Redstate

Posted at 12:50pm on Feb. 25, 2008 Why a Nader Run is Bad for the GOP

By mikewas

Nader voters are not necessarily Dem voters

Common wisdom blames Nader for swinging enough Florida votes to cost Gore the election in 2000. The underlying assumption that Nader drained votes from Gore is just that - an assumption. Nader got voters to the polls who, in all likelihood, wouldn't have bothered but for Nader. In the days running up to the 2000 election, I wrote:

there are a great number of Nader supporters... who would rather shave their eyeballs with a rusty blade than vote for Gore. Nader, like Jesse Ventura, appeals to many who would stay home otherwise. Without Ralph in the race, that six, seven, or eight point margin doesn't shift to Gore - it shifts position on the couch and watches the whole thing on TV.

In this cycle, Nader's supporters - while far less numerous - are less likely to be liberal Dems than truly out-there Green fringers. The folks who prefer Nader to Obama in this cycle are probably further on the fringe than Ron Paul supporters, and likely to believe that there is no substantive difference between Obama and McCain. (I know, I know. Hide the sharp objects.)

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Posted at 3:39pm on Nov. 22, 2006 Ladies and Gentlemen, Our New RNC Chairman.

By mikewas

We couldn't believe our luck. The Democrats, fresh off a loss by Presidential contender John Kerry and Republican gains in the Congress, decided to tap one of their failed presidential contenders to chair the party. Their pick was a man whose inability to control his mouth had possibly cost him the nomination, perhaps even the White House.

As DNC Chair, Dean didn't disappoint... his opponents. He said things like, "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for..." and accused the President of playing "hide the salami" with Supreme Court nominations. He even felt compelled, during an "interesting conversation" about "dog pee," to warn a class of 8th grades not to drink urine. Dean as DNC Chair was the gift that kept on giving.

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Posted at 12:29am on Nov. 16, 2006 Who Else Wants a Recess Appointment (Or: How to Pay Your Bolton)

By mikewas

In the wake of the elections it is now apparent that, even insulated from any potential electoral consequences, the outgoing Senate majority - of the President's own party - will not even give him the courtesy of an up-or-down floor vote on John Bolton, the President's nominee for U.N. Ambassador. This has more to do with the arcane rules governing the Senate than it does any act of political will, but I have no doubt that Senator Frist and his Republican colleagues could, if they really wanted to, get Bolton to the Senate floor. (For example, by replacing Lincoln Chafee on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.)

In the wake of that failure by the Senate to even take a vote on whether or not they want to confirm Bolton, the President has limited options. He seems to really want Bolton to be his man, and the past year Bolton has served in that post by recess appointment have belied Bolton's critics and pleased his supporters. If the President wants to keep Bolton at the helm after his current appointment expires this year, he has two options: designate Bolton as "acting" Ambassador or give Bolton a second consecutive recess appointment.

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Posted at 1:13pm on Nov. 2, 2006 A Wave of Flanagans

By mikewas

The Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee had a stiff primary challenge, and looked vulnerable for perhaps the first time in his long career. A wave of scandals had dogged his party in the previous year, and rumor had it that the feds would be indicting him for corruption. If only he could win his primary race, the conventional wisdom said he would be re-elected without a problem in his heavily partisan district.

The year was 1994 and the Chairman was Democrat Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois.

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Posted at 11:42am on Oct. 6, 2006 Who Knew What and When?

By mikewas

Q: What website announced, on September 17th, 2006, "Welcome to out [sic] new server... Better equipped to deal with any sudden traffic spikes..." ?

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Posted at 9:41pm on Sep. 24, 2006 Detainee Dilemma

By mikewas

Torture works.

Thanks to ABC correspondent Brian Ross, we know that several high-level Al Qaeda members in U.S. custody broke down under expert interrogation - some lasting for mere seconds, none more than just over two minutes. In the process, they gave up valuable information leading to the arrest of several operative and the foiling of at least one major plot to blow up L.A.'s largest skyscraper. Thousands of lives were saved.

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Posted at 5:10pm on Jan. 12, 2006 Kennedy's Guilt by Association

By mikewas

The Alito hearings took a particularly nasty turn this week when Senator Kennedy used his 30 minutes of questioning time to attack the nominee for the positions taken by a group - Concerned Alumni of Princeton - he once belonged to.  No one, including Senator Kennedy, believes that Judge Alito had anything to do with these position statements himself, and no one can find any evidence to counter Judge Alito's current statements that he does not support, nor would he ever have supported, CAP's positions on race, gender, and sexuality.  No one has been able to show Alito himself to possess even a hint of bigotry, and I doubt that even Senator Kennedy believes it to be there.

Yet, rather than judge the individual for his own words and deeds, for who he is and what he expressly endorses, Senator Kennedy and some of his colleagues have chosen to judge the man by the acts of the group.  In the American legal tradition, guilt by association is something we have chosen to reject.  Conspiracy, the crime that comes closest, requires a positive act or agreement by the individual to participate in some illicit act of the group's imagining.  So why, besides the shameful and obvious answer, does Senator Kennedy resort to it now?

The problem with guilt by association is that it's inherently unfair.  What would happen if we turned the tables on the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts?

• In 1964, members of the Democratic Party, in particular its members in the United States Senate, opposed passage of the Civil Rights Act.  Kennedy was then a member of the Democratic Party and knew of those efforts to oppose the CRA.  Despite that, Kennedy has remained a member of the Democratic Party, and has made several public statements since then boasting of his affiliation with the group even today.




• In 1969, with full knowledge of the efforts of Senate Democrats to stop the passage of the CRA, Kennedy sought and gained entry into the United States Senate, where he aligned himself with the Democratic Caucus.  He has never disavowed his affiliation with the U.S. Senate, with the Democratic Party, or with the Democratic Caucus.




• Kennedy has been refused the right to travel by air because his name appears on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Terror Watch list.  Kennedy is Irish and hails from Boston, a hotbed of support for the terrorist wing of the Irish Republican Army.




• Kennedy, a Roman Catholic and Boston native, attends services and grew up in the Archdiocese of Boston, recently notorious for allegations of a decades-long history of child abuse.  Kennedy has not renounced his membership in the Church and his official Senate biography boasts of his continued affiliation.




• In 2001, Kennedy used his influence in the Senate to collaborate with President Bush on a major education reform initiative known as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.  President Bush is an outspoken advocate of school vouchers, which use public funds to subsidize private and religious education of children.




• Kennedy is a known associate and supporter of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who has reportedly accepted almost $66,000 in donations from clients of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff from 2001 through 2004.

See how easy and unfair it is to tar a public figure by association?  A clever attacker can make even the most gentle of souls look like a bigot, a hypocrite, a criminal or worse, regardless of the truth.  Senator Kennedy has dishonored himself and the Senate by adopting such tactics in confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court justice.  For that, Senator Kennedy should be ashamed.

Cross-posted at release.

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Posted at 4:51pm on Dec. 1, 2005 Life and Death in the East and West

By mikewas

For crimes of unusual savagery, where rehabilitation is unlikely, where the criminal poses a direct and imminent danger to the public should he escape or be released, and where guilt is shown by virtually certain objective evidence, I think the death penalty is an appropriate tool of our criminal justice system.  For criminals like Joseph Smith, the end cannot come too swiftly.  

Carlie, a sixth-grader, was kidnapped from a carwash parking lot on Feb. 1, 2004, as she walked home after visiting a friend. Several days later, her half-naked body was found in the underbrush near a church. She had been raped and strangled - a grisly discovery that alarmed Sarasota.

Smith's crime was captured on video camera.  He was positively identified by his brother, and a distinctive tattoo on his arm left little doubt as to the criminal's identity.  While in prison, Smith confessed to his mother that he was on illegal drugs at the time.  Even Smith's lawyer seemed overwhelmed by the evidence, when he chose not to give a closing argument in a possible move to protect his credibility for the penalty phase.

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Posted at 12:49pm on Sep. 6, 2005 Broussard's Wal-Mart Story Unconfirmed

By mikewas

Aaron Broussard, President of Jefferson Parish, appeared this Sunday on Meet the Press.  He made some extremly seriouss charges that officials at FEMA had actively interefered with assisitance efforts in his Parish.  Responding to host Tim Russert's questions on local and state-level accountability, he said:

Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel." Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis.

Notably, Wal-Mart has not made public comment about Broussard's allegations.  Of all the claims Broussard made, this seemed the easiest to confirm.

So I called Wal-Mart's public relations office (479-273-4314) to ask them for comment.  Wal-Mart's Sharon Weber returned my call.  She told me that they had not heard of the incident - which supposedly took place last week - until they "read about it in the newspaper."  When I asked if she could confirm or deny that the story was true, she told me she would have to check and call me back later today.

Weber was able to tell me that any relief efforts in the field would have been subject to any orders given by FEMA.  Other media sources have been quite clear that many shipments of aid from Wal-Mart have made it to relief distribution centers, and this reporter thinks that Wal-Mart's efforts are commendable.

More as this story develops.

UPDATE: Sharon Weber of Wal-Mart called back. She said that last week, FEMA diverted those water trucks to "another location, which [FEMA] felt was in greater need than where they were headed." Weber emphasized that Wal-Mart would not override any FEMA decisions made in emergency situations.
So Broussard, who claimed that Wal-Mart's aid was ourtight rejected, was wrong. Based on Wal-Mart's information, their trucks were taken where FEMA thought they were needed most.

It would appear that the same story occurred with the Coast Guard fuel issue. Broussard said that FEMA wouldn't release the fuel to Jefferson Parish - but surely that fuel went somewhere else it was needed.

Thanks to Wal-Mart's Sharon Weber for tracking down this information.

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Posted at 1:13am on Aug. 11, 2005 Cheney 2008... ??

By mikewas

For more commentary by me at a later time:

"He would be 67 if he ran and was elected. Reagan was 69. Republicans always like the old warhorse....both parties like to nominate vice presidents... Cheney would do it, and I think it's highly likely, so stay tuned."

-- Bob Woodward, quoted by the Denver Post, on Vice President Dick Cheney reversing himself on running for president in 2008.

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2005/08/10/quote_of_the_day.html

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