These Boots Are Gonna Walk All Over You

Usually when I read a news story, I read the first few paragraphs and move on. Generally, that's enough from which to glean all of the important details.

But sometimes that approach is a big mistake. As my friend Bud in Dallas points out to me, today is one of those times.

You may have seen the headline about Cleveland Indians pitcher Kyle Denney, who was shot in the calf last night by a bullet fired into the team bus. Fortunately, the wound was minor, and he's scheduled to rejoin the team tonight in Minneapolis.

But even more disturbing than random gunfire on our nation's highways was this bit, buried deep in the AP story on the incident:

[Team spokesman Bart] Swain said all of Cleveland's rookies were dressed in cheerleader outfits as part of an annual ritual -- Denney's choice was Southern California -- and the mood on the bus was jovial until Denney was shot.

...Swain said the team's trainers thought the high white boots Denney was wearing as part of his cheerleader outfit may have prevented a more serious injury. The bullet didn't lodge very far into Denney's leg, and trainers were able to remove it before he went to the hospital.

I'm glad his cheerleader boots spared him further injury, but all in all, I think I'd have rather been killed...

The Medium Is The Message

Those who have complained that tonight’s presidential debate will be lacking in substance (because of the myriad rules agreed upon by each campaign) are missing the point.

Sure, they’re correct about the debates lacking substance. But what they don’t seem to understand is that televised debates are not meant to be about “substance.” They are meant to be about image.

As the lateNeil Postman points out in his paradigm-shifting book Amusing Ourselves to Death (and as the late James Montgomery Boice echoes in a tape series I was listening to the car other day), our society no longer processes information rationally and linearly through our minds. Instead, our “information” comes to us in image after disconnected image, bypassing our rationality and appealing to our gut. Thus, the image left after the debate is all-important—and has little to do with the content of the debate itself.

This is not new. It goes all the way back to the Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960. Surely they talked about substantive issues there, but what does everyone remember about it? That Kennedy looked tan, fit, and handsome, and that Nixon looked pale and haggared. And so the myth of Camelot was born.

The pattern has continued on ever since. Think about all the recent debates you can remember. The entire effect of each one can be summed up in a sentence or two.

• Ford-Carter: “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.” Ford is dense and clueless.

• Carter-Reagan: “There you go again.” Reagan is a polished charmer, Carter is a dull dishrag.

• Reagan-Mondale: “I will not exploit my opponent’s youth and inexperience for political gain.” Reagan is self-effacing and witty, Mondale gets hoisted by his own petard.

• Bush-Dukakis: Dukakis’ blasé reaction to a hypothetical scenario involving the rape and murder of his wife. He’s a passionless robot.

• Clinton-Bush: Bush checks his watch. He’s bored and disconnected.

• Clinton-Dole: Did they even debate? It was already such a blowout nobody paid any attention.

• Bush-Gore: Gore sighs (and sighs and sighs), gets up and looms over Bush. He’s creepy and calculated and robotic.

In none of these debates can anyone recall what policy positions were advocated by any of the candidates. Policy positions are beside the point. That’s how television works.

In the 1800’s, people would gather in the town square (standing!) to hear debates, such as the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which lasted six or seven hours at a time. They weighed the positions of each candidate, which were expounded at length, and judged the candidates based on a rational appraisal of their words.

In the 21st century, people watch 20-second soundbites on the television news and see who has the better skin and which guy launched the better one-liner. They decide who makes the better “impression” and which candidate has more “star quality.” The medium is the message, and the message is image.

I’ll be watching, because I love politics and I enjoy the duel. But you won’t hear me complaining about the lack of substance, because it’s nothing new. It’s the inevitable culmination of the television age.

(Amy Ridenhour has some worthy thoughts in a similar vein on her National Center Blog.)

A Tribe Called Plagiarist

Say of them what you will, but the Weekly Standard deserves the thanks of a grateful nation for sparing us an eventual Laurence Tribe Supreme Court appointment by catching him red-handed in the act of plagiarism.

Tribe, a Harvard professor who is currently the most cited (and probably most influential) constitutional law expert in the country, is a rabid judicial activist who sees the role of the court as refashioning the "living Constitution" to suit today's needs--a blueprint for the judicial tyranny we're now living under. This is the approach that takes the original meaning of the text as written, crumples it up, sets it on fire, and throws it in a waste basket. It's the approach that has brought us to the current situation, where courts will interpret a phrase like "Congress shall make no law..." to mean "Congress shall make all sorts of laws..."

Tribe was also the architect of the "borking" strategy of personal attack that derailed the Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork back in the late 1980's, and he's the mastermind behind the Democrats' current filibuster being used in the Senate to deny hearings for well-qualified conservative judicial nominees.

He's now been caught ripping off the work of historian Henry J. Abraham and passing it off as his own, a charge to which he now confesses. Though Tribe will continue to destroy the foundations of American constitutional law from his Harvard classroom and through his many writings, this incident will hopefully at least keep him off the highest court in the land--a court that hardly needs any more hardened judicial legislators.

Like I Don't Have My Own Problems

Sometimes, out of the blue, I suddenly find myself worrying about Don Pardo. He's got to be really old by now, and I'm afraid he might die soon.

Is that weird?

Reaching Out To Ethnic Voters?

Wow, I guess John Kerry is really serious about wanting to win those "red states."



If he were a sports team, his own party would be protesting him right now...

There You Go Again

I see that our "greatest ex-president" Jimmy Carter is at it again.

Now, the sanctimonious, double-digit inflation-bringing, dictator-coddling, terrorist-appeasing, North Korea-nuke-equipping former commander-in chief, last seen sitting next to Michael Moore at the Democratic National Convention, says that the election next month in Florida is doomed to be an unfair, unscrupulous sham.

Says Carter, in a Washington Post op-ed:

The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair.

Not that Carter would know a "transparent, honest, and fair" election if he saw one. This from the man who "certified" the recent re-election of murderous, anti-American leftist strongman Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

In that election, Chavez supposedly won (with results "certified" by Carter) the referrendum 58% to 41%, despite the fact that exit polling showed Chavez losing the election by almost exactly the same margin--a difference of nearly 40 points between Carter's "certified" results and the results of the independent exit polling.

The bottom line: Carter has a long and indisputable history of conveniently seeing what he wants to see and ignoring what he wants to ignore in the service of electing anti-American leftists at home and around the world.

(Here is a must-read article detailing the myriad abuses Carter overlooked--as he nearly always does in regards to leftist dictatorial regimes--in the Venezuelan elections.)

We'll Sleep When We're Dead

To quote Bobby Lewis, "I Didn't Sleep at All Last Night."

With the adrenaline of the approaching hurricane, the preparations, the late-night vigil as it made landfall, etc., my internal clock is a complete mess. I could hardly keep my eyes open half the day yesterday, but when it came time to go to bed, I found myself staring at the ceiling all night.

I mean, I literally didn't get a minute of sleep. Nothing. Nada. I finally gave up and came into work early.

And right about now, I feel like Edward Norton in "Fight Club." It could get interesting later in the day as I become less and less coherent. I'm hoping it will be like the old days when the Jerry Lewis Telethon was still in Vegas and the clock would hit 4am--things could get pretty volatile. Who knows? I might get into a fist fight with Chad Everett.

Thanks For Your Prayers (Again)

There were some stong gusts, but we here in Broward County made it through Jeanne largely unscathed. Most of the stuff liable to be knocked over in a 60 mph wind evidently was already taken down by Frances earlier this month.

I didn't even lose my electricity this time, which is a minor miracle--our electricity usually goes out for at least a few seconds in even an average thunderstorm here.

Unfortunately, our neighbors to the north didn't fare as well. Incredibly, Jeanne made landfall at exactly the same coordinates (to a tenth of a degree) as Frances, but came ashore as a category 3 storm (as opposed to Frances' 2). There are a lot of folks up there just about at the end of their ropes.

As always, if you're interested in helping, I'd recommend donating to the Salvation Army, Samaritan's Purse, or the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

A Good First Step

In a largely unnoticed story yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the "Pledge Protection Act," which would remove from the federal courts the authority to rule on the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Though I think the Ninth Circuit Court's ruling barring the Pledge a couple of years ago was asinine, I also can't get too excited about whatever amorphous "deity" is supposedly being promoted in that Pledge. The fact that so many people support it tells me that it's probably not saying much about the God of Christianity.

But in a way the Pledge issue itself is secondary. This is hugely significant legislation, because for the first time in memory, Congress has finally begun to exercise its constitutional duty to reign in the runaway federal judiciary.

Under Article III, section 2 of the Constitution, Congress has the authority to determine the appelate jurisdiction of the federal judiciary. But they have been woefully lax in acting to protecting their constitutional role of lawmaking, and have instead ceded that power largely to the courts for the last 40 years. Finally, they've taken a step towards reversing that trend--a small step (and one that still would have to be approved by the Senate), but a step nonetheless.

This idiotic commentary by a Princeton Seminary scholar (that should be your first warning alarm) shows that they're on the right track:

This is a remarkable violation of the separation of powers and the Establishment Clause. If the Act were to become law -- and if it were, itself, to be upheld as constitutional -- only state courts would be able to hear constitutional challenges to the pledge.

That's the second time in 24 hours where "separation of powers" has been ironically invoked in support of an unchecked judicial oligarcy.

But aside from that, let's put her "logic" to the test in light of the facts:

1). The federal courts rule on federal laws.

2). The First Amendment explicitly states that Congress can make no federal laws regarding the free excercise of religion.

Therefore:

3). Marci Hamilton hysterically informs us that this act will mean that only state courts will be able to rule on issues of free exercise of religion.

And the problem is?

Here We Go Again

As incomprehensible as it is to me, we in South Florida have yet another hurricane headed straight for us.

Though Jeanne's been out there for quite some time (killing over a thousand in Haiti alone), the forecast track put us in the center of the crosshairs only yesterday. She's expected to make landfall on Sunday already.

The town will begin shutting down in a few hours (at my own office it's expected that everyone will be sent home after the 11am advisory) and we'll go through the whole drill yet again. I'm concerned, however, because people here have been so wrung out by these storms that this one is meeting with little more than a shrug of the shoulders. Yet, with Jeanne expected to reach Category 3 status, the direct threat is everything that Frances was only a little more. The worst threat, as with Frances, is to those a little to the north of Palm Beach County, but even people as far south as Miami-Dade experienced damage from the weaker Frances.

If you have any prayers left for us down here, they'd be appreciated.

(**Just a note for the enviro-nuts who are screaming that the sudden "increase in hurricanes is due to global warming": We're up to the "J's" in this year's hurricane season. A quick look through the archives shows me that in 1971 (a year picked at random), "Janice" was a storm from September 21-24. Last year, Hurricane Juan lasted from September 24-29. In other words, the hurricanes are coming at about the same rate they usually come. In 1995, we were already up to Hurricane Marilyn by this date--that year's "J" storm occured in August.

Sure, it's been a busy year for hurricanes. But if this is the sudden result of some sort of recent phenomenon, how do you explain the following, from the National Hurricane Center?:

The most hurricanes to strike in one year were six in 1916 and 1985. There were five in 1933, and four in 1906, 1909, and 1964. Three hurricanes struck the U.S. in one year a total of sixteen times. Ten of these sixteen times occurred during the sixteen years from 1944 to 1959!

As any hurricane expert can tell you, it's a cyclical thing. There are busy decades and quiet ones. This is a busy one. And it's pretty much right on time.)

"Nobody's Gonna Separate Our Powers..."

The Florida Supreme Court, previously best known for completely disregarding Florida's election laws and making up their own during the 2000 presidential election (for which they received a rich and deserved slapping-down by the U.S. Supreme Court), has now decided Terri Schiavo's life is not worth living and sentenced her to death.

If you're not familiar with the story, Terri Schiavo suffered a stroke in the early '90's, and her husband (who now has two children by another woman and who stands to collect the remainder of a large insurance settlement if Terri dies) has been crusading to have her starved to death ever since, despite the fact that her parents are willing to take responsibility for her full care and rehabilitation.

Medical experts have testified that Terri (who has never been given one day of rehab--it's been denied to her by her husband) is not in a persistent vegetative state, not in a coma, and shows response to audio and visual stimulus. She laughs, she cries, she answers questions, and she's going to be starved to death by judicial decree.

The people of the state of Florida, outraged by her case, passed a law in late 2003 protecting her from her court-ordered execution. But the Florida Supreme Court, which has often exhibited great disdain for the duly passed laws of the people of Florida, exhibited it again today by overturning the law on the grounds that it violated "the separation of powers."

If there's one thing murderous, activist judges won't stand for, it's to have their power divided by anyone. In a turn of irony worthy of Orwell's 1984, they used the notion of "separation of powers" to assert their unfettered ability to order an innocent woman to die despite the legislative will of the people. Under the rubric of "separation of powers," the Florida courts (much like most of our federal courts) have merely assumed unto themselves the power of God Almighty Himself.

At the same time you hear Terri's final, strangled breaths as she starves to death, you'll also be hearing the death-rattle of constitutional, republican government, replaced forever more by the judicial oligarchy--an oligarchy that's in the process of destroying it's few remaining enemies.

Oprah Creates Conservatives

Undoubtedly you heard last week about the Oprah show where she gave all 276 people in her audience brand new, fully-loaded Pontiacs. The news was saturated with video clips of their wild celebrations at their newfound good fortune.

But according to the Chicago Sun Times, an unpleasant reality is beginning to set in for these Oprahphiles:

It turns out that free car wasn't so free.

That's because while Pontiac agreed to pay for most of the local charges -- things like state sales tax and licensing fees -- the recipients have to report the cars as income once tax time comes.

By adding $28,500 to someone's income, it can push them into a higher tax bracket -- which means they will have to pay about 25 percent or more of the car's value in taxes. And for a nearly $30,000 car, that probably means, for most of the recipients, shelling out $7,125 for the "free car."

Fortunately, however, they'll have some time to try to scrape together the money to pay off Uncle Sam's cut of their "gift":

Some recipients are going to wait a few months before actually picking up their cars so they can figure out how to pay for the taxes.

"We have to pick the car up between Oct. 1, 2004, and Feb. 28, 2005," said Nelson. "We've decided that we are going to wait until the first of the year so we can have all of 2005 and the first four months of 2006 to figure out how to pay for this."

But it's worth it for those soccer moms, I'm sure. I mean, what's the hardship in scrounging together seven grand next to the failed, one-semester education it will buy for some lucky Washington D.C. public school student or the six months of Social Security checks it'll provide for the old guy parking his Cadillac over at the country club?

A Hooker With A Heart of (Fein)Gold

I know I'm not the first to voice this sentiment, but I'm sick of John McCain.

The media, of course, has anointed him Arbiter of All That is Right and Good and Virtuous. He's the favorite Republican of most liberals because he's a "thoughtful conservative." "Finally!" the gist goes, "A Republican who's not a stupid caveman!"

What this actually means is that McCain holds a scant handful of positions that could be considered moderately conservative (which makes him "conservative"), and a whole bunch of positions that are nothing more than warmed-over liberalism (which makes him "thoughtful" and "not a stupid caveman"). In their view, McCain is not a hunchbacked Neanderthal insofar as he's not actually conservative.

Because he relentlessly courts them and because they are oblivious to their own narcissism, the media have been snookered into portraying McCain as a "straight-shooter" and "the kind of politician we need more of" simply because he's willing to talk with them day or night and tell them what they agree with.

In reality, McCain is is the biggest media whore to come out of either party in a generation. Just watch an interview with him--any interview.

NEWS DITZ: Senator, why can't more politicians be like you?

MCCAIN (beaming with self-satisfaction): Well, I think, unfortunately, too many people put politics ahead of the good of the country, which you--as the best reporter in America--know I would never do. (Chest broadening)

NEWS DITZ (eyes closed, breathing heavily): Oh, yeah. Say that again....only slower...

Oddly, it was never referred to as "straight talk" when Spiro Agnew would call them a bunch of idiots or Jesse Helms would give his unvarnished view of alternative lifestyles. But McCain, by giving them his phone number and saying "Call me whenever you need a Republican to badmouth conservatism," has become the poster boy for "straight talk."

Anyone see them calling Zell Miller's rebel-against-his-party speech at the Republican Convention "straight talk?"

They Just Keep Digging

The Kerry side of the ledger seems to insist on turning the Rather story into the Perfect Storm that will swallow their candidate at sea.

Terry McAuliff, the DNC chairman, is now pushing the line that yes, the memos are forged, but...they were planted by Republican operatives. Which, of course, makes perfect sense: manufacture documents that are damaging to your own candidate, then hand them to the media and cause a damaging media storm for your guy--in hopes that bloggers will eventually recognize the inconsistent superscripting. The Bush campaign decided to roll the dice and hinge their entire presidency on the investigative abilities of Little Green Footballs.

It's like O.J.'s proferred "Columbian drug kingpins" defense, except in this version Nicole hires her own killers in order to cost O.J. the next "Naked Gun" sequel.

Where's The Pink Slip, Kenneth?

Gosh, I hate to kick a guy when he's down (well, okay, I don't hate it that much...), but if I were the president of CBS News, I'd have no choice but to fire Dan Rather and his producer now, even in light of their too-late apology.

Leaving aside the devastating implications for the Kerry campaign, this story in today's USA Today is a political earthquake for CBS News. USA Today says that CBS passed the memos story on to the Kerry campaign before it even ran on 60 Minutes II.

According to the story:

[Joe] Lockhart, the former press secretary to President Clinton [and current Kerry campaign aide], said a producer talked to him about the 60 Minutes program a few days before it aired on Sept. 8. She gave Lockhart a telephone number and asked him to call Bill Burkett, a former Texas National Guard officer who gave CBS the documents.

CBS News not only rushed to get a poorly-sourced, falsified story damaging to President Bush on the air, but they also leaked it to the Kerry campaign beforehand. The political motivation is clear. As little as I respect the Kerry campaign, it's not their fault CBS called them. But for CBS, this news is absolutely cataclysmic.

I do not believe at this point that Dan Rather can survive until the election. The only way CBS can possibly restore their reputation (mediocre as it may have been) is to clean house of everyone involved in this story immediately. It's very possible that they will--at least once reality sets in, which recent events have shown is a slow process at Black Rock.

You Forgot Something

CBS has finally retracted it's Bush/National Guard story, saying "CBS Regrets Bush Memos Story."

Dan Rather has also issued a statement, saying (according to Drudge):

I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point where—if I knew then what I know now—I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question.

Okay....but where's the part where you retract the statements where you dismissed concerns about the authenticity of the memos as merely being the work of "partisan political operatives"? And where's the part about ignoring the 260-plus living Swift Boat Veterans for weeks and then breatlessly rushing the memo story onto the air without, as it turns out, any credible proof?

Oh well, it's a start, I suppose.

P.S. On the other hand, thanks for waiting just long enough to ensure that the story will be the main headline for at least another week! Years of charges notwithstanding, it makes me wonder if you're not actually an undercover operative for the GOP...

"No He Isn't, He's Just Sleeping..."

After more than a week and a half denying the obvious fact that the memos were forged (an episode in which Dan Rather has increasingly looked like the proprietor of the pet store in that Monty Python sketch: "This bird isn't dead...he's pining for the fjords...."), the New York Times says CBS News may announce as early as today that they were "misled" on the documents.

If they had done this 10 days ago, it might not have had to have been the effective end of Dan Rather's journalistic career.

Father Knows Best?

It sounds like a lot of folks are hot and bothered about this photo from a John Edwards campaign event where Democrat thugs tore up the George W. Bush sign of a 3-year old girl:



Some snippets from the story in the Washington Times:

"They just pounced on us," said Phil Parlock, who took his 11-year-old son, Alex, and 3-year-old daughter, Sophia, to the Democratic rally at Tri-State Airport in Huntington, W.Va.

..."She was crying; they were pushing and shoving her," said Mr. Parlock, a Huntington real estate agent. "She was scared."

...The Parlocks went to Mr. Edwards' airport rally yesterday "to support the president," Mr. Parlock said, and brought nine Bush-Cheney signs with them.

Obviously, anyone who would threaten a little kid or tear up her sign is a vile reprobate. But I have to ask: what kind of jackass shows up at a Democrat campaign event and sticks Bush signs in his kids' hands? What kind of parent puts his kid in this position?

As long as we're venting outrage, let's save some for this utter moron of a father. You've gotta wonder about a putz like that a little bit.

I Guess It’s Good To Have A Style

Last night, someone did a Google search on “Elton John” + “shut his pie hole” and got sent to my blog.

But regrettably, I was only the second site that turned up on the search.

...And May The Good News Be Yours

Ann Coulter today on Dan Rather: "Rather is TV's real-life Ted Baxter without Baxter's quiet dignity."