Best of the Web Today - October 18, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
Garbage Time?
Fifteen days to go, and much of John Kerry's "debate bounce" has faded away. RealClearPolitics' "poll average" gives President Bush a 3.6% lead, 48.8% to 45.2%, with Ralph Nader grabbing 1.7%. Without Nader, Bush picks up 0.2%, giving him a 3.8% lead.
This is close enough that Republicans are in no position to get cocky, but with every poll now showing a Bush lead (except Time without Nader and Zogby with, which both have a tie), the Kerry camp has reason to be nervous. Their man did about as well as could be expected in the debates, and still he trails. An Agence France-Presse photo suggests the Kerry campaign is a "dead end." We wouldn't go that far--but with no more debates, what can Kerry do to come back? Blogger Rodger Morrow suggests that he is being forced to resort to a "Hail Mary" approach--attempting to score via a series of long passes that have little chance of connecting:
In the past 10 days or so, the Kedwards campaign has:
Accused the Bush administration of planning to reinstitute a military draft.
Recycled the "no blood for oil" canard of the looney left.
Alleged that the Bush administration is somehow in the pocket of the Saudi royal family.
Told voters that, if they elect John Kerry, "people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."
Suggested that President Bush was planning a "January surprise" to privatize Social Security.
Advised Democratic campaign workers to launch a "pre-emptive strike" charging voter "intimidation" on election day even if no evidence exists.
Warned Florida voters that Republicans are "trying to keep people from voting."
Blamed the flu vaccine shortage on President Bush.
Twice called attention to the fact that Mary Cheney is a lesbian.
If you didn't know better, you might think they were getting desperate.
Of course, the problem with a Hail Mary pass is that there's always the danger of being intercepted, which is what appears to have happened with the Mary Cheney Hail Mary. On the surface, it was actually a very clever play, a way of gay-baiting while also appealing to gays (who saw it as a way of exposing what they see as Republican cruelty or hypocrisy on same-sex marriage).
The problem for Kerry is that a lot more Americans have children than have strong feelings about homosexuality one way or the other. People tend to be very protective of their own families and sympathetic to the protective instincts of others. It was the invasion of the Cheney family's privacy, not anything having to do with homosexuality per se, that got Kerry in trouble.
Now, it's true that Miss Cheney's sexual orientation was not a secret, and that her father had talked about it--but there's a big difference between talking about your own family (whether for political gain or not) and talking about someone else's in order to harm him politically. The Clintons understood this very well and made good use of Hillary in defending Bill from his scandals--from "60 Minutes" in 1992 to the "vast right-wing conspiracy" interview in 1998.
In our view, Hillary's own political ambitions made the Clinton marriage "fair game" to a much greater degree than Mary Cheney is, but we'd venture to say most Americans were more sympathetic to Hillary's privacy than we were. Tellingly, Robert Novak reports that "the only Kerry aide on the [campaign] plane who wanted the senator to quickly issue an apology for any perceived insult was senior adviser Mike McCurry, the former Clinton spokesman who is a calm, cool voice among the overheated Kerryites." In any case, it's hard to imagine Bill Clinton ever being graceless enough to say such a thing in the first place, let alone to insist he was right to do so.
What's Wrong With an Overcoat?
"Bush Says He's Best Protection From Draft"--headline, Associated Press, Oct. 17
The Feel-Good Hit of the Season
This column doesn't normally do movie reviews, but we just have to let the world know how much we adore "Team America: World Police," which we saw Saturday night in a big-screen IMAX theater on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Seeing an audience in deep-blue Manhattan cheer the destruction of the Eiffel Tower restored our faith in American unity.
Be warned: This film will not be everyone's cup of tea. It's rife with obscene language, explicit sex (albeit involving anatomically incorrect puppets) and fake vomit. Reviewer Ed Blank of the right-wing Pittsburgh Tribune-Review calls it a work of "crude excess" that widens "the abyss between satire and garbage." But the sanctimonious left-wing twit Roger Ebert also pans it; he's especially aggrieved by the song "Everyone Has AIDS," which even Andrew Sullivan says "deserves to win an Oscar."
If the gross-out elements don't put you off, you will find "TAWP" heartwarming, hilarious, inspiring and patriotic. And, as New York Times reviewer A.O. Scott acknowledges, "the movie has an argument." Unfortunately, we can't tell you what the argument is, because it rests entirely on vulgar anatomical references, and this is a family newspaper's Web site.
We will say that the argument is simple yet profound, making the case for the war on terror in a way that ought to be especially appealing to immature males. If this film continues to do well at the box office, it could give President Bush a boost with the youth vote.
Foreign Leaders Take Sides
If you think the Jews rule the world by proxy, vote for John Kerry. Such would seem to be the message from Mahathir Mohammad, the former Malaysian prime minister (and former Enron adviser Paul Krugman's favorite anti-Semite), who "has appealed to American Muslims not to vote for George Bush on November 2," according to the Daily Times of Pakistan. In "an open letter sent to the community," Mahathir writes that "Bush has shown . . . he is the cause of the tragedies in Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq."
Also hoping for a Kerry win: Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Reports the Jerusalem Post:
The Palestinian Authority made its first open statement Monday expressing support for US democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
PA Foreign Minister Nabil Sha'ath said that the future of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is unsure if George W. Bush is re-elected to office.
Not all foreign leaders are pro-Kerry, however. "Russian President Vladimir Putin says terrorist attacks in Iraq are aimed at preventing the re-election of U.S. President George W. Bush and that a Bush defeat 'could lead to the spread of terrorism to other parts of the world,' " CNN reports:
"International terrorists have set as their goal inflicting the maximum damage to Bush, to prevent his election to a second term.
"If they succeed in doing that, they will celebrate a victory over America and over the entire anti-terror coalition," Putin said.
"In that case, this would give an additional impulse to international terrorists and to their activities, and could lead to the spread of terrorism to other parts of the world."
And Kerry is coming in for criticism from an unlikely source. "The commander of the UN peacekeepers in Haiti has linked a recent upsurge in violence there to comments made by the US presidential candidate, John Kerry," the BBC reports. Kerry had said he would have sent in U.S. troops to reinstall Jean-Bertrand Aristide's thuggish left-wing government.
"The Brazilian UN general, Augusto Heleno, said Mr Kerry's comments had offered 'hope' to Aristide supporters. Much of the recent unrest has centred on areas loyal to Mr Aristide." More than 50 people have been killed in the violence.
Kerry Gets the Lewis A. Shattuck Vote
The New York Times' John Tierney has an amusing roundup of debate bests and worsts. Our favorite:
Too Much Information Prize: Mr. Kerry and his campaign, for indignantly disputing Mr. Bush's assertion that he had passed only five bills in his Senate career. "Once again, the president is misleading America," he said. "I have passed 56 individual bills that I have personally written."
His press office followed up with a list of the 56 legislative achievements, none of which brought to mind Daniel Webster. Among the highlights:
A "joint resolution designating Oct. 22 through 28, 1989, as 'World Population Awareness Week' ''; a "resolution amending the Standing Rules of the Senate to change the name of the Committee on Small Business to the 'Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship'; a "bill to re-designate the federal building located at 380 Trapelo Road in Waltham, Mass., as the 'Frederick C. Murphy Federal Center,' " and, lest we forget, "a resolution to recognize the accomplishments of Lewis A. Shattuck."
Who the heck is Lewis A. Shattuck? We found the resolution, passed Jan. 24, 1991--just 12 days after Kerry voted to let Saddam Hussein have Kuwait--and it turns out Shattuck was just retiring as president of the Smaller Business Association of New England. Apparently Shattuck now resides in Vermont, these days a solidly Democratic state, so his vote won't help Kerry much. Meanwhile, Factcheck.org has a full list of Kerry's legislative accomplishments.
Goldilocks for President
On the same day the New York Times stunned the world by endorsing John Kerry for president, the paper published two articles criticizing the Bush administration for contradictory reasons. Ron Suskind, who created a bit of a stir sometime back with his book airing erstwhile Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill's grievances against the president, says the administration is too rigid:
The president has demanded unquestioning faith from his followers, his staff, his senior aides and his kindred in the Republican Party. Once he makes a decision--often swiftly, based on a creed or moral position--he expects complete faith in its rightness.
Then the Times' David Sanger, writing in the Week in Review section, says the administration is too fractious:
Mr. Bush, more than most recent presidents, has tolerated--even encouraged--a constant battle in his administration over how to shape its approach to the world.
Oh well, at least the editorial page assures us the Kerry administration will be just right.
Suskind's article includes an interesting anecdote about a Bush supporter, Hardy Billington of Poplar Bluff, Mo., meeting the president:
When the moment came in the V.I.P. tent to shake Bush's hand, Billington remembered being reserved. '''I really thank God that you're the president' was all I told him.'' Bush, he recalled, said, ''Thank you.''
''He knew what I meant,'' Billington said. ''I believe he's an instrument of God, but I have to be careful about what I say, you know, in public.''
Is there anyone in America who feels that John Kerry is an instrument of God?
Now, we are generally skeptical about such things, so we would say the probability is very low that Bush is an instrument of God. But we agree with Suskind that there is no chance whatever John Kerry is an instrument of God. Thus it would seem Pascal's wager is an excellent reason to support the president.
Oh, and check out this headline from the (Bridgeport) Connecticut Post: "Bush Catches Fire in Front of Bank." Is Someone trying to tell us something?
Metaphor Alert
From a column by Mark Green in the Oklahoman newspaper:
Before the first debate Kerry's campaign was like a jalopy running on four under-inflated tires. The senator's debating skills helped him revive Democrats who were starting to worry about their man's incoherent campaign to that point. Kerry was helped because it's not hard to make an incumbent play defense. He also was helped when Bush didn't bring his A game to the first encounter.
Bush rallied in the second debate. He was aggressive and energetic. Even if Kerry still outpointed him in a pure debating sense, Bush showed a strong pulsd [sic] ane [sic] rallied his supporters.
The trouble for both men is that the red meat craved by their most dyed-in-the-wool loyalists turns off most swing or independent voters. It makes sense: If they liked that kind of political diet, they wouldn't be swing voters.
That's why both candidates played more of a balancing act in the final debate. Neither ventured much into the sharp rhetoric that sours unattached voters.
A Real Patriot
From an Associated Press dispatch, dateline Fort Bragg, N.C.:
George Perez still feels the sweat between his toes when he exercises. He's still plagued with nagging cramps in his calf muscle. And sometimes, when he gets out of bed at night without thinking, he topples over.
Perez, 21, lost his leg to a roadside bomb in Iraq more than a year ago, but despite the phantom pains that haunt him, he says he is determined to prove to the Army that he is no less of a man--and no less of a soldier.
"I'm not ready to get out yet," he says. "I'm not going to let this little injury stop me from what I want to do."
Perez is one of at least four amputees from the 82nd Airborne Division to re-enlist. With a new carbon-fiber prosthetic leg, Perez intends to show a medical board he can run an eight-minute mile, jump out of airplanes and pass all the other paratrooper tests that will allow him to go with his regiment to Afghanistan next year.
Wow.
Fun With Saddam Apologists
Some wacko peacenik group put together a photo album of its members holding up signs apologizing to the Iraqi people for liberating them, and Tim Blair has written hilarious captions (he's just added a sequel, here). "We apologize for the humiliation and suffering we are causing the people of Iraq," reads one sign, captioned by Blair: "Crouching peaceniks, hidden sandals."
Another photo shows two women on their knees--the position in which these people would like to see all Americans--holding a sign that reads: "We stand with you with a prayer of peace in our hearts." Blair: "Er, ladies? You aren't standing."
Blogger Sean Gleeson, meanwhile, Photoshopped his own signs right into the photos: "Our hearts are filled with grief and shame (cholesterol, too)." "Saddam + Kimmi 4 Ever" (that one's outlined by a big heart). "If we weren't on parole, we would be voting for KERRY."
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This Just In
"Madrid Attacks May Have Targeted Election"--headline, Washington Post, Oct. 17
What Would Sperm Do Without Experts?
"Experts Call for Rescue of Sperm"--headline, China Daily, Oct. 17
Losing Streak
"A high school graduate was sentenced to up to two years in jail for streaking the graduation ceremony from which he had been excluded," the Associated Press reports from Towanda, Pa.:
Russell Chmieleski, 18, pleaded guilty to first-degree indecent exposure and must serve six months to two years. Because the charge is a misdemeanor, he can stay in a county jail, rather than state prison.
Word to the wise, Russell: Don't try that in the cell block. |
