Please, Lord, Let This Be On Tape

It's rare but wonderful when they bluntly state their philosophy.

At a fundraiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer in San Francisco, Sen. Hillary Clinton told the presumably well-to-do attendees, "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

Oh, how I'd love to see that bite run over and over again before November.

Ms. Rodham told them, "Many of you are well enough off that ...the tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

She's actually promising tax increases, something that worked so well for Walter Mondale a few years back. I don't know about you, but I got tax relief under the current administration, and I'm hardly "well-off." But I have no doubt that Hillary and her party again intend to take away what little was returned to me.

The media is whipped into a frenzy.

"'Fahrenheit 9/11' Breaks Records!" shouts CNN.

"'Fahrenheit' sets single day sales record in NY!" blares MSNBC.

USA Today hyperventilates "'Fahrenheit 9/11' torches records at box office!"

Wow! Move over, Mel Gibson! Look out, "Titanic!"

Well, not exactly.

As it turns out, Michael Moore's film has set the box office record for documentaries, which is kind of like winning the midget high jump contest. To put things in perspective, the film earned about $22 million bucks on its opening weekend, which is certainly respectable, but only $2 million ahead of something called "White Chicks," (featuring Shawn and Marlon Wayans in drag) and $3.5 million ahead of the second weekend of the sure-to-be-Oscar-nominated "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story," starring Ben Stiller.

As for the breathless headlines, a little dilligence in reading the actual articles pays big, mirthful dividends. At CNN ("'Fahrenheit 9/11' Breaks Records!"), we find these hilariously qualified paragraphs:

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" took in a whopping $21.8 million in its first three days, becoming the first documentary ever to debut as Hollywood's top weekend film.

If Sunday's estimates hold when final numbers are released Monday, "Fahrenheit 9/11" would set a record in a single weekend as the top-grossing documentary ever outside of concert films and movies made for huge-screen IMAX theaters.

That's pretty impressive, "whopping" stuff.

In the MSNBC article ("'Fahrenheit' sets single day sales record in NY!"), we find that the accomplishment might not be quite as herculean as the headline indicates:

LOS ANGELES - Director Michael Moore’s controversial documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” turned on the box office heat in its first day in theaters breaking single-day records at the two New York City theaters where it played.

That's right, kids. It broke the single-day sales records in exactly two Manhattan theaters.

As for it's "whopping" opening weekend, according to Box Office Mojo, the $22 million take for "Fahrenheit 9/11" gives it the 222nd biggest weekend opening of all time, just two spots behind 1999's "Inspector Gadget." That also places it only a few thousand dollars ahead of the opening of "Garfield" a few weeks ago. And appropriately enough, it finishes a full 21 spots behind the opening weekend of 2002's "Jackass, The Movie"--which is as much a "documentary" as "Fahrenheit" is.

Record-breaking indeed.

And now for something completely different. A belated NBA observation.

The three key cogs of the Los Angeles Lakers organization (since they begun winning championships again) have been coach Phil Jackson, center Shaquille O'Neal, and accused rapist Kobe Bryant.

For reasons too serpentine to dig into, a situation developed in which Lakers owner Jerry Buss was forced last week to choose between Bryant on the one hand, or O'Neal and Jackson on the other.

Inexplicably, Buss went with Bryant, leaving Jackson out of a job and O'Neal demanding a trade. I can't even begin to describe enormity of that mistake. Sports history will eventually file it in the "What were they thinking?" file next to the Cubs trading Lou Brock to the Cardinals for Ernie Broglio and the Trail Blazers drafting Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan.

Alright, I'm going to say it, even though you're not really supposed to.

I'm getting a little bit sick of Lance Armstrong.

I know we're all getting tired of this, but I can't seem to stop myself just yet. Hopefully by Monday it will be out of my system.

I watched Clinton on Larry King last night, which went just as one would expect. Among the tough questions Larry asked him (I kid you not) was, "How old are you now?"

In the interviews I've seen, Clinton has shown a distinct pattern of appearing to take perfunctory responsibility for the Lewinsky affair, while really blaming his own behavior on Ken Starr and the Republicans, as if Starr got a court order forcing Clinton to take down his pants for an intern.

Said Clinton last night, about the onset of the Lewinsky liason (and his widely reported "I did it because I could" statement):

We're in the middle of the first government shutdown ever or right at the beginning of the second one. And I don't know who is going to win. We're in this titanic struggle for the future of the country.

And meanwhile, I got this guy Starr who is trying to put me and Hillary in jail and all these guys in Congress now in the majority holding hearings acting like it's serious and tormenting people who work for me, people who have been friends of mine. It was like crazy half the time. I thought man, I'm lost in the funhouse.

And people who live parallel lives, as I describe that, grow up in alcoholic homes, for example, very often when they're angry, exhausted or under great stress or vulnerable, to go down the wrong track of their parallel lives. And that's what I meant by that. I knew better than to do it. I didn't really want to do it at some level, but I could do it. It was there. And I did it.

You see, Clinton committed adultery with an intern as a misguided act of patriotism in defense of the Constitution and his persecuted wife and friends. Of course, this is about as close as Clinton will ever get to taking responsibility for diddling someone only a couple of years older than his daughter.

The interesting question it raises in my mind is: What about Gennifer Flowers, then? Clinton had never heard of Ken Starr, there was no "prosecution" then, there was no government shutdown (or even a presidency, for that matter). What about Paula Jones, whom he once claimed he never met, but whom he later paid an $850,000 settlement? She was before he was ever elected to the presidency. What about Kathleen Willey? What about Dolly Kyle Browning, who says Clinton had an affair with her from the 70's up until his run for the presidency? What about former Miss America Elizabeth Ward Gracen, who says she and Clinton had a one-night stand in 1983? What about the dozens of other Arkansas women who claimed affairs with Clinton? What about the three or four other women Lewinsky told Linda Tripp (on the Tripp tapes) that she believed Clinton was involved with at the same time as his involvement with her?

And if it's all just a political game, how come both George Bushes, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Al Gore, Joe Lieberman and Michael Dukakis never had dozens of crackpots coming forward to claim affairs?

(UPDATE: The Washington Times has a piece on just this topic, including a much longer list of names than mine. Hat tip to La Shawn Barber, on whose blog I just saw it.)

Because of the goodwill of the last few weeks, combined with sensitivity about the death of a loved one, Ron Reagan Jr. has been given a mostly free ride for his insipid comments at his father's burial and in subsequent interviews.

Last night the former ballerina and dog show host was on Larry King Live, again selling his silliness. It's unfortunate that he trades on his father's name (which he has shamelessly ridden all his life) to get media appearances in which he shoots down the very things his father valued most.

Larry Elder has an excellent column today, finally debunking the main load of nonsense that Ron's been shoveling since the funeral: that Ronald Reagan believed his Christian faith was something to be kept behind closed doors and out of public debate and policy. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

One thing is clear: Jane Wyman is considered the "bad" wife for having left Ronald Reagan. Whatever the merits of that argument, the proof is in the pudding, and she sure did a heck of a better job raising children than Nancy ever did. Michael and Maureen Reagan are honorable people. Ron and Patty are twerps.

I watched my first Clinton book-tour interview on PBS's Charlie Rose last night, having already missed the Oprah and Rather fawn-fests. Of course, Rose did everything but climb over the desk and give Clinton a Monica, but it was still interesting viewing.

The one thing I had forgotten, which is easy to do when merely looking at the dry, written facts of history (as I have been doing recently, and which are not kind to Clinton), is just how good Clinton is on television. He's astoundingly good, which explains how he was able to get elected to two terms and ride relatively high popularity ratings despite the fact that polls clearly showed the American people didn't trust him or believe him.

Of course, being good on television is not the same as being truthful, and truthfulness is still in short supply with Bubba. While ostensibly taking responsibility for the Monica situation (though still denying that there was any legitimacy to the Whitewater investigation, despite the oodles of felony convictions and jail sentences that came out of it), he mainly offers up a perfunctory mea culpa while actually blaming the whole thing on independent counsel Ken Starr.

Pointing out the lies in Bill Clinton's statements is almost beside the point; lying is what he does, and everybody on both sides pretty much stipulates that much. But one issue he keeps harping on is still sticking in my craw.

Clinton still runs around claiming that Ken Starr "threw Susan McDougal in jail" because she refused to lie about him. Of course, Starr did no such thing. McDougal (who was eventually convicted of four felonies and then pardoned by Clinton on the last day of his presidency) was jailed by federal judge Susan Webber Wright--a former law student of Clinton's--for contempt of court for refusing to answer any questions before a grand jury.

Among the scurrilous questions posed to McDougal that she courageously refused to answer were "Ma'am, where were you born?," "Where do you reside today?," and "To your knowledge, did William Jefferson Clinton testify truthfully during the course of your trial?"

What is this, the Inquisition? How dare they!

Oh My Goodness

According to the Washington Post, this is the opening sentence of Bill Clinton's new memoir: "Early on the morning of August 19, 1946, I was born under a clear sky after a violent summer storm to a widowed mother in the Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, a town of about six thousand in southwest Arkansas, thirty-three miles east of the Texas border at Texarkana."

Waiter! Check, please!

In this week's TIME cover story, Bill Clinton says:

I was involved in two great struggles at the same time: a great public struggle over the future of America with the Republican Congress and a private struggle with my old demons. I won the public one and lost the private one.

Really? We all know you lost the private one (and Monica has the dress to prove it).

But which "public struggle over the future of America" did you win with the Republican Congress? The one where they mercifully euthanized your wife's socialistic health care bill? The one where they finally crammed welfare reform down your throat resulting in millions of people finally achieving independence from the federal government? The one where the House of Representatives impeached you? The passage of NAFTA, a fundamentally conservative, free-market initiative? The middle-class tax cuts they forced you to make? The balanced budget they forced you to accept that you now take credit for?

What exactly are these struggles you won against Republican obstruction from which our nation is still reaping the benefits, Mr. President?

The Hitchens piece is also a reminder of why I regularly read Slate, whereast I find most other liberal publications tedious and predictable.

Slate is consistently liberal, and I disagree with its viewpoint far more often than I agree with it. But it's not blindly ideological and is never predictable (as opposed to, say, the risibly self-important Salon, where one can, sight-unseen, divine its editorial viewpoint on any given story one hundred times out of a hundred).

Slate, while often misguided, remains in some way tethered to reality, a feat not accomplished by Salon, Air America, or The Nation, or most other "progressive" outlets.

I read it to find out what intelligent things the opposition has to say.

Christopher Hitchens, no conservative by any stretch of the imagination (referring to Ronald Reagan as "a cruel and stupid lizard" and "dumb as a stump" in an obituary two weeks ago), unleashes a blistering critique of Michael Moore and his film "Fahrenheit 9/11" in the liberal Slate magazine today.

Hitchens absolutely levels one idiotic Moore claim after another, leaving the film in shambles for all but Moore's most slavish Hollywood supporters.

Amusingly, Moore ends his movie with a quote from George Orwell ("[p]erhaps vaguely aware that his movie so completely lacks gravitas..."). But as Hitchens points out, Orwell is the last person Moore wants to be quoting. For this is the same George Orwell who wrote in Notes on Nationalism:

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States ...

You have to appreciate someone from the Left who is honest enough to expose the lies of one of the Left's beloved figures. As Hitchens sums it up, "Moore is having it three ways and asserting everything and nothing. Again—simply not serious."

It will be amusing (if a bit tiresome) to watch Bill Clinton whine his way across the country in the next few weeks with the release of his unwieldy new memoir My Life. It weighs in at nearly a thousand pages, which is not suprising for someone who once sparked wild cheering at his own party's convention when he announced that he was about to finish his behemoth keynote speech.

Clinton's M.O. all along has been to suck his thumb and blame everyone else for the personal indescretions that destroyed his presidency. The current book tour is no exception, of course.

In a testy interview with the BBC which airs tonight, Clinton blames the media (right-wing sypathizers that they are) for his downfall. According to the BBC's website:

Wagging his finger and getting visibly agitated, Mr. Clinton expressed anger at the media's behaviour.

He said: "Let me just say this. One of the reasons he [Kenneth Starr] got away with it is because people like you only ask me the questions.

"You gave him a complete free ride. Any abuse they wanted to do. They indicted all these little people from Arkansas, what did you care about them, they're not famous, who cares that their life was trampled. Who cares that their children are humiliated.

"Nobody in your line of work cared a rip about that at the time. Why, because he was helping their story.

"People like you always help the far-right, because you like to hurt people, and you like to talk about how bad people are and all their personal failings."

He then made a big poo-poo in his diaper.

While the former pillow-biter-in-chief continues to portray himself as a nearly-innocent victim in all this, it is worth remembering a couple of salient points about what Ken Starr "got away with":

Clinton's party invented the office of the Independent Counsel to ensure that no president could successfully quash the truth. They gleefully used it numerous times against Republican opponents without the least bit of hesitation, complaining neither about the time and money spent, nor about the peripheral figures who were drawn into the investigations (anyone remember Fawn Hall?).

Clinton's own attorney general, Janet Reno, appointed the Independent Counsel to investigate the Whitewater miasma, at the request of the administration.

Weeks before Kenneth Starr's appointment, the Clinton Administration had the opportunity to let the abysmal Independent Counsel statute expire. They were advised to do so by many people on both sides of the aisle. They instead re-authorized it.

Of the "little people" in Arkansas, at least 15 were convicted of felonies directly pertaining to the Whitewater matter, including Hillary's law partner Web Hubbell (two felony convictions), Clinton friends Jim and Susan McDougal (who were only convicted of 22 felonies between them), and Bill Clinton's former aide Stephen Smith. Another of the "little people" was the governor of the state of Arkansas, Jim Guy Tucker, who was convicted on three felony counts.

Among the "little people" in Arkansas who wound up peripherally in the investigation were Bill McCuen, Arkansas' former secretary of state (convicted of bribery and tax evasion, among other things), former state prosecuting attorney Dan Harmon (convicted on federal racketeering, extortion, and drug distribution charges), and Clinton's brother Roger, who as it turns out was a drug trafficker.

There is no dispute about the facts which led to Clinton's impeachment--that Clinton had "sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky," that he lied about it under oath, and that he asked her to lie about it under oath as well. Clinton admits he lied about it, even saying in a nationally televised speech, "I can only tell you I was motivated by many factors. First, by a desire to protect myself from the embarrassment of my own conduct. I was also very concerned about protecting my family."

Of course, the Clintons have a vested interest in portraying the investigation as "obsessed with sex" and interference in a personal matter. But ask yourself one question: if someone comes to a prosecutor with indisputable proof of perjury on the part of the president of the United States, what is that prosecutor supposed to do? Pretend it never happened?

Clinton will continue to place the blame everywhere except where it belongs. He'll probably continue to charm many into buying it. But as the light of history gets brighter and brighter, the excuses are coming to be seen for what they really are: the sad justifications of a perpetual adolescent.

I had a chance to read a few books on vacation. I was feeling a bit political after a brief hiatus. Here are some notes on a few books that I read (or partially read).

The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry, by Steven F. Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute.

As you may have gathered from a close and careful reading of the title, this book is not exactly a love-letter to our 39th president. Still, it's more carefully considered than its feverish, Coulter-esque title indicates.

The conventional wisdom holds that Carter is the greatest former president in the history of America, a claim that's repeated ad nauseum in the media. Carter has an image as an evangelical Christian do-gooder who campaigns for human rights around the globe.

While the post-presidency Carter has certainly done some admirable things (such as his work with Habitat for Humanity), Hayward shows that the real Jimmy Carter is a theologically liberal, mean-spirited, meddlesome, self-promoting leftist--who's borderline treasonous to boot (as when he engaged in a letter-writing campaign asking heads of state to break from the U.S.-led coalition in Gulf War I).

Carter, both during his presidency and after, has seldom met a dictator he wouldn't coddle. Never more has this tendency been on display than when he negotiated a disasterous treaty with North Korea (without the approval of the Clinton Administration, which was too gutless to put the brakes on him) to freeze their nuclear weapons program in exchange for two nuclear reactors--a treaty with which the communist dictatorship of North Korea never complied for even a single moment. After brokering the "deal," Carter immediately went on CNN to broadcast before even informing the Clinton Administration of the terms of the settlement, thus essentially obligating the administration to accept it.

Hayward (despite the somewhat misleading title of the book) focuses mostly on Carter's abysmal and manifest failures as president, and the book would have been improved by a similarly in-depth focus on incidents like the Korea fiasco and its current repurcussions. But he does a good job of poking through Carter's image (bolstered by relentless media coverage and a Nobel Peace prize for which he shamelessly campaigned, and which was given to him, by the admission of one Nobel committee member, as a direct political slap in the face to the current Bush administration) to show a man who has done untold harm to oppressed people around the world through his exaltation of leftist dictatorships and totalitarian governments.

Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years, by National Review editor Rich Lowry.

According to Lowry, Clinton is obsessed with his historical legacy. Ironically, though, he failed to actually leave one. While certainly not supportive of Clinton, Lowry is suprisingly fair in his account, using Clinton Administration or Democratic sources almost exclusively--in their own words--to make the most damaging points about Clinton. He's also willing to criticize his own side when appropriate, such as Newt Gingrich's tone-deaf mismanagement of the Republicans 1994 majority.

When most people think of Clinton, they think of Monica. But even if his self-inflicted sex scandals were to magically disappear, we're still left with a paradox: Clinton was a very popular (more so than his critics like to admit), two-term president (who probably would have won a third term if it were constitutionally permissible), and yet he failed to leave behind any distinguishing policy initiative whatsoever. Clinton himself is left to trumpet his battle against impeachment attempt as his great legacy.

Through his almost paralyzing personal indecisiveness, his governance-by-opinion-poll, and his inability to tolerate opposition, the president who was most concerned about his legacy ended up without one.

Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don't Think and What to Do About It, by Os Guinness.

Guinness, of the Trinity Forum, is a perceptive and prescient observer of evangelicalism and the culture at large. He examines the rampant anti-intellectualism that dominates the evangelical culture, diagnosing causes and suggesting solutions.

Puritanism, the first major strain of Christianity in America, was rigorously intellectual and culturally potent. But because of the onset of pietism, pragmatism, a deep distrust of academic education and achievement, and a host of other internal influences, Christians detached from their Puritan roots. They began sitting around waiting for the "rapture" to occur and reduced interaction with culture to mere personal evangelism.

Though these observations will not be new to those who are interested in such things, they were much-needed in 1994 when they were published, and evangelical culture is a long way from reversing the trend. It is significant that anti-intellectual American evangelicalism has failed to produce more than a few scholars or institutions of any real stature since Jonathan Edwards died nearly 250 years ago.

The slide will continue until evangelicals begin to realize, as the great Dutch statesman Abraham Kuyper did, that "there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry 'Mine!'"

I also got a few pages into Peggy Noonan's When Character Was King, Russell Kirk's The American Cause, and Debating Calvinism by Dave Hunt and James White, but I haven't gotten far enough in any of them to say anything beyond that I'm enjoying all three of them so far.

I see that Ken Griffey Jr. finally hit his 500th home run yesterday, after having been stuck on number 499 for over a week. Junior becomes only the 20th player in Major League history to reach that plateau.

In days past, the 500 home run mark has conferred instant Hall of Fame status. Indeed, there is no eligible player with 500 or more dingers who's not in the Hall.

One wonders, though, whether it will continue to be a Hall of Fame benchmark. Most people have tagged Griffey for the Hall for years, though his stock has slipped substantially in his past few injury-plagued seasons. But even granting for the sake of argument that Griffey is a Hall of Famer, the list is becoming more and more suspect in an era of smaller ballparks and weaker pitching.

Not many noticed when Rafael Palmiero quietly snuck onto the 500 homer list last season. Indeed, he's currently 11th on the all time list (sitting on 538), ahead of Mickey Mantle. Now don't get me wrong. Palmiero is a fine ballplayer. But does anyone really think Rafael Palmiero is a Hall of Famer?

Up until the 1990's, only 14 players had ever reached the 500 homer mark in Major League history. Since the 90's began, six players have already made the list, and Fred McGriff is due to make it in the next month or two (he currently has 493 homers). Juan Gonzalez, Jeff Bagwell, and Frank Thomas are all within striking distance. If Fred McGriff is a Hall of Famer, then so are Joe Carter, Dwight Evans, and about a hundred other guys who aren't currently there.

500 home runs is an impressive accomplishment, no doubt about it. But it is no longer the "magic number" for Hall of Fame entrance that 3000 hits or 300 wins is.

We've been in St. Louis this week for our annual pilgrimage back to the homeland, which is why I've been in such short supply this week.

Had Ted Drewes Frozen Custard tonight, been eating more White Castles than one digestive tract should ever have to stand, and took in one of the best Cardinals games of my life this evening.

The Redbirds came from behind to score three runs in the bottom of the ninth and beat the Oakland A's 5-4.

On another note, I know the Reagan funeral is way, way over. It's old news. But I've been pondering one issue for a week and have no more of an answer now than I did last Friday night.

I watched every moment of the final California service, switching over to C-Span after the network coverage ended to watch guests file past the casket on their way out. And I still must ask one question: Scott Baio?

People have been looking at me strangely the last few days.

As you've seen, many of Ronald Reagan's greatest moments are being replayed all over the media. Whenever his moving speech to the nation in the wake of the Challenger disaster is replayed, I keep breaking out laughing.

Sick, right? But there's a reason.

Of course, the Challenger explosion was a horrific tragedy, and I was moved just like the rest of the nation when President Reagan gave that wonderful speech. The reason I have to stifle a laugh now is because of something Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote about in her wonderful memoir What I Saw at the Revolution.

When a speech is written in the White House, it then goes through a "staffing" process where various functionaries from the National Security Council, the State Department, and other bureaucracies contribute their suggestions for changes, laboring under the mistaken notion that they can write.

The most famous part of Reagan's brief Challenger speech, the end of it, quotes from the poem "High Flight" by John Magee. But one of the paper-pushers in the (hurried) staffing process had a better idea. As Noonan tells it (on page 257 of my copy of the book), picking up with the end of the speech:

"We'll never forget them, nor the last time we saw them--this morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved good-by, and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God."

It went almost as written. The staffing process had no time to make it bad. The worst edit, which Ben [Elliott] fought off--in fact it was the worst edit I received in all my time in the White House--was from a pudgy young NSC mover who told me to change the quote at the end from "touch the face of God" to "reach out and touch someone--touch the face of God." He felt this was eloquent. He'd heard it in a commercial.

I can't hear that speech now without hearing those words in my head and cracking up.

As the United States Supreme Court increasingly looks to European law (rather than the Constitution) in making it's rulings, it's instructive to note what's actually going on in Europe in order to know what to expect here in the future.

Actress Brigitte Bardot has been convicted in a French court for "inciting racial hatred." Her crime? According to the Reuters report at MSNBC.com:

In [her] book [A Scream in the Silence], she laments the "Islamization of France" and the "underground and dangerous infiltration of Islam."

"Mme. Bardot presents Muslims as barbaric and cruel invaders, responsible for terrorist acts and eager to dominate the French to the extent of wanting to exterminate them," the court said.

France’s 5-million-member Muslim community is the largest in Europe.

No, no, no! Of course Islam doesn't want to do any of those things. I mean, when's the last time Islam set out to dominate and exterminate a culture through barbaric invasion and terrorist acts? Aside from Afghanistan, Sudan, Indonesia, Lebanon, Nigeria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Iraq, and a dozen or two other places, I can't think of any.

Shame on you, Brigitte Bardot.

A note to you Americans: If you have something to say about Islam (or any other "protected class"), say it now, because European law is coming your way soon.

I've found it amusing in recent days that the media (I assume in an attempt to add stature and reverence) have begun referring to Ronald Reagan (in stentorian tones) as "Ronald Wilson Reagan."

I heard Reagan referred to that way maybe three times in my entire life before this week. Lyndon Baines Johnson was referred to with the "Baines" frequently while he was still alive. Same with Kennedy's "Fitzgerald," Eisenhower's "David," Roosevelt's "Delano," and even Nixon's "Milhous." All of these people were referred to by three names while still alive with at least some frequency.

Only Reagan has suddenly had his middle name attached to him posthumously. Why? Just because a president dies doesn't mean we have to start using his middle name. Anyone know Woodrow Wilson's middle name? How about Teddy Roosevelt?

Dan Rather says there has been too much coverage of Ronald Reagan's death. According to the New York Post:

"Even though everybody is respectful and wants to pay homage to the president, life does go on," Rather told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

"There is other news, like the reality of Iraq," said the "CBS Evening News" anchor. "It got very short shrift this weekend."

What's ironic about this is that I saw Rather on one of CBS's prime-time Reagan programs begin to blubber (again) the other night as he let fly with some sentimental tripe about "whenever the wind blows from the East, we'll know that it's our fallen knight...blah....blah...blah."

(As a parenthetical note, does it ever seem to you that Dan Rather's entire journalistic career can be summed up as one desperate, thin, tone-deaf attempt to approximate Walter Cronkite's "President John Fitzgerald Kennedy....died today at...." announcement?)

When one veers between moods like this in real life, we call that person "unstable."

You have to think that Ronald Reagan would love the idea of the federal government shutting down for his funeral. Can't you just hear him?

"Why, if I'd have known they'd go and shut the whole federal government down, I'd have died a long time ago."

It could hardly be a more fitting (if unintentional) tribute.

I've added a new blog to the roll. Kevin McCullough is an award-winning radio talk-show host at WMCA 570/970DJ in New York City, and also writes a syndicated weekly column that's carried at WorldNetDaily and Free Republic, among others.

Drop by and pay him a visit. As a Christian, a conservative, and a radio guy, he's a man after my own heart.

In late 2002, I interviewed Oliver North about (among other things) Ronald Reagan, in anticipation of the former president's imminent death.

North passionately related what I think was a very telling anecdote:

The night, that April 15th, when we attacked Moammar Khadafi’s terrorism training camps, I had written, along with Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, the remarks that the president was gonna use. And just as the setup is happening in the Oval Office and the president is going through the remarks, I had to come running in and say one of the lines that we’d put in the remarks were wrong. All of the planes had not returned safely. In fact, we’d lost an F-111 with two U.S. Air Force officers aboard. We didn’t know whether they were alive and well at that moment.

And I came over to the desk and the speech writers and Larry Speakes and all..a lot of turmoil going on. I said, "Mr. President, these words have got to come out." And he looked up and he said, "They... they didn’t come back?" I said, "No sir, we’re missing one airplane." And you could see the tears. And... this is not done for television cameras -- I mean, we know of presidents who do it for the television cameras. This was...the TV cameras weren’t on. This was a genuine action of a commander-in-chief who had sent men into harm’s way and who then knew at that moment, just before he went on national television, that not all of ’em had returned safely as the words were in the text that I had written.

By the time he went on the camera, he had controlled himself to the point where even though I knew, and everybody in that room knew, I mean, it was... it was a very emotional moment for everybody there to see his reaction to striking those words out of the text. And yet he had the discipline internally to be able to control it when he looked into the camera to talk to the American people. He was able to discipline himself enough so he did not appear weak.

To me, those are the marks of a great leader.

A once-in-a-generation leader, at that.

There are a number of worthy blog rememberances of Ronald Reagan I've been coming across. Among them are Swamphopper's eulogy at The Rough Woodsman (which includes a touching anecdote from Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan), Discoshaman's reflections on the passing of his young son's namesake, and Right Wing News' full-page cornucopia of Reagan memories.

I notice that some on the radical left are feeling their oats today, and have decided to take the opportunity of Reagan's death to launch vile attacks against his memory. I say good. The tone-deaf left will do conservatism its biggest favor yet by stomping on the rememberance of Reagan.

They've never understood that his popularity transcended politics, and they radically underestimate the love that mainstream Americans of all political stripes have for the Gipper. Because of their basic hatred for America, the far left never came to grips with Reagan's deep appeal to all those who basically love America. Wiping their noses with Reagan's legacy will merely earn them the vehement hatred among Americans they so richly deserve.

There's not much left to say about Ronald Reagan that hasn't already been said this weekend. But that's never stopped me before.

I was 11 years old when he was elected, and I realize in retrospect that it was he, more than any single person, who formed my idea of what America is, and what it means to be an American.

In the second half of the 20th century, very few men took the stage who could be called "great." Ronald Reagan was a great man.

Last night, A&E ran a program on the Reagan legacy that was produced two or three years ago. In it, they interviewed a guy identified as Reagan's pastor. He said that not long after the Hinkley shooting in 1981, he asked Reagan if he was ready to meet God. Reagan said "Oh, no, I have many more things I want to do for the American people."

"That's not what I mean, Mr. President," said the pastor. "I mean, if that bullet had taken your life, would you have been ready to meet God?"

Reagan became contemplative and quitely said "Yes."

"How can you be sure?" the pastor asked.

"Because I have a Savior," Reagan responded.

You won't find this news in John Kerry's next stump speech:

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Job growth is the hottest it's been in four years, a government report showed Friday, as the nation's employers added nearly a million jobs over the last three months.

Whether you support Bush, Kerry, or someone else, this is just a simple statement of fact: if this trend continues until the election and Kerry doesn't have the economy to harp on, Bush will roll to reelection.

The only issue Kerry will have left is the Iraq war, and even the anti-war movement is heaving its last breaths. How do we know that? Because Al Gore has jumped on board in a big and ridiculous way. It's the absolute kiss of death. He has the perfect reverse-Midas touch. As Ann Coulter points out in her most recent column:

Gore always comes out swinging just as an issue is about to go south. He's the stereotypical white guy always clapping on the wrong beat. Gore switched from being a pro-defense Democrat to a lefty peacenik – just before the 9-11 attack. He grew a beard – just in time for an attack on the nation by fundamentalist Muslims. He endorsed Howard Dean – just as the orange-capped Deaniacs were punching themselves out. Gore even went out and got really fat – just before America officially gave up carbs. This guy is always leaping into the mosh pit at the precise moment the crowd parts. Mark my words: Now that good old Al has come lunging in, the anti-war movement is dead.

I'm not an ardent supporter of President Bush, but while the polls don't show it right now, he could be looking at a landslide in November if present trends continue.

In case you couldn't tell, I've been a bit weary lately of the daily back and forth political battle. It's not that it's not important. I just haven't had the energy for it lately.

But every now and again, something is so egregious, so idiotic, so baldly asinine that it wakes me from my slumber. Such is the case today with left-wing, billionaire fruitcake George Soros.

From a piece in today's NRO:

"The picture of torture in Saddam's prison was a moment of truth for us," Soros said Thursday morning in Washington at a meeting of the liberal activist group Campaign for America's Future.

"I think that those pictures hit us the same way as the terrorist attack itself," Soros continued, "not quite with the same force, because in the terrorist attack, we were the victims. In the pictures, we were the perpetrators and others were the victims."

"But there is, I'm afraid, a direct connection between those two events, because the way President Bush conducted the war on terror converted us from victims into perpetrators."

The audience, made up of left-wing activists from around the country, broke into enthusiastic applause.

Those pictures probably did hit George Soros the same way as the September 11 attacks. Which is powerful evidence that he needs to be immediately medicated.

Of course, on the one side are 3000 dead civilians, some of whom had been on airplanes on their way to work, or sitting in their office cubicles, or waiting tables in a restaurant when violent death came upon them by the hands of Muslim terrorists. On the other side are a few suspected terrorists who were forced to make a naked pyramid while a female soldier laughed and pointed at their pee pees.

I see what Soros means.

The inability to accurately judge moral evil is what makes liberals liberal. It's their defining characteristic. Eating a steak is "just as bad" as the Holocaust. McCarthyism is "just as bad" as the gulag. And the premeditated murder of 3000 civilian non-combatants is "just as bad" as a few rogues soldiers making a half-dozen terrorists wear hoods and fondle each other.

Fortunately, most Americans--Republican, Democrat, and other--see this silliness for what it is. They reject instinctively any such contortionistic attempts at moral equivocation. One can only hope that comments like Soros's (and the audience reaction it produced) will be spread far and wide.

The other night, my family ordered a large pizza from Papa John's for supper. However, we were rather disappointed to find that the thing really just wasn't big enough to feed the four of us. Usually a large pizza takes care of the job, but this one was rather small.

And then we found out the problem. Though we thought we had ordered a large pizza, we really hadn't. You see, at Papa John's, if you really want a large pizza, you have to order an extra large. The "large" pizza isn't actually a large--it's a medium.

If this only happened at Papa John's, I could live with it. But this sizing disease has struck most food outlets. There is no longer the simple and efficient small, medium, and large. I imagine some marketing genius must have decided that the word "small" was too negative, and food joints now avoid it like the plague, engaging in all manner of designatory gymnastics in the process.

At Starbuck's, things are so out of hand that they've actually found three different words for "large" to name their coffee sizes. I kid you not; the sizes are "tall" (which is actually small), "grande" (which is actually medium, though it is the Italian word for "large"), and "venti," (which is actually a large, though it literally and inexplicably means "twenty").

For the sake of clarity and sanity, I'm calling for a nationwide recalibration of food sizes. From henceforth and forthwith, I demand that the smallest size of whatever food product is offered to be called "small." No longer will a small coffee be allowed to be called "medium," "tall," "gigante," "enormous," or "prodigious." It will be called a "small." Concomitantly, the medium-sized product shall be called "medium," and the large shall be called "large."

As a correlative to this shift, no food chain will be allowed to begin it's food sizes with "medium." By definition, "medium" means "something in the middle" or "between two things." The first size cannot be "medium"--you cannot start there by definiton, nor, if I have my way, by law. If you're going to offer a "medium," you will have to have at least one size on either side of it.

The time-honored, time-tested small/medium/large system served our nation well for generations. I plead with the food service providers of America to return us to the roots that made our nation great.

"The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our Constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone. This will lay all things at their feet, and they are too well versed in English law to forget the maxim, 'boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction].'" --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Ritchie, 1820.

Here's something you don't see very often.

From an ESPN.com interview between Dan Patrick and Lance Berkman of the Houston Astros (with a nod to the guys at the Boar's Head Tavern for the heads-up):

DP: Best conversation you've had with a catcher at the plate.
LB: Benito Santiago is pretty accommodating to conversations. A lot of catchers don't like to talk; they're really focused and concentrating, but he'll talk to you. At least you can hold a conversation with him.
DP: Give me an idea. You step in the box and how does the conversation go?
LB: Well, it just depends on how the game's going. If it's a tight game, late in the game and it's a serious situation, you might not say anything. But early in the game, after a particularly nasty pitch, you might say, "Damn, that was a pretty good pitch there" (or something like that). I mean, we're not discussing Calvinism versus Arminianism or anything like that. Just trying to keep some light banter going.

I've never watched "American Idol," so I don't know Rueben Studdard from Rueben Kinkaid.

But I'm told that a black gal won the whole thing last night, meaning that Elton John needs to shut his fat yapper.

Last month, John evidently complained about "racism" when a couple of white folks beat a couple of black folks in the telephone voting.

"The three people I was really impressed with, and they just happened to be black, young female singers, and they all seem to be landing in the bottom three," said John, commenting on the tally in which the lowest vote-getter is eliminated.

"They have great voices. The fact that they're constantly in the bottom three -- and I don't want to set myself up here -- but I find it incredibly racist," John said...

Even if a white person had won "Idol," John's comments would still be idiotic. By his reasoning, anyone who purchases an Elton John record is a racist, since there are plenty of black acts they've bypassed in order to do so.

But the fact that the contest was won by a black person means that this poofter ought to A) apologize to America, B) shut his pie hole, and C) go back to picking out which toupee he's going to wear under his pink fez.

In yesterday's rant, Gore worked himself into a feverish lather before a cheering crowd, shouting "Donald Rumsfeld ought to resign immediately! Paul Wolfowitz! Douglas Feith! The intelligence chief Stephen Cambone! All ought to resign immediately! Condoleeza Rice ought to resign immediately! George Tenet should also resign!"

Ah, yes. Wild-eyed, unhinged, sweaty lists have proved to be quite a successful Democratic tactic this year.

Donald Rumsfeld! Condoleeza Rice! And Paul Wolfowitz! And we're going on to California! And Texas! And New York! And we're goin' to South Dakota! And Oregon!....YEEAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!

It's good to see almost-President Al Gore acting so dignified lately.



As my friend Dave G. points out, "I would like to call for the resignation of Al Gore from his post as...ummm...senior adviser to Google..."

Whether you're a fan of George W. Bush or not, is there anyone in America who still wishes Gore had won the presidency?

While it's almost too easy to make fun of bloviating, bovine filmmaker Michael Moore, it never really gets old due to the fact that he continues to be worshipped as a god by pedantic leftists worldwide.

That's why lots of enterprising folks are actively engaged in creatively exposing Moore's hypocricy, lies, and blatant silliness on the web and in the media.

This summer, one young filmmaker is releasing in theaters his response to Moore's nonsense: a documentary titled "Michael Moore Hates America".

Moore, as you may know, has built a career by pretending to be a populist man of the people, hounding people like former G.M. chairman Roger Smith and N.R.A. president Charlton Heston, among others, on camera. But as it turns out, the rotund, factually-challenged propagandist doesn't like to take the medicine he's peddling. In fact, he's spent no small amount of time hiding from the documentary filmmaker who's hounding him. Ironic, since Moore's first big success was a documentary film about chasing around the CEO of an automobile corporation who refused to be interviewed by him.

Mike Wilson, the director of the film, has even offered to give a portion of the movie's profits to a hurting school in Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan. According to Wilson:

You all know that I recently made an offer to Michael Moore to give 5% of the profits from the film to Buell Elementary School in Flint, MI, provided he did the 45 minute sit-down interview I’ve been requesting of him for a year now. He has yet to respond.

But Moore rarely puts his money where his mouth is. You've undoubtedly heard Moore complaining recently to every media outlet in the world that his film "Farenheit 9-11" is being "censored." This is, of course, the furthest thing from the truth, but Moore has never been one to let facts get in the way of a good pose. He claims that the film is so important for people to see before the election, he'll break laws to make sure it gets released.

Now, anybody with a brain knows that there are no "laws" restricting him from releasing his movie, and thus none to break. But this makes him sound brave to Frenchmen, since bravery is a virtue the French only know second-hand.

Well the guys at Moorewatch.com have called him out on it. They've started a petition called "Release the Movie," which calls on Moore (since his film is so important to the maintainence of truth, justice, and the American way) to release his film for free on the Internet so that the "message" can be distributed to everyone. Of course, internet release would mean forgoing profits, which Moore always decries as evil anyway. Let's all start holding our breath now.

Some other good sites devoted to are:

Moorelies.com, Moorewatch.com, Mooreexposed.com, and Bowling for Truth.

Another story that proves the old adage: "Never embed a $200,000 diamond in the nose of a Formula One race car."

Holy moly! Do you realize that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governor of California?

Oh, man, do I ever want to write a caption for this one:

NARAL Declares Victory on Judiciary

In a newsletter sent out to members yesterday, the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) takes a look at George W. Bush's hard bargain with the Senate, and declares it an unqualified victory:

Big news! After tremendous outcry from outraged activists (that's you!), the White House reached an agreement with Senate Democrats yesterday and vowed to stop installing judicial nominees during Congressional recesses. On two separate breaks in Senate sessions, President Bush appointed controversial judges whose extreme anti-choice views prevented them from earning Senate confirmation. Congratulations on helping make sure this doesn't happen again, and stay tuned for more info on our campaign to stop one more extreme anti-choice activist judge whose nomination will be up for a vote over the next few weeks...

Now the president's got them right where he wants them!

Boy, the Bush Administration drives a hard bargain.

According to Byron York, who writes about Bush's week-kneed judicial collapse in today's NRO:

The agreement came after weeks of frustrated negotiations between the two sides. In the end, it was Republicans who forced an end to the stalemate. They did so by threatening to bring up for a vote the president's lower-court nomination of Marcia G. Cooke, an African-American lawyer from Florida who is supported by both of her (Democratic) home-state senators. If Democrats wanted to maintain their blockade and use the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education to stall the nomination of a clearly qualified black woman, Republicans said, they were welcome to do so. As it turned out, Democrats didn't want to do that, and accepted what was, for them, an extremely attractive White House offer.

Only the Bush Administration could twist the opposition party's arm enough to get it to agree, under duress, to do exactly what it's already been doing for 3 1/2 years.

Pretty sweet deal for Bush. As York points out:

In return, Daschle promised to let 25 of the affected nominees through the Senate. That number includes 20 District Court nominees and five appeals court nominees, who will receive Senate action by the end of June. All of them are non-controversial; Democrats did not agree to stop their filibusters of nominees Priscilla Owen, Carolyn Kuhl, and Janice Rogers Brown (another filibuster target, Miguel Estrada, withdrew his nomination in the face of Democratic opposition). Democrats also did not agree to forgo more filibusters in coming months; some in the GOP expect Democrats to filibuster nominees Terence Boyle, Claude Allen, Brett Kavanaugh, and possibly others if Republicans attempt to bring them before the Senate for votes.

You drive a hard bargain, Mr. President. You gave all your power away in exchange for a return to the logjammed status quo ante of two months ago.

The Bush Administration grows more gutless by the day.

Imagine this scenario: you win the presidency, and your party not only wins the House of Representatives, but the Senate too. Then you (as president) nominate some judges to the bench who actually think the wording of the Constitution means something.

But the minority party doesn't like that, and so they try a trick to block those nominations. To overcome this, you, the president (and leader of the party controlling both chambers of Congress) excercise your Constitutional right to sneak in and install exactly two of those dozens of blocked judges while the Congress is in recess.

The minority party screams bloody murder and tells you "Now we're not going to let any of your judges be confirmed. We had been blocking most of them, now we're blocking all of them."

You, as president (and leader of the party controlling both chambers of Congress) put your tail between your legs and say "Wow, you're playing some real hardball here. Tell you what: I promise I won't appoint any more judges behind your back if you'll only please, please, please go back to blocking most of my nominees rather than all of them."

"Okay, it's a deal," the minority party says. "We'll go back to blocking your judges while you go back to letting us."

In such a scenario, who would appear to be in charge?

TOM DASCHLE: Bark, George! Bark!

GEORGE W. BUSH: Arf! Arf!

The recent 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling reminded me of an important truth: if people in America agree with the results of a ruling, they won't give a whit about the legal reasoning (or lack thereof) used to arrive there.

People in America generally think racial discrimination is a bad idea. Therefore, they laud Brown --despite the fact that it's a lousy ruling. Based on no legal reasoning at all, Brown was a landmark in the substitution of sociology and emotion for the text of the actual Constitution.

No less a liberal paragon than the New York Times headlined a story on the ruling in the next day's paper "A Sociological Decision: Court Founded Its Segregation Ruling On Hearts and Minds Rather Than Laws."

But all that's forgotten now. Instead, we look for judges to hand down by fiat the decision that guarantees results we like, Constitution be damned. Liberals and conservatives alike look at the results and ignore the reasoning. And we can thank Brown v. Board, at least in part, for that.

I spent the weekend devouring most of Peggy Noonan's recently re-released memoir What I Saw at the Revolution.

Where to begin telling how much I love this book. It's funny, it's touching, it's perceptive, and it's beautifully written. It is the best political memoir I've ever read, and I've read a few of them. In fact, I honestly can't remember the last book I've enjoyed more. Every word is a delight.

That's not by accident, since the book is not really about politics; it's about the importance and power of words. Noonan crafted some of Ronald Reagan's most important speeches, and the snapshot she provides of the personalities in his White House has proved to be, over time, the definitive picture of that era.

Anyone who loves and values words will find a soul-mate in Noonan. Her illustration of what the Gettysburg Address would look like had it gone through the White House "staffing" proccess (wherein each department has it's say about what should stay and what should go in a speech) is worth the price of the book itself.

If Lou Cannon's and Edmund Morris's Reagan biographies are the bland dinner, Noonan's chronicle of her time in the administration is the delicious dessert. All books ought to be this much fun to read.

I'm happy to announce that, conceding to public demand, Brian at Terrible Swift Word is back in business with the Nigerian scam artists.

This one should be particularly good, since the scammer is preying on Christians in the name of Christ.

Like many of you, I've been deeply disturbed by the Nick Berg situation this week. Though I did not watch the video (nor will I), I saw a few of the still photos, and if anyone needed more proof that we're dealing with animals, this ought to provide it. Unfortunately, the media which has flogged the Abu Ghraib prison photos ad nauseum has gotten suddenly queasy about graphic content and evidently already wants to move away from the Berg story.

I absolutely agree with those I've heard who, recognizing the horror the Berg family has been through, are willing to give them a free pass on whatever they might say. But there is one statement I can't get out of my mind.

One story quotes Berg's father, an anti-war activist, saying:

"I am sure that he only saw the good in his captors until the last second of his life," Berg said. "They did not know what they were doing. They killed their best friend."

I have no idea what Nick Berg believed. Those who knew him seem to indicate that he was not particularly political. But I fear his father's statement reflects the naivete of those who think that radical Islam can be reasoned and negotiated with. They did know what they were doing. What Berg's father is failing to understand is that these terrorists have no friends.

They kill people. It's what they do. Many think that if we were just nice enough, just conciliatory enough, just helpful enough, terroristic Islam would be pacified and leave us alone. Well, that's not the way they work. Scott Berg once again has conclusively proved that. They kill their enemies. They kill their friends. They kill themselves. There is no befriending these people.

The Islamists didn't need to any instigation from prison photos or the war in Iraq to fly airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. They'll always find a reason to attack. The only thing that stops them is sheer, raw, brutal force.

Try to figure this one out.

In 2001, a high school girl in Michigan wanted to include a Bible verse in a short piece she was invited to write for the school yearbook. The school administration deleted the verse from the yearbook because they were afraid they would be sued by the ACLU, which has in the past sued to disallow voluntary prayer at football games and graduations, to disband extracurricular Good News Bible Clubs, and the like.

So the ACLU sued the school anyway--for censoring the student. They won the case yesterday, and according to CNN:

The ACLU said that under the terms of the settlement, the school district agreed to place a sticker with Moler's original entry in copies of the yearbook on file at the high school; ordered current yearbook staff to not censor other religious or political speech; to train its staff on free speech and religious freedom issues; and to write Moler a letter of regret.

I wonder how the ACLU figures out which side they're going to take on a case like this? Is it a coin-toss? Do they draw straws?

The irony is, the ACLU created the very atmosphere in which school administrators feel they have to stifle religious speech. And while it tries to absolve itself of responsibility by poking its nose into an isolated case in one state, millions of public school children will continue to have their religious freedoms violated daily by the very system the ACLU engineered legislated through the courts. I suppose if it sat back and simply enjoyed the fruit of its success, there would be no further litigation money to be made.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq today.

Evidently the visit went well, except for the short-haired, cigarette-smoking gal who kept running up to the podium and pointing at his genitals.

Just got back from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where I did an interview yesterday with David Limbaugh. He's a very nice guy whose recent book Persecution is a must-read (though the title may be a tad of an overstatement). Of course, I never pass up an opportunity to journey back to White Castles/Imo's Pizza country.

While I get back into the saddle, I thought you might enjoy reading a review of the soon-to-be-dead Air America radio network from the New York Daily News. The piece, by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Goodwin, is called "Liberal radio is airing bad jokes and worst taste." I wonder what he thinks of it?

The best part is this little tidbit:

During a day of torture by radio, I heard ads for Hewlett-Packard, Greyhound and, especially, General Motors. I asked GM why it appeared in such shows.

Ryndee Carney, GM's manager of marketing communications, said the ads were wrongly picked up from an earlier deal with WLIB. She said the station was ordered to "cease and desist" yesterday, and added: "GM will not advertise on any Air America affiliates."

Ouch.

The comical, gastly disaster that is the Air America liberal radio network continues. (Incidentally, even I can't help but feel sorry for them when I look at their homepage, which has a banner at the top trumpeting "11 Sations Nationwide.")

According to Drudge today, the network's chairman, Evan Cohen, has resigned. So too has the vice-chairman. Oh yes, and the network also failed to make its scheduled payroll this week.

I once told somebody I didn't think Air America would last six months. Now I'm not even sure if its going to make it six weeks.

Months ago, a judicially active court ordered brain-damaged Terri Schiavo to her death.

As you might recall, however, Terri shows all sorts of signs of consciousness, reacts to her parents, is not in a persistant vegatative state according to the testimony of a dozen doctors, and has never been given one minute of rehabilitative therapy. No one can be sure of the reason for a court to order her death, but some of us are cynical enough to think that it might have something to do with the fact that her legal guardian is her husband Michael, who now has two children by another woman, stands to make hundreds of thousands of dollars if she dies, and is coincidentally demanding that Terri be starved to death.

In America now, of course, the law is only what a judge says it is. So while we have laws against murdering people, it's okay if a judge orders it to be done. Michael Schiavo found a judge, George Greer, who was willing to order Terri's starvation (against the will of her parents, who are willing to take responsibility for her care). Her feeding tube was removed, with nurses ordered not to sponge Terri's face for fear some of the liquid might make it into her mouth.

The people of Florida were outraged at this act of pure judicial fiat, with a federal judge assuming the power of life and death over a woman who's never been accused of any crime. They rose up and demanded a law to protect Terri from this court-ordered, unlawful execution. Governor Bush, working with the State Legislature, enacted a law ("Terri's Law") that ordered her feeding tube restored. It was a case of the people using their constitutionally mandated power to check a runaway judicial executioner.

But as we said before, the law now in this country is whatever some judge says it is, Constitution and representative government be damned.

Today, yet another judge decided that the will of the people means nothing and overturned the law they duly enacted. One judge on one side, millions of other people and a life at stake on the other side. And the judge, accountable to no one, issues his decree of death.

The governor is appealing, but of course that won't matter since it only will take one judge to disagree with him. It has always been a matter of when (not if) under our judicial monarchy.

Michael Schiavo will act to remove Terri's feeding tube as soon as he is allowed to. Doctors estimate it will take about 10-14 days for her to dehydrate and starve to death. Maybe a day longer if some of that water accidentally drips into her mouth.

UPDATE: The headline on CNN's homepage right now says "Judge strikes down Gov. Bush's brain-dead woman law." Of course, she's most certainly not brain-dead. No one even claims that. But if saying it a few times makes it easier to kill her, what the heck.

Since today is the National Day of Prayer, maybe we could all pray that 'Friends' won't end tonight. I mean, there's still so much ground left uncovered. They haven't explored every possible pairing. I don't think Joey and Ross have done it even once! Or maybe they have. One loses track.

Please, please don't let this show go off the air. Not when we're so close to "The One Where Monica Goes Through Menopause."

But if it must end, would it be asking too much for it to take 'ER' with it? If 'ER' were one of its own patients, an emergency room doctor would have stopped pumping on its chest and said "I'm calling it" sometime around 1998.

John Derbyshire in NRO writes today on why Arab cultures cannot seem to produce democracy. His analysis is terrific, including his insights into the mind of George W. Bush on the matter. But ultimately, he stops short of recognizing the obvious elephant in the living room.

His analysis of Bush springs from these comments the president made the other day

There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily — are a different color than white can self-govern.

Derbyshire sees the obvious non-sequiter involved here:

What is the president actually saying? What, for instance, is all that stuff about skin color? What does skin color have to do with the matter of democracy in Iraq? I have blood relatives in England who are darker-skinned than Saddam Hussein. Practically the entire editorial staff of National Review is darker-skinned than Muqtada al-Sadr. And how did we suddenly segue from "people whose skin color may not be the same as ours" (Whose? Yours? Condi's?) to "people who practice the Muslim faith," then back again in the very next sentence to "people whose skins...are a different color than white"?

The reason for all the confusion is that the president is talking — or rather, like a good multiculturalist, tying himself in knots by trying desperately not to talk — about race.

Derbyshire doesn't shy away from the question. Instead, he analyzes the racial component of different groups ("population genetics") in that part of the world to find out if there is a genetic reason for their inability to support democracy. But Turkey (and to some degree Jordan) seem to militate against the notion that Arabs are racially incapable of self-government.

And yet democracy continually fails in that part of the world. Observes Derbyshire:

The uncomfortable fact remains that of the 18 nations whose first language is Arabic, not one is a modern constitutional democracy. The further fact remains that while President Bush may, and probably does, believe that constitutional democracy is priority No. 1 for the Arabs, a great deal of circumstantial evidence suggest that for many in that part of the world, priority No. 1 is the humiliation and murder of their enemies, most especially the hated Jews, with constitutional democracy round about priority No. 853.

So what is the problem? It is here where Derbyshire inexplicable shrugs his shoulders and gives up, not seeing what his own research and reasoning (along with obvious observation) lead us to: the problem is Islam. Islam is incompatible with democracy, and the Arab community is fatally infected with Islam.

Until we realize that, we'll never be able to confront the real problem that faces us in that part of the world.

Carl E. Olsen has a fascinating piece appearing in today's NRO comparing Tim LaHaye's and Jerry Jenkins's Glorious Appearing (the most recent in their Left Behind series) and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

The books currently hold the top two spots on the New York Times fiction bestseller list. One might be tempted to see significance in two "Christian" books sitting atop the publishing field, but Olsen says there is no common ground between their two versions of Christianity--at least not in the way you might think:

In fact, Brown's and LaHaye/Jenkins's views of Jesus are a point of serious difference, and no amount of glib semantics should obscure the matter. Rather, it's far more accurate to describe both books as neo-Gnostic mythologies based on radical interpretations of ancient texts. Both are created without much concern for fact and scholarship, but both give a wealth of lip service to supposed research and historical veracity. Both rely on a dramatic emotional appeal that is steeped in anger and fear. Both rest on a distrust of authority and a desire to be free from the confines of tradition. Both promise special knowledge, or gnosis, to those willing to accept the authors' premises and suspend judgment about the veracity and solvency of those premises.

Still, one is a wacky corner of actual Christianity (although LaHaye's and Jenkins's corner arguably comprises a sizeable chunk of the room right now), while the other is a different religion altogether:

Now, if push came to shove, I'd choose to be in the trenches with LaHaye and Jenkins over Brown any day. Despite serious disagreements, we share essential beliefs and I have no doubt about where they stand. Not so with Brown, whose hip and popular postmodern cant is syncretistic, often incoherent, and thoroughly relativistic.

What a shame that a book on Christianity as it has actually been practiced for the past two millennia can't seem to crack the best-seller list.

Last week, Hank Stuever, a staff writer for the Washington Post, penned an encomium for Skankapalooza 2004 in the paper's Style section.

As a staff writer for a bastion of objective journalism, he could hardly restrain his unbounded enthusiasm for the event:

The March for Women's Lives, an impressive and congenial amassing of hundreds of thousands of abortion rights advocates held yesterday, succeeded where other lefty assemblages on the National Mall of late have stumbled: It felt both urgent and singularly focused on its cause, instead of coming at you jampacked with multiple issues and distracting freak shows.

This was a big multi-generational Vagina Monologue, starring everyone. The vibe of the day-long rally was at once good-humored and yet deadly serious. It was aggressive and even occasionally, almost delightfully, profane...

Sounds like fun. And this is before he begins to gush.

Of course, we all saw bits and pieces of this vaunted congeniality, such as the signs that said "Abort Bush in the first term" and "If only Barbara Bush had a choice," and Stuever also describes "a guy in a long pink sarong-style skirt with a white dress shirt and necktie and pink do-rag on his head"--no freak show there. But the writer then gives us some insight into his own perspective:

And the guys! These could be, like, some of the best boyfriends and husbands ever. They all have perfect three-day stubble and look like Gideon Yago from MTV....Many of the men were also wearing "This Is What a Feminist Looks Like" T-shirts. One Asian American guy had on a pink shirt that said "Cute Guys for Women's Lives," and he was cute...

Keep in mind, these words were written by someone named Hank. But he's not finished effusing yet:

Then a spoken-word poet stood onstage and waved her arms around and riffed on the Con-stitution, the coun-try, coun-ter-revolutions -- except in each of those c-words, please insert the naughty c-word. (The one we're not supposed to say in print.)

Now you're speaking the language of the modern movement.

Ah, yes, the modern, congenial, light-hearted, cerebral movement. Great job by the Washington Post in providing the sober analysis.

(Thanks to Diana West's column for the heads-up on the Post article.)

Slate continues to be insistent that Judge Roy Moore is going to run for president on the Constitution Party ticket:

As Chatterbox has noted repeatedly, the Constitution Party is keen to make Moore its standard-bearer. If Moore runs for president, as he's suggested he might do, Moore has the potential to siphon so many Christian right votes from President George W. Bush as to throw the general election to the presumptive Democratic nominee, John Kerry. Moore, in other words, has the potential to become the Ralph Nader of the right.

From what I understand, the Constitution Party already has a presidential candidate, Michael Peroutka. On the other hand, the number of votes Judge Moore would be able to garner on a national level (particularly from disaffected conservatives) would exponentially greater than Peroutka, and as Slate points out, he would have the potential to make a crucial difference in the general election.

From my standpoint (as someone who knows next to nothing about the Constitution Party, but more than a little about Judge Moore), my own guess is that the Constitution Party would be willing to replace Peroutka with Moore if Moore were willing, but that Moore will decline the opportunity.

And yes, I do think one's masculinity is directly and inversely proportionate to the amount of French he sprinkles into his conversation...

A frequent and favorite reader of mine has recently criticized me for being too hard on Jay Nordlinger merely because he doesn't adhere to the "John Rabe Ideal of How All Men Should Act Regardless of Whether There are Real Issues at stake."

To which I can only say that if smug superiority is taken from me as a viable option, I won't have any blog left. It's like saying to Don Rickles, "I enjoy your act, but I think it would be better if you didn't do the insults." Snarkiness is what I do. It is the sine qua non of my oeuvre (to put it in Nordlingerian terms).

I will now admit my dark secret, the one that drives not only the Nordlinger post, but really everything I put here: I am (and have always been) of the firm belief that everyone ought to be just like me. The extent to which they are not is the extent to which I believe they are flawed.

If I thought there were a better way to be, I'd be that way. And if that ain't what blogging's all about, then I don't know blogging. Which, come to think of it, I'm not sure I really do.

P.S. Thomas Sowell did a column on Bing Crosby yesterday. And here I thought that he was straight!

Okay, I have to ask. It's been on my mind for a while. I know that a number of you hate the National Review, and that's fine. But this question is directed to those of you who like it.

Does Jay Nordlinger (who is NR's managing editor and writes the popular "Impromptus" column) ever seem kinda....I don't know....girly to you?

I mean, I agree with him on lots of things, he's often amusing, and I appreciate the stuff that he picks up on for his column. But.....

Maybe I'm just not cultured enough, but lately he seems to use an awful lot of phrases like "It is just to die for, n'est pas?" Too many for someone with a fully-working Y chromosome.

Here are some actual phrases from today's column:

Ah, Bernard Lewis. To do without him is . . . not thinkable.

What a wonderful, unusual, brave woman, Alina Fernandez.

Enthusiasms is one of the most gladdening and enriching volumes you'll ever read. To be its dedicatee! Nice going, Arianna -- I'll give you that.

I saw a headline: "Mouse Created Without Male!" I thought, "Well, wouldn't something created without a male be a mouse?"

I don't even know what the hell that last one means.

This foppery never jumped out at me before. Is there more of it lately, or was I just missing it all along?

Your Tax Dollars at Work:

From someone named Rene Gonzalez at the UMass Daily Collegian, on the death of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan:

You know he was a real Rambo, who wanted to be in the "real" thick of things. I could tell he was that type of macho guy, from his scowling, beefy face on the CNN pictures. Well, he got his wish...

....However, in my neighborhood in Puerto Rico, Tillman would have been called a "pendejo," an idiot. Tillman, in the absurd belief that he was defending or serving his all-powerful country from a seventh-rate, Third World nation devastated by the previous conflicts it had endured, decided to give up a comfortable life to place himself in a combat situation that cost him his life. This was not "Ramon or Tyrone," who joined the military out of financial necessity, or to have a chance at education. This was a "G.I. Joe" guy who got what was coming to him. That was not heroism, it was prophetic idiocy.

Funny thing is, on the campus of most universities this pedantic, adolescent posturing is the norm rather than the exception. Fortunately, our nation has the likes of Pat Tillman defending it, rather than the likes of effete, limp-wristed grad students named "Rene."

The latest John Kerry blunder (and they are legion these days) brings to mind another pet peeve of mine.

Kerry's latest scandal is being called "Medalgate." Every scandal of the last 30 years has been similarly named: "Iran-gate," "Monica-gate," "Pardon-gate," etc. Of course, this is because of the Mother Of All Scandals, Richard Nixon's Watergate affair, which brought down his presidency nearly 30 years ago.

That scandal was named after the break-in that occured at Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. Though the Nixon administration was actually brought down by a myriad of events, the name "Watergate" was adopted as a shorthand to denote the whole complex of scandalous activity that took place.

Now to the peeve: that scandal was not about water! It was not an aquatic scandal in any sense. It was entirely devoid of H2O. It was utterly sans moisture. "Watergate" was the name of the hotel. It makes absolutely zero sense to adopt the suffix "-gate" for every scandal that comes along; it would be as ridiculous as tacking the prefix "-water" onto every scandal.

Try these on for size:

"Water-pardons"

"Water-Monica"

"Water-medal"

Stupid, right? Well, no more stupid then using "-gate" to symbolize any sort of scandal.

Really, the whole thing is probably nothing more than a subset of the "shopaholic" error.

See, "-aholic" does not mean "addicted to." Only the "-ic" part means "addicted to." The "-ahol-" part is merely part of the word "alcohol," and has nothing in and of itself to do with addiction. Thus, if one addicted to alcohol is an "alcoholic," then one addicted to shopping should merely be a "shopic," not a "shopaholic."

Same with "chocoholic," "sexaholic," and "workaholic." They are stealing from the word "alcohol," yet are not alcohol-related addictions. Something must be done about it, and I shan't rest until it is.

Which reminds me. Shouldn't "shan't" also have an apostrophe before the "n"? Two "L"s have been removed there with nothing to show for it. I have to go take my medicine now...

The evil Arlen Specter won his Republican primary in Pennsylvania (against an actual conservative) by a margin of something like 17,000 votes out of more than 1 million. It was the toughest challenged he's faced.

One can't help thinking that Specter would not have retained his 2 percent lead if President Bush (whom Specter has opposed on almost everything important) had not actively campaigned for him in Pennsylvania.

Timothy P. Carney in today's NRO makes it clear:

Canvassing voters on Tuesday leaving polling places in Lower Paxton Township and Newberry Township, almost all of the Specter voters cited Santorum's and Bush's endorsements as the reason for their votes.

One dentist in Lower Paxton calls himself a conservative and a pro-lifer, but Bush's relentless campaigning made the dentist think Bush needed Specter if he was going to win the November election. This reasoning is faulty, but local media parroted it, and it pervaded the state enough to push Specter over the top.

Conservatives such as Schantz believe Bush and Santorum backed Specter reluctantly. But this ignores the facts. Bush visited Pennsylvania with Specter many times, endorsing Specter not only for reelection, but also for Judiciary chairman. Bush came to Pittsburgh again eight days ago for a fundraiser and said, "I'm here to say it as plainly as I can: Arlen Specter is the right man for the Senate."

There can be no doubt about it: Bush and Santorum won this election for Arlen Specter, and that is exactly what they meant to do.

If I were a Republican living in Pennsylvania, I would honestly vote for Specter's Democrat opponent in the general election in November. It would be infinitely better to have the Republicans lose their Senate majority (with which they've done precisely nothing anyway) than to have Specter chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee. We're talking about the man who led the "borking" of Robert Bork leading the committee that is already obstructing all of the excellent judicial nominees it faces.

A president who won by the narrowest margin in history is evidently intent on alienating the base that elected him in favor of "moderate Democrats" who will never, under any circumstances, cast a vote for him. That third party is beginning to look more and more attractive all the time. Never has a party squandered more capital on nothing than the Republican Party has done with its control of the presidency, House, and Senate.

From the "You Can't Make This Stuff Up Department":

NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez, who attended Skankapalooza 2004 over the weekend, reports the following at NRO's The Corner:

There were a good number of "Say What" moments at the March this weekend. Some of the most telling were at the pre-rally the night before, filled with music and ranting aimed at modern-day bra-burner wannabe college students and their nostalgic feminist mothers. One of the most bizarre though, came from Maxine Waters. After sending a civil message to the president ("George W Bush, go to hell! And while you're at it, we want you to take Ashcroft with you. And don't forget Rumsfeld. And please carry along Condi Rice."), Waters told the rallied, "I have to march because my mother could not have an abortion."

I have no idea what she thought she was saying, but as Jane D. points out, Waters is certainly able to march because her mother could not have an abortion.

(By way of the estimable Brian at TSW)

In the same week that American hero Pat Tillman was getting killed defending his country in Iraq, another NFL player, Leonard Little, was being arrested on drunken driving charges.

Little, who is the best defensive player for the St. Louis Rams (and one of the best in the league), potentially faces four years in prison and a one-year suspension from the NFL. You see, Leonard also got caught drunk-driving in 1998--when he slammed into another car in downtown St. Louis, killing the driver.

As disgusting as Little's behavior is, when set side-by-side with Tillman's valor it becomes unbearable. If, like the Japanese, our culture had any sense of "face," perhaps Little would see this disparity and do the right thing: load up the shotgun, head out to the garage, and blow out that pea he thinks is a brain.

Instead, I suspect he'll be back to raking in his millions after a few months sabbatical.

Incidentally, if you live in the state of Pennsylvania, the most important thing you can do this entire year is go out tommorrow and vote for Pat Toomey in the Republican primary.

Arlen Specter has been a four term disaster, but a fifth term is simply too frightening to contemplate. If Specter were to serve a fifth term, he would be in line to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee, among other things. One shudders at the prospect.

Vote early and vote often, as they say in Chicago. This is the most important non-presidential election in the country this year.

They held Skankapalooza 2004 on the National Mall in Washington D.C. over the weekend. Officials say that as many as one million people may have decided to attend the weekend rally (though other sources are disputing that estimate, saying the actual turnout was more like 250,000).

It's estimated that another one million people will gather in the bottoms of dumpsters outside medical clinics around the nation this year, also in the name of "choice." Ironically, however, they won't actually have any choice in the matter, and are predicted to be much less militant.

I resisted posting anything on Pat Tillman's death on Friday simply because I didn't have anything unique to say on the subject. I still don't, but the man's life demands a few words.

His story is simply an astounding one from beginning to end. It so cuts against the grain that my jaw still drops each time his biography is recounted--even after all the weekend's coverage. The word "hero" is thrown around so loosely that it has lost much of its meaning, especially in Tillman's former field of sports. But Pat Tillman is a true hero in the original, non-watered-down sense of the word.

And yes, the fact that he passed up millions of dollars and the life of a professional athlete (in a nation that treats its athletes like gods) makes him unique, even among those who have given their lives in this war. He made a choice that almost no one else would have made.

I have no idea what Tillman's philosophical beliefs were (outside of his obvious patriotism), but he made perhaps the clearest declaration of the transcendental of anyone of his generation. I'm thankful for (and undeserving of) the privilege of being defended by the likes of Pat Tillman.