31 August 2004 @ 8:41PM >> Check out this site for some really well-done political theater. I want to meet these guys.

31 August 2004 @ 5:34AM >> The Republican Convention is now in full swing here in NYC. The protesters came, made their noise, and many have left. Now it’s time for the meat of the message, which I hope will include some radical reconsideration of our tax code on the part of President Bush.

Of course, judging from the party schedule—and the non-stop talk about the party schedule—I’m beginning to wonder whether all the speechifying at political conventions is just an excuse to get drunk every night.

Case in point: the fun (and rather crowded) party hosted by The Corner, which is the blog section of National Review Online. At the event, I got a chance to meet Rich Lowry, re-meet Jonah Goldberg and catch up with my friend Deroy Murdock. I usually see Deroy at the Fabiani Society, but I haven’t been for a while. It was good to see that he’ll come to parties that aren’t open-bar. James Taranto, who I also see often at the Fabiani Society, was nowhere to be found. Perhaps word did get out that it was a cash bar.

Also at the party were a number of Internet personalities who were in town for the convention. I had the pleasure of meeting Roger L. Simon, Karol of AlarmingNews, “Captain Ed” Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters, Kevin Aylward of WizBang, Matt Margolis of Blogs for Bush, Scott Sala of SlantPoint and Eric Deamer of Young Curmudgeon.

It was very nice to get a chance to meet so many people who’s work I’ve admired from afar!

I also got a chance to grab dinner with Kfir and Alan of ProtestWarrior. They were in town to infiltrate the big protest on Sunday, and today they turned the tables on a major organizer of the protests. I won’t steal their thunder—they will be releasing footage on the Internet—but let’s just say that it sounded rather entertaining.

As for myself, I have not gotten a chance to collect any footage, and at this point it is looking unlikely that I’ll be making any RNC videos for Brain Terminal.

I’ve been feverishly editing footage for a new project that will debut in Dallas on the afternoon of September 11th at the American Film Renaissance festival. As some people have guessed, my new project centers on higher education, specifically the political environment on our nation’s campuses.

More information on this project will be forthcoming soon...in fact, you will be able to freely download the video or purchase it on DVD, so don’t feel as though you have to hop on a plane and come to the festival—although that would be nice, too!

Unfortunately, the very tight deadline for this film festival means that I won’t have the three or four days necessary to edit together a short Brain Terminal video any time soon. But within a few weeks, you’ll be able to view the first results of my current long-term project: documenting political correctness and ideological indoctrination on college campuses. I hope you’ll find the wait to have been worthwhile.

27 August 2004 @ 11:31PM >> Hard rocker Alice Cooper doesn’t think very highly of folks whose politics might be swayed by concert performers:

If you’re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you’re a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we’re morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.

Cooper also has a few choice words for some of his fellow musicians:

[W]hen I read the list of people who are supporting Kerry, if I wasn’t already a Bush supporter, I would have immediately switched. Linda Ronstadt? Don Henley? Geez, that’s a good reason right there to vote for Bush.

Ouch!

26 August 2004 @ 4:03PM >> If anyone wonders whether the traditional media plays political favorites, the coverage of Campaign 2004 should remove all doubt.

The press that hammered President Bush for weeks over the “AWOL” accusations pushed by Michael Moore and Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe was silent for weeks when over 250 veterans kicked off the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign.

John Kerry hasn’t been pressed for answers the way President Bush was earlier this year. The traditional media was even quiet after Kerry finally admitted he never was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, 1968 despite over 30 years of claiming otherwise.

When the media finally did start reporting the story, it was only to investigate links between the Bush campaign and the Swift Boat vets. (I don’t recall any links being investigated between, say, Michael Moore and the Democratic Party.)

Yet, despite the bias of the traditional media, the story is still being heard.

Tony Blankley thinks this may be a turning point. “Mark the calendar. August 2004 is the first time that the major mainline media [...] ignored a news story that nonetheless became known by two-thirds of the country within two weeks of it being mentioned by the ‘marginal’ press.”

He’s right, and it raises an interesting question: are people waking up to media bias because they have so many other information sources now, or are they seeking other sources because of the media bias? It may be a little of both, but either way, the evidence is incontrovertible: the monopoly of the mainstream press is crumbling. The favoritism they’re showing in this campaign will only hasten the collapse.

25 August 2004 @ 7:34PM >> It really is amazing that John Kerry burst onto the political scene by disavowing his service in Vietnam and is now trying to become president by hyping it. Decades ago, he testified in front of the U.S. Senate and said he committed war crimes. Today, he snaps a salute, reports “ready for duty” and claims to be a war hero.

So which is it? Is he a war hero or a war criminal?

If you want to make up your own mind, I suggest reading John Kerry’s 1971 book, The New Soldier.

That book is remarkably hard to come by, but you can now read it online for free.

The front cover is particularly telling: a bunch of scruffy hippies flying the American flag upside down. Yes, these are supposedly our new soldiers. (Apparently, folks in 1971 weren’t very good at predicting the future.) That image alone, upon which the the text “by John Kerry” is printed, certainly isn’t helpful to Kerry’s “forget what I said before...now I’m a war hero” political packaging. And that may be precisely why you’ll hear nothing about that book in the old media.

But you can check it out for yourself. Even if you don’t have the time to read it, at least check out the pictures. They show images that I’m sure today’s John Kerry would just assume forget.

17 August 2004 @ 9:46PM >> This e-mail came yesterday from a perturbed reader:

I recently read with amusement and consternation your journal entry “The Baby Lobby: The Next Militant Constituency“.

To be blunt, you come across as a selfish ignoramus.

A mother’s first priority must be her child’s well-being, this includes promptly changing them out of a soiled diaper. Any society that tries to discourage such a natural preeminence of affection for a mother towards her child is inevitably leading itself to its own extinction.

I must assume you are not a parent yourself, Mr. Maloney. Perhaps you will never be one and will have no descendants to notice your own personal extinction. But I ask you to consider the burdens of those of us who have taken a personal stake in the continued existence of the human race beyond our lifetimes. Raising children is an expensive, time-consuming, often difficult affair. It is a commitment of decades and requires, especially in the first few years of life, a constant attentiveness. I do not exagerate in describing the attention required as constant. An parent must be prepared to care for their infant 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

So perhaps you might understand that with such a truly awesome and difficult task that a parent will take small consideration at your mild inconvenience at a public cafe.

There is no greater nor a more important task for a society than the raising of its children. The legacy of children even trumps in importance your being free of momentary distractions at a Starbucks.

Excelsior,

Michel Evanchik

Thanks for the friendly e-mail, Michel.

I think you’re missing the point, though: if seeing and smelling the contents of a soiled diaper is merely a “mild inconvenience” that I have no right to complain about, then why did the mothers feel it necessary to get up from their group, move halfway across the store and sit down next to me in order to change their babies? Why couldn’t they change the babies at their table?

I find it interesting that these mothers were unwilling to subject their own friends to the nasal assault, but were more than happy to expose strangers to the products of their babies’ digestive tracts.

I doubt the future of the human race rests, as you imply, on mothers having the right to change babies next to people who are eating in cafes. Then again, we ignoramuses are often wrong...

Take care,

Evan

12 August 2004 @ 6:24PM >> When celebrities like Tim Robbins, Barbra Streisand or the Dixie Chicks—and even former celebrities like Linda Ronstadt—impose their views on their audiences, they often find that sizable portions of their audiences turn on them. After all, if you pay money to hear someone sing music, you hope that the singer will have the common courtesy to not denigrate your political views in the midst of the performance you’ve paid for.

Unfortunately, celebrities these days don’t see it that way. Not only do they feel the need to engage in political lectures during entertainment performances, but they then complain about “censorship” and “chill winds” after audiences react negatively to their ungracious behavior.

Of course, if you or I were in a (non-Hollywood) service business, and if you or I started haranguing our customers about their political views, we probably wouldn’t be in that business very long. Just ask Leslie Farr, an Amtrak train conductor who was suspended from work after making critical remarks about John Kerry:

Farr [...] used the train’s public address system to tell passengers they would be delayed because of Kerry’s train and then quipped that they should vote accordingly in November.

Now, I think Farr’s statement was just as ill-advised as any on-stage diatribe from a leftist Hollywood performer. However, according to the logic of folks like Tim Robbins, Farr’s suspension is evidence of sinister plot to stifle dissent. (Was John Ashcroft on that train? Has he suddenly become a Kerry supporter?)

So, the question is, when will the Dixie Chicks come to Farr’s defense? If they don’t then it’s obvious: Hollywood’s twisted notion of free speech—that is, speech that captive, paying audiences aren’t allowed to find objectionable—is a “right” that only they enjoy. Petty commoners like us have to live by different rules

12 August 2004 @ 5:19PM >> If you don’t read Mark Steyn on a regular basis, you are missing one of the wittiest writers around. Steyn’s latest gem discusses the bizarre contradictions in John Kerry’s biography:

[W]ith Kerry [...] the official narrative makes no sense. He’s publicly opposed to the Vietnam War. But he volunteers for it. Then he comes back disgusted with his experience in war, publicly hurls his medals away (or someone else’s: that story keeps changing), denounces his fellow veterans as war criminals, torturers and rapists, and claims that he personally committed atrocities.

But then he decides to run for president and suddenly Jane Fonda morphs into John Wayne and all those war criminals are war heroes he wants at every rally and he’s got his medals back and his disgust at his wartime experience has mysteriously turned into pride in his wartime experience to the exclusion of all else.

Of course, as an unsophisticated conservative, maybe I just can’t comprehend the nuance of John Kerry. After all, I was unaware that the definition of nuance recently morphed into all over the map, which is precisely where John Kerry is—assuming the map isn’t one of Cambodia.

Kerry should be grateful that he was born when he was. In times past, people were institutionalized for demonstrating that much nuance.

12 August 2004 @ 4:57PM >> A number of readers have e-mailed me to ask my opinion on this. Frankly, I don’t think it rises to the same level as changing a diaper next to people who are trying to enjoy coffee, muffins and sandwiches. In fact, because it has never been my policy to discourage female nudity, I take no official position on this pressing issue.

6 August 2004 @ 5:01PM >> Slate has an interesting piece on President Bush’s performance on the campaign trail.

At first, when I saw that it was titled “The Right Rev. George W. Bush,” and subtitled “Among the worshippers at the president’s traveling revival show,” I expected the worst. Even though I am not a follower of an organized religion, there is something very condescending about how the self-appointed coastal elites look down their noses at regular churchgoers or anyone who professes religious faith. Tolerance and understanding are things that these elites demand of others, but they never seem capable of dispensing it themselves unless it’s for one of their favored groups.

Given the title of the article above, I expected more of the same. I was pleasantly surprised.

5 August 2004 @ 4:31PM >> If a sitting U.S. Congressman was threatening to use “legislative avenues” to force CNN, The New York Times, CBS, Air America or any other private outlet to shed its liberal bias, the American left would be up in arms, crying censorship and decrying the abuse of the First Amendment. And they’d be right to do so.

Interesting, then, that 38 left-of-center members of Congress are trying to do that to Fox News Channel and not much is being said about it.

It strikes me as odd that liberals constantly have their panties in a bunch over Fox News, but they have absolutely no problem with the fact that virtually every other major media outlet tilts left. Why is it that they have so much trouble tolerating free speech for the one television outlet that doesn’t happen to share their view of the world?

5 August 2004 @ 2:23PM >> If I were John Kerry—I am not, as you may have noticed—I would be a little worried about this ad.

Comprised of interview clips from a number of Swift Boat servicemen, it paints a very different picture of Kerry’s Vietnam service than what we’ve been hearing so far.

Of course, Kerry’s actions from three decades ago may not seem relevant now, but it was Kerry who decided to make his service in Vietnam a centerpiece of his campaign. (That decision itself is interesting, considering Kerry spent many years after his four-month stint in Vietnam repudiating his own actions there.) If Kerry is going to cite his service as a reason to vote for him, then it is legitimate to question that service and Kerry’s later denunciations of it.

4 August 2004 @ 10:36PM >> Bridget Johnson has a funny and insightful article over at OpinionJournal. In it, she lays out the case for dirty campaigning:

But if a vice president was capable of shooting Alexander Hamilton, if a president was predisposed to Oval Office trysts, shouldn’t we know that beforehand? Shouldn’t we see the deepest, darkest recesses of a candidate’s mind, rather than focusing on a phony smile and oversized scissors poised just so at a ribbon cutting?

[...]

And why is this important? Because I don’t want a leader who will invite Osama bin Laden to sit down for group therapy and talk about why he wants to destroy the United States; I want a leader who will take the fight to al Qaeda and its cronies regardless of what France thinks. I want a candidate who is less concerned about whether the world wants to come out and play than about dirty bombs dropping on our doorstep. Tough times take a tough hombre who can roll with the punches and fight back when necessary, and isn’t afraid of violating some unwritten code by informing us of his opponent’s flaws.

2 August 2004 @ 6:20AM >> Although the animosity towards George W. Bush was apparent throughout the Democratic National Convention, it did not turn into a rally to rival the Paul Wellstone memorial. At the same time, Kerry made no effort to shake his finger at the more extreme among his supporters for routinely comparing our president to Adolf Hitler.

Perhaps this is emblematic of the convention as a whole. It was well scripted and strictly disciplined, but it also seemed to be castrated. Not much noteworthy happened at all, except for the news that racial demagogue Al Sharpton is now considered mainstream by the Democrats, and that Barack Obama is considered a rising star whose speech earned high marks from the chattering classes on both sides of the aisle.

It is also interesting to note that John Kerry spoke extensively about his four months in Vietnam, but said almost nothing about anything he’s done since—such as his two decades in the U.S. Senate. Teresa Heinz Kerry was given a prime-time speaking role, the first time such an honor has ever been bestowed on a candidate’s wife at a national party convention. Saying, “This is such a powerful moment for me,” Teresa talked about herself more than her husband or his plans.

While the convention had plenty of put-on patriotism and much military imagery, there wasn’t much substance to be found. What are Kerry’s plans, for example, to handle the epic battle of our time: the war against radical Islam? Other than trying to be friendlier with Europe and the U.N., I really couldn’t figure what Kerry has in mind. Perhaps that’s why polls show little or none of the customary post-convention “bounce”. One poll even suggests that President Bush gained ground during the Democratic Convention.

The convention and Kerry’s speech in particular didn’t get much praise from friend or foe:

• Lawrence Kaplan, The New Republic:
  

  No one who watched his acceptance speech last night could have missed the fact that, yes, John Kerry served heroically in Vietnam. Easier to miss was that, as a guide to what sort of approach to national security Kerry will enshrine in official policy—presumably the whole point of the exercise—last night’s martial imagery and rhetoric told us nothing at all. Or, rather, worse than nothing.

• Editorial, The New York Times:
  

  Biographies that make his few months in service overseas sound longer than his 19 years in the Senate will never be convincing.

• Thomas Oliphant, Boston Globe:
  

  Perhaps the public will let him off the hook, but the fact remains that Kerry essentially blew an opportunity he may not get again until the debates with Bush this fall. He and his advisers can and will argue that the cold facts of economic and foreign policy life will dominate political opinion in the weeks ahead; nevertheless, a golden opportunity slipped away.

• Paul Gigot, The Wall Street Journal:
  

  His main vow was that ‘I will bring back this nation’s time-honored tradition: the United States of America never goes to war because we want to, we only go to war because we have to.’ This would have ruled out Kosovo, Bosnia and Haiti—three military actions the Senator endorsed. Not to mention World War I and Korea. This is a repudiation of pre-emption, but worse it sounds like a return to the pre-9/11 policy of waiting until terrorists hit us, rather than taking the war to the terrorists on their turf. This is a debate Mr. Bush should also want to have.

• David Brooks, The New York Times:
  

  What an incoherent disaster. When you actually read for content, you see that [Kerry’s] speech skirts almost every tough issue and comes out on both sides of every major concern. The Iraq section is shamefully evasive. He can’t even bring himself to use the word ‘democratic’ or to contemplate any future for Iraq, democratic or otherwise. He can’t bring himself to say whether the war was a mistake or to lay out even the most meager plan for moving forward. For every gesture in the direction of greater defense spending, there are opposing hints about reducing our commitments and bringing the troops home.

• Mark Steyn, London Telegraph:
  

  It was interesting to see Ben Affleck emerge as the Hollywood mascot of the Democratic Convention. The week reminded me of Ben’s movie Pearl Harbor: wall-to-wall evocative military imagery, a cast of thousands, superb production values, but a huge gaping hole where the star performance was supposed to be.

• Editorial, New York Post:
  

  He thanked those of the ‘greatest generation for making America strong, for winning World War II, for winning the Cold War and for the great gift of service which brought America 50 years of peace and prosperity.’

  Hollow words, given that during Kerry’s years in the Senate he voted against most of the weapons systems that kept the Soviet Union at bay — and ultimately made the Cold War victory possible.

• Debra Saunders, San Francisco Chronicle:
  

  ...this convention is packed with politicians who are boasting about the tremendous party unity they see everywhere. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said that the party is more united than she has seen it in 40 years. Three in 4 Democrats disagree with the nominee on the biggest issue out there — and that’s unity?

• David Broder, The Washington Post:
  

  Students of political rhetoric generally agree on the elements that make for a successful convention acceptance speech. Over the years, the best of them have had some or all of these ingredients: a fresh and powerful personal narrative, strong ideas, memorable phrases, and a rhythm that builds to an emotional climax.

  John Kerry’s address to the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night fell short in all these respects.

• Dick Morris, New York Post:
  

  He opened up his talk with a lengthy and evocative description of his childhood and what it was like growing up in divided Berlin. He told us of the ‘goose bumps’ he remembers getting when the band struck up ‘Stars and Stripes Forever.’

  Then, after this long rendition of his childhood, he tells us at length what it was like to serve in Vietnam for the four months that he was there. So far, so good.

  But then he spent only about one minute talking about what he has done since.

  Beyond a brief allusion to his efforts for crime victims and to prosecute crimes against women as an assistant district attorney, his support for Clinton’s plan for extra cops and a balanced budget and a reference to his work with John McCain on the POW and MIA issue in Vietnam, that’s it.