The Malcontent

The Dean of the Clueless Corps

DNC Chairman Howard Dean sauntered into the friendly confines of "The Daily Show" last night.  The audience dutifully applauded references to President Bush's low standing in the polls, as well as Dean's predictions of Democratic takeover of the House and/or Senate.

But then host Jon Stewart had the temerity to ask just exactly how the Democrats were going to manage not to blow the opportunity before them.

Dean's plan: Let's put, say, four people in every state who will knock on as many as 5 to 6 million doors over the next few years.

"So the Dems are now as powerful as the Jehovah's Witnesses," Stewart said.

No, no, no!  See, this is where the plan gets brilliant.  If they're not home, then you hang this nifty little door-hanger on the doorknob!

But Stewart was having none of it.  When he pressed Dean for an actual message, it was essentially, "We'll be less grafty than the other guy."

Then Dean actually angled the Democrats to the left of President Bush's centrist immigration policy.

Stewart neatly summed things up for Dean: "You are so not taking back the House and the Senate."

(Incidentally, no reference whatsoever was made to Dean's recent, humongous gaffes regarding gays.)

[Watch video – 7:38, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 7:38, WMV format, low bandwidth]

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In other "Daily Show" news, Stewart took a cold, hard look at the reports of NSA-related phone shenanigans.

Hot on the heels of Administration denials of surveillance of domestic phone calls came a USA Today story last week stating that the National Security Agency has indeed kept a massive database regarding billions of domestic phone calls.

The government explanation has been that the database analyzes only call patterns, and not the content of all the calls themselves, to spot potential terrorists.

As Stewart points out, it's probably cold comfort to those of us whose call patterns are suspicious for any number of other reasons.

[Watch video – 6:22, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 6:22, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Life After the Taliban

From time to time, I do wonder why American troops should continue putting their lives on the line for a government that would still kill people for making independent choices about their religious affiliation.

Sadly, as I watch the tarpit that is the countries we freed from retrograde, maniacal dictatorships, my response is increasingly becoming: Fuck 'em.

Quote of the Day

"We wouldn't transfer the title to the devil, and we're not going to transfer it to Dubai!"

- Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D - New Jersey)

Because, when trying to convince others (and ourselves) we aren't going just a titch overboard with the racist xenophobia shtick, this is exactly the kind of thing a U.S. Senator should be screaming in front of union types. Paging Daniel Webster.

This guy almost has me siding with CAIR of all things. How dare he.

Wiretapped? Here's a Quarter to Call Someone Who Cares

Bill Maher began a new season of his HBO show "Real Time" on Friday.

His cast of characters included Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), Fred Barnes, former Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor, comedian Eddie Griffin, and everybody's favorite crazy aunt in the attic, Helen Thomas.

The interaction among the panel was mostly lame, although I did prick up my ears when Helen essentially said it was fruitless to try to deny nuclear weapons to Iran, and Griffin furthermore argued that to do so would be racist.  (I know, it doesn't really compute with me either.)

But I thought Maher was at his best when he counseled Americans to simmer down a little about who might or might not be wiretapping them.  Most of us, it seems, are lucky if we're interesting enough that anyone wants to pay attention.

[Watch video – 3:32, WMV format, high bandwidth]

[Watch video – 3:32, WMV format, low bandwidth]

Jesus Osama Christ!

The only thing surprising about this story would be if we found out that the artist were not receiving an NEA grant for his work:

[A] painting by Harlem artist "Tafa" ... depicts an upside down Christ-like figure with a face strongly resembling Osama Bin Laden. [...]

On the phone with me, the artist declined to do an on-camera interview, telling me the work speaks for itself, but adding, the resemblance to Bin Laden was no accident.

By the way, has anyone else been rolling their eyes at the recent storyline on "The L Word" that has Bette heroically protesting the cancellation of an NEA grant for a piece of anti-Bush art as "censorship"?  Should government really be in the business of supporting art in the first place – and, if so, should we be at all surprised when it decides not to support work that gnaws off the hand that feeds it?

Even if I hadn't previously worked in Congress, I still would have guffawed at the scene when the chairman of the Senate committee before which Bette was testifying lit on fire a picture of artwork he found offensive.  And I would have laughed harder still when Bette tore the burning photo from his hands and stomped it out on the floor.  Her moralistic tantrum that followed was just a pure scream:

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself!  You're just the latest reigning vigilantes, self-appointed cultural watchdogs of the moment devoting countless hours and enviable resources to this bogus mission of stifling creative expression in the name of patriotism."

The hell??  Who writes this dreck?

If I am paying you to paint a portrait of me, and you decide instead to paint a picture of me, say, sodomizing a household pet, am I supposed to just grin and bear it?  Artists should have every right to be offensive and provocative – and some of the best artists push the envelope the farthest – but to demand taxpayer money to do so is beyond blinkered pig-ignorance and petulance.

As laughable as Bette's character has become, season three of "The L Word" has devolved into pure tedium for many more reasons.  Are the dykes even still watching this lame excuse for entertainment?

Quote of the Day

"I don't support our troops. ... [B]eing against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy by definition."

— Joel Stein, writing in the Los Angeles Times

Well.  At least he's an honest moonbat.

9/11 Victims for Osama

Nary a cycle goes by on a Pentium processor that someone, somewhere on the blogosphere isn't invoking the vile and bereft-of-creativity "Jews for Hitler" meme against gay Republicans.

I'm not in favor of facile comparisons that are intended to arouse such an emotional response about one's political opponents as to render their actual merit a faint afterthought.  But as long as they insist on dragging this dead filly for another lap around the racetrack, let's try a simile on for size that, in my view, has more currency and applicability:

Gay Democrats are just like "9/11 Victims for Osama."

Why is such a comparison more appropriate, you ask?

First of all, because the "Jews for Hitler" calumny is more ridiculous on its face.  That comparison has to reach back more than six decades to find any relevance.  Let's face it, there are precious few Nazis left today and even fewer of them are in the extermination racket.

And despite liberals' wildest fantasies, whatever "collaboration" they imagine between gays and Republicans isn't remotely comparable with genocide.  Not only is it not in the same ballpark, it's a different league altogether.

Yet the most feverish of the fabulists persevere: "I can imagine far right extremist groups, emboldened by a bigoted and outspoken Republican party, perpetrating acts of terrorism against large gay communities in places like New York, San Francisco, Atlanta and South Beach."

Of course you can "imagine" that.  Because one's imagination is the only place where such claptrap is remotely plausible.

No responsible Republican would ever countenance violence against gays, and he could expect swift excoriation if he did.  Similarly, reasonable Democrats distance themselves when the most radical within their party make the most unhinged of statements.

Except that the irrational fringe has indeed held thrall over the Democrats in the past couple of years, making the comparison between gay Democrats and "9/11 Victims for Osama" more relevant than ever before.

Gay Democrats who are in such a hurry to throw their GOP brethren under the bus had better take a hard look at the party with which they have themselves made league:

Theirs is a party that has little trouble finding the "softer side" of Osama but is utterly confused as to the difference between Americans and Nazis or terrorists and "freedom fighters."  (Hint: Only one of the two shoots at U.S. soldiers.)

It is a party that regularly advocates for unilateral surrender in the War on Terror, that has collectively turned a blind eye to radical Islamic fundamentalism, and that opposes even the most reasonable efforts to keep the bad guys from coming across our borders.

Gay Democrats continue to stuff hay into a strawman called "domestic theocracy" while showing little desire to confront genuine and deadly fundamentalist threats worldwide – the very same forces that, if given the chance, would show their gratitude in the form of a bullet through the head.

They have allied themselves with a party that claims to love people but less charitable toward life, retaining as its most salient litmus test the support of abortion on demand.  How many fewer gay Democrats (and Republicans) do you suppose there will be if one combines that political position with the future discovery of a "gay gene"?

I concede that this is a provocative and simplistic comparison.  But its equivalent – "Jews for Hitler" – is what passes for legitimate political debate among gay Democrats these days.  There can be little reasonable discourse when we are constantly putting our opponents in bed with the most barbarous murderers in history.

Notes on a Run Down Media

Two stories in two days. Which strikes you as far more important than the other? Which do you think made media headlines while the other passed fairly unnoticed?

Story One:

Saddam Hussein loyalists who violently opposed January elections have made an about-face as Thursday's polls near, urging fellow Sunni Arabs to vote and warning al Qaeda militants not to attack.

In a move unthinkable in the bloody run-up to the last election, guerrillas in the western insurgent heartland of Anbar province say they are even prepared to protect voting stations from fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Story Two:

Al-Qaida in Iraq and four other Islamic extremist groups denounced this week's parliamentary elections as a "satanic project" that violated God's law, but they stopped short of an explicit threat Monday to attack polling stations.

If you guessed Story Two made big headlines while Story One was largely ignored, you're merely ordinarily prescient.

For those who believe the idea of an American media cheering for American defeat is hyperbole, I need only point to the above to prove otherwise.

Sully Addendum

Robbie beat me with his link to the Taranto piece "Sullivan vs. Sullivan."  I urge anyone, especially those who think I am making up or imagining the basis for my critique of Andrew Sullivan (or merely flakking for the President), to read it.

When President Bush announced his (again, idiotic) support for the FMA, Sullivan explicitly talked about how he had supported the President ... in the War on Terror.  (Non sequitur says what?)

Yet now Sullivan flatly denies that the FMA has anything to with his total inability to find a single redeeming quality in George W. Bush – a flawed man by all means, but not the cad of Sullivan's fevered imagination.

Taranto's post lends further credence to the connection between Sullivan's break on the Iraq War and President Bush's support of the FMA.  At the least, Sullivan's previous repeated criticism from the right of the President's leadership in the war belies his insistence that he has been consistent voice from the start.

One may honorably oppose the Iraq war or U.S. prosecution of it, and one is even obviously free to change their views on the war if they don't like Bush's stance on gays.  But it is the disingenuousness of the denials that irks the most.  [HT also to GPW]

Beyond Credulity

Reading the news that a South African High Court approved gay marriage today, I was mildly happy in that muted, half-smile way you feel when your neighbor tells you they've just won a new car on Price is Right, and Bob Barker grabbed their ass three times instead of the customary two. Sure, you want Bob Barker to grab your ass, I want Bob Barker to grab my ass, but hey, sometimes other people have all the luck.

Afterwards, I scurried on over to torture.com to read quite possibly the dumbest statement in all human history.

South Africa's post-apartheid Constitution explicitly granted gays and lesbians full rights as citizens. There is no valid citizenship without the right to marry the person you love; and so the global movement toward equality in marriage advances again. Who would have guessed twenty years ago that the land of apartheid would now be ahead of the United States in its support for civil rights and equal protection of laws?

What?

Hold on, I'm not sure you have my inflection here.

WHAT?!

Warning - severe personal apoplexy after the jump.

Reaping What You Sow

Apparently even naked appeasement of terrorism still isn't enough for the terrorists, as these now-captive peace activists can probably attest:

Folks, as much as we may want peace, the bad guys simply do not.  Surrender is not an option.

[HT: Drudge]

Schadenfreude, Thy Name Is Sheehan

Being no mathematician and not understanding what you get when you divide by zero, I'm not even sure you can express in real terms how greatly the press outnumbered the fans at Cindy Sheehan's book signing.

But I do know, as far as royalties go, that zero percent of zero isn't too good.

[HT: Gay Patriot, Queer Conservative]

So Is the Padilla Story "Legless"?

Torture.com Andrew Sullivan apparently has the same talking points on the "presumed innocent" Padilla as Daily Kos, which shouldn't surprise me.  (What does surprise me, however, is that anyone still bothers to defend Sullivan as "conservative.")

And like any good lefty, Sully has been much more gleeful about, and credulous of, the Libby indictment – the only story of the two, by the way, that he says "has legs."

A Moonbat Primer

When is an indictment merely an allegation, and based on "no real evidence" or even remotely dispositive of "how bad" someone is?  When the indictee is an alleged terrorist and aspiring dirty-bomber.

When is an indictment definitive proof of guilt and a cause for celebration?  When the indictee is a Republican.  Merry "Fitzmas," indeed.

Class dismissed.

UPDATE: The howling-mad moonbats aren't as silent on the Padilla indictment as I thought they would be, although they are indeed very quiet.

Nosirree, this post over at Daily Kos tackles the issue head-on.  But while the "indictment=guilt" meme has been predictably abandoned when alleged terrorists are involved, they have somehow used it as a pretext to give the cadaverous "Bush=Hitler" meme another good flogging.

(WELCOME Malkin readers!)

(OTB link)

War At Ten Paces

The Democrats wanted a political war over the real one and the Republicans have obliged.

House Republicans, sensing an opportunity for political advantage, maneuvered for a quick vote and swift rejection Friday of a Democratic lawmaker's call for an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq.

"We want to make sure that we support our troops that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. "We will not retreat."

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi had no immediate reaction to the planned vote.

I can only imagine Pelosi's reaction just at the moment. "Wait, we're supposed to vote on things? Posturing in front of cameras, making accusations, and talking a good game to our Leftist base isn't enough?"

Brilliant.

I must cop to a little schadenfreude here. I enjoy watching two political parties grow a pair and go at each other full force. It's healthy. Let the real ideas be debated and voted on rather than allowing politicians to hide their true positions behind media smokescreens. This is the kind of thing the Republic deserves from those in Congress.

If this blows up in the Democrats' face, well, they so asked for it.

Sullivan's on the Rag Again

Yet another wild and ridiculous anti-Bush over-generalization, courtesy of Andrew.  Jonah's on the case ...

[HT: GPW]

National Security Adviser, Yes. Historian, No.

Taranto eviscerates Scowcroft:

The Washington Post reports on a New Yorker interview with Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser in the Ford and Bush père White Houses:

Scowcroft, in his interview, discussed an argument over Iraq he had two years ago with Condoleezza Rice, then-national security adviser and current secretary of state. "She says we're going to democratize Iraq, and I said, 'Condi, you're not going to democratize Iraq,' and she said, 'You know, you're just stuck in the old days,' and she comes back to this thing that we've tolerated an autocratic Middle East for fifty years and so on and so forth," he said. The article stated that with a "barely perceptible note of satisfaction," Scowcroft added: "But we've had fifty years of peace."

Now let's see. Between 1953 and 2003, here are the Mideast wars we can think of off the top of our head: the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War, the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, the two Palestinian intifadas against Israel, the Algerian Civil War, the Yemen Civil War and two Sudanese civil wars. That doesn't even count acts of terror against non-Mideastern countries, from the Iranian invasion of the U.S. Embassy to the attacks of 9/11.

What do you call someone who describes this as "50 years of peace"? A "realist."

Devolving Into Parody

  Like an ACLU looking for a NAMBLA fix, some organizations just can't help themselves:

Saddam Hussein's rights have been "violated" in the legal process following his capture, one of his top United States lawyers said on Tuesday on the eve of the deposed Iraqi leader's trial opening on charges of ordering the massacre of 143 countrymen two decades ago.

Ex-US attorney-general Ramsey Clark also cited reports by international human rights groups, like the US-based Human Rights Watch and the Britain-based Amnesty International, which questioned if Saddam will receive a fair trial.

Apparently that whole Darfur kerfluffle sorted itself, as these folk have all this time on their hands.

Always good to hear.

h/t Michelle Malkin

Terrorism Is So Last Year

  Still worried about maniacal jihadi suicide bombers? Stressing that homeland security isn't quite what it ought to be? A little skittish on flights after enduring vigorous "light grope and slap on the ass" searches in airports?

Get over it, you ideological fashionistas. Terrorism is totes over. The ACLU is previewing their fall line, and a racy, revolutionary disdain for common sense is the queen of the runway. Petulant indignation is the new glitter.

Tampa, Florida — If you’ve been to a Bucs game this season, you’ve seen and felt a difference — you get patted down before entering the stadium.

But on Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union and a Bucs season ticket holder are taking the owners of Raymond James Stadium to court.

Put those metal detectors back in the closet. Stow your once hip "increased awareness" under the bed. It's nearly 2006 now. Anyone with any sense of political style wouldn't be caught dead wearing the tired, drabby "Concerned Citizen" label.

It's all about you, baby. Work it, girlfriend. Sue like it's 1999.

Freeh's Bombshell

The loony left's brainless mantra – actually, one of many – is: "When Bill Clinton lied, nobody died."

But at the very least, where the former President is concerned, it seems that the lying happened pretty quickly after the dying.

UPDATE: Get it from the horse's, rather than the Drudge's, mouth.