Liquid Winter Warmth

This post at Fraters' reminds me of how a wee bit of spirit is good for same. I fully agree with JB Doubtless' evaluation of Maker's Mark, Knob Creek, and especially his remarks about Booker's. Lovely, sneaky stuff. Wonderful flavor, and then it sneaks back and nails you with that 127 proof. Naturally, I give it as gifts. I do want to suggest another fine bourbon - Basil Hayden's. Tasty and the smoothest bourbon I've ever drank, but at 80 proof not as strong as Booker's.

It could be that I just missed their ruminations on Scotch (but not their Beer Ratings), but there's nothing like a fine single malt to help one relax a bit at the end of a stressful day. Since I use this blog to write on all sorts of other things I know little about, it's time to keep with that tradition and recommend some single malts. My favorite, The Glenmorangie, is an almost spicy whisky from Tain that has the bonus of a truly wonderful smell to it. To me it's worth it sometimes just to pop the cork off it just for a sniff. Talisker (from the Isle of Skye) has a touch of saltiness and iodine to go with the peat and smoke flavors. The last of my troika of favorites is Lagavulin - who would have thought one could make coal smoke taste good?

Showing Off My Ignorance, #48213

I have a question about the sturcture of our armed forces. According to this we have just over 1.4 million active duty soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen. As of September this year we have approximately 170,000 people serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom (137,000 as ground forces), a considerable portion being composed of Reserve and National Guard units. Some of these units, I understand, are now preparing or are serving their second tour in Iraq. My question is this: why is what appears to be a significant dependence on our reserve forces necessary to field a 170,000 person expeditionary force in Iraq (a deployment of about 12% of our active duty force)? Is our active duty military so short of support units that the Reserves are no longer reserves?

My suspicion is that our force structure (is that the right phrase), may be left over from a time where economy was more important that staying power. I freely admit my ignorance however, and am willing to hear better explanations.

More Garbage from the Strib

Here's the transcript (via the Corner) of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld answering the now famous question about armored Humvees from Specialist Thomas Wilson:

Q: Yes, Mr. Secretary. My question is more logistical. We’ve had troops in Iraq for coming up on three years and we’ve always staged here out of Kuwait. Now why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromise ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles and why don’t we have those resources readily available to us? [Applause]

SEC. RUMSFELD: I missed the first part of your question. And could you repeat it for me?

Q: Yes, Mr. Secretary. Our soldiers have been fighting in Iraq for coming up on three years. A lot of us are getting ready to move north relatively soon. Our vehicles are not armored. We’re digging pieces of rusted scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass that’s already been shot up, dropped, busted, picking the best out of this scrap to put on our vehicles to take into combat. We do not have proper armament vehicles to carry with us north.

SEC. RUMSFELD: I talked to the General coming out here about the pace at which the vehicles are being armored. They have been brought from all over the world, wherever they’re not needed, to a place here where they are needed. I’m told that they are being – the Army is – I think it’s something like 400 a month are being done. And it’s essentially a matter of physics. It isn’t a matter of money. It isn’t a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It’s a matter of production and capability of doing it.

As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time. Since the Iraq conflict began, the Army has been pressing ahead to produce the armor necessary at a rate that they believe – it’s a greatly expanded rate from what existed previously, but a rate that they believe is the rate that is all that can be accomplished at this moment.

I can assure you that General Schoomaker and the leadership in the Army and certainly General Whitcomb are sensitive to the fact that not every vehicle has the degree of armor that would be desirable for it to have, but that they’re working at it at a good clip. It’s interesting, I’ve talked a great deal about this with a team of people who’ve been working on it hard at the Pentagon. And if you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored humvee and it can be blown up. And you can go down and, the vehicle, the goal we have is to have as many of those vehicles as is humanly possible with the appropriate level of armor available for the troops. And that is what the Army has been working on.

And General Whitcomb, is there anything you’d want to add to that?

GEN. WHITCOMB: Nothing. [Laughter] Mr. Secretary, I’d be happy to. That is a focus on what we do here in Kuwait and what is done up in the theater, both in Iraq and also in Afghanistan. As the secretary has said, it’s not a matter of money or desire; it is a matter of the logistics of being able to produce it. The 699th, the team that we’ve got here in Kuwait has done [Cheers] a tremendous effort to take that steel that they have and cut it, prefab it and put it on vehicles. But there is nobody from the president on down that is not aware that this is a challenge for us and this is a desire for us to accomplish.

SEC. RUMSFELD: The other day, after there was a big threat alert in Washington, D.C. in connection with the elections, as I recall, I looked outside the Pentagon and there were six or eight up-armored humvees. They’re not there anymore. [Cheers] [Applause] They’re en route out here, I can assure you. Next. Way in the back. Yes.

How does this answer merit this editorial from the Star Tribune that accuses Secretary Rumsfeld of not wanting to support our soldiers in Iraq? It doesn't. A soldier asks a legitimate question about armored Humvees (even if the question was planted by a reporter) and received a candid response. A response, by the way, that the Strib's editors chose to cherry-pick a sound bite out of , robbing it of context. All this to claim that the SecDef is suffering from hubris, calling him 'delusional', accusing him (for the umpteenth time) of direct responsibility for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, and raise the bogus NYT story about missing explosives again. Oh, and demanding his resignation again (again not for the first time).

Personally, I find the idea of the Strib accusing the administration of not properly supporting our soldiers darkly funny, given their support of John Kerry, who voted against funding our forces once they were engaged in Iraq. I have my problems with Rumsfeld (fodder for a later post), but this is just another dishonest argument presented by the Star Tribune editorial board.

The Star Tribune Takes a Stupid Pill

Just when I get done actually saying something nice about the Strib's editors someone points me towards stuff that meets my rather low expectations for their work. This editorial sure lowers my expectations. The juvenile, illogical, two-faced substance and tone of this thing is disgraceful, and thoroughly demonstrates why thinking, reasonable people should rarely, (if ever) take anything written by the Strib's editors seriously. I could say more, but Mitch Berg does a far better job of it than I. Go, read.

Will Wonders Never Cease!

In the brief time that I have been criticizing the Star Tribune editorial pages I've complained about the sloppy thinking, vitriol towards Republicans and conservatives (not quite the same thing), and bias against same that appears there on a regular basis. Well today I was in for quite a shock, since the Strib ran some opinion pieces that actually sound pretty reasonable ( see here, here, here, and here). In fact the way the Strib advocates a move to a trimmer, more accountable government for the city of Minneapolis sounds almost ... Republican!

Steve Berg's piece describes how the structure of Minneapolis' government is an impediment to effectively and efficiently running the city, and how difficult it can be for citizens and employees of the city of Minneapolis to work with their government. Staff members getting conflicting instructions from supervisors and City Councilmen, and the struggles to reconcile the often conflicting demands of 13 city councilmen, the Park Board, and the Library Board.

A piece by John Gunyou provides his analysis of why the "weak mayor-strong council" form of government is not working well for Minneapolis and why it should be change. He points out that with 250 contact numbers for city departments, for example, that it can be very difficult for residents with a problem to figure out who the right people to contact are.

Another article, this time by the occasionally criticized on this blog Jim Boyd, explains the history of how Minneapolis got the government structure it has.

Today's editorial describes again (in brief) the problems they perceive in Minneapolis governmental structure and lay out their ideas on how to fix it. I don't agree with everything they say, but it's not a bad start. They even admit to needing some Republican influence in how the city is run (has the world ended? - ed, ).

All four of the pieces mentioned above are well worth reading, if only for the primer they provide on how the government of Minneapolis is (un)organized and the description of the problems it faces. But since there always seems to be one bad apple on the Strib's tree, here's a piece by Lori Sturdevant ( Isn't she the one who's so partisan she makes your hair bleed?- ed. Shut up.) that makes a lame attempt to blame the city's governance problems on the state GOP, despite the fact that the borrowing and pension decisions that are financially crippling the city now were taken during the time when the DFL had complete control of both the city and the state. But even she concedes that much of the city's problems are of its own making (quite a concession for her). Anyway well worth reading, especially for Minneapolis residents.

More from the Pioneer Press

In a couple more items from the Pioneer Press:

Minnesota faces $700 million budget gap: About the only comment on this that I have is that the legislature sure seems foolish for passing a law saying that budget estimates could not include inflation. Inflation is a fact of life and needs to be figured into the budget, one of the few things the DFL is correct about.

In other economic news, Ford plans to reduce the production of Ranger pickups. Since the Ranger is the only vehicle built at the Ford plant in St. Paul, this can't be good news for the people working there. Has the market for small pickups become smaller, or is the Ranger overdue for a design overhaul to better compete with the offerings from Toyota and Nissan?

Blog Stuff

Just a couple of notes:

This little blog has managed to evolve to the exalted status of Lowly Insect in NZ Bear's Ecosystem. Imagine. Maybe in 50 more years, it may manage to become a more significant bug....

I would like to thank Patterico of Patterico's Pontifications for adding me to his blogroll. I regret not noticing sooner, but I don't think to check my referrer logs very often. I'm not sure why he added it, but if you're in the market for sporadic, yet inane commentary on Minnesota and national politics with some occasional Star Tribune bashing, this is the place.

Gun Owners Are People, Too

I was rather surprised to see this opinion piece in today's Pioneer press. It's purpose is to remind people that horrified at the notion of citizens defending themselves that people who own guns are every bit as human and normal as themselves. I admit to mixed views on concealed carry laws, but it just seems sad that an essay such as Ms. Stack 's is necessary. Such are our times, I guess.

Another Silly Question

After seeing a photo like this (via Damian Penny) I just have to shake my head. Have any of these people (whom I'm sure consider themselves to be more intelligent than mere Bush/Bush voters/GOPers) actually tried to develop or promote a better solution to the problems in the Middle East?

Based on the press coverage of all the anti-Bush/anti-US demonstrations and protests, it would appear the only interest is in competition to see who can best vilify President Bush. Judging by the startlingly unoriginal, historically illiterate stuff I've seen the last four years, I'd say that the required original thinking is not exactly their forte. Also that it shows their estimates of their own intelligence are vastly overinflated.

I'm sure that there are reasoned critiques of US policy in response to terrorism and the political cesspool of the Middle East, but has anyone actually crafted an alternative policy that would be different and better than the Bush administrations?

Silly Questions

I have a couple of questions to ask the conservatives/liberals that stumble across this little blog.

First to the liberals: what does "pay their fair share" mean? What rate of taxation would be too high, even for wealthy folk? Who has first claim on the wealth one earns (we'll assume honestly), the person(s) who earn it or the broader society at large (represented by the government).? One last question : what the hell does "social justice" mean? I mostly see the phrase used by liberals attempting to sell a government program or arguing for an unpopular court decision, so you get the question.

To the conservatives: given that government is a necessary part of being civilized (no one has made an argument that anarchy works), how do we pay for the functions performed by government? If we have an economy that generates a lot of low paying jobs that do not allow families to fund things that conservatives often consider to be areas of personal responsibility (retirement, private school education for children, health care, etc) what, if anything, can/should be done to help these hard-working people out? For the believers in unrestricted immigration: why is it a good thing (by bringing in large amounts of lower-skilled labor) to increase the competition for jobs at the low end of the income scale, even though there is plenty of competition already?

Just curious.

Yasser Arafat, RIP(ieces)

This is probably stating the obvious, but like Rantisi and Yassin before him Yasser Arafat's greatest benefit to humanity will be as fertilizer and/or worm chow. Goodbye Father of Modern Terrorism and good riddance. Oh, and enjoy Allah's judgement, you murdering bastard.

Do We Really Have to Tolerate These Guys?

Now, while I understand that Minnesota has a reputation for tolerance and open-mindedness to maintain, do we really have to put up with these idiots? If I were a Minneapolis resident, I'd be more than a little bit embarrassed to have them in town, really. My first impression was that of a parody site, but alas they seem to be serious. A word of advice guys: Minnesota doesn't need Nazis, find another line of work.

To Revise and Extend:
Isn't it the height of laziness (along with stupidity) to think that a person's merit can be determined by their skin color, or who their parents are? Part of the proposition that the United States is based on is that each individual will prove their own merit, if given the chance. Another is that individuals have rights (granted by the Creator, no less) that the State cannot ignore and must respect. Of course, membership in the American Nazi Party clearly demonstrates that concept is a bit beyond them... .

When Deranged Blue Voters Attack!

After reading this lovely missive from Jane Smiley, and these two angry rants from Ken Layne, I am slowly becoming convinced that a significant number of John Kerry's supporters have (probably temporarily) lost their bleepin' minds. The meanness, paranoia about religion, contempt for those who disagree, and lack of understanding of them in these posts boggle the mind.

First Ms. Smiley. She opens by calling over half her relatives ignorant and greedy. That'll make the next family gathering interesting. But wait, there's more! She attempts to associate red staters with the Confederacy (and all the 'positive' stuff associated with it) in an attempt to vilify them. Setting aside the fact that using the labels 'red' and 'blue' for the two opposing sides of the Civil War is meaningless, she would do well to remember that the GOP was the party of Abolition, and the Democrats who represented the South (and the institution of slavery). 'Twas also the Democratic Party who institutionalized Jim Crow and segregation.
After that, she moves on to explain that people in the red states are not only ignorant, they are so willfully ignorant as to be uneducatable, so she basically writes off as hateful morons anyone who voted GOP. They were brainwashed by the Cheney-Bush capitalism/religion machine, you see. The combination of unthinking arrogance, condescention, and bigotry (without anything resembling a reasoned argument) in her essay is truly breathtaking. And here I thought that the liberal Left is supposed to be rational, tolerant, and open minded. I don't suppose it ever occurred to her that people who voted for the GOP/Bush/Cheney arrived at their conclusion via a rational process similar to how she made hers. (Judging by her essay, a more rational process than hers. - ed. ) The whole article has the stink of hate and fear about it. Perhaps Ms. Smiley should examine her own assumptions before putting fingers to keyboard next time.

Ken Layne: Control your anger, young Jedi. Instead of demonizing them, attempt to understand those who voted differenly than yourself. Understand that intelligent people can and do come to reasonable conclusions on the issues of the day that *gasp* are different than yours! Not to mention that insulting people is not a likely way to win them over to your way of thinking. In a bit harsher language - what the hell is your goddamned problem with religious people? Listen carefully you arrogant, bigoted jackass, there are a few facts that need to be considered. First, the person that you call "Jesusland's No. 1 Convert" is not an evangelical. He's a Methodist, and he doesn't really mention his faith all that much more than the White House's previous occupant did. Next, it isn't President Bush's fault that he gets letters of congratulations from idiots like Bob Jones. That's like claiming that John Kerry is a believer in the goals of International A.N.S.W.E.R. . Furthermore your characteriztion of Christians probably doesn't fit the vast majority of those who voted for the President. Additionally, the evangelicals didn't even push Bush over the top - atheists did. So, get off your condescending high horse and grow up. You sound like an angry, angst-ridden teenager.

On this Veteran's Day

To those who stood a post where I was not able.

To the liberators of Europe and Asia.

To those who fought in Korea and Vietnam, who were for too long unappreciated.

To those who were vigilant through the Long Night of the Cold War.

To the liberators of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Thank you.

Star Tribune Hypocrisy Watch

It seems that the Star Tribune's editors object to an "anti-Kerry screed" that will be broadcast on 62 TV stations that belong to Sinclair Broadcasting. Apparently from the viewpoint of the Star Tribune, some kinds of free speech should be illegal:

If the stunt that Sinclair Broadcasting Group is pulling isn't against the law, it ought to be. Sinclair, owner of more American television stations than any other company, has ordered all 62 of its holdings -- which collectively reach a quarter of American households -- to suspend normal programming for one evening just before the upcoming presidential election. The stations are instead to air a one-hour conservative diatribe against Sen. John Kerry. This is a flagrant and cynical abuse of the public's airwaves for a partisan political purpose, an action that should put Sinclair's federal broadcast licenses in jeopardy. For comparison, imagine that WCCO's owner, CBS, ordered it to broadcast Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11."

The Strib seems to have forgotten a miniscule thing called the 1st Amendment. Says something about free speech or some such thing. Guess what boys and girls, Sinclair has the same right to editorialize and present their point of view (if that's what they actually are doing - Fox interviewed a representative of Sinclair who pointed out that the content of the program has yet to be decided) as the Star Trib does. If people object to the content, no one is forcing them to watch, and the channel button isn't far away. Perhaps the Strib's editors are just envious of the size of Sinclair's audience.

The editorial then goes on to describe the film "Stolen Honor" as a conservative diatribe, and attempts to justify why it is far worse than Michael Moore's anti-Bush Fahrenhit 9/11.

Indeed, Moore's film, while avowedly anti-Bush, is tame compared to the so-called documentary Sinclair plans to broadcast. "Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal" focuses on Kerry's antiwar activities 30 years ago. A Web site for the film says it exposes Kerry's "record of betrayal." In the film, one Vietnam POW asserts that Kerry "committed an act of treason. He lied, he besmirched our name and he did it for self-interest. And now he wants us to forget." More than a dozen of the television stations required to air this screed are in the key battleground states of Wisconsin, Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

In other words, this film is worse than F 9/11 because it questions Kerry's service, and some of the stations broadcasting it cover battleground states where it might have an impact. Do I need to go into how lame and hypocritical this is? The Strib had no objections to and in fact endorsed the anti-Bush lies and propaganda of "Fahrenheit 9/11" being shown nationwide, not to mention Michael Moore's anti-Bush speaking tour. What is their problem with a dissenting point of view? Heck, Sinclair even offered Senator Kerry a chance to rebut, unlike Moore who evades anyone who would challange him about his movie.

When Sinclair makes the claim that the program is a news program, the Strib ridicules the claim by saying that 'it wasn't produced by any creditable news organization". Credible like say, CBS? The fact of the matter is, that if the major media had given the accusations of the Swift Vets a proper hearing, and devoted the same resources to investigating their claims as they did to the President's National Guard service, this planned broadcast wouldn't be creating such a stir. The Strib then goes on to restate its initial complaint, that Sinclair shouldn't be doing this because it's wrong to use the public airwaves for political purposes. I've got news for the Strib: as long as Sinclair obeys the rules, they can broadcast whatever they want. It's called free speech. Get used to it.

"Nick Coleman, Real Journalist"

The Nick Coleman rant concerning bloggers has been covered extensively by other blogs, especially the Fraters', so I only have one comment and one suggestion for Nick.

Mr. Coleman seems to have not kept in touch with the times. For 18 years he has been able to opine, denigrate, and mock via his column the people whose positions he disapproves of or just plain dislikes without having to worry much about the reactions of those in the audience who disagree. After all, what could they do to him? Problem is Nick old fellow, times have changed a bit. It's easy for the average Joe to publish on the web these days, and when you make an ass of yourself by petulantly trashing the "bloggies" you're picking a fight with folks who possibly have more readers than you do. Of course there is the side benefit of exposing your hackwork to a nationwide audience and providing more embarassment to the citizens of the Twin Cities... .

Nick, I'm sure you remember Mark Twain's crack about never picking a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel. I suggest that you remember that these days, electrons are cheaper than ink.

In another post, I asked about how do we get news we can trust. I just want to clarify what I had in mind. One answer to this question is something to the effect of "Use the resources available, especially the internet to check out what the news source is saying". The problem is most of us lack the time to fully research/verify the facts reported about stories of interest to us. After all, most of us do something other than research to make a living. Then there are the time requirements in raising children, maintaining one's home, and/or taking care of the other myriad things that need to be done to maintain one's daily life. That's one of the things that, once upon a time, made the network news kind of attactive. People (rightly or wrongly) trusted Cronkite, Brinkley, et. al. to deliver the important news of the day. Now that we've gotten an inside look at how the sausage is made, so to speak, and now have reason to distrust their descendants at the networks, where will people turn for reliable, accurate information needed to make important decisions (like, who to vote for)?

A Whiff of Fall

Fall started for me today (you're about a week late - ed. ) when I left work. When I stepped out of the computer center, I noticed just a hint of the smell the breeze off a harvested corn field has. This despite the fact that there isn't a cornfield within miles and the harvest won't be starting for awhile yet. I lack the words to describe it, but to me, it whispers "Winter is coming..."

CBS's Betrayal

The scandal now called "Rathergate" has moved a lot of electrons while I have been away. Kudos to the folks at Power Line , Little Green Footballs, and others for doing the heavy lifting that exposed this thing. I don't have any facts to add to this, but I do have a few thoughts about the fallout. Briefly covered are the Kerry campaign, CBS, bloggers, and the public at large.

First, Kerry and Co. . If it turns out that there were contacts between the campaign and CBS News before CBS broadcast the story, Kerry's poll numbers will sink faster than Michael Moore in a leaky rowboat. Even though President Bush is not what I would call wildly popular with the voting public right now, an opposing candidate involved in a fraudulent smear job on the president will rapidly become the villain. I find it difficult to believe they could be this stupid, but if the docs are traced back to someone in the Kerry camp, it's all over but the postmortems.

CBS. CBS loses on two counts. First they've squandered whatever trust that remained from the days of the big Three networks. Given the degree of sloppiness shown in their rush to get this story on the air, why should anyone trust any of their investigative work? Their eagerness to ignore information that didn't agree with the storyline (Bush was given special treatment, Bush pulled strings, Bush didn't serve honorably) also demonstrates that they do not merit trust as well as showing CBS News to be unprofessional. Second, if it turns out that people inside CBS News were in cahoots with people in the Kerry campaign on this story, then any pretense of the media being objective is finished at CBS. It won't be Fox News that's the poster child of media bias anymore. Oh, and by the way CBS should fire Dan Rather and everyone else connected with the decision to air the National Guard story without vetting the evidence.

Bloggers. A well-deserved pat on the back. I have noticed a few mentions of the idea that the mainstream media is no longer relevant, because of the presence of the citizen journalist/blogger. I just want to caution that most of the factual reporting is still done by what is referred to the mainstream media (newspapers/TV/magazines), henceforth known as the MSM. Interviews with the Killian family, information about the warnings given to CBS by their own document experts, a statement from the Col. Staudt accused of pressuring the TANG denying Bush was given special treatment, etc. were discovered by the professional press, for example. Bloggers have become a very useful adjunct because there are so many people taking an interest in the controversial stories of the day that mistakes made by the press are found fairly quickly (much to the chagrin of CBS). They also provide additonal, often interesting analysis/citicism of the stories produced by the MSM.

The public at large. The days of Uncle Walter are over (if they ever existed). People are going to have to get used to the fact that news organizations are not as trustworthy as once believed. This process has been going on for awhile (Janet Cooke, Jayson Blair, Mike Barnicle, etc.) but this is probably the last straw. This leaves the problem of vetting the news reports (often conflicting or incomplete) that people will see from multiple sources, none of which can be guaranteed trustworthy. How will we know which parts of which reports are true?

Random Musings on the RNC

Just a few thoughts about the Republican National Convention, in no particular order:

Best Speech: John McCain. He laid out the case for taking the fight to the Islamofacists better than than anyone I've heard up to now. His references to "our Democrat friends" made a subtle point about which party reallly is being divisive this year. I don't recall any speakers at the DNC referring to Republicans that way. The ending was a passionate reminder that we are one nation that needs to be united in the face of those who want us destroyed - something else the Dems didn't bother to do. Plus, a wonderful, bonus bitch-slapping of Michael Moore!
Honorable Mentions: Rudy Giuliani for making a case against the Democrats' being able to properly defend this country, done with a relatively light-hearted touch.
Arnold Schwartzenegger for giving the most positive speech at the convention (in prime time).

Zell Miller: Fiery and over the top. He clearly is speaking from the heart and in a style that is reminiscent of decades past. But the rhetoric was too harsh, even if the delegates loved it. I can understand the anger, given the tone used by the Dems in criticizing Bush, but although it was entertaining it was too angry. However, it did not deserve the kind of reaction as quoted from Ken Layne:

No kidding. I grew up in the South, surrounded by sons of bitches like Zell Miller -- bitter old nigger-haters who couldn't possibly understand why they weren't right about anything -- and this dixiecrat piece of shit is probably the best advertisement for the Bush Administration's Compassionate Conservatism we've ever seen. Thank you, Zell

Just another example of that famous lefty tolerance and respect for others, I guess. Then we have Andrew Sullivan's view, summarized in his first paragraph here:

Zell Miller's address will, I think, go down as a critical moment in this campaign, and maybe in the history of the Republican party. I kept thinking of the contrast with the Democrats' keynote speaker, Barack Obama, a post-racial, smiling, expansive young American, speaking about national unity and uplift. Then you see Zell Miller, his face rigid with anger, his eyes blazing with years of frustration as his Dixiecrat vision became slowly eclipsed among the Democrats. Remember who this man is: once a proud supporter of racial segregation, a man who lambasted LBJ for selling his soul to the negroes. His speech tonight was in this vein, a classic Dixiecrat speech, jammed with bald lies, straw men, and hateful rhetoric. As an immigrant to this country and as someone who has been to many Southern states and enjoyed astonishing hospitality and warmth and sophistication, I long dismissed some of the Northern stereotypes about the South. But Miller did his best to revive them. The man's speech was not merely crude; it added whole universes to the word crude.

I fail to see how that is any worse (or even as bad) as Democrats referring to the GOP as fascists, bigots, murderers, etc. . He basically calls Miller a racist without any real evidence, other than 40 year old stuff that at the time was unfortunately a staple for southern Democrats (in which case what does one say about Robert Byrd?). His record as governor of Georgia does not indicate racism, nor does his Senate record. Unless you have real, recent evidence of racism Andrew, shut yer gob or find some other grounds for criticism.

Andrew went on to officiallly jump the shark after Bush's speech even though he liked it, because Sully is now a one issue voter - gay marriage - and that is more important to him than dealing with the folks who want to kill us. Mr. Sullivan, I just want to point out that Bush's position on the subject (although not mainstream) is closer to the mainstream than yours.

Bounce: I don't know. The polls I've seen indicate anywhere from a 4 to 6 point boost for Bush, but let things simmer for a few days. So far, neither of these guys has convinced me to vote for him, although I find that I dislike Kerry more.