October 19 - November 23, 2004

October 19, 2004 (11:45pm)

Because He Could notes:

• youngest governor in state’s history


• “Hope” as metaphor

Chapter 2, Running on Empathy: “Clinton’s uncanny capacity for empathy is the key to understanding him — both his strengths and his weaknesses” (16). “As always with Clinton, if you want the truth you have to parse the language, to read b/w the lines” (17). “Bill Clinton...had no real experience with which to understand the struggles of average hard-working Americans. To fill this void...Clinton used his amazing ability to empathize emotionally, and to incorporate data intellectually, to understand the world around him” (23).

Clinton Presidency Questions: (1) were 1996 welfare reforms primarily the brainchild of Clinton or the Gingrich Congress? (2) results of NAFTA, Clinton’s trade policies. (3) Was Clinton responsible for reductions in crime? (4) Was Clinton responsible for the reductions in poverty? (5) How successful were Clinton’s diplomatic undertakings? (6) To what extent did Clinton contribute to the economic prosperity of the ‘90s? What argument is made by his sycophants? (7) How large was Clinton’s failure to confront global terrorism? How much blame should he accept? (8) Was the “Gorelick wall,” created during the Clinton administration, new (as Republicans claim)? If not (as Democrats claim), why was it necessary to pass legislation that restated the current institutional status quo?

October 20, 2004 (6:19pm): Time Magazine, October 25, 2004.
Cover Story: “Is God in Our Genes?” Is religion part of nature’s evolutionary scheme? Scientists are asking whether spirituality might be embedded in our DNA. By Jeffrey Kluger.

Recently, Dick Morris expressed admiration for the Bush’s political savvy. He recalls how they initially focused on painting John Kerry as a “flip-flopper.” However, during and after the debates, their strategy shifted. Now depicting the Senator as a “MA liberal” on the “far left bank” of American politics, the Bush people have allowed Kerry to boast of all the new changes he would bring to office. At least temporarily, they have remained silent to Kerry-Edwards’ promises that people like Christopher Reeve will get up and walk when the Democrats are elected b/c of fewer restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research; or that Kerry will provide all Americans with universal health-care. Now, if Kerry tries to go back on some of his promises, the Bush campaign can say “See, we told you. He’s a flip-flopper.” According to Morris, this strategy of emphasizing the flip-flopping and then the liberal leanings of the Democratic candidate effectively boxes Kerry in.

(Let Freedom Ring, 182) according to AMA, w/ all that modern medicine has to offer, partial birth abortion is never needed to save the life or health of the mother. (185-6) Norma McCorvey = Jane Roe in Roe vs. Wade (1973). (219) Tax Freedom Day (the day when Americans have earned enough money to pay off their annual taxes) in 2000 May 1; during Clinton-Gore years, federal tax burden grew by 45%. (241) Clinton twice vetoed Republican welfare reform bills before eventually passing. (244) rate of return on Social Security is 2%.

Beary, Kevin. “African Roots: Slavery was Widespread on the African Continent Long Before Europeans Appeared—and indeed, is still practiced there.” National Review. March 10, 1997.

October 29, 2004 (11:04am)
Supreme Court Decisions
Lee v. Weisman (1992)
Marsh v. Chambers (1983)
Justice John Paul Stevens Profile

Bush on Saddam’s Capture
Paul Bremer on Saddam’s Capture
1960 and 1988 Presidential Debates
2000 VP and 1992, 2000 Presidential Debates

President Nixon and Chuck Colson on John Kerry


November 2004

November 1, 2004 (12:52pm)
The Malkin Media Diversity Test


November 3, 2004 (9:15pm)
Flynn Files
Daniel Flynn - “American Academia is an Intellectual Ghetto” 9/21/04
Because campuses forgo intellectual diversity in favor of superficial diversity, real diversity suffers and consequentially truth suffers too. Despite diversity becoming something of a mantra on most campuses, colleges and universities embrace intellectual conformity more than any major American institution.

*Federal Election Commission reports for the 2004 presidential campaigns demonstrate the overwhelming bias of faculty and administrators. A full 100 percent of contributions from William and Mary, and 97 percent from Harvard, went to the Kerry campaign. Of the top 20 institutions contributing or employing contributors to the Kerry campaign, five are universities — Berkeley, Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, and MIT. George W. Bush's top 20 contributors, unsurprisingly, lists not a singe academic institution.
*The political affiliations of college faculty reveal a profession devoid of intellectual diversity. Faculty registered as Democrats outnumber Republicans by ratios of 14 to 1 at Ithaca College, 12 to 1 at UCLA, 25 to 1 at Dartmouth College, and 31 to 1 at the University of Colorado. A Luntz poll following the 2000 election reported 84% of Ivy League professors voting for Gore, and just 9% voting for Bush. There’s reason to believe the results will be even more lopsided this time around.

Noam Chomsky is Michael Moore with his brain on steroids. In the late ’70s, he deemed stories of Pol Pot’s killing fields capitalist propaganda. Later, he fantasized a conspiracy between ex-Nazis and U.S. government officials to shape the post-World War II world. Prior to the war on terrorism, Chomsky maintained that the U.S. was “in the midst of apparently trying to murder 3 or 4 million people” in Afghanistan, predicting mass starvation and death. Despite Chomsky’s disastrous track record as historian and prophet, at least one study found him to be cited in scholarly journals in the social sciences and the humanities more than any living person.

*The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, published by Harvard University Press, is the work of eleven scholars that ignited a continental firestorm when it first hit bookstores in France in 1997. The authors estimate the century's death toll at the hands of Communist governments (excluding wars) at 100 million people. Country by country, deaths by the state in China stand at 65 million, in the USSR 20 million, Vietnam 1 million, North Korea 2 million, Cambodia 2 million, Eastern Europe 1 million, Latin America 150,000, Africa 1.7 million, and Afghanistan 1.5 million. Additionally, the international Communist movement murdered about 10,000 people throughout the world. Despite the irrefutability of its main thesis, there is plenty within its pages to argue about. The figure of 20 million deaths in the Soviet Union is far smaller than past credible estimates; 65 million deaths-by-government for China is slightly higher than the previous high estimate. The omission of Ghana, for instance, is all the more glaring due to the book's painstaking thoroughness. Forced abortion in China is scarcely mentioned. The infamous "Bloodbath" in North Vietnam is omitted and thus seemingly denied.
*"One can hardly exaggerate the moral disaster of [religion]. We have to thank the Soviet Union for the courage to stop it."
—W.E.B. Du Bois

The Hypocrisy of Noam Chomsky


November 11, 2004 (5:00pm) Time Magazine 11/15/04

2004 National Exit Polls
Most Important Issue:
Iraq 15%
Economy 20%
Moral Values 22%

Bush
White Males 61%
Married Women 54%
Veterans 57%
weekly Churchgoers 58%
Moral Values Most 79%
Terrorism Most 86%
Blacks 11%
Hispanics 42%
Not Married 40%
First-Time Voters 45%
Disapprove of Iraq 11%
Economy/Jobs Most 18%

Kerry
38%
45%
42%
41%
18%
14%
89%
55%
59%
54%
87%
80%
All 11 states voting on gay marriage rejected it, supporting constitutional bans; Kerry made 36 visits to Ohio: the most by any candidate to one state; 630,000: total # of TV campaign commercials aired this election season; $1.45 billion: total spent at all levels on campaign advertising this year; $140 million: amount raised by liberal 527 groups during the campaign; $75 million: amount raised by conservative 527 groups; 2,256: # of lawyers Democrats sent to Ohio to monitor voting. All 5 Presidents who’ve run for re-election during a war have won; a big turnout wasn’t good for Democrats this time; no Republican has ever won w/out carrying Ohio; If consumer-confidence index at election time is above 99, the incumbent’s party remains in office: since 1968, only Al Gore had been the exception. But the low October figure of 92.8 didn’t hamper Bush;

“In Victory’s Glow,” by Nancy Gibbs. 15 million more voters; 193,00 polling places; no non-southern Democrat has won presidency in 44 years; 55% said country was moving in wrong direction; 49% job approval; 97% approval among Republicans surpassed Reagan; “Critics who saw his faith in contagious democracy as naive may have missed the point that the American people have always been attracted to the idea;” “through his radical assertion of presidential power, showed what a difference it makes who is the in the White House;” (reminiscent of Andrew Jackson)

*Joe Klein’s article, “The Values Gap”

November 20, 2004 (1:09am)
Garrison Keillor - NPR radio host, after Kerry lost election, joked about Fundamentalist Christians not being allowed to vote.

November 23, 2004 (2:56pm)
Yesterday (I think), Rush Limbaugh predicted that Hillary would NOT be the Democratic nominee in 2008. This was interesting b/c most of the other commentators, including Hannity, are absolutely convinced that it will be the New York Senator.

Several weeks ago, I watched either Booknotes or BookTV on the C-SPAN 2 website, and the interview was with a Republican Congressman from Oklahoma who gained election with the 1994 “Contract with America” class (Tom Coburn, now a senator). The man had written a book criticizing how Washington turns outsiders into insiders, and he described that b/c of constant reelection concerns, House members tend not to fulfill campaign promises. He commented on Newt Gingrich (whom he characterized as brilliant in intellect — a truly great thinker — but flawed in leadership as House Speaker), Dick Armey, and Trent Lott (the OK Congressman expressed his frustration with the MS Senator over the inability to get needed legislation passed, and Lott basically said, “after the election, we can start getting things done again”), among other prominent political leaders at the time. The ex-Congressman’s primary argument was for implementing term limits which, in his opinion, would eliminate much of the partisanship that prevents the Congress from acting in the best interests of “the people.” I find opinions like this (for example, the call for one 6-year term instead of two 4-year terms for the U.S. President), fascinating. While such monumental and consequential changes in term limit laws (or lack thereof) strike me as highly unlikely, I think Coburn makes a very good point. Election woes plague all of our elected representatives and inevitably lead to government officials not looking out for the public. I believe this to be true for Democrats and Republicans alike. Perhaps one day in the not so distant future, operations on Capital Hill will become more transparent and open to the public.

Following the overwhelming Republican victory in the 2004 elections, a significant number of prominent voices within the Democratic leadership (even James Carville) have expressed an understanding that their party has become out of touch with mainstream America, especially on “moral issues.” I believe this characterization is painfully accurate. Yet, there remains a very vocal and powerful segment of the Democratic party (especially in the elite media) that seems unable or unwilling to grasp this fundamental truth, and instead, appears to be turning back to the same, old tactics of moral relativism and academic condescension — tactics which, I feel, play a large role in terms of fueling the ire of many “red state” voters towards liberal, New England elites. I’m not sure if this should make me feel happy, furious, or just incredulous. My partisan side says, “let them do it; it will help Republicans win more elections in the future.” At the same time, the hypocrisy of Democrats who claim to be “tolerant,” “open-minded,” and members of the party most closely aligned with regular, middle- and lower-class Americans, makes me, at times, quite contemptuous. Finally, Northern elites whom I perceive as being blinded by ideology and as having abandoned rationality fall into the category of “intellectual morons” (to quote Daniel Flynn). I view such people as utterly incorrigible, and as such, I try not to let their lunacy to affect me.
However, I did have a relatively new thought today. Liberals define themselves as being committed to the principle of diversity (ethnic, opinion, religion, etc..) and as defending tolerance for opposing viewpoints. It’s worth noting that I have no doubt that these self-images are (in most cases) both genuine and well-intentioned. Nevertheless, I’ve observed a prejudice on the part of some (but not all) well-respected, (in my respects) good-hearted liberals which, in my opinion, undercuts the core values liberals stand for. Some of the clearest examples of this prejudice can be found in articles of syndicated columnists like Maureen Dowd, Michael Kinsley, Julianne Malveaux, Frank Rich, and Anne Quindlen, in the rhetoric of Washington officials like John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and John Edwards, and in the commentary of political activists like Michael Moore, Al Franken, and Bill Maher. Yet, my belief, based on personal experience with my liberal peers and an overall perception of American politics, is that many liberal Democrats (not just media elites) are guilty of holding this prejudice. What kind of prejudice am I talking about? Basically, it’s a mentality of moral superiority and condescension towards conservative social values (pro- life, traditional marriage, religion, etc...) which leads to the ostracization of Southerners, Mid-Westerners, and those portions of the country where conservative thought enjoys majority acceptance. I’m still playing around with what term I should designate to describe this type of prejudice... (Southist, conservativist, politicist, liberal/progressive/democratic supremacist, hypocrite of tolerance, tolerance hypocrite, *liberal charlatan - when we think about what “liberalism” is supposed to mean, it is clear that many are actually charlatans of U.S. notions of liberalism/progressivism, the bigotry of “liberal open-mindedness,” ideological bigotry/prejudice/discrimination). The new thought I had wasn’t that some liberals are deeply hypocritical. It was that this form of prejudice deserves a formal label - that it is real and should be recognized just as any other type of bigotry (racism, sexism, homophobia) gains definition.

Major Points of Disagreement: Conservatism v. Liberalism,
Instances of Liberal Bigotry
(1) Abortion — anti-choice v. pro-life; utilization of a woman’s “constitutional right” and manipulation of Roe v. Wade decision - right to privacy v. a woman’s reproductive rights;
(2) Pro-traditional marriage  anti-gays/homophobia/hatred of gays; nature v. nurture argument: you can nurture homo/heterosexuality, to say people are simply born gay or straight is an oversimplification; when this truth is recognized, liberals might find it easier to understand our resistance to gay marriage and simultaneous support for gays as people; Supreme Court overriding public will;
*(3) Morality: relativism v. absolutism — good v. evil, “understanding” criminals and why people do bad things v. punishing them; moral relativism when judging the international community but moral absolutes at home: the double standard; some people are “evil” v. the actions of people illustrate that “evil” does exist and is a real concept;
(4) Religion/Christianity - “imposing” beliefs on others; wall of separation; establishment of religion or acknowledgment of God? Ignorance of historical evidence as to intention behind 1st Amendment; failure to acknowledge great benefits that come from belief in a higher power, failure to show respect for the deeply held but different beliefs of others; more than favoring wall of separation: perceivable hostility to anything religious;
(5) Personal responsibility v. welfare entitlements and income redistribution: the distortion of conservative intentions; race-card, threat of racist label;
(6) 4th Amendment (?) and right to bear arms — selective protection of the Constitution; selective attention to historical basis of certain parts of the Constitution;
x(7) philosophy that small government is best v. taking school lunches from children/medicine from seniors/housing from minorities etc...
x(8) Spiritual morality v. economic morality
(9) Iraq — lies v. bad information; appeasement/Clinton v. confrontation/Bush; price of freedom v. free freedom; role of morality in Iraq war; neo-conservatism v. imperialism: the problem of liberal selectivity in applying moral absolutism or relativism in analyzing the U.S. or the international community, helping minorities/women/poor etc... but not deposing dictators who oppress groups traditionally receiving much attention from liberals;
(10) Patriot Act/Iraq — failure to acknowledge the good intentions of the Bush Administration/ the positives of the Act; exaggeration of intensity and frequency of wrongs committed due to the Patriot Act and failure to provide perspective as to what dangers we would be facing w/out it; misunderstanding of the terrorist threat; Vietnam mentality: self-fulfilling prophecies of military failure: the line b/w well-intentioned dissent that takes place in a free society and deliberate attempts to undermine the war effort (ideologically driven to aid U.S. military defeat);
(11) United Nations and International Community — our obligations; international law; the line b/w working together with foreign nations and preserving American interests; effectiveness (successes v. failures) of U.N.; Oil for Food, Rawanda, Somalia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Haiti, etc...; Abu Ghraib; moral equivalency: U.S. v. International Community; globalism v. isolationism; assistance v. occupation;
(12) Taxes
(13) Health Care — medicaid, medicare, stem-cell research,
(14) Affirmative Action - definition of “affirmative action” not universal: overcome current discrimination v. make up for past racism? equal opportunity v. equal outcome? color-blind v. color-conscious? ideally, should it be race based or economically based? The line between equal opportunity and socialism?
*(15) Constitutional Rights: Judicial v. Legislative v. Executive — exploitation of “rights” purportedly guaranteed by the Constitution/constitutional interpretation (abortion, religion) to legislate from the bench against overwhelming public opinion;
*(16) What is America/What is America all about?
(17) Nationalism, Patriotism, Internationalism, and Perceptions of America: its place in the world community, basic character/goodness,


liberals tend to value the perceived “other” (for lack of a better phrasing): for example, they support gays, women’s rights, diversity and accommodate reprehensible foreign countries b/c, by nature of being a “liberal,” they’re inclined to side with or come to an understanding with/acceptance of what is differs from traditional American culture, regardless of the particular merits of the differing party/view. Thus, while their efforts to understand the international community and see things from other perspectives are noble, their tendency to embrace the other side when they shouldn’t is an unfortunate side effect. The same goes with social issues like gay marriage, abortion, sexuality, affirmative action, etc...

What is America? (16)
(7)Big v. Small Federal Government, capitalism v. socialism?
(5)Responsibility to provide public needs/welfare
(14)Affirmative Action
(13)Health Care
Welfare
(12)Taxes

[much of “What is America” falls into category of “morality” too]

Morality (3)
Absolutism v. Relativism
Good v. Evil?
USA v. UN
Excusing bad behavior
Anything Goes Culture
Hip-Hop Music
Religion v. Secularism in America
Spiritual v. Economic Preoccupation
Gay Marriage
Abortion

you can’t stereotype blacks (they commit more crimes, have more out of wedlock births, score lower on standardized tests etc...) but you can stereotype the fanatic “religious right” that voted Bush into office and the gun-toting, evangelical, backward, intolerant white South.