Monthly Archives: May 2004

One more point

about the “negativity” of the Bush campaign as compared to Kerry’s. There isn’t that much reason for Kerry to use his resources to go negative against President Bush right now, since the mainstream media, including the Washington Post, is performing that task for him non-stop. Indeed, I’ve heard the Democrat operatives and would-be operatives in my law firm say on more than one occasion that the correct strategy for Kerry »

Our Readers Get A Turn

We’ve talked about the most recent poll data, including the state-by-state Zogby polls which showed results generally interpreted as favorable to John Kerry. Dafydd ab Hugh, who has done an in-depth analysis of Zogby’s history, gets the last word. Dafydd quotes Zogby’s own description of the methodology underlying his “interactive” online state polls, and continues: [N]ote two things: first, these are very small numbers of people with very high MOEs; »

Extra, extra — Milbank thinks Bush’s campaign is dishonest

The Washington Post features a page 1 story by its staunchest anti-Bush Democrat, Dana Milbank, that proclaims “From Bush, Unprecedented Negativity.” The article (co-written by Jim VanderHei) claims not only that Bush’s campaign ads are unprecedented in their negativity, but also that they are exceptionally dishonest and contain more untruths than Kerry’s ads. The source cited in support of the last claim is Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the University of »

A Swing State After All?

The latest polling in Minnesota, conducted by the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Minnesota Public Radio, has the presidential race a virtual tie: Kerry 44%, Bush 41%. Mirroring national surveys, the poll finds the President’s approval rating slipping into negative territory. The poll has some credibility, given that it was not conducted by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It’s a telephone poll of registered voters, conducted last Monday through Wednesday. »

A Book for Memorial Day

Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty contains the stories and photographs of most of the living recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. The text is by our old friend Peter Collier, with an introduction by President Bush. James Robbins of National Review describes the book; the following story is typical: One is struck by just how young they look. One of them, Jack H. »

What Happened in Fallujah

Robert Kaplan was with the First Battalion of the Fifth Marine Regiment when it led the Marines into Falluja; his account, titled “The Real Story of Fallujah,” is riveting. Kaplan’s main focus, though, is on the public relations side of the war. I agree with all that he says: We live in a world of burning visual images: As Marines assaulted Fallujah, the administration should have been holding dramatic slide »

Bikers for Bush

Thousands of motorcyclists rolled into Washington yesterday as the Rolling Thunder veterans’ group descended on RFK stadium. Some members of the group, including President Artie Muller, stopped by the White House to greet President Bush, whom they endorsed for re-election last week. Administration officials Josh Bolton, Tommy Thompson and Anthony Principi joined the group on their motorcycles. The photo below shows Muller with President Bush. Do you recognize the woman »

Miss Universe Suspense Builds

The conclusion of the Miss Universe pageant is tomorrow night. Excitement is reaching a fever pitch. The betting odds (currently 7-2) favor Miss Norway, with Miss Ukraine (7-1), Miss Greece (8-1) and Miss Paraguay (9-1) next in line. Miss USA is tied for fourth at 10-1. Here are the top four contenders, in order: »

More killers killed in Gaza

The Israelis have killed another top Hamas commander in Gaza, according to Fox News. An Israeli air strike took out Wael Nasser and his assistant, both of whom were riding motorcycles. A bystander was also killed. The Israeli military says that the two Hamas leaders were responsible for many attacks against Israelis, including suicide bombings, and were planning further attacks. Meanwhile, according to Fox, Ariel Sharon is pushing for unilateral »

Scalia wouldn’t do it, but America should

P.J. O’Rourke in a must-read column, explains why America should “recuse” itself from the war on terrorism and from its other international commitments. The benefits of recusal strike me as too attractive to pass up, especially the ones O’Rourke cites in the final paragraph. »

Kerry Moving Ahead in Battleground States

The conventional wisdom has been that despite a constant barrage of criticism of President Bush in the press and purportedly bad news from Iraq, John Kerry has failed to gain significantly in the polls. However, a review of polling in the battleground states collected at Real Clear Politics casts doubt on this assumption. In most of the battleground states, polling done after the middle of May shows movement in Kerry’s »

The Real Prison Scandal

It’s here in the U.S., as Michelle Malkin writes: The Justice Department’s inspector general this month released a disturbing report that exposed federal prisons as a fertile breeding ground for terrorists. It was a red alert on a bureaucratic failure that jeopardizes not only other inmates and prison employees, but also the country at large. Yet it got next to no notice. And, as Michelle notes, the state prison systems »

The Big Picture in November

Joshua Muravchik in the Los Angeles Times, on why he will vote for President Bush in November: Sept. 11 was a watershed, but it was new only in scope, not in kind. For three decades, Middle Eastern terrorists had assassinated our diplomats, brought down our airliners, blown up our servicemen in their bunks and berths. They even bombed the World Trade Center. Yet as long as they were killing us »

Exile on Arab street

Our friends at No Left Turns have more on the good news from Iraq, both with respect to the reconstruction and with respect to politics. As to the latter. Peter Schramm is pleased with the selection of Iyad Alawi as Iraqi premier for three reasons: “First, and most important, this guy is a politician–and a reasonable one–with some base. And, he knows how to get others to support him. Note »

Memorial and remonstrance

One hundred and forty thousand folks attended the ceremonies dedicating the National World War II Memorial on the Mall in Washington this afternoon: “World War II veterans honored at memorial dedication.” President Bush spoke at the dedication, with decorated World War II veteran President Bush (41) and President Clinton also in attendance. Below is a photo of the three presidents. In his dedication speech, President Bush paid tribute not only »

They were right the first time

Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard has more on the new evidence of a substantial connection between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda. Big Trunk discussed this matter here a few days ago. An interesting sidelight in Hayes’ piece is a compilation of various Clinton-era pronouncements suggesting precisely the connection that we more recently were told did not exist (and, indeed, could not exist, inasmuch as Saddam was a secular, not »

The Sickness Spreads

The Sydney Morning Herald, one of Australia’s leading newspapers, is far left even by the standards of the New York and L.A. Times. But this is beyond the pale. The Herald has assigned crack-pot Richard Neville to explore the mystery: “Who Killed Nick Berg?” Needless to say, Neville doesn’t fall for the obvious explanation–the al Qaeda guys, who tend to decapitate westerners whenever they get the chance. No, that would »