Pick & Choose

Hiatus

2004-11-18T17:13:00.000-08:00

This blog is going on hiatus. It will return some time after now. Bye.

Today's OED antedating: "whatchamacallit"

2004-11-18T08:32:00.000-08:00

Whatchamacallit, colloquial, code for an unrecalled word (first use cited 1928): Untitled item by Franklin P. Adams, New York Tribune, November 17, 1915, p 9, col 1: "It is, one might say if one were desperate for a two-line ¶, a what-you-McCall-it shame."

Thursday 11/18 links

2004-11-18T08:18:00.000-08:00

Blogger Hugh Hewitt offers his list of candidates to replace William Safire at The New York Times; they are: Jonah Goldberg, Stephen Hayes, James Lileks, Peter Robinson, and Mark Steyn. I'd be happiest with Goldberg or Steyn, then Lileks, then Hayes, then Robinson. As though they're going to ask me.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak reports that Sen. John "McCain told [Porter] Goss the CIA is 'a dysfunctional organization. It has to be cleaned out.' ... McCain told Goss that as director, he must get rid of the old boys and bring in a new team at Langley." And that is what Goss is doing.

London Times Washington correspondent Gerard Baker explains to his slow-learning readers how "The day of reckoning has arrived for the Bush-hating foreign policy elite."

Canny Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey supplies two interesting posts: first, he argues that it would be bad tactics for Colin Powell to run against Hillary Clinton in the 2006 New York senatorial race; and second, he reveals that Nebraska Democratic senator Ben Nelson may be offered Sec'y of Agriculture--the Democrats don't want him to take the job, but Nelson's no idiot and he saw what happened to other Democrats in Red America two weeks ago.

The understated and demure syndicated columnist Ann Coulter: "As we wait for CBS to concede the election, Democrats are claiming Kerry lost because Americans are stupid – and if there's one thing voters respond to, it's crude insults."

Syndicated columnist Emmett Tyrrell admits he wrote his 1984 classic The Liberal Crack-Up twenty years too early.

Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell observes that the liberals' widely-bruited support of the military did not survive past the election.

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan offers a great suggestion: "Ssssshhhhhhhh'"

Today's OED antedating: "to clean house"

2004-11-17T08:37:00.000-08:00

To clean house, transferred, anti-corruption action (no entry): Untitled item by Franklin P. Adams, New York Tribune, September 29, 1920, p 10, col 5: "The managers of the league, The Paterson Call believes, should have taken the bull by the horns and cleaned house ... ."

Wednesday 11/17 links

2004-11-17T08:33:00.000-08:00

Conventional wisdom held that Pres. Bush would purge the neoconservatives after the election. Wrong! Los Angeles Times editorial writer Jacob Heilbrunn reports: "Far from being headed for the political graveyard, neoconservatives are poised to become even more powerful in a second Bush term, while the 'realists' — those who believe that moral crusading is costly and counterproductive in foreign policy — are sidelined."

Washington Times columnist Tony Blankley: "With the nominations of Condoleezza Rice at State, Porter Goss at CIA, Donald Rumsfeld (or an equally tough replacement) at Defense and Stephen Hadley at NSC, the president has created an all-Patton foreign and defense team. Moreover, he has a team that understands that among the necessary targets of their firepower must be, not only our foreign enemies, but also the slouching, sly, insubordinate bureaucrats under their chain of command."

New York Times columnist William Safire: "This president is no sore winner, and has learned the hard way to have in hand a post-victory plan. In decisively choosing those who stay and those who come in, he shows a determination to win the policy battles of his second term. "

Former Army major and now New York Post columnist Ralph Peters analyzes why "Why the Dogs Didn't Bark."

30-1. That's the KIA ratio in Fallujah--and in urban warfare it is almost invariably the attacker who bears the brunt of the casualties. We've built a new and apparently invincible Army, which New York Daily News columnist Zev Chafets describes in "The victory beyond Fallujah."

Why are people so stupid? Why do they presume the terrorists are supermen, rather than inferior fanatics? A Wall Street Journal editorial also wonders, and concludes: "The Lessons of Fallujah: Killing terrorists doesn't make them stronger."

Re Condoleezza Rice's upcoming confirmation hearings, Washington Post columnist George F. Will offers suggestions to senators who wonder "What to Ask the Nominee."

It is not clear whether the title of Front Page Magazine managing editor Ben Johnson's piece re Condi Rice is misspelled or not; you decide: "Reigning in Foggy Bottom."

Washington Times columnist Joel Mowbray doubts that Rice--or anyone else--can reform the State Dept.

Wall Street Journal columnist Claudia Rosett: "Come Clean, Kofi: The U.N. secretary-general ducks responsibilty for the Oil for Food scam."

Blogger Hugh Hewitt wonders whether Chris Matthews will ever grow up. Fat chance.

Jerusalem Post columnist Herb Keinon reveals that the Israelis are pleased with the new Rice-Hadley team: "Both, as one official put it in diplomatic understatement, are 'positively predisposed toward Israel.' Or, as another said, 'they are both our good friends.'"

Aussie blogger Arthur Chrenkoff explains "How Poland came to say 'Non' to France and hitch up with America."

Columnist Janet Dailey in the London Daily Telegraph: "Europeans and American Democrats are in denial. George Bush has just got the mandate for pursuing his global policy on terrorism that he did not have in his first term: his position is stronger, not weaker. For the domestic market (which is all that matters to an American president), he has less need than before for the spurious credibility that European approval might offer."

National Review Online columnist Stephen Moore proposes subsidizing lefties who threaten to move to Canada with an "Export a Liberal Fund. From this pool we will donate $100 to every liberal who agrees to give up his U.S. citizenship and flee the country permanently. Warning #1: There's no coming back for health care when you get sick. Warning #2: There will be no amnesty program. These are one-way tickets."

The prolific satirical blogger ScrappleFace Scott Ott offers not one, not two, but three hilarious items: first, "Sears, Kmart Merge to Set New Bankruptcy Record"; second, "Expert Warns of 'Bickering Deficit' in New Bush Cabinet"; and third, "NBC Reporter Declines Al-Jazeera 'Best Video' Award."

Pardon for Barghouti?

2004-11-16T08:38:00.000-08:00

The Israelis launched a trial balloon via Dan Izenberg's piece in today's Jerusalem Post, titled "Background: Only Katsav can free Barghouti":

Barghouti had been touted by Palestinians as a possible successor to Yasser Arafat, and as a possible replacement by some Israelis; even after he was captured by the IDF in Ramallah, there were rumors in Israel that the government was grooming him for the job. Before the outbreak of the intifada, Barghouti had been regarded as a moderate who supported the Oslo Accords.

By the time of his capture, however, he had come to be viewed as the most dangerous figure among the non-Islamist forces arrayed against Israel.

Even now, there seems to be ambivalence in Israel regarding Barghouti. It appears that many outside observers and military and government officials still believe he would be the best choice to end the chaos in the PA.

Barghouti clearly has the support of the Palestinian prisoners, who constitute one of the most influential forces in Palestinian society. According to media reports, the prisoners regard Barghouti as their candidate.

But in order for Barghouti to take over the Palestinian leadership, he must first get out of prison, and there is only one way he can do that: President Moshe Katsav must pardon him. Katsav has the sole prerogative to do so according to the Basic Law: The President.

On Sunday, however, Katsav said he sees no reason to do so. The Internet media outlet Ynet quoted Katsav as saying, "I do not think we have to pardon Barghouti just because Arafat has died."

And Village Voice writer Kareem Fahim and others reported that former Bush 41 secretary of state James Baker ratcheted up the temperature last week when he told CNN's Larry King that Israel should release Barghouti:

"There is now. . . . in an Israeli prison a man named Marwan Barghouti, who is one of the young guard of Palestinians," Baker told King last night, speaking about the post–Yasir Arafat era. "And if the Palestinians are going to make this work against the really hard-line elements, the Islamists and some of the people of Hamas, they're going to have to have a coalition of the young guard and the old guard." (Hat tip to Charles Johnson/Little Green Footballs)

Yeah, right. We'll see ...

Today's OED antedating: "hard-edged"

2004-11-16T08:33:00.000-08:00

Hard-edged, figurative, adjective, cynical, tough ("hard," a., sec 22, first use cited 1954): Essay titled "Corpora Delictorum," by Alexander Woollcott, New Yorker, November 2, 1929, p 42, col 1: "It was a compact and startling melodrama [with] ... grubby, hard-edged little French actors who looked as though they had been cut out of some old numbers of L'Illustration."

Tuesday 11/16 links

2004-11-16T08:25:00.000-08:00

Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher reports that William Safire is retiring his New York Times column on January 24. Jonah Goldberg: "If the New York Times would like to make me an offer, I'm all ears."

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak picks up on the most startling implication of Colin Powell's resignation; that is, that Pres. Bush did not want him back: "There was a sense, in an administration that puts a high premium on teamwork and loyalty, that Powell was really not a team player. Critical insiders often compared Powell unfavorably with James Baker, the elder George Bush's secretary of state. While Baker was seen as the president's representative to the State Department, Powell was the State Department's representative to the president. That is, Powell was criticized for coddling career Foreign Service officers."

A Wall Street Journal editorial suggests that the Powell resignation should warn the State Dept. to join the team: "His way ... was to represent the department's consensus views in the White House, rather than represent -- and enforce -- Bush Administration policy on his department."

Brilliant stuff from Power Line blogger "Deacon," aka Paul Mirengoff: "The deepest urge of many liberals is to prove their intellectual and moral superiority. One of the ways they accomplish this is by eschewing obvious explanations for misconduct -- greed, cruelty, or (in extreme cases) evil -- as too simplistic. Liberals would rather identify 'root causes,' as if the basic motivations just mentioned are insufficiently rooted. And the root causes that satisfy liberals generally turn out to be flaws in America and its policies."

National Review Online columnist Michael Ledeen on the CIA: "Spymasters? The crowd that proclaimed East Germany to be the world's seventh greatest industrial power? The people who claimed to be running scads of agents in Cuba, only to find that every one was a double? The people whose counterintelligence superstar turned out to be a Soviet agent? The organization that didn't seem to have a single reliable agent on the ground in Iraq? The geniuses who thought that Saddam was in a nonexistent bunker on the eve of the invasion of Iraq?"

Washington Times guest columnist Burt Prelutsky has some ideas for the Democratic party, but they won't like them.

Influential blogger Hugh Hewitt has lots to say about lots of things.

Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein: "The fact remains: Hollywood has a tin ear when it comes to understanding which issues and values matter to average Americans. Showbiz people spend an inordinate amount of time compiling research about consumer attitudes, but when you travel first class or in your private jet, you don't meet too many of those consumers."

Reuters correspondent Michele Kambas reports that an American claims to have found Atlantis submerged a mile below the Mediterranean Sea between Cyprus and Syria. If so, Donovan can update his song. (Hat tip to "Captain Ed" Morrissey/Captain's Quarters)

Prolific satirical blogger ScrappleFace Scott Ott: "Iran Pleads with UN: 'Slap Us with Sanctions Like Saddam's.'"

Today's OED antedating: "sob song"

2004-11-15T12:45:00.000-08:00

Sob song, musical genre of sad stories sung ("sob," n.1, sec 3 (b), first use cited 1927): Untitled item by Franklin P. Adams, New York Tribune, July 12, 1915, p 9, col 1: "Two or three years ago we reprinted, with great pleasure to ourself, at least, a lot of the old-time sob-songs."

Monday 11/15 links

2004-11-15T08:22:00.000-08:00

News flash posted early this morning by Associated Press reporter George Gedda: "Secretary of State Colin Powell has told top aides he intends to resign from President Bush's Cabinet."

Alas, the Associated Press is forced to admit "U.S. Ground Assault on Fallujah 'Ahead of Schedule,' Says Marine Commander."

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer on Yasir Arafat: "He was single-minded, but not about statehood or a real peace."

"TIESW" (ie, "the Israeli ex-spook website") DEBKA has two breaking items: First, no fewer than 40 terrorist gunmen strolled into a mourning tent in Gaza, killed two bodyguards, then after shooting into the air warned Mahmoud Abbas, aka new Palestinian chief Abu Mazen, that if he didn't continue the terror campaign they would kill him. And second (though perhaps irrelevant after the first item), the US, Israel, and new Palestinian chief Abu Mazen are conspiring--yes, conspiring--to establish Abu Mazen's rule. Apparently you can't trust anyone any more.

Asia Times columnist "Spengler" examines "The assassin's master sermon."

Washington Times columnist Arnaud de Borchgrave describes the "Mini clash of civilizations" between Moslem immigrants and native Dutch in the Netherlands. I would suggest more careful language: I would characterize the Moslems more by "culture" than "civilization," for the latter term implies a level of development that the Moslems have not achieved for the better part of a millennium.

Daily Standard writer Stephen F. Hayes details how wily spook bureaucrats are leak-leak-leaking to the MSM varsity to attempt to undermine the sweeping reform that new CIA chief Porter Goss has ordered.

Hold the presses! Scoop from New York Times columnist William Safire: The UN is corrupt--and they're covering up the Iraq oil scandal! And Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak quotes a real live US Senator who is angry about it.

Syndicated columnist Michael Barone is not altogether sad to say that it was "A bad election for old media."

Beldar blogger William J. Dyer pokes fun at the "NYT's confusion on the basic concepts of government."

New York Times guest columnist and Yale economist Michael J. Graetz, presumably left-of-center, suggests a simplified tax structure with no income taxes below $100K; 25% above that; and the usual mortgage and charitable deductions. So what the heck.

Barghouti steamroller picking up speed ...

2004-11-14T08:55:00.000-08:00

From Donald Macintyre's piece in today's London Sunday Independent:

The jailed Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti, could emerge as a kingmaker in the succession to Yasser Arafat, even if he eventually rejects growing advice to run for the Palestinian presidency himself, his supporters suggested yesterday.

With recent polls showing that, before Mr Arafat's death on Thursday, Mr Barghouti was the second most popular Palestinian politician after him, Mr Barghouti's wife Fadwa yesterday issued a pointed warning that the transitional Palestinian leadership should be "more aware of their need to have Marwan Barghouti standing beside them".

From a Saturday Associated Press report:

JERUSALEM - Imprisoned uprising leader Marwan Barghouti has decided to run for president in upcoming Palestinian elections, a source close to the popular politician said Saturday.

Barghouti, widely seen as the strongest candidate to replace Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, will only bow out of the race if his ruling Fatah movement selects a different candidate in internal voting, the source said on condition of anonymity. That is unlikely as Fatah is not expected to hold a primary.

And from an analysis by Jason Burke in Saturday's London Guardian:

The greatest challenge to the old guard - who may yet look for a reason to postpone the poll - comes from Marwan Barghouti, a firebrand leader currently serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison. Barghouti, who was deeply involved in running the recent al-Aqsa uprising, is hugely popular among Palestinian youth and is seen as a potential leader by many.

P&C has watched closely as Barghouti has prepared his ground well. The particularly startling and Machiavellian angle involved here is that the Israelis may be among Barghouti's strongest and most influential supporters, but they must cover their tracks extremely well because the public disclosure of their approval would be fatal to any Palestinian's chances.

Among the nearly dozen P&C posts on this unfolding story:

On Friday (11/12), P&C linked to a Tel Aviv Ha'aretz column written by left-wing Israeli journalist Amira Hass:

Palestinian security detainees [ie terrorists in Israeli prisons] are waiting to hear what prisoner Marwan Barghouti has to say: What is his position on the emerging leadership? Does he intend to contend in the planned elections? According to a lawyer who met with prisoners at Nafha prison this week, the security detainees, particularly those belonging to Fatah, speak of Barghouti as the Palestinian people's new leader. They await his pronouncements as they waver between wanting to give the collective leadership now taking shape a chance and mistrusting it.

P&C's conclusion:

The Palestinian hard cases in Israeli prisons instinctively respect and defer to Barghouti. If, as has been reported, the Israelis also like him, and grabbed him up primarily to prevent rival Palestinians from clipping him--then Marwan Barghouti is the future of Palestine. You read it here first.

On Monday (11/8), P&C linked to a Jerusalem Post column written by Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab, who described the widespread support Barghouti enjoys on the Palestinian street.

And on September 28, P&C introduced the subject with this post, under the title "Marwan Barghouti":

A significant development buried in Mark Lavie's Associated Press piece about the latest carnage in the Middle East:

"The wife of jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti said her husband will run in Palestinian parliamentary elections expected next year."

Until he was captured in Ramallah by an elite Israeli commando unit in April 2002, Barghouti was the area chief of the "Tanzim," an Al-Fatah offshoot that Yasir Arafat ordered established after the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. Arafat needed the Tanzim because he was too closely identified with Fatah and required plausible deniability for future terrorist actions that he might personally order. Barghouti also founded the notorious Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, another terrorist group responsible for dozens of murderous attacks.

Before the newest Palestinian terror campaign started in 2000, Barghouti got along well with the Israelis and gained their respect. He speaks fluent Hebrew (he did time in Israeli prisons) and is regarded to be an opportunistic moderate. The Israelis believe that Barghouti helped to plan terrorist actions--including suicide bombings--during the two years before his capture primarily to maintain his position within the Palestinian hierarchy.

The word is that the Israelis captured and jailed the charismatic Barghouti to protect him from jealous rivals who wanted him dead--a list which included Arafat. Had Israel intended to eliminate Barghouti, it would have killed him in a targeted attack with little potential risk to the Israelis. Instead, the Israeli generals sent an elite "Duvdevan" unit deep into the West Bank to snatch him.

Then the Israelis broke with longstanding practice and held Barghouti's trial in open court--not in the closed military court where Palestinian terror suspects are usually tried. And in his trial, with the world media watching and reporting, Barghouti offered a spirited and colorful defense that in practical terms kicked off his political campaign: he shouted his defiance; he characterized himself as a patriot in a kangaroo court; he denied that the Israelis had any jurisdiction to try any Palestinian for any act committed on his own land. The performance was a great hit in the Palestinian-controlled areas.

There is talk that Israel took great care to provide Barghouti with this forum for the purpose of building his street cred among the Palestinian public. And there are whispers that Israel and the US are carefully grooming Barghouti to succeed Arafat--and that Arafat knows it.So yesterday, safely ensconced in an Israeli prison, Barghouti kicked off his formal campaign ...

And one last extract, from David Aaronovitch's column in today's London Observer. After listing a series of "solutions" broached here or there, but which he dismisses as impossible (in some instances more because he dislikes them than due to any inherent impracticability), he concludes:

In an Israeli jail, convicted of complicity in murders, sits Marwan Barghouti, hero of the camps, planner of the intifada, condemner of suicide bombings and - quite possibly - the only man who could deliver a peace. If he were brave enough to try, if the Israelis were brave enough to let him. He won't be elected this time, but he is, many think, the Nixon for this China. Remember the name.

This is just beginning ...

Today's OED antedating: "to add (it all) up"

2004-11-14T08:23:00.000-08:00

To add (it all) up, colloquial, to make sense (of it) ("add," v., sec 5 (b), first use cited 1942): Book titled Ade's Fables, by George Ade, 1914, p 91: "[T]he poor gink who calls loudly for English Mustard ... may have his brief Hour of Triumph, but no man ever really got anywhere by doping Salad, when you stop to add it all up."

Sunday 11/14 links

2004-11-14T08:17:00.000-08:00

Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes is talking realignment. We'll see.

Newsweek columnist George F. Will observes that the leftist mindset simply cannot tolerate the possibility that they lose election after election for reasons of substance; therefore, it must be the voters' fault: "Belief in the infantilism of the American public has been an expanding facet of some "progressive" thinking for 50 years—since the explosive growth of advertising, especially on television, in the 1950s."

Washington Post columnist David S. Broder suggests that lefties calm down: "Bush won, but he will have to work within the system for whatever he gets. Checks and balances are still there. The nation does not face 'another dark age,' unless you consider politics, with all its trade-offs and bargaining, a black art."

US News & World Report columnist Gloria Borger concludes that "Democrats need a twang."

The US military has tons of shiny toys, but former Army officer and now New York Post columnist Ralph Peters explains that it ultimately comes down to grunts going door-to-door, "Down and Dirty."

Jerusalem Post columnist Herb Keinon is relieved that Tony Blair could not persuade Pres. Bush to screw Israel.

New York Daily News columnist Zev Chafets was appalled by the conduct of the crowds at the Arafat funeral--"chaotic, violent and hysterical"--and concludes that the Palestinians are "Still not ready for prime time."

Los Angeles Times guest columnist Dennis Prager, a Jew, defends the cross on the Los Angeles city seal.

Chicago Tribune columnist James Coates explores Microsoft's new search engine, which will never conquer Google--just as MS Word could never hope to compete with WordPerfect.

Prolific satirical blogger ScrappleFace Scott Ott can draw distinctions: "While the vice president has a history of heart trouble, spokesman Mary Matalin said tests showed that 'this time it's only an ordinary cold, not the kind of cold that Soviet leaders used to get.'"

Jews barred from Norwegian Holocaust commemoration

2004-11-13T08:53:00.000-08:00

From an editorial in yesterday's New York Sun:

Norway managed to forbid Jews from marking the anniversary of Kristallnacht, a step the French haven't yet taken. The local TV2 News reported that no Norwegian Jews participated in Oslo's commemoration of Kristallnacht. "TV2 also reported that the authorities, saying they didn't want trouble, forbade any Jewish symbols, including Stars of David and Israeli flags," according to Israel's Arutz-7 radio station.

"On the TV2 evening news, a group of Jews and their friends who wanted to take part in the commemoration were shown being firmly told by a policeman to 'please leave the area,'" according to a dispatch from an American journalist living in Norway, Bruce Bawer, on AndrewSullivan.com. "This in a city where Muslim demonstrations take place on a regular basis, and include signs and banners bearing hateful, barbaric slogans."

The ban prompted a protest from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to the government of Norway.

So the Europeans want to involve themselves in the Mideast so-called "peace process." What do you think?

Today's OED antedating: "Wailing Wall"

2004-11-13T07:55:00.000-08:00

Wailing Wall, the surviving portion of the western wall of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem ("wailing," vbl. n., sec (c), first use cited 1919): Article headlined "Red Liberals," by Ren Mulford, Jr, Sporting Life, June 3, 1911, p 7, col 1: "In fact, they ... emitted a howl that sounded like a symphony of sorrow at the Wailing Wall of the Sons of Abraham at Jerusalem."

Saturday 11/13 links

2004-11-13T07:46:00.000-08:00

This one's a classic, from the Weekly Standard's "Scrapbook": "Disappointed Democrats have had two weeks to argue about what went wrong for John Kerry on November 2. And they've had any number of plausible theories to choose from. ... But none among the most commonly circulating postmortems has yet won an enthusiastic Democratic embrace. Except, that is, for this one: George W. Bush won reelection because . . . well, because there are just too many damn dumb people in this country, that's why."

One of the new favorites, Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey, ruthlessly fisks Brent Scowcroft's insidiously anti-Israel Washington Post column.

Paleoblogger Andrew Sullivan on Barbara Plett, the idiot BBC correspondent who claimed she "started to cry... without warning" when Arafat left Ramallah: "Do you think she'd shed a tear for the Pope? Or Mother Teresa? The far left's attraction to foreign murder and tyranny endures, doesn't it? Notice also this BBC timeline for Arafat's life. The last two dates are his Nobel Peace Prize and the 2001 Israeli blockade in Ramallah. No mention of Camp David or Taba. The BBC has the historical objectivity of Stalin."

Washington Post reporters Dana Priest and Walter Pincus faithfully take down notes from CIA lifers who are leaking--drip, drip, drip--ie whining that the new CIA director is mean. The leakers warn darkly that resignations are being tendered! Good! The CIA is like the Chicago Cubs--every trade or other transaction is a winner because you're getting rid of a presumably incompetent-spook/Cub and getting a presumably non-incompetent-spook/non-Cub in return.

New York Times columnist David Brooks cuts straight to the point: "Now that he's been returned to office, President Bush is going to have to differentiate between his opponents and his enemies. His opponents are found in the Democratic Party. His enemies are in certain offices of the Central Intelligence Agency."

Weekly Standard correspondent Irwin M. Stelzer asserts that the European Union is perhaps not not our enemy, but certainly our opponent: "The positioning of the E.U. as an anti-American force has not been lost on Washington's policymakers, who now realize that this country's historic support for a united Europe is dangerously contrary to U.S. interests."

Power Line blogger "Deacon," aka Paul Mirengoff, examines the Democrats' newest rhetorical trick--imputing statewide statistics to individual voters. Thus Pres. Bush was only popular among less educated, stupider, and less productive Americans, who by implication are not quite equal enough to count. Of course there are much more precise statistics available, which indicate that when sorted by level of education Sen. Kerry took two classes of voter: those with post-grad experience, and those without high school diplomas. Pres. Bush took college graduates, some college, and high school graduates. What would you conclude from that?

Weekly Standard writer Robert Satloff suggests that Palestine already possesses many of the attributes of a modern Arab state--that is, it's a mess. Then he supplies a lot of useless advice.

London Times columnist Ben Macintyre notices blogs. Good for him. As he puts it: "Welcome to the New Tom Paines."

Alas, poor Earth Mother--IOWAHAWK satirical blogger David Burge recounts the angst of "Blue State Blues as Coastal Parents Battle Invasion of Dollywood Values."

Suha's $22 million/year shakedown reported here (from DEBKA) 2 days ago

2004-11-12T08:45:00.000-08:00

Uri Dan and Andy Soltis in today's New York Post:

Suha Arafat, who jealously guarded her husband's bedside during his final hours, brought his body home from France yesterday for burial — after sealing a deal that will make her a very rich widow.

Suha agreed to a settlement with the Palestinian Authority that will reportedly pay her as much as $22 million a year for divulging the secrets of her husband's fortune.

This item appeared in P&C two days ago:

According to the Israeli DEBKA website, the Palestinian Authority surrendered to Suha Arafat's shakedown--she'll get $22 million per year for the rest of her life. If the Islamoterrorists hear about the terms of the deal, that latter contingency may occur much sooner than she expects.

Now you know where to get it first.

Yet more about Barghouti

2004-11-12T08:41:00.000-08:00

From Amira Hass's piece in the dovish Tel Aviv Ha'aretz daily newspaper:

Palestinian security detainees are waiting to hear what prisoner Marwan Barghouti has to say: What is his position on the emerging leadership? Does he intend to contend in the planned elections?

According to a lawyer who met with prisoners at Nafha prison this week, the security detainees, particularly those belonging to Fatah, speak of Barghouti as the Palestinian people's new leader. They await his pronouncements as they waver between wanting to give the collective leadership now taking shape a chance and mistrusting it.

Hass goes on to describe how keenly Barghouti follows current events as they unfold, his democratic instincts, etc, etc--all the things a lefty swoons over in an enemy's legend--but none of that really matters.

What does matter is this: the Palestinian hard cases in Israeli prisons instinctively respect and defer to Barghouti. If, as has been reported, the Israelis also like him, and grabbed him up primarily to prevent rival Palestinians from clipping him--then Marwan Barghouti is the future of Palestine. You read it here first.

Today's OED antedating: "leak"

2004-11-12T08:35:00.000-08:00

Leak, disclosed confidence (n., sec 1 (d), first use cited 1950): Untitled item by Franklin P. Adams, New York Tribune, January 3, 1917, p 9, col 1: "Well, it appears, in the first place, that nobody in Washington had anything to do with the 'peace leak'; and, in the second place, there was no 'leak' in the first place." And a more illustrative untitled item by Adams, New York Tribune, February 1, 1917, p 11, col 1: "Peace note leak motto: Hutton, Hutton, who got the information?"

Friday 11/12 links

2004-11-12T08:31:00.000-08:00

Some very big stuff evidently leaked to New York Sun reporter Jamie Dettmer: Karl Rove wants Don Rumsfeld out. Dick Cheney is attempting to protect him, and will manage to keep him around until spring. Condi Rice wants Defense, and will likely move out the neocons. Douglas Feith has already announced he is leaving. Colin Powell will probably stay a few months longer than Rumsfeld.

There clearly is a concerted campaign starting here: the World Tribune quotes anonymous sources more-than-willing to leak the news that Pres. Bush intends to shake up his personnel and involve himself more in the Israel-Palestinian situation. Which is bad news for Israel.

Washington Post columnist George F. Will urgently catalogues "What Hinges on Fallujah": "Success in Iraq, people here believe, is contingent on three ifs: if Iraqi military and security forces can stay intact during contacts with the insurgents; if insurgents are killed in sufficient numbers to convince the Sunni political class that it must invest its hope in politics; and if neighboring states, especially Syria, will cooperate in slowing the flow of money and other aid to the insurgency. If so, then the United States can -- this is the preferred verb -- 'stand up' an Iraqi state and recede from a dominant role."

Belmont Club blogger "Wretchard" explains that "the battle for the Sunni Triangle is a single, integrated theater which does not consist of Fallujah alone."

Re the accolades to Yasir Arafat pouring in from the Arab world, London Times foreign editor Bronwen Maddox warns that "it would be wrong to interpret these words as indicative of deep, unqualified mourning. The tributes conceal more than three decades of mutual mistrust between the Palestinian leader and the Arab world. Arafat tried to play them off against each other and ended up losing the support and respect of almost all. They found his cause useful to them — until he became an embarrassment and even a threat. "

Washington Times columnist Cal Thomas: "As part of its obituary, The New York Times said, 'Arafat led a long and failed effort for statehood' for the Palestinians. He did no such thing. Arafat led a long reign of terror, the purpose of which was to kill Jews and eliminate the state of Israel."

US News & World Report guest columnist Fouad Ajami: "Character is destiny. And in the end, character doomed Arafat."

London Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips also blogs, and supplies two interesting items today. First, "a permant cessation of Palestanian violence will not happen while Blair and the Europeans insist on piling the pressure not on Palestinians such as [Gaza strongman Mohammed] Dahlan but instead upon Israel to stop defending itself, leaving Bush alone to champion the victims of terror against their slaughterers, and uphold right against wrong." And second, she is appalled to observe that "the degradation and corruption of British and western society, not to mention the United Nations, are now on sickening display for all with eyes to see from the disgusting response to the death of Arafat." Not here.

Perhaps the world's media are finally willing to hint at the cause of Arafat's death. International Herald Tribune writer Elisabeth Rosenthal: "Low platelet counts in the blood are a common finding in a wide range of illnesses, including severe infections, liver disease, end-stage cancer, and even AIDS."

Kaddoumi and Jibril and Dahlan, oh my! Tel Aviv Ha'aretz columnist Bradley Burston supplies a roster of Arafat's feuding would-be successors. A useful guide.

Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger: "In the Information Age, authority is a priceless franchise. But it is this franchise that Big Media, incredibly, has just thrown away. It did so by choosing to go into overt opposition to one party's candidate, a sitting president. It stooped to conquer."

Washington Post writers Glenn Kessler and Al Kamen report that senior White House aide Robert Blackwill resigned after hurting an embassy secretary in Kuwait. Just as well--the top Iraq guy in the White House was an old-school State Dept. Arabist.

Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens makes a splendid point: "What makes liberals think they have the right to decide what's acceptable to say?"

Classicist/National Review Online columnist Victor Davis Hanson warns of "The Ironies Ahead--What George W. Bush faces."

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer has the numbers to comprehensively refute the "'Moral Values' Myth" and concludes: "This does not deter the myth of the Bigoted Christian Redneck from dominating the thinking of liberals and infecting the blue-state media. They need their moral superiority like oxygen, and they cannot have it cut off by mere facts. Once again they angrily claim the moral high ground, while standing in the ruins of yet another humiliating electoral defeat."

London Spectator columnist Paul Johnson is pleased to note that "English marches on in the age of Bush and Blair."

Prolific blog satirist ScrappleFace Scott Ott: "Bush Applauds Arafat's 'New Attitude.'"

Mainstream media ignore Arafat AIDS angle

2004-11-11T10:31:00.000-08:00

Note the careful language employed by the major mainstream newspapers as they fail to describe how Yasir Arafat died:

The New York Times (written by James Bennet & Steven Erlanger): "Mr. Arafat ... died at about 3:30 a.m. Paris time of complications from an unknown disease after lingering in a coma for days."

The Washington Post (John Ward Anderson & Molly Moore): "Arafat was flown to France nearly two weeks ago with what was said to be an intestinal disorder, but he lapsed into a coma and suffered a brain hemorrhage and liver and kidney failure. The doctors treating him in France never said publicly what caused the illness that led to his death."

The Los Angeles Times (Laura King, Ken Ellingwood, & Sebastian Rotella): "He was being treated for a mysterious illness" and "the announcement by French authorities ... shed no light on the cause of death."

Associated Press (Lara Sukhtian): "Neither his doctors nor Palestinian leaders would say what killed him."

London Times (Philippe Naughton): "What exactly the former guerrilla chief died from is far from clear. Doctors at the Percy military hospital at Clamart in the southwestern suburbs of Paris refused to give any details, citing the family's right to privacy. Mr Arafat was taken to the hospital last week after doctors in Ramallah were unable to diagnose or clear up a mystery blood disorder."

So why did most major newspapers and wire services carefully fail to refer, even in passing, to the widespread rumors that Arafat had AIDS? The rumors could have been explicitly and accurately characterized as "unconfirmed." Is it newsworthy--that AIDS likely killed perhaps the most famous leader in a Moslem world gripped by fanatic intolerance? You must be kidding.

Even the single exception, United Press International (Claude Salhani), referred to the AIDS rumor with language calculated to dismiss it with scorn, but without leaving fingerprints as to whether it was actually true: "There were even spiteful rumors the Palestinian leader was dying of AIDS. None of these has proven true." Proven? Since when is breaking news limited to stuff that can be "proven" to be true? Virtually none qualifies. Standard practice is to report the scoop accurately while simultaneously supplying its provenance. And why are the rumors "spiteful"? Because they tend to put Arafat in a bad light? Salhani doesn't say.

On the other hand, you have five more fingers ... (thank you, Steven Wright). And you also have the blogs, such as Power Line and "The Big Trunk," aka Scott W. Johnson: "Arafat led an incredibly dissolute life. It was his dissolution that ultimately resulted in his contraction of AIDS, the disease that led to his death outside Paris yesterday. As with so many basic facts about this utterly vile human being, the truth (although baldly reported by Oriana Fallaci in the fall of 1981) remains shrouded in myth, deception and outright lies."

Is there any doubt that these rumors would have trumpeted in blaring headlines had the decedent been someone the western leftish media/intelligensia elite deemed less worthy of protection? Such as Ariel Sharon, or George W. Bush, or Tom Delay, for example? Just wondering.

Arafat lede

2004-11-11T09:18:00.000-08:00

Here's the lead paragraph that every major newspaper should have published (more or less), but only Stephen Miller of the New York Sun managed to write:

Yasser Arafat, the terrorist leader bent on destroying Israel who insisted he wanted to die a martyr to the Palestinian cause, managed instead to die of natural causes last night at a hospital in Clamart, France. He was 75.

Today's OED antedating: "simcha"

2004-11-11T09:10:00.000-08:00

Simchah, Jewish celebratory event, ex Hebrew (first use cited 1932): Short story titled "Lucky Numbers," collected in Lucky Numbers, by Montague Glass, 1927, p 28: "'Nu, Sammet,' he said, 'you look like a young feller to-night. What’s the simcha?'"

Thursday 11/11 links

2004-11-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

London Daily Telegraph war correspondent Toby Harnden supplies tales from the front: Fallujah.

Belmont Club blogger "Wretchard" analyzes the wider strategy of "The River War."

New York Post columnist (and former Army major) Ralph Peters: "In the Second Battle of Fallujah, military operations are ahead of schedule. Our casualties have been blessedly light. The terrorists who haven't fled are being killed by the hundreds. Our troops will soon achieve their goal of eliminating Iraq's key safe haven for terrorists. Our Marines and soldiers have carried the ball inside the 10-yard line. The media's response? Move the goalposts. The legions of pundits ('Will talk for food') now suggest that a win in Fallujah will be meaningless because we failed to kill or capture the terrorist leadership, because some of the thugs ran away and because Fallujah won't resemble Darien, Conn., by next Sunday."

Los Angeles Times columnist Max Boot writes a eulogy for Arafat--but it will not be read at the funeral.

Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey suggests "Arafat as Rohrschach Test." Hint: Pres. Bush and Australian prime minister John Howard pass; Jacques Chirac fails.

New York Daily News columnist Sidney Zion: "Blair [is] coming to Washington today to urge President Bush to push Israel around. He apparently considers this his marker for supporting us in the Iraq war. ... Bush, after all, got no more than 25% of the Jewish vote, so what does he owe Israel? I don't think he looks at it that way. This is the guy who once said, 'It doesn't matter whether the Jews vote for me, I will stick with Israel.'"

Jerusalem Post columnist Uri Dan says that Ariel Sharon is pleased that Pres. Bush was reelected and it's "Business As Usual."

Syndicated columnist Emmett Tyrrell: "One of the reasons I can say with the utmost confidence that the liberal Democrats are going to be out in the cold for a very long time has to do with a sociological observation. Almost no liberal Democrat knows a conservative Republican of whom he is not contemptuous."

Appearing in The American Spectator online, Jed Babbin describes how the mainstream media are hemorrhaging ratings and circulation: "It's hard to keep your market share when you forfeit peoples' trust, when you look down on your audience, and when you hate a large number of your audience and the pols for whom they vote." (Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds/Instapundit)

Syndicated columnist Larry Elder has a question: if Pres. Bush is such an idiot, why does he keep winning?

Syndicated columnist Ann Coulter takes aim at MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann, who is an easy target.

Re the Van Gogh murder, National Review Online columnist Michael Ledeen observes: "As things stand, the Europeans are so enthralled by cultural relativism and political correctness that they are totally unwilling to challenge any idea, even the jihadists' program of creating a theocratic state within Western civil society. ... The Dutch — like every other European society I know — were unwilling to recognize that they had potentially lethal enemies within, and that it was necessary to impose the rules of civil behavior on everyone within their domain. ... That's what happens when a culture is relativized to the point of suicide."

Here's a big surprise: Mark Bauerlein, writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, argues that campuses are left-wing havens that actively discriminate against conservatives. He has some suggestions that will be ignored. (Hat tip to Arts & Letters Daily)

What do you think I am, a Rockefeller?

2004-11-10T08:15:00.000-08:00

A sign of the times, neon-bright, from a wedding announcement in the New York Times, June 8, 2003, page IX-15:

WEDDINGS/CELEBRATIONS; Julia D'Amico, Stuart Rockefeller

Julia Elizabeth D'Amico, the daughter of Dr. Susan Armstrong and Dr. Robert D'Amico, both of Gainesville, Fla., was married last evening to Stuart Alexander Rockefeller, a son of the late Barbara Olsen Rockefeller and the late Rodman Clark Rockefeller, both of New York. ...

Her father is the chairman of the philosophy department at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Her mother is a psychotherapist in Gainesville. ...

He is a grandson of the late Nelson A. Rockefeller, the vice president and New York governor. ...

Ms. D'Amico, 34, is keeping her name.

Two things: first, a girl named D'Amico marries into the Rockefeller family and she "is keeping her name"? Past generations tended to marry Rockefellers and Vanderbilts and Hiltons et al primarily to acquire the luminous surname (and the money), and to retain it after the divorce or predecease. (Just what was Teresa Kerry's first husband's name again?) And second, the disclosure is matter-of-fact: there is no hint of calculation, or reverse snobbery, or political statement--just a bland declarative sentence revealing her intent. But why should Rockefeller inherently be preferable to D'Amico? Well, of course there is wannabe aspiration, but that is ultimately pathetic. Is there anything else?

Perhaps the demure Mr Rockefeller eventually will assume Ms D'Amico's name ...

Today's OED antedating: "Eurotrash"

2004-11-10T08:12:00.000-08:00

Eurotrash, slang, jocular, usually pejorative, jet-set Europeans living in the U. S., mainly in Manhattan, Miami, and Los Angeles (no entry): Essay titled "The Eurotrash Invasion," by Taki (Theodoracopulos), Esquire, April 1983, p 118, col 1: "It began a few years ago. The massive influx of Eurotrash, I mean. (The name was invented by native New Yorkers.) .../Eurotrash is utterly indifferent to the host culture; in fact, they are downright arrogant concerning anything American. The Eurocrowd in New York is now so large that it is self-sufficient."

Wednesday 11/10 links

2004-11-10T08:05:00.000-08:00

According to the Israeli DEBKA website, the Palestinian Authority surrendered to Suha Arafat's shakedown--she'll get $22 million per year for the rest of her life. If the Islamoterrorists hear about the terms of the deal, that latter contingency may occur much sooner than she expects.

New York Times columnist William Safire has a message for Tony Blair, who wants to "jump-start" the Mideast peace process, ie coerce Israel: "C'mon, Tony; we don't thank one big ally by selling out a smaller one. There's an honorable way. Let Arafat pass from the scene. Let the Palestinians show they are ready to be a nation and not a bunch of warring factions. ... Then let us invite the elected Palestinian and Israeli leaders to Camp David to work out their final settlement."

Strategy Page military analyst James Dunnigan explains "Arab Illusions and Modern Terrorism."

Slate columnist Christopher Hitchens supplies a superb essay: "Bush's Secularist Triumph: The left apologizes for religious fanatics--the president fights them." (Hat tip to Matt Drudge)

Washington Times columnist Tony Blankley assumes "the Republican National Committee is busy recording and archiving the idiotic statements coming out of national Democratic Party leaders and commentators," particularly "the opinion pages of The New York Times (that would be pages A-1- D 37 inclusive)."

And Daily Standard writer Matthew Continetti reports that "the left has decided that in the wake of Bush's victory, America is on the brink of civil war. Are they nuts?"

TCS: Tech Central Station columnist Todd J. Weiner suggests that the election held "Lessons for Both Parties"--but guess which party will actually learn from it?

New York Observer columnist Tish Durkin supplies "Five Reality Checks For Democrats: Dump Kofi, Moore, Dopes."

Syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg provides "What's bad for the party isn't necessarily bad for America."

London Daily Telegraph columnist Janet Daley explains "Why the liberals have been left behind": "Left-wing intellectuals, of course, are never, ever wrong. Nothing - absolutely nothing - ever causes them to question their own beliefs. It is the rest of the world that is out of step. And the rest of you - the great democratic mass of people who have the temerity to think your own thoughts and come to your own conclusions - are scarcely worthy of the franchise."

London Times columnist Michael Gove is a wonder--a gentile European journalist who takes Israel's side, such as in this column: "Fresh start. Road map. Political engagement. Choose your own cliché."

London Daily Telegraph columnist Daniel Johnson predicts that the super-multicultural Netherlands had its own wake-up call with the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. And Strategy Page columnist Austin Bay demands the end of "the reactionaries' reign of terror."

Anonymous blogger "A Sad American" sends "An Open Letter to the Democratic Party." (Hat tip to Jay Ornellas)

Here's the newest from satirical blogger ScrappleFace Scott Ott: "Arafat May Soon Sign Death Certificate."

QandO blogger Jon Henke supplies "The Dead Arafat Sketch"--"with apologies to a certain British group."

And she's no mensch, either

2004-11-09T08:46:00.000-08:00

From Joshua Mitnick's piece in today's Washington Times, regarding Palestinian outrage over Suha Arafat's purported extortion ploy:

"It's chutzpah. Yasser Arafat isn't the private property of Suha Arafat," said Sufian Abu Zaydeh, a Fatah official in Gaza. "I haven't heard one Palestinian who has justified what she said."

Are the Palestinians outing Arafat?

2004-11-09T08:35:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday (November 6), David Frum posted a widely overlooked item about Yasir Arafat and AIDS in his National Review Online Diary. At least I did not see it, nor did I see any references to it. Frum's provocative question--are the Palestinians trying to expose Arafat's suspected AIDS? Some extracts from Frum's column:

Everything we have heard about Arafat’s condition seems almost designed to make us suspect AIDS – and just to underscore the point, we are further told that he is not suffering from leukemia, the other plausible diagnosis. The sources of the information about Arafat’s depressed platelet count, his weight loss, his mental aberrations, and all the rest of his symptoms are apparently all Palestinians. ...

Why are Palestinian high-ups revealing all these alleged facts? Why would they want to put out information that so strongly suggests that their leader has this particular disease? Is it possible that they wish people to know (or believe) that Arafat has AIDS? Why would they want that? After all, ... in Palestinian culture, an AIDS diagnosis is bound to be a discrediting fact.

Unless … there are people around Arafat who want to discredit the old leader. It certainly is interesting that we are hearing about Arafat’s mysterious but AIDS-like illness at exactly the same moment that we are learning about Arafat’s multibillion-dollar Swiss bank accounts. ... Are we hearing from reformers who wish to clean up the abuses of Arafat’s personal rule? Or from Islamists who wish to hold themselves out as a more moral alternative? Or both? Or somebody else altogether?

There will be more ...

Today's OED antedating: "piece of work"

2004-11-09T08:26:00.000-08:00

Piece of work, slang, often pejorative, one conspicuous for a particular quality, ex fanciful Hamlet (II.ii.317) characterization ("piece," n., sec 7 (c), first use cited 1928): Book titled Forty Modern Fables, by George Ade, 1901, p 17: "One of the Girls was a grand little Piece of Work and she had a slew of uppetty-up accomplishments ... ."

Tuesday 11/9 links

2004-11-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

Knowledgable Belmont Club blogger "Wretchard" explains what is happening in Fallujah.

Former Army major, now New York Post columnist Ralph Peters insists that "Finishing Fallujah" is vital: "The most decisive battle since the fall of Baghdad has begun. ... Now we need to finish the job swiftly, no matter the cost in death and destruction, before the will of our civilian leaders weakens again."

National Review Online columnist Michael Ledeen thinks that Pres. Bush needs "A War Cabinet," and explains why the Secs. of Defense and State, among others, must be replaced.

Associated Press writer Karin Laub reports that "Arafat's Millions Could Slip Away." Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey asks: "Are They Keeping Arafat Alive To Find The Money?" And the World Tribune breaks the news that the "Palestinian Authority plans to seize Arafat's bank accounts."

Why did the Democrats lose? Mark Steyn explains in short words and simple concepts, because he is talking to Europeans in the London Daily Telegraph: "The Dems do have core beliefs - abortion, racial grievances, gay marriage, etc - but unfortunately they're not the kind of thing you can talk about at election time."

More from Captain's Quarters' Morrissey: Pres. Bush is "Misunderestimated No More."

Chicago Sun-Times columnist John O'Sullivan: "There is now a substantial alienated Left throughout America in big cities and university towns that in the 2004 primaries dragged a moderate Democratic party toward an anti-war position that was hard to distinguish from anti-Americanism. It is still there. It has far more passion and commitment than the party moderates. And it will fight to keep the party unelectable."

Daily Standard guest columnists James W. Ceaser and Daniel DiSalvo conclude that "The political landscape is not the same as it was in 2000. For Democrats, their situation is getting worse."

Washington Post columnist George F. Will: "In 2000 Americans were reminded that electoral votes select presidents. In 2004 Democrats were reminded that Bruce Springsteen does not."

New York Times columnist David Brooks provides a roadmap for those who want to know why Pres. Bush was reelected: "Take a Ride to Exurbia."

National Review online editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg dissects "The Sore-Loser Party," ie, the Democrats: "Take the two leading liberal columnists at the New York Times, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman. As we all know, one's a whining self-parody of a hysterical liberal who lets feminine emotion and fear defeat reason and fact in almost every column. The other used to date Michael Douglas."

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, generally to the left-of-center: "A phrase from a press release struck me: 'In voting for George Bush, religious Americans were duped into voting against their best interests.' The operative word is 'duped,' and it explains, almost by itself, why the Democratic Party is in the pits and John Kerry is not the next president of the United States. Only a dope thinks these voters were duped."

Washington Times guest columnist and screenwriter Burt Prelutsky saw the election returns and suggests: "Deal with it, Hollywood." Oh, well, he's over 30, so he probably wouldn't be getting much work, anyway. And in the Wall Street Journal, film critic Michael Medved warns: "Bad News for Democrats: Hollywood activists vow to keep it up."

Satirical blogger IOWAHAWK David Burge consoles Democrats with ideas for 2008, such as: "Bush may have won the Wal Mart vote, but you mopped up at Whole Foods and Dean & Deluca. In the next election, you can win back the hearts and minds of swing shoppers with money-saving store specials on organic arugula."

Gweilo Diaries blogger "Conrad" offers 11 "Tips for a New Democratic Majority"; my favorites are Nos. 3 & 10. No. 3: "Explain to 51% of the electorate that they're stupid. They will eventually realize that you are smarter than they are and will vote as you tell them to. It has only taken them this long because they really are sooo fucking stoopid." And No. 10: "'I'm Hillary Rodham Clinton and I'm reporting for duty.'" (Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds/Instapundit)

No accounting

2004-11-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Suha Arafat told Al-Jazeera that Palestinian Authority prime minister Ahmed Qureia and former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas were trying to "bury Abu Amar (Arafat) alive." Today, Jerusalem Post columnist Khaled Abu Toameh attributed her outburst to an intense desire for revenge:

"Suha's dramatic appeal is seen as an attempt to settle accounts with all those who turned her life into hell over the past decade."

Her motive is "an attempt to settle accounts," but not in the sense that Toameh intended. Here's the more likely scenario, from the Israeli ex-spook DEBKA website:

"Arafat’s wife Suha will demand Abbas and Qureia sign documents drafted by her French lawyers guaranteeing her multimillion dollar inheritance and pension - as price for switching off life support systems."

Arafat AIDS pretext--Sharon "poisoned him"

2004-11-08T10:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday this column posted items by David Frum (from his National Review Online October 29 "Diary" posting) and the Israel Insider website suggesting the likelihood that Yasir Arafat was killed by AIDS. (And, yes, Arafat is dead, even in Suha Arafat refuses to pull the plug until his henchmen pay her off.)

Frum supplies an update to the Arafat AIDS story in today's "Diary" posting:

The left-wing British Labour MP George Galloway has a piece in the British newspaper, The Mail on Sunday, describing his visit last week to Arafat’s sick ward.

"In the Percy hospital, the endless click of worry beads had replaced the chinking of china cups and there were deep, dolorous sighs instead of the sucking of cigarettes. …

"I felt justified in saying to his nephew Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations and the only one of us Arafat's wife Suha allowed at his bedside: 'Sharon has killed him finally.'

"The startling, almost Shakespearean reply was: 'They have poisoned him and they will not say with what.'

After repeating the allegation that the Israelis were responsible for Arafat’s death, Galloway goes on to cite my speculations about Arafat’s illness here at NRO and in Canada’s National Post.

"There is bloodspitting fury as someone reads in Arabic what President Bush's speechwriter David Frum (the man responsible for the phrase 'axis of evil' in the infamous State of the Union address after 9/11) has to say in an American newspaper about Arafat's illness.

"With evident distaste, it is translated again back to me: 'He says Arafat has AIDS and that he has been brought to France rather than an Arab hospital because he would be ashamed for Arab doctors to know he has AIDS.'"

But if Arafat's men don’t want the world to think he has AIDS, why do they keep saying things – even to Galloway – that point to such a diagnosis? Yesterday I asked whether somebody around Arafat might have an interest in damaging his image in the Arab world. Galloway’s piece suggests another hypothesis: Maybe the Arafat group decided that it would be impossible to keep the dying man’s symptoms secret. Rather than deny those symptoms, they chose to publicize them – but with a lot of heavy breathing mystery that would prepare the way for a postmortem accusation of poisoning that might distract Palestinians from any untoward conclusions about the late chairman.

No doubt more to follow ...

Latest on Barghouti

2004-11-08T09:10:00.000-08:00

Among other things, Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian journalist and director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al-Quds University in Ramallah. He is also a regular columnist for the Jerusalem Post, and yesterday he posted "Succession Politics," which included the following:

My barber, Abu Salah, couldn't wait for me to come to his shop. He was very concerned this week, searching hard in his mind for a solution to what he felt was a complicated problem: How Marwan Barghouti can be sprung from an Israeli jail.

Abu Salah felt relieved when I explained that Hizbullah could answer his question.

The Lebanese resistance group still has bodies of Israeli soldiers that they could trade with the Israelis for the remaining Lebanese hostage, as well as some Palestinian prisoners, possibly Barghouti.

The long-shot hope many pin on Barghouti is not limited to my barber. After enquiring about the health of their president, it was the Palestinian succession crisis that was on the lips of many Palestinians inside and outside the occupied territories. ...

Internal elections within Fatah was one of the processes Barghouti believed in and was trying so hard to implement when the Israelis arrested him. As a street leader elected to head the Bir Zeit University student council he gained his own legitimacy through being chosen by his peers.

When the Oslo process began he refused to accept any official position within the Palestinian Authority, choosing instead to remain close to the local Fatah cadres.

So far, the Palestinian leadership and institutions seem to have been able to present a unified position. Nevertheless, the issue of succession will now take a front seat whatever happens to the Palestinian president.

While Qurei and Abbas, who came from Tunis with the PLO, dominate the headlines as possible successors, the local leaders will want a much bigger say in decisions affecting the Palestinian cause.

No wonder people like my barber are mentioning the young leaders who struggled in the first and second intifadas in Palestine rather than some of the leaders who were connected with the original PLO struggle abroad.

No doubt there will be more in the next few days. We'll keep in touch.

Today's OED antedating: "to whistle in the dark"

2004-11-08T09:05:00.000-08:00

To whistle in the dark, figurative, to defy hopelessness ("whistle," v., sec 9 (b), first use cited 1939): Untitled item by Franklin P. Adams, New York Tribune, July 23, 1915, p 7, col 1: "The notion of the impregnability of our great, in area, nation is that of whistling in the dark. It is like Princeton singing about 'rolling up the score' and 'fighting with a vim, for we're sure to win' when the score is about 28 to 0 in favor of Yale."

Monday 11/8 links

2004-11-08T08:54:00.000-08:00

A nugget posted today on the Israeli ex-spook DEBKA website; likely true, but perhaps not: "Arafat’s wife Suha will demand Abbas and Qureia sign documents drafted by her French lawyers guaranteeing her multimillion dollar inheritance and pension - as price for switching off life support systems. She has controlled information on Arafat’s condition and nature of mystery illness."

These people are more fun than a barrel of monkeys (meaning no disrepect to said simians): Washington Times writer Paul Martin reports that anxious Palestinian thugs were never able to pry certain Swiss bank account access codes from Arafat and there is a real question now: "Will $1 billion be buried with Arafat?

Resourceful Belmont Club blogger "Wretchard" explains why he thinks that the terrorists will fight for Fallujah, and not melt away as some recent conventional wisdom suggests.

Daily Standard contributor Christian Lowe explains just how we intend to win "The Fight for Fallujah."

1st lieutenant Robert Shuford of the Marine Corps News reports that several embedded journalists are leery of going in with the Marines. For good reason--urban warfare is ghastly stuff. (Hat tip to "Wretchard"/Belmont Club)

Blogger Roger Simon has some astonishing numbers out of Beverly Hills, one of the key limousine liberal enclaves in the western world: Pres. Bush's share of the popular vote rose 22% from 2000 to 2004. In 2000, Al Gore won BH 77%-20%; in 2004, Sen. Kerry's margin was only 57%-42%.

Remember when all the clever people sneered at Donald Rumsfeld when he drew a distinction between Old Europe and New Europe? Think they're still sneering? According to this Washington Times editorial, they aren't.

New York Daily News columnist Richard Z. Chesnoff just got to write off his European vacation: "Boy, do they hate Bush here." Do you think so? A fun piece.

And New York Post columnist Nicole Gelinas examines Europe's furious impotence.

New York Times columnist William Safire does some personnel-shifting for the second Bush administration.

Classicist/columnist Victor Davis Hanson supplies another superb essay, this to the San Francisco Chronicle: "Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were the only two Democrats to be elected president since 1976. Both were Southerners. Apparently, the only assurance that the electorate has had that a Democrat was serious about national security or social sobriety was his drawl."

London Times columnist Stephen Pollard was surprised--not by the BBC's most recent outrage, but at the outrage it triggered: "I am at a loss to understand why. There is nothing remotely newsworthy about her having expressed her adoring view of Arafat and her contempt for Israel’s attempts to defend itself from terror. Certainly, her tear-jerking might not convey the impartiality which license-fee payers ought to be able to expect from the BBC, but her sentiments are so straight-down-the-line a representation of the BBC’s bias against Israel that they are in no way newsworthy."

Syndicated columnist John Leo: "Doors [are] slamming in the Democratic Party. Almost all dissent from elite opinion on social issues gradually became positioned as a human-rights violation of some kind. (On the cable shows last Wednesday, backers of traditional marriage were denounced several times as gay-bashers.) ... The Republican Party is a weak vessel, with lots of movers and shakers who seem to care only about greed, but now, on the broad array of social issues, it is the only game in town."

Seldom-gruntled Chicago Sun-Times political columnist Robert Novak doubts whether Arlen Specter can now be elected to the Senate Judiciary chairmanship. What he said about an abortion litmus test was monumentally stupid, but there are other considerations ...

Asia Times columnist "Spengler" reports that Evangelical Christians are having lots of children, and that demography is destiny.

Did AIDS kill Arafat?

2004-11-07T13:38:00.000-08:00

Posted October 29 by David Frum in his National Review Online "Diary":

Speaking of media bias, here’s a question you won’t hear in our big papers or on network TV: Does Yasser Arafat have AIDS?

We know he has a blood disease that is depressing his immune system. We know that he has suddenly dropped considerable weight – possibly as much as 1/3 of all his body weight. We know that he is suffering intermittent mental dysfunction. What does this sound like?

Former Romanian intelligence chief Ion Pacepa tells in his very interesting memoirs that the Ceaucescu regime taped Arafat’s orgies with his body guards. If true, Arafat would a great deal to conceal from his people and his murderously anti-homosexual supporters in the Islamic world.

Before airlifting Arafat to Paris, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier promised to “stand by” him. Was that why Arafat chose to be treated in France rather in any of the fraternal Arab countries that supposedly support his movement – because he could trust the French to protect his intimate secrets?

The Israel Insider website--by admission not an unbiased source--provides more detail.

Today's OED antedating: "snake-eyes"

2004-11-07T08:49:00.000-08:00

Snake-eyes, colloquial, pair of thrown dice displaying one dot each, the lowest possible amount ("snake," n., sec 12 (a) (b), first use cited 1929): Poem titled "Finis," collected in book titled In American, by John V.A. Weaver, 1921, p 37: "Go get 'em, dices! ... Oh, Snake-eyes, acety-ace — you done me wrong!"

Sunday 11/7 links

2004-11-07T08:42:00.000-08:00

Well, this is very interesting--there are rumors afloat the Yasir Arafat died of AIDS. There has been talk for decades that he "romps" with his so-called "bodyguards."

And since he is dead, the French want him out--now! The Israeli ex-spook DEBKA website reports the details with some glee.

A Jerusalem Post editorial urges that the world resist eulogizing Arafat: "a destroyer, not a builder, because in addition to being the father of Palestinian nationalism, he was the father of something broader: modern terrorism."

Pompous New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman starts off all right, asserting that Arafat was a terrible man and that history will view him harshly--and then Friedman can't resist adding his traditional nonsequitur: "Israel's reckless settlements notwithstanding." The guy couldn't write a piece about tensions between Peru and Bolivia without tossing in the settlements. If Friedman had the health beat, he'd blame the settlements for occurrences of dandruff.

Ottawa Citizen columnist David Warren: "So long as Saddam was able to play France, Germany, and Russia against the United States and allies, he could dream of an alternative to capitulation. The same countries are as heavily invested in Iran as they were in Iraq. President Chirac of France has already signalled that he will continue to play the jerk. We may therefore witness a reprise."

Venerable (more than seventy years ago Babe Ruth told him to stay away from his car) Washington Times columnist Arnold Beichman: "How can CBS continue to keep Dan Blather showing his face nightly? The New York Times fired a reporter who sullied its reputation forever and with him fired the paper's top executives. But CBS treats its star reporter, who played fast and loose with the truth, with star billing. Has CBS no shame?"

More Multisteyning: in the London Sunday Telegraph he takes aim at smug Europeans; in the Chicago Sun-Times, it's condescending Democrats.

London Times Washington correspondent Gerard Baker declares that "Bush's vision of free world will keep the neocon faith alive."

Blogger Arthur Chrenkoff analyzes the continuing erosion of the traditional Democratic base.

US News & World Report political columnist Michael Barone moonlights for the London Sunday Times, where he obseves that "America has ceased to be a 49% nation and now is a 51% Republican nation."

Washington Post reporters Dan Balz and Mike Allen supply an interesting profile of Karl Rove.

Canny New York Daily News columnist Zev Chafets explains how vast improvements in ultrasound technology will profoundly change the abortion debate in favor of the pro-life position.

There are not very many European lefties who love Israel, but the colorful London Times columnist Julie Burchill is one of them. She just returned from her first visit, and has some things to say.

The novelist Tom Wolfe in the London Sunday Times: "The liberal elite showed it was way out of touch even before the election. I was at a dinner party in New York and when everyone was wondering what to do about Bush I suggested they might do like me and vote for him. There was silence around the table, as if I’d said 'by the way, I haven’t mentioned this before but I’m a child molester.'"

Classicist/columnist Victor Davis Hanson reviews a new biography of Ulysses S. Grant. Read at your own risk--you'll want to run out to get the book.

Don't you love the English language? Well, National Review Online columnist Jay Nordlinger certainly does, and he reviews a book on the history of English to prove it.

The compleat Barghouti

2004-11-06T08:14:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, in the Jerusalem Post, former top Israeli diplomat David Kimche dutifully listed the usual suspects contending for the Palestinian leadership--the Arafat gang, Al Aqsa, and Hamas--then added his "wild card":

The great hope of many Palestinians lies in a person presently incarcerated in an Israeli prison, Marwan Barghouti.

I first met him in January 1997 in Copenhagen, when 100 Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians and Jordanians came together to establish a regional peace movement commonly known, in the Arab world at least, as The Copenhagen Group.

Barghouti made a deep impression on those present, speaking passionately for the need for peace between Palestinians and Israelis. But according to Barghouti, that peace could only come after Israel relinquishes the occupied territories.

After that, he declared, Israelis and Palestinians should be able to live together in peace, fully cooperating as good neighbors.

In those words lies the key to Israeli-Palestinian relations in the post-Arafat era.

Today's New York Times piece by Jerusalem bureau chief Steven Erlanger reviews the same dreary list, then adds:

The support of Marwan Barghouti, currently serving five consecutive life sentences in an Israeli jail and popular in the street, will also be significant. There is speculation that he might at some point be freed in a prisoner exchange.

This column already sounds like a broken record on the subject of Barghouti. In an October 30 posting, titled "More re Barghouti," it observed:

From the London Economist editorial "The end of the Arafat era?"; discussing potential candidates to succeed the so-called "chairman":

"Few Palestinian leaders, young or old, are thought to command broad support in the larger West Bank. One possible exception is Marwan Barghouti, a senior Fatah figure who is currently in an Israeli prison serving five life terms for his role in armed attacks on Israeli civilians (he denied involvement). Many Israelis regard the pragmatic Mr Barghouti as a man with whom they might be able to do business. Mr Sharon could choose to free him, clearing the way for an authentic national leader to don Mr Arafat’s mantle. But almost no one believes this will happen."

That October 30 posting in turn linked to two earlier P&C postings, dated October 29 and September 28. The October 29 posting:

Yasir Arafat is dying, and the end appears to be near, if not imminent. ... [on October 28] Tel Aviv Ha'aretz columnist Danny Rubinstein [reports that] control will soon pass ... to "members of [a] younger cadre, among them Jibril Rajoub and Mohammed Dahlan, [who] will lend their support to the two veterans, [and] who will divide up the governing authority between themselves."

Will control pass to a "younger cadre"? Certainly. But will it go to Rajoub or Dahlan? Perhaps not. ...

This paragraph appears in Rubinstein's Friday [October 29] column, titled "Don't interfere, they're looking for an heir":

"The feeling in the Palestinian territories today is such that only a man who is seen as a bitter enemy of Israel may gain popularity. Palestinian Council member Marwan Barghouti, for example, enjoys an especially high status in public opinion polls in the West Bank and Gaza only because Israel sentenced him to life imprisonment. He is called 'the engineer of the intifada,' a title seen as a great honor in the territories."

And that September 28 posting:

A significant development buried in Mark Lavie's Associated Press piece about the latest carnage in the Middle East:"The wife of jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti said her husband will run in Palestinian parliamentary elections expected next year."

Until he was captured in Ramallah by an elite Israeli commando unit in April 2002, Barghouti was the area chief of the "Tanzim," an Al-Fatah offshoot that Yasir Arafat ordered established after the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. Arafat needed the Tanzim because he was too closely identified with Fatah and required plausible deniability for future terrorist actions that he might personally order. Barghouti also founded the notorious Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, another terrorist group responsible for dozens of murderous attacks.

Before the newest Palestinian terror campaign started in 2000, Barghouti got along well with the Israelis and gained their respect. He speaks fluent Hebrew (he did time in Israeli prisons) and is regarded to be an opportunistic moderate. The Israelis believe that Barghouti helped to plan terrorist actions--including suicide bombings--during the two years before his capture primarily to maintain his position within the Palestinian hierarchy.

The word is that the Israelis captured and jailed the charismatic Barghouti to protect him from jealous rivals who wanted him dead--a list which included Arafat. Had Israel intended to eliminate Barghouti, it would have killed him in a targeted attack with little potential risk to the Israelis. Instead, the Israeli generals sent an elite "Duvdevan" unit deep into the West Bank to snatch him.

Then the Israelis broke with longstanding practice and held Barghouti's trial in open court--not in the closed military court where Palestinian terror suspects are usually tried. And in his trial, with the world media watching and reporting, Barghouti offered a spirited and colorful defense that in practical terms kicked off his political campaign: he shouted his defiance; he characterized himself as a patriot in a kangaroo court; he denied that the Israelis had any jurisdiction to try any Palestinian for any act committed on his own land. The performance was a great hit in the Palestinian-controlled areas.

There is talk that Israel took great care to provide Barghouti with this forum for the purpose of building his street cred among the Palestinian public. And there are whispers that Israel and the US are carefully grooming Barghouti to succeed Arafat--and that Arafat knows it.

So yesterday, safely ensconced in an Israeli prison, Barghouti kicked off his formal campaign ...

The inescapable conclusion: anyone who knows anything is madly leaking the news that Marwan Barghouti is being carefully groomed to succeed Yasir Arafat after some elderly Arafat retainers serve as transition figures. Watch this space for developments.

Today's OED antedating: "alibi"

2004-11-06T08:07:00.000-08:00

Alibi, figurative, colloquial, excuse, ex criminal law defense (n., sec B (b), first use cited 1912): Article headlined "Red Liberals," by Ren Mulford, Jr, Sporting Life, June 3, 1911, p 7, col 1: "The 'boys at the front' have had a tough time all year, issuing 'The Daily Alibi.'"

Saturday 11/6 links

2004-11-06T08:01:00.000-08:00

Amit Cohen of Tel Aviv Ma'ariv reports that Yasir Arafat has designated a rejectionist hard-liner to succeed him.

The Israeli ex-spook DEBKA website reports that the Palestinians are planning Arafat's funeral while they claim he will recover.

In the Tel Aviv Ha'aretz, Bradley Burston supplies perspective as he juxtaposes quotations.First, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Ikrema Sabri: "The president [Arafat] has shown a desire to be buried in Jerusalem, and in a place that is close to the Al Aqsa Mosque." But second, and last word, from Israeli Justice Minister Yosef Lapid: "He will not be buried in Jerusalem because Jerusalem is the city where Jewish kings are buried and not Arab terrorists."

Blogger Ann Althouse wonders: "Will MSM give us more positive-sounding reports from Iraq now that there's no longer an incentive to affect the election with Iraq-is-a-mess slanting?" Then she answers her own question--yes--and refers to an upbeat piece in yesterday's New York Times.

National Review Online guest columnist Michael Ledeen thanks the London Guardian for its asinine Clark County, Ohio letter-writing stunt: "To say this scheme backfired is to fail to give it proper credit. It ranks right up there with the worst political schemes, ever."

London Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips efficiently fisks a particularly nasty left-snobbish anti-American screed by Simon Schama in yesterday's London Guardian.

He's here, he's there, he's everywhere! This time Mark Steyn rears his irreverent head in The [Sydney] Australian: "'Slackers are going to rise up in this election," [Michael Moore] predicted. 'The slacker motto is: Sleep till noon, drink beer, vote Kerry.' Well, two out of three ain't bad." (Hat tip to Charles Johnson/Little Green Footballs)

New York Times semiconservative columnist David Brooks dismisses "The Values-Vote Myth": "Every election year, we in the commentariat come up with a story line to explain the result, and the story line has to have two features. First, it has to be completely wrong. Second, it has to reassure liberals that they are morally superior to the people who just defeated them."

Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey links to an AP report describing the Democrats' demographic dilemma, and adds: "Had the Democrats nominated a candidate with credibility on national security, one who eschewed the liberal snobbishness towards people of faith but represented traditional Democratic policy positions, they probably could have beaten George Bush in this election. Joseph Lieberman, in particular, would have been Bush's worst nightmare. Instead, the two leading candidates for the nomination both embraced the America-hating leftists that instantly alienates most people."

Michael Moore wrote an open letter intended to console his warped readers, and Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey supplies his reader Jeff Dennis's mordant point-by-point response.

Insidious IOWAHAWK blog satirist David Burge sadly admits "Healing Yet to Commence."

And prolific (and/or compulsive) blog satirist ScrappleFace Scott Ott is particularly frisky lately. Item 1: "Arafat Burial Plans Done in Time for Final Death"; Item 2: "Bush Swats Kofi Annan with Rolled Newspaper"; and Item 3: "Specter Retracts Ill-Conceived Abortion Remarks."

Today's OED antedating: "(oh) boy!"

2004-11-05T09:57:00.000-08:00

(Oh) boy!, colloquial, jocular, essentially meaningless albeit exuberantly jubilant exclamation ("boy," n.1, sec 9, first use cited 1917): Poem titled "'Persicos Odi,'" by Franklin P. Adams, collected in Weights and Measures, 1917, p 84: "Oh, boy!—to quote a slangy line—/This war-stock thing is wrong."

Friday 11/5 posts

2004-11-05T09:51:00.000-08:00

You want a dramatic headline? How about this one, from the World Tribune: "Sharon learned of Arafat's death from French intelligence."

More from the World Tribune: Yasir Arafat is brain-dead, but before he died he stole $2-3 billion and salted it away in Swiss bank accounts--without telling anyone how to access those accounts. So his so-called "wife," Suha, is keeping him on life-support while they try to figure out what to do. Their dilemmas: (1) how do they get to the money; and (2) even if they do manage to get to it, how do they grab it without admitting that Arafat was the biggest thief in the history of the world?

Syndicated columnist David Limbaugh decodes the Democrats' latest bit of lexicographical trickery: "Their post-election demand that President Bush extend a bipartisan hand to heal the nation's wounds really means that he should adopt major parts of their agenda or greatly dilute parts of his own."

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer observes that "later than most two-term presidents, George Bush got his mandate."

Will 55 seats be enough to overcome Democratic filibusters in the post-Daschle Senate? Wall Street Journal senior editorial page writer Kimberley A. Strassel supplies some clues.

Classicist/columnist Victor Davis Hanson concludes that "despite losing the majority of state legislatures and governorships, the U.S. Congress, the presidency, and soon the Supreme Court, our anointed elite still doesn't quite get it. Middle America can be amused by, but still despise, Michael Moore. It can be uneasy with the pessimistic reporting from Iraq, but still be very much willing to finish the war and win at all costs. It may enjoy a trip to Europe, but does not wish to emulate the French, Germans, or Greeks."

Syndicated columnist Emmett Tyrrell patiently explains to Democrats "What went wrong": "The Democrats and their secretarial staff at CBS, The New York Times and elsewhere in the media ignored Kerry's every botch and every flight into bizarre pretentiousness. Thus, they still cannot understand how the president won."

This time in the London Spectator, Mark Steyn is chortling: "They don’t seem to understand the point I’ve been making for years now — that the Democrats and the media reinforce each other’s delusions."

London Times Washington correspondent Gerard Baker reassures the civilized world that Pres. Bush's reelection is not quite the end of the world: "Life did not end on Tuesday."

In a Tech Central Station guest column, Instapundit Glenn Reynolds asserts: "It was a make-or-break election for the Old Media. And they broke. Back in January, I noticed a sudden shift in tone on the part of many news outlets -- from vague anti-Bush bias to very intense anti-Bush bias and even misquoting. It only got worse as the elections approached."

The Weekly Standard's Stephen F. Hayes describes "The Other Losers Tuesday Night: The failed media effort to oust George W. Bush."

Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell: "The oldest [political] fraud is the belief that the political left is the party of the poor and the downtrodden."

London Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips observes that Pres. Bush won because morality is a key issue that is not addressed by the UK political class: "In Britain, the mainstream feel instead utterly disenfranchised and have lost trust in an entire political class which refuses to represent their concerns."

New York Post columnist Collin Levey predicts a clash between the evangelicals and conservative Jews who support Israel, and the "allies" such as Tony Blair who want Pres. Bush to lean on Israel.

Belmont Club blogger "Wretchard" waits for the Palestinian civil war.

Barry Rubin attempts to explain the various factions that will collide in post-Arafat Palestine. Lotsa luck.

"Longtime Mideast Envoy Dennis Ross" (it's all part of his name, isn't it?) in the Washington Post: "After Arafat, What?"

Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens writes the eulogy for "A Gangster With Politics": "None of his deputies can possibly fill his shoes, which are those of a personality cult, not a political or national leader. There is nothing to unite Palestinians anymore, either: their loyalties to the cause will surely dissipate in his absence. Arafat was remarkable in that he sustained the illusion he created till the very end. But once the magician walks off the stage, the chimera vanishes."

If they go left, we'll give them rations

2004-11-04T16:05:00.000-08:00

From Julia Levy's piece in today's New York Sun:

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who ran against Mr. Kerry in the Democratic primaries, mentioned his thoughts of moving north on Comedy Central Tuesday night. Last night, in an appearance on CNN, he didn't say anything about going to Canada. Rather, he said the Democratic Party must rethink how it pitches itself to the American people.

"We've been moving to the center, and it hasn't worked," he said. Mr. Sharpton, predicting a period of "soul-searching," said members of his party may become more active and liberal as a result of this election.

Some historical perspective, perhaps analogous:

During the first week of September 1864, after bloody fighting on the outskirts of Atlanta, Confederate major general John Bell Hood abandoned the city to Union armies under major general William Tecumseh Sherman.

Despite Atlanta's strategic and symbolic significance, Hood was compelled to evacuate for reasons of military necessity: he was outnumbered; he was outflanked; and his army's morale was poor.

But then, rather than dogging Sherman and interfering with the Union armies' movements, Hood disengaged and marched his army to the northwest, destroying the Union supply and communication lines as he went. And while that maneuver made some military sense on logistical grounds, the rest of Hood's plan was sheer madness.

Hood's so-called "plan," such as it was, demanded this sequence of events: (1) his strike into Tennessee and northward would capture sufficient supplies and enlist enough volunteers; (2) to allow him to advance into Kentucky; (3) where he might turn and destroy Sherman's army, which no doubt would trail in breathless pursuit; (4) after which he could turn north again and cross the Ohio River to take the war onto northern soil.

In essence, Hood intended to invade the North, and its population of more than 20 million, with an army of slightly fewer than forty-five thousand badly-equipped and badly-fed men.

Sherman followed Hood for several weeks, but in mid-October he deduced just what Hood actually had in mind. Sherman was elated ...

"Damn him! If he will go to the Ohio River, I'll give him rations." If Hood wanted to go north, let him. "My business is down south."

Hood's folly stripped the Confederacy of the only sizeable force available to oppose Sherman's celebrated "March to the Sea," which more than any other single campaign broke the South's will to continue the war. Meanwhile, before the year ended Hood had ruined his army fighting in Tennessee. He never reached Kentucky. There never was any reasonable possibility that he would do so.

So ... is Rev. Sharpton accepting campaign contributions?

Friendly advice

2004-11-04T10:06:00.000-08:00

The so-called "lessons" from the Vietnam War aren't. The Democrats must forget Vietnam. They won't win another national election until they do.

Today's OED antedating: "better than a poke in the eye (with a sharp stick)"

2004-11-04T09:52:00.000-08:00

Better than a poke in the eye (with a sharp stick), slang, better than nothing ("poke," n.3, sec 1 (a), first use cited 1974): Book titled The Murderers, by Fredric Brown, 1961, ch x, p 125: "But my check had come. ... It would be thirty-seven bucks and some odd cents. I told him that that was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick ... ."

Thursday 11/4 links

2004-11-04T09:42:00.000-08:00

Finally someone says it, and it happens to be National Review Online columnist Ramesh Ponnuru: screw bipartisanship. We won.

The Washington Times' superb chief political correspondent Donald Lambro analyzes the "Two huge trendlines [that] emerged from Tuesday's election: continuing decline of the Democrats in wide swaths of electoral territory across the South and West and growing Republican majorities in Congress."

Asia Times columnist "Spengler": "It's the culture, stupid."

Weekly Standard publisher William Kristol calls it: "The hair-pullers and teeth-gnashers won't like it, of course, but we're nevertheless inclined to call this a Mandate."

New York Post political analyst/columnist Dick Morris concludes: "George W. Bush was re-elected on Tuesday because the Hispanic vote, long a Democratic Party preserve, shifted toward the president's side."

Syndicated columnist Ann Coulter sneers that "I guess John Kerry went into the primary without a plan to win the election."

Los Angeles Times columnist Max Boot displays real historical perspective in his admiration of "Bush's Solid, McKinley-Style Victory."

National Review Online columnist Tim Graham catalogues in some detail the comprehensive media bias against Pres. Bush.

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan reckons that the biggest losers in the election were the mainstream media.

This one is fascinating: Christopher Pellerito on the Samizdata blogsite: "Not only is Kerry the '60s candidate, but he also apparently employed a campaign strategy that would have given the election in the '60s. If Kerry had won the same bundle of states that gave him 252 electoral votes in this election, but the states were still valued according to the Congressional apportionment based on the Census of 1960, he would have won the election, 270 electoral votes to 268." (Hat tip to Wretchard/Belmont Club)

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak: "Democrats face bitter reality of minority-party status."

Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell believes that the US just had "A Narrow Escape."

New York Sun writer Julia Levy reports that "It's a Dismal Day for Bush-Haters."

Blogger Arthur Chrenkoff predicts that the European leaders now will stop acting bitchy and come to terms with Pres. Bush.

New York Post columnist Amir Taheri crows about the reaction to the election within certain circles: "The European elites had spent much of Tuesday evening dreaming about how a President Kerry would ratify the Kyoto accords, sign on to the International Criminal Court, cut and run in Iraq, send flowers to Yasser Arafat and, perhaps, open a dialogue with Osama bin Laden. When it became clear that the American voters wanted none of that, the chattering classes in Europe were left speechless."

Reuters reports that Russian premier Vladimir Putin was pleased that Pres. Bush was reelected: "I am convinced that international terrorism gave itself the goal of not allowing the re-election of Bush. The statement by bin Laden in the final stages of the pre-election campaign is the best confirmation of this."

Washington Post columnist George F. Will: "Democrats cannot disguise from the people their bewilderment about how to appeal to a country that is so backward, they think, that it finds Bush appealing."

Blogger Hugh Hewitt declares that the sixties finally ended Tuesday.

The Israeli ex-spook website DEBKA reports that the Israeli right is thrilled that Bush won, and that the Israeli left is distraught. Sort of like here.

A bad week for Democrats, indeed. Reuters correspondent David Ljunggren reports that "Unhappy Democrats Must Wait to Get Into Canada."

Time to get down to business. New York Post columnist Ralph Peters: "And now, Fallujah."

Jerusalem Post columnist Uri Dan describes the "Danse Macabre."

Until they regain their sanity

2004-11-03T13:28:00.000-08:00

During the late seventies a lunatic fringe seized control of the British Labour party and forced through a hard-line leftist platform of compulsory socialism at home and messianic pacifism--particularly unilateral nuclear disarmament--in defense and foreign affairs. As a result, Labour lost four consecutive general elections to the Conservatives: three times when the Tories were led by Margaret Thatcher, in 1979, 1983, and 1987; and once when under John Major, in 1992. One leading Labourite characterized the party's "loony left" 1983 election manifesto as "the longest suicide note in history."

Mrs. Thatcher was quite candid about it: "We have a two-party system so inevitably Labour will be elected again some day. Our job is to stay in power until they regain their sanity."

After the 1992 election debacle, some younger and more moderate Labourites purged the militants and, calling themselves "New Labour," turned the party hard to the right. And in 1997, Tony Blair and New Labour won a general election with a huge majority. They were reelected in 2001. Thatcher and the Conservatives had accomplished what they set out to do: to stay in power until Labour regained its sanity.

Some day a Democrat will be elected president ...

Les fesses embrassent

2004-11-03T08:47:00.000-08:00

From today's London Daily Telegraph:

France has hailed the US election as an important moment in world diplomacy calling it an opportunity to revive the transatlantic relationship - no matter who wins.

French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier ... told RTL radio: "I can ... tip my hat to American democracy. "A new stage is starting. It is a very important moment for the world." He said France will work with the new American administration. ...

Last week he said he hoped for a new alliance with the United States.

Right down the middle? No, down the right middle

2004-11-03T08:33:00.000-08:00

Conventional wisdom holds that the country is split down the middle, but it isn't. At this moment, it appears that the GOP controls:

55% of the US Senate;

53% of the US House of Representatives;

56% or 58% of the state governorships (Washington state is still undetermined);

and

100% of the US presidency.

Today's OED antedating: "back to the drawing board"

2004-11-03T08:24:00.000-08:00

Back to the drawing board, figurative, often jocular, resourceful and resilient reaction to (often severe) setback ("drawing," vbl. n., sec 6 (b), first use cited 1965): Letter from Nunnally Johnson to Robert Emmett Dolan dated December 17, 1957, collected in The Letters of Nunnally Johnson (1981), p 165: "The script was generally admired, so far as I can tell, but you know what they say, you can't fight city hall. Sooooo, back to the old drawing board."

Wednesday 11/3 links

2004-11-03T08:12:00.000-08:00

US News & World Report columnist Michael Barone: "The second Bush term."

Earth (via Washington Post columnist Anne Appelbaum) to Kerry: "Accept the Verdict."

Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey posts two items of particular note: first, if the Kerry campaign does the math it will concede--but will it do so? And second, remember Clark County, Ohio? The so-called swing country that was unwilling recipient of all that advice from Guardian readers? Bush took it, 51-49%.

Influential blogger Hugh Hewitt draws an acute distinction: "Pete Coors is a gentleman. Trailing by less than 50,000 votes out of nearly 1.8 million and with 12% of Colorado's precincts yet to be tallied, Pete nevertheless took a calm look at the numbers and called Ken Salazar to concede. Classy. Contrast that with Tom Daschle, Tony Knowles and Betty Castor, and of course John Kerry. No reasonable interpretation of the data in any of these races can give any of these candidates a win, but they are hanging on."

National Review Online guest columnist Robert Moran characterizes yesterday's events as "A Political Gettysburg": "We're witnessing the political equivalent of Gettysburg. The Democrats needed to win this election to turn their prospects around. They needed the White House to win back the Supreme Court. They needed a pliable Senate to water down or halt the House Republicans. They failed, utterly."

Good news/bad news from satirical blogger ScrappleFace Scott Ott. The good news: "Al Gore Concedes to Winner of Popular Vote." The bad news: "However, a spokesman for the Kerry-Edwards campaign said, "Presidential elections are not decided by popular vote. We need the electoral college to guard against the specter of a few dense population areas determining the direction of our entire nation."

Today's OED antedating: "character assassin"

2004-11-02T09:33:00.000-08:00

Character assassin, defamer of reputations ("character," n., sec 19, first use cited 1951): Book titled Ade’s Fables, by George Ade, 1914, p 183: "About the time he came up for re-election, a lot of Character-Assassins tried to shell-road him and hand him the Gaff and crowd him into the 9-hole."

Tuesday 11/2 links

2004-11-02T09:30:00.000-08:00

Wall Street Journal political columnist John Fund provides a concise yet useful hour-by-hour election guide.

Mark Steyn sums it up in today's London Telegraph: "Well, it's the big day, when Campaign 2004 moves from its electoral round into the litigation round. For John Kerry to become President, he has to win 270 of the 538 electoral-college votes. For George W Bush, it's not quite that simple: he's got to win big enough to be outside the margin of lawyer."

Syndicated columnist Bruce Bartlett is confident that the Democrats will win one race this year: "The Shrill Meter."

Washington Times columnist Tod Lindberg thinks that Bush will win because the "Democrats' main expectation about this election, namely, the collapse into discredit of the Bush administration under the weight of negative public opinion, simply failed to materialize."

Syndicated columnist David Limbaugh charges that biased campaign coverage amounts to "A media coverup of Watergate proportions."

London Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips: "This is the September 11 presidential election. John Kerry is the September 10 candidate. In short, the proper American view should surely be 'anyone but Kerry.'"

Syndicated columnist Dennis Prager fisks an Internet hoax in: "'Things you have to believe to vote Republican': A response."

Last night Tom Daschle filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to ban Republican--and only Republican--poll watchers from Indian reservations--no doubt to allow the massive vote fraud he's planned to continue in peace. Weekly Standard books & arts editor Joseph Bottum thinks that Daschle just "threw his campaign into the shredder." But Power Line blogger "The Big Trunk," aka Scott W. Johnson, reports that a judge threw out Daschle's suit, and "Hindrocket," aka John H. Hinderaker, rips Daschle a new one: "I have to think that after Daschle pulled this stunt--a last-ditch, deceitful attack on the Republican Party obviously intended to facilitate fraud--whatever Republican support he may have had will be gone. Daschle is toast."

In a column appearing in The Hill, a Washington insiders' paper, leading Democratic pollster Mark Melman positions himself well for the postelection recriminations by admiting that he thinks Bush will win with app 51-52% of the popular vote.

Those with historical perspective will enjoy juxtaposing two pieces: William J. Stuntz's Tech Central Station piece comparing this election with the Civil War election of 1864, in which the incumbent Abraham Lincoln was reelected to finish the war. But Instapundit Glenn Reynolds recall the result of the 1945 UK general election, near the end of World War II, in which the voters chucked out Winston Churchill.

Washington Post columnist George F. Will supplies lots of interesting electoral facts, such as: "In 2002 Bush became the second president since the Civil War whose party increased its House and Senate seats in the middle of his first term -- although a switch of just 82,763 votes out of 75.7 million votes cast would have given Democrats control of the House and Senate." And: "If Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle is reelected in South Dakota, a great anomaly will continue: four Democratic senators from the two Dakotas, where Bush's 2000 victories were by an average of 25 percent. Perhaps this will reconcile liberals to the fact that 16 percent of Americans elect half the Senate."

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius suggests that the real "October Surprises" are the Bin Laden video--and how weak he appears to be.

Former seventies' Navy Secretary William Middendorf wrote an article solely to hint that John Kerry received a less-than-honorable discharge--but that he couldn't state so directly due to privacy laws.

Blog satirist ScrappleFace Scott Ott breaks his latest scoop: "Kerry Votes for Bush, Before Voting Against Him."

The Kerry-NBC scandal: anatomy of a successful cover-up

2004-11-01T09:08:00.000-08:00

Three days ago, on October 29, I posted this item in Friday's links:

This could be a big development in the campaign: Sen. Kerry just got caught in a lie on national television, and Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey puts it all together.

Last night, Kerry to Tom Brokaw: "My [military] record is not public. So I don't know where you're getting that from."

Sept. 15, Kerry to Don Imus: "We've posted my military records that they sent to me, or were posted on my Web site. You can go to my Web site, and all my -- you know, the documents are there."

In April, to Chris Matthews: "I released all my military records. ... Everything. All of it. Including my officer fitness reports."

The full Kerry quote from the Brokaw interview: "That's great. More power. I don't know how they've done it, because my record is not public. So I don't know where you're getting that from."

It is necessary to display the complete quotation for reasons made very clear in Morrissey's posting late yesterday:

Alert CQ reader Gracias Deo noticed that NBC has edited the transcript of the interview Tom Brokaw did with John Kerry three days ago. ... In the transcript for the interview based on tonight's Dateline segment for the interview, the answer has been edited to remove Kerry's admission:

Brokaw: "Someone has analyzed the president's military aptitude tests and yours, and concluded that he has a higher IQ than you do."

Kerry: "That's great. More power. I don't know how they've done it."

What happened to the rest of the answer? ["... because my record is not public. So I don't know where you're getting that from."] NBC must have decided to cut it off, but its excision appears to make NBC look complicit in an attempt to cover up an embarrassing admission.

Its excision appears to make NBC look complicit? It conclusively proves it. Compare and contrast: the Brokaw interview transcript, with the assertion; and the Dateline transcript, with the assertion deleted.

Next question: what was Kerry trying to conceal by refusing to release his service records and then repeatedly lying about it? According to a front-page piece by Thomas Lipscomb in today's New York Sun, it is this:

A former officer in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps Reserve has built a case that Senator Kerry was other than honorably discharged from the Navy by 1975.

And:

Kerry spokesmen have also repeatedly said that the senator has an honorable discharge. And there is indeed a cover letter to an honorable discharge dated February 16,1978,on the Kerry Web site. ... [U]nder President Carter's Executive Order 11967, ... thousands received pardons and upgrades for harsh discharges or other offenses under the Selective Service Act. ... Kerry spokesman David Wade did not reply when asked if Mr. Kerry was other than honorably discharged before he was honorably discharged.

And this:

Certainly something was wrong as early as 1973 when Mr. Kerry was applying to law school. ... A member of the Harvard Law School admissions committee recalled that the real reason Mr. Kerry was not admitted was because the committee was concerned that because Mr. Kerry had received a less than honorable discharge they were not sure he could be admitted to any state bar.

But Kerry got away with it. He likely will lose tomorrow--but he certainly would have done so had the voting public ever learned of his full military record. So much for "Lieutenant Kerry, reporting for duty."

Today's OED antedating: "the stretch"

2004-11-01T08:56:00.000-08:00

Stretch, figurative/transferred, the final and most important part of a competition, ex horseracing (n., sec 8 (c), first use cited 1949): Book titled The Short-Stop, by Zane Grey, 1909, ch xiv, p 247: "The team broke even on the trip, a satisfactory showing to Mac. 'Shure, we're restin' up fer the break into the stretch,' he said."

Monday 11/1 links

2004-11-01T08:50:00.000-08:00

BAD NEWS: National Review Online "Kerry Spot" columnist Jim Geraghty: "The bad news, passed on by Middle Cheese: Bush’s poll numbers in Ohio on Sunday night were terrible. Might be a bad sample, or it might be that the last minute break of the undecided is going for Kerry."

The redoubtable Asia Times columnist "Spengler" posted a new essay: "What Osama might have told America."

Larry Margasak of the Associated Press reports that Democratic Senate candidates have adopted a real strategy--avoid any association with John Kerry. (Hat tip to "Captain Ed" Morrissey/Captain's Quarters)

Syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan: "The national press remains what it has been since the 1960s: the most reliably left-wing voting bloc this side of Bedford Stuyvesant."

New York Times columnist William Safire loved OBL's new tape, aka the "clumsy ploy": "For now, bin Laden's unwelcome intercession is taken to be anti-Bush overkill. Coming from the fugitive terrorist, it will help ensure the president's re-election. Later, we will understand bin Laden's phony attempt at conciliation to be his first sign of weakness."

Power Line blogger "Deacon," aka Paul Mirengoff, analyzes the last New York Times/CBS poll, which is Bush +3--and finds even worse news for the Democrats in the "internal" numbers--such as a sampling 35% Democrats, 30% GOP. In other words, the poll wanted to skew toward Kerry, and it's even worse news for him that it didn't.

Appearing in Newsweek, columnist George F. Will argues: "Elections matter, but their reverberations are limited. Governments change; for most people, the basic conditions of life do not. Or at least they do not change much because of election results."

Democratic professionals tell Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak that they're running their campaign and getting the vote out while trying not to listen to Sen. Kerry yammering on and on about explosives.

Jerusalem Post columnist Tom Gross wonders why Jews are idiots when they walk into voting booths.

The Israeli ex-spooks at DEBKA claim that today's Tel Aviv bombing was the first shot of the Palestinian civil war.

Prolific satirical blogger ScrappleFace Scott Ott's latest scoop: "Kerry: GOP Plans to Suppress Lawyer Turnout."

Roger Angell, the New Yorker's wonderful baseball essayist, buries "The Curse of Curses."

No journal does obituaries so well as the London Times--except the London Telegraph. Today the subject is Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, who just died at age 102.

By 6:00pm pt

2004-10-31T15:19:00.000-08:00

I think Chicago Sun-Times political columnist Robert Novak may have nailed it with his prediction that we will likely know who won the presidency much earlier than conventional wisdom expects--that is, by 6:00pm Pacific Time. Yes, Tuesday.

Novak thinks that the race will be decided by Florida (27 electoral votes) and Ohio (20), and he sees three possibilities:

(1) "The early returns show either President Bush or Sen. John Kerry has clearly won both of these two states. In that case, you can call the double winner 'Mr. President' for the next four years";

(2) "Bush is the clear early winner in either Florida or Ohio. That probably guarantees Bush's re-election. Kerry then would have a steep hill to climb, forced to pick up states where he now seems to be trailing"; or

(3) "There is no early outcome in either of those two states, or Kerry clearly wins one state and the other state's results are unclear. Then, look for a long election night -- or perhaps a long month of November -- before the winner of the presidential race is determined."

Old school tie

2004-10-31T15:07:00.000-08:00

From Robert Morley's biography on the Internet Movie Database website:

"When asked to give a talk at his old school, Wellington, he said the only reason he would return to the school would be to burn it down."

£0.00

2004-10-31T14:30:00.000-08:00

I am increasingly fond of the London Times letters to the editor. (The romance is easier to pursue since The Times opened scattered nooks and crannies of its site to surfers unwilling to pay extortionate subscription rates.) This item appeared yesterday:

Sir,

An English teacher of mine received from his book club a demand for £0.00, which he ignored. Increasingly threatening demands followed, despite correspondence pointing out the stupidity of the same.

The demands ceased only when, in desperation, he sent a cheque in the sum of £0.00.

Yours faithfully,

GEOFFREY MOTT,
Renaissance Chambers,
Gray’s Inn Chambers,
Gray’s Inn,
WC1R 5JA.

Today's OED antedating: "to go for broke"

2004-10-31T08:10:00.000-08:00

To go for broke, colloquial, to employ full effort or to risk all ("go," v., sec 58 (h), first use cited 1951): Article titled "Those of the First Generation," by John Lardner, New Yorker, March 31, 1945, p 47, col 1: "'Go for broke' is a Hawaiian pidgin expression conveying the idea of all-out endeavor ... ."

Sunday 10/31 links

2004-10-31T08:06:00.000-08:00

Here's a scoop: London Sunday Telegraph political editor Patrick Hennessy reports that Tony Blair will call a snap election to be held in February.

Today a New York Daily News editorial endorsed Pres. Bush: "Right war, right time, right man."

Washington Times columnist Donald Lambro supplies a superb analysis which merits notice. The short message: "It's the turnout, stupid."

Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey runs the numbers and is happy.

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass: "Bush's resolve is best answer to bin Laden threat."

Ironic, isn't it, that it takes a patronizing anti-American lefty such as London Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle to reveal the dirty secret: "Even the Democrats don’t fancy Kerry."

San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Joseph Perkins warns that the democratic system is at risk if the Democrats follow through on threats to mire the election in litigation after they lose. (Hat tip to John H. Hinderaker/Power Line)

Appearing this time in the Chicago Sun-Times, columnist Mark Steyn morphs into Gertrude Stein: "When the lawsuits are over and the bloodletting begins, serious Democrats need to confront the intellectual emptiness of their party, which Kerry's campaign embodies all too well. The Dems got a full tank from FDR, a top-up in the Civil Rights era, and they've been running on fumes for 30 years. Their last star, Bill Clinton, has no legacy because, deft as he was, his Democratic Party had no purpose other than as a vehicle for promoting his own indispensability. When he left, the Democrats became a party running on personality with no personalities to run. Hence, the Kerry candidacy. Despite the best efforts of American editorialists, there's no there there."

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby explains why Pres. Bush should be reelected: it's "A question of character."

US News & World Report columnist John Leo attacks the "journalistic malpractice" of the mainstream media desperate for Kerry to win.

Washington Post columnist George F. Will prefers Bush to Kerry, but is not particularly happy about it: "Reelect Bush, Faults And All."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Jack Kelly describes how The New York Times wrecked CBS's last-minute ambush of Pres. Bush.

US News & World Report publisher Mortimer B. Zuckerman catalogues the situation the Palestinians now face: "The moment of truth is now upon them."

London Sunday Telegraph correspondent Con Coughlin supplies an incisive profile of Ariel Sharon.

Transterrestrial Musings satirical blogger Rand Simberg reports: "FEC Launches Investigation Into Al Qaeda." He quotes a Bush campaign spokesman: "This new Kerry endorsement by yet another world leader is just their latest October surprise, coming just four days before the election. 'Bush lied, we made the terrorists mad, he sat there reading to kids instead of evacuating the trade center,' yada yada yada. They can deny it all they want, but Osama's clearly illegally coordinating with Moveon.org and Michael Moore." (Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds/Instapundit)

More re Barghouti

2004-10-30T11:50:00.000-07:00

From the London Economist editorial "The end of the Arafat era?"; discussing potential candidates to succeed the so-called "chairman":

"Few Palestinian leaders, young or old, are thought to command broad support in the larger West Bank. One possible exception is Marwan Barghouti, a senior Fatah figure who is currently in an Israeli prison serving five life terms for his role in armed attacks on Israeli civilians (he denied involvement). Many Israelis regard the pragmatic Mr Barghouti as a man with whom they might be able to do business. Mr Sharon could choose to free him, clearing the way for an authentic national leader to don Mr Arafat’s mantle. But almost no one believes this will happen."

Remember, you read it about in P&C first ... and second ... and now third.

There will always be an England

2004-10-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

Letters to the editor in today's London Times, collected under the headline: "Bowled Over, But Still Not Out."

Sir,

Mr D. W. S. Gray (letter, October 27) comments that he can no longer wear his bowler hat in the street without inviting public comment.

This seems also to apply to any hat worn with a business suit, which presents a problem to those of us who need to protect our heads from the weather. Being a little short of hair on my head it can be painfully cold crossing London Bridge in the morning without a hat. The trouble is, any hat worn with a suit now invites comment or even ridicule, and, at best, makes an unwanted fashion statement. Trilby, bowler, flat cap, woolly hat: all have their connotations. For all of us balding suit-wearers, a new design of classless and practical headgear acceptable for use with a suit is urgently needed, preferably before the next cold snap this winter.

Yours sincerely,

MARTIN PETTINGER,
1 The Chestnuts,
Gardner Street,
Herstmonceux,
Hailsham,
East Sussex BN27 4LD.

Sir,

In the world of the horse, the bowler usefully distinguishes officials at three-day events and race meetings, though female holders of these posts seem to cope without.

Yours faithfully,

CHRISTOPHER WITTS,
Ashleigh Cottage,
Opposite the Church,
Oaksey, Malmesbury SN16 9TQ.

Sir,

My grandfather, a Belfast engineer, told me that foremen in the local shipyards wore bowler hats not only as a mark of status but also as protection from dropped rivets, accidental and otherwise. I suspect that their use on building sites was for similar reasons.

Yours faithfully,

C. H. EMELEUS,
62 Hallgarth Street,
Durham DH1 3AY.

Sir,

The bowler has also served at sea. When I made mine redundant, because of dying fashion, it was acquired by my son, who was then serving in submarines. It was adorned with an RN cap tally and worn whenever opportunity and surface-running permitted.

It was finally buried at sea when a messmate removed it from my son’s head, and the wind whipped it from his hand.

Yours faithfully,

P. MOTTE-HARRISON,
17 The Meadway,
Shoreham-by-Sea BN43 5RN.

Sir,

Recently, while planning the visit of a service engineer to a Korean motor plant, I was asked by the client to arrange for our engineer to bring with him a bowler hat; apparently it bestowed great prestige on the wearer. A thorough search throughout central Scotland finally located the correct size in an Edinburgh shop.

Yours faithfully,

A. DAVID PAGE,
14 Springwood Avenue,
Stirling FK8 2HN.

Sir,

The bowler remained a special item of working-class headgear north of Watford until at least the late 1950s. My wife’s ex-miner grandfather kept one in his wardrobe to wear in place of his cloth cap when attending funerals.

Your faithfully,

JOHN ACKLAW,
Conifer House,
Ferry Road,
North Fambridge,
Essex CM3 6LS.

Today's OED antedating: "edge"

2004-10-30T08:45:00.000-07:00

Edge, advantage (n., sec 2 (e), first use cited 1958): Untitled item by Franklin P. Adams, New York Tribune, September 2, 1914, p 6, col 3: "'We have the edge now,' says Mack, 'and should get the next three games.'"

Saturday 10/30 links

2004-10-30T07:45:00.000-07:00

Acute Belmont Club blogger "Wretchard" notices something nobody else apparently saw in Osama bin Laden's newest tape: "He has stopped talking about the restoration of the Global Caliphate. There is no more mention of the return of Andalusia. There is no more anticipation that Islam will sweep the world. He is no longer boasting that Americans run at the slightest wounds; that they are more cowardly than the Russians. He is not talking about future operations to swathe the world in fire but dwelling on past glories. He is basically saying if you leave us alone we will leave you alone. Though it is couched in his customary orbicular phraseology he is basically asking for time out."

New York Post columnist John Podhoretz to Michael Moore: OBL's your biggest fan.

New York Times semiconservative columnist David Brooks imposes "The Osama Litmus Test": "Bush's response yesterday to the video was exactly right. He said we would not be intimidated. He tried to take the video out of the realm of crass politics by mentioning Kerry by name and assuring the country that he was sure Kerry agreed with him. Kerry did say that we are all united in the fight against bin Laden, but he just couldn't help himself. His first instinct was to get political."

Weekly Standard columnists William Kristol and Stephen F. Hayes are appalled by "The Kerry campaign's extraordinary response to the newly released tape from al Qaeda's leader."

Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey has fun with a deluded lefty columnist who actually claims, apparently with a straight face,"that Islamic terrorists feel that George Bush has been 'good for business.'"

Weekly Standard columnist Fred Barnes relates how in "The Circuitous Campaign," "Bush got where his strategists predicted, but not how they expected."

National Review Online columnist Jonah Goldberg argues that Sen. Kerry is losing because he is the anti-war candidate but can't say so: "Sometimes he speaks in a unique Kerry grammar one could call the future-past perfect. When asked if we were right to invade Iraq, he has responded that it depends on what happens in the future. And other times he's said we were right. And other times he's said we were wrong. But my favorite response was when he was asked if we'd have gone to war with Iraq if he'd been president, and he shot back confidently, 'You bet we might have.'"

London Times columnist Mick Hume, who admits he is "on the British Left," tries to untangle "The trashy politics of Bushophobia." His conclusion: "How much easier it is for the liberal Left to blame stupid voters and the lying media for propping up Mr Bush and the Iraq war, rather than face up to its own failure to mount a convincing case or win the argument."

Washington Post writers Charles Babington and Brian Faler report that recent polling in South Dakota indicates that Tom Daschle's numbers are in free-fall. Two points: first, Daschle's immediate response is to fly in tons of lawyers to litigate himself into reelection; second, the poll numbers were so lopsided that the pollsters "adjusted" them--ie, ignored them--and just assigned a 3-point lead to John Thune without any basis whatever.

Dubai resident Youssef M. Ibrahim supplies a fascinating essay to the International Herald Tribune that candidly discusses "The fear that chokes the Arab world."

Napoleon won't die, and Paul Johnson reviews yet two more studies of the great general for the London Sunday Telegraph.

New York Times writer Micheline Maynard reports that the mainstream airlines are finally getting the message: prospective passengers do not choose based on amenities--it's price and schedules. Period.

Prolific satirical blogger ScrappleFace Scott Ott's latest: "Kerry: Bush Outsourced Bin Laden Video Production."

After Arafat

2004-10-29T09:03:00.000-07:00

Yasir Arafat is dying, and the end appears to be near, if not imminent. Both Tel Aviv Ha'aretz columnist Danny Rubinstein and the World Tribune report that the present Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei (aka Abu Ala), and his predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) will share substantive power after Arafat goes.

But they are old men, and control will soon pass, as Rubinstein put it, to "members of [a] younger cadre, among them Jibril Rajoub and Mohammed Dahlan, [who] will lend their support to the two veterans, [and] who will divide up the governing authority between themselves."

Will control pass to a "younger cadre"? Certainly. But will it go to Rajoub or Dahlan? Perhaps not. Four weeks ago, on September 28, I posted this item:

Marwan Barghouti
A significant development buried in Mark Lavie's Associated Press piece about the latest carnage in the Middle East:

"The wife of jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti said her husband will run in Palestinian parliamentary elections expected next year."

Until he was captured in Ramallah by an elite Israeli commando unit in April 2002, Barghouti was the area chief of the "Tanzim," an Al-Fatah offshoot that Yasir Arafat ordered established after the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. Arafat needed the Tanzim because he was too closely identified with Fatah and required plausible deniability for future terrorist actions that he might personally order. Barghouti also founded the notorious Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, another terrorist group responsible for dozens of murderous attacks.

Before the newest Palestinian terror campaign started in 2000, Barghouti got along well with the Israelis and gained their respect. He speaks fluent Hebrew (he did time in Israeli prisons) and is regarded to be an opportunistic moderate. The Israelis believe that Barghouti helped to plan terrorist actions--including suicide bombings--during the two years before his capture primarily to maintain his position within the Palestinian hierarchy.

The word is that the Israelis captured and jailed the charismatic Barghouti to protect him from jealous rivals who wanted him dead--a list which included Arafat. Had Israel intended to eliminate Barghouti, it would have killed him in a targeted attack with little potential risk to the Israelis. Instead, the Israeli generals sent an elite "Duvdevan" unit deep into the West Bank to snatch him.

Then the Israelis broke with longstanding practice and held Barghouti's trial in open court--not in the closed military court where Palestinian terror suspects are usually tried. And in his trial, with the world media watching and reporting, Barghouti offered a spirited and colorful defense that in practical terms kicked off his political campaign: he shouted his defiance; he characterized himself as a patriot in a kangaroo court; he denied that the Israelis had any jurisdiction to try any Palestinian for any act committed on his own land. The performance was a great hit in the Palestinian-controlled areas.

There is talk that Israel took great care to provide Barghouti with this forum for the purpose of building his street cred among the Palestinian public. And there are whispers that Israel and the US are carefully grooming Barghouti to succeed Arafat--and that Arafat knows it.So yesterday, safely ensconced in an Israeli prison, Barghouti kicked off his formal campaign ...

---

UPDATE: From the Great Minds Dept., this paragraph appears in Rubinstein's Friday column, titled "Don't interfere, they're looking for an heir":

"The feeling in the Palestinian territories today is such that only a man who is seen as a bitter enemy of Israel may gain popularity. Palestinian Council member Marwan Barghouti, for example, enjoys an especially high status in public opinion polls in the West Bank and Gaza only because Israel sentenced him to life imprisonment. He is called 'the engineer of the intifada,' a title seen as a great honor in the territories."

Today's OED antedating: "nothing doing"

2004-10-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

Nothing doing, slang, flat refusal ("do," v., sec 34 (c), first use cited 1910): Short story titled "According to Their Lights," by O. Henry, aka W. S. Porter, collected in The Trimmed Lamp (And Other Stories of the Four Million), 1906, pp 187-88: "[Y]our uncle ... expects that the engagement between you and Miss Vanderhurst shall be ... 'I authorize you to report that there is "nothing doing." Good night.'"

Friday 10/29 links

2004-10-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

London Times Washington correspondent Gerard Baker reports that Sen. Kerry is already picking his Cabinet. Apparently Del. Sen. Joe Biden will be Secretary of State, even though former UK Labour Party chief Neil Kinnock never served in that capacity. (During Biden's short-lived 1988 presidential campaign he was caught out appropriating Kinnock's biography.) Evidently Kerry is immersed in a pregnant chicken inventory.

This could be a big development in the campaign: Sen. Kerry just got caught in a lie on national television, and Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey puts it all together. Last night, Kerry to Tom Brokaw: "My [military] record is not public. So I don't know where you're getting that from." Sept. 15, Kerry to Don Imus: "We've posted my military records that they sent to me, or were posted on my Web site. You can go to my Web site, and all my -- you know, the documents are there." In April, to Chris Matthews: "I released all my military records. ... Everything. All of it. Including my officer fitness reports."

New York Post political columnist Dick Morris explains "Why Bush Will Win." What a lovely way to start the day.

This time in the London Spectator, Mark Steyn is so confident that Pres. Bush will win that he promises to quit if Bush loses.

National Review Online "Kerry Spot" editor Jim Geraghty agrees after getting the lowdown "From a Source Close to the Campaign": "According to the Bushies, the last few days have seen a huge burst of momentum in their numbers. They think Bush is ahead by a few points nationally. ... The internal polls show a significant lead in Florida (outside margin of error) and Arkansas is out of play, with a Bill Clinton visit or without. As for most of the other big ones - Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, internal polls show all too close to call."

New York Post columnist John Podhoretz displays no small degree of schadenfreude as he asks: "Did John Kerry make a colossal blunder by deciding to spend the last week of the campaign highlighting the fact that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was one giant ammunition dump?"

Washington Times editor-in-chief Wesley Pruden concludes "There's no surprise for this October"--and wonders why the media expected the explosives story to explode.

Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell reviews the blatant partisanship and bias of the media in campaign coverage.

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer is disgusted that "John Kerry has managed to transform our Afghan venture into a failure -- a botched operation in which Bush let Osama bin Laden get away because he 'outsourced' bin Laden's capture to 'warlords' in the battle of Tora Bora. ... 'Outsourcing' is a demagogue's way of saying 'using allies.' (Isn't Kerry's Iraq solution to 'outsource' the problem to the 'allies' and the United Nations?)"

National Review Online columnist Victor Davis Hanson puts it in stark terms: "One candidate urges us to return to the mindset of pre-September 11 — law enforcement dealing with terrorists as nuisances. He claims the policies that have led to an absence of another attack at home, the end of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, idealistic efforts to extend freedom, and radical and positive changes in Pakistan, Libya, the West Bank, and the Gulf have made things worse. In contrast, the other reminds us that we are in a real war against horrific enemies and are no longer passive targets, but will fight the terrorists on their home turf, win, and leave behind humane government. No choice could be clearer. It is America's call."

Syndicated columnist Mona Charen agrees that Sen. Kerry would not make the same mistakes that Pres. Bush has made--and that's the problem.

London Daily Telegraph diplomatic editor and former Middle East correspondent Anton La Guardia returns to find "A Just Wall": "Palestinians are not simply victims of Israel. They are also co-authors of their own tragedy."

London Sunday Times New York correspondent Sarah Boxer admits "I'm a Democrat for Bush"--and then tells why.

New York Post columnist Amir Taheri describes "John Kerry's Fantasy Friend." He's talking about Jacques Chirac.

The Israeli ex-spook DEBKA website reports that one result of the Arafat hospitalization is that "The Palestinian-Israel War Gains a French Dimension"--that a clique of hardliners who accompanied him to Paris "will try to run Palestinian Authority business from the French capital. Claiming they are relaying orders from Arafat, they will gradually erode the authority of the Abu Mazan-Abu Ala clique."

Also re the Palestinians, canny Tel Aviv Ha'aretz columnist Danny Rubinstein warns: "Don't interfere, they're looking for an heir."

Prolific satirical blogger ScrappleFace Scott Ott supplies two items: first, a new entitlement ("Kerry: Americans Deserve Arafat-Quality Healthcare"); second, a new poll ("Battleground Poll Shows Bush 51, Springsteen 49").

Today's OED antedating: "smear"

2004-10-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

Smear, a scheme to defame (n., sec 3 (c), first use cited 1943): Essay titled "Not All the Leopards," by Heywood Broun, The New Republic, September 20, 1939, p 186, col 2: "For instance, Mr. Stalin might say, 'Morrie Ryskind had a piece in The Nation last week which I found most objectionable. Please see that he gets a smearing at the hands of all the fellow-traveling critics.'"

Thursday 10/28 links

2004-10-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

From New York Sun correspondent Khaled Abu Toalmeh: "Yasser Arafat is in critical condition and doctors are trying to save his life, a P.A. Cabinet minister told the Jerusalem Post last night. 'President Arafat is dying,' said the minister, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Israel said it will allow Mr. Arafat to be moved 'anywhere' to receive medical treatment and also said that any medical equipment can be brought into Ramallah. Israel has also given Egypt permission to send a special medical team to Ramallah."

A brilliant line by Belmont Club blogger "Wretchard": "Twenty years of European and UN Middle Eastern policy may be lying on the deathbed with Arafat."

What will the Palestinians do as they grapple with the post-Arafat era? Tel Aviv Ha'aretz columnist Danny Rubinstein: "For now, it looks like the two senior veterans, Abu Mazen and Abu Ala, are the candidates slated to succeed him in his two primary roles ... Members of [a] younger cadre, among them Jibril Rajoub and Mohammed Dahlan, will lend their support to the two veterans, who will divide up the governing authority between themselves."

The World Tribune largely concurs: "The Palestinian sources identified the three-member successor leadership as Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei [Abu Ala], his predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas [Abu Mazen] and Palestinian National Council chairman Salim Zaanoun. The sources said Zaanoun would serve a symbolic role."

Ace Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz reports that the Russians helped the Iraqis to secretly move to Syria those explosives that Sen. Kerry has been yammering about. But Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey doesn't think it happened: "I doubt that the cash-strapped Russian military, with its own Islamist problems in Chechnya and elsewhere, would have acted as a hire-out moving service for Saddam Hussein in March 2003, with the US poised to invade."

Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz reveals that The New York Times and CBS colluded on the story, and that the only reason the Times went with it on Monday, October 25--rather than waiting for CBS to sap the White House with the story two days before the election the night of Sunday, October 31--was because it was leaking to the Internet, and not because there was anything morally wrong with trying to tip the election with a highly suspect story.

But Power Line blogger "Hindrocket," aka John H. Hinderaker, fisks the hell out of Times' executive editor Bill Keller's self-serving revisionist scenario as displayed in the Kurtz piece.

And ABC News reports that it wasn't 380 tons of the stuff that went missing--but 3 tons. (Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds/Instapundit)

New York Post political analyst/columnist Dick Morris rips off a great line: "Once again, John Kerry shows his instinct to go for the capillaries, rather than the jugular."

And New York Post columnist Ralph Peters states flatly that "The Myth of the Missing Explosives" is just that: "Sen. Kerry knows this is a bogus issue. And he doesn't care. He's willing to accuse our troops of negligence and incompetence to further his political career. Of course, he did that once before."

London Times columnist Gerard Baker argues that if for no other reason, "Look at Bush's enemies: they are the reason why he deserves re-election."

Chicago Sun-Times political columnist Robert Novak reports that the Democrats have a big problem: "Kerry unable to crack Bush base."

Washington Times guest columnist Martin L. Gross predicts that it will not be a close election--that Pres. Bush will win by at least five percent in the popular vote and more in the electoral college. I tend to agree with him.

San Francisco Chronicle guest columnist Victor Davis Hanson argues that "The Real Divide is Only in Elitist Minds."

Washington Post columnist George F. Will explains that "Liberalism's constant problem is that Americans are aspirational, not envious."

Syndicated columnist Ann Coulter on political reality: "Here's the deal on politics and race in America: Republicans don't need black voters, but they want them. Democrats don't want black voters, but they need them."

Syndicated columist Emmett Tyrrell: "The really disturbing aspect of this election [is] the possibility of widespread voter fraud and the Democrats' efforts to institutionalize voter fraud."

New York columnist John Podhoretz analyzes "Sharon's Stunner."

Columnist Uri Dan has known him for nearly a half-century, and he insists "there is no 'new Sharon.'"

Columbia University is an anti-Semitic cesspool. Today a New York Daily News editorial asks the university administration what it intends to do about it.

Indefatigable satirical blogger ScrappleFace Scott Ott reports the news that the "Electoral College Added to Michael Moore Speaking Tour."

Today's OED antedating: "fixation"

2004-10-27T09:06:00.000-07:00

Fixation, transferred, often jocular, obsession, ex psychiatry (sec 3 (b), first use cited 1963): Book titled The Mysterious Mickey Finn, by Elliot Paul, 1939, ch ix, p 86: "'Mr Evans has an oil fixation,' Miriam said. 'You’ll get used to that.'"

Wednesday 10/27 links

2004-10-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

Former Army officer and now New York Post columnist Ralph Peters got a letter from a friend: "He's an Army veteran of three wars. ... And he's worried. Not about terrorists or insurgents. He's afraid John Kerry will be elected president. 'Kerry's rhetoric is giving the bad guys a thread to hang on. They're hoping we lose our nerve. They're more concerned with the U.S. elections than with the Iraqi ones.'"

Two items from prolific Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey:" first, that CBS already reported that the stuff was missing before we got there; and second, that it must have taken a full company of men one week to spirit the stuff away--at least. While we were already there? Fat chance.

Weekly Standard publisher William Kristol observes that Sen. Kerry's chief foreign policy adviser, Richard Holbrooke, refuses to vouch for the story's accuracy--while Kerry continues to campaign on it nonetheless.

Meanwhile, perhaps re Holbrooke (but, to be fair, perhaps not), today New York Post "Page Six" gossip columnist Richard Johnson offers a riddle: "Which high-profile diplomat who was hoping for a big job in the John Kerry administration — if there is one — is having a not-so-low-profile affair with a gorgeous, red-headed divorcée with an interest in foreign affairs? Even if his wife doesn't find out, the fling might wreck his chances for the big job."

New York Daily News columnist Zev Chafets got an interesting angle on Bill Clinton's Philadelphia campaign appearance for Sen. Kerry: "Kerry stood in Bill's shadow."

TCS publisher James K. Glassman is relieved that the Democrats' explosive "October Surprise" is a dud.

Political guru Dick Morris is having a busy day. In today's New York Post, he claims that "the wolf ad has sparked an amazing surge in Bush's support to the point where every poll but one shows him well ahead of his Democratic rival." Then, in the Washington insider newspaper The Hill, he asserts first that "John Kerry’s domestic focus seems to be too little, too late"; and second, that "the conventional wisdom is that the election will be close. It still may be, but the evidence suggests that it is volatile but not necessarily close."

Stop the presses! Washington Times columnist Cal Thomas breaks the news that the "Big Media" (ie The New York Times and the Washington Post) support Kerry. And Editor & Publisher reports that "New Study Suggests Some Media Favored Kerry in First Two Weeks of October." (Hat tip to "Captain Ed" Morrissey/Captain's Quarters)

More re media bias from syndicated columnist Brent Bozell: "To the uncommitted voter, let us state directly: The media are partisan players. They see their role as journalists as not to inform, but to persuade." And from syndicated columnist Linda Chavez: "The media rule seems to be if a story might hurt George W. Bush, play it up big; if it might help Bush, bury it; and if might hurt John Kerry, ignore it altogether. In an election as close as this one, the media's role could be decisive."

Washington Times Baghdad correspondent Borzou Daragahi reports that the Iraqi terrorists now state explicitly that the upsurge in violence there is specifically intended to oust Pres. Bush in the US presidential election. If the terrorists want Sen. Kerry to win, what does that tell you?

IOWAHAWK satirical blogger David Burge breathlessly scoops the world with "More October Surprises Found." Such as: "WEDNESDAY REPORT: OHIO UNEMPLOYMENT AT 87.8%"

Today's OED antedating: "stall"

2004-10-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

Stall, a calculated act of delay or misdirection (n.2, sec 4 (b), first use cited 1945): Poem titled "Tosca," by pseudonymous "Flaccus," aka attorney Newman Levy, New York Tribune, August 2, 1921, p 8, col 5: "I framed it so they'll pull a fake shoot fer a stall."

Tuesday 10/26 links

2004-10-26T08:36:00.000-07:00

Appearing this time in the London Daily Telegraph, Mark Steyn takes aim at Charlie Brooker, the imbecile who called for Pres. Bush's assassination in Saturday's London Guardian. You know, the one the newspaper characterized as an "ironic joke"--the moment they realized just how bad it was going to be.

Here's a news flash: the most recent front-page New York Times exclusive blasting Pres. Bush, this time for not securing high explosives in Iraq, is false. (As though the president is supposed to do that in the first place.) Matt Drudge, Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey, Hugh Hewitt, Belmont Club blogger "Wretchard," and the other usual suspects cite the first-hand NBC report that the stuff was gone when US troops got there--and gleefully pile on.

And it keeps getting better and better. Morrissey also reports that when the Bush campaign blasted Sen. Kerry for continuing to refer to the story even after it was discredited, Kerry's spokesman Joe Lockhart said: "The White House is desperately flailing in an effort to escape blame. It is the latest pathetic excuse from an administration that never admits a mistake, no matter how disastrous.'" As Morrissey puts it: "Unless Lockhart is a practicing ironist, which might be a side effect of working for Bill Clinton, that statement contains more projection than an IMAX theater."

New York Sun writer Josh Gerstein reports that Kerry is a plagiarist. (Hat tip to Hugh Hewitt)

New York Post columnist John Podhoretz pose a great question: "What if there are no undecided voters left?"

Power Line blogger "Deacon," aka Paul Mirengoff, compares the 2000 and 2004 elections. He sees some similarities--but some significant differences.

Meanwhile, Tech Central Station columnist William J. Stuntz compares the 1948 and 2004 elections--and while perhaps Pres. Bush is no Harry Truman, Sen. Kerry certainly resembles Thomas Dewey.

Syndicated columnist Dennis Prager argues "How Jews Should Vote." Boston Globe columnist Jonathan D. Sarna describes how both parties are fighting for every last Jewish vote, although Jews are only 1/50 of the population. Two Weekly Standard columnists, William Kristol and Joel Engel, also weigh in.

New York Post columnist and former Army major Ralph Peters insists--absolutely, positively, [insert your own superlative adverb here]--there will not be a draft.

Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn goes behind the scenes at RealClearPolitics.com.

Online satirist ScrappleFace, aka Scott Ott, posts another classic: "Saddam Worried Explosive Cache Now in 'Wrong Hands.'" The subtext: why wasn't Sen. Kerry worried about this stuff when Saddam controlled it?

A lovely piece in the generally less-than-lovely Chronicle of Higher Education (that's not fair; it is a very good publication): Thomas H. Benton really loves books: "My Own Private Library: An assistant professor suspects that he is a scholar because he is a bibliophile rather than the other way around."

Whimsical New York Times columnist Clyde Haberman (really--Haberman appears to have been assigned the "whimsy" beat) interviews a national treasure; ie, the guy who designed the New York subway map. And New York Daily News guest columnist Clifton Hood, who wrote a book about building the subway, remembers the guys who did it.

Pants on fire

2004-10-26T06:16:00.000-07:00

Sen. Kerry's presidential campaign plummets (the FAA now calls pilot error "controlled flight into terrain"), and now he's being caught out on lie after lie after lie.

Two of the most recent: first, in today's Washington Times, Joel Mowbray reports that Kerry lied when he repeatedly claimed to have met with all the UN Security Council ambassadors during the heated 2002 debate over Iraq. It turns out that he met with four of the fifteen.

Second, and much more entertaining: Kerry has repeatedly claimed that during the sixth game of the 1986 World Series, at Shea Stadium in New York, he was sitting "30 yards away" when the ball skittered between Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner's legs and cost Boston the championship. That, too, was a lie: the self-described Football Fans for Truth did some digging and found that Kerry was at a political dinner in Boston that night. (Hat tip to Hugh Hewitt)

UPDATE: I posted this item yesterday; I had thought that the Buckner error occurred in the seventh game of that Series; it actually occurred in the sixth game. The Football Fans for Truth suggest that Kerry may have attended the seventh game, and confused that game for the sixth--but it still does not explain his clear recollection of the Buckner error that he never saw.

Today's OED antedating: "to hammer"

2004-10-25T08:53:00.000-07:00

To hammer, figurative, as here, to strike forcefully or to batter; also and ex literal (v., sec 2 (e), first use cited 1948): Headline of article: "Giants Hammer Young Pitcher," headline by anonymous, New York Times, July 24, 1910, p III-1, col 3.

Monday 10/25 links

2004-10-25T08:28:00.000-07:00

The Asia Times's superb pseudonymous columnist "Spengler" has deigned to post a new essay, titled "In praise of premature war." An extract: "Whether or not Saddam Hussein actually intended or had the capacity to build nuclear weapons is of trifling weight in the strategic balance. Everyone is planning to build nuclear weapons. They involve 60-year-old technology no longer difficult to replicate. It hardly matters where one begins. 'Kill the chicken, and let the monkey watch,' as the Chinese say. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, the theocrats of Iran, the North Koreans and soon many other incalculable reprobates have or will have such plans. It hardly matters which one you attack first, so long as you attack one of them."

Belmont Club blogger "Wretchard" supplies a superb piece about the "Arab way of war," Okinawa, and how we're winning in Iraq.

Well, this is disappointing. Last night the blogs were agog--yes, agog--speculating over the blockbuster anti-Kerry piece that Joel Mowbray was to splash this morning in the Washington Times. But alas, it's a ho-hum "gotcha" piece that no one's going to give a rat's about. Kerry didn't meet with the Security Council ambassadors before the Iraq vote as he has claimed; rather, he met with several individually. Big deal.

The brilliant Christopher Hitchens, once the most formidible voice of the left and now a valuable ally in the War on Terrorism, responds eloquently to still-leftist critics at The Nation: "An irony of history, in the positive sense, is when Republicans are willing to risk a dangerous confrontation with an untenable and indefensible status quo. I am proud of what little I have done to forward this revolutionary cause."

Appearing in National Review Online, Noemie Emery reports that the mainstream media are angry with Pres. Bush because he stubbornly refuses to apologize for things he didn't get wrong.

Columnist Andrew Rawnsley of the left-of-center London Observer argues that only one Labour member of parliament would vote for Pres. Bush--but that member is Tony Blair: "The mind of Mr Blair was summarised for me in vivid terms by someone who has an extremely good claim to know what is going on inside it: 'Tony thinks the world is a very dangerous and precarious place. Bush is the tough guy who keeps the bad guys under their rocks.'"

Weekly Standard essayist Joshua Muravchik contends that Sen. Kerry has continuously misrepresented his anti-war activities, and the mainstream media are complicit in promoting his very selective account.

National Review Online political columnist John J. Miller analyzes the Senate races state-by-state. His prediction: GOP +2.

Ruth Wisse notes how the faculty from our carefully "diverse" elite universities are participating in the political process: "Campus bloggers computed the percentages of Kerry contributions over Bush: Cornell 93%, Dartmouth 97%, Yale 93%, Brown 89%."

The Moslems support Kerry because it is in their interest to do so. New York Times columnist William Safire wonders why the Jews refuse to support Bush for the same reason.

World Tribune White House correspondent Trude B. Feldman conducts an superb and detailed interview of Pres. Bush. Subject: Israel and the Middle East.

Scoop

2004-10-24T16:36:00.001-07:00

The ancient (approaching ninety years old) London Daily Telegraph columnist W.F. (Bill) Deedes was the model for the inexperienced foreign correspondent who was the protagonist of Evelyn Waugh's classic comic novel Scoop, published a lifetime ago in 1937. Deedes still posts a weekly column, and in tomorrow's effort he defends young Prince Harry, who last week hauled off and popped an overly-intrusive photographer at a fashionable nightspot:

As a frequenter of nightclubs in the 1930s, let me take the stand for a moment. When he joins the Army and gets involved in serious business - such as being sent by a Labour prime minister to fight in Iraq - Prince Harry will find the hardest struggle in prolonged conflict is not being brave, but staying awake.

And this, I found, is where we nightclubbers had the edge over fresh-faced young men, not long out of school and fit as fleas, who, after a day and a night without sleep, found it hard to keep their eyes open.

Leaving a nightclub at dawn, taking a quick shower and then getting through a day's work in this office helped me to get fit for war. So lay off Prince Harry.

Today's OED antedating: "the big lie"

2004-10-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

(The) big lie, a blatant falsehood that gains credibility through repetition ("big," a., sec B (2) (a), first use cited 1946): Play titled There Shall Be No Night, by Robert E. Sherwood, 1940, scene 3: "KAARLO. ... I cannot help wondering just how you establish proof that these other races are inferior, especially when you know it is a lie./.../ZIEMSSEN. ... They are eager to accept the big lies we give them, because they cannot comprehend the big truth."

Sunday 10/24 links

2004-10-24T08:01:00.000-07:00

The Europeans are descending into barking dementia. Yesterday the London Guardian published a column by one Charlie Brooker; he advocates the assassination of Pres. Bush: "On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod’s law dictates he’ll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?"

You'll love this one: the hard numbers indicate that Pres. Bush is smarter than Sen. Kerry. What makes it even better is that John Tierney's revelation appears in The New York Times. (Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds/Instapundit)

Canny New York Daily News columnist Zev Chafets reports that the Democrats are concentrating on Pennsylvania and Ohio but may lose the election in Michigan.

US News & World Report columnist Michael Barone suggests that the conventional wisdom that undecided voters tend to go against the incumbent will be reversed this year.

This time appearing in the Chicago Sun-Times, columnist Mark Steyn is uncharacteristically serious: "There are legitimate differences of opinion about the war, but they don't include Kerry's silly debater's points."

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass wants to know why Sen. Kerry suddenly is talking like Jethro Bodine--you remember, the nephew who was the brains of the outfit on The Beverly Hillbillies?

US News & World Report columnist John Leo keeps it simple: Sen. Kerry is in trouble in part because many Americans simply don't trust the Democrats to defend them.

New York Post columnist and former army major Ralph Peters: "What Europeans fail to grasp — what they willfully refuse to face — is that the nature of terrorism has changed. ... The new terrorists are vastly more dangerous, more implacable and crueler than the old models. The political terrorists of the 1970s and '80s used bloodshed to gain their goals. Religious terrorists see mass murder as an end in itself, as a purifying act that cleanses the world of infidels."

Washington Post columnist George F. Will expects widespread and calculated voter fraud. Particularly from the Democrats. Power Line blogger "Hindrocket," aka John H. Hinderaker, elaborates.

Reuters correspondent Parisa Hafezi reports that Iran has flatly rejected another European plea that it stop working on nukes. No doubt the Europeans will task an elite cadre of clerks to draft an even more strongly-worded letter in response, because they mean business this time.

The Israeli ex-spook DEBKA website reports that Yasir Arafat is very ill with gallstones. Alas, it's almost certainly not fatal.

"What Would Patton Say About the Present War?" Victor Davis Hanson tells you.

Jerusalem Post guest columnist Colin Shindler explains the once-honorable London Guardian's (see above) role in the "Drip-drip delegitimization of Israel."

New York Times writer Timothy L. O'Brien warns that if you're not worried about identity theft, you should be.

Florida

2004-10-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

Are the Democrats nuts?

Yesterday there were several reports of open, even blatant physical intimidation of Bush supporters at early-voting sites around Florida. Power Line blogger "Hindrocket," aka John H. Hinderaker linked to a piece in the Palm Beach Sun-Sentinel in which voter after voter complained of grotesque violations of Florida voting laws.
What was the lead for this posting again? Oh, right--are the Democrats nuts? Don't they realize that these incidents will gain wide exposure? Don't they realize that vast numbers of undecided and even soft Kerry voters will be so incensed that it will trigger a surge pulling the Bush lever?

This is a toss-up state! Do they really think they will intimidate voters into voting for Kerry? Or is it intentional: are Florida Democrats trying to throw the election?

Probably not. What was that lead again? Oh, right--are the Democrats nuts?

Today's OED antedating: "custard pie"

2004-10-23T07:49:00.000-07:00

Custard pie, gooey allusive symbol of slapstick comedy, for which it is a celebrated prop ("custard," sec 2 (b), first use cited 1933): Essay titled "The Ostermoor School of Drama," by Heywood Broun, Vanity Fair, June 1919, p 53, col 1: "The bed seems to be, to the farce of the moment, what the custard pie was to the early moving pictures—the entire plot."

Saturday 10/23 links

2004-10-23T07:43:00.000-07:00

Weekly Standard publisher William Kristol characterizes next week's vote as "the 9/11 Election": "September 11 is not simply about 'the bad guys,' about the attacks on America. September 11 is also about our response."

Columnist Mark Alexander concludes that the reason Sen. Kerry refuses to release his military records is that he was not granted an honorable discharge.

Former London Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore poses the question: "So who gains if Bush loses? The Labour Left, of course, and the political power of the European Union, the Guardian readers who have been writing magnificently counterproductive anti-Bush letters to the voters of Clark County, Ohio, and every twerp who says with a trembling lip that Mr Bush and Mr Blair have 'blood on their hands'" and "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ... . Such men believe they have already changed the government in Spain; they will claim at once that they have done the same in the United States. They will be right."

Blogger Arthur Chrenkoff distills the essence of the Europe's preference for Sen. Kerry: "The Europeans are like teenage children of a divorce, who prefer to spend time with their Democrat mother rather than a strict Republican dad, not because they like the mother more (dude, parents they like, suck, or what?) but because she won't force them to take out the trash and clean the dishes. No wonder the father is increasingly thinking that his 59 year old teenager should finally move out of home and start supporting himself."

Belmont Club blogger "Wretchard" analyzes a recent BBC documentary that claims that Al Qaeda does not exist. Really. London Daily Mail columnist and blogger Melanie Phillips is appalled: "The British are lapping it all up and believing it. Wicked stuff."

Does Ariel Sharon have popular support to withdraw from Gaza? Tel Aviv Ha'aretz columnist Yoel Marcus observes that Sharon won two of the most lopsided elections in Israeli history and concludes: "You bet he's got a mandate."

Blogger Beldar, aka William J. Dyer, exposes the truth! about John Kerry. Did you know that in Vietnam Kerry "regularly engaged in piscatory activities with several of his crewmen — at the same time?" Or that at Boston College Law School, he "openly matriculated with each and every one of the young women students who began classes there at the same time he did?" I thought not. While we're on the subject, you really should read the classic piece from the December 1970 issue of Mad Magazine and posted in 2001 by Bill Garvin.

ScrappleFace satirical blogger Scott Ott takes aim at those forward thinkers who run what is euphemistically called "organized labor," which tends to be neither: "America's labor union leaders are mounting perhaps the largest grassroots effort in history to elect John Forbes Kerry, using all of the latest technology including telegraph, trains, stage coaches and handbills."

New York Times guest columnist and subway aficionado Joe McKendry notes that the New York subway system turns 100 years old on Wednesday. You can keep Disneyland--for my money the New York subway is the Magic Kingdom.

Anonymous email

2004-10-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

This anonymous email has circulated recently; it starts with some interesting and likely accurate information, but the kicker carries that distinctive stench of hoax or urban legend. Who knows whether there is any truth to it or not? Well, someone knows--just not me. Thanks to HN for supplying it ...

How the flu vaccine works: Influenza vaccine is produced by growing the virus in eggs. The virus is killed and processed to create the vaccine, which is given by injection under the skin. The body then produces antibodies to the virus over the next two to four weeks. If the immunized person then comes into contact with the influenza virus, the antibodies attack and kill the virus before it has a chance to cause infection. The vaccine contains the 3 most likely strains to be active during the "flu season."

Why the shortage: Almost half of the nation's flu vaccine will not be delivered this year. Chiron, a major manufacturer of flu vaccine, will not be distributing any influenza vaccine this flu season. Chiron was to make 46-48 million doses vaccine for the United States. Chiron is a British company. Recently British health officials stopped Chiron from distributing and making the vaccine when inspectors found unsanitary conditions in the labs. Some lots of the vaccine were recalled and destroyed.

Why is our vaccine made in the UK and not the US? The major pharmaceutical companies in the US provided almost 90% of the nation’s flu vaccine at one time. They did this despite a very low profit margin for the product. Basically, they were doing us a favor. In the late 80's a man from North Carolina who had received the vaccine got the flu. The strain he caught was one of the strains in that years vaccine made by a US company. What did he do? He sued and he won. He was awarded almost $5 million! After that case was appealed and lost, most US pharmaceutical companies stopped making the vaccine. The liability out weighed the profit margin. Since UK and Canadian laws prohibit such frivolous law suits UK and Canadiancompanies began selling the vaccine in the US.

By the way... the lawyer who represented the man in the flu shot law suit was a young ambulance chaser by the name of John Edwards.

Today's OED antedating: "tax-and-spend"

2004-10-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

Tax-and-spend, redistributive political philosophy, also adjective (no entry): Article titled "Revolt of Electorate Ends One-Party Rule," by Arthur Krock, New York Times, November 13, 1938, p IV-3, col 2: "It is this group which generated the arrogant and cynical confidence of which Administrator Harry L. Hopkins became the spokesman to a group at the Yonkers (not Saratoga) race track: 'We will spend and spend, tax and tax, elect and elect.'"

Friday 10/22 links

2004-10-22T08:57:00.000-07:00

If you ask classicist/essayist Victor Davis Hanson, John Kerry's worst problem is this: people don't like him. So much for the popular vote. VDH's best line--and it is splendid: "Putin wants Bush, while Arafat prefers Kerry — and that is all we need to know."

So far, so good. Captain's Quarters blogger "Captain Ed" Morrissey reads the poll numbers, and they are good for Pres. Bush.

Syndicated columnist David Limbaugh observes: "Here we are less than two weeks from the election and John Kerry is still playing 'hide the ball.'"

Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer thinks there is only one way that a Pres. Kerry could ever accumulate that so-called "international"--ie, Western European--support that he always talks about: "Sacrificing Israel."

And New York Daily News columnist Sidney Zion: "Kerry promises a return to Bill Clinton's policy of engagement. Which simply means pressuring Israel, in line with the editorial policy of The New York Times."

If you ask New York Post columnist John Podhoretz, he'll tell you that this sure is an exciting campaign. And those bloggers, well ...

Well, this puts it in stark perspective: Reuters correspondent Matt Spetalnick finds that the Israelis support Pres. Bush; the Palestinians, Sen. Kerry. Exhibit A: "Gaza shopkeeper Abu Gomaa hopes instead to see Bush's re-election bid go down in flames on Nov. 2. 'I want to laugh ... at his humiliation,' he says. ... 'Israel loves the president because he holds the umbrella that protects it from its enemies,' wrote Shmuel Rosner, a columnist for the Haaretz newspaper."

United Press International Roland Flamini reports that Bill Clinton wants to be UN secretary general. (Hat tip to Matt Drudge)

Syndicated columnist Emmett Tyrrell: "The Democratic opponent slipping behind in the polls today is neither a George McGovern from 1972 nor a John F. Kennedy fighting the Cold War. He is at one with the Draft Dodger of 1992, though without the charm."

Satirical blogger Iowahawk David Burge supplies "clarifications" from the Kerry-Edwards wives; from Elizabeth Edwards: "Mrs. Edwards added that 'as Democrats, we believe that gay citizens should be welcomed freely in society, whether they are teachers, artist, or a bulldyke softball leather fetishist like Dick Cheney's daughter.'"

Wall Street Journal online columnist James Taranto provides a reader's version of Kerry's French-styled alert system.

The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto offers this analysis: "The Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees last night in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. The Sox will face either the Houston Astros or the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. But the Yankees, who won the first three games in the series before going to lose four straight, had more runs in the series (45-41), which means the Sox may have a pennant, but they lack a mandate."

The lefty London Guardian editorial about "America's curse"--Bosox, not Bush--starts well, builds momentum, and then runs off a cliff. What a surprise.

Jerusalem Post writer Margot Dudkevitch reports that the Israelis clipped a big one: Hamas's #2 and chief bomb engineer.

And Los Angeles Times correspondent Laura King supplies a surprisingly good piece about Israel's contingency plans to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities.

The World Tribune reports that Israel has experimented with several revolutionary new weapons systems--against the Palestinians.

Why do they hate us? Washington Times guest columnist Daniel Mandel shares some thoughts on the subject.

New York Times computer columnist David Pogue waxes rhapsodic--yes, rhapsodic--about Google's new search too. It does Windows.

The West Wing

2004-10-21T19:15:00.000-07:00

Last night the former hit NBC drama The West Wing opened its fifth and likely final season. To be mercifully brief, in yesterday's episode the earnestly liberal president Jed Bartlet, played by the earnest lefty Martin Sheen, responded to a Gaza bombing that killed US congressmen and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by dragging the Israelis and the Palestinians to Camp David for a summit to work out their "impasse."

As though the Mideast tragedy is the result of a lack of communication, and that it could be solved by a good-hearted if hard-headed mediator. But it reveals the visceral worldview of the Hollywood left.

Last month, on September 15, I posted this item:

Non-mis-communication
Those who accept the assumptions of the political/social left tend to presume that they live in a world mired in noncommunication, and they think--no, they feel--that it is the underlying cause of almost every problem, whether interpersonal, or social, or economic, or political, or etc. This misapprehension is fundamental and profound; it infects almost everything that they think, that they say, and that they do.

In fact, there is very little non- or miscommunication. Most disputes occur when clearly-articulated, tangible interests collide. Opposing sides understand each other perfectly, but their interests conflict and they govern their actions accordingly. Soon-to-be-ex-spouses; Hatfields and McCoys; Democrats and Republicans; unions and management; Arabs and Israelis; Islamists and Western Civilization; the US and Old Europe--in each instance both sides know precisely where the other stands. They understand each other. Communication can be flawless even when it is hostile.

--

The observation stands.

How the Red Sox came to be called the Red Sox

2004-10-21T17:17:00.000-07:00

Blogger Ann Althouse: "I enjoyed waking up listening to 'Morning Edition' covering Bostonians in a bar watching the Red Sox win the final playoff game. ... I loved all the great curse-is-lifted lines that flowed out of the fans, like 'God changed his jersey.'"

That said, the Boston Red Sox only came to be called the Red Sox because the club's owner, John I. Taylor, could not resist a cheap publicity stunt.

Boston's National League club, then called the "Nationals," traditionally wore red stockings. But Fred Tenney, the Nationals' manager, believed that the red dye caused lower leg injuries—i.e., spikings—to become infected, and in early 1907 he announced that the club would henceforth wear white stockings.

Peter F. Kenney, the Boston Journal's baseball writer, was a traditionalist. He was outraged by Tenney's decision--and he aired his outrage in great detail in his newspaper column.

At that time the Americans (or the "Pilgrims" or the "Puritans"--no particular nickname had yet been established) wore blue trim, but the very next day owner Taylor told Kenney: "Here's a scoop for you. I am going to grab the name Red Sox, and the Boston American League club will wear red stockings."

Or so the story goes.

Today's OED antedating: "prima donna"

2004-10-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

Prima donna, figurative, colloquial, self-centered brat, ex trait stereotypically attached to operatic star (sec 2, first use cited 1936): Book titled More Fables, by George Ade, 1900, p 175: "When she was at Home she would suck Lemons and complain about Draughts and tell why she didn't like the Other Girls' Voices. She began to act like a Prima Donna, and her Mother was encouraged a Lot."

Thursday 10/21 links

2004-10-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

Appearing in The Daily Standard, radio host/blogger Hugh Hewitt watches in amused awe as "Teresa Heinz Kerry pulls off the rare and amusing triple gaffe."

From Helen Dewar's and Thomas E. Ricks's piece in Wednesday's Washington Post is getting a lot of attention, and likely will receive more: "In 1994, discussing the possibility of U.S. troops being killed in Bosnia, [Kerry] said, 'If you mean dying in the course of the United Nations effort, yes, it is worth that. If you mean dying American troops unilaterally going in with some false presumption that we can affect the outcome, the answer is unequivocally no.'" Belmont Club blogger "Wretchard": The "article which may have been intended as hagiographic but whose effect will probably vary with the eye of the beholder."

US News & World Report political columnist Michael Barone explains "What the Polls Are Telling Us."

It needed to be said, and National Review Online guest columnist Anne Bayefsky says it--Pres. Bush deserves the Jewish vote: "So the question for American Jews deciding whether to vote for a Republican president, in Hillel's words, is, 'If not now when?' If the answer for most American Jews is never, then make no mistake about it: No Democratic president will ever feel that protecting the state of Israel is necessary to win Jewish votes — and no future Republican president will ever take the heat as President Bush has done." Damn right.

The Associated Press reports that if on Election Night the count appears to be close, John Kerry intends to declare victory and name a national security team before a winner is declared.

Syndicated columnist Thomas Sowell warns that Kerry-Edwards "talk a great game. And they have 'plans.' What they also have is utter irresponsibility."

Chicago Sun-Times political columnist Robert Novak predicts that Kerry will lose Catholic votes by imposing a pro-choice litmus test on prospective judges.

Slate's Chris Suellentrop asks a Big Question: "Kerry vs. His Script: Why can't the man read a simple speech?" (Hat tip to MK)

Syndicated columnist Ann Coulter reveals that "the Democrats are pretty sure the real reason we went to Iraq was one of the following: Bush family's connections to the Saudis, Halliburton, the Carlyle Group, something about the Texas Rangers needing more left-handed pitching, the neoconservatives, the Straussians, oil, the Jews, oily Jews."

Writing in the Washington Times, Munich historian Heinrich Maetzke argues that "if my Michael Moore-obsessed fellow German countrymen were honest, they would admit that what really frightens them is this dangerous new century we have just entered and the scary glimpses we have had of it so far." His solution: "An end to nonsense."

A New York Daily News editorial blasts Columbia University, where hard left elements have taken control and designated the Jews to be their scapegoats (all in the guise of "anti-Zionism," of course).

Satirical blogger "ScrappleFace" Scott Ott supplies his latest scoop: "If George Bush is reelected to a second term, he will not only reinstitute the military draft, but newly-released internet rumors indicate he'll make it illegal for women and Blacks to vote, ban hip-hop and rap music and reinstitute Prohibition."

David Usborne of the rabidly anti-American London Independent visited Minnesota, a state that has voted Democratic in every election since 1972, and spoke with Professor Lawrence Jacobs, a political scientist, who said: "It's certainly going to be a real challenge for [Kerry] to pull it off in Minnesota. But I tell you this: if he doesn't win here, he won't win the White House."

London Daily Telegraph Middle East correpondent Anton La Guardia is not viscerally and violently anti-Israel, which is refreshing, and he offers some interesting stuff under the deceptively silly headline "Is Arafat big enough to stop being a roadblock to peace?"

Trendoid New York blog The Black Table actually supplies some interesting and useful stuff today: Heather Maidat describes just how difficult it is to keep personal financial information secret.

Uh, oh. Satirical blogger Iowahawk David Burge reports: "Curse Continues as NY State Supremes Overturn Red Sox v. Yankees."

Dear Voter ...

2004-10-20T19:17:00.000-07:00

The Samizdata blog just posted an updated version of parody which has bounced around the Internet for nearly a year. No matter--it's very funny and worth another read:

Dear Voter,

I am an elderly man. Under the Clinton administration I had an excellent well-paid job. I took many vacations and had several holiday homes. Since President Bush took office my life has completely changed, and in every respect for the worse.

I lost my job.

I lost both my sons in the terrible Iraqi war. I lost my homes. I lost my medical insurance. In fact, I lost practically all of my possessions and found myself homeless.

Adding insult to injury, when the authorities found me living in bestial conditions, far from helping me, they arrested me.

I shall do whatever Senator Kerry wishes to ensure that a Democrat is returned to the White House next year. Bush must go!

There. I thought that all Americans would like to know what a man of my years thinks of the Bush administration.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

Best wishes,

Saddam Hussein

A little concerned

2004-10-20T09:15:00.000-07:00

Peter Jennings, Monday: "I'm a little concerned about this notion everybody wants us to be objective ... And when we don't think we can be fully objective, to be fair." (Hat tip to Matt Drudge.)

Today's OED antedating: "to put one’s ear to the ground"

2004-10-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

To put one’s ear to the ground, slang, to make oneself well-informed ("ear," n.1, sec 1 (c), first use cited 1920): Book titled Ade’s Fables, by George Ade, 1914, p 185: "Sylvester, after looking at the Signs in the Sky and putting his Ear to the Ground, discovered that he was thoroughly impregnated with the new Progressive Doctrines."

Wednesday 10/20 links

2004-10-20T08:56:00.000-07:00

Washington Times columnist Tony Blankley has fun with "Election Madness": "Media bias has turned into media caricature. CNN anchorettes call an eight-point Bush lead in the polls a 'statistical dead heat,' pointing out the ominous internal data for Bush that he is only breaking even with the suburban crackhead and pimp demographics (which Wendel Wilkie carried by more than 2-1 in 1940), while losing the Anyone But Bush demographic by an astounding 7-1."

Two nights ago Letterman produced a parody of a Kerry commercial: leaves suddenly were changing colors and falling from the trees--by the millions! And Pres. Bush did nothing! A Pres. Kerry would take action because He Loves the Planet. New York Times columnist William Safire doubts that the Kerry fearmongering campaign will work.

Washington Times political analyst Bill Sammon reports that "Pessimistic Kerry supporters predict Bush will be the victor"--and that it may cause many of them not to bother to vote.

Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page is not pleased: "This week I found myself blinking my eyes in disbelief over two major polls that showed a big bump for Bush among likely black voters."

Weekly Standard publisher William Kristol asks one of those rhetorical questions: "Why is John Kerry no Clinton-Lieberman Democrat? Easy. His obeisance to the U.N."

Harvard law professor William J. Stuntz supplies a very interesting discussion of "Terrorism and the Mob"; his point: "The real problem with Kerry's comments [is that] Kerry thinks America's seventy-year-long battle against the Mafia was a success story. He is wrong. Tolerating Mob bosses (which is what we did for most of ... seventy years) was very costly. Tolerating terrorism -- or leaving it to police and prosecutors, which amounts to the same thing -- would be a disaster."

Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Daniel Pipes predicts that the GOP may pick up Bob Graham's Florida Senate seat. Message: "Coddling a terrorist costs votes."

Gee, what a surprise. Remember the lefty London Guardian's stunt last week, asking readers to contact voters in a swing Ohio county to teach them how sophisticated and decent people vote? Well, our Buckeyes apparently took umbrage--yes, umbrage. Sarah Lyall reports in The New York Times.

Right Wing News supplies a killer list: "Why John Kerry Shouldn't Be President -- In Quotes."

ScrappleFace blogger Scott Ott takes a light and gentle axe to the notoriously unreliable Zogby Poll. The headline: "Zogby Poll to Decide Yankees-Red Sox Series." The kicker: "The Zogby poll margin of error is plus or minus four games." In a seven-game series, it is mathematically impossible to be off by more than four games.

Online satirical weekly The Onion breaks an exclusive: "Kerry: Stem-Cell Research May Hold Cure To Ailing Campaign." And a news brief: "Tibetan Teen Getting Into Western Philosophy."

Syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg explains "Why we must defend the Electoral College." I don't know ... Electoral College probably could beat Ohio State this year.

The Christian Science Monitor's Clayton Collins reacts to the dizzying changes in retailing: it's a 24/7 impulse-purchase world out there now.

Blunders & labels

2004-10-19T18:12:00.000-07:00

In politics ...

A "blunder" is conduct that a politician cannot defend, ignore, or endure without cost. Such as Sen. Kerry's reference to Mary Cheney.

A "label" is attached to something unpopular that a politician cannot deny, defend or abandon. Such as Sen. Kerry's flip-flopping on issues that the structural conflicts within his party force him to straddle.

Today's OED antedating: "loud mouth"

2004-10-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

Loud mouth, slang, pejorative, blusterer ("loud," a., sec 6, first use cited 1934): Book titled X Marks the Spot: Chicago Gang Wars in Pictures, by anonymous, 1930, p 40, col 1: "Capone had left the management of his empire largely in the hands of ... Harry 'Greasy Thumb' Gusick, convicted pander who had charge of a choice killing squad. Harry was ably assisted by Hymie 'Loud Mouth' Levine."

Tuesday 10/19 links

2004-10-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein reports that Yasir Arafat has endorsed Sen. Kerry. That should really help with the Florida Jewish vote.

Lots of good stuff in today's New York Post: First, political columnist Dick Morris explains why "The L-Word Sticks." Second, columnist John Podhoretz complains that "Down 'N Dirty" "John Kerry hasn't given people much reason to vote for him. He's betting his political future that 50.1 percent of the American people will cast a negative vote against George W. Bush." Third, guest columnist David Winston claims that the so-called "security moms" demographic is real, and it supports Pres. Bush.

New York Times columnist David Brooks thinks Kerry is imploding: "At this point, smart candidates are launching attacks that play up the doubts voters already have about their opponents. Incredibly, Kerry is launching attacks that play up doubts voters have about him. Over the past few days, he has underscored the feeling that he will say or do anything to further his career."

Syndicated columnist Dennis Prager explains "Why I cannot vote for John Kerry."

Tying all the demented Democratic conspiracy theories into one neat if disturbing package, blog satirist ScrappleFace, aka Scott Ott, reports "Bush Secret Plan to Draft Elderly Revealed."

Blogger Beldar, aka William J. Dyer, asks "his non-moonbat Democratic friends" a heartfelt question: "Can John Kerry do what LBJ couldn't?" More specifically, the Democratic party is in a poisonous mire; we're in a war against fanatical enemies who quite literally want to destroy us--can any Democrat muster enough support within his own party to fight that war?

National Review Online columnist Jonah Goldberg thinks that much of the comment re Kerry's "lesbian" remark misses the point--the issue is "what Kerry's comments about Mary Cheney say about him. ... What Kerry did was creepy. Think of it this way: If Kerry had said that Dick Cheney's daughter is a 'deviant,' Andrew Sullivan would be furious at Kerry and he wouldn't care one whit if Dick and Lynne Cheney were upset with Kerry. Because it is Kerry's actions that are at issue, not the Cheneys' reactions."

Chicago Sun-Times columnist John O'Sullivan worries as the Democrats mobilize 10,000 lawyers to defend organized and massive voter fraud.

Columnist Matt Towery senses that Pres. Bush is inching ahead in "The homestretch." I sense the opposite, and it scares me.

Lawrence Henry observes that Sen. Kerry hurls false and unsubstantiated charges to which Pres. Bush cannot respond because it will damage our foreign policy. Alas, there are "Things a President Can't Say."

It's very hard to be a Jewish European lefty these days: you want to brandish your bona-fides--but to the rest you'll never be anything more than a Jew. So kinda-former lefty and London Guardian columnist David Aaronovitch tries something new: logic. That is: how do the same people who rip Bush & Blair for not foreseeing 9/11 simultaneously ridicule any possible future threat?

"Why Iraq first and not Iran?" Victor Davis Hanson explains.

"Al Qaeda" in Arabic means "The Base." Influential military writer James Dunnigan considers the implications of "Al Qaeda Without Al Qaeda."

The lefty London Guardian got hold of an Ohio swing county's voter list and wants its readers to supply them with reasons not to vote for Pres. Bush. Writing in the London Daily Telegraph, Mark Steyn is ecstatic: "This is excellent news for the President, who in recent days had been looking a little wobbly in Ohio. But there's nothing like a barrage of mail from condescending Guardian readers to send the locals stampeding into the Bush camp."

Today's OED antedating: "to second-guess"

2004-10-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

To second-guess, to judge or to criticize in hindsight (v., sec 2, first use cited 1946): Untitled item by Franklin P. Adams, New York Tribune, October 6, 1915, p 9, col 1: "Of course, there is always that 'second guess' coming from those who pick after the game is lost or won."