Da BBears. And Illinois won
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Da BBears. And Illinois won too. Hopefully they can salvage something from the season.
And of course, ROTFLMAO, apparently God has a sense of humor, huh Brenda?
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Testing problem
Testing problem
Sullivan goes off his rocker.
Sullivan goes off his rocker. I liked Sully when he wrote for the New Republic. He provided excellent critiques of the administration and while more conservative than I am, made coherent arguments based on principles usually.Unfortunately, he seems to have become a partisan shill now.
Let’s look at a couple claims today. He seems to think the UN Strategy was a brilliant ploy by Bush? Huh? Bush wasn’t brilliant, he just got slapped by enough people in his own party to realize the go it alone strategy wasn’t going to work. If he was brilliant he would have done this i in the first place and not caused strategic allies to have to waffle. Now, the leadership in Egypt and Saudi (hardly an ally, but strategically yes) look even weaker to the alternatives in those societies.
This strategy is right and it should have been pursued right off the bat. For an administration that claims to be disciplined they have lost control of an essential debate. Now, those we need to help are in a position that weakens them. That isn’t a success in any real terms when the same result could have been arrived at without the same problems.
Josh Marshall adds a lot to this debate. ”
If the president fell flat on his face in the middle of the Rose Garden some of these characters would applaud his uncanny foresight in having arranged for the ground to be in just the right place to break his descent. Shades of the personality cult. ”
As to Clinton acting on terrorism and Iraq? Let’s remember this garbage. I was for a hardline with Iraq then, and I still am. Remember Trent:
“”I cannot support this military action in the Persian Gulf at this time,” Mr. Lott said, “Both the timing and the policy are subject to question.””
Now, who can seriously complain about Clinton letting up on Hussein? Was part of this self-inflicted by Clinton’s utter lack of self-control? Yes. Does that mean it wasn’t the best policy at the time? No.
The Sudan and Afghan strikes? Coats, Specter and Kemp all called him on it. The only people pushing for more at that time were Goss and McCain and sort of Hagel. They can bitch, Sully, you can’t. Why not? Let’s hear what you had to say
“In retrospect, only one moment in the past year will, I think, endure as a grave threat to the integrity of the United States. And that was the bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan last August. The evidence that this bombing was well-thought out and well-targeted is extremely thin. At best, it smacks of incompetence. At worst, it smacks of the use of American arms and credibility for the purposes of short-term political gain for the president. I know everyone is sick of investigations. But, if ever an independent investigation is called for, it is surely into the origins of this particular episode. I say this not because I am squeamish about the use of force abroad but because the use of such force should always be beyond suspicion and reproach. The only time, I think, when impeachment was even vaguely justified was when those raids evoked the question of something truly rotten in the White House. Republicans, however, were more concerned with what the president did with Monica Lewinsky than what he did with the Armed Forces of the United States. In the long run, there will be no more damning indictment of them than that. ”
We missed Osama by an hour or two. Perhaps Sudan was a bad choice. But by an hour or two we missed the Islamic fascist who would later kill more than 3000 Americans in one day.
Clinton shares some blame for distracting the nation, don’t get me wrong. But the bitching and moaning about his actions to take on terrorism at the time were unjustified and Sullivan was a part of that problem.
From Talking Points Memo is
From Talking Points Memo is a hysterical story on the radio ads played in Kansas City comparing Social Security to reverse reparations.
In cases of low-rent sleaze like these it’s hard to know whether to fix on to the dishonesty, the crassness, the ugly caricature of gullible blacks the ad is intended to appeal to, or just the pitiful dorks themselves who hatched the idea.
You can just imagine the brainstorming session with the CSE-baseball-cap-clad goofball ‘wingers who came up with the ad. “Hey, you know how blacks are all into reparations? Well, Social Security is terrible for blacks. We’ll say it’s like reverse reparations! You’re giving your money to the white man! They’ll eat that stuff up. By the way, you hear about how that fat rapper killed Tupac Shakur? Dangit!”
Ahhhh … an idea is born.
Hicks are really gullible. Go
Hicks are really gullible. Go figure. Apparently law enforcement is considering calling this a terroristic threat. Let’s see, the witness can’t identify what they were going to do, she wasn’t even sure if it was a real threat or a joke, and she was listening in on a conversation. Ummmm…no jury is going to bother convicting someone for that.
Repeat after me, Shoney’s isn’t a hotbed of terrorists on their way to blow up Miami. Hell, Shoney’s doesn’t even have hot food. The only thing anyone is really guilty of is having the bad taste of eating at Shoneys.
Even better is this:
According to police sources, all three men at first were uncooperative – denying consent to search the car.
”It was probably not the right time for them to be copping an attitude with police,” said one federal law enforcement source who was up all night monitoring the investigation. “But that’s exactly what happened.”
Let me add a little something to this discussion.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It is called the 4th amendment. Forcing the police to do their job is not copping an attitude.
This comes via Instapundit. Great
This comes via Instapundit. Great analysis of a non-event. What is amazing is that they didn’t even accept the possibility this was a crank. Along with a bunch of self-righteous garbage about “how they won’t do that again.” Besides being an inane old white guy cliche, it doesn’t really address the problem of why these guys pulled the joke in the first place. A nosy busybody got all nervous because some ferinors walked in a Shoneys.
What is even more odd is the strange sense of wanting it to happen to a place near them. It reminds me of the coverage in St. Louis after 9-11. The newscasters just couldn’t handle that something so important didn’t happen to St. Louis and seemed to almost regret it.
Then again, maybe she thought they should have better sense on where to eat…
As a note, if I
As a note, if I ever use the term fisking non-derisively, slap me. The ridiculous practice has taken off and even now been showcased by Sullivan in Salon. I’m not sure if it is more annoying than the overuse of the term ‘indeed’ or the annoying habit of many bloggers to use the term ‘interesting’ as something like a knowing nod only the cool kids are in on.
The problem with fisking is it takes a very articulate person like Sullivan, well when he wants to be, and reduces them to make snarky commentator on an arguments’ side notes much of the time. Seldom does fisking result in a refutation of the central argument or even the evidence. Usually it centers on some side note or pithy comment used for getting attention. A perfect example above is his mention of the 100 Years War. That is relevant to modern warfare how? (was that a fisking–oy).
It might be helpful to remember paragraphs are meant to explain a point. Breaking down those paragraphs loses that point often and thus fails to refute the actual argument. A far more productive strategy would be to outline an argument, state its premises, its evidence and its logic and then attack those. However, for much of the blogosphere that takes too much time. Instead insinuating those who disagree with you are unpatriotic or a hack (oh the irony there) is much more fun.
One of the most fisked authors is Paul Krugman. I’m not sure what it is about him that brings out so much anger, but I have seen few substantive rebuttals in those fiskings. However, I have seen problems with some of his arguments, but fisking never seems to get at those problems. Why not? Because it is designed to produce pithy remarks and not a substantive critique.
Finally, fisking seems to promote an inane comparisons to appeasement in 1938 a. If anyone noticed, we already drove the guy out of the figurative Sudentland. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look to overthrow him, but let’s try some original thought and not a reliance on a bad analogy. Whenever an alternative to immediate action it is claimed to be some sort of appeasement. That isn’t appeasement, it is setting priorities.
Speaking of Noah. Friedman has
Speaking of Noah. Friedman has a good column. Even better, POTUS expresses what the nation is feeling and where it should continue responding.
However, despite the echo chamber’s whining, the NYT editorial page is amazing. The third Op-Ed makes a great point. Dowd delivers a message the President needs to hear:
“If the old Desert Storm warriors want a new desert storm, they should stop condescending to their fellow countrymen, who understand both that Iraq is a threat and that Iraq had nothing to do with the destruction of the World Trade Center.”
The fight may be right, but be honest and clear. Zell Miller, one of the President’s most ardent supporters, made this case the other day. Iraq won’t pull an operation like last years. Having a base to attack changes their strategy. Admitting this doesn’t take away from real reasons to go after him. Unfortunately, the administration is incapable of making this argument to date. Instead, Dick Cheney has decided to freelance and claim all of the problems of the world eminate from Iraq. That argument takes a lot of balls from a man whose company helped rebuild the Iraqi oil fields.
Safire does a good job
Safire does a good job of Kremlinology for a new generation. Condi would be proud.
Jeb was always the smart
Jeb was always the smart one according to most of the family biographies done of the Bushs. He was expected to be the one to follow in his father’s footsteps, but while clearly successful in becoming the Governor of Florida, he hasn’t done as well as the dumb brother. Why not? I think this
quote is instructive:
“Of Ms. Reno’s troubles at her precinct Tuesday morning, Mr. Bush said: “What is it with Democrats having a hard time voting? I don’t know.””
Pissing on the opposition tends to raise turnout of the opposition. And the last thing one wants to do is be encourage turnout of the other side’s base.