Month: September 2004

From an interview by David Talbot with Kitty Kelley:

[Talbot:] What do you think W will do if he loses in November? Will he happily go back to baseball?
[Kelley:] No. You know something that I have found out from this family after four years – he doesn’t plan to lose. They know how to win – no matter what.
[DT:] What does that mean?
[KK:] That means these people can put the Sopranos to shame.
[DT:] Does that mean vote stealing?
[KK:] That’s a bit overt. But nothing will stand in the way of these people winning. Nothing. You start out looking at the Bush family like it’s The Donna Reed Show and then you see it’s The Sopranos.

I just hope the Bushes are as tough with Osama as they are with Kerry, that’s all.

Saletan on Bush. Bush is for big government except when he’s against it; he’s for restraining spending, except when he’s boosting it; he’s for rooting out insurgents in Iraq, until he favors a more “sensitive” strategy; he’s for free trade, except when he’s against it; he’s against stem cell research, except when he’s bragging about it; he’s pro states rights, unless they do things he disapproves of; he’s in favor of responsibility, except when it comes to the budget; he’s pro-U.N., except when he’s against it; he’s for church-state separation, except when it comes to federal funding. Any decent opponent would make mincemeat of Bush’s wavering, straddling and inconsistent policy pronouncements. But Kerry is useless. And if he’s this useless as a candidate, how good would he be as a president?

A couple of years ago, longtime readers may recall, I found a little stray beagle on Euclid street in D.C. She was in terrible shape, malnourished, disease-ridden, and obviously abused. I couldn’t leave her there, nursed her halfway back to health and found her some wonderful parents, a gay couple who were friends of mine. After a hefty amount of vet bills, she thrived. And this morning I got this email:

I just wanted to let you know that Euclid left us about two months ago. (Sorry for the delay in letting you know, but it’s still really hard to face this.)
She seemed to be taken rather suddenly by pancreatic cancer. Up until the Wednesday evening, she was her usual self. In the middle of the night, after being let out twice, she started throwing up in bed. On Thursday Ron took her to the vet. Things were looking bad enough for her that we brought her home Thursday night.
We were able to spend a final night sitting up with her. I called my parents (they thought of her as their “grand dog”) who came over at 5:00am to spend some time with her, because she was suffering so much that we wanted to get her to the vet’s when the office opened.
We got there shortly after the office opened, but before the vet got in. While Ron was signing the papers to have her put down, Euclid passed away naturally, on her own.
Needless to say, Euclid’s passing still leaves a considerable hole in our lives. However, we retain many wonderful memories of her and the joy she brought to us. And we’ll always be grateful to you for bringing us into her life.
I am sorry that you never got to see the happy, confident dog that she became. (Although she still kept traces of your influence. If the Sunday paper was left on the floor and there was a Maureen Dowd piece, she’d piddle all over it.)

Beagles, I tell you. Minds of their own. May she chew for ever in peace.

Drezner turns two.

Jonathan Last makes a great point about how the usual stick-up-their-ass journalism critics on the left can’t seem to write much about the implosion at CBS News. Of course, I’m amazed Romenesko even mentioned the story.

Ron Rosenbaum thoughtfully re-opens a can of worms. And he asks the right question of the Kerry campaign:

If the Swift-boat vets who oppose Mr. Kerry felt betrayed by his anti-war stance, shouldn’t those who opposed the war feel betrayed by his convention’s glorification of it? But most are so blinded by Bush hatred that they don’t see how the retrospective celebration of killing Vietnamese may come to haunt us-and brand them as hypocrites.

I didn’t see it at the time – maybe because I was a child in England during the Vietnam war. But whoever decided to make Vietnam the centerpiece of Kerry’s convention appeal should no longer be working for the campaign.

Here’s a free link to my TNR Rather piece. Just for you guys.

In the last few days, close to 130 civilians have been killed by terrorists in a country occupied by coalition forces. If you adjust for population size, that’s almost half the American death-toll from 9/11. I just scanned two of my favorite websites, Instapundit and NRO’s Corner, and the only mention today is an honest piece by John Derbyshire calling for withdrawal after the election. That’s telling, I think. And a sign of how unhinged and divorced from the real issues this election has become.

My take on Rathergate at TNR (subscriber only). Money quote:

Rather can blather all he wants about the political motivation of some in the blogosphere–but what matters is not bias but accuracy. His attitude, moreover, has bordered on the contemptuous; and the blogosphere has chewed him up and spat him out. He has acted as if journalism is a privilege rather than a process; as if his long career makes his critics illegitimate; as if his good motives can make up for bad material. The original mistake was not a firable offense. But the digging in surely is. It seems to me that when a news anchor presents false information and then tries to cover up and deny his errors, he has ceased to be a journalist. I’d like to say that Dan Rather needs to resign from his profession. But, judging from the last few days, he already has.

The whole thing feels like Howell Raines’ last days.

It doesn’t even sound better when Dr Evil says it. That’s what George W. Bush’s proposals for his second term would cost. Actually, that’s just the cost of keeping tax relief in place and privatizing part of social security. It excludes the costs of the war or the other fast-expanding parts of Bush’s Big Government. In terms of fiscal responsibility, it’s way worse than John F. Kerry; and if the Congress remains in Republican hands, there will be nothing to stop the president from trying to spend or borrow all of it. Medicare alone is a nightmare:

While Congress squabbles over whether the administration hid the new prescription drug benefit’s 10-year cost – pegged by the White House at $534 billion versus CBO’s $395 billion – the actual liability incurred by the new drug benefit is estimated at $8 trillion to $12 trillion.

I know I’m a broken record, but it seems to me that blogs should not only point out where mainstream media is wrong or blinkered, but also where leading politicians are being irresponsible. It is simply irresponsible either to propose vast new spending, while cynically knowing none of it will happen; or to mean it and have no good accounting for how we can afford it. I cannot understand how Bush is getting away with it: the destruction of fiscal conservatism for a generation.