Thursday, January 04, 2007

So What to Make of Mitt Romney

By chance, I happened to see the now former Governor Mitt Romney on Tuesday on his last full day as Governor of Massachusetts. He had come to lay a wreath for Gerald Ford at the Old North Church, a gesture one local called a “crock of [bleep]” and just another photo op for Romney’s putative run at the Presidency. Lending weight to this view was that Romney’s visit lasted all of five minutes. He came, he shook hands with the vicar, flash bulbs went off as he laid the wreath, and then he was gone. Just another gesture in Ford’s endless interment, and one which may or may not have made the eleven o’clock news.

So what about Mitt? I don’t personally know him and so have no basis on which to form an opinion as does the esteemed blogger Dean Barnett. I did once work with the Governor’s son for a couple of years, and can attest that he was an awfully nice guy. There was a clannishness to the mormons who were there, and a subtle attitude of superiority. They do call the rest of us “gentiles” - even the Jews - and it means something to them. I did and do find the attitude vaguely distasteful. However, beyond that, I’m not concerned with the LDS issue. Mitt Romney says he believes in Jesus Christ, and I believe him. Most evangelicals will probably take him at his word, though those who are aware of mormon theology may not recognize the mormon Christ. Frankly, it’s a non-issue that the media will be happy to play up for lack of substance and understanding anyway.

My view of Romney as governor is somewhat more of an issue to me. He acted as the standard check on a Democrat-dominated legislature that has kept the GOP in the governor’s office for almost two decades. He spoke out on social issues. He visited the occasional disaster site for a photo op (we’re not Louisiana, so local officials are actually pretty good at managing those things by themselves). Basically, to me, he looked like a dilettante. I do believe he wants to be president, and he needed an elective office on his resume. Governor of a state is pretty good - far better than senator, so he checked it off. Could that be why he only served one term? Could that be why he failed to support his Lt. Governor in her bid for the office he was vacating? I don’t know. I do know Romney has coasted through his term. Which brings us to the presidency.

The presidential lineup on both sides of the political aisle is pathetic. All the senators are frankly lightweights, including Hillary Clinton and John McCain, despite their assumed air of gravitas. Guiliani was a mayor for crying out loud, and his whole candidacy rests on an admittedly superb performance dealing with a crisis. Obama is a media creation - though his time may come (hint: run for governor). Edwards is the lightest lightweight in a light lineup. There’s Vilsack, who was at least a governor, but is largely unknown. (There’s recent precedent there, of course: Carter, Clinton.) Romney’s there with Vilsack, though arguably better known because a) Massachusetts gets more national coverage than Iowa; b) the Olympics; and c) his father’s run for the presidency.

Word is Romney’s off to South Carolina now that he’s finished with Beacon Hill, and by a funny coincidence that’s a key primary state. I’m reserving judgment at this point. My initial instinct is that Romney doesn’t have what it takes and that he’s just another Massachusetts pol bitten by the presidential tse-tse fly. He does not have my vote - now. I did vote for him for governor, and if he’s the Republican nominee he’ll have my vote over any likely Democratic contender. But right now, this conservative, Catholic, GOP primary voter is keeping his powder dry.

Posted by Matt on 01/04 at 10:33 AM
(0) Comments • Permalink

Sunday, December 31, 2006

MIA

That would be me.

Mostly, I’ve been caught up in personal and professional concerns, but I have also been disillusioned with politics of late. I make no promises for the new year, but MartiniPundit isn’t going anywhere that’s for sure.

I leave you with a thought however. Since the holiday deaths always seem to come in threes, who would ever have predicted James Brown, Gerald Ford, and Saddam Hussein?

Posted by Matt on 12/31 at 01:50 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Operation Iraqi Children

I recently heard about an effort by actor Gary Sinise called Operation Iraqi Children. The idea is to send school supplies - which are in very short supply in many parts of Iraq - and have them distributed by our troops. Winning hearts and minds by giving kids the tools to gain an education. Nothing wrong with candy, but I think this is a great idea and worthy of support.

And kudos to Gary Sinise - I always like seeing a member of the Hollywood establishment do the right thing for a change. The website again is here.

Posted by Matt on 10/12 at 09:47 AM
(3) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Vote Lieberman

I did not vote for the Gore - Lieberman team in 2000 which should come as no surprise. I’ve known since the days of Jimmy Carter that Democrats cannot be trusted with national security, and since that’s one of the primary reasons I vote for Federal office, I simply cannot pull the lever for a Democrat. Even the rare exceptions - Democrats who get national security, and Joe Lieberman is one - are typically overshadowed on that and other issues by the Republican in the race.

Not this time.

Yesterday, the Democratic party in Connecticut had a defining moment. They chose Ned Lamont to be their candidate for United States senator over the incumbant Lieberman. Lamont represents all that is wrong about Democrats and national security. He’s the candidate of the far Left, the Cindy Sheehans, the Kossacks, and the other moonbats. Far from even thinking we’re fighting a war against terrorism, the Ned Lamonts want to sit down with terrorists and talk it out. Israel should immediately stop defending itself and pull back. The United States should never use military force anywhere for any reason. Except to do the bidding of the United Nations. I cannot take such a party seriously on this issue and I doubt very much the majority of Americans do.

However, in Connecticut, things are a little different as they are in all of New England. This is not exactly George Bush country, and that’s why Lieberman lost yesterday - he supported the President too much. Come the general election in November, Lieberman plans to run as an independent though many of his senate colleagues are asking he not do that. Yet Lamont only beat him among Democrats by 4 points - 52 to 48. Connecticut went for Kerry in 2004, but Bush garnered 44% of the vote. While it’s possible the Republican candidate Alan Schlesinger can win in November, I think it far more likely that Lieberman will win a three-way race. Lieberman has already proven he’ll stand by the President on the most important issue we face today. Current polls tend to support the view that Lieberman can win in the general election, and if he does, he’ll have no reason to thank his Democrat colleagues who’ve failed to support him in this time. He might even choose to caucus with the Republicans, though that’s not important.

For this reason, MartiniPundit endorses Joe Lieberman for senator from Connecticut, and I urge all my Republican (and Democrat) readers who live in Connecticut to vote for him in November.

Posted by Matt on 08/09 at 10:02 AM
(3) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Friday, July 21, 2006

GOP Straw Poll

I received an e-mail recently from GOP Bloggers of which I am a member. It purported to be a straw poll of current candidates for the Republican nomination in 2008. The list was of the usual suspects, and asked whom I would support and whom I would not support. However, there was a glaring omission to the list - Condi Rice.

I replied to the e-mail to that effect - that I would be happy to participate once Condi was included - but received in response an automated message from the site (i.e. Matt Margolis) suggesting that I needed to confirm that I wasn’t spam - I would only have to do this once. This in reply to an e-mail sent to me.

Well, I’m already a member and my e-mail address should be part of that. I appreciate that a blogger of Matt Margolis’s prominence receives a lot of spam, but I found this to be a rather silly requirement for one who is already a member of not one but two of his sites and who was the recipient of his e-mail. Perhaps I shouldn’t bother.

In any event, for those who care, I would vote for Condi, not that you’ll see that option on GOP Bloggers.

Posted by Matt on 07/21 at 12:25 AM
(1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Monday, June 19, 2006

MSNBC Makes a Good Call

MSNBC has cancelled the execrable Maury and Connie duet weekend morning program. If you caught any part of it during its brief run, you were insulted by ill-informed banal commentary, not to mention an odd lack of chemistry between the co-hosts - all the scarier as they are married to one another.

Anyway, I wouldn’t ordinarily have opined on such a topic were it not for the bizarre - literal - swansong Connie Chung performed for their last show. A must see.

Via Drudge.

Posted by Matt on 06/19 at 10:51 AM
(5) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Rove Will Not Be Charged

Special Prosecutor FitzGerald has sent a letter to Rove’s lawyer stating he will not be charged with a crime in connection with the Plame Affair.

That sound you hear is all those crests falling on the left ...

Posted by Matt on 06/13 at 09:32 AM
(3) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Zarqawi Dead

The Al Qaeda leader and savage Abu Musab Zarqawi has kept a long-overdue appointment with a pair of 500 lb. bombs. Some have qualms over this - I do not. His death is a good thing, and will lower the overall death toll in the long run. The terrorists are losing, and though they aren’t yet giving up, the end result is clear so long as the US maintains its resolve.

I have no doubt there will be some ‘reprisal’ attacks, that some other strongman will emerge to take Zarqawi’s place, but the fact remains that organizations like Al Qaeda don’t have a very deep bench. They can’t due to political infighting where strong and ambitious men vie for position. Smart leaders in organizations like that eliminate potential rivals, and those they don’t, we do. Whoever replaces Zarqawi won’t be as dangerous, but that’s no reason for us to drop our guard. For today however, we can be glad that one savage has been brought to justice.

Some good background here.

Posted by Matt on 06/08 at 10:38 AM
(3) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Genetic Immunity to HIV?

There’s an interesting piece in Wired discussing a possible explanation for those people who seem to be immune to HIV. This phenomenon has long been known in medical circles, and it crops up from time to time in the mainstream press. Here’s an excerpt:

Genetic resistance to AIDS works in different ways and appears in different ethnic groups. The most powerful form of resistance, caused by a genetic defect, is limited to people with European or Central Asian heritage. An estimated 1 percent of people descended from Northern Europeans are virtually immune to AIDS infection, with Swedes the most likely to be protected. One theory suggests that the mutation developed in Scandinavia and moved southward with Viking raiders.

All those with the highest level of HIV immunity share a pair of mutated genes—one in each chromosome—that prevent their immune cells from developing a “receptor” that lets the AIDS virus break in. If the so-called CCR5 receptor—which scientists say is akin to a lock—isn’t there, the virus can’t break into the cell and take it over.

Vikings? Perhaps someone should look into Iceland’s situation, as their genetics have been kept in the family for a millenium now. The article is worth a read.

Posted by Matt on 06/07 at 11:17 AM
(1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

The Bigotry Card

The Senate is debating the FMA again, amidst other posturing that means very little. Harry Reid is apparently upset that the Senate is wasting time on this when it could be doing that other thing - whatever it is. He seems to imply that the Senate is only capable of taking up one task at a time, which some of us think would be a very good thing if true. By all means, debate the FMA is that’s all it takes to keep the Senate out of trouble. Alas, that’s not the case and just another example of Harry Reid’s unprincipled posturing.

Note that I’ve called Harry Reid unprincipled. I think its warranted as the NOAD defines the word to mean: a person not acting or behaving in accordance with moral principles. Reid is a Mormon, and thus has rejected his moral beliefs for political expediency.

This brings me to our ostensibly Catholic senior senator from Massachusetts. Another unprincipled fellow who will do almost anything for political advantage, and sometimes personal ambition (Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment). Note once again, I’m casting aspersions on the man’s character. Does this make you more or less willing to listen to my argument? Less, I hope. I do try to avoid this sort of thing (not always possible, I admit), but today I’m deliberately employing it to prove the point of its lack of effectiveness.

Yesterday, Ted Kennedy wrote an op-ed in the Boston Herald opposing the FMA. There is nothing intrinsically wrong in this - many do, including some conservatives like Charles Krauthammer. There is indeed room to debate the issue, and even to debate whether the Constitution is the right forum to decide the issue. But not if you’re Ted Kennedy, for this is how he frames his argument:

This so-called Federal Marriage Amendment should really be called the Republican Right Wing 2006 Electoral Strategy Amendment because it is more about rallying an extreme base to vote than about solving a problem. Proponents use fear tactics and claim that marriage is under attack by activist judges. That’s simply not true. The country is divided over gay marriage; within the laws of each state, there is ongoing debate in which Congress should not intervene. A vote for this amendment is a vote for bigotry - pure and simple. A vote for it is a vote against civil unions, against domestic partnerships, and against efforts by states to treat gays and lesbians fairly under the law.

It’s a vote to impose discrimination on all 50 states, denying them their right to interpret their own state constitutions and to pass their own state laws. [emphasis mine]

Senator Kennedy’s argument - that the FMA will undermine the principles of Federalism - is a good one, and not surprisingly, one with which I agree. Kennedy is no real fan of the principle (just ask him how he feels about applying it to Roe vs. Wade), but his hypocritical adoption of it here while rejecting it there is not the real way in which he undermines his argument. It is the spoken use of the word ‘bigotry.’

Thus, if you oppose gay marriage you are a bigot. Any one of you reading this who opposed gay marriage now knows that Ted Kennedy considers you a bigot.

So why listen to him any further? Why would you debate an issue with someone whose stated position on it is that anyone who disagrees with him is a bigot - in other words, an unprincipled, immoral person.

I recently had this card played when discussing the subject of Indian reservations. I believe they are a horrible anachronism that should be eliminated as soon as possible. They foster poverty, despair, crime, and alcoholism. They oppress people in the name of their own sovereignty - a sham. My Leftist interlocutor found this view to be racist, and said so. Where I saw people being treated horribly by the government, she saw an ethnic minority needing to be patronized. Yet, the moment she played the race card, she lost the debate. What was the point of discussing the issue further with someone who had decided she was talking with a racist? Whatever ideas we might have exchanged, whatever potential to compromise and reach a better position was lost. (I will admit to a certain mischievous pleasure in getting a Leftist to defend a reservation system set up by white men in the 19th century to keep the Indians from claiming any of the useful land.)

This tactic of the Left, to demean and dehumanize their opponents is a losing strategy. Ted Kennedy is called the “Lion of the Senate” by a fawning media. Except when he roars, no one is really scared. He’s basically irrelevant, and not least because he throws around accusations of bigotry intended to marginalize his opponents. Instead, he’s the one on the sidelines.

Posted by Matt on 06/06 at 10:17 AM
(3) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Access Woes

I think it’s over. To all of you who’ve wondered what happened, suffice to say that my internet access for the past two weeks has been spotty at best. However, I think that my cable provider has finally licked the thing - but we’ll see.

For those more interested (and especially for those of you who might have cable internet service), read on.

I’ve not sure if the non-North American readers have ‘cable’ internet, so I’ll briefly explain. In the US (and Canada IIRC), there are three basic ways for residential consumers to get internet access: dialup (56K), DSL (128K - 768K), and cable (1.5 Mbps+), this last coming through one’s TV service provider and typically being the fastest of the three. Indeed, I usually have download speeds approaching 3 Mbps.

I’ve had this service for nearly two years now without a hitch. Then two weeks ago - on Wednesday - the signal became intermittent. I know a bit about how networks operate, and I’ve managed to troubleshoot most of my own problems for some time. So I tinkered a bit but no dice. Over that first 48 hours I would estimate that I had about 6 hours of access. Being wireless, I also grabbed some bandwidth from one, and eventually two neighbors, but those connections were slow, and didn’t always work. Might be distance, or it might be - shudder - dialup.

I first called the cable company - Comcast - on Thursday and set up an appointment for Friday (all day - who knew when they’d come?) with a backup for Monday. They missed both appointments. By this time, my access was out for the count, and only one neighbor was occasionally available. If I knew whose bandwidth I had borrowed, I would give him some pointers on improving his network. Anyway, I called Comcast and wondered where their service techs were. They claimed the appointments had been “cancelled” but they knew not by whom or why. Well, it certainly wasn’t me! By this time I was fairly sure that the issue was either their line of the cable modem itself. So we made another appointment for the 3-5 window on Thursday.

Thursday came and went. No cable guy.

At this point, I was openly asking them if they actually had any service techs to send out. I also began to hear that magical phrase “Comcast is sorry for any inconvience” (hereafter CISFAI) which I would hear at every turn with them from this moment on. We made another appointment for Saturday 1-3.

Nothing. I had called about 1:30 to confirm the appointment, but after 3pm passed, I called again. At this time, I was informed that the appointment had been cancelled at 1:03 nearly a half hour before I called and received confirmation that the appointment was on. The guy CISFAIed me, but I told him I needed a tech out today and that was that. He gave me another window of 4-7 that same day.

Truly annoyed at this point, but beginning to see the humor in the whole thing, I waited. When 7pm came and went, I was openly laughing as the alternative was to start hurling breakable objects. Five appointments had been missed. Somewhere along the line, they had waved the fee for the month which was decent of them considering they weren’t providing service and didn’t seem overly concerned about doing so in the future. In no mood to cook, we ordered in Chinese, and shortly after its arrival, the doorbell rang. It was not one but two cable guys. At 8:30. I didn’t care - they were here.

So they went to work. They looked at the modem. They hooked up some testing device. They decided it was the splitter (the device which separates the data and video streams from the cable line), replaced it, confirmed the internet was live, and left. They both gave me a CISFAI.

Three hours later, the cable went out again.

Late on Sunday, I called Comcast again. For various reasons, I was not able to face this task until later in the day, and given how it turned out, I must say it was for the best. I mean, for total farcical value. Not that I knew that right away.

The woman I spoke with had an accent - not all that unusual, and at first I thought nothing of it. It seemed she had the ability to remotely check my cable modem - something not a single person had mentioned thus far. This she proceeded to do three times before sagely informing me that “the modem isn’t connecting.” Really? Gee, thanks for clueing me in there. She suggested that the modem be replaced, which was also something I knew. What I did not know was where the local Comcast service centers were. (At this point, I figured it was more efficient to go get the damn thing myself rather than wait five more appointments for a live body to show up.)

She gave me the closest choice - Brookline. Now those of you from Massachusetts might be familiar enough with Boston to know that the closest choice is rarely the best choice here in the Hub. In fact, from where I live, Brookline is a 5 minute flight by bird, 40+ minute drive by car. I then asked her where she was. An innocent enough question I thought, as most people are aware that calling centers can be located anywhere. For all I knew, she was in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. But she hedged, mumbled something about “international” and then moved on. India! I realized, finally placing the hint of an accent.

Eventually, she gave me two more options, Medford being the easiest to get to. I thanked her, and she gave me a CISFAI.

So the next day - Monday - I called the Medford office and was treated to a recorded voice telling me that the number was not in service. Uh oh. There was a brief window in the neighbor’s bandwidth and I managed to discover that the Medford office had closed, but there was one in East Boston - unknown in India - which is a 15 minute drive from me. Great, I thought. However, the silliness of a woman halfway across the planet being able to ping my modem but not being up to date on office locations she was giving out amused me greatly. There are limitations to outsourcing after all.

Armed with the knowledge that I just had to pick up the modem, off I went. I’d never been to this part of East Boston before, but it was a main drag so no sweat. I arrived, parked, went in, and there was no line. Things were looking up! Until the woman at the window told me that their computer was down - company-wide - and she couldn’t give me a modem without being able to “check it out.” I stared at her in disbelief. Comcast was nefarious - they would stoop to any means to prevent me from regaining access. Even to the point of shutting down their network. I gave the woman an abbreviated version of the woe, she gave me a CISFAI. I left.

When I got home, I called for another appointment. Tuesday from 1-3 they gave me. I said sure. The guy showed up. At 2pm. I wanted to pinch him to see if he was actually there. He listened to the problem, hooked up some testing device, and then said, “It isn’t the modem.” Oh, I thought, they’re diabolical. He had to go out the fire escape (I live on the fourth floor), into the back well to check the lines. Did I mention it rained really hard that day? When he came back up, he told me that the signal was - you ready for this? Too strong. Not weak. Strong. The modem couldn’t process it because it was being overwhelmed (it should be at 8db but was at 16db - some of you might know better what that means than I). He threw some more technobabble at me about what another tech guy would need to do the next day - not involving me, thankfully - and that should do the trick. Well, this is that day. I’ve had uninterrupted access since he did whatever he did. Threatened the modem for all I know.

Oh, and he threw me a CISFAI as he left.

Posted by Matt on 05/10 at 09:22 AM
(3) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Monday, May 01, 2006

Access Issues

My apologies for going on silent running. Comcast, my alleged cable provider, has been ‘providing’ very spotty internet access this past week and even failed to make a service appointment they scheduled. Not sure when things will be back to normal ...

Posted by Matt on 05/01 at 07:56 AM
(2) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Meanwhile, the Guardian Tries …

... to scare us.

And yet, in doing so makes the case for dealing with Iran sooner, not later.

(And I love the conceit that Hillary will be president after running against McCain. You do know that in my view, John McCain has less chance of being the Republican nominee than I do? However, if he is, he wins against Hillary in a rout.)

Posted by Matt on 04/20 at 09:54 AM
(1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Is Iran Run by Pathological Liars?

The other day I was watching an interview with the Iranian Foreign Minister, and had to shake my head in disbelief. There the man sat, speaking with the female western journalist, and expounded at length on Iran’s ‘right’ to peaceful nuclear power. He accused the United States of employing a “double-standard” in Iran’s case for no good reason. My first thought was that I could think of 444 good reasons right off the bat, but when a war has been going on for a quarter century and only one side knows it, something is wrong. Duplicitous, one might say. After all, this was a Foreign Minister attempting to be eminently reasonable, while presenting the US as eminently unreasonable at the same time his loon of a president is talking about death and annihilation for the US and Israel. Doesn’t sound like a peaceful approach to me. But then, it is clear they’re trying to play a double-game, like always.

This brings me to Iran’s latest wonder weapons. It seems rather funny that a nation that has trouble keeping its air force aloft yet manages to produce “super-weapons” among other things. (Let’s be clear that the technical issues in completing a nuclear weapon are not that high - it is, after all, technology that dates back to the 1940s.) With the thought in mind that much of the Iranian ‘advances’ are actually repackaging old technology, I couldn’t help but be amused at this analysis of Iran’s so-called “super-cavitating torpedo” which is actually a thirty-year old Russian weapon.

[O]bserving the errors of fact and occasional tone nearing hysteria in some media lately, I feel compelled to first address an “enemy” weapon and put it in its proper place. This weapon has been called in print “hellacious.” It’s been described as a “quantum leap” in the nature of naval warfare from this day forth—a disruptive technology for which America is woefully unprepared. It’s even been said that there’s no physically possible friendly defense against it, and the target won’t even realize the weapon is coming until it impacts and the target’s crew are dead. Paints a scary picture, doesn’t it? Yet none of these statements are true.

The article is well-worth reading, and indirectly shows that what Iran is really up to here is not ‘super’ weapons, but a psychological operation aimed directly at the western media and and Leftists. Duplicity is just the heavy artillery in that fight, and much of the target is soft already.

Posted by Matt on 04/20 at 09:32 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Mark Helprin on Iran

It’s Mark week apparently here, and that’s good as there are many things on my plate to do. So, I’ll point you to Mark Helprin this time:

Even were one to believe that, despite its low and stagnant per capita gross national product and having the world’s second-largest reserves of petroleum and natural gas, Iran would invest uneconomically in nuclear power generation, one would also have to disbelieve that it wanted nuclear weapons. But with an intermediate-range strategic nuclear capacity, it could deter American intervention, reign over the Persian Gulf, further separate Europe from American Middle East policy, correct a nuclear imbalance with Pakistan, lead and perhaps unify the Islamic world, and thus create the chance to end Western dominance of the Middle East and/or with a single shot destroy Israel.

Lot’s of people like Helprin are speaking sense on Iran. People like Brent Scowcroft are not. He, apparently is part of the Madeleine Albright school where we reward obnoxious regimes with nuclear candy. I read a phrase like “Tehran has every right” and I wonder if I’m living on the same planet as an ostrich like Scowcroft. Iran is not - as Mark Steyn has pointed out - a nation that we can deal with as a sovereign state. It is a Thugocracy, and it must be challenged, thwarted, and ultimately, overthrown.

Posted by Matt on 04/13 at 10:40 AM
(2) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Mark Steyn on Iran

You know it’s good - I sure don’t have to tell you. But I will prod a bit for here is a taste:

So the question is: Will they [Iran] do it?

And the minute you have to ask, you know the answer. If, say, Norway or Ireland acquired nuclear weapons, we might regret the “proliferation,” but we wouldn’t have to contemplate mushroom clouds over neighboring states. In that sense, the civilized world has already lost: to enter into negotiations with a jurisdiction headed by a Holocaust-denying millenarian nut job is, in itself, an act of profound weakness—the first concession, regardless of what weaselly settlement might eventually emerge.

Conversely, a key reason to stop Iran is to demonstrate that we can still muster the will to do so. Instead, the striking characteristic of the long diplomatic dance that brought us to this moment is how September 10th it’s all been. The free world’s delegated negotiators (the European Union) and transnational institutions (the IAEA) have continually given the impression that they’d be content just to boot it down the road to next year or the year after or find some arrangement—this decade’s Oil-for-Food or North Korean deal—that would get them off the hook. If you talk to EU foreign ministers, they’ve already psychologically accepted a nuclear Iran. Indeed, the chief characteristic of the West’s reaction to Iran’s nuclearization has been an enervated fatalism.

Back when nuclear weapons were an elite club of five relatively sane world powers, your average Western progressive was convinced the planet was about to go ka-boom any minute. The mushroom cloud was one of the most familiar images in the culture, a recurring feature of novels and album covers and movie posters. There were bestselling dystopian picture books for children, in which the handful of survivors spent their last days walking in a nuclear winter wonderland. Now a state openly committed to the annihilation of a neighboring nation has nukes, and we shrug: Can’t be helped. Just the way things are. One hears sophisticated arguments that perhaps the best thing is to let everyone get ’em, and then no one will use them. And if Iran’s head of state happens to threaten to wipe Israel off the map, we should understand that this is a rhetorical stylistic device that’s part of the Persian oral narrative tradition, and it would be a grossly Eurocentric misinterpretation to take it literally.

A must read.

Posted by Matt on 04/11 at 11:36 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Friday, April 07, 2006

Stoneless Story - The Ellen Goodman Version

Well, it seems the “Jill Carroll abused by right-wing bloggers” theme is developing into an outright meme. At least that’s the case when a well-known columnist like Ellen Goodman stoops to outright duplicity. (Or sleight of hand, your call.) In this column from the Boston Globe, she moralizes that “Bloggers owe Jill Carroll an apology.”

Do they? This one surely does not, and I’ll stack up my rightwing credentials next to anybody’s. I never wrote a word about Jill Carroll’s release before this week, and nothing that was derogatory. I do find this latest (jealous) attack on the blogosphere to be more than a little farfetched. Let’s take a look:

Remember when a former CBS executive described bloggers as guys in pajamas writing in their living rooms? Well, it seems that many have only one exercise routine: jumping to conclusions.

Starting out by repeating a gratuitous slur is particularly silly when one recalls that the blogosphere was right and the CBS executive wrong. Just like him, Goodman attempts to denigrate that which she can’t refute.

However, unlike the last time we looked at this, Goodman does at least name some names:

The printouts on my desk describe the 28-year-old journalist, a hostage and victim for 82 terrifying days, as something between Patty Hearst and Baghdad Jane, between a traitor and ‘’Princess Jill.” TBone posted a potshot, calling Carroll ‘’a liar” and the kidnapping ‘’a total scam.” PA Pundits said that ‘’I still just can’t get past her being (for the most part) unharmed.” And Debbie Schlussel called her a ‘’spoiled brat America-hater.”

At first, the only name I even recognized was Debbie Schlussel, whom I tend to lump in with the fringe, but if she wants to count her, OK. She’s not A-list, but she’s known. And she seems to be examining Carroll’s views and motivations from a reporter’s perspective - I’m not sure what’s wrong with that unless Ellen Goodman somehow believes reporters are above such questions.

But the other two blogs are a stretch (and let’s note they come first). I went looking and found the TBone story and the PAPundits piece. Like I said, I’d never heard of these guys, but wow, what a scoop!

TBone is a blog about fifteen months old that averages around 800 hits a month. No shame there, this blog doesn’t do that much better. He’s skeptical about the story, and that’s all. Hardly a representative of the blogosphere. So I then looked at PAPundits and find they’ve been around less time - since September 2005 - and they’re bigger, averaging better than 8600 hits a month. Goodman doesn’t even bother, however to quote them honestly. Here’s what she quotes:

I still just can’t get past her being (for the most part) unharmed.

(Harsh words indeed.) And here’s what they actually say:

For everyone out there that is whining about how mistreated Jill Carroll has been by the blogs, I say “Fah!“.

The basic fundimental question of why she was released has not been answered. Until we get some answers as to why she was released, pretty much unharmed, after her kidnappers didn’t get what they wanted…

It just doesn’t add up to me, but then I am a distrusting soul.

I really couldn’t care less about the anti-american remarks she made shortly after her release. That really doesn’t phase me and I am willing to let that go. Her remarks in Germany pretty much cancel out her comments anyway.

I still just can’t get past her being (for the most part) unharmed.

Don’t get me wrong, I am HAPPY she’s is fine, I am HAPPY she is alive and free. I just don’t understand why her captors chose to do what they did.

He thinks there’s something fishy about it - maybe there is. I don’t know, and I’m sure Ellen Goodman doesn’t either.

But that’s all she’s got, two bloggers (I don’t count Schlussel), one tiny, one modest. Of course, there’s no story there (not to mention no links; I had to Google them.) So she resorts to this subterfuge:

The political bloggers first flexed their muscle in 2002 when they trumped the MSM—blogspeak for Mainstream Media—by forcing Trent Lott out of the Senate speakership after he toasted the good old segregated days of Strom Thurmond. In 2004, they proved the power of the Internet as a great equalizer when they confronted the house of CBS and Dan Rather over Bush’s military records.

Two years later, we have—ready, fire, aim—the Jill Carroll affair. These attacks raise the question of what bloggery is going to be when it grows up. An Internet op-ed page? Or a polarized, talk-radio food fight?

One must marvel at the chutzpah. It works on at least two levels. First, conflating the injustice of attacking Jill Carroll with the CBS forgeries. I agree that all the evidence suggests that Jill Carroll got lucky and she should be left alone. However, despite Ms. Goodman’s attempt to place Dan Rather and CBS in the same category, it just doesn’t work.

This wasn’t about “Bush’s military records.” This was about Dan Rather and CBS news knowingly using forgeries to attempt to slander a sitting Presidnet of the United States and influence the outcome of an election. This was despicable behavior and Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, and others lost their jobs over it. This simply doesn’t compare to Jill Carroll.

Secondly, the idea that bloggers such as TBone and PAPundits are the ones responsible for the Rather takedown (or Lott’s) is equally ridiculous. It was people like Captain’s Quarters, Hugh Hewitt, Instapundit, INDC Journal, many others I’ve forgotten, but most of all Power Line. These are the big blogs, the influential blogs. These are the blogs that collectively receive hundreds of thousands of hits a month. These are the ones that took down Dan Rather, and these are the ones that matter in the Jill Carroll story. And they aren’t attacking her which Goodman must know, otherwise she’d have cited them instead of small fry. Of course, then she wouldn’t be able to say silly things like this:

The difference between old media and new, MSM and blog, says Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute, is the difference between sitting at a restaurant and having your food delivered nicely plated or standing at a buffet nibbling constantly. It’s the 24/7 news cycle brought down to the 604,800 seconds-per-week cycle.
In the wake of the Carroll story, a few—far too few—bloggers stopped stocking the buffet long enough to eat their words. But this case provides a juncture for bloggers who want a respected role in the public debate.

Of course, this straw man is knocked down just by the bloggers Goodman cites.

Ellen Goodman has written a scurrilous attack piece. It’s as bad as anything she ‘accuses’ bloggers of doing, worse given its intellectual dishonesty, and for reasons which she only knows but others can guess at. Might they have something to do with the Globe’s financial and circulation woes?

Posted by Matt on 04/07 at 12:00 PM
(6) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Bobby Byrd

I’ve heard that Senator Byrd, the senior member of the senate, has lost his wife. My condolences to the senator - I’ve seen how such a loss has affected my own grandmother, and the senator has my sympathy.

However, I also understand he plans to run for reeelection, stating that his late wife wanted him to do so.

To this I say - so what? It is long past time for Senator Byrd - the only member of Congress to have enjoyed membership in the Ku Klux Klan - to step down. I cannot help but recall with disgust his attempted filibuster during the first Gulf War by recounting a history of the Battle of Cannae which made those of us actually familiar with Roman history shake our heads. Go home senator. It is long past time. Frankly, if you were a Republican, your racist past would have long since finished your political career. It’s only as a Democrat that you’ve managed to stay in office. If you had recanted, that would be one thing, but you haven’t. Shame on you. Shame on the Democrats.

Posted by Matt on 04/06 at 11:03 PM
(2) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

The Goal of Islamofascism

A fine piece in today’s OpionionJournal by Efraim Karsh outlines the goals of today’s Islamofascist’s by recounting the history of Islamic aspirations for universal empire. It’s a history written in blood.

Islamic history has been anything but reactive. From Muhammad to the Ottomans, the story of Islam has been the story of the rise and fall of an often astonishing imperial aggressiveness and, no less important, of never quiescent imperial dreams. Even as these dreams have repeatedly frustrated any possibility for the peaceful social and political development of the Arab-Muslim world, they have given rise to no less repeated fantasies of revenge and restoration and to murderous efforts to transform fantasy into fact. If, today, America is reviled in the Muslim world, it is not because of its specific policies but because, as the preeminent world power, it blocks the final realization of this same age-old dream of regaining, in Zawahiri’s words, the “lost glory” of the caliphate.

Nor is the vision confined to a tiny extremist fringe. This we saw in the overwhelming support for the 9/11 attacks throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds, in the admiring evocations of bin Laden’s murderous acts during the crisis over the Danish cartoons, and in such recent findings as the poll indicating significant reservoirs of sympathy among Muslims in Britain for the “feelings and motives” of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July. In the historical imagination of many Muslims and Arabs, bin Laden represents nothing short of the new incarnation of Saladin, defeater of the Crusaders and conqueror of Jerusalem. In this sense, the House of Islam’s war for world mastery is a traditional, indeed venerable, quest that is far from over.

To the contrary, now that this war has itself met with a so far determined counterattack by the United States and others, and with a Western intervention in the heart of the House of Islam, it has escalated to a new stage of virulence. In many Middle Eastern countries, Islamist movements, and movements appealing to traditionalist Muslims, are now jockeying fiercely for positions of power, both against the Americans and against secular parties. For the Islamists, the stakes are very high indeed, for if the political elites of the Middle East and elsewhere were ever to reconcile themselves to the reality that there is no Arab or Islamic “nation,” but only modern Muslim states with destinies and domestic responsibilities of their own, the imperialist dream would die. [emphasis mine]

The death of that dream is our goal. It’s that simple.

A must read.

Posted by Matt on 04/04 at 09:40 AM
(4) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Monday, April 03, 2006

Stoneless Story

The Telegraph appears to be drumming up a story with very little substance. Perhaps they forgot to bring the stone before they tried to make soup.

I’m pleased Jill Carroll has been released, and thought her statements before leaving Iraq seemed odd, I’m more than satisfied with her explanation that she had to make them in order to be released in the first place. But this is ridiculous:

Miss Carroll has been under sustained assault from some on the pro-war Right. Bloggers and hosts on the country’s influential talk radio stations have attacked her for stating that she had not been threatened during her confinement.

Others attacked her for wearing Muslim dress and the news channel CNN carried an interview suggesting that she was suffering from “Stockholm Syndrome”, in which victims begin to sympathise with their captors. One blogger called for Miss Carroll to be arrested for treason.

This is absurd. No bloggers are identified. No bloggers are linked. No bloggers are quoted directly. This isn’t journalism - it’s slander. I can’t help but note that the only entity mentioned by name is CNN, which if the Telegraph thinks is part of the “pro-war Right” they need to update their glossary.

I haven’t seen her attacked by a single blogger on the Right, at least from among the ones I read regularly.

I still get the meme from liberal friends that the media is not biased towards the Left. Articles like this show how ridiculous that view is.

Posted by Matt on 04/03 at 10:32 AM
(1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Page 1 of 61 pages  1 2 3 >  Last »