Welcome Back, James!

I see that James Lileks is once again gracing the pages of the print edition of the Star Tribune. About bloody time. Now, how about adding via subtraction by firing Nick Coleman?

Obama's Speech

Am I deluded, or was the Kim Ode/Patricia Lopez story about the effects of Barack Obama's speech on racial issues just a little one-sided? They mentioned one person who was critical of Obama's effort. Everybody else, it seems, was sure that white folk just don't understand. Would it have hurt that much to have actually paid some real attention to what his critics were saying? How hard would it have been to report the reactions of more than one person critical of the speech, as opposed to getting one critical opinion, followed by every other person they quoted being critical of those who did not like what Obama said?

Of course that might have been confused with objective journalism, and we can't have that at the Star Tribune, can we now?

Who's to blame for McCain?

Over the past couple of weeks, I've a lot of comments from alleged "true conservatives" on blogs expressing sentiments like this:

Again, dont blame me if Obama or Clinton win in November. Blame the people that brought us McCain. If they were really interested in winning the general election, they would have known better than to nominate this liberal.

Well, I'm going to go with the " blame it on conservatives " option here. More specifically, the failure of conservatives to produce a GOP candidate better to their liking.

Setting aside differences over policy, I've seen three complaints about how McCain won. He didn't get the majority of Republican votes. He got a lot of support from independents and Democrats in the open primaries. He's been foisted on conservatives by the GOP establishment. Horsehockey.

John McCain didn't cheat to win the nomination. He won it by the rules established by the Republican party. He got more votes than any of the other candidates, enough to win 50% + 1 of the delegates. It's not McCain's problem that the "true conservatives" couldn't find a candidate to unite behind. If conservatives don't like open primaries, get the rules changed to make them closed. It's not like there wasn't time between the 2000 election and 2008. The notion of the GOP Establishment forcing McCain down conservative throats doesn't pass the smell test either. This would be the same establishment that McCain went against so often, on issues like spending, taxes, and campaign finance reform. The GOP establishment didn't really start lining up behind the guy until he started winning primaries. In short, conservatives have only themselves to blame for the current nominee.

What other things should be considered by "true conservatives" before they vote Democratic or stay home? How about 4 possible Supreme Court vacancies in the next 8 years? How about the fact that there are not enough conservatives votes in the US to win a Presidential election by themselves. This means the GOP has to attract some moderates and independents (and possibly some conservative Dems) to win. So perhaps some compromises would have to made after all.

Downs and Ups

This has been an up and down week. One of the people I've worked with for years lost his eldest son in an auto accident, so I attended his son's funeral this week. When I spoke with my friend/coworker, what could I do or say that would help? Not a single solitary thing.
The same day as the funeral, we had a little congratulations party at work for another coworker who, after 13 years of effort, became an American citizen. I can have only respect for someone who becomes one of our citizens by choice rather than by accident of birth. Congratulations, Jay. (Personally, I think he's gonna frame those citizenship documents.)

Lean Times

for Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Pity Nancy Pelosi doesn't get it. Look, the merits of invading Iraq were debatable but if one styles themselves to be of the "reality based" community, isn't willful denial of the facts on the ground kind of silly?

(via Drudge)

McCain is doing well tonight

I wonder if Mark Levin's head will explode (figuratively)...

My First Caucus

After many years of just voting, I went to my first caucus tonight. Since I am not a member of any MN political party I didn't know if I would be considered to be rather like the skunk at a picnic, but I guess when you live in St. Paul and go to the GOP caucus they tend to want to make a fellow welcome.

In truth, the gent running the show seemed quite impressed with the turnout (district 67B for those keeping score) of about 150-200 people (my very unscientific guess) . I ended up as the Sgt-at-Arms for my caucus room, oddly enough. Fortunately the job mostly consisted of making sure the speakers adhered to the time limits for debating resolutions. Anyhow, if I had wanted to be a delegate for my precinct it would have been pretty easy to do (3 delegates + 6 alternates for the precinct, and 5 people present) , but it seemed to me that being elected a Republican delegate when I'm not a Republican wouldn't be cricket.

The straw poll was held first with Mitt Romney winning, followed by Mike Huckabee.

Deranged by McCain

I'm a political independent, so I don't have a dog in this fight until November, but I confess to having a problem understanding the hatred and vitriol currently being directed at John McCain by many talk radio hosts and other self-styled "true" conservatives. Under what criteria does 25 years of voting with conservatives eighty percent of the time make someone a liberal and a socialist? Those of Jason Lewis.

Why? After listening to his on-the-verge-of-incoherent ranting, it seems to be on five things.

• McCain believes that there is such a thing as man-made global warming.
  
• Immigration - supported naturalization for illegals, after legal immigrants have been processed first.
  
• McCain-Feingold.
• McCain opposed the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts.
  
• The press likes him.
  

Here's my opinion on these items (in order):

• The debate on global warming is at best unsettled. I think the Senator's proposals are premature, but do you really think the Democrats will produce something more sane? In what universe?
• McCain has conceded his error on immigration - what more do you want?
  
• What free speech has been stifled, really? The law has been unsuccessful and misguided, but the Supreme Court did not find it (in the main) unconstitutional, because money is not speech. More on the 1st amendment issue later.
• On the tax cuts. McCain opposed the cuts on two grounds, that upper income folks gained disproportionately, and that there were no provisions to limit spending. Lewis only talks about the first, calling it "class warfare". He conveniently ignores the spending side of McCain's objections, which show McCain's conservatism on government spending. Does he really think Hillary/Obama will act the same on spending? Again, in what universe?
• It is true the press is somewhat less hostile to the Senator than to some of his fellow GOPers, but that has much to do with him treating the press as something other than an enemy. Perhaps his opponents should try it. In any case, the Dems in the race get much better press than any Republican, according to Brent Bozell's media watchdogs.
  

In contrast to Jason's rants, let us take a look at McCain' s actions that conservatives should approve of:

• Voted against the Medicare prescription drug requirement.
  
• Has never in 25 years voted for a tax increase.
• Has always voted pro-life.
• Has authored/introduced a bill in the Congress to prevent the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine.
• Stoutly supported winning the war in Iraq, and the "surge", even when it was politically unpopular.
  
• In 25 years in Congress, has never used an earmark. He is one of the best in Congress at resisting unnecessary government spending.
• Voted in favor of conservative judges, including Roberts and Alito.
• Promised to work to retain the Bush tax cuts.
• Acknowledged his errors in the immigration debate, and agrees that immigration enforcement must come first.
  

By Jason's lights, John McCain is liberal. Jason Lewis is an idiot.

Lileks, Cub Reporter

The Star Tribune killed James Lileks' column and put him on to reporting local news stories. Personally, if they were going to reduce the number of local columnists, would it not be better to RIF Nick Coleman or Doug Grow instead of their most talented guy? Surely the Strib could survive the loss of one of its DFL hacks, couldn't it?

When Spinning...

The Strib should really read their own editorials:

Republicans in and out of the statehouse are doing their level best to gin up sticker shock over the Senate DFLers' proposed new fourth bracket in the state income tax -- with a 9.7 percent rate, the highest in the nation! The spinmeisters want every wage-earning Minnesotan to panic about an imminent raid on his or her paycheck. Minnesotans shouldn't ingest too much of such hyperbole.

Here's a hint for the spinmeisters at the Strib: If it's true, it's not hyperbole!

Oh, and one other thing. What compelling reason is there for Minnesotans to be the most highly taxed people in the nation?

I'm Tired of Jason Lewis

There, I said it. I've really had it with his attitude since he returned to the Great White North. In fact, I think he has become a right-wing version of the shrill, obnoxious busybody that I've come to dislike on the left. Why? Let's see...

First, his insistence on ideological purity annoys the hell out of me. Deviate from the Jason Lewis approved view on what's conservative, and you're a RINO or even worse, a liberal. Take the case of Governor Pawlenty. The guy manages to hold the line on taxes during a budget crisis despite DFL attempts at extortion via government shutdown, but is that good enough for Jason? Nope, the Guv is just another liberal because he won't get an income tax cut out of the DFL-majority legislature this session.

Speaking about taxation, there is his insistence that the poor don't pay any taxes in Minnesota. How does Jason come to this ridiculous notion? By ignoring any taxes that aren't the income tax. Earth to Jason: Sales taxes count. FICA taxes count. Gas taxes count, etc. All of them suck. In addition, since poorer people aren't able to save and invest as much, sales taxes and payroll taxes hit them harder since money spent on necessities other than food and clothing is taxed and they can't not choose to spend the money.

I've had enough.

After the election

Well, 40% of the people have spoken, and now Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will be running Congress. Not the outcome I was hoping for, really. It's not that I think all that highly of the GOP (newest practitioners of the circular firing squad strategy), it's just that the Dems managed to take power running on a vague, pretty much undefined platform that seems to reduce to:

• Raising taxes.
• Spending even more money than the GOP.
  
• "Redeploying" the troops out of Iraq.
• Not being George Bush.
• Not being corrupt like the GOP.
  

At least two of those points are of rather dubious pedigree - when your party has guys in it who keep $90,000 bribes in their freezers, plus the new Speaker planning to appoint an impeached federal judge as head of the House Intelligence Committee (?!), it gets hard to legitimately claim the GOP is the only corrupt party in Washington. I also would like to know how abandoning Iraq does not give the bad guys (remember the Islamofascists?) a big victory.

The thing that frosts me even more is how these folks have been rewarded with power after six years of throwing an extended temper tantrum over their election losses in 2000 and 2004. The Democrats have spent that time making things personal. How often did we hear from them how: The GOP cheated, Bush is a criminal, Bush is stupid, Bush is not the President, BushHitler, Bush and Cheney are evil, Karl Rove is the devil, etc. . People who disagreed with the liberals in Democratic party were not merely wrong, they were evil (ask Joe Lieberman how it feels). The Democrats tossed aside all pretense of civility while pursuing an obstructive, scorched-earth policy in Congress. To me, this made them a party unfit to govern. Unfortunately, they are going to have the chance.

But now that they've got power, the Democrats have to give up the carping from the sidelines and actually propose solutions for a change. I expect they'll find it's much easier to bitch than create constructive solutions they will be held accountable for. Maybe they'll even learn some manners. (and exile the Kos Kids to Siberia, but that's too much to hope for - ed.)

As for the GOP, here's my unwanted advice for them. In my view, the GOP lost because they forgot what got them elected in 1994. Smaller, less intrusive, more efficient and honest government, remember that? I hope the GOP's new leadership takes that vision to heart before 2008.

One other thing. Don't give in to the temptation to personally attack the other side. Leave that crap to the Democrats. Don't be saying stuff like this ( a comment I culled from an unnamed righty blog about Nancy Pelosi:

…Pelosi…the greatest thing since Patton and Napoleon and that other general-guy…I quiver to see her in Kevlar!

…wait…isn’t that Kevlar that she has injected in her face?

I think the botox is getting into her synapses.

Soon she will not be allowed to give interviews to anyone other than Larry King.

Work on solutions to our problems that don't compromise conservative and GOP principles, then be ready to sell them if the Dems screw up. The one monopoly the Democrats can have is the one on hate speech.

Kerry's "Apology"

Somehow I don't think these guys are going to be satisfied with Senator Kerry's "apology".

The funny thing is, Kerry's apology might have been good enough if he had left it at this:

As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any troop.

I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.

But then he just had to say this as well:

It is clear the Republican Party would rather talk about anything but their failed security policy. I don’t want my verbal slip to be a diversion from the real issues. I will continue to fight for a change of course to provide real security for our country, and a winning strategy for our troops.

Trust John Kerry to turn an apology into a political cheap shot.

Shame on the Strib

I haven't much felt like writing of late (work pressures and general malaise are a potent combination), but I just feel obligated to vent my feelings about the Strib endorsement editorial for Minnesota Secretary of State. It isn't so much the Strib's disgreement on policy that bothers me. The DFL aversion to any protective measures against election fraud is well known, so the DFL's house organ's disagreement with requiring a form of ID to vote is unsurprising. If Secretary Kiffmeyer annoys some election officials out of their complacency by trying to tighten things up, that seems like a good thing even if it does bug the Strib. The lines that ticked me off are the ones that followed:

Attentive Minnesotans have learned from disgraceful examples around the country that monkeying with the mechanics of registration, voting and ballot-counting has become the modern method for manipulating election outcomes. Also, that Kiffmeyer's Republican Party is usually the leading beneficiary of measures that discourage participation at the polls.

The attempt to tar Mary Kiffmeyer by associating her name with non-existent (to everyone except lefty MoveOn types and Star Tribune editorial writers) Republican attempts to disenfranchise voters is slimy. If the Strib wants to look for examples of attempts to discourage voter turnout they need go no further than their own party, like in Milwaukee. Or St. Louis, if outright fraud is more to their taste. Once again, the Star Tribune demonstrates why their op-ed pages are a joke.

Middle East Conflict, round 37,498 and counting

I must confess that I don't know what is going through the minds of the Israeli government these days. When Hizbullah invaded Israel and kidnapped (and killed) its soldiers, it was no surprise at all when Israel retaliated. After all, what nation would tolerate random rocket attacks launched at its civilian population, plus attacks on its soldiers?

When the Israelis used their air force to cut off southern, Hizbullah-controlled Lebanon from the rest of the country, it occurred to me the IDF was using this occasion to damage Hizbullah enough to allow the Lebanese government to move in and finish them off. Pound Hiz from the air, then go in on the ground and destroy as many missiles and kill as many Hizbullah thugs as they could find, turn the place over to the Lebanese government.

Then Israel started hitting Lebanese army bases and other targets that I don't associate with Hizbullah. What for? For once, Arab governments were blaming the right parties (Hizbullah and Hamas) for a change, as were substantial numbers of non-Hizbullah Lebanese. I think someone in the Israeli high command has miscalculated this.

Happy Birthday, USA!

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

-- He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

-- He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

-- He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

-- He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

-- He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

-- He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

-- He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

-- He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

-- He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

-- He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

-- He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

-- He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

-- He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

-- For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

-- For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

-- For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

-- For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

-- For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

-- For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

-- For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

-- For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

-- For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

-- He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

-- He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

-- He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

-- He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

-- He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Obtained from here.

More Proof the Strib Doesn't Get It

And Adam Platt, too, judging by today's commentary defending the New York Times. He apparently is of the opinion that secret (and legal) anti-terrorist programs work best when advertised in the NYT. But don't accuse him of being a limosine liberal:

Before you pigeonhole me as a limousine liberal, I am personally inclined to give the White House the benefit of the doubt on these programs, even though they are inevitably prone to abuse by an overzealous, secrecy-mad administration. Such is the nature of the threats the nation faces. And I am willing to grant the Times' critics that the SWIFT revelations were merely that. There was no implication of illegality or wrongdoing. Gratuitous? To some. The truth, to me.

What I am not willing to cede is my right to know that these programs exist, nor my elected representatives' right to scrutinize them. In the United States we elect a president, not a king (not that you'd know that these days).

How would I tell?

Here's the gist of his defense of the Times' decision:

What renders the administration's outrage at the Times so hollow is that it has acknowledged since 9/11 that it is using every technique at its disposal to monitor terrorists' communications and impede their fundraising. If Al-Qaida were capable of pulling off 9/11, did it take the NYT to clue it in to the fact that its phone conversations, e-mail communications and financial transactions were subject to electronic scrutiny?

No, but it took the NYT to tell them how the US was doing it. The point, Mr. Platt, is the US government not trying to hide the fact it tries to monitor terrorist communications and financing isn't the same thing as telling the bad guys how it is doing so. If the terrorists were so smart about this stuff, why were the authorities able to use it to nab the dirtbag behind the Bali bombing with it? The fact is the Times unilaterally chose, despite the request of the Treasury Secretary, to deprive our government of a useful anti-terrorist tool by telling the world (and Al Qaeda) about it. That, not hostility to civil liberties, is why a lot of people are ticked off at the Times. Nobody is attempting to take away freedom of the press here, but freedom of the press does not confer freedom from criticism, and the Times' bone-headed stunt has got them some.

Via Instapundit, this Ana Marie Cox review of Katha Pollit's new book, Virginity or Death caught my attention. I don't really care for her writing, since it's basically the warmed over, narrow-minded, ignorant of the other side leftism that seems to permeate The Nation, where columns that comprise the book were originally published. I'm not claiming to have read the book, a passage from the review did inspire a bit of comment. This one (already commented on by Professor Reynolds):

There's a certain preserved-in-amber quality to some of the thinking here. For example, Pollitt herself confesses that the opinions that underpinned her most controversial column — against displaying American flags after 9/11 — were formed during the Vietnam War; she despairs that her pro-flag daughter cannot see "the connection between waving the flag and bombing ordinary people half a world away." I'm not sure if she's right about that, but it's significant that Pollitt would see the world outside her window through a scrim of 30-year-old lefty rhetoric. She simply rejects the argument that the meaning of the flag (like the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance, which was composed by a 19th-century socialist) might change.

There's some importance to the Vietnam-era leftist prism she looks through, but I think Ms. Cox misses something else. I think Ms. Pollit's prejudices prevent her from understanding the flag doesn't represent the same things to her that it does to people who don't share her narrow, fossilized, stuck-in-the-sixties world view. (Both then and now - ed.) Moreover, in the flag she sees only the things she hates about our country. For all her purported concern for women's rights in the Middle East, Pollit ignores the progress for women's rights there obtained by dropping bombs on the Taliban (not ordinary people). In Afghanistan, a good argument can be made that the high explosives dropped by our armed forces did more for women's rights there than any efforts made by the feminst left. It must grate on her... .

Judging from this passage, I would guess that Pollit really doesn't understand conservatives very well:

"The truth is, most of the good things about this country have been fought for by liberals," she warns in a 2004 pre-election column. "If conservatives had carried the day, blacks would still be in the back of the bus, women would be barefoot and pregnant, medical care would be on a cash-only basis, there'd be mouse feet in your breakfast cereal and workers would still be sleeping next to their machines."

For example, do I have to remind Pollit that the Democrats are responsible for Jim Crow, not conservatives? The quote displays her notion of people who disagree: they are bigoted sexist slave drivers. In other words, you are a good person only if you agree with my politics. How narrow... .

I also have a question - how many guys out there demanded the woman in their lives cut off toes to fit in Jimmy Choo shoes? Any?

Just wanted to note the passing of Rob Smith, the Acidman. Ornery, intermittently grouchy, always willing to say exactly on his mind and at the same time a Southerner from head to red toes, his site was one of the first I found when discovering the world of blogs. He could be annoying and infuriating at times but I enjoyed my vists to Gut Rumbles anyway. I never had the opportunity to meet the man, but that isn't going to stop me from wishing him well, and in his new abode may the 'fridge never be empty, the ladies always nearby, and 'Dawgs always winners.

Welcome to Hell, Al-Zarqawi!

Abu, you look so surprised!

On a different note, I just can't feel sorry for a murderous, terrorist SOB. This guy's greatest contribution to humanity will be as fertilizer. Congratulations to the Iraqi government and the United States armed forces for getting this dirtbag.

UPDATE: This is how some of our Democratic elected officials reacted to the news. How twisted and pathetic.