Archive for October, 2007

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

File Under “Damning With Faint Praise”

How popular a candidate is Stephen Colbert? So popular he beats…Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich.
*Cough*…[sound of crickets chirping]…
Ummm, okay…but my beagle beats Paul and Kucinich! By double digits, even…I mean, come on, I like Rasmussen and all, but is this news?
Wow…

72 Comments » - Posted in Celebrities / Pop Culture / Sports, 2008 Polls, Republican Candidates, Democratic Candidates by Mark

---

Monday, October 29th, 2007

All Politics Is Local

I focus a lot on national polls and not that much on the ground in the early states.  Here’s a couple of stories to rectify that - first, in Iowa, Huckabee is surging and Edwards is struggling:
The University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll, released at 8 a.m. Monday morning, shows Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in […]

1 Comment » - Posted in Mike Huckabee, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, Republican Candidates, 2008 Polls, 2008 News, Democratic Candidates by Mark

---

Sunday, October 28th, 2007

More Questions Than Answers

Last week, after months of hard yet oddly compelling slogging, I finished the massive and remarkable Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace.  I had made many prior attempts at completion, but this time I saw it through to the end.  Like many readers before me, I felt a perhaps unavoidable letdown upon completion, because (a) […]

2 Comments » - Posted in Navel-Gazing by Mark

---

Thursday, October 25th, 2007

What’s The Rush?

Looks like SOMEBODY’s got a guilty conscience:
New commercial satellite photos show that a Syrian site believed to have been attacked by Israel last month no longer bears any obvious traces of what some analysts said appeared to have been a partly built nuclear reactor.
Two photos, taken Wednesday from space by rival companies, show the site […]

8 Comments » - Posted in Israel, North Korea, Radical Islam / GWOT by Mark

---

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

Don’t Feel Much Like Blogging Today…

…as I just found out that someone in California has hit my bank account for many hundreds of dollars in at least ten transactions through a credit card linked to the account (hope you get arrested tonight, now that it’s been reported stolen, jackass!).  I know for a fact my credit card was used at a […]

18 Comments » - Posted in Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Barack Obama, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Republican Candidates, 2008 Polls, 2008 News, Hillary Clinton, Democratic Candidates by Mark

---

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

A Real Hero

I don’t have much patience for ‘chickenhawk’ arguments - it is absurd on the face of it to say that only those who serve in the military can have an opinion on military matters.  I don’t need to shoot heroin to know it’s probably not a good idea.  One small kernel of truth in the […]

5 Comments » - Posted in Radical Islam / GWOT, In Praise Of by Mark

---

Sunday, October 21st, 2007

Victory Within Reach?

Hmmm…even I haven’t been THIS optimistic about the war:

Should we declare victory over al Qaeda in the battle of Iraq?
The very question would have seemed proof of dementia only a few months ago, yet now some highly respected military officers, including the commander of Special Forces in Iraq, Gen. Stanley McCrystal, reportedly feel it is […]

3 Comments » - Posted in Iran, Radical Islam / GWOT, Iraq by Mark

---

Friday, October 19th, 2007

My Friends On The Left Will Surely Disagree…

…but the last couple of months have been pretty good for George W. Bush: a seeming turnaround both on the ground and in public opinion on Iraq, a line in the sand on expanded entitlements (albeit with some PR scars from ‘not caring about children’ rhetoric), and relative ease in swiping away ill-considered Democratic initiatives […]

21 Comments » - Posted in Domestic Affairs, POTUS, Elephants, Donkeys, Iraq by Mark

---

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

One Less Face In The Crowd

Brownback’s out:
Republican Sam Brownback will drop out of the 2008 presidential campaign on Friday, people close to the Kansas senator said Thursday.
Brownback, a long-shot conservative contender, had trouble raising money to compete in the race. He is expected announce his withdrawal in Topeka, Kan. 
He raised a little more than $800,000 in the third quarter of […]

1 Comment » - Posted in Sam Brownback, 2008 News, Republican Candidates by Mark

---

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

If Elections Were Decided By National Polls, This One Would Be Over

Hillary Clinton has opened up a lead over her Democratic rivals that can only be described as formidable, as a glance at the RealClearPolitics polling summary page shows.  Her average margin is over 26%(!)…BUT (there’s always a but) despite my headline, polls aren’t the deciding factor in elections, specific votes in specific locations are.  Nevertheless, […]

3 Comments » - Posted in Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Republican Candidates, 2008 Polls, Democratic Candidates by Mark

---

Monday, October 15th, 2007

Matt Bai, Liberal New York Times Columnist, Appalled By Ignorance, Venom of Nutroots® Kingpin

Here’s one I couldn’t resist, from The Economist, reviewing Bai’s new book:
Mr Bai sets out to uncover the forces shaping the Democratic Party behind the scenes, both within and outside the party hierarchy. He spends time with howling bloggers, billionaire donors and the politicians who try to accommodate their impossible demands. He is instinctively sympathetic […]

45 Comments » - Posted in Donkeys, Progressive Nonsense / Nutroots®, NY Times/Media Watch by Mark

---

Sunday, October 14th, 2007

Washington Post Editorial Board: Critics of Petraeus Were Wrong

I’ve had an undisguised admiration for the Washington Post editorial board for quite some time now.  There is no doubt that the Post leans left, as does the NY Times, but unlike the Times, the Post is not so blinded by partisanship that it cannot see any good news that doesn’t fit its political agenda.  […]

2 Comments » - Posted in POTUS, Radical Islam / GWOT, Iraq, Progressive Nonsense / Nutroots®, NY Times/Media Watch by Mark

---

Saturday, October 13th, 2007

The Syrian Target Was A Nuclear Reactor

I think we can finally lay this one to rest.  The NY Times becomes the latest media outlet to add to what by now appears to be all but official: Syria was seeking a nuclear program, backed by North Korea.
Israel’s air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American […]

2 Comments » - Posted in Israel, Iran, North Korea, Radical Islam / GWOT by Mark

---

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

An Inconvenient List

Has there been a movie of the last ten or twenty years (or a man) more inviting of satire than Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”?  I’m hard-pressed to think of one…and that’s a shame, because as I’ve stated before, I’m the (rare? almost unique?) Republican who thinks global warming is real and that it has to […]

31 Comments » - Posted in Al Gore by Mark

---

Monday, October 8th, 2007

Let’s Get Real: Somes “Options” In Iraq Are Long Off The Table

A word to Joe Biden and others who have ‘plans’ for Iraq that involve major tinkering with their form of government: that time has passed.  Joe Biden seems to think (along with, ahem, certain readers of this blog) that the Iraqi government is a puppet regime that is at the bidding of America.  Just look […]

11 Comments » - Posted in Joe Biden, Iraq by Mark

---

Sunday, October 7th, 2007

A Welcome Sign…If You Read Between The Lines

Why is further confirmation from ABC News that the Israeli air strike on Syria was against a nuclear facility good news?  First, the excerpt:
The September Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear site in Syria had been in the works for months, ABC News has learned, and was delayed only at the strong urging of the […]

21 Comments » - Posted in Israel, Iran, North Korea, Radical Islam / GWOT by Mark

---

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Rudy Tops Republicans In Latest Quarterly Money Chase

Though his take was less than half of Hillary’s prodigious haul, Rudy Giuliani managed to top his Republican rivals for the 2nd quarter in a row, solidifying his frontrunner status, and perhaps more importantly, retaining a significant stash of ‘on-hand’ cash…meaning, to this observer, that even some of those early primary states that favor Romney […]

3 Comments » - Posted in Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, 2008 News, Republican Candidates by Mark

---

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

The “Attempt To Avoid Being A Total Hypocrite” Post

I made no secret of my outrage over MoveOn’s “Betray Us” ad, and my contempt for Hillary’s cowardly response when questioned directly about it (she is running for Commander-In-Chief, after all). I’ve seen the apologetics MoveOn’s defenders have brought forth and have been unmoved - when you used loaded language, such as combining […]

46 Comments » - Posted in Progressive Nonsense / Nutroots®, Navel-Gazing, NY Times/Media Watch, Hillary Clinton, Republican Candidates, 2008 News, Democratic Candidates by Mark

---

Monday, October 1st, 2007

Give Obama This Much…

…the man can raise funds:
Barack Obama raised more than $19 million this summer for the presidential primaries, holding his lead for now in the race for campaign cash though still trailing Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton in national polls.
Fred Thompson, the GOP newcomer, has collected more than $11.5 million since June when he began exploring […]

2 Comments » - Posted in Barack Obama, Fred Thompson, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Republican Candidates, 2008 News, Democratic Candidates by Mark

---

---

---