these cases these folks can't describe in concrete terms how Bush's policies affect their daily lives (let's leave gay marriage out of this for a moment). I think it is entirely legitimate, even necessary, to complain about political decisions on principle even if they have no affect on your own comfort. The Patriot Act, Abu Ghraib etc are all real issues. But they are not issues that affect 99.999999% of these gripers' daily lives. Show me a hundred thousand people picked at random who say the Patriot Act has made their life worse and I will show you nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine liars.

How you can talk about creeping fascism under the Bush administration and joke about how you might leave the country when nothing, nada, zip has happened to you or anyone you know that would provide evidence for such views is beyond me -- if your yardstick for political merit is how it affects your daily life.

It seems that the "affect our daily lives" criteria for politicians is really an expression of a preference for politicians who will "give me stuff." And politicians who don't give me stuff are automatically fascists.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

I'm going to be hanging out with that band of reprobates and moperers at KSFO at 8 AM West Coast Time. I'm also going to do my increasingly regular gig on that NPR show Day By Day. But I have no idea what time it airs and where since we don't get it in DC. Basically, Jacob Weisberg and I disagree on politics for a few minutes.

(And, yes, you should say "Radio...Radio" like the dude from Wall of Voodoo in the "Mexican Radio" video. I say this because now at least 1,300 Cornerites raised in the 1980s will have that song stuck in their heads for the rest of the day).

Yes, I know the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den. Yes, I know this story has been up on Drudge for a few days. Yes, I know I'm neither a Christian nor a theologian.

But I've got to say that when people try to convert lions to Christianity (or Budhism, Taoism, whatever) and then they get bit, it's a sign to me that the universe is humming along properly.

His email read:

Subject: congratulations

Let fascism ring.

___

Sent with my Treo

Thank you for your interest in employment with NASCAR. Because our continued success is dependent upon the quality of our workforce, we will carefully review your resume and keep it on file for six months. ...