January 11, 2005 by s.z.

You Can't Handle the Truth! Hugh Hewitt says that rightwing bloggers just aren't reacting properly to the Thornburgh/Boccardi report on Memogate. The zeal with which the bloggers took out after the original forgeries is partially missing from today's collective response to the Whitewash Report.  Even as the fine print is examined, many are trying to find a few kind words for the Panel's effort. Why?  Jim hinted that there is a concern that the blogosphere not injure its new-found reputation with over-zealousness.  Hmmm.  That doesn't sound good to me. In fact, that sounds like Woodward and Bernstein declaring the day after Halderman and Erlichman were fired that all was well in the Nixon White House. My guess is that the bloggers will shake this off after a day or two of reading the report, and especially after reading the Moonves declaration of exoneration receives wider attention.  (And possibly as the CBS fall gals start asking themselves why they should go gently into the night bearing all the blame for CBS' sins.)  But if not, then a new generation of bloggers will simply push up and demand the answers that didn't arrive today.  In fact, the partial pass that CBS is getting from some of their past critics is an invitation to traffic-hungry start-ups to make a name for themselves. Hey, I'm a traffic-hungry start-up eager to make a name for myself, so I am going to demand some answers -- and I demand them now! Taking the lead from Hugh, I'm asking: What does the President know, and when did he know it?  I mean it, I want a list of everything the President knows.  Starting with why he never took that required TANG physical.  I note that the White House never exclaimed, "Hey, these documents are fakes," but instead said: Q This was a direct order he defied, right? I mean, he did have a direct order that he defied?* MR. McCLELLAN: John, these issues have come up every year. This was all part of the records -- that he was seeking to transfer to a unit in Alabama because he was going there to work in a civilian capacity. And he was granted permission to do so. And he was proud of his service and he was honorably discharged in October '73, after meeting his obligations. *The memos that were released, in fact, show the President was working with his commanders to comply with the order. So, obviously the White House has vouched for the substance of the memos -- that George never fulfilled his flying commitment, left Texas before he got permission to transfer to an Alabama unit, never took his required physical-- and that some of his superiors were not happy about this. But Hugh has his own Watergate theory: The Panel might have given us some idea of the background of free-lance journalist Michael Smith, whose back-and-forth with Mapes on August 31 and September 1 provides the best glimpse of motive the Panel ever references: "What if there was a person who might have some information that could possibly change the momentum of an election but we need to get an ASAP book deal to help us get the information? Smith e-mailed Mapes on the 31rst. "Mapes responded in an e-mail to Smith's proposal, stating 'that looks good, hypothetically speaking of course,'" the report tells us on page 86, but it does not tell us what else Mapes said in that e-mail.   Possibly, "How is the weather in Texas?  It is nice here.  Have a nice day.  Love, Mary."  Smith writes back to Mapes: "Just in case Burkett asks -- let me make sure I have this right.  This is our plan: If he shows us some leg, we are going to talk to him about his options in the following areas: 1) Security, 2)Publishing, 2A) (related topics of 'taking care of him' with money) and 3)forcing Kerry campaign 62 to acknowledge his wisdom and strategic abilities...If his leg is sexy and useful then we are going to do whatever it takes to help him in those areas." The Report then notes: "The Panel has discovered no written response by Mapes to this e-mail." (p.86) How convenient. Instead of the missing 18 minutes, we have the missing e-mail(s). Did the Panel hire a forensics expert to reproduce Mapes' hard-drive?  Did it demand and receive her lap top?  Did it ask her why her e-mails suddenly halt at this moment?  Why does this matter? Because it is at exactly this moment and in this "missing" e-mail that Mapes would have revealed what her contact with the Kerry campaign was and what she could have Smith relay to Burkett in the way of a promise of Kerry campaign reward or recognition.  What an odd time for e-mails to coincidentally halt. Or, could it be that she called Smith on the phone after that?  Or he called her?  Or they met in person?  Or they never had any further communications because she didn't like all his talk about sexy legs?    Gee, if there was a big conspiracy behind every email I never answered, well, there would be a lot of conspiracies for traffic-hungry young blogs to investigate. Hugh, if you don't trust former Reagan Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, and you think that CBS is hiding some smoking gun emails that implicate John Kerry and Les Moonves in a plot to forge documents, then why don't you just demand that everyone at CBS take public polygraph exams?  But first, you would demand that everybody at the White House take public polgraph exams about their involvement in the Plame outing, right, Hugh? And where are big Dan's e-mails, and his phone logs?  What was he doing during this crucial 10 day run-up to the segment's airing? Per the LA Times: Dan Rather had already been cranking out reports from the Republican National Convention when he jumped to coverage of a hurricane in Florida. Then news came that former President Clinton would undergo heart bypass surgery. The veteran CBS anchor didn't have a lot of time to focus on the scoop he would soon air: that documents seemed to show how President Bush had shirked his duty as a young pilot in the Texas Air National Guard. So, Dan was busy, okay?  Can't this just be an example of sloppy journalism on the part of overly ambitious, impatient journalists, Hugh?  And if it can't, it needs to involve the Trilateral Commission, the Queen of England, and those reptilian aliens if you are going to retain my interest. 6:17:15 AM

Seperate Yet Equal Judson Cox has a dream: a dream that someday conservatives can be as powerful as gays. A couple of years ago I lost my job at a small Virginia newspaper when liberal Democrats threatened a boycott unless my column was pulled. I learned then, that the Left — supposed advocates of free speech, democracy and diversity — are a well organized and wide spread collection of fascists determined to outlaw ideas that offend them, personally attack those who oppose them, and destroy the livelihoods of those who disagree with them. No, Judson, the Left is, like the Borg, a well-organized and wide-spread collective of fascists that will assimilate you.  Resistance is futile. And Judson, last time you told this story, you said that in January 2003 "a newspaper syndicate based in Virginia, dropped my column" after Goon Squads targeted you.  So, which was it: the loss of a job with a small Virginia newspaper, or the dropping of your column from a newspaper syndicate?  In either case, it must have paid you a pretty poor livelihood, because I can't find any mention of you prior to the late spring of 2003. But on to how Judson's paper can help conservatives to achieve the power of gayness: Decades ago, liberals began networking to support each other and further their leftist goals. This is why college faculties and government bureaucracies are almost uniformly comprised of Democrats (and unaffiliated liberal nutballs). In the private sector, green, feminist and gay groups recommend liberal friendly businesses for their members to invest in. Gays, especially, network effectively by placing rainbow flags and stickers on their businesses as identifiers. I propose that conservatives engage in a reverse boycott. In North Carolina, I hope The North Carolina Conservative will become an effective vehicle to know what businesses support conservatism. Nationally, conservatives can identify and support each other by organizing. In each state, and nationally, there should be a registry of conservative owned businesses. Conservative owned businesses should also begin identifying themselves publicly with symbols. For instance, if I drove into an unfamiliar town, looking for a place to get lunch, fill up my car with gas or stay the night, if I saw a business with a conservative slogan in the window (or any conservative message), I would patronize that business. "Bates Motel: Conservatives Welcome" Anyway, I invite you to come up with some ideas for Judson of an appropriate symbol that could be used to identify conservative businesses. But back to Judson and his vision of a conservative utopia: If we do this nationwide, it may do more to promote conservative values, conservative politics and a sense of unity and community than anything else we can do. Imagine stepping into an unfamiliar restaurant that had a conservative identifier out front and a conservative talk radio station playing in the background — it would be a sign that here, you are among friends. And that way, it would be MUCH easier for them to fleece you, the lunkheaded rube from out of town. Conversation would flow more easily, business deals would happen spontaneously, political clubs and church groups would know where to meet on friendly ground, etc. If conservatives can network well, we may all become rich and ready to take over arty little resort towns one day... just like gays! So, Judson's plan to attract advertisers is to tell them, "Buy an ad in the NC Conservative and someday you'll be as rich, popular, and influential as the gays."  I wish him luck with that. 4:26:38 AM

Sing a Song of John Derbyshire, a Pocket Full of Charlotte Simmons Let's enjoy a musical moment, courtesy of Bill S. A musical tribute to John Derbyshire (set to Paul McCartney & Wings' "Mull of Kintyre"): John Derbyshire A misguided blowhard is he, no desire do I have to be Near John Derbyshire Pompous and clueless, Insuffrably dull, A light summer breeze could waft right through his skull One sentence in, and you ask yourself, why are You wasting your time reading John Derbyshire? John Derbyshire, Distressing reminder of the right's desire of how things should be -that's John Derbyshire! Lives in his own world, Ignores all that's real, If he had a conscience, then what would he feel? Let's ask The Corner, "Oh why did you hire a nincompoop wingnut like John Derbyshire?" John Derbyshire, A mistake of nature is he, no desire Do I have to be like John Derbyshire! -Bill S Thank you Bill -- that was lovely.  It was the best Wings song ever! And speaking of John Derbyshire, I just read his column from last month about I Am Charlotte Simmons, and it exemplifies what I hate the most about the wingnuts' response to this novel: they don't take it as a fictional work concerning one small-town girl who goes to the big city and loses her moral compass.  No, instead it's a sociological study proving that elite universities destroy the souls of worthy young evangelicals through (a)  liberal indoctrination; (b) science; and (c) a depraved culture of wild, promiscuous sex, foul language, and binge drinking. So, here's Derb: Man Is Wolfe to ManSigh. If only Charlotte Simmons were all fiction.   [...] You can see that I am a big Wolfe fan. I therefore came to I Am Charlotte Simmons with high expectations, and was not disappointed. There are some nits to be picked, if I get round to it; but all in all this is a splendid novel. [...] Everything is set in the casual, peer-pressure-driven depravity of elite campus culture, which of course is described in infinite detail. Of course.  Why else would anyone read this novel if not for the infinite detail of the depravity of elite campus culture? If you are delicate about language, or about sexual promiscuity, you will find Wolfe's account of student life at Dupont University shocking. If you cleave to the old-fashioned idea that the principal function of a university is the promotion of higher learning and the life of the mind, you will be disillusioned. And if you think that a Tom Wolfe novel is the ultimate insider's guide to campus life, you will be Derb. It never hurts to have a Nobel Prize winner on the faculty, but the real aristocrats at Dupont are the star athletes and frat-house swells. They, and everyone else, converse in what Wolfe calls "f*** patois" — every second word a profanity or obscenity. Yes, everybody on every elite campus uses a profanity or an obscenity every other f***ing word.  Just read any &*%$# interview with NotJenna F***ing Bush for confirmation of this. The coarseness of their language reflects the coarseness of their lives — coed bathrooms, affectless recreational coupling, and heroic drinking. Coed bathrooms.  What more does one need to say to describe the coarseness of their lives? Anyway, let's skip ahead to the part where Derb learns that IT'S ALL TRUE, and YOUR DAUGHTER IS NEXT! One thing I very particularly wanted to know, as father of a bright, pretty, almost-12-year-old girl, is: How true is Wolfe's portrait of elite-campus life? Are modern college campuses really such riots of drunkenness and affectless sexual "hooking up"? Is potty-mouth slang really this universal? Is class snobbery really this rampant? I had trouble believing things were quite as bad as Wolfe paints them. But then, I was working with bond traders when Bonfire of the Vanities came out, and he got that scene pretty much right. Worried, I consulted a young friend who up to a couple of years ago actually was an undergraduate on an elite campus — one of those where Tom Wolfe did his research for this novel, in fact. A fraternity member and college-level lacrosse player, my friend was also academically brilliant. His answer to my query was long and complicated, but the main thrust of it was: Not quite that bad. Samples from his response: The smarter your daughter is, the less likely she is to be popular — and hence to have sex early. ... Less than 30 percent of good college-bound girls have sex before senior prom. As you move from the high Ivies down through the low Ivies, down through public schools to Community Colleges, this fraction rises to 100 percent.... Yes, 100% of girls who attend Community College have sex "early."  This must be why President Bush said during one of the presidential debates, "community college [provides] the skills necessary to fill the jobs of the 21st century." And this is proof that poor kids just have worse morals than children who attend private schools -- and so, like Doug Giles told us yesterday, you really shouldn't let your precious, unspotted children be educated with them. The rule of thumb among my frat brothers was: dump her if you haven't had sex by the 3rd date. Exceptions: very hot girls, Christian girls, and Asian girls.... The frat/Lacrosse guy just said this to reassure Derb, since Derb's daughter is half-Asian, "pretty," and presumably Christian.  However, somebody who once visited a university told me that very hot Asian Christian girlsalways put out on their first dates.  Or maybe that was a Cinemax movie I was watching with Doug Giles. A lot of people at the most academically intense campuses just don't have time for dating, so the 3rd-date rule is not often applied outside the frat/sorority scene — non-Greeks really don't have as much time for structured dating. In this case the hookup is the only sexual outlet. ... Leftism, or at least apolitical attitudes, are required to get action. You can be as left-wing as you want & it won't hurt you, but don't be openly rightist about anything or you're set for years of social & sexual ostracism. At last, Derb has an explanation for his years of social and sexual ostracism, and his enduring unpopularity.  It isn't his looks, his personality, or a lack of personal hygiene: it's due to his smartness and his open rightism! Oh, dear. I suppose it's no use grumbling about all this, but I can't help wishing things were otherwise. What a mess our culture has gotten itself into! Here is Tom Wolfe to give you a guided tour. So, thanks to Tom, I have learned that sending my daughter to an elite university will cause her to turn into a drunken slut.  But, thanks to Derb's frat boy informant, I have discovered that the public school/community college route guarantees that she will have early sex.  Thus, it seems that education is evil, and it's best to just keep her locked up in the basement, away from this horrible culture, in order to ensure her purity.   Oh, I've also learned that Charlotte Simmons simply wasn't rightwing enough to be a social outcast, and that's why she was ruined.  So, maybe Harvard Law student Ben Shapiro has a change to make it through four years at an elite university with his virginity intact. 2:18:02 AM