Best of the Web Today - January 18, 2005
By JAMES TARANTO
Post to Bush: Goof Off
Ponder the opening paragraph in an article from today's Washington Post:
President Bush will begin his second term in office without a clear mandate to lead the nation, with strong disapproval of his policies in Iraq and with the public both hopeful and dubious about his leadership on the issues that will dominate his agenda, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
If the president doesn't have a clear mandate to lead the nation, what is he supposed to do for the next four years? Just hang around the ranch goofing off? Someone should explain to the good people at the Post that in democracies we have these things called elections, in which people called voters give candidates a mandate to lead.
I Have a Bellyache
John Kerry* "used Boston's annual Martin Luther King Jr. memorial breakfast yesterday to decry what he called the suppression of thousands of would-be voters last November," reports the Boston Globe:
"Thousands of people were suppressed in their efforts to vote. Voting machines were distributed in uneven ways," the former Democratic nominee told an enthusiastic audience of 1,200 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in South Boston.
"In Democratic districts, it took people four, five, 11 hours to vote, while Republicans [went] through in 10 minutes. Same voting machines, same process, our America," Kerry said.
Dude, you lost. Get over it. And if there are problems with inadequate supplies of voting machines in Democratic districts, shouldn't the leaders of the Democratic Party be working with Democratic local officials to find a remedy, rather than whining about how unfair America is? Here's more Kerry:
"My friends, this is not a time to pretend. We're here to celebrate the life of a man who, if he were here today, would make it clear to us what our agenda is. And nothing," Kerry said, his voice rising in anger, "would he make more clear on that agenda than, in a nation that is willing to spend several hundred million dollars in Iraq to bring them democracy we cannot tolerate that, here in America, too many people are denied that democracy."
This quote--especially the gratuitous disparagement of America's war effort--is both convoluted and totally negative in tone. No wonder Democrats keep losing elections. They're such a sour bunch that their way of honoring the man who declared "I have a dream" is to reply: I have a bellyache.
* The haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam.
This Just In--I
"Kerry Criticizes Election Outcome"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 17
'Gingrich Democrats'
David Brooks has an interesting take on the Democrats' effort to sink Social Security reform. He notes, as we did yesterday, that they are taking as a model the Republicans' success in sinking President Clinton's health-insurance legislation in 1994, and says they are patterning their tactics more generally on those of Newt Gingrich. "Their core belief is that Republicans have won of late because they have been ruthless and disciplined while Democrats have been responsible and wimpy," Brooks writes. "It is time, the neo-Gingrichians say, to scorch the earth":
The problem with the neo-Gingrichians is that they have their history backward. Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992 with only 43 percent of the vote. When Gingrich began his assault, there already was a potential conservative majority in the country; it's just that many of these conservatives, for historical reasons, tended to vote Democratic in Congressional races. . . .
The Democrats today are in a very different position. They already have all the liberals. What they lack is support from middle-class white families in fast-growing suburbs. But by copying the Gingrich tactics--or what they think of as the Gingrich tactics--of hyperpartisanship and ruthless oppositionalism, they will only alienate those voters even more.
They won't turn themselves into the 1990's Republicans. They will turn themselves into the 1930's Republicans or the current British Tory Party.
Over on Salon, though, one Peter Dizikes offers a word of hope to the Dems. He lists 34 GOP "scandals," of which he says "every one" is "worse than Whitewater." Dizikes complains that these "scandals" aren't getting enough attention, and that "the Democrats, terminally cautious even in the minority, seem unlikely to change this dynamic."
So maybe the Democrats can promise that if Americans restore them to power, they will return us to the halcyon days of Whitewater!
No Wonder They're Blue
Yesterday we noted that some people are marketing blue bracelets so that disconsolate Democrats can make a public showing of their sadness. At least that's what we thought they were for. It turns out that blue bracelets have another meaning, according to an October story in the Ocala (Fla.) Star-Banner:
A new trend, which has some parents and school officials concerned and may very well shock others, has surfaced in Marion County. The newest twist on Truth or Dare, the game involves wearing colored rubber bracelets, which have various meanings, some sexual.
Students break the bracelets off one another and then are supposedly entitled to specific acts, some as innocent as a hug, others sexually explicit. . . . One e-mail from a teacher concerning the sixth-grade code stated that a red bracelet stands for a "lap dance" while a blue one symbolized oral sex.
When you talk to Angry Left types, the thing they always say about the last Democratic president is: "Clinton lied about [an act of oral sex]!" Believe it or not, this is supposed to be an argument against the liberation of Iraq--but perhaps it actually does reveal something about the psychosexual development of the Angry Left.
What Would We Do Without Analyses?
"Analysis: Bush Legacy a Work in Progress"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 18
Out on a Limb
A week before the presidential election, historian Robert Dallek penned an op-ed piece for USA Today in which he offered a prediction:
If voters pay as close attention to a president's record as I think they do, Bush will likely sink on Nov. 2. . . . Past elections would suggest that the electorate will reject his imperfect leadership and make him the sixth incumbent since 1908 to serve only one term.
Yesterday's Washington Post, in an article about the Bush political dynasty, quotes Dallek as saying of the president: "So much of how he and the family will be regarded by history depends on how the second term turns out." You'd think his 2004 blooper would have taught him not to go out on a limb like that.
Sontag Award Nominee
"It would be hard to find or invent a more graphic example of evil than that perpetrated by [Charles] Graner in Abu Ghraib."--Andrew Sullivan
How about flying planes into buildings? Suicide bombings? Beheading hostages?
Abu Drake
"White House Ducks Torture Proposal Queries"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 14
Talk About Longwinded!
"Bredesen Discusses Ambitions for the Next Two Years"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 17
Not Too Brite--CLXXIX
"A Brazilian man arguing with his 88-year-old mother threw her into a neighbors' yard where two pit bulls mauled her to death," Reuters reports from Sao Paulo.
Oddly Enough!
(For an explanation of the "Not Too Brite" series, click here.)
What Would We Do Without Studies?
"Keyword Spamming on eBay a Waste of Time, Study Shows"--headline, AuctionBytes.com, Jan. 17
What Would We Do Without Experts?
"The Tourism industry is not likely to benefit from the tsunami disaster in Asia, experts say."--East African Standard (Nairobi, Kenya), Jan. 16
Why We Question the Patriotism of Experts
"Experts Fooled as Patriots Rule"--headline, Portland (Maine) Press Herald, Jan. 17
No Wonder They're an Endangered Species
"Eagles Have Been There, but Haven't Done It"--headline, New York Times, Jan. 18
All Hail the Mighty Weasel Bus
Agence France-Presse reports on the unveiling of Airbus's new plane:
The huge A380 superjumbo, which can carry up to 840 people on its two full decks, supersedes the ageing 747 by US rival Boeing as the biggest civilian aircraft ever made. . . .
"Good old Europe has made this possible," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told a packed hall in Airbus's headquarters in Toulouse, southwest France.
That was a barely-veiled barb recalling the US dismissal of France, Germany and other EU states in 2003 as "Old Europe" because of their opposition to the war on Iraq.
Airbus chief Noel Forgeard made similar hints in his presentation of the A380 during a colourful spectacle featuring computer graphics, atmospheric theme music, dancers and fountains.
"The European states--so easily accused of weakness--backed this fantastic challenge 35 years ago and have believed in the A380," he said.
So these guys acting in concord took 35 years to come up with something bigger than a 747, and we're supposed to be overawed? |
