Monthly Archives: September 2004

Best of PL: Days of awe

We’ve heard from a number of Jewish and gentile readers regarding the Jewish vote in the upcoming election. I can only say that whatever share of the Jewish vote President Bush wins will be far less than he deserves. Let our contribution to the subject be this first-hand report (courtesy of Rabbi Jonathan Ginsburg of St. Paul’s Temple of Aaron) on the president’s private meeting on September 30, 2003 with »

Clueless in Manhattan

This week’s New York Times Magazine features a long–interminable, really–article on bloggers. Consistent with the Times’ world-view, it focuses entirely on left-wing bloggers, and goes on for pages about Wonkette, by whom the writer, Matthew Klam, is clearly fascinated. The Times justifies its exclusive focus on the left side of the blogosphere by saying that the traffic of “conservative” bloggers Glenn Reynolds and Mickey Kaus has “flat-lined,” while traffic on »

Voter Fraud in Wisconsin

Reader Thomas Chiappetti sent us a link to this piece by Mark Belling on the groundwork that the Democrats are laying to commit voter fraud on a massive scale in Wisconsin: An outfit called the “New Voter Project” claims to be nonpartisan but is being bankrolled and staffed by leftists. The organization is already active in Wisconsin and already involved in trouble. Thousands of “voters” registered by this group in »

JFK Plays Touch Football

We have documented, on many occasions, John Kerry’s obsessive need to present himself to the public as an athlete and sportsman. He takes camera crews with him as he goes biking in spandex outfits; he snowboards in the Rockies wearing a daisy flower power zipper pull; he windsurfs off Nantucket; he keeps airplanes waiting while he plays catch on the tarmac; and he bounces a ceremonial first pitch far in »

The incredible shrinking candidate

Trunk argues below that John Kerry is the worst major party candidate since George McGovern. Says Trunk, “As a stump speaker, [Kerry] is pathetic. He is incapable of rousing even a friendly audience. He lacks a common touch of any kind. The incoherence of his positions on the campaign’s major issues has reached comic proportions. As of this moment, his campaign faithfully reflects his political weaknesses.” Here’s another problem with »

Some dare call it journalism

Our round-up of commentary on CBS and the bloggers would not be complete without the clueless reflections of Richard Cohen, in a piece called “Journalism Happens.” Cohen’s concern is that “more and more Americans are getting their news through partisan filters — talk radio, Web logs, Fox News, and the like.” This phenomenon “enhances the importance of national or regional outlets that do not have, or share, an ideological purpose.” »

Rats

John Kerry must be the worst major-party presidential candidate since George McGovern. McGovern, however, was an old-fashioned war hero — the kind who never bragged about his military service or the Distinguished Flying Cross he was awarded for it. McGovern also stood on principle; Americans had no doubt of McGovern’s stands on the issues of the day when they voted against him and in favor of Richard Nixon en masse »

A logical divide?

What’s the difference between Jennifer Loven and E.J. Dionne? When Loven rehearses DNC talking points they appear as “news” in wire service stories; when Dionne makes the same points, they appear in the Washington Post’s opinion page. This is an importance difference, but it doesn’t make Dionne any more honest than Loven. Consider Dionne’s latest Post column, called “Twisting the Truth.” Dionne starts out with this witticism: “There is one »

Richard S. Arnold, RIP

I had the great good fortune of working as a law clerk for Judge Richard Sheppard Arnold on the central staff of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit during Judge Arnold’s first year on the Eighth Circuit bench. He was a brilliant attorney with a self-effacing kindness and affability unlike any I have ever seen. Judge Arnold graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School »

Brother where art thou?

Back in the halcyon days of the Kerry campaign, before the Swiftvets got themselves organized, we used to hear about Kerry’s “band of brothers.” This was a reference to some of his Vietnam comrades who publicly supported the Kerry campaign and may have made a difference in the crucial Iowa caucus. To me, though, Kerry’s band of brothers brought to mind his fellow liberal-pacificsts in the Senate, such as Mark »

How many frauds?

As recently as five years ago CBS would almost certainly have gotten away with its fabricated 60 Minutes expose of President Bush’s Air National Guard service based on forged documents. Anyone who has followed the saga of Hurricane Dan closely must have wondered how often CBS has successfully committed such frauds in the past. We certainly don’t know, but in the new issue of the Weekly Standard John Podhoretz demonstrates »

Jennifer Loven, Democratic Operative

Jennifer Loven, the AP reporter who wrote the absurd “President Bush Twists Kerry’s Words on Iraq” story dissected below, has a history of writing hit pieces on behalf of the Democratic National Committee. Such as this July 2003 outrage, a “news story” titled “White House can’t make the questions go away”. Here is how Ms. Loven begins her “news story” on the famous “sixteen words” controversy: The White House defense »

The Associated Press Pulls Out the Stops for Kerry

We have noted before that the Associated Press has become a part of the John Kerry campaign. This morning, many readers have directed our attention to this astonishing AP story titled “Bush Twists Kerry’s Words on Iraq”. Yes, you read that right. This is not a Kerry campaign press release; it is an Associated Press story that will be reprinted in hundreds, maybe thousands, of American newspapers. Well. Let’s see »

Kerry and the Press Corps

In the Weekly Standard, William Kristol says what needed to be said about John Kerry’s performance this week: Kerry and his advisers have behaved disgracefully this past week. That behavior is sufficient grounds for concern about his fitness to be president. Kerry’s rudeness paled beside the comment of his senior adviser, Joe Lockhart, to the Los Angeles Times: “The last thing you want to be seen as is a puppet »

Another Officer Praises Bush’s Service

Reader Brenda Sparks sent us this news story from a television station in Knoxville, Tennessee: A retired National Guard officer now living in East Tennessee is weighing into the debate over President Bush’s service record. [T]he man who swore then-Lieutenant George Bush into the Air National Guard, is rising to the President’s defense from his Blount County home. Retired Colonel Ed Morrisey served in the Air National Guard and is »

A Good Question

Reader Lee DeForest sends us an oversized, rear window “bumper” sticker he has created, which he says draws an almost uniformly positive response. Here it is: Given John Kerry’s unequivocal embrace of defeatism over the past week, can there be any possible doubt as to the answer? »

Old-Fashioned Pageantry

A number of readers expressed disappointment with the recently-completed Miss America pageant. As Miss America has increasingly defined itself as a scholarship contest, it has come more and more to resemble a librarians’ convention. So, as an alternative, consider the Miss Argentina competition. Political correctness has not yet penetrated Latin America, and they tend to have old-fashioned beauty contests. Here is Monica Spear, who was crowned tonight as this year’s »