Call It A Comeback
Spinsanity takes on Garrison Keillor’s comments about Norm. The strange thing about Keillor’s column was how out of place both comments were. Both columns rightly identified Coleman as a vacuous twit, but then went on to make strange statements that aren’t supported or, in the case of the crash comment, sane.
Not one to often praise the President, because of his message of tolerance and open acceptance of Islam as a faith and most, importantly, Muslims as good Americans, I’m proud of the man and Colin Powell who have taken shots at the Christian Right in the last few days. Bush does here and Powell does here. And I’ll take the Guardian to task for saying Bush is doing it because the election allows him more freedom from the fruitcakes on the right. Bush seems to see this as an issue of right and wrong–and he is on the right side. Good for him.
Muslims came to America because it is a tolerant nation based on the dignity of the individual. It is a damn shame when the dimmer element of the United States population fail to grasp the best defense against Islamists is to provide an alternative that inspires hope.
Steve Chapman writes a fine column illustrating the growing problems with political polls. Most interesting is this quote:
"Forty-five percent of the people think Bush’s proposals for reforming accounting go too far or are about right," he noted, "versus 39 percent who say they do not go far enough. Now that’s compared to 39 percent who said they go too far or are about right a month ago, and 43 who said they do not go far enough."Then Rove stopped, realizing he was making his boss look like a human windsock. "Not that we spend a lot of time on these," he assured his listener.
For all the gnashing of teeth over the increasing use of polls, I fail to see too much of a problem. Information is good and while it might scare off the bold move from time to time, does anyone think George Bush or Bill Clinton were bold to begin with? Polling has more of an effect in how to sell your programs in most cases than it does with what one believes.
That name should be fun for the next few years. The Sun-Times covers the Illinois House Republican leadership race and confirms McQueary’s report that Cross looks like a winner. Interestingly, the article points out the women in the caucus are backing Cross which if you were a Republican should be a big giant flag about what you need to reduce the gender gap.
Does Jack Roesser take it that way? Hell no:
"Despite Cross being in leadership under Lee Daniels and once being his roommate, he turned on him with a snarl," conservative activist Jack Roeser said. "He’s a rat."
Never make permanent enemies unless you want to be a permanent minority.
TAPPED is shocked that the new minority leader has some not so great ties to special interest money. How exactly does TAPPED think she got to be minority whip? Was anyone paying attention to the dual PAC set-up she had?
I like TAPPED a lot, but this is a bit silly to think she got to where she is because she was smart and liberal. Those are true, but it is also true she is a shrewd money raiser who distributes those funds strategically. The manner in which parties are currently organized almost guarantee that someone who is good at raising money does better. Notice Marci Kaptur didn’t get far.
Tapped picks up more on the Burk satire. Calpundit wisely brings back the point. Why would a club such as Augusta want to exclude women? Didn’t people stop doing this when they stopped having super secret treehouse clubs? (Tom Tomorrow doesn’t have his posts on this up right now, but pretend there is a link). Apparently not since a bunch of bloggers insist that proclaiming someone ‘gets it’ is an argument.
The strangest thing that no one seems to be picking up on is the sheer mendacity shown by Lopez in claiming Burk is trying to rid Augusta of men.
Almost as strange is the notion that Burk is trying to attack a right. One has a right to exclude people from a private organization in most cases. Burk was quite clear she supports that right in the discussion on Crossfire. She even conceded that some organizations should be gender exclusive and in this case she isn’t pursuing a law or legal action to force change, she is simply asking them to change and applying economic pressure. Her distinction between this case and others is that Augusta National is essentially a business and networking organization rolled into one and by shutting out women is shutting out half the population from those benefits of membership.
If one disagrees with this, start chatting with the religious right groups boycotting Disney for giving gay partners benefits.
The ideal resolution is Hootie allows women in, and they have the good sense to not join.
Who let Poindexter back in government? There truly is nothing one can do anymore that will disqualify one from serving in the government. And that isn’t even the worst part of th story! Normally I find Safire a bit paranoid, but this is a good subject to be paranoid about.
Instapundit is trying to sell the Islamic connection to the snipers still. The reference is to the Moonie Times and as usual, there is no actual evidence. This shouldn’t be a surprise. Given we have evidence of attacks all across the country that fit the amazing non-pattern of a spree and reasons for the cross country killing trek, one would generally conclude, we have two nuts on a killing spree.
That would be the case if it wasn’t for repeating the mantra "Everything has changed now" caused one’s brain to fall out.
The reality is the world hasn’t changed a bit other than some big craters being created. The perception of safety may have changed, but the world is no more or no less dangerous than before 9-11. The inability to grasp this basic point has lead to paranoia looking for Islamist terrorism where it doesn’t exist. The conclusion of the more rabid paranoid individuals is that barring clear disproof, Islamist terrorist must be the cause of any evil act. If only the world was that simple. The number of dangers hasn’t changed and a whole bunch were present before that aren’t Islamist in nature. Those dangers haven’t gone anywhere.
A lot of paranoia isn’t a big deal for a group of people on vanity web sites, but it sure would be a bad way to run a country. The world is a dangerous place in more than one way. Assuming the cause of any particular act is automatically Islamist doesn’t help a rational evaluation of different threats. Fortunately, vanity web sites aren’t that influential.
Slate has a good point on Pelosi
But despite her formidable political skills?even the Wall Street Journal acknowledged that she’s smart and telegenic and hard-working?her tenure as House Democratic leader, which hasn’t even begun yet, has been a complete disaster from a PR standpoint. Perhaps the Democrats would be best advised to once again take a page from the Republicans: The GOP has an effective leader and party strategist who fires up the party base. His name is Tom DeLay, and he’s not the No. 1 House Republican. Pelosi needs a puppet. Too bad Denny Hastert is already spoken for.
ArchPundit