Keeping track of the New York Times' pereptual, understandable love affair with the great State of Iowa... today's front page article "Democrats Seen to Gain in Races for Statehouses" has a not-entirely-necessary byline of Des Moines and on A18 we get a nondescript photo of a Waterloo candidate forum... go Iowa!
What is the deal with the MSM attacking John Kerry for making a very true statement-- study hard or you miss the lessons of history and will "get stuck in Iraq" like Bush did-- but allowing President Bush & Co. a free ride for saying Democrats want America to lose the war against terrorists and want America to be attacked? what's more provocative, acknowledging the importance of history and "homework" before making decisions or a President stating that half of the country is unAmerican and wants terrorism to flourish? give me a break.
update: apparently Kerry's quote is being interpreted by a few (Tony Snowjob, for one) to mean that the troops aren't smart. i didn't read it that way at all. i suppose it's open for interpretation... UNLIKE the Bush quote I read which is very clear in its absurdity and offensive untruth: "However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses."
what is with the vice president and his excessive use of the adverb "frankly"? every time the Dark Prince rises to give a republican-loving journo an interview the word gets tossed around in totally unnecessary degree-- today's example comes from a CNBC chat with Larry Kudlow-- “I like to remind people that it’s a Republican president and a Republican Congress that put in place those tax cuts that, frankly, are at risk in this election." i suspect that the VP knows the term means, "in truth; honestly"-- shouldn't the voters expect that all of Dick's opinions would be these things? i noticed Lynne used it as well in her sad Wolf Blitzer scolding. favorite family word? does anyone have any other recent Cheney uses of the term?
slate.com's mickey kaus does an amazing service for all of us today and notes that the race-baiting anti-Harold Ford TV ad the RNC ran in Tennessee may have actually been aimed at a broader audience than those stuck in the early 1900s: black women who would find Harold's dating of white women offensive (especially fictional, acting white women)... "a twofer" the kaus claims... my goodness, how cleverly effective racism can be... aint we voters dumb... it would follow that the Michael J. Fox stem-cell research TV ad's running in Missouri would also be aimed at those who were always offended that Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter-Birney allowed precious Justine Bateman to date that punk-artist Nick...
like i have been doing lately, i turned on the TIVO of Imus this morning, only to hear newly-installed Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham rambling on and on about religion in American politics like a preacher with an itch... (Meacham's underlying message: the religious set is very thoughtful and non-offensive --Big Tent!--but the baby-killing secular crowd--including author Sam Harris-- are awful and say mean things)...i tell you, it was almost as nauseating as Imus' continued, tortured support for Rick Santorum... and don't even mention that sad and narrow David Brooks column in the Sunday Times Imus was touting (underlying message: Rick is the Senate's Mother Theresa)... funny, but i don't recall Mother Theresa having much to say about man-on-goat action or Lord of the Rings...
Meet the Press, Sunday, October 29, 2006: didn't Lt. Gov. Michael Steele treat Congressman Ben Cardin with an odd contempt? Even Santorum and Casey were a little more respectful of one another... reluctant kudos to Russert for pushing Steele on not only his double-talk on Iraq time tables but also his silly and misleading bumper stickers that say "Steele Democrat" on them... Steele's obnoxious (but priceless) response to Russert's wondering if his campaign had any bumper stickers that say, "Steele Republican" was, "That’s not a bad idea. I didn’t think of that." Right.
In a report detailing the recent political shifts occurring within the "liberal republican" (say what?) community of Bellevue, Washington, an article in today's New York Times notes that, "for many engineers and their ilk, restriction of stem cell research is what gay marriage is to conservative Christians, a phenomenon so counter to their basic values that they cannot vote for any candidate who supports it."
Initially ignoring the blatant ridiculousness of the analogy -- me and my partner are to evangelicals as embryonic stem cell research restrictions are to engineers... shouldn't the media stop allowing gay-hate to pass as a "Christian value"? I thought basic "Christian" values involved compassion and tolerance and the like... and since when was opposition to gay marriage a "basic value" of Christianity? I missed that Sunday school class...
I guess the most interesting aspect of this little sentence is that it equates the "value" of wanting to help those with diseases find cures through advanced research with the "value" of denying homosexuals legal rights... can we agree that this is a big fat stretch?
