Kerry Haters: We're Not Fonda John

 
Leavin' on a Jet Plane

Headed for the Jersey shore, but I am hopeful that I will be able to continue posting this week. Meanwhile, Kitty will do her usual great posts.

 
My Top Blogs

John Hawkins did a list of his 40 favorite blogs the other day. Apparently Kerry Haters finished 41st :( but we were thrilled to see our friend Tyler at Red Line Rants had made it all the way to #16. We knew him when few others did in the blogosphere, but of course we didn't make him famous, it was his incredible blogging that attracted our attention and everybody else's. Kerry Spot and Crush Kerry were also ranked (18th & 20th respectively) from the Legion.

From the blogroll, Instapundit (#2), Danegerus (#9), Hugh Hewitt (#10), A Small Victory (#11), Allah (#14), Kaus (#22), Blackfive (#32), Citizen Smash (#38), and InDC Journal (#39) also appeared. I have read most of the other blogs listed and if you have not, you should definitely check them out. Certainly check out the ones that John and I both picked--they are great, great blogs, well worth your time.

So I thought, let's clear those off the board--indisputably great blogs, we both agree. Here are my Top 40 aside from those, with explanations for each, in no particular order (actually it's in the order that they were added to the blogroll). For now I'm skipping the Legion because they deserve their own post separately.

Kitty Litter. Kitty's a great blogger, twice featured on Lucianne's blog truth of the day (seen by two million people). She features tightly crafted posts with the absolutely perfect picture as a header--read the post then look back to the picture and you'll realize how perfect those photos can be. She has been the greatest supporter of Kerry Haters, in links and comments and finally in her great posts.

Lucianne. To me the archetype of a group blog, althought very few people think of it that way. Let's see, post a link with the first paragraph of a story, along with your comment. Yep, sounds pretty bloggy to me. I've been a proud L-Dotter for many years; I first heard about 9-11 on a thread on Lucianne.

Roger L. Simon. Without a doubt the most interesting discussion blog. Roger throws the tip-off and where the ball goes after that is completely unpredictable. His blog is tough because you'll have to read three (linked) articles or so to get what he's talking about. Greatest commenters in the blogosphere.

Michael Totten is a great writer and one of the most interested people I've ever come across. That's right, interested, not interesting (although he is that too). He has been writing about his current trip to Tunisia in his blog, and he tried to go to Libya. He's got an eye for detail without making it seem like a travelogue. He's one of the few people on my blogroll who's officially not certain about voting for Bush (currently on the fence).

Just One Minute was one of the first big-time blogs to give us a story link. The VVAW assassination of US senators plot that Kerry voted on in 1971 had appeared on Scarborough Country, and Lawrence O'Donnell tried to laugh it off as a vote that nobody took seriously. I read Tom's post and decided to go out to the library and get the source material. I quickly discovered that far from being something that was laughed off quickly, in fact the VVAW had moved their meeting twice because of FBI bugs before even discussing the proposal, and finally excluded all but the top leaders of the group. Recently Tom's been getting well-deserved mention for his yeoman work in exposing Joe Wilson as the fraud that he is.

More of my top 40 blogs tomorrow.

 
TWO AMERICAS



There can be no better illustration of the Kerry/Edwards' "Two Americas" theme than this story and what an L.dotter discovered.
Kerry Repays Personal Loan to Campaign
Using campaign funds, Sen. John Kerry has repaid a $6.4 million personal loan that the Democratic presidential candidate used to keep his campaign afloat last winter.
The campaign announced the repayment at the same time it disclosed it has raised over $203 million as of July 20
That is less than President Bush's re-election campaign. But Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said it was enough for the campaign to remain competitive while repaying the loan.
Kerry borrowed the money late last year at a time when he was fairing poorly in the polls and having a hard time raising campaign donations. He used his share of the townhouse that he and his wife own in an exclusive part of Boston to back the loan.
Kerry's campaign underwent a dramatic reversal several weeks after he borrowed the money, when he won the Iowa caucuses in January.
He then captured first place in the New Hampshire primary, which propelled him on the road to the Democratic presidential nomination, which he formally claims next week at his party's convention.

Apparently the Kerrys not only believe in their “Two Americas” theme, they practice it with a vengence. Read what an L.dotter discovered:
What happened:
Total bill / Tip amount / Percentage: $262.60 / $0.00 / 0%
June 5, 04 Kerry, his wife, 4 unknown suits - We were happy to seat them in a semi-private area and gave them the same excellent service as we would give anyone - then got stiffed!

Hat tip to L.dotter Avikingman!

 
Kerry's Iran Problem

Lawrence Kaplan takes on the subject of Iran.

Kerry's calls for a rapprochement with Teheran come at a rather inopportune moment. The very regime that Kerry demands we engage, after all, has just been certified as an Al Qaeda sanctuary--and by the very commission in which the Kerry campaign has invested so much hope. The report's finding, moreover, counts as only one of Teheran's sins. Lately its theocrats have been wreaking havoc in Iraq and Afghanistan, aiding America's foes along Iran's borders in the hopes of expanding their influence in both countries, even as they continue to fund Palestinian terror groups.

But of course rapprochement is the only policy Kerry would pursue anywhere. If Kerry had been in charge, he'd still be trying to serve Mullah Omar with extradition papers for Osama bin Laden.

 
The Ten Americas

David Frum tackles the "Two Americas" canard.

Together, John Kerry and John Edwards possess family fortunes totaling probably in the vicinity of $1 billion. If elected, John Kerry would be the richest president in American history, richer even than his hero John F. Kennedy. And unlike other rich men to seek the presidency--Ross Perot, Herbert Hoover, and so on--Kerry is the very opposite of a self-made man: He came by his money by marrying a woman who inherited it from her husband who in turn inherited it from his great-grandfather.

Yet the Kerry-Edwards campaign is audaciously presenting itself as a crusade against unearned wealth and privilege. As the saying goes: Only in America!

 
Even Pretty Boys Can Look Ugly


(AFP/Getty Images/File/Paul Hawthorne)

 
What's More Pathetic Than One Old Man Doing the Revolutionary Drug Brothers Handshake?



Yep, two old men doing the Revolutionary Drug Brothers Handshake.

 
Hugh Hewitt's show yesterday caused a few ripples in the blogosphere. Peter Beinart of the New Republic, a moderate Democrat magazine, got so upset during a discussion of the Sandy Berger affair that he accused Hugh of being a partisan hack.

Beinart snapped that Hugh was getting his “marching orders from the RNC,” which is lunatic nonsense. Even if I didn’t know Hugh, I do know the talk radio business, and people don’t get a daily briefing from Lord Rove, okay? It’s the sort of thing said by people who do – not – understand – talk radio, and think it’s orchestrated by chortling neo-cons smoking cigars with a Star of David on the band. Not to say Beinart believes that, but I’d never heard him put on the waders and head into the fever swamp before, so that was odd. But he followed it with a hissy-fit completely irrelevant to the topic, demanding to know if there were two issues where Hugh thought Kerry was better than Bush. Hugh couldn’t think of any.

Beinart's wrong, and the reason he's wrong is the reason the Democrats are going to lose this year. The Democrats' take on Bush is that he campaigned as a moderate and went off on this far-right crusade for tax cuts, anti-gay marriage, eviscerating the Bill of Rights with the Patriot Act and let's overthrow a few countries while we're at it. That about sum up their "thoughts" about what happened in the last four years?

So Beinart completely misunderstands Hewitt. Don't get me wrong, Hugh's a partisan, but it's because he legitimately has a hard time finding an issue on which he disagrees with the Republican Party or President Bush. And when he does, it's usually because President Bush is not right enough.

Think about this for a moment. Although the Democrats are trying mightily to convince folks that Bush went way right after the election, among Republicans the response is generally that he did not go right enough. John Hawkins has quite a few commenters to his site who hit Bush hard on the immigration issue, and you can hear them all the time on the radio. But you will seldom hear a Republican complain that Bush is too far right.

This is what Beinart is complaining about--that Hewitt will not criticize Bush or compliment Kerry. But of course, the reason is that Hewitt is more conservative than Bush, and so therefore while he may disagree with Bush on issues, he's not going to find himself on Kerry's side. Beinart himself is in the middle--he's a genuine moderate Democrat imho, (although he's being quite a partisan Democrat lately on the Joe Wilson/Sandy Berger imbroglios). And so on some issues he sides with Kerry and on some issues he sides with Bush, but on balance he mostly sides with Kerry.

So when Beinart sees that Hugh does not agree with Kerry on anything, he assumes Hugh's a hack, that he's getting marching orders, etc. The point is not that Hugh agrees with Bush on everything, but that he doesn't agree with Kerry on anything. So Hugh is to the right of Bush. But if he's to the right of Bush, where is Rush Limbaugh? I'd put him comfortably to the right of Hugh, and beyond that you've got Bob Novak and then Pat Buchanan.

You see where I'm going with this? If there are all these gradients above Bush, how conservative can he be? And if John Kerry's more liberal than Peter Beinart, how moderate can he be?

 
Sorry for the Light Posting Today

I've been under a deadline to get an assignment done and today was the final day. I'll try to put up some more posts tonight and early tomorrow. I will be out of town (visiting my sister at the Jersey shore) for the following seven days, but I should be able to put up a couple posts a day, and I am hopeful that Kitty will continue to dazzle and amaze with her excellent posts and incredibly appropriate pictures.

 
Fees Are For the Little People

(Via Kerry Spot)

Remember Leona Helmsley saying that only the little people pay taxes? Well Kerry appears to think that applies to airport fees as well.

When the biggest plane to ever land on [Nantucket] touched down with U.S. Sen. John Kerry and his entourage, airport manager Al Peterson never imagined he would have trouble getting paid.

Kerry just raised a record-breaking $99.2 million in three months, and his personal finances reach the $1 billion threshold with his wife, Theresa Heinz Kerry.

But a caterer who bought food on the island for Kerry's campaign jet ducked one bill and haggled over another.

"Apparently they don't feel like he needs to pay fees to the airport," Peterson said. "I gather the senator objects to that because his aide quoted him as saying that he already pays taxes on the island."

Hey, you know what? I already pay taxes in Phoenix--why am I paying for parking meters?

 
The Expectations Game

Richard Wolfe talks about how the Republicans are setting the bar high for Kerry in terms of the predicted 15-point bounce.

With that surprise [spurning the federal funding] ruled out, the last remaining challenge of the convention is—like the other set-pieces of the presidential campaign—the battle of expectations. Whether it's the veep pick or the TV debates, Kerry needs to set and beat what the rest of us think he's capable of. That explains why his Republican opponents have been so keen to implant the notion that Kerry should enjoy a 15-point bump out of the convention. If the expectations are set high, a no-pratfalls convention will be viewed as a disappointment. That's also why the Kerry campaign says a double-digit bounce is unreasonable, considering how unified the Democrats have proved to be this year.

My guess is that Kerry gets a light bounce. He'll certainly benefit from having a whole bunch of people say nice things about him for a week, but that will be offset by the undeniably negative effect of Kerry giving his own speech.

 
Way to Bury the Lede

The Wall Street Journal reports as follows:

BOSTON -- John Kerry enters next week's Democratic Convention in a better position than any presidential challenger in a generation -- but still needing to show more strength on the national-security issues that underpin President Bush's support.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows the Massachusetts senator in a virtual dead heat with Mr. Bush as Democrats gather here to nominate him as their presidential candidate in the Nov. 2 election. Not since Ronald Reagan's 1980 bid to oust President Carter, according to Gallup, has a challenger approached his nominating convention even with or ahead of a White House incumbent.

Translation: He's losing by two points. What happened to the Edwards bounce? Maybe they're assuming that we all knew that Kerry had gotten no lift from the Silky Pony?

 
Kerry's Protest Days

John Hawkins examines the period of John Kerry's life that will probably be the least explored next week at the convention: His years protesting the Vietnam War.

The fact that John Kerry, a man who trashed the military so badly in his testimony before Congress that the Vietnamese played Kerry's words to our POWs in an effort to break their will, is now portraying himself as a champion of the military who can be trusted to lead America because of his Vietnam war experience, is practically beyond belief. As Mark Steyn once said of Kerry, "He spent the Seventies playing Jane Fonda and he now wants to run as John Wayne."

Excellent post. About the only thing I would add is that Kerry collaborated with the enemy while still in the Navy, when he went to Paris and met with Madame Binh.

 
HARDY-HAR-HAR-HAR


Secretary of Defense Cohen, President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Albright, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, holding room of the Ronald Reagan Building, April 25, 1999
"We were all making comments we shouldn't have about how the meeting was getting very boring. So finally we decided we had to make like the monkey. Cohen started this 'hear no evil,' and then I was next so I spoke no evil, then Madeleine saw no evil, so Sandy Berger said, 'I'm evil.'" - Bill Clinton

The above picture has been pulled from its original PBS site; we must now ask for permission to use it in its original size. No doubt, the demand for this embarrassing picture was the reason. It is PBS, after all. This thumbnail shot was pulled from the Google site. So there, PBS!

More Revelations in Berger Inquiry
For the second day in a row, administration officials said yesterday that more of President Bush's aides knew about an investigation of former Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger than the White House originally acknowledged.
The question is sensitive because Democrats have charged that Republicans leaked word of the investigation to try to taint next week's Democratic National Convention and to distract attention from criticisms of Bush in the report of the commission investigating the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.


Do you suppose Her Royal C had it leaked? Let’s face it; the Clintons do NOT want Kerry elected.

Inside the Ring
Covering up?
Officials said the investigation into the removal of the Clarke memorandum is expected to lead to the declassification and publication of the document. This could expose the duplicity of Mr. Clarke, who had little criticism of the Clinton administration in public.

 
POOR KERRY



Short but very interesting read!

Kerry's costly loan
Mrs. Heinz Kerry reportedly forked over virtually all of the funds for the newly married couple's mansion in Boston's exclusive Beacon Hill neighborhood. The second factor was a little help from her friends at the Mellon financial conglomerate, who signed off on an eye-popping home appraisal. That super-sized appraisal made the loan much larger than it otherwise could have been.
…
Mr. Kerry must decide whether that loan would be repaid by the campaign, which has been making the monthly interest payments of $16,600.
…
Mr. Kerry clearly does not have the means to retire the debt, and his wife cannot legally repay the loan.
...
[T] the $6.4 million loan that rescued his campaign in January likely will be causing Mr. Kerry problems in September and October and perhaps beyond.

 
Kerry Not In Tune With His Own Party?

That's the message in this article:

The biggest disconnect between ordinary Democrats and their leaders - and between Democrats and the rest of the country - is over the Iraq war.

A sizable majority of rank-and-file Democrats think the war was a mistake - 68 percent in one recent CBS-New York Times poll. By comparison, 51 percent of independents and only 14 percent of Republicans think it was a mistake.

Yet Kerry, who voted to authorize the war, refuses to call it a mistake. Nor will he commit to withdrawing American troops anytime soon, as many antiwar Democrats urge.

"People of good will disagree about whether America should have gone to war in Iraq," the new party platform says. It also says the United States must remain in Iraq: "We cannot allow a failed state in Iraq that inevitably would become a haven for terrorists and a destabilizing force in the Middle East."

Another difference is over marriage for gays and lesbians, an issue put on the national agenda when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that homosexuals should be allowed to marry. Gay couples in other states now are appealing to federal courts for legal recognition of their marriages.

Forty percent of Democrats think gay couples should be allowed to marry legally, a separate CBS-New York Times poll showed. While less than a majority, such a substantial minority again shows that the Democratic base is split on a deeply divisive issue that could complicate Kerry's handling of it. Kerry opposes gay marriage but favors "civil unions," an approach favored by only 27 percent of Democrats nationally.

As we've commented before, Kerry plainly has no respect for the anti-war crowd, because he thinks they will vote for him just because he's not Bush. He may be right.

 
Moving On Up!

I hope La Shawn will forgive the obvious joke, but she's left blogger behind. I got a hunch that a lot of others are moving soon too--whole lotta grumbling going on that Blogger got the old-fashioned way; they earned it. Yesterday my blog was down for 50 minutes, sure enough just as my piece for Crush Kerry was getting some pretty good exposure for the blog. Still a great day for visits, because it was only 50 minutes. But I'd guess I lost 60 visitors to that outage based on the traffic before and after.

Anyway, revise your blogrolls for La Shawn. Add her if you don't have her.

 
Joined at the Lip?

Check out this news release by the Kerry Campaign

"John Kerry and John Edwards have a comprehensive strategy....And John Kerry and John Edwards will implement a long-term strategy....John Kerry and John Edwards will use direct military action....Kerry and Edwards will cut off the flow....John Kerry and John Edwards will launch a new initiative....John Kerry and John Edwards will work with our allies...."

Do they want us to think they are, Chang and Eng Bunker?





Hat Tip: Weapons of Mass Discussion

 
Jennings Ties Kerry into Knots on Abortion

Peter Jennings: You told an Iowa newspaper recently that life begins at conception. What makes you think that?

Sen. Kerry: My personal belief about what happens in the fertilization process is a human being is first formed and created, and that's when life begins. Something begins to happen. There's a transformation. There's an evolution. Within weeks, you look and see the development of it, but that's not a person yet, and it's certainly not what somebody, in my judgment, ought to have the government of the United States intervening in.

Roe v. Wade has made it very clear what our standard is with respect to viability, what our standard is with respect to rights. I believe in the right to choose, not the government choosing, but an individual, and I defend that.

Jennings: Could you explain again to me what do you mean when you say "life begins at conception"?

Kerry: Well, that's what the Supreme Court has established is a test of viability as to whether or not you're permitted to terminate a pregnancy, and I support that. That is my test. And I, you know, you have all kinds of different evolutions of life, as we know, and very different beliefs about birth, the process of the development of a fetus. That's the standard that's been established in Roe v. Wade. And I adhere to that standard.

Kerry's trying to say something there, but he's making a complete hash of it. The Supreme Court did indeed establish viability as the test, but of course viability has nothing to do with when life begins (according to Nuancy Boy). And Kerry has never voted as if viability was the test, because he has voted against banning partial birth abortions, which occur well after viability.

I'm not sure exactly what Kerry means about different evolutions of life--does he mean that the fetus passes through different phases--blastocyst, embryo, fetus, baby?

Jennings: If you believe that life begins at conception, is even a first-trimester abortion not murder?

Kerry: No, because it's not the form of life that takes personhood in the terms that we have judged it to be in the past. It's the beginning of life. Does life begin? Yes, it begins.

Ah, so there are different forms of life that takes personhood. Hmmm. That one I'll leave to somebody who can translate Kerryese a little better than I can.

You know, we laugh about this, but the reason Kerry gets tied into knots by Peter Jennings is that he can't say what he really thinks, which is that abortion's no big deal. So he tries to finesse the issue--it's life, but it's not the kind of life that you can murder. Abortion's wrong, but it's not so wrong that we should outlaw it.

Kerry may be losing votes with these attempts to straddle a barbed-wire fence. He's certainly not picking up any votes among the pro-life crowd, and he may be losing a few among the pro-choicers. And for those whom abortion is not a key issue, they can see that Kerry is being dishonest in an attempt to pander for some votes on both sides of this issue.

And later, Kerry makes another just plain weird comment:

Kerry: Yes, I think there should be less violence and less sex [on TV and in movies]. And when I talked about the heart and soul, I'm talking about the artistic expression. I'm talking about sort of the, I mean, I believe in the arts. I think that there's a great expression in it, and there's always this struggle. You know, does life imitate art or art imitate life? Which comes first? It's a little of both.

Well, unless there's art before conception....

 
The Schnook and the Crook

 
Frodo Endorses Treebeard



No word yet on whether Grandfather Twilight is going along.

 
Who is John Kerry?

Peggy Noonan wonders which John Kerry will show up at the convention.

Mr. Kerry is a "liberal," or a "progressive." What is that these days? He could tell us. He might take this opportunity to actually redefine what liberalism is, and rescue it from its dread L-word status as the thing Democrats are and can't admit. Conservatives aren't afraid to call themselves conservative. They even do this when they're acting like liberals. Mr. Kerry should tell us what liberals intend with regard to domestic policy. Another way to say this is: The past half century liberals have won a great deal--Social Security, Medicare, civil rights, the megastate. What exactly do they want to win now?

Excellent point. In fact, the Democrats of today stand for nothing, except that they hate Bush. That's not a platform for governance.

 
Kitty Corner

My co-blogger Kitty is on a mission of mercy, so she left an amusing post on her site about the first time she heard her mother use an unexpected word: condoms!

If you're my age or thereabouts (49) whenever you hear about somebody being embarrassed to buy a pack of Trojans, you think of one thing: the drugstore scene in Summer of '42.

 
Security at the DNC

Jeff Jacoby has an interesting column on the security precautions being taken at the Democratic National Convention.

Meanwhile, mailboxes and trash barrels have been removed from many Boston streets, the better to foil would-be terrorists from planting bombs. Manhole covers near the convention site have been sealed. Many government offices will shut down for the week, including courthouses and the Boston Passport Agency. The Massachusetts State House will be closed to the public. And protesters wanting to send a message to the Democrats will be penned behind an 8-foot-tall chain-link fence.

Jacoby points out that while security is sensible, there is no reason to believe that the terrorists will strike in Boston. In fact, they could strike anywhere and we would be virtually helpless to stop them. The only way to stop the terrorists is to take the battle to them. Great column.

 
Boston Preview

Lorie Byrd of Polipundit is today's guest columnist over at Crush Kerry, with an excellent post on what to expect (and what not to expect) at the DNC in Boston.

It is a tightly held secret, but I have it from a reliable authority that John Kerry served in Vietnam. Expect to see and hear a lot about all the veterans supporting John Kerry and many references to his "brothers-in-arms" . Don't expect to hear anything about the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth or the 19 out of 23 officers who served with Kerry who have signed a letter declaring him "unfit" to be commander-in-chief , or about the sailors pictured with Kerry who had to threaten to sue him to discontinue use of their likeness in his campaign. Also don't expect to see much about Kerry's anti-war protest days. It is likely that the pictures orchestrated at the convention will be successful in creating the illusion that many veterans and those in the military support Kerry.

 
New Nickname for Kerry--Clueless John

Hugh Hewitt had a lot of fun on his show with this exchange between Tom Brokaw and John Kerry today:

Brokaw: "Did you know that [Berger] was under investigation?"

Kerry: "I didn't have a clue, not a clue."

Brokaw: "He didn't share that with you?

Kerry: "I didn't have a clue."

Now that's a typically lawyerly response to a follow-up question; don't disclose anything more, just repeat the previous answer.

 
Kerry Tries to Flush Speech After Berger Revelations

The guys over at Free Republic caught Kerry deleting a speech from his website. Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for Kerry, the Freepers found the speech in a google cache and have prevented in from disappearing down the memory hole. Speculation over there is that Kerry was concerned about a paragraph on strengthening port security. Could it be that Kerry was briefed on classified documents?

Hat Tip: Hugh Hewitt.

 
Another Idiot for the Shut Up and Sing List

By coincidence, she looks quite a bit like Lily Munster.



"We're gonna sing this for George Bush because he's out of here, people!" Raitt crowed Tuesday night before she launched into the opening licks of "Your Good Thing (Is About to End)," a cover that was featured on her 1979 album "The Glow."

 
The Linda Ronstadt Fiasco Redux--Updated!

We talked about this a bit yesterday. Michael Moore-on has weighed in on the subject. Meanwhile, Michele Catalano has an extremely funny parody of Desperado, the song Ronstadt dedicated to Chubbsy-Ubbsy. Here's a sample:

BLUBBERADO….
You better come to your meetings
You been out eating doughnuts, for so long now

Oh, we’re here for you
In the evening and the day time
To help you stop shoving
All that food in your face…

You just play to the leftist moonbats, boy
And they eat up all they're able
Kinda like you at an all-you-can-eat buffet

Update: The NY Times weighs in editorially on this crucial issue.

 
No Cake for Kerry

Nancy Benac has a fawning article on Kerry's early ambitions for the presidency.

Blakely Fetridge Bundy, the girlfriend, and later wife of Harvey Bundy, one of Kerry's college roommates, remembers his pals presenting Kerry with a telegram and a red, white and blue cake that said "Yippee!" in May 1964 when he was elected president of the Yale Political Union, a college debating society.

She wrote in her journal at the time: "We decided that for all further successes — especially when he's elected president of the U.S. — that we'll send him a Yippee! cake."

 
Fun Stuff

Scrappleface has three separate posts on Kerry's light-fingered foreign policy advisor.

Hat Tip: Nudnik File

Chicago Ray has a couple takes on Arnold's "girly-men" comment.

Allah's got some funny tee-shirts (obscene language).

The Commissar reminds us that timing is everything.

 
Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil, Evil



Or is it just evil, evil, dumb, evil?

 
Stronger At Home, Respected by the French

This is the new theme for the Kerry campaign, effective at least until after the convention. Don Feder is not impressed.

John Forbes Kerry is going to make America Stronger At Home, Respected In The World? And will Bill Clinton lead a moral revival? Will Larry Flynt return traditional values to the media? Will Mullah Omar (spiritual leader of the late, unlamented, Taliban regime) forge a new chapter in tolerance and understanding?

Howard Dean for anger management? Pat Leahy on how to become friends with the vice president? :)

Hat Tip: Nudnik File

 
INADVERTENT OR INTENDED?



Ashcroft: Berger 9/11 Docs Reveal Clinton Security Lapse
In testimony before the 9/11 Commission in April, Attorney General John Ashcroft detailed the highly classified March 2000 document, saying it contained a set of sweeping recommendations on how to combat the al-Qaida threat that were completely ignored by the Clinton White House.
…
"Furthermore, fully seventeen months before the September 11 attacks, the review recommends disrupting the al Qaida network and terrorist presence here using immigration violations, minor criminal infractions, and tougher visa and border controls," he explained.

Berger on the 'Wall'
We'll grant that visions of a former National Security Adviser stuffing classified documents down his trousers or socks makes for good copy. But count us more interested in learning what's in the documents themselves than in where on his person Sandy Berger may have put them when he was sneaking them out of the National Archives.
For the evidence suggests that the missing material cuts to the heart of the choice offered in this election: Whether America treats terrorism as a problem of law enforcement or an act of war.
…
We're not interested in rehashing what the Clinton Administration or even Mr. Berger did or didn't do vis-a-vis the al Qaeda threat pre-9/11. Nor are we much interested about Mr. Berger's troubles with the law. What does interest us is what this memo might tell us about how America should respond to terror.
Given Mr. Berger's role (until he resigned yesterday) as a Kerry adviser, surely this is something worth debating. And if the missing memos say what Mr. Ashcroft has hinted they do, we can well understand why Mr. Berger would want to keep them in his trousers during a crucial election year.

Then yesterday came the news that Berger quit:
Former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger — under criminal investigation for sneaking top-secret documents out of the National Archives in his pants legs and, possibly, his socks — abruptly quit yesterday as an adviser to John Kerry.
…
Kerry issued a statement saying, "Sandy Berger is my friend and he has tirelessly served this nation with honor and distinction. I respect his decision to step aside as an adviser to the campaign until this matter is resolved."
…
The FBI was called in after alert archives staffers saw documents peeking out from under Berger's pants, smelled a rat — and ran a sting operation by marking other documents to prove he was taking them out, a government official said.
The FBI searched Berger's home and office and he returned some documents, but at least two, believed to be millennium review drafts, are believed missing. Berger says he accidentally destroyed them.

 
FEUDING WITHIN THEIR RANKS

vs.

KENNEDY V. CLINTON: THE DEM DIVIDE
By Dick Morris
When Kerry chose Edwards, a charismatic future contender for the presidency, he knew he was investing in an opponent for Hillary when she goes for the top job herself. If Kerry loses, Hillary will run in 2008; if he wins, she'll run in 2012. Either way, she'll have to beat Edwards, whom Kerry plucked from the ashes of defeat.
…
The split began in the fall of 2003, when Kerry was floundering in the face of the Howard Dean surge. The Clintons had bet on Kerry and even sent Chris Lehane (who had played a key role in their Lewinsky-impeachment defense) to be the Massachusetts senator's chief campaign consultant. But as Kerry faltered, the Clintons bailed out on his candidacy and pushed Gen. Wesley Clark into the race as their candidate.
…
In rushed Ted Kennedy to save the day, sending Mary Beth Cahill of his Senate staff to steer the faltering Kerry campaign. Kennedy's pivotal role was evident from his up-front and public position by his Massachusetts colleague's side on the night Kerry won the New Hampshire primary.
…
The increasing tendency of the Kennedy-Kerry operatives to shut out the Clintons from the campaign highlights the Clinton conundrum: They desperately want Kerry to lose, but can't say so in public.

8 Check KittyLitter to see who's UNITED!

 
Kerry Haters Does Guest Blogging!

Our buddies at Crush Kerry invited me to put a guest post on their site as a pinch-hitter. I did a fairly long post (for me) on the three main reasons I hate John Kerry. Crush Kerry has been one of Kerry Haters' major backers, with links, supportive comments and friendly emails. We really appreciate their own efforts to expose Le Fraude, and their encouragment of ours, and the opportunity they have given us to put our work in front of a wider audience.

 
New to the Legion--Flush the John

Looks like some funny pix.

 
Legion of Kerry Haters' Favorite Ride!

I'd be proud to run to the beer store in this vehicle! (May need to scroll down a bit).

 
BIRDS OF A FEATHER


Sandy Berger, Senator John Kerry, President Clinton, and Ambassador Peterson (photograph by Nguyen Lan Huong)

Sandy always looks like a “solid” kind of a guy, but then it could be all those classified documents under his clothing which pad his appearance.
Sloppy Berger
The image of Sandy Berger stuffing notes into his socks at the National Archives conveys the culture of carelessness and corruption under Bill Clinton far better than anything the 9/11 Commission will report. The Commission fails to see that the fundamental explanation for America's porous security before 9/11 is not structural but cultural. Eight years of Clintonian indiscipline exposed America to attack by disciplined terrorists.

And this quote from Lucianne.com:
"Right out of the starting gate, Mr. Berger was an unfortunate choice for a national security position with the government because of his prior role as the chief Washington lobbyist for the Chinese Government's trade office.' Let me repeat that. 'Mr. Berger was an unfortunate choice for a national security position with the government because of his prior role as the chief Washington lobbyist for the Chinese Government's trade office."
-Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), House of Representatives, Congressonal Record 3/23/99

 
Putting a Few Stories Together

Story 1: Kerry Breaks Bush Record For Pace of Fundraising

Story 2: Kerry contractor outsources to India.

 
Roger L. Simon Connects the Dots

This is the cool thing about blogging--I'd never meet Roger L. Simon in real life, except that maybe someday I will, and anyway I count him as a modest virtual acquaintance. His blog is one of the most interesting out there; not for the dozens of posts, not for the funny pictures, but for the fascinating discussions that follow his posts. It's not easy to comment smartly on Roger's blog because the commenters are absolutely amazing--check out the comments by Catherine or John Moore or Dennis the Peasant for examples of people with razor logic and interesting perspectives.

Anyway, Roger has a post tonight commenting on Bill Clinton's claim to have known that Kerry's foreign policy advisor Sandy Berger was under investigation for stealing national security documents. Roger puts the story together and asks two of those Sherlock Holmes questions that seem so obvious once they've been asked, but I'll be doggone if I thought of them before:

But wait... if Clinton has known about Berger's problems for months, has Kerry? And if so, why did the presidential candidate continue to use the former National Security Adviser as an adviser to his campaign, knowing, at the least, that Berger was under investigation for a serious crime?

Nothing but net, Rog! That is a perfect question because it puts Kerry in a nasty place no matter what he says.

 
How About Investing in Some More Botox?



Could it be that the new use for the product is causing the supply to diminish?

 
If You're Willing to Take the Fall, Raise Your Hand



The Webb Hubbell of the Kerry campaign?

 
Bill Clinton's Gay Advice to Kerry

I don't usually use headlines as the title for a post, but that's quite an eye-grabber.

Bill Clinton has a warning for John Kerry: Don't get sucked into the GOP trap. Clinton says Republicans have laid down a careful plot to keep Kerry off base and prevent him from sticking to the major issues.

Part of me wants to do the Beavis and Butthead bit here--heheh, he said "sucked" and "laid".

The plot is gay marriage, Clinton tells Britain's Financial Times. The former president says Republicans want to drag Kerry into a protracted debate about same-sex marriage and other socials issues like abortion and gun control.

Of course we want to drag (heheh, he said drag) him into debates about those issues; because those are the issues on which John Kerry disagrees with the majority of the American people.

 
If It's Not Kerry in '04...

The Democrats' delegates want it to be Hillary in '08. Although the choice of Hillary over Edwards is treated by the writer as something of a surprise, it's not really if you look at prior Veeps on losing tickets. The last Veep on a losing ticket to be invited to represent the top of the ticket the next time around was Walter Mondale, who had lost with Jimmy Carter in 1980. However, Mondale had previously been on a winning ticket with Carter in 1976. Most of the rest of the undercards would have been naturals for the "Do you know me?" ads that American Express used to run back in the 1970s (in fact, Bill Miller, Barry Goldwater's VP nominee in 1964 was actually used in one of the commercials).

 
My Campaign With Andre

Waffle House has the transcript of an email (sound check at work) from Kerry's stepson Andre (yes, Teh-RAY-za has a son with a French name), wherein he attempts to get legal clearance to reimburse a foreign national for expenses from the Heinz Family Philanthropies to help him with campaigning. (scroll down to near the bottom of the page for the email, but read the whole page--Chris does a marvelous job with his pages; they are just chockful of information). Note particularly the way they try to get around the illegal nature of the reimbursements by calling him a "consultant", etc.

 
Could Kerry's Weirdness Work in His Favor?

Tom Oliphant has an original idea as to why Kerry might succeed:

My long exposure to Kerry's life makes me think of a story about the late Richard Neustadt of Harvard, the 20th century's pre-eminent presidential scholar. In 1986, Mike Dukakis asked him: Did all of the country's presidents have anything important in common? Neustadt answered with a grin that each of them was pretty weird.

Well, that's as good an explanation of the Dukakis campaign as I've heard. You can almost picture the Duke's advisers saying, "But the tank will make you look weird," and the candidate responding, "That's the idea!"

Of course it didn't work then, and it didn't work in 2000, when Al Gore certainly won the Bizarro competition between the two nominees.

 
Why Conservatives Should Vote for Bush

John Hawkins at Right Wing News has a long post up on this topic.

"On which of those issues would John Kerry better represent my interests as a conservative?"

The answer is always, "None of them". Think about it...wouldn't John Kerry sign the Assault Weapons Ban too? Kerry would have signed Campaign Finance Reform as well, right? What about the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill? Heck, the Democrats favored a BIGGER package than Bush did. You may not like Bush's immigration plan, but Kerry is openly promising to put America's illegal immigrants on the "path to citizenship" in his first 100 days. So what would you gain by having Kerry in office?

Great points. I would just add that Kerry is McGovern's revenge. This is not some new Democrat like Bill Clinton, who was legitimately to the right of much of his party. Kerry's clearly a left-winger attempting to portray himself as a moderate.

 
More on Max Cleland

He's obviously chugging the Kool-Aid. Kitty's already highlighted his obnoxious remarks about President Bush two posts below, but get this part of his comments yesterday:

When asked if he believes former ambassador Joseph Wilson, the Bush critic whose story was substantially undermined in the new Senate report on pre-war intelligence, Cleland said, “I do believe that Joe Wilson is telling the truth. I believe he has tremendous credibility, and I’ve met with him personally for hours.”

That says more about you, Max, than it does about Joe Wilson.

 
Ignore This Post

The Galvin Opinion goes over the line with a post suggesting Kerry is Batman. It's true that both Robin and John Edwards are both called the Boy Wonder, and Kerry and Adam West do both deliver their lines in a weird, almost monotonous way, but I don't buy it for a second.

He's the Green Arrow instead.

 
"BE VERY AFRAID"


“John Kerry's National Security Team. A pants-stuffing pilferer, a paranoid, hysterical nut job and a tea-sipping fraud.”

CrushKerry reports on whom John Kerry will entrust our national security:
Kerry's National Secruity Team - Be Very Afraid
When Sandy Berger - another one of the losers hired by Clinton who took the "law enforcement" approach to terrorism - and who refused to extradite Osama Bin Laden, was traipsed out by the Kerry campaign, he was supposed to add credibility to John Kerry’s often tergiversant foreign policy record. But yesterday he not only became an albatross on around the bony neck of the most liberal senator in America, he has also become a serious national security risk.
…
What's most scary is that the FBI executed the search warrant on [Berger’s] home in January 2004, and he had already retained counsel at that time. Since that time Berger has been tapped by Sir John to blast the Bush Administration's preemption policy, and it's decision to go to war in Iraq. Either Kerry knew about this potentially serious breach of national security by his close advisor Berger (whom the Kerry campaign proudly said was one of the people he called so much it required them to put a long cord on his phone) or didn't even bother to ask if there was "anything he should know" before sending Berger out to do his bidding for him.
…
Next we come to former Georgia Senator Max Cleland, who in our non-expert opinion, seems to be suffering some sort of mental health problem as it relates to being voted out by his subjects, er, constituents in 2002. Cleland has been used as a prop all over the country by John Kerry as an example of the GOP's "mean spiritedness" and is often mentioned as a possible Secretary of Defense in a Kerry Administration.
Today, Cleland joined the elite company of the paranoid (and was welcomed by Al Gore, Michael Moore, and Robert Scheer) when he declared that President Bush, or "Macho Man", as Cleland called him, "lied" about WMD's to avenge his "daddy".
…
[Joe] Wilson, whose "Restoring Honesty" website is funded by the Kerry campaign, and is still considered an advisor to Kerry on foreign policy some one week after being debunked as a fraud.

 
'YOU'RE GOING TO FIND US WORKING'



An enormous thanks to Drudge for composing all these photos and this story:
"So here's what we're going to fight for, and we're going to fight for it every single day, not just through this election, but from the day we win until the day we raise our hands and every day thereafter. You're not going to have to look for us on vacation. You're going to find us working for America." --- Kerry Delivers Remarks At Campaign Event, Cleveland, OH, 7/7/04
 
Kerry has missed more than 80% of Senate votes this year, the AP reports.

 
Let's All Denounce This

This just in from Louisville:

A Republican lawmaker says it was inappropriate for a GOP office to display a bumper sticker declaring: "Kerry is bin Laden's Man. Bush is Mine."

This is just awful and should be denounced by all right-thinking Republicans. Kerry is not bin Laden's man.

He's Saddam's.

 
Why You Can't Trust the Democrats

This should be the lead story everywhere:

President Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, is the focus of a Justice Department investigation after removing highly classified terrorism documents and handwritten notes from a secure reading room during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings, The Associated Press has learned.

The story makes it somewhat murky, indicating at one point that Berger removed hand-written notes that might be legal. But at another point, it appears that he's completely nailed:

Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had made while reading classified anti-terror documents at the archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants. He also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio, they said.

Why do you think he was taking the handwritten notes? Yeah, I'd guess book too. But removing actual classified documents? I'd hope that they will look hard at those documents to see if they inculpated Berger or the Democrats in any way. Wow! Thanks for the gift, Sandy!

Going to the next level, I thought I'd search Kerry's website for "Sandy Berger".

:)

In a conference call with reporters before the speech, Kerry foreign policy advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger said those remarks were not meant to embrace Bush's doctrine of launching preemptive attacks against states the U.S. views as a threat.

Typically, before making a decision, Kerry solicits many opinions. His staff installed a long cord on his phone so he could pace while he listens. Some sources are obvious, such as Clinton's former national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger. Some are not.

Update: Listened to Hugh on delay this evening while surfing--busy day at the office and I couldn't pay attention to him. He suggests calling it the Berger Cling scandal.

 
Another Great Reason to Vote for Kerry

We all bow to Allah.

 
Kerry Campaign Speech Scorecard & Drinking Game--Updated!

Okay, seems like everybody expects a drinking game, so here's how it works:

Everybody gets their favorite drink and a scale at random or chosen. Convert points into drinks as follows: 10 points=large sip,, 20 points two large sips 30 points=finish drink, 50 points=drink whole new drink. Ignore negative points, they count for nothing in the drinking game.

I'm still looking for more suggestions. We want a mix of things that are bound to happen but will be somewhat funny nonetheless, and goofy things that you can imagine Nuancy Boy throwing into his speech. Remember, this is weirdo Kerry, he could quote Langston Hughes ("Let America Be America Again") or he could quote Jerry Garcia ("Friend of the Devil is a friend of mine"), and neither would be particularly surprising. But Langston Hughes is certainly more likely to get mentioned than Garcia. Feel free to suggest corrections to the drink suggestions as well--maybe we should have Chardonnay for the Liberal Scale, beer for the Pander Scale, Creme de menthe for the Weirdness Scale, and Whiskey for the hate scale?

Liberal Scale
"[insert cause here] should be a basic right for all Americans" (or substantially equivalent) +10 points each time
Says "Two Americas" +10 points
Says "The Other America" (all three words must be in the phrase, in that order) +30 points.
Says "Too Many People In Prison" +20 points (or equivalent; accept more specificity--like "too many of our young people")
Uses Vietnam as allegory or metaphor or era (not a place). +20 points once, +40 points second time. Include "the lessons of Vietnam", "mistakes of Vietnam", etc.
Mentions UN +10 points each.
Speaks Spanish +0 points.
Speaks French +50 points. (Include any French terms commonly used in English as well, such as faux pas).
Says "will work/fight for the people/you/America" +10 points
Says "will not work for the special interests" +10 points

Weirdness Scale
Deep Kiss with Teh-RAY-za +10 points
Kiss with Edwards (even an air kiss) +50 points
Plays Guitar +40 points (include after speech is over)
"The Other America" +30 points (in addition to points on the Liberal Scale)
"Vietnam" +10 points each (geographic location--"When I was in Vietnam"). Spot Kerry the first mention--no points for that one.
Mentions Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie +20 points.
Mentions "This Land is Your Land" +10 points
Sings (or plays) "This Land is Your Land" +50 points (include if recorded version plays after speech)
Mentions Eddie Yost +10 points
Speaks French +20 points
Mentions Edwards' looks +20 points
Talks about learning to curse from a farmer +20 points
Places his hand on John Edward's head/face/neck +10 points
Places his hand on John Edward's shoulders/back +0 points
Places his hand on John Edwards below the waist +20 points
Shakes Edwards (or anybody's) hand using the Revolutionary Drug Brothers' Handshake +50 points.

Pander Scale
Reaffirms support for affirmative action +20 points
Reaffirms support for Israel -10 points
Fails to reaffirm support for Israel +30 points
Mentions Higher Salaries/smaller class sizes for teachers +10 points
Mentions tort reform -30 points
Fails to mention tort reform +10 points
says "Band of Brothers" +10 points
says "increase veterans' benefits" (or equivalent) +10 points
Mentions unions +10 points
Speaks language other than English or Spanish +25 points
Mentions farms/farmers +10 points

Hatred Scale
Mentions "Bush" without "President" +10 points
Says "Bush lied" +30 points
Mentions Ashcroft +10 points
Mentions Patriot Act +10 points
Mentions Firing Ashcroft or Cheney +20 points (include equivalents--"This administration will have an Attorney General who is not named Ashcroft", for example).
Mentions Abu Ghraib +30 points
says "squandered worldwide goodwill after 9-11" (or substantial equivalent)+50 points

Thanks to Mike G and Crush Kerry for suggestions. I chose Mike's value of 10 points for "Band of Brothers" over Crush Kerry's 20 points because while it's a cool prediction, it's not terribly unlikely. And I 86'ed Mike's suggestion of -10 points for a "Teh-REE-za" versus +10 for Teh-RAY-za. Kerry will pronounce it correctly; she's still "The Stepmoney".

 
The Inside Dope on the Front Porch Photo Ops

Tom Raum of the AP takes you behind the scenes.

It might have looked as though Sen. Edwards just stopped by for a folksy chat in this leafy, upper middle-class neighborhood in his home state.

But the neighbors and friends were hand picked. A large camera stand stood on the lawn. Satellite trucks lined the street. Electrical cables snaked everywhere. Dozens of reporters and photographers were present. A man pushing a lawnmower was stopped by police from getting any closer.



BTW, how many of you have stools on your front porch? Me neither.

 
Kerry Haters Passes Two More Milestones

We've now had more than 25,000 visitors, and more than 1,500 posts!

 
Kerry's Lack of Intelligence

Our friends over at Crush Kerry have been busy this morning. They have a devastating critique of Kerry's statement on reforming the US intelligence services, which they compare to a movie where the main character cannot remember what he said in the past for more than about ten minutes. Sound familiar?

They also have a very good piece contrasting the chilly reaction Bill Clinton's book, My Life, has had compared to the enthusiatic raves about Michael Moore's movie, Fatundhate 9/11. They attribute this to the media moving leftward, and to the absolutely insane hatred for President Bush. I agree 100% with their diagnosis.

 
Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

Hugh Hewitt points us to this hilarious article on the efforts of the Democrats' state delegations to round up guest speakers.

Not all small states have been so lucky in their effort to lure high-profile speakers. Iowa is still waiting for its grace note. High-level Democrats there put out an invitation to Ashton Kutcher, Cedar Rapids native and star of "Dude, Where's My Car?" So far, there's no confirmation. "He's on our wish list," said John McCormally, a spokesman for the Iowa Democratic Party.

Heh, you may wonder what Kutcher has to do with John Kerry, but remember that he got his start with "That '70s Show", which Kerry is trying to reprise with his McGovern-inspired campaign.

Other small states enjoy a special niche because of important roles during the nomination process. New Hampshire, the state with the first primary, has a high-profile lineup that includes Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, Representative Rosa DeLauro, and Richardson.

Can you say, running in 2008?

 
Kerry The Jerk

Longtime KH reader and L-Dotter Gayle forwarded us the following email from a pilot who had the privilege and honor of shuttling Kerry around Southeast Asia during the early 1990s. I have left out the name of the pilot for now.

I would like to add my two cents about my John Kerry experience. During my career as an Air Force pilot, I spent two years flying a small twin engine prop plane around the Pacific from my base in Okinawa, Japan.

On one trip we had to fly Senator Kerry, his congressional aide, and a Navy Captain (Vietnam, A-4 fighter pilot) who was also in Kerry's party to various locations in Vietnam and Cambodia as part of the MIA/POW talks.

When I met him, he was wearing a shirt with a picture of his sailboat on it. I told him I had a 27' sailboat in Okinawa, he remarked "Oh I never sail on anything less than 135 feet."

Thanks, Senator, "I feel even better about the meager salary I get paid for flying you around the Pacific."

When we first flew him into Phnom Penh, he went to the back of the airplane and grabbed the pizza that was put aside for the crew and passed it around to his staff. He was never offered any pizza because they were supposed to have lunch with the Cambodian government when we landed. The pizza was the crew's only meal for that day and he ate it.

Then when we picked him up in Cambodia, he was an hour late getting to the airport. Because fuel was an issue, we could not start the engines and therefore the air conditioning until he arrived. Phnom Penh at that time was over 100 degrees with 95% humidity and we were basically sitting in a greenhouse behind the cockpit windows.

When he finally did arrive, we were wringing out our clothes from the perspiration. He walks out of the air conditioned car, into the airplane and asks us "Could you guys get the air-conditioning running, I'm a little warm?" The other pilot had to physically restrain me from going back there and picking a fight.

Then we took him into Noi Bai airfield in Hanoi. After we picked him up the next day (he stayed the night in Vietnam, we stayed in Bangkok) we taxied out, ran up the engines for take off and noticed that our prop rpm was vibrating all over the place. We taxied off to the side to look at it, but there was a good possibility that there was an engine malfunction and the engine may fail if we took off with it.
Well, Mr. Senator sticks his head up in the cockpit and says "This plane WILL take off, I have a press conference in Bangkok in three hours!" (Maybe this is an indication of how he will run the FAA). American service members lives be damned, we had our Senatorial orders. We ran the engines again, and did not have the problem, so we took off and made it back.

During the flight, he told everyone how he had taken aCessna (a small General aviation plane) up with a fighter pilot, and the fighter pilot remarked that Kerry was one of the best pilots he had ever seen. I don't know about other pilots out there, but it's hard to imagine a little, single-engine prop plane pilot being able to show the "right stuff."

After Kerry left the plane, the Navy Captain came up to us, apologized and said basically that "he knows Kerry is a jerk" and that we should be glad we don't have to deal with him every day.

Your choice folks. Elections in November.

You want a mega-millionaire ego-maniac it's-all-about-me
crew-eating-pizza-ite like Kerry or maybe a Green Party candidate like Ralph Nader?
Or, God forbid, maybe even re-elect George Bush, a nice God fearing Christian bent on protecting us from terrorist attacks on US soil?

Hmmm, let's see?

Continued freedom under President Bush or bombs in our backyard under Kerry (who will be sailing on his "minimum 135' yacht").

You know the thing about this email? It absolutely rings true. Everything fits, from the snobbish comment about 135 foot yachts, to the snagging of the crew's pizza, to the griping about the air conditioning on the plane to the bragging about his flying ability (remember the story about him flying an Israeli fighter jet?).

 
Teh-RAY-za Funding Protestors at Republican Convention

Judi McLeod has the details.

She may sport fashionable togs rather than a face mask, but the chaos expected during the upcoming GOP convention, is partly courtesy of the stylish Teresa Heinz-Kerry.

The Ketchup Queen financed the shadowy Tides Foundation to the tune of $4 million to date. The Tides Foundation funds the Ruckus Society, a notorious group of anarchists who rioted and looted Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organization riots.

Remember these are the people who hope to disrupt the Republican Convention next month by various dirty tricks:

Rhetoric aside, with tactics like dog decoys intended to deliberately miscue bomb sniffing dogs in their bag of dirty tricks, tossing marbles under the hooves of police horses and using homemade slingshots to pelt the noble beasts, radical protesters should be prepared to wear the unreasonable shoe that best fits them.

In other words, they hope to tie up the police so that in the event of a real terrorist attack, the first responders are busy elsewhere. When will the lamestream media start covering Teh-RAY-za's connections with these criminal organizations?

Hat tip: Danegerus, who also has a pretty funny photo here.

 
How to Deal with Teh-RAY-za

Chicago Ray has a suggestion for the Kerry campaign involving the handyman's secret weapon.

 
How to Win West Virginia

Former Klansman and senior Democratic Senator Robert Byrd has a suggestion for Kerry on how to win his home state of West Virginia.



John Kerry can win West Virginia's five electoral votes by going there and getting coal "dust on his hands and on his face," the state's senior senator said.

Sen. Robert Byrd, history's second longest-serving senator behind the late Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, also said Kerry should remember "sovereignty rests with the people of this country."

Kerry's already done his coal-mine photo op, but he came out with his hands and face relatively clean.

 
The Beat of a Diffent Drum

Linda Ronstadt burned her bridges in Vegas with a show that included a song dedicated to Michael Moore.

In a bizarre performance notable for its bridge-burning comments, Ronstadt inflamed more than her Aladdin audience on Saturday by taking potshots at Las Vegas and dedicating "Desperado" to "Fahrenheit 9/11" filmmaker Michael Moore.

When her show was over, the Aladdin had her checked out of her room and escorted off the premises.

Many walked out during the show, one concertgoer tossed a cocktail on her poster, others defaced her posters and the box office was "a mob scene" of people seeking refunds, according to an Aladdin spokeswoman.

Of course, maybe she wasn't being complimentary to the rotund one. The first lyric of the song is, Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?

 
FETCH ME SOME VOTES, BOY!


EIB photo

The Truth Behind The Lies
Bob Newman
Kerry, who wants blacks to believe he is and always has been deeply committed to bettering race relations, even though some say his Boston blue-blood family had little if anything to do with blacks beyond the domestic servant level
…
Finally, Kerry said in his NAACP speech that he was serving his country in Vietnam and implied he did so proudly. That’s odd, because up until his campaign for the presidency was launched, Kerry repeatedly said he was ashamed of his conduct in Vietnam and that he and his fellow sailors were war criminals. He was so upset with his actions that he later publicly supported the government of North Vietnam, which now has a section devoted to Kerry in a war museum in Ho Chi Minh City.

 
Hugh is Right

The title of his book is "If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat". I have pre-ordered a copy from his book signing in Tempe on August 3rd, and our buddy Aaron Matthew Arnwine has apparently already purchased the book. Our lousy neighborhood Borders told me they would be getting in "a copy" "next week".

Read this article, which discusses the Mexico City party attended by Kerry's sister we pointed out a few days ago.

Is there any doubt that the Democrats are planning on making this a close election?

Sharon Manitta, a spokeswoman for Democrats Abroad, who lives in Salisbury, England, said her group had chapters in fewer than 30 countries for the 2000 election but has them in more than 70 countries now. She said one chapter, Donkeys in the Desert, was opened in Iraq by employees of the recently disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority.

"It's just been incredible, just remarkable," said Manitta, who added that four months before the election, her group has already registered more than 8,000 voters in Britain.

We had some fun about this months ago (when nobody read this blog). There was a Europeans for Kerry event where rubber ducks representing Kerry and Bush raced down a stream. The Kerry fans all had hockey sticks to help push the Kerry ducks ahead. Amazingly, Kerry won.

However, it's time to acknowledge that stories like this one are serious. The Democrats are pulling out all the stops. We have to win, and we have to win big so that no amount of cheating will pull it out for Kerry.

 
STILL COMRADES AFTER ALL THESE YEARS



Perspective: Communist Party USA supports John Kerry
The southern Democrats must be thrilled by the news that the Communist Party of The United States of America, CPUSA, is publicly supporting the election of John Kerry.
…
Remarkably, the "Top Ten Reasons" of the Communist party are identical to those of the Democratic party; out-sourcing, homosexual rights, abortion and the like.
At first, I thought "this is only a coincidence." The Democratic party of the United States couldn't be in lock step with the Marxists! So, I wrote to a spokesman of the CPUSA in Georgia and here is part of his letter:
" The CPUSA supports the John Kerry campaign with donations and volunteer effort. We believe that defeating George Bush is the single most important issue this November ..."
…
A Vietnam vet group took a trip to Communist Hanoi to investigate a report that John Kerry was in the "Hanoi Hall of Fame." Yes, there is a museum in Hanoi with a section dedicated to foreign activists who help defeat the United States Military in Vietnam. Of course, you would expect Jane Fonda's picture to be there. But, alas, there is John Kerry's picture shaking the hand of a communist official.

 
PROZAC MOMENT 



Houston is not a Bush fan, so his opinions here are even more interesting and relevant. 

Who'll be next president? That's an easy one to call
John Kerry backed up by all the charm and energy John Edwards can muster can't beat George W. Bush.
Not that Bush couldn't be beaten by someone, and not that he couldn't or shouldn't be beaten on any number of scores. It's just that John Kerry can't beat him.
…
Hasn't anybody figured out that the right worked and hustled for what they've gained while the left has favored leisurely lamenting of how the right has stolen America?
…
How can he energize anybody else when he seems so tired himself?

 
BACK TO THE SHAR PEI LOOK



KERRY BACK TO WRINKLES
After opting for a fresh-face-look for most of the campaign year, Dem presidential hopeful John Kerry has boldly gone back to wrinkles!
Snaps taken of the candidate last week [before his Nantucket vacation] show Kerry's face completely losing its smooth appearance.

WARNING! Some may consider pictures gruesome. FLASHBACK: NEW AND IMPROVED KERRY TAKES NEW HAMPSHIRE...

 
Kerry and Splash

Longtime KH reader Mike G. reminded us of a connection between Kerry and Ted Kennedy's disgustingly named dog, Splash. Get this:

But after the 1996 race and despite occasional clashes among their staffs, the two men built a personal relationship. One day, when the two lawmakers were returning from a funeral in the same car together, they stopped to let Kennedy's dog Splash out.

"Teddy, as you know, has an incredibly bad back. Huge pain," and didn't have the tennis racket he generally uses to propel a ball for the dog to chase, Kerry recalls. So as the car pulled over, Kennedy handed the ball to Kerry, with instructions on how to toss it. As he stood in a field beside a highway, the junior senator from Massachusetts laughed to himself at how far he'd come: "OK, so now I'm reduced to throwing a tennis ball for Ted Kennedy's dog. That's my job."

Almost sounds like something out of the Godfather--humiliate a guy who's already been a Senator for 12 years by making him throw the ball for Teddy's dog?

 
More Enthusiasm from the Fan Base

Howard Kurtz has this item at the bottom of a long column:

I thought cartoonists were supposed to skewer both sides, but Hotline has a quote from "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau (some of whose Rolling Stone interview can be read here) that makes clear he's decided otherwise:

"Asked why he hasn't 'taken on' Kerry, Trudeau: 'Long ago, I did some strips about Kerry as he was emerging as an anti-war leader, tweaking him for the narcissism that seemed part of the package. . . . I'll do Kerry eventually, but I'm not going to parrot the Bush ads and unfairly portray him as a panderer. Like most Americans, I've been forced to unambiguously take sides, and I'm not particularly happy about it.'"

Translation: Trudeau is definitely anybody but Bush but he hates Kerry just the same. That's the typical Kerry voter at this point. They're annoyed that Iowa and New Hampshire effectively chose this turkey for them, and I expect there to be lots of talk after the election about how we need to fix that--maybe have primaries in San Francisco and Greenwich Village to start the campaign.

 
All This And Civil War II

The Leather Penguin goes off on a very sensible rant.

It occured to me this afternoon that the Left (and indeed a fair amount of liberals) want to be free to attack Bush as Hitler, indeed sometimes worse than Hitler, and yet they don't want to be called to account for what they say. Look at Whoopie, for a great example.

It seems to me quite obvious that they really don't mean what they say, and it's precisely because they don't feel that they can't understand why people get angry with them. Remember the Pat Leahy/Dick Cheney brouhaha a couple weeks ago? Leahy wanted to be free to imply that Dick Cheney was still making money from Halliburton, and that was the reason for some no-bid contracts awarded to his old company.

But Leahy didn't really mean it, as witness his attempt to be all palsy-walsy with Cheney only a few days later. Unfortunately for Leahy, Cheney seemed to have this quaint little notion that it's not okay to accuse somebody of corruption just for fun.

Another good example. Over at Roger L. Simon's blog there was a testy exchange:

"everyone knows the Senate Intelligence Committee Report was bi-partisan"

Oh, I see.

Does this mean that you are now willing to acknowledge that the 9/11 commission is also (actually, even more so) bipartisan? Or would that be, only to the extent that they say things you agree with?

re. McGeough "If this proves to be a rumor..."

As an exercise in free thinking fairness, how 'bout letting us know what you thoughts would be if it turns out to be true?

Posted by: Tano at July 18, 2004 09:54 AM

Very simple, Tano. If it turns out to be true, I will say we made a huge mistake. It will even hurt my support for the war.

Now how about you? How about something simple? If it turns out to be another lie, will you admit who you are or will you remain an anonymous coward? That shouldn't hard, should it, for a friend of the truth like you?

Posted by: Roger at July 18, 2004 10:09 AM

geez Roger,
Isnt it usually the case that the guy who runs the blog is the one trying to keep the standards up?

anonymous coward? Kinda harsh isnt it? As I count it, this thread has 7 commenters using pseudonyms or just first names, and 3 using what we might presume to be their full names. And that is probably a rough approximation of what usually happens on this site. Do you consider 70% of your community to be cowards, or do you reserve that only for those who think independently of the consensus?

Posted by: Tano at July 18, 2004 10:29 AM

No, Tano, you come on here impugning my integrity and I don't know who you are. That's not harsh at all from where I sit. Why would I respect that?

Posted by: Roger at July 18, 2004 10:32 AM

Another case where somebody wants to be free to be outrageous and does not want to be called to account for it.

 
My Guess Is They're Voting For Kerry

This is pretty weird, but it certainly ties in with Kerry's fondness for extreme water sports.

 
Ode to Mary Jo

Kitty's got a tribute to the young woman who died 35 years ago tonight because of Ted Kennedy.

 
Kerry Hard at Work on His Speech



That's supposed to be what he was doing, according to this article by David Halbfinger.

He had just spent two days at home in Boston with no public events, but Mr. Kerry said he had hardly been taking it easy.

"Got to finish writing - working my butt off," he said aboard his campaign plane, in the fragmented patois Mr. Kerry slips into these days when talking about himself to reporters.

"You guys think days off are - they're not days off," he said. "I'm working. I had one hour off yesterday." He knocked off at 10:30 p.m., in time to catch on television a bit of "the Tour," as in the Tour de France.

But Adam Nagourney, also of the Times debunks the story of Kerry writing his own speech out longhand.

Mr. Kerry went off the campaign trail for four days to review a half-dozen proposed acceptance speeches he solicited from various quarters.

 
Kerry Wins Award

Unfortunately for him, it's the Weasel of the Week Award.

(PRWEB) July 18, 2004 -- The IT Professionals Association of America, Inc (ITPAA), has announced the winner of its July 16, 2004 Weekly Weasel of the Week Award, handing it to presumed Democratic nominee for President, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA).

 
A Look at Edwards' Buddies

The Opinion Journal looks at the plaintiff's bar. Here's just one of his key supporters:

Paul Minor. A key early backer and the 10th-ranked donor to Mr. Edwards's campaign, this former president of the Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association has been distracted lately by his indictment over charges of extortion, fraud and bribery in an influence-peddling scandal at the Mississippi Supreme Court. Trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 16 in Jackson. Mr. Minor denies all wrongdoing.

Famously unapologetic, the Edwards campaign merely shrugged this spring when Sen. Kerry's press secretary assailed the North Carolinian's White House bid as "wholly funded by trial lawyers." More remarkable yet was how Edwards's spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri had earlier responded to similar sniping: "We have no problem if 100% of our money came from trial lawyers." On the relatively few issues on which Mr. Edwards has taken a high profile in the Senate, agenda items for the trial bar (e.g., blocking limits on future postterrorism lawsuits) have comprised a high share. There's every reason to believe that the men behind Mr. Edwards have a clear expectation of entering Washington next January as victors, and closer to the center of power than they've up to now dared to dream.