From E Online. Excellent piece except for the last line. Anyone who's a real Seinfeld fan knows where the Soup Nazi came from.
Yada Yada Yada! Seinfeld Coming to DVD
by Josh Grossberg
Seinfeld fans, get ready. The master is finally expanding his domain to the video store.
Everyone's favorite show about nothing will be making its hotly-anticipated debut on DVD just in time for Festivus on Nov. 23, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment announced.
It's been six long years since Seinfeld ended its heralded run by shipping neurotic New Yorkers Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer off to prison for flouting a good Samaritan law and fans have been clamoring for it on DVD ever since.
The Seinfeld package will feature the first three seasons of NBC's classic Emmy-winning series in two four-disc volumes that has been newly enhanced in high definition. The first set will contain two versions of the original 1989 pilot (the alternate was called The Seinfeld Chronicles) along with all 18 episodes of seasons one and two and the second set will include all 22 episodes of season three.
Each volume will retail for $49.95 but, in a bit of "re-gifting," both will also be available for $119.95 as a two-volume deluxe holiday gift set that will include collectible playing cards, exclusive "Monk's Diner" salt and pepper shakers, and a limited edition script with handwritten notes from co-creator Larry David, who's since taken his sardonic brand of humor to HBO as the star of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Best of all, diehards will be pleased to learn that the volumes will contain a whopping 24-hours worth of goodies from never-before-seen outtakes and bloopers to deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes scoops, episode trivia, unused footage of Seinfeld's stand-up routines, and interviews and commentaries from cast members Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards, Jason Alexander along with David.
"To have this opportunity to go back, restore the elements, revive Jerry's unused stand-up, bring the talent back to chat about the show and then see the original episodes with high-definition images has been a thrill for all of us," said Seinfeld executive producer Howard West. "I think we've more than met the challenge of DVD and have made every effort to stay true to the essence of Jerry's unique brand of comedy which has become so deeply a part of mainstream culture."
It wasn't easy though. All three of Seinfeld's co-stars initially threatened to boycott the definitive DVD because they weren't going to get paid and were unhappy with their previous payoffs from the show.
But as the funny man told Daily Variety, all the problems were the result of some bureaucratic entanglements that were solved after "twisting a few arms"-- not that there's anything wrong with that.
"You know, people do deserve money for services," Seinfeld said. "But the thing was that all the books are closed on the show, so it's kind of hard to go back and open them—all these corporate entities that own pieces of the show, they're disinclined to revisit those deals. It [was] kind of a boarded-up store at this point."
That was until West stepped in.
The producer and Seinfeld managed to work out a compromise in which Louis-Dreyfus, Alexander, and Richards agreed to participate in this and every future DVD release in exchange for a cut of the profits.
"They were only too anxious to be part of it," added Seinfeld about his fellow co-stars. "But you know, it still needed to be equitable."
Apparently it was since Seinfeld and the gang are all over the bonus material yakking about everything from "double-dipping" to the meaning of "sponge-worthy" and "yada yada yada."
The marketers at Columbia Tri-Star Home Entertainment are treating the release of the Seinfeld on DVD as they would a major Hollywood blockbuster and plan on launching an all-out marketing blitz for the holiday season.
Scott Hettrick, Editor in Chief of industry trade DVD Exclusive, predicts Seinfeld is going to be a major holiday seller, out-grossing the surprise $50 million earned by the first season DVD of Comedy Central's Chappelle's Show.
"I gotta believe that each volume could each be over $50 million easily which means both combined could gross $100 million—and that's just Nov. 23 through the Christmas holidays," Hettrick said. "It looks pretty fantastic really."
Hettrick noted the Seinfeld set may also raise the bar in terms of what works and doesn't work when it comes to releasing TV series on DVD.
"It looks pretty fantastic really," Hettrick added. "It looks like they've done an exhaustive job on going back and finding some of the most fun and never before seen outtakes bloopers clips and gag reels. The one thing that intrigues me is the never before seen stand-up comedy bits that he did for early seasons. . .To go back and see more of that stand-up stuff that they culled for the episodes will really be a treat for fans."
According to Hettrick, another interesting aspect of the DVD is an hour-long featurette dubbed "How It Began," in which Seinfeld and David provides some real insights into how they came up with show and the struggles the comic had finding an audience in those first episodes."
We're still waiting to hear where the Soup Nazi came from.
Saturday, August 07, 2004
From The New York Times:
The Risk of Reading
By MARK EDMUNDSON
Now American culture can get singularly weird when it's time to say a good word for reading. Think of the television public-service ad that depicts Shaquille O'Neal goofily chasing down the last page of a novel (Shaq reads? Sure.) or the one depicting a circle of kids being read to by Keith Van Horn, then with the New Jersey Nets, decked out in a ''Cat in the Hat'' stovepipe. Devising footage that makes reading look more ridiculous wouldn't be all that easy to do.
Now, in the wake of a National Endowment for the Arts report that says -- to no one's surprise -- that interest in literature is falling drastically, reading is getting some more thoughtful defense. But the terms of the defense still leave me wondering. I feel a little as if I'm sitting around with a bunch of boxing aficionados praising Muhammad Ali: one goes on about his jump-roping ability; another, about how well he does his road work; a third gets rhapsodic about his dietary discipline. O.K., O.K., I get it. But all that doesn't quite go to the heart of the matter, does it?
So it is with reading. Reading, you hear, is necessary to maintain democracy. It can produce informed citizens. Right, but couldn't public radio do the same thing? We hear that reading conveys knowledge; it delivers the bounty of the past to the present. Again, good, but in terms of pure rote knowledge, couldn't film and verbal delivery work nearly as well?
Reading is indeed nearly boundless in its promise. It can effect changes for the greatest good. But it is worth bearing in mind that reading's promise is tied up with some danger, too.
To me, the best way to think about reading is as life's grand second chance. All of us grow up once: we pass through a process of socialization. We learn about right and wrong and good and bad from our parents, then from our teachers or religious guides. Gradually, we are instilled with the common sense that conservative writers like Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson thought of as a great collective work. To them, common sense is infused with all that has been learned over time through trial and error, human frustration, sorrow and joy. In fact, a well-socialized being is something like a work of art.
Yet for many people, the process of socialization doesn't quite work. The values they acquire from all the well-meaning authorities don't fit them. And it is these people who often become obsessed readers. They don't read for information, and they don't read for beautiful escape. No, they read to remake themselves. They read to be socialized again, not into the ways of their city or village this time but into another world with different values. Such people want to revise, or even to displace, the influence their parents have had on them. They want to adopt values they perceive to be higher or perhaps just better suited to their natures.
When Walt Whitman picked up the work of his older contemporary, Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was a carpenter, framing two- and three-room houses in Brooklyn. He had been a journalist; he had written some mediocre fiction -- he looked to be someone who would never amount to much. After reading the great essays, Whitman purportedly said: ''I was simmering, simmering, simmering. Emerson brought me to a boil.''
Whitman had been reared to be modest and self-effacing. But Emerson offered him a new image of authority. He was, for a while, Whitman's second father. Obviously it takes more than reading a book to create a Walt Whitman. But the act of reading Emerson was still at the center of what is probably the most marvelous transformation in the history of literature.
Similar things happen in the lives of everyday individuals all the time. I remember very well what it was like when, at 17, I read ''The Autobiography of Malcolm X.'' Malcolm had spent time in Boston, not far from where I lived, and he had something to say about our common territory. He gave me a sense of how bitter and brutal it could be to be a black man right there in Massachusetts. There was a low-key race war on between white and black at my high school, and because of Malcolm, I began to try seeing it from the black point of view. I got into trouble, which was sometimes more than just verbal trouble, with my white buddies. And not every black kid in the school was pleased to see a white guy with his nose in Malcolm X.
Words are potent. Ten years after the fact, people often can't remember a grievous pain: ''Was it the right leg or the left that I broke?'' But a decade on, they'll remember every word and tonal twist of a painful insult. (Robert Frost once suggested that poems should have the force and intensity of rich insults.)
There is no doubt that the force of reading, the power of words, is not always a force for good. The abominable Marquis de Sade influenced many consequential writers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Often, you can only imagine, he made what was cruel in their hearts yet crueler.
Overall, though, the effects of reading major authors are almost always good ones. It is virtually impossible to be a consequential literary artist without infusing your work with sympathy. This understanding dates at least as far back as Homer, who makes it a point to depict the Trojans nearly as humanely as he does his fellow Greeks. One of the most moving scenes in ''The Iliad,'' drastically edited in the recent film, ''Troy,'' comes when Hector, fully armored, reaches to embrace his baby son before going into battle. The boy is terrified of the bronzed giant in front of him and cries out. With the greatest tenderness, Hector removes his helmet with its vast horsehair plume. Then he takes hold of his son to say goodbye.
Mark Edmundson is the Daniels Family Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Virginia. His new book, ''Why Read?,'' will be published next month.
The Risk of Reading
By MARK EDMUNDSON
Now American culture can get singularly weird when it's time to say a good word for reading. Think of the television public-service ad that depicts Shaquille O'Neal goofily chasing down the last page of a novel (Shaq reads? Sure.) or the one depicting a circle of kids being read to by Keith Van Horn, then with the New Jersey Nets, decked out in a ''Cat in the Hat'' stovepipe. Devising footage that makes reading look more ridiculous wouldn't be all that easy to do.
Now, in the wake of a National Endowment for the Arts report that says -- to no one's surprise -- that interest in literature is falling drastically, reading is getting some more thoughtful defense. But the terms of the defense still leave me wondering. I feel a little as if I'm sitting around with a bunch of boxing aficionados praising Muhammad Ali: one goes on about his jump-roping ability; another, about how well he does his road work; a third gets rhapsodic about his dietary discipline. O.K., O.K., I get it. But all that doesn't quite go to the heart of the matter, does it?
So it is with reading. Reading, you hear, is necessary to maintain democracy. It can produce informed citizens. Right, but couldn't public radio do the same thing? We hear that reading conveys knowledge; it delivers the bounty of the past to the present. Again, good, but in terms of pure rote knowledge, couldn't film and verbal delivery work nearly as well?
Reading is indeed nearly boundless in its promise. It can effect changes for the greatest good. But it is worth bearing in mind that reading's promise is tied up with some danger, too.
To me, the best way to think about reading is as life's grand second chance. All of us grow up once: we pass through a process of socialization. We learn about right and wrong and good and bad from our parents, then from our teachers or religious guides. Gradually, we are instilled with the common sense that conservative writers like Edmund Burke and Samuel Johnson thought of as a great collective work. To them, common sense is infused with all that has been learned over time through trial and error, human frustration, sorrow and joy. In fact, a well-socialized being is something like a work of art.
Yet for many people, the process of socialization doesn't quite work. The values they acquire from all the well-meaning authorities don't fit them. And it is these people who often become obsessed readers. They don't read for information, and they don't read for beautiful escape. No, they read to remake themselves. They read to be socialized again, not into the ways of their city or village this time but into another world with different values. Such people want to revise, or even to displace, the influence their parents have had on them. They want to adopt values they perceive to be higher or perhaps just better suited to their natures.
When Walt Whitman picked up the work of his older contemporary, Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was a carpenter, framing two- and three-room houses in Brooklyn. He had been a journalist; he had written some mediocre fiction -- he looked to be someone who would never amount to much. After reading the great essays, Whitman purportedly said: ''I was simmering, simmering, simmering. Emerson brought me to a boil.''
Whitman had been reared to be modest and self-effacing. But Emerson offered him a new image of authority. He was, for a while, Whitman's second father. Obviously it takes more than reading a book to create a Walt Whitman. But the act of reading Emerson was still at the center of what is probably the most marvelous transformation in the history of literature.
Similar things happen in the lives of everyday individuals all the time. I remember very well what it was like when, at 17, I read ''The Autobiography of Malcolm X.'' Malcolm had spent time in Boston, not far from where I lived, and he had something to say about our common territory. He gave me a sense of how bitter and brutal it could be to be a black man right there in Massachusetts. There was a low-key race war on between white and black at my high school, and because of Malcolm, I began to try seeing it from the black point of view. I got into trouble, which was sometimes more than just verbal trouble, with my white buddies. And not every black kid in the school was pleased to see a white guy with his nose in Malcolm X.
Words are potent. Ten years after the fact, people often can't remember a grievous pain: ''Was it the right leg or the left that I broke?'' But a decade on, they'll remember every word and tonal twist of a painful insult. (Robert Frost once suggested that poems should have the force and intensity of rich insults.)
There is no doubt that the force of reading, the power of words, is not always a force for good. The abominable Marquis de Sade influenced many consequential writers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Often, you can only imagine, he made what was cruel in their hearts yet crueler.
Overall, though, the effects of reading major authors are almost always good ones. It is virtually impossible to be a consequential literary artist without infusing your work with sympathy. This understanding dates at least as far back as Homer, who makes it a point to depict the Trojans nearly as humanely as he does his fellow Greeks. One of the most moving scenes in ''The Iliad,'' drastically edited in the recent film, ''Troy,'' comes when Hector, fully armored, reaches to embrace his baby son before going into battle. The boy is terrified of the bronzed giant in front of him and cries out. With the greatest tenderness, Hector removes his helmet with its vast horsehair plume. Then he takes hold of his son to say goodbye.
Mark Edmundson is the Daniels Family Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Virginia. His new book, ''Why Read?,'' will be published next month.
Friday, August 06, 2004
From the blog Infidel Cowboy:
does vietnam matter?
When Bill Clinton was running against Bob Dole, the Left told us that Vietnam was ancient history. WWII was even more ancient history. It didn't matter that Bob Dole was a decorated, disabled war hero in the one war that almost everyone agrees was just. It didn't matter that Bill Clinton was alleged to be a draft dodger. It was all about the economy, stupid.
Fast forward 8 years and Terry McAuliffe and the rest of the Left in a Kerry-esque flip-flop want us to believe that Vietnam does matter. Accusations that George W. Bush was allegedly AWOL from his National Guard post(that he had only gotten by having his family pull strings)were everywhee. Meanwhile, Kerry and his supporters could not say enough times that "John Kerry is a decorated war hero." He built his campaign on it.
Then, yesterday, comes this from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Now the Democrats are crying foul and screaming about politicizing military service. Which is pretty hypocritcal, considering that they made Kerry's service the centerpiece of his campaign while attacking Bush on his Guard duty.
It was fair game to keep floating the "Bush was AWOL" meme even though payroll records and an honorable discharge suggest Bush completed his service. As a matter of fact, the media and DNC attack dogs were still digging for payroll records until a few weeks ago - when they were found. Of course finding them didn't add to the preconceived story, so not much was in the news about that. Except for a chastisement of the Pentagon on its need for better record keeping.
Anyway, the flip-flop is on again. In what will be looked back on as one of the dumbest moves in political history, Kerry exposed himself to a devastating political ad by making Vietnam the centerpiece of his campaign. So, we will now be hearing from the media and the DNC about how this is re-opening old wounds, how it is old news, that it has no bearing on today's issues and events, etc.
Well guess what? It's true. Vietnam doesn't matter. Vietnam was almost 40 years ago. Some will argue that if what the Swift Boat Vets say is true, then that reflects poorly on Kerry's character. Personally, I can't hold something from that long ago, when he was a young man in difficult times, against him. It says a lot more about his character to me that he made such an issue of his service in the first place. What really matters, though, is that the war on terror is right here and now. I don't care if Bush was a slacker National Guardsman or if Kerry was a war hero (or not). I care about how we are going to fight this current war.
does vietnam matter?
When Bill Clinton was running against Bob Dole, the Left told us that Vietnam was ancient history. WWII was even more ancient history. It didn't matter that Bob Dole was a decorated, disabled war hero in the one war that almost everyone agrees was just. It didn't matter that Bill Clinton was alleged to be a draft dodger. It was all about the economy, stupid.
Fast forward 8 years and Terry McAuliffe and the rest of the Left in a Kerry-esque flip-flop want us to believe that Vietnam does matter. Accusations that George W. Bush was allegedly AWOL from his National Guard post(that he had only gotten by having his family pull strings)were everywhee. Meanwhile, Kerry and his supporters could not say enough times that "John Kerry is a decorated war hero." He built his campaign on it.
Then, yesterday, comes this from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Now the Democrats are crying foul and screaming about politicizing military service. Which is pretty hypocritcal, considering that they made Kerry's service the centerpiece of his campaign while attacking Bush on his Guard duty.
It was fair game to keep floating the "Bush was AWOL" meme even though payroll records and an honorable discharge suggest Bush completed his service. As a matter of fact, the media and DNC attack dogs were still digging for payroll records until a few weeks ago - when they were found. Of course finding them didn't add to the preconceived story, so not much was in the news about that. Except for a chastisement of the Pentagon on its need for better record keeping.
Anyway, the flip-flop is on again. In what will be looked back on as one of the dumbest moves in political history, Kerry exposed himself to a devastating political ad by making Vietnam the centerpiece of his campaign. So, we will now be hearing from the media and the DNC about how this is re-opening old wounds, how it is old news, that it has no bearing on today's issues and events, etc.
Well guess what? It's true. Vietnam doesn't matter. Vietnam was almost 40 years ago. Some will argue that if what the Swift Boat Vets say is true, then that reflects poorly on Kerry's character. Personally, I can't hold something from that long ago, when he was a young man in difficult times, against him. It says a lot more about his character to me that he made such an issue of his service in the first place. What really matters, though, is that the war on terror is right here and now. I don't care if Bush was a slacker National Guardsman or if Kerry was a war hero (or not). I care about how we are going to fight this current war.
All Allies, All the Time
Kerry puts the cart before the horse.
by Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online
In one of my favorite episodes of M*A*S*H, Hawkeye and Trapper John were desperate to procure a medical incubator. They found their way to a corrupt supply sergeant who had three. The sergeant explained that he couldn't give the docs one of his incubators because, if he did, then he wouldn't have three anymore. He'd only have two, and two is worse than three.
This seems like the perfect metaphor for the "Kerry Doctrine." With the constant promises from almost every speaker at the Democratic convention that a President Kerry would create "strong alliances" as his backdrop, John Kerry declared this week that he will pursue a "more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side."
You know some Kerry handlers cringed when the word "sensitive" slipped out of Kerry's mouth. "Sensitive" isn't one of the adjectives most people want describing America's war on terrorism. It's like promising weapons systems "softer than a baby's bottom."
Regardless, for Kerry the vital issue is playing nicely with others. The New Republic's Peter Beinart recently wrote, "Intellectually, Kerry knows he must show he'd go after the terrorists with a vengeance. But that's not where his heart lies. The topic that arouses his greatest passion — the one that has guided his entire career — is improving America's relations with the world." In his 1997 book, Kerry called for the creation of an "entirely new, multilateral code of behavior." In 1993, during the confirmation hearings for Warren Christopher, Kerry called for "an all-out effort to strengthen international institutions." Two years later, Kerry broke with many Senate Democrats and voted against lifting the Bosnian arms embargo, mostly because he wanted Europeans to like us. The Washington Post reported that when Bill Clinton called America the "indispensable nation" in his second inaugural address, Kerry lamented Clinton's "arrogant, obnoxious tone."
And, Beinart notes, "even the 1991 Gulf war, which Kerry's aides now cite as a model of multilateral cooperation, struck him as suspiciously unilateral at the time." Back then, Kerry said, the anti-Saddam coalition "lacks a true United Nations collective security effort, with the full measure of international cooperation and burden-sharing."
This is all consistent with liberal rhetoric for the last three years. How many times have we been told that George W. Bush "squandered" the good will of the world "community" after 9/11? The assumption behind all of this seemed to be that anything which cost America the support of allies like France or Germany was, in effect, too costly. In other words, the means — "strong alliances" — are more important than the ends — winning the war on terror, toppling Saddam, and so forth. Listening to these folks, one gets the sense that America's greatest foreign-policy triumph was to get sucker-punched on 9/11 because it resulted in sympathetic newspaper headlines in Paris and Berlin.
Consider Kerry's seemingly final explanation for why he voted for a war he now condemns Bush for waging. He says he wanted Bush to have the authority to go to war in order to build up a mighty coalition to oust Saddam. But he says he didn't think Bush should actually go to war without such a coalition. Now that we know there weren't any obvious, imminently usable stockpiles of WMDs, that case looks better today than it did then. But Kerry deserves little credit on that score, since he too was certain that Saddam had such weapons.
Still, I agree that a mightier coalition than the one we had would have been nice. Indeed, if President Bush could have enlisted that indestructible ghost army from the third Lord of the Rings movie to do our fighting for us, that would have been really great. But, in the real world, Kerry's position puts the cart before the horse. Was the goal to topple Saddam and secure the WMDs, or was the goal to get a bunch of folks to do it with us? Indeed, Kerry thought the first Gulf War Coalition couldn't meet Kerry's standard.
Now, there is one caveat to the Kerry Doctrine of international hand-holding. If America is attacked, he says he wouldn't hesitate to respond with force. That's nice, I guess. But what else is he going to say? "If America is attacked, I promise to play Boggle in the Oval Office!" He makes it sound like he's the first president to have the courage to commit to a policy of retaliation to attacks. Has any president actually rejected such a policy?
Kerry promises "I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security." Again, great. But no major candidate has ever promised to do otherwise. More importantly, the U.N. wouldn't need to have a veto over our national security with a President Kerry in office, since no situation obviously meets his standards for force except a direct attack. Kerry's like the sergeant from M*A*S*H who doesn't care what the incubators are supposed to be used for, so long as they're never used. For Kerry, no goal is worth losing allies, because keeping allies is Kerry's only goal.
Copyright (c) 2004 Tribune Media Services
Kerry puts the cart before the horse.
by Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online
In one of my favorite episodes of M*A*S*H, Hawkeye and Trapper John were desperate to procure a medical incubator. They found their way to a corrupt supply sergeant who had three. The sergeant explained that he couldn't give the docs one of his incubators because, if he did, then he wouldn't have three anymore. He'd only have two, and two is worse than three.
This seems like the perfect metaphor for the "Kerry Doctrine." With the constant promises from almost every speaker at the Democratic convention that a President Kerry would create "strong alliances" as his backdrop, John Kerry declared this week that he will pursue a "more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side."
You know some Kerry handlers cringed when the word "sensitive" slipped out of Kerry's mouth. "Sensitive" isn't one of the adjectives most people want describing America's war on terrorism. It's like promising weapons systems "softer than a baby's bottom."
Regardless, for Kerry the vital issue is playing nicely with others. The New Republic's Peter Beinart recently wrote, "Intellectually, Kerry knows he must show he'd go after the terrorists with a vengeance. But that's not where his heart lies. The topic that arouses his greatest passion — the one that has guided his entire career — is improving America's relations with the world." In his 1997 book, Kerry called for the creation of an "entirely new, multilateral code of behavior." In 1993, during the confirmation hearings for Warren Christopher, Kerry called for "an all-out effort to strengthen international institutions." Two years later, Kerry broke with many Senate Democrats and voted against lifting the Bosnian arms embargo, mostly because he wanted Europeans to like us. The Washington Post reported that when Bill Clinton called America the "indispensable nation" in his second inaugural address, Kerry lamented Clinton's "arrogant, obnoxious tone."
And, Beinart notes, "even the 1991 Gulf war, which Kerry's aides now cite as a model of multilateral cooperation, struck him as suspiciously unilateral at the time." Back then, Kerry said, the anti-Saddam coalition "lacks a true United Nations collective security effort, with the full measure of international cooperation and burden-sharing."
This is all consistent with liberal rhetoric for the last three years. How many times have we been told that George W. Bush "squandered" the good will of the world "community" after 9/11? The assumption behind all of this seemed to be that anything which cost America the support of allies like France or Germany was, in effect, too costly. In other words, the means — "strong alliances" — are more important than the ends — winning the war on terror, toppling Saddam, and so forth. Listening to these folks, one gets the sense that America's greatest foreign-policy triumph was to get sucker-punched on 9/11 because it resulted in sympathetic newspaper headlines in Paris and Berlin.
Consider Kerry's seemingly final explanation for why he voted for a war he now condemns Bush for waging. He says he wanted Bush to have the authority to go to war in order to build up a mighty coalition to oust Saddam. But he says he didn't think Bush should actually go to war without such a coalition. Now that we know there weren't any obvious, imminently usable stockpiles of WMDs, that case looks better today than it did then. But Kerry deserves little credit on that score, since he too was certain that Saddam had such weapons.
Still, I agree that a mightier coalition than the one we had would have been nice. Indeed, if President Bush could have enlisted that indestructible ghost army from the third Lord of the Rings movie to do our fighting for us, that would have been really great. But, in the real world, Kerry's position puts the cart before the horse. Was the goal to topple Saddam and secure the WMDs, or was the goal to get a bunch of folks to do it with us? Indeed, Kerry thought the first Gulf War Coalition couldn't meet Kerry's standard.
Now, there is one caveat to the Kerry Doctrine of international hand-holding. If America is attacked, he says he wouldn't hesitate to respond with force. That's nice, I guess. But what else is he going to say? "If America is attacked, I promise to play Boggle in the Oval Office!" He makes it sound like he's the first president to have the courage to commit to a policy of retaliation to attacks. Has any president actually rejected such a policy?
Kerry promises "I will never give any nation or international institution a veto over our national security." Again, great. But no major candidate has ever promised to do otherwise. More importantly, the U.N. wouldn't need to have a veto over our national security with a President Kerry in office, since no situation obviously meets his standards for force except a direct attack. Kerry's like the sergeant from M*A*S*H who doesn't care what the incubators are supposed to be used for, so long as they're never used. For Kerry, no goal is worth losing allies, because keeping allies is Kerry's only goal.
Copyright (c) 2004 Tribune Media Services
From the OpEd Page of the New York Times:
Chords for Change
By BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
A nation's artists and musicians have a particular place in its social and political life. Over the years I've tried to think long and hard about what it means to be American: about the distinctive identity and position we have in the world, and how that position is best carried. I've tried to write songs that speak to our pride and criticize our failures.
These questions are at the heart of this election: who we are, what we stand for, why we fight. Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics. Instead, I have been partisan about a set of ideals: economic justice, civil rights, a humane foreign policy, freedom and a decent life for all of our citizens. This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out.
Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?
I don't think John Kerry and John Edwards have all the answers. I do believe they are sincerely interested in asking the right questions and working their way toward honest solutions. They understand that we need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith.
People have different notions of these values, and they live them out in different ways. I've tried to sing about some of them in my songs. But I have my own ideas about what they mean, too. That is why I plan to join with many fellow artists, including the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Jurassic 5, James Taylor and Jackson Browne, in touring the country this October. We will be performing under the umbrella of a new group called Vote for Change. Our goal is to change the direction of the government and change the current administration come November.
Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like afterschool programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible."
It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities - respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.
Bruce Springsteen is a writer and performer.
Chords for Change
By BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
A nation's artists and musicians have a particular place in its social and political life. Over the years I've tried to think long and hard about what it means to be American: about the distinctive identity and position we have in the world, and how that position is best carried. I've tried to write songs that speak to our pride and criticize our failures.
These questions are at the heart of this election: who we are, what we stand for, why we fight. Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics. Instead, I have been partisan about a set of ideals: economic justice, civil rights, a humane foreign policy, freedom and a decent life for all of our citizens. This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out.
Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?
I don't think John Kerry and John Edwards have all the answers. I do believe they are sincerely interested in asking the right questions and working their way toward honest solutions. They understand that we need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith.
People have different notions of these values, and they live them out in different ways. I've tried to sing about some of them in my songs. But I have my own ideas about what they mean, too. That is why I plan to join with many fellow artists, including the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Jurassic 5, James Taylor and Jackson Browne, in touring the country this October. We will be performing under the umbrella of a new group called Vote for Change. Our goal is to change the direction of the government and change the current administration come November.
Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like afterschool programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible."
It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities - respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.
Bruce Springsteen is a writer and performer.
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Careful what you Bush for
By Spengler
Two predictions:
1) George W Bush will win a second term as president of the United States.
2) He will be sorry he did.
The dog that did not bark at the Democratic Party's convention was opposition to the Iraq war. To the chagrin of the Europeans, who oppose the war by vast margins, the Democratic leadership all but muzzled opponents of a war. The battle will be fought on Bush's ground.
Senator John Kerry set himself up for defeat by making an issue of the conduct of the Iraq war, rather than the war itself. Bush will pull a rabbit out of his hat or, to be more precise, a bear, as I reported last week (When Grozny comes to Fallujah, July 27).
Replacing the commander-in-chief in the midst of war is something Americans never have done, although Abraham Lincoln had some sleepless nights before the 1864 elections. Americans want a war, and will choose the war party in the end, however they may chastise the president for his numerous errors. As in war, in politics as well, the threat is mightier than the execution. Poor results in the opinion polls are a warning to the president, not repudiation.
Bush opened Pandora's box a year ago, and not even Kerry proposes to shut it. In this case Pandora's box better resembles a nested set of Russian dolls. Open one, and a bevy of demons flies out, forcing you to open the next one, and so forth. Dubya will be the president who led the US into a world civilizational war, although it is more precise to say that civilizational war led the US into it. Many will be the night during his second term that Bush will wish he were still in Texas, and still drunk.
In his own unassuming fashion, Bush is a world-historical figure in Georg Hegel's sense of the term - never mind that he does not know who Hegel was. A more thoughtful man would recoil in horror at the choices before him and fade into paralysis, like the unfortunate president James Buchanan in 1859. World War I was declared by elderly statesmen who had spent their entire careers (since the 1878 Treaty of Berlin) avoiding a European war. By delaying until the Central and Allied powers had sorted themselves out into two equally matched entities, they ensured that the outcome of war would be the mutual destruction of all the combatants.
World War I could not be forever delayed, though. With its declining population, France stood one generation away from helplessness at the hands of the German Empire; with its rapid industrialization, Russia stood one generation away from military parity with Germany. By analogy, if Washington were to sit on its hands until Iran, Pakistan and other Islamic states developed nuclear weapons, the inevitable future conflict would be ruinous beyond imagination. Europe's demographic collapse and the replacement of European Christians by Middle Eastern and North African Muslims present an even deadlier long-term threat.
Washington will choose preemptive war. Narrow-minded but principled, trusting no one's judgment but his own, petty and ruthless, George W Bush is the man of the hour. The Weltgeist will give him a second term.
Among Pandora's nested boxes, the next one to be opened will extend the conflict into Central Asia. Turkey's status as the "sick man of Europe" drew the European powers into World War I, and it is Turkey's present role as the sick man of Central Asia that will draw in the Russians. Last week I predicted that Russian President Vladimir Putin would ride to Bush's rescue by introducing Russian forces into Iraq's Sunni triangle. On July 27, the pro-government Russian daily Izvestia editorialized on behalf of such an action:
Washington, to be sure, would like Russian peacekeepers in the Sunni belt in Iraq: they have a great deal of experience operating in such Muslim hot spots as Bosnia and Kosovo ... One should take note that in all these areas, the Russian peacekeepers enjoyed a very good relationship with the locals, without incidents and terrorist acts. Truthfully, the Russian leadership should consider this option quite carefully.
Bush thinks he needs Putin to prove his strategy right before the American electorate, but Putin will do so precisely because US strategy in the region is dead wrong. Washington believes that stabilizing Iraq will stabilize the entire region: Moscow knows that the Iraq war already has destabilized the region. In the 21st century version of the Great Game, Russia's winning chess move is to replace Turkey as the dominant power in Central Asia.
Russia's most important strategic interest lies in the Black Sea oilfields, and its greatest worry is pan-Turkish agitation along its southern border. Sergei Blagov in Asia Times Online (Tug-of-war over Uzbekistan, July 31) reported Russia's alarm over Islamic drift in Central Asia. On July 28, K Gajendra Singh detailed the weakening of Turkey's traditional alliances (Turkey, Israel aim to forgive and forget).
It is more probable that Turkey will revert to an Islamic model under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan than it is that Iraq will emerge as a secular democracy on the old Turkish model. Erdogan wants involvement in regional conflict less than anything in the world, except for one thing, which is the humiliation of Turkic populations in adjacent countries. He no more can remain indifferent to the plight of ethnic Turks in the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union than could Nicholas II of Russia abandon the Serbs to Austria in 1914. By the same token, Russia does not want to engage its weakened and demoralized army in a foreign venture. But it no more can remain indifferent to Turkish agitation in the Caucasus and Black Sea than could Austria tolerate Russian subsidies to Serbian terrorists in 1914.
Those are the characters in the next act of the tragedy, and their motivations. The role of tragic lead falls to George W Bush, who will be re-elected and regret it.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd.)
By Spengler
Two predictions:
1) George W Bush will win a second term as president of the United States.
2) He will be sorry he did.
The dog that did not bark at the Democratic Party's convention was opposition to the Iraq war. To the chagrin of the Europeans, who oppose the war by vast margins, the Democratic leadership all but muzzled opponents of a war. The battle will be fought on Bush's ground.
Senator John Kerry set himself up for defeat by making an issue of the conduct of the Iraq war, rather than the war itself. Bush will pull a rabbit out of his hat or, to be more precise, a bear, as I reported last week (When Grozny comes to Fallujah, July 27).
Replacing the commander-in-chief in the midst of war is something Americans never have done, although Abraham Lincoln had some sleepless nights before the 1864 elections. Americans want a war, and will choose the war party in the end, however they may chastise the president for his numerous errors. As in war, in politics as well, the threat is mightier than the execution. Poor results in the opinion polls are a warning to the president, not repudiation.
Bush opened Pandora's box a year ago, and not even Kerry proposes to shut it. In this case Pandora's box better resembles a nested set of Russian dolls. Open one, and a bevy of demons flies out, forcing you to open the next one, and so forth. Dubya will be the president who led the US into a world civilizational war, although it is more precise to say that civilizational war led the US into it. Many will be the night during his second term that Bush will wish he were still in Texas, and still drunk.
In his own unassuming fashion, Bush is a world-historical figure in Georg Hegel's sense of the term - never mind that he does not know who Hegel was. A more thoughtful man would recoil in horror at the choices before him and fade into paralysis, like the unfortunate president James Buchanan in 1859. World War I was declared by elderly statesmen who had spent their entire careers (since the 1878 Treaty of Berlin) avoiding a European war. By delaying until the Central and Allied powers had sorted themselves out into two equally matched entities, they ensured that the outcome of war would be the mutual destruction of all the combatants.
World War I could not be forever delayed, though. With its declining population, France stood one generation away from helplessness at the hands of the German Empire; with its rapid industrialization, Russia stood one generation away from military parity with Germany. By analogy, if Washington were to sit on its hands until Iran, Pakistan and other Islamic states developed nuclear weapons, the inevitable future conflict would be ruinous beyond imagination. Europe's demographic collapse and the replacement of European Christians by Middle Eastern and North African Muslims present an even deadlier long-term threat.
Washington will choose preemptive war. Narrow-minded but principled, trusting no one's judgment but his own, petty and ruthless, George W Bush is the man of the hour. The Weltgeist will give him a second term.
Among Pandora's nested boxes, the next one to be opened will extend the conflict into Central Asia. Turkey's status as the "sick man of Europe" drew the European powers into World War I, and it is Turkey's present role as the sick man of Central Asia that will draw in the Russians. Last week I predicted that Russian President Vladimir Putin would ride to Bush's rescue by introducing Russian forces into Iraq's Sunni triangle. On July 27, the pro-government Russian daily Izvestia editorialized on behalf of such an action:
Washington, to be sure, would like Russian peacekeepers in the Sunni belt in Iraq: they have a great deal of experience operating in such Muslim hot spots as Bosnia and Kosovo ... One should take note that in all these areas, the Russian peacekeepers enjoyed a very good relationship with the locals, without incidents and terrorist acts. Truthfully, the Russian leadership should consider this option quite carefully.
Bush thinks he needs Putin to prove his strategy right before the American electorate, but Putin will do so precisely because US strategy in the region is dead wrong. Washington believes that stabilizing Iraq will stabilize the entire region: Moscow knows that the Iraq war already has destabilized the region. In the 21st century version of the Great Game, Russia's winning chess move is to replace Turkey as the dominant power in Central Asia.
Russia's most important strategic interest lies in the Black Sea oilfields, and its greatest worry is pan-Turkish agitation along its southern border. Sergei Blagov in Asia Times Online (Tug-of-war over Uzbekistan, July 31) reported Russia's alarm over Islamic drift in Central Asia. On July 28, K Gajendra Singh detailed the weakening of Turkey's traditional alliances (Turkey, Israel aim to forgive and forget).
It is more probable that Turkey will revert to an Islamic model under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan than it is that Iraq will emerge as a secular democracy on the old Turkish model. Erdogan wants involvement in regional conflict less than anything in the world, except for one thing, which is the humiliation of Turkic populations in adjacent countries. He no more can remain indifferent to the plight of ethnic Turks in the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union than could Nicholas II of Russia abandon the Serbs to Austria in 1914. By the same token, Russia does not want to engage its weakened and demoralized army in a foreign venture. But it no more can remain indifferent to Turkish agitation in the Caucasus and Black Sea than could Austria tolerate Russian subsidies to Serbian terrorists in 1914.
Those are the characters in the next act of the tragedy, and their motivations. The role of tragic lead falls to George W Bush, who will be re-elected and regret it.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd.)
From washingtonpost.com:
Stem Cell Stumping
by Anne Applebaum
Wednesday, August 4, 2004
"We also -- we also need to lift the ban on stem cell research -- (cheers, applause) and find cures that will help millions of Americans. (applause continues)."
Applause continues. That's a direct quote from the transcript of the speech that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton gave at the Democratic convention last week. Unexpectedly, the applause continued all week long, for anyone who spoke about stem cell research. Sen. John Kerry got some for asking, "What if we have a president who believes in science, so we can unleash the wonders of discovery -- like stem cell research -- and treat illness for millions of lives?" Ron Reagan, son of the late president, who mistakenly imagined he was being cheered merely for what he said rather than who his father was, hit an even higher rhetorical note: "Sound like magic? Welcome to the future of medicine."
Listening to all these speeches, you might have come away with the impression that stem cell research is illegal in this country, and that if our recalcitrant, medieval, anti-science fundamentalist president would only "lift the ban," or lose the election, there would be "magic" cures for old people with Alzheimer's and children with diabetes. By coincidence, the quadriplegic actor Christopher Reeve told CNN last weekend that he would walk again "in the next three to five years" with the help of stem cell research. He spoke of the obstacles to that goal as political rather than merely medical. The message: President Bush has grounded Superman.
As it happens, I do think we should liberalize our national policy on stem cell research. But before we do that, it's important to be pretty clear about what that national policy actually is, and how it got to be that way. Stem cell research is not, in fact, either illegal or unfunded: The federal budget in 2003 included $24.8 million for human embryonic stem cell research -- up from zero in 2000. Private funding of stem cell research, which is unlimited, runs into the tens and possibly hundreds of millions of dollars. The current, admittedly hairsplitting policy came about because Congress in 1995 passed a ban on federal (but not private) funding for any form of research that involved the destruction of human embryos, because it is a form of research many American voters dislike and don't want to pay for. After some important (privately funded) breakthroughs, the Clinton administration began looking for legal ways to bypass the ban, but never got around to paying for any actual research.
The Bush administration thought about it, too, and came up with a solution: Federal funding could be used for research on stem cell lines already in existence. In practice, this means scientists who get their funding from the government are restricted in which materials they can use. Although this compromise will soon become a real obstacle to research, for the moment the irritant is largely philosophical. "What hampers people is the concept that there is a lack of freedom to operate," one scientist told me.
If all of that sounds a little long-winded and complicated, that's because it is. The question now is whether we want, as a nation, to continue to have long-winded and complicated debates about complicated issues, or whether we want to resort to slogans such as "lift the ban" and "unleash the wonders of discovery." The question is also whether Americans and their political representatives are allowed to think twice about the implications of brand-new science -- a prerequisite for public support, one would think -- or whether the patients' groups and pollsters behind last week's rhetoric always get the last word.
At some point we also need to make some distinction between science and "magic." It is true that funneling more money into biological research will produce more breakthroughs and more cures. It is also true that even with unlimited funding, Reeve might never walk again. This is research, not abracadabra. Talk of "magic" doesn't do much to reverse widespread scientific illiteracy either, which remains a far greater obstacle to scientific progress than the president.
But simplifying the argument must work as a political tactic or the Kerry campaign wouldn't have let so many people do it. Perhaps it's because "stem cell research" makes a more attractive cultural buzzword than "abortion," and a more unifying cultural issue than gay marriage. Perhaps it's because it is so easy to use personal anecdotes -- Ron Reagan spoke of a 13-year-old girl who decorates her insulin pump with rhinestones -- to turn a dry scientific subject into an emotional one. Or perhaps it's because the discussion taps into an old and familiar metaphor -- Galileo vs. the pope, Voltaire vs. the clerics, progress vs. religion -- which helps people feel more comfortable about choosing sides. Call me antediluvian, but I'd still like it better if debates about science began with facts
Stem Cell Stumping
by Anne Applebaum
Wednesday, August 4, 2004
"We also -- we also need to lift the ban on stem cell research -- (cheers, applause) and find cures that will help millions of Americans. (applause continues)."
Applause continues. That's a direct quote from the transcript of the speech that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton gave at the Democratic convention last week. Unexpectedly, the applause continued all week long, for anyone who spoke about stem cell research. Sen. John Kerry got some for asking, "What if we have a president who believes in science, so we can unleash the wonders of discovery -- like stem cell research -- and treat illness for millions of lives?" Ron Reagan, son of the late president, who mistakenly imagined he was being cheered merely for what he said rather than who his father was, hit an even higher rhetorical note: "Sound like magic? Welcome to the future of medicine."
Listening to all these speeches, you might have come away with the impression that stem cell research is illegal in this country, and that if our recalcitrant, medieval, anti-science fundamentalist president would only "lift the ban," or lose the election, there would be "magic" cures for old people with Alzheimer's and children with diabetes. By coincidence, the quadriplegic actor Christopher Reeve told CNN last weekend that he would walk again "in the next three to five years" with the help of stem cell research. He spoke of the obstacles to that goal as political rather than merely medical. The message: President Bush has grounded Superman.
As it happens, I do think we should liberalize our national policy on stem cell research. But before we do that, it's important to be pretty clear about what that national policy actually is, and how it got to be that way. Stem cell research is not, in fact, either illegal or unfunded: The federal budget in 2003 included $24.8 million for human embryonic stem cell research -- up from zero in 2000. Private funding of stem cell research, which is unlimited, runs into the tens and possibly hundreds of millions of dollars. The current, admittedly hairsplitting policy came about because Congress in 1995 passed a ban on federal (but not private) funding for any form of research that involved the destruction of human embryos, because it is a form of research many American voters dislike and don't want to pay for. After some important (privately funded) breakthroughs, the Clinton administration began looking for legal ways to bypass the ban, but never got around to paying for any actual research.
The Bush administration thought about it, too, and came up with a solution: Federal funding could be used for research on stem cell lines already in existence. In practice, this means scientists who get their funding from the government are restricted in which materials they can use. Although this compromise will soon become a real obstacle to research, for the moment the irritant is largely philosophical. "What hampers people is the concept that there is a lack of freedom to operate," one scientist told me.
If all of that sounds a little long-winded and complicated, that's because it is. The question now is whether we want, as a nation, to continue to have long-winded and complicated debates about complicated issues, or whether we want to resort to slogans such as "lift the ban" and "unleash the wonders of discovery." The question is also whether Americans and their political representatives are allowed to think twice about the implications of brand-new science -- a prerequisite for public support, one would think -- or whether the patients' groups and pollsters behind last week's rhetoric always get the last word.
At some point we also need to make some distinction between science and "magic." It is true that funneling more money into biological research will produce more breakthroughs and more cures. It is also true that even with unlimited funding, Reeve might never walk again. This is research, not abracadabra. Talk of "magic" doesn't do much to reverse widespread scientific illiteracy either, which remains a far greater obstacle to scientific progress than the president.
But simplifying the argument must work as a political tactic or the Kerry campaign wouldn't have let so many people do it. Perhaps it's because "stem cell research" makes a more attractive cultural buzzword than "abortion," and a more unifying cultural issue than gay marriage. Perhaps it's because it is so easy to use personal anecdotes -- Ron Reagan spoke of a 13-year-old girl who decorates her insulin pump with rhinestones -- to turn a dry scientific subject into an emotional one. Or perhaps it's because the discussion taps into an old and familiar metaphor -- Galileo vs. the pope, Voltaire vs. the clerics, progress vs. religion -- which helps people feel more comfortable about choosing sides. Call me antediluvian, but I'd still like it better if debates about science began with facts
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
From the UK Telegraph:
Could Kerry slum it in the White House?
By Mark Steyn
During their triumphant 1939 tour of Canada, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth took a brief detour south of the border to visit the Roosevelts at Hyde Park. It was the first time a reigning monarch had set foot on American soil and, to mark the occasion, President and Mrs Roosevelt introduced the royal couple to a local delicacy called "hot dogs".
There's an important lesson there: an American president, even one as wealthy as FDR, is obligated to share the tastes of the people in a way that the House of Windsor is not, even today. Try to imagine the roles reversed: the Roosevelts at Windsor, and the King serving up jellied eels and mushy peas.
And that's the problem with John Kerry: it's not that he's rich, but that he's rich in a very un-American way. His swank has a European air about it.
When he eats a hot dog, it appears as foreign to him as it did to George VI.
Even though his regal lifestyle is funded by the enduring popularity of his wife's hot dog condiment.
Case in point: on Friday, the Kerry campaign bus was passing through Newburgh, north of New York, and stopped at the local Wendy's. That's a fast-food chain. I used to prefer them to McDonald's and Burger King, because they used square patties between round buns and it was fun to nibble the corners off. Hence the last time Wendy's figured in a presidential campaign, 20 years ago, when Walter Mondale appropriated their taunt to their competitors and turned it on Ronald Reagan: "Where's the beef?" The preceding explanation is for the benefit of British readers. It should not be necessary to explain what Wendy's is to any American, even presidential candidates.
So the campaign team dropped in at the burger joint. Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of Kerry's running mate, had told a heartwarming personal anecdote at the Democratic convention about how every anniversary she and her husband celebrate at Wendy's, because on their wedding night it was the only restaurant they could afford to eat at.
John Edwards's campaign theme is a slice of warmed-over Disraeli: there are "two Americas", one for the rich, one for the poor, and, even though he's part of the former, he wants you to know that he started out in the latter. Friday was the Edwardses' 27th anniversary, so, in keeping with tradition, they hit the Newburgh Wendy's, along with the Kerrys, campaign mascot Ben Affleck and accompanying press crew.
The photo-op didn't go smoothly. Kerry went over to say hi to some marines, who turned out to be Bush supporters and resented the interruption to their lunch. More telling was Teresa Heinz Kerry. She pointed to the picture of the bowl of chilli above the clerk's head: "What's that?" she asked. He explained that it was something called "chilli" and she said she'd like to try a bowl. The Senator also ordered a Frosty, a chocolate dessert. They toyed with them after a fashion, and then got back on the bus.
It then emerged that Wendy's had just been an appetiser. The campaign advance team had ordered 19 five-star lunches from the Newburgh Yacht Club for Kerry, Edwards, Affleck and co to be served back on the bus: shrimp vindaloo, grilled diver sea scallops, prosciutto, wrapped stuffed chicken, etc.
I'm not sure whether Ben had the shrimp and Teresa the scallops, but, either way, it turns out John Edwards is right: there are two Americas - one America where folks eat at Wendy's, another America where the elite pass an amusing half-hour slumming among the folks at Wendy's and then chow down on the Newburgh Yacht Club's specials of the day. The Elizabeth Edwards anniversary-at-Wendy's shtick was meant to emphasise her husband's authenticity, but it now looks as inauthentic as Kerry's own blundering "regular guy" routine.
I scoffed at Edwards's "two Americas" riff when he was peddling it in New Hampshire, because its notion that there's the toffs in their mansions and the great unwashed in their Dickensian workhouses and ne'er the twain shall meet seemed complete bunk.
On reflection, I now see there might indeed be something to the idea of a remote privileged class hermetically sealed off from the masses. Unfortunately, John Kerry seems to be the best living exemplar of it. He may not enjoy eating at Wendy's, but his faux lunch order captures the essence of his crowd-working style: chilli and Frosty. If I were the Wendy's marketing director, I'd make it the John Kerry Special from now through election day.
In 1992, pictures of a baffled George Bush père marvelling as a supermarket clerk demonstrated a barcode scanner were seized on by the media as evidence of how out of touch he was. But barcode scanners were introduced to supermarkets during his 12 years at the White House, and a sitting president or vice-president doesn't get many opportunities to go grocery shopping. The difference between Bush Snr and Kerry is that Prince John of Gaunt seems far more isolated from the rhythms of American life and he hasn't even got to the White House yet.
The tonal disconnect is only going to get worse between now and November. At the convention last week, Ted Kennedy urged Americans to make sure that, this January, John Kerry has a "nice new home". But, thanks to his wife's first husband, he already has five multi-million-dollar homes, including a 15th-century stone barn dismantled and shipped over from England to serve as their ski chalet in Idaho.
By contrast, George W Bush has one modest ranch in Crawford, a town no one would choose to live in unless it genuinely was his home. As Noemi Emery put it in the Weekly Standard, Kerry is not just "the richest man ever to run on a national ticket", but also "the most self-indulgent in his lifestyle, and the most quasi-royal in his sense of himself".
That gives a whiff of condescension to his chant of "Help Is On The Way", a slogan already a tad too crudely nanny-statish. On the other hand, it's a very good catchphrase for Senator Kerry if he's back at the 15th-century ski chalet in Idaho and Teresa is complaining because she rang for a Scotch five minutes ago. "Don't be so impatient, lovie. The help is on the way."
Could Kerry slum it in the White House?
By Mark Steyn
During their triumphant 1939 tour of Canada, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth took a brief detour south of the border to visit the Roosevelts at Hyde Park. It was the first time a reigning monarch had set foot on American soil and, to mark the occasion, President and Mrs Roosevelt introduced the royal couple to a local delicacy called "hot dogs".
There's an important lesson there: an American president, even one as wealthy as FDR, is obligated to share the tastes of the people in a way that the House of Windsor is not, even today. Try to imagine the roles reversed: the Roosevelts at Windsor, and the King serving up jellied eels and mushy peas.
And that's the problem with John Kerry: it's not that he's rich, but that he's rich in a very un-American way. His swank has a European air about it.
When he eats a hot dog, it appears as foreign to him as it did to George VI.
Even though his regal lifestyle is funded by the enduring popularity of his wife's hot dog condiment.
Case in point: on Friday, the Kerry campaign bus was passing through Newburgh, north of New York, and stopped at the local Wendy's. That's a fast-food chain. I used to prefer them to McDonald's and Burger King, because they used square patties between round buns and it was fun to nibble the corners off. Hence the last time Wendy's figured in a presidential campaign, 20 years ago, when Walter Mondale appropriated their taunt to their competitors and turned it on Ronald Reagan: "Where's the beef?" The preceding explanation is for the benefit of British readers. It should not be necessary to explain what Wendy's is to any American, even presidential candidates.
So the campaign team dropped in at the burger joint. Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of Kerry's running mate, had told a heartwarming personal anecdote at the Democratic convention about how every anniversary she and her husband celebrate at Wendy's, because on their wedding night it was the only restaurant they could afford to eat at.
John Edwards's campaign theme is a slice of warmed-over Disraeli: there are "two Americas", one for the rich, one for the poor, and, even though he's part of the former, he wants you to know that he started out in the latter. Friday was the Edwardses' 27th anniversary, so, in keeping with tradition, they hit the Newburgh Wendy's, along with the Kerrys, campaign mascot Ben Affleck and accompanying press crew.
The photo-op didn't go smoothly. Kerry went over to say hi to some marines, who turned out to be Bush supporters and resented the interruption to their lunch. More telling was Teresa Heinz Kerry. She pointed to the picture of the bowl of chilli above the clerk's head: "What's that?" she asked. He explained that it was something called "chilli" and she said she'd like to try a bowl. The Senator also ordered a Frosty, a chocolate dessert. They toyed with them after a fashion, and then got back on the bus.
It then emerged that Wendy's had just been an appetiser. The campaign advance team had ordered 19 five-star lunches from the Newburgh Yacht Club for Kerry, Edwards, Affleck and co to be served back on the bus: shrimp vindaloo, grilled diver sea scallops, prosciutto, wrapped stuffed chicken, etc.
I'm not sure whether Ben had the shrimp and Teresa the scallops, but, either way, it turns out John Edwards is right: there are two Americas - one America where folks eat at Wendy's, another America where the elite pass an amusing half-hour slumming among the folks at Wendy's and then chow down on the Newburgh Yacht Club's specials of the day. The Elizabeth Edwards anniversary-at-Wendy's shtick was meant to emphasise her husband's authenticity, but it now looks as inauthentic as Kerry's own blundering "regular guy" routine.
I scoffed at Edwards's "two Americas" riff when he was peddling it in New Hampshire, because its notion that there's the toffs in their mansions and the great unwashed in their Dickensian workhouses and ne'er the twain shall meet seemed complete bunk.
On reflection, I now see there might indeed be something to the idea of a remote privileged class hermetically sealed off from the masses. Unfortunately, John Kerry seems to be the best living exemplar of it. He may not enjoy eating at Wendy's, but his faux lunch order captures the essence of his crowd-working style: chilli and Frosty. If I were the Wendy's marketing director, I'd make it the John Kerry Special from now through election day.
In 1992, pictures of a baffled George Bush père marvelling as a supermarket clerk demonstrated a barcode scanner were seized on by the media as evidence of how out of touch he was. But barcode scanners were introduced to supermarkets during his 12 years at the White House, and a sitting president or vice-president doesn't get many opportunities to go grocery shopping. The difference between Bush Snr and Kerry is that Prince John of Gaunt seems far more isolated from the rhythms of American life and he hasn't even got to the White House yet.
The tonal disconnect is only going to get worse between now and November. At the convention last week, Ted Kennedy urged Americans to make sure that, this January, John Kerry has a "nice new home". But, thanks to his wife's first husband, he already has five multi-million-dollar homes, including a 15th-century stone barn dismantled and shipped over from England to serve as their ski chalet in Idaho.
By contrast, George W Bush has one modest ranch in Crawford, a town no one would choose to live in unless it genuinely was his home. As Noemi Emery put it in the Weekly Standard, Kerry is not just "the richest man ever to run on a national ticket", but also "the most self-indulgent in his lifestyle, and the most quasi-royal in his sense of himself".
That gives a whiff of condescension to his chant of "Help Is On The Way", a slogan already a tad too crudely nanny-statish. On the other hand, it's a very good catchphrase for Senator Kerry if he's back at the 15th-century ski chalet in Idaho and Teresa is complaining because she rang for a Scotch five minutes ago. "Don't be so impatient, lovie. The help is on the way."
Monday, August 02, 2004
From Townhall.com:
What Media Bias? Part II
By Larry Elder
Need another example of media bias?
First, credit goes to Newsweek's Evan Thomas, who, once again, acknowledged media bias. "Let's talk a little media bias here," Thomas said, "The media, I think, want Kerry to win. And I think they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards -- I'm talking about the establishment media, not Fox -- but they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic and all, there's going to be this glow about them that . . . collectively, the two of them, that's going to be worth maybe 15 points." Attorneys call things like this "admissions."
Earlier in Bush's term, Thomas also acknowledged the media's "pro-environment" bias: "Certainly the press is pretty green . . . pretty pro-environment. And I don't think there's any question that they, as a body, feel that Bush is wrong on the environment, with varying degrees of willingness to give him credit. And I'm excluding the conservative press. . . . But generally, the rank-and-file press is pretty green, and they're gonna use the Europeans to take the Bush's to task."
Consider the way the media treats the missing paper scandal involving former national security advisor Sandy Berger. In preparing for his appearance before the 9/11 commission, Berger, at former President Clinton's request, spent three days at the National Archives. Investigators now think Berger illegally took papers from the archives. But Berger calls his removal of the documents an "honest mistake." A key advisor to presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, Berger promptly resigned from Kerry's campaign. The day the story broke, The New York Times online placed it on page 17. On television, CBS's Dan Rather cautioned viewers that the story "was triggered by a carefully orchestrated leak about Berger, and the timing of it appears to be no coincidence."
Now examine how the media -- on its own -- lowered Berger's stature in the Kerry campaign.
Way back in May 2004, The Washington Post called Berger "a top Kerry advisor." After the scandal, the Post busted him down to "informal advisor." Similarly, the Los Angeles Times in May called Berger a "Kerry foreign policy advisor." It now tags him as an "unpaid consultant." The Boston Globe in May called Berger a "top advisor." Now the paper relegates him to "informal advisor."
Still in denial about media bias?
Last year, Tim Groseclose of UCLA and University of Chicago's Jeff Milyo did a study to measure bias in U.S. television networks, newspapers and magazines. Groseclose and Milyo examined the voting records of U.S. senators and representatives, as rated by the well-known Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a self-described liberal lobbying group. On a 1-100 scale -- with 100 being most liberal -- the median House member scored an ADA rating of 39. Therefore, the researchers used 39 as a reasonable measure of a centrist position. (Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has a low conservative score of 4, whereas Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., scores a high, liberal 80.)
Next, they measured the tendency of Senate and House members to favorably cite in speeches a view presented by one of 200 prominent think tanks. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, was cited by the more conservative legislators (average ADA score 6). The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, was mentioned by the more liberal legislators (average ADA score 80). The researchers then measured the tendency of various media outlets to cite the same 200 think tanks in their 1990 to 2003 "news stories" -- not editorials or letters to the editor. If the news story frequently mentioned a liberal think tank, the researchers characterized the publication or program as liberal. If the story frequently mentioned a conservative think tank, the researchers labeled the publication or program conservative. So, in effect, the researchers assigned an "ADA rating" to the news outlets.
"Fox News Special Report" earned a rating of 27 -- 12 points more conservative than the median House member's 39 rating. Only one other major outlet scored a right-of-center rating -- the Washington Times at 34. On the other end, Newsweek scored 72 -- or 33 points more liberal than the median. Time magazine, The New York Times, "CBS Evening News," USA Today and "NBC Nightly News" ranged from 62 to 64, about 25 points above the median.
A recent Pew Research Center survey also noted the press corps' lopsided liberal ideology. Pew found that 54 percent of national journalists self-describe as "moderates," down from 64 percent in 1995. Only 7 percent of national journalists call themselves "politically conservative," well below the 33 percent of the general public who call themselves "conservative." National journalists who call themselves liberal increased to 34 percent, compared with 22 percent in 1995.
What Media Bias? Part II
By Larry Elder
Need another example of media bias?
First, credit goes to Newsweek's Evan Thomas, who, once again, acknowledged media bias. "Let's talk a little media bias here," Thomas said, "The media, I think, want Kerry to win. And I think they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards -- I'm talking about the establishment media, not Fox -- but they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic and all, there's going to be this glow about them that . . . collectively, the two of them, that's going to be worth maybe 15 points." Attorneys call things like this "admissions."
Earlier in Bush's term, Thomas also acknowledged the media's "pro-environment" bias: "Certainly the press is pretty green . . . pretty pro-environment. And I don't think there's any question that they, as a body, feel that Bush is wrong on the environment, with varying degrees of willingness to give him credit. And I'm excluding the conservative press. . . . But generally, the rank-and-file press is pretty green, and they're gonna use the Europeans to take the Bush's to task."
Consider the way the media treats the missing paper scandal involving former national security advisor Sandy Berger. In preparing for his appearance before the 9/11 commission, Berger, at former President Clinton's request, spent three days at the National Archives. Investigators now think Berger illegally took papers from the archives. But Berger calls his removal of the documents an "honest mistake." A key advisor to presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, Berger promptly resigned from Kerry's campaign. The day the story broke, The New York Times online placed it on page 17. On television, CBS's Dan Rather cautioned viewers that the story "was triggered by a carefully orchestrated leak about Berger, and the timing of it appears to be no coincidence."
Now examine how the media -- on its own -- lowered Berger's stature in the Kerry campaign.
Way back in May 2004, The Washington Post called Berger "a top Kerry advisor." After the scandal, the Post busted him down to "informal advisor." Similarly, the Los Angeles Times in May called Berger a "Kerry foreign policy advisor." It now tags him as an "unpaid consultant." The Boston Globe in May called Berger a "top advisor." Now the paper relegates him to "informal advisor."
Still in denial about media bias?
Last year, Tim Groseclose of UCLA and University of Chicago's Jeff Milyo did a study to measure bias in U.S. television networks, newspapers and magazines. Groseclose and Milyo examined the voting records of U.S. senators and representatives, as rated by the well-known Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a self-described liberal lobbying group. On a 1-100 scale -- with 100 being most liberal -- the median House member scored an ADA rating of 39. Therefore, the researchers used 39 as a reasonable measure of a centrist position. (Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has a low conservative score of 4, whereas Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., scores a high, liberal 80.)
Next, they measured the tendency of Senate and House members to favorably cite in speeches a view presented by one of 200 prominent think tanks. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, was cited by the more conservative legislators (average ADA score 6). The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, was mentioned by the more liberal legislators (average ADA score 80). The researchers then measured the tendency of various media outlets to cite the same 200 think tanks in their 1990 to 2003 "news stories" -- not editorials or letters to the editor. If the news story frequently mentioned a liberal think tank, the researchers characterized the publication or program as liberal. If the story frequently mentioned a conservative think tank, the researchers labeled the publication or program conservative. So, in effect, the researchers assigned an "ADA rating" to the news outlets.
"Fox News Special Report" earned a rating of 27 -- 12 points more conservative than the median House member's 39 rating. Only one other major outlet scored a right-of-center rating -- the Washington Times at 34. On the other end, Newsweek scored 72 -- or 33 points more liberal than the median. Time magazine, The New York Times, "CBS Evening News," USA Today and "NBC Nightly News" ranged from 62 to 64, about 25 points above the median.
A recent Pew Research Center survey also noted the press corps' lopsided liberal ideology. Pew found that 54 percent of national journalists self-describe as "moderates," down from 64 percent in 1995. Only 7 percent of national journalists call themselves "politically conservative," well below the 33 percent of the general public who call themselves "conservative." National journalists who call themselves liberal increased to 34 percent, compared with 22 percent in 1995.
Democratic Party "Leper" Endorses Bush
By Jerome Zeifman
Insight Magazine | August 2, 2004
During the Clinton administration I was described jokingly by Insight Managing Editor Paul M. Rodriguez as "The Leper of the Democratic Party." Since then I have continued to be a renegade Democrat -- and I am now supporting the re-election of President George W. Bush. It started with Bill Clinton.
I had first met Clinton in 1975, when he was courting Hillary Rodham. Over the years my unfavorable impressions of him have increased.
In 1975 Hillary Rodham was working under my supervision on the Nixon impeachment staff of the House Judiciary Committee. As it was later described in the New York Times by Bernard Nussbaum, who became Clinton's White House counsel, when Hillary introduced Bill to us she said: "He's running for Congress...One day he's gonna become president."
Hillary had been recommended to Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino (D-N.J.) by Burke Marshall, her former professor at Yale Law. Marshall had served as assistant attorney general in the Kennedy administration. Later he became Kennedy's lawyer during the Chappaquiddick affair and his chief political strategist. With the advent of Watergate, Marshall had developed a plan to elect Ted Kennedy to the presidency in 1976. As a result, at Yale his students dubbed him: "The attorney general in waiting of the Camelot government in exile."
In 1975, Hillary hitched her political wagon to Marshall's rising star. Once on our staff she conferred regularly with Marshall, in violation of congressional rules against disclosure of confidential materials.
Under Marshall's direction Hillary worked to forestall Richard Nixon's impeachment and keep him "twisting in the wind" until the end of his term. This would have denied the untarnished vice president, Gerry Ford, a chance to restore respectability to the Republican Party. It also would have enhanced the prospects for Kennedy to be elected in the upcoming elections.
In pursuit of Marshall's objective Hillary lied to me and the committee on several occasions. Thus, after the disbanding of our impeachment staff I decided that I could not recommend her for future employment in government service. She went off to Arkansas and married Bill Clinton.
By the Democratic presidential primaries of 1992 I had seen enough to fear that Bill Clinton had character flaws and I supported the nomination of Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa. After Clinton won the nomination he began to tout the notion that he and Hillary would give the country a "two-for-one" presidency. But despite my experience with Hillary and my uneasiness about the character of her husband I voted for him in the presidential election.
Four years later, in 1996, I began (for the first time in my career) to consider voting for a Republican. I discussed Clinton vs. Dole with former House Judiciary Committee chairman Jack Brooks of Texas. More than anyone else I knew in the Democratic Party, Brooks had close-up personal dealings with both Dole and Clinton. Jack's opinion was: "Slick Willy is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch...I will probably hold my nose and vote for him."
When I asked him for his opinion of Sen. Bob Dole, Brooks told me: "Bob is a straight arrow. ... He is not deceitful. ... He keeps his word. ... He says what he means and means what he says." To this day I don't know how Jack finally voted. I would like to believe that he squared his shoulders and voted for Dole. But after my conversation with Chairman Brooks I decided to support Sen. Dole.
On Oct. 25, 1996, I published a long article in the Wall Street Journal titled "Cancer on the Presidency." A few excerpts follow:
"In my view there is now probable cause to consider our president and first lady as felons, who are likely to be indicted after the Nov. 5 election.
"The misdeeds of the Clinton administration have fallen into a pattern of deceit and corruption that now clearly justifies denying Mr. Clinton a second term.
"By all accounts Robert Dole is a man of personal integrity. His principles are conservative, and I will continue to oppose them. Yet because I must remain true to my traditional Democratic moral values, I will vote for Mr. Dole."
My article resonated in the media. It was republished in other newspapers and on numerous Websites. To my surprise presidential then-candidate Ross Perot published a televised "infomercial" quoting from the article. And, not surprisingly, the article came to the attention of Hillary. Under her orders a high-ranking White House staffer telephoned the law firm of which I had been a member. He told one of the firm's senior Democratic partners, "That bastard is killing us. Shut him up!"
The partner in turn warned me: "If you ever try to set foot in our office again, I will throw you out bodily."
More recently I have decided to support George W. Bush (as have such Democrats as Georgia Sen. Zell Miller, Jimmy Carter's attorney general Griffin Bell, and former New York mayor Ed Koch). As for John Kerry I see him as a demagogue who panders to the lowest common denominator of our party. He also fits Edmund Burke's description of the kind of politician who is no more than "a weather cock, moving in the direction of every changing political wind."
Yet, despite my support for two Republican presidential candidates, I intend to remain a Democrat. My reason is simple: I have not lost hope that one day a new generation of Democrats will win our continuous fight to redeem our party's political soul.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jerome Zeifman is a lifelong Democrat. He served as chief counsel of the House Judiciary Committee during its Nixon impeachment proceedings.
By Jerome Zeifman
Insight Magazine | August 2, 2004
During the Clinton administration I was described jokingly by Insight Managing Editor Paul M. Rodriguez as "The Leper of the Democratic Party." Since then I have continued to be a renegade Democrat -- and I am now supporting the re-election of President George W. Bush. It started with Bill Clinton.
I had first met Clinton in 1975, when he was courting Hillary Rodham. Over the years my unfavorable impressions of him have increased.
In 1975 Hillary Rodham was working under my supervision on the Nixon impeachment staff of the House Judiciary Committee. As it was later described in the New York Times by Bernard Nussbaum, who became Clinton's White House counsel, when Hillary introduced Bill to us she said: "He's running for Congress...One day he's gonna become president."
Hillary had been recommended to Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino (D-N.J.) by Burke Marshall, her former professor at Yale Law. Marshall had served as assistant attorney general in the Kennedy administration. Later he became Kennedy's lawyer during the Chappaquiddick affair and his chief political strategist. With the advent of Watergate, Marshall had developed a plan to elect Ted Kennedy to the presidency in 1976. As a result, at Yale his students dubbed him: "The attorney general in waiting of the Camelot government in exile."
In 1975, Hillary hitched her political wagon to Marshall's rising star. Once on our staff she conferred regularly with Marshall, in violation of congressional rules against disclosure of confidential materials.
Under Marshall's direction Hillary worked to forestall Richard Nixon's impeachment and keep him "twisting in the wind" until the end of his term. This would have denied the untarnished vice president, Gerry Ford, a chance to restore respectability to the Republican Party. It also would have enhanced the prospects for Kennedy to be elected in the upcoming elections.
In pursuit of Marshall's objective Hillary lied to me and the committee on several occasions. Thus, after the disbanding of our impeachment staff I decided that I could not recommend her for future employment in government service. She went off to Arkansas and married Bill Clinton.
By the Democratic presidential primaries of 1992 I had seen enough to fear that Bill Clinton had character flaws and I supported the nomination of Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa. After Clinton won the nomination he began to tout the notion that he and Hillary would give the country a "two-for-one" presidency. But despite my experience with Hillary and my uneasiness about the character of her husband I voted for him in the presidential election.
Four years later, in 1996, I began (for the first time in my career) to consider voting for a Republican. I discussed Clinton vs. Dole with former House Judiciary Committee chairman Jack Brooks of Texas. More than anyone else I knew in the Democratic Party, Brooks had close-up personal dealings with both Dole and Clinton. Jack's opinion was: "Slick Willy is a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch...I will probably hold my nose and vote for him."
When I asked him for his opinion of Sen. Bob Dole, Brooks told me: "Bob is a straight arrow. ... He is not deceitful. ... He keeps his word. ... He says what he means and means what he says." To this day I don't know how Jack finally voted. I would like to believe that he squared his shoulders and voted for Dole. But after my conversation with Chairman Brooks I decided to support Sen. Dole.
On Oct. 25, 1996, I published a long article in the Wall Street Journal titled "Cancer on the Presidency." A few excerpts follow:
"In my view there is now probable cause to consider our president and first lady as felons, who are likely to be indicted after the Nov. 5 election.
"The misdeeds of the Clinton administration have fallen into a pattern of deceit and corruption that now clearly justifies denying Mr. Clinton a second term.
"By all accounts Robert Dole is a man of personal integrity. His principles are conservative, and I will continue to oppose them. Yet because I must remain true to my traditional Democratic moral values, I will vote for Mr. Dole."
My article resonated in the media. It was republished in other newspapers and on numerous Websites. To my surprise presidential then-candidate Ross Perot published a televised "infomercial" quoting from the article. And, not surprisingly, the article came to the attention of Hillary. Under her orders a high-ranking White House staffer telephoned the law firm of which I had been a member. He told one of the firm's senior Democratic partners, "That bastard is killing us. Shut him up!"
The partner in turn warned me: "If you ever try to set foot in our office again, I will throw you out bodily."
More recently I have decided to support George W. Bush (as have such Democrats as Georgia Sen. Zell Miller, Jimmy Carter's attorney general Griffin Bell, and former New York mayor Ed Koch). As for John Kerry I see him as a demagogue who panders to the lowest common denominator of our party. He also fits Edmund Burke's description of the kind of politician who is no more than "a weather cock, moving in the direction of every changing political wind."
Yet, despite my support for two Republican presidential candidates, I intend to remain a Democrat. My reason is simple: I have not lost hope that one day a new generation of Democrats will win our continuous fight to redeem our party's political soul.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jerome Zeifman is a lifelong Democrat. He served as chief counsel of the House Judiciary Committee during its Nixon impeachment proceedings.
From the New York Post:
Munson Remembered
In the eighth inning, a video tribute to Thurman Munson played on the scoreboard. Jorge Posada did not take his position behind the plate until the moving tribute ended.
"I wanted to leave the plate alone," Posada said. "I just left it. It is his plate. I'm just using it when I play here."
Munson Remembered
In the eighth inning, a video tribute to Thurman Munson played on the scoreboard. Jorge Posada did not take his position behind the plate until the moving tribute ended.
"I wanted to leave the plate alone," Posada said. "I just left it. It is his plate. I'm just using it when I play here."
Sunday, August 01, 2004
From the UK Telegraph:
He was complacent, arrogant and humourless. How they loved him
By Mark Steyn
It was interesting to see Ben Affleck emerge as the Hollywood mascot of the Democratic Convention. The week reminded me of Ben's movie Pearl Harbor: wall-to-wall evocative military imagery, a cast of thousands, superb production values, but a huge gaping hole where the star performance was supposed to be.
On TV the other night, young Mr Affleck offered a pearl of wisdom to Mr Kerry and his consultants: "You have to enervate the base," the Hollywood heartthrob advised solemnly. If it's enervating the base you're after, John F Kerry would seem to be the perfect candidate. On Thursday, for his first big moment in the national spotlight, his only concession to the occasion was to speed up his delivery, in order to cram a 90-minute address into the hour of primetime the networks were prepared to give him. But otherwise it was classic Kerry: verbose, shapeless, platitudinous, complacent, ill-disciplined, arrogant, and humourless.
On the other hand, despite Ben Affleck's advice, the Boston crowd wasn't in the least bit enervated. They were deliriously happy. The Kerry campaign seems to be the political equivalent of what they call on Broadway a "snob hit": the longer it is, the more boring it is and the worse time you have at it, the more you feel it must be good for you. To his numbed, buttock-shifting listeners, the great sonorous self-regarding orotund bromidic banality of Senator Kerry and his multitude of nuances is proof of how much more serious he - and therefore they - are. This is a profoundly un-American attitude and, from the so far bounce-less post-convention polls, it doesn't seem to be resonating with "swing voters".
At one level, what's happening is very unfair. Three-quarters of Democratic voters opposed the Iraq war; 86 per cent of convention delegates opposed it. But they've wound up with a presidential ticket comprised of two Senators who both voted in favour of it. And, after being for-and-against the war for the last year according to political necessity, Kerry seems to have settled on a position of doing pretty much what Bush is doing while simultaneously spending more time on the blower to Kofi, Jacques and Gerhard. If I were a principled anti-war Democrat, I'd be furious.
But they're not. Because the real distinction is not between pro- and anti-war, but between September 11 Americans and September 10 Americans. The latter group is a coalition embracing not just the hardcore Bush haters - for whom, as the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11 makes plain, it all goes back to chads in Florida - but the larger group of voters who've been a little stressed out by the epic nature of politics these last three years and would like a quieter life. That's what John Kerry's offering them: a return to September 10.
He doesn't quite put it like that, of course. He talks about an America "strong" and "respected" and all the other poll-tested words, while the Democratic platform asserts that Republicans "do not understand that real leadership means standing by your principles and rallying others to join you".
Say what you like about Bush, but on Iraq he stood by his principles and rallied the British, Australians, Poles, Italians, etc, to join him. He also rallied Kerry and Edwards to join him. They voted for his war, as the columnist Debra Saunders of The San Francisco Chronical drolly pointed out: "Kerry and Edwards followed. Bush led."
Kerry now says that Bush "misled" him on Iraq. But, if he was that easily suckered by a renowned moron, how much more susceptible would he be to such wily operators as Chirac. They would speak French to each other, and Jacques would blow soothingly in his ear, and Kerry would look flattered, and there'd be lots of resolutions and joint declarations, and nothing would happen. We'd be fighting the war on terror through the self-admiring inertia of windbag multilateralism.
As for the home front, Kerry says: "As President, I will not evade or equivocate; I will immediately implement the recommendations of that [the 9/11] commission." Whoa, hold on there. There's a ton of recommendations, and some of us don't like the part about concentrating all US intelligence under one cabinet secretary who serves not at the President's pleasure but for a fixed term. That effectively institutionalises the groupthink resistance to alternative ideas that led to the 9/11 failures. Leadership is about hearing different viewpoints and reaching a judgment. But Kerry gives the impression that, as long as he enjoys the perks of the top job, he's happy to subcontract his judgment to others.
He moans endlessly about the "outsourcing" of American jobs but, when it comes to his own job, he's willing to outsource American foreign policy to the mushy transnational talk-shops and to outsource homeland security to some dubious intelligence tsar. There's no sense of any strategic vision, no sense that he's thought about Iran or North Korea or any of the other powder kegs about to blow. I tried to ask him about some of these matters during the New Hampshire primary and he intoned in response, "Sometimes truly courageous leadership means having the courage not to show any leadership." (I quote from memory.)
In another perilous time - 1918 - Lord Haig wrote of Lord Derby: "D is a very weak-minded fellow I am afraid and, like the feather pillow, bears the marks of the last person who has sat on him." It's subtler than that with Kerry: you don't have to sit on him; just the slightest political breeze, and his pillow billows in the appropriate direction. His default position is the conventional wisdom of the Massachusetts Left: on foreign policy, foreigners know best; on trade, the labour unions know best; on government, bureaucrats know best; on defence, graying ponytailed nuclear-freeze reflex anti-militarists know best; on the wine list, he knows best.
Sometimes these default positions have to be recalibrated to take account of various political pressures - hence his current kinky Vietnam macho nostalgia, after two decades of voting against every important weapons system for the US military. But there's no sense - other than the blurry abstract nouns he shoveled off the stage on Thursday - of what Kerry stands firm on.
Last year, I was at a Kerry campaign stop in New Hampshire chatting with two old coots in plaid. The Senator approached and stopped in front of us. The etiquette in primary season is that the candidate defers to the cranky Granite Stater's churlish indifference to status and initiates the conversation: "Hi, I'm John Kerry. Good to see ya. Cold enough for ya?" Etc. But Kerry just stood there nose to nose, staring at us with a semi-glare on his face. After an eternity, an aide stepped out from behind him and said, "The Senator needs you to move."
"Well, why couldn't he have said that?" muttered one of the old coots, as Kerry swept past us.
That's how I felt after the Convention: all week Senators Biden, Lieberman and Edwards made the case that the Democrats were credible on national security. Why couldn't Kerry have said that?
Because in the end he's running for President because he feels he ought to be President. That's his message to George W Bush: "The Senator needs you to move." And even then everyone else says it better.
He was complacent, arrogant and humourless. How they loved him
By Mark Steyn
It was interesting to see Ben Affleck emerge as the Hollywood mascot of the Democratic Convention. The week reminded me of Ben's movie Pearl Harbor: wall-to-wall evocative military imagery, a cast of thousands, superb production values, but a huge gaping hole where the star performance was supposed to be.
On TV the other night, young Mr Affleck offered a pearl of wisdom to Mr Kerry and his consultants: "You have to enervate the base," the Hollywood heartthrob advised solemnly. If it's enervating the base you're after, John F Kerry would seem to be the perfect candidate. On Thursday, for his first big moment in the national spotlight, his only concession to the occasion was to speed up his delivery, in order to cram a 90-minute address into the hour of primetime the networks were prepared to give him. But otherwise it was classic Kerry: verbose, shapeless, platitudinous, complacent, ill-disciplined, arrogant, and humourless.
On the other hand, despite Ben Affleck's advice, the Boston crowd wasn't in the least bit enervated. They were deliriously happy. The Kerry campaign seems to be the political equivalent of what they call on Broadway a "snob hit": the longer it is, the more boring it is and the worse time you have at it, the more you feel it must be good for you. To his numbed, buttock-shifting listeners, the great sonorous self-regarding orotund bromidic banality of Senator Kerry and his multitude of nuances is proof of how much more serious he - and therefore they - are. This is a profoundly un-American attitude and, from the so far bounce-less post-convention polls, it doesn't seem to be resonating with "swing voters".
At one level, what's happening is very unfair. Three-quarters of Democratic voters opposed the Iraq war; 86 per cent of convention delegates opposed it. But they've wound up with a presidential ticket comprised of two Senators who both voted in favour of it. And, after being for-and-against the war for the last year according to political necessity, Kerry seems to have settled on a position of doing pretty much what Bush is doing while simultaneously spending more time on the blower to Kofi, Jacques and Gerhard. If I were a principled anti-war Democrat, I'd be furious.
But they're not. Because the real distinction is not between pro- and anti-war, but between September 11 Americans and September 10 Americans. The latter group is a coalition embracing not just the hardcore Bush haters - for whom, as the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11 makes plain, it all goes back to chads in Florida - but the larger group of voters who've been a little stressed out by the epic nature of politics these last three years and would like a quieter life. That's what John Kerry's offering them: a return to September 10.
He doesn't quite put it like that, of course. He talks about an America "strong" and "respected" and all the other poll-tested words, while the Democratic platform asserts that Republicans "do not understand that real leadership means standing by your principles and rallying others to join you".
Say what you like about Bush, but on Iraq he stood by his principles and rallied the British, Australians, Poles, Italians, etc, to join him. He also rallied Kerry and Edwards to join him. They voted for his war, as the columnist Debra Saunders of The San Francisco Chronical drolly pointed out: "Kerry and Edwards followed. Bush led."
Kerry now says that Bush "misled" him on Iraq. But, if he was that easily suckered by a renowned moron, how much more susceptible would he be to such wily operators as Chirac. They would speak French to each other, and Jacques would blow soothingly in his ear, and Kerry would look flattered, and there'd be lots of resolutions and joint declarations, and nothing would happen. We'd be fighting the war on terror through the self-admiring inertia of windbag multilateralism.
As for the home front, Kerry says: "As President, I will not evade or equivocate; I will immediately implement the recommendations of that [the 9/11] commission." Whoa, hold on there. There's a ton of recommendations, and some of us don't like the part about concentrating all US intelligence under one cabinet secretary who serves not at the President's pleasure but for a fixed term. That effectively institutionalises the groupthink resistance to alternative ideas that led to the 9/11 failures. Leadership is about hearing different viewpoints and reaching a judgment. But Kerry gives the impression that, as long as he enjoys the perks of the top job, he's happy to subcontract his judgment to others.
He moans endlessly about the "outsourcing" of American jobs but, when it comes to his own job, he's willing to outsource American foreign policy to the mushy transnational talk-shops and to outsource homeland security to some dubious intelligence tsar. There's no sense of any strategic vision, no sense that he's thought about Iran or North Korea or any of the other powder kegs about to blow. I tried to ask him about some of these matters during the New Hampshire primary and he intoned in response, "Sometimes truly courageous leadership means having the courage not to show any leadership." (I quote from memory.)
In another perilous time - 1918 - Lord Haig wrote of Lord Derby: "D is a very weak-minded fellow I am afraid and, like the feather pillow, bears the marks of the last person who has sat on him." It's subtler than that with Kerry: you don't have to sit on him; just the slightest political breeze, and his pillow billows in the appropriate direction. His default position is the conventional wisdom of the Massachusetts Left: on foreign policy, foreigners know best; on trade, the labour unions know best; on government, bureaucrats know best; on defence, graying ponytailed nuclear-freeze reflex anti-militarists know best; on the wine list, he knows best.
Sometimes these default positions have to be recalibrated to take account of various political pressures - hence his current kinky Vietnam macho nostalgia, after two decades of voting against every important weapons system for the US military. But there's no sense - other than the blurry abstract nouns he shoveled off the stage on Thursday - of what Kerry stands firm on.
Last year, I was at a Kerry campaign stop in New Hampshire chatting with two old coots in plaid. The Senator approached and stopped in front of us. The etiquette in primary season is that the candidate defers to the cranky Granite Stater's churlish indifference to status and initiates the conversation: "Hi, I'm John Kerry. Good to see ya. Cold enough for ya?" Etc. But Kerry just stood there nose to nose, staring at us with a semi-glare on his face. After an eternity, an aide stepped out from behind him and said, "The Senator needs you to move."
"Well, why couldn't he have said that?" muttered one of the old coots, as Kerry swept past us.
That's how I felt after the Convention: all week Senators Biden, Lieberman and Edwards made the case that the Democrats were credible on national security. Why couldn't Kerry have said that?
Because in the end he's running for President because he feels he ought to be President. That's his message to George W Bush: "The Senator needs you to move." And even then everyone else says it better.
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