December 17, 2003 by s.z.

The Wonderful World Outside This Blog A few items of worth that I wanted to tell you about (I should, and would, mention more things which impressed me today, but I am tired; so very, very tired): 1.  Check out Conclusive Evidence of Dave Cullen's Existance, a new addition to our Favorite Salon Blog list.  (We've always liked Dave, and want to celebrate him liking US by making it official.)  Today's goodies include a post about why Dave didn't blog about Saddam on Sunday: It has grown quite fashionable lately, for the left and right to accuse each other of silence on matters they are supposed to be chattering about.  According to whom?  God help me if I ever land in a position where I have an obligation to have a stimulating opinion on something. Right on, brother!  (Hey, I said I was tired -- is it my fault I tend to use terribly dated phrases when I'm in this state?) 2.  TBOGG tells the sad story of Rush Limbaugh, forced to read about his drug abuse in the papers.  It's just like how Joe Lieberman found out about Al Gore ditching him for new best friend Howard Dean from the media.  Why didn't the drugs have the courtesy of just telling Rush to his face that he was abusing them instead of going to the National Enquirer behind his back?  Or maybe Rush is actually upset because he has his privacy is being invaded, and he has "already suffered the indignity of watching a list of his doctors and medications dramatically leafed through on air by television reporters." And that leafing HURTS! 3.  The 18½ Minute Gap gives us a name for what Rush was doing Monday with his "Average Democrats Spew Hate on Kook Websites" feature, and alerts us to the fact that:  Ted at CrookedTimber  has a good item about "dumpster diving", meaning "to react to a political event by going to a site where random people post, digging up the stupidest thing you can find, and trumpeting it as the position of The Other Side." Ted says, I had half-written a post about the latest adventures in dumpster-diving, but Gary Farber beat me to it.  And Gary says, in part: Sites to avoid trolling and citing: Democratic Underground; Lucianne .com; any blog's comments section. See, it's arguing against straw because random people you've never heard of who are foaming at the mouth, scientific studies reveal, turn out not to be spokespeople for a given Party or position. Fair game, on the other hand, are actual respected bloggers, reputable professional columnists, or actual politicans. They can actually be mocked as representing some respected segment of a population holding an opinion for a given Party or position. They can be held to the standard of being expected to generate a defensible, intelligent, position. Are we all clear on this now? Okay. Have a good shift, and let's be careful out there. Note: I celebrate people like Jan Ireland not as examples of the thinking of "other side," but as examples of their own unique goofiness.  Ditto Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, etc, except that I feel I have a duty to skewer them as long as they have books on the NYT Best Seller list, or are being given $20,000 a pop to talk on college campuses.  Also, While I do enjoy the Bush-Cheney 2004 Stump Speech for its Farm Implementation Center call to arms, I don't consider it representitive of any respected segment of the population, because NOBODY respects the Bush speechwriters.  (Well, those morons who think Bush writes his own stuff say they like the speeches, but even they don't respect the real writers.)  Glad I got that off my chest. 4.  Jesse at Pandagon is now a Republican.  I think I now get 1000 GoPoints for this conversion (enough to get a bike!)  If I can only bring Ezra around, then I qualify for the Team Leader grand prize, my own middle-eastern country (which I will name Ezraq, in his honor.)  Oh, and Jesse is being stalked by young Adam Yoshida, Canada's answer to Ann Coulter (the question being: "Is Mark Steyn really the best your liberal-loving country can do?").  Poor Adam just wants attention, and Jesse is refusing to link to him anymore, which will probably cause Adam to hold his breath until he turns blue, but he'll go to excess, like with everything else he does, and suffocate.  So, won't YOU donate to your spare change to FIND A GIRL FOR ADAM, c/o World of Crap, America, USA.  Thank you. 5.  Opinions You Should Have reveals the REAL reason for all of that medical prodding and poking of Saddam.  And 6. Sadly, No! explains why, per Andrew Sullivan, it's a GOOD thing that President Bush speaks as incoherently as one can and not be declared legally braindead.  Sadly also introduces a new contest in honor of the fact that "U.S. officials" are telling the Iraqi Governing Council that NPR is the way one should run a news service (go to the piece with the Exploding Bill O'Reilly head to read about this):  Readers are invited to submit the Iraq version of NPR shows in the comments. An undisclosed prize will likely not be awarded. I plan to enter, right after I get some rest.  So none of you go stealing my ideas! Anyway, more good stuff tomorrow.  'Cause I'm sure somebody out there will write it. 6:05:16 AM

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The Saddam Hussein TownHall Yes, today we bring you FIFTEEN of your favorite TownHall columinsts, all writing about Saddam (for the most part).  Howard Dean will be mocked numerous times for having been wrong about this glorious war.  Democrats will be chastised for their lack of jubilation.  The phrase "spider-hole" will be done to death.   Gary Aldrich Those "entitlement programs," such Social Security, inevitably lead to Socialism, which in turn brings about your Saddam Husseins and Adolph Hitlers, with their associated people rotting in mass graves.    Even now, millions of Americans see no need to end the increasingly massive government entitlement programs, and cannot imagine why anyone would want to stop them.  Apparently they don't understand that the trend we have today is Socialism by another name – Big Government.  Or maybe they just don’t care as long as they get something for nothing.  We talk about Capitalism and Democracy, but we continually walk to the Left – toward Socialism.  Could a Saddam Hussein or a Hitler-type rise to power in this country?  Not today – but ask me the same question in another 20 years.  Joel Mowbray The Democratic presidential nominees should accept the fact that we're never going to catch Osama and nobody cares; for with with Saddam on TV constantly for the past 3 days, the public is already bored with the whole "loony, old, terrorist mastermind" idea.  Besides, Everybody Loves Bush.  Saddam evaded arrest for eight months, even though he had only one area to which he could flee, his hometown of Tikrit.  Osama bin Laden, on the other hand, has any number of towns (and caves) where he can take refuge in Afghanistan.  Or in Pakistan.  And it is not inconceivable that he could rest safely in Iran or Syria.  In short, bin Laden could be anywhere.  The search for Saddam, though, will not only educate voters, it will give them reason to trust—and be patient with—Bush.  George Will George didn't get the "Saddam Day" memo, so he mentions the Wright Brothers' historic flight, which somehow leads to a discussion  of all the other stuff he knows. Modernism shaped another expressive activity that flourished in tandem with aviation, the competition to build the tallest skyscraper. Walter Williams The Libertarians plan to secede from the union to avoid having to pay Social Security taxes. While members of Free State Project have not proposed it, I would imagine that if New Hampshire's elected representatives couldn't successfully negotiate with the U.S. Congress to obey the Constitution, the only other alternative would be that of making a unilateral declaration of independence and go our own way just as our Founders did in 1776.   Thomas Sowell Our kids are stupid dolts because American teachers indoctrinate them with unhistorical ideas, such as "taking land from other people by force is wrong," "slavery is bad," and "selling your kidneys on the black market should be a crime." Nor is understanding history the purpose of such questions. The purpose is to score points against Western society. In short, propaganda has replaced education as the goal of too many "educators." Rebecca Hagelin Rebecca's kids now know about head lice, thanks to Saddam.  He's as good as those Manner Lady tapes! I'm sure my sons and daughter will forever remember the sight of the tyrannical dictator Saddam Hussein in complete humiliation as an American service doctor picked through his mangy hair for lice. So will the millions who survived his hellish rule.   Ross MacKenzie With the release of The Return of the King, Ross, a major Tolkien geek ever since high school, finally gets his chance to shine.  So screw Saddam! So Tolkien set out to capture Britain's lost Anglo-Saxon mythology. He created an epic struggle between good and evil (the dark lord/wizard Sauron vs. the white wizard Gandalf). The story draws from Odin, Arthur, Charlemagne and Sigfried. It hints at the quest for the Holy Grail. It has magic swords, some of them broken - and maybe Christ, and a host of others.  Jonah Goldberg Jonah gets moral clarity by imagining the Iraq war as a movie.  (Hey, it always worked for Ronnie Reagan.)  Assignment for next week: imagine the Iraq war as a Simpons episode. Imagine sitting in the theater as the first half of the movie recounts one scene of torture and mutilation after another. Then, enter the good guys. Risking exposure to chemical and biological weapons, they ride in and depose the tyrant, taking extraordinary care to spare the lives of civilians. They free a political prison of hundreds of children. They pull the tyrant from his rat hole and deliver him to justice. Now that's a feel-good movie.  Kathleen Parker "Saddam's capture, distilled, confirms one of life's great mythic truths: Good ultimately triumphs over evil."  In that, good, as represented by America and George Bush, has triumphed over the anti-war liberals and Howard Dean, who represent evil.  Andrew Sullivan fits in there someplace too.  My favorite quote, posted by Andrew Sullivan on his blog (andrewsullivan.com), came from a poster on Howard Dean's campaign blog: "I can't believe this," wrote Carrie B. "I'm crying here. I feel that we now don't have a chance in this election." Never mind that the man who used children as mine sweeps - and whose instruments of torture and death included plastic shredders - is no longer a menace to his nation or neighbors. What's most important is how Saddam's fate affects Dean's campaign for the presidency?  Paul Greenberg Sing along with Paul: Sunny days, sweeping the clouds away, on my way to Mr. Rogers neighborhood, now that Saddam is gone! Can you tell me now to get, how to get to delusional street? Beyond the Middle East, Saddam Hussein's capture represents a victory on the most decisive front, the home front. The Vietnam Syndrome - or is it the Dean Syndrome now? - has been dealt another blow. Morale back home took a leap up with the news; it was suddenly a beautiful day in the neighborhood.  Michelle Malkin Sure, we have Saddam in custody, but when are we going to do something about all of those illegal alien busboys who were behind 9/11? And countless rank-and-file immigration enforcement officers have written to express disgust at Washington's bipartisan talk of "amnesty" for millions of immigration law-breakers whose presence makes a mockery of homeland defense. What good is it, they wonder, to send American soldiers to defend other countries' borders if we're not willing to defend our own?   Brent Bozell The traitors who tried to spoil "a glorious day" like Saddam Day with reminders that life isn't suddenly all beer and skittles are big jerks. Many Americans who've had their fill of the media and their perpetually overflowing cup of negativity stumbled to the TV set in their pajamas and erupted with delight at the left's plight: Take that, Peter Jennings! What are you going to put on the cover now, Time magazine -- "Mission STILL Not Accomplished"? When will these thinly disguised DNC publicists make Howard Dean eat his Ben and Jerry's tub of Dovish Crow?  Tony Blankley Hey, we achieved justice!  So, take THAT, Mr. Howard Dean -- because even if you are right about us having gone to war for the wrong reasons, well, we hate you.  And this capture shows the world that America will find all its enemies and complete all its objectives.  Even if we don't, you know, find Osama, like Joel Mowbury predicts. Not since the Nazi leadership was shipped off to Nuremberg has so major a world villain been brought to justice. This fact makes the Iraq war a far better thing than it was.  Whether or not it turns out to be a geo-strategic success, the Iraqi war has accomplished something very good -- it has delivered a deeply deserved and yearned-for justice. Howard Dean's line -- that it was the wrong war at the wrong time -- has lost its thundering righteousness.  Anyone with a sense of justice and decency would be embarrassed to continue reciting that line after Sunday morning.  On Monday, Mr. Dean continued to thunder away.  But even if one agrees with his technical analysis (such as it may be), the moral quotient has been subtracted from his message -- and his persona.  Either he doesn't fully believe what he continues to say, or, if he does, we must think less of him for it.   Mike Adams Mike is still going on about how the evil U. of North Carolina administators tried to force the College Republicans Club to admit non-Republicans.  (This is a MUCH more important issue than Saddam!)  The latest development?  A professor wrote a letter to the NY Times in which he sarcastically applauded the College Repubs for standing up to the university's discrimination against their discrimination.  Mike will have none of this, and wants everybody to call the prof either “Ditsy Dick” or “Tricky Dick."  When readers cast their vote, they should consider the amount of time and money parents invest in their children's education.  For many families, funding a college education will be the second biggest investment they make, aside from buying a home. Is it really morally acceptable for these people to have to work so hard to send their kids to college so that professors can falsely accuse them of racism and anti-Semitism, with the full protection of tenure?  Rich Lowry Bush caught Saddam.  And he treats veterans just fine!  So Howard Dean can just drop out of the race now. Dean's charge does have a wisp of a connection to reality. Because the VA system was overwhelmed by a flood of new patients -- many of them relatively well-off -- it established a new rule saying that veterans with no medical problems relating to their service and an income above a certain threshold are not eligible for VA care. The rule affects an estimated 164,000 people. These are Dean's 164,000 veterans "cut off" from benefits. But they can't be cut off from benefits, because they never received them.  So, TownHall, Saddam style.  A lesson on head lice. 4:41:33 AM

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So, Next Time You're Tried for a Crime, Just Say, "Hey, Everybody Makes Mistakes!" The NY Times has an interesting article (Prosecutors Not Penalized) on how being cited for prosecutorial misconduct (even for a severe offense, such as knowingly allowing the sole witness to a crime committ perjury while on the stand) is not a bar to a successful career, one study of the Bronx DA's office showed.  From that piece, here's a defense of prosecutors to keep you up at night: Others in the legal profession said that misconduct was sometimes a necessary part of the learning curve. "Everybody makes mistakes — if we have a zero-tolerance policy in the legal profession, everyone is going to get disbarred," said Joshua K. Marquis, district attorney of Astoria, Ore., and a member of the board of directors of the National District Attorneys Association. 2:17:18 AM

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God Appoints Ben Shaprio As Nation's Loyalty Judge Young Ben Shapiro says Anti-war liberals are angry. Over the past two years, their party has imploded, their dreams of a socialist utopia have faded, and worst of all, their patriotism has supposedly been questioned. Um, Ben, maybe you should get a new photo taken before you accuse other people of being angry. In any case, Ben quotes John Kerry and Wes Clark saying that they have the right to disagree with the Bush administration without being accused of disloyalty.  Ben then mentions that that Howard Dean has epxressed similar views.  Except Ben calls him "The Great White Draft-Dodging Hope of all anti-war liberals, Howard Dean."    Ben, as all the grownups know, Dean reported for induction processing, as required, but was rejected for military service on medical grounds.  Maybe he actually was up to the physical rigors of combat, but the Army said they didn't want him.  So, he's not actually a draft-dodger, is he?  Anymore than you are, for not reporting to Iraq for combat when you were never requested to do so. But Ben does graciously concede the following: Far be it from me to question the patriotism of any man or woman who has served in the Armed Forces. I do not doubt the patriotism of John Kerry or Wes Clark (Howard Dean is another matter).   I'm sure Kerry and Clark are breathing sighs of relief to learn that the Audie Murphy of our generation, Ben Shairo, isn't doubting their patriotism.  Presumably, Ben is also willing to concede that George Bush may actually be patriotic, despite rumors that he was AWOL for several months when he was supposed to be serving in the Texas National Guard. But of course, Howard Dean and the rest of us are still on the hook: are WE patriotic enough?  Only Ben can say for sure.  And he proposes a way (the ONLY approved way) we can demonstrate our loyalty: So, I offer the following challenge. I will describe two non-profit, non-partisan, pro-troops charities below. Both liberals and conservatives should donate to these charities. After donating, send me an e-mail with your name, the amount you donated, and whether you are pro-war or anti-war. After the charities verify each donation, I will tally up the total amount donated by each side. Let's find out if anti-war liberals are really as patriotic as they suggest. Wow, a chance to prove my patriotism to Ben Shapiro!  Just what I've been waiting for my entire life! But alas, I'm afraid I can't agree with Bennie's assessment that the two charities he describes are "non-partisan."  While "Operation Gratitude" seems like a worthy endeavor (as far as I can tell, based only on reading their webpage), I'm afraid  that Ben appears to have missed the mark when he writes that "Freedom Alliance is a major charitable organization dedicated to helping our troops."  Because when you actually go to the their site, you see that this is how they describe their organization: Freedom Alliance was founded by Lt Col Oliver North, USMC (Ret.) and Lt Gen Ed Bronars, USMC (Ret.) to "Promote the American heritage of freedom embodied in our Constitution, to defend the sovereignty of the United States, and to maintain the security of our country with a strong national defense." The site also informs you that the Freedom Alliance and the National Rifle Association invite you aboard the 2004 Freedom Cruise (organized by the same outfit that brought you the National Review Death Cruise); speakers for the cruise include Oliver North, Wayne LaPierre,  Ed Meese, and Bob Barr.  Another page features an article by Bob Barr about the latest  U.N. attempts to impose gun control on the world. Oh, and don't miss the Freedom Alliance program where "teenagers can meet with military people and learn about the American military," as Ben describes it.  Or, as the Alliance itself says: The National Military Leadership Academy introduces students to military lifestyles, personnel and equipment and the exciting possibility of a career in the armed forces. [snip] Do you want to sit in an F-18 cockpit and finger the controls? Would like to talk to one of America's Special Forces? Do you think it would be fun to jump from a paratrooper's training tower or attempt sand pit, barbed wire and rope obstacles at the Marine Corps headquarters? At the National Military Leadership Academy, you'll have access to equipment and technology not available to ordinary civilians. Tons of fun for your teen Soldier of Fortune, or young gun nut who wants to expand his horizens!  Get your kid on track for a glorious military career just like Oliver North's! So . . .while I don't doubt that Ollie's organization does, as a sideline, pass out cigarettes to wounded soliders at Walter Reed Hospital, I'm not giving them a dime.  I willl help America's soldiers myself, or through organizations I don't feel may be planning a secret insurrection to take back the country from the Supreme Court and then blow up the U.N.  And if that makes Ben think I'm disloyal, well, I can live with that. However, if Ben doesn't want ME to think that HE'S disloyal, he will contact that Army recruiter and join the infantry now, demanding that the military send him to Iraq while he still has a chance to risk his life for his principles.    Let's hope that all Americans, even anti-war ones, can find a place in their hearts for our troops. And let's hope that all Americans, even the incredibly stupid ones, can find a place in their heads for the idea that while it is a good thing to support our troops (particularly those who are wounded or risking their lives far from home), it is also a good thing to refrain from putting them in harm's way in the first place (absent a compelling and truthful reason to do so).  1:23:44 AM