Sends Shivers Down the Spine
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Time is deceptively short. The next Illinois primary election is less than 17 months away.
2004
If only their were More Chapmans
Chapman is in full riff why he’ll vote for Kerry
At the age of 50, I get few chances to try something entirely new. Come Nov. 2, I plan to take one of those rare opportunities. I’m going to vote for a Democrat for president.
I’ve never done it before, and I hope I never have to do it again. But President Bush has made an irresistible case against his own re-election. His first term has been one of the most dismal and costly failures of any presidency. His second promises to be even worse.
Funny enough–I had no idea Chapman is pro-life. Maybe I missed it, but his columns are pretty tight so all of his views don’t come out–and I’ve been reading him for 16 years probably.
I’ll take it
Kerry, it’s true, is worse than Bush on some issues. But he can probably pass a test that Bush has failed, namely, avoiding catastrophe.His presidency would also restore something valuable: divided government. Unlike Bush, Kerry would face a Congress dominated by the opposition party. As Cato Institute Executive Vice President David Boaz puts it, “Republicans wouldn’t give Kerry every bad thing he wants, and they do give Bush every bad thing he wants.”
Bad things have been the hallmark of the Bush presidency, from either a conservative or a liberal perspective. On Nov. 2, we can let him expand the grave damage he has done to the national interest–or we can hold him accountable. I’ll vote for John Kerry without high hopes or enthusiasm, but vote for him I will.
no one could have reasonably predicted some of Keyes? rhetorical missteps
If, by no one, you mean no one who has Google or knows how to use the search engine at the Keyes Renew America site. The dude isn’t just prone to saying crazy things, he’s proud that he does it and posts it.
One could easily look up Jake Weisberg’s articles on the 2000 Republican Presidential debates, or Jake Tapper’s piece when Keyes exploded after the press. One could have called Mike Murphy, a GOP strategist who points out that he was a loon in 1996.
Alan Keyes has been a longstanding joke in political circles for years, the problem is that the insulated clowns at the Leader and those in ultra-religious right circles never bother to check what is going on in the rest of the world. Keyes has made a career out of being a loud, obnoxious twit who stakes out the right wing of the right wing. Then, when he fails, he blames it on the press in fits or says that people are racists who don’t like him.
What has occurred wasn’t just predictable, I predicted it. Start at August 2nd and you’ll notice that this is occurring exactly as I expected.
Now, the Leader has good reason to protect itself–Dan Proft, Leader Publisher, and a guy close to 2006 Gubernatorial Candidate to be Patrick O’Malley, was a key force behind the Keyes disaster. Closely followed by the ever obtuse State Senator Syverson and a guy I used to respect, Steve Rauschenberger. They all drank the kool aid and cynically thought a ‘real’ conservative could take this race on and tarnish Obama if nothing else (Austin Mayor is correct on this). With a little help from Jack Roeser the plan got set in motion even as moderates tried to stop it when they realized these nutjobs were serious about Keyes.
The lameness of that editorial is just amazing putting it into the context that the Leader expects the moderates to work for Keyes, when Keyes won’t work for any candidates who are pro-choice. Now, no one who is pro-choice, or sane, wants Alan Keyes stumping for them, but the hypocrisy is stunning.
Cross is running one of the most open caucuses Illinois has seen in a while. Blaming him for some sort of litmus test would be, no, check that, is assanine.
Wow–Was Keyes a Mistake
Obama is being very generous to the party:
MILWAUKEE — Everybody wants a piece of Barack Obama. Ahead by a mile in his race for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, the youthful state senator with huge ambitions is taking his show on the road to help Democrats from the bottom of the ticket to the very top.
In the past week, Obama has mailed checks totaling $260,000 to Senate candidates in 13 states, including $53,000 to the do-or-die campaign of Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.). He donated $100,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and $150,000 to party organizations in key states, including Florida, Wisconsin and Colorado.
Imagine Walking and Turning on the TV to This
Oliver has the video up of Bush’s tirade.
I had just gotten back from taking the girls down to watch Kerry and Bush come in–the Firefighters had a truck for us to stand on and cheer them on which was a big hit with them. I was too exhausted to make the after rally, but it was a fun night.
Dred Scott==Roe v. Wade
And if you didn’t pick that up in Illinois you haven’t been paying attention to Alan Keyes.
For a rant on how Bush is completely confused on the Constitutional Law involvedin Dred Scott read Jack Balkin. For those that care about such matters, this is exactly why Bush shouldn’t be choosing Supreme Court Justices. The Taney Court was probably correct on the narrow decision given the, you know, language of the Constitution:
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due
Dred Scott’s claim was that since he had been in free territory, he should no longer be property. The issue is difficult in terms of how to decide if one is a strict constructionist–but not in the way Bush thinks. Bush misses the fact that personal property rights in regards to slavery were guaranteed under the Constitution–Taney didn’t dream them up.
A man who doesn’t understand Dred Scott shouldn’t be President. And yes, everyone before him did understand it. The overreaching was claiming no African-American could be a citizen-not that slaveholders had property rights. This is why Thurgood Marshall called the doument flawed at its inception. It was. One can understand that historically and still celebrate it, but one would hope the President would know a case that no one should get out of a PoliSci 101 class without knowing.
If Democrats Try
and play sexual ambiguity as some sort of issue–they might remember we are supposed to be the party of tolerance and acceptance. I know of one case this cycle and a potential one in another where Dems might be thinking of outing a GOPer who happens to be gay. In neither case does the person gay bait themselves (and I don’t think outing is right there) and so the issue should be off the table. If it’s put on the table, the Dems deserve to lose.
Pat Buchanan was an interesting
selection for announcer on MSNBC at one of the most Jewish campuses not on the East Coast.
In other funny Buchanan moments, Ramsin–commenting below actually called in and was pretty much ignored. Buchanan then, bizarrely asked him if he was Assyrian and Ramsin said yes. The thing not many probably picked up on was that Assyrians largely ran the mob in St. Louis–and towards the end, not very well. But Buchanan spent a part of his time as a writer at the Globe Democrat in the 1960s and his reaction–even though a national call–seemed to harken back to that. Maybe I’m overanalyzing, but that’s how I took it.
Let Me Suggest
To the clown driving around the big truck with pictures of bloody fetuses in St. Louis on Friday–you weren’t doing your cause any good.