Decision ‘08 » 2005

Archive for April, 2005

Thursday, April 28th, 2005

Kondracke On Religion: Highly Recommended

Mort Kondracke has written the best piece of commentary on the religious divide that I have read in quite some time. Kondracke chides the Democrats for their ‘theocracy’ hate-mongering, but also takes the Republicans to task for being overly zealous (which we sometimes are). Best of all, read the commentary by British writer Adrian Wooldridge […]

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Thursday, April 28th, 2005

Poll of Insiders: Allen vs. Clinton in ‘08

Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire reports on a National Journal poll of ‘insiders’ to be released tomorrow on 2008 candidates. The result: Senator George Allen of Virginia vs. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. That doesn’t smell right to me; two senators? I’m a firm believer in the Southern governor strategy, myself (of […]

3 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Mark

Thursday, April 28th, 2005

Congressional Loyalty Scorecard: Thanks for the Tips, Chris!

I plan to make good use of the Chris Bowers Congressional Loyalty Scorecard, though I don’t share his conclusions. Chris ranks all the current House members on how they voted on eight pieces of legislation (in Part 1, linked; there are other parts, as well) that he obviously opposes (I oppose a couple of them […]

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Thursday, April 28th, 2005

Kos On Salazar: Now It Begins to Make Sense

What would possess the formerly ‘moderate’ Ken Salazar to engage in such Kossack-sounding rhetoric as calling James Dobson’s Focus on the Family ‘the Antichrist of the world’? Really, it’s not hard to understand at all, and is an instance of a well-known phenomenon that afflicts both right and left. The Daily Kos makes […]

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Thursday, April 28th, 2005

Daily Kos Is Down! Is Rove To Blame?

A cryptic message awaits visitors to the Kossack lair right now, referring to database maintenance…but think about it. If Rove is clever enough to steal two presidential elections, doesn’t it stand to reason he could put a phony message on the Kos’s servers? (Oh, and btw, if you look closely at the Apollo […]

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Thursday, April 28th, 2005

Today’s Must-Read: Selling Vulgarity

Martha Bayles has an excellent piece in today’s WSJ on the increasingly vulgar, violent, and misogynistic culture of today’s rap. I remember when a group like Public Enemy could rule the hip-hop charts with clever, forward-looking rap that was challenging both musically and mentally. Those days seem to be long gone. You […]

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Thursday, April 28th, 2005

The Party of Tolerance

Democratic Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado campaigned on a promise to support an up-or-down vote on Bush’s judicial nominees. He broke his promise. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family called him on it, and ran ads criticizing Salazar and other Democrats for their delaying tactics. In return, Salazar said, during a television interview, “From my […]

3 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Mark

Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

Oliver Kamm on America’s ‘Contribution’ to 9/11

Oliver Kamm manages to say everything I wanted to say about actress Maggie ‘America’s responsible in some way’ Gyllenhall. I’m going to quote at length, because it’s so on target, but you should really read the whole thing:
What can you say of a young lady for whom history has never happened, and who mistakes […]

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Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

Drum on Liberalism

I spend a lot of time crawling through the sewer that is the Daily Kos, and let me just say Kevin Drum is always a nice change of pace. Drum is an unabashed liberal, but one who argues his side forcefully, cogently, and without excessive venom. Tonight, Kevin has an interesting post up […]

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Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

McCain, Giuliani Both Beat Hillary In Hypothetical ‘08 Matchups

All kinds of interesting numbers in this poll by Rasmussen Reports, including McCain and Rudy G.’s relatively low negatives next to Hillary’s. Not surprising at all is that McCain does better with Dems and Rudy G. with the elephants. McCain’s real problem, of couse, is that he can’t win the primaries: only 51% of self-described […]

2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Mark

Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

Oil-For-Update: Volcker Says Report Didn’t Exonerate Annan

The money quote:
“I thought we criticized [Mr. Annan] rather severely,” Mr. Volcker said of his panel’s interim report, released March 29. “I would not call that an exoneration.” Asked point-blank whether Mr. Annan had been cleared of wrongdoing in the $10 billion scandal, Mr. Volcker replied, […]

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Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

Warning: Sullivan Freak-Out Advisory At Red!

Be on the alert for any emotionally overwrought former editors of TNR with British accents…proceed with caution…more as events warrant…

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Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

Dishonesty At The New York Times? Say It Ain’t So…

The Instapundit has the scoop on a particularly egregious case of revisionist history. I’ve said in many prior posts that I believe we should have relied more on the moral case for removing Saddam and less on the threat of WMDs. However, to pretend that the moral case was not being made (and, ‘neocon’ conspiracy […]

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Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

Quick Shots: Not A Fan of 41

Our good friend J.A. Gillmartin disagrees with my assessment of George Bush 41 - to say the least…
If you dislike Katie Couric as much as I do, you’ll enjoy this and this…
If you haven’t already, drop by Patrick Ruffini’s place and participate in a most interesting poll…

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Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

Dole On The Nuclear Option: Justified Outrage

Bob Dole joins the ranks of those who have come to believe that Republicans would be well-entitled to employ the ‘nuclear option’ if the Dems don’t quit playing obstructionist games. His op-ed in the NY Times today is right on target, and persuasive. I highly recommend it…

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Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

More On Air America: Joking About Assassination

Air America is apparently under investigation for a ‘comedy’ skit that aired Monday night that seemed to allude to assassinating President Bush as a response to Social Security reform attempts. Ohh, that’s funny…you get it, don’t you? On the numbers front, Byron York has some more thoughts at National Review Online.

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Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

A Very Important Wictory Wednesday

Let’s face it, the Democrats have been very successful in framing the debate since their defeat in November. It’s easy to be active when you’re an activist, but those of us in the silent majority must do something at times, too. Here’s a very easy way to contact your senators and let them […]

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Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

Morning Must-Read: The Best Man for the UN

Thomas Friedman has a pick that…well, let me put it this way: I’d dump Bolton in a heartbeat if there were a real prospect of it happening…

4 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Mark

Tuesday, April 26th, 2005

That MoDo Mojo: One Long Character Assassination

If you ever want to show someone the textbook definition of character assassination, look no further than the latest from MoDo. It’s a hallucinogenic mixture of what is, what was, what could be, and what could never be, with no attempt to seperate fact from fiction from speculation. Needless to say, it’s a disgusting […]

2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Mark

Tuesday, April 26th, 2005

Miscellanea: Are Republicans Getting Fed Up?

The Bernoulli Effect makes the argument, and I would tend to agree, that Republicans in Congress are making a hash of things right now. We need and deserve better leadership in Congress…there, I said it…
Speaking of poor leadership, whose brilliant idea was it to send Tom Delay out with George W. to push Social […]