Right Wing Nut House

The so-called deal on the President’s judicial nominations has absolutely incensed the right, relieved the left, and pointed out that Republican moderates are a bunch of pansy-assed, lily-livered weak kneed smurfs who are more interested in winning approval from the liberal media than they are from the base of their own party.

I was pretty non-committal about the entire nuclear option to begin with. It wasn’t until the Democrats started their “end of the world” rants, comparing the coming of an up or down vote on judicial nominees with the coming of the anti-Christ that I started to take notice. Here was an issue where the 10 seat Republican majority could be put to use for a good cause. The idea that a minority should be able to dictate to the President on judicial nominations or anything else for that matter, goes against the very idea of free and fair elections. Why bother to have an electoral contest when the losers can act like winners? What’s the penalty for being, like the Democrats have been, obstructionists?

The penalty is that you lose elections. And looking at Congressional and Senatorial elections, the Democrats were slaughtered. Especially in the Senate where Republicans picked up 4 seats, the Democrats entire electoral strategy failed miserably. But wait! Here come the Republican RINO’s to the rescue. It’s enough to turn one’s stomach.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the Captain has hit the bullseye with this analysis:

In other words, welcome to Versailles. The centrists who made their play for power last night have constructed an elaborately meaningless document that holds no one truly accountable for their actions and only applies to five of the controversial nominees, splitting them 3-2 for the Administration. It may sound Solomon-like, but in the end the nuclear option will return to the table as soon as the Democrats filibuster anyone outside of Saad and Myers. They have not ended the war, but have merely set the seeds for a more polarizing battle than ever before, as accusations of “bad faith” will now be added to the abuse-of-power allegations already bandied about so casually during this debate.

In the meantime, the GOP centrists will have explicitly endorsed the use of the filibuster in dealing with interbranch transactions, against the model of equality among the branches, while the Democrat centrists have betrayed the notion that ideology had nothing to do with their obstructionism. The only winners appear to be Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown, and William Pryor, and only because they’ve been allowed to escape.

Versailles is right. Immediately after that treaty was signed - the treaty that ended World War I - British Prime Minister Lloyd George said “This isn’t a peace treaty! It’s a cease fire for 25 years!” He was off by 5 years. World War II broke out in 1939, almost 20 years to the day after the treaty was signed.

It seems clear that the next group of nominees that come to the floor will probably be blocked by the Democrats putting us right back where we were yesterday. This time, the Republicans will have the precedent of compromise going against them as the Democrats will be able to say that they tried to make a deal but the Republicans were not operating in the spirit of the agreement. In short, the Democrats will be able to take the high ground and make the Republicans look like a bunch of power hungry politicians who won’t compromise.

The Captain plans on continuing his “Not One Dime” campaign this time refusing to donate money to the party until Bill Frist is replaced as Majority Leader. I couldn’t agree more. Frist has made one disastrous move after another, including his appearance on the Reverend Dobson’s TV extravaganza thus tying the Republican party more closely with the man who believes that Sponge Bob Square Pants is a threat to children’s sexual development because the character espouses a gay lifestyle.

Phooey!

Frist has allowed Harry Reid to outmaneuver him at every turn. And to make matters worse, he can’t even bring his own caucus along with him on the most important issues of the day including social security and tax reform. This “compromise” should be seen as a total unmitigated defeat for the Senator from Tennessee and should in all fairness, lead to someone in the caucus challenging his leadership. Alas, it won’t happen. Frankly, the Majority Whip Mitch McConnell isn’t much better and may be even more of a colorless personality than Frist, if that’s possible.

So it will be up to others in the Senate to hold Frist’s feet to the fire on this deal if only to get the most out of it that we can. In the end, what we’re getting is less than half a loaf. And the baker doesn’t realize it.

As I write this, dozens of reporters and perhaps thousands of bloggers from lefty sites are desperately, frantically searching for evidence that U.S. military personnel desecrated the Koran to apply psychological pressure to Muslim prisoners. They’re combing the archives of foreign newspapers, calling GI’s who served at detention facilities, milking their sources for all they’re worth, and wearing out search engine bots hoping to find the “smoking toilet” niblet that will propel them to moonbat stardom.

I have bad news for the Bush Administration and all of us smugly self-satisfied righty bloggers, basking in the glow of one more MSM scalp dangling from our lodgepoles; they’re going to find something.

I can picture it now. Some poor schlub of a corporal being interviewed on “60 Minutes,” his faced blacked out and voice disguised so that he can avoid “retribution” telling us in that ridiculously altered “voix changé” that he personally saw some red-neck Major/Captain/Colonel wave the Holy Koran in front of some poor, suffering terrorists face and then deliberately try and flush the book down the crapper.

I say try because it’s evident that Newsweek reporters Isikoff and Barry don’t use toilets very much. The only book that’s going down your garden variety “necessary” are the kinds of books you find in a box of Cracker Jacks. I’m dating myself here but Cracker Jack used to have a “surprise” in every box and one of the surprises was a “Joke Book” that had two or three really bad puns in it. The book was about the size of a matchbook and you were usually terribly disappointed you didn’t get the ring or the super small compass.

So after this truly startling and upsetting piece of information is “revealed” we’ll have to endure a month or two of moonbat crowing, solemn and sanctimonious editorials from the New York Times, and probably a round of Congressional hearings.

In the meantime, the benighted 10th century peasant savages, stirred into a frenzy of anguish by their holy men and holy warriors, will once again take to the streets and pick up where they left off last week. There will be head bashings and beatings and burnings and the usual posing before news cameras, complete with signs in very bad English saying something like “Amerikins Hands up Our Koran Holy!”

Of course, the irony of the protest will escape these feeble-minded, dirty necked galoots. Simply put, there is no othe religion on the planet today that shows less respect for the symbols and saints of faiths that differ from theirs.

The Palestinian gunmen holed up in the Church of the Nativity seized church stockpiles of food and “ate like greedy monsters” until the food ran out, while more than 150 civilians went hungry. They also guzzled beer, wine, and Johnnie Walker scotch that they found in priests’ quarters, undeterred by the Islamic ban on drinking alcohol. The indulgence lasted for about two weeks into the 39-day siege, when the food and drink ran out, according to an account by four Greek Orthodox priests who were trapped inside for the entire ordeal….

The Orthodox priests and a number of civilians have said the gunmen created a regime of fear.

Even in the Roman Catholic areas of the complex there was evidence of disregard for religious norms. Catholic priests said that some Bibles were torn up for toilet paper, and many valuable sacramental objects were removed. “Palestinians took candelabra, icons and anything that looked like gold,” said a Franciscan, the Rev. Nicholas Marquez from Mexico.42

These devout Muslims also urinated and defacted in the church - a church that Christians believe sits on the site marking where Jesus Christ was born.

An isolated incident?

Did any Buddhists riot and murder when the Taliban Muslims blew up the irreplaceable giant Buddhist statues in Afghanistan?

When all Christian services and even the wearing of a cross were banned in Saudi Arabia? When Christians are murdered while at prayer in churches by Muslims in Pakistan?

Have any Jews rioted in all the years since it was revealed that Jordanian Muslims used Jewish tombstones in Old Jerusalem as latrines? Or after Palestinians destroyed Joseph’s Tomb in 2000 and set fire to the rebuilt tomb in 2003?

It is quite remarkable that many Muslims believe that an American interrogator flushing pages of the Koran is worthy of rioting, but all the torture, slaughter, terror and mass murder done by Muslims in the name of the Koran are unworthy of even a peaceful protest.

So the moonbats will have their triumph, a fat lot of good it will do them. If they’re so desperate to “get” Bush to the point that they’re willing for people to die to help quench the fires of hatred that burn so hotly in their tortured souls then there’s not much you can say to them that will deter their quixotic quest to…what? What do they want?

The left wants a 9/10 world. They want the way the world used to be not the world as it is today. The psychic anguish they’re experiencing as a result of the toppling of their comfortable, fantastic worldview following 9/11 has left them emotionally adrift and psychologically battered. All of their assumptions regarding international order and how the United States should relate to other countries have taken the same route as their mythical Koran - they’ve been flushed down the toilet.

A few - a very few- voices on the left have tried to cobble together a set of principles consistent with traditional liberal values and a hard headed, realistic approach to the War on Terror. Senator Joe Lieberman comes to mind as does Christopher Hitchens. There are others; solitary figures groping in the dark trying to make their way in this Brave New World of radioactive mullahs, nutty NoKo’s, and fanatical jihadists hell bent for leather on killing as many Americans as Allah will grant them the favor to do. So far, their efforts have been met with contempt by their fellow liberals. And they have yet to come up with coherent policy prescriptions to counter the Bush Administration’s neo-realpolitik outlook on world affairs.

Judging by the single minded determination of their brethren on the left who will not be deterred from their seek and destroy toilet mission, it may be a while before they’re taken seriously by anyone.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Even his enemies concede that Newt Gingrich is a visionary. Listening to him give a speech or engage in a colloquy with Brian Lamb of C-Span, one is astonished at the sheer volume of ideas that spring forth from his inquisitive and overactive mind. The concepts and strategies that he espouse run the gamut from “wise use” stewardship of the environment to pondering the future of democracy in Russia and everything in between, in the margins, and outside the lines.

I was first exposed to this jaw-dropping exercise in rapid fire conceptualized rhetoric at a breakfast meeting of some long forgotten business trade association where, at that time, second term Congressman Newt Gingrich appeared to speak on behalf of the Reagan Revolution, then barely one year old and in considerable trouble. The economy had gone south, spending was out of control, and the President’s tax plan was in trouble.

Gingrich was late as he blew into the room, all smiles and apologies. There were about 15 of us working through a plate of stale danish and tasteless muffins, exchanging desultory comments about the weather when the Congressman sat down at the head of the long table and said “Okay, where do you want to start?” Someone asked him about interest rates and he was off.

Forty-five minutes later I was a convert to the cause. I had never heard anything like it. Thoughts and images poured off him like rainwater from a roof. There was simply no stopping him. Like a great blues guitarist, he went from one intellectual riff to another with perfectly logical transitions and bridges.

It was exhausting. And it was exhilarating.

We had a million questions to ask. But in the end, Gingrich was out of time and had to leave before he could answer any of them. And therein lies the problem with the man and why, sadly, I have to urge someone I admire and respect to do something that for him is unthinkable.

Please don’t run for President, Newt.

I’m hardly breaking any news here by saying that Newt Gingrich has wanted to be President since at least the time he first set foot in the Capitol. In fact, one of the things that I think attracts people to Newt is the bright light of personal ambition that illuminates so much of what he does. He’s that rarest of breeds, a visionary who seeks power not for power’s sake, but to make his vision a reality. To that end, he’s been accused of being ruthless, uncaring, a megalomaniac, and just plain dangerous. In truth, some episodes in Gingrich’s life reveal a man with those attributes and worse.

The Newt Gingrich at that breakfast had just been recently remarried. He separated from his first wife Jackie in 1980. Jackie was his high school math teacher who he married at age 19. As it turned out, Jackie developed cancer and had to go into the hospital for treatment:

After the separation in 1980, she had to be operated on again, to remove another tumor While she was still in the hospital, according to [Lee] Howell (former press secretary), “Newt came up there with his yellow legal pad, and he had a list of things on how the divorce was going to be handled. He wanted her to sign it. She was still recovering from surgery, still sort of out of it, and he comes in with a yellow sheet of paper, handwritten, and wants her to sign it.

Gingrich barely survived the election in 1980. The incident at the hospital, along with an incomprehensible intransigence regarding child and spousal support almost cost him the election. But it didn’t seem to dim the light in his eyes or bounce in his step as he and other young, back bench Republican conservatives began to plot the overthrow of the welfare state.

A favorite tactic of this group of young turks was to utilize “Special Order” speeches. Given after the legislative day is over and when the House chamber is virtually empty, Gingrich, Robert Walker from Pennsylvania, Vin Weber from Minnesota, and others, would take the floor and hold forth on a variety of issues. Oftentimes, they would turn these “speeches” into fascinating colloquy’s between one or more of the members that would range from historical dissertations on policy, to rancorous partisan attacks. Gingrich especially seemed to wield the sharpest knife of the group as he used the Democrats own words to reveal what R. Emmett Tyrell has called liberalism’s “riot of conceits.”
(more…)

Senate Democractic leader Harry Reid doesn’t look much like a Senator. He looks more like a small town accountant or shopkeeper which, judging from these remarks he made last night about one of the stalled judicial nominees, he may have been better suited for than lawmaker:

“Henry Saad would have been filibustered anyway,” Mr. Reid said on the floor yesterday, about the Michigan Appeals Court judge who is nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.

“All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI, and I think we would all agree that there is a problem there,” Mr. Reid continued.

Republican staff members and supporters of Mr. Bush’s nominees were outraged.

“Can you think of a better way to trash someone’s reputation?” Sean Rushton of the conservative Committee for Justice asked after seeing a transcript of the remarks. “Say that there is bad stuff from an FBI investigation in a file somewhere and leave that hanging. This is character assassination of the lowest order and completely improper.”

(HT: Captains Quarters)

This isn’t McCarthyism; it’s a Stalinist purge.

Back in the 1930’s, Stalin and his minions destroyed the Red Army by bringing charges against ideologically suspect officers. They did this by using hearsay and character assassination while not producing any documents that the defendent could question in an attempt to clear himself. As a result, tens of thousands of Red Army officers were slaughtered - officers Stalin could have used a few short years later when Hitler attacked.

Forget the gross violation of Senate rules that prevent Senators from revealing anything about the contents of an FBI file. Simple common decency would preclude all but the most virulently partisan to reveal their contents. The Captain correctly points out what’s contained in those raw files:

FBI clearance files contain raw data from every interview the agency conducts with people known to the person applying for the clearance. Anything said goes into the file. The FBI does not filter the information, and will usually investigate criminal activity suggested by the interview only if they find anything substantial. What this means, especially in political appointments, is that a fair amount of gossipy but usually exaggerated or false information gets entered into the file and later mentioned in the file’s summary.

This is one move by Reid that even the MSM can’t ignore. Here are some other gems by Reid that somehow never quite landed him in hot water with the press (or his own party for that matter):

1. Called President Bush a “loser” while the President was out of the country then apologized, and then withdrew the apology.

2. Said of Janice Rogers Brown, another Circuit Court nominee: “She Is A Woman Who Wants To Take Us Back To The Civil War days.”

3. Said of Justice Clarence Thomas: “I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written. I don’t… I just don’t think that he’s done a good job as a Supreme Court justice.”

4. Called the President a “liar”

5. Said of Alan Greenspan: “I Think [Alan Greenspan's] One Of The Biggest Political Hacks We Have In Washington.”

I’d say that Senator Reid is an embarrassment to the Democratic party except there’s no way you can embarass people who have no shame in the first place. If I were Senator Frist I’d introduce a motion of censure against the Senator from Nevada.

I doubt whether it would phase that gentleman in the least. Because, like the man he’s imitating, the Senator from Wisconsin who long ago lent his name to the most odious of practices in democratic governance, he fails to “get it.”

Where’s Joe Welch when you need him?

Welch: Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator.

Welch: I’ll say it hurts!

UPDATE

Ace says it’s time to go nuclear:

Reid can’t be held legally accountable for any of this, as the Constitution immunizes Congressmen from legal consequences from any statement made in Congress. But I’d sure like someone to bait Reid into repeating his remarks outside of Congress.

It’s time to go nuclear. I know nothing about Saad, and of course I know even less about what dirt the FBI may have dug up on him, but it is clear that the Democrats have made the judiciary their last redoubt. It’s well past time to drain that swamp.

Yup.

And Michelle Malkin does her usual great job of rounding up media and blog reaction to “Dirty Harry” Reid’s diarrhea of the mouth.”

Cross Posted at Blogger News Network

Main Entry: [1]mav·er·ick
Pronunciation: ‘mav-rik, ‘ma-v&-
Function: noun
Etymology: Samuel A. Maverick †1870 American pioneer who did not brand his calves
Date: 1867
1 : an unbranded range animal; especially : a motherless calf
2 : an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party

Poor George Voinovich.

It’s bad enough that the “Republican” Senator from Ohio is going to have the entire right side of the blogosphere picking on him for the next few days in response to his rather curious position(s) on the Bolton nomination. But what I really pity him for is that the mainstream media has now branded him a maverick - a “kiss of death” moniker that scuttles political ambition and assures anonymity to its bearer.

As Mr. Voinovich’s refusal to support Mr. Bolton’s nomination demonstrates, “the vanishing center”-as another centrist Republican, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, often says - can still play a powerful role. There are just four core centrists in the Senate, Mr. Chafee, Ms. Collins, Ms. Snowe and Mr. Specter. They are joined from time to time by mavericks like Senators John McCain of Arizona, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Mr. Voinovich.

(HT: Michelle Malkin)

The use of maverick to describe a politician has different meanings to different people. As Michelle Malkin points out, the mainstream media has one definition which is meant to contrast the political positions of other Republicans:

All I know is mainstream conservatives (known in MSM terminology as right-wing radicals or extremist Republicans) are calling Sen. Voinovich a lot of names these days.

But “maverick” isn’t one of them.

Tee-hee.

But when the MSM calls a Democrat a “maverick”…well, that’s a horse of a different color:

The fire still burns within maverick Congressman Bernie Sanders even after 14 years representing Vermont in the U.S. House. His fight for the little guy continues with as much fervor as the day in 1981 when he upset the order and became Burlington’s first socialist mayor.

Gosh…Maybe if we’re lucky they’ll catch Bernie walking on water.

To be a Republican maverick is sort of like being cured of leprosy; you’re accepted in polite society but not invited to the real trendy cocktail parties on the upper west side.

So Voinovich in what can only be considered a fit of pique, lambasted UN Ambassador-designate John Bolton for not being diplomatic enough:

“This is not behavior that should be endorsed as the face of the United States to the world community at the United Nations,” Voinovich said. “It is my opinion that John Bolton is the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be.”

Forget for a moment that poster children are used to represent something positive hence this dunce of a Senator uses an entirely inappropriate metaphor. What’s really striking about this statement is that “the face” of John Bolton has been revealed not by the record, but by office gossip, sly inuendo, and the character assassins on lefty websites.

In short Senator Clueless has based his decision to oppose the President on opposition smear tactics.

Being a maverick has its perks. You get flattering references on the front page of the New York Times. The networks will call you whenever they need a Republican face that disagrees with the President. And lefty websites quit calling you a “Rovian automaton” and a “repugnut.”

The downside is that you’re revealed to be a shallow panderer. And I doubt whether the President is going to ask you to fly with him on Air Force One the next time he goes to Ohio. But when it’s all said and done, you end up getting the best of it.

After all, it takes a village to raise a motherless calf. You can always appear in a Hillary ‘08 commercial.

Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), long time liberal spokesman and noted underwater driving enthusiast was arrested today and charged with Impersonating an American Citizen. The action came after Kennedy published an incoherent fantasy celebrating the one year anniversary of the revelations of prisoner hazing and mistreatment at Abu Ghraib.

Kennedy spokesman Mark Smith called the charges “outrageous” and promised to prove that Kennedy is, in fact, a loyal American citizen.

“We haven’t said anything that hasn’t been printed in al Jazeera.” Smith said. “And our statements on the matter mirror very closely the opinions of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi . What more proof do you need?” he added.

Zarqawi is wanted by American authorities in Iraq for numerous bombings and beheadings. He could not immediately be reached for comment.

In addition to Kennedy’s statement that experts say shows evidence of a degenerative brain disorder brought about by many years of alchohol and drug abuse as well as high caloric intake and a hormonal imbalance from an overactive sex drive, the Senator sponsored other Abu Ghraib anniversary activities that are currently under investigation, including:

1. A re-eneactment of simulated sex acts at the prison with female staff members playing the part of prisoners and Kennedy, a whip in one hand a glass of scotch in the other reportedly urging one staffer to “ride that cowgirl like there’s no tomorrow” while having another aide pouring copious amounts of Wesson Vegetable oil on the naked, writhing bodies of other staffers impersonating the prisoners.

Also on hand were ex-President Bill Clinton, who reportedly was eager to participate in the festivities but was whopped over the head for even suggesting it by his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton who was also present.

2. A game of naked Twister where participants were to hold the most uncomfortable positions imaginable for as long as possible while Kennedy and other participants showered contestants with creme de menthe cocktails and Dramboui.

3. “Bobbing for Iraqi Apples” with Kennedy holding the contestants head under water until they either got an apple or revealed embarassing personal information about themselves. Ex President Clinton declined to participate despite the urging of his wife Hillary who was said to be interested in “What the hell he was doing in Jakarta with the Indonesian Minister of Female Sports (former Supermodel ‘Tuti Fruti’) until 4:00 AM.”

Kennedy was released on $5000 bond and the promise that he would leave the country immediately and return only when he grew up and started acting like an adult who realized there’s a war on and that we’re not involved in a touch football game at Hyannis Port.

UPDATE

While blogging a colloquy on C-Span between Sens. Reid and McConnell regarding the judicial nominations, Michell Malkin reports a suprise. Who should raise his ugly visage to celebrate the Abu Ghraib anniversery? None other than Ted (”I thought cars floated)”) Kennedy. She links to a piece by Arthur Chrenkoff well worth the read.

Also, Ace has the right idea…at least the headline:

Ted Kennedy Celebrates Abu Ghraib Anniversary By Getting Drunk, Removing Pants In Palm Beach Restaurant

Ann Coulter describes herself as a polemicist. For years, she’s used the sharpest pen in the business to provoke, enrage, delight, and enrapture her audiences with her own peculiar brand of political commentary. In this respect, she resembles Tom Paine, the revolutionary war pamphleteer who penned the most memorable call to arms of the war:

“”These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their county; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny like hell is not easily conquered yet we have this consolation with us, the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”

Yes, ‘ole Tom could turn a phrase; especially when he turned it on his enemies, the elites:

To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve some decent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.

Paine’s effectiveness was in the way he used language as invective, imagery as a form of character assassination, and exaggeration as metaphor. He could slice and dice his political opponents and those he saw as an enemy with the best of them. His only rival as a propagandist was Sam Adams. And Adams couldn’t write half as well but had an uncanny sense of where the jugular was. Some of his broadsides are absolute treasures:

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”

OUCH!

Miss Coulter follows then a long line of literary patriots whose writings have changed our politics. Ace has some excellent thoughts on this and how the mainstream media has bitten off its own nose to spite its face for years, passing up Coulter’s obvious saleability because of their own myopic political views:

Ann Coulter has been a story — a big story, a compelling story, and important political story, and, yes, a sexy story that’s pretty damn easy on the eyes — for years. But it’s only after years of studiously ignoring her that someone in the media finally realizes, “Hey, maybe I don’t like this woman’s politics, but millions of Americans do; perhaps it’s time to actually, you know, acknowledge she in fact exists.”

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, anyone? Remember them? Our fair and balanced media is still trying to forget.

Spot on. And gracing the cover (and I do mean “grace” as in “to confer dignity or honor on”) of Time Magazine, one is reminded that like Paine and Adams who spent their own hellish time in the political wilderness, Coulter has now finally come in from the cold.

Will it affect her writing? Will she soften her approach? Will she become less confrontational?

Are you serious, Superhawk?

Nineteen sixty four was not a good year for Republicans. Johnson was riding the crest of the legislative legacy of the martyred John F. Kennedy. And he was garnering the sympathy and respect of millions of people for the way he handled the difficult transition during that tragic time.

All this would have meant a solid victory for Johnson despite rumblings from southern Democrats over the civil rights act. By 1964, those party conservatives were already fighting a rear guard action, hopelessly out maneuvered by first Kennedy and then Johnson. Only in the 5 states of the old cotton south would that anger spill over into tangible electoral results for the Republicans as Goldwater (in a harbinger of things to come) took Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina (with Barry’s home state of Arizona being the only other state going Republican).

What turned this election from being a solid Democrat win into the biggest landslide in American history was the the Republican convention in San Francisco. It was there that Republicans sealed their own fate by proving they’d rather be “right” than win. This attitude manifested itself in the inability of Goldwaterites to recognize that by drumming the Rockefeller wing out of the Republican party, they were dooming themselves to almost permanent minority status.

That year, Democrats won an unholy 27 of 35 Senate races to give them an majority in the 88th Congress of 66-34. And in the House, Democrats gained 36 seats to give them an edge of 293-139.

It took the Republicans 30 years to recover.

Now apparently, some loyal, hardworking Republicans wish to prove once again that it’s better to be “right” than win as Ed Morrisey, Hugh Hewitt, and others want to pressure Majority Leader Bill Frist to go ahead and break the filibuster of the President’s judicial nominees. By pledging not to give any money to the GOP until Frist “goes nuclear” and allow a procedural vote that would confirm the nominees by a simple majority thus preventing filibusters, the Captain and other like minded loyal Republicans are tying Frist’s hands at an extremely delicate moment.

If Robert Novak is to be believed, Frist has all but three members of his caucus ready to vote in favor of eliminating the stalling tactics of the Democrats. But several of those votes are “soft.” And its unclear if he’ll have the same numbers on his side by mid-week.

And that’s why it appears that Frist is turning to the religious right to stiffen the backbone of a few of his wobbly colleagues. The Majority Leader is set to a appear on a TV show with James Dobson sponsored by the Family Research Council, a questionable move given that the Democrats have been making political capital selling the idea that the Republicans are controlled by the Christian extremists. Dobson is part of what I’d consider the “loonbat” wing of the Christian right with his ridiculous protests against the PBS kids show The Teletubbies, among other idiocies. Will Collier at Vodkapundit has some excellent thoughts on this angle:

And I think he’s making a mistake by associating himself so closely with the Dobson effort. There’s nothing wrong with Christian conservatives organizing to support nominees they approve of, any more than anything being wrong with Ralph Neas or the ACLU organizing lefties to oppose them (I wish some on the left and libertarian side of the blogosphere could bring themselves to admit that), but it’s also just as inappropriate for Frist to be as in bed with the Dobson group as it is for Neas to be calling the dance steps for the Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee.

Here’s the Captain’s reasoning for his protest:

The current slate of GOP leaders in the Senate have become the equivalent of Bush I. They promised action to stop the two-year obstructionism of the Democrats if only the electorate would give the GOP a solid Senate majority with which to do it. While people can debate whether the current President Bush had a mandate from this past election, no one can doubt the mandate that the GOP got in its Senate results. The Democratic leader who ran the filibusters got tossed out of the Senate and the GOP wound up with a 10-seat majority.

Alright, fair enough. But what’s the rush? Where’s the fire? Why now?

There was talk last week about the GOP possibly moving on some other legislation like tort reform before confronting the Democrats over judges. Given the consequences of a Democratic shut down of the Senate, that sounds like a sound idea to me. Who do you think the voters are going to blame for a virtual shut down of government? Let me put it to you another way; who do you think the media is going to portray as responsible? ” And I see where Frist would think it important that the Republicans have some tangible accomplishments to take to the voters if worse comes to worse.

Hugh Hewitt agrees with the Ed and adds a political note:

It is crucial that a vote be scheduled and held on breaking the filibuster before the perceived dithering benches the base for the next cycle. If we lose six GOP senators, then we will know what the problem is, and we will have an issue in Florida, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota and other red states with Democratic senators up for re-election in 2006.

Again, hard to disagree with. But we’re not even three months into the Congressional term! The “base” may be antsy, but I can’t see the need to crack up the caucus over this issue especially since over time, Frist may be able to peel off one or two Democrats.

Matt Margolis lists some of the pitfalls of the protest advocated by the Captain and Hugh:

It’s disturbing to read a fellow conservative blogger advocating that we cease donating money to the Republican Party due to disagreements with how they’ve fought for us. It’s a no win situation to not help our leaders in any way we can. You can’t be pleased with their actions all the time. It was Republican self-righteousness that ultimately gave us eight years of Bill Clinton… Think about it

Spot on. So far, the Republicans haven’t been very effective in translating their electoral victory into tangible results on the floor of the Congress. Meanwhile, the Democrats have been speaking with one voice and at the same time, absolutely skewering the Republicans on a variety of issues.

Only a united party will be able to counter the Democrats. I hope the Captain, Hugh, and other disgruntled Republicans come back to the fold before it costs us at the polls.

UPDATE

Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has some contact information as well as an interesting thought on the tactics advocated by Hugh and Ed:

Let’s not eat our own like the Buchananites and the Perotistas who abandoned Bush ‘41 and ended up electing Klintoon. I’m sure most anyone can find something to criticize about the way things are done in one way or another, but isn’t it infinitely preferable to handing things over to the Left

The consequences of more activist judges are almost too horrible to contemplate. Better to stick with the devil you know than fool with the devil you don’t.

SOON TO BE CELLMATES?

If you’ve ever wondered how Al Sharpton can afford all those expensive suits and ritzy hotel suites, you’re not alone. Seems as though the FBI was wondering the same thing as they videotaped the good Reverend accepting tens of thousands of dollars in cash contributions to his ill-fated Presidential campaign and then saying “more please”…

WASHINGTON — The FBI, as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the Rev. Al Sharpton, secretly videotaped him pocketing campaign donations from two shady fund-raisers in a New York City hotel room and then asking for more, it was reported yesterday.

One of the donors was later recorded on a wiretap saying Sharpton may not have reported to the Federal Election Commission (search) tens of thousands of dollars in campaign cash, as is required by the law, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The Post confirmed the FBI investigation of Sharpton. The two dubious donors whom Sharpton met with in the hotel on May 9, 2003 — Democratic fund-raisers La-Van Hawkins and the late Ronald White — suggested that nearly $90,000 was missing from the official campaign report Sharpton filed with the FEC.

An FBI wiretap picked up Hawkins telling White he believed they had raised more than $140,000 for Sharpton in the previous quarter — but Hawkins fretted because Sharpton had reported only about $50,000 on his federal election filing.

A word of caution here: Just because the feds have the rascally Reverend on tape taking cash doesn’t mean diddly. Back in 1983, the G-Men thought they had Sharpton dead to rights in a drug sting. But the racist Rev proved too slippery by half and even though sounding intrigued with the idea of facilitating a drug deal that could have netted himself tens of thousands of dollars, eventually he turned down the offer.

Al Sharpton has proven he has more lives than both of my cats put together. His involvement in race baiting controversies goes far beyond the Tawana Brawley affair where Sharpton accused an assistant DA of involvement in the kidnapping and rape of a 15 year old girl which was later proved a hoax for which Sharpton was sued and lost a $300 million dollar judgement. Almost forgotten is the incident at Freddy’s Fashion Mart where Sharpton’s racist rhetoric led to violence:

The murderous rampage was set in motion when the United House of Prayer, one of the largest black landlords on 125th Street, raised the rent on the Fashion Mart owned by a Jew, Freddy Harari, who then raised the rent on his subtenant, Sikhulu Shange, who ran a record store. Recognizing that the quickest way to gain support in a landlord-tenant dispute is to turn it into a racial issue, Mr. Shange went to Mr. Sharpton’s National Action Network, which in turn knew that the quickest way to build a crowd in Harlem is to rouse racial hatreds. Mr. Sharpton and the daily picketers did their job brilliantly. He opened his public campaign against Freddy’s on WWRL radio, warning: “We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business on 125th Street.”

After two months of rhetorical violence, protester Roland Smith ran into the store with guns blazing and burned it down. When it was over, Smith had killed himself and seven others. Armed with a .38-caliber revolver, he shot three whites and a Pakistani in cold blood—he had mistaken the light-skinned Pakistani for a Jew, and then set the fire that killed five Hispanics, one Guyanese, and one black, a security guard whom the protesters had taunted as a “cracker lover.”

Par for the course in the life of Reverend Sharpton. And then there was the incident where a young rabbinical student who accidentally hit a young black man with his car and was subsequently beaten to death by an angry mob of blacks. Here’s our great uniter in action at the young black man’s funeral:

Then, when a young rabbinical student was murdered by a racist mob in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Mr. Sharpton did his best to stoke the anger. At the funeral for Gavin Cato, the young boy whose death in a traffic accident set off the rampage, Mr. Sharpton eulogized in full Farrakhan mode about Jewish “diamond merchants” and “no compromise.”

If it were just the race baiting and anti-semitism, the good Reverend would go down as just another firebrand, a crackpot with a golden tongue. But the level of his personal and professional malfeasance is so profound as to defy description. An investigation by the Village Voice revealed that his “National Action Network” of which Sharpton is Founder/ Director, is a sham, a cardboard cutout of a social organization that apparently ran a fake voter registration campaign as it’s only obvious activity.

And Sharpton’s affair with his executive director, one Marjorie Harris (who Sharpton is pushing to be on the DNC) played out against the backdrop of his presidential campaign where he insisted that his wife Kathy was his “rock:”

Sharpton reveals that he has not lived with his wife and two daughters in their enormous Brooklyn mansion since April 2003, when the couple agreed to “terminate their marriage.” This flies in the face of repeated claims during his year and a half of presidential hoopla—especially one as recently as July 2004, when he rebutted a Daily News item about an alleged other woman by insisting that “Kathy has been my rock and always will be.” The self-described “grassroots activist” now says through lawyers that he “moved” to the luxurious Helmsley Carlton, though he told reporters who caught him there earlier this year that it was merely an easy place to lay his head while on the campaign trail.

And expensive hotels seem to be a habit with the good Reverend Al. Where all serious candidates for President try to stay in modest lodgings to save on expenses, Sharpton seemed to enjoy his campaigning by staying in some of the ritziest hotels in the country:

But while the campaign has struggled to raise money, collecting $284,000 by September, Mr. Sharpton chose to stay in luxury hotels like the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, a European-style hotel with antiques and private balconies, and the Mandarin Oriental in Miami, on Biscayne Bay. Most candidates stay in more modest hotels to hold expenses down.

Mr. Sharpton said he chose the Mansion on Turtle Creek because he was attending a Black Expo and other attendees were staying there. According to his filing to the commission, the bill came to $3,264.11 for one night for Mr. Sharpton; Eddie Harris, his personal filmmaker; and Mr. Harris’s sister, Marjorie Harris Smikle, the executive director of the National Action Network.

In July, Mr. Sharpton spent $7,343.20 at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles for a three-day stay that included campaign-related events at the hotel.

“If I was going to go and live the high life, I certainly wouldn’t be doing it one night or two nights at a time,” Mr. Sharpton said about his choice of accommodations.

This got him into trouble with the FEC. Predictably, Sharpton pleaded ignorance:

Mr. Sharpton tried to deflect blame for his financial record by suggesting that he and many of the people around him were not financial experts, but activists who should be given some leeway in such matters.

“We are an advocacy group,” Mr. Sharpton said in an interview on Christmas morning, referring to his group, the National Action Network. “Your staff sometimes lets things slip through the cracks, probably.”

“This morning we are feeding the homeless,” he said. “I have no idea if they paid the guy that brings the truck, or tipped the guy that brings in the bread.”

He may as well have added “And I can’t keep track of every $50,000 I stuff in my pants pocket. I was never any good with numbers…”

Like a bad penny, Sharpton keeps showing up in New York politics. And despite this latest brush with the law, I have no doubt the Reverend Sharpton will land on his feet…after playing the race card, the conspiracy card, and the sympathy card to their fullest measure.

Just goes to show you can’t keep a good bunko man down.

Cross Posted at Blogger News network

In another excellent installment from Byron York’s “The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy,” (A book I’m awaiting anxiously to arrive) the author explodes the myth of popularity that surrounds Michael Moore’s excreable piece of propaganda “Farenheit 9/11.”

It’s a telling tale of what happens when the Hollywood Hype machine matches up with the liberal megaphones of the mainstream press. And the result was a fiction that could have tipped the election in favor of Kerry.

Using data supplied by a Hollywood insider, York shows how the pronouncements of Moore and his partisans of the film’s acceptance in “red state” theaters was a lie, that the film actually underperformed spectacularly in many key markets.

This didn’t stop the mainstream press from gleefully repeating the falsehoods and hype that Moore and his ideological friends were spouting to the public:

Press accounts added to the idea that Fahrenheit 9/11 was winning over Bush supporters. The day before Moore spoke to MoveOn, the Los Angeles Times ran a story headlined “‘Fahrenheit’ Is Casting a Wide Net at Theaters: Anti-Bush Sentiment Runs High at Showings of the Documentary, Which Has Opened with a Strong Box-Office from 868 Screens.” The story began with a woman, a supporter of the president, who had gotten into stinging political arguments with her anti-Bush college student son. The son urged her to see Fahrenheit 9/11, and she emerged from the movie with tears in her eyes. “My emotions are just…,” she said, unable to continue. “I feel like we haven’t seen the whole truth before.” The Times wrote of another man, a well-to-do retired insurance agent, who described himself as a lifelong Republican but who, after seeing the movie, vowed to leave the GOP. “I won’t be voting for a Republican presidential candidate this time,” he told the Times.

The liberals in the press have honed this tactic of singling out one person to try and show that such sentiment is widespread to perfection. Witness just about any economic or health care story on the news and you’ll see some poor schlub who blames the President for the trying circumstances in which they find themselves. Conversely, try and remember how many “feel-good” economic stories there were during the Clinton administration. I can remember quite a few.

Even Time Magazine took Moore’s bait and started hyping the film’s potential impact on the election:

Summing up the emerging conventional wisdom, Time magazine wrote, “You would have expected Moore’s movie to play well in the liberal big cities, and it is doing so. But the film is also touching the heart of the heartland. In Bartlett, Tenn., a Memphis suburb, the rooms at Stage Road Cinema showing Fahrenheit 9/11 have been packed with viewers who clap, boo, laugh and cry nearly on cue. Even the dissenters are impressed. When the lights came up after a showing last week, one gent rose from his seat and said grudgingly, ‘It’s bulls**t, but I gotta admit it was done well.’” Calling Fahrenheit 9/11 “a shaping force in the presidential campaign,” Time wrote that the film was attracting “the curious, the hostile, the indifferent. . . . [Moore is] doing what he does best — pestering — to get them into theaters. And then to the polls.”

Moore, who bragged that the film “sold out” in Fayetteville, North Carolina (home of Fort Bragg) and they had “standing ovation” in Greensboro, NC was whistling past the graveyard. Here are some real numbers that Fat Mickey doesn’t want you to see:

Fahrenheit 9/11 also did well in Seattle, Montreal, Ottawa, Portland, Oregon, Monterey, California, and Burlington, Vermont. In all, two things stand out from those numbers. One is that the picture overperformed only in blue states, and even then only in the most urban parts of those blue states. And the second is that it did very well in Canada. Fahrenheit 9/11 consistently overperformed in Canadian cities; without that boffo business, the film’s gross would have been significantly smaller than it was.

That’s the upside of the story. The downside revealed by the Nielsen EDI numbers is that Fahrenheit 9/11, far from being the runaway nationwide hit that Moore claimed, underperformed in dozens of markets throughout red states and, most important — as far as the presidential election was concerned — swing states. Dallas/Fort Worth, the ninth-largest movie market, accounts for 2.07 percent of North American box office but made up just 1.21 percent of Fahrenheit 9/11 box office, for an underperformance of nearly 42 percent. In Phoenix, the tenth-largest market, Fahrenheit 9/11 underperformed by 29 percent. In Houston, ranked twelfth for movies, it underperformed by 38 percent. In Orlando, it underperformed by 38 percent; Tampa-St. Petersburg, by 41 percent; Salt Lake City, by 61 percent.

The list goes on for quite a while: Las Vegas, Raleigh-Durham, San Antonio, Norfolk, Charlotte, Nashville, Memphis, Jacksonville, Flint, Michigan (Michael Moore’s home turf), and many others. And in Fayetteville and Tulsa, where Moore boasted that his movie had sold out, Fahrenheit 9/11 underperformed by 41 percent and 50 percent, respectively

Note: When York writes of the film “underperforming” he means that the fim’s gross underperformed in relation to the total share of Hollywood’s take on a city by city basis. So that if a movie does spectacularly in blue states, overperforming by 50% or more, it could still do very poorly in red states as it underperforms by the same amount.

What these numbers show is that Moore and his allies in the media were trying to weave a narrative in which the “truth” in 9/11 was changing people’s minds about the President and the war and that this story would in fact swing the election. In the end, as with Michael Moore himself, the stories were proved to be full of hot air.