Nader's nadir (bad pun alert)

Bill Clinton's post-Presidential public actions may have some use after all. When asked January 3rd by NBC's Dave Gregory for a response to allegations that the United States has been "stingy and slow to respond" to the Christmas Day tsunami disaster, Clinton unequivocably dismissed such talk:

"No. I don't think its fair...But I don't even think we should waste time talking about that. America's got a good record and the President is doing a good job."

I'm not a huge fan of Clinton, but this was a pretty classy gesture. Clinton may have found his post-presidential niche here: telling liberals to knock it off when their judgement goes seriously awry. The Democrats should have him ready the next time Al Gore dusts off his Nazi "digital brownshirt" references for the MoveOn.org crowd and Howard Dean even gets the least bit excited at a rally.

Ralph Nader doesn't seem to get it, being one the aforementioned liberals (along with their friends at the New York Times) who are using the tsunami catastrophe as a pretext for scoring cheap political shots at the expense of the Bush Administration. Nader, for those of you who don't know, was last seen debating crude puppet likenesses of George W. Bush and John Kerry in a last-ditch effort to raise money for his campaign. He received 340,000 votes for his troubles.

Nader's tirade, available at CommonDreams.org, goes from tacky to comical in this this passage:

The first populated areas were flooded within an hour, yet for hours there were no alarms sounded either by radio, television, internet, or any other telecommunications technologies for the soon-to-be inundated areas. Australian embassies were warned by their country but diplomatic protocols and other bureaucratic reasons stalled the news inside those stately edifices.

Keep in mind who is writing these words. Ralph Nader, the arch-socialist, the man who believes there is no problem that a host of government programs can't solve, all of a sudden has a problem with bureaucrats! Well, that's priceless. Maybe he should read his book Crashing The Party and get to know the real Ralph Nader. It's actually a well-written book, but the passages that stick with me do so for the wrong reasons. Passages like this one, in which Ralph's faith in government largesse shines through:

If the Democratic Party's alive, then why doesn't it insist that the budget surplus be spent on health care for the 44 million Americans without it? And child care for the millions who lack it? And good schools for all kids? Why doesn't the party say it's plain absurd to spend $300 million on the military when the Cold War is over?

That last sentence undermines my point a little bit, but Ralph compensates by understimating the value of having a well-funded military ready to go just in case something unanticipated and 9/11-y pops up. You know, something that individuals or the private sector by themselves cannot manage.

(Self-disclosure parenthetical aside: I voted for Ralph in 1996 and 2000. And no, I didn't consider myself a conservative back then, although Ralph actually does have an odd conservative streak to him that manifests itself in complaints about the vulgarity of popular entertainment and the overcommercialization of childhood. We were a match made in heaven: I thought Democrats were spineless and too eager to flock to the center to get swing voters, and so did Ralph. I bought into the usual "progressive" tropes: feminism, socialism, "a woman's right to choose", all that jazz. But 9/11 happened, and Ralph, along with most liberals, decided to stop crossing off days on the calendar and instead root himself firmly to 9/10. So I left him there, along with the other liberals who seemed more obsessed with opposing other people's plans than coming up with plans of their own, and set sail for Conservative Island, with all its George F. Will-esque, Ann Coultery, Andrew Sullivanistic, and Mark Steyn-tastic charms. I still like reading him, though, if only for the Dem-bashing that, in part, attracted me to his candidacies in the first place. And I think he really pulled one over on the Democrats by goading them into taking their eyes off the road long enough to crash and burn in not one, but two consecutive Presidential elections. So he's not all bad, but he's still very much off his rocker.)

Of course, you don't actually have be a Green think that the appropriate response to a huge natural disaster that's responsible for 100,000+ deaths is to bash President Bush. You could simply be one of my Democratic (or Dem-voting) relatives. But the only thing that attitude is going is accomplish is to give Republicans a big head start on sorting out the finer points of the Guiliani/McCain/Hagel/Frist presidency.

My kin might still be in trouble, though, as they apparently can't bring themselves to call themselves "liberals", even though the party they are formally or informally affiliated with subscribes to a platform that is animated by liberal ideology. It reminds me of my Green Party-voting days when I eschewed the liberal label in favor of calling myself a "progressive." Which, I think, was a mistake. Nobody buys "progressive rock" records or The Progressive magazine, so what made us think that people would flock to "progressive politics"? We should have called ourselves the real liberals and taken that label back. I have no idea how prevalent this sheepishness about the liberal label is amongst Democrats and Dem-voters, but if it has the foothold nationwide that it does with my relatives, the Dems are royally screwed. The United States is not tepid enough to be a nation of "moderates". Especially when you consider this defintion of "moderate" from Dictionary.com:

Of medium or average quantity or extent.
Of limited or average quality; mediocre.

Yeah, THAT really sums up America.

Nader does have a leg up on my relatives in one respect. He understands that there is a political war of sorts going on and one must choose sides. If my relatives understand this, they're not letting on: I spent about ten minutes trying to explain to one of them that she and other Kerry supporters together constituted a "side" (i.e. a team, an ad hoc coalition.) I never quite figured out where she was coming from in her denials: does she believe that Kerry drew supporters equally from all parts of the political spectrum and therefore his supporters cannot be ideologically grouped together in any meaningful way? Or does she consider her views on various political issues to be grounded in common sense, which in an ideal world, ought not be considered political? Maybe she thinks that mixing a little Arlen Specter in with her otherwise overwhelmingly Democratic Presidential and Senate votes actually puts her above mere partisanship? Beats the hell out of me, but I just thought it would be interesting to note.

To me, it seems self-evident that there are sides in politics: otherwise, why would election officials even bother to break down vote totals by candidate? Why not just tally up the total turnout and be done with it? If sides don't exist, why register with a political party, or even have them in the first place? And so on, and so forth, down this nihilistic path, the rough equivalent of John Lennon's "Imagine". ("Imagine there's no heaven...imagine there's no countries...imagine there's no possessions...")

Speaking of John Lennon, the one great thing about January is that it marks the beginning of ten straight months without his awful "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" on the radio. Dippy lyrics, an off-key children's choir, and shrill-sounding background vocals by Yoko Ono make this not only the worst Christmas song ever, but the worst song in the history of mankind, just edging out Dan Hill's ode to self-emasculation, "Sometimes When We Touch". (There are other worthy candidates, like Dr. Hook's "Sharing The Night Together" and England Dan & John Ford Coley's "I'd Really Like To See You Tonight", lending credence to my theory that the entire male population went on a decade-long sabbatical from their genitals in the 1970s.)

Anyway, I bring the song up because of its opening line: "And so this is Christmas, and what have you done?", which is a pertinent question in the wake of the tsunami. Economist Daniel Drezner's answer is a qualified no, National Review diarist David Frum's is an emphatic no, while The New Republic's Andrew Sullivan is more preoccupied with the details of recently deceased polemicist Susan Sontag's sex life. (Way to keep things in perspective, Andrew.)

And that will do it for political posts, at least for a good long while, as I try not to become one of those dreadful partisans like Joe Conason who doesn't seem to have any sort of life outside politics. Say what you will about George Will and Mark Steyn, but at least they've hopped off the political treadmill at times and authored books on baseball and Broadway, respectively. And then there's the National Post's Colby Cosh (hockey), National Review's Jay Nordlinger (classical music), and Hugh Hewitt (blogs). Stay tuned for a trip down temp-job memory lane, circa 2003 and 2004, and somewhat saltier language.

-Dave O'Connell

Bush v. Kerry (Cliff Notes version)

The title explains it all, I think, so let's get started...

Bush: liberation of Afghanistan, liberation of Iraq, Libya off the table as a threat because Qaddafi didn't want to "mess with Texas", successful Afghan elections (no voters killed while polling, clear winner in the end), and for all its problems, 14 or 15 of 18 Iraq provinces ready for election, no refugee crisis, no "rising of Arab street", and Iraq is off the table for now as a threat, a threat that would have grown had we left Hussein to acquire nuclear material for him to either use or lose to terrorists upon civil war following abdication of leadership/attempted transfer of power to sons, which in turn would have necessitated U.S. military action to clean up mess, only this time in much more averse conditions...and oh yes, no terrorist attacks on U.S. since 9/11.

Kerry: Wants more multilateral conduct and U.N. involvement in U.S. military affairs, although Bush coalition had 30 plus members, praises elder Bush as model coalition-builder, yet voted against that war even though U.N. was involved and coalition only had 30-plus members, disses current coalition members by referring to current Iraqi actions as "unilateral" ("uni" means "one", not "thirty-odd"), proposes "global test" that gives the "global community" a de facto veto of U.S. military policy since they are beholden to pacifist organizations like the U.N. that have such trouble distinguishing between democracies and dictatorships that they appoint Syria to the Human Rights Commission, wants to give nuclear fuel to Iran because they might use it for "peaceful purposes", even though theocratic dictatorships are not exactly known for their warm, fuzzy sides, admits in New York Times that he wants to get terrorism back to the point where it's a nuisance, forgetting that it only seemed a nuisance because 9/11 hadn't happened and not realizing that to ever again regard it as a nuisance would serve only to take our eye of the ball long enough for another 9/11 to happen.

Domestic issues: Candidates cancel each other out, Bush isn't serious about cutting government spending, Kerry doesn't talk about cutting spending, only increasing spending through health care plan. Kerry has advantage on stem cell position, but Edwards squanders it with ridiculous messiah posturing (people are going to get out of their wheelchairs and walk when Kerry is President?), Bush was the first to federally fund stem cell research, and there's nothing preventing private companies/individuals from funding/performing research, but are stem cells life? Bush has correct position on Canadian import drugs, but for wrong reason (Canadian drugs are cheap because the Canadian government artificially controls price, most Canadian drugs come from U.S., therefore you can't import Canadian drugs without ruining the U.S. market for U.S. drug companies...but banning Canadian drugs because they might be unsafe, no, seems unlikely). Both are right on abortion, Kerry seems a bit tortured on that point.

The parties themselves: Republican: the party of Guiliani, McCain, Reagan, Bush Sr., Platts, Spectre, all of whom I greatly respect. Democrat: the party of Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Carter blase/passe/passive/pacifist and appeaser, respectively.

Advantage: Bush.

-Dave O'Connell

Stolen humor

First, there was Swift Boat Vets For The Truth, then there was Texans for the Truth, and now we have a new veterans group weighing in on the Bush/Kerry tussle: Family Ties Veterans For The Truth.

They've yet to incorporate under that name, of course, but in the last week I've seen three soldiers who served our country well in NBC's Must See TV Battalion go to bat for John Kerry. First, there was Michael J. Fox, lending his support by taking on the thankless task of having to sit next to Teresa Heinz-Kerry throughout the third debate. And then yesterday, I caught a few minutes of a Democratic 'get-out-the-vote' effort featuring a joint speech by Fox's TV parents, Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter-Birney.

Still no word, however, on who Tina Yothers (Jennifer Keaton), Brian Bonsall (Andrew Keaton), and Justine Bateman (Mallory Keaton) are endorsing. Or for that matter, "Nick", Mallory's doofus boyfriend on the show. (You might also remember him from his spin-off show, The Art of Being Nick. But obviously, you mustn't.)

Mind you, the stars of Family Ties are not the only sitcom actors or comedians to jettison their sense of fun in order to become shrill, humorless Kerry supporters. There's Janeane Garofolo, Howard Stern, and Jon Stewart, among countless others.

Which is why I propose the formation of an advocacy group to combat these killjoys. Some of you might be aware of Stolen Honor, the pro-Bush group of Vietnam POWs whose documentary of the same name has been the subject of much controversy. Well, now it's time for a sequel: Stolen Humor, with membership open to long-suffering comedy fans who have seen their favorite funnymen trade in their comedic talents for half-baked leftist rhetoric.

This organization will use its resources to reunite Ms. Garofalo with her fellow castmates from The Ben Stiller Show and get her to embark on a rigorous 12-step program of sketch comedy writing to take place in complete isolation from all influential liberal media outlets…and Air America.

Jon Stewart will also be held in isolation, the better to keep him from appearing on non-comedic political talk shows and getting it in his head that he’s actually a serious, respected political pundit.

As for Howard Stern, it would be unreasonable to ask him to refrain from the political talk without providing him with something to fill that dead air. So, in exchange for complete silence on political matters, Howard Stern will receive an unlimited supply of lesbians. Lesbians of all sizes, shapes, and ethnic backgrounds, including Howard’s favorite type of lesbians: midget lesbians.

So give, won’t you, to Stolen Humor? Remember, a sense of humor is a terrible thing to waste. (Unless it’s Carrot Top’s “sense of humor”, in which case, waste away.)

The 'Why' Factor

One Hugh Hewitt symposium ends, another begins. To all of Hugh's readers, welcome and thanks for stopping by! If you have a spare moment, please leave a link back to your blog in the "comments" section, so I can zero in on your take on today's question, which is:

Why vote for Bush, and what's wrong with Kerry? (250 words or less)

With Kerry, you just need to take the man at his own estimation. If you go back through the transcripts of his convention speech and the three debates, you'll notice he's fond of favorably referencing Republicans. From Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan to Nancy Reagan to Dwight Eisenhower to John McCain to yes, even George H. W. Bush!

True, Democrats like FDR and JFK pop up frequently, as does an actual living one, Bill Clinton. Harry Truman gets namechecked too. But what does it say about Kerry that he feels the need to appropriate the other party’s talent?

What it tells me, and what it should tell voters, is that the grass is greener on the Republican side, and has been since the Republican Party’s inception. So with a 140-year legacy that even Kerry acknowledges the existence of, why switch to the guy who admits his party’s only living asset is Bill Clinton?

As for Bush, let me direct you to a book entitled Presidential Leadership: Rating The Best And The Worst In The White House. Specifically, the chapter on Abraham Lincoln.

According to the book, Lincoln had virtually no military experience prior to taking office. He had never lived or even traveled abroad. Once taking office, he made tough, controversial decisions. He bravely weathered a storm of public opinion arrayed against him. He endured the highs and the lows of the war with dogged tenacity.

Now substitute “President Bush” in place of Lincoln. Reads the same, doesn’t it?

Exactly.

-Dave O'Connell

It's the Mary plan---oops, I mean the Kerry plan!

It's symposium time here at The Pursuit of Happiness and Other Sobering Thoughts (or as the kids say, TPOHAOST). Blogger and radio host Hugh Hewitt has invited his readers to "sympose away" (also as the kids say) on Kerry & Edwards' odd fascination with Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter Mary. Hugh wants to know...

How deep a hole have John Kerry, Mary Beth Cahill and the Edwards dug for themselves? How lasting the damage?

Well, I wouldn't go as far as Hewitt and say that they "abused Mary's privacy". I'm not so sure it's that hideous of a transgression. But given the Democrats’ recent ‘Bush-is-going-to-bring-back-the-draft’ scaremongering, this Mary Cheney tactic cries out: “Hey, our campaign is a sinking ship and we’re flailing about desperately trying to grab onto anything that even remotely resembles a life preserver!”

How else can you explain Edwards’ remarks about Mary during the vice-presidential debate? Sure, on the face of it, the comments sound cordial and pleasant. But remember, this is a debate, and debaters are adversaries. If a debater is using innocuous-sounding language in regards to his opponent, it’s probably a trap.

In case you haven’t picked up on it, the trap is this: Edwards describes Dick and Lynne as loving parents who just want their gay children to be happy. Gullible, hapless Dick, who doesn’t see this train coming from a mile away, says something that rubs up unfavorably against Edwards’ glowing family portrait. Possibly, he utters something to the effect of “I love my daughter and I want her to be happy, but I am against something that would make her happy, like gay marriage.” Voters, shocked that Cheney could be so callous towards his daughter’s pursuit of happiness, grab hold of the swing Edwards has provided for them and Tarzan their way on over, en-masse, to the Kerry camp.

What’s truly pathetic is how obvious the trap was. Did the Dems seriously believe a skilled debater like Cheney would step onto such an obvious landmine? With such sparkling genius on display, it’s no wonder they’ve lost the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.

As for Kerry’s “shout-out” (with emphasis on the word “out”, of course), it just seems gratuitous. “Bob, if you were to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter…” Well, he isn’t. He’s talking to you, John Kerry, and your opponent, George W. Bush. Incorporating Mary into your spiel about how “homosexuality isn’t a choice” does not serve to further clarify your point, so why do it?

Perhaps it’s to draw a distinction between the two tickets on an issue in which they have similar opinions. They both think that marriage should be between a man and a woman, except Dick Cheney would be so heartless as to deny his own daughter, who didn’t choose to become a lesbian, the right to marry a woman! How grateful John Kerry must feel, knowing that his daughters are not lesbians, and therefore cannot be used against him on this issue! Boy, he sure dodged a bullet there, didn’t he?

Really, this is such a childish move on Kerry & Edwards part. And with Mary Beth Cahill chiming in with her assertion that Mary is fair game, it’s clear that she is now a target of the Democrats, as opposed to the peripheral figure she ought to be treated as. There is a very real danger that voters will take a dim view of this “last-ditch ganging up” and see Mary as a victim of sorts. And that could very well drive the final nail into Kerry’s haughty, French-looking coffin.

-Dave O'Connell

On the wings of a dove

I've suspected as much, and last night's debate proved it beyond the shadow of a doubt: John Kerry is a pacifist. He can't come out and admit it, obviously, but he tossed enough crumbs to his fellow peaceniks during the debate to make it clear. For instance...

I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them [Iran], see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes.

Only a pacifist would seriously consider fascists and pseudo-Muslim dictators to be deserving of a presumption of innocence. Foreign leaders who do not believe in basic human rights for their people or a democratic form of government must be treated differently than those who do. A good place to draw the line is not to give these demonstrably untrustworthy characters nuclear components. Honestly, it amazes me that a Presidential candidate could say this on national television and still be in the race. Here is a man who has deluded himself into thinking that dictators have softer, more "peaceful" sides to them that need coddling. How can he be taken seriously in a time when foreign policy is of critical importance?

But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.

More pacifism. For anything to pass the "global test", it has to appeal to Europeans, and Europeans are, by and large, liberal. Try finding the elaborate conservative media network we have in the United States (right-wing talk radio, FOX News, The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, etc.) in any of the European countries. (Good luck to you in your hopeless task, by the way.) And countries dominated by liberalism tend to let their militaries shrink and fall into disrepair. So for any proposed military venture to pass the "global test", it needs to be a) something with a workload that can be shouldered by small, out-of-date militaries , b) something that won't involve many deaths on either side, and c) waged against somebody other than Muslims (or pseudo-Muslims, because these assholes aren't true Muslims), because that might breed more terrorists. Which makes "global test" a codephrase for "pacifism", because I don't see how those conditions would be conducive to any future operations against our current batch of enemies (Iran, North Korea, Syria, etc.)

You talk about mixed messages. We're telling other people, "You can't have nuclear weapons," but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using.

Pacifists, in their even-handed, don't-ruffle-the-feathers way, tend not to see a difference between democracies and theocratic dictatorships. To them, it's just another way of doing things, and to object would be culturally insensitive. I'd argue that theocratic dictatorships are being culturally insensitive to their citizens by not allowing them to define the culture in which they live through the everyday exercise of basic human and democratic rights. I'd also point out that as citizens in a democratic society, it is in their best interests to oppose non-democracies, since only non-democracies, not other democracies, attack democracies. Kerry appears to be one of those pacifists to which the above needs to be explained.

I am very surprised that so many members of the media (even some conservatives) are chalking this up as a victory for Kerry. Kerry has provided Bush with a ton of ammo for his next round of campaign ads, and if Rove and Co. handle it properly, I don't see how Kerry can recover. Kerry left the ball in Bush's court, and any time you have to rely on your opponent's ineptitude for success, you're taking the matter out of your hands. And not being in control of your own destiny is not how I would define victory.

As for the post-debate coverage, the initial reaction from the gang over at MSNBC was that Kerry had "won" the debate, though a few minutes later, they conceded that Bush was the better man in the first half-hour. Which only means that they're living in that old media coccoon, because newsflash, guys: a lot of people don't have to watch the entire thing like you do. They get up to go to the bathroom, they talk with friends and family and miss certain details, or they get bored and do something else (and there was certainly a lack of energy onstage to prompt them.) You've got to weigh what's upfront heavier than what comes after. Do it that way, and Bush definitely "wins" the debate.

Also, is there anything more useless on cable news shows than having two campaign advisers spend a segment debating one another? How enlightening is it to have two guys who are basically paraphrasing the opinions and talking points of their bosses go at it? You might as well have two tape recorders with tape loops of the candidates yacking away---at least they'd be easier to book. Really, paid opinions are no fun to listen to. Get off of it, already.

-Dave O'Connell

P.S. The above was posted at PeterDavid.net and received this response:

But there are two issues with Iraq that seem to be so obvious that no one actually mentions them.

* First, and I know I've said this in [this] forum before, armies of occupation rarely work in the long term.

* Second, a power vaccuum can be much worse than a tyrant. The tyrant has at least a superficial obligation to meet his subject's needs.

To the first comment, I'd say it's a valid concern, but occupying a country with a view to eventually giving it sovereignty is preferrable to the alternative. As for the second comment, I'd say he has it the wrong way around. The alternative to occupation would have been a power vacuum, which would have started once Saddam Hussein died or tried to hand over power to one of his sons. Only this time, the various factions would not only be tussling over control of Iraq, but control of various weapons programs. I prefer settling the matter now, under less dire circumstances, than trying to settle it years down the road, when we would be at a catastrophic disadvantage.

Kerry on, my wayward son

Here's a gem from John Kerry's 9/20 speech at New York University that no one seems to have teed off on:

By one count, the President offered 23 different rationales for this war. If his purpose was to confuse and mislead the American people, he succeeded.

Good one there, Kerry. You sure got him with that zinger. How dare President Bush argue 23 different reasons for regime change in Iraq? Having a multi-faceted argument for regime change really does make him a flip-flopper, that bastard.

Uh, no. Having multiple reasons for a stance on a given issue does not make you a flip-flopper. Having multiple stances on a given issue does. That's why you, John Kerry, are a flip-flopper on the issue of Iraq and Bush is not.

On the other hand, it is nice to see at least one liberal acknowledging that there was more to the case for war than just weapons of mass destruction.

But don't take my word for it. Read for yourself the President's rationale for war, taken from a 10/7/02 speech in Cincinnati. See how many of the 22 "flip-flops" you can find in this speech alone.


Members of the Congress of both political parties, and members of the United Nations Security Council agree that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and must disarm. We agree that the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons. Since we all agree on this goal, the issue is: How can we best achieve it?

Many Americans have raised legitimate questions: About the nature of the threat; about the urgency of action---why be concerned now?; about the link between Iraq developing weapons of terror, and the wider war on terror. These are all issues we've discussed broadly and fully within my administration. And tonight, I want to share those discussion with you.

First, some ask why is different from other countries and regimes that also have terrible weapons. While there are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone---because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant who has already used chemical weapons to kill thousands of people. This same tyrant has tried to dominate the Middle East, has invaded and brutally occupied a small neighbor, has struck other nations withou warning, and holds an unrelenting hostility towards the United States.

By its past and present actions, by its technological capabilities, by the merciless nature of its regime, Iraq is unique. As a former chief weapons inspector of the U.N. has said, ''The fundamental problem with Iraq remains the nature of the regime itself. Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction.'

Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world, The danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today---and we do---does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?

In 1995, after several years of deceit by the Iraqi regime, the head of Iraq's military industries defected. It was then that the regime was forced to admit that it had produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents. The inspectors, however, concluded that Iraq had likely produced two to four times that amount. This is a massive stockpile of weapons that has never been accounted for, and capable of killing millions.

We know that the regime gas produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, inlcuding mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas. Saddam Hussein also has experience in using chemical weapons. He has ordered chemical attacks on Iran, and on more than forty villages in his own country. These actions killed or injured at least 20,000 people, more than six times the number of people who died in the attacks of September the 11th.

And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons. Every chemical and biological weapon that Iraq has or makes is a direct violation of the truce that ended the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Yet, Saddam Hussein has chosen to build and keep these weapons despite international sanctions, U.N. demands, and isolation from the civilized world.

Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles -- far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other nations -- in a region where more than 135,000 American civilians and service members live and work. We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States. And, of course, sophisticated delivery systems aren't required for a chemical or biological attack; all that might be required are a small container and one terrorist or Iraqi intelligence operative to deliver it.

And that is the source of our urgent concern about Saddam Hussein's links to international terrorist groups. Over the years, Iraq has provided safe haven to terrorists such as Abu Nidal, whose terror organization carried out more than 90 terrorist attacks in 20 countries that killed or injured nearly 900 people, including 12 Americans. Iraq has also provided safe haven to Abu Abbas, who was responsible for seizing the Achille Lauro and killing an American passenger. And we know that Iraq is continuing to finance terror and gives assistance to groups that use terrorism to undermine Middle East peace.

We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy -- the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.

Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.

Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror. To the contrary; confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror. When I spoke to Congress more than a year ago, I said that those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves. Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror, the instruments of mass death and destruction. And he cannot be trusted. The risk is simply too great that he will use them, or provide them to a terror network.

Terror cells and outlaw regimes building weapons of mass destruction are different faces of the same evil. Our security requires that we confront both. And the United States military is capable of confronting both.

Many people have asked how close Saddam Hussein is to developing a nuclear weapon. Well, we don't know exactly, and that's the problem. Before the Gulf War, the best intelligence indicated that Iraq was eight to ten years away from developing a nuclear weapon. After the war, international inspectors learned that the regime has been much closer -- the regime in Iraq would likely have possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993. The inspectors discovered that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a workable nuclear weapon, and was pursuing several different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.

Before being barred from Iraq in 1998, the International Atomic Energy Agency dismantled extensive nuclear weapons-related facilities, including three uranium enrichment sites. That same year, information from a high-ranking Iraqi nuclear engineer who had defected revealed that despite his public promises, Saddam Hussein had ordered his nuclear program to continue.

The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. And if we allow that to happen, a terrible line would be crossed. Saddam Hussein would be in a position to blackmail anyone who opposes his aggression. He would be in a position to dominate the Middle East. He would be in a position to threaten America. And Saddam Hussein would be in a position to pass nuclear technology to terrorists.

Some citizens wonder, after 11 years of living with this problem, why do we need to confront it now? And there's a reason. We've experienced the horror of September the 11th. We have seen that those who hate America are willing to crash airplanes into buildings full of innocent people. Our enemies would be no less willing, in fact, they would be eager, to use biological or chemical, or a nuclear weapon.

Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. As President Kennedy said in October of 1962, "Neither the United States of America, nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world," he said, "where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nations security to constitute maximum peril."

Understanding the threats of our time, knowing the designs and deceptions of the Iraqi regime, we have every reason to assume the worst, and we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring.

Some believe we can address this danger by simply resuming the old approach to inspections, and applying diplomatic and economic pressure. Yet this is precisely what the world has tried to do since 1991. The U.N. inspections program was met with systematic deception. The Iraqi regime bugged hotel rooms and offices of inspectors to find where they were going next; they forged documents, destroyed evidence, and developed mobile weapons facilities to keep a step ahead of inspectors. Eight so-called presidential palaces were declared off-limits to unfettered inspections. These sites actually encompass twelve square miles, with hundreds of structures, both above and below the ground, where sensitive materials could be hidden.

The world has also tried economic sanctions -- and watched Iraq use billions of dollars in illegal oil revenues to fund more weapons purchases, rather than providing for the needs of the Iraqi people.

The world has tried limited military strikes to destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities -- only to see them openly rebuilt, while the regime again denies they even exist.

The world has tried no-fly zones to keep Saddam from terrorizing his own people -- and in the last year alone, the Iraqi military has fired upon American and British pilots more than 750 times.

After eleven years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon.

Clearly, to actually work, any new inspections, sanctions or enforcement mechanisms will have to be very different. America wants the U.N. to be an effective organization that helps keep the peace. And that is why we are urging the Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough, immediate requirements. Among those requirements: the Iraqi regime must reveal and destroy, under U.N. supervision, all existing weapons of mass destruction. To ensure that we learn the truth, the regime must allow witnesses to its illegal activities to be interviewed outside the country -- and these witnesses must be free to bring their families with them so they all beyond the reach of Saddam Hussein's terror and murder. And inspectors must have access to any site, at any time, without pre-clearance, without delay, without exceptions.

The time for denying, deceiving, and delaying has come to an end. Saddam Hussein must disarm himself -- or, for the sake of peace, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.

Many nations are joining us in insisting that Saddam Hussein's regime be held accountable. They are committed to defending the international security that protects the lives of both our citizens and theirs. And that's why America is challenging all nations to take the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council seriously.

And these resolutions are clear. In addition to declaring and destroying all of its weapons of mass destruction, Iraq must end its support for terrorism. It must cease the persecution of its civilian population. It must stop all illicit trade outside the Oil For Food program. It must release or account for all Gulf War personnel, including an American pilot, whose fate is still unknown.

By taking these steps, and by only taking these steps, the Iraqi regime has an opportunity to avoid conflict. Taking these steps would also change the nature of the Iraqi regime itself. America hopes the regime will make that choice. Unfortunately, at least so far, we have little reason to expect it. And that's why two administrations -- mine and President Clinton's -- have stated that regime change in Iraq is the only certain means of removing a great danger to our nation. "


Speeches like this combined with nonsense like Kerry's is why I hope Kerry loses on November 2nd by 20 points.

-Dave O'Connell

Give 'em hell, Zell! But, uh, not like that.

Zell, Zell, Zell....

You absolutely hit your convention speech out of the park. A grand slam! You had the crowd eating out of the palm of your hand. You reeled off a devastating list of weapons programs that Kerry has voted against. There were priceless slams against Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, and the United Nations, three liberal icons whose time has long since passed. Absolutely brilliant! And then....

...you totally blow your cool with Chris Matthews on MSNBC later that night. I admit, I've wanted more than a few guests to tell that rude, serial interrupter to shut his trap. But Matthews was playing fair (relatively speaking), and to tell him to "shut up" and to threaten to "get up in his face" (Matthews was outside the convention hall, Miller was inside) is just not kosher. You genuinely looked and spoke as though you wanted to smack Matthews. That's not cool. You've got to play it cool. Conservatives generally play it a lot cooler and level-headed than they get credit for, but Miller let the side down with that interview. Or rather, the other side down, since he is a Democrat.

Which is not to say that Matthews didn't embarrass himself. Consider this exchange:

Matthews: Do you believe, Senator, truthfully, that John Kerry wants to defend the country with spitballs? Do you believe that?

Miller: That was a metaphor, wasn't it? Do you know what a metaphor is?

Matthews: Well, what do you mean by a metaphor?

This brought back memories of Senator Bob Kerrey's absurdly literal-minded approach to questioning Condoleezza Rice during the 9/11 Commission hearings. He even did it Matthews-style, with constant interruptions:

KERREY: You've used the phrase a number of times, and I'm hoping with my question to disabuse you of using it in the future. You said the president was tired of swatting flies.

KERREY: Can you tell me one example where the president swatted a fly when it came to Al Qaida prior to 9/11?

RICE: I think what the president was speaking to was...

KERREY: No, no. What fly had he swatted?

RICE: Well, the disruptions abroad was what he was really focusing on...

KERREY: No, no...

RICE: ... when the CIA would go after Abu Zubaydah...

KERREY: He hadn't swatted...

RICE: ... or go after this guy...

KERREY: Dr. Rice, we didn't...

RICE: That was what was meant.

KERREY: We only swatted a fly once on the 20th of August 1998. We didn't swat any flies afterwards. How the hell could he be tired?

RICE: We swatted at -- I think he felt that what the agency was doing was going after individual terrorists here and there, and that's what he meant by swatting flies. It was simply a figure of speech.

A figure of speech: how's that for a concept?

I have more to say about Zell and the rest of the convention, but I'll get to that later.

-Dave O'Connell

Day 1 of the Republican National Convention...or should I say FUNvention!!!

My thoughts on Day 1 of the Republican National Convention:

The pacing of the convention thus far has been bizarre. Is it absolutely necessary to periodically shift the action from the stage to a gaggle of ditzy female in-house "sideline reporters"? Couldn't they just give the people they're interviewing (mostly veterans) speaking slots onstage and cut down on the cheesiness? And when I say "cheesy", I really mean "cheesy": "reporting" done in a breathless, "how about that, folks!" tone of voice with the occasional fratboy-style "Whoooooooo!" thrown in for good measure.

Apart from that, it's just been clunky. Speaker Dennis Hastert announces a Dick Cheney cameo, and we get six momentum-killing minutes of him waving to various convention-goers before the producers move on to the Gerald Ford salute. Ten minutes later, the George H.W. Bush tribute video comes on, but without any sort of introduction it just sits there, and the soundman makes matters worse by missing the background music cue by fifteen seconds. They opened the primetime session with a nifty Saturday Night Live-style credits sequence, but these guys are having all sorts of problems getting ready for primetime.

Oh, and what's with the hammy singers belting out showtunes? Are they going to kick off every session of the convention? Please let this not be the case.

Some other observations:

1) Dennis Hastert looks like an elderly version of comedian/King Of Queens co-star Patton Oswalt.

2) I never thought I'd say this, but thank goodness for actor Joel Silver. His passionate 9/11-themed speech was the only thing the first hour of the primetime session had going for it.

3) The house band is apparently only going to perform songs by black artists (Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind & Fire, etc.) who would never in a million years vote for George W. Bush.

4) I'm sure it seemed like a cute idea in the planning stages, but having a computer-animated elephant swing his trunk up and down on the giant TV screen behind Ed Gillespie as he was speaking was very distracting.

5) John McCain & Rudy Guiliani were brilliant. Brilliant enough to make up for the lackluster first few hours, I think. McCain's slam of Michael Moore---sorry, I mean "a disingenuous filmmaker"---was priceless. I didn't see it coming. Guiliani had a tough act to follow, but his speech might have topped McCain's----I loved hearing him take Europe to the mat for their lackadaiscal attitude towards terorism in general, whether it be now or decades ago. I would vote for either of the two for President in 2008 without a second thought.

6) Not a lot of talk about the economy. Like Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, I'm not so sure that any President can do a whole lot about the economy, but he can do something, and I'd like for the Republicans to reasure me that they're actually thinking about the subject. Humor me a little.

So far, so good...and bad. Maybe they can smooth out the edges for Tuesday's all-primetime show.

-Dave O'Connell

I give up, here's some old stuff (part 2)

Another oldie-but-sort-of-goodie from my writing career. The only problem with the conceit used below is that you can only get away with it once per editor. Also, I should note that this, by far my most gimmicky piece, emerged from the editing process completely unscathed. It was also the shortest piece (in relation to expected word count) that I submitted. Maybe I should err on the side of brevity more often. Anyway, here's the article:

CURSE YOU, DAVE BINDER AND YOUR VERY BRIEF DEADLINE-SURFING ANSWERS TO MY E-MAILED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS!

A heavily researched panic attack by David O’Connell

(published September 18, 2003 in The York Dispatch under a shorter, less self-referential title)

What do you get when you type the name “Dave Binder” into an Internet search engine? Among other things, you wind up with links to the many Dave Binders of the world. A few of them are athletic minded individuals: Dave Binder of Decatur, Georgia recently took home a first place trophy in a local “golf gala”, while another Dave Binder tends to the walking wounded as the University of New Mexico’s head athletics trainer. Some of them should probably get out a bit more often; for instance, Dave Binder of the Illinois Dave Binders Local 151 recently “dungeonmastered” a Star Wars role-playing game that, in the words of a fellow player, was “unique” and “really neat.” To ignore other Dave Binders might cost you your life: Dave Binder’s work as a member of the Emergency Film Group of Edgartown, Mass. has taught us important lessons on how to handle anhydrous ammonia, a dangerous gas that can severely burn the eyes, lungs and throat. Perhaps the strangest Dave Binder of them all is Dave Binder of Coupeville, Washington, who for $20 will teach interested persons the obscure art of “napkin folding”, in which ordinary napkins can be transformed into candlesticks, bagpipes, or elf’s shoes.

Though all of these Dave Binders play important roles in American society, one Dave Binder stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of popularity (or number of Internet mentions, anyway) and that is folk singer Dave Binder. Oddly enough, this Dave Binder is somewhat at odds with the Internet. Yes, he does have his own website, http://www.davebinder.com, and uses it to promote upcoming concerts such as the “1969: The Year That Rocked The World” extravaganza taking place Thursday night on the Penn State York campus.

And yet the whole purpose of a show like “1969” is to take us back to a simpler time when the Internet didn’t exist, a time when putting together a list of America’s many Dave Binders was not the easy task that it is today. An age when the CD format on which Binder’s six albums are available was merely a gleam in a Dutch physicist’s eye. Why, back in 1969, Binder was ten years away from playing his first show, and more than two decades away from receiving the first of ten consecutive Campus Entertainer of the Year Award nominations. Life’s been very good to him since 1969, in fact, so why the look back?

“It started in 1989 when I realized that no one was doing a twenty-year Woodstock tribute,” explains Binder, a 47-year old Massachusetts native. “It grew from there as I realized all the other events of that year.”

Binder’s show takes the big hits of the “Summer of ‘69” and places them into context alongside the landmark events of the day. For instance, a discussion of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon segues into a solo acoustic rendition of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” From the Beatles to Richard Nixon, no important musical or historical figures are left out of this unique tribute, just one of several theme shows Binder puts on for college audiences across the country.

Catch Binder one night and you might see him in full James Taylor drag, leading a sing-along of “You’ve Got A Friend” as he strums his way through “Fire and Rain: An Evening of James Taylor.” See him on a college campus, and you might get to witness Dave whipping a group of incoming freshman into shape through his “Orientation” program of songs and sketches. (Perhaps something like that is in the cards for his Saturday morning show at York College of Pennsylvania.) On other occasions, you might get to watch him squirm as he takes “Any Reasonable Request”, an improvisational show where the audience dictates the set list and dares Dave to “play it or fake it.” Regardless of which Dave Binder show you take in, you can rest assured that at no time will you be asked to fold a napkin into the shape of a duck. Dave “Folk Singer” Binder himself guarantees it.

Dave Binder’s "1969: The Year That Rocked The World" takes place Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Main Classroom Building on the lower level of Penn State York’s Conference Center. Parking is available at the Irving Road entrance to campus, off of Albemarle Street. Parking for the disabled is available off Edgecomb Avenue. A Saturday show is scheduled for 11 a.m. at the York College of Pennsylvania’s Tennis Court Parking Lot. Admission to both events is free. For more information, please visit http://www.davebinder.com.

-Dave O'Connell

P.S. Now that I think about it, I don't believe the Thursday show ever took place. Hurricane Isabel probably took care of those plans. So the whole thing was kind of a waste.

I give up, here's some old stuff (part 1)

I don't know what to write about, so instead I'm going to let out a few things that have been gathering dust in the cyber-attic. First up is the very first article I ever submitted for publication in a newspaper, which also contains the very first interview the subject of the piece had ever done for a newspaper. So without further adieu, our mutual deflowering...

THE NOMADIC PROFESSOR AND HER FRIENDS THE HONDURAN CURLY TARANTULA, THE HAMMER-SHAPED CHECK CANCELLER, AND THE PIECE OF TILE FROM EVA BRAUN’S BATHROOM

By David O’Connell

(originally appeared under a more mundane title in The York Dispatch on May 22, 2003)

Have you ever wanted to view a collection of Iranian ram heads? Brush up on 6,000 years of grain-related history? Delve into the fine art of Moravian pottery and tile craft? If so, then you are a mighty strange beast and just the sort of kindred spirit Therese Boyd is looking for. Her excellent new book, "The Best You've Never Seen: Pennsylvania's Small Museums--A Traveler's Guide" (Penn State University Press, 224 pp. $18.95), rounds up 42 of the more bizarre and obscure tourist traps to be found in the Keystone State, including the Toy Robot Museum in Adamstown and Mr. Ed's Elephant Museum in Ortanna. Some are located along major thoroughfares, others accessible only by gravel roads. One thing they all have in common, however, is a mission to preserve the arcane elements of our culture overlooked by the larger, better endowed historical landmarks.

Over a two-year period, Boyd visited hundreds of museums, including a few uncovered purely by chance. In the process, she petted a Honduran curly tarantula, submitted to a theological interrogation at the hands of a Bible-thumping curator, and played with an old-fashioned hammer-shaped check canceller, all while jotting down notes for what would become her first published book.

A notable (if reluctant) co-star in this travelogue is Annie, Boyd’s 11-year old niece. Poor Annie’s life is turned upside down by her wicked aunt, who tries to indoctrinate her into the anachronistic world of doo-wop music by subjecting her to brutal four-part harmony torture at the National Vocal Groups Hall of Fame & Museum. Bravely, she resists this onslaught of good-time oldies, but Boyd exacts revenge on the plucky Platters-proof preadolescent with her backup plan: a trip to the dreaded Insectarium, forcing the arachnophobic Annie to confront her eight-legged archenemies. At a stop at the Horseshoe Curve in Altoona, Annie sidles up to a Norfolk Southern freight train, no doubt preparing to signal the engineers and workmen for assistance in fleeing her bookwormish captor, but Boyd’s watchful eye ensures that no rail-riding escape is made. The book leaves Annie’s ultimate fate up in the air, but one thing’s for sure: those barbershop quartet scars will never heal.

Part diary, part history lesson, part coolest travel brochure you’ll ever come across, this book does what a good travel guide is supposed to do: make you forget that you’re reading a travel guide. Therese Boyd has succeeded in assembling a volume that could very well make more than a few readers want to cast aside their domestic chores and embark on that road trip they’ve been planning in their minds for years. I, for one, am looking forward to being raked over the ecumenical coals, frontier-style, at the Tom Mix Museum, a shrine to the great Hollywood cowboy of the ‘50s.

And yet the question remains: how did a mild-mannered book reviewer (and one-time Dispatch contributor) wind up leading a double life as an Americana-seeking part-time nomad? A reawakened sense of wanderlust, perhaps? Maybe a profound disillusionment with traditional museum culture?

The truth is far more mundane. “The idea came from a friend of mine,” explains Boyd, 45. “She works for Penn State Press and thinks up ideas for good regional-themed books. One day she came to me and said, ‘Hey, you know what would be good for you to write about?’ and suggested a guidebook of small museums. She was right. It was a good idea. It was little me, a little my publisher, a little discussion with my friends and family--totally a cooperative effort of many people.”

And so began this odyssey that would take her through 28 different counties and introduce to her such unlikely historical figures as Christian Sanderson, a packrat of world-class proportions.

“He’s just got the most unbelievable collection of stuff that is supposed to be connected to history, whether his or somebody else’s”, she says of the deceased schoolteacher whose namesake museum showcases, among other obscurities, a piece of tile from Eva Braun’s bathroom and the shoestrings Sanderson wore to Harry Truman’s inauguration.

A love of the obscure is indeed helpful, though not a prerequisite for those interested in these peripheral landmarks. Boyd separated the book-worthy museums from the also-rans not according the hipster notion of ‘the more esoteric, the better’, but by a far simpler barometer.

“I had to like it,” she explains. “There had to be something that grabbed me personally. I was totally selfish. If there was something there that I thought was interesting, or something I thought people weren’t going to know about without reading my book, then I put it in.”

One museum in particular that grabbed Boyd’s attention was the Music Box Museum in Ephrata. “That one really surprised me. I expected a bunch of little music boxes, and what I got instead were these enormous, gorgeous pieces of art that just happened to be music boxes,” she marvels.

Along the way, Boyd also learned a few things about the proprietors of these unorthodox tourist stops. “People feel very strongly about the places they’ve built,” she explains. “Every single one of these museums is a labor of love, whether it’s just one person who started it or a whole group of people.”

Although Boyd currently has a full plate of activities on her itinerary, ranging from various book and magazine editing duties to a regular gig teaching elderly Penn State students how to write their memoirs, she still hasn’t quite shed those off-the-beaten path road trip inclinations.

“Since I wrote the book, I’ve been ‘collecting’ other little museums,” she admits. “I’ll find out about them and think, ‘Oh, you know, I have to go in that one and that one’ or say to someone, ‘What do you think is in there?’ In fact, I have a similarly themed book under consideration for Maryland.”

The ultimate goal, both with this book and any future spin-offs, is to encourage people to cast off their doubts and explore the unknown.

“When I was looking for one of the museums, I stopped somewhere, and asked this stranger for directions,” recalls Boyd. He said ‘Oh, I drive past that place every day’, so I asked him if he had ever been inside. He replied, ‘No, you don’t want to go in there.’ He had never set foot inside, but kept insisting it was nothing.

“So here was this guy judging this place and he had never been inside, didn’t what it was, and yet he was telling me it wasn’t any good. I’m hoping my book makes fewer people say that.”

Boyd’s book, due out in May, will be available in local bookstores, including Border’s Books & Music, where she will be signing books on June 13th. It can also be ordered online at Amazon.com or through the publisher at http://www.psupress.org/.

-Dave O'Connell

A story that is mostly not about robots

The Story of Clam Rickshaw & Fallow's Gorge

Clam Rickshaw was a plum-hunter, surfing the Asian firepeaks for tasty plums...and ADVENTURE!!! (also tasty) Fallow's Gorge was his natural enemy, foiling him at every turn with its transmittable back acne, or "backne".

Clam swore revenge, as the giraffes wailed and the loping were-pigeons stalked their robot seaweed prey.

The five suns of Nextel shone on in the tungsten sky, and the toemaidens of Aynsley Dunsbar sang haunting Tullabies to their prog-rock babies.

Clam heard a noise. He turned around. A gasp was heard. Shots rang out. A furnace was repaired. A scuffle ensued. Sheena Easton wept.

And somewhere off in the distance, a jukebox was reunited with its long-lost mother.

The End

Wrapping up the Kerr-vention

Well, John Kerry certainly seemed fired up in this speech, and that alone made it a big improvement over his previous drowse-a-thons. And using Abraham Lincoln's words against the current incarnation of his Republican party was a clever touch. But there definitely were some problems.

First of all, John Kerry has got to let the crowd cheer and applaud. I cannot emphasize this enough. Genuine excitement at the venue filters through to us folks watching at home, so let it happen! Wait for the adulation to die down a little, and THEN proceed. And if you tell a joke, let the crowd laugh at it before plowing into the next section of your speech. These are very basic rules of public speaking. It shows that you're actually paying attention to your audience. Kerry should know this by now.

Secondly....enough nonsense about how we're the "can do people" and a "country of the future". Of course we're a country of the future. Time goes forward, not backward, doesn't it? Now if Bush were maniacally plotting to alter the laws of time, this might have some relevance. (Perhaps he's saving such transgressions for a second term.) But that obviously isn't the case, so it just comes across as meaningless. And the more meaningless stuff you frontload a speech with, the greater risk you run of losing your TV audience in the first five minutes.

Third, who is he trying to fool with this statement?

You don't value families by kicking kids out of after school programs and taking cops off our streets, so that Enron can get another tax break.

Fair enough, but does this really implicate the man you want it to? According to Citizens for Tax Justice , Enron paid no income taxes at all in four of the last five years of the Clinton Administration. Their corporate tax welfare benefits in that timespan totaled $1 billion dollars. Exactly which party is Kerry is railing against here?

I liked the talk of lessening our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. And I have no quarrel with putting American ingenuity to the task of harnessing alternate renewable sources to such purposes in the future. However, this line gave me pause:

And our energy plan for a stronger America will invest in new technologies and alternative fuels and the cars of the future -- so that no young American in uniform will ever be held hostage to our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Now try to imagine Michael Moore saying the same thing. Not that hard, is it? By linking our dependence on oil to our armed forces, Kerry seems to be saying that the war in Iraq was indeed all about oil. It's nice that the loony left got a shout-out in this pseudo-hawkish speech, but that's exactly what this statment is: loony. If our interests in Iraq were truly centered around oil, we never would have invaded the place and spent billions of dollars on reconstruction and democratization efforts. We simply would have dropped sanctions against Saddam and resumed the purchase of his oil. It would have been a lot easier and a lot cheaper (not to mention far more immoral.) And I think our high gasoline prices bear testament to that position.

Aside from that, I think his speech was successful in that it wasn't a failure (damning with faint praise, perhaps?) He didn't drop the ball, which is all he needed to do at this point. And he didn't look or sound too French, which is always a good thing. But he's still got a lot of work ahead of him, because speeches like that aren't going to be enough to get him in the White House.

-Dave O'Connell

P.S. I'd like to amend my earlier remarks about how only one convention speech impressed me. C-SPAN re-aired 8 hours of speeches over the weekend and I caught a few that I had missed the first time around, including Ron Reagan's classy speech on stem-cell research.

However, I wouldn't add Gore's, Carter's, or Clinton's to that list. Gore's was split in half between joking comments and bitter comments about the 2000 election, leaving me to wonder if he should just get over the damn thing already. For his own mental health, I mean. Carter delivered his speech competently, but why is the guy who helped feed North Korea's nucelar ambitions through his dealmaking as a Clinton envoy even bringing up the subject of North Korea in the first place? Clinton's speech dragged at the beginning, but perked up near the end when he employed a clever rhetorical device in which he criticized himself as he was criticizing Bush. Score him points for that one, and I don't think Clinton has a bad speech in him, but it was a merely okay outing.

And who let Little Orphan Annie on stage?

The Democratic National Convention: Strength, service, toughness for the future, and our children, and diversity. Two Americas! And shove it!

I suppose I ought to write a little something about the Democratic National Convention, since I've been watching it on-and-off these past three days.  So far, nothing has impressed me aside from Barack Obama's electrifying speech on Tuesday night.  That kid's going to be a star if the Democrats ever get in the habit of running their bright young faces for President instead of their wonky old men. 

But dear Lord, what was the deal with Robert Kennedy, Jr's speech on Wednesday afternoon?  It sounded like he was trying to shoehorn a half-hour speech into a ten minute timeslot, pauses and nuances be damned.  Was his speaking time trimmed at the last minute?  Or did he seriously think that this was going to play well on TV?  Hell, I don't think it even played well in front of the party faithful.  He violated the first rule of convention speaking:  give your minions plenty of chances to cheer and applaud your ostensibly acidic barbs.

Anyway, I don't know what inspired Kennedy's oratorical trainwreck, but when you take a gloomy enviro-doom message and infuse it with a hurried pace, fumbled words, and an increasingly hoarse voice, it's going to scan as the ramblings of a deranged nutcase.  Democratic officials may be vetting the texts of these speeches, but there's not a whole lot they can do to control the manner in which the texts are delivered.  If that wasn't apparent on Monday after Barbara Mikulski's squawking had mercifully ceased, it should be now.

To a lesser extent, this also applies to Al Sharpton and Dennis Kucinich, who rounded out Wednesday's trilogy of nutjobs.  I've been following the convention on C-SPAN, and they do no favors for these jokers by running ads for C-SPAN 2's rebroadcast of John F. Kennedy's 1960 acceptance speech.  Kennedy understood that if you're going to shout your speech, you've got to make it sound like you're not yelling at the audience.  Sharpton doesn't.  But hey, it's nice to see the medallion-wearing black man and elfin peacenik wings of the Democratic Party represented in such a prominent fashion. That's true diversity.

Also, there's a Canadian speaker, Jennifer Granholm.  Not a bad-looking bird.  Has a funny way of saying the phrase "good jobs" as though she were complimenting her dog on a well-executed fetching.  "Good dog, good boy...good jobs...now roll over..sit!  Sit, jobs, sit!  Good jobs!"  I don't remember much else about her speech, though.  It was pretty dull.

"How great was Teresa Heinz-Kerry last night?"  That was the question posed by John Edwards in his VP acceptance speech Wednesday night.  Not that great, I'd have to say.  Andrew Sullivan dissects her speech here with his usual precision.  I don't have much to add, except that casting "Shove it!" as a feminist call-to-arms typfies what is wrong with feminism: the celebration of bitchiness as a virtue.

Edwards rebounded from that opening flub and delivered a smooth speech that wasn't the home-run I thought it was going to be, but still a solid stand-up double.  The talk of dependency on our demilitarized foreign allies unnerves me, though.  I wonder if the Democratic Party is in denial of the fact that, no matter how many or few of our emaciated friends are on board for future wars, America is going to be doing the heavy lifting.  Do we want foreigners to like us or do we want to get the job done with a minimum of bickering over which European femme-ocracies (Britain notwithstanding) are going to send us 50 troops?  Bush, I think, knows the right answer, even if he doesn't understand that Republicans are supposed to be fiscally conservative.  He still doesn't have my vote, but he's light years closer to it than that terminal cipher Kerry.

-Dave O'Connell 

 

Free speech

No, the title is not a sarcastic response to some newly proposed Patriot Act provision that will slightly inconvenience about .000000001 percent of the population as George W. Hitler continues his American civil liberties "holycaust".   It's literally about free speech, as in speech that costs nothing to obtain. 

I'm referring to the wealth of free political print publications (liberal, conservative, libertarian, progressive) that can be found on the Internet.  Some of them are no strings attached trial issues, others are subscription offers that allow you to cancel after a certain number of issues without any financial obligations.  Below you will find part 1 of a list I'm putting together of the various titles you may sample.  (These will eventually be posted on my yet-to-be created website.)  I've omitted magazines that require upfront payment but offer full refunds:  they still have your money for a certain period of time, so it isn't truly free.   None of the offers cited require the entry of credit card numbers, either.  Just ask them to bill you instead.  All offers current as of June/July 2004.  So let us begin:  
 
National Journal
 
Described by conservative columnist George F. Will as "non-partisan", this weekly magazine has been cited in many recent articles for its ranking of John Kerry as the most liberal member of the Senate.  (His impeccably coiffed love interest, John Edwards, came in fourth.)  I'd go along with the "non-partisan" description if the magazine largely consisted of primary sources (speeches, hearings, statements, etc.), but it has feature stories and opinion pieces, so the label doesn't quite fit.  It does cover Congressional news closer than most publications, and doesn't appear to have a significant bias towards either side, so it's recommended for political afficionados on both the left and the right. 
 
If nothing else, why not try it out for the sheer novelty value?  The National Journal is not available on newsstands,  back issues are $24.95 each, and the yearly "basic standing order subscription rate" is $1,699(!).  Realistically speaking, it's virtually unobtainable.  The trial lasts for 4 issues, and does not require you to mess around with invoices.  It is likely, however, that they will phone you to see if you have received your complimentary issues and/or have any questions.  (While this is an uncommon practice among givers of trial subscriptions, I should note that the customer service representative was nice and the phone call brief.)  You may request another free trial six months after the completion of your first, and then another six months after that, and another, and so on.  Yes, this is the gift that keeps on giving.
 
The Nation

The Nation is a far-left weekly (bi-weekly in late summer) that has been serving up "unconvential wisdom since 1865". (Their phrase, not mine.) Like the National Journal, the trial subscription lasts four issues, but you will be invoiced. The regular subscription rate is 24 (4 free plus 20 not-free) issues for $18 or 47 (4 free plus 43 un-free) issues for $29.97.
 
National Review
 
Founded by one of the fathers of the modern conservative movement (William F. Buckley), the National Review is a solidly conservative bi-weekly publication featuring some of the best conservative writers around (Buckley, Mark Steyn, Jay Nordlinger, David Frum, Victor Davis Hanson, etc.)  You get 4 free isssues, and if you don't write cancel on the invoice and send it back, you're in the hole for almost a year's worth of issues and $29.50. 
 
In These Times
 
Whomever coined the phrase "the loony left" might have had this publication in mind.  Nevertheless, it's a free isssue with no strings attached (no invoices or anything), and it doesn't get any easier than that. 
 
Conservative Chronicle 
 
Conservative Chronicle is a weekly, 32-page newspaper that reprints an average of 40 opinion columns and political cartoons from American syndication services.  Contributors include George F. Will, Ann Coulter, William F. Buckley, Pat Buchanan, Cal Thomas, and others.  (There is also a liberal equivalent, Liberal Opinion Week, but I haven't received my sample issue yet, so I'll refrain from commenting further.)  As with In These Times, it's one sample issue, no strings attached.  Of the freebies I have received thus far, this one arrived the fastest, in just under a week. 

The Navigator

I came across this via a list of libertarian links, so using my awesome powers of deduction, I'm going to assume that it has "libertarian appeal". The Navigator is a publication of The Objectivist Center, an organization dedicated to furthering the principles expressed in the works of author Ayn Rand. It's a slim little publication, and you only get one freebie, but hey, you don't have to subscribe, so I can't OBJECT to that!!!  HAR!  HAR!  HAR!

I'm such a hack.

Anyway, those are the six that I have received thus far.  Actually, the number is seven, but The Economist's trial subscription offer came in the form of a pop-up ad, and I haven't been able to find another source for it.  (You can look around The Economist's website if you want, but I don't see it there.)  Part 2 of this will be posted when my other freebies arrive, hopefully sooner than later. 

-Dave O'Connell

A story about Polish robots

Wjosjwexna's Polish Robot Adventure!
by David O'Connell  With additional material from Kurt Cobain's diaries
Foreword by Salt (but not Pepa) Afterword by Emmitt Smith
 

Chapter 1  
There once lived a robot named Wjosjwexna.  She was Polish, and being a robot, knew many things about advanced circuitry, but nothing about adventure.  She had never climbed the foothills of Grwjxcblna Park, never fought the One-Eyed Dragon of Xcxcwbgjktgs, or exposed her genitals during the icy winters experienced in the Cghxswuxcpb regions of Pscxjxajbcsa City(jbcaxcb).  She wasn't even technically female, as robots had not evolved to the point where they had their own genders.
 
This puzzled her neighbors.  "Who is she trying to fool?" thought Jcwjba and Paluchowska, the human couple who lived just across the street.
 
At any rate, Wjosjwexna had not experienced adventure, nor had she experienced adventure's gay cousin, derring-do.
 
But then one day Fate called upon her to scale the mighty Tower of Krakawski and retrieve some sort of object that was very precious to someone for some reason.
 
And so she did, and everyone cheered, except her fellow robots, who spit fiery nails of steel up into the air to celebrate, for that has always been the robot way.
 
Wjosjwexna lived a happy life after that, at least up until four hours later, when she was dismantled by a Polish mechanic and her parts used to soup up his sporty 1997 Kielbasa, which after the adjustments, could now go from 0 to 60 in less than zero seconds, thus making it a time machine of sorts.
 
Jcwjba and Paluchowska were also turned into time machines of sorts later that day.  There was a lot of that going on back then. 


The End 

Doing our terror level best...

I wasn’t sure whether to start this blog off on a political note, but Newsweek has put that question to rest for me.  Thank you, Newsweek.  Even though I seldom read you, you will always get at least a few minutes of my time every two weeks from that George F. Will column you run.  And a special biweekly place in my heart for you there will ever be, my mass-circulation, doctor’s office-dwelling sweetheart.  Anyway, Newsweek is reporting that Tom Ridge and other Homeland Security officials are reviewing a proposal that would allow for the November general election to be postponed in the event of a terrorist attack.

Not too surprisingly, some liberals have jumped to the 'conspiracy theory' conclusion.  They don’t think the idea is Ridge-tastic, or even Ridge-arrific.  Salon has a roundup of such reactions here, and offers this little bit of justification for the skepticism:

Add to this mix problems with Florida felon rolls, electronic voting procedures in Florida and elsewhere and reports on Diebold's CEO blatantly discussing "helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president," and you see where paranoia about 2004 being another 2000 -- and then some -- finds fertile ground to flourish.

So it’s disenfranchised voters they’re worried about.  Fair enough.  I worry about them too, the way they run about with scissors and stick their oppressed lever-pulling fingers into electrical sockets.  But let's think about where a major terrorist attack might take place.  The first one that comes to mind, of course, is the 9/11-ravaged New York City.  Here's how they voted in the 2000 general election:

BUSH/CHENEY: 400,922
GORE/LIEBERMAN: 1,662,911

 Source: 2000 General Election City of New York's Statement and the Return of the Votes For The Office of President and Vice President of the United States (2/21/01)

(Statewide, Gore took New York 4,107,697 to 2,403,374.)

As you can see, Democrats took the city by a 4 to 1 margin.  Now let's check out the second worst-hit city in the 9/11 attacks: Washington, D.C.

GORE 171,923
BUSH  18,073

A 9:1 margin in favor of Democrats.  Now let's go through the results of the states surrounding Washington, D.C.

MARYLAND
GORE  1,145,782
BUSH  813797

VIRGINIA
BUSH  1,437,490
GORE   1,217,290
 
Source for State and D.C Results:  http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm

Perhaps the terrorists might think of hitting other big cities, like Los Angeles...

GORE  692,273  (71.52 percent)
BUSH     231,348  (23.90)

Source: County of Los Angeles Dept. of Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk

...or Philadelphia...

GORE  441,834
BUSH  99,234

Source:  http://seventy.org/stats

(Gore carried PA in 2000, but it is still considered a "battleground state".  And it’s true.  We do kick each others asses a lot.  Especially in Philadelphia, where everyone's pissed off all the time because their hometown teams can't win sports championships.)

Anyway, I could go on and on, but the point is this: major terrorist attacks are probably going to happen in large cities, and large cities tend to overwhelmingly vote Democratic.  And in the four major cities listed above, the surrounding areas combined are solidly Democratic.  So a terrorist attack is likely going to directly disenfranchise far more Democrats than it does Republicans.

So then, if you're a liberal, what do you do?  Do you come out in favor of delaying the elections and risk the Republicans regaining momentum?  Or is it business as usual, knowing that some Democratic voters will be disenfranchised, but the end result will put Kerry in the White House?  (And I think it would: if a terrorist attack can't tip the scales in favor of Kerry, nothing can.)  Given the rather hysterical state of liberalism these days, something tells me that most liberals would go with the latter option, even though they've spent the last four years complaining about Florida's disenfranchised voters.   But I would love for them to prove me wrong. 

-Dave O'Connell

Mein Blogf

Hi! I now have a weblog, or "blog", as the kids like to call it. Personally, I prefer the abbreviation "ebl", but it doesn't seem to catching on. Anyway, welcome.

The name of this, uh, ebl, derives from the title of a 20th century book of political essays by George F. Will, a popular bowtie-wearer of the day. His spirit lives on to this very day in Tucker Carlson, himself a politically-minded afficianado of bow-shaped neckwear. At least it would if George were dead, which he isn't. But someday he will be dead, and if he doesn't take Carlson with him in a bizarre murder-suicide, Carlson will inherit Will's mantle. At any rate, that's where the name of this waste of time comes from. So now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

Or is it?









Yes it is.

-Dave OConnell