Monthly Archives: October 2006

Ouch!

I’m pretty confident that Michael Steele is going to beat Ben Cardin in Maryland’s Senate race, in part because Cardin keeps shooting himself in the foot. He’s now running one of those disgraceful Michael J. Fox embryonic stem cell research ads, which misrepresents Steele’s position on the issue (as well as President Bush’s). Here is Steele’s devastating response, in his own ad: STEELE: I »

Talk about taking blacks for granted

A day after struggling through a debate with Michael Steele and leftist candidate Kevin Zeese, Rep. Benjamin Cardin decided to skip an NAACP sponsored debate in Charles County, Maryland. Debate organizers said they had expected Cardin to appear, though he never made a firm commitment to do so. The Cardin campaign cited a “scheduling conflict.” Support for Cardin among black Democratic politicians in Maryland has been spotty at best. Kweisi »

Andrew Sullivan, ace conservative

You have to give Andrew Sullivan credit for coming on Hugh Hewitt’s show, though in the end he provided little more than comic relief. At the outset of the interview, Sullivan objected to being asked whether he’s a Catholic, suggesting that the question threatened to convert the interview into an inquisition. However, I’ve seen Sullivan willingly answer questions about his faith during other interviews. I guess it’s fine to ask »

George Allen in depth

Our friend Captain Ed of Captain’s Quarters interviews George Allen here (part 1) and here (part 2). In two fell strokes Ed has provided more serious and in-depth coverage of Senator Allen’s views than the Washington Post has in the entirety of the campaign. »

Postcards from Saigon

William Shawcross is the prominent British author whose father, Sir Hartley Shawcross, was a Labour MP, attorney for Winston Churchill, and lead Nuremberg prosecutor (as well as prosecutor of Lord Haw-Haw). We have had the great good fortune of striking up a transatlatic friendship with Mr. Shawcross and would like to bring to your attention his current Spectator column on Iraq: “To abandon Iraq would be to court disaster.” Caroline »

The Daily Ditch revisited

Below John refers to the interview of Andrew Sullivan by Hugh Hewitt. Hugh comments on the interview here in a post with links to a recording and a transcript of the interview. Sullivan talks a lot about things he doesn’t know much about and apparently doesn’t care to learn much about. Sullivan’s behavior during the interview is bizarre, with constant interjections and taunts regarding Hugh’s support for the administration’s alleged »

Parody of the Week

Or maybe of the year. Last night, I was driving home from work and turned on the Hugh Hewitt show on AM 1280 the Patriot, as always. I tuned in just in time for the beginning of Hugh’s one and a half hour interview of Andrew Sullivan, who is on tour promoting his book The Conservative Soul. The interview, frankly, started out weird and got weirder, as Sullivan seemed to »

Broken News Network

I watched a little CNN over the lunch hour today. At one point, the newscast was interrupted by an ad for a Democratic political candidate. I had to wonder: why would a Democrat advertise on CNN? After all, the network’s programming is basically a 24/7 commercial for the Democratic Party. Why pay to interrupt it? One of CNN’s many overtly partisan features is a series called “Broken Government,” which, I »

A Nightmare Scenario

David Zucker has made another fun video; this one examines the consequences of Democrat victory on our tax code, in the form of a classic horror movie. I’m not sure whether this is a video that has been around for a while and I just missed it, or whether it’s brand new. In any event, if you like the idea of paying trillions of dollars in additional taxes, then vote »

Kennedy Surging

Last Friday, we posted Mark Kennedy’s new television ad, which takes the Iraq war head-on. We expected it to be effective, and it has been. The Kennedy campaign has just finished its latest round of polling, and the new ad, combined with Kennedy’s matchless work ethic and the Republican resurgence that we are seeing over most of the country, has sliced Democrat Amy Klobuchar’s lead in half. Mark is now »

Burning Bus Tally Up to Four

“Youths” in France hijacked and burned at least three buses last night, which would bring the total to four: Youths forced passengers off three buses and set the vehicles on fire overnight in suburban Paris, raising tensions Thursday ahead of the first anniversary of the riots that engulfed France’s rundown, heavily immigrant neighborhoods. About 10 attackers »

Podcasting Hour Two: More Politics

In the second hour of Saturday’s radio show, we talked about some key Congressional races, including Keith Ellison vs. Alan Fine. We critiqued media coverage of the current election season, and talked with Senate candidate Mark Kennedy about his new national security ad. We took some calls and awarded our coveted This Week in Gatekeeping prize. All in all, a fun hour, which I’ve edited for maximum enjoyment. You can »

Ford versus Cohen, take 2

In “Ford versus Cohen” I noted the ugly subtext of the congressional race between Memphis progressive Democrat Steve Cohen and Jake Ford, the brother of Harold Ford who is running as an independent. The subtext moves into the text of Jackson Baker’s Memphis Flyer story on the race. I’m also awarding Baker’s story headline of the day honors: “Et YouTube, Brute?” (Thanks to Instapundit.) »

Wanted

Yesterday prosecutors in Argentina sought an arrest warrant on former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani and other former Iranian officials for the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. I think the Haaretz story by Ze’ev Schiff may be the most informative: Israeli intelligence uncovered most of the details of Iran’s involvement in the July 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that left some »

Election projection: An update

Scott Elliott (“the Blogging Caesar”) of Election Projection writes: Just thought I’d let you know early that SurveyUSA’s poll out today showing Michele Bachman up 6 has moved MN-6 back into the good guys’ column. And that’s with the Strib poll still in the calculations. She’s only up a fraction, but that’s a good lead in my view given the Strib poll’s inclusion. This change will show up in tomorrow’s »

A fatwa made in Minnesota

In “Taxi” I wrote about the Muslim taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport who refuse to transport passengers visibly carrying liquor. Daniel Pipes devoted a column to the subject and followed it with notes updating his column. Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten explored the concerns that led to the rejection of the tentative “two-light” solution formulated by the Metropolitan Airports Commission. When Katherine Kersten wrote her column on »

A Puzzle Is Solved

We wrote here and here about the controversy caused by the refusal of Islamic taxi drivers at the Minneapolis airport to transport passengers who are carrying alcohol. There has been some mystery about why this “issue” has suddenly arisen, especially since there is little or no record of such squeamishness being mandated by Islamic teaching. Our friend Kathy Kersten has been investigating, and seems to have gotten to the bottom »